October 14, 2011 - No. 11

Take Up the Aim of the Movement to
Defeat the Anti-Social Offensive

• Take Up the Aim of the Movement to Defeat the Anti-Social Offensive

Discussion on Election Results
• Low Voter Participation in 40th Ontario General Election - Tim Sullivan
• The Need to Take Up Discussion on Solving the Problems We Face - Jim Nugent
• No Harper Hat-Trick in Greater Toronto Area - Steve Rutchinski

In Defence of Public Services
• Beware the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services
• Anti-Social Wrecking at Toronto City Council - David Greig

Letter to the Editor
• Build the Ontario Political Forum

Take Up the Aim of the Movement to
Defeat the Anti-Social Offensive

This weekend, Toronto and other cities in Canada will be the scene of a spillover onto Canadian soil of the "Occupy Wall Street" action. We are told that on October 15 people from all over the world will take to the streets "to initiate the global change we want."

It is interesting that the monopoly-owned media are heavily reporting the "Occupy Toronto" action and highlighting its lack of aims or demands. The Canadian Press for example reported, "The activists do not have a single 'ask' of government," The Toronto Star wrote "They are not sure yet what they stand for. But they know they want something better than this. And they are going to meet Friday to figure out what it is."

It is noteworthy that the same monopoly-owned media boycotted reporting on the 7,000 workers and their allies who came out on the evening of Monday, September 26, to demand Toronto City Council fulfil its social responsibility and reject Mayor Rob Ford's slash-and-burn budget cuts, attacking municipal workers, cutting public services, privatizing public assets, etc. The municipal workers and their allies participating in that action had aims clearly opposed to the anti-social wrecking agenda of Mayor Ford.

Occupy Toronto, on the other hand, does not elaborate any specific aim for its October 15 action but claims inspiration from what is happening on Wall Street, where "their demand is the occupation itself and the direct democracy taking place there, which in turn may or may not come up with some specific demand." So-called alternative media like Now Magazine write: "They don't have a clear agenda yet but according to spokesperson Bryan Batty, the plan is to voice their anger over what he believes are the abuses of the country's business class..."

Ontario Political Forum unequivocally affirms that there is an objective movement which has an aim. The movement and its aim were expressed in the Days of Action against the Mike Harris government, which saw workers and their allies shut down city after city across Ontario. It continues to have the aim of defeating the anti-social offensive and implementing the pro-social program. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has always been part of that movement, consistently addressing itself to the movement at each particular stage of its development. It has worked to nurture and develop it to achieve its aims and ensure that sectarian aims alien to the movement are not permitted to take hold.

Ottawa Day of Action, October 16, 1998

Ontario Political Forum calls on all class-conscious workers to think about this situation seriously. Why are the monopoly-owned media so excited to promote an action that claims it wants the birth of a movement for "global change" but does not address itself to this aim in any concrete way, never mind acknowledge the ongoing movement that has taken up the fight for rights and opposition to the anti-social offensive? Having an aim actually defines the form and content of things.

For their part, the rich and their governments have an aim -- that society must pay the rich so that these elites can be "winners" in a neoliberal globalized economy. It is self-serving and anti-social but they are effective at implementing that aim.

Ontario workers and their allies also have an aim -- to defeat the anti-social offensive and guarantee the victory of the pro-social program. It expresses itself in various ways depending on the circumstances and conditions, be it in the forest and mining communities across northern Ontario, the steelworkers in Hamilton, auto workers and other industrial workers in southern Ontario, public sector workers in cities across the province, etc. Workers are in the forefront of resistance to monopoly dictate and are presenting society with alternatives.

The issue is to strengthen this movement ideologically, politically and organizationally so it is effective in holding governments to account and to ensure public right prevails over narrow monopoly interests. The point is to open a path for the progress of society. This is the essence of CPC(M-L)'s program to Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Funding for Social Programs! Ontario Political Forum calls on the class-conscious workers, women and youth to step up the struggle to defeat the anti-social offensive and ensure the victory of the pro-social program for Ontario.

To this end Ontario Political Forum calls on everyone to strengthen its work by building Groups of Writers and Disseminators as the core of the Workers' Opposition that is being built in defence of the rights of all. These are indispensable measures which will ensure that as the movement against the anti-social offensive grows, so too the consciousness and level of organization will also be raised and bring forth the necessary organization and leadership to take the movement to its logical conclusion.

Discussion on Election Results

Low Voter Participation in
40th Ontario General Election

- Tim Sullivan -

The record low turnout in the Ontario election is cause for real concern. It can be readily deduced that it reflects the growing rejection by the electorate of all the major parties and their system of governance. That the level of participation has fallen below 50 per cent in a provincial election, at a time when such major problems are afflicting the peoples of Canada and the rest of the world, is truly astonishing. It is certainly not enough that the electorate sees through the sham that the ruling circles try to impose on it. The situation requires that the people activate themselves and find the ways and means to overcome the constraints that keep them out of the process and out of power.

But what is even more astonishing is the reaction of the party leaders themselves, in the face of this utter debacle. Dalton McGuinty had the nerve to say that he had received a "major minority," while Tim Hudak is crowing about how he has McGuinty "on a short leash." These claims are preposterous in the face of the reality that most voters didn't vote and the overwhelming majority of the electorate didn't vote for either of them. While any ordinary person who was the least bit concerned with representing the people and trying to gauge the opinions and desires of the electorate, would be sounding the alarm bells and doing their utmost to address the problem of "non-participation," they seem oblivious to the predicament and content to rule with a handful of votes. They don't grasp the fact that they held an elaborate popularity contest, and nobody won.

The Need to Take Up Discussion on
Solving the Problems We Face

- Jim Nugent -

The election for the Ontario legislature has come and gone without Ontario workers' real working and living conditions, demands and concerns ever being addressed in a serious way by either the ruling Liberal Party or the Progressive Conservative official opposition. The monopoly media also maintained silence about these real election issues.

Decades of wrecking of the manufacturing and resources industries by the big monopolies and recurring crises triggered by financial swindling have left hundreds of thousands of workers struggling to find a livelihood and are driving down the standard of living for all workers and people of Ontario. Increasingly arrogant monopolies and the government itself are trampling on collective bargaining and other workers' rights to prevent resistance to this downward pressure. Social programs of urgent necessity in peoples' lives -- everything from child care to transit -- face provincial underfunding. These and other day-to-day problems of the workers and the uncertain future faced by the workers and people of Ontario were considered unworthy of discussion by the parties of the establishment and the media during the election.

Not only were the issues facing the people not discussed, but the entire election process was treated as a kind of game, with the monopoly media working to create the expectation that following the election, whoever won would be carrying out policies quite different than what politicians had talked about in the election campaign. The Globe and Mail was quite explicit about this gaming in the election when it quoted former Bank of Canada chief David Dodge, who quipped, "Whoever wins will be seen to have lied to the public."

It was made into a kind of joke that Hudak and McGuinty were lying through their teeth while preparing to implement an unspoken agenda of attacks on the workers and people. The rich are in on the joke, they know that Ontario's agenda has been set, regardless of the outcome of the election -- pay the rich through attacking public sector workers, privatization of public enterprises and cutting social spending in the name of deficit reduction. The role assigned to the workers and people of Ontario is to be the chumps in this electoral game.

Playing this role of chumps every four years (or two years in a minority government situation) and entrusting our fate to a government over whose agenda we have no control is not acceptable. It does not lead to any solutions of problems. A new direction needs to be set for Ontario in which resolving the real problems facing the workers and people is put at the centre of all politics. Nobody will do this for us. The workers and people of Ontario have to put forward their own agenda, based on their own needs and to work at holding governments to account for implementing it.

While the politicians and the media of the rich did not address the issues of concern to workers and people during the election, Ontario Political Forum made a contribution to breaking the silence on the workers' real working and living conditions, demands and concerns and put them in the context of the overall fight for rights and the need for a profound renewal of the political arrangements. This work should continue with the aim of involving Ontario workers and people in a discussion on how to solve the urgent problems we face.

No Harper Hat-Trick in Greater Toronto Area

- Steve Rutchinski -

"Anything But Conservative" campaign of Toronto teachers.

Voters in the greater Toronto area (GTA) punctured some of the arrogance of the Harper-Ford-Hudak triumvirate plan, that together they would capture power provincially in Ontario and "complete the hat-trick," as Harper put it. That was their election objective for Ontario.

Their plan to capture power provincially was not left to chance. The federal Conservatives' electoral machine, along with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Conservative federal cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Stephen Harper were in action for a repeat of the Ford-Harper election victories in the GTA.

In the lead up to the provincial election, at an August 2 backroom strategizing event hosted by Mayor Rob Ford, Prime Minister Harper was caught on video saying: "We've started cleaning up the left-wing mess federally [...] [Mayor] Rob [Ford] is doing it municipally and now we've got to complete the hat-trick and do it provincially as well."[1]

Municipally, in the six boroughs that make up the amalgamated city of Toronto, Rob Ford had come to power having captured 65 per cent of the votes cast in Etobicoke, 57 per cent of the votes cast in Scarborough, 53 per cent in North York, 48 per cent in York and 43 per cent in East York. Rob Ford's "success" was credited for playing a role in helping the Conservatives make headway in the GTA in the Federal 2011 election. The federal Conservatives captured 18 new ridings in the GTA in the last election and that is what gave Harper his majority.

So it is significant that the Harper-Ford-Hudak triumvirate did not accomplish their mission. Had they been able to deliver the 18 GTA electoral districts that gave Harper his majority federally to the provincial Conservatives, Ontario would be looking at a Hudak government today.

But they did not succeed. The Conservatives were essentially shut out in the GTA and as a result -- no hat-trick for the Harper-Hudak-Ford gang. McGuinty emerged from the election with a minority, which gave rise to a huge sigh of relief across Toronto and the GTA the morning after Election Day. Yet with the next breath, came the realization that even with a minority, the problem remains of holding government accountable to fulfil its responsibility for the security and well-being of the people.

As a result of being in action, the workers and their allies in the GTA have had some successes of late, making it difficult for Ford to implement his agenda. Stopping a Harper hat-trick in Ontario certainly helps. It creates space for the Workers' Opposition to organize, to mobilize for a pro-social alternative and build an effective opposition.

Note

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo7TaBe3OAw

In Defence of Public Services

Beware the Commission on the Reform of
Ontario's Public Services

One of the main issues kept hidden during the Ontario election was the establishment by the McGuinty government of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services as part of the Ontario budget at the end of March 2011. In the last days of the election, a number of monopoly media pundits began to say that whichever government was elected on October 6 would have to proceed with a complete retrogressive overhaul of Ontario's public services.

It goes without saying such an "overhaul" would come at the expense of the well-being of Ontarians. The budget gave the Commission the mandate of helping to reduce the province's $16 billion deficit. In this way, the myth of scarcity of resources is promoted while public services and the workers that provide them are denigrated as a cost to be reduced, not the means by which the governments carry out their responsibility to ensure the people's well-being. Using language that has now become familiar to the people of Toronto under the administration of Mayor Rob Ford, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told the Toronto Board of Trade on March 24 that the Commission would look at the following issues: "Pursuing more value requires a change from trying to do everything for everyone to focussing resources on higher priority programs that directly impact front line services for people. Separating core services from something that would be nice to offer is especially important in an era of limited resources. Government will have to find new ways of delivering high quality public services. We will examine services and whether the provincial government should continue to deliver a specific program or if someone else can do it better, more efficiently and in a manner that delivers better results for people."

Ontario Political Forum is posting below information on what is entailed in this reform of public services and the work of the Commission, and calls on everyone to inform themselves with the aim of joining the discussion on how to defend public services.

About the Commission on the Reform of
Ontario's Public Services

"Don Drummond's Commission could give political cover to a government to swing the
axe while claiming to be simply following through on independent recommendations..."
- National Post

In its March, 2011 Ontario Budget, the McGuinty government announced a series of attacks on public sector workers and the services they deliver. In the name of reducing the provincial fiscal deficit it announced job cuts, $1.4 billion in program cuts and measures to squeeze $200 million more out of workers in government enterprises like the LCBO. Besides these immediate measures, the budget also announced that a Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services had been established to carry out an "independent review" of the entire broader public sector in Ontario and to make changes to its operation and funding, also with the aim of deficit reduction.

The broader public sector includes: provincial general government; local general government; health and social service institutions; universities, colleges, vocational and trades institutions; local school boards; provincial business enterprises and local government enterprises. The review announced in the budget could affect the livelihoods of 1.1 million workers in this sector and the services they deliver.

The Commission is being presented as an independent expert review of the public sector. But reading between the lines of Finance Minister Dwight Duncan's budget speech it can be seen that the Commission's mandate is to clear the way for further privatization of services now delivered by public sector workers.

"Existing assumptions and traditional models must be revisited and subjected to scrutiny and new approaches. Just because a government department is delivering a program or service today does not mean it should deliver that program or service in the future. The Commission will examine long-term, fundamental changes to the way government works. The Commission's work will include exploring which areas of service delivery are core to the Ontario government's mandate, which areas could be delivered more efficiently by another entity and how to get better value for taxpayers' money in the delivery of public services."

Although McGuinty never talked about the Public Sector Reform Commission during the recent Ontario election, there was a small reference to it in the Liberal Party platform, which also shows that this review is not "independent" but directed towards privatization of public services.

"The Public Sector Reform Commission will examine long-term, fundamental changes to the way government works, without sacrificing health care or education, and without leading to higher taxes. Our plan will build on the work of the Commission to continue to reform public services, putting them on sustainable footing for future generations of Ontarians... As we confront the challenge of putting public services back on a sustainable track, we'll look for partnerships with public sector groups, not-for-profit organizations, and the private sector for new ideas."

The appointment of Don Drummond as the chair exposes the intentions of the government in establishing the Public Sector Reform Commission, now known as the Drummond Commission. Drummond is a neo-liberal partisan, hardly an "independent expert." He was Associate Deputy Minister of Finance under Paul Martin in the Chrétien government when it was making massive cuts to the civil service and social programs. In a Globe and Mail interview he said his biggest accomplishment was getting "the ball rolling on corporate income tax cuts, which turned into an outright revolution." Drummond left the upper levels of government through the revolving door into the Toronto Dominion Bank, where he has become a Senior Vice President. His job there was relations with governments and public relations work promoting privatization of public services.

Drummond spent his last year at TD Bank developing and promoting a plan for reorganizing Ontario's health care system. That plan is published in a report Charting a Path to Sustainable Health Care in Ontario. Drummond's solution? Privatization:

"We urge the expansion of private sector involvement in the provision of health care. As long as the public can use their OHIP card, we believe they would probably support the underlying services being provided in whatever manner is most efficient... The reality is the private sector already plays an important role in our health care system through the supply of pharmaceuticals, home and long-term facilities, diagnostic equipment, and various contract services. We challenge the government to open the door more widely for private sector involvement, not only to improve efficiencies, but also to capitalize on the huge economic potential in building a vibrant health care sector in Ontario."

The TD report also urges the Ontario government to "recognize the enormous economic potential of the sector. Regardless of government efforts to control costs going forward, health care is one industry that is almost sure to expand over the long run. In the context of Ontario, the high-value added health care industry provides tremendous opportunities to diversify Ontario's economic base and to fill some of the gap left over by a structural decline in manufacturing."

Not only is the government's claim that the public sector review will be "independent" spurious, but so too is its claim about "not sacrificing education and health." Drummond can be counted on to target health care, pushing the TD health care plan forward in the review. Three other members have been appointed to the Commission following Drummond's appointment. One of these is Dominic Giroux who was the head negotiator for the Ministry of Education in the last round of public school teacher negotiations. This appointment suggests education will also be a target.

Anti-Social Wrecking at Toronto City Council

- David Greig -

Rally at Toronto City Hall, September 26, 2011.

On September 26 and 27, as the growing resistance to the Toronto city government's anti-social offensive manifested itself in a militant demonstration of 8,000 outside on the evening of September 26, Toronto City Council met to consider the regime's Core Service Review, User Fee Policy and Voluntary Separation Program. The first of these took up most of the session.

Regarding the Core Services Review, in the end, certain cuts were approved, including the "Christmas Bureau" that provided gifts to some impoverished children, the "Hardship Fund" that gave some assistance to the poor for medical costs, certain community development and environmental activities, among others. Likewise, the Toronto Zoo and three theatres are to be sold off.

A few cuts were rejected, such as the sale of the Parking Authority. Proposed cuts to public libraries, child care and long term care facilities and public transportation were not rejected and instead deferred to the city manager and the year-end budget process. The manoeuvre to defer was influenced by the growing outrage of Toronto residents confronted with the reality of the regime's agenda in the midst of the provincial election. The mayor and his council supporters longed for the realization of the Harper-Hudak-Ford "hat-trick" promised by the prime minister in July, but realized that their own agenda was mobilizing people against their dream. Neither did these deferrals have the desired effect nor did they signal any abandonment of the regime's cuts, privatization and sell-off plans. The mayor continues to loudly assert that residents who contact him demand he "stay the course" and his intention is to do just that.

The lower profile but quite important User Fee Policy was also approved. This form of taxation, which falls most heavily upon those least able to pay means certain programs and services are to be provided increasingly or even completely according to ability to pay, rather than need.

The Voluntary Separation Program was likewise approved. It is to see the elimination of some 700 city workers pressured to apply under threat of later layoff as the wrecking agenda proceeds. The city workers have been and continue to be the main target of the city regime, who represent the very rich and their monopolies.

Also looming in the aftermath of September 26 and 27 is the regime's ongoing order for a 10 per cent reduction to the budgets of all city departments, the late October council consideration of bids for the further privatization of garbage collection, and the "Service Efficiency Studies." The latter item, which feeds into the year-end budget process with no pretence of public consultation, will generate the further proposals for privatization of city public services and programs.

The regime continues to point to a budget crisis as the reason devastation of the public services is required. It always presents the largest figures possible, deliberately inflated by its own decisions (e.g., the cancellation of the vehicle registration fee) and avoids providing an honest report. As the size of revenues for 2011 come to light, from the Land Transfer tax for instance, it is ever more obvious the budget hysteria is a dishonest pretext the regime uses to drive the city-wrecking agenda.

The existing labour agreements for about 20,000 city workers represented by CUPE 416 and 79 likewise end on December 31. Since the workers themselves, their jobs and terms of employment are the main target of the regime, the embodiment of the multimillionaire mayor's self-serving definition of "gravy," the fight of these workers will be crucial to the developing resistance of the people of Toronto to the anti-social offensive.

Letter to the Editor

Build Ontario Political Forum

Less than half the eligible voters in Ontario cast their vote in the provincial elections held on October 6 (49.2 per cent). Those who did vote returned the Ontario Liberals to power with a minority government.

For the people of Ontario, security was the driving force. Given the rampant anti-social offensive and wrecking of the manufacturing base in Ontario, the people are concerned for their future, the future of their communities, and the future of the country, of which Ontario is a major part.

All of the major parties presented platforms that were based on Ontario's future lying with "private investors" but the experience of the people is that it is precisely the huge foreign monopolies who are destroying their security and wrecking their communities. Whether in steel, auto, forestry or mining, or in the public sector with attacks on the wages and working conditions of the workers and cut backs in social programs and privatization, far from providing the people any security, the investors, i.e., the monopolies, are wreaking havoc in the lives of the people and their communities.

Ontario Political Forum provides a mechanism for the workers and people of Ontario to discuss the current course of basing Ontario's future on private investors, the rich and their monopolies and to seek an alternative direction for the economy and work out the ways to bring it into being.

A Reader in Mississauga

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