To Extend A Helping Hand

Still in the throes of a Christmas dinner-induced torpor, this will be a relatively brief post related to material in today's Toronto Star dealing with microloans.

As a teacher for 30 years, I always deeply respected those students who sincerely wanted to improve their marks and were willing to do the hard work that goal entailed, as opposed to those who simply wanted to carp about their grades or tried to wheedle an improved assessment from me. In retrospect, it seems natural that, after retirement, I became involved as a volunteer editor with an organization called Kiva, which facilitates microloans to entrepreneurs in the developing world. It is a role I still enjoy to this day. For as little as a $25 loan, people throughout the world can assist those working hard to improve life for themselves and their families. Of my years as a lender, I have only had one loan default.

For those who would prefer to assist people closer to home, I learned today that there is an organization operating in the Toronto area called Access Community Capital Fund. As reported in The Star, the organization offers loans to assist budding local entrepreneurs who do not qualify for traditional loans:

“We are helping people who have no access to credit so they can build their own business and pay to send their kids to school,” says Don Inouye, chair of Access’s board of directors.

The charity provides loans of up to $10,000. But the typical amount is between $3,000 and $5,000. The money is disbursed by the Royal Bank and guaranteed by Access.

Investors earn 1 per cent on their capital, but most donate their earnings back to the charity, he says. “They don’t invest to make money. They do it to make a difference.”

I suspect that many, when contemplating the myriad problems that confront us both domestically and internationally, feel impotent. Participation as a lender in a microloan program is an empowering experience and a sure antidote to that sentiment.

Update: A Christmas Message

As a retired teacher, I am well familiar with the works of Charles Dickens. Although his literary legacy is one of predominantly lengthy works, he is probably best remembered for his shortest one, A Christmas Carol, the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, a nasty man consumed by the cost of everything but unable to recognize the value of anything. His redemption comes when he realizes the perversion of his life perspective.

Yesterday we went to Niagara on the Lake for a reading of the tale by some Shaw Festival actors who graciously invited my daughter, who has been very involved for several years in local theatre in the Hamilton-Toronto area, to be one of the narrators.

Listening to this very professional rendition, I was struck by both the simplicity and depth of Dickens' theme, one which our contemporary world seems to go to great pains to encourage us to forget. The promotion of rampant consumerism and the consequent impoverishment of both our environment and our spirit is one that cannot be sustained much longer, yet it seems to be the nature of the corporate agenda which, sadly, so many of us have become infused with, never to look beyond the next quarterly profit statement, no matter what the larger cost may be. At the same time, of course, the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widens, the underlying causes ignored while we apply only band-aid solutions like food banks and shelters, which ultimately only enable the status quo to remain intact.

In A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge learns before it is too late that the things of real value have little to do with things material. Would that we could learn, and take to heart, the same lesson.

UPDATE: I just got a chance to sit down with today's Star. A letter by Joy Taylor of Scarborough, along Dow Marmur's column, seem particularly appropriate reading at this time of year.

Oh Lord, Spare Me From The Overly Earnest

For someone like me, who strives not to be crushed by the many cruel absurdities the world has to offer, a sense of humour is a key survival mechanism. In that, I suspect I am hardly unique. And yet there are those among us, many striving to accomplish some real good, who go about their tasks grimly, never smiling, their personalities devoid of any suggestion that they are able to laugh at things.

I have known several such people. Harry Potter's invisibility cloak seems a very attractive concept whenever they are in the vicinity.

This morning's Star carries a story of one such person. Kalina Christoff, founder of Humanize Birth, an organization that advocates for “an increase in women having positive, empowered births,” took offense at a video produced by the obstetrics and gynecology wing at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto.

While one might wish to debate the artistic and comedic merits of the video, it could best be described as a light-hearted spoof of the life of obstetrical staff, inspired by Psy's Gangham-Style video that has enjoyed over one billion hits on YouTube.

Acting as any organization concerned about its image and fundraising ability would, Sunnybrook has removed the video (although someone else has since uploaded it again, as you will see), but, unfortunately, this act of contrition has not placated Ms Christoff, who is demanding an apology.

Why the deep offense? Says Ms Christoff, a line [from the video] says ‘no matter what, we’ll deliver your baby’ — a lot of women take offense to that because they deliver their babies”.

In any event, watch the video and decide for yourselves:

As for Ms Christoff and her crusading compatriots, I have another video recommendation that might help her and her offended ilk to lighten up. Enjoy:

Some Star Readers Respond To Anti-Unionism

I have to confess that my last few blog posts have felt singularly uninspired. I therefore yield to one of my favourite sources for perceptive analysis, the readers of The Toronto Star, who offer a panoply of thoughts on the dangerous anti-unionism trend evident in Canada at both the federal and provincial levels. All offer some excellent insights, which you can read here, and I am reproducing just one below:

History teaches us that when politicians wield public anger against an identifiable group, the casualty list usually includes those who allow their anger to be manipulated.

As a puppet of financially obese global investors, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney smiled broadly when he announced new immigration laws to facilitate a “new skilled trades stream” of foreign workers. Like foreign seasonal agricultural workers, these “skilled trades workers” will be grateful to leave home and family for much of the year and earn a fraction of what Canadian unionized workers in these trades currently earn. What proof confirms a shortage of electricians in Canada?

In the U.S., President Barack Obama warns that “right-to-work” bills are really politically motivated “right to work for less money” legislation, while in Ontario, Tim Hudak vomits out “right to work” rhetoric in his role as the prophet of blind hated for public sector workers.

It may take a year or two for the angry public to realize it was their hatred of teachers and other public servants that empowered federal and provincial politicians to bargain away all well-paying public and private sector jobs. As with all major renovations to the social structure of societies, the angry 99 per cent will inevitably rise up against the 1 per cent, including against those politicians who fatten their personal or business bank accounts with the profits from right-to-work legislation.

The French Revolution and the follow-up Jacobin movement illustrate the destabilizing consequences of following politicians who use hate to advance their agenda. If the angry public were to actually listen to what the teachers and public servants are saying about the governments’ assault against democratic rights, Canada and Ontario may avert the most dangerous consequences of the revolution that is already underway.

Now that the attack on electricians, welders, and other private sector workers has begun, perhaps their cries for help will be heard.

Cindy Griese, Barrie

''Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.'

The title of my post today, taken from Act Five of Shakespeare's Hamlet, occurs in a graveyard. Hamlet begins musing on what may become of one's earthly remains, as even those of the most exalted in life, once their remains have fully decayed, may wind up as little more than a beer barrel stopper.

Horatio seems to feel that such speculation is a tad morbid and unhealthy.

Perhaps the same may be said about trying to dissect the mind of a politician, for fear of what we may discover.

In his column yesterday, The Star's Rick Salutin goes down that dark path in trying to understand the mind of outgoing Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, and while I realize that Ontario politics may be of little interest to people in other parts of the country, Salutin's observations seem pan-Canadian in application:

For the first time in his political career, McGuinty has become humanly interesting because he’s indecipherable. In the past he was politically interesting — for standing almost alone against the neo-con tide of his times, but personally uncomplicated. Now he’s taken all he stood for and could feel pride in: strong public schools, a positive role for government, political support he built — among teachers especially — and trashed it for no evident reason. Then he resigned, losing any chance he had to salvage the mess he made.

While he finds this more than passing strange, Salutin wonders whether the Premier is relying on a U.S. political consultant urging a hard-right mentality that ultimately sacrifices logic on the altar of demagoguery:

So Dalton tells the teachers: Sorry but you’re going to have to accept a two-year wage freeze. The teachers’ unions answer: OK, we accept a two-year wage freeze. Dalton stays on script and replies: Sorry, that’s unacceptable, you have to take a two-year wage freeze.

Indeed, the above scenario is eerily echoed in a piece in today's Star, excerpted from an interview to be broadcast today on Focus Ontario. In it, McGuinty reminds teachers of how good they have had it under his rule:

“There are some teachers who are saying: ‘We don’t accept that [wage restraint]. You must negotiate with us.’ We’re saying: ‘Listen, we’re prepared to negotiate, but we can’t negotiate a pay hike,’ ” the premier said. (Here of course, the Premiere is conveniently ignoring the fact that they did accept the wage freeze demanded.) “Some teachers have said we’ve taken away their rights, we took away their right to strike. Well, they’re striking now so obviously that is not true.” (Here the Premier conveniently ignores the fact that the anti-strike provisions of Bill 115 don't come into effect until the new year, when its provisions will likely be imposed.)

Perhaps attempts to understand the quirky minds of politicians is ultimately a waste of time, since those minds are obviously deeply influenced by the ethos of the organization that they serve, their political party. When they deviate from the formulae that bring them power, maybe the best we can do is accept something that Salutin reminds us of in his piece:

We’re deceived by the lucid, rational façade, by the facts we wear clothes and eat with cutlery, into thinking we’re not essentially primitive creatures whose conscious calculations are generally a fraction of what motivates us.

As Horatio says, in attempting to understand beyond that, ''Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.'

And Now, A Word From America's Most Powerful Lobby

Such unctuous and pious hypocrisy I have rarely seen or heard:

BTW, what law were the protesters breaking that got them ejected?

What I Really Want For Christmas...

Were I given to the Christmas flights of fancy that prompt people to compile impossible wish lists that usually include a desire for world peace, the end of disease, and the termination of world hunger, I would add one more: politicians who show respect, rather than contempt, for the intelligence of the people they claim to represent.

That, of course, has about as much likelihood of achievement as the other three mentioned above. Too many examples abound of the arrogant assumptions politicians make about people as they abandon the interests of the collective to pursue policies that cater to only a certain segment of society. And what especially rankles me is the fact that they so shamelessly tell the most outrageous lies that betray their contempt for the majority of us.

Take, for example, Pierre Poilievre, that earnest old young man of 33 who is now in his fourth term as an MP and has found much favour with the Harper regime. As reported by the Star's Tim Harper, Poilievre, a staunch believer in the kind of 'right-to-work' legislation recently passed in Michigan, loudly, proudly, hypocritically and disingenuously proclaims it as

...“workers freedom,’’ legislation that would give federal workers the option of paying union dues and joining their colleagues in a work stoppage.

“I am the first federal politician to make a dedicated push toward this goal,’’ he says. “I believe in free choice for workers and I am going to do my part to see that happens at the federal level and I would encourage provincial governments to do likewise.

Ah yes, the famous Harper regime concern for workers' rights.

But perhaps the Christmas season will bring an unexpected gift. Despite the fact that the same prevarications are proclaimed regularly by that Ontario emblem of ineptitude, the Progressive Conservative Party's Tim Hudak, there is some evidence of nascent critical thinking on the part of the electorate. An article in today's Star by Robert Benzie and Richard Brennan suggest that young Tim's embrace of all things right-wing is beginning to hurt him in the polls. Now only two percentage points ahead of the NDP, his party, which seems perilously similar to tea-party ideology, is finding some resistance amongst voters, according to a recent Forum poll:

Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said the most recent survey suggests that some of Hudak’s right-wing proposals are not resonating beyond his diehard supporters.

For example, only about a third — 34 per cent — of respondents believe compulsory union dues should be outlawed while 45 per cent disagreed with that plan and 21 per cent were unsure.

Only 8 per cent of respondents agreed that Community Care Access Centres should be shut down with 61 per cent opposed and 31 per cent uncertain.

Bozinoff said a lot of the Tory planks are “just not authentic enough for people in urban areas,” which is bad news for a party with a caucus made up of mostly rural MPPs.

So, we can only hope that as 2013 arrives, more and more people will don their critical-thinking caps and subject all political rhetoric to the kind of thoughtful analysis that a healthy democracy both demands and deserves.