I am using the word, children, here in a more metaphorical sense, Gentle Reader. In a way we are all children of the world, and of our country, of our city, etcetera. Today, this morning, I was walking in downtown Vancouver along Granville Street. On one block alone there were at least three homeless people sleeping on the pavement. This has been going on here for the last fifteen years, or ever since the then newly-elected BC Liberal government kicked people off of welfare and onto the street and swelled our homeless population by nearly four hundred percent.
Meanwhile the premier of our province obnoxiously crows about how great our economy is doing and that we are well in the national lead. This while our homeless population is now higher than ever. Why are we not outraged about this? Why has this government full of ethically bankrupt losers who sold their moral compass for bags full of foreign money not been voted into political oblivion? Oh, there are the usual excuses: the market must decide and a lot of our homeless population comes from out of the province and the market must decide and yes a lot of people of all income levels come from out of the province but the market must decide and a lot of our resident homeless were born and raised here but the market must deside. Since When?
So, I have here a question. When did market forces and money values come to replace basic human decency as the supreme priority? Why is there still so little political will to address the kind of market greed that has so swamped our systems that we have as many as sixty percent of families here saying they will be moving out of Vancouver in the next three years because it is too expensive to survive here?
Where is our outrage? Our economy grows, more real estate is sold to wealthy foreigners who care squat about contributing to this society, there is no guarantee that the new fifteen percent tax on real estate sales to non-residents is going to do a lot to make things more affordable, and our sidewalks are being choked with a swelling population of homeless adults.
Today I was walking along the Cambie Corridor with a friend from another country. While we were admiring the lovely new condo buildings going up near the proximity of Queen Elizabeth Park I slipped in the comment that average wage earners cannot afford to buy any of these condos. There is absolutely nothing offered for people on low incomes. The market must decide. I read in this weekend's Globe and Mail about a growing population of homeless university students because they can't afford to live anywhere. Because the market must decide.
Screw the market.
After fifteen years of homelessness from legislated poverty, government bungling, and the absolute heartless greed of our current batch of clowns in the BC Legislature that make up our provincial government we have a growing street population of disenfranchised people. They are not numbers, nor statistics. They are human beings. They are someone's son, daughter, father, mother, spouse, sibling. Their mental and physical health is being compromised and ruined and their lifespans shortened because we are still not working hard enough and worse we still don't care enough.
This has to change. The market forces have to be tamed, they have to be conquered by a resurgence of human values.
To all of our elected representatives and to the people who put them where they are now: get off your ass and do something.
And start caring.
No comments:
Post a Comment