Category Archives: Issues in Society

Learning about creating change in our society with examinations of important issues that are/may be viewed as irrelevant by government.

14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger

September 28, 2022Issues in Society#mmiwg2s, 14 rules of #Stranger-Danger, an informal cornr, child safety stranger danger, every child matters, human predators seek opportunity, its ok to call 9-1-1, milk carton missing children campaign, neighborhood watch, parents need teach children stranger danger rules, public education, society broke trust, society issues, universal hand signal for i need helpGinsense

Personal safety when out and about whether in public, or rural areas requires your attention. Human predators instinctively recognize easy Prey and always seek opportunity.

Parents share the common goal of maintaining the safety of their children including their adult children. So, we must learn and teach the 14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger.

Teach and Learn the 14 Rules of #Stranger-Danger

Don’t talk to Strangers, somebody starts talking to you, and not part of the family, is a stranger. LEAVE, and go to a crowded Public place. Strangers may be nice but does not mean they are friends. Don’t open the door when strangers are knocking especially when home alone.

Tell family where you are , tell your parents, and sisters or brothers, where they can find you, and stay there, or let them know again, the new place you’re going, and always leave names, addresses, and phone numbers of your friend(s).

Learn the Buddy system, learn the importance of safety in numbers. Teach your children to play with groups of friends, and stay together. Try to leave group with a friend who lives near your own house. Allow your child to call their friends to make sure all made it home, safe.

Do not meet with Strangers from telephone calls or Internet, teach your child to never meet with a stranger who calls on the phone or from the internet, no matter how urgent they make it sound. Tell your parents and family about the call quickly and write the time, date, what was said.

Only Adults can help adults, teach and learn that children can’t help adults. Learn and teach your child it’s okay to say No, and leave. Run to a place of safety.

Secret Code Word, create a secret code word or words for parents and children to be used only by a designated Emergency contact person until parents get home.

Stay away from Stranger’s car or truck, teach your children to never go near a strangers car, do not get in, do not look inside. Step back and away from reach of a car or truck windows and doors. A child does not have the strength to match an adult.

Scream and Yell for help, teach your child to scream and yell if feeling scared with a stranger. Teach the importance of alerting others nearby for help.

Avoid empty and dark places, teach your children by showing them empty lots, abandoned buildings, dark forests, and importance to avoid such places especially when alone. Teach how businesses are closed at nights, figure out together how your children can find help.

Trust your Instincts, teach your children they are not fools or dumb. Let them know if something doesn’t ‘feel right‘ that’s when it’s time to leave the area and find help or run to a safe place. Teach that it’s ok to call 911 if your children feel unsafe.

Teach their friends, teach your child to share, and talk about the rules of #Stranger Danger. Not every child knows of these rules, and your children can help fill this gap by teaching other children. Include teaching them not to choose who should know such lessons. They are helping save lives.

Remember Appearance , teach your child to remember face, clothes, color of hair, size, height, car, truck. It would be a traumatic moment but do their best to remember details. Play memory games spur-of-the-moment to build your children’s recall skills.

Designate a Trusted Emergency Contact Neighbor or Family, parents should have alternate place of safety for their children available for an Emergency until able to get home. Designate somebody very trusted and familiar to the children.

Call the Police, parents should report all incidents to the Police as soon as possible. Your child may be safe but there are other children in your neighborhood. Police will have it on record and also be aware and on the alert.

Shock of Missing and Murdered Children

News about disappearances, abductions, and/or deaths of missing children is heartbreaking to hear, and worse if it occurs in our own town or city. We, as parents can’t be with them every hour of the day.

We can’t always trust schools, police or church to be safe havens any more these days. If we can teach our children these safety rules we at least give them a chance to survive the unknowns of #stranger danger.

I grew up at the time where children were being abducted, and some later found, deceased, others still missing to this day. Stories appeared almost weekly on front pages of newspapers. It was heartbreaking and horrific. For me ending the tween stage at the time the world was getting scary.

My own personal experience as a latch-key teenager was from a telephone call for a photo shoot. My mother arrived home from work early, and in time to stop me from leaving. She later found out after speaking with my school that there was no photo shoot scheduled that day. This is how I would learn about importance of ‘no talking or meeting with strangers. anywhere’.

Street Smart Safety Programs come to First Nations – MMIWG2S and Every Child Matters

I am an Indigenous mother living in a rural First nation (FN) community. I really had to push our community Family and Childrens Services (FACS) worker to bring #Street Smart program for our children in the community.

The worker didn’t understand for the longest time what I was talking about. The name had been changed to #Stranger Danger. Many FN parents were not taught about this information at Residential schools nor in their home communities. Not all schools offered the program for students about the same time as Indigenous students entered mainstream Public schools.

Canada estimates there are about 45, 288 children that go missing each year. A look at the Missing Children’s Statistics at Government of Canada website – Canada’s Missing shows high numbers of females with males a runner-up, under Runaway and Unknown.

Missing and Murdered -Indigenous Women and Children

Today, FN communities are reeling from shock of unmarked grave sites of children at Residential schools.

Mainstream society has a data base of missing children, teens and adults. We have serial child s. Offenders set free from prisons. We do get notified but is that truly enough?

Step up to do More – Early Beginnings

Contact your local Child and Family Services (FACS) office (or whatever their NEW name is these days), your local MP, Provincial and Federal government officials, schools, and Police to keep funding and running these Child Safety programs, in every school; elementary, middle school and high school. Ensure the rules are memorized for life.

A dairy company, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa would inspire a national USA Missing Child photo campaign printed on Milk cartons in the USA which Canada also adopted. Every milk carton would have photo’s and information about a missing child, description, and message to call the police.

Campaign Evolves – Deny services

Today, we have the Amber Alert though they have been criticized for not being co-operative to send an alert for an Indigenous child in Canada of 2022.

Is this due to indifference or the current open practice of ongoing racism towards BIPOC Canadian citizens? What does that tell you? Should another separate service be started specifically for BIPOC? is this Segregation of services?

Public education can help ensure each new generation are able to teach their own children. We can do our best to strive for safe neighborhoods where our children can be children. What other ideas do you think could help ensure the safety of our children? other peoples children? help BIPOC children?

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your comments and Share your new found knowledge with others. Use the ‘Ask A Question’ form to make a request on a topic of your own interest. It is FREE to subscribe to my RSS feed.

AIC| An Informal Cornr, all rights reserved. Ginsense writes articles at AIC|An Informal Cornr about business skills and development, health, science, technology, society and enjoys advocating for independence, security and a better world for all of us. Learn something new 🙂 Tell your Friends! Visit today!

Trick or Treat -Laws and Canadian Prison Inmates

September 10, 2021Issues in Societyan informal cornr, canada prisons, canadian inmates, failed prison policy, human rights violations, injustice, social issues, torture in prison, violationsGinsense

Laws in Canada are available across the nation for many Canadians. Laws are created to help keep society operating, and sets down rules for actions and behaviors that are unacceptable and applies consequences. They serve as guidelines for how people can best manage themselves both in private and in public life. Most importantly, to help keep harm from befalling the people. So, what is Trick or Treat – Laws and Canadian prison inmates mean for us?

Laws are created by the government and enforced by police and the Judicial system (Judges, jails, prisons). Citizens are able to go to court to defend themselves with a court-appointed lawyer, or hired lawyer.

A prison sentence can be applied for crimes that fall within the Canadian Criminal code. There are Federal, Provincial and municipal laws, courts and varying levels of consequences. Canadian prisons have a high number of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous People of Color) which should beg the question, why? And what does this say about the government, courts and nation, to accept such obvious differentiation?

Canada is good at creating criminals but not so with rehabilitating inmates to re-enter society with an improved regard for others and self. How does one find hope with such indifference and dehumanizing actions taken upon them?

I’m Indigenous, and would think, I’m NOT safe in this country because I’m colored. Does it seem like the message for the Life of a minority is meaningless in this nation?

Crimes are committed by both genders, men and women, and Youth laws apply to youths since they too have proven that they can commit adult crimes. Outcomes of going through the court system, after age 18 for criminal charges, creates a Criminal record. This record keeps a record of all crimes that a person commits and, becomes a barrier towards finding employment in certain careers. It is permanent. Youth records get sealed but not always.

Tricks

Now, let’s take a peek at those behind bars residing in jail/prisons. A common antic that arises for an inmate nearing his/her release date. One or more inmates will go all out with violence to sabotage and/or cancel outright, the release of another inmate.

Such acts will ensure another criminal charge upon the inmate ready for release. This will prolong his/her stay in jail for another time frame, and until another court day is set for this new charge.

A deliberate physical assault gets initiated against the inmate set for release, and the one initiating the fight will ‘play‘ the role of victim. We’ll assign them as inmate A, ready for release, and inmate B, plans to stop the release.

Jails and prisons may and/or will have two inmates per cell. So, during lockdown the two inmates are in one room. Nobody is looking, staff shortages do not have guards patrolling the cells, and there may be no cameras. Inmate B will not have any witnesses other than maybe one or two cells across the aisle and those inmates may support his claim.

The distance between cells may skew line of sight. Nobody may see inmate B throwing the first punch. They may not see the non-stop attack being done upon inmate A. They may only see the middle-to-end fighting.

Inmate A defending himself from harm and inmate B taking hits willingly even deliberately walking into the return punches. After all, the worst inmate B looks, the worst the jail and courts will see inmate A.

Once this assault has the attention of the prison guards. Inmate B enters his/her role, the victim of a physical assault. Inmate A is immediately removed and put into another prison area designated for the ‘violent’. A serious unpredictable environment literally has inmates in high stress and survival mode. Is this supposed to help ‘rehabilitate‘ inmates too?

Usually, an inmate is moved to a ‘range’ with other inmates soon to be released, and they wait out their time with minimal, if any, problems. Unfortunately, this practice may not be followed nor available.

Office of the Correctional Investigator

Oh yes, I know. This can’t be real! No way, etc, etc. It happens, is happening. I suggest you read one, or more, reports from the Office of the Correctional Investigator –> here to learn about the most recent 2019-2020 report.

The reports are honest and definitely fall within his Mission Statement of investigations and “ serves Canadians and contributes to safe, lawful and humane corrections through independent oversight of the Correctional Service of Canada by providing accessible, impartial and timely investigation of individual and systemic concerns.” I appreciate the honesty, courage, humanity and objectivity of these reports, and glad he can present them to Parliament.

It is greatly alarming to read about Corrections staff permitting harms between inmates, and permission from Superiors, to use ‘techniques‘ requiring brutal physical force upon inmates aka ‘pain compliance techniques‘ for 17 minutes.

Reading this section of the report was quite eye opening, and I have to ask the governments and all parties who ‘create‘ such policies, why allow inflicting such brutality on others? Add to these abhorrent acts done by Corrections staff – there are zero consequences. Nobody takes responsibility nor are charges applied. I do not see how such treatment of inmates helps to ‘rehabilitate‘ them for re-entry into mainstream society.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Canada has a Constitution Act with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and under Legal Rights, the following says :

Treatment and Punishment

12. Everyone has the Right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

The policy for ‘Pain compliance‘ has since been changed. No such force is permitted but how long will that last? We saw the effects on inmates of what ‘Segregation‘ does to the human mind. Yet this practice is still ongoing. It just has a new name, Quarantine being one. Inmates still sit in segregation cells for 23 hours and maybe, allowed out for one hour, and time runs out to use the phone for many when they’re forced to return to their cells.

Further into reading the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we will see ;

Application of Charter

27. The Criminal Law, except the Constitution of Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction, but including the Procedure in Criminal Matters.

32 (1) This Charter applies
- (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
- (b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.

Read a little further into the Constitution Act and we’ll find a division between Federal and Provincial powers and jurisdiction that shows TWO Constitutions;

VI. Distribution of Legislative Powers

Powers of the Parliament

Legislative Authority of Parliament of Canada

28. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Penitentiaries.

Exclusive Powers of Provincial Legislatures

6. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Public and Reformatory Prisons in and for the Province.

7. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for the Province, other than Marine Hospitals.

Laws and Inmates

Sleight of hand? Create changes in policies to become law of the land. A method used in Federal and Provincial governments, to skirt accepting responsibility for any wrongdoing. Do you see it? One level of government follows the rules and turns a blind eye on the 2^nd level of government allowing brutalities behind bars and near open abuses on the People. Both claim innocence and, ‘its for public safety‘ and neither allowing consequences for such brutalities.

Is this a Proud moment for Canadians?

Is this truly acceptable treatment of prison Inmates?

Do you question the state of mind of government officials who write policy?

Does each ‘erosion‘ of Rights mean LESS Protections for the People?

Should any level of government be allowed to ‘violate’ Constitutional rights of the People with impunity (exempt from punishment)?

Is this how Canada should be governed ?

Is there no ONE and TRUE Constitution now?

Learning in Motion

Reading Resources

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, PDF

What is difference between flawed democracy and full democracy?

10 Awful Canadian Violations of Human Rights

A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your new found knowledge with others. Use the ‘Ask A Question’ form to make a request on a topic of your own interest. It is FREE to subscribe by RSS feed.

Jobs vs Covid-19

December 10, 2020Issues in Society#financial security, an informal cornr, build financial security, health and well being, how to find part time work, how to find work in a #pandemic, jobs vs covid 19, work at homeGinsense

Our world has been turned upside down with this virus, Covid-19. It is a highly infectious disease that attacks our respiratory system, and affects everybody differently with a range of symptoms that can be mild, or create complications leading to death. No one person gets affected the same. Let’s examine managing ‘jobs vs Covid-19‘.

Employment is required to provide shelter, food, and luxury items such as mobile and landline telephone, cable or satellite services, and internet access, to name a few. It’s not just for self but family and loved ones too including our pet named, Boo.

Employee’s of these particular businesses forced to close their doors and not considered essential has left many people without employment, and receiving unemployment benefits is a short term program. So, what is one to do for on-going financial security?

Lower your Bills

One of the first tasks, is to take a look at all expenses, and reduce these costs :

can you lower your service bills to more basic costs?
can you suspend your services?
evaluate your food needs and trim groceries. Set up meal plans to most basic following national healthy diet standards.
food insecurity and shortages are being faced by many people and families. Search online and learn how you can extend your food stuffs with preserving methods such as dehydrating fruits and meat, freezing pre-cooked meals, and/or canning.
Purchase dry food stuffs. Beans and lentils, soup bouillon cubes, or powder packages, and powdered milk or eggs. Search online or check around for stores that carry dehydrated foods, and you may just find a jackpot, such as Bulk Barn.
Vehicle costs may not be negotiable but call and check if they’re open to negotiating lowering the cost by $50.00, and offer to repay this amount after a year. $50.00 x 12 = $600.00. It’s a temporary savings for extra funds but also one cost that will be due in full by year’s end. So, you must keep that in mind. They may say no altogether and you will have to decide to keep or forego the vehicle. This idea may be applied to rents or mortgages but again, check with your bank or landlord. These may require new ‘agreements/contracts’ and make sure to read the fine print so no extra charges are being applied since money gouging can be reported.

Government Essential Services & Jobs

Finding regular employment is the next step. One can always join the workers at the ‘essential’ businesses allowed by Ontario in areas such as:

food and convenience stores
food manufacturers and processors
packaging and delivery
liquor stores
health suppliers for human and pet consumption
gas suppliers and related services for ground and air
pharmacies and pharmaceuticals
food preparation, delivery and take-out
hotels, motels and rental units, residential and students
maintenance, repair, sanitation and security services for residential and commercial buildings
office and business suppliers
IT and communications services
safety equipment suppliers/manufacturers/distribution chain
transportation, taxi’s, delivery truck fleets, rail, air, and marine providing delivery of essential services
warehousing and storage of essential service products
truck stops and tow operators
business support providers for upkeep of transportation, etc.
agricultural services, harvest, processing, manufacture and distribution of foods for human and pet consumption.
business support providers for safety of primary food supply chain (livestock auctions, feed mills, farm equipment and feed suppliers, food terminals/warehouses, animal slaughter plants, and grain elevators)
veterinary pet care providers, and related animal health and welfare services
waste management services
construction services
financial services, bank and credit union, insurance, payroll support, and pensions
business suppliers that support global continuity of mining products, processing, manufacturers, oil and gas
environmental management/monitoring, spill emergency response, and related support services
infrastructure and safety government services, sewage, fire, police, water treatment, electrical grid, courts, and related support services
newspapers, radio and telecommunication providers and support services
medical research and support services
LTC homes and related services, medical devices, equipment, etc.
health providers, dental, hospital, mental health, optometrists, etc.
non-profit organizations for homeless, food banks, shelters, and related services providing food, shelter, protection, disabled, and economically disadvantaged
Other : mail and courier services, legal services, laundromats, funeral service providers, security services (security guards), temporary staff services, childcare for essential workers, home childcare for less than six children, cheque cashing businesses

A problem with finding employment with some of these ‘essential’ service providers that’s been in the news, is that they have Covid-19 ‘outbreaks‘. It seems that the more people working together in such close proximity raises the risk factors of getting infected. Secondly, there may be a huge pay difference as some of these ‘essential‘ businesses only offer minimum wage. Nobody wants to bring the virus home yet having a job with regular pay is needed, for our most basic needs, shelter, safety and food with the current high costs of living.

Creating Self-employment

One fix does exist but will require additional effort on your part. Take a minimum wage job and include a side hustle aka a part-time Gig. This will bring in extra monies to help maintain your current quality of living, or at least help with household bills. Exploring alternative self- employment ideas can help such as providing your own services that may be similar or complementary, to the existing essential services. A few other home business ideas and side hustles to consider:

offer dehydrating food services
offer canning food services
make large bag of cereal trail mixes for sale
offer two hour childcare services for six, or less children
rent an extra room, or garage space for temporary/seasonal storage
check web sites with Apps offering services such as Rover . com, Handyman . com
join App sites that offer coupons, and cash back for purchases
join a call centre for customer service, an online job
write articles and get paid by web sites looking for writers in topics you know
sell photographs to those business sectors looking for photo’s
make how-to videos for Youtube and include advertising
start your own food service business (food catering truck)
offer securing packages services for homes (Amazon, Wayfair, etc., packages) and deliver when home owners return home
house or pet sit
make and sell freezable meals
mobile-curbside pet groomer
join a court paper processor service delivering summons to court for legal offices
mobile curbside mechanic
offer translation services
offer new language classes (learn speak Italian, Arabic, Russian)
make and sell fresh bread from home
work with property managers/landlords to clean, repair, update apartments
offer computer repair, recovery, security service
become a Drone operator
learn and offer Drone repair services
join Rent-a-Friend, Rent-a-Cyber-Friend, or similar sites online but keep personal safety in mind too
explore becoming a Street Vendor
offer to sell personal safety products to families. Find a security business wholesale supplier that offers personal safety products such as personal alarms, GPS products, nanny cams. Order products at wholesale and sell at retail prices.
Personal Support service, offer to run errands, pick up and deliver orders, check in on elderly family members.
Offer to digitize family photos and make slideshows, offer them to buy flash USB memory cards (electronic data storage devices) as an extra service
income tax services, or bookkeeping
offer handwriting services for birthdays, anniversaries, etc., for business executives
sell small craft items on consignment with a few essential local stores

The employment news has not sounded great lately but we can take initiative and use a work-around. We just have to be okay with the idea of a minimum wage job, and a side hustle rather than concerned with our pride. It may be tough with a full or part time minimum wage job and a side hustle depending on the work output required. At least the HOURS and WHEN you do the side hustle is under your control, and to include how many gigs to reach a certain earning level. I will also highly recommend checking government INDUSTRY standards and laws which are governed by Acts. Lastly, you’ll need to set and diligently follow, a time schedule of your side hustles, and manage your available time. Keep a smile, respect confidentiality, and trust will be earned by paying customers.

Finding Comfortable

The exercise to trim your expenses to the near barest minimum will help extend what monies you have, or can earn. Hopefully, you have found that minimum threshold needed for your bills, maybe the small bills, and now got to focus on the large higher cost items such as mortgage and vehicle payments.

The second exercise to reassess your food shopping will help further reduce costs and extend food security. The bonus results are extra monies you can apply towards the costlier items that require payment, and maybe, learning to cook with new foods.

You’ll need to research your connected services online and see if they have lower cost service bundles, or suspend/cancel them outright. You can then calculate how much money is needed for all expenses. Wouldn’t it be cool if the government required businesses to cut prices in half? this would apply for the businesses too with their own costs, of course.

Learning to work two different types of jobs will also require you to change hats. You may find this may need taking a few moments to meditate. Close your eyes, breathe, and separate from a job requiring you to work for another, and switch your thinking to boss and delivering a service, to others. It will take practice and some take to it quickly while others struggle to find the balance but it can be done. Most of all, have faith in yourself that you got this.

Over time you’ll find your expenses manageable, and new sense of financial security. Strict management of your finances will be needed to keep up your new normal but you and your family will be safe with shelter, food and control of your bills. Changes to our lives with this novel virus will be our new normal but humans are adaptable too.

Extra Reading Resources

Essential services- Government of Canada – FAQ

61 Legit Work at Home Jobs and Side Hustles in Canada, Eh!!!

Canada Remote, Part-Time, & Freelance Jobs

Create Your Business Plan

Waiting on Science & Personal Well Being

Today’s health scientists have made many medical advancements, and working hard, to bring a vaccine, to the people. As said earlier, we just need to give them that time, and do our best to protect ourselves, and each other with masks, social distancing, and keeping our gatherings, as small as possible. This pandemic will eventually come under control. For now, stay strong, keep faith, stay safe.

I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your comments and Share your new found knowledge with others. It is FREE to subscribe by email or RSS feed.

An Informal Cornr, all rights reserved. Gins writes articles on business skills, development, health, science, technology and society and enjoys advocating for independence, security and a better world for all of us.