KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – “Why are we picked on as mothers, while we do everything we can to help our kids, but nobody is doing anything to help us?”
Video reporter Jodi Brown visits Samantha Monaghan, mother of six-year old son Luc. Her son has a terminal illness and Samantha struggled to keep her family fed and sheltered on social assistance until Community Services cut her off and ordered her to repay $31,000 in earnings she allegedly did not disclose.
Samantha and her lawyer dispute the accusation, countering that the money consisted of fundraising donations to help pay for her son’s treatment, support payments from an ex spouse and a $15,000 settlement for Luc’s injuries in a car accident, all income that she reported to her caseworker at the time.
Now the family can’t make ends meet and is facing eviction.
We first heard about this awful situation through a report by CBC’s Angela MacIvor. The case is winding its way through the court system, but meanwhile Samantha is fighting for her child’s life and her family’s sanity.
Jodi visited with Samantha and came back with the three video reports. We meet Samantha, find out about Luc’s expensive special diet, and we get introduced to Luc.
“Do you eat three meals a day,” Jodi asks. “No, I am happy to get my breakfast in the morning. I feed the kids, I make sure the kids are fed,and I am the one that does without,” Samantha responds.
“I need help,” Samantha tells Jodi. “Why should my kids starve when there are politicians out there making $200,000 to $300,000 a year, while kids that are sick are not getting proper treatment and proper foods. Why are we picked on when we are good mothers and we do everything we can for our kids, and they don’t do anything to help us?”
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It is so shameful that in our modern society we are awash in technical advancements and yet so depraved in our humanity….we are one of the wealthiest countries on earth evident by the billions upon billions of dollars that our governments at all levels and their agencies somehow are able to squander on endeavors that do little for the advancement of of Societies but rather more for the pocketing of wealth into the pockets of special interest groups purposed to ensuring and securing the interests, power and wealth of the establishment and cementing their symbiotic relationship with governments their governing candidates to engage in a closed circuit system of reciprocal transfer of wealth and power retained between only these two interest groups…and by that the public and our Society be dammed…we are their collateral damage…it is OK for us to suffer and live in squalor in the midst of their egregious entitlements and divisional growth of wealth….how does this relate to this article…I would argue that first off for the survival of Humanity we must way in on our lofty goals of advancing our Societies with the same anticipation, fervor and value that is pushing our technological advancement and capacities to do more than ever believed even a generation ago. We must work to develop and implement new social conscientiousness to push through old paradigms and transform our Societies and Humanity to new heights of caring and inclusiveness so that we work to extinguish the wealth gaps in our present society and and extinguish centralized and concentrated orientation of governance and power and begin the process of decentralizing the concentration of wealth and power by instituting sharing of the wealth policies and forming direct participation democracies by the Citizens within our Societies…I am sure then we will see that in such a wealthy Country like ours there is plenty of wealth to go around to ensure that the needs, the health and welfare of our Societies and our Citizens are met and we are able to live by the morals and humanity within the ideals that we are our brother’s keeper and we leave no man behind (these idioms of course are meant to be implicit of all members of Society to include all gender, ages and cultural identities). If only we put as much effort and priority to Social mechanisms through new paradigms and policy shifts engaged in the advancement and progress of Societal interests as we do in our push for technological progress and advancement then maybe in a truly Modern Society all of our health and security and welfare and sharing of wealth easily afforded by our wealthy Nation becomes our entitlement and heritage as a Society and Citizens no longer have to endure the punishing stresses, debilitation and degradation, humiliation and marginalization suffered by anyone for having to struggle in deprivation in order just to survive or care for the survival of the vulnerable or incapacitated members of Family and Society as this Mother has…to do this to her and let her struggle or any other member of our Society without our help and compassion is a stain on our Humanity and the antithesis of being a Modern Society! A truly modern Society should be defined by the capacity in which that Society through Social development enables its Citizens to the health, wealth and welfare that constitutes and validates the value and dignity of each of it’s Citizenry to the ensuring and entitlement to these core instruments and constitutes of dignity and Humanity!