10) COMMUNIST CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTERITY IN ONTARIO

PV Ontario Bureau

     Communist Party (Ontario) leader Liz Rowley will be travelling across the province in October, campaigning at public meetings and in the streets against Bill 115 and the austerity measures introduced by the McGuinty government to attack free collective bargaining, cut jobs and wages, erode education and healthcare, and sell off public assets.

     Rowley will present the Party's 10 point Prescription for a People's Recovery in Ontario, which would "restore and expand labour, civil, social and democratic rights, raise wages and living standards, create good jobs in manufacturing and secondary industry, and invest in universal quality public healthcare, public and post‑secondary education, and public services."

     "It's the exact opposite of what the Liberals and Tories ‑ provincial and federal ‑ are imposing on working people in Ontario", Rowley told People's Voice.

     "Politics are very volatile in Ontario today. Mass extra-parliamentary pressure on the Legislature could significantly alter the landscape in favour of working people. The government is politically unstable, vulnerable to pressure from both the conservative right and from the working class and its allies. Mass action ‑ like the Days of Action which almost toppled the Harris government 15 years ago ‑ could force the Liberals to rescind Bill 115 and the attack on free collective bargaining and public education. Otherwise they may face defeat at the polls. This is the lesson of the students' struggle in Quebec.

     "Furthermore, Charest's loss in Quebec could be just the first of many Liberal defeats across Canada. But these defeats must also lead to more progressive governments, and to new policies that put people's needs before corporate profits", Rowley said.

     People's Voice readers can hear Liz Rowley at public meetings being organized in major cities from October 14 to 30. The tour starts in Toronto, where she will share the platform with Marianne Breton Fontaine, leader of the Young Communist League in Quebec and an activist in the student movement that brought down the Charest government.

(The above article is from the October 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.)