Opinion: The Liberal Party has not Done Enough to Deserve the Support of a True Pro-Worker NDP

I am a donor to the New Democratic Party. I have supported the party for as long as I’ve had an interest in Canadian civics. And for a couple of years now, upon seeing the anti-worker, pro-billionaire positions taken by the Conservative Party, I believed that the NDP could, in good faith, engage in their confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberal Party as a means of passing pro-working-class legislation.

And for a while, it appeared as though I was right. Over the past couple of years, the NDP has managed to make great strides in introducing legislation that would serve to benefit everyday Canadians; things such as child, dental, and pharmacare, as well as strong-arming the LPC to the true humanitarian side of the climate crisis.

But, over the past half-year, the LPC has proven that no matter how much they, as an otherwise dead party, need the NDP to retain power, their allegiance to the institutions with money trumps any real interest they have in humanitarian progress. If Canadians are innocent insects, the LPC and CPC are two wings of the same bluebird that preys on us. And by enabling the LPC to continue, the NDP serves as the bluebird’s beak.

There have primarily been two issues that made me want to speak on this, so I’ll tackle them one-by-one. Firstly, the war in Gaza comes to mind. While Trudeau is certainly to the left of the CPC on this issue, he’s still done nothing more in condemning Israel than the useless political gesture of calling for a ceasefire. He has not followed suit with many other Western nations in calling for Netanyahu’s trial, and he certainly hasn’t aided in putting socio-economic pressure on Israel.

My issue with this stance, aside from the abhorrent treatment of Palestinians that it enables, is how strongly convicted the centre-left establishment of Canada has been in it. Following suit with the mainstream Liberal position, the Ontario chapter of the NDP has pivoted to the centre on the war in Gaza, even kicking members out of the caucus for calling Israel out on its mistreatment of Palestinians. If we, as the left, need to be silent about a genocide that has destroyed cities and killed tens of thousands of people, we have so incredibly lost the plot in what it means to be in favour of equality.

The second issue I would like to address, and the issue that has gotten Jagmeet Singh to threaten the LPC with the prospect of ending the confidence-and-supply agreement, is Justin Trudeau’s LPC forcibly sending striking rail workers back to work. I would hope that anybody reading this from an earnest pro-worker perspective doesn’t need an explanation as to why this is a terrible occurrence; Canada is now positioning itself to the right of the United States of America on labour issues.

By the time this article is published in print, there may well be a resolution, either in the form of the NDP ending the C&S agreement or in the Liberals conceding to the workers’ terms, but I fear that through this terrible display of bourgeois interests defeating working-class rights, nothing will change, even with the NDP.

As is apparent with how I opened this article, I believe that the New Democrats can (and should) support the Liberal Party if it means passing genuine pro-Canadian policy. I am not shy in giving this coalition credit for making progress, especially on climate and health issues. However, at some point, the core principles of being economically left-wing and socially humanitarian must come first.

When the Liberal Party shows over and over again that they will go against the NDP’s support when it means teaming with Conservatives to crap all over workers; when the Liberal Party shows that they care more about the political benefit that comes with supporting Zionism than speaking out against a genocide; and when the NDP has no other option but to pivot to the centre on these issues, that is when the Liberal Party is a party that a true pro-human NDP can no longer enable.

And that is when I can no longer support an NDP that does enable this.