Can the NDP Challenge Harper Cons govt on the Economy? Mulcairs minimum wage pledge fits a powerful counter-narrative to Tory claims - Murray Dobbin (the LPC quashed a Federal minimum wage in one of its earlier governing mandates in the constant cyclic rotation of Cons & Libs, Grits & Tories...) The NDPs announcement that it will push for a national minimum wage if elected is good news and suggests that the party may finally be overcoming its decades-long aversion to engaging its Liberal and Conservative adversaries on the question of the economy. Its too early to tell if the New Democrats will follow up with other policy commitments and weather the expected attacks. The social bottom-feeders at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, ever eager to promote policies that harm their members interests, have already attacked. Their knee jerk response -- wage inflation and higher unemployment -- has been disproven so often that they should be embarrassed dragging it out. The minimum wage pledge accomplishes two things. It addresses the issue of inequality which Canadians say they care about, and it implies a perspective the NDP needs to expand on: that if you really want to see some economic growth then you have to put money in peoples pockets, especially low income people who spend every cent they get. This situation effectively means that the party is left competing for votes on a political battleground exclusively defined by the Liberal and Conservative parties. And that means that it has to figure out how to be competitive on the issue of the economy and jobs. The Conservatives are extremely vulnerable on this issue but have managed to still claim to be good economic managers -- because no one effectively declares that the emperor has no clothes. Trudeau is extremely weak on the economy as well and his party power brokers are essentially on side with Harpers neoliberal doctrine of getting out of the way of corporate decision making -- in other words, leaving economic policy exclusively up to the private sector. One of the most damning results of this ideological recklessness (which includes massive corporate tax cuts) is that corporations in Canada are sitting on over $600 billion in idle cash. In other words they arent allocating capital at all. They are hoarding it. This is grossly irresponsible and if ever there was a compelling reason for returning to active economic management through a strategic industrial development approach this idle money is it. (again thanks to current Harper Cons govt + past LPC govts drastically cutting corporate taxes along with many Prov Premiers govts like BC Liberals...) The Canadian economy is in deep trouble, falling far behind the U.S. in job creation and recovery stats. Last week Statistics Canada reported the loss of 116,000 private sector jobs in August. That figure screams whatever youre doing it isnt working and Mulcair should be repeating it over and over again. There are other themes the NDP could pursue to expose the sheer incompetence of the Harper government (and the most recent Liberal governments) on the economy. By systematically denying labour its fair share of increased productivity over a 30 year period and keeping labour cheap, the government encourages business not to invest in new plant and equipment. Why? According to Bruce Kasman, head of economic research for JPMorgan: We havent seen much allocation of resources to capital. Because labour is cheap, we are seeing companies substitute labour for capital. This presents Mulcair and the NDP with the opportunity to frame both the Liberals and Conservatives as responsible for the perfect storm of economic decline, making any kind of sustained economic recovery virtually impossible. Its encouraging to see the NDP take a first small step in addressing the next elections key issue. But without dealing with the issue of revenue and taxation, a challenge to Harper on the economy will come up short. thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/09/08/NDP-Harper-Economy-Challenge/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=080914
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 17:01:50 +0000
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