Volume LXIX: The Tarot and ‘The Tower’; Ottawa’s Salvation Army Plays the Charity Card

Happy ‘Lucky’ Wednesday, world!  Well, for this Wednesday’s Witches, Wizards and Warlocks Edition, I Will be tall King about the last Spell We Cast to End the Salvation Army’s proposed mega shelter complex.  There was a city council meeting on the Matter earlier today, and the Hope was that the proposal would be voted down, dissipating a dark cloud looming over Ottawa and in particular the municipality of Vanier where the shelter is proposed to be built.  With the Vote coming on ‘Lucky’ Wednesday, there was every reason to believe it would go Our Way, and that the city of Ottawa would free up $15,000,000.00 worth of annual funding to get Ottawa homeless into permanent housing.  It didn’t happen.  However, I do not Wish for any One to be thing King it means the Magic failed.

‘The Tower’ was the Central Card representing the natural course of events as they Will Play out related to the Central Quest-Ion (Lust – Living a Purpose Full Life) in a recent Tarot read I am sharing with My audience.  I mentioned that the Tower Card represents a much Grander Idea than the closing of a mega shelter:

“In its simplest interpretation it refers to the manifestation of cosmic energy in its grossest form.”

What it really represents is CAPITALISM; the amount of Cosmic Energy We invest in corporate (dead) Ideas.  The Salvation Army is a great example of a ‘charitable’ Idea that has been corrupted into its grossest form by the necessity to survive within a corporate culture.  It is not charitable!  Not in Canada, anyway!  Canada is [arguably] one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  I don’t subscribe to that Idea, I think Canada has accumulated nothing but debt it doesn’t know how to deal with, but ‘most’ People would argue that Canada is a wealthy country and by most standards it would be a fair assessment.  That means the only Way the organization can ‘do business’ in Canada, is if Canada provides the organization with a stream of individuals in need of charity.  This is the Key problem with capitalist Ideology; corporations are dependent on profits, which means they are dependent on a market.

The Vote on the Salvation Army’s proposed mega shelter was not turned down today, but I know it does very much represent ‘The Tower’ of My Microcosm – and the Tower is falling.  The vote today was 12-10 (in favour of the proposal), considerably less favourable than the previous sentiments of city council on the matter last time they convened on this Issue (16-7).  And if You are Good at math, You are also correct in presuming that one vote was absent from the tally.  So it could be 13-10 or 12-11 if all votes were in.  Either Way, the last vote doesn’t make enough of a difference, but the Tone of the meeting was absolutely in Harmony with the Universe and the beginning of the End of the Salvation Army in Ottawa.

This was also My first time attending a full city council meeting of any kind, so it was an interesting experience.  As the authority of government and Our elected officials, it would seem that the People of Ottawa should have the opportunity to be heard.  They don’t.  The People are not permitted to interrupt or address any of the city council members on any of the matters being discussed.  For the People, city council decisions are now a spectator sport.  This is a BIG problem.  If I had a chance to speak and be heard by all the city councillors, even for just two minutes, it could have made all the difference.

Having said that, I really didn’t need to.  The Magic of the day, was that virtually every reason I have suggested the Salvation Army mega shelter should be turned down, was addressed specifically by one of the council members.  Building the structure creates the need for a homeless population, $15 million a year is a lot of money that could go to low income housing, building another shelter is a conflict of interest for solving the homelessness Issue – one provides a service for the condition, the other provides a solution.  These are powerful arguments.  In fact, one councillor even mentioned that People are harmed by the experience of homelessness, and the city should be focused on solutions.  There were so many powerful statements made, I was a little surprised it was not voted down.  However, there are a lot of other ‘political’ strategies to consider which make the day feel like a very big win, even though it was not the outcome I was hoping for today.

As far as the politics go, many People are unhappy with the ‘original’ proposal.  Conveniently, the Salvation Army met only two days previous to this meeting to discuss changes they would make to the proposal (so that it would be more favourable and address some issues People had with the first proposal).  Until Fleury announced revisiting this, no such changes had been suggested, and the Salvation Army hasn’t committed to any of the (presumably favourable) changes to the proposal.  Essentially, it’s just Words and with the pressure of city council potentially ‘backing out’, the Salvation Army was doing what they could in the last moment to appear ‘agreeable’ to changes.  Mathieu Fluery (surprisingly) didn’t let it slide.  In fact, he was almost as vicious as I would have been with My Words!

Fleury was very convincing.  He postulated the Salvation Army as ‘traitors’, while others tiptoed around the Idea that overturning ‘charitable’ funding was somehow ‘immoral’.  They truly make it sound as though the Salvation Army take care of Ottawa’s People out of the goodness of their hearts, when really all their bad (harm done to those subject to their shelters) is funded by the city taxpayers, the People.  There is nothing ‘charitable’ about it.  They take more money than it would cost to put People into dignified housing and cause harm to Ottawa’s People subject to homelessness.  That’s the reality.  But no one was beating around the bush about it, either.  From virtually all angles, it sounded like all city councillors know this is a bad Idea.  All except one, maybe.  There was one lady that gave a long winded speech about the Salvation Army’s ‘role’ helping Canada’s People for so long, blah, blah, blah…  Unfortunately, not all that spoke out against the Salvation Army voted it down.  One of the reasons, was that it theoretically shouldn’t have been up for discussion anyway.  One of the councillors was right, nothing had changed since the last vote, Fleury was introducing a mute point.  The ‘discovery’ that the Salvation Army didn’t own the proposed new site was not news and was known at the last city council meeting.  The Good News is despite this fact, council did vote on it again.

That’s strange because it was plain as day obvious that no new information was being presented, meaning that if city council knew that to begin with, there would be no reason for the matter to come before council in the first place.  Something must change to revisit an Issue previously decided by council.  So why was Fleury’s request to revisit the Issue Honoured in the first place?  That was also what council was asked to vote on; not whether or not they want the shelter, but on the fact that no new information was presented and therefor there should not be a reversal of decision.

So for it to go 12-10 under those circumstances, that is the beginning of the End of the Salvation Army’s mega shelter proposal.  The other gleam of light is that if the Salvation Army is hoping to change their proposal (as they suggested in their recent meeting), the current application would be null and void as the new proposal would require a new application.  That was also made crystal clear.

This seemed like a polite “Good-bye Salvation Army” from the city of Ottawa.  “Thank You for Your years of service, but We are going to move forward without you.”

The Salvation Army knows the People don’t like their current proposal (and it appears city council doesn’t much, either).  Now they’ve offered to make changes.  They were [not so] politely told by Fleury that their Word means nothing, and a new proposal Will require a new application.  Either they are bluffing (in which case they proceed with the current application making no changes, proving they are ‘untrustworthy’ and not Willing to work with the city on altering the proposal), or they file a new application.  The Salvation Army is forced to make a move now.  If they don’t file a new application for the proposal, the old one still has to pass through the social services committee, and My guess is that councillors can make that vote go whichever Way they Wish.  If the Salvation Army doesn’t change their proposal, they appear inflexible and unwilling to compromise, which Will change the sentiment of the social services committee.

Alright, this is getting to the threshold of the Common Man’s attention span, so I am going to Sign off for another night.  We decided that the Salvation Army mega shelter proposal should be defeated, and it is Done!  Keep in Mind, the Greatest Illusion is Time.

Love and Blessings,