Left holds g

By KERRY McCUAIG
TORONTO — Populist mayor John Sewell lost
his bid for re-election to big business backed Art
Eggleton in the Nov. 10 elections.
Sewell, who entered city council on an anti-

_ developer program in 1968, had been consistently

attacked by the media over his support for police
Teform and minority groups during his two-year
term.

In acknowledging his defeat, Sewell referred to
the many ‘‘good and valid issues”’ he had fought for
as mayor. Citing police reform, daycare and hous-
ing, he noted that over 80,000 people had sup-
ported these issues by voting for him. He reminded
supporters that the battles he had begun were
therefore not over. :

But Sewell was not the only loss in Toronto s
elections. Going into the campaign there was a
chance for reform majorities on both council and
school board. Instead the reform group on city
council dropped by one, to nine out of 23 seats. The
reform caucus on metro council dropped from six
to three, with the loss of David White’s metro seat
in ward one to reactionary William Boychuk. In
ward six, retiring Reform Metro alderman Alan
rows place was lost to right winger Gordon

ong.

The New Democratic Party, supported by the
Metro Labor Council, endorsed 59 candidates for
Office (out of a possible 213). Their considerations
Were limited to NDP members, with the exception
of Mayor Sewell. They were successful in electing
32 although 20 were incumbents and three of these
were acclaimed. Labor Council spokesman Mike
Lyons in assessing the result’said he felt the NDP
‘would have done better if they had ran for

mayor.”
Other left spokesmen have called the NDP/

Labor Council position ‘‘divisive”’ and accused it
of being responsible for the defeat of some com-
munity candidates, while allowing right-wing can-
didates to sneak through. The influence of the NDP
label was also questioned, noting that the incum-
bents were most likely re-elected on their records
rather than party affiliation. __ fe

That position was highlighted in ward two where
a reform candidate was replaced by Ben Grys.
Grys was barred from seeking public office back in
1972, but he managed to nip community candidate
Susan Atkinson by only 16 votes. Atkinson had run
a close third in 1978. The NDP candidate finished
more than 800 votes behind her.

Using the old saying *‘if at first you don’t suc-
ceed ...”’, Joe Pantalone, who pioneered running

_ on the NDP label back in 1976 was elected in ward

four after his fifth try. Arch conservative Tony
O’Donohue takes the metro seat for the ward.
Another new reform face will be David Reville
__ who replaces Janet Howard in ward seven. Reville
ran a joint NDP campaign with Gordon Cressy.
Reformer Dorothy Thomas was re-elected in
ward nine after a two-team absence, replacing the

JOHN SEWELL ... “we fought many tough issues.
Those battles are not over.”

discredited Thomas Wardle Jr. The rest of the
elected NDP labor council aldermen were incum-
bents.

In ward eight first-time aldermanic candidate
Jeanne McGuire ran third with 1,450 votes,
McGuire is metro chairman of the Communist Par-
ty. In ward five Jim Kabitsis came fifth out of six
polling 940 votes.

The reform caucus on the Toronto school board
remains pat. Eleven of the 22 seats went to refor-
mers. Nine were backed by the NDP, plus two
independents. Pat Case topped the polls in ward
four and former board chairman Fiona Nelson was
acclaimed. Two of the NDP-backed incumbents
were defeated, but retiring reform candidates’
votes stayed with reform candidates in three areas
and new seats were picked up in wards one and
eight.

a ward two Wilf Szczesny polled 900 votes and
Nick Prychodko in ward eight took 350.

THE BOROUGHS

The reform group on York Council lost one seat
when NDPer Gord Garland failed to replace retir-
ing communist alderman Oscar Kogan in ward
two. The NDP put forward a slate of six alderman
for the eight seats, but only incumbents Pat Cana-
van and John Nunziata were returned.

Caroline DiGiovanni will be the only reform
voice on York’s school board. The NDP ran in
only two areas of York. In ward two community
candidate Carol Schwartz lost to conservative
Branko Jovanovich by less than 30 votes. The
NDP candidate there ran‘fourth.

round in Toronto elections —

The NDP ran five candidates for 11 seats in
North York, but only the three incumbents were
elected. Four NDP candidates vied for 11 trustee
positions. Jack Sweet who lost by only 71 votes in
1978 polled 400 votes to winner Sheila Lambrinos’
827. Lambrinos will be the lone voice on the board,
incumbent Harold Koehler was defeated and the
other two candidates failed in their bids.

In East York acclaimed Gordon Crann stands
alone on council. Crann was elected in 1978 on a
Reform Metro ticket. Ruth Goldhar lost her seat in
ward one for trustee but Micheal Wyatt picked up a
seat in ward four. These were the only NDP candi-
dates in the boroughs.

Etobicoke re-elected reformers David
Robertson and Ruth Grier. Fred Stasiuk, running
for alderman in ward three ran fourth out of five
with 3,250 votes. Verna Ross was acclaimed in
ward five and the only other NDP-backed candi-
date lost her bid for school board.

In Scarborough incumbent mayor Gus Harris
kept his seat against conservative controller John
Wimbs. Barry Christensen who replaces labor
council president Wally Majesky in ward two was
the only successful candidate out of the four ran by
the NDP for 12 seats. :

Incumbent Pat Collie kept his trustee seat on the
Scarborough board; the other NDP candidate was
not successful.

Following the election returns the media and
establishment spokesmen began characterizing the
results as a shift to the right.

That is questionable. The actual number of votes ©
going to reform candidates increased in 1980 over
1978. Sewell’s was a narrow defeat. Only two more
votes in each poll would have returned him as
mayor. : ’

Metro Toronto Communist Party chairperson
Jeanne McGuire laid the blame for this at the feet of
the NDP. ‘The right wing forces united in this
election,”’ she said. ‘*They had learned the neces-
sity of unity better than the forces of reform.”’

She charged the NDP with failing to work with
reform candidates and ‘‘not full working for
Sewell’. Their opposition to some reform candi-
dates ‘‘destroyed the possibility of reform
majorities.”’

‘*This doesn’t mean people have stopped want-
ing reform’’, McGuire said. But warned that *‘sec-
tarian’’ politics can only lead to victories by big
business interests.

The change in council representation she said,
‘‘demands the increased mobilization and unity by
reform-minded people to fight for needed changes
in the next two years.”

The Maoist leaders of the WCP follow
the same classless policies at home as
they do on the international scene. This
18 quite understandable because they suf-

fer from the same malady when it comes

_ toclass struggle in Canada as they do in

tio:

World politics, i.e., the lack of a

porking-class outlook, which, concrete-

Y, Means lack of a socialist perspective.
* * *

| The Forge article, which we examined
‘ast Week in respect to the present situa-
nN in Poland, charges the Communist
CLa of Canada with ‘‘cozying up”’ to
N President McDermott and “his

Cw Democratic Party buddies”, of

_ “hanging onto the coat tails of Broadbent

oe

company’s NDP’’. And why? Be-
“use the CPC calls for an electoral al-
liance in these words: ‘‘For real change

_ 7 elect a progressive majority, including

‘_ommunists to parliament’’. They dis-
Tt that into a call to vote NDP. This,
Y assert, is ‘‘opportunism’’ on the

_ Part of the CPC.

However, there is no call in the CPC’s

¢lectoral slogan to vote NDP. Rather the

Call is to build working-class and demo-
eae unity to change the class make up

Parliament and for a government
based on

thi a@ new class alignment. From
S Poi

_ mt of view, the charge of

the Portunism”” needs to be looked at in
ws light of what kind of election result
wuld best serve the interests of the

orking people, and what result would

St Serve the interests of the monopoly

=-

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

italists? The answer to this question
 aaibevident But not to the WCP
Maoist leaders. They are living proof of
the old adage that “‘there are none so
blind as those who will not see’’.
* * :

In the name of ‘‘revolution” the
WCP’s classless leaders reject out-of-

hand Lenin’s time-tested theory of class -

alliances as the path to achieving work-
ers’ power and the building of a'socialist
society. Such rejection demonstrates a
woefully low level of class conscious-
ness. It demonstrates also an inability to
understand the Canadian labor move-
ment. And, because of this failure, the
WCP leaders are unable to develop an
independent policy toward that move-
ment. They, like the reformists, which
the WCP leaders dismiss with a stroke of
the pen, seize upon a single aspect of the
movement *and elevate this one-
sidedness toatheory. _
Lenin consistently reminds working-
class revolutionaries of the absolute
necessity to approach every aspect of
class struggle from the outlook of the
working class. This the leaders of the

WCP are not able to do, because they do
mot possess a working-class outlook.-

Rather they are the prisoners of an ideol-
ogy that is a distortion or variation, of the
outlook of the capitalist class.

* * *

A central fact of political life in Canada
is that state power is in the hands of
monopoly capital. The state is an instru-
ment of the rule of the monopolists.
Another central fact of Canadian politi-
cal life is that the vast majority of the
non-monopoly population still vote for
the parties of monopoly. Those who
break with those parties vote, in their
considerable majority, for the NDP, that

is: for social reformist policies. This

considerable majority is composed of
working people in the main, small and
medium farmers, intellectuals and small
business people. This, too, is an impor-
tant feature of the Canadian reality.
The defeat of monopoly capitalism,
which includes the defeat of its political
parties, will not be achieved without
unity of the working class and demo-
cratic forces, and the isolation of
monopoly and its governments. This is
so, whether the power of monopoly is
overturned by violent means or by rela-
tively peaceful means. Whatever the
means, the overthrow of monopoly
power represents a distinct stage of the
struggle for socialism — the struggle for
which will open the door to the next
stage. The power which will break the
stranglehold of monopoly over the eco-
nomic and political life of our country,
will be that of a democratic alliance
based on the’strength and discipline of a

Neither Marxist nor Leninist con't.

united, organized working class.
* * *

The democratic alliance projected by
the CPC includes in its scope the social
forces within which the NDP finds most
of its eiectoral support as well as its
underpinning. These forces are basically

‘reformist in nature, and not revolution-

ary. But most of them constitute the
working masses from whose ranks are
drawn the organized sections of the
working class. However, the leaders of
the WCP dismiss these masses as being
**social reformist’’ and chide the CPC as
being ‘‘opportunist’’, in striving to har-
ness the great revolutionary potential
that resides in the ranks of the working
masses, in order to advance the whole
working-class and democratic move-
ment closer to the goal of socialism.

It is quite apparent that the WCP’s
conception of fighting social reformist
ideology .is to fence themselves off in
splendid isolation, shouting directions
from afar. They do not seem to know that
Lenin taught that the masses learn from
their own experiences. Nor do they seem
to understand that the outlook of the
working masses can, and does change as
they are impelled in their: own self-
interest to fight back against the crisis
policies of monopoly. ;

In 1916, Lenin wrote: ‘‘Whoever ex-
pects a ‘pure’ revolution will never live
to see it. Such a person pays lip service to
revolution without understanding what
revolution is.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 21, 1980—Page 9