Amir Khadir visits Outaouais

Anti-austerity movement is mobilizing 

 

Laurent Robillard-Cardinal

Resistance to austerity measures is forming and mobilizing. On February 19, Québec solidaire (QS) supporters and those affected by the government’s policies filled the log cabin conference room in Hull to hear out three speakers on the impact of austerity measures.

 

The first to address the crowd was Martine Morissette, from the Carrefour jeunesse emploi de l’Outaouais (CJE), (youth employment centre). “I ache for my region and I ache for my Québec,” she said. “The imposed austerity measures hit us at the CJE straight in the face.” The youth employment centre deals with an annual average of 7,000 youth, but these numbers will considerably drop with coming changes. “The new policies will deprive 1,000 youth from services at the Carrefour,” said Morissette.

 

The Liberal government is forcing CJEs to readjust their approach to focus on young adults further away from the labour market, notably youth living on social assistance and youth eligible for employment insurance. When Morissette got wind of the new new approach she was stunned. “Communication was nil. There were no consultations. The approach was arrogant and disrespectful. The minister made the decision practically alone,” said Morissette. “Our staff was always treated with respect until now.”

 

Ironically, when François Blais, Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity, announced the changes to CJEs he questioned their performance, but this past November, the CJE de l'Outaouais (Gatineau) obtained the 2014 Grands Prix québécois de la qualité. This prize is the highest honour awarded by the Québec government to businesses and organizations. “The premier was not even there to award us the prize,” said Morissette.

 

A month later, Morissette said the government embarrassed her CJE once again when the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity sent all the youth centres a letter asking them if they wanted to be partners. “It was baffling, we’ve been partners for many years,” said Morissette, who did not understand the process. Even if the CJE was unhappy with the propositions, it accepted the government’s partnership request. “Of course you will say yes when there’s a gun to your head,” said Morissette. The CJEs obtain their funding overwhelmingly by the ministry. André Gaudreau, local union president for l’Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux, active at the CSSS de Gatineau, followed Morissette’s cri du coeur.

 

Wearing a Blue Square, as a sign of resistance to the major cutbacks “which are destroying the healthcare system,” Gaudreau talked about how preventive medicine is being slashed in favour of curative care. Gaudreau argued this was the case because “You practically can’t evaluate preventive medicine because it’s...preventive, but you can measure curative care,” argued Gaudreau.

 

For example, by evaluating response times at an emergency department, the government can obtain tangible figures favouring their arguments. “The government wants to weaken the public sector to eventually transfer services to the private sector,” said Gaudreau. “This is already happening. When a suffering patient is told he will need to wait hours before obtaining a service he often heads to the private sector because he’s in pain and not willing to wait.”

 

The local union president argued that while cuts will replenish the government’s coffers, allowing them to dangle tax cuts, it will simply lead to fewer public services. In the end this will cost taxpayers even more because they will need to seek out private care, asserted Gaudreau.

 

He also informed the crowd that while local cuts are starting to be felt, such as with the 24/7 help service, more, estimated at $12 million, are on the horizon. “It’s unclear how it will not affect services. What’s clear is that it will lead to burnouts because the staff wants to offer quality services and are doing so at the risk of their own health,” said Gaudreau. More burnouts will increase workers’ compensation and what’s troubling is that according to a recent survey, 71% of union members indicated that they are suffering from psychological distress.

 

The last speaker was Amir Khadir, QS spokesperson and Mercier MNA. He started by encouraging those present to buy a QS membership. “The media tells us we should be content with the coverage of our activities as we only accumulated roughly 8% of the popular vote. However, because of strategic voting, many of our supporters did not vote for us. Therefore, it’s important for us to have many members,” he appealed to the crowd estimated at 100, of which half were not QS members.

 

Is it likely the QS membership will increase since, as Khadir explained, many groups are mobilizing, with QS at the forefront, against austerity measures. The left-wing party is a defender of the welfare state which, Khadir argued, the government is attacking. “This is the goal of these major mergers (like the merger of Outaouais CSSSs),” he said.

“Abolishing certain parapublic organizations and creating mega structures reduces cores which could potentially contest government decisions. Creating major structures makes organizations less human and workers feel lost.  They are less able to mobilize and contest. Thanks to our strong unions and social democrat mentality we are still battling,” said Khadir. One of the three QS MNAs, he is satisfied to see new alliances and believes the spring 2015 movement, regrouping mobilization committees, could reverse the current austerity trend.

 

While in Outaouais, Khadir not only lambasted the government but proposed two solutions to Québec’s financial troubles. The first solution is Pharma Québec, a public organization to manage the provincial procurement of drugs. Costing $150 million to set up, Khadir argued Pharma Québec could potentially generate $1.5 billion in savings for the government.

 

Khadir said that establishing the joint purchasing of medical products could help the government negotiate better prices and reverse the balance of power presently favouring pharmaceutical companies. “Other jurisdictions, like Ontario, British Columbia, New Zealand and Sweden did so and they saved lots of money. Why not us?” he asked.

 

The other measure involves taxing the wealthy class, mainly on dividends and capital gains of which, Khadir argued, Revenu Québec only counts one out of two dollars. “An employee who has a gross income of $75,000 pays $11,540 in taxes. Now, if someone makes $200,000 in gross income from stock market investments he will contribute $13,240 which is just a little more than what the other employee paid. Half of the $200,000 is tax free,” explained Khadir. “Therefore the worker pays twice as much in taxes in proportion of his income than the rich man with investments pays, this even if the employee earns three times less money. This is unacceptable.” Khadir added the government could earn billions if it changed this tax exemption which benefits the wealthy.