TARGETING THE MIDDLE CLASS AND OTHER POLITICAL MYTHS

If Canadians were surveyed today as to where they fell in the economic spectrum with respect to class, more than 75% would claim to belong to the "middle class".  Unfortunately, personal impressions and economic reality clash loudly on this question.  What IS the :middle class"?  There really isn't any formal definition of middle class, but examples depicted by the Media.

If you introduced this concept to a room filled with individuals and families living in long-term poverty, while some would think they belong in the "middle class" they really don't.  The only source of information most of these folks can get about the "middle class" is from the Mass Media.  If the Media were to be believed about what constitutes the "middle class", we are talking about families that experience the following and often take for granted and:

1. Live in large, single family homes in clean, safe and enriched neighbourhoods;
2. Enjoy cultural celebrations of their ancestors and family heritage by partaking in community events by enjoying cultural relationships and club memberships;
3. Enjoy family celebrations of common holidays like Christmas and Easter, have the resources to decorate their homes and enjoy hosting extending family during these periods;
4. Have one or more children in the school system who are involved with athletics, drama, music club, student government, among other costly ventures, as well as at least one parent that has the time to participate in their children's schools;
5. Have savings and resources to at least partially fund their children's post-secondary education, and would willingly support their children in this direction;
6. Have resources or benefits from which to draw to cover common childhood and youth medical and dental issues, such as orthodontics, sports medical and training issues, gym memberships and other "extras" that most take for granted;
7. Have at least one or two annual family vacations, which involve visiting the cottage up North or even traveling to Florida or some other similar destination;
8. Have more than one personal vehicle for use by members of the family, with support for the older children to obtain their driver's license and use the family vehicle;
9. Have some contacts which may assist their children in getting a start in the workforce; and
10. Once the children have left the home, the parents continue to have significant resources to spend to either renovate their home to suit their needs as ageing persons or to find a smaller residence to reduce the amount of maintenance required in the home.

Most of these families also have a pool in their backyard, which leads to only a few people raising concerns when the city starts to close outdoor pools in the summer, leaving only "aquatics centers" to use for swimming competitions for middle class households that have the time and resources to support something like this.  I actually heard our local politicians say that more families have backyard pools and the necessity of having municipal pools open has declined.

Articles about employment and human resources issues also address the false middle class environment as well, assuming that workplaces are all large, employing hundreds of people and utilizing several departments and department heads, hence the expression, "climbing the corporate ladder".  Very few articles of this type actually address situations in employers with less than ten or even five persons, as it is assumed that everybody works for large companies.  Even in articles intended to support those who have been laid off appear to reflect this myth about contacting human resources departments and checking company websites for job openings.

First, members of the Mass Media are completely out of touch with the lives of people that do not enjoy most or all of those above things, nor do they realize or ascribe this group of people as being much larger than people want to believe it is.  However, there are more stories coming out about young people leaving college or university, even professionally designated courses, who end up unemployed or under-employed when they come out, hence, their trip to their parents' basement (yet they do not write about those that graduate but do not have parents that would take them back).  The Mass Media wants to keep up the myth that most of us had these amenities growing up, or that those growing up today enjoy these amenities.  As well, the myth is perpetrated that everybody has family to rely on and back them up, even if just on an emotional level.  The writer has not experienced any of the above positive reflections of a so-called "Middle Class" fairyland, although technically, my family of origin was not poor.  We just never enjoyed these other things, probably because less people than the media think have access to these things.

Second, politicians are even more out of touch with the lives of people they are elected to represent than that of the Mass Media.  Politicians have identified a family income of being about $120,000 a year as being "middle class", and the idea that income splitting will benefit many members of this supposed "middle class",  Politicians do not want to hear that most families, other than families of the elite 15%, need two incomes to keep up with even the basics.  There is a prototypical (usually male) breadwinner that earns six figures in one of those rare jobs that can now pass along (on paper) up to $50,000 to his stay-at-home wife to save on taxes.  This policy will cost the government over $2 billion but not put one more cent into the pockets of the real middle class, or into services needed by the rest of us.  Don't be fooled if one of those politicians comes knocking on your door to try to convince you otherwise, especially if you are in a family like I am that hasn't noticed one iota of a positive difference in our well being since Harper took root, other than more costs.

Even Justin Trudeau who purports to speak for the "middle class" has never himself experienced being anything other than from the high priced elite.  Both the Liberals and Conservatives have ran deficits over the past several decades and lately, their answer to these deficits is to further cut the programs that mostly benefit the "middle class" and the lower income individuals and families.  At a provincial level, welfare and disability benefits go as far as they did in the 1970's, while paying today's prices.  Don't kid yourself.  Today, you may have a job, but tomorrow if you lose that job through restructuring, layoff or health issues, you too are more likely to rely on the state for survival, as less and less employers provide the kinds of benefits they did in the past to protect people under these circumstances, and according to some, less people are eligible for even EI benefits. Among those lucky to hold a steady job, which is the minority according to a recent article in the Toronto Star, their wages haven't been keeping up much either.  In my own community, every second person I speak to is receiving Ontario Works, ODSP, OAS/GIS, EI, WSIB, LTD (from their workplace) or similar benefits.  The mere number of these people have brought our average individual and family incomes down substantially, whereby Niagara Region is one of the poorest in Ontario.

One of the issues that is faced in Niagara is that more working poor are nervous about their own futures, so they see a need to attack those in a class below theirs.  Those with jobs call those without jobs "lazy".  Those that drive assume they are better than those that don't.  Those that own their own homes are "better and more stable than" those that rent.  This is felt throughout the community.  Nobody has to say anything, but if you mention to people that you don't drive, or that you rent an apartment (particularly in a co-op or in government housing which is really faux pas here), or that you are having a hard time finding a job, the sarcastic elite of the non-elite tell people there are "help wanted| signs at Tim Horton's, etc.  As if even if every single unemployed person applied for all of these jobs, that every single one of them will be employed ... Yeah, right.

Manufacturing is dead in Ontario, apart from some specialized manufacturing firms requiring high skilled workers and less of them.  Other jobs, such as those in the public or quasi-public sector are under attack by the right.  As if tearing down these jobs and the benefits they offer will increase the number of jobs and improve the benefits for those who are unemployed today ... the attitudes have to change.  The NDP, while they pretend to speak up for the :little guy" tends to associate themselves with organized labour.  While I have no animus towards organized labour, I feel those in unions represent the minority of working people and do not speak whatsoever for those in non-unionized jobs or for those who are self-employed but not running large corporations.  The labour movement if it wants to be successful needs to speak up more for all workers, including self-employed persons, to push for structural changes in our political environment that would guarantee pay, benefits, time off, etc. for all of us ... and not just for those lucky enough to belong to a good union.  Despite all of these issues being to the fore, the most the NDP has ever done about retirement, for example, is to push for the enhancement of the CPP - which will do nothing for the retirement of those who have not worked enough, contributed enough, or were self-employed most of their lives .... it is the OAS/GIS that needs to be substantially increased and restructured to address the retirement needs of people that don't have a defined benefit pension from their workplace or elsewhere.

Other proponents speak about housing as being the issue.  Housing is an issue, but if people had enough money, housing would not be an issue.  Left to the market, under conditions where people have a guaranteed annual income, the market would make necessary adjustments so that housing is available to more people at affordable prices.  Most landlords today tend to measure affordability where the cost of the rent they charge should not be more than thirty to thirty five percent of what a tenant brings in, so in consequence, under a GAI system, this market equilibrium, this "market rent" will be much easier to set.  As for home ownership, this should be made easier for people to get into the market and to maintain their housing after they retire, so people can "age in place".  This is in contrast to these commercials that repeatedly air on TV about retirement homes that cost in the range of $3,000 - $5,000 a month to rich seniors, or Premier Care in Bathing, which provides walk-in luxury tubs, which on TV are only seen being installed in bathrooms the size of most people's living rooms.  An older person on OAS/GIS will never be able to afford these upgrades and thus, will be more likely to be shipped off to a cheap nursing home, where their rights to basic medical care and even life itself might be at issue, based on costs.

After reading this, and our federal election gets under way, we need to ask our politicians what they define as the "middle class" and what the supposed "middle class" families can regularly afford to invest in right now without their help.  Ask if they know what the average family income for your particular neighbourhood is.  Have they researched it, or are their figures stayed from the time they stopped issuing the mandatory long form census?  My bet is that politicians do not really want to talk to you if you ask these questions, because you will challenge their very assumption of who they must speak for if they did get elected.

Some of you reading this might say you don't vote or want to vote because none of the political parties speak for you, but I will tell you one thing ... this is EXACTLY what the elite want.  They want people NOT to vote, so they can continue to put their puppets into power to do more and more bidding for them.  I worked in elections for many years and have found that the percentage of eligible voters in well-off neighbourhoods far exceeds the number of eligible voters in low income neighbourhoods that actually fill a ballot.  Politicians KNOW this, which is why you don't see politicians, or at least most of them, conducting their campaigns in low income neighbourhoods, public housing projects, and so forth.  They will go to where people are most likely to exercise their vote and will target their proposed policies to those that do.  Because politicians know the poor do not vote as much as the wealthier folks, they don't feel obligated to do anything about poverty ... other than address it through criminal avenues, such as law and order provisions against those poor who sleep in the wrong places or do not have anything to eat.  On the contrary, if the poor voted in droves, politicians from all parties will be eager to develop policies to address their concerns ...

In addition to voting, we need to also train new voters to help them understand the impact of proposed policies from all parties and allow them to become informed voters.  As an informed voter, I will not vote Liberal or Conservative in this next election because I see very little for the true "middle class" and even less for the poorest of all.  But even if you exercised your vote for the Marijuana Party or the Rhinoceros Party, political campaign staff will note that you voted and that everybody in your neighbourhood also voted and this means, they will take your needs more seriously next time around.

Your thoughts?

A CRITIC WITH REAL LIVED EXPERIENCE AND THIS ELECTION

Ontario's Premier Kathleen Wynne just produced a budget, tabled it in the legislature and then simply walked down the Hall to the office of Lieutenant Governor David Onley to issue the writs to dissolve the Legislature and hold a general election on June 12, 2014.

I am a cynic when it comes to politics because the kinds of people who get into these decision-making positions don't have a clue as to what their proposals would look like on the ground.  Many of them believe people in their communities are good-hearted and empathetic towards those who are less fortunate, but many people like me have met mostly the exceptions.  This is why I try to communicate with politicians to help them understand why many of their good intentions go wrong when they hit the ground.

This budget that was just handed down produces mixed results for people receiving social assistance and more corporate welfare to the tune of $2.5 billion dollars to favourite companies in the assumption that jobs will be created, although that assumption is being challenged. Corporate welfare just enriches the company's bottom line and certainly does not keep companies in Ontario, as we've seen with Caterpillar, John Deere, U.S. Steel, among many other companies that picked up stakes and left, while paying company executives rich bonuses with OUR money.  All the same while, successive governments have put more and more rules in place to keep people receiving social assistance benefits, or in the case of ODSP -- even being married to somebody on ODSP -- from ever escaping poverty.  These government see no problem with throwing millions of dollars at successful companies to ostensibly create jobs, yet they prohibit somebody trying to start a business while in receipt of ODSP (or being married to somebody on ODSP) from hiring people to help them grow the business ... To me, if a government cared about jobs, they would not care where they are coming from, but then again, they want those trying to start a business instead to be fodder for free or low cost labour for employers that do not seem to want to help their employees get a leg up either.  As a friend of mine once told me, "Somebody has to be poor".  But what if I don't want to be that person?  There is virtually no help for anybody that wants to get out of poverty, but plenty of "support:" to keep people in it.

Included in this budget are tax measures to help promote the donation of food to food banks, among other "incentives" to keep the poverty trap in place.  To me, government should look at itself and find ways to eliminate the need for food banks to begin with, and not just up the ante so that more year old, tainted, rotten and/or sodium enmeshed foodstuffs make it into the diets of already famished and compromised individuals. With all of these convoluted tax breaks, tax cuts to profitable corporations and continued efforts at corporate welfare, in my view, it would be more productive and CHEAPER just to give people the monies they need to go purchase food for themselves and their families the same way other people do, such as at the supermarket by having the means to do so.  However, it seems that our society is so enthralled to maintain the distance and "otherness" between themselves and the poor, that these band aid solutions continue to be the only ones offered, despite their lack of success in achieving any prosperity.

In particular, I am angry at the NDP Party.  I am not angry at the NDP Party for being the Opposition and for trying to do good while they continued to prop up the Liberal minority over the past few years, but I am angry as to why they decided to vote down the budget.  True, some of the reasons given are darn good reasons to vote against the Liberal Party that seems to want to continue with their austerity agenda on the backs of those that can least afford it, but the NDP (or at least this particular member) expressed anger and disappointment that the Lankin and Sheikh dog and pony show was not implemented, despite the fact the Liberals backed down on its more negative recommendations such as merging Ontario Works and ODSP, which would in essence put people with disabilities back on welfare.  I gave up on the Conservatives because they actually not only put a policy paper together to further degrade people on assistance, but actually put forth a private member's bill to merge the two programs.

The reasoning behind the merger, say its proponents is that they believe municipalities are better equipped to know the local labour market and make connections.  Are they really?  In Niagara, I was forced to attend a "participation agreement" meeting a few years ago with one of their workers and all they had on offer were low paying, insecure and no future jobs that required little or no skills.  I have no interest in working on a farm, working in retail, working in janitorial or other similar jobs where they come and they go and there are usually no benefits, or opportunities for advancement.  If I did not have high school or even did not complete all the university or college courses that I did, I might think differently, but this one size fits all approach is a non starter with me.  Maybe they might be willing to reimburse me for all my tuition, opportunity costs of going to further education and so forth, before trying to assume one can work in a job like that. Maybe politicians should work in these jobs, then perhaps, they might start to understand why this is also a non-starter for many of us. If I want a job through the municipality, they can get me on that pays a salary commensurate with the Sunshine List like the jobs I am trained for but cannot get because I do not drive. 

Further, the Conservatives have not given up on the idea of debit cards for people receiving any kind of social assistance, meaning they would only be able to purchase food on them, which means or implies that the "housing portion" would match the maximums that currently exist like $475 for a single person on ODSP to find housing in Ontario, when the average rent is over $800 a month.  Unless the Conservatives have plans to force every landlord in Ontario to charge only the social assistance maximums for rent, then this idea is a non starter.  Then their next challenge is to force all banks that carry mortgages of people on ODSP, as well as utility companies to keep their costs aligned with social assistance maximums.  Further, people should have the right to spend their money as they choose.  To deny them this right, does not teach them anything, other than the idea that they are less of a citizen than others.  I would not hesitate to challenge such a policy under human rights and the Charter if it is ever proposed.

There are no jobs in this economy.  This is a reality that every politician of every stripe seems to be in denial of.  Even when the "good jobs" open up, it is more about who you know than what you know that opens that door for you.  If you don't drive, especially because of a medical condition, almost all jobs where I live are not open.  Self-employment is open, but unfortunately those that are still caught up in the system are denied access to escape poverty in any way possible through self-employment.  Some politicians in my own region believe we don't need transit, for example, between cities, because in their minds, "everybody drives" and they themselves have three or four cars parked in their driveway.  I am now researching all the politicians in this area and will report on who they are to the best extent to what is available in the media, as well as what they can open up about.  I am not saying all politicians are mind numbing and stupid, but if one does wish to run for public office, they should know already how to put themselves into the shoes of the other and make the changes necessary, regardless of what so called "public opinion" looks like (as quite often, especially around social assistance and poverty issues, public opinion is poorly informed).

When I fought for public transit between cities in this region, I received a lot of hate letters from people, almost all of whom I assume drive and will probably drive themselves to their own grave site when they leave this world.  A few political types also chimed in about how "nobody" uses the buses and why don't people just move closer to their jobs?  Hello?  I am self-employed.  I work all over the region, so does that mean I should pick up stakes and move every week or so?  The chime of the ignorant is so common in this region that it makes me go back to the days when All in the Family and Good Times were popular and the popularization of the welfare myths and racial inferiority were acceptable.  This region epitomizes these myths and there is very little out there to challenge them.  I am often very depressed because I need to feel I belong somewhere, and in this region thus far, I have been in difficulty of finding anywhere to belong.

I am too well educated to belong in the so called low income population, who are unfortunately mythologized to be under-educated and lack skills.  I am not visibly impaired to belong comfortably to Niagara's disability population, which comprises mostly of those with physical handicaps.  I am not part of the middle class here in the region that apparently incessantly speak about their next vacation, their son or daughter's graduation and how they will be helping them pay for university or college, or how they intend to put a pool in the backyard of their house or have guests over the following weekend.  I don't feel I belong anywhere ... but is there a program or an agency or anybody in this region that can help people feel they belong or be put into a position where they feel they belong somewhere?  Of course not!  That is why I don't use agencies, because the agencies also do not seem to see beyond the mythologies we are all fed and many of those that work in them are people who have had scant direct and personal experience living in poverty, with a disability or any kind of long-term stigmatizing situation.  They never had to dig themselves up from the bottom.

Politicians do not come to my neighbourhood because only about 15% of eligible voters vote where I live. To me, if people choose not to vote, they DO become part of the problem.  As somebody who usually works the elections, I know by polling area who and how many vote, although we don't know who voted for whom.  Politicians know and receive socioeconomic data, employment data, educational data, age data and so forth, about every single polling district.  This data is comprised in part from the Census and Statistics Canada, as well as through surveys sponsored by the political parties themselves.  In the way, politicians are human and they will sell to those who will actually vote.  If it appears that those in the middle-class and higher are the ones that do most of the voting, then there is no reason whatsoever to cater to those living in poverty or the working class.  I do know that even theoretically if every low income person that is eligible to vote comes out to vote, there would be a major shift in our politicians' thinking, from all political parties ... not just the ones we think are most supportive.  After all, it was Mike Harris and the Conservatives that moved the equality of gays and lesbians most forward during the 1990's in all their legislative initiatives.  Why?  Because the gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans community votes ... in blocks.

At the same time, the poor vote in the fewest numbers.  To further their plight, the poor tend to eat their own. In a group, I can speak to several individuals who identify themselves as being poor.  A few of them will always have somebody, whether they be immigrants, whether they be sex trade workers, or refugees, who have it better than they all do, or they know a "friend of a friend of a friend" who somehow got onto ODSP without having any kind of disability whatsoever, while they themselves struggle on OW and have to fight to get on.  This kind of speech I call trash talk.  That trash talk has to stop.  If the poor community as a whole wants to see their needs met through the political system and their community, they have to stop the trash talk. Hudak attempted to separate unionized and non-unionized workers and public sector and private sector workers by trying to sell us a "right to work" bill that would effectively weaken unions.  Those not in unions supported the bill as they feel people in unions get "too much", while those in unions disliked the bill - and as a result, if this infighting would continue, any effectiveness of a pro-worker movement would be diminished. This is the same effect that occurs when poor people trash talk other poor people.

The third thing that poor people fail to do is organize.  There are too many poor people that are content to let the agencies speak for them.  I have nothing against the agencies, but the agencies do not speak directly for those living in poverty, although they often do have good ideas.  Much of their lobbying especially tough economic times, however, tends to be focused on keeping their agencies alive and funded, which may or may not be helpful for the people they work with.  That does not put another penny in the pocket of someone who is in deep poverty.  Especially anathemic to poor people's movement is the voice of the charitable sector, which hardly ever advocate to ask why people are poor, but to simply solicit more and more donations from the public.  The problem with this is that this detracts from the fight to improve the lot of people who are living in poverty.  Many members of the public stop caring about poverty issues given they have done "what they could" by donating to some food drive or the Salvation Army's Christmas drive.  

The work of these charities is done in good faith, of course ... but it does not lighten the load off the person living in poverty, as they still are not one single step closer to escaping the poverty dragon's jaw. The only solution is to get people to speak for themselves and to facilitate this work.  Agencies can lend people their boardrooms or their community meeting rooms to hold meetings to organize events.  Agencies can help these emerging associations apply for grant monies to pay for special events and leadership forums.  Agencies can become more inclusive, whereby they will examine their own practices and protocols so that barriers to governance and leadership within their own organizations are removed for those that want to join boards or become employed at the agency.  Agencies can also organize volunteers to assist their clients in getting out to vote by arranging for rides to the polls, or by providing them with information about each of the candidates that are running in their area.  If ID is an issue, identification workshops can be held to ensure that people have the proper ID to vote with.  I remember one time working for Elections Canada some of the barriers that owners of residential care homes threw at us to prevent their residents from voting, one of which boldly told us that none of their residents were mentally capable of voting.  I remember phoning the district returning officer who then spoke to the manager involved and they had to let us in to enumerate their residents, most of whom definitely did want to vote and were asking us how they can get to the polls.  Imagine if all poor and vulnerable people were able to get to the polls and vote.  To me, it would make a big difference in terms of political priorities, maybe not right away, but the shift will be felt for years to come.

Your thoughts?