When Mike Harris was elected to power in 1995, he promised to cut welfare payments by 21.6% and cut provincial income taxes by 30%. Thus, the class war began in Ontario. It became acceptable through the actions of our leaders to attack the most vulnerable among us. It became acceptable to lord your social class over somebody who is less fortunate and tell them to buck up; after all, just thinking makes it so.
Soon, it became popular for members of the public to believe that if only the poor "got a job", their circumstances would vastly improve. Employers needed to fill their minimum wage, unstable workforce, while taxpayers wanted to pay less taxes and invest in more mutual funds and overseas vacations. The homes of the wealthy got bigger, while many of the poor had no homes at all, and this was acceptable. After all, isn't wealth earned and deserved?
Since Mike Harris and Harris wannabes got into power across Canada, including Gordon Campbell of BC, among others, it has become fact that the wealthiest sector of our population became much better off than they ever were, while our poor folks continued to lose ground. Even after the Liberals got swept into power in 2003, under the leadership of Dalton McGuinty, old attitudes played hard. While they were a kinder, gentler version than Mike Harris, nevertheless, little has changed under their leadership as to how the very poor are dealt with.
Last year, a group of downtown residents identifying themselves as the "real taxpayers" lobbied city hall and the region about the so-called concentration of social services in the downtown of St. Catharines. They pointed out that the welfare office, a few methadone clinics, Start Me Up Niagara, among other organizations were crowded in the downtown core to such an extent that nobody wanted to do business up there. Horsefeathers! I sat for eleven varied periods in the vicinity of the one methadone clinic uptown to see if people entering and exiting the clinic proceeded to "hang out" or urinate in the laneways, etc. as some people believed. Not once during any of my travails have I noted any problems emanating from that clinic. Nor have I witnessed the same coming from the welfare office, which was for a time centrally located and accessible by transit ...
After the same NIMBY-ites continued their bantering at all levels by writing letters to the paper, appearing at meetings of city council and making genuine asses of themselves, the social services office moved over to the far east side of the city, inaccessible to many people without a car or bus fare. Of course, they justify it by saying many of their clients are living at the east side, but then again, many also live downtown, the west side, etc. The city is going to Hell in a handbasket and it has little to do with what services are located where. It has more to do with poor planning and not listening to the people they should be listening to.
One example is our judicial system in Niagara. In Niagara, we have the peculiar arrangement of three different courthouses for provincial offences, and two different judicial districts whereby some cases must be heard in Welland and others must be heard in St. Catharines. The option to have hearings in Niagara Falls has been obliterated with the exception of traffic court cases, which tend to have heavy caseloads at all the locations. The Niagara South judicial district is headed in Welland, where nobody without a car can travel to or from. If you live in Niagara Falls, or an incident occured in Niagara South, the hearing is turned over to Welland. This is a minor matter for most middle class people who can easily hop in their cars and drive anywhere; however, if you live in Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Wainfleet, Wellandport, Port Colborne, etc. it becomes tricky. Because I don't drive, I am forced to pay $63 PER TRIP to a cab company to get me to that court and back, something I think no matter how high gas prices are, nobody that drives ever has to pay. This also applies to clients of mine ... many of whom I have to arrange transport from Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Wainfleet, Wellandport or Port Colborne, so they can attend their hearing ... also at a cost of between $63 to $85 per round trip for them.
One can always say they don't have to file their case, but many times, these cases are filed against THEM and they have no choice but to defend themselves in a court that is inaccessible to them. The thinking in setting up the two judicial districts in Niagara Region was obviously done by somebody who drives and never had a disadvantage in that way, nor have they obviously consulted the legal or business community to determine the best way to handle Niagara-based cases.
Unfortunately, the same thinking is permeating the Niagara Health System. Several years ago, six of Niagara's hospitals were amalgamated under some scheme that was put forth by the former Conservative Government under the assumption that one level of bureaucracy to run all of the six hospitals was better than having six separate administrations. Unfortunately, several other hospitals, such as Grimsby and Hotel Dieu-Shaver, have been left out of the amalgamation for various reasons. So, anyways, the Niagara Health System gets its wrists slapped for having a $17.5 million deficit and they were ordered to submit a health care system redesign this month, after pseudo-consultation with the public. I wrote my comments in, as I am sure others did.
In the consultation itself, much was said about what they had already planned anyways. Unfortunately, they are moving towards a multi-site, centre of excellence model, which would work well for Toronto or some other location where reliable, affordable transportation is available to members of the public. However, when the announcement was finally made as to what their intentions were, it didn't surprise me whatsoever. It once again was set up similar to the way our judicial system is set up ... dividing up Niagara's hospitals into specialized areas; St. Catharines being where the babies are born from throughout Niagara, as well as the centre for cancer care and childhood ear-nose-throat surgery and cardiac care ... Niagara Falls for orthopedic surgery, adult ENT surgery and many day therapies ... Welland for dialysis, etc.
Okay, if somebody starts getting contractions at three in the morning, will the NHS pay their cab fare from Fort Erie to St. Catharines? If somebody has to leave their community to go to Niagara Falls for example and their family is in Welland, will the NHS pay their cab fare to go visit their hospitalized family member getting orthopedic surgery following a car accident, for example? How about mental health care? This is going to be centred in St. Catharines, so if you have a mental breakdown but live in Port Colborne, I suppose the NHS is going to provide cab fare to get to St. Catharines. This also applies to family members that do not have cars, but want to visit. The rich have social support and family companionship, the poor get isolated. Isn't that always the case? It is obvious that whoever thought up this hare-brained scheme drives and everybody in their family drives ... and nobody bothered considering the 1/3 of adults in Niagara Region who either have no license or access to a car.
Instead, some propose asking "charities" to provide rides to people. Poor people do not want charity. Poor people simply want access, the same access taken for granted by others in the community. Those without cars are fed up with hearing those with cars complaining about the price of gas, when those living in poverty are lucky to eat and have a place to stay in the same month. People that do not drive are looked down upon here, like they are some kind of "damaged goods". They are not offered jobs, they are offered charity. They are not considered equally skilled to the "mobile" population, but deemed only skilled enough for minimum wage. It seems alright for these folks to live perpetually on social assistance, while others with the exact same or even less qualifications can climb the corporate ladder and retire in relative comfort someday ... while the poor find the idea of retirement to be merely a dream.
Then the Ontario Government comes up with this other hare-brained scheme called the Ontario Child Benefit, which they say will be given to all low-income families, whether working or on assistance. However, they don't mention that this is simply another clawback to replace the alleged clawback for the National Child Benefit Supplement. OW/ ODSP families will be getting anywhere from 10% - 30% less on their cheques in exchange for an insulting Ontario Child Benefit to "take their children off welfare". Yeah, right. Once the shell games stop, it only becomes clear that OW/ ODSP people actually LOSE in the end. No more back to school. No more winter clothing. Hey, they can now "save" their money from their meagre OW/ ODSP cheques to pay for these items ... yeah, the last I knew, many families had to unfortunately use this money to pay a hydro bill or to re-connect their telephone. If this is the cornerstone of Ontario's poverty-reduction strategy, I am very disappointed.
There are still a lot of prejudices out there, that low-income people cannot manage their money so they need a "trustee" to handle it for them, or that poor people spend all their money on booze and cigarettes and they somehow should be not permitted to do so ... like, what are they going to do? Hire an army of investigators to go through the cupboards of poor families to ensure they didn't buy any booze or anything like that? There are others that actually believe low-income women in particular keep getting pregnant and having more and more kids so they can get more money, which is another myth that is not supported by data. Yet when members of the public are asked how much they believe people actually get on welfare, the figures they give are grossly higher than they actually are ... and then they wonder why poor people hide their heads in shame and many do not even bother asking for help. They too are fed up with being seen as "damaged goods".
I personally am not going to wait for a time in the undetermined future when people are supposed to become more enlightened and compassionate and will not consider the source of your income or the fact you have a disability or a child with special needs an anomaly that must be punished. I think that TODAY we have to tell our governments to stop speaking out of both sides of their mouth ... saying they want to eliminate child poverty on one hand, but on the other, create much more of it ... this world is so full of inequality and in particular, kids from low income families are tired of having it rubbed in their faces how inferior they feel. It is time that low-income people have access to the same goods and services others do without having to resort to charities or to "cry poor" everywhere they go, just so they can get half a slice of day old bread.
Ontario is not a third world country ... we are not led by a despot that has taken all the gold and lives in fifteen palaces and uses weapons of mass destruction against his own people. We supposedly live in a democracy and a rich one, thank you very much ... and to me, ALL Ontarians, not just the so-called middle and upper classes, should have equal access to all that Ontario offers as a matter of course. Why am I stuck in a region that is light years behind many others, even places like Kitchener-Waterloo that have decisively put together an inter-municipal transit service and are looking into light rail now has the second lowest poverty rate across Ontario?
Your thoughts?
Showing posts with label privileges of driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privileges of driving. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
BIG OIL AND PRIVILEGE
It is typically Canadian these days to complain about two things: (a) gas prices; and (b) the loss of our second national anthem, "The Hockey Song" which has been with us since 1968 for "Hockey Night in Canada". It seems that CBC lost, but CTV won the right with the second issue, thus "saving" Canada's anthem and its tradition of sorts. However, the first issue continues to remain a bee in almost everybody's bonnet.
Gasoline prices at the pump have steadily increased since the 1990's from about 40 cents a litre to what is now $1.40 per litre in many places. Prices are at least double this amount in European countries, but then again, people in Europe have more respect for alternatives to the automobile than they do here. People who do not drive in North America are viewed as aberrant and inferior for some reason. To me, it is a classist and ableist bias, but if our society wants to continue this -- it should cost those dearly that want to continue. On Face Book, there is a Canadian site with more than 300,000 people on it complaining about gas prices and another "global site" with over 1,000,000 people on it. Many of the sites record almost on a daily basis the price of gas per litre or per barrel ... as it almost seems like the price is shifting this way.
I have very mixed feelings about the price of gas. I do feel empathetic and concerned for those that transport goods and people as a principle part of their business, as this not only severely impacts their bottom lines, but also the bottom lines of many other businesses at the end of the line. If you run a store that relies on imported goods, such products had to get to you somehow; they certainly didn't walk there!!! As a business owner, you had to pay a surcharge to have these items delivered to you, or as a supplier, a surcharge to have your products shipped. Farmers are feeling it. Importers, exporters, small manufacturing companies, even convenience stores ... are all feeling the pinch. Those that do the transporting are feeling it even worse, as their margins are being further and further cut, forcing some shipping firms to cut staff, park vehicles and reduce loads. This is the part of the "price of gas" that bothers me.
To be blunt, I don't care if the price of gas surpasses $5 a litre for those that use their vehicles only to get to and from work, or to take road trips --vehicle owners never paid the full cost of their privilege. As they continue to whine about the price of gas, taxpayers of *all* descriptions (including those that do not or cannot drive for whatever reason) continue to pay for road building, maintenance, expansions, highways, "free parking" at malls, traffic control, traffic planning services, parking enforcement, etc. Yes, there is tax on gas to cover some of these expenses, but this tax does not cover all of it. According to the CAA, it costs an average of $8,000 to $10,000 a year to own and operate a personal vehicle. That means, in order to do this -- you are certainly privileged enough to have that much more disposable income after housing, food and other basic needs, to put aside for a vehicle. In my view, if this is the case, then those that can afford vehicles should not be alarmed by paying the full price of operating their cars and paying even more per litre of gas.
These same non-driving taxpayers also have to get around somehow as well; many, especially in regions like my own, are forced to pay many more times than the cost of a vehicle trip on a per kilometre basis, on taxi fares, bus fares (where there are buses), as well as forfeit a majority of job opportunities that pay more than minimum wage, especially since these days, when it is okay to discriminate against the poor and people with disabilities - employers simply invite only those who drive need apply. To many people, they might as well say, "No dogs or Jews need apply" or "Whites only". Replace the words "must have valid driver's license and reliable vehicle" with "must be of Caucasian or Oriental origin in order to understand our customers' needs" or "must be able to lift 100 pounds and run the four-minute mile" or "those in wheelchairs need not apply; office is not equipped for the handicapped". Blame the disabled person for having the disability; the employer need not accommodate.
These non-drivers are also paying three or four times as much on a per kilometre basis than those with vehicles and as most transportation studies confirm, they take 50 - 75% less personal trips and pay a larger portion of their incomes on transportation costs than for those who drive. How does this translate into higher costs for non-drivers if the price of gas is so high and the CAA cites the high cost of vehicle ownership? It is because drivers have a substantially greater chance of being hired into better paying jobs and according to many work-to-welfare studies from the U.S., people with cars tend to work longer hours and get paid up to $2 or more dollars per hour higher than those that do not drive. In my own view, driving a vehicle should ONLY be a qualification if the job requires driving a vehicle as a primary function of the job.
In Niagara, non-drivers are left in the dust as well. I am looking for a mechanism to give the Honourable Jim Bradley, Minister of Transportation, and MPP for St. Catharines, an award ... This award would be similar to the type of award some of the Teachers Associations tried to give to then Education Minister, John "create a crisis" Snobelen, in the days of Mike Harris, when it was revealed that he did not even graduate from high school. For Jim, the stakes would be similar, the circumstances different ... except, he would be awarded the first Minister of Transportation to come from a region that has the Worst Transit System for a population of its size and demographic. If Bradley is unable to do anything for his own backyard, as some of his critics may ask, how can he be expected to change the transportation dynamic in Ontario as a whole?
People in Toronto joke all the time about the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission. Sometimes, delays, no-shows, breakdowns and crowded buses irritate the TTC commuter. When buses and streetcars come by, on average, every five minutes, it is frustrating for a commuter to wait another five. In St. Catharines, service is every hour after six and in other municipalities, there is NO transit after six. Frustrated TTC commuters call the TTC "take the car". Niagara has its own TTC as well, except it IS "Take the Car". If you do not drive, you do not have citizenship in Niagara Region. Most jobs are given to only respectable "middle class" sorts that already have the spare change to spend on vehicle ownership; in other words, you will get a job in Niagara if you already have a good job. If you do not have a job, or your job pays too poorly, one of the first cuts many are forced to make is to park or even sell the car, as other cuts, such as living in a tent and eating one meal a day are less healthy for you, particularly in the winter-time. If you have a disability and cannot drive, employers don't want you anyways. After all, "governments and families" look after people with disabilities. Maybe that's why so many of them are having trouble keeping their housing and getting sick from such poor diets, etc.
Todd Littman, a transportation analyst has actually calculated the value of the "free ride" people who drive actually get from taxpayers and others. He valued it at about $5,800 per annum. In other words, people who drive are certainly not paying their full share of the costs. Maybe they should. The only "breaks" if anybody should get them should be businesses that are in the practice of transporting goods or people. If somebody who drives says they cannot afford to pay the "full cost", then park the car - period. I think if more of these people understood what kind of a privilege it is to drive and what advantages society confers onto them simply by having a driver's license and a vehicle, they just might understand how much more money they are costing the rest of us that do not drive. Public transportation users do have some subsidy as well, averaging about $1,300 a year in an urban centre -- but he argues in another paper that transit subsidies are more "just" as it equalizes to some extent the privileges of mobility for both classes - drivers and non-drivers.
Maybe the deal can work this way. We ALL pay full price for our choices. Except, the very large portion of my tax bill that currently goes to the privileges of private vehicle owners in terms of road and bridge repair, traffic lights, traffic control, planning, parking, urban sprawl, higher prices at malls, etc. should be wiped right OFF my tax bill and the tax bills of others that do not or cannot drive. I should also be getting a 15 - 20% discount at the supermarket, as those big box supermarkets do pay a LOT of money to give drivers "free parking", as well as pay for the transportation services of its business. Those that drive shall pay the balance, perhaps in the form of road tolls, paid parking regardless of where they go, levies for owning a car and keeping it within city limits, etc. When I see drivers paying the full load, which may exceed $20,000 a year or more per vehicle, then maybe I might be somewhat empathetic.
It should also be illegal for employers to discriminate against non-drivers unless the essential duties of the job are driving goods or people, or the job involves mandatory travel, such as travelling to various homes in a community to test their water pipes or inspect their furnaces (where it would be impossible, for example, for homeowners to come to an office to provide the parts). In most other jobs, having a transit service will enable non-drivers to do the essential duties of most jobs.
The use of a driver's license for identification has also been an issue for generations. Most video stores, public libraries, convenience stores/liquor stores (where you may need to be ID'd), border crossings, banks, etc. expect EVERYBODY to have a government-issued photo ID. The only one that the government issues that is not a driver's license is the health card, and most of these same places do not accept this as ID. So why do they accept a driver's license as an ID when less people have this type of identification than people who have say, a health card or a citizenship card? I successfully forced many of these types of places to accept non-driver's license identification by threatening a human rights action and if they refused to accept something else, I certainly would have followed through. This is MY citizenship rights.
The Ontario Government is apparently trying to set up a type of non-driver's licence photo ID for non-drivers to use, but in my view -- they shouldn't be using licenses either, as in my view - the use of a driver's license for ID purposes is no more useful than using a health card for ID purposes ... maybe a national identity and photo ID card should be issued, much like a social insurance number, to anybody who asks and can present other identification, such as a birth certificate, etc. If the person wants to add security information to their national ID card so they can do things like cross borders, then they can choose to undertake a simple security screening.
The trouble with using the driver's license is it normalizes the acquisition and use of a driver's license as a type of proof of citizenship. As the Minister of Transportation said himself, almost four million Ontarians do not have a driver's license. In addition to those that do not have a license, about a quarter to a third of licensed drivers do not have access to a personal vehicle. This is a LOT of people to deny citizenship right to and to relegate to lowest levels of the workforce. It also reinforces the power and economic interests that Big Oil have over all of us. Those that drive can earn good money. Those that want to continue to drive pay more per litre of gas than they did even last year or even last week! Those that choose not to drive are denied the right to earn a decent living, and are not viewed favourably by the "middle class".
If you are a man in your forties, for example, and you do not choose to have a license - perhaps, for environmental reasons or you never felt you wanted one or whatever reason -- it is automatically assumed by the absence of your license there is "something wrong" with you. I know a PHd who chose not to drive for many years; further, he had some cognitive difficulties that affected him in a way that learning to drive was not easy for him. Despite his PHd, his strong writing and research skills, he was denied almost every job he applied for. Once he got married, his new wife taught him patiently how to drive and now he is working full-time. We have to separate our dependence on Big Oil from our potential and livelihood. If we don't do it now, more and more people will be left out of the loop and if you think your taxes are bad now, just wait until we have to support thousands and thousands more people on welfare because of our "middle class" and "ableist" bias.
Thoughts?
Gasoline prices at the pump have steadily increased since the 1990's from about 40 cents a litre to what is now $1.40 per litre in many places. Prices are at least double this amount in European countries, but then again, people in Europe have more respect for alternatives to the automobile than they do here. People who do not drive in North America are viewed as aberrant and inferior for some reason. To me, it is a classist and ableist bias, but if our society wants to continue this -- it should cost those dearly that want to continue. On Face Book, there is a Canadian site with more than 300,000 people on it complaining about gas prices and another "global site" with over 1,000,000 people on it. Many of the sites record almost on a daily basis the price of gas per litre or per barrel ... as it almost seems like the price is shifting this way.
I have very mixed feelings about the price of gas. I do feel empathetic and concerned for those that transport goods and people as a principle part of their business, as this not only severely impacts their bottom lines, but also the bottom lines of many other businesses at the end of the line. If you run a store that relies on imported goods, such products had to get to you somehow; they certainly didn't walk there!!! As a business owner, you had to pay a surcharge to have these items delivered to you, or as a supplier, a surcharge to have your products shipped. Farmers are feeling it. Importers, exporters, small manufacturing companies, even convenience stores ... are all feeling the pinch. Those that do the transporting are feeling it even worse, as their margins are being further and further cut, forcing some shipping firms to cut staff, park vehicles and reduce loads. This is the part of the "price of gas" that bothers me.
To be blunt, I don't care if the price of gas surpasses $5 a litre for those that use their vehicles only to get to and from work, or to take road trips --vehicle owners never paid the full cost of their privilege. As they continue to whine about the price of gas, taxpayers of *all* descriptions (including those that do not or cannot drive for whatever reason) continue to pay for road building, maintenance, expansions, highways, "free parking" at malls, traffic control, traffic planning services, parking enforcement, etc. Yes, there is tax on gas to cover some of these expenses, but this tax does not cover all of it. According to the CAA, it costs an average of $8,000 to $10,000 a year to own and operate a personal vehicle. That means, in order to do this -- you are certainly privileged enough to have that much more disposable income after housing, food and other basic needs, to put aside for a vehicle. In my view, if this is the case, then those that can afford vehicles should not be alarmed by paying the full price of operating their cars and paying even more per litre of gas.
These same non-driving taxpayers also have to get around somehow as well; many, especially in regions like my own, are forced to pay many more times than the cost of a vehicle trip on a per kilometre basis, on taxi fares, bus fares (where there are buses), as well as forfeit a majority of job opportunities that pay more than minimum wage, especially since these days, when it is okay to discriminate against the poor and people with disabilities - employers simply invite only those who drive need apply. To many people, they might as well say, "No dogs or Jews need apply" or "Whites only". Replace the words "must have valid driver's license and reliable vehicle" with "must be of Caucasian or Oriental origin in order to understand our customers' needs" or "must be able to lift 100 pounds and run the four-minute mile" or "those in wheelchairs need not apply; office is not equipped for the handicapped". Blame the disabled person for having the disability; the employer need not accommodate.
These non-drivers are also paying three or four times as much on a per kilometre basis than those with vehicles and as most transportation studies confirm, they take 50 - 75% less personal trips and pay a larger portion of their incomes on transportation costs than for those who drive. How does this translate into higher costs for non-drivers if the price of gas is so high and the CAA cites the high cost of vehicle ownership? It is because drivers have a substantially greater chance of being hired into better paying jobs and according to many work-to-welfare studies from the U.S., people with cars tend to work longer hours and get paid up to $2 or more dollars per hour higher than those that do not drive. In my own view, driving a vehicle should ONLY be a qualification if the job requires driving a vehicle as a primary function of the job.
In Niagara, non-drivers are left in the dust as well. I am looking for a mechanism to give the Honourable Jim Bradley, Minister of Transportation, and MPP for St. Catharines, an award ... This award would be similar to the type of award some of the Teachers Associations tried to give to then Education Minister, John "create a crisis" Snobelen, in the days of Mike Harris, when it was revealed that he did not even graduate from high school. For Jim, the stakes would be similar, the circumstances different ... except, he would be awarded the first Minister of Transportation to come from a region that has the Worst Transit System for a population of its size and demographic. If Bradley is unable to do anything for his own backyard, as some of his critics may ask, how can he be expected to change the transportation dynamic in Ontario as a whole?
People in Toronto joke all the time about the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission. Sometimes, delays, no-shows, breakdowns and crowded buses irritate the TTC commuter. When buses and streetcars come by, on average, every five minutes, it is frustrating for a commuter to wait another five. In St. Catharines, service is every hour after six and in other municipalities, there is NO transit after six. Frustrated TTC commuters call the TTC "take the car". Niagara has its own TTC as well, except it IS "Take the Car". If you do not drive, you do not have citizenship in Niagara Region. Most jobs are given to only respectable "middle class" sorts that already have the spare change to spend on vehicle ownership; in other words, you will get a job in Niagara if you already have a good job. If you do not have a job, or your job pays too poorly, one of the first cuts many are forced to make is to park or even sell the car, as other cuts, such as living in a tent and eating one meal a day are less healthy for you, particularly in the winter-time. If you have a disability and cannot drive, employers don't want you anyways. After all, "governments and families" look after people with disabilities. Maybe that's why so many of them are having trouble keeping their housing and getting sick from such poor diets, etc.
Todd Littman, a transportation analyst has actually calculated the value of the "free ride" people who drive actually get from taxpayers and others. He valued it at about $5,800 per annum. In other words, people who drive are certainly not paying their full share of the costs. Maybe they should. The only "breaks" if anybody should get them should be businesses that are in the practice of transporting goods or people. If somebody who drives says they cannot afford to pay the "full cost", then park the car - period. I think if more of these people understood what kind of a privilege it is to drive and what advantages society confers onto them simply by having a driver's license and a vehicle, they just might understand how much more money they are costing the rest of us that do not drive. Public transportation users do have some subsidy as well, averaging about $1,300 a year in an urban centre -- but he argues in another paper that transit subsidies are more "just" as it equalizes to some extent the privileges of mobility for both classes - drivers and non-drivers.
Maybe the deal can work this way. We ALL pay full price for our choices. Except, the very large portion of my tax bill that currently goes to the privileges of private vehicle owners in terms of road and bridge repair, traffic lights, traffic control, planning, parking, urban sprawl, higher prices at malls, etc. should be wiped right OFF my tax bill and the tax bills of others that do not or cannot drive. I should also be getting a 15 - 20% discount at the supermarket, as those big box supermarkets do pay a LOT of money to give drivers "free parking", as well as pay for the transportation services of its business. Those that drive shall pay the balance, perhaps in the form of road tolls, paid parking regardless of where they go, levies for owning a car and keeping it within city limits, etc. When I see drivers paying the full load, which may exceed $20,000 a year or more per vehicle, then maybe I might be somewhat empathetic.
It should also be illegal for employers to discriminate against non-drivers unless the essential duties of the job are driving goods or people, or the job involves mandatory travel, such as travelling to various homes in a community to test their water pipes or inspect their furnaces (where it would be impossible, for example, for homeowners to come to an office to provide the parts). In most other jobs, having a transit service will enable non-drivers to do the essential duties of most jobs.
The use of a driver's license for identification has also been an issue for generations. Most video stores, public libraries, convenience stores/liquor stores (where you may need to be ID'd), border crossings, banks, etc. expect EVERYBODY to have a government-issued photo ID. The only one that the government issues that is not a driver's license is the health card, and most of these same places do not accept this as ID. So why do they accept a driver's license as an ID when less people have this type of identification than people who have say, a health card or a citizenship card? I successfully forced many of these types of places to accept non-driver's license identification by threatening a human rights action and if they refused to accept something else, I certainly would have followed through. This is MY citizenship rights.
The Ontario Government is apparently trying to set up a type of non-driver's licence photo ID for non-drivers to use, but in my view -- they shouldn't be using licenses either, as in my view - the use of a driver's license for ID purposes is no more useful than using a health card for ID purposes ... maybe a national identity and photo ID card should be issued, much like a social insurance number, to anybody who asks and can present other identification, such as a birth certificate, etc. If the person wants to add security information to their national ID card so they can do things like cross borders, then they can choose to undertake a simple security screening.
The trouble with using the driver's license is it normalizes the acquisition and use of a driver's license as a type of proof of citizenship. As the Minister of Transportation said himself, almost four million Ontarians do not have a driver's license. In addition to those that do not have a license, about a quarter to a third of licensed drivers do not have access to a personal vehicle. This is a LOT of people to deny citizenship right to and to relegate to lowest levels of the workforce. It also reinforces the power and economic interests that Big Oil have over all of us. Those that drive can earn good money. Those that want to continue to drive pay more per litre of gas than they did even last year or even last week! Those that choose not to drive are denied the right to earn a decent living, and are not viewed favourably by the "middle class".
If you are a man in your forties, for example, and you do not choose to have a license - perhaps, for environmental reasons or you never felt you wanted one or whatever reason -- it is automatically assumed by the absence of your license there is "something wrong" with you. I know a PHd who chose not to drive for many years; further, he had some cognitive difficulties that affected him in a way that learning to drive was not easy for him. Despite his PHd, his strong writing and research skills, he was denied almost every job he applied for. Once he got married, his new wife taught him patiently how to drive and now he is working full-time. We have to separate our dependence on Big Oil from our potential and livelihood. If we don't do it now, more and more people will be left out of the loop and if you think your taxes are bad now, just wait until we have to support thousands and thousands more people on welfare because of our "middle class" and "ableist" bias.
Thoughts?
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