Editor:
Re: Disabled Coaster targets government red tape (Coast Reporter, April 13)
I can't tell you the sorrow I have for Aaron and others, like my friend who is suffering in poverty because she is differently abled also. She receives just under $1,000 per month and is not able to meet her expenses.
Monthly visits to the food bank - both in Gibsons and in Sechelt - help to meet her food needs but, she is probably going to lose her home (a trailer in a trailer park) if she does not find work soon.
Work and financial independence is always on her mind but, because of her disability, she is constantly rejected for jobs that require any amount of physical activity, and she is judged because of the visibility of her disability, and she has learned to recognize the stereotyping and discrimination before she sits down for many interviews.
Our government and many corporations are not kind to those who do not fit in - who are differently abled. It seems to me that one way the government has of doing away with the "problem" of having individuals in our society that are not able to fit into traditional roles of employment is to povertize them; force them to fit in (if you want to eat, get out there and work), like workfare for the disabled.
As the gap between the rich and the poor grows nationally and globally, the economic gap between the able-bodied and the disabled grows also. I find myself ashamed to be Canadian when I see friends and neighbors suffering in financial despair and our government throwing money at transnational corporations. But, perhaps, in a post Keynesian Canada, the community and non-profit organizations are expected to pick up the slack, to re-create the social safety. God knows we can't rely on current political leaders to do it.
Laurel Phillips
Gibsons
