Stop the Cuts - Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood

Stop the cuts by FTGU

Partial transcript of interview:

Mayor Rob Ford wants to cut $88 Million in city services in this year’s budget including cuts to homeless shelters, TTC routes, recreation programs, public health services such as the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre and HIV prevention programs, as well as 2,300 job cuts.

City Council will finalize the budget on Jan 17 to 19.

On January 17th Toronto Stop the Cuts will be holding a rally and action at city hall to demand city council reject these cuts. The group has been organizing against these cuts in neighbourhoods all across the city. I spoke with Victoria Barnett, an organizer with the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network, about their organizing.

Q: What impact will the cuts have?

VB: You see that it’s a very specific attack on people who are poor or who are marginalized and undocumented people or survivors of violence. When you think of the things they are cutting, they’re cutting from community centres, housing, that’s an impact on community relationships and community involvement. The strength of the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network is organizing people in their neighbourhoods and trying to keep those connections open.

Q: What are the advantages of organizing neighbourhood by neighbourhood?

VB: The network and in all the different neighbourhood groups- people have come together. And in those neighbourhoods, people that live two streets down from one another and didn’t even know each other a couple of months ago, are now meeting each other and building relationships. There are different successes in each neighbourhood. The one powerful thing that we have seen from this network is that people are talking and getting together. People are organizing lemonade stands or hot chocolate booths. They are organzing rallies in their communities. They’re organizing public forums. People are forming these relationships and telling Ford and their councillors that –we don’t want these cuts. We’re going to build our relationships and we’re going to be stronger than whatever it is you’re going to push at us.



Q: What are the challenges?

VB: For me, there are no challenges. The only one thing is the distance between the neighbourhoods. The amazing thing is that everyone is doing their own thing. There’s been more advantages, it’s getting together and sharing their experiences and doing the things they want to do where they live.

Q: Can you tell me about your demands?

For example housing - there’s a long waiting list for housing. Instead of cutting this service, it should be expanded. Something that’s not perfectly working is being cut even more. Where’s the money going? The one thing we’ve seen with the police budget is that they actually got an increase, whereas the other services have had a decrease. They’re cutting from the people who have less and giving it to the people who have enough or have more.

Q: What is your relationship with city councillors?

VB: Different neighbourhoods have had different relationships with councillors. But in terms of the network, we organize outside the framework of the councillors. We are building the community relationships that we want to have. That doesn’t mean that talking to councillors is not included in that. Part of this is putting pressure on the councillors to vote differently. But the focus is on community organizing.