THERE IS NO DIGNITY IN CHARITY, BUT THERE IS WHEN WE ALL DEMAND EQUALITY

In the past few weeks, the news was filled with tragedy, ranging from a massive flood in parts of Alberta, the bombing of the Boston Marathon, a train wreck of a freight train carrying oil through a small Quebec village and the death of more than a dozen fire fighters fighting a fire in Arizona.  With the news coverage, the public is presented with both heroes and villains, while both government and members of the community come together to provide whatever support the "innocent" victims of these tragedies need and deserve.  Some of these tragedies are natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, while others are sparked by human error like the derailment of an oil freight train in Lac Megantic, Quebec.  In any case, people are all around, while governments promise and deliver financial relief to individuals and families finding themselves in the thick of whatever happened.  Thousands of families returned to their homes in Calgary, Alberta, to find they had to demolish their homes or they lost everything they had, while there is community support to bring these families back to at least a stable position once again.  There is nothing wrong with lending a helping hand in these circumstances, or governments stepping in to provide aid when necessary, and for these circumstances, the public does not view this as a charitable act, but as a form of natural justice.

I wish Canadians and our respective governments would take the same approach to eliminating poverty in our country, which is otherwise blessed with wealth, resources and an abundance of talent.  In the above scenarios depicted, most members of the public view these tragedies as being nobody's fault, or perhaps, being someone's fault, but not necessarily to the point of finger pointing or placing blame.  Certainly, those who are directly suffering the effects of these tragedies are not being blamed for their circumstances and people all around want to ensure they are returned to a position of dignity.  At the same time, our citizens and government still don't get the dignity part of this equation when it comes to eliminating poverty.  We still want to blame the person who is poor for their circumstances, like they somehow brought it on themselves.  It is as if these people woke up one day deciding they were going to get sick and unable to work, or they were going to find themselves at the other end of a layoff when the company they worked at for thirty years slams its door shut on them, or they decide to marry somebody who is later found to be an abusive alcoholic and in order to get out of the situation, they must turn to welfare.

First, before we try to understand our hegemonic concepts of what creates poverty and what solves it, we need to discuss issues of dominant theory and privilege.  People have varying levels of privilege in our society, even though many people with privilege within the dominant culture are not always aware of how privileged they really are.  I wrote in this column in the past about how people who have both their driver's licenses and access to their own reliable transportation tend to take this for granted, especially in a region like our own.  They plan their days around their automobile, what routes they will take to their job or to their daily activities, and if they need to do anything else afterwards.  Drivers usually have a pretty good idea how long it is going to take them to get to different places and usually know to allow more time in bad weather, or if they are going somewhere at a time there are likely thousands of others like them using the same roads they will be on, such as taking a trip to Toronto starting out at 8:00 a.m. here and holding out false hope they will get there by 9:30 a.m.  That is why many commuters going there start their drive about 7:00 a.m., as they will more likely get there on time.  The thought of leaving one's job and picking up their son after hockey, and then purchasing a few groceries on the way home is a minor detail for most people.  However, take that car away, and the driver quickly finds out that their trip to work may or may not be accommodated by a bus, so a $30 taxi ride might be necessary each way.  They would not likely be able to pick up their son from hockey or make a stop over for groceries on the way back, unless they want to pay additional taxi fare. They plan the groceries for a day they do not have to go anywhere else.  As a consequence, the former driver realizes they have little time for their family, little time for themselves and much of their time is spent planning how to get places and when to go there.  That is just one example of how privilege is instilled in people; how people in a position of privilege don't often realize how advantaged they are until that advantage is somehow taken away from them.

In our community, most people seem to believe in charity and goodwill towards others.  People believe in these things because they naturally feel a need to "give back" to the community.  We are socialized to believe that we all come from some type of privilege and how important it is to "help the less fortunate".  There is nothing wrong with that.  I do not object to the motive; I object to the method.  The method of "giving back" to the so-called "less fortunate" is riddled with hegemonic ideas that are created by this same privilege and in many ways, serves to protect the privilege that people feel they have, as opposed to bringing the so-called "less fortunate" into a position of equal privilege themselves.  We give to food banks because we feel we need to feed the hungry, but rarely do we hear from the hungry about what they need.  We volunteer at nursing homes to keep an elder companionship, but rarely do we ask if there is a better environment this person could be in.  We support the development of "affordable" and "subsidized" housing because we believe that nobody should have to sacrifice their basic necessities for the high price of shelter, but we don't ask what residents of social housing really aspire to become.  We continue to donate to "charity" because we believe they are a "good cause" and in many cases, they are, but more and more, we are discovering that not all charities are equally effective at achieving their goals.  While there seems to be a growing awareness of members of the donating public about how monies are being spent in a charity, as well as how much is being used to advance the reason for that charity's existence, we have not yet come around to ask the real questions that need to be asked.  These questions surround the issue of what the charity is actually doing and if they are actually achieving anything for those they purport to serve.

I know these kinds of questions.  My husband lost his mother last year to a rare form of cancer.  For many months prior to her death and seemingly eternally after her death, he ranted on about how "billions" of dollars are being donated and/or granted to cancer research and cancer organizations, but there never seems to be a cure.  We continue to see people die from the disease.  One begins to become cynical, wondering if there really was a cure out there, how many of these people that currently work for these organizations or partake in this research and so forth would lose their jobs.  It creates an industry of its own.  "Cancer Can Be Beaten" is a mantra that was played over and over in my day, while today, we continue to have the same amount of cancer, but the Cancer Society appears to be replacing its mantra with other phrases, while millions more of us continue to die of the disease.  The same applies to diabetes, a disease I suffer from and relentlessly curse because of bad genetics, poor health and disadvantage in my day, but to no surprise, there is also a significant diabetes industry out there.  Many organizations "benefit" per se with the alleged tsunami of diabetes hitting our communities.  There are organizations to educate people with diabetes, dieticians to set up meal plans for people with diabetes, doctors to prescribe and treat people with diabetes, clinics to test and assess the progress of diabetic treatment in individuals (e.g. A1C tests), charities to raise funds to provide support and find a "cure" for diabetes, as well as bemoan the world over with apocalyptic thinking how ten percent of our population will soon be afflicted.  There is talk of a cure, improved medications, improved forms of insulin management, and greater knowledge, but no cure again for this disease!

This brings me back to the concept of both industry and privilege and how it deals with the concept of eliminating poverty.  People who are not poor are the ones that are currently setting up and benefiting from programs and services that are supposed to "help" the poor.  There are services of all kinds delivered to poor people, from food banks, soup kitchens, budgeting classes, housing agencies, counselling services, drop in centres, homeless shelters, street workers, etc., but no program in sight to help the poor become NOT poor anymore.  For most poor people, what is needed is more money.  Instead of spending "billions" of dollars, as my husband describes, on more "services" to make poverty more comfortable for the poor, perhaps these "billions" can instead be given to the poor people themselves and let THEM decide how to spend it.  This is not only a scary thought for those who work in and are in particular, paid to provide "services" to, the poor -- it is seen as politically untenable.  Yet when a city experiences a major flood, a small village in Quebec is struck with an exploding freight train, or the country of Haiti is struck with a god-awful earthquake, there is NO LIMIT to the amount of money and resources people think should be spent to get these people out of their straitened circumstances.  After all, they are there by no fault of their own.  I wish we would think the same way about the poor here in Canada.

As I said, nobody woke up one day to decide they were going to have a horrible accident at work that would leave them disabled and unemployed.  Nobody woke up to plan their spouse on leaving them, trading them in for a new model.  Nobody woke up to decide to become ill enough to make finding and keeping a job difficult, if not impossible. Nobody when asked what they want to be when they grow up, chooses "welfare" to be the career they want to have.  These things happen.  Programs like Worker's Compensation, Social Assistance, Old Age Security, Unemployment Insurance and Medicare, were created for a reason.  Unfortunately, too many people are buying into the idea that only if people relied more on their neighbours, their families, their communities, to support them through rough patches, and then there would be no need for welfare, worker's compensation, minimum wages, and so on.  Well, think again.  We were in this position before, and if it worked so well, why is this not still the case?  Perhaps, there was a time when capitalism began to show its cracks and we learned of its imperfections, which are leaving many people behind, either intentionally or unintentionally.  As our recessions become deeper and longer, the only solution big business has to offer is to cut back further on these "entitlement" programs, so that people will have less "incentive" to use them and just get a job.  Oh, if it was only that easy.  I always ask those that make these assumptions if they know where they are hiring the thousands of people that seem to have chosen day after day recently to be unemployed and dependent on the pittance they get from welfare or unemployment insurance.

Niagara Region was recently determined by the Adzuna Group to be the worst place in Canada to find a job if you are unemployed, whereby there are allegedly 100 job seekers for every job vacancy.  In the current way of thinking, the other 99 people simply chose to remain on social assistance because that lifestyle is so easy.  The answer they give us to cut these programs even further.  I have yet to see how this helps. Perhaps, if we withheld any aid to those people in Lac Megantic or to those flooded out in Calgary, perhaps these people will just learn to save their money for rainy days for now on and not live so close to the damn train tracks, right?  The pre-historic thinking that surrounds the elimination of poverty needs to be eliminated as well.  We need to fight poverty as hard as we fight to bring people involved in the above referred tragedies back to their normal lives to the best of our abilities.

We have to stop thinking about food banks and shelters and so forth as being the answer, but instead try to understand how continuing and perpetuating these sorts of programs keeps poverty intact and helps no one. Feeding somebody today is fine, but the same person will be hungry again tomorrow.  What are we going to do about this?  Are we going to continue to erode the dignity and prosperity of an increasing portion of our population by dividing our communities into donors/heroes and recipients of charity/helpless beings?  Or are we going to recognize that the dominant culture that we live in is as much at fault as the economy at keeping this segment of the population down.  Or is it that we fear that if we empower those we serve with the same privileges and rights to participate in the community that you and I have taken for granted will somehow take something away from you?  Food banks didn't grow out of nature; they were invented in 1981 in the city of Edmonton.  Since that time, this concept has grown and become institutionalized, whereby way too damn many of us have become smug and feel we are doing our part by donating to food banks, even partaking in food drives, thinking we are doing anything for those in need, when in fact, we still have not yet asked those in need what they really want to do with their lives, have we?

There is an important element of dignity at play here, which is something that we all need to keep in mind. We also like to believe that to continue to do what we do will continue to distance the poor and their problems from our own lives, to keep us in the privileged positions that we might someday be aware that we are in, but even this does nothing of the sort. We need to take steps to the elimination of poverty, put the responsibility for this situation at the feet of those that can do something about it and despite their pleadings to the contrary, can damn well afford it too.  That is, business needs to start creating jobs that pay well and investing in our communities.  Governments needs to stop paying businesses not to hire and not to invest, while tax breaks after unconditional tax breaks keep getting handed to them year over year, while it is so clear that there is a growing gap in wealth, the middle class is bleeding and that damned Emperor is walking down Bay Street buck naked!  Let's start asking the questions of ourselves and demand answers.  Let's stop assuming that hunger is "being dealt with" and that a massive restructuring of our society and our thinking is in order, in order for not only for us to maintain our position, but to keep the rest of us from falling further into despair and desperation at the hands of the one percent minority that none of us want to have control us.

Your thoughts?

BRIGHTER PROSPECTS FOR WHOM?

There is no comfort when a stubborn recession hangs through the clouds, as I walk about this region.  As I walk about this city, the familiar faces straggle about the street corners, the Tim Horton's and the bank machines.  On average, I am asked for change or for a couple of bucks three or four times each time I do walk this walk.  These walks are becoming more dreary lately.  While our city is admittedly trying to spruce up the downtown, one cannot help but notice the developing contrasts, potential for gentrification of housing developments, even in the downtown, which has already been identified as one of the many "priority" neighbourhoods in the Niagara Region.

My walk to my office as I start out each morning reflects more of the same old, same old ... and less of the hopeful prospects our politicians always want to get us to see.  It is not that the presence of the 1% in this region goes without being noticed.  I walk by places like Critelli's Furniture, which is located on the same strip of land and asphalt that includes many of our homeless and destitute and persons soliciting pocket change. Critelli's sells good quality furniture for thousands of dollars apiece. I note the quality is good, but who can pay $3,000 - $4,000 for one chair, $750 for a drink table to set beside a recliner or $2,000 for a mirror? Even many of my colleagues can't put out that much money at a shot for that kind of purchase!  For most, even one of these items cost more than they earn in a month!  In my mind, I ask who among the 1% would dare walk downtown to visit a place like this to buy this kind of furniture, while just outside their windows, the problems and miscreants of our society await. Across from Critelli's, there are two Japanese restaurants side by side, literally in direct competition with one another. I have friends that are laying bets wondering if they are both owned by the same company.  We also flip coins to see which one will outlast the other, which seems to be a major sport in the downtown area these days.  Betting any business will last beyond the year is risky.

The downtown corner where Tim Horton's is almost always occupied by people standing around smoking cigarettes and chattering, while across the street, a private college lets its students out at noon and at four thirty each day like clockwork.  I wonder mildly how many of those students going to that career college will find a job in their field after they graduate.  Maybe the concern these days is putting bums in seats, and not so much caring about how people will move on from there. How come I feel that we should care?  Life in the downtown is rather predictable.  I can almost tell what is going to happen before I even get there.  Once I am off the bus and start walking toward my office, I pass the building where the Landlord and Tenant Board holds its hearings, and dozens of people are evicted every time this takes place.  I have spent many mornings and afternoons in those hearing rooms, trying to bring reality to the minds of the adjudicators, trying to arrange deals for people that may be able to get a good start on paying their rent on time for now on, or enforcing orders for those that won't.

With all of my cognitive deficits imposed on me from various health issues, I sometimes have trouble reading faces, but I do know names.  Everybody represents a phase of my life, sometimes I yearn to return to, but cannot as everything I am involved with is just a phase.  I was once a big part of Occupy Niagara, which has sort of fizzled out.  I was involved in various environmental movements, meetings around transit issues, and various workshops on climate change, as well as recent gatherings about the social assistance reform.  In the past, I also participated in economic development activities and advocated for the small businesses in the area, as I don't see too many of them faring much better than those I witness begging for coins. I even had a hand in organizing a demonstration or two, which I might try to do once again if our provincial government insists on going the way of downloading administration of disability allowances to the region (which would be an unmitigated disaster in many ways).  People are silently suffering and crying out for change, though they can no longer mouth the words, as our voice has been squashed by the powers that be, imposing fear and anxiety as opposed to assurances and hope for a bright future ahead of us.

Brighter Prospects, the oxymoronic name for the recently released report on social assistance reform, tries to paint its recommendations as betterment for the masses, while I can't see this after reading the fine print.  I am trained to read the fine print and paid to do so by many of my clients - individuals and businesses alike, and being in the profession I am in, I don't see "brighter prospects" for anybody in this report.  I am asked almost daily and sometimes multiple times each day what is going to happen to "us", and by "us" the asker is referring to people who are on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). These are people who I successfully appealed their benefits claim, who I represented at the provincial offences court, or even on a charge of assault or trespassing in the Ontario Court of Justice.  They see me as part of "us" because I speak for those that cannot speak for themselves, or are afraid to.  I also speak for small and medium sized business and try to believe that hard work will get "us" somewhere as well, although I sometimes begin to doubt that as well.  I see us all as both sides of the same coin, all of us affected by the economy, the current endless recession and the increasing plight of bad attitudes all over.

Our government is almost positioning this report as the panacea for the misery all around us, when indeed it feeds it and ignores the travesty of legislated poverty, the globalization of labour and the balkanization of all of our voices alike.  The report was not written with poverty reduction in mind, but instead was written to appease those that want to see the deficit trimmed, as if the poor were recently treated to some big party of massive spending and now we need to retreat. The Commission that produced Brighter Prospects did not get the memo that the poor are not responsible for this deficit, nor do they care.  All they want is a home, a job and a friend, which Brighter Prospects offers none of this.  Of course, it is not a problem to make cuts, when you are not the one that is affected, or not the one that gets to see the consequences of them.  I don't think "Brighter Prospects" is going to make my daily trek to the office and around to the coffee shop any more pleasant; in fact, I will see exactly what I know is going to happen to "us" as the people around me are currently asking - I can only see things get worse.

Brighter Prospects is about putting people with disabilities back on welfare in some misguided attempt to erase the stigma against people on Ontario Works, which many of my detractors like to bash and punish simply for having bad luck and not accepting their just desserts while they fell. Adding a whole new group of people to this "undeserving" bunch is not going to make the whole bunch look to be less criminal to the ignorant populace, but is simply going to add people with disabilities to this very misunderstood category of people, who will only become further legislated into poverty.  There is not one recommendation in Brighter Prospects that frees people from this legislative trap. It is not going to put more people into jobs, because evidence shows that time and time again, when people are forced to look for and accept jobs that don't exist, they are not likely to leave Ontario Works or any other program.  When other media reports point out the growing number of young people, older people and others who have no disabilities or minimal barriers, or even have a great education, who are not getting hired, who in their right mind believes that employers will suddenly wake up and hire people off the social assistance rolls?

I recall discussions with many of the employers I have been retained by in my legal office, as well as those I have consulted with while I was part of the Employment Standards Development Committee, as part of the implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.  After they got over the fact that I do not have three heads and get around to finally asking what the AODA actually is, they tell me they simply will not hire anybody who has been on assistance, yet at the same time some have told me that they should just "get a job".  I often wondered if this employer in front of me is not going to hire anybody like this, who will?  I guess this is going to take a lot of time to change people's minds.  I am quite aware of the struggle of the small business owners in my region.  They need people who will help them fulfill their business goals and who are reliable. I concur. I take issue and frequently point out boarded up storefronts along the downtown streets, or large offices that have moved out of the downtown region, often to locales that are difficult to reach by transit.  It is clear that some employers know who they want working for them, and it is not "us" as my friends refer to themselves.  I then turn to the government to ask them how they are going to force employers to take on members of the OW and ODSP community and give them lasting jobs to help them get off the system.  I know forcing them is not the answer, but ...

... another call for consultations takes place and we are all back in Toronto to communicate with one another, sector to sector, to answer these kinds of questions.  I am at these meetings, where many large employers, business associations, employment service providers, municipal managers, as well as people like me, are set up in round tables to talk to one another about what the answers should be.  I speak for the small businesses that can't possibly be there who need support, who need to know what they have to do and not have it cost them a whole lot.  I am there for those with disabilities that have the skills and want to work, to explain how to close that disconnect which seems to be in the wind whenever we go to these roundtables. The whole issue of putting people to work seems to be the non sequiter, but government policy types want to know the HOW.  I always want to explore the reasons WHY first, then the IF, and then the HOW, for those for whom it can work, but we cannot assume that no matter how well meaning we all are (and I have no doubts that all of us around those tables is well meaning), that more than two percent of people will ever work themselves off ODSP, particularly with the rules they currently have and the government refuses to change.

Brighter Prospects has made a big deal about letting "social assistance recipients" keep an extra $200 a month before their working income gets clawed back at a rate that already far exceeds the average taxation level of even the wealthiest millionaires.  If our government suddenly announced that it will tax millionaires at the rate of eighty five percent of all income they receive, chances are they will balk and try to move to other locales that will not tax them so heavily for their "efforts".  So, why is it any different for poor people?  We are no more motivated to work when our income gets cut to the bone than anybody else, so using this strategy over and over again and expecting different results is insane.

I worry a lot about this region.  I don't see a lot of opportunities coming in for "us", as my friends refer to the group of people with traditional difficulties fitting in.  It will still be a recession for a long, long time for them, even if the economy turns around in Ontario and even Niagara is booming again.  While Niagara booming will be great for my small businesses, I still want the connect that is needed to make it work for those that haven't yet experienced the possibility of prosperity.  People with disabilities are promised things will be better when the economy turns around and when it does, nothing ever changes.  When the economy flounders, they are told they have to sacrifice even more to help pay off a debt they had no part of.  If the authors and promoters of Brighter Prospects really want to make things different, they should join me someday, as I get off the bus and walk my way to my office and join me as I meet with my people, and speak to others over the telephone.  They should walk with me as I meet with too many people who month over month seem to get their cheques put on hold by the region's OW office, the same office that wants to take over ODSP cases so the same abuse can be done to this group as well.

Once again I ask, Brighter Prospects for whom?

ON GROUNDHOG DAY, STALE POLITICS AND ELECTION-ITIS

Did any of you ever watch the movie called Groundhog Day? This is the one starring our own Jim Carrey? The last time I watched it, it reminded me a lot of where I live: Niagara Region. Each day I wake up, I confuse the events of the day with the events of the day before, and the day before that, and so on.

In Niagara Region, the politics is so stale, I could leave the area and return fifty years later and I wouldn't miss a thing. If it's not the same old people at the helm, it is the same old family members of people at the helm. Many of the Niagara-based businesses are family businesses, which means the good jobs go to family. It isn't hard to guess who the bad or low-paying jobs go to.

One can learn about the groundhogs in Niagara by reading letters to the editor. Apart from my own tinge of sarcasm about the political backwardness of the people here, or the fact that Niagara has not yet grown up and developed itself a transit service yet, many people argue about the Bible.

The Bible is two thousand years old or more, and to me, there is no point arguing about it. The book is read, and it is time to move on. I am not that concerned about what is in the Bible. If all people have to think about or worry about is what the Bible says or what it means, obviously they are comfortable living in a perpetual Groundhog day. As for me, I want change.

To me, it is not about the people themselves, although a little bit might be about the people, but it is mostly the politics and how slow things seem to happen. Getting Regional transit in place here is like waiting for molasses to pour in the bitter cold of January. In the meantime, people like me lose money because we have to go places too, yet those of us that don't drive are not allowed to do so with comfort, reliability and affordability.

I have often been accused of attacking drivers. Well, taxpayers (which includes ME too) have been over-subsidizing their "privileges" for years. We subsidize drivers on a per capita basis more than we subsidize people on a per capita basis for our universal health care system. We pay for roads, traffic lights, traffic enforcement, highways, parking lots, environmental damages of highway building, pollution and its effects, and other things that keep cars on the road and drivers driving, yet we pay less than 20% of this figure on subsidizing transit users. Transit users pay taxes too, and yes - when I have to take a $70 taxi ride to and from Welland, I am sure they can take some of that out for my "share" of the roads. I just want to get around without giving up my first born each time.

Other than transportation, there are a lot of other issues that Niagara is lacking for ... probably because it wants to still think of itself as a township and not a region or network of cities. For example, my neighbourhood that I live in is okay. I own my own home, although people think I pay less than most do for it (which is about $1200 - $1500 a month including all utilities and costs). It is peaceful in my backyard ... we have built a small communal porch, a sitting area under a gazebo and a waterfall, as well as a compost area/garden. Our front porch which is sheltered from the elements is especially nice. The neighbourhood is quiet, which is probably a good thing after I leave the wingnuts of downtown.

However, that is it. They are just wingnuts. People without direction. People without political discourse. We have as much if not more poverty, disability and hardship as Toronto, yet there are very few protests or even community meetings to go to in order to discuss these things. People in Niagara take it up the tail pipe literally.

I am probably well known in this community for my outspoken manner and devil-may-care attitude. Why? I've never had an employer that bothered wanting to hire me for my skills, so I don't have to kowtow to anybody. If I had a good job with a good employer, I suppose the attitude would have to be kept at the door, and I've done that for years when I did work for others. It is not that my attitude is bad, as most people seem to like what I have to say ... I am actually not disrespectful of individuals, just political environments.

While it is true that people create political environments, I just feel that the folks involved in creating Niagara's political environment have to try harder to make this region a truly inclusive one. When they hear from people like me that at times I do not feel like I am even a citizen with rights in this region, the leaders need to ask why ... and I can rest assure them that I am not the only that has felt this way. I am just getting sad and my nose is getting out of joint because I am losing way too many friends to other cities, even provinces, where they have miraculously been able to find work or fit in better.

There are a lot of beautiful places in the region to go to, but I've never been to see these places in years. One needs a car to get to any of them. If Niagara wants to stand out as even a tourism destination, they should at least provide other ways for potential tourists to get around, as NOT EVERYBODY DRIVES ... I miss the Falls. I miss the town of Jordon. I miss Fort George. I miss most of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Maybe someday I will get there if I ever get my bike back on the road. But for now, these places might as well be on the moon.

What about jobs? Niagara has lost a ton of them ... entire companies have gone under and sent pink slips home to thousands of Niagara workers. No "white knight" is going to come to the region to replace these companies, and any new jobs that come out of our "new economy" aren't likely going to pay even half as much. So, those of us with mortgages, payments, kids, and other expenses, are not likely going to want to do these jobs, unless we can do three or four of them simultaneously (which gives us a new meaning for multi-tasking). As it is, most families need two or even three incomes to survive. Try surviving on just one! Mine!

Well, Liberal leader Michael "Rasputin" Ignatieff has finally turned against the present minority Conservative government in Ottawa. He wanted to create this hairy ass election over ... whatever. The other parties, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats saw the nonsense in Ignatieff's move in his attempt to call an election that nobody wants ... so they sided with the Conservatives. It is not because they are now buddies with Stephen Harper, but this is minority government at work ... the particular ways and means bill was about implementing many of the popular aspects of the budget the Conservatives tabled last January, and by the way ... a budget that Ignatieff bought and supported (but now he doesn't support?).

This is just another example of the circus coming to town. We all know that Barnum and Bailey wouldn't make it in Ottawa, as there already is a "free" circus available to anyone at Parliament Hill. All somebody has to do is start singing, "Send in the Clowns" ... oops, they are already there. The animals are all there too, up to the usual parlour tricks, except they are all two-legged animals. It kind of makes you want to cozy up to groups like PETA and ZOOCHECK to protect the four-legged kind from being corrupted by this type of circus.

So despite the histrionics and hissy fit thrown by Michael Ignatieff in an attempt to push for an election that nobody wants, the whole tough talk that he gave over the summer seemed to have died down to a trickle. If I walked down the street here and asked everybody I see if they can identify the leaders of the three main political parties in Ottawa, I would bet the least identifiable would be the leader of the Liberals. Many would not even know how to pronounce his name!

However, over the radar of awareness is this new HST (harmonized sales tax) that is being shoved down all of our throats here in Ontario. It is supposed to be good for business, which I still fail to understand. I run a business. How is charging my customers 8% more for my services going to benefit ME or MY CUSTOMERS? They say there will be less paperwork. I don't give a flying hoot about paperwork. That's what I pay my accounting firm for. I am sure they aren't going to reduce their fees to do my annual corporate, HST and personal returns ... I am sure if you asked them they will tell you there is no less work in preparing these returns than there was before.

I am supposed to be able to claim more input credits. Well, what are input credits? This is something my customers don't give a horse's you know what about ... they just see the 8% hike on their bills. Sure I can now write off items that had PST on it before. Whoopie doo! Let's release the balloons. I will still be forking over more of this tax than I get to keep as a result of these inputs, or why else would the government force this HST down our throats in the first place? They have to be making big bucks off of this ... off of small business, off of consumers, off of anybody that comes through my door.

The government has PROMISED income tax cuts in return for us buying this tax. Who are my customers? About a third of them are individuals with disabilities, usually receiving an income that does not attract provincial (or federal for that matter) income taxes of any kind. The work I do involves making insurance companies, government agencies, large companies and other people do what they were supposed to do in the first place ... and even when we get paid in full, none of the proceeds are taxable to them anyways. We also have quite a few senior citizens on "fixed incomes". These are NOT the people with the GM or Teacher's Pensions to give their golden years more than just "fool's gold". Most of these people get at least some Guaranteed Income Supplement, and their own savings are either poor or non-existent, so I don't see these people paying much provincial income tax either ... but I am told I have to hit all of these people with an 8% tax hike!

Unfortunately, with this tax, there is no harmony at all ... so I prefer to call it what it is... the BST, initials for which you don't even have to ask. The Tories call this the Dalton Sales Tax, and the NDP call it the Unfair Tax Grab. Would love to give Hudak's head a shake, like wasn't it HIS federal Conservative cousins that just dumped $4.2 billion on the province to set up this new tax? I just don't get it anymore. Canada's politics are all screwed up.

Each time there is an election, there seems to be less and less people showing up to vote. I know that at some point in my lifetime, there will be an election called and nobody will show up. We will end up with a lot of empty ridings, as nobody will run either. So, we might just not bother with elections anymore. Maybe coup d'etats serve more of a taste for Canadians at this point. I don't know the answer.

But I think it is worth a discussion.

What about you?