Fight for an NDP Government on a Workers’ Agenda
Municipal services are in crisis. Public education is threatened with further fragmentation and cuts. Aboriginal communities are besieged by wealthy developers. Job loss, poverty and homelessness are on the rise. Global warming is unchecked, propelling humanity towards an unprecedented catastrophe. These are some of the key issues at stake in the Ontario provincial election set for October 10, 2007.
For working people and the poor, the best way to advance the struggle for social justice is to vote for New Democratic Party candidates, to vote Yes in the referendum on proportional representation, and to strive for an NDP government based on a Workers’ Agenda.
While the NDP election platform is superior to those of the capitalist parties, the Liberals, Tories and Greens, it falls far short of meeting the needs of the vast majority of Ontarians.
Nonetheless, electoral gains for the labour-based NDP would be a blow to big business and would foster more opportunities for the working class and oppressed social layers to escalate struggles and to advance more effective demands to deal with the depredations of capitalism.
Commendable are NDP proposals to phase out coal plants, cancel nuclear power expansion, promote conservation, and substitute renewable electricity sources. Welcome are party pledges to reverse the downloading of social services by the province and rescue municipalities from fiscal ruin. Positive are NDP demands to more rapidly raise the minimum wage, regulate the predatory Payday loan industry, increase the provision of social housing, provide Pharmacare, and to implement a form of proportional representation.
But much more could be done, not only by tapping the province’s huge budgetary surplus, but by raising taxes on giant corporations and the rich, by ending corporate subsidies, and by extending public ownership into lucrative sectors.
The position of the NDP and the Labour leadership not only falls short on a number of counts (including aboriginal rights), it completely misses the boat on the challenge to public education. The provocative demand by the Progressive Conservative Party for public funding of all religious schools was countered by the Green Party which calls for a single, secular, publicly-funded school system. The effete response of the governing Liberals, and the third place NDP, is for the ‘status quo’ – continuing to fund both the public and Catholic school systems. This socially untenable position, which invites further fragmentation of the chronically underfunded public school system, should be resolved by the NDP in favour of a unified secular system of English and French schools, with a full reversal of the cuts stemming from the discredited funding formula of a previous Tory government.
Instead of tailing the winds of change, the NDP and its labour allies should be in the forefront, advocating solutions to the problems inherent in capitalist rule. Only by strengthening the confidence and unity of working people, and asserting the independence of the workers’ movement from the parties of big business, can we seize the opportunity to move forward. Campaigning now for an NDP government committed to a Workers’ Agenda is the way to go.
In that spirit, the NDP Socialist Caucus proposes the following policies to improve and extend important aspects of the current platform of the NDP.
Jobs for all. Shorten the work week, without loss of pay or benefits. Stop the layoffs. Open the corporate books. Reverse the social cuts. Reverse the privatization of public services and the de-regulation of the economy. Re-nationalize Ontario Power Generation, the Province of Ontario Savings Office, and Highway 407. Expand public ownership into the natural resources sector, into insurance, medical drugs, land development and housing construction. Abolish homelessness with a crash programme of social housing construction – at least 100,000 new, decent, affordable units. Freeze rents. Give tenants democratic control in their public housing projects.
Save the environment. Force industrial polluters to clean up their mess, or face expropriation. Fund low fare, mass public transit. Legislate a requirement that 50% of all automobiles sold in Ontario be powered by alternative (non-gasoline) fuel and/or be hybrid engine cars. Implement clean energy generation and re-processing (not mega-dumping) of garbage. Rapidly phase out nuclear energy production and facilities. Convert coal to natural gas energy generation now. Curtail factory farms and genetically modified crops/foods. Enforce carbon emission commitments. Fight plans to privatize public energy and transit systems. Aid family farmers with low-cost loans, disaster relief, and transportation and marketing assistance.
Restore food safety and rebuild the public service. Government should support small and medium sized enterprises to assist them in meeting food safety and environmental standards; develop and implement a rural strategy to encourage the growth of small and medium sized local production and processing enterprises; protect farm land; and rebuild public transportation, water and sewage systems. Keep our drinking water public. Re-hire the inspectors, especially in the areas of meat processing and water treatment inspection, and reverse contracting out and privatization of public protection programmes.
Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Take steps towards elimination of the PST and other regressive taxes, including the property tax on places of primary residence. Significantly increase taxes on the wealthy, on capital gains, on speculative financial transactions, on inheritances above $1 million, and on the giant corporations and the banks. Index pensions.
Restore funding to public education. Freeze post-secondary tuition and move rapidly towards free education at all levels. Abolish student debt. Bar private for-profit universities, colleges and hospitals. Outlaw public funding for religious, separate and private schools. Create a unified, secular, publicly-funded school system. Provide as an option the study of comparative religions and philosophies. Abolish the Ontario College of Teachers, the Ontario Teacher Qualifying Test, provincial standardized student testing, and other punitive devices designed to distract attention from the attack on public education.
Reverse the funding cuts to the public health care system. Start by implementing the Romanow Report and restoring standards. Ensure that public monies be spent only on public, non-profit health care. Establish free pharma-care and home care, combined with a nationalized drug research and manufacturing industry. For free, universal, quality childcare. Establish low-cost public auto insurance, and fund public transit in the major urban areas.
Democratize the economy and the work place through an aggressive agenda of social ownership. Genuine democracy means workers’ and community control, the democratic election of all major decision-making positions, the right to recall officials, and limiting the salaries of elected officials to the level of pay for skilled labour in the represented occupational sector. “Public Power” should mean democratic control, putting human needs ahead of private profit.
Defend and extend the right to strike for all workers, including agricultural workers. Respect the integrity and competence of unions to safeguard public health and safety and provide for the delivery of genuinely essential services during a strike by their members. Oppose anti-teacher legislation, strikebreaking, and any ban on the right to strike by all appropriate means, including mass protests and solidarity strike action. Restore the Ontario NDP labour laws. Apologize for the 1992 NDP Social Contract.
For full and equal rights for women, gays and lesbians, racial and ethnic minorities. End discrimination in pay and employment opportunities. Implement a policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” to provide access to public services, without fear, for non-status people. End racial profiling. For democratic, community control of the police.
For direct Proportional Representation of parties in the Legislature (and in the Federal Parliament), based on published, gender balanced, party candidates lists, and make the threshold for party representation in the Legislature one per cent of the votes cast. Give critical support to Mixed Member PR and work for direct PR.
We call on the Ontario NDP to actively press for action at the Federal level to:
- Extend Employment Insurance to cover all unemployed workers, at 80% of insured wages, with a low threshold qualifying period, benefits for up to 52 weeks, and the ability to renew a claim without penalty. Abolish the GST. Dedicate at least 2% of the federal budget to social housing construction.
- Expand social ownership into the means of communication, transportation, banking and manufacture, under workers’ and community control. Re-nationalize Air Canada and the railway system. Direct the Bank of Canada to assist the funding of public works and key initiatives with long-term, low interest loans to provincial and municipal governments.
- Self-determination for Quebec and Aboriginal Peoples. Repeal the Clarity Act. End the detention of refugees, and the victimization of people of colour, particularly Arabs and Muslims. Repeal the so-called anti-terrorism laws.
- For a foreign policy based on solidarity, internationalism, and social justice. US/Britain out of Iraq and the Middle East. Canada out of Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. No to George W. Bush’s missile defence system, Star Wars 2. Cancel the expenditure of billions of dollars on tanks, fighter bombers and naval war ships. Confine Canada’s armed forces to a domestic rescue and disaster relief role, and trim its budget accordingly. Defend revolutionary Cuba, and expand tourism and trade with Cuba. Demand the immediate release of the 5 Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in the U.S. Demand closure of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and the immediate release of Omar Khadr. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and all social justice political prisoners.
- Abrogate the corporate trade deals, the FTA, NAFTA, and the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership, and place a very high priority on environmental clean-up, eco-protection, clean energy generation, and on exceeding the Kyoto Accord targets on reducing green house gas emissions.
Conclusion
The Socialist Caucus of the Ontario New Democratic Party was officially founded at a conference in Toronto in November 1998. It unites NDP members dedicated to bringing the party back to its working class roots and fighting in an organized way for socialist policies. The caucus is programmatically based on the Manifesto for a Socialist Canada which was adopted at its founding conference.
It should be clear to the reader that our Ontario Election 2007 platform is an ambitious one. In our view it is not a radical programme, but it does depart significantly from the recent practice of NDP provincial governments. Successful implementation of this programme will mark significant gains for working people. It would reverse years of defeat and degradation of the living conditions of working people.
Many of the measures outlined above will spark controversy. They will no doubt elicit strong responses from the parties of big business and the commercial media, which will fan any embers of confusion into flames of protest. We must learn from the NDP experience in government, especially during 1990-95 in Ontario. Whenever the Bob Rae government embarked on progressive reforms (e.g. labour law reform), the media pulled out all the stops to attack the government and to misrepresent its policies and objectives. In a number of instances (e.g. auto insurance) our opponents launched reactionary mobilizations.
An NDP government which implements measures clearly in the interest of working people, but contrary to the interest of Capital, must be prepared to fight. In concert with the trade unions, social movements and grassroots organizations, the party must be ready to mobilize the working people of Ontario, both to back up an NDP government and to ensure that the democratic will prevails.
Working people have never made significant gains without struggle. We are certain that an NDP government committed to a workers’ agenda will face challenges not unlike those recorded by history. This should not deter us from our course, but should strengthen our resolve to struggle and to win.
Want to fight for a Workers’ Agenda?
Join the Socialist Caucus of the New Democratic Party!
The Socialist Caucus is open to all members of the NDP. Those who wish to participate in the work of the Caucus but are not members of the NDP will be able to join the party at meetings of the Caucus. For more information call Sean Cain at (905) 469-2801, or Barry Weisleder at (416) 535-8779, e-mail: barryaw@look.ca Financial contributions are most welcome.
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