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December 14, 2011 - No. 17

Ontario Workers Called on to Oppose McGuinty and Harper Anti-Social, Anti-Worker Agenda

Agenda of the New Ontario Legislature
Whose Economy? Our Economy! Who Decides? We Decide! - Steve Rutchinski

Health Care
Ministry of Health's Hypocritical Push for Community Care - Rob Woodhouse

Privatization Agenda
McGuinty's Green Energy Swindle - Jim Nugent
Privatized Education Opens Door to Corruption - College Workers Discussion Group
Harper Dictatorship's Intervention in Barrie Municipal Arrangements - Christine Nugent

Toronto Budget Process
Abuse of Power Continues - David Greig


Agenda of the New Ontario Legislature

Whose Economy? Our Economy!
Who Decides? We Decide!

Last week, on December 7, the Ontario Legislature voted 69 to 37 to approve the Speech from the Throne. The speech was adopted with 52 Liberals and 17 NDP MPPs voting in favour. The 37 Conservative MPPs voted against adopting the Throne Speech because an amendment proposed by Conservative Party Leader Tim Hudak for a "legislated mandatory wage freeze to control the cost and size of government" was defeated.

When the Throne Speech was presented to the Legislature on November 22, Premier McGuinty said the number one priority of the government "is to build a strong economy that creates good jobs and supports the services our families need." Key features of the Throne Speech as to how the government intends to do that include a $600 million cut in corporate taxes to "aggressively pursue new investment in the Ontario economy;" a seven per cent reduction of the public service by 2014 and restructuring delivery of public services according to a soon to be released blueprint being proposed by the corporate elite in the person of former TD Bank Chief Economist Don Drummond.

Debate on the Throne Speech took place over the course of eight days. Much of that time was in fact allocated to give new MPPs an opportunity to rise, introduce themselves and thank their election teams and the constituents who voted for them. Not one of the key Liberal cabinet ministers even bothered to speak. Liberal interventions were left mainly to parliamentary assistants of various cabinet ministers.

Ontario Political Forum rejects the government response set out in the Throne Speech, to what it calls "slow economic growth globally." "Aggressive pursuit of new investment" is a euphemism for handouts to monopolies. It is not going to solve this crisis. The government should stop paying the rich through corporate handouts, tax cuts, or privatization of public services to provide investment opportunities to monopoly interests, as Don Drummond is about to recommend. Attacking the jobs, wages and working conditions of public service employees is only going to deepen the crisis and will not solve any problems facing our economy or our society whatsoever.

There are alternatives. The Fall Economic Outlook 2011 for example notes that the McGuinty government has written off close to $3 billion in restructuring handouts[1] given over to Chrysler and GM. A result of restructuring is that 38,000 auto manufacturing jobs were wiped out between 2007 and 2009, financed in part by the Ontario provincial government. In the auto parts industry, another 61,000 jobs were lost over the same period. The Ontario government should insist on repayment of every penny, plus damages and costs to society, not write off $3 billion in loans to these two auto monopolies.

Ontario would not be facing the fiscal crisis it is currently were it not for "aggressive pursuit of new investment" such as McGuinty's "green energy" job fraud (see article in this issue) that pays monopolies like Samsung ten times more than the average market price for electricity. That deal alone will cost the Ontario workers and our economy $7 billion over 20 years. And that is only one such pay-the-rich scheme in the energy sector.

The Ontario government has agreed to pay roughly $1 billion to Greenfield South Power Authority NOT to build a 280 megawatt gas-fired electricity generating facility originally contracted to be built in Mississauga. As well, another one liner in the Fall Economic Outlook 2011 refers to $1.35 billion for "power contract costs" -- guaranteed payments to private energy producers over the market price for which electricity is sold. Meanwhile water rights to generate hydroelectric power that forest monopolies like Abitibi had been granted permission to use to support pulp and paper operations in communities throughout Northern Ontario have been handed over for the monopolies to sell off for private enrichment. Abitibi realized more than $790 million in cash and debt reduction through sale for private gain of public water rights.

Debt servicing is another area where the government is giving away the assets of society to pay the rich. Ontario's debt currently stands at roughly $250 billion and is expected to increase to $325 billion by 2017-18, when debt load will exceed 40 per cent of the annual gross domestic product. The Provincial government is currently paying roughly $10 billion a year on interest payments alone. This is money that could be spent on social programs, health care, education or transportation. Instead, financiers and Canadian banks in particular, take this money out of our economy. Two-thirds of Ontario's debt is held domestically. Is it any wonder that two years out of the recession, Canadian banks are declaring record profits!

A moratorium on debt servicing is entirely justified. Ontario has more than paid off any debt incurred. In the eleven year period 2000-01 to 2010-2011 Ontario paid $94.6 billion in debt servicing. In five of those years Ontario had budget surpluses while over the entire decade the province incurred new debt amounting to $41.2 billion, 96 per cent of which has been incurred in the past three years 2008-09 to 2010-11. Yet the provincial debt has steadily increased from $132.6 billion in 2002 to $214.5 billion in 2010-11.[2]

Finally, the issue is control of our economy. After the workers, who are the producers of the wealth, next claim on the social product in our economy belongs to the government to pay for the social programs and infrastructure required for a modern society. Gross domestic product of Ontario increased from $477.8 billion in 2002 to $533.2 billion in 2007 (measured in constant 2002 dollars). With the onset of the crisis the GDP fell to $529.3, $509.4 and $524.4 billion respectively for 2008, 2009, 2010. With the onset of the crisis, profits of the rich also fell. From $59.0 billion in 2004, $59.0 in 2005, $61.3 in 2006 and $61.0 billion in 2007, pre-tax corporate profits fell to $56.6 billion in 2008, $44.7 billion in 2009 and $50.0 billion in 2010 (all measured in constant 2002 dollars).

The Throne Speech response to the economic and social conditions in Ontario is to attack the public sector workers, cut funding to social programs, privatize public services etc. all of which is to transfer more and more of the public treasury to bolster the profits of the rich. That is completely unacceptable. No one should be left to fend for themselves dealing with a crisis that they did not create. Government must uphold the public right, curb monopoly dictate and stop paying the rich!

Ten-Year Review of Selected Financial and Economic Statistics1 ($ Millions)

  2002–032 2003–04 2004–05 2005–063 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 Actual
2009–102
Interim
2010–11
Plan
2011–12
Financial Transactions                    
Revenue 74,675 74,269 83,861 90,305 96,640 103,579 96,933 95,793 106,185 108,453
Expense                    
Programs 64,864 70,148 76,048 80,988 85,540 94,065 94,776 106,336 113,344 113,778
Interest on Debt4 9,694 9,604 9,368 9,019 8,831 8,914 8,566 8,719 9,527 10,290
Total Expense 74,558 79,752 85,416 90,007 94,371 102,979 103,342 115,055 122,871 124,068
Reserve 700
Surplus/(Deficit) 117 (5,483) (1,555) 298 2,269 600 (6,409) (19,262) (16,686) (16,316)
Net Debt5 132,647 138,816 140,921 152,702 153,742 156,616 169,585 193,589 217,347 241,472
Accumulated Deficit 118,705 124,188 125,743 109,155 106,776 105,617 113,238 130,957 147,643 163,959
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Market Prices 477,763 493,081 516,106 537,383 560,576 583,946 584,460 578,183 613,695 641,992
Personal Income 369,420 381,127 400,994 419,457 442,736 466,051 478,696 477,641 496,610 517,436
Population — July (000s) 12,091 12,242 12,391 12,528 12,665 12,793 12,932 13,065 13,211 13,374
Net Debt per Capita (dollars) 10,971 11,339 11,373 12,188 12,139 12,242 13,113 14,817 16,452 18,056
Personal Income per Capita (dollars) 30,553 31,132 32,363 33,480 34,956 36,430 37,016 36,559 37,592 38,690
Interest on Debt as a per cent of Revenue 13.0 12.9 11.2 10.0 9.1 8.6 8.8 9.1 9.0 9.5
Net Debt as a per cent of GDP 27.8 28.2 27.3 28.4 27.4 26.8 29.0 33.5 35.4 37.6
Accumulated Deficit as a per cent of GDP 24.8 25.2 24.4 20.3 19.0 18.1 19.4 22.6 24.1 25.5
1 Revenue and expense have been restated to reflect a fiscally neutral accounting change for the revised presentation of education property taxes, as described in the 2010 Ontario Budget.
2 Starting in 2002–03, investments in major tangible capital assets owned by the Province (land, buildings, and transportation infrastructure) have been capitalized and amortized to expense over their useful lives. Starting in 2009–10, investments in minor tangible capital assets owned by the Province were capitalized and amortized to expense. All capital assets owned by consolidated organizations are being accounted for in a similar manner.
3 Starting in 2005–06, the Province's financial reporting was expanded to include hospitals, school boards and colleges. Total expense prior to 2005–06 has not been restated to reflect expanded reporting.
4 Interest on Debt is net of interest capitalized during construction of tangible capital assets of $148 million in 2009–10, $195 million in 2010–11 and $268 million in 2011–12.
5 Starting in 2009–10, Net Debt includes the net debt of hospitals, school boards and colleges consistent with Public Sector Accounting Board standards. For comparative purposes, Net Debt has been restated from 2005–06 to 2008–09 to conform with this revised presentation. Net Debt has also been restated in 2003–04, 2004–05 and 2005–06 to reflect the value of hydro corridor lands transferred to the Province from Hydro One Inc.
Sources: Ontario Ministry of Finance and Statistics Canada.

Notes

1. Fall Economic Statement 2011, Chapter 3, Table 9
2. Fall Economic Statement 2009, Chapter III

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Health Care

Ministry of Health's Hypocritical
Push for Community Care

The Ontario Ministry of Health is aggressively pushing hospitals, rehabilitation centres and other institutional health care providers to discharge patients more quickly onto home care rosters. Pressure is on to clear both acute care and chronic care patients from hospitals. Many people in these patient groups are vulnerable seniors who health authorities give the anti-human designation "bed blockers." While the pressure is on to get rid of patients from institutional care, restraints are being put on community care funding, which is already inadequate.

The Ministry pretends to be promoting improved health outcomes from home care but cost cutting, not patient care is at the centre of the changes. Once a patient is transferred to home care, the patient pays user-fees for many services provided free of charge in hospital, such as drugs, physiotherapy, de-listed medical procedures, meals and transportation to appointments. Home care also allows the Ministry to benefit from home care workers' wages being much lower than wages of workers in hospitals and other institutions.

Home care workers are usually non-unionized workers in privately owned home care agencies or in privately operated agencies. Sixty-seven per cent of home care services are provided by Personal Support Workers (PSWs) who make an average of $12-13 per hour with no benefits. PSWs usually work alone (resulting in high injury rates), have hours arbitrarily set by agency owners and have no job security. Agency owners also put pressure on PSWs to perform medical procedures they are not certified to carry out.

Health science and workers in health care continually consider, evaluate and implement renovations in patient care. Discussion of improvement in patient care is part of the day-to-day work of health care workers. But as they consider the possible benefits of home care, health care workers are seeing possibilities for improved health outcomes being turned upside down by the Ministry's efforts to put cost cutting at the centre of the community care approach.

Health care workers have made submissions to the government about the extensive system of supports required for patients to do well in community care. They have pointed to the facts that expose the government's failure to make community care viable: 10,000 people on the home care waiting list; 23,000 people on the waiting list for long-term care, including many who are only receiving home care while they wait for a bed; the chaos that runs through the administration of home care services. Health workers and their unions are also opposing the restraints put on home care and long-term care funding in the Ontario budget and the proposals being developed by Public Services Reform Commissioner Don Drummond for even more restraint on long-term and community care.

The Ministry of Health's community care initiatives, despite claims about patient-centred care, are part of the overall agenda of the McGuinty government: cut public sector wages, deteriorate public services, privatize public services and impose user fees, all in the name of deficit reduction.

Deinstitutionalization of Psychiatric Care in Toronto --
A "Community Care" Disaster

A previous "community care" initiative of the Ontario government that ended in disaster for vulnerable patients was the full scale "deinstitutionalisation" of psychiatric care at the time of the 1981 recession. The Ministry of Health turned upside down a method of treatment that health science and health care workers at that time were developing to assist mental health care patients known as deinstitutionalization. The treatment proposal was that some psychiatric patients' health could improve from integration into the community, if provided with proper medical and social support in the community. A program for clearing psychiatric patients from hospitals was launched by the Ministry of Health without the necessary community care supports. The government displaced the community concept at the centre of this reform with the inhumane concept of cost cutting at the expense of some of society's most vulnerable people with tragic results.

Below are excerpts from a study by T. Slater on Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood containing information about the terrible outcomes this initiative had on thousands of vulnerable patients.[1]

***

The Queen Street Centre for Addiction and Mental Health was, for a long time the largest facility of its kind in Canada and a consistently vital resource for Toronto's mentally ill. Following a trend sweeping cities across North America at the time, the radical shift of the provincial government towards the deinstitutionalisation of psychiatric patients in favour of community based care together with the 1980s retraction in the role of the Welfare State under economic recession and a fiscal crisis at the provincial level, had profound and lasting effects. [...] Thousands of patients were discharged from the Queen Street Centre into South Parkdale in the early 1980s, exacerbating the impact of the 1979 closure of the nearby Lakeshore Provincial Psychiatric Hospital.

South Parkdale suffered disproportionately from a lack of community aftercare policies designed for discharged patients. Deinstitutionalisation in Ontario was a policy adopted with great enthusiasm, even though it was never properly articulated, systematically implemented, nor completely thought through. H. Simmons said in a study on the history of mental health care in Ontario,

"If by deinstitutionalization we mean a clear-cut policy directed toward reducing the population of provincial psychiatric hospitals and establishing community services to receive discharged patients, then no such policy ever existed in Ontario. However, if by deinstitutionalization we mean a deliberate policy of reducing the long-stay population of the large mental hospitals regardless of what happened to the patients afterward, then deinstitutionalization began in 1965."

Housing was neither plentiful nor adequate for the needs of discharged psychiatric patients, and by 1981, it was estimated that between 1,000 and 1,200 patients lived in South Parkdale, in a neighbourhood which by 1985 contained only thirty-nine official 'group homes.' This meant that there were approximately thirty people for each group home -- a woefully inadequate supply of housing considering that each group home is supposed to contain only three to ten residents. The responsible supervision a group home was supposed to provide was thus only available to the few -- a large majority had to find alternative means of accommodation, usually by themselves as the provincial government refused to provide housing assistance to those discharged, presumably to absolve themselves of responsibility should the housing turn out to be unsatisfactory, or the ex-patient unfit for the dwelling.

Note

1. Slater, Tom. "Municipally managed gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto," The Canadian Geographer 48, no 3 (2004)

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Privatization Agenda

McGuinty's Green Energy Swindle


Protest against the closure of the Siemens Turbine plant in Hamilton, March 18, 2010. Production was moved
to its facility in North Carolina. For its wrecking, Siemens is amongst the global monopolies being paid millions to
ostensibly create "green jobs" relating to renewable energy production.

The McGuinty government admitted in its fall economic statement that Ontario workers are facing several years of high unemployment and low production throughout most economic sectors. The one faint hope it offered for turning the situation around was Ontario's green energy jobs plan. Green jobs were also the main pitch McGuinty made to voters in the October election. Now this green jobs plan has been revealed as a fraud and a swindle by the 2011 Ontario Auditor General's Report tabled in the Ontario Legislature on December 5.

The report reveals that the "green jobs plan" had nothing to do with jobs, nothing to do with the need to protect the environment and was instead an elaborate financial swindle. On the question of manufacturing jobs the green jobs plan promised 50,000 jobs. This does not come anywhere close to matching the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs lost since McGuinty came to power but even this target was not met. The Auditor General's Report says that only 30,000 jobs have been created by the initiative and that most are temporary construction jobs. It also reveals that Ontario's entire electric energy sector has been thrown into chaos by political interference and laid open to plunder by international monopolies on a scale that will make Ontario's overall economic situation much worse.

Contracts have been signed committing Ontario electricity ratepayers to years of sharply increasing rates. Workers will pay the costs for this plunder not only as electricity ratepayers, but also by the weakening of the economy resulting from vast amounts of wealth being sucked out of the economy and disappeared into the vaults of the global financial oligarchy.

The polite term used by auditors for looting is "ambiguities." The Auditor General's Report has 60 pages of commentary on what it calls "ambiguities" in the McGuinty government's management of the electrical generation, distribution and marketing system. It reveals McGuinty using unrestricted political power to provide unrestricted access for global monopolies to the public treasury.

The McGuinty government repeatedly put untendered, secret alternative energy contracts and other power generation contracts in place by decree from the Energy Minister. These decrees bypassed the power system's planning and regulatory bodies. The Auditor General's Report says the Integrated Power System Plan (IPSP), the official blueprint for electricity in Ontario, was prepared by the Ontario Power Authority in 2007 and is still awaiting approval by the quasi-judicial Ontario Energy Board (OEB). Hearings on the electricity plan by the OEB were suspended by the government in 2008. There was virtually no plan -- official or unofficial -- until 2010 when the Minister's office circulated a flimsy, unapproved plan through the power supply agencies.

Displacing official plans and regulatory hearings with ministerial dictate created chaos in the entire energy sector but it enabled the McGuinty government to let whoever it wanted to make big scores. Whether the government's deals represented value to the system or value for the costs they would impose on electrical service users, could not come under scrutiny from anyone until it was too late. In the Auditor General's Report commentary, revelations of the details on the government's $7 billion renewable energy deal with the Samsung monopoly group in 2009 stand out.

These details show that the contract ensured Samsung 20 years of super profits from the high feed-in-tariff rates for renewable energy; gave a $437[1] million "incentive" to build four factories in Ontario and guaranteed Samsung access to 10 per cent of the renewable energy distribution capacity on the power grid.[2] Another criticism of the deal is the secrecy around its negotiation. The electricity system regulatory bodies (Ontario Energy Board and Ontario Power Authority) were not informed about the deal and even the Cabinet was kept in the dark until after it was announced publicly. The need of Samsung and McGuinty for secrecy in cooking up a swindle of this magnitude is obvious.

The Auditor General's overall assessment of the Samsung deal was very damning, "We noted that the normal due diligence process for an expenditure of this magnitude had not been followed. For large projects such as the consortium agreement, we expected but did not find that a comprehensive and detailed economic analysis or business case had been prepared."

The Ministry of Energy's explanation for handing this big score to Samsung was that "no other company has proposed to invest in Ontario's renewable energy sector at the size and scale of the consortium and its partners." This is the shameless calculation of a bankrupt politician -- line up with biggest score possible, no matter what the cost to the people and the economy.

McGuinty's government considers since it has power, it doesn't have to answer to anybody about what it calls "investment arrangements." McGuinty made this point by skipping the Legislature for a photo-op visit to a Samsung plant the day after the Auditor General's Report was tabled. It was business as usual for Energy Minister Chris Bentley that day too. Bentley was touting "green energy opportunities" at a conference hosted by the Canadian Solar Industries Association, hoping to hook more international investors looking for a green energy score.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is of course trying to take full partisan political advantage of the Auditor General's Report. Hudak is shouting, "Ratepayers! Lost Jobs! Stranded Debt Charges!" as he denounces McGuinty's green jobs swindle. The Progressive Conservative leader is hoping everyone forgets that he was part of the Harris government when it busted up and tried to sell-off Ontario Hydro. The PC's aim in the wrecking of Ontario Hydro was to enable precisely the kinds of pay-the-rich scams McGuinty is engaging in.

The "stranded debt" Hudak is talking about (which appears as a charge on electricity bills) is the result of Harris transferring Ontario Hydro debt payments to ratepayers. This was done so Hydro would be debt-free and raking in big profits when it was sold off to the financial oligarchy by Harris' gang. The PCs also brought in the American criminal enterprise Enron as a consultant to deregulate and restructure the five pieces Ontario Hydro was broken into. This Enron-designed structure set up by the Harris/Eve government suited McGuinty's green energy swindle perfectly.

Ontario workers are in need of a plan for dealing with the economic problems threatening their livelihoods, but the plan won't come from the party in power or the official opposition. Instead of plans, these bankrupt politicians provide schemes for paying the rich like the Samsung deal and McGuinty's entire green energy swindle. These kinds of deals greatly weaken the economy by assisting the global financial oligarchy to remove wealth produced by the workers from the economy and to disappear it to who knows where in the world. Workers have to work out a plan of their own for the economy which puts the people's livelihood at the centre and restricts the monopolies. Workers have to develop the political means for ensuring their own plan is implemented.

The urgency for workers taking up this task is demonstrated by the kind of wrecking and looting that has been taking place in extremely important components of the economy like the electric power sector. Workers have a lot at stake in the electric power system. Individual workers are users and the ratepayers of the service, but they are also part of the working class that has created the system's $75 billion in assets and that relies on the supply of electrical power to all economic sectors and to the whole society. In the power supply/distribution sector the monopolies are showing their capacity to wreck in a few years important social assets which workers built up over several generations. This once well-planned, well-organized sector has been rendered a chaotic cluster of pay-the-rich schemes where rival monopoly groups are fighting it out for big scores, with each using whatever political influence it can to grab the greatest possible benefit for itself.

Whether in the public sector, like electric power and transit, or in the private sector, like steel mills and factories, wrecking and looting of the socialized economy has to be stopped.

Notes

1. This amount was reduced to $110 million during the field audit of the project by the Auditor General's office in August 2011.

2. These contract terms are the basis of many "unfair market" complaints about McGuinty's government from other sections of the ruling financial oligarchy and may explain the Auditor General blowing the whistle. Particularly irksome to some big energy players was the allocation of so much renewable energy grid capacity to Samsung. Grid utilization is near capacity. Lack of grid capacity will delay plans of other monopoly groups for making big scores on electric power generation privatization schemes.

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Privatized Education Opens Door to Corruption

The Auditor General of Ontario's 2011 Annual Report was tabled at the Ontario Legislature on December 5, 2011. The report never addresses the working class point of view that education is a right.

It does, however expose the kind of corruption to which the privatization of public services opens the door. Because private colleges receive large amounts of public funds, they are reviewed in the Annual Report.

It reveals that the McGuinty government allows fraudulent colleges to operate with impunity.

The Auditor General's Report also reveals the looting of public education and training funds, and the violation of the government's duty to retrain the unemployed following the 2008 economic downturn. It exposes as a fraud McGuinty's claim that he leads an "education government." There is curious silence from parliamentarians of all parties on this question in the legislature this week.

The Looting of Funds

Over the past three fiscal years (2007/08 through 2009/10), a total of almost $350 million was provided through the Ministry's Second Career and Skills Development programs to an annual average of 13,000 students to pay for their tuition to attend private career colleges.

The Second Career and Skills Development program is designed to provide laid-off workers with skills training to help them find jobs in high-demand occupations in Ontario. Its purpose is to provide training that helps laid-off workers move to better jobs than they could obtain without training, such as those with higher skills.

Many workers who participated in this program in the public education sector will tell you that they have not been able to find those "high-demand occupations." They will tell you that they could not obtain, with their higher skills, better jobs and are underemployed.

During the 2007/8 through 2009/10 period there were unregistered privately owned career colleges. By law, to receive funding from the government for programs like Second Career, private career colleges must be registered and must have their programs approved by the Government of Ontario.

The Ministry had to use public funds to employ inspectors to oversee the registered and unregistered private colleges that were using public funds to deliver programs.

Auditor General Jim McCarter says in his 2011 Annual Report.

"Although the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities has taken a number of steps to improve its oversight of private career colleges and strengthen protection for students, more needs to be done. [...] For example, the Ministry currently has no procedure for routinely checking to see that colleges that have been ordered closed actually remain closed, and our audit detected instances where some of these colleges appeared to still be offering courses."

Recommendation 1 states: "To enhance protection for current and prospective students of private career colleges, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities [...] should: use the information at its disposal to proactively identify possible unregistered private training institutions offering or advertising unapproved vocational programs and establish a targeted time frame for completing investigations; and consider establishing standardized follow-up procedures and timelines to ensure that the unregistered institutions against which it has previously taken enforcement action continue to comply with the Ministry's requirements."

Injured Workers and Re-training

Injured workers in Ontario have been sent to private career colleges which were not registered with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities as part of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) Labour Market Re-entry Program.

Recommendations in an audit done by KPMG on the WSIB, called for:

- an increase of worker input and choice in their vocational goals;

- greater use of Ontario's public education system for injured worker re-training; and

- providing workers with marketable skills and valid credentials.

Injured workers' organizations, in presentations to the WSIB stated that the demand of the workers is to use public quality educational programs. The WSIB has only agreed to not send injured workers to unregistered private colleges.

Funding through Student Loans

The Auditor General's Report also disclosed that during the last three academic years, almost $200 million in provincial loans and grants were provided to an annual average of 9,500 private career college students through the Ministry's Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).

The Ministry did not have a process in place for reviewing the financial statements submitted to determine if a college's financial viability was in question.

One private career college with significant losses, which the Ministry attributed to declining enrolment, that also appeared to be dependent on shareholder loans to meet its financial obligations had its registration renewed without evidence that its financial viability had been reviewed. The college subsequently closed, costing the Training Completion Assurance Fund (TCAF) over $800,000.

The Training Completion Assurance Fund was created in 2002 to provide funds to assist in paying the cost of completing the training of all students enrolled in registered programs if a TCAF member fails and no other Private Career College assumes the responsibility for their students. It is a private college student bailout fund.

Students struggle to pay fees, graduates carry massive debt, the unemployed and injured workers struggle to re-train in Ontario's education system which has the lowest per student funding of all the provinces; these serious issues for the working people of Ontario were not addressed in the Auditor General's report.

A Look Back

The Post-Secondary Education Choice and Excellence Act 2000 was introduced under the Harris government to introduce private degree granting institutions. The then-Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Dianne Cunningham, described a "new, dynamic degree-granting environment in Ontario," one that would consist of the existing "excellent" public universities and a range of other institutions, both established and new; public institutions to keep their product affordable in the marketplace.

Opposition at that time came from the Ontario Federation of Students, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, various student unions, academics, and the editors and reporters of many campus newspapers across the country.

The challenges then to private degree granting institutions revolved around public funding issues.

The sources of public funding include:

- the ability of students and employers to claim tax deductions for the cost of tuition or course fees charged by private institutions;

- tax incentives provided to individuals and corporations who make charitable donations to private institutions;

- financial assistance programs for students and loan guarantees by government, government research grants for faculty, and the use of the resources of public institutions by students and faculty of private institutions;

- a second argument is that the budget cuts to the public institutions in Ontario under the Conservative Government since 1995 had resulted in a cumulative shortfall across the Ontario public university system of $1.2 billion in operating funds (OCUFA, 2000), and that this loss of funding led to reductions to programs and the limiting of enrolment in many university programs.

Even back a decade ago Ontario ranked dead last among Canadian provinces in public per-student funding for post-secondary education. Universities were forced to privatize some aspects of their operations, to raise tuition fees in line with market demands, and to compete for endowments and private donations.

What was the "choice" and what was the "excellence" in light of the government's duty to provide education as a right.

An Insight from TML, November 30, 1995

"The people are usually fooled into thinking that if corporations were taxed to the extent they should be taxed then there would be no deficits. What they do not understand is that the tax dollars in the hands of the government does not mean more is available for education, health, or other social programs. It is not a lack of money that is forcing Harris to create this whole charade of 'cutbacks.' The aim of dramatically reducing the amount of money is to open certain social sectors for exploitation by the capitalists. At the same time, the money that is removed from those social sectors is shifted over to pay the creditors who own the provincial debt.

"The working class must appreciate that the Harris anti-social offensive is the capitalist program to enrich their own class. The workers have to present to the people their own pro-social program in the interests of the working class and broad masses of the people and in the general interests of the society. The working class must grasp the essence of the situation. Only through their own pro-social program of deep-going transformations can they turn things around. No wrong or 'right' policy coming from the capitalist government will change the course of the capitalist crisis. It is up to the working class to put forward their own pro-social program."

Stop Paying The Rich!
Increase Funding for Social Programs!

(OCUFA.on.ca, CFU, Hansard, WSIB,ONIWG)

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Harper Dictatorship's Intervention in
Barrie Municipal Arrangements

Barrie transit workers are being confronted with the Harper government's interference in the existing arrangements for municipal services in the City of Barrie. As it is doing in many parts of the country, Harper is dictating the organization of municipal services according to his government's privatization agenda using Public-Private Partnerships Canada (PPP Canada) funding as a form of extortion. Harper's extortion is also an attack on service users and municipal ratepayers.

The Barrie bus system is operated by 118 drivers and 20 mechanics employed by First Canada, one of the world's largest transit monopolies. The workers are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1587. The Barrie workers' contract with First Canada expired March 1 of this year and they gave the bargaining committee a 96 per cent strike mandate. Negotiations are ongoing and there has been no strike.

ATU Local 1587 is the same local that represents the workers of York Regional Transit. York Region is the municipality immediately south of Barrie. The York workers have been on strike against First Canada, Veolia and Miller Transit since October 24. This strike has been characterized by the municipal government letting the contractors run roughshod over the transit workers and service users, claiming this "is none of York Region's business." The three international monopolies under contract to York have refused to make serious bargaining proposals, but the latest development as of December 10 is that Veolia has agreed to meet with the union.

While Barrie Transit workers are negotiating with First Canada, the Harper dictatorship has inserted itself into Barrie's transit system through the federal agency PPP Canada and has created an atmosphere of uncertainty for the workers. On October 13, Patrick Brown, Conservative MP for Barrie announced that the Harper government will contribute $5.8 million through PPP Canada towards the Barrie Transit facilities upgrade project. The City of Barrie will contribute $17.7 million towards the balance of the capital costs.

A Finance Canada news release about the announcement said:

"The renovation of the transit facility will provide enhanced operation and maintenance services to sustain the current bus fleet; improve operational efficiency and quality of services; increase transportation ridership; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; produce direct economic and social benefits for Barrie both during and after construction; and encourage competitive bidding on the operations and maintenance of the City's fleet."

According to the criteria of PPP Canada, the funding will only be provided if bus operation and maintenance is included in the project financing and construction deal. The construction/operation project will be open to bidding by other monopoly contractors, so it is not certain that First Canada will retain the Barrie contract. The strings attached to the garage-building project by PPP Canada results in a precarious job security situation for the transit workers, putting pressure on them at exactly the time they are negotiating a collective agreement.

On December 12, the Barrie City Council was scheduled to vote on staff recommendations regarding a service contract with First Canada to operate Barrie Transit and Barrie Accessible Community Transportation Services (BACTS) for the next two years until the new public-private partnership contract bidding takes place. One recommendation shows the complete disregard of the workers involved: starting January 1, 2015, the service contract with First Canada (and the jobs of the workers) will be extended on a month-by-month basis!

This disregard for the Barrie transit workers is unacceptable. Their livelihoods should not be sucked into the scheming of the Harper dictatorship and the rivalry of the privatized transit monopolies. Barrie council should guarantee the job security of transit workers and collective agreement successor rights no matter who runs the system. They should not abandon their responsibility to workers and transit users the way York Region politicians have so shamefully done.

It is also totally unacceptable that the Harper government is using federal funding obligations to impose its privatization dictate on municipal services arrangements in every corner of the country. In Ontario and across Canada the people are demanding the government meet its federal funding obligations for municipal services like water, sewers and transit with no P3 strings attached. These demands are part of the progressive trend of public sector workers being paid according to the work they do, of governments providing services without involving owners of capital and of purchasing as much as possible all supplies, plant and machinery from public enterprises.

The progressive trend is driven by the people-centred view that all economic activity must be organized in a social way without the destructive egotistical involvement of owners of capital so that the needs, rights and interests of the people, economy and society can be met.

* Christine Nugent is the Barrie Federal candidate for the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada.

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Toronto Budget Process

Abuse of Power Continues

The proposed 2012 city budget presented on November 28 included a wide variety of service cuts and the elimination of more than 2,000 jobs of the workers who provide them. Among many other things, some homeless shelters are to close, day care costs are to increase, and the TTC service is to be degraded as are recreational services, public libraries, emergency services and nutritional aid to poor children.

On December 7 and 8, hundreds of city residents including representatives of workers' and community organizations came forward to oppose this anti-social budget at the hearings provided for "public input." At such official venues, similar mass expressions of opposition to the Ford regime's neo-liberal city wrecking agenda already have taken place since spring 2011. At every opportunity the people have had to express their views and demands, there has been overwhelming repudiation of the course being pursued by the city administration.

One aspect of this situation that stands out is the obvious and unacceptable abuse of power on the part of the city administration. The demands of the people are heard by wilfully deaf regime officials and almost completely ignored. When challenged during the December 7 proceedings, Ford's budget committee chief Mike Del Grande could not provide a single example of a demand presented at public deputations and met by the regime. He also admitted to not even taking many notes since, in his opinion, the views expressed do not merit it.

The Ford regime has left devoid of substance these still observed forms, part of what is said to be democratic process. But the mass rejection of the regime during this and other public hearings is part of the people's struggle against it, and has served to further expose it and its spurious claims of legitimacy.

A few representatives of big private business like those from the Board of Trade and Real Estate Board, whose anti-social interests are manifest, are almost the only ones who ever express support for the regime's agenda at this and other such hearings. This rarity is not only due to lack of popular support: there is just little urgency for such interests to appear since their agenda is already being addressed -- their "boys" have power.

Beyond ignoring the people who participate, city administration members have repeatedly belittled and insulted them as not being worthy of attention: "the usual suspects," "reps. of special interest groups," etc. This is combined with assertions of the regime's own legitimacy: "We won the election, we have a mandate," and "Everybody in the check-out line at Walmart told me, 'Stay the course, Doug [Ford], stay the course!'" So, the dubious, self-serving anecdotal reports of the Mayor's councillor brother bear decisive weight at City Hall while the demands of hundreds of residents stated in an official venue have none.

Clearly, the Ford regime has been doing and intends to do what, in its anti-social, city-wrecking opinion, it sees fit, no matter what the people demand.

The letter of the laws governing our archaic political system may permit such abuse of power; but abuse and outrage it is nevertheless. The task facing the people of Toronto is to unite and develop their struggle against this retrograde regime, finding the means to block its abuse of power and halt and reverse its agenda.

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