Lefties, pinkos and two guys named Michel

>> >>Conference to unify Quebec's left wing takes a step forward--towards what?

by JOHN EDMONDS

Since Lucien Bouchard took over the Parti Qu éb écois in 1996 and mmade the "hard right turn" now the vogue in Western governments, Quebec's lefties feel they have been reduced to a disenfranchised group on the political periphery. With the PQ showing it's not afraid to bust strikes (like that of the nurses last summer), health care angst being ignored and social housing initiatives losing ground in urban planners' minds to new condo developments, the voice of Quebec's left seems to have become impotent in terms of influencing the government's program.

But there's nothing like a common enemy to get erstwhile rivals to work together. Or so hopes the activist group Rassemblement pour l'alternative politique (RAP), which organized a recent conference on the unity of the left.

The conference took place at UQ ÀM on May 26 and 27, and involved groups rranging from political parties like the Parti de la d émocratie socialiste, the Green Party and several communist groups, to activists like Op &ération SalAMI and FRAPRU, as well as representatives of several unions, mmainly from the local level.

The enemy, of course, was neo-liberalism (often called neo-conservativism) and tthe deficit-cutting, budget-compressing, free-trading policies which the stock mmarket loves and lefties detest.

And the project? Unity--whatever that means. Organizing the left has never been aan easy task, and in Quebec it's probably harder than elsewhere because of sovereignist politics. But the conference was friendly and vibrant, and seemed tto affirm the point that resistance is fertile--at least when it comes to rhetoric.

Old world, new world

The opening night was devoted to talks from a number of speakers, the most pprominent of whom was Michel Chartrand. The sturdy 83 year old, who founded RAP iin 1998, is still as straight as an I and spoke in a loud voice which seemed to eecho clearly from Quebec's Quiet Revolution: which in a way it does. Jailed sseveral times for his union militancy in the days of Duplessis and Lesage, CChartrand has become such a beloved Quebec institution that Radio-Canada rrecently did a three-part TV series on his life. A skillful public speaker who mixed invective with humour, he did not disappoint the crowd of about 500.

"What we need is a guaranteed annual wage, unconditional and universal," boomed CChartrand. "Because only then can a worker say to an employer, 'I don't have to aaccept the work conditions you're offering to me,' and that worker doesn't have tto be afraid that he will then go hungry."

"Look at this," he said, holding up an adult diaper from a hospital. "This tthing has a stripe on it which changes colour after a certain point. Some MBA ccame up with the idea that they only have to be changed twice a day. This is hhow we're treating our elderly." He showed a couple of other exhibits of how hhealth care has changed due to budget cutbacks, including "rinse-free" genital ssoap and a hypodermic needle designed for self-injection by patients.

An ex-PQ militant, Chartrand now opposes the party of "Lulu le Toupet"--Bouchard. But if he represents the old school of Quebec socialism, then economist and Le Monde diplomatique contributor Michel Chossudovsky represents an at-times extreme version of the new.

The author of The Globalization of Poverty asserted, "We are now in the most iimportant social crisis in history. We are in a period where the standard of lliving is being lowered faster than the Great Depression for many people around tthe world."

Blaming globalization and the policies of institutions like the IMF, Chossudovsky argued his case with statistical examples. "In the former Soviet Union, the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the IMF had a devastating effect. In the first year alone, the buying power of the average citizen fell by 86 per cent. Now in Moscow, the average wage is only two dollars per day, and the cost of living is about the same as in Montreal," he said.

Chossudovksy painted a bleak hypothetical picture of a "New World Order" in wwhich the benefits to citizens of the welfare state are rolled back in the ddeveloped world and austere economic policies are imposed on the poorer countries. In Chossudovsky's distopia, corporations would dominate the world, a UU.S.-led arms race might result in World War III, and Big Brother would watch oover us all with high-tech data surveillance systems like ECHELON.

The alternative economist's hyperbole was tempered by more moderate speakers llike Montreal writer Lyle Stewart, who said, "Social justice doesn't depend on wwhat side of St-Laurent you were born on," and by a pert, professional talk by sseparatist columnist Jos ée Legault.

Taking the RAP

But while the speeches that night--and at the panel discussions the next dday--showed a unity or convergence of analysis, agreement on the best course of aaction to address the problems was not in evidence.

The conference's achievement was, according to a press release sent outafterwards by event spokesperson Paul Cliche, "a consensus for the creation of aa project to establish, before the next provincial election, a rainbow coalition of leftist parties cemented by a common political platform."

But RAP--who was the driving force behind the conference--wants a fully independent party, without strings attached to other organizations.

"The members of RAP, though they largely belong to community groups, nions, aand other political parties, are members of RAP as individuals--not as representatives of other groups," says Jaqueline Hekpazo, RAP's general coordinator. She says that RAP has over 2,000 members from across Quebec and is planning to transform itself into a political party in November 2000. This intention has caused some doubts and grumblings.

Bill Sloan of the Communist Party of Quebec told the Mirror, "It's a good cconference. But the real problem is RAP--they want to steer us along in their oown direction. We prefer the coalition approach."

Claude Ricard, official representative of the Parti de la d émocratie ssocialiste (PDS)--formed out of the ashes of the now-defunct provincial NNDP--says, "RAP has been talking about forming a new political party for years, bbut they've yet to do so. They haven't even had their party congress. When and iif they do, we'll consider being in a coalition with their party, or whether we wwant to join it."

And many observers point out that, even if some kind of stable structure does eemerge out of the RAP-led process, it may have a hard time gaining widespread ccredibility as a political party. The left wing political parties at the cconference included three different communist groups--the Communist Party, the MMarxist-Leninist Party, and the non-party Trotskyists--as well as Boris SSt-Maurice's Bloc Pot, and the PDS, led by former convicted FLQ terrorist Paul RRose.

Labour pains

But probably the most significant obstacle facing a wannabe political party is wwho didn't attend the conference. The one representative from the executive llevel of Quebec's biggest unions was Serge Roy, president of the province's ggovernment employees' union--the SFPQ.

But Émile Vall ée, political advisor for the powerful construction uunion the FTQ, says, "We were invited to the conference but we decided not to aattend. We don't think it's appropriate for us at this time to support a new ppolitical party." Vall ée explains that one reason for this is that a new lleftist party would have to be separatist to get votes, and then it might ddivide the vote with the Parti Qu éb écois, making it easier for the pprovincial Liberals--who are neither sovereignist nor socially democratic, Vall &ée points out--to gain power.

Executives from other big unions, such as the nurses union FIIQ and the CSN, aalso declined their invitations to the conference.

And an article published in Le Devoir on May 27--the second day of the conference--hints further that Big Labour is not ready to supported the RAP party initiative. It features an interview with G érald Larose, in which the former CSN leader states that he agrees the left needs a new political party to stop "the market from devouring the state." But he says it is futile to try and start a leftist party out of "small groups condemned to marginality."

Without union financing and organizational support, how could any new leftist pparty stand a chance? According to Hekpazo, RAP expenses are often currently mmet by "exchanging services between members."

But Larose says he supports the conference as an effort to create harmony on tthe left. And leftists both militant and moderate all agreed that the cconference was a step forward--though towards what isn't clear. Calling the ccollaboration of all the main leftist parties in Quebec towards some new coalition "an historic event," participants exited UQ ÀM with a sense of political unity and optimism they haven't felt for a while. Observers will watch with interest whether the good mood lasts if and when the RAP kicks off their new political party this coming November. :

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