Thread by @Norlaine

There's nothing like getting shot at to make you think hard about societal problems. We, as a society, need to do better. In a country as wealthy as Canada, abject poverty shouldn't be a thing. I would much rather risk a few people gaming the system than anyone going hungry..1/21

We need to bring mental health care under the universal health care umbrella (along with dental care, pharmacare, and vision/hearing care). 2/21

We need to decriminalize or legalize all drugs and make drug use/substance addiction a health care matter rather than a legal matter. Clean supply, supervised use, and many points of contact with resources to help with underlying issues. 3/21

We need a properly, equally funded education system across the board. The way it works now, parents in wealthy communities fund-raise and provide their kids' schools with much better equipment and resources than the schools in poor communities. That needs to change. 4/21

Fund all the schools equally and ban fund-raising. Parents in the rich neighbourhoods will raise hell and then the only way for them to get what they want is to raise the bar for ALL schools. 5/21

No child in Canada should grow up in poverty. No child should ever go hungry. No child should ever be tempted to look to gangs for acceptance and belonging. 6/21

Systemic racism is real and it needs to end now. We need change leaders to alter the course of organizational cultures. Medicine, policing, child and family services, and other fields who should be leading us out of inequality are falling way short of the mark. 7/21

We need big, active, pro-active, energized reconciliation. This needs to be the focus on the ground in every part of Canada. Generational trauma is real and we need to recognize it and act to keep it from going onto the next generation. 8/21

We need to rethink post-secondary education. It's not to make workers. It's to create thoughtful, enlightened citizens. And our young people need to be able to access this education without going into debt for half their lives. 9/21

We need to ramp up public education about Indigenous issues. I am sick every time I read the comments on any article about Indigenous issues. We settlers owe Indigenous people, not the other way around. There are legal treaties that we have reneged on. 10/21

Disability should not mean being condemned to poverty. Housing, food, necessary medicines and treatment should not be tied to work. People get more money on EI than disability. More money on CERB than on disability1. That's just wrong. 11/2

A basic standard of living should be a right, not a reward that some are excluded from due to circumstances out of their control. We need a UBI right now. A system that is truly universal and does not exclude anyone because they are unable to work. 12/21

We need a complete reworking of our judicial system. Indigenous people and people of colour are drastically disproportionately imprisoned. 13/21

We need to get guns off our streets. There is no reason anyone living in an urban centre needs a gun. Sport shooters could keep their guns at firing ranges in locked facilities. No one needs a gun in the city. Flat out ban. 14/21

We need so many more resources in dealing with family/domestic violence. Not just to save people now, but to prevent children from growing up in situations where they learn violence as a coping mechanism. 15/21

There is a cycle of poverty and violence that has been talked about for decades. Where are our shining triumphs against this? What are we actually accomplishing to break that cycle? 16/21

This isn't about hand-outs or "lazy people wanting government services" as some people would like everyone to believe. This is about building a society and communities that are safe places for people. Safe for children. Safe for elders. 17/21

I honestly don't care if you feel like you want your money in your pocket and screw everyone else, or if you hate the idea of social solutions and breaking the cycle of poverty. It's not just about you. 18/21

We need to do the things that will make our communities truly safe (and conservative ideas of mandatory minimum harsh sentencing is not those things). I want my kids to be safe, wherever they may be in Canada. And if that means we need to rethink everything... 19/21

We have been doing, so be it. We need to be better, to do better. And, yes, it will cost money. How much is your child's life worth? I know my children's lives are priceless to me. We need to just step up and do it. We need to elect the political leaders who will do it. 20/21

Last night, being shot at, MY DAUGHTERS being shot at, has shaken me. And we need to make serious structural changes in how we do everything. And we need to do it right now. 21/21