It looks at the lives of...

• Richard and Isabelle, happily married for five years with two young children, making ends meet on minimum wages...
• Mary and Andrew with a joint income approaching $200,000 per year and so busy that they can hardly catch up with themselves...
• Harvey who is proudly keeping a family farm functioning but is haunted by the thought of a neighbour who was driven to suicide by stress...
• Anne-Marie, a single parent, receiving irregular support payments and participating in a work placement program...
• Joe who is adjusting, at forty-five years of age, to premature retirement through downsizing of his company...
• Rose and Peter who are trying to retrain and find employment through Ontario Works...

Ontario is currently in a period of great prosperity. Many, if not most people are benefiting from this. However, our situation has its shadow side at both a personal and communal level.

Pertinent comments on work go back as far as Genesis. Our attitude to work has always been a preoccupation of Catholic thinkers. Recent popes, and particularly Pope John Paul II, have addressed the issue very directly.

Among many other observations, they have clarified the following principles:

• Human beings are meant to work and have a right to useful and gainful work,
• Work derives its dignity and value from the fact that it is done by human beings. It must not be demeaning or degrading.
• Work is a job, that is, a way of earning a living; a career, that is, a means of personal development and satisfaction; a calling, that is, a way of contributing to God's creative action and to the common good.
• Work should be important in our lives, but not as important as love, truth and spiritual development, although it can be an aid to all three.
• Society and the economy, which depend on human work, are to be organized for the sake of people, not people for the sake of them.
• The type of work we do is less important than the purpose we have in doing it. There is a spirituality of work because we are made in the image of God.
• Work should be remunerated in a way which allows people to live in decency and comfort. In this regard we need to recognize the contributions currently made by those who are not rewarded for their work.

These principles are of universal application. They apply to all people in all places and at all times. This is authentic globalization - to make universally and justly available the fruits of God's creation.

How Ontario works will be determined by the balance in our personal attitudes to work; the positions we promote in the service clubs, unions, political parties, chambers of commerce and parishes to which we belong. It will also depend to a large extent on the governments, federal, provincial and municipal, that we elect.

Do we think enough and question enough about conditions of work, rewards for work, our domination by work, solidarity in work and satisfaction from work?

The full text of the document can be obtained from the ACBO Office at Suite 800, 10 St. Mary Street, Toronto, M4Y 1P9, Tel: (416) 923-1423) or at www.occb.on.ca.