Notes on the Regina Manifesto (CCF-1933)

The Regina Manifesto

This is an interesting piece of Canadian Literature. I would definatly recommend it for idea purposes, but then again you could always just pick up an NDP platform for a Jack Layton book, haha.

The CCF, Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, formed in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta. It was a conglomeration of famers, socialists and organized labourmen who were tired of the two-party, business class federal parties in Canada. After officially forming in 1932, they released their party platform titled the Regina Manifesto. In it, they laid out a variety of quite progressive, social ideas that they would put into place as a Federal Government.

The CCF is famous for producing a great Canadian named Tommy Douglas, as leader of the Saskatchewan CCF in 1944. He introduced universal heathcare for the province, in lou of well levied opposition from the Doctors of Saskatchewan, aswell as the American Medical Association, who feared the spread of public healthcare to other parts of North America. (1) Well, within 20 years it passed the House of Commons and was instituted on a Federal level during the minority Liberal Government with support from then NDP leader Tommy Douglas, headed by one of my distant relatives Prime Minister Mike Pearson.

There is no doubt that without this fantastic show of grassroots, truly progressive and Canadian democracy - we would be a few decades back from having the type of social services that we so enjoy in this wonderful Nation. It also is eerily remincient of todays circumstance. Read on - but read the source text before this post. I have not included many of my thoughts on the actual CCF Party in this essay.

Below I have taken a few excerpts from the Regina Manifesto of 1933, and I have also wrote a quick thought under each of them. 

 

'When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated'

This statement rings very true even today, especially today with the current economic crises that we are going through. You can see this oscillation today when we are faced with a depression of the magnitude of which is frightfully reminicent of that which this paper was responding to. We see the foundations of our laissez faire approach bringing the general population negligible amounts of wealth during peak times, and destructive results when the tower built too high come tumbling down. And what happens when this downturn reached the presipous? The public teat is suckled and not only does the individual suffer, but so too does the collective. Wealth is privatised, risk is nationalised.

'We consider that both the old parties in Canada are the instruments of capitalist interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction, and that whatever the superficial differences between them, they are bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of the big business interests who finance them.'

Chances are if you are reading this blog here that you think similar to the way I do, and feel that the major two entities in Canadian politics do not represent your interests. Just in the last several days the newly headed Liberal Party has met with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for discussion and consultation on the Tory Budget that is to be brought down on January 27th of 2009. They emerged with smiling faces and clasp hands, which dont get me wrong, is fantastic, but it leaves the more social-minded Grits and the NDPers with a poor taste in our mouths. Les libéraux bleu have taken the helm of the party and are steering it towards the Conservative sirens.

'Only by such public ownership, operated on a planned economy, can our main industries be saved from the wasteful competition of the ruinous overdevelopment and over-capitalization which are the inevitable outcome of capitalism.'

An interesting concept for that age and time. We have market mechanisms now that require a constant stream of purchasing and upgrading. Cars, gagets, entertainment equipment. Granted, we do benefit from this in terms of leisure and our enjoyment and quality of life increases, but we are constantly having to trade up to the newest technology so quickly that the products we have are obsolete in a matter of months. There is some reckoning here with this particular excerpt, because advancement in technology is very benficial to a society and to retard that advancement would put Canada far behind other nations. There is give and take here.

'...we do not propose any policy of outright confiscation...'  'In times of war, human life has been conscripted. Should economic circumstances call for it, conscription of wealth would be more justifiable.'

I really enjoy the way this drips with the sting of an embarassing truth - at least for a time when we had conscription. Who is it that calls for those young men to be sent to war? Those who can profit from war. Imperial Wars continue to plague us, maybe a tad less than our Souther Neighbours, but nonetheless we are ever involved in unjust and largely unproductive wars, while stiffling progress in REAL conflicted parts of the world - Sudan, Rwanda, Tibet.

Included as well was the former part of the paragraph regarding confiscation. Important because it sets the CCF distinctly apart from those highly centralised, Sovietesque totalitarian socialism. The document also speaks of the need for democratic change, and that there is no advocation for violence in their doctrine. Another very important detail in showing the character of the Party and its Manifesto.

'The Canadian Senate, which was originally created to protect provincial rights, but has failed even in this function, has developed into a bulwark of capitalist interests, as is illustrated by the large number of company directorships held by its aged members. In its peculiar composition of a fixed number of members appointed for life it is one of the most reactionary assemblies in the civilized world. It is a standing obstacle to all progressive legislation, and the only permanently satisfactory method of dealing with the constitutional difficulties it creates is to abolish it.'

Refer to my previous comments on the Canadian Senate here.

'The establishment of a commission composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, socially minded jurists and social workers, to deal with all matters pertaining to crime and punishment and the general administration of law, in order to humanize the law and to bring it into harmony with the needs of the people'

'While the removal of economic inequality will do much to overcome the most glaring injustices in the treatment of those who come into conflict with the law, our present archaic system must be changed and brought into accordance with a modern concept of human relationships. The new system must not be based as is the present one, upon vengeance and fear, but upon an understanding of human behaviour. For this reason its planning and control cannot be left in the hands of those steeped in the outworn legal tradition; and therefore it is proposed that there shall be established a national commission composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, socially minded jurists and social workers whose duty it shall be to devise a system of prevention and correction consistent with other features of the new social order.'

Fantastic policy towards crime. If you even get a chance to read Jack Layton's book 'Ideas that Work for Canadians' please do. I picked it up for $2.99 in a bargain bin with the books no one wants, which ironically is where I have found much of my awesome library. But his book talks about thinking outside the box when thinking about politics. There is more to crime than 'bad people, bad decisions' - there are environmental factors to their development into counter-productive citizens. Millions of kids goto school each day without a lunch, which is directly sabotaging their preformance and resulting in kids dropping out. Young students cannot goto universities because of tuition fees, which means that when it comes time for them to create families - the problem becomes cyclical. Addressing crime the way we do has clearly failed to address the root fundamental problems of crime itself. Quit with the band-aid sollutions and get to the heart of the problem.

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

This was changed to a less confrontational and Marxist sounding ending in the Winnipeg Declaration, which I will present in our next meeting. Please return.

But as you can see, this is some quite pertenent stuff here. It is an extremely progressive agenda that was presented here, but one that would make all of Canada a better place and make Canadians even more proud of the country they are already so proud of. More to come on the Winnipeg Declaration later on.