Ontario Provincial Committee – Political Report

This report was adopted at the meeting of the Ontario Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Canada on June 20th.

The Political Situation in Ontario

1. Since our last meeting, the political situation for the working class in Ontario has continued to intensify. The growing capitalist crisis of over-accumulation has led the most aggressive imperialist forces to abandon even the pretense of multilateralism. U.S. imperialism in particular is becoming much more aggressive in its use of tariffs, sanctions, and now, openly, military force to carve up the world.

2. To fund its role in the new world order, Canada is tripling its military spending and shifting itself to a full war economy — all under the guise of protecting Canadiansovereignty. This reorganization of the economy can only be achieved by dismantling the social programs that give working people what little security they have. Health, education, social services — all slashed to fund the military. 

3. In Ontario, these cuts are seen most obviously in the healthcare and education sectors, which are already facing serious decline, but target the full range of the public sector. We will see more closures of public institutions and more brazen attempts at privatization as the public system is starved into collapse. The impacts of this collapse will be felt most intensely by already marginalized people in Ontario, and especially women, as they are most likely to be employed by or rely on public services, meaning these cuts will expand inequality and oppression in the province. 

4. In Ontario, the acceleration of the capitalist crisis has seen a further escalation in the pro-corporate, anti-worker tactics wielded by Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government. Relying less and less on his cynical “Captain Canada” persona, Ford has readopted the belligerent and aggressive governing style he wielded when he first came to power, leading to a more open and direct assault on bourgeois democratic norms.

5. The development industry, which has long served as Ford’s main supporters and main constituency, is facing a severe crisis as the sharp decline in housing prices – caused by their own profit-maximizing construction practices – eats away at their profits.  But the resultant relative glut in Ontario’s housing market has done nothing to alleviate the housing affordability crisis experienced by millions of working people, with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario projecting that known homelessness in the province will reach up to 295,000 people by 2035. This is the latest among many examples that the private sector cannot be relied upon to provide solutions to social problems which capitalism itself generates.

6. What working people desperately need is housing built for people, not for speculation and profits. In Ontario, that means urgently building 200,000 units of rent-geared-to-income (RGI) social housing, while constructing a further 550,000 units of truly affordable housing, and 15,000 units of transition housing. It also means legislating rent rollbacks and rent control for all tenants, so that nobody is compelled to spend more than 20 percent of household income on housing.

7. During his time in office, and most recently through Bill 60, Ford has attacked tenant unions, who are organizing to defend their members and fight for improvements to their living conditions, including fights for repairs and pest control. Instead of attacking tenants for exercising their basic, charter-enshrined rights to organize, full recognition of these rights should be enshrined into law, with a Tenants Bill of Rights which recognizes housing as a right, and which explicits legislates collective bargaining for tenants. Recognizing these rights would expand the ability of the growing tenant union movement to win gains for the housing conditions for all working people.

8. Instead, Ford’s response is to double down on policies that benefit developers and private corporate landlords, with his attack on democracy serving in large part to diminish resistance and expedite implementation.

9. Practically, this change in tactic is an evolution, not a major deviation. Ford continues his legislative and ministerial blitzes, which undermine parliamentary procedure and regulatory protections through fast, govern-by-decree style legislative sessions, interrupted by long breaks in Parliament seeking to stupefy and scatter resistance. As resistance to his government has begun to grow following the imposition of some of his more shameless pro-corporate policies, Ford has expanded his direct attacks on democratic norms in the province.

10. Some of the more egregious examples of this have included his recent changes to the freedom-of-information (FOI) laws to shield his government from public scrutiny surrounding some of their backroom deals, such as the Skills Development Fund, Greenbelt Scandal, and Ontario Place sell-off. To further narrow channels of resistance in Ontario, Ford took aim at the Palestinian solidarity movement by trying to pre-emptively block a rally happening on Al-Quds day in Toronto, cynically using the cover of “fighting anti-Semitism” to test public and legislative patience to expand the scope of his anti-democratic crackdown.
    
11. Similarly,  Ford has instituted anti-democratic changes at the municipal level over years, some of which have been expanded, like the strong mayor powers, which now cover most major municipalities in the province. These powers are now being more widely embraced by mayors, like in Windsor, where the mayor tops the province for use of strong mayor powers, and has even used it to override majority council decisions on the city budget and transit. Despite these powers purportedly being for accelerating housing construction, recent reviews of their usage since implementation 2022 has found that of the over 4,000 times they have been used, less than 100 advanced a housing project.

12. While Ford’s anti-democratic assault  has expressed itself differently, he has continued to repeat this multi-front strategy increasingly as the capitalist crisis has intensified. While these anti-democratic blitzes may be temporarily overwhelming, they are not insurmountable. In fact, when the resistance has been able to coordinate itself into a broad and militant movement, Ford has been forced to back down and the working class has been able to defend itself and even make gains.

13. Ford has continued his attacks on the education sector, which has long been a target of austerity and privatization ploys from his government. The February 12 announcement that Ontario is ending the years-long tuition freeze and reducing OSAP grants to a maximum of 25 percent of student assistance is a deliberate step that further diminishes public support for post secondary education (PSE), while substantially increasing students’ already staggering debt load. Since 1980, Ontario university funding has shifted from 80% government funded to just 38% today, resulting in  a greater portion of the funding being privatized through tuition payments and corporate intrusion. As with housing, this situation also demonstrates that privatization cannot guarantee quality, accessible, and democratic post-secondary education, but in fact destroys it.

14. Further, recent reporting has revealed that the Ford government cynically expanded educational supports during recent years to redirect public funds to private career colleges. In 2025, Ontario spent $465 million more than average on OSAP payments, with 95% of that increase being directed as grants to private, for-profit career colleges. Ford then used these artificially high payments – which his government enacted – as justification to gut the program. 

15. This approach of “fattening-the-lamb-for-slaughter” has been used by Ford’s government before, like when they funneled millions in public training dollars into personal support worker and healthcare training before expanding privatization of healthcare, and echoes the billions in public dollar capital investment made by Canada Post before its turn to privatization, as carried out by the federal government.This approach has become another mechanism to funnel billions of public dollars to private corporations, while creating the illusion of expanding the public sector; all before instituting significant cuts and austerity, in boom-and-bust cycles.

16. What students need is tuition-free, publicly-funded, and quality post-secondary education that is democratic and accessible. It isn’t as if governments can’t afford to fund education. Federally, the Carney government’s decision to more than triple military spending to over $150 billion by 2035 shows that the capacity for increased funding exists – the estimated cost of eliminating tuition fees across the country is $14 billion, less than one-tenth of what Ottawa is dedicating to the arms budget. 

17. But funding post-secondary education and eliminating tuition would require a massive shift in government priorities. As noted above, federally it would mean forcing Ottawa to fund education rather than the military – to drop fees, not bombs. Provincially, it includes forcing Queen’s Park to reverse its decades-long privatization of college and university funding, to increase public grants and decrease student debt which fills the coffers of the banks. In both cases, it means putting people’s needs ahead of corporate greed.

18. In the elementary and secondary sectors, Ford’s attacks have been just as pronounced, with an even greater expansion of school board takeovers. Eight school boards are now under supervision across the province. These takeovers are conducted under the guise of correcting alleged “fiscal irresponsibility,” but are in fact done to erode the public system and replace democratically-elected boards with key Ford appointees who will “supervise” the boards. These supervisions are aimed at actively making policy changes which reduce education that develops critical thinking, and accelerates privatization by selling off land and infrastructure, and outsourcing services. The takeover at the TDSB is the clearest example of Ford’s approach to privatization, where he has ramped up the process of selling off publicly-owned TDSB lands to private developers at bargain bin price, while removing the accountability of democratic discussion and decision making.

19. While the brazenness of Ford’s assault on public education reflects a qualitative shift in his approach, it is by no means new. After years of intentionally underfunding post-secondary and publicly funded education, Ford is simply taking the next step in his neoliberal playbook of privatizing the starved assets and imposing his regressive agenda on the workers and students there. Bill 101 gives extraordinary new powers to the Province, by expanding the ability to put boards under supervision. The Bill also creates new roles at the boards – the CEO and CEdO – to shift decision making power from democratically elected officials to provincially constrained (and in some cases provincially appointed) bureaucrats.
    
20. Ford’s appointed supervisor at the Toronto District School Board has recently announced massive cuts in the numbers of teachers and support staff for the coming school year and cut all the additional funding to poorer neighbourhoods under the Model School Program. These cuts will impact students’ classroom learning and leave even more students with special needs without proper supports. Worse yet, certification requirements for teachers have been rolled back, meaning more and more school days are being covered by unqualified instructors or “emergency replacement” personnel, with some districts reporting an increase of over 1100% in “non-teacher” days in the classroom.
    
21. In addition to the profiteering at the heart of Ford’s privatization of education, another important feature of his attacks on education is the lowering of standards of educational quality, and attacking progressive elements of the curriculum. Some of the ways the  government is moving forward  is through explicit changes to curriculum and standardization of educational approach, as has been done through the “Back To Basics” program changes and widespread grade inflation. They have also proposed  new programs which allow students to skip schooling altogether, including one program which allows high school students to become an apprentice after Grade 10 while still receiving an equivalent degree. Yes, lowering educational standards like this is a mechanism to boost profits by cutting corners, but it also serves as an important buttress to regressive ideological elements of capitalist society which are increasingly being rejected by working people, like the gender segregation of work and the home, and other hegemonic traditional ideas. Eroding educational attainment then is an attempt to maintain the hegemony of discriminatory ideas which allow for segmentation of the working class, and, in turn, increase exploitation.

22. To give students and educators what they need to succeed, there must be a new, needs-based funding formula to provide adequate and guaranteed funding, from provincial general revenues, to public schools and education programs. A halt to the sales of public school lands and buildings, and the development of schools as community hubs to serve working people in the community.  In addition, there must be an end to public funding for Catholic schools and the enactment of a single, secular public school system in Ontario.

23. The other major front in Ford’s pro-corporate war to privatize public services is in healthcare. In the last year, Ford has announced almost $300 million for 61 private clinics across the province, some of which will de facto be serving as private hospitals based on their size and the range of services offered. Government projections are estimating that more than 1 million patients will be diverted from the public system to these private clinics, further bolstering Ford’s cynical case for complete privatization.

24. Pushing patients in Ontario to private clinics is happening alongside the most severe healthcare underfunding in Canada, with Ontario hospitals receiving less per-capita than any other provincial healthcare system. Through this underfunding, Ford has pushed our hospitals into intentional deficits, and is now demanding cuts to their already strained systems. Ford cynically uses this artificial crisis in the public system to justify shifting public dollars into private clinics to bolster private profits, while providing less care for more money instead of expanding the public system. 

25. To keep a lid on public outcry over the move towards privatization, a majority of the services offered at these private clinics are, nominally, paid for by public insurance through OHIP. However, activists with the Ontario Health Coalition revealed in a bombshell investigation that a significant number of private clinics are double billing — charging patients thousands of dollars for private care, while billing OHIP for the surgeries all the same. 

26. Working people in Ontario need a healthcare system that rejects the drive to increase corporate profits, and, instead, focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of all working people in Ontario. The Communist Party calls to immediately ban private clinics and labs, halt and reverse all P3 developments and contracts, and fully provide these services through publicly-owned and -administered institutions. We also call for expanded public healthcare to include full and universal coverage for dental care, vision care, pharmacare, mental health care and long-term care for all residents in Ontario, including migrant and temporary foreign workers, international students, and refugees.

27. Moves are being made to exert more provincial control over the municipal transit systems in Ontario. The Tories’ new Bill 98 makes sweeping changes to the powers that the Minister of Transportation has over municipal transit bodies, including the ability to increase fares, change routes, and introduce zone-based fares. Introducing these kinds of changes is another mechanism through which Ford is centralizing authority and removing local, democratic control where working people have been able to win transit improvements and fare freezes through municipal campaigning which applies pressure to council and the transit board.
    
28. Bill 98 is also expanding the role of the police on public transit across the province, and especially on the TTC in Toronto. More police will now be permanently stationed at transit stops and on the subways, and other provincial enforcement officers have been given expanded powers, including the ability to arrest individuals merely suspected of using drugs. After years of cuts to the shelter system, the closure of safe injection sites, and the elimination of other social supports, transit systems have increasingly become the last resort for those living on the fringes of society or suffering from drug addiction. More policing will do nothing to address these social problems, which can only be solved through massive expansions of healthcare and the broader public sector. We can’t allow the government to more broadly criminalize working people using the public transit system.

29. Beyond the anti-democratic components of Bill 98’s changes, it also sets the stage for further privatization throughout the province by handing over much of local transit systems to the provincial consortium Metrolinx. While nominally a public agency, Metrolinx is merely a middleman facilitating the privatization of public transportation. Largely, this privatization has been accomplished through the use of public-private-partnerships (P3s) during construction of new lines. But, increasingly, Ford has used it as a vehicle to privatize transit service as well, as has been the case in Toronto and Hamilton, where private consortiums have taken over the maintenance and operation of new lines built since 2018.

30. While Ford uses populist, everyman rhetoric to claim Bill 98’s purpose is to cheapen public transit for working people, he is in fact using it to further drain revenues. This time, he is cutting from the fare box by changing fare structures and forcibly integrating systems to undermine public transit as a whole and gin up sentiment for privatization. This is the same neoliberal playbook we have seen used to privatize healthcare and education in the province and elsewhere.

31. Transit privatization has long been a goal of the corporate sector in Ontario, and was one of the first items of business on Ford’s agenda following his first election in 2018. A local fightback campaign in Toronto, organized jointly by labour and transit advocacy groups, prevented the upload and kept the TTC under local democratic control. Fightback campaigns were also mounted against privatization being implemented by Metrolinx in Hamilton, led by a labour-community coalition which included unionized transit workers. In their new move on the service, the PCs indicated that the powers granted to them under Bill 98 allow them to overrule collective bargaining agreements reached by unions representing transit workers — a clear indication that their next step will be to undermine labour and weaken the coming fightback against transit privatization. 

32. What is needed in Ontario is a massive expansion of fare-free public transit systems funded through statutory transfers. In addition to municipal transit, this expansion must include and emphasize intercity and regional transit, especially in Northern Ontario, where communities have been largely cut off from regional transit after the state allowed the collapse of the remaining private routes. Massively expanding public transit under democratic control would also create thousands of jobs, including in the auto industry which is being catastrophically betrayed by the corporate welfare model which has dominated the state’s approach for decades.
    
33. Despite claiming that making these cuts are needed to bring down government expenditures during a time of economic crisis, the reality is that Ford’s budgets are bigger than ever, and often exceed  their own government projections. Billions flow to corporate developers, private health clinics, corporate bailouts to multinational corporations, energy monopolies, and so on, while increasingly little is devoted to addressing the needs of working people. The problem in Ontario then is not a “spending problem” Ford is cutting away at, as is often asserted, instead it is a political problem on what money is spent on and for who’s benefit.
    
34. The starkest expression of this approach is the billions spent by the provincial and federal governments on corporate welfare for auto giants that have abandoned working people in Ontario. Auto monopolies have been gifted over $28 billion in public funds with no binding job guarantees, no public equity, and no industrial plan, sinnce their profits were no longer guaranteed, they cut their losses and pocketed the cash. Ford’s theatrical rage outside closing factories at rallies and press conferences have accomplished nothing, and he has quietly shifted his focus elsewhere as the failure of his approach is laid bare.
    
35. Right now, the most consequential round of auto-sector bargaining in decades is underway, as negotiations for the Detroit Three begin. Already, thousands of workers have been laid off, with an estimated loss of 6,500 direct autoworker jobs including 3,000 jobs at Stellantis. GM shut down its CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, laying off 1,144 employees. Another 700 jobs were eliminated by GM in Oshawa, not including the loss of supplier jobs. The negotiations are also occurring against the backdrop of USMCA renegotiations, where the Carney government’s strategy is a doubling down on the failed policies that got us here – with Ford cheering him on from the bench.
    
36. The solution to the crisis in the auto sector is neither corporate welfare for corporations, nor concessions which must be borne by the workers in those plants. We must nationalize the auto industry to create a publicly-owned and democratically-controlled sector that can produce the electric vehicles necessary for a just, green transition from fossil fuel, including public transit and transportation, light industrial vehicles, and passenger vehicles. This must be paired with plant closure legislation that forces companies to justify closure or relocation of facilities, with penalties including full repayment of subsidies and public takeover of the plant. It must also be combined with  an expansion of Employment Insurance to 90% of previous earnings for the full duration of unemployment, for all unemployed workers.

37. This fall is municipal election season in Ontario, and the anti-democratic, pro-corporate policies are already impacting the elections locally. Despite going ahead with school board trustee elections, in a surprising about-face following constitutional reviews, some incumbent trustees have indicated they see no point in entering the race, with the new rules effectively removing the role of trustees in Ontario, and several boards likely remaining under supervision even after the election. Working people are not ignorant of the limits placed on municipal governments by the province, and many will react with a tacit rejection of the elections in turn.
    
38. Reactions to the rollback of local democracy have been incredibly uneven, with some elected officials openly embracing Ford’s changes and flouting the democratic process. And others, like social democrat Andrea Horwath in Hamilton, making contrived gestures of regret while embracing the anti-democratic tools nonetheless. Or others, like Toronto’s Olivia Chow, engaging in nominally quid-pro-quo trades with the government, which, in fact, serve as de facto capitulation. Ceding this political ground to Ford sets the stage for future democratic rollbacks and corporate attacks. It is against this backdrop that the municipal elections in Ontario will be fought, and a fightback must be mounted.
    
39. The corporate assault in Ontario has also maintained its offensive against Indigenous rights in the province, though a strong fightback has caused the government to alter its approach. As was discussed in our last document, the “special economic zones” (SEZ) Ford and Carney have created have the long-term goal of bulldozing Indigenous rights and fast-tracking projects like those in the Ring of Fire. In addition, Ford is teeing up to wage further attacks on labour and democratic rights elsewhere.

40. Following the passage of Bill 5, which grants the province extraordinary powers to exempt projects and worksites from any regulations, Ford has imposed his first “special economic zone,” not in Northern Ontario to advance a project in the extractive industries, but in downtown Toronto, where the Province has taken over the waterfront Billy Bishop Airport. 

41. Focusing his attacks on Toronto is a time-tested approach for Ford, who has come to use the city as a trial balloon for many of his most regressive policies. Weaponizing anti-Toronto sentiment that exists across the province within his base, Ford will often veil changes through the lens of culture war issues, and manufacture consent for his interventions as being done to address some of the City’s perceived metropolitan excesses. His interventions against school boards have been the clearest, where he used issues on curriculum, bureaucratic bloat, and “anti-DEI” cultural signifiers to justify taking over the Toronto Board before rolling out similar changes across the province.
    
42. The Communist Party of Canada rejects the anti-democratic Special Economic Zone at Billy Bishop Airport, and we reject them being implemented anywhere else in the province. Further, we call to end the expansion of the airport under any pretense or process, as its expansion will only serve to erode quality of life, increase negative environmental impacts, and exacerbate negative health outcomes for working people. And, importantly, it tees the airport up for eventual privatization and sale, as Carney’s Liberal government has indicated.

43. In part, facing strong, Indigenous-led resistance to Bill 5 when it was first tabled, Ford has softened some of his aggressive rhetoric about building the Ring of Fire, but the long-term goals remain and he continues to put the pieces in place for intervention in the near term. In addition to building sentiment for SEZs through interventions in Toronto, Ford has continued to use the “selective consultations” with First Nations identified in our last document to build support for projects. 

44. This includes the recently completed Napanee Battery Plant, now Ontario’s largest, which used partnerships with Indigenous-owned businesses from the Nipissing First Nation during construction. It’s no coincidence that the Province is prioritizing partnerships with Indigenous-owned businesses which rely on the rare earth metals they hope to extract from the Ring of Fire in their recent public announcements.

45. Real justice for Indigenous peoples will mean recognizing Indigenous self-government and self-determination, and implementing the Calls to Action of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and Calls for Justice of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Further, it will mean immediately negotiating just settlements of all land claims without extinguishment of inherent title. With regards to the Ring of Fire, it will also mean upholding Canada’s commitments to UNDRIP, including the right to veto any development on and near Indigenous lands, and ensure land use legislation. 

46. Ford’s government continues to exacerbate gender inequality, both through direct attacks and through persistent inaction. This includes the government’s shameful decision to double down on their refusal to declare gender-based violence an epidemic in Ontario, choosing to label it as “endemic” instead. This decision has led to a push in a variety of municipalities to declare an epidemic on their own, setting the stage for a potential confrontation with the province on the issue.

47. Despite the fact that more women are in the workforce than ever before, inequality is persistent, women’s average annual earnings are still only 71% of men’s. That gap is even larger for Indigenous, Black, and racialized women. Despite his resistance to declare it so, gender based violence is an epidemic, as one woman or girl is still killed by gender based violence in Canada every 48 hours. These systemic issues are even more intense for trans and gender diverse people in Canada, who have an even more significant wage gap and are more likely to be targets of violence and harassment. 

48. As capitalism continues its rampage and contradictions continue to heighten, gender-based violence, sexism, and all forms of discrimination will continue to intensify.. A recent Ipsos report conducted to mark international Women’s Day found that positive sentiment towards addressing gender discrimination in Canada is declining. Negative sentiments have particularly grown in young men, who were considerably more likely to say gender equality has “gone far enough” and hold traditional views about gender-based roles in the home. A majority of young Canadian men now feel that anti-discrimination practices now discriminate against men and should be undone.

49. It is no surprise that these misogynist sentiments are rising fastest in the cohort of men who are facing the most severe consequences of the capitalist crisis, with youth unemployment now reaching unprecedented levels in Canada. Ford’s inaction on the youth jobs crisis, which Ontario is the countrywide leader with 17.7% unemployment across the province, will only exacerbate these misogynist sentiments among young men in the province, and lead to further oppression of women and gender diverse people in the province. Much like how immigrants have been scapegoated for the legitimate problems facing working people in Canada, reactionary forces are scapegoating women and gender-diverse peoples at increasingly alarming rates.

50. Making significant policy on gender equality will mean addressing the jobs crisis for both men and women. This will mean implementing a full employment strategy for Ontario by restoring and expanding value-added manufacturing and secondary industry, public ownership and democratic operation of key resources and industries, increasing publicly-owned and developed renewable energy, expanded social programs and public infrastructure. To ensure women are able to join the workforce as equals, it will also mean providing a universal, high-quality, and truly accessible public childcare system, free of charge, with 24/7 availability and living wages for childcare workers.

51. In an attempt to distract working people from the intensifying crises that he has created, Ford has doubled down on his reactionary crusade against crime through the expansion of his “Protect Ontario” campaign, adding the slogan “A Safer Ontario.” These ads lay out in explicit terms Ford’s “jail, not bail” approach to addressing social issues, including homelessness and drug addiction, and promises an expanded police and prison apparatus to clean up the streets.

52. A major component of Ford’s “A Safer Ontario” campaign will be a massive expansion of the Ontario prison system. Since his election in 2018, Ford has made announcements or broken ground on new prisons which would increase Ontario’s prison system capacity by just over 1,600 beds. This is to address the extreme overcrowding in Ontario jails, which have reached 120% capacity under Ford’s Tories.

53. Adding just these 1,600 beds comes at a high cost to working people, with the province having to shell out more than $5 billion in capital investments to have them built, and further pay another $210 million per year in operational costs once they come online. Despite the high price tag, Ford has come under fire from the province’s ombudsman and human rights groups, who have deplored the abominable conditions of Ontario jails of the planned expansions, which could see prisoners stacked in bunk beds three-people high. Ford has responded — in his typical chauvinistic style — by asserting the province is not “building Four Seasons hotels for these people, they’re going to jail, and again, I don’t care if you stack them 10 high.”

54. But this 1,600-bed expansion barely scratches the surface on what the province really has planned, with leaked internal documents revealing that the planned capacity increase is to have an additional 6,000 beds online by 2050. In today’s dollars, operating just these new beds would cost more than $780 million annually — not to mention the billions in capital investment to build the jails themselves.

55. While Ford’s “tough on crime” approach claims this massive expansion of the carceral system in Ontario is needed, it’s worth noting that 80% of those held in Ontario’s jails — around 8,000 individuals — are awaiting trial and presumed innocent. Independent audits of the province’s justice system has found that the gap in funding is not in jails themselves, but in the courts system, which are so backlogged that it can take years to see a judge. Years which for many are spent behind bars.

56. Instead of expanding the detention of those who have been convicted of no crime, Ford could, for dramatically less money, expand the courts system to ensure everyone’s right to a speedy trial is upheld, and that innocent people do not languish away in the province’s jails awaiting their day in court. Ford’s approach to prison expansion stands to make some of his closest allies incredibly rich, however, as billions are shovelled into the development industry to construct the prisons, and millions more are funnelled to private companies for annual operations in the jails.

57. The justice system in Canada remains deeply discriminatory and sees an overrepresentation of people from marginalized communities Indigenous adults account for over 33% of the custodial population across federal and provincial institutions, and Indigenous women make up over 40% of federally incarcerated women. Black people in Canada have been found to be between 2.5-6 times more likely to be stopped or detained by police than white people in the same area, with this likelihood tending to increase the more marginalized the community is relative to the overall population. This is especially problematic because Statistics Canada data reveals that despite the fact that Indigenous, Black, and racialized people are more likely to have their cases withdrawn, dropped, or dismissed, their cases on average take up to 2 months longer to process. This means marginalized communities are more likely to be unjustly held in pre-trial detention, and are held for longer.

58. Siphoning billions of public dollars into private profits through prison expansion will do nothing to address the true cause of the social problems Ford is so eager to criminalize. With the annual operational funding of his planned 6,000 bed prison expansion, Ford could instead: hire over 8,000 school teachers, operate over 16,000 units of public housing, or address the youth unemployment crisis by creating nearly 50,000 full-time summer jobs paying $25 per hour. Instead of spending billions in capital costs to build prisons, he could construct more than 30,000 units of publicly-owned social housing. These are the real solutions to address the public safety concerns Ford is so eager to cynically weaponize.

59. Another important and developing dynamic in Ontario is Ford’s increasingly complex relationship with the federal Liberal government and Mark Carney. While Ford maintains his seat on the bench for Carney’s Team Canada approach, the federal Liberal’s popularity is contrasted with the eroding base of support Ford has in the province relative to the highs he has seen throughout his premiership.

60. During the later period of the Trudeau years, particularly after the 2022 cost-of-living crisis, Ford was able to maintain a high degree of popularity by allowing the Liberals to wear the impacts the inflationary spiral was having on working people. It provided so much space for Ford to manoeuvre, it even allowed him to maintain healthy distance from and give direct criticisms of the federal Conservative Party and Pierre Poilievre. This space was largely afforded by widespread support from big business and the bourgeois press who were openly calling for an end to the Trudeau years and a transition to Poilievre-led austerity, and supporting Ford at the same time.
    
61. Now, however, following the major shifts in the global economy accelerated by Trump in the U.S.,  capital in Canada has come to favour the approach offered by the Liberals under Carney which focuses on big spending on the military paid for through massive austerity. For now, Carney’s “military-Keynsianism” offers capital a way to transfer public wealth to the banks and bring in a new wave of deregulation, cuts, and privatization all disguised as patriotism in the face of Trump’s threats. This is why the Carney government is winning over Conservatives and most of the corporate media is in lock-step with the federal government. 

62. As the ruling class has shifted their support to Carney – who has described himself as “more conservative than Ford is” –  the insulation Ford was provided through their critique of Trudeau has subsided, and Ford has become a lightning rod for working class frustrations in the province. This has become increasingly evident as spontaneous pushback grows for some of his government’s more recent scandals, including his “Gravy Plane”, FOI rollbacks, and ongoing pushback on his Skills Development Fund scandal, among others. The bourgeois press has also hardened its approach to covering these same scandals, a further reflection of his relative decline in standing with the ruling class.

63. This developing relationship between the governing provincial and federal parties is not fixed, as capital in Canada remains incredibly flexible in its approach to addressing its profitability crisis and its response to growing working class resistance. However, the spontaneous protest movements developing alongside these changes could have positive implications for working class fightback if they are able to be organized into a coherent movement.

The Fightback

64. There have already been some expressions of the growing resentment to the Ford government in the province. Some spontaneous protests and movements have begun to coalesce in disparate areas of the province, currently focused on some of the particular scandals which currently embroil the Tories. 

65. A loose coalition of activists from issue-specific organizations are currently coordinating under a nascent “Fight Ford/Protest Ontario” banner to protest recent changes made in the provincial legislature, including changes to FOI laws, which have been a particular locus of activity. Organizations affiliated with the Fight Ford movement include groups protesting changes to the Billy Bishop airport, opposing highway expansion in the Greenbelt, fighting for proportional representation, and small environmental organizations, to name a few. Predominantly, these organizations are not from major cities in the GTHA or Ottawa area, and, instead, are from more mid-sized urban, and smaller rural areas. 

66. Organizationally, their strategic and tactical focus has been to organize small, regular demonstrations in their area, from the several dozens to few hundred, while occasionally coalescing to host larger demos at MPP constituency offices and Queen’s Park. The organization has now put forward a set of demands, including protecting public healthcare, public education, and rolling back FOI and environmental deregulation.

67. At present, these spontaneous protests are bubbling just beneath the surface, but are picking up some steam. While it is unclear the degree to which they will continue to grow, the fact that they are resonating with people reveals the growing willingness to fight back that is building within the working class. The question now is whether more durable, organized segments of the fightback, namely the labour movement, are able to develop that sentiment into a real organized coalition, and whether such a coalition could expand its critique beyond narrow, provincial grievances and toward a class-based critique of the whole system.
    
68. One missing component of the fightback against Ford in Ontario has been one centred on protecting and expanding municipal and local democracy. While pockets of resistance exist at an issue-based level, such as against cuts at the school board level or against airport expansion, little fightback is being organized to defend local democracy despite the daily erosion of local democracy and autonomy. There are signs that this could be a unifying struggle which could agitate working people into action. Different organizations are increasingly recognizing the limits placed on their advocacy given the constrained progressive revenue generating mechanisms, and left-liberal, social democratic, and even Conservative voices on council have begun to voice opposition in the press and in chambers about the democratic cutbacks.
    
69. However, despite this, little progress has been made to unify these forces and push toward change. Even though these progressive forces have been unable to unify on this issue thus far, this is exactly the moment when progressive forces need to take up this political struggle. To protect and expand local democracy and autonomy, labour and the people’s movements must become more direct in their assessment of the political attacks from the Province, and how to fight back against them.
    
70. An important arena to test such a fightback will be the coming municipal elections this fall in Ontario. Labour and the people’s movements must resist the right-opportunist voices within their own coalition who advocate for technical solutions or milquetoast reforms. Instead, a shared platform must be mounted which advances local autonomy as a key demand. The longstanding demands of the Communist Party are for the restoration of the rights of unions to participate fully in elections, extending democratic local control for school boards, fighting to give municipalities status in the constitution, and a new financial deal for cities which provides full and adequate provincial funding for municipal services such as public transit, public health, housing, childcare, and social assistance.

71. On May 28, thousands marched in Toronto, after organizers with the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) called for a rally to end the parliamentary session at Queen’s Park. Many of the marchers were from outside the city, with the OHC organizing train and bus rides on regional transit, bringing in activists and workers from Windsor to Ottawa for the march. The rally reflected the growing, organized fightback against the healthcare privatization efforts in the province.

72. As has been typical of the OHC rallies, a bulk of the activists joining were from rural and northern areas of Ontario. This reflects the intensity of the healthcare crisis in these communities, where the hospitals which are closing are often the only ones for miles. As time goes on, these local branches of the OHC are becoming more stable and better equipped to organize in their areas. Often, these local branches are led by trade unionists and active retirees, who are experienced in the fight for public services, and have organic connections to their labour councils.

73. Indeed, organized labour represents a significant portion of the healthcare activists in the May 28 rally, as well as broader healthcare organizing. In addition to organizing for the OHC conducted by the unions and locals themselves, many of the labour activists joining the OHC actions are often from the grassroots level within the union attending on their own accord. This is notable, as it indicates that the political and organizational strategy of the OHC is able to engage members beyond the activist core of the unions. Labour could take lessons from the successes the Coalition has organizing their members, and should apply those lessons to developing its own independent political program. 

74. Notably, some of the largest, most organized contingents to recent healthcare rallies organized by the OHC have been from UNIFOR, who still remain outside of the house of labour. Despite this, their presence at the rallies and actions reflect the fact that unity can be built around, and expanded by, action in the workplace and the streets. At its meeting this fall, UNIFOR will once again be entertaining re-affiliating to the CLC, and the possibility for broad, united action could be a key consideration on whether or not they do so.  As struggles grow for organized labour, opportunities to build unity in action will grow as well, and left centres within the labour movement must seize those opportunities to strengthen the movement.

75. Unity and political independence remain the key questions for the labour movement in Ontario as we enter a period of negotiations for large bargaining units in the public sector who are on or could go on strike during a period of increasing inflation. OPSEU workers in a variety of health, community, and social service sectors are already on strike across the province, fighting for back pay owed to them after Bill 124 was overturned by the courts, among other demands. Despite their small unit sizes, militancy and determination is clear on the lines, as the workers reject the austerity imposed on them by the Ford government, and bring the fight right to his doorstep. In June, hundreds of OPSEU workers crashed the annual “Ford Fest” and booed the premier offstage. The strike has also unearthed evidence of more covert privatization being advanced in the sector, with OPSEU revealing in the second week of the strike that Ford had quietly directed $1 billion in funds for these public services to be routed first through private companies, who skimmed unknown profits off the top during the pass through process.

76. In the fall, teachers and education workers across the province will likely be in a strike position as well, with all signs pointing to job action. The principal demand in bargaining is smaller class sizes and better staffing ratios for students with special needs. Setting these issues as their main demands is wise, as it directly ties the working conditions in schools to the broader public good and the welfare of the students. The challenge will be to effectively communicate this to the members of the public and parents, and build support for bargaining ahead of the job action. At present, the three major unions in the public system (CUPE, ETFO, and OSSTF) are all running separate, but related campaigns. Unifying these campaigns as bargaining progresses could help unite the public around the struggle and build stronger unity between the bargaining units, though it remains to be seen if this will be possible.

77. Beyond the major public sector bargaining, a variety of contracts will be up for negotiation across the province, from a variety of sectors, with unit sizes ranging from the dozens to the thousands. As we saw in 2023, many of these negotiations could turn to long, protracted strikes as workers fight to claw back wages which are being eroded by the cost of living crisis. A key question for the labour movement will be whether these urgent economic fights can be elevated to a broader political struggle that pushes back on the brutal austerity regime being imposed by the Carney and Ford governments.

78. One missing component for the labour movement’s struggle thus far has been the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL). At its last convention in November, infighting amongst the big unions led to a divided and politically weak convention, with the OFL largely absent from major struggles in the province since. The roots of this division is the ongoing crisis in social democracy, and are a reflection of broader fissures in a labour movement struggling to find its way and unable to articulate a path forward. This is a result of the leadership’s reliance on social democratic ideology, which tends to eschew mass mobilization in favour of electoral campaigns, and supplants radical demands with timid and incremental reforms that maintain “labour peace.” Until the OFL is able to develop a serious independent political program which its members are willing to fight for, this division will only get worse, and the labour movement will continue to be undermined, isolated, and weakened.

79. Despite the divided outcome of the OFL convention, there were nonetheless glimmers of a fighting labour movement present on the floor. Particular highlights included the resolutions for a unified strike support strategy and the development of a Worker’s Bill of Rights, as well as discussion on the dire threat posed to the labour movement by state interference in bargaining. This included denunciations of Section 107, anti-labour use of the notwithstanding clause, and other forms of anti-democratic attacks. While the federation leadership attempted to bend these discussions towards lobbying and support for the NDP, delegates were clear: these resolutions were about action first. Many of these calls came from growing left caucuses within the labour movement, which are becoming considerably larger and more organized. What is needed in the labour movement now is for these organized left voices to build caucuses within their own unions and labour councils to build fighting capacity on the ground.

80. The struggle for peace and international solidarity remains an important component of the fightback in Ontario, especially as the ruling class unifies around the drive to war. Workers across the province are being sold the illusion that Carney’s “military-Keynsianism” will lead to prosperity in Canada, and, in Ontario, Ford mimics that message, and it receives wider support from those who, out of desperation, have bought into the prosperity myth. The truth is, while the drive to war will massively increase profits, it will not improve the lives of working people in Canada or abroad. The fightback in Ontario will require rejecting this illusion of prosperity, and demanding a program of peace and prosperity, which creates jobs and protects people’s sovereignty through massive investment in the public sector and the creation of a publicly-owned, democratically-controlled manufacturing sector.
    
81. One key component of the struggle against militarism will be the labour movement, who are being openly appealed to by different segments of the ruling class. Historically, the labour movement has played a larger role in the struggle for peace and international solidarity, but despite some recent strong political statements and contributions of financial aid, it has played a secondary role in the struggle in recent years. Historically, much of this work was led within the unions by international solidarity committees, many of which have gone dormant over the decades. Progressive voices within the labour movement should reignite these committees within their union, and focus on driving to action on peace issues, as a way to pull the movement further into the struggle.
    
82. Cuba solidarity has become a dominant issue for the peace and solidarity movements following the imposition of the total fuel blockade on Cuba by the United States. A significant uptick in activity in the province has seen hundreds of thousands in material aid sent to Cuba and a broader level of political support among the public. However, the movement has seen opportunist distractions un-focus solidarity efforts somewhat, as different political groupings attempt to use the crisis to advance their own political brands instead of solidarity first and foremost. In addition, anti-Communist attacks on Cuba from some segments of social democracy have falsely counterposed the Cuban revolution and its people, dangerously setting the stage for Canadian support for more intervention. Despite these opportunistic maneuverings, the movement remains strong, and is continuing to escalate political campaigns on the government to end Canadian complicity and wholly reject the imperialist interventions against Cuba.
    
83. The genocide in Palestine remains an area of fightback which deserves attention for all peace loving people of conscience in the world. There have been recent victories for the movement, including the passage of a Hot Cargo Resolution at the 2025 OFL convention, and the organizing for the No More Loopholes bill, which successfully pressured some elements of the Liberal Government into breaking ranks, despite the bill failing to pass in parliament. These organizing pushes show there is still political support for Palestine, despite the relative recession in the movement. Campaigns focused on BDS could be the catalyst for a resurgence in progress in the Palestinian solidarity struggle. Recent revelations of the Canada Pension Plan expanding its investments in Israeli companies could serve as a unifying target for divestment.
    
84. In response to Ford’s cuts to OSAP, there was also a significant increase in spontaneous fightback from the student movement. Over several weeks, students across the province engaged in a series of actions which ranged from banner drops and rallies to several walkouts. Initial organizing culminated in a rally at Queen’s Park which saw some 5,000 attend, and ended with brutal repression from the police who beat back protesters and made several arrests.

85. After the initial spontaneous response, a lack of coordinating direction from student federations led to unevenness and eventual recession of the movement as the school year came to an end. While there were displays of spontaneous outcry yielding modest organizational victories, there was also opportunistic maneuvering within the movement, with some student unions conducting strike votes and holding rallies with participation from only a few dozen of the thousands of students they represent. Additionally, despite strong statements of solidarity from unions in Ontario, the labour movement, both the unions and the federations, played little more than a rhetorical role in the mobilizations – a missed opportunity given the overlapping struggles and ongoing bargaining in the education sector.

86. Despite this unevenness, bright spots remain in the student movement. Grassroots student groups organizing on campuses show some promise. Instead of focusing their energy on digital organizing and government lobbying, these groups have found success in mobilizing students for action. Like the left caucuses developing in the labour movement, the success of these organizations indicates the willingness to fight in the student movement which is currently not being reflected by the majority of leadership in the student unions or its major federations.

87. Indigenous resistance has also continued to build in the province, especially in the north, as the movements which coalesced around the Bill 5 and Bill C-5 fightback continue their struggle. In the summer of 2025, youth-led Indigenous organizations began holding local rallies and drawing out hundreds, and soon these same groups led a multi-week march onto Queen’s Park to bring their protest right to the government. Fury over Ford’s response to the protests, where he claimed Indigenous nations are “always coming hat in hand” to the province, forced Ford to, at least rhetorically, backtrack some of his aggressive posture to the Indigenous resistance.

88. Despite these important mobilizations and campaigns, the fightback remains complicated by the selective consultations employed by the Ford government in dealing with Indigenous nations in the province. Officially, the province has no plans to create a Special Economic Zone in the Ring of Fire as they “effectively” already have one through partnerships created with some Indigenous nations there. These partnerships were created under duress, as economic development was dangled over Indigenous groups, as long as they gave consent to the environmentally destructive developments. Worse still, Ford used the threat of Bill 5 to increase the pressure on Indigenous groups to cave to their offer, with one anonymous source in the Premier’s office leaking to the press that “[Bill 5]certainly did [give us leverage], and led directly to community partnerships.”

89. Labour and the people’s movements must do more to integrate the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination into their struggles in a more concerted manner. While important for consciousness raising, the current approach, which focuses on land-acknowledgements, workshops, and ceremonial recognitions, is currently being perverted by the provincial government to engage in these strategic consultations to advance their pro-corporate agenda. In other areas of Canada, Indigenous groups, for a variety of historical reasons, are more fully integrated into the working class fightback, and lessons should be drawn from those developments to help nurture further alliances between these shared struggles in Ontario.

90. In all segments of the broader working class fightback, energy, militancy, and capacity is showing signs of potential growth. The key question will be whether established segments of the labour and the people’s movements which are being reinvigorated right now, and these developing spontaneous struggles are able to be transformed into a durable, organized coalition or coalitions, which can learn from its missteps, integrate those not connected to organized struggle and looking for change, and continue to build its power. Organized segments of working class institutions have a responsibility to engage with and grow these sections of the movement, and must develop their capacity to build a fighting grassroots base and move their organizing outside the digital realm and back into the streets.
    
91. The education sector bargaining this fall will likely be a key struggle for labour and the people’s movements. All indications point to a strike for the workers in Ontario’s public school system, and strike activity has occurred in the last several rounds of negotiations with Ford’s government. As we saw with the OSBCU struggle in 2023, it’s possible these negotiations could turn into a province-wide political struggle if organizational unity is strong enough. Working people must begin preparing now for a major confrontation with the provincial government in the fall, and begin thinking about how to connect the live elements of the fightback which are active now into a direct, political confrontation in support of the potential strike.