Closed doors, closed minds, justice denied

The Liberals are certainly no friends of poor, low-income people and anti-poverty activists in this province. After 4 years in office, they have kept social assistance at dangerous subpoverty levels, raising the rates by a paltry 2 or 3% while feeding themselves a hefty 25% raise. The Harris Tories made the first devastating cut to welfare in 1995, but the McGuinty Liberals are to blame for failing to return this stolen 22% to the people.

The Liberals’ recent provincial “poverty tour” is simply more of the same - an expensive public relations exercise to cover up their continued violent inaction. Even worse, the heavily policed, closed door meeting/photo-op at the Evinrude Centre on May 5th was designed to shut out the voices of people who are poor, low-income or anti-poverty activists.

PCAP and allies showed up to expose this shameful hypocrisy. Instead of listening to our reasonable demand to open the meeting to the public, Liberal mouthpiece Deb Matthews and her sidekick Jeff Leal ordered the doors locked and allowed rent-a-cops to assault at least three people.

It is unacceptable for Peterborough City Council to participate in this Liberal charade, and their complicity in this assault on the people of Peterborough is a serious breach of public responsibility. Mayor Ayotte’s comments to the Examiner clearly show that he thinks that poor people and anti-poverty activists are the main barrier, not the police or the Liberals who hired them to shut us out of the dialogue. Shame!

So far, only one right-thinking Councillor has publicly denounced the Liberals’ exclusionary process. We applaud Councillor Peacock for standing on the side of justice and for acting in the broader interests of his constituency. But one is not enough. The rest of Council now needs to follow his lead and become fully accountable to all poor and low income people in this city.

Mayor Ayotte has clearly abandoned all leadership on this issue and fully revealed his betrayal of the public trust last week. He failed to denounce both the closed meeting and the “police” violence at the event, and then conveniently blamed PCAP and dismissed us as “yelling” activists. And he is the City’s model for poverty reduction?

Let’s be clear. The Mayor has never wanted to hear from anti-poverty activists, yelling or not, and will only hear poor and low-income people of this City when forced to do so. Thanks to the leadership taken by people living in poverty, the Mayor had to broaden representation on the Action Committee. Recall that he originally wanted to exclude low-income people from the “poverty” roundtable!

Raising our voices was the only appropriate response to the Liberals’ public relations machine in action. Our demand was simple and non-controversial, and in line with the broadest anti-poverty coalition in the province. The 25-in-5 coalition of 60+ organizations and prominent people (like Stephen Lewis and Frances Lankin) are demanding that the Liberals “move beyond closed sessions” and hold a “bold public consultation process”.

Mayor Ayotte suggests that PCAP should learn how to contribute to the community “by helping other organizations”. Council ought to be embarrassed by this statement because it clearly shows how clueless their “leader” is about what happens in this city. Mayor Ayotte clearly needs a lesson in the real meaning of “community relations”, so here’s a reality check.

PCAP’s record of contributions to this community is clear and solid. For over seven years we have worked with countless organizations and groups (the Legal Centre, Homegrown Homes, churches, unions, the PCSJ, E-Fry, Food Not Bombs, the New Canadians Centre, the Community Race Relations Committee, students and teachers, workers at agencies like Ontario Works, Housing Resource Centre, Whitepath, OPIRG, the media, etc.). We hold Special Diets Clinics, educational meetings, film screenings, provide workshops, and attend community meetings. We participated in the Mayor’s Task force and stay in regular contact with some of its members. And, most importantly, PCAP works everyday with all the fine people of this city who are forced to live in poverty. We constantly struggle, on the ground, with those who access our advocacy services and keep us informed and whose enormous work in the community is simply ignored by Council.

Mr. Ayotte needs to start paying attention. He could learn a thing or two from PCAP about democratic participation, respect, equal treatment and real dialogue. We hold weekly open meetings – no token representatives, no locked doors, no rent-a-cops. If you have something to say about the systems that create wealth for the few by making the poor pay we will discuss and debate the idea as equals. Just show up and take a seat. And, unlike City Hall, we take real action to challenge attacks on the poor and confront issues of poverty all the time.

PCAP’s goals and intentions are clear, and we’re loud and proud about these. We will continue to raise our voices, make demands, disrupt elite meetings and expose the dirt beneath shiny public relations campaigns. We have no interest in making the Liberals or any politician, political party or Council look good as their policies create more poverty and let the rich get richer.

What we want to know from City Council is what side of the poverty line are you really on?

Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
May 15, 2008