May 11, 2020
In human history, hard times often bring about revolution and lasting change. Think of the Great Depression bringing about the New Deal or the French Revolution deposing the monarchy. COVID-19 has moved the Canadian government to introduce measures to slow the spread of the virus and to prevent our hospitals from being overloaded. Schools and businesses have been shut down, millions of people are out of work and everyone's children are at home. With clubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, theatres, libraries, museums and other gathering places shut down, socialization has moved entirely online. We are living through a historical moment. No one tells you living through a historical moment sucks. Just ask any essential worker.
As our society shuts down to enable social distancing and to flatten the curve, white-collar workers in areas like finance, law and programming can work safely from home. Though the adjustment to working from home can be difficult, especially when caring for children is factored in, at least those folks still have jobs. Millions of other workers in industries affected by the shutdown have been laid off or had hours greatly reduced. Think restaurants, bars, clubs, cafes and tourism, to name a few. There were also people who were struggling pre-shutdown, like the homeless, the working poor, people on ODSP or other welfare programs. Despite the differences between the three aforementioned groups (and I am relying on some drastic oversimplification to make my point), there is an intersection: we are all waiting for this to be over and we are all unhappy with the situation.
I'm writing this as a straight, cisgender, upper-middle class white guy, but hear me out on the intersection idea. There's a tremendous amount of activism bubbling up now. We are realizing that the normal we were all agitating to get back to was not and is not sustainable. Rent is too high. Disability payments and minimum wage are too low for people to survive. People who are performing essential jobs like caring for the elderly and selling groceries have to work multiple jobs. There are groups on Facebook and other social media where people are banding together for mutual aid: tenants collectively organizing to withhold rent from landlords who are not performing maintenance, people making medical masks to donate to strangers. People are writing to their MPs, MPPs and city councilors to take action on issues that many people have wanted politicians to move on for a long time; issues that often take a backseat like universal basic income, shelter for the homeless and increased renter protections suddenly seem ripe for change. Maybe we have more of a shot of turning things around now that we are talking to our neighbours and working with the community.
- Anonymous Contributor #4
The author of this post has chosen to remain anonymous. I have assigned a number to contributors who opt to remain anonymous. This is so readers have a sense of the number of different contributors that are involved in this continuously growing community.
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