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Special to the Tribune

HAMILTON — Just under 200
people turned out November 7, to
hear Ontario Liberal leader Stuart
Smith and New Democratic Party
leader Michael Cassidy speak to
the Ontario Federation of Labor’s
campaign demands to ‘Save
Medicare’’. The meeting spon-
sored by the Hamilton and Dis-
trict Labor Council, had also ex-
pected to hear from Dennis Tim-
brell, but the Tory health minister
was unavailable, having ‘‘opted
out’’ as one man put it.

Stuart Smith opened with an at-
tack against the government’s
cutbacks in hospital budgets, and
then moved to the doctors who
had opted out of the Ontario Hos-
pital Insurance Plan. Declaring
that he was opposed to “‘doctor-
bashing’, the Liberal leader
spoke of little else, preferring to
reduce the big issues involved in
the medicare fight to the question

of doctors’ fees.
a
2? rs ~

MICHEAL CASSIDY

Outlining three approaches (to
stop opting-out), Smith said he
favored the one which would in-
crease the OHIP fee schedule
“*by, perhaps 15%. That would be
fair. That would bethalf the On-
tario Medical Association’s prop-
osed rate increase.”

“What's fair?’’ asked one wo-
man, citing the three’ years under
the Anti-Inflation Board (AIB)
which had given hospital workers
only a 3.5% increase. *‘What I
want to know is, what's the limit?
Just how much is enough for the
doctors?”

_ Smith had no reply other than
to change from the doctor issue

and move into another attack
against the Tories’ hospital cuts.
His syrupy sympathy for the
plight of hospital workers did not
extend, however, to any com-
ment or commitment on their
wage packets.
Dismantling Medicare

New Democratic Party provin-
cial leader Michael Cassidy spoke
at length on the effects of the cut-

backs across the province, and °

warned that the Tories were at-
tempting to dismantle medicare
piece by piece across the pro-
vince. ‘‘The government has
gone beyond the bottom line —
they’ve breached it,’’ he said.

Referring to the $33-million set
aside by the government at the
beginning of this legislative ses-
sion for the purpose of re-opening
some hospital beds, Cassidy said:
“I'd like to ask Mr. Timbrell how
they can re-open those beds when
they’ ve already cut the operating
budgets (needed to run the wards)
to the bone?”’

Congratulating the Labor
Council on collecting 40,000
names in the previous week for
the Medicare petition, Cassidy
told the crowd that “‘this will be
the biggest petition ever tabled in
the House,”* indicating the pow-
erful impact that this kind of mass
protest would have on the
government.

Both Cassidy and Smith ap-
pealed to the people in Ontario to
defeat the government at the next
election ‘in 1980°’, a theme taken
up by many of those lined up to
speak at the microphone.

‘‘We can't wait till 1980. We
have to do something now,” said
one speaker, echoing the senti-
ments of the majority of the audi-
ence. Putting the pieces in order,
Tom Davidson of the United
Electrical workers, reminded the
two leaders of the fight to save 700
jobs at Westinghouse. He pointed
to the power that these corpora-
tions have over people’s lives.

Who Runs Country?

‘**Now the time has come to de-
cide who's going to run this coun-
try, the people or the multi-
national corporations,’’ Davidson
said. ‘*The Tories in Ontario have

Medicare: a needed service for people :

medicare

RSE).

7

not tory-care
OFS 7°77-NC

a minority government, not a
majority, and you guys have the
trump card. Now the question is:
When are you going to get to-
gether and play it?”’

Communist Party city secret-
ary Elizabeth Rowley also de-
manded that the government re-
sign over its cutbacks in health, as
well as in education and in all so-
cial services. ‘‘And if they won’t
resign, then we'd better pull the
plug and take the issue to the
people of this province. They
know where they want the money
to go. They want it to go into med-
icare, health and education — not
to big profit-making corporations

The three sides of class struggle

like Reed Paper, Westinghouse,
and the rest of them,”’ she said.
‘Accusing the Liberals of com-
plicity in the dismantling of medi-
care, Rowley said: ‘‘I don’t think
Dr. Smith is being quite straight
with us tonight. I think there was
a deal made between the Liberals
and Tories to dismantle medicare.
For example, we should re-
member just exactly who it was

who brought in the AIB. It was_

the Liberals.”’

Rowley urged the meeting to _

fight to extend medicate to cover
dental and eye care, and preven-
tive medicine, and to abolish
premiums and user fees.

By ALFRED DEWHURST )

_ in regular wards were available; |

“The labor movement, t
NDP, the Communist Party 2
many others fought together
win medicare not long ago,’’ s
said. She called for similar acti
now to save and extend medic

First-Hand Experiences

‘‘But people must be educated)
about medicare first’’, said Cas-}
sidy, arguing that Ontarians don't) |
understand the extent and depth)
of the cuts, and that this could
lead to the re-election of the To-)
ries. é §
Dr. Smith agreed, claiming that
it would have been useless to de-| |
feat the government last June on}
this very issue. =

Yet many of the speakers ap
peared to know the situation very
well indeed, and almost every o
related first-hand experienc
either from the staff or patie
point of view. Horror stories such
as the one related by Mike Mii
about his brother Abdul: **He w
murdered. He was burned to}
death by hydrofieuric acid at the)
Gulf Refinery in Oakville. They
shuttled him around from one ho
pital to another because none 0)
them had the facilities or know)
how to treat a man dying of acid}
burns. He died eight hours late
But it was no accident. He w
murdered.”

Or stories such as those relat
by the Ontario Nurses Associ
tion spokesman, who told of p
tients being pulled out of intensi
care units prematurely becau
some other patient was even sic
er; or of patients kept in the
emergency ward because no beds

or of patients pulled out of acuté) |
care beds to make room for pa
tients from emergency.
A doctor from the new ‘‘me¢
cal reform group’’ spoke abo
the reasons for the group’s recé
formation, and its aim to turn thé
practice of medicine away from)
the pursuit of the dollar, and to
ward providing a service fo!)
people.
Without doubt, that was t
message of the whole meeti
Medicare must be saved beca’
people’s needs must come befo
profits.

A reader, referring to the column
*‘The modem working class” (CT,
November 12) asks if we would expand
on these words from that column: **...
it is necessary to wage political struggle
against the entire system of capital-
ism.”

te,

First. It is important to note that
monopoly, in concert with the state, is
waging an all-sided offensive against
the living standards of the working
people. By ‘‘all-sided’’ we mean that
the offensive is waged on three fronts:

Second. They are utilizing the pre-
sent, persistent economic crisis to con-
solidate the power of the monopolists
through takeovers and mergers of the
workers both at the source of produc-
tion and through steeply inflated living
costs.

Through its virtual control of the
market, monopoly is able to raise prices
at will regardless of the state of the
market. It can even curtail production
while raising prices. The banking
monopolies, with state assistance, raise
interest and mortgage rates at will. The
government keeps the Canadian dollar
at approximately 15 cents below the
_ U.S. dollar which is actually a wage

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 30, 1979—Page 10

By

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

cut. In addition, massive government
cutbacks in every area of social expen-
ditures further undermine workers’
standards.

+. *£ *%

All of this serves to underline the
massive scale of the economic assault
against living standards. It is a class
attack by monopoly in league with the
State, against the class of workers. Its
purpose: the maximizing of profits in
the interests of the giant corporations
and monopoly as a whole. This massive
assault is facilitated by chronic mass
unemployment, a good part of which is
caused by the effects of rationalization
of production.

In order to expedite its assault
against the workers, monopoly uses the
crisis to push politics to the right. This
push to the right is reflected not only in
the old line capitalist parties but also in
the ranks of the top brackets of the New
Democratic Party and.the trade union
movement. Its purpose is aimed at sec-

uring pliable governments and top

union executives that will uphold the
basic profit interests of monopoly.
* * * >

This is but a brief sketch of the back-

ground upon which the fightback of the
working class and democratic forces is
being waged. The fightback, like the
monopoly-state offensive, is economic,
political and ideological. These three
elements cannot be separated, for they
are intertwined one with the other. To
ignore this chief characteristic of the
fightback is to court defeat. This is not
to deny that victories can be won on the
economic front. For, they are being
won. But such victories can never be
permanent — stable. What is won at the

ining table or on the picket line is
quickly eroded by inflationary price
rises.

The only permanent solution to such
erosion is to put an end to the exploita-
tion of class by class and man by man.
Every economic struggle and political
campaign waged by the workers should
be conducted within a political strategy
that has as its final aim, the removal of
the outworn, discredited system of
capitalism from power. In such struggle
all three elements of the class struggle
are in play.

* * *

The most rudimentary form of class

_ either. It is an objective reality.

struggle is the economic  struggle|
However, it has definite limitations. 7)”
does not affect the foundations of ti
capitalist system. Gains made cann@
be secured unless they are reinforc® |
by political gains. In other words, !
economic struggle is subordinate to
political struggle, that is: political c
struggle directed against the wie
class of capitalists and the govern
which upholds that class.

Workers do not join with the politi¢
struggle of their class against the
tem of capitalism until they beco
fully aware of their own independ
class interests. This is a matter of
sciousness. A matter of ideology. +
means shaking off the ideology of #
capitalist class; and gaining an u
standing that all workers hold com#
interests that weld them into a clas
workers, whose vital interests are $
ply at variance with those of the cle
capitalists, and cannot be reconcilé

* * *

These particular class interests
not been invented. They exist. —
class struggle has not been nae

has to be fought on three fronts
economic, political and ideological.