Some guy's comments on one of my Facebook posts this week really brought home this twisted thinking that people who use illicit drugs don't deserve support because it was their choice to use drugs in the first place. (The "made your bed now lie in it" school of thought.)
I've learned that mostly when people say stuff like that, they're just shooting their mouth off, parroting the thing they've heard over and over again from childhood on. But how about we take a moment to dive into that thought - the idea that our social compact, as this guy put it, should not extend to carrying the burden for someone's "bad" choices.
Let's call it the Your Fault Social Compact. It'll be modeled on that health insurance company in the States where the CEO ended up murdered because he symbolized ruthless and predatory capitalism destroying human lives. Or ICBC.
Right now, our health care system says if you're sick, we'll care for you, even if the thing that's happening to you was caused by your choices. That will all change under the Your Fault Social Compact.
Type 2 diabetes, for example - that one costs Canadians $18 billion a year, but under the new deal, taxpayers are off the hook. It's all on you, buddy. We told you about the carbs.
Same with alcohol misuse, currently costing us $19 billion a year. Back of the line, drinkers. It's not like you weren't warned.
Cancer: Half of cancer deaths can be atttributed to individual choices a person makes. No more care for those ones. (Or maybe they get grudging care, but half as much. That'd make sense if we're using the UnitedHealthcare model - they like to limit how much anesthetic a given patient can get before they have to pay for it themselves.)
Another area for tax savings under the Your Fault Social Compact: Sports injuries, especially the ones like football, hockey and boxing, with all those brain injuries. (Mr. Facebook Commenter highlighted the brain injuries of people who use drugs in particular as an obvious breach of the social compact.)
Under the new deal, not our problem. Sorry, kids. You should have picked pickleball.
Car crash? Hey, it's not just ICBC assessing fault before paying out. If you were drinking, texting, speeding, not wearing your seat belt, that's not only going to affect your insurance, it's going to change the course of your health care. You'll be lining up in the Your Fault emergency department down in the basement, and hoping that the admitting nurse notices on your file that you're 10 per cent less at fault than that blatant texter beside you.
Search and rescue missions? Well, that all depends. Were the people's motives pure? Did they check all weather forecasts? What's with those ridiculous hiking boots on terrain like this? Who said that was enough water to carry? We'll have tick boxes for all of that kind of stuff, so we can quickly calculate just how much of a rescue a person deserves once the call comes in.
The paramedics will have their own checklists too, at the ready for every 911 response. Is this person worthy for some immediate help and a ride to the hospital?
Wait - aren't they kind of old to be living alone? That feels a bit like their choice, doesn't it? Isn't there a record of this guy's daughter telling him 36 times that drinking while using prescribed sedatives was a bad idea, and now he's lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs because he wouldn't listen? Breach of the social compact - skip that call, guys.
Joking aside, our actual social compact says that we all get treated equally. It doesn't even talk about bad choices. The Charter of Rights does talk about rights and responsibilities, and maybe we could all lean into that second word a little more, but Canada decided a long time ago that it was going to do its best to care for its citizens even when they failed to live a flawless life full of perfect choices.
I'd challenge anyone to even define what "bad choices" are, given that so many of us have made those identical choices and just not been caught out. And whose definition of "bad choice" wins out? How did we come to decide that the "bad choice" of an impoverished person using drugs on Pandora is singularly worse than the bad choice of a functional alcoholic who has a home with a door to hide their secrets behind?
Of all the offensive arguments used to vilify the poor sods living through the crisis on our community streets, it's this "choice" one that just might be the most maddening.
Because it's so brutally, obviously hypocritical. Because it's a flippant, shallow cover for what is actually a carefully considered and politically cynical denial of care to people pushed so heavily into the margins that they can now just be summarized as "street disorder."
For most of us, the idea of the Your Fault Social Compact is so ludicrous as to be laughable. But for the people living on our streets, it's the real deal. That's what they're living. How can anybody think that's right?
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I love your writing Jody 🙏