Discontent

I pondered on what to use for the title of this blog because I don’t want red flags waving inappropriately as I talk about things like white supremacy, racism, gun violence and other civil unrest. News programs “discuss” this regularly and the solution, “they” seem to believe, starts with awareness. Awareness? Are you kidding me; I think we all are aware that children are being shot in schools, synagogues, mosques and churches have all been assaulted. I think we are all AWARE.

Yes, I get a little incensed at the shallowness of analysis but that doesn’t mean that I have the answer. Or rather, I didn’t feel that I had an answer (as my last blog noted). But I began to recall a conversation I had with a fellow NDP’er back in 1993 when I was a candidate and the lightbulb turned on for me, again. When it comes to people’s discontent we have to look at the true source of that discontent and the answer – whether they realize it or not – is poverty. Poverty can take many forms, it isn’t just a case of a person being homeless or starving. It can be a case of under-employment, of working several jobs and still not having enough money to pay the rent and buy food. It can be a middle class person who has a decent job but still cannot afford to send their children to college. It can be college graduates who are loaded down with debt and they also are under-employed despite that expensive education. It can be feeling insecure about how long you may have your job and then when “refugees” come into the country you fear that you will lose your job to cheap labour.

Business and government need to address the employment gap in a new way which includes fair wages, benefits and good hours. There are huge opportunities to build jobs while tackling some of the major issues of our day such as renewable energy (to combat climate change) and infrastructure to protect vulnerable areas from flooding. Another huge issue is how to deal with the incredible amount of garbage that results from packaging. I was absolutely staggered a few years ago when I learned that Canada had been “exporting” garbage to China, the Philippines and other areas for decades! Recently I learned that it wasn’t just garbage but our recycling was also being exported. What is the point of everyone recycling when we are creating an even larger footprint but shipping this stuff overseas (and let’s not kid ourselves, all that plastic in the ocean is NOT coming from tourists throwing straws overboard but dumping of said garbage)?

Another little factoid that should rile people up is how much taxpayer dollars is used for various types of research as well as developing infrastructure only to then have the benefits turned over to private corporations who reap billions of dollars (and don’t pay taxes, just to add insult to injury).

There are a lot of areas that need fixing but first of all we need to be AWARE.

Did I just say that?