02) FORD BLITZKRIEG GALVANIZES OPPOSITION
By Liz Rowley, leader of the Communist Party (Ontario)
The chronic underfunding of cities makes Toronto's annual budget process a matter of wide public debate. Mayor Rob Ford's first budget has turned into a massive attack on city services and the workers who deliver them.
In last fall's civic election, Ford promised tax relief without service cuts to overburdened homeowners and tenants. But he has only cut the hated $60 annual vehicle tax, while launching a full scale attack on services, civic unions, and elected and appointed public boards and committees.
The Mayor, his brother Deputy Mayor Doug Ford, and the right‑wing majority they lead on Council, brought in KPMG to "review core services" and identify $800 million in cuts (or gravy, as the Mayor likes to call it) to balance the budget. If implemented, the cuts laid out by KPMG would devastate the city, eliminating or privatizing most of the services that are publicly delivered today.
In addition to the privatization of garbage, parks, and social housing which has already started (and which will eliminate thousands of public sector jobs and union wages), the KPMG proposals include library closures, an end to fluoridation of drinking water, elimination of 2,000 subsidized child care spots, privatization of seniors' homes, elimination of immigrant services, a 25 cent increase in transit fares, elimination of grants and subsidies to arts and community groups, cuts to policing and firefighting, and even a proposal that public parks could be tended by volunteers.
The review is not over. More is still to come.
In the hottest summer since 1948, most Torontonians and their labour and mass organizations were taking a break until news of the KPMG proposals broke in mid‑July. The one‑week "public consultations," intended to prevent opposition, helped to galvanize the Labour Council, civic unions, a civic action group called One Toronto, the Workers' Assembly, progressive Councillors and Trustees, and community groups and activists who are mobilizing to stop Ford's blitzkrieg.
Pulling these forces together into a united opposition would strengthen the fight overall, and could put Ford and his supporters on the defensive.
The CPC (Ontario) is demanding the provincial and federal government come up with the $800 million shortfall for Toronto, and that Ontario upload 100% of the costs of health, welfare, housing, and other downloaded services downloaded by the Harris Tories in the '90s. The Communists call to remove education from the property tax, immediately transfer 50% of road user taxes to Ontario cities, and legislate a new financial deal that would provide adequate and stable funding for municipalities.
With a provincial election on October 6, the stakes are getting higher and higher - not least the fight for democracy, and for public ownership and control.
(The above article is from the August 1-31, 2011, 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.)