LIVING IN A TIME WARP IN MY OWN COMMUNITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GETTING THERE IS THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY THERE

In the recent debate about the new Ontario Photo Card Act, it was revealed by the Minister of Transportation that four million Ontarians of driving age do not have a driver's license. To this end, there is a new enhanced Photo Card that non-drivers can obtain for identification and cross-border purposes, as an alternative to a Passport. At least somebody is thinking about this.

Unfortunately, nobody has sought to dig deeper into the problem. There are over thirteen million people living in Ontario, not all of whom are of driving age. If four million of those who are of driving age will not or cannot acquire a driver's license, we need to start asking deeper and more serious questions. The issue of identity is one issue. People that do not drive are deemed by many agencies and businesses to be non-citizens because they cannot produce the proper identification they require. These same businesses somehow feel non-drivers would somehow have a passport, but then again, non-drivers are even less likely to have one of those than any of the other forms of "acceptable identification". People who don't drive don't cross the border that often anyways, if at all. They cannot open bank accounts, pick up registered mail, identify themselves to the tax people over the counter, rent a video, etc. I had to threaten legal action at some of these places in order to access these services in the past ... but I still know some people who can't even get a bank account because they don't have a driver's license.

In Niagara Region, the powers that be have no trouble excluding members of this group, simply by ignoring their needs. They do not only use the same criteria for establishing citizenship, they deny non-drivers access to employment, recreation, access to low-cost shopping, education and other things. We are supposed to just accept that. We are supposed to accept our lot as minimum wage workers, or people who cannot access cost savings on life's necessities such as cheaper housing and discounts on the grocery bill. We are supposed to accept our lot as inferior workers, just because employers in the Niagara Region think we have no skills because we do not drive or do not have access to a car.

There are innovators here. It is not that everybody has their heads in the sand, although in my humble view, the leaders of this region do ... as most of them, like most drivers in this region, take this privilege for granted. They take the act of hopping in their car and going wherever they like in record time for granted, especially at the relative low cost per kilometer for costs. They do not even think about the fact that if they did not have the right to drive or access to their vehicle, they probably would not be holding the jobs that they do. They don't want to think about this, as it is people who don't drive who somehow "deserve" to work in the low-wage, unstable employment sector.

The message that non-drivers are low skilled or no skilled is obvious because even when the innovators act, they develop initiatives that connect more people to low-wage jobs than with middle and higher range levels of employment. The Job Bus that operated in our region until the recent bankruptcy of Opportunities Niagara connected workers in one city to another to low-wage hotel cleaning and dish washing jobs, while at the same time, the Canada Border Services Agency was seeking university educated workers to become Customs Officers at the border. No Job Bus was ever offered to take prospective workers there. Of course, anybody with skills above minimum wage has a driver's license, so we don't bother to worry about sending people to better paid and more stable employment.

The other message that non-drivers receive is that their time is worth nothing or very little when compared to that of drivers. There is some fractional inter-city transit operational within Niagara, but it takes too long to travel this way, and it is way too complicated for the average commuter to use. In order for me to travel a total of 12 km from my house to the Welland courthouse, which is about a 20 minute car ride, I have to: (a) board a city bus which is ten minutes from home (and takes twenty minutes to get downtown); (b) arrive downtown and transfer to the Brock bus (which takes another fifteen minutes to get to Brock); (c) once at Brock, sit around and wait for another twenty minutes until the Welland Transit bus arrives and transfer to it (and travel for another twenty-five to thirty minutes as it meanders across the region); and (d) arrive at Niagara College and wait another ten to fifteen minutes to get the downtown terminal bus to travel another five to ten minutes to the terminal, whereby the court is only a two minute walk. I tried it one time. With all the traveling, transferring and waiting, it took me nearly two hours to arrive to my destination, and I was in certainly no shape to do any work as I was completely exhausted! I can go to Toronto faster. The message to me from the region's fathers was that my time is worth nothing, so my efforts must be worth the same. And then, they wonder why nobody uses this route as a commuter option.

The only other option one has is taxi, which is anywhere from $60 - $70 for a round trip to the same place. Again, my money and time is worth nothing and I am certainly not welcome in some parts of the Region unless I pay to join the "club". I know of no driver that pays $60 - $70 for ONE trip back and forth between a single city within the Niagara Region. If this were the case, there would be a Third World War for sure, and maybe there should be ... as why should I be treated as an inferior entity simply because I do not drive and worse so, because of a disability? The most my colleagues pay to hop in their cars and take that trip to Welland is perhaps five to seven dollars, including parking. How does that make me even nearly competitive, if I actually charged for travel time (which I don't and I am forced to swallow)?

That means my colleagues that do the same work I do can take on almost twice as much work as I can for less cost. It is no small wonder that they have staff of their own, live in nice houses and most will retire with more than nothing.

One such person with an attitude commented on whether or not I should determine whether it would be worth it to remain in business. Okay, maybe that same person can point to me other job opportunities that exist within the Region where one is not required to have a driver's license and a vehicle and pays well enough for me to consider it worth my time and expense going to post-secondary education and other senior work experience I had prior to losing my license. There are many job boards if one wants to find work in Niagara Region. There is the HRDC Job Bank, the Job Gym, various company sites, public service site (although few of those jobs are for people living in Niagara), and the various classified ads. There is also word of mouth, but people who don't drive can't get to the events where word of mouth job information is shared.

Anybody reading this can certainly check this out for themselves. Almost every job that appears available to non-drivers is minimum wage or slightly above it, requires little to no skill at all (so why bother graduating high school if I wanted to work at any of these places) and usually has minimum to no benefits. My husband was given one of those jobs. It lasted exactly three days, not because my husband is a poor worker, but because they were looking for somebody to sell whatever it was they were selling to people that obviously do not want to buy. There are "good jobs" available, but they are usually only for those of upper middle to upper class standing in Niagara Region, as they usually ask for at least five to ten years experience doing the exact same thing elsewhere, or they want you to have a license and a car. Some of these jobs may not specify this, but they say they want you to work all shifts, which means you will be spending half your salary on cab fare to get either to the job or home, or the job is located in another community that you can't get to unless you have a car.

I had interviews for some of the "good jobs" I referred to above, some of them paying close to or even more than I used to make when I did drive. Unfortunately, they did not accommodate people that do not drive, even if the candidate can do everything else on the job. If you try to tell them how you can do the job without having to drive or own a car (and there are many workarounds for this), they just hire the next person that does drive, even if they have less experience or qualifications than you do. One has to live this in order to understand this.

I knew a PHd that spent five years on Ontario Works unable to find a decent job, until he came into some money through an inheritance after his father died. He naturally purchased a vehicle and within two to three weeks, he was employed. I know several other individuals who are professionals, such as teachers, social workers or technicians, that currently sit on Ontario Works or even Ontario Disability Support Program whose disabilities prevent them from driving, but not from working ... and they are punished for being in that position. They cannot earn and save enough money to escape from this area to go elsewhere where their skills would be wanted and appreciated, while at the same time this region does not want them if they cannot get behind the wheel of a vehicle to contribute to the increasing smog problem of the area. I actually count the number of vehicles that pass on busy streets with only the drivers in them, and vehicles of this type comprise over ninety percent of the traffic that is pumping out smog for me to breathe and pay for, while there is considerably more car-pooling, taxi and transit use in other communities I worked in.

My theories were confirmed when I spoke to some key people in Niagara Region, most of whom were employers themselves, or worked in human resources departments. In a non-consequential survey (and completed anonymously over the telephone), I asked the employer respondents if they ever considered a man or a woman for a job in their company that did not drive ... and if this was an issue at the interview, what did that person think was the reason these people did not drive ... For males, it was thought that if they did not drive or own a car, it was believed they likely lost their license as a result of drinking and driving or some related offense. For women in the same position, it was assumed they didn't really have to work and that they had a husband that was a primary earner and they did not really have a lot of skills, and sought basically low-skilled work. When asking if they would consider hiring a non-driver, most of these employers felt that having a driver's license was "necessary" for the job, when in fact a job analysis revealed most jobs could be done without a driver's license.

When I ask others who worked with people with disabilities or those who were unemployed, I learned that in one survey 93% of those who used the generic employment agency in Niagara (Employment Help Centre, September 2008) did not have both a driver's license and a car. Those familiar with people with disabilities know that transportation is a barrier, but unfortunately nobody does anything about it around here, and too many of these workers leave it up to the job seeker to negotiated these accommodations, which nine times out of ten doesn't work.

I can understand not hiring somebody without a driver's license for a job as a cab driver, a delivery person, a limousine chauffeur, a bus driver or even a residential contractor (that must provide their own tools). However, when I speak to people that do not drive, they are not applying for these jobs ... they are applying for jobs in offices, in stores, on computers, etc. that require skills that do not include chauffeuring people or goods to different places. They are still excluded. As far as I am concerned, if a person is working as a support worker, a social worker, employment counselor, therapist, or any other "people job", if somebody needs to be driven somewhere, there are plenty of taxi services available in the community which would cost less than paying a staff person at unionized wages to do this.

While not having access to most jobs is a major problem for non-drivers, governments at all levels at the same time do not mind extracting money from non-drivers for taxes to pay for highway expansions, road repairs, traffic conversions, parking lots, GM bailouts, and the list goes on ... and private retailers don't mind hiking the prices for drivers and non-drivers alike for the privileges only enjoyed by drivers for "free parking" at their premises. In one letter to the editor of the St. Catharines Standard, one of our frustrated taxpayer activists provided some useful information, as follows (Wednesday, September 2, 2009):

City spending and taxes are not 'moderate'

There is no end in sight to increased taxes with approval of the City of St. Catharines 2009 capital budget.

Unfortunately, 2008 financial performance results are still not published and we are almost through 2009 so we must rely on 2007 data that are available from the BMA survey of 87 regions/cities representing 85 per cent of this province's population.

In St. Catharines, the tax levy per $100,000 assessment is $1,615, 26 per cent higher than the survey average of $1,282.

The tax on an average bungalow in St. Catharines is $3,257, 16 per cent higher than the survey average of $2,819.

An average "executive" residence in St. Catharines pays $5,410 in taxes, compared to the survey average of $5,184 -- we are four per cent higher.

Why?

Look at our spending per capita.

We pay $145 for fire services, compared to $113 average. Cost of roads is $8,784 compared to $2,161.

Transit costs are $10; the average is $57.

Cultural enterprises cost $17, $6 more than the average.

Regional police costs $255 compared to $202.

Region roads: $1,407 to the average of $1,127.

Debt charges as a percentage of total expenditures is 6.5 per cent; the survey average is 4.1 per cent.

The average debt per capita is $608 and ours is $691 or 14 per cent higher.

The controller may claim our debt is moderate, but city spending is not and neither are our taxes.

Dave Bedwell St. Catharines

Pay attention to what this gentleman just said: The cost of roads (per capita) is $8,784, compared to the average municipality as $2,161. The regional road cost is $1,407 compared to an average of $1,127. and the cost of transit is $10, when the average is $57. In other words, Niagara cares only about drivers and certainly less about transit users. Their excuse is that "nobody uses transit", but the truth of the matter is if it was offered in a convenient and accessible format, people would ... people don't use transit like the convoluted commuter route I described above because it is too time-consuming, complicated and exhausting. I had a discussion with one woman a couple of weeks ago that didn't want to see "her tax dollars" to to get "five people back and forth to Welland". I just said none of those five people want to continue to subsidize her access to the roads either. It might well be nigh to see more non-drivers speak up and force the issue into the courts perhaps, as to why we are paying all this money to prop up people that drive, while people that drive pay little or nothing towards those of us that need another way to get around. Maybe malls should stop subsidizing drivers as well by making me and other non-drivers pay more for our grocery and other consumer items we buy there. It might well be nigh that non-drivers stop shopping at these stores in droves until they lower their prices and start making drivers pay for their own damn parking!

Niagara can also be considered an ableist and ageist society, as it is generally disabled and very young adults or older adults that are the least likely to drive. I read one study one time that estimate approximately 50% of people with disabilities did not drive. Older people tend to give up on their licenses as they begin to lose their reflexes or visual acuity, but do they have less rights to access visits to family, recreational and shopping facilities than those that do drive? Do they have to be now put in nursing homes because they can no longer get around and do these things for themselves cost-effectively? Try to tell THEM that and see what they say. How about people with disabilities? Almost all of them want to live independently. They do not want some damned charity to send volunteers to pick them up and drop them off places. They want to find and catch a bus to go wherever they want within reason and within a reasonable period of time and as few transfers as possible.

How about if somebody passed a law and said that drivers will only have access to the road between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. but only on a half hourly basis and after six, on an hourly basis only? If you have to go somewhere in between, you have to wait until the roads re-open an hour later. What if drivers were told they were not allowed to go to certain communities because there were no usable roads in and out? They would be stamping their feet, throwing a fit and complaining about how much taxes they pay and why can't THEY get the service they pay for? How about non-drivers who pay the SAME taxes, but are getting LITTLE to NO service for what they pay?

I personally don't think transit options will improve until somebody important in Niagara loses their license due to disability or medical reasons and then finds themselves unable to do their job because of lack of transportation. I don't wish ill on people, but sometimes it might take personal experience with this form of discrimination before anything changes here and people start to realize they need to stop propping up General Motors and other aspects of the auto industry and just start to consider various ways of getting around so everybody can access the community and all the jobs it supposedly has to offer. Until then, this current recession will NEVER end for people with disabilities and for others that don't drive either for medical or financial reasons.

Your thoughts?

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

The federal budget was what I predicted it to be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BIG OIL AND PRIVILEGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?

ACCESSIBILITY IS MORE THAN A RAMP!

In 2005, Ontario passed its Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), or Bill 118. The intent of the legislation is to bring Ontario to a state of full accessibility for all persons with disabilities in Ontario by the year 2025. Accessibility and measurements toward the same are intended to be taken in five year increments, with barriers that are easier to remove to be removed immediately, while other barriers make take more time for removal. For example, it is much easier to legislate that transit operators call out all stops to assist riders with visual impairments than it would be to make all of Toronto's subway stations fully accessible and barrier-free. While both of these issues will be law either today or at some point in the future, the AODA is moving things along to make Ontario an accessible province. In order to implement the Act, the Ontario Government is setting up a number of Standards Development Committees, recently which were strengthened with an increased 50% presence of persons with disabilities to participate as voting members. Each Standards Development Committee is supported by a group of expert advisors, as well as Ministry staff and members of the main Accessibility Standards Advisory Committee that is in place to advise the Minister, who is currently Madeleine Meullieur who also holds the position of Minister of Community and Social Services.

Standards Development Committees currently exist in five social areas: customer service, information & communications, transportation, built environment and employment. Each Standards Development Committee works within its own context, as well as works with other committees to coordinate the development of accessibility standards for Ontario. This is a very interesting and consultative public process, whereas at the end of the day, ordinary people from all walks of life with a strong component of persons with disabilities will be making law for businesses, transportation services, municipalities, public services, employers and others that interact in any way with Ontarians that have any kind of disability. The definition of disability is the same definition that is currently applied by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

In general, I feel this is something that is being done right in many ways. It is hoped by disability advocates, persons with disabilities and the organizations that serve them that at the end of the day, the new laws will be as broad and encompassing as existing court-made law and human rights law, using the same tests from leading cases and Tribunal rulings in a variety of matters. It is an exciting process, but because it is new - no government in the Western world has tried to achieve the same result as intended by the AODA ... so there will be speed bumps along the way. For me, the important thing is to maintain that key communication and consultation vehicle with persons with disabilities, not just organizations but *any* person with a disability that wants to be heard. It is also very important to ensure that input from persons with a variety of disabilities encompassing the full range of disabilities outlined by the Human Rights Code are heard. One of the issues I often encounter when dealing with municipal accessibility advisory committees (which are mandated under the Act for any community with a population of 10,000 people or more) is that the focus tends to be on physical access, but not the broader issues of accessibility that the provincial standards development committees are attempting to work on.

Niagara Region - for example - has not taken a broader approach in its definition, selection and application of setting accessibility guidelines and action plans for the municipalities affected. This is by no means a criticism, but it is something that takes considerable forethought and awareness in order to determine what the broader accessibility issues are. One of the main issues I have with respect to Niagara's determination process is that it fails to include a number of real barriers that truly hinder a significant number of persons with disabilities from fully participating and enjoying full citizenship. Transportation is believed to be only a barrier for persons with severe mobility disabilities that must be transported to medical appointments, then recently as an afterthought, trip purposes for employment and educational purposes were added. However, their eligibility criteria remains strict and tends to utilize an unworkable definition as to who is and who is not eligible. In short, if you want to become eligible for Niagara's specialized inter-municipal transit service, you have to be unable to walk so many metres (as believed to be the average distance between bus stops) or to board a regular bus (even those with a lift). When Niagara Region does not have a regular or conventional transit service to which to compare in order to determine such eligibility on this criteria, it finds itself in conflict with most accessibility and human rights standards I am aware of ... because to me, accessibility ALSO means AVAILABILITY.

Niagara Region is the only incorporated regional municipality in Ontario that does not have its own inter-municipal transit service. I have copies of over twenty reports written over the past thirty-five years that indicate that such an inter-municipal transit service is not only a good idea, but a necessity for the Region. But let's look at access for persons with disabilities first, which also affects other kinds of access as well which are also important. Most persons with disabilities are NOT eligible for the specialized service. From my last read, there were just over 700 regular users of the service, when during the 2005 AODA or Bill 118 Hearings, we learnt that over 50,000 to 60,000 persons in the region live with at least one disabling condition. In addition to the reports, I also have anecdotal proposals and initial evaluation reports of what has become known as the Niagara Job Bus. While certainly not a long-term solution by any stretch of the imagination, the Job Bus has led to significant enough numbers of people being removed from the welfare rolls ... it more than paid for itself. These evaluations were only based on the results of service to two communities, Fort Erie and Port Colborne. I don't know which vehicles are being used for the Job Bus and if such vehicles are accessible, i. e. have a lift and space within to secure a wheelchair or scooter. This is certainly an important consideration, but the long term goal should be a fully accessible, available, convenient and affordable inter-municipal transit service that serves all of Niagara's twelve municipalities, perhaps starting with its biggest four, then expanding west until all communities are involved.

The problem with Niagara's specialized transit service is that although they are now permitting trips for employment or educational purposes, I don't sense there will be a lot of uptake with its current clients. There may be a few, but an expansion of the eligibility criteria or better yet - a conventional service that serves everybody, augmented by the specialized service for those that cannot use the broader conventional system, will benefit almost all people with disabilities (and others). The definitions for employment and education for those reliant on the specialized service are also relatively stringent, leaving it difficult for somebody who works out of more than one location or may only need to travel out of town once or twice a week, for example, to be eligible for those trips. People with disabilities do not fit any mold, despite our broader society trying to impose the same.

What happens to persons with disabilities that are not eligible for the specialized transit service? It has actually been stated that they were supposed to rely on the mythical "family and friends" that are always supposed to step in to help, or use taxis. If the person is on Ontario Disability Support Program assistance, they can use a taxi and direct bill it to O.D.S.P. if the trip is a pre-approved medical trip. However, those same people cannot direct bill O.D.S.P. or anybody else if the trip is for any other purpose, such as school or employment. It is even more difficult for people who are self-employed and have a disability in Niagara. Because most businesses involve some commute from one part of the region to another, it is difficult for the disabled entrepreneur to function without having a driver's license and a vehicle. It is true that some businesses can be designed so that clients and customers come to them or the person can telecommute and work online, but this is not the majority. It assumes that ALL of the disabled entrepreneur's customers are mobile themselves and can get to the disabled person's home or work site to receive service or that all work can be done online. In my practice, about 80% of my clients can probably come to my office, but I have to visit them about 10 - 20% of the time in order to deliver service and without a vehicle, this is very costly for me. Also, because Niagara Region has implored itself to divide into north and south, we serve two judicial districts meaning there is no transportation available for myself or any of my clients to travel from one judicial district to the other unless they had a vehicle.

There are thousands of people in the Niagara Region who for disability reasons alone cannot drive a vehicle. The reasons may be temporary or permanent and they vary from person to person as to what the condition is and why the license has been suspended. Thousands more have been advised or cautioned by their physicians not to drive due to disability or medical conditions or have self-excluded as a result of a variety of issues, such as side effects of medication or chronic pain. Most of these individuals who have been suspended or cautioned do not have mobility impairments that would make them eligible for the Niagara Specialized Transit service. Many are blind which in itself does not make one eligible. Others are simply aged and experiencing the first stages of a dementia whereby they may not be able to navigate transportation services, even if they were available. These people are also not eligible. Others may have mental health or chronic pain difficulties that result in the need for sedating medications that interfere with sleep and can make it hazardous to drive. Some are suspended and some are simply cautioned. Niagara's physicians tend to prefer cautioning as opposed to outright suspension because they are well aware of Niagara's poor transportation system and are only likely to report if the health condition deems the patient a safety risk, although many of my clients will argue with that one ;-)

Add to this the obvious barrier that many persons with disabilities face with poverty, even if they have no driving restrictions. According to CAA, it costs over $7,800 a year on average to own and maintain a vehicle. Low-income people often drive vehicles that are in poor condition that require expensive repairs and may be off the road for lengthy periods. If they seek financing at all, they are unlikely to find financing at favourable rates and many are stuck into high short-term leases. Many low-income drivers that I know do not have insurance and many of them are driving under suspension for unpaid fines. These circumstances are for the "lucky" ones that can afford to keep a vehicle at all. Most people on O.D.S.P. or Ontario Works cannot afford to own a vehicle at all. Many can't even afford bus fare to get around in their own communities, although some employment programs (but not all) do cover bus fare for short periods of time. Therefore, accessibility concerns must also include availability as a key requirement.

In terms of employment, people with disabilities do not do very well either. As a whole, twice as many persons with disabilities are not working than persons without disabilities. About half of the persons with disabilities recently surveyed for the PALS Survey are "out of the labour force". While there was not a lot of detail provided as to why there are a substantial number of persons with disabilities who are "out of the labour force" specifically in the PALS survey, other parts to this survey and other unrelated studies possibly give an indication as to reasons. While some are simply unable to work due to their disabilities or health conditions, others report barriers, such as inadequate transportation, impact of employment on income support benefits, impact of employment on subsidized housing, lack of training for what employers are expecting, perception of discrimination against people with disabilities (while many have also actually experienced discrimination), caregiving responsibilities and so forth. There are also twice as many disabled persons who identify as being in the labour force but who are unemployed than those without disabilities. Among those who are working, some surveys have suggested that up to a third or more feel they are overqualified for the jobs they are doing.

These statistics are well-known in policy circles. Another study sponsored by the Abilities Foundation (and available in my office) that was also completed online and with focus groups asked persons with disabilities who were working or were in the labour force to any extent a number of questions. It was learnt from that survey that those that had jobs tended not to find them with the assistance of employment agencies. This also appears to be true through my own informal discussions among my clients with disabilities. One fellow in particular recently told me how many agencies he tried to work with in order to find a job, but none were successful in placing him. He did however find a job when a friend of his told him a particular employer was hiring, then he applied directly to that employer and was hired. He later lost that job only to be hired at another firm where he is currently working and providing the same type of service. However, for the majority of persons with disabilities, there is not a lot of help out there. This is not a condemnation of the folks that try to support people to return to work, but a reflection of how little their work has influenced the workings of the labour market, which is why making all these accessibility regulations are essential. This has to come from employers themselves.

Employers put up a range of barriers, often times without being aware of it. I have read job ads that were progressive in nature, high paying but when required qualifications were spelled out, several items stood out that would exclude rather than include a lot of people, including people with disabilities. In that same ad, ironically, is a statement at the bottom of it stating how they are an "equal opportunity employer". When I speak with people with disabilities, they generally do not apply for these jobs, because they fear if they raise the issue of access or accommodations (such as the possibility of job sharing, task switching, minor job modifications, etc.), they feel they would not get the job at all. In Niagara Region, we have a disproportionate number of people on Ontario Works (many with disabilities that are for some reason unable to get on to other programs), as well as Ontario Disability Support Program. It is also stated in Niagara Region's most recent statistical report that the rate of growth (or the rate of increases in the number of persons) receiving or getting approved for O.D.S.P. is also disproportionately high in Niagara Region. Our overall unemployment rate tends to be higher than average, as well, our average annual income is among the lowest in Ontario.

There are many reasons for this that people like me raise again and again to what seems to be deaf ears among Niagara employers and even to some extent, political leaders. When a company moves to Niagara-on-the-Lake, for example, where there is no transit service going to and from it, only people who drive can access these jobs. Other employers unequivocally require all candidates to agree to work all shifts, which for some people with disabilities (and others with care-giving responsibilities) is a barrier. Call centres for example have day shift and afternoon shifts. I have spoken to a number of students that would love to work the afternoon shifts as they have classes during the day, but these employers appeared to be reluctant to hire them on the real or imagined necessity of every last employee having to work all shifts. Others can only work days as it fits with their daycare arrangements. To me, something as simple as allowing some shift accommodations would open the jobs to more people, many of whom are likely self-excluding now when they read "must work all shifts". For other jobs, most of which are the better paying jobs, require all candidates to have a driver's license and their own vehicle. In a dual income family, this would involve a household owning two vehicles, which according to CAA's last survey, the cost of vehicle ownership tends to exceed $7,800 a year. This leaves out: most people on social assistance, many people with disabilities and most people who recently graduated from a university or college and are carrying an exceptional debt load. Employers need to *carefully* consider this requirement. These qualifications are not just for taxi, courier and delivery companies. I've seen these qualifications stated for a very broad range of jobs, from education, social services, public relations, business management, administrative assistant, legal secretary and many more. While some of this also means Niagara Region needs to improve its transportation services, employers *also* have the responsibility to ensure their jobs are accessible as possible to the broadest range of qualified persons. Bona fide occupational requirement is in part settled by the Supreme Court in several of its decisions, as well as some Tribunal decisions impacting on gender, disability and age. As a result of vehicle requirements, I know many people in this region who are severely under-employed or who spend significant periods of time out of work. They again may hold all of the qualifications for the job, but will self-exclude because they feel the employer will not even consider them.

One needs to ask why 1 out of 6 Ontario O.S.D.P. households have a university education, while at the same time, a politically incorrect but necessary examination of existing senior employees of the public service, non-profit agencies and regulated industries needs to be done to learn of actual qualifications held by all of them. We learnt from the high profile Walkerton tainted water affair that the top guys that were looking after the water supply for that community had no qualifications. We learnt of several privately run retirement homes hiring people with little or no qualifications to provide health care to residents. We learnt of some mental health organizations that hold the ideology that all that is important is one's personal contact with the mental health system as a means to qualify for a job in working with vulnerable persons. My own profession has recently been regulated because of a few 'bad apples' that knew little of the law and seriously harmed their clients. Yet, 1 in 6 household heads on O.D.S.P. have university education that is either not being utilized or substantially under-utilized. Politicians talk about critical skills shortages in almost every sector, yet very little is being done to: (a) ensure people who get jobs that entail responsibility involving money, people or policies that affect people are qualified; and (b) to ensure that qualified persons who are under-utilized in the labour force for reasons of disability, age or country of origin access these positions. Some of this has to do with the inner workings of some of these organizations, or what some refer to as 'organizational culture'. Some of it has to do with barriers that are presented and prevent qualified persons from accessing the position or opportunity. Some of it may also involve the need to change some policies, such as how earned income affects O.D.S.P. and C.P.P. supports. Regardless of the source of this "disconnect", it needs to be corrected YESTERDAY!

I don't have all the answers. However, I do believe that moving toward the regulation of various social sectors to improve access to all Ontarians is the right move. I don't feel it is happening fast enough to satisfy me, or many of the people I work with; however, I also know how important the educational and consultative component is when imposing these regulations. Most of these regulations will cost an employer nothing, other than taking a little forethought and planning their workforce more inclusively. Some accommodations may cost something (though most studies show the majority of accommodations that cost money are under $500), and hopefully - to be fair - if there *is* a significant cost incurred or significant expenses become necessary in order to comply with any of these regulations, that those who comply are consequently rewarded or given some kind of break or financial assistance in order to assist them in meeting their requirements.

This is not rocket science. Ontario is trying to move beyond the 21st Century. It is hoping we will be there by 2025, a long ways away -- but it hopes to make incremental changes that will be noticeable as we reach that stage. Niagara has to move beyond the nineteenth century and open its eyes to opportunities that are here within the region already ... or risk the very people who are currently feeling excluded moving away and leaving it in the dust for years to come. The time is NOW for progress. The time is NOW to act. The time for defining accessibility beyond the obvious physical barriers in all aspects of its operations and sphere of influence is NOW. I speak for many of those who 'self-exclude'. Because for most of them, they feel if they approach an employer to ask if accommodations can be made regarding a listed requirement, they will NOT get the job. That's why they don't ask. That's why more and more people are relying on O.D.S.P. or staying on Ontario Works or switching between Ontario Works and low-wage temporary employment. The issue is that because more and more people -- up to one third of the labour force are involved in precarious arrangements (and becoming more common every year) - means there are less taxes being paid and less money will be around in a short period of time when we will need it to finance our future and ageing population. The time is NOW to think ahead. The time is NOW to include, accommodate and facilitate ... because our future is NOW.

Your thoughts?

SKIRTING THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH

By now, all of my readers likely heard about former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore's fanciful tour about the planet ranting on and on about the "inconvenient truth"; how global warming and climate change is all our fault and that it is pretty well too late. The planet is doomed.

Nevertheless, despite this gloom, more and more of us are becoming "green". We are joining the "green train" of sorts, whereas everything we buy, ingest, bathe in, drive or ride in, or become a part of must be environmentally correct. That is, we must reprimand fast food outlets that dare to still use styrofoam packaging for their high trans-fat treats they continue to sell unabated to a knowing, but evasive population. The least they can do is wrap their toxins in biodegradable packaging!

At the same time, most of us continue to drive our cars to these fat food places, use their drive throughs, idle our engines to no end and as we leave, we bitch to the passengers beside us about the high gas prices. In fact, people like this are all over the Internet. People are becoming quite manic about the rising price of gas, yet at the same time they do not blink an eye when they drive their SUVs to the corner store or around the block to their children's school. Nobody walks or takes the bus anymore. The interesting thing is none of these folks seem to associate the rising rate of obesity among certain populations with this very behaviour.

Once, a friend of mine tried to get me to pass along a major protest against gas prices to other people on my address list. They wanted EVERYBODY to boycott the big oil companies and only use "independent" gas retailers during some specified day or week or month or so. I wrote my friend back to tell them the only way the price of gas is going to come down is if people drive less. Gas is like a drug. People use gas for almost anything. We heat our homes with it, drive our cars with it, power our lawn mowers with it, operate our boats with it, etc. It just seems to me whenever I tell people that the ONLY way to cut the price of gas is to drive less, they get into a real frenzy. Well, as long as people are addicted to the wheels of their car, the suppliers of fuel will hike their prices to whatever they think people will pay to keep this circus moving along.

There are websites like http://www.torontogasprices.com/ and http://www.gastips.com/ that allegedly tell people via the web where the cheapest gas prices are in town, encouraging every man, woman or small child in a gas powered trike to drive over there to fill up. That is also stupid too, because all you are doing is increasing demand at that one source, which will eventually have to hike their own prices imminently to protect their supply. Are we really being smart anyways with all these gas price protests? When we learn that all of our petty protests fail to bring gas prices down, we turn to the government. Can politicians *really* do something about the price of gas? Put it another way. Can government *really* control the prices of anything else, ranging from chocolate bars to ice cream to clothing to furniture? If they can't do anything about these other prices, why do people think the government can wave it's invisible hand over the gas markets and force the prices down? Bad news, folks. Gas prices are expected to go up even further.

So, people - we are facing another inconvenient truth. We are facing the truth about the price of ownership and operation of motor vehicles. At one time, Henry Ford stated with pride about how he can reproduce his product more efficiently and cheaply by inventing the assembly line ... but today, we need to question why so many gas guzzlers are still coming off the line and why so many people are still buying them. Somebody told me that gas guzzling cars like SUVs and Hummers have actually increased their sales by over 20% over the year prior ... and yes, right after we were shown Al Gore's piece of rhetoric, many people just went out and did what they want anyways. That is probably why people like Gore say it is too late.

What about other things that people do to waste environmental resources? I walk up and down our main drag several times a day to meet with clients, check on existing files, take pictures (where relevant to a case), or do banking. In addition to the usual assembly line of dope deals and graffiti artists that run when they see me coming, I notice variety stores that continue to keep their air conditioning on full blast and keep their front doors wide open ... symbolically, I suppose, in a lame attempt to lower the temperature of the outside. Sorry, that isn't going to work. I also notice large garbage bins behind many business establishments that contain way too many recycleables for my liking. I've seen the following items being disposed destined for our landfills: old computer monitors, old floppy disks, burnt out light bulbs, plastic grocery bags, radios, televisions, organics, etc. Obviously, 90% of us do not practice the 3 R's: reduce, reuse and recycle.

Further along, I walk into our friendly neighbourhood courthouse to drop off some documents. After passing through security and avoiding the body cavity searches one more time, I approach the civil counter and find myself freezing all of a sudden. The court clerks all have coats on and people are running around wearing mitts and gloves ... I was surprised nobody tried to start an indoor snowball fight! There's no need for air conditioning to be kept at such low levels that winter-time memories are so near. Christmas is over. Give it a rest.

I then walk towards my bank. On my way naturally, I encounter the friendly neighbourhood hot dog man who uses natural gas to fuel his grill. I ask him about his suppliers. He told me he found a fine place in a city an hour's drive from here. Hmmm, there are no local suppliers? Anyways, I ordered a grilled sausage with all the fixings and a diet Coke and walked away. I ate on the run; after all, I do have to burn off the calories I am taking in with something, right? By the time I reached my bank, I noted there were no trash cans around to put the napkin and the Coke can away, so I walked a few metres to find one that was overflowing, leaving more on the ground than in the actual can. Recycling bins are nowhere to be seen, of course. It must be the city workers' day off.

At the bank, I grab enough cash so that I can go grocery shopping the next day. I then stop on my way back to my office at the office supplies store across the way. I pick up a number of items (on plastic as usual), including a toner cartridge (something that seems to perpetually run out, even in my laser printer), more pens (because clients perpetually steal them from the office when I have them in to sign documents), more disks and CDs, as well as a table fan. It seems the people that run my building don't believe in air conditioning, so I have to use my own air cooler (which by the way takes up more kilowatt hours than a regular air conditioner, but I have no choice). I then drop off the items to my office, take a sugar-free Red Bull drink from my small efficiency fridge and drink it to catch up on sleep I never get.

My office is on a street that time forgot. The downtown revitalization types believe that all we need to do is make St. Paul Street two ways again, instead of the one way traffic direction it is now. I don't see how that will help, other than give people an opportunity to see old, broken down buildings, graffiti and the engrained drug culture of the Garbage City two ways instead of only one. Besides that, I know from riding the bus that this street isn't even wide enough. One way traffic is difficult enough to manage with the hoards of delivery vans, people trying to park and others on foot trying to cross the street. If it becomes two way, cyclists will only drive their bikes more often on the sidewalk, which only further marginalizes pedestrians. This will only make St. Paul Street even more unsafe than it already is, which to me, only drives people away from downtown instead of attracting them to downtown. The two-way street advocates claim this is good for the wine route. In my view, would this not be better to be rebuilt into a pedestrian roadway instead of reverting to two-way traffic? The last time I heard, it was not safe to drink and drive anyways.

After my day is done, I go home. I usually walk home or bus it home. I do have a bus pass, so I never have to dig for change when I need to get on. If I do work late or the weather is inclement, I use a cab, as it is fifteen minutes from the nearest bus stop to my house. I wish other people used the bus too; if they did, the bus service would be more frequent and have more routes covering a larger geographic area. However, because no matter what public transit is available in our region, people still insist on polluting the environment with their SUVs and Hummers, while the rest of us have to breathe the air and put up with their "road hogging" behaviour, even when pedestrians or cyclists lawfully have the right of way.

Anyhow, the next day I do my grocery shopping. I don't have a grocery store in my neighbourhood (because I choose to live far away from certain parts of civilization I tolerate each day at the office). Therefore, we have to either take a bus to the grocery store - which is hefty if all of us go. It is cheaper and probably better for my waistline if we walked, although the walk can be forty-five minutes in length. The interesting thing is that our government and public health people try to cram down our throats that we MUST eat more fruits and vegetables and keep our shopping to the outer tier of the aisles. I live in a Region that includes a substantial number of farmers and agricultural businesses. Niagara's tender fruit industry is among the best known in the world. These same farms also produce a full range of vegetables as well. However, when you set foot in the grocery store, do we see any Niagara fruits and vegetables for sale? Of course, not!

We are told we can travel (meaning only drive) to Vineland or Jordan or Merritville Highway or wherever else to find ubiquitous fruit and vegetable stands put out by farmers or go to various markets located on the other side of Fourth Avenue or downtown as well. This is not practical unless you have a vehicle, which again is polluting the air as you get to the fruits and vegetables that are locally grown, so if you don't drive you are stuck purchasing fruits and vegetables that have been transported from even further away in order to get our daily requirements. Greenhouse gases increase the further one must drive to deliver what they have to deliver. Grocery stores that call themselves "fresh" anywhere in their name are lying to you.

Anyhow, it doesn't really matter what you eat anyways. You have to wash everything off the best you can, unless you can afford to purchase 100% organic product - however, even the term "organic" can't be relied upon anymore. In my household, we frequently run out of food before the next grocery day, two weeks' away. I will simply not purchase anything in between. It is the fault of people who eat too much during the first week if it can't last during the second week. Try to live on a budget for $850-$1,000 per month for groceries, only to have them run out on you before the end of the first week. I end up having to get fresh fruits and vegetables from the market uptown, or from the corner store, as I have to eat properly even if others in my household choose not to.

But, everybody wants to go "green", I hear. That could have fooled me. Until the day I see packed buses taking people to every corner of this city and this region, with less cars on the road and less use of fossil fuels for things like air conditioning to be blown full-blast to the great outdoors, I will believe this Inconvenient Truth is only too inconvenient for those among us that have the money to blow on higher fuel costs anyways, though it continues to be the Canadian way to bitch about these things, but do nothing. Personally, I wouldn't mind if gas for cars went up to $5 a litre, with an exemption only for those that use their vehicles for business or courier purposes. In many European countries, gas is running at about $3 -$4 a litre and probably getting higher; in addition, many of these same cities charge toll fees for private automobiles coming into the city. If our cities suddenly decided to take this turn and use the extra fees towards transit, people would throw a fit ... the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution would mean nothing at that point. We would be taking the drug away from the addicts to a point that there would have to be a black market somewhere.

Our own Region wants to extend two different highways, add more lanes, as well as get the province to increase the number of lanes from four to eight on the Queen Elizabeth Way, as well as build a brand new Niagara-GTA corridor at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. To me, it just means more smog in the air for me to breathe, not a good thing for a region that already has a higher proportion of persons suffering from respiratory conditions, as well as more tax dollars sucked away from people like me for things I will not likely use. Big box stores will continue to dominate the market, forcing more and more people to stay in their cars to go to shop. Parking is "free" or so they think. Yet, people like me pay the same prices as those who park their cars at the same stores ... even though I didn't benefit from the "free parking" that I indirectly paid for like they did. People who drive continuously bitch that people that use transit do not cover the full cost of fares; yet, those who drive do not even come close to covering the true cost of their own addiction. Someday, I may just ask for my money back.

But then again, the Truth that I am telling you may just be too inconvenient for you to understand. You may be "green" in principle, but know absolutely nothing about what it means to actually BE "green". As Al Gore said, it may already be too late ...