March 15, 2011, carnegie newsletter

MARCH 15, 2011

Condo-powered gentrification means higher rents in hotels, apartments, co-ops, and for smaller businesses.

They.* say this is what the Chinatown community wants.

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TELL CITY COUNCIL WHAT YOU THINK: 7:30pm Thursday, March 17th City Hall 3rd floor 5:30 pm for transportation and dinn at Carnegie.

Info at CCAP: 604-839-0379

CCAP's position: No Towers until all the DTES SROs are replaced and the community's assets are secured.

Around the World Sacred Ceremony

MONDAY MARCH 21, 2011 Oppenheimer Park BOO Powell Street 2:00pm- 1:00 pm According to a sacred prophecy, Otomi elders, the day when the sounds of 8,000 Sacred Drums join together is the beginning of healing for our earth and all its living creatures. All across the world in different locations, this same ceremony will occur on this day.

Here in Vancouver, we gather together to drum prayer songs for our people, earth, environment, for peace for indigenous people all across the globe, suffering from war and genocide. Info: I.A.M. (604) 682-3269 Extension: n18. Much thanks to all volunteers & to B.C.G.E.U. for your support.

Epiphany

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*Prayer For Our Earth* .. Creator, we know you work in mysterious ways .. we know that we as humans need to take care of our earth. We know this. We also know that our ancestors held the key to keeping our environment intact.

Because of the governmental and capitalist powers that be, much change has happened to our landscape, thus when catastrophe strikes ...... much destruction and loss of innocent lives ensues.

The changed landscape and earth and ground instability, affects global temperature ...affects the habitat for our wild life and plant life and when a catastrophe strikes much unbridled devastation follows.

What we pray for then, is to help those who fight for our environment to continue to exact change; for we as humans to do the right thing; For the teachings to come back; That innocent people arc protected when where they live faces mass destruction.

We pray that eyes are open and that the trillion dollar elite might.. well.. who knows what we can ask for .. except that their eyes open up to the fact that destroying our environment is destroying lives, destroying mankind and what will their lives be worth ... what life are they leaving for their inheritors .. whom they are trying to leave a financial legacy for.

Let the powers that be, and we all.. see that we need to leave a living legacy not a dying one.

I say this to all my relations ...

Kat Norris By: Prayers to the Four Direction

Babies cannot raise themselves to adu lthood.

All adults were once babies.

Humans evolved from creatures that crawled out of the ocean.

And so, that creature must have once had the capability of reproducing itself.

But to avoid the under quality caused by inbreeding, Nature devised the factions of male and female to carry on the reproduction of living things.

No matter how you look at it, a higher power had to have intervened in the process.

I call this higher power si mply "Nature."

Nature is a driving force that compels evolution.

It is necessary to the sustenance of life on Earth Modem religion says that the universe was created by God. But where did God come From?

Modern science states that the universe was created frorn gases explod ing in space.

But where did these gases come from?

If God made the gases, then all the bibles are grossly mistaken From all the logical information available to the imagination, the concept of beginnings and endings, is false.

Nature is a dimension unknown to us. Its only clue is that everything happens in cycles.

Again the question arises, what has this got to do with the Downtown Eastside?

The Downtown Eastside was once the heart of Vancouver's business and political area. Then it slowly sank into skid row. And then it was taken on by the activists, who fought to revive it at City Hall, the BC Legislature, and Ottawa.

It's a fin e example of a cycle. Perhaps it's only a few degrees into the positive range, but it's well on its way.

Garry Gust

Written By: Celina Gagne More than enough years with you, And I have said goobye.

Everyday clean tha t I have feels like I have been clean for ma ny year s.

We did everything together, There was never a place or a time when you were not with me, nor in my system. You were always there to " calm" me down, And to keep me "sain" is what I thought at the time. Your like a first love, and now that I am clean, your always trying to luwer me into a huge mistake all over again. I always thought everything and everyone around me was the problem, but now I clearly see that you were my biggest problem. You do not keep me sa in, you make me hide behind my problems in life. I never knew that a plant with crystals on it would screw my life up this much. You have made me lose a lot of trust in t rustful things and people. You numbed my pain for that w hole 45 minutes everytime I used you, But everytime I came to; You always made my problems worse, Everytime I burned out, I was hurting even more than I was when I was sober, In My heart, My soul, My whole body. It was all in my head that I " NEEDED" you!! I no longer have a m isty mind, It is clear as clean glass. PLEASE be a slave to me now and let me forget about you, And that we are not built as one anymore.

5

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APRIL 29, 2011 AT THE CARNEGIE CENTRE MINI-MANUSCRIPI' CONSULTATIONS. ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS. PROFESSIONAL SKJLLS WORKSHOPS. GUEST AUTHOR READINGS. For details, visit www.thewritersstudio.ca.

~

The People's Co-op Bookstore

G.~.l.SI

Women Respond to Comments by Reverend Ric Matthews of First United Church; Reiterate Calls for 24-hour Women s Shelter and Safe Housing in DTES March 1- Vancouver, BC: A coalition of women and women's organizations are outraged by First United Church Reverend Ric Matthews comments in the Vancouver Province regarding the sexual assaults of women at the First United shelter located in the Downtown Eastside. Matthew is quoted as saying, "Some women put themselves at risk because of the way they dress or undress or move around the building; they d raw attention to themselves. " According to Elaine Durocher, long-time DTES resident and member of the DTES Power of Women Group: Those who experience sexual assault are not the ones at fault. Instead of taking sexual assau lts against women seri ously, a com ment like Matthew's stigmatizes women and sends an unacceptable message that they are to blame for assau lts committed against them. This is part of a pattern of increasing attacks on women and women's bodies.

In Manitoba, women and Aboriginal organizations have been appalled at Judge Dewar s comments about a young Aboriginal rape survivor"s attire and sex uality. In January a complaint was filed by Osgoode Law School against a Toronto Police Service officer Constable Michael Sanguinetti who suggests that women can avoid sexual assault by not dressing like a slut .

Over the past severa l weeks, a coalition of women s organization has been calling for a 24 hours drop-in space and shelter for women in the Downtown Eastside. They are dismayed at the lack of response by all levels of government. BC Housing and the City of Vancouver are responsible to ensure that safe services are equally available to women in this community. 路'Women should not have to choose between the indignity ofhomelessness and violence within publicly

funded institutions,"' states Alice Kendall, Coon.linator of the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.

Beatrice Starr. an Indigenous woman who stayed at the First United Church shelter for over 8 months says '路All of us arc someone's mother or someone's daughter and deserve to be treated with respect. Warehousing hundreds of people in a shelter is unacceptable; it is like residential schools. Also, increasing police presence in the shelters only makes the problem worse because mistrust of the police runs deep. Instead, all Downtown Eastside residents should have adequate and safe housing so that shelters are in fact an emergency last resort."

For decades women went missing and were murdered and people were silent. 路'Now we have knowledge of women being sexually assaulted and are we going to do nothing? Women have a right to safety! This includes more beds for women in shelters, a 24-hours women's shelter, a couples shelter, and housing for all women and chi! dren," states Kate Gibson of WISH Society.

Alice Kendall Downtown Eastside Women s Centre 604-681-8480 Ext 223 Kate Gibson WISH Drop- In Centre 604-669-9474 Harsh:t Walia (to arrange interviews with DTES Power of Women Group): 778-885-0040 Angela Marie MacDougall Battered Women s Support Services 604-808-0507 Twisted F iction, Sick Addiction You say the passage of time can cleanse a li fetime of bad memories.

Drugs say: just forget now, and let the numbness consume you.

You can't take back what's been taken away.

And I've been left with nothing, just a hollow shell of the girl! once was.

As I look in the mirror, my renection sickens me.

I am now a living corpse, one of many who wi ll foreve r be enslaved by the monster.

I scream for someone to help me, yet I don't make a sound.

This is my burden, my curse, my nightmare ..

My Life. I am the living dead girl.

Jaime Banno

_Vancouver sex work groups join Ontario challenge_

Down...

Counsel fo r a coalition of sex workers'rights g roups from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will be appearing before the Ontario Court of Appeal to apply fo r intervenor status in the case of _Bedford et at. v.

AG Canada. The PACE Society, the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal Society will be asking the Court for an opportunity to make legal arguments in s upport of striking down the crim inal laws relating to adult prostitution.

The Government of Canada is appealing the September 28'" decision of Madam Justice Himel of the Ontario Superior Court, who ruled that the communication law, bawdy house law and living on the avails law violate sexworkers路 rights to security of the person, liberty and freedom of expression. Justice Himel found that these laws force sex workers to work in extremely dangerous circumstances in order to avoid arrest. On this basis, she held that the laws are unconstitutional and must be struck down. The Vancouver organizations join a number of others from across Canada in applying to intervene on the appeal.

"These three sex workers' rights groups are extremely hopeful that the Bedford decision will be upheld and that consensual adult sex work will be decriminal ized in Canada," said Katrina Pacey, counsel for the coalition. '路G iven their experience and expertise on the negative impact of the laws, these groups will make an important contribution as intervenors in this land mark human rights case."

Katrina Pacey and Joseph Arvay QC are counsel for the coalition of sex work groups. The appeal is scheduled to be before the Ontario Court of Appeal ~ June 13 - 17,20 11.

I never knew how fast l would get caught up, never knew that one time was too many, and that thousands more will never be enough.

"Sex workers in this community have suffered for long enough as a result of criminalization. We make sure that the voices and perspectives of sex workers from the DTES are heard loud and clear by the Ontario Court. "said Kerry Porth, Executive Director of the PACE Society. "We hope, as intervenors. to put our fu ll s upport behind the sex who have made this case possible and are leading the movement towards decriminalization of consensual adult prostitution."

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l will forever be enl isted in the ranks of all poor souls bound to heroine. l will die out here on this battlefield.

Nobody will miss me, nobody will attend my funeral.

So l roam the streets on cold nights in search of the only thing that will ever make me feel right.

I wish over and over just to die, but that would mean that l could no longer get high. again I'm out here trying to find my fix, in the darkes t alleys, surrounded by bricks . and alone is how I'll always be, nobody to care for, it's all about me.

But for now I push off to calm my affliction, descend into the eternal darkness is my addiction.

Jaime Banno

Tina I cover-up with makeup in the mirror, tell myself it's never going to happen again.

A quick fix will do the trick, just a short vis1t with an old friend.

She goes by many names, but will always carry the same pain.

With her at my side, beaten and broken has never felt so nice.

As my lover mutters an "I love You" fueled by her ice.

All is forgiven, and all is forgotten.

Tomorrow l will smile through the pain and the hurt as again l will be thrown face down in the dirt.

Once again Tina has worked her magic, on another innocent life, now turned tragic.

Jaime Banno

News f'rOtn the LibrarY New books Gabor Gaztonyi spent five years photographing residents of the Cobalt, Balmoral, Regent, and Sunrise Hotels. A R oom in the City (362.5) is the result: a beautifu l collection o f photographs, filled with familiar faces.

Following on from her bestselling The Secret, Rhonda Byrne's The Power ( I 58.1) claims to be "the handbook to the greatest power in the universe- The Power to have everyth ing you want." That's a pretty big claim. See if the book lives up to it.

In recent decades, scientists di scove red that 96% of the universe is missing. Richard Panek tells the story of how scientis ts are rethinking the way we see the cosmos in The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark En-

ergy, ami the Race to Discover the R est ofReality (523. 11).

America in the Roaring Twenties was a land where vaudeville was king, Speakeasies were rife, and money flowed fast and free. And then the Great Depression levelled everything. Enter Gypsy Rose Lee, a strutting, bawdy, erud ite stripper who had a gift for delivering exactly what America needed. Read her story in American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare. The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee (92 1 LEE). f.. II these books w ill be in the library display case, and

··• Masses suffer not because of the violence of bad people but because of silence of good people:·•

March 2011 Documentary Nights Saturdays 6PM Carnegie Theatre.

March 19. Behind E very Terrorist There is a Bush.

Featuring talented Comics, in a light hearted evenings entertainment. 88 minutes. Hijacking Catastrophe 9/ 11, Fear am/the Selling ofAmerican Empire.

2hours 18 minutes.

March 26, Improbable Collapse The Demolition of our Republic. Improbable Collapse invites viewers to critically examine the demolition hypothesis. and the growing phenomenon of doubt surrounding these events and thei r aftermath. 60 minutes. Pharmmvhares A doCII-Comedy about media madness. Ever wonder why and how news stories sound more like p romos for the latest drug or vaccine? /1. funny edutaining about the media's primary " intention''... distraction, deception, and illusion for public persuasion, mind manipu lation, widespread intoxication, cultural degeneration, petro-chemical pollution, and profitable vaccination depopulation. Pharmawhores comically and explosively reveals the genocidal Investments and social engineering intentions of leading media and financial industry moguls.

~

'"';t,bl• to'"' hold' o,.

Beth, your librarian

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:!~3HADOWS ~::-~- Creator, are you there?

~"" ::::.·.:.-·! . I sit among the Standing Tall People

_.,._"' ·

-:.~.. •. Their branches support me i<:::••••

As hands, they guide, protect me Creator, are you there?

As I sit, light, blurry appears Shadows take shape, my heart Sings as I know, my vision is returnmg Creator, are you there?

I thank you for those hands Ones softened by thoughtfulness, and love True beings that you have put on my path

Creator, are you there?

I thank you too for those hands Gnarled by deceit or apathy To help me be aware of dangers that lurk Creator, are you there?

A lesson, I learn, eyes Do not always see everything But the heart does Creator, are you there?

I thank you for all lessons Shadows are just that As darkness appears again, I know that you Surround me. Ekosi.

R obert Bonner

THE 2011 NEIGHBOURHOOD SMALLGRANTSAREBACK The opportunity to make your neighbourhood into your dream begins .....

For the 7th year, the .. NEIG IIBOURHOOD SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM'' returns to the Downtown Eastside and Strathcona!

Funded by a grant from the Vancouver Foundation, this program offers up to $500.00 to individuals or groups of neighbours who do small projects to enhance their neighbourhoods. Residents can plant a

Introduction to Flamenco at Carnegie Community Centre!

Saturdays, March 19, 26, April9, 16, 30, May 7, 14 21 3:30- 5:00 PM in the Theatre Flamencos and fla m en cas of all ages, shapes and abilities: Want to move your body in a new way, build selfconfidence, and stomp around a bit? Come and join fun and exploratory Flamenco Classes at Carnegie Community Centre! We will play with rhythms, move to flamenco music, make some noise and learn a traditional festi val dance. No dance experience necessary, just curiosity and a desire to try something new.

Open to all genders.

Flamenco is an exciting and fiery form of dance and music fro m Southern Spain. At these classes, expect to hear new kinds of music and learn percussi ve hand clapping (pal mas). We will have occasional guest guitarists and si ngers join us as we explore this ex pressivc art form. Get ready to shout 'Ole!' Instru ctor llio: Kelty has enjoyed s haring her love of flamenco with the Carnegie community for the last t>vo years. She played a flamenco dancing Minotaur in Vancouver Moving Theatre's 20 I0 production of The Minotaur Dreams: The Downtown Eastside Labyrinth Project.

She is involved with the Heart of t he City Festivals, most recently organizing the Barrio Flamenco concert series at Radha Eatery: the power of artists and anisans in the DTES. She's been teaching flamenco dance workshops at Enterprising Women Making Art and looks fo rward to meeting you Saturday.

neighbourhood garden, host block parties, organize CJ community BBQs, children's festivals, youth outings - the ideas are limited only to your imagination. Visit our website at www.neighbourhoodsmallgrants.ca to apply.

Application forms are also avai lable at: Carnegie Community Centre, 40 I Main Street.

Ray-Cam Co-operative Centre, 920 East Hastings or Strathcona Community Centre, 60 I Keefer.

For more info: roberta .nsgp@gmail.com Application d eadlin e: Friday, April 15, 2011

Bankers and brokers gamble and defraud, corporations dodge taxes and ship jobs abroad, politicians cut taxes for the rich, so obviously workers must be to blame for the economic crisis. NOT! But we will be to blame if we don't use our numbers and our union organizations to tight back.

--Gene

Toronto Sun, Thursday, March 3, 2011 Editorial: Wisconsin's pa in on Canada's horizon When Canadians look to the civic labour uprisings in the American Midwest over government crackdowns on their contracts-- the "week of rage" in Wisconsin now echo ing in Ohio and beyond-- they should realize the canary in that coal mine is dead. Wisconsin, for example. is broke.

But, before Canadians tune out, they s hould fi rst c heck the vital signs of their own canary, and recognize its floundering as a harbinger of troubled days ahead.

Canada's national debt -- not counting provincial and munic ipal governments, most of which have substantial union payrolls -- is at $559 billion, o r $16,500 for every man, woman and child.

Toss in provincial debt and municipal debt and, as a C. D. Howe Ill might say, what's a trillion?

Public-sector unions, however, don't seem to care.

Their bosses are politicians, and politic ians have no incentive to get private-sector tough in contract negotiations.

Why wou ld they?

Profit-versus-loss is not a concern as it is in privatesector business where survival in a competiti ve market depends on existing unions reaching a consensus with management and shareholders to avoid such hard realities as downsizing.

All most politicians want is to get re-elected, and for the taxpayer-- you- to cough up the costs of their recklessness.

An_9, if disputed contracts end up in arbitration, it's all the better for the politicians, simply because arbitrators have no obligation to take even the slightest peek at government's books to see if there is any money left to pay the union freight.

So politicians blame the arbitrator. Cowardly but convenie nt.

According to experts, there is a trillion-dollar chasm between just what the U.S. has promised union retirees and what it actually has on hand -- and this is with

only 35% of its public-sector workforce in unions.

Canada, in fact, is worse off. Some 70% of publicsector employees are in unions, and, as a collective, they represent 18% of our country's entire workforce.

And they are better paid and better pensioned than their U.S. counterparts. ' Our governments cannot afford the status quo.

If public-sector unions don't see themselves and their contracts as part of the solution, they may find themselves part of the past.

Then their canary will be just as dead.

Editor's explanation: Why is this piece of right-wing propaganda here? Oh, sorry if the truth hurts ..

As Gene says at the beginning, the super rich and their status quo laws, media and thousands upon thousands of people in most key positions of government, have been fairly successful in making the Big Lie technique work.

The current bit of news, completely unreported on by any objective(mass) media, is about tens of thousands of people in pub lic-sector unions in Wisconsin and Ohio. A standard situation of a governor (premier) and corporate hacks masquerading as elected state (province) legislators passed a bill eliminating the coll ective bargaining rights of all public employees. Campbell did this when the Liberal junta took office in 200 I, passing their own law to make ripping up negotiated contracts and making acrossthe-board wage cuts of 15% " legal."

In Wisconsin the lies are the same: the governing majority will not fairly tax the wealthy or eliminate lopsided cuts I< corporate taxes; as here, the vast majority of program cut and cries of"We're broke!" are directly targeting those who have static incomes, who are middle-class, working class and poor.

See the graphic depiction, called cartoons, of the perpetual crap that corporate executives lay on us. If it wasn't so sickening and manipulative it'd be a good joke, but how such lies get spread is by the subtler uses of behavioural pressures to beat down the unprepared psyche. It's not just what you ask but how you ask it. Be aware, be clear, be ready to see under and around and through attitudes and so-called 'common sense.'

PAULR TAYLOR

Natural Fault Pardon me but you seem to be coughing up motoroi Iish dust, if you're about to Iight that smoke remember not just gasoline can spontaneously combust You know if Intelligent life ever does come we JUSt may be singing our carbon-fl avoured goodbyes. you know that Catch-22 scenario where the dead arc envied by all those left alive; optimism is for me~ last resort so I tell myself to shut up and take the pam, when all goes wrong (&when doesn't it) I am slo.~ly learning how not to complain, like state-run telev1s~on stations overcelebrating overcast weather and the dun locations for o nce could theyu confess they have no idea whether they are wrong or right, like the toothless obese fairy dropping off250 pounds Ul~der you.r shirt one night, like that 2.2 billion dollar Circus trymg to equal an earthquake it has its own kind of after-. shocks all those businesses & some people who d1ed.

The af~rementioned businesses are celebrating in their very clever 'Clearance Sales' then gone fore v.er as soon as they run out of stock; it wi ll be all the little taxpayers this government feeds off- especial.ly the surviving business people and workers who w1ll have to pay when conven ience and confid ence and whatever else you count o n to wake yourself up each morning disappear; l guess 1 forgot to tell yo~ they had all run out earlier that day, don't go blammg earth because it came with natural faults.

Now what and whoever happens to live or work near the epicentre you mus t be wondering (I would) where the hell are the labour-ready people with their s igns that say 1IALT! I read in the newspaper people are whining about the s uites being sold in that village of greed .. What!? no di shwashers or in-su~tc ~ ~~nd ry devices can I maybe share part of my d1sab ll1ty cheque I'm a sucker for people truly in need, like public skeptici um circumventi ng its frustration once again on the downtrodden and the poor l 'v~ said i~ again & what's more I know what it feels hke to hve in buildings that the condemned would sadly choose compared to some opened roof larger than a phone booth permafrost around the clock floor , li ke asking

I

some non-assuming person to hold your place at thct). very back of the line, or even slicker & sicker give that illi terate in the group a brand new library card .. hold on! .. there's a s ignpost up ahead -the next stop the Sad light Zone with no exit until the next stop and that just may be a very long time, like a monster bearing g ifts which wi ll do us in first the oceans or the mountains, with the bedrock of youth still being discovered to this very day with state of the past waterways and fountains, please try to remember not to blame earth for its natural fau lts let alone ridiculous predictions, like my trust of things I cannot change like death. taxes & Fate then again one day soon there could be some very heavy restrictions, some would have been trusted as deep as you could drop them into a never-ending beginning where there is no such word as late.

St. Minus used to say money is just coloured paper & little scraps of metal worth whatever you want yes it's just another natural fault it seems that the entire world is prepared for the nurturing sound of doomsday or even more s urreal the end of the word hate, .... and the gathering wait:

By ROBERT McG ILLIYRA Y

"Though I beheld at first with blank surprise, this work I now have gazed on it so long I see its truth with unreluctant eyes." -Wi lliam Wordsworth

1111111111111 1111111111111 The CCFL's mission is to help build and develop financial literacy among low-income Canadians. A major part of the CCFLs work is offeri ng training and capacity building for front line commun ity workers to deliver financia l literacy services tailored to the groups they serve. The CCFL's toolbox of activities and information is designed for practitioners serving vulnerable groups inc ludi ng youth, newcomers to Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, families with children, and women.

If you would like to find out how the CCFL can work with you to embed financial literaey in your organization's services and programs please send me an email with a link to your website and a contact telephone number and I will be in touch.

C lick here for more information about the CCFL www.theccfl.ca Melanie Buffel l Facilitator/Coordinator

cari.egie~ NEWSLETTER

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Publications Policy: #8 No political pamphl ets, tracts, advertising or contributions fro m po litical parties or people seeking e lectio n will be published during an electio n period. Ho wever, politicians are free to utilise the newsletter outside o f these periods to indicate what they are do ing for our community and readers are free to respo nd with the ir views.

The Camegie Newsletter is a 16-28 page, twice-monthly publicatio n with 1200 copies per issue and a readership of likely twice that. Depending o n how much easier stereotypes make your perceptio ns of this community, contents are ''By, For and About the Bad and Dishonest people o f the Downtown Eastside.'' This description is to counter an uninformed declaration that "all that's needed to ' revitalise' that area are good, honest people."

Conrents, in the form of articles, writing, poetry, locally-produced art and some graphic input, cover all manner o f life and liv ing in Canada's poorest postal code. Issues include poverty, housing, homelessness, the drug trade, sex trad e, " f ree" trade, safe injectio n s ites, health and lifestyles possible on welfare, women - murdered, missing, v io lence against, children - drug mules or forced prostitution, playgrounds and possibilities in o ur community, gentrifi cation, treatment re alcoho lism, addiction, despair, the deinstitutionalization of mental health consumers & and of course much mo re.

At the Carnegie News letter website www.carnnews.org there is a link to a resource guide called Help in the Downtown Eastside. It is free in hardcopy, ava ilable in English, French & Spanish, and li sts organisations/ agencies/drop- ins/services in our neighbourhood and some that people here need to access fro m time to time, li ke hospitals and where to get identification. It also makes available a bi t of info about each and is a good place to find opportunities to volunteer. The names, addresses and phone numbers are there; if you want to know more, call them!

Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP)

Newsletter SPECIAL EDITIO : Chinatown Towers

Mar 15, 20 11

Cheap rent and stores in Chinatown threatened Should City Council allow 12 and 15 story condo towers in Chinatovm? The Downtown Eastside eighbourhood Council, Carnegie Community Action Project. 30 DTES community groups and 8 businesses outside of

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Photos are from a newly released 27 page report

by DNC's Action Committee called "Zo11es of Exclltsion"'. It feat/Ires sites in Cllinatown tltat exclude /ow-income residents, tlrive up land values a11d rents- sites that are set to mu/tip(r if the new rezoning is approved by City Council.

Come to the CC4P offtee for a copy oflite report.

Chinatown have signed a resolution opposing the height increase. /\n additional 26 storekeepers in Chinatown have signed a petit ion against the height increase. About 850 individuals signed up against the towers.

These groups and individuals arc opposed to the height increase mostly because of the impact it will have on increasing rents for hotels and stores, and driving o ut low income people and the businesses that serve them.

They believe Chinatown is a living heritage community that includes low income people who li ve there now.

Heritage is about people. not just architecture. The D C and supporters want Chinese speaking seniors to be able to shop in their neighbourhood without using English, to live in safety and with independence in decent apartments, among their friends, and with vou~•~ et.ur~ .. food security. !laving seen the gentrifYing impact ' ofWoodwards o n _ _ _ __.

,:1)1

the western part of the Dtes, the DNC fears that low income residents.

rezoning, for a total or 12 stories allowed. And on one strip on Main between Keefer and Union the increase would be 2 stories without rc7oning and 8 stories with rezoning. up to IS stories. , taff are also proposing that Chinatown developers be allowed to ··land" density from all over the city into Chinatown (see box).

Last week business and community people with an interest in Chinatown held a news conference to say why they support proposed rezoning and policy changes for Chinatown that City Council wi ll consider on March 17. Below is the 01'\C's response to what they said: Chinatown is united in support of the hei[{hl increase. D C and supporters say that even though public meetings about the height were held in Chinatown, many IO\\ income people they have talked were not consulted.

About 900 low income people live in hotels and rooming houses and social housing in Chinatown. Another I 000 or so low income people live very close to Chinatown. Chinatown business and society groups have compromised with each other to get this hei ght. and even though many of them don·t like ISO foot towers and don't think its good for density from all over the city to be

including Chinese speaking residents, will be pushed out of the neighbourhood as gentrification increases property va lues and rents go up.

In addition the '·feel " of the neighbourhood wil l change as new businesses and services arrive to serve richer condo residents. This is happening in Chinatown al ready. Two new condos. the Ginger and V6A, were built in Chinatown last year, within the existing zoning.

The area around these 2 condos is becoming a place of exclusion where lowincome people do no t feel comfortable because they are excluded by price and the upscale ··feel" from new businesses. The barber shop, operated by a Chinese shop owner. that sold ha ircuts for $9 is now closed.

The Brixton Cafe, London Pub and a shop that sells boutique towels have moved in. If the city enables 12 and IS story condo towers to line the streets, these areas of exclusion will multi pi) and low income people will not have places to shop in or feel at home in Chinatown.

These are the details: City staff have proposed that building heights in C hinatown be increased. On Pender St. the outright increase would be about I to 2 stories to 7S feet. South of that heights could go up 2 more stories w ithout rezoning and up to S stories with 2

begin. "Certainty'· could be provided if C ity Council said it was keeping the existing zoning and not allov. ing any new height increase. T hat would protect low income residents from high rent increases.

Public hene.fits.from developers can improve conditions in some of the older heritage buildings. It wou ld be good if heritage buildings could be renovated and provide housi ng for low income residents. But there is nothing to prevent them from being rented as condos fo r richer residents. In addition, the Council motion calls for developers from all over the city to be able to "land'' density in Chinatown (see box). When this happens, the landing of the density will be considered a public benefit and could eliminate or reduce any other public benefits available for heritage, social housing or other uses.

Public benefits/rom developers could provide more seniors and social housing. lt wi ll cost $95 million to replace the 475 SROs in Chinatown with decent self contained social housing.

This is way more money than public benefits can provide. Because the Counci l motion allows density to .. land'' in Chinatown, little or no public benefits may be avai lable for low income ho using.

The Single Room Accommodation Bylaw will protect SROS in Chinatown. This bylaw is very weak and has no abi lity to control rents.

landed in Chinatown, they wi ll stick to their compromise. The D C believes that support for the changes should be based on whether or not condo towers wiII be good for the existing community, not on whether or not a compromise has been made. In additio n, the low income community, including many of the businesses that serve them, were not part of this compromise.

An ''income mix·· provided by condo towers will revitalize Chinatown.

Even the Director of Planning told a meeting in January that ·'other factors'· besides height would be involved in revitalizing Chinatown. Besides, what does " revitalize'' mean and who wi ll benefit from it? The "revitalizatio n.. we have seen from Woodwards has pushed up rents in hotels and created areas of exclusion w here low income people are no longer comfortable. The impact of allowing towe rs will be to reduce the number of low income people in the area. This is a case of"income mix'' language being used to foster a neighbourhood with fewer and fewe r low income people. Chinatown is al ready a mixed income neighbourhood with several c.ondo developments.

Condo developments can continue with existing zoning.

Developers need "certainty .. about the area so development can

3

What docs " landing density" mean?

The city says that the community can get "public benefits" if condo towers arc built in the Downtov.n Eastside. The public benefits could be things like preserving a heritage building. providing a daycare, or building a handful of social housing units. The business class in Chinatown, along with societies that own heritage bui ldings say they want the public benefits to preserve the heri tage buildings or to build social housi ng. But the city is proposing that developers from all over the city be a llowed to 路路Jand" density from other areas into Chi natown South. '路Landing" the density from other areas wi ll be considered a " public benefit." So the amount of public benefits that could be avai lable in China town for local amenities s uch as restoring heritage buildings or building social housing could be eliminated or severely reduced.

Currently the Transfer of Density policy allows density to be transferred out of the heritage districts and the DTES but not into the area. This is to reduce development pressures. The City is proposing to change this by allov.ing the transter of density to be landed into Chinatown which would set a precedent for all the DTES. This wiU add development pressure for more condos without any new amenities such as social housing.

SROs are being lost all the time to low income people, mostly through re nt increases . Only 12 per cent of the privately owned SROs in the DTES rent for the welfare shelter allowance according to a study by the Carnegie Community Action Project. As far as the DNC knows. no new social housi ng is planned for the Downtown Easts ide or Chinatown after 2013.

Maybe you' re not sure about the DNC's position. It is complicated. So why not have a social and economic impact study before making a nearly

irrevocable decision that could destroy the living heritage that is Chinatown?

Why not get a Local Area Plan? And why not make sure that plan ensures that low income people, including Chinese seniors, are not pushed out of their neighbourhood, and that they'll be able to shop in their own language. and that the other assets in the community for its low income residents are preserved?

Want to help save Chinatown from condo towers? Come to the 111 111 CCAP office on March 15 , 16 or 1 17 " and we' ll put you to work.

4

ROMANTICIZING

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Where have you gone Where did you go Where arc you from Where have you been Wheer are you now Where are you going How long will you live How long will I live H ow long will we live together, almost, maybe; Probably, possibly, mostly apart, in this world, although together forever afterwards We both know and realise this as fact.

Yes we do! It is not hard to conceive this; don ' t think this's not in our realm of possibi lities You know, too, that you really want to Uh lluh it could happen to you!

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This is not some fantasy. I repeat. this is not some dream of any shape or size that you could ever possibly imagine: it is way beyond that for sure!!

A II of this that I 've spoken is preordained. It has been w ritten into ancient and sacred stones although, at times. it may appear to be enchantingly surrealistic.

ROBYN LIVINGSTONE.

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Poor-bashing happens when poor people are stereotyped as lazy, and when they ore scapegoated for soc1ety's social and econom1c problems.

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Instead, many believe it's really about forcmg people off weHare and creating a large, low-wage labour market, right here in Canada !I

POOR-BASHING ...

• It's immoral • It hurts people • It helps justify policies which widen the gap between rich and poor • It must be stopped

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Well. to "create a positive climate for investment', of course............. .

Cll996, Tony Biddle, Perfect World Productions Produced by People for Economic JU>ticc

THE TORIES' WAR ON CANADA'S POOR

By Rolf Auer Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

(Herman Melville, novelist and sailor, (1819 -1891), Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man 's Crumbs, (1854)) 'Plus ya change, plus c'est la meme chose: I 'The more things change, the more they stay the same: (1849) (Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, critic, journalist, novelist, (1808-1890)) POVERTY DEFINED What is poverty? Of his many books about-or related to-poverty, Richard Wilkinson co-authored with Kate Picket The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do BeHer, (2009). In it is this definition, p. 25.

The problems in rich countries are not caused by the society being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What maHers is where we stand in relation to others in our own society. (italics added) POOR-BASHING AND CANADA'S POOR LAWS At least as long as the poor have been with us, as is suggested in the opening quotation of this essay, 'poor-bashing' also has been around for a long time. In Jean Swanson's book, Poor-bashing: The Politics of Exclusion, (2001). is this definition, p. 3.

This book is about the war of exclusion, prejudice, and hate against the poor in Canada. More and more anti-poverty groups have started to call this poor-bashing. Poor-bashing is one part of classisffHjiscrimination against people because they are thought to be in a lower social class.

Again, from Jean's book, pp. 35, 39: The English Poor laws of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became the inheritance of the men who made policy about people who are poor in what is now Canada. These laws, like those in Europe, grew out of the economic and religious turmoil of the sixteen!:', and seventeenth centuries mixed with the self-interest of the ruling elite. By 1598 English parishes were supposed to provide almshouses for people who were old and sick, workhouses or work materials for the able-bodied poor, houses of correction or jail for the able-bodied who refused to work, and apprenticeships for children of the poor. But often, as the parish tried to cut costs, all these people were thrown together in poorhouses, 'one of the most depressing institutions ever devised by man,· according to Dennis Guest.. .. By 1832 the number of poor people as well as the taxes that paid for their relief was soaring. The rich didn't want to pay the taxes but they didn't want any big rebellions of the poor. So they set up a Royal Commission to report on the poor laws ....The Royal Commission tackled the problem from the perspective of the well-off; could a country have a system of poor relief that didn't give workers any extra bargaining power? The commissioners decided this was possible if the amount of relief was lower than the lowest wages and if able-bodied people were forced to work in a degrading poorhouse. They abolished outdoor relief and built over six hundred new workhouses, writes Ben Carniol. The new Poor Laws and their prison-like workhouses embodied Puritan beliefs about disc• pline, work, and poverty. Piven and Cloward quote the Poor Law Commissioners as they described the purpose of their new work houses in 1834: Into such a house none will enter voluntarily; work, confinement, and discipline, will deter the indolent and vicious; and nothing but extreme necessity will induce any to accept the comfort which must be obtained by the surrender of their free agency, and the sacri fice of their accustomed habits and gratifications.

This statement contains the stereotypes we still hear about people who are poor being lazy, even 'vicious,' and prone to fraud. And il has the gall to assert that the poorhouses 'abundantly relieved' people in need, just as today's corporate think-tanks claim that welfan is 'generous.'

Again from Jean's book, p. 40: By the fate eighteenth century, relief officials began to openly state an important principle, which they had already been implementing relief should never amount to more than what the lowest-paid worker could eam~ven if that was not enough to support a healthy person. (my italics) Piven and Cloward quote the 1834 English poor law commissioners' announcement of this principle: 'The first anc most essential of all conditions, a principle which we find universally admitted, ... is that [the relief recipienfs] situation on the whole shall not be made really or apparently so eligible [desirable] as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class." In Britair this was called 'The Principle of Less Eligibility.' The commissioners did not say, 'The first and most essential of all conditions, a pnn· ciple which we find universally admitted, is that the relief recipient should be given enough to maintain a decent standard of living ' Fe

nearly five centuries, governing and business elites have realized that if this humanitarian principle took precedence over their desire for cheap labour, workers would have more power to demand life-sustaining wages. The Principle of Less Eligibil-ity is often accompanied by another unstated rule: that the wages of the lowest-paid workers, even when they are too low to provide a reasonable living standard, cannot and should not be increased. Workers must be forced to do with less, and the unemployed with even less than that. [my italics] According to Piven and Cloward, the English Poor Laws of the nineteenth century, like the new Canadian poor laws of today [my italics], "reinforced the coercive structure of labour law and to some extent came to replace it."

One can see that Canadian poor laws result from a long tradition of poor-bashing meant to benefit business and the rich.

Anybody who has tried to survive on abysmally low welfare rates or on minimum wage jobs knows how inadequate these are. It is within the federal government's ability to change the laws fixing the rates, but they do nothing. We shall see why later in this essay.

Hence, the second opening quotation in this essay.

WHAT CANADIANS THINK OF THE POOR On March 1, 2011, in The Vancouver Sun was this article, ' Many Canadians feel poor responsible for their own condition, survey finds," by Shannon Proudfoot. In it were some surprising observations. ' Nearly one-quarter of Canadians (23 per cent) say poor people are in that position because they're lazy, while 28 per cent say the poor have 'lower moral values." (Interesting coincidence: Only 22.22 per cent of all eligible voters in Canada voted for the Tories in the last (2008) federal election. Source: htlp://donaldstreet.wordpress.coml2008/10115) "'It's not a case of people being lazy,' says [Andrew Burditt, spokesman for the Salvation Army in Canada], 'It's a case of not enough income, lack of access to the training required to get a new job. lack of affordable housing." Later in the same article: '37 per cent agree that people living in poverty in Canada 'still have it pretty good."

Why have Canadians' attitudes toward the poor remained the same during the past decade? Why are some Canadians still poor-bashing? Is it something to do with the attitude of the federal government toward the poor? The federal government started the race-to-the-bottom for the poor with the elimination of the Canada Assistance Plan Act in 1996. The Act was essentially a Bill of Rights for the poor. Recall from the beginning of this essay the definition that inequality is the basis of poverty. Here's an example from The Spin"t Level, p. 17: "Typically, the poorest half of the population get something like 20 or 25 per cent of all incomes and the richest half get 75 or 80 per cent.' Here's a quotation from one of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) publications, The Monitor, February 2010. From an article by Ed Broadbent titled, 'Stop backsliding, put Canada back on the road to equality," p. 25: The present federal government has simply continued its predecessors' onslaught on equality. As a consequence of the continuing underfunding of social spending and irresponsible and unfair tax cuts, it came as no surprise when we were criticized by the United Nations for failing to live up to our obligations under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This was followed by an OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] report showing that the level of inequality in Canada is now among the worst in the OECD. Does the poor-bashing have something to do with Canada being in an economic boom for about a decade? From an October 5, 2009 CCPA report (source: CCPA website) titled, 'Poverty: How do we measure up? Very poorly," by Seth Klein: ' [T]he poverty rate ... remains extremely high given that 2007 represents the peak of the business cycle after more than a decade of economic growth.' An OECD report shows that poverty and inequality have been increasing in Canada for the past decade. (http:/lvNIW.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/48/41525292.pd0 Is this the reason for people's unchanging attitudes toward the poor: That the circumstances of the poor appear to be the same or worse despite a period of sustained economic growth? Do people even perceive the links between government policies and the plight of the poor? Why would 37 per cent of those surveyed say that people living in poverty have it pretty good, when the 2007 poverty rate was approximately 10 per cent of Canadians? (Klein) The point of this discus sion: there are still a lot of misconceptions about poverty here.

WHY DOESN'T THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESOLVE POVERTY? "W~y won't governments reduce poverty when they know it kills people?' was the title of a November 23, 2009 Vancouver Sun Community of Interest blog entry by Jean Swanson. Some excerpts: Two days after I read about poverty reducing life expectancy, I read that the Thompson family, which controls a number of Canadian media giants, has amassed about $22 billion in wealth. While the rest of us are losing our jobs and taking pay cuts, while services that low income people need are being wiped out because of the recession, the Thompson family's wealth grew by 19%. Why do our governments create laws and policies that allow this to happen when people are suffering and dying because of it? ....What if our tax laws allowed the Thompson family to keep $2 billion of their wealth (enough to provide $40 million each to 50 family members), but took the remaining $20 billion to build 100,000 housing units on city owned land across the country? We could end homelessness in Canada, and the Thompsons would still have enough left so they wouldn't have to work for the rest of their lives .... Governments say they have no money but they have taxing power. Why is it so important to keep taxes low for the very rich when it means the poor die sooner?

came back: a psychopath. An entity-a person-with no regard for the well being of other people. Could this explain the type of influence exerted on governments? Once again, note the long-term unsustainability.

These two answers seem pretty grim. But there's hope, according to The Spirit Level, p. 263: It is impossible for governments not to influence income differences. Not only are they the largest employer in most countries, but almost every area of economic and social policy affects income distribution. Tax and benefit policies are the most obvious way. Other influential areas of policy include minimum wage legislation, education policies, the management of the national economy, whether unemployment is kept to low levels, whether different rates of VAT [Value Added Tax] and sales tax are applied to necessities and luxuries, provision of public services, pension policies, inheritance taxes, negative income tax, basic income policies, child support, progressive consumption taxes, industrial policy, retraining schemes, and many more.

HARPER: "I DON'T BELIEVE THAT ANY TAXES ARE GOOD TAXES." In 'The Best and Worst of Canadian Taxes,' a blog entry in the Vancouver Sun's Community of Interest by Fazil Mihlar on July 15, 2009, he quotes Harper's remark about taxes at a recently concluded G-8 summit meeting: 'You know there are two schools in economics on this. One is there are some good taxes and the other is that no taxes are good taxes. I am in the latter category. I don't believe that any taxes are good taxes."

In the June 2009 Monitor article, 'Injustice built into our tax system hurts poor the most,' p. 1, by John McMurtry: Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously declared: 'I don't mind paying taxes. They buy me civilization.路 I completely agree. But in Ihe last 28 years, tax policies have been ever more biased in favour of powerful special interests which dominate our society and dispossess the poor: the unearned income of the rich, tax-evading corporations with teams of tax lawyers, and high-on-the-hog business expenses. Indeed, the Canadian tax system might now be called a war of the rich against the poor. (italics added) In the Vancouver Sun Community of Interest blog entry, ' Harper's Vision Thing,' February 10, 2010, by Rob Roach: There is at least one major exception to this: the GST cut. Harper and every economist worth their salt knows that cutting a consumption tax is not as good in economic tenms as cutting income or corporate taxes. But. as policy guru Paul Wells has noticed, Harper's goal was not good economics but good conservative politics. ' Harper's GST cuts were designed to deprive future governments of an income source" (MacLean's, May 26, 2008) The two percentage points shaved off the GST mean that every time someone pays for something, two cents less goes to Ottawa to fund more ambitious government programs.

In the Monitor article by Armine Yalnizyan, p. 17: If poverty reduction is truly a policy priority, it requires a pause from the single-minded pursuit of lowering taxes to stimulate economic growth- the creed of public policy that has brought federal spending and revenues to levels of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Arthur Donner and Doug Peters, business economists with long pedigrees in the investment and banking worlds, suggest the knee-jerk answers to our problems, the same ones that have been on offer for the past few decades - tax cuts and smaller government- are now part of the problem, not the solution.

WHAT SIZE OF GOVERNMENT? In the Vancouver Sun Community of lnlerest blog entry, ' Governments need to do more with less,' August 5, 2009, by Philip Hochstein: "Governments must try to re-engineer lheir processes to achieve better results with less. That's what businesses are doing now. Why isn't government?"

In Rob Roach's article: ' Harper's ideological bent is conservative. Conservatives are suspicious of big government projects on the grounds that they grow the state at the expense of personal freedom and tend to have all sorts of negative unintended consequences."

In the Monitor article, "Right-wingers revile 'big' government as 'creeping socialism,' October 2009, by Ellen Russell, p. 10: In their backlash against the welfare state, right-wingers reviled government as a stultifying force that smothered good old capitalist ingenuity with taxes, regulations, and social programs. Downsizing government became a neoliberal mantra. Thus a perniciously convenient equation was promoted: that big government equals socialism, while small government equals capitalism .... Since Harper has been able to spend money that is supportive of his allies, his right-wing credentials remain intact. But any government that dares to spend money that really helps those who are suffering has 'crossed the line."

From The Spirit Level, p. 177: [G]reater equality can be gained either by using taxes and benefits to redislribute very unequal incomes or by gre-ater equality in gross incomes before taxes and benefits, which leaves less need for redistribution. So big government may not always be necessary to gain the advantages of a more equal society.

WHITHER TAX CUTS? In the Momtor article by John McMurtry, p. 1: Democracy, universal social programs, and the public economy, along with support for those in poverty, have been largely eradicatec Yet corporate media and business-led parties still favour even lower taxes from which most benefits go to the rich, more use of arme< force in poor countries like Afghanistan which have desired oil-access and mineral resources, and of course 路getting tough on crime" -that is, jailing the poor, most of whom have committed no crimes against persons. The ultimate goal is to turn money into more money for those with the most money, with no limit and no requirement of productive contribution. Nothing that comes out of the Fraser and C.D. Howe Institutes, the [National] Citizens' Coalition, and the Harper Reform-Tories proposes to change the pattern, excetr to make it more extreme. And because this ruling money code is life-blind in principle, its cumulative effect over time is to hollow out most people's lives and incomes, as well as ecological support systems - all affecting the poor most of all. (italics added) In the Monitor article, "Political assault on social rights is worsening inequality,' May 2009, by Ed Broadbent, p. 8: Here in Canada, to no one's surprise, the Harper government simply continued the Liberal government's economic policy of favourin' regressive tax cuts over social spending. Canada's top 100 CEOs, whose annual income averaged $10 million in 2007 (up 20%) nee not worry about federal taxes.

The theory behind favouring tax cuts to the rich and to business is that it is supposed to promote economic growth, which will benefit the poor supposedly with more jobs, etc. From David Korten, p. 48: Those who call for expanding the economic pie as the answer to poverty overlook an important reality. Whether or not a person has access to the resources required for survival depends less on absolute income than on relative income. In a free-market economy, each individual is in competition for access to the limited environmental space, and the person with the most money invariably wins .... Without concurrent redistribution, an expanding pie brings far greater benefits to the already wealthy than to the poor, increases the absolute gap between rich and poor, and further increases the power advantage of the former over the latter This adva tage becomes a life-and-death issue in a resource-scarce world in which the rich and poor are locked in mortal competition for a depleting resource base. If the prophets of illusion who promote growth as the answer to poverty are really concerned with the plight ol the poor, let them advocate measures that deal directly with increasing the ability of the poor to meet their basic needs-not tax breaks for the rich.

POOR WOMEN WORST OFF From the Monitor, "Women's rights and jobs once again coming under attack,' September 2010, by Pat Armstrong, p. 24: As Kathleen Lahey puts it, the 2009 federal Budget "seems to have been carefully crafted to exclude women from as much of the$& billion in new defecit-financed spending and tax cuts as possible,路 with no money for things that would support women, such as child care. Allocated only a half million dollars, infrastructure for women's shelters received a third of what animal shelters received. There is also no money for programs and services in the buildings after the construction is complete.

From The Walrus, October 2010, 'Peekaboo," by Sylvia Bashevkin, p. 19: In 2006, the Conservatives chopped SS million from the $23-million budget for Status of Women Canada, explaining their decision 1\i talk of fiscal responsibility and 'efficiency savings," as well as through the apparently sound argument that the unit's mission had bee accomplished. To quote Status of Women Minister Bev Oda, Canada's new government "fundamentally believe[d) that women are equal."ln reality, the Harperites hit hard at research and advocacy groups mandated to uncover and act against inequality. The sam year, the Conservatives shut down a nascent national child care program initiated by Paul Martin's Liberal government, introducing instead a $1,200 annual tax allowance payable to parents for each preschool child. Although the move was presented as a costcutting measure, it reinforced traditional family values by rewarding one earner couples at the expense of mothers who work outside the home.

From the Monitor, 路canadian women on their own are the poorest of the poor,' October 2009, by Monica Townson, p. 17路 The roots of women's poverty can be found in the way they are treated when they are in paid employment, and the situation in which they find themselves if they are not. Women who work full-time year-round earn only 71% of the average earnings of men working ful time. Wage gaps between women and men are even higher when hourly wage rates are compared. Most women don't have pension plans at work, nor do most men, but women's low waages make it almost impossible for them to save for retirement.

Do you still believe Bev Oda's statement that women are equal now? Did you ever believe il?

In the following article by Murray Dobbin, he wrote, 'No other part of society has suffered from Harper's contempt for dem01 racy and his determination to turn back the clock as have women."

JUST THE FACTS Some additional interesting facts: 'Harper's hitlist: Human rights taken out of commission," by Murray Dobbin, http://rabble.ca, April14, 2010-about the Tories eliminating the Court Challenges Program in their first year in power (2006) The CCP funded marginalized individuals' (for example, the poor) and groups' (for example, First Nations women's advocacy groups) access to justice. It was probably Harper who decided justice-based human rights were no longer necessary. This is what he said about human rights on January 11, 1999 while running the National Citizens Coalition: 'Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this very scary stuff.' Harper calling human rights commissions totalitarian? Now that's scary!

'Tories seek to renew anti-terrorism powers," by Colin Freeze, The Globe and Mail, April24, 2010-about the Tories trying to enact 91111aw allowing police to arrest without charge. It sort of juxtaposes nicely with all those new expensive prisons they're trying to build, doesn't it? 'Hey you, are you poor?" "No, I'm rich, I'm rich!' 'Well, you look poor to me. You're under arrest."

Remember the Parliamentary fight over the blacked-out Afghan detainee documents? 'The government seems to be inviting suspicion,' The Globe and Mail, April 23, 2010-first line: 'The federal government's secretive behaviour and dismissive treatment of the Military Police Complaints Commission speaks to secrets it wishes to keep." That's not the first time the Harper government has been called ' secretive.'

From David Korten, p. 41: [T]o provide people with a good diet, shelter, clothing, clean water, health care, basic transport, education, and other essentials of good living, ... is within the means of most countries to do so and thus alleviate human deprivation within their existing levels of productive output. In many instances it would require little more than reallocating the resources now devoted to military purposes.

That implies that the multi-billion dollars the Tories want to spend on new fighter jets-if reallocated-would go some way toward alleviating poverty in Canada, by, for example, instituting a national social housing program, thus solving homelessness.

CONCLUSION From many sources, it is possible to state that the greater the inequality in a society, the greater the poverty one will find in it. We also know that poverty kills. From Jean Swanson's article, 'Poverty is responsible for more lost years of healthy living in Canada than cancer.... This translates into over 11 fewer years of healthy living for men in the poorest income group and almost 10 fewer years for women .'

Canadians aren't an indifferent people. The report mentioned at the start of this essay about Canadians' attitudes toward the poor states 89 per cent of those surveyed agreed that people in poverty deserve a helping hand.

Ed Broadbent, like Richard Wilkinson (and Kate Pickett), and many others believe inequality doesn't just affect the people who suffer from it, but that it affects an entire society, no matter what one's social standing is. From February 2010 Monitor, p. 26: Low wages, low social benefits, low spending on health care and education are not only ethically unfair for the poor whose marketbased incomes are the lowest and whose human potential to nourish they deny. But, because such policies maintain or increase inequality and exacerbate social tensions and anxiety in general, they are also bad for everyone else. In contrast, more equality benefits all classes: lower, middle and upper. lfs past time to reverse the trend of deepening poverty in Canada. It's past time that social justice in Canada was restored.

It's past time that we had a different government in power.

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