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.

BRIGHTER PROSPECTS FOR WHOM?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once again I ask, Brighter Prospects for whom?

ON REFLECTIONS, REGRETS AND GOOD GRACES OF 2012

I am ending this year's series of blogs on a regrettable note.  On a personal level, my mother in law, Anne Gretzinger, died on or about May 27, 2012, in hospital.  At the same time, I met no less than two others in my region suffering from the same kind of supposedly rare cancer that overtook her.  Others are dying in other ways, many before loved ones and many without a soul in the world.  Each one of us wants to make our mark in the world, and in many ways, I try to do that for those that were unable to speak for themselves.  I am afraid of our world moving to a slippery slope.

Prior to shutting down my practice for the holidays, however brief this idea turned out to be, an old friend phoned me to tell me that another had given her the power of attorney over his health and financial affairs.  This is the gentleman I once wrote about that, for the lack of political will, to finance an insulin pump, he is now in hospital dying.  Both of his legs have been surgically removed above the knee and he has been moved to Welland, where access to dialysis is readily available.  They now consider him what many in some quarters refer to as being a "bed blocker" or in more polite terms, a patient requiring "alternate level of care". Every day in hospital is costing him and his family $53.00 and change, as they await a spot in cheapest form of long term care.  This is where my cynicism sets in big time.  When I met him, he was a strapping man of 5 feet, 9 inches, and walking most places.  He still had his kidneys, his feet, his eyesight and most of his health, although he did require some foot care.  He was a late diagnosed Type 1 diabetic, and like many in his family, this turned out badly.  At the same time, a close colleague of mine, also Type 1 diabetic, has access to an insulin pump and he gets along fine, complaining only once in awhile of numbness in his feet.

There is a movement on paper at least about treating people in their own homes, allowing people to live in the least restrictive setting.  People do not want to die in institutional settings.  Most tell me that they want to die in their own homes, surrounded by family and friends, both two legged and of the four legged, furry variety.  People also tell me they want to live out their old age in their own homes that they bought and paid for, perhaps, passing down the title to this same property to their kin.   Our government is encouraging that, at least for those people with money.  The Healthy Home Renovations Tax Credit is one example that I played upon when I compared the math between what healthy seniors with money would be getting after the recent and well publicized cuts to OW and ODSP Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefits and Home Repairs.  It was cut in half and yes, the other "half" of this budget went to this new Tax Credit.

There is no way my friend could have stayed in his own home.  He would have had to hire a private nurse and have a live in caregiver to keep an eye on him during the day, as well as somebody to cart him around to his medical appointments.  Wealthy seniors rarely get to the point where they become this ill, but if they do, they have the resources to hide it and to live as close to a "normal" life as possible.  However, in recent weeks, my friend has passed out a couple of times.  I noted that he would not call me back when I notified him of an engagement that he was made aware of several weeks before.  When I finally found him, he had just exited the ICU unit of the hospital.  A few days later, I saw him strolling on his electric wheelchair telling me "they" were going to cut off his legs. I saw them. They needed to go, yesterday. He was also full of bumps and red sores, likely from his ongoing kidney failure. If he had money, he would not have gone as far.

Then as I prepare to pack my bags to go home and rest some during the holiday, my old friend called me in tears telling me that "they" wanted her to eventually consider pulling the plug on his dialysis.  She and I know that if this were done, within seventy two (72) hours, he will die.  She did not want to take responsibility for making a decision that would ultimately end his life.  I couldn't blame her.  Not that his quality of life is exceedingly great ... BUT I know if he had some money, my old friend would not be having that conversation with his doctors.  They would be referring him to one of the better retirement homes in the region, a private nursing service, as well as regular transport to the golf course and perhaps, a brief vacation. There is a lot to be said for the movement for the "good death" or euthanasia for the critically and terminally ill, but there is also a lot to be said when we even measure how social inequality even in its crudest terms is now dictating to us who lives and who dies.

This is certainly not the only story like this that I heard this month, although this one is going to involve some legal work for me and a close associate, as well as paperwork at the end of the day.  There were a few others as well, such as a woman who is in her mid-fifties who suffered from three subsequent heart attacks who had to quit her job and is now relying on social services, as the system wrangles its way to getting her onto CPP Disability and ODSP benefits.  In the meantime, her mortgage has gone begging, and she is likely to lose her only asset she owns: her home. On the contrary, I also happen to know an old curmudgeon who has been fortunate in his working days and is currently living at one of the most expensive retirement homes in the city.  He gets computer training and communications support through another friend of mine who is also a client.  He is approaching his nineties and there is nothing about this city, its community and its politics that he does not have an opinion about, no matter how crazy.  But at close to $5,000 a month, plus some handy extras and a supportive family, he is going to live well past 110.  His secret, he says, is a glass of red wine a day and a fighting attitude.  Never give up, he says.  Never give up.

There is quite a difference between my other friend who is dying and this old curmudgeon that might well wander the earth past the time of all of us.  He has money, but my dying friend does not.  There is very little that medical science will not do for somebody that has the money to pay for it.  There is very little that medical science will do for somebody that most desperately needs care and recovery, but has no money to his name.  My old curmudgeon friend includes among his friends a couple of former mayors, a former and a current MP, and several lawyers.  In his day too, he was involved in such causes as Rotary, Lion's Club and such.  He did a lot of good things in his time and knew a lot of good people, many that my readers likely heard of (but will not be named here).  My dying friend includes people like myself, but also others who nobody has ever heard of, or has reason to get to know, although they too are precious human beings.  Most of his friends apart from myself are also in the disability community, working minimum wage, or on the vulnerable border between life and health failures.  His very best friend is a four legged golden retriever, which he calls Ralph.

These issues and ideas around life and death not only revolve around us homo sapiens, but also around our beloved four legged creatures.  Nobody knows what will become of his four legged friend should the very worst outcome take place against him.  I am not sure if my old friend Renee, his attorney, has the energy and wherewithal to re-adopt this adorable pooch.  My friend adopted Ralph when he was well enough to care, well enough to love another living being with all of his heart.  Ralph came from an abusive home and came to him from a shelter, where thereafter he fed and cared for him like a grease monkey and a brand new car.  I can only imagine how when my friend first went to the hospital, Ralph wandered around the house waiting for him to come home.  This image in my mind reminded me poignantly of Angel, my in laws' dog, and how it likely reacted when she first learned that Anne Gretzinger was never coming home again.

I leave this year with this kind of sadness.  Today, my father in law still comes over with Angel, who becomes so excited and whines hysterically as she sees us approach.  I am sure my friend's sister is at a loss as to how to get Ralph used to the idea that my friend is never coming home again.  This is an issue I am going to have to deal with as soon as I get back to work, and part of why I have to cut my holiday short.  I have received plenty of hate letters and e-mail messages over the years over the strong political opinions I express, as well as "cautions" from even my friends who think that anything but positive messages is going to throw the world sideways.  I come from a place and time where we called a spade a spade and did not put lipstick on a pig and call it something other than a pig.  I always loathed the inventor of Pollyanna, as much as I loathe the inventor of social inequality and damnation.

If we do not talk about the trends that are occurring, the societal values that we have will be displaced by these seemingly medical directives, the increased scapegoating across the globe against the most vulnerable, we are giving "them" (whoever "they" might be) a license to continue.  My friends who I still love regardless but still err on the side of Pollyanna, may want to ask me what do we do.  The important thing is to allow this conversation to take place.  During the times of Nazi Germany, "everybody" knew what was going on with people with disabilities that were living in any of six designated killing centres under what then was referred to the Action T4, or Aktion T4.  In fact, people used to tease one another that if they continued to act as "crazy" as they were, they would be shipped to Hadamar, one of those notorious institutions.  Kathryn Quarmby is doing the right thing in her expose in her latest book, Scapegoat: Why We are Failing Disabled People.   This book and the issues it raises were becoming more eminent in the rise of the UK governing Coalition's welfare reforms that in effect merges persons with disabilities with all others who claim assistance from the state, such as Job Seeker's Allowance and other forms of social assistance available to the able-bodied.  People with disabilities now enjoy equal status to that of the alleged blood sucking welfare cheating scroungers of the UK (see this website and the many valuable links to it).

It is not that it "can't happen again" or it "won't happen in Canada", the fact is it is already happening.  It is happening with my friend with the amputated legs and dialysis, my friend with the three heart attacks, and many others I know about as I write, despite the tingling effect of Bailey's Irish Cream.  I know about people who have been pushed off wheelchairs and told they can walk, that they have somehow scammed the government into getting them a "free" wheelchair.  Another friend tells me that ODSP will not repair her wheelchair because her wheelchair is "somewhat akin to a car" and nobody pays her (her ODSP worker) when her car breaks down.  Well, let's see you take that car from your bedroom to your bathroom and see how well that works.  This kind of thinking has been going on for a long time, not just around the water cooler but in real policy terms as well.  I remember that portion of the course I taught to many students in the early 1990s, asking them to write an essay to argue whether or not something like the Aktion T4 can happen again and happen here in Canada.  It was and still remains to be an amazing thing that people tell me what a horrible time folks with disabilities had during the Third Reich, until I remind them that the World War II had not even begun before the war on people with disabilities began.

People are also disbelieving that even modern day social assistance laws are based on eugenics based thinking.  The whole concept of "man in the house" and "birth out of wedlock" was treated as something to be ashamed of, hidden and penalized by social program analysts.  Many readers will recall how early welfare workers would search the homes of single parents or deserted/widowed women to search for "signs" of a man being in the house.  These days, they may not be so oblique with their intentions, but financial penalties always ensure when people behave in ways that others that are not on social assistance behave; that is, they are penalized when they are married or living common law, have a child remain with them in the home after they pass the magic age of eighteen years, or require a child to pay room and board from their part time employment.  The "incentive" under social assistance is to remain vulnerable to poverty, whereas, any attempt to leave poverty is penalized severely.

Poverty rates for married people are much, much lower than people living alone, but if a person receiving disability/ODSP tries to engage in a relationship to improve their financial circumstances, the law now requires the working spouse to instantly support them, warts and all.  It is designed to repel even the most tolerant and loving persons from engaging in relationships with persons with disabilities.  This, coupled with the fact the eugenics board in Alberta continued to exist and act against certain persons with disabilities well into the 1970's is proof of this.  When this was successfully challenged under the Charter and damages were awarded to persons so affected and forcibly sterilized against their will under Canadian law, the Alberta government had the nerve to attempt to pass the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights to severely limit the damages and parties able to claim damages.  It was only after serious backlash from the disability and human rights community, that this pathetic attempt at upholding paternalistic and abusive values was eventually discarded.  I remember editing a national newsletter at the time.  One of the activists that fought this attempt to discard these rights under the Charter was an ex-Torontonian conservative that shared with me many of his insights over the years, leading me to believe that governments do not always govern with the best intentions.  In many ways, they have historically governed with the worse intentions, especially but not expanding this discussion to the fate of our aboriginals and our so called residential schools.  We are not innocent bystanders when we allow our governments to do this.  We are active participants.

We have to acknowledge what is happening, understand the roots of how these things begin, and to discuss it and then take collective action.  Many communities have rightfully taken collective action against the cuts to the Community Start Up and Maintenance Allowance and Home Repairs Benefit for people receiving OW and ODSP benefits, shortly after it was announced in the 2012 Budget.  This was a very large collective effort across Ontario.  A group of fourteen communities met on December 14, 2012, and delivered a common statement to the Premier afterwards.  Some are saying the government response is positive, in that they have injected $42 million of "transitional funding" to the municipalities to get them used to the fact they have to do more with less and less money.  This is a band aid and at best, a temporary reprieve.  The municipalities will still be in charge of the money, have little to zero accountability for how it is spent and no appeal rights for individuals turned down from assistance from this new program, and apparently $42 million isn't even close to what they cut from the original programs and it is only good for 2013.  Many advocates asked about what happens afterwards, but were cut short by the mainstream media.  Many referred to this as a drop in the bucket, and others like myself state this does not change the fundamental shift from entitlement rights to "discretionary" and "charitable" rights, which really are not rights but are decisions made by others based on their perceived value of you as a person, not your right as a citizen.

Like the doctors in my friend on dialysis' case, once again judgment calls will be made on the value of people's lives.  My friend dies.  My friend, the curmudgeon with money, lives forever. Some people's lives will inevitably be deemed to be more valued than others, and of course, regardless of individual value, at some point in the fiscal year such as May or June of each year, the money will run out and people will be told they have to wait until April the following year for their next installment.  Municipalities don't have to cough up after that.  These benefits are no longer mandatory.  There are no appeal rights.  Your case can be brought to a worker who is having a PMS day, or somebody that believes that people on ODSP are "better off" than people on OW and they will be allowed to make a FINAL decision on your case to deny you.  Or you can wait until next year to take care of the bedbugs, or leave your violent partner who is beating the living daylights out of you.  Sleep on the floor in the meantime.  Our wonderful Ombudsman Andre Marin does not even have the jurisdiction to review these ridiculous decisions.  A private members' bill to include the so called MUSH sector which includes municipalities died on the order paper when McGuinty rabbited from the Legislature this past October.

Rights are being eroded for the poor, as the charitable sector has no legal consequences for privacy breaches it may happen upon in the course of its work with vulnerable persons outside of health care.  With health care, Personal Health Information Protection Act, privacy must be safeguarded but not if you are a client of a food bank, a homeless charity or a drop in centre of ambient sorts.  Meanwhile, wealthy people are allowed to live in gated communities, have their personal privacy of all respects protected in all areas, as well they worked to decimate the long form census because they did not want people to know how well off they really were -- while the rights of the poor get further decimated as we speak.  In addition, has anybody tried to sue a food bank or soup kitchen for serving spoiled food that resulted in some form of illness or disability, in the extreme event?  Better bet that if a wealthy person got sick after eating sushi at a sushi bar, they'd be able to sue and more!  My discussions in these blogs are about accountability.  They are about equality.  They are about having equal rights in the pure and crudest sense.

I want poor people to have the same rights as millionaires when millionaires do not lose more than a small fraction of their income to taxes and clawbacks to government.  Why do the poor often lose more than one hundred percent of their income this way?  Why aren't we asking our leaders the right questions?  We need to stop glossing over these questions and start putting them to our leaders and refusing to give up or let up our protest until they agree to make it right and follow it through.  I don't believe they reversed the CSUMB cuts one bit.  We need to call a spade a spade and put it forward now and educate one another how to get involved, write letters, get involved in collective action, teach others the facts the media will deny and to partake in movements like Idolnomore and push and push and only until we have full rights of citizenship, and stop admitting or believing that our government have our best interests at heart, because they don't.  All one has to do is find out what corporate board or corporate job they get as soon as they leave politics, or what lobbying organization they join ... because that is what the truth is my friends.  That is the truth.

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.

ANOTHER FEDERAL ELECTION GONE - NOW WHAT?

The recent federal election was a very difficult one for many people. We heard about many of the "dirty tricks" being played such as midnight phone calls, phony calls from Election Canada to tell people their polling station is moved, or false reports that one can only use Photo ID to vote with. These tricks were well publicized, and hopefully being seriously investigated and charges laid where possible. However, there were other things going on that were less publicized, and has only reiterated the position I have taken in my last blog entry, "From We to Me". Over the course of the election, there were reports of low income people getting "egged", racist remarks being openly shared in public forums and poor bashing once again becoming a national sport. These techniques, as well as the dirty tricks cited above, are no less of a vote suppressor for those that might otherwise have exercised their right to vote.

We hear about stories in developing countries, where their democracies are very fragile, where people are getting threatened if they dare oppose the ruling party, or they get rewards for promoting the dictator for yet another term. People get punished in these countries. Many have lost their jobs for exercising their right to vote for an opponent, others had their cars bombed or their homes broken into. In this election, right here in Canada, people's cars were vandalized if they were parked in a yard where a political opponent is being supported. There were also allegations of a fire bombing, as well as bar fights over the election. These things that happened here can only move a small amount further, and our country's democratic principles are no further advanced than those of a banana republic.

Unfortunately, many of the problems that surfaced during the election did not stop. Ardent supporters of the now majority ruling Conservatives are holding it high on top of others that they are "better" than those that supported other parties, morally superior because they supported the "stability" of Harper ... one of them even commented that we now don't have to worry about having regular elections. Hey, dictatorships have that too, where people don't have to worry about elections, because they are never called and when they are, they are certainly rigged in favour of the incumbent. Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghadafi, Robert Magube, Fidel Castro, and many others felt they did not need elections. Why not? They were costly, inconvenient and who wants to bother with them anyways?

The poor bashing sadly continues too. It is so remarkable how the wealthier classes refer to "their" money, when in fact the majority is inherited or otherwise unearned through investments or other means. I stated in another blog why the wealthy do not work as hard as the rest of us, and please don't try to disabuse me of that notion, as I know too many people who worked themselves to death practically, who were by no means wealthy, while wealthy people would complain that increased taxes would only curb their lifestyle somewhat. Again, this is a pestering inconvenience for them to pay their own way in the society in which they live.

Throughout the election, I asked people if they can afford private health care. Ardent supporters vehemently deny that Harper or anybody in his government will ever cut health care. Well, there is plenty of history on the web with Harper's name on it, and his continued antipathy towards medicare. Ardent supporters did not want to read these articles, as they were blinded by ... whatever it is that made them feel Harper was so inviolate. Some would argue that having a parallel private and public health care would lessen the wait list for the ones that cannot pay. Well, this has been tried in many jurisdictions, and unfortunately, this only made those that cannot pay wait much longer and in some circumstances, get inferior treatment. Many of these same people blocked me on various websites because they could not win an argument with me. I don't care. I do not need their ignorance on my computer anyways; let them go pollute other people's mind space.

One person tried to get me to commit to six months of this government and then return to say whether it was good or not. I'm sorry, we ALREADY HAD FIVE YEARS of this same government and what is going to happen in the next four is the same that has happened in the last five years, except the ongoing hyper-partisanship and destruction of opposition opinions will be on steroids. This already happened, as Harper could not even give Parliament a chance to open or even give a Speech from the Throne yet, but he had already re-appointed two Senators that resigned their positions to run in this election and they lost, only to be put right back in the unelected, unaccountable Senate.

In 2006, Harper ran a reasonable campaign to clean up the Senate, clean up spending, make government more accountable, make government transparent, make leaders in the government accountable to their constituents, and to reign in things like AdScams under the Liberals. I was one of those that was fooled by this platform, and they got my vote in 2006. They had FIVE YEARS to make it right, and they only made these things worse. We have government hiding key issues about Afghanistan, the G20, secret papers that have been left with a Cabinet Minister's girlfriend, a Cabinet Minister that ordered a document altered after it had been signed by the parties, and then lied about it, and lack of answers regarding how much corporate tax cuts, fighter jets and private prisons are going to cost the taxpayer. They were found to be in contempt of Parliament, yet they get elected again.

My faith in some Canadians is not very high. As somebody coming into my polling station on election day jokingly suggested, voters should have to pass a basic civics and economics test before they get handed a ballot. Of course, as electionn workers, all we can do is smile and take their identification, etc. and send them to vote. Apparently, there were pro-Harper ads playing on the radio the day of the election, which is apparently against the elections law. But they got the majority now, so nothing is going to get done about that either.

People around me are nervous about Harper. I tell them there is probably not much we can do, other than watch what other people are finally doing in other parts of the world and standing up to their governments. Harper is going to make us all pay for the billions of dollars in handouts to his corporate friends, corporate tax cuts, untendered contracts, among other things, so that the deficit that was created from these ill informed decisions will be paid for by the rest of us that neither created the deficit or had any benefit whatsoever from the spending that led to it. I ask my ardent Conservative "friends" if they can identify ONE job that was created as a result of a corporate tax cut, they couldn't even do that. Because they know that taxes are only applied AFTER the jobs, equipment, research and development, administration, etc. are paid for ...

I am far too educated and intelligent to believe in any of this bunk anymore. In some ways, I wonder why I even bother voting, and perhaps I should join the growing group of non-voters who are fed up with this archaic, corruptible "first past the post" system that can only be manipulated to lead to huge majority governments with far less than 51% of the popular vote. With more people voting against him than for him, Harper SHOULD try to govern for all of us, but I am not holding my breath.

My guess is people will be understanding what I, as well as many other Canadians have been saying about this, in about two or three years when they find their economic circumstances have not improved one iota, and they seem to be paying more and more for the same basket of goods and services and paying more out of pocket for health care and other so-called "public services".

BE GOOD TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR ON CHRISTMAS AND BASH 'EM ON THE HEAD THE OTHER 364 DAYS OF THE YEAR

I don't know about you, but while I like Christmas, I have little tolerance for the hypocrisy of the charitable sector and the upper middle class and some wealthy families in our country. Many of these people are quite active in "adopt a-family" campaigns, "give a child a Christmas: and "Christmas hamper" programs that they forget that the other 364 days of the year, these same people bash the same people who they just sponsored for these Christmas charities as "leeches", "lazy", "failures", etc. While I don't think ill is begotten by these campaigns, but little thought is given to the targets of them, how they feel about being adopted, pitied, awash with charity and fake neighbourly love, while at the same time, other days of the year, punished for their very position and circumstances.

This does not include all people of upper middle class or wealthy sectors, but a good amount of them. This also applies to "back to school". Newspapers are awash with media poornography dealing with how "wonderful" some company or organization has been to raise so many dollars from all of their "fortunate" (therefore, respectable and heroic) members to donate to all those "poor, pathetic, down-on-their luck failures" in our society. While they would never identify such persons as failures, an alarming number of people that give to charities consider those that receive from the same to be failures. Surveys have been done of staff in the charitable sector, and it was found they are just as likely to hold prejudicial views of those that approach them for help that members of the general public do.

For example, it is believed by these people that people are poor because they do not manage their money well, that they were wrongfully discharged from psychiatric or penal institutions, that they have no skills or lack a high school education. This is becoming less and less the norm; in fact, the norm of those that turn to charities are people who are really no different than members of the general public. Poor bashing originates from the necessity to create "otherness" in the population of the poor and homeless. People that donate to charities think they still have their jobs because they possess a work ethic and "work hard". Research originating from Jones and Harris blames the "fundamental attribution error" for this way of thinking, where if something horrible happens to somebody, that that person is somehow to blame for their circumstances and if something good happens, that person somehow did something to deserve it. This attribution error has self-serving properties, as it assuages those of us that are not falling on hard times that it will not happen to us, as we lack the internal qualities we attribute to those that these things happen to (e.g. lazy, mentally ill, a criminal). I shown readers in an earlier blog that laziness does not only reside in some of the jobless, but many wealthy and working people too. Wealth today is less likely to be earned as it might have been decades in the past.

In the recent Toronto municipal election, people elected Rob Ford because he appeared to be "an ordinary guy". People like Rob Ford and his brother, Doug Ford, both ran and won in the past municipal election. Both grew up as and remain to this day to be multi-millionaires. They own a company that was handed down to them by parents and likely grandparents that started it and made it successful. One only need see that if either Ford has enough time to be full-time councilor and Mayor, respectively, they are obviously not "working hard" in their business that they seem to be so responsible for. Being a member of a corporate board of directors or an owner of a large company is really not that much work. You just pay other people to run it for you and stop by once in awhile to make sure they are doing a good job. It is likely other people, perhaps, other members of the Ford family or perhaps, even hired management is doing the real work in this company. While I am not saying the Fords are doing anything wrong or their gains were ill-gotten, they cannot realistically portray themselves to be "ordinary guys". In my view, a single parent that works three part-time minimum wage jobs to keep her family's head above water works much harder than any CEO and nobody will convince me otherwise.

They, like most other wealthy people, won what is known as the Ovarian lottery. The "ovarian lottery" was named by Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men, one of the few who will actually speak out about the nonsense of further tax cuts for the wealthy. Most wealth, high incomes and high level opportunities are inherited in some way - either by money given to them by living parents to complete their education, a business successorship, an inheritances after the parents or other close relatives die or similar circumstances. More about Buffet's analogy is written in Linda McQuaig and Meil Brooks' book entitled "The Trouble with Billionaires".

Before those of you reading this think this is a "left wing" commentary (which I don't understand as I don't relate well with the so-called left either), this book and its analysis was rated very positively by the managing editor of the National Post, typically a small-c conservative publication. There are others that are not as famous that also speak out about the wrong-headedness of further tax cuts for wealthy people. Tax cuts for corporations has never been proven to increase the salaries and benefit levels of those working for these companies, nor have they proven to distribute wealth or even opportunity equitably among the whole population. The founder of Wal-Mart, for example, was also one of the world's richest men, but we know people working at Wal-Mart earn very close to minimum wage. The same applies to the Weston family who still owns the largest stake in Loblaw's grocery stores and most workers in these stores are minimum wage and part-time.

Moreover, in their latest book, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everybody, comparisons among so called "rich" nations are made and various factors, such as infant mortality, incarceration rates, prevalence of certain kinds of health conditions (such as diabetes, heart disease), high school graduation rate, etc. were compared on the basis of a single independent variable: the gap of wealth and income within the nation's population. Wilkinson is an economic and a medical epidemiologist that is a full professor in London, England. His co-author, Kate Pickett, is also a professor of epidemiology and is a Career Scientist with the National Institutes of Health Research.

In Harper's Canada, the only real career path of the future will be as a police officer, a correctional services worker, a probation and parole officer, security consultant and other "criminal justice" type careers. Harper's current agenda of being "tough on crime" is going to prove itself to be not only a dismal failure, but a financially irresponsible one as well. Our crime rate has actually dropped over the past couple of decades, as an aging population is less likely to breed a new (and growing) generation of violent criminals. Further, research cited in Wilkinson and Pickett has shown that non-violent offenders entering the penal system are further away from being rehabilitated and are more likely to commit further and more violent crimes in the future. In this age of "zero tolerance", economic distress is increased among those caught up in it who can ill afford to adequately defend themselves. Even the Provincial Offences Act of Ontario has taken on a very heavy handed approach to many of its offences, making more of them "strict liability" (which means there is less flexibility in defending oneself as well as range of penalties available regardless of the defendant's circumstances). The goal here is to send more and more people to jail, more and more people to destitution and more and more people into circumstances where they can come out much more distressed and recalcitrant.

I don't care what proponents of tougher crime laws want. They have a false sense of security with tougher crime laws in place. They tell us, "if people just think before they commit the crime, then they won't get punished". That is easy to believe from a middle class, supportive familial context, where opportunities, money and resources are not a problem. Those of lesser circumstances are not necessarily more violent, but they can get caught up in things that will now can result in a penal sentence. This list includes failure to pay child support, failure to appear in court (e.g. sometimes it is hard to notify somebody of their court date when the defendant does not have a fixed address), driving under suspension, alcohol and drug related offenses, prostitution-related offenses and some property related offenses. Yes, these things can result in jail terms. They say there's no debtor's prison in Canada, but there are more than a few ways where unreconciled debts and fines can eventually put one in jail.

Persons with mental health issues can sometimes join a diversion program where they can participate in a treatment program instead of going through the penal system, and for this group of people, this has proven to be effective. However, most of the people who are caught in these cycles are not always involved in the mental health system, have few supports outside of the same people that got them in trouble in the first place, and very little money. A broader crime prevention and neighbourhood rehabilitation strategy would be much more effective than a "get tough" approach on crime. Open, supportive and non-traditional supports to persons living in disadvantaged situations can prevent people from going that direction in the first place, or get them to change their behaviour.

I am not opposed to tough sentences for child molesters, murderers, organized crime, etc. In fact, I would also like to see a "tough on crime" movement for corporate crimes, such as tax evasion by company executives, pilfering of pensions funds from employee trusts, embezzlement, contractor fraud, etc. by so-called "white collar criminals". These sorts of "white collar types" are least likely to go to jail in Canada, even though they destroy many lives and are often unrepentant for what they did and usually repeat their crimes many times before they finally get shut down. If they do go to jail, it is usually for short terms and usually in favourable conditions (e.g. minimum security, early release for "good behaviour").

It is so ironic that those that support continued and increased inequality in our society seem to believe that "welfare fraud" is a huge problem, while corporate fraud is not. It is in fact the other way around, especially given the government's own statistics, as cited by others. This information came up during the inquest into the death of Kimberley Rogers, who was convicted of "welfare fraud" for having the audacity to use OSAP to get her college diploma while trying to get by on a very reduced welfare cheque. Rogers ended up getting house arrest and being barred from receiving welfare as her penalty ... as a result, she fell very far behind in her rent and was basically a prisoner in a very overheated apartment lacking air conditioning during that hot summer. She died, while she was also pregnant with her first child. Welfare fraud was studied and was found to constitute less than 1% of all monies paid out to recipients. Income tax evasion or fraud is known to be much more common and involve greater amounts of money, but only rarely gets prosecuted. The reason for this is that those that subvert our income tax laws often have the resources of highly skilled accountants and tax lawyers and can afford to front a strong defense, if charged.


At the same time, the same people that endorse policies that lead to a more unequal society tend to give to charities that do nothing to advance the interests of the poor. I have yet to find a single person who was brought out of poverty as a result of seeking help from a food bank, a homeless shelter or any similar charity. After they get their nourishment this month, they will only be hungry again and in need of help the next month, all the while those giving and perpetuating these charities continue to benefit from charitable tax deductions and other ways to hide their wealth. To me, a business would do a hell of a lot more for the poor by hiring people off the welfare rolls, qualified to do the work of course and paying them decent wages. For those they cannot hire, they can sponsor scholarships and trust funds to allow low income people to get a post-secondary education and/or to develop their own assets.

Organizations like Social and Enterprise Development Innovations provide an alternative to perpetuating poverty among the poor and treating them so much like outsiders like we do now. There are programs they develop to assist low income people into developing their own businesses, setting up individual development accounts and furthering their education. The Metcalf Foundation of Toronto also sponsors research and programs that assist in change development as well, much of it through awareness of how current welfare programs serve to keep people in poverty. Social class mobility in Canada has substantially declined since the late 1980's, given the tightening of social program eligiblity and the softening of the labour market. To argue that everybody has equal opportunity may be true, but for many, that opportunity is very, very difficult to access when society continues to put barriers in place to those that need this access the most.

Your thoughts?

THEY'RE ENTITLED TO THEIR ENTITLEMENTS!

During an investigation into some alleged wrongdoings on the part of key Liberal party ministers and officials during "HRDC-Gate" and "Sponsorgate", one former Minister David Dingwall, who eventually moved on to head the Royal Canadian Mint, told a Parliamentary Committee that he was "entitled to his entitlements". In another investigation, Brian Mulroney was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by accepting up to $300,000 in cash from an alleged German arms dealer shortly after he stepped down from his job as Prime Minister. These cash deposits were allegedly not put into any bank accounts, but a safety deposit box, which raised a number of eyebrows. Mulroney made a voluntary self-disclosure to Canada Revenue Agency years later. There was an expensive public inquiry into this matter, leaving many questions still unanswered and probably Karlheinz Schreiber probably ended up more tarnished than Mulroney did. But what would happen if you are I did the same thing?

At the provincial level, we learn about private consultants working for $3000 a day, plus benefits of disbursements, such as tea and crumpets from Tim Hortons. These consultants allegedly worked for e-Health, although I suspect they did other work in "communications" with the provincial government, likely to communicate their intention to cut the special diet program to poor and disabled persons with medical conditions requiring them to eat specific foods at a higher cost. All that got into the media, unfortunately, was one consultant's tab for tea and crumpets and the fact that a large Liberal-friendly consulting firm got a sole-source contract to achieve this e-Health program. This billion dollar boondoggle, like the federal one on sponsorships in Quebec, was stopped short of a scandal and Ministers resigned. Yet at the same time, none of the consultants had to pay a single penny of their "hard earned monies" back. Earlier, another Minister handed over $200.000 to a cricket club in his riding. These stories are running ad nauseum; even Mike Harris pushed Ontario into a significant debt after awarding Anderson Consulting a $284 MILLION sole-source contract to develop the computer systems for Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program ... and when there were errors, this same government had the audacity to bring them back in and pay them millions of dollars more to correct the mistakes they shouldn't have made in the first place!

During our recent recession, both provincial and federal government handed out tax dollars to the banks to the tune of over $50 billion, as well as to General Motors to the tune of $16 billion, while many workers lost their jobs and could not get on to Employment Insurance. In the U.S., George Bush as a parting gift to Obama, put the U.S. treasury over $1 trillion dollars into debt bailing out their banks and mortgage companies, many of them of which got saddled with bad loans and foreclosures. They also apparently own General Motors now, as some now call Government Motors. AIG, one of the loan companies bailed out, immediately paid its executives million dollar bonuses. After all, all of these people were entitled to their entitlements.

In Ontario, a woman named Eleonore Clitheroe was terminated from her position at Hydro One, after she raked in over $2.2 million in her last year, and upon looking into her expenses, it was also alleged that she expensed hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses, such as limousine rides for her children as well as renovations for her upscale home. She naturally took the government to court and sued, it appears this likely got settled out of court. However, recently she got herself in the news again litigating over her "rights" to a $35,000 a month pension from the province, when she is apparently only receiving one in the paltry lower $25,000 level ... she argued with the court that she, too, was entitled to her entitlements.

Public sector workers, ranging from teachers, to fire fighters, to police officers and other workers "win" at least 3% raises each year for the next three years, until they start all over again. This, while many of us are losing jobs and cannot afford to pay anymore. Municipalities and school boards are helpless, as the province forces them to pay what arbitrators tell them to pay. It must be nice having a job in one of these sectors. They certainly aren't hiring anybody else, no matter how qualified you are, because if anybody at all is going to get the jobs, if there are any new openings, are those that already worked there ... so the rest of us either have to accept leftover jobs, like call centre, Wal-Mart and burger flipping, or invest in a time machine to bring us back to the 70's and 80's when new jobs were coming up in these fields and get hired then.

Workers in these public sector jobs have no right to complain about their salaries. Sure, they work hard, but so does the minimum wage doughnut shop worker. So does the teenager that fills your gas tank when you go to a full-service gas station. You say you went to school for a long time to get what you want ... not necessarily true. Teachers need a minimum of a four year degree, plus an educational degree which is one or two years. I know people who have been to school much longer and owe way more in student loans who are now stuck greeting shoppers at Wal-Mart, because virtually all the "good jobs" are in union shops and closed to the public. I know many teachers in my region, and they are the first to complain about the high cost of living here. I say, yes, try making it on less than half your salary.

Others work in the private sector in jobs like General Motors, TRW, US Steel, etc. and make over $30 an hour. They tell us they work hard. Sorry, people who make minimum wage also work hard, and yes - you can also be making minimum wage too if it weren't for the hard work and bargaining power given by others to make your job a good job. My bet is you had NOTHING to do with making your job a good job, other than being lucky enough to apply for the job at the right time and get in. To me, that is luck and not hard work. Others are single parents and get no pay at all, and they "work hard" too ... probably harder than many of the men that complain about their taxes. Some of you "hard workers" are self-employed, but the money you had to start your business probably came from your family, or perhaps the business you run belonged to your family and you got a place in it just because you were born there. So what, that means nothing to me. This doesn't make you more deserving than anybody else ... but time after time, it is YOUR TYPE OF PEOPLE who spend time on their computers at work instead of working, who bash the poor at websites, such as that for the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star and other places, where comment can be shared online. They always use fake names. I suppose they don't want their employers to read the sites and find their signatures there and esp. marked during working hours.

Personally, I have been involved as a teaching assistant and course coordinator at the university where I earned two of my degrees. I would say about half of the students attending my classes were not able to put a simple sentence together. My marking and teaching philosophy was often criticized by these students because I would mark them for grammar and sentence structure, as well as whether they were picking up anything from the course. I've had students bitterly complain to my department's chair that they had to get an 80% or more in the course, or they would not get to teachers' college. Yes, folks, many of these people just might be teaching your children today. After all, they are entitled to their entitlements.

I've known other students that never bothered showing up for lectures and would make an occasional appearance in seminars, usually looking half snapped up or on dope. In order to keep up, they paid other students for their notes and there have been occasions where plagiarism was caught red-handed. In these cases, I rightfully brought the papers to the department chair for her review and she agreed with my assessment and we gave them zeros. One of them came storming in about how his father works for such and such a law firm, and so forth, and how the school will get sued, and so forth ... I told them then to their face that I don't give a shit. Perhaps, he can go to his father to have him teach him how to write too, as that would be a great start before going to teacher's college. Very few of these students were on OSAP. A few made it quite clear they were from well to do families and did not have to take out a loan or work at all, and I believed them, because they certainly didn't work on their school work either.

Outside of school, I was also involved in consulting for a number of non-profit and publicly funded organizations. In many cases, people worked there for years taking very large salaries, and in one case, paying board members to attend meetings and help keep them in their jobs (despite not doing their job, of course). In another case, an individual would write reports for the board about the various meetings she went to or conducted, and when somebody checked this out - this person did actually nothing at all. There were no meetings and the people she spoke to did not exist. People often get into these jobs because they know somebody, whether that be a board member, the executive director, or somebody else closely tied to the organization. It is rarely about what they know. In fact, there is no law that prohibits publicly funded non-profits from hiring their relatives, high-school drop-outs or even those that have just come out of prison for fraud. This does not mean they all do this (as many organizations do care about their image -- but surprisingly not all of them), but without controls, many such organizations do fall to this. The only requirement I am aware of is vulnerable sector checks with the police, which is required only for organizations that work directly with vulnerable adults or children. However, I am not sure if the same is required for their executive director, or their accountant (although some such organizations do pass policies to cover everybody).

After many years of seeing this, I can honestly say there are not a lot of hard working people out there. Those folks that have a good job today think they did this on their own, when this is likely not the case. They likely knew somebody where they worked, had parents or friends connected to the business at some point or others who "encouraged" them to apply and gave a good word for them, or they had parents pay for their university education and possibly even their first car, so they are well out of the starting gate before their less fortunate peers even hear the starting gun. Personally, I don't care about these people and do not believe for a second, they work hard at all or they are even deserving of the good salary they make. People who read this can also relate to how on a day to day basis, they have to talk to you so-called "hard workers" in your positions, whether this be in government, insurance companies, health care organizations, car repair shops, or whatever ... and the rate of satisfaction with your customer service is pretty low. I been there. I know.

However, it is precisely this group of people and the well-paid public sector workers that do the most poor bashing. They try to convince people that they can just get "any job" and be making a middle class income within a year. First, somebody on welfare is not going to get a good paying job - ever. Studies have been done on this. Even when somebody on welfare is pushing themselves hard and takes any job for survival, they tend to cycle on and off welfare and low paying, short-term jobs. Very few are able to further their education, or get promoted in the jobs they do get. A teenager at 16 that starts working at McDonalds is not going to become its manager in the next ten years. Maybe even twenty or thirty years. We know that working at this low level does not improve their salary over time ... their wages stay the same and only increase if minimum wages go up. Ask people who work at Loblaws and Wal-Mart how often they get raises. Call centres are a bit better on the wage front, but most people do not last more than a year. I also know that very few people who are on welfare can ever move beyond a "paycheque to paycheque" situation to being a wealthy, even upper middle class person. It does not happen, not in the 21st century.

But at the same time, many of these well-paid workers get all summer off, full dental benefits that even cover cosmetic dentistry, a retirement income that many of us in the leftover sector can only dream of, as well as other things that they did not earn or work for. I know a few employers that pay people a couple of bucks more an hour just to show up! I asked them why they do this, and they tell me that many of their employees book off a lot. Office workers have been found to spend at least 30 - 40% of the time in the office on their employer's time on the computer doing personal transactions, whether e-mail, visiting personal websites, or chatting. Some employers have strict policies on this, but in larger companies it is difficult to track specific people. But I read the racist, ableist, classist and bullying comments on websites day after day, and the same pseudonyms pop up during all hours of the day, regardless ... I only wish their employers would check on these workers more often, and I suspect if they did, many of them would be on the unemployment lines right now as I speak.

I also see workers taking "personal days off" when they call in sick. This happens all the time. In a large employer you are allowed up to ten days during a twelve month period of "emergency leave days", but this doesn't mean you have to get paid. In the late spring, I've watched several people call in sick and they were at the beach, or they were heading into a bar. I heard them talk to their employers into their cell phones, saying they were sick as I watched them enter a bar on St. Paul Street ... or similar situations. Yes, they are entitled to their entitlements. I also know them when they come to my office at the other end and learn they have been fired, and ask me to represent them against their employers. Yes, there are many bad employers out there, but there are many, many bad employees. One employee apparently stole over a million dollars from her employer over seven years so she can gamble. A lot of fraud takes place by employees, we only hear about the big cases. A friend recently reported that a moving company took all day to complete what would have been a three hour move so they can bill for the whole day, as opposed to a few hours.

At a non-profit organization, there was a policy on "time in lieu" because the agency couldn't afford overtime, so as a result, they contracted with their employees to pay overtime in the form of time off equivalent, such as if they worked an hour overtime, they got an hour and a half worth of time off. Concerns were raised when I did some board training about the "abuse" of this policy. Staff seemed to spend a lot more time going to meetings and conferences than they did doing their jobs, and unfortunately, they got a lot of time off in lieu as a result! We had to re-work the policy limiting the number of hours per month they can claim for outside meetings or conferences, and anything over that was their own time - period. Even for the approved meetings and conferences, they had to be directly related to their job, and approved ahead of time by the program director.

I read in the paper that teachers are being pressured not to take marks off for late assignments, or for grammar/spelling, and to pass people more readily. Teachers are being pressured by students and more likely, their parents, to give their kids good grades. I am so pleased I had the backing of the university administration when I was in charge of my courses back then. I certainly hope things are the same now, and that these so-called hard working poor souls did not take advantage and push themselves through to "earn" undeserved credits.

Unfortunately, while nobody questions the billions of dollars that go out the window each year in tax breaks, corporate bailouts, questionable stimulus programs, and so forth, these same people bitch about the less than 2% of our gross domestic product that goes out to support low income, disabled and unemployed workers. They go on websites and claim to "know" that at least half the people who are getting disability are not in fact disabled. How do they know, I wonder ... I guess they must all be doctors and have all examined these people personally. They also seem to claim people on welfare get grossly inflated amounts of money, and query if they are really better off working. They say they are entitled to lower taxes because they "work hard", but people on assistance aren't entitled to anything more than say somebody who committed a crime is. As for whether YOU work hard, I say, PROVE it! The burden of proof is on YOU, if you are telling others how hard YOU work. I already know most of YOU do not work hard, and most of you lucked out in getting your better paying job, or got connected through somebody you know, and not because of what you know (if you know anything at all).

Nobody questions that 20 - 30% of tax returns that are filed fraudulently, at least in part, many by wealthy people who are abusing loopholes, or self-employed contractors accepting cash payments, etc., depriving the treasury of billions and billions of dollars a year, yet YOU focus on the less than 1% of people who are unfortunate enough to be on welfare that might be getting something extra they might not be entitled to. And YOU are entitled to your entitlements. I don't have the right to question you as to why you seem to be able to sit at your computer all day and evening writing racial and prejudicial epithets on websites, while you claim to work so hard. I don't have the right to ask who your employer is, so I can verify your information. For all I know, you could be on house arrest for drinking and driving or something, so don't give me any pity party stories about how hard you work, because I know you don't work hard at all. If you really did work hard, I would not be hearing from you on the web. You wouldn't have the time to go online! I have some time because I work online, and I am self-employed in an office, and it just takes a couple of minutes for me to check email, and various sites.

I hear whining and complaining from some of you saying you pay 50% of your income in taxes. In order to do that, you must be in the top 10% of income earners of Ontario, and I personally would rather make what you do and pay the taxes, than earn a lower income that doesn't attract as much taxes. So quit your bitching! You have nothing to complain about.

If the rules that applied to people that work who are on welfare applied to you, you WOULD be bitching! Not only would you have to pay taxes and regular deductions from whatever you earn, you lose an additional 50% of your pay. If you have a disability, and cannot work at all, and are forced to live on the Ontario Disability Support Program, and you are married and your spouse works, 50% of anything he or she earns AFTER TAXES is deducted from YOUR cheque! Most of you would be crying bloody murder by then, as most of you are in families where both of you work, and no matter how much either one of you earn, it does not lower the other spouse's income. I tell the government to change this rule, keep the spouses out of it, regardless of income, assets, savings, whatever ... keep them out of it and if the disabled spouse cannot work, give them their OWN income. They tell me they can't do that because then they will be making a middle class income as a family. Hey, if that disabled spouse WERE ABLE to work, he or she WOULD be making a middle class income ... so the government's position on this is that if you are disabled and unable to work, you deserve to be poor. You are also deserving of remaining single, unless you can find a spouse who is willing to take full financial responsibility for you and your disability requirements ... good luck to that today!

Some people with disabilities are self-employed. You think you can get off welfare or ODSP through developing a good business plan and "working hard"? Think again! You are NOT ALLOWED to hire paid help. That means if you are running a farm and it comes to harvest time, you have to do it ALL by yourself, and work around the clock. I wonder if the same could be said for those that own General Motors and other companies, that they should not be allowed to deduct the monies they pay to their staff to help run their plants ... there would uproar for sure, as there should be in this case too! They are also not allowed to pay off personal debts, so even though their ODSP and whatever they have left of their earnings is rarely enough to meet their own or their family's needs and they often have to put payments on credit card so they can eat or buy school supplies for their kids, they CANNOT pay back these debts.

Yet it is okay for them to declare personal bankruptcy every few years. I think if you have concerns about this, you should write to me and I will PROVE every one of my allegations about welfare and ODSP rules. If all businesses and employees had to live by these rules, our country would be bankrupt and nobody would be paying into the system ... their traps and tricks number up to 800 rules that keep people on the system and keep people poor, no matter how hard they work.

And ANYBODY can end up on welfare. Don't think it won't happen to you. If you bash the poor today, and I later learn you end up needing help, I certainly will be less than sympathetic when you start to complain about what it is really like when you come up to the other side of this very bad coin and complain when it happens to you.