At the heart of it I don't think it is actually privatisation that causes the problem. Heartlessness and the general malaise of the minds of a population who think if you are down and out you probably deserve it. all of the west European nations have a two tier system where those who can purchase private plans, but those who cannot are still covered and protected to a level of dignity well spelled out by the UN, and frankly a level to which all of the major religions subscribe.

At least in the US a person in dyer need cannot be turned down in ER, here they can for not having the proper coverage. Our health care plan is not free, nor universal, and the bottom line social assistance version is a cut far below acceptable. Is it the government's job, or that of our communities? After all, who voted the bastards in to begin with? We live in countries with tremendous wealth and there isn't the charity to keep people in need falling through the cracks.

It fell apart when medicine became an "industry", doctors became corporations, and everyone was more concerned for their bottom line than mortality rates and matters involving quality of life. Who is to blame? For started a media who does not cover through proper investigation the atrocius manner in which people in need, persons guilty of nothing but being the unfortunate stricken by disease or disability. Press covering matters of medicine are more interested in breakthroughs, celebrity causes, and big newsworthy research studies, many of which are entirely provided to the media by the pharmaceutical companies.

So where does a suffering mortal go? Let me know, because I haven't been able to find answers either.

In no small part, it also was affected by the political correctness that followed the age of disco and selfishness. Once we were no longer thought of as crippled, or sick, lame but instead given some correct term to hang on to, palliative rather than dying, disabled rather than crippled, we now have images as capable persons no matter what, making us persons who can manage just fine. What happens when we cannot take care of ourselves or be useful members of society because we are just too sick or crippled? Well it is unpleasant and makes society feel like they might have failed and they'd rather sweep those notions under the rug where no one will see and no one will feel responsible to do something about it.

Until kindness comes back into fashion, it will be a very hard and painful tie for all of us branded as losers within this society. It was a sign when the funeral of Mother Teresa was so heavily overshadowed by the funeral of Princess Diana. More is done in the name of the princess than the saint. What a shock.

My view earlier today from the balcony. Poor guy, and sadly the sign on the cast of furnishings which had scrawled on the "my neighbour gave me bedbugs and now I have to get new furniture" was lost on him.



Incidentally, Lavender discourages bedbug infestations, spray solution of lavender oil 10/1 and water on bedlinens, furnishings, carpeting. Those buggers really move in anywhere. You can read an article recently printed on the topic in the NY times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/nyregion/27bugs.htm

NEWS RELEASE May 8th, 2006

UN Experts question Canada's inaction on poverty, housing, aboriginal rights

GENEVA - "Many of the issues our committee raised in 1993 and 1998 are unfortunately still live issues today," said Ariranga Govindasamy Pillay, a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights during the committee's review of Canada's performance. "Years later, the situation appears to be unchanged, and in some respects worse. There is continuing homelessness and reliance on food banks, security of tenure is not still not enjoyed by tenants, child tax benefits are still clawed back, (...) the situation of aboriginal peoples, migrants and people with disabilities doesn 't seem to be improving."

"The Committee is right to challenge Canada to address the depth of poverty which has left the most marginalized people worse off than ever before. There are still too many people who are still denied adequate housing, a decent standard of living, and access to health and higher education," said Aimée Clark, from the National Anti-Poverty Organization, one of the Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in the Committee review currently held in Geneva.

Several committee members were disturbed by the lack of investment in social programs and by continuing high poverty rates of the most marginalized (women, aboriginal peoples, people of colour and immigrants***here the author leaves out "women with disabilities" despite its having been a recognized group of the poorest of the poor in Canada***ed.)d wondered why this has happened when the government is enjoying budget surpluses year after year.

Canada was asked about a number of aboriginal issues, including the Six Nations and the Lubicon Nation land claims, and on-going issues about discrimination against women under the Indian Act. The Committee also expressed serious concern about the disproportionately high rates of violence (including murder) inflicted against Indigenous girls and women in Canada, and raised the correlation between high rates of homelessness among girls and sexual abuse in the home.

Today, Committee members are expected to ask further probing questions about Canada's compliance. Issues to be covered include housing, social assistance, employment insurance, education and health. The committee also wants to know how Canada will improve accountability through domestic laws. "Economic and social rights must be enforceable rights, not just distant goals," said Vince Calderhead with the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues. "That's why we are pleased that the Committee is asking why our federal and provincial courts and human rights commissions don't give enough consideration to economic and social rights and why governments continually deny they are accountable to economic, social and cultural rights in court."

The Review began on Friday May 5th and will end today, May 8th. Participating in the review process are Canadian NGOs, representing the First nations, African Canadians, women, poor people as well as legal experts. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is expected to submit its concluding observations on May 19th, 2006.

For more information, please contact:

In Canada:
Dennis Howlett (National Anti-Poverty Organization); 613-889-0141
Beth Berton-Hunter (Amnesty International Canada) 416 363-9933 #32

In Geneva:
Josephine Gray, (Low-Income Families Together, LIFT) 416 827 7119

--
Dennis Howlett
Executive Director/directeur général
National Anti-Poverty Organization / l'Organisation nationale anti-pauvreté
1 Nicholas St., Suite 1210,
Ottawa ON K1N 7B7 Canada
tél 613.789.0096; toll free/sans frais 1.800.810.1076;
fax 613.789.0141
e-mail dhowlett@napo-onap.ca
website www.napo-onap.ca


**************************

Take Back Mother's Day
- March & Protest May 14th 2006 at 2:00 pm 15 Huntley Street (Sherbourne and Bloor) - Toronto

For most Canadians, Mother's Day is a time when families honour their mother's hard work. But for many of low income families find that on Mother's Day, peace and joy is in very short supply, especially now that more than 30,000 of their youngsters languish in foster homes.

We did not lose our children because of abuse, rather we lost our children because of poverty, lack of affordable adequate housing, being single, being young, having a child with special needs, being in recovery from substance abuse issues, having survived an abusive partner, or having worked in the Adult Entertainment Industry.

Silenced for decades by shame and guilt, we suffered alone with our grief, believing that we were the only ones. Now we find that we are not alone. Mother's Day began as a day to honour the public activism of mothers. It began in 1870 because mother's declared that they would not lose their children as casualties of war.

On Sunday May 14th 2006, let's "Take Back Mother's Day" by joining with Mothers across Toronto as we rally in front of the Children's Aid Society at 15 Huntley Street at 2:00pm to demand:

* 40% increase in social assistance rates * The creation of more housing geared to low income families * Build more daycare spaces for low income families * End to the clawback of child tax benefits * End the discrimination against mother's who work in the Adult Entertainment Industry * End the apprehension of children because their mother has a disability * That the city of Toronto create family orientated treatment centres

Since the Mike Harris cutbacks to social assistance payments more and more mother's are in precarious financial circumstances often finding themselves unable to afford their hydro, gas, telephone and other necessities. By not being able to afford these necessities the Children's Aid Society can intervene and remove the child, citing "neglect".

Cutbacks in social programs - particularly in the area of housing- have led to shortages of affordable housing. A recent study by the Children's Aid Society of Toronto found that in the year 2000, housing was a factor in one in five cases where children were taken in care - a dramatic 60% increase over a similar study in 1992. They also found that lack of adequate housing caused a delay in the return of children to their parents in more than 11% of cases.

In cases where their children are taken into care, parents lose their child benefits forcing them to move into smaller apartments or rooms inadequate for living with their children. This creates a catch 22 system where in order for a mother to get her children back she must obtain proper living arrangements that she cannot afford without custody of her children. Thus, it becomes extremely difficult for low income mother's to get their children back once their children are taken into care. Imagine instead a system that worked in the best interest of the children and their mother's instead of a system that perpetrates a cycle of poverty and foster care.

Women with disabilities may find themselves under the scrutiny of Children's Aid Society by virtue of their disability alone. Once scrutinized, it may be difficult to remove oneself from the child protection system. In some cases, women have contacted the Children's Aid Society for support and assistance with parenting, only to find themselves the subject of an investigation. Other women are reported to the authority during pregnancy and have to fight to prevent the removal of their newborn from their care solely because the authority believes their disability prevents them from being able to parent. Other women, perhaps because of vulnerabilities caused by disability (a tendency to defer to authority, for instance), enter into what they believe to be "voluntary" agreements with Children's Aid Society only to find those voluntary arrangements used against them later by the same officials.

Many women experiencing substance abuse issues or mood disorders are often hesitant to seek treatment as they fear that in doing so they may lose their children.

Sex workers (dancers, escorts, dominants, phone sex operators), are also at risk of losing their children due to their profession. Even though it is NOT illegal to be a sex worker in Canada, the Children's Aid workers have discretionary powers for apprehending children of women working in the sex industry. This means that if a CAS worker objects to the mother's profession based on their own personal moral values, her children can be apprehended and taken into care regardless of whether they've experienced any actual abuse.

Furthermore, the number of children who have been taken into temporary custody as a result of witnessing their mother's being assaulted increased by at least 870% (no that is not a typo) between 1993-1998. With limited income supports, affordable regulated childcare, affordable housing, and emergency shelters operating at full capacity, there are few options for women who are being assaulted and abused, leaving them and their children at risk of continued violence, poverty and involvement with the Children's Aid Society. Thus, the shortages in affordable housing and emergency shelters are closely linked to the number of children who are victims of prolonged violence and involvement with the Children's Aid Society.

THIS MOTHER'S DAY LETS STAND UP FOR WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN AND TAKE BACK MOTHER'S DAY!

For more information please contact: takebackmothersday@hotmail.com or click on this email link mailto:takebackmothersday@hotmail.com

www.flickr.com More of aletteke's photos tagged with potholes

These photos were taken within a two block radius from my own apartment. It is hard enough to walk and not trip let alone if you are having to use a walker or cane. wheeling it isn't much better, many corners have no sidewalk ramp and wheelchair users are forced to stay on the street.


Shameful, in a city which supposedly is the best in the world to live in. Perhaps the constant harpng on letting addicts have their drugs for free, and lovely places to shoot it too, and their consistently soft conviction on grow-ops is meant to have an ever more drugged and apathetic community who could care less about potholes, and for that matter decent healthcare. It really is shameful, and yet somehow in this very poor part of the city real estate has a single family dwelling set at a value of 600,000 dollar.

A couple of years ago when some big men came and dug up the water mains there was the perfect opportunity to repair the street which thanks to wear and tear now has soft shoulders and crumbling sidewalks. alas a truck came and soft, hot asphalt was tossed over the dirt covered pits and stamped down by big footed men and their shovels, and nothing since. I can imagine how hard it is for an ambulance stretcher to navigate the dirt rubble and loose asphalt. Thanks to the age, poverty and disability levels being terribly high here there are a lot of ambulances, and an even bigger need for decent roads and sidewalks. Of course no Porche owners and the like. My neighbour does have a Mercedes, but it's an older one. somehow I'm having a hard time caring that people in the neighbourhoods that house the "creme de la creme" are having their roads dug up for public transit, hah!

The politics of poverty makes for strange bedfellows.

A surreal air suffused Hamilton's council chambers yesterday morning as politicians from all three levels of government gathered to praise and applaud a man about to step onto an international stage and excoriate two of those same governments for failing to protect the rights of the poor.

Poverty lawyer Craig Foye is bound for Geneva, Switzerland, where on Monday he will address a United Nations committee and accuse the provincial and federal governments of violating international human rights covenants by failing to ensure an adequate standard of living for Hamilton's -- and all of Canada's -- poor.

During a sendoff yesterday morning, Foye reminded an appreciative audience that the Canadian government has signed an international covenant defining poverty as a human rights issue and called inadequate social assistance levels an "emergency" and "our great shame."

Our low levels of social assistance are "sending thousands and thousands of families spiralling ever deeper and deeper into poverty," Foye said.

His remarks were greeted with prolonged applause from the audience and the politicians gathered to see him off.

"I think it is so important to stand in solidarity (with Foye) here today," MPP Ted McMeekin announced from the podium. "Clearly governments aren't doing enough -- all governments aren't doing enough!"

Those critical comments were echoed or amplified by Mayor Larry Di Ianni, MPs David Christopherson and Wayne Marsden, and fellow MPP Andrea Horvath.

Foye's report -- sponsored by the Income Security Working Group's human rights subcommittee and co-authored by Chabriol Colebatch and Deirdre Pike -- uses census data and research from the Social Planning Research Council to document the dire straits many Hamiltonians find themselves in if they depend on government assistance.

The report also documents the way seniors, immigrants, children, aboriginals and single mothers are disproportionately affected by poverty in this city. The report argues that government policies lie at the root of much of our poverty problem.

"The right to an adequate standard of living is not being protected by either (senior) level of government ... social assistance rates remain arbitrary numbers, numbers not tied to any meaningful costs," Foye said yesterday.

"It's not that we don't know or can't figure out these costs ... it's that we ignore those costs."

Two months ago, the report received unanimous approval from city council and yesterday Di Ianni reminded his political colleagues and the audience that "we don't often get unanimity around this table.

"So many people are disadvantaged in this city, 100,000 or so who have to make the kinds of choices none of us here have to make. We have a very long way to go."

The incongruity of hearing politician after politician praise a report and author, who is so strongly condemning politicians and governments, was dealt with head on by Christopherson.

"Some might wonder why are we so excited by having this (report) put on the international stage," Christopherson said at the start of a short but loud and powerful speech.

"All of us, and I'm the most senior politician in this room, bear responsibility of not doing enough."

He looked around the council chambers and continued.

"We've allowed our social agenda to be hijacked by our economic agenda."

Poverty is an issue that can be tackled, if governments will summon the will, he said.

"Post 9/11, all you have to do is say the word 'security' and there's millions of dollars for whatever you want to do. There are things we can do."

Meanwhile in Ottawa, government officials declined to comment on Foye's report or discuss what Canadian officials would be telling the committee in Geneva next week.

"It's true that we will make a statement to the committee, but we cannot talk about the statement until it is tabled with the committee," said Rejean Beaulieu of the Foreign Affairs Department.

"I'll be happy to send you a copy once it is tabled."

bdunphy@thespec.com 905-526-3262

Craig Foye will be filing occasional dispatches from Geneva. You can find them at www.thespec.com and at www.hamiltonlegalclinics.ca

Local politicians fete lawyer heading to UN to slam Canada's failure to protect the needy.

Source URL: http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/L ayout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146261014012&call_pageid=1020420665036&co l=1014656511815

Canada fails to meet economic and social rights obligations, United Nations told

OTTAWA, April 28, 2006 - Canada is going backwards on its commitments to implement the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a network of Canadian non-governmental organizations say in presentations they will make to a UN Committee on May 1.

Though Canada is one of the wealthiest nations in the world with low unemployment and record Federal budget surpluses, too many people are being denied the human rights guaranteed by the Covenant, such as the rights to an adequate standard of living, to social security, to housing, to food, to health, and fair working conditions including fair wages. Disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal people, women, people with disabilities, people of colour, refugees and youth experience poverty and other rights violations in Canada today.

Over 25 representatives of non-governmental groups will be presenting their evidence to the Committee on economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which meets in Geneva beginning on May 1. The damning evidence includes: welfare rates that in some provinces are only 20% to 30% of the poverty line, those in dire need being denied welfare, minimum wages that fall thousands of dollars below the poverty line, even for a single person working full time, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 people who are homeless and over 800,000 needing to use food banks each month.

The Canadian government will appear before the Committee on May 5 and 8. The Committee is expected to issue its Concluding Observations including recommendations on what needs to be done to improve Canada's human rights compliance on or shortly after May 19.

The Canadian government's 4th and 5th Periodic Reports and the submissions of Canadian non-governmental organizations can be found on the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights web site at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/cescrs36.htm

Sara and Bill They were both AIDS positive. I had seen her only once before, he was a regular at the small free lunch cafe where I did my counselling sessions as they had lunch. Sara and Bill (not their real names) chatted closely the previous day, I marvelled how despite their obvious advanced illness and their desperate situations they flirted coyly with the same innocence as anyone else.

I'd not be able to say how old they were, after years of living homeless and addicted twenty five often looked like forty or fifty, most of them were barely past childhood when discarded by society and family. In each other they found interest and affection, the place was of no consequence and their troubles fell off. Instinctively we all gave them space, no one tried striking up a conversation or asking for anything. Bill cleared the table and brought Sara another coffee.

Afterwards each went their own way. There is a territoriality and work ethic in this population, begging or sex trade it is still work and attending clinics, hoop jumping for services and counselling, standing in line for methadone. It is foolish to think this does not require some self discipline. These were not things that could be done together.

They were both back. Sara had come first, she glanced around for him. She bit her lower lip, deep in thought, hoping, not eating. Finally, Bill turned up. His face flushed when he saw her. She stood up to wait in line beside him then they took a table outside. I had just sat outside to have a smoke and talk with another client. Bill asked me for my lighter. The triumphantly he took out the stump of a candle (origins unimportant). With great ceremony he arranged the table, and put away the trays. He placed the lit candle-stump on the table and they sat, holding hands, and eating lunch. For just a few moments, they were human, their lives mattered to each other.

for more in this vein: http:aletta.org/poorindex.shtml

I will be posting portraits, with names changed, of several people I came to know, the poorest among us, and whose stories need telling. This is the first of several his name is "Shoeshine".

Shoeshine He was slight, skin tightly wrapped around his bones. We stood eye to eye, but somehow he carried himself as a taller man. The others called him shoeshine, simply because that is what he did. He made his living shining shoes. He took great pride in his work. with great enthusiasm he would take away my shoes and shine them and he was disappointed if I cam in wearing sandals. Shoeshine himself was wearing an old shoe on one food tied with strips of cloth, his foot so swollen from and infection. It made him limp, but with some almost Gene Kelly-like smoothness he made the limp look like a cavalier swagger. Like most people too thin from illness he could not easily stay warm. Despite all this he had class and a unique style.

He earned his keep shining shoes, he did not take handouts. He had a daughter somewhere, and a ex-wife he was still deeply in love with. He'd blown it. Daddies should not be drug addicts if they want to be daddies. it was a lesson he learned just a bit late. His addiction was now terminal. He had already entered the full-blow AIDS stage and he was weary. He knew it. He resisted being put on the AIDS cocktail, it was too expensive, getting it subsidised was complicated by his not being in the system for it. Nonetheless we wore him down.

For a brief time, after the projectile vomiting stopped, he felt better. Old wounds from rat bites were starting to clear up without the prolonged eruptions. Yes, rat bites. he could only afford a room in a local hotel and they had rats. I believed it that he did not notice when he was still on drugs, but he was noticing now. This was not how and where he wanted to die. I explained hospice to him. He was delighted, said he had never heard of it before. He dedicated himself fully to earning enough to pay in advance for his hospice, so he could die in dignity on clean sheets.

Then quickly his health declined yet again. He was in and out of delusion. One afternoon we were sitting in the courtyard swapping stories of when we were "young". Out of nowhere he started to giggle, the laugh lines around his eyes crinkled. "What?", I asked. He explained that I had two really cute little pink squirrels playing on my shoulders. Pink ones, mind you. That told me he was at peace.

He noticed I was a bit down. I told him I could not afford a gift for my daughter's birthday. He acknowledged my pain, and then was back watching the squirrels at play.

A few days later shoeshine presented me with a gift certificate with a hairdresser for my daughter. One of his steady clients was hairdresser. After he assured me it had cost him nothing, I hugged him with heartfelt gratitude. I told him that his daughter was missing something not having him in her life, and I meant it.

I visited him once in hospital when he had a bout of pneumonia. He'd held back a pack of menthols for me. He could appreciate the concept of having nothing. He made it a mission to tell me exactly how to survive, he told me all that social workers were mandated not to. I met his mother at the hospital, a lovely woman. I think had shoeshine not contracted AIDS he could have put his life back together. Unfortunately when quite young, this young man had been to ill to work in any meaningful jobs because he repeatedly had cancer. He became angry, married, could not deal with the anger and threw it away when he tried numbing himself with drugs and then on top of it contracted AIDS.

Then I became too ill to work there anymore and sat a for the last time with shoeshine. I gave him my number but suspected he would not call. Happily he did not need me, he was ok.

I still think he might have lived longer if hospice was simply made available to him. The drug cocktail might have had a better chance if he was not so overworked and stressed. All the same, he died not much later, in hospice, on clean sheets. Shoeshine was not nobody, he was my good friend.

I live in this city over ten years now. I started living here in a very nice little penthouse on the West End. I thought the picture of poverty in this land was well reported. I had no reason to doubt that the security blanket and the free and universal health care systems were working very nicely. I was wrong.

These days I live on Vancouver's East, just north of Hastings Street. Since becoming ill, I also became, single, older, and unemployable for medical reasons. Through no fault of my own. down here at the bottom of those still having shelter, I am too well aware that I can fall further still, and I find that utterly terrifying.

Hopefully on this blog a picture wikll emergy that is true and objective, about being poor, here in Vancouver, Canada. Poor without an agenda that is drug, gender or politically biased. Just the truth, I'll leave the editializing to the reader.

aletta Feel free to contact me and become a contributor, I'd love the company, just keep your writing withhout agenda, that is all I ask.