Here come the Lady Bountifuls
Definition from the TheFreedictionary here; Lady Bountiful: a woman who enjoys showing people how rich and kind she is by giving things to poor people.
This image comes to mind when discussing the Province's reaction to local expressions of poverty study. A local experience bears this out. About a year ago the local legal clinic and a group of agencies started to study local poverty and solutions to it. A committee was formed and with funding from the County work began. So imagine the excitement among low income groups when Minister Deb Mathews announced she was bring the Provincial study group to Northumberland and discuss local issues. That elation was to last about two days when on Friday the poverty study group learnt that only invitees would be at the closed door meeting. It soon became apparent, by the wizardry of email that this was going to be the modus operandi of the Province - swoop into a community, listen to handpicked invitees and then go onto the next one. It will be repeated 13 times. And in each of the 13 communities the people with most to gain will be conspicuous by there involuntary absence.
This deliberate effort to cut out low income groups came to the attention of the Toronto Star and it wrote an editorial pointing out the obvious - low income groups have to be in the discussion of poverty here.
So back to the Lady Bountiful image. The Province now intends to fix poverty but wants to do it without consultation with low income people. This process is quite clearly an example of "we know best"
In the local situation a happening ocurred on Friday when one low income person phoned a member of the Provincial panel, who also happens to be our MPP, Lou Rinaldi. The conversation with the low income person was recalled: "To add insult to injury, he made mention of there being a very active antipoverty group in Northumberland, led by "what's her name upstairs". I said I was a member of that group and he said he knew and that since we had been in his office to speak with him, we were being heard. I supplied him with "what's her name upstairs" name and he said that he thought that she may have been invited"
So even in this riding Lady Bountiful lives, for if Lou had been listening and paying attention to the low income groups, he might have remembered the name of the Chair of the group. He has met with her many times, pity he still doesn't know who she is. Funny how every poorbasher can remember the name but not Lou.
Stay tuned to the situation, especially when the low income groups start to point out policy flaws. But then the Province will be able to claim that the not only are the poor poor, but ungrateful too.
This image comes to mind when discussing the Province's reaction to local expressions of poverty study. A local experience bears this out. About a year ago the local legal clinic and a group of agencies started to study local poverty and solutions to it. A committee was formed and with funding from the County work began. So imagine the excitement among low income groups when Minister Deb Mathews announced she was bring the Provincial study group to Northumberland and discuss local issues. That elation was to last about two days when on Friday the poverty study group learnt that only invitees would be at the closed door meeting. It soon became apparent, by the wizardry of email that this was going to be the modus operandi of the Province - swoop into a community, listen to handpicked invitees and then go onto the next one. It will be repeated 13 times. And in each of the 13 communities the people with most to gain will be conspicuous by there involuntary absence.
This deliberate effort to cut out low income groups came to the attention of the Toronto Star and it wrote an editorial pointing out the obvious - low income groups have to be in the discussion of poverty here.
So back to the Lady Bountiful image. The Province now intends to fix poverty but wants to do it without consultation with low income people. This process is quite clearly an example of "we know best"
In the local situation a happening ocurred on Friday when one low income person phoned a member of the Provincial panel, who also happens to be our MPP, Lou Rinaldi. The conversation with the low income person was recalled: "To add insult to injury, he made mention of there being a very active antipoverty group in Northumberland, led by "what's her name upstairs". I said I was a member of that group and he said he knew and that since we had been in his office to speak with him, we were being heard. I supplied him with "what's her name upstairs" name and he said that he thought that she may have been invited"
So even in this riding Lady Bountiful lives, for if Lou had been listening and paying attention to the low income groups, he might have remembered the name of the Chair of the group. He has met with her many times, pity he still doesn't know who she is. Funny how every poorbasher can remember the name but not Lou.
Stay tuned to the situation, especially when the low income groups start to point out policy flaws. But then the Province will be able to claim that the not only are the poor poor, but ungrateful too.
10 comments:
Pity. If I want to learn about the experience of the wealthy and how they got that way -- I don't go to the poor for their input. Versa vice also. The bureaucracy is bureaucrazy, and bureaucrats are bureaucraps. Poverty is a poversion of democrazy; it is the dictatorshit of the dollar that prevails; pity.
In 1975 an arsonist made me homeless. I had been laid off from my job a week before the fire. I thought I was a case for social assistance. I was assisted with 12 transit tokens and three addresses where I could get clothing. Hmmm. What closet would I put those clothes into? And there was a severe shortage of refridgerator boxes. Lucky for me, I had a personal network of friends that loaned me the use of their livingroom couches.
In principle I do believe that people should bear the responsibility of their own bad choices -- but children should always be exempt from that principle.
"What's her name" still doesn't have an invitation, but even if she gets one she most likely will boycott the event, since the other two low income people on the Northumberland Poverty Reduction Action Committee have not received theirs either.
Since "what's her name" is no longer living below the poverty line, she is no substitute for the folks currently living in poverty and she can't take their place.
It is the low income people the Province needs to hear the most.
Be prepared as the Province's phoney consultation gets a very rough ride from anti poverty groups around Ontario. It starts today with a demonstration in Peterborough at their very first meeting.
Sincerely,
What's her name
In case readers are interested, the Northumberland Coalition Against Poverty will be holding a silent vigil in front of the Best Western Motor Inn tomorrow, Tuesday May 6th, at 8:40 am until the so called public consultation with the Minister starts inside at 9 am.
We welcome any and all supporters who agree that full participation of low income people is crucial to any discussion about poverty in Ontario.
In solidarity,
What's her name
I guess people forget the days of Mike Harris/Doug Galt. Seems to me this government is trying to do something positive and has taken steps to reverse many of the devastating impacts of the Harris/Galt years.
Attacking those who are least trying to tackle a frankly insurmountable problem such as "poverty" with its myriad permutations and definitions seems to me to be foolish.
The Blair government in Britain made great strides in reducing child poverty by changing how government works with its service providers who deliver government taxpayers funds to those in need.
Interesting how Mike Harris was so easily able to use many member's of the public's bigotries againth those who are low income to such effect. How they portrayed all those on welfare as lazy layabout beer drinking grifters. But now a government who has again made positive changes even if it is not enough or fast enough for some they have made those changes.
Again not even a shred a single shred of gratitude just derision, people can rant all the way there seems to be a disturbing air of entitlement that does not or should not exist. People on welfare will not be getting cheques from any government for like $ 2500.00 a month so it it railing in the wind.
Whether or not or how much people get it is just an economic fact is that they won't be.
When the NDP were in power approximately 1 million Ontarians were on welfare and the rates which were far more generous but hardly lavish and it coupled with the same type of economic forecasts we are facing today almost bankrupted this Province.
I just find it so ironic that people would protest any government that is so clearly trying to make even a tiny bit of positive difference given the Provincial Tories led by the Tim Hudak's or Frank Klees or heaven forbid Bob Runciman are just waiting to put all those in poverty under their thumbs once again.
I don't think a single person working to help those in poverty would not admit that things are better working with this 8 years before it.
Has this government done everything right, who can ever satisfy even a small percentage but at least they seem to be trying to some degree.
Affordable housing might be an opportunity not to miss. Now that housing starts appear to be in imminent decline, it might be advantageous to construct housing co-ops.
I have been living in one of three of Toronto's first co-ops. We were provided with two perks: the city provided a highly inexpensive lease on the land covering two blocks, and the fed provided a 50 year mortgage.
Aside from that, the residents, paid all construction and maintenance costs. I have lived in this co-op for 25 years. Unlike government housing, the co-op residents have the power of ownership, and this is highly effective, because we collectively take ownership of our homes.
This has been a godsend for me, especially when my X annouced that she had left me bankrupt, then returned to her country of origin with my son, and this was followed a couple months later with my lay-off, and living a life on $17,000 per year before taxes for almost a decade. I would certainly have been street-side if it were not for affordable housing.
But then again, I could have taped my mouth shut with silence; I was advised that the tape was originally intended for Gordon Gilchrist and all those loudmouths whining about freedom of screech.
Do people expect the poor to be grateful when they can't afford to feed their kids decent food?
When they can't find safe housing they can afford?
No movement ever achieved justice being quiet and grateful. To get the vote women had to raise a mighty fuss, over and over again.
I seem to recall that in the USA the black population had to take extreme measures to get even a modicum of equality, and their cause is nowhere close to success even now.
Gratitude NO!
Justice YES!
ENTITLEMENT: YES!
RESPONSIBILITY: NO!
Perhaps the last poster might explain what the hell they meant with that statement, I sure can't figure it out!
What do we want? MORE CASH!
When do we want it? NOW!
Jingo-ism rules!
Discourse shrivels.
There is a very thoughtful column published in today’s National Post, written by Steven Malanga, a senior editor of City Journal and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Although the context is USAmerican, we are not too far different.
He wrote:
(1) ... unwed parents represent the fastest-growing segment of single parents: their numbers have increased by a quarter since 1995,..
(2) The growth in out-of-wedlock births is a serious impediment to reducing child poverty in America. Whereas fewer than 10 percent of children living with two parents live below the poverty line, about 37 percent of those living with single mothers do. Kids born out of wedlock are particularly likely to wind up in poverty. In 2007, half of all women who had children out of wedlock were in poverty, ensuring that their children wound up there, too.
(3) We long ago destigmatized this form of parenthood: young men boast about the children they’ve fathered illegitimately, and young women seem unaware that such births are a superhighway to lifetime poverty for them and their kids.
It is quite a conundrum. Provide more welfare cash to single unwed mothers and this becomes an increasingly attractive option for women who prefer that to full-time employment. And this, in spite of the fact that all kinds of birth control measures are available, along with public-financed abortion on demand.
Free/pro choice has been a boringly repetitive mantra for more than a generation now, and it is women who bear full responsibility over their bodies, what goes into it and what comes out of it. With the exception of rape, women have full responsibility over the YES-word or NO-word. The statistics bear out the fact that women have been increasingly saying YES at the expense of the general public, but more importantly, at the expense of the children they bring into the world.
If young women are “unaware that such births are a superhighway to lifetime poverty” then how are we doing justice if we don’t take action to drill this into their heads. Women have rightly won their freedom of choice, but that freedom also comes with responsibilities, to themselves, to their children and to society at large.
As for me, I was the sole supporter for my X and son, who is now 20. And this was in spite of my X leaving me bankrupt, and my employer laying me off as redundant to become temp trash for 10 years. I took my responsibility by the balls, swallowed all of my personal ambitions, and did the right thing. Aside from the personal wealth of having a loving, educated son, I love that I owe society NOTHING. My idea of socialism is personal socialism, not parasite socialism.
It might be far more beneficial if we proselytized responsibility for all of our YES’s and No’s. For the sake of our children, especially.
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