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Ontario Election Called for June 12
Parliamentary Politics Do Not Offer Workers
a
Choice or Alternative
May
8, 2014 - The 41st Ontario general election officially began
yesterday with the signing of the writ. Premier Kathleen Wynne
requested Lieutenant Governor General David Onley dissolve the
Legislature and call an election for June 12.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath previously announced that her
party would vote against the Wynne government's May 1 budget. She said
the Liberal government had lost the confidence of Ontarians and that
Wynne could not be trusted to deliver what some have said is a
"progressive" budget, tailored to the NDP. "The same government that
couldn't fulfill three promises over the last year is making more than
70 new promises this year. How can Kathleen Wynne build a ship, when
she hasn't managed to build a raft?" Horwath said.
The PCs did not support the budget either -- a position
they have taken all along. According to PC Leader Tim Hudak, the budget
does not indicate any ways to lower the debt.
Wynne said it would be better to hold an election than
wait to see her minority Liberal government defeated in a confidence
vote on the budget.
Each party began campaigning immediately.
Since the General Election in 2011 that ended with a
minority government, the ruling circles have been unable to produce a
champion that can get the working people to accept the need for the
austerity agenda. The
intervention of the working people in the Kitchener-Waterloo
by-election denied the Liberals a majority and the PCs any initiative
or momentum. The opposition of the working people has led to the
resignation of former Premier McGuinty and other high level Cabinet
Ministers, including the Minister of Finance, and a deepening
legitimacy crisis for austerity. Since the selection of Wynne as
Premier by the Liberal Party, not the people, the crisis of legitimacy
has deepened. The unfolding gas plant and other scandals have exposed
the
corruption and shown how the public purse is used to enrich private
interests.
The decision to hold an election at this time clearly
does not emanate from the necessity to resolve any pressing problems
facing the people of Ontario. It is an attempt to resolve the
contradictions between the parties and the private interests they serve
about how best to deliver austerity and privatization. A majority
government is coveted by the ruling circles so that the anti-social
offensive can be imposed with impunity.
 The working people are being
told to line up behind the
Liberals or the NDP, or a combination of both in what is being called
strategic voting. On the one hand they are told that the budget is
favourable to the working people and this means the Liberals should be
supported; on the other hand, they are told that the NDP should be
supported on the basis of delivering the promises which the Liberals'
will not keep.
At the same time the ruling circles are introducing the
notion that Ontario requires a majority government because under a
minority government nothing will get done and the province is doomed.
When the workers discuss their experience they are clear
that all the parties in the Legislature are completely outside of their
control, even if they sit on riding association executives or are
heavily involved in election campaigns. The private interests
that have taken over the parties are the ones who decide. Whether it be
stacking votes, manipulating membership lists or other methods of
control, anything goes
in the fight to take power.
The parties do not operate as primary political
organizations through which the people can have a say about the
direction of their society. They are marketing
machines built and operated with the sole aim of winning power at any
cost in order to favour a certain section of international finance
capital which wants
to use the state power to enrich itself and keep competitors at bay.
During elections they use sophisticated databases and marketing
techniques to manipulate
the electorate in order to gain enough seats to win power. As a result,
no public interest is upheld and anything which gets in the way of
winning and serving
those private interests is seen as a block to be destroyed; including
public institutions such as school boards, local unions, electoral
bodies, the judiciary
and established legal frameworks such as the post second world war
labour relations
regime, health and safety regulations, compensation systems for injured
workers, or the
country itself in the form of borders and regulations, etc.
Meanwhile, in this election a real danger
exists that the Hudak PCs, who unabashedly promote the anti-social
austerity agenda and attacks on labour, will take advantage of the
split in the labour movement between the Liberals and the NDP to get
themselves elected.Ontario Political
Forum calls on the working people of Ontario to make sure this
does not happen.
Ontario Political Forum
thinks that the best outcome in this election is to make sure no
government gets a majority to do as they wish. Look at what is
happening federally and in the provinces where governments have a
majority. They are shamelessly imposing a vicious anti-social offensive
and cannot be held to account. The workers will have to work out for
themselves in each riding how to keep out the PCs and Liberals who have
been championing the austerity agenda thus far, and express their views
against austerity loud and clear.
Make sure the champions of austerity are not given a mandate! Hold the
candidate you vote for to account! Austerity No! Monopoly Interests No!
Public Right Yes!
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: ontario@cpcml.ca
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