"The more wealth you have, the more focused on your own self and your own needs you become, and the less attuned to the needs of other people you also become."
So says social psychologist Paul Piff in response to a Chronicle of Philanthropy report on charitable giving, discussed in a piece written by distinguished journalist Bill Moyers.
As a companion to my previous post about Carol Goar's article on worker exploitation, it makes for some thought-provoking comparative reading.
As we go about our daily lives, the majority of us, I suspect, share a hierarchy of concerns ranging in priority from the health and well-being of our loved ones, to ourselves, and to our fellow humans. It is probably the latter than many of us pay only lip service to, not necessarily just because we may not feel a real emotional connection to strangers, but also because we are often perplexed as to how we can have a meaningful impact on the lives of those who may be less fortunate. True, as a nation we tend to give generously to causes with our wallets, perhaps more aware than other countries, thanks to our values of collectivism over individualism, of our interconnectedness.
But sometimes real help can only be possible after a lengthy time spent becoming aware of and researching issues and policy choices that we entrust to our government representatives who, at least in theory, represent us.
I was prompted to think about these things today as I read a thought-provoking piece by The Star's Carol Goar entitled Ontario neglecting its most vulnerable workers.
Her first two paragraphs were provocative:
Roughly 1.7 million workers in the province — 1 out of 5 — have little or no protection from bosses who pay them less than the minimum wage, compel them to work on statutory holidays without overtime and don’t allow them time off for illness, a family emergency or the death of a loved one.
Some of these inhumane practices happen within the bounds of Ontario’s gap-ridden Employment Standards Act. Some happen illegally because the rules are so poorly enforced.
She goes on to discuss some of the improvements made in 2009 under Dalton McGuinty's poverty reduction strategy, improvements that were undermined a year later by the same government's passage of the “Open for Business Act” that heightened the risk of reprisals if exploited workers sought redress.
There is a glimmer of hope, reports Goar:
Fortunately there is a new thrust for reform. The Law Commission of Ontario has just released the first draft of a report entitled Vulnerable Workers and Precarious Work. It is a response to the plight of the lowest paid, least protected members of the labour force — typically immigrants, ethno-racial minorities and single parents — and to employment lawyers who lack the tools to help them.
Unfortunately, as she also reports, Dalton McGuinty's government will be under no obligation to accept the suggested reforms that the report addresses.
Which is why an informed citizenry, aware of the injustices and involved enough to try to exert some influence on the government, is paramount. To be sure, such a hope may be very idealistic, but I cannot help but ask what other avenues are there in a democracy such as ours?
Canada is cursed with a Prime Minister who pretends to be an economist, one apparently intent on returning us to an era when the country was primarily a hewer of wood and drawer of water thanks to his enthusiastic endorsement of a shortsighted prosperity achieved through oil and gas exports.
Is it really surprising then that Corporate Canada is sitting on $526 billion that it refuses to invest in worthwhile and necessary pursuits like research and development, plant expansion, new equipment, etc. etc.?
In his Star column this morning, Martin Regg Cohn offers a good analysis of the politics motivating Mr. McGuinty as the legislature prepares to resume tomorrow to deal with something called the Putting Students First Act, a patently manipulative title confirming all that Mr. Orwell warned us about when he wrote his seminal essay Politics and the English Language.
While arguing that the legislation is little more than political theater designed to bolster the image of the Liberals, Cohn lays some of the blame at the feet of the federations that refused to negotiate. The problem with such a position, as I have previously argued, is the fact that the government never offered even the semblance of bargaining in good faith, essentially saying that the teacher groups had a choice: either accept the terms or have them legislated, the only flexibility being in how the stipulated savings would be effected, as seen in the OECTA deal that will now apparently form the basis of the legislation.
So what is my point here? Despite those who claim unions' intransigence has led to this pending legislation, from my perspective a capitulation to the gun put to their heads would have more seriously impaired faith in the efficacy of unions. To sell out its membership, as OECTA did by legitimizing a process that needlessly violates all good-faith concepts with which I am familiar, would have done far more damage than a steadfast refusal to return to the negotiating table.
And, of course, one thing the public needs to remember in this highly-charged political circus is the fact that a wage-freeze is something that teacher unions were amenable to almost from the beginning.
Just another one of those inconvenient truths, I guess, as Mr. McGuinty urges everyone to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
The above title, a quotation from my favorite Shakespearean play, Hamlet, is, I suppose, something of a truism in today's age of cynical politics. Yet it was the line that immediately occurred to me as I read this story from today's Star that reveals Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's refusal to testify before the committee looking into the Ornge air ambulance scandal, a scandal that draws a number of bureaucrats, party functionaries, and government ministers into its web of deceit and self-aggrandizement.
Despite McGuinty's public posturing about wanting to get to the full truth about this tale of personal greed and government ineptitude, his refusal to testify raises even more questions.
For example did he, as he claims, meet with Ornge head Dr. Chris Mazza only once, or was it perhaps three times, as the latter claims?
If McGuinty has his way, we will never know the answer to this and many other troubling aspects of this sad tale.
