All posts by James W. Breckenridge

Caveat emptor, Consider, Municipal

I cannot afford to subsidize Heat ownersip

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The first item I got when I moved to Abbotsford was a Library Card.

The second item was a pool pass as I have a bad back and it is either swim regularly or endure periods of crippling pain, an inability to walk and being bed ridden. Needless to say I am highly motivated to swim five or six times a week. It was seven but my old joints need at least one day a week to recuperate.

During the following two decades I have always held a pool pass. A string that will end when my current pass expires because Abbotsford city council has chosen to push the cost of using city recreational amenities beyond what many citizens can afford.

My back requires me to swim if I want to remain mobile and at a pain level that does not require the use of addictive medications such as morphine to manage the pain. So I will be swimming.

My swimming also significantly benefits the taxpayer’s pocketbook by avoiding the costs of the expensive medical services that would result from the back problems associated with the physical consequences of not swimming.

There are two courses of action I can take and will be exploring.

The first is to swim only during the times, the very limited times, of ‘cheap swims’ when the admission price is much more affordable. That limits me to a maximum of four one hour long swims a week, the minimum I need to swim to benefit from swimming. It also means that swimming becomes a ‘cannot miss’ item on my schedule as opposed to the timing flexibility of a pass.

The other option is to check out the private facilities that have pools to see if their pools will meet my needs vis-à-vis swimming lengths. Private facilities because under Abbotsford’s current council’s mismanagement the city’s public facilities are the most expensive facilities in town.

I am sure that someone from city council or management will state that the city gives a credit to those citizens who living (well) below the poverty line; that the city raised the credit by 50% this year. Ignoring or obscuring the fact that it would have taken a 120% increase just to cover the 20% increase in ARC admission fees this year.

Actually, if you factor in the double digit increase that resulted from the two price increases the year before, the cost to use ARC has gone up 35% over the past 18 months.

In order to merely stay even the recreation credit needed to increase by 195%, four times the actual 50% increase. Leaving those who can least afford to pay increased fees significantly worse off than they were just 18 months ago.

Now if I could afford to go to UFV my UFV U-PASS would get me unlimited access to Abbotsford recreational facilities. What does the city collect for this access? $5 per term!

For the same four month period that the city collects $5 per student they charge me $200 – 4000% more. Where is Mayor Peary’s ‘user pay’ or fairness here?

As if having those living in poverty subsidize UFV students was not insulting or outrageous enough, there is the matter of subsidizing a professional hockey team and ownership – the Heat.

It is not only those who struggle to survive living in poverty who cannot afford to attend events at AESC. The working poor, indeed many working families period, cannot afford to attend events at AESC.

Yet we all pay to subsidize ever posterior in a seat at AESC when we use city facilities.

Council constantly cites the need to provide public amenities to attract people to Abbotsford.

Yet, while the city has added the Plan A amenities for those wealthy enough to afford them, it has imposed fee increases across the board at public facilities that deny and/or significantly reduce access to ALL facilities for a substantial percentage of Abbotsford’s citizens.

The purpose of public facilities is to provide public amenities and access to those facilities for ALL citizens, particularly families and children, not just a privileged few. The purpose is NOT to provide cash flow to pay for council’s lack of fiscal acumen and common sense.

Public facilities fees should be the lowest (or at worst among the lowest) in the city in order to maximize public access to and use of facilities. Public facilities fees should not be the highest, thus minimizing public access to facilities and participation in recreational activities.

Caveat emptor, Consider, Issues, Provincial

The Tale of a friend, crippling pain and Fraser Un-Health.

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I have a homeless friend I first met shortly after finding myself living on the streets of Abbotsford.

For a period we were among those sharing a pod and both found ourselves returned to living on the streets close to the same point in time and through the same agency, although on different grounds.

I was able to find housing in a couple of months, whereas he has been homeless ever since that point in time.

About three weeks ago I was giving him a bad time about getting old after he hurt his back getting up that morning. His back continued to bother him until one morning a week and a half ago he found himself unable to move or get to his feet.

Late on the second day of being incapacitated and having no water he dragged himself to the road were someone saw him and called the Abbotsford police. Who arrived and asked him if he had been hit by a car (no) or if he was so intoxicated he could not stand (no). Upon explaining about his being crippled by his back the officers called him an ambulance.

At which time he began a close encounter of the unprofessional kind with ‘The Attitude’ that the homeless and too many other powerless sub-groups are treated with by emergency medical staff in Abbotsford.

The Abbotsford ambulance crew expressed … let’s say skepticism… as to his claim of not being an addict. Further, when he said he had not been taken to the hospital by ambulance anytime recently, one of the ambulance attendants insisted he had taken him to the hospital just weeks before.

His treatment did not improve upon arrival at the new Regional Hospital  in Abbotsford, where once again the fact he was homeless automatically made him an addict, despite his statements about not having an addiction.

When my friend suggested that labelling him an addict, assuming that he was there to abuse the medical system and that he was there for some reason other than his back was causing him crippling pain was not the way staff should be acting, he was subjected to ‘who are you (a nobody) what have you done with your life (nothing)’ attitude and behaviours.

I am sure that I am not the only one who has had the experience of having a doctor tell you that they cannot find any evidence of a back problem, while you were lying there in agony.

So – anyone surprised the doctor didn’t find any evidence of a back problem when he, the doctor, had decided my friend was a homeless addict who was lying about his addiction and about why he was at the hospital? Me neither.

Most British Columbians, myself included, labour under the impression hospitals are there to provide health care to British Columbians who find themselves in need to 24 hour bed rest and health care. Apparently we are mistaken.

Hospital staff gave him a shot and shipped him off, still unable to move and in agony, to the Salvation Army – which has no facilities or capacity to provide 24 hour bed care for someone. Of course since he could not walk they were forced to call a taxi to have him carted off the premises. Talk about a bums rush!

Fortunately for my friend on his way to, but before he found himself stranded helplessly at the Salvation Army, he spotted his brother who got him to his (the brother’s) place.

Of course since he was an addict and would either abuse or sell any medication he was given, he was sent off without medication or any prescription for medication. As a result of which he got to spend a week unable to move and in a great deal of pain.

The reason I started with the background of how long I have know my friend is so that I can state: that he does not use drugs or alcohol; that his last ambulance trip to the hospital was thirty years ago after a car accident; that if he says his back is causing crippling pain – it is causing crippling pain.

My friend was treated with the usual (unacceptable) lack of respect and professionalism that is standard operating procedure for treatment of the homeless. That’s just a fact of life for the homeless in Abbotsford.

However, his treatment goes beyond the normal standard lack of professionalism into bad health care or as the French would say Mal-practice.

Consider, Federal, Media

Of Hockey, true Canadian local TV and Generosity

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The recent commotion caused by Alex Burrows denunciation of the actions he attributed to referee Stephane Auger caught my attention.

Many Canadians understandably regard hockey as Canada’s game, holding it near and dear to their hearts. Perhaps in hockey’s sportsmanship, teamwork and the generosity of spirit that underlies a team’s success they see a reflection of what it means to be Canadian.

Undoubtedly Canadians found the pettiness of spirit, the ‘it’s all about ME’ attitude and the total lack of consideration for others (in this case the fans) a disturbing reminder of just how americanized ‘Canada’s game’ has become.

Unhappily, I doubt that many recognized in this incident the highlighting of the creeping americanization of Canada  that has been corroding the Canadian Soul since the private broadcasting phase of the television age began.

As more and more private broadcasters entered the broadcasting business Canadians were subjected to more and more American programming. This programming has served to indoctrinate Canadians with the underlying principals of American life – Greed and Self-centredness.

This decades long barrage of Americanism has undermined Canadian values to the point our current Prime Minister is an American wannabe whose demonstrated goal is to replace the Canadians Ethical Rectitude with American narcissistic avarice.

It is to reverse this americanization of Canadian mores and allow Canadian mores to reassert and re-establish themselves as the underlying operating principals of Canadian society that the CRTC must not interfere in the Canadianization process that is currently taking shape in over the air broadcasting industry.

It is imperative that Canada  get actual local Canadian television and programming that reflects Canadian ethics and values to reverse the americanization of the Canadian Soul.

Despite the misrepresentation of their current “save local television” campaign, the private over the air broadcasters are not Canadian much less local.

Rather than Canadian television we have an American television programming rebroadcast system.

News programming, which should be an epicentre of Canadian values and ideas, is driven instead by the need for profit to feed the conglomerates which have come to own Canada’s media. News is not about ideas, discussion and goal setting but is about what sells – if it bleeds it leads.

Without CRTC interference Canadian over the air broadcasters and/or stations will have to reinvent themselves as true Canadian local television since over the air broadcasters will not survive (without CRTC interference) simply rebroadcasting American programming as is the current state of affairs.

The lack of viability of the current conglomerate media structure should, with the conglomerates failure, return control of television stations to local ownership.

The establishment of true local Canadian television and programming will help reclaim the Canadian Soul.

The desperate need for a restoration, a revitalizing, of the Canadian Soul is written in events occurring now in 2010 and throughout 2009.

Throughout 2009 the numbers of Canadians in need of help from their fellow Canadians to have shelter and food simply to survive grew at an accelerating rate.

In the months leading up to the end of 2009 there was story after story, report after report, concerning the increasingly (20% to 60% increases) large numbers of Canadians needing help just to find food to eat and to survive another night

The result of all this coverage? Charities, despite the well publicized large increases in the numbers of Canadians in need of help, did not make their targets and have had to carry their campaigns into the new year.

At the same time so many Canadians were left in need, other Canadians were spending an additional 3% this year over last year’s Christmas season on indulging themselves.

That’s correct, as the numbers of Canadians in need skyrocketed, those Canadians fortunate enough to be able to be generous were being less generous – except to themselves. How very American.

If Canadians do not want to continue to lose what it means to be Canadian, we must not just stop the americanization of the Canadian Soul but must actively seek to reclaim the Canadian Soul, our Canadian ethical rectitude.

We need to reverse the subtle process of indoctrination and americanization that our television broadcasters have enabled as an American programming rebroadcast industry, by allowing the market to force local ownership and Canadian programming and content.

We need tell Stephen Harper that if he wants to be an American he can immigrate; that we want to be Canadians, are proud to be Canadians and to not interfere with the Canadianization of the over the air broadcast industry currently underway.

Municipal, Snafu

Abbotsford council votes to turn Essendene into virtual parking lot.

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Bob Bos was correct about one point concerning the proposed changes to Essendene Avenue – it is a “no-brainer”.

Any city councillor who would and did vote for this has no brain. Or alternatively has a brain but is brain-dead.

Essendene is the major connector for traffic travelling from the west side of Abbotsford to the east side of Abbotsford accessed via Old Yale Road for the simple reason there is no other even semi-convenient route from between west and east.

Say what you will about city staff, at least they had the common sense to recognize that with approximately 16,000 vehicles a day using Essendene cutting the number of lanes in half (from two in each direction to one each way) is a recipe for monumental daily day long traffic jam.

Not to mention the problems and congestion it cause on other streets and at other intersections as people seek routes to avoid a 30 plus minute traffic crawl through downtown old Abbotsford.

Bos stated “It looks busy with four lanes. Three lanes gives the impression of less traffic and will create a change in atmosphere.”

It does not just look busy it is busy. And that is with two lanes in each direction. Reducing traffic to one lane in each direction is not going to give the impression of less traffic – it is going to give the impression of a parking lot,

I do concede it will create a change in atmosphere. Although why Mr. Bos and city council feel the need to provoke road rage in downtown old Abbotsford …

“The two-block area of Essendene has more than a half-dozen vacancies and Bos said the lane alteration will change that.”

It will definitely change that. I am just not sure why city council or Mr. Bos think increasing the vacancy rate in the downtown core by driving the customers downtown businesses depend on to stay in business away from the downtown is a good idea?

Creating the planned traffic nightmare will cause those who absolutely do not have to go downtown to avoid downtown and cause those who have to pass through the downtown area to be focused on getting through the traffic jam ASAP, not on spending more time in backed up traffic by stopping downtown.

Apparently council feels they have not created enough fiscal problems for the city and feel compelled to waste $533,000.00 turning downtown into a disaster area.

Given the ruination council has brought about in city finances this is not only fiscally irresponsible behaviour, it is reckless and reprehensible behaviour.

Council does not have the money to do needed road maintenance but can find funds for this? Just what is council planning to cut from the budget to pay for this fecklessness? More fireman?

I would suggest that the salaries of those councillors who voted to turn Essendene into a virtual parking lot be used to pay for this debacle.

It is well past time council be held responsible for their irresponsible behaviours.

Consider, Federal

Local Television – a Sunset Industry?

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I was watching a favourite show the other evening when it was rudely interrupted by yet another save us from the consequences of our own bad management decision making commercial AKA save local television.

At the time I was watching an American television program via a Canadian television signal that was replacing the signal of the US station I was watching.

Which has me pondering: Are these really local stations? Regardless of whether they are local or not, should we save them?

My television was tuned to an American station but the US signal was replaced by the Canadian stations signal – even though this results in portions of the program having been removed to make room for the extra minutes of commercial time Canadian stations are permitted.

It was necessary to impose Canadian content rules on these stations (with the exception of the CBC and its different mandate as the public broadcaster) to ensure a minimal Canadian content. Still, the majority of the programming is foreign (mainly US). On a content basis not only are these stations not local, they are not even Canadian.

Before making this statement I considered the matter of the daily news broadcasts. Take Global for example, which I believe has the most hours of local news broadcasts; 5:30 – 9:00 in the am; the noon hour news; early news from 5:00 – 5:30 pm; supper hour news; and a final hour of news for an apparent total of seven hours.

But is it seven hours of news? If you watch all the news broadcasts during a day it quickly becomes evident that most of the seven hours is made up of rerun material. Indeed if you watch the first half hour of the news in the early morning, all you really need to watch of the final news cast is the first few minutes to catch any (if any) interesting or important stories that have developed during the day.

Take out the international news and non-local sports and one is left with what? A hour total of different, non-repeated news in a day? Further, if one watches the news programming on the different stations the stories, the news reported is the same (for all practical purposes).

Does an hour of local news a day make a station or stations a ‘local television station’ when weighed against all the hours of foreign and non-local programming?

Keep in mind that a local newspaper such as the Vancouver Sun contains far more news and detail than an audio/video newscast can. Print media is an inherently denser medium for the transfer of data – the news.

Consider also the question: for someone living in Vancouver is a Toronto station a local station? Obviously not, even though the Toronto station occasionally carries stories about Vancouver.

In a similar manner Vancouver is not Abbotsford’s local television simply because the occasional story about Abbotsford is broadcast on a Vancouver station. This is an important point because Vancouver and other metropolitan stations are going to want cable to pay them for their signals delivered to communities in the vicinity of the metropolitan area such as Mission or Abbotsford.

As I stated: on a content basis not only are these stations not local, they are not even Canadian.

Another result of Canadian media, for the main part, being controlled through conglomerates is that content, management and decision making are dictated not by the needs of the local market but by the needs and best interest of the conglomerate.

If content, ownership, management and decision making are all non-local, how can it be ‘local’ television?

Perhaps the more important question we should be asking is whether we should be “saving local television”? Is television a sunset industry and should the market be allowed to determine the future/fate of local, over the air broadcast television.

In the beginning of the television age in Canada private stations were owned by local businessmen. Such locally owned stations were however, few and far between due to the lack of a market that would allow a private television station to earn a profit.

People who love to criticize the CBC forget that at the beginning of the television age population density and geographic distance meant Canada lacked a market place and a demand for private television signals. The CBC was created to sew the country together and to nation build through the dissemination of news and information across Canada.

It took time and the CBC to develop and build a market for television broadcasting that could support private television stations outside of a few well populated Canadian cities such as Toronto or Montreal.

Media conglomerates came into existence only when the market for advertising in television markets made the purchase of stations across Canada possible by providing ‘collateral’ that enabled the conglomerates to borrow funds to purchase television stations across Canada  from the local owners.

At the time this media consolidation was occurring the conglomerates cited market forces, the changing marketplace, for driving media consolidation. They stated that the conglomeration taking place was a result of market forces and that the CRTC had to permit the broadcast industry to change in response to changes in the marketplace.

If the CRTC had to permit change in the form of conglomeration to occur in the broadcast industry in response to marketplace changes does it not follow that the CRTC also has to permit change to occur in the broadcast industry in response to current changes in the marketplace?

Remember that the current over the air local television broadcaster system came into existence when over the air stations were the only way to deliver video into the home. Remember the effect that television had on radio?

Radio had ruled the airwaves before the introduction of television which became the new king of the airwaves. People would gather around the radio in the evening to listen to The Shadow, Amos and Andy, Gunsmoke and numerous other shows.

Once television became wide spread it was the television set people gathered around in the evenings. Dramas, comedies, variety and others shows all died on radio – or in a few cases adapted and moved to television as Gunsmoke did. Although with different, more photogenic actors to play the characters.

Radio was left to adapt, to play music, report the news or broadcast live sports.

In the same way that radio was displaced as king by television, television has/is now being displaced as king by cable which is itself being challenged by new and emerging technologies.

The market that the existing over the air television broadcast system served no longer exists.

In the same way radio had to adapt and redefine itself to find and develop a market they could generate revenue from when television came along, television stations must redefine and reinvent themselves to develop a market they can generate revenue from.

Much of our current television system evolved simply to rebroadcast US (and other nations) television programs over the air because, with the limits on signal strength and thus distance, local over the air broadcasts were the only way to deliver television signals to the home. This is why the end of the broadcast day signoffs included a list of repeater stations and their frequencies that were used to extend the coverage area of individual stations.

For years Hamilton’s CHCH local television station prospered. With only the CBC and CTV in the Toronto market CHCH could choose from among the programming available that was not shown on these networks and thrive. Along came Global and City TV who could pay higher fees for programming and CHCH ceased to be profitable.

This was a scenario played out across Canada as new networks, small or Canada-wide, together with new stations in some of the major markets changed the marketplace and resulted in loss of independent local stations such as CHCH.

Did CTV, Global, City, et al call for the government to impose fees to be used to support these local stations? Of course not, they declared that the casualties were the result of the market and that the market was the best judge of what stations should survive.

During this period the ownership structure changed as well moving from ownership based mainly in the communities to national media conglomerates.

Cable has profoundly changed the marketplace, providing not only access to US over the air broadcasts but to a host of cable channels and programming that have come into existence.

There is no longer a need for the existence of multiple stations to broadcast foreign programming locally because this programming is now directly available to the viewers.

Finally keep in mind that cable is not immune to changes in the market. Satellite, phone companies, the internet and wireless technologies are changing the market place and challenging cables position as king.

Radio – Television – Cable: as the market changes we must allow change to the broadcasters/signal providers to occur in response to these changes. Or we will find ourselves propping up the equivalent of buggy whip manufacturers, with the arrival of the automobile, in the broadcast/signal providing industry.

The local over the air broadcast system as it exists today is a Sunset Industry. The market that over the air broadcasters were created to serve no longer exists; the market having undergone and continuing to undergo profound change driven by rapid technological development.

Up to date technology, especially communications technology is a key component of Canada’s economic future. It is imperative that the government and the CRTC not interfere with the changes necessary for the broadcast/signal providing/communications industry to adapt to the new marketplace and emerging technologies, even though it means some stations will cease to operate.

Over the air broadcasting will not disappear. But it will be composed of fewer stations, with an ownership structure and management more responsive to the local market, providing programming that will need to be innovative and not based on the tradition rebroadcasting of US programming, with more locally and Canadian generated programming (along the current lines of the CBC).

In the same way that the new technology television was allowed to displace the old technology radio because televisions newer technology had changed the marketplace the Government, the CRTC and Canadians must allow the newer technologies of cable, satellite, the internet and wireless to displace the old technology of over the air television. Or risk protecting a sunset industry, denying the development of competitively necessary new technologies and businesses required to support Canada’s future economic prosperity.