04) CP CALLS FOR SINGLE, SECULAR, QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN ONTARIO

     Kitchener-Waterloo Communists have nominated provincial party leader Elizabeth Rowley to contest the Sept. 6 by‑election in that riding.

     Rowley, who was an East York Public School Trustee during the Mike Harris years, told campaign supporters at an August 15 event in Kitchener that the Liberals are no different from the Tories when it comes to attacking teachers, students and school boards.

     "Their real aim," said Rowley, "is to slash wages and jobs, dismantle and privatize public education, and eliminate School Boards ‑ and local democracy ‑ altogether."

     Rowley continued, "Deliberate and illegal interference in negotiations between School Boards and the unions representing teachers and educational workers is an attempt to create a crisis so that the Liberals, with the Tories' support, can legislate a wage freeze and implement the massive cuts and privatizations called for in the Drummond Report and enabled in the spring budget.      "What is happening here is a demonstration of why voters should reject both Liberal and Tory agendas for Ontario, and deny the Liberals a majority. Their interference is anti‑democratic, anti‑labour and pro‑corporate. Free collective bargaining is a basic democratic right, and all employers must respect it ‑ especially governments.

     "Working people need strong social programs, strong public and post‑secondary education systems, a strong public healthcare system, and good jobs. A real recovery in other words ‑ a People's Recovery.

     "A single, secular, quality public school system, open to all regardless of religion, national or ethnic origin, or sexual orientation, is long overdue. The current system is discriminatory, divisive, and an unnecessary and wasteful duplication of services.       "The Communist Party has campaigned for a single, secular, quality public school system since 1921. We were the only party to oppose the extension of full funding by the Davis Tories in 1985. Ontario is now the only province with full public funding for religious schools. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has condemned this discrimination. The time has come to fix this, by gradually withdrawing funding and transitioning Catholic schools into the public system."

     Elizabeth Rowley's campaign platform contains a 10 point Prescription for a People's Recovery, based on creating jobs, raising wages and incomes, expanding social programs, strengthening labour and democratic rights, justly settling Aboriginal land claims, and doubling the corporate tax rate and reversing corporate tax cuts as the centrepiece of progressive tax reform based on ability to pay.

     (For more information, contact the Communist Party at 416-469-2446)

(The above article is from the September 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)