It was a bad week ��

It is Friday, April 30 and I'm in a pretty foul mood. No, I'm not mad at my kids. I didn't have a squabble with my wife; I don't even have any conflicts at work at the moment. But this rising sense of disgust, anger and frustration has been growing all week. This morning it boiled over.

First, the Toronto Star surveyed city councilors and discovered that 22 of our elected representatives at City Hall (that is one half of the Council) thought that the Toronto Police should not be investigating the Toronto Police, but that we need an outside force to conduct an investigation into possible corruption.

This isn't so shocking, but the following is: the Toronto Star got this many councilors to voice their opinion on the condition of anonymity. It seems that city councilors do not want to speak publicly on this issue for fear of possible reprisals. Reprisals? From the police? That is the story of the week. It is an indication of how severely torn is the social fabric of my city. It is a damning witness to the state of policing in Toronto. Civilians who are elected to run Toronto, and before whom the police force must be accountable, are afraid to speak openly about the need for independent review of the force.

Next, I went to hear a lecture on the theme of faith and redemption in opera by Richard Bradshaw, the director of the Canadian Opera Company. It wasn't a good lecture. But what was frustrating for me was that there seemed to be a profound disconnect between the themes of the talk and the realities of brokenness and suffering that I experience every day on the streets of Toronto.

I ventured a question after the lecture. "Mr. Bradshaw, a culture in which money equals power is a culture that legitimates violence, oppression and class division. What does opera have to do with social justice?" I wasn't trying to embarrass the man. I actually thought that, he might actually have something important to say about social justice and opera.

Mr Bradshaw's answer? The Canadian Opera Company maintains 120 tickets for every performance at the affordable price of $25. Accessibility to the shows for opera buffs who can afford $25 a ticket? That's the relation of opera to social justice?

I don't want to be too harsh, but the Canadian Opera Company is building a new opera house in a city that has not been able to find a way to build affordable housing for the most vulnerable of our neighbors and the waiting list has increased by ninety per cent.

I support the arts but any art form that primarily serves the rich and powerful in our society should pay for itself. Moreover, I think that Mr. Bradshaw should actually refuse any monies from the public purse until the homelessness crisis receives the public funding that it needs.

Finally, I saw the shake-up at Nortel. I have been watching Nortel since it first showed up on campuses in the late 1970s and early 1980s (under the previous name, Northern Telecom), advertizing that they were the corporation that was remaking the world of cyber communications and computer technology.

The corporation has had its share of trouble in the past, and now in what appears to be "echoes of Enron," the heads of top executives have rolled. And with those heads falling, so also did the stock market. The value of Nortel stocks fell by almost $10 billion in one day.

The federal government commitment to affordable housing over the next five years is $1 billion. Over five years. Ten billion dollars lost in a day, one billion committed over five years.

City councilors scared of the cops. Houses in which wealthy patrons enjoy opera but no housing for the poor. Corporate losses in one day that are ten times the national commitment to affordable housing over five years. It's not been a good week.

Brian J. Walsh serves as theologian in residence at the Toronto Christian Resource Centre in Regent Park, Toronto.

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