LIVING IN A TIME WARP IN MY OWN COMMUNITY

The region has its routines, cultures and environment, overall as each person and family within it have their own experiences. Those that benefit from the region's attributes the most are those that enjoyed a relatively clear middle class upbringing, usually with both parents intact and enough resources in one's family to send each child to a strong start. These are the people that grew up here or in a similar sized community with a pool in the backyard of a house their families owned, and a driver's license at sixteen with even the possibility of help from parents to obtain their first car. This gives people the lack of capacity to understand hardship from some angles, unless something serious and tragic happens within their family subsequently. Often their parents worked as GM workers, teachers, regional employees, nurses, among other stable professions. The last decade in which this stability was even possible for people was perhaps the early nineties, although less and less families have the kind of resources that would produce this element of stability.

People who have had this type of supportive background, parents like this and so forth, cannot picture what life is like without access to an automobile, or access to a good job. Many times parents give their word to employers to assist their children in gaining a foot in the door, or the parents are involved in a business, where they would hire their children to take it over as they decide to retire at a later date. These people who had these advantages have no idea how people without these advantages are screened out of jobs routinely, as employers like everybody else, prefers to take on somebody they know or who are related to somebody they know before they "take a chance on somebody new". A friend of mine in Niagara calls this the Family Compact. There are jobs still available, but not any of the good ones that are supposedly in the "private sector" - just the bad ones that the anointed favourites will not take.

On the contrary, I have met people who have not had the type of background described above, who are now struggling. For these people, economic recovery is meaningless, as the economy does not improve the prospects for these people - ever. These people started well behind the starting line and have experienced significantly more barriers than other people. They may not have both parents raising them, or in many cases, they have lived on their own from the time they were sixteen or seventeen. They did not have parents eager to teach them how to drive, and to allow them to practice with them for their ultimate road test. As a result, many of these people learn to drive late, or in some cases, not at all. It is not that driving is a rite of passage for everybody, but in the Niagara Region, where values of one's progress match those in the 1950's when compared to other communities, if one did not go through that rite of passage at that age, they are looked upon as somehow "damaged goods". Others that might have learned to drive, but have lost their license due to medical conditions are viewed as equally "damaged".

I related this to a Toronto audience, mostly consisting of people who lived in Toronto or other large cities most of their lives, and they found this to be unbelievable. Even those whose youth was demarcated in the same way as described above, their worth or value as a person is not affected because they never learned to drive, or cannot drive due to medical conditions, or whatever. In fact, in a cosmopolitan way, many people choose not to drive in a large city and as such, this choice can be accommodated. An employer does not view any of these people who either cannot or will not drive as any less qualified for most jobs in a true cosmopolitan community, and would consider what that person can bring to the company, as opposed to how he or she brings themselves to the workplace. Unfortunately, in smaller regions, Niagara of which is at least one, employers have created major barriers to persons with disabilities, persons who just did not have the advantage of parental support to get them on the road, or persons without any funds to own and maintain their own vehicles.

Long term reliance on social assistance for these people is not uncommon for many of these people, including those who might have an advanced education. I know engineers, teachers, social workers, construction workers, researchers, and others who have spent several years on Ontario Works due to an inability to afford a vehicle, or due to medical or other restrictions on their driving privilege. In fact, one's access to a vehicle and their ability to drive it on a regular basis has become yet one more tool in the arsenal of employers that may not want to hire "damaged goods". At the same time, employers see no reason not to continue to demand driver's licenses and personal ownership of a vehicle to be a key qualification for a job.

I notice the region has and continues to perform poor planning decisions in this area as well, as the region's decision makers and planners are working under the assumption that everybody from every part of this region has a driver's license and personal access to a vehicle. The city for example is planning to tear down the West Park Pool that is currently located in the west end's only high school, which by the way, is also on the chopping block with the District School Board of Niagara. Those using the pool are from a disproportionate number of public housing projects, senior citizens, as well as students from the entire south end of the community. While some people did drive in to use the West Park Pool, its location was accessible to the people who live in the Western Hill neighbourhood which was identified as a "priority" neighbourhood by the region. Living in a "priority" neighbourhood does not necessarily mean you are poor, but the chances are greater that you are, as there is a large section of this neighbourhood devoted to low cost housing, rent-geared-to-income housing, as well as houses that could be bought for less than the city's average market value. This is a neighbourhood where people downsize in their retirement years, or move into lower cost housing with one's children, particularly single parents.

However, my city does not seem to understand why removing the West Park Pool from this neighbourhood is going to undermine this population's use of their brand spanking new facilities they are almost finished building in the north central end of town. First, there is no bus service to this new facility in the evenings and on weekends, something whoever planned this location has blithely ignored, likely because he or she believes that almost everybody drives or can "get a ride from a friend". At the same time, the parking for this facility has been carefully planned and accessibility for "handicapped" persons has been considered, yet they did not consider core accessibility for those that cannot drive in the first place, possibly due to a disability. The city will not spend any more money to keep the West Park Pool open because they say they have no money, which is unbelievable, given the multiple projects they recently approved to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. For the fifty million arena the city just approved, they are also seeking a multi-million dollar walkway for participants to use St. Paul Street to go to the arena from the downtown parking lots, presumably. If they have money for this farce, they have money to repair the West Park Pool to standard and to continue its operation, alongside the new one they built.

When I spoke at City Council when the issue of the West Park Pool was discussed, virtually all the councillors around the table dropped their jaws when I advised them of the lack of evening and weekend bus service to their facilities. I asked one of them afterwards what were the qualifications of the person who would be planning and making these decisions. My bet is that the person must have a driver's license and access to a personal vehicle. Failure to consider transit riders in the design and location of a project to me is the type of thing that such an employee should be fired over, yet in a region like this it is highly unlikely. When somebody writing for the Toronto Sun wrote about the lack of bus access to a children's recreational program, their city hall immediately revised a transit route to have a bus stop in front of the said building. I somehow doubt the routes will be amended in this case to accommodate non drivers, as non drivers are not seen to exist in this region. At the same time, I am supposed to fork out increasing taxes year over year for hundreds of millions of dollars in road work, traffic lights, parking lot structures, and other privileges for people that drive. My guess is that drivers would not have to pay to park at the new Kiwanis facility. Why is it the taxpayers' responsibility to ensure a driver can park their car at a place like this, while it doesn't seem to be important to ensure bus access to the same location?

Besides this, the District School Board of Niagara is bent on closing the newest and only high school in the Western Hill neighbourhood. They will instead bus high school kids outside of their neighbourhood to other schools, which means if the child cannot be at the bus stop for whatever reason when it leaves, he or she may not be able to go to school that day. They will also not be able to participate in extra curricular activities, as the buses will likely leave before these activities begin. Henceforth, according to our friend Don Drummond, who had recently completed his review of government services, parents may be charged fees to help cover the cost of this busing. So, once again, we are going to have to pay for decisions made by other people. What is the effect of something like this in my neighbourhood?

First, I live in a food desert. This means there is no easy access to a grocery store near enough to my home to walk there. We can walk, but it takes about forty five minutes to get there, but it is the closest, yet most expensive food store in the area. There are no community centres or service hubs in my neighbourhood, unlike there being access to the same in other "richer" neighbourhoods. With this comes the dearth of after school activities for kids. There are no decent restaurants in my neighbourhood, or bank branches for people to do their banking. All we have is a couple of bars, a Chinese restaurant, a few convenience stores, a closed down body shop for cars, a beauty salon, a laundromat and a chiropodist's office which never seems to have anybody there. In the past few months, we have witnessed three foreclosures on homes that were owned, as well as a high turnover of tenant households. Other than that, we do have some senior citizens who are retired or semi retired, or housing that seems to be increasingly being built for Brock students. There are families here, but I somehow doubt they will remain in this neighbourhood once these other amenities are removed. Who wants to buy into a neighbourhood where there is no high school, community centre or any recreational facilities? Will I be able to sell my house? I somehow doubt it, unless the purchaser can somehow convert it readily to a student residence.

For people like myself, this neighbourhood has literally lost all of its appeal. I no longer want to live here. This neighbourhood has the lousiest bus service of anywhere in this city, especially on evenings and weekends. If the pool and the high school close, there will be no point in us continuing to stay here. I will have to find another place to live that is closer to one of the high schools that will remain open, so that my daughter will have some place to go when she becomes of age. She is not like my son, who is very enthusiastic about school and interested in learning. I do not want circumstances to be in place to encourage her to drop out. I have already heard from some students that were going to Thorold Secondary School, another school on the alleged chopping block, state to the committee that they may not be able to continue to attend school. For many people, a long bus ride each day is too much for them.

At the same time as this, hydro rates are skyrocketing in May, and the last time I went grocery shopping, prices went up by at least five percent. If this were happening in Toronto, it would not be tolerated. People would band together and fight these changes, and many times, they win. Here, there is a half hearted attempt by a citizens group to form a non profit group to keep the pool open, but it seems there is not as much of a fight by the same people to keep the high school open. Don't these folks live in the neighbourhood too? Are they not concerned about what will happen when they try to sell their homes? I must say that I was happy to hear about the group trying to save the pool, but we need a lot of people like our Mayor, city council, and even regional councillors to fight to keep the schools. In my view, all the school board has to do is enforce its own boundaries and they would not have to close any schools, but instead they intend to make it the problem of families that do not drive, do not have access to recreational services and money to help co-pay for the bus services.

Don't they understand? This is a PRIORITY neighbourhood! Perhaps, my next step will be to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the city to find out ward by ward how much money per capita is being spent on services, and I know for a fact that my ward will show the lowest expenditures, simply because there are a large number of "throw away" people in this neighbourhood, people that city councillors, who all drive and live in big houses, do not consider to be worthy of having accessible services in their own neighbourhoods. I filled out a survey awhile back that asked how well I fit in within my neighbourhood, my community and my region, and my answer to this was "I don't feel I fit in at all". This does not say anything about the people here, as they are okay, but it does say a whole lot about how I feel I am treated as a non driver, who is not able to attend 90 - 95% of even "free events" that are put on by the community or by groups in it, and at the same time, have to be subject to the exhaust smoke of other people's vehicles, have to walk on sidewalks that are broken and subject to trip hazards or cyclists that blithely ignore the by-laws around riding a bike on the sidewalks. Again, if they do this in Toronto, people will bring this to city council and rally around it. Here, it is like nobody cares.

They once asked questions of how the city can improve neighbourhoods and accessibility issues. If they really wanted to do this, they can read this post and implement changes that would stop me from feeling so disgusted that I have to leave, just wishing I had enough money to do so.

BIG OIL AND PRIVILEGE

It is typically Canadian these days to complain about two things: (a) gas prices; and (b) the loss of our second national anthem, "The Hockey Song" which has been with us since 1968 for "Hockey Night in Canada". It seems that CBC lost, but CTV won the right with the second issue, thus "saving" Canada's anthem and its tradition of sorts. However, the first issue continues to remain a bee in almost everybody's bonnet.

Gasoline prices at the pump have steadily increased since the 1990's from about 40 cents a litre to what is now $1.40 per litre in many places. Prices are at least double this amount in European countries, but then again, people in Europe have more respect for alternatives to the automobile than they do here. People who do not drive in North America are viewed as aberrant and inferior for some reason. To me, it is a classist and ableist bias, but if our society wants to continue this -- it should cost those dearly that want to continue. On Face Book, there is a Canadian site with more than 300,000 people on it complaining about gas prices and another "global site" with over 1,000,000 people on it. Many of the sites record almost on a daily basis the price of gas per litre or per barrel ... as it almost seems like the price is shifting this way.

I have very mixed feelings about the price of gas. I do feel empathetic and concerned for those that transport goods and people as a principle part of their business, as this not only severely impacts their bottom lines, but also the bottom lines of many other businesses at the end of the line. If you run a store that relies on imported goods, such products had to get to you somehow; they certainly didn't walk there!!! As a business owner, you had to pay a surcharge to have these items delivered to you, or as a supplier, a surcharge to have your products shipped. Farmers are feeling it. Importers, exporters, small manufacturing companies, even convenience stores ... are all feeling the pinch. Those that do the transporting are feeling it even worse, as their margins are being further and further cut, forcing some shipping firms to cut staff, park vehicles and reduce loads. This is the part of the "price of gas" that bothers me.

To be blunt, I don't care if the price of gas surpasses $5 a litre for those that use their vehicles only to get to and from work, or to take road trips --vehicle owners never paid the full cost of their privilege. As they continue to whine about the price of gas, taxpayers of *all* descriptions (including those that do not or cannot drive for whatever reason) continue to pay for road building, maintenance, expansions, highways, "free parking" at malls, traffic control, traffic planning services, parking enforcement, etc. Yes, there is tax on gas to cover some of these expenses, but this tax does not cover all of it. According to the CAA, it costs an average of $8,000 to $10,000 a year to own and operate a personal vehicle. That means, in order to do this -- you are certainly privileged enough to have that much more disposable income after housing, food and other basic needs, to put aside for a vehicle. In my view, if this is the case, then those that can afford vehicles should not be alarmed by paying the full price of operating their cars and paying even more per litre of gas.

These same non-driving taxpayers also have to get around somehow as well; many, especially in regions like my own, are forced to pay many more times than the cost of a vehicle trip on a per kilometre basis, on taxi fares, bus fares (where there are buses), as well as forfeit a majority of job opportunities that pay more than minimum wage, especially since these days, when it is okay to discriminate against the poor and people with disabilities - employers simply invite only those who drive need apply. To many people, they might as well say, "No dogs or Jews need apply" or "Whites only". Replace the words "must have valid driver's license and reliable vehicle" with "must be of Caucasian or Oriental origin in order to understand our customers' needs" or "must be able to lift 100 pounds and run the four-minute mile" or "those in wheelchairs need not apply; office is not equipped for the handicapped". Blame the disabled person for having the disability; the employer need not accommodate.

These non-drivers are also paying three or four times as much on a per kilometre basis than those with vehicles and as most transportation studies confirm, they take 50 - 75% less personal trips and pay a larger portion of their incomes on transportation costs than for those who drive. How does this translate into higher costs for non-drivers if the price of gas is so high and the CAA cites the high cost of vehicle ownership? It is because drivers have a substantially greater chance of being hired into better paying jobs and according to many work-to-welfare studies from the U.S., people with cars tend to work longer hours and get paid up to $2 or more dollars per hour higher than those that do not drive. In my own view, driving a vehicle should ONLY be a qualification if the job requires driving a vehicle as a primary function of the job.

In Niagara, non-drivers are left in the dust as well. I am looking for a mechanism to give the Honourable Jim Bradley, Minister of Transportation, and MPP for St. Catharines, an award ... This award would be similar to the type of award some of the Teachers Associations tried to give to then Education Minister, John "create a crisis" Snobelen, in the days of Mike Harris, when it was revealed that he did not even graduate from high school. For Jim, the stakes would be similar, the circumstances different ... except, he would be awarded the first Minister of Transportation to come from a region that has the Worst Transit System for a population of its size and demographic. If Bradley is unable to do anything for his own backyard, as some of his critics may ask, how can he be expected to change the transportation dynamic in Ontario as a whole?

People in Toronto joke all the time about the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission. Sometimes, delays, no-shows, breakdowns and crowded buses irritate the TTC commuter. When buses and streetcars come by, on average, every five minutes, it is frustrating for a commuter to wait another five. In St. Catharines, service is every hour after six and in other municipalities, there is NO transit after six. Frustrated TTC commuters call the TTC "take the car". Niagara has its own TTC as well, except it IS "Take the Car". If you do not drive, you do not have citizenship in Niagara Region. Most jobs are given to only respectable "middle class" sorts that already have the spare change to spend on vehicle ownership; in other words, you will get a job in Niagara if you already have a good job. If you do not have a job, or your job pays too poorly, one of the first cuts many are forced to make is to park or even sell the car, as other cuts, such as living in a tent and eating one meal a day are less healthy for you, particularly in the winter-time. If you have a disability and cannot drive, employers don't want you anyways. After all, "governments and families" look after people with disabilities. Maybe that's why so many of them are having trouble keeping their housing and getting sick from such poor diets, etc.

Todd Littman, a transportation analyst has actually calculated the value of the "free ride" people who drive actually get from taxpayers and others. He valued it at about $5,800 per annum. In other words, people who drive are certainly not paying their full share of the costs. Maybe they should. The only "breaks" if anybody should get them should be businesses that are in the practice of transporting goods or people. If somebody who drives says they cannot afford to pay the "full cost", then park the car - period. I think if more of these people understood what kind of a privilege it is to drive and what advantages society confers onto them simply by having a driver's license and a vehicle, they just might understand how much more money they are costing the rest of us that do not drive. Public transportation users do have some subsidy as well, averaging about $1,300 a year in an urban centre -- but he argues in another paper that transit subsidies are more "just" as it equalizes to some extent the privileges of mobility for both classes - drivers and non-drivers.

Maybe the deal can work this way. We ALL pay full price for our choices. Except, the very large portion of my tax bill that currently goes to the privileges of private vehicle owners in terms of road and bridge repair, traffic lights, traffic control, planning, parking, urban sprawl, higher prices at malls, etc. should be wiped right OFF my tax bill and the tax bills of others that do not or cannot drive. I should also be getting a 15 - 20% discount at the supermarket, as those big box supermarkets do pay a LOT of money to give drivers "free parking", as well as pay for the transportation services of its business. Those that drive shall pay the balance, perhaps in the form of road tolls, paid parking regardless of where they go, levies for owning a car and keeping it within city limits, etc. When I see drivers paying the full load, which may exceed $20,000 a year or more per vehicle, then maybe I might be somewhat empathetic.

It should also be illegal for employers to discriminate against non-drivers unless the essential duties of the job are driving goods or people, or the job involves mandatory travel, such as travelling to various homes in a community to test their water pipes or inspect their furnaces (where it would be impossible, for example, for homeowners to come to an office to provide the parts). In most other jobs, having a transit service will enable non-drivers to do the essential duties of most jobs.

The use of a driver's license for identification has also been an issue for generations. Most video stores, public libraries, convenience stores/liquor stores (where you may need to be ID'd), border crossings, banks, etc. expect EVERYBODY to have a government-issued photo ID. The only one that the government issues that is not a driver's license is the health card, and most of these same places do not accept this as ID. So why do they accept a driver's license as an ID when less people have this type of identification than people who have say, a health card or a citizenship card? I successfully forced many of these types of places to accept non-driver's license identification by threatening a human rights action and if they refused to accept something else, I certainly would have followed through. This is MY citizenship rights.

The Ontario Government is apparently trying to set up a type of non-driver's licence photo ID for non-drivers to use, but in my view -- they shouldn't be using licenses either, as in my view - the use of a driver's license for ID purposes is no more useful than using a health card for ID purposes ... maybe a national identity and photo ID card should be issued, much like a social insurance number, to anybody who asks and can present other identification, such as a birth certificate, etc. If the person wants to add security information to their national ID card so they can do things like cross borders, then they can choose to undertake a simple security screening.

The trouble with using the driver's license is it normalizes the acquisition and use of a driver's license as a type of proof of citizenship. As the Minister of Transportation said himself, almost four million Ontarians do not have a driver's license. In addition to those that do not have a license, about a quarter to a third of licensed drivers do not have access to a personal vehicle. This is a LOT of people to deny citizenship right to and to relegate to lowest levels of the workforce. It also reinforces the power and economic interests that Big Oil have over all of us. Those that drive can earn good money. Those that want to continue to drive pay more per litre of gas than they did even last year or even last week! Those that choose not to drive are denied the right to earn a decent living, and are not viewed favourably by the "middle class".

If you are a man in your forties, for example, and you do not choose to have a license - perhaps, for environmental reasons or you never felt you wanted one or whatever reason -- it is automatically assumed by the absence of your license there is "something wrong" with you. I know a PHd who chose not to drive for many years; further, he had some cognitive difficulties that affected him in a way that learning to drive was not easy for him. Despite his PHd, his strong writing and research skills, he was denied almost every job he applied for. Once he got married, his new wife taught him patiently how to drive and now he is working full-time. We have to separate our dependence on Big Oil from our potential and livelihood. If we don't do it now, more and more people will be left out of the loop and if you think your taxes are bad now, just wait until we have to support thousands and thousands more people on welfare because of our "middle class" and "ableist" bias.

Thoughts?