Welcome to Northern Ontario, where the landscapes are vast, the winters are harsh, and the safety nets are thinner than the ice in late spring.

In a region celebrated for its rugged beauty and resource-rich economy, being homeless is less a social failure and more of an extreme sport—complete with all the frostbite, hunger, and systemic indifference you’d expect from the ultimate survival challenge.

Homelessness in Northern Ontario isn’t just a crisis; it’s a feature of our political landscape, a testament to decades of milquetoast neoliberal policy decisions (or lack thereof) that have mastered the art of looking the other way.

As of writing, it’s December 13th, 2024 – it’s -15 degrees Celsius outside here in Timmins, Ontario, and Premier Doug Ford has announced a bill to forcefully end homeless encampments. Penalties include a fine of $10,000 or six months in jail. It shows the colour of someone’s character if they happen to announce a bill to force someone to survive on the streets in the dead of winter.

So – just for starters – Ontario is going to criminalize being homeless, but do fuck all to ensure that every Ontarian has fair access to safe, warm shelter. In fact, this new law will most likely not end homeless encampments, but rather – make the social inequity and living standards in Ontario worst. First of all, the homeless in Ontario aren’t homeless by choice so fining the residents of an encampment seems like pouring fuel onto a raging fire – how does one pay for a fine when they lack the essential resources required to maintain gainful employment such as the proper social documentation, a means of personal contact, or a permanent address?

What address does one put down on a resume to Giant Tiger if you live in a tent in Hollinger Park? Neon green tarp under the pine tree nearest the park tables? How about how do you collect your pay? The Canadian Bank of Hard Living doesn’t do direct deposit, or cash cheques.

So what is Uncle Doug’s second move? Toss the homeless into prisons, especially if they’re drug users.

One problem, Doug.

Ontario’s prisons are now 118% overcapacity. By tossing in hundreds of downtrodden Ontarians into Ontario prisons, we are going to suffocate our provincial courts even more, and create a worsening revolving door that simply shifts the homeless in Ontario around like unwanted luggage, and has the potential of causing reduced sentencing for actual criminals due to overcapacity in prisons. And the worst part is that our Premier has voiced support for usurping the charter rights of homeless Ontarians if the courts get in the way of his enforcement laws – and they will. The use of the Notwithstanding Clause to put the homeless in prison over doing your actual job and ensuring that all Ontarians are protected and supported by a healthy social safety net is abhorrent.

But this is the New Conservative way. A glass cannon of political ideological thought that the self-entitled party of law and order uses a sledgehammer when the situation calls for the finesse of a toothpick. Band-aid solutions for a sucking chest wound, and why?

Because a sustainable, effective and moral solution requires Ontario to fund public services, and fund them well. We need to expand the availability of social housing – especially transitional housing. We need to increase the number of social workers in Ontario, we need to pay them WAY more than they currently are: $58,483 per year on average, or usually $23 – 28 per hour.

I want you to consider if you’d stay in your field of work for $23/hr if it required you to go into dangerous locations to speak with individuals who may be manic or a danger to themselves. How long do you believe you’ll last? You want to know the cold reality of life in Ontario – speak to a fucking social worker.

We are a society that has collectively decided to live a sheltered life with our eyes wide shut. But I beg of you, open your goddamn eyes and dare to look at the misery and suffering that exists in our province. Do not look away from it, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you feel – because the poor that live in our parks, under our overpasses and on our streets are part of us. They are Ontarians too, they are humans who have or have had mothers, sisters, fathers, and brothers. Instead of allowing another Canadian to wallow in unnecessary suffering or waste away in a cell – isn’t the most virtuous and patriotic thing to do as one Ontarian to another is to give what little we can rightfully spare to those who have nothing at all? To stomp out human suffering before it takes root?

The honest-to-god truth to life in Ontario isn’t even that our problems are the homeless themselves.

Poverty is our problem.

We have created a system that legislates the vulnerable in our society to an existence of perpetual struggle without relief.

If I can say only one thing to Premier Ford, it’s this: Ontario needs to fight poverty – not the poor.

God help us, because it seems no one else will.

-K-