Buzz Hargrove spoke on behalf of the left wing of the party at the recently concluded federal NDP convention. He repeatedly warned delegates that Alexa McDonough and others in the leadership were bringing the party closer to complete extinction if they moved it to the right.
"This is a clear shift to the right -- I was worried about the 'third way'. I'm now worried about the Canadian way. The problem in our nation is not that taxes are too high. It's that wages are too low." Hargrove went on to say, "The people of Canada are looking for a left alternative, and we're not giving it to them."
He's absolutely right, and many of the delegates agreed with him. But many who might have agreed with him, found it hard to take him seriously.
The problem is that Hargrove has been sending very contradictory signals to the party rank and file.
In the recent Ontario election he was one of the foremost promoters of strategic voting.
He along with the leadership in unions such as the Ontario Public Services Employees Union and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation urged their members to vote Liberal or NDP depending on which party was more likely to win in a given riding.
This prompted Howard Hampton, the NDP leader, to say in a recent interview that Hargrove should be thrown out of the party.
Wrong as strategic voting was, throwing the leader of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) out of the NDP would be madness, which would precipitate a battle that could destroy the already weakened party.
Hargrove is looked to, by many disillusioned members, as a beacon of hope for a directionless party. He is viewed as a left wing trade union leader, not afraid of a fight with the employer.
But Buzz has not been very consistent -- one day telling members to vote Liberal, the next day denouncing the federal leadership for bringing the party closer to the parties of business, such as the Liberals.
Equally disturbing is the suggestion in internal documents that the CAW leadership is contemplating leaving larger labour federations because it, like many unions, is organizing in almost every sector of the workforce.
The thought is that there is no reason to be part of broader federations because workers from every sector would be represented in the CAW.
This would be a disaster for Canadian workers. In unity there is strength, and sectionalism would be rampant if every union decided to go it alone.
If it were not for the existence of the Ontario Federation of Labour it would have been much harder to organize the city-wide general strikes that took place in Ontario.
These were bureaucratic mass strikes, for sure, led from the top. But militants in many different unions were able to pass general strike resolutions at convention and push their leaderships to mobilize.
It is true that same OFL refused to call a province-wide shutdown. But this speaks to the need for rank and file opposition to conservative leaderships in every major union, not the need to split from the fed.
The CAW leadership sees its union as more left than many other unions.
But as important as CAW activists were to the success of those strikes, there are rank and file workers in every union who still want to fight in spite of the setback of a second Tory victory in Ontario.
The CAW, viewed as one of the most left wing unions in the country, must not lead the way to disaffiliation and a crippling of the ability to work together.
Buzz Hargrove is correct in denouncing the attempt to turn the NDP further right.
But he must also realize that the call for strategic voting was a mistake that allowed many progressive voters to believe that another party of business, the Liberals, was a better choice than the NDP.
The observation that the people of Canada are looking for a left alternative is absolutely right and we must build on it.
Workers cannot allow themselves to be demoralized by the right wing push of the NDP leadership.
They must continue the fightback. and the struggle for a real socialist alternative.