Politics

In Winnipeg there is a program to get people off the streets and into jobs. Sounds laudable until you read what they are actually doing.
Currently the project involves about a half dozen people working for “close to minimum wage” sweeping streets, removing posters and generally gaining no transferable work skills. How wonderful!
No doubt their 20 hours at close to minium wage will go a long way to getting and keeping a roof over their head, food, clothing… Hope they have someone helping them budget that $140 a week. Wouldn’t want them to blow it all in one place.

Might be a good idea for the union to approach these workers and sign them up right away before the city finds more jobs these indentured servants new employees can do at a third of the cost./span>

On Sept 1st the Guardian ran a story about Blair’s plan to insinuate the state into the lives of pregnant youth and women in order to ‘weed out the problem unborn’

Tony Blair has said it is possible to identify problem children who could grow up to be a potential “menace to society” even before they are born.

Setting out plans for state intervention to prevent babies born into high-risk families becoming problem teenagers of the future, the prime minister said teenage mothers could be forced to accept state help before giving birth, as part of a
clampdown on antisocial behaviour.

Mr Blair defended the need for state intervention and said action could even be taken “pre-birth” if necessary as families with drug and alcohol problems were being identified too late.

[Read more…] about The Minister of Citizen Control

So you’ve decided there is an epidemic of childhood obesity, what do you do?
End fast food advertising directed at children? Require more stringent adherence to guidelnes keeping sugars and additives down in breakfast cereals and other foods children eat? Provide healthy foods for school lunch programs? Raise the amount of money provided by food stamps and other food programs? Increase welfare payments? [Read more…] about Blow out the candles on your carrot

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Montreal has decided to pretend that the homeless actually have somewhere to go and if they don’t they face fines of 38 to 141 dollars.
CTV

Trying to find shelter for them and keeping them out of public parks is an increasingly complex problem. Montreal has about 500 beds in its three main shelters.

The city has instructed police to first suggest a list of shelters. But eventually they will be slapping sleepers with fines ranging from $38 to $141.

Because shelters are often listed as the only address for some of the homeless, shelters say that tickets arrive every day for nuisance crimes such as spitting on the street or crossing a street against a red light.

If you’re living on the street, it’s unlikely you have money to pay a fine. Montreal has a solution for that, too: unpaid fines win the sleeper a stay in a city jail.

[Read more…] about Buddy can you spare $38 to $141?