01) MINORITY GOVERNMENT THE BEST OUTCOME FOR ONTARIO
By Liz Rowley, leader of the Communist Party (Ontario)
The only thing clear in the June 12 Ontario election is that the NDP's strategy to crush the Liberals and move up to government or official opposition, has come apart at the seams.
A palace revolt involves Michelle Lansberg, Gerry Kaplan, and 32 other prominent NDP members who signed an open letter accusing Andrea Horwath of shifting the party hard right, exposing the crisis of social democracy, and Horwath's support of big capital and austerity policies.
The labour movement too has attacked the NDP for forcing an election in which the Tories have the most to gain, and the working class the most to lose.
At issue is the platform of Tory leader Tim Hudak, who promises to lay off 100,000 public sector workers, slash wages, enact right to work (for less) laws and eliminate the Rand formula and the closed (union) shop. Hudak is committed to raise tuition fees by 30% and privatize everything in the province that isn't nailed down.
100,00 public sector layoffs will generate 50-60,000 layoffs in the private sector, enough to tip the province into deep recession.
These facts are frightening voters, but Hudak's main promise is to create a million jobs out of the detritus of the massive layoffs and the destruction of public services and programs. His direct appeal is to the approximately one million unemployed, the impoverished and marginalized, the bankrupt small business owners. His invitation is to vote for a party leading the attack on unions and unionized workers, on foreign temporary workers, on youth, women, and racialized communities who are held up to be responsible for the current economic crisis, for mass unemployment, and falling living standards. It's a toxic poison.
This election has made Ontario ground zero in the fight to stop the corporate/government offensive to break the back of the trade union movement in Canada.
Trade union leaders publicly urged the NDP to support the May Liberal budget and prevent an election that could give the Tories a free pass to power, while the NDP and Liberals fight over Official Opposition status.
The public mood is to punish the NDP for throwing the dice, and for abandoning minimum wage workers while promising tax cuts to corporations. The NDP are falling in the polls where they are likely to remain on election day.
Meanwhile the Liberals are fighting on two fronts, and advancing a platform based on massive privatization to pay for the $29 billion infrastructure program and jobs they say they will deliver. Their promised provincial pension program has turned out to be a jumped-up RSP plan ‑ not the defined benefit plan with fixed pay‑outs promised in the budget, such as the Canada Pension Plan.
Public disillusionment has increased, with many people declaring they will not vote because "they're all the same," and because none address their real concerns about social and economic security and about civil, labour and democratic rights.
In this scenario, the best outcome would be a minority government in which the NDP and Liberals cooperate to hold the balance and the Tories are shut out of government altogether.
Into this mix, the CPC (Ontario) has advanced a political and economic plan to generate a real economic and social recovery for working people, that hinges on curbing corporate power and redistributing wealth through progressive tax policies based on ability to pay.
This would generate the capital needed to directly invest in areas such as an emergency jobs program for youth, a massive social housing construction program, a public and quality provincial childcare system that's accessible and affordable everywhere in Ontario. The CPC (Ontario) calls for investment in public hospitals and healthcare to enhance and expand Medicare and reverse privatization; for a single, secular public education system open to all; and for free tuition and a debt amnesty for debt‑burdened post-secondary students.
The Communists call for a real universal, defined benefit pension plan, whose benefits would be increased and made fully accessible to recipients at age 60.
We are fighting for an industrial strategy that would expand value added manufacturing and secondary industry in Ontario, and to pull out of trade deals that stand in the way of sustainable and needed economic development and job creation.
Good jobs, higher wages, and rising living standards are the way out of the economic crisis, and towards a genuine economic and social recovery for the working class and working people.
In this election, there has been more interest in the CPC (Ontario). Many voters say they have had it with the NDP and want the platform we are advocating. Requests for lawn signs are keeping our campaigns busy, along with requests for information and applications to join. There is a distinct change in the political atmosphere, reflecting big changes in people's thinking, about themselves, the economy, social democracy, and about the "right populism" of Tim Hudak, Stephen Harper and Rob Ford.
A vote for the Communist Party is a vote for a future where the needs and interests of working people trump the greed of the big corporations and the wealthy. Voting Communist is a vote for class and social solidarity, and for a struggle that will continue after the election.
Making your vote really count, means going beyond the current dead‑end bourgeois political box of austerity and impoverishment. Voting Communist is a vote for a broad‑based and militant fight to get real change. Much more than a vote, it is a declaration of an emancipation still to come.
(The above article is from the June 1-15, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist 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.)