Poverty

Thursday August 26, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 26, 2021

Trudeau promises new incentives worth billions and a tax on ‘flipping’ to help Canadians buy a home

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau today promised a suite of new measures to help Canadians buy a home at a time when a red-hot housing market has made owning property seem like a distant dream for many young people.

April 7, 2017

Speaking to reporters in Hamilton, Trudeau said the real estate market is afflicted by “instability” and “uncertainty” and a COVID-fuelled spike has led to soaring prices, bidding wars, rampant speculation and too many vacant properties. He said the situation demands government intervention to help more people acquire their own homes.

The aggressive plan — billions of dollars in new funding, measures to curb the practice of “flipping” homes, efforts to block foreign nationals from buying homes for two years and new regulatory measures to police exploitative real estate agents — comes at a time when Canadians are telling pollsters that housing is one of the issues they care about most.

September 12, 2019

The three-point program includes commitments to “unlock home ownership” through new government funding, a plan to build more homes to address supply constraints and measures to establish and protect new rights for buyers.

“If you work hard, if you save, that dream of having your own place should be in reach. But for too many people, it just isn’t — and that’s not right,” Trudeau said.

“You shouldn’t have to move far away from your job or school or family to afford your rent. You shouldn’t lose a bidding war on your home to speculators. It’s time for things to change.” 

If the Liberals are re-elected on Sept. 20, Trudeau said, he would introduce a first home savings account which would allow Canadians up to age 40 to save $40,000 toward their first home and withdraw it tax-free when it comes time to buy. Money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on possible investment gains.

May 7, 2014

He said a Liberal government would double the first-time home buyers tax credit from $5,000 to $10,000 — an incentive that would help with the many closing costs that come with buying property.

“Let’s remember, in 2017, as we launched that national housing strategy, we were starting from a standing start because for the previous ten years a Conservative government decided the federal government had no role to play in housing. That’s wrong,” Trudeau said. “But absolutely, there is more to do — much more to do.”

Trudeau took a swipe at Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s housing plan, which commits to building one million new homes over three years while easing mortgage requirements and making more federal land available for development.

May 8, 2008

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, O’Toole said he won’t take lessons from Trudeau on housing.

“Mr. Trudeau’s had six years and he’s failed. The housing crisis has exploded in the last three, four years under his leadership,” O’Toole said. “After six years of inaction, more hollow words today is not what Canadians deserve. They deserve a plan.”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was equally critical, saying the situation has only gotten worse in the last six years under Trudeau.

Federal Election 2021

“Housing has become more expensive. Renting has become more expensive. We can’t handle another four years of this,” Singh said at a campaign stop in Mississauga, Ont., where he announced a plan to nationalize Revera, the country’s largest for-profit long-term care home operator.(CBC) 

 

Saturday August 21, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 21, 2021

Booster shots ‘make a mockery of vaccine equity,’ the W.H.O.’s Africa director says.

The Africa director at the World Health Organization, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, criticized the decisions by some wealthy nations to start administering coronavirus booster shots, saying the decisions “make a mockery of vaccine equity” when the African continent is still struggling to get vaccine supplies.

May 11, 2021

African countries continue to lag far behind other continents in inoculations, with only 2 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 so far. Though vaccine shipments have accelerated in recent weeks, African nations are still not getting nearly enough to meet their needs, Dr. Moeti said.

Instead of offering additional doses to their already fully vaccinated citizens, she said, rich countries should give priority to poor nations, some of which are being ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Moves by some countries globally to introduce booster shots threaten the promise of a brighter tomorrow for Africa,” Dr. Moeti said in an online news conference on Thursday. “As some richer countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equity.”

The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots until the end of September to free up vaccine supplies for low-income nations. But several wealthy nations have said they would not wait that long. In the United States, the Biden administration said on Wednesday that it would provide booster shots to most Americans beginning as soon as Sept. 20. France and Germany also said they plan to offer shots to vulnerable populations, and Israel has already given third shots to more than a million residents.

May 20, 2021

President Biden said in a television interview broadcast on Thursday that he and his wife, Jill Biden, plan to get booster shots themselves, assuming federal regulators give the go-ahead.

Mr. Biden defended offering Americans an additional shot when many countries were struggling to deliver initial doses to their populations.

“We’re providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined,” Mr. Biden said in the interview on ABC. “We’re keeping our part of the bargain.”

Africa has so far reported more than 7.3 million cases and 184,000 deaths from the coronavirus, according to the W.H.O. The virus is now surging in about two dozen African nations, pushing many governments to impose lockdowns, extend overnight curfews, close schools and limit public gatherings. (NY Times) 

 

Tuesday July 13, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 13, 2021

Space Billionaires, Please Read the Room

Dear billionaires, no one cares whom you beat to space.

After Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, announced that he would join the first crewed flight by his rocket company, Blue Origin, later this month, Richard Branson just couldn’t let himself be outdone.* So now Branson, merely the world’s 589th richest person, is joining the crew of his next Virgin Galactic flight on Sunday, nine days before Bezos goes vertical.

May 11, 2021

All of this to go to “space.” Branson will go only about 50 miles up, where the military says space starts. Bezos will go 12 miles higher, just past the internationally recognized Karman Line, but he’ll be there for only four minutes.

Could there be a worse time for two über-rich rocket owners to take a quick jaunt toward the dark? Especially in the United States, the climate crisis is now actually starting to feel like a crisis. The western U.S. is in the thick of fire season, experiencing record-breaking drought and temperatures. Last week, Bezos’s hometown of Seattle hit 108 degrees. Hurricane season is starting early, and a once-in-200-years flood just ravaged northern Mississippi. Oh yeah, then there’s the pandemic that is very much still not over. Anyone would want a break from this planet, but the billionaires are virtually the only ones who are able to leave.

Leaving Earth right now isn’t just bad optics; it’s almost a scene out of a twisted B-list thriller: The world is drowning and scorching, and two of the wealthiest men decide to … race in their private rocket ships to see who can get to space a few days before the other. If this were a movie, these men would be Gordon Gekko and Hal 9000—both venerated and hated. Maybe, I don’t know, delay the missions a bit until people around the world are no longer desperately waiting for vaccines to save them from a deadly virus.

To their credit, the two billionaires aren’t totally oblivious. In recent years, Branson has proposed a climate dividend, while Bezos has pledged to spend $10 billion on climate efforts, though we still don’t know where most of that money will go. But given what humanity has been through in the past year and a half, I can’t help but wonder, what are they thinking? (I reached out to both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic for comment and neither company responded. Branson has insisted that he is not in a competition with Bezos.)

January 6, 2020

And it’s not just them that make this display feel so gross. Their fellow billionaire Elon Musk (currently the No. 2 richest person, if you’re keeping track) may not be far behind in his own space travels and is in the midst of ruining the night sky with his mega-constellation of satellites. While Bezos and Branson will be in space—I mean, “space”—for just a few minutes, their departure is yet another reminder of all the other earthly things they can avoid that the rest of us can’t. Billionaires have purchased private islands, built underground bunkers, and gotten LASIK to prepare for not having glasses during the climate apocalypse. They can’t truly escape Earth now, and they likely never will, but they can avoid helping make this planet better.

However, even after their trip past the atmosphere, the space billionaires still have to come back here and face the world. When they are pushed upward into the sky, they will live-stream their experience, their bodies briefly floating, staring out at the curvature of our delicate and beautiful planet, all of us invisible. Will leaving Earth change them?

This is one of the universal sentiments that astronauts express once setting foot back on the ground: Looking at Earth, from up above, gives you a different perspective, enough to shift something inside. “The thing that really surprised me was that [Earth] projected an air of fragility,” the Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins said. “And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.” Maybe this quick trip really will change the billionaires, but I’m not counting on it. After all, they’re only going to “space.”

*This article previously misstated that Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are vying to become the first billionaires in space. In fact, at least one billionaire, Charles Simonyi, has already traveled to space. (The Atlantic) 

 

Tuesday May 18, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 18, 2021

Reopening Ontario outdoor recreational sites should focus on equity, access: advocates

Ontario golfers have been pushing the province to reopen courses ordered closed while the province is under stay-at-home orders, but some observers say access to outdoor recreational facilities serving a wider population should be just as high on the agenda.

January 8, 2021

Doctors and recreational facility administrators say Canadians need access to affordable, inclusive and local ways to get outside and exercise, so long as health care professionals deem it safe.

“Many of the people I care for live in dense apartment buildings, have small indoor spaces and don’t have the luxury of a backyard,” said Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician and health justice activist in Toronto.

“We need to really be thinking about how to keep these people physically and mentally healthy.”

Dr. Dosani and others hope the province will make any reopening of recreational opportunities equitable. As well as golf courses, basketball nets, skate parks and tennis courts have remained out of bounds for months.

April 8, 2021

Golfers and club operators argue the sport is safe since it’s possible to golf while masked and physically distanced, other provinces are currently allowing the sport and people aren’t travelling to play.

“They are looking to play their local golf course in their home community for the physical and mental health break that the sport provides,” Mike Kelly, the executive director of the Golf Association of Ontario, said in May.

Several doctors have even given golf and many other outdoor forms of exercise the green light because the risk of transmitting COVID-19 is low outside.

However, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been unwilling to budge because the province has routinely reported more than 2,000 new, daily COVID-19 and many intensive care units are still overwhelmed.

April 6, 2021

“I talk to my buddies. I know what happens,” Ford said Thursday.

“They pick up another buddy, two or three. They go out, they go golfing…then after golfing, they go back, they have a few pops. That’s the problem.”

Ford said he hopes to reopen outdoor recreational facilities by June 2, but the golf industry is not relenting and some have even reopened in defiance.

Yet many say reopening plans can’t just focus on a sport that comes with pricey fees, often requires a membership and doesn’t always attract youth.

“Given what we’ve learned about this pandemic and how it has had a disproportionate impact on people experiencing poverty and racialized communities, it’s quite disappointing that there’s been such advocacy around a sport like golf,” said Dr. Dosani.

“It probably speaks to who has the loudest voice at times like this, and who has the resources to advocate.” (CTV)

Letters to the editor, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday May 22, 2021 

MacKay cartoon unfair to golfers

I found the Graeme MacKay editorial cartoon (May 18) harsh and unjustified and not up to his usual standard. The hundreds of thousands of golfers in Ontario consist of people of all ethnicities, ages and gender. They consist of doctors, nurses, front-line workers, policemen, firemen, bus drivers, truck drivers, retirees, workers at The Hamilton Spectator, etc. They are husbands, wives, grandparents, aunts and uncles. As with any large random group of people in Ontario they have suffered during the pandemic the loss of loved ones, had surgeries delayed, lost employment, lost businesses, helped their children with schooling, given to charities and hospitals and adhered to the health protocols as a group no different to others.

His illustration of a “typical” golfer is demeaning and reminds me of the comment made by Doug Ford PhD (pontificating harmful despot) this past week about golfers and their penchant for alcohol. Graeme, be careful of the company you keep.

Ed Jenner, Burlington

MacKay cartoon says it all

MacKay’s cartoon of indignant golfers was hilarious and right on point. Golfers complaining they can’t golf is the biggest first-world problem imaginable. If it’s the worst thing they have to worry about, they should consider themselves lucky.

Rosemary Gossich, Hamilton

“Having published this cartoon that seems perfectly clear, his paper received (the above) feedback from an aggrieved reader. Granted, there’s something confirming about drawing a cartoon about whiners and having someone whine about it, but the task remains to try to make your points clear while accepting that they will whooosh over some heads anyway.”

Saturday March 6, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 6, 2021

Payday lender lines of credit and instalment loans at 47% create debt traps, critics say

Patricia Edwards of Toronto wanted to help her two adult daughters when they fell behind on bill payments at the rented townhouse they share.  

October 18, 2006

She has few assets and a poor credit history, but she was employed at the time, so she went to a payday lender — not for a payday loan, but for an ongoing line of credit. 

“I was like, OK, let’s see if I qualify for the loan because I’m working.”

Edwards, 53, was able to borrow $1,500 early in 2019 from Cash Money. But then she lost her job, and in 2020 came the pandemic. She’s had to refinance the loan twice, and went to another lender, Money Mart, for an instalment loan that could be repaid over two years.

Now she’s close to $5,000 in debt, all in, paying nearly 47 per cent interest on both loans.

December 6, 2014

Her predicament, and that of many other Canadians like her, has a chorus of voices calling for industry reform. Activist groups, elected officials and even some smaller lending companies say financially vulnerable people are too often lured by payday lenders’ low bi-monthly payments on longer-term loans without realizing how the costs will add up.

“I’d love to get a bank loan,” said Edwards. “But I don’t have a car, I don’t have a home, I don’t have any assets. I don’t qualify.”

Payday lenders argue that’s exactly why their services are essential. They provide money to people in need who otherwise would be unable to borrow. 

December 11, 2015

In a statement to CBC News, the Canadian Consumer Finance Association, which represents close to 1,000 high-interest lenders across the country, said unsecured loans are expensive to provide, and that its members’ interest rates are government-approved. 

Acorn Canada, a national organization that advocates for low-income people, has taken aim at large payday lenders, organizing protests across the country and calling on the federal government to take action.

Donna Borden, vice-chair of Acorn’s East York chapter in Toronto, said the pandemic has forced more Canadians to turn to high-interest lenders.  

September 11, 2015

“A lot of people are using or taking these loans to buy food, to pay their rent,” she said. “And especially now with COVID, it’s even worse.” 

Instalment loans, where regular repayments are scheduled over a number of years, were the fastest growing segment of lending among payday companies, according to the results of a limited online survey conducted by Acorn in February. It found that the number of survey respondents who reported taking instalment loans had jumped from 11 per cent in 2016 to 45 per cent in 2020. 

Independent Sen. Pierrette Ringuette of New Brunswick has sponsored two bills to have the Criminal Code amended to lower the maximum interest rate that lenders can legally charge from 60 to 20 per cent plus the overnight bank rate. Neither bill moved forward due to prorogations and election calls, but Ringuette said she intends to sponsor another one.   

“Canada is like a gold mine to these institutions because of the current state of legislation we have in place,” she said. (CBC)