this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
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BuT rEmEmBeR rAe DaYs?!?!? Says every brainwashed turd who lived through the 90s.
Rae's strategy for dealing with the crash was so successful it has been studied and adopted by governments around the world. But Ontario still hates him for it. This place sucks.
I don’t. What’s Rae Days?
It was a strategy used to keep govt employees employed rather than face layoffs. The trade off was that they would work fewer days and get paid for days worked. Everyone was up in arms over these “Rae days” off for the government. The alternative being a lot of people would have just straight up lost their jobs. This kept people working and kept things running. But when you talk to people about the NDP the argument always comes back to “ do you want to go through Rae days again? “ the answer is yes if it lets people keep their jobs.
I think the deeper and more founded grievance is that Rae sacrificed private sector unions so he could save the public sector unions.
I’ve honestly never heard this. Would you care to elaborate?
Probably everything I know comes from Steve Paiken interviews. This is a good episode. Steve interviews Rae on the subject. The other half of the episode was a panel discussion about Rae Days etc with people from the era, probably more relevant. (Transcript)
Thanks for the transcript link too! Interesting read, I can completely understand the betrayal there. It’s really unfortunate that Rae would cow-tow to the corporations like that and refuse to increase taxes, while hurting the unions and increasing the publics taxes. Kinda goes against the whole point of their party. An unfortunate symptom of a poor leader, but it shouldn’t haunt the party to this day.
I'm surprised that is your conclusion. Ontario's outcomes were among the best. We might have rather different compromises were made, but compromises had to be made, no one was going to be happy, and he righted the boat.
I just mean the specific avoidance of corporate taxation. To do that and then go after the workers to freeze their wages and force bargaining is kind of backwards logic to the more socialist ideals the party represents. The outcome in the end worked, and I will still vote and support the NDP. I’m just saying I can see why union members felt betrayed, and I think that comes down to the leadership of the time. Although they did try to avoid bargaining with lower income earners. Ugh. It’s messy. I’m just so hung up on the lack of action against corporations. It’s so backwards to the ideals.
Edit - I’m still just mulling this all over in my head. It might have been the right call. With everything happening at the time and increase in corporate tax may have led to private sector layoffs. Which would strain the welfare system even harder.
Younger people are saying it too and have no idea what/why.