“Almost nothing is more enduring than suspicion of the poor as causing their own predicament. It always reaches its zenith when times are bad. No matter how well-known the economic causes of a recession, there is always an impulse to blame the victim.”
The Greatest Depression - Photo: sabeth718 - CC license
So says John Stapleton, a former senior official with the Ontario government, in Close Encounters of the Thirties Kind. Released in October, Stapleton’s report outlines the striking parallels between the current crisis and the Great Depression.
Now, as then, Ontarians are experiencing a dramatic spike in unemployment, widespread consumer anxiety, and restricted access to social programs that are more needed than ever. And just as Mackenzie King’s government refused to implement national policies to address poverty and unemployment, the current federal government is also resisting calls for a nation-wide anti-poverty strategy.
Photo: Matt Palmer - Copyright: Matt Palmer
Particularly striking is Stapleton’s observation of how jobless folk during the 1930s were stigmatized as lazy or as cheats – a phenomenon we’re witnessing again this time around. As the gap between rich and poor grows wider, there’s a marked tendency on the part of established powers to blame people who are getting the brunt of the downturn. Meanwhile the perpetrators of the crisis are giving themselves bonuses…
All this resonates with a series of photo essays that we’ve been producing on what’s been happening in northern Ontario. Today we’re running a new photo essay on a community kitchen in Sudbury.
Download John Stapleton’s report here.
Philip Lewis, researcher-writer
©2009 Le blogue PIB / The GDP blog
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