News and views from SA Canada Ontario Premier Quits — Suspends Legislature

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When Premier Dalton McGuinty an­ nounced on Oct. 15 that he had pro­ rogued the Ontario Legislature, and that he would leave office in the new year, it stunned the province. Put in perspec­ tive, however, these moves, accompanied by another massive federal government Omnibus Bill, show how the capitalist crisis is radically reducing the democrat­ ic pretenses of the ruling elite.

It is true that McGuinty has particular reasons to try to shield himself and his minority government from scrutiny over spending scandals (the costly cancella­ tion of gas-fired power plants, timed to save the seats of local Liberal MPPs, and corruption at ORNGE air ambulance ser­ vice).

But it is desperate economic times that beget the most desperate measures. The global capitalist recession/depression is far from over. Workers have less work and less money to spend. Ontario and federal debts are in the hundreds of bil­ lions of dollars, and mounting, exacerbat­ ed by huge cuts to corporate and wealth taxes, not to mention rising military ex­ penditures.

The corporate rulers aim to make work­ ing people pay for the crisis. To that end they are imposing lower wage rates on new hires and cutting pensions in the private sector. They see this also as an opportunity to freeze wages, slash jobs and services, and reduce pensions and benefits across the public sector.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s fed­ eral budget calls for spending reductions of $5 billion annually and the elimination of 19,200 federal government jobs over several years.

Ontario Premier McGuinty has been cutting jobs and services too. In August he got the leaders of Catholic and French school board teachers to accept wage and sick leave concessions. But Elementary and Secondary school teachers and sup­ port staff refused, so he stripped them of their right to bargain and strike, and sim­ ply legislated his plan, with support from the Conservatives.

Then McGuinty hit a roadblock. His bid to do the same to 481,000 workers across the public sector failed to get Con­ servative backing (the Tories want more stringent, long-term anti-labour mea­ sures). And the labour-based New Demo­ cratic Party (weakly) opposed McGuinty, so the minority government Premier was unable to pass his “Protecting Public Ser­ vices Act” (sic), Bill 155.

Unwilling to lead his Liberal Party into a snap provincial election, McGuinty opted to suspend the legislature, and try to im­ pose his austerity programme without legislation, while making his exit from of­ fice. Liberals will choose a new leader on Jan. 27 in Toronto. Meanwhile, the busi­ ness of the Assembly, including standing committee enquiries into government secrecy and corruption, is put on hold for months. The toll this anti-democratic course has taken on the ruling party is reflected in Provincial Treasurer Dwight Duncan and Energy Minister Chris Bent­ ley choosing to retire from politics, rath­ er than seek the Liberal leadership.

Compared to Harper, McGuinty is a piker. Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament twice, and after the Tories lied, cheated, and robo-called their way to a federal majority government, they Attaching the word “budget” makes it a non-confidence vote, so the bill is immune to amendment, even by Conservative backbench­ ers.

The previous Omnibus bill gut­ ted environmental assessment, cut Employment Insurance, raised the age to collect a pension, shut down long-standing government agen­ cies, and made big changes to the Fisheries Act. Bill C-45 again de­ nies House of Commons Commit­ tees the chance to closely examine pipelines, small business tax credits, in­ terprovincial trade rules, cross-border travel, and the re-definition of an aborigi­ nal fishery. These matters, including en­ vironment assessment issues, will be re­ viewed quickly and superficially by a few MPs on the Finance Committee, before it is all pushed through the Commons and the Senate.

Speedy assembly-line austerity is what the bosses have ordered. It is what they think they need to stabilize their system. And it is what their governments are de­ livering, taking advantage of weak resis­ tance by labour and the NDP.

Opinion polls show that the NDP con­ tinues to rise in Ontario, buoyed by the by-election win in Kitchener-Waterloo. But putting all their eggs in the electoral basket is the mistake of party officials who think they can hold voter allegience by posing as better managers of crisiswracked capitalism.

What’s wrong with this approach, espe­ cially in the light of recent experience? By abstaining on McGuinty’s Spring budget, Leader Andrea Horwath and her NDP Caucus paved the way for anti-teacher Bill 115, now Law 115. To coin a phrase, the aim should be to “make the legisla­ ture work” for working people, not for the corporate ruling class.

By arguing that Law 115 is bad main­ ly because it will cause a great waste of money, because the courts will overturn it and force the government to compen­ sate its victims, Horwath really missed the mark. She failed to sound the alarm about the tremendous injustice of re­ moving the right to collectively bargain and the right to strike from hundreds of thousands of Ontario workers. The ‘cost­ liness’ argument also fosters illusions in the court system, where union victory is far from certain.

Playing the waiting game entrenches bad practices in the school system for years to come; a court decision may take ers. Furthermore, it centralizes power in the hands of a Cabinet minister who now does not have to answer questions in the Assembly.

Which brings us to the proroguing of the Legislature. McGuinty is aping Ste­ phen Harper—suspending the Ontario Parliament for the convenience of his party, to facilitate a change of face. Mc­ Guinty is curtailing inquiries into govern­ ment wrong doing, in order to continue to bully unions into a totally one-sided capitalist austerity agenda. A few news releases and rallies didn’t stop Harper. Why would an even less aggressive ap­ proach stop McGuinty?

Can we do better than that? Of course we can, and we must, because the future of the working class in Ontario, and be­ yond, is at stake. What do we need? Mass action. When do we need it? Now. What else do we need? More democracy in our unions and the NDP.

For example, Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association officials signed the Memorandum of Understanding with McGuinty without holding a vote of OEC­ TA members. Now there is a membership revolt. One of its districts is taking OECTA to court, and a grass roots movement is underway to defeat provincial executive incumbents next year.

The ONDP provincial convention, last April in Hamilton, voted to direct the ONDP Legislative Caucus to oppose the Liberal budget. But that direction was ignored.

As well, the party executive decided to delay unreasonably the provincial con­ vention in 2010, to overturn the execu­ tive election at an Ontario New Demo­ cratic Youth convention, and to rescind the NDP candidate nomination in Thorn­ hill constituency. It seems that democ­ racy is an endangered species, not only in the Legislature, but also in the NDP. It is in dire need of protection and recovery.

If working people are to defeat the capi­ talist austerity agenda in Ontario, and beyond, we need to take mass job action. Socialists are not alone in saying this. The Toronto and York Region Labour Council decided at its Oct. 4 meeting to explore the launch of Days of Action. These would be city-wide general strikes of the kind labour waged against the Mike Harris Conservative regime in the 1990s.

Now is the time to enlist workers’ or­ ganizations for a showdown with all the austerity-minded government—for which even the pretense of “democracy”– is increasingly passé. n