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.

Thomas Friedman on What Being Pro-Life Should Really Mean

Still convalescing from food-poisoning, I realized today that my re-entry into regular blogging will likely be slower than I had anticipated. Nonetheless, as the situation has permitted, I have been spending some time getting caught up in my newspaper reading, and would like to recommend a fine piece by Thomas Friedman entitled, Why I Am Pro-Life.

In it, the new York Times columnist pillories the hypocrisy of the arch-conservatives who proclaim pro-life stances and reverence for 'the sanctity of life' while ignoring or actively opposing all those things that would, in fact, help guarantee quality and longevity of life outside of the womb, including measures like gun-control, accessible health-care, and educational opportunity.

As usual, Fridemen has some very worthwhile observations well-worth perusing.

Rick Salutin on Universities

Back from a two-week vacation and almost another week recovering from what I suspect was a food-borne illness acquired from a chicken sandwich I bought in the Rome airport, today's post will be brief, its purpose to direct you to Rick Salutin's latest column.

Entitled Universities are not job-training factories, the piece, while hardly breaking new ground, is a good reminder that there is still a very important role that university education can play in people's lives outside of what seems to have become its primary purpose, at least in the minds of our political and business 'leaders,' job training. Salutin opines the following values:

Students get to read widely and gain a sense of what human beings have been up to over the millennia. This expands their awareness and readies them to appreciate their own lives while contributing to enhancing the lives of others. Plus they learn to think critically, which is important to functioning as citizens rather than social cogs.

He goes on to argue that in this time, when job-sharing and shortened work weeks make sense, we need an educated and articulate population to entertain and discuss such matters. And, of course, if we think about it, having extra time on our hands, whether through unemployment, underemployment or, as in my case, retirement, possessing the tools with which to think critically and deeply really become invaluable assets and resources to draw upon as ways of enriching and deepening the experience we call life.

To me, that is surely a better alternative to the narcotizing effects of 'reality' television and other flights from the quotidian world available to us.

Time For Another Blogging Break

My Internet connection will be rather sporadic for the next little while as I take another break from blogging.

See you soon!

Thomas Walkom: Harper's Strategy Behind The Foreign Workers Program

Yesterday, over at Northern Reflections, Owen Gray wrote a post entitled A Lost Generation, a reflection on the discouraging prospects our young people face in establishing themselves in gainful employment, and the fact that their plight does not seem to be a factor in the Harper regime's decision-making.

I left the following comment on his blog:

Not only are our overlords ignoring the problem you describe here, Owen, but they are in fact compounding it by recruiting young people from Ireland to come work in Canada.

This inexplicable policy, apparently spearheaded by Jason Kenney, should outrage all of us, after which I provided a link to a story from the Star detailing Jason Kenney's efforts to recruit young people from Ireland to come to Canada for jobs.

Owen replied with the following:

It's all about driving down everyone's wages, Lorne. That was one of the items on the agenda when Mr. Flaherty met with the movers and shakers two summers ago.

Put that together with this government's preemptive moves on unions before a strike starts, and it's clear who this government serves.

It's not we, the people. And it's certainly not the young.

Owen's insight, it seems, is spot on. In his column today, The Star's Thomas Walkom looks at how Canada is using imported labour to do just that, keep everyone's wages down:

... the Vancouver Sun has reported, four brand new coal mines in the province’s northeast are bringing in just under 2,000 temporary Chinese migrants to do most of the work.

The ostensible reason, a spokesman for Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc. is reported as saying, is that not enough Canadians are skilled enough to do underground mining.

Let me repeat that. Not enough underground miners. In Canada.

Those who spent their working lives underground in Northern Ontario, or Quebec or Saskatchewan or Cape Breton would be surprised to hear this.

Walkom goes on to point out that the B.C. situation is hardly an exception, that the number of visas granted to temporary foreign workers is exploding; these workers, ranging from coffee shop staff in Alberta to those employed at XL Foods, hardly meet the criteria under which the foreign workers program was established, i.e. to do jobs for which they are uniquely qualified.

Walkom's conclusion? That they are being permitted entry because they are unlikely to complain of low wages or join a union. Their presence thus sends a strong message to the unemployed in Canada: Work for less, or others will take the jobs from you.

He concludes:

It’s one thing for the Harper Conservatives to return us to the status of a resource economy. It is another for them to insist that we become a low-wage resource economy.

And, of course, while such a policy may be a boon to our corporate masters, it is just one more obstacle that our young people have to face in their efforts to establish their careers.

An Update on Tim DeChristopher

About a year ago I wrote a post on Tim DeChristopher, a brave young activist who was sentenced to two years in prison for disrupting an oil and gas auction. In an act of civil disobedience, he submitted winning bids on land in Utah with no intention of paying for them.

An update on his status is provided by Peter Scheer on Truthdig. As well, there is a link on the site to an interview of DeChristopher that Chris Hedges conducted in 2011.

Worthwhile reading for those seeking examples of principled behaviour in these times.

Young Tim Speaks Again

But of course, he is singing the same tune as always: tax cuts will lead us to prosperity.

What's next? Did I hear someone say monorail?