Back to Normal
As many of the precautions related to corona virus begin to wind down, as the number of infected rises in recent days and as Winnipeg looks to become a CFL hub city among Manitoba’s phase 4 opening (in effect since July 25, 2020), it's worth asking ourselves an important question: are "back to normal" and returning to the "status quo" truly our goals as a community, city and province?
Back to normal means Indigenous death by health care neglect and over policing. It means family separation by child and family services and the justice system. It means lack of housing and not enough to eat. Back to normal will cause many to turn to criminal activities for basic needs and survival. It means politicians say just enough to pacify the helpers that those living in generational poverty and violence need support from. Back to normal means too many people looking the other way while many from the same group are clearly in pain and are running out of ways to ask, scream and cry for help. The answer is always the same. Wait lists. Vacations. Try these other people. Organizational hot potato. Almost makes the direct "no we can't help you" a welcome relief and refreshing burst of honesty. The many systems that claim to be available and accessible to community too often, by design, are only in service of friends and family of the decision makers. No outsiders allowed. Even if the criteria is met another excuse will be made, a different organization or service will be suggested and off you go - no help and only unanswered emails, calls and questions to show for it. Is this the normal you are comfortable returning to?
The pandemic has laid bare the immense capacity that federal, provincial and municipal governments have to be flexible in a pandemic. That flexibility and willingness to respond to what they agree is a crisis has me wondering what will they agree upon and consider a crisis next? We need to know so we as a community can prepare for the next multi governmental, cross system, community informed response to the things that are currently hurting vulnerable populations constantly and generationally in Winnipeg. Some would consider those “normal” conditions to actually be a crisis.
Not touching things, not coughing/sneezing in public and keeping space from people who may be sick kind of sounds like a good way to be to me! - MC
Some ideas
Let's not phase out the covid19 health infrastructure that has seen drive through testing, additional community testing sites opened up and increased attention to what is hurting us in Winnipeg and Manitoba. The cat is out of the bag. You’ve gone and told on yourself governments! Our systems have gone and demonstrated what a huge capacity they have as systems to re-arrange things when we have to. It is just a matter of what we consider important enough to actually do something different. Let's instead shift that infrastructure that is already out there to address some of the health related challenges that used to be part of “normal” and is something many of us do not want to go back to. Here are some ideas:
Transition health infrastructure from covid19 to sexual health - Sexually transmitted and blood borne infections aka STBBIs (formerly STI’s, formerly STD’s) are running rampant in Winnipeg across all age groups. Click here to find out “what is an STBBI?“ There are even new forms of these preventable STBBIs (ask me about this in person) and look at this article from December 2019 and this one from January 2020 to see what kind of a mess Winnipeg is in when it comes to sexual health. The existing testing sites should transition to testing for STBBIs and continue until we can get a grip on some of these alarming numbers.
Public cleanliness - if we are able to provide lots of soap and water and sanitizer to people In a pandemic, what if we continue to offer such things in...gasp...a public washroom?? We should be shifting some of the infrastructure that was readily deployed during this pandemic towards public cleanliness and making permanent places for people to go to the bathroom and wash their hands. Let’s make sure that public cleanliness remains accessible for everyone from this day forward so we never need to scramble in the face of another germ related pandemic like this one again!
Universal basic income - the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) has revealed that we as a country can rapidly distribute dollars to people in financial need. What if CERB was able to transition to some form of universal basic income? Not sure if it makes sense or not but what if it just continued for all the people who make below the poverty line each year? Yes I know this opens up a can of worms for employers (& Brian Pallister) who are complaining that CERB is providing an incentive to not work, but my thoughts are "how can we work with that business to improve their conditions and wages so that working is more attractive than receiving CERB?"
Alternatives to police - the Black Lives Matter movement globally and the 3 deaths in 10 days at the hands of the Winnipeg police officers in April really laid bare the need locally for an alternative to calling the police. That's why I'm working with people in the community, health care system, child welfare system and others to see what kind of mechanism for deploying community based, culturally safe, harm reduction oriented supports in a mental health or addiction crisis can be developed or scaled up. One of those projects is hiring you can see the job posting here on the Fearless R2W blog.
No more excuses
As we return to larger gatherings and non essential trips, the precautions suggested for covid19 sound a lot like logical things we should have been doing all along and should continue into the future. Not touching things, not coughing/sneezing in public and keeping space from people who may be sick kind of sounds like a good way to be to me. Not because of a virus, but because of respect for other people, because of safety, because of health. Let's include those precautions in whatever the new normal becomes.
