3.
Children’s Treatment
The Children’s Treatment sector, which provides
mental health and rehabilitation services to Ontario’s children, is
chronically underfunded and financially unstable. Right now, one in five
children in Ontario who need these services are on waiting lists, unable to
get the help they need. At least 1,600 have been waiting for more than a
year.
4.
Community college funding and accountability
Ontario now ranks ninth out of 10 provinces in
per-student funding of community colleges. College funding has risen
gradually since 2004, but this extra funding has done nothing to improve
student-teacher ratios.
-
If your party is elected, where will
Ontario stand in terms of per-student funding for community colleges at the
end of your term?
-
What will you do to ensure that
college management is held accountable so that the public dollars colleges
receive are used to improve education quality?
5.
Corporate tax collection and audits
In 2004, Ontario and the federal government signed
an agreement to transfer the collection and auditing of Ontario’s corporate
taxes, currently handled by the Ontario Ministry of Finance, to the Canada
Revenue Agency. An Ontario government bill to implement the transfer became
law on June 4, 2007.
-
If your party is elected, will you halt the uploading of
Ontario corporate tax collection and auditing and keep this work inside
the Ontario Ministry of Finance? If not, what steps will you take to
ensure that Ontario’s interests are protected under the new arrangement?
6.
Developmental services
Workers who
support people with developmental disabilities in Ontario are paid 25-30 per
cent less than workers in equivalent positions in health care,
education, and municipalities. This has led to a crisis of retention and
recruitment in developmental services.
7. Environmental protection – Ontario Clean Water Agency
In 2005, the government’s Water Strategy Expert
Panel recommended privatizing the Ontario Clean Water Agency and
establishing it as a commercial corporation to provide water services on a
contract basis, in competition with for-profit companies. However, as the
report recognizes, many of the smaller municipal water systems that OCWA
operates cannot be run on a full-cost recovery basis. There will continue to
be a need for emergency services, such as those OCWA provided during the
Walkerton water crisis.
-
Does your party support privatizing
OCWA, or would you maintain it as a public agency to offer a cost-effective
alternative for smaller municipalities, provide emergency services, and work
in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment?
8.
Environmental protection – MNR/MoE
In April 2007, the Environmental Commissioner of
Ontario issued a report stating that neither the Ministry of Natural
Resources nor the Ministry of the Environment have the capacity they need to
carry out their mandates. In the last 15 years, funding for the Ministry of
Natural Resources has fallen 18 per cent, in real terms, while funding for
the Ministry of the Environment has fallen 34 per cent. Meanwhile, the
scope, volume, and complexity of work of both ministries have expanded
greatly.
9.
Environmental protection – municipalities
Municipalities operate our Conservation
Authorities, run environmental education programs, protect wildlands,
operate sewage treatment and waste disposal facilities, and are taking steps
on their own to fight global warming.
10.
Environmental protection – Ontario Parks
Ontario now has 329 provincial parks, 292
conservation reserves, and 10 wilderness areas. Yet the province is
contributing just $15.3 million in operating funding this year to help them
meet their mandate. Just 21 per cent of parks funding comes from Queen’s
Park, the lowest level of any province in Canada. According to the MNR, our
parks generate $390 million in economic activity and 14,000 person-years of
employment for Ontario. A 2001 MNR report estimated that the parks generated
at least $41 million in provincial tax revenue. That number would be $46
million today, after inflation.
11.
Health care privatization – community health care
Under the
current “competitive bidding” model, community health care has become a
revolving door for workers who work for the same employer for a few years,
only to lose their jobs when a new employer takes over the service. This
model drives down wages, interrupts worker-client relationships, and causes
many workers to leave community health care at the first opportunity.
-
Will your party scrap the competitive bidding model for
community health care? If not, would you bring in successor rights for
unionized home care workers so that they automatically follow their
jobs, with their union and their collective agreement, when their work
is transferred to a new employer?
12.
Health care privatization - hospitals
The private
sector’s role involvement in Ontario’s hospitals has been growing steadily
for over a decade.
-
What is your position on using taxpayer dollars to pay
private for-profit companies to deliver hospital services such as
diagnostic and lab services, or so-called “ancillary” services like
food, cleaning, and laundry services?
-
What is your position on using taxpayer dollars to fund
private profits through so-called private-public partnerships in the
hospital sector?
13. Hospital professionals
Right now Ontario’s hospitals face dramatic
shortages for many health care professionals such as laboratory
technologists, respiratory therapists, x-ray technologists, and so on.
14.
Human rights – Bill 107
In December 2006, a bill to change the work of the
Ontario Human Rights Commission received Royal Assent. Critics of Bill 107
say it fails to address the Commission’s biggest problem – a shortage of
resources – and will reduce support and limit access to justice for people
with human rights complaints.
-
What is your plan to strengthen the
Ontario Human Rights Commission to ensure that the backlog of human rights
complaints is addressed and all people who are victims of human rights
violations receive speedy justice?
-
What is your plan to
assess and remove barriers to justice created by requiring all complaints to
be litigated?
15.
LCBO – deposit-return system for liquor bottles
In February 2007, the Ontario government
implemented a deposit-return system for liquor containers. The new system is
inconvenient – customers must return empties to The Beer Store – and
prevents re-use of containers.
-
If your party is elected, will you
implement a new deposit-return system that will see liquor containers
returned to the LCBO?
-
Will you instruct the LCBO to use
its market power to work with wineries and distilleries to increase the
re-use of liquor containers, particularly bottles?
16.
LCBO – privatization
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is extremely
profitable, earning more than $1.2 billion a year in profits alone for the
Ontario government. Many private investors would like to see the LCBO
privatized or turned into an income trust so that investors can get a share
of LCBO profits.
17.
LCBO – agency stores
Despite publicly opposing the privatization of the
LCBO, the current government is expanding the so-called “agency stores”
program to allow about 200 gas stations, grocery stores, and other private
businesses to sell alcohol to the public. This program costs the province
money, robs communities of the service and selection of a real LCBO store,
and has opened the door to alcohol sales to minors.
18.
Local Health Integration Networks
Perhaps the biggest change to Ontario’s health
care system in recent years has been the introduction of Local Health
Integration Networks, or LHINs.
-
Given that the LHINs are intended to reflect
the health needs of communities, do you favour electing the Boards of
Directors of LHINs at the community level, in the same way we
elect school board trustees?
19.
Long term care
The key issue facing the quality of care in
Ontario’s long term care sector is funding for staff to spend time with
their clients.
20.
Meat inspection
The Haines Inquiry into meat inspection in Ontario
strongly supported the work of provincial meat inspectors working for the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). The Haines
report was instrumental in bringing meat inspection, which had been
privatized by the Mike Harris government, back into the Ontario Public
Service in 2004.
21.
Mental health
Over the last three decades, governments of every
stripe have pursued a policy of moving people with mental illnesses out of
hospitals and into the community. Yet community mental health care has never
been adequately funded.
22.
Ontario Disability Support Program
Presently, Ontario Disability Support Program
payments are so low that recipients’ incomes are below the poverty line.
-
If your party forms the next
government, when will Ontario Disability Support payments be brought up to
poverty-line levels?
-
Will you reform the system so that
intermittently-disabled and partially-employed people are not penalized?
23.
Ontario Public Service
In the last 15 years, the Ontario Public Service
has been downsized by one-third. Funding pressures limit the capacity of
almost every OPS ministry. Workers in the OPSEU bargaining unit in the OPS
are still seeing their work transferred to other levels of government, to
arm’s length agencies, and to other bargaining units. We are seeing an
increase in head-office policy jobs and a decrease in community-based
service delivery jobs. We seem to be moving to a kind of “virtual
government” that concentrates on managing non-governmental bodies instead of
direct service delivery to the public.
24.
Ontario Public Service – job relocation
Conservative leader John Tory has pledged that, if
elected, he will move 10 per cent of government office space and thousands
of government jobs out of Toronto and relocate them to smaller communities
affected by jobs losses in the last four years.
25.
Provincial highways – Area Term Contracts
The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario is
actively working on plans to introduce “Area Term Contracts” for the
management of provincial highways. Pioneered in New Zealand, these contracts
to private operators would cover not only road maintenance but also road
reconstruction. They would last up to 20 years.
MTO’s record with privatization has not been good.
According to the provincial auditor, privatization of highway maintenance
has not delivered the promised savings. And the Highway 407 consortium has
free rein to raise road tolls until the year 2098.
26.
Public education
27.
Public health labs
In May 2007, the government passed legislation to
create a new Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. This will
move Ontario’s 12 public health laboratories outside of the Ontario Public
Service.
-
Will you revise the legislation to
put the public health labs under the direction of the Chief Medical Officer
of Health, as recommended by Justice Archie Campbell?
-
If your party is elected, will you
revise the legislation to keep the new agency within the OPS? If not, what
steps will your government take to ensure that the jobs, working conditions
and pensions of public health labs staff are protected, and the services
they provide are maintained and adequately funded?
Workplace issues
28.
Anti-scab legislation
In November 1995, the Mike Harris government
changed Ontario law to permit employers to use scabs, also known as
“replacement workers,” to perform the duties of workers who are on strike or
locked out. This change gave an unfair advantage to employers involved in
collective bargaining.
29.
Card check certification
In 2005, the
McGuinty government changed the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA)
to allow unions to certify new groups of workers when they can demonstrate
that 55 per cent of employees have signed a union application card. This
process, known as “card check certification,” is faster, simpler, and less
open to employer interference and intimidation than the certification votes
required in other sectors.
30.
Classification issues – Crown employees
In 1995, the Mike Harris government changed the
Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA) to make it
against the law for an arbitrator to issue a binding ruling on Crown
employee classification matters, i.e., classification grievances and job
classification systems. Other Ontario workers (who do not work for the Crown
or its agencies) face no such restrictions.
31.
Essential and emergency services – Ontario Public Service
Unlike workers in most bargaining units, public
service employees are required to provide essential and emergency services
in the event of a strike or lockout. This clearly tips the balance of power
in favour of the employer, thereby a) increasing the likelihood of work
stoppages; and b) increasing the duration of the work stoppages that do
occur.
32.
Minimum wage
More than one million Ontario workers earn less
than $10 an hour.
33.
Occupational Health and Safety
In his final report on SARS crisis, the late
Justice Archie Campbell recommended:
“That the precautionary principle, which states
that action to reduce risk need not await scientific certainty, be expressly
adopted as a guiding principle throughout Ontario’s health, public health
and worker safety systems by way of policy statement, by explicit reference
in all relevant operational standards and directions, and by way of
inclusion, through preamble, statement of principle, or otherwise, in the
Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Health Protection and
Promotion Act, and all relevant health statutes and regulations.”
34.
Part-time and contingent workers
According to the Workers Action Centre, 37 per
cent of jobs in Ontario are temporary, part-time or casual. Many of these
jobs pay low wages and offer few benefits, if any, and force workers to
travel between two or more jobs just to survive. In many cases, lax
enforcement of provincial laws means employers get away with violating basic
labour standards.
-
Will you strengthen the
Employment Standards Act to ensure that temp agencies and the employers
who use them are held accountable for ensuring fair working conditions?”
-
More generally, what is your
strategy to help people in low-end jobs, at the bottom end of our wealthy
economy, share in the prosperity of this province?
35.
Part-time college workers
Under the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act,
more than 17,000 part-time college workers are specifically excluded from
union representation. In November 2006, the International Labour
Organization, a body of the United Nations, has called on the Ontario
government to change the law to permit college part-timers to unionize. And
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled recently that collective bargaining is a
protected right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
36.
Pensions
Many Ontario public employees are enrolled in
successful pension plans like the Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan, the
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, the Ontario Teacher’s Pension
Plan, and the OPSEU Pension Trust. Thousands more are not so fortunate. Many
public sector workers earn substandard wages and have no pension plan beyond
the Canada Pension Plan.
37.
Safety-engineered medical sharps
Health care workers across Ontario are routinely
exposed to serious diseases like HIV and hepatitis because of needlestick
injuries. More than 33,000 such injuries could be prevented every year – and
millions of dollars in health care costs saved – if the next government
passed legislation requiring the use of safety-engineered medical sharps in
all health care settings.
38.
SARS and the next pandemic
In January, the late Justice Archie Campbell said,
in his final report on the SARS crisis, that hospitals and other health care
workplaces are as dangerous as mines or factories. He talked about the need
to build a safety culture in our hospitals and called for more training,
optimal staffing levels, and a new approach.
39.
Violence in the workplace
Workplace violence is a common occurrence in
children’s aid, in correctional facilities, in developmental services, in
health care, in liquor stores, in schools, and in many other workplaces.
This violence includes psychological harassment, ridicule, unwelcome teasing, harmful
gossip, bullying, intimidation, physical assault, and property damage.
Taxes and trade
40.
Taxation, revenue, and your fiscal plan
In 2007-08, the Ontario budget will be missing
more than $15 billion as a result of tax cuts implemented by the Harris-Eves
government. This amount equals the cost of running our entire public school
system. As a result, there is a huge gap between the money Ontario needs to
operate quality public services and the revenue available.
-
What is your fiscal plan for Ontario
for the next four years? If your party is elected, will you raise taxes? If
so, which ones, and by how much? Will you cut taxes? If so, which ones, and
by how much? If you do cut taxes, what public services will you cut to make
up for the revenue shortfall?
-
If your party is elected, what
revenue measures other than taxes will you implement?
41.
Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA)
The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility
Agreement (TILMA) signed by the governments of British Columbia and Alberta
came into effect on April 1, 2007. TILMA gives private enterprise
unprecedented powers to challenge provincial or municipal laws and
regulations that may pose a barrier to trade. Critics say TILMA will
increase privatization of public services and weaken regulation of business
activities.
Electoral reform
42.
Electoral reform for Ontario
The Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform
has proposed a new way to elect Ontario’s MPPs. In a referendum on Oct. 10,
voters will vote on the Assembly’s proposal of a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)
voting system.
