Most of us probably think the heavy layoff numbers are over. We're probably wrong. Yesterday another shift was lost at the minivan plant in Windsor. That cost the City 1200 full-time jobs. Windsor couldn't afford another hit. It's already teetering on the brink with unemploymet numbers at 10%. There will likely be spin-off layoffs in London from that hit. There are always are in the auto industry.
In Mighty, Mighty London where nothing can ever touch us, we need only look to the parts of London that are not so "affluent" and able to withstand the odd economic storm. They are all over London but most of the time the media and those in power pretend that they don't exist. They show the shelters at Thanksgiving fail to show the fact that these shelter run 365 days a years, often at peak capacity. Their work is often forgotten. London has two very large shelters and many smaller ones. If that doesn't speak to the depth of the City's not so affluent side nothing will.
The media rarely ventures into the areas of the City where families live paycheck to paycheck in cramped rented houses and apartments often relying on the food bank eack month. The numbers of families living in this situation number in the tens of thousands if not higher. Want proof. Buy some bus tickets and ride the bus on the areas of the sides of London that you normally only make jokes about. C'mon you know which areas I'm talking about. You just love that old joke about Kipps Lake and the sewage plant don't you. Tell your friends in the burbs when you get home about how bad the people on the bus smelled. I've heard that one too.
That's part of Jolly old London too. In hard times it's even harder for them. It's even harder when our City leaders paint a picture of this City of having streets paved with gold while they scrape pots crusted with Macaroni and cheese.
Now those households are living on Employment Insurance (55% of previous wages) or welfare. No money for school trips. No money for leaky boots, cavities, haircuts, torn clothes you name it and big decisions between paying rent and utilities.
This week it was reported that retail sales are way down. No kidding. Nobody has any money to squander. The car, that's a joke. It broke down two months ago and there is no money to get it on the road. Many families are scrambling for bus tickets.
Yes this is jolly old London where the Mayor basks in her Triple A Credit rating and tells us all is well. The real hurt is showing in the increasing number of people forced to use shelters. The hurt is showing in the increasing number of panhandlers who truly are desperate for a bus ticket or a coffee or meal.
Don't kid youself, we are in a world wide recession and even London has had more losses than gains in the last two years. What we need is a steady hand at the tiller and a Council which thinks less about themselves and reelection and more about the incredible strain that families and individuals are now entering into as parents have to say no to the simplest requests from their children.
In Jolly Old London we have no steady hand at the tiller, we have no Mayor or Council which speaks for rich and poor. We have a City bent on keeping up the image of a gleaming wealthy, 21st century City where there is no want, crime or social rot. The Boomers have RRSP's stuffed to the gills and every family spends every free moment spending or playing at their favourite pursuit or travelling. Look again Anne-Marie. Your ship is sinking with the rest of the world and the kids are crying. They are the first indicator that something is wrong.
