Angry in the Great White North

From the OCAP website:

OCAP IS UNABLE TO COVER ITS BASIC OPERATING EXPENSES AFTER THIS WEEK

PLEASE GIVE US YOUR SUPPORT

OCAP has always struggled to carry on its work with the absolute minimum of resources. We organize our campaigns, plan our actions and intervene to defend people under attack on a monthly budget of less than $5,000. That means that we run an office, do our outreach, organize our work and events and pay two organizers on a budget most unions and social agencies would regard as impossibly small.

If you agree with OCAP's work of building resistance and support the notion of fighting, instead of adapting to, the agenda of social abandonment, please send us a donation to help us overcome the present, acute funding crisis we find ourselves in. We also, ask that you consider joining the OCAP sustainers program by sending a voided cheque and pledging a monthly amount that can then be deducted automatically from your bank account.

Thanks for you solidarity and please send cheques to OCAP, 10 Britain Street, Toronto, ON M5A 1R6

Apparently, they don't need much, but couldn't raise the funds anyway:

In an effort to secure the resources we need for this work, we are launching an OCAP Sustainers' Program - a pre-authorized payment system to enable our supporters to donate regular sums of money that will be transferred from their bank accounts every month.

If one hundred supporters signed up for the Program and provided an average donation of $20 a month, we would have a base of funding that would assist our organizing efforts considerably.

Apparently OCAP couldn't find one hundred supporters with $20 a month to spare.

Who know riots were that expensive to organize?

To give OCAP credit, they are doing what any organization should do -- go to the public and directly appeal for support. If the support is there, the money will flow. If not, well, the bank account ends up empty. OCAP has it harder simply because they support people with little money. What they need to do is convinced well-meaning and well-heeled individuals that OCAP's work benefits them too.

For instance, consider this bit of advocacy:

It only took 10 weeks, but it’s time to chalk-one-up for the little guy.

With his June pension cheque in hand and his special diet and transportation supplements reinstated, Raymond Boucher says he’s back on his medical diet, taking his medications and has begun a new treatment schedule in preparation for surgery in mid-June.

Diabetic and waiting to undergo dialysis, the 54-year-old Sudbury resident, who is too ill to work, had stopped taking medication and refused medical treatment in mid-March to protest what he saw as unfair treatment by the Ontario Disability Pension (ODSP).

Boucher had been receiving a special diet supplement of $147 a month from ODSP for several years. His April cheque was less than he normally received.

The $42 transportation supplement, which helps him get to his medical appointments was cut off, and his diet supplement was reduced to $97 without explanation.

With barely any reading and writing skills, Boucher was overwhelmed by government bureaucracy and in the middle of a run-around with ODSPs staff and doctors.

Gary Kinsman from the Hunger Clinic Organizing Committee reviewed Boucher’s files and sent a letter to ODSP asking it re-examine the case.

With no response from ODSP, Kinsman and supporters met in Memorial Park May 10 and made their way to the ODSP office to demand the government re-examine Boucher’s situation.

After a 90-minute wait, the group met with Boucher’s caseworker who agreed to accept yet another special diet form from Boucher’s medical team.

He says a special thanks is owed to Dawn, in MPP Rick Bartolucci’s constituency office. According to Boucher, she helped him to get his transportation supplement reinstated.

Apparently they had a little march and carried placards, but it worked. And they actually waited to talk to the caseworker instead immediately trashing the office.

But then there are other projects that are less likely to find favour. Like Sex Worker's Day:

Prostitutes, other sex workers and our allies are welcome & encouraged to join us stop traffic. Wear you're most sexy traffic stopping outfit and help turn up the heat on the Feds! Sex workers will be speaking about work in progress to reform Canadian laws.

"Traffic-stopping" isn't just a metaphor. The goal was to actually cause some minor traffic tie-ups.

And then this:

It seems unbelievable, but Toronto's City Council is considering a motion requesting that the city solicitor investigate the possibility that the city enact a by law that would include a provision that "no person can impede any other person's reasonable enjoyment of day-to-day activities through panhandling."

The same motion requests that city officials consult with police and report on measures that can be introduced to "discourage panhandling."

You see, people who have jobs and so who have money that could be donated to OCAP need to be able to get to those jobs. When OCAP encourages sex workers to block traffic as a demonstration of pride, or fights against provisions that would help control aggressive panhandlers who accost people trying to get into their places of employment, those potential donors are annoyed, and the donations never happen.

Give OCAP credit. They probably realize this, and yet they keep at it rather than make compromises to entice more donations. They won't get a dime from me, but they will get a bit of respect. But only a little bit. Frankly, they strike me as unimaginative most of the time. The only solution to a problem is a riot. That's never going to sell well when it's time to drum up donations.