TORONTO—Immediately after Canada’s federal election brought victory for Mark Carney and the Liberal Party, the Canadian Labour Congress sent out a message congratulating working people for blocking Pierre Poilievre and his “American-style conservative politics.”
The CLC wasn’t wrong, of course—Poilievre and the Conservative Party did represent the biggest danger, with their divisive demagoguery and links to a wide range of far-right positions ranging from climate denial to transphobia to anti-choice to racism and xenophobia. And of course, they are firmly grounded in viciously anti-labor muck, despite their best attempts to appear “pro-worker.” A Conservative victory would, indeed, have been the worst outcome.
But there was a tendency (which extended far beyond the labor movement) to view this federal election as “the big battle.” It wasn’t that—rather, it was the prelude to the big battle, and one that is going to arrive very soon.
The very dramatic backdrop to this election was the issue of Canada’s sovereignty and independence, highlighted by Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada, escalating U.S. tariffs, and demands that auto companies and others involved in manufacturing and secondary industry move their operations out of Canada and into the U.S.
It meant that the main question on people’s minds was who could best stand up to Trump and navigate a path to safeguarding the economy, sovereignty (a very narrow definition of it, anyway), and independence. This came down to Pierre Poilievre vs. Mark Carney, in a battle of style over substance.
But really, these were just two very similar versions of corporate politics, so all kinds of issues that are urgent and immediate for working people—high prices, declining real wages, deteriorating healthcare and public services, soaring costs of education, declining equality, climate crisis, militarism and war—were barely discussed in the mainstream, and never from a working-class point of view.
The Liberals and Conservatives were quite happy to let these problems lie lost in the shadow of Donald Trump.
Those issues existed before the election, and they continue to exist now. But with a new Parliament that has swung further to the right, with even more pro-corporate voices and fewer than ever left-leaning ones, the likelihood that they will be treated in any meaningful way is next to nil.
Following Carney’s meeting with Trump, the immediate agenda for the government has become pretty clear. Multi-billion-dollar hikes to military spending (which all parties in Parliament have shamefully already committed to); new infrastructure for Big Carbon, including new pipelines and LNG terminals; and negotiations for yet another new trade deal with the U.S., this time to make sure that U.S. corporations (with lively interest from their Canadian counterparts) get all the goodies they didn’t get with USMCA.
Within this agenda, who is going to speak and fight for issues other than corporate profiteering? Which voices in Parliament will stand up for jobs and wages, equality, expanding programs, Indigenous rights, climate justice, peace, Palestine?
It won’t be the New Democratic Party (NDP), whose severe losses mean it doesn’t even have official party status anymore and has lost funding and standing at committees. So, are working people supposed to rely on the Liberals now? Some would so argue, but there’s a much better option.
Independent labor political action
In the main, this federal election was not a display of strength for the labor movement. Union support for Poilievre, both in terms of votes and several endorsements, reflects serious disunity and disengagement. The same could be said of the CLC’s campaign, which was very timid in terms of political policy and which did very little to actually organize working people.
One bright spot was the joint statement from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and Unifor in which they committed to fighting against privatization, to protecting and improving interprovincial trade regulations, and to defending and strengthening labor rights. This was particularly notable given that Unifor remains outside of the CLC and (at times) openly advocates strategic voting, while CUPE tends to strongly endorse the NDP during elections.
If two unions—and two very large ones at that—can make a strong commitment to joint extra-parliamentary political action, in spite of sizeable partisan and structural differences, does this not point to a path forward for working people’s struggles?
As any union activist will tell you, there are seemingly countless differences and divisions within the labor movement. But more important than that, there are clear and obvious points of deep unity: the need for good jobs; full employment; higher wages and shorter work hours; a universal public pension which provides a livable income; Employment Insurance reform that covers all unemployed workers at 90% of previous earnings for the entire period of unemployment; plant closure legislation with the teeth to block closures; and constitutional protection of workers’ right to organize, bargain collectively, strike, and picket.
And now, with its ability to rely on the NDP for nearly all of its political work severely weakened, the labor movement has little choice but to focus on its own independent political action. This is exactly what the labor movement in the U.S. is starting to do in the wake of Trump’s election (which many union members supported) and the near complete surrender by the congressional Democrats.
The CLC is well-positioned to lead the way here; that is its job, in fact. It has the opportunity and resources to highlight those many points of unity among unions and workers across the country (including Unifor and unions in Quebec), to actively engage allies in community and social movements, and to mobilize millions of people into a united escalating campaign to fight and win the economic and political struggle that’s on our doorstep.
The CLC’s structure is almost ready-made for this kind of action. With its vast network of local labor councils, it already has grassroots organizations of unions who are connected with a range of community allies. This is the organizational basis for vibrant and democratic local fightback committees, which can be connected through the provincial and Quebec federations, mushrooming into a coordinated mass movement.
In the process, labor will set a new bar for political policies, one that is forged from working people’s own struggles for their contemporary needs. Parties, including the NDP, will be challenged to step up and meet that bar, which will be to the benefit of the entire working class.
Business unionism has to go
While the basis exists for a real fightback, it will require a shift in thinking away from the business unionism which has left the labor movement weakened at precisely the time when the working class needs a fighting leadership.
The days are over for labor leadership that limits union activity to negotiating contracts for a disengaged membership to ratify. Working people need leadership that draws the links between “shop floor” issues and political ones, that organizes and mobilizes union membership, and that is responsive and responsible to the grassroots.
The election results also bear this out. While the NDP’s big losses were largely the result of strategic voting, they also reflect working people’s frustration over the party’s support for budgets introduced by the Liberals and its silence on key issues.
The NDP’s shift away from the political left and its efforts to replace the Liberals as the party representing “capitalism with a human face” alienated many people who recognize that their struggles—especially to stop layoffs, plant closures, and cuts to real wages, pensions, and benefits—require maximum unity around a progressive political program, not milquetoast slogans.
The election of a Liberal minority government has resulted in a setback for—but not a defeat of—the dangerous right-wing populism and reaction expressed by Donald Trump, Pierre Poilievre, and the Conservative Party.
That defeat has to come at the hands of a working-class movement that is led by a fighting leadership, organized around its own independent political demands, and in a democratic alliance with the people’s movements across Canada.
But that definitely won’t happen without a struggle.
CONTRIBUTOR
