Food Banks: The Art of Enabling

Few rational people would deny the contemporary need for food banks. Begun in Canada largely as a temporary anodyne to recession-induced job losses in the 1980's, they have grown in size and scope, becoming a seemingly permanent fixture on our socio-economic landscape.

The annual study by Food Banks Canada reports the following:

More than 882,000 Canadians used a food bank in March 2012, up 2.4 per cent from last year, says the annual study by Food Banks Canada.

The number of people using meal programs — where meals are prepared and served —also jumped 23 per cent from last year, the study found. It says food bank usage is up 31 per cent since the start of the 2008 recession.

Sadly, increasing numbers of clients are in fact employed but working at jobs that do not provide a living wage.

Having volunteered at a local food bank for over five years, I have found myself increasingly uncomfortable over the fact that I am part of the problem; by helping with their operations, I am in fact aiding and abetting the morally indefensible abandonment of the poor by both provincial and federal governments; by ensuring that the problem is bandaged over by distributing goods high in sodium, sugar and fats, and deficient in nutritional value save for seasonal fruits and vegetables provided by community gardens, in the larger scheme of things I am doing no one any real favours.

It is time to demand more from our governments, who seem almost exclusively focused on the commercial class, whilst ordinary citizens, despite being the putative recipients of economic policy, are relegated to literally accepting scraps from the table.

This dichotomy between Canadian citizens and our corporate overlords is amply drawn in a column this morning by the Star's Carol Goar. Its title, Corporations prosper while food banks overwhelmed, says it all.

We have become a cowed people, too afraid to insist that government take care of its people lest we chase away the chance of a corporation setting up shop here to exploit people at near-minimum wage. After all, as the narrative goes, there are plenty in the developing world happy to work for five dollars a day.

I don't pretend to have the answers, but living in fearful submission and depending on the private goodwill of people cannot be one of them.

Heather Mallick On The Insidious Nature Of Poverty

The older I get, the less patience I have with government that preaches an austerity that has a disproportionate impact on the poor. Of the right-wing rhetoric and mythology that all one has to do is to work hard to succeed, so evident in last week's Republican convention, I have absolutely no tolerance.

Our government and corporate leaders largely mouth a propaganda that results in a commodification of people as they go about insidiously destroying the sense of community that makes society tolerable, worthwhile, and at times noble.

This is why I was pleased to read Heather Mallick's column in this morning's Star, that is a poignant commentary on both the vulnerability of the poor and the fact that none of us is immune from the vicissitudes of life, no matter how we may think we have fortified ourselves against misfortune.

Why the Occupy Movement Has Relevance in Canada

Thee are many who assert that the Occupy Movement has no relevance in Canada because we have a social safety net and other measures that provide a modicum of protection to the most vulnerable. They also argue for the superiority of our banking system, which required no government bailouts because it is more tightly regulated than in the United States and other jurisdictions. However, those espousing this perspective ignore a larger truth about the relationship between the powerful wealthy and government policy:

As long as provincial governments and the federal government continue to lower corporate tax rates despite the fact that current rates are more than competitive with those in the U.S. and despite the fact that we have a growing national debt;

As long as government tells its citizens that some hard choices are going to have to be made (i.e., health care spending, federal transfers to the provinces, etc.) because of that debt and deficit;

As long as the poor are made to pay by living on benefits that keep them well below the poverty line;

As long as government refuses to even consider increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy;

And as long as the working and middle classes are made to subsidize the lifestyle of the power elite while suffering a steady decline in their own standard of living, job and retirement prospects, there will be a need for an Occupy Movement that attempts to speak for those who have lost their voice.

Gerald Caplan Writes on The Occupy Wall Street Movement

In an online article entitled This is what democracy looks like: Occupying Wall Street and Bay Street, Gerald Caplan and Amanda Gryzyb discuss why the occupation movement is a healthy expression of the people, and address some of the inequities that will surely help focus its Canadian incarnation beginning on October 15: vast social inequities, climate change, rising unemployment, precarious jobs, the lack of upward social mobility and the egregious corporate influence over government.

More specifically in Canada, some dismaying facts about life here are as follows:

The youth unemployment rate is 17.2 per cent. An increasing number of Canadians – young and old – are precariously employed or underemployed, without benefits and without job security.

The poverty rate in Canada is over 10 per cent, and one in seven children live in poverty.

Our homeless shelters are over capacity and our food banks face constant shortages.

Tuitions at Canadian universities are rising, and graduating students are debilitated by student loan debt.

A nation of such wealth simply should not have such glaring social inequities.

Let's hope for a good turnout on Saturday.