Stephen Harper's bogus democracy

By Larry Brown
National Secretary-Treasurer
National Union of Public and General Employees

Ottawa (3 Dec. 2008) - Life doesn’t often get more interesting than this. The Harper government introduced a so-called economic update that amounts to a vindictive attack on unions, on the opposition parties, on democracy itself; an economic statement that had no valid economics in it.

The deficit forecasts were farcical, and there was no economic stimulus, which experts of every stripe are calling for unanimously. The update was a monumental, colossal mistake.

And now, in the face of a coalition of the Liberals and the NDP, we are being treated to completely bogus arguments as to why the Harper government should not be defeated and replaced by the coalition. Here are some of the arguments, none of which are valid.

(1) In this time of financial crisis we need a stable government.

It’s amazing the Conservatives would trot this out as an argument. The coalition is promising to govern for a minimum of 18 months. The Harper government can be defeated any time it makes the kind of mistake it made last week.

So if we need a stable government, the choice is obvious – we should go with the coalition. They promise much more stability than Harper can.

Besides, it was Harper who turned an economic crisis into a political crisis. He caused the instability he now complains about. What has been happening in the last few days is stable government? Harper is right – we deserve better than this in this time of economic crisis.

(2) It would be undemocratic to defeat Harper after winning re-election.

This is a whopper of the first order. The sad fact of the recent election is that the Conservatives, after having been in power for two years, running against a very weak and impolitic Liberal leader, got 168,724 fewer votes than they did in 2006. In 2006 the Conservatives won 124 seats on election day. This year, with almost 170,000 fewer votes, they picked up an additional 19 seats.

The Conservatives won more seats because they drove fewer people to stay away from the polling booths than the Liberals did, although the Liberals in fairness had the assistance of the Harper attack ads to help people decide to stay home.

Even with this democratic aberration, Harper didn’t win his majority of seats, the only real reason he had called the election. A majority of voters (63%) voted for political parties that disagreed with Harper on almost every issue.

Our democratic traditions say that to defeat a minority government, and replace it with another party or parties that have the support of the House, is perfectly valid - in the period following a election. That is democracy. To argue that the voters of Canada gave Harper a strong mandate is nonsense.

(3) The Harper government has backed down on his contentious economic statement so the problem has been resolved.

Firstly, would you trust someone to exercise sound judgment after the boneheaded moves that were part of the so-called economic update? The fact that Harper had to back down is secondary to the fact that he wanted to do these things, and he has only promised not to do them for the moment, not that he won’t seize the first opportunity to again revert to his preferred agenda.

Secondly, the whole issue was supposed to be about the economic crisis and Harper essentially ignored it in the update. A budget in January, of unknown substance, is not the economic stimulus we need so urgently now.

But Harper did not back down on all of his attacks on democracy. He has pulled back on party financing, at least for now. He has grudgingly admitted that his attack on the democratic right of workers won’t proceed, at least for now. (This is not much of a concession, given that the Supreme Court of Canada has said that the right to collective bargaining is one of Canada’s fundamental rights - protected by the Constitution).

What Harper has not backed down on is the new imposition of wage controls. He used the update to revert to the mean-spirited days of the 1990s when government employees had their wages and benefits constantly attacked because it was easier to attack the democratic rights of public sector workers than it was to resolve economic issues.

What Harper has not backed down on is his attempt to use the law to overturn freely negotiated collective agreements. The update not only promised to write new wage rates into the law, denying the democratic right to bargain in the future, but it also promised to overturn existing agreements, reached through the democratic process of free collective bargaining.

What Harper also has not backed down on is the attack on pay equity that would deny women workers their democratic right to non-discrimination in the workplace. Harper’s proposed new rule would have unions become jointly responsible for pay equity settlements or awards.

It's about time

The union, without the right to set salaries, would be jointly liable if the employer refused to agree to fair wages. These would be the same unions that Harper thinks should not have the right to freely bargain their wages in the first place!

What is remains in his plan is attacks on the fundamental democratic right of federal public sector workers. What is remotely democratic about an attack on democratic rights?

What we are seeing in Parliament is democracy in action. It’s about time.

NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring that our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE