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Socialist Action Canada

Socialist Action Canada | Ligue pour L'Action Socialiste

Category: Health

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Ford’s Healthcare Privatization — A Slippery Highway to Hell

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Well folks, he’s done it again. Ontario Premier Doug Ford retrieved the major tool in his toolbox: privatization. This time, Ford brandishes privatization to hammer on the nail that is the province’s healthcare system. As reported by the CBC last week, “Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones are planning to make an announcement next week on expanding the number and range of surgeries performed in independent health facilities outside of hospitals.” Independent health facilities are generally for-profit clinics operated by the private owners.

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Socialist Digest –  January 2023

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Canada’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives made an average of $14.3 million in 2021, exceeding the previous record of $11.8 million set three years earlier.  By January 3, the average CEO on that list made $58,800, the amount an average Canadian worker earns in an entire year, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Interviews With TSSA Strikers

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Nearly 200 members of OPSEU Local 546 are on strike against the Technical Standards and Safety Authority in Ontario.  These front line workers inspect elevators, ski lifts, food trucks and amusement park rides.  They check fuel-burning equipment, boilers and pressure vessels, as well as gas stations, propane dispensing stations and nuclear power plants.  They are on strike because the TSSA, an agency that works at arms length from the provincial government, has been trying to make do with fewer safety inspectors, less regular inspections and less accountability.  The workers need and deserve a wage catch-up.

Privatization: The Vampire of Public Service

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The word "Vampire" may seem harsh or macabre when speaking about economic issues, but when looking at privatization objectively, it becomes clear how striking the similarities are. Both feed off systems that are not their own, stealing what isn't theirs to grow fat and powerful. Both lie to lull you into a false sense of security, making their targets vulnerable and too passive to resist them. If privatization is a Vampire then austerity is the scent of blood that draws the predator in. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadians are facing another round of cruel and needless austerity.

Singh Sells Out for Liberal Sunny Ways

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NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh found a way to avoid a federal election, and to gain a vague promise of health service reforms – likely at the cost of huge increases in military spending.  The Liberal-NDP deal paves the way for Justin Trudeau to stay in power until 2025, at least.  That goes to serve capitalist political ‘stability’ in the relentless march to climate catastrophe, growing social inequality and the horrors of inter-imperialist war.

Socialist Action Address to the Rally Against the Far-Right, Christie Park, Toronto, March 5, 2022

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Responding to the call of Toronto Rise-Up, some seventy people, including members of at least four socialist parties, held a rally at the Toronto intersection of Christie and Bloor Streets to “take back (public) space” from far-right organizations.  The latter recently led the anti-vax, anti-Covid-mandate, so-called Freedom Convoy that blockaded border crossings and occupied downtown Ottawa for nearly three weeks.

The Red Review — Class Struggle or Just a “Con”voy?

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In this episode of The Red Review, brought to you by Socialist Action, Emily and Daniel take you on a deep dive into the anti-mandate convoy? Is this a working-class movement or a eugenecist and reactionary movement led by the petit-bourgoiesie? What fueled the anti-mandate convoy, and what role did mainstream coverage of China's zero-covid strategy play? We end with a discussion about who ought to respond to the convoy — the police or labour?

Code Red — Alberta’s Ambulance Shortage

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The Province of Alberta, led by Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP), faces an ambulance shortage. Articles in 2019, well before the pandemic of Covid-19, described a sharp increase in code reds, where no ambulance is available to respond to a call. With increased rates of infection impacting both the number of healthcare workers isolating at home and the number of calls for ambulances coming in, the crisis of ambulance coverage in Alberta surpassed any reasonable notion of a tipping point. The existing system isn’t failing — it’s failed.

Coverage of China’s Covid-Zero Strategy and Manufacturing Consent

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As neoliberal governments faced yet another wave of Covid-19 in December 2021, this time fueled by the even-more contagious Omicron variant, politicians and corporate-owned media began laying the ideological groundwork for the scrapping of all public health protections. Despite workers and oppressed people continuing to get sick, developing chronic illnesses, and dying, and the ongoing uncertainty about new variants emerging, the resumption of maximum production and consumption again stands as the only priority. As the exploited classes are primed to acquiesce to an erosion of our right to a safe workplace, media and politicians work overtime to discredit any alternative pandemic response. In this quest, the biggest obstacle remains China’s successful and dynamic Covid-zero strategy.

Toronto Anti-Convoy Protest Shows the Way Forward

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While the anti-mandate siege in Ottawa continued, Torontonians learned of a similar convoy set for the weekend of February 5, 2022. We anticipated thousands of people would converge in Toronto to spread a eugenicist message — that saving the lives of the most vulnerable from Covid-19 is not worth any concession of individual liberties. But frustrated and over-stressed healthcare workers decided to take a stand.

Emergency Town Hall on Omicron Crisis: Workers’ on the Frontline

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On Tuesday, January 11, 2022 at 7p.m. over 300 front-line workers from coast to coast joined a Zoom Conference in response to the Omicron crisis. The conference host, Justice for Workers Organization, was overwhelmed by the participation and passion of frontline workers from variety of sectors, including health, education, transportation, agriculture and newly emerging freelance/ gig workers.  The conference included special guest Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP) Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Peggy Sattler from London West, guest speaker Dr. Naheed Dosani, and observers from the Migrant Rights Network, along with Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL). 

Robbie Mahood 1946-2021 : Un révolutionnaire en pratique comme en théorie

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Robbie Mahood, 75 ans, membre fondateur et figure de proue de la Socialist Action / Ligue pour l'Action socialiste, est décédé à Montréal le 26 décembre 2021 ; il a perdu sa longue bataille contre le cancer le 24 décembre suite à un accident vasculaire cérébral totalement débilitant. Entouré de sa famille et de ses proches dans sa chambre d'hôpital Robbie a peut-être aussi été conscient de l'affection et de l'adoration exprimées par un grand nombre de camarades de tout le continent qui se sont joints à un rassemblement virtuel en ligne impromptu organisé à son chevet quelques heures seulement avant que sa vie s'éteigne.

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