by Krystal ann Kraus
TORONTO -- It's been a rough morning and rush hour traffic isn't cooperating.
Pyro wipes the excess soap from his squeegee and sighs as he heads back to the traffic snarl that Lakeshore Boulevard has become.
It's cold and windy at this spot -- at least it's better than having the sun in your face all afternoon like at Yonge and Richmond.
"Why would they think anybody would want to be doing this?" I ask.
Pyro nods but says nothing. Rush hour is half over and he is no better off.
He gives me his cut-out gloves. I suggest he give it a rest and go for coffee. He suggests that he earn enough for coffee first. I suggest that I pick up the tab. He pauses. I see his fingers are red and chapped, I give him the gloves back, they're better than nothing.
After a few more tries (I hope you weren't expecting me to say something like 'after a few more threats and broken windshields'; that rarely happens and, more often than not, it's the kids being harassed) we pack up our stuff, hide the bucket and go for coffee.
Life as a squeegee kid is rough, but at the same time strangely flattering when you consider they're willing to spend $2 million on you for a police crackdown campaign or when the government calls you their "top priority."
But it's also lonely when you know many of your friends have already left the city because they just couldn't take the harassment any more. Or they've turned to "safer" ways of earning money, like dealing drugs.
The city doesn't feel so clean when you consider the tactics they use to make it this way.
First, it was a frontal assault on the visible street poor right on our own ground, with the "target policing" campaign. That's where $2 million from the city's social service budget was allocated to pay police officers $40 per hour for overtime they put in patrolling the city's crime "hot spots" (and trust me, weren't anywhere near Rosedale).
Second, coming down hard now is a bill dealing directly with the squeegee trade. Basically, Harris will try to keep true to his election promise of "cleaning up" the city by ridding it of the visible poor.
This is straight from New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's tactic box and the "Broken Window Theory" (cracking down on petty "crimes" like panhandling as a solution/prevention to larger crime.)
Once the legislature returns in October, the Attorney-General will push to amend the Highway Traffic Control Act, making soliciting on streets illegal.
What we need is proper assistance and access to affordable housing, medical help, education. decent paying jobs and opportunity -- not more cops and more propaganda and lies to turn our potential allies against us.
As for resistance: "Don't expect us to take this lying down!" Pyro says. And I agree.
Coming off a great Toronto Disaster Relief Committee demonstration for affordable housing, and other positive actions like the "Safe Park", we have built momentum for a fight back.
There has been support from unions such as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Canadian Auto Workers. And the Toronto and York region Labour Council has called a "squeegee-in" for October 20, the day the Legislature opens.
Essentially, what it will take is a strong showing from working class people saying they will simply not tolerate this demonization of the poor by Mike Harris any longer.
"You feel so isolated out here, sometimes it would be nice to know that other people have got your back," Pyro remarks as I show him these thoughts over coffee as we sit among our brothers and sisters in a coffee shop on an everyday Monday morning.
That means solidarity, that is where our strength lies.