All posts by James W. Breckenridge

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A little Background

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I was born in Toronto Ontario and raised just west of Toronto in Georgetown.

I studied mathematics at the University of Waterloo and Commerce at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

I articled with Coopers & Lybrand and passed the Uniform Final Exam and became a Chartered Accountant. Over the 25 years of my career as a Chartered Accountant and businessman I held  positions of increasing responsibility acquiring a broad and varied set of skills and knowledge.

I moved to Abbotsford two decades ago because my brother needed someone he could leave his children with while he attended the 6:40 AM Attitude Adjustment meeting at the Alanon Club. My brother is an alcoholic who had been through treatment several times. After his last trip to treatment he had found the key to his sobriety – and has been sober ever since – was daily attendance of the 6:40 AM meeting. He was divorced with custody of his two young children and needed a responsible adult he could leave them in the care of while he attended his meeting – a meeting that was key to his sobriety.

His big brother, the kids uncle, the Chartered Accountant fit the bill of responsible adult to a tee and I moved to Abbotsford. When my brother remarried his second wife was from Newfoundland and one of those who really want to return to the Rock. When the family moved to Newfoundland I stayed in Abbotsford.

As I walk the path of recovery in mental health I can look back and see I had had mental health issues throughout my life. I had been raised in the ‘you suck it up and deal with it’ tradition so I did just that; I coped and coped until I couldn’t cope, couldn’t function. at all and broke.

The downward spiral that started when I was not able to cope any longer ended with me homeless and on the streets of Abbotsford. Fortunately for me I had taken my first steps on the path to recovery and Wellness, am goal oriented (Obsessive Compulsive behaviour does have some advantages among all the problems it causes) and was able to continue my journey of recovery.

It was a journey that was both life changing and eye opening, filled with new knowledge, understanding and change.

The truth is that although homelessness was not the way I would have chosen to Change myself, who I have become and the joie de vivre I have found means that if the only way to who and where I am now was through homelessness – so be it.

Among the changes was the writer inside being set free and I began to write to share what I was seeing and learning about the realities of homelessness, addiction, poverty and mental illness because the reality was so different from what I had ‘known’ before experience taught me differently.

The pointless waste of money and resources on doing things the same old way over and over as if expecting the results to be different (AA’s definition of insanity), when knowledge, experience and best practices have shown what actions produce recovery drives the Chartered Accountant in me crazy.

It was the waste brought about by the bad operating and financial management of the City of Abbotsford by mayor, council and staff aggravating the accountant in me that directed my attention to the way Abbotsford is managed.

I originally actively opposed Plan A because I considered the need to upgrade water and waste disposal infrastructure the priority mayor and council should be focused on. It became clear as we learned more about Plan A that it was a bad plan period and should not be proceeded with because it would have negative financial consequences for Abbotsford for years.

I choose to live in Abbotsford because I like the city, have friends, connections, things that need to be accomplished and purpose.

Because of that I have a vested interest in the way the city is managed, its financial health and the effects those have on citizens.

I don’t like what mayor and council have done to my city. I believe the way Abbotsford is managed needs to change drastically if our community is to thrive.

The one point I heartily agree with Mayor Peary on is that if you don’t like the way the city is run, run for council and change the way that Abbotsford is currently mismanaged.

Issues, Mental Health, Poverty

Perfectly Rational, Totally Irrational

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Having been a Chartered Accountant the financial, planning, management and leadership skills and abilities, together with experience, gained over a quarter century on this career path have proven useful in a broad array of areas and ways.

It does however, come with a few drawbacks I never would have anticipated having to deal with.

My income is fixed, has been fixed at the same level for the last 5+ years; my living and working expenses are few, straight forward and over the years have been creeping or leaping upward – a reality all Canadians are having to deal with. Have you checked the prices of yachts lately?

As a matter of mental wellness I have avoided putting pen to paper to draw up a budget. This decision is not about being in denial after all:

Reality does not care what you want to be true, it does not care what you believe to be true. Reality simply is. Tao of James

It is a decision about dealing with the reality I live with – depression, anxiety, panic and a propensity as an adult child of alcoholism for self sabotage.

Unfortunately with the fixed nature of revenue (income), the few expenses left after years of paring away expenses (haircuts, clothing, food, etc) and the fixed nature of many of the remaining expenses (insurance, phone, internet) budgeting and cash flow statements/analysis are so simple I can do them in my head.

Or more accurately I cannot NOT do budgets and cash flows in my head and so the train wreck that is the financial reality of my future is a constant and unavoidable awareness in my head. The slippage for phone and internet bills already has me slipping a few days later in paying them every month, with the point in time when I reach the point the services are terminated because I am too far behind inexorably moving nearer and nearer.

I watch the numbers unwind as more expenses must be shed until the point where revenue is sufficient to pay only the rent and I become in effect a prisoner in my home, unable to go anywhere except by walking. Which as a result of physical limitations and the pain that results from these limitations, places a maximum distance on travel of 100 – 200 meters.

Of course without food or the ability to obtain food the ability to pay the rent (at least as long as it does not go up) is rather moot. You can live homeless, you do not survive long foodless.

The inability to NOT have this awareness of budget and cash flow and the approaching ‘economic collapse’ and its (without a significant change in personal financial reality) inevitability has demanded and occupied space in the continuous awareness area of my mind.

I seem, at least for now, unable to put this awareness aside and focus on getting on with life.

Instead I find myself wanting to get out from under the stress, wishing that my ‘stuff’ was in storage and I could ‘solve’ the approaching time when economic reality exerts its negative consequences on my life by moving out from under the looming crash and into my car.

Circumstances had me living in my car before so there is no fear of the unknown, I know what needs to be done to survive living in your car. Indeed services added since I was last living in my car make living in your car simpler and more doable today.

In a way living in your car simplifies your life because you have to focus on doing what you need to in order to survive.

At some point either a rent increase or the need for food will force me out of my home and either into my car or onto the street.

There is a great deal to be said for choosing when, rather than waiting until there is no choice (based on the experience of having reached that no choice point).

Ironically a move to the car improves cash flow as one loses the $375 rent portion of revenue but gains the cash difference between the $375 and actual rent paid.

One of the real advantages for me of having a fixed address is internet access, an access that will in the near future be lost as it is the next item on the chopping block of financial expenditure reductions necessity. Which means internet access must be obtained at the library and the major incentive for struggling to preserve having a ‘home’ ceases to exist.

When the only use made of home becomes as the place one sleeps, is the money spent on gas to drive ‘home’ and the money spend on a ‘home’ that could be available for keeping the car in shape and running or to meet emergencies, a wise use of extremely limited financial resources?

Consider as well that I have no land line phone service. My only phone is a cell phone which is not only mobile (a service seeming designed for those with non fixed address) but provides email and messaging.

There are other points one can cite in support of choosing to join the growing community of people in Abbotsford whose automobile has become, among its other attributes, their home arguably a perfectly rational choice.

Yet friends, mental health professionals and others maintain that even thinking about abandoning my home, moving into and living in my car is totally irrational thinking.

Which is what I would be telling someone else if they were thinking of surrendering and moving into their car. That they needed to keep working and plugging away at things and see what develops or happens to change their financial circumstances (employment etc).

But watching the numbers and the future unroll in my mind makes the struggle with depression, anxiety and the urge to panic an ongoing, daily battle complicated by an ongoing struggle not to give into an act of self sabotage.

Living with mental illness and the quest for mental wellness is enough of a challenge on its own.

I really don’t need the additional headaches and stress that come with constant awareness of the budget and cash flow realities and the inevitable negative consequences of this financial future.

At times the urge to panic, to escape is overwhelming – no matter how irrational those actions would be.

I really wish……but then……

Reality does not care what you want to be true, it does not care what you believe to be true. Reality simply is. Tao of James

Some days, to many days, running down the middle of the road trying to pull my hair out and screaming Arrrggggghhhhhh seems so appealing – and so rationally irrational.

Caveat emptor, Federal

G8 Musings

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It may be showing my age but I can remember when a get together like the recent G8 summit was about accomplishing something.

These days a G8 summit is a ‘success’ if the nations attending can cobble together a closing statement that does not offend any head of state’s delicate sensibilities, allowing them to issue a closing statement (hopefully a statement that avoids the embarrassment of having any of the heads of state immediately disown the closing statement) that gives the appearance that something has been accomplished, thus seeming to justify the expense.

I use the term ‘heads of state’ because, as the G8 underscores, it is clear that what nations around the globe are lacking is leaders and leadership. The world is in tough shape, a state of affairs that continues to worsen. It is not that we cannot address the issues the world faces; it is that we choose not to. That situation cannot be solely laid at the feet of the heads of state. Mush of the responsibility of the failure to address the most dangerous or pressing issues belongs to citizens who just do not want to hear it and choose to embrace wilful denial.

It was not that long ago (pre 2006) that Canada was known and recognized as a positive influence among the G8 nations and around the world. These days, should you be the Prime Minister of Israel like Benjamin Netanya and you need a negative result or outcome, ‘who you gonna call’? Stephen Harper of course.

Stephen Harper hustling to Greece after the summit to give Prime Minister George Papandreou economic and financial management advice on how to deal with the disaster that is Greece’s economy is like the Captain of the Titanic offering the Captain of the Exxon Valdez advice on sailing his ship.

Unfortunately, Mr Harper’s recent throne speech makes abundantly clear the reality Canadians must face and deal with is that with Harper as the Captain the Canadian economy is the Titanic. After all, the opposition parties were forced into defeating the government on their Budget as a result of the numerous and obvious ‘icebergs’ contained in the Budget the Conservatives introduced. Mr Harper, his finance minister and the Conservative caucus have ignored these icebergs, mostly I fear because they do not exist or are of no importance in their ideology (which puts understanding of the economic, financial and social realities of Canada beyond their grasp), setting the ship of state speeding full steam ahead into waters heavily infested with icebergs.

I did find it very interesting (and somewhat amusing) that after hustling Mr Harper on his way to ‘advise’ Greece the remaining heads of state remained behind to talk to each other.

Federal, Municipal, Provincial

Financial Reality Check

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The report on the state of the hospital on Haida Gwaii contained two important reality checks.

The NDP continue to need a major reality check on financial reality. There the NDP were, once again, demanding the BC government spend millions ($60 million) on health care (new Haida Gwaii hospital) while the NDP continue to advocate the repeal of the HST.

The 2011/12 budget is already facing a revenue shortage of $475 million, the amount that was due July 1, 2011 for implementing the HST. Given that BC’s referendum on repealing the HST violates the agreement with the federal government, the feds are not going to be paying that $475 million. Unless of course reality and sanity prevail and the Voters vote to keep the HST.

So, the NDP are working to cut $475 million out of BC’s 2011/12 budget and calling for added spending of $60 million for a new hospital on Haida Gwaii.

As a public service to the citizens of BC I am willing to make the sacrifice and accept $1 million from the NDP in order to provide a salient lesson on the effect of a significant revenue reduction . I am willing to accept any additional millions from the NDP that may be necessary in order for the NDP to learn about the effects a significant reduction in revenue has on a budget and what that reduction means for spending.

Further I will accept $130,000 from the NDP to model the effect of adding a large expenditure to a budget dealing with a large revenue reduction. (13% was arrived at by dividing $60 million demanded expenditure by the $475 million revenue reduction demanded by the NDP).

I also extend this offer to Mr Vander Zalm (adjusted to remove the additional $130,000 representing the NDP’s demanded expenditure as Mr Vander Zalm has only advocated reducing revenue by the $475 million this year, hundreds of millions per year in subsequent years and by the $1.2 billion that will need to be repaid to Ottawa).

Neither the NDP or Mr Vander Zalm should have any objection to accepting this offer as this is exactly what they are advocating the citizens of BC do with their money. There is no reason to object to acting on a personal financial level in the same manner they are advocating the province of BC act, is there?

The second reality check (and of far more concern) was the statement that, while the government was committed to getting the people on Haida Gwaii a new hospital, they did not have the $60 million needed and did not know where they could find it.

Hardly surprising in light of the Finance Minister’s statement that the government did not have any extra millions to increase spending on the missing woman’s inquiry. Or in light of the report on the same newscast that the most vulnerable of our citizens, those facing mental and physical challenges are facing cutbacks because the government simply does not have the money to meet all its obligations and demands for services. This situation is not the only cannibalizing of services here to provide services there. The government has been, over time, more and more often robbing Peter to pay Paul.

 

And that is the reality before revenue is reduced by $475 million or by the hundreds of millions (year after year) that will result from a repeal of the HST.

Why do I say this is of far more concern?

Consider this scenario: the province finds the $60 million but the people of Surrey say “Wait a minute, we need more hospital beds, the money should be spent building more hospital beds in Surrey (or Vancouver). There are only 2,500 people in Haida Gwaii and hundreds of thousands in Surrey.”

We are in that scenario. If the government manages to scrape up the $60 million by (robbing it from) further reductions in support to the challenged and other programs and if the money is spent on a new hospital on Haida Gwaii there will be no money for new hospital beds in the rest of BC.

We are just beginning resource and service wars pitting Haida Gwaii against Surrey, premies against the old; those in need of heart surgery or transplants against those in need of elective surgery……

We cannot have everything, have it now and not need to pay for it.

Reality is about to give British Columbians and our government, indeed Canada as a whole, a rude awakening with a reality hip-check.

As it says in the Tao of James: ‘Realty doesn’t much care what you believe or what you want to be true, it just IS.”

Federal

Contumely

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Stephen Harper’s introduction of his new cabinet suggested his contempt for Canadian voters is even deeper than the contempt evidenced by his letting only the right sort, the chosen and sanctioned believers, attend his campaign rallies.

Of course given that In the Middle East citizens are dying as they demonstrate and march to win a say in their future by winning the right to vote – in open, free and fair elections, while in Canada citizens voted for an autocratic Harper majority government because “they didn’t want to have to vote again in two years” a certain distain for Canadian voters is understandable.

But not the level of contempt contained in Mr Harper’s appointment of three defeated Conservative candidates to that golden public feeding trough – the Senate.

Although I suppose one should not be surprised by the level of contempt demonstrated in Mr Harper’s Senate appointments. It is in keeping with Mr Harper’s demonstrated lack of need for either ethics [his reappointment of Bev Oda to cabinet as International Cooperation Minister after she repeated lied to parliament (and the Canadian people)] or honouring his stated positions [appointing three losing candidates to the Senate was not simply contemptuous of Canadian voters if reaffirmed that Stephen Harper only believes in something, such as his opposition to the Senate and the Liberals appointing Senators, when it is to his political advantage to do so and that as some as it is to Mr Harpers advantage he abandons his principles for expediency (after opposing the Liberals making Senate appointments Mr Harper appointed enough Senators to have a Conservative majority – and continues to appoint Senators)].

Despite Conservative claims of being good financial managers the Conservatives continue to mismanage Canadian federal finances, squandering the surpluses and solid economic management they inherited from the Liberal government; running record large deficits and running up the national debt to record levels and abandoning solid economic and fiscal policy in favour of ideology.

The Conservatives pay lip service to getting the deficit under control; then Mr Harper appoints his largest cabinet ever (rather than reducing cabinet in a show of leadership on deficit reduction) at a cost of an extra $9 million to the budget – and Canadian’s pockets.

If Mr Harper does in fact look to reduce the deficit his behaviour, actions and attitudes make it clear that restraint will not apply to Mr Harper or his conservative government. Which suggests that restraint and cuts will not fall on programs (billion dollar fighter plane boondoggles or billion dollar prison spending on programs that have been demonstrated in US state after state to accomplish noting – except the impoverishment of taxpayers) or groups (the wealthy, corporations, corporate executives) favoured by Mr Harper.

Not exactly an encouraging picture of the future, but as George Bernard Shaw said “Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

And given the current behaviour of Canadian voters they do not seem to be deserving of a government of sound fiscal management, rational and considered decision making or that focuses on improving the life of all Canadians – not just corporations and the wealthy.

Unfortunately the consequences will fall not just on those who voted Conservative, but on all Canadians.