Letters to the Editor

A D V O C A T E

Thank you Ross Memorial Hospital

December 15 brought me to Ross Memorial Hospital in severe pain where I was promptly taken in and assessed. After the necessary blood work and CT scan I was told I would have to go for surgery. Not the news I was hoping for but Dr. (Mostafa) El-Beheiry assured me it would all be okay. I was lucky to have Dr. Mervyn Stone assisting as he is my family doctor.

After the surgery Dr. El-Beheiry communicated with my husband and family that the surgery had gone well. He visited me daily to ensure my progress.

In fact, all the staff members at the Ross were caring and compassionate. The night before I came home I witnessed nurses responding to an evacuation in the emergency department because of a broken water main. All the patients were brought to safety in a matter of minutes.

I am so thankful to all the staff at Ross Memorial as they showed me how much they care about the people in our community. Keep up the great work.

Mina Coons, Lindsay

Christmas Eve Light Show

On Christmas Eve we were in Lindsay finishing our shopping. As we were leaving town my family and I experienced a beautiful, peaceful setting.

Coming down Cambridge Street from Colborne Street, as far as the eye could see, there were homemade lanterns made from pop bottles. Then we realized they went on for blocks, including onto the side streets. It was obvious a lot of time and effort went into this light show. I know we sure appreciated it and I am sure several others did as well. Thank you for sharing this with us. It was amazing.

Peggy Fice, Kinmount This lovely tradition started more than 20 years ago at Cambridge Street United Church, and is currently organized by John Harris. Several neighbours also set out their own candles. ~ Nancy Payne, Associate Editor

Prosperity for all

In his last Benns’ Belief, (“Conservatives and basic income”), Roderick lamented the lack of action on moving a basic income plan forward by Premier Ford’s Conservative government.

I keep wondering why Roderick expects such a plan to succeed. After nearly a decade of employment with the Ontario Ministry of Education, I expect that Roder ick would be well aware of powerful groups within the government whose self-interests would be sacrificed if such a plan were to be implemented. The sales pitch for basic income generally includes a claim that such a plan would be affordable because it will replace the need for several existing programs. The cost savings would be applied towards funding basic income payments.

Here’s the rub. If several existing welfare programs were to be terminated, what will become of the em ployees who administer those programs? Would their labour union executives go along with the inevitable employee layoffs resulting from the cancellation of those programs? How about the non-union depart ment heads within those bureaucracies — will they also be laid off (with generous severance packages) or will they simply move to another government bureau cracy thereby not realizing the expected savings?

To me, the stakeholders identified above foreshadow just a few of the kinds of political obstacles regarding the basic income dream. I hope to read in a future Benns’ Belief that Roderick is also exploring non-government options to achieve the desired results rather than keeping all of his eggs in the public sector basket. “Prosperity for everyone” is a wonderful dream and it deserves to be achieved some day.

Gene Balfour, Fenelon Falls

Is basic income really right-wing?

Basic income, favoured in this magazine’s January editorial, has affinities with right-wing political positions. As also pointed out, there is justified dismay at cancellation of its trial by the Ontario government.

But not usually considered is that such a program is, at origin, from right-wing economists, e.g. Milton Friedman. The goal, apart from reducing the poverty reduction issue to bare quantification through straight monetization, would be elimination of minimum wage rules.

This, plus elimination of various welfare programs basic income would substitute for, can put off left-wing political support. Apart from losing a constituency, the sociological concern would be that welfare is varied and complex and can’t be dealt with adequately without more involved supervision.

But a half-century after its successful trials in the U.S. and Canada, new trials in the main aim to verify that recourse to publicly funded health-care facilities would decrease with basic income for a segment of the population. Minimum wage would apparently not be affected at all, nor was there talk of replacing other welfare programs, those “strong enough to entangle, too weak to lift” (Hugh Segal -- January Advocate book review). This different constellation of policies could lead to dissociation there from by right-wing originators and their followers. While one should not impute much thought behind actions of Ford & Co., there should be more thorough investigation of a policy proposal before figuring it’s appropriate. Of course, part of that could have been letting the recent trials continue to completion.

Daryl Vernon, Head Lake Basic income has its origins long before Friedman and his admittedly right-wing version of basic income. Thomas More, the English statesman, advocated using basic income to share the wealth. In the 1790s era Thomas Paine called for a “citizen’s dividend” in the U.S., essentially a guaranteed income. We do not support a Friedmanesque vision of basic income. The goal is not to eliminate all social services for people but to spend more wisely on supportive social policies. ~ Roderick Benns, Publisher

Simon Ward, thanks for recommendation

Thanks for running the reader spotlights from the Kawartha Lakes Public Library. Last month, the review by Simon Ward of Where the Crawdads Sing jumped out as the perfect Christmas gift for a hard-to-buy-for person on my list. It was in stock at Kent Bookstore so it made shopping local easy.

Cheri Davidson, Millbrook

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Teen pregnancy myth is more ‘us vs. them’

Finally! It’s about time the teen pregnancy myth was challenged in the City of Kawartha Lakes. I’ve lived in Lindsay for 32 years and this was one of the first rumours I heard. I always wondered, “How do you know? What is this based on? According to whom?” I was pleased to read Trevor Hutchinson’s article, which reports statistics to successfully dismantle this inaccurate and harmful assumption. However, we need more than statistics to challenge the complex processes of stigmatization, which involve the social construction of “other” and the strategic positioning of “us vs. them” as Nancy Payne eloquently states in the December issue of the Advocate. The consequences of such binary identity categories include the (re)production of stigmatized bodies who are often subject to intersections of oppression related to ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, geography and religion. Historically, stigma has been used to describe a person as “not quite human” (Goffman, 1963).

Whether we are considering teen pregnancy, poverty, mental health or drug use, this moral construction of deviance designed to protect the interests ofthe privileged needs to be questioned and contested. Sandy McNeil, Lindsay

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