Episode 7 - Dinghies and Yachts: Rising Tides and Other Fish Tales

Why do so many people struggle in a world of unprecedented abundance? This question lies at the heart of our raw, unfiltered conversation about poverty, privilege, and the myths we tell ourselves about success.

We're not just examining poverty as an economic issue but as a spiritual one that reveals what we truly value as a society. When we frame poverty as a personal failure rather than a systemic reality, we not only misunderstand its causes but inadvertently justify growing inequality as somehow "fair" or "deserved." Our panel dismantles this dangerous myth, revealing how our current economic systems don't just allow poverty to persist—they require it.

The conversation takes a profound turn as we explore how modern capitalism creates an ironic paradox: a system built on artificial scarcity in a world of historic abundance. We've been conditioned to see ourselves as competitive, independent beings when evidence suggests our greatest evolutionary advantage has always been cooperation. This fundamental misunderstanding shapes everything from public policy to business practices to how we treat our neighbors.

Our guests offer deeply personal reflections on what gives them hope despite the monumental challenges ahead. Whether through community organizing, policy reform, union advocacy, or spiritual practice, each contributor illuminates pathways toward a more just future. Drawing from both ancient wisdom and contemporary research, they remind us that addressing poverty isn't simply about better charity—it's about restoring our sense of mutual belonging and responsibility to one another.

This conversation will challenge you, comfort you, and ultimately invite you to reimagine what's possible when we move beyond competition toward genuine community. For those struggling economically, may this be a reminder that your worth isn't measured by your wealth. And for those experiencing abundance, may it spark reflection on how we might build systems that allow everyone to flourish.

Check us out at www.preparedtodrown.com

Continue the conversation over at our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/PreparedtoDrown

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to the Poverty Conversation
• 3:21 Challenging the Competitive Human Narrative
• 12:07 The False Promise of Meritocracy
• 22:58 How Systems Actively Produce Poverty
• 34:40 The Scarcity Paradigm vs. Abundant Reality
• 54:47 Reframing Justice as Belonging
• 1:12:47 Building Hopeful Resistance and Community
• 1:38:22 Closing Reflections on Finding Hope

Transcript

Bill: 0:08

All right, friends, tonight's conversation might unsettle some things, and that's kind of the point. We're talking about poverty not as a personal failure, but as a mirror to the systems we've built and the values that we've been handed. We're naming the myth of meritocracy and asking why some of us are paddling in dinghies while others cruise by in yachts and wondering what kind of world we might create if we told the truth about how we got here. As always, we're recording live, unfiltered, non-edited, just honest conversation held in real time in front of a live audience at MacDougall United Church. No do-overs, no polished takes, just voices raised in hope, tension and the mess of it all.

Bill: 0:45

I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepared to Drown deep dives into an expansive faith. Let's weigh it in together. So we are here on an April evening and we are here talking about something a little bit different than most of the times that we get together to talk On this discussion panel. We try to make sense of things normally, and yet we are here tonight talking about something that, in my opinion, should not make as much sense as we say it does. We are here to talk about the persistence of poverty in a world of so much wealth. So we're going to ask questions about why is it that so many are still struggling when there is clearly enough to go around? We're going to talk about it because it's not just a social or a political issue, it's also a spiritual one, and the stories that we tell about poverty and success and wealth and worth are all deeply moral conversations that we have and deeply moral stories that we tell. So the systems that keep poverty in place are shaped by what we believe about one another, and so all of this wraps up into what should be a really engaging conversation. But if we're going to do it justice, we need to have good guests, and we are really lucky tonight joining Joanne and Ricardo and myself our two experts if there is such a thing on poverty but two fantastic guests.

Bill: 1:59

We've got Diana Batten, who is the MLA for Calgary, acadia. She's a former nurse and educator. She also, I think, had her first sort of business taste at the age of 19, if I remember correctly, and so she brings a deep understanding not just of public policy and community care but poverty as it's lived out kind of in real life and the struggles that people face. So thank you, member Batten, for being here. All right, diana. It is from this point forward that was not scripted at all. And then sitting directly to my right is Derek Cook. He is the director of the Canadian Poverty Institute, whose work has helped many of us rethink poverty not just as a personal failure but as a structural reality. So we are really grateful to have you here as well tonight, because your entire body of work and so much of what you do in the Institute is really focused on this issue as it relates especially to our local context, but the broader context as well in the world right. So thanks for being here, thank you in the world right. So thanks for being here, thank you.

Bill: 3:05

And so with that we're going to start, and I'd like to start, if you will indulge me, by talking about the narratives that we tell ourselves and each other about poverty. So in my reading and my research leading up to this, I was reading a book called the Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel, and in it he writes the more that we believe that success is the result of our own doing, the more we believe that winners deserve the winnings, the harder it is to see ourselves in the face of the poor. Their failure, we assume, must be their fault we're kind of talking about in this quote, breeds both hubris among the winners and humiliation among those who are left behind. And with that mindset and when it gets into our economic systems and our churches and our public policies and our societies, it starts to justify inequality as being a reflection of justice. So I want to start here, because I think that this idea and other similar really destructive kind of ideas are baked into so much of how we talk about poverty that if someone is struggling they just didn't try hard enough.

Bill: 4:13

But we know from experience and from evidence that the reality is far more complicated and in a society that has so much, poverty still persists. So I'm going to throw the first question to Derek, if you don't mind, because you wrote an article, a blog article, and it was called Wage Hazing, and in it you and I'm going to paraphrase it you talked about how we have turned poverty into an almost socially acceptable kind of rite of passage, except that it's a rite that is not universally applied to all people and it's also a rite that most don't get to experience the passage through to something better. So I'm going to ask you just to sort of start us off here. How do you see this narrative still kind of playing out today?

Derek: 5:02

I think it goes to what you were saying when you started about how we see ourselves and how we see other people. We have come to understand human beings in a very particular way over the last three, four hundred years, I would say, and it has to do with the transition to capitalism. We've come to understand people as being fundamentally independent, rational, competitive and self-interested. And one might think about that and say, yeah, that kind of makes sense. But it's actually a really modern kind of understanding of the human condition and who we are. There's a wonderful book by Yuval Harari. It's called Sapiens. It's a history of the human species.

Derek: 6:09

Is not our ability to compete? Because we're actually? We actually are actually horrible competitors. Anybody who's been in the backcountry and met a bear, you might question your competitive ability. It hasn't been our ability to compete, it's been our ability to cooperate. That is why we have evolved to be sort of the apex species on the planet.

Derek: 6:35

And yet we have this narrative of the independent, competitive person, which is problematic for a couple of reasons, because I think inherently we know we're not that person. So that creates a lot of vulnerability. It creates a lot of fear. It also justifies the things that we do to each other, because if you are poor, well then, you weren't competitive enough. But I think we have to move from an understanding of people as these independent competitive beings to one of people who are interdependent and inherently cooperative. When we are working with people who are experiencing poverty I hear this time and time again the prescription is we have to make them become more independent. No, they're probably too independent. That's probably the problem. We have to make people interdependent. We need community, and I think that's the narrative shift and the paradigm shift we have to come to.

Bill: 7:42

Yeah, if I may actually not even make them interdependent, just give them permission to be what they already are, right.

Derek: 7:49

Yes.

Bill: 7:51

And recognize that to do any less than that is to perpetuate the struggle and, if anything, enshrine it even more into what we're doing. Thank you, that's a really great way to start it off. So, diana, I follow you on social media. I've scoped out your website, I've done all that kind of work and I don't have to look far to find all kinds of times that you have talked about the need for the systems that we actually create around poverty to meet people where they are, and so, within the confines of we're still a church, where do you see that not happening?

Diana: 8:30

That is a very good question. So I would say that right now in Alberta, we have a government who is not meeting Albertans where they are, and why that's important. I mean, yes, of course I'm opposition here, but why I bring that up is that we will continue to be in the position we're in, or worse, if we don't start basically doing exactly as we've been talking. Right, it's about community. It's not about providing something to someone because we think they need it. It is about what they actually need, and we're not seeing it. And when I so an example, a recent example, and you actually, it's all in the news once again. So the childcare right, so we have a federal provincial agreement for childcare In Alberta. We did it a little bit different because we're Alberta, and that's fine, alberta. We did it a little bit different because we're Alberta, and that's fine.

Diana: 9:24

But unfortunately, not too long ago, the government removed a subsidy for low-income families, and when I say low-income, it's under $180,000 household. That is not low-income, right. So, like so, anywho, remove the subsidy, and what that meant is that there are over 70,000 children now who cannot access childcare, and so when we talk about providing folks what they need or meeting them where they are. It's everything. We need to make sure that we are actually identifying where the needs are and what they would like, right. So I think we're failing them in terms. I think we're failing each other a little bit. If we think about post-COVID, covid kind of drove everyone apart, right, you know, we couldn't shake hands or do any of that. And now, in a world where COVID is, you know, around, I feel like we need to rebuild communities. Right, we became very self-involved, which made sense, like it was a scary time. But I think we've forgotten the importance of our neighbors and we have forgotten that what we've experienced is not what everyone else has experienced.

Bill: 10:44

Yeah, yeah, we. I I joked on a previous episode of this podcast, actually that when COVID happened, we, we found this, this narrative of we're better together, right the minute we were all isolated from each other, like we we heard it all the time signs and windows and like all this kind of stuff, and there's this longing Banging hands Right kind of stuff, and this this longing hands right 7 pm, yeah, right and uh.

Bill: 11:05

And then, as soon as it was like all right, we can, we can start to re-emerge, it's like, no, no, like, let's forget that, let's forget we ever thought that was the case, that we were better together and we went back to all the old patterns, and in some ways worse than uh, than when we entered the, the pandemic to begin with, right. So so, joanne, you're uh, you're uh one who has left a lot of sort of the more conservative, narrow vision kind of theologies in your lifetime, perpetuating poverty and perpetuating this narrative of, well, really, that those who are living a good life and blessed by God for it are going to reflect it in their material wealth and their possessions and all those kinds of things. So maybe you want to speak briefly about what kind of damage that does to people who are already living on the margins.

Joanne: 12:08

Yeah, I mean it comes down to this whole sense of blaming victims in some ways, and the reality is like you can talk about prosperity gospel as being that you know getting the blessings from God, which has gone way overboard, because I remember reading about a church somewhere I think it was Detroit or something in the prosperity gospel and like they drove SUVs, luxury cars onto the you know the chancel area and just basically are saying you know, like if you do what God wants, god will bless you, you'll have this car. Well, this is nowhere in Scripture. No, was that? No, is that?

Derek: 12:51

part, I still have a car payment.

Ricardo: 12:52

I don't know.

Joanne: 12:53

Right.

Diana: 12:54

Like wait a second here, yeah, that's exactly right.

Joanne: 12:57

I'm here in the church you dedicate so much time.

Bill: 13:02

Where's your riches?

Joanne: 13:03

Yeah, you know, like the blessing of God is really peace. A lot of times it's right, it's you know that we'll be at peace, that there will be enough for everyone. This is the blessing of God, right, that there is enough for everyone and we can, like beat our swords into plowshares, and that, you know, young men and old men will have visions and dreams. And the blessing of God is not wealth or wealth in the sense of accumulating more than everyone else, because through scriptures God deals with a people. God doesn't very much deal with individuals. God deals with the people. Right, israel. And these are such harmful ideas in a culture that's built on this kind of competitive. If you just pull yourself up, if you get the right education, if you just try hard enough, you'll get a job. You'll be wealthy. Everyone can do it. Building that dream.

Joanne: 14:11

Jesus dealt with people on the margins all the time. You know he dealt with what they called the sinners and the tax collectors. I think we've had a few sermons on that recently, the sinners being the ones who just couldn't follow. You know the temple laws sometimes they couldn't afford to buy the appropriate sacrifice. Or you know people who had been displaced by Roman farms and and the sort of capitalization of agriculture in Palestine, and they became like these artisans who were trying to eke out a living by making something and selling it. Like you had this whole group of displaced people. And Jesus comes in and says hey, wait, if you all work together, we can be the kingdom of God. We can create a place where those who don't have enough are cared for and we can create a space where we can resist the worst impulses of the empire together. And that was Jesus' message. Over and over the powerful, the religious leaders, the Roman Empire, all these things were working against. The kingdom of God that Jesus said can be here among you now. It's not heaven, it's not you get it when you die, you get it here if you do it. Together is the whole body of Christ, the community of Christ. All those things like Derek was saying, like the cooperation of us together can actually change something.

Joanne: 15:43

And then we look at we are called to see the Christ in everyone, right? Do you see the Christ in the billionaire, the tech billionaires, like? Do you Like? Maybe some, but it's actually the people who are the most removed from the prosperity of our culture that you truly see the broken Jesus. Right, I mean because the Jesus who was crucified, the Jesus who died in a horrible way. Seeing that Christ and the crucified around us, that is the theology of the cross, that we see the Christ in those who are crucified amongst us, the ones who can't make it because of mental health issues, the ones who are too poor to find a way to get into the system, even the ones who are struggling with illness, those who have been left and pushed aside and are not seen and not heard. Been left and pushed aside and are not seen and not heard that's where you see the Christ in its fullness. That is not an SUV on the chancel of a church. It is so far removed from it. It's actually a blasphemy to me.

Bill: 17:00

Yeah, there's a United Church minister out on the East Coast that runs a social media Unvirtuous Abbey. So Aaron Billard, reverend Aaron Billard, is the minister and I believe the prayer that he invokes from time to time quite frequently is a certain Prosperity Gospel author, lucrative business model. Writes a lot of books From Texas. Maybe You'll know that. I've been in chapters in your local bookstore if you find all of his books sitting in the Christian fiction section.

Diana: 17:41

Oh, I love it.

Bill: 17:43

That's great, because I actively go and move them every time I'm there. So yeah, ricardo, union thug time, all right. So you, in an interview that I found online, said that you have a number of people who are working full-time jobs and still can't afford rent or food. And certainly we encounter, even in the church, a number of folks that engage with our community that are sometimes even working more than one job, working multiple jobs, working like substantial hours, astronomically, like just miserable conditions, like substantial hours, astronomically, like just miserable conditions, and still barely able to afford the bare necessities of life that we would expect that everybody ought to be able to access without that kind of struggle. So I want to ask you, sir, how do you see that shape their dignity and how do you see it being resisted in the work that you're doing?

Ricardo: 18:46

It's interesting how we have, like I work for the union that represents service employees food service, warehousing and they are essentially the working poor, even though they have a union to represent them. Capitalism has been brought up and it's like they continually attack the poorest among them in order to create the higher margins. So, for example, it's no secret, safeway rolled back their workers' wages by 6.5% last month simply because they didn't want to pay it. They found themselves to be the highest paying in the province and they didn't want to pay it anymore. So to no explanation. I mean, there was an explanation, that's what it was, but they didn't see that as a mark of dignity or a mark of honor to say we pay our employees well, they saw it as a burden.

Ricardo: 19:34

And it's interesting when you talk about corporations versus individuality. Corporations have enforced this individualistic mindset on people, but it's people act in a very two-faced way. They want you to be more competitive, want you to be more independent, want you to pull your bootstraps up and work harder. Yet when workers or the working poor or the poor stand up for themselves and rise up for better, then they're villainized right when workers want to go on strike, or when workers want to stand up for each other, they say, well, I don't have that extra week of vacation, why should you get it?

Ricardo: 20:09

So where's the win? Right, we have a situation that some workers can't even afford to shop where they work clothing stores, restaurants, grocery stores. The largest increase in capital and expenditures now are dollar stores, where people are doing their grocery shopping for basic canned goods and dollar stores, right, not even walmart's the cheapest place to go anymore. Right, and and what we constantly try and fight for is just a standard of living to increase. But the problem is, when you say basic needs, you assume that there's a minimum threshold where people can rely, and comfortably rely, upon what they need to meet.

Ricardo: 20:51

But in this province specifically. We have no regulation on energy prices in terms of heat, water, electricity. We have no regulations on insurance, so, god forbid. You buy a car, even if it's a thousand dollars. Your insurance payment is so out of whack, even if you take a couple of years off driving because you can't afford a car and it's unaffordable in that way too. So there's just no way to get ahead or even know what you need, right, because you could have two jobs at $15 an hour in the province of Alberta and still not be able to make what you need to have happen.

Ricardo: 21:25

So, um, and it stems from a lack of control, and you know I always root on everyone around this table knows that poverty is very much rooted in racism and and and stuff like that and all the things that make people different are the reasons why they're also impoverished and discriminated against. But, like you know, you, you look at the narrative just around COVID and who the populations were that were the most vulnerable and the ones that had the highest rates of infection. It wasn't white, middle-class Canadians or people who had their own houses with their own families and their own little. What do they call them? The groups that you had to stay with cohorts. I forgot the word already.

Diana: 22:06

We just got started.

Ricardo: 22:07

Yeah, right, I mean, we went through COVID with words we'd never heard Omicron, yeah, and all these words all of a sudden came into everyday lexicon. But people who lived with multiple, culturally multiple generations under one roof, right, were largely immigrant families and non-white immigrant families. And those non-white immigrant families worked in the places that were forced to stay open and people who had to go to work grocery stores, meatpacking plants In the States, like thank God, in Canada, we were able to shut down for even a brief period of time, the food processing facilities until COVID ran its course. You know, cargill shut down only after three people died, but in the States, when people died and the meat plants shut down, trump ordered them to open up again, right? So? And the cycle of poverty is, you know, people are discriminated against, they're hated, they're vilified and they don't earn enough and they can't pull themselves up and when they do, it's all of a sudden a problem. So the cycle is vicious and the cycle is confusing, right?

Joanne: 23:16

Well, and, yeah, I think it's built on these false ideas of who we are, like you said, derek, but also how an economy prospers. You know, I saw this video today because apparently Mark Carney had mentioned the Chicago School of Economics, right? So this guy was explaining sort of four different systems of economics, and the Chicago School is the one that is the definite. Capitalism will work everything out. Let everyone compete, it'll all work out in the end, no government intervention. And then the other school in the US was the Keynesian school, which almost everyone follows. Yeah, like, compete with each other as much as you want, dog eat dog, whatever, it'll all work out in the end. But if it gets really bad, then the government will intervene and put some money into the economy to make sure everything floats, but still really based on this economic idea. That money into the economy to make sure everything floats was still really based on this economic idea that competition is somehow going to make us all wealthy. Right, that's essentially it. Then he talked about this German school and this Austrian circle of economics who, after the Second World War, decided yeah, you know, capitalism is good, competition is good, but the money that is generated from that should be moved towards social good and so the goal of capitalism I guess you'd call it almost democratic socialism, right? But the goal of capitalism was to generate money so we could take care of health and education for all people, and Germany has prospered greatly under these with this ideology. But then he went to the Nordic countries, which went further, which said we can do more and more social good and so really investing in you know the least among us, the you lose jobs because of AI or manufacturing automation. They protect the person's job, so they don't try not to do automation, because we need to keep people employed in another way. Because they concentrate not on the competition and who can make the most money, which capitalism is to maximize profits for shareholders, period, right, it's social good.

Joanne: 25:34

So, with unions like I just had a conversation this week about the uh, I don't know what it is, but it's one of the fitness places in Calgary and they pay their employees much less than the Calgary pools do, for instance, or the Calgary fitness centers, because they're not unionized, he said. So that you know they can afford to do this. They make sure they're not unionized. They're connected with the city, the city administers it somehow, but they have made sure it're not unionized. They're connected with the city, the city administers it somehow, but they have made sure it's not unionized. And I'm like.

Joanne: 26:09

My question was is that a good thing or a bad thing? Like, explain to me, is that a good thing or a bad thing that they make less money? He goes well. I guess it's not as good for the employees, but it allows you to be more flexible with what you're doing, like the typical business sense was. If we pay them, if we keep control of these employees so that they're desperate enough to keep this job, then we have more flexibility and we can make more money. There is something so corrupted in that thinking and it's been, you know, the Calgary School of Economics too. It's been the dominant since Ronald Reagan, for sure. You know rising boats, a rising tide raises all boats right.

Joanne: 26:47

Trickle down, which has been shown not to be true, but it has been the dominant economic view of our culture that we can't seem to shake. And as long as we believe that the purpose of a robust economy is to make people wealthier instead of taking care of social good, we will never get out of this cycle of poverty and the endemic poverty that is in our system I shake my head at those corporations and say, well, we can't be flexible if you know, like, like, they can't do anything, anything different or novel in their business if their employees are happy or able to afford.

Diana: 27:30

Well, that just tells me that they're not prioritizing the right thing. Right, they're not supporting, like. Thank you for bringing up Safeway, cause I don't know if everyone knew that right. Like we're changing our shopping because of things like companies acting poorly, right, so I think that's really important. I wanted to just discuss unions really quick.

Diana: 27:50

No, no, no, I'm a union member. What are you talking about? No, no, I wanted to bring it up because it's in terms of, again, those mindsets that everyone has, right. So and I'll admit, prior to becoming a registered nurse, I'd never been part of a union. I had some very interesting ideas of what a union was, right.

Diana: 28:10

And then becoming part of UNA and learning and getting active in it. On all the rest, right, it became more about the people, right, it's not about their wages, it's about their safety, it's about all of those other things, all the things that we take for granted because unions have fought for them before, and so I think people they misunderstand what unions are and what they're for, and with all the labor action that's going on right now, I'm really happy we're talking about it because, again, this is for like. Like we need everyone to be able to make a living wage, right. Like you need to be able to buy groceries, you need to be able to keep the lights on in your house, let alone anything else, and so I just I needed to mention that about unions, because folks do not understand. So, thank you. Folks do not understand.

Derek: 29:05

So thank you. One of the things about trying to be competitive by keeping your wages low is that it actually doesn't work. Research has shown that companies that pay their employees a living wage with benefits and treat their employees well, they're actually more productive and more profitable in the long run, because your labor is more productive, you have less turnover, you have higher quality products and so on. So it's actually a false premise that we generate more value. And also, when you pay your workers a living wage when you pay your workers a living wage unlike shareholders, who are most likely to take that value and send it who knows where you pay your workers a living wage they actually spend that money in the community. So there's this multiplier effect Right, the benefits, not just the employer, not just the employee, but the whole community too.

Joanne: 30:02

Costco right.

Derek: 30:03

Costco is a perfect example. Right's the big thing right now.

Joanne: 30:05

Everyone's talking about Costco. They pay their employees very well.

Diana: 30:08

And they always have.

Joanne: 30:10

That's right. They always have. They commit to their employees. Their employees like working there.

Derek: 30:15

I remember we like shopping there.

Bill: 30:18

Yeah, we might buy a little much there. Some of us don't like shopping there.

Diana: 30:22

Is it your credit card or you?

Derek: 30:24

I remember a few years ago it was family day and I was off and the family was off and we had to do some shopping. So we went to Costco and it was closed. Yeah, we had to close on stats and I said I really respect that. Yes.

Bill: 30:41

Yep.

Derek: 30:41

That they are closed on family days, so that their employees can actually spend family day with their families.

Ricardo: 30:47

Employees have to get their birthday off with pay at Costco too.

Derek: 30:50

Oh really, oh goodness, Didn't know that. And Costco makes a lot of money.

Bill: 30:54

I don't even get my birthday off where I work, me neither.

Joanne: 31:03

Let's go on Strikeville Birthdays off, birthdays off, birthdays off.

Bill: 31:09

So we're skirting around something that at first I was really surprised about in my reading. But then, you know, kind of checked myself and how, and this is actually the direct quote poverty is not caused by individual failings or by poor choices, which we've kind of, you know, elaborated on here already. It is the predictable outcome of how our economy is structured. The problem is not that people are making bad decisions, it's that the system consistently produces poverty in order to function the way that it does, which, over time, as I was wrestling with it, actually got me thinking about adaptive leadership guy. What's his name? Heifetz. And again he talks a lot about how there is no such thing as a broken system. Right? You cannot look at a system that ends up with people living in poverty and say it's because the system is broken, because the system is doing exactly what it is designed to do and is functioning at optimum level, right? So while Mark Rank was talking specifically about the American context in his book, about the American context in his book, I agree that even here in Canada, he says that many, if not most, will experience poverty or near poverty at some point in time in their lives, and he goes on to sort of map out. You know there's different kind of degrees of poverty. That can be very like short-term, situational. My wife and I joked actually when I was reading the chapter about like is the number one thing child, you know, like birth of a child and guess what? It is Right so, but that there are other sort of contexts that become longer term an extended medical illness, loss of job. You know that kind of stuff Right. So it's not just about being unlucky, it's not limited to the few and it's not about being irresponsible at all. Is sort of everything that his research was showing. It's widespread and it's a vulnerability that's built into the system and that the system requires in its current setup.

Bill: 33:20

Really, really difficult book to read, called Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, where they followed, changed the names but wrote the narratives of six different families across the US that their story starts with being evicted. That's how the first chapter opens and then tracks what happens to them as a result of that eviction. Some, you know, lead to shelters, some lead to like couch surfing, some lead to multiple new attempts at new homes and sort of the struggle with new landlords and all that kind of stuff. All of them just like quite difficult to read by and large. But he says eviction as well is not a condition of poverty, it's a cause. It's a cause of it and that eviction and the laws around how you can evict somebody and render them homeless and all that kind of stuff actually perpetuate cycles of poverty in really unnecessary ways. Right that there are ways to.

Diana: 34:16

I was just going to say our Landlord Tenancy Act is like 15 years old.

Bill: 34:21

Just saying yeah, years old, just saying yeah. So I'm getting a lot of head nods around the table of this idea here that we actually have a system that produces, actively produces, and maintains and enshrines poverty into the systems that we live in. So I'm going to actually kick it to Derek again and just say what is it like if we're all nodding our heads at this? What do you think it is about dynamics of systemic poverty and this like production of it and enshrinement of it that makes it so difficult for people in our society, regular people, to actually kind of acknowledge and see that this is the case? What is it that makes it so difficult for people to see it?

Derek: 35:04

the case, what is it that makes it so difficult for people to see it? Well, if we're thinking about economics, if we go right down to the fundamentals of what economics is I took, you know, intro economics in university. Definition of economics is the allocation of scarce resources to meet unlimited needs right.

Bill: 35:22

Does that make sense?

Derek: 35:25

A fundamental problem with that definition is that it says that our needs are unlimited and our resources are limited. Immediately, when you have that definition, there is not enough for everyone, right? So now we're in a scarcity paradigm. If there is literally not enough for everyone, that means that if you get something, it's at the expense of me, right? So now we're in a competitive environment. And when you think about it that way, the decisions that people make, the decisions that corporations make, the decisions that governments make, the decisions that corporations make, the decisions that governments make, they actually become really rational because there's not enough. So I'm going to get as much as I can for me, because I am. You mentioned the word vulnerability. In this paradigm, we are all vulnerable and we are all afraid.

Derek: 36:22

Right, the idea that poverty happens to those people some of the other is one of the myths that we perpetuate, but you mentioned that it's actually a really common experience In the poverty reduction world. We think oftentimes we have to educate people about poverty. We need to tell them what it is, because that's why they don't care about poverty. Actually, we all know exactly what poverty is, and it scares the hell out of us and that's why we don't want to talk about it, right? So I am going to do whatever I can. I want lower taxes, I want lower prices. I don't want unions, because those unions are taking something away from me.

Derek: 37:17

And until we move past that paradigm, we're going to be stuck in this independent, competitive reality, which is actually at odds with who we know we are as individuals and as people. So, and the paradox is that we're caught in the. Our system is structured around scarcity. Capitalism does not work unless there is scarcity and, at the same time, we have never been able to produce more in the history of humankind than we do now. Our productive capacity is unlimited. We can literally produce anything we want.

Ricardo: 37:58

Timu, timu.

Bill: 38:00

We were just talking about.

Ricardo: 38:01

Timu and ordered it on Timu I feel like Timu should pay us, because we give them a soundbite almost every time Unless Timu should pay you because you're.

Joanne: 38:11

You're the one who gives the soundbite. I love it.

Derek: 38:14

So we have this paradox of an economy that produces incredible abundance historically gobsmacking abundance and is built on scarcity. So there is a fundamental contradiction in the system.

Diana: 38:30

Well, I think sorry, john, no, you go ahead. Thank you, I was just going to say this again supports what we've been saying. Right, if the system is designed to do a certain thing, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. So it's not that we need to fix the system. We need a different system, right? It's none of this like band-aid, whatever we're doing, we need a system that's actually designed to lift people up right as a community, as a whatever. That's, I think, really important.

Diana: 38:59

And the what I wanted to mention, the, the ideology piece, the um capitalism. We, you know, we've all grown up in it or have grown up with it. The idea of why? So the idea of why do you do things? What is your motivation? You were talking about seeing Christ in different people. Yeah, so I think about when I first started nursing, a lot of the patients are in like their worst state, right, and all you could see is the person right. So I just there's got to be a way that we can encourage that, where you know everyone doesn't have to become a nurse. Although nursing is great, you should become nurses, but join a union, right?

Diana: 39:46

exactly, exactly but I think it comes down to what was it designed for, and so it's not. It's doing exactly as it's supposed to. How do we design a different system and where do we start?

Derek: 40:01

I would say that systems are the reflection of paradigm, our worldview, and as long as we believe in the rational, independent, competitive human being, our systems will reflect that. The thing that I think that gives me hope is that I think we all know intuitively that that's not us, that's not who we are. We're not inherently rational, we're not independent right, we're inherently cooperative If we give ourselves permission to be that person, to see ourselves and each other in that different way. I think that's the genesis, that's the seeds of a different system.

Joanne: 40:44

I think that, like we were talking about this on the last podcast when we were talking about artificial intelligence as well is how we inside a system are actually manipulated to want that system right. So, for instance, there is a lottery mentality to capitalism. Somebody who was raised in poverty there was nothing in the fridge whatever went from rags to riches, the American dream, as I remember from English classes from rags to riches in your lifetime, with enough time to enjoy it. That's the American dream from rags to riches. So we have this lottery mentality. This person won the lottery, this person won the lottery, they got this and so we can all do that, like I might get a chance and people are not.

Joanne: 41:30

We have been conditioned not to give up our chance. Right, I'm not gonna. I'm not giving up my shot, to quote a Hamilton lyric, but this idea. So we are conditioned within the system, and that's the thing you can talk about systems. But systems have a whole bunch of people within them and what is happening there, for instance, it doesn't do us any good to say we're all equal actors within the system, right, which is what you know.

Joanne: 41:59

Everybody has a chance, and there are folks who have been marginalized, like, for instance, you look at the cycle of early pregnancies for instance, that generation after generation after generation, you know they have their babies at 15 or 16 years old and that we know contributes to poverty, like the big effort in world sort of economics and and care is let's, let's get women to have their babies later, because if they have their babies later that actually cuts into the cycle of poverty. I mean, we know this. We also know that these people are within a system acting as people do. Right, it doesn't? There has to be a sense that we take humans as they come Do you know what I mean.

Joanne: 42:48

Like you can't create a system. This was the whole thing. Reinhold Niebuhr had this thing about children of darkness and children of light that he talked about. He was a theologian, a public theologian in like the 60s. So he said there are people who have nefarious ends all the time the children of darkness, and they will manipulate the system all the time. And the children of light are naive if they think they can get over that. Do you know that you can create a system where the children of darkness are the people who will, in whatever system you're in, want to grab as much for themselves as they can? He argued? You can't actually do this, create systems that are going to alleviate poverty or anything, as long as we are so naive as to not understand there are parts of human nature that will, or people who will, take advantage of systems all the time.

Diana: 43:40

But I think that's, and I think that's something we accept right I think about. So I moved. I lived in Austin, texas, for a number of years in my 20s and that was part of what actually made me come back to Canada and become a registered nurse. I lived down there during the Bush years and the first Obama right. So Obamacare I saw come in, all of these giant changes, but of course the inequity of the United States is disgusting and healthcare for sure.

Diana: 44:13

Well, and that's the thing, is that back when I was there in the Bush years, if you didn't have the right insurance, the healthcare workers could not support you outside the door. So, seeing that and I used to joke that on this side of the border I was a capitalist and on the other side of the border I was a socialist- yeah.

Diana: 44:33

Right, because we have such amazing programs. Right, we have the ability to actually support each other. And, yes, of course there's going to be people that, quote unquote, take advantage of the system, whatever If they right, like, does that matter? No, do we take away from anyone else? Yeah, like it's just it's.

Joanne: 44:51

I don't want anyone to think that I'm one of those people. All of a sudden I'm like oh, do you think I'm one of those people?

Joanne: 44:56

says that they're victims, because you know, I'm not. I'm not saying that like who who cares about I? Would game the system too if I was poor. Well, exactly wouldn't I? Yes, like, wouldn't to Like. That's what I'm saying about human actors. We're very human. I need to feed my child. You know, in Les Mis, he steals the bread and goes to jail for 20 years. Wow, there's the righteousness and mercy sermon that I have to preach on Sunday.

Bill: 45:23

That whole thing about Les Mis. Do you know Like?

Joanne: 45:25

he steals the bread. He broke the law but he wanted to feed his family. Yeah, like, why do I give money to people you know on the street who need money when they tell us not to Because I don't want their life? Yeah, do you know, I see them and I'm like I don't care. Here's some, even if this is a little bit of dignity. You can spend that money however you want, and everyone tells me what you're going to do with it and why do you help that out? And I don't care, I don't want that life and I in some way want to just give even a little ounce of human dignity to them. Like, human dignity is so integral to any system and what we have done in the system that we have and in the lotteries that we have in our culture, we have said human dignity is only available to people who can play by the rules and live within the system in an effective way. Human dignity is not afforded to people who break the rules or on the outside of the rules.

Diana: 46:27

And call me naive, but when I so describing a system where, basically, whatever you need, you receive right Like we would love to have it. So you show up anywhere and like, oh, you need this, we have it, we're meeting you where you're at. So if you so the gamers of the system or whatever does it like, again, it still doesn't matter, we provide them with what they need. But I think it still all goes back to the. We need to recognize there's a level of insight that is required and so it's. I don't know how common that is, or how we make it more well.

Joanne: 47:00

And here's the other thing, that that is actually another intention. The system is working as it should. Right, right, like Reagan was the first one to really strip education and educators in the States, because we fear that if people actually got enough information and started to think more deeply about these things, that the system would be disrupted right, or if we didn't craft the way they thought.

Joanne: 47:21

Yes, exactly. So if education started you know the way we do it so that they could work in Ford's factories. When people started, you know lots of parents would say, oh, they went to university and they became liberal and all that kind of stuff. When you start to see that education actually does shift the thinking, then you have to strip the education, you have to get a new curriculum in.

Bill: 47:44

Yeah, you do.

Diana: 47:46

Jason.

Joanne: 47:46

Kenney's grandpa is an example. Oh my goodness, big swing band or something. Yeah, swing band. For those of you out there, it was a premier that we had who put his own grandfather in the curriculum to prove that capitalism was the way, but anyway it is. That's off topic, but still it's. Sometimes I just have to let my humanity out. We love it. We love it.

Bill: 48:12

The interesting thing about the idea of rags to riches, for instance, was sort of the paradigm that you had brought up, and I have always been one to say that. I actually think that that is a complete and total fabrication in and of itself, and alongside it very much is the narrative of the self-made individual right, and so I defy any billionaire, any even born into wealth, to actually say there is nobody. I can point to that my life is because of right, and it doesn't matter whether you're a billionaire, working class, whatever the case may be, it's the person who gives you the first shot at the job that you are not qualified for at all.

Joanne: 48:58

but there are no other applicants, because they know your dad.

Bill: 49:00

Yeah, right. Or there's no other applicants and they really don't want to go back to post, right, right, yeah, so we'll take this person, we'll train them. You get your foot in the door and suddenly something is totally different, right? Or the parents who raise you with the work ethic that actually you know keeps you from being the person who's laid off in the first three sets of cuts or whatever of the people in our lives. As much as anything, right, and I defy anyone to say otherwise.

Bill: 49:29

But I think so much of what I have observed is that there is no real rags to riches story out there, this idea of starting with nothing and then amassing enough wealth in your lifetime that you can totally enjoy it. But that is the story that that again keeps people in their place. Right, it weaponizes hope in a lot of ways to turn around and say you know, just like, pay your dues. Like it sucks now, but don't worry, one day it will get better, because this is the dream, this is the right, and you and you will instead toil for 50 years. Man, I'm depressing right now and see no benefit at the end of it other than man. I have pardon the terminology pissed away 50 years of my life unappreciated, undervalued, underpaid, still barely able to make ends meet, and there will be a whole bunch of CEOs that have benefited from my labor and I will see nothing for it.

Joanne: 50:38

But I do think and this is the interesting conversation that I have with my kids around capitalism all the time that actually capitalism for a group in the middle class actually worked quite well, right. Like I remember my mother said to me once because my father's a doctor and she said I went from being a farmer's daughter to a doctor's wife. I think I've done pretty well right. So these small incremental gains that the middle class, the vast majority, achieved over 40 years right up to what was the apex 1972. From after the first, the Second World War to 1972, there were these incremental benefits all along the way. You did better than your parents did, you had more money, you, your education was better, it was paid for, it was subsidized, unions had better wages, healthcare went to all. So there were these incremental changes that actually were a benefit for, you know, the vast middle class, right. That is not to say that there wasn't racism that was horrible, or that there was poverty that was ignored, like all those things still have. You have your marginalized people, but the incremental advancement of a lot of the people was worth having the system for, Right.

Joanne: 51:58

So we, I think, who have a certain age I'm 62 years old, I look at, you know how we were able to succeed. You know the benefits that I had, the education I had. I went to university with very little trouble or debt. Of course my father paid for my university, so you know. But but I do realize when I have conversations with my children who are in, you know, 20s, 30s, those opportunities are not there. Incremental advancement is not happening anymore and for the first time, they say, in decades, our children will not do as well as we do and we are not accumulating vast amounts of wealth that we can give to our children to make sure they're okay. So there's where the system at, and why they call it late stage. Capitalism is now breaking down to such an extent that you have an entire sort of cohort of people who say your system sucks, it does not work for us anymore, but you won't relinquish power in a way that will allow us to prosper.

Bill: 53:03

Yep, and at some point in time the conversation has to be had. So many people toil in obscurity with one goal in mind, which is, like my kids will have a better opportunity than I did, and for the first time, you know, in human history, that's not actually likely, right? So if that's the case, something's got to change right. At least we hope something would change. Anyhow, this is probably a good place to take a break, because I want to at least be sensitive to time. So we've talked about got to change, right. At least we hope something would change. Anyhow, this is probably a good place to take a break, because I want to at least be sensitive to time. So we've talked about some of the myths, some of the systems, all that kind of stuff that protect the inequality, that enshrine the poverty in our systems. And after our break I'd like to turn the corner, if we can, because again we've kind of skirted around it on the edges of the conversation. I want to talk a bit about what true kind of justice and community living and support might actually look like and what kind of hope we can actually hold on to that is not false and not naive and not, you know, children of dark children, of light kind of stuff. So perhaps a hope that we can build in resistance and in solidarity and in stubborn love. So that's going to be the shift, hopefully that we will take all of this into in the second half, but for now we're going to after our intermission and we're going to jump right back into the conversation where we left off.

Bill: 54:47

An author by the name of Tex Sample, one of my favorite theologians. He does a lot of work actually around blue-collar theology and has written a lot of books from times before mine, but he has a particular book that I really enjoy, called A Christian Justice for the Common Good, and in it he spends a lot of time trying to remind us that Christian justice is not about keeping score, it's about belonging. It's not contractual, it's not based on performance or merit. It's actually relational, a shared commitment to the common good and to each other, not because we've earned it, though, not because of any merit-based system, but because we are human, and that is radically different than the framework that we have spent the first half talking about. I think. So, to quote part of Christian Justice for the Common Good, he says that justice is not about what we owe each other based on merit or performance. It's about what we owe each other simply because we belong to one another.

Bill: 55:55

So, for example, justice and poverty aren't separate conversations, they're intertwined. And if people are poor in a world of abundance, it's not because of a policy failure. It is a relational failure at its core, a spiritual failure and a sign that we have forgotten who we are and, more importantly, who we are to one another. So I'd like to spend the second half, at least for a bit, imagining what that kind of justice, what that kind of response to poverty, might look like in our communities and in our policies, and also in our faith spaces, if you will indulge me. So I'm going to ask of the whole panel to start, actually, what does a spiritually grounded and values-based response to poverty look like, one that goes beyond these ideas of charity or some kind of fake benevolence and really looks at that relational justice piece, that who we are to one another and that belonging that we share with one another.

Ricardo: 56:59

And I'm going to throw it to Ricardo first, because I get to so I think the concept of churches in the community when they do things like food banks and helping the poor, is based on the premise that people need help and nobody's helping them. But there is an element of capitalism that exists, whether or not I agree with it, where you need to be at a certain level in order to survive. People need to work, they need to earn money and even if you want to live in a great system where people earn more money and they put it back into the economy, it's still an economy that needs to be sustained in whatever you want. So I think a values-based system would be churches holding job fairs or going to their highest donors and saying hey, you're doing very well, are you hiring? We have a lot of people in the congregation looking for work, right. Or churches doing more lobbying, right. Like it surprises me no, actually, it doesn't surprise me. It pisses me off a lot how much political power the churches have in the US but they're not really doing what they should be doing. They're not wielding that power in a way that God or Jesus or any context of the Bible would have wanted them to, like supporting Donald Trump and enforcing all these policies that legitimately reinforce racism, homophobia, transphobia and anti-immigration policies.

Ricardo: 58:33

In my own way, shape or form, I always say, well, cut off your own leg, don't you want people to come to your church and start donating in the bucket. But then I see how much money these evangelical churches make. Oh yeah, and I say, well, that's the part. Churches need to be more active in the community, not because helping the poor and the marginalized, the unhoused, is the wrong thing to do. They should be doing that because they need to do it but they should be advocating more for a system that brings these people out of poverty. And it's a good thing for the church too, because I think the person that receives help from some you always hear those stories like that person changed my life and I'm a better person for it. I think that if you were an organization or a group that was able to pull someone out of poverty or even get an unhoused person housed, they'll remember that and they'll come and thank you in some way, shape or form, that will benefit your entire organization. So that's what I think churches could do.

Diana: 59:28

Well, specifically's specifically, are we talking churches or communities, communities?

Bill: 59:31

in general. It doesn't need to be just churches.

Diana: 59:33

No, totally, that's fine.

Bill: 59:34

Yeah. No it's, it's all right. I mean, I would like, I would say just really quickly um, like here in Canada I I still of what was really, I think, Harper era, you know like churches that were seen as being too political and, let's be clear, too political.

Joanne: 59:54

On the left, not on the right.

Bill: 59:55

Yes, Were at risk of losing their charitable status, at risk of punishment from the government and that, like those vestiges, still exist today, right? So, even in the course of this podcast, before you spoke, I said remembering we're still a church, right? So, even in the course of this podcast, before you spoke, I said remembering we're still a church, right Because I constantly am reminded like we can talk about policy, we can talk about like things that we would want to see changed, as long as it doesn't seem like we are either going after parties or people, because there are consequences here.

Joanne: 1:00:27

Not partisan Right.

Bill: 1:00:29

And so it's the constant struggle. I don't think Trump cares if I say his name, right? I really don't. There was a time when it seemed pretty clear that Harper did, and that vestige is still there today, right for a lot of folks, right, we even hear it just in general. You know colloquial conversations sometimes that's too political right For a lot of folks, right, we even hear it just in general. You know colloquial conversations, sometimes that's too political right.

Derek: 1:00:53

Oh all the time, All the time right.

Bill: 1:00:55

And this? Not that I'm enslaved to the myth of the separation between church and state, but I think it's still a vestige of like. There was a time that it was not okay to do this for some folks right, and people were legitimately concerned about like. If you keep going down this line, we're at risk of losing our charitable status. And yet now today, just today I read another minister colleague writing a question about does that status even matter anymore when you're feeling like you can't do the things that you would normally do as the church to respond to human need not related to speech in this case, but in related to CRA policies around using charitable space?

Ricardo: 1:01:39

But it's even interesting when you say charitable status, you imply that people are giving when church membership is declining as a whole overall, which means less donations are coming in. But churches like this building we are in right now still pays the same rates of electricity and gas and plumbing that the house next door to it does at the same rate. So the money has to be paid somehow, right, and so if you can't advocate for the people that come to your church and advocate in the hopes that more people will come to your church, then where do you find yourself? It's a double-edged sword, like I talked about earlier. Where? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do better for yourself? Oh, the minute you do. Well, I don't have that. You can't do it anymore. Forget it, right. Keep quiet, work or go back to work, right, yeah.

Bill: 1:02:25

I mean, it's a perpetual struggle. Anyhow, it's not just about churches, though, right now and I don't want to totally jump off what you were going to say, well, no.

Diana: 1:02:33

I was just going to say so if we think about community generally, right. So feedback I received once upon a time that I have held on to like nobody's business is use your power for good and not evil. I won't tell you why I was told that, but I think when I think of your answer, it is a choice and it's a choice. Yes, society views people however they view them, but it's a choice to see humans, to see yourself in other people and be able to make those changes. So I really like the strength-based approach, right. I like the meeting people where they're at there. Of course are times that they may not even know what they need, right, and to have those things. But I really like what you said about, yes, the church still, the physical building still has costs, right, like there's just a reality of that. And yeah, the states, they're very different. The political piece or like the advocating for what you value, I love. I obviously want to have lots of that, but the power that the churches have in the states are terrifying.

Joanne: 1:03:46

The evangelical churches. Yeah, yes.

Diana: 1:03:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because, yeah, they have a lot of power and a lot of money and a lot of everything and, like we said, it's not. They're not necessarily doing what we think they would do.

Joanne: 1:04:00

Well, I think they've conformed their message to the empire instead of resisting it, right yeah.

Joanne: 1:04:05

So they actually prop up the system that marginalizes people. Um, funny, I was reading today this article. What does jesus mean when he says the poor will always be with us, right? So there is, um, in evangelical circles or more conservative circles, this idea that jesus said that it was when the woman has come to Jesus and she's using this very expensive perfume to, like you know, wash his feet or his hair. I can't even remember, but it's different in different gospels what she actually does. But in this particular instance, judas says, which you know, anyone who's seen Jesus Christ Superstar. You know, woman, your fine ointment, brand new and expensive, could have been saved for the poor, you know. And so Judas comes to Jesus and says that's really expensive perfume, we could have sold that. We could have fed a lot of people. And Jesus says the poor will always be with us, right? And so they use that as a way to say hey, the system, we can't break it, whatever.

Joanne: 1:05:10

And so it's reading this article and and conservatives use it to say Jesus, in fact, my father once said well, you know, the poor will always be with us. Almost like to excuse our involvement, but in this article was talking about that. They would have known that this actually was a quote from Deuteronomy, which says if, among you, one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns, within your land that the Lord, your God, is giving you. You shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be, for the poor you will always have with you in the land. Therefore, I command you, you shall open, wide your hand to your brother. Right, and that is a very different. The poor will always be with you. So the command is open your hand to those who need it Now.

Joanne: 1:06:00

In a system where we have a social network, like, there was a time where your charity was the only sort of social welfare system we had. But we have decided as a society that we should provide all together these things. So this idea that we need to rely on charity now as opposed to social justice, I think is, you know, from 2000, 5000 years ago. Deuteronomy, it's an old idea. It's not quite 5000,000 years ago. Anyway, we won't get into that.

Bill: 1:06:38

Joanna's really worried. There's someone out there right now checking their notes.

Joanne: 1:06:45

Yeah, I don't know, it was more than 2,000 years ago, but there's a debate on terms of when it was written or anyways. But that idea okay. So it starts with this the poor is always with you. But then what happens? This? This jesus followers, they move into communes, you know, and in acts um, it says they all, they all, um, held things in common and there were no poor among them. Yep, there were no poor among them. Yep, there were no poor among them. Community.

Bill: 1:07:11

Everyone received according to their need.

Joanne: 1:07:13

Yeah.

Bill: 1:07:13

Yeah.

Derek: 1:07:15

There's another interpretation of that verse too that I've heard. It comes from Jim Wallace, from the Sojourners Movement in the States, which I think is a wonderful movement in the States, which I think is a wonderful movement, and what he says is that we misunderstand that verse because we put the emphasis on the wrong words. He says that we say the poor will always be with you, and we put the emphasis on always. He said the real emphasis in that verse should be on with you, that the poor will always be with you and you are always to be with the poor, you are to be in relationship with the poor. And it's a very different understanding, because then it's not about the inevitability of poverty as much as it is about we are among and with the poor, he says. And when you know, in the modern church we are so distant from the poor that we misunderstand that verse. And he says what we need to do is come back into relationship, into community.

Joanne: 1:08:24

Right? I think that's absolutely right. I remember taking a theology class where he said who do you think the poor are in the Bible? And it's like, oh, the people on the bottom rung. And he said, no, it's not the indigent. The poor are the people like you, right, who don't get the benefit of the empire and of the power.

Joanne: 1:08:47

So the idea, and that just sort of changed me. Oh, wait, a second. I'm, in the grand scheme of things, I am poor. It's the reality of our system. Do you know what I mean? Like I can't build a rocket to go to Mars to escape this world, I don't have those funds. Um, but again, built into the system, is this idea that you look, you got to get ahead of the Joneses, right? Like the only people you compare yourself to are the people who are close to you and if we can shift, I think, as human beings, like as humanity I think this is the Christian call is to say, take the blinders off. The only way we survive is together and we are better together. Don't think that if you buy into the empire system, that the empire will save you, because it will not.

Derek: 1:09:45

I think one of my favorite passages in the Bible is Matthew. Is it 5 or 6? The do not worry passage. That's 5, right.

Joanne: 1:09:55

Right.

Derek: 1:09:56

Don't ask me, I'm united 5 or 6. And the disciples are coming to Jesus and they present the fear of scarcity. They mean these are existential concerns we're worried about. You know, what are we going to wear, what are we going to eat? And Jesus says don't worry about it. He says God has provided for humanity right. This is an abundance, narrative right. He says God takes care of us.

Joanne: 1:10:32

Lily's in the field right.

Derek: 1:10:34

But there's a catch. He says seek first the kingdom of God, and that is the root to this abundance, right? So if we seek the kingdom of God, suddenly this abundance will materialize. So if we seek the kingdom of God, suddenly this abundance will materialize. And we've misunderstood that to think that it's about if I pray hard enough, if I'm holy enough, et cetera, then God's going to bless me. This is the prosperity gospel that you were talking about earlier. But if we think about what is the kingdom of God? Right, seek the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? Right, seek the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? I mean, if throughout, not just the gospel, but you know the Old Testament, isaiah, micah, what's the kingdom of God? It's the kingdom of sacrificial love, it's the kingdom of community, it's the kingdom of grace and it's the image of God in each other, where we work for justice, suddenly scarcity goes away.

Joanne: 1:11:41

Right.

Derek: 1:11:42

And then we realize this abundance that's present. So that's a very different vision of the kingdom and what we're called to do. I think two of Micah 6, 8, what are we called to do? Compassion this is feeding the hungry, this is in from the cold. Justice we work for justice. It's not either. Or we have some churches it's like, oh, we don't do that justice stuff, it's not either. Or we have some you know churches. It's like, oh, we don't do that justice stuff. That's political. Others say, oh no, we don't do the charity stuff, that's just a Band-Aid. We're actually called to do both.

Joanne: 1:12:22

Yes.

Derek: 1:12:23

And the third piece is with humility. Yes, Justice, compassion and humility. So that's what God requires of us.

Joanne: 1:12:30

It's a hymn for some day in mine.

Derek: 1:12:32

You've got a couple.

Joanne: 1:12:33

Justice and love, kindness and walk humbly with your God. You've got a couple sermon ideas now. Yeah, yeah.

Bill: 1:12:37

Well, it's already in the bulletin for Sunday. I didn't use that hymn no.

Joanne: 1:12:41

No, I know it's okay, bill, absolutely.

Bill: 1:12:45

What? So, diane, I'm going to put it to you because, again, like looking at this, this idea of sort of like a potential hopeful future. So if we were to, actually I heard you say we should burn down the entire system and salt the earth behind it on the way.

Diana: 1:13:03

That's an interpretation.

Bill: 1:13:05

That went through my filter. But let's assume that we actually work to ground public policy in something that wasn't based on compliance or scarcity narratives and to actually talk about this idea of abundance, this commonality, this shared kind of mutual relationship with each other and our mutual benefit and our being better together. What would change right away, Like what would be the three top things you would think right off? The hop would just shift completely.

Diana: 1:13:37

Oh, my goodness.

Bill: 1:13:38

Yeah, I know it's a tough one.

Diana: 1:13:39

So many things right, because that hopeful piece. I love that. That's, of course, how we're ending the show or the podcast, because I think that's really important. But the hopeful piece for me is that once maturity is not the word, but once people I mean I say maturity, cause that was like for me, for sure. As I grew up, I started looking around and going, oh wait, the world is a different place, and you know, recognizing my privilege, et cetera Um, the hope I see is when I'm talking to folks about their kids or their grandkids or their whatever, and they have the youth coming up, have such different priorities than I saw in school, for instance, they're less concerned with what you're wearing.

Diana: 1:14:35

They're very accepting, inclusive, right. So they give me hope. However, when I think about, okay, so affecting policy and try to put something forward that actually, you know, bring grace to everyone, right, I think about education, right. I think about, like, early childhood development, right, we know how incredibly important those first five years of life are and we could just do so much more. We set up everyone for success that way, right. And then I'd want to see like OK, so in Alberta we don't have mandatory kindergarten, right, like it's. There are these little things that we could do that would support the next generation coming through.

Diana: 1:15:16

So, in terms of when I think about hope that way and changing policy because, of course, things take forever that's the type of thing I'm hoping to see and that I'm working towards. But I think it's honestly and I end up saying this all the time but it's those conversations, that's what gives me hope. Us sitting here and chatting about this, everyone in the audience like this is what gives me hope, right for, because the more we talk about it, the more it normalizes the fact that we're all human beings and, like we're talking earlier about how you know, poverty is not something that happens to other people, it happens to everyone and I think if we recognize, the more we recognize it, the better we can step forward.

Bill: 1:16:03

Yep, yep, derek, I'm going to ask you the same question actually.

Derek: 1:16:17

What do you think would be sort of the immediate changes you would see if we shifted away from the scarcity narrative and actually embraced a narrative of abundance and common good? You know, I think there's two policy directions that give me hope, because they are difficult, but I see movement towards them. The one is embracing the notion of human rights. We think about human rights in terms of what we call civil and political rights. You know, the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, all of those things, and those are important. There is another group of rights that are enshrined in international law, with the same status as those civil and political rights, but we don't pay as much attention to them. But in those international covenants that Canada has signed, it says that we have a right to food, to housing, to decent work, to an adequate income, to social supports, to health, education, all of these things. And if we actually adopted those into domestic law and made them real, we would go a long way towards moving away from this notion of scarcity into a situation of abundance.

Derek: 1:17:24

And the other policy direction there's a lot of talk about recently is universal basic income right. So you have a human rights agenda that recognizes our economic, social and cultural rights supported by a basic income. Suddenly, you've moved into a very different world. What happens is the fear of scarcity goes away, and when the fear of scarcity goes away, it frees you to make different decisions. Where we've seen universal basic income implemented, for example, in Manitoba and Ontario and some other places, the scarcity narrative is well, those people are going to get it and they're going to drink and blah, blah, blah. And it's not true. What people do is they go back to school, they volunteer, they start businesses, they do a whole bunch of productive things because they're free to do that and it benefits everybody and the society becomes more abundant as a result of that. So I think human rights and a basic income would go a huge way and they're actually within our grasp.

Joanne: 1:18:33

The kingdom of God is at hand, yeah it's interesting because during COVID in the US, where they gave a child benefit, right, they had this benefit and they lifted a whole bunch of children Out of poverty Out of poverty and they did find that it was being spent on that, and then, when they cut it, the children are back in poverty again.

Diana: 1:18:52

What didn't they do? I want to say it was Vancouver and are back in poverty again. What didn't they do? I want to say it was Vancouver did some kind of study where they gave folks who were experiencing homelessness like $700 or whatever and then track them Is this right? And then basically it was like they all used it for housing, like it was not Anywho, but just going off of what you were just sharing. It's the suddenly people are provided positive choices. Right, because I feel like right now, a lot of folks, it's like both choices suck, right, you don't have good choices, so how can you make them?

Bill: 1:19:24

Yeah. So, Ricardo, I'm going to ask you a totally different question because I have actually learned a lot about unions just in the past several months as we've been doing this podcast, and you have talked about a lot of different. I mean, tonight you talked about, obviously, the wage rollbacks of Safeway. We talked a couple of podcasts ago about the battle just to get feminine hygiene products in some washrooms for workers right Safeway issue again surprisingly.

Bill: 1:19:56

You can let a few go by. But so I have a great admiration for unions. Not enough that I'd be willing to unionize as a minister, but that's a conversation for another time. But I'm curious because I consider unions to be kind of the trailblazers in community support Because again, as Diana kind of alluded to, it's not actually just about sort of the wage right. These are groups of people who come together for everyone's mutual well-being right Mental, physical, like all that kind of health and safety and the opportunity to kind of build people up and hold people and care for people. So if we're going to talk about the idea of a system that actually looks at abundance and looks at mutual responsibility and mutual relationship, I would say that that actually is kind of the, the, the, the union model on a grander scale of things. So my question to you is um, what would you say would be the, the first steps to making that happen? Um, like, what can unions teach us about the, the journey ahead?

Ricardo: 1:21:09

Well, I mean, I think the first things that need to happen is to to limit, to lift the limits on people joining a union. You know there's a certain conservative movement out there in North America that wish to see the banishment of unions altogether, because they believe that unions hinder progress and and capital and and profits. Examples in the US are long-stemming from the 50s of right-to-work states, and those right-to-work states are generally proven to be lower income and lower earning states as opposed to their non-right to work or even sometimes democrat states. And you have the same issues here in Canada, with Alberta here being the lowest union density but the most strictest laws that govern us and make it more difficult for us to organize. And then you have provinces like even Ontario, with a conservative government, vastly different labor laws. But it's interesting when people say we should ban unions, because that doesn't mean you ban unions. You're banning the laws that govern us, the labor relations, co-labor relations.

Ricardo: 1:22:08

Unions are not governed or created by the laws that govern them. They are a movement of people as a collective that want to see their lives better and they tell people who employ them that I won't sell you my labor for what you are paying and none of us will. And that's how the union started in the international revolution. You know, you had five-year-olds in chimneys cleaning out soot and people working 14-hour days, seven days a week, and all they wanted was a day off. Or they always say thank the union for a weekend or the eight-hour workday, all those kind of things, and people forget that. And we're actually the more the lower density you see unions, the higher rates of injury at work, the more people are working hours of work, the less they're earning. And so you have to limit the barriers for people to join them if they want to, right. I think somebody once told me that every company deserves the union they receive, but every union also deserves the company that they receive right, that they organize, and so the relationship is very much fluid in that way.

Ricardo: 1:23:14

But if you have these barriers in place it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And even the concept of minimum wages right shows that there is a minimum standard which people need to survive, and obviously we're not meeting that right now in Alberta. But you look at a lot of European, especially Scandinavian countries and Northern. They don't have minimum wages. The union density is so high. The average wage is governed by the onset of the collective agreements that exist in that industry, right, and they're also monitored by the cost of living and the things. So there's a nexus between if you're going to raise prices on stuff, then we have to negotiate collective agreements to match that Right, but here they just keep raising prices on stuff and there's no requisite increase. So what we have to do is lift people up, and companies are going to do that willingly, right. So remove barriers to unionization is probably the best way to look at it, because if people don't want a union like at Costco, don't form one, because they don't need to.

Diana: 1:24:13

It's a fully democratic process.

Ricardo: 1:24:14

You sign the cards, you vote the contract, you're good to go, and so there's not some scary movement out there to make it 100%. Union density rate. I don't have enough work. I have enough work with the 19% we have in Alberta right now.

Diana: 1:24:28

Yes, you brought up minimum wage and so and we've discussed it a few times that it hasn't moved since 2018, I believe there seems to be a misconception about who gets minimum wage. So I want to ask you guys, who do you think gets paid minimum wage? Like what cohort of people or jobs, whatever, however you want to describe it Service industry Right, and who?

Joanne: 1:24:58

works in the service industry. Well, a lot of immigrants and racialized people.

Diana: 1:25:05

Yes, yeah, so any others and women yes. Yep, yep. So the stats are actually that 43% are youths right, which makes sense, although the youth wage in Alberta is lower.

Diana: 1:25:27

Because youth have nothing to save up for I mean, they don't have a future. It's terrible, but what we're battling with in Alberta is that the current government is very much under the belief of pull up your bootstraps and away you go right, that the $15 an hour is fine because it's all people working in their first job. That's their first step. It's not the families who you're now working three jobs just so that you can actually be at home. So I wanted to mention that because there is maybe a lack of understanding about how many Albertans are on minimum wage and how bad of a situation we put them in.

Ricardo: 1:26:13

People understand. They treat it like the wage, not the minimum.

Diana: 1:26:17

It's not the minimum wage, yeah they're like oh, we have to pay you this.

Ricardo: 1:26:20

It's the wage and this concept of you know you have what's been set for you, for what you need, like even let's talk about the cycle of poverty, especially when it comes to people who are disabled or handicapped or on age, and how the meager $200 that the government of Canada was is now offering was rolled back, rolled back by the provincial government, right.

Ricardo: 1:26:40

So now people on AISH are now literally the poorest people who are disabled and handicapped and cannot work, are now the poorest in the country in Alberta, because they just got a $200 a month pay. Cut, yep, right. So this is what this. I don't know where the standard comes from. I don't know, but the standard is not set by people who are living in that system.

Diana: 1:27:02

No, and I also I wonder if we all, if we think about it differently, right? So if you're the employer, that is the minimum amount of money I have to pay you, so that's what I'm going to pay you, versus I'm the employee, that's the least amount you can pay me. You're going to pay me more, right? Like it's, an interesting, minimum wage is bizarre.

Derek: 1:27:19

It's interesting, though, how we even think about wages. We think about from a business perspective. A wage is a cost, right, it's a budget line, yeah, as opposed to an investment. Yes, right, we don't invest in people. We pay wages and we try to keep that as low as we can. But can you imagine if your business model assumed that you would operate your business out of a tent? Right, like if your business model is built such that you can only be profitable by paying your staff as low as possible? That's the same as assuming that the only infrastructure or facility cost you have is a tent Like. If you can't be profitable by paying people a decent wage, then you've got the wrong business model. It's the same as your facility cost. It is the cost of doing business in a decent way, and more than facility cost, because that is a cost. When you invest in people, you actually get a return from that. It's not a cost, it's an investment.

Bill: 1:28:31

Yeah, part of the struggle. My oldest daughter actually has just sort of started working in the past couple of years and doing a lot of kind of part-time, teenage-y type jobs, and part of the difficult conversation always with her is to say that when I was growing up, the idea was always you got to pay your dues first, right, you have to do the crap jobs at crap pay, and this is character building and this is somehow. And what you start to learn over time is it does none of those things actually right? What it actually teaches you, if you let it, is that this is all your time, your energy, your effort, your um, your skillset, your future is worth to your employer, right, um?

Bill: 1:29:19

So when you talk about the idea of you know, like, seeing it as an investment, right you, you see these, these companies, these businesses usually smaller businesses that say, um, like it's not a minimum wage scenario and look at all these. You know these mental health things that happen, these, these, these happen. These wellness things are kind of enshrined in our compensation package as well, so that you are cared for here. And I say all the time to folks, especially when it comes to things like seniors' residences and whatnot, people constantly ask me hey, which are the ones that you like going to? And I'll tell them every time the ones that you don't see the turnover like going to, and I'll tell them every time the ones that you don't see the turnover.

Bill: 1:29:56

You see thriving seniors living in places where employees are showing up, happy they're sticking around. It's not a new caregiver every three months, which never does well for the people they're caring for, but they also have like a like. They work for a company or for an agency that cares about their wellbeing right. And how can you bring wellness to others if you yourself are bent, broken and beaten?

Ricardo: 1:30:29

It's interesting you say that because you know when I grew up and my first jobs you know the crap jobs, the minimum wage jobs were always like the McDonald's.

Bill: 1:30:36

The McDonald's yes, the.

Ricardo: 1:30:37

McDonald's, burger King, whatever right. And I always say to myself, like I say to people all the time, I will never diminish someone for what they do for work. What does McDonald's sell? Like 93 million cheeseburgers a day. Like people are eating there and someone needs to toss the burgers and fries right, like it's a. It's a job that should pay, and but you know what's what?

Ricardo: 1:30:54

What perplexes me now, now grocery stores, ashamedly, are, are becoming that minimum wage employer where nobody wants you work in a grocery store. You're all of a sudden that where back in the day in the seventies, if you didn't know someone you couldn't get a job at Safeway, right, it was the place to work. There was somebody in Medicine Hat who I recently gave a retirement gift to, who had their 55th year with the company, right. But those 30, 20, 30 plus year employees in grocery industries don't exist anymore. It's this big revolving door, and the worst part about it is now that you mentioned long-term care. That's becoming the revolving door now too, because they're contracting out food services, housekeeping and janitorial in these long-term care homes and they're starting them off at minimum wage, looking after literally the most vulnerable in society, right.

Joanne: 1:31:42

But part of the problem is we as consumers too. Right, because if you look at a long-term care facility, you're trying to find a place that's cheap enough for you to afford, right. And so depression of wages in groceries, whatever helps the cost for the average consumer to stay down at least we think it does right. And this idea of I mean it's a whole new topic which we won't go into but globalization, which has brought really cheap products made in countries where wages are not as high, which has brought really cheap products made in countries where wages are not as high, has put competition and depression on our wages as well. You know, it's almost always the biggest line in a budget line in any business is. You know, I work for businesses where 10% just like we have to cut costs 10% of the staff is going period right.

Joanne: 1:32:36

So again, as part of this system, if we're talking about rejigging the system, it has to begin with the idea of human dignity and human work as being dignified.

Joanne: 1:32:42

That's the only way we will be able to, and I'm not saying like. I remember had a doctor who was from Cuba, actually, when I was in Toronto and she said, yeah, in Cuba everyone got a pair of pants, but they were all the same. Right Like within our system has to be this ability for people who have skills and abilities to be able to excel. There needs to be built into it this idea of diversity, and we each can contribute. We have to get away from the idea that some work is not worth as much as others. And you know the idea that stars and athletes and you know those kinds of people deserve more money because we are programmed to adore them. You know the idea that we are all the children of God and each is afforded equal dignity, whatever you do, and we together not the government right, but the people together will guard that human dignity with their lives, right.

Diana: 1:33:42

Or should, if they're able to.

Joanne: 1:33:43

Yeah, right.

Diana: 1:33:44

Because they need to be in a spot, like you were saying, right, they need to be in a place where they've taken care of themselves in order to be able to take care of others, right? And so this is the whole circle.

Joanne: 1:33:54

It's like Katie Lang said once when the Alberta. She said she was a vegetarian and meat was awful or something, do you remember? And all the farmers went after her and all she said was free your mind, the rest will follow. And I think that's exactly. We've been talking about this and hanging around. It's like you. We need to encourage deeper thinking about life and human dignity and what it means to live together in peace, so that it's not this superficial. What can I buy? How much do I have to pay this person? How can I carve out the best life for me with the least amount of money is not what drives us, but how we can free our minds and think deeply and intentionally about life in a way where human flourishing is available for all.

Derek: 1:34:45

And I have challenged people to think about poverty reduction. And is the goal of reducing poverty simply to make people better consumers or is it to create a different kind of society where everybody can flourish?

Diana: 1:35:03

Right, exactly, exactly. So we got the difference between quality and equity which we've been kind of talking about over and over again right, because you got to meet people where they're at.

Joanne: 1:35:13

Absolutely.

Diana: 1:35:14

It's like after COVID happened because COVID is still here, still happening, still happening, but let's say, after the lockdowns and the-.

Ricardo: 1:35:22

After the pandemic yeah, so you know, inflation happened almost invariably afterwards. I think till today I have not received an explanation as to why the cost of everything went up so high. Grocery stores, who didn't skip a beat or lose a dollar during the pandemic, increased their prices. And we had all these government officials grilling the CEOs of grocery chains and finding out what. Nobody could explain why inflation went so high and prices went so high. But all that they did was increased interest rates, which increased mortgage payment, increased rent, increased insurance. So the cure? A fine economist named Jim Stanford said the cure was worse than the disease.

Joanne: 1:35:59

Right, yes, right.

Ricardo: 1:36:01

And we're still in that cycle now where they say, oh, interest rates are going down, but we have to watch inflation. There was no need for inflation. Milk went up like what? 100% for a jug of milk. But I thought in Canada we controlled every step of the dairy industry.

Diana: 1:36:14

Of dairy yep.

Ricardo: 1:36:15

Right.

Diana: 1:36:16

That's okay. You can just get eggs from here and take them over the border and, like, make a lot of bank right now. This is crazy.

Derek: 1:36:30

The interesting thing with the prices was, I mean, the argument from the grocery stores was that, well, the cost of everything has gone up, so we have to increase our prices, you know, because we have increased costs. That doesn't explain the increased profit. Right, right, yes, that's exactly right.

Joanne: 1:36:43

The profit taking was incredible.

Derek: 1:36:45

Well, it still is.

Joanne: 1:36:46

Yeah, yeah.

Derek: 1:36:47

And if it was simply the price, the profit would have been less or the same.

Ricardo: 1:36:52

And they're brazen. They just don't care what they say in the media. Now Nobody's stopping them last for the same. And they're brazen, they just don't care what they say in the media now Like Safeway literally tells its workers at the table we're rolling back your wages, not because we can't afford to, we just don't want to.

Diana: 1:37:02

Yeah, right.

Ricardo: 1:37:04

That's what they're brazen about it. Now, Right, Galen Weston can sit there in front of the government and be like that basket's huge.

Joanne: 1:37:11

And do you know how many baskets? You have Like that's the whole thing, your economy, like the scale of it.

Bill: 1:37:18

Anyway, I think we've gotten a little off topic.

Joanne: 1:37:25

I was just about to jump in, actually because I felt like we might've poked a bear.

Bill: 1:37:27

All right, we've named a lot tonight and we do need to start to wrap it up here. We do last thoughts. Normally, I just go like what's your last thought. I'm actually going to frame it this time because I feel like we poked a bear.

Bill: 1:37:41

So we've talked about myths that need dismantling. We've talked about systems that need changing. We've talked about frameworks and ideas and stories and spiritual frameworks that all need to be reimagined, and it's heavy work and it's long work. And it's heavy work and it's long work and it's difficult work, and there are times, I'm sure, when it feels like an exercise in futility. So I am going to say that, in spite of all of that, every single person at this table stays with it. Every single person at this table stays with it.

Bill: 1:38:10

So I'm going to ask for your closing thoughts from your context union, church politics, poverty institute and education, and all those pieces, all the research, all of the data, all of it. What keeps you going, especially when the work feels overwhelming, beyond your own motivation as well? What gives you hope, specifically for people who are currently in poverty in our society? What keeps you going when it feels overwhelming and beyond your own motivation, what gives you hope for people who are currently living in or experiencing poverty in our society today? And I'm going to start at that end of the table and work my way this way. So, ricardo, you're up first.

Ricardo: 1:38:58

Hi. I mean the Marxist in me says one day we'll nationalize all the industries and everything will be fine. But no, when I was interviewed for the job at UFCW, they said why do you want to work for a union? And I said I was amidst applying at university and doing my social work degree and I said working for a union is actually truly the most unique way of helping people, because I give people the opportunity to earn more money on their paycheck to be able to pay their bills and all those kind of things.

Ricardo: 1:39:31

Of course there's a cycle of oh, the more they earn, the higher profits, anyway, but the motivation is that you know you're helping people in a unique way to be able to help themselves, which is going against this whole independent thought that we have around the table now.

Ricardo: 1:39:45

But I think that if we can just have that mindset everywhere where we lift each other up and we help the person that is struggling Like, even if it's a $5 to a person on the street uh, who just needs five bucks, right, who cares where it going, right? Or even if it's, even if it's giving your employees a higher wage or more hours, or or not saying we can't afford to, we can afford to, and we should, because it's the right thing to do. That's what I hope for, right, and that's kind of why I got into the job that I do, because I mean, in some ways I'm strong, arming these corporations to do it, but I'm also helping them understand that you know your profits are important for you, but they don't happen if somebody isn't cutting the meat and putting the apples on the shelf, or building the cars, or making all the products happen, or towing the like there's, or building the cars or making all the products happen, or towing the feet. There's a cycle that has to happen and you cut one out and the chain breaks.

Ricardo: 1:40:44

But right now the chain is under a tremendous amount of strain Tremendous and what is happening in the world right now is the people who are poor, the people who are in the cycle of poverty, regardless of what has been dissected and eliminated from our education system, are still putting the pieces together on what is causing me to be where I am right now. And we're seeing that right now, right this second, in a federal election where we had a liberal party that was ready to be decimated, and now they have like an 86% chance of success, according to the Economist right. People are putting the pieces together and they're wondering where this, where this impact is coming from and who's responsible and what can I do. So that's what gives me hope.

Joanne: 1:41:30

Well, I mean for me.

Joanne: 1:41:31

I think I'm in the business of changing hearts and minds and I truly believe that if we multiply love and we find joy and we carry each other, we can change the world. Carry each other, we can change the world. I know we have to advocate for systems to change and I have a lot of hope that in young people that are marching that are saying this capitalist system is not working for me anymore, we need it, we need to reframe it and rework it, that gives me a lot of hope. But if I look at my work and my congregation and I see them acting in love at the Acadia Food Bank or having their hearts set towards a more just society and trying to build the kingdom of God among us, that gives me hope that this fragile community of faith, this community of Christ, can keep their eyes on what Jesus called us to be. And through 2,000 years there's always been a remnant. There has always been a group of people, these misfit disciples, who say no to the empire and yes to each other. That's my hope.

Diana: 1:43:13

Well, that's hard to follow you guys.

Diana: 1:43:15

Well, that's hard to follow you guys.

Diana: 1:43:25

So I would say what keeps me going, especially in this, in this job, is honestly coming home to Calgary, acadia, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but when we're in session, when we're up there debating with the government, it is a whole world of its own and you can absolutely forget why you're up there, right. And so coming back here and honestly, it's on the doors, it's door knocking, it's talking to people and actually hearing their concerns and figuring out where can I actually and what? So, beyond, right, what gives me hope is that someone like me like, that sounds bizarre, but I was never political, that was never my calling. I didn't want to talk about politics, I didn't want anything, but as I grew up, recognized my privilege, right, and I think about the privilege of the, of the office I hold right like that's I. I I continue to learn new ways that I can influence things in a positive way, and that's what keeps me going, it's the. It's being able to actually do my job right and regardless of what else, wherever else is going.

Derek: 1:44:30

So, yeah, I think it's easy right now to not have hope, because the forces that seem to be arrayed against us can seem monumental, but when have they not Right? I think about the struggles of the labor union a hundred years ago. Those were monumental forces. The struggles of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, those were monumental forces.

Derek: 1:45:08

And I think about Dr Martin Luther King, who said that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. And I also think that it only bends toward justice when there are people who are brave and strong to stand up and do the bending. It doesn't bend toward justice on its own. It requires these kinds of conversations and it always will. And I also think about a quote from a fellow named Parker Palmer in a book called Company of Strangers, where he says that God doesn't primarily require us to have the best strategy and so on. He doesn't actually require us to be successful, he requires us to be faithful. And that could lead us into things that are risky, some might say crazy, and may ultimately not be successful, but they might be transformational. And that's what we're called to do and to be the ones who stand up. And there are always those who stand up and bend the arc toward justice, and there always will be, and that gives me hope.

Bill: 1:46:32

So, yeah, I guess I'll back clean up because otherwise Joanne's going to yell at me if I don't. So some folks know, some folks don't know. It's not like very public knowledge, but when I was a student in seminary and was away in Halifax for a summer, my son was born three days after I landed in Halifax. I was not here. When he was born here in Calgary we gambled and lost and that's just sort of the way that it works. But the real kind of moment of profound humility and clarity came when my wife came home from the hospital and the next day the food bank showed up at our door with a whole bunch of groceries and a whole bunch of food, because we had she had filled out some information at the hospital and we had landed under the threshold for household income and we were living in poverty and we had known we were struggling and we had known that things were really difficult.

Bill: 1:47:34

But I had certainly embraced the narrative of this is the paying your dues. This is the. You know you got to. It's a rite of passage, right. And so what gives me I think what keeps me going is knowing that first off, I can't promise my children that they are going to have it better than I did. That is not the world that we currently live in, but I can promise my children that they will know more about what is actually at work in the world.

Bill: 1:48:08

So I think back to things that my grandparents and even my parents had to either learn or be completely wrong about in their lifetime. That I know just inherently from the time that I was growing up and that already I see that same kind of you know, the stuff that I've had to wrestle with and process and learn over time that my kids are inherently just growing up, knowing and this is kind of the promise and the hope that I have, and it's actually similar to something that you said in an interview one time that you actually entered politics with the idea of building a better world for your kids and, and so what gives me hope is actually that that very humbling and and at the time I mean you want to talk about having to wrestle with pride embarrassing moment of hearing, hey, the food bank was just here. And knowing that, even in my own denial, even in my own or our own sense that this was just as good as it was going to get the world still showed up in a way that mattered and that made a huge difference. So what gives me hope is that people continue to show up and even though the burden is greater now than it probably was even 10 years ago at that time, even though we see more and more kind of the cutbacks and the clawbacks and the monumental task of charities and churches and other organizations trying to kind of step into the gap and support everything with less resources to make it happen, somehow they still show up and they don't quit.

Bill: 1:49:49

And that mattered to my family and it has mattered to so many families that I've encountered since in ministry. And that is my hope. My hope is that we never stop finding ways to hold each other, finding ways to love each other, and I mean still my favorite quote of all time is you know, bruce Coburn and the whole, you know, kick of the darkness until it bleeds daylight Right, and that that that really is the work of love and justice in the world that we live in right now. So with all of that and with those closing remarks, I'm going to say, as always, first off, thank you to Ricardo and Joanne you guys are always awesome, we love you. But, more importantly, a really special thank you both to Diana and to Derek. Tonight it was a real privilege to have both of you here and it made a huge difference. We are really grateful to have you here.

Diana: 1:50:38

It was super fun, thank you.

Bill: 1:50:41

And thanks to our audience, can't not say, because I'm required to say, but can't not say thank you to the United Church Foundation for their support of this podcast. And we will be back in one month's time for yet another deep dive into a new topic and with new guests and with a whole lot more conversation still to come. So thanks for joining us and this is Prepared to Drown. Signing off, and that brings us to the end of tonight's deep dive.

Bill: 1:51:13

If you're someone who's barely making it, if you're choosing between rent and groceries, if you've ever felt unseen or unwanted or blamed for a system that you didn't build, I hope tonight reminded you that your struggle is not your shame. You are not invisible, you are not a failure. You are beloved. And if you're feeling a bit undone tonight because you've heard something that made you squirm or challenged the way you've seen yourself or your success or your place in this world, please know that discomfort can be a holy invitation. You are not condemned, you are not irredeemable. You are also beloved. There is grace enough for both the weary and the waking, and it's only together, when we tell the truth and stay curious and practice compassion, that we begin to build something better. So until next time, stay grounded in grace, stubborn in hope and open to the kind of love that turns the world upside down.