Ontario’s Tragi-Comedy
Perspective on the Results of the 2022 Ontario Election
Yesterday Ontarians went to the polls to figure out the question — which cartel party leader will be the Premier and what will the make-up of the provincial legislature be for the next four years? The farcical character of this election revealed itself from the very beginning, a Ford PC (Progressive Conservative) majority loomed almost from the beginning as a self-prophesying end, certain doom impending for the Liberals and NDP (New Democratic Party). Indeed, the results turned out as such — 83 seats for the PCs, 31 for the NDP, 8 for the Liberals and 1 for the Greens.
There are many issues to work out with this election. For one, we know that voter turnout was exceptionally low, the lowest it has ever been for an Ontario provincial election at 43.5%. The Ontario PCs and Doug Ford received less than 2 million total votes in a province where nearly 11 million voters are registered, out of all registered voters received 18%, and yet they secured 67% of the seats. In Ford’s victory speech, he spoke of a “mandate” given by the people of Ontario to fulfil his agenda and program of “getting it done”. But how can this be said to be a mandate? It is clear that in this election nobody was “given a mandate” to govern. The very system that we are told we must consent to has lost its mass character to a great degree. We are told that in Canada, we have a “great” democracy, a “free” democracy and other demogogical phrases, but how can this be so when 18% decide who governs 100% of us? It has entirely lost its credibility and people feel alienated more than ever. In every way, this is a scam election and a scam democracy, a tragedy in every possible way. I will touch on this topic further on.
The opposition to Doug Ford, the figurehead of the anti-social offensive in Ontario (though the opposition could just as well become the same type of figurehead), was insufficient to excite anyone. Andrea Horwath, leader of the NDP, claimed to be the leader for labour and for the working people. And indeed, she got the majority of labour union endorsements. But by all accounts, the changes advocated were mere reforms, a utopian dream of a “humane” capitalism that does not touch the key problems Ontarians are facing. After their debacle with MPP Paul Miller, they even lost the long-held seat of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek to the PCs. By the end of the night, Horwath had resigned as leader. This is proven even further with the Liberals and their leader Steven Del Duca. After the miserable performance of the Wynne Liberals in 2018 when they lost official party status, they tried to present themselves in this election as a “new team” to no avail. Everyone remembers that for 15-years, they carried out the anti-social offensive at the head of the province. Life became increasingly more difficult for the working class in that time. A Liberal victory would mean Doug Ford’s cuts to social programs would merely be changed to Del Duca’s “responsible” cuts to social programs. So Del Duca, too, resigned as party leader by the end of the night. Ford gets his “mandate” to carry on the anti-social offensive for 4 more years while the opposition flounders so horribly that they lose their leaders — an incredible, almost comedic, turn of events for those who believed they could stop him. In essence, both the Liberals and NDP advocated small or no reforms in distribution that would not change the system in any meaningful way. The working people feel crushed under the weight of capital, which seems indomitable at all times. If there is no option to defeat this, why vote at all?
The root of the problem is that the needs of the working class are not being understood or being listened to by any of the cartel parties. We have a political process where every candidate that has a chance (i.e. those of the “big” four parties) are chosen not by the people of their riding but by the party elites. All those who are not in a political party “need” to do is show up for elections and mark their ballot for one of them. Anyone besides those parties are fringe, say the forces in power. It is clear how contradictory this is to the universal franchise given to us. The holy alliance of parties, who all want to protect private property and the “untouchable” capitalist profits, are the decision-makers. But, as we know, this is a contradiction — universal franchise versus the cartel parties. The issue at present is to match the universal franchise with a system whereby we can all be decision-makers, where we can select the candidates and elect them ourselves. The need shows itself more each day for a new political process, a democratic renewal where the nine-tenths are the decision-makers and not the one-tenths — this is at the heart of all the problems we are facing today.
The working people know their situation much better than pretentious high-chair theorists and whiners. Why can’t they empower themselves socially in this modern society in which we do everything socially? Why do a few have to decide everything while we pick candidates within the factional squabbles of the capitalist class? It is no longer the capitalists and their children that only receive the technical and scientific education necessary to lead society. Capitalist society has given us a great gift; the workers themselves have become an intelligent force of their own, they know how to plan production and do not need this petty tutelage of the ruling class any longer. This tutelage, the lack of worker’s power over their own lives, is precisely why they feel alienated, why they do not see the need to participate in the present political process.
There are some liberals and social-democrats who will say for this election, no less brutally and care-free for the fate of the people as the conservatives, “it is the people who didn’t vote that we must blame for this outcome!” They, too, want to shift the burden for all the problems onto the back of the working people. They fail to see that the problems are deep-rooted and cannot be remedied by voting for the “right” candidate. It is almost comedic when they claim that voting for a cartel party will solve all the issues. When has such a necessary and drastic change came from above, from the working people bowing down to the established parties who dictate who gets into power from above? It would be an historical first. The people, who know their conditions well, either do not vote or vote begrudgingly for a party they see as the “lesser evil”. But their inclination, born in a society full of exploitation, is a new, better society born not from all the present ills but from social consciousness. Who, in their right mind, would be opposed to a reasonable proposal like democratic renewal, as described above? Only those who have an interest in keeping the status quo, the capitalist class. They know that they would lose everything in such a system. They know that their position as a ruling class would be put to an end.
The present outdated system breeds political apathy, for the reasons described above. Indeed, this goes so far that those in power want us to hate politics, to see it as something out of our control, something too depressing, or just plainly something that doesn’t seem important enough to partake in. And indeed, these feelings are understandable because they stem from the very nature of the political process. I, personally, deeply sympathize with the majority of Ontarians who have become so apathetic that they do not want to vote. And, for electoral purposes, this is perhaps not so detrimental. I, too, felt so alienated from the choices on hand that I declined my ballot, feeling that it was the only way to declare that none of the cartel parties, nor the small reactionary parties in my riding, have my consent to govern.
Where political apathy becomes a real and damaging ill is not necessarily electoral politics but politics in general. When people are apathetic, the forces in power can declare a mandate for everything they do. They can carry out every anti-social measure and people will put up with it and say “that’s life”. Such a future cannot and will not be allowed to exist. The tasks at present are to show the people that there is an alternative which they can shape in their own image, and that the only way to realize it is to take up the work and participate in laying the foundations of a new society. It is possible, indeed it is inevitable, history must march forward and society must progress! The task is to organize the mass of apathetic and other working people, who see the rottenness of the present system, to facilitate the changes that society needs to make.
People simply cannot remain aloof from politics. When change is seen not just as a want or an abstract idea, but a problem for taken up solution and an historical necessity, everything becomes political, politics becomes a motive force for finding out the truth and serving the people, it becomes something vast and important, and not superfluous. The degeneration of the socialist camp began in this way — when things were stripped of their political character, when the masses became uninvolved in governance, democratic centralism was replaced by bureaucratic centralism; when the people began to display aloofness, alienation began there and many working people were swayed by the allure of so-called “western freedoms and democracy” against socialism. Thus, we cannot allow the banner of politics to be something alienating; it must become a force for real change to discard the present system.
The tragi-comedy on our hands today, a day after the Ontario provincial election, is one to draw lessons from. Doug Ford is, contrary to what the sold-out media now says, not a popular politician. Indeed, as I have mentioned, the PCs received the votes of 18% out of the eligible 10.8 million voters. The educators and health care workers who have fought so hard against this government are just one example of that. Workers in all sectors have fought against this government, as well as the previous Liberal governments. The alternative cartel parties are also no solution, people have no enthusiasm for them either. The solution is not to be found within the system, but from outside the system. The majority already see that it is not working for them; it is high time they become able to speak in their own name and empower themselves.
