As it’s not enough to curse the darkness, I shall light a candle.
Dear Saskatoon Inner City;
If those of you in the “left behind during an economic boom community” want a grocery store in your neighborhood, the following economic stimuli are guaranteed to produce one a lot more quickly than a government funded “free” dental clinic and housing project:
1. Put the cap back on your used needle and take it to a safe disposal site. Failing that, share it with your friends. It’s a quicker solution to your problem, anyway.
2. Cross your legs.
3. Put down the spray can.
4. BINGO!
And no, I don’t have any change. There’s a McDonalds over on 22nd where the average kid working behind the counter is a 55 year old women. I doubt they’re pushing you out of the job market.
On second thought, maybe they are.
(A few details the CBC left out of their report – the Station 20 West project was announced by a failing Lorne Calvert government just a month before the 2007 election call – while the $9 million in funding was to be allocated from the health budget).
*The first version of this post was accidentally deleted. This is a repost, and I apologize for any comments that were lost.
Seems to me that there is already programs in place to ensure not only low cost transportation but also free access to pools to low income people in Saskatoon. Surely between this bus service and feet, people can get to a dentist or grocery store. Besides, there is no right to a grocery store and dentist in your neighborhood. These are private services that should not be provided at the expense of provincial taxpayers. Many people in the province would be happy with better access to public services like schools and medical care. That 8 million should go towards the provinces bigger issues.
DISCOUNT BUS PASS PROGRAM RENEWED IN SASKATOON AND REGINA
News Release – December 18, 2007
As part of the renewed agreements, the province will now pay $18 for each monthly bus pass sold to eligible lower-income people. This represents a 50 per cent increase to the provincial subsidy….”This new agreement allows the City to continue to participate in the affordable public transportation program,” Atchison said. “The discounted bus pass, coupled with free leisure facility passes, ensures access to important services for all Saskatoon citizens.”
Some additional points:
1. There are schools available. No charge through grade 12. Subsidies available for further education/training.
2. Libraries are also free.
3. 80% of life is “showing up”.
4. Contrary to popular belief, the world does not revolve around you.
5. Stop thinking about your rights and instead think about your responsibilities — see (3) above.
6. Stop thinking about yourself, and start thinking about others — their goals, aspirations, dreams, feelings, expectations.
7. Stop thinking “instant gratification” and instead think “deferred gratification”. Take steps now that will benefit you down the road.
8. Stop thinking “how can I get?”, and instead think “how can I give?”.
9. Stop thinking you are poor. If you have “free” healthcare, and a “free” education, even if you don’t have a dime to your name, you are wealthier than many if not most people on the planet.
10. Remember, it is more blessed to give than receive; and if you give, it shall be given unto you. Life is about responsibilities, and “showing up”, not about rights and entitlements. No one has been dealt a perfect hand in life, but those who get on with it are the ones who come out winners.
Richard,
How do expect these less-motivated idiots to “stop” thinking about anything when in fact they don’t think at all.
There is absolutely no reason for anyone in this country of plenty to fail. You are right and Kate is right, these losers are making the choice to fail and they have a human right to do so. Let’s just leave them alone.
I wish more people in Canada could relate to what you’ve said here Richard…I certainly am a strong believer that the Charter of rights and freedoms missed the mark when they forgot responsibility…
Unfortunately both your comments above and the Charter are in a language only about 1/3rd the population can actually read in area’s like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver… the big 3 you need for a majority in the federal Gov’t today
I agree with Richard, it was well said
Richard, I agree with you on your points. But I do need to quibble about the following point:
1. There are schools available. No charge through grade 12. Subsidies available for further education/training.
The education system is not entirely free. School supplies must be purchased, and may be a hurdle for some families. (However, setting priorities on family purchases should be able to accommodate these purchases. After all, these are ADULTS sending the kids to school).
Also, 15 years ago, a high school education in Regina involved a ~$100 registration fee each year. Fortunately, I never had to find out what happens if my Dad could not afford the fee. But there was a charge to attend the free public school system.
Yeah same old story… ‘Fix My Problems Now’ …
Fark you bud I’ve got my own!
Mr. Ed–about 15 years ago my daughter wrote that in her essay about the Charter(with rights come responsibilities). Her teacher(grade 12) argued with her re responsibilities and gave her a just above failing grade on her essay. Thank goodness she didn’t listen to him.
Kate: If those of you in the “left behind during an economic boom community” want a grocery store in your neighborhood, the following economic stimuli are guaranteed to produce one a lot more quickly than a government funded “free” dental clinic and housing project:
Nice classy way in which to describe the plague of welfare bums, addicts, wino’s, crazies, & criminals on the lam Kate. Since I have no class at all its kinda sweet.
Your entirely right as well. It starts with the small crimes like stolen bikes( huge problem when you consider Edmonton now has almost 4000 of these indigents)food carts all over ,graffiti & the coup da grace is a proliferation of pawn shops with a combination of drug use, leading to prostitution feeding them.
Than come the recycle biz to open shop allowing bums to steal metal or pick cans. We now have to replace memorial plaks because there being stolen for metal content, same with drinking fountains or any thing that can be stolen or de-faced at a public facility.
Sure big shelters help . So do meals & such. I blame the homeless situation on sin taxes used in social engineering. Most of these addicts would not have to steal if we did not have prohibition or obscene taxes on alcohol or even cigarettes. How can these folks on welfare even afford rent?
We never had this problem like this until PET & Brian Mulroney.
Their are some solutions though.
Make sure if there receiving an injury claim or welfare whatever. Make sure the checks first pay rent with utilities. The rest they can do what they want with it. Lets help people with mental issues not boot them out to starve, & call it freedom. Most of these people have no life skills to begin with.
As for the Native situation we all know the disaster there, if not all the reasons. Most of which can be traced to this perpetual corruption department called Indian affairs. At no time in Canadian history was this group even close to being honest. I know because I have diaries from my grandfather in the 1880’s describing how the Indian department would send cattle here for the natives, than the ranchers would steal the best with the connivance of that agency (indeed many ranchers where the department) leave the sick beasts. So most farmers had to supply cows on their own to some reservation because of starvation,. Yes starvation. The education or lack of it as well as the reservation system are designed to destroyed any individual intuitive . In other words keep em on the farm & if you can’t make sure there ill-equipped to survive in an Urban environment. The police are scared too do much, it might be discrimination you know. No one wants to be put into a re-education camp so easier for all since most will walk anyway to avoid situations altogether. Is the thinking I believe.
Leg up programs for those who willingly want to go back to society. Low cost housing with the option of buying. Real addiction centers . Paid with from real crimes.
I tell you all the truth it shames me to see this situation gets worse monthly, when in the 50’s & up till the 80’s this whole Nation did not have this problem. Maybe Government should be asking why things have changed eh?
Why, when we had less wealth or money we where better off. Maybe making people accountable as individuals not a collective, or not killing folks with taxes or social experiments. would elevate this some what.
How do I know this stuff. I work for parks & recreation in the civic center, with 23 years of experience.
I would guess by how you say “seems to me” that you’ve never actually tried to catch public transit in that area or walk from the core to the U of S Dental Clinic.
I would also challenge you to grocery shop for a family and carry those groceries home on public transit. I used to do it for one when I was a student and I can assure you, it’s a pleasure! Especially multiple transfers between buses, and in the middle of winter in Saskatchewan it’s even better. Wear good shoes for traction.
I’m not sure what the province’s “bigger issues” are, but given the allocations to improving roads and fire alarms, I am very interested to find out. Kids born to families in the core have extremely low rates of childhood immunization, rarely access dental care, and live on groceries from Giant Tiger. Try doing all of your grocery shopping at Giant Tiger and give me a call. Preferably after you bring your groceries and three kids home on the bus with you.
If you think that private industry doesn’t get funding, look carefully at the tax incentives put forward to attract certain businesses to certain areas.
If nothing else, the “crime rates” that people are so concerned about in this city are happening in an area falling rapidly into disrepair. As much as I would like an American style ghetto in the middle of Saskatoon, and everything it brings with it, I think a little government intervention at this stage would be a good idea. Ironically, this isn’t even government intervention – it’s largely private with a little government support, a project created by the Doctors you visit on the government tab and a variety of other respectable educated people. Maybe even a few who’ve taken a trip to the area, which I suspect a lot of people who don’t support this project would never do.
don’t waste your breathe Jill, it’s not worth the effort. Your better served by contacting your MLA or the Ministers involved, the one’s that are actually responsible for addressing the problem and the one’s that are willing to spend the money much like their NDP predecessors.
jill, I have grocery shopped and had to take multiple buses home for the family (2 kids), you do it because you have to. Immunization is free so if the kids aren’t immunized it’s because the parents are lazy, social services will provide dental care if you can’t afford it. I don’t know what Giant Tiger is but my girls wore Value Village clothes all through their lives…they’re both in their 20s now and still shop there. They never thought they were hard done by (we were!) because we were happy, the house was always clean and to this day they are both very healthy. Of course it was hard work for me but because of that they both have excellent work ethics too.
Every person in the community I live in is 25 miles from the nearest grocery store. Lots in the rural areas are as far as an hour. We manage to find our way to Superstore. Believe it or not, it isn’t the government’s job to ensure that carrots and cauliflower are within walking distance of every door.
“Try getting your groceries at Giant Tiger”?
Then try not vandalizing every business still standing in your neighborhood, try not selling your ass up and down the street in front of their doors. Try parenting your sticky fingered brats instead of turning them loose to fend for themselves. There’s a reason 20th street is largely abandoned by useful commercial retailers.
That community has no grocery store because the grocery stores have learned it’s in their best commercial interest to avoid them. Want a better class of retail? Become a better class of customer.
If the city wants to encourage business in that area, then there are ways to do it without pouring money into a black (unionized) government funded hole. Offer property tax holidays, assign more police to reduce vandalism, enforce laws against loitering so that people don’t feel threatened when they approach the door.
When you centralize government services targeted at the economically depressed, you reinforce the dynamics that chased middle income earners (and the retailers they supported) out in the first place.
You cannot transform a slum neighborhood into a healthy economy of mixed incomes by attracting the welfare recipient (and welfare fraud) class to concentrate in one area.
It’s like solving a stray cat problem by setting up a feeding station.
“it isn’t the government’s job to ensure that carrots and cauliflower are within walking distance of every door.”
Carrots and cauliflower, no.
Tim Hortons, yes.
If I recall correctly it was just last fall the people of Saskatchewan threw the NDP out and voted in the Sask Party. And unless I am wrong it was a pretty good sized majority that voted for the Sask Party. Yet there are still those who want the Sask Party to follow the NDP way. I just watched on the CTV news a woman who figured that $8,000,000 was a small amount of money to pay for this station 20 place. If it is so easy to pay $8,000,000 then I suggest she open her purse and pay it. My tax money would be better spent on health care, infrastructure, and economic development. Not providing a strip mall in an aria that cannot convince private investment to develop one, like the other strip malls that provide the same services elsewere.
BTW my wife and I used to live in the same aria as this development. We survived by walking to the store, or using public transit or sometimes, but not often, we even drove a car. Services are within a reasonable distance
A socialist shopping mall is not the answer.
And where are the Food Bank locations.
I ask this not to suggest that Food Banks are the answer, but to point out the possibility that those who cause the disasterous community impacts (those who don’t supervise their kids, those who abuse alchohol and drugs, those who sell themselves or fight their neighbors, etc) are often the best looked after in communities like this, while the others living in the community are the ones that suffer.
We should be taking action to protect them from the misdeeds of their neighbors – by working on their neighbors. And there are a lot of things that need to be done there. Putting up a grocery store/strip mall isn’t going to cut it without a lot of other interventions – positive and negative. We have to be prepared to use carrots and sticks. We are quick with the carrots and slow on the stick.
What’s wrong with Giant Tiger? Lots of dairy and frozen and canned food at reasonable prices. Not much different from your local supermarket
Local one now has all kinds of fresh produce ranging from potatoes and carrots to peppers and asparagus and fresh fruit. Not as good as from the garden but okay enough.
Terrible to be a snob. I am constantly amazed at the number of higher income people, I know, who shop there regularly. GT has a reverse sort of chic here in Ontario.
I see John has bought Mr. Wall’s rhetoric, hook, line, and sinker…well done John.
And way to tar and feather an entire community Kate. For every one of those who fit your stereotype there are 2 more that are trying to get by on what they have. But hey, its not you so who cares…
Sean S,
I don’t care either!
Getting a job and losing the Socialist attitude of entitlement would make a far greater change in these people’s lives than building a “socialist mall” for them to lounge around.
In a boom economy there is no reason for anyone to sit on welfare and unemployment. Good on Brad Wall for downsizing the Social Service cesspool of never-ending handouts.
I would also institute a one-way ticket out of Saskatchewan for anyone who is capable of working and refuses to do so. Move to Toronto….Taliban Jack needs your vote!
I live with the “Audacity of Hope” that Tommy Douglas will truly die once and for all in Saskatchewan! “YES WE CAN” be Socialist free!
Sean you’re being unfair, people make choices in life and those choices define us. If you feel defeated then you will be defeated. If you feel the world owes you something then you will be disappointed. If you feel you can’t or take care of you and yours, well then it sucks to be you.
Wow, welcome to a whole new world of prejudice – prejudice against the poor and impoverished. You should be very proud of yourself for your hatred.
As someone who works with those you have painted as drug addicts, lazy bums, and a crowd just looking for a handout, I am disappointed by your ignorance and your willingness to open your mouth and spew about something you have no firsthand understanding of, or right to judge. The people you describe constitute just a small portion of the low-income core neighbourhood. Perhaps the most talked about, but that’s because the rest are too busy working every day, taking care of their families and trying to survive on $20 grand a year. (Did you know the largest client group at the Food Bank in Saskatoon are families led by a single mother? Not drug addicts, street workers, or the unemployed.)
So please – if you want to get out there, spend some time volunteering in the area and learning what the situation is truly like, and educating yourself on the matter – and THEN you have an opinion to share? Maybe it’ll be worth hearing.
kelly you are right, there are so many children in riversdale and pleasant hill that chose to be born into uncaring homes, there are also quite a few aboriginal folks who chose to be taken to residential schools and abused, I don’t know what they were thinking, they are such LOSERS, hopeless really, what kid would want to be born into such a situation, we should likely just toss them in jail pre-emptively because they won’t amount to anything….it only costs 30 or 40 thousand dollars a year to house an inmate, totally cheaper and more worthwhile than doing something to help someone out of a shitty situation, or give them the opportunity to live a healthy life.
There are a lot of seniors who live in the Riversdale area.In fact I live in a seiors aptment building on 19th and Ave. B and most of us are unable to lug bagfuls of groceries from bus stopsEven the city moved our closest bus stop making it even more difficult for us to get from point A to point B. To get a bus going eastward we have to walk downtown across from Midtown Plaza to get a bus.Fine when you’re young and able bodied but try it with a walker or wheelchair
The worlds most successful and stable economies are generally those that support government and citizen disinterest over the principles of commercial self-interest. On the whole, convenient access to simple services such as those that would be provided by Station 20 are conducive to increased productivity and provide a community stimulus that commercial ventures are hardly able to do(what with the whole profit|soul thing).
I was raised by a single father with 6 children. We are all successful graduates of the UofS in our early 20’s. He worked two jobs and was very rarely ever able to spend time with us, but we had a roof over our heads(social housing) and groceries(this was in the days before Wal-Marts and Superstores, so markets were all over the place) and good schools(also in the days before the bizarre clamouring for education tax reduction).
Countless case studies and studies that delve into student and employment mobility from childhood on will tell the same story. If a person has the essentials within reach(food, housing, education), he will likely become a productive member of his community and contribute to his regions economy.
Many of the comments/suggestions I have read will do exactly as their authors predict; stimulate the economy in those core neighbourhoods and build a strong middle-class population similar to the City Park area. However, the way most of those scenarios play out will most definitely increase the displacement of low-income earners to outskirts of those core neighbourhoods and so recreate the same problem in ever denser locales.
I’m not sure if Station 20 is the solution, but I have a feeling that initiatives that help PEOPLE overcome whatever it is that excludes them from participating in our economy will be beneficial to us all.