Ontario Political Forum

Tens of thousands of Ontario workers rally in defence of their rights against attacks by the McGuinty government, outside the Liberal Leadership Convention at Maple Leaf Gardens, January 26, 2013.

No Means No!
All Out to Express Opposition to the Austerity Agenda Championed by the Liberals and PCs!

Polling day is August 1 for the five by-elections. Ontario Political Forum congratulates the working people of Ontario who have used the campaign period to build up their organizations and wage a fight against the fraudulent austerity agenda and its champions, the Liberals and PCs. As a result of this work, to varying degrees, people in the ridings have access to a mechanism to show their opposition to the corruption and fraud of both the Liberals and PCs and the neo-liberal austerity agenda they both champion. These parties rule or seek to rule on behalf of a handful of monopolies and finance capitalists whose only aim in life is to make big scores off the people's backs.

On the eve of the vote, the airwaves are filled with attempts to drown the concerns of the working people in speculation about a PC surge in the final days of the campaign. Even the NDP is ignored despite the fact that it could win in several ridings. Everything is done to suggest there is a hot race between Liberals and PCs. The fact that the by-elections were called when practically nobody is around and nobody is in a mood to discuss which variant of a make-the-rich-pay program is better than another is of no concern to the Liberals or PCs or the monopoly-controlled media which supports them. This is what the ruling circles don't want the people to render a verdict on during these by-elections. Such elections make a mockery of the very thought that elections are democratic and confer legitimacy on whatever government gets a majority of the seats.

An increasing number of people are refusing to sit idly by as the farce unfolds. More and more people are in action to end their powerlessness in the face of the situation. They are making links with one another, mobilizing their colleagues and friends to defeat both the Liberals and PCs and arguing that the unity of the people can be built to defeat the neo-liberal anti-social offensive.

Ontario Political Forum calls on all those who oppose the anti-social offensive to join the final push to make sure that the voice of the working people is heard at the polls by getting as many votes as possible against the Liberals and PCs in all five ridings. It is only in fighting and taking a stand to change the situation that new horizons appear and new ground in the fight for rights is broken.

Make Every Vote Count!
All Out to Express Opposition to the Austerity Agenda Championed by the Liberals and PCs!
No Means No! Get Out the Vote to Make Sure the Workers' Voice Is Heard!

Building the Independent Politics of Workers
Is a Stand for Empowerment

Various social forces from among the working people and the electorate are intervening in the five by-elections in an effort to put forward their own agenda. In particular, work is being done in all of the ridings to say No! to the austerity and anti-worker agenda being led by the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives in a call to vote against these parties.

The political parties and the monopoly-owned media are revealing themselves once again as blocks to the empowerment of the people. Recent media reports focus on polls showing candidates and parties in the lead and "poised to win" in certain ridings. This is in addition to the vast propaganda unleashed by each party aimed at imposing an agenda on the people. All of it ends up reasserting the interests of the parties to undermine the independent politics of workers by focusing on the parties rather than the efforts of the people to affirm their democratic rights. Indeed, the aim of elections becomes political parties winning while what the people want is ignored, and the full participation of everyone in the political process is actively suppressed in various ways.

Political activists from Etobicoke-Lakeshore are joined by Hamilton Steelworkers at Kipling subway station, July 30, 2013,
to distribute Justice for Injured Workers and call on residents to take an independent stand in the by-election.

Workers are rejecting the attempts to sideline their right to participate in the political process as they see fit by taking up their own independent political demands, empowering themselves and in the process empowering others. In so doing they block the attempts by the political parties, assisted by the media in their service, to usurp the political space for their interests so it is occupied by competing sections of the rich. By having their own discussions and building forums for discussion and dissemination of their views, workers set their own agendas and work to implement them. In these by-elections the workers' opposition continues to affirm itself, its rights and its dignity on the political front.

In the course of putting their issues on the agenda during the by-elections, working people should also assess what is needed to renew the political process in order to bring into being a system that facilitates, not negates, their full participation. Regardless of the results, this will be important work going forward to open up the space for change based on people themselves being elected, electing their peers and establishing a political power of their own. Ontario Political Forum will continue to facilitate this discussion and report on the work of the working people to affirm their rights.

Concerns About Voter Turnout

It is widely recognized from all sides that the timing of the by-elections will result in low voter turnout. This is not being raised from the standpoint of finding ways to get the people to vote or participate by putting their concerns on the agenda, or from the standpoint of finding ways to give the people more of a say in elections and the political process. Instead it is presented as a fact of life that governments manipulate elections to keep the people and their concerns out. Then so-called solutions are presented, such as online voting or other schemes, as if the problem is with the electorate not with the party system. These do not address the unrepresentative nature of the political system and the corruption of political parties openly manipulating the political system for their own gain. Such solutions will not deal with the unrepresentative nature of the political system, but only make it worse as the electorate is left more and more disconnected from the political process itself.

What the Working People Can Expect
On and After Voting Day

Regardless of the outcome of the August 1 by-elections, the working people can expect a stepped up assault on their thinking and organization. The assault is already taking shape in various ways. Just as Premier Wynne opened the by-elections by invoking the need to deal with the debt and deficit -- something the PCs made the central point in their election campaign -- Ontario's working people will be told that with the by-elections now sorted out, the government has to get down to the business of dealing with "the economy." By this is meant implementing measures such as those put forward by former TD Banker Don Drummond to restructure social programs so as to free up billions of Ontarians' tax dollars on a permanent basis to pay the moneylenders and various monopolies. The recent filing for bankruptcy by the city of Detroit, Michigan, a U.S. jurisdiction bordering Ontario, is already being used, as was Greece's economic crisis last year to invoke fear and "sky is falling" rhetoric to scare Ontarians into accepting an agenda which is against their interests and will make matters worse for the working people while enriching a few.

Under the Harris government from 1995-2002 the same claims were made about the need to pay down the debt and deficit as are being made today. Using this pretext social programs required by everyone, especially the most vulnerable, were slashed to bits with some sold off to private interests anxious to make a big score. The corruption is such that Harris's wife, profiting from the destruction wrought on public health care by the Harris regime at the behest of private interests who wanted Ontario "open for business," now runs a private nursing operation in Canada franchised from the U.S. The government at that time, as is the case with the Liberals now, in fact did not reduce spending, but freed up billions to pay the debt and deficit and also various monopolies through privatization schemes and straight handouts. At the end of the Harris/Eves term the debt was $30 billion larger than when Harris came into office!

The push to make dealing with the debt and deficit a priority is an ongoing fraud of the finance capitalists and ruling circles in Ontario that is being championed by the Liberals and PCs who have been taken over by these interests. The fact that the Minister of Finance is a former Senior Manager of the Royal Bank of Canada is an example of the way in which these interests have become politicized. They do not want to actually deal with the debt and deficit, which would require a moratorium on interest payments on the debt and nation building to establish new sources of revenue. They instead use them as a weapon to justify attacks on the public interest which they know would otherwise not be considered legitimate.

Regardless of the outcome of the voting, the working people's opposition to attacks on the social programs they require and on their rights as workers is a stand against the neoliberal austerity agenda and a block to the schemes of both the Liberals and PCs to raid the public purse like thieves looking for big scores. The stand to defeat the Liberals and PCs is a stand in defence of the public interest.

Liberals Defend Harris-Era Anti-Labour Laws

The Liberals are attempting to blackmail the workers into supporting their government with warnings that things would be much worse for working people under a Hudak Conservative government. While putting in place measures to drive down the living standard of working people demanded by the ruling elite, the Liberals create the illusion that they are a balanced alternative to the Conservatives. The aim of the Liberal blackmail and illusions is to block the development of the workers' opposition to the offensive of the rich against working people.

The Liberals have been in power now for ten years. If the Liberals were in fact a balanced alternative to the Conservatives, would this not be reflected in their legislative record since coming to power? Would a balanced alternative not fix some of the anti-worker, anti-union legislation that was the hallmark of the Harris Conservatives? The Liberals, despite riding into power on a tide of opposition to the Conservatives, have left almost the entire anti-worker, anti-union legislative legacy of the Harris Conservatives in place. They even appointed Harris' first Labour Minister Elizabeth Witmer as head of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in their scheme to win a majority, claiming her experience showed she would do a good job! How can this be considered a balanced alternative to the anti-social Conservatives?

The sole significant change the Liberals made to Harris' labour legislation was the partial reinstatement of card-based certification. This applied only to the construction sector. In other sectors, the Harris ban on card-based union certification, which makes union organizing difficult, was continued by the Liberals. The thousands of pages of anti-labour legislation passed by the Harris Conservatives were left untouched. The Liberals' refusal to overturn any of the Harris anti-worker, anti-union legislation should be enough to dispel any illusions in the workers' movement about the direction they want to push Ontario. But the Liberal contribution to the war of the rich on workers goes much further.

The Liberal government has also been vigorously defending Harris' anti-worker, anti-union laws in the courts whenever they are challenged by workers. This includes several cases where workers were seeking protection from the Supreme Court for freedom of association. These Liberal court actions not only allowed the continuation and consolidation of the Harris anti-worker legislation in Ontario, but also allowed the grandees of the Supreme Court to make rulings setting back the exercise of workers' rights all across the country.

The most infamous of the Harris laws defended by the Liberal government is the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002, a Harris law which denies migrant farm workers and other farm workers the right to collective bargaining. The Liberals spent millions of dollars defending this case up to the Supreme Court. Liberal efforts resulted in the shameful 2011 decision of the Supreme Court known as the Fraser Decision.

The Fraser Decision ruled that provincial governments are free to discard the Rand Formula, good faith bargaining and any other union rights workers assumed they had under the post-war social contract. The court ruled that within their jurisdictions provincial governments can impose any regime of collective bargaining they see fit, even when the provincial regime makes a mockery of the freedom of association as in the Agricultural Employees Protection Act. This is the same anti-worker direction as the "right to be slave labour bills" known as "right to work" from the PCs.

A case currently before the Ontario Labour Relations Board is tied up with another example of the Liberal government defending Harris-era anti-labour laws in the courts, their defence of the Harris law on "non-construction employers." This law allows municipalities, school boards and other entities operating construction projects to declare themselves exempt from laws on union recognition in the construction sector and opens the door to non-union and anti-union contractors on their construction projects.

The current case involves the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners' application to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) for union certification for some construction workers employed by the Waterloo Regional Municipality. Waterloo wants to avoid union recognition by declaring itself a "non-construction employer." This case could affect rights of union workers on the $320 million Kitchener waste water plant, on the planned Kitchener-Waterloo Light Rail Transit and other projects. There are also fights taking place around the "non-construction employer" law in Toronto, Windsor, Hamilton and other cities and regions.

In a similar case last year, a government agency, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) was seeking "non-construction employer" status in order to invalidate construction union contracts. A 2011 OLRB decision on the IESO case ruled the Harris non-construction employer law is a violation of workers' constitutional right to freedom of association. The Liberal government fought this OLRB ruling in the courts. The Liberals succeeded in having the OLRB ruling overturned and had the courts further narrow the scope of "freedom of association" as it applies to construction unions.

The Carpenters will have to deal with this precedent in their application. Lined up with the Ontario government, Waterloo Region, and the anti-union and non-union contractors against the Carpenters' certification application is the yellow union, Christian Labour Alliance of Canada (CLAC), which has intervenor status at the hearing.

This case, the Fraser decision, others in recent years and other ongoing cases where the Liberals are defending Harris-era labour laws and fighting against workers' rights in the courts expose the fraud of Liberal "balance." The Liberals, along with the Conservatives, are part of the war of the rich on working people, not a defence against it.

Reject Liberal blackmail and illusions that Liberal balance is an alternative to the Conservative threat! Our security lies in our fight for the rights of all!

Variations on Takeover of Local Bargaining Rights

The Wynne government is preparing to legislate a new regime of provincial collective bargaining in the fall with teachers and education workers that many expect will seek to codify interference in the collective bargaining rights of local unions and their employers, the school boards. In other sectors, the government is operating in other ways to limit local decision-making.

In some cases in the public sector, local hospital boards, their CEOs and provincial associations that implement the austerity agenda, are being used by the government to make it appear as if negotiating directly with the provincial government would benefit health care workers rather than going through the old arrangements. This situation is similar to how the Liberals enticed teachers and education workers' unions to enter into provincial discussion tables in past contract negotiations. Meanwhile bringing teachers and education workers to the provincial table was all to prepare the conditions to violate the rights of local bargaining units and impose austerity overtly on the sector later. The experience of teachers and education workers is important to consider as other public sector workers, especially those in health care, begin their negotiations. Ensuring that new arrangements are not used to undermine the ability of workers to defend their rights has emerged as an important concern of the working people, given their experience with all the transformations and changes being put in place to weaken workers' organizations and their rights.

Health Care Is a Right!

On July 24-25, contingents of workers from many sectors of the economy, in particular health care workers and professionals, converged on the meeting of the Council of the Federation in Niagara-on-the-Lake to oppose the attacks on their rights and on the public health care system. They pariticipated in a Shadow Summit organized by the Canadian and Ontario Health Coalitions and held a mass rally at the site of the meeting of Canada's Premiers. Consistent in all the demands of those gathered were calls for increased investments in health care as a way to reverse the cuts and privatization currently taking place and prevent it in the future. Many brought forward specific demands in response to cuts to hospitals and health care services across Ontario being carried out in the name of "transformations." A delegation of teachers and education workers also distributed their call to defeat the Liberals and PCs in the Ontario by-elections as a mechanism to hold governments to account for their attacks on public services such as health care and the workers who provide them.

Injured Workers Affirm Their Rights in London West

On July 27 a public information picket was held outside London-West Liberal candidate Ken Coran's office. The picket was held to oppose the attacks on workers compensation benefits by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board on behalf of the government and the austerity agenda it is championing.

Participants included members of the Justice for Injured Workers group in London who were joined by representatives of the Hamilton and District Injured Workers' Group (HDIWG), steelworkers from Local 1005 USW, as well as members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. Participants distributed the Justice for Injured Workers newspaper and report receiving many honks of support from the public.

The next Justice for Injured Workers rally will be held on Friday, September 13 from 3-5 pm at the London offices of the WSIB -- 148 Fullarton Street.

Retirees Demand Governments Defend Their Interests

On July 28 an All-Candidates Forum was co-organized by the Windsor chapter of the National Pension Reform Committee and the Windsor chapter of CARP -- Canadian Advocacy for Retired Persons (previously known as the Canadian Association of Retired Persons). At the forum demands for candidates to defend the interests of retired persons and their pensions at the provincial level were put forward in the form of questions from the organizers. The forum was an expression of the desire of seniors to participate in the political process and defend their interests as governments more and more seek to eliminate the voice and concerns of the people while they attack their living conditions. The Liberal candidate for example refused to participate in the forum, with campaign workers explaining that he felt the time would be better spent going door to door. The refusal of the Liberals to even listen to the concerns of seniors in the forum was roundly denounced by many participants.

Ottawa Social Service Workers Oppose Undermining Public Services and Attacking Workers' Rights in the Name of Efficiency

Social service workers in Ottawa are raising the Wynne government's attack on their job security and the important services they deliver as an issue in the Ottawa South by-election. Social service workers and their supporters are calling on the homes of voters in Ottawa South to make people aware of the harm being caused by the Wynne government's cuts to social services as part of the austerity agenda it is championing. They are urging electors to demand that the Wynne government reverse its decision to cancel the funding of the agency employing them, Therapeutic and Educational Living Centres Inc. (TELCI).

TELCI is a not-for-profit agency delivering housing and residential support services to 24 people with visual and developmental disabilities. Effective July 31, the Ministry of Community and Social Services has eliminated its funding. This will result in the termination of the jobs of the 40 social service workers and the loss of important public services these people require.

Many of those who rely on the agency have been supported by the same social service workers for many years. Relatives of the clients are very anxious about the long-term relationships between their loved ones and their caregivers being severed and the effect it will have on their well-being. Relatives of those who use the agency are also among those out knocking on doors in Ottawa South to make people aware of the situation.

The TELCI workers are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1521-03. The spokesperson for the workers, Joyce Nolan, described the group's participation in the by-election: "So far we've been to 2,000 homes in Ottawa South with our message about keeping staff and residents together. Our fear is that, once the by-election is over, the Liberals won't care what the community thinks. The fact is that, after July 30, when we are all laid off, these residents -- who are our friends as well as our clients -- will be cared for by strangers and the results can be catastrophic."

The funding cut, after 30 years of successful service delivery by TELCI, is the result of the kind of administrative "efficiencies" recommended by the notorious Drummond Report commissioned by former Premier McGuinty on the Reform of Public Services. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have taken up Drummond's recommendations as their own. It represents the kind of administrative "efficiency" that disregards the needs of the people who rely on services. To save a few dollars in administration, clients will be transferred to other agencies which have no knowledge whatever of the particular individuals involved. It is also a union-busting exercise. The Ministry plan makes no provision for the unionized social service workers to be transferred to other agencies with their clients. The workers will have to "re-apply" at the other agencies for their old jobs.

In an attempt to diffuse the opposition of the families of clients, the manager for the Ministry has sent a letter to the families of clients ensuring them that "the outcome of this process is that all of the TELCI individuals will continue living in their current home or apartment with the same friends they have shared for many years..." This despite the fact that there is no guarantee or even a reasonable expectation that the clients will be reunited with the caregivers they are accustomed to after the Ministry completes its cost-cutting shake-up. This uncertainty is greatly increased by the Ministry's trampling on the job security rights of the caregivers in the transition process.

The social service workers of TELCI and the relatives of the clients are perfectly justified in their demand that the government reverse its decision about funding and guarantee continuity of care. They are perfectly justified in using the by-election in Ottawa South to inform the electorate about the harm the government is doing and to mobilize the people to make the government stop.

The actions of the social service workers and their supporters in the Ottawa South by-election is also a contribution to the trend that has been developing in the by-elections of working people finding ways to independently advance their own interests and the general public interest in the political arena.

No Means No! All Out to Express Opposition to the Austerity Agenda Championed by the Liberals and PCs!