Centretown residents would like to teach the government a thing or two.
At a public forum held last week by Paul Dewar, citizens gathered to consult the MP on how they would like the government to deal with the economic crisis.
Though the budget was already written at the time, participants say the process was productive, and that the current government should take notes.
“Mr. Flaherty could learn from our openness,” says Vicky Smallman, who sat at the table discussing education and training.
As more people showed up than had registered, event organizers hauled extra tables and chairs out of the Bronson Centre’s back rooms to accommodate about 100 experts and concerned individuals.
Event organizers split the participants into eight tables, each group charged with a specific area to discuss. Each group appointed a note-taker and spokesperson to present their ideas to the assembly.
The morning started with a talk followed by a question session with Michael McCracken, economist and CEO of Informetrica Ltd.
After a working lunch, the groups presented their recommendations to the forum and Dewar.
“I felt he heard us loud and clear,” says Cindy Magloughlin, the administrative co-ordinator for the Dalhousie Parents’ Day Care.
Dewar says he was impressed with the forum, but noted the budget and the forum’s recommendations differed drastically.
“We talked about innovation in the economy and the environment,” he says.
“Then we saw this budget come out (saying): ‘We’ll just throw some money at some projects and put some tax cuts in as the icing.’ ”
Diane Beckett, who attended the forum as an individual concerned about the environment, agrees the meeting gave Centretown residents a voice, but says she’s skeptical the current government is really listening.
Beckett says the forum displayed a lot of overlap in that every group expressed the need for green projects, whether they were discussing transit, child care or social housing.
“This shows a contrast between what the citizens of Canada want and what the government is proposing,” she says.
Participants had a lot of suggestions on how to pull our economy out of recession, but many of these ideas were absent from the federal budget.
Magloughlin says day care is her economic stimulant of choice, and she’s disappointed there wasn’t much to help out parents.
“People can’t go to work if there’s nowhere safe to put their children,” she says.
“They can’t go back to school and be retrained.”
Some participants said it’s not only what’s missing from the budget that accentuates the disconnect between what Canadians want and what the government is giving them, but also what was included.
“I don’t think there was anyone there on Saturday who thought that tax cuts were a good idea,” says Smallman who attended the forum as a concerned community member even though she works for the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
While the participants knew the budget was already finished by the time they were speaking, they still felt it was important to voice their concerns to their MP.
“It was more for the future,” says Mohamed Dalmar, who works for the Ottawa Catholic Immigration Centre.
Magloughlin agrees, but says she isn’t sure this will make much of a difference too soon.
“Maybe we just need this generation of dinosaurs to die off and the next generation will get it,” says Magloughlin.