Toronto city council’s Policy and Finance Comittee is pushing forward a proposal to raise the salaries of all councillors and the mayor, to be decided on mext week. David Miller, Howard Moscoe and a host of other municipal politcians are publicly supporting this move. Presently a Toronto councillor salary is 87,000 (around three times the average Canadian income) and the mayor’s salary is 147,856 (around five times the average Canadian’s income). The self-serving rationale being offered by the mayor and councillors is that such a move is necessary in order to attract talent to the positions. This is an outrageous claim as these positions are supposed to be a public service, not a position for personal advancement at the public expense. In reality this is nothing more than a display of these politicians culture of entitlement.

Canadian politics seem to have been dominated by a few, select issues in the last couple of years. While these social topics get played up by media and others, the basic issues that affect most people get little attention.

Take for example rent and pay. Every person in Toronto, and indeed in World, needs a place to live and a way to pay for it. For too long, working people in Toronto have been faced with the dilemma of having to pay exorbitant rents on low wages.

Since both of these rent and wages are dependant on government policy in Ontario, as the provincial government sets the minimum wages and sets how much rent can be increased by (or can order rents to be frozen, meaning not increased), it is almost astounding that there has been so little mention of these issues in the media or by the mainstream political parties at election time or elsewhere.

However, it isn’t that surprising when realizing how the lack of public spotlight on these issues has lead to making working people poorer. During the early years of the Harris Conservatives, a lot of noise was made (and with justification) about the increases in rents that were taking place. A report by the Canadian Mortgage and
Housing Corporation in 2003 revealed that between 1993 – 2003, rents had increased
41% overall in the GTA. One can certainly assume that this figure is higher, since this report was based on figures voluntarily submitted by landlords!

Similarly, many pointed to the lack of increase to the already too low minimum wage throughout this period, which remained at a measly $6.75/ hr. The Liberals took advantage of the anger around the affect that these issues were having on working people and promised to bring solutions. In reality though, they have continued the policies that people in Ontario voted them to overturn.

The Liberals have refused to institute rent freezes, have cut into social assistance and have not addressed the issue of living wages for many workers and their families.
Minimum wage isn’t only an issue for those who make it, as a low minimum wage depresses the wages of the rest of the population. While an estimated 621 000 people in Canada work on or below a minimum wage, more than 1.2 Million workers in Ontario worked in jobs that paid below the poverty level in 2000.

McGuinty and his cronies argue that their meager increases to the minimum wage, which will be up to $8/hr by the end of 2008, are a solution to this problem. Their math doesn’t add up! Earning $8/hr for 40hrs per week, equals a before-tax total of $320 dollars per week. This would mean that the gross amount of money earned by a worker on minimum wage for a month would be $1280 before taxes.

With huge waiting lists for subsidized housing in the City and with the average cost of a two bedroom apartment at $1027 per month, there are thousands of Toronto families living cheque to cheque. In a 2005 submission to the government, the Vanier Institute of the Family said the minimum wage in now “not even close” to being a living wage, and added that “even two minimum wages in a household will not protect its children from the short-term and long-term consequences of poverty.”

Indeed, taking into account the average cost of a two bedroom apartment and factoring in minimum $524 grocery allowance needed by a family according to Toronto Public Health, a $99.75 MetroPass to commute to work, plus ‘luxuries’ such as clothes and home supplies, a living wage cannot be lower that $14/hr!

Implementing an actual living wage has a positive ripple effect on the economy, as people have more disposable income to spend. Even many economist agree that this is will have a positive effect on the economy. So why is it that there has been so little action on this? Truth is companies have an interest in keeping wages down, and keeping people poor. Having low minimum wages coupled with unemployment means that overall wages can be kept low, and people will still work for them because they need to try and provide for themselves and their families. In short, low minimum wages means more profits for big businesses and the people who own them.

Moreover, it must be said that most politicians either have no idea what the reality of most working people is, or simply don’t care. This is even reflected in the bureaucracies of the state. In a report on poverty, the Chief Statistician of Canada declared that in terms of income, “being significantly worse off than the average does not necessarily mean that one is poor.”

A huge portion of working people, particularly those in cities and immigrants, do not vote and are not the sources of campaign donations for the elections campaigns of those sitting in Queen’s Park or Parliament Hill. With City elections around the corner, and Provincial elections next year, those of us who know this reality need to create movements that will ensure that these issues are front and center.

Rents must be immediately frozen. Minimum wage must be increased to living wage levels of no less than $14/hr in order to actually address to the main problems that working people face every day!

The science is in: climate change is real, it’s caused by man-made pollution, and the impacts could be catastrophic on a global level, up to and including the destruction of human civilization. Yet despite this threat the Conservatives plan to do even less than the Liberals!

Instead of vigorously implementing the Kyoto Protocol, a modest international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels, the Harper regime has proposed a vague program of voluntary, non-binding (and therefore toothless) “targets” in cooperation with “industry” and the provinces. This strategy, despite its promotion as a “Made In Canada” solution, is actually straight out of the policy book of George W. Bush.

While the Conservatives love to point out that the US has had lower increases in emissions than Canada in recent years, they neglect to mention that much of our rise in emissions comes from increased extraction of oil and natural gas for export back to the US. Read more…

Stephen Harper’s government is desperately trying to justify the war in Afghanistan, claiming that we are in Afghanistan to “defend our national interests, ensure Canadian leadership in world affairs, and help Afghanistan rebuild” (presumably by destroying it more?). As usual the corporate media bombards us daily with reassurances that Canada should remain in Afghanistan and that it is playing a noble role. The truth could not be further from those claims.

In reality neither Canada, nor the other invading NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Alliance) powers are wanted in Afghanistan. The Afghani people have expressed their discontent through continued resistance in the countryside and multiple uprisings in Kabul, triggered by abuses by foreign soldiers and the fact that Canada is helping prop up a puppet warlord drug regime. These uprisings have been violently repressed by the U.S., Canada and other foreign powers. Read more…

Despite the “modern” and “inclusive” image the Conservatives tried to push during the elections, Harper’s cabinet is overall rich, white, rural and male. It is unlikely any of these people have ever had to worry about paying the rent or how they were going to pay off their student loans since they come from backgrounds of wealth and priviledge: lawyers, bureaucrats, CEOs, businessmen and corporate flunkies. Let’s take a closer look at a select few of the Conservative Party’s “best and brightest”:

DAVID EMERSON
Minister of International Trade
A former bureaucrat and CEO of a bank, airport, and logging company, Emerson revealed both his own lack of principles and the minimal differences between the Liberals and Conservatives when he jumped ship to Harper government immediately after the election, keeping the same cabinet position he had under Martin. This from the man who less than a year ago referred to the Tories as “blatantly opportunistic, partisan and misleading the Canadian people.” Read more…

Almost three years ago, the people of Toronto elected a mayor who projected himself as the saviour for communities who suffered under the Federal Liberal, Provincial Conservatives and Mel Lastman crooks. Not only were we promised an end to corruption, but also social housing, improved transit and more. Three years later, with another Municipal election looming at the end of the year, what exactly did Mayor Miller do for us?

Let’s look at the track record.

POVERTY AND HOUSING
Organizations such as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) have pointed out that while having been elected as the ‘people’s mayor’, the one who would focus attention to improvement of services and programs for communities, Miller has instead cozied-up to the very people he was supposed to be against. While drop-ins such as the one at 60 Richmond have closed, no new social housing units have been built in the City at all. On the contrary, the shelter by-laws that limit the amount of beds in shelter within given communities as well as gentrification projects such as the Regent Park re-development will ensure that Miller’s legacy will leave Toronto with less housing and shelter for poor and working class people. Read more…

400 Households have been demolished and almost 1200 residents have been relocated. With the new developer yet to be announced as of publication, it isn’t clear whether the new Stephen Harper government will even follow through on the previous arrangements for Federal funding to urban centres. That’s no small problem when one considers that the entire redevelopment plan concocted by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation and City Hall, depends on 90 million dollars in Provincial and Federal funding. Many remain justifiably skeptical about the motives behind this. As it stands, the whole plan will actually reduce the number of rent geared to income units in Regent, and turn over sections of the Park to private condo developers and commercial businesses.

The first phase is no exception as most of the units built will be for market rate sale. While the idea of a new look and some building upgrades has appeal, was it really necessary to sneak in a back door partial gentrification? Is this the pill we are supposed to swallow just in order to get building disrepair addressed? It’s high time, and still not too late for an organized community response.