Open letter to Dave Muir, Whitehorse Transit manager:
I am very upset over your remarks printed in the Yukon News January 20th.
This was nothing short of a McCarthy-style attack on two groups of people who are not able to defend themselves.
Your thinly veiled attack on those people who abuse the “program” nicely painted all handicapped and social assistance recipients as abusers of this program.
You don’t bother to explain what is wrong with the program, just that there are abuses.
Are handicapped customers the ones you are complaining about? It sounds like these are the people who are supposed to be using the transit system, so I fail to see your objection to their participation.
If it’s the welfare bums you have a problem with, shouldn’t you deal with the representatives who are handing out tickets that are not deserved? I assume that the Social Services Department is paying for their clients’ tickets, so where lies the problem?
Not mentioned is what this mysterious committee is that’s looking into the problem. This feels like one of those situations where the decision to cut back has already been made, and you are just looking for a scapegoat to blame the problem on. It is always “those people’s” fault. “We” all know who they are, so no one has to mention their names.
It’s amazing to me that people who are mobile and have enough money to live well always know what is best for the handicapped and for people who have to visit the food bank to survive.
Instead of being up-front and saying we are reviewing a program because it is out of date, you make it sound like all the participants are abusing the program and the poor city has no choice but cancel it.
Optics is everything.
Hoby Irwin
Whitehorse