Cheers & jeers

CHEERS to essential workers, from grocery store clerks to seniors home cleaners, to kitchen staff and taxi drivers and everyone who left their homes each day to deliver goods and services to fellow Islanders while knowing today might be the day they contract a virus that has killed so many around the world. While we have felt safe and secure in our island province with its natural saltwater borders, it has still required a not insignificant effort to leave our homes, don our masks, sanitize our hands and get to work never knowing if today is the day the provincial COVID-19 briefing will reveal widespread community transmission. We were lucky in 2020 that no one in this province experienced hospitalization or death. We were also fortunate that our teachers went back to the classrooms, our reporters continued to go out into the community to share news and so many more Island workers made our lives easier at some risk to their own.

JEERS to those who are letting marginalized Islanders fall further through the cracks. The decision earlier this fall to seal off a shelter near the Hillsborough Bridge because city officials felt it wasn't a safe place for people to live without providing somewhere safer for them to go was a failure to those who can't advocate for themselves. Further, The Guardian has heard from countless people who say their treatment at Salvation Army charities is anything but Christian but it took a few brave people agreeing to have their names and faces in the newspaper before an investigation was launched this fall. We are still waiting for the report. Then there is the question of Deacon House where men who use drugs can temporarily stay overnight. Clients were moved out of there in December when the furnace apparently broke down. While government says everyone who was staying there was provided with emergency shelter in the meantime, there was a lack of communication about the problem at the time and no real sense of a long-term plan for people who need this kind of shelter. The province appears to prefer making payments to charities like the Salvation Army, Blooming House and Anderson House to provide for our most vulnerable population rather than taking on the responsibility for long-term, reliable housing itself.