Sid Ryan: sidryanforndp.ca
It has been a tough few weeks for progressive politics in North America, but it has been better for some progressives than for others. Just as Donald Trump’s inauguration marked the beginning of an entirely new era in world politics, complete with bans on Muslim immigration and attacks on reproductive rights, a new protest movement woke up. If the juxtaposition between the failure of Hillary Clinton’s presidential run and the massive, defiant demonstrations that swept across the western world has illustrated anything, it is that the alternative to Trump will come from a new insurgent political movement, not the centrist liberalism that has dominated electoral politics for decades.
North of the border in Canada, there is as yet no successful rightwing demagogue drawing mass support from disenchantment with globalisation, but here, as across the western world, the same process is underway. The shine is slowly coming off Justin Trudeau’s Liberal administration after more than a year of post-election honeymoon, which has witnessed a gender balanced cabinet, steps to legalise marijuana, and nods towards electoral reform – but an economic programme still wedded to free trade deals and the construction of gas pipelines. What Canada also lacks is its own version of the new insurgent leftwing politics, something comparable to Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn.
