One is Too Many

In response to the Government of Alberta’s roll out of a new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP) from the previous program, AISH (the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped), at least two men have taken their own lives. Their names were Bruce Johnson and Scott Ganley. We know they are not the only ones. This poem was written in tribute to Bruce and Scott, and the many who will continue to suffer under government cruelty.

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One is Too Many
By Nisha Patel

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Break the system for private profit 

Balance the books off of our backs

Write policy playing God with promises 

Craft the cruelty and claw it back

Lead with an iron fist

Pluck us from the populace like weeds

Tell us that worthiness is wound from working

Until the wounded and the weary choose to leave

Bruce Johnson believed he was a burden

Bruce Johnson, you were wrong

Bruce Johnson’s life was taken by the Government

Bruce Johnson, you were wronged

Scott Ganley thought we’d look away

Scott Ganley, you were wrong

Scott Ganley, walked into the traps his government laid

Scott Ganley, you were wronged

Bruce Johnson thought he was a coward

Bruce Johnson, you were wrong

Bruce Johnson’s life was not a political plaything 

Bruce Johnson, you were wronged

The Minister referred to Scott and Bruce as clients

A transaction of cost and benefits

But they were loved ones, they were patients 

And we owed them healthcare, security, and commitment

What is the promise of Assurance 

When we dismantle support through boots on necks 

Where are these 60,000 jobs supposed to come from

When there’s no jobs for even able-bodied friends?

We have all been Bruce Johnson or Scott Ganley

Looked in that mirror, walked away, held the last straw like loaded guns

We’ve all wished for more, felt sick and  angered

Wished it was our own bodies we could outrun

I assure you if these ministers had to live the life Bruce and Scott did

And spend even a second in their fearful uncertainty

They wouldn’t last a term, much less a day

In their own system of hell and manufactured shame and scrutiny

Over a lifetime the heart 

Does more work than any other muscle 

So if your heart is hurting today 

It is because our grief cannot be muzzled 

Our bodies are wrought with things that do not go quietly 

Ripped metal beams, scorched wood, a flood of anger in a falling house

We are the fire and the fire’s longing 

You cannot put all of us out

And we, the friends of the ones we lost 

Of the ones that were one too many  

We promise to do the remembering 

And we will remember the silent plenties

Through grief we are knotted 

And through anger united 

I weave our stories 

Into the roots of trees

So try to clear cut the disabled

Saw our bones for bottom lines

We sprout even from the razing

We regrow each and every time

One is Too Many 

Tomorrow is too late 

We will not stand by

When ADAP is legislated hate 

Because One is Too Many

And tomorrow is on its way

We will not stand idle

We will not forget their names

Stand here and let yourself feel sorrow 

Let the hard things keep you vigilant and righteous 

And know that one is not too many when it comes down To standing up against injustice

One person is enough to start a movement 

One person is a cataclysmic vow 

Next to your names I will etch this memory into the tree trunks of my heart 

Carve it into the resilient bark of the next forty years 

So that when my muscles cast my ballots in a box

I will vote for a future where you are both still here

Because there is a secret that I know

That I feed and fuel deep inside an inflamed and molten core:

The cells of a human heart can live for 40 years

While the lifespan of a government is only 4.