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November 28, 2011 - No. 15
Throne
Speech
and
Fall
Economic
Statement
Workers Need to Take Ontario in a New Direction
- Philip Fernandez -
• Workers
Need
to Take Ontario in a New Direction - Philip
Fernandez
• Opening Ontario to Business Is a Failed
Policy - Jim Nugent
• Throne Speech Deception about Protecting
Health Care - Rob Woodhouse
• McGuinty Government's Tiering of Tuition
Fees
Denies the Right to Education - Christine Nugent
Throne
Speech
and
Fall
Economic
Statement
Workers Need to Take Ontario in a New Direction
- Philip Fernandez -
The Throne Speech convening
the first session of the
40th Ontario Legislature was read by Lieutenant-Governor David Onley on
Tuesday, November 22. The McGuinty Liberals call their plan, which is a
recipe for further wrecking the Ontario economy and disaster for the
people, the "Ontario Way." From beginning
to end it is filled with disinformation and snake-oil aimed at
disarming Ontarians politically and overwhelming any attempt to create
an organized opposition in the form of a political movement based on
the independent politics of the working class.
 One of the main themes of
the Throne Speech is that the
Liberals now have a four-year mandate to carry out their election
campaign promises because they have been elected by the people of
Ontario. Such a claim tries to cover up the legitimacy crisis the
Liberals are facing having garnered less than 18 per cent
of the eligible votes in the provincial election in October.
According to the Throne Speech, over the next four years
the Liberal government "will focus its efforts on strengthening
Ontario's economy and creating jobs." Since the McGuinty Liberals came
to power in 2003, about 500,000 jobs -- mostly in the manufacturing
sector -- have been lost in Ontario. A cursory
examination of the various government of Ontario websites, such as the
Ontario Ministry of Economy and Trade, reveals a paltry number of jobs
created for the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been handed
out to various monopolies to "create jobs in Ontario." The Throne
Speech affirms the McGuinty Liberals'
claim that the only way to create jobs is by investing in
infrastructure projects through P3s, privatizing water resources under
the hoax of "water conservation," "Green Energy" and other pay-the-rich
schemes.
Another major theme of the Throne Speech is that the
Liberals are going to intensify the anti-social offensive to "balance
the budget" by 2017-2018. Emphasis is put on trimming the Ontario
Public Service by a total of seven per cent by 2014 to save $500
million and an additional $200 million through "savings
at major agencies by 2014." To give themselves free rein to make
additional cuts, the Throne Speech notes: "Your government recognizes
that additional, unforeseen expenditures may arise as we move forward"
-- but "any new spending that is not part of our government's current
plan will need to come from savings
realized elsewhere." This means that more cuts to social programs will
be necessary, so stay tuned. Under this plan, thousands of public
sector jobs and programs are to be slashed to save some $700 million by
2014, but there is no discussion about the almost $9 billion paid
annually to service the interest on the $252
billion and growing debt owed by Ontario to a handful of financiers and
bondholders.
Related to the announcement of these coming attacks on
public services and social programs, the Throne Speech refers to the
Drummond Commission for the Reform of Ontario's Public Service, headed
by former TD Bank Chief Economist Don Drummond, noting that the
Commission's report "will make
recommendations on ways to eliminate the deficit and ensure that
Ontario has the fiscal capacity to support strong schools and
hospitals, even as worldwide economic growth slows." Drummond has
already pointed out in the mass media that he will be looking for
"efficiencies" in everything, including health care
and education. This can only mean the further privatization of health
care and education, which the Throne Speech denies will happen.
However, Ontarians have direct experience from the time of the Rae NDP
government, through the Harris-Eves period, to the McGuinty Liberals
that these governments are beholden
to the monopolies and financiers and can change their tune at any time
to service the rich at the expense of the well-being of Ontarians.
Therefore, the Liberals have no shame in asserting that their "plan" is
"not to strengthen our economy for its own sake, or to improve the
lives of a select few -- but so that all [emphasis
added] our families
have opportunities of their own."
 Another claim in the Throne
Speech is
that the Liberals
are going to "work hard to close the socio-economic gap between
Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal Ontarians." The McGuinty Liberals
have had eight years to do something to address the lack of running
water, housing, poor health care and lack of
proper educational facilities that plague many of the First Nations in
the Nishnawbe Aski Nation which make up almost two-thirds of the total
land area of Ontario, such as the housing emergency in Attawapiskat
First Nation on James Bay right now. It has not lifted a finger to
assist these communities. Instead it
passed Bill 191, the Far North Act in September 2010, laying
claim to 22,000 square kilometres of boreal forest, giving itself the
right to decide the use of these lands, including as a conduit to the
"Ring of Fire" mining developments, in opposition to the interests and
treaty rights of First Nations who
consider these lands part of their traditional territory.
The working class and its allies in Ontario have been
demanding ever since the McGuinty Liberals came to power that they do
their duty by upholding public right over monopoly right. They have
taken up their social responsibility and made numerous proposals to
protect the human and natural resources of Ontario
and have called for increased investments to strengthen the Ontario
economy and for increased funding for social programs so that the basic
rights of Ontarians can be guaranteed. It is clear from the Throne
Speech that these demands have fallen on the deaf ears of the arrogant
Liberal government.
The Throne Speech underscores the need for Ontarians to
step up their efforts to build the Workers' Opposition and the
independent political movement of the working class in Ontario -- the
only class capable of mobilizing their numbers and organization to
take Ontario in a much-needed new direction.
Opening Ontario to Business Is a Failed Policy
- Jim Nugent -
Ontario Finance Minister
Dwight Duncan delivered the
government's report on the state of the Ontario economy to the
Legislature on November 23. As Ontario workers assess this report, it
must be measured against this yardstick: The most fundamental duty of
government is to ensure the right to a livelihood.
Has the government met its responsibility for ensuring the livelihoods
of the workers and other people of Ontario?
McGuinty's Liberal Party has been the party in power for
eight years and has organized the economy on the basis of Opening
Ontario for Business, the same policy as the Conservative Party under
Harris and Eves. Measured against the responsibility of ensuring the
livelihoods of workers, the most recent economic
statement of the government shows that this capital-centred approach to
the economy is a failure. When the statement's flowery self-praise is
stripped away and the economy's meat and bones are examined, what can
be seen is stagnation or decline of the economy's most important
elements, including the continuing
catastrophic decline in key goods producing sectors. The statement
admits that there will be several years of low production and high
unemployment.
 Duncan began his report to
the Legislature with a litany
of excuses about why the government has failed its responsibility. "The
global economy is uncertain...," he says and then goes on to blame
Ontario's economic situation on everything from the Tsunami in Japan to
the financial swindling involving the European
Central Bank to the political and financial chaos in the U.S. "In other
cases," Duncan continues, "global economic uncertainty is born out of
nothing more than nervousness and rumours that ripple through the stock
markets, wiping out savings in the process."
Offering these excuses shows that the government does
not consider the livelihoods of the people as an absolute
responsibility but as a matter that is totally out of its hands. These
excuses also beg the question: What did successive Ontario governments
think would be the outcome of Opening Ontario to Business?
Does this not mean annexing the Canadian economy to uncertainties of
global markets and the predation of global monopolies? Does this not
mean making the wealth produced by Ontario's workers available to be
skimmed from the Ontario economy and disappeared into the vaults of the
European bourses and Wall
Street? When Duncan complains about the "nervousness and rumours that
ripple through stock markets" who does he suggest is responsible for
turning the wealth produced by Ontario workers into poker chips in
these casinos?
After making the government's excuses, the statement
goes on to outline a plan for doubling down on its losing hand of
opening up Ontario for business. This plan includes a drastic reduction
in corporate taxes, more privatization partnership opportunities in
infrastructure and other incentives to international monopolies.
It also includes a plan for cutting social programs and public sector
jobs and for imposing higher user fees for public services. These cuts
will increase space in the public sector for investments by the rich
but will increase unemployment and make other economic problems worse.
What most reveals the irresponsibility of the government
is that its economic statement does not even consider solutions put
forward by Ontario workers, even though workers have the most at stake
in sorting out the economy's problems as well as the profound practical
knowledge about the operation of the economy.
Workers and their organizations in the sectors with the most challenges
have put forward solutions, all of which involve the government
ensuring the livelihood of workers by restricting the right of
international monopolies to do as they please.
Workers at U.S. Steel have made a proposal for
reorganization of primary steel on a basis that guarantees the
livelihoods of steel workers and develops a sovereign Canadian economy.
Workers in primary industries in Northern Ontario have made proposals
for restricting the right of monopolies to strip and ship
natural resources as they please. Auto sector workers have made similar
proposals. Workers have demanded an end to the trampling of collective
bargaining rights by the monopolies, which enables them to drive down
wages, increase profits and disappear even more wealth out of the
economy. These solutions which
involve restricting the monopolies are not even considered because the
government's commitment is to monopoly right, not the right of the
people to a livelihood.
The economic statement of the McGuinty government
exposes Opening Ontario to Business as a disaster that offers
nothing but more of this nation-wrecking and pay-the-rich scheming in
the future. It shows that the workers must take concrete measures to
forge a Workers' Opposition on the basis
of providing Ontario with a new direction. This new direction must
begin with a new direction for the economy where the right of the
people to a livelihood is ensured, with no excuses accepted.
Throne Speech Deception about Protecting Health Care
- Rob Woodhouse -
 In its Throne Speech opening
the 40th Ontario
Legislature, the McGuinty government continued the same deceptive
communication strategy around health care policy which Dalton McGuinty
used during the recent election campaign. This strategy is to declare
protection of public health care to be a government
policy priority while organizing a parallel public relations campaign
for further privatization of health care. McGuinty's aim in creating a
fog of double talk around the issue of health care is to block Ontario
workers and the electorate from holding the government to account for
handing the health care system over
to the wrecking of international monopolies
Once again in the Throne Speech Dalton McGuinty's
government pledged it "will protect health care" as it reduces
government spending in the name of balancing the budget and that "the
government will not privatize health care." But in that same speech,
McGuinty provides himself with a loop hole for backpedalling
out of those pledges, the Commission for the Reform of Ontario's Public
Services headed by Don Drummond. Before its next budget, the speech
says, the Ontario government will consider a report by the Drummond
Commission on how to "transform the way your government works and ways
to deliver its services
more efficiently and effectively." As workers know from their battles
with Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford, "efficiency" is the codeword of the rich
for privatization.
While McGuinty continues to create drama around "waiting
for the Drummond Report" as part of his double talk on healthcare,
Drummond has already been reporting for more than a year that an
efficient and effective health care system means more privatization and
works constantly to create public opinion
for this assertion. Four days before the Throne Speech, the reactionary
C.D. Howe Institute released a rant it hired Drummond to write,
"Therapy or Surgery? A Prescription for Canada's Health System." As
with the health care study Drummond did last year for the Toronto
Dominion Bank, it is filled with crisis
mongering about health care costs and presents privatization and
increased user fees as the path to salvation.
During the Throne Speech, McGuinty emphasized
"protection" of health but the next day, when talking to the
millionaires attending the Ontario Economic Summit (OES), he emphasized
the other side of his double talk. The OES is an invitation-only
conference of the CEOs of the top 200 international monopolies
operating in Ontario, organized by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce with
the sponsorship of the Ontario government. The theme of the conference
is increased privatization of health, energy and urban services.
McGuinty first made his usual declaration about
"protecting" health care, "I want to tell Ontarians, yeah, we've got a
tough time before us, but don't worry about health care and don't worry
about education." But then he went on to assure the CEOs he would lead
the attack on health care, "Now, don't get me
wrong, there will be reforms in those areas -- 42 per cent of all the
money we spend here in program spending is devoted to health so we know
there's room for finding efficiencies and making productivity gains.
When you fish for efficiencies you have to fish where the fish are and
there are a lot to be found in
health care."
Health care has long been an arena of conflict between
the interests of Ontario workers and the interests of the international
monopolies aggressively expanding in this sector. The PR campaign led
by McGuinty to promote privatization in the name of "finding
efficiencies" shows that this conflict is sharpening.
The issue at stake in this conflict is: should health care be organized
so the rich can make money off of people's health needs or should
health care be organized on the basis that it is a right of all?
For the rich the Ontario health care system, already
highly privatized, is looked at as a source of even more fabulous
profits if their agenda of privatization could be pushed through to the
end. The banks, the monopolies, anti-worker organizations like C.D.
Howe and the Ontario Economic Summit are determined
to bend public opinion so this question is settled in favour of the
rich. McGuinty's political deception about "protecting" health care is
aimed at blocking the workers from developing their own agenda based on
the principle that health care is a right of all and from developing
their struggle to have this issue settled
in their favour.
The necessity for the working class to uphold the
principle of health care as a right and for restricting the monopolies
from doing as they please can be seen from the experience in those
parts of Ontario's health care system already heavily privatized. One
of these is long-term care. This part of the health system
has been completely converted to a two-tier system, with both tiers
infected with privatization. The lower tier is the publicly funded and
regulated level but operated in a mix of private and public facilities.
It is characterized by severe underfunding, long waiting lists,
shamefully low levels of care -- a horror for both
the patients in the system and the workers providing the services. The
upper tier is operated by private owners, including local millionaires
and international monopolies. It is operated entirely as these owners
see fit. They are given impunity to avoid regulation by using the thin
pretence that their facilities are "retirement
homes." Owners of the private tier use the horror and chaos of the
public-funded tier as a kind of blackmail against seniors and their
families to extort fees as high as $70,000 per patient per year. When
the savings and assets of the patient and family are exhausted, the
patient is dumped back into the public tier.
The necessity for restricting the rich from using the
health care system as a money-making business can also be seen from
international experience. Most other OECD countries have two-tier
systems which Drummond and others say should be considered a source of
"insight" and "models" for reforming the Ontario
system. Included in Drummond's models is the U.S. system. one that is
almost entirely privatized even though it receives massive amounts of
public funds. As a result, in the U.S. an illness becomes an economic
catastrophe for a patient. A recent U.S. study showed that of all of
the personal bankruptcies in the U.S.
last year, one-half involved families which had a major medical
emergency. When monopoly right in health care prevails as it does in
the U.S., illness becomes an opportunity for the rich to suck every
last penny out of a family.
McGuinty's Throne Speech called for parties in the
legislature to co-operate and for all people of Ontario to "work
together" to "renew and reform" health care and other public services
within the conditions of the financial and economic crisis affecting
the province. Organizers of the OES have called on everyone
to "put aside ideological positions" on the question of reforming
health care. But for the working class there can be no "working
together" with those who view providing for the health of the people as
a means of making money. Nor can the workers put aside their
ideological position on this question, that health
care is a right of all and that the duty of government is to ensure
this right. The workers' task is to hold government to account for
ensuring this right.
McGuinty Government's Tiering of Tuition Fees
Denies
the Right to Education
- Christine Nugent -
 The McGuinty Government's
tuition grant, announced in
the November 22 Throne Speech will further tier tuition fees and deny
the right to an education.
The McGuinty government announced a new tuition grant in
its November 22 Throne Speech. The Premier's web site, included among
the highlights from the Throne Speech, "Reducing college and
university tuition by 30 per cent for families earning less than
$160,000 per year..." The tuition grant is not an
overall reduction in tuition fees as the Premiere's site suggests.
Student organizations
cautioned that Ontario families
should not be confused by the announcement. "The government has
not promised to cut tuition fees. Dalton McGuinty is instead offering a
grant that one-third of all students will be eligible to receive," said
Sandy Hudson Chairperson of the Canadian Federation
of Students-Ontario.
It is a tiered grant for full-time undergraduate
students from low- and middle-income families, with an annual family
income of less than $160,000, based on 30 per cent of the average
tuition cost in Ontario. For those who qualify, the grant will amount
to a maximum of $1,600 per student in university and $730
per student in college annually for up to four years of a full-time
undergraduate program. The program is limited to a new McGuinty-created
category of students -- so-called dependent on their parents -- and
with an annual family income of $160,000 or less.
According to student organizations; only one-third of
Ontario students will qualify. This aspect was pointed out and opposed
by student organizations during the recent election campaign.
Professional, international and graduate students, along with all
students considered financially independent of their parents,
and part-time students will be ineligible for the grant.
Astonishingly, 44 per cent of students currently
receiving financial aid through the Ontario Student Assistance Program
(OSAP) are considered independent of their parents and will not be
eligible for the tuition grant, even though they have demonstrated
financial need in order to qualify for OSAP in the first
place. OSAP is a loan program and so those who are dependent on these
loans to finance their education do not qualify for grants through the
new program.
This is a fraud! This Throne Speech is intentionally
deceiving.
Tuition fees in Ontario are the highest in
Canada. They were fourth highest when McGuinty took power in
2003.
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The impression is created that the government is being
accountable to the people and providing education as a right for all.
While McGuinty, the "education premier," boasts of the province's high
standards of education, with 64 per cent of adults holding
postsecondary certificates or degrees, the treachery announced in the
Throne
Speech in fact introduces a tiering of tuition fees with nothing to
prevent tuition fees from continuing to rise. A closer look at the
facts
shows that this is not the case. Through this
method they can continue to keep Ontario tuition fees the highest in
Canada.
The working class and people of Ontario are the
producers of the wealth that we have and the government has a
responsibility to use this wealth to provide social programs like
education for the people. This is an attack on the universal
arrangements that have existed in order to undermine these rights. It
is part
of the McGuinty government's wrecking in order to continue to pay the
rich and open Ontario for business.
Increase Funding for Social
Programs!
Ontario provides the lowest base funding for students of
all of the provinces in Canada. The tuition grant, available to just
one-third of students, does not address this structural problem.
The lack of public funding to Ontario Universities and
Colleges places both the working conditions of the education workers
and the learning conditions of the students in a dire situation.
The burden of the lack of funds has resulted in
increasing fees to students and their families for a variety of
services such as registration, technology, financial aid, sports and
recreation, food, housing, books, parking and convocation, many which
are subject
to arbitrary implementation and increases. Rules are in place that
restrict the purposes
for which ancillary fees, separate from tuition fees, can be charged.
In 2007, the Ontario government itself faced a class action suit that
information technology fees, lab fees and library fees to be charged to
Ontario college students were in fact a disguised tuition fee increase
prohibited by the government itself!
All human beings belong to society and have the right to
their claims on it, including the right to education. The tuition grant
will not provide affordable and accessible education for all. On the
contrary, it is being introduced to destroy universality.
The tuition grant must be replaced with a cut in tuition
fees for
all. User fees must be abolished! Tuition fees must at minimum be
reduced to the national average then frozen and eventually eliminated.
Funding per student in Ontario must be increased to meet the national
average. Any scheme to introduce a tiering of
social programs must be resisted.
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