Unpublished letter sent to the Toronto Star

Re: Business groups pushing for higher wage subsidies, March 26, 2020

Both the Federal and the Provincial governments should not be subsidizing the private sector during the COVID-19 crisis or at any other time. This is the group that constantly asserts the independence of the private sector from government when times are good and the entrepreneurial spirit that takes on all crises in making their businesses a success. This is one of those crises that is part of the free enterprise system. They can’t have it both ways – taking all the profits when times are good and then running to the government (taxpayers) when times are bad. Government is for the people – not for the private sector.

This is the group that has laid off millions without wages during a health crisis that is beyond their control. This is the group that under normal circumstances advocates for ‘voluntary’ compliance and recoils at government regulation. This results in tsunami of problems which they disavow from industry dumping toxic waste into our watersheds to plastic pollution to poisoning bees with noenicitinoids and on and on all in the name of profit. This is the group that during the good times is always trumpeting for the government to stay out of their way and asserting that the private sector knows best and does things better than the public sector whom they constantly demean. This is the group that whines constantly about being over-taxed despite corporate and business taxes being at an all time low and corporate profits being at an all time high. This is the group that has made ‘contract’ work the new standard; meaning low paid, part-time minimum wage ‘precarious’ employment has now become the standard among workers around the world. This is the group that has not increased the minimum wage or real incomes a cent in thirty years. This is the group that has made trillions in profits during this same time that they have salted away in banks and offshore tax havens as their cushion for bad times like this. This is the group that has been sympathetic but has spent token amounts of their precious profits to help workers by at least paying their wages during this crisis instead of taxpayers subsidizing them once again. And yet this is the group that lines up without shame to ask for more money from government as though they were deserving and in need.

When profits get shared equally with the people who create them and the private sector starts pitching in directly in the COVID-19 crisis with their profits only then should governments consider subsidizing t the private sector. Until then say no to business.

Unpublished letter sent to the Toronto Star

Re: Ontario reduces electricity rates during daytime hours, March 25, 2020

I the pandemonium of the COVID-19 pandemic the silence from the corporate sector and the staggeringly wealthy is not surprising. These two groups always slink into their luxurious backgrounds when disaster hits to protect their money and get out of the public eye. Corporations spend like drunken sailors in the good times and then cry in their beer when the pandemic hits hoping for some free bailout money from taxpayers. Maybe they should have saved up for this rainy day like everyone else has then they would have money to carry them through this crisis. The government should mandate a rainy day fund for all businesses going forward. Other than paying some of the salaries of shut-in employees in selected cases the majority of big corporations and the rich have been big on hand-holding and platitudes but short on real help.

In this time of extreme need with millions of short-term contract workers idled without pensions, healthcare or any other kind of supports to assist them there are many tangible things that corporations and the wealthy could be doing that would really help, like the banks who make billions every quarter rather than magnanimously deferring mortgage payments giving everyone a free mortgage payment or corporate landlords giving renters a free month’s rent? Why don’t car makers give people a free car payment or grocery stores like Loblaws allowing free shopping for seniors and healthcare workers in addition to opening the stores early for an hour which costs them nothing,. Public transit should be free for a month and the oil companies could give people a free gas for a month  without blinking an eye. With the trillions in profits the oil companies have earned this would be a small way to give back for once. The Beer Store could give out a complimentary six-pack of beer with any purchase or the LCBO a complimentary bottle of wine. Hydro 1 could give people reducd electricity at their cost rather than the taxpayers paying for it. And most particularly, banks could and should reduce credit card rates to 10%. The banks have been profit gouging for 10 years since the 2008 financial crisis. It’s about time that stopped. A cut in credit card interest would immediately assist every Canadian. All these measures and more would be a way of saying thank you to the millions of people who run our society and for once thanking them in a tangible way rather than meaningless public gestures that amount to nothing. People are getting tired of being patronized by the “take-all-the-money-and-run” capitalism that never thinks of the people who deliver that money to corporations and the rich each and every day. We need to rethink our entire profit based economic motivational system and revise it to incentivize the working stiffs first not shareholders and to stop demonizing public sector