By Gerald V. Paul

Queen’s Park – As the first columnist and journalist of Guyanese heritage to serve as a member the press gallery here, Eyesers, kindly allow me to express my outrage about the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) disparities as pronounced by Jim Wilson, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives.

Eyesers, mine eyes hath seen while in the trenches in this work of faith and labour of love the stories of Black kids cared for by young, white CAS staff, uninformed as to what food to get for the children. One child was even missing a jacket during the fall season. I can recall a mother, who was born in Barbados and was near to me, crying hopelessly! That’s just one particular incident.

Wilson stressed the Ontario government’s failure to meet anti-poverty targets and the deficits at several Children’s Aid Societies as examples of areas of spending being crowded out by Ontario’s debt.

You see, Eyesers, Ontario did not meet its 2008 goal to cut child poverty in the province by 25% by 2013. Its recent five-year poverty reduction plan vowed to continue efforts to meet its 2008 goal, but neglected to set a deadline.

Children and Youth Services Minister Tracy MacCharles said she was “concerned” about the numbers.

By the way, Wilson said Black children in the Toronto area are being placed in foster and group home care at greater rates than white children. But allyuh look STORY, eh/ent?

Where are the voices of the Christians and faith communities who are marching and shouting against abortion? As for our beloved poor children, they are silent, as in silent night … but no holy night.

Shame!

According to Wilson, “The government has to set priorities and children, regardless of colour, should always be the priority of society.”

Thing is, before the Toronto Star’s investigation found that 41% of children in foster and group home care in the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto are Black, the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies and the African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC) last month submitted a joint funding proposal for a project to address the issue.

Not so many moons ago, the Hon. Roy McMurtry and Dr. Alvin Curling penned in their Roots of Youth Violence Report (children do grow up to become youth, right?): “What then are the immediate risk factors – the ones that create that state of desperation and put a youth in the immediate path of violence?

“While no set of factors can explain all violence, we are persuaded that youth are most likely to be at immediate risk of involvement in serious violence if they:

• Have a deep sense of alienation and low self-esteem.
• Have little empathy for others and suffer from impulsivity.
• Believe they are oppressed, held down, unfairly treated and neither belong to nor have a stake in the broader society.
• Believe that they have no way to be heard through other channels.
• Have no sense of hope.How can we go about wishing a Merry Christmas, eating, drinking and merry making, as our beloved children are living without hope? How can we sleep at nights?“Indeed, many of the youth who meet the above descriptions will also not do so because no triggering event or circumstance will occur to unleash their feelings, or because society manages to intervene in time.Methinks it’s the law of sowing and reaping. And if allyuh plant cassava nah expect to reap plantain … nah suh.How can we allow our Black children – caught between a rock and a hard place – to live in poverty?Horwath added, unfortunately “we have a government that continues to allow child poverty in Ontario.”Please, in God’s name, especially those of the faith, let’s do it for the ‘Christ the Saviour is born’ child, of Christmas.
• One Love.
• Is it too late to right this wrong?
• “I think we have to recognize the disproportionality of people who are living in poverty to climb in Ontario,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told members of the Press Gallery.
• Eyesers, as for our beloved Black children and poverty, while poverty does not directly cause violent crime, my concern is poverty, as revealed by the report’s authors, is poverty without hope, poverty with isolation, poverty with hunger and poor living conditions, poverty with racism and poverty with numerous daily reminders of social exclusions that can lead to the immediate risk factors arising for many.
• “But when such a trigger does manifest itself before that intervention, as it all too often does, it is they who are far more likely to explode in a very harmful way.”
• Curling, the first Black Speaker of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, told Eyes, “Our experience and our work on this review make it clear to us that most youth who feel connected to and engaged with the broader society, and who feel valued and safe and see a positive future for themselves in it, will not experience these conditions and will not commit serious violence.
• Lord, have mercy.

How can we go about wishing a Merry Christmas, eating, drinking and merry making, as our beloved children are living without hope? How can we sleep at nights?

Curling, the first Black Speaker of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, told Eyes, “Our experience and our work on this review make it clear to us that most youth who feel connected to and engaged with the broader society, and who feel valued and safe and see a positive future for themselves in it, will not experience these conditions and will not commit serious violence.

“Indeed, many of the youth who meet the above descriptions will also not do so because no triggering event or circumstance will occur to unleash their feelings, or because society manages to intervene in time.

“But when such a trigger does manifest itself before that intervention, as it all too often does, it is they who are far more likely to explode in a very harmful way.”

Methinks it’s the law of sowing and reaping. And if allyuh plant cassava nah expect to reap plantain … nah suh.

Eyesers, as for our beloved Black children and poverty, while poverty does not directly cause violent crime, my concern is poverty, as revealed by the report’s authors, is poverty without hope, poverty with isolation, poverty with hunger and poor living conditions, poverty with racism and poverty with numerous daily reminders of social exclusions that can lead to the immediate risk factors arising for many.

How can we allow our Black children – caught between a rock and a hard place – to live in poverty?

“I think we have to recognize the disproportionality of people who are living in poverty to climb in Ontario,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told members of the Press Gallery.

Horwath added, unfortunately “we have a government that continues to allow child poverty in Ontario.”

Is it too late to right this wrong?

Please, in God’s name, especially those of the faith, let’s do it for the ‘Christ the Saviour is born’ child, of Christmas.

One Love.