In Ontario, there are about 2,000 of us that practice as Independent Paralegals. In Ontario, Independent Paralegals, who are not Lawyers, but provide services in a number of less complex legal areas, are permitted to practice independently.
Over the past thirty or more years, such Independent Paralegals provided services directly to the public in the following areas: small claims court, worker's compensation, no-fault accident benefits, immigration, uncontested divorce, simple incorporations, basic wills/powers of attorney, traffic tickets, minor criminal charges, among many others. However, over recent years, a number of Lawyers - primarily those in small or solo practices - began to complain about Independent Paralegals taking over certain aspects of their businesses and offering it to the public for cheaper. Instead of telling the public the truth about their motives (money), these particular Lawyers argued that Independent Paralegals are not regulated, not insured, not educated and therefore, not accountable to anybody.
Yes, that's true. For a very long time, Independent Paralegals were not regulated in a FORMAL way, although for the past twenty years, associations of Paralegals lobbied the government to enact some form of self-regulation for this profession. Members of these associations were required to carry insurance, adhere to a certain code of conduct and have a minimum level of education or relevant hands-on experience. So, to state that all Paralegals were uninsured, uneducated and unaccountable was not truly accurate. However, the government never made it mandatory for any Paralegal to join any of these associations - people were still able to practice as a Paralegal without any insurance or standards because they choose not to belong. Most Paralegals didn't like this either.
The then Liberal government of the day in 1989 appointed Professor Ron Ianni, then President of the University of Western University, to review what it called the "paralegal problem" and for the Task Force to come up with ideas on how Independent Paralegals can be regulated, if at all. The Report, later affectionately known as the Ianni Report upon its 1990 release, consulted broadly with stakeholders on the issue, including Lawyers, Paralegals, schools, clients of Paralegals, etc. and concluded that Independent Paralegals do need some regulation, but did emphasize that over-regulation was an inappropriate balance. At that time, the Law Society of Upper Canada, Ontario's body that presently regulates Lawyers, did not express an interest in regulating Paralegals, as they felt it would be a conflict of interest. Ianni recommended against it anyways, citing that some type of government regulation might be appropriate, which would include licensure, training and certification.
The Ianni Report disappeared like a puff in the wind and nobody mentioned it anymore, except to make repetitive references to the "problem" over time. Under the succeeding NDP government, a Private Members' Bill, the Legal Agents Act (or Bill 42), was introduced in an attempt to license and regulate traffic court agents. This initiative sprung in response to the famed Lawrie/POINTTS decision, in which the Ontario Court of Appeal issued an interpretation of the word 'agent' in the Criminal Code to include paid agents and that wherever permissable by legislation, paid agents would be allowed to appear in a judicial forum on behalf of clients. This court fight started when the Law Society attempted to charge Brian Lawrie, founder and then President of POINTTS, with the unauthorized practice of law. Lawrie eventually won when his practice was legalized, but the "paralegal problem" continued to remain.
The Law Society continued to prosecute several Independent Paralegals who were practising in other areas of law, such as uncontested divorces, wills and other "solicitor" type work. Maureen Boldt and her business, Boldt Paralegal and Mediation Services, was particularly a *hot* target in the 1990's and continues to be today. Unfortunately, Boldt signed an undertaking to agree not to practice law in certain areas, but continued. The Law Society used this to successfully prosecute her in the end. Others have also been targeted for doing similar work. I am aware of entire practices that have had to close down, with their principals ending up having to accept low paid work or nothing at all after they shut down their business ... as anybody who is self-employed knows, you can't get Employment Insurance from the closure of your business. Others quietly moved to other areas of law where Independent Paralegals are permitted to practice or worked as an employee in a legal firm.
I am in no way defending or not defending the targets in these cases, but I am illustrating historically what has become a long-entrenched symptom of poor and declining access to justice in this province. These entrepreneurs stepped in when Lawyers either would not or could not provide certain services at a reasonable fee to the general public. In fact, there were many Lawyers before that regularly referred prospects to Independent Paralegals because they knew that their own office either did not get involved in certain uncomplicated matters or could not afford to provide the service at a rate consumers can pay. Many of these Lawyers did have personal contacts in the community as well to refer these clients to - Independent Paralegals they knew and trusted. However, detractors of Independent Paralegals continued to squawk ... they complained they were losing income as a result of being a sole practitioner or involved in a small firm with Independent Paralegals being part of the cause ... (which to date, nobody could really prove, but this is how Paralegals get scapegoated).
Under the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris, several attempts were made to find a balance between access to justice and regulation of the providers. Then Attorney-General James Flaherty appointed esteemed former Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory to conduct a review on the regulation of Independent Paralegals, then affectionately known as the Cory Report. He held a series of consultations in Toronto inviting all stakeholders to participate in discussions and roundtable style hearings. He also accepted written presentations and research by presenters, as well as external consultants. After the release of the Cory Report, there were some major recommendations that if implemented would have led to a rational form of regulation for Independent Paralegals, including a recognition that Independent Paralegals had an important role to play in many areas of law where a substantial number of people are representing themselves, such as family law. Cory, like Ianni, rejected Law Society governance on the basis that it was a conflict of interest. Cory instead recommended some type of public body at arm's length, designed in a similar manner to Legal Aid Ontario, to oversee Independent Paralegals. Again, this Report disappeared like a cloud of dust in the night.
The Progressive Conservatives did not stop trying, however. They asked the Independent Paralegals to form a single umbrella organization through which continued discussions can take place with other stakeholders, like the Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario Bar Association. The Professional Paralegal Association of Ontario (PPAO) was born. Originally mandated to equally represent all six paralegal interests on its Board, the PPAO was going to be the spokesperson for the regulation of Independent Paralegals. This organization originally included two members from the Institute of Law Clerks of Ontario (ILCO), Paralegal Society of Ontario (PSO), Institute of Agents at Court (IAC), POINTTS, Ontario Association of Professional Searchers of Records (OAPSRS) and the Ontario Prosecutors Association (OPA). With the downloading of provincial offences courts to respective municipalities, an increase in the number of non-Lawyer agents working for municipalities opened the door to the OPA. For awhile, this worked well.
However, as "talks" continued between the PPAO and the Lawyer associations, a certain silence was in the air with regards to general knowledge of what was being discussed from the standpoint of Independent Paralegals and possibly even individual Lawyers. A so-called Framework for Regulation was approved and released to the public in 2002, which was the start of proposed regulation by the Law Society of Upper Canada and defined restrictions as to what Independent Paralegals can offer, as well as a new style of "partnership" between Lawyers and Paralegals with regards to completion of so-called "solicitor work" by Independent Paralegals. Neither the Lawyer associations or Paralegal groups liked this Framework, even though it was continuously pushed by each side of the discussion to their respective constituencies.
In 2002 - 2004, there were numerous developments in the work of the Professional Paralegal Association of Ontario (PPAO), and presumably the work of various Lawyer associations. During this period of time, something happened and the voice of the Independent Paralegal got lost. Town Hall meetings were organized by PPAO to introduce and presumably receive feedback on the various phases of these discussions. As somebody who had been in attendance at all but one of these Town Hall meetings, I can't remember a single Independent Paralegal in attendance actually agreeing to the Framework or any watered down version of the same, or even the basic idea of regulation of Paralegals by the Law Society of Upper Canada. Nevertheless, the Progressive Conservative government was tossed out and replaced by the current Liberal administration in October 2003, which in my view made things even worse.
The whole issue here is not that Independent Paralegals hate Lawyers. Many of us work closely with Lawyers and have no trouble working with them. I personally regard many Lawyers to be within my own professional community and networks. It is that Independent Paralegals are naturally afraid of losing what little they actually have left of their businesses. Many are too educated to work as legal secretaries or even legal assistants, although they may not quite have the law degree of a Lawyer. Where else could they work, if they cannot offer basic services independently? With increased technology, there is less need for legal secretaries in law firms and other types of legal support staff tend to be overworked and underpaid. None of these "discussions" were ever intended to put Independent Paralegals only under the supervision of Lawyers, as two contrasting events also took place while all these "discussions" were happening.
First, Humber College was the first educational facility to offer a four-year degree program in Paralegal Studies. This program, if you looked at the brochure, is very comprehensive and broad-based in terms of the knowledge imparted on the Law. Students graduating from such a program would not join a law firm to earn only $25,000 - $30,000 a year ... particularly with the way student loans have skyrocketed in the past ten years, but somebody is going to want to employ these people. Second, legal publishers, insurance companies, conference organizers and other businesses that used to only cater to Lawyers now cater to Independent Paralegals ... software companies are coming out that actually assist people in researching legal precedents, search firms are registering Independent Paralegals on the web to enable them to search information on corporations or locate runaway defendents, etc. These firms would not be marketing their offerings in this way if they did not see potential.
As time went on, the associations that made up the Professional Paralegal Association of Ontario began to question how decisions were being made and how much Independent Paralegals were truly being consulted before the PPAO took on any kind of position. At the same time, the executive committee of the PPAO began to feel it was useless fighting and that the Law Society was inevitably going to be our regulator - period. For awhile, the PPAO was taken to task by members of the associations and forced to take a more independent approach, which is why this organization developed a 'war chest' and used the money to hire a lobbyist to help sell self-regulation to the government of the day. However, despite the surface claims by the PPAO of their push for self-regulation, many Independent Paralegals felt they were still complicit in creating the end result, which was Bill 14, Access to Justice Act.
I can't personally attest to whether or not the PPAO itself actually pushed for Law Society regulation or just simply tried to find a compromise from among a set of very bad choices forced on them by the powers that be. During the period between 2004 - 2005, there were many attempts to "take over" the PPAO by the other associations, which by this point have become invisible in their landscape. The PPAO had long since opted to include individual members who were not members of any of the other associations and no longer required that two members of each serve on its Board of Directors. Instead of being an umbrella association or spokesperson for all the associations, the PPAO essentially became just another Paralegal association.
This unfortunately was not what the government saw. They continued to treat the PPAO as THE spokesperson for all Independent Paralegals, even though its membership was fast declining from among the associations. When other associations attempted to have an audience with Attorney-General Michael Bryant or his Parliamentary Assistant, David Zimmer, they were given the brush-off and told to work through the PPAO. In addition to this brush-off, representatives from the associations were basically told it was going to be the Law Society regulating them, whether they liked it or not. Democracy in this present government suddenly turned on its head and our elected representatives were now telling us what to do.
In the fall of 2005, it became clear that with the introduction of Bill 14, Access to Justice Act, change wasn't going to take place either in the PPAO or the Attorney-General's office. The other Paralegal associations began to petition and members therein exercised their votes and proxies and on January 14th, 2006, the Professional Paralegal Association of Ontario, was officially dissolved by a near unanimous vote by its members. Only one member voted against the resolution. With the dissolution of the PPAO, the other associations took their own stance against Bill 14 but were primarily ignored. If you read the minutes of provincial Hansard, the word for word proceedings of the Ontario Legislature, particularly during the second reading debate of Bill 14, one can see that even in April 2006, several months after PPAO's dissolution, the Liberal supporters of Bill 14 continued to meet with "representatives" of this group and refer to them favourably in their comments. This is despite the fact that members of the Paralegal Society of Ontario, Paralegal Society of Canada (loosely, a federal counterpart to PSO) and other groups attended the Legislative Assembly and sat in the Visitors' Gallery and even wrote and met with various representatives to ask them to reconsider Bill 14.
After its second reading was passed, the Bill soon went to Public Hearings through the Standing Committee on Justice Policy. One can access a transcript of those Hearings by visiting the Ontario Legislative Assembly's website and double clicking on Committees and scrolling down to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy. The way the Legislative Assembly's website was redesigned allows people to scroll through the daily transcripts of each Committee to find the particular Bill they are looking for. Look for Access to Justice Act, Bill 14. There were some Hearings in the spring of 2006, while other days were booked in August and September 2006. I personally watched and reviewed the transcripts of every single day these Hearings took place.
Presenters were divided into three camps. The first camp included Lawyers and Lawyers' associations that basically supported the intent of Bill 14, but many had smaller issues within the Bill itself. Some of these issues included the need to clearly differentiate between Independent Paralegals and Lawyers when the Law Society Act is redrafted, as well as to specifically state IN LEGISLATION what an Independent Paralegal can do and cannot do. A few commented on other aspects of Bill 14, which included issues around the appointment of Justices of Peace, changes in the Limitation Act, changes to settlement provisions in medical malpractice cases, etc. The second camp of presenters on the "Paralegal issue" included organizations of other professionals that did not want to get swept up in the definition of "practice of law" and end up having to be regulated twice. These groups included bankers, real estate agents, appraisers, unions, etc. who all think they do legal work, but they don't really. My final feedback on that question was only to make sure these professionals act only within their professional boundaries and not try to act outside of them ... yes, I've seen social workers and property managers appear on behalf of "clients" in court and that certainly needs to stop. The third camp included Independent Paralegals and their supporters (such as clients or organizations that work with Independent Paralegals). Out of dozens of presentations from this camp, there was a grand total of three presentations made by Paralegals, two of which included presenters appearing in pairs ... that were in favour of Bill 14. The grand total of five presenters that supported Bill 14 included Michelle Hague, Stephen Parker, Paul Dray, Margaret Louter and Brian Lawrie.
Even among these five Paralegal presenters that generally did not have problems with Law Society regulation, they still wanted to ensure that 'Paralegals' were equal to 'Lawyers' in the new Act and wanted to ensure we were not treated as second class. The rest of us had a running bet about who the Attorney-General would pick to sit as Paralegal representatives on the Standing Committee on Paralegal Services, which is the part of the Law Society that was created by this Act that would ultimately regulate us. This Standing Committee would include the five Paralegals appointed by the Attorney-General, five Lawyers appointed by the Law Society and three persons who were neither Paralegals or Lawyers appointed by the Law Society. I bet successfully that the five above named persons would be appointed ... it didn't come as much of a surprise to me, because governments generally want people in these types of positions to support the intent behind the roles and responsibilities of these positions. While I have no personal issues against any of the five individuals selected, I did have a concern that one of the members is not an Independent Paralegal but works as a Law Clerk. If this person were to be appointed, I would argue they should have been one of the three persons who were not Independent Paralegals or Lawyers, but unfortunately for our government, they didn't do that.
There were dozens of other Independent Paralegals, as well as supporters, who spoke clearly against Bill 14. Henceforth, regardless of what was said about exemptions, concerns over conflict of interest, perceived restrictions on practice and so forth, the government charged right ahead and did what it wanted regardless. What really told me this was on one of the Hearing dates, despite many people being turned away on the basis of there being "no more room", an unscheduled guest appeared on one of the September 2006 slots. This guest was Dylan McGuinty, none other than our Premier Dalton McGuinty's brother who also happens to be a Lawyer and in his time slot, most certainly went on to rip Independent Paralegals up and down. Dylan McGuinty, as well as many of the other Lawyer guests that appeared, claimed they spent some of their time "correcting" mistakes made by Independent Paralegals. Henceforth, I can also attest to many times that I, as well as many of my Independent Paralegal colleagues and other Lawyers, have corrected work done by Lawyers! So, Dylan, what was your point again?
The Bill got passed in a hurry during its third reading in the Legislature. Both the NDP and Progressive Conservatives voted against Bill 14, while the Liberal majority rammed it through. While just about everybody, including Independent Paralegals, believe Paralegals should be regulated -- 99.99% of them think the Law Society is not be the appropriate body. Oh well, Michael Bryant got his way and the Bill was proclaimed and in effect as of May 1, 2007. On April 24th, 2007, the Law Society of Upper Canada organized its own province-wide teleconference to answer questions of Paralegals about the pending regulation under its auspices, what they needed to do, if they qualified under grandparenting provisions and what were "transitional" provisions, and so on. This was hardly one week before the May 1, 2007, start date, upon which if ANY Independent Paralegal wanted to continue to practice, would have to: (a) carry sufficient Errors & Omissions Insurance; (b) adhere to the Paralegal Code of Conduct; and (c) practice only in the permissible areas of Law outlined on the Law Society's website. Further, all Independent Paralegals or prospective Independents under the 'grandfathering' or 'transitional' categories have to apply to the Law Society for a screening (e.g. good character, experience, etc.) and then write an exam, scheduled to be sitting on January 17, 2008, in Toronto.
I have no problems with any of this. In fact, I am one of those Independent Paralegals that have been wanting regulation for a long time. No, I don't think the Law Society was the right choice, but given that Michael Bryant forced the issue - we have to try to make it work for us. However, I have many concerns about the way this regulation was pushed through. About half the Independent Paralegals practiced the wrong kind of law and will therefore not qualify for grandparenting. I know at least three at this given moment that have had to close their doors and because they had no other employment or income options, turned to Ontario Works. They disappeared off the radar. I anticipate many more may end up there before May 1, 2008, when the first set of Independent Paralegals get licensed. A few others, including many high profile Independent Paralegals got jobs outside the legal field altogether. A couple of the lucky ones were able to find suitable work for an employer in the legal field.
Many Independent Paralegals remain. I am one of them. Some of us have already got their applications turned in to the Law Society of Upper Canada and others, including myself, are in process of getting this done. Again, this is not the issue here. When we're licensed, we will still be able to do what we've always done, at least for those of us practising in permissible areas. What gets me about this whole thing is the costs ... the fees the Law Society is charging for each step of our licensing process are very steep for many people. Many Independent Paralegals may not be able to complete this process due to the fees alone. The average income of an Independent Paralegal is between $24,000 to $30,000 a year. Is it really fair to impose approximately $3,000 in additional direct costs, plus another $5,000 in indirect costs on each of these people, whose incomes are at best, modest? Further, with regards to permissible areas of practice, some regions fare better than others. In the Toronto area, there are many head offices and large companies that do their dealings through the Greater Toronto Area. Independent Paralegals have much more opportunities within the GTA region to develop contacts with high volume clients than they do, say, in Timmins or Sault Ste. Marie. Niagara Region is not much better. So, Independent Paralegals are punished for where they live and work, even though their clients need them just as much in Timmins, Sault Ste Marie, North Bay and Niagara Falls, as they do in Toronto.
While I cannot definitively make predictions based on what is currently in place, as the full impact of regulation has not been felt yet, I do have many concerns about restricted areas of practice, regions of practice and licensing/regulation costs. The least that Michael Bryant could have done is use his head when he put this Act together to make sure there will be Independent Paralegals available throughout the province, instead of just in high volume areas like Toronto and Mississauga. In other words, he could have issued different levels of licenses, so Paralegals that don't have a lot of Landlord and Tenant work in their regions (like I get called on one of these cases once or twice a month at best, because 75% of people in Niagara own their own homes) can practice in another area, like family law duty counsel, filing uncontested divorces, setting up a search house (which can be done anywhere), doing incorporations, etc. Small Claims Court also needs to increase its jurisdiction from $10,000 to perhaps, $25,000, and yes - the Judges that serve this Court should be paid a lot more too!
There should also be access to telephone hearings for certain Tribunals, so that I can represent anybody across Ontario, for example, on disability claims. At present, I do travel for some of these cases, but teleconferencing access would make it possible for me to pick up more clients and do more for them. There should also be access to salaried positions to do the type of work I do, because much of what I do falls in the gap between Legal Aid and "regular" cases. For example, I should be able to do a certain number of cases under a specific amount of money paid to my firm by the government (and I can report on the number of cases opened, progress and closures, etc. without disclosing confidentiality so they know people are getting served). I can then do other cases that are not on behalf of low income, but the client can pay on a private basis. This way, not only will there be competent Paralegal services available to people, but there will be a reduction in fees or no fees for those that cannot afford this type of service, but cannot access Legal Aid. Legal Aid is very limited and restricted in the types of services they fund and most Lawyers do not take Legal Aid cases anyways.
Finally, the Attorney-General should provide the Law Society of Upper Canada with money for "start up costs" for its task in regulating us. Although the Law Society accepted this task, they are not getting paid for it by the government. That is very foolish, as now the Law Society is forced into a position where it had to hire a number of additional staff, re-jig its administrative systems, upgrade its computers and phone lines, as well as its website, in order to accommodate incoming Paralegal members. Lawyers certainly shouldn't be billed extra so that the Law Society can regulate us. They pay enough. Independent Paralegals cannot afford the full freight, as we do not on average earn as much as Lawyers do. Doesn't the Attorney-General even read the reports about the troubles faced by sole practitioners and Lawyers in small firms? These people feel they are not making enough money to cover their own regulatory costs ... why would the Attorney-General think WE can afford it, when we make even less?
So, guess what? Those of us who intend to continue to practice had to re-assess our fees. I cancelled most of my subscriptions and non-mandatory memberships and cut back other expenses, and increased my hourly rate and most of my flat rates. This cost me about 15% of my clients, but the other ones will pay the increase. I think this has to do with being Canadian, how we all can be taxed to death and we never complain. However, I think this is a very serious wrong that is being imposed on us by the government. If the Attorney-General wants us to continue to provide accessible, affordable legal services, why is he forcing us to pay through the nose just to keep our doors open? How about all those businesses, such as software companies, reporting services, etc. that used to make a good profit off of us? Now, they are making less money because I know I am not the only one who had to cancel a number of subscriptions. I will re-think it next year when regulation is firmly in place and I know where I stand, but right now, it just seems that no matter how much money comes in, it goes out just as fast and I am still not making any money. This simply sounds like another Liberal job creation project to me and another way to put more people on welfare.
But then again, who am I to know? Isn't it the Attorney-General's mandate to work with us, as well as the Lawyers, to make sure there is access to justice in this province? After all the experience I had working with Paralegals, serving on boards and lobbying the government over this issue, I am really having my niggling doubts that access to justice was truly the goal of Bill 14 and the regulation of Independent Paralegals.
Until then, I have to do what is required to keep my doors open. However, as I told all of my clients, I am not finished with this topic yet. I've only just begun.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Working for People with Disabilities?
For a long time, people with disabilities have been crying the mantra of inclusion. In fact, one federal coalition has set up a website called End Exclusion. This website was at first set up as an interactive website where people with disabilities, as well as their friends and family, can comment on issues faced by them in real life. One area of exclusion is the area of Employment and to a lesser extent, Self-Employment.
There are thousands of people, as well as for-profit and not-for-profit agencies that profit from the hopes and dreams of people with disabilities by promising or offering assistance to them by way of preparing them for, or actually finding them, work. People with disabilities flock over to these agencies because they want to work, just like anybody else without a disability. However, just how effective are these agencies in finding people work? If they do find people work, what are the quality of jobs offered when compared to the candidate's personal work history, education and career aspirations?
I personally don't know the "success rate" as one can call it of these agencies, or whether certain agencies have a better "success rate" than others. However, a few years ago, I ran a for-profit agency that assisted persons with disabilities in obtaining self-employment and occasionally, assisted them in finding traditional employment opportunities. My own "success rate" was fairly good, if "success" was actually measured against what the person or client came to our office looking for. Many of these folks were unable to work full-time or work in a traditional workplace due to a myriad of disability and environmental reasons. However, many were able to succeed in developing and continuing to operate their own small businesses for a year or more - even if the income from the business did not take them totally off income supports. Some never came to us to get off ODSP. They just wanted to earn some extra money through a small business. Others did start a business and get off the system and a couple moved on to hire others. I have also worked with people who have moved off ODSP through their businesses, but have incurred substantial overpayments. Our office would negotiate with the originating agency to reduce the overpayments, review actual business earnings, etc.
Besides myself, there are many other agencies that have once provided or currently provide supports of some type to persons with disabilities to enter employment or start their own business. I personally found few of them to be helpful. Unfortunately, it is hard to figure out what is making these agencies unhelpful. However, we need to understand that some of these reasons are borne with government funding requirements, employer biases, as well as limited community infrastructure, in addition to any skills or contacts that may be lacking by the agency itself. While I held my Employment Supports contract, I worked with other individuals and agencies also working under the same umbrella and to some extent, I can understand that not all of this is the fault of the agency in question. However, I DO believe that agencies themselves need to become stronger advocates for change in many ways to improve many of the factors they cannot control.
Some of these factors will be outlined here:
With this formula, many agencies will be unable to earn enough to pay their bills unless they contract with a number of large, (usually) low-waged employers with a high staff turnover, promising them to fill a certain number of positions with their clients and provide a range of coaching supports to them. A successful agency under this formula will contract with Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Tim Horton's and various call centres and send their clients there to work. While some clients will quit or get fired, enough of them will be able to stay at least thirteen weeks so the agency in question will get $6,000 a head, plus a certain amount of money per month for every additional month the client stays on that job.
However, what if you are a person with a disability that by education, training or work experience, you have *no* interest in taking one of these low-waged jobs? Then, you get no help. The argument or theory here is that if you have that kind of education, you don't need any supports - period. How about somebody who may have significant disabilities that apart from special equipment needs, may need a lot more time on the part of the provider to support them and assist them with daily working skills, such as facial interactions, social skills, memory tips, using public transportion, etc.? No additional funds are provided for this. Both types of people will not likely be served.
What is the problem with that, you ask? At least some people who never had jobs before or who just want to start fresh will now be able to work, when they may not have had this opportunity in the past. There IS a problem with this. It puts people with disabilities on a certain plane that guarantees they will never exceed a certain earnings limit. One article I read totally miffed me. You can read it yourself too, which is located here. In this article, ask yourself how much this man made as a plumber or plumbing contractor, then ask yourself how much he likely makes at Home Depot selling plumbing supplies. I doubt he makes more than $8 - $9 an hour now. Is this a success? Another "success" that was pointed out to me was a person with a disability getting a job stuffing envelopes for eight hours a week, when what she really wanted was to go back to school and train as a personal support worker. These agencies got their $6,000, but where are the clients? Are they really any better off than they were?
http://www.cwd-o.org/cwdo/activities/employment_committee.php?activities-employment=158
2. ATTITUDES
There is a prevailing attitude that people with disabilities cannot do work that has any degree of responsibility or authority in it. This attitude prevailed during the same period of time that people were placed in sheltered workshops and paid pennies a day for boring, repetitive work that nobody else will do. Unfortunately, many people carry this same attitude today, despite the fact that sheltered workshops are out of vogue and people want real jobs with real pay. The example given above for the individual given a job stuffing envelopes for eight hours a week is only one example of what I've seen. This individual was told the reason for this was because she never held a job before. So? Do young high school students vying for their first position have to engage in boring, repetitive labour such as stuffing envelopes or putting nuts and bolts together in a warehouse, before they can join McDonald's or Burger King or even have a paper route? Of course not! What about the woman in my example who wants to go back to school to become a personal support worker? There's no support for that, unless she went the OSAP route I hear.
How about those people with disabilities that are already educated? While statistics show it is better for people to be educated than less educated when looking for work, it is less effective for people with disabilities. There is a glass ceiling that holds people back; again, this is because many employers, including those that work with people with disabilities, feel that people with disabilities cannot do work beyond a minimal level. Many of these same agencies have tried to prevent people from disabilities from applying by throwing barriers in the way of the job, such as requiring candidates to have a valid driver's license and own a vehicle, requiring candidates to type at a certain speed, requiring mandatory shift work, etc. For those people with disabilities that apply anyways, they are screened out using quieter methods.
This attitude is slowly changing for people with visible and physical disabilities. However, those with less visible disabilities, the attitudes are still in the dark ages. Everyday I hear about people with mental health conditions, for example, as people either to be pitied or locked away, or thrown in jail (because they're all violent). I met a woman who told me there are so many people with mental illnesses that are allowed out in the community, but refuse to take their medications. I then say, "So what? There are people with cancer, people with diabetes, people with heart conditions, etc. that also don't want to listen to their doctors.". The point of her argument was that "people with mental illnesses" (and this I assume would mean almost all of them with few exceptions) don't know they need medication, etc. to function. If people like this believe folks with invisible disabilities like mental illness cannot even function outside of an institution, they certainly are not going to believe they can hold a job!
However, these same people are shocked when I refer them to the National Empowerment Centre that is operated by well-educated and respected professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, researchers and advocates, almost all of whom had been diagnosed with severe mental health problems, including schizophrenia and manic-depression. There are others who have made their careers in politics (e.g. Winston Churchill), the arts (e.g. Ernest Hemingway, Margot Kidder, Margaret Trudeau), science (e.g. Buzz Aldrin, Kay Redfield Jamieson), etc. There are others that may not be famous, but who have made careers for themselves in the field of law, medicine, psychology, teaching, research, etc. The movie A Beautiful Mind about mathematician and college professor John Nash was a hit a few years ago. People with mental health problems that can function are NOT an anomolie. There was a study a few years ago into what people with mental health problems who work in professional, executive and managerial positions need for support, the abstract for which can be found here.
However, when you are a person with a disability, have an education and/or substantially high level experience, you are told you don't need any help and are once again, left to your own devices. You are expected to follow the bootstrap theory and simply wave your magic wand to obtain the resources you need to fit in. This issue is not unknown to people. A new organization called the Canadian Association for Professionals with Disabilities is trying to educate employers, government, regulatory bodies and agencies that we want and need more than what is offered. What is often hurtful are comments that are made by well-meaning people that think people like this should just work in a low-wage job for the sake of re-developing work skills and connecting to people, etc. and then go that way back up the ladder. For professionals with disabilities that have worked in managerial, executive and professional positions, having a low-wage entry level job on your resume will only hurt, not help one's job search. To me, the words "damaged goods" will come up if I were a hiring manager receiving a resume of this type ... I will wonder why this apparently multi-talented person is not already working in a job like the one I am offering, as opposed to choosing a low-wage "survival job" (which for too many turns out to be a dead-end job).
3. FINANCES
For agencies and government, they actually believe people with disabilities ALL want to stay on ODSP for the rest of their lives. They fixed the ODSP program to make it easier to find work and keep more income. These are good measures in themselves, but when job development programs and agencies are set up to help people find these jobs, their assumptions need to change. For example, people get told they can take an $8 - $10 hour job and they can keep $4 - $5 of what they earn and keep most of their ODSP benefits. This idea is fine for some people - particularly people whose disability will likely not allow them to work more than a few hours a week, for example. What about people who want to join the normal world of work, where there are maternity benefits, health care benefits, retirement funds and other benefits besides a livable wage to work for? People on ODSP are not allowed to save or put money towards a retirement income, as stated in my last entry. People want to get OUT OF POVERTY. Unless the government plans on immediately issuing a 40-50% raise in ODSP rates, then people who work and keep some ODSP income will NEVER escape poverty. Many people with disabilities want an employment service that will help them find jobs that will pay them enough to get off ODSP and remain off it for life.
The desire to own, as oppose to rent a home, is no less among people on ODSP than among the general public. The desire to have disposable income to use for travel, hobbies, family and to purchase a motor vehicle is no less among people on ODSP than the general public. The desire to be seen as a "normal, contributing citizen" is no less among people on ODSP than the general public. People with disabilities that have higher-level skills need opportunities that will help them move off ODSP and out of poverty entirely.
4. AGENCY ISSUES
Agencies that work with people with disabilities for the large part live in an "us" and "them" dichotomy. The "us" include themselves and people from other agencies working in the same field. To some extent, some include employers and government as well among the "us" - because this is the middle class thing to do. The "them" part of this dichotomy includes the people with disabilities that they serve. It is an unconscious thing on the part of agencies that serve this group, but there is a prevailing belief among staff of these agencies that they all have qualifications and deserve to make the amount of money they are earning (or more, in some cases), while the people they work with should be happy with a minimum wage job. They don't perceive their clients as being equally or even more qualified than they are. The prevailing issue here is that if the client was more qualified, they'd be working!
After many years of seeing both sides of the system and working as an advocate, I feel I am entitled to my opinion and to voice them. At one conference that was held here in Niagara last year, a variety of employment support providers presented their programs and criteria to attendees, so they knew what options were out there if they wanted to choose. ODSP Employment Supports presented their program, but they were unable to answer the question as to how a person seeking higher level employment can obtain help under their new guidelines, which seem to restrict people to a "jobs first" mentality similar to that of Ontario Works. Another group I had a little fun with was the BUILT Network. BUILT Network is a network of agencies across Canada that provide training in computers, customer service and basic job skills for ten (10) weeks. I believe they only serve people with mental health problems, but I may be wrong on that. However, I did ask if the person presenting the program agreed that the average wage of a successful graduate from that program would likely be $8 - $10 an hour. The woman presenting agreed with this. However, she didn't know what to say when I asked if SHE was making $8 - $10 an hour to run and manage this program. If it is good enough for somebody like this program leader to make approx. $40,000 a year, why is it not good enough to expect the same for participants that join this program? I guess some consumers are better than others, as George Orwell implied in his book, Animal Farm.
5. SYSTEMIC ISSUES
People with disabilities face a substantial number of systemic issues when it comes to taking a job. I explored some of them in earlier posts, such as the strong disincentives to re-enter the workforce at all for those that live in subsidized housing as well as receive social income. I have never been a fan of social housing and no matter what people tell me about the wonder of social housing, I am never going to believe them ... particularly if the housing is meant for anybody who at some point may return to the paid labour force. For people who are retired or who have a disability that stops them from doing ANY paid work, it may be an option. However, I tend to not see it as viable for others, particularly if they want to avoid not only the clawbacks from ODSP or OW, but also the clawbacks that show up in the way of substantial and varied rent hikes over the course of several months. I also discussed barriers to work that are based on transportation issues. To me, municipalities greater than a certain size have not only a right to provide transit service, but should have a legal responsibility to do so. If there is a region that encompasses several municipalities, then there must also be transportation between the stated municipalities. If the personal automobile is relied upon by more than 70 -80% of the people living within a region, then the region has a problem.
Social agencies have for years attempted to set up volunteer driver programs for Niagara, but they have not been effective because they are essentially run by volunteers who can choose to work or choose not to. Reliability of service is not intact. Taxi services are available at great cost to people who choose to use them. It is available to some for medical travel, but not for employment purposes. Again, this goes back to attitudes - a belief that people with disabilities are sick and use greater medical resources than others, which is not necessarily true. Most people with disabilities apart from their impairment are as healthy as others in their respective age group. Further, many people without so-called disabilities or who may not identify themselves as being "disabled" do utilize a high level of health care resources, even if they may be working, have a family and function in the community. I am referring to your cancer patients, people with diabetes that need to bring their condition under control, obese people, etc - all of whom may not see themselves as disabled per se, but do have chronic conditions requiring the ongoing care of a doctor. People with disabilities are no more likely to be in this position than anybody else ...
Other external realities relate to the labour market at large. In Ontario, over 500,000 manufacturing jobs were lost within the past several years. Over time, these jobs are being replaced by lower paid light manufacturing, service and retail jobs that are not even nearly enough to support oneself, let alone a family. Work needs to be done to increase the number of higher paid positions for skilled workers and professionals. At the same time, agencies that work with people with disabilities need to work with those providing the higher paid positions, particularly those that have better benefits and security, to sell their qualified clients to them ... if an employer is stupid enough to require candidates to have their own vehicle when the job has no bona fide occupational requirements that require the same, employment agencies (not the candidate) should be advocating with these employers to either remove this restriction or find a way to accommodate a client that would otherwise qualify, but doesn't drive. After all, these people are PAID to do a certain job; they should do their job.
Other factors include training and skills development. As I stated above, somebody wanted to go for training as a Personal Support Worker, but was instead referred to stuff envelopes for a staffing agency for eight hours a week. Why are there no programs, or at least programs that will present themselves, that will PAY the costs of retraining for those that need it in order to become employable? Many people on ODSP cannot get OSAP. One out of six ODSP recipients are university graduates; others have college or some post-secondary training ... which means a great deal of them have unpaid student loans. When you have an unpaid student loan, you cannot go back unless it is paid off. If you get ODSP, you are lucky to be able to shelter and feed yourself, let alone repay a student loan. Further, most of those requiring retraining do not have enough recent attachment to the labour force to qualify for EI funding. Technically, the Opportunities Fund is supposed to help with some retraining costs, but I have encountered a number of people with disabilities facing more obstacles when they approach this program ... depending on which agency is funded to administer the fund, I have heard people who received comments made to them that (the worker) did not feel the person with the disability was able to handle the course, the course was too expensive (with accommodations built in, as needed) or the person would not be able to do a job in the field once they graduate. These again are assumptions made by agency workers about the alleged abilities or disabilities of the person they are working with, as opposed to any real assessments.
SOLUTIONS?
I am not sure what can be done, but whatever does get done needs to be done fast and in a much more aggressive way. Perhaps, lawsuits need to be filed against those who discriminate against people with disabilities. If an employer cannot show a bona fide reason for requiring a candidate to have a driver's license and a car, the employment agency worker needs to push the issue ... if they are not successful and the person would otherwise be eligible, a lawsuit may need to be filed, perhaps with attendant publicity. If the employer is publicly funded, a report to the funder as well should be made. Media reports of obvious acts of discrimination need to be made, such as one where I publicized a long running case against a transit service that tried to charge a blind passenger for her guide dog.
Employment and economic development agencies need to work with funders and investors to develop businesses that are marketable and productive that will hire people with disabilities. I am not referring to programs like OCAB, where permanent government funding is given to run the business (because it unfairly subsidizes the businesses of some but not others). I am referring to start-ups and working with individuals that may have the professional skills needed to run, market, do accounting or legal work for, the business, as well as others that have the skills to provide the services the business offers. This would eventually work like any other business works, e.g. funded by customers, contracts and fees w/occasional loans as the business grows and develops. However, support is needed at the start-up phase and in the consulting area (which is another area where professionals with disabilities can contribute). Such businesses may or may not want to refer to themselves as "disability-run" - let that be their choice, but let it be their policy to hire QUALIFIED persons with disabilities.
Further, jobs always come up in the public and non-profit sector. Employers in these sectors should provide leadership in hiring QUALIFIED persons with disabilities. The mistake many affirmative action policies often make is hiring less qualified persons with disabilities that may have some experience, for example. There are dozens of examples of people working in the government or non-profit sector (and likely the private sector too - but private sector is less of a concern because the owners of these companies absorb all the risk) ... that are poorly educated and have few qualifications. Executive director positions, for example, should require at least a relevant university degree ... yet, I know more than a few people who occupy these types of jobs who have less than high school and this is definitely reflected in the quality of service provided. With no standards to adhere to or aspire to, nobody can truly assess if these agencies are actually doing a professional job. As a professional in my own field, I have to pay a truckload of fees for exams, licencing, membership dues, conferences and continued education fees, etc. and account to a professional oversight body and I don't even make one quarter of what many of these drop-outs working in these agencies that account to nobody earn!
Because there are no market forces or personal risk at stake with government and non-profit agencies, stringent accountability processes and standards need to be in place to ensure that quality services are delivered and staff hired in these positions are qualified and accountable. At the present time, the only body these above referred to rogue managers account to is their boards and like many people, we are all aware of boards that do nothing or are simply hand-picked by the executive directors. This *has* to change ... maybe it's time for agency and staff licensing and/or the creation of a body that actually oversees the operation of these agencies. People need a place to complain to and be heard without getting the brush off from boards and even funders that somehow feel personally connected to the people they work with. Whatever body is put in place must be separate from the boards and the funders to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
I am all too aware of various publicly funded agencies that provide a myriad of services to individuals with disabilities that keep unqualified staff to deliver these services ... it is almost like people with disabilities don't deserve qualified, accountable services. This takes place all the while many qualified, educated people with disabilities are sitting on ODSP!
I want people's thoughts on this. Comments?
There are thousands of people, as well as for-profit and not-for-profit agencies that profit from the hopes and dreams of people with disabilities by promising or offering assistance to them by way of preparing them for, or actually finding them, work. People with disabilities flock over to these agencies because they want to work, just like anybody else without a disability. However, just how effective are these agencies in finding people work? If they do find people work, what are the quality of jobs offered when compared to the candidate's personal work history, education and career aspirations?
I personally don't know the "success rate" as one can call it of these agencies, or whether certain agencies have a better "success rate" than others. However, a few years ago, I ran a for-profit agency that assisted persons with disabilities in obtaining self-employment and occasionally, assisted them in finding traditional employment opportunities. My own "success rate" was fairly good, if "success" was actually measured against what the person or client came to our office looking for. Many of these folks were unable to work full-time or work in a traditional workplace due to a myriad of disability and environmental reasons. However, many were able to succeed in developing and continuing to operate their own small businesses for a year or more - even if the income from the business did not take them totally off income supports. Some never came to us to get off ODSP. They just wanted to earn some extra money through a small business. Others did start a business and get off the system and a couple moved on to hire others. I have also worked with people who have moved off ODSP through their businesses, but have incurred substantial overpayments. Our office would negotiate with the originating agency to reduce the overpayments, review actual business earnings, etc.
Besides myself, there are many other agencies that have once provided or currently provide supports of some type to persons with disabilities to enter employment or start their own business. I personally found few of them to be helpful. Unfortunately, it is hard to figure out what is making these agencies unhelpful. However, we need to understand that some of these reasons are borne with government funding requirements, employer biases, as well as limited community infrastructure, in addition to any skills or contacts that may be lacking by the agency itself. While I held my Employment Supports contract, I worked with other individuals and agencies also working under the same umbrella and to some extent, I can understand that not all of this is the fault of the agency in question. However, I DO believe that agencies themselves need to become stronger advocates for change in many ways to improve many of the factors they cannot control.
Some of these factors will be outlined here:
- FUNDING REQUIREMENTS
With this formula, many agencies will be unable to earn enough to pay their bills unless they contract with a number of large, (usually) low-waged employers with a high staff turnover, promising them to fill a certain number of positions with their clients and provide a range of coaching supports to them. A successful agency under this formula will contract with Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Tim Horton's and various call centres and send their clients there to work. While some clients will quit or get fired, enough of them will be able to stay at least thirteen weeks so the agency in question will get $6,000 a head, plus a certain amount of money per month for every additional month the client stays on that job.
However, what if you are a person with a disability that by education, training or work experience, you have *no* interest in taking one of these low-waged jobs? Then, you get no help. The argument or theory here is that if you have that kind of education, you don't need any supports - period. How about somebody who may have significant disabilities that apart from special equipment needs, may need a lot more time on the part of the provider to support them and assist them with daily working skills, such as facial interactions, social skills, memory tips, using public transportion, etc.? No additional funds are provided for this. Both types of people will not likely be served.
What is the problem with that, you ask? At least some people who never had jobs before or who just want to start fresh will now be able to work, when they may not have had this opportunity in the past. There IS a problem with this. It puts people with disabilities on a certain plane that guarantees they will never exceed a certain earnings limit. One article I read totally miffed me. You can read it yourself too, which is located here. In this article, ask yourself how much this man made as a plumber or plumbing contractor, then ask yourself how much he likely makes at Home Depot selling plumbing supplies. I doubt he makes more than $8 - $9 an hour now. Is this a success? Another "success" that was pointed out to me was a person with a disability getting a job stuffing envelopes for eight hours a week, when what she really wanted was to go back to school and train as a personal support worker. These agencies got their $6,000, but where are the clients? Are they really any better off than they were?
http://www.cwd-o.org/cwdo/activities/employment_committee.php?activities-employment=158
2. ATTITUDES
There is a prevailing attitude that people with disabilities cannot do work that has any degree of responsibility or authority in it. This attitude prevailed during the same period of time that people were placed in sheltered workshops and paid pennies a day for boring, repetitive work that nobody else will do. Unfortunately, many people carry this same attitude today, despite the fact that sheltered workshops are out of vogue and people want real jobs with real pay. The example given above for the individual given a job stuffing envelopes for eight hours a week is only one example of what I've seen. This individual was told the reason for this was because she never held a job before. So? Do young high school students vying for their first position have to engage in boring, repetitive labour such as stuffing envelopes or putting nuts and bolts together in a warehouse, before they can join McDonald's or Burger King or even have a paper route? Of course not! What about the woman in my example who wants to go back to school to become a personal support worker? There's no support for that, unless she went the OSAP route I hear.
How about those people with disabilities that are already educated? While statistics show it is better for people to be educated than less educated when looking for work, it is less effective for people with disabilities. There is a glass ceiling that holds people back; again, this is because many employers, including those that work with people with disabilities, feel that people with disabilities cannot do work beyond a minimal level. Many of these same agencies have tried to prevent people from disabilities from applying by throwing barriers in the way of the job, such as requiring candidates to have a valid driver's license and own a vehicle, requiring candidates to type at a certain speed, requiring mandatory shift work, etc. For those people with disabilities that apply anyways, they are screened out using quieter methods.
This attitude is slowly changing for people with visible and physical disabilities. However, those with less visible disabilities, the attitudes are still in the dark ages. Everyday I hear about people with mental health conditions, for example, as people either to be pitied or locked away, or thrown in jail (because they're all violent). I met a woman who told me there are so many people with mental illnesses that are allowed out in the community, but refuse to take their medications. I then say, "So what? There are people with cancer, people with diabetes, people with heart conditions, etc. that also don't want to listen to their doctors.". The point of her argument was that "people with mental illnesses" (and this I assume would mean almost all of them with few exceptions) don't know they need medication, etc. to function. If people like this believe folks with invisible disabilities like mental illness cannot even function outside of an institution, they certainly are not going to believe they can hold a job!
However, these same people are shocked when I refer them to the National Empowerment Centre that is operated by well-educated and respected professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, researchers and advocates, almost all of whom had been diagnosed with severe mental health problems, including schizophrenia and manic-depression. There are others who have made their careers in politics (e.g. Winston Churchill), the arts (e.g. Ernest Hemingway, Margot Kidder, Margaret Trudeau), science (e.g. Buzz Aldrin, Kay Redfield Jamieson), etc. There are others that may not be famous, but who have made careers for themselves in the field of law, medicine, psychology, teaching, research, etc. The movie A Beautiful Mind about mathematician and college professor John Nash was a hit a few years ago. People with mental health problems that can function are NOT an anomolie. There was a study a few years ago into what people with mental health problems who work in professional, executive and managerial positions need for support, the abstract for which can be found here.
However, when you are a person with a disability, have an education and/or substantially high level experience, you are told you don't need any help and are once again, left to your own devices. You are expected to follow the bootstrap theory and simply wave your magic wand to obtain the resources you need to fit in. This issue is not unknown to people. A new organization called the Canadian Association for Professionals with Disabilities is trying to educate employers, government, regulatory bodies and agencies that we want and need more than what is offered. What is often hurtful are comments that are made by well-meaning people that think people like this should just work in a low-wage job for the sake of re-developing work skills and connecting to people, etc. and then go that way back up the ladder. For professionals with disabilities that have worked in managerial, executive and professional positions, having a low-wage entry level job on your resume will only hurt, not help one's job search. To me, the words "damaged goods" will come up if I were a hiring manager receiving a resume of this type ... I will wonder why this apparently multi-talented person is not already working in a job like the one I am offering, as opposed to choosing a low-wage "survival job" (which for too many turns out to be a dead-end job).
3. FINANCES
For agencies and government, they actually believe people with disabilities ALL want to stay on ODSP for the rest of their lives. They fixed the ODSP program to make it easier to find work and keep more income. These are good measures in themselves, but when job development programs and agencies are set up to help people find these jobs, their assumptions need to change. For example, people get told they can take an $8 - $10 hour job and they can keep $4 - $5 of what they earn and keep most of their ODSP benefits. This idea is fine for some people - particularly people whose disability will likely not allow them to work more than a few hours a week, for example. What about people who want to join the normal world of work, where there are maternity benefits, health care benefits, retirement funds and other benefits besides a livable wage to work for? People on ODSP are not allowed to save or put money towards a retirement income, as stated in my last entry. People want to get OUT OF POVERTY. Unless the government plans on immediately issuing a 40-50% raise in ODSP rates, then people who work and keep some ODSP income will NEVER escape poverty. Many people with disabilities want an employment service that will help them find jobs that will pay them enough to get off ODSP and remain off it for life.
The desire to own, as oppose to rent a home, is no less among people on ODSP than among the general public. The desire to have disposable income to use for travel, hobbies, family and to purchase a motor vehicle is no less among people on ODSP than the general public. The desire to be seen as a "normal, contributing citizen" is no less among people on ODSP than the general public. People with disabilities that have higher-level skills need opportunities that will help them move off ODSP and out of poverty entirely.
4. AGENCY ISSUES
Agencies that work with people with disabilities for the large part live in an "us" and "them" dichotomy. The "us" include themselves and people from other agencies working in the same field. To some extent, some include employers and government as well among the "us" - because this is the middle class thing to do. The "them" part of this dichotomy includes the people with disabilities that they serve. It is an unconscious thing on the part of agencies that serve this group, but there is a prevailing belief among staff of these agencies that they all have qualifications and deserve to make the amount of money they are earning (or more, in some cases), while the people they work with should be happy with a minimum wage job. They don't perceive their clients as being equally or even more qualified than they are. The prevailing issue here is that if the client was more qualified, they'd be working!
After many years of seeing both sides of the system and working as an advocate, I feel I am entitled to my opinion and to voice them. At one conference that was held here in Niagara last year, a variety of employment support providers presented their programs and criteria to attendees, so they knew what options were out there if they wanted to choose. ODSP Employment Supports presented their program, but they were unable to answer the question as to how a person seeking higher level employment can obtain help under their new guidelines, which seem to restrict people to a "jobs first" mentality similar to that of Ontario Works. Another group I had a little fun with was the BUILT Network. BUILT Network is a network of agencies across Canada that provide training in computers, customer service and basic job skills for ten (10) weeks. I believe they only serve people with mental health problems, but I may be wrong on that. However, I did ask if the person presenting the program agreed that the average wage of a successful graduate from that program would likely be $8 - $10 an hour. The woman presenting agreed with this. However, she didn't know what to say when I asked if SHE was making $8 - $10 an hour to run and manage this program. If it is good enough for somebody like this program leader to make approx. $40,000 a year, why is it not good enough to expect the same for participants that join this program? I guess some consumers are better than others, as George Orwell implied in his book, Animal Farm.
5. SYSTEMIC ISSUES
People with disabilities face a substantial number of systemic issues when it comes to taking a job. I explored some of them in earlier posts, such as the strong disincentives to re-enter the workforce at all for those that live in subsidized housing as well as receive social income. I have never been a fan of social housing and no matter what people tell me about the wonder of social housing, I am never going to believe them ... particularly if the housing is meant for anybody who at some point may return to the paid labour force. For people who are retired or who have a disability that stops them from doing ANY paid work, it may be an option. However, I tend to not see it as viable for others, particularly if they want to avoid not only the clawbacks from ODSP or OW, but also the clawbacks that show up in the way of substantial and varied rent hikes over the course of several months. I also discussed barriers to work that are based on transportation issues. To me, municipalities greater than a certain size have not only a right to provide transit service, but should have a legal responsibility to do so. If there is a region that encompasses several municipalities, then there must also be transportation between the stated municipalities. If the personal automobile is relied upon by more than 70 -80% of the people living within a region, then the region has a problem.
Social agencies have for years attempted to set up volunteer driver programs for Niagara, but they have not been effective because they are essentially run by volunteers who can choose to work or choose not to. Reliability of service is not intact. Taxi services are available at great cost to people who choose to use them. It is available to some for medical travel, but not for employment purposes. Again, this goes back to attitudes - a belief that people with disabilities are sick and use greater medical resources than others, which is not necessarily true. Most people with disabilities apart from their impairment are as healthy as others in their respective age group. Further, many people without so-called disabilities or who may not identify themselves as being "disabled" do utilize a high level of health care resources, even if they may be working, have a family and function in the community. I am referring to your cancer patients, people with diabetes that need to bring their condition under control, obese people, etc - all of whom may not see themselves as disabled per se, but do have chronic conditions requiring the ongoing care of a doctor. People with disabilities are no more likely to be in this position than anybody else ...
Other external realities relate to the labour market at large. In Ontario, over 500,000 manufacturing jobs were lost within the past several years. Over time, these jobs are being replaced by lower paid light manufacturing, service and retail jobs that are not even nearly enough to support oneself, let alone a family. Work needs to be done to increase the number of higher paid positions for skilled workers and professionals. At the same time, agencies that work with people with disabilities need to work with those providing the higher paid positions, particularly those that have better benefits and security, to sell their qualified clients to them ... if an employer is stupid enough to require candidates to have their own vehicle when the job has no bona fide occupational requirements that require the same, employment agencies (not the candidate) should be advocating with these employers to either remove this restriction or find a way to accommodate a client that would otherwise qualify, but doesn't drive. After all, these people are PAID to do a certain job; they should do their job.
Other factors include training and skills development. As I stated above, somebody wanted to go for training as a Personal Support Worker, but was instead referred to stuff envelopes for a staffing agency for eight hours a week. Why are there no programs, or at least programs that will present themselves, that will PAY the costs of retraining for those that need it in order to become employable? Many people on ODSP cannot get OSAP. One out of six ODSP recipients are university graduates; others have college or some post-secondary training ... which means a great deal of them have unpaid student loans. When you have an unpaid student loan, you cannot go back unless it is paid off. If you get ODSP, you are lucky to be able to shelter and feed yourself, let alone repay a student loan. Further, most of those requiring retraining do not have enough recent attachment to the labour force to qualify for EI funding. Technically, the Opportunities Fund is supposed to help with some retraining costs, but I have encountered a number of people with disabilities facing more obstacles when they approach this program ... depending on which agency is funded to administer the fund, I have heard people who received comments made to them that (the worker) did not feel the person with the disability was able to handle the course, the course was too expensive (with accommodations built in, as needed) or the person would not be able to do a job in the field once they graduate. These again are assumptions made by agency workers about the alleged abilities or disabilities of the person they are working with, as opposed to any real assessments.
SOLUTIONS?
I am not sure what can be done, but whatever does get done needs to be done fast and in a much more aggressive way. Perhaps, lawsuits need to be filed against those who discriminate against people with disabilities. If an employer cannot show a bona fide reason for requiring a candidate to have a driver's license and a car, the employment agency worker needs to push the issue ... if they are not successful and the person would otherwise be eligible, a lawsuit may need to be filed, perhaps with attendant publicity. If the employer is publicly funded, a report to the funder as well should be made. Media reports of obvious acts of discrimination need to be made, such as one where I publicized a long running case against a transit service that tried to charge a blind passenger for her guide dog.
Employment and economic development agencies need to work with funders and investors to develop businesses that are marketable and productive that will hire people with disabilities. I am not referring to programs like OCAB, where permanent government funding is given to run the business (because it unfairly subsidizes the businesses of some but not others). I am referring to start-ups and working with individuals that may have the professional skills needed to run, market, do accounting or legal work for, the business, as well as others that have the skills to provide the services the business offers. This would eventually work like any other business works, e.g. funded by customers, contracts and fees w/occasional loans as the business grows and develops. However, support is needed at the start-up phase and in the consulting area (which is another area where professionals with disabilities can contribute). Such businesses may or may not want to refer to themselves as "disability-run" - let that be their choice, but let it be their policy to hire QUALIFIED persons with disabilities.
Further, jobs always come up in the public and non-profit sector. Employers in these sectors should provide leadership in hiring QUALIFIED persons with disabilities. The mistake many affirmative action policies often make is hiring less qualified persons with disabilities that may have some experience, for example. There are dozens of examples of people working in the government or non-profit sector (and likely the private sector too - but private sector is less of a concern because the owners of these companies absorb all the risk) ... that are poorly educated and have few qualifications. Executive director positions, for example, should require at least a relevant university degree ... yet, I know more than a few people who occupy these types of jobs who have less than high school and this is definitely reflected in the quality of service provided. With no standards to adhere to or aspire to, nobody can truly assess if these agencies are actually doing a professional job. As a professional in my own field, I have to pay a truckload of fees for exams, licencing, membership dues, conferences and continued education fees, etc. and account to a professional oversight body and I don't even make one quarter of what many of these drop-outs working in these agencies that account to nobody earn!
Because there are no market forces or personal risk at stake with government and non-profit agencies, stringent accountability processes and standards need to be in place to ensure that quality services are delivered and staff hired in these positions are qualified and accountable. At the present time, the only body these above referred to rogue managers account to is their boards and like many people, we are all aware of boards that do nothing or are simply hand-picked by the executive directors. This *has* to change ... maybe it's time for agency and staff licensing and/or the creation of a body that actually oversees the operation of these agencies. People need a place to complain to and be heard without getting the brush off from boards and even funders that somehow feel personally connected to the people they work with. Whatever body is put in place must be separate from the boards and the funders to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
I am all too aware of various publicly funded agencies that provide a myriad of services to individuals with disabilities that keep unqualified staff to deliver these services ... it is almost like people with disabilities don't deserve qualified, accountable services. This takes place all the while many qualified, educated people with disabilities are sitting on ODSP!
I want people's thoughts on this. Comments?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
RETIREMENT: A PRIVILEGE FOR THE RICH?
Canadians worry about outliving their savings
Toronto Star
About one-third of people over 60 fear they will run out of money after retirement, new poll says
Jul 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Gregory Bonnell
CANADIAN PRESS
One-third of Canada's senior and near-senior citizens are worried they'll outlive their bank accounts, and half of those over 60 holding jobs say they're working because they need the money, a poll suggests as a record number of Canadians face the so-called golden years.
If projections hold true, tomorrow's census release on aging will reveal seniors, specifically those older than 80, to be the fastest growing segment of Canada's population. That trend will only grow in coming years, with the first of that demographic population bulge known as baby boomers having just recently turned 60.
So, what's on the mind of Canadian seniors? Finances, health and their continued independence, according to the poll by Decima Research provided exclusively to Canadian Press. While 44 per cent of respondents 60 and older said they were not worried about outliving their resources and assets, 33 per cent said they were.
When asked to agree or disagree with the statement: I have to work for financial reasons, 32 per cent agreed while 21 per cent strongly agreed. One-third of respondents 60 and older said they were working either part- or full-time. Nineteen per cent indicated that their financial situation was worse or much worse than five years ago. "The truth of the matter is, a lot of baby boomers and wartime babies have not adequately prepared for retirement," said Bill Gleberzon, spokesperson for CARP, Canada's Association for the 50 Plus. "Many of them, if you look at the amount they have actually stored away in their RSPs, among those who have RSPs ... the amounts are around $60,000. That's not going to get you through 30 or 40 years of your life after you retire."
Roughly 3.4 million Canadians were 65 or older in 2006, making up 13.3 per cent of the population, according to projections published by Statistics Canada last fall. An additional 1.6 million people were five years or less away from 65, and there were almost 1.2 million people 80 or older.
The first of the boomers, the generation born between 1947 and 1966, are turning 60 this year. While they're regarded as the most affluent group in Canadian history, society can expect to see an economic "division of the baby boom," said professor Doug Owram of the University of British Columbia. "There's going to be a group of baby boomers for whom all of this image of affluence and consumption isn't reality," said Owram.
One poll question that elicited a unified response from the majority of respondents centred on the worry they could lose their independence as they age. Fifty-four per cent agreed that was a concern. Some 23 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed; 21 per cent said they weren't worried about losing their independence. The Decima Research poll's results were based on 4,000 online respondents, aged 42 and over, conducted from March 25 to April 22, considered accurate to 1.6 percentage points, 9.5 times out of 10.
------
We heard for years about how our population is getting older. That means the average age of Canadian residents has been increasing over the past several years.
There are many reasons for this: people having less children, older people living longer, etc. We hear so much hyperbole and rhetoric from the financial services industry about investments and long-term financial security. One commercial in mind is for Ameriprise, which is targeted towards the first wave of baby boomers who are preparing to retire in the next few years. Planners use a dream book, where couples can plan what they can do in their golden years and their financial planners will ostensibly make it possible.
When people speak about baby boomers, they refer to them as marketing targets, potential customers and folks with deep pockets. While it is true that a portion of the Baby Boom will retire well, this is only because of the social programs, job security and company pension plans that were available to them since the 1970's. During "their days", as one might call it, people got jobs, worked up the corporate ladder and held on to their jobs for the majority of their lives. The company provided health benefits, disability benefits (if they become ill before 65) and some type of defined benefit pension plan. In addition to the defined benefit pension plan, these folks also paid into CPP for most of their lives, which means the government will top up their company pension as well with at least another $1,200 - $1,500, depending on their highest earning years. Also, as these people were part of the more secure labour force, they likely had some money to put away for retirement, especially as their children left home and their mortgages got paid off.
Governments - who only think about their short-term political futures - have not done a damned thing about the volcanic explosion of elder poverty that is slowly creeping up the ladder as our population ages even more. Those retiring now benefited from strong social programs and job security of the 1970's - they hailed from a period of time when employers felt they owed some loyalty to their employees. We are now seeing 30 and 40 years into the past as the most wealthy among the Baby Boomers are able to retire.
What about the volcano? For the rest of the Baby Boomers that started their working lives in the mid to late 1980's, their career paths will be very different. People in what I often refer to as the "second half" of the Baby Boom have not held a job for more than a few years at a time, often changing employers and career choices along the way to find an employer who is willing to pay them more, offer more benefits and provide greater incentives. Company pensions are not designed for "job hoppers", as the term is often used. Benefits may still be available to a declining segment of the working population, but it is said that today - less than 30% of all companies even offer pension plans for their employees and among those that do, plans appear to be shifting away from defined benefit plans to shared RRSP contributions that can be locked in until retirement.
What about the rest of us that don't work for companies that provide any kind of pension? We are told to SAVE our money - put away ten percent of your earnings each year into an RRSP or some other retirement planning instrument. Many financial analysts are now becoming extremely critical and blaming of Canadians because it seems they are seeing the upcoming volcano of elder poverty, except they blame the poor for it. We didn't save enough money for our retirement, they say. We didn't manage our money very well.
This always brings up the odd scenario I presented a few years ago to a group of people on the myths of poverty, particularly around the idea that the poor are poor because they don't manage their money properly. I can't even repeat that scenario today because when I did these presentations, the "poor" of those days had 40% more to work with than they do today. I can't even get to the word "go" with people in receipt of Ontario Works. First, our government theoretically wants people to only use Ontario Works as a resource of last resort - which means people have to spend themselves almost completely down to nothing before they can even become eligible for what meagre benefits Ontario Works offers. One resource such people are forced to divest themselves of is any retirement savings they might have, as long as it is not locked-in. That means, people in need must spend down their entire nest egg, plus pay substantial withdrawal penalties and taxes while doing so before the state will cough up its meagre support of $536 a month! I don't even know how people can obtain a room on this amount, let alone an apartment -- and our city's fathers point too much to an alleged growing problem with homelessness. Instead of dealing with the poverty that leads to homelessness, all politicians want to do is make the homeless disappear.
Draining one's retirement account is also a pre-requisite for those who must qualify for ODSP as well. People often believe that those who built up a significant work history wouldn't have to turn to this route because CPP has its own pension plan that pays out regardless of how many assets you have. CPP also pays out even if you are married to a millionnaire, so they actually believe working people should have no trouble getting CPP Disability. I am not bragging, but I know I *do* have a great track record for winning CPP-based appeals - BUT I also know that I only take on CPP cases that have a chance of winning. For ODSP, I am less picky because their "definition of disability" is not as strict as the terms set out for CPP Disability.
CPP Disability only pays if you can prove that you had a severe and prolonged mental or physical disability at the time of your Minimum Qualifying Period (meaning a certain period of time must have passed first *after* you stopped contributing to the program). Severe means that one is not able to regularly work in a remunerative way due to a mental or physical disability. If you can regularly contribute 4 - 6 hours a week for example, you do not qualify. Further, your disability must be prolonged meaning it will last a substantial period of time or result in death. Basically, CPP only pays if you cannot hold down a "regular" job and it is likely your disability will last a long time, perhaps for the rest of your life (or for an "indefinite" period of time). The disability can be cyclic, meaning sometimes it gets worse and other times, it gets better; however, the "better" periods should not be regular and predictable or last long enough for a person to reinstate themselves into a paid job - even for a short time, such as a year. I've won cases for clients on this criteria, but in order to know why I won, you need to know the clients. None of them will likely work again. Most are incapacitated by their disabilities to such an extent that even personal care and community living is hindered. They suffer from chronic pain, have lost their sight or their hearing, can no longer walk unassisted, require some forms of personal care, etc. All this - for a lousy $900+ a month ... and most of my clients do not even get NEAR this maximum!
However, it goes without saying that one of the fringe benefits for my clients that DO get CPP Disability is that the years they receive it are not "counted" for the purposes of calculating their CPP Retirement Pension, so they may get a little more that way. However, most people with disabilities do not qualify for CPP - most end up on provincial ODSP or even worse, many can't even get their act together enough to jump through the seventeen hoops required to get ODSP - so they get stuck on Ontario Works. Both Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program do not allow its recipients to retain any retirement pensions unless they are locked in. That means it is more than likely they will retire very poor. Even if somebody could manage to save money while on ODSP (and somebody yet has to show me how they can do that these days), they are not allowed to save more than $5,000 (or they lose their ODSP) or if they are a family, $7,000 + $500 per additional dependent. That means if you are part of a couple and have two children, your family can only have $8,000 at any given time in "liquid assets". Retirement savings, including those in RRSPs and most other instruments are considered to be "liquid assets".
How about other people who work? As stated above, people are changing jobs more often. It is often said that not only do people change jobs, they may even change entire career areas several times in their working life. It is known that not only are less employers apt to provide a retirement pension to its staff, they are likely to pay people less and offer fewer benefits. It is said that one in four workers works in a non-standard job; that is, self-employed, independent contractor, short-term employment, etc. These jobs are not stable and do not usually offer any benefits or security. Jobs outside the one in four are also becoming less stable. Higher-paid manufacturing, research and resource development jobs have been disappearing in droves, only to be replaced by jobs in the service sector that pay less than half as much and offer little to no job security. Despite the fact the average wage has declined since even the early 1990's, prices have substantially jumped since then. It puzzles me how one is supposed to work in one (or two or three) of these low-paid jobs and still have money left to put away for retirement after housing, transportation and groceries are paid for.
In addition to this reality, there is a growing reality for young people trying to enter the paid labour force. It is said that in ten years, 70% of all jobs will require a post-secondary education. Young people attempt to seek post-secondary education more than they did in the past; however, most graduates end up with substantial debt burdens that are not unlike a mortgage, except with higher interest rates. Interest relief programs have been cut and private collection agencies have been contracted to collect defaulted loan payments from defaulters. It is said that more than one in four students ends up in collections. What does all this have to do with retirement? Young people have no money to put away. They need to pay off their student loans, get settled to live on their own and obtain their first job (which is becoming more and more difficult for anybody, apparently). More young people are postponing leaving their homes of origin, living with their parents well into their thirties ... as they shift from job to job until they find that right job that will support them.
In non-metropolitan areas, young people need to finance and obtain their own vehicles if they expect to find a job that pays more than minimum wages. The price for a vehicle can exceed $7,000 per annum - especially for younger people who tend to be hit with higher insurance premiums and higher financing fees. How can a young person who is busy trying to make enough money to survive, let alone pay off student loans and cover the costs of owning and maintaining a vehicle, be expected to put away 10% of their earnings for retirement? They postpone marriage so they can pay the rent. They postpone having children, so they can possibly own a home someday. A mortgage is yet another expense people take on that take twenty years to pay off ... if at all. Studies show many people are taking out second and third mortgages to manage what used to be quite an affordable lifestyle. None of these people will put away a dime for RRSPs, at least until their kids have left home (which as I said is getting to be later and later), the mortgage is paid off and other debts are paid down ... by then, many of these people are probably ready to retire anyways - but they have NO money!
I think this is something we should all worry about. The number of working people per retired person is decreasing as time goes on. It is not likely that the tax base will be as solid as it is now with the first wave of the wealthy Baby Boomers retiring. We can allow tons more immigration, but studies have shown that even that is not going to reverse this demographic deficit. Governments must plan NOW to put away a portion of the surpluses it currently takes in to use for future retirement incomes for the less wealthy retired. Government pensions many need to be clawed back for those who make a certain amount from other sources to allow lower income retirees to keep more of their incomes. Work should always be a choice for the retired, not a necessity as 50% of those interviewed for the above study indicated. The idea that a very large number of people may be forced to work at menial jobs until they are one foot in the grave is very real.
It is not because we are not saving enough. It is because we have less money to save. If the government wants us to have more kids, why are they making it so expensive and impossible for many people to do so? I have two kids myself and I can tell you they will not even have the opportunities I had (which were also few and far between), so I can't even imagine what retirement is going to be like for them -- if there will be such a thing when they get to be that age. There are MAJOR things the government must do NOW to protect itself from this growing and inevitable volcano. These steps include:
1. Setting aside a portion of its surplus into stable investments to be tiered instruments to pay for pensions of people in the future who are unable to draw more than the poverty line;
2, Reduce government pensions for those whose investments or private pensions bring them past a certain level of privilege;
3. Mandate employers to provide some form of portable pension instrument to its employees and allow these employees to lock the pension funds in if they change jobs (but take it with them);
4. Allow older people to continue working for as long as they desire to - but take steps to make sure that older persons that wish to continue working are not mired in prejudice. Earnings past one's "official" retirement age should not impact on government pensions, provided one's income is still below a certain amount;
5. Review the labour market and try to find ways to ensure that jobs pay wages that keep up with the cost of living and do not leave people destitute;
6. For people whose work opportunities are limited by disability, family responsibilities and other situations, the social safety net needs to be restored so people are not left destitute by an illness or the need to care for somebody else;
7. Examine the prospect of a negative income tax to use as a redistribution instrument;
8. Increase taxes on wealth and inheritances worth more than a certain amount;
9. Post-secondary education should cost less and not become a major financial burden for young adults; and
10. Better and more effective programs to help employment disadvantaged people get into meaningful jobs should be in place and accessible to everybody that needs this assistance. It should not just serve the low-range, entry-level seeking population.
Until we see MAJOR structural changes in both the labour market and the social safety net, we are going to face the inevitable "poverty bust" of the second half of the Baby Boomer generation that inevitably arrive at retirement's door empty-handed?
Thoughts?
Toronto Star
About one-third of people over 60 fear they will run out of money after retirement, new poll says
Jul 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Gregory Bonnell
CANADIAN PRESS
One-third of Canada's senior and near-senior citizens are worried they'll outlive their bank accounts, and half of those over 60 holding jobs say they're working because they need the money, a poll suggests as a record number of Canadians face the so-called golden years.
If projections hold true, tomorrow's census release on aging will reveal seniors, specifically those older than 80, to be the fastest growing segment of Canada's population. That trend will only grow in coming years, with the first of that demographic population bulge known as baby boomers having just recently turned 60.
So, what's on the mind of Canadian seniors? Finances, health and their continued independence, according to the poll by Decima Research provided exclusively to Canadian Press. While 44 per cent of respondents 60 and older said they were not worried about outliving their resources and assets, 33 per cent said they were.
When asked to agree or disagree with the statement: I have to work for financial reasons, 32 per cent agreed while 21 per cent strongly agreed. One-third of respondents 60 and older said they were working either part- or full-time. Nineteen per cent indicated that their financial situation was worse or much worse than five years ago. "The truth of the matter is, a lot of baby boomers and wartime babies have not adequately prepared for retirement," said Bill Gleberzon, spokesperson for CARP, Canada's Association for the 50 Plus. "Many of them, if you look at the amount they have actually stored away in their RSPs, among those who have RSPs ... the amounts are around $60,000. That's not going to get you through 30 or 40 years of your life after you retire."
Roughly 3.4 million Canadians were 65 or older in 2006, making up 13.3 per cent of the population, according to projections published by Statistics Canada last fall. An additional 1.6 million people were five years or less away from 65, and there were almost 1.2 million people 80 or older.
The first of the boomers, the generation born between 1947 and 1966, are turning 60 this year. While they're regarded as the most affluent group in Canadian history, society can expect to see an economic "division of the baby boom," said professor Doug Owram of the University of British Columbia. "There's going to be a group of baby boomers for whom all of this image of affluence and consumption isn't reality," said Owram.
One poll question that elicited a unified response from the majority of respondents centred on the worry they could lose their independence as they age. Fifty-four per cent agreed that was a concern. Some 23 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed; 21 per cent said they weren't worried about losing their independence. The Decima Research poll's results were based on 4,000 online respondents, aged 42 and over, conducted from March 25 to April 22, considered accurate to 1.6 percentage points, 9.5 times out of 10.
------
We heard for years about how our population is getting older. That means the average age of Canadian residents has been increasing over the past several years.
There are many reasons for this: people having less children, older people living longer, etc. We hear so much hyperbole and rhetoric from the financial services industry about investments and long-term financial security. One commercial in mind is for Ameriprise, which is targeted towards the first wave of baby boomers who are preparing to retire in the next few years. Planners use a dream book, where couples can plan what they can do in their golden years and their financial planners will ostensibly make it possible.
When people speak about baby boomers, they refer to them as marketing targets, potential customers and folks with deep pockets. While it is true that a portion of the Baby Boom will retire well, this is only because of the social programs, job security and company pension plans that were available to them since the 1970's. During "their days", as one might call it, people got jobs, worked up the corporate ladder and held on to their jobs for the majority of their lives. The company provided health benefits, disability benefits (if they become ill before 65) and some type of defined benefit pension plan. In addition to the defined benefit pension plan, these folks also paid into CPP for most of their lives, which means the government will top up their company pension as well with at least another $1,200 - $1,500, depending on their highest earning years. Also, as these people were part of the more secure labour force, they likely had some money to put away for retirement, especially as their children left home and their mortgages got paid off.
Governments - who only think about their short-term political futures - have not done a damned thing about the volcanic explosion of elder poverty that is slowly creeping up the ladder as our population ages even more. Those retiring now benefited from strong social programs and job security of the 1970's - they hailed from a period of time when employers felt they owed some loyalty to their employees. We are now seeing 30 and 40 years into the past as the most wealthy among the Baby Boomers are able to retire.
What about the volcano? For the rest of the Baby Boomers that started their working lives in the mid to late 1980's, their career paths will be very different. People in what I often refer to as the "second half" of the Baby Boom have not held a job for more than a few years at a time, often changing employers and career choices along the way to find an employer who is willing to pay them more, offer more benefits and provide greater incentives. Company pensions are not designed for "job hoppers", as the term is often used. Benefits may still be available to a declining segment of the working population, but it is said that today - less than 30% of all companies even offer pension plans for their employees and among those that do, plans appear to be shifting away from defined benefit plans to shared RRSP contributions that can be locked in until retirement.
What about the rest of us that don't work for companies that provide any kind of pension? We are told to SAVE our money - put away ten percent of your earnings each year into an RRSP or some other retirement planning instrument. Many financial analysts are now becoming extremely critical and blaming of Canadians because it seems they are seeing the upcoming volcano of elder poverty, except they blame the poor for it. We didn't save enough money for our retirement, they say. We didn't manage our money very well.
This always brings up the odd scenario I presented a few years ago to a group of people on the myths of poverty, particularly around the idea that the poor are poor because they don't manage their money properly. I can't even repeat that scenario today because when I did these presentations, the "poor" of those days had 40% more to work with than they do today. I can't even get to the word "go" with people in receipt of Ontario Works. First, our government theoretically wants people to only use Ontario Works as a resource of last resort - which means people have to spend themselves almost completely down to nothing before they can even become eligible for what meagre benefits Ontario Works offers. One resource such people are forced to divest themselves of is any retirement savings they might have, as long as it is not locked-in. That means, people in need must spend down their entire nest egg, plus pay substantial withdrawal penalties and taxes while doing so before the state will cough up its meagre support of $536 a month! I don't even know how people can obtain a room on this amount, let alone an apartment -- and our city's fathers point too much to an alleged growing problem with homelessness. Instead of dealing with the poverty that leads to homelessness, all politicians want to do is make the homeless disappear.
Draining one's retirement account is also a pre-requisite for those who must qualify for ODSP as well. People often believe that those who built up a significant work history wouldn't have to turn to this route because CPP has its own pension plan that pays out regardless of how many assets you have. CPP also pays out even if you are married to a millionnaire, so they actually believe working people should have no trouble getting CPP Disability. I am not bragging, but I know I *do* have a great track record for winning CPP-based appeals - BUT I also know that I only take on CPP cases that have a chance of winning. For ODSP, I am less picky because their "definition of disability" is not as strict as the terms set out for CPP Disability.
CPP Disability only pays if you can prove that you had a severe and prolonged mental or physical disability at the time of your Minimum Qualifying Period (meaning a certain period of time must have passed first *after* you stopped contributing to the program). Severe means that one is not able to regularly work in a remunerative way due to a mental or physical disability. If you can regularly contribute 4 - 6 hours a week for example, you do not qualify. Further, your disability must be prolonged meaning it will last a substantial period of time or result in death. Basically, CPP only pays if you cannot hold down a "regular" job and it is likely your disability will last a long time, perhaps for the rest of your life (or for an "indefinite" period of time). The disability can be cyclic, meaning sometimes it gets worse and other times, it gets better; however, the "better" periods should not be regular and predictable or last long enough for a person to reinstate themselves into a paid job - even for a short time, such as a year. I've won cases for clients on this criteria, but in order to know why I won, you need to know the clients. None of them will likely work again. Most are incapacitated by their disabilities to such an extent that even personal care and community living is hindered. They suffer from chronic pain, have lost their sight or their hearing, can no longer walk unassisted, require some forms of personal care, etc. All this - for a lousy $900+ a month ... and most of my clients do not even get NEAR this maximum!
However, it goes without saying that one of the fringe benefits for my clients that DO get CPP Disability is that the years they receive it are not "counted" for the purposes of calculating their CPP Retirement Pension, so they may get a little more that way. However, most people with disabilities do not qualify for CPP - most end up on provincial ODSP or even worse, many can't even get their act together enough to jump through the seventeen hoops required to get ODSP - so they get stuck on Ontario Works. Both Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program do not allow its recipients to retain any retirement pensions unless they are locked in. That means it is more than likely they will retire very poor. Even if somebody could manage to save money while on ODSP (and somebody yet has to show me how they can do that these days), they are not allowed to save more than $5,000 (or they lose their ODSP) or if they are a family, $7,000 + $500 per additional dependent. That means if you are part of a couple and have two children, your family can only have $8,000 at any given time in "liquid assets". Retirement savings, including those in RRSPs and most other instruments are considered to be "liquid assets".
How about other people who work? As stated above, people are changing jobs more often. It is often said that not only do people change jobs, they may even change entire career areas several times in their working life. It is known that not only are less employers apt to provide a retirement pension to its staff, they are likely to pay people less and offer fewer benefits. It is said that one in four workers works in a non-standard job; that is, self-employed, independent contractor, short-term employment, etc. These jobs are not stable and do not usually offer any benefits or security. Jobs outside the one in four are also becoming less stable. Higher-paid manufacturing, research and resource development jobs have been disappearing in droves, only to be replaced by jobs in the service sector that pay less than half as much and offer little to no job security. Despite the fact the average wage has declined since even the early 1990's, prices have substantially jumped since then. It puzzles me how one is supposed to work in one (or two or three) of these low-paid jobs and still have money left to put away for retirement after housing, transportation and groceries are paid for.
In addition to this reality, there is a growing reality for young people trying to enter the paid labour force. It is said that in ten years, 70% of all jobs will require a post-secondary education. Young people attempt to seek post-secondary education more than they did in the past; however, most graduates end up with substantial debt burdens that are not unlike a mortgage, except with higher interest rates. Interest relief programs have been cut and private collection agencies have been contracted to collect defaulted loan payments from defaulters. It is said that more than one in four students ends up in collections. What does all this have to do with retirement? Young people have no money to put away. They need to pay off their student loans, get settled to live on their own and obtain their first job (which is becoming more and more difficult for anybody, apparently). More young people are postponing leaving their homes of origin, living with their parents well into their thirties ... as they shift from job to job until they find that right job that will support them.
In non-metropolitan areas, young people need to finance and obtain their own vehicles if they expect to find a job that pays more than minimum wages. The price for a vehicle can exceed $7,000 per annum - especially for younger people who tend to be hit with higher insurance premiums and higher financing fees. How can a young person who is busy trying to make enough money to survive, let alone pay off student loans and cover the costs of owning and maintaining a vehicle, be expected to put away 10% of their earnings for retirement? They postpone marriage so they can pay the rent. They postpone having children, so they can possibly own a home someday. A mortgage is yet another expense people take on that take twenty years to pay off ... if at all. Studies show many people are taking out second and third mortgages to manage what used to be quite an affordable lifestyle. None of these people will put away a dime for RRSPs, at least until their kids have left home (which as I said is getting to be later and later), the mortgage is paid off and other debts are paid down ... by then, many of these people are probably ready to retire anyways - but they have NO money!
I think this is something we should all worry about. The number of working people per retired person is decreasing as time goes on. It is not likely that the tax base will be as solid as it is now with the first wave of the wealthy Baby Boomers retiring. We can allow tons more immigration, but studies have shown that even that is not going to reverse this demographic deficit. Governments must plan NOW to put away a portion of the surpluses it currently takes in to use for future retirement incomes for the less wealthy retired. Government pensions many need to be clawed back for those who make a certain amount from other sources to allow lower income retirees to keep more of their incomes. Work should always be a choice for the retired, not a necessity as 50% of those interviewed for the above study indicated. The idea that a very large number of people may be forced to work at menial jobs until they are one foot in the grave is very real.
It is not because we are not saving enough. It is because we have less money to save. If the government wants us to have more kids, why are they making it so expensive and impossible for many people to do so? I have two kids myself and I can tell you they will not even have the opportunities I had (which were also few and far between), so I can't even imagine what retirement is going to be like for them -- if there will be such a thing when they get to be that age. There are MAJOR things the government must do NOW to protect itself from this growing and inevitable volcano. These steps include:
1. Setting aside a portion of its surplus into stable investments to be tiered instruments to pay for pensions of people in the future who are unable to draw more than the poverty line;
2, Reduce government pensions for those whose investments or private pensions bring them past a certain level of privilege;
3. Mandate employers to provide some form of portable pension instrument to its employees and allow these employees to lock the pension funds in if they change jobs (but take it with them);
4. Allow older people to continue working for as long as they desire to - but take steps to make sure that older persons that wish to continue working are not mired in prejudice. Earnings past one's "official" retirement age should not impact on government pensions, provided one's income is still below a certain amount;
5. Review the labour market and try to find ways to ensure that jobs pay wages that keep up with the cost of living and do not leave people destitute;
6. For people whose work opportunities are limited by disability, family responsibilities and other situations, the social safety net needs to be restored so people are not left destitute by an illness or the need to care for somebody else;
7. Examine the prospect of a negative income tax to use as a redistribution instrument;
8. Increase taxes on wealth and inheritances worth more than a certain amount;
9. Post-secondary education should cost less and not become a major financial burden for young adults; and
10. Better and more effective programs to help employment disadvantaged people get into meaningful jobs should be in place and accessible to everybody that needs this assistance. It should not just serve the low-range, entry-level seeking population.
Until we see MAJOR structural changes in both the labour market and the social safety net, we are going to face the inevitable "poverty bust" of the second half of the Baby Boomer generation that inevitably arrive at retirement's door empty-handed?
Thoughts?
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Politics of the "Consumer/Survivor" Movement
This post is not going to be very popular among the so-called "progressive" folks that get involved with or support consumer/survivor organizations, not only dealing with mental health, but many other types of "consumer" based movements as well. I have no trouble with these organizations, but would appreciate their work more if there was better leadership and a bigger push that would benefit the whole, as opposed to the few.
In consumer-type movements, there is a void of leadership. Even when there are "leaders", the leaders are not the type to get it done or cause it to get done. They are more of the "charismatic" and self-important types that generate unearned credentials and act as though they are the only ones that are tapped into their communities. The unfortunate reason for this is that they can. Not enough "consumers" stand up to their "leaders" and call for them to account. Whenever they do, they are often turfed from whatever organization it is they are a member of. I know about this. I am aware of numerous situations where people have been very hurt by these actions. To me, in my work as a legal representative, at least I try to follow the motto "do no harm" and then the next, "listen to the client". Even if I worked with a client similar to the one before me in the past, I need to know about this one because to me, everybody is different and needs to be treated like an individual and respected for it.
Twenty or more years has passed since the dawning of the mental health consumer movement in Ontario and from the beginning of its time until today, I have not seen a single change in the following: (a) the unemployment rate among consumer/survivors in general; (b) the percentage of ODSP recipients that have as their primary disability, mental health problems (e.g. this has in fact gone up from 27% of all new ODSP recipients in 1988 to 36% today); (c) the number of mental health consumers being referred to and stuck in low-wage employment; and (d) the number of dollars spent on dealing with mental health issues per capita.
I remember in the late 1980's and the early 1990's, certain mental health consumer leaders would cite the statistic of over 85% of people with mental health problems were unemployed. Please note we are referring to serious mental health problems, not the everyday anxiety or depression that many "healthy" people feel. During recent Senate Committee Hearings, which wrapped up in 2005, these same people reported an 85% - 90% rate of unemployment among this same group. Through this longitudinal admission, the leaders of this movement are admitting they failed their people. To me, this calls for new leadership. No more of the same old, same old.
To me, poverty and unemployment are the two MAJOR issues impacting on people with mental health disabilities. If leadership from this population is unable to effect improvements, the times should be a' changing. My views are well known by many of the "leaders", but all I get is the brush-off. The fact of the matter is that as long as they have their positions and their well-paid jobs, they are "all right Jack". People with mental health problems want to work just as much as other people. Low OW and ODSP rates in fact are making people among this group and other disability groups much more desperate to find employment to top up their income so they can survive. Some are unable to and are resigned by this current government administration to live in poverty forever. For example, one case I am aware of tried working and has held 26 jobs over the past two years in a lame attempt to bring himself out of poverty. No doubt this desperate situation was not great for his mental health.
There are others that I am aware of that come from higher education and want jobs that exceed the typical low-paid entry level positions that consumers are usually referred to: food, filth, filing, fetching and flowers. I'm not saying people shouldn't work in these fields, but if they do - it should be a self-chosen career goal, not something that is imposed on them, or by its mere dominance in terms of being the only job opportunities offered. Those offering jobs in so-called "consumer-run businesses" aren't much better at alleviating this stereotype. While the leaders are the ones that hog the better-paid management positions, they only have the lower-paid part-time jobs in the five f's as earlier referred to offer others. The progressive community is silent on these issues. When you try to raise it with somebody, they say, "That's what these people want to do!". My response to that is: How can anybody be sure? Has each individual been truly consulted as to what their career aspirations are? I heard from hundreds of people who are not crazy about going for the low-paid five f's.
Further, the very idea that somebody received their training and work experience in a "consumer business" does not allow them the choice to NOT disclose to their next employer their status as a consumer/survivor at whatever point they may wish to move on. The names of the businesses are sometimes dead give-aways: Crazy Cooks, Raging Spoon. Or even if they don't have names like that, employers in these communities are generally aware that the business from which the candidate is leaving is 100% consumer-run. These businesses have an unusual amount of press coverage advertising to the world who they are and who works there, an unreasonable amount of government subsidy and generally low expectations of themselves when it comes to actually competing with similar businesses in their respective marketplace. This does not bode well for a person who may be seeking a supervisory or management position at new company - even if that person has gained the right training and experience to do that work in the "consumer business".
Others may not offer consumer businesses, but provide exclusive training opportunities for their "members" or "consumers" to pursue. The clubhouse movement is great for this. The clubhouse is set up on specific work units, which give its "members" an opportunity to learn the skills to partake in a work-ordered day. Again, the work units are usually based on the five f's: food, filth, filing, fetching and flowers. While there may be some advanced clubhouses I am not aware of that may offer more, the ones that I do know don't stray far from the five f's. When I raise this with the staff - many of whom are not necessarily from the dinosaur era in understanding the impact of stigma on employment opportunities - they deny this is job training or intended to route people in these specific directions. However, for those clubhouses that do offer off-site employment opportunities, the jobs are not much different than what was offered in the clubhouse environment.
A third example is a specific one that is available in my community and a few other communities across Canada. That is the BUILT Network. While I have never worked there or participated in its programs, I know people who have, either locally or via the Internet. Again, this is another one of those programs that thrive on placing people into low-wage, entry-level jobs, regardless of the person's education or aspirations. The people who run the BUILT Network locally seem nice enough and probably motivated by solely good intentions, as are likely the people who run its other offices across the country. However, based on the training given and career directions offered post-program, the average wage is $8 - $10 an hour. A few make a bit more, but in general - one is not going to get into the door of a high paying career using BUILT Network as a stepping stone. One thing I did consider when I first learned of this program is that it is obvious that program staff and its leaders are making considerably much more than the average wage of its participants. I have no doubt many of them are educated, but then again - so are many "consumers" that come to them for help.
I have no idea of the success rates of these programs, because basically there is really no way an outsider can ascertain if a program is successful or not. I have seen programs across Ontario that claim a placement rate above 90%, but there are no actual empirical studies to back these figures. I suppose if I run these programs, I would know more accurately how successful we actually are and may find ways to present the statistics to make it look like we are doing even better than we are, but that's not the point of this article.
This article is to state there is no real leadership among this particular movement. Yes, perhaps "leadership" can be defined in different ways by different people, but when I envision "leadership" - I think of someone who is able to make an impact, effect change and support and/or advocate for a diversity of opinion and strengths. I already shown that nothing changed with respect to the unemployment and poverty among consumer/survivors, despite valiant attempts by its "leaders" to fix this. So there's been no impact or effective change in these areas. What about other areas?
I want to be gentle on this next point because I am not trying to attack people; however, many consumer "leaders" have adopted what more conservative folks may deem to be a "politically correct" paradigm. To me, people are free to believe what they want - but when they purportedly represent a larger group of people than themselves and their own personal networks, it is time to throw that paradigm out the window and actually LISTEN. I have attended various conferences in the past where consumer "leaders" were featured as presenters. I did this as part of my own work as the executive director of a mental health agency - an agency that consulted broadly with both its members and non-members on a variety of issues. I simply let them talk and me listen. However, when I attended these workshops, I noted particularly offensive comments made by many of these "leaders" about: (a) educated people, many of whom are also consumers themselves; (b) conservative people, which also includes a significant swath of the consumer population; (c) traditional lifestyles (e.g. consumers who choose to become married, consumers who are heterosexual and traditional in their orientation, consumers who seek employment in a traditional business setting); and (d) consumers who do not believe the mantra that it is only possible for men to be violent against women and not the other way around.
I personally have no problems with people whose political views differ from my own, because we need diversity and a variety of ideas in this world. In fact, many of my own friends are rabidly "left wing" in their perspectives and they enjoy my company because there are *some* issues we may agree on, such as the lack of a social safety net and the increasingly pervasive level of poverty among people in one of the richest countries in the world. I also have no problems with people who live non-traditional lifestyles (e.g. in a same sex relationship, no children, living common law, etc.). However, we are not going to wipe out prejudice and stigma by creating further prejudices of our own - by marginalizing members of one's own community by pretending there is no such thing as a "consumer" who is also a professionally trained service provider, or pretending that "consumers" cannot possibly last and thrive in a traditional heterosexual marriage and have children, etc. I also felt marginalized when consumer "leaders" talked down to many of their consumer audience members like they were two years old and didn't understand anything. This is a bold assumption that one can only be a "true consumer" if one were uneducated, illiterate and ignorant of the ways of the world. Further and probably most important is the assumption that "consumers" only want to live with and/or work with other "consumers". By making these bold statements, my members who attended these conferences or who heard the tapes from the conference and/or read the minutes, were very turned off by what was said - and 90% of these folks were also people who were "consumers" and a few were family members of consumers!
I am not saying these consumer leaders are mean-spirited or intend to attack many of their own with their comments. They are likely not aware of the vast diversity among their own people. I am also saying these leaders are either not listening to their followers or being very selective as to who their followers are - only allowing people who are more like they are into their tents. Now, doesn't this sound very much like what many of these same people accuse the broader society of doing to mental health consumers? These leaders have their own refined sense of their experiences and by their comments, actually believe others share the same experiences in the same way and have come to terms with its meaning in exactly the same way. They also do not seem to think there is a need for a diversity of leadership or a periodic rotation where a set of leaders retire to be replaced with new leaders with a new vision that better reflects changing times and changing ideas. Unfortunately, the same people who were "speaking for" the so-called consumer/survivor movement in the 1980's are the same people who are doing this today ...
I actually researched the web, spoke to members over the Internet of various "consumer/survivor" organizations across the province. Fifteen to twenty years ago, our provincial government poured a pile of money into funding these organizations. I don't know why because none of these organizations appear to be doing much lobbying and advocacy for change in the quality of life for its highly impoverished membership; henceforth, many do not seem to seek the most qualified people to run their organizations. I personally would rather have none of these groups funded than allow sanctioned mediocrity to continue and proclaim to be representative of this part of the population. Remember the anti-education stance that many of the leaders have taken over the years, that being a consumer/survivor in itself was sufficient to be a manager, supervisor, program developer, or spokesperson. I directly confronted a few of the directors of these groups at a conference for the CMHA a few years back about why there was not much emphasis on employment and poverty reduction on their agendas. I was told that their members did not want to lose their disability pensions. Yet, at the same time, I hear only minimal squealing from this gallery about the push for changes in employment supports and other initiatives that may well lower this risk for this group. Consumer members of anti-poverty groups tend to be from other disability groups, than from the organized "mental health" movement.
Among the hundreds of consumer/survivors in my region, 99% of them do not and will not join a "consumer" group, but some have told me on numerous occasions that the only three people who seem to be speaking up for people who have been through the mental health system or who have mental health problems are me, the director of a progressive community development agency next door to my office and another individual who is active with the Canadian Mental Health Association. In my opinion, I don't have to have an organization to be considered credible on these issues. I think we rely too much on the word of people that head organizations about what their respective constituencies want and need. There is scant proof that leaders in these organizations are always aware of what their people want and need; it appears many of them tend to govern and speak up only on the basis of their personal opinions or on the opinions of those closest to them - but certainly not on behalf of those they are paid to work with. While there is nothing wrong with expressing one's own opinion, but when you are paid to work with a large group of people - it is the concerns of your people and not you that need to be heard.
Thoughts?
In consumer-type movements, there is a void of leadership. Even when there are "leaders", the leaders are not the type to get it done or cause it to get done. They are more of the "charismatic" and self-important types that generate unearned credentials and act as though they are the only ones that are tapped into their communities. The unfortunate reason for this is that they can. Not enough "consumers" stand up to their "leaders" and call for them to account. Whenever they do, they are often turfed from whatever organization it is they are a member of. I know about this. I am aware of numerous situations where people have been very hurt by these actions. To me, in my work as a legal representative, at least I try to follow the motto "do no harm" and then the next, "listen to the client". Even if I worked with a client similar to the one before me in the past, I need to know about this one because to me, everybody is different and needs to be treated like an individual and respected for it.
Twenty or more years has passed since the dawning of the mental health consumer movement in Ontario and from the beginning of its time until today, I have not seen a single change in the following: (a) the unemployment rate among consumer/survivors in general; (b) the percentage of ODSP recipients that have as their primary disability, mental health problems (e.g. this has in fact gone up from 27% of all new ODSP recipients in 1988 to 36% today); (c) the number of mental health consumers being referred to and stuck in low-wage employment; and (d) the number of dollars spent on dealing with mental health issues per capita.
I remember in the late 1980's and the early 1990's, certain mental health consumer leaders would cite the statistic of over 85% of people with mental health problems were unemployed. Please note we are referring to serious mental health problems, not the everyday anxiety or depression that many "healthy" people feel. During recent Senate Committee Hearings, which wrapped up in 2005, these same people reported an 85% - 90% rate of unemployment among this same group. Through this longitudinal admission, the leaders of this movement are admitting they failed their people. To me, this calls for new leadership. No more of the same old, same old.
To me, poverty and unemployment are the two MAJOR issues impacting on people with mental health disabilities. If leadership from this population is unable to effect improvements, the times should be a' changing. My views are well known by many of the "leaders", but all I get is the brush-off. The fact of the matter is that as long as they have their positions and their well-paid jobs, they are "all right Jack". People with mental health problems want to work just as much as other people. Low OW and ODSP rates in fact are making people among this group and other disability groups much more desperate to find employment to top up their income so they can survive. Some are unable to and are resigned by this current government administration to live in poverty forever. For example, one case I am aware of tried working and has held 26 jobs over the past two years in a lame attempt to bring himself out of poverty. No doubt this desperate situation was not great for his mental health.
There are others that I am aware of that come from higher education and want jobs that exceed the typical low-paid entry level positions that consumers are usually referred to: food, filth, filing, fetching and flowers. I'm not saying people shouldn't work in these fields, but if they do - it should be a self-chosen career goal, not something that is imposed on them, or by its mere dominance in terms of being the only job opportunities offered. Those offering jobs in so-called "consumer-run businesses" aren't much better at alleviating this stereotype. While the leaders are the ones that hog the better-paid management positions, they only have the lower-paid part-time jobs in the five f's as earlier referred to offer others. The progressive community is silent on these issues. When you try to raise it with somebody, they say, "That's what these people want to do!". My response to that is: How can anybody be sure? Has each individual been truly consulted as to what their career aspirations are? I heard from hundreds of people who are not crazy about going for the low-paid five f's.
Further, the very idea that somebody received their training and work experience in a "consumer business" does not allow them the choice to NOT disclose to their next employer their status as a consumer/survivor at whatever point they may wish to move on. The names of the businesses are sometimes dead give-aways: Crazy Cooks, Raging Spoon. Or even if they don't have names like that, employers in these communities are generally aware that the business from which the candidate is leaving is 100% consumer-run. These businesses have an unusual amount of press coverage advertising to the world who they are and who works there, an unreasonable amount of government subsidy and generally low expectations of themselves when it comes to actually competing with similar businesses in their respective marketplace. This does not bode well for a person who may be seeking a supervisory or management position at new company - even if that person has gained the right training and experience to do that work in the "consumer business".
Others may not offer consumer businesses, but provide exclusive training opportunities for their "members" or "consumers" to pursue. The clubhouse movement is great for this. The clubhouse is set up on specific work units, which give its "members" an opportunity to learn the skills to partake in a work-ordered day. Again, the work units are usually based on the five f's: food, filth, filing, fetching and flowers. While there may be some advanced clubhouses I am not aware of that may offer more, the ones that I do know don't stray far from the five f's. When I raise this with the staff - many of whom are not necessarily from the dinosaur era in understanding the impact of stigma on employment opportunities - they deny this is job training or intended to route people in these specific directions. However, for those clubhouses that do offer off-site employment opportunities, the jobs are not much different than what was offered in the clubhouse environment.
A third example is a specific one that is available in my community and a few other communities across Canada. That is the BUILT Network. While I have never worked there or participated in its programs, I know people who have, either locally or via the Internet. Again, this is another one of those programs that thrive on placing people into low-wage, entry-level jobs, regardless of the person's education or aspirations. The people who run the BUILT Network locally seem nice enough and probably motivated by solely good intentions, as are likely the people who run its other offices across the country. However, based on the training given and career directions offered post-program, the average wage is $8 - $10 an hour. A few make a bit more, but in general - one is not going to get into the door of a high paying career using BUILT Network as a stepping stone. One thing I did consider when I first learned of this program is that it is obvious that program staff and its leaders are making considerably much more than the average wage of its participants. I have no doubt many of them are educated, but then again - so are many "consumers" that come to them for help.
I have no idea of the success rates of these programs, because basically there is really no way an outsider can ascertain if a program is successful or not. I have seen programs across Ontario that claim a placement rate above 90%, but there are no actual empirical studies to back these figures. I suppose if I run these programs, I would know more accurately how successful we actually are and may find ways to present the statistics to make it look like we are doing even better than we are, but that's not the point of this article.
This article is to state there is no real leadership among this particular movement. Yes, perhaps "leadership" can be defined in different ways by different people, but when I envision "leadership" - I think of someone who is able to make an impact, effect change and support and/or advocate for a diversity of opinion and strengths. I already shown that nothing changed with respect to the unemployment and poverty among consumer/survivors, despite valiant attempts by its "leaders" to fix this. So there's been no impact or effective change in these areas. What about other areas?
I want to be gentle on this next point because I am not trying to attack people; however, many consumer "leaders" have adopted what more conservative folks may deem to be a "politically correct" paradigm. To me, people are free to believe what they want - but when they purportedly represent a larger group of people than themselves and their own personal networks, it is time to throw that paradigm out the window and actually LISTEN. I have attended various conferences in the past where consumer "leaders" were featured as presenters. I did this as part of my own work as the executive director of a mental health agency - an agency that consulted broadly with both its members and non-members on a variety of issues. I simply let them talk and me listen. However, when I attended these workshops, I noted particularly offensive comments made by many of these "leaders" about: (a) educated people, many of whom are also consumers themselves; (b) conservative people, which also includes a significant swath of the consumer population; (c) traditional lifestyles (e.g. consumers who choose to become married, consumers who are heterosexual and traditional in their orientation, consumers who seek employment in a traditional business setting); and (d) consumers who do not believe the mantra that it is only possible for men to be violent against women and not the other way around.
I personally have no problems with people whose political views differ from my own, because we need diversity and a variety of ideas in this world. In fact, many of my own friends are rabidly "left wing" in their perspectives and they enjoy my company because there are *some* issues we may agree on, such as the lack of a social safety net and the increasingly pervasive level of poverty among people in one of the richest countries in the world. I also have no problems with people who live non-traditional lifestyles (e.g. in a same sex relationship, no children, living common law, etc.). However, we are not going to wipe out prejudice and stigma by creating further prejudices of our own - by marginalizing members of one's own community by pretending there is no such thing as a "consumer" who is also a professionally trained service provider, or pretending that "consumers" cannot possibly last and thrive in a traditional heterosexual marriage and have children, etc. I also felt marginalized when consumer "leaders" talked down to many of their consumer audience members like they were two years old and didn't understand anything. This is a bold assumption that one can only be a "true consumer" if one were uneducated, illiterate and ignorant of the ways of the world. Further and probably most important is the assumption that "consumers" only want to live with and/or work with other "consumers". By making these bold statements, my members who attended these conferences or who heard the tapes from the conference and/or read the minutes, were very turned off by what was said - and 90% of these folks were also people who were "consumers" and a few were family members of consumers!
I am not saying these consumer leaders are mean-spirited or intend to attack many of their own with their comments. They are likely not aware of the vast diversity among their own people. I am also saying these leaders are either not listening to their followers or being very selective as to who their followers are - only allowing people who are more like they are into their tents. Now, doesn't this sound very much like what many of these same people accuse the broader society of doing to mental health consumers? These leaders have their own refined sense of their experiences and by their comments, actually believe others share the same experiences in the same way and have come to terms with its meaning in exactly the same way. They also do not seem to think there is a need for a diversity of leadership or a periodic rotation where a set of leaders retire to be replaced with new leaders with a new vision that better reflects changing times and changing ideas. Unfortunately, the same people who were "speaking for" the so-called consumer/survivor movement in the 1980's are the same people who are doing this today ...
I actually researched the web, spoke to members over the Internet of various "consumer/survivor" organizations across the province. Fifteen to twenty years ago, our provincial government poured a pile of money into funding these organizations. I don't know why because none of these organizations appear to be doing much lobbying and advocacy for change in the quality of life for its highly impoverished membership; henceforth, many do not seem to seek the most qualified people to run their organizations. I personally would rather have none of these groups funded than allow sanctioned mediocrity to continue and proclaim to be representative of this part of the population. Remember the anti-education stance that many of the leaders have taken over the years, that being a consumer/survivor in itself was sufficient to be a manager, supervisor, program developer, or spokesperson. I directly confronted a few of the directors of these groups at a conference for the CMHA a few years back about why there was not much emphasis on employment and poverty reduction on their agendas. I was told that their members did not want to lose their disability pensions. Yet, at the same time, I hear only minimal squealing from this gallery about the push for changes in employment supports and other initiatives that may well lower this risk for this group. Consumer members of anti-poverty groups tend to be from other disability groups, than from the organized "mental health" movement.
Among the hundreds of consumer/survivors in my region, 99% of them do not and will not join a "consumer" group, but some have told me on numerous occasions that the only three people who seem to be speaking up for people who have been through the mental health system or who have mental health problems are me, the director of a progressive community development agency next door to my office and another individual who is active with the Canadian Mental Health Association. In my opinion, I don't have to have an organization to be considered credible on these issues. I think we rely too much on the word of people that head organizations about what their respective constituencies want and need. There is scant proof that leaders in these organizations are always aware of what their people want and need; it appears many of them tend to govern and speak up only on the basis of their personal opinions or on the opinions of those closest to them - but certainly not on behalf of those they are paid to work with. While there is nothing wrong with expressing one's own opinion, but when you are paid to work with a large group of people - it is the concerns of your people and not you that need to be heard.
Thoughts?
Friday, June 22, 2007
Two Incomes, Two Cars and the Joneses
Many times, I am tired of living in the community I live in.
In the Niagara Region, the legions of the poor are quite large: one in five, I heard. However, Niagara is different than other regions, such as Toronto and Hamilton, in its approach to dealing with it. We have major food banks, leadership of which is only glorified and revelled. We have agencies that pursue "middle class" solutions to 'help' the poor. They recognize the problems, but want to get poor people to mingle more with rich people with the hopes that some of the wealth just might be contagious. Niagara is known like many other places for its addiction to charity ... every week, somebody is chopping off their hair to donate to Wigs for Kids or some related cause. It is getting old. People organize walks for MS, Heart and Stroke, Cancer Research and even recently, a walk was held to raise awareness about schizophrenia. One thing Niagara never has walks for is anything to raise the awareness of the plight of its poor.
Niagara Region is a study in contrasts. There are very wealthy people living among us. Niagara-on-the-Lake is known to be a haven for the wealthy, particularly the retired wealthy. Social class is very structured in Niagara as well, meaning people who are in each class know which class they "belong" to and what opportunities are availed to them. Niagara's tourist economy reminds me about the feudal system as I learned about it when I first studied law and the history of real estate and property rights. There are the Owners, those who own those lovely hotels, tourist attractions and cinemas and so forth ... There are the Managers (or the Landlords), Petite Bourgeoisie, those that own the largest farms and wineries, as well as a few smatterings of those among the Merchant class. Finally, there are the workers ... most of those who work for the Owners, Petite Bourgeoisie or the Merchant class are almost always low-waged and seasonal labourers.
Another industry that is designated along class lines is the Auto Industry, which is a weakening, though still present concern in this Region. There are the Owners/ General Managers, the Union Workers and those who are unable to even set a foot in the door because all the jobs have been long since hogged by the Union Workers and members of their families. The latter group are often shunted off to work for places like call centres, large retailers (such as Wal-Mart) or Tim Horton's. Niagara's fathers want to keep the Auto Sector moving, even though its presence appears to be declining. However, the force among the Auto Industry is not missed by even the least observant person. Whole lots are being ripped apart and flattened out throughout the Region to do one of two things: (a) Create parking lots; or (b) Create more automobile sales firms. After all, we need to create an outlet for the Union Workers, Petite Bourgeoisie, Merchants and the Owners to purchase new cars year over year, don't we? It is this class of people that are probably the only people that can afford to purchase them anyways.
If you are somebody in Niagara that is not an Owner, General Manager, Union Worker, Petite Bourgeoisie or a Merchant, or married to one, you are likely not likely going to become one of them. Why? Because Niagara Region, as well as many regions of similar size and scope, accepts a very rigid class structure that is based upon membership to the above groups, or association with the same (such as through marriage) - but if you are NOT - if you are one of the one in five people in the Region who are considered poor, your chances of EVER climbing that supposed ladder to the next level are nil and none. It's the Family Compact or nothing in Niagara.
The fact of the matter is that job hogsmanship is very much of a reality here in Niagara. If somebody is a Teacher, for example, they are most likely married to an Owner, General Manager, Union Worker, Petite Bourgeoisie or a Merchant. They are less likely to come from single income families. These are the people that will have the vast majority of pension funds available to them upon retirement. These are the people who think nothing of taking a drive and going to a cottage somewhere north of Toronto most weekends in the summer. They usually have a backyard pool and their children are the first to get the best "summer jobs" the system has to offer them because these families have the contacts.
Unfortunately, these are also the very same people who are part of the new movement to "simplify things", "become green" and "give to the poor" (usually meaning African poor and not local poverty). They try to imagine or make the rest of us imagine that life can only be simpler if we all had our own little gardens and grew our own vegetables, cooked everything from scratch and cut coupons. These are all good ideas, but the one in five people I spoke of earlier are not: (a) likely to have a yard, let alone room to put in a garden; (b) have the time to play in the dirt to develop one even if they had a yard (e.g. most are working two or three minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent and feed the kids); (c) have the time or energy to cook from scratch; and (d) most do not have a vehicle in which to travel from one end of town to the other to "catch" various specials and use different coupons to save a dollar or two on the price of milk. Poverty is indeed expensive.
Poor people do not have the money to start and maintain a garden. They do not have the transportation to pick up the essentials for a garden, nor do they have the capacity to even retrieve free or low-cost items others may have for sale or give-away on the Internet or through the newspaper. Poor families in Niagara that do not have a car stay poor, regardless of how well educated and skilled they are. Employers do not want anybody who does not share the values and lifestyles of the Owners, General Managers, Union Workers, Petite Bourgeoisie or Merchants. Employers cannot relate to people who do not have an easy pick-up-and-go type of the lifestyle that they enjoy. People want to hire other people who are just like they are.
The expression "keeping up with the Joneses" has been around for a long time. People who have money have the means to compete with other people with money. People who are poor watch this happen and only feel left out of the game. The Joneses do not know that poor folks exist in Niagara, even though the Joneses may once in a blue moon drop off a non-perishable food item to the Food Bank or hand over a quarter to the occasional panhandler, but nobody in the Jones family or those who try to keep up with them have ever bothered to ask why there is so much poverty in Niagara Region, or if they do, why it is okay for the poor to accept their crumbs and not share the same opportunities for upward mobility that they have. People who are dual income earners tend to believe other adults come from the same background. I've met teachers that assume all parents can afford to send their kids to various field trips and pizza days. When they don't, the fault of course rests with parents or with the child who may not be "responsible enough" to bring in the required money for these things. Unfortunately, while our Board of Education pretends to respect all students equally, they in fact, do not. They expect low-income parents to beg for financial assistance from the schools in order for their children to be treated equally ... thus requiring these parents to give a type of personal disclosure that is not expected of other parents. They do not think for a minute that such disclosure only labels them as "damaged goods" and serves as a barrier for people to succeed in the community on their own merits. Receipt of "charity" is not as confidential as you think. People who accept "charity" are not the same people who get hired for the good jobs.
There are probably more cars per capita here in Niagara Region than anywhere else. There is absolutely nothing policy-wise or environmentally that is being done to curb the use of private vehicles. Niagara Region has a substantial amount of gridlock on most of its roadways, as well as highways. The Niagara Region is the only incorporated Region that does not support ANY inter-municipal transit. Why, do you ask? Because the leaders of this Region actually believe that EVERYBODY drives. If you don't, they assume there is something wrong with you. If you complain about discrimination in jobs, they say jobs are plentiful in call centres, cleaning hotels, picking fruit and doing other menial tasks, regardless of your education or career aspirations. Yet in the same breath, these same people complain about the lack of population growth and the fact that young college and university graduates LEAVE while they can. People do not use transit in Niagara unless they are: (a) one of the one in five people who are poor and marked for life; (b) mentally challenged (because we don't expect developmentally delayed adults to drive cars, do we?); (c) frail seniors (usually in their 70's and 80's); and (d) students, who are usually landlocked by student loans and cannot afford to keep up with the Joneses right now (though many of them come from these same types of middle income families from elsewhere that will eventually get them set for life). Unfortunately, this is a stigma that is carried over to employers and others in the Region, which has only further castrated our population into solid social classes and cultural division.
The reality that society has to face is clear. Not everybody has family support. I can count the number of my hundreds of clients I worked with over the years who are on social assistance or some other financial support who have families assisting them on my left hand. While this is true, governments continue to focus only on those people on my left hand who have families who are (a) available; (b) able; and (c) willing to provide financial support to their disabled relatives. There are whole workshops dedicated to issues like the Henson Trust, Registered Education Savings Plans, Registered Disability Support Plans, Segregated Funds, etc. To the vast majority of my people, these things mean absolutely nothing. It does not apply to their reality - because their loved ones may be dead, fragile themselves or they simply turned their backs on them years ago when the going got tough. Many of these people never settled into their first jobs and they are now in their 30's and 40's. Some have never driven a car. This is not going to happen for them without concerted and ongoing efforts on the part of government and community support organizations to get their heads out of the sand, to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses (as in my view, the Joneses do not need any more government help than they already get - which they do in fact get) and walk a mile in the shoes of my clients. We need to return the learning curve to normalization and integration, as opposed to marginalization and segregation, which is what we are doing so wrong today.
My clients want exactly the same thing everybody else wants:
1. They want to live in a home that is clean, safe and secure (e.g. poor people do not *need* staff to babysit them or tell them how to spend their money);
2. They want enough money to allow them to make a reasonable number of choices with respect to their lives (e.g. housing, food, transportation, telephone, entertainment, and support services that they choose). If they make mistakes, they want the right to accept the consequences and move on;
3. They want the right to continue their education, receive additional training and skills and have them count for something (instead of being blithely turned away from every job opportunity because they don't already have their own vehicles, know somebody who already works for the employer or belongs to the union already);
4. They want the right to access employment opportunities that reflect their actual skills, education, training and work experience, as opposed to low-wage ghettos they usually get referred to;
5. If they cannot work at all or are limited in their capabilities in working, they want to ensure that they have an income that can be counted on to cover ALL of their costs of living a reasonable lifestyle; and
6. They want the right to retire at some point in their lives without having to accept a McJob to subsidize the pithy government pensions they will be expected to live on.
These are things that folks with two incomes, two cars and an obsession with keeping up with the Joneses do not understand. They do not understand there are people who will not get to retire at all due to the declining value of public pensions (which do not keep up with the actual cost of living) or get to choose where they live, who their friends are or where they work. These are people who are quite often bullied at work, but say nothing about it because they know the only alternative is living on the streets, which is something apparently enshrined somewhere in Ontario Works legislation - that people in receipt of it should be pleased to even have a home, even if it is a garbage dumpster or a homeless shelter.
But most of all, this group does NOT understand that the reason that they are able to do so well is because so many others are not. Many middle, upper-middle and upper class families have the poor to thank for their positions, because if they had to pay their employees decent wages, pay the kind of taxes they really should be paying, or to cover the full cost of their consumption habits (like the poor seem to be expected to do) - they would not be able to keep up with the Joneses, or perhaps there may not even be any Joneses to keep up with. Other middle class folks, by virtue of their jobs, rely upon the existence of poor people to keep them in business. They certainly don't want to see poverty eradicated. As one of my readers, this should be easy for you to understand by now how one is ethically tied to fighting for one's own elimination if you happen to be one of those people who work to "serve" the poor.
In the Niagara Region, the legions of the poor are quite large: one in five, I heard. However, Niagara is different than other regions, such as Toronto and Hamilton, in its approach to dealing with it. We have major food banks, leadership of which is only glorified and revelled. We have agencies that pursue "middle class" solutions to 'help' the poor. They recognize the problems, but want to get poor people to mingle more with rich people with the hopes that some of the wealth just might be contagious. Niagara is known like many other places for its addiction to charity ... every week, somebody is chopping off their hair to donate to Wigs for Kids or some related cause. It is getting old. People organize walks for MS, Heart and Stroke, Cancer Research and even recently, a walk was held to raise awareness about schizophrenia. One thing Niagara never has walks for is anything to raise the awareness of the plight of its poor.
Niagara Region is a study in contrasts. There are very wealthy people living among us. Niagara-on-the-Lake is known to be a haven for the wealthy, particularly the retired wealthy. Social class is very structured in Niagara as well, meaning people who are in each class know which class they "belong" to and what opportunities are availed to them. Niagara's tourist economy reminds me about the feudal system as I learned about it when I first studied law and the history of real estate and property rights. There are the Owners, those who own those lovely hotels, tourist attractions and cinemas and so forth ... There are the Managers (or the Landlords), Petite Bourgeoisie, those that own the largest farms and wineries, as well as a few smatterings of those among the Merchant class. Finally, there are the workers ... most of those who work for the Owners, Petite Bourgeoisie or the Merchant class are almost always low-waged and seasonal labourers.
Another industry that is designated along class lines is the Auto Industry, which is a weakening, though still present concern in this Region. There are the Owners/ General Managers, the Union Workers and those who are unable to even set a foot in the door because all the jobs have been long since hogged by the Union Workers and members of their families. The latter group are often shunted off to work for places like call centres, large retailers (such as Wal-Mart) or Tim Horton's. Niagara's fathers want to keep the Auto Sector moving, even though its presence appears to be declining. However, the force among the Auto Industry is not missed by even the least observant person. Whole lots are being ripped apart and flattened out throughout the Region to do one of two things: (a) Create parking lots; or (b) Create more automobile sales firms. After all, we need to create an outlet for the Union Workers, Petite Bourgeoisie, Merchants and the Owners to purchase new cars year over year, don't we? It is this class of people that are probably the only people that can afford to purchase them anyways.
If you are somebody in Niagara that is not an Owner, General Manager, Union Worker, Petite Bourgeoisie or a Merchant, or married to one, you are likely not likely going to become one of them. Why? Because Niagara Region, as well as many regions of similar size and scope, accepts a very rigid class structure that is based upon membership to the above groups, or association with the same (such as through marriage) - but if you are NOT - if you are one of the one in five people in the Region who are considered poor, your chances of EVER climbing that supposed ladder to the next level are nil and none. It's the Family Compact or nothing in Niagara.
The fact of the matter is that job hogsmanship is very much of a reality here in Niagara. If somebody is a Teacher, for example, they are most likely married to an Owner, General Manager, Union Worker, Petite Bourgeoisie or a Merchant. They are less likely to come from single income families. These are the people that will have the vast majority of pension funds available to them upon retirement. These are the people who think nothing of taking a drive and going to a cottage somewhere north of Toronto most weekends in the summer. They usually have a backyard pool and their children are the first to get the best "summer jobs" the system has to offer them because these families have the contacts.
Unfortunately, these are also the very same people who are part of the new movement to "simplify things", "become green" and "give to the poor" (usually meaning African poor and not local poverty). They try to imagine or make the rest of us imagine that life can only be simpler if we all had our own little gardens and grew our own vegetables, cooked everything from scratch and cut coupons. These are all good ideas, but the one in five people I spoke of earlier are not: (a) likely to have a yard, let alone room to put in a garden; (b) have the time to play in the dirt to develop one even if they had a yard (e.g. most are working two or three minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent and feed the kids); (c) have the time or energy to cook from scratch; and (d) most do not have a vehicle in which to travel from one end of town to the other to "catch" various specials and use different coupons to save a dollar or two on the price of milk. Poverty is indeed expensive.
Poor people do not have the money to start and maintain a garden. They do not have the transportation to pick up the essentials for a garden, nor do they have the capacity to even retrieve free or low-cost items others may have for sale or give-away on the Internet or through the newspaper. Poor families in Niagara that do not have a car stay poor, regardless of how well educated and skilled they are. Employers do not want anybody who does not share the values and lifestyles of the Owners, General Managers, Union Workers, Petite Bourgeoisie or Merchants. Employers cannot relate to people who do not have an easy pick-up-and-go type of the lifestyle that they enjoy. People want to hire other people who are just like they are.
The expression "keeping up with the Joneses" has been around for a long time. People who have money have the means to compete with other people with money. People who are poor watch this happen and only feel left out of the game. The Joneses do not know that poor folks exist in Niagara, even though the Joneses may once in a blue moon drop off a non-perishable food item to the Food Bank or hand over a quarter to the occasional panhandler, but nobody in the Jones family or those who try to keep up with them have ever bothered to ask why there is so much poverty in Niagara Region, or if they do, why it is okay for the poor to accept their crumbs and not share the same opportunities for upward mobility that they have. People who are dual income earners tend to believe other adults come from the same background. I've met teachers that assume all parents can afford to send their kids to various field trips and pizza days. When they don't, the fault of course rests with parents or with the child who may not be "responsible enough" to bring in the required money for these things. Unfortunately, while our Board of Education pretends to respect all students equally, they in fact, do not. They expect low-income parents to beg for financial assistance from the schools in order for their children to be treated equally ... thus requiring these parents to give a type of personal disclosure that is not expected of other parents. They do not think for a minute that such disclosure only labels them as "damaged goods" and serves as a barrier for people to succeed in the community on their own merits. Receipt of "charity" is not as confidential as you think. People who accept "charity" are not the same people who get hired for the good jobs.
There are probably more cars per capita here in Niagara Region than anywhere else. There is absolutely nothing policy-wise or environmentally that is being done to curb the use of private vehicles. Niagara Region has a substantial amount of gridlock on most of its roadways, as well as highways. The Niagara Region is the only incorporated Region that does not support ANY inter-municipal transit. Why, do you ask? Because the leaders of this Region actually believe that EVERYBODY drives. If you don't, they assume there is something wrong with you. If you complain about discrimination in jobs, they say jobs are plentiful in call centres, cleaning hotels, picking fruit and doing other menial tasks, regardless of your education or career aspirations. Yet in the same breath, these same people complain about the lack of population growth and the fact that young college and university graduates LEAVE while they can. People do not use transit in Niagara unless they are: (a) one of the one in five people who are poor and marked for life; (b) mentally challenged (because we don't expect developmentally delayed adults to drive cars, do we?); (c) frail seniors (usually in their 70's and 80's); and (d) students, who are usually landlocked by student loans and cannot afford to keep up with the Joneses right now (though many of them come from these same types of middle income families from elsewhere that will eventually get them set for life). Unfortunately, this is a stigma that is carried over to employers and others in the Region, which has only further castrated our population into solid social classes and cultural division.
The reality that society has to face is clear. Not everybody has family support. I can count the number of my hundreds of clients I worked with over the years who are on social assistance or some other financial support who have families assisting them on my left hand. While this is true, governments continue to focus only on those people on my left hand who have families who are (a) available; (b) able; and (c) willing to provide financial support to their disabled relatives. There are whole workshops dedicated to issues like the Henson Trust, Registered Education Savings Plans, Registered Disability Support Plans, Segregated Funds, etc. To the vast majority of my people, these things mean absolutely nothing. It does not apply to their reality - because their loved ones may be dead, fragile themselves or they simply turned their backs on them years ago when the going got tough. Many of these people never settled into their first jobs and they are now in their 30's and 40's. Some have never driven a car. This is not going to happen for them without concerted and ongoing efforts on the part of government and community support organizations to get their heads out of the sand, to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses (as in my view, the Joneses do not need any more government help than they already get - which they do in fact get) and walk a mile in the shoes of my clients. We need to return the learning curve to normalization and integration, as opposed to marginalization and segregation, which is what we are doing so wrong today.
My clients want exactly the same thing everybody else wants:
1. They want to live in a home that is clean, safe and secure (e.g. poor people do not *need* staff to babysit them or tell them how to spend their money);
2. They want enough money to allow them to make a reasonable number of choices with respect to their lives (e.g. housing, food, transportation, telephone, entertainment, and support services that they choose). If they make mistakes, they want the right to accept the consequences and move on;
3. They want the right to continue their education, receive additional training and skills and have them count for something (instead of being blithely turned away from every job opportunity because they don't already have their own vehicles, know somebody who already works for the employer or belongs to the union already);
4. They want the right to access employment opportunities that reflect their actual skills, education, training and work experience, as opposed to low-wage ghettos they usually get referred to;
5. If they cannot work at all or are limited in their capabilities in working, they want to ensure that they have an income that can be counted on to cover ALL of their costs of living a reasonable lifestyle; and
6. They want the right to retire at some point in their lives without having to accept a McJob to subsidize the pithy government pensions they will be expected to live on.
These are things that folks with two incomes, two cars and an obsession with keeping up with the Joneses do not understand. They do not understand there are people who will not get to retire at all due to the declining value of public pensions (which do not keep up with the actual cost of living) or get to choose where they live, who their friends are or where they work. These are people who are quite often bullied at work, but say nothing about it because they know the only alternative is living on the streets, which is something apparently enshrined somewhere in Ontario Works legislation - that people in receipt of it should be pleased to even have a home, even if it is a garbage dumpster or a homeless shelter.
But most of all, this group does NOT understand that the reason that they are able to do so well is because so many others are not. Many middle, upper-middle and upper class families have the poor to thank for their positions, because if they had to pay their employees decent wages, pay the kind of taxes they really should be paying, or to cover the full cost of their consumption habits (like the poor seem to be expected to do) - they would not be able to keep up with the Joneses, or perhaps there may not even be any Joneses to keep up with. Other middle class folks, by virtue of their jobs, rely upon the existence of poor people to keep them in business. They certainly don't want to see poverty eradicated. As one of my readers, this should be easy for you to understand by now how one is ethically tied to fighting for one's own elimination if you happen to be one of those people who work to "serve" the poor.
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