BY ROBERT SIMMS
TORONTO - An Ontario government commission announced plans March 6 to close nine of Toronto's 39 acute- and chronic-care hospitals. Its plans also include closing one of the five addictions and mental health centers.

The Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission was set up by the Ontario Conservative government, led by Premier Michael Harris, soon after its election in 1995 to recommend how to carry out massive healthcare cutbacks. The government has said it will abide by whatever the commission recommends.

As of this year, the city has about 40 percent fewer acute-care hospital beds than it did 10 years ago. The Tory government hopes its will save $430 million annually from the additional closings. The Commission recommended reinvesting only $50 million in home care and other community services to replace lost in-patient care.

The Toronto hospitals now employ more than 50,000 workers. Sue Colley, executive director of the Health Sector Training and Adjustment Program estimates 10,000 jobs will be cut. She said 18,000 workers in the healthcare sector across Ontario have already lost their jobs since 1994.

More than 600 workers turned out for an emergency meeting called by the Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) March 10 to discuss how to resist the proposals. CUPE primarily organizes healthcare workers such as cleaners, maintenance workers, cooks, and municipal workers across Canada.

Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario CUPE, told the gathering that the government is preparing legislation to override existing union contracts in the hospital sector on contracting out jobs to nonunion outfits.

A proposal put to the meeting called for a symbolic 10- minute work stoppage to be observed in all Toronto and Ottawa hospitals on March 13 and for a province-wide 15- minute stoppage to take place March 24.

Noel Andaya, a CUPE member who works in the operating rooms at the Hospital for Sick Children, told the Militant, "Quality care won't be the same if these layoffs go through. If you have kids you want to bring them to where people can give good care. We're going to show Mike [Harris] we're not quiet."

A few days before the commission's Toronto announcement, it held a press conference in Ottawa to propose closing additional hospitals there including the Montfort Hospital, the only French-language hospital in Ontario. Eastern Ontario, including Ottawa, has a large francophone population. About one third of Ottawa's residents have French as their first language.

French-speaking residents of Ontario are an oppressed nationality, and have fewer services such as education or healthcare in their own language compared to the privileged English-speaking population in Quebec. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard both denounced the Montfort proposal.

The Tory government has been campaigning with TV ads claiming moves such as hospital closings are not cutbacks, but a restructuring that will improve healthcare.

However, long waiting lists for a host of in-hospital medical procedures have built up over recent years because of the cutbacks, putting the lie to the government's claims. There is a more than two-month-long waiting list for elective heart surgery in Ontario, affecting thousands of patients. Some people have died waiting for surgery. Because of the considerable heat taken on this one procedure, Health Minister James Wilson announced "reinvestment" of $35 million to reduce the waiting period somewhat, including by hiring more staff.

Another study by researchers at Queen's university showed that because of cost restrictions on treatment for breast cancer, affluent women were twice as likely to get radiation therapy within one year compared to poor women.

The Ontario labor movement's Days of Action campaign - which has included strike days and mass marches in five Ontario cities to protest against the Ontario government's social programs cutbacks and antilabor laws - resumed in the city of Sudbury March 21-22. Some 150,000 working people marched in Toronto last October 26 to protest against the Harris government.

Since then, however, leaders of several major unions, including the United Steelworkers of America in Ontario, have indicated they no longer support the Days of Action campaigns. And leaders of the Days of Action in Toronto, including the local labor council, have since January campaigned solely against a government proposal to amalgamate six cities and boroughs in Metropolitan Toronto into one "megacity."

The drive by Canada's capitalist rulers to cut the social wage of working people has its headquarters in Ottawa, where the federal Liberal government took another major step on February 14. Finance Minister Paul Martin introduced legislation to make major changes to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the Canadian equivalent to Social Security in the United States.

Under the plan, CPP taxes will rise as much as $690 per year from a current maximum of $945 annually now to $1,635 over the next six years. Benefits will also be cut by 10 percent over the long term. New criteria mean that fewer workers will qualify for the CPP's disability benefits, and these will be calculated on a smaller base. Death benefits are cut to a maximum $2,500 from $3,580. The government will no longer index the $3500 exemption on earnings for CPP tax calculations, a move that will hit hardest at low- income and part-time workers.

Another section of the CPP changes directs future contributions to the CPP's reserve fund to be invested in the stock market instead of nonnegotiable provincial bonds. A Finance Department official estimated the funds diverted to stocks would total $10 billion in four years.  
 
 
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