Enough Is Enough

Amidst climbing food, housing and transportation costs, crumbling public healthcare and education infrastructure, increasing job precariousness and decreasing wages, a runaway climate disaster and a mental health crisis, you have to ask; where is our provincial government?

Sitting snugly in the pockets of the corporations, that’s where. Corporate profits in Canada hit an all-time high at the end of 2022, fully 20% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while more Canadians than ever lined up at food banks. In Ontario, the Ford government is implementing the first phases of a health care privatization strategy that will massively benefit private clinics, while nurses and other healthcare sector workers’ wages are frozen at 1% annual increases. Meanwhile, a recent financial accountability office of Ontario report found that public education in Ontario will be underfunded by more than $6 billion by 2027.  

Doug Ford’s play is easy to read; underfund public services so they don’t work properly and wait for the private sector to take up the demand created by the failing system. When voters complain, blame the unions and lower expectations until there’s no resistance.

But Ford is not going unchallenged. Pushback by the Ontario School Board of Council of Unions (OSBCU) members in November made the conservatives repeal the unconstitutional Bill 128 and created the possibility of a province wide general strike.

Building off this energy, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) has launched Enough is Enough, a campaign to improve the lives of all workers.

The demands are straightforward; real wage increases, an affordable cost of living, an end to privatization and making the rich pay their fair share. Of course, these won’t just be handed over by the provincial government. To make Doug Ford rethink his plans to privatize public services and enrich himself and his cronies, it will take millions of workers threatening to shut Ontario down.

Soon pamphlets about the campaign will be appearing in CUPW Locals across Ontario. Read about the campaign and sign on. If there is a planning meeting or action in your area, be sure to attend. Ontario’s nurses and teachers are currently in bargaining and are gearing up for tough contract fights. You need to stand in solidarity with these workers because you and I will be next. By connecting across struggles, we can start resisting the agenda of Ford and his corporate buddies.

For more information about the campaign, visit https://wesayenough.ca/

In Solidarity,