News, Events & Comments

It has been the case throughout modern history that catastrophes whether political, like world wars, environmental, like global warming, or biological, like pandemics, are what have forced governments in the "free market" world to do what it is in the best interests of all to do: implement policies and practices that act on the fact that in our industrial and post-industrial worlds we are more connected than ever before. What we do affects others and they in turn affect us back. So, inclusion is the only logical and fair basic policy. Exclusion costs lives and reduces optimal returns for all. If we are one world than it is in everybody's interest ultimately to act in the interests of the many rather than narrow jurisdictions. Guaranteed incomes, as well as education and healthcare for all are the key enacting mechanisms, as has already been proven in several regions, but is still not universal. Pandemics make this point in a brutally clear way. Hang together or die separately is the question for all and there is only one answer: the social economy supported by TorontotheBetter, where all, both private and public, individuals and groups, act, in their own ways, for "the common better." Will the lessons learned continue as standard practice when the pandemic subsides? This is where visionary social enterprise and social policy must engage to ensure they do.      

A no-brainer for Amazon. But for the rest of us? Even if the kits are made free, Amazon is still using a healthcare crisis to boost its image in the  minds of many and to further erode whatever distinction still exists for those minds in our neoliberal times between public and private interests. Is this not an example of the private sector gallantly jumping in to fill a critical societal gap? Only if we ignore the private sector's continuing and persistent anti-tax crusade that leads to inadequate provision of societal necessities in the first place. If Amazon and other coporations want to do the right thing in this crisis they should make anonymous donations or lobby for higher taxes or larger current account deficits to pay for necessary supplies out of public resources. Public healthcare supplied by means of "generous" private interests is not public at all. In the long run it will not be for the common good and certainly not for the common "better" as sought by TorontotheBetter.          .     

And we all know who they are - the poor. That is, unless Presto is giving away free cards with open credits to anybody who wants one. Othewise this is another "we don't want you around here" statement directed at all who have the exceptionality not to have cards, meaning they probably don't have an address, meaning they probably don't have a home, aka homeless. Of course, the best and ultimately most economical solution, as several sensible cities around the world have concluded, is to make transit free (=cashless) for all. It's not a handout, it's about the economy. More people able to travel more means more people doing what they have to do to stay well, working and productive.     

After the second world war, with thousands of Canadians neding homes it was found possible to invest the resources to  build housing for them. But despite its much trumpeted triple A credit rating Canada in 2020 has  thousands homeless again. The problem is lack of affordable housing stock, yes, but the primary reason is the failure of state to intervene in a marketplace that chooses to rake in large profits from high-rise/high cost condos rather than house all those unable to buy what the market is selling. Affordable housing is the recipe to solve the Canadian homelessness problem, this in one of the richest countries in the world. It is beyond time to break the chains of neo-liberalism that paralyze the country's inclusionary capacities. This was done in the last wave of "home-fullness" way back in the 1970's when, with the assistance of public funding  co-op and other non-profit housing spread across the land. Like the coronavirus homelessness is a national emergency. We know how to fix it, but before we can we must make the political choice to do so.