01) TORY DRIVE FALTERS IN ONTARIO ELECTION
PV Ontario Bureau
Tim Hudak's drive to win a majority in Ontario hit a snag in August. New polls show the Tories lost some support after an anti‑abortion group publicized a petition Hudak had signed opposing abortion rights and demanding the de‑funding of insured abortion services.
While ultra‑conservatives were crowing, the public was not amused. For the first time the juggernaut seems to be stalled.
As well, the shenanigans at Toronto City Hall by Mayor Rob Ford and his right‑wing majority have started a big movement to stop the cuts proposed by KPMG, brought in to audit the books and "find the gravy". Not surprisingly, there is no gravy. KPMG's proposed cuts include complete privatization of garbage and other municipal services, sell‑off of city owned housing and old-age homes, elimination of 2,000 subsidized child care spaces, an end to support for the city's vibrant arts and culture scene including Caribana and Pride events, and the closing and/or privatization of some public libraries, among other things. Increased user fees and property taxes are also on the table, as Ford manipulates the city's chronic revenue shortfalls to make the case for "smaller government".
Behind privatization is the attack on unions who deliver the services in Toronto. Collective agreements for nearly 24,000 inside and outside workers expire Dec. 31, and the Ford administration has announced massive layoffs if city workers don't take the exit packages offered.
Margaret Atwood jumped into the fray to defend libraries and public services, mobilizing her 250,000 Twitter followers to do the same. The July deputations to City Council numbered about 300, though only 166 were actually heard in a marathon meeting that finally adjourned at 7 am the next morning.
Georgio Mammoliti ‑ a member of Ford's Executive Committee and its attack dog ‑ accused deputants of all being communists. Then he upped the ante, accusing "6 or 7" City Councillors of being Communist Party members who take their direction from regular lunches with CPC( Ontario) leader Liz Rowley.
The CPC (Ontario) called Mammoliti's red-baiting "a witch-hunt aimed to intimidate widespread and growing public opposition to the levelling of public services and programs in the city, and to frighten Councillors into silence and stampede them into voting for deep cuts and privatizations against the demonstrated wishes of the public."
The answer to Mammoliti and the Ford administration is to galvanize public opposition, reject red‑baiting, and defeat the cuts.
A massive demonstration will take place at City Hall on the eve of the September budget vote. Meantime, mass lobbying to pry Councillors away from Ford's budget cuts is underway. The Labour Council, OFL, CUPE, One Toronto, and a bevy of community and democratic organizations are involved in the budget fight, as well as in the bigger battle: will Toronto be a city with or without services, social housing, child care, old age homes, public transit, and unionized municipal workers?
Last fall's love affair with the right‑wing populist Mayor and his cronies is over, as the real agenda emerges in startling Tory blue clarity.
At Ford's annual August BBQ, special guest Stephen Harper said he hoped to "complete the hat trick" and turn Ontario Tory blue in the Oct. 6 election. It's starting to dawn on electors across the province that voting Tory may not be such a good idea.
A wise conclusion. Among other things, the Tories promise to bring "law and order" to Ontario with new super‑jails, a two‑strike law, prisoner chain gangs to do the jobs of public sector workers, a lifetime ban on welfare recipients convicted of fraud, new police powers to remove Aboriginal people by force from land reclamation sites, social program and public service cuts, and a new law to prohibit unions from engaging in political and social action.
The Communist Party has identified the Tories as the main danger to working people in this campaign. Although the public is justly angry at the Liberals who have delivered for the corporations and the wealthy while living standards for working people collapse, "voting Tory to punish the Liberals would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire".
The Communist Party says the best outcome in these circumstances is the election of a minority government with a strong left ballast, including Communists who will fight for policies to curb corporate power, create jobs and raise living standards, reverse the HST and introduce progressive tax policies and tax relief for working people, and expand civil, social, labour and democratic rights.
(The above article is from the September 1-15, 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.)