Harry Leslie Smith Coming to Canada

I just heard that Harry Smith is coming to Canada for a "full-tilt effort" against  Stephen Harper. http://thetyee.ca/News/2015/03/21/Harry-Smith-Is-Coming-For-Stephen-Harper/


This rates as good news on this chilly early spring weekend. .  In case you don't know who Harry Smith is, following is a short piece I did about his book, Harry's Last Stand.  My story appeared recently in Forever Young Information.

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I’ve just read a much recommended book, Harry’s Last Stand. How the World My Generation Built is Falling Down.


The author, Harry Leslie Smith, is a 91 year old who grew up in Yorkshire and spent and good portion of his life in Canada.  He wasn’t educated at “Oxbridge,” so those who were will undoubtedly be able to punch holes in his thesis. 

Katrina Clarke Photo

I won’t do that though.


As The RAF veteran emphasizes in the book, he is not an historian but he is history.


At 85, Smith was about to live out a quiet retirement in Algarve, Portugal when the banking crisis hit.  This crisis forced him on “a spiritual odyssey.”  He began to explore and “unravel the anguish that my generation endured before the (post-war) creation of the welfare state.”

The author looks back at the Depression and the brutal poverty he and millions of others experienced in the thirties and makes plain to the reader that history is repeating itself.


“These men. They have the same suits, the same accents, the same smiles,” he observes of decision makers in the United Kingdom.


“These men” in western countries around the world are applying the same remedies as eighty years ago.  They are cutting money for services, housing and job creation. Politicians and leaders of all stripes who champion the austerity mantra are targets of his critique. 

Smith’s cites many examples.  There is workfare, the serious housing crisis and food shortages.  (In England the Red Cross is now, for the first time since WWII, delivering food parcels to destitute families).


Even funerals.  Harry’s own father and ten year old sister, who died during the Depression, were buried in mass graves set aside for paupers.  Today estimates are that 100,000 people in Britain “will not have the dosh for dying this year.” 


I sometimes forget to appreciate how Harry’s generations changed history. The book ensures that I remember as does this video of Harry speaking last November in support of the National Health Services.  http://www.harryslaststand.com/about/

On Cars and Downloading

Last week I wandered down to Hamilton City Hall to see how the Emergency and Community Services Committee was going to deal with a staff recommendation that the Affordable Transit pass be made a permanent program.


This program assists employed Hamilton residents living on low income with the purchase of an adult monthly pass.  The idea of the program, which has been a pilot project for seven years, is to assist individuals with transportation costs so they can find and maintain employment.   These passes are available for $43.50.
  
Committee enthusiastically endorsed the staff recommendation.  It was approved at Council later in the week.


The approval is a good development; however, the overall picture for transit users in Hamilton isn’t so good.  That is because Council will soon consider a proposal to increase fares beginning in September.  Here is an excellent summary of that development put together by Citizens at City Hall (CATCH) http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=1331


Your blogger isn’t necessarily opposed to transit fare hikes.  But if you are raising fares you should at the very least expect service quality to be maintained.  Most jurisdictions are enhancing their transit services.  Hamilton is falling back.

Impacts of Catering to Cars


Hamilton Council like most Southern Ontario Councils is consumed by car culture.  There are, of course, Council champions and supporters for public transit, but the Councils themselves aren’t all that far ahead of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.  Remember when Ford, on his first day on the job, declared that the war on the car was over.

The shocking amount of dollars spent on road infrastructure documented in this CATCH story https://bay169.mail.live.com/?tid=cm4KqJWx7B5BGsgQAjfeSjEg2&fid=flinbox would suggest that if there ever was a war on the car, it was over long before Ford’s declaration.


There is no limit to what will be spent to move more cars and move them faster.


We can’t repair the infrastructure we have now.  But never mind, we’ll build more. My “favourite” from the CATCH story is the city taking on the full $14 million cost of bridge repair near WalMart on Centennial Parkway North.  This particular expenditure was approved when experts said the road was “in no need of reconstruction.”  Go figure.


Impacts of Downloading


Let’s get back to February 23rd Emergency and Community Services Committee though.  The Committee agreed with a staff recommendation to make changes to the Housing Stability Benefit.


The big change will be that applicants will no longer be able to get help with furniture and household expenses.  These expenses will be removed as eligible items.  In the past they have represented about 17% of the total cost of the program.


It is estimated that not making this change will cost Hamilton municipal taxpayers $700,000. 


Nearly three years ago, the province eliminated the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) and later downloaded responsibility for housing and homelessness programs to Hamilton (and other cities).  


There was a considerable amount of outcry about this.  At first, the province responded by providing transitional funds and eventually made these transitional funds permanent.  But city staff says “uptake” for the program has increased.  In 2014, the program would have run out of money in August but was saved late in the year by a one-time increase by the province.


Let’s be clear this is a cut that will hit many in Hamilton hard.  Other municipalities will have similar problems.


The province needs to look at how this download is impacting residents in Hamilton and across Ontario.