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Will Canada's NDP Learn Anything From the Rise of Left-Populism in the US?
Now that we’re witnessing a revival of leftish populism from Harris and particularly Walz, we can plainly see what has long been obvious but unsaid: that a New Deal-inspired agenda offers more for working people.
Sep 22, 2024
It would be a great pity if the NDP squanders this promising moment to revive left-wing populism in Canada.
The current upheaval in U.S. politics, with the dramatic and unexpected rise of the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz Democratic ticket, may suddenly be opening possibilities here in Canada that have long appeared out of reach.
After decades of the business elite successfully imposing its agenda — tax cuts, smaller government, an empowered private sector — Harris and Walz are energizing a large swath of U.S. voters with a very different left-populist pitch for strong government programs, pro-labour policies, and tax hikes on the rich.
Such a pro-worker agenda, which grew out of FDR’s New Deal and prevailed in the early postwar decades, has largely disappeared in recent years as business priorities — supported by the media, academia, and conservative think tanks — have come to dominate politics to an extraordinary extent.
As a result, even left-leaning political parties have been afraid to get too far offside the business agenda, for fear of looking like they don’t understand economic realities and would be irresponsible in managing the economy.
Accordingly, Democrats in the U.S. and the NDP in Canada have reluctantly gone along with much of the business agenda — even though it’s produced a society top-heavy with billionaires, with little for working people.
But now that we’re witnessing a revival of leftish populism from Harris and particularly Walz, we can plainly see what has long been obvious but unsaid: that a New Deal-inspired agenda offers more for working people.
That explains the joyous looks on the faces of Harris and Walz as they push for policies — like a $6,000 tax credit for newborns — that would greatly improve the lives of millions of Americans.
President Joe Biden also championed pro-worker policies but had no ability to sell them. Harris and Walz are brat as salespeople.
All this stirring south of the border creates possibilities for Canada.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh signalled his intention to distinguish his party from the Liberals by breaking the Liberal-NDP supply-and-confidence deal earlier this month.
But he missed a big opportunity to do more — to move the party towards the kind of left-populist agenda pioneered by early Canadian progressives like the late Tommy Douglas, celebrated as the father of medicare in Canada.
Instead, Singh used the Liberal-NDP breakup to signal that he’s backing away from the Trudeau government’s unpopular carbon tax.
That was a foolish move, which will only bolster the credibility of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s aggressive (and misguided) campaign against the carbon tax.
Singh could have differentiated himself from the Liberals much more effectively by insisting he’d only continue to support them if they introduced a wealth tax — a truly game-changing, populist measure with the potential to raise $32 billion a year to rebuild social programs.
The NDP actually supports an annual net wealth tax, which has been part of its official platform since 2019. But you might not know that, since the party rarely mentions it (probably out of fear they might look like irresponsible economic managers).
However, the tax, which would impact only the very wealthy, is consistently popular with Canadians, with polls showing support above 80 per cent.
Business strongly opposes a wealth tax, so championing it would put the NDP in a fight against business, the Liberals and the Conservatives — as a truly populist, pro-worker party — instead of letting Poilievre, posing as a friend of the working class, steal much of that vote.
A wealth tax is also nicely in line with Kamala Harris’ support for a “billionaire minimum tax” that would impose a 25 per cent minimum tax on total income exceeding $100 million (including unrealized gains).
Instead of crushing one of Ottawa’s few measures to tackle climate change, the NDP would be far more inspiring if it pushed to extract wealth from some of the most overprivileged people on earth.
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On the Need to Dismantle the Settler-Colonial Bloc at the UN
WEOG, the UN grouping anchored by the Anglo countries, Israel, and European states, wields disproportionate power to undermine human rights and international law.
Sep 08, 2024
What do two South Pacific countries, two North American countries, one country in the Middle East, and (until recently) one country in southern Africa have in common with Europe? The answer is rooted in centuries of imperialism and conquest in the ideologies that have sustained them — and in the four-letter acronym “WEOG.”
Five countries — the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel (and for several years during apartheid, the South African regime) — are part of the UN diplomatic grouping known as “WEOG,” together with 20 European states.
WEOG stands for the “Western Europe and Other Group.” The “WE” for Western Europe is self-evident. But the “other” in the group is more coded, representing states founded by European settler colonialism.
WEOG is one of the five official “regional groupings” of the United Nations. But while the other four are all defined by regional boundaries (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean), WEOG is cross regional and represents something else: the white world.
The White World’s Bloc
This will instantly shock the casual reader, but for practitioners and academics in the world of international relations, it’s a familiar concept. The West has long centered its approach to international relations on race. Indeed, the study of international relations began in the West as “race relations.” And Foreign Affairs, the leading U.S. publication on international relations, was originally the Journal of Race Development.
That approach was never horizontal, but rather one in which whiteness was centered and supreme. While sometimes obscured by a more genteel façade, below the surface the same dynamics continue today.
The message is clear: the defense of settler colonialism (and its inherent atrocities) trumps all other values, all other interests, and all other rules. The wagons must be circled. The colonial project must be protected. Human rights and international law be damned.
Of course, WEOG avoids any such direct racial billing, instead describing itself as a group of “western democracies.” The problem they have, however, is that their membership includes some states that are not (geographically) western, and some that are not democracies. Israel, former member South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand are all situated outside the West.
And as for democracies, original WEOG members Spain, Portugal, and Greece were governed during their membership by dictatorial regimes until the mid-1970s. South Africa and Israel were both admitted under apartheid regimes. And the United States had a formal system of racial segregation until the mid-1960s and was therefore hardly a “democracy” for a significant part of its population.
In other words, WEOG is not now and has never been a group of “western democracies.”
At other times, WEOG has been described as a principally anti-communist or anti-Soviet alliance. But there have been plenty of countries in the global South that opposed the Soviet Union and communism but were never admitted to WEOG. And while the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, WEOG has continued on the same course for over three decades since, proving that this is not principally a Cold War alliance either.
Institutional Inequity
Those tempted to view this as a matter of mere academic interest should first consider that WEOG wields disproportionate power in the UN. WEOG countries represent only about 11 percent of the global population. They are the second smallest UN group — with 29 members compared to the 54 members of the Africa Group, for example.
Nevertheless, three out of five permanent members of the Security Council are WEOG members, and the group enjoys an additional two elected seats on the Council beyond the five permanent members, for a total of seven out of 15 seats. Similar patterns of structural inequities privileging WEOG are reflected in the composition of other intergovernmental bodies as well.
They are also grossly over-represented in the UN’s senior management team. The post of head of political affairs is unofficially reserved for an American, as is the head of UNICEF and of the World Food Programme. The head of peacekeeping is reserved for the French, and humanitarian affairs for the British. And of the nine Secretaries-General in the organization’s history, four have been from WEOG countries.
The group also benefits from the formidable sticks and tempting carrots of the U.S. empire. Regardless of who occupies the rotating chair of the group, the dominant actor remains the United States, the group’s “first among equals.” Even though it sometimes claims to be an “observer,” the United States conveniently accepts full membership when electoral slates for UN bodies are decided.
This disproportionate influence is brought to bear across the UN agenda. The imperial, colonial, and white supremacist roots of WEOG run deep, and they directly impact the policy positions taken by the group (especially the “OGs”) in UN voting. Voting patterns bear this out especially in the defense of colonialism, apartheid, and political Zionism, and in opposition to Indigenous rights, the anti-racism agenda, Palestinian rights, and to the right to development.
This colonial logic is evident in WEOG’s opposition to guaranteeing people control over their own national development, to efforts to control mercenaries (often deployed to deny peoples’ self-determination), and to moves addressing the devastating impact of unilateral coercive measures (like sanctions) imposed by Western governments on countries of the global South.
Members of WEOG actively oppose anti-colonial and post-colonial perspectives on trade, debt, finance, and intellectual property. And when the UN moved to recognize the human right to food in 2021, only the United States and Israel, both WEOG members, voted no. Virtually every effort by formerly colonized countries to break from the exploitative economic relations and destructive racial legacies imposed by their former colonial masters is resisted by WEOG states.
Colonial Values
A clear demonstration of the true nature of the sub-group can be found in its position on the UN’s official global program to combat racism, known as the Durban Declaration.
The global Durban Conference that drafted the declaration in 2001 was boycotted by Israel and the United States — and both the subsequent Durban II review conference and the Durban III meeting were boycotted by Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, and the United States, along with a few European states. The group’s opposition is regularly registered in voting, in diplomatic demarches, and importantly, in positions taken in annual budget negotiations.
Worse still, the United States, Israel, and a hodge-podge of pro-Israel lobby groups, often with the complicity of some European nations, have carried on a decades-long campaign of disinformation to discredit the Declaration, going so far as to call it antisemitic, which is especially ironic given that the Declaration specifically commits the UN to combatting antisemitism.
The Declaration’s real offense? It directly challenges institutionalized racism, including in these countries, and sets out a program of remedial measures. Needless to say, the settler-colonial pedigree of these countries, and their long histories of institutionalized racism, put them squarely in the bullseye of the Declaration, a position that they cannot and will not tolerate. In their view, human rights critique is for the countries of the global South — not for the wealthy, white world of WEOG.
The world saw the same positioning again when the UN General Assembly convened on September 13, 2007 to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, after 20 years of debate. The Declaration was adopted with the overwhelming majority of states voting in favor, a handful abstaining, four countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) voting against. Israel skipped the vote altogether.
Obviously, the shared history (and continued policies) of these five countries in persecuting, dispossessing, and exterminating the Indigenous peoples of the lands they colonized stands in direct contradiction of the provisions of the UN Declaration, and this realization was front and center when they joined forces to oppose it in 2007.
The settler-colonial agenda of the alliance is also evident in voting on Palestine. While most countries of the world recognize the State of Palestine, WEOG is once again the outlier.
The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several European states (and, of course, Israel) have still not recognized Palestine. Israel and the United States (which also uses its veto in the Security Council to block Palestine’s full UN membership) consistently vote against UN resolutions supporting the human rights of the Palestinian people, while Canada often votes no or abstains, and Australia and New Zealand frequently abstain. Apartheid South Africa, during its tenure, was one of Israel’s closest allies and routinely supported it in the UN, while post-apartheid South Africa would become one of Palestine’s closest allies.
Indeed, perhaps most revelatory of the strident commitment of these countries to the defense of settler-colonialism is their lock-step support of Israel, even as Israel perpetrates history’s first live-streamed genocide against the indigenous Palestinians. WEOG countries that had previously made human rights and international law key centerpieces of their international public positioning (however cynically) have turned on a dime to openly distort, devalue, and dismiss these rules in order to buttress Israeli impunity.
Some have even crossed the line into direct complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, exposing themselves both legally and politically. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, and several other European states have provided arms, financial investments, intelligence support, and diplomatic cover for Israel’s crimes, even while they are being committed.
Calls for Reform
The message is clear: the defense of settler colonialism (and its inherent atrocities) trumps all other values, all other interests, and all other rules. The wagons must be circled. The colonial project must be protected. Human rights and international law be damned.
But the UN has been on a constant trajectory of change, peaking in the mid-1970s after the entry of a large number of newly independent states — and again now, as the unipolar moment of the United States begins to fade.
Calls for reform are growing. And if the UN is to survive, the vestiges of the colonial era will need to give way to more equitable diplomatic, political, and economic arrangements. The principles of the organization, including self-determination, human rights, and equality will need to play a more central role in intergovernmental processes.
And WEOG will need to find its place in a diplomatic museum, alongside the top hats, all-male meetings, and smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear.
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Blasting US 'Recklessness,' Mexico Pauses Embassy Relations Over Judicial Reform Meddling
"They have to learn to respect Mexico's sovereignty," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said of the U.S. and Canada after their ambassadors weighed in on his controversial proposal.
Aug 27, 2024
Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador put the embassies of the United States and Canada on time out Tuesday after their top diplomats and other influential figures weighed in against controversial proposed reforms to Mexico's judicial system.
"The relationship with Ken Salazar is good, but it's on pause. We're going to give ourselves our time," López Obrador—who is widely known as AMLO— said during his morning press conference, referring to the U.S. ambassador. The president said the "pause" also applies to Canada, whose ambassador, Graeme Clark, voiced alarm over the proposed reforms.
"They have to learn to respect Mexico's sovereignty, because we are not going to give them advice there, nor to say that it is okay and what is wrong," he added. "We want them to be respectful, there is a reciprocal relationship in terms of sovereignty."
López Obrador's move came after Salazar asserted last week that "popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico's democracy."
"We understand the importance of Mexico's fight against judicial corruption. But direct political election of judges, in my view, would not address judicial corruption nor would it strengthen the judicial branch of government," the ambassador continued. "It would also weaken the efforts to make North American economic integration a reality and would create turbulence as the debate over direct election will continue over the next several years."
"I believe faith and trust in the rule of law are one of the many shared values which unite our nations, while for the private sector, they lay the groundwork for building confidence and inspiring investment in a stable and predictable environment," Salazar added.
Clark subsequently said that Canadian "investors are concerned; they want stability, they want a judicial system that works if there are problems."
López Obrador accused the ambassadors of "recklessness" during his Tuesday press conference, adding that "there are things that only concern our country."
It's not just the ambassadors. On Tuesday, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member James Risch (R-Idaho), and Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a joint statement that they "are deeply concerned that the proposed judicial reforms in Mexico would undermine the independence and transparency of the country's judiciary, jeopardizing critical economic and security interests shared by our two nations."
"We are also alarmed that several other constitutional reforms currently under discussion may contradict commitments made in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which is scheduled for review in 2026," the senators added.
The Global Enterprise Council, the Mexico City-based lobbyist for 63 multinational corporations operating in Mexico—including Walmart, American Express, AT&T, General Motors, Microsoft, and ExxonMobil—is also opposing the proposed judicial reforms, as are other organizations including the New York City Bar Association and the Washington Posteditorial board.
López Obrador's "Plan C" proposes a sweeping overhaul of Mexico's corruption-ridden judiciary. The plan's most controversial reform would make judges at all levels of the judiciary—who are currently appointed—elected officials. All current sitting judges would be up for election in 2025 and 2027.
The president argues these reforms are necessary to combat corruption and impunity in Mexico's judicial system. He has
accused Mexican Supreme Court justices of being "supporters of the oligarchy, not of democracy" and says they oppose Plan C because "they do not want a government of the people."
Plan C—which came after an earlier proposal was blocked by the Supreme Court—has sparked nationwide protests by opponents, who say López Obrador is trying to weaken the judiciary and the National Electoral Institute and entrench his ruling Morena party as former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of the president, prepares to replace him on October 1 after winning June's election in a landslide.
Tensions between Mexico and the United States have been mounting for months over Mexican perceptions of U.S. meddling, including dubiously timed corporate media
reports of alleged links between López Obrador and drug cartels.
Last week, López Obrador said that Salazar's statement "expressing a position on this strictly domestic matter of the Mexican state represents unacceptable interference, contravenes the sovereignty of the United Mexican States, and does not reflect the degree of mutual respect that characterizes the relations between our governments."
"This is an overtly interventionist attitude; I hope it does not happen again," he added.
In separate remarks last week, López Obrador also accused the U.S. of funding organizations working to undermine the Mexican government under the guise of human rights.
For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development—whose decadeslong history of meddling in Latin America runs the gamut from
kidnapping and torturing unhoused Uruguayans to death for instructional purposes to an attempt at toppling Cuba's revolutionary government by infiltrating the island's hip-hop scene—has financially supported Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, a frequent critic of the López Obrador administration.
During his Tuesday press conference, López Obrador reminded Mexicans of centuries of U.S. aggression and meddling in Mexico's internal affairs.
"For many years… the United States has applied an interventionist policy throughout America, ever since it established the Monroe Doctrine," he said.
López Obrador recounted how Mexico lost half its territory as a result of the 1846-48 U.S. invasion—carried out on false pretexts decried by a young congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln—and endured seven months of U.S. occupation of Veracruz in 1914.
The president stressed that having trade agreements with the U.S. does not mean that Washington has the right to meddle in Mexican affairs.
"The treaty is not for us to cede our sovereignty, the treaty is about trade, about forging good economic and commercial ties that suit both nations," he said Tuesday. "But that doesn't mean Mexico must become an appendix, a colony, or a protectorate."
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