MEDIA, LIES AND REALITY TV - On Telling our Politicians to Get Real

I have not written here in a period of time, mostly because I am trying to build my business and develop a broader client base.  At this time of the year, clients affected by economic crisis tend to strike out at everybody in their way and spread their hurt all over, including those that are trying to fix things for them.  One Christmas a few years ago, a gentleman phoned my office to tell me he had a gun and was prepared to use it on himself.  His sister ended up spending the holidays with him, though his words haunted me for a long time.  This is why I try to take a few weeks off at Christmas time to get out of everybody's way, not because I celebrate anything or care about the crass consumerism known as Christmas.

Anyhow with the advent of recent federal by-elections, we heard so much about the middle class.  I don't know about you, but I am frankly fed up with hearing about the so-called "middle class" when many of the people I deal with would be very happy just to belong in the "middle class".  The media has it all wrong about us. During the summer, we're all supposed to be going to cottages, taking road trips and participating in sports, such as swimming, hiking and fishing.  As voters, we are theoretically supposed to be too busy with our "families" in the summer and, as such, out of touch with politics.  In the fall, kids are supposed to go back to school and parents are supposed to be paying at least $600 - $900 on back to school supplies and clothing, while parents of older children drive their kids off to universities or colleges, the tuition for which is being paid by them.  I knew a lot of these kids.  They were just as self-entitled in the 1980s and 1990s as many of them are today, living off Daddy's trust funds and blowing all their money on beer and parties.  There are more serious students though, but we don't hear about them in the media, because these people are usually the mature students that go back to school, rely on OSAP and barely get enough to eat, let alone enough money for beer.

In a few days, there will be a day that is called Black Friday, which follows Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and this sort of crass consumerism has crossed our borders to make us Canadians think we have to do it too.  Oh, how we all are now suppose to drive across the border and shop and make an official start to our Christmas shopping ... Yeah, right.  WHAT Christmas shopping, many of you are asking ... I don't even have to be there with you, but I know many of my readers barely have two pennies to scrape together to do any kind of Christmas shopping, let alone have families to go to during the holidays.  Reality on the ground is too different than what it appears to be on TV, in the media and on reality shows ... even politicians have it wrong.  During the last federal election, I couldn't shut off the TV fast enough when the clowns running for the federal Conservatives were going on about how they want to offer 'income splitting' for the average family, which they say earn a household average of $93,000 a year.

These clowns go on to offer -- if elected -- and if they bring the deficit down -- a big expensive tax cut that will allow families where it is possible for one high earner to transfer up to $50,000 of his income (or hers, too -- but we all know they are imagining high earning men and stay at home women to be their trophy wives).  The man who likely earns a six figure income can then "save" on taxes by artificially transferring up to $50,000 of his earnings to his stay at home wife (or much lower earning wife), so he will only be taxed on the remaining income.  This whole thing was concocted by the false dichotomy of pitting dual earner families against single earner families ... pretending again, the old Conservative way, that women really all want to stay home to care for their children and not go to work until after the fly the coop.  Na da.  Ain't happening, especially since tying the knot with anybody doesn't come with guarantees these days.  Most families are two earners, simply because one salary doesn't cut it anymore.

The average expenses of a family tell us much more about our so-called make belief earnings that the media would like us to believe we have or can strive for.  I live in a region that is packed full of low wage, low skilled, no future type jobs ... all this, for those who have turned fifty, worked in the plants all their lives and now were told their employer is moving to India or China or Indiana or Detroit, take your pick.  We are supposed to believe our families average $93,000 a year, because our politicians tell us so when they are on the election trail.  I would really like to invite these politicians into MY life and show them what is real and what is fantasy.  I live in a house that is falling apart and I have no money to fix it.  I live in a neighbourhood that has been losing amenities right, left and centre - all whilst the municipal politicians see fit to continue to increase my taxes.  If this is the case, what am I getting more of?  Certainly not services ... we are losing our schools, so kids can no longer walk to school.  We lost the only two financial institutions that were here when we first bought the house.  There are no more family style restaurants or recreational facilities.  The west end of town also has no community centres, no supermarkets, no community agencies, no swimming pools (e.g. the one that was there was shut down and rebuilt in the north end where three indoor pools are within walking distance of where they put the "new" one, and those of us that must take the bus can't get to at night or on weekends).  This tells you who the municipality serves - people that live in the neighbourhoods where all the amenities are all have money and usually drive.

Over the past few years, the only businesses that can thrive in my present neighbourhood are hair salons, low end bars, pawn shops, tattoo shops, convenience stores, fundamentalist churches, as well as other "businesses" which might be less than legal.  Over the past two years, I've seen more tags on buildings, representing the settlement of self-identified gangs.  I hear more about stabbings and shootings, let alone the fact I had personally handled cases that arose from this neighbourhood resulting from families being firebombed, a Muslim man getting beaten within an inch of his life and a family whose son recently killed himself.  With the loss of the high school, I can imagine a sharp increase in drop-outs, along with an increased cycle of poverty.  This is why I need to find a way to get rid of my house and get out of here before its value plummets and I end up owing more on it than I get for it.

My dream would be to leave this region, but until that is even possible, I need to get at least out of this 'hood. I've noticed a rash of home sales over the last year or so in this part of the city, or shall I call it town (because we still don't get city level amenities).   Others have sort of stuck it out here, but then they are retired and are not going anywhere.  The rest of the housing is going to student housing or rentals, with high turnover like many on my own street.  Over the years, people have come and gone from this block.  At one time, if one lived in the 'hood, they'd at least see other people's kids grow up and fulfil their dreams and have kids of their own, and so on.  Unfortunately, this is not the kind of 'hood for that sort of thing.  Many times, I long for community and the need to be part of something.  The unfortunate thing is even if there were some of us in the 'hood that wanted to get together to do something about it, we have no place to meet, not even a decent restaurant where we can all gather for a coffee.  Isolation breeds alienation.

We heard so much about a certain 'crack smoking' mayor of Toronto, which has hit not only all the Toronto media, but international media as well, including talk shows, late night comedies, comics, etc.  I feel if there is any of that 'crack' being smoked, an awful lot of it must be smoked by city planners that make decisions, such as where transit routes go, where to locate municipal services, where to build schools, etc., but then again, the federal government didn't help matters when it chose to scrap the long form census and turned it into a National Household Survey which nobody really had to fill out.  Whole neighbourhoods, age groups, social classes and so forth, were left out, because these being the "prototypes" who will be less likely to voluntarily complete such a thing, city planners even if they aren't on crack still won't have a clue as to what communities like my neighbourhood needs or what it is like to live here.

While the media continues to talk about the typical "middle class" who all have loving families to turn to, more than one vehicle to drive, a rich array of community services to go to, the media also tends to portray the "other Ontario" in a stereotypical way.  The food bank, which seems to be another money grabbing machine, hogs a lot of publicity at this time of the year pretending to be the saviour of all the fallen souls and broken spirits this chronic depression left behind.  Certainly, they are not necessarily stereotyping the poor, but they're doing nothing else for them either, such as what I'd want if I were to even visit an agency like that, and that is, to be pulled out of poverty and be given some hope for a future in my life.  If all I am to be given is expired food rich with preservatives and artificial ingredients for three days and told to come back again two months from now, while their 'researchers' take down way too much information about me, I would just want to run ... run far away.  It's time we shut these charities down and started pushing for policies that work.

While I never had much of a family while growing up, I certainly do have and value a strong sense of independence.  That should be upheld by our society.  That doesn't mean, society should just tell people in their darkest nights to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", but no ... society should come together once more and find ways to get people out of desperate straits once and for all and to actually provide and promote the kind of equal opportunity that our current media pretends that our society still offers.  That means we need to stop pretending that everything is fine for most of us, that most families are pulling down $80,000 to $90,000 in total household income, or that families can go back to the 1950s and rely in a single earner and get all their needs met.  We need to stop living in the past, turn off the TV, put away that newspaper and start looking around you and talk to the people you see.

Instead of assuming certain people are certain ways because ... (fill in whatever self-blaming principle you think fits), we need to ask ourselves what we as a community can do to make things different enough so that the people we see who are in trouble can find themselves out of trouble and be able to stand on their own two feet, given resources that should be universally available and not just "targeted" to those "in need", or in other words, the "damaged goods", "the poor" or "less fortunate".  We need to find ways so we rely less on charity and the goodwill of others, as fairweather as it might be, to fill our basic needs.  We need to have what we all need in our own communities, our own neighbourhoods and our own homes what we need to maintain ourselves and live our lives out in dignity.

Until then, we must all fight and place the responsibility at the feet of our policy makers that want to make it hard for those who were not born with Daddy's trust account or one of the few remaining good jobs left on this planet, to get by and have a reasonable quality of life.  An election is rumoured to be held in the spring of 2014, and the last thing I want to hear on the hustings is how a typical Ontario family lives, unless those making these statements have met and lived the lives of real people, such as the ones I am talking about.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your thoughts?

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.

THE MOVE FROM A "WE" TO "ME" GENERATION

Let me say something here about this current election. It is a fight or a clash of values of Canadians. The rhetoric and personal agendas has never been so intense in prior elections, even the one in 2008.

I consider myself a follower of politics, at all levels of government, from local, to regional, provincial to federal. I also vote pragmatically, not ideologically. I base my positions on issues only on peer reviewed research and broader based objectives that have something to do with the greater interest of the Canadian public, as opposed to what is great for me. If I voted on the latter, actually no party would speak to my issues, so I probably wouldn't be voting or I'd spoil my ballot. But because I vote for what I see as the greatest interest for the Canadian public, that means I will reject policies that will only benefit high income earners, people of particular ethnic or religious agendas (such as the religious right), or people who believe in "my party right or wrong" (and remaining uncritical no matter how many scandals that party has been involved in or is accused of engineering).

I consider myself intelligent and well-educated and I do approach this election with substantial critical analysis. I live in a region that has a 12.5% post-secondary education rate, below the norm of 27% average across Ontario. Being one of the 12.5%is uncomfortable to say the least, even more uncomfortable having an IQ that is at least well above the average. With it comes a critical thinking capacity often lacking, even in some of the politicians. I also know that some polling research has been done to show that those that are better educated (at a university level), female and urban dwellers tend to vote against Conservative parties. Those with higher incomes also tend to vote Conservative, but this was strangely not universal.

My whole problem with the Conservative Party of Canada is that it is not actually a Conservative Party. The federal Progressive Conservative Party founded under the auspices of John A. McDonald has no ties to the new Conservative Party whatsoever. As a Toronto-based colleague advised me, the new Conservative Party is no more than "Republican wannabes" that desire to move our nation so far to the right that it loses complete touch with the people. They desire to become American. The current Conservative Party started from a western rump of dissatisfied PCs known as the Reform Party, and to some extent, the Western Separatist Party. This Party formed about the same time the Bloc Quebecois formed and for the same reasons, but philosophies were regionally biased.

The Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney ended up to be so unpopular with the Canadian people, not because of any right wing politics (as he wasn't really that far to the right), but because of its accent on federalism (as per Bloc Quebecois, aka Lucien Bouchard's departure from the federal party to lead the new Quebec-based party). As well, people hated Mulroney because he was the father of the GST, which he used his majority to cram through the Senate and use a special clause of the Constitution to add eight more Senators to force this agenda. Others found him unpopular as well, due to his blatant abuse of Parliament and excessive patronage appointments. (Does this all sound familiar, Harper watchers?) After he resigned as leader, Kim Campbell succeeded him as Leader and the subsequent election she called found the PCs with only two seats to its name.

With the growth of the Western rump known as the Reform Party, initially under Preston Manning, and then later under Stockwell Day, and the frustration among moderate Conservatives in Canada seeing a "split vote" among the so-called right, a demand to "unite the right" took place. The Progressive Conservatives were right of centre, but did largely govern from the centre. The Reform Party wanted bold new policies, including many that challenge Canadian values outright, such as the right to universal health care, maintaining an equalization formula between Ottawa and its poorer provinces, and maintaining national standards. Canada was also valued as a peacekeeping nation, as opposed to an instigator of war.

Stephen Harper was never a member of the Progressive Conservative party, or at least had any influence. He did however become a policy advisor to the Reform Party. As policy advisor to the Reform Party, he was critical of the Canada Health Act, as it smacked of "socialism". He would make presentations to various audiences about how Canada had to do away with the Canada Health Act and experiment with privatization. These remarks were not made in an intellectually competent manner, such as those coming from some health economists like Robert Evans might in trying to raise issues in how health care delivery may need to change over time to accommodate an ageing population, to focus on the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, to keep drug costs down, etc. Harper's proposal was to scrap universality, invite private health care, and allow people to carry private health insurance for the basics, despite the fact that private insurance will reject almost anybody with pre-existing health conditions (unless you are part of a very large group, such as a large employer like General Motors or the school board). He also attacked the vast majority of Canadians in a famous 1997 speech.

When Stockwell Day became leader of the Reform Party and was forced to express his allegiance to the Canada Health Act (or this would have gone to millions of voters on national television if he didn't), Harper scurried out of there to his new job as Vice President of the anti-medicare and secretive organization, National Citizens Coalition. The National Citizens Coalition, founded by Colin Brown, a very wealthy insurance executive, in 1967, was set up specifically with the goals of preventing the passage of medicare in 1967. While it continues to push for private health care, the NCC has taken up a number of other causes as well. One such cause was the case of Stephen Harper versus Canada, which was an attempt on Harper's part on behalf of the National Citizens Coalition to fight spending limits by third parties in election campaigns. Fortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada put a kibosh to that idea, but this is certainly an idea that Harper will likely take with him to a majority government.

Do Canadians feel it is okay to have large corporations fill the election coffers of candidates and political parties and "buy" off politicians to do their bidding for them? If this decision were to be reversed, say by a new law that Harper might try to pass under a majority, how fast do you think private insurance companies will be paying millions, if not billions of dollars, into a campaign to scrap medicare? Don't think it can't be done. In the U.S., where such spending limits do not exist, the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and other related industries have fought and successfully prevented Obama from reforming health care to enable all Americans to access at least basic care.

So, when the opportunity presented itself, Harper left the NCC to join the Alliance, which was then supposed to be more of an amalgmation of the Reform and some PC politicians. As the head of the Alliance, Harper asked why Canada could not join the Americans in the Iraq war. Remember that war that was sparked as a result of a belief they will find "weapons of mass destruction", and even when it was proven there were no such weapons, U.S. President G. W. Bush started the war anyways. It was the Canadian Liberal government at that time that said no to the Iraq war, and thus, possibly another economic sinkhole not unlike Vietnam in the late 1960's-early 1970's. Unfortunately, the Progressive Conservative Party under the then leadership of Peter McKay dissolved into the Alliance in the awkward merger of the "right". Harper's desire for war appears to current with his government's push to pay up to $30 billion on jet fighters, despite his concern about a deficit on the other side of his mouth.

The effect of this is that most of the politicians of the PC era literally disappeared or were forcibly swallowed by the merger. To add to it, the leadership style of Stephen Harper did not include any of the "big tent" style often valued by its former Progressive Conservative Party. As the head of the Alliance, he pushed a law and order agenda, and when the Liberals put forth the gun registry bill, Stephen Harper allowed a free vote on this, and he himself voted in favour of the registry, not once, but twice, before finally changing his vote for the third and final reading, to opposition of this bill. (Yet in 2010 and 2011, he called other MPs a "flip flop" for changing their minds on the gun registry - as hypocritical as he is).

Eventually the Canadian Alliance voted to change its name to more closely reflect its politics. In coming together on this, the new party's founders wanted to recognize the different members of the founding "coalition of the right". It started as the Conservative Reform Alliance Party, or C-R-A-P, for short, which was shortly thereafter caught on time, until the name "Conservative Party of Canada" was accepted. However, like Joe Clark and others, people should not be fooled by the name of the new party; it is just the Reform Party in new clothes.

The new coalition of the right made it difficult for the Liberals to win a subsequent majority under Paul Martin. However, Paul Martin did win in 2004, and it was then that Stephen Harper got together with Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Deceppe, and new NDP Leader Jack Layton, to form some type of "alternative" to Paul Martin's then minority government. This was in an agreement with Stephen Harper's name on it, and he certainly would not have signed such a document had it meant that he would not become the new Prime Minister. Harper will continue to this day to say he was not planning to take over as Prime Minister, although the other two players who were at these meetings, recall this was exactly Harper's plan. For him to be hypercritical of so-called coalitions today when he himself attempted one in 2004, is more like the kettle calling itself black. I am also certain that if Ignatieff won a minority Liberal government, Harper would attempt something similar. Don't kid yourself. Harper's obsession with coalition has nothing to do with this - he wants to keep voters' minds off health care and other important issues.

The Liberals were unable to play down the Adscam and Sponsorgate scandals, which led to Harper's first term in Parliament. He won a minority government in 2006. During his first term, he ran a relatively centrist government as he was cautious, not wanting to see the opposition vote him out on a motion of non-confidence. However, as time went on, the partisan games grew. Into the second term of a minority government, Harper wanted to present more of his true colours and play to his base, especially those in Alberta. In the fall of 2008, the global economy sank, at least in part due to laissez-faire banking regulations in the US and extensive bank bailouts all over the world. Canada still got hit, as did almost all of the western world.

In the fall, Finance Minister James Flaherty, the then see-no-evil, hear-no-evil and speak-no-evil (especially the "r" word), and Harper wanting to throw a "trial balloon" as a first step to his eventual goal of allowing wealthy contributors unlimited access to the electoral process (by first removing the per vote subsidy given to all political parties garnering more than 2% of political support), wanted to table an economic statement. There was no mention of job losses or even a dip in the economy in this Economic Statement. When Stephen Harper went on tour to Welland right after John Deere closed its doors to over 800 workers, Harper told the news media his priority for the area was to intoduce a ban on candy flavoured cigarettes.

In return for his denial of these job losses, Harper was then faced with the potential of a Liberal led coalition government propped up by the NDP and supported in confidence votes only by the Bloc Quebecois. Instead of facing the crucial vote that would have likely resulted in that coalition government, Harper ran away from this conflict and prorogued Parliament instead. During the prorogue, Harper had no choice but to listen to the opposition parties and his government put out the economic stimulus budget of 2009. While there was some benefit to infrastructure investments across Canada with the economic stimulus budget, it was too short lived to create jobs of long-term, permanent nature. Manufacturers were still bleeding jobs across Canada, espcially in Ontario and Quebec.

Some conservative supporters want us to believe that all the jobs that were lost have since returned, but that is not what most of us on the ground are seeing. Our unemployment has not dropped that much, and for those returning to any job, usually took a substantial pay cut - from $30/hour to $10 an hour. Many more people have to take two or more jobs to survive. I know this, a dear friend of mine who worked three minimum wage jobs to support three children on her own recently took a heart attack, and is now unable to return to any of her jobs, and will now likely lose her house that she "won" in her divorce settlement. I know several others who have worked for a long period of time, such as twenty years or more, for Niagara's major manufacturers and since their layoff, have either been unemployed, or working at low wage staffing agency jobs ... most of them have lost their homes, their marriages, and in some cases, their health. I met one of them a couple weeks ago begging for loose change on King Street. I could hardly recognize him, as he looked like he never shaved for a month, and he told me he lived at Salvation Army. Four years ago, he was married and working at a local factory.

The Conservatives are coming back to us to tell us to vote for them to keep the economy stable and strong. Because Harper would only allow staunch supporters into his visits, he would hear nothing from the people I see everyday and those who I see bundled up with several bags of their possessions at Tim Horton's, who used to work and pay lots of taxes. All they want now is a break. He refused to take more than five questions a day from reporters, and this includes the full campaign day, not at each campaign stop. If he is asked about health care, Harper tries to avoid the question. He does not want to vow allegiance to the Canada Health Act, particularly has he has not once enforced the act during his five years of governance, even when clear breaches were taking place in Quebec, BC and in Alberta, with the development of private clinics that attracted medical personnel from the public system to offer quick services to those with money to pay for them, while leaving those without funds to wait even longer with even less doctors and resources to turn to. Harper's position on health care alone should concern Canadians about his true intentions under a majority.

I ask Conservatives online to tell me ONE example of when Harper's government has attempted to enforce or even warn offending provinces of their breaches of the law. These people, because they cannot name even one time, nor can they prove that Harper will not scrap medicare, try to divert the topic to how I am spreading conspiracy theories, or even worse. Well, if I am, then they might as well include the dean of business at McGill University, about half of Canada's economists, most provincial governments, as well as even some former Conservatives that I know who have talked to me about this topic. We are all spreading conspiracy theories. All I can say is once they get their coveted majority, if they manage to brainwash or scare enough Canadians into voting their way, I will then be in a position to say, "I told you so". I am so certain about this, that I am writing about it here. I have never been wrong about these types of things in the past.

They key is how health care will go. Will he openly scrap medicare, or will he just let it starve a painful death? Murray Dobbin, who sits on the board of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, does not think it would be politically correct of Harper to try to kill medicare. He believes he will just let it die, and let others kill it, after they get less and less money to pay for it. Transferring tax points instead of transfer payments is one way to nullify the Canada Health Act. This way, there would be no way for Ottawa to financially punish provinces that allow blatant violations of the health act. Under McGuinty, we have seen cuts to health care, as a direct result of decreasing transfer payments from Ottawa. Health care used to be delivered to the provinces in 50 cent dollars. Now Ontario only gets about 24 cent dollars from Ottawa, which of course forces health care to comprise more and more of the provincial budget (even though the amount of health care isn't actually increasing one iota). We have seen de-listing of many treatments, including foot care, physiotherapy, chiropractic, optometry, etc. Many drugs as well as being de-listed, or only being offered in their generic varieties.

Canadians who are well off do not notice this at all. They often have gold-plated private health plans that pay for most drugs, physiotherapy, chiropractic, foot care, private rooms, dental, etc. Well off Canadians, although not likely the very rich, are those that complain the loudest about their taxes. These are the Canadians apart from the most wealthy that can afford to pay more in taxes. Most of these people have their homes paid for, own two or three cars, have live-in housekeeping help, go on real vacations at least once or twice a year, and can afford to pay their children's college or university tuitions. Yet they complain about paying another penny in income taxes. They are part of the "me" generation. In my view, they are so concerned about themselves, people like me don't have to be concerned about them.

The Conservative platform was analyzed by analysts of various political persuasions and not a single one stated that their "tax cuts" will favour families that have a total income of less than $80,000 a year (esp with only earner), or individuals with less than $90,000 a year. The average Ontario HOUSEHOLD income is about $80,000 a year, but this $80,000is comprised by more than one income, usually two or three incomes. The type of household with a single income earner earning $90,000 or more with an at home spouse, comprises less than 5% of households. Those earning $90,000 on their own are in the top 5% income bracket. The tax break reads that the higher earner can put up to $50,000 of their own income onto the income of non-earning or lower earning spouse. Well, the average and median incomes of Ontario individuals are much lower than $50,000 - period. Most people do not even earn $50,000 without having that much to "give away" to a lower paying or non-earning spouse. Most have an earning spouse, most of which don't make much less than they do anyways, or perhaps is not making too little to benefit this way.

I did a straw poll of people downtown one day. I just talked to people in Tim Horton's, at the bus stop, by the farmer's market, and various others who were downtown on business for whatever reason. Only one person I met admitted to earning more than $50,000 a year (e.g. a lawyer friend of mine, partner in his firm). Virtually all of those who were married had a spouse that was also working. When I read out the exact proposal for this income splitting from the Conservative platform book, only one person felt they "might" benefit from it (even though on closer examination, he wasn't sure when I showed him the chart supplied by TD Economics). He thought that because both his and his wife's income approached $80,000, it might work ... but he realized that he wouldn't benefit much because he makes only $45,000 and his wife earns $32,000, which is pretty close to the national income averages.

I also reviewed the tax free savings account proposal, where people can double the amount of exempt income to keep in them. I asked how many of the people I spoke to even heard of a tax free savings account. About half of them did. Only three that I spoke to used one, or had such an account in the past year. They were nowhere near the maximum allowable even at the current rates. I ask why, and they say they are only able to save so much money. A report by TD Economics recently said more than one third of Canadians are unable to even pay for basics. This does not include the broader segment of our population that is unable to save, or put aside enough money for retirement. This is a substantial group of people that can't even pay the bills they have, and many of them are deeply in debt. This is now, in 2011 ... for those reading this that don't believe this, you are spoiled rotten, and probably part of the "me" generation - only believing you pay too many taxes, that you want to pay for a Lexus instead of a Toyota, or a cottage, instead of just a vacation. Those in the "me" generation know no hardship, and consider these above choices the hardest they've had to make. There were not a lot of people I met like this before the latest recession, but now there are many.


After 2008, I noticed a lot of anger erupting from various corners of society. At one time, Canadians valued a "we" system of politics, a system that benefited all of us, and at the very least offered equality of opportunity and freedom from discriminatory acts. People would answer in political polls their support for universal health care and a progressive system of taxes; those that earn more, should pay more, with the exception that if a business actually does create high paying jobs, perhaps some assistance should be given to help the company keep the jobs in Canada. But after 2008, those of us that were still doing very well, and I know many of these people - they are *not* getting the income from the private sector, but are often teachers, firefighters, engineers working at Ontario Power Authority, road workers, etc. - most of their money is coming from taxes. Yet these same people complain the loudest about the amount of taxes they pay. Even autoworkers who have been bailed out by the billions also complain about the taxes they pay. When I ask them how much they earn, the lowest income among those that stated an answer was $70,000 a year (e.g. a police officer). But if I ask them if we make cuts, should we make cuts to the departments they work for? Oh no, don't do that!

They want cuts to health care, because people "abuse" health care by going to the emergency wards with sniffles. That's not my experience when I speak to health care workers, but their proposal that people pay a fee to go to the emergency ward will only keep people away that have real emergencies. So, I tell them about "so why don't we cut our taxes by stripping your gold plated health benefits coverage, and have you just live by OHIP like the rest of us?" No, no! Yet they are willing to cut OHIP coverage for those of us that don't have a choice. This has all come down to a politics of "me". They do not want to see any cuts in any programs that affect their employment, or any other programs they benefit from, but have no problems cutting the funds available to those that don't have the money or access to gold-plated public service jobs or benefits like they do.

Not all public service workers are like this. I know many teachers, nurses, doctors, and even police officers that worry like hell what will happen if the safety net is cut even further. These people are educated enough that some people will find ways of getting their needs met by crime, and feel that our public services have already been cut to the bone (which I agree to). I have known people who have been unable to buy both food and rent with their social assistance cheques, and it is only getting worse, that they live on the streets, and use their basic needs pay for eating out once a day. One of these guys is in a wheelchair. I don't even want to know what he does at night, or where he sleeps. I have had clients that live in their cars, after they have lost their homes, following job loss, despite 20 - 30 years with a single employer. Governments say they listen to the people, but I don't think they do. We walk on different sides of the tracks, obviously.

Governments are trying to resolve both ends of their problems, by reducing taxes for those that are graduating into the "me" politic, and cutting services to those that need the "we" programs, which is most of us really. Since the politics of "me" started, I have known more people to go to the streets to obtain the drugs they need to deal with what they feel is ailing them. To pay for that, they become small time dealers themselves. I have seen a rapid increase in prostitution among both young males and females, usually starting under the age of 18. I have a few of them come into my office, unable to recall their histories, because the street drugs have wiped out much of the "me" in them. They can't even begin to understand the "we".

The government knows that maintaining poverty in its current state is going to cost them a lot more over time than it will even if they spent billions to make sure nobody lives in need. They know the added costs to the health care system that is caused by poverty. They know that all, other than a very few people, in prison were living in poverty before they got there. Governments know they are throwing good money after bad, by keeping the resources away from those who need them the most. By enabling charities, poverty becomes entrenched and only allows the "me" population of givers to assuage their guilt for failing to ever walk in their shoes or even begin to understand recipients of these programs actually need. Yet, those in know among the "me" generation know darn well that those that receive charity actually do get nothing, not even the hope that things will ever get better - while the "me" giver becomes a hero, and can save a little on their taxes.

Those following the growing group of "me" thinkers just think if we denied health care to those that can't pay will save us all money when they die of their illness anyways. Do not believe this thought has never crossed the mind of our own so-called democratic governments. Just because they cannot take the weak, the frail, the elderly and the disabled behind the woodshed to shoot them dead, or send them to work camps, does not mean they can do the very same thing by attrition. Even if we adopt that attitude about health care, which the U.S. already has, we will be seen as spending way more money per capita, as health care usage per capita is only at its highest when people are at death's door.

Frankly, if it was all about tax dollars, it would be much cheaper just to provide the care, and try to alleviate the causes, including tackling poverty and malnutrition. I live in a country where conditions like scurvy, rickets and TB are not just issues of the past, but they are here today, alive and well in Niagara Region (as well as other places). These are conditions usually found in the very poor, homeless and malnourished. If people had money for food, and safe housing, instead of just $10 left after they pay their housing, they might not be as sick as they are.

Personally, I don't care about the people who live in the "me" politic, simply because they care a whole lot about themselves and just themselves, so they don't really need anybody else to worry about them. If I were in politics, I would be enforcing laws against tax evasion, and making it public who the tax cheats are. I would be encouraging boycotts of companies that pay little to no income tax. If those of the "me" politics want private health care, I will tell them to make a choice: private only or public. If they choose private, they will barred from ever using public health care, even in emergencies. They should have private coverage for that, and if they don't or get turned down because they are already sick, don't turn to the public and suddenly want it both ways. The same would go for health care providers. If they choose to work in a private clinic, they will be barred from receiving any payment from public health insurance. They, too, can't have it both ways. It is only then will these "me" people will realize how much these things really cost on their own, and why these issues matter to other Canadians.

There are lawsuits brought by organizations that issue tax receipts to those that donate to them. That means somebody else (including many of us that disagree sharply with the objectives of these organizations) pays the taxes the people that donate to these organizations don't pay. These organizations are unabashedly partisan and primarily ideological. They include the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Constitutional Foundation, and various think tanks like the Montreal Enterprise Institute, that believe in no government, just control by the wealthiest among us. Most espouse the removal of minimum wage, health and safety laws, and other protections for those not wealthy enough to not be concerned about these things. These organizations are paid for and run by the "me" generation of people who don't have a clue about how other Canadians live. The best I would do as a government is to remove their tax exempt status.

Fore example, the Canadian Constitutional Foundation has filed lawsuits against Ontario to force it to allow private clinics for those that can pay, meaning leave the rest of us with less resources. They stem from situations that otherwise have merit, but should instead lead to a lawsuit simply to make OHIP pay for the services that these people were forced to pay for elsewhere. However, that is not good enough - they want to take away YOUR access to health care, so these people can pay out of pocket to get instant service, while you and I will likely have to wait longer for less doctors to serve us. I have not seen any clear evidence from any peer reviewed resource that states that having a parallel private and public health system would reduce wait times for the rest of us, only for the wealthy that will get help right away. I ask people that support private health care for even ONE study, they come up empty. They don`t even answe me when I ask them if they can afford private health care. They just don`t imagine THEIR Conservative government doing that to us, but take it from those of us that are cynical. I would be frankly shocked if the Conservatives entered into a majority government and throughout their five year term, did not dismantle some aspects of public health care.

Now, for those of you who have not voted yet ... please read this to understand what our life might be like under a Stephen Harper majority. We will not have any poverty help at all, because as one of his candidates said, "Canada has eliminated poverty" (e.g. Chris Alexander in Ajax). When he did say this, he was severely heckled by many people in the crowd. Even if jobs are being created as we speak, they are more likely to be the minimum wage jobs that do not support families, than the type of jobs people held in the past that allowed us to have a middle class. In the meantime, if those who are making good money in the public sector, and you ALL know who your are, it might be a good idea to stop dissing taxes, as it is those very taxes that the rest of us are paying to keep you in your high paying jobs.

For thinking voters that still belong to the "we" generation, do what you can to prevent us from getting a Harper majority, or any majority as far as I am concerned.

CLASS AND POPULAR CULTURE

As expressed repetitively here, the two last taboos in our society are classism and ableism. Classism really comes to light when policy discussions around poverty take place. On mainstream chatlines, we hear about how 90% of those collecting "disability pensions" are not really disabled, how "welfare fraud" is so rampant and how people on social assistance shouldn't be allowed to smoke, own pets or have an occasional beer. Successive governments since the 1980's made it okay to pick on the poor. Well, shouldn't they all just "get a job"?

In addition to hearing these comments, low-income people do not see themselves in popular culture. Low-income people are not the heroes or heroines in the movies, nor are they the positive protagonists in popular novels. If poor people are portrayed, they are depicted as dirty, unhygienic and leaches at best; criminals at worst. The hit television series Trailer Park Boys, though portraying its main characters in many ways as lovable and sometimes deserving of our sympathies, they are also portrayed as small time criminals and irresponsible. "Ricky" is seen as a high school drop-out, a petty thief, a marijuana user and irresponsible, living full time in an old beat up vehicle. "Bubbles", bearing Coke-bottle glasses, lives in a make-shift shack built out of plywood among dozens of cats. "Julian" is portrayed as the smarter one, who has a real home in Sunnyvale Trailer Park, but nevertheless, gets involved in Ricky's schemes and he too, is a small time criminal.

Years ago, a comedy series called Good Times portrayed a black family living in the ghetto. MAD Magazine had no trouble producing a spoof of the series by poking fun at the poverty of this family. One example given was when the kids asked their mother what was for breakfast, she responded "a box of Corn Flakes". The kids then pointed out to her that there were no corn flakes in the box, then she repeated, "That's what I said, the box of corn flakes!" Poor families in movies were always portrayed as families with too many children, most of which were never properly dressed or fed, usually clinging to a stay-at-home mother that collects a big welfare cheque. These stereotypes have borne well over time and have translated into social policy with limits on how many children a family can receive welfare for, almost implying that the first thing a woman does when she qualifies is to go have more kids.

What about the news media? While there appears to be a lot more discussion on poverty in certain print media, such as the Toronto Star, low-income people are still portrayed as somebody to be pitied, usually under-educated, poor English, or if homeless, riddled with addictions. Those that give to charities, especially 'band aid' organizations like food banks, are portrayed as heroes and given positive press coverage, while those that must rely on food banks are either portrayed pitifully or somehow incapable of competing in our "fair society". However, in these same newpapers, even in the same editions where stories about poverty are published, three full sections of the paper depict luxury cars, while another depicts travel to faraway places and around the end of February, numerous articles about investments are published. If low-income readers are still reading the paper, they certainly do not find themselves in it.

This is only part of the onslaught that low-income families face on a regular basis from the mass media. Low-income families are said to spend more time watching television than middle and upper income families, because outside activities are out of reach for many of them. However, the television only serves as yet another reminder that they do not belong. Actors portray roles in sit-coms, movies and documentaries that perpetuate the myth that everybody's "middle class". Actors always seem to have fancy late model vehicles, or live in spacious homes. During the 1970's, the Brady Bunch, while trying to introduce the concept of a blended family, only served to 'normalize' middle class privilege. Despite this "intact" family having six children to support, Mike Brady (the father) was a sole earner and was able to afford a spacious family home, regular family vacations and keep "Alice", their maid, on the household's payroll. Later versions like The Cosbys, Married with Children, Family Ties, and even Friends (though this is about young urban professionals) and Sex and the City adhere to a middle to upper-middle class standard as the 'norm'. Even with Sex and the City making itself a movie hit on the big screen, popular fashion and jewellery associated with the characters in the show are now becoming a "fad". Yeah, must be nice.

Though many people do not watch television commercials that are supposed to give us a break from this steady diet from this salacious consumerism and class-biased assumptions, commercials apparently do sell to many people ... how often do you watch late night shows only to be bombarded with zoom, zoom, zoom (Mazda commercials), encouraging you to "discover Ireland" or to invest with Fidelity. Low-income people don't care about these commercials and don't have the resources to purchase these products, yet they are bombarded all the time with the culture-think that "everybody else" can buy these things. Regardless of how true that is, low-income people continue to not see themselves in these commercials. The poor are isolated, have no voice.

Once in awhile, however, a commercial for a public service or charitable organization comes online whereas we see children running around bone thin with fat stomachs and tons of flies around them, as we are persuaded to give a monthly donation to a "child like ____________". These 'sponsor a child' advertisements thwart the middle class perception of what poverty is about in their own backyard. Poverty in developing countries, while certainly an international disgrace, that is certainly a planned misadventure on the part of irresponsible governments and greedy world organizations that act as "lenders", cannot overshadow the poverty that is amongst us. We cannot become a country of hypocrites, although this is what we seem to want to be. We can't cry to the press about how we got to give more and more money and resources to "children in Africa", while our neighbours continue to go without and suffer irreparably as a result of constant financial pressures and food insecurity. We can't as businesses give huge charitable donations to food banks, while we pay our employees low wages, which only set them up to go to the food banks the boss just wrote a big cheque to.

We have to stop keeping our own poverty as an invisible vice of our society. Instead of going to demonstrations and throwing water bombs at politicians, it might be an avenue for some creative organizations to develop cultural initiatives that include people living in poverty, to give them a voice. Musicians can write songs that include what life is like for low-income people. Tracy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Grant, among others, already have ... make culture accessible to people on low-incomes, make it include them and who they are. Commercials may wish to include low-income people using a relatively inexpensive cleaning product, saving a LOT of money at a sale at Wal-Mart or using a no-charge banking service. Bank of America ran a few ads a few years ago that included people with disabilities and how the bank has made its services accessible. These persons were not portrayed as "pathetic" persons, but as ordinary people living ordinary lives who at some point needed to visit a bank. Inclusive design in cultural initiatives is going to be a tough go, but it is not impossible.

Movies showing a low-income protagonist living an ordinary life, somebody who is not illiterate, not a criminal and not a "mental patient" would also be nice to watch. The movie doesn't have to be about poverty issues, but it can show that the protagonist is informed, self-aware and capable of being something more. They do not need to run off with a handsome prince in the end, but a message can be shown that low-income people have some capacity and can be fully participating citizens. Perhaps, the protagonist does not have a car, but it shows her walk her children to school and watch them in their school plays. Perhaps, the protagonist does not live in a spacious house, but has a small, but clean apartment. The message is not only in the struggle, but in the possibilities. Perhaps, a story about a single parent on welfare struggling for custody of her disabled child against all odds, but in the end, love wins out. The movie I am Sam kind of mixed both the poverty and the disability issues quite well, leaving the protagonist somebody that anybody can love.

The movie 8 Mile also portrayed a character raised on the 'other side of the tracks' in Detroit, Michigan. He was white, lived with his mother who was hooked up with an alcoholic man who apparently abused her. His growing intolerance of the situation at home grew as his ambition developed into becoming a white rap artist that won the hearts and souls of Detroit's black community. This movie, starring Eminem himself, portrays the part of "rabbit", whose life played along pretty much like his did. Amazingly at the end, those watching saw how talented this man actually became. The most poignant part came at the end after he won a hip-hop contest against a group of blacks, his friend who encouraged him to join asked him to come back and play, as doesn't he want to see everybody look up to him? "Rabbit" turned around and told him, "I have to go to work. I'm probably going to do it my own way". Nevertheless, Eminem became quite wealthy with hit records, his own line of clothing and many appearances. While I am not a big hip-hop fan, I listened and learned that this man does have considerable talent.

Popular culture needs to show more of these types of movies, not only portraying the rags to riches story of Eminem, the fabled Matthew Mathers from the ghettos of Detroit, but low-income people just living out their lives, earning the little victories. The movie Nobody's Child, based on the life story of Marie Balter was such a story ... her life as a youngster, severely "mentally ill" and institutionalized as schizophrenic and highly phobic, ends the movie by speaking at a meeting held by the very institution she was in. She started her speech by telling everybody there, many of the same doctors and nurses who were there when she was hospitalized, that, "When I left this place, many of you shook your head and said to me that I'll be back. Well, today I am back" (she was appointed to an executive position at this same facility many years later).

Using popular culture as a way to "educate" the public is an effective tool. I once met a man when I went to college who used to meet up with my husband and I, who were then attending different courses at the same college, for lunch. He often joked around about how problems can be solved, make a movie about it ... to some extent, this is a very strong part of what I believe in regarding the way popular culture can be developed as a tool of sorts, in addition to all the other work we do. When we see people with mental health issues that do not end taking a saw and hacking people to death, or a Middle-Eastern man that does not board planes and hijack them, we begin to learn that people with differences are more like us than different from us. This is especially true if we have a chance to "meet" their families, their children and follow them through their day ... but, unfortunately, popular culture still promotes many stereotypes that do not help our work.

Part of the exclusion people in low-income communities feel is because they do not see themselves portrayed in popular culture in a positive way. As a human community, we tend to relate to many of the characters we see on TV or those that sing about their sorrows on the radio. We all want to be liked. We all want to have friends. We all want to belong. Portrayal of poverty under its stereotypes or not at all makes it feel like one doesn't belong; promoting products and services during evening hours on television that only upper middle class can afford makes the low-income feel they don't belong; and certainly, writing about poverty by giving admiration and adulation to those that give thousands of dollars to the charities that should be put out of necessity (as opposed to becoming a growth industry) makes those that rely on those charities feel like a burden, and many also tend to view themselves in the same ways that mainstream Internet chat groups do: that they are not working hard enough, that they are not giving enough to their children, that they are not a good parent, that they are not a good provider, etc. Let's start lifting the burden and empowering them to help themselves and to portray themselves as yet another colourful part of our multicultural social fabric.

By normalizing their experiences, people will feel less bad about what they are going through, as well as develop a sense of hope for the future. By further portraying realistic figures into popular culture, perhaps less people will be so eager to bash the poor and understand that deep inside, we are all the same.