PUT PEOPLE & THE PLANET BEFORE PROFIT
Our Election Message
Ontario cannot afford more Ford. For four years the working class has been under sharp attack by one of the most right-wing governments in Ontario’s history. This has had a detrimental impact on working people’s wages and living standards and has accelerated environmental destruction and the growth of inequality, racism and hate. The backdrop to this is the pandemic which has resulted in the deaths of well over 12,000 people in Ontario, including more than 4,000 residents of long-term care. We have begun to see a renewed fightback, including strikes for higher wages and calls to put LTC under public ownership. It’s time to put people and the planet before profit.
In recent months, the Ford government has tried to rebrand itself with its new cynical slogan: “working for workers” and is blatantly trying to buy votes by refunding license plate fees and other schemes. This same government cancelled the $15 minimum wage in 2018, effectively transferring $1.3 billion from Ontario’s lowest paid workers to its biggest corporations. Ford enacted Bill 124 which has slashed one million workers’ wages, benefits and pensions in the broader public sector and eliminated the right to free collective bargaining. This government has restructured healthcare in order to accelerate privatization and attacked the quality of education by increasing class sizes and e-learning.
This government promised not to touch rent control in the last election but then allowed unlimited increases on all units built after 2018, helping to increase rent costs across the province. In 2020, Ford implemented Bill 184, popularly known as the “mass eviction bill”, which restricted tenants’ rights. Now, under the guise of increasing housing supply, Ford is pushing to give more powers to developers, some of the chief creators and profiteers of the housing crisis.
Ford has gutted Ontario’s already inadequate climate change policies. The government’s own numbers show they will only achieve 20% of promised emission reductions by 2030. There’s no future for working people in a world heading towards irreversible ecological collapse. His government has attacked democratic rights by cheering on the police repression of the Indigenous landback movement, attempting to defund student unions and re-writing Ontario’s election laws to benefit his party.
Doug Ford continues to put corporate profits ahead of public health. He has allowed private long-term care corporations to profit from the mass death of people in their care, refused to invest in safe schools, caved to business lobbies to keep non-essential industries open, and failed to introduce adequate paid sick days and financial supports to those who lost work due to public health measures. These policies and many more have led to countless avoidable deaths and helped the rise of far-right and racist movements.
This time, say NO to the Ford agenda
Check out the Communist Party candidates running in Ontario.
Candidates
FORD MUST BE DEFEATED
The Ford government represents Big Business in the province and if re-elected it will double down on austerity to ensure that working class people, especially Indigenous peoples, women, seniors, and racialized communities, will continue to pay for increased corporate profits. The Conservatives must be defeated in order to achieve any meaningful improvements to the lives of working people.
The Liberals, Big Business’ other party who were in power for 15 years until 2018, laid much of the groundwork for the Ford government’s attacks. Andrea Horwath’s NDP has failed to present a clear working-class perspective inside the Legislature and are courting business interests, as can be seen by the increasing reluctance to fight for universal social programs and measures to curb corporate power. The Green party is no real solution either as it fights for an impossible goal: “green capitalism”. Working class support for any candidates needs to be earned, not taken for granted. Fortunately workers and their unions are fighting back and building strength. This must be accompanied by workers’ independent political action.
DEMAND A PEOPLE’S ALTERNATIVE FOR ONTARIO
We need to move beyond choosing between more or less friendly managers of capitalism every few years. Before and after the election we can demand a People’s Alternative. We need policies that place people’s needs above those of corporations and the very rich.
We need policies that raise wages and living standards, stop the climate and health crises and expand health, education, democracy and equality.
In order to win a People’s Alternative, we must organize. We have to build a movement that can unite the labour and people’s movements, including Indigenous nations, youth and students, the unemployed and precarious workers, women and 2S/LGBTIQ+, immigrant and racialized communities. We need to build a movement that can win far-reaching economic, social and political reforms to strengthen the working-class struggle and open the door to socialism.
BUILD THE MOVEMENT FOR SOCIALISM
Voting Communist sends the clearest message in favor of a People’s Alternative for Ontario, which contains policies that are desperately needed.
However, these policies on their own won’t solve the fundamental problem of capitalism. It is clear that the capitalist system and the genocidal legacy of colonialism offer no future.
Only socialism can build a society where the needs of people and the environment are in harmony and where working people are in the driver’s seat. Socialism is the aim of the Communist Party. Your support helps build a stronger movement for socialism.
WORKING FOR WORKERS FOR OVER 100 YEARS!
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