JACK LAYTON'S LEGACY - 1950 -2011

It was early last Monday morning my son announced he just heard that Jack Layton, NDP Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, had died of the cancer he had contracted in July 2011. We we filled with hope that he would be back fighting in spirit in Parliament on September 19, 2011, when Parliament resumes.

I watched the State Funeral he was given yesterday. One of the songs, Hallelejah, by Leonard Cohen, was one of the songs that was played to him apparently in his final days. At his funeral, Steven Page, former front man for the Barenaked Ladies sung it at the Roy Thompson Hall, with grace as members of the audience on both the inside and outside had tears in their eyes. The other one was with the original singer, Lorraine Legato, of Parachute Club fame, singing Rise Up. Reverend Brent Hawkes talked about his Sunday sermons, he would check the balcony above and he would find Jack and Olivia in attendance.

To me, Jack Layton was a big part of how Toronto became the wonderful place I find it to be today. I am so fearful that the recent election of Rob Ford is going to destroy that community. Jack Layton stood up for inclusive communities, and for a long time, Toronto tried to be an inclusive community. I always envied those who lived there for their lives, and today they are interwoven in the Toronto legal, social, urban and political landscape, while I, as an outsider can only come when I take part in something province wide.

But, I want to tell you about Jack Layton. I have met him numerous times, many times as a young person when I was all NDP-idealistic and even presided the riding association at one point. I belonged to a group called ACT for Disarmament, which was a fight against the cold war, something both my husband and I recall as being big in the 1970's and 1980's. We would have marches here by the federal MP's office at one time when the Landmark Building was actually a federal building. We would travel to Toronto, and join the larger peace movement there, led by Toronto's ACT for Disarmament.

Jack Layton would be involved. I remember his face, simply by looking at what he looked like in the 1980's. He would sometimes speak, and make various venues available to us. I loved Toronto then, as it was so much bigger and more powerful and it was branching out to Niagara in those early days with our rag tag group, which still seemed to attract hundreds to our own local demonstrations and Hiroshima and Nagasaki awareness days in the park. I remember listening to the music in my ear, especially of We Built This City by Jefferson Starship. Ben and I were young then, both of us in college during that age, and even afterwards.

You see, Niagara was not always the drab, conservative, do-nothing, bend-over-and-let-me-let-you-screw-me type of community like it can be now. There were at least fourteen activist organizations that had my name on them somewhere. At the same time, I fought major battles before I was trained in the law. One was being denied access to university funding and education, and the other was an action I had to take against the very old fashioned CMHA at the time for their decision to expell me because of my politics at the time. I organized the clients of the agency to teach them demand better, and ask for jobs there, or to become volunteers so we can run our own programs to some extent. Apparently, a substantial petition was taken to force them to take me back, as well as a legal action, which attracted Ontario Division and United Way to the table, a nightmare I was not going to allow to stop until they stopped excluding me. I ended up joining the Board after I came back and served there for many years, and was eventually awarded a lifetime membership.

There was also the Unemployed Action Alliance. I pass the old Grantham Township Building in St. Catharines everyday. This was 145 King Street, where a drop-in centre, advocacy and support services were provided for the city's unemployed. We held the clout to bring the Mayor and city council to the table and make demands for things like reduced bus fare, and free activities like a large picnic for the unemployed, where I eventually met my husband (who was volunteering for the event). We would also demonstrate, do protests, as well as enjoy Christmas dinners at behest of the local labour leaders. We responded to the rhetoric of the day about those of us that were unemployed, that said we were lazy, did not want to work, and resisted a version of workfare that being introduced at the time.

I was in college then, first taking my legal clerkship and then later fighting throught the Ombudsman and the MPP office for my OSAP. I was a force to be reckoned with, as I was not happy to let people tell me I cannot do this, or cannot do that. I lived on my own since I was a teenager, and always trying to adjust to the rules that either enabled me, or confined me in many respects. Somebody I met in Toronto told me to talk to Mel Swart, then an MPP for the NDP representing Welland. They told me I was not capable of going to university, and further, OSAP would not qualify me, so I fought. I still have the letters I wrote, until the NDP took me up as a case in the legislature, and because I received very little support from my parents (even for signing a damned form!), I had to do things the hard way ... I still remember Mel phoning me to tell me that the Minister approved my application for OSAP by order-in-council, and I could get information for this from the finance department at the university, which I did.

While all this might not seem to be about Jack Layton, he was in my life throughout this whole period of time. I was in the NDP. I would attend provincial and federal conferences, as well as attend meetings where NDP leaders would come down to do a meet and greet. Jack Layton sat at my table at a couple of these conferences. He encouraged me to apply for co-operative housing, which I did. I remember Jack standing up and stating why the government had so much against co-ops ... because the people in them were politically aware and can push for change.

It was a few years later that Jack Layton was attacked by the Toronto Sun because he and his wife, Olivia Chow, were living in a downtown housing co-operative and at the time, collectively were bringing in over $100,000 a year. This was all based on the public's ignorance of the philosophy of co-operative housing. While co-operative housing IS a form of social housing, it is not necessarily a "low income housing". It is part of the co-op mantra to include people from all backgrounds, all incomes, all races, all religions, etc. to live in an intentional community. If it were so wrong for Jack and Olivia to live in their co-op at the time, why didn't mine evict my family when I used to make approximately $85,000 a year on my own? You just don't get your rent subsidized when you earn good money, but you are not excluded.

These were the days when the latter half of the baby boomers were beginning to speak out, and the earlier baby boomers supported us. There was a large movement to develop cooperative housing in the Niagara Region during the 1980's and early 1990s from what I remember. That is why there are a considerable number of these projects in the region today, even though much of what we did back then has become depoliticized and individualized by those that didn't want the change.

I began to go to Toronto a lot in the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. On many of these occasions, we would meet in places where the political movers and shakers of Toronto met, and we would interact. In the early 1990's, I was given a special invite to Niagara-on-the-Lake's Queen's Landing, where then Premier Bob Rae and his Cabinet were having a meeting, and we not only were able to stay for the public part of it, we were able to socialize with them afterwards. I remember speaking to Frances Lankin at the time, then made Minister of Economic Development and Trade. There was a similar meet and greet in Toronto, where Jack Layton was also present among the invitees, and at that time I shared a table with Premier Bob Rae, and his wife Arlene Perly Rae.

I was just getting out of school in Toronto, and supporting myself through a variety of consulting contracts, both for the federal and provincial government ministries, as well as for private non-profit organizations. After my 10 1/2 year adventure in university was over, I had no job waiting for me. I continued to be a consultant until I became an executive director of the local Niagara Mental Health Survivors Network, a job I held for three years which allowed me to see both sides of an issue, changing my politics considerably. I still have downstairs all the copies of the Niagara Survivor's Journal we ever published through that organization. Later, I accepted similar jobs at the provincial and federal level, until I was exhausted. Upon returning to my roots, I started up private practice again and eventually situated my office next to Start Me Up Niagara, an organization which was formed and funded through one of the jobs that I held over the years.

When I read Jack Layton's history, he did not have a work history like "everybody else's" either. Neither did I. There were no organizations begging for my services (apart from my expertise as a consultant or now as legal representative). I found that the timing of my job search hit every major recession in my career path, leaving employers with no openings for new people, just those who have already been laid off. At one point, I did bluntly ask how I could make myself into somebody that has already been laid off there so I can have a chance at a job. Experiences like this led to some of my more centrist positions on issues. But, regardless of what stage of my life, Toronto was always there for me.

It could be for the peace movement, the NDP, contacting various legislators to get issues pushed, conferences, and even some of my schooling. Eventually I worked on contracts in Toronto, and this has always given me a positive feeling about Toronto. To me, Jack Layton and his wife, Olivia Chow, were very much a part of moving Toronto into a progressive metropolis. Over time, I used Toronto as a way to be surrounded by progress, even in the law, as I once went around taking pictures of the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Law Society, the University Avenue Courthouse, the Human Rights Tribunal, etc. This was the location where the power sources were, and how they generated themselves out to the broader province of Ontario. I would attend conferences, accept various appointments, and do other work in Toronto, simply to get away from Niagara, which since about 1998, has become a very apolitical and hostile environment in which to live. The last anti-poverty conference was held in the mid 1990's, and was organized by me and my agency.

Today I have been so proud to see some people come out. Niagara has been dull for so long, and we have been so isolated. The political epicentre here is Start Me Up Niagara, and my legal office, it seems. There are scattered people in Welland, but they've never concerned themselves with the interests of others in the region, where our problems are just as bad. I have to unfortunately be politically neutral in my direct dealings with government agencies, as my legal office serves many interests. Being involved as a young person with the NDP, then spending some of my time working with the Progressive Conservatives in the 1990's gave me a good bird's eye view on how the inner political workings work, even though I am not interested in any political party now, although I will work with whoever wants to get the stuff done that I want to see done.

During the last federal election, I was torn. I liked both candidates for the Conservatives and for the NDP, but I liked Jack Layton better than Stephen Harper. On May 2, 2011, Jack Layton made an excellent victory and concession speech to a very large crowd of cheerful supporters, and Stephen Harper glowed in his victory in finally achieving a majority government. In a way, Canadians all got they wanted. We got rid of separatism in Quebec with an orange sweep over Quebec, and the NDP won an unprecedented number of seats, placing him and Olivia in Stornaway, an honour never given to an NDP member of Parliament in all of history. Conservative supporters also got the majority they long sought after.

During the election campaign, I was very impressed with the NDP ads. They were not mean and vicious against other parties and other leaders; they were cheerful, optimistic and powerful. When he spoke on election night, he was so optimistic, and I bet every Canadian across the land except for those whose heads were deeply in the sand did want to see a Canada for all Canadians "where nobody gets left behind". Various election ads, such one about small businesses, health care, and leadership. Many of these commercials during the election ended with Layton speaking to a large audience saying, "We won't stop until we get the job done!".

And then last Monday comes along. Jack Layton is not coming back. He died at 4:45 a.m. last Monday, just after a meeting I was part of at Montebello Park planning an anti-poverty response to the provincial election. It is like I lost a major limb, or a large part of my heart was cut out ... it is more than a "now what?". Is this the end of an era? I hope not. Canada has become too lean and mean lately. While I resented a lot of the political correctness, union issues etc., during the Bob Rae era, I wanted so badly to see a progressive movement like one led by Layton that did not push these issues that turned too many off the NDP.

My family watched the State Funeral on Saturday. It was Stephen Harper that approached now widow, Olivia Chow, to offer it. The procession was wonderful, a celebration of his life, and how the people of Toronto gathered in the thousands and thousand on sight and mourned and others of us mourned across the nation ... not a dry eye in this land. But what do we make of this? Jack Layton wrote a final letter to Canadians from his death bed, which I was not able to read in its entirety. There is too much of me in it, too much of my time in Toronto in it, and too much of dawning realities in it ... a mother-in-law with possible cancer in the liver, a friend of mine just diagnosed with another type of cancer, and how Layton - a hero in the minds of so many Canadians - just was felled by the same thing.

The Letter to Canadians is inspiring me to act, to act against cancer, to act against the destructive influences of the ridiculous right, to find a way to unite Canadians, to find a way to help us find ways to love one another, to help one another, and to teach one another, and how to empower one another. A text version of the letter is available here

In closing, the final words resonated with all Canadians: My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.

And we'll change the world.

All my very best,
Jack Layton

AND MAY YOUR CHRISTMAS BE A CHARMED ONE ...

Christmas was always one of my favourite times of the year. It is not so much the giving and receiving of presents, but the presence of others that saves me from myself. After all, Christmas is one of the few times of the year I can truly take time off, as others are more involved in other aspects of their lives and are less concerned with legal hassles, except for the few odd emergencies I worked through in previous years.

While I love Christmas and always look forward in anticipation with the lights, the music and the whole idea of starting off fresh in a new year, it is also a time of year when my cynicism reaches fever pitch. The Salvation Army commercials come on about this time of the year, flashing their statistics on your TV screen, asking you to give, give, give. Food banks are forever predicting a "crisis" of sorts if some white knight or white knights do not come to the rescue with hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the homeless shelters promise to feed the hungry a turkey dinner.

This is a "feel good" time of the year for people who are comfortable. Giving money to a food bank, or a financial donation to a shelter seems to be the thing to do to ease oneself of the guilt of never having to have been a recipient of such a service. For those among us that give very large donations, most do not mind the press coverage - especially a company, as it shows "good corporate citizenship" (even though the same company receiving the heaps of good press may actually be one that pays low wages and treats their workers badly -- but how do we know?). Despite the "good citizenship" deeds that tend to be performed at this time of the year, we hardly give a thought about how the people at the receiving end feel about being at the receiving end. Has anybody ever asked them?

The charitable sector has become ingrained into our political culture to the point whereby we do not really think of those that receive our help, as any more than people who are needy, dependent and in some way, damaged goods. While this is certainly not a conscious assumption, nor is it present in every case of giving ... as I do know personal friends who have formed more reciprocal relationships with the people they set out to help. Unfortunately, this is an exception, not the rule.

When I speak to people who have gone to food banks or other charitable services on a regular basis (as opposed to going only for that one year when times were tough), I learn most of these folks have a very low self-esteem. Some do not believe they are "deserving" of a better life, such as a life where they would have enough resources to reasonably make choices. While they are thankful for the help, they do not see themselves as empowered human beings that are viewed by others as individuals with capabilities, talents and resources of their own. A portion of this group try to steer themselves away from charitable services, thinking they would "rather starve" than accept this help from anyone.

When prospective donors hear about this subset of people who refuse help, they are viewed as "mentally ill" or simply possessing "pride". However, when donors to these services are asked about the people they are "helping", once again - this population is viewed as somewhat helpless, dispossessed and unwanted, although they do acknowledge that some people are getting help as a result of "falling on hard times through no fault of their own". The complicated pseudo-relationship and inherent schema that is developed between the donor and the recipient is rarely considered in how recipients come to view themselves, or their own futures - when in my view, it has EVERYTHING to do with this attitude.

This is not about the people that provide services in this field, the thousands of volunteers that toil daily to sort through donations, others that appeal to the media for more donations and other persons, usually paid personnel that provide direct service to the recipients. It is more about the schema produced and not challenged by these same thousand points of light and the media that backs them about the necessary dichotomy between the helpers and the recipients, roles that are not portrayed as interchanged or interdependent. This role is further entrenched by the screening processes used by such charities to ensure each recipient is "deserving" of help.

Similar to any targeted welfare scheme, prospective recipients are encouraged to disengage themselves as actors and potential participants in their futures, but to focus on everything that is wrong with their lives ... in fact, as with many welfare schemes, one has to prove they have depersonalized themselves and spoiled their identity to the point that the helper is satisfied they have done all they can to reduce themselves to nothing. At the same time, nothing is offered up to address the situation that brought the recipient through their doors in the first place. Many trained in the service delivery model identify with the "spoiled identity" or "damaged goods" version of their entrails, as opposed to questioning why there appears to be a greater number of people each year in similar given circumstances.

While even the social work model professes to work against systemic barriers in favour of progressive social change, this is not what happens when people check their identities at the door to get the so-called "help" they need. The helper is there to "correct" supposed personal deficits of the disadvantaged, as opposed to helping them break barriers to join the "advantaged" part of society. For many social workers and others in related helping professions, they cannot even imagine their clients qualifying to do their jobs, for example.

While most helpers do not necessarily "blame the victim", they do nevertheless, view the victim as somewhat defective. The homeless man is "mentally ill". The single parent with two children in tow is always in abusive relationships. The single man who lost his apartment needs to learn how to balance his budget. The chronically unemployed are there because they are illiterate, lack high school and likely, do not have any skills. When other statistics are presented that show that recipients as a group look more similar to the group of "helpers" than they are dissimilar, helpers resist this interpretation.

I have focused some of my time over the years to talk to people who do not visit food banks, go to homeless shelters or seek other types of counseling assistance - even though their life circumstances and their needs may be identical to those that do use such services. While my observations may be anecdotal in nature, the same themes have emerged over time through different voices. What I have learned from these folks is instrumental and should be not only acknowledged by those that deliver services, but incorporated in their overall philosophy and structure of how they approach anybody coming through their door.

1. People want to be viewed as capable and willing to do for
themselves. A hand out in any way, shape or form makes
the person feel they are viewed as dependent and incapable
of doing for themselves, that somebody with "capability"
must do these things for them.

2. People want a hand up, not a hand out. Traditional charities
are very bad at recognizing that people want out of the
"welfare trap" more than they may believe they need
immediate help. People refusing services know they will not
get a job, get out of poverty or get into decent (and
independent) housing through the charitable service. In
other words, their programs do not work.

3. Even if the service is successful in getting the recipient
"housing", for example, the roof over their head becomes
a social service and not just a necessary product for living
in the community. Homeless people are assumed to be
incapable of living on their own and keeping their housing.
People with mental health issues are assumed to have
issues, outside the fact they are poor and nobody will hire
them, which led to them becoming homeless. Everybody
is deemed to want and need "subsidized" housing, despite
the fact the rules for this program tend to cripple initiative
and force people to remain in poverty.

People that do not want these services may need help to
secure an apartment, but after that, they do not want to
be fodder and continue to be a "cause" for ongoing income
for the charity. (The fact of this matter is those that can
live independently are often falsely assumed to not need
ANY help at all).

4. People want help to reach their full potential, not to
cripple it. Most of those refusing help do not want to
work in low-wage, insecure and low-skilled employment.
They want assistance in developing their career potential,
even though doing this may require funds for retraining,
partial employer subsidies and innovative partnerships
in one's respective community. Charities get paid to
"place" people, not get them out of poverty.

5. People want to work with their helpers as partners in
making systemic change. They want their helpers to
challenge employers that appear to not want persons
with disabilities working for them, or only want them if
the person is happy at working for half-wages. They
want to work with the helpers at making changes so that
the services of charities become less and less necessary.

6. Many of those refusing help feel that their presence as
"clients" of these agencies only "proves" demand and
thus, continues to generate ongoing funding for these
charities, regardless if their personal situation improves.

7. With regards to being given food, clothing, housing, etc.
- people feel they are not allowed to make choices. Why
is nobody giving those in need the necessary RESOURCES
to make these choices on their own, as opposed to making
these choices for them?

The very presence of these charities and the encouragement through the media, community influences and other forces, encourages those that want to "do good" to continue to donate and to otherwise continue to "prove" the legitimacy of these charities, as well as to continue to ignore and disregard the need for true systemic changes that would negate the need for the same.

We go ahead and have our Christmas with our families, go to work the next day or day after, and give to some charitable donation because society expects us to pick up the slack from the government. We do not think about the fact that continuing to support the status quo is taking away choices from those that can otherwise handle them with the resources given directly to them, instead of through an expensive and controlling bureaucracy. We do not think that we may be contributing to the continuation of the problem, not necessarily because we want to, but by donating to the charities, there is still no way any donor can reasonably review the success of any such charity in actually changing things for the people they serve.

Except next year at this very same time, even more people will be knocking on the doors of these same charities, many more in even more desperate circumstances. By continuing this cycle, we have to ask ourselves why we are not asking the correct questions and demanding to know why the more people give, the greater number of people end up in need ...

Think about what you are going to do in 2009, whether what you do will actually make a difference (systemic change) or just continue the same old, same old. If you ask me what I want to do, it is the former -- hands down!

Your thoughts?