Category Archives: Municipal

Issues, Municipal, Snafu

Why not in Abbotsford also? Part 2

Leave a comment

 

 

The quote Ms. Lila Rauh used from my letter of June 12, 2009 in her Abbotsford Times letter of June 16th (see Below) was taken out of context, not only losing the point being made but implying a different meaning entirely.

“While Abbotsford City Council has been paying lip service to the lamentable lack of affordable housing, hiring social planners and forming advisory committees – City Councils in Chilliwack and Mission have been supporting and standing behind supportive affordable housing projects in their cities.”

Nowhere is mention made of Abbotsford City Council paying for affordable housing. The affordable housing being built in Mission and Chilliwack is not being paid for by those Councils. The contribution of the Councils of Mission and Chilliwack is not money but supporting and voting for projects. Contrast this with Abbotsford where Council is saying the right things but not acting to support affordable housing initiatives.

It does no good for senior governments to provide funds for housing when Abbotsford City Council is not prepared to hold up its end of the affordable housing equation.

The provincial government brought $22 million to the table to cover the costs for building 2 housing projects, with an additional yearly funding stream to provide funding for 35 years of supportive services.

The Clearbrook housing project depends upon City Council passing the rezoning over what is sure to be loud opposition by area residents since Council has shown that if people scream loud enough council will cut and run.

On the other project the City backed away from the $11 million in construction funding plus 35 years worth of funding ($22,750,000) that the provincial government brought to the table.

If we say to the provincial government they should provide funding for affordable housing in Abbotsford, are they not entitled to say ‘we offered $11 million plus yearly funding for 35 years ($22,750,000) and Abbotsford City Cuncil passed on the funding’?

Further if Council fails to pass the rezoning for the Clearbrook Road project why would anyone, provincial government or charitable organization, want to invest (and potentially waste) resources, time and money in any project that depends on leadership from Abbotsford City Council?

Affordable housing has been built with the support of Mission’s Council, built with the support of Chilliwack’s Council and modular housing units from the Olympic athletes housing will be trucked through Abbotsford to add to the affordable housing stocks in Chilliwack.

Abbotsford City Council’s recent actions say that affordable housing has no future in our city until we get a council that is able to provide leadership, not money, on affordable housing.

********************

In reference to James Breckenridge of Abbotsford, and his June 12 letter in which he berates Abbotsford council for not doing enough to create low-cost housing, and laments the “lack of affordable housing, hiring social planners and forming of advisory committees” which he thinks can rectify the situation.

Many citizens feel that this is exactly the wrong way to go since it removes the responsibility of the other levels of government who are financially responsible for those tasks.

Please, please, look into the facts of what is a provincial or federal jurisdiction for funding and what is municipal in various areas of low-cost housing.

What we definitely do not need is more ways to spend money on duplicate efforts, and becoming enablers for those who shirk their responsibilities.

It is certainly easy for local governments to dip into the endless pot of funds provided by local taxes and do the job in order to gain brownie points, but it is not the right thing to do – either in these tight financial times or otherwise.

For those interested, phone the provincial government and ask for their B.C. Housing financial booklet for 2008 and it will show you exactly who is primarily responsible for the various areas of low-cost housing.

Then put all your energies to apply pressure through your government representatives to fulfil their responsibilities.

Lila Rauh,

Mission

Municipal, The Issues

Mutually eclusive: Common Sense & Abbotsford City Council

Leave a comment

As frustrating as it was, it was no surprise to read that the taxpayers of Abbotsford are on the hook for an additional and unknown amount of money (?$million$?) for further construction at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.

After all, the worth of council promises on costs were made clear as Plan A costs spiralled higher and higher, well beyond the promised “fixed” costs. Then there is the fact that the statement most appropriate for council’s behaviour on Plan A and financial matters is “They did not even have enough common sense to …”

As in: “They did not even have enough common sense to hustle up provincial and federal funds before funding the entire project themselves” or “They did not even have enough common sense to realize that 400 parking spots were totally inadequate for a 6,500 seat complex”.

So it is no surprise that, even though council is on record from their very first statements that the Arena would be home to a hockey team, they did not even have enough common sense to ensure that the dressing rooms were up to the standards required by any possible league an arena tenant could play in.

No, if you used common sense and ensured the dressing rooms were up to any potential league standards, you would not able to be jack hammering apart the Sports and Entertainment complex within a month of opening.

And why would anyone expect Mayor George Ferguson, council or city staff to have any idea of what this destruction/construction will cost? After all nobody ever accused them of having enough common sense to have an idea what things will cost before they start spending taxpayer’s money.

Issues, Municipal

Why not in Abbotsford also?

Leave a comment

“Why is there affordable housing being built in Chilliwack and Mission but not in Abbotsford?” was the question posed to me by someone who had recently moved from working on a mental health team in Chilliwack to a mental health team in Abbotsford.

The answer to the question is simple and straightforward – Abbotsford City Council.

While Abbotsford City Council has been paying lip service to the lamentable lack of affordable housing, hiring social planners and forming advisory committees – City Councils in Chilliwack and Mission have been supporting and standing behind supportive affordable housing projects in their cities.

As a result Abbotsford has ended up with growing homelessness and affordable housing problem building into a crisis; Chilliwack and Mission meanwhile have been plugging away at actions that result in affordable housing projects getting built in their cities.

‘No money!’ cries city council. ‘Here is $11 million for construction and $650,000 per year for staffing and support services, heck double that and make it two projects’ says the province.

No poverty excuse? No problem equivocate – look for a more suitable location for the Emerson project.

After the recent exercise of spinelessness by Abbotsford City Council on abandoning the densification called for by their own Official City Plan, what do you think the odds are they will find the backbone to vote for the rezoning needed for the Clearbrook Road to be built?

No doubt a suitable location for these provincially funded housing projects will be found. Unfortunately, based on recent history, the locations will most likely be in Chilliwack or Mission.

It is looking more and more as if the best chance to see affordable housing in Abbotsford will be after the 2010 Olympics when citizens can stand along Highway 1 and watch as some of the units that had housed athletes at the winter games past through Abbotsford on their way to Chilliwack. Where, once reassembled, they will add to Chilliwack’s growing stock of affordable housing.

Increasing numbers of people, fallout from the economic meltdown, are falling through our inadequate social safety net, landing on the streets and accelerating the increase in the numbers of people without housing and homeless.

Abbotsford city council has, with its careless disregard for the consequences of its failure to act and provide leadership, allowed this problem to continue to grow to the point of crises.

Council must stop making excuses, find some backbone, provide leadership and actually take an action (action as in something other than words or paper shuffling) that results in actual shovels in the ground on affordable housing projects.

Federal, Media, Municipal

Fairness

Leave a comment

I was driving by Tim Felger’s store and looking at the window damage as the radio DJ was speaking of Marc Emery spending 6 – 8 years in an American jail (or serving his sentence in Canada). Arriving home the second item on the 11PM news was about granting an exception to Canadian law for the ex-KGB agent currently taking sanctuary in a church to avoid arrest and deportation.

All of which left me pondering the state of fairness in the Canadian justice system.

It has been a sad fact of life that those with money can, through their ability to hire high priced legal talent, realistically afford a different brand of justice than the average citizen. By the same token the average citizen can afford a different brand of justice than the poor, the homeless, the addicted or the mentally ill who have no money and are far too often entirely at the mercy of chance as to how they fare within the legal system.

Not a perfectly fair reality, but a reality nonetheless and an issue that, while difficult to remedy, has at least the fairness of being in the public awareness.

I am far more concerned with popularity of the party involved becoming the deciding factor as to how the law is or is not applied. Politics is a popularity contest and one only has to take a honest, objective look at our cities, provinces and country to see how badly popularity can be as a basis to make policy or apply policy on.

Worse, it seems to being played out in the media. Contrast the tone of the current reporting on the ex-KGB officer who has taken refuge within a Vancouver church with the reporting that was done when an illegal immigrant from India took shelter in a Sikh temple. While the circumstances are not exactly the same, the principle is.

Marc Emery is not a friend of Stephen Harper or his Conservative party and is not the type of person or character that any of the opposition parties will stand up on a matter of principle over.

Personally I would gladly kick Mr. Emery’s ass over many of his actions and behaviours. But … as a matter of principle he should not have had to cut a deal and serve prison time because the Canadian government (and most Canadians) don’t like him or what he stands for.

Remember what Mr. Emery was doing in Canada was legal for him to be doing in Canada. The failure of the government from the start to say no, under these circumstances we will not extradite him, has far reaching consequences (just ask other Canadians abandoned in foreign jails to foreign legal systems) as well as fairness issues.

I caught an interview with Salman Rushdie on CBC’s The Hour. What would have happened if Iran (or another Islamic country) had asked for his extradition to face charges for writing the Satanic Verses? What do you think the public’s reaction would be and in light of public and world reaction, what would the Canadian government have done? Refused the extradition request.

Fairness?

I have seen no editorial outrage or public outcry at the damage done to Tim Felger’s front store windows or the shooting out of the truck’s and rear store windows. Considering the extremely close watch the police, the city and outraged citizens keep on Mr. Felger and his establishment and the extent of the damage done and the time it would take, it is troubling that someone had that time and that no suspects have been found.

Over the years Mr. Felger has made himself very unpopular in Abbotsford particularly with city council and the police, but in fairness that should not affect the handling of the criminal damage done to his store.

Fairness requires that whether we like or dislike the people, like or dislike the situation, that like or dislike does not affect the outcome.

In suggesting that the law treat the ex-KGB agent differently ‘because he deserves it’; in tolerating the government not refusing to extradite Mr. Emery ‘because he deserves it’; in tolerating the damage done to Mr. Felger’s store and way he is treated ‘because he deserves it’; we increase the unfairness of the system and decrease our own rights and protections.

Fairness does not just protect the Felger’s of the world. Fairness protects us all and we abandon Fairness ‘because he (they) do not deserve it’ at our own peril.

Issues, Municipal

Judge not …

Leave a comment

It was good to read Mr. Herar’s column and see that his impending move to the Times had been accomplished. Lamentably less judgement and more understanding are greatly needed commodities in Abbotsford.

Speaking of less judgement, Mr. Herar’s assumption that “you guys” equates to “Indo-Canadians” and that his friend’s remarks were racist in nature was judgemental and not necessarily true.

Given the Christian bent of Abbotsford “you guys” could have been referring to Non-Christians since, as anyone who has ears to hear knows, it is these Non-Christian hell bound sinners that are responsible for the moral failings in our community.

Alternatively “you guys” could have been broadly referring to any peoples with different cultural behaviours and language. Fear of the “different” or of change is not unusual in members of the dominant culture and is often expressed in intolerance. It is not necessarily race related – just ask French Canadians.

Mr. Hear’s friend may simply be a xenophobe and not necessarily a racist or guilty of racist remarks.

The point I endeavour to make is that, whether it is Mr. Herar or his friend doing the judging, making judgements based on ignorance and assumptions (you know what they say about assume – it makes an as out of u and me) is the foundation upon which prejudice in all it’s virulent forms is built.

An open mind and spirit of being non-judgmental is what allows for understanding and leads to a community being enriched in a manner that only Diversity can enrich a community.

Ironically prejudice does not discriminate, being glad to take root in any closed mind.

When I was moving from homelessness into my current home-space I was inundated with horror stories on Indo-Canadians, especially as landlords. This flood of prejudice was a result of the fact I was moving into a predominantly Indo-Canadian neighbourhood and my landlords were Indo-Canadian.

What appalled me was not so much the prejudice as the ignorance shown by the stories and statements. One of the lessons that life has taught me is that people are people. In any group (language, religion, culture, subculture etc) you will fine the good, the bad and the ugly.

Eighteen months latter I am living in the same place, my landlords are good people (hopefully they think I am a good tenant), it is a nice neighbourhood with good neighbours. My biggest regret … well beside the fact that my landlords and neighbours are not aliens from Vulcan, Bajor, Betazed, Gallifrey etc … is that I do not speak Punjabi which limits my understanding and ability to understand and explore the richness of the Indo-Canadian culture.

Incongruously, prejudice is as happy to take root in the minds of those who are at the bottom of the pecking order, treated with contempt and victims of prejudice and stereotyping themselves; evidenced by the fact that many of the horror stories I was told about Indo-Canadians as landlords were by that disdained group – the homeless.

Recent letters in the local papers about the affordable housing project on Clearbrook Road have dredged up memories of attending the community witch hunts late last year on the proposed Clearbrook and Emerson sites.

As one of “Them” it was made clear that I was unfit to associate with the people of those neighbourhoods. That being one of “Them” I was a slobbering, mindless beast, a threat to man, woman and child. Worse, I (we) posed a threat to their Things, their possessions.

In a virtuoso demonstration of ignorance, closed minds, unreasonable fear, ego-centrism, prejudice and intolerance the mob made it very clear that as far as they were concerned every one of “Them” should be sent off, preferably to a leper colony in a remote and distant location.

Why, the very presence of “Them” would bring about the destruction of their neighbourhoods. Although I do concede that the presence of “Them” in the neighbourhood could indeed have posed a threat to their dogmatism.

The ignominy of it all left me with a bad taste in my mouth and highly insulted.

Mr. Herar should count his blessings. As one of “those guys” he is still acknowledged to be a human being. It could be worse. He could be one of “Them”, one of the inhuman beasts to be shunned.

Fortunately for me, the recommendation of someone who actually knew me was good enough for my Indo-Canadian landlords to rent to me, even though I was of a different culture and – gasp – one of “Them”.