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Health Care Is a Right!
A New Blow Against the Liberals' Version of Austerity
April 9, 2014 - Ontario Political Forum
congratulates the Ontario Health Coalition for its extensive work in
organizing a referendum in which Ontarians voted against cuts to local
hospitals and the government's schemes to privatize public health care
by contracting out services. Votes took place in malls, farmers
markets, workplaces and other public places in communities across the
province. Fifty-six thousand Ontarians took a stand in the referendum
with the vast majority voting against the privatization of health care
and cuts to services.
In two weeks, hundreds of volunteers made it their
business to give Ontarians a chance to express their opposition to cuts
to their local hospitals and the
privatization of health care delivery being carried out by the Wynne
government.
In so doing they have exposed another aspect of the
austerity agenda which the Liberals are championing: the use of public
funds to pay for the delivery
of public services by private interests through contracting out, such
as health care, education and direct government
services.
The referendum follows similar votes in places such as
Niagara and Kingston where local activists for health care gave
residents a chance to take a stand
through the referendum and send a message to all governments and
parties
that they do not accept the privatization of their health care system,
nor cuts to hospitals
in the name of "efficiency."
The referendum is another stinging blow to the  illegitimate austerity agenda being pursued by
the Liberals and the PCs. It shows that the working people
have their own demands and agenda, in this case for their right to
health care, and that they do not accept being told to give up their
fight for rights for fear
of electing the PCs as the Wynne government would have them do. This is
of importance given that the Liberals and PCs both hope to keep the
working people passive so either can pull off an electoral coup in a
coming general election.
Opposition to austerity is growing because the agenda of
the Liberals to turn over public services to private interests is a
fraud to hand over large amounts of public
funds to the rich. The Liberals claim that this is being done on a
trial basis, and only for certain procedures but it is aimed at trying
to get Ontarians to give
up their staunch opposition to the privatization of health care.
While the Harper government has openly destroyed the
Canada
Health
Accord to give itself more arbitrary powers over the
delivery and funding
of health care, no doubt in order to privatize it nationally,
provincial governments such as the Liberals in Ontario refuse to affirm
that health care is a right
that must be guaranteed by the society. Instead, they use the crisis
created by cutting funds from health care to pay the rich in order to
contract out public services,
thus paying the rich in other ways.
The private delivery of public health care removes
massive amounts of added-value from the economy in the form of profit
and lower wages and worsened
working conditions for health care workers. The claim that
privatization "reduces
costs" is a fraud as it merely shifts the costs onto the people as
private clinics nickel
and dime their patients and employees and push for the lowest standards
possible in order to maximize their returns.
While the Wynne government talks about accountability
and transparency it is to cover up that it is giving itself more and
more arbitrary powers to attack
public services and the workers who provide them in order to push an
illegitimate austerity agenda the people clearly do not accept. The
whole exercise of the
referendum has put another dent in the attempts of the Liberals to
present their version of austerity as "fair" or "progressive."
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