Opposition to cutbacks by the provincial government was the focus of a noon hour protest outside Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli’s office on Thursday.

John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition against Poverty says the situation is worse now than during the Mike Harris years in a number of areas.

“The homeless crisis, the crisis of poverty has worsened, the health care system is more compromised, public services are more under the gun and inadequate. So to stick the austerity knife in now is to cut right into the bone,” he says.

He says the government has already decreased the increase to social assistance from 3 to 1.5 %.

As well, Clarke says there’s no increase this year, the transitional child benefit has been eliminated and they’re making it harder for people to qualify for disability benefits.

Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli has released a statement on today’s protest.

He says this is more fear mongering from the usual sources and the protesters cannot ignore the fact the government is increasing health spending by $1.3 billion this year.

The protest was held in conjunction with a Northern Ontario CUPE conference going on in North Bay this week.

CUPE Regional Vice President Michael Hurley says one of the purposes of the conference is to push back against cuts that are impacting public services.

He says the Ontario Health Coalition will be holding four rallies including one in the Sault and there will be one in North Bay in the winter.

“Each of those rallies will be preceded by town hall meetings, petitions and lawn sign campaigns. We’re trying to get a discussion going. In North Bay for example what is going to happen to public health,?”  he asks.

Hurley points out a recent report from the Ontario Hospital Association indicated the hallway medicine crisis has never been worse with wait times up 13 % since the Ford government came to power.

Meantime, North Bay and District Labour Council president Henri Giroux called on the province to scrap Bill 124 – a public sector wage bill.

“It’s not a good bill. We’re asking the government to remove the bill and let us negotiate like we should be negotiating,” Giroux says.

It could be passed in the fall.

In a release, Fedeli says existing collective agreements would not be revised based on the proposed legislation, and it would not impede the collective bargaining process.

And he says the proposed legislation would not impose wage freezes, wage rollbacks or public sector job losses.

(photos by station staff)

Filed under: CUPE, John Clarke, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, protest