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In my inbox today:OCAP STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH TORONTO CITY WORKERS
The members of CUPE 416 and 79 who work for the City of Toronto
are now on strike. The business media has begun its inevitable campaign of
misinformation to produce the greatest possible backlash against these
workers. We are encouraged to focus on uncollected garbage and suspended
services but not, of course, to give any regard to the rights of public
sector workers or to think as working people about what is at stake in
this strike.
OCAP, as a matter of basic principle, stands in solidarity with
workers' struggles. We don't hate or blame workers who have been able to
win a living wage or support calls for them to be driven into poverty.
Rather, we want to see the poor provided with wages and incomes that raise
them out of poverty.
This strike occurs in a context that makes it especially important
for all of us that it end in victory and that the concessionary demands of
the 'progressive' Miller Administration be defeated. The Mayor defended
his shameful efforts to gut the collective agreements of City workers by
pointing to rising welfare caseloads brought on by the economic downturn.
What a disgusting statement. To pit City workers against those who are
being forced to turn to the wretched sub poverty pittance that welfare
provides is an outrage. This comes from a man who boasts that there are
more cops on the streets under his regime than every before and who is
taking us towards an obscene billion dollar a year police budget, while he
has frittered away the welfare reserve fund
to a fraction of where it was when he took office.
The Mayor points to the state of the economy to justify his attack
on City workers. In doing this, he makes clear what side he is on when it
comes to who should pay for this economic crisis. As unemployment shoots
up, we face the situation with an empty shell of an unemployment insurance
system that shuts out most of the unemployed and with a post Mike Harris
welfare system that fails to provide the necessities of life. None of the
'solutions' to the crisis involve meeting the basic needs of the
unemployed and poor. For those who still have jobs and unions, the
bankrupt corporations they work for will be bailed out at vast public
expense while their rights as workers are destroyed and they are presented
with massive concessionary demands.
The process of attacking workers started in the auto industry and
other parts of the private sector. The drive for austerity is now
spreading, inevitably, to the public sector. Beginning with militant
fights by postal workers in the 1960s, public sector workers have spent
decades struggling for decent wages and conditions.
The present crisis of capitalism will mean an all out confrontation to
take back those gains. Moreover, an attack on the workers who deliver
public services can't be separated from the attack on the services
themselves and the rights of those who receive them. That is the context
of this strike and we in OCAP know what side we're on. We call for full
support for the City workers. Send messages of solidarity. Be there with
them on their picket lines. Stand with them in their fight because they
are fighting for all of us.
This evening, eating ice cream outside near Mel Lastman square, there was a baby falcon sitting on a telephone wire. There were a couple of people taking photos, and one guy told us that this baby had just flown for the first time yesterday. The family of three live atop a highrise at Elmwood (on the small green roof that we could see from the ground). Apparently there are only 74 of these falcons in Ontario, so these three are extremely important. There are all kinds concerned citizens watching out for their well-being. I was too awed to even think of taking a photo of the baby - who was really close - but I did snap a pic of the poppa falcon flying. Please excuse the poor quality as I took it with my cell phone cam.
Wednesday night an Aboriginal man who was homeless was found frozen to death in a stairwell around Yonge and Charles St. Another man was found in Chinatown with serious injury from exposure.
Just six days ago the City heard 12 deputations from agencies and community members about the current crisis. After the loss of over 300 shelter spaces and basic needs such as food, we have been left in a dangerous situation. Demands were made for only the most basic need -shelter. The City's response was to leave people in danger and to risk injury and death. The death of this man and the injury and suffering of other homeless people is on the hands of the City.
On Tuesday will be going to City Hall to face Miller and demand an immediate response to this crisis. This is aserious situation and we ask that you make all efforts to join us. For more info contact OCAP.
Taking a look at the current shelter crisis in Toronto, this issue includes writing on the $4 million cuts to the shelter system, the new police cameras at Dundas and Sherbourne, the illusion of the City's "Streets to Homes" policy and crumbling public housing.
Or, go a-paradin' at 6:00. Meet at 5:00 at Trinity-Bellwoods park. One tip: I don't suggest driving down to the parade (or if you have no other method of transportation, why not consider one of these).
- Scout out a parking spot where you'd like to spend the afternoon
- Park your non-motorized "vehicle" (bike, trike, roller-skates, dinky-car etc.) along Queen West
- Pay the meter: for $1.50 per hour the spot is yours! (Be sure to display your parking receipt on the "dash" of your "vehicle")
Today I will narrow my usual global scope to my city of residence: Toronto. As those of you who live here know, our beloved public transportation has been dying a slow death in the past several years. Service has gotten worse, buses and subways more crowded, fares far more costly. I am a die-hard anti-car person, and yet... and yet... lately I've been getting fed up with the TTC ("The Bitter Way"), which as they say, should stand or Take The Car. And now, faced with an ever-worsening budget disaster, the city proposes insane service cuts. Yes, insane. Don't believe me, read about it here, or just look at this map of the proposed cuts.
I won't go into the details of the terrible things that will befall our city if the proposed cuts happen, but consider the congestion now, and then consider it if even 25% more cars were on the road. Those who choose the TTC for their daily commute will simply go back to their cars, because what middle income earner in her right mind would sardine herself with strangers for half an hour twice a day when there's a comfortable air conditioned car ride as an alternative - especially when the sardine rides cost her 50 cents more each day. Those who have no choice but to take the TTC, predominantly school children, poor people, carless people, the elderly, and students, will be screwed. Having no alternative, they will pony up the extra money. For middle class college students, perhaps it means a little less beer or coffee, but for many of the city's poor, it means a little less food in the tummy. This is outrageous in a city with so much wealth.
Michael Parenti to Speak at Ryerson
On Sunday May 20th starting at 7pm, CKLN presents Michael Parenti at the Student Campus Centre 55 Gould Street (at Church, 1block N of Dundas). Parenti will speak on "Race, Gender, and Class Power".
Who is Michael Parenti? Michael Parenti is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation's leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad.
Parenti is the author of 20 books. His most recent is The Culture Struggle. The Culture Struggle is a tremendous contribution to the fight for social justice in this period. This volume discusses how to think about cultural imperialism, cultural relativism, and racism and gender oppression. Culture is analyzed as a component of social power and political struggle in the United States and elsewhere.
Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. Some of his writings have been translated into Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton, has said, "Michael Parenti is a towering prophetic voice in American life. We need him now more than ever."
Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
At least that's what Toronto Police thought in the 1980s:A surveillance report leaked to CBC News details how Det. Garry Carter went undercover in the community, spying on bathhouse operators, attending conventions in Alberta and tracking gay candidates running for city council.
The detective even reported on how gay activists questioned the police budgets.
Coun. Kyle Rae, a vocal gay rights advocate, said the report confirms what many in the community had long suspected.
"We were seen as a subversive minority that was worthy of ridicule and violence against us by the police," said Rae. "It's part of the paranoia of the '70s and '80s. It's not appropriate, but I'm not surprised."
It wasn't the first anti-gay police action in Canada's history, but it was the biggest and most brutal. At 11 o'clock the evening of February 5, 1981, 150 plainclothes and uniformed police officers staged violent raids on four of Toronto's five gay bathhouses and arrested almost 300 men.
"Please Keep our Streets Clean: Over 818 People Have to Sleep on Them"
"Homeless Sleeping, QUIET"
Turns out these signs are the work of Mark Daye, a 4th year graphic design student at OCAD, who says:Instead of rebranding a product, or service for my 4th year thesis project I chose to represent a local population that usually gets overlooked. I re-coded official signage and affixed 30 of them to poles in the downtown core with messages pertaining to an obvious but ignored urban sub culture. The goal was not only to catch people off guard by creating signs that acknowledge the homeless population on a seemingly official level, but to get people to think about codes of behaviour, conformity, acceptance and to maybe spare some consideration for the homeless who live mostly ignored in the city, blending into the background just like the signs.
"2 Homeless People Die Every Week in Toronto"
BOLD STEPS NEEDED ON CHILD POVERTY
Toronto Star Editorial - February 19, 2007
All children in low-income families deserve a fair and decent start in life, whether their parents struggle in low-wage jobs or are forced by circumstances to rely on welfare to make ends meet.
But in Ontario, unlike many other provinces, children in welfare families are unfairly punished by a provincial policy that denies their families a small amount of money – just $122 a month for each child – that would go a long way to help buy food, clothing and pay the rent.
Now, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has a golden opportunity to right this wrong in his coming provincial budget, expected in April or early May, by taking the bold step of introducing an Ontario Child Benefit as part of a comprehensive and realistic poverty reduction strategy.
Sorbara said earlier this month he is looking at a "basket of tools" to address widespread poverty in this province.
In the Star's view, that basket should include raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour from $8 and bringing in a new Ontario Child Benefit to help both those on welfare and the working poor, a move that could then lead to the elimination of Ontario's current clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement, which the Liberals pledged to do in the 2003 provincial election campaign.
Ontario's clawback of the national supplement was one of the most odious moves by the former Conservative government of premier Mike Harris. The supplement was designed to help parents who earn less than $36,000.
However, in Ontario, the provincial government claws back, or reduces, monthly benefits to people on welfare by an amount equal to 75 per cent of the federal benefit. That amounts to $122 a month per child.
Growing numbers of progressive policy planners are convinced that a more equitable way of helping both working poor families and those on welfare is to dramatically restructure the social assistance programs and de-link income support directed at children from the system entirely.
That is what is starting to happen in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where all low-income families receive a separate, income-tested child benefit, regardless of whether their parents are working or are relying on welfare.
If adopted in Ontario, a provincial child benefit could be fully indexed, income-tested and provide needed funds to all low-income families with children up to the age of 18.
By extending the benefit to low-income working families, it would ensure that parents who try to move from welfare to the workforce are not penalized. Right now, the so-called "welfare wall" means many parents on social assistance cannot afford to take a job because it means giving up needed medical and dental coverage for their children that is currently paid by the government as long as the parents are on welfare.
When combined with Ottawa's child benefit supplement, the Ontario Child Benefit would insulate all children from their parents' financial ups and downs and ultimately lessen the reliance of many poor families on food banks to feed their children.
But the new Ontario benefit must not simply combine old programs into a new program with a different name. It must result in more money in the pockets of poor families. And it ultimately must provide enough money to raise the living standards of all low-income families.
If fully implemented in one step, such a program could cost up to $1 billion a year. If a provincial program was combined with the national plan, a single parent with one child, for example, would get $1,254 a month in assistance. Under the existing structure, the assistance is $1,132 monthly.
To ease the financial impact on the coming budget, the Ontario Child Benefit could be phased in, possibly over a three- to four-year period, with much of the benefit coming the first year. For instance, $60 a month might be instituted immediately, followed by an extra $31 a month in the each of the next two years, bringing the total to $122 month per child. Such a phased-in approach could mean Queen's Park would have to budget $300 million to $500 million in the first year, rather than $1 billion.
While some taxpayers may balk at the government spending such sums of money, all Ontarians have a vested interest in addressing poverty because a healthy, well-educated and more prosperous workforce will help drive the provincial economy into the future.
In the end, helping children grow up in the best possible environment is not only a sensible goal, but also the right thing for Sorbara to do.
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