Canada - alcoholism / food poverty plausibility, and specific foods eaten

[doranwen]

I'm writing a story about a girl whose father was a cop in Toronto until his alcoholism took over and caused him to lose his job. I'm trying to confirm that the setup as I've got it is plausible, and also figure out some details of what they would eat

Comments

[blondebeaker]

1998 in Toronto? I was around the age of your character then, but I lived outside of Toronto then so hopefully I can help some.

So probably living in one of the Toronto Housing Community sites. I'm going to make the assumption that they live in the most infamous one Regent Park so that would be downtown core.

Foodwise, thanks to the recession that happened in the early 90's there were a lot of food liquidation stores that sold canned and boxed food for cheap. Places like No Frills (yellow label NO NAME brand food was common) and non chain grocery stores and Chinatown were the place to shop for cheap. Clothing and household stuff one would go to Honest Ed's, Bi-Way, or Bargin Harolds.

Also, since she is still under 18 she would be getting what was then called a "baby bonus" (now called the child tax credit) the Canadian gov't gave every family a bit of money every month that was to be used towards the needs of the child and at that time it was around 90 bucks per child a month.

Oh and Ontario our booze is controlled by the Liqour Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and Beer Stores. No one would be going to a corner store for booze just fyi.

Hope this helps!

OH. There is a show called "Back in Time for Dinner Canada," they focused it on the middle class but the 90's episode might be helpful. (even the cbc website for it might have some info too!)

[amw]

Regarding the LCBO problem, there are ways to get alcohol in Ontario without going through them directly. However in my experience the gray market vendors and after hours joints tend to be more expensive, not less. I guess one possibility for the storyline might be that the character has access to moonshine, but honestly at that point it seems more likely to me they'd just do different drugs since that's easier to get hold of in the city.

On rent, I don't think you can get a housing commission flat on no notice, which seems to be the storyline here. Many people in sudden poverty live out of shelters while they are on the waiting list. If money really is tight I think jumping between shelters and acquaintances with a spare room is more common. At least, this is how some of my friends got by in Toronto in the 2010s.

[doranwen]

I have it very vague about his sources of alcohol; he's not really a focus of the story, so could go with whatever. The third character who is seeing most of this isn't paying much attention to him.

Well, the story picks up a good while after he's lost the job and has moved and all that, so it's very possible they were in a shelter for a while. The story doesn't need to go into the background as long as the result's plausible. :) The few scenes set at this time in her life are mostly focused on another character who stays at her place for a couple days, so what he would be observing and whatnot. When she was 14 she was in a more stable environment, the story jumps to when she's 16 and in the current situation, so I would think two years would be enough to get from where they were to where they are now? Hopefully? :)

[amw]

I didn't live in Toronto during the 90s and have no personal experience waiting for public housing, but for the purpose of the story if there is a couple years gap I think that would be reasonable. Then, assuming they live "south of Bloor" (central Toronto) I agree with the OC about Chinatown and the various discount stores. Canned food, pasta, rice and beans all make sense. I think eating work leftovers is an especially good idea for indicating poverty, since the other stuff is also pretty standard for middle class vegetarians and vegans.

[doranwen]

Awesome, thanks! Unfortunately, I have another question for you, then. :) What sort of work leftovers are we talking about? I've never worked in a fast food place, so I have no idea what "work leftovers" means. Like, if she works at a taco place (just for a random example), is she bringing home tacos that people made but rejected, or is she assembling tacos from whatever is going to be thrown out at the end of the day, or what?

[amw]

Canada isn't exactly known for tacos 😉 A more stereotypical workplace would be Tim Hortons (similar to Dunkin Donuts and the biggest fast food chain in Canada) or - if she's picking a workplace specifically for food perks - something like Swiss Chalet, which is more of a regular restaurant chain known for its roast chicken.

At fast food places from my experience the most brought-home food is buns, bagels and other pastry products, since most of those are just thrown out at the end of the day. The other ingredients don't tend to keep easy so better to just take home complete meals - whether returns or phone orders that never came to pick up.

At a regular restaurant you might be able to wangle better quality raw ingredients, but regular restaurants also do specials to get rid of old ingredients, or they will toss it into a soup or a stock, so it depends on the chef. When I worked in a kitchen at a fine dining restaurant we mostly ate leftovers or returns and occasionally the chef would give us something yummy to take home if he was experimenting or if a special didn't sell on the night.

My sources on this are exes working at Starbucks, Subway and smaller burger joints, plus roommates who worked at roast chicken places and burger joints. Roast chicken places are especially good because you can take home a whole bird or two if orders are messed up, and that can be used for all sorts of stuff.

On your other question about the public housing, I don't know enough about the system in Canada to be able to help there, sorry.

[doranwen]

I didn't figure I'd be doing tacos, lol - that was just the first thing I came up with to use as an example.

So I can basically make her leftovers experience as good or as poor as I like by picking the place she managed to get a job at. Perfect. :D Thanks for all the detail! That really helps - without personal experience, I could not come up with the specifics like that.

[doranwen]

One more question regarding the public housing - if her father dies at some point (like, say, when she's 17), would that affect her staying in the apartment, or will the authorities care at all? My research says that 16 is the upper limit of the "age of protection", so social services isn't going to be bothering with her, right?

[doranwen]

Ooh, the "baby bonus" would definitely be useful in this case - she'll be making use of that.

Thanks for all the info! Especially the note about the alcohol thing - so how would a character be buying it? Going to a special store, then?

[blondebeaker]

Its pretty much like a regular liquor store only its profits go to the provincial gov't and I think back then they were still closed on Sundays.

You're most welcome! If you have any more questions let me know!

[doranwen]

One more quick question:

If she lives in Regent Park, what hospital would someone from her building be taken to? I tried looking at Google Maps but kept coming up with stuff that wasn't a hospital (and that's assuming that the hospitals around there are the same as they were nearly 20 years before...), or that I couldn't tell if it was or not, until they seemed to be pretty far away from it one way or the other. If you don't know, I can just pick something and hope I'm right, lol, but I'm trying to be at least somewhat accurate here.

[blondebeaker]

The closest one would be St. Michael's. There is also University Hospital a little further away and Hospital for Sick Children (aka Sick Kids')

[doranwen]

Wonderful, thank you so much! This was very helpful. :)

[doranwen]

...And I have one more question, that's not really related to my main question, but being that you're from the area/region, I'd like to ask you before I try posting a main question to the community:

So I've been trying every combo of search terms but all the pages I pull up are really unclear/confusing or conflicting. It says the "age of protection" is till 16 in Ontario, but other pages indicate foster care goes up to 17. Assuming this girl's dad dies when she's only 17 (this is about 2001, now that I look at the timeline), are social services going to be going "you need to go live in foster care" or something like that, or are they going to be "you're old enough to take care of yourself, you're fine" and not care what she does with herself? She's still got a year left of high school. (I'm also not sure if she ended up in some kind of public housing with her dad, whether they'd be all "you can't stay here on your own", if the arrangement was through his name and now he's not there, or what - I don't know how these things work.)

I'm really just trying to figure out what would likely happen to her. I have a plan for either way - I just can't figure out what reality she would be facing so to know which one to write. If you don't know, that's fine, I can make another post about this specifically, I just figured I'd ask first to check.

[blondebeaker]

This might help, I googled "Children's Aid teens living on own" (Children's Aid is Canada's version of Child Protection Services) and go this site:

http://jfcy.org/en/rights/leaving-home-rights/

The info you may be looking is under "Leaving Home" which is not what your character is doing but may still be relevant. The other sections in it may help too!

[doranwen]

Aha, so 16 it is! I don't know why the one Ontario site was referring to foster care through age 17, maybe it had to do with educational something-or-other, something about 5-17-year-olds. Anyway… that site was very helpful, and I did a few more searches that seemed to help a little.

I *think* what I'm getting from this is that she won't be bothered by Children's Aid at all - especially since it looks like the new protections (Voluntary Youth Service Agreement) extended by the Education Act only kicked in this year, and this is set about 2001. As far as I can tell, she can basically just go live wherever, as long as she's still attending school. (And if they would bother her about having a legal guardian, in this story, there's ways around that.)

If she goes to live with someone far enough from her old neighborhood, I assume she would change schools to one closer to her new location. If she has no specific legal guardian, it looks like I can have her just write a letter to the school saying she's withdrawn from parental control (even though the real situation is that her dad's not even alive), and she's all set? If that sounds plausible, I'll go with it! :)