Labour Day 2010 - Join us Monday September 6th as thousands of union members and their families take to the streets for the annual Labour Day Parade.	A visual response to Stockwell Day's musings on the need for more prisons due to the increase in "unreported crime". Image by John Maclennan

NEXT LABOUR COUNCIL MEETING: the next delegates meeting will be on Thursday, September 2, 2010, the first Thursday of the month. 7:30 p.m., OFL Building, Auditorium Open to all members LABOUR HISTORY MAP LAUNCH George Brown College, the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, and CUPE Local 79 invite you to attend the event launch of the new walking tours map, "Mapping our Work: Toronto Labour History Walking Tours." WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1st, 10:00 a.m. GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE, 200 King Street, East, Room 175B From rallies for the Nine Hour Day at St Lawrence Hall in the 1870s to the quarter of a million Ontarians who protested the Harris Government's budget cutbacks at Queen's Park in the 1990s -- the map offers three unique walking tours of Toronto, showcasing the places and events of significance to working people. Free copies of the Toronto Labour History Walking Tours map will be available at the event launch. Click here to download the map labour history map

JULIUS DEUTSCH PARKETTE CEREMONY The City of Toronto has scheduled an official opening of the newly named Julius Deutsch Parkette for Thursday September 2nd at 1:00 pm. The park is located opposite the Steelworkers Hall on Cecil Street just East of Spadina and one block south of College Street. Julius was the Labour Council Executive Assistant who passed away earlier this year after a long life dedicated to the labour movement and working people. Everyone is welcome - the Steelworkers are hosting a reception after at their hall. LABOUR DAY PARADE The annual Labour Day Parade kicks off on Monday September 6th at 9:30 am from Queen and University. For over a century working people and their unions celebrate their struggles and their contributions to building Toronto and the region. The theme of this year's parade is Protect Our Public Services. For more information contact mking@labourcouncil.ca MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS 2010 The upcoming municipal elections will determine the politics of Canada’s largest urban centre for the next four years. To download the Labour Council 2010 program click here Municipal Elections 2010 JOE for MAYOR As Deputy Mayor, Joe is the only candidate for mayor who is determined to defend a progressive Toronto where workers rights are respected and the crucial role of strong public services is understood. Check out our choice for Mayor at www.mayorjoe.ca The Labour Council started endorsing candidates for the 2010 municipal election. To see the most recent list of endorsed candidates for Council and School Boards click here Endorsed candidates If you live in their areas, look them up and start helping out now! THE CITY WE WANT The summer of 2010 has already served up more than the usual share of drama and excitement. Most people haven't focused yet on the upcoming municipal elections, but the jockeying for position is already taking place. Is there a surprise in the level of support for Rob Ford's simplistic tax cuts message? We know it goes beyond hard-core conservatives to include some union members and residents who feel alienated from City Hall. But we also know what happens when that kind of right-wing populism prevails - the devastation and turmoil of the Mike Harris years were ample proof. To read on click here City we want OPEN FOR BUSINESS Privatization, not higher standards, the main goal of Canada-EU free trade talks By the end of 2010 Prime Minister Stephen Harper hopes to complete a new free trade agreement with the European Union. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will go much further than NAFTA in ensuring that public policy at all levels - from your local high school and city up to the federal government - does not interfere with "trade and investment". When asked, most Canadians say we should be trading more with Europe. But trade agreements are less about tariffs on imports, and more about other government policies that get in the way of business profits. There's money in Canada's public services While Canadian companies, including large agriculture and financial players, are looking for better access to the European market, EU negotiators are clearly after Canadian services contracts, including public services. Their goals have not changed since 2002, when international trade expert Ellen Gould listed the European demands as follows: "It is telling Canadians that the management of their pension funds should be opened up to private firms. It is telling the people of Saskatchewan, Quebec, and British Columbia they should surrender auto insurance services to foreign companies… People in all provinces with public monopolies on alcohol sales are being told these should be eliminated." For more information visit canadians.org PUBLIC SERVICES FOR ALL From hospitals to youth programs, libraries to electricity, subways to home care-our quality of life depends upon good public services. Well-funded and publicly owned services ensure a good life is affordable and achievable for all Torontonians. The Good Jobs for All coalition has launched a major campaign talking about the value of public services during the municipal election period. There are flyers covering four themes: Public Transit for All; It takes a City to Raise A Child; Good Jobs for All Our City Not for Sale. You can download them from www.goodjobsforall.ca and circulate them in your workplace and community. PUBLIC INQUIRY NEEDED ON G20 Many organizations have now joined the Canadian Labour Congress and Canadian Civil Liberties Association in calling for this inquiry into the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. While most news focused on the vandalism and arrests, the untold story was the G20 adoption of an austerity agenda the will result in deep cuts to public services and workers standards in many countries. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom is supposed to guarantee the rights to freedom of speech, freedom to assembly and freedom to exercise our right to peaceful and lawful protest. To read the statement endorsed by Labour Council delegates click here Public inquiry needed on G-20. NOT ENOUGH MONEY - CANCEL CORPORATE TAX CUTS! Did you know that Stephen Harper's corporate tax cuts will deplete federal revenues by $14 billion every year? Even companies that send our jobs overseas are rewarded with the lower tax rates. Premier McGuinty is also reducing corporate taxes - a move that will cost Ontario $2.4 billion each year. Yet we keep hearing there is not enough money for healthcare, education, transit, our cities… or to seriously tackle climate change. Canadian business already has the lowest rate of any industrialized country in the world. To read the Toronto Star Op-ed by John Cartwright, click here Cancel corporate taxes to deal with deficit It's time to tell Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty they have the wrong priorities. Click below to send your message - Cancel the corporate tax cuts now! PRIVATIZE TRANSIT? HERE'S WHAT YOU GET... By Jim Standord in the Globe and Mail Toronto's main business lobby, the Board of Trade, recently called for the outsourcing of public transit services to private companies, part of their free advice to the next mayor on reducing the city's deficit. On one level, it's an unremarkable proposal: just the latest in a chorus of business demands that governments fix their deficits by selling, contracting out or eliminating public services. But it caught my eye because I am residing temporarily in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, where the transit system is the most fragmented, expensive and maddening I've ever used. And it's 100-per-cent private. The gory details provide a caution for those who believe the private market always does things better. To read more click Privatize transit? STRANGERS BY SEA As the Harper government talks about unwelcome people arriving on our shores, it's important to think about just who came to Canada in past generations. Toronto is a city built by both immigrants and refugees, and their decendants. The Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy writes of those who came by boat: Canada's first boat people were the Norse who came ashore a thousand years ago in Newfoundland. They fit the refugee pattern: farmers and simple artisans, maybe a few fierce Vikings among them known for terrorizing Europe, people driven out of their homeland by population pressures and political unrest. The primal fear of the stranger, the Other, seems edgiest when they arrive by sea. They can be watched, coming across the blank, huge canvas of the ocean, moment by moment growing larger and more ominous on the horizon, carrying alien stuff. Hence the noisy narrative of the MV Sun Sea's progress over the Pacific into Canadian territory with its Tamil cargo. to read more click strangers by sea Top