2 weeks Ago
It seems that if Premier Doug Ford doesn’t see a problem, it doesn’t exist. Surely this is a failing for a leader making decisions for the future of our province. Disbursing the unhoused is a case in point.
Rather than invest in treatment for those who need it, community housing and basic income, his policy is to get the visual reminder of unhoused Torontonians removed. Out of sight, out of mind. Likewise with his decision to invest in natural gas.
Because the air pollution caused by burning fossil gas disappears into our atmosphere it seems it doesn’t exist by Doug Ford’s reckoning. Except of course it does, and adds to the blanket that is overheating our planet. Our premier is investing $2.
23 billion in the redevelopment of Ontario Place and the relocation of the Science Centre. At least $10 billion more is going to building the unwanted Hwy. 413.
We need a premier that has a vision for the future. One with the ability to look at problems head-on. One who knows we are in a climate emergency and finances renewable energy because it’s the right thing to do for our kids.
One who realizes intangibles like fairness, transparency and accountability are part of good leadership. On Sunday past, Contributing Columnist Shawn Micallef’s piece not only presented the disheartening details of the Ontario auditor general’s report but wondered about the lack of outrage from Ontarians. As schools decay for want of repair and health care is eroded by under-funding and incursions into private medicine, billions are spent on the vanity project of the Ontario Place Spa, parking lot and Science Centre rebuild.
But Ontarians are lining up to crown King Doug as soon he snaps our next unnecessary election into place. And near Micallef’s column in the paper is a two-page report by Victoria Gibson on the decades-long project to eliminate homelessness in Finland. This is a country that also boasts one of the best and most efficient education systems in the world.
We Ontarians could just copy the Finnish models, if we had the leadership and the will to run our government differently and better. Shame on us for not being up to that. Having seen Helsinki first hand, they realize that being housed is the first step to solving all social challenges.
It starts with dignity; the supported units offered there look like regular apartment buildings. More importantly, none that I saw had drug dealers or users outside in public view, no litter or garbage and most had some kind of security entry. Families had separate buildings from singles.
Subsidized food kitchens were open to all, offering quality nutrition choices at low costs. Transit fares were via the honour system and no one questioned those who could not pay. Here in Ontario, available land is the main obstacle, but low-cost solutions are available.
The province is currently trying to sell office buildings, several closed school sites and they could easily buy and renovate hotel towers. The cold winter is upon us and temporary Toronto shelter could be provided by heated tents, mobile showers and heating buses at Ontario Place and Sunnyside parking lots. Follow the way forward laid down by Finland, and many other issues will be reduced or solved.
The Canadian postal strike isn’t phasing me. I have already written 65 Christmas cards with caring messages and will send them whenever the strike ends. Maybe my loved ones will get a kind message for Valentine’s Day or Easter.
Besides, this strike could improve working conditions for all workers. In 1981, the strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers won their workers 17 weeks of paid maternity leave. The strike’s success set a standard for other public-sector union negotiations.
Within four years, paid parental leave benefits extended to all Canadian families. In must respond to the article that appeared in Tuesday’s Star with Jan Simpson, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. I am a registered nurse who has worked 27 years of shift work.
Weekends, evenings, holidays and being on-call. I’ve worked every other Christmas or New Year’s, many birthdays, Thanksgiving, Easter. You get the picture.
But it is my job! I do it, people count on me, as they do on Canada Post. We are paid extra for statutory holidays but no shift premiums. As far as part-time workers to cover weekends? Forget it.
No one will work straight weekends. You need a team approach, with everybody working together. Be proud of what you do.
Be more realistic and get back to work! I think, and I hope, the federal government will come under such pressure that it won’t be able to ‘pause’ the program forever, or perhaps at all. A lot of people, probably including the minister of immigration, don’t remember that when Canada took in refugees from Vietnam in 1975, it wasn’t a government initiative. It was the people who demanded it.
The church in whose choir I was singing at the time sponsored a family. So did many others. They still do.
The government had some problems with citizens assisting refugees. The late Nancy Pocock was known to Central American refugees as Mama Nancy. Some of those refugees arrived with nothing but her address and phone number.
The federal government ordered her to stop taking them in. She went right on doing it. She said, “I’m an old lady, what are they going to do to me?” Pocock was the 1987 recipient of the Pearson Medal of Peace, and was awarded the Order of Ontario in 1992.
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