Raise the Hammer

There are many other problems not just that social assistance rates need to rise. How about the fact the working people without any union or collective have been losing their rights on the job. Even unionized workers are barely hanging on, look at the steelworkers battling just to keep pensions and benefits.

Our so called rights under the ESA are violated everyday, just look at the stolen wages, employers who refuse to give ROE's, which inhibits their ability to access EI, which can also inhibit their ability to access even OW. Why is it that the so called experts at the Min of Labour and even the federal bureaucracy fails to make employers file ROE's. There is practically no enforcement anymore. How can the corporate world be the boss, when our so called elected officials no longer represent the needs of the people but they bow down to masters we cannot see. How is it that the CEO of WSIB is more worried about his bonus that will come denying injuried workers access to benefits?

So where has the RNAO been all these years? Silent and invisible, that is what I have seen. many of them are part of the so called middle class that choices to keep their heads buried in the sand.

So let us consider these facts, which I learned at a poverty health forum in Toronto. Since 1980 over 30,000 hopsital beds have been cut and there are more cuts coming. Cuts to support staff, like cleaning staff have been decimated, which is a contributing reason why there are so many outbreaks of C-Difficle and other nasty viruses. How about the food that is served to sick people in the hopsitals, it comes from 100's of miles away and no longer cooked at the hospitals. The feedback was that this corporate controlled food services is also contributing to people getting sicker. They have closed hospitals, closed services such as diabetic clinics, pyhsio therapy and list goes on. They have jsut made high cutbacks to the special diet. Can you beleive it that people who have cerebal palsy and muscualr dystrophy can no longer benefits under the special diet program.

All three major parties, the conservatives, liberals and NDP have all contributed to the decline in our communities. Just watch question period, it is a dog and pony show.

The primary goal should be on organizing the people, to empower them, that they can make a difference, that they can be part of the change.

We need to educate the people that should not depend on the minions of the ruling class, since many of them are more concerned about keeping the status quo, instead of real change. The current economic system is failing, why is it people like yourself keep insisting that it can be fixed, pathced together?

There are many out there that know this so called social assistance review will go no where, just like the poverty reduction bill that passed three years ago. Just words on paper. I am sorry that you have been duped to believe that this will actually move people forward, all it really is a show, in which certain people will travel around on the taxpayers dime, living the good life, meanwhile, it will get worse for the rest of us.

One person who sits on the Rondtable, use tactics like red baiting,just like Joseph McCarthy did back in the day, when others in the community talked about real democracy, meanwhile that person is part of the process to keep taking away from those that struggle, to keep the status quo!