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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!
- Steve Rutchinski -
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 |
Notes
1. Fall Economic Statement
2011, Chapter 3, Table 9
2. Fall Economic Statement 2009, Chapter
III
Health Care
Ministry of Health's Hypocritical
Push for Community Care
- Rob Woodhouse -
 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)
Privatization Agenda
McGuinty's Green Energy Swindle
- Jim Nugent -
 
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.
Privatized Education Opens Door to Corruption
- College Workers Discussion Group -
 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!
Harper Dictatorship's Intervention in
Barrie Municipal Arrangements
- Christine Nugent* -
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.
Toronto Budget Process
Abuse of Power Continues
- David Greig -
 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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