What is the cost of freedom and equality?

I felt very sad when I heard that the Toronto City Council scrapped the funding for the High Park Zoo. What that gravy? The children and the parents who are often visitors to this small zoo did not demonstrate at Toronto City Hall. They gathered together and tried to raise the $100,000 needed until the end of the year. The media helped and other people who heard about the need for funds contributed. The group was able to raise about $35,000.
Fortunately a family foundation herd about the difficulty of the community securing funds for this small group of friendly animals that is bringing a lot of fun to children, which it offered to match the donations up to $50,000.
The problem for the zoo this year seems to have been solved, but how about next year? I hope some well -to-do animal lovers would provide the much needed funds, I hope we have a Bob Barker in this part of the country. Remember the elephants that he offered to help to be moved to California to the tune of three quarters of a million dollars?
Canada is one of the most peaceful countries in the world. It is also a land of the proverbial milk and honey, Food is relatively cheap as compared to other parts of the world. We do not hear of people dying of hunger. In fact one of the health problems here is obesity. One of the most lucrative industries is promotion of physical fitness through physical exercises, and nutritional diets.
The lowest income or the minimum wage is several times more than in developing countries. Housing is rather expensive, so are clothes and other prime necessities. Technological appliances which everyone seems to covet are indeed beyond the reach of the poor. And yet they find a way of getting them- cell phones, laptops, I phones and I pads. There is always the credit card as a means.
During an economic difficult time that we are at present having, we find that the poor are the most severely affected. Naturally they do not have savings to fall back on. They are also usually the first to lose jobs because they do not have enough education and skills.
I was in a gathering of very close friends this last weekend and we got to talking about the economy. One of the members of the group was a Canadian of Irish-Scottish roots. He was the husband of one of the Filipino women. He is now comfortably retired. His children are married and have their own families. He and his wife spend the winter in Florida. One member of the group sort of mentioned that dollar and discount stores are doing very good business these days because of the tight economy, “Do you know why these stores could afford these discounts? This friend of ours remarked. “They pay their workers the minimum wage and make them work part time. That way there are no benefits.
Indeed, I realized this friend of ours is right. Most of the workers in these stores are immigrants who work two or three days a week. They have to work elsewhere when they are off. They are no pension benefits and most of the time, no job security. These are people who have what we call a hand to mouth existence. These are the people who buy their clothes from the value stores or get them free from charity houses. They probably get some help from Ontario Works or from the Daily Bread Food Bank. They often work seven days a week in three places, to be able to pay for apartment rent. Or they probably live in subsidized housing. These are the people whose children are either in the streets or inside the apartment watching television whey they are off from school. They cannot afford swimming or hockey lessons. The public swimming pools in some needy parts of Toronto might even be closed.
This morning the front page of the papers featured homes of seniors which are firetraps. They do not have sprinklers and have inadequate staffing. Fire chiefs say that these senior homes are fire hazards. Lately a fire in one senior home in Orilla caused the death of three residents; Well-equipped senior homes can cost a resident four thousand dollars or more monthly. There are seniors who live in their own homes taken care of by family members. Many of them are left alone during the day while their children, who are their caregivers, go to work. These caregivers prepare their parents’ food and other needs before leaving and attend to their needs when they get home. There is no time for relaxation or entertainment. Are the seniors another group of victims of the recession?
All levels of government had recently released their annual budgets appealing to all Canadians to practice austerity, Not very long ago, the list of government employee who received a pay of six figures or more in 2011, was also released. At the same time, reports on several people managing ORNGE, the air transport used for emergency purposes by the Ministry of Health, revealed that they are receiving thousands, up to $1.4 million a year in salary using said airplanes for private business.
In the federal level, reports of an extra $10 billion dollars needed for the purchase of some warplanes, about the previously quoted price of $17billion, came about.
Can someone apply some kind of austerity to these government expenses to accommodate food and shelter for the animal zoo at High Park, for the part-time employees and the unemployed, for sprinklers and more staff in senior homes and for other countless needs of the poor in this our land of milk and honey.
Let us face it – freedom and equality are lost when people have to spend all their waking hours working to make both ends meet. Where is freedom when one is tied to work all the time to be able to survive? Where is freedom when children lose their places of recreation and entertainment even if it is just the pleasure of petting a friendly animal?
Equality is a dream that the poor never attains be it access to the prime necessities of life or attempt to share power. IT is difficult to fight for your rights when your stomach is empty, the rent is unpaid and children are clamouring for a few dollars to join a school trip.
To those in power, let us hope they use that power to promote more equal distribution of wealth, to release the poor to some degree of freedom and equality.