The Political Situation: The Ford government’s corporate offensive
The re-election of Doug Ford’s Conservative government in February 2025 represents a dangerous acceleration of corporate power over Ontario’s working class, Indigenous nations, public services, and democratic institutions. Ford’s victory was engineered through a campaign that cynically exploited fears of U.S. tariff aggression. Positioning himself as a defender of Ontario jobs, he obscured his government’s record of corruption, privatization, and anti-worker legislation. The opposition parties’ failure to present a credible alternative proved decisive. The Liberals focused narrowly on primary care physicians, ignoring the broader crisis of healthcare privatization and profiteering. The NDP’s campaign, marked by inconsistent messaging and a further retreat from progressive economic demands, meant that they also lost ground. The Green Party’s increased focus on inequality failed to translate into gains beyond its two existing seats.
The labour movement’s lack of independent political action created a vacuum that Ford readily filled. Sections of labour leadership, particularly in U.S.-based building trades unions, pursued transactional strategies, endorsing Ford for short-term sectoral gains. This has further fractured labour movement solidarity. The result was a damning indictment: Doug Ford increased his majority with only 19.5% of eligible voters’ support. Ford’s thin mandate, however, has not tempered his government’s aggression. Instead, they have interpreted the result as an opportunity for accelerated corporate plunder.
Ontario’s economy faces converging crises. Trump’s punitive tariffs targeting Canadian manufacturing, particularly the auto sector, threaten more than 100,000 direct jobs and hundreds of thousands more in communities across the province. The Ford and federal Liberal governments have responded with concessions to U.S. monopolies and empty “investment” announcements. GM’s layoffs of 700 workers in Oshawa and 500 in Ingersoll, after receiving $259 million in provincial grants in 2022 and a $10.5 billion federal/provincial bailout in 2009, expose the bankruptcy of subsidizing private capital. These job losses are part of a decades-long corporate strategy enabled by free trade deals like USMCA, which empower monopolies to pit workers against each other across borders while abandoning communities at will.
The electric vehicle “transition” exemplifies state monopoly capitalism in its most predatory form. More than $28 billion in public funds has been promised to Volkswagen, Stellantis, Honda, and Ford with no binding job guarantees, no public equity, and no industrial plan. This corporate welfare scheme accelerates the theft of Indigenous resources, particularly in the Ring of Fire, where mining giants operate without consent. Already, GM, Northvolt, and Honda have paused EV projects in Ontario; NextStar in Windsor previously paused construction in 2023 and has now suddenly laid off 200 workers with projects still unfinished, demonstrating that the billions gambled on this industry are a dead end for jobs, reconciliation, and the environment. Only public ownership of the auto sector, under democratic control, can guarantee jobs and facilitate a just environmental transition toward mass public transit. Immediate demands for working-class mobilization should include policies such as plant closure legislation requiring full repayment of public subsidies, strengthened Employment Insurance at 90% wage coverage, and robust anti-scab legislation.
Simultaneously, Ontario’s college sector faces catastrophic collapse under Ford’s manufactured crisis. Nearly 10,000 faculty and support staff layoffs, one of the largest mass job cuts in provincial history, along with over 600 program suspensions, are decimating campuses across the province. This disaster stems directly from Ford’s 2019 funding freeze accompanied by tuition cuts, and a reckless pivot to massively expanding exploitative international student revenue. With the abrupt reversal of immigration expansion, including the deportation of international students who were being exploited for college revenue and gig work, the system was bankrupted. The Ford government is now accelerating privatization while scapegoating federal policies. These cuts annihilate vital programs like nursing and environmental tech, proving Ford prioritizes corporate profit over education, education workers, the environment, and communities.
The Ford government’s attacks have a profoundly gendered dimension. His priorities for economic growth are all for sectors that, in addition to being dominated by monopoly capital, have a significant majority of male workers: key among these are construction (87 percent male), mining (88 percent), automotive (73 percent), and nuclear energy (78 percent). At the same time, the sectors Ford has most aggressively targeted by cuts and privatization are overwhelmingly dominated by women workers: teachers (75 percent), education workers (70 percent), and healthcare (80 percent). On top of this, under Ford, the gender wage gap in Ontario has widened from 88 cents to the male dollar in 2018 to 87.2 cents in 2023, a direct result of wage repression in female-dominated public sectors. The government’s “back to basics” rhetoric in education served as a dog whistle to the far right, attacking trans-inclusive initiatives while preparing the groundwork for the province to dissolve democratically elected boards. A June 2025 report by Moms at Work and Hudson Sinclair LLP exposed systemic violations of maternity leave rights: 15% of surveyed mothers lost their jobs during leave, 26% faced reduced wages upon return, and 25% were denied promotions—despite legal protections. These attacks cascade into retirement, where 21% of elderly women nationally live in poverty. Unionization remains a critical shield: while only 36% of non-union mothers receive top-up pay, union agreements commonly provide 75-90% wage replacement and enforce job reinstatement. This gendered assault underscores the inseparable link between class struggle and the fight for gender equality.
Capitalizing on his new mandate, Ford has launched an unprecedented legislative assault designed to cement corporate power. This strategy of passing omnibus bills deliberately creates overlapping crises to overwhelm resistance. The so-called Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act (Bill 5) stands as the Conservatives’ most brazen attempt at deregulation. Marketed as a response to Trump’s tariffs, it creates “Special Economic Zones” where mining and development monopolies are exempt from environmental assessments, species protections, and Indigenous consultation. By amending 10 key statutes including the Endangered Species Act and Mining Act, it facilitates rapid exploitation of the Ring of Fire. Indigenous activists have condemned it as “economic genocide,” with more than 500 First Nations members rallying at Queen’s Park this spring. Its passage signals Ford’s readiness to sacrifice treaty rights and ecological integrity for monopoly profits.
The Safer Municipalities Act (Bill 6) exposes the government’s contempt for the poorest and most marginalized Ontarians. Under the guise of “public safety,” it empowers police to violently dismantle homeless encampments. This legislation attempts to make poverty invisible rather than addressing its root cause: the commodification of housing and expanding speculation in the housing market. Aligned with Ford’s parallel war on harm reduction, previous legislation forced the closure of 10 supervised consumption sites, replacing them with abstinence-only “recovery hubs” that prohibit safe drug use. Despite preventing 1,579 fatal overdoses in 2022-23 (per the Auditor General), these life-saving facilities are being shuttered. This deadly disregard compounds the housing and mental health crises, where 234,000 Ontarians lack stable housing and 30% of unhoused people live with addictions.
The Supporting Children and Students Act (Bill 33) enabled the June seizure of four democratically elected school boards. Elected trustees were stripped of power and replaced by provincial appointees. This unprecedented attack, the largest dismantling of local education democracy in Ontario’s history, signals Ford’s intent to eliminate elected school boards entirely. The coup is being justified through manufactured “fiscal mismanagement” crises, serving multiple reactionary goals: imposing police in schools despite community opposition, advancing regressive curricula, enabling deepening underfunding and privatization, and facilitating the fire sale of public school lands. The government’s own report found no wrongdoing at the Toronto District School Board, only the inevitable strains of $6.3 billion in inflation-adjusted education cuts since 2018. This follows the neoliberal playbook: defund public institutions, blame them for the crisis, seize control, and privatize assets.
With municipal elections scheduled for October 2026, building progressive civic reform movements is urgent. We must elect progressive councillors committed to resisting provincial attacks, while being connected to extra-parliamentary struggles.
Secondary attacks unfold across multiple fronts. The Protect Ontario Through Safer Streets Act arms university and transit police while criminalizing landlords for tenant activities. Landlords and business owners face penalties for drug activity on their properties, a provision potentially targeting social service agencies. The Protect Ontario by Building Faster Act overrides municipal building codes and development fees to enrich developers. Simultaneously, the province’s expansion of ‘strong mayor’ powers to 169 additional municipalities—allowing mayors to veto bylaws, pass legislation with only one-third council support, and unilaterally hire/fire senior staff—further centralizes power, undermines local democracy, and silences dissenting councillors. The Emergency Management Modernization Act centralizes emergency powers and threatens funding to nonprofits defying ministers.
This post-election offensive marks a qualitative escalation. The convergence of global economic instability, increased U.S. aggression in trade relations, and a provincial regime unrestrained by democratic accountability has created a uniquely perilous moment. The assault on Indigenous sovereignty through special economic zones, the criminalization of poverty via anti-homeless legislation, and the school board takeovers are interconnected components of a class war waged from above. The corporate agenda is clear: transfer public wealth to monopolies, suppress wages, crush dissent, and sacrifice communities for short-term profit. This is not a time for despair, but for urgent, coordinated resistance.
II. The Fightback: Resistance and the strategy for building working-class power
The working class and its allies cannot afford incrementalism or reliance on the opposition parties. Labour and people’s movements cannot afford to wait. The fightback must begin now, on the streets, in workplaces, and in communities.
Fortunately, resistance is not only emerging but deepening across Ontario. The challenge lies in uniting these fragmented struggles, escalating their intensity, and forging a coherent strategy centered on independent working-class political action and mass mobilization. The seeds of a powerful fightback exist, but they require cultivation, unity, and a clear socialist perspective to challenge corporate hegemony.
Grassroots defiance has manifested powerfully against key legislative attacks. Indigenous communities spearheaded the most significant challenge to Bill 5. A mass mobilization of hundreds from northern First Nations communities converged on Queen’s Park in June, with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse condemning the bill and MPP Sol Mamakwa facing expulsion for courageously naming Ford’s “untruths” to Indigenous peoples. The resistance has now escalated to the courts: nine First Nations filed for an injunction against Bill 5 on July 15, arguing it violates Charter rights to life, liberty, and security by enabling “ram through” development without consent. Their legal challenge declares the law a “clear and present danger” to self-determination, rejecting Ford’s false choice between “development versus no development”. This movement, threatening blockades and sustained opposition, remains a critical pillar in defeating Bill 5 and challenging the Ring of Fire agenda, which benefits resource extraction and auto monopolies at the expense of Indigenous nations and workers. Ontario needs an industrial policy that prioritizes workers and Indigenous sovereignty. This requires public ownership of key sectors like auto and steel, public control of energy and natural resources, and sovereign Indigenous ownership of resources on their territory.
The defence of democratic rights has been important this spring. The Communist Party, alongside labour and civil liberties organizations, mobilized against Toronto’s proposed “bubble zone” bylaw. Recognizing it as a thinly veiled attack on Palestine solidarity protests, labour pickets, and dissent generally, the campaign highlighted the dangerous precedent of using “public safety” to criminalize opposition. While the bylaw narrowly passed in Toronto, the fight united the city’s progressive forces in opposition, a rarity in recent years, especially under a supposedly progressive mayor. The fight is far from over. Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged similar federal legislation, and Ontario Liberals have introduced parallel bills at Queen’s Park. This signals an escalating campaign to stifle protest at all levels.
Sustained Palestine solidarity actions, from vigils in Barrie organized with Simcoe County 4 Palestine, to large Nakba Day marches in Windsor and Toronto, and persistent BDS leafleting targeting complicit MPs like Toronto’s Julie Dzerowicz, demonstrate widespread opposition to Israel’s genocide. Mobilizations have shrunk due to hopelessness and burnout, yet solidarity with Palestine has never been broader. Palestine solidarity now demands higher unity and organization amid starvation and genocide. Wherever possible, we must build grassroots coalitions with permanent structures to sustain pressure and counter repression. Public opinion in the U.S. and Canada has shifted substantially toward criticizing Israel, aligning with global sentiment for the first time since the occupation began. With Canada’s massive militarization campaign and accompanying austerity drive, new opportunities exist to link Palestine solidarity to a broader anti-war position connecting peace/disarmament abroad with prosperity/social spending at home.
Concurrently, the labour movement demonstrated significant, though often isolated, militancy. A wave of protracted strikes underscored worker resolve while revealing strategic weaknesses and employer aggression. The seven-week strike by 4,000 CUPE Local 1750 members at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) became a focal point. Workers battled crushing caseloads—processing over 200,000 claims annually with turnover rates soaring to 35%—while facing intense pressure to deny legitimate benefits to injured workers. This occurred alongside outsourcing threats and Bill 124’s lingering wage suppression under a Ford-appointed administration hostile to labour. Their strike exposed deliberate underfunding and corporatization of a vital service, highlighting the cruel irony of compensation workers facing burnout and mental health crises while being forced to ration benefits. Just after they returned to work, the Local lambasted the WSIB and the provincial government for privatizing document management jobs to Iron Mountain, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, because they know that union jobs will certainly come under the same focus in the near future. Similar endurance was shown by CUPE members at the Canadian Hearing Society and Villa Colombo assisted living, facing employers emboldened by the political climate to refuse inflation-compensating wage increases. These strikes shared a common thread: employers exploiting austerity to claw back gains and intensify workloads.
Despite increased militancy, communication remains siloed even within the public sector, with hospital, education, and municipal workers rarely coordinating actions. This fragmentation underscores the need for left caucuses in every union to promote united action plans that isolate both right-wing business-unionists and ultra-left sectarians, and win over the centre of the labour movement to left positions. A wave of public sector contract struggles looms over the next year as the Treasury Board enforces below-inflation wage increases, making the linkage of strikes to political mobilizations even more urgent.
The response to this situation from CUPE and OPSEU has been to launch the joint “Worth Fighting For” campaign to address issues facing Ontario’s community service workers. This cross-sectoral initiative demands increased funding, fair wages, and improved working conditions for workers in Developmental Services, Children’s Aid, community agencies, universities, and health and addiction services, responding to years of underfunding and cuts. This coordinated bargaining effort is a positive development, strengthening worker power across the sector. Their demands include a permanent, retroactive 6.5% wage increase, with both unions committed to securing funding to protect jobs and services. OPSEU warned that fragmented bargaining with underfunded employers, rather than the provincial government as the real funder, weakens workers. This collaborative model needs to be expanded within the public sector.
The federal Liberals’ intervention to force 55,000 Canada Post workers back using Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code marked a dangerous escalation. This attack on free collective bargaining, justified by spurious “economic necessity” claims, paves the way for privatization and emboldens employers like Clear Medical Imaging in Windsor, where Unifor Local 2458 endured a months-long strike for a first contract against a private healthcare employer prioritizing profits over fair wages.
While rank-and-file militancy is evident, the response from much of the labour leadership has been inadequate. Many unions remain unprepared or unwilling to provide necessary political/organizational support for coordinated fightback. Leadership must link growing strikes to a province-wide political project. The tendency to outsource politics to the NDP (which fails to demand fundamental reforms) or engage in business-unionist deals with Conservatives creates a vacuum filled by right-wing populism and weakens class struggle.
This crisis underscores the Communist Party’s analysis. February’s mass abstention resulted from absent independent labour political action. The path forward demands a decisive break from sectoral deals or uncritical NDP support. Labour must champion class-wide policies: a $25 minimum wage, legislated rent rollbacks to 20% of income, public ownership of auto/energy/key utilities, plant closure legislation, withdrawal from USMCA/NATO, and massive social investment. The recent court decision overturning Ford’s restrictions on union election advertising is welcome but risks channelling energy into election ads alone without a strategy for extra-parliamentary mobilization.
Broad coalitions are desperately needed. In coalitions, our strategy is to unite diverse organizations around demands that roll back corporate power and mobilize masses of people. While respecting different contexts and conditions in different areas of the fightback, we prioritize bringing struggles together through committees at all levels (from the local to cross-Canada), joint actions, and shared campaigns. The Communist Party’s role is to be the “glue” in these coalitions, leveraging our presence in multiple movements to build bridges, strengthen demands, and escalate tactics, recognizing the need for mass action.
The central task is building unity for an escalating fightback. Concrete unity across workplaces, communities, and movements is essential. Labour’s central bodies must lead the coordination. The upcoming Ontario Federation of Labour convention in November is a crucial opportunity to commit to mass actions against Ford’s core agenda: Special Economic Zones, school takeovers, and anti-homeless laws, while championing social spending, higher wages, lower rents, and peace. The seeds of resistance are sprouting; through unity, militancy, and socialist consciousness, they can grow into a movement defending Ontario’s workers.
This report was adopted by the Ontario Provincial Committee, Communist Party of Canada at its meeting on July 16, 2025
