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.
Nisha Patel | Poet & Public Speaker 