Lessons from the Zone of Lost Souls

Spent a couple of days in Oshawa, visiting with a newly minted grand-daughter and her parents. No matter how generous the hospitality, I hate waking up in someone else's home. I'm ready for a 5k power walk at six a.m. when nobody else gets out of bed before 9, not even the grand-daughter. So this morning I head out for a drive, looking for a Sunday paper and a Timmies. Drove all the way up the main drag, from the lake through the downtown core and the elite neighborhoods immediately north all the way to the Durham College campus. Downtown Oshawa is the Zone of Lost Souls. At 6 a.m. the streets are full of folks who have gazed too long into the face of God. Whatever drug/alcohol combo it takes to pull that off, there's plenty of downtowners who know the secret. Some have clearly cracked the code for catastrophic personality disintegration, and wobble down the street raging at the sky. But here's something else I noticed. Three people trying to push a bicycle up the street. One woman, two men, two white, one black, and they're 100% working as a team to get this bicycle wherever they're going. They'd got about half a block when I came back down the street a half hour later, but by God, they were still giving it the old college try. Together! A totally fucked-up white dude with his arm around a black dude even more fucked-up, leaning on one another to get wherever they think they're going. White privilege ain’t worth shit once you’re living on the sidewalk. Those are typical scenes all through the downtown core. As you get further north it's mostly McMansions and condo towers. Up here, nobody's homeless, but a lot of people don't even know their neighbors. If nothing else, the homeless enjoy more community.

Lessons from the 'shwa on poverty, homelessness, and community

Spent a couple of days in Oshawa, visiting with a newly minted grand-daughter and her parents. No matter how generous the hospitality, I hate waking up in someone else's home. I'm ready for a 5k power walk at six a.m. when nobody else gets out of bed before 9, not even the grand-daughter. So this morning I head out for a drive, looking for a Sunday paper and a Timmies. Drove all the way up the main drag, from the lake through the downtown core and the elite neighbourhoods immediately north all the way to the Durham College campus. Downtown Oshawa is the Zone of Lost Souls. At 6 a.m. the streets are full of folks who have gazed too long into the face of God. Whatever drug/alcohol combo it takes to pull that off, there's plenty of downtowners who know the secret. Some have clearly cracked the code for catastrophic personality disintegration, and wobble down the street raging at the sky. But here's something else I noticed. Three people trying to push a bicycle up the street. One woman, two men, two white, one black, and they're 100% working as a team to get this bicycle wherever they're going. They'd got about half a block when I came back down the street a half hour later, but by God, they were still giving it the old college try. Together! A totally fucked-up white dude with his arm around a black dude even more fucked-up, leaning on one another to get wherever they think they're going. Those are typical scenes all through the downtown core. As you get further north it's mostly McMansions and condo towers. Up here, nobody's homeless, but a lot of people don't even know their neighbours. If nothing else, the homeless enjoy more community.

Lifestyles of the working class

The Teamsters Union master agreements of the late 50s raised the bar for industrial unions like the UAW and the Steelworkers. By the mid-60s the unionized working class had created the middle class.

Before the WWII, being "middle class" meant you had hired help in the house.

By 1970, being middle class meant you had a house in the burbs and two cars and your kids were going to post-secondary, all on the strength of your grade 9 education and your job at US Steel or General Motors.

It was always hilarious to me how the social scientists created the white-collar/blue-collar paradigm, wherein white-collar workers were placed higher in the social hierarchy than the grunts. The reason Oakville Ontario was the highest income postal code in Canada for decades wasn't because of doctors and lawyers and successful entrepreneurs, but because of the Ford assembly plant.

The post-war working class was where most post-war immigrants landed. In the fifties, they mostly came from a Europe that had been decimated by the war. Within three years of getting off the boat at Pier 21, we owned a house. 

Contrast that to the lot of working class immigrants arriving here today. 

It's been a while since we got any from Europe. (Although circumstances in Ukraine could change that.) Instead, they're coming from what we euphemistically refer to as "less-developed" countries. Those are the countries devastated by the legacy of colonialism and the various wars we have inflicted on them, always for their own good, of course.

And guess what? All those quality union jobs that used to await immigrants?

Why, they've all been sent to Mexico or China or elsewhere overseas!

After all, why pay an immigrant thirty bucks an hour to build a GM pickup in Oshawa, when you can just move the entire assembly plant to Mexico, and potential immigrants can stay home and build the same truck for two bucks an hour?

The jobs left for working class immigrants no longer allow the standard of living afforded the immigrants of past generations.

Today, Pier 21 is just a museum.

Today, working class immigrants have a wide range of minimum wage jobs available to them, none of which will provide a living wage, let alone the prospect of achieving financial security.

Unfortunately, they'll never own a home or a car, will never accumulate inter-generational wealth, and are doomed to live a hand-to-mouth existence that the social scientists label "lifestyles of the working poor." 

But don't worry...

Experts at the most prestigious schools have been awarded generous grants to study the matter.

It's Morning in The Shwa

Took an early morning tour around The Shwa today. That's Oshawa for those who aren't aware that 'The Shwa' is a thing now.

Oshawa should be in mourning. It's lights out at the GM plant since a couple weeks before Christmas. Picked up a coffee at the Timmies that overlooks the giant empty parking lots, where the guys who built the GM trucks parked the GM vehicles they drove to work.

They don't anymore, but fear not, dear consumer. You can still buy that same truck at a GM or Chevrolet dealer near you.

You won't even notice the difference.

The difference is that instead of being built in Oshawa by workers earning $34/hr., they are now built in Mexico by workers earning $3/hr.

That's the beauty of NAFTA!

That's the beauty of "free trade."

That's the beauty of the USMCA free trade agreement that Chrystia just hammered out for us...


You might not notice, but Oshawa does.