Following in the footsteps of Tony Blair, Labour leader Alexa McDonough has been trying to steer Canada's New Democratic Party to the right.

However, despite getting a number of policy commitments through, she was met with very stiff resistance at the party's convention at the end of August.

With a right-wing Liberal federal government in power, and the NDP trailing with around 10% support in the opinion polls, together with a string of electoral disappointments earlier this year, the NDP right wing are looking to Blair and Schroder as saviours. Their idea is to gain popularity by adopting more pragmatic pro-business policies, as in Britain and Germany.

The problem is the success of the British Labour Party and the German SPD was not due to pro-capitalist policies, but primarily a rejection of the long period of conservative rule. Now there is growing disenchantment in Britain, as witnessed by the low turnout in the recent elections and the gains of the nationalists in Wales and Scotland. Similarly, the SPD has experienced a string of electoral defeats.

Their only experience also proves the point. Where the NDP has attempted to focus on "fiscal responsibility" and ape the Liberals, it has led to defeat and demoralisation. An opportunity to defeat the provincial Liberal government of Nova Scotia was thrown away this year, as the NDP vote fell from 39% to 30%. This was followed by a disastrous showing in Ontario in June, where the NDP was reduced to a rump, losing its party status. In British Columbia, the NDP government is facing defeat, after being rocked by scandal and the haemorrhaging of its support. In Saskatchewan, the NDP is only holding on by the skin of its teeth.

McDonough addressed the NDP convention with unmistakable Blairite language: "Supporting a market economy doesn't mean supporting a market society" was taken straight out of the Blair/Schroder pamphlet on the third way. We have to have solutions that "recognise the need for fiscal responsibility" and balanced budgets, she continued. "Flexibility demanded by business must also benefit the workers", while government, workers and bosses should work together. It is the same old tune of the right wing which has embraced the market and big business.

After initially endorsing a new economic policy that supported balanced budgets and tax relief for low and middle-income Canadians, after a bitter argument and with around a third of delegates voting against, conference later rejected a jobs proposal that touted partnerships with big business.

In a further blow to the leadership a resolution specifically rejecting 'Third Way' and 'New Centre' strategies was overwhelmingly supported by the convention. "We are a party that stands proudly on the left", said Svend Robinson, a left British Columbia MP. "The right in this country is very crowded already. We want to take on that agenda and not in anyway be seen to be accommodating it." He went on to enormous applause, "Yes, change, but this idea that somehow we are going to become another voice of business in Canada is not on."

Vocal opponents

One of the most vocal opponents of the drift to the right was union leader Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Automobile Workers. Hargrove stated that the plan to reinvent the New Democrats in the image of Tony Blair would sink the party. He threatened to disaffiliate his 215,000 members from the NDP if the party was not standing clearly on the side of working people.

In the end, the delegates rejection of Blairism was a clear shot across the bow of the McDonough leadership. In turn the leadership was forced to recognise this overwhelming feeling. McDonough herself was forced to come out against following Blair's polices, but argued that the decision to reject the 'Third Way' was more about rejecting labels than policy. Clearly, the right wing have not given up its aim of pushing the NDP further to the right. It is also clear the struggle will continue.

As the crisis unfolds, the Canadian labour movement will go back to its original ideas based on the overthrow of capitalism. The precursor to the NDP, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, issued a Regina Manifesto at its founding convention in 1933:

"We propose to provide work and purchasing power for those now unemployed by a far-reaching programme of public expenditure on housing, slum clearance, hospitals, libraries, schools, community halls, parks, recreational projects, reforestation, rural electrification, the elimination of grade crossings, and other similar projects in both town and country."

The Manifesto concluded: "Emergency measures, however, are of only temporary value, for the present depression is a sign of the mortal sickness of the whole capitalist system, and this sickness cannot be cured by the application of salves. These leave untouched the cancer which is eating at the heart of our society, namely, the economic system in which our natural resources and our principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated for the private profit of a small proportion of our population.

"No C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialised planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of a Cooperative Commonwealth."

Within two years the CCF had won seven seats in parliament. By the end of the second world war, it had 28 seats and was the government of Saskatchewan.

The present NDP, rather than looking at 'new' pro-business policies, should rediscover this radical socialist programme. Only then will it be able to offer a real alternative to the working class of Canada that can eliminate the problems they face, inspiring them in a real socialist vision of the future.