Archive for the ‘Economic policies’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Stiffed with the Bill: A Private Banquet at Civil Society’s Expense

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Stiffed with the Bill: A Private Banquet at Civil Society’s Expense

http://railroadedbymetrolinx.blogspot.com/2010/08/stiffed-with-bill-private-banquet-at.html

“With a stroke of the pen, a government can destroy the social safety net built carefully by generations.”
- John Hilary, Executive Director of the War on Want

Left: A trade union picnic banquet before the G20 Rally on Saturday, June 26th

An untendered contract for $16 billion for unneeded fighter jets. $1.3 billion spent on security for the G8 and G20 Summits. 116 votes passed quickly by Premier McGuinty – time for consideration approximately 8.2 minutes each – to pass unheard of laws to criminalize dissent, days before the G20 Summit. A federal Conservative Party which filibustered the vote for a full public inquiry into police conduct during the Summits, calling all 25,000 protesters ‘pro-violent’.

The provincial Liberal government’s MacDonald Block offices raided on July 15th by the OPP – specifically, Ministries of Transportation, Economic Development and Trade and Community and Social Services – launching an investigation into “irregular financial transactions” between the provincial government and outside vendors. And the only good news – on July 30th, there was the sudden withdrawal of SNC-Lavalin from the $1 right of way contract for the Air Rail Link. The full responsibility for the ARL has been transferred to Metrolinx, whose Chief Operating Officer Rob Prichard is being replaced by Bruce McCuaig, with the possibility now of the ARL becoming electric. Preemptive?

Canada’s national deficit stands at $54 billion, yet there were $6 billion in corporate tax cuts this year. A 13% HST has been imposed which means that the average wage earner will have even less discretionary income to spend, so that companies can have even greater tax cuts, ostensibly to invest in new jobs. New austerity measures, recommended by a right wing think-tank, the Conference Board of Canada, to cut many thousands of public sector jobs in health care, education and social services in the next three years, while testing an unproven job creation scheme subsidized by the HST.

Have you ever felt that someone else has held a private banquet at your expense, and stiffed you with the bill, and tip? A bill which now has the Harmonized, also known as the Hated, Sales Tax added? Is any of this HST going toward maintaining public services? No. It is an additional tax to enable banks, corporations and the military to fortify themselves at civil society’s expense, and the public sector’s demise. As someone pointed out, a wartime levy.

Canada is becoming militarized, and as we witnessed during the G20, this military state can work against its citizens as well as its aggressors. Provincially, the HST is streaming more funds into the pockets of corporations, with a tax deduction to them as they ransack Canada for its resources, and externalize the cost of destruction of our environment, and no one is fighting to defend the imperative civil right for the full environmental assessment process. On June 8th, Bill C-9, the Budget Implementation Act was passed, which contained several provisions enabling the National Energy Board to conduct their own environmental assessments for oil and gas developments – which is like asking my students to mark themselves. This bill was passed during the BP oil spill, with minimal outcry by the Liberal Party.

And what does it mean when 11,000 jobs from the public sector will be cut by 2013?

A close friend of mine told me that when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his family thought it prudent that she was placed into a private, rather than public, nursing home, assuming that the care was better. A few months later, they found that she was terribly neglected, and moved her into a public home. Surprisingly, they found that public sector care was much better than private, because the public nursing home was regulated by the government.

These are the public sector jobs – in nursing homes, schools, hospitals, transit, municipal services – which will be slashed to feed the bailout by the government for financial mismanagement incurred by the banks, which, incidentally, are making quite a healthy profit this quarter. The banks rebounded quickly, but our public sector, subjected to this drummed up, specious logic of emergency bill austerity measures, will not. Rather than requesting that the banks repay the debt they owe taxpayers by instituting a novel, and effective, infinitesimally small Robin Hood tax on bank transactions to tackle poverty and climate change, we will pay for these cuts with our society’s health. PM Harper opposed the imposition of the Robin Hood tax before the G20 to ensure his illusory future job as CEO of an American corporation, with Canada as a subsidiary, specializing in natural resources.

Of course, there is no interest in a long census form by the Conservative Party. They have stopped representing Canadians, particularly lower income Canadians, long ago. Their goal is to have corporate taxes cut down to 15% by 2012. What does this mean? As the social safety net is eroded, the federal government is anticipating growing dissent from those they are contesting the need to collect data about – those who are lower income, disabled and on a fixed income- to justify building a larger military-industrial complex to suppress those who are disenfranchised. Part of this Orwellian speech model is to publicly conflate protesters with vandals in the public mind so that they ramp up their expenditure on weapons of war, as opposed to building public transit infrastructure for the rabble. Sustainable, electric rail transit throughout Ontario could have been handily built with this promised contractual money for fighter jets, but was not deemed worthy. No explanation needed.

We can look forward to much more violence in our cities as basic needs are no longer met, as they have robbed Peter to pay Paul, and the Pauls are a tiny fraction of the population, secure behind a costly fence which cost $9.4 million, almost double the quoted $5.5 million by SNC-Lavalin. During the G20, the Toronto police were handed a blank cheque by the federal government, enabling the purchase of a substantial arsenal for a police state, so that the military has been fortified to quell growing dissent. It is not a coincidence that this police arsenal will be kept in Toronto, one of the hot spots of the thinking left, but it is a pity that Mayor Miller, who has felt the brunt of this G20 fiasco on police credibility, did not defend the protesters who were speaking in his best interests for the environment, transit and social justice.

Historically, when a society’s parliamentary process is suspended and disrupted, trade unions undermined, and people of property, such as the right wing press, banks and big business, are privileged, these policies are the precursors to a fascist state. I use this term with full cognizance of its weight and implication. Parliament has been prorogued twice by PM Harper within thirteen months, and the formal request by over 50,000 citizens, including lawyers, Amnesty International, and the Civil Liberties Association, for the full, public inquiry into the tactics and cost of the G20 and G8 Summit has been denied by PM Harper and Premier McGuinty. The Liberals stood up against the census, but did not speak out for a public G20 inquiry, which shows implicit support for the military apparatus being put in place. Spines, please.

In ‘Journey to a Revolution’, Michael Korda writes of the Hungarian Revolution: ”the general object of fascism was to stifle dissent, and bolster the existing establishment, while producing much drama in the way of rallies, parades, and propoganda, and the occasional foreign adventure to siphon off the energy of the lower middle class and the working class, who might otherwise have moved towards radical social reform”.

The Olympics? The G8 and the G20? The Pan Am Games? Bread not circuses, anyone? In addition to ceaseless pageantry, PM Harper deliberately prorogued parliament a second time to enact a bill, more powerful than NAFTA to undercut our sovereignty, the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This far reaching bill will provide sub-national access to municipal services, and undermine the public sector even further, losing thousands of good, Canadian jobs to international outsourcing.

Put it together. Civil society is no longer is prioritized by our government, our country is being sold off to corporations and banks, enabled by a newly armed police state, and expanding prison system, and jobs in our public sector are about to be slashed for international corporations to profit through CETA. This is a Conservative agenda campaign, military in execution, orchestrated by PM Harper, against local economies and the right to self-determination. Provincially, Premier McGuinty is designing his own policies through corporate gladhanding of governmental contracts.

Meanwhile, all over the Internet, discussion postings on news articles are polarized – are we allowed to protest, or not? And I think- for those who are Conservative – your rights are next. Although your values have been upheld by this minority government, I have noticed your online responses can only discredit the protesters by saying that they do not know what they are talking about, and labeling them as unemployed and shiftless. Name calling. Ad hominem attacks. And when you call someone names, all discussion ends. A primary school tactic used by bullies on the playground, undercutting fundamental rights upheld by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the right to assembly, and free speech, which you are using to discredit serious concerns about the democratic process, and silence those who are brave, engaged, and well-versed in international policy.

I have never been so concerned about the future of Canada, and I am hearing this from many of those who lived through the events of the past seven weeks in Toronto. Nowhere is the civil society being served or protected – by our police, by our elected representatives, by our city councilors, our Mayor, or by our media. When I read letters on the editorial page ranting about the public sector salaries, I compare these costs to the multi-billion dollar bailouts given to the banks, the golden parachutes given to bank executives, and the inflationary pageantry, and corporate contracts, for the Vancouver Olympic Games and G8 and G20 Summits. Compare these taxpayers’ expenses to those supporting our civil society, and quality of life. At least the public sector provides essential services, and is forced to be accountable.

I am an ethical citizen, yet my voice no longer matters. The moral and financial costs arising from all this pomp and circumstance, and the insidious HST, have already deeply hurt me. I have no government representation – not in Premier McGuinty, or Prime Minister Harper – and neither do the vast majority of Canadians. I cannot afford, and do not want to pay, for cuts to the public sector under these new, jerry-rigged austerity measures so that a self-selected corporate elite can pad their pockets, banks can prosper again, and a military empire, outfitted with massive, $10.65 billion  new prisons, can arise from the ashes, and I am not sure I can. I am too busy counting my pocket change to pay the HST on my electricity, gas, transit and groceries to join the banquet, while predicting that I will be stiffed with the tab as the more important guests flee the table.

I ardently believe, though, if you held a poll of Canadians and asked them if they wanted to live in a country which valued the military, corporations and banks more than our health care system, social services, education, transit system and environment, even the most deeply Conservative Canadian would say ‘no’.

References:
Shout for Global Justice, John Hilary speaks at 30:00, link to
http://vimeo.com/13227243
The War on Want, link to http://www.waronwant.org/
Jeffrey Simpson, ‘Just what we need: a $16-billion fighter jet’, link tohttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/just-what-we-need-a-16-billion-fighter-jet/article1641373/
Robert Benzie, ‘Cabinet rushed secret G20 change, documents show’, link at
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/840529–cabinet-rushed-secret-g20-change-documents-show
Steven Chase,’Tory filibuster seeks to block hearings on G20 policing’, link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-filibuster-seeks-to-block-hearings-on-g20-policing/article1637756/
Keith Leslie,’Questions linger over OPP raids Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne confirms Transport Ministry was a target’, link tohttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/questions-linger-over-opp-raids/article1652761/
Tess Kalinowski, ‘Province vows rapid rail link to Pearson by 2015 Pan Ams’, link to http://www.thestar.com/article/842240–province-to-run-rail-link-to-pearson-airport
Michael Korda, ‘Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956′, HarperCollins; 2006. page 54. Link to http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Revolution-Personal-History-Hungarian/dp/0060772611 More athttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/books/Heilbrunn.t.html
The Robin Hood Tax, link to http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/how-it-works/ and http://robinhoodtax.ca/
David J. Climenga, Bill C-9: ‘Earmarks’ have no place in Canadian legislation, link tohttp://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/05/earmarks-have-no-place-canadian-legislation
Heather Scoffield, ‘Canada says no to ‘Robin Hood’ tax athttp://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/canada-says-no-to-robin-hood-tax-91683444.html
Stephen Hui, ‘Statistics Canada head resigns over long-form census controversy’, link to http://www.straight.com/article-335208/vancouver/statistics-canada-head-resigns-over-longform-census-controversy
Lauren O’Neill, ‘G20 fence costs $9.4M, nearly double original estimate’, link tohttp://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/833495–g20-fence-costs-9-4m-nearly-double-original-estimate?bn=1
Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html

Tags:
Posted in Economic policies, Environment, Featured, Health, Poverty, The Real Issues | 1 Comment »

Global Victory for Water: but Canada abstains

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

In Historic Vote, UN Declares Water a Fundamental Human Right

The UN represents (or is supposed to represent) people and their governments.
The General Assembly is where significant global decision making ought to be made amongst the 192 state members.

July 29th, 2010
Democracy Now

The United Nations General Assembly has declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. In a historic vote Wednesday, 122 countries supported the resolution, and over forty countries abstained from voting, including the United States, Canada and several European and other industrialized countries. There were no votes against the resolution. We speak with longtime water justice activist, Maude Barlow.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Corporate Globalization, Economic policies, Environment, Featured Video, Health, The Real Issues | No Comments »

G20 Convergence: To its success and looking ahead

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

We used the fleeting moment of the G8/G20 summit to further organize Toronto’s community struggles against the impact of colonial, capitalist policies that seek to weaken us everyday. And we succeeded.

July 27, 2010,
One month after the G20 Convergence.

Since September 2009, we’ve worked to challenge, disrupt and abolish the G8/G20. We used the fleeting moment of the G8/G20 summit to further organize Toronto’s community struggles against the impact of colonial, capitalist policies that seek to weaken us everyday.

And we succeeded.

From June 21 to 27, 2010, nearly 40,000 people took to the streets, gathered in discussion, watched movies, set up a tent city, danced and fought. This in itself is a victory.

For the first time, an economic summit saw a march of thousands against colonization and for Indigenous sovereignty (on June 24). This in itself is a victory.

Instead of simplifying our diverse struggles in to one issue, we supported actions for Queer and Trans Rights (22 June), for Environmental Justice (23 June), for Income Equity and Community Control Over Resources (21/24/25 June) , for Gender Justice and Disability Rights (22/25 June), for Migrant Justice and an End to War and Occupation (25 June). We created the conditions for over 100 grassroots organizations to come together, to build relations, to grow stronger together. This in itself is a victory.

For the first time at a G8/G20 Summit (on June 25), we saw communities in ongoing resistance, people of color, poor people, Indigenous people, women, disabled folk, queer folk and others leading the Days of Action (25-27 June). This in itself is a victory.

Knowing that our freedom will rise from an attack at all fronts, respectful of the traditions and needs of safety and efficacy of all our friends; we ensured that actions with conflicting tactics took place separately. This in itself is a victory.

For months, we were followed, intimidated, arrested, our meetings infiltrated by state thugs. Many of us were snatched in pre-dawn and early morning raids on the day of the G20 meeting, yet we were not swayed. We came together, gathered strength and continued to support the demonstrations. This in itself is a victory.

So while 1,090 people have been arrested, thousands beaten, illegally detained, searched, harassed and abused. While over 300 people face criminal prosecutions for their ideological and political actions, and while multiple instances of so-called conspiracy trials and politically motivated targeting continues, we insist, this June 2010, on the streets of Toronto, the people won.

One phase of our work is complete. A new one must begin.

Many of us are organizers in community groups and will be returning to them, we urge you to join us.

Many of us are activists inspired by our collective power these last few months, we intend to form new spaces and organizations for justice, we urge you to do the same.

Many of us will continue to fight for freedom for our friends facing repression, we urge you to support us.

The organized resistance in Toronto has emerged stronger, unified, connected. We take this moment to send our solidarity to the organizations and groups across the world to continue their struggles. Take action in your communities. Build lasting movements for justice free of state violence.

=======

Have an inspiring story, picture or video, email them to
community.mobilize@resist.ca. It is imperative that we remember the joys
with the pain.

This message has been released by the Toronto Community Mobilization Network on July 28, 2010.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Animal Rights, Assault on Democracy, Corporate Globalization, Disability rights, Economic policies, Environment, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration/Refugee/Migrant Justice, Indigenous Rights, Labour, The Real Issues, War and Occupation | No Comments »

Sticking the Public With the Bill for the Bankers’ Crisis by Naomi Klein

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Why does the public have to pay for corporate errors? Klein writes a scathing critique of the G20 and how its policies have “hemorrhag[ed] public money to save the banks, the tax base collapsed, creating an entirely predictable debt and deficit crisis.”

Article by Naomi Klein

My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I’m not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday.

I’m talking about the heads of state who, on Sunday night, smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession. Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world’s wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill.

How else can we interpret the G20’s final communiqué, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013. This is a huge and shocking cut, and we should be very clear who will pay the price: students who will see their public educations further deteriorate as their fees go up; pensioners who will lose hard earned benefits; public sector workers whose jobs will be eliminated. And the list goes on. These types of cuts have already begun in many G20 countries including Canada, and they are about to get a lot worse. For instance, reducing the projected 2010 deficit in the U.S. by half, in the absence of a sizeable tax increase, would mean a whopping $780-billion cut.

They are happening for a simple reason. When the G20 met in the London in 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, the leaders failed to band together to regulate the financial sector so that this type of crisis would never happen again. All we got was empty rhetoric, and an agreement to put trillions of dollars in public monies on the table to shore up the banks around the world. Meanwhile the U.S. government did little to keep people in their homes and jobs, so in addition to hemorrhaging public money to save the banks, the tax base collapsed, creating an entirely predictable debt and deficit crisis.

At this weekend’s summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper convinced his fellow leaders that it simply wouldn’t be fair to punish those banks that behaved well and did not create the crisis (despite the fact that Canada’s highly protected banks are consistently profitable and could easily absorb a tax). Yet, somehow, these leaders had no such concerns about fairness when they decided to punish blameless individuals for a crisis created by derivative traders and absentee regulators.

Last week, the Globe and Mail ran a fascinating article about the origins of the G20. It turns out the entire concept was conceived in a meeting back in 1999 between then Finance Minister Paul Martin and his U.S. counterpart Lawrence Summers (itself interesting since Summers was, at that time playing a central role in creating the conditions for this financial crisis, allowing a wave of bank consolidation and refusing to regulate derivatives).

The two men wanted to expand the G7, but only to countries they considered strategic and safe. They needed to make a list but apparently they didn’t have paper handy. So, according to reporters John Ibbitson and Tara Perkins, “the two men grabbed a brown manila envelope, put it on the table between them, and began sketching the framework of a new world order.” Thus was born the G20.

The story is a good reminder that history is shaped by human decisions, not natural laws. Summers and Martin changed the world with the decisions they scrawled on the back on that envelope. But there is nothing to say that citizens of G20 countries need to take orders from this handpicked club.

Already, workers, pensioners and students have taken to the streets against austerity measures in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Greece, often marching under the slogan “We won’t pay for your crisis.” And they have plenty of suggestions for how to raise revenues to meet their respective budget shortfalls.

Many are calling for a financial transaction tax that would slow down hot money and raise new money for social programs and climate change. Others are calling for steep taxes on polluters that would underwrite the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change and moving away from fossil fuels. And ending losing wars is always a good cost saver.

The G20 is an ad-hoc institution with none of the legitimacy of the United Nations. Since it just tried to stick us with a huge bill for a crisis most of us had no hand in creating, I say we take a cue from Martin and Summers. Flip it over, and write on the back of the envelope: Return to sender.

This article was published on Monday, June 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Corporate Globalization, Economic policies, The Real Issues | 6 Comments »

A critical analysis of the G-20′s Toronto Declaration

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

G-20 Nations: Race to the Bottom will Continue


by Dawn Payley, Vancouver Media Co-op, on June 27, 2010.

As the G-20 summit winds down behind the fences surrounding fortress Toronto, there are at least 560 folks in jail, and anyone left out on the streets is facing detentions, beatings, searches and arrests.

This is the context in which the Group of 20 gathered to write the Toronto Summit Declaration, a 27 page document released earlier this evening. An early critical reading of this text makes it evident that those who have taken great risk to mobilize against the G20 have done so on behalf of the health of communities, and the planet.

Because though the Toronto Declaration begins with a populist appeal to sustainability, job creation and financial regulation, it enshrines a commitment to force the poor and working class around the world to tighten their belts yet again as states implement strict new austerity programmes.

The Declaration proposes an ambitious new structural adjustment agenda, designed by the IMF and the World Bank, that aims to halve first world deficits by 2013.

Shoring up financial sector abuse of public funds is likely one of the most pressing concerns of publics, who have been denouncing the bank bail out all around the world. But the language in the Toronto Declaration does little to guarantee meaningful public oversight of the financial sector.

The Declaration welcomes the recently passed US Financial Reform Bill, which according to Newsweek “effectively annoints the existing banking elite,” without putting a cap on executive compensation. Nor does the bill crack down on the banks that are supposedly “too big to fail,” including J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

Financial oversight will remain with elites, led by the IMF and other Multilatral Development Banks (like the Inter American Development Bank and the African Development Bank), which the declaration proposes should become “even stronger partners” in the future.

The Declaration indicates that G20 countries will pump $350 billion into Multilateral Development Banks, doubling their lending capacity, so that they can “focus on lifting the lives of the poor, underwriting growth, and addressing climate change and food security.”

The move towards putting MDBs on the front lines of global lending could be a response to the growing global rejection of International Financial Institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This shift is reminiscent of a move away from global trade and regional agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the World Trade Organization, and towards smaller regional deals and bilateral agreements.

The Toronto Declaration makes a point of noting that Haiti’s debt with International Financial Institutions will be cancelled, but avoids mention of the larger debt that the country owes to the Inter American Development Bank (IADB). Haiti owes less than $200 million to the World Bank and the IMF, while their outstanding debt to the IADB is upwards of $441 million. The IADB has also positioned itself to become the lead development bank behind the $10 billion reconstruction of the country.

In addition to an increased role for the IADB and other regional development banks, the Toronto Declaration promises more privatized “development financing” for low income countries. This could mean further subsidies for transnational corporations active in resource extraction and the maquila sector.

Language in the document about increasing global output, creating tens of millions of jobs, and reducing global imbalances flies in the face of recommendations for countries with higher debt loads to continue a regulatory race to the bottom by “maintaining open markets and enhancing export competativeness.”

The Toronto Declaration also welcomed the launch of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, which proposes to create food soverignty between public and private partnerships. This flies in the face of demands from peasent groups, including Via Campesina, who stated at the end of 2009 that “The absence of the heads of state of the G8 countries has been one of the key causes of the dismal failure of [the November 2009 Food and Agriculture Summit]. Concrete measures were not taken to eradicate hunger, to stop the speculation on food or to hold back the expansion of agrofuels””

The Declaration asks that the OECD, the ILO, World Bank, and the WTO facilitate their version of events by having them “report on the benefits of trade liberalization for employment and growth” at their next meeting. States are cautioned to stick with World Trade Organization measures and avoid new “barriers to investment or trade in goods and services.” Potentially included among these barriers are new environmental legislation and new forms of taxation on corporate activity.

On the topic of climate change, G-20 countries that support Cophenhagen issued a weak call for other nations to “associate with it.”

Tags:,
Posted in Economic policies, The Real Issues | 1 Comment »

OCAP Protesters Arrested Without Provocation, July 22nd 2010.

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Policing at the G20 summit sets a new precedent. The Toronto police continues to violently repress and threaten community organizers during peaceful protests.

Article by Megan Kinch, Toronto Media Co-op

Eleven peaceful protesters were arrested Wednesday, for the crime of speaking out against cuts to Ontario Works and Ontario Disability which take away food from sick people. Lisa Schofield, an organizer with OCAP (the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) said “it’s clear that they they are using the security budget to police poor communities. The austerity budgets that they are bringing down will be brought with lines of riot police.”

In an OCAP press release Anne Abbot said “I went to the demonstration to demand the special diet not be cut and that welfare and ODSP rates be raised 55% for those of us on social assistance. Instead, I was arrested and the police called me “a pawn” because I am disabled. I am not a pawn. Disabled people fight against governments that make and keeps us poor everyday, and we will fight until we win enough money to eat healthy food and pay our rents,” Current welfare rates are $585 a month for a single person, which is not enough to buy food for a previously healthy person, yet alone someone with special dietary needs.

The protest wound through the downtown, stopping at the offices of the provincial Liberals, who cut the special diet without warning. According to the OCAP website, it was to be a short stop to deliver an invoice “demanding full re-payment of benefits taken from people living on social assistance.” A banner was dropped from an office window and people spoke to the assembled crowd below.

Lenny Olin, was working as an interpreter for Ann Abbot, her employer, and was reading out Anne’s speech from the window when the crowd saw her dragged away by police. Ironically, the conclusion of the speech would have been a statement of solidarity with all prisoners.

The crowd chanted for the release of the prisoners, but to no avail. Several OCAP and allied labour activists, handcuffed, were loaded into a police van. One of those arrested was Ilian Burbano, a long-time community organizer with the Latin American Solidarity Network and the president of CUPE 3393.

Lenny and Anne however, were not loaded into the van.

“presumably because they didn’t have transportation that was wheelchair accessible.” Lenny said. “I guess in this case the ableist fucked up injustice system worked in our favour. However people with disabilities in general are drastically over-represented in prisons and other types of forcible confinement, such as government run institutions, nursing homes and accessible living facilities.” Evoking the use of hospitals as prisons for disabled people, the police at first refused to arrest Ann but threatened to send Ann to a hospital as they were arresting her employee.

The arrestees were taken to 52 Division, where a small solidarity protest went on all afternoon as people from OCAP, the Latino community and their allies anxiously awaited news from inside. People were shocked to hear that the charges for some were mischief and forcible entry, which were hugely disproportionate to the actions taken. Previously, this sort of protest would have resulted in a trespassing ticket at worst. As Ali Mustafa, standing outside the prison, commented “They set a new precedent now, thanks to the G20.” These events demonstrate that increasingly aggressive policing continues, and that the policies of “g20 land” were not a state of exception but a continued policy.

OCAP is refusing to capitulate to police intimidation, and is calling for supporters to gather at bail hearings, which will take place July 22nd at 10:30, at college Park courthouse  (south-west corner of Yonge & College).

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Assault on Democracy, Economic policies, Featured, Poverty, The Real Issues | 1 Comment »

The Meaning of “Austerity”

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

The G20 has identified national deficits as a key concern in the wake of the global economic crisis. To take care of this deficit they have decided to institute global austerity measures. These measures make for a time where, as Naomi Klein writes, the G20 governments are Stinking the Public with the Bill for the Banker’s Crisis. Funding for public funding and public services, including education and health are being cut, in order to make up for the deficits created by dolling out stimulus packages to banks and corporations.

There are some excellent posting on austerity measures and critiques of G20 policies on this website, including the article by Naomi Klein. Below are three videos that are dedicated to the explanation, analysis and implications of the austerity being imposed on us.

The Essence

The Analysis

An Implication

Tags:,
Posted in Economic policies, Featured Video, The Real Issues, Video | No Comments »

G20 a month later: Reflections on confronting impacts of economic austerity

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

In Canada, cutbacks aimed at key public institutions in a time of economic crisis are widespread, while in Ottawa the Conservative government aims to cut corporate tax rates to 15 per cent by 2012. “Sustainable economic growth” is the [G20] refrain but “growth for whom” is the question.


An article by Stefan Christoff

A month ago, thousands of chanting voices echoed between downtown towers in the core of Canada’s largest city, with people reclaiming the streets, facing down thousands of armed police — a dignified challenge to the closed-door G20 summit.

Brightly coloured protest flags flew in the summer winds, people confronted a billion-dollar security machine aimed at stifling dissent. Behind multilayered razor security walls, far away from street protests, technocrats crafted global policy in an armed fortress at a distance from public accountability or media scrutiny.

Although far from headlines, it is precisely the Toronto G20 agenda that sparked dramatic street protests, echoing significant grassroots mobilizations against the G20 summits in Pittsburgh and London.

Economic growth is a buzz term in many policy documents along with platitudes pronounced by politicians at the G20. “Sustainable economic growth” is the refrain but “growth for whom” is the question.

As billions in public bailout financing flows into major banks, calming the crisis in the halls of financial power, key banks are again securing massive profits while the economic crisis continues to deepen for a global majority.

As a consequence, the vibrant protests against the G20 are fundamentally inspired by growing social and economic injustice. In Toronto, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) said in a statement: “We protested because we know that the policies of the G20 affect poor people every day: decisions to fund security and prisons instead of schools and community centres, decisions to cut public services, childcare and welfare at the same time as giving huge tax breaks to corporations and banks.”

It is the social violence of poverty embodied in an economic vision of endless “growth” by any means, foundational to the G20, that creates context for street protests, as financial markets, often focused on speculative financing, are prioritized while public institutions and people suffer. In the official G20 Toronto Summit Declaration the term “social justice” is not mentioned once.

Advertising

No clear process to undercut growing global economic inequalities was pronounced at the G20 summit. This is at a time when the richest two per cent own more than half the world’s household wealth, with the global divide between rich and poor wider than at any other time in our history.

In the U.S. alone, almost 40 million live below the poverty line. Despite populist rhetoric from Barack Obama, there is greater wealth concentration at the top income bracket today than at any time since the 1920s, and a wealth gap that is growing for marginalized communities and women, as outlined in an alarming report by the Women of Color Policy Network in 2010.

In Canada, economic injustice is also mounting, specifically in Québec where the earning gap between the wealthy and the rest is at a 30-year high according to a recent study by Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-economiques.

Major street protests in Montreal challenged a highly unpopular healthcare tax introduced in the past budget, a tax which undermines the principles of public healthcare while amounting to a $200-per-year flat tax by 2012 for all citizens. Essentially, someone earning $15,000 a year will pay the same in health tax as someone making $300,000 per year, “a fundamentally unequal and unjust social equation,” according to Québec solidaire.

In Canada, cutbacks aimed at key public institutions in a time of economic crisis are widespread, while in Ottawa the Conservative government aims to cut corporate tax rates to 15 per cent by 2012, Canada will then have the lowest tax rate for corporations in G7 major economies, reducing annual government revenues by $14-billion as our society is forced to walk a financial tightrope.

Canada’s unconditional gift for major corporations occurs as the government moves to balance budgets, corporate tax cuts covered by deep cuts in public spending on healthcare, social assistance programs for the poor and financing for post-secondary education, cuts that will fuel institutional crisis in our public universities, as currently seen at the University of Toronto, as the arts and science budget is slashed for fiscal balance amidst growing public outcry.

Conservative funding assaults on key community organizations in Canada, including women’s groups like Status of Women Canada, amounting to tens of millions of dollars in recent years, are occurring in tandem with billions in tax cuts being doled out to corporations. This is at a time in Canada when men on average get paid over 20 per cent more than their female colleagues, according to a 2010 study by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), giving Canada one of the highest gender earning gaps among OECD nations.

These slash-and-burn economics were propelled to a global stage by Conservative politicians at the G20 summit in Toronto, dangerous policies undercutting social justice for the global majority. It is no wonder they were duly confronted by thousands on the streets in Toronto.

Canada’s Conservative finance minister and delegate to the G20, Jim Flaherty, oversaw Ontario’s devastating experiment with “savage capitalism” in the 1990s, resulting in massive cuts to social programs extending from education, to food banks and shelter programs for the homeless, slashes to public spending and billions in corporate tax cuts resulting in stormy provincial finances and thousands of homeless on the streets in Toronto.

Today, across Canada, Flaherty continues enforcing financial “austerity” via assaults on the national social safety net.

“Ontario paved the way for tax cuts in this country,” said Flaherty in a recent interview on public sector cuts.

“I’ve done it before. I did it in Ontario,” proclaims Flaherty, referencing an era in Ontario with extended house arrest for people accused of welfare “fraud” by the government. In Sudbury, 40-year-old Kimberly Rogers died in 2001 under house arrest while eight months pregnant, sparking national controversy while illustrating the profound inhumanity that is the foundation to Conservative economics.

Canada pushed similarly violent economics at the G20 summit, successfully stifling the campaign to establish a tiny global bank tax on financial transactions, or “Robin Hood tax” that could create an international financial pool to assist in poverty alleviation or to ensure that public financing will not again bailout banks for capitalist tricks gone bad on the market place.

Financial “austerity” measures celebrated at the G20 will undoubtedly further target social safety nets globally, as the politicians, holding a billion dollar-plus photo-ops in Toronto, pronounced intentions to cut annual deficits in half by 2013, under the influence of Canada. Tightening on national budgets will certainly impact the most economically marginalized by the financial crisis if Canada is any indication, as fiscal responsibility is centred on cutting social programs while sustaining billions in corporate tax cuts.

“The austerity agenda announced at the G20 is unprecedented, they all agreed to the right-wing edge of policy advocated by the Harper government,” said John Clarke, organizer with OCAP, “the implications to such austerity measures are incredible in Ontario, where we are fighting against cuts to the special dietary program for people on social assistance, a small fraction of the over one billion spent on the summit could refund many times over the special diet program for the most marginalized.

“Globally speaking we are going to be dealing with cuts backs and attacks at a totally different scale,” he continued. “People mobilizing against the G20 summit in Toronto see a direct connection between the reprehensible gatherings of world leaders and the kicks in the teeth they are receiving from their local government, we are looking at an incredible period of austerity but hopefully we’re also looking at an incredible period of resistance.”

Recent street protests in Toronto against the G20 build on a historical arc of social activism in Ontario, where, over decades, groups like OCAP have facilitated community resistance to the type of “austerity” measures focused on in announcements at the recent international summit.

Social resistance over the past decade in Ontario, lead-by marginalized communities opposing Conservative anti-poor economics, extends beyond traditional protest into direct actions aiming to confront political leaders, institutions and symbols of political power in Ontario under a Conservative government that saw hundreds of homeless die on the streets.

In line with economic austerity, multiple millions were cut from social housing projects across Ontario starting in the late 1990s, sending thousands of people on to the streets, policies that continue under the current Liberal government but that took a pointed extremism under Mike Harris.

Confronted by policies in Ontario shaped by a profound disrespect for the dignity of marginalized people and economic disregard for publicly funded institutions that facilitates life for the majority, from universities to hospitals, groups like OCAP took on direct action as a way to be heard.

Militant protests at the Ontario legislature in June 2000, led-by OCAP, were an important moment in the recent history of social movements in Canada, a moment that expanded the possibilities for social movements to consider the power of mass direct action.

After police refused a simple request by OCAP for poor people to address politicians at the legislature, those directly responsible for slashing social programs for the most marginalized, protesters challenged police lines at Queen’s Park, insisting to speak truth to power on the cuts in public funding that took hundreds of lives on the streets.

Certainly, this protest created debate on street tactics, leading some union activists to call for cuts to OCAP funding. However, as outlined by author Naomi Klein at the time, OCAP creates “a space for the poor to speak, and to act, for themselves. And this is where things get complicated: Most of us don’t really want to see and hear this, the anger in their voices, the rage in their actions.”

Anger on the streets in Ontario, resulting from the social violence inflicted by a Conservative government administering cuts to social programs in parallel to billions in corporate tax breaks, illustrated the necessity to go beyond reforms or political lobbying in Ontario at a time when hundreds had died on the streets.


In Toronto 2010, street demonstrations against the G20 again challenged parametres of protest in Canada, as tens-of-thousands marched to challenge the G20 economics of global austerity measures pushed by key Canadian politicians instrumental to the deadly Ontario policies one decade earlier.

Let us view the smashed windows of Canada’s major banks on Bay Street as a warning shot by activists, a cry to immediately reverse growing economic inequalities fostered by austerity, not only in Canada but globally.

An article by Stefan Christoff, appeared in rabble.ca on July 22nd.

Tags:,
Posted in Economic policies, The Real Issues | No Comments »

What we struggle for on a daily basis: The fundmentals of G20 resistance

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Harsha Walia from No One is Illegal touches on economic disparity and exploitation, the absence of a democratic process and the illegitimacy of borders. She urges people to find out more about why people are resisting the G8/G20.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Animal Rights, Corporate Globalization, Disability rights, Economic policies, Environment, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration/Refugee/Migrant Justice, Indigenous Rights, Labour, The Real Issues, Video, War and Occupation | 1 Comment »

Voices for migrant justice from South Korea, the location for the next G20 summit

Monday, July 19th, 2010


A letter from the Migrant Trade Union of South Korea asks for support and solidarity in face of repression and abuse wrought by the South Korean government, preparing to host the next G20 summit in November 2010.

Dear friends and allies

Migrants Trade Union (MTU) sends you warm greetings and solidarity. We are writing to inform you of very upsetting events taking place in South Korea and to ask for your support.

South Koreais currently preparing to host the G20 Summit in November. The government of Lee Myung-bak is using the upcoming event as an excuse to enforce policies that trample on basic democratic rights. In particular, the Lee administration is using the G20 Summit as a pretext for carrying out a massive crackdown against undocumented migrant workers currently residing in the country.

For many years now, migrant workers have worked in South Korea’s small and medium-size factories, playing an important role by supporting South Korean industry. Undocumented migrant workers, who have often lived in Korea longer than their documented colleagues, have become especially accustom to Korean culture and lived together with Korean citizens as part of Korean society.

Despite the fact that the Korean government brings thousands of migrantworkers to Korea to fill labor shortages in small and medium-size companies, it will not allow them to legally settle or invite their families to live with them. Refusing to sight the UN Convention on the Protect of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Family, which promises basic protections for migrant workers’ human rights, the South Korean government treats migrant workers only as cheap and disposable labor. The government’s sole policy towards undocumented migrant workers has been one of viscous raids, detention and deportation, which has lead to countless injuries and deaths. Every year, migrant workers lose their lives in the course of the government’s crackdown.

This year, the government is using the G20 Summit as an excuse to openly strengthening the policy of raids, detention and deportation. Since May, the police have been carrying out a ‘crackdown on foreigner crime’, stopping people on the street for no reason other than that they appear to be foreign. The government has said it plans to get rid of South Korea’s 180,000 undocumented migrant workers by the end of August.

In response, labor and social justice organizations are joining forces to oppose this anti-human rights, anti-labor policy, and carry out a united struggle to protect migrant workers’ rights.

We ask for your support and solidarity as we move forward with our struggle. Please send letters of protest to the South Korean government expressing your grave concern about its repression against migrant workers. A sample letter is attached for your reference.

Your solidarity is an important part of a wider effort to protect the rights of South Korea’s migrant workers. We will work hard to keep you informed of the situation here in Korea. We ask for your sincere attention and support.

Sincerely,

July 4th, 2010

You may fill in your organizations name and sign the letter below, or use it as reference to draft your own letter.

Please fax letters to: President Lee Myung-bak

Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea
Building 1, Gwacheon Government Complex,
Jungang-dong 1, Gwacheon-si, Gyeonggi-do
Republicof Korea
Fax: 82-2-2110-3079

Commissioner of Korean Immigration Service
Fax: 82-2-500-9059, 82-2-500-9128, 82-2-500-9026

When you do so, please also send a copy to us a mtuintl@jinbo.net or
82-2-2269-6166 (fax)

<Sample Protest Letter>

We at  *(fill in organization name) * wish to express our deep-felt anger and concern about South Korea’s policy towards undocumented migrant workers. It has come to our attention that your administration is pursuing a massive crackdown against South Korea’s 180,000 undocumented migrant workers in preparation for the G20 Summit to be held in November this year. While you seek to advance your country’s international standing by hosting the Summit, this blatant attack on basic rights only demonstrates the backwardness of your government and its stance towards migrants.

We are aware that migrant workers have played an important role in turning South Korea from a underdeveloped to a highly developed nation. Even now, migrant workers are supporting the Korean economy by filling labor shortages in small and medium-size companies.

In an age when migration is taking place around the globe, governments need new forward-looking policies on migrants. Recognizing this, many nations have signed the International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families and are seeking to reduce discrimination against migrants. Some governments have provided pathways for undocumented migrants who have resided in their borders for a long time to settle and attain the same rights as nationals. This is because they recognize that even without legal visa status, these migrant and their families have contributed to and become part of the society in which they live. It is also because these government recognize that undocumented migrant workers play an important role in supporting national economies.

In comparison, the South Korean government’s policy towards migrant workers lags far behind international standards. Amnesty international has documented Amnesty International has documented and expressed concern about cases of, “arbitrary arrests, collective expulsions and violations of law enforcement
procedures, including in some cases, excessive use of force,” during raids by South Korean immigration officials and police. The international NGO has also noted that, *”mass crackdowns have… put pressure on detention facilities, contributing to**
**problems of overcrowding, poor living conditions and delayed access to medical**
** treatment”*(Amnesty International, *Disposable Labor: Rights of Migrant Workers in South Korea*, 33).

In his 2008 report to the Human Right Council, the UN Special Rapporteur noted that states *have, “the obligation to respect and protect the human rights of all those within its territory, nationals and non-nationals alike, regardless of mode of entry or migratory status” *(A/HRC/7/12, para 14). He also noted that a high degree of discretion given immigration authorities to detain migrants and the use of mass raids can lead to human rights violations  and collective expulsion, which is illegal in international law (A/HRC/7/12, para 48-49). He recommended that states find alternatives to detention, as a means for avoiding the abuses undocumented migrants face (A/HRC/7/12, para 65).

We are gravely concerned that South Korea is doing nothing to address these issues and it instead, only strengthening policies which violate migrant workers rights. We therefore make the following demands:

1. That the South Korean government and, in particular the Ministry of Justice and the Immigration Service, immediately stop the viscous crackdown, which is threatening the human rights and very lives of migrant workers.

2. That the South Korean government stop using the goals of a successful G20 Summit and advancement of its international standing as an excuse to arrest and deport migrant workers, and instead put forth a realistic solution to the problems of undocumented migrant workers, such as a plan for legalization.

We will be keeping an eye on the measures the government implements with regard to migrant workers and the efforts it makes to protect their rights. We hope that you will do your best to put forth a positive policy concerning the rights of undocumented migrant workers and their families.

Sincerely,

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Animal Rights, Corporate Globalization, Disability rights, Economic policies, Environment, Featured, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration/Refugee/Migrant Justice, Indigenous Rights, Labour, The Real Issues, War and Occupation | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »