Debated, amended and approved, June 1, 2024
Since our last convention in April 2022, Toronto’s political crisis has intensified. From the worsening economic crisis gripping working people in the city, to the precipitous increase in environmental destruction and the ensuing crisis, and the increasingly drive of imperialism, conditions for working people are becoming more desperate by the day.
The Central Committee met in February analyzing the current situation internationally and across the country and outlined a plan of political action. The Ontario Committee met in March and focused on labour, housing, and privatization issues in the province. It is in this context that we meet to examine the current situation for working people in Toronto.
Toronto, the headquarters of finance capital in Canada, has the country’s highest concentration of the forces of production, labour, and capital. As such, the impact of these crises, and the stakes in the class struggle generally, are particularly intense.
Real wages have been decimated; housing is completely unaffordable; shelters for the homeless are overflowing; public services have reached their breaking point, with vital services like the TTC beginning to fail; and police repression, both against labour and the people’s movements, is growing in intensity in the face of working-class fightback.
As a result of a series of elections, political shakeups have led to a council somewhat less aligned with the political right which has run the city and governed the province. The election of several social democratic councillors and Olivia Chow were a welcome step to block the increasing right-wing domination in the city. However, as this committee cautioned, Chow’s council has continued to give massive concessions to big business and its allies like other social democratic administrations in the country. Progressive forces in the city, including the labour movement, have chosen to sit on their hands and let Chow lead, undermining their own projects, and enabling the right.
The major obstacle to tackling Toronto’s ongoing crises remains the absence of real municipal democracy and revenue which can enable working people to build a city which serves them. The difficulties faced by working people in Toronto and other cities in Canada are greatly exacerbated by the fact that municipalities have no status in the constitution and are creatures of provincial governments which can incorporate, merge, or dissolve them at will. This leaves municipalities with very few political or economic levers with which to confront crises like the present ones. Even the tools they do have, like land use policy, are liable to be overruled by provincial governments. The Ontario government simultaneously underfunds municipalities and public-school boards, while forcing those same entities to pass balanced budgets – the result is enforced cuts to services, increased user fees and property taxes for working people, and expanded privatization.
While there has been some progress, like a renewed call for a “New Deal” for cities and activity at the Association of Municipalities, so far this has been talk alone. Instead of leading a more concerted push, Toronto cut its own deals with a provincial government reeling from a series of scandals and pursued regressive revenue sources which only tighten the chokehold on the working class.
To address the multitude of intensifying crises facing working people in the city, and not only finally stop the right wing in municipal politics, but reorient the city toward a people’s alternative, a broad-based progressive movement for civic reform must take shape in the City – and labour must lead. The pieces of the coalition exist already, and popular movements flare up in the city regularly, even winning some concessions, but these spontaneous movements are often disorganized, and all too often, without a durable movement to sustain them, flare out.
The Economic Crisis
Our convention comes in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis which is gripping Canadian workers across the country, particularly those in Toronto. This crisis has been exacerbated by inflation rates that are at a record high for the past several decades. At their peak in June 2022, they soared to over 8%, the highest rate of inflation seen since the early eighties. A key factor in the skyrocketing cost of living is the record-breaking profits of monopoly corporations, which reached $577 billion in 2023 and which have grown to comprise over 20 percent of Canada’s GDP.
The cost of everyday life for working people is going up – a lot. The effects of inflation in Toronto can be felt by working people primarily in two-line items on their household budget: food and housing. Food costs have increased by an average of 10.3%, with prices of essential goods rising even more. Cooking oil, for instance, has seen an astounding 26% increase, and that’s just in 2022 alone. While inflation is currently trending down, it has almost exclusively been driven by the price of gasoline, which is beginning to tick back up, meaning core inflation rates have risen near 4%.
In response to the high levels of inflation, the Bank of Canada has hiked interest rates, with the explicit and sole purpose of driving unemployment up. The Bank of Canada is betting on massive layoffs, and the desperation they cause, to drive demand down and curb inflation. History shows us that the recession caused by these interest rate hikes will do nothing to ease the pain of working people and will only serve to increase desperation, all while ginning up sentiment for the populist right and benefiting capital.
Nearly two years in, the rate hikes have done nothing to curb inflation, which is still primarily driven by corporate profits and supply pressures caused by the increasingly dangerous international conflicts. Meanwhile, as intended, unemployment across the country has begun to shoot up, with the national unemployment rate reaching 6.1%, while the rate in Toronto sits closer to 8%, with March of 2024 alone seeing more than 75,000 laid off or seeking work in the city. The total number of workers unemployed in Toronto is approaching the highs seen in the early years of The Great Recession. Many of those who are working are locked in precarious and exploitative gig-work and left unable to make ends meet – let alone live with dignity.
The Housing Crisis
The housing crisis is also intensifying, with the current budget and the Mayor’s policies being entirely inadequate to address the problem. In February, it was announced that the city is covering for its lack of shelter spaces by housing the unhoused on city buses parked outside of a subway station. This includes a continual inflow of asylum seekers who find themselves sleeping in church basements, parks, and alleyways, often in freezing winter temperatures. Instead of help, care, and protection, “No Vacancy” is often the first sign that greets them at the shelters to which they are referred by immigration officials. This situation is intolerable, a disgrace, downloaded on to the city, out of its control, and for which the federal and provincial governments have provided wholly inadequate financial and logistical support. Even short-term undesirable fixes, like opening up armories and other non-municipal public facilities, have been refused.
Additionally, the unhoused population in Toronto has experienced heightened state violence over the last two years, including through encampment clearings and daily harassment. These issues are exacerbated by the institutional failures of the Toronto municipality, including its Streets to Homes policy.
The waitlist for subsidized, affordable housing in Toronto is at 14 years for a one-bedroom unit as of 2022. While the 2024 budget expanded some supports for tenants who may be evicted, these programs ultimately give landlords public money as a band-aid solution to the crisis.
Olivia Chow’s plan to build housing in the city, which has been adopted by council, includes the construction of 65,000 rent-controlled housing units by 2031. This would be a good start if it was all Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) social housing. However, only 6,500 units are planned to be RGI subsidized housing. Forty-one thousand units will be “affordable,” which is measured as less than Toronto’s average market rent (AMR), meaning it is totally disconnected from actual incomes. The other 17,500 units will be at full market rent. Furthermore, the City itself has only agreed to build 25,000 of these units itself with the new public developer program, and for now, the city continues to contract out construction.
With 80,000 households on the waitlist for subsidized social housing, this plan ensures that housing in the city will remain unaffordable, and corporate landlords will continue to extract billions of dollars from working people.
The absence of real action has led to perversions in housing which would previously be difficult to imagine, with corporate landlords and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) inventing new, baroque means to squeeze tenants. These include the invention of new, quasi-legal short-term rental and lease agreements which allow landlords to subdivide units while they are occupied or claim that a tenant is actually an “employee,” to squeeze them for rents while helping property owners evade vacancy taxes. This is on top of the already illegal maintenance, minimum living standards, and illegal evictions which occur every day. In addition, the state and condition of good repair are at an all-time low.
Justin Trudeau’s plan, in the proposed Canadian Renters Bill of Rights, to include rent payments in the calculation of tenants’ credit scores will only worsen the situation. While the federal government claims this will help “level the playing field,” it will further empower landlords to deny housing, particularly to lower-income people. Ultimately, this is a cynical ploy to reframe exorbitant rental costs as an asset, rather than addressing the real issues of affordability, accessibility, and rent control.
Instead of piecemeal protections and legislation landlords will find ways to dodge, we need a comprehensive social housing program that treats housing as a public utility and delivers it according to need, ensuring dignified living standards through legislation and protections with teeth.
Toronto must urgently construct 90,000 publicly owned and operated homes for the 90,000 households on the waitlist for social housing, and more to respond to population growth; upgrade and maintain existing units so that they are safe, secure, affordable, accessible, and environmentally sound; expand the Rent Safe program to cover all rental units; develop stronger enforcement mechanisms to punish landlords for breaking the law; and legislate stronger protections for tenants and end illegal renovictions. Winning these reforms means fighting for strong and comprehensive public housing programs at the city, provincial, and federal levels.
Toronto urgently needs to construct 90,000 publicly owned and operated homes for the 90,000 households on the waitlist for social housing and more to respond to population growth. Existing units must be upgraded and maintained so that they are safe, secure, affordable, accessible, and environmentally sound. The Rent Safe program must expand to cover all rental units, stronger enforcement mechanisms must be developed to punish landlords for breaking the law, and legislation must be enacted to strengthen protections for tenants and end illegal renovictions. Winning these reforms means fighting for strong and comprehensive public housing programs at the city, provincial, and federal levels.
The TTC: Canary for a Crumbling City
GTA transit workers and riders continue to suffer from austerity from all levels of government, which has undermined the safety and reliability of the TTC, while making it a ripe target for privatization. Years of austerity have diminished the ability of the government to implement large infrastructure projects – forcing it to rely on public-private partnerships. This has resulted in project delays and cost overruns, as exemplified by the Eglinton Crosstown.
Toronto’s recent budgets have neglected transit investment. Instead of raising revenue from those who could afford it, Mayor Tory’s 2023 TTC operating budget included a 9% service cut from pre-COVID levels. The TTC’s own data showed that women, shift workers, and low-income workers relied on public transit the most during pandemic service cuts, and after the implementation of 2023’s municipal budget, they were paying more for this service’s inadequacies. Adult and youth fares went up by 10 cents, while service levels decreased, causing overcrowding and longer wait times and increasing Toronto traffic congestion. In the meantime, the homelessness crisis and the gutting of healthcare have made the TTC the last refuge for the city’s most vulnerable poor.
The TTC was also used to manufacture consent for increases to the Toronto Police Services (TPS) budget. Police, politicians, and the media gleefully cooperated in a coordinated campaign to portray the TTC as a violence-ridden system. Of course, there is nothing uniquely dangerous about the TTC. Any increase in crime on the TTC is rooted in the same social problems correlated with crime anywhere else: a lack of affordable housing, accessible mental health supports, and addictions services. The increase in violent incidents on the TTC, reported on a per-rider basis, inflated the perception of violence on the TTC and further underlined these issues: as ridership and service declined, those without adequate resources were funneled onto the TTC as a de facto shelter.
At the beginning of what would be his last budget season, John Tory vowed to tackle the TTC ‘crisis’ by assigning 50 new officers to subway stations across the city, requiring an increase to the TPS budget. This disposition resulted in the TPS operating budget increasing to $1.16 billion for 2023 and necessarily shifting funding away from social programs that would address the root of any increase in crime. These new officers were removed from their subway assignments one week after the police budget increase passed.
More public funds, including from higher levels of government, are sorely needed to repair and upgrade the TTC’s crumbling infrastructure – the service’s real danger. Another track derailment, like the one which permanently decommissioned the Scarborough RT, is a real possibility as Line 2 cars similarly reach the end of their lifecycle, and certain segments of track are in critical disrepair. In March, a segment of Line 1 track snapped in half. There is a critical lack of transparency around transit infrastructure and whether riders and operators are safe. During the second week of May 2024, there were two hydraulic oil spills from service vehicles maintaining subway tracks, totaling 300 liters, even though both vehicles had been last inspected less than two months prior. In a statement, TTC CEO Rick Leary revealed the latest incident was the seventh hydraulic leak in the TTC since the beginning of 2024, a significant uptick given there had only been 10 such incidents in the last five years.
The TTC is also active in the war on labour rights, in the name of protecting critical infrastructure and essential services. From 2011 to 2023, TTC workers were stripped of their legal right when Ontario’s then-Liberal government designated their service “essential.” In May of last year, Ontario’s Superior Court declared this unconstitutional, leaving the transit unions free to negotiate agreements that protect their jobs, their livelihoods, and the integrity of Toronto transit. A similar award by Ontario’s Court of Appeal, in February this year, ruled that Doug Ford’s Bill 124, limiting all public sector workers to a maximum 1% per annum wage increase, deprived them of the constitutional right to bargain collectively with this employer. TTC workers, members of ATU Local 113, have recently mobilized their members to exercise their newly regained rights – and a strong strike mandate may lead to a strong settlement.
The damage being done to the TTC, one of the city’s most vital services, is a reflection of the broader crisis facing public service and public infrastructure in Toronto. This crisis involves deliberate underfunding of services, particularly by senior levels of government, with a view to undermining public confidence in public services and institutions and facilitating their privatization. Undoubtedly, the intensity and frequency of major cracks, like the SRT derailment, will increase if urgent steps aren’t taken, and the next major incident could be deadly for working people in the city.
Growing Police Power
The growth of police power in Toronto mimics the rise seen across Canada, in Europe, and the United States. This uniformity is to be expected, as the function of the police has always been to serve and protect the interests of capital by threatening and punishing any efforts by the working class to challenge the status quo. This global solidarity among imperialists and their security forces has been evidenced by the cross-training conducted between Israel Defence Forces and Canadian police, in collaborations such as Operation Proteus. As the economic crises deepen locally and elsewhere, this cross-imperialist training in brutality will increasingly be deployed to stifle dissent.
Even after several years of sustained pressure against police power and brutality in the city, particularly the mobilizations in 2020 and 2021, budgets for the Toronto Police Service continue to outpace every other line item on the city’s budget, with current operating funds surpassing $1.2 billion. In total, TPS saw a budget increase of over $60 million in city tax dollars in the 2024 budget – 30% more than under John Tory’s last budget as mayor.
This came after a brief, public power struggle between Chow and the TPS. While an increase was always heading to the police, the original proposal was $12.6 million less than what was eventually passed. To assert themselves to the new administration on council, the TPS and their association (TPA) lobbied city residents by mail over the budget season to fear-monger about the consequences should they not receive their increase. This was in tandem with articles, interviews with press, and a slew of deputations at council hammering the same message. In addition, they directly lobbied councillors, some of whom they visited up to five times a month during the budget season. Some advocacy groups are also claiming that some of the police’s lobbying on this issue was illegally conducted with public funds. To date, no challenge of this illegal conduct has been brought forward at the city level.
The TPS’ eventual budget victory and the campaign which preceded it revealed that the current balance of forces at city hall is not as far from the status quo as some may have hoped. Importantly, it revealed the willingness of reactionary forces to apply pressure to council and those who might interrupt the flow of public funds to them, and that that pressure, much to the chagrin of social democrats in office and in the people’s movements, can be effective.
In addition to the generous new funding provided to the police by Council, an expansion of police powers is coming to Toronto. A new system of management and monitoring of rallies and protests will be developed, with advanced powers given to the police to restrict working people’s right to protest. In a chilling sign of what is to come, the motion’s mover, Councillor James Pasternak, cited not only the recent protests against the genocide of the Palestinians, but specifically cited a rally of healthcare unions in the city as being the motivating factor for his submission of the motion. The motion passed after some debate, with Mayor Olivia Chow breaking from the centre-left block in council to cast the deciding vote in favor.
The TPS will also benefit from an influx of spending as the city prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in 2026. The city estimates hosting the event will cost $380 million, roughly a third of which (over $125 million) will go to policing and security.
Six city councillors, including two on the Police Board, signed a joint statement to support the charter-protected right to protest in the city, a gentle rebuff to the right and police who had engaged in crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity protests the week prior. Chow stood apart from some of her most trusted allies who had signed the letter, and after public pressure from the TPA, one signing councillor disowned the letter and apologized for signing – further indications of the firmly entrenched police power in the city.
The TPS will also benefit from an influx of spending as the city prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in 2026. The city estimates hosting the event will cost $380 million, roughly a third of which (over $125 million) will go to policing and security.
Six city councillors, including two on the Police Board, signed a joint statement to support the charter-protected right to protest in the city—a gentle rebuff to the right and police who had engaged in crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity protests the week prior. Chow stood apart from some of her most trusted allies who had signed the letter, and after public pressure from the TPA, one signing councillor disowned the letter and apologized for signing—further indications of the firmly entrenched police power in the city.
Toronto Council & A New Mayor
Shortly after our last convention, Toronto municipal elections were held, which saw the election of several new faces to council, many of whom are closely affiliated with, or former candidates of, the NDP.
However, the simultaneous return of John Tory as mayor – along with a plurality of his supporters on Council – threatened to perpetuate his previous five years’ close collaboration with Doug Ford’s Ontario Conservatives. Indeed, several earlier moves by the provincial government—scuttling the democratic reshaping of ward boundaries and council size; imposing so-called ‘strong-mayors’ legislation (actually forcing them to follow provincial priorities); and imposing the revamped Ontario Land Tribunal and Ministerial Orders into municipal planning decisions—all this entrenched the right-wing chokehold on Toronto and scuttled growing demands for badly needed spending on social services and municipal infrastructure.
Tory’s sudden resignation shortly after his re-election (for “inappropriate” personal conduct) and the special mayoral by-election which followed provided an unexpected opportunity to break free from that grip. Some progressive forces in the city, including much of the labour movement, worked on this campaign and celebrated it as a victory and a direct result of their organizing for change in the city. However, polls leading up to and after election day suggested Chow’s name recognition alone was a big factor, with a huge portion of the vote swinging to her main opponent, former city councillor Ana Bailao, after she was belatedly endorsed by Tory.
While Chow’s victory provides an important opening for labour and progressive forces, our Party had and has no illusions about the ability (or determination) of the new mayor and council to quickly fix the hardships experienced by working-class, racialized, underhoused, and impoverished Torontonians. History shows that social democracy has limited ambitions and staying power in that regard. But the mayoral by-election did provide a space, or opportunity, for social justice movements to organize for progressive solutions in the months and years ahead. Sustained mass pressure, rooted in labour’s independent political program, is urgently needed if working people are to benefit from this electoral victory.
Unfortunately, as of now, the labour and people’s movements have responded very unevenly to this opening at City Hall. While some have applied pressure for progressive policies, many have actively supported regressive compromises by the centre-left bloc and turned a blind eye to capitulations to the right wing and the police. The former approach, especially if grounded in a coherent platform for progressive change, will engage and mobilize working people into a force that can win significant victories now and over the longer term. The latter approach is already leading to growing frustration and alienation among working people—including, but not limited to, Chow’s campaign base—as they see a political leadership disconnected from their concerns.
This is not to say the new administration has been entirely unsuccessful. The new city budget passed by city council contained no major cuts to services and saw some of the city’s most desperately needed services get increases. While preventing further cuts during such a sharp economic crisis is a positive step, it comes at the cost of further tax increases on working people, with a post-amalgamation record property tax increase of 9.5%.
Ultimately, the historic tax increase is another giveaway to the right wing and corporate powers which dominate the city and represents continuity of the status quo, conceding to neoliberal approaches for public revenue generation. Like the municipal sales tax proposed last fall, property taxes, as currently structured, are a regressive form of taxation which adds pressure to working people struggling to breathe amidst a historic cost-of-living crisis.
Instead of focusing on orienting the growing centre-left bloc toward democratic control of the city and its services, looking to end and even claw back the turns toward privatization which have occurred in the city since amalgamation, Chow’s administration is narrowly focused on delivery of services regardless of who bears the cost.
This kind of short-sighted and opportunistic approach that has characterized the social democratic leadership in Toronto will alienate working people and ultimately empower the right while delivering the policies they advocate for on policing and keeps cash flowing to corporations. Cracks in Chow’s base are already beginning to show, as support has weakened in the polls, and some of her most vocal advocates have turned their back on her. Like Toronto Mayor David Miller before her, Chow is currently walking down a path which sees her base of supporters disenchanted and demotivated, and the broader working class alienated and frustrated—perfect conditions for the right wing, and the same conditions which led to Rob Ford’s election over a decade ago. Working people cannot afford a repeat performance. The opportunity for labour and the people’s movements to apply pressure to the new administration is not only ripe but urgent.
For A United Civic Reform Movement
While struggles continue to mount as living standards fall, an effective fightback will not be found in spontaneous and reactive struggles alone. To bring about the systemic change required to transform Toronto into a people-centered city, a broad-based civic reform movement has to take shape. The labour movement must play a leadership role in conjunction with people’s movements. Various pieces of the needed coalition exist already. Spontaneous popular movements spring up regularly and even win occasional concessions. But too often, they’re disorganized, and all too often, lack a durable foundation to underpin and sustain their efforts, and they flare out.
The labour movement has a unique position to act both as a unifier and motivator for a broad-based civic reform movement, which includes community solidarity organizations, to establish lasting change. As the fightback heats up for the first time in years, and new avenues open with new composition at council, labour must work to unite the people’s movements under one tent and push the struggle forward.
Big business will certainly not be deterred and will continue to push their attack on working people. There will be multiple fronts to the right-wing corporate assault, and should we choose not to prepare, it is almost certain to succeed.
Labour must look to its own past and take the lessons from triumphs and defeats, and use them to inform the construction of a civic reform movement to beat back the right and push for gains. The Metro Days of Action against Mike Harris are an inspiration for what is possible, while also providing lessons on how to improve. There, labour shaped the movement started by community groups and formed the backbone for a years-long campaign. It shook the province and forced the government to walk back some of its more brazen demands.
The Fightback
As conditions for working people in Toronto have deteriorated, there has been growing resistance to the decades-long attack on workers. Particularly, an intensified fightback against the cost-of-living crisis is developing in the city. This is occurring alongside a nascent peace movement in response to the genocide in Palestine. However, much more must be done in the labour and people’s movements to link struggles, build unity, and develop a mass campaign of escalating action to win a city for everyone.
Like elsewhere in Canada, a renewed militancy has come to the labour movement in Toronto, with 2023 seeing the highest wave of strikes since 1986, with several high-profile strikes in the city itself. One highlight was the successful four-week strike from Metro workers who overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement recommended by their union. This followed a pattern seen across the country and has continued into 2024. Several locals in Toronto who have never gone on strike, like AGO workers and workers at Regent Park Health Centre (both OPSEU Locals), waged major struggles and made significant gains after the devastation of Bill 124. CUPE 3903 at York University struck for two months for similar reasons.
At the end of this year, contracts with CUPE workers in the City of Toronto will expire, putting over 30,000 workers in a strike position that may have a major impact on city services. This is in addition to TTC workers with ATU 113 and CUPE Local 2, thousands of hotel workers with UNITE HERE Local 75, and dozens of others in Toronto all in the strike position in 2024.
While the Toronto and York Region Labour Council has for several years focused most of its energy and capacity on electoralism rather than direct political action and campaigning, there are signs of increasing activity. The Labour Council-directed “Fund Our Schools” campaign is inspired by the Need to Succeed campaign of the early 2000s and focuses its energy on union renewal, which is desperately needed in a labour movement which increasingly farms its political activity out to the NDP. The focus of the left must be to ensure that the strong statements often passed at the Labour Council turn into activity in the streets and in workplaces and not mere platitudes like those often passed at the OFL and CLC.
Massive public organizing was done by groups like TTC Riders, to bring TTC service levels back, or near, to pre-pandemic levels. Council provided a small increase in funding. TTC Riders and its allies in the people’s movements continue to agitate for priorities like dedicated bus lanes, protection of Wheels-Trans services, rider representation on the TTC Board, and new revenue-generating tools like a commercial parking levy.
Tenant organizing continues to build, with organizing by the York South-Weston Tenants Union, Parkdale tenants, and others gaining international recognition. Militant action from tenants has prevented evictions and grown the strike to cover multiple properties. Tenant unions reached out to the labour movement to help build a divestment strategy to apply greater pressure on the multinational corporate landlords and REITs.
Palestinian solidarity action in Toronto has been incredibly strong, with demonstrations, led primarily by the Palestinian Youth Movement, attracting thousands, and at times tens of thousands, into the streets to speak out against the genocide since early October. The most powerful development in Toronto was the building of riding-based solidarity organizations which put direct pressure on Toronto MPs, mostly Liberal, to take action against the genocide. Most notably, Davenport 4 Ceasefire was able to pressure Davenport MP Julie Dzerowics, leader of Canada’s NATO delegation, to call for an immediate ceasefire, to end the arms trade, and to restore funding to UNWRA—then a major break from Liberal Party lines.
Connections need to be made between those on the streets speaking out on the genocide in Gaza and the urgent need to build a stronger peace movement. The resurgence of TAPS and their work to build allies needs to be supported by all the peace activists to ensure an anti-imperialist analysis is at the centre of the peace movement in Toronto.
There is also a growing disconnection between the formal Party and institutional apparatuses of the NDP and the labour movement, respectively, and their memberships. While the leadership of these institutions has abdicated leadership while they wait for the next election cycle, their members have played a large role in the growing fightback. From protesting the genocide of the Palestinians, to fighting against police repression, and on picket lines, centre-left and left-wing activists are becoming increasingly frustrated with leadership they view as out of touch—and are beginning to look elsewhere.
Progressive forces in the city need to see these nascent, often disconnected struggles joined under one banner and push for real reforms. The great challenge of the next two years will be to join disparate, spontaneous movements into a durable reform movement—one which must be faced head-on by all progressive forces in the city.
