Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- In a message dated 31/07/01 17:45:08 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Subj: HELP OCAP SURVIVE BUZZ HARGROVE'S FUNDING CUT! Date: 31/07/01 17:45:08 Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]";>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AN URGENT APPEAL TO TRADE UNIONISTS, COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS AND THOSE FIGHTING THE HARRIS GOVERNMENT Dear Sisters and Brothers, CAW National President, Buzz Hargrove, has decided to cut funding to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). This follows an eviction action we carried out at the office of Tory Finance Minister, James Flaherty. Hargrove was apparently offended that participants in this action may have damaged some of Flaherty's furniture. For a poor peoples' organization like OCAP, the loss of the CAW's $10,000 a year is a serious blow. This situation is further impacted because we have received this money every September for the past five years and have come to rely and base our annual spending on it. To lose it on this short notice threatens our ability to operate our two small offices and pay our staff. It endangers the work we do to defend people facing such abuses as eviction, deportation and denial of benefits, and it generally undermines our struggles for the rights of the poor and homeless. Of even greater importance, ever since our March on Queen's Park last June, OCAP has pressed for a renewed united struggle against the Harris Tories based not on outdated models of 'protest' but on methods of real resistance. We have initiated a call for an economic disruption campaign to hurt the corporate cash registers of Ontario to the point where a price tag is put on the Tory Agenda that makes them cost ineffective in the eyes of their wealthy backers. We have traveled throughout the Province visiting First Nations communities, union halls, schools, universities and community centres. This has led to the formation of a common front of over sixty organizations ready to launch a counter attack on Harris that will sweep across Ontario during October. Our ability to carry on organizing in this most vital area of our work is also at risk as a result of Hargrove's funding cut. That the media, the cops and the Durham Crown Attorney's Office were ready to label our action at Flaherty's Office an act of 'terrorism', to attack us and throw our members in jail was no great surprise. However, that Buzz Hargrove was so offended by our pitching a Tory minister's office furniture out in the street was astounding to us. Unlike the homeless who've died on the streets, the sick who are denied adequate health care, the victims of the Walkerton disaster and workers who will be prevented from refusing unsafe work, Flaherty's filing cabinets felt no pain. Very frankly, as much as we respect the CAW, the stand taken by its National President is out of touch with the tasks that face us if we are to build a movement that can stop the Tories. The political thugs at Queen's Park just don't understand the language of fair play and respectability that Buzz wants us to use on them but, when they know we're ready to fight back just as seriously as they're prepared to attack us, that's when they'll understand us perfectly. When we launch that kind of an uncompromising struggle, that's when the defeat of the Harris Agenda will be on the table. Has so little been learned from Quebec City that the best we can hope for in Ontario is token protest and a refusal to 'go to the fence' by those whose full fledged support would be decisive? OCAP strongly believes that we simply can't allow the old patterns of compromise and accommodation to hold us back any longer. Moral arguments and passive indignation bounce off the Tories without effect. Their Government must be thrown into political crisis by a social mobilization that massively disrupts their workings, threatens their support base and undermines their whole ability to proceed with their attacks. But we can't help to build such a mobilization without your help. On this basis, we are asking union locals, community organizations, activists and all who support OCAP's struggles, to help us rapidly repair the damage done by Hargrove's unfortunate decision. PLEASE MAIL YOUR CHEQUES TO OCAP AT 249 SHERBOURNE STREET, TORONTO, ONTARIO M5A 2R9. In Solidarity, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty ** Ontario Coalition Against Poverty 249 Sherbourne Street Toronto, Ontario M5A 2R9 416-925-6939 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ocap.ca ** >> ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
AN URGENT APPEAL TO TRADE UNIONISTS, COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS AND THOSE FIGHTING THE HARRIS GOVERNMENT Dear Sisters and Brothers, CAW National President, Buzz Hargrove, has decided to cut funding to the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). This follows an eviction action we carried out at the office of Tory Finance Minister, James Flaherty. Hargrove was apparently offended that participants in this action may have damaged some of Flaherty's furniture. For a poor peoples' organization like OCAP, the loss of the CAW's $10,000 a year is a serious blow. This situation is further impacted because we have received this money every September for the past five years and have come to rely and base our annual spending on it. To lose it on this short notice threatens our ability to operate our two small offices and pay our staff. It endangers the work we do to defend people facing such abuses as eviction, deportation and denial of benefits, and it generally undermines our struggles for the rights of the poor and homeless. Of even greater importance, ever since our March on Queen's Park last June, OCAP has pressed for a renewed united struggle against the Harris Tories based not on outdated models of 'protest' but on methods of real resistance. We have initiated a call for an economic disruption campaign to hurt the corporate cash registers of Ontario to the point where a price tag is put on the Tory Agenda that makes them cost ineffective in the eyes of their wealthy backers. We have traveled throughout the Province visiting First Nations communities, union halls, schools, universities and community centres. This has led to the formation of a common front of over sixty organizations ready to launch a counter attack on Harris that will sweep across Ontario during October. Our ability to carry on organizing in this most vital area of our work is also at risk as a result of Hargrove's funding cut. That the media, the cops and the Durham Crown Attorney's Office were ready to label our action at Flaherty's Office an act of 'terrorism', to attack us and throw our members in jail was no great surprise. However, that Buzz Hargrove was so offended by our pitching a Tory minister's office furniture out in the street was astounding to us. Unlike the homeless who've died on the streets, the sick who are denied adequate health care, the victims of the Walkerton disaster and workers who will be prevented from refusing unsafe work, Flaherty's filing cabinets felt no pain. Very frankly, as much as we respect the CAW, the stand taken by its National President is out of touch with the tasks that face us if we are to build a movement that can stop the Tories. The political thugs at Queen's Park just don't understand the language of fair play and respectability that Buzz wants us to use on them but, when they know we're ready to fight back just as seriously as they're prepared to attack us, that's when they'll understand us perfectly. When we launch that kind of an uncompromising struggle, that's when the defeat of the Harris Agenda will be on the table. Has so little been learned from Quebec City that the best we can hope for in Ontario is token protest and a refusal to 'go to the fence' by those whose full fledged support would be decisive? OCAP strongly believes that we simply can't allow the old patterns of compromise and accommodation to hold us back any longer. Moral arguments and passive indignation bounce off the Tories without effect. Their Government must be thrown into political crisis by a social mobilization that massively disrupts their workings, threatens their support base and undermines their whole ability to proceed with their attacks. But we can't help to build such a mobilization without your help. On this basis, we are asking union locals, community organizations, activists and all who support OCAP's struggles, to help us rapidly repair the damage done by Hargrove's unfortunate decision. PLEASE MAIL YOUR CHEQUES TO OCAP AT 249 SHERBOURNE STREET, TORONTO, ONTARIO M5A 2R9. In Solidarity, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty ** Ontario Coalition Against Poverty 249 Sherbourne Street Toronto, Ontario M5A 2R9 416-925-6939 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ocap.ca **
