Category Archives: Citizenship

Expectations and the new Council: Things are different

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A tectonic shift happened last Monday night and the faces and focus around our Council Chambers has radically shifted. The result is that we have 11 new Councillors who will be sworn in to serve our city in December.  The consequences of this are yet to be seen but we know that the relationship between this new Council and Londoners will be a very different one.

But first we must recognize a few things and in this recognition set our expectations accordingly. The first thing we need to realize is that many of the new Councillors were advocates for a number of causes in London. From Reservoir Hill to Transit to The London Plan, they have all worked hard in the community to press the current Council to understand that London is evolving into a very different place than they thought it was. But there is a difference between advocates and city builders.

An advocate gives voice to a cause, a person, or viewpoint. Each of the new Councillors did this very well and that is to be applauded. But a city builder is someone who must listen to a variety of points of view and build consensus to take the plans we have and make them reality. A city builder also recognizes that priorities must be set through a strategic plan. They must set 5 or 6 key priorities they want to accomplish and focus on them. This will be the first task of this new Council and we must give them the time to do it.

This new Council also will not repeat the mistakes of the current one by engaging in bickering and devision. Londoners very clearly said in this election that they do not want the antics of the past four years to continue and is new Council heard this loud and clear at the door. They campaigned on it and we can fully expect that the tone on this new Council will be a respectful one. But despite the accusations of group think or imminent  failure from some in the media, each of these new Councillors are very independent thinkers and are known for they’re analysis of issues. You can expect debates around the horseshoe but expect them to be about ideas not personal agendas and old grudges.

City staff are also going to have a better relationship with this Council but senior staff will have to come to grips with the fact that this group is deeply connected to community and are able to almost instantly receive feedback from their constituents through social media. They are a very connected group collectively and can quickly request input and receive feedback on a scale we haven’t seen at City Hall before. This is a very new thing when it comes to our representatives at 300 Dufferin and new things take time to adjust to.

Some will think that this new Council will be profligate spenders and will mire our city with unmanageable debt. The thing that we and this new Council have to come to grips with is there is a difference between austerity and investment. The plans we have are long term investments that will add economic growth to London. This is not to say that Council will immediately open the vaults to citizens tax money but rather you can expect them to prudently invest in key areas to benefit the whole of London.

We as Londoners have to adjust our expectations as well. President Obama came in to office on a wave of popular support and quickly found out that he could not accomplish many of the things he promised on the campaign trial. The result was that the promise of Hope turned to one of disappointment. This new Council came in on a wave of popular support as well and they should heed the example of President Obama. No one Mayor or Councillor can, by them selves or without the support of community, create instant change. This Mayor and Council will have to collaborate closely, and continually, on key issues that have not changed between Monday night and Tuesday Morning, Unemployment, infrastructure gaps, inadequate transit, development issues, encouraging business growth, and the loss of talent are all issues in London today as they were Monday night. These issues will not be fixed December 1st with the swearing in of a new Council. We must temper our expectations and recognize that these are large issues that require time and focus to address. We need to give Council the time to do this.

The next four years are a little brighter for London but will only really dawn into a new day for our city if we as citizens join with this new Council and support them to become the best possible Council they can be. Citizenship does not only happen at the ballot box but happens in the work between elections. We all need to roll up our sleeves now and begin the work of creating a better London not just for today and for us, but for a better and brighter future London.

It’s a little confusing right now: Provincial Election

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Well the wondering and prognosticating is finally over friends. We’re going to an election on June 12th and while some may have made up their minds as to who they’re voting for my suspicion is most have not. How can this be you ask? Aren’t the Liberals scandal ridden? Well lets look at that and look at our own culpability in this confusing time.

Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath have, on the surface at least, decided not to support Kathleen Wynne’s government because of principle. They can not longer in good faith work with a minority government that is mired in scandal ( code for gas plant,Orange, E-health, Herb Grey Parkway ) and support a government is covering up important information ( code for gas plant) . Now our friend Tim Hudak would tell you that he wants to hang an open for business sign on Ontario ( code for tax cuts for corporation ) and to get our spending under control ( code for cutting social programs ) . Andrea Howarth would have you believe that she can no longer let this Government continue on because Ontarians have lost faith in them and the Liberals plans are unattainable. But Andrea Howrath did sit in Queens Park and held her nose while two budgets went sailing by despite the scandals she keeps referring too.

We can’t deny however that Dalton McGuinty left a huge mess behind and we did as a province lose a billion dollars on the gas plants and lets not forget E-Health or Orange either. Both left a sour taste in the mouths of us all. So where does this leave us when it comes to Kathleen Wynne? Were any of these scandal her fault? Was she involved at all? Well it would be difficult to believe a Cabinet Minister had no knowledge of any of these issues but it’s not really clear what her involvement was. So we’re left with a lot of murky water right now around our new Premiere.

If you believe AM radio then the Liberal ( or NDP or Green (or any “lefty”)) are not to be believed and that if we do then you’re a fool. Listening to CBC radio however on the drive up to Kingston on Friday there we’re as many NDP as there were Liberals as there were Conservatives who called in and the vast majority said they didn’t know who they were going to vote for. Many said they wish that these parties could work together to get Ontario back on track. I think both of these are on the minds of Ontarian’s right now and given the lack of cooperation, or even civility,it’s a confusing picture and  people don’t know which way to vote.

I’ll be honest friends I have never been a fan of the austerity agenda of the conservatives. It’s never made much sense to cut spending on the one hand and to then cut taxes for large corporations, or the wealthy, as well. This is like saying if i owned a business and i wanted to increase profit I would give a bigger discount while cutting the costs to the maintenance and advertising for my business. Makes no sense. The current form of Thatcher/Reagan conservative thinking is so old and so dated and limited that until we see a reinvention of the conservative movement it holds no water. I hope that reinvention happens.

The NDP and the Liberals are at least saying we need to invest in education, transportation, health and these things cost money. Want high-speed trains? You’ll pay more in taxes. Want more money for the disadvantaged? You’ll pay more in taxes. Want more youth job funding? You’ll pay more in taxes. I like that. Like being told that we need to invest and that investment will cost and won’t suddenly appear at the end of the rainbow. It makes sense.

Locally we have some great people running for all four parties. Deb Matthews, Nancy Branscombe, Judy Bryant, Jeff Bennet, Peggy Sattler, Gary Brown, Teresa Armstrong. All great Londoners who you should all take sometime to talk to. But they will all be swept up in this election and the orders of the party. You see local candidates don’t have much to say on platform or even if they agree with the whole platform. If the party says you don’t do debate then you don’t do debates. If the party says start attacking the leader and the candidate then you start attacking. You become the local labourer for the bossman/woman of the party. You do but you don’t get to say much tat is your own. This is also too bad.

All the parties will attack while promising you they are the only choice and that if you want a prosperous future then you have to vote for them. But as I said earlier I believe many in this province are looking for more cooperation, much more civility. honesty in what we need to pay for, and most importantly we don’t want to be wined and dined during the election to be left wondering a week after  why they never call.

In the end though we need to examine our own culpability in all this and the way we do politics in Ontario. After all our current political climate would not be the way it is if we told politicians they couldn’t behave this way. That we will not stand for the vicious partisanship of party politics. That we will not stand for crass behaviour from those that lead us. That we will not stand for the lack of cooperation at Queens Park. But we won’t do this. We won’t do this and we will see another election come and go and the same dance begin again.

So in this confusing time of confusing choice take some time, do the best you can, vote, and try to at least say to your candidates to be civil, try to cooperate, so we can build a better Ontario. In the meantime let’s do that for each other as well.

City of Opportunity III – Resolve

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Those of us who were hoping against hope for a change of heart by certain members of council last night all faced a hard lesson in a number of ways. For some it was that the best arguments don’t often win the day, for others it was the shocking display of naked one-upmanship, for a few it was about the anger at those councilors who would say anything to win an argument, but for me it was simply about one lesson.

I was amazed in the last 10 days at the generosity of friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers who rallied around the issues I was facing with my last two blog posts and the reaction by Councilor White and was often left speechless by the unqualified expressions of support and understanding. I am grateful to all of you who supported me through that difficult time but I also stood rapt by the power of the community to come together so quickly and with such focus around the issue of affordable housing which council was about to cut anyway.

In a matter of days we collectively went from vague unease to outright, full-blown advocacy on behalf of those in our city who could not be heard. I saw tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, and in person conversation that gathered together in numbers that the powers in City Hall heard clearly and could not be lightly ignored. We decided we would not stand for cuts that would leave behind our fellow citizens whether they had disabilities or needed a home. We knew and believed that London should be a city that was about our collective good not expedient cuts to justify a policy that our current circumstances had determined was no longer relevant. I was held rapt by the potential of community.

In the last year we have gone through a trial by fire in London and more and more of us are waking up to the fact that we are afraid for our future and that the only way to overcome this fear is to face it openly and transparently, to consider not just our own well-being but the wellbeing of every one of our neighbors as well. We are learning that the world has changed and the only way for us to succeed is to make sure no one is left behind and that the basics of housing, health, and dignity are not open to negotiation.

But because we create community at the speed of light, an idea expressed brilliantly by Glen Pearson, other things can as quickly distract us. Social Media as a means of community building is like quicksilver and flows along the path of least resistance and at this critical time we cannot afford to be distracted.

I am not assigning blame here, I often get as distracted quicker than most, but I am pointing out that we must understand our goals, focus our resolve, and not be distracted by anything until the issues of economic equality, environment, livability, intelligent growth, and fairness in London are achieved. Once we achieve them, and I have great faith in my community that we can, we cannot ever let them be taken away or watered down. This is not only about politics and running for office but is also about continually gathering an authentically engaged community and applying a steady tide of pressure to those who hold public office in our name so that they understand that we demand more than only our participation at the ballot box.

So I’m asking you all friends to think, to talk, to gather, to move forward, to not be distracted, and build upon the amazing accomplishment you all made in the last week. Let us decide to throw out the old ways of power, and create for ourselves and for our neighborurs a place that we can proudly say is city of opportunity for all.

City of Opportunity II – I speak as a Londoner

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I must begin this post by stating clearly: I  AM IN NO WAY REPRESENTING THE OPINION OR POSITION OF ANY ORGANIZATION OR GROUP AND THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HERE AND ON THIS WEB SITE ARE SOLELY MY OWN AND ARE NOT ENDORSED BY ANY ORGANIZATION OR GROUP

Councilor White in the previous Blog Post to this asked a question at the beginning. She asked ” Will you kindly clarify your comment about the Glen Cairn Centre? Are you speaking for them or as the Emerging Leaders, ED?”  Respectfully I have never claimed publicly nor privately to speak for Glen Cairn Centre or on behalf of Emerging Leaders who is my current employer. I ask Councilor White that when she called my previous employer and current employer Friday to complain about me was she speaking as a City Councilor or as someone who works for Children Aid Society or as a Private Citizen? Does she represent the City of London Council when she handles a CAS case? Does she represent CAS when she speaks at council? Or is she or any other Londoner allowed to speak out when they see something they disagree with?

I have never once spoken on behalf of Emerging Leaders or Glen Cairn Centre here or on Facebook, and would never do so, without express permission. The problem becomes when this happens it has a chilling effect on free speech and citizen engagement. But so be it, I can not be silent, even if it has personal consequences for me and my family.

Councilor White and the Mayor have made some points in defending their position. But the heart of the matter remains and while both of them and others have direct experience with people in poverty and Londoners with mental health issues so do I both within my family and amongst many friends. I have advocated my entire life both privately and publicly on behalf of those who are most often left behind because it affects my life and the life of my City, Province, and Country.

Mayor Fontana had posted the following in response to the outcry on the cuts to affordable housing, he did this on Facebook and I post it here unedited and in it’s entirety:

“With a reduction in the contribution into the Affordable Housing Program, we will be shifting our approach to affordable housing. Right now there are a number of vacant units out there and a lot of individuals and families who need them. Instead of focusing on building all new units, our focus is shifting to filling existing units and entering into public private partnerships to convert exisiting spaces (like commercial space no longer being used as commercial space) into affordable housing. It’s a different approach, but it’s still a good approach and we will be able to increase the number of people we can help. London has done incredible unique things and we will continue to do so.

Affordable HousingThe reduced funding for the Program will result in a strategic shift from creation of a maximum number of permanent units to an emphasis on creating housing measures in the shorter term.Changes were made to legislation January 1, 2012. The New Housing Services Act repeals Social Housing Reform Act and gives the City of London as Service Manager more flexibility and discretion within local rules.This will give our housing experts the needed flexibility to create new housing policy and new housing programs based on the needs of Londoners, moving away from the previous prescriptive approach set out by the province.This shift in strategy is designed to achieve greater efficiency in using the City’s housing funds: 
• Families and individuals will have access to housing. While fewer permanent rental units will be created, the number of families who can quickly be accommodated in short term housing will be more than doubled. 
• The City can leverage the same amount of federal and provincial funding. 
• Jobs continue to be created through construction and renovation projects. 

Working within our funding, we will be using a combination of:
• convert to rent units (increase)
• creating more short term rental supplements (increase)
• home ownership program
• building new affordable housing units (decrease)

Affordable housing right now means keeping people in their homes.”

I think there are a couple of key points here to pay close attention to and to understand more fully and to seek clarification on.  I notice in this post the Mayor states ” a strategic shift from creation of a maximum number of permanent units to an emphasis on creating housing measures in the shorter term.” . Notice some important words here?  An emphasis on creating housing measures in the shorter term? This will mean an increase in temporary housing and not permanent housing.

It’s important to note this as well: “While fewer permanent rental units will be created, the number of families who can quickly be accommodated in short term housing will be more than doubled. ” .  Fewer rental units and more short term or temporary housing.
What we need to recognize here is that we are in every case reducing the number of permanent homes as a means to achieve a 0% tax increase. We also need to understand there is an 8+ year waiting list for permanent housing and while moving more families into temporary housing may be attractive in the short term we will in fact be delaying the issue at the expense of those most vulnerable and  sadly who is to say that that temporary housing budget will be there in a year or 3 years or 5.
We also need to understand the economic as well as the human impact of this cut. Abe Oudshoorn ,a recognized voice in homelessness and housing issues, wrote in his blog “this means that the $1M cut to the Housing Reserve Fund represents a potential $8M loss, or at $140,000 per unit, 57 units of affordable housing not built.  Each new unit also represents 2 person years of full-time employment.“
Abe goes on to say ” affordable housing represents a much cheaper way to house people who are experiencing homelessness.  Housing an individual in shelter costs $1,450 per month, jail costs $140 per day, psychiatric acute care costs $650 per day, and acute care inpatient over $1,000 daily.  These statistics are clearly outlined in your Council-approved London Community Housing Strategy.  Therefore, putting money into housing up-front saves us much greater costs down the line.” You can read the whole post here
Councilor Joni Baechler wrote on her Facebook page ” In My Opinion
Some members of council indicated they support the cut in Affordable Housing by $ 1Million because of the “Mayor’s plan” presented to committee yesterday. To be clear, there was NO plan presented. The Mayor simply outlined how he would divert the Affordable Housing $’s. What may have been missed by some councillors was the “KEY MESSAGE” from staff on the briefing note which states: “The reduced funding from the Program will result in a STRATEGIC SHIFT from the creation of a MAXIMUM number of PERMANENT units to an emphasis on creating shorter term TEMPORARY housing MEASURES”. The plan presented is a significant divergence from the Council adopted COMMUNITY HOUSING STRATEGY. Staff DID NOT recommend the budget cut in this area.As a result of this cut, we will not be able to leverage the same $$’s in order to meet our housing targets ($20 M in municipal housing dollars has leveraged $140 M from other sources). We will construct 75 less units per year which results in the loss of 72 associated jobs. The “temporary plan” does not address the housing crisis as year after year we will fall further behind.The cut to Affordable Housing is permanent. It will temporarily solve a fiscal shortfall on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable in our community“
Important in what Councilor Baechler states is that Staff recommended against these cuts and that we will not be able to leverage these dollars and we will construct 75 less units per year.
So despite assertions to the contrary we are left with the same terrible loss at the expense of those that can afford it the least, but if we can focus and share our concerns with Council and the Mayor for just one week ,as so many on twitter and email and by phone have, then maybe, just maybe, we can convince a thoughtful Councilor or a thoughtful Mayor to change their vote and end this tragedy and begin to create a city of opportunity for everyone.

Councillor Sandy White Responds

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I had promised City Councilor Sandy White that I would post here on my private blog, her response to the budget cuts unedited and unaltered in any way and do so now here as well as on my  private Facebook Page.

“Thank you for the opportunity to offer a comment, Sean! Will you kindly clarify your comment about the Glen Cairn Centre? Are you speaking for them or as the Emerging Leaders, ED? First, getting to zero for the sake of getting to zero is not my goal. Clearly, we are in a deep financial recession and council needs to find practical ways to help Londoners, through this recession. We have lost hund…reds of jobs in the London area, i.e. Ford and EMD. Sadly, there are more to come. We as a council need to look at what is best for ALL Londoners.

Many Londoners indicate that they want tax relief. They cannot afford their bills for a number of reasons that can include, out of work, fixed income or working poor. People need help now! It does not make sense to take money from the taxpayer for a reserve when they do not have money to put into their own savings account or to feed their family. There are much better ways to help that are immediate, practical and less costly. While we may not be building as many new units under this new housing strategy, we are still getting positive outcomes. We will be helping more people and faster.

That being said, the affordable home ownership program was a great success—and Council may direct more funds toward it—as funds are now exhausted. Families can access a fully forgivable loan up to 8% of a home worth up to $148,000. They build equity and achieve home ownership—and they pay property taxes, so it is a win all around. Even with reducing the contribution into the affordable housing program, we are achieving good outcomes. The numbers are forth coming from Community Services, but here are some of the housing programs we offer.

The reduced funding for the Program will result in a strategic shift from creation of a maximum number of permanent units to an emphasis on creating housing measures in the shorter term.

On January 1, 2012, there were changes to housing legislation. The New Housing Services Act repeals Social Housing Reform Act and gives the City of London as Service Manager more flexibility and discretion within local rules.

This will give our housing experts the needed flexibility to create new housing policy and new housing programs based on the needs of Londoners, moving away from the previous prescriptive approach set out by the province.

This shift in strategy is designed to achieve greater efficiency in using the City’s housing funds:
• Families and individuals will have access to housing. While fewer permanent rental units will be created, the number
of families who can quickly be accommodated in short term housing will be more than doubled.
• The City can leverage the same amount of federal and provincial funding.
• Jobs continue to be created through construction and renovation projects.

Working within our funding, we will be using a combination of,
• convert to rent units (increase)
• creating more short-term rental supplements (increase)
• home ownership program
• building new affordable housing units (decrease)

Affordable housing right now means keeping people in their homes. We have 4% vacancy rate in London that we can potentially access quickly. Affordable housing right now means keeping people in their homes. In addition, London has a 4% vacancy rate and we have many people who need assistance with affordable housing as quickly as possible. Integrated housing is much more humane and preferable to many.

For example, I have a friend who is in receipt of ODSP and they want to stay in their current apartment. However, the rent is not affordable and in order to manage the cost of rent, they forfeit having food sometimes. Living in London housing is not an option for them. They could not handle the environment and would much rather pay the higher rent for the peace of mind. This individual would welcome a rental supplement. I suspect there are many Londoners in this situation. I believe that integrated housing can be much healthier and I totally support anything we can do to promote this type of housing program.

As for the wading pools, we are moving to splash pads. In fact, Westminster is getting a new pool and splash pad this summer.
Also in an effort to offer some relief to taxpayers, council needs to strike a balance. These decisions are never easy; investing money to help pull us through these difficult financial times for the purpose of creating employment will be beneficial to our recovery.

I hope this helps!

Thank you
Sandy ”

 

The Best Opportunity We Have

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We are having a hard time right now in the Forest City.  There’s a strike at Electro Motive Diesel, Unemployment is around 10%, and there are some 3500 people per month needing to use the London Food Bank. So what are we to do? Our Mayor, Joe Fontana, gave a speech on the state of the city and we got a song about London being the city of opportunity. Doesn’t feel like that right now though.

And while we could collectively shrug our shoulders and sigh there are people in London who are trying to create change, are agitating against the common belief that there is nothing we can do, and are trying to create a more meaningful community. People like Abe Oudshoorn who is ringing the bell on homelessness, companies like rtraction, Echidna Solutions , Orpheum Web Hosting, and so many of those in our local unions  who give back to the community again and again.

Then there’s the group I have been working with over the last few months, the Citizens Panel. Born out of a want to engage and a request through Glen Pearson by the City to engage other citizens, we are trying to create meaningful dialogue and change around the questions of social assistance and how we support those in our community who are the most disadvantaged. You can come and talk to us and your fellow citizens about this on January 29th 2012 @ 1 pm. At the Convention Centre..

We have groups like Pillar, The United Way, Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre, The Food Bank, The Sisters of St.Joeseph, London Community Foundation, and my new place of employment Emerging Leaders, where people can get involved and add to the discussion and work of who we are and where we are going in concrete ways. Yet still this is not enough.

Shakespeare said through the lines of Hamlet “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals”. Powerful words those. They speak of “our better angels”. And right now we need those qualities to be put to use in London. To be applied to questions of economics, wellbeing, and the commitment to how and where we live.

So many of you, and yes me to, don’t show up and don’t engage when those better angels we all have speak to us and ask us too. Times are tough and are likely to remain tough for some time to come and that is why now is the very best of times to look around you and ask where can I add my voice? Where can I contribute my time and labour? Where can I offer some of what I have to those that might need it, be that financial, spiritual, or emotional?

We have so much potential here in London but it is only realized through our combined efforts towards a common goal of community and caring. In order for that to happen we need you .We need you on the line at EMD, or volunteering in your neighbourhood, or asking questions and sharing your opinions with our leaders, or on the 29th at the convention centre. Add your industry to those mentioned above and join in on what may be the beginning of what may be the best opportunity we have.

The Undiscovered Country

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet said something interesting:

“To be, or not to be–that is the question”

The traditional interpretation is that Hamlet is weighing whether to take his life or not but beneath or beside this is another struggle, to take action or not to take action. For Hamlet he is also struggling with deciding to take the life of his uncle/step dead and honour the request of his father’s ghost or to not.

But there is something about Hamlets soliloquy that has had me thinking for quite a while now. Our collective “To be or not to be” is around how to get to that, to borrow a phrase from the Puritan John Winthrop,” City upon the Hill”. That place of potential we all want and which,  should we take actions, could be a better for us and our fellow citizens to live. To create that forested city on the hill.

I was lucky enough tonight to run in to my good friend Adam Caplan and we fell into, as we often do, these meaningful conversations about who we are and what we believe. Adam pointed out to me that he found the system of our traditional political parties to polarizing and that it was difficult to engage in critical thought and the dialogue that follows in the face of the contentious poles of Left and Right. I agree with Adam here, it is hard and there is a sense, one that I am sometimes guilty of using, that you’re either with us or against us. But perhaps there is another path here that we need to consider.

My friend Glen Pearson and I have been having an ongoing conversation about the ideas of citizenship, this is something Glen has been talking about for some time, and from those conversations I have come to agree with his ideas that the new power that needs to be developed amongst us is that of the engaged citizen continually speaking to the issues in his or her community/province/country rather that the politics of left and right. What we end up with is community coming forward to make sure our political, business, religious, and community leaders understand what we support or don’t support.

In the past months I have been involved with the citizen’s panel with Glen, James Shelley, Kevin Dixon, Eric Shepperd, and Sue Wilson. We have been working away at the Social Assistance Review Process at the behest of City Council. At the first City Symposium last month we had a huge turnout of Londoners who were interested in learning about the income gap and we will ask them to become further involved in two events this month so we get their input on the systems that most affect the disadvantaged in our city. This is a clear example of the idea of engaged citizens becoming involved – of answering their own to be or not to be question.

Today I went down to the Electro-Motive plant with James and Glen to support my fellow Londoners on the picket line. Essentially their employer, Caterpillar, has said to them take a 50% pay cut or nothing with no middle ground. The shear indifference of this offer is breath taking. But it has led to some troubling thoughts and discoveries as well. Many people whom I respect and genuinely like are not supporting their fellow community members in this struggle because they don’t like unions. But if using Glen and Adams ideas of having critical conversations outside of polarizing party lines and of citizens coming together to move ideas forward we then reach something else Hamlet talked about: the undiscovered country.

Our friend Hamlet goes on to say:

“But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of”

Our Danish pal has some important ideas in these lines that I think we need to consider. Let’s take that first line, the dread of something after death. We can, and again I’m as guilty as anyone else, speak to an issue not out of critical thought or even compassion but out of our comfortable well-worn beliefs that may be an uncritical habitual reaction – our individual death of reason. In the case of the CAW on strike is the reaction against, or at the very least not in support of, these workers\based on an assumption, or maybe one or two bad stories , of what unions have actually done ? Has this opinion been politicized in terms of right and left? Is our will puzzled because we cannot imagine being in support of such a group? Do we not support our fellow citizens because to do so would go against our comfortable viewpoint of the lazy union worker and that is uncomfortable or deadly to our previous viewpoint? And does this lead us to” bear those ills” and see these workers go down alone rather than come out strongly in support of them together?

The beginning, the middle, and the end for me are the following 3 points when it comes to the fight at Electro-Motive:

  1.  It is not fair that these workers are being told to cut their wages in half even though we , as represented by the federal government, have given this company tax incentives to be in our community
  2. If we allow this to happen without a fight then this will happen again and again and again and the result will be a race to the bottom in terms of wages – something that has already happened in the service industry(can you say Wal-Mart?)
  3. I cannot stand by and not speak out in support of my fellow Londoners when they are being unfairly treated by a company that has shown indifference toward their wellbeing and the wellbeing of our community

I know for some of my friends reading this that it is a difficult place to be in – on the one hand they do not like the  unions but on the other hand they do not like to see their fellow community members be treated like this. To them, and to all of you, I suggest we resolve the to be or not to be and discover the undiscovered country of critical thought, compassion, and engagement in order to make London a better place for us all and support those who need it even in the face of what maybe personally uncomfortable.