Finally, the speculations about when the next federal election
will be held are naming the month and the day: June 9, 1997.
Nonetheless, this is still speculation and not a declaration by
the Prime Minister about when the election will actually be held,
let alone a writ disolving the House. What is clear is that
whenever the election is finally called, it will come as a
surprise attack on the people since according to the electoral
process in Canada, there is no fixed date at which elections take
place and the advantage in the electoral contest is given to the
ruling party to get prepared and call the election at a time that
is most propitious for itself.
The only aim the Liberals have in setting the election date of
their choice is to get re-elected. It is broadly claimed that
the budget delivered on February 18 was streamlined with the
same aim of getting the Liberals re-elected.
What kind of democracy is it in which the electorate, which
is supposedly to elect the next Parliament, is held hostage to
the whims of the Prime Minister as concerns the decision when the
election will be held? The electorate has no power to determine
the election issues either, or to provide itself with necessary
information about them, or select candidates who would best serve
its interests. The electorate is merely a spectator to the
shenanigans of the Chretien Liberals, the party in power at the
federal level at this time, and other bourgeois political
parties which fully collaborate in this electoral fraud.
Workers, women, youth and students must see through the kind
of fraudulent elections held in Canada. They must fight for their
interests by fielding their own candidates, not as "electoral
machines" but as those who develop their struggle during, before
and after the elections. By organizing themselves in defence of
their own struggle, the people can put themselves in the center-
stage of the developments. This is the only way the surprise
attacks which the capitalist class organizes against the working
class, whether through the elections or through other means, can
be defeated.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
