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.

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY - LESSONS LEARNED

Last weekend, I finally had the opportunity to pick up my own copy of Michael Moore's latest movie Capitalism: A Love Story. I watched it three times since, and others in my family enjoyed it too! My favourite part was when it showed Moore wrapping several buildings in New York's financial district with crime scene tape, and as people go by it, others crawl under it, others smile and wave at him, until finally, he takes his bullhorn and shouts out, "I'm making a citizen's arrest. Please come out of the building now. I hear federal prison is a nice place."

The movie is about how the stock market crashed in the U.S. and how the banking system collapsed, all as a result of deregulation and watchdogs becoming lapdogs. Many different items were covered ranging from the Dead Peasants insurance, which many people did not know about, probably until this was exposed. This is an insurance policy taken out by your employer and when you die, your employer gets paid off hundreds of thousands of dollars as its "beneficiary". Deregulation made it easy for banks to hike interest rates, then throw people out of their homes. Employers would close up shop, leaving their employees with nothing. It is an interesting watch - something people need to be aware of when we leave too much up to politicians who are beholden to large corporations. In the case of the executive branch under George Bush, several of the top people were from finance companies like Goldman Sachs; naturally, certain companies were favoured when the banks were bailed out over there.

What was good about this is that it also showed American citizens fighting back. When a couple dozen top staffers of AIG got million dollars bonuses after they were bailed out by taxpayers, thousands of people hit the streets and protested. When companies were going to close their doors and kick their workers out with nothing, workers instead occupied the plant and refused to leave until the company finally gave in and paid what was owed. When families were being evicted, hundreds of their neighbours would gather around as the evicted family literally refused to leave, and squatted in their own home. People camped out until the bankers and sheriff gave up trying to move the family. This was in the spirit of community, the spirit of "we the people" as found in the American constitution.

The American economy is starting to turn around some, but at a glacial pace. Our Canadian economy is very inter-twined with the American economy. However, we are still infected by politicians that remain smug about this recession thinking that as Canadians, we "are better off" than the Americans. They smugly tell people in the city of Welland, shortly after John Deere issued all of its workers pink slips, that the economy in that community is doing very well. As PM Harper traveled through that community, he commented that one of his election goals was to eliminate chocolate flavoured cigarettes because they were too tempting for young people. The city of Welland is even sadder than it was at that time, whereby two of my favourite restaurants I used to go to after court are now closed. There are many more boarded up businesses, and on the Main Street is the office of a psychiatrist that among his services, provides medical evaluations for people seeking to go on disability.

Friends of mine in Welland that are landlords are having trouble renting their properties at even the very low rates they were charging because nobody can afford to rent there. Another gentleman was afraid that he would not be able to find a tenant because he literally could not afford to rent his upstairs unit for less than he did, or he would not be paying the mortgage. He was on EI himself, and was very cognizant that the clock was ticking. Others live in Welland and have found low cost housing, but can't travel anywhere because of poor transit service - often relying on friends and family, which anybody that doesn't own a car knows, is not the most reliable way to get around. Another friend of mine has been trying to sell his building, but fears he will have to sell it at a loss. He is in business but cannot survive in Welland, so he is moving to Toronto where he believes he will have a greater chance of success. The last time I was in Welland attending court, I walked down the street and it was suddenly strange I could not even find a single place close by to purchase a newspaper. On my way to search for such a place, there were drug addled strangers making deals with other drug addled strangers, while others simply turned their heads and moved on.

My own community of St. Catharines, which is supposed to be the "capital" of Niagara Region, or in accordance to the Places to Grow Act, is the administrative center of the region. St. Catharines council is fighting with Niagara Falls City council over where to re-locate the police headquarters, while the Niagara Regional Police Service threatens a multi-million dollar trip to Ontario Civilian Commission on Policing Services (OCCOPS). Well, Niagara Falls got their conference center, their two casinos and other developments, and St. Catharines is promised the Performing Arts Center and the new parking garage ... both are fighting to see who is more "deserving" of the headquarters. My main concern with this is that those who do not drive will likely have to quit their job at the administrative office, if it moves to Niagara Falls. Transit service remains very poor or non-existent in most places of Niagara, unless you have all the time in the world or are on ODSP and only plan to see doctors as a way to spend your day.

While Niagara Region is not what I would call purist capitalist like the financial centers of New York that were accused by Michael Moore, there is a different kind of elitism that dominates its thinking. Parochialism is as much a sport in Niagara, as hockey is the national sport in Canada. Niagara Region will never get its act together on transit because many of its smaller communities don't want it; that is, they don't want to pay for it. Yet they don't mind doling out millions and millions of dollars on automobile infrastructure that essential subsidizes people who drive, while the only people who pay full freight are those that don't -- if they want to get around at all. Further, the municipalities of Niagara are suing one another and the region, and the province is apparently suing the region for disobeying its own official plan and over-estimating its own growth estimates. I always knew Niagara over-estimated its growth estimates, because I truly believe the population here will at best remain the same with an ever aging demographic, while younger people leave by the dozens and do their procreating in communities that offer more.

I met a man that walks from Niagara-on-the-Lake to try to find housing in this city, as there is no way for him to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake and back, as this town does not believe in public transit. This man has epilepsy so a driver's license is out of the question. I had another meeting a few weeks ago, where about thirty people of all ages were present, averaging at about forty to fifty years old. Among those present, six identified themselves as having a medical condition that restricted their right to drive. Why does it not surprise me that virtually none of these people are working? One has a master's degree, and another is a trained nurse. To me, employers couldn't be too serious about rectifying their so-called skills shortage if they continue to fail to tap into the talents of many people who are currently sidelined for various reasons from the labour force.

This reflects much of what goes on in Ontario as well. Our lovely Minister in charge of issues for persons with disabilities, or Madeleine Meilleur, is also the Minister of Community and Social Services. She, like many other politicians, particularly on the political right, actually try to delude themselves and delude the public that employers are eager to hire people with disabilities. One does have to credit Minister Meilleur for attempting to push for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act; nevertheless, her staff is still reviewing the standards developed by the committees set up to deal with transportation, employment, information and communications, and built environment. Her challenge is to ensure that what comes out does not lower requirements for employers than what is required under the Human Rights Code. It would certainly look bad if employers can comply with the set standards, but still run afoul of the Code. This also applies to transportation and the other standards.

At the same time, there are too many instances where Madeleine Meilleur has sparked the rumour mill, or at least hasn't stopped it, by not denying that the government plans to make deep cuts to Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program benefits this coming budget. She has never been viewed as a fan of the special diet benefit, which is given to people who have medical conditions that require them to follow a more expensive eating regimen that cannot be met by simply following the Canada's Food Guide. This only assumes that anybody on OW or ODSP can afford a diet that even half way complies with the Canada Food Guide, but that's another story. After controversial changes were made in 2005, the provincial government was sued through the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, and recently a decision was made in favour of enhancing the special diet for many persons, where it can be proven that a disability warrants it.

The Minister has refused to dispel that the government plans to scrap it. Even worse, there are intolerant rednecks putting a huge amount of pressure on the government to scrap the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario altogether. This type of thinking is being found in terms of the government's hesitancy in re-appointing Andre Marin, an excellent and reputable Ombudsman that has forced the government to make many positive changes in its administration, and Gord Miller, the Environmental Commissioner. Our fear is that our government does not want critics and watchdogs; it wants "yes men" and lapdogs. Does this sound familiar?

As both the federal and provincial government continue to throw money at our banks, insurance companies and auto manufacturers, hoping for what former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's ultimate theory of a "trickle down" effect (which nobody ever seen happen), perhaps I can also foresee a form of workfare in the future for people on ODSP -- throw them in the low paying jobs that able-bodied will not take. Disregard their skills, education and achievements and aim low, as usual. If anybody complains, there won't be any more watchdogs to go to, given the desires and apparent direction this government wants to go. All I am right now is fed up with paying for it, and watching the inevitable disasters that will follow.

I would love to see good natured taxpayers to suddenly withhold the amount of money that we have paid to the banks, auto manufacturers, insurance companies, automobile infrastructure and so forth ... and tell the government to make these entities self-supporting, the same way the poor, the sick and unemployed are supposed to be self-supporting with less and less help from anybody. This will only happen when we act. Just as Michael Moore said at the end of his movie, he can no longer do this alone. All Canadians, regardless of political stripe or station in life, need to stop and listen. Reality here is when it happens to you. It is not a question of "if", but a question of "when", and I would expect reciprocal treatment likewise.

I just hope people will understand why I say I don't care about how GM fares; unfortunately, it never had to stand on its two feet like we expect our most vulnerable of our community to do.