[PEN-L:1841] Ontario Responses to Provincial Budget Cutting (fwd)

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

> Date: Sun, 10 Dec 1995 13:22:41 -0500
> From: Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Ontario Responses to Provincial Budget Cutting
> Sender: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <LABOR-L@xxxxxxxx>
>
> There are at least three levels of protest response taking place with regard
> to the 'deficit driven structural adjustment conservative agenda' budget
> cuts announced by the conservative Ontario government in Canada. This
> posting is just to 'flag' them and not explain or examine them.
>
> On December 11th the Ontario labor movement will be staging a one-day
> 'general strike' in London, a town half way between Toronto and Detroit. It
> is not a full general strike but it will test the waters as to the depth of
> wide felt discontent with the Tory (Progressive Conservative) government's
> policies. LABOR-L will report on the event.
>
> During the week of Devember 4th the Ontario Tory government tried to use its
> majoriety to ram an Omnibus bill through provencial parliament. In the
> tradition of the U.S. Congress it tried to add a bunch of questionable
> 'riders' to a bill and push them through without debate. In Ontario sitting
> members of parliament are required to vote (yea or nay) if they are present
> in the house. Opposition (liberal) member Alvin Curling refused to vote and
> when the officer in charge tried to remove him from the house -as per the
> rules - with support from the two opposition parties he sat there for 18
> hours only leaving 'when nature called' :-) . The end result was that the
> bill will not be voted on for a month and there will be public hearings. (I
> might add that M.P. Alvin Curling is a York University Graduate)
>
> During the past two months the social and community agencies in Ontario have
> begun to organize in the electronic workspace in opposition to the effects
> of the cuts on social/human services, and in particular in opposition to
> their impact on child health. On the web.apc.org network they created a
> conference called act.cuts.ont where they are exchanging ideas and strategies.
>
> Since the idea of collaborating on-line for social action is new to most of
> the parties they are having to use this venue while getting their heads
> around what it means to use the electronic networks as a resource and a
> 'space' for social action. It is an interesting process and if you have a
> membership in the WEB APC network in Canada you can drop in and look at the
> contents of the conference. For some of us it is an example of the "Learning
> While Doing" dimension of informatic/telematic networks as a vehicle for
> social action. Act.Cuts.On has already spawned a second conference for
> facilitators who will take responsibility for distilling down with postings
> by topic or zone of interest/action to turn the on-line sites into more than
> just a record of on-line exchanges of postings.
>
> Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>, York University, CANADA
> Distributed Knowledge Project, <dkproj@xxxxxxxx>
>