Friday, June 13, 2014

The austerity election is over: Time to build real alternatives! A statement from the Chair of the SPO

As Chair of the Socialist Party of Ontario I would like to begin by thanking our two candidates, Natalie Lochwin and Andrea Gar Quiano for their hard work delivering a message of real social change and an alternative to the three flavours of austerity of the "mainstream" parties.

I am proud to have been associated with these campaigns and because of them, as well as Natalie's work as Spokesperson, tens of thousands of Ontarians have seen that a different future is possible.

The party will now go back to building on this and working with our communities and neighbours and other anti-capitalist movements in the ongoing fight against austerity, poverty and poverty wages.

We have been getting many positive inquires as well as membership requests and we will be having a summer social and our AGM shortly. Watch for announcements!

While the Liberals won a majority, the clear verdict of this election was not a vote for anything, but a vote against the right wing extremism of Tim Hudak. Even a cursory scan of the results shows that this result came from people voting strategically. They were not so much rewarding the Liberals, and they clearly were uninspired by the ONDP's insipid populist campaign that has resulted in the ONDP having less influence than before an election they triggered for no valid ideological reason, as they were driven by a very real and understandable fear of Greek, British or Spanish style austerity.

People were not given a serious alternative, they were trapped in the emptiness of our present discourse.

As our Spokesperson said "the clear and unequivocal lesson of this election is that Ontario needs a Socialist option in every riding or a Left Front coalition represented by Socialist,  independent labour, Communist and other anti-capitalist candidates."

Soon we will be back out campaigning again for free transit & living wages in municipal campaigns.

In the United States very exciting things have happened in Socialist politics municipally. Here in Ontario we can do it too. The stale, leader driven cult machines do not have the same control that they do on the provincial and federal level. These are elections where you can fight for truly important changes and where anything can happen.

If you are interested in running municipally and need some advice getting started, it is not too late and feel free to email us.

As I wrote elsewhere: "There has never been a better time for a grassroots, insurrectionist politics in defiance of political leaders and parties. There has never been a better time for citizens to cut the parties and politicians out. They are already irrelevant. Make politics relevant again."

Together with our allies in likeminded groups, organizations and movements across Ontario, we are going to keep fighting to make politics relevant again.

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