That Justice Charles Hackland found Mayor Rob Ford in violation of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act and ordered him removed from office bodes well for a more progressive Canada. [ Read the full text of the decision here. Thanks to Torontoist for posting the document. ] For the past
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Defending Public Healthcare: McGuinty government demands multiple concessions
As expected, the McGuinty government has made a long series of concession demands at the OPSEU “OPS” negotiations, where OPSEU is bargaining on behalf of 36,000 provincial civil servants. Here is what OPSEU saw from the government on the first day:
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Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: PCs rule out legislative wage freeze deal with McGuinty
The Progressive Conservatives have — effectively — all but ruled out reaching an agreement with the McGuinty government on a legislative public sector “wage freeze”.While complaining that the McGuinty government has not pursued negotiations wit…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Elderly pushed out of hospitals: Elder Advocate
Jane Meadus of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly says that some seniors are being pushed out of hospital too soon under the province’s Home First policy, the Ottawa Citizen reports.
“Patient safety is at high risk…While many patients will do well …
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: OSSTF bargaining stops as OPSEU talks start
Negotiations between the government and OSSTF (the union representing public secondary school teachers) have ended. Harvey Bischof, vice president for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, told the Ottawa Citizen that t…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal excuse for ending collective bargaining in tatters
September was a big month for collective agreement settlements in Ontario and the wage settlements fell, according to the government of Ontario. Public sector settlements for 36,348 workers saw annual average wage increases of 0.6%.
This o…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Home and community care funding less than promised
The announcements of new “home and community care” funding (which started last week) continue, this time for the Ottawa area.
Home care activists
First the good news. The $7.15 million announced for the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) …
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Tiny cracks appear in Liberal attack on collective bargaining
After the architects of the Liberal attack on collective bargaining (Premier McGuinty and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan) announced their exit from provincial politics, the first, very modest, move away from their policy has appeared.
Kathleen Wyn…
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Tim Hudak Proposes to End Overregulation with More Regulation
Ontario PC Leader, and most likely our next Premier Tim Hudak has released his predictable rehash of the Harris “common sense revolution.” Massive tax cuts are of course there, but it seems Mr. Hudak can’t quite decide how best to shovel money at rich people, immediately under his top priority
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal problems come from their turn to the right
As two Liberals on the (presumed) left of the party declare their intention to run for the leadership, it bears recalling that almost all of the major problems the Liberals have faced in the last few years have come from attempts to re-position the party to the right. First, Premier
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Will Liberal leadership candidates support free collective bargaining?
Both of the key architects of the Liberal government’s attack on free collective bargaining are as good as gone. McGuinty will be gone January 26 and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has indicated he will likely be gone from the Finance Ministry right about the same time. The Liberal party has
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Upcoming collective bargaining may test new Liberal strategy
The Ontario Liberal government’s brand was built on creating social consensus after the harsh discord of the previous Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government. That worked well for the Liberals until this past few months when they moved to crush free collective bargaining and unilaterally impose not just a wage freeze
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Ambulances spending 21% more time in hospitals
The new Ontario Municipal Benchmarking Initiative public report indicates that ambulances (and by extension paramedics) are spending more and more time in hospitals. For the thirteen (mostly large) Ontario communities included, the median percentage of time ambulances spend in hospitals has increased from 15.5% in 2009, to 17.8% in 2010,
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Will PCs give Liberals a blank cheque?
Tim Hudak’s concerns about the proposed Liberal public sector bargaining legislation are numerous. The legislation fails to impose an immediate pay freeze on workers. (“It’s not a wage freeze, it just kicks the problem down the road until 2015 and then maybe gets around to freezing wages at a higher level.”) It exempts municipal
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberals conceal ugly concessions (as other wages rise)
The proposed public sector “compensation restraint” legislation floated on Wednesday by the Liberals is neatly silent on whether the government will impose contract concessions on 500,000 working people. The government consistently talks of a “compensation freeze” or “compensation restraint”. Obligingly, the (corporate-owned) media has usually repeated that framing of the
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Hudak keeps open option of alliance with Liberals
Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has kept his powder dry and has reframed from personally criticizing the Liberals’ proposed public sector labour legislation. Or even commenting on it. Instead, he sent out Monte McNaughton, who faulted the proposed legislation in all sorts of ways: the legislation “is clearly lacking
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Are public sector cuts ‘tame’ compared to private sector?
Dwight Duncan claimed yesterday that compared to the belt-tightening endured by workers in the private sector, his legislation restricting collective bargaining in the public sector “is tame stuff”. Sounds like a claim worth investigating. Wages are the most important single item bargained — for both workers and employers. So it’s
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Health care cutbacks across Ontario
Sudbury hospital officials expect the shortage of hospital beds in the city will force 4 surgeries a day to be cancelled. Thirty have been cancelled this month. Dr. David Boyle, the hospital’s medical director of surgical services told the CBC he’s frustrated because his department has toiled away at reducing
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: PC plan a threat to small town Ontario?
The Progressive Conservatives (PCs) plan to turn health care funding responsibilities over to 30 to 40 hospitals. These “hub” hospitals would be licensed to move money from one provider in the area to another. This will leave the other 120 or so hospitals beholden to the hub hospitals for funding.
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberals threaten to bring back interest arbitration legislation
A senior Liberal official has said the government will bring back the interest arbitration legislation that was defeated when the government brought in its Budget bill earlier this year. “We’ll be taking action and reintroducing the sections of the budget bill that Hudak instructed his party’s members to vote against,
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