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Ontario's Minister of Everything - Oct/99 -  Ontario needs a solution to a $30-billion shortfall in infrastructure project funding. So the Harris government is secretly planning to create a powerful new agency that will take control of all capital spending. Private investors will be invited by the Harris Government to help build and profit from new schools, roads and health-care facilities. The move concentrates power in the hands of Finance Minister Ernie Eves, making him a virtual minister of everything as it sidelines the rest of the cabinet.
David Lindsay, former principal secretary to Premier Mike Harris is to be chief executive officer of the new agency.
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Tories May Create Japanese Style Nuclear Disaster in Ontario.
Harris Selling Bruce Nuclear Station to Foreign Private Interests - Oct/99 - In an insane new political move the Tories will sell the aging Bruce nuclear plant to foreign private interests. The nuclear plant is under review as part of deregulation of the hydro industry. As part of this review private foreign companies will examine the plant to see if they want to invest in it.
Ontario Energy Minister Jim Wilson has not yet commented on this breaking story, though reactors may be contracted out or outright sold by Mike Harris. Several foreign power companies have set up offices in the Toronto area hoping to take advantage of deregulation. They include British Energy PLC, which owns a part ownership in Three Mile Island in the United States.
A recent nuclear disaster in Japan at a privately-owned nuclear firm called JCO Co. happened due to attempts to be gobally competitive. In order to increase productivity, JCO instructed its workers to ignore safety procedures. Radiation escaped into a nearby community and three workers were fried alive by radiation.
Cutting corners is the only way to increase nuclear productivity and this is not possible in Ontario's aging plants. At present most citizens are reading reports of increased cases of breast cancer in people living downwind of nuclear reactors.
An investment in alternative energy is the only real option for Ontario. Defective nuclear plants should be mothballed. But since the Tories aren't doing that we may be facing a major MeltDown in Ontario.
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Growing Harris Staff No Circle of Democracy - Sept/99 - Premier Mike Harris is trying to run the whole government from his office. There are 49 staff members working in the premier's office.  NDP premier Bob Rae had 43 staff members. Harris' inner circle exercises tight control over ministers and their ministries.
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Tories Pass Fat Raises to Judges & Political Staff - Sept/99 - The Tories are continuing to fuel the growing gap between the rich and the poor in Ontario with gross wage hikes to elite groups. Ontario provincial court judges are now receiving $40,000 wage hikes that boost their pay to $170,000 a year and full homosexual recognition for their benefit packages. The gift is from Management Board Chairman Chris Hodgson, who opposed the extension of benefits to gay couples during his 1994 byelection campaign.
   Tory Lies Grow by 30 Percent - The Harris Tories have quietly granted raises as high as 30% for political staff. Maximum pay for a minister's media adviser or special assistant has soared 30% to $80,000 a year, according to cabinet documents signed by management board chairman Chris Hodgson and Consumer Minister Bob Runciman.  The top end for an executive assistant to a cabinet minister is up about 15%, to $95,000 a year.
   The pay raises were approved on Aug. 18 but never publicized by Hodgson or the premier's office. This year Hodgson gave the Ontario Public Service Employees Union a 4.3% pay raise over three years and boasted about how prudent he was. The Harris government also promised to intervene in the Toronto if municipal workers strike - to order back to work city employees who have not got a raise in eight years.
   Is there no end to the hypocrisy of this big spending, debt ridden government? And what is the excuse for 30% raises - perhaps they expect staff to tell lies that are 30 percent bigger.
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Harris Spends $675,000 on Police Statue - Sept/99 -  It's "overkill" to spend $675,000 on a 30-tonne granite-and-bronze memorial to murdered police officers,  Liberal MPP  Mike Colle says. Fellow Grit MPP David Caplan said the cash could have been spent on choppers for coppers. The Harris government has hired Wholesale Lettering and Carving of Mississauga to erect the monument. It will include eight walls of granite weighing in at 30 tonnes and two 2.3-metre bronze statues, said company executive James Des Roches. The memorial, outside a Toronto building that houses the premier's office, will measure 13 metres across and be etched with the names of more than 190 police officers killed in the line of duty.
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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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Schools close in Toronto - Sept/99 - District School Board staff upheld the death sentence for eight of 10 schools targeted to close next June - and added two more to the list. In the report staff recommend Grace Junior Public School and Old Orchard Junior Public School be added to a list of schools to be closed due to lack of funds.
   Other schools listed are Midland Avenue Collegiate, Brookbanks Public School, D. B. Hood Community School, Earlscourt Junior Public School, Shaw Public School, Hughes Junior Public School, McNicoll Public School and Heydon Park Secondary.
   The Toronto school board has said it must close 30 schools over the next three years to meet a $262 million cut in funding from the Harris government.
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Harris Funny Farm Summit a Police State Masquerade- Sept/99 -By Gary Morton -  As Mike Harris and his MPPS meet at their funny farm retreat at the Nottawasaga Inn golf resort in Alliston, citizens who understand the follies of this government can only weep. Read all of the frightening details.
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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 to Make a Billion in Cuts- Aug/99 - The new cuts are to include cuts to the Environment Ministry and Community and Social Services. They will mark a 2nd term where Harris tries to look clean on Education and Health while launching a massive attack on the poor.
Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty says this is the darker side of the Progressive Conservative government's agenda, which stressed tax cuts during the election campaign.
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Contempt for Democracy in Tory Removal of Environmental Commissioner - Aug/99.
Environmental commissioner Eva Ligeti, an persistent and outspoken critic of the government's environmental policies, has been let go. The environment commissioner is a non-partisan figure who reports to the  legislature, NOT THE GOVERNMENT, and the cabinet DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY  to appoint an interim commisioner. So in this respect the legality of this act is in question.
   Ligeti called the government's decision not to renew her contract "vindictive" and said it signals the Tories aren't really interested in improving Ontario's environmental record.
   Critics say it also reaffirms the contempt the Harris government has for democracy.
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Harris - Church Should Preach Workfare - Aug/99 -  Premier Mike Harris says  the United Church should start preaching about Workfare. He also accused the United Church and its leadership of wanting to keep members of society dependent upon government.
But the truth is that the church is preaching about Workfare. Rev. Bruce Ervin, president of the United Church's Toronto Conference, said: "I can't preach the word of God without calling the government to account. Workfare is sending people to do, in some cases, Joe jobs that have no significant contribution to the common good."
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Harris Environment Minister Denies that Ontario is the 2nd-worst Polluter
Aug/99 -
   A comparison of industrial emissions in Canada and the United States in a report from the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Co-operation shows Ontario to be the 2nd worst polluter. Canadian industries are listed as far bigger polluters than plants in the United States.
   Ontario Environment Minster Tony Clement said, "I find it improbable that we are the second-worst polluter in North America.''
   Mark Winfield, research director at the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, says Ontario needs stricter regulations on emissions and a program to prevent chemical waste from being produced.
   New Democratic Party environment critic Marilyn Churley said Premier Mike Harris should be ashamed of the province's silver medal as the second-worst polluter in North America.
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Harris Putting Taxpayers on the Hook for Billions in Olympic Debt - 18 Aug/99 - Ontario has created a new agency called the Ontario Olympic Sports and Waterfront Development Agency to push Toronto's bid for the 2008 Olympics. It will work alongside the private sector TO-Bid to guarantee the $3-billion Games with taxpayers money. A situation where we may end up funding corporations so they can profit while any debt will be dumped on the public.
   The agency's new president is Mitch Patten, a former deputy principal secretary to Harris and a co-author of the Common Sense Revolution.
   Previous Olympics have incurred cost overruns, leaving governments stuck with the bill and the province would have to improve roads, sewers and other facilities. Infrastructure costs haven't been included in the $3-billion estimate.
   The city of Montreal and private investors lost $1.2 billion in capital costs on the city's Olympic Park. Ontario and Toronto could lose Billions.
   The International Olympic Committee will decide who gets the 2008 Games at a meeting in Moscow in the fall of 2001. Toronto's rivals include current favourite Beijing, Osaka, Kuala Lumpur, Seville, Havana, Lisbon, Buenos Aires and Paris.
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Toronto - Harris Inspired Education Chaos Looms Again - Aug/99 - The Toronto District School Board will not be able to cope with amalgamation, and the 262 million dollars coming in cuts at a time when enrolment is growing and collective agreements are coming up.
"I am fearful that when all is said and done, it will be a bare-bones system, and that people will have left the system,'' board chair Gail Nyberg told the Education Improvement Commission.
   Members of the provincial commission are reviewing the restructuring and amalgamation of school boards across Ontario. The commission will issue a report in September.
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Harris adds to Child Poverty - July/99 - While federal politicians talk about their National Children's Agenda. The truth is that is has very little content or funding. At the same provincial politicians like Mike Harris are spending much of their time putting the screws to mothers and kids.
   Harris started with a 22 per cent reduction in welfare. Then he attacked school-based day-care centres, threatening many with closing because of the province's funding formula. As a result of workfare policies all 22,000 day-care subsidies available in Greater Toronto will eventually be completely taken up by the children of workfare mothers. The result being that parents who are able to work by virtue of a day-care subsidy will lose their assistance, have to quit work and go on welfare, and will join the waiting list for workfare spaces.
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19 Tories get plum postings- June 24/99 - Premier Mike Harris handed out plums to 19 backbench Tory MPPs. MPPs handed the posts will take home an extra $11,000 on top of their $78,007 annual salary.The parliamentary assistant title is widely perceived at Queen's Park as a political perk.
Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty criticized Harris for preaching restraint and practicing largesse. "It sounds like workfare for Tory MPPs," he said.
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Human rights violations contained in the Provincial Tory Election platform are:

1. Random Forced Drug tests for welfare applicants and recipients..
2. Forced Exams to test math skills and English skills of welfare applicants may be used in ways to discourage people from applying.
3. Permanent removal of benefits to anyone deemed to have cheated in the past.
4.  Forced administration of mind-altering drugs for mental patients.
5. Expanding Workfare into the areas covered by Public Unions. The Tories plan to alter collective agreements in order to have Workfare placements
(Slaves without even minimum rights or benefits)
displace those already working. Where there isn't a union contract, paid employees could find themselves suddenly fired and replaced by Workfare Slaves.
6. Laws to attack the poor - those who panhandle or squeegee - that may deny them the basic right to even exist in society as a police state is created.
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Blistering Attack on Harris Government in report of Ontario Ombudsman Roberta Jamieson- June/99

   Public service administration in Ontario is in a state of crisis says the Ombudsman. It has become clear that it is quite simply not possible to do more with less. Government's customers now wait longer for services to be provided by fewer public servants working to a lower standard. Public servants work in an atmosphere of fear . . . where people are afraid to disagree, where they're afraid to speak out,'' she said.
   She also said that the wholesale transfer to a private sector approach to the provision of public service has been a failure and that the main mark of the first four years under Harris has been worse service, not better.

   Jamieson's 10-year term as provincial ombudsman expires Oct. 31 and she expressed concern about her replacement, indicating it could be a patronage appointment. "I am concerned that we not take for granted the institutions we have created to protect our society's democratic values. For the ombudsman's office, this means maintaining a commitment to safeguard its independence from government and the political process,'' she said.
   Jamieson recommended the creation of a committee that would be chaired by the Speaker and include equal representation from the three major parties.A decision on a new ombudsman should require unanimous support, she said.

On the Failure of the Harris Government Jamieson cited:

An ineffective Human Rights Commission, which has lost credibility in the public's mind. She accused the commission of being tardy in investigating complaints and of sloppy record keeping.

 

Continuing failure at the Family Responsibility Office, which collects and distributes court-ordered child support payments. Jamieson received more than 1,500 complaints about that office in the last year.

 

Seven-year delays for information from the Adoption Disclosure Registry.

 

An average wait of 400 days for cases to be heard at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.

 

Jamieson also complained of service-delay problems at the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, and the Social Assistance Review Board.

"SUMMARY
After careful consideration of the submissions of the parties and the intervenors (a summary of the submissions of the intervenors is at Appendix 1) and review of the extensive evidence presented to the
Board, we have decided that the respondents' use of income criteria to exclude the complainants from housing in their respective buildings
constitutes adverse effect or constructive discrimination.
The Commission and complainants' evidence established a prima facie case for each complainant.  The evidence was clear that the use of income criteria is not a valid predictor of default.  There was substantial evidence that the use of the criteria disproportionately excludes groups protected by the Code from rental housing.
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Battered Women lose under Harris From Hansard AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Mr Marchese: Minister, on November 30 the member for Beaches-Woodbine asked you a question to which you responded: "I would like to point out that the homeless and abused spouses get first priority for any housing. They go right to the top..." of the list. We agree with that, but there appears to be an emerging problem. Your social housing committee, which reported to you on November 3, basically said that should end. Recommendation 33 says that it should be up to the municipalities to decide whether abused women get housing. More abused women could be left homeless, a situation that I would find abhorrent, Minister. You might agree with that, I'm not sure.
Why is your government even considering reducing the access of abused women to public housing?

Hon Al Leach (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): As the member knows, the committee that made that recommendation was a cross-section of stakeholders involved in housing and homelessness etc. They are recommendations that have been made to the government.
The government has them under review.

I personally do not agree with that recommendation. I strongly believe that abused women should go to the top of the list for housing, as they do now, as is the policy of this government at the present time and as was the policy of the previous government. I believe that should remain.

That being said, the report that was done by that committee contained a number of recommendations that will be beneficial to all those who are seeking shelter and those who are suffering from homelessness at the present time. We intend to review that report and review all of the recommendations that have been made in total context.
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from Hansard
ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES LEGISLATION

Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): The Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee has started a "Premier Harris has scrooged Ontarians with disabilities" campaign. I would invite all members of the government caucus, if they haven't already done so, to see what's being circulated throughout Ontario even as we speak.

This campaign addresses the utter insensitivity of the Harris government to its own commitments to the disability community. Hundreds of disabled Ontarians attended a rally this past Wednesday evening where they denounced the broken promise of this government; they denounced the government's continual attempt to undermine their desire to have a barrier-free Ontario.

Ontarians with disabilities and tens of thousands, indeed millions of other Ontarians call upon the Harris government to drop their so-called Ontarians with Disabilities Act and replace it with meaningful legislation that will help to remove barriers in this province.

Those of us in the official opposition, our leader, Dalton McGuinty, and Liberals across Ontario will join the Ontarians with Disabilities Act
Committee in fighting for a meaningful Ontarians with Disabilities Act that will help to remove barriers and make persons with disabilities full members of this great province.
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Harris Makes Ontarians Pay the Bill in Sex Settlement -- Taxpayers are on the hook for ex-speaker Al McLean's sex settlement and legal bills. McLean is a Tory so Liberal MPPs want the Conservative party to pay the out-of-court settlement costs of the sexual harassment suit. Taxpayers shouldn't be stuck with the $380,000 bill, Grit John Gerretsen said yesterday.  "The taxpayers are paying for something we should not be," said Gerretsen, MPP for Kingston and the Islands. "I find it very difficult to comprehend -- a great miscarriage of justice. It should be paid for by Tory coffers."
The proposed settlement includes $250,000 for Thompson and $130,000 to cover McLean's legal bills. The Legislature has spent another $200,000. Finance Minister Ernie Eves refused to ask his party to pay the freight.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton attacked Eves saying, ”Don't tell us you don't know what happened. Everybody in Ontario knows what happened despite your efforts to keep it quiet."
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Tory forest plan goes to court -  The Nishnawbe-Aski Nation is taking the Tory government to court over controversial plans to open over three-quarters of what's left of Ontario's forests to mining and forestry interests under what's known as Lands For Life.
The suit alleges, among other things, that native concerns were not properly included in the consultation process. Native groups quit the three roundtablesset up to develop land-use plans  early on.
This week, forest-industry workers  staged a rally at Queen's Park to protest that the Tory plan, which sets aside an area smaller than Algonquin Park for new parks, is a threat to jobs.
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Citizens not allowed to speak on Greater Toronto Services Board – Citizens on the Web opposes the creation of this new useless level of government. News now is that John Sewell also opposes it, though he thinks it should be a body with real powers. Sewell like other citizens was not allowed to speak on this bill of the Harris government. On his birthday December 8, John Sewell tried to make a presentation on Bill 56,, but was offered the choice of arrest or be escorted from the Legislative Building. When the matter was given second reading in the Legislative Assembly, The government sent the bill to committee with the condition that the Public would not be permitted to make any presentations. Sewell went to the committee and asked to speak. The committee chair, Tory MPP John O'Toole, adjourned the meeting rather than hear from Sewell, and called in the security guards. Sewell agreed toleave the building rather than be arrested. O'Toole has since forwarded the matter to the Speaker Chris Stockwell.
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Day-care bills for Harris- Dec/98 - Premier Mike Harris will receive more than the usual number of bills to pay this holiday season as angry day-care workers flood his office with hand-made invoices for money they say his government owes them.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care will send Harris a bill for $320 million, the money it says the government owes to childcare, homecare and other female-dominated professions in the broader public sector under a pay equity ruling made by the courts last year.
The Tories, after their election in 1995, overturned the pay equity law and set a cap on how much women could get in pay-equity adjustments - a decision ruled unconstitutional by the courts in September, 1997.
The government was ordered to pay the top-ups for these womens' salaries and last year Finance Minister Ernie Eves announced that $140 million was set aside to do so.
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Harris Government Pays Gumshoe for Harassment – Tory Al McLean’s sexual harassment case involved sending a government approved private eye after Sandy Thompson. Now the taxpayer is footing the bill for this rude surveillance.
Thompson told reporters she was "traumatized" by the  spying.  "I never anticipated the psychological toll this would take  on me -- the adverse publicity, the hounding by private  investigators," she said Monday. "There were private  investigators following me around. They phoned all my  employers looking for dirt ... trying to make me look bad."
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Harris a Spendthrift
From Hansard
   Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): This Harris government will use and abuse taxpayers' dollars every which way it can when it comes to advancing their own partisan interests.
We know that the $600,000 payout of hush money that was forced on to the taxpayers of Ontario by the members of the government side of the Board of Internal Economy follows on the heels of an orgy of spending to the tune of millions of dollars. The meter's running and it's almost $50 million of taxpayers' money now that this gang here at Queen's Park has spent on incredibly partisan, clearly partisan, radio, television,newspaper and pamphlet advertising.
   Where I come from the people can see through it; it's as transparent as all get out. They're sick and tired of having their taxpayers' dollars picked from their pockets so that Harris and his gang at Queen's Park  can employ high-priced ad firms for glossy, slick ads - the furthest thing from the truth. The people know that the content of that advertising has no more relevance than the hype and spin that would accompany a new laundry soap or a new brand of toothpaste.
   Most recently, the Tories admitted blowing $19,000 on focus group testings for a series of posters, the results of which resulted in zip, zero; $19,000 spent on more of the Tories' friends in the consulting industry.
   Some Tory backbenchers have criticized the $600,000 payout. What have they got to say about the $50-million expenditure on partisan advertising by this government? It's time for them to stand up and  speak out.
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Tories Attack Medicare through new MRI policy – info taken from a Toronto Star editorial - Dec 8/98
   The province will allow four Toronto hospitals to buy magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. At present patients wait eight months for an MRI scan. Hospitals have to buy the $2.5 million machines themselves and each costs $1 million a year to run, of which the province covers only $150,000. While adding $600,000, the government is also taking away the $4.5 million a year it now provides in extra hours funding. This is the money that allows hospitals to run MRI machines up to 24 hours a day. Imposing $3.4 million in new costs while removing the $4.5 million that keeps existing MRIs running promotes a perversion of the principles of medicare. The number of paying customers are increased to make up the lost funding – that is insurance companies checking out claims, medical researchers needing machine time, The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, pro athletes not needing medically necessary scans, vets scanning dogs and others are allowed to jump ahead in line. Sick people who need scans have lower priority than healthy people who want them. The policy forces hospitals to make room for queue jumpers by stripping them of extra hours funding. Creating a two-tier system.
Harris and Medicare just don’t mix.
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Children Face Eviction as the Harris War on Daycare Continues -- (Dec/98)1,500 children are facing eviction from day-care centres in Toronto's public schools.  No level of government appears prepared to pay the estimated $15 million cost to relocate those children to new day cares in the community. ``We have absolutely no commitment from anyone to save these day cares,'' Jane French, a mother, told a recent meeting of more than 400 parents, day-care workers and local politicians in North York. Day cares in schools still slated to close and those in schools that will be forced to take on new pupils are still in peril, French said.
The question of what to do with students in an estimated 800 portables no longer funded by the province, could threaten even more children who use day care in schools. “It's time we stopped looking at day care as a tenant and more as a partner in education,'' Gail Nyberg said. The province now prohibits school boards from spending education dollars to maintain, move, renovate or build day cares. And no other government programs exist to pick up the slack. The provincial social services ministry cancelled its day-care renovation and construction fund in 1995. A similar fund operated by Ontario's education ministry was killed the following year.
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Harris Job Boast Turns Sour –(Toronto Nov/98) Premier Mike Harris was at wire-rope factory yesterday. Harris touted his government's tax cut and job creation record following a tour of Unirope Ltd. In response workers wanted to know why convicted killer Karla Homolka is getting free schooling when education bills for most families are increasing, and told the premier they're  worried about health care.  Steve Cullum, 25, told Harris his family can't get in-home care for his 83-year-old grandmother. "She's dying. We used to have someone come in for my grandmother."
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Funeral for the Wilderness (Dec 1, 1998) Protesters took a hearse to Queen's Park for a funeral for Ontario's wilderness. People marched along University Ave. to the Legislature in a demonstration against the province's Lands for Life program. Protesters want much more fully protected parks and wilderness. Harris is making just about everything available for logging, mining, tourism and hydro-electric development.
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Harris in Violation of Rights Covenant says UN -- The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Nov/98) has ruled that the Harris workfare program violates the international convenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
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Abused Women, Children hurt by Harris Cuts: Nov/98 United Way blames Queen's Park.  A 48-page report, entitled Freedom from Violence: A Case For Increased Support for Abused Women says Provincial cuts to women's services, welfare and housing in Toronto are putting the safety of abused women and their children at risk.
Community-based agencies that support abused women are experiencing a decrease in core funding and related community supports are weakening. Systemic barriers such as poverty and the lack of affordable housing are worsening for women attempting to escape violence. The provincial government is the primary source of money for women's services. But since 1995, the province has cut funds to all community-based agencies by 5 per cent, adding strain to already underfunded services for abused women.In addition, the province has eliminated funding to 24-hour telephone distress lines and voluntary counselling programs for male batterers, core funding for  women's educational and advocacy agencies and some counselling programs for abused women.
Many women who leave violent relationships start with no more than a few bags of clothing, and enter this phase of their lives with little consistent assistance, few social supports andunpredictable and often incomprehensible requirements for income support, legal arrangements, police protection and  children's care,'' the report says.
Immigrant and refugee women face  additional barriers, including the fear they will be deported if they report the abuse to police.
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Harris Abandons Special Needs Kids -- New provincial rules have denied the 11-year-old Harry Bellemare the support he received in his first six years in school. Harry has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair. When he started school the board assigned a full-time educational assistant to help him with his schoolwork and to get to the washroom. But the Harris Government has taken control of education funding and established new guidelines for providing special education assistance. This year, Harry qualifies for only a part-time aide. The Grade 6 student at Collins Bay Public School has help for only three hours a day, from 10:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. ``What happens if he has to go to the washroom before 10:30 or after 1:30?'' asks his mother, Leslie Bellemare. In fact, Harry has come home from school twice in recent days, soaked in urine because he didn't get to a washroom in time.
A number of kids have fallen through the cracks. The provincial changes have left many children without services they've received in the past. The government's centralized approach has also created a backlog of paperwork that has left hundreds of students who probably  qualify for help unable to get their applications filed.
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Transit may Die Due to Tory Takeaways (Nov/98) -- Municipalities won't see a penny of the province's 14.7¢-per-litre "road tax" on gasoline until Queen's Park balances its budget, Transportation Minister Tony Clement said. Clement made the admission to reporters after taking heat from municipal leaders, who demanded some money in light of the provincial government's downloading of GO Transit to municipalities and the elimination of its 75% subsidy for public transit capital expenditures. Municipal leaders warned public transit may die unless systems get some of the money collected under the guise of road taxes. Deputy Toronto Mayor Case Ootes said $200 million a year is generated through the provincial tax in Toronto alone, and double that in the GTA.  Queen's Park last year announced it was ending the province's $700-million-a-year subsidies to municipal  mass transit.
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Tory Job Cuts May Lead to Costly Consultants -- The Tories plan to transfer another 10,000 jobs away from Ontario's civil service in the next two years. Nearly 17,000 jobs have already been transferred. The next round of union job losses will provoke another war between the government and its union, Ontario Public Service Union president Leah Casselman said yesterday. "Ontario now has the smallest per-capita public service of any government in Canada," Casselman said.  OPSEU's ranks have shrunk to 50,000, including 3,000 vacancies the government hasn't filled. The government hasn't given its staff a raise for five years and wants to cut benefits for civil servants on sick leave and lay off staff for six months with just two weeks' notice. Most of the union jobs that are cut will be contracted out or otherwise  transferred to the private sector, and that could mean that expensive consultants doing union labour, but at a much higher cost to the taxpayers.
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Tory Hospital Closures Progress, says Jackson (Nov 17/98)  - Cam Jackson, Ontario's minister for long-term care just made an announcement at Doctors Hospital in Toronto. The Tories closed the hospital earlier this year. ``Progress has won over procrastination here in Ontario,'' Jackson said. He also claimed there are big savings in closing hospitals and the money will go back to health care. Ontario Hospital Association president David MacKinnon says hospitals have been prevented from saving money under restructuring because their budgets were slashed by $800 million before the process began.  As well, he said, they haven't seen any of the money promised by the Harris government to deal with restructuring or the Year 2000 bug.
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Harris Trashed for Corporate Junket -- Opposition critics say Premier Mike Harris accepted a New York "junket" from financier Steve Hudson. The chief executive officer of Canada's largest finance company wined and dined Ontario Premier Mike Harris and Attorney-General Charles Harnick and their wives during a lavish outing this weekend in New York. Harris and his wife Janet attended the Broadway premiere of of a Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing sponsored by Hudson's Newcourt Credit Group last weekend. NDP Leader Howard Hampton and Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty said Harris should not have accepted freebies from Newcourt, and have asked Ontario Integrity Commissioner Robert Rutherford to investigate. Harris did get free theatre tickets and attended both a pre-show cocktail party and after- how dinner hosted by Newcourt, spokesman Bob Reid said  yesterday. The New York excursion included lavish meals and luxury hotels including late-night entertainment at the 21 Club, one of the city's most exclusive watering holes. Besides Mr. Harris and Mr. Harnick, the guest list of more than 100 included Ontario Casino Corp. chairman Ron Barbaro and his wife; John Beck, president of Canadian Highway International Corp.; almost every senior Newcourt executive and major customers. Several of the guests are involved in potential privatizations or major contracts and would have considerable influence in handing out those plums. These include the planned privatization of Highway 407, which was built by Mr. Beck's company and for which it is one of the bidders. Proposed legislation to take the toll road private is before a legislative committee this week. Newcourt intended to pick up the tab for all the expenses, including hotel bills. While most other guests and Newcourt executives stayed at the Canadian-owned Four Seasons, Mr. Harris and Mr. Hudson were ensconced at another exclusive address, Trump International Hotel and Towers. Mr. Hudson has a condominium there and was also registered as a guest during the weekend. Mr. Harris was not registered, and other participants speculated that he was a house guest of Mr. Hudson
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Apprentice Bill - More Harris Takeaways – Nov/98 Bill 55 amendments to the Trades Qualification and Apprenticeship Act partially deregulate the province's complex apprenticeship system. Education Minister Dave Johnson said the province continues to suffer from a shortage of skilled workers and reform of the apprenticeship system is long overdue. More than 100 apprentices demonstrating in the rain outside said Johnson’s changes will increase the shortage. The bill will introduce tuition fees for apprentices and act as a serious disincentive for workers to get the necessary training. It will deregulate wages for apprentices, leaving them to be determined in negotiations with employers. If deregulation leads to a lowering of wages, it could discourage workers from becoming apprentices. It would eliminate the current ratios limiting apprentices to a certain number per journeyman workers so that they aren't just used as a cheap source of labour. It would not set a minimum requirement for education for apprentices
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 Liberal Leader Deserves Praise Not Scorn on Health Care Policy. Mike Harris’ new anti-Dalton heath care ads are running on TV now. And the main problem with the idea is that the ads praise Mike and the NDP Leader for having health care policies while Dalton has none. The truth is that Mike Harris has brought us two-tiered health care. The addition of 300 million in new user fees, mostly to the poor and elderly now make treatment too expensive for some. The hospital closures occurred without proper study and no real community consultation or impact assessment. Dalton McGuinty deserves praise for saying he will review the closures with an eye to opening some of the hospitals. NDP Leader Hampton doesn’t deserve any praise for saying he mostly wants to leave the closures as a done deal and move on to new things. If the closures are not beneficial or fair Hampton should be fighting them.  McGuinty has also promised to rehire laid-off nurses, require corporations to offer family leave to employees with sick relatives, and guarantee a minimum 48-hour stay in hospital for new mothers. He would pay for these promises out of the expected surplus in the provincial treasury.
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Education reforms shutting doors for people rather than improving quality, Ontarians say -- From Susan McMurray November 9, 1998
       A lot of people support the idea of education reform in Ontario.  But,instead of experiencing positive solutions to education problems, as they were promised, participants in the Speaking Out Project describe how the current reforms are shutting doors to education.  Meanwhile, the provincial government, which is making the decisions, blames school boards, colleges, universities, teachers, unions and individuals for the outcomes.
       Centralizing Power, Decentralizing Blame: What Ontarians Say About Education Reform, a report by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy's Speaking Out project, can be found at http://www.caledoninst.org/speaking.
       Janet, a mother from southeast Ontario with five children, spoke of increased restrictions in her community:  "Students have no arts program anymore, they have no home-ec and shop is gone.  Their music program is shot, they don't have a band this year.  So things are looking pretty sad.
I've noticed an extreme decrease in funding for the arts and for what we used  to call optional programs."
       Jeffrey, who is in Grade 11 in northern Ontario, had 38 students in his English class, 42 in chemistry and 36 in math this year.   Trying to seek individual attention from teachers is difficult, because when teachers finish their classes they face a "line of 15 students" outside their door. Jeffrey says there are also shortages of required material: "I mean, I'm halfway through my semester and I still haven't got my marking outline for chemistry because my teacher didn't have his photocopy budget, it was slashed so bad."
        Frank, a community worker from Toronto, expected to be more involved in education reform: "I think the decisions that have been made by the government are going to affect the entire education system from elementary to secondary and to postsecondary sectors, but there has been alarmingly little consultation.  The government has gone in like storm troopers with little or no consultation or only token consultation."  There was so little consultation, in fact, that people accepted the 1997 teachers' strike as an expression of democracy, despite the costs related to it.
       Narrow standards and curriculum, limited availability of good, affordable programs because of funding cuts, rising individual costs and an undemocratic reform process leave many people out of Ontario's new educationsystem.'  These are the key findings in Centralizing Power, Decentralizing Blame: What Ontarians Say About Education Reform, a report released today by the Caledon Institute's Speaking Out Project.
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Harris Takes Toronto Transit Millions -- Mayor Mel Lastman wants Queen's Park to return some of the $650 million it would have spent on the TTC if it hadn't downloaded the responsibility to the city. Prior to amalgamation Queen's Park paid 75% of the TTC's capital costs.  "I have every intention of going after them," Lastman said.  TTC buses advertise that the service is funded by the province when it actually isn’t. Perhaps buses should have signs that say – This Service No Longer Supported by the Harris Government.
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Tory Pre-election Health Care Goodies a Sham - Nov/98  Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer announced that four Toronto hospitals can buy magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines as though this were a gift. But the truth is that each hospital has to find the money from its existing budget, which means chopping other projects or, looking for community donations. Then, there's the operating cost, $1 million a year per machine. Witmer promised $150,000 per machine per year. That leaves $850,000 for each hospital to come up with.
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Harris Spends Shocking 42.4 million of public money on ads while closing our schools.(Nov/98) ``The only thing that's missing,'' Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty said outside the Legislature, ``is the statement, `Vote for Mike Harris.' ''  McGuinty was referring to four million in new Harris education ads.
According to Liberal calculations, the government has spent $42.4 million on propaganda-style campaigns over the past two years. These include the recent TV ads bashing teachers and home-delivered pamphlets extolling the virtues of the government's tax cuts and workfare.
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Michele Landsbergs noted these interesting facts in a recent Star column (Nov/98)
Ontario Attorney-General Charles Harnick basked in some all-too-rare praise recently when he relented and said that battered women would no longer have to serve, in person, restraining orders on their violent ex-husbands. Yes, but it was Harnick who created this travesty three years ago when he slashed court funding. Why praise him for fixing what he broke? Real credit goes to NDP MPP Marilyn Churley, who for three months relentlessly pressed Harnick to mend his ways.
The Tories' $1 billion education cuts could have led to the loss of 3,700 day-care spaces with the threatened closure of 138 Toronto schools, according to the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. There are already 15,000 children on the waiting list for subsidized spaces - children who may get shoved aside to accommodate 21,000 children of workfare participants.
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Andersen Consulting Welfare Ripoff -- (Nov98)Harris chose Andersen Consulting for a contract to administer Welfare and Workfare in Ontario. Today the auditor revealed a massive rip-off by Andersen.
Provincial auditor Erik Peters his audit found that the government ``could not provide the basis for its agreement to pay Andersen Consulting a fee of up to $180 million out of future savings.'' In addition, Peters found nothing in the contract to prevent Andersen from hiking its hourly fees - and it raised them 63 per cent since signing the deal. Andersen bills the province $85 an hour for a clerk to enter data into computers when provincial employees can do the same work for as little as $28 an hour. Queen's Park also has to pay a whopping $575 an hour for the services of Anderson's project director while the government's director costs just $70 an hour. They estimated the cost of this project at $50 to $70 million maximum. Harris went out and signed a contract for $180 million.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the government saved money on welfare by slashing benefits rather than through new operational efficiencies. Grit MPP Gerry Phillips said the auditor pointed out what can be regarded "as the sweetheart of all sweetheart consulting deals."The province has also paid Andersen $15.5 million for  saving money from the welfare system that was not  clearly attributable to Andersen Consulting, specifically  for things like tightening eligibility requirements which  would have been done anyway. The province even paid $250,000 to another consultant to negotiate a contract with Andersen. In the end, "the ministry could not demonstrate that it had selected the most cost-effective proposal or that the agreement would result in value for money for the taxpayer. Read a protest report on the Rallies page
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Bill denies welfare recipients the most fundamental of  rights
by A. Alan Borovoy General Counsel Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Poverty is not a sufficient justification to deny people their basic civil liberties. But that is exactly what the Ontario government's Bill 142 proposes to do to welfare claimants. Until now, the welfare law has generally required advance notice when there are to be refusals, suspensions, or cancellations of assistance. The idea was to give claimants an opportunity to defend themselves before they suffered the loss of their very livelihood. But, even though such safeguards have been considered fundamental since the Magna Carta, Bill 142 has dropped this requirement altogether.
It's bad enough to remove these basic safeguards at the front-line levels. But Bill 142 proposes to encumber even the process of appeal. Under Bill 142, no appeals will go forward without, first, an internal review. Moreover, there is no provision for interim assistance during whatever period the government might later decide is appropriate for such reviews. Thus, it becomes possible for welfare administrators to unilaterally deprive welfare claimants of subsistence income for unacceptably long periods. Bill 142 also proposes to explicitly deny the right of appeal where the administration decides that claimants are not fit to exercise responsibility for themselves. Thus, the administrator or a special trustee could wind up virtually controlling a claimant's whole way of life. Yet our general law contains a number of important safeguards to reduce the risk of improperly encroaching on the right of competent people to manage their own affairs. Why, then, would our proposed welfare law deny even the elementary safeguard of an independent appeal in analogous circumstances?  ………….
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North Bay Psychiatric Hospital to Close - Government abandons responsibility for seriously mentally ill in Premier's own riding
October 30, 1998  The recommendation of the Health Services Restructuring Commission to close
North Bay Psychiatric Hospital is yet another step on the road to the destruction of mental health services in the province, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union says. "The Commission is reducing the long term mental health beds from 229 to 92 by the year 2003.  They haven't said where the people in those beds are supposed to go," said Leah Casselman, OPSEU President.  "The Minister of Health keeps assuring us that significant reinvestments will be made in community support services before beds are closed.  Her track record is, quite frankly, abysmal."  Closing North Bay Psychiatric Hospital will have a tremendous impact on the North Bay economy.  Salaries and benefits total approximately $27 million.
"About 600 people work at the Hospital," said Jackie Smythe, acting president of OPSEU Local 636, which represents the workers at the hospital.  "We shop in North Bay.  We pay taxes.  We support the local economy.  When our jobs disappear, the economy of the city suffers.  This Hallowe'en Mike Harris is treating us to the promise of a new hospital.  North Bay citizens know we're being tricked."
Smythe noted there are an increasing number of people with serious mental illness living in appalling conditions in North Bay. "We know the hospital is their lifeline.  When it closes they will have no one.  We are speaking out for those who have no voice, and we'll continue to speak out until these recommendations are reversed."
For further information:
        Jackie Smythe (705) 476-8463
        Sue Brown (705) 752-3404
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Great Ontario Wilderness Ripoff - LANDS FOR LIFE report - Corporate controlled Round Tables have completely failed to protect wild areas -- citizens have 30 days to comment - read the full report.
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Toronto city councillors (Oct 31/98) yesterday argued that school closings will devastate recreation and community programs as well as day-care services. ``If this is the price we have to pay for the provincial government tax cut, then frankly they can have it back,'' said Councillor Brad Duguid (Scarborough City Centre). `Because we're talking about destroying the very social fabric of
parts of our neighbourhoods.''
Day-care advocates will also resist the plan to close schools.``We're going to fight like hell,'' said Mary Anne Bedard, supervisor at Ferncliff Day Care, located in Fern Avenue Public School that's slated to close. She said it's important not to simply save one school if it means putting another at risk.
City staff compiled a preliminary list of programs and facilities that the city operates or has paid for in the schools due to be closed. In addition to the 77 day-care centres, they include four swimming pools; three family resource centres; and 34 breakfast programs.The fate of day-care centres
stirred the most concern around the council table.The city has 303 day-care centres in schools across the city. And councillors worried that even in schools that are not closing, the day-care centres may be pushed out to make room for the new students who will be pouring into the surviving
schools.
It takes about $500,000 to renovate space suitable for a day-care centre, which means a big bill to relocate 77 day cares.
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Harris Government Insensitive Males - Annie Kidder of People for Education said ``Everybody should remember that in the Stanley Park Zoo in Vancouver they allow 200 square feet per monkey; in Ontario they're allowing 100 square feet per child.''
This comment is on the closure of more than 130 schools in Toronto by Harris. Not only does Harris see children about the same as monkeys, his government continues to attack and burden women, who suffer most from the closures and loss of school based day care and social services.
Citizens have also questioned Toronto Trustees saying they were not elected to carry out the Harris agenda and yet they are doing just that. They eliminated Adult Education and now they are implementing school closures.
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ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL UPHOLDS ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS' WIN IN LANDMARK FORESTRY CASE AGAINST GOVERNMENT October 27, 1998
   The Ontario Court of Appeal today ruled that the Ontario government is violating its own forest and environmental protection laws.  Today's Appeal Court decision upholds an Ontario Divisional Court ruling that struck down three logging plans in northern Ontario, including the one for Temagami, on the basis that the plans were in flagrant violation of the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (CFSA) and the Environmental Assessment Act (EA Act). The Sierra Legal Defence Fund commenced the case in September 1996 on behalf of the Wildlands League and Friends of Temagami, alleging that logging was being carried out illegally in three large forested areas (Temagami, Elk Lake, and Upper Spanish River).
   "This is probably the most important environmental decision ever from the Ontario courts," said Stewart Elgie, managing lawyer of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.  "This decision means that at least 20% -- and perhaps more -- of Ontario's forests are being managed unsustainably and illegally.  The Ontario government is flagrantly violating its own laws -- laws which are designed to protect the long-term environmental health of our public forests.  It is failing to protect important values, such as wildlife, water, and old growth forest areas, which it is required by law to address.  By requiring that Crown forests be managed sustainably, this decision will benefit   loggers, environmentalists, hikers, tourism operators and all those who care about our public forests."
  "The Court has put environmental and sustainable forestry laws ahead of political expediency - the Harris government must now obey the law," said Francis Boyes, President of Friends of Temagami
for more info contact Tim Gray Wildlands League, chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (416) 971-9453  Tom Heintzman/StewartElgie Sierra Legal Defence Fund     (416) 368-7533    Francis Boyes Friends of Temagami     (705) 569-3539
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Toronto Bribed by Harris - October 26, 1998 -   $700Gs Tory booze bottle bonus - Toronto politicians are preparing to turn down $700,000 the provincial government is offering if the city scraps a bylaw forcing liquor stores to recycle their booze bottles.  If the city accepts the money, it will have to dump a bylaw requiring liquor stores to implement a deposit-return system for its bottles beginning in 1999. Councillor Jack Layton is proposing Toronto reject what he called a bribe.  "The bribe is bad for our city and our environment. It will end up costing us more money."  As part of Toronto's blue-box program, the city now spends about $1 million every year dealing with liquor bottles. Only half of those are actually recycled and the rest end up  in landfills, according to a waste-management consultant. The new bylaw requires the LCBO to recycle their wine and booze bottles using a system similar to The Beer Store's in order to get city-issued business licences. A municipal study shows the plan could save Toronto $1 million a year.
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Here are the early details of this tale of Terror.

Bill 8 - Job Quotas Repeal Act - Eliminates Employment Equity. Targets for hiring women, the disabled and visible minorities. Many thousands of people found themselves facing the horror of huge wage cuts and job losses.

Bill 15 - Workers Compensation and Occupation Health Act. Injured workers faced the horror of chopped benefits and a bungling restructured board.

Bill 26 - The Omnibus Bill, also known as the Satanist Bible of the Harris Government. Made vast changes to laws and regulations to make possible the evil Harris attack on society, Megacities, hospital closures and so on.

Bill 30 - Education Quality and Accountability Office Act - put the province's schools under the scrutiny of Big Brother Harris.

Bill 31 - Teachers Act - set up a hostile body to regulate and govern the teaching profession.

Bill 49 - Employment Standards Improvement Act - Lowers standards, making it easier for employers to operate unsafe workplaces and for slime beasts to roam at large.

Bill 57 - The Orwellian Environmental Improvement Approvals Improvement Act. Chops nearly all environmental standards on the argument that it will encourage new investment. Allowed the pod people, nuclear worms and snatchers to set up shop.

Bill 84 - Fire Protection and Prevention Act - Opens the door to privatization of the fire department and future infernos.

Bill 86 - Better Local Government Act - Arranged for provincial offloading and downloading of services to the municipalities ensuring that chaos will be the rule during the coming invasion.

Bill 96 - Tenant Protection Act - Among other things it eliminates key parts of rent control making apartments affordable to only wealthy slime invaders.

Bill 99 - Workplace Safety and Insurance Act -  a follow-up bill making further cuts to injured workers and eliminating many claims outright. Bill puts injured workers on the streets and in the hands of the unscrupulous alien organ merchants.

Bill 104 - Fewer School Boards Act - Chops boards and salaries for trustees unmercifully. Worse than that is the creation of the Orwellian Education Improvement Commission one of Harris' powerful and completely unaccountable restructuring boards. It is thought that the board will oversee the brainwashing of the youth in Ontario.

Bill 103 - The Hated City of Toronto Act - The Megacity - Imposed against the wishes of citizens in Toronto who voted against it overwhelmingly. The Bill outlines forced amalgamation and robbery by the Harris Government of the six cities and citizens of Toronto. Bill 103  is the showpiece of undemocratic and dictatorial Harris legislation. It puts Toronto in the hands of an unelected all-powerful Transition Team, which decides the shape of future Mega-government with little attention paid to the needs or wishes of citizens. Bill 103 is a model for extremist governments and alien invaders who want to bring in fascist-style large scale restructuring to eliminate democratic municipal governments.

Bill 105-- Removes Provincial Police Services from smaller municipalities. Kills independent review of complaints against officers. Makes it possible for slime aliens to enter the police force and act at will.

Bill 106--Market Value Tax Assessment. The province arbitrarily decides what rates will be charged on different classes of properties. The horror of sudden tax increases and instability.

Bill ? -- Provincial Sneak Attack -Aug 22nd, the Harrisittes slipped in a 75 page bill that would force municipalities to foot the entire cost of social housing, pubic health, welfare, libraries, Go Transit and pay a bigger share of child care costs. Guaranteeing a breakdown at local levels.

Bill 107--Paves the way for the privatization of water and sewage. Makes it easier to spread plagues.

Bill 108--Transfers the prosecution of many provincial offenses to the municipalities, creating expenses small areas can't afford. Criminal gangs the municipalities can't afford to prosecute will aid the aliens as they raid Ontario.

Bill 109-- The Library Bill removes independent library boards and sets up a system of fees for library use. Grants of 20 million to
libraries will end and libraries will close. Commercial forces from other planets take over in these institutions.*Bill 109 has been killed by Isabel Basset.

Bill 136 Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act -  Kills the right to strike and the right to fair arbitration. Establishes a wholly unfair and unaccountable Disputes Resolution Commission to settle and define contracts. Works to keep labour in line as the forces of evil take over.  *Government has now backed off on parts of this Bill, because of the strength of the defenders of democracy.

Bill 142 - An Act to Revise the Law Related to Social Assistance - Workfare bill - jobs are nice but workfare has never worked. There is the horror of regular workers losing their jobs to low-paid workfare slaves. Slaves will in the end be the workforce of the alien masters.

Bill 160 - Education Improvement Act - The provincial cabinet assumes the powers of elected school boards and can set class size and make thousands of teachers redundant. Province can make further changes by regulation, without a vote in the legislature. Suspends tax powers of school boards and gives that power to the province so it can funnel money out of education and into the pockets of millionaire aliens.See the full details of this nightmare on the Bill 160 Page
Bill 160 also removes the commitment to universal access and special programs for kids with disabilities.

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A topless Fat Lady laughs hideously, you dream of leeches. Don't turn on the water! your children scream. The smoke and protest rises to form an evil visage. The HARRIS HORROR. It can't be stopped. Beware.
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Tories Support Corporate Welfare Bums - From Victor Milne - Probably most people saw the story today of the federal Environment Minister's announcement that sulfur content in gasoline will be regulated down to the California standard of 30 ppm -- Ontario currently has the dirtiest gas in North America. Reaction from our Ontario Tories: "Reducing sulfur to 30 ppm would cost the industry $1.8 billion and amount to a one-cent per litre increase in price at the pump. Ontario Environment Minister Norm Sterling said he supported the move to 30 ppm but hoped the federal government would provide some financial assistance to the oil industry to cover its costs." These are the guys who think it is too expensive to give a poor mother a nutrition allowance equal to one litre of milk a day, but they are very free with the taxpayer's money when it comes to telling the feds to help out mega-industries.
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School closures product of crazy Harris numbers game:
Info clipped from John Sewell's column

120 schools in Toronto must be closed. This is the result of new provincial rules about operating and capital costs. One fifth of Toronto schools will be closed, forcing those children to attend the          remaining schools. The new rules set capacity standards for schools and dictate how much money each board will receive for operating costs (heating, lighting, cleaning), serious  repairs (new roofs and boilers) and new schools. To establish the loading capacity of each school, the provincial rule states that there will be 25 children in each classroom (22 kids for secondary schools). The rules stipulate that each of the following rooms are deemed to hold a class of 25 (or 22) students at all times: the art  room, computer studies and family studies rooms, the gymnasium, science lab, lunchroom, music room and theatre arts room. All rooms are understood to be at 100-per-cent occupancy at all  times.
Real life --  Provincial staff have studied the floor plans of all schools in Ontario and, using these calculations, have determined school capacities. Real life never intrudes. Each space is always full -- the music room never has down periods when it might be empty, there's never a period when students are not attending class in the lunchroom, and classes are never smaller than 25.
The rules say there is far too much unused space in the 585 schools in the Toronto public system -- 11 million square feet of surplus or unused space, the equivalent of 120 surplus schools. The province provides no money for this surplus or unused space.rovincial rules don't take higher Toronto operating costs into account.
New arrivals -- And the rules provide no money for new schools (such as those built for redevelopment areas like the St. Lawrence community or the Goodyear site) or for new arrivals such as the Somali community on Dixon Road. And there's no money to replace older schools, though they have only about a 50-year lifespan.
The rules are not just a problem for Toronto. Ajax mayor Steve Parish notes that  portables are considered good classrooms under these rules, and that schools in older neighbourhoods will be closed.
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Clips from a Toronto Star column By Michelle Landsberg
Harris shrugs off responsibility
......... Harris swept into power with all the certainty and bravado of a schoolyard bully....... He wiped out the labour laws, slashed pay equity to deprive 100,000 of the poorest-paid women the millions owing them, and threw the entire school system into costly, disruptive chaos.
   He drove half a million Ontario children into ever-worsening poverty and hunger by cutting welfare a draconian 21.6 per cent. He was the sworn enemy of women, dismantling the province's family support plan, cutting shelter funds, cancelling non-profit housing in a single blow, tossing out rent control and taking the scalpel to hospitals so recklessly that 5,000 nurses lost their jobs.
   A populist, as Harris pretends to be, supposedly reflects the public will, but time and again, he has bulldozed ahead with his anti-democratic agenda in the face of huge public dissent. He destroyed
the well-functioning city government of Toronto because, according to an ``insider'' book by journalist John Ibbitson, he was furious with the city's anti-smoking laws and he was in a snit with mayor Barbara Hall's support for the Days of Action. Our entire civic structure is still reeling from his forced amalgamation......... Huge tax increases threaten to crush small businesses because of Harris' clumsy messing about with the tax structure? Harris postures and poses as the scourge of municipal governments and the defender of small businesses. (``Asinine,'' comments a regional councillor).
   After unleashing the unaccountable Hospital Restructuring Commission to wreak havoc with forced hospital closings and costly mergers, without ever supplying the promised millions for home care, the Premier was shocked - shocked! - to notice the emergency-care crisis last week. Ambulances were hopelessly circling Toronto with their freight of the sick and dying, with 18 of the 19 emergency rooms closed. Somehow (gosh darn it, how do these things happen?) the $225 million that the Tories had loudly pledged to hospitals six months ago had never arrived.
.........Another thing that might embarrass Harris, if he were the government, is the Tory compulsion to micromanage and control every detail of everything, whether they know how to do it or not. They've got sex snoops looking under the beds of welfare mums and, though not one of them can utter a grammatical sentence, they've seized control of the curriculum.)
   Now they'll give money to hospitals only if the medical staff agrees to the Tories dictating every detail of care, from cleaning procedures to medical treatment time lines.
   Quality education? Six hundred schools, rural and urban may be forced to close under their simplistic formula. A cap on class sizes? From Wawa to Welland, class sizes are swelling as teachers get fired. ........... Well, somebody is noticing that the Emperor has no clothes. A Tory poll in Greater Toronto this month showed that 57 per cent of women think the Tories are doing a bad job and should be replaced.............
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Harris Cuts Compensation for Firefighters - Simcoe County fire departments relying on volunteers have grave concerns about new workers' compensation legislation. Clearview Fire Chief Dave Carruthers says he stands "to lose 40 to 50 per cent of my volunteers" if the issue remains unresolved, though none have yet resigned. The new legislation means injured volunteers have no guarantee their jobs will be protected once they're again healthy. As well, it limits the amount of money an injured firefighter can collect to 85 per cent of their regular salary. Compensation for volunteers is going to be based on the amount of money earned as a volunteer
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905 Mayors Threaten Tax Protest - Oct 19th/98  Greater Toronto mayors say they will come to Queen's Park carrying their chairs and chains of office if the province doesn't answer their tax problems. The new Harris assessments have caused huge property tax increase on 905 main streets.
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Downloading Wounds Rural Areas - Rural municipalities are now worse off than they were before because provincial grants have stopped and the money from the removal of part of the education property tax has been grabbed. Rural municipalities are now dependent on political slush funds that go by fancy names such as "Special Circumstances Fund" and "Community Re-investment Fund". These monies can disappear at any time and are entirely subject to the whims of Queen's Park. In other words, municipal politicians do as the provincial government wants or their money can suddenly dry up and their ratepayers go berserk. Anyone who thinks that the Tories are looking after rural Ontario needs to think again. Paul Isaacs
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Forestry Destroyed by Harris - The Ontario government is planning to hand over control of the forests on publicly owned land to the forestry industry. And an internal natural resources ministry report states that the Harris budget cutbacks have left it unable to manage the forests.  Critics accused the government yesterday of creating a program to give the forestry industry the power to police itself. ``That frightens conservationists more than anything else,'' said Stephan Fuller, executive director of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists.
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Harris Homeless Report A Plan to Increase Homelessness and cut more people off social assistance -- A provincial report on homelessness report prepared by Tory MPP Jack Carroll and four other government members is so inadequate  that people will be left to die on Toronto streets this winter.  Released late yesterday, the Tory task force's 31-page study says the housing crisis is the responsibility of municipalities -- not Queen's Park. The report then aims at making the problem worse by demanding that municipalities screen hostel users to see if they can catch people collecting welfare cheques. After abandoning its responsibilities, the province calls on Ottawa to offer tax incentives for building low-cost rental housing. The report accuses the federal government of costing Ontario $80 million a year in welfare money because of delays in dealing with refugee claimants, many of whom live in hostels upon arrival. "This report here will be responsible for the death of  people in Toronto on our streets this year because it's a  do-nothing report," Councillor Jack Layton, co-chairman  of the homelessness advisory committee, said.  "We're the only province that has absolutely no program to build housing for the very low-income folks." Layton said $60 million is already spent on emergency housing in Toronto and called the city's $1-million share of the provincial fund "pathetic." The report tells cities to get people off the streets and put them into the hostels. But the hostels are full and without housing for the homeless, there is no real hope of getting people off the streets. Ontario's shortage of supportive housing is putting the mentally ill on the streets. People are homeless either because they are too poor to pay for the housing available or because of the shortage of low-income housing.
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Harris Cuts Teachers - The number of public high school teachers has plunged by 1,700 this year. When you factor in a 5,000-student enrolment increase and a decline in adult education funding, the Ontario public secondary system is actually short 2,400 teachers.
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129 Toronto Schools may CLOSE - The Harris have forced Toronto's public and Catholic boards to look at shutting down some of the more than 790 schools in the city. "There's a tremendous potential loss -- both socially and recreationally -- to the municipality if this proceeds," Councillor Frank Faubert said. He said the city relies on schools as centres for recreational activities.  "We maintain school sites in the summer so we can use the ball diamonds and soccer pitches and everything that is included on school property," Faubert said. Under a worst-case scenario, the public board may have to close 100 schools and the Catholic board could shut 29 schools.
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Harris Policies lead to school closures in Kitchener Waterloo region -- On Tuesday, September 22nd 98, the K-W Record printed the announcement that the WRDSB is planning the closure of 12 community schools in Waterloo Region. They admit that they are "bracing for a wave of anger from hundreds of parents" - meaning the parents of the affected schools. Cecil Onamd is quoted as saying, "it's a battle parents should be prepared to lose given the province's desire to make the system more efficient."
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$2.7M for Tory Education Ads --The province spent $2.7 million buying advertising to promote its education reforms. The money has been split three ways: $1.8 million for TV;  $524,800 for radio; and $446,600 for newspapers. The  campaign explains Bill 160, the Education Quality  Improvement Act.
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Harris Restructuring Creates Hospital Debt: Ontario's hospitals are short $200 million to  $400 million and their situation is rapidly deteriorating, says David MacKinnon, president of the Ontario Hospital Association.  Hospitals face two massive one-time bills for restructuring and for fixing year 2000 computer problems. Combined, they will cost more than $2.5 billion over the next few years.
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Harris Tories on Book Shredding Spree-- Old English books not on the government approved list have been ordered shredded by the Tories. The new texts that were bought for a $100,000,000 Tory photo-op are the only ones that cut the mustard for Dave Johnson. There is not much love for history that is not party approved, says a Tory source.
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Janet Ecker's War on the Poor now a war on the Constitution. The Harris Tories are again wasting taxpayer dollars as they fight a welfare appeal board decision. Ontario's Social Assistance Review Board ruled in August that a provincial law on welfare violated the Constitution. The Tory "spouse-in-the-house" legislation --October 1995-- reduced welfare benefits for thousands of single mothers with male friends. The Tory law forced people on welfare to divulge whether they shared credit cards, bank accounts or had other forms of "financial  interdependence" and mutual support. In effect it added up to outright state harassment of women on welfare, reducing their quality of life to a point where they couldn't dare talk to a man without fear of state reprisal through cuts to benefits. That Social Services Minister Janet Ecker would go back to court on this is another example of the Tories stopping at nothing to bring in a police state that kicks the poor more than anyone else.
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Tory Welfare Computers Crash: Welfare caseworkers spend much of their work day in front of computers instead of looking after clients in the field. The time caseworkers waste dealing with red tape has increased "enormously" since the Tories took power and gave a U.S.-based consulting firm a $180-million contract to automate Ontario's welfare records, officials  said yesterday after a meeting with Social Services Minister Janet Ecker. The training that is required for the caseworkers to be able to work with these systems is taking a lot of time. The province gave Andersen Consulting a $180-million contract to merge that program with three other government computer systems used to monitor Ontario's $5.3-billion welfare system.
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Harris Home-care policy a failure-- The decision by the Harris government to shift the emphasis from hospitals to community care that usually means home care is proving to be a poor decision. Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer's policy is forcing sick people out of institutions that are strictly accountable, into a system where there is no accountability to patients and where no standards of care exist. And the profit motive tends to bring standards to a lowest common denominator
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Harris Defends Outrageous Student Assistance  fees: Student assistance  fees net the province $750,000 and Premier Mike Harris says there's nothing wrong with that. The Ontario Student Assistance Program launched a 1-900 phone service at the end of 1996 charging $2 a call for information on student loans. The service netted the province $330,000 in the fiscal year ended in March. In addition, OSAP recently imposed a $10 application fee. That has already yielded more than $420,000 this year. Revenue figures were released yesterday by Liberal education critic Lyn McLeod (Fort William), who obtained them through the Freedom of Information Act. A Statistics Canada report says that Ontario universities have imposed the biggest tuition hikes in Canada for the start of the school year next month. According to StatsCan, only Nova Scotia charges more than Ontario.
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Charity  casinos lawsuit:The Ontario government is being hit with a $520 million lawsuit by the former operators of charity casinos, who allege Queen's Park put them out of business to claim the gambling market for itself. The owners of 16 businesses that ran the roving Monte Carlos for charities are also claiming that the government broke the law under the Criminal Code of Canada by establishing itself as the province's sole operator of charity casinos.
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Ontario Works Gag Order: Aug 25th I popped by and listened to a bit of a forum called The Ontario Fightback: The Struggle Continues! Claudia White of CUPE Local 79 mentioned that social workers across Ontario have been meeting within the union to discuss Workfare and various rights violations contained in the new Harris Ontario Works legislation. Social workers are under government gag order and cannot oppose Ontario Works for fear of Tory retaliation. Workers have been told they must plug this horrible Harris legislation.
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Harris Private Police Opposed:  The Toronto caucus of the Association of Municipalities  of Ontario (AMO) has voted to oppose the establishment of a private security force to enforce red-light violations. Tory MPP Tony Clement then responded in an arrogant fashion saying the government will move ahead, continuing study of the private police plan.
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Harris Killing People with Smog and Pollution: A new report from the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy condemns the Harris environment record. The province is not cutting air pollution and smog. Auto emissions are the biggest source of local air pollution with smog causing the premature deaths each year in Ontario of 1,800 people.  The environment ministry's budget was cut by 81 per cent and its staff slashed to 1,494 this year from 2,208 in 1995 when the Conservatives were elected.
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Family Benefits - Legal Victory for Women in Ontario as more Harris legislation is found to be in violation of basic rights:14 Aug/98 from the Ontario Social Safety Network -- The Social Assistance Review  Board has released a decision in the constitutional  challenge to the 1995 changes to the definition of "spouse" used in  the  social assistance system. The challenge was brought by four single mothers receiving Family Benefits who had entered into living arrangements with men in reliance on the old rule, which said that an opposite sex resident did not become a spouse for three years if there was no other legal support obligation between the parties.  The Board held that the definition of spouse enacted in 1995 violated section 15 of the Charter (the right to equality without discrimination) and section 7 of the Charter (the right to life,  liberty and security of the person). Press Release at http://www.welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca/ossn/aug14.html Background at http://www.welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca/ossn/sihbackgr.html The government has the right to appeal the SARB decision to the Ontario Divisional Court and will probably do so. Nevertheless, it is very heartening that our longstanding position that the "man in the house" rule violates poor women's rights has been vindicated.  http://www.welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca/ossn.html
   Section 7 of the Charter guarantees the right to "life, liberty and security of the person" and the right not to have any of these rights taken away without "fundamental justice". The Board held that the spousal definition violated section 7 in two ways. First, it deprived sole support parents of the right to personal autonomy in their ability to form and maintain relationships, a constitutionally protected aspect of the right to liberty. Second, the uncertainties of the rule violated their rights to be free of state-imposed psychological stress for those "torn between continuing an arrangement which may of great psychological benefit and emotional benefit for themselves and their children and the ever-present risk that the arrangement will result in the termination of social assistance". This denial violated principles of fundamental justice because the definition of spouse was so broad and all-inclusive that it could capture relationships that would not be considered "spousal" or "marriage-like" for any other purpose.
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The Federation of Metro Tenants Associations says calls to the complaints line have reached a hundred a day since the Ontario government passed its Tenant Protection Act June  17. Landlords are turning away women on social assistance because they have kids, say tenant  groups. Tenant laws must be changed to prevent this.
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The Tories have created Education Chaos as Court strikes down Bill 160
     Justice Peter Cumming has struck down parts of school Bill 160 as unconstitutional. Bill 160 gives the province complete control over financing of schools, and strips the right of Roman Catholic boards to levy taxes -- and that is unconstitutional. The judge added that public boards have no similar rights under the Constitution and aren't protected from the impact of the law.
     Education Minister Dave Johnson said the government will appeal the ruling and ask the judge to suspend the decision pending the appeal
     The 104-page judgment also throws a monkey wrench into a $6-billion swap of service costs with municipalities that allows the province to take over a bigger chunk of education spending. Cumming said it doesn't matter if the government's intentions toward the Catholic community were good -- their rights can't be overridden without a constitutional amendment. "The government's approach makes the Roman Catholic community hostage to the provincial government as to the extent of financing of the separate school system," he said. The law stripped the ability of all school boards to set property tax rates, and let the province take over $2.5 billion of education spending from the local level.
     The challenge by teachers unions and public boards alleged that the changes violate the constitutional right of Catholic boards to levy taxes. By inference, they said, public boards have the same rights. The Catholic boards sided with the government, noting that the new funding arrangement means more money for them. Regis O'Connor of the Separate School Trustees Association said the ruling could send everyone "back to square one" if upheld. "It could be total chaos."
    Should the appeal fail the province will be left with some nasty choices. They could allow Catholic boards to levy taxes but not their public counterparts. Or they could let both systems tax again. Either option would require a new funding system.
     The unions and school boards behind the court challenge have urged the province to discuss ways to create a new funding system. "It is politically untenable in the province of Ontario to have one group of citizens, namely those of the Catholic religion, with rights in excess of those of all the other people," said Liz Sandals of the Ontario Public School Boards Association. Also in question is a complex swap of services between the province and municipalities. Local governments are taking over $3 billion in provincial services in exchange for the province's directly funding a bigger share of education.
     Bill 160 caused a storm of green ribbon protest action and a province wide teachers strike last fall. The bill prevents trustees from raising taxes in response to local needs when government money isn't enough. Bill 160 led to the closure of adult education programs and the elimination of adult education rights in Toronto. Under the new funding formula, many of public boards are losing money to Catholic boards. The government said the changes give Catholic boards a fairer share of money. Judge Cumming said the province had set up a "monolithic" structure for running schools based largely on centralized control by the province. He also noted that the new funding formula was implemented in haste and in some cases doesn't meet local needs.
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Ontario Tories Aim for Totalitarian Society -- TheTory hate campaign against Squeegee kids continues.  The truth is you don't see many squeegee kids on the streets now. I've never seen one stoned on glue and I've been in crowds of them. And the locations the Tory Crime Fighters and Jim Brown are touring are places where Toronto teens party at night and not just squeegee kid hideouts. The Sun titles its new hate article SQUEEGEE WORLD: DOWN AND DIRTY and begins with Brown touring under the Gardner through the trash and syringes. Brown then uses a misapplication of the Broken Window theory, saying people have to be cleaned up to prevent crime and decay. That actual book states that it is buildings and streets in decay the must be kept fixed, it does not promote any sort of attack on poor people or kids. The police then accuse kids of all being on glue and taking panhandling dollars from the truly homeless. What Brown and the police want are laws that force people to identify themselves. They are using squeegee kids to bring in a Tory totalitarian society where we will eventually all be fingerscanned and reguarly checked by the police.
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Harris Kills Environmental Science Courses: The Harris Government's environmental policy hit a new low with the plan to dump waste blood in the sewers, and it has now sunk even lower in killing environmental science courses. Under Harris our schools will no longer educate green revolutionaries who worry about such trivial things as pollution and nuclear waste. info site at http://www.stao.org
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Harris' Fixed Budget: $3.5 billion has been cut The Ontario Federation of Labour says the Progressive Conservative government rigged the last budget to make it look like it is spending more when, in fact, it is spending billions less. ``The impression that the numbers create - intended or not - is that there hasn't actually been much cut from public spending in Ontario and that the critics are complaining about nothing,'' OFL economists say.
In fact, ``the aggregate spending numbers mask a dramatic decline in public spending . . . approximately $3.5 billion has been cut from the permanent provincial spending base. ``This means that, relative to the size of the economy, public services in Ontario have declined by 20 per cent since 1995-96.''  The report by the OFL's Alternative Budget Working Group cites a section of the May 5 budget that commits $9.5 billion to training and a further $9 billion to the millennium fund scholarships over 10 years. ``It turns out, however, that in both cases, the announcements gave new names to money that was already in the system, combined federal and provincial funding, and added the total up over a 10-year period,'' the report says. ``The government's $9 billion and $9.5 billion actually add up to a big zero.'' In education, the budget shows that spending on schools, colleges and universities in the current year will rise more than 30 per cent from 1997-98 to $10.2 billion this year. ``But that includes an additional $2.5 billion of school-board expenditures taken over by the province . . . actual spending on education has not changed, only which level of government is spending it.'' Other areas in which the OFL says the budget sought to leave an impression of increased spending include: Highway improvements, where a $280 million reinvestment is ``$301 million lower than last year.'' Services ``downloaded'' to municipalities from the province - public housing, mass transit and so on - ``still show up on the province's books'' as worth $2.3 billion even though Ontario's cities and towns will foot the bills.
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Tories Slash Health Care - Liberal Gerard Kennedy has pointed out that the province's spending on drugs and on promoting health has been cut. Here is what he put to Tory Minister Elizabeth Witmer on the community impact of the government's restructuring plans:

- Toronto hospitals are out $280 million already and by 2006 will be losers to the tune of $1.5 billion. At the end of the process, Toronto will still be losing $56 million a year as a result of decisions already announced.
- Ottawa hospitals will be out $325 million after losing funds for 10 straight years. Ottawa is losing $62 million this year, its peak year of losses.
- London hospitals will lose $290 million by 2006 and will still be losing $12 million a year more than it gains. This is also London's peak loss year, at $47 million.
- Hospitals in Kitchener-Waterloo, Witmer's own riding, will lose money until 2002 when total losses reach $54 million and begin to decline. But her riding's hospitals will still be short a cumulative $6 million in 2006.
- Hamilton hospitals, losing $49 million this year, will lose money until 2004 but will still be out $193 million after 10 years of Harris cuts and spending.
- Windsor-Essex hospitals will peak at a loss of $20 million in the year 2000 and will be
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Tories to Force through Union Busting bill -   June 19, 1998 -- The provincial government is to give final approval to major labour law changes, without public hearings, less than a month after they were introduced. ``This is just one more example of the anti-democratic track record your government has,'' NDP labour critic Dave Christopherson (Hamilton Centre) shouted across the Legislature at Deputy Premier Ernie Eves. Bill 31 will pass third and final reading before the Legislature breaks for the summer next Thursday because government MPPs last night used their majority to cut off debate. Construction unions are threatening a province-wide strike to fight it. The bill would: Eliminate penalties for employers who intimidate workers in union organizing drives and ban strikes and lockouts in large projects, set hours of work and pay and override the rules in province-wide agreements. Make it easier for non-construction companies such as retail stores, schools, municipalities and banks to contract out construction work to non-union workers.
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The Harris Workplace Democracy Act has little to do with democracy-- June 15/98 It takes away the right to certification for employees subjected to management intimidation, has a no strikes clause for large developments and a clause that allows the removal of union labour from public projects.
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CVA -HARRIS BILL 16 CHEATS HOMEOWNERS: When you put this tax cap bill together with new legislation on development charges - the fees municipalities charge developers for putting up new buildings - and proposed rules on rent control,  the Harris government is favouring one  particular special interest group - the real estate class. This class is made up of people who earn money by owning or developing property.  He is taking away from municipalities the power to interfere.  If a factory, office, store or shopping plaza is in line for a tax increase because of current value assessment or because more money is needed to keep the city running, the council can increase its taxes  by only 2.5 per cent a year. If it turns out the city does require more money, it can only raise taxes on houses. Bill 16 creates two classes of property owner: those who buy houses to live in them and who can be hit by taxes; those who  buy property in order to make money and can be protected.  What this bill does is freeze commercial and industrial assessments where they were in 1997, while forcing homeowners to move immediately to current value assessments. And council can't make developers pay for a variety of other facilities.
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Tories Put Ontario in the Backwater of Health Care: A new report list the following facts.  When it comes to the number of general practitioners and family doctors per capita, Ontario place seventh. Ontario is in last place with 6.89 registered nurses per 1,000 people.  From 1991 to 1996, the number of doctors leaving Canada to practise elsewhere jumped 130%. The increasing number of hospital beds taken out of service left Ontario ranked 10th with 3.9 beds per 1,000  people. Ontario is the only province to maintain a list of patients awaiting open-heart surgery
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Memorial Service for Tenant Rights - June 17th  I managed to pop over to Queen's Park briefly for this -- Leaders of the Federation of Metro Tenants along with councilors Pam McConnel and Michael Walker marched from Queen Street to Queen's Park today. Tim Rourke and others carried a coffin while a mournful trumpet tune played. Citizens sang hymns as the Rev Floyd Honey led the service, which marked the burial of tenant rights in Ontario. The Harris bill became law at noon and sections of it threaten to cause social chaos. It contains an easy eviction clause and tenants have to be warned to get down right away to fight evictions or they could they find themselves locked out in only a few days. The best full study on the Harris Tenant Rejection Act is the detailed Ontario Coalition Against Poverty study posted at Citizens on the web http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/studyto.htm
You can protest by contacting the three provincial leaders demanding that they vow to change the act so that full rent controls will be restored. Ask that they eliminate the maximum rent clause that allows landlords to raise rents sky high to a maximum value. Ask that they strengthen tenant rights in eviction and keep rent controls on recently vacated apartments and that they insure that tax rebates will go to tenants and not into the pockets of landlords.
NDP leader - Howard Hampton - howard_hampton-mpp@ontla.ola.org
Liberal leader -  dalton_mcguinty-mpp@ontla.ola.org
Evil Tory leader - Mike Harris, Room 281, Legislative Building, M7A 1A1 Tel : 325-1941 Fax : 325-3745
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Harris Sells Soaring Restructuring Costs as a Gift -- You have to wonder about media giants like the Sun and CTV when they paint 186 million in restructuring costs as a big gift to citizens. Total costs are expected to reach 266 million and that is money that would have went much farther in funding the system as it was. There was never a need for hospital closures -- the institutions involved were all financially viable. What is costing us is restructuring --- and the biggest insult is that a good part of it is to be paid by local hospital foundations and local fundraising. So there you have it -- Mike Harris closes your hospital, builds stuff on another one, using the funds you raised and are raising, and the big Media gives him a positive spin so it looks like robbery is a gift.
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Harris puts Toronto in Health Care Doghouse:The provincial Health Protection and Promotion Act mean the public health department will soon have to provide new services, such as an early cancer detection program and an injury prevention program. As well, the department has had to increase the number of community events and media campaigns it sponsors. Public health officials say the mandatory service changes amount to $20.5 million of the department's estimated $42 million need. The rest of the $42 million consists of about $16 million required to expand health services across Greater Toronto and a one-time amalgamation cost of $5.5 million. City council had a $119 million shortfall in its 1998 budget, and had to rely on a $50 million grant and a $100 million loan from the
province to cover its over-all budget of $6.66 billion. Officials at the Board of Health have been told the money to cover the Harris downloading simply isn't there.
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Harris cuts lead to layoffs - Young Teachers Tossed Out by Board's Decision to Kill Adult Education: More than 800 young high school teachers across Greater Toronto are facing layoffs.  Layoff notices were issued after public school boards in Toronto, Peel, Halton, Durham and York regions worked out the number of teachers needed for the coming school year based on current secondary school enrolment.  In Toronto alone, 682 teachers were laid off. One factor that contributed to the high number in Toronto was the board's decision to cut adult education programs and move to a continuing education model - leaving hundreds of full-time, unionized teachers jobless
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Cuts Killing Ontario - Ombudsman - Lineups for at provincial agencies are dramatically increasing as the Tory government continues to kill the public sector, says Ontario Ombudsman  Roberta Jamieson.   "This past year has been tumultuous through downsizing, right-sizing, contracting out, privatizing, streamlining and restructuring," Jamieson said yesterday. "Too often what sounds like a reasonable goal of efficiency is translated into a single focus of saving dollars and cents."  Her annual report says the Adoption Disclosure Register has a backlog of more than  16,000 people searching for blood relatives.  She sited the Social Assistance Review Board and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal, which hear appeals from welfare recipients and injured workers, as examples of agencies with unreasonably long waiting lists.  "If you're someone who's been denied welfare and you're appealing it, seven months is a lifetime," she said. Jamieson is calling on the government to implement a  province-wide standard of services. She is also suggesting the government introduce standards for appointments to  "preserve public confidence in the impartiality of provincial tribunals."
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June1/98 Injured Workers protested the Harris Cuts contained in Bill 99 again today -- in costume with a demo at Queen's Park. As well as financial cuts, Harris has left many in agony as medication like painkillers and muscle relaxers are not covered any more.
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May 28/98 Schools Close due to Harris Bill 160 - Niagara Falls collegiate has shut down, one of the largest and most senior high schools in Niagara region. Welland high and vocational school are also now gone
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Workfare Union Ban: The province introduced legislation yesterday banning  unions from organizing welfare clients in the  government's workfare program.  "Union opposition will not deflect us from our goal," Ecker  told the Legislature.Canadian Union of Public Employees leader Sid Ryan  responded by vowing to throw up picket lines around any   community agency or business that uses workfare  clients.  Ryan warned private sector firms: "If you're a WalMart or  a Canadian Tire or a McDonald's ... we'll drive your  business away. We'll boycott your workplace. "It'll cost them millions to take in a couple of welfare  clients," he said.   NDP critic Peter Kormos called the proposed law "the  foulest, most repugnant, vilest piece of legislation."
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Harris Steals from Children: The federal government announced in this year's budget an extra $605 per child per year for low-income families through the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS). Mike Harris is now deducting this as income from people on welfare.
Working Poor Robbed by Harris: The Tories have declared that the working poor who receive a top-up -- and for whom the NCBS elevates their income above the welfare limit -- will no longer be eligible for medicare or free drugs. " This applies to families with kids who have asthma, to diabetics  who need daily injections of insulin, to people who need expensive heart drugs, to those with HIV, and so on.
Harris Pilfers from Pregnant Moms: Their monthly clothing and extras allowance of 37 dollars has been cut off. And moms who decide to move back home with their parents get their shelter allowance cut off,and the welfare payment for her child slashed to $496.
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New Harris Welfare cuts violate rights code saysToronto commissioner Shirley Hoy.
Toronto will see more homeless kids and families as a result of the province's decision to slash welfare for people who live with their parents. The new rule may violate Ontario's Human Rights Code and the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Shirley Hoy said in a report to the city's community and neighbourhood services committee. ``The department is concerned that . . . the recent regulations will have the effect of driving youth out of their family environment rather than encouraging them to maximize support from their families,'' she said in the report released yesterday. The changes also ``would seem to penalize single parents who seek their families' help,'' the report said.
The regulation change, which took effect in April, was made to ensure that welfare remains a system of last resort, Social Services Minister Janet Ecker said in a recent interview. Now, only adults who have a spouse or who have had a spouse are deemed ``financially independent'' and eligible for welfare. All others who live with their families - no matter what their age - will be cut off.
In her report, Hoy said the Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination based on marital or family status. ``Our legal staff are telling us that the regulations treat two individuals with the same needs in very different ways just because they live with their parents,'' Hoy said in an interview. ``There's no question this raises some very serious human rights issues.''  While Hoy accepts Ecker's reasoning that families should be ultimately responsible for their children, it may not hold true for working poor families or those on social assistance.  In such cases, a young adult or single parent who could benefit significantly from the family's emotional support and guidance, might be pressured to move out because of the welfare cut, Hoy said in her report.  Under the old welfare system, there was a financial incentive for families to remain intact, she said. But under the changes more people will opt to live on their own, putting youth and single parents and their children at greater risk of homelessness, she said. And in families where adult children on welfare remain, the drop in total household income may put the whole family at risk of homelessness, she added.
``This will not help them get off welfare and into the work force, but will put more pressure on our welfare and hostel system,'' she said.
More Cuts - Mike Harris has --Lowered the age of young people eligible for back-to-school and winter clothing allowances to 18 from 21. About 1,300 young people will no longer be eligible for the $128 back-to-school benefit in August, and about 3,500 will lose the $105 winter clothing allowance in November.
-- Eliminated the special assistance and supplementary aid programs that used to help about 150 individuals and families each month pay for hearing aids, prosthetics, wheelchairs, respiratory equipment and medical supplies.
-- Eliminated extended health benefits that provided drug cards to about 300 low-income working families each month. In the past several months, the province has released scores of regulations as part of its welfare reforms.
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Disabled Robbed by Harris: Disabled spokespersons say Harris minister Janet Ecker, has no understanding of what life is like for families with disabilities.  The Tories have made cuts of 50 percent cut and more to developmental service and the cuts to families who receive special services. The sad fact is that when people leave institutions they don't bring funding with them and hardship follows. The Harris programs of privatization and contracting out to the lowest bidder without considering the quality of life of the disabled are cruel, and people know that Harris is doing this just to finance tax cuts. There shouldn't be a waiting list for people who desperately need services and when they leave institutions the money should be put back into the developmental services
budget and not siphoned off by the Tories.
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Huge Tuition Robbery by Harris: LYN McLEOD Says Ontario university students in graduate and professional studies face stiff tuition increases this fall with the province's decision to lift restrictions on fees. The biggest increases are likely for students entering their first year in the programs this fall. ``It would appear by deregulating these professional programs, the government is sending a message that only students from wealthy families need apply,'' said Deborah Flynn, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.
The Ministry of Education and Training said yesterday that it will let universities set their own tuition fees for medicine, law, business, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, veterinary medicine and all graduate programs. Education in medicine will now be out of reach for many. The fee hikes are not mandatory - each university has the option. So fees could fluctuate from school to school. First-year students in the much-sought law, graduate business and medicine programs are expected to be hit by the biggest hikes.
The province also announced its intention to loosen regulations on fees for undergraduate engineering and computer science programs. Liberal education critic Lyn McLeod predicted that tuition fees are going to soar under the government of Premier Mike Harris. ``Every college and university is feeling cash-strapped because of the Harris cuts to operating grants,'' she said.
Universities and colleges were hit by a $400 million annual cut to their budgets in 1995. Now, the only new revenue available is higher tuition fees. Nova Scotia is the only other province in Canada that allows its universities to set fees. ``What we will have left is a two-tiered system of higher learning in this province,'' McLeod said. U of T's new medical students will be hit the hardest - $11,000-a-year tuition starting in the fall of 1999. Colleges will be allowed to set tuition fees for all post-diploma programs. Ontario post-secondary students are already coping with some of the largest tuition hikes in Canada. Fees have jumped by as much as 60 per cent since the Progressive Conservatives took power in 1995.
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Homeless In Megacity: Toronto hostels and shelters are jammed to capacity,  Councillor Jack Layton says. 600 relief beds that were available during the winter are closing because of provincial and federal program cuts. "In the next weeks, we will have no response to 200 women and children who need immediate housing and protection," said Layton, co-chair of the city's advisory committee on homeless persons.  Layton said the city will have to look for motel space outside Toronto for these families. He noted the city will also be out of space for single men this summer for the first time. "Torontonians can expect to see a lot more people in the streets, parks, laneways and hidden away in nooks and crannies because federal and provincial governments have cancelled any and all affordable housing programs," he said. The number of people sleeping "rough" is projected to peak at 2,000 per night this summer.
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Environmental Commissioner Eva Ligeti said she found a deep erosion in the the Harris government's commitment to environmental protection in 1997. Provinical ministries cut staff and budgets and negated their responsibilites. Last year she said the tories demonstrated an alarming lack of environmental vision
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More Closures Finalized - May/98 In the Star and Sun the Restructuring Commission gets nearly a full page splash on their recommendation for 1 billion for Health Care improvements. Keep in mind these are not final as Harris hasn't approved them. Critics note Harris is reducing beds overall and shifting them to private institutions where there will be charges and more of a two tier health care system. In the fine print, hidden behind the grand promise was what is really final. And that is the closures of Hillcrest, Riverdale, Runnymede, Salvation Army Grace, and Whitby General.
So now we have our big media convincing us that these major cuts are really a big gift.
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Harris Aims at Total Municipal Takeover: The Urban Mayors' Caucus of Ontario has passed a resolution calling the provincial government's new municipal act "prescriptive, interventionist and overly  detailed."   They called on the Harris government to halt implementation and consult with the municipalities. The task force report on the proposed Municipal  Affairs Act said the new legislation "limits the role of the mayor to presiding over meetings, representing municipalities at functions" but strips the mayors of their role as chief executive officers of their communities. Meaning mayors could be reduced to nothing more than figureheads adept at cutting ribbons and attending receptions under the proposed municipal act, say the mayors of the province's largest cities.
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Adult Education Schools Cuts (Does anyone really believe in anything but budget?)
By Gary Morton
I had a deathly case of the flu Easter Weekend, but still got down to the legislature with an armload of large anti-Harris Some Cuts Never Heal stickers. These to greet Harris on his return. I went around the building putting them up on the poles. Across the road at the back were Adult education protesters camped in the Park. I stayed away from them because I didn't want to make them ill, but did pause to think about their plight. People without a solid education are pretty much like me, except that I can write books and novels and essays and build computers and web sites and so on. Like me in that they are useless on the job market. Everywhere you go a door is closed because you don't have the education. It doesn't matter if you really do know how to do it.

 At least I did get grade 12. Imagine where adults will get without a high school education in today's society. And to boot we live in a society where teachers and corporate guys tell you than everyone will have to return for education a number of times in their lifetime, just to keep up.

Toronto District School Board trustees voted 14-7 to cut adult day classes Wednesday after debate and angry shouting from 400 people who crowded the board's chambers. Though this is a direct result of the Harris cutbacks, trustees have no excuse for voting this through without a fight.

The cuts will cost 573 teachers their jobs and cut the number of spaces for adults by 4,000 -- five stand-alone adult day-school sites will operate starting Sept. 1 with part-timers who are paid an hourly rate.  Another 15 high schools that contain both adults and adolescents will get to keep up to 60% of their adults for another year to reduce the impact on younger students and prevent the schools from being shut completely.

The cuts are quite extensive, why would the politicians vote for them? The answer is simply that politicians no longer have a social conscience that extends beyond a budget line drawn in the sand. At all levels of government they have proven they will sacrifice every value and cut everything sacred if they are told it is necessary because of a shortfall. And that is even if the shortfall is a phony one like the one in Ontario caused by the province pumping billions out of Toronto or the federal debt which is caused because the government decided to stop using the Bank of Canada and to borrow and pay enormous immoral interest to private bankers.

Perhaps citizen groups should start asking the politicians if they will place conscience over budget before lending support.

Here are the Trustees who failed the test and voted away adult education. Some of them smugly laugh at protests, calling them a sign of the times. But what if we made their lives simply unbearable?

How about it -- Gail Nyberg - Ron McNaughton--Donna Cansfield--Irene Atkinson--Jeff Kendall--Mike Thomas--Elizabeth Moyer--Doug Stephens--Shelley Laskin---Sheila Ward---Sheine Manikovsky---Susan Hall---Geri Gershon--Judi Codd---Diane Cleary----?
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Beer Insult as Harris Cuts Allowance to Preganant Moms(April/98)  Premier Mike Harris suggested  pregnant welfare moms might use a food bonus to buy beer.   Harris cut a  $37-a-month food allowance saying: "What we are making sure is that those dollars don't go to beer, don't go to  something else.."   Yet another example of the Harris hatred for women and the poor.
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Harris RighterRenda Bill
It really should be called The Referenda and Democracy Prohibition Act.

Tory Tony Clement's Consultation Draft on Referenda does more to prohibit referenda than to promote the idea. At first glance even the idea of a Harris bill on referenda and tax seems unreal. The citizens of Toronto have just rejected fast MVA taxation, Casinos and the Megacity in public votes. Harris has forced through Megacity and is now pushing through Market Value Assessment and Casinos, in spite of the screaming and hollering of City Council and of angry citizen mobs.

The hitch in Harris' Referenda bill is that it is supposed to allow referenda on any new tax but the loopholes are that if the new tax has to do with restructuring or downloading referenda would not be required. Referenda on citizen initiatives would mean getting 650,000 signatures,
which would include 10 percent of the voters in Ontario's seven regions.

---Or in other words, citizen initiated votes are impossible.

On tax matters that are allowed, (RIGHTER-RENDA) the bill would allow 25 percent plus one of the public to vote through a tax increase or decrease on a new tax. This is to be binding on future governments, but the problem is the procedure is so silly any future government would strike it down right away. Here Harris is simply appealing to his Reform Party core vote. The bill is a good election tool, as the far right will eat up the idea of voting down tax increases. And of course it won't occur to them that the next government will have all the dictatorial powers of Harris, including the power to simply dump his crazy RighterRenda Bill.

What really makes the situation worse is the attitude of some members of the NDP. They have now rejected the idea of referenda saying they are a
tiger that can't be tamed. Some liberals are taking the same line, warning about the dangers of referenda. Only problem is that Harris' bill is really a prohibition of referenda. Yet this prohibition has somehow stirred up a scare and those of us in citizens movement who believe referenda can be used fairly to decide on issues like Megacity, Casinos and MVA, come out the big losers. The Public as a whole is really the loser as we are losing the right to fair Referenda as a tool of Democracy. Ontario's three political parties offer little more than varying degrees of a poor form of representative democracy. We do need a transparent process and the elimination of undemocratic bills, boards and commissions, and we also need some progressive politicians who favour things like referenda and a citizens assembly.
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New Harris Education Funding Plans leads to layoffs--400 Peel District high school and  elementary teachers were fired yesterday. Officials say the province's new education funding model is the cause.  "It's a very sad day for Peel ... I'm very upset and  concerned," board chairman Janet McDougald said.  "This is just the beginning for us."  McDougald said the job cuts -- 100 elementary and  300 high school teachers -- are directly related to less money in the funding formula for librarians,  guidance counsellors and department heads as well  as teacher preparation time. She claimed her board's  budget will be $20 million short this year despite  being given a special "mitigation" allowance of $21 million.  D'Arcy Kingshott, president of the local high school  teachers union, said the 13% of his 2,480 members  will be out of work and he's "not overly optimistic"  they'll be hired back. "I'm outraged and angered ... I hold Mike Harris solely responsible." Toronto District school board chairman Gail Nyberg  said her board could be next with the layoff lists.
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Small Business Catastrophe:Property taxes are to skyrocket for  79% of  Toronto businesses under provincial reforms. Figures released yesterday  show small  businesses will be hardest hit -- but taxes on downtown   office towers will plummet.    "We have a tax crisis affecting the retail businesses all  across the city," said Councillor John Adams, chairman  of Toronto's assessment and tax policy task force.    With 29,912 businesses facing property tax hikes and   only 7,936 getting a break, Adams said council will have   to step in to prevent an economic catastrophe.    "More than 17,000 of these individual properties are   getting increases of more than 100% -- that's a crisis," he   said.    Adams wants a provincial audit of the assessment  process to determine why it's so unfair to so many "mom   and pop operations" while the banks' skyscrapers get a  tax break.
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Tenant Anger over higher property taxes: Charmian McFarlane lives in an Etobicoke high-rise apartment building. The new city of Toronto thinks her property taxes should be three times those of a home- owner.  ``I don't like it,'' she said in an interview. ``I don't see why tenants should be paying higher taxes than homeowners.'' Tenants  have been paying high taxes through their rents for years.  But Ontario's new assessment and tax structure makes the difference clear. Toronto's preliminary tax rate shows that homeowners will pay about 1.24 per cent of the value of their property each year in municipal and school taxes.  Owners of apartment buildings with more than six units will pay 4.4 per cent of the value of their property annually in taxes, or more than three times the rate that homeowners pay.  Those taxes will be passed through to tenants in their rent.  ``It couldn't be more blatant when you see those figures,'' says Ken Hale, a director of the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations.  McFarlane, who heads the tenants' council in her Kipling Ave. building, doesn't understand why apartment tenants should pay more.  ``We're not getting extra services for that,'' she says.  Hale says it will be important for tenants to get the issue front and centre with the new city council, which can change the preliminary tax rate if it wishes.  ``We're hoping to mount some sort of campaign to change their minds during the budget discussions,'' he says.  Even owner-occupied condominiums, which look pretty much the same as rental apartments, pay the lower, single family home tax rate.  ``There's no excuse for having buildings that are identical to each other - except one's called a condominium and one's called a rental - that have different tax rates,'' says Hale.  Tenants will have some allies in their battle.  Builders, who haven't constructed a private rental building in the Toronto area for many years, are demanding that at least newly constructed rental buildings should be taxed at the lower, single family home rate.  Richard Lyall, who heads the Metro Toronto Apartment Builders Association, says no new rental apartments will be built unless the tax rates are made fairer.
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Toronto Tax Unfair: Current Valur Assessment Taxation penalizes central city neighbourhoods where direct services and infrastructure such as roads, sewers and policing are efficiently delivered, and subsidizes the far costlier provision of these services in low-density peripheral areas.
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Banks criticize student loan overhaul: Canada's big banks are giving a failing grade to the Harris government's plan to overhaul the student loan system.  The proposal doesn't address the issue of choking student debt and will force poorer graduates to pay back even more money, the banks say.  ``We've been calling on all governments to reduce student debt and enhance the debt management tools,'' said Sandy Ferguson, vice-president of student product management at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  ``As I look at this news release, it doesn't address the debt levels.''  ``It doesn't necessarily suit the needs of anybody,'' one bank source said. ``What students want, and frankly what we want, is to reduce the total debt a student carries.  ``Increasing the number of years that you can carry a loan only increases the cost of borrowing for a very small benefit in terms of a (lower) monthly payment.''  The total amount that must be repaid on a 15-year loan is considerably higher than on a 10-year term.  Bank officials also said the deadline for implementing such a program is too short. And they expressed skepticism about the timing of yesterday's announcement - four days before next Tuesday's federal budget. For the past several years in Ontario, tuition fees have skyrocketed and student aid hasn't kept pace. Liberal education critic Lyn McLeod (Fort William) said the scheme is nothing more than ``a mask'' for higher tuition fees that will punish lower-income graduates by stretching their payments over a longer period.
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Court Rules Tory Environmental Policy to be illegal: An 83 page decision handed down by divisional court finds the Ontario Government in violation of the Canadian Forest Sustainability Act. Wildlife, conservation an wilderness preservation provisions have been violated. Government officials signed certificates okaying logging in places like Temagami without even reading the plans. They also signed certificates they had no authority to sign. The ministry has also been found guilty of allowing the building of an illegal access road into a logging area. The ruling points to the failure of the ministry and John Snobelen to appreciate and fulfil its legal obligations.
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Half of the Trees to be taken Away by Harris: The Tories' Lands For Life  winds up in June, it will decide the fate of 46 million hectares of the province's land, stretching from Peterborough west to the Manitoba border and comprising 58 per cent of all Ontario's forests. The government initiated Lands For Life with an announcement that it was creating 27 new parks and protected areas. Eco activists are alarmed. They've have trouble believing the series of roundtable discussions is anything but window dressing for the government and its industry buddies to make like the mythical Paul Bunyan and swing their giant axe across Ontario's forests. "When the ink dries, this process will be very difficult to reverse," says Wildlands League executive director Tim Gray. "Wild areas outside parks now won't exist in 20 years." the plan will be the largest in Ontario's history and will be carried out by a government that is uprooting every aspect of public lands policy. Consider that since the Tories came to power, half the ministry of natural resource's staff has been laid off and its annual budget slashed from $720 million to $394.4 million -- all in an attempt to put regulation responsibilities in the hands of companies. Similar reductions in staff have been seen in the ministry of the environment. Then there are the policy and legislative changes that have cleared the path, environmentalists say, for the unprecedented transfer of public lands into the hands of private interests, including giving the cabinet authority to approve projects even if companies are not complying with environmental laws, and the selling off of crown lands. Not to mention the fact that the Tories are seeking a stay of a recent court decision lambasting them for not abiding by the provisions of the Crown Forest Sustainability Act. Dubbed the Forest Management Transition Team, or "6 Pack," the group may approve the cutting of half of Ontario's trees.
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New Harris Attack on Students - Feb/98 Ontario parents will pay a higher share of their children's post-secondary education costs starting next year, Education Minister Dave Johnson says. Johnson said the government is clamping down on students by withholding income-tax refunds from those who can't repay loans. And Ontario will require schools with exceptionally high rates of loan defaulters to themselves repay a portion of the money. New lower thresholds on family income for determining how much the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will lend a student.  At present, OSAP and a federal matching program lend single students up to $9,350, and married students or single parents up to $17,000, a year for tuition and living expenses.  But those maximums can drop, depending on family income and on a student's own income and assets.  For example, children in a family of four whose household gross income is $40,000 a year currently qualify for the maximum loans. But under yesterday's announcement, the maximum is reduced by $100 regardless of whether one or both children attend a post-secondary institution.  In a family of four with a total income of $55,000, the current reduction is $324 but that will rise nearly threefold next year to $933 for one or both kids.  A household of four with a total income of $65,000 will see its reduction go to $3,919 from $3,286 at present. Wayne Poirier, head of the Ontario wing of the Canadian Federation of Students, called the change ``one further example of how the government is eroding student assistance.  Poirier recalled that tuition is expected to rise dramatically following a government decision late last year to allow colleges and universities to raise tuition by 20 per cent or more in the next two years.
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New Cuts Cruel as Harris Steals from the Homeless:Mike Harris' new welfare cuts will push homeless people off welfare. The changes were announced Monday Feb 1/98 by Social Services Minister Janet Ecker  They will deny the homeless a shelter allowance unless they can produce a receipt to prove they paid for lodging during the month.  Deny health cards to people not collecting welfare. Require people to produce receipts for utility costs and room and board rather than paying the automatic minimum. Ecker also appointed a provincial task force to help hide the homeless problem. 5,000 people in Metro are homeless, but do not collect welfare because they sleep in shelters every night. Another 125,000 people are believed to be doubled up with friends or family in public housing.  Many people worry about the impact of cutting drug benefit cards  from people in tenuous, low-paid jobs.
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Health Minister Liz Witmer has announced the Harris government will go ahead with a plan to close 5 of Ontario's 10 Psychiatric Hospitals. Hospitals in Brockville, St. Thomas, Hamilton and Thunder Bay will close. The Toronto Star titled its article on these closures - Boost in Services for the mentally ill. There is to be an increase in home care, but critics expect this move be another disaster as the last wave of deinstitutionalization was a disaster. People who are seriously mentally ill will hit the streets and subways.
New Cuts Cruel as Harris Steals from the Homeless: Mike Harris' new welfare cuts will push homeless people off welfare. The changes were announced Monday Feb 1/98 by Social Services Minister Janet Ecker  They will deny the homeless a shelter allowance unless they can produce a receipt to prove they paid for lodging during the month.  Deny health cards to people not collecting welfare. Require people to produce receipts for utility costs and room and board rather than paying the automatic minimum. Ecker also appointed a provincial task force to help hide the homeless problem. 5,000 people in Metro are homeless, but do not collect welfare because they sleep in shelters every night. A further 125,000 people are believed to be doubled up with friends or family in public housing.  Many people worry about the impact of cutting drug benefit cards  from people in tenuous, low-paid jobs. Harris hurts homeless: Premier Mike Harris has turned a troubling housing problem into a  nightmare. His policies have forced people into the streets. He scrapped all new public housing programs, including long-planned projects to provide homes to the poor and the mentally ill. He cut welfare rates by 22 per cent creating thousands of evictions in Metro.  He dumped Ontario's aging, dilapidated public housing stock on local municipalities without enough money to repair or maintain the apartments, townhouses and co-ops that house more than 100,000 poor seniors, families and people with physical and mental disabilities. The Tories talked this week about cutting welfare rates further in Canada's most expensive city. A welfare cut will increase the number of people without shelter.   Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer has also ordered more than half of Ontario's 5,282 psychiatric beds to close, including five of 10 psychiatric hospitals.
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New Bulldozer of Tory Dictatorship Prepares to Roll:
Mike Harris' bulldozer is prepared sift the rubble of damaged municipalities and hospitals in 1998 as it looks for new cuts. The Premier's priorities committee of cabinet wants more cuts to fulfil the election promise of a balanced budget by 2000-2001. The government is said to be looking for an additional $2 billion in ruthless quality of life cuts. To obtain these cuts cabinet is expected to increase its powers of dictatorship with laws that allow it to audit agencies outside of government. Management Board Chairman Chris Hodgson heads a panel charged with cutting fat within government. This panel has not done that, but instead is targeting sectors that have already been devastated. The panel singled out transfer partners - like hospitals, schools and municipalities as likely targets.
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