STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

I have been trying to put together on a book on advocacy practice for some time, particularly around what constitutes ethics. Initially it focused primarily on the ethical parts of advocacy geared to the legal profession, but then again - we already have plenty of guidance in that through our regulator and various professional associations. However, my work is much more than that ... I talk more about meaning, what it means to speak up for yourself, speak up for others, or to represent a constituent group.

Limiting ethics to practice work is difficult, as in practice, doing advocacy as a profession still stifles us to a specific framework of how we advocate, how we present ourselves and how we maintain our clients' respective position. But nevertheless, my focus here is on self-advocacy, individual-focused advocacy and representative advocacy. There are basic ethics and guidelines in how to do these things correctly, but more or less, why you want to do it - that is the important thing.

I always say people who are white male millionnaires never need advocates. Such persons are capable of generating the resources they need when they feel threatened or backed into a corner. These are the people that threaten newspapers with libel action when unfavourable press is generated about them, or somebody at one of their social clubs attempts to exclude them in some way. The people I work with are those that need assistance with self-advocacy or need somebody to back them up big time.

I always pride myself in that I have a voice and I am eager to use it whenever I have a chance, and I will use it whenever I feel under attack. Part of self-advocacy for me is identifying my boundaries. Personal boundaries are a big thing. You have a right as an individual to decide what comes into your home, into your life or what level of abuse you are willing to exchange for valued goods and services. To me, I feel I should not have to follow any rules that are different than the rules that are followed by others. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of this country, I am supposed to be considered equal before and under the law and under this province's Human Rights Code, I am supposed to live a life that is free from harassment and discrimination regardless of mental or physical disability, creed, ethnicity, racial origin, gender and a myriad of other reasons.

It is unfortunate that most people don't think this way, particularly when they are disadvantaged in some way, either by disability, ethnicity, poverty or some other issue. In 2006, I filed a couple of legal actions. These things took a lot out of me, as I don't like to get involved in protracted legal issues unless I feel I can bring something important to a final or interim resolution by doing so, when other strategies have failed. It is 2009, and these two actions will soon be winding their way back in the system. I am trying to find some time to obtain some important documentation because both of these cases are of public interest. Many people around me are aware of these two legal actions and for most, they cheer me on in the background; however, when I ask them to join me in the action, they are hesitant. For me, it is the number of people who are hesitant, not only in taking legal action, but raising hell in other ways, that leads to continued and entrenched discriminatory practices in society.

In my last posting, I made reference to Tim Hudak who campaigned and successfully won the leadership of the provincial Progressive Conservatives in part because he announced early on that he plans to dismantle the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. To me, that is a bad move. I am not a big fan of the way things are set up with the new Tribunal, as one year of full year practice has already proven for me what I thought would happen. In order to deal with a Complaint of legitimacy, one still waits. Once the Tribunal gets to it, it rushes the process to a point where it is difficult to properly assess, evaluate and play by the rules. Some Complaints that are irrelevant have been pushed through and while the Tribunal has handily dismissed them, the time the process has taken has been lost from legitimate issues.

Hudak's solution is just to put the matter to the courts. He suggested a good model would be the Family Law Courts or Domestic Violence Courts "where cases are heard on evidence as opposed to hurt feelings". That phrase made me laugh, as it is obvious that Hudak has never been the subject of a proceeding before either of these courts. The Family Law Courts handle both matters of separation, divorce, custody and support, as well as Children's Aid matters. If any of these subjects hit home with you personally, you know these courts are certainly procedurally minded, but many do feel they do not work on hard evidence. Families facing the Children's Aid feel they are kneeling below the Sword of Damascus no matter what they say or do. Parents and couples separating have found the family courts to depend largely on what Judge hears your case or how competent your lawyer is, if you can afford one. Nevertheless, many families have gone through these endeavours only to come out on the other end broke, penniliess, exhausted and alone. Many men as well also know what it is like to be accused of domestic violence as well ... what that does to their family, children, relationships and to some extent, in certain cases, their employment.

To the contrary, I do find the Human Rights Tribunals to base their decisions on evidence. In recent cases I have dealt with before the new Tribunal, I find the adjudicators to be very impartial and push parties to stick to the facts. They have mediations, discovery processes, interim decisions, motions, case conferences and other means of resolving disputes. As a young Tribunal, it is struggling still and at its birth, it was unfairly hit with thousands and thousands of cases, many of which were transferred over from but not resolved by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. If one reads the decisions of the Tribunal, which are printed through its website, one sees that the decisions are based on both fact and law. Many people do come to the Tribunal with complaints that may not necessarily fit the mould of the Code and the adjudicators are careful to ensure that the parties have an opportunity to review the law and take the opportunity to see if their case truly falls within its jurisdiction.

It is not the fault of the Tribunal that the occasional person puts forth a ridiculous lawsuit such as the one that is now before it about an alleged trans-gendered person that is accusing a ladies gym owner of barring him/her from the premises. There are reasonable defences to this respondent and I do hope he wins. However, cases like this do not necessitate the elimination of the Tribunal. People like this always seem to find a way to grind their axes in the court system too. I've encountered them in my own professional practice. An individual representing themselves puts forth a ridiculous lawsuit against my client that is either statute barred or based on non-justiciable issues, or on no evidence whatsoever, and despite motions to shut it down, the court tends to allow them to continue for a time until case conference or after some point in discovery or even in the lower courts, at time of trial. Yes, justice prevails here too, but only after months or even years of a stupid case winding through the courts.

However, the main reason I object is the issue of access. Courts are more difficult to deal with, are inherently more complex and if one is to pursue them, they usually need representation. In many courts, particularly the kind that Hudak alludes to, one can ONLY be represented by a lawyer and not by agent or paralegal. So, if a Complainant to this fictitious Human Rights Court wants to file a Complaint, they need to have money and LOTS of it ... as I said before, the white male millionnaires will probably not be filing complaints in this Court. But, the ones that really need to be in this Court will be shut out for financial and personal reasons. The Tribunal, on the other hand, while not perfect and still littered with too many rules in itself, is more accessible. More Complainants can self-represent in a meaningful way and others too, with some summary assistance by its Legal Support Centre. In some cases, the LSC will be able to represent a party all the way through a case. As well, paralegals and other approved agents can also represent a party before this Tribunal.

My concern is that if Hudak ever gets elected as Premier of Ontario and follows through with this above promise, rights abuses against vulnerable citizens will become more tolerated and accepted because there will be fewer people able to stand up against the abusers. With less Complaints, people like Hudak will make it look like Ontario is wonderful and tolerant and that the government is 'looking after' its people, while the pain and malcontent is simply shoved further beneath the surface.

Some people see how I instruct folks on self-advocacy. They complain that I can do this because I have legal training. The truth is I was doing it long before I got any of my legal training. What I understood and what I try to get people to understand is that you need to become aware of and respect YOUR personal boundaries. You know what is right for YOU and many times, when something does not FEEL right, it is not right. I sincerely believe that if even ten (10) percent of the population of low-income citizens or the population of persons with disabilities were to become effective self-advocates, many of the abuses that take place today will soon become intolerable in our society.

But unfortunately, many people do not become self-advocates or choose not to do so for a number of reasons: (1) They feel there is always somebody like me that is going to do it for them. I can't be everywhere, so other people need to chime in. (2) They feel they cannot be effective or they cannot win. Of course, you will not win by not fighting back. You can never choose your outcome by learning effective advocacy, but by not doing so - you are - you are choosing to lose. (3) In some areas of self-advocacy, they fear reprisal. People living in public housing fear they will get evicted. People receiving ODSP think they will get suspended or cut off for some real or imaginary "rule". People who assert their rights to law enforcement persons, such as the police force or even children's aid think they will be penalized in some way. The key is assertive, not aggressive or silly. (4) They fear unwanted publicity. To me, I always found the media to be an effective tool when "quieter" forms of advocacy didn't work; and (5) People feel they don't know their rights. There are always ways to find out what your rights are if you are not sure.

Some of the keys that worked for me is:

NEVER BE AFRAID

If your opponents note that you are not afraid of them, they are more likely to become afraid of you, especially if you start to assert yourself. To me, I approach all people I meet in various situations as simply other people who are doing a job. Many times, the person who is doing the job is not sure themselves if they are doing their job correctly. They will never share with you, but if you know they are acting in a way they are not supposed to, that will set them off ...

BE IN A POSITION TO INFORM, NOT ATTACK

Inform your adversaries of the facts. Back it up with evidence, as required. Do not agree to any position that makes you feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, I have had clients encounter agents that try to get them to sign a statement that includes an admission of guilt for something the person does not feel they did. There is nothing wrong with refusing to sign it. A couple of times, I noted an ODSP agent writing or alleging statements that my client is not declaring an income or an asset, or is living with somebody or has lived with somebody. If these allegations are not true, say so.

Many times, I informally meet with government agents, for example, who may be unaware a certain regulation was dealt with in a particular way by a court, for example. I come in with a copy of the court decision and provide them with it, as part of my "information" and "support" role. Do this in the spirit of cooperation and support, not an attack. People will react better to you when they better understand your position. I have had many crazy decisions overturned before they even reached the appeals stage that way.

BE PREPARED TO TAKE IT FURTHER

If the first stage does not resolve the issue, take it up a level. Get to know how your opponent is organized. Do they have a formal complaint process? Do they have a chain of command? Does the system you are fighting have a formal appeal process? I have had to advocate for myself and others in various systems, such as student loans, the school board, the welfare office, the co-op board, funding agencies, etc. many times without knowing what the process was at first, but I learned it.

Take the time to get to know your opponent. Who do they answer to? How do decisions by your opponent get made? Are they governed by any particular legislation? Is there a visible chain of command? Start at the point of the person you are disagreeing with, then go up the ladder. Do this in an informed way, while respecting their processes, yet at the same time being very clear as to what the nature of your concerns are.

LEARN ABOUT YOUR RIGHTS

Your opponent is not going to tell you what rights you have over them. However, no opponent, particularly any "official" opponent has absolute power and control. These people have less power over you than they try to let you believe. There are great resources to conduct research on your own to find out what your rights are. Google is a wonderful tool, which saved my hide several times. If your opponent is a government agency, you can obtain an organizational chart online to learn who is above the person who made the decision you are concerned about. There will also be information about how to file a formal complaint or appeal a decision on the organization's website or on the websites of persons or agencies that often support people like you who are fighting certain issues.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO SPEAK TO THE MEDIA, BUT USE JUDGEMENT

In many cases, going to the media can be a good thing. It is often the straw that breaks the camel's back in certain bureaucratic abyss' that might not move otherwise. Get to know your local media, who is in charge of it and how you can reach somebody who might be interested in your story. Many reporters have "beats" that can be used to channel your information. For example, a health reporter might write a story about a mess-up that happened in your local hospital. A police reporter might be interested in how you were wrongfully arrested, placed in jail and then cleared, but how this impacted your life. An education reporter might be interested in the fight you are having getting supports for your child in your school.

If you want to try the media, be careful first. It is wise to speak with somebody who has dealt with the media before you try to do it. Keep your point simple. Emphasize three points in your release to them, and try not to make your story too complicated. Readers and viewers like the 30-second clip or the newspaper article that grabs their attention with key facts. Pay attention to your timing. If there is a bill before the legislature about your issue, you may want to bring this to the reporter's attention. If your issue just happens to be taking place during Mental Health Week (e.g. having trouble finding mental health help for your child), Poverty Awareness Week (e.g. how you just got cut off ODSP for a "phantom" job they claim you have), etc. it is timely. Make sure you approach your reporter when nothing of immediate concern is going on, such as a multi-car pile up on the QEW, the resignation of the Prime Minister, somebody getting shot in your community, etc. These other issues tend to draw reporters away, at least temporarily from what story you might have.

MAINTAIN BALANCE

You may be passionate about your issue. Your issue may be the only thing that lights up your life at this moment, but remember that whether your issue is going on or not, the rest of the world is still going on as it always has. This can make you feel alone and isolated. Talk to friends, families and community organizations that might be of some support to you and your issue. Take respite breaks from your issue to do things that relax and empower you, whether that be that hot bath, that glass of wine at dinner or listening to that new CD you bought.

HAVE FAITH

Rome wasn't built in a day. Your issue will not be resolved in a day either. Any progress in the right direction is positive progress that needs to be acknowledged by you. Keep your issue in the spotlight where possible. Write letters to the editor. Write articles or post online to discussion groups that are related to your issue. Meet informally with others who have an interest in the same issue. Keep in touch with the people that have power over deciding about the issue that concerns you. Send them articles and Internet links that support your position; keep them in the loop.

AS A LAST RESORT, TAKE LEGAL ACTION

You may or may not need to do this, or legal action may not necessarily be what your issue needs, but in some cases, it will push the issue to the top of your opponent's agenda. Being sued has a way of making people pay attention all of a sudden. However, before taking legal action, seeking an hour of a legal expert's time is a good investment. This person can tell you what laws apply to your situation, what legal options you have and how you can best push for your position. They can also tell you if you should take this course of action as well.

There are resources on the Internet that can help you represent yourself if you are articulate and knowledgeable enough about your issue. There are legal experts that might be willing to coach you while you represent yourself on a matter if you cannot afford to hire them to do it for you. In some circumstances, in Ontario a licensed paralegal or agent can represent you on certain matters. In others, you might need to consult a lawyer.

However, if you choose to represent yourself, make sure your documentation is done correctly and you follow the rules of whatever court or tribunal you are taking the matter to. Make sure you come prepared, have all of your facts together along with any evidence. Prepare in advance for what your opponent will say and make sure your documentation addresses this. Be clear as to what remedy you are seeking and justify why that remedy is appropriate.

Even if you are taking legal action against your opponent, treat them and any legal representatives they might have respectfully at all times. This can pay off in big dividends, particularly if your opponent admits part of your case or may be considering some type of settlement proposal. However, when you file for legal action, be prepared to take your case all the way to Trial, even though many cases, you will be able to settle the case before that. It still surprises me to this day how an amicable settlement can still be worked out in many cases, even when it seemed that the involved parties are so far apart on the issues.

SHARE YOUR SUCCESSES

When you accomplish something, write about it. Talk about it. Join or start a group where other people might also be seeking similar solutions that you were able to achieve. If you advocate for somebody else, train that person to take their own stand so that when you are finished your task, there will be at least one more person speaking up about the injustices and doing something about them.

To me, it is only when more and more people take a stand and forward action on human rights issues, that the rest of society will even begin to see their importance and stop any discriminatory practices they might have, or even intervene when they see it happening to somebody else. To me, this is the kind of society that truly respects one another.

BACKLASH AGAINST PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES: BE AWARE OF THE UNDERCURRENT

There are two seemingly very different, but disturbing trends that may impact on the well being of persons with disabilities in Ontario. One involves current policy discussions on the design of disability income supports. The second involves the provincial Progressive Conservative leadership contest and the stated intentions of at least two of the candidates to disband the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. While both issues may appear to be distant and not within the realm of the possible to many people who care about human rights, we better start paying attention to the progress of both initiatives.

With regards to the income support issue, our provincial government in Ontario has promised as part of its poverty-reduction strategy to carry out a review of both the Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Programs. While anti-poverty activists welcome the review, many of us are taking a cautious approach to this. While many of the reviewed items will be to enhance one's "incentives" to join or re-join the paid labour force, poverty-reduction activists are cautious because we are not sure of what this scope would mean and how disability benefits would look in the future, if proposals become adopted.

A federal paper by Richard August, who is a policy analyst from Saskatchewan, cites a proposal that leaves many advocates in Ontario concerned. The paper, which can be found at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy website, raises the spectre of "passive disability benefits" versus something that the author contends would place conditionality to its receipt. While August does support taking disability supports outside the welfare system, which is a point many people in Ontario's disability advocacy community do support, the concept of "conditionality" in his paper leaves this path to be less clear. The reference to the term "passive" would imply that receipt of disability benefits on the condition of entitlement and eligibility alone would hint the obligations on the part of the recipient should be increased.

A clear read of this policy paper which is more than thirty pages in length leaves the reader concerned that if this proposal were to come to light, there were be greater conditionality on the part of persons with disabilities to find and keep a job, and that one's income supports would be measured by the degree to which "outside supports", such as assistive devices, personal care attendants and other related disability related needs are required. For those of us with experience in the mental health field, we know this would exclude most persons with mental health diagnoses, leaving them to live on what very little income supports that may be left for them. At the same time as imposing conditionality, August does not impose similar obligations on the employers who more often than not shirk their responsibilities in hiring and paying good wages to persons with disabilities. The assumptions raised in this paper assume that if "barriers" imposed by social assistance regulations alone were removed, that all persons with disabilities that want to work, will find jobs.

Further, benefits themselves would be restructured where income supports and disability supports would be separate benefits and measured based on need, as opposed to membership in the "disability" category. While this may make sense for some types of disabilities, there are many "disability related costs" that are more hidden and pervasive that such a policy would not cover. For example, for people who do not drive, their costs for most basic goods and services are much higher than for those that do. For persons with "invisible" disabilities, the types of counseling and training supports required are not covered under provincial medicare plans and need to be paid for out of pocket. For some persons, it is imperative that certain supports and expenses be covered to enable labour force participation to any extent. For example, I am presently challenging the whole notion that it depends on where one lives, if somebody on ODSP can access dentures, orthotics, braces, etc. as opposed to need. It is possible such a reformed vision of disability supports might remove this form of geographic discrimination, but then again, will it limit for all what supports can be covered?

Further, what would the author of such a paper feel is an adequate income to cover basic non-disability related needs, such as housing, food, normal travel, clothing, etc.? Even this author seemed to want to tie a subsidized housing benefit to the disability program, which I have frequently pointed out in other entries in this blog would work against labour market participation, as well as penalize those who have family members move in and out of the home. While the author did say there appears to be a dichotomy between the issues of adequacy and "incentives" to work, he has not addressed this issue very well either. If you create more "incentives" to work by reducing benefits, this is not going to make more jobs available to those whose ability to participate in the labour market is limited. All this does is create greater financial distress for people who have no other source of income than disability income supports.

Until we get employers willing to hire people with disabilities in ALL levels of employment within their organizations and pay them the same as they would a non-disabled counterpart doing the same job, this is not going to work. Reports are as high as 90% of persons with mental health issues and vision loss are unemployed and at its best, maybe 50% for some other disability groups. For those employers that do hire persons with disabilities, their skills, education and prior work experience are not recognized and it is assumed that such employees are only capable of doing low-skilled, repetitive work. This is in spite of the fact more and more persons with disabilities are gaining a higher education, and even among them, there continues to remain a high rate of reliance on social assistance.

I sat downtown at a fast food take out station near the hub of our downtown, where many persons with disabilities meet and obtain coffee after their daily activities draw to an end. Among this group, I have a man trained in forensic psychology, a man with a degree in social work, an engineer, a woman trained as a teacher and another, an early childhood educator. Virtually all of them are on ODSP and unable to secure any work, let alone work in their fields. Is it really a good thing to tell these people that their incomes will now drop to OW levels to give them more "incentive" to find low paying work? To me, all this does is enhance the low wage labour force and allow abusive employers to continue to operate with impunity. At the same time, it is denying society the skills these people would otherwise offer in more appropriate occupations, which would usually pay enough to get them out of poverty -- let alone off assistance. To me, forcing people into low wage labour does nothing to counter poverty.

The second issue is related to the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Many people are not aware that there is currently serious debate about scrapping both the Commission and the Tribunal and forcing these types of issues to be heard in a regular courtroom. While people who are not usually the type who would be subject to human rights abuses would not see this as a problem, regular courts are inaccessible to the vast majority of those who would file human rights complaints. Every annual report from the commission identified that the vast majority of complaints are filed by persons with disabilities and in most of those cases, the issue involves employment. Other cases creeping up the ladder involve services, including government mandated services, such as education, transportation and access to certain kinds of benefits.

Human rights tribunals are specialized and now empowered under Bill 107 to provide certain equitable relief in meritorious cases. You do not need to be represented by a lawyer to go to the Human Rights Tribunal. A licensed paralegal with experience in this field can do just as well, and some articulate persons themselves would be able to manage the Tribunal on their own as its procedures are more simpler and straight forward than a court, which would often require multiple discoveries, etc. Going to court would always invariably involve hiring a lawyer, most of whom ask for $2,000 to $5,000 upfront for this type of case and at the end it may cost between $40,000 to $60,000 to take the matter to trial. Legal Aid has enough difficulty paying for certificates to cover criminal cases and certain family law cases, and does not cover these types of cases at all. Almost all the human rights cases my office has handled over the past few years involve a "plaintiff" that is unable to pay these kinds of fees up front or any fees at all.

The reason why some interests are even discussing this measure is because employers, landlords and other interests are getting tired of getting whacked with human rights complaints and the orders that come with it. Many of these respondents want to continue to discriminate with impunity and not suffer the consequences of their actions. They pick straw man arguments, such as the debate around Ezra Levant's defence against a claim filed against him at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (which was dismissed in Levant's favour by the way). They say human rights commissions interfere with free speech. First, neither our provincial Commission or Tribunal have the power to decide on issues of free speech, nor do either have the authority to penalize a writer or publication for being "politically incorrect" - even blasphemous in their tones to protected classes of people.

Human Rights Tribunals in Ontario rule on acts of discrimination, as well as discriminatory policies that are placed intentionally or unintentionally that keep people from protected classes from having equal access to valued goods and resources, such as a job, a place to live, a membership in an association, a service, etc. To take these matters of access to a regular court would remove the balance of power between the applicant and respondent to the point that very few claims will be filed, due to costs and lack of resources. This would be just an invitation for all employers, landlords and others to discriminate with impunity, while policy makers for the former issue will continue to cut access to income and other resources on the presumption people can simply find work in the "free market".

If you don't believe this is a real possibility, both Randy Hillier and Tim, Hudak, leadership candidates for the provincial Progressive Coinservative party have announced this in their platforms. Unfortunately, many of their supporters are drawn to promises like this - the same ilk among the public that cheered when welfare benefits were dropped by 22% in 1995, leaving many people homeless and destitute. Please read Hudak's latest announcement where he promises to scrap this easier method to access justice for legitimate human rights complainants. The Code has provisions within it for Tribunals to screen out frivolous, vexatious and other minor complaints in the public interest and the Rules of Practice for the Tribunal are being drawn up to permit these types of considerations, just as the Commission had when it was in charge of accepting and screening complaints.

The fear that I have is that Dalton McGuinty was stupid enough to introduce the harmonized sales tax (HST) at a time when Ontario has plunged into a major recession. Over 67% of persons polled oppose this tax, and both the PC's and the NDP are adamantly taking this matter to the public and hoping to gain electorally by this opposition. Even though it is not clear to those opposed that it WAS the federal Conservatives imposing this change on Ontario, led by the PC's own former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, too many voters in Ontario will move to the PC's over this issue. I know for a fact that if the PC's did get to power, they will eventually impose the HST anyways, so it would be unwise to change your vote just because of that issue. But I fear that many voters will ignore the issue of scrapping the Human Rights Commission and Tribunal of Ontario, thinking they would never face these circumstances until it is too late ... I would recommend that voters in PC ridings that are concerned about this to write to their PC MPPs expressing YOUR personal opposition to this policy of scrapping access to human rights protections. Further, if this is kept up, significantly and personally, I would sooner vote in McGuinty (holding my nose while I do it mind you) for another four year term if it meant maintaining human rights protections for people with disabilities in Ontario.

Another issue that sort of floated below the radar of publicity is the 75% reduction of medical benefits paid for by insurance companies in the event of a car accident. Instead of a policy limit of $100,000 per claim, most claims will now be subject to a $25,000 cap. Again, this is another issue that most people don't pay any attention to until they need the help. The types of rehabilitation services paid for by insurance are not otherwise covered by OHIP. The government took chiropractic, physiotherapy, etc. out of its billable schedule a few years ago, as well it never included psychotherapy ... and anybody seeking psychotherapy even without an accident knows that costs for this range from $85 - $180 per hour, depending on the provider. To me, this is just another way to further impoverish another part of the population and push them into low paying, unstable work ..

Your thoughts?.

Source:

http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/763ENG%2Epdf

NIAGARA LACKS SKILLED WORKERS? WHY DON'T THEY LOOK AROUND AND ASK?

The Niagara Training and Adjustment Board (NTAB) under its new moniker Niagara Workforce Planning Board, has released a report on April 6, 2009, to tell the world that while we are not suffering a 'labour shortage' per se, we are suffering a shortage of skilled workers. When Trudy Parsons was asked about what was referred to as 'skilled workers', she implied health care, administration, professional services, technical services, management in the social services, as well as specialized manufacturing sectors.

The general manufacturing sector has taken a major dump here in Niagara and there isn't an economist alive that believes that Niagara will once again return to the boomtown it once was with the auto rich sector, spreading its wealth into sub-sectors and spin-offs, which was something we relied upon probably since the 1950's. The service sector and knowledge-based economy is growing by leaps and bounds, which means people in professional occupations of all types, health care, administration, as well as IT/multi-media skills will likely be the 'want' of the future.

This study which was done as one of seven pilot studies in Ontario and funded through the Ministry of Community & Social Services, appears to be comprehensive, except one thing: there are too many glaring ommissions in this study that even if fully implemented, a large number of skilled people will still be shoved to the sidelines. Not a word was mentioned about persons with disabilities ... oh, I forgot, none of these people have any skills. Sheltered workshops, anybody? How about Niagara's addiction to cars, where it is almost impossible to get any kind of decent job without a driver's license and personal access to a car? Oh, non-drivers are probably rejects anyways, and they certainly don't have any skills. When statistics show that 93% of those who are not working in Niagara rely exclusively on public transit (another joke ... as it exists sparsely and too far between), none of these people are considered 'skilled' either.

Perhaps the researchers asked the wrong questions like they usually do. They should attempt to get a picture of who the unemployed are ... both newly unemployed, as well as those who have had major barriers to working for years. One might be surprised that many members of this group are indeed highly educated, highly motivated and certainly not slackers, yet they are pushed on the welfare rolls for very long periods of time to rot until some rare employer might peek from behind the rocks they hide behind to discover that yes, non-drivers can offer significant skills to an employer, as well, so can many persons with disabilities ... and no, many are not interested in minimum wage jobs, as why would they have bothered to go to school beyond high school?

Right now, it is the skilled trades that are being dumped ... not because they are not needed, but there needs to be a shift so their futures may indeed still use these skills, but in a different way. But when I speak to people with disabilities who may be well-educated, many of them spend long spells of time being unemployed or underemployed, while employers are allegedly looking for "skilled workers". Either the employers are lying about what they are looking for, or they are not looking hard enough. In my view, employers attach way too many criteria to the jobs they have that most people with disabilities, even those with the skills they are asking for, are scared away because they are not welcomed. Over 55% of persons with disabilities are non-drivers for various reasons; many others simply cannot afford to drive although they do have a license. Computer workstations, programs and telephone systems are set up for the able-bodied, not those who see things, hear things and communicate differently.

I hate to be a sour grapes type, but there is a website that just started for Niagara called NiagaraShares.Com, which is supposed to link people with disabilities to various services. The vast majority of people who are receiving ODSP receive benefits for 'invisible' disabilities, such as mental health issues (36%), developmental disabilities (27%) and learning disabilities (15%) - yet the kinds of disabilities discussed on this forum are strictly physical. That is fine, but people with physical disabilities are not the only ones that have severe limitations on their lives and in fact, many of them are not forced into poverty for various reasons. I perused this site out of curiosity a few weeks ago to see if anybody had a "story" to tell that showed that poverty disables people way more than the disability itself. Even the services suggested for persons with disabilities all cost money, way more than a person on ODSP can afford ...

... so what is a person living with a disability and poverty supposed to do? At this time, they are living at the bottom of the barrel. They are forced to go to food banks and charities for help. I stated in a previous post that those that turn up at the door of registered charities are not dealt with as "equals" and those serving them tend to believe that the folks at their doors cannot do the same work that they are paid to do. This is why many folks like this --- educated, ambitious, and at least partially empowered -- do not go to charities or use agencies, unless the agency is set up to meet their needs.

I will not go to subsidized housing because this will not get me out of poverty. Those going to this type of housing lose most of the money on the shelter portion of their benefit and as a result, their incomes fall even further away from the poverty line. If they work, their income is clawed back by more than 80%, making it not worthwhile to make the trek to independence. I will not go to food banks because they will not get me out of poverty. They will provide their second and third hand goods for which you are expected to be grateful, as you are further scrutinized for your income and what other services you are using ... you can't use too many services, lest they find you to be "abusing" the system.

To me, there should be no difference in the services given to rich or poor. Legal Aid is not what it is cracked up to be, as well - many very poor are forced to turn to shysters who are not licensed, insured or educated to deal with their legal matters. Licensees need to be accessible to everybody; payment based on a sliding scale while the licensee can still make a reasonable living. Food is purchased in grocery stores by those with money; food is taken from food banks and churches by the poor ... is that right? The quality control is in place in the grocery stores, but is not available in the food bank ... are the poor not entitled to quality control and equal access to quality goods?

Transportation is another one. The poor cannot afford newer vehicles in good repair that are fuel efficient. Wealthy people can. If the poor cannot afford to drive at all, they are relegated to the end of the line when jobs are concerned ... it doesn't matter their education, skills and workplace history. When using taxis, wealthy people can pay regular licensed taxis that are properly insured. Lower income use the "scab cabs" that do not necessarily get driven by licenced and insured drivers, which can result in trouble if there should be an accident. There are stories as well of people who were sexually assaulted in such cabs. It is okay for the poor to be put at unnecessary risk, but not people with money.

Jobs should be given to people who have the skills to do them - period. Employers whining about not finding skilled workers need to look beyond their noses and pretend requirements and ensure that non-drivers, as well as other people who read, communicate and move around differently are given an equal shot at the position ... and in my view, if an employer chooses not to, perhaps those folks on disability seeking employment should receive a large top-up to their benefits, all paid for by employers that choose not to hire them ... so at least they can comfortably live until an enlightened employer does come along.

What about training? More opportunities for access to higher education need to be made for persons with disabilities of all ages. I am sorry, but places like BUILT Network and a cashier/ janitorial course is not good enough, if somebody is not satisfied to remain below poverty. Sadly when you ask these government funded agencies how many people they REALLY place, nobody wants to tell you the truth and among those placed, nobody wants to admit that the majority of placements are only short-term, low-paid and/or seasonal. Are your bills only short-term obligations, only required to be paid in certain seasons ...?

The report was an interesting read; nevertheless, I feel it is so full of holes, there is enough to make Swiss Cheese out of it. Until the day that people with disabilities get real opportunities and stop getting subject to stereotypes, and employers start to scrutinize their requirements more deeply to ensure they are not leaving people out by simply outlining job duties that block a lot of people from even considering ... there will always be a skills shortage.

I think if there were suitable opportunities for many people on ODSP, they would work and choose not to collect ... but if this continued discrimination is an ongoing factor, while people who don't need many of these jobs, or worse yet, people less qualified than many of the disabled prospects get hired ... the government might as well raise ODSP rates by 150 to 200% to at least allow people to eat AND keep a roof over their heads in the same month.

Thoughts?

DISABILITY - WHY IS IT THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WITH DISABILITIES?

Our society's progress on the rights of persons with disabilities is likely akin to what the rights of African-Americans were before Rosa Parks did her famous stand down on the city bus and refused to move to the back, as they were required then. African-Americans received a major boost with the election of President Barack Obama. I am not saying things are now perfect for this group, as still there is far too much poverty, too much racism and too much violence in this population. However, they are many steps away from the rights of persons who are differently abled?

In Hamilton, Ontario, a 22-year old man was lured to an address in a run-down neighbourhood in that city by four males, then subsequently locked up in the attic and beaten within a mere inch of his life. There are reports that he'd been raped, forced to eat his own feces and starved. It turned out this man was someone with various disabilities. An informant in my community told me he suffered from major epilepsy and mild intellectual disabilities. He grew up in several foster homes and of course, when he aged out of that system, they left him on his own. I am not sure of the background of this situation, how well the offenders knew this man and if they were aware of his vulnerability. Nevertheless, they certainly took advantage.

When I was younger, I used to do enumerating for the elections (yes, I am old enough to remember when actual humans used to go knocking on doors). One building on my route housed a number of adults with mental and intellectual disabilities. After I knocked, the woman who answered attempted to push me away by telling me that none of "these people" voted. I phoned the Returning Officer at that time, who then advised me that the owner of a residence like this cannot turn away enumerators, so we returned and pushed ourselves in and interviewed a number of people, many of whom wondered why the manager tried to chase us away.

Nevertheless, a few months after that, a man who happened to live in that home came to a club I was running at the time, complaining that he was fed only one meal a day which consisted of bologna sandwiches and tomato soup, sometimes weiners. When I stirred the pot on the issue (as I never go without stirring pots when I have the chance), some social worker came to my building to try to discourage me from acting further ... I hated social workers since, even though it is one of the professions I worked in for a time.

In another situation, another group home reached the news with workers on strike over what they found were appalling circumstances they found their resident clients living in. They brought attention to the media about spreading a single can of tuna over fifteen sandwiches and handing a man a bus ticket to get to the hospital when he was suffering from chest pains. This man was quickly diagnosed as having a heart attack, but it was too late. He died before anything could have been done for him.

Some of these incidents and many others sparked an enquiry led by Prof. Ernie Lightman, of the University of Toronto, who led the Enquiry on Unregulated Residential Accommodations. I did some work with this enquiry at the local level, interviewed many people who lived in these types of "homes" across the city and made policy recommendations. Steps were taken towards the implementation of a Resident's Rights Act and later under a subsequent government, board and care homes were given some protection under the then Tenant Protection Act.

While these incidents apart from the incident in Hamilton took place in the early 1990's, nothing has changed at all for persons with disabilities. People with disabilities are still viewed as being "less than", "less skilled" and "less valued". This dangerous thinking that preceded the Holocaust whereby hundreds of thousands of persons with various degrees of disabilities were experimented upon, then disposed of (well before the Jewish community was targeted) ... still exists in its most mildest forms. It remains in our laws. It remains in our government programs designed to "help" people with disabilities. It remains in how people with disabilities continue to be viewed by the "able-bodied public" that believe they pay taxes to people that don't want to work and use "disability" as an excuse, or at worst, they campaign for the re-institutionalization of many persons with certain types of disabilities, such as mental health.

Before we can truly address prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities, we need to address our cultural assumptions. We need to address the pictures that come into our minds when we hear the term "persons with disabilities". For the able-bodied, most see the wheelchair, the walker or perhaps, even the white cane. They believe we should make sure people get access to buildings, restaurants and other destinations so they can go where able-bodied people go. This is the enlightened view. However, even among the enlightened, we fail to see how these same people, as well as many other persons with other types of disabilities that may prevent them from driving, as an example, can get to many of these places in the first place, even if such destinations represented the epitome of accessibility.

Able-bodied people take a lot for granted. They trust that when their brain directs their legs to move and to pick themselves up, they will be able to walk across the room, climb those stairs and read from a regular book or magazine with ease. It is when we lose some of this ability do we realize what we had, how precious, for example, our eyesight, mobility, agility and other physical attributes represent with respect to ensuring we have a quality of life. If this happened to you, I am willing to bet that you would want support services, assistive devices and other systems to "kick in" to allow you to take part in your favourite activities. If our home is no longer useable for us, we want somebody to help us set it up so that we can continue to live there. We don't want to be shunted off to some nursing home.

If your problem is mental health related, and yes -- one in five of us do experience mental health issues at some point or other in our lives. Of that one in five, 10% suffer from what one might identify as a "severe mental health problem", whether it be named schizophrenia, bipolar mood disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. If you have never experienced the serious side of things here, it is too easy to believe the stereotypes ... those being that people with serious mental health problems are either violent and unpredictable, or they are bumbling idiots who are unable to care for themselves. These two are the predominant themes that describe people with mental health issues in the media.

In the 1990's, I managed a local mental health agency, then later moved to work in the policy area. Very few of the affected that came through my door were either violent or bumbling idiots. However, in many cases, their medications often made them look different, or their self-esteem was so low that they did not feel they were capable of ever working again. In my life, there are many examples of people I met even with the most severe of mental health problems who have picked themselves up and made themselves into community leaders. Bill McPhee, publisher of Schizophrenia Digest, and recently a publisher of another magazine geared to people with mood disorders, is not shy about talking about his beginnings ... as a man who was diagnosed as schizophrenia himself. While I may not necessarily take a pro-medical approach, as many of the articles in his magazine depict, he also includes lifestyle issues, advocacy issues as well as spiritual commentary. He has been a public speaker at numerous events before a wide variety of audiences.

Bill Wilkerson, previously an insurance executive, co-founded the Roundtable on Mental Health and the Economy. Former federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson was also part of this initiative. Michael Wilson's interest in the initiative was personal. His son Cameron was reported to have committed suicide at such a tender age when he became frustrated at not being able to find work, despite his education and skills ... he was apparently diagnosed as having a bipolar mood disorder. Bill Wilkerson engaged many others in his initiative and together with other coalitions, the federal government eventually set up the Mental Health Commission, which is designed to help educate, research and train people in this delicate area.

However, in a recent article in the Globe & Mail, Wilkerson began to disclose his own personal interest, a long-term diagnosis of depression, something he kept well-hidden from the media until he believed it to be the right time to disclose. If somebody like Wilkerson, who has been at the top of the business echilon, and with obvious skills to bring this Round Table together, was unable to disclose his personal interest earlier in this project's progress, one can only imagine how others without these significant personal resources would do it.

There are barriers to disclosure. There are too many Vincent Li's out there that commit heinous crimes that are well-publicized (e.g. Li was the man that viciously murdered and dismembered Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus last summer), and to make matters worse ... it becomes well-publicized that he is declaring to "hear voices from God" that apparently directed him to kill McLean. Whether this was true or not, this does nothing for mental health advocates who are attempting to work with those others so labeled to even get them to the door to get help ... we never hear of stories that counter these conclusions, such as how Bill McPhee overcame his disability to become a spokesperson and advocate for the cause, or Bill Wilkerson, who only recently disclosed his own interest in the issue, or Michael Wilson's recount of his son's suicide ... these latter cases are stories we need to hear more about and the Vincent Li's of the world, we need to hear less about.

In a recent edition of Mother Jones magazine, a section was devoted to photos taken of mental hospitals around the world (and yes ... these are hospitals that operate in 2009). In the words of the publisher, it seems that once one is labeled, many people think they can do whatever they want to persons with mental health issues, whether this be experimentation with dangerous therapies, such as ECT or insulin shock, or drugs with questionable benefits, such as haliperidol, lithium and thorazine. I'm not saying that there is no place for medications in the treatment and amelioration of mental and emotional distress. I am saying that the process or dynamic that leads to the labeling of such persons, and how such treatments often become drilled down, are in fact, done to as opposed to done with the person in mind. Often times, people can become further disabled by the treatments themselves.

Culturally, people with disabilities, including people with mental health issues, are not looked upon as credible people in their own right. As a result, many members of the public misunderstand who these people are and assume they either have no skills, or are incapable of learning new ones. Sadly, when I report my own personal knowledge of people in various professions who have had mental health diagnosis, people don't believe me ... and I shield their names, as these folks do not want it to be popularly known that they suffer. One lawyer friend of mine told me he wanted the "secret" sealed, as he feared public knowledge of his "condition" would lead to questions about his ability to practice. While many of these fears may be unfounded, they are realistic enough to know that members of the public may see it differently - that they'd rather not be treated by a doctor they know has been treated for mental health issues or to have a lawyer handle their civil case who was hospitalized a few years ago for a bout of depression ... there are surveys that prove that public opinion is real.

Another lawyer I know has a severe physical disability; shortly after he passed the bar, many of his colleagues challenged his ability to work as a professional, simply because they saw the wheelchair and the breathing apparatus, but not the man. Some people say we need a champion, but nobody wants to be the first one. Nevertheless, the prejudice and stereotypical ideas about persons with disabilities continue.

Even when it is known what education and skills a person with a disability has, employment workers can often be their worst enemy when they attempt to work with them at their career development or transition (in the case of an injured worker, for example). Telemarketing and call centre work seems to be the most sophisticated work a person like this is referred to, as the worker believes the person with the disability wouldn't handle the "stress" of a more advanced position. Well, did they ask? Likely not. This is so analogous with the scene where a person in a wheelchair and a temporarily able-bodied friend are in a restaurant together and the waiter approaches their table, only to ask the able-bodied person what the friend in the wheelchair wants ... something like this happened when I brought a friend of mine who was severely visually impaired, guide dog and all, into a restaurant and the waiter attempted to make me her interpreter ... I just told her, "Why don't you ask her what she wants?". Yet this kind of scene is repeated everyday in the social work and employment agency world when it comes to persons with disabilities ... they don't know what to do with those that know exactly what they want, nor do they know how to deal with employers that seem to deliberately screen people with disabilities out of jobs they can otherwise do quite well. To me, I always wonder why they have these jobs if they are doing nothing to connect the persons with the disability with the employer, but then again, I must be naive.

One person I know that uses a wheelchair felt that those with invisible disabilities had nothing to worry about, but after I gave him a little history of how people with mental health problems, intellectual issues, even autism, were treated, he was shocked ... and realized the importance of working in a cross-disability alliance. All people with disabilities experience discrimination, humiliation, stereotyping and marginalization, although different disabilities may attract different kinds of prejudice. Persons with mental health issues are believed to be stupid and irresponsible at best, or violent and unpredictable at worst. Persons with physical disabilities are sometimes seen as demanding, when they ask for accommodations, when in fact providing them with the same actually puts them on a level playing field with the able-bodied. Scary.

One of these days, I will write about the dangers of ODSP income support and how in itself, it acts to marginalize and isolate persons with disabilities, as well as perhaps, even shorten their lives. As an advocate for persons with disabilities, I am often a lightning rod for comments, as I always try to get people to understand there is always more to every story than meets the eye. I hear all the time from members of the so-called able-bodied public about how people with disabilities can just do "desk work" or they often exaggerate their conditions to get welfare and then not lift a finger to "help themselves". I hear from some people who outrightly say that "at least half of those on ODSP" are not really entitled. I always ask them how they know this -- are they a doctor? Do they know everything about the people of whom they speak? The most interesting thing, however, is when something happens to them and they reach out to our dwindling welfare state to find help to keep them from sinking, they seem to change their minds relatively quickly about what they used to say about so-called "disability people".

The only thing we can do is to iterate the facts, which I will attempt to do in another post later on, so that the reading public can understand what hardships people on ODSP really do endure and how unintended (or intended?) consequences are killing their spirit.

Thoughts?

ORCHESTRATED CRISIS AND CHAOS

The global stage is going through a major recession, unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. Every day, we are hearing about how thousands upon thousands of jobs are being shed by company after company. We hear stories about people walking away from their houses in the States, tent cities being set up after people lose their jobs and the sudden need for billions of dollars in corporate bailouts to save what few jobs are left.

On the street, people are getting cranky. Public servants, frustrated by an increase in their respective workloads, are talking back to their customers in ways that provoke, instead of provide insight. People are butting into lines everywhere, worried that the last scrap of whatever folks are after will be gone by the time they get there. Pensions, investments and other trusts we once believed were safe are rapidly disappearing, leaving many pensioners the choice of living their "golden" years in poverty or returning to work.

We hear more about school shootings, rampages where gunmen go crazy shooting up everybody in their home and then move on to random people on the street, or work rage, where the same thing can happen at the place of a former employer. Last Christmas, we heard about a man who dressed up as Santa Claus, drove up to the home of his former in-laws and began to throw pipe bombs and tried to torch the home, as well as shoot anybody else who got in his way. In the end, he blew himself up, when one of his home-made weapons set itself off too soon. We learned the shooter in this case was laid off from a well-paying job as an engineer, then his wife sought and won a court order against him for more money ... He planned to come to Canada. God only knows what he had planned for us up here.

In Germany, a 15-year old suddenly takes a gun and goes to his former high school and begins shooting. His targets were mostly female students and teachers. Though reportedly treated for depression two years earlier, one would question how relevant that is to this mass explosion. Another man in Alabama came home, took the lives of most of his family, as well as took down a few random people on his street, before ending his life at a metal plant (possibly where he might have been recently laid off). Two parents in Quebec had a suicide pact, whereby they were to kill their children, then one another, after leaving a detailed note as to why the economy was hurting them. This goes on and on and on ...

People are more likely to sue or get sued in these rough times, or fall behind in their debt payments, subjecting more folks to the ire of collection agencies. Family law disputes are taking on a more bitter tone, leaving many to the courts in what are known as the "high conflict" family files. Government agencies undergoing cutbacks experience an increased rate of error and declining rate of empathy, as payers of support payments end up with less than 50% of their income and often, end up in dire straits themselves. One man called me from his car, which is where he is living these days after he lost his job and then his home.

Many times, the only thing we can do is make appropriate referrals, or provide encouragement and moral support. Many of these people do not have money for legal services, nor do they fall under the purview of Legal Aid Ontario. On paper, their income is too high, but after the garnishment, they cannot even meet basic needs. Their only choice these days is to approach Family Law Advice Counsel at the court house, or to phone Lawyer Referral Service, with respect to how to best represent themselves in what will likely become a battle of a lifetime. They need to vary the court orders, amend visitation or even seek custody of children, or reduce or eliminate spousal support payments. Unless they can pay a lawyer, most of them end up representing themselves.

This has always been part of the problem, even before the chaos of the present recession began. The present recession is just wearing people down more. People talk to me more about how much they hate, as opposed to how upset they are. I lost someone to suicide in January 2009, and then somebody else to so-called 'natural causes' in his forties in February 2009. If the second one had access to a family doctor, medications and transportation, I am sure he would have survived (which is all I can say publicly). Poor people die, while rich people thrive.

Policy makers know the poor are worst off. They know that poverty is costing us more than $30 billion annually. They know that poverty is a good part of the reason our health care costs are skyrocketing. The growth of poverty seems to coincide with the growth of methadone clinics in urban areas; unfortunately, they too are responding to demand. I hear stories about how a few have sold their weekend carries on the street, or prostitute themselves to get the "real" thing ... or turn to booze or another drug of choice. Tenants get evicted more now for illegal drug use or for dealing from their units.

My work is to evict them. There have been cases when I met the same tenant time and time again, through different buildings, after a repeat performance of the first time they were evicted. The public and private interest is to get these people housed and protected, but at the same time, one must ask where ... living on the street can only exacerbate whatever problems they created when they started with my buildings. The problem only leaves one building, only to land on the doorstep of another. One thing my mother was right about was that things started to go really bad when drugs were introduced in society. Trying to remain impersonal and objective throughout this chaos is difficult to do, but one of my responsibilities.

I know there is a huge increase in addictions and drug dealing in general, as I see it in the streets, hear about it through various people I speak to, and learn of it from the coffee shops. But it is not just the low income people on Ontario Works or even ODSP that are using; many of the people who are using get no formal income, as well - many are fully employed. There are also wealthy professionals who also find themselves entangled. They just go to better places and are able to hide their habit better. People cry for a war on drugs, they cry for prohibition, when we know this will never work ... esp. when the world is falling apart at its seams.

In my building where I work, I often have to chase people out, feeling bad at the same time as many of these people have nowhere to go, except the streets. Many of these people do not have any income, as they were kicked off Ontario Works a long time for some misunderstood transgression. Perhaps, they lost their identification and did not have the funds to renew it, or they happen to be living rough and their OW worker can't really communicate with them, nor can any employer for that matter.

As an advocate, I am a lightning rod for people that feel strongly about things, from both the right and the left. The right wants to believe in the existence of the welfare queens, that continue to procreate with impunity to increase their income. Of course, they have no evidence of this except from "a friend of a friend who knew somebody that had fourteen children so she can make a mint off the 'system'". I have worked with low-income people as well as middle and upper income folks for years, and I have yet to meet anybody that would even want to have more and more children, particularly when they could not even feed themselves. There were a few teen mothers who never heard of birth control, as some might add, but they were referred to programs where they learned how to become successful parents, as well as finish high school.

From the left, they want governments to spend, spend and then spend some more to get us out of this global crisis. Spending more in a recession is not a sin, but indiscriminate spending can make the problem worse than when it started. While building "affordable housing" will create some construction jobs in the immediate term, money is still going to be needed in the future to maintain these units. The City of Toronto has a half a billion dollar backlog in repairs to its own housing stock, let alone thinking of building new stock. At the same time, poverty groups are pressuring the City to fix their units, which are more than just a mere "leaky tap" ... many have ceilings falling down, bad foundation, vermin, mould, as well as other problems that make their unit uninhabitable. We have to decide if we want to spend billions and billions of dollar propping up these buildings, many of which should be razed and rebuilt anyways, or whether the money can go somewhere else that might increase the incomes of all of the poor to encourage greater local investment, and thus, more capital to invest in the private market.

Today, an interested observer noted that "half the region is on Ontario Works or ODSP" and now more people are trying to get Employment Insurance. He suspects a secret government conspiracy that the powers that be simply want to put everybody on welfare, where they can control them. Others say they are attempting to make people so desperate that they will take any job, even jobs that do not pay minimum wage or follow health and safety standards, just to keep oneself one step ahead of starvation. Other theories are more foreboding; one has shared with me the idea that there is a policy of "slow genocide", whereby the weakest of society will be forced to slow starve to death or die of many of the diseases the poor are more likely to get, just so we can save a few tax dollars. Well, we all know they cannot directly put us all in the gas chambers anymore, or put us all against a wall and shoot us. That is too humane.

But billions of dollars have been handed to large companies ... people are becoming wary of how the executives are getting paid, even union workers in such industries as the auto sector. People are rightfully concerned that the majority of taxpayers that earn much less than these people collectively should continue to fork over money to keep these relatively wealthy classes alive. In the Toronto Star today, there was a story over "pension envy" where people in the private sector get no defined benefit plan (as these are slowly moving to the status of the dodo bird) are continuing to be forced to pay into secure, relatively high pensions of those in the public sector or even GM workers. Pension reform certainly needs to be on the table. I wouldn't want to be old right now; I would not be able to retire, as what is given to those without a private pension plan is peanuts. Again, we will be forcing our seniors to choose between housing and eating.

People are wanting greater controls over CEO salaries and perks, as well as some control over certain sectors, whereby it seems that wage hikes beyond inflation, plus retention pay, seem to be the order of the day, even when times are tough for everybody else. President Barack Obama has taken a great interest in a story of AIG executives receiving bonuses all of a sudden, right after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts ... I say, fire them all and make them pay it all back. Never going to happen, of course. But if somebody on welfare got a little more than what they were entitled to, you could bet your life that this individual will be hauled before the courts, charged with fraud and then thrown to the wolves. To me, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe Barack Obama represents a change in direction. We can hope.

As for seeing our way out of this chaos, I am not sure. Some economists, such as Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, see this as being a short, sharp dip, whereby Canada will be less scathed than the many. Others are not so optimistic; Don Drummond from the TD Canada Trust, is saying about 500,000 jobs may still be lost ... it is going to get a LOT worse before it gets better.

In the meantime, some communities are getting together and holding rallies. I wish there'd be more of them in Niagara Region, but nevertheless there are more rallies ... politicians need to stop playing Chicken Little, as the sky is truly falling, but they can't simply run, scream and point their fingers at everybody else. They need to take action.

How positive action would certainly help me ... I would stop feeling so much in chaos. It is so bad that our building got its water cut off, then it was followed by a flood and now the plumbing on the second floor washroom (the only "public" washroom in our building) has no water and we can't even flush the toilets ... and we go downtown, walk down the street on my side and then we see construction job after construction job, whereby holes are dug up and filled up again ... I am pleased somebody gets to do the digging and the filling, but they are ensuring people's essentials are getting cut off, people are commuting in chaos and it has become rapidly known there really is no definite street I can walk through in my own neighbourhood ... too many holes, too many tractors, too many excavators, too many shovels ...

Now, if we would only get that shovel in the ground for that hospital we are supposed to build in west St. Catharines. To me, this chaos and crisis was orchestrated; it was certainly not something that would come out in the end to harm the elite ... just put us old runts through yet another rough patch. I just look forward to the day that this is finally over and I can actually talk to people about something else once again, instead of the havoc this world is wrecking on our little world.

Your thoughts?

A POVERTY-REDUCTION PLAN THAT ISN'T...

The federal budget was what I predicted it to be.

A mish mash of handouts to big corporations, tax cuts, as well as billions of dollars in spending on so-called infrastructure. There was some promise of reform to EI, which it seems fewer and fewer people get each year, but this came up short whereby people are essentially getting nearly what they got ten years ago from EI and the same stringent criteria continues on. In my view, this budget does not put one more meal on anybody's table or another penny in anybody's pocket, other than those who already do okay.

I learned one so-called bright light yesterday as I watched Prime Minister Stephen Harper with his full set of teeth, sans blue sweater and hair greyer than it was before Christmas ... side by side with Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty, appearing skinnier and geekier than he ever was, both announcing new funds for better GO Train service in the Metrolynx boundaries, which of course do not go as far as Niagara.

Henceforth, when I attempted last year to get some answers as to why the GO Train is not even being considered for Niagara, the answers were sort of what I expected. First, you need to have a strong transit infrastructure, as well as convenient parking spaces for GO users. If you lived in Welland, for instance, and didn't drive, a GO Train service leaving Niagara Falls or St. Catharines would be useless to you. How are you going to get to the GO station? Even if the powers that be insisted on putting GO service here, they would defeat its purpose and not take a single car off the road, as there will still be too many of them, zinging from all points of the region to get to the GO station. This still does not change the fact that Niagara is more expensive to live in because having a car and driver's license is still your sole ticket to citizenship.

Poverty activists want to focus on the "housing" announcements. As I stated before, I see no point in making housing a social service. Housing is a necessary commodity, much like food, clothing and clean air. Unfortunately, "housing" in the eyes of many of these people comes attached to social workers that want to control the lives of more people who end up living in this "housing". To me, the less control you put into somebody's life, the better quality of life they have, but then I never have the final say in these things.

Further, others cry for "subsidized" housing or rent-geared-to-income housing. I have tried, but have been unsuccessful, in getting these folks to tell me how this takes people out of poverty. As one fellow blogger under the name of co-opcracy writes, working is counterproductive if one is living in subsidized housing and receiving some type of benefit, such as social assistance or even ODSP. First, ODSP chops your net earnings in half from the very first dollar and then "housing" increases the rent to a point of an additional clawback of thirty five cents on every dollar. Once the earnings are grossed up at the end of a year, even more money is lost. The intelligent and prudent thing to do when in this situation is to stay at home and eat your bonbons.

Further, because subsidies are calculated at far below the maximum "shelter" allowance given for social assistance and ODSP incomes, one would receive far less benefits from social assistance or ODSP than they would if they were housed in the free market. This means one's income would continuously remain under the so-called "poverty line". While housing costs are lower, this does not stop other costs such as food, clothing, transportation, telephone and other costs from skyrocketing. How subsidized housing reduces poverty has always been a trouble spot for me, possibly because of my background as a policy analyst as well as lived experience.

Thinking from the centre is not mediocre for sure. I get attacked from both the left and the right for my views, instead of either/or. I ask questions, but don't get answers. I own my own home, but still I am flat broke. What help is there for me? Certainly, me, my family and thousands of other homeowners in the same boat are not going to sell and move to some unit where they will be under the thumb of some crazy bureaucracy. People need to be as independent as possible, as well as free to advance their circumstances, or else poverty will become a permanent fixture in our society -- bringing even potentially middle-class families down with it.

I would tell the government to save the billions of dollars they would otherwise spend to build units of this type, but instead use it to increase the money in the pockets of individuals and families, so that people actually have choices. Right now, the low-income contingent of our society has no choices. They are told to live as their social worker tells them to, which is to never make a mistake ... therefore, never learn from them. They are told to live within their means, but are never given the means to live. They are told to "get a job", but employers are not told to hire such persons or to pay the people they have decently. As usual, society wants the poor to play a single handed tango, while the other partner can watch and criticize. How can we as a society possibly value people who have been so disadvantaged that we have to instinctively reach out and control their lives, as opposed to giving them choices and opportunities ... yes, some of these folks will fail, but then again -- many of us who have never been in this situation have also failed, many of us miserably.

How many so-called "normal" people have bankruptcies on their record? How many so-called "normal" people can't seem to ever lose weight? What about all those successful professionals that turn to drugs and alcohol to deal with the stress of it all? What about so-called "normal" people who drive a car one day and forget to do the all-important shoulder check and get into a horrible motor vehicle accident? How many "normal" people are smokers? How about the typical friend of ours that always seems to "pick" abusive partners? The rest of us herein do not have strangers telling us what we should be spending our money on, whether or not we should be driving a car, or whether we can manage our own bank accounts. So why are we allowed to pass judgment on those less fortunate than we are? Are we trying to block the way for the poor from becoming less poor, and perhaps, grabbing a bit of dignity while they're at it?

To me, there is maximum dignity in having choices and opportunities. Those of us who have had these things take them for granted. We "assume" that everybody else also has these things, or had them at one time. Then, we bash them for making "bad choices" or "failing to take advantage of opportunities" (even though they were likely never given any). This is not a leftist rant here. I have a legal practice full of people from all walks of life, some of whom were very advantaged and cultured, others that cannot understand what life would be like for them if they could make their own basic choices. The latter have had the system make choices for them all their lives: they were told where to live, had their money spent for them, what to wear and who to be friends with ... never being allowed to choose is tantamount to imprisonment.

I grew up in a rough kind of way. As a young adult, just before securing my post-secondary education and so-called empowerment as a professional person, I knew two things. One, people must have the right to make choices, even bad choices. Two, people have the right to have access to opportunities to advance themselves and improve their quality of life. I got into a lot of trouble for my beliefs. Many social work types tried to downplay my ideas and tell me to be more "realistic" and insist a certain portion of the population continue to be spoon-fed (while the social worker types continued to get good pay cheques for doing so).

When somebody is living on ODSP and in subsidized housing, they do not have the opportunity to advance themselves and improve their financial situation. Their efforts become like a hamster on a spinning wheel, whereby they work harder and harder but end up in the same place. For every dollar they earn, they lose just as much. People in "housing programs" have even less choices, as many of these programs disallow overnight guests, alcohol use, earning money from a home-based business, etc. I've seen people evicted from so-called "mental health housing" for stopping their own medications. This leaves people with no choice. When you can only make the "right" choice, you cannot make ANY choices.

When you take away the choices of people, you take away their dignity. You also reduce the value that society will have of that person. When people feel we have to make decisions for others for whatever reason, we are not valuing that person's own opinion, own tastes or own desires, nor are we allowing that person to fully develop as a mature human being. When we don't value somebody in this way, these folks DO feel it. They feel it when they have to go to the food bank to get their groceries. They feel it when somebody tells them where they have to live and what they can do and can't do when they live there. They feel it when nobody appears concerned about their lack of opportunities and options.

I meet people who want to move out of subsidized housing all the time. This is very difficult to do. Several relatives of my husband were living in subsidized housing twenty-five years ago when I met him and despite marriage, children growing up, etc., they continue to live that way today, as do their children. Enforced poverty breeds enforced poverty. This provincial government promises to "break the cycle" in one breath and even names its poverty reduction plan the same thing, while at the same time, wants to entrap more people ... this makes no sense to me. Open the doors, I want to say ... and make employers open them too.

Today, the employment standards development draft went to public review. This is from one of the committees I sit on, except with the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario ... where for the better part of a year, three dozen people worked hard to put together a set of standards we will be expecting of employers, spanning between one and five years from now, with respect to the hiring, retention, training and accommodations for persons with disabilities. To me, the standards don't go far enough, but we were working within a certain regulatory framework ... a framework that has to fit within the province's business model as well as reach the goal of bringing more qualified persons with disabilities into the paid labour force.

I am hoping that folks reading this will review the proposed standard on its website and send their input to the stated body on how our standard can be improved to meet the needs of persons with disabilities and get more of them into the workforce. The standard can be found by clicking here to the website. Your input must be given by April 15, 2009, in any of the given ways provided by the webmaster.

While access to employment and business opportunities will help improve the outcomes for people with disabilities, we also need to focus on bringing them out of poverty. Poverty is the killer of the soul. It is punishment for a crime one never committed. It kills any initiative one might have even had before they became poor. Both a focused effort on reducing and eventually eliminating poverty through the development of opportunity and increased access to meaningful choices in improving one's well being and quality of life, is what is needed. This would envelope both the needs of persons that can and want to work, as well as those that cannot.

We have to defeat the poverty industry, the set of organizations, leaders and spokespersons, that make a living or gain personal notoriety on the backs of the poor. These are the people that run the food banks, the homeless shelters, the "housing" programs, vouchers, consumer/survivor drop-in centres, etc. without considering that the people they are "helping" should learn how to fish some day and be given the tools and the right to do so. If this means some of the people in the poverty industry lose their jobs, so be it ... if one were an effective leader in a sense, this would not be a worry for them whatsoever.

I am very concerned that some of these organizations are now asking for government money. Should taxpayers be funding food banks, or should they be financing programs that allow people to choose and purchase their own food? Should taxpayers be funding homeless shelters and "housing programs" or should we be funding initiatives that help put money into people's pockets to the point they can reasonably choose where and how to live (within reason, of course ... not everybody's going to move to Forest Hill or Bridal Path).

What is really needed when the day is done are ideas on how to make this happen, not how to bolster the status quo, which we all know has failed us miserably. Your thoughts?

A FEDERAL BUDGET TO DO OR DIE BY ...

This Tuesday is going to be an historic event, much like last Tuesday was for the installation of the forty-forth U.S. President Barack Obama. However, how historic this event becomes is the choice of the federal Conservatives.

The doors to the federal Parliament are being unlocked tomorrow after the dust had settled for the better part of six weeks. I suspect somebody went in there during the weekend to dust the shelves, the oak wood and other parts of the building to lift that abandoned building smell before the chickens come home to roost.

To remind Canadians who have been hiding under logs or staying away from the television or newspapers or even the Internet for the past six weeks or more, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at the very risk of losing a confidence vote over a particularly partisan economic statement, sought to hide behind the skirts of the Governor General to prorogue Parliament until tomorrow.

It is not like nothing is happening behind the scenes. The attack ads are out painting the prospective coalition government in waiting as an undemocratic exercise that defeats the results of the vote that Canadians voted for. Of course, anybody that understands basic Grade Ten politics understands that this is not true and once again, fuels fire on the brains of the largely uneducated public.

The federal government, as well as both Opposition Parties, have hit the road over the past several weeks to consult with Canadians, business, unions and others, to determine what should go in this oh-so-important budget that's coming up. I was part of the NDP's consultation by default because I happen to live in an NDP riding and two associates of mine work in that MP's constituency office. I also sent my written remarks to the government and the Liberals as well.

My remarks would not surprise anybody here, but would involve careful infrastructure investments including new transit systems (using Canadian companies to manufacture buses and rail cars), more help for persons with disabilities for whom there is "always a recession" and to aid in the development of a diversified economy that would meet the needs for more Canadians and not just those losing jobs in factories and oil fields.

At the riding's town hall meeting, Jack Layton came down to attend with our MP, Malcolm Allen. Malcolm Allen is the only non-Conservative MP we have in the Niagara Region. Although I do like Rick Dykstra and Rob Nicholson as well (and do not know Dean Allison well enough to have an opinion one way or another about him), Niagara needed a different voice. From that meeting, it appeared that Malcolm Allen is providing a very different approach.

People came from all over Niagara and beyond. Some came from as far away as Whitby and Burlington to talk about job losses and the failure of their governing MPs to accept petitions that thousands of people in their respective ridings have signed. People are worried about housing, health care, the NHS system changes (which Jack Layton seemed to be aware of), increased child and general poverty, the rights of persons with disabilities and aboriginal Canadians, as well as transportation issues. These things are all impacts of huge job losses, accompanied by the failure of governments to turn things around in a careful manner.

Unfortunately, the way things are with politicians and policy makers who have no clue about what goes on at the ground level is that things sway to either extreme. Governments can invest billions and billions of dollars into job training, infrastructure and other programs, only to put us all into a major deficit without any real economic gains. Or governments can focus on tax cuts for upper middle classes and wealthy classes, actually believing these folks will spend more money locally if they kept more of their own. Even billionnaires won't buy more local necessities than they have to ... and why would somebody buy yet one more expensive car, when they already have five in their garage?

Job training dollars can be useful if targeted correctly and if they are done inclusively and in concert with improving the employment environment for disadvantaged workers, so that they can actually get hired in jobs that respect their abilities, education and career aspirations instead of spinning them on to one call centre or another, or to train them to be Wal-Mart greeters. Even among those jobs, there are only so many people required and yes, these jobs should be for those that are less skilled and educated. However, that is NOT what is happening ... as I can point to endless examples of people placed in policy positions that have no clue what they are doing, or well educated people referred to low-paying, low-aspirational work.

One example of poor policy advice that was given was a few years ago, a group of disability organizations wanted to review the federal disability tax credit and make recommendations about how to make that credit more accessible to persons with certain types of disabilities, such as mental health problems. I work in the legal field in administrative law and I can tell you, I have read their recommendations and final report, including their lack of impact on any changes whatsoever for mental health issues, that people with mental health issues will be struggling for years to come, unless their disabilities are so severe, they cannot function independently. That is why you don't have poorly educated "consumers" representing consumer interests in these policy discussions.

Up until now, I suppose this didn't matter anyways for the majority of consumers with mental health issues, as most were on disability allowances and did not have much taxable income to benefit from anyways. However, the concept of making this credit into a refundable one, or tying this into eligibility for the Registered Disability Savings Program, especially with the bonds and grants part of it (as most of these people don't have family to contribute to this type of account either), makes access to additional resources more desirable, but still out of reach.

Of course, this program was a Conservative initiative, whereby they only know of the families that might have approached them about concerns about the livelihoods of their children (most of whom have severe physical or intellectual disabilities) and voila, they solved the problems of poverty for all persons with disabilities with a single pen stroke! In reality, I believe this will benefit approximately 5 - 10% of my clients with disabilities, including those only seeking the grants and bonds portion. Many of them are older than 49 years old, and thus no longer eligible to receive such grants and bonds that would otherwise be available to those unable to contribute. That is why organizations supporting poverty-reduction for persons with disabilities should only acknowledge this, but not focus too closely on it. Continue to fight for help for ALL low-income persons with disabilities, instead of falling to divide and conquer which seems to work well.

Many people who support this type of government have never seen want or need. Most grew up in relatively middle class households with supportive parents who likely covered at least part of the costs of their university education; many even gave them a car and taught them how to drive shortly after their sixteenth birthday. They have no clue there are many Canadians who grew up without this advantage, or who later lost this support for whatever reason (e. g. parents having died or became ill themselves). They have no idea that telling this latter group to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is useless, as they have no bootstraps to pull themselves up with.

Unfortunately, the only federal support the Conservatives see for persons with mental health issues is by continuing to push for the assumption that most are homeless, incompetent and unable to manage their lives, so they funded five pilot projects to sort out what needs to be done for homeless persons with mental health issues. I know many people who have been diagnosed with mental health problems, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Ninety-nine percent of this group have never been homeless, even though some are forced to live on low incomes.

The few I know who have lost their homes have done so when they had no money, not because of their mental health problems. Many others have lost their homes as well and never have had any mental health issues. And besides that, what is this government going to do to FORCE employers to hire people with mental health problems and pay them a decent wage?

The whole premise behind the Conservative budgetary choices is that those who fall into desperation are NOT like us; there is something WRONG with them, not the economy, not employers that refuse to hire qualified persons with disabilities, not with social assistance rates, and certainly not with families that have frequently abandoned them. This is supposed to reassure us, but however, it does nothing to reassure the people that these things happen to despite doing everything in their lives right: getting an education, getting married, trying to work or start a business, etc. Unfortunately, this is what the current economy is about ... creating desperate situations for people who never expected to find themselves there.

There are lots of pundit views as to what is going to happen with the budget. Some say there will be sufficient infrastructure and social spending to satisfy the Liberals, but there will also be large tax cuts for people who already have a significant disposable income. As usual, there will likely be nothing more for persons with disabilities, nothing for low-income workers, nothing for laid off workers (who cannot survive on existing EI rates, even if they miraculously do qualify). Ignatieff is not playing his hand until the actual budget is laid out. Layton said even if the budget includes everything they want, they don't trust the Conservatives to follow through with it.

My concern is the Conservatives' obsession with tax cuts. Unemployed workers do not pay taxes. Persons with disabilities living on low incomes do not pay taxes. Low income pensioners do not pay taxes. Low-wage workers pay only a small amount of taxes, so if any tax cuts are given to these people, they wouldn't even notice. Such tax cuts do not pay the mortgage for these people, nor do such tax cuts pay the grocery or utility bills. Desperate people will remain desperate and continue to have little or no disposable income.

The truth is that the economy needs people who have disposable income AND a margin of need for additional products and services delivered locally. To give somebody earning $90,000 a year additional disposable income when they already have five cars, a six-bedroom house, a cottage in Muskoka and a regular gym and golf club membership is not going to add to their local spending. However, if somebody earning $25,000 a year gets an additional $5,000 a year, this additional $5,000 WILL be spent locally.

The fact that Conservatives want to deny and hide behind is they do not understand the true plight of low income Canadians. These people are NOT driving a car, NOT going to the movies, NOT eating out (even at McDonald's), NOT buying clothing, NOT sending their kids on school trips and NOT even buying things for their homes, because almost every last penny goes to rent or mortgage, utilities and food. Many rely on food banks to make their income stretch further. This does NOT help the economy. As more and more Canadians plunge into this situation, it is certainly not going to help by throwing more money at people who already have what they need and more.

In fact, any deep tax cuts at this point will likely plunge us further into a deficit and when times turn around again, of course the government will once again focus on shrinking the size of the deficit, which means only service cuts to those who can least afford to endure them. That means, among other things: cuts to medicare, cuts to EI, cuts to housing programs, cuts to job training programs, increases to tuition fees and student loans, etc. A decent lifestyle will become even less accessible to those of us among the disadvantaged and among future generations. At this point, I would not even count on having an old age pension if you are under 55 years old today. Retirement will become an opportunity only for the wealthy. The rest of us work until we die.

All of this is because we have managers and policy makers in government and politics that have no clue what it is like to want for anything. They do not even consult with other levels of governments on the rare occasion they do come up with some policy idea. Different programs often operate at cross-purposes to one another and not one single government has ever attempted to disentangle them. It works in the interests of those who work in these programs to keep people in them, thus keep the poor from ever becoming non-poor. This keeps them happy enough not to strike against the powers that be who have hired them.

To me, the greatest offender against the rights of persons with disabilities, for example, is the government and often, politicians that have no clue what it means to have a disability. Politicians in Niagara Region, for example, only see "disability" as being in a wheelchair, scooter or walker, as nobody else is granted relief from exorbitant transportation costs in Niagara. The provincial government has listed only 42 conditions that they feel merit a "special dietary allowance", when in fact almost EVERY medical condition has impacts through diet. They just don't want to admit that most people on any kind of assistance can't even afford a basic diet. And as I said above, the Disability Tax Credit definition leaves out many people for whom disability related issues carry costs to them, but do not qualify under their stringent criteria.

On one hand, government wants to say that people with disabilities are able and should remain independent and when one tries to assert that independence and get a job or start a business, but are prevented from doing so because of the prejudice of employers, they are then denied many kinds of disability benefits, as these OTHER benefits require people to be almost unable to manage their own funds (e.g. require a trustee), unable to live independently (e.g. live in a group home or high intensive supportive housing), unable to bathe/carry out person hygiene (e.g. need home care for personal assistance), etc.

To me, if employers do not want to hire people with disabilities then TAX THEM HEAVILY so that this money can be directed to be paid ON TOP of disability pensions and not clawed back, so that people forced to live on social assistance can at least eat and live decently, until such day a sympathetic employer will hire them. The number of disability programs should be reduced, but paid out more generously. My fear is that by the federal government using the Disability Tax Credit criteria, it may one day require all provinces to harmonize their definitions with theirs and guess what's going to happen? Exactly what they would never anticipate ... more people on the streets, more people in desperate poverty.

I just hope the federal government at least tries to put out a budget that will help low-income Canadians and persons with disabilities and bring them hope ... which is so foreign on this side of the border, just so soon after the inauguration of a wonderful man down south who made history as the first African-American President. I think we would be fooled to believe that Americans were asking for change desperately from the Bush administration to such a point they moved behind Obama in great numbers, that my fellow Canadians don't think the same way.

In other words, if Stephen Harper doesn't want to move with the mood for change, he may as well step aside and let somebody else take the reins. More and more Canadians are sick and tired of being left behind and for any politician that wants to remain in power, it is best they pay close attention in the next year or so.

Your thoughts?