I haven't seen the rows and rows of police lined up in riot gear with shields and gas like they roll out with on encampments for those without housing in parks or when folks speak out against systemic racism...
Cuts to:
-education,
-public health,
-OHIP,
-green Ontario fund,
-library funding,
-Indigenous affairs,
-drug coverage,
-police oversight,
-mental health funding,
-cancellation of renewable energy projects.
The budget title:
"Protecting What Matters Most"
What matters most?
In Doug's first year he cut social services by $1 billion, removed rent control, cut the basic income pilot, cancelled a minimum wage increase, cut mental health funding, & cut WSIB payments for injured workers. OW & ODSP are not enough to live on. He has put Ontario on its ass.
Just mail two boxes of the rapid tests to every household & have them at every pharmacy, post office, & grocery store.
People clearly want/need them. Stop making everything an additional torture.
People have argued for decades that $ could be spent for social development, community development, programming, services, supports, education, & you don't need to spend the $ on police. There are 1000s of reports, speeches on it. It is not a radical idea, it's a suppressed one.
She is bilingual. You just have a colonial supremacist view of what that means & a limited understanding of how unjustly languages are/have been enforced, stripped, denied, or privileged via colonialism.
So how did they privatize testing for COVID-19?
They told everyone they didn't have "capacity"
Told to everyone use rapid tests
Lied to them about providing rapid tests.
Made them purchase them on their own.
Poof.
The ON CMOH just said that schools were providing weekly take home RATs to students. I have not experienced this at all. We got a couple when the students went back to school & nothing since.
They voted for the premier in charge of the LTC system that left people to die of dehydration, starvation & neglect. The military had to intervene. They observed feces & vomit on floors & on the walls & found fungus, mould & cockroaches. I don't understand how folks let this go.
Warning people about extreme heat is not an intervention when you have not ensured AC in schools, LTC, for disabled folks etc. Warnings are not enough.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is heartbreaking. We’re committed to being there for Palestinian civilians affected – and by matching donations made to
@HumCoalition
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No. We don't need to "learn" to live with this. That is to accept inequity, to accept the blatant disregard for the elderly, people with disabilities, workers, caregivers, racialized people, Indigenous communities, lives.
Any leader that tells you to live with this isn't one.
Mike Harris cut social assistance by 21.6%, with "Ontario works" replacing welfare with punishingly low rates. He closed over 11000 hospital beds, 39 hospitals, created the sunshine list to blame the public sector while he privatized for profit. 1/2
They fired 400000 airline employees by Summer of 2020 during the pandemic (not due to vax mandates). When you treat people and their jobs as if they don't matter, do not expect them to return when you think things are normal.
Beating students with night sticks at the University of Alberta for joining in the global calls to divest from genocide. Disgusting cowardice. Failed leadership.
This is what happening right now. This is going to have lasting impacts on University of Alberta as people around the world watch the brutality you inflicted on your students by sending riot cops on them.
XBB 1.5 is going to be everywhere. Every elected official should be thinking about this wave. Every healthcare leader, public health decision maker, LTC facility, and educational institution should be planning for it. Ignoring it is willful neglect.
My 9 year old told me that many kids at school today were sick from the heat, without AC, many went home if they could get picked up. Some with signs of heat stroke. Is there really no health and safety standard for our kids? I hope incident reports were completed.
@HWDSB
Sarah Jama has earned the right to be there. She won her election by winning every single poll. Her being asked to leave for this reason is shameful and disgusting.
Posting for no reason in particular.
Rogers, Bell and Telus collected more than $240 million from Canada’s wage-subsidy program — and Bell and Telus raised shareholder payouts via
@torontostar
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent, assistant professor at Emory, brain surgeon is asking actor Sean Penn what to do about COVID-19.
That is really happening right now.
The Hamilton Police Chief just took is upon himself to read a definition of "systemic racism" to the only person of colour on Hamilton City Council, at a public meeting- in order to imply that she doesn't understand it. That just happened.
Sarah Jama was elected, winning every single poll, for who she is, what she stands for, & how she does it. Every poll. Her positions were known then. The ONDP's removal of Sarah from the party & shutting down of emails, websites, etc. is a direct affront to the democratic process
I appreciate the reading, but white fragility as a concept is popular because it is palatable to white people.
It is neither equipped nor calibrated to name the armed&ready, state-backed, policy allied, violent rage & hate that comes with naming racism that is always a threat.
How much has this Ford government spent on legal fees to address their own illegal acts? Bill 28, Bill 124, LTC negligence? To spend money on anything but what they are suppose to spend money on, tearing environment, education, & healthcare systems apart. When does it stop?
I am a parent. I want my child to be in more than a building called a school. I want them to be safe, supported, for the youngest in their school to be adequately cared for. I want those who work there to be fairly paid, have adequate prep time & sick leave. I support
@osbcucscso
How many more people need to die of neglect for people to not vote for Doug Ford?
How much more needs to be ripped away from education, healthcare, social & legal programs, & environmental protections ++ for folks to care?
Where are the headlines that list the cuts & deaths?
The murder of Dudley George, the Walker E-coli disaster, from privatizing water testing, are within his legacy as well. He cut funds for subways, & tax rates for corporations. He sustained attack on the public sector- Ford continued this. We now are trying to survive their legacy
When they have decided not to invest more, to let people get sick, to continue with vaccine inequity, to not protect workers, children, teachers, to tell you to find your own masks, boosters, tests-The only remaining option for them will be to hide the impacts. Don't let them.
So, they stop testing, protections, and now the science table, projections, models, etc. Without even wastewater analysis, there will be only neglect remaining.
It's a common practice. How does leadership evade accountability? By destroying accountability infrastructure.
They told us they had to trash the tents & belongings of those without housing because of "safety", to brutally arrest those giviing aid cuz "safety". Now they are closing shelters, & there are no more covid isolation hotel spots for the unhoused.
It will be -16°C Monday night.
I cannot believe it, 79 votes. Kojo ran one of the most incredible campaigns I have ever seen. Engaging people who never voted before, showing us new ideas, facing unrelenting racism. Hamilton lost that race.
We have an AG report detailing corruption. The provincial government helping developers get rich, while people suffer in our underresourced healthcare system, while people are living outside, while our education system is in need. What is the consequence? Who is calling for one?
People are describing MAiD as a service. Now expanded/expanding as a service that kills people in social need. When you call killing people that need public services a public service, where the f are we?
They want us all to risk our lives and the lives of our loved ones to stay at "work" while they claw more and more back. Less protection, less safety, less testing, more extraction for less.
We should all say no. Collectively.
You can't claim that Ontario was governed well for COVID-19, when we have seen that people in LTC, prison, shelters, BIPOC folks, migrant worker were left with infections & deaths at higher rates- unless you define "governed well" as the efficacy of that dark historical project.
This idea that newcomers are permitted in Canada only for labour exploitation & constantly under threat of removal is a base trope for racist, anti-immigrant, hate. It forces people to feel the need to perform regardless of illness, disability, caregiving, for fear of punishment.
Premier Ford says he's looking for "hard working" immigrants to help fill the labour gap.
"You come here like every other new Canadian, you work your tail off. If you think you're coming to collect the dough and sit around, not going to happen. Go somewhere else."
#onpoli
Ignoring COVID-19 going into wave 6 will impact those we traditionally neglect in racist, ablest, gendered, classed, ageist ways, resulting in illness, death, health system overload and ongoing harm.
This is what they meant by back to normal.
Race isn't a card, gender is not a card, disability is not a card, sexuality is not a card. Calling out discrimination, hate, prejudice, harassment is no game. Never has been.
Dear Media, remember when you all agreed that news related to COVID-19 should be freely accessible? You pulled down paywalls. You don't think that needs to happen about racism? Rethink that.
Fact check, Sarah's statement actually explicitly calls for a ceasefire and specifically for a solution to the cycle of death and destruction, as well as acknowledges all those impacted by the violence.
It's interesting how the ONDP leader publicly called for Sarah Jama retract her statement calling for ceasefire & now is the one who has retracted both that specific call for retraction & the statement attempting to rationalize Sarah's removal from the party.
Racism ceases to be an allegation when you insult the only party leader who is a person of colour+vote down a motion to combat systemic racism, kick them out for naming racism+continue to persecute them for more severe punishment.
Racism is the outcome.
People who are worrying about "the cost" of CERB should also be concerned about the costs of all of the effects of No CERB, homelessness, mental health, health, criminalization, substance use, in emergency services, hospitals, in the criminal justice system, child welfare etc.
I have practiced a policy for several years where I don't require documentation nor disclosure for any accommodations. People ask but how? It is simple, be a professor & not a cop.
There are too many fires. This pandemic has gone on too long. There are too many excuses for inadequate housing. Too many dying from opioids, storms, violence. It is too much to look at all at once but also too much to look away from. Radical is what we need right now folks.
Here is a list of supervised consumption sites set to close no later than March 31, 2025 as a result of the ban - nine are provincially funded; one is self-funded.
Again, CUPE has followed all of the rules of collective bargaining for legally engaging in work stoppage. Threatening to not negotiate with them until they relinquish this right is also an unethical abuse of power.
There are many lies required for colonial capitalism. One of the most underestimated lies is the assumption that wealthy people become so due to skill/knowledge/expertise/merit & that this means they should lead/make decisions. This lie has always sacrificed lives to persist.
A Black woman went through a caution tape and was violently dragged by one arm across the ground. Another had their neck kneeled on by an officer when advocating for the release of their arrested ally. You also arrested someone in a wheelchair. Tell me more about social justice.
Saying you've "consulted", heard "enough debate" when over 120 disability orgs oppose
#BillC7
& debates revealed dangerous flaws, only serves to advance the bill coercively, via power, regardless of context or opposition-which is the exact kind of coercion being challenged in C7
Wow. Another question, what should be done with elected officials who are attempting to abuse powers to break federal law (Canada Health Act) for profit?
I don't want any version of a leader or any "service" to be funded who thinks arresting Sarah Jama makes anything safer or better. Can you take a minute and think about how absolutely ridiculous this is?
Genocide is always racist. It requires all of its filth, the lies, rationalizations of supremacy, inferiority, dehumanization, tropes of madness, & savagery, and appeals to fabricated moral positions. Even when religion or nation is targeted, racism is wielded.
You can't only educate/read your way out of systems of race, racism, racialization, coloniality.
We need structures, systems, policies, disciplines, practices, laws, environments to be transformed with this knowledge & live/experience them as a new way of being with one another.
Lecce self-owns so often it's scary. If your government is complaining about not having the funds to pay the lowest paid workers, why are you giving government tax revenues back to people repeatedly, when you can't afford it?
So long as racism exists, it will exist in your 'data', your A.I. your machine learning, your assessments, devices, algorithms, all that you hold to be neutral/objective but never has been...
Did the police arrest anyone? Kneel on anyone's head/neck? Or is that reserved for Black disabled community members or those trying to provide aid to those living in encampments?
How is calling to retract a statement, then going on to make the same points in public, "working together as a team" ? Or removing someone with dissenting viewpoints from caucus, "room for different viewpoints"? Blaming the recipient of hate for "unsafe work environments" = gross
The Spec put out a story on Oct. 20th targeting Kojo's campaign, attempting to associate him with an investigation related to another person associated allegedly with a crime & to try to tie in a political stance related to police funding in the same headline. What a dirty move.
The entire homecare, LTC worker group (PSW, HSWs) is 90% women & over 40% racialized. There are thousands off due to infection, who are underpaid, overworked, exploited for profit. If your LTC Karenvocacy is just complaining about them, it's just advancing racial, gendered harm.
Some of us work/ed in mental health for years, in housing, with substance use, with people without documents- we do it without guns or tasers, in alternatives that are community run & user-led. They have existed for decades avoiding police, emerg, psych. We just need more of this
If we cant even have half a dozen councillors vote to remove a statue, when professors, Indigenous people, community leaders, over 1000 letters & even other councillors help educate them on the facts, maybe we need something entirely different.
No mention of proud boys, soldiers of Odin-(known hate groups in attendance) nor of white supremacist violence, the context of hate crimes in Hamilton. Continued anti-protest reporting and action in Hamilton resulting in arrests for those who oppose racism, fascism.
So, this week is not a regular work week. Just in case anyone needs to hear that. Nothing regular about this week. Massive government attacks on the rights of workers, big strike, students at home, viruses flourishing, no fever/pain meds for children etc. Cut folks lots of slack.
56% of the vote. Even in the midst of horrid low-down dirty smears and vile tactics. People know what's what. Congratulations
@SarahJama_
You've earned this.
When people say "homelessness is a complex issue", that does not mean we don't already know what to do about it, that there aren't already recommendations, years of research, models of intervention, existing underfunded programs, etc.
It generally is used to evade this.
This did not need to go this way. Leadership means more than the imposition of authority. The city could have met publicly with the protesters to discuss any possibilities for improving funding for housing. You do not have to agree with protest tactics to recognize this as awful.
You know what happens when you increase housing without increasing supportive housing, income supports, services, support for community agencies and organizations that serve those in need of housing?
You get developers making private profits from your tax dollars.
What is the point of giving people less assistance than they need? When you structure suffering into the programs, it is punishment for being low income, punishment for the disabled.
The province has no immediate plans to increase funding for ODSP, OW social assistance programs despite a 15-year “steadily growing caseload,” according to documents obtained through a freedom of information request.
A healthcare system that cannot catch up with needed treatments, that takes 45 minutes or more to respond to bed buzzers, that has 2 year waits for LTC, that leaves the most vulnerable without protection or care, is a system in need of public investment right now, not later.
When I imagined what the vaccinations would look like for COVID-19, I thought every community centre would be turned into a vaccination site, there would be mobile hospitals set up, that hundreds of thousands of people would be vaccinated/day-as though there was a global pandemic
Remember when there were public testing centers, isolation requirements, data collection, pop-up hospitals, investments in research for vaccines & protections, & monitoring? They threw all of that out mostly to soothe misinformation stoked rage. This is the age of ignorance.
I have misspoke before, I have said cabbage instead of cottage, I have said eraser instead of erasure, many times. I have never articulated a policy aspiration, naming an organizational entity, & suggesting an alternative, while identifying the budget in the process, by mistake.
"Imposter syndrome" in academia for BIPOC is not located in the people who experience it- it comes from being treated like & told often in individual, systemic & structural ways that you are not good enough/do not belong, your perspectives are inferior etc.
That's just racism.
Andrew Scheer thinks Indigenous groups are enjoying too much "luxury" through their protests & need to "check their privilege".
This is a disgusting appropriation of the language of resistance for oppressive political ends via claims of fragility or any threat to real privilege.
Ahona will change this city whether you vote for candidates endorsed by racists or not. She is one of the smartest, bravest candidates to have run in any race across this city.