Canada’s Liberal government veers right

[Aidoneus]

Under new prime minister
Canada’s Liberal government veers right
By Keith Jones
19 December 2003

Paul Martin has used his first week as Canada’s Prime Minister to steer the ten year-old, federal Liberal government sharply to the right.

Martin’s priorities, as indicated by a spate of gestures, appointments and policy pronouncements, are to repair relations with the Bush administration, strengthen the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and further curtail public spending and services.

Jean Chrétien, Martin’s predecessor as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, headed what was far and away Canada’s most right-wing government since the Great Depression—at least in terms of social and fiscal policy. Between 1995 and 1998, the Chrétien Liberal government imposed unprecedented public spending cuts, slashing the transfers to the provinces that finance public health care, welfare and post-secondary education, and gutting the unemployment insurance program. Then, just before the fall 2000 election, the Liberals unveiled a five-year, $100 billion program of tax cuts that has swelled business profits and the incomes of the rich and super-rich, while ensuring that the federal state lacks the financial resources to increase social spending.

Yet Chrétien, particularly after the emergence of the Bush administration, increasingly fell out of favor with big business. A federal politician since the early 1960s, Chrétien was perceived by Canada’s economic and political elite as too closely associated with the social welfare policies and the anti-American Canadian nationalism of Pierre Trudeau’s prime ministership.

With the Progressive Conservatives, big business’ traditional alternative governing party, mired in crisis, the elite’s efforts to effect a change in course came to focus on Martin, himself one of the country’s wealthiest capitalists and Chrétien’s Finance Minister from 1993 to the spring of 2002. A fawning press and gobs of corporate cash encouraged Martin in his ambitions to succeed Chrétien. Armed with this support and that of much of the Liberal backbench, Martin ultimately succeeded in forcing Chrétien to stand down, although the prime minister was able to stretch out his departure for a further 15 months.

During his year-and-a-half-long leadership campaign, Martin said little about his intentions, arguing that if he criticized Chrétien’s actions it would destabilize the government he hoped to inherit. But since he officially assumed the mantle of Prime Minister on December 12th, Martin has hastened to distance himself from Chrétien’s regime and to demonstrate to big business that he will aggressively advance its interests both at home and abroad.

--snip--

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/mart-d19.shtml

[Mikimouse]

1. Bring Chretien out of retirement, right now!

we'll even agree to let him smoke in his office.:silly:

[ClintonTyree]

2. Why does...............

such a nice country like Canada want to bring themselves closer the the American political culture? Canada has alway been, at least to me, a sovereign nation that was proud of the differences between themselves and their more violent and greed oriented cousins to the south.
It appears that they're heading toward statehood with the U.S. It's a damn shame, I always looked to Canada as a voice of reason and social justice. Now they're in a race to become a greedy, bloodthirsty clone of the United States.

[Mikimouse]

3. The Alberta cancer is spreading...

the province has been an extension of the American oil industry for years, and the leadershiphas become more and more RW, especailly under Klein. They'll have to fight Manitoba though, if they want to push the RW agenda.

[Flightful]

4. Trudeau was the carcinogen

Nobody in Alberta trusts the Liberal party after the trashing they took from the NEP back in the 80s. Especially after Marc Lalonde publicly stated that the goal of the NEP was "to prevent a shift in power to the west". Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

[Mikimouse]

5. I didn't hear anyone from Alberta complaining when

Mulroney sold off the mineral rights to the US, but I could be wrong. To call Trudeau the carcinogen is interesting, as I hear only positive evaluations of him, even now that he has been deceased for a while. There is a former NDP MP in the family (Manitoba), and while some of the policies of the NDP are somewhat 'out there', I generally agree with many of the ideas they put forth. Canada should always remain Canada, and should never become culturally similar to the US; that would be a huge mistake.

[Flightful]

6. Albertans didn't like Brian either

Mulroney won in '84 by assembling a coalition of soft nationalists in Québec, centrists in Ontario and right-wingers out west. The glue that held them together was the near-universal revulsion that Trudeau had earned in the early 80s. The Québec nationalists never forgave him for patriating the Constitution Act without them, the westerners were devastated by the effects of the NEP, and Ontarians were recession-weary. The key to Mulroney's victory (the biggest election win in Canadian history) was his ability to make deals, a skill he perfected when he was a labour lawyer. By the early 90s his coalition collapsed and the tory party split 3 ways, making them the only party to enjoy both the biggest win (1984) and suffer the biggest defeat (1993) in Canadian history.

[dave46]

7. More violent and greed-oriented?

How so? Just because America is a superpower, therefore having the biggest economy and military, doesn't mean we are violent and greedy. Canada doesn't seem all that different from the states, or Europe, or most democracies. I suppose the U.S.'s superpower status and imperial demeanor is what makes people think it's different, when in reality the only difference is greater power and responsibility.