True ultimately many of these jobs will be contacted out for slave wages but don’t think your taxes are going to go down, because they will find other things to spend that money on and little of witch will benefit you.
As for paying taxes we are do that and it is rediculous to act as if your the only ones paying the bills.

@ Glenda:
If the Province and the Feds would appropriately fund and stop cutting Canada’s social programs in order to give out income tax cuts there would be no need for non-profit sectors like Habitat, OCAP, and many more to exist.
Did you know the Toronto Housing Corp has the same population as PEI? (Over 130,000 residents)

If I quit being a social worker for the municipality I would be making 120.00+/hr per client in the private sector. But, I prefer to help the poor who cannot afford private practice rates. If we don’t do the job, who will? Certainly not you, since it seems that no one really cared when Welfare rates were reduced by 21.6% in the 90’s, EI Benefits are consistently reduced, cuts to our education system, unaffordable ppost secondary tuitions, rents that are more than a persons total monthly welfare cheque or even minimum wage salaries.

The current Feds took away our additional daycare subsidy funding for more daycare spaces that the City fought decades to get. And then the Province changed our eligibility requirements making more working people eligible. That’s terrific but they did this before we even had enough spaces to accommodate the influx of new clients.

Wake up and realise that our governments were never designed to effectively work for our large cities. Our system of governing was designed when Canada was a rural country and towns simply were a place that needed roads so you could access supplies for your farms. And Canada has never restructured its system of governing and taxation after the Industrial Age changed our country in dramatic ways.

The fact of the matter is that I, as well as many co-workers, am AGAINST this strike; I think it is a waste of time and the Union may not necessarily have our best interests in mind. Point of fact: we aren’t informed or contacted by the negotiating teams; we are under the media blackout just like you are.
And this strike is simply going to make our work life even worse with a whole new barrage of threats, assaults, and hostility when we return.

I will continue to work for the City of Toronto and treat my clients fairly and respectfully and continue to advocate for better social programs such as welfare, daycare subsidy, affordable housing for those in our society who, for whatever reason, don’t succeed in school, obtain good paying jobs, have the luck to be born without disabilities or to middle and upper class families, etc.

For better or worse, you live in a society based on capitalism. Your ‘evil CEOs’ are faced with choices which must result in the greatest benefit for their shareholders. Faced with union issues and minimum wage increases like those described here, ask yourself why manufacturing companies are fleeing to the Far East.

Here’s the trend so far:
90′s recession:
resulted in Welfare, education and social program cuts and downloading of social program costs to Ontario municipalites which aren’t permitted to implement revenue generating programs.

2009 recession:
resulting in cuts to union contract.

Now finally when min wage just got increased this year; they are fighting to reduce it? Wake up and smell the coffee people!