Need, Moral Compulsion, Response = Food Banks
It's amazing how society has a way of responding to situations that develop over time. Take for example, the growing realization come to the fore of Canadians facing hunger. The first impression people take away from this acknowledgement of stark reality is that this cannot possibly happen here in Canada, it's an overblown, inaccurate picture of a handful of unfortunates facing tight times. And wouldn't we like to believe it?After all, people of earlier generations faced tough economic times, and although many of those people faced hunger and other dread elements of severe deprivation, somehow they, their offspring and the rest of society managed to surmount those difficulties. Canada became increasingly prosperous, more confident, more job-efficient, more comfortable with itself.
And remains so, ever increasingly, despite a staggering national debt. We've a vibrant economy, the envy of our peer countries, we have a strong and educated work force, our standard of living is second to none. In yearly United Nations evaluations Canada consistently comes out on top of the lot, scoring well within the top percentile of success for providing quality of life for its citizens, by every critical measure.
Yet here we are in the 21st century when all the nasty little events that made for economic inequalities between people living in close proximity should have been expunged, at least to the extent that the lower middle class would embrace that admittedly large percentage of the population that didn't fall into the middle-to-upper class grouping, and the wealthy establishment.
Instead, as our standard of living inexorably moves forward, we still have a disadvantaged class of people who live day to day through meagre paycheques, a hop and a skip away from total deprivation resulting in homelessness and hunger. This includes an alarmingly large number of children within families whose fate it has been to be among the working poor, the poor immigrant class, the disabled.
Governments at every level are tasked to come up with solutions, from more suitable and greater numbers of assisted housing projects, to make-work projects, to access to mature education pointing the unemployed in new directions, to increased welfare. Somehow, all of these initiatives appear to have fallen far short of meeting the critical needs of the people at risk.
Hence, it became a priority among church groups and municipalities' activist groups to begin collecting and stocking food items for distribution to those in need. From humble beginnings in church, social centre and home basements, the institution of area food banks has become a booming enterprise answering a dire need for subsistence assistance to people in crisis.
Most supermarkets maintain large areas where shoppers are invited to deposit imperishable foodstuffs which are then collected by the area food banks. Some supermarkets offer their own excess goods to help stock the shelves of food banks, while others set aside specific days during the course of a year when they advertise their participation in food drive collections.
There are municipally-located charitable organizations which initiate door-to-door canvasses to encourage people to give food directly to those collecting on behalf of food banks. There have been initiatives in urban areas to set aside small arable plots for the purpose of growing fresh vegetables to harvest for local food banks. People diligently and with good conscience send off cheques to support their local food banks on a regular basis.
Entertainers in the public eye contribute their time and their talents to concerts where the ticket sales are earmarked to benefit food bank operations. Even the Canadian Pacific Railway has come on board with their Holiday Train, now stopping at hundreds of cities throughout Canada, carrying with them entertainers to perform at each stop where as many as several thousand people come out to be entertained and to bring with them food bank donations.
Lest anyone doubt the growing prevalence, needful presence, resourcefulness and increasing power of this new business venture to resonate with the Canadian public one has only to look at it from the perspective of its utility in launching a political career for Gerard Kennedy, former food bank director of first the Calgary Food Bank, then the Toronto Food Bank, both premiere Canadian cities of undoubted wealth, hosting great numbers of needy people.
It's counter-intuitive, isn't it, that wealthy municipalities should be incapable of ensuring that all of its people live without the constant spectre of daily want, particularly among its most vulnerable, the children. Gerard Kennedy vaulted from his position at the Toronto Food Bank to the Ontario legislature as a provincial member of parliament, although his aim was slightly higher, to attain the premiership.
It wasn't that huge a leap for him to aim high again on the basis of his past experience and public name recognition, branded as the head of a business conglomerate battling hunger/homelessness as being competent and concerned; two qualities that Canadians recognize and value. This time his target was rather more elevated; to become the successful candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.
How's that for a springboard? From food bank manager to prospective Prime Minister of Canada.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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