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A BUSY AUTUMN IN HEALTH CARE STRUGGLE
(This article is from the Sept. 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
By Pierre Fontain, Montreal
CONSIDERING THE CIRCUMSTANCES, holding actions across the country towards the end of October, targetting the federal government and supporting the future of our health care system is an excellent idea.
Documents obtained by the media through the Freedom of Information Act prove that the federal government, despite its fine talk, secretly approves of Bill 11, the Alberta law that creates a wider opening for the privatisation of some health care services. For several years, Ottawa has systematically cut transfer funds to the provinces for social programs. Ottawa is thus the true orchestrator of plans for privatisation of health care. The provinces, Quebec included, are playing second fiddle in this plan, several of them agreeing to play more quickly.
The recent creation of the extreme-right Canadian Alliance increases the pressure on the federal Liberals to speed up moves toward privatizing and defunding health services. The Alliance is quite capable of seriously competing for power with the Liberals in the next election, this autumn or in the spring of 2001.
On one hand, the Liberals would clearly have an advantage in calling a quick election to steal a march on the Canadian Alliance. On the other hand, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein also may want to call an election this autumn, with the effect of forcing an early federal election.
Klein is at the present far ahead in the polls in his province. He benefits from a local economy that is buoyed by the rise in the price of oil, and he hopes to make the election a plebiscite in favour of his Bill 11. That would serve well the interests of the Canadian Alliance, which would have the opportunity of a "safe" election campaign to make its program better known. The close relation between Klein and his former minister of finance, Stockwell Day, suggests that this is a united and concerted tactic.
In Quebec, this autumn is the time chosen by PQ cabinet minister Pauline Marois for her public consultations on the future of social and public health services. These consultations are artificial, since the Quebec state has already decided that it no longer has the means of assuring social services, and that the private sector must play an increasing role in this area. The government's plan, already sketched in the Arpin report, closely resembles Alberta's Bill 11. It is the same struggle in both provinces this fall.
Other important events are also anticipated in the month of October, on the theme of the struggle against neoliberalism. These could contribute to creating a growing mobilization of an opposition.
One is the World March of Women, including actions on Oct. 15 in Montreal and Oct. 16 in Ottawa. Then on Oct. 24-25 in Montreal, there will be a meeting of the G-20, a gathering of the largest imperialist countries and their international organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF.
All these events should help to build up opposition. In the meantime, it is evident that without the support of the trade unions, building such opposition can succeed only with very great difficulty. The stakes are considerable, since the future of the public health system is seriously at risk. If worst comes to worst, we will find ourselves in an electoral campaign with all the pressures that are coming from the right, and with several governments looking for a legitimacy that will allow them to act against the popular will and raise their attacks against social programs another notch.
(The author is a leading activist in the Montreal-area health care unions of the CNTU.)
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