With Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government still 5 seats short of a majority government, working-class Canadians should start asking NDP leadership candidates how they would wield the balance of power.
Reflecting on the ONDP government led by Bob Rae from 1990 to 1995, it is clear that the success of today’s ONDP depends on its ability to deliver on substantive reforms that materially benefit Ontario’s diverse working-class.
Ed Broadbent and his co-authors spoke at the Toronto Reference Library to launch their new book on Canadian social democracy.
To be humane, societies must be democratic — and, to be democratic, every person must be afforded the economic and social rights necessary for their individual flourishing.
“Coming back to the commitment by the state, instead, I say, we need an expansion of the role of the state through decommodification. This will lead to the real freedom of more citizens, in a way that simple political and civil rights cannot.”
The clear lesson from the past is that, once the sort of inequality that beset the Roman Empire – or that we are experiencing in Canada today – sets in, more often than not it has proven disastrous and in many cases spelled doom for entire societies.
