Scrapbook of Harris Cuts

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Death Due to the Harris Cuts

From the NDP – Oct.2001
Harris' War on Immigrants
RACIST POLICY A SHAME - The premier is fanning the flames of fear and racism with his newly announced war on immigrants, policies that could allow police to single out and scapegoat people based on skin colour, religion, language or birthplace, NDP Leader Howard Hampton charged today.  He chastised the premier for media comments that linked immigrants with danger and terrorists. "Premier, people have died (in the US attacks), so people are scared. But could you tell me how fanning the flames of fear, how equating immigration with terrorism, does anything positive, does anything to help the situation in Ontario today? People what to know what you can effectively do rather than simply fanning fears," Hampton said.
'ETHNIC PROFILING' A CONCERN - Human rights Critic Peter Kormos today called on the Conservative government to distance itself from a proposal by Lewis Mackenzie's that racial profiling is necessary in Ontario to fight terrorism.  The premier has hired Mackenzie as a special security advisor to the Conservatives. In a radio interview September 12, the retired major-general said:  "I'm sorry, more current attention is going to have to be paid to people who are obviously, potentially part of that group. ... At some stage you have to say, "Look, I'm terribly sorry the odds are you're not involved but you're going to receive more thorough interrogation." "There is no place for this type of policy in Ontario," said Kormos. "The Conservatives should distance themselves from Mr. Mackenzie's 'ethnic profiling' proposal and promise Ontario that people will never be targeted because of their skin colour, the language they speak, and the place they were born."
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In memory of Kimberley Rogers
Date:  Fri, 17 Aug 2001 14:47:47 -0400
From:  David Starbuck <starbuck@cyberbeach.net>
Society must recognize the rights of all to a livelihood
   Last spring, 40-year old Kimberley Rogers graduated from the social services program at Cambrian College here in Sudbury.  Also last spring, Kimberley was convicted of fraud for failing to declare student loans while receiving social assistance.
   Pregnant, Kimberley was sentenced to six-months of house arrest, confined to her sweltering second floor apartment except for three hours per week and for medical and religious reasons.
   Punished for her crime of being poor once, Kimberley was then punished a second time by the Harris government as she was cut off social assistance benefits, although five months pregnant, for a period of three months.  Not only was she faced with no way to pay rent or buy food, she was also cut off her prescribed medication.
   Now, Kimberley Rogers is dead.  Whatever the immediate cause of Kimberley’s death is ultimately found to be, it is incontestable that her death is intimately bound up with Mike Harris’ “common sense revolution” and the entire process of neo-liberal globalization.
   Born in poverty and growing up in poverty, Kimberley lived in poverty and died in absolute poverty.  But Kimberley was also a fighter.  She fought to procure a living for herself and her unborn child.  She completed two college diplomas and was ready for employment.  Upon realizing the seriousness of the terms of her confinement, she found the resources to launch a Charter challenge to the denial of her benefits, a challenge that resulted in a temporary injunction in a Charter case for the first time in Canadian history.
   Kimberley Rogers was denied the right to a livelihood.  This is totally unacceptable in a modern society.  People are born to society and live in society.  As such, they possess inalienable rights by the very virtue of their existence as human beings.  Significant amongst these rights is the right to a livelihood, the right to useful and gainful employment or to a pension for the aged and the otherly-abled commensurate with what society is able to provide.
   The denial of Kimberley’s right to a livelihood is the cause of Kimberley’s death.  We will not forget!  We will not agree with this tragedy happening again.  Society must recognize the rights of all.
   We urge all Sudburians to participate in the memorial service for Kimberley Rogers on Monday, August 20 at 12 noon at the Provincial Government Building at Tom Davies Square (Larch and Paris)
   Sudbury Coalition for Social Justice Friday, August 17, 2001 scsj@noront.net

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IN OUTRAGE WE PROTEST
   The death of Ms. Kimberly Rogers was received by the Sudbury community with outrage and disgust.

    On, Monday, August 20th, 2001, we will be gathering in front of the Provincial Government Building on Larch Street @ 12 noon to mourn the death of Ms. Rogers and her unborn child.  We are demanding an end to the war on the poor launched by this government and are seeking;

- A Full Inquest Into The Death Of Ms. Rogers and Her Unborn Child
- Rescinding of All Legislation That Would Permanently Disqualify the Poor From Receiving Social Assistance If Found Guilty of a Crime
- Policies Directed at Creating Employment & Affordable Housing not Punishment and Social Stigma
- An Abolition of House Arrest in These Circumstances
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from the NDP- june.26.2001
Walkerton - MORE DISTURBING TESTIMONY - Is it amnesia or anxiety that has wiped out one environment minister's memory at the Walkerton Inquiry?  The first of five Conservative environment ministers to be inflicted on Ontario, Brenda Elliott can't seem to recall anything about the no less than 10 warnings issued to Tory cabinet members about the dangers of deeply slashing the environment ministry's budget and staff.  She did say that 'central agencies higher up in the government' were responsible for removing the warnings from her reports.  NDP Leader Howard Hampton asked the Premier who ordered those warning removed, but received as a response the weary Tory two-step, the Premier's favourite song and dance routine of evasion, sidestepping and denial.  The Premier will testify at the inquiry on Friday.
Death of Dudley George - PREMIER IMPLICATED - The premier has been implicated by new evidence that has surfaced in a civil suit launched by the family of peaceful native protester Dudley George, who was shot dead by an OPP officer at Ipperwash Provincial Park.  A government memo referring to ONAS (Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat), the AG (Attorney General) and the P (Premier) plotting to end the park occupation in 1995.  Ever since then, the Conservatives and the Premier himself have denied wrongdoing, but they have stubbornly refused to hold a public inquiry to reveal the truth.  NDP Leader Howard Hampton repeated his call for an inquiry and says the George family would drop its lawsuit if one were held.  Taxpayers have paid more than $500,000 in legal fees to keep the Premier out of court and likely hundreds of thousands more for the other cabinet ministers involved.
Toxic Waste a Growth Industry -WASTE NOT WANTED - The Conservative government needs to "clean up its act" when it comes to safe disposal of toxic waste in Sarnia and across the province, NDP Leader Howard Hampton told the Legislature today.  An alarming draft Environment Canada report obtained by the federal NDP shows that lax provincial environment policies allowing open-pit dumping of untreated toxic materials have made Ontario a hotbed for hazardous waste.  Sarnia's Safety-Kleen landfill alone accepted 410,000 tonnes of U.S. hazardous waste between 1998 and 2000.  That kind of dumping and the Conservative government's failure to crack down on the practice is putting Ontario's groundwater and drinking water at risk, Hampton said.  "Every other jurisdiction in North America is getting tougher on toxic waste. But not Ontario. When it comes to toxic waste, Mike Harris says it best - Ontario is open for business," he said.   He blamed the toothless Tory environmental laws for the growing problem.  "In post-Walkerton Ontario, at a time when people fear for the safety of their drinking water more than ever before, how can this government fail to act?" Hampton said, urging tough new laws to protect people from toxic waste.
www.ontariondp.on.ca
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Public Rallies Against Harris' Funding of Private Schools – June.2001

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   There was a strong turnout Thursday for a rally against Mike Harris' education tax credit for private schools.
   Many speakers addressed the crowd … beginning with Irene Atkinson. Irene noted that an earlier incarnation of the Tories under Frank Miller went down in flames over the funding of Catholic schools.
   All of the speakers shared Atkinson's belief that the Harris tax credit is taking money out of a weakened public education system, where kids are losing things like libraries and music classes. Major protestant churches such as the United Church have also come on board to oppose funding private schools.
    Money for public education benefits everyone and Kathleen Braithwaite of the Organization of Parents for Black Children called it the delivery of inclusive schooling.
     NDP leader Howard Hampton said that pubic education is being underfunded, undervalued and undercut by a government that doesn't share our commitment for public education. Underfund, undervalue, undercut and then privatize, that's the agenda.
   The Tories are to hold 8 days of hearings in 5 communities and speakers at the rally called for 80 days of public hearings, which is what the Tories wanted on the same issue back when they were in opposition.
   Of course the Tories are in power now and a speaker from the Canadian Federation of Students asked the crowd, "What next?" Meaning will there ever be an end to the destructive policies coming out of Queen's Park?
   My own conclusion is that there won't be an end to the policies until there is an end to the government. In the absence of a workers revolution, modern times and politicians like Harris get the strongest opposition from people undergoing a long personal revolution. And out of the daily opposition the ideas for building a better society arise or are kept alive
   On the education issue a key point is that Harris is working to encourage parents not to fight for education. His policy is to teach parents that if the local public school is deteriorating, then what they must do is take a tax credit and run off with the kids to a private school. In the long run we all learn to run from the issues and not to fight for a better society. Perhaps turning us all into chickens is the ultimate goal of the Tories.

Report by Gary for citizensontheweb.com
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HEALTH PRIVATIZATION ATTACKED - The Conservative government is moving full speed ahead on its agenda to privatize health care in Ontario, favouring private corporations over non-profit groups in its allocation of long-term care beds, NDP Health Critic Frances Lankin said today.  The final round of allocations award 60 percent of the new beds to for-profit corporations, including such major financial contributors to the Conservative Party as Extendicare (Canada) Inc. and Central Care Corp. "Non-profit health care provides better service at a lower cost," said Lankin, MPP for Beaches-East
York.  "It's time to call an immediate halt to the privatization of our Medicare system before more and more of our health care dollars are funneled into the pockets of profit-making corporations."
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TENANT PROTECTION SOUGHT - Toronto tenants can lose virtually everything they own to their former landlords because of a Conservative law that "legalizes theft," New Democrat Rosario Marchese says.  The Trinity-Spadina MPP wants the provincial law changed that allows tenants only 48 hours to remove their possessions after a legal eviction.  He will introduce a private members bill in the Legislature that would give tenants a full month to retrieve their property after eviction. Marchese attacked the Conservatives for killing rent control, failing to build affordable rental housing and allowing landlords to jack up rents on vacant units – an "eviction incentive" because landlords can get much higher rents from new tenants. "The provincial government needs to give tenants a break," he said.
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  $2.3 BILLION SWITCH - New opinion research shows that 15 per cent of Ontario parents would move their children into private schools if given the Conservative government's proposed tax credit.  NDP Leader Howard Hampton said public schools will lose $2.3 billion in government funding when 330,000 students abandon public schools for private ones and drain public enrolment.  The Tory formula calculates its public education funding per student.  "Before you take a small step down that road, don't you think the public deserves a say?" said Hampton, who wants 80 days of full, province wide public hearings on the proposal, not the mere eight days of restricted hearings a Tory-stacked government committee will hold.  Milwaukee's parental choice program, which closely resembles the Ontario Tory proposal, bled the US city's public school system of 15 of every 100 students.
   FOR-PROFIT CANCER CARE CONTRACT - The Conservatives have cut "a special, sweetheart deal" with the private, for-profit cancer care company at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.  Health critic Frances Lankin, who has seen the contentious contract, wants the entire document made public.
Contrary to the health minister's claim that the private company gets paid exactly the same as public providers, the private clinic is costing taxpayers more, Lankin said.  The contract guarantees the company 500 patients a year - the exact number required for the company to qualify for special volume bonuses of $250 per patient more than what it costs the public system to deliver the care, meaning the profit-making company is costing taxpayers eight per cent more.  Lankin said the Conservatives' move
to use public funds for private health care shrouds the secret deal in a total lack of accountability and transparency.
   HOME CARE CRISIS -  Notices went out today to tens of thousands of Ontario seniors and people with disabilities notifying them of cuts and cancellation of their required home care services.  Howard Hampton attacked the Conservatives for the devastating service cuts that will rob the province's most vulnerable citizens of both the dignity and independence of receiving care at home.  The cuts will force many out of their homes and into institutions like nursing homes, a far more expensive option, Hampton said.
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Harris' Mental Health Managers on the Loose - Jan 25.2000
   Mike Harris is tossing out $15.8 million to implement Community Treatment Orders.
   Under a CTO, someone deemed a seriously ill psychiatric patient and at risk can be forced to undergo treatment as a condition of living in the community.
   The dangerous legislation has been used already on a few people.
   With the new money Harris is sending out case managers to target mental health clients with mental health service co-ordination and physician services (forced drugging and incarceration).
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Harris Government Studying Fingerprints and Retinal Scans for all Ontarians - Jan.10.2001
   The Harris government is studying a proposal to fingerprint every resident for its new smart-card program.
   The province has hired a New York biometrics consulting company to study the possibility of using finger scans with smart cards. International Biometrics Group is to undertake a feasibility study of integrating biometrics with smart cards. Options under consideration include finger scans or retinal scans for all Ontarians.
   "We're looking at retinal scans and fingerprints as a possibility,'' Alexandra Gillespie, press secretary to Management Board Chairman Chris Hodgson, said yesterday said yesterday morning.
   The province plans to table legislation paving the way for smart cards this spring. The high-tech cards would replace OHIP cards, drivers' licences, birth certificates, hunting and fishing licences, and any other cards that access government services. Potentially, police could have access to the information.
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Province Blew it in Walkerton
(Stan Koebel not all to blame, McQuigge says - Jan.10.2001)

Walkerton: Dr. Murray McQuigge admits he went too far in pinning the blame for seven deaths on the former manager of Walkerton's public utilities commission.

   Dr. McQuigge also told the inquiry Tuesday that a water-quality official within Ontario's Environment Ministry had told him that he was being asked by senior officials to deliberately deceive the public about water-quality matters.

   McQuigge says he was puzzled when Mayor Thomson didn't go public and reveal all that he knew about the crisis as townspeople began to fall ill in droves. McQuigge decided to sound the alarm because the health unit's credibility was being called into question.
   Mr. McQuigge also told the inquiry that government cutbacks under the provincial Tories played a role in the crisis. And he criticized the government for shutting its own water-testing labs in 1996.

   "I do believe that one place government should be in business is in the protection of the health of the public. I do think that public-health labs should be doing the testing. Not private labs whose incentive is profit, not necessarily the protection of the public."
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Harris Fails in Polls on Healthcare, Disabilities, Environment - Jan.2001

    75 per cent of Ontario residents feel the provincial government has failed badly in protecting the environment, a public opinion poll conducted for the government shows.
   The poll, conducted last year in the wake of the Walkerton tainted-water tragedy found fewer than 3 per cent of Ontarians surveyed agreed that the Mike Harris Conservatives had done more than enough for the environment.
Among the results of the other polls:
   The majority of Ontarians believe the province is doing a poor job of managing the health-care system.
   Most residents say teachers should volunteer, not be paid, to supervise extra-curricular activities.
   Most Ontarians believe the private sector should be forced to remove barriers to the disabled.

   The poll on the environment was conducted by the polling firm Ipsos-Reid.
   The most serious environmental problem facing Ontarians was identified as air pollution, followed by water pollution and garbage or landfill waste issues.
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Fear of private jails - Dec.31.2000
  The Progressive Conservatives' correctional services reforms are a smokescreen to allow the privatization of the
system says Liberal MPP Dave Levac.
   Correctional Services Minister Norm Sterling announced this week that the Ontario government is reforming the system to be tougher on inmates and more efficient.
   Levac said the Tories are catering to people's emotional hot buttons. The amendments also allow for the contracting
out of correctional services to security companies and sets out regulations that provide for private facilities.
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Baird unmoved as Tory tuna diet up 21% in cost - Dec.2000
  Five years ago social services minister Dave Tsubouchi urged welfare recipients to eat tuna and produced a recommended shopping list for the poor. His shopping list, from brown rice to whole grain bread, oranges and yogurt, cost $90.81 for a month's worth of groceries.
   Liberal critic MPP Michael Gravelle has discovered the identical items now cost $109 to buy, a 21% increase. Yet welfare benefits have not risen since they were cut 21 percent.
   In spite of that Social Services Minister John Baird had no sympathy for the poor, saying they shouldn't expect more money.
   The Tories do expect more money themselves as they tried to put through a huge 38 percent increase in their pay this year.
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Harris Government the king of debt - Dec.2000 - Under finance minister Ernie Eves, the province of Ontario's debt has risen from $83  billion in 1995 to $114 billion this year. There's no other treasurer in the history of Ontario who has increased public debt so quickly -- even during a recession.
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Citizens' health records in Jeopardy - Dec.2000
   Confidential health records of Ontarians could be accessed by the government, police and researchers if the Personal Health Information Privacy Act becomes law.
   The proposed law is designed to set rules on the use of personal health records. But 10 separate exemptions in the legislation allow private health information to be used for a wide variety of government needs. As well, records can be viewed by police under recently introduced organized crime legislation.
   Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the Ontario Medical Association, which represents doctors across the province, said the provincial government has just created ''Big Brother,'' with the bill. Doctors can't guarantee their patients the confidentiality of very delicate health matters.
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Citizens & Labour Oppose Harris' Draconian Labour Laws
Report on the Harris is the Grinch Protest- Sat Dec 9th, 2000
by Gary Morton
- Read the full detailed report
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Citizens' health records in Jeopardy - Dec.2000
   Confidential health records of Ontarians could be accessed by the government, police and researchers if the Personal Health Information Privacy Act becomes law.
   The proposed law is designed to set rules on the use of personal health records. But 10 separate exemptions in the legislation allow private health information to be used for a wide variety of government needs. As well, records can be viewed by police under recently introduced organized crime legislation.
   Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the Ontario Medical Association, which represents doctors across the province, said the provincial government has just created ''Big Brother,'' with the bill. Doctors can't guarantee their patients the confidentiality of very delicate health matters.
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Ontario as a Mental Institution - Nov.22.2000
(Article on the No Force Coalition meeting in Toronto)
Background: Tonight in Toronto anti psychiatry activist Don Weitz moderated a forum called "Brian's Law: Free Choice or Forced Treatment?" Guests were Anita Szigeti lawyer & chair of the Mental Health Legal Committee and Lana Frado psychiatric survivor and Executive Director of Sound Times Support Services.
   The discussion covered new legislation of the Harris Government that amends Ontario's Mental Health and Health Care Consent Acts, allowing people to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility under almost any pretext.
- Read the full Report
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Harris Tories Stole Environment Dollars - Oct.20000
   The Ontario government stole millions of dollars earmarked for the environment when they failed to put it back into recycling programs. Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty says Ontario has "simply pocketed" $240 million over the past six years that the Liquor Control Board collected as an environmental levy intended for recycling.
   "What you've been doing effectively, is stealing $240 million through the environmental levy ... under the guise of dedicating that to environmental purposes," McGuinty said inside the Legislature.
   McGuinty said the cash was instead funnelled into tax cuts with no regard to solving Ontario's growing trash problem.
   New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton accused the government of ignoring new developments in recycling technology because of its close ties to private waste disposal companies.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy Attacks Harris - Oct.7.2000
   "The Conservatives are mortgaging the Ontario environment with government cutbacks in order to give voters a brief joyride of lower taxes," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said last week in North York.
   "This province is now one of the most polluted places in North America. On all of the lists, it comes up second or third -- or sometimes first -- most-polluted province or state in North America," said Mr. Kennedy.
   Kennedy went on to call environmental injury deficit spending. "It's a way of passing the costs of our generation's prosperity and loading it on to the backs of our children…our children are going to pay for our joyride with denuded landscapes and poor health and huge clean-up costs that are going to amplify over time."
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Harris Stuns Public with his Ignorance on Disability Issues - Oct.7.2000
   American disability legislation has been devastating to the very people it was designed to help and similar laws wouldn't help in Ontario either, Premier Mike Harris said as he tried to justify his failed 6-year-old promise to bring in legislation for the disabled.
   Activists for the disabled greeted Harris' statement with disbelief. They have been trying for years to get the government to move on the issue.
   An independent study prepared for the province shows the legislation in the U.S. has been beneficial and cost effective. The U.S. legislation gives the disabled the right to complain about discrimination in
Employment, and mandates the removal of barriers to the disabled by providing wheelchair ramps or braille on elevators.
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Harris Efficiency Experts to put the screws to Universities - Sept.18.2000
   Mike Harris has a new way of convincing Ontario's universities and community colleges to do business its way. Dianne Cunningham, Minister Colleges and Universities is creating an Investing in Students Task Force. It will study existing college and university administrative operations and receive proposals on new technologies and best practices that could help institutions run their shops more efficiently.
   Funds for schools will be tied to cooperation with the Task Force's demands.
   Best Practice is the term efficiency experts used when they tied Ontario's hospitals in knots and created a crisis in emergency rooms and health care in general.
   The Harris Task Force will, if anything, create a crisis at our colleges and universities
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Public Abhors Planned Tory Changes to Labour Law - Sept.16.2000
   Great cities and nations rise when citizens have peace, well being and leisure time. So it seems that Mike Harris' Labour Minister Chris Stockwell wants us to be a slave province of residents who are always working and have no time for cultural contributions.
   Under his proposed changes to employment standards the workweek would be flexible and 60 to 72 hours long. Flexibility is much easier when you never go home.
   Organized labour plans massive protests and a media campaign to combat the changes, which it says will leave workers at the mercy of their employers.
   "We're looking at province-wide actions that we can engage in," CUPE Ontario President Sid Ryan said. "It's going to be a massive mobilization by labour against this legislation."
   Other problems with the changes are the burden on the health care system they would create. Men in particular age quickly when deprived of sleep and placed under stress. In this the Harris Tories are institutionalizing the bad boss. In Ontario bosses do not want to train employees. Instead they make those who are skilled work enormous amounts of overtime. The longer workweek will mean companies will plan projects on the basis of workers doing enormous amounts of overtime and then being laid off. Workers who would have been full time will find themselves seasonalized. As temporary layoffs increase many will not manage money well and evictions and homelessness will increase.
   A poll by the Toronto Star showed 96 percent opposed to Stockwell's proposed changes and four per cent supporting them.
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Tories Battered in Byelection - Residents Reject Forced Amalgamation - Sept.8.2000
   The Liberals have won a new seat a byelection. Ted McMeekin, the popular mayor of Flamborough, near Hamilton, beat Conservative candidate Priscilla de Villiers, the high-profile victims-rights advocate.
   With about 90% of the polls reporting in the riding of Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot,
McMeekin had 15,810 votes to de Villiers' 8,190. A total reversal in an area that was a safe Tory seat. The Tories has a 12,000-vote margin of victory in the last election.
   Tory Toni Skarica resigned in February to protest his party's forced amalgamation of Dundas,
Ancaster and Flamborough into a megacity.
   The Tories were turfed in show of anger against the Harris and Municipal Affairs Minister Tony Clement and their continued forced amalgamation program.
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Harris Wastes $300,000 more in Public Money on ads - Aug.28.2000
   Mike Harris' advertising blitz against Ottawa is on again with a $300,000 radio commercial that demands more federal money for health care.
   To date, Ontario has spent $5.3 million on an ad campaign that includes ads on television, newspapers and now radio.
   Perhaps Harris just can't understand that public dollars should be used wisely. Why doesn't he just phone the Prime Minister to make his demands? And if he wants to advertise why doesn't he use funds from the huge surplus in funds the Tory Party has raised for itself?
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Ontario - The Slave Labour Province- Aug.25.2000
(Proposed Standards Changes will create a new wave of the Homeless)
   Since Mike Harris came into power in Ontario, we've seen the minimum wage fall, homelessness rise and rents skyrocket for tenants. Hundreds of thousands have been cut off social assistance and many are being forced into Workfare programs where they work for a mere fraction of the minimum wage.
   Prisoners are now working on the roads and they are also moving into many other areas to displace paid workers with slave labour. This is a Slave Labour Government, and now it is moving to victimize the working poor by allowing a workweek of 60 to 73 hours.
    The proposed Harris changes to the employment standards are an open attack on the most vulnerable workers. How can we maintain our health while working more than 12 hours a day? How many people will become jobless due to overtime hogs that work long hours?
   Labour Minister Chris Stockwell says the changes are needed to adapt to a changing workplace that demands more flexibility. But that is bull because part of flexibility has been shorter workweeks not longer ones. Stockwell's changes take us back to 1944, when a 60-hour workweek was the standard.
   The Chamber of Commerce likes this legislation because its real design is to seasonalize urban workers. Employers call it dealing with production bumps. What will happen is that large crews will be hired, that work long hours in the short term and then get laid off. It is good for bosses but the social costs will be tremendous. Homelessness is already an urban blight, and the sky-high rents created by the Harris Tenant Act make it worse. The changes in the standards act will create pay bumps in large groups of low income workers, and in some months their money will be gone, they won't pay the rent and a second wave of homelessness will sweep Toronto.
   We should all rise up - rich and poor - to oppose these changes. None of us can afford the social costs.
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Ottawa judge halts provincial day-care rip-off - Aug.27.2000
   An Ottawa judge has granted a temporary injunction allowing parents to keep their RRSPs while qualifying for day-care subsidies.
   Justice Monique Metivier said the new provincial policy of Mike Harris to limit such subsidies would cause "real and immediate harm" to needy parents.
   Judge Metivier said the harm would begin Sept. 1 when parents of 900 children would be forced to spend their RRSPs or pay full fees.
   Outraged by what they regard as discrimination, 11 parents whose children attend Glebe Parents' Day Care sought an injunction that would allow them to keep their retirement savings.
   The injunction will remain in effect until Oct. 3 when the court decides on the legality of the government policy that would require parents to cash in RRSPs worth more than $5,000 to qualify for subsidies.
   Across the province, the policy would affect about 133,000 children in subsidized day care.
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Feds' pollution pledge puts pressures Harris - Aug.27.2000
   Federal Environment Minister David Anderson has promised to make big reductions in air pollution from coal-burning power plants. But the stumbling block is Mike Harris - he has been attacked by environmentalists, the federal government and U.S. officials for his failure to come up with a plan for reducing smog-causing air pollution emissions.
   In a joint communique, Canada has pledged to meet or exceed tough new standards in the United States for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The new standards being imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on 22 states are three times more stringent than existing Ontario regulations.
   "The federal government has kicked Ontario in the backside (by) saying if the province doesn't do it, the federal government will,'' said John Wellner of Pollution Probe.
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Ontario Teachers at War with Harris - Aug.20000
   Teachers are again at war with Mike Harris and the media is not really telling the public why. Here are Nathan Drecher's bare facts on Bill 74, the new Harris anti Education bill.

BILL 74 - EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
* Restricts the collective bargaining power of teachers unions by not allowing union representatives to set foot on school property, to approach a teacher during school hours or to spend more than 15 hours a month talking to teachers.
* Gives all teachers 1 extra class to teach per semester, changing the amount of work a teacher must complete PER DAY from 1250 minutes to 6.67 classes.
* All teachers will receive a minimum of 25 extra students to teach a day.
* Principles will have the power to ignore and/or over-ride any collective agreements reached by the teachers unions.
* The Education Minister will have the power to, at any time, change board-approved curriculums, assign passing or failing grades to any student dependant upon the amount of resistance the student has made to school-board and/or ministry policies and regulations, expel students for any reason at all, and suspend teachers for any reason at all.
* Extra-curricular activities can be forced upon any teacher at anytime of the year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without pay and regardless of collective agreements reached by teachers unions.
* ANY DECISIONS MADE BY THE MINISTER CANNOT BE CHALLENGED, NOR CAN THEY BE REVIEWED BY A COURT.
* Boards will not be allowed to protect their employees.  Any board which makes a move which is contrary to Ministry guidelines, or which HINTS at making such a move, can be suspended and/or fined.
* Boards are no longer subject to collective agreements reached by the teachers unions.
* The Minister may, at any time, incur the costs of the provincial level of education operation upon any school board.
* The Minister may direct any school/board funds away from the schools to anywhere the Minister deems appropriate, and such funds may not be reviewed or traced.
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Harris passes the water buck - July.31.2000
   After endless promises and media spin on how the province would fund the repairs to damaged water treatment facilities, Mike Harris has now decided to pass the bill to the municipalities. A majority of Ontario municipalities will be footing the bill to pay for upgrades to water-treatment facilities when the province introduces new drinking water directives. Harris went on to add that communities will have to recover the money through higher sewer and water rates.
   Another Harris promise broken and this one made to every person in Ontario after the deaths in Walkerton.
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Public Ripped Off in Harris Election Surveys - July.2000 - The Harris government used taxpayers' money to pay for pre-election polls last year. The results were scrutinized while developing the Conservative Party's "Blueprint" election platform.
   Liberal Sandra Pupatello says the use of public money is totally crossing the line. Harris should have to pay back every red cent.
   Sneaky polls probed and helped shape negative public views on issues such as work for welfare, crime and panhandling.
   The Harris government has spent $7.6 million on polling.
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Ontario Politics Corporate Owned - July.2000
(One Party System as Opposition Can't Compete in Elections)
   Robert MacDermid, a political science professor at York University, tracks who gives what to the provincial Progressive Conservatives. He says that in five years they received $50 million in donations. It's an incredible total that does not include donations to about 20 candidate campaigns that have yet to report.
  The size of the development industry's donations is enormous and there is nothing altruistic about corporate donations. These people expect to get something in return and they do.
   It is a case where Ontario democracy has been bought. And the Tories not only spend the millions in donations on re-election; they spend even more in public dollars for government advertising the looks much like election material.
   Low on funds, the NDP and Liberals cannot compete in elections. Harris' changes to the election laws have left us with a one party system, and we can't get back inside the House to restore democracy.
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Tory Welfare Fraud Exposed - July.31.2000
   The Harris Government has ignored nearly all other issues as it boasts of the success of it welfare reforms. Now an analysis of government reports that The Toronto Star obtained under access-to-information laws paints a totally different picture.
   The Tory studies really only contact those who used to be on welfare and now have some source of income. Those that can't afford housing or telephones aren't tracked in the studies. Andy Mitchell of the group Welfare Watch notes that the welfare reforms have driven the most needy people further into poverty.
   Social Services Minister John Baird boasts that more than 60 per cent of people who leave welfare do so for full-time work. The truth is that a disproportionate number of those who polling firms could track were better-educated and had more recent work experience that helped them find full-time jobs. In one study of 5,441 people who left welfare in a single month in 1996, only 2,159 could be found and asked how they were supporting themselves without welfare. A mailing survey to 1,000 former welfare recipients at their last known address found only 59 people. 35 of them said they were back on welfare.
   The government boasts of improvements are fraudulent because the findings assume that 60 per cent of people who could not be contacted were also in the workforce. What is more likely is that these people are on the street without any support. Food banks are verifying the increase in clients who have no source of income after being forced off welfare by unfair rules. The many thousands with no fixed address crash wherever they can find shelter. If the economy downturns and the Harris welfare laws are not reformed, Ontario will face an unbelievable poverty disaster.
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Ontario Environment Awash in Toxic Swill- July.2000
    The Harris pollution revolution is still spilling across Ontario. Look through the killer smog and you'll see that Mike Harris' hometown of North Bay is a place where you need to floss your teeth after drinking the water. It has joined the disaster list and the council has been told to issue a water alert as the tap water is hopelessly, inadequately treated. This bad news comes from Dr. Tony Edmonds, a senior water treatment specialist for the Ontario ministry of the environment.
   If that isn't enough, a second report is out that says Ontario is flooded with toxic waste. Harris' feeble environmental laws have made the province a dumping ground for hazardous waste. Burlington and Hamilton are top among hot spots for imported waste from the United States.
   The study by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy finds that toxic-waste imports increased 138 per cent between 1994 and 1998. "This just shows that Ontario is open for business -- business in toxic waste," said Anne Mitchell.
   The waste poses a range of threats - some are reactive, explosive, corrosive, infectious or radioactive. Many also contain carcinogens. Increasingly, hazardous waste is turning up at water-pollution-control plants, landfill sites and processing stations across the province.
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Harris Replacing Government Workers with Slave Labour - July.2000
    The Harris Government has now revealed the true purpose its Workfare program. The hated program brought in by Harris forces the jobless to work for a welfare cheque that is only a fraction of the minimum wage.
   Now Harris is placing Workfare slaves in the jobs of government employees. The Ontario Public Service Union is demanding that Premier Mike Harris return 100 jobs now being done by workfare recipients to laid-off Ministry of Transportation employees.
   Leah Casselman, OPSEU president, said Harris is now using the province's Workfare slavery program to maintain highways, tune vehicles and file driver- and vehicle-registration information. The government is also getting them to work in the provincial sign shop making road signs.
   About 4,000 ministry employees -- many represented by OPSEU -- have been laid off under the Tories over the past four years.
   Harris promised that Workfare would not replace paid work. That was apparently another Harris lie as Workfare people are now replacing employees that made about $15 an hour.
      Workfare placements are in government offices across the province, including London, Downsview, St. Catharines and North Bay.
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Harris Government Keeping Nuclear Disaster a Secret - July.2000
(Bruce Plant Leaking Dangerous Nuclear Waste)
    Radioactive contaminants from the Bruce Nuclear Power Development in Ontario have leaked and almost certainly have migrated into Inverhuron Provincial Park. A plume has reached a swamp that straddles the boundary between the park and the nuclear site.
    Ontario Power Generation's only response to this disaster has been to hire a consultant. The Ontario environment ministry is aware of the situation, spokesperson Bob Massecar said yesterday. He claims the risk is minimal.
   But it is thought that the calculations do not take into account the cumulative effect of the leak on the larger environment. Tritium, a carcinogen with a half-life of 12.5 years, decays by beta emission, giving off particles that damage living cells by breaking their chemical bonds.
   Last month the Inverhuron ratepayers' association filed an appeal of a judge's order giving the new waste storage site the go-ahead. The internal report on the leak was obtained under a Freedom of Information request filed by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. Sierra lawyer Melanie Steiner fought a prolonged battle to get about 80 documents from 800 in exchange for the fees being waived.
   This indicates that there are many other possibly dangerous facts being kept secret by the Harris Government.
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Showdown at Queen's Park - Toronto, June 15 2000
Poverty Protesters Battle Police as Mike Harris Refuses to Address Poverty Issues
- read a complete report
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Harris Sticks Parents with $80,000 Playground Bill - July.2000
   Many playgrounds in Ontario schools are being demolished, as they don't meet new provincial safety standards that Mike Harris adopted last year.
   Parents will have to pay for new equipment themselves at a cost of up to $80,000 - an exorbitant new user fee.
   NDPer Marilyn Churley says that either the Ministry of Education should provide the money to school boards or a specially dedicated government fund for replacing play equipment should be established.
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Harris Cuts Letting Thousand of Dangerous Drivers off the Hook - July.2000
   MPP Peter Kormos has released two memos leaked from Regional Senior Justice of the Peace Carol Jadis. The memos announce the closure of courts that handle charges under the Provincial Offences Act in order to deal with a "gridlocked" system caused by an "extreme shortage of justices of the peace.
    "A lot of bad drivers are going to be let off the hook this summer because of the government's inability to manage the system and appoint adequate numbers of justices of the peace," Kormos said.  "Thousands of serious traffic offences, such as speeding and running red lights, will be thrown out because this government won't or can't properly manage the courts. Drivers will go unpunished and their bad driving habits will be reinforced. How serious can the Conservatives be about law and order when they have failed to properly invest in the court system?"
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Harris humiliated in court appeal over welfare moms - June.2000
   The Harris government has lost a court bid to reinstate its policy of reducing welfare assistance for mothers who live with a common-law partner.
  In a 2-1 ruling the Divisional Court confirmed that to compel a common-law partner to support a welfare mother financially regardless of the permanence of the relationship would be a violation of the couple's constitutional rights.
   In August, 1998, the Social Assistance Review Board said the government's policy violated the privacy and non-discrimination rights of mothers on welfare, who were forced to divulge personal details. It also created a chill on their ability to form new relationships.
   Judges wrote that the government based its policy on "false stereotypes and myths . . ."
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Latest Harris Bills Worse than any Riot - June.20.2000
   Teachers are picketing at the legislature tonight as more of Mike Harris' rotten education legislation has gone through. The latest education changes by Harris could be called outright dangerous police state stuff. A recent post from Rick Jones outlines some the frightening things in the Yechhhhter's recent education bills. It is not a nice trend. The post is below.

   Also coming in is Bill 68, known as 'Brian's Law. It brings in police state squads to force medication on folks with psychiatric problems, and there are a lot of them or us in society. The No Force! Coalition will be holding a press conference tomorrow (June.21) at one PM, in the Media Studio at Queen's Park.  (Ground floor, go to the left after entering through the main doors).

   If the current June 15th trend continues, the first psychiatric patients attended to by the Force Drugs on 'Em Squad will fight back. They will be accused of rioting, charged with assault police, and reporters will write many articles on how their actions accomplished nothing and may scare society into bringing in more repressive police measures.

   Same goes for teachers. Wave those placards very slowly, or the horseback police might charge in, and say later that all those funny glasses prove that teachers wanted a fight.

   Here's the article on the education changes.

   I am the largely volunteer Co-ordinator of the Ontario Caucus of the Alliance of Canadian Second Stage Housing Programs.  We have the unenviable record of being the women's service with the worst, deepest cuts made by the Harris government to date.  Without any consultation or prior notice, $2.56 million was cut from Second Stage Housing effective December 31, 1995.  This represented 100% of the Ministry of Community and Social Services funding to Second Stage Housing in Ontario.

  In the beginning we were told that this money, earmarked for in-house and on-site counseling of assaulted women and children housed in Second Stage Housing, was a duplication of service, that women and children could get counseling in the community.

  However, later we learned that "social housing" that got funding from only the Ministry of Municipal Affiars (and Housing) would be downloaded to the municipality.  So cutting MCSS funding for Second Stage Housing was necessary if SSH was to be downloaded.  Since that time, we have lobbied continually to be allowed to speak to the Ministers of Community and Social Service - Tsubouchi, Ecker, and now Baird and have not been granted an audience.

  On February 14, 2000, a delegation of SSH providers and myself appeared before the Standing Committee on Financial and Economic Affairs- Pre-Budget Consultation, in Chatham.  At that meeting we made a presentation and asked for annualized funding in the amount of $3,360,000.00 to be included in the budget we expect to see in May.

   Does anyone out there have any suggestions for the Alliance as to how we can get the government's attention (in a positive way!), more effective lobbying techniques, letter writing, press conferences at Queen's Park, press releases, have not worked to date.

   As downloading of "social housing" becomes a fact, it is possible that Second Stage Housing will disappear.  This would be a real tragedy because SSH saves women's lives.  Studies show that women are most likely to suffer fatal injuries at the hands of their intimate abusive partners when they are making an effort to leave that partner.  Being able to live for a year in the safe, affordable housing provided by Second Stage Housing makes it more unlikely that women will die because they want to distance themselves from the violence and live freely and safely with their children.  Second Stage Housing in Ontario needs your support, assistance, encouragement and the information you can share with us as we attempt to save ourselves from oblivion.  Thanks for reading this far.  I hope to hear from anyone who is interested in our situation.

Donna Hansen, Co-ordinator, Ontario Caucus, Alliance of Canadian Second Stage Housing Programs.  phone/fax (519) 348-9216  e-mail dhansen@orc.ca
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Tories in Hot Water over Land Flips - Apr.2000 - Chris Hogson has been mentioned as Harris' choice for the next leader of the Conservative Party, and he is now in hot water over land flips. Opposition leaders and the Toronto Star think he should resign.
   On June 16, 1998, the government sold a piece of land in Brampton for $1.27 million. Six days later, it was flipped for $3.92 million.  On March 29, 1999, the government sold a parcel in Mississauga for $1.92 million. In November it was sold for $4.39 million.
   Dalton McGuinty described a cabinet order to sell for $5 million a property said to have a market value of double that. Chris Hodgson recommended the sale.
    Police are now involved and it is obvious that something, somewhere has gone seriously wrong. Many people want to know whether the privately profitable land flips are isolated.
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Harris Creates Schoolyard Bullies - Apr.2000 - Ontario is creating the very bullies and bad apples it now wants to crack down on in schools, says a province-wide coalition of 200 child care professionals.
   Dr. Paul Steinhauer of the Sparrow Lake Alliance says the less Ontario helps working families and the poor, the more students will develop the social problems that can erupt into anti-social behaviour. Tough new zero-tolerance policies on violence would only dump problem students on the street to hit rock bottom. Even the province's plans for boot-camp schools for expelled students would just create breeding grounds for bad behaviour.
"Teachers everywhere say kids are becoming  harder to control, yet they have fewer resources to deal with it." Steinhauer says. "All these government cutbacks to schools and social services are causing a significant increase in the number of kids behaving in a negative and disruptive manner.''
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Harris Spends Millions in Public Money Attacking the Feds on Medicare - Mar.25.00 - The Harris Government has launched a series of factually incorrect TV ads in their push for more federal funding of medicare. Critics say that yes medicare needs funding, but Harris is wasting millions that could be used to help the sick or disabled, etc.
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Harris MPP Jerry Ouellette Poster Boy for National Rifle Association - Mar.25.00
   Tory MPP Jerry Ouellette is appearing in a National Rifle Association TV infomercial warning U.S.
citizens that Canada's gun control laws could be spreading south.
   Liberal MPP Michael Bryant says the appearance -- along with the Tory government's court battle against the gun registry and legislative support of 12-year-old hunters -- is evidence of an "unholy alliance" with gun advocates.  "The Harris government is in the holster of the gun lobby."
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Harris to Bring in Forced Drug Treatment/Hospitalization - Mar.24.00
   * Update - The Harris Government's Toronto consultations on community treatment orders are going to be at the YMCA, 20 Grosvenor on March 30, 9 a.m.-12 noon  OR(?) 1-4p.m.. People are supposed to call 327 8606 if they plan to attend.
   Psychiatric Survivors are fiercely opposed to Mike Harris' plans for community treatment orders - a parole-type system whereby patients with a history of chronic rehospitalization would live in the community but would be required to report in regularly with the mental health system and possibly take prescribed medication. Failure to take medications would result in a return to hospital and or forced medication.
   Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer says that police and health professionals will get more power to force the mentally ill into treatment. There are to be two weeks of public discussion in April before final changes are brought forward.
Articles on CTO's - Harris' Community Treatment Orders
1. They almost killed her with Methadone - a recent tale on ill-prescribed drugs.
by Gary Morton
2. CTO legislation coming to Ontario this spring - by Graeme Bacque
details CTO's and how to protest against them.
3. An Open Letter from Graeme Bacque (Psychiatric Survivors)
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Harris Picks Petty Scrap with Teachers - Mar.12.00 - Premier Mike Harris can't stay out the classroom, and to continue his new eye-scratching match with teachers he says he will force them to run after-school sports and clubs this fall - whether they like it or not. He has also boosted the amount of time teachers must teach each day - which  could lead to high school strikes this fall.
   Harris  will pass a law forcing teachers to provide extracurricular activities this September. More than two-thirds of all Canadian teachers already run at least one after-school activity and it is hard to imagine how Harris expects to force teachers to run programs that are voluntary.
   Earl Manners says that If they're taking a voluntary activity and making it compulsory, that would be overtime.  It sounds like Harris wants something for nothing.
   Harris' new attack on teachers has not caught fire with parents, many worry about the sinking morale and the fact that Harris wants to push people over the edge. The whole thing may be a smoke screen to hide the issue of funding cuts. The government wants an issue where it can appear to be on the moral high ground, defending students.
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Windsor school board rebels against Harris - Mar.00
   The province has forced school boards into open rebellion as its school funding formula guts education, disrupts communities and sort-changes sudents. Adult education is already lost. 133 schools are slated to close. Kindergarten children must travel to distant schools.
   Windsor Essex now says it won't make cuts that will further harm children in its schools. The board has already chopped $35 million. It refuses to cut another $12 million.
   Education Minister Janet Ecker wrote a tough letter saying it is illegal for school boards to submit a budget that includes plans to deliberately run a deficit. But lawyer Clayton Ruby called this a bullying letter and dismissed the claim of illegality as ust not true. Ecker can order school trustees to make the cuts, he pointed out. Or she can make them herself if the trustees resign.
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Harris - Soul of Education Sold to Corporate Welfare Bums - Mar.08.00
    Mike Harris just appeared in Cornwall to announce that the Ontario government will approve the introduction of private universities into Ontario this year.
   It's a plan that won't work as after they are instituted the private universities will begin to feed at the public trough. As big corporations control research and reap benefits through patents, the public will get nothing in return - just the bill.
   It is also doubtful that such institutions could ever have any genuine commitment to Canada, its history and people. Nowadays even our so-called public universities are much like these private outfits, with nearly everything under corporate control.
   What we really need is affordable public education - it really should be free of fees. Mike Harris is just creating another problem and he is not addressing the the real education issue at all.
   Sure this will funnel money into the Tory re-election war chest as Big Business rewards them for selling out our right to public education. In removing our history and public nature they are selling our souls to big business.
   Perhaps there is a way to fight back. This year the Free university of Toronto opened. Citizens who want to fight Harris' privatization agenda should support Free U with volunteer work and donations. High profile Ontarians should get on the bandwagon to aid the Free U effort.
    Info on Free U - The Free University of Toronto has been organized by a collective of students, staff, faculty and community members interested in reclaiming public education and transforming the University of Toronto into an open, accessible, inclusive, worker-friendly, community oriented, non-corporate, no-fees, non-discriminatory institution.
We Site and course listings..

*   Editor's note - If you are disturbed by the above post write to the politicians, attaching it and this sample letter.

Dear Harris Tories,
   As a concerned citizen I am wondering why you folks run radio ads asking the Feds to fund tax cuts when you just threw 1.5 billion dollars down the urinal. That's money that won't go to the poor, the disabled, to health care . . . or even to your beloved tax cuts.
   I'd also like to know why you folks were criticizing Willie the Groundhog and others for receiving job creation funding? Perhaps you don't like it when money actually gets into someone's hands or paws - when you could've flushed it down the toilet?

premier@ontariopc.on.ca
ernie_eves@ontla.ola.org
janet_eckerco@ontla.ola.org
clement@titan.tcn.net
chris_hodgson@ontla.ola.org
rob_sampson@ontla.ola.org
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The Shorts on Emissions Trading - Feb.19.00 - Ontario Environment Minister Tony Clement says he will eat his shorts if a Tory emissions-trading system for industry increases pollution. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says the plan will hike mercury, CO2 and cancer-causing emissions by 150%.  So those may high risk pollution content shorts he eats.
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Harris - the Good Times turned to Bad Times - Feb.5.00
   The US led economic boom  boosted Ontario last year and tax revenues are expected to shoot up another 4 billion to  $59.8-billion this year. In spite of that the Harris Tories plan to spend $60.836-billion.
   Bob Rae, whom the public thought was a big spender, spent only $56.2-billion in his last year. And that was without implementing many of Harris' cuts.
   The worst part about the Harris Government is that spending has been cut more than four billion in many vital areas while a fortune has been spent on things like the Restructuring of Health Care, Education and on forced Municipal Restructuring. These sinkholes created huge restructuring debts and other bills to repair the damage. Harris recently pumped nearly 250 million in to repair the damage done in emergency wards.
   It's just too bad for the people of Ontario. Toronto's shelters are filled with homeless children. Many tenants and students face utter poverty. Our government had the money yet they squandered it and turned the good times into the bad times for many people.
   We could've been out debt, yet Eves still runs a deficit. Ontarians have become losers through electing losers.
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Harris Breaks Another Promise as Hydro bills set to Soar 10% - Feb.4.00
     Urban homeowners will get an average hike of about 6 per cent in electricity costs as the Ontario Energy Board is allowing Ontario's 255 municipal utilities to boost rates for industrial and residential customers Nov. 1. Low use customers will face 10 percent increases. Energy Probe estimates that the average residential bill could jump by $100 a year. So you would have to ask how people like the disabled, who have their every increase in CPP stolen from them by Harris, would be able to pay such increases.
     Energy Minister Jim Wilson promised that deregulation of the electricity industry - both at the generation and delivery ends - would result in lower costs to consumers. The hike is is also totally unnecessary as the distribution rate being charged now is more than enough to meet the cost of the distribution system. Rates should go down so there should be consumer outrage.
     Municipalities will also be using rate increases as a back door to raise taxes, which is unethical. Ann Cavoukian, The Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, has noted that the privatization split of Hydro into five corporations leaves two of them exempt from the Privacy Act. Meaning that the privacy commissioner can't order disclosure of information. In the future we may not even have any idea why rates are shooting up.
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New Site - The Black Hole of Conservation - www.blackhole.on.ca   The site deals with the sell-off of conservation lands under the policies of the Harris Government and other related matters, including Oak Ridges Moraine and the Rouge Park.
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Tory MPP Quits to Keep his Soul - Jan.22.00 -  Tory MPP Tony Skarica says he kept soul by quitting the Harris Government. Skarica has resigned as an MPP over an election promise to quit his job if the Tories imposed a supercity in his riding. "To stay would render me a liar. I have come to the conclusion, if I were to stay in these circumstances, I would have to surrender my soul."
   The rest of the Harris MPPs have no problem with being liars. Though they promised no more forced megacities, they are populating Ontario with them.
   Harris has six months to call a by-election. The departing Skarica says he's no hero, but to many people he is - politicians who are willing to defend democracy are rare these days.
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The Harris Government is selling confidential citizen data on the kind of car you drive, and your address to companies without your knowledge or consent. Close to 600 businesses have special contracts giving them access to the records of millions of vehicle owners in Ontario. It is regrettable that information given in good faith is being used in such a way and nothing is being done about it. (Dec/99)
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Taxpayers stuck with the Bill - Environment Minister Tony Clement plans to stick taxpayers with the legal bills for his personal law suit against Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty. Clement thinks McGuinty defamed him by attacking him on the radio for sending a questionable letter to the Ontario Municipal Board.
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Bill to Awaken Lazy Mike wins first reading - Dec/99 - A bill to force Mike Harris to start attending sessions at the legislature should have automatically died on the order paper. But the Tories are so sleepy and lazy that not a single government member spoke out against it. Now it will proceed to second reading. The bill from Ontario Liberal Gerry Phillips is entitled, "More days in the House for
the Premier and Fewer Cheap Photo Ops.''
Harris has been present for only eight of 30 question periods since the Legislature resumed in late October.
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Mike Harris' UA minister has no credibility (Tory Environment Minister moves to silence opposition with lawsuit)
   Jan.08.00 - Tony Clement thinks Dalton McGuinty defamed him during the Grit leadership convention in Ottawa in November. Now McGuinty has been served with a notice of intent of action under the Libel and Slander Act. At issue is McGuinty's suggestion that Clement had been dishonest in writing a letter to the Ontario Municipal Board.
   So far McGuinty has no comment on the suit. But here at citizensontheweb.com our comment is that McGuinty was only doing his job in pointing out the unethical actions of a Tory Minister.
   On the defamation issue, Clement has done a great job of defaming his own party - he broke one of their key promises of no more forced amalgamation almost immediately and is rushing the creation of new megacities. He has zero credibility on the Oak Ridges Morraine or housing and tenant issues. And in spite of all that - as an architect of the United Alternative, he is thinking of leading that new federal party - most likely into more fields of broken promises.
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Bogus Tory Foundation Leaving Lakes Polluted - Jan.07.00 - The Ontario Great Lakes Renewal Foundation, created in 1998 by the Harris government, has handed out only $305,000 to help fund small clean-up projects across the province.
   "The province has used it as an excuse to walk away from its responsibility for clean-up of the
Great Lakes,'' said Mark Winfield, a researcher for (CELA) Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and policy. Winfield points out that the natural resources ministry killed its Great Lakes branch, which was responsible for remedial work along the lakes.
   The Tories made only a $5 million one-time investment into an endowment for the foundation, which is expected to get the rest from private sector contributions. Yet in In 1994, it was estimated that cleaning up hot spots would cost $1.7 billion.
   NDP MPP Marilyn Churley says they are never going to get the multi-millions of dollars needed to clean up the Great Lakes from the private sector. She calls the foundation bogus.
   Members of the foundation board, many of them Tories, are already acknowledging that much of scheduled cleanup will not happen.
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Harris Gorging at Pension Trough while others in poverty - Dec/99 - Sid Ryan, president of the Canadian Union Public Employees says Mike Harris is gorging himself at the public trough while tens of thousands live below the poverty level on benefits provided by the OMERS pension plan. Mike Harris doesn't want to see OMERS give pensioners more money but he doesn't mind lining his own pockets. The plan has a huge surplus yet retirees, who should be benefiting from the surplus are in fact living in poverty.
Harris and cabinet won't approve for substantive changes to pension benefits, but they did pass changes that allow 61 current and former MPPs to access to millions of dollars in pension money, as long as they are 55. Both Harris and Eves, if they choose to retire at 55, can dip into their $850,000 nest eggs.
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Disabled workers cut off in new Tory System - Dec/99 - Many disabled people, including those that have lost limbs are often not  considered sufficiently disabled to qualify for benefits under the new Ontario Disability Support Program. 5,514 people have taken cases in the past year to the Social Benefits Tribunal after their disability claims were rejected.  The number of appeals has jumped 32 per cent since the disability program took effect on June 1, 998.
   Changes to the provincial legislation have so complicated the whole process that many don't even bother to apply. Disabled activists says they suffer unbelievable hardship as the program doesn't take into account how unrealistic it is for some disabled people to find work.
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Tories Take 25 Million from the homeless - Dec/99 - NDPer Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina) attacked the Ontario Tories today for pocketing money that was to be used for the homeless. The money is part of the federal download deal of non-profit housing and is supposed to be spent to help house low-income people.
Marchese angrily said that the Tories grabbed $25 million from the homeless and put it in their pockets. They call it putting it into general revenues as part of savings, but the Housing Minister is really grabbing $25 million away from the homeless.
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Cuts to Special Needs Children - Dec/99 - Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park) says Minister of Education, Janet Ecker is cutting assistants to special-needs children in the province. The situation is getting worse according to Kennedy and 15 assistants are about to be laid off in Thunder Bay. 15 people who have been helping some of the most vulnerable kids in that school system. Some 160 kids are going to be affected. Kennedy accused Ecker of making excuses and blaming school boards when it's happening in 66 out of 72 boards around the province because the Tories cut $106 million from schools.
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Harris Welfare Restrictions make part-time work Welfare Fraud - Dec/99 -  Being Grinches the Tories made sure they took a kick at people on welfare by cutting thousands off just before Christmas.
    We are told these people are fraud artists, yet Mike Harris' latest welfare reforms make part-time work fraud. His new rules say welfare cheques will be reduced by the amount of any earned income reported. (Formerly welfare recipients were allowed to keep earnings up to 25% of their cheques without any reduction.) On $520 a month this would constitute a strong temptation not to report earned income. And not reporting earned income is classed as welfare fraud. Welfare fraud under Harris is soon to be punished by becoming ineligible to collect welfare for life.
   At the same time as Harris is trying to nab people for defrauding the government of $520 a month, his government's own welfare consultants are ripping Ontarians for a $180 million. The auditor has twice called the deal with Andersen Consulting bad news for taxpayers, yet the Tories do nothing about this sort of grand rip-off by welfare consultants. They would rather attack people getting welfare cheques that aren't even enough to cover rent on a Toronto bachelor apartment.
   And don't the Tories themselves teach people to be greedy? Any tax cut is a good tax cut says Harris. So perhaps the real people into welfare fraud have taken Harris' advice - they believe they've been unfairly taxed so they are taking the money back and spending it to kick start the economy.
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Tories Fueling Municipal Tax increases - Dec/99 - Liberal Greater Toronto Area critic George Smitherman said that the Harris government's urban planning policies are costing GTA municipalities millions in legal fees. Developers now appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) when they wish to overturn planning decisions made at the municipal level. The municipalities are then forced to pay lawyers to present their claims in front of the OMB.
Smitherman adds that the current situation surrounding development contrasts starkly with the Harris government's image as tax-fighters. "When municipalities have to raise taxes to pay legal fees, local
residents should realize that the Harris government is to blame. It's not that the Tories don't raise taxes, it's just that they never have to announce the bad news themselves."
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Harris Government Just Can't Get it on Local Democracy - Nov/99 - The province plans to create new megacities in Ottawa, Hamilton and Sudbury today. At the same time Municipal Affairs Minister Tony Clement is considering cutting Toronto Megacity council from 57 members plus the mayor to 44 plus the mayor.
   So in other words the Province is admitting that the Toronto Megacity doesn't work, yet it is using it as a model to create more lousy megacities. Before amalgamation Toronto had a surplus, now we are in debt so far we'll never get out and even the mayor is calling for stuff like a Province of Toronto to try and save the city. I suppose by next year we'll hear calls for city states in the three new megacities as residents attempt to escape Harris and his nutty provincial government.
   Aside from the financial woes, the other main reason Megacities don't work is because citizens are simply taken out of the democracy equation. They no longer have genuine participation in their own local government. What Harris calls citizen participation is really just powerless community councils composed of city councilors. And the Tories refuse to entertain ideas for citizens assemblies and other forms of participation.
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Budget cuts threaten school jobs - Nov/99 - Toronto public schools stand to lose thousands of employees - from kindergarten assistants to supply teachers, principals to caretakers, social workers to secretaries - to cope with a $216 million cash crisis.
Under the Harris formula Queen's Park refuses to give Toronto more money yet takes billions from Toronto.
The layoffs will begin in year 2,000.
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Tory Golf Sale Scandal - Nov/99 -  Ontario is selling off six provincially-owned golf courses but not one has been publicly tendered, says the Ontario Realty Corporation.
   The Tory government is selling off $5 billion worth of land, buildings and other property and the fact that assets are being sold without tender is a "grave concern," Liberal Sandra Pupatello said.
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Harris Takes Away Work Incentive from people on Welfare - Nov/99 - In cuts announced last Thursday Mike Harris plans to save $5 million dollars by clawing back every penny that welfare recipients earn on a job. Formerly they were allowed to keep an amount equal to 25% of their welfare payment. In this new backward Harris scheme welfare recipients will learn that it's not worthwhile to find a part-time job.
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Harris' Finance Minister, Ernie Eves, Worse than a Welfare Bum - Nov/99 - Documents released to Eye Magazine reveal that Harris' finance minister Ernie Eves is far worse than the imaginary welfare bums he likes to attack.
   While asking the poor to suffer cuts Eves billed Ontarians $1,210.18 for a stay at the Balmoral, a luxurious five-star hotel close to some of the world's most famous golf courses.
   Eves like others in the Harris Government lives comfortably on the public tab. In the period from Jan. 1, 1996, to this past spring Eves billed $7,969.24 for restaurant meals, $20,736.41 for hotel accommodation, $61,070.09 for travel and $340.84  for miscellaneous -- a total of $90,116.58.
   Eves also receives an annual salary of $111,004. He has use of a chauffeur-driven car and other subsidized travel costs -- which totaled $18,704 in 1998-99. Eves also receives a subsidy of $15,400 per year to rent a Toronto accommodation (monthly rent of $1,283) and  another $153,344 to maintain office and staff, mostly for his Parry Sound riding. There's also an RRSP, life insurance, long-term income protection, dental, hospital and vision benefits -- which amount to an estimated $15,000 to $20,000 a year.
   In total, the public cost of Eves' salary, expenses, benefits, travel  and accommodation and office staff runs to at least $350,000 a year before taxes, of which about  $200,000 is for personal use.
Then there's his pension pay-out of to $810,000 which he'll be able to access in two years (Mike Harris received $864,000).
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Outrage as New Harris Education Cuts Attack the Weak- Nov.99 - (Private schools to be funded as those in need lose out) A leaked cabinet document proposes $800 million in education cuts and Universities will bear the brunt.
   The document prepared for Harris's inner cabinet recommends eliminating  dozens of programs including basic literacy, English-language education to adult immigrants and services for children who are blind, deaf or affected by severe learning disabilities. Money for scholarships, classroom computers, student aid and university research will be slashed.  Mike Harris also confirmed that private universities are on their way to Ontario and that community colleges are in for a major shake-up.
   The leaked news lead to anger and citizens in the west wing of the public gallery were ejected as the Legislature was forced to recess briefly. "Students in university are using food banks five to six times a week,'' shouted Erin George of Ryerson Polytechnic University.
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Harris' Ontario Dead Last in Support for Post Secondary Education - Nov/99 -  For the second year in a row, Ontario  ranks dead last among provinces when it comes to post-secondary education.
The study called Missing Pieces by the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Federation of Students says Ontario has a dismal record of funding, not only in Canada but in all of North America. Joel Harden of the Canadian Federation of Students said that, "We're pretty much at the bottom of the heap in terms of funding per student."
Ontario comes in dead last in public accountability and quality.
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Tory axe falls on the Poor Again Nov/99 - The provincial government aims to cut $900 million by cutting services and charging new fees.
   The bulk of the savings come from a new Tory attack on social assistance and the downloading of housing and child-care costs onto municipalities.
   The government also plans to save through privatized prisons and inmate lockdowns, which mean jails with few guards.
   Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty said, "This is nothing less than obscene. The fat is in the premier's office, where they doubled the size of his staff and gave out fat raises."
   New fees and an assortment of hikes will be generated from civil courts and victim surcharges.
   The province will also cut student loan credits to those students without top credit ratings. And student leaders say this victimizes poor students.
   Cultural grants will be trimmed and the budget for legal aid will be reduced.
 The cuts announced by Management Board Chairman Chris Hodgson represent the first stage in new government plans to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy.
   Much money is to be taken from the poor as $75-million is to come from reducing the number of people receiving social assistance.
   The province is shifting costs over to municipalities, as a new regulation will target childcare.
   New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton pointed to the fact that social assistance faces the largest portion of the cuts. "This is not a government that wants to help those without jobs, it's a government that is again attacking those who don't have jobs," he said.
  Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's John Clarke said the cuts are just one more turn of the screw.
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Tories Cheating those in Need and Cooking the Books - Auditor - Nov/99 - In his 339-page report on Premier Mike Harris' fourth year in office, Erik Peters, the provincial auditor has found serious problems and injustice.
   More than 1.2 billion in Family Benefits was simply not paid to people entitled to the benefits, and this is a problem Harris promised to fix two years ago.
   Hospital Restructuring costs are nearly 4 billion or twice as much as predicted. With increased costs comes a decline in service as seven in 10 Ontario cancer patients aren't getting radiation therapy in the critical first weeks of diagnosis.
   The Tories clearly crossed the line separating legitimate government ads from partisan political ads and the auditor wants guidelines developed. 100 million of public money was spent on such ads.
   Taxfighter Harris isn't even checking if Ottawa is giving Ontario all it is owed.
   Privatization is proving to be a failure. An example would be highway maintenance where the government estimated it would save $2.7 million by contracting out. In actual fact it cost the province $2.1 million more.
   ''I don't know what your definition of cooking books is,'' Peters said when asked if the government was overstating savings to justify its privatization agenda. ''We consider it double counting.''
   Peters found a whole raft of serious problems. Some of them like the failure to deliver benefits cheques appear to be deliberate. In conclusion, Peters says that it bothers him that year after year, the Conservatives ignore his recommendations. He reports problems again that have been reported before. Corrective action was simply not taken.
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Harris Slashes Arts Funding - Nov/99 -   Though it is boom times Mike Harris will reduce funding to the arts and native groups. The Management Board will put through a reduction of funding to arts foundations and groups, such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Science Centre and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Tories will justify the cuts by showing that investment in the arts is not necessary or efficient.
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Fury Over Cuts Lead Football Fan to Lunge at Harris - Nov/99 - According to today's Toronto Star a man who worked for Ontario Hydro, which was recently privatized by Harris' Conservative government, lunged at Premier Mike Harris during the Toronto Argonauts game at the SkyDome last night. David Frank, 31, of Oshawa has been charged with assault on a police officer and was released.
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Harris Breaks Promise on the Debt and Public Assets - Nov/99 - The Tories promised that every cent from the sale of public assets would be used to pay off the debt. Now they are breaking that promise.
Management Board chairman Chris Hodgson confirms that the government will sell $200 million worth of property. 168 properties, including the Queen Street Mental Health Centre be sold to fund other Tory programs.
The bottom line is that the Tories don't have the revenue to fund programs because of their own tax cuts.
"I think it is pretty clear they have painted themselves into a box. They are literally having to sell off real estate in order to pay for the loss of revenue through tax cuts,'' New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton said.
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Clement Makes Insulting Comment about Wife Beating -  Nov/99 -Harris' Environment Minister Tony Clement made a smart remark about wife beating on the first day of Wife Assault Prevention Month. Clement Later withdrew his comment and apologized.
Clement got up in the House and responded to an aggressive question on developers by saying, "I am not beating my wife, I can assure the honourable member of that."
The Tories are also under attack because of $2.6 million in funding they cut from  transition accommodation for women and children leaving a battered women's shelter.
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Harris Drug Testing to face legal Challenge - Ontario human rights commissioner - Nov/99
Ontario human rights commissioner Keith Norton says the province's plan to force welfare recipients to undergo drug testing and treatment could be discriminatory. "Mandatory drug testing or treatment as a condition of receipt of public assistance might directly or adversely discriminate against individuals with a dependency disability,'' Keith Norton said yesterday.
Norton is a former Tory cabinet minister once responsible for provincial welfare programs. He said the proposal would result in a Charter challenge.
The Tories plan to cut the benefits of those who refuse drug testing. And Social Services Minister John Baird continues to lead the government on its departure from reality, saying the government will defend the plan in court.
It has already been demonstrated that the Harris Government lacks respect for the law. Last August, the Ontario Superior Court ruled the province acted unconstitutionally when it imposed work-for-welfare on eight native communities.
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Tory Social Services Minister Seeks to Bar the Poor from Sponsoring Immigrants - Oct/99 - Mike Harris' Community and Social Services Minister, John Baird  says people on welfare shouldn't be allowed to sponsor new immigrants to Canada. Baird is pressing Ottawa to review the criteria used in approving sponsors.
   This new facet of the Harris war on the poor is not at all realistic. Many sponsors could be on welfare at least temporarily and often new immigrants are sponsored by other relatively new immigrants who may not be fully established.
   If anything, it is not surprising that a Harris minister again wants to empower the rich and attack the poor.
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Tory Conflict of Interest (Oak Ridges Moraine) Oct/28/99
   Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty has asked why Janet Ecker, who is the local MPP and is in the cabinet, has taken an arm?s distance in regards to the Oak Ridges Moraine Development, while Tony Clement (Minister of the Environment, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing) has been involved deeply enough that he sent a controversial letter to the Mayor of Uxbridge. Generally McGuinty finds it simply incredible that the ministry works quickly for developers, firing off directives to regional municipalities.
   For his part Clement claims there is nothing in his letter that attempts to interfere with any judicial or quasi-judicial processes. Yet the mayor of Uxbridge says Clement was wrong to get involved and McGuinty says Clement's excuses don't wash.
   The Uxbridge mayor also noted that the Tories won't come to the table at all in regards to another dangerous situation in Uxbridge. They've been ducking the issue for two and a half years. Yet suddenly a letter from a developer becomes a weighty matter for Clement.
   NDP Leader Howard Hampton says the Oak Ridges Moraine is important in terms of water quality and water supply, not just for the Durham region but for much of the greater Toronto region. So he wants to know why Environment Minister Clement is now on record as supporting one of those development applications by Jay-M Holdings, which makes a lot of contributions to the Conservative Party. Hampton says there is in fact a lineup of developers who have contributed to Conservative candidates or the Conservative Party who want to develop on the Oak Ridges Moraine.
   Tony Clement's answer so far has been to talk in circles, roughly saying he is going to save the moraine and promote its development at the same time, which is contradictory.
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Harris Waves the American Flag as Great Lakes Water Threatened - Oct/99 - Premier Mike Harris is in Cleveland saying neighbouring American states are more important to Ontario than many parts of Canada.  Harris also mentions bad policy ideas he has borrowed from some of these states - like the drive to cut welfare payments, introduce workfare, slash taxes and force drug treatment on welfare recipients.
Harris and the governors discussed export or diversion of water from the Great Lakes. The North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals now threaten government restrictions or bans on fresh water exports.
Many dry countries want to get hold of Great Lakes water. So in spite of the Harris love for Americans, we can only protect our Great Lakes by remaining Canadians and staying out of these terrible free trade deals.
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Tory Influence Peddling - Opposition Calls for Gilchrist's Resignation - Oct/99 - Opposition politicians are demanding that Ontario Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Gilchrist resign. The province has confirmed that police are probing alleged influence peddling in his ministry.
Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty said given the serious nature of the allegations, Gilchrist has to go.
A spokesperson for Gilchrist said he had no plans to resign and would not be commenting.
Allegations are that the minister used his position to secure business for an associate. The OPP investigation will likely be complete within two weeks.
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Workfare a Dismal Failure - Sept/99 - If Workfare doesn't at all work it may be because it wasn't designed to help the poor but to please wealthy 905ers who hate the poor.
The government is now in receipt of a consultant's
report that says Ontario's workfare program requires substantial spending (especially on child care) if it's to be a success. Workfare is inefficient and if implemented correctly it costs money. So at present it has only succeeded as a punitive measure, cutting people off welfare.
Social Services Minister John Baird has dismissed criticisms that a shortage of child care is preventing workfare from succeeding after the consultant's study concluded it's "inconceivable"
that the province's Ontario Works program for welfare recipients can succeed unless participants have adequate access to day care.
Councilor Olivia Chow accused the Tories of suppressing the report, saying it was was finished by the end of December and printed in May. The province didn't want it to come out.
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Harris Corporate Workfare Bribery - Sept/99 -The Harris government is bribing private firms up to $4,000 per head to participate in Workfare. The cash is from a $46-million employer incentive fund intended to encourage companies. Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty says the incentive is a bribe to prop up the government's "disastrous" workfare program. Community agencies that find jobs for welfare clients are not entitled to the incentive. "The private sector wants nothing to do with Mike Harris' workfare, so Mike Harris has decided to bribe them," McGuinty said.
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Smog Study Chokes Harris - Aug/99 - An industry-funded study into the Ontario Smog Plan concludes Ontario is on the wrong track and says tougher, faster action is essential.
Environment Minister Tony Clement must do something or lose credibility in his new job. Smog from cars and industry is causing 1,800 premature deaths a year. Particulate matter that lodges in the lungs is particularly dangerous to older people with heart or lung disease, and may contribute to asthma in young children. Deaths are occurring at half the voluntary Smog Plan guideline for particulates. Ontario's abandoning of tough enforcement policies in favour of voluntary compliance has made things worse.
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Harris Now Steamrolling More Cities - Aug/99 -  Toronto - The Harris Conservative government is steamrolling ahead with forced amalgamations in four more communities, while there is still no proof that previous municipal mergers will ever save any money, NDP Municipal Affairs Critic Gilles Bisson said today.
   "This shows the new 'kinder, gentler' face of the government was just a phony façade," Bisson said. "The government is imposing unilateral deadlines and going back to old habits."
   Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Gilchrist announced plans to impose changes in Haldimand-Norfolk, Hamilton-Wentworth, Ottawa-Carleton and Sudbury. Gilchrist claimed that the previous amalgamations had saved $220 million in Toronto and other Ontario cities.
   While Toronto has been forced to squeeze services to deal with the high cost of provincial downloading, and is still in acrimonious collective bargaining to deal with the aftershocks of amalgamation, there is no proof that the forced merger will ever save significant amounts of money, Bisson said.
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Glen Shortliffe named as Harris Amalgamation Advisor in Ottawa - Sept/99 - Steve Gilchrist has appointed Special Advisor Glen Shortliffe, a consultant and former Clerk of the Privy Council, to oversee forced amalgamation in Ottawa.
    According to the Gildcrhrist release Shortliffe will have 60 days to consult local taxpayers, businesses, municipal leaders and other key stakeholders and make recommendations to the minister. Once the recommendations are submitted in late November, the government will make a decision and act. Subject to the approval of the Legislature, local government reform will be completed in time for the municipal election in November 2000.
The flaws on forced amalgamation are already obvious as citizens are not mentioned are not mentioned as participants in the shaping of their own government. So this is not restructuring for democracy but realignment for big business stakeholders.
For further information on the Gilchrist plan, please contact:
Karen Vaux, Minister's Office, (416) 585-6932
Terms of reference are attached.
More information is available at http://www.mah.gov.on.ca
Citizens on the Web report on Democracy and Amalgamation is at
http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/studyto.htm
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The Big Harris Demolition of Rental Housing Continues - Oct 13/99 -  As Harris' Housing Minister Steve Gilchrist tries to fend off an OPP investigation and accusations of influence peddling, the tenants he's screwed are fighting for survival. Rental Units and affordable housing are being demolished everywhere in Toronto since the Tories removed protection.
   More than a thousand units are slated for demolition right now and Councillor John Adams' office reports new applications for demolition in Midtown ward. Plus more landlords are jumping on the demolition bandwagon due to a weak defense of tenants by city councilors. A huge number of tenants at Tweedsmuir, Wingreen Court, Rosewell Court, Greatwise and Kenneth-Sheppard are presently being pushed out by demolition orders. Downtown artists in warehouses are also being pushed out due to condo conversions.
   As well as the need for affordable housing a main issue in demolition cases is the violation of security of tenure for tenants. Security of tenure is a principle of tenant protection, necessary for the social health and well-being of an urban population, and is recognized by the United Nations as a housing and a human right. The Ontario government has effectively violated security of tenure for tenants in Ontario by repealing the Rental Housing Protection Act (1992).
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Meltdown Mike's Used Nuclear Reactor Sale - Oct/99
Get 'em while they're hot!
   If you wipe the dust off the outer walls of those old dilapidated buildings where the squeegee kids sleep, you might find these buildings to be Ontario Nuclear Reactors. These old generators may need Polygrip just to hang onto their foundations, and there may be cases where the old pipes were never inspected before being encased in concrete, so that they are now spurting out radioactive water.
   But hey! That doesn't mean we can't sell them to the private sector so that they can fire them up to energy production levels never seen before, and profit even more by cutting corners on maintenance.
  Ontario Energy Minister Jim Wilson is looking at a proposal right now that would see him put all of Ontario's nuclear generating plants on the auction block right way. The money raised could go straight to paying off the $38 billion debt incurred by Ontario Hydro  -- or more likely it will go to tax cuts.
   Business groups want these reactors sold now. They are desperate and can't wait more years. And why is that? Well likely because they want it to happen before the public can wake up and realize that the Tories are setting Ontario up for a nuclear disaster.
   It is true that the nuclear program cost much more than estimated and never generated the promised returns and it's also true that the answer is not in selling these cracked elephants to the private sector. We should recall the spills, shutdowns and costly maintenance programs and realize that we don't want the private sector playing with these dangerous reactors.
   Right now reports are out of increased cases of cancer and birth defects downwind of reactors. I suppose that by the next election Mike Harris will be saying that it's not his fault if none of us have any hair.
If this makes you unhappy contact
Premier Harris, Legislative Building, Queen's Park,Toronto, ON  M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745
Email: premier@ontariopc.on.ca
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More of Mike Harris' anti Children Agenda Revealed - Oct/99 - In Toronto there has been a 53-per-cent jump in the number of children relying on school breakfast and lunch programs. One out of every six children, or 46,000 youngsters, is being served by school food programs this year. These figures do not include secondary students.
Welfare cuts and the rent increases brought about by the Harris Tenant Protection Act are a major part of the problem. 1,000 children are living in shelters.
New user fees are also shutting Toronto's neediest children out of after-school enrichment programs that offer such courses as chess, drama, music and science, along with tutoring. And the school board can't subsidize school meals programs and after-four programs because the Harris funding formula does not regard these items as "classroom expenses."
   To object to the Harris anti Children Agenda contact
Premier Harris, Legislative Building, Queen's Park,Toronto, ON  M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745
Email: premier@ontariopc.on.ca
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Sexual Harassment gains former Speaker a provincial post  - Oct/99 - Al McLean, the former Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, was forced to resign over a sexual harassment scandal. Now he has been handed a new positions by the province. It is a part-time position with the Assessment Review Board that pays $34 an hour.
In another questionable appointment former crime commissioner Jim Brown goes to the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, a full-time position that will pay Brown $68,880 to adjudicate landlord-tenant
disputes. Brown's irrational actions included labeling the Santa Claus parade as a source of crime.
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Tory Hacks at OMB Demolish Housing, Create Homelessness - Sept 23/99 - NDP Leader Howard Hampton has called on Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Gilchrist to introduce legislation allowing the City of Toronto to maintain its powers over demolitions and conversions of rental housing. Tenants in over 1,500 rental units are in immediate danger of eviction if an OMB decision made this past Tuesday is allowed to stand. The decision could open the floodgates to developers who want to evict their tenants and redevelop property as expensive condominiums. The two OMB members behind the decision are Harris appointees and they were behind another negative decision that was overturned at a later date.
NDPer Marilyn Churley says cities should have the ability to protect tenants, as they did until the Harris Government abolished the Rental Housing Protection Act. She notes that even before this government got rid of rent control, the 1996 census showed almost one tenant in four was in danger
of homelessness because they paid more than half their income in rent.
Tenants are rallying tonight to oppose the OMB decision.
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Province Cuts Transportation for the disabled - Oct/99 - People on disability benefits received a letter last week informing them that their transportation funding has been cut.
The transportation benefit for people on the Ontario Disability Support Program was taken over by the province from municipalities on October 1.
Program guidelines for transportation now cover only limited services, including visits to doctors, psychiatrists and dentists.
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