Unlike a traditional website, this is designed to inform and inspire change. The ideas and solutions are many while the photos are few.
The need for positive change in Canada and throughout the world has never been greater.
Please read, contribute and join the discussion and, most important, take action to bring equality to every Canadian today.
Thank you for caring and sharing.
Introduction:
Hello friends.
Welcome to Egality.ca. My name is Garth Brown. After 25 years of a successful career in advertising sales, my confidence in society around me began to erode. Materialism, hedonism and entitlement seemed to overwhelm any sense of decency and concern for others. Contributing to this view was the prevalence of government policies and cutbacks affecting the most needy and least heard within our society. Having run a ‘home for homeless’ in Kitchener, Ontario since 1990, I had witnessed the impact of these financial and emotional cuts first hand on the tenants I served.
Companies, including my own employer, sold out, and continue to sell out, their human resources for quarterly results. Managers with experience and talents were fired without remorse and workers were paid less and required to work more. Impacts on the families of the affected staff were deep and debilitating. Upper management, predictably, found it easier to reduce head count instead of focusing to enhance and evolve the value of our product offerings. Recently a close friend told me his employer, a brand name everyone knows, quietly fired another group of directors and managers with no warning or rationale. Another friend sadly confessed he was laying off a mass of co-workers ironically the day after ‘Labour Day’.
A concussion in September 2009 shut me down and opened my heart to the realization that we, you and I, are all one precarious step away from being on the receiving end of ‘the system’. Throughout my recovery, which continues to this day, I have been compelled to step back to discern why, in so many ways, our society has turned its back on compassion for one another and replaced it with greed and perceived self-satisfaction through consumerism, insincere relationships, and addictions.
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2
As the facilitator of this site, I am simply a child of God, a sinner, full of fear and procrastination and short on courage. I am so thankful to my parents who brought me into this world with love and kindness; for my family and close friends who have made and continue to make the journey a pleasure; for teachers, business leaders, priests, ministers and authors who have taught me to find passion in whatever I do; and for our past present and future political leaders who, through the influence of voters, their conscience and their faith, have brought us to where we are today and will chart our course for tomorrow. Through my readings and discoveries, I chose to become Catholic ten years ago. The more I learn, the more I thirst to learn.
Writers and books of all faiths (and non-faiths) and views continue to broaden and fortify my nascent grasp on today’s shaken societal foundation, and reinforce that there is a resilience of strength within God’s grace to show us the way to a better tomorrow.
This website is composed of thoughts and content from other authors, directly and indirectly. I have given credit to these incisive contributors within the text of this writing as well as in the References section.
My goal is not to present these ideas as original thoughts, but rather to collate them in a manner to enlighten Egality.ca readers and members and pray to inspire individual and social change that can be loving, legitimate and lasting. Please know that these words are written with a love for all of creation and a sincere desire to make our world one of sustainable peace and prosperity. While the content is focused on Canada and world issues related to the well-being of all Canadians, it will evolve and progress as domestic and global events, studies and relevant information emerge.
Our values:
Our purpose:
To desire, seek and protect the good of others.
I recognize the initial depth of this site is limited to my own experience and interpretation of articles, documentaries and books I have absorbed. I hope you will accept these shortcomings as an invitation. Please join us by becoming a member (it's free!), visit us regularly, contribute your boundless positive thoughts and ideas, and share this site with others. Current events and constructive contributions by members will be highlighted and updated weekly. Find, connect and engage with like-minded groups found on the References page on this site. We welcome your input and feedback on our contact page and commit our collective energies towards fueling a better and brighter future for our children and their children. The future of www.egality.ca is in the hands and hearts of members and readers like you. Your feedback, ideas and sharing with others will enhance our communal efforts to serve the common good based on our energies and compassionate commitment to take action locally and globally. Thank you for caring and sharing.
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Our world is lost and confused. It is not and will never be ‘perfect’. But we are free and responsible creatures in a creation made by a good, wise and loving God. And God wants us to pursue virtue, collaboration, peace and mutual care for one another and all living creatures. Our lives will have profound meaning when we align ourselves with God's wisdom, character and vision for us.
Together, working with humility, fortitude, patience, constancy, and gratitude, and always aware of our amazing human capacity to be wrong balanced with our sincere desire to be right, we can shape our world to become a very different place full of trust, truth, real hope, healing, joy (an inner equilibrium) and opportunity. Not only will we bring joy to others, we will experience joy in in bringing it to others. By keeping the needs and feelings of our global family and environment in front of our own, we can inherit the voice of God, because the thoughts we generate are thoughts we could not have created on our own. Sometimes we will struggle to recognize what God wants us to do. Through thoughtful and humble prayer, we recognize the need to move forward rather than wallow in indifference.
As Brian McLaren outlines in his book Everything Must Change, we are faced with the following challenges:
1) Environmental breakdown caused by our unsustainable global economy, an economy that fails to respect environmental limits even as it succeeds in producing great wealth for about one third of the world's population. This is called the Prosperity Crisis.
2) The growing gap between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, which prompts the poor majority to envy, resent, and even hate the rich minority-which in turn elicits fear and anger in the rich. This is called the Equity Crisis.
3) The danger of cataclysmic war arising from the intensifying resentment and fear among various groups at opposite ends of the economic spectrum. This is the Security Crisis.
4) The failure of the world's religions, especially its two largest religions, to provide a new framing story capable of healing or reducing the three previous crises. This is the Spirituality Crisis.
In the face of the challenges above, the good news is that we have the ability and the resources to make it better with every passing moment. The obstacles and challenges we face today are man made. The solutions and opportunities available to us now are also within our control. Our most creative insights and discoveries emerge from states of uncertainty and confusion. And we will face times of despair. But it is especially in those times we must realize we are not absolved from responsibility, not only for others, but for ourselves. There is a reason 'be not afraid' is the phrase found most often in the Bible. When there is an absence of faith, there is a prevalence of fear; when there is a prevalence of fear, there is an absence of faith.
Throughout our journey let us begin to and celebrate the fact that we are all so connected and need each other so very much. And let's do so filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Together we can manifest a 'Culture of Caring and Sharing'.
The following pages on this site detail our challenges and provide solutions for positive change.
The best summary of strategies for immediate change I have uncovered is from Jeffery Sach's recent book The Price of Civilization. Some content has been amended and will evolve to focus on Canadian perpsectives
Goal 1. Raise employment and the quality of work/life:
Reduce unemployment to 5% by 2020. Improve governance of CEO compensation. Raise minimum wage to living wage by 2020.
Goal 2. Improve quality of and access to education:
Raise the share of 25 - 29 year-old people with a bachelor's degree to 50% by 2025. Ensure 80% of graduates can obtain work in their field of study by 2025. Raise the Canadian ranking in global test scores to within the top five in all categories (reading, science and mathematics)
Goal 3. Reduce Poverty:
Cut the national poverty rate to 7% by 2025, half the 2010 rate. Reduce the share of children growing up in poverty to less that 10% by 2025. Specify the actual strategy and implement the National Housing Strategy announced in January 2018 by the Trudeau government. Set targets for 2025 and start immediately aligned with the initiatives and best practices already in place on provincial, territorial and municipal levels; to provide capital investment as well as creative rent subsidies to ensure 100% of Canadians have dignified, affordable housing by 2025.
Goal 4. Avoid environmental catastrophe:
Reduce Canada's greenhouse emissions from 2005 to 2025 by at least 17%. Ensure that low-carbon energy supplies account for at least 30% of Canada's power generation by 2025 and 50% by 2030. Have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025. Provide incentives and initiatives for alternative energy companies to invest and invent new energy sources by 2022. Provide incentives and initiatives for Canadian home and property owners to leverage existing alternative energy sources by 2022.
Goal 5. Balance the federal budget:
Balance the Federal Budget (inclusive of 'deferred' military spending and other real time costings) by 2025. Generate complete transparency of all federal revenues and expenditures by 2025. Aggressively identify and close tax loopholes domestically and internationally. Create savings funds to prepare for future needs (anticipated and unplanned). Lead the world and Canadian families by example.
Goal 6. Improve governance:
Limit corporate financing of campaigns and lobbyists by 2022. Maintain and enhance where required, regulatory control on the finance, insurance and pharma industries by 2022.
Goal 7. National Security:
Regain Canada's role as peacekeepers globally by 2022. Expand our strengths to include mediation and deliberation in conflict zones based on our domestic diversity and compassion by 2022. Adjust budgets around defense, diplomacy and development with the changes above by 2022.
Goal 8: Raise Canada's happiness and life satisfaction:
Establish national metrics for life satisfaction (much different than GDP) by 2022. Raise healthy life expectancy to 85 years by 2022. Move to the top 5 least corrupt countries in the world (currently 9th based on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index) by 2022. ~~~~~~~
Discerning thoughts:
"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members..." Pope John Paul II
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." Mahatma Gandhi
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." Mohandas Gandhi
"Let everyone understand that real love of God does not consist of tear-shedding, not in that sweetness and tenderness for which we usually long, just because they console us, but in serving God in justice, fortitude of soul, and humility." St Teresa of Avila
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect." St. Paul to the Romans 12:2
Excerpts from Pope Francis' Exhortation, 2013:
"In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church” #84
"... it is starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing,...and keep hope alive...Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!" #85
"To go out of ourselves and to join others is healthy for us." #87
"Our falling short of perfection should be no excuse; on the contrary, mission is a constant stimulus not to remain mired in mediocrity but to continue growing. The witness of faith that each Christian is called to offer leads us to say with Saint Paul: “Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil 3:12-13)."#121
"An authentic faith – which is never comfortable or completely personal – always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better that we found it. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us, and we love the human family which dwells here, with all its tragedies and struggles, its hopes and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses." If indeed “the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics”, the Church “cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice”. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (25 December 2005), 28: AAS 98 (2006), 239-240.
All Christians, their pastors included, are called to show concern for the building of a better world. #183
"...none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice: “Spiritual conversion, the intensity of the love of God and neighbour, zeal for justice and peace, the Gospel meaning of the poor and of poverty, are required of everyone”. #201
"As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality,[173]
"no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills." #202
“As you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40
“The measure you give will be the measure you get.” Matthew 7:2
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you… For the measure you give will be the measure you get back” Luke 6:36-38
"We must obey God rather than any human authority."..."[Pharisee's response:] "...if this plan is an undertaking of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow [Peter and the apostles]-in that case, you may even be found fighting against God!" Acts 5:29-39
"A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast between poverty and wealth." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"We have become aware how precarious our civilization is. It does not make sense to devote all our energies to improving our relative position in a social system when the system itself is drifting toward disaster." George Soros 2005
"All that is necessary for our contemporary global crisis to destroy us is for enough good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"Sanity depends on an accurate appreciation of reality..." Frank Sheed
"Some Christians argue that if we would only change men, then society would change itself. That there is some truth to this, none of us doubts. But the full truth is that we must try both to change man and to change society, and that there are some changes in man that cannot be achieved without some changes to society." Alan Paton
"Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to ask for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord."
St. Ignatius of Loyola
"If it weren't for my faith in God, I would conclude that it is already too late, that the moment for transformation has long passed."
Brian McLaren
"Will the day ever come when joy is great and sorrow small?" Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelof
"On the day we feel we are living with a duty, well fulfilled and worth our while, on that day joy is great and we can look on sorrow being small." Dag Hammarskjold, April 1958
"The small choices and decisions we make a hundred times a day add up to determining the kind of world we live in." Harold Kushner
"We cannot abolish all inequalities nor even (because of the diversity of creation) attempt to. It is inequality of privilege we should seek to abolish, in order to create equality of opportunity." John Stott
"Our lives can make a difference. As long as we are alive, we are not finished." Brian McLaren
"Preach the gospel at all times, and only when necessary use words." St. Francis of Assisi
"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is sadness, joy; where there is darkness, light. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be understood, as to understand; not so much to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life." St Francis of Assisi
"The conquest of fear is a tremendous consequence of trying to find out what God's cause is-and making it our own." Alan Paton
"Most people are not afraid of dying; they are afraid of not having lived." Harold Kushner
"Everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear, unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe." Milan Kundera
"For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple: Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second." Harold Kushner
"Can one ordinary person really change things? Can we, in our anonymity, affect history? Rarely can we, by what we do alone, move mountains and make a difference. But by being good people and doing good things, we can, as members of a community dedicated to goodness, change the world. We can matter." Harold Kushner
"I believe that whoever we are and however much or little we accomplish in our lives, we matter to God." Harold Kushner
"If I can in any way contribute to the improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave this life when I am summoned out of it with the satisfaction of knowing that I have not lived in vain."
Joseph Addison
"To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one has breathed easier because you lived-that is to have succeeded."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A good person, even in death, is still alive." The Talmud
"Few of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love." Mother Teresa
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Reinhold Niebuhr
"Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Mark 9:50
"Some resist giving themselves over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis and acedia." Pope Francis
Chapter 1) Love Thy Neighbour
"Love your neighbour as yourself." Luke 10:27
We are social beings. The human person, by nature, stands completely in need of life in society. Inherent with that statement, human rights are vital in every society. The right to dignified life, housing and religious freedom face challenges throughout the world and, sadly, within our Canadian borders. While we can easily point to problems abroad, we must first look in the mirror and ensure our own house is in order. Our 'neighbour' not only includes those living beside us and our global society, but also includes those who live with us! Our parents, spouse, children, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren are gifts of God. People we love, and receive love from, unconditionally. Homelessness is a reality in our nation which should instinctively and inherently provide promise and opportunity for those who are without safe, secure accommodation. All family members suffer, especially youth who carry the scars of their turmoil for years to come.Homelessness in Canada (The Canadian Encyclopedia) Leaving Home: Youth Homelessness in York Region (Homeless Hub) Self-possession is defined as: the control of one's emotions or reactions especially when under stress. Today our society suffers from the disease created by our lack of self-possession. Moderation is the only diet most of us need, but we seem to lack the inner strength, the discipline, to choose what is good for us and for each other. All the money and fame in the world is no substitute for the knowledge that we love and are loved, loved by others, loved by God. Deep in the heart of every person there is a desire to know God and a yearning to draw near to Him.Often we think of freedom as the ability to do what we want to do. True freedom is looking beyond our individual existence and recognizing our communal role in society and what we ought to do for the good others and taking loving action. Obedience and freedom are inseparable. For where is the joy of living in a society in which all obey and none is free? Or in which all are free and none obey? There is no freedom like the freedom of finding meaning for one's life, of becoming the instrument of a Lord who helps us to be what we were meant to be. Yet many resist Him, believing that to follow God is to lose the whole world. The road to true freedom is simpler and more rewarding. It can become a natural instinct when we allow ourselves to see the good in everyone. We can move from selfishness to selflessness by letting go of what is rich to us and focusing on what is 'rich toward God' (Luke 12:21). As Jesus spoke to the money-loving Pharisees, "..."God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." (Luke 16:15). God's inclusive justice goes beyond mathematical equality. It creates an economy of care for the common good and heals society by undermining the systemic injustice that exists. God's heart is big enough to embrace all of God's children.Some suggest that the Bible explains how to get to heaven. The Bible actually explains how we are to live on earth and it dares us, both as individuals and as a community, to believe! A social holiness that calls each of us to care. Whatever your faith, even if you are an agnostic or atheist, we all need guidance in times like these. Jesus and the parables of the Gospels reflect a new way and a new life. It is the best 'self-help' book and instruction manual of all time! Jesus opens His arms to every soul as He walks among sinners. He rebukes hypocrites and calls all of us to live with integrity with a focus on the poor, the oppressed and the suffering. These poor may be poor financially, emotionally and/or spiritually. Just because someone has financial security doesn't mean they are not impoverished in the other aspects.
"I have no higher vision of the Church than as the Servant of the World, not withdrawn but participating, not embattled but battling, not condemning but healing the wounds of the hurt and the lost and the lonely, not preoccupied with its survival or its observances or its Articles, but with the needs of mankind." Alan Paton
We are all called to be saints, to show heroic courage to believe that we can live in harmony and to look beyond the dominant systems of our day. To discover and share a new peaceful solution to today's challenges; to demonstrate by example; and call all people to live life in a new way, the way of healing and love. This new way will have to filter into our education system, our character and our virtues to ensure it can be sincere and lasting. The outcome is a hopeful one for all who love justice. Pope Francis states "God’s presence accompanies the sincere efforts of individuals and groups to find encouragement and meaning in their lives. He dwells among them, fostering solidarity, fraternity, and the desire for goodness, truth and justice. This presence must not be contrived but found, uncovered. God does not hide himself from those who seek him with a sincere heart, even though they do so tentatively, in a vague and haphazard manner."Let us seek reconciliation instead of revenge; meet violence with creative and lasting nonviolence; have a contrite forgiving heart (forgiveness of the sins of others and the sins of ourselves); celebrate diversity and carry an authentic love, mutual respect and justice for all; remove anxiety over money and security by trusting yourself to the care of God; live for God and the gifts he blesses you with; and love your enemies and do as you wish that they would do for you. In a new loving world, order becomes opportunity, stability melts into movement and change, status-quo government gives way to community and neighbourliness; policy bows to love, domination ascends to service and sacrifice, control evolves into influence and inspiration and vengeance and threats are transformed to forgiveness and blessing. Freed from self-absorption we become desirous of doing good and sharing our lives with others. And reach out beyond our own circle of friends or community to help lovingly those throughout our global society to retrain and restore humanity to its original vocation. True prosperity is within our grasp! Like Mary, who sets out from her town "with haste" (Luke 1:30) to be of service to others, let us strive to open minds and hearts of everyone we meet to the birth of a new world.Let's live to be saints and enjoy the journey every moment of every day!
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Families are the foundation of healthy communities, as Pope Francis describes, "the fundamental cell of society". Since the 1970's divorce rates have spiraled upwards along with a decline in child birth in the developed world. Addictions to drugs, gambling, sex, work and money have taken their toll on the welfare of humanity. Abusive relationships have torn apart the lives of spouses and children and everyone who loves them. The result is a society eroding its core element. Turbulent lifestyles in turbulent times influenced by secular media and motives. In an effort to be independent we have become, predictably, addicted dependent lemmings ready to sway with the strategic whim of corporate merchandisers. Pope Francis observes "Evangelical fervour is replaced by the empty pleasure of complacency and self-indulgence... we waste time talking about 'what needs to be done' ..We indulge in endless fantasies and we lose contact with the real lives and difficulties of our people."We have become products of a contrived environment, influenced by the news and 'entertainment' we watch, the books, websites and magazines we read and the food we ingest for convenience rather than for health. It is an amazing contrast that we have created homes that isolate us from our neighbours, yet we are obsessed with the need for (usually negative) news about celebrities, perhaps to distract us from or fill the void of our own lack of purpose. In his book Bowling Alone, political scientist Robert Putnam found that time in front of the TV screen is the most powerful single characteristic accounting for the long-term decline in time devoted to civic activities. No doubt the internet and inherent new technologies have worsened our state of public compassion. Can we dare to learn to live simply and share our time, energy and material resources with those who are in need?
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Chastity is a non-issue in today's celebrity media. Choice determines outcome. Prime-time sexual promiscuity, pornography and other addictions are created to fill the lack of faith and true love in the heart of every man woman and child. Too often the conflicting messages of the media and internet create a false illusion of fulfillment and happiness. In stark contrast to what movies and television shows suggest, premarital sex violates the dignity and integrity of love. It is void of promise and serious commitment. Be chaste with your thoughts, words and deeds. Treat each other as children of God, not objects of lustful and regretful actions. And expect, demand, to be treated with the same respect. Open your heart to the will of God and suddenly true freedom will be yours to cherish. “Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.” Catechism of the Catholic Church #2339
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The sacrament of marriage is a lifelong commitment to a spouse and God. This cherished relationship, even when challenged by inappropriate actions and reunited through forgiveness, grows with time and experience and is to be a lifelong embrace. Today's disposable world too often allows relationships, including marriage, to be deleted with ease."... the negative aspects of the media and entertainment industries are threatening traditional values, and in particular the sacredness of marriage and the stability of the family." Pope Francis' Exhortation #62
When a home is torn apart or destroyed by marital, financial, heath and/or other stress, every soul within that family and its extended family suffers. Having experienced it firsthand, I can attest that the scars run deep and can last a lifetime. As a society, we must recognize the apocalyptic destiny of this ‘disposable’ attitude and that we can and must seek and enter into every sacramental union of marriage to be one for procreation and lasting lifelong nurturing love.
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The dignity of life requires a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves."The direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral" Pope John Paul II Evangelium Vitae
"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying." Pope John Paul II
For every three births in Canada, another child is killed by abortion. While 1% of these deaths are a result of rape; 3% the result of health issues with the fetus; and another 11% health issues with the mother, the vast majority are a result of lifestyle decisions of the parent(s). Pro-choice movements proclaim the right of a woman to choose what is right for her body. Move the decision-making forward. Consciously decide not to have consensual sex outside of marriage. While you may miss the opportunity of short term hedonistic pleasure, you will be free of the burden of a legacy of physical and psychological scars. Ask any priest who counsels women who had abortions 5, 10 or 20 years ago: a mother's pain and sorrow never lessens.
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Euthanasia is a slippery slope some Canadians have chosen to consider and have now legalized. Dignity of life is often confused with convenience of death. Every child of God deserves to be nursed respectfully and righteously until, through natural causes, they are called from this world to the next. An arbitrary decision to end the life of every human demeans life itself. Knowing individuals who have 'beaten the odds' and have contributed so much to so many after having been 'written off' by others previously in their lives is living proof that God's will is not always our will.
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Elder Abuse is most often defined as: “Single or repeated acts, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within a relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.” (WHO, 2002) In Canada, elder abuse can be in the form of physical, sexual, psychological, neglect or other forms of mistreatment. Seniors are the fastest growing segment of our population and estimates suggest 10% of seniors are currently being abused by someone they trust and/or are charged with their care. Recognizing signs of elder abuse within and outside of our families is the responsibility of everyone. Loving our neighbour means caring for everyone’s wellbeing. Prevention strategies include staying active, keep in touch with older friends and family members, know your rights and seek immediate advice from professionals when financial irregularities occur.
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In past decades, refugees have been invited to our country, escaping war and persecution. After a vote-generating target of 25,000 refugees (most of whom were already in 'the cue') was achieved in 2016, our government has sent clear signals that our borders are not welcoming and treatment of those few refugees who have managed to reach and remain on our shores has been less than humane. The lives of immigrants who have responded to Canadian advertisements and have brought their families to Canada after passing several entry exams most of us lucky enough to be born here would not pass, have found the promised land to be less than hospitable and a challenge to obtain work in the profession they had excelled at for years in their homeland. Despondent and running out of the significant cash reserves they had brought to our country (as a prerequisite for acceptance), these awesome people are subdued into minimum wage jobs or part time employment.
“Our ethnic diversity is our wealth… It is only in unity, through conversion of hearts and reconciliation, that we will be able to help our [country] to develop on all levels” Pope Francis' Exhortation #230
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One out of every nine convicts sentenced to death have been found not guilty through DNA testing in later years. The death penalty does not serve justice. It serves the immediate emotion. Tough on crime policies need to deal with the criminals but look beyond the perpetrator and recognize what conditions have caused the victims such grief and despair. When we remedy the conditions of life that triggered the crime, we will have truly succeeded. While "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) I suggest the lack of money and/or hope compels too many in our society to search for desperate measures, often illegal and life-debilitating. Create legitimate and lasting opportunities for these individuals to find purpose and prosperity in life and the allure of gangs, drugs and crime evaporate.
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Another group of Canadians unable to speak for themselves are the poor and the working poor. While we are supposed to be in the midst of an economic recovery, 1 of 8 Canadian children live in poverty. A recent Unicef study recognized Canada is one of the more unequal societies for children and youth, ranking 26th of 35 nations. One in four single mothers live in poverty. Housing is foundational to life. Yet affordable, dignified housing is a distant dream for thousands of employed Canadians, let alone those who are on Employment Insurance (EI) or have exhausted their EI benefits. Housing wait lists and wait times are at all-time highs throughout most of our country with little funding or focus generating real change in these challenging times. Once housed safely, these youth, adults, seniors and families become grounded and can attend to other aspects of their life to grow to be the best they can be. "Housing First' models, along with customized support services, have met with proven success throughout the world including Calgary and other Canadian jurisdictions. The chart below (Source OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2014) shows how a larger percentage of Canadians cannot afford to rent or own homes compared to 3 decades ago. Safe neighbourhoods are also a right for all, yet one third of homes built in America are now in 'gated' communities. This fact serves as a blatant reminder that we can't love neighbours who we can't see. We can't trust neighbours who can't trust us. Houses and neighbourhoods are more often built to isolate and protect than to connect and integrate. Pope Francis' Exhortation #75
Let's not point fingers at past governments, the wealthy of our nation or the corporate stratosphere that has lobbied for laws to take the social responsibilities from government and place them on the shoulders of charities and non-profit agencies. Let's instead realize that we will have a healthier more cost-effective society by creating safe, secure homes for those who are homeless (180,000 Canadians base on recent surveys) and move to the economic shift described on the attached pages for a job-filled healthy recovery!
Solutions:
When we embrace a common vision and a common language, our separate efforts converge as one movement that gains momentum instinctively.We need to practice the art of listening, which is more than simply hearing. Listening, in communication, is an openness of heart which makes possible that closeness without which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur. Listening helps us to find the right gesture and word which shows that we are more than simply bystanders. Only through such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: the desire to respond fully to God’s love and to bring to fruition what he has sown in our lives. It requires patience and an ability to remove one's own agenda from the balanced dialogue that ensues.
Education:
"... we need to provide an education which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values." Pope Francis' Exhortation #64
Challenge our existing institutions, from grade school to post-secondary teachings, to create content and passion for life and leadership in vibrant human communities, social architects of a new human era. Engage all students in discovery and diversity that affirms their existence and stirs their hearts, souls and minds to thrive. Reach beyond the rigid walls of yesterday's classroom and compel the multicultural and multi-generational interaction and integration of thoughts and ideas. The newborn freedom to study the sciences and arts becomes the mainstay and family, community and cultural awareness flourishes. Respectful political and religious debate is welcome and encouraged to embrace moral and ethical equivalents and distinctions. Canada's current educational strategy is not competitive in teaching our youth.In regions of our country we are now lagging behind world literacy and numeracy averages . Let's recognize our systemic deficiency and create better programming for children and young adults to create minds and hearts that can excel in today's global market. It all starts with better understanding and enlightenment of our vital roles as spouses and parents and children of God. It continues with a clearer discernment of who dictates what life we each are meant to lead. Study past social and media pressures around sexual orientation, marriage, children, financial success, career expectations and addictive hedonistic and narcissistic behaviour and determine what life is best for YOU. Take these new personal actions, not because we have to as a duty, but because we want to enjoy the freedom provided by 'loving our neighbour as ourselves'.Inherent with growing understanding and compassion, respectful political and religious debate is welcomed and encouraged to embrace moral and ethical equivalents and distinctions.
Focus on families:
Love has its rocky moments. That is why love must be rooted in God. Without a deep spiritual basis, love falters, fumbles and fails all too frequently. We need to think of the divine love that gave us existence; pay attention to the reality of our soul; admit our sinfulness and; practice friendliness. Good friendships are like strong bridges. They must always be kept in repair and never taken for granted. (Pope John XXIII)
As Nobel laureate James Heckman has shown, the highest returns to human capital come from investing early, at the start of life. While support for public education is important, Sweden' distinction from other countries is its public support for families and their children from the earliest age, even before formal schooling. The focus on affordable high-quality day care allows each child a decent start, and has been key to the elimination of poverty.
- maternal and paternal influences are key to a healthy upbringing- marriage must be inherent with the statement "you matter more to me than anything else in the world."
- childcare must be created to complement parenting, not replace parenting
- tax benefits and subsidies to couples who bring two or more children into the world and increase the size and duration of the subsidy based on the age of the couple (starting at 25).
- set aside Sundays for rest, play and quality family time. Be revitalized for the week ahead
Elderly:
- Recognize their abilities and create new relationships with youth and young adults. Move from stagnation to stimulation. Let us learn and grow through their mature experience, wisdom and grace.As Pope Francis observes, "The elderly bring with them memory and the wisdom of experience, which warns us not to foolishly repeat our past mistakes."Youth:Pope Francis continues, "Young people call us to renewed and expansive hope, for they represent new directions for humanity and open us up to the future, lest we cling to a nostalgia for structures and customs which are no longer life-giving in today's world."
Create lasting friendships:
Friendships are a key to survival in an unfriendly world. We are who we love. True friends make sure that we are never alone when we desperately need to not be alone. Friendships reinforce the fact that God is not found in people, God is found between people.Human beings are social creatures. We flourish in the company of other human beings. That is why we go to church, synagogues, temples or other places of worship as well as speaking to God in the comfort of our own homes, and why we go to stadiums to share the experience of sports, music and drama."More than that, she [her friend] needed me, which is no small thing." Patricia O'Brien"The glory of friendship is not so much in the outstretched hand or even in the kindly smile. It is in the spiritual inspiration that comes when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with his friendship." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Aboriginal peoples:
The suffering must stop. Treaties and respect must be granted and upheld to allow all native Canadians their say and their fair portion of the land that we now share with them. Why do most Canadians only discover the plight of First Nations reserves and homes when a disaster strikes? Proactive measures must be taken with effective leadership within First Nations to create dignified housing, infrastructure, education and health care to the peoples we owe everything to. We can learn so much in that process!
Housing:
The 2017 National Housing Strategy needs to evolve to create a cohesive and cost-effective program to ensure every Canadian has a secure roof over their heads. With a stable, predictable funding model, provincial, territorial and municipal governments can then pool their knowledge and success stories to generate new affordable housing with modest capital investments and productive investments in cost-effective rent subsidies.Subsidiarity, the principle that suggests that the public good should be provided by the lowest level of government competent to provide it, can address local issues and initiatives that fall under the umbrella set on a federal level. That umbrella must provide a balanced approach throughout our country to ensure every Canadian has equal footing on which to rise from poverty.
The Housing-First model, where stable, secure and affordable housing is provided to those in need before or concurrent with other support services customized to the individual or family requirements, has a proven record of success in a few parts of Canada and internationally. All Canadian municipalities will benefit from adopting this model to make a real difference in the lives of those they serve. Co-housing may be an answer for some who are struggling to pay bills on a fixed income. Housing trusts could be an option for homeowners to draw equity from their property without going into debt.New housing concepts exist internationally and are being tested here in Canada. Shared ownership is one example that allows multiple individuals to own and live in one property.
Food Banks:
499,415 Ontario residents used food banks in 2018. 40% of these were children. Usage, which can be humiliating, is at or above recession peaks in spite of 'an economic recovery'. Food banks do not solve poverty, they highlight the presence of societal imbalance and reinforce the plight of too many of our neighbours. With utmost respect to the wonderful people and agencies who provide food for those who run out of money before they run out of month, the day food banks are no longer required will be a day for celebration!
Create 'Publics', networks of smaller communities joining as one to share challenges, opportunities and solutions to strengthen families, neighbourhoods and environments in and outside of their geographic boundaries.
Faith:
Pope Francis declares "Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people’s thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus who demands nothing of us with regard to others." He continues: "we see the growing attraction to various forms of a “spirituality of well-being” divorced from any community life, or to a “theology of prosperity” detached from responsibility for our brothers and sisters, or to depersonalized experiences which are nothing more than a form of self-centredness." Pope Francis then states "One important challenge is to show that the solution will never be found in fleeing from a personal and committed relationship with God which at the same time commits us to serving others...learning to find Jesus in the faces of others, in their voices, in their pleas. Some people think they can avoid God: they fail to see that they remain existentially orphaned, helpless, homeless"We are called to love our neighbours and to love our enemies. We have the human capacity to do so. We must find the will to do so.
"Faith in God begins where human self-sufficiency ends." Harold Kushner"
"For some people, faith is preliminary to action; for others, actions give reality to faith; in most of us, sometimes one comes first, sometimes the other." Alan Paton
So often the vice of addictions is a replacement for the freedom faith provides. Know that God always welcomes and accepts you, even though He may not approve of your actions. We are all called to walk in His footsteps...easier said than done. If you are not attending a place of worship, visit your nearest church, synagogue, temple or mosque today and discover, or rediscover, the marvelous and miraculous joy of belief and the knowledge that, with God's guidance, we can make every day better than the past. Pope Francis instructs that the Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel. If you are attending church, ask, or challenge, your priest, minister or leader to not only speak of justice but to actively engage in doing justice in new and energetic ways that make a true difference to the lives and futures of every neighbour in your community. Let them know you want to be a part of the change! If you are considering a call to priesthood or other religious vocations, great! Pray about your calling. Ask trusted family and friends to pray for you as well. Speak with a person you trust to guide you through your discernment and recognize the boundless joy your life-long commitment! I came across a prayer recently that speaks to all of us:
Prayer to know one's vocation: Lord, my God and my loving Father, you have made me to know you, to love you, to serve you, and thereby to find and to fulfill my deepest longings. I know that you are in all things, and that every path can lead me to you. But of them all, there is one especially by which you want me to come to you. Since I will do what you want of me, I pray you, send your Holy Spirit to me: into my mind, to show me what you want of me; into my heart, to give me the determination to do it, and to do it with all my love, with all my mind, and with all of my strength right to the end. Jesus, I trust in you. Amen
For Christians throughout the world, Pope Francis defines evangelization as "the joyful, patient and progressive preaching of the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ'" and states "it must be your absolute priority".
“Go and make disciples of all nations” Matthew 28:19
Interfaith dialogue exploring moral, ethical and cultural questions must be initiated and continued to share our common interests, build a healthy respect for our diversity, and learn the essence of each (religion). These enlightenments can then be shared within every church, synagogue, temple and mosque to fuel minds and energies collectively. The organic result will be beautiful and good.
"... concentrate on the convictions we share, and if we keep in mind the principle of the hierarchy of truths, we will be able to progress decidedly towards common expressions of proclamation, service and witness. ..How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another!" Pope Francis' Exhortation #246
“An attitude of openness in truth and in love...A dialogue which seeks social peace and justice is in itself, beyond all merely practical considerations, an ethical commitment which brings about a new social situation. Efforts made in dealing with a specific theme can become a process in which, by mutual listening, both parts can be purified and enriched. These efforts, therefore, can also express love for truth.” Pope Francis Exhortation #250
“..True openness involves remaining steadfast in one’s deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one’s own identity, while at the same time being “open to understanding those of the other party” and “knowing that dialogue can enrich each side”. Pope Francis' Exhortation #251
"To wish someone shalom is to wish them the blessing of wholeness and integrity." Harold Kushner
On Hatred:
We must try to understand what makes people hate, loot and kill. If we are tempted to pass judgement on a world event, we must also grasp for insight as to what prepared the way for the event to reach such attention and suffering. If we ourselves are tempted to hate, and if we fall to the temptation, then either we repent, or we cease to be Christian.We will never be able to recognize forgiveness so long as we refuse to forgive others.We cannot hope to be instruments of God's peace when we ourselves are not at peace with others (and/or ourselves), and certainly not when we hate them (and/or ourselves).And our instinct to send troops to fight wars throughout the world must be stopped. The causes of these conflicts have no military solution. Violence will only beget violence. We must seek ways to better understand the reasons for the strife and struggle. Only through that understanding and dialogue with willing parties can peace be obtained.
Child/Migrant Labour...in Canada?!?!?
Laws throughout our land must ensure that child labour of any nature be forbidden. Recent cases are a reflection of a crisis that can and must be resolved by federal laws and local vigilance and enforcement. Human Trafficking:
Canada is not immune from the realities of human trafficking, defined by our federal government as “the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and/ or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person in order to exploit that person, typically through sexual exploitation or forced labour. It is often described as a modern form of slavery. In July 2014 20 members of a human trafficking ring based in Hamilton were charged and 18 were deported. It is a reality in our own backyard. Forms of trafficking can be labour, body parts and sexual exploitation. The latter is the most prevalent in our immoral society as demand for both female and male prostitutes and victims of sexual manipulation continues to increase. As part of a global $92 billion ‘business’ serving organized criminals, human greed and desire for domination over others is a challenge that will only be overcome through awareness; education; an active and effective network of social service agencies and law enforcement; and stemming corruption within police and government circles.The use of technology to deceive and destroy lives through internet chat rooms and social sites must be intercepted by local and international authorities. The offenders and those who avail of the proceeds of these horrific crimes, must be brought to justice.
Discerning thoughts:
"Love your neighbour as yourself." Luke 10:27
" We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reasons for thinking so, but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbour or no. Be sure that in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing in your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us, that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him." St. Teresa
"There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford" John Bradford (1510-1555) while watching criminals being led to the scaffold.
"...the most reliable way to matter to the world is to love the people closest to us, our mates, our children, our families, our closest friends. Our love changes them even as the ability to love changes us, even as our inviting and accepting their love changes them and changes us as well." Harold Kushner
If you love, you will be loved; If you respect people, you will be respected; If you serve them, you will be served; If you give a good account of yourself towards others, others will act likewise towards you. Blessed is the man who loves and does not desire to be loved for it; Blessed is he who respects others and does not look for respect in return; who serves and does not expect service for it; who acquits himself well of others and does not desire that they return the grace. Because such things are big, foolish people do not rise to them."Brother Giles of Assisi
Excerpts from Pope Francis' Exhortation, 2013:
"We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions." #61
"Let everyone admire how you care for one another, and how you encourage and accompany one another: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Let us ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts of each, which belong to all." #99
"What we need, then, is to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events. Without anxiety, but with clear convictions and tenacity." #223
"...it is time to devise a means for building consensus and agreement while seeking the goal of a just, responsive and inclusive society...It is about agreeing to live together, a social and cultural pact." #239
"...Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others." #270
"..give reasons for our hope, “do so with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15) and “if possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all” (Rom 12:18)..overcome “evil with good” (Rom 12:21)..“work for the good of all” (Gal 6:10)...“in humility count others better” than ourselves (Phil 2:3)....the missionary joy of sharing life with God’s faithful people as we strive to light a fire in the heart of the world." #271
"...one who does not love others “walks in the darkness” (Jn 11:10), “remains in death” (1 Jn 3:14) and “does not know God” (1 Jn 4:8) “closing our eyes to our neighbour also blinds us to God” (Benedict)...(love)“can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working”. Only the person who feels happiness in seeking the good of others, in desiring their happiness, can be a missionary...“it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).We do not live better when we flee, hide, refuse to share, stop giving and lock ourselves up in own comforts. Such a life is nothing less than slow suicide." #272
"...we also have to realize that every person is worthy of our giving..they are God’s handiwork, his creation...if I can help at least one person to have a better life, that already justifies the offering of my life." #274
"...man cannot live without hope: life would become meaningless and unbearable” #275
"...May we never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope!" #278
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” Rom 12:21
“Let us not grow weary in doing what is right” Gal 6:9
"Inequality tears our communities apart. One third of new homes built in the United States are in gated communities. The relationship between the 1 percent and 99 percent is characterized by fear, distance, misunderstanding, distrust and class and racial antagonisms. As a result there is less caring and a greater amount of individualistic behaviour. As societies grow unequal, support for investments in health infrastructure and illness prevention declines." Chuck Collins
"...even faithful husbands [and wives] will yield to temptation and lust, but that is not because they are sinners. It is because they are human." Harold Kushner
"A major fact of our present civilization is that more and more sin becomes collective, and the individual is forced to participate in collective sin. Everyone bears the consequences of the faults of others. This becomes particularly poignant when nations are at war, for instance, but it is true of all social situations." Jacques Ellul
Chapter 2) Our Economy
Our Growing Income Gap:
"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics." Plutarch (46-120 AD)
"The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies." Pope Francis' Exhortation #202
Canada's elite are earning and keeping historically high income. The richest 1% of Canadians saw their share of total income increase from 8.1% in 1980 to 13.3% in 2007. The share of the richest 0.1% more than doubled from 2% to 5.3%. Between 1982 and 2010, the “market incomes” of the bottom 90 per cent of taxpayers increased two per cent, while those of the top 10 per cent surged 75 per cent, according to editors of that IRPP collection, David Green, W. Craig Riddell and France St-Hilaire. (Market income excludes government transfers and capital gains.)
September 13, 2014:Canada's richest 10% own half of the country's wealth! The gap continues to grow. At the same time, the top federal margin tax rate conveniently dropped from 43% in 1981 to 29% in 2010. Capital gains taxes have been cut in half (from 50% to 25%) over that same period. Today 10-12% of our citizens live below the poverty line and have no ability to rise above it.These ratios are exactly what the current system has been set up to accomplish. Those in financial power continue to control structures that protect and grow their wealth at the expense and sacrifice of many in and outside of Canada.In 2007 political scientists Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs discovered:
Recently the Pew Research Center confirmed 87% of respondents agreed " our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed". 77% concur that "there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big businesses" and 62% feel that "business corporations make too much profit". (2009 study) In the United States, post tax income of the richest 1% of the population has increased by more than 6 percentage points of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 1970.Since 2010 corporations are making record profits, CEO's incomes are at all-time highs, and little if any regulatory pressure exists to control the power finance, health care, military supplies and energy companies generate. 'Corporatocracy' exploits globalization which pushes up capital income while pushing down wages. As long as political parties (all parties) stand in line to do their bidding, this spiral of decadence in the hands of the wealthy few will prevail. What is wealth? How is it created? Elaine Bernard, director of the Trade Union Program at Harvard explains: "One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. Wealth is only created when it is owned privately. It is (private) ownership that makes wealth creation possible. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know that's not wealth creation, that's wealth usurpation.
As Jeffrey D, Sachs opens in his book The Price of Civilization, "At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite." From 1983 to 2009, to wealthiest 5% have enjoyed over 80% of [America's] financial gain. The lower income brackets have seen their income reduce and those in between have seen a modest 5-10% growth. (Source Mishel analysis of Wolff in Allegretto-2010)
We have witnessed 50 years of an economic explosion. Financial wealth is not only realized from property ownership, it now grows through new financial inventions. 80% (some suggest over 95%) of annual growth (GDP) in wealth is now from financial mechanisms (hedge funds, derivatives, options, etc.), providing no additional jobs, earnings or benefits to the vast majority of Canadians. Stock markets have now become the main thrust behind business, the influence behind boardrooms, the power behind politics. Decisions around deregulating industries have allowed profiteers to maximize financial gains at the expense of the general public. While CEO's and board members receive their bonuses, homeowners are trying to figure out how to pay their ever-increasing utility bills. While these money machines have proven, at least in the short term, that they are too big to fail, societal cracks are forming throughout North America and globally. The average CEO in Canada earns more than the average Canadian worker before lunchtime on their first day at the office!January 2, 2018: Canada's 100 top-paid CEO's
"Even honest people will be tempted by large sums of money...but that is not because they are sinners. It is because they are human." Harold Kushner
Corporate law does not require, and has never required, that directors of public corporations maximize shareholder wealth. The drive for wealth creation was cultivated, and is being cultivated, in boardrooms through the minds of elites who placed personal financial greed over the common good. Businesses no longer serve the living community. They are now created and sustained to manufacture financial wealth. The term ‘suboptimization’ has already been created to define the situation wherein a subsystem benefits, to the detriment of the whole. The sub-prime burst of 2008-2009 is just a small indicator of greater shifts to come in the not-too-distant future. The global superstructure of assets has exceeded the load-bearing foundation in the real economy. Governments throughout the world are frantically saving votes through stimulus damage-control while manufacturing debt at unprecedented levels. Our Canadian government espouses 'balanced budgets' by deferring military, social service, and other real expenditures into future balance sheets. Generations to follow will dearly pay for our generation`s irresponsible collective folly.
"As a theory of corporate purpose the ideology that corporations have a legal duty to maximize profits for shareholders is increasingly outmoded and poised for intellectual collapse." Lynn Stout
"People are producing more with fewer resources and leadership is highly restrictive and controlling, using fear as a primary motivator." Margaret Wheatley
"Experience is accumulating that remoteness between ownership and operation is an evil in the relations among men, likely or certain in the long run to set up strains and enmities which will bring to naught the financial calculation." John Maynard Keynes
"When the capital development of a country becomes the by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done."John Maynard Keynes
How do the wealthiest use their power?
1) Political Influence:
- Campaign contributions
- Personal Relationships with elected officials
- Higher voter turnout (100%) among the 1%
- View labour as a cost, not an asset
- lobby for global trade deals at the expense of workers' rights and local businesses
- lobby for subsidies and tax breaks
- benefit from deregulation
- tax avoidance or delay
- skew global investment/ownership rules
Results:
- low taxes on income from wealth: 39% tax in 1979 to 15% in 2011 (U.S. figures)
- Free trade to boost stock prices and send wages down domestically and internationally, weaken environmental standards and worker safety.
- Unlimited inheritances
- Weak environmental regulation and enforcement
- tax cuts for the top (from 50% to 35% since 1980)
- proliferation of secret tax havens
- government subsidies for 'the future' (example: GE got $3.3 billion in 2010)
2) Charity Sector Influence:
3) Using media Influence (through control, financial support or outright ownership) to change the conversation:- media neglects to address or deflects the reality of inequality, both locally and globally
4) Organizing others in the 1 percent and leveraging networks
5) Partnering with Wall Street game riggers
Corporate and political leaders continue to make decisions with excessive confidence, ignorant or consciously distanced from the harm they are causing the greater populations within and outside of Canada. David Korten writes of a 'suicidal corporate global economy' in his book The Great Turning. While 'suicidal' may be an extreme metaphor, there are indeed limits to financial growth.
The suggestion of limits is not new, being the subject of Donella Meadows' 1972 book "Limits To Growth". To suggest our society could never reach a point of oblivion ominously compares to an addict who tells us that they can 'quit at any time' and that they 'do not have a problem'. After all, why would the excessively confident corporate and political elite be willing to acknowledge the unsustainability of their way of life?
Inequality undermines economic growth. Inequality erodes social mobility and equal opportunity.
"[If we are complacent,] if we leave all problem-solving to the market, emerging social problems will be left unattended." J.F. Rischard
"Purpose isn't about rhetoric or stated goals. It is about behaviour." Donella Meadows
To understand the behaviour of an entire system it's important to look beyond the players to the rules of the game. The structure of the system is its purpose by design. We must ask ourselves 'What kind of economy is consistent with living within a human being?
"Sustained life is a property of an ecological system rather than a single organism or species." Harold Morowitz 2002
"An economy is right when it enhances the stability and beauty of the total ecosystem. It is wrong when it damages it." Aldo Leopold 1966
"Growth is an imperative of finance, not of business itself. Companies have now moved beyond sufficiency to efficiency." Thomas Princen - The Logic of Sufficiency
The wealthy are now adding to their wealth by extracting more from the rest of us. Some (not all) of these elite see themselves as morally good and the poor as morally culpable for their own poverty. Through an inevitable narcissistic evolution, the rich have created legal mechanisms to allow freedoms and supports in the forms of tax relief and government deregulation. Business leaders knowingly responsible for the largest meltdown in global history, causing tragic upset in the lives of thousands of families (November 10, 2014), have escaped accountability and jail time. Somehow these savvy chameleons emerged to gain the trust of a new American president and reside once again at the helm of the world's largest financial corporations. This explains why the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement emerged and still simmers looking for direction.
While issues vary throughout the world, the facts conclude our global economy needs dramatic change. November 13, 2014: World Economy Worst in Two Years September 25, 2014: Deflation - The Trouble With Falling Prices How these limits of growth will manifest themselves we cannot say. Some suggest it will be an explosion of anger and hopelessness from those most negatively affected by today's trends. Violence begets violence. Let us instead focus our attention on solutions. We must establish new compelling and socially responsible choices for all people to turn to. We must set the stage for economic redistribution. A fairer system will be a more resilient system. We must endeavour to redirect our energies from accumulation and self-protection to compassion, service and equity. We must strive to correct the systems of society to work for the common good of all peoples, creatures and our planet; people need something to turn to. Falling short of this goal is not an option.Can history repeat itself?The Roman Empire evolved to tax non-elite and cause suffering to slaves, servants, tenant farmers, women, border-dwellers, conscriptable males and those who were not given tax breaks. This was accompanied by a restriction of speech, of thought, of religion. Any refusal in obedience to the emperor would result in jail, torture and ultimately, the cross. Some might argue that it is human nature to be on the underside of dominating societal machinery, of being treated less than fully human, of being less than free. Others have a case to suggest that our society has yet to reach a level of humane nature that truly cares for the living soul of every child of God.
Today, what we witness in Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan and other countries are shadows of the destructive past...one we have yet to learn from. Let's be grateful Canada has been spared this violence in the past two centuries, apart from FLQ terrorists triggering martial law in 1970 and several aboriginal conflicts. Let's pray that revolt and violence does not again reach Canadian soil. Let's pray that our business and political leaders recognize the present opportunity and necessity to be proactive advocates for the common good of every Canadian and the health and betterment our global neighbours.
Capitalism vs. Communism:
Communism is specialized in distribution but fails in production. Capitalism excels in production but fails in distribution. We need to evolve to invent a sustainable form of capitalism which can continue to be a strong and vibrant producer while ensuring the distribution of profits are shared justly throughout society. Imagine this same new formula working to serve all countries of our world on a local and global scale! Seeing this new economy emerge as a natural process is different than the traditional clash of ideologies between capitalism and communism. Change will not take place without crisis or conflict, but we must trust that a creative solution is within our grasp. The start of these solutions may begin in business, rather than politics and will proceed organically, scaling up to include other entities.
Our reality: Consumer debt is at historic highs with Canadians having the world's highest debt to income ratio. No surprise considering the stagnant incomes over the past two decades and the might of advertising and marketing strategically driven by corporations who care more for their quarterly results than the long-term financial health of their customers, society and environment they depend on. As Jeffrey Sachs summarizes, "The end result of all this consumption is a society running furiously to stay in place. The overwork by each member of society puts a burden (a negative externality) on others, who must also run hard to keep up. Consumers also run because others are running, with everybody finding themselves in a race they'd rather do without."I agree with Jeffrey Sachs when he states "My point is not to bleed the rich but to call upon them to pay a decent and responsible share of national needs. If poverty were eliminated, if all who wanted to go to college could afford to do so, if the poor lived as long as the rich, we could worry less about the responsibilities of the rich to the rest of society...We need the rich today to do their modest part to enable all of society to share in prosperity. By passing that hurdle, we would reduce the need for long-term transfers from rich to poor in the future."
The ownership revolution we are about to enter begins in the human heart. A thirst for righteousness exists. Collectively we all long for it. Dare we dream of a relational economy which measures success in terms of gross national affection and global community, that seeks to amass the appreciating capital of wise judgement, profound forethought, and deepening virtue for the sake of relationships? The economist Herman Daly suggests we should reverse our human egoism and consider our value in relation to our service to others of God's creatures. Based on his premise, we are obsessed with growth and speed to the point where we will exceed, or some might suggest already have exceeded, our environmental limits.
Are we, as individuals and as a society, ready to defect from today's definitions of 'success' and create new definitions of personal worth based on measures of faith, hope and love? As Martha Nussbaum states, creating this kind of advanced social order is an issue not of charity but of justice.
The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised. Pope Francis' Exhortation #218
Some will oppose change, especially those who are benefiting from the current economy. But there are some even within the world’s wealthiest who are recognizing the pressing need for a new economy and have the sincere desire to be part of the solution. They recognize their prosperity can and must be used for the common good. Massive layoffs in an attempt to make quarterly earnings look better is not an enduring way to care for employees in a way that will please God. Competition won't save us. Justice, the right use of power, will. Seeking prosperity without justice is suicidal.We will need to evolve monopolies and corporations in a manner that will better the lives and livelihoods of the employees, customers and environments these companies serve. We need regulation, but we will need to look beyond regulation, to ideals of fairness, justice, community, and sustainability, to an economy that in its normal functioning tends to create fair and just outcomes, benefits the many rather than the few, and enables an enduring human presence to flourish on earth. This move towards equity (fairness and justice...the outcome of wise and virtuous judgement, without prejudice, favoritism, or corruption, but with a human sense of mercy and compassion) will never mean equality (mathematical sameness). Social boundaries are of our own making. Redrawing them (evolving them) expansively over time is essential to the movement of social progress.
Solutions:
Without accepting social and political responsibilities, each of us cannot actually find fulfillment. Happiness arises not only through the individual's relationship with his/her wealth, as some economists simplistically assume, but through their relationship with others. A society of compassion, mutual help, and collective decision making is not good just for the poor, who may receive help, but also for the rich, who may give it. Each of us must make an effort to regain control of our personal judgments as individuals who must balance consumption and saving, work and leisure, individualism and membership in society. Through a return to personal and civic virtue, our lost prosperity can be regained.
"Creativity-the generation of new forms-is a key property of all living systems." Fritjof Capra
"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." Luke 14:13
"Being human must be the ethical yardstick for all economic action." This embraces the importance of respect and tolerance for others; the right to life and its development; sustainable treatment of the natural environment; the rule of law; distributive justice and solidarity; the essential values of truthfulness, honesty and reliability; and the core value of mutual esteem. Hans Kung
The global market economy must remain guided by humane purposes and not be regarded as an end to itself. We must acknowledge and appreciate our common fate as human beings and our common hope for dignity, solidarity and sustainability. This is the key point that unite world religions (and even those who have no religion) and is vastly more important that whatever might divide us."So, let us not be blind to our differences-but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." John F Kennedy
We need to listen. Listen to what people desperately need and then create the opportunities for positive change to occur. Changes must be driven from the local level...not a prepackaged one-size-fits-all remedy. All ideas are to be welcomed and aligned with the solutions and consequences they represent.
Create networks:
"We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change, instead we need to connect with kindred spirits who share a common vision. In this way, separate, disconnected local actions begin to spring up simultaneously. When they connect with each other as networks, then strengthen as communities of practice, suddenly and surprisingly a new system emerges at a greater level of scale. What can't be accomplished by politics or strategy just happens." Meg Wheatley / Marjorie Kelly
Create a Federation of Communities :
"...(need) a more efficient way of interacting which, with due regard for the sovereignty of each nation, ensures the economic well-being of all countries, not just of a few." Pope Francis Exhortation #206
"The true road to international community is that of a federation of communities-communities of communities-not the destruction of local and national communities in the serve of a single cosmopolitan world of footloose money managers who constitute not a community, but merely an interdependent, mutually vulnerable, unstable coalition of short-term interests." Herman Daly
Create a small resilience circle (see references) or combine to form an organized structure within the 99% and allies within the 1% (based on recent surveys, 65% of the elite are attuned to the need for change) to bring health and prosperity to all. The structure can include but is not limited to worker organizations, faith-rooted organizations, new civic organizations and affinity groups. Their common platform should begin with:
1) More time for what matters
2) Minimal Economic Security (ensure minimum wage is a living wage)
3) Quality Education
4) Focus on children
5) Aids to jobless
6) Poverty elimination
What's in it for the 1%?
1) Simple fairness. Humane living conditions for all ensure better lives for all.
2) Long-term self-interest in reversing the inequality death spiral. Wealthy families in other countries face kidnapping, revolution, ransom, corporate extortion and other realities yet unseen on North American soil.
3) Legacy for the next generation. Do they want to be part of the reason their children and grandchildren have to live behind walls?
4) They did not do it alone. They realize their fortunes were a result of the labour and purchases of the lower and middle class. For their future prosperity they need the assurance all levels of society prosper.
Evolve Wall/Bay Street:
Some call for an effort to destroy Wall/Bay Street, an emotional but impractical appeal. Rather we need to change the power and rules (regulations) to ensure Wall/Bay Street is aligned and adding value to Main Street. Required changes include: Break up the big banks; encourage a network of localized banks/co-ops/credit unions; ensure rigorous oversight of financial, insurance and investment industries; create a national bank for infrastructure and reconstruction. The public and political will must be rallied to overwhelm the conscious manipulative efforts of the elite. The time for change is now!
Reverse the growing income gap:
Progressive personal income taxation on Canadians earning $200,000 per year.
Wealth tax imposed on those with assets over $1,000,000.
Institute a financial speculation tax along with a transfer tax on the sale of stock shares.
Progressive taxation on inheritance over $1,000,000.
Increase corporate taxation rates and ensure earnings from companies based in Canada (domestic or foreign owned) are taxed in Canada.
Cap corporate executive earnings at a maximum 10 (or 20 depending on the economist) times the average employee's earnings based on corporate performance and accountability to stakeholders (employees, environment, customers and shareholders).
Ensure corporations operating in Canada pay their share of taxes regardless of domestic or foreign ownership.
Close tax havens, 'Jackie O' funds, and other off-shore and on-shore avoidance schemes and recover retroactive unpaid taxes from corporate and individual abusers.
Establish a luxury tax on appropriate goods and services.
Pay fair living wages instead of minimum wages throughout Canada.
Provide transparency within all ministries of government to openly share tax revenue collection and investment figures each quarter to assure citizens of Canada that all monies collected are indeed being allocated in a timely fashion to the purposes as promised by the sitting government.
Waive development charges and other fees and taxes when affordable housing is being created (minimum 15 year commitment).
Create a joyful attachment to simplicity. The ‘Shop less...live more’ movement has legitimacy in our developed nations.
The challenge is for us to have the discipline and the sincere concern for future generations to make the right choices and to live the change we wish to see.
Note the above guidelines recognize that fairness is not the same as equality. People with higher responsibilities deserve to be paid more, but we must be conscious of the scale of remuneration.Learn to live well within limitations.
Create new models of property ownership, reconnecting economic activity with the health and welfare of community.
Education:
- The average graduate from our colleges and universities carries diploma and a debt of $25,000. The resulting impact on their livelihood and lifestyle can have a ripple effect for years to come. A new form of education must be created with the inclusion and support of university and college administrations, governments, businesses and others who see the education of our young adults as a long term investment rather than a quarterly profit.
- Personalized
- Standards testing
- Career oriented
- Encourage creativity and curiosity. Stimulate minds instead of mandating what they are to think.
- Teach our kids to ask "Why?"
- Reach for higher education that has been fashioned to fit the needs for our times.
- Evolve and leverage information technology to make education and skills training accessible and affordable to all Canadians, regardless of geographic or demographic barriers.
- Shift our social mindset and behaviour from consumption to compassion, from autonomy to inter-connectedness
Our youth have been biding their time, trying to stay afloat in the face of high unemployment and little income. Inertia has given way to signs of backlash, as we witnessed during the Occupy movement and with China's Umbrella Protests. We are witnessing generational change with tolerant and optimistic 'Millennials' leading the way using the tools of networking and social media in unprecedented fashion. The 'old guard' of wealthy and political elite will eventually have no choice but give way to public demands for decency, dignity and democracy. I pray that the cost of this shift in retaliation from those in power and subsequent loss of human lives will be low.
"Too often our learning, our knowledge, and our mastery are too much concentrated on techniques and we forget about man himself." Dag Hammarskjold
Employment Retention and Creation:
- Create jobs that serve the community as a way to feed the self.
- Fair wage (or living wage) is simply enough to allow an employed person to rise above stay above the poverty line. Employers who contest fair wages will put themselves out of business. In fact the absence of fair wages is the reason they have fewer customers. As ‘downtown core’ areas of Brampton, Brantford, Kitchener and other Canadian communities continue to struggle to survive, we can’t deny that the attrition of businesses and jobs is a result of the self-inflicted migration to malls and big-box-stores imposed by crafty merchandising and marketing at the expense of better paying jobs and closer knit communities. The fate of these entities is now challenged with the exponential growth of online retail and distribution networks.
- Job creation programs need to meet the real needs of our economy.
- Apprenticeship and trades can provide a future for thousands who are otherwise left to search for careers and low paying employment
- Benchmarks and statistics must be created to monitor success of all programs and adjust the curriculum based on the evolving employment market and related demographics.
- Small and medium sized companies are invited to participate in employment subsidy programs- Inspire innovation and businesses focused on new methods of transport and energy savings to reduce our environmental footprint.
Re-engineer the corporation:
- engage in leveraged consumer action to force companies to treat employees and the environment respectfully
- promote socially responsible investing
- use shareholder strength to alter corporate behaviour
- change rules to ensure accountability within corporations
- establish legitimate shareholder power, rather than predestined management decisions
- separate board members from management to challenge and demand full accountability
- communities must have the right to challenge and change corporate activities related to taxation, subsidies, employee treatment, environmental practices and social responsibilities.
- redefine stakeholder governance- ban corporate influence in our democracy.
Create new models of business (advancing generative alternatives):
- declare the purpose of the entity 'to serve employee happiness' and root the actions of the company in relationships
- ensure people have the right to the fruits of their own labour
- give employees the right to fire their boss
- focus on managing profits, not maximizing them
- being of benefit to life through its purpose, ownership, governance and capital design
- encourage local ownership, proven to be 3 to 5 times more profitable than absentee or distant ownership.
- protect a company`s living essence from the demands of capital, ensuring it will never be sold.
- new ownership designs which promote and govern sustainable no-growth or low-growth economies.
- companies that feel alive to those within them and that help create the healthy conditions for life all around.
- being of serving to the community as a way to feed the self
- create ethical networks of entities sharing common purpose and passion
Within these structures, we create responsibility and accountability within the system, not outside of it.Examples:
- Commons ownership and governance: assets held or governed in common indivisibly by a community
- Stakeholder ownership: human stake in private enterprise eg. co-ops, partnerships, credit unions, mutual insurance companies, employee owned firms, family-owned companies
- Social Enterprise: primary social or environmental mission...can be for-profit or not-for-profit
- Mission-controlled operations: owned in conventional ways but governed in mission-oriented hands eg. foundations, trusts
- Benefit Corporations - aim to benefit society and the environment in addition to their shareholders through their governance and their actions. The key to their long term value will be succession planning
- B Corporations - declare a social purpose in their governing documents and meet independent standards of social and environmental performance.
Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Prize winner in economics, promotes a rich diversity of private-like and public-like institutions with a clear focus on local decision-making:
Design principles for Common Pool Resource (CPR) institutions
Ostrom identified eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:
These principles have since been slightly modified and expanded to include a number of additional variables believed to affect the success of self-organized governance systems, including effective communication, internal trust and reciprocity, and the nature of the resource system as a whole.
Ostrom and her many co-researchers have developed a comprehensive "Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework", within which much of the still-evolving theory of common-pool resources and collective self-governance is now located.{Wikipedia}
How do we begin?
Examples include: John Lewis Partnership; Hull Wind; Minwind; Equal Exchange, Organic Valley and other farmer cooperatives; Housing Cooperatives; Consumer co-ops; Worker Co-ops; Grameen Bank and other microfinance companies. Being of benefit is why the company exists. This living aim is woven into its purpose, ownership, governance, and capital design. It’s also the way the firm is consciously networked into the communities around it. This is a profit-making company but it isn’t profit maximizing. It offers a healthy return to capital, but its primary focus is on living returns.
2) Fair trade:
We must integrate free trade with fair trade to ensure equitable sharing of prosperity. These trade agreements must adhere to the sustainable environmental capacities of the countries involved. Deregulate barriers for small businesses to emerge and prosper throughout the world.
3) Consumer Debt:
- create living wages to allow individuals and families to break free of the poverty cycle
- create a post-secondary system that ensures employable graduates and minimizes student debt
- educate youth and adults on the importance of savings
- create tax and company incentives to stimulate savings behaviour.
4) Government Debt:
- full transparency of revenues and expenses
- take appropriate action to support and strengthen the value of our currency.
Banking:
- enhanced regulation of service charges, profitability and dividend allowances
- open borrowing levels and qualifications to reach the low to mid-income businesses
- encourage cooperative banks, credit unions, community investing and other 'public' entities
- cap CEO earnings and benefits
Insurance:
- regulation ensuring fairness to consumers and clarity between the insurance and investment divisions of companies
- cap CEO earnings and benefits
Drug: - research first to understand the source of the ailment before investing millions on 'cures'
- consider natural remedies prior to introducing drugs and the side effects and complications they introduce
- control ethics and dignity of life before, during and after testings and trials
- establish higher standards for results reporting
- transparency of government controls
- ensure doctors are not complicit with the promotion of drugs
- ban harmful drugs
- encourage harm reduction and other customized support for individuals in need
- reduce the life of patents to provide affordable medicines to those in need domestically and internationally
- cap CEO earnings and benefits.
Bio-Chemical:
- control testing and trials
- regulate the (financial and ethical) influence companies have within universities
- consider all chemicals dangerous until proven otherwise
- patent time frames need to be shortened to allow generic drugs to compete
- industry regulation- cap CEO earnings and benefits
Infrastructure:
- allocate necessary funds to rehabilitate and proactively maintain infrastructure.
Manufacturing:
- as required, print more Canadian $ to reduce the value of our currency.
- focus on the future to products that will enhance our changing societal and environment needs.
- cap CEO earnings and benefits
Symbiosis:
Explore and establish mechanisms where one industry utilizes the waste of another company. An example would be redirecting steam generated from a power plant to heat nearby homes, offices and factories (Kalundborg Denmark). Partnerships of this nature require stable relationships and ownership.
Discerning thoughts:
"Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security...In the last analysis, such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals...Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government." Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Excerpts from Pope Francis' Exhortation, 2013: Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. #53
I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule. #56
I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human being. #58
"At this moment our imperial elites are casting themselves as the defenders of our democracy...Our business elites have cloaked themselves in the rhetoric of the unfettered free market and of the inevitable juggernaut of corporate globalization, justifying an obscene exacerbation of wealth inequality." Cornell West
"We should have learned by now that a world of glaring inequality-between countries and within them-where many millions of people endure brutal oppression and extreme misery-is never going to be a fully safe world, even for its most privileged inhabitants." Kofi Annan December 2003
"The equity gap that separates the rich from the poor renders them enemies rather than neighbours, so everyone is caught up in the vicious cycle of terror and counter-terror, violence and counter-violence, hate and counter-hate. [We can only escape by walking away from the dominators and following a weaponless prophet from Galilee]" Brian McLaren Everything Must Change
"The right to make a living comes before the right to make a killing. The fairness for the many is more important than maximizing by the few." Marjorie Kelly
"The relationship of people to their work is one of the central next strands in the human story. It`s a story of natural rights, human rights." William Grieder
"We believe labour should employ capital, rather than capital employ labour." Ken Temple and David Ellerman
"In a nutshell:(1) the rules of the economy have been changed to benefit asset owners at the expense of wage earners, and (2) these rule changes have benefited global corporations at the expense of local businesses. We should have an economy that works for everyone, not just the richest one percent." Chuck Collins
"Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in the world-and stop being its apologist." Bono
"We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy. But we cannot have both. Louis Brandies (1856-1941)
"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies...A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth." Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
"More potent than school or even at home, as a moral influence, is the whole structure of society and especially its economic structure. This fixes for all their place in the general scheme; and the way in which they gain and keep that place of necessity determines a great deal of their conduct and profoundly influences their outlook upon life." William Temple 1881-1944
"...there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil...Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth." Plato (c. 424-348 BCE)
“ Lord, Jesus, preserve in us the love and practice of simplicity which, by keeping us humble, makes us more like you and draws and saves souls.” Pope John XXIII
Chapter 3: Our Government
The information below is not shared to further divide our political framework, but to enlighten all Canadians to the state of our evolution and inspire readers to take action, to enter dialogue with their Members of Parliament and other politicians or future politicians who can make a difference. Perhaps it will even inspire a few readers, possibly you, to become politicians!
“responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation” USCCB 2007
Inequality wrecks our democracy and civic life. It erodes public services, often at a time when investment in infrastructure and social services are needed most. So called 'austerity measures' are a clever disguise for a less caring government, handcuffed by tax breaks given to the wealthy over a period of time.
With the exception of some wonderful men and women who have challenged the norm, often risking their political career, political will for the common good has been sadly lacking in the past two decades. As a result of federal and provincial policies enacted since the 1980's through 1990's we have witness stagnating incomes, inadequate housing, increasing health care concerns and a sense of surrender in minds and hearts of the majority of Canadians.
Reference March 18th 2014 Globe and Mail article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/government-policies-have-widened-canadas-income-gap/article17517631/#dashboard/follows/
Sectors of our governments at all levels are too often controlled by elites with big-budget backroom influence. The mandate of recent governments has been to look out for the natural resources that lie beneath the surface of our country at the expense of the human resources that walk on top of its surface. Our governments and other governments throughout the world cannot continue to marginalize the masses for the betterment of the elite few.
When one steps back to study the recent years and months of political activity and premeditated agendas, one can't help but see a focus on scandal, delay, prorogation, cynicism and blame. Behaviour within procedural chambers of many governments has been overwhelmingly self-centred and void of affirmative action towards the common good. Reluctance to address social welfare needs fall on ears of austerity as a result to cutbacks on capital gains taxes and corporate taxes. When pressed to the wall, a funding announcement is made, often redirecting dollars already allocated to other programs and nowhere near enough financially nor functionally to effectively address the issue.
Why is this important? Because a good justice (or equity) system is expensive and therefore depends on the taxes of a healthy prosperity system. But a nation cannot achieve a healthy prosperity system without a good equity system. The definition of prosperity and equity working cohesively together is 'Integrity'. When a nation curtails its taxation, the programs impacted the most are those serving those without a voice. Politicians, concerned about their four year (or less) window before re-election are compelled to reach for measures of austerity and thus reduce or terminate essential services previously provided by the state. All integrity of the system and those it no longer serves is lost.
"...a proper market-economy operates with rules, borders, and equitable local ownership under the public oversight of democratically accountable governments." David Korten
American scholar Cornell West inherently summarizes our Canadian political landscape as he shares his view on the US situation:
"political leadership is confined to two (possibly three in Canada) parties that are both parasitic on corporate money interests...the most powerful corporations are delegated magical powers of salvation rather than relegated to democratic scrutiny concerning both the ethics of their business practices and their treatment (or mistreatment) of workers. This largely unexamined dogma (of most political parties worldwide)...yields an obscene level of wealth inequality, along with its corollary of intensified class hostility and hatred. It also redefines the terms of what we should be striving for in life, glamorizing materialistic gain, narcissistic pleasure, and the pursuit of narrow individualistic preoccupations-especially for young people here and abroad."
Perhaps this page will be a source for optimism for some and a source of action for others. You can make a difference...we can all make a difference...together!
The key questions are:
1) How do we prosper, as a country and as a global leader?
2) How do we maintain order and keep ourselves, everyone, secure through this transition?
3) How do we find a new sense of meaning and purpose in life?
While Canada's three main political parties struggle to distinguish themselves from each other, they have chosen to take the spotlight off of those they serve and instead concentrate on balancing budgets and shoring up corporate supporters and beneficiaries. It is time for wholesale and wholesome change.
Government, which may consist of existing or new parties, must rise to accept their responsibility to serve the common good, to create that kind of society in which hatred will die away, because when their is hope, purpose and recognition, then hatred does die away. In the past, this society has been called the 'Great Society'. But no society will ever be built as long as there exist gross inequalities of income, opportunity and status. To remove these is going to cost a lot of money, a lot of thought, a lot of work. We shall never build the 'Great Society' as long as we pour our money into armaments. And what is hardest of all, we shall have to endure hatred while we are building it. While we are building it we are going to be hated, cursed, stoned, shot at, perhaps even killed, by some of the very people for whom we are building it. We are going to have to go on building while we are being hated. But the task has to be undertaken. A key element of the challenge is to organize a great 'army', not to fight the enemies abroad but those at home, using the energy and idealism of young and not-as-young people, many of whom will willingly devote their lives to such a cause.
Decades of mistreatment of aboriginal Canadians, including recent statements made by our government at the United Nations, have to end.
Downloading (passing budget and planning responsibilities to provincial, territorial and municipal governments) has removed ownership and accountability from our federal government on every front. Housing, health care, employment and social welfare have become fractured and regionalized with no leadership from our central government. Provincial and territorial governments have worked to meet the needs of their constituents with varying levels of success. But these efforts have been siloed and self-centred, with a line up of agencies and other groups relying on very necessary financial support gathering annually to beg for uncertain federal funding. How can programs, supports and administrative objectives be met under such precarious conditions?
Until 2017, Canada was the only G-8 nation without a National Housing Strategy. The NHS has started to make inroads but has a long way to go to meet and exceed its targets. Our country needs a National Health Care agency and other such overseeing bodies. Proposals to create such entities have been voted down by various parties in very recent history.
Non-profits, charities and philanthropists have grown to fill the void left by the disappearance of government services. The result is yet another economic machine that relies on contributions from all Canadians to support those most in need. Ironically, those who contribute are often those who have no savings of their own! And then our finance minister encourages us to start saving for retirement!
Government Spending: With technology available to everyone and the reality that the governments work for the people they serve, transparency of spending and budgeting is now mandatory. While some leaders have run for election on the promise of clarity, all have fallen short of delivering on their promise. In fact, some have fallen further into the lack of accountability.
Scientific Freedom: Funding the study and discovery of our natural environment makes sense when we continue to dig further into the earth we rely on for sustenance. Our scientists, employed by our governments and other bodies, paid for by taxpayers, must report on their findings and be heeded by governing parties. Muzzling the communication of the findings of their research will only hurt the conditions for life and wellbeing of future generations.
Justice: Our jails now hold more prisoners than ever before and new jails are being built throughout the country while crime rates are actually declining. Our focus on penalizing the criminal without the opportunity for contrite repentance and rehabilitation is a disservice to society who must bear the high cost of these long term imprisonments. Meanwhile hundreds of inmates are waiting two or three years for their remand sentence, often while innocent of the crime they are charged with, again at the cost of taxpayers. Monies being allocated to modern prisons and operation and maintenance of these facilities will be better spent eradicating the prevalence of poverty (financial, emotional and spiritual) in our communities. Give a person an education that leads to employment; give a person a living wage; create homes that are dignified and harmonious with the neighbours around, and that person will not be swayed by illegal acts and addictions in a desperate attempt to get out of the challenges he or she has to deal with.
Military Direction:
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born." Francois Fenelon
Violence must be overcome by mercy, wisdom, hope, generosity, courage, compassion, faith and peace.
Canada was once recognized as a peacekeeping nation, consulted and relied upon for providing humanitarian support in conflicted regions of our world. Recent government decisions reflect a move away from that foundation of fraternal care and through a variety of spending gaffs, a hesitant ambition to equip our defense forces with stellar arms with a shoestring budget.
"..the willingness to face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process...this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity...preserves what is valid and useful on both sides." Pope Francis' Exhortation #227 and 228
“Blessed are the peacemakers!” Matthew 5:9
Canada can restore its position as a global peace leader by promoting messages of justice rather than physical weaponry.
A few facts about the United States of America.:
Even before 9/11 20% of the US fiscal budget (more than a half-trillion dollars) was for defense. At the time the US debt was $5.6 trillion of which $2.9 trillion was military related.
By 2003, the US was spending $2 billion per day on the military. The US was spending more on military than the military spending of the next 25 countries combined! Economic self-interest has fueled a machine that will be a challenge to slow down, let alone stop and decrease. The axis of evil has been and continues to be a gold mine to many industrialists, including those manufacturing and selling weapons.
Nuclear weaponry prevails as a global threat to make reading this a waste of time.
The US spends $100,000,000 per day to keep its weapons poised and ready for use in a preemptive strike.
Of the 2 million US soldiers sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, 500,000, or 25%, have had and are experiencing challenges reverting to civilian life.
"specific evil action is not required to wipe out vast sections of humanity, but simple apathy." Duane Clinker
"All that is necessary for our contemporary global crisis to destroy us is for enough good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
What if 10% of the current US military budget was diverted and invested in foreign aid and development? It would care for the basic needs of the entire world's poor. Only .5% of the US military budget would cut African hunger in half by 2015 (figures based on 2007 data). As of 2012 (compiled 2013), US is 19th among the most developed nations in foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product (0.19%). This compares to Canada's investment of .32% and Sweden's contribution of 1%.
And what if our brilliant minds were focused on the greater good? Arkansas senator William Fulbright has also identified the 'brain drain' in which brilliant minds are used to develop weapons ("sheer non-productive assets') when these same minds could have been focused on alternative energy sources to reduce our dependency on oil.
And what if we focused on the domestic needs of our country? Infrastructure throughout North America is in need of restoration. The labour of those in military uniforms could be easily diverted to repair, replace and create better civic utilities to serve generations to come. And the same initiative will serve to employ thousands of civilians currently searching for employment as a result of a jobless 'recovery' from the stimulus band-aided recession.
The less we have to fight to be safe from one another, the more we can concern ourselves with safety from disease and epidemic, safety from natural disaster, and safety from our own lack of virtue and wisdom.
While we are but a shadow of the U.S. in size, Canada must find a new path and put its minds and energies towards higher ground and enter into dialogue intent upon peaceful solutions to world issues.
Government, in whatever form it takes, must be run by people with values, morals, civil tolerance, respectful and caring about the dignity of every human person and the environment we support and that supports us.
Solutions:
1) An ideological shift in which our markets and governments operate as complementary pillars of the economy.
2) While corporations are invaluable to society, they have become a threat to society by using their lobbying power to dictate terms of legislation and regulations. The license to operate as a company does not include a license to pollute our politics.
3) Today there is little public deliberation and input in the political process. Key policy decisions are made behind the backs of the public, often in direct contradiction to public opinion. True deliberation at all levels of society must be regained and maintained, deliberation that redefines politics as honest and transparent group problem solving grounded in mutual respect and shared values.
Create justice systems that work for the common good and prosperity of all.
Tax benefits and subsidies promoting married couples to bring two or more children into our world.
Campaign finance reform allowing voices of the poor themselves to be heard in the political process.
Ban the presence of corporate persuasion and corruption within our democracy.
Develop long-term secure mandates for poverty eradication and enhanced health care and infrastructure over a defined period of time which must flow from one elected party to the next.
Step up to meet and exceed respectful and dignified treatment of all aboriginal Canadians.
Jeffrey Sachs outlines:
1) Set clear goals and benchmarks
2) Mobilize expertise (Create departments for sustainable development, climate change, international economic development, national infrastructure and more!)
3) Make multi-year plans, opening the door to extended terms of office based on achievements
4) Be mindful of the far future recognizing evolutions in technology, science, environmental threats, demography and aging.
5) End corporatocracy by i) providing public campaign financing, ii) providing free media time, iii) banning campaign contributions from lobbying firms, iv) barring senior federal employees from employment in lobbying firms and from sitting on boards or serving corporations for a period of time and v) banning campaign donations by corporations and the wealthy, no-bid government contracts, deregulation and other perquisites of power
6) Restore public management by resisting privatization and acquisition of public services and properties. We need more government...more competent and honest government.
7) Decentralize to break through regional barriers (both perceived and real) to encourage communication and cooperation led by communities and supported by provincial, territorial and federal governments.
Sachs goes on to suggest that it will be the rise of a credible third (fourth in Canada) party, focused heavily on removing money from politics, that will sooner or later break the duopoly (triopoly in Canada). Economic reform and political reform must go hand in hand. Without one there cannot be the other.
Create an interdependent, mutually committed, global peer network organized to guide decisions made by IMF, UN and other vital organizations because "Governance, not government is the key to effective management of the global system because networks, not nations, are the emergent powers of the future." Jim Garrison and JF Rischard
Discerning thoughts:
Excerpts from Pope Francis' Exhortation, 2013:
It is the responsibility of the State to safeguard and promote the common good of society. Cathecism, Compendium for Social Justice and Peace)..This role, at present, calls for profound social humility. #240
(Church)supports those programs which best respond to the dignity of each person and the common good. In doing this, she proposes in a clear way the fundamental values of human life and convictions which can then find expression in political activity. #241
We need to pay attention to the global so as to avoid narrowness and banality. Yet we also need to look to the local, which keeps our feet on the ground. #234
"Without God, humans can only organize against each other." Henri de Lubac, French Jesuit
"Freedom is not the power to do whatever we like. Instead, freedom is having the right to do what we ought. Freedom and goodness are inextricably related, One becomes free only by becoming better." Lord Acton
"The Church is not in the business of designing or running governments. The Church is in the business of forming the kinds of people who can design and run governments in which FREEDOM leads to genuine human flourishing." George Weigel
'A democratic political community is built on, and sustained by, a democratic culture" George Weigel
"At this moment our imperial elites are casting themselves as the defenders of our democracy...Our business elites have cloaked themselves in the rhetoric of the unfettered free market and of the inevitable juggernaut of corporate globalization, justifying an obscene exacerbation of wealth inequality." Cornell West
"True democracy is more than a particular set of institutions. It is a living practice expressed through living economies, politics and cultures. Because life is a never ending process of self-renewal in pursuit of unrealized potential, this living practice leads to the continuous evolution of society's underlying institutional forms in response to changing imperatives and opportunities. This is the lesson to which we now stand poised to give expression. Democracy was an audacious experiment in the eighteenth century. This is the twenty-first century. It is time to bring democracy to full fruition." David C. Korten The Great Turning
Chapter 4) Our Health
While Canada has one of the best universal health care programs in the world, it has room for improvement. Excessive wait-times for specialists and services need to be addressed and aligned to meet today's changing demographics and needs. Many communities have shortages of family doctors and nursing staff. Many of our medical graduates move to practice in other countries. We need to create compelling reasons to ensure our graduating medical students stay in Canada to become our professionals and, at the same time, open doors to qualified professionals from abroad to practice in Canada with minimal barriers. Coverage for life-enhancing medications for those suffering cancers and other ailments continue to be excluded from government and insurance companies, leaving individuals and families to bear the burden of thousands of dollars monthly for treatment and dignity.
Inequality makes us sick.
Unequal communities have greater rates of heart disease, asthma, mental illness, cancer and other morbid diseases. Our physical health continues to deteriorate with obesity, diabetes, cancers and other diseases at historic highs and affecting all ages of our population. At the same time, mental health concerns have become a mainstay in a society lacking work/life balance and always-increasing performance expectations.
Evidence by psychologist Tim Kasser reveals in his 2002 report ``The High Price of Materialism`` that when people organize their lives around the pursuit of wealth, they actually undermine their well-being. People with strong materialistic values experience more anxiety and depression, greater alcohol and drug use, and problems with intimacy. Their increasing wealth not only fails to satisfy them but also distracts from the things that would satisfy. Kasser finds that our genuine needs are for security, efficacy, connectedness, autonomy, and authenticity. Instead of feeling empathy with others, people feel competitive. Instead of feeling free, they feel pressured and anxious. The end result is lower vitality and life satisfaction.
"Stress (which can affect us physically) may be as much a question of a compromise of values as it is a matter of time pressure and fear of failure." Harold Kushner
"Happiness comes in the moments when we feel most alive...when we are most free." Christopher Alexander
Prescriptions have become the medical answers for our physical and mental challenges without determining the source of patients' problems. Drug companies have a vested interest in our blind faith in their products, reflected in their protection of patent rights and timeframes, slick marketing and active lobby groups. Quarterly results take precedent over societal and happiness.The changes in diets, stressors, technology and pastimes have enabled the diseases we face today to take hold. These, again, are man made and can thus be reversed. But it will take the will of parents, caregivers, politicians and society (voters) to stop the counterproductive habits we have embraced and truly reach for healthier sustainable options.
"[Jesus] strongly suggests in Matthew 6:25-34 that anxiousness in us is caused because our scale of values is wrong. To commit oneself to God is to make oneself an instrument of his peace. In acting for him we do not have so much time to worry about ourselves. In the end we may cease to worry about ourselves altogether." Alan Paton 1903-1988
"Happiness is indeed to be had from things, but only things that are contemplated or appreciated." Josef Pieper 1904-1997
"The present state of the world calls for a moral and spiritual revolution, revolution in the name of of personality, of men, of every single person. This revolution should restore the hierarchy of values, now quite shattered, and place the the value of human personality above the idols of production, technics, the State, race, nationality, the collective." Nicholas Berdyaev 1874-1948[In response to a friend who wished him a happy Easter when his wife was gravely ill]
"I like to see happiness and to see happy people, especially happy children. I hope they may grow up happy also, but if I had to choose, I would rather see them brave." Alan Paton
It is time to redefine happiness. Our culture has succeeded to blind us, to deafen us, to dope us. Studies prove that money does not create lasting happiness. Authentic relationships of strong communities are better predictors of happiness and emotional health than the size of one's paycheck or bank account. The joy in the eyes and hearts of children in impoverished Africa outweigh the consumption-ravaged desires of so-called 'developed' worlds. It is a fact that less can be more. Growth becomes an abstraction and then an addiction as we are told that a life of success requires climbing the ladder to a point where you can't see your family let alone talk to them. Possession with contentment and appreciation becomes true happiness. People throughout the ages including Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Phillip Neri have proven that simplicity and faith, with an ever-present touch of humour, are vital ingredients for lasting happiness. We all need to stop, be thankful and account for what we already have and share, in terms of relationships, because what we already have is what really counts. This thought puts a whole new perspective on the popular saying "You're richer than you think". Through this sincere appreciation we bond to our heart the source of these gifts-God.
Solutions:
Be cheerful. God prefers cheerful believers and has given us all we need to put life’s trials into perspective.
Enhance universal health care to reduce wait times and address the needs of our changing demographic. Determine the root cause of disease and ailments and work to address and correct these issues while scaling back on the bandaid remedy of pills and potions.
Education: Learn what we are actually feeding our bodies and discern what is healthy and what is diseased. Then collectively challenge and compel industry and government to reduce/illiminate harmful pesticides, preservatives and other harmful ingredients and focus on nutrition.
Exercise: Our bodies, our minds and our spirit.
Social encounters: Communal time: with family, friends and new relations. Discover the good in everyone and what you can do to make someone's life better. While this can be confused with ‘social media’, there is no substitute for eye contact and sharing an experience together rather than through a computer or smart phone. Let’s take the time to care.
"We can do small things with great love." Mother Teresa
Diet:
- restrict advertising to children
- promote awareness of not only fat but also sugar, sodium and chemical content of products
- regulate and assess the impact of genetically modified food in our system. Assume all ingredients to be dangerous until convincingly proven otherwise
Health Tax:
Every week there is a different “Run For The Cure” created and marketed to inspire us to gather monies to support companies searching for cures for cancers and other diseases. A greater ambition, outlined in the documentary “Pink Ribbons, Inc.” would be a “Run For The Cause” to put our focus on what we are ingesting that has resulted in increased rates of cancers, ADHD, allergies and other dramatic irregularities compared to those of populations only 2 generations ago. Identifying the cause will be a necessary first step towards finding the cure.
As with cigarettes, establish a health tax on all foods known to be dangerous for human consumption, adding to the ailments of individuals in the short and long term. These would currently include sodas, snack foods, fast foods and other high-sugar/sodium/fat products. Government transparency will ensure funds raised from these taxes flow directly to the health care supports and services and education required to change our habits.
Rest:
Studies now confirm adequate sleep and weekly relief from the daily work schedule will prolong life and make the journey more enjoyable! Is society willing to ‘take back the Sabbath’, to actual close stores for one day a week, to encourage and defend the merit of quality family time? If we were given that day, would families actually be brave enough to set aside their phones and other technologies and reconnect with their loved ones in person? Would each of us find some precious moments in every day for silence, for discernment, for meditation and prayer? The road to sainthood is a different path for each of us. But the road cannot be built on a good foundation without a relationship with God who we must consistently and humbly thank, praise and abide by.
Four Things that Bring Great Peace (From Chapter 23 of The Imitation of Christ):
1) Strive, my friend, to do another’s will rather than your own.
2) Always prefer to have less than more.
3) Always seek the lower place and be submissive in all things.
4) Always wish and pray that God’s will may be entirely fulfilled in you.
“Drop each word of prayer into your well of quiet.” Pope John XXIII"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." St. Augustine
The Sabbath:
"Those who trample the sabbath will also trample the poor because they will never grant to the poor the rest from their labours the sabbath requires." Richard H. Lowery
The sabbath, when used effectively, removes anxieties, creates trust and provides rest and comfort.
Reading:
We are what we read. Search for books and articles in either paper or online form, to inform, inspire and ignite the passion for a life well lived. Find a balance that is right for you between fiction and non-fiction. Allow your mind to open doors to new ideas, challenge old beliefs and search for ways to better the lives of others through your words and deeds.
Prayer:
Prayer is nutritional for the soul. It gives us a desire for God. Saint Augustine said, “God wills that our desire should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what he is prepared to give.” While meditation serves to calm the mind and body, prayer allows us to connect with our soul and to God. The power of prayer over meditation is that what we do and what we fail to do is recognized and supported by a forgiving and compassionate God.
Along with prayer comes an examination of our conscience. It has been said that an unexamined life is not worth living. When we take the time to study what we have done and what we have not done, we learn from our experience and become more effective and efficient in following what we believe to be God’s will.The value of religious exercises is priceless. Spiritual exercise, done on a daily basis, faithfully adhered to, tones the soul, strengthens mind and will, and increase our capacity for virtue. Set aside time for prayer and create the foundation for inner peace and patience. As faith develops in our lives, we will experience a growing assurance and conviction about our relationship to God.
Employment:
Entitlement has emerged as a constant in recent decades. For a variety of reasons, employees have entered the workforce with an eye to what is in it for them...how can they best benefit from the work experience (likely short-term) before moving on to their next job? While our economy has taken on a ‘survival of the fittest’ atmosphere, are we strong enough to realize that the true success in a career will not be based on ‘what I got out of it’ but instead ‘what added value do I contribute to the clients I serve and the employer I work with?’
Inherent with this change in employee attitude, employers, especially corporations, must turn 180 degrees and grow their future success by viewing their employees as members, as partners, as business-builders. Dignified employment includes a safe workplace and a wage geared to meeting today’s costs of living. This fresh mindset will embrace employees as trusted colleagues and collaborators, ready to convey customers’ needs and wants to decision makers who are open to listening and guiding the company to new levels of service and productivity. Throughout the transition, every person employed will be remunerated and provide guidance to the future growth of the entity. By removing a culture of chopping heads to meet quarterly targets and replacing it with a culture of growing our team worthy of investing in to be their best in every aspect of our company-client relationship, the future will be brighter built on trust and sincerity, something we all so desperately need to recapture.
Addictions:
As mentioned earlier, addictions fill a void left by a lack of faith. Our character is formed throughout our childhood and challenged for the rest of our lives. Temptations urge us to take refuge in food, gambling, work, greed, gaming, sex and other hedonistic pastimes in a shallow effort to fill a void in our heart and our life. Breaking free from one or more of these addictions can be a daunting task but never an impossible one. Recognizing the ailment is the first step to recovery. Seek support from trusted friends and family, welcome the presence of groups who share your same challenges, and discover the true joy faith can provide to replace the vice with virtue.
Here in Ontario we celebrate and glorify our Liquor Control Board. Sadly the rates of alcohol abuse and minors using alcohol as part of overall addictions is nothing to celebrate in our province or elsewhere. Attend any high school post-prom party and witness the realities of our young adults starving for meaning. Legalizing marijuana and creating a similar 'Control Board' for pot opens the door to further abuse and social acceptance. Evidence proves use of marijuana has long lasting side effects which only add stress to individuals, families and health care systems. When organizations such as CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) suggest a 'controlled legalization and regulation' of cannabis I question their true motives. Why should they play on the fact 40% of Canadians have tried the drug to justify a full-scale roll out of its availability? Health Canada 2012 research on abuse of all substances including marijuana confirms less than 10% cannabis usage in all age groups with little change over the past decade. Why do they think that by providing a 'quality controlled' product, all other suppliers of cannabis will disappear? The creation of pot stores will simply provide criminals with a platform to expand their business based on price point and the newly perceived notion that pot is OK if the government is selling it! Our governments and health agencies apparently fail to grasp that the use of marijuana is not a systemic issue, but rather a moral one, one not based on moving towards God, but instead away from Him. If our body is the 'temple of God' (1 Corinthians 6:19), why do governments and agencies suggest we should allow the ingestion of contaminants? Proper education, effective jail time for dealers and alternative holistic support mechanisms for those addicted to marijuana are the healthy solutions to our 40% 'trial' rate. The same strategy can be successfully implemented to reduce and eventually eradicate alcohol and other substance abuse addictions.
Chapter 5) Our Environment
Global warming is a reality. Extreme weather events featuring prolonged droughts, intense precipitation, heat waves and cold fronts are now becoming commonplace. Arctic sea ice and permafrost has disappeared during summer months. Documented evidence of decay are all around us. Extreme storm events, desertification, rising ocean levels and human and agricultural epidemics are affecting every corner of our world. Beyond the immediate impact on food prices, productivity and life disruptions, we must recognize that we are in control of our own destiny. The choices we make today personally, politically, corporately and globally will determine the health of our planet for generations to come. As Gandhi says, "We must become the change we want to see."
"The market's own mindless expansion, effective as it is in the short term, inevitably brings its own long term problems as it further taxes the planet's carrying capacity beyond the already bad overload coming from the population increase. It's not a question of ideology, but of physical limits." Jean-Francois Rischard
"If you bear the costs and get the rewards of your activity, you have a responsible relationship to your work. If someone else bears the costs, you have an irresponsible relationship." David Ellerman
The idea that the economy can grow as fast as possible means we will all be better off, without ever having to deal with the consequences of shortages in resources or toxicity from waste is reaching,or may have already reached, its litmus test.The problem is the unwillingness of many (not all) corporations and countries to be accountable for damage they cause as they seek their own self-interest. While everyone celebrates what they contribute to the gross national product, nobody measures their share of the gross national destruction. These entities are accountable only to themselves, maximizing profit without consequences or costs. They reflect the same nature as psychopaths as outlines in the documentary "The Corporation":
1) They show a callous unconcern for the feelings of others
2) They display an incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
3) They show reckless disregard for the safety of others
4) They manifest habitual deceitfulness, lying and conning others when it is profitable to do so-even if they claim it is 'fair and balanced' and devoid of spin.
5) They fail to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours.
6) They demonstrate an incapacity to experience guilt and, as a result, continue in the five previous patterns indefinitely.
Corporations live for a single bottom line: profit for shareholders, without concern for the common ecological good, the common social good and the ultimate good under the gaze of God. They collectively engage in pleasurable and profitable behaviours with undesired consequences and either avoid the consequences or clean them up later. They indulge in short term pleasure or profits without regard for long term wisdom.
September 5, 2014: Canada leads the world in forest degradation!
"For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" Mark 8:36
Today every life support system of earth is in decline. A sad legacy for the generations that follow to deal with, if they have the strength and capacity to do so.
In 2008, Global Trends 2025:A Transformed World, produced by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, outlined:
Is there political will? 83% of Americans say there have to be stricter environmental laws and regulations to protect the environment (Pew Study 2010). 71% agree that the federal government should "regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an attempt to reduce global warming" (Washington Post survey 2011). 66% concur that renewable energy is a better long-term investment than fossil fuels (Rasmussen 2011).
Solutions:
Create a Canadian national strategy to meet or exceed the greenhouse gas emission cuts announced by America recently and ensure the guidelines are enforced. Recognize that Canada's previous promises have been ignored and broken. Today we have the unique opportunity to become a global leader for environmental change. This leadership can only occur when we accept our responsibility as stewards of the earth seriously. The resulting benefit to our environment, economy and 'quality of life' will be cherished for generations to come. Let's get in control of the health of our future today!Tax carbon to challenge users and abusers to develop and implement new sustainable energies. Similar taxes will apply to companies generating other pollutants and toxins such as nitrates.
Education: Change the conversation from an environmental crisis to an overconsumption crisis.
Recognize that we have an obligation to future people, which inherently requires new visions and a new way which are sustainable and not suicidal.
We need to consume less and become more self-sufficient, individually and collectively (ie. localized trades, food sourcing, social networks).
Elinor Ostron, 2009 Nobel Prize winner, sees local control as key to human sustenance:
Environmental protection
"Ostrom cautioned against single governmental units at global level to solve the collective action problem of coordinating work against environmental destruction. Partly, this is due to their complexity, and partly to the diversity of actors involved. Her proposal was that of a polycentric approach, where key management decisions should be made as close to the scene of events and the actors involved as possible.
{Wikipedia}
Accountability - The Kyoto accord, actively negotiated and signed by Canada in 1997 and ratified in parliament in 2002, expected Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. Instead our GHG's increased 24% from 1990 to 2008. In 2009, the Copenhagen Accord, signed by Canada, expected a reduction of GHG emission from 2005 to 2020. Within two years our government backed out of its global commitment because USA and China (who collectively generate 41% of GHG) had not signed.
Further to this, scientists working for us (through our federal government) have been and continue to be muzzled whenever their evidence clarifies the damage our government is allowing to our habitat. Cancers and malignant growth in fish, wildlife and humans residing around the perimeter of our tar/oil sands projects are immediate examples of the blind eye our government and the corporations that lobby the leaders of our nation continue to subdue.
Canada must lead by example, regardless of what other countries choose to do (or not do) and move forward with research and technology that will create new fuel options and arrest the blatant destruction of natural environments and ecosystems.
We must change our corporate mandate to one of compassion and doing no harm. To providing products and services which avoid depleting our natural resources and serve to enrich the lives of those who receive them (consumers) and
Local food production is a part of the solution to the hidden costs of transporting produce and commodities from one side of the world to the other. A new industry of localized farms and support industries that arise with the creation of this network will reduce our carbon footprint and recognize our responsibility and reliance on our environment around us.
Replace internal combustion Engines: The brain drain of university and college graduates into the financial sector has taken attention and effort away from creating and developing new modes of carbon-free transportation. The engine created in the 1800‘s has sucked enough natural resources from our earth and spoiled enough of our atmosphere. Canada’s new focus on these methods will allow our country to emerge as a world leader in sustainable transit as well as alternative fuel sources and the affiliated industries that will spawn from the new directions we consciously choose to take.
Continue to reduce energy usage by changing habits, recycling, reusing and reducing consumption of our precious resources.
Review and revise our work/home orientation. Long commutes and longer working hours affect the health of our planet and our families.
Chapter 6) Our Global Responsibility
"No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable-and we believe they can do it again." John F Kennedy
What are the most important global problems? Here are the findings of two recent surveys:
Copenhagen Consensus:
1) Hunger and Malnutrition
2) Climate Change
3) Conflicts
4) Financial Instability
5) Water and sanitation
6) Trade barriers
7) Population/Migration
8) Communicable diseases
9) Education
10) Governance and corruption
Millennium Development Goals:
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2) Achieve universal primary education
3) Promote gender equality and empower women
4) Reduce child mortality
5) Improve maternal health
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7) Ensure environmental sustainability
8) Develop a global partnership for development
Solutions:
Education of children and women
Improved health of children, women and men
Developing social security for older citizens
Wise aid....with ideas generated locally and enhanced through accountable partnerships and government and corporate transparency
Wise debt relief for developing nations inherent with government reform and performance benchmarks. Short and long term expectations to ensure the education and health of every citizen. Again, developed nations must not only expect these standards, but also lead by example.
Respect for environmental limits in terms of both resource consumption and population growth.
Fair wages and fair or free trade with countries accepting and adopting government reforms and accountability.
Create and sustain a healthy, productive balance of competition and cooperation in an interconnected society.
Strive for mediated solutions rather than military ones within existing and future conflicts.
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