Poverty Awareness in York Region

Mcguinty Mannequin cross Ontario tour in Aurora

Recently I traveled to Toronto in anticipation of the screening of the Put Food in the Budget campaign's "Premier Mcguinty mannequin tour". The campaign, of which I'd been an attending and participating member of, is a cross Ontario group lead by educated and experienced leaders and involving those with lived low income experience. The thing I'd liked about the group, besides the fact the ideas we
came up with were usually well executed, was that they included those with experience and actually used their input - unlike other groups or forums or participation events I've been to where they go through the motions but never actually use participants' viewpoints or input, just the appearances of doing so. Something like the Ontario government did with its poverty reduction strategy hearings. I call it pandering. Then they use those who they are purported to be helping as their mouthpieces to attract attention and / or to show worthiness for continued funding from associated groups - like charities do to vulnerable people when they get them to do their bidding through 'testimonials' after which they get rewarded usually.

Eyes on Toronto

Programs and ideas are best generated from the community on out, and particularly when dealing with a community barely surviving. They will know barriers for people as they themselves have often experienced it or know someone who has. That's why their input is THE MOST critical part of any plan and is exactly why the Put Food in the Budget campaign completely missed the mark by producing a movie that excluded using excerpts from all the communiteis who submitted video footage. They used people to further their cause( and name) by doing the bidding in communities to promote the mannequin campaign and went around with "him" introducing him to community members and taping interactions with "him". In our case we gave video footage of everything from Mcguinty visiting a community dinner to seniors telling him off, to a kid with mental health issues speaking off camera with the mannequin "listening" to a community movie. We even had footgage of him helping at a foodbank as well as bike riding all of which could have been played with music layed underneath but nothing.

PFIB campaign fights for more social assistance from the Ontario budget

" Mike," I'd said to the movements director Balkwill, " This is embarrassing. You're supposed to be about inclusiveness, surely you could have and should have included at least 5 or 10 seconds from everyone!". I wasn't the only one, some had traveled from as far as Thunderbay to see no northern inclusion. Very disappointing. Mike was understanding and said he'd bring it to the "committee" and that some technical issues had been involved.

"Committee?" I thought I was going to be part of the editing process? Did this committee have anyone of experience on it? Because if they had, this never would have happened." In addition I have produced and hosted a number of shows for TV and some film work too, as well as went to school for tv and film production so figured my professional experience could be utilized too. Guess not. I left without watching it and disillusioned.Was I being bamboozled again by another pandering do-gooder outfit that really didn't care about the "cause"?

"Do The Math" one of the actions we helped PFIB campaign implement

For 4 years I chaired a program (and helped start) called Operation Sparrow  It is likely the most user friendly and dignified model of programs distribution out there having now distributed 10's of thousands of dollars worth of karate, theatre school, art and other activities alongside "regular" kids with no special labels or "programs".

It was so successfully set up BECAUSE it contained some members of the COMMITTEE with lived experience, and they had to be listened too as I was chair. It runs today with its constitution firmly in place and hundreds of kids take part annually. Recently access to skates became part of it, allowing kids to skate and maybe play hockey.


To the credit of the Put Food in The Budget Campaign - they are going to revise the advocacy video to include York Region and some other suggested changes.  Also a time factor had come into play and they needed to have something to show that day.  They've always been a good group in the past and we have open discussions where they actually seek out input from those coming from lived experience and seemingly use it.

Let this be a lesson learned - to err is human - once per.

Help spread the word on Oct 17, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty