Monthly Archives: December 2010

On this holiday a member of our family landed in hospital, where it was touch and go whether they'd be released for Christmas Eve. Hanging around the place that day really brought home to me how much we take for granted in terms of all the workers who bust their butts so the rest of us can have happy, stress free holidays. That perception was intensified at 6:40 a.m. on the still dark Christmas Day as I drove my handsome spouse to his job at a health care facility in town. Like him, many others went to work that day, leaving families behind to wait for shift change to start the gift opening and festivities.

When one family member has to work on any holiday, major discussions and revisions to plans take place to accommodate that, and when more than one family member works shifts, the quest to find a mutually agreeable time to get together becomes quite tricky. For those of us privileged to work the typical Monday to Friday 9 to 5 pm job, these considerations don't come into play and the lucky ones have no idea how hard it is just to have a family day with everybody together.

Not to single out health care workers, I tip my hat as well to retail workers at places like WalMart that stay open late or even 24/7 in December just to make life easy for their customers. And the staff complies, showing remarkable cheerfulness towards those who aren't always so cheerful in response. It reminded me of a short poem written by one of my favourite socialists, F.R. Scott. Here it is, taken from a book called "Poetry of our Time" edited by one Louis Dudek and published in 1966 by the Macmillan Company of Canada.

"Christmas Shopping

It is so nice for people to give things at Christmas,

That the stores stay open every evening till ten,

And the shop-girls celebrate the coming of Christ

By standing on their feet fourteen hours a day".

On that note, here's to all the hard working people doing all kinds of work with the public, work like health care, policing, government services, restaurant and retail workers. To all of them, a big thank you from one who appreciates what you give up to keep the rest of us fat and happy with our new toys. Ho Ho Ho and Happy New Year.

Troubling new signals are emerging that our Canada Pension Plan is again at risk. It seems our treacherous Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, has back tracked from his promise, made just a few months ago, to keep the Canada Pension Plan strong by gradually increasing premiums over the next few years. Back then, only Alberta opposed this strategy, but now just six provinces remain on side, with Ontario for once taking the lead in speaking up to protect Canadian workers' basic retirement pension.

What's changed since then? A fierce lobbying effort by the banks, insurance and investment industries, who smell an opportunity to make a buck with this new scheme they've sold to Flaherty. Called the Pooled Registered Pension Plan, it would be privately run by those same institutions who would charge fees to the Canadians who can afford to join. It's a good thing it would be voluntary since only one in four of us have RRSPs, suggesting many of us couldn't afford to participate in this new scheme. Most of us know it too, since a recent Environics poll found 78% of Canadians agree that a gradual rise in CPP premiums is both needed and wanted. Meanwhile Flaherty has proclaimed that even a modest premium increase would threaten the economic recovery.

Looking down the road though, it seems obvious that allowing the country's basic retirement program for the elderly to fall apart just when the ranks of the elderly are starting to swell, doesn't seem like such a good move either. Surely we need to protect the security of all of us, not just the ones affluent enough to fund their own retirement. Right now there are 1.6 million seniors living on incomes below $16,000 annually. These are the people who actually depend on their Canada Pensions after paying those premiums since the program started in 1966. We must not abandon them now, or any of the multitude of workers ready to retire and start collecting the benefits they have been promised.

This week the talks will continue between the feds and provinces, with the fate of our CPP depending on the outcome later this year. It just might be a good time for us to call up Rick Norlock and let him know we want all Canadians to have a secure old age, not just the rich ones who can afford privately run programs. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities think so, don't you too?

A guest post: Wally Keeler

Units of verse of Cobourg’s poetry circles and triangles are abuzz with news that Cobourg’s recently installed Poet Laureate, Jill Battson, is moving out of Cobourg to pursue her dynamic career of creativity elsewhere. Appointed Poet Laureate August, 2010, Cobourg hardly had time to get to know and enjoy her considerable poetic talents.

Recall that Eric Winter was Cobourg’s first Poet Laureate, appointed July 21, 1997, and after fruitful service to the poetic arts in Cobourg, he resigned in 2010, to make way for Jill Battson, who had recently moved to Cobourg only months before.

The Town of Cobourg delineated the DUTIES of Cobourg Poet Laureate; “The Poet Laureate acts as a literary ambassador for the Town of Cobourg. The Poet Laureate also appears during the year at some of the Town’s public events like the Mayor’s Levy, and Canada Day as well as special openings or celebrations. The Poet Laureate serves as an advocate for literature and participates in the strong and thriving literary life of our Town. Her efforts ensure that our community encourages self-expression by youth through spoken word and written poetry. As well, the Poet Laureate will create a legacy project to enhance our Town’s literary voices and support the other Arts.”

Jill Battson’s legacy project is the anthology, The Poetic Spirit of Northumberland, which will contain poetry and complimentary photography. Northumberland Today has collaborated with Ms Battson on this project and has provided a weekly column featuring a poem destined for this anthology.

One of the drawbacks of a Poet Laureate with only a few months of familiarity of the local community, is the shallowness of her participation in a Cobourg event, most notably the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Victoria Hall. Organized by the Cobourg Poetry Workshop (CPW), none of the performed poems had any reference to Victoria Hall, nor even to Cobourg. One of the participating poets for this specific Cobourg event hailed from Port Hope.

The selected poems performed at that function were written by British, American Canadian poets, but no Cobourg poets. It raises the question whether the CPW had obtained copyright permission to recite these poems at a public function. They certainly acted fast to take down this video extolling themselves at this public event held in a public building at public expense.

At the recent inauguration of Cobourg Town Council, Jill Battson chose to recite the poem, Courage, written by USAmerican poet, Anne Sexton. On her blog, Poet Bureau, she posted her comment, “I'll be reading a poem at Mayor Gil Brocanier's inauguration in Cobourg – not one of mine, but I could have written one in the time it took me to research one!” Yes, she could have, but didn’t. 

Jill Battson was nominated to Cobourg Town Council by the CPW.  The departure of Jill Battson raises some interesting questions, not just the vetting competency of CPW.   

Does the ‘office’ of Cobourg Poet Laureate require the Poet to be resident in Cobourg? Can a poet retain their title as Laureate for several years while living and working fulltime in another community? Can a poet parachute into a community to become Poet Laureate, then move out months later to pursue their career of creativity? Of course.

It is an interesting dilemma as Cobourg Poet Laureate, Jill Battson, prepares to move out of town. Will she be able to complete her term if she decides not to resign. Will Cobourg want her to complete her four year term as an absentee Poet Laureate?

If she resigns, who will replace her? Does the CPW have a poet-in-waiting? Will their chosen nominee this time be more Cobourg-connected? It would seem to be a no-brainer that recent Governor-General Award recipient, Richard Greene would fit the bill. Although employed in Toronto, he is a long time resident of Cobourg.

He wears suits and ties very well. A quiet academic, Richard Greene may well be what Cobourg needs to put pizzazz into the Cobourg Poetry scene.

But then again, by default, the CPW has made itself the only nominator of Poet Laureates in Cobourg. Perhaps several names should be nominated and the people of Cobourg can poeticipate in their election. An election for Poet Laureate – now that would be a unique situation.

Years ago, as a fledgling activist, I came across a little story called "The Upstream Parable". It makes the point, beautifully, that we need to look beyond sticking band-aids on problems to find the cause and fix that instead. With the charitable season in full swing this is the perfect time to share it with our readers here at the BR.

As the parable begins we have a group of villagers working by a river when one of them sees a baby floating downstream. A woman rescues the infant and takes it home to care for it. Next day, two more babies were found in the river and resuced. On the third day there were three babies, and before long a steady stream of babies floated downstream every day. Soon the whole village was involved in pulling them out and looking after them. The whole town was filled with babies needing care.

One day, somebody decided it would be a good idea to go upstream to find out who was throwing all these babies into the water. A huge controversy erupted, with one side arguing that every possible hand was needed to save the babies since there were so many of them. The other group argued that if they found out who was throwing them into the river, they could stop them and they wouldn't need to save and raise these babies anymore.

Our story ends there, without resolution. The argument isn't over yet. As the gap between the wealthy and those at the bottom becomes bigger, we have more victims of poverty needing rescue every day, and the costs of paying people to stick on band-aids keep soaring. Service providers, the professional bleeding hearts, insist that we can't let people starve, we must DO something, even if it only stops the pain for a brief time. Activists, the radicals in our midst, decry the waste of both resources and human potential when we ignore the systemic causes of societal misery and focus on short term remedies instead.

Clearly we can't just abandon people, especially children. But the thought of a whole generation of kids growing up eating from the food bank isn't palatable either. It may be easier to donate to charity and volunteer to help, but that approach does little to address the reasons people need charity in the first place. And, while providing emergency assistance is necessary, if we let ourselves become entirely focused on that to the detriment of addressing the causes, it only perpetuates the problem. One thing is clear, it allows government to abandon their responsibilities to the volunteer and faith based groups who are ill equiped to meet the overwhelming need.

If you are one of those kind souls who donate time or money to help out, good for you. We need you. But please, add one more item to your To Do list: write to your Mayor, your County Warden, your MPP and your MP and tell them to stop hiding from poverty and the poor and take action to provide real opportunities for them to have a decent life. If all of us did that, we might just be surprised at the results. Sticking on band aids will only get us so far, and that is nowhere at all.