The entry of former Liberal leader, Gordon Wilson, into Glen Clark's cabinet two weeks ago, has hit the workers' movement in BC like an earthquake. Last week, Socialist Worker's Paul Kellogg got the reaction to this from Angus Morton -- member of the executive committee of the Victoria riding of the federal NDP.
SW: The reason I wanted to talk with you today is that a lot of people across the country, in the NDP and socialists outside the NDP, watched with dismay the events of the last week in British Columbia -- Moe Sihota saying that the party needs to move to the centre, Glen Clark meeting with Preston Manning and saying that they see eye to eye. And then, the big shocker, Clark brought Gordon Wilson into the cabinet as minister for aboriginal affairs and BC ferries. What has the reaction been from people in and around the NDP to these events.
Well, shock is not the right word. It has totally shaken all our beliefs. The NDP was our last hope. What's happened in the last couple of weeks, has made it very very obvious that the party has moved to the centre, if not the right of centre, and left many of us without the party that we thought we had and that we believed in.
This talk about moving closer to business makes no sense. It has always been the workers who have supported the party financially and who have turned out at election time to support the party.
The chambers of commerce are not going to help the workers and come down and campaign for the NDP.
I happened to go to a meeting the other night, to build solidarity with the projectionists who have been locked out.
There, I talked with a fellow who had run the last federal election campaign for the NDP in a riding here in Victoria. I said, "what the heck do you think all this is about?"
He said, "my phone has been ringing off the hook for the last two days. People are canceling their membership. And some are actually talking about disaffiliating their unions from the NDP."
These are big steps.
SW: You've gone some way to answering my next question -- what do you think the reaction to these moves will be in the working class movement as a whole in BC?
There are many who don't know where to turn.
The NDP was always the party we could turn to, to push our political objectives. Unions are great organizations, but they have their limitations. That's why we have to have a party to push our objectives in the political front.
We obviously do not have a party any more that is doing that.
In BC there has been mill after mill closed in the interior. There have been layoffs in the natural resource sector. NDP policy, in the past, used to call for nationalization to stop layoffs. If the party is moving away from that approach, what about people inside the party? Are there people inside the party open to an argument that if the mills are closing, they should be nationalized, if there's not enough money for services, we should tax the rich?
Yes there are, but they're sitting there in silence.
I was speaking to this former MLA the other day. He said that at a meeting last month, Moe Sihota got up and made a speech that he could have made five years ago.
He did not address these immediate issues like plant closures and the need for nationalization.
And what really dumbfounded my friend, was that the whole room sat there in silence. Not one person got up to question the BC NDP government's policies.
SW: What you've described is a picture of a lot of political turmoil inside the party, particularly when this comes on top of Alexa McDonough cozying up to business and Tony Blair. What is to be done? What is the next step for people who want to fight against the corporate agenda?
Well, I had been down at an Annual General Meeting. I was informed there that a committee was sending a letter to McDonough expressing dismay at her moves towards business.
What came out of that was, I was able then, the following day, to take these arguments to a meeting on APEC with Dick Proctor from the federal caucus.
A lot of NDPers came, and they were exposed to a crowd of International Socialists at the meeting.
I was delighted that so many people from the International Socialists came, because the NDP members were exposed to people who had left-wing arguments about the roots of the current crisis and what is to be done.
I think this is happening in many different organizations, where people are meeting people from the International Socialists who are active in the fightback and putting forward socialist arguments.
Nothing but good can come of this. I think this is the solution.
If the Reform Party has pushed all these political parties to the right, as it has done, then I think it is our job on the left, including the International Socialists, to fight for these transitional demands -- more welfare, better education, no cuts to social programs -- these are demands we can make that will expose the bankruptcy of the drift to the right.
Some people say there is a problem with the left using "left-wing dogma" and rhetoric.
Now for all the years I have been in the NDP, I have never heard anyone come out with "left-wing dogma" and rhetoric.
I mean I'm asking myself -- fighting for better healthcare? fighting for better education? fighting to get people out of poverty? -- is that what they're alluding to when they say "left-wing dogma?"
If that's the case, I'd say we need a lot more of it, and not less.
SW: Finally, Angus, it seems that in spite of all the turmoil going on inside the party, that you remain quite optimistic about the struggle for socialism.
Yes. Because I think the struggle doesn't begin and end with the NDP, and I think that eventually class struggle will emerge where people will become more politically aware. We in the International Socialists will be in a position to capitalize on it, recruit new members, and build a stronger movement.