When will we learn?

A 15-year old youngster lies dead tonight, shot and killed in a Toronto high school.

Ten years ago, when that young boy was starting elementary school, Mike Harris was gleefully putting the boots to education in Ontario. Stripped from school funding were all the frills like community service workers, youth workers, conflict resolution workers. In its place we got zero tolerance. Kid's a problem? Boot his ass out of school. That'll teach him. Education goes between 8:30 and 4 PM. After that, shut the schools up tight, we're not in the business of funding community space.

What's our business? We're in the business of cutting taxes. We don't need money in schools, we need it in taxpayers pockets.

So today we have kids who have been deprived of music and art and other school programs and gone too are the youth workers to listen to them and community workers to help guide them through the tumultuous times that are part of growing up.

In the Jane Finch area of Toronto, a lot of kids have extra burdens - a single parent, never enough money, seldom enough food or clothes, living in assisted housing dumps that aren't maintained because Harris downloaded public houses to the cities. Toronto inherited something like 150 public housing buildings that needed $140 million worth of repairs for heat that doesn't work in winter, the mice and the cockroaches, the broken plumbing, and the bashed in walls and floors etc. That was then. Today the backlog is over $200 million.

Harris gave Toronto zero to help pay for that backlog. But he wasn't funding public housing anymore. Didn't believe in it. If you want to live in a good house like he has then get off your ass and go work. So what about the money he saved by not funding housing anymore? Don't you remember? We all got a $200 tax rebate because that was a better use of government money than paying for education and housing and water inspectors and food inspectors and health inspectors and seniors services,and on and on and on goes the list of loss.

Enter the Harper years. He killed the gun registry, a completely f***ked up program if ever there was one, but at least it was a start. But Stevie wonder simply returned things to where they were so yahoos in every province who think their dicks are bigger when they pack a gun, can have the pacifier that makes them feel like REAL men.

So now we got lots of guns but too few staff to address the problems kids face in schools, we have condemned thousands to live in squalor in public housing and we are surprised when young people turn to guns to solve their conflicts?

The McGuinty government, like all governments, has done some bone headed things in their four years in office but one thing they have done reasonably well at is putting money back into the school system. They aren't there yet but they've made a hell of a start and Kathleen Wynne, the education minister, has not yet started to speak in education jargon, she actually listens and answers questions directly so there's still hope that education might get fixed and even improved upon.

But.

But we have a provincial election coming up and John Tory wants to fund private schools so the underprivileged folks who are currently forking over $15,000 to $20,000 a year in tuition fees, won't be yoked with such an unacceptable economic burden. Poor dears - so unfair. John will help, poor babies, but even better he promises he will also fund the public system the way it should be funded and he'll cut taxes too.

Will we ever learn? Will anyone out there connect the dots? Tory times are terrible times folks.

It took two elections before Ontarions decided that even a $200 tax rebate maybe wasn't the best idea when people in Walkerton were dying from tainted water and youth violence was increasing and public services were starting to work on the same level as in third world countries.

But hells bells, here comes earnest and likeable John Tory, no slime bag Harris he, and he promises all will be right with the world because he'll not allow any cuts to any essential services, he'll fund private schools without taking any money out of the public system and he'll make the public system better too. And piece de resistance, he'll also reduce taxes.

Any one see a pattern here?

While John promises us that less money in through taxes and a lot more out through increased spending will still balance the budget, while he 's pulling that wool over our eyes our roads and bridges and sewer pipes and waterways and public transportation and schools and hospitals - all those non essentials we don't really need or care about, are going to ratshit before our eyes.

Tell me, who among us tonight wouldn't still maintain we are all better off having that $200 tax rebate we got about 6 or 8 years ago? What's the life of some young kid in the Jane Finch area worth as opposed to tax cuts and the fabulous benefit we all got from that $200?

And the 1% we have saved on the GST - it's cost us a collective $12 billion to put maybe $50 or $60 on average back in our pockets. But it's worth it right? Much better than if we took the $12 billion and poured it into education at all levels across the country. Or if we poured it into infrastructure renewal or public transportation.

It's about choices, isn't it? When we elect nitwits who parrot the platitudes of the lunatic right wing in the US, then we deserve what we get. That's ok because we don't pay the price. It's really paid for by young black men and their families, who can't get jobs, can't get the help that used to be available to them in school when they needed to talk out their troubles or figure out better options than grabbing a gun or joining a gang. My $200 has been paid for on their backs, not mine. The cuts to education and housing impact on them, not on me.

Well, what the hell, we all got troubles right? And if a tax cut puts even $200 in my pocket, who am I to ask what it is really costing me in the long run. Hell, spend it today and we'll worry about it tomorrow.

And Harris and Harper and Tory? Lighten up folks. Tough on crime and easy on taxes. That's their mantra, their religion, their political philosophy. Cut them some slack - at least they're trying. It's about less taxes stupid. Get with the program.