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Changes the Clown is stepping up the Clowns Against Child Poverty awareness campaign by stepping into the electoral race for Mayor of Victoria this November.
Why, you might ask, is a clown running for Mayor? Good question! Changes has become increasingly distressed at the FAILURE OF GOVERNMENTS TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS OF CHILD POVERTY IN OUR COMMUNITY. The rate of child poverty is currently running at about 1 IN 5 CHILDREN IN VICTORIA and Changes wants to ask people to spend a little more time thinking about just WTF that means. According to the most recent statistics, the provincial average rate of child poverty for British Columbia is 18.6 %. Given that the rate of child poverty is higher in urban centers than in rural areas, a moderate estimate suggests it is at least 20 % in Victoria. BC currently has the highest rate of any province in Canada. Astoundingly, BC has in fact had THE HIGHEST RATE OF CHILD POVERTY IN CANADA FOR 9 OF THE LAST 10 YEARS.
Changes the Clown believes that, as the capitol city of the province with the perennially highest rate of child poverty in the country, the City of Victoria should make its residents proud by DEMONSTRATING HOW THIS UNACKNOWLEDGED SOCIAL CRISIS CAN BE ADDRESSED AT THE MUNICIPAL LEVEL, despite the fact that the crisis of child poverty formally falls under provincial and not municipal jurisdiction.
Children living in poverty grow up under the constant influence of an array of stress hormones that children in more affluent households experience only occasionally and fleetingly, and that profoundly affect their intellectual and emotional development and the development of their social relationships in dozens of ways that researchers are only now starting to discover and untangle. We need to ask what the result of these circumstances is for the future of society. The crisis of child poverty is a SOCIAL crisis.
BC’s provincial average rate of child poverty for children living in single mother families is a stunning 49.8 %. That's right, HALF. One in two. Seriously folks! (Changes asks, “Can this really be Canada we’re talking about?”). Given that rates are higher in urban centers than in rural areas, Changes doesn’t even want to think about what THIS statistic might be in Victoria. 60 %? Higher?
BC's minimum wage of $10.25/hr is only 54 % of the living wage for Victoria of $18.93/hr. Someone working full time earning BC’s minimum wage of $10.25/hr makes $1640 a month, BEFORE any deductions. The cost of full time child care STARTS AT $700 or $800 a month. What’s YOUR definition of STUPID?
The first two planks of Changes' platform are AFFORDABLE CHILDCARE and A LIVING WAGE, two initiatives addressing the crisis of child poverty. Changes also has other ideas he would like people to hear about, ideas they’re not likely to hear about from politicians not wearing clown suits.
CHANGES HOPES TO SHARE SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT, SO BE SURE TO BRING YOUR APPETITE!
CHANGES HAS A 12-PLANK PLATFORM!
PLANKS 1 & 2 WILL HELP TO EASE THE CRISIS OF CHILD POVERTY, WHICH IS RUNNING AT ABOUT 20 % IN VICTORIA:
1. An AFFORDABLE CHILDCARE program at $10/day, to be subsidized by the City. Financed using savings derived from ending police harassment of homeless people & cannabis users, reducing the police vehicle budget, reducing senior management salaries, reducing the roadwork budget, & other efficiencies to be identified in the City budget.
2. A LIVING WAGE POLICY similar to the one in the City of New Westminster, established in 2010, which applies to all full- & part-time employees working for the City, & to any person contracted to perform physical work on City-owned premises. None of these workers are paid less than a living wage.
www.newwestcity.ca/2010/05/13/living_wage_policy.php
By putting more money in low-paid workers' pockets, a living wage standard is beneficial for local economies. When people earning less than a living wage get a raise, the additional pay is spent in the local community. It typically doesn't get invested in the stock market, doesn't get spent on a winter holiday in the tropics, & doesn't get squirreled away into a retirement fund. Instead, it immediately gets spent on important needs & goes back into circulation in the local economy, thus increasing local economic activity & strengthening the community. Rather than being driven out of business, any legitimate enterprise will on the contrary be strengthened by this kind of dynamic. On the other hand, BC’s minimum wage ($10.25/hr) is only 54 % of the living wage for Victoria ($18.93/hr). Workers shouldn’t be paid less than they can live on so their employers can make a profit. We need to question the societal value & indeed the moral legitimacy of businesses that depend for their survival on this kind of exploitation.
3. Cessation of police harassment of homeless people (for example, throwing out their belongings) & cannabis users. As mentioned above, this will help to make funds available for community needs.
4. Videocameras on all police vehicles & police officers.
5. A “consumerism kills” tax: a municipal tax of 5 % on the sale of all products containing coltan (cellphones & other electronic devices), because coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the location of virtually all of this metal, which is a necessary component of modern electronic devices) has been closely involved in financing endemic warfare in the region for many years and has been documented as involving slave labour, resulting in thousands and thousands of deaths. Proceeds to be used for a local coltan mining awareness campaign & to be donated to organizations involved in raising awareness of the effects of coltan mining & its connection with consumer electronics.
6. Free buses. Staff will be directed to begin discussions with transit & with other municipal jurisdictions in the region. At very least, a two-week trial period on routes within the City of Victoria, as a pilot test to estimate effects on ridership & on vehicular traffic.
7. Council should pass a resolution calling on news media to refrain from reporting identities & other details about perpetrators of high-profile murders (for example, accused Moncton RCMP shooter Justin Bork) as well as removal of Facebook pages, Youtube videos, manifestos or other statements, as recommended by experts.
8. Participatory budgeting, a process empowering ordinary community members to participate in decision-making regarding budget expenditures (as practiced in Porto Alegre, Brazil since 1989, & by Halifax NS, Hamilton ON, the Toronto school system & Housing Authority, the Windsor ON school system, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Juan PR, & in many other locations).
9. Establishment of a dedicated urban campground run as an cooperative intentional community by members of the outdoor community.
10. Establishment of a safe injection site in the City of Victoria.
11. Council should pass a resolution opposing the use of our waterways for the export of petroleum products.
12. Establishment of a sibling city relationship with Sucre, Bolivia (the capitol of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, currently the most progressive state on the planet, which for instance has 38 official languages, including 37 indigenous languages & Spanish).
Changes the Clown is part of a local child poverty awareness campaign known as Clowns Against Child Poverty (www.facebook.com/ClownsAgainstChildPoverty). You may have seen CACP crashing the Victoria Day Parade, handing out flyers at a local mall on Black Friday, or joining in a march on a poverty-related issue. Central to the CACP message is the recognition that child poverty is not some unavoidable aspect of the human condition – it’s a matter of policy choices and public priorities.
CHILD POVERTY IS A RESULT OF POLICY DECISIONS, NOT ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. Whereas the latest report by First Call (http://worstincanada.org/?p=56) indicates that the rate of child poverty in British Columbia is 18.6 %, the rate of child poverty in Prince Edward Island, Canada’s poorest province, is 9.5 %, just over half (51 %, to be precise) of BC’s rate of 18.6 %, and the rate of child poverty in New Brunswick, Canada’s second poorest province, is 10.5 percent, less than three-fifths (56 %) of the rate in BC. Clearly, a province’s economy has no relevance for its rate of child poverty; the rate of child poverty is determined by policy choices made by those in power, not by economic conditions. According to a recent UNICEF report on child well-being (http://www.unicef-ir...df/rc11_eng.pdf), Canada is 27th out of 29 industrialized countries (ahead of only Latvia and Romania) in terms of the category, “Child Health and Safety,” and in terms of overall child well-being, stable, prosperous Canada ranks behind such countries as Portugal, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, countries which are in crisis and have been for some time. What these various comparisons show is that, in the industrialized world at least, the rate of child poverty is NOT a result of economic conditions, but instead a matter of policy priorities and choices. The rate of child poverty is a reflection of political will.
Part of the CACP method is to look for ways to be out-of-place, the more bizarre, the more memorable - whatever it takes to get people talking about the crisis of child poverty! What better way for a clown to look out of place than to run for Mayor!
Changes the Clown himself is a social scientist. Changes has one PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Waterloo (no kidding!) and is currently working part time on a second PhD in political sociology at the University of Victoria.