The big picture

The job of a candidate is to get the most votes. But people want to hear on outlook, a perspective on their personal lives, their province and their planet. As a minister I want to assure people that there is hope. As a voter, I want to hear the real issues discussed. As a member of a party, I am aware of the party platform, and respectful of all the thinking that has gone into it. As a candidate, I am very aware that people are often paying attention to every one of my words, hearing things that I may not have said or meant. I have learned to become careful with what I say on the campaign trail, and yet I often yearn for a more free-wheeling discussion.
Last night was a good example: Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket has a long, proud history of advocacy for social justice. The congregation's social justice group hosted an evening on poverty featuring short videos put together by the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition. ISARC was founded twenty years ago by anti-poverty activists from several faiths to monitor the activity and outcomes of an Ontario government Social Assistance Review process. The group watched the then Liberal provincial government let many of the Commission's recommendations go un-addressed, so it decided to stay together. Two decades later, another social assistance review has been commissioned by another Liberal government, and its report is due early in 2012. ISARC is waiting and watching.
And in the meantime, it is working with the Social Planning Councils of Ontario on a Poverty Free Ontario campaign. A poverty free Ontario. What a concept. It's not only doable, it would be much cheaper than letting people languish in poverty, where their health status takes a nose dive, and all kinds of unnecessary costs are incurred.
The challenge is philosophy, as I see it. Can we imagine a society where no is poor? Many people have swallowed the idea that if you have money you deserve it, and if you don't, you have somehow earned that fate. They don't acknowledge how slim is the line between getting ahead, and getting into deep poverty. All it takes is an accident, a disease, a marriage gone awry, a factory closing and suddenly a secure and predictable future is out the window. Does anyone deserve to lose everything because one thing went wrong?
We can do better. Much better. 
Good discussion at the event to sum up in the midst of a very concerned group, and a thank you and challenge from me to the congregation to keep working on challenging and countering the so-called meritocracy world view. This is going to take time. With all the talented, persistent, visionary people on it, we will get there. So a shout out to Rev. Dawn and the congregation at Holy Cross. 

Run, run, run!

OK, it's becoming much clearer why they call it running for office.
Whole days flash by with no chance to blog about them. The grass gets cut (occasionally), but life is focused on immediate matters, and they come one after another with very little break.
There was a meet 'n' greet at the Aurora Library on Monday evening: stand at the NDP table and talk with voters for half and hour or so, then make a three minute speech, then resume talking with people individually. That was fairly good, and I learned a couple of things about presenting myself and the issues. I also met the Green candidate for the first time.
The next day brought a session with a coalition of organizations dedicated to the needs of children and youth, then a studio debate at the local cable channel. Only three of us: me, the Liberal and the Conservative. What an odd experience it is to shake hands with people then argue passionately with them for an hour while cameras record every twitch. I learned some more.
Yesterday afternoon the local chapter of the high school teachers' federation hosted an info session for their members. The PCs stayed away (as they have all over the province). Last night was a "live" all candidates session back in Aurora, at the Town Hall, proceeded by another meet 'n' greet. Not a debate, exactly, because we only ever answered questions individually in the allotted one or two minutes. The preparation is intense, with team members brainstorming about how things might go, and trying to anticipate the questions. 
The first question from a local expert on business property tax. Not a strong point for me. As luck would have it, I was  the first one designated to answer. Not a memorable response, I think, but it picked up from there. 
Then there is media: I'm now on TenTV, which is an Iranian-Canadian specialty channel. That involved a fascinating comparison of clergy involvement in Iran and Canada. Kind of famous and oppressive in the one place, kind of little-known and liberating in the other. (By liberating, I mean the creation of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in response to a global economic meltdown eighty years ago, the party that led to the formation of the New Democratic Party in 1961. The CCF and the NDP have been working relentlessly ever since for workers' rights, fair wages and a just distribution of wealth in our society.)
And so it goes. 
Off I go to canvass door to door, then a session with the Heart and Stroke Foundation. I am a "Healthy Candidate," and there is a little recognition ceremony.
More later.
 

Awesome labour day parade

Hundreds and hundreds in New Democrat contingent at this year's Labour Day Parade in Toronto. Provincial leader Andrea Horwath and NDP members of Provincial Parliament were joined by federal interim leader Nicole Turmel and marchers from one to ninety-one. Lots of orange. Lots of touching tributes to Jack Layton and support for Olivia Chow in her time of loss.
Cool this year, and gray, but the rain stayed away. Great solidarity among working people. Rita and I stopped to say hello to friends in the Clergy United group and hand out "This one's for Jack" buttons, then on to the NDP crowd, with a quick word and hug from Andrea. Bonus!

Hope, love and optimism: not just words

I didn't think it would take a week or more to blog about last weekend. Time flies when one is absorbed in a thousand things with the goal of making the world a little better.
Jack's funeral was an incredible experience, as I'm sure is already clear to all. I arrived just in time to join in the procession from city hall as it neared Roy Thomson Hall. Police cars everywhere blocking off streets, but this time in complete peace. And quiet, too, now that I think about it. Bicycles, strollers, kids on shoulders, splashes of orange everywhere.
The highlights for me remain the words: words being used to console, to inspire, to describe and analyse, to build up. There were no put downs, no sly digs, no rage, just eloquent insistence that the goodness so clear and obvious in the life of one man, Jack Layton, is actually present and available in all of us.
Rev. Brent Hawkes' sermon, Stephen Lewis' eulogy, the family's tributes, the songs--the words were carefully chosen, the stories powerful, the mood created was one of grief mixed with high hopes for a better Canada, a better world. I wept during some of the music, when children spoke of their father, when the camera picked out a widow now very much alone without her soul mate as the honour guard slow-marched out of the hall. 
None of imagined losing Jack in the middle of things like this. But it is impossible to imagine a more fitting service of mourning and celebration than the one we saw and heard. Across the country and across the political and cultural spectrum Canadians paused to ponder their best selves as embodied by one determined, spirited and optimistic person. 
He lived his principles day by day. We can, too.
We should not have lost him so young, but how lucky we were to have had his vision and leadership all these years.