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#affordable insurance Ontario

taylorknudsen · 2 years

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Ontario's Best Car Insurance Charges For

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#affordable insurance Ontario #cheap insurance Ontario #Ontario cheap insurance #best rate insurance Ontario #Ontario affordable insurance #Ontario best rate insurance #online insurance company #low-rate insurance

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kp777 · 1 year

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By Kenny Stancil

Common Dreams

May 10, 2023

"We want to know why there are Americans who are dying, or are becoming much sicker than they should, because they can't afford the medicine they need," said the Vermont Independent.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday paid his respects to the victims of insulin price gouging in front of the Big Pharma CEOs who are responsible and reiterated the need to make all lifesaving prescription drugs affordable.

Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), opened the panel's hearing by acknowledging "the many Americans who have needlessly lost their lives because of the unaffordability of insulin" and "the thousands who wound up in emergency rooms and hospitals suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis—a very serious medical condition as a result of rationing their insulin."

"This is a problem that is unique to the United States."

Diabetes—a disease that can wreak havoc on organs, eyesight, and limbs if left unmanaged—affects more than 37 million U.S. adults and is the country's eighth leading cause of death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although it costs less than $10 to produce a vial of insulin required to treat diabetes, uninsured patients in the U.S. pay nearly $300 per vial of the century-old drug because Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi—the three pharmaceutical corporations that control 90% of the nation's lucrative insulin market—charge excessive prices with little resistance from federal lawmakers.

As Sanders noted, such corporate profiteering—a problem compounded by the widespread lack of coverage under the nation's for-profit healthcare system—forces many people to skip doses, with deadly consequences. Recent studies found that 1.3 million people in the U.S. ration insulin, including an estimated 1 in 4 people with Type 1 diabetes. People without insurance are the most likely to do so, followed by those with private insurance.

Ahead of the hearing, Sanders released a video featuring diabetes patients sharing their struggles to afford insulin in the U.S.

youtube

"Imagine just three companies having worldwide market dominance over such necessities as air and water," Steve Knievel, an advocate with Public Citizen's access to medicines program, said Wednesday in a statement. "This is what people with diabetes face with insulin."

Addressing the CEOs of the three aforementioned firms during the hearing, Sanders outlined how each has jacked up prices in recent decades:

Eli Lilly increased the price of Humalog 34 times since 1996 from $21 to $275—a 1,200% increase. The same exact product. No changes at all. The only reason for the huge increase in price during that period was that there was no legislation to stop them. In America, the drug companies could charge any price they want. But it's not just Eli Lilly. Novo Nordisk increased the price of Novolog 28 times from $40 in 2001 to $289—a 625% increase. And then there is Sanofi, a company that increased the price of Lantus 28 times from $35 in 2001 to $292—a 730% increase.

"In every instance it is the same exact product that rose astronomically," said Sanders. "And let's be clear. This is a problem that is unique to the United States. In France, 20 years ago, the cost of Lantus was $40. Today, it has gone down to just $24."

Sanders has famously accompanied Americans with diabetes on a two-mile trip from Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario. In Canada, people can purchase the exact same insulin product for one-tenth of the price they would pay in the U.S.

"We cannot rely on limited price concessions from insulin corporations to ensure this essential resource is accessible and fairly priced for Americans who need it."

Also in attendance at Wednesday's hearing were the leaders of CVS Health, Express Scripts, and OptumRX, three major pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Sanders took them to task, noting that "as insulin manufacturers continued to increase prices, PBMs signed secret deals to increase their profits by putting insulin products on their formularies not with the lowest list price but the ones that gave PBMs the most generous rebates."

Thanks to sustained public pressure and fresh policy changes—namely the Inflation Reduction Act's provision limiting Medicare beneficiaries' insulin copayments to $35 per month—Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi have all recently pledged to significantly lower the list prices for some of their insulin products. As Sanders explained:

Eli Lilly announced it would reduce the price of Humalog by 70% later this year—from $275 to $83. Eli Lilly also decreased the price of its generic Humalog to $25 per vial. Novo Nordisk announced it would reduce the price of Novolog by 75% beginning next year—from $289 to $72. Sanofi announced it would reduce the price of Lantus by 78% beginning next year—from $292 to $64.

While Sanders thanked the three companies for taking what he called "an important step forward," he stressed that "we must make sure that these price reductions go into effect so that every American with diabetes gets the insulin they need at an affordable price," vowing to "hold a hearing early next year to make certain that happens."

Knievel, meanwhile, said that "we cannot rely on limited price concessions from insulin corporations to ensure this essential resource is accessible and fairly priced for Americans who need it, regardless of their insurance status or age."

His message was echoed by Margarida Jorge, head of Lower Drug Prices Now.

"Certainly, these multimillion-dollar CEOs will spend their time in front of the committee patting themselves on the back for bowing to public pressure and lowering the cost of insulin," Jorge said in a statement. "But let's be clear, the tens of millions of Americans who cannot afford their prescription medication should not have to depend on the goodwill of greedy corporations who have repeatedly shown they care about profits more than people to bring them relief from skyrocketing prescription costs."

Sanders and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) recently introduced the Insulin for All Act of 2023, which would cap insulin prices at $20 per vial.

Only federal legislation of this sort can "put an end to decades of price gouging that has led to preventable suffering and costs the lives of people with diabetes who need insulin to live," Knievel emphasized.

Meanwhile, Sanders made clear that the unaffordability of insulin is part of a much broader crisis and proceeded to ask:

If Eli Lilly can lower the price of Humalog by 70%, why is it still charging the American people about $200,000 for Cyramza (CYR-AMZA) to treat stomach cancer—a drug that can be purchased in Germany for just $54,000? If Novo Nordisk can lower the price of Novolog by 75%, why is it still charging Americans with diabetes $12,000 for Ozempic when the exact same drug can be purchased for just $2,000 in Canada? If Sanofi can reduce the price of Lantus by 78%, why is it still charging cancer patients in America over $200,000 for Caprelsa—a drug that can be purchased in Japan for just $37,000?

"Lowering the cost of insulin is only one part of what we must accomplish," said the senator. "This committee is determined to end the outrage in which Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for virtually every brand name prescription drug on the market—whether it is a drug for cancer, heart disease, asthma, or whatever."

"We want to know why there are Americans who are dying, or are becoming much sicker than they should, because they can't afford the medicine they need," he continued. "We have got to ask, how does it happen that nearly half of all new drugs cost over $150,000? How does it happen that cancer drugs which, in some cases, cost just a few dollars to manufacture are selling on the market for over $100,000?"

"Americans die, get sicker than they should, and go bankrupt because they cannot afford the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, while the drug companies and the PBMs make huge profits. That has got to change."

"I know that our guests from the drug companies will tell us how much it costs to develop a new drug and how often the research for new cures is not successful," said Sanders. "I get that. But what they are going to have to explain to us is why, over the past decade, 14 major pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, spent $747 billion on stock buybacks and dividends."

"They will also have to explain how as an entire industry pharma spent $8.5 billion on lobbying and over $745 million on campaign contributions over the past 25 years to get Congress to do its bidding," Sanders added. "Unbelievably, last year, drug companies hired over 1,700 lobbyists including the former congressional leaders of both major political parties—that's over three pharmaceutical industry lobbyists for every member of Congress."

In Sanders' words, "That could well explain why we pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world and why today drug companies can set the price of new drugs at any level they wish."

"While Americans pay outrageously high prices for prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry and the PBMs make enormous profits," he noted. "In 2021, 10 major pharmaceutical companies in America made over $100 billion in profits—a 137% increase from the previous year. The 50 top executives in these companies received over $1.9 billion in total compensation in 2021 and are in line to receive billions more in golden parachutes once they leave their companies. Last year, the three major PBMs in America made $27.5 billion in profits—a 483% increase over the past decade. These PBMs manage 80% of all prescription drugs in America."

"In other words, Americans die, get sicker than they should, and go bankrupt because they cannot afford the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, while the drug companies and the PBMs make huge profits," Sanders lamented. "That has got to change and this committee is going to do everything possible to bring about that change."

Jorge, for her part, described the Inflation Reduction Act as a "milestone" law that "will help tens of millions of seniors."

"But it is just the start," said Jorge. "Congress should pass legislation to bring the prescription drug reforms that are saving Medicare patients and taxpayers billions to people of all ages, so that everyone can get lower drug prices on medicines they need—including insulin."

"Congress, not greedy corporations trying to redeem their tarnished reputations, should be leading the way on reforms that put patients ahead of pharmaceutical profits," she added.

#bernie sanders #prescription drug price #big pharma #health care #insulin prices #Youtube

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newsfromstolenland · 2 years

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175 dollars for meds? Jesus. Pharma companies are greedy assholes. If every province had their own pill companies, like Saskatchewan had their own phone company, I wonder if other pill companies would lower their prices to compete like, phone companies in Saskatchewan do. If some people afford to get their pills they might go through nasty side effects. We are the only country with a national healthcare system that doesn’t cover universial pharmacare. What the fuck Canada? This is an ableist as fuck nation. My mom’s cpap machine broke down and she cannot afford a new one. They are over a thousand fucking dollars. This nation is ableist as fuck! I am sorry you have to go through all these expenses

the money is for three seperate medications, but I agree. universal healthcare is not truly universal until it includes pharmacare and dentalcare and any kind of assistive devices

the kicker is that my only income is disability which you would think would provide insurance coverage for medications. unfortunately it only covers medications directly related to the disability that got me on ODSP (ontario disability support) in the first place.

so things like my inhaler, birth control, sleep meds, and nasal spray for nasal polyps, have to be paid for out of pocket.

but disability benefits don't provide nearly enough to cover those and living expenses, so I'm pretty much constantly asking for donations on the internet

my biggest fear is having to sacrifice certain medications to get by. my asthma is severe enough to kill without an inhaler. my nasal polyps make breathing through my nose impossible without nasal spray. my sleep meds are the only reason I don't go days without sleep. and my birth control regulates severe period cramps and...well, I'd rather not get pregnant. how can I sacrifice any of those?

basically, without the donations of every lovely person who has helped out, I would hardly be able to function

#asks #anonymous

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vaingod · 1 year

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genuinely havent felt a thing since finding out my bottom surgery is no longer covered by Ontario insurance in any way in or outside the country. Like im fucked. Id have already received and healed from bottom surgery if I didnt immigrate to so called canada like. You can no longer get phalloplasty without vigenoctomy covered. The surgery at stage one is minimum 70k, I couldn't afford this if I worked my entire life and its just. Idk I have no words it took me a year post top surgery to work through the medical trauma of getting rejected and denied the surgery for 5 years before that, I havent even started to process this or where my transition will be going it just feels like im perpetually riding an escalator to nowhere

#transition

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kaiba-cave · 1 year

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I need to start saving up money to buy a house or something lmao my rental situation is stressing me tf out. Not that I have any money to spare to save, and I probably wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage even if I had enough saved for a down payment, pfft. Like I swear I didn’t have as many grey hairs before the basement flooded and all this shit happened as I do now.

If the basement had never flooded I’d still be perfectly happy down there but it’s now two months later and they’ve only just removed the damaged walls. Landlord’s wife is coming back April 26th and it definitely won’t be done by then, so I have to either find somewhere that’s short term or go to my mom’s house for who knows how long. And anyone who’s followed me for years knows how little I get along with my dad when we live together, so I’m dreading that. I’d almost rather stay in a hotel if they weren’t too expensive, except I have my cat and finding a pet friendly place is hard enough.

I was supposed to move into the main floor apartment but that lady decided she doesn’t want to leave. I don’t know if the landlord has a legitimate reason to evict her either because I know they don’t get along, but if you don’t have a legit reason you can’t just kick her out. 🤷‍♀️

Also this might be dumb but out of everything the thing I feel the worst about is that my cat loves it up here. I feel like super guilty that I’ve let her get used to a nice apartment with windows she can look out of, only to bring her back down to the basement eventually anyway. Is that stupid? lmao like I know she’s a cat and she’ll probably forget about it in a week once we’re back in the basement, but still. I’d gladly pay another $300 for an above ground apartment with windows just for her. Plus I’m just paranoid about it flooding again.

AND on top of everything the landlord mentioned how the basement apartment would be a bit more for rent once it was done and I didn’t say anything at that point because I thought I’d be going to the main floor so it wouldn’t matter, but as far as I’m aware a landlord can’t raise rent when they do renovations when the renovations were done because of damage. It’s not like I voluntarily moved out and am now going back, I was forced out and once the renovations are done I should have the exact same rent as before. So now I’m like ugh I’m going to have to confront them about that eventually. They’ve been good this whole time and I’m easygoing so we’ve gotten along really well and they won’t expect me to be like mmmm no, but I’m not paying more for rent when I shouldn’t have to. Unless they only raise it like $50 or something I might just let it be, but more than that, no.

I’m going to ask the insurance estimator who’s been kind of helping me out about that again just so I know for sure they can’t do that, because he knows what he’s talking about.

I’m just stressing tf out lmao I’ve actually gone and looked at two apartments. One was affordable but tiny (like probably the size as what I have in the basement, just with an extra wall so there’s technically a bedroom), and another today that was just meh, kind of old and bleh.

And since I live in the Niagara Region of Ontario it’s RARE to find anything less than $1200, and then half the time you also have to pay utilities, and unlike here internet wouldn’t be included either, which also isn’t cheap. And I’ve looked like cities away from where I am but there’s just nowhere cheap.

Too bad I can’t move across the border into Buffalo or Niagara Falls, NY, lmao. Some of those places are cheap af even for American dollars and I’m literally right across the river and paying like double what they are. Sigh.

And smaller issue but still something I think about, my couch (which was also my bed) got ruined and since I didn’t get any money from my insurance I can’t replace it. My Pa helped me buy it and I feel bad that it got wrecked after only having it for like two years. It was expensive too. So no matter where I end up I still need a bed or another sleeper couch.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH

#text #long post sorry just venting

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 6 years

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One of the more pernicious myths circulating in Ontario’s labour ranks is that the Days of Action – the big protests and strikes against the Harris Tories in the late 1990s – somehow led to the re-election of the Harris Tories in 1999.

This is complete nonsense.

Let’s examine why the Tories were re-elected in 1999. We’ll start with the economic context, then the Harris re-election strategy, and lastly the sorry state of the opposition parties. Then we’ll do a dive into the rise and fall of the Days of Action.

The Harris Recession

After Ontario’s booming 1980s, the province’s experience of the global recession of 1990-1992 was exceptionally deep and long due to a radical wave of free trade deindustrialization. The province’s large manufacturing base faced the kinds of permanent mass layoffs faced by Ontario’s American neighbours, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

The decade also opened with a breakthrough NDP election in September 1990. With the Toronto housing market bursting around him, Peterson called an early election only three years into his majority mandate. With the Liberals above 50 percent in the polls, voters instead rebelled and elected an NDP majority. Peterson had tried to buy time with a new majority mandate. Instead, Bob Rae became the Premier of Ontario – with 37.6 percent of the popular vote.

The worst of the recession fell on Bob Rae’s NDP regime from the moment they won until the end of 1993. In 1994, signs of a recovery were dashed and the province’s economic crisis would last into 1997. Due to a new American boom, a strong recovery for Ontario was enjoyed in 1994, but the Harris Tories were elected in 1995 and sent the economy back into recession. Unemployment went up again and growth flat-lined in 1996. Harris and his “Common Sense Revolution” was shock therapy: infrastructure and housing projects were slashed by billions, labour laws decimated, budgets slashed, and 13,000 pink slips for 65,000 Ontario Public Service workers.

The Harris Recession was also deepened by the 1995 federal budget under the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The Liberals made Mulroney’s squeeze on provincial transfers permanent.

The Liberals also mauled Unemployment Insurance just like Mulroney had. Between the years 1990 and 1996, unemployment insurance eligibility was cut in half from 80% of unemployed to 40% of unemployed. The cuts to UI under Mulroney ensured that when unemployment climbed over 10 percent in 1992 and 1993, a lot more people found themselves ineligible or running out of UI and having to go collect social assistance. Ontario’s welfare rolls exploded, peaking at 1.3 million people (12 percent of the province) between 1993 and 1995.

While the Tories took Ontario back into recession, the American economy continued its GDP growth boom, and hitting 4.5 percent in 1997 and 4 percent annual growth rates through to 2001. With Ontario’s biggest trading partner sucking up imports, Ontario’s bruised manufacturing sector began to revive. In late 1997, the unemployment rate began a four-year decline. At the very same time, the Toronto-centred housing crash bottomed out after an incredible 8-year slide.

The housing crisis was one of the forgotten factors of why working people in Ontario felt so insecure during the 1990s recession. In the absence of good jobs and real social security programs, home ownership and growing home prices became increasingly attractive as the new family income security plan for many working people. The government-financed co-operative housing alternative was destroyed by Mulroney, Chretien and Harris. In this leaner, meaner Canada of the 1990s, homes became the privatized social security system – but only if you could inherit or afford a mortgage.

As unemployment fell and the American boom went into overdrive in 1997, the Chretien Liberals won a second federal majority with a promise to reinvest in shredded social programs. The American boom and mild federal reinvestments put an end to the austerity offensive in Ontario. There was a sense of the worst really being over. In 1998, the Liberals and media were busy declaring victory against the deficit. The federal budget surplus was heavily financed by the Employment Insurance surplus accrued by halving eligibility, and a raid of federal government worker pension surpluses.

By the spring of 1999, Ontario’s economic fortunes had largely reversed thanks to the American boom and the end of federal funding cuts. Mike Harris, his party, and their business partners boldly claimed the Common Sense Revolution was responsible for the recovery.

The Best Election Money Can Buy Despite improving economic circumstances, the Harris Tories were not going to count on the recovery to help them win the election. They needed a public relations machine the province had never seen. During the 28-day election campaign, they set an Ontario election spending record of $23.5 million. The NDP and Liberals together spent less than $6 million. The election’s much-hyped and record-setting “third party” spending was just over $6 million and spread out across 29 registered advocacy groups. The Tories doubled the combined spending of the two opposition parties and all advocacy groups.

The Tories made all this possible by rewriting election campaign spending laws, campaigning through public money under the guise of ministerial advertising, and getting exceptionally fat donations from the business class and the wealthy. More than two-thirds of the money raised by the central Tory campaign came from corporations. A fair number of them were six-figure donations.

The Tories also raised the limit on individual donations from $14,000 to $25,000. This was chump change for the wealthy, not working people. The Tories also effectively exempted party leader spending limits. The Tories spent $1.6 million on their election leadership tour. The Liberals spent $392,000, the NDP only $65,000.

According to Robert MacDermid’s groundbreaking study of the 1999 election’s spending, the Harris Tories raised overall campaign spending limits in Ontario by 114 percent.

To maximize their money advantage, the Tories deliberately also shortened the campaign period from 40 to 28 days in order to allow maximum unrestricted campaigning before the restrictions of the official election campaign. The Tories spent as much money on advertising during the month before the election as they did in the official 28-day election campaign.

On two of their weakest fronts, healthcare and education, the Tories spent at least $20 million in public money before the election through large ministerial advertising campaigns.

With the economy recovering and a massive war chest, the Tories only had to worry about their opposition.

NDP betrayal, labour divided, right-wing Liberals There was no effective electoral opposition to the Harris Tories in 1999. After the disasters and disappointments of the 1990-1995 NDP government, the NDP vote in Ontario plummeted to historic lows. From 1.5 million votes in 1990, the party fell to 850,000 in 1995. In 1999 that number was 550,000. The pattern was even worse in federal terms. The NDP won 20.1 percent in the 1988 election, collapsing to 6 percent in 1993, and only 10.7 percent in 1997.

For some, voting NDP was a principle. The leadership of many major unions remained loyal and lined up behind the NDP through the 1990s. However, many unions broke with the Ontario NDP over the 1993 Social Contract. The Social Contract was an NDP plan to cut $2 billion out of government labour costs to fight a $13 billion deficit. The unions rejected opening up their union contracts to impose concessions, so the Social Contract was passed as legislation. It forced open collective agreements covering hundreds of thousands of public sector workers and imposed concessions. Of all the concessions, the forced unpaid days off – “Rae Days” – came to symbolize the betrayal of the NDP.

The Social Contract was a catastrophe, and a massive gift to the NDP’s right-wing and business opposition. In one of Bob Rae’s apocryphal stories in his memoirs, Rae writes that former Canadian autoworkers president Bob White tore a strip off Rae and the other NDP premiers, Romanow of Saskatchewan and Harcourt of BC, saying “Why the hell should working people see all their benefits and everything we’ve been fighting for all these years go down the drain because you guys have bought into all this neo-conservative economics. You’re elected to fight for our people, not to stick your nose up Mulroney’s ass.” Curiously, White responded to this quote in Rae’s memoirs by denying he ever said it. Either way, White, who had become the Canadian Labour Congress president, opposed the Social Contract.

The Social Contract split the labour movement in half. The “Common Front” unions of the public sector and the autoworkers (CAW) voted successfully to pull the Ontario Federation of Labour out of the Ontario NDP at the 1993 OFL convention. The unions loyal to the NDP, the “Pink Paper” unions, walked out of the convention in protest. In the 1995 election, the Common Front unions didn’t put a lot of muscle behind the NDP. By 1999, unions like CUPE were soft on supporting the NDP, and the CAW endorsed anti-Harris strategic voting. The NDP were never a threat to the Tories in 1995 or 1999.

The 1995 election was a surprise because the Liberals went in with over 50 percent support in the polls. However, they cratered as the Tories were elected on a Common Sense Revolution platform of “tough love” austerity, scapegoating welfare recipients, repeal of employment equity (what Harris called “the quota law”), as well as big promises like a 30 percent income tax cut and a plain-as-day commitment to not cutting healthcare. The Tories would decimate healthcare with cuts, but they did deliver the income tax cut – over half the cut went to the wealthiest 10 percent.

Once elected, Harris declared war on everyone and everything. It took a few months for labour leaders to scramble a response – they initially thought they could talk Harris out of his Common Sense Revolution. As the protest movement grew in the fall of 1995, the November 1995 OFL convention saw an uneasy peace struck between the Common Front and Pink Paper union leaders: everyone was back in the NDP again as the Pink Paper unions wanted, and the Days of Action protests and strikes would begin as the Common Front unions wanted.

But the Pink Paper unions spent the next two years undermining the Days of Action through a strategy of non-participation in strikes, and taking over labour councils to throttle support. Days after the massive Metro Days of Action in October 1996, the Pink Paper unions came out publicly against the entire Days of Action campaign. Their expressed strategy for defeating Harris was shelving the Days of Action and waging a “union education” campaign to get workers to vote NDP again.

The NDP, however, never disavowed the right-wing turn under Rae, and never apologized for the Social Contract. This was one reason the CAW and CUPE leaderships remained critical and hostile to the actions of the Pink Paper unions during the Days of Action.

When the November 1997 OFL convention arrived, long-serving OFL president Gord Wilson decided not to seek re-election. The Pink Paper and Common Front factions put up competing candidates. At the last moment, the OPSEU leadership broke ranks with the Common Front and threw its support behind the Pink Paper candidate, Wayne Samuellson. Samuellson would win by a narrow margin. While convention delegates voted for a province-wide general strike in 1998, the Days of Action were formally shelved at an OFL meeting of to union leaders in July 1998 – a full year before the expected election date.

While CUPE eventually decided to endorse the NDP for the 1999 election, the NDP campaign was without enthusiasm. Nobody expected a miracle as the NDP had been languishing in the polls between 15 and 20 percent support. Many unions, notably CAW, OPSEU and also the teacher unions, opted for strategic voting to block another Tory majority. Both the pro-NDP and strategic voting election strategies failed miserably. The Tories were re-elected with 100,000 more votes, while the NDP vote collapsed further from 850,000 to 550,000.

Hardly their first choice of government, a lot of people hoped the Liberals would oust Harris. For much of 1997 and 1998, the Liberals were ahead of the Tories in the polls. The Liberals gained 460,000 votes in the election, and rose from 31 to 40 percent of the vote. However, their new leader, Dalton McGuinty, was an unknown figure and won the party leadership in 1996 on a right-wing platform. In the 1995 election, the Liberals had also run on a platform as bad as the Harris Tories. The Liberals couldn’t bring themselves to campaign on reversing the Common Sense Revolution. Ultimately, the Ontario Liberals agreed with it. This is exactly how they would govern Ontario during their 2003-2018 regime.

Did the Days of Action get Harris re-elected? From 1996 to early 1999, the Harris Tories were usually second in the polls. Their support was pushed down at the height of the Days of Action and opposition to the Common Sense Revolution between late 1995 and late 1997. The protest movement of mass rallies, strikes, petition drives, high school walkouts, and countless small local protests caused a permanent political crisis for the Tories. This sprawling and sometimes chaotic protest movement kept all the crucial issues on the front burner: hospital closures, school cuts, attacks on injured workers and the poor, downloading of costs and services, the destruction of the housing program, anti-democratic attacks on municipal and school board governance. The list was long.

The protest movement also won important defensive victories that have since been forgotten. The campaigns against hospital closures in 1997 forced the government to cancel a $500 million cut to hospital funding and declare all 66 rural and northern hospitals safe from mergers and closure. Bill 136, which would have completely suspended the right-to-strike for all public sector workers over four years, was defeated when CUPE started holding hugely successful strike votes for a province-wide shutdown. Mandatory workfare for welfare recipients was also defeated when CUPE boycotted the United Way for its participation in the workfare pilot. This destroyed the workfare pilot and forced the government to adopt a non-mandatory voluntary workfare program. Toronto-wide childcare strike in July 1995 and province-wide childcare strike in November 1995 derailed potential government plans to wipe out crucial subsidies for low-income parents and wage subsidies for childcare workers.

Because the movement was largely led by unions, it was not loved by the media and was not actively supported by the Liberals. However, both the media and Liberals were pulled by the protest movement into taking positions and actions that legitimized protest and civil disobedience. The corporate media was still very anti-union, but there was regular and firm opposition to Tory policies and ideology.

On several occasions, the Tories were even routed by aggressive journalism, such as the exposure of OPP violence against OPSEU pickets at Queen’s Park. The media also amplified popular support for the teachers’ movement and strike against Bill 160. At times, the corporate media was being pushed and pulled – but never won over – by the movement into taking meaningful stances on important issues and incidents.

The same is remarkably true of the Ontario Liberals. In the hot autumn of 1995, when the Days of Action strikes began, Liberal MPP Alvin Curling (the only black MPP at the time) conducted a one-man filibuster and sit-in against the Omnibus Bill 26. The Harris Tories intended to ram through Bill 26 with no consultations. Bill 26 was a blueprint for Stephen Harper’s omnibus bills. Introduced at the end of 1995, Bill 26 was the keystone legislation of the Common Sense Revolution. It modified 47 piece of legislation and was 2,200 pages long. The bill was designed to massively centralize power in the provincial cabinet so brutal restructuring and cuts could be carried out more faster and with little legislative opposition. Curling’s sit-in forced the Harris Tories to concede public consultations over a 6 week period. This provided a crucial window of time for the movement to build against the Tories. It was during this 6-week period that the Tories began to slip significantly in the polls, falling behind the Liberals for the first time.

Last but not least, the McGuinty and the Liberals were pulled into effectively supporting the teachers’ strike against the government. While too spineless to openly support strike action, McGuinty barnstormed the province in the weeks leading up to the strike, speaking to mass meetings of teachers about the necessity of defeating Bill 160. Bill 160 was a massive assault on working conditions, union rights, classroom resources, student learning, and education funding. While Rae’s former Minister of Education Dave Cooke publicly admonished the teachers for threatening a strike against Bill 160, McGuinty at least offered tacit support. McGuinty’s actions served to reinforce the righteousness and legitimacy of the teachers’ actions.

The teachers’ strike (which was called a “protest” by teachers for legal purposes) was the last major conflict between workers and the government over the Common Sense Revolution. The fight was so bruising, it marked the end of the Common Sense Revolution. In their fight with the teachers, the Tories were driven down to the low 30s in the polls. Earlier in the year, during their efforts to close hospitals, Harris faced a backbench rebellion and was forced to back down on most hospital closures. By the end of 1997, it was widely believed that Harris was presiding over a one-term government.

The teachers’ strike was defeated when three of the five teacher union leaderships called off the strike at the end of its second week – with absolutely no concessions from the government. Huge numbers of teachers were upset and local rebellions erupted against the union leadership. But within three days of the sell-out, all five unions had called off the strike. The defeat was incredibly hard because the public was clearly behind the teachers, and the government had just lost a court injunction against the strike.

Harris regains momentum A great tragedy was the absence of any sympathy strike with the teachers. This meant the teachers could not gain any more leverage against the government beyond their 126,000-strong strike. This was likely a significant factor in the decision by some union leaders to throw in the towel. Education workers with CUPE were best poised to join the strike, and CAW President Buzz Hargrove had strongly suggested autoworkers would join the teachers with a sympathy strike, but this was not to be. Only a few weeks earlier, CUPE’s strike mandates for a province-wide illegal strike had succeeded in defeating Bill 136. However, there was never an effort to forge a solidarity pact that would link the fights against Bill 136 and Bill 160.

In the wake of the Bill 160 defeat, the November 1997 OFL convention mandated a province-wide general strike. Delegates who called for a fixed strike date were ignored. As if to ensure demoralization and defeat, union leaders let six months pass before the next Days of Action in St. Catharines. After one more Day of Action in Kingston, the whole project was quietly shelved at an OFL affiliates meeting in July. The general strike never came.

There were some efforts to revive the movement, such as the 10,000-strong demonstration in Ottawa in October 1998. However, by October, the politics on offer from union leaders was all about voting. It wasn’t about stopping the Harris agenda through mass action: hitting the private and public sector with strikes and disrupting “business as usual” for the government and their business pals.

The union leaderships may have been divided over their election strategies, but they all agreed that the movement on the streets, in the workplaces, and in the schools was over. Fighting the Tories was now about casting a ballot.

Missed opportunities If the teachers’ strike was a missed opportunity for an escalation of struggle against the Harris Tories, there were other missed opportunities, too. The OPSEU strike of 1996 kicked off in late February, 1996. Leading up to the strike, the protest movement was still escalating to dizzying heights. The London Day of Action in December 1995 had been a huge, unexpected success. The city’s public sector and manufacturing was shut tight and 15,000 marched in -25 weather. In January, 35,000 marched on Queen’s Park in defence of public education. The Hamilton Days of Action had a big strike on Friday and a march of 20,000. The following day, 80,000 marched through Hamilton. The province-wide OPSEU strike kicked off two days later on Monday.

Facing 13,000 job losses (out of 65,000 jobs), massive contracting out, and an assault on pensions, the strike was the Ontario Public Service’s first. The union had only been awarded the right-to-strike in 1994 in what was one of the few lasting labour reforms from the NDP government. Taking a page out of the Reagan and Thatcher handbook, the Tories were happy to go to war with this union. But the Tories were arrogant and OPSEU proved far stronger than expected. Advance organizing and education, detailed in OPSEU member David Rapaport’s excellent history No Justice, No Peace, ensured the union defied the government’s expectations. For example, OPSEU succeeded in minimized scabbing not long after the Tories repealed anti-scab legislation with their Bill 7 assault on workers’ rights.

There was a major opportunity during the OPSEU strike to use the Days of Action as a vehicle to aide OPSEU’s cause, and increase the pressure on the Tories and their Common Sense Revolution. The Days of Action were originally predicated on building capacity towards a province-wide shutdown. However, only two weeks into the OPSEU strike, the OFL announced a Day of Action for April 19 in Kitchener-Waterloo. As many OPSEU members pointed out, there was a good chance their strike would be over by April 19. Furthermore, calls from local labour leaders to expand the Days of Action across a region or multiple cities were ignored by the senior union leadership. There was simply no effort to link up the OPSEU strike with the Days of Action.

Even after the OPP ran riot at Queen’s Park against hundreds of OPSEU pickets on March 18, no wider protest action was called in response to the police assault, let alone a strike. The riot hardened the resolve of the strikers and the movement but this was not channelled into a political counterattack.

The general strike that never happened will be talked about endlessly. Could it have happened? Was there a moment when it should have been called? Would it have worked? Rather than getting hung up on the what-if game, the real question is what was required to deepen the political crisis for the Tories.

The Days of Action strategy, as it was originally conceived, was sound: build up working-class organization and confidence through a few city-wide one-day strikes and mass marches, and then expand that disruption so as to increase the pressure on the government. The public sector unions would disrupt the government, while the private sector unions would pressure the business class to view the Tory agenda as too costly, thus sapping business support from the Tories.

The strategy lost its dynamic threat to the Tories when union leaders decided to throttle it during the OPSEU strike – just when it needed to grow. Several months after the OPSEU strike, when the Metro Days of Action shut down Toronto and put over 150,000 into the streets, Harris was able to say with some comfort, “good show, good parade, good numbers.” Originally terrified and outraged by the Days of Action, the media was now happy to mock the protests as empty symbolism.

Nevertheless, the Days of Action strategy was instrumental in driving down Tory support until the aftermath of the Bill 160 defeat. It gave coherence and purpose to a movement of hundreds of thousands, and the sentiments of millions. It also pulled in the opportunistic Liberals and fairweather media behind the only opposition the Harris Tories ever had: a workers’ movement. But union leaders never raised the stakes. Their pessimism about the membership, blind party loyalties, pissing matches, and just shitty politics, all got in the way of using mass action as the only means of actually halting the unfolding Common Sense Revolution. As one sympathetic columnist would write after the Days of Action were quietly shelved, the unions turned out to be a “paper tiger”.

Mass labour action is the only hope In the absence of this movement, the media narrative soon changed. The health of the Tory government became a question of polling data and the game of message control, not issues forced on to the front page through strikes and protests. An economic recovery driven by an American boom and a lessening of federal austerity measures also began to drive down unemployment, providing favourable conditions for the incumbent Tories.

But Ontario’s economic recovery had nothing to do with the Tories. The Common Sense Revolution’s brutal cuts to jobs, social programs and infrastructure had in fact delayed a recovery by two full years. With the protest pressure dissipating, the Tories were freed up to focus their immense corporate and taxpayer resources on an their re-election campaign.

The class war receded, the Tories recovered, and the untested Liberals and unpopular NDP couldn’t mount a serious electoral challenge. The Tories won re-election. They went ahead with their hydro privatization plan, which proved disastrous and cost them the 2003 election. The deadly Walkerton E.Coli poisoning in May 2000 caused by water safety privatization also destroyed the government’s credibility. The death of Kimberly Rogers and the OPP murder of Dudley George haunted Harris, who resigned in 2002. His replacement, Premier Ernie Eves, led the party to defeat in 2003, losing ten points and over 400,000 votes. The Liberals came to office and for 15 years they kept the pro-business permanent austerity agenda intact.

The most significant damage of the Common Sense Revolution – the entire restructuring of how the provincial state operated – was done primarily between 1995 and 1997. This was precisely when the protest and strike movement was hottest. Unfortunately, the Days of Action strategy was undermined from start to finish despite being the only hope we had to stop the Common Sense Revolution in its tracks. Defeating the Common Sense Revolution never fundamentally hinged on the 1999 election. But if there is blame for Harris being re-elected, the strategy of shelving workers’ mass activity – protests, rallies, strikes – in favour of a narrow focus on the ballot box is what lost the 1999 election.

- Doug Nesbitt, “Why did Harris win re-election in 1999?” Rank and File. September 13, 2018.

#mike harris #conservative party of ontario #ontario history #ndp #days of action #common sense revolution #ontario politics #social compact #reactionary politics #neoliberalism #revanchism #working class politics #working class struggle #capitalism in canada #liberal party of ontario

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jessica-havanaluxe · 2 years

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Throughout the years as an event decorator I’ve made a lot of changes in my business to get to a point where I can cater to my ideal client. Although my ideal client is a high paying client, I don’t want to lose out on the budget-conscious clients who want the same quality but can’t afford the high price. The most common item requested in my business is a balloon garland. There are many factors when making a garland such as colors, size, design, labor and other additional materials involved. So I decided to start a separate business of “DIY - do it yourself - Balloon garland kits. This “kit” would include all the materials needed to create a garland as well as a video tutorial link.

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In order to start this DIY balloon kit business, I found that I would need a Registered Business number which typically costs $60-$89 in Ontario. This number is usually required in most wholesale companies in order to purchase their product. In the store that I will be selling these kits, you’re also required to have a social media account for your product & have business insurance, which I found can range anywhere from $20 to $40 per month.

With all these factors in mind, I believe I’ll be able to successfully bring my product to the market in time to sell 1-2 kits per week and make a 55% profit margin on each kit.

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thejunkboys1 · 1 day

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