Remaining Loyal: Social Democracy in Quebec and Saskatchewan.

AuthorGruending, Dennis
PositionBook review

Remaining Loyal: Social Democracy in Quebec and Saskatchewan, by David McGrane, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 373p.

David McGrane has written an ambitious book about social democracy in Saskatchewan and Quebec. His thesis is that the CCF-NDP and PQ governments were social democratic in a traditional sense under premiers such as Tommy Douglas and Allan Blakeney in Saskatchewan, as well as Rene Levesque and Jacques Parizeau in Quebec. McGrane believes that later governments evolved into third way social democracy under other premiers, including Roy Romanow and Lome Calvert in Saskatchewan and Bernard Landry and Pauline Marois in Quebec.

An associate professor of political studies at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan, McGrane creates a complex template in order to build his thesis. He defines the ideologies that comprise traditional social democracy and the third way and compares them to his definition of neo-liberalism. McGrane says that social democracy in both of its guises is primarily concerned with the economic inequality inherent in unfettered capitalism, while neo-liberalism frets about the welfare state and excessive public intervention in the economy. Ontario's Mike Harris, for example, fit into a neoliberal mould when he cut taxes, privatized public organizations, introduced workfare and cut welfare rates upon his election as premier.

McGrane says that traditional social democrats focused on universal social programs and used progressive income taxes and royalty revenue from resources to help pay for them. Universal public health care in Canada, for example, was pioneered by the CCF in Saskatchewan in 1962. The Douglas government also set up Crown corporations for automobile insurance, telephones, electricity and gas distribution. Premier Allan Blakeney moved the public sector aggressively into resource development, mainly through joint ventures involving Crown corporations and private business partners. Blakeney consciously used revenues from Crown corporations, as well as increased resource rents, to pay for programs such as a provincial pharmacare plan and a children's dental program in schools.

The PQ under Levesque created several new public enterprises and had the Caisse de depot, which manages public pension plans in Quebec, buy shares in francophone businesses to help them expand and...

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