Manufacturing Consent: Canadian media ignores NDP's crucial role in Coronavirus relief package
Photo Credit: (CityNews Edmonton/Google Images)
Written by: Daniel Xie
Trudeau’s response to fighting the Coronavirus outbreak in Canada has seen a surge in the approval ratings of the liberal party. On the surface, it may appear that this might signify that his Coronavirus aid package is working. On closer inspection however, Trudeau’s Coronavirus aid package is very lacking; only meeting the bare minimum to ensure any measure of social isolation. As noted, Trudeau’s coronavirus relief plan, when first established in the wake of the Coronavirus lockdown, left many Canadians in the cold. This was due to various shortcomings such as:
● Leaving out renters in his aid package
● The income granted by the Canada Emergency Response Benefit being available only to those who have earned more than $5,000 in total income last year, consequently leaving many out in the cold if they did not make that amount last year. They were also left out if they just started working some time before the outbreak, making it mathematically impossible to achieve the quota.
● Not providing enough emergency income to offset the costs of rent.
● Not providing any means to prevent banks from refusing to defer mortgage payments.
Whatever bare minimum met to ensure any measure of social isolation, is due to the efforts of the NDP to hold the Liberals to account and push for somewhat more wide-ranging reforms. There is quite a bit to criticize about the current NDP. For a long time they’ve been moving more and more to the right, a rightward shift that hasn’t stopped even after Thomas Mulcair stepped down as NDP leader. The NDP has consistently tried to sideline or even outright silence pro-Palestinian NDP members, while provincial governments elected in Alberta (between 2015-2019) and British Columbia having caved in to the demands of the oil industry. The government in British Columbia under NDP Premier John Horgan oversaw the construction of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline and the repression of Wetʼsuwetʼen land defenders.
At the 2019 Ontario NDP convention, reactionary resolutions were entertained by right leaning NDP delegates. These included the ability for social workers to be assisted by police when working with neurodivergents, which opened the risk of subjecting neurodivergents to police violence, as well as trying to insert a “reverse racism” clause into an anti-racism resolution. Both the social worker resolution and the attempt to insert a reverse racism clause were thankfully defeated by the majority of the convention, whom were appalled at what was proposed.
This flirtation with reactionary ideals occurred even as the convention scheduled it so that more radical and left-leaning resolutions would never see the light of day during the convention. Measures that were suppressed in this manner include measures calling for nationalization of the Ontario economy, along with anti-imperialist measures such as support for the BDS movement and condemning the attempted coup in Venezuela initiated by Juan Guaido with US backing.
Yet despite these massive flaws, the NDP played an important role during the Coronavirus outbreak in pushing the liberals to meeting the bare minimum of protection needed to ensure successful social isolation. In response to the Coronavirus outbreak, the NDP has proposed measures to help make social distancing more bearable such as:
● 75% wage subsidy to help employers keep staff at work
● $2,000 per month to Canadians out of work
● Easier access to employment insurance for all workers
● Increasing production of medical supplies and equipment
● Moratorium on rent and mortgage
● Providing vital supplies to indigenous communities
According to the progressive Youtuber, The Rational National, while the Liberals are soaking in the approval ratings garnered from their Coronavirus aid package, most of the more progressive aspects of the aid they have provided came from the NDP. Citing left wing twitter user @Lefty_mind, David Doel, host of The Rational National, notes that the most progressive provisions of the past two bills, such as a 75% wage subsidy to help employers keep staff, and the $2,000 benefit for Canadians out of work, were proposed initially by the NDP. The media, according to @Lefty_mind, has failed to report on NDP influence on the Liberal’s coronavirus aid bills, criticizing the media response as an example of manufacturing consent.
Doel notes that while the NDP fought for a $2,000 basic income, the fact that the benefit for Canadians out of work is $2,000 shows clearly that liberals were influenced by the NDP’s platform. He notes that the media should be giving the NDP credit with regards to leading the charge on what is to be done here. In addition, Doel agrees with @Lefty_mind that universal basic income and the prevention of bailouts companies invested in tax havens were raised as issues by the NDP that are now covered by the mainstream media. Yet, the mainstream media gives no credit to the NDP with regards to raising any sort of awareness on these issues. He also notes that shortly after the NDP called on Trudeau to provide assistance to students, it was announced by the media that Trudeau would move forward with measures to help students… with little mention that it was the NDP that suggested this in the first place.
Had it not been for the NDP’s intervention, the Liberal bailout would have not even implemented even bare minimum policies needed to ensure any degree of social isolation. There would have been no $2,000 benefit for Canadians out of work, and if there was some sort of income, it would have been significantly lower. Assuming there is a wage subsidy to help employers retain staff, it would be significantly lower. In addition, there would have been no relief for students at all, as that was an issue brought up by the NDP in pushing Trudeau to adopt more substantial measures.
While ordinary Canadians themselves would have even less aid then what we have now with NDP aid in facilitating social isolation, the wealthy, Canadian banks and Canadian corporations would get more and more bailouts. Trudeau would not consider excluding companies invested in tax havens at all, but would have included them in any bailout. In short, had it not been for the NDP, Trudeau’s aid package would have transferred even more wealth to corporations, while leaving even less for working Canadians.
The media’s effort to broadcast Trudeau’s approval ratings is indeed, as @lefty_mind observed, a form of manufacturing consent. This is done through using Trudeau’s current coronavirus policies to prop up the liberals by both pointing to their approval ratings, as well as completely obfuscating the role of the NDP in proposing measures to help ensure even the bare minimum for social distancing. This is done to legitimize the Liberals as having supposedly done a good job in containing the COVID-19 outbreak, despite the fact that the Liberals were pushed into many of these policies by the NDP. If it had not been for the intervention of the NDP, the Liberals’ approach to the COVID-19 outbreak in Canada would have been much different in a bad way.
In response to the liberals co-opting their ideas, the NDP must, instead of remaining silent as Trudeau soaks in his new approval ratings, stand up for itself. It should do this by making it clear that it was they whom were responsible for the reforms. It must remind people that the co-opting of their ideas are only means to ensure more legitimacy and popularity for Trudeau, while sidelining the party that played the most part in making self-isolation more bearable to Canadians. In addition, the NDP must take this opportunity to not only defend its role in allowing Trudeau’s response to be more accessible to most Canadians, but must also push for much more substantial reforms and policies than what the liberals would desire to alleviate the current crisis. They must call for full access to the CERB by the working class regardless of income, protection for gig workers, full rent freezes, the delivery of much needed aid to indigenous communities, the nationalization of key industries, along with a taxation on the most wealthy Canadians to be included within any sort of Coronavirus aid package.
The NDP must ensure that both the reforms that are implemented right now to ensure even the most bare minimum reforms being implemented right now, and the more substantial sociopolitical reforms that they should be pushing for in holding Trudeau’s feet to the fire, remain after the Coronavirus pandemic ends. Without this effort, the liberals will have absolute freedom to start rolling back reforms implemented during social isolation in order to return to “normalcy”; a state of “normalcy”, that Singh himself admits, is an unbearable existence for many Canadians.
If the NDP leadership, as well as the right wing of the NDP does nothing to stand up for themselves or to push for more far reaching policies the liberals have yet to consider, instead choosing to ignore the Liberals and the Mainstream Media using the crisis to legitimize Trudeau’s government, it will be up to the population to hold their leaders accountable and to organize in favor of further reaching measures to combat the Coronavirus; which they are already organizing through the Rent strikes being planned and carried out in response to the lack of aid for tenants having to pay crushing rent.
The past few months globally have exposed the nature of capitalism to many people. Social democratic organizations such as the NDP or the progressive caucus in the United States are must be willing to fully embrace wide-reaching socialist measures. In the case of the progressive caucus, capitulate to corporate bailouts simply because there were a few crumbs on the table guaranteed for ordinary Americans. If this does not occur, then the populace should think outside the ballot box and push for transformational change beyond the confines of electoral politics.
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