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.

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?

SELF-EMPLOYED - ALL I WANT IS RESPECT!

Welcome to the new economy!

It seems that more and more people today are becoming or desiring to become entrepreneurs. There are whole sections of newspapers, news information shows and small business fairs going on to try to encourage and guide those that wish to become self-employed.

First, if you have never been self-employed, you probably think being self-employed is wonderful:

1. You believe that self-employed business people can deduct almost all of their business expenses and hardly pay any taxes. For the self-employed, that is true - but you have to EARN then money first before you can deduct it. If you are in business and have all of these expenses, the bills must be paid whether or not YOU get paid.
2. You can work when you want, how you want and for whomever you want. Again, nice in theory, but doesn't work in practice. For every hour I can bill a client for, there are at least two or more hours of work that I can't bill that client or anybody else for. In my line of work, I have to maintain three business-related accounts, including a trust account. The trust account must always draw off to zero after subtracting the monies clients put in for advance payments. If you are a penny off, you better find it and reconcile the accounts, including all client sub-accounts. While employed people clock out and go out for a beer, I am still trying to balance the trust account and do transfers/reconciliations in the general account. There are lots of other bureaucratic disasters to prevent and look after too: GST, PST (for some businesses), invoicing, collection, marketing, production of marketing materials, attendance at various networking functions, as well as client record keeping and filing functions. This does not include the endless phone calls, many of which do not result in business ...
3. You can work from your home. Do you REALLY want to work from home? Do you really want to be sitting at home watching the hockey game, cracking open a beer and then receiving a phone call from an angry customer? If you run the type of business where customers come to see you, do you really want to have to keep your home sparkling clean all the time, fearing prospective clients will walk past your dirty laundry, the kitty litter and a sink full of dirty dishes on their way in to see you? Also, in some types of businesses, if you are dealing with individual situations (e.g. personal counseling), do you really like the idea of some of your less balanced clients knowing where you live?
4. You can charge whatever you feel your worth, or what the market will bear. That's true. You CAN set your own fees; however, many critical factors go into setting that fee. What are your competitors charging? What are your suppliers charging you? How much does it cost you to engage in your business? Do you live in a region like I do where people expect you to work for nothing, or next to it? Are there aspects of your business that set you apart from your competitors? If so, you can set your fees accordingly. However, while you can set fees all you want, ten percent of your clients will cost you eighty percent of your time ... and these people may not want to compensate you for it. There are also others that may bounce cheques, skip town or otherwise refuse to pay you. People who are not self-employed do not understand that if they engage your services, they have to pay for them - period. Doesn't YOUR boss have to pay YOU the wages that YOU signed up for, including any benefits and bonus?
5. Customer service is all you need to worry about ... it's a free market. Forget this one - period. My business is highly regulated. It is expensive to operate because I have to pay regulatory fees, licensing fees, related practice fees, continuing education, conference fees, membership dues, insurance (errors and omissions, liability, commercial, etc.), office, transportation, search/court/filing fees, subcontracting fees, professional fees, etc. This adds up to a "pretty penny" (and oh boy, a penny is nothing!). Add this to the regular business fees of office supplies, telephone, advertisements, stationary, computer technology, reporting service, etc. Without any profits or paying any salaries, I am already $40,000 - $50,000 in the hole! I have to pay these costs whether I get paid by my customers or not. If you are employed, after some taxes, the rest of your paycheque is YOURS! I still haven't paid ME yet!
6. What about benefits? If you are employed, you probably get medical and dental benefits, and possibly long-term disability benefits and/or retirement. Guess what? I get NONE of that. First, I am un-insurable on my own (as individual coverage is very hard to get unless you are perfectly healthy, young and are as free as possible of other health risks, such as being a non-smoker and your work being relatively low risk). In a workplace, your health history usually doesn't matter. Second, even if I could get this type of insurance, I don't have the cash - period. I have ZERO retirement savings.

Still want to be self-employed? I am because the region that I live in does not have the jobs available that will pay me much more than minimum wage and will totally discount my entire education that I paid over $50,000 for and my work history, which was most recently at the executive and mid-management level. I don't mind what I do or the people that I work with at all, but I NEED to be paid for it too.

I hope that those that are reading this that use professional services at all in any market begin to understand where I am coming from.

Your thoughts?

STILL THINKING OF VOTING LIBERAL?

The election is still a few weeks away. I'm already telling people not to vote Liberal.

Many people are planning to vote Liberal, because to say the least, the Liberal leader - Dalton McGuilty - is *warning* people that a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives. He is trying to get people to vote strategically to avoid what McGuilty is referring to as another era of "Mike Harris conservatism". All he can do is remind people about Mike Harris and the cuts they made to various programs, etc. This is to avoid reminding voters of the cuts and problems that Dalton McGuilty himself either created or did not fix while he had four years to do so.

Let's put the "Mike Harris theory" to bed right now.

Mike Harris has been out of politics for many years now. Most of his key Cabinet members are also either out of politics or involved at the federal level under Stephen Harper. Ernie Eves is also out of politics. Anybody who *warns* you that a return to a Progressive Conservative government in Ontario is a vote for Mike Harris is stupid, ignorant and playing mind games with you. The new leader of the Progressive Conservative party is John Tory, who was more involved when Bill Davis and other moderate conservatives were in power, not as much with Mike Harris or his government.

Further, if this is the Liberal party's key reason for you to vote for them, they are in BIG TROUBLE. Vote for me or you will get the other guy, the worse evil. Is the Liberal Party really the lesser evil they are claiming to be?

Not really.

Since they've been in power, I noted they talked nicer than Mike Harris/Ernie Eves and company, but their actions were really no different. Disability payments under Dalton McGuilty were cut back, as well as benefits reduced. Inflation took care of the rest of it. If you asked the Liberals what they are doing for people with disabilities, they will go on about how they increased benefits by 3% in 2004, 2% in 2006 and plan to increase benefits again by 2% in November of this year. Note this 2% is after the election. One wonders if this is contingent upon voting for these people.

The reality is much more stark. Disability payments were last increased in 1993, and it is now 2007 ... which means people only received a 5% hike since 1993. Further, many people on disability benefits also received special diet and other benefits. These were cut back substantially in 2005, which forced many recipients into the hospital or into ill health as a result. One man in my practise went blind in one eye as a result of being forced to cut back on his eating if he wanted to keep a roof over his head. Another one is now on dialysis. It's time to let McGuilty know how happy you are that he's spending much more on health care, although the wait lists haven't gone down one iota.

Both the NDP and Progressive Conservatives have been pointing out problems with the economy in Ontario. McGuilty replaces one lie with another by saying that 340,000 jobs were created since he took office, 80% of which are full-time and 95% of them pay $19.50 per hour or more (Toronto Star, September 12, 2007). If there were so many jobs like this, perhaps McGuilty and his boys may want to tell us where to find them, because all I see around here are big box stores and telemarketing jobs that pay $8 - $10 per hour. This is far from what is needed to feed and shelter a family in this region.

McGuilty and his boys did a lot to destroy jobs and job opportunities. In my mind's eye and personal experience, I lost between $60,000 - $80,000 in funding to operate my employment supports practice when his government decided to end my contract for no good reason (or any reason given). His government further ruined my economic integrity by ramming through Bill 14, Access to Justice Act, which is described in further detail below ... making the legal side of my business more expensive to practice, as well as less accessible because many clients can no longer afford my services. I am advised to pay to Caesar to what is Caesar's until the time comes, I suppose. I still don't blame the Law Society, as they were legislated by law to do this and were originally in agreement, believing they would be receiving "seed money" to set up our regulatory processes. One year later, regulation is in effect, but still no seed money ... but the Law Society is still expected to fund our regulation. For this reason, I place all the blame for this at the feet of the Dalton McGuilty government. If you cannot access the justice system because even paralegal services are too expensive, or if the kind of services you want or need can now only be provided by a lawyer, blame the McGuilty government for this.

In addition to the contraption that McGuilty and the boys (and girls) have set up for people with disabilities, Ontario is becoming a society where there is workfare for those that cannot work - by stealth. The Liberals don't even have to pass legislation to impose workfare on people with disabilities. They have already done so, by leaving them thousands and thousands of dollars below any given poverty line - making many so desperate to both feed themselves AND keep a roof over their head in the same month - that they HAVE TO go to work and do ANY job ...

Yes, the Liberals have made it easier to work and keep more benefits. However, the Liberals did very little to ensure that the disabled poor do not simply become part of the new working poor. Their new employment supports program for persons with disabilities almost ensures that people will be forced into taking any job, if they want a job at all. The Ministry officials tell us they are not making people take specific jobs, which may well be true, but are the service providers adequately compensated to assist somebody with a disability to attain a job that is more suitable and better paying, particularly if they have post-secondary education and at least "mid-level" work experience? Further, what have the Liberals done to ensure the "new" jobs are ones that carry with them labour board protection and job security? It is said that at least one third or more of the jobs coming onstream are "self-employment", "dependent contractor" and "independent contractor" positions that lack any legal protection. One can find this out for themselves by contacting the Worker's Action Centre in Toronto. It is no different in Niagara than it is in Toronto. Being pushed out the door by stealth because otherwise there is not enough money in ODSP to pay the rent and feed the kids is one thing; having no real job protection in the job you do eventually go to is also another thing.

The Ministry of Community & Social Services is actively encouraging and directly or indirectly subsidizing low wage employers to take on persons with disabilities or who are otherwise in receipt of social assistance. For example, in Niagara, we have the Job Bus. This is a program that the Region received $200,000 for from MCSS in order to partner with low-wage employers throughout Niagara to provide transportation for workers to the jobs these employers offer. There is no requirement on the part of these employers to provide full-time work, or even sustainable wages. The employers can pay people $8.00 an hour if they wish, with no benefits ... I particularly noted that when Canada Border Services Agency was hiring several cross-border guards at at salary of at least $55,000, the Job Bus administrators did not even attempt to engage with this employer to connect them to potentially qualified workers. The Job Bus, unfortunately, is like anything else that is band-aid ... another excuse for Niagara Region not to set up inter-municipal transit for the rest of us that want to select our own jobs, thank you very much ...

How about other things that peeve me off about the Liberals? When they were campaigning in the 2003 election, they promised voters they would not increase taxes or lower them. Almost as soon as they were sworn in, McGuilty and the boys immediately passed a health tax on almost all working people. Anybody who makes over $20,000 a year in wages, which is not a whole lot, considering that housing costs almost that much in itself for many people, starts paying $300 in health tax. Those earning over $60,000 a year pay the maximum of $900 - so whether you are earning $60,000 a year or $300,000 a year - you still pay $900. Another promise of McGuilty's to make the poor pay once again for their misuse of taxpayer's dollars. If they wanted a health tax at all, only those making over $60,000 should pay and it should start off low and get progressively higher as one's income increases.

Another issue that burns me is before Christmas last year, the Liberals held the Legislative session on overtime to ram through a 25% wage increase for themselves, while they could not do the same for people on disability or minimum wages. The Liberals have repetitively claimed the cupboard was bare when people with little or nothing asked for their right to survive, but when people approached them for comparatively frivolous things like a cricket tournament, they are not only glad to provide, but to give them even more ... remember the cricket players only asked for $150,000, but instead received a cheque for $1 million. There was at least another $32 million from this pot that was given to Liberal-affiliated organizations, many of which did not even apply for this money. While the Auditor did not seem to think that partisan politics played a role in this, he did agree that adequate controls were not in place. I suppose some people don't have to tighten their belts, while others do? One wonders how many other pots of money like this existed, but I presume steps were taken to hide this information when the election was called ... so nobody will ever know.

I presume a new government coming in will only learn that the Liberals left an unclaimed deficit of a few billion dollars, so they can't hike disability rates either. Too many cricket tournaments, I presume ... while my clients go blind or are forced on dialysis or into nursing homes, etc. I should have thought about this. I follow the wrong sport.

I've read the Liberal election platform. There is really nothing there for people with disabilities. There is no mention of continuous increased payments to ODSP/ OW recipients or better programs to improve job opportunities and outcomes for those disadvantaged in today's labour market. There is not even anything said about the work that has been started with Bill 118, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Many voters who will vote blindly for the Liberal Party will only assume these things will continue, but I do not. The reason being is that McGuilty is on the hot seat for being a "promise breaker", so he is certainly not going to do anything he doesn't promise in his platform.

If the Liberals are re-elected to a majority, I suspect the following will happen:

1. A 2% increase for ODSP/ OW in November 2007, but nothing after that;
2. Implementation of workfare lite for people with disabilities by 2008;
3. More uncontrolled spending of millions or even billions on special interest groups that don't need any help; and
4. No more assistance than is already given to create GOOD PAYING JOBS.

I cynically worry that people who are doing well will vote blindly for the Liberals, almost believing everything they say - particularly about how these so called 340,000 jobs paying at least $19.50 an hour were created. The unfortunate thing with politics is that people who are doing well are usually shielded from those who are not, and if they encounter anybody in the latter category - it is too easy to assume these people are few and far between.

All I can say is that I practised as a disability issues and administrative law paralegal, starting early under the term of the Mike Harris government and it is only the past few years (Dalton McGuilty years) that I've noticed large increases in the number of my clients awaiting appeals for various benefits falling into spells of homelessness, suicide, family breakup and other signs of commiseration. It is not that this did not happen under the Harris government, as it certainly did, but under the Harris government - if I had this type of concern, my local MPP was empowered to deal with it and they actually did something about these issues most of the time.

Nowadays, it is getting harder to do my job, as my clients appear to be more desperate and experiencing a lot greater degree of financial hardship imposed, because Ontario Works - under the present Liberal government is now the resource of first resort, as opposed to last resort. Injured workers, disabled persons, recently separated spouses, recently laid off persons, EI exhaustees, etc. are all now referred to Ontario Works, as opposed to getting what used to be "interim assistance" during any appeal process. Readers of my posts, as well as others who are familiar with Ontario's lack of social safety know, that when Ontario Works becomes the resource of first resort, that means more people lose their homes, end up at the doors of food banks and more families split up.

Is this the kind of Ontario you want to have? If you don't mind the widening gap between the rich and the poor, escalating costs of health care (which are not driven by the ageing population but by poverty) and increased taxes, then vote Liberal. If you sincerely want to choose change for the better, vote strategically on October 10th, 2007, to help bring about a minority government of any stripe that will need to work with other MPPs for once to pass any new legislation. Maybe and only then will we stop having majority governments ram any legislation that want down people's throats ... legislation that is having major and negative consequences on the people it affects, as well as increased costs.

I invite you to join my ABL (anybody but Liberal) campaign. Thoughts?

Watching the World

People who work in my field soon become jaded at the things they see. Every day, it is a heavy dose of adrenaline and sadness mixed to create a painful abyss. It makes me wonder if things are getting better or worse for humankind. I saw the news report on a study on global warming, that is an entirely man-made phenomenon. Commentators ask if people truly are willing to change their habits if they want to attempt to reverse this trend. I am not sure they want to or could. People still want to drive their SUVs to the corner store and work at smoldering factories that are killing the air that we breathe. At the same time, many of these same factories are being shut down as the price of energy skyrockets. The economy desperately needs to replace these jobs; sending people to call centres and retail work is not going to fix things, esp. if the cost of living continues to rise.

People are entering into more and more dangerous types of occupations in order to make a living. Workplace injury is common, esp. for people during the first few months on a job. Our social safety nets have become frayed to the core with people in need. People will not moderate their expectations in order to "downsize" to their new (lower) position in life; they will only become more angry at what they've lost. People come into my office everyday ... whether the cause is disability, family breakdown, long-term unemployment or some other type of loss (e.g. a workplace injury or motor vehicle accident), they come in expecting things to become the way they once were. Their lives for the most part have been forcibly taken from them. Many of them die before benefits are finally approved; others may lose their car, their homes and even, their families. As a professional disability advocate, I try to minimize these effects as much as possible, but I realize I cannot prevent all of it. Because of the increasing volume of need, primarily due to an ageing population, decreased size of bureaucracies and the general public's decreased willingness to pay more taxes - there is often no social safety net for many of these people, or if there is one - we must fight for it and fighting can take a very long time.

At the same time, businesses are becoming leaner and meaner. Even governments are charging "user fees" they never did before. With a growing portion of the population unable to withstand increasing financial strain and its impact on the lives of their families, family breakdown is becoming too common. People are finding themselves alone in a world that seems to be less caring. My practice includes people seeking various types of compensation from Insurance, Ontario Disability Support Program, Canada Pension Plan Benefits, Workplace Safety & Insurance Board, Criminal Compensation, among other things. We also deal with issues of wrongful termination, mediation of business and marital break-ups, as well as the occasional project management file (which might as well be the primary source of cheer in this otherwise negative industry). Don't get me wrong: I care immensely for the people I work with. In fact, I participate in a broader world of social change and fight on a number of human rights grounds.

As a practitioner in the justice system, I do not see where this is going sometimes. I yearn for broader change so I no longer see the pain in people's faces when these things begin to get too hard for them. It is not like these things never get better. They do, and I have a very long list of satisfied clients to prove it can. However, I sometimes wonder at what cost. Is getting hundreds of people on various disability programs really the long-term solution to what is befalling us? Is filing lawsuits against various employers that don't seem to understand anti-harassment and human rights principles going to change the shape of the labour force? When people go to court to acquire compensation for whatever breach they feel has been imposed upon them, does it really address the problems of humankind's inhumanity to others? Can we ever eradicate the serious problem of poverty among groups of marginalized citizens, including people with disabilities, new Canadians, single parents, working poor, etc.? To me, poverty itself is an abuse of human rights. Nobody has to raise a fist against you or force you to look down the barrel of a gun to make you feel scared, anxious and worried about your future, if they can make you poor or ignore the many factors that may contribute to it.

Some tell me that nobody has the power to eradicate poverty. I believe we do. As with resolving global warming even in part, we as a community have to drastically change our habits, expectations and how we do business in order to do so. In particular, this would apply to those that have leverage in the political, business and academic worlds. If I have power to give away, I also have power to give you more choices. In our society, we all have choices, you may say. However, the reality is that some people have more choices than others and the way our economy and labour market is shaped, those with the most choices are the least willing to share their opportunities with those that have less choices. As a society, we have to radically alter our visions of what is right and wrong, what is ours and what belongs to the community.

We have to stop believing that those who fall on hard times have done so because they made bad choices, or have something inherently wrong with them. We all hear the stories about "the homeless" being a group of hopeless addicts or people with mental health issues that are incapable of making decisions for themselves. We also speak ill of single mothers, wanting to believe that many of them choose to have more babies in order to increase their incomes. We also hear stories about people who are getting full disability allowances that do not appear to have anything wrong with them. As an advocate, I wish I dispell these myths outside of my own experience with dealing with anybody that walks through my door. I have yet to see these stereotypes among my clients, many of whom are referred to me by social agencies or walk in from the streets. I think the truth is as a society, we want to deny that we ourselves can be just as easily put into these situations.

People who are in receipt of welfare, or Ontario Works, they call it here, are believed to be primarily receiving it because they are illiterate, substance abusers, high school drop-outs, unskilled and other rather encompassing terms. It is true that many people on welfare do fit these descriptions; however, it is also true that many people who are working also fit these descriptions. I can tell you that more people who are illiterate, substance abusers, high-school drop-outs, unskilled, and so forth, are working and not on welfare, than those who are. I can also tell you that in many regions, almost half of those on welfare are well-educated, most of this group possessing at least one university degree. In my own professional life, I have worked with many people who are on welfare or O.D.S.P. who have been trained as doctors, lawyers, dentists, nurses, social workers, tradespeople, etc. These people did not just suddenly become lazy and want to take the easy way out. They - like everybody else - want to work and move out of poverty as much as anybody else would.

However, what the public doesn't realize about many of these people is that the process of going on welfare or O.D.S.P. has impoverished them to such an extent that they can no longer AFFORD to work. Many people have lost their homes, professional support networks, their health and most do not have motor vehicles. With a community such as the one I practice in requiring every job candidate for any meaningful, better paid jobs to have a driver's license and a vehicle, these people are not going to get ahead. One way of changing the way we do business is to look at this issue and turn it on its head and try to find ways to provide better paid jobs to qualified individuals that do not drive. Employers would have to be somewhat creative, as well as critical of their own processes, in order to make this change. I don't know if it would cost them money. It might, or it may even save some employers money, when they discover they don't have to pay for mileage and parking for their new employee - just occasional taxi trips or bus passes, when required to go somewhere on "business". That is just one example of how to change the way we do business to protect what I am seeing as the declining middle class and prospective skilled workers.

Transportation issues are still only believed to affect unskilled workers. In my Region, there are some employment agencies that offer unskilled jobs that provide workers rides to the job site, but there are no skilled jobs that have rides or transportation provided in the same way. A "job bus" was also provided to transport relatively low-paid hospitality workers from one city to another to find work at hotels, tourist attractions and restaurants. While this strategy works to help some unskilled persons get off welfare and join the ranks of the growing numbers of working poor, it does absolutely nothing for my unemployed or disabled professionals or persons whose skills and work experience are too complex to take on low-paid entry-level work. Nor does this strategy work for people with lower levels of skills to move them out of the low-paid job market. Most of these jobs do not pay a person enough to allow them to purchase their own transportation or to take courses that will enable them to move up the employment ladder.

Transportation is only believed to be a charity in my Region. Transportation is only for the elderly, people with severe physical disabilities and those with certain health conditions (e.g. requiring dialysis) to get to medical appointments only. Thought is not given that these same people, or perhaps others with disabilities that find themselves ineligible for this assistance, to go to work, take a course or to even visit family or friends. People with disabilities are not thought of as people. They are thought of as charitable cases, people to be pitied ... people to use as a foundation to raise money for, etc. They are not our co-workers, our neighbours, our friends, our relatives or even bosses. They are people to feel sorry for, people to relieve our guilt every time we contribute to one of many charities that "serve" this group, people who are invisible. In my Region's mind, everybody else drives, or after all - they can hop the "job bus" and take a low-paying job. This way of thinking has to be turned on its head and transportation must be considered as much of a public service as medicare is. If millions of dollars are spent on roads, maintaining parking spaces for vehicles at malls or city lots, extracting fossil fuels in order to run vehicles and later pollute the environment, etc. we can also pay more money to create and enhance public transit services. Research has shown that if transit services can be developed so that they are readily accessible, available, convenient and efficient, people will use it - even many people who normally drive.

In my view, I want people to consider their attitudes, beliefs and values, and how community attitudes, beliefs and values, contribute to our growing problem of poverty and indignation. Yes, poverty is a complex problem and will take many different strategies to reduce and resolve; however, as a society we have to take this path and prioritize it, alongside with the path that many of us are now finding crucial: global warming. Until later, I sign off.