Written by: Renaldo Brown, from Citizen Empowerment Project
In the city that we live in today, the system is sets us up for failure and every year this cycle repeats.
For both parents and children who grow up in the urban areas of Toronto, life has always been difficult. A parent’s duty is to go to work, so we can afford food and shelter. A child’s duty is to go to school to become educated, so they can over come the obstacles that their parents could not and become more successful. I grew up listening to a lot of politicians, and most of the speeches that I saw were filled with promises and changes in the city that were never attained. Being elected as your mayor I won’t make any promises, but one thing I will say is that I will make a lot of changes in the community.
I come from a place where we face many different challenges on daily basis such as financial problems, lack of good employment, taxes, and education. The cost of living always been a major problem that’s affected society, especially now due to changes to the minimum wage. This is also a big problem for people living in disparaged communities, where they pay rent at high rate but the quality of housing doesn’t match up with the quantity.
People’s jobs don’t pay enough to cover the cost of living and other necessities such as car insurance, phone bill, internet and TV. There are also not enough jobs that are helping society to develop career skills instead of just working to survive. We need jobs where people can help better themselves and find their true passion doing something they would like to pursue in the future. Taxes are another problem; people are not aware of how their taxes are being spent or invested.
As you can see these are all major problems that we face day to day in our everyday lives. These issues will also impact the next generation and the young minors that are growing up in non-privileged neighbourhoods.
If I am elected as mayor, I will strive to freeze the cost of living. I also want to implement a system where people get a receipt for their taxes, so this way they could see how their money is being spent or where it is being invested.
If elected as mayor I will try my best to make sure employment agencies give out better jobs that can lead into a career path, instead of having general labour as the only opportunity for making money. I’m also going to do my best to get more teachers from disadvantaged communities. This would make the learning environment better for students and helps to keep them more engaged in school, especially when teachers can relate to their students.
“A vote for me, is a vote for change.” Thank you for your undivided attention.
The “If I Were Mayor” blog series profiles the ideas of youth and rising leaders from across the GTHA as a way to add their voices to the municipal conversation. Posts have been curated by CivicAction’s Emerging Leaders Network, For Youth Initiative, Laidlaw Foundation, Toronto Youth Cabinet, Citizen Empowerment Project, Young Women’s Leadership Network, and the Centre for Community and Immigration Services. The views contained in this post are the author’s and are not reflective of CivicAction or the CivicAction Leadership Foundation.