Fighting to win: the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. (Behind the News).

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is a direct action anti-poverty organization which, since 1989, has fought governments of all stripes in Ontario, left (so-called), right and centre to defend the needs of poor people and to work for a future where people are able to live decently. In doing so OCAP has become the focal point of resistance to neo-liberal capitalism in Canada's largest province.

Unlike much of the Left and labour in Ontario OCAP had no illusions about the ruling social democrats during their reign (1991-1995). OCAP confronted the New Democratic Party (NDP) throughout their years in office as the party moved more and more to the right.

Most of OCAP's battles, however, have been fought against the virulent neo-liberal Progressive Conservative (Tory) party and their harsh policies. The 1995 provincial elections saw the backstabbing NDP replaced by a regime led by former golf and skiing instructor Mike Harris. The Tories campaigned on a vicious anti-poor platform which demonized welfare recipients and poor people as drains on social services which the Conservatives were keen to dismantle. Upon election, Harris declared Ontario 'open for business' and rigorously began a sustained attack on union gains, public services and social programs.

The Tories won their first election largely on the basis of a moral panic which they directed against poor people in Ontario blaming them for everything from government debt to moral decay (see Swanson, 2001). Upon election, one of the Tories' first acts was an immediate cut of 21.6% from social assistance benefits for welfare recipients. Eventually the Tories ended welfare altogether keeping an election promise to implement a workfare regime. To make matters worse the Tories cancelled funding for 17,000 units of affordable housing. Later acts included the perversely misnamed 'Tenant Protection Act' which did away with rent controls in Ontario.

Maintaining their commitment to making Ontario attractive to corporate investors the Tories have also attacked organized labour. Among many anti-labour acts the Tories repealed NDP legislation which had made it illegal for struck companies to hire scabs. Other pieces of legislation have taken away all penalties against bosses who interfere with organizing drives and force workers to wait one year between drives.

Now into their second-term in office, the government recently passed legislation attacking the few employment standards which remain in Ontario. The new laws, reminiscent of the 'Master and Servant Act' of the 1940s, allow for a 60 hour workweek and the end of weeklong vacation periods. It is now mandatory for all unionized workplaces to post union de-certification procedures. Incredibly, employers can now opt out of such policies as the minimum wage by arguing that their 'global competitiveness' is threatened.

Unfortunately, the response of the labour movement to these ongoing attacks has been to retreat further into hopes that the NDP will win the next election and make all the bad stuff go away. That was the position which allowed the Tories to claim a second term in office in 1999 and it remains the only vision for much of labour in Ontario. As OCAP organizer Sue Collis (2001: 4) notes, the labour movement, throughout the Tory reign has 'failed to stand and fight when called upon to do so, even in its own defense.'

Days of Action

The status of large-scale resistance to Tory neoliberalism hasn't always been so bleak. Only months after the Tories' first election victory, unions, social justice organizations and community groups launched a series of one-day, city-by-city mass strikes called the 'Days of Action.' In each city substantial portions of the workforce struck. The Toronto Days of Action shut down the city and the second day culminated in the largest demonstration in Canadian history as nearly 300,000 people took part. While results varied from city to city, the Days of Action cost the Tories' corporate backers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Days of Action brought together diverse participants from a vast range of groups and constituencies into coalitions which held the potential for great social action. Sadly that potential was never realized.

The hoped-for culmination of the Days of Action in a real province-wide general strike, an action which could have brought the Tories to crisis, never occurred. While members of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) voted in favour of proceeding with a general strike the initiative was cancelled in an underhanded manner by conservative bureaucrats tied to the NDP. Fearful that the Days would hurt the NDP chances for re-election bureaucrats worked to withdraw resources and slowly wind the movements down.

Even prior to labour's retreat, however, cracks were showing between those who wanted a real movement for change organized to drive the government from power and those who saw the Days of Action in primarily symbolic terms. While anarchists tried to take over the stock exchange and invade the Tory policy convention, others wanted to march to an empty legislature and listen to Billy Bragg. Union marshalls acted to police militants, including rank-and-file workers. Some openly questioned the participation of anarchists in the Days.

Ever since the collapse of the Provincial Days of Action and the failure to follow through on a province-wide general strike in 1997 the resistance to neo-liberal government in Ontario has been fractured and confused. From the other side, the disintegration of the Days of Action left the Tories emboldened to surge forward with their agenda sensing that the opposition to them was not serious.

Among the groups arguing for a province-wide general strike was OCAP. Since the failure of the Days of Action OCAP has been on the front lines dealing with the brutal consequences of the failure to carry that fight against the Tories forward. For many suffering the effects of this government's policies the impact of that retreat has been deadly.

Targeted policing

Two years ago, with much fanfare, the Toronto City Council launched a so-called Community Action Policing (cap) program backed by $2 million of public funds. Last year they managed to find another $1 million in a supposedly tight budget. Following the model of Giuliani's rampage in NewYork City, the money is being spent to pay cops overtime to harass, intimidate and threaten poor people in targeted areas of the city. Along with their efforts to drive squeegeers out of the city, the police have been busy chasing homeless people out of public parks.

Each year police have kept up their campaign until well into the Fall. After that they hope Mother Nature will put in the overtime for them. As the Inspector in charge of the operation stated at its launch: 'The best crimefighting tool we have is minus-30 in February' (Globe and Mail, July 26, 1999, AIO). So having no home is now a crime. Given that several homeless people have frozen to death on the streets of Toronto the past two winters it would appear that capital punishment is being practiced in Canada after all; but only if your crime is poverty.

Safe Streets Act

Toronto's mayor Mel Lastman has long engaged in an open campaign of class war against poor and homeless people (whom he labels as 'thugs'). Adding to this chorus the Ontario Grime Commissioner, who is charged with overseeing crime policy for the entire province, declared in an interview with the CBC that squeegeers were the province's top concern. This in a province where 22 people died on the streets in a span of 24 weeks last year.

In 2000 Lastman and his supporters in council were finally successful in lobbying the Provincial government to change the Ontario Highway Act to make squeegeeing and panhandling illegal. The resulting legislation, The Safe Streets Act, makes it illegal to give 'any reasonable citizen cause for concern' [emphasis added]. In sentiment and in practice this law gives leeway to cops and small business owners to continue or expand their harassment of the poor and homeless.

Of course, a very real and vicious crackdown has been in effect for some time now. Cops have routinely ticketed squeegeers for anything, be it trespassing, loitering or littering. Much of this has come at the insistence of small business owners in Toronto's downtown and residents' associations in wealthier neighbourhoods.

While the CAP is touted as 'all of the forces' best and latest thinking on community-based policing' (Globe and Mail, July 26, 1999, AIO) none of this is new at all. These are the same tactics the bosses have hit us with for centuries (they called them 'poor laws' in 17th Century England). The names change but the intentions remain the same. Along with programs like workfare and the reduction or elimination of social services, criminalization is about driving the poor, unemployed and homeless into wage slavery or death.

Direct action

As an organization OCAP recognizes that the only way to confront these attacks is through collective action to disrupt oppressive institutions and practices. Acts of direct action at the point of oppression are the most effective means we have to challenge hostile agendas and make gains. OCAP works on do-it-yourself principles in which those affected by harmful policies are directly involved in making it impossible for those policies to be implemented. This power of disruption is used both to defend individuals and families and to challenge broader political practices.

In the first instance OCAP has developed 'direct action casework.' In these situations OCAP brings large numbers of members and allies directly to the offending agency, landlord or workplace and insist on staying until we get what we came for. If no settlement is forthcoming we raise the costs of offending agencies to the point where it is no longer worthwhile for them to act in an oppressive way. OCAP identifies what its members need and fights for those needs with an unwavering clarity (Sue Collis, 2001: 4). Direct action casework has brought victories in winning social benefits, fighting evictions, stopping deportations and winning back pay.

These same methods of collective direct action have been applied to broader struggles. Recognizing that direct interference with the practices of various levels of government and their business backers is the only way poor people can effect a real measure of control in their own lives OCAP avoids token protest in favour of actions which upset our enemies' plans. Rather than pleading with them to stop hurting people OCAP acts to develop the means to prevent them from implementing their plans.

The targeting of businesses has been a frequent tactic of OCAP'S. Often the business community is linked to attacks on the homeless, In one instance, a restaurant owner successfully lobbied to close a downtown shelter. We ran an ongoing picket of his business until he wrote a letter asking for the place to be reopened (John Clarke, 2001a: II).

In 1997 OCAP acted against the brutal situation which sees hundreds of empty apartment buildings in Toronto boarded up by speculators looking to drive up property values or rents on other properties. OCAP marched over 300 people to two abandoned buildings with the intention of opening them up for homeless people. Police used horses to keep people out and laid a variety of charges against participants. A year later the buildings were opened as social housing.

Two winters ago, during a month when four homeless people had died on the streets, the City of Toronto was stalling on plans to open up an empty former hospital as a shelter. Pressure from local yuppie residents and businesses was behind this. We took over the building and, while they sent in the police's Emergency Task Force with battering rams to get us out and charged us with unlawful assembly, the plans to open it up were put back on schedule (John Clarke, 2001a: II).

The climax to 1998's Active Resistance (AR) anarchist gathering in Toronto was a march and demonstration of over 1000 people. The 'Hands off Street Youth' march was jointly organized by AR, AntiRacist Action (ARA) and OCAP. Participants demanded that police and city officials immediately end their harassment of squeegeers. That summer OCAP began fighting tickets in court. 'We see that people get a proper defence that is not afraid to challenge the credibility or intent of "Toronto's finest" and ensure that the judicial system incurs the maximum cost for every ticket that is written' (Sue Collis, 2000: 10). OCAP has won every case that it has fought.

Allan Gardens 

In August 1999 OCAP organized a several hundred strong occupation of Allan Gardens Park, an early target in the CAP where cops routinely cleared homeless people out or harassed people because of skin color or appearance. Just prior to the occupation the park had been the site of a major flashpoint in Toronto's racist policing projects.

Local homeowners lined up across the street on the south side of Allan Gardens and clapped and cheered as the cops raided the park. Cops rounded up 65 black men who were just hanging out, playing soccer and dominos. The cops made them get down on their knees, searched them, gave out three thousand dollars worth of loitering tickets and told them not to come back (Gaetan Heroux, 2001: 19).

In the manner of the Diggers in 17th century England, the park was established as a communal 'Safe Park.' As OCAP put it in their communique from the occupation: 'Let the City be on notice that it is our right to secure a safe place to sleep, eat and live that won't be interfered with' (August 7, 1999). For three days people lived together, fed helped and cared for each other. Police response was swift and vicious as the park was cleared out and dozens of arrests were made.

Despite this, the Safe Park led to an upsurge in our work as more and more people became convinced of the importance of fighting back. The viciousness of the response from the other side was also telling. The mayor and Premier Harris both denounced the event, the business media went into a frenzy and the police operations against us took things to a new level (John Clarke, 2001a: 12).

The actions of the authorities convinced participants and many observers that neither the City nor the Provincial Governments would listen to reasoned argument regarding the crisis of homelessness. Media coverage of the occupation and the police actions convinced OCAP of the futility of symbolic actions aimed primarily at 'raising awareness'.

June 15, 2000: fight to win

During the summer of 2000, OCAP and allies from unions and community groups raised the level of resistance by several degrees. A summer of direct action kicked off on June 15 with a mass effort to address the Provincial Legislature. OCAP requested that a delegation of poor people be allowed to address the legislature and explain how government cuts had harmed them. There were three very specific demands which participants wished to deliver to legislators: 1) Reinstate the 21.6% already cut from social assistance by the government since 1995; 2) Repeal the pro-landlord 'Tenant Protection Act' which removed rent controls within Ontario and has directly led to thousands of evictions in Toronto alone since its inception, and; 3) Repeal the 'Safe Streets Act.'

The action ended in a full-scale police riot during which demonstrators put up so much resistance that many cops contemplated leaving the force.

Despite full speed baton charges by mounted riot police it took over an hour for the cops to clear people from the grounds. Longtime officers claimed afterwards that they had never encountered such stiff resistance. The head of the riot squad infamously told reporters afterwards that it was as if the crowd 'didn't feel the blows.'

June 15 marked a potentially significant turning point. Firstly it showed us that we could stand up to their horrible force and fight. Secondly the day brought radical activists together again as part of a broader and hopefully sustained mobilization against the local agents of global capital. It gave the battle against global institutions in Seattle, Washington and Windsor a specifically local and ongoing focus.

There's a lesson here that takes us beyond the issue of organizing the poor or the fight against one government. We need to understand that capital is no longer interested in compromises and concessions. The political regimes it sends against us are out to take everything away. The old 'respectable' methods of struggle are getting us nowhere. The strength that OCAP has developed lies in its ability to break out of the normal patterns of 'consultation' that have been put in place to contain the anger of those we represent. We are hated by those in power and their gatekeepers precisely because we don't play by the rules they set up (John Clarke, 2001a: 13).

Since June 15, much time and energy has been spent building the fighting spirit of that day in neighbourhoods and communities where violence is inflicted everyday. This is the work which OCAP and its allies have begun.

Common Front

The Ontario Common Front (OCF) fall campaign of economic disruption was initiated almost one year ago with a proposal by OCAP to develop a serious and broadly based resistance to the policies of the provincial Tory government. The OCF eventually brought together over 80 community groups, unions, students, First Nations and artists in a coalition unseen in Ontario since the Days of Action. Recognizing the failings of symbolic protests, the fall campaign set out to create a real threat to Tory rule through tactics of economic disruption which would make it too costly for the Tories to continue carrying out their agenda. The corporate backers of the neoliberal regime would be targeted with the intention of raising the costs of supporting the Conservatives.

The Common Front campaign got off to an encouraging start on October 16, 2001 with an economic disruption right in the heart of Toronto's (and Canada's) financial district. Almost 3000 people marched through the streets of the business core despite a massive cop presence. The Common Front targeted significant corporate backers of the Tories, especially the major banks and real estate developers. While the snake march did not completely shut down the financial district, it did make it impossible for many companies to carry on business as usual. Some buildings were closed in anticipation of the action and others were rendered inaccessible by their own heightened security. Many corporations simply told workers to take the day off. Overall, the Tories' business backers took a financial hit of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Actions which followed in several other cities, including Sudbury, Hamilton, Peterborough and Ottawa, maintained the OCF emphasis on bringing a real cost to the government and its corporate sponsors rather than the routines of symbolic protests which attempt to shame people who have no shame and care nothing about the needs of the working class. Attempts to disrupt 'business as usual' offered a means to impede implementation of harmful policies and to draw people into the movement who have tired of ineffective 'protests.'

One of the main lessons of the campaign is the ongoing need to renew and broaden connections between rank-and-file workers and social justice activists. The campaign showed that labour bureaucrats remain unwilling to put union resources into any extra-parliamentary fightback campaign. It also showed clearly that for any campaign to be effective it must include active participation from rank-and-file workers. A small anti-poverty organization does not have the resources to carry out such a fight.

Return to the roots

Perhaps the most significant lesson of the OCF is the great need for local community work along the lines that OCAP has been doing in Toronto neighbourhoods like Parkdale and Rexdale. With the end of the fall campaign OCAP has re-dedicated itself to doing that work with renewed vigour. In the face of racist clamouring for war and tighter borders by Western imperial powers OCAP is stepping up its efforts to support immigrants and refugees against racial and class discrimination and for a decent and just life.

The Common Front campaign made it very clear that in many communities considerable groundwork still needs to be done just to stop or push back the everyday impacts of government policies. In order to build stronger movements and more militant struggles, people first have to experience some victories no matter how small they might seem (In this context no victory is a small one.) One of the most encouraging developments of the OCF has been the creation of fightback coalitions and OCAP-style direct action casework groups in a number of communities, most notably in London, Peterborough and Ottawa. These groups already provide new resources for poor people which did not exist prior to the campaign. At some point they may form a necessary pole of attraction for activists seeking move beyond the staged reformism of the unions.

In November 2001, OCAP opened its third Toronto office at York University, jointly staffed by OCAP and members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 3903 Anti-Poverty Working Group. The working group is ready to assist people experiencing problems with collection agents, landlords, bosses and police or anyone having difficulties with welfare or other government bureaucracies. The new office, located in the union office, provides an example of the type of joint projects which can bring labour and anti-poverty activists together.

Conclusion

Underpinning OCAP's activities is a grounded commitment to anticapitalism. When OCAP takes on bosses, landlords and governments we always remember that oppressive institutions and individuals arise from specific contexts. 'They are the products of a whole system that is unjust and that creates the poverty and misery we fight back against every day' (John Clarke, 2001). It is this system of social relations, capitalism, which must be overcome not merely the variable policies or figureheads which sustain it. This understanding underlies OCAP's analysis and shapes strategies and tactics. OCAP takes its lead from members' needs, not from what rulers tell us is 'possible', or 'realistic'.

If decent paying jobs, living income, adequate housing, health care and education are 'impossible' under this system, then we have to look beyond capitalism... This is the most simple but also the most important reason why OCAP is an anti-capitalist organization (John Clarke, 2001b: 13).

OCAP shows an important example of the recomposition of working class forces in Ontario. It brings together growing sections of working poor, unemployed and unsecured workers. In order to build this strength alliances must be made with other sectors of the working class, especially unionized workers. In that regard much work remains to be done and many obstacles remain since the collapse of coalitions around the Days of Action. Specifically, one can expect clashes with union leaders who are wary of direct action and still cling to hopes that the Keynesian compromise might be restored.

Over the years many activists have been drawn to OCAP because of its deep vision of the possibilities for a better world and a relentless commitment to act to make those possibilities real. Perhaps the Common Front will take up the real resistance which the Days of Action only hinted at; a resistance which can bring the corporate rulers to crisis.

References

Clarke, John. 2001a. 'The Meek Shall Inherit Diddley-Squat.' Briarpatch. 30(3): 9-13.

_____ 2001b. 'Anti-Capital/Anti-Poverty'. They Call it Struggle for a Reason. 4: 12-13

Collis, Sue. 2000. 'Target Police.' They Call it Struggle for a Reason. 1: 8-9

_____ 2001. 'Putting it on the Line.' They Call it Struggle for a Reason. 4: 4-5

Heroux, Gaetan. 2001. 'Pigs in Poor Neighbourhoods.' They Call it Struggle for a Reason. 4: 18-20

Swanson, Jean. 2001. Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion. Toronto: Between the Lines 

Jeff Shantz is a member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. He is working towards a Ph.D in Sociology at York University in Toronto.