Tips for Surviving the Great RESET--A Municipal Outlook

For once, I can see how being on the 8th floor is good.

How?

I'm too high up for thefts.

You see, when things start getting worse-- in a few weeks that is-- your car doors won't remain safely locked.

>>I recommend you leave them open cuz getting car door windows replaced is a serious cost.

Those of you living at street level, get yourself a large dog & or a security alarm. Just don't expect the cops to come running.

Break ins, robberies, muggings will ALL become more common.

Honestly, it's a perfect storm.

Desperation silences fears, inherent societal laws, and the pack mentality.

The Landlord and Tenant board now states they will hear your case within 25 days. But only if it's a case for eviction of non payment.

Cases for other landlord 'crimes' fall to the wayside as unimportant.

Do you see it yet?

The Great RESET.

Like

Comment

Share

Opportunistic Capitalism in the Housing Industry

My city is in the midst of a housing crisis and it's now late November. The council has been working as hard as they can with capitalist cuffs on. Imagine how easy their job would be if they didn't have to concern themselves with where the revenue will go. Kingston has even put some homeless residents into unfinished units, illustrating the fact that from the get-go, that rental was of less importance than the landlord's other rentals. Many still believe that the homeless should take what they can get.

By now we can all agree that once profit comes into play, all rights are off--even the human ones. Our PM stated three years ago that a home is a human right and yet still here we are. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Being on the sidelines, I have lots of theories and even more fingers to point. It feels to me that we've all been fooled into believing that if the commodity is a human right then those taking part in it are great and selfless humans. And some may very well be while others see that human right merely as an investment.

In Ontario, Premier Ford rules the Province with a double edged sword. On the one side, he's done away with some rent control measures put in by Premier Wynne before him, opening up the profit gates for any newly constructed buildings. On the other side, he has frozen all rent in Ontario until the end of 2021--thanks for that. Like many other measures however, many Landlords didn't hear or simply aren't listening. They realize that they can opportunistically profit from ignorance. Because if the LL's haven't heard the news, then the tenants definitely haven't. Heck, as of last night my head superintendent told me he was unaware of a rent freeze. The head lady at the rental office has no idea of this freeze. We have workers carrying out illegal activities because they work for a corporation that refuses to abide regulation. How many of my neighbors are now paying an increase that they should never have gotten in the first place? Potentially too many.

Another way that LL's profit opportunistically is by building the trust of council when it comes to subsidized units and Ontario's 90 day rule. This rules that a person in a subsidized unit can abandon said unit for 90 consecutive days without losing their subsidy. The problem is that no one is keeping track of the 90 days. There's a unit on the first floor that has been empty for well over a year now. Many of us have inquired and are told by housing that it's filled. When pushed, it was shared with me that when Kingston housing gets a complaint about an empty unit, they call the LL to inquire. This building is still mostly inclusive and so you can see how an empty subsidized unit could be a very profitable thing for a LL. I ask you in all honestly, how are we ever going to get every human a home when we can't even be sure that subsidized units are filled? 

We now live in a landlord's market where there are more renters than there are available units to rent and why? Because housing is a highly profitable business. Capitalism doesn't differentiate between those businesses that provide human rights and so, nothing changes because nothing changes. Even the very word "Landlord" holds negative connotations for a large portion of society. This saddens me as I know several Landlords who have never raised the rent, who work WITH their tenants each month. For their good deeds to be tarnished by the capitalistic behaviors of others in their field infuriates me.

There is a separation occurring with humanity--those who have, those who wish they had, and those who believe that if they work hard enough they'll have too. In discussions with a landlord friend I stated recently that I wish I were in his position of owning several homes. Though he is cash-strapped, his future is golden! I am one of the hopeful people hoarding savings away and praying the real estate market returns to sanity. Don't even get me started on the fact that foreign investment in our city is creating comparables whose value suddenly skyrockets because homes are bought with foreign cash well above asking price. There is a very good chance I will never be able to afford a home again.

And when regulations favor one side over the other, it's a no win situation. Did you know that if you rent a room in a home, you have few to no rights whatsoever? In my meager experience, I've rented rooms to two students. I am shocked to learn how few rights they had considering how well they paid me for those rooms. Students are our future yet they are also used opportunistically every day to line pockets and build business. Business that our local Chamber of Commerce applauds for their ingenious profitability.

So what needs to change first? The UN says that simply stating a home is a human right doesn't mean a Government must provide it. Even though having a home would cut our national healthcare costs drastically? Are we sure our Government officials aren't secretly taking advantage of this highly profitable industry and therefore refuse to change regulation? Ahem Kingston. Should those in positions of creating regulation be able to profit in the very field they create regulation for? I glance at our Federal MP Mark Gerretsen when I ask this question. Conflicts of interest abound.

Would it be such a great hardship to take profit out of the rental industry? Would it be so illogical to give the renter some 'consumer protection' from the minister of consumer affairs? We must pause the 90 day rule until more housing is built. Long gone are the days of having units in this city unfilled! Temperatures are dropping and evictions are normalizing again. Aside from the effects on our fellow human, I fear the effects on the community as a whole. Disparity has side effects and none of them are good. 

The Basis of My Own Personal Beliefs

 

I believe that Paganism is the true 'relationship' that Christianity was based off of.

In fact, I believe that Jesus was a Pagan.

He was used as a representative--likely not paid what he was worth--of this fresh new mono-theistic religion of organized beliefs.

Imagine the day he realized what was happening?

No doubt, that was what he was considering during that now famous pose on his knee, thinking.

I worship the Sun, for she gives life.

I worship the Moon, for she gives balance.

I worship the Earth, for she is everything I need.

To me EVERYTHING else makes no sense.

#EarthBound 

Some days I can't wait to return to it.

Religious Freedoms Deserve Respect & Transparency--What's IN That Covid Vaccine?

Personal faith & religious freedoms is something we've given rights to.  We respect it societally to the point of having four choices of meat in the meat counter-- the cheap kind, the halal kind, the kosher kind, and the organic kind.  Now, this might just be capitalism but it's indicative of the levels of adherence that those within these faiths comply.  It's so important to them that they choose their foods specifically, oftentimes paying more than their neighbors.

I remember working for a Kosher Jewish family in town.  I served & cleaned up after a few Shabbat celebrations and it was literally five hours of stress.  Why?  Because Kosher Jewish meals are very strict.  We prepared the meal on a Granite countertop that was covered with paper because it wasn't a solid piece of Granite and thus not Kosher.  There were two sets of all cutlery and no label on the drawers for ease of use. 

Before we began I was given brief training and to illustrate the importance of keeping the dairy cutlery and the meat cutlery separate, my experienced co-worker told me what happened if and when this rule is missed.  A friend had made that error in earlier days working for a Jewish family and the entire drawer went into the trash.  It was now considered contaminated and no longer usable in their Kosher kitchen.

More than once I wondered if any of it mattered?  Would ignorance be bliss?  Is it true that what they don't know won't hurt them?  I went home that first night to google the why and when I was unable to find solid literal reasoning, I resigned to simply do as they wish.  They paid me well after all.

In the news we hear about Muslims being tortured and made to eat Pork, a food their religion prohibits them from eating.  

What if you forgot to inform your Hindu friend that those samosas have Beef in them.  Would it really matter?

How about your Vegan friends who refuse to eat any animal product whatsoever?  

In the end it's about respect right?  I respect you enough to acknowledge these rules regardless of the reasons why.

It is for this reason that I feel more transparency is needed with regards to the new and upcoming Covid-19 vaccine.  I believe it bares mentioning that the Vaccine we're all anticipating has been made with aborted fetal tissue.  Christians have always been against abortion and whether or not I agree with this stance, it exists nonetheless.  My father's faith was something I may not have understood but I respected it to the point of attending Mass many times just to please him.

Of course, this Vaccine is not the only one to delve into the use of certain foreign tissues but this is thus far the only one that may very well change how we live our lives.  This one might be mandated or if refused, may decide where you go, whom you see, what you do for a living.  

How many of you are still reading and how many believe I'm out to lunch?  Let's research the use of fetal cells in vaccines.  In this article from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, we learn that aborted fetal tissue already exist in the development of Chicken Pox, Rubella, Hep A, and one type of Rabies vaccine.  You can read why human cells are used and honestly, in the end it's about efficiency of development.  In one paragraph they describe having tried using Monkey kidney cells but "in addition to being cumbersome, costly, and requiring large numbers of animals, this method made it difficult to consistently assure the same quality of starting material."

Introducing MRC-5, a term I hope is one of the most searched terms in the next few months. According to the internet, "MRC-5 (Medical Research Council cell strain 5) is a diploid cell culture line composed of fibroblasts, originally developed from the lung tissue of a 14-week-old aborted male fetus."  This fetus was terminated in 1966 and his cells are still used to this day.  

Now, it is stated that there are no cells in the vaccine because it has gone through a purification process but I ask you, since when would that matter?  I mean, the knife that cuts the meat and spreads the cream cheese must be trashed remember? To think that any purification process would deem the use of these cells as unimportant in the end-result is naive. There are alternatives, albeit inferior ones but choices exist.  It is ease of use that determines the use of human cells.  

For Catholics, the Pope is the king of the castle and made a statement on this topic in 2003.  You can read here the clarity of belief in the immoral aspect of this practice.  Scroll down so you can read his words in English.

I suppose though that my idea of right and wrong is of little importance.  Heck, we can't even agree to the right to know which foods are genetically modified.  Do we really deserve to know if the 'medicines' we're prescribed were made in an ethical way?

Maybe not.  Maybe personal rights and freedoms are going the way of the Dodo Bird and being matched with the promise of longevity.  For now, in Canada the vaccine appears to be optional but the number of doses ordered is astounding.  How are we going to vaccinate every Canadian when we can't even get potable drinking water to them all?

That's a whole other blog post.  There are other equally disturbing aspects of this vaccine containing the benign sounding acronym "RNA".  But for this argument, the fact that religious freedoms are given in all other ways aside from this one, completely shatters my image of freedom.