Protest of Budget Cuts Disrupts Toronto

Tens of thousands of protesting workers disrupted government services in Canada’s most populous city Friday, but they did not send Toronto into the paralysis some had forecast.

Demonstrators opposed to budget cuts by the Ontario provincial government shut down the municipal transit system; halted mail delivery, garbage pickup and other public services; closed construction sites, some factories and most government buildings; and forced hospitals to postpone elective surgery and chemotherapy for patients.

Large numbers of workers, anticipating confrontations or traffic gridlock that never materialized, took the day off or worked from their homes.

The result, on a cloudless day with temperatures in the upper 50s, was a near-holiday ambience in metropolitan Toronto, Canada’s financial capital and home to about 2.5 million people.

Schools, the airport, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the University of Toronto, all targeted by protest organizers, remained open, although in some cases with reduced staff.

Shops, restaurants, banks and the commuter trains that link Toronto with its suburbs carried on as usual.

Rush-hour freeway traffic was exceptionally light; some workers commuted on bicycles or roller-blades.

The two-day protest, spearheaded by organized labor and social action groups, concludes today with a downtown rally expected to draw as many as 250,000 people.

The protest is aimed at the government of Ontario Premier Mike Harris, a conservative who has imposed sharp reductions in government spending in an effort to trim the province’s nearly $68 billion in public debt and implement a 15% decrease in provincial income tax rates.

The spending cuts are expected to total $5.88 billion over the next three years and will lead to elimination of more than 10,000 government jobs. Welfare grants already have been reduced by 21.6%, university tuition has risen 15% to 20%, transit fares have jumped, public hospitals are being selected for closure or consolidation, and enforcement of environmental laws has been curtailed.

But Harris’ popularity has not appreciably suffered. An October poll by the Angus Reid Group showed him with a 52% approval rating in the province. A Reid poll taken in Toronto last week showed little support for Friday’s protest; 72% of those surveyed opposed it.

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Although the protest was not as disruptive as some had forecast, organizers declared themselves satisfied.

“It’s not business as usual,” said one organizer, Margaret Hancock. “The city is ours for a day.”

But Harris told reporters he was unswayed and repeated earlier assertions that the cuts are necessary to reinvigorate the province’s sluggish economy.

“I heard they were going to shut the city down, and they haven’t,” he said.

Some people expressed frustration after being barred from entering their offices by blockading pickets. Despite some shoving, the demonstrations were generally orderly, and there were only a handful of arrests Friday.

Andrew Van Velzen of The Times’ Toronto Bureau contributed to this report.