I do some touring around our area of North Bay looking at the scenery, the wildlife, the beautiful homes, the landscaping, and gardens to be envied. (Retirement is great!).
The thought often comes of how fortunate we are to live in such a place and then I am pulled back into reality by passing a less-than-prosperous-looking home surrounded by derelict cars, junk, and abandoned, broken playthings. My mind goes from wondering how people can afford such luxuries to how they live on what appears to be something around the minimum wage.
Looks can be deceiving but still, there is a wide disparity in lifestyles (read income) in our area.
The past weekend I had the opportunity to see all this scenery, wildlife, homes, cottages, and gardens from another perspective: from the deck of a pontoon boat on Lake Nosbonsing. Three of the Warriors of Hope have homes on the lake and the idea was to visit the other two homes from Picnic Central – stopping for a tour of gardens, snacks, and refreshments. The weather was northern Ontario summer perfect; the potato chips plentiful; the bottled water chilled; the barbequed burgers excellent.
Looking at the homes and cottages along the lakeshore, the unspoken thought was what did that property cost, and who can afford this luxury? I was raised on what then would be lower-middle class wages and although with my wife and I finally earning what would be upper-middle class wages, we did save and invest for a comfortable lifestyle. We could have had a lakeshore home but made other choices. All this pondering led me to research what the average wage was for this area.
The median household income is about $72,000, which back in the 1950s would have been about $6,000 – slightly more than what my folks had. That $72,000 median is household so that might be two people working to come up with that income. The middle class, according to the stats, ranges between $33,000 and $130,000 in Ontario. You become upper-middle class when your income exceeds the median of $72,000, but falls below the 10% of Ontarians who earn more than $130,000.
As an aside, in 2022, the top 20% of household income in Canada starts at an annual income of $227,486, according to a report by the Fraser Institute. Okay, you didn’t want to know that.
Doing an assessment of property values, like the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) people do as they drive by (on a boat or in their car), I thought a large percentage of the homeowners on the lake must have saved their middle-class incomes for a few years to have such nice homes and cottages complete with the all the toys for the seasons.
The conclusion I drew was that we are so fortunate to live in such an affluent country.
This segregation by income class is a holdover from the days when class defined a social structure (we have left that behind, haven’t we?) as well as a measure of wealth. Attaining a middle-class standing was a goal, a stepping stone to the upper class – along with the social graces one usually inherited without the merit of improving yourself, usually with education.
According to the stats, with our median income right in the centre of the middle-class spectrum, most of us in the area fit nicely into what we used to aspire to, the middle class.
Of course, not all fit into this middle-class haven. My seatmate for part of the Hop and Splash hails from South Africa, which to all reports is another beautiful country. But, she said, much more crowded: that is one of the appealing things about rural Canada – its space. And, she reiterated, there are beautiful lake and oceanside homes just like we were seeing that day. Except they were surrounded by tall fences crowned with barbed wire.
I will not concern myself with the 10% of our population who earn more than the $133,000 marker for they can look after themselves – financially in any case. There is however the 10% who are under the lower marker of the middle call spectrum of $33,000 household income. I suspect none of them were on our tour. Some may live in the countryside, but even with the top of lower-class income, it is going to be tough going with the present inflation and rising cost of living.
I wish there was a political solution to income disparity, but someone wrote that the poor will always be with us and I am afraid that may be the truth. I had some more chips and dip.
Discussion and drinks followed.
What makes our country so great, we concluded, besides its abundance of space, is the opportunity we offer to our children, and to those who are coming to our country to make a home. That opportunity is a result of education and using what you have learned to better, not only your own life, but that of others. If you can work in a little charity, that may help with the equity we like to think is our due.
Someone threw cold water on our lofty ideas by asking if the banks were not the majority stakeholders on the properties all around the lake, but she was a former accountant so we ignored that premise.
Looking around at my companions of the day, I was again impressed by the strength of character of these survivors and their significant others. They have all faced a share of health issues and stresses but here they were, cheerfully splashing about like a family of mallards, dabbling in Lake Nosbonsing.
Of course, we Warriors are very comfortable on the water – as the saying goes - like ducks to water.
