Unpublished letter sent to the Toronto Star

Re: Ontario reduces electricity rates during daytime hours, March 25, 2020

I the pandemonium of the COVID-19 pandemic the silence from the corporate sector and the staggeringly wealthy is not surprising. These two groups always slink into their luxurious backgrounds when disaster hits to protect their money and get out of the public eye. Corporations spend like drunken sailors in the good times and then cry in their beer when the pandemic hits hoping for some free bailout money from taxpayers. Maybe they should have saved up for this rainy day like everyone else has then they would have money to carry them through this crisis. The government should mandate a rainy day fund for all businesses going forward. Other than paying some of the salaries of shut-in employees in selected cases the majority of big corporations and the rich have been big on hand-holding and platitudes but short on real help.

In this time of extreme need with millions of short-term contract workers idled without pensions, healthcare or any other kind of supports to assist them there are many tangible things that corporations and the wealthy could be doing that would really help, like the banks who make billions every quarter rather than magnanimously deferring mortgage payments giving everyone a free mortgage payment or corporate landlords giving renters a free month’s rent? Why don’t car makers give people a free car payment or grocery stores like Loblaws allowing free shopping for seniors and healthcare workers in addition to opening the stores early for an hour which costs them nothing,. Public transit should be free for a month and the oil companies could give people a free gas for a month  without blinking an eye. With the trillions in profits the oil companies have earned this would be a small way to give back for once. The Beer Store could give out a complimentary six-pack of beer with any purchase or the LCBO a complimentary bottle of wine. Hydro 1 could give people reducd electricity at their cost rather than the taxpayers paying for it. And most particularly, banks could and should reduce credit card rates to 10%. The banks have been profit gouging for 10 years since the 2008 financial crisis. It’s about time that stopped. A cut in credit card interest would immediately assist every Canadian. All these measures and more would be a way of saying thank you to the millions of people who run our society and for once thanking them in a tangible way rather than meaningless public gestures that amount to nothing. People are getting tired of being patronized by the “take-all-the-money-and-run” capitalism that never thinks of the people who deliver that money to corporations and the rich each and every day. We need to rethink our entire profit based economic motivational system and revise it to incentivize the working stiffs first not shareholders and to stop demonizing public sector