Naw, I Just Forgot

I just wanted to post photographs from my facebook of the years gone by.

2004 (End of Grade 9)

2005 (Middle of Grade 10)

2006 (End of Grade 11)

2007 (Summer after Graduation from grade 12) (First time I had met my brother)

2008 (My birthday November 22)

2009 (First Year of College. Valentines Day.)

2010 (Back in Kingston.)

2011 (Present)

I feel that the events in my life have changed me for the better, and yet, as I look back on my life I know I haven’t really changed, only grown in moral fiber and strength of the heart.

Don’t forget to comment!

An old friend of mine posted this on her facebook;

In Canada – We have to press 1 for English

In Canada – The homeless go without eating

In Canada – The Elderly go without needing

Medicines In Canada – The mentally ill go without treatment

In Canada – Our Troops go without proper Equipment

In Canada – Our Vets go without promised benefits yet we donate billions to other countries before helping our own! Have the guts to re-post this? 1% will, 99% won’t have the nerve! Do you?!!! I did!!!!

Anon 1: I gave up reading it cuz the caps hurt my eyes

Anon Friend: Srt, I just copied it off my mom. Basically is just says that we’re giving billions of dollars to other countries when a lot of people are going without the things they need or ere promised here in Canada.

Katie McNeill: I really need another car.

Katie McNeill: No really.

Anon Friend: I think the Vets need their benefits and the elderly need their meds before you need a car Katie.

Katie McNeill: I’m sure that the Vets can survive without dental coverage for a year, so that thousands of children in Uganda can have a fighting chance against Malaria, a disease that kills millions a year and is preventable for less then $10 a family. Or for children with leprosy who can’t afford the pills needed to kill the bacteria in their bodies. This cost is $26 a month. What about the people starving in Africa, or the people of Haiti? Would you ask them to hold off on feeding themselves or drinking clean water, just so Canadians can gain more profit from a government that already has social programs established?

Katie McNeill: I want you to know that I say this as a person who doesn’t have health insurance in Canada. With a mother who is on canadian disability. Sure it sucks that she can’t have cable TV, and she is given $500 a month for food, bills and necessities. But she will always have social programs that are very neatly established. So long as they continue to run, we will survive.

Anon Friend: Except half the time those social programs have people jumping through hoops and they still don’t get what they really need. I can understand that we’re helping the people in other countries get the resources they need or help after a disaster, but it would be nice if we helped get the people off the streets and get people here in Canada the proper medications they need before we worry about the others.
If you really want to go after someone for making a profit, why not take a good look at the financial reports of all those help funds and the world bank. They “offer” help to these countries that need it, but not before they either take a nice chunk of the money people donated or they have a nice plan set up so that the country will be in debt for years.
If you really want to know how we’re helping these people, read “confessions of an economic hit man”

Katie McNeill: (Friend), I work for a non profit organization. I know all about corrupted governments who want to take founds from their people. That’s why Buy-a-Net’s program is set up with small social groups located in the villages we net. Our program gives 80% of donor founds to the people of Uganda, providing medications, and follow up, not just a bed net. If our organization had government funding, we would be able to accomplish so much.

Katie McNeill: The people of Canada have their issues, and I completely understand that. I am well aware of the homeless in our country. I was one of those people who voted NDP so that Jack Layton could put his ideas into motion for the people of canada. What I dont think should happen is the discontinuation of founding for other countries. If you only help yourself, who will help you when you need it

Anon Friend: It’s not just the governments that are corrupted though, but the companies as well. I watched a documentary and read the reports on some of christian help fund and foundations like that and in quite a few of them, only about 20 cents out of every dollar actually makes it to the people the money is meant for. Yeah, it all adds up in the end but we’re not helping nearly as much as we think we are.

Anon Friend: And I’m not saying we shouldn’t help them, but that we should make sure that things here are properly done before we start handing out money to everyone else. How can we help look after other people when we can’t even help our own people?

Katie McNeill: Vote NDP next election. Just because Jack Layton isn’t with us, doesn’t mean his party, and what they stand for, has passed.

Anon Friend: I’ll vote how I see fit and what their goals at the time will be. For now though, I’m not talking about who is in our government but our society as a whole. We are the people that make up this country and we are the ones who can truly make a difference.
Yes it’s bad that people are sick in other countries, but that shouldn’t mean that we should ignore the sick right here in Canada and especially not the veterans who help save our country and the lives of more people than we will ever truly know

Katie McNeill: Have you ever heard of sharing? Equality for all? What is to say that the little boy I save in a 3rd world country wont grow up to be someone powerful here in Canada? Like an eye Doctor? Where he will save the vision of those people you speak of, by creating a program established to give better eye care to impoverished Canadians. This story is a true one. It was told to me by a Buy-a-Net representative located in Alberta. Her eye doctor was from a small village in Uganda. He did the surgery, paid for by the Canadian health care system, to repair her vision, which due to diabetes, has begun to falter. For the last 6 months she has been almost blind, and now has almost 20/20 vision. Although this man was not protected by a bed net from Buy-a-Net, he did sleep under one, which was provided by the Red Cross. Charlotte told me this story, and said one of the most beautiful, and inspiring thing to me; “You never know who you’re saving

Anon Friend: Equality for all is great except we don’t even have equality here in Canada. Not really. How do we know that there isn’t a child here who might be our answer to curing cancer but needs money for a surgery his family can’t afford?

Katie McNeill: What surgery? We have free health care! Slow health care, but its still there and still just as free.

Katie McNeill: Children have even more coverage then anyone else in Canada. Have you ever been in Pediatrics? I was there when I was 17. The best effin health care available. Volunteers even come in and read to the children, as well as give them a gift bag full of wonderful toys! I still have my teddy bear from Peds. If you’re talking about open organ transplants for children, that’s only due to a lack of donors

Anon Friend: Our health care system doesn’t cover everything. There was a story in the news last month about a child who couldn’t get the medicine he needed because it cost $30,000 a dose and the health care plan wouldn’t cover it.

Katie McNeill: What was it for? I can’t get my HPV shot because its costs up to $200…. but hey, guess what. I don’t have polio. I think that’s a big step up

Anon Friend: I know all about the Pediatric. I spent most of my childhood in hospitals because I was always sick.

Anon Friend: And I can’t remember the exact name of the disease. It was really rare since only about 2% of people have it.

Anon Friend: The only reason the kid got it though was because people IN Canada were willing to help someone IN Canada.

Katie McNeill: This is not a valid example in our argument. We are talking about the money dealt out to us by the government. Just because the government doesn’t have money set aside for a rare decease, doesn’t mean we should cut founding to the people of the world. “I’m sorry Haiti, you don’t get money from Canada to feed millions, little Timmy from Manitoba has a rare form of tuberculosis.” This is clearly something to send into our government. Maybe we need a found set aside for rare cases, but then, who will establish the program, run it, and play God as to who will receive founding for their treatments for the year? Will we put people on a waiting list? Isn’t it more affective to ask for Donations as the boy in your story did? Maybe we need to look to Canadians themselves for assistance in situations like this

Katie McNeill: As for our issue. I don’t really think you have much to argue about here. Both causes are evenly matched, the only difference is the one you’re backing already has coverage, ‘basic’ though it may be. Cutting founds for other country’s isn’t going to solve anything. We need to work with the amount given to us for assisting Canadians. To do this we need a good government

Anon Friend: Fine, you want a perfect example? One of the top 10 health concerns in the world is smoke related diseases causes from cooking over open-flame fires INSIDE their homes. Are you going to tell a mother of 3 who just lost her job and is having difficulty getting onto Welfare that she’ll just have to skip out on milk and bread because people in other countries don’t know how to cook outside where the smoke can dissipate?

Anon Friend: Oh, and the little boy didn’t ask for donations. His mother just went searching for others who had the disease to find out what to expect as it progressed.

Anon Friend: The point of a government is to help IT’S country first and foremost. It is not the fault of Canadians that other countries have difficulty with that point. As a matter of fact, many countries are trying hard to turn it around so that their countries will support them instead of having to seek assistance from other countries.
You said that we’re sending aid over to help these people. Do you truly understand why they need help in the first place? Many of it is because of us. Our governments and companies will “loan” money to these developing/undeveloped countries to “help” them. We send people in to estimate how well this money will help grow their economy so that they will be on the right track to support their people. The thing is, the people who make the estimates are paid to over-estimate so that in years when we come to collect, they can’t afford to pay us and we take what little money they have and their land and resources so they can never really get back on their feet. This is how we’re “Helping” them.
The world bank, which was established to assist countries who really needed it is one of the worst for following this example. They’ll even deny a country unless they sign a contract selling their rights to their natural resources.

All this money is going over to help these people when in reality, it’s not helping at all and all we’re left with is them going without and people here in our own country going without. Seems to me like charity should start in the home and we should open our eyes to what we’re really doing out there.

Anon Friend: Let’s try a little charity at home before we start helping other countries. How can we expect to help others if we can’t help ourselves? That’s like having a blind, deaf person help another blind, deaf person across the street. In the end, all we’re going to end up with is a bloody mess

Katie McNeill: Ok, you ready for this?

Katie McNeill: I get it, smoke related diseases are bad shit, but I have never heard founding specifically going towards that. Does this one instance mean that funding should be diverted specifically to Canadians. And a mother of 3, who has lost her job, simply has to apply for unemployment insurance. Or she could always apply for public housing, where her rent will only change if her pay cheque goes up. (She could also do both) And in order to get on the top of the list, all she has to say is her children are having to be split up amounts friend/family, as she no longer has a place to live.

For her to feed her family, she will be able to visit the food bank for supplies (although this isn’t a once a week thing, due to lack of CANADIAN’S donating food) there are also places like St Vincent de Paul Society, and Martha’s Table, which are set up so as to feed and cloth people. These are supported, not only by government founding, but also private donations, made by the people of our cities. Talk about charity starting in the home.

Katie McNeill: I’m not talking about loaning. (Although the reason they do that is to make sure they are able to get their money back. Do you think that China would loan the USA all that money only to have themselves fall into debt? I mean if everyone didn’t pay their Credit Card Bills, Canada would be economically fucked.) Much of the founding is given, not loaned. We will never see our money back from the relief effort in Japan, or the relief effort in Hurricane Katrina. The money needed for those people was given freely.

All of those countries we give money to are forever striving to become more efficient. Its about their own people, fighting their own government. But how can they do that when they are not healthy enough to sustain the people? When they don’t have the government to fight for them, and to establish social programs; like free education, free healthcare, free public housing, disability, workers pensions, etc… This brings me back to my original point. Canadian’s already have these programs in place. Do they need more funding? Fuck yes they do. Do we need it now? Fuck yes we do. I am not saying we don’t. But when you put into perspective what we already have. It is far better then everyone else has right now. Including the United States of America.

Katie McNeill: Let me ask you this question; Do we need to continue to assist foreign country’s when they are unable to? FUCK YES WE DO. Why? Because we have the money! So this is what needs to be done; distribute the founding equally amongst Canadians. Look to your neighbours for assistance. Think before spending that extra money on a bigger flat screen; go donate $50 to your local socialist programs. The government should not be held accountable for ALL of the funding being distributed to our local programs. If you want something done right, and are able to pay the price; PAY FOR IT. This includes you’re children’s educations.

I want you to look at this page for Kingston’s programs. This was done in 2007;

http://www.cityofkingston.ca/cityhall/press/release.asp?mode=show&id=2207

It clearly shows how much money Kingston has to give out to the cities programs.

Now look at this article;

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/05/31/millionaires-control-39-of-the-worlds-wealth/

This is about the amount of wealthy people (Our world wide millionaires. Also another reason why gas prices are so high, but I’m not going to start on that one.)

Philanthropy starts at home. People need to begin helping each other. Like you said “That’s like having a blind, deaf person help another blind, deaf person across the street. In the end, all we’re going to end up with is a bloody mess.”

So lets not nag the government into cutting founding for other countries. Lets nag them to make sure they’re monitoring and distributing it correctly.

Anon Friend: Okay. I’m in public housing with my family. They still mess you up and charge you way more than you can possibly pay. Food bank, great. I just had a neighbour call up the food bank because they didn’t have enough money to get groceries and they were told it would be a week before they could come get food. They tried calling other places and ended up having their children taken away because of it.
We need to help these people because we have the money? We only have the money because the Conservative government stopped the banks from going under like everyone else did.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t help them. I’m saying lets help those who need it here first. The people here are our responsibility as fellow Canadians. I’d like to see the people here get the medicine and food they need, which not all of them are able to.

What do you think? Post comments for debate!