(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Elizabeth Rowley

Many Ontarians are just now hearing about the historic referendum on mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) that coincides with the October 10 election. Fair Vote Canada, which birthed the "YES to MMP!" campaign, has done its best to reach voters, while the Liberals and Tories have dummied up, never raising the subject in debates. Even the NDP have been loathe to raise PR, which is ostensibly NDP policy.

     Instead, the key issue has been the Tory plan to publicly fund religious schools, which 70% of voters now oppose, according to polls.

     Some of the right-wing fundamentalists have become visible, foreshadowing what a Tory government would do with its aggressive new religious base - such as trying to reopen the question of (religious) sharia law to parallel Ontario's secular legal system, which Muslim clerics attempted to win in 2003.

     The Tories are campaigning for a parallel private health care system; for jailing Aboriginals in negotiations over the Six Nations reclamation site; and for more police powers, more jails and more punishment, all in the name of morality.

     This effort to shift politics to the right - out of sync with most voters - is aimed at the 200,000 voters who, in this very tight race, could swing from the Liberals to elect a minority Tory government. That's what the "principle" of religious school funding is about: not 53,000 students, but 200,000 votes.

     Clearly the Tories are expecting the NDP to support them, in their common effort to dump the Liberals. That would be folly for Ontario, and for the NDP, whom voters would not forgive. But the Liberals are no friends of public education, and have also made funding promises (as recently as 2003) to the religious coalition now campaigning for the Tories.

     The NDP is also campaigning to maintain Catholic school funding, and this too is about votes. Only the Communist Party and the Greens advocate withdrawal of funding from the Catholic system.

     Lost in the dust is the fight for a new funding formula for public education, and for electoral reform that will make Ontario more democratic. "YES for MMP" is distributing lawn signs in Toronto and Ottawa, to make the campaign visible and accessible to voters. Email "Vote for MMP" at info@voteformmp.ca to get a sign for your lawn or window.

     (Communist Party-Ontario leader Elizabeth Rowley is the party's candidate in Brampton-Springdale.)