Post

Nothing Avi Lewis is saying is remotely “extreme,” but the rightward shift of media over three decades would make it seem that way to many.

Harsha Walia@harshawalia.bsky.social

The immediate status quo, centrist attacks on Avi Lewis are precisely why he is effective and needed. In face of growing right wing escalation, an unbashadely left opposition that is anti capitalist & internationalist is both principled *and* realistic.

I really have no idea but I think if someone in federal politics could have competently articulated anti-neoliberalism in the 90s we might be a very different country today. But that’s about when the NDP let it go

0 reposts3 likes

I'm just not as convinced that the overton window has shifted as far to the right in Canada in the last 30 years as you implied because I think of Jean Chretien as WAAAAY to the right of Justin Trudeau and I think that on some (many?) files people would argue that he was also to the right of Carney.

I think there are many more factors at play in that shift than the individual political position of prime ministers. Most relevant among them to rightward shift: centralization of executive power, political impunity, surveillance capacity, economic inequality, erosion of social & health protections.

I guess the thing is that I view the Trudeau government (2015-2025) as the most left-wing gov't that's been elected in my lifetime, and possibly ever, so it's difficult for me to interpret anything that's happening today, even under Carney, as being to "the right" of what was happening in the 1990s.

I don’t agree with this characterization. Trudeau spoke the language of progressive politics but the material reality he delivered was table scraps while all the things I listed above continued more or less unhindered.

It'll be interesting to see what the impact of a leftward shift of the NDP will be given that we continue to live in a country where the CPC won the popular vote in 5 of the last 7 elections and the only living person to ever lead the NDP to 3rd in an election is... persona non grata in the NDP now.