Humans of Wayside @ The Bridgeport Cafe – Martin

Bridgeport Cafe, Waterloo Wayside, Human Interest, Marginalized Populations

Alliance against poverty, AAP. I was one of the two people who started this group about five years ago the other person is Oz Cole Arnell, he had just retired from Laurier he was a professor at the Lutheran seminary. We actually met the year before during the federal election campaign. Oz ran for the New Democrats and I ran for the Communist party. So we met at some all candidates meetings and we found out that we had a lot in common. We kept in touch after the election then about a year, year and a half later we decided to form an anti-poverty activist group, which we did. It’s going now, I guess there are about fifteen members. Everyone in the group is an activist of some sort. Approximately half the group are at least middle income. The other half of the people are people like myself, the term we use is living on the edge. People below the poverty line.

Waterloo Wayside, Bridgeport Cafe,
Martin at the Bridgeport Cafe, run through Waterloo Wayside
About a year ago, we started this campaign to get free bus passes for people on low income. I was part of a delegation from AAP that addressed regional council. Anyway after I gave my talk at regional council there was a reporter from the Waterloo Chronicle came up and she was very interested in what I had said to council. She wanted to interview. It took about two months for her to find the time but eventually she came to my apartment and she did an interview and about three weeks later an article appeared in the chronicle. I’m always very wary when I’m being interviewed by a reporter because depending on what they actually want the article to be about they can edit your words, they can make you sound like you’re saying something the exact opposite to what you are. I try to talk in a way that they cannot twist your words.

See Martin’s Article Here
See The Record Article Quoting Martin Here

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