When we do not talk about the most vulnerable people in our society – sex workers and people in homeless shelters to name just two groups – we tell the world that our community does not care about them. Last week’s spectacle in the House of Assembly showed the world that the 40 people who Newfoundlanders and Labradorians elected to represent them and run the province do not care about very much at all.
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Alison Coffin and Ches Crosbie
talk to reporters on Friday about Gerry Byrne.
(Not exactly as illustrated) |
A 23-year-old man lay on the pavement in downtown St.
John’s last Tuesday night, the life running out of the bullet hole in him and mingling with the
rain on the cold pavement, trickling along the gutter and into the sewer.
He died outside a shelter for homeless people. The community
learned very quickly that it was a shelter, that it was a rental property, and
that police frequently visited the place to deal with disturbances among the
people who came and went from the house with great frequency.
We learned that information because neighbours put it
on social media, where the local conventional media – newspaper, television,
and radio - picked it up and repeated it.
Before anyone knew who the young man was, or what had gone on, they had
decided what the issues were in the story.
That morning, in the House of Assembly, the opposition parties asked for the
Premier’s opinion on the fact that provinces in Canada received transfer
payments from the federal government because they - unlike Newfoundland and Labrador – didn’t
make enough money on their own to meet the national minimum government income
standard. There were questions about
flooding in a district on the west coast, a couple of questions about specific
constituents who needed government money, and about the deaths of a couple of
million salmon in a fish farm a couple of months before.
There was only one question thread - about ferry service to northern Labrador - that stood out for its consistency and seriousness - and the only question about homelessness was about people
with high paying jobs in western Labrador who had to couch surf.
The morning after the death, the few questions related to the murder were
generic: “’What plan does the government
have’ to deal with crime and homeless in
St. John’s?” opposition leader Ches Crosbie
led with. His second
question was about a growth in payments to temporary shelters run by landlords,
not not-for-profits. That story had been
in the local media before and brought back because of the assumed connection in
media reports between the for-profit shelters and the murder.
Attention then turned to a general discussion of
health care. By the time the official
opposition was done, the New Democrat leader Alison Coffin’s question about
homelessness was also generic:
“APEC
reports that despite growth in the oil industry, our province is struggling.
Homelessness, addictions, cost of living, bankruptcies, gangs, unemployment,
electricity rates, out-migration are all on the rise.
“I ask the
Premier: Will Advance 2030 address these pressing issues, or will we
continue to stumble forward?”
That was the
lone NDP question before her colleague got back to the dead salmon.
