Tag Archives: Ontario

Canada, Class War, Journalism, Media

Permanent Delusion, Rex Murphy and Rob Ford

Leave a comment

I can’t watch this. I can’t.

Rex Murphy’s ode to Rob Ford includes this quote:

“Mr. Ford was one of the most remarkable ordinary people Toronto has ever produced.”

Here’s another perspective; you decide:

To create and solidify their base, Ford and his backers used a strategy that has proven successful elsewhere. It is a strategy that worked well, at least for a time, for George W Bush, for instance: playing up a persona that people make a personal connection with. Let’s call it the blue-collar-lunch pail-millionaire phenomenon — a persona ironically co-opted by men who never worked a blue collar job in their lives. But it conveniently divided and conquered to send Ford to the Mayor’s seat. It pitted the so-called “elite” — the intellectuals, the artists, the environmentalists, even the unionists — against the other supposed “ordinary” citizens of the Greater Toronto Area. Downtown versus the ‘burbs.

Source: Rob Ford and the blue-collar-millionaire myth | rabble.ca

A Better World is Needed, Activism, Class War, Corporations, Equality, Feminism, Identity, Neoliberal Economics, Poverty, Psychology, Racism, Society, Unions, Work

How Do YOU Fight for Workplace Justice?

Leave a comment

How do YOU define determination?

One of them gave birth the day before the vote. As soon as her baby was nursing properly and her bloodwork came back okay, she made the trip to the hotel to vote.

via Inside a union drive at The Trump Hotel | Toronto Star.

Activism, Canada, Class War, Climate Change, Colonialism, Corporations, Energy, Environment, Family, Feminism, First Nations, Gender Issues, Health, Idle No More, Imperialism, International Relations, Justice, Racism, Soft Fascism, Tarsands

Looking for Heroes?

Leave a comment

energy-east-poster.jpg

I’ve been watching The Book of Negroes this week. I have no words. I only recognize justice, integrity, brutality, acknowledgement, witnessing, story telling and a myriad of other foggy responses.

It’s easy to also ponder qualities of heroes.

Then I read this from earlier this week, and nodded. Do you get it?

Anishinabe Women Protest Energy East Pipeline on Family Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 16, 2015

‘Protect the Water, For Future Generations’: Message being shared today with local families, starting at Market Square at noon.

Kenora—Dozens of Anishinabe Women, their families, and supporters converge today on Market Square at noon to deliver a message against the proposed Energy East Pipeline that will deliver tarsands oil right through the City and through all of Treaty 3 (and other First Nations) Territory.

Today’s Family Day demonstration, with a focus on protecting the water for future generations, is intended to be highly visible—with drumming, singing, placards and speeches—and to inform and engage the local public about the immense threats posed by the likelihood of oil spills to local water sources, ecosystems, animal habitat, and human health, as well as broader environmental impacts from proposed tarsands expansion.

Fawn Wapioke is Chief of Shoal Lake #39. She says, “I am deeply concerned about the pipeline and believe that our responsibility is to the land, the water, and future of our People. Our responsibility is upholding the law of the land to ensure survival of our Mother Earth.”

TransCanada, speaking to the possibility of a major oil spill in the area, has said that it would take a minimum 22 minutes to shut down the Energy East pipeline in case of a leak. Any spill from the pipeline  could allow as much as 2.7 million litres of oil to spill in that time.

It wouldn’t be the first major industrial spill in the region.

“Being from Grassy Narrows, I know firsthand how damage to the water can poison our families and our kids, not just now, but in the future, too,” said Corrisa Swain, a Youth from Grassy Narrows where families continue to watch newborn children exhibit the brutal symptoms of mercury poisoning, a Dryden pulp and paper mill having dumped over 9000 kgs of Mercury into the English and Wabigoon River System over 40 years ago. “We know from our own experience how these kinds of projects can have terrible impacts on future generations and how unlikely it is that government or companies will ever clean up afterwards,” says Swain.

The environmental impacts from the Energy East Pipeline also extend far beyond the local effects on the Winnipeg River, Lake of the Woods and local ecosystems.

“The project is a climate nightmare, demanding as much as a 40% expansion of tarsands extraction, releasing millions of tonnes more carbon pollution, just when we’ve been told that 75% of tarsands oil needs to stay in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate impacts in the next century,” said Teika Newton, a representative of Kenora Transitions Initiative (TIK), a Kenora-based environmental advocacy group. “There is also the reality that tarsands extraction, like pipeline spills, have terrible impacts on downstream communities across the continent,” Newton says.

Trancanada’s new pipeline project has already been opposed across the entirety of its route, from local tarsands impacted communities to the Mohawk community of Kanesatake and Mi’qmak communities on the East Coast. In Treaty 3 Territory, Grand Chief Warren White has already clearly stated that the pipeline will not carry tarsands oil across the territory without express consent from affected First Nations. Local grassroots communities have echoed those sentiments.

“The Energy East Pipeline is going to affect us all, we together as Peoples need to prevent this project. For the sake of the water, wildlife, and land,” says Alicia Kejick, a Youth from Shoal Lake #39. “For our Peoples and future grandchildren,” Kejick says, “it is momentous that we protect what is ours to begin with. We will be out on Family Day, not just to raise awareness, but to speak for those who can’t.”

-30-

Contact:   Chrissy Swain, 807 407 1468

Corporations, Democracy, Feminism, Journalism, Media, Racism

The Election-Eve Racist, Sexist Attack on Olivia Chow

Leave a comment

If this cartoon were published, say, 2 weeks before the election, it would have been debated as a tool of racist, sexist propaganda and yet another blemish on corporate media. Her support would likely have grown after such a brutally immature attack.

But because politics is a dirty, disgusting, sociopathic game, it was published the day before the Ontario municipal election.

Read what Olivia Chow thinks of it below:

View image on TwitterChow told CP24 she thinks the cartoon is “disgusting.”

“Because I am Chinese-Canadian, I must be a communist and have slanted eyes and glasses … and since I am a woman, I must be inferior and therefore not good enough for the job of the mayor so I must rely on my deceased husband so it both racist and sexist,” she said.

via Toronto Sun’s Olivia Chow Cartoon Slammed As Racist (TWEETS).

Related articles across the web

Democracy

Ontario Election: Polling Fails Again!

Leave a comment

After spectacular failures during the Alberta and BC elections, polling, as an industry struggling for credibility, lost yesterday’s election in Ontario along with the neoliberal, anti-social Hudak.

308.com reviewed the polling as of the day before the election. Polls indicated that there would most likely be a Liberal minority government. Those polls missed the extra 10 seats the Liberals earned at the expense of the PC’s, and had the PC’s 4 points higher than what they really earned.

What’s wrong with polling?

  1. Random sampling is necessary to make inferences for all of the population. When people block calls, use call display to ignore polling, and self-select for online poll samples, the polling industry has to adjust/calibrate their results “somehow” to try to get an accurate prediction. BC, Alberta and Ontario demonstrate that they can’t do that. And people opting out of poll participation skew the results. And the polling industry doesn’t even know which demographics of people are opting out. So WE SHOULD NOT PAY ANY ATTENTION TO POLLS ANYMORE! Get it?
  2. People lie to pollsters. Those who opt-in to responding to a poll are more likely to have a political agenda. They’re also more likely to lie to pollsters, particularly about how strong their intention to vote is. They don’t want to look stupid by saying they’d vote in one way, but then admit they aren’t likely to bother to vote. And in Ontario’s case yesterday, it looked like PC supporters were more likely to express high voter intention, but they couldn’t get the vote out.

Polling is lazy.

If people or organizations want to get a sense of how the population is feeling, they can pay some cash, get some polling data, then set policy or do whatever they want with it. But if the polling model is broken, they’re going to have to go out, get talking to people on the ground and truly, authentically engage with people.

Shock! Talking to people? It’s something political parties have shown real inability to do in any meaningful way. The first one that gets off its ass and starts interacting with actual people, en masse, should see some real electoral gains. No?

A Better World is Needed, Activism, Class War, Consumerism, Corporations, Equality, Family, Feminism, Gender Issues, Health, Justice, Labour Theory of Value, Neoliberal Economics, Occupy Vancouver, Poverty, Psychology, Racism, Unions, Work

Don’t Tolerate Ignorance About the Minimum Wage

Leave a comment

Now, stop tolerating ignorance! And smile, TGIF.

Hello.

It’s Friday.

For many people it’s TGIF. But for many people who aren’t even teenagers, the work week isn’t ending today.

We often THINK minimum wage is for the new entries to the job market. Maybe it was one day. Maybe just for one day.

But today? If it isn’t a living wage, it’s exploitative.

And if it is just minimum wage, we are likely not too accurate on who is suffering with these low wages.

Let’s take a peek:

Continue reading Don’t Tolerate Ignorance About the Minimum Wage →

A Better World is Needed, Activism, Canada, Class War, Corporations, Labour Theory of Value, Neoliberal Economics, Poverty, Unions, USA, Work

SUPPORT: Auto Unions in the US and Canada are on a Roll

Leave a comment

With all the union busting and union bashing going on by the 1% and their compradors in government, it’s nice to see the labour movement getting some traction.

The next few days in Tennessee and Ontario could move workplace democracy and the 99% ahead significantly, with thousands of new unionized jobs to support families and communities. Here’s how.

Continue reading SUPPORT: Auto Unions in the US and Canada are on a Roll →

Class War, Conservative Party of Canada, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Occupy Vancouver

The 1%, Their Cottages, and the Occupy Movement

Leave a comment

You aren't middle class if you own a cottage. Remember that.
You aren’t middle class if you own a cottage. Remember that.

If I need to single-handedly reboot the Occupy Movement for this one, I’ll do it, I tell ya [emphasis is mine]:

A month ago, I had a conversation with Deb Hutton, wife of PC leader Tim Hudak, who said the chances of the Conservatives picking up any of the five seats up for grabs on byelection night were pretty remote.

“They’re all Liberal seats,” she said. “It’s summer time when our most loyal supporters are away at the cottage. We’re obviously going to give it our best, but….” Her voice trailed off and expectations were set appropriately low.

via Byelections: A Deliciously Mixed Message to the Parties | The Agenda.

It’s really quite simple!

The most loyal Ontario Conservative Party members generally are at their cottages. They have cottages. So do lots of the middle class? But really, not so much. If you own a cottage, you own a vacation property. That’s not so middle class.

Let’s not forget that the 1% and perhaps some in the top 5% or so who can afford cottages make up the loyal Conservative Party supporters. I expect that tracks well for other provinces and federally.

When people who can’t afford cottages are speaking well of Conservatives, remind them that they, as the 1% [or nearby’s or wannabe’s] do not speak for you or the vast majority who rent, rent precariously, rent inadequate housing, or own something precariously.

British Columbia, Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, Democracy, Executive Overdrive, Green Party, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Politics, Reform Party, Society, Soft Fascism, Work

The Landslide Election Victory That Isn’t

Leave a comment

I initially had a vague plan for this post but have decided to go with whatever comes to mind to create an election commentary medley of sorts. Actually, it more resembles a rather large balloon filled with statistics and cynicism and it keeps growing!

The Conservatives have won a majority government and this ensures their fixed and uninterrupted rule until 2015. (Yes, I chose my words carefully in writing “rule” versus governance). Majority government and popular rule ring with a rather peculiar tone in this country. The Conservative party gets to do what they want during the next four years and have the mandate to do so with 39.6% of the popular vote. The notion that 60% of Canadians did not vote for the Conservatives, and get stuck with their whim and fancy for the next four years, seems an egregious prospect to many and it is.

However, the fact that we persistently elect governments whose share of seats in the House of Commons is not proportionate to votes actually cast is a staple feature of Canadian democracy. Take note of the trend as it is the norm under our first past the post electoral system and this election simply provides redundant confirmation of this.

The Liberals secured a majority government in 1993 with 41.3% of the popular vote, in 1997 with 38.4% of the popular vote and in 2000 with 40.8% of the popular vote. Irrespective of who gets a majority in parliament our first past the post electoral system, and rates of electoral participation, are going to produce perplexing results and it is worth examining the particulars of this election in some detail.

While the Conservatives received 39.6% of the popular vote, or the support of 5,832,401 Canadians, they picked up 54.2% of the seats in the House of Commons. There were 2,783,175 Liberal voters in this election or 18.9% of the popular vote and yet the Liberals received only 34 seats (11% of the total). In B.C., the Liberals received the support of 13.4% of the popular vote, that’s 251,081 electors, and yet held on to only 2 of the available 34 seats. Our first past the post electoral system worked well for the Liberals when they were enjoying majority governments in the 1990s but not so much anymore.

In 2008, the Bloc received the support of 1,379,991 voters and elected 49 members to the House of Commons. In 2011, the Bloc received the support of 889,788 voters but elected only 4 members. Thus while Bloc seats have been reduced by 92%, 1 in 4 Quebecers did vote for the BQ.

The Orange tide! The NDP is now the official opposition with 102 seats and the support of 4,508,474 voters or 30.6% of the popular vote. In 2008, the NDP had the support of 18.2% of the popular vote but 37 seats. The overarching support for the NDP across this country in this election is both historic and inspiring.

However, in some provinces the orange surge did not translate into actual members elected. In Saskatchewan, the NDP earned the support of a third of the electorate but no seats! That’s right, 32.32% of voters or 147,084 people voted NDP but elected none. The Conservative party received the support of 256,004 voters or 56.26% of the popular vote in Saskatchewan and yet they secured 13 seats out of 14 seats in that fair province.

In Manitoba, while popular support for the NDP increased in this election, the number of NDP members elected actually decreased. Thanks to our electoral system, an increase in popular support for a party can function in an inverse relationship to those actually elected. In 2008, 112,247 Manitobans voted for the NDP, representing 24.04% of the popular vote, which translated to 4 out of the available 14 seats in that province. In the 2011 election, the NDP received the support of 126, 716 Manitobans, or 25.8% of the popular vote and yet only 2 NDP MP’s were elected. The NDP secured 42.9% of the popular vote in Quebec, that’s 1,628,483 electors but picked up 77.3% of the seats or 58 in total.

The Liberals did nothing to push for electoral reform when they governed and I don’t expect the Conservatives to engage this issue considering they are the current beneficiaries of our first past the post electoral system. The NDP and the Greens have been the only parties that have actually in any meaningful way embraced the prospect of electoral reform and some form of proportional representation. Awesome! Let’s get more of them elected.

Another major feature of this election has to be the non–voter. While voter turnout did increase somewhat from 58.8% to 61.4% in this election, the largest bloc of voters in Canada continues to be people who do not vote at all in federal elections. As a case in point, look at Alberta. When I look at the CBC Canada Votes map of the province it appears as a sea of blue with an orange island dead centre. Closer examination of the election results reveals that the province may not be the bastion of Conservative support that it is made out to be in most media reports.

The Conservatives in Alberta won 27 out of the available 28 seats but received only 66.8% of the popular vote. This result becomes even stranger when considering electoral turnout in Alberta is just 56.4%. What this means is that 1,080,057 electors did not cast a ballot at all while 933,201 Conservative voters decided the fate of the entire province. (Save for that island of orange in Edmonton Strathcona). Oh yes and 73,770 Albertans did vote Green in 2011. There are 3,361,426 people in Ontario alone that did not cast a ballot in this election and yet the 2,455,900 electors in Ontario that supported the Conservative party picked up 73 seats in Ontario, that’s 68.9% of seats, with 44.4% of the popular vote.

This commentary is not a blame manifesto against people who choose not to vote but a call to seriously examine this issue. Why are so many Canadians choosing not to vote? Why are so many people disaffected? How do we fix this? Does it matter? Would our election results be markedly different if we had higher rates of electoral participation?

I am going to argue that really, we have not yet fully experienced what living under a Conservative government looks like. Here’s a small preview of what we can expect. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives provides you with a helpful link to a site where you can see how much you will be paying towards those shiny F-35 Jets, new prisons and oil company subsidies here: http://contactyourmp.ca/harpercost.

Somehow I never imagined I would be subsidizing companies whose operational fall out includes flammable carcinogenic tap water but evidently the scope of my imagination needs to expand into realms of hereto uncharted fantasy. Why again are we discontinuing anti-gang and community programs for youth, that offer educational, social, employment and mental health support, in favour of tougher young offender laws, mandatory minimum sentencing and limited use of conditional sentencing? Evidently youth will grow up to be healthy members of communities through time spent in jail; it will be an educational experience indeed. What happened to evidence based public policy? My goodness, can we get climate change back on the issue agenda sometime soon?

We will keep seeing these types of elections results until some form of electoral reform is seriously contemplated in this country? For the 60% of Canadians that did not vote Conservative, buckle your seat belts you’re along for the ride! Actually everyone is along for the ride, whether you voted or not.

Understandably some of us may feel dejected but there are sprinkles of hope that abound including the Orange tide. I am inspired by the perseverance, political principles, and passion of Elizabeth May, her dedicated volunteers and the voters of Saanich Gulf Islands who chose Green. We now have the first Green elected MP in North America and under a first past the post electoral system. (It’s my post, so I don’t have to pretend to be objective and conceal that I think this is wonderful.) You heard right, 75.2% of the electorate came out to vote in Saanich-Gulf Islands. This gives me great hope as to what can happen if more of us did.

A Better World is Needed, Activism, Class War, Executive Overdrive, Karl Marx, Labour Theory of Value, Morality, Neoliberal Economics, Poverty, Psychology, Unions, Work

Worker Bashing 101

6 Comments

For those people on your Christmas list who think you’re full of hot air when you complain that there has been a concerted attack on workers in the last few decades, here are a few examples of demonizing rhetoric to introduce them to, courtesy of Adrian MacNair: We don’t need no stinkin’ unions | National Post

Dalton McGuinty’s current plan to freeze public sector wages has delivered to him the same experience of previous governments that tried to cut their deficits by freezing pay. The game is playing out in much the same way, too, with the unions threatening to use extortion in order to get their raises.

Notice how 1.5 centuries of worker-fought rights to collective bargaining, the right to withhold labour in the form of a strike, is now considered to be extortion, a criminal activity.

The simple fact of the matter is that public sector union workers in Ontario are grossly overpaid as it is. It isn’t as if the government is asking to lay people off, cut salaries, or axe positions permanently. No, they’re doing none of the things that private sector workers have suffered through during the recession. All they’re asking the union to do is to hold the line on salaries for two years.

Many public sector workers are paid what is considered to be a living wage, which is higher than the serf class abundant in service sectors. They aren’t overpaid, the serfs are miserably exploited.

The solution for the abuse of private sector workers is not to make public sector unionized workers suffer, but to improve the working lives of those under the thumb of oppressive employers.

Holding the line on salaries is a pay cut if there is inflation. So when MacNair claims the government isn’t cutting salaries, they actually are with a zero raise, unless of course inflation disappears: not likely.

How about we cut 2% of the public sector every single year? And we keep cutting it until we have a $19.3 billion surplus? I think that would send the right message to the unions. Public sector salaries eat up 55% of the province’s program spending. Which means that less than half of what you spend on services are actually services.

What a clever solution: eternal pay cuts! What message would that send to union members? That they are worth less than what they are paid now. Are they really?

The salaries of a highly trained lab technician, long-term care facility practical nurse, kindergarten teacher, teen crisis counsellor, water treatment centre technician, or cardiac stent purchaser may consume 55% of program spending, but if we fire them all, the service provided is not left for us on their workstation consuming the other 45% of service costs. It is foolish to imagine that what a person brings to a service is not actually part of the service.

I find it incomprehensible that the Ontario government, with the ability to draw upon an international labour pool, the high number of unemployed, and the clear deflation in private sector salaries, would even bother trying to please the unions. If they don’t like it, fire them all. If that’s against the law, change the laws in the legislature. If that’s politically impossible, run an election on the issue. There have to be enough people who are sick and tired of the whining and complaining of the gilded class.

Fire them all? When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, he at least had trained military personnel to stick in place.

Honestly, I do not want to know who will replace all the fired Children’s Hospital oncologists. That is simply an absurd suggestion.

And if earning a living wage is considered to be membership in the gilded class, then the consequence of this view is that workers don’t really deserve a living wage.

Further, the message here is that those who think they ought to earn a living wage are whining.

So the next time you feel paranoid, or imposing or otherwise unjustified in expressing concern for people’s working lives, remember, you aren’t to blame.

Follow the money. The rich who are getting richer are trying to shame you out of a reasonable expectation for a decent work life and living wages.

That is sick and wrong and we must make it stop.