Category Archives: Provincial

Provincial

Star Candidate?

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With the BC Liberal party choosing to foist their ‘star candidate’ Darryl Plecas on the Liberals in Abbotsford South I found myself wondering what makes a candidate a ‘star candidate’.

Looking at Mr. Plecas it seems all that is required to be a ‘star candidate’ for the BC Liberals in our 15 minutes of fame obsessed society is merely to have your face appear on television several times. Looking at Mr. Plecas also makes it clear that it is getting your face on the boob tube that matters, not the content of your words.

For television reporters in BC, when you need a ‘criminologist’ to stridently declare ‘drugs bad’ or ‘lock ‘em up’ or ‘violating people’s charter rights is fine if it makes things easier for police (to bad about the innocent people who become collateral damage)’ or ‘cost doesn’t matter’ Mr. Plecas is your go to guy.

If you are seeking thoughtful or insightful commentary, you go elsewhere.

Driving along South Fraser around West Oaks Mall the observant will notice that the election signs are different on either side of the street.

Not surprising since a check of the provincial electoral district boundaries will show the boundary between Abbotsford West and Abbotsford South runs down the middle of South Fraser Way in that area.

Walking along the street past Mr. Plecas’s election office one comes upon some elections signs in front of Envision Credit Union.

 

Look back at Mr Plecas’s office and see:

Clearly Mr. Plecas’s campaign office is in the wrong riding.

It is understandable why the BC Liberal party would prefer candidates of limited cognitive ability and limited ethics. But one would have thought they would at least insist on the cognitive ability to locate your office within the boundaries of the riding you are seeking to represent.

Finances, Politics, Provincial, The Economy

No Surprise, Just Politics as Usual.

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The Province posed an e-street Question:

“What has surprised you most about the current provincial election campaign?”

Nothing.

Devoid of ideas, ideals and desperate to avoid addressing the important issues and their painful realities, the Liberals are employing the time tested strategy employed by politicians and parties in that position – frighten the voters. BC’s Liberals choosing to go with the 1990’s and NDP spending as the boogeyman with which to frighten voters.

If you can find no reasons for voters to vote FOR you, find frightening reasons to scare voters into voting AGAINST your opponents and for the lesser evil.

Of course they still are voting for evil, lesser or not.

Devoid of ideas, ideals and desperate to avoid addressing the important issues and their painful realities, the NDP are travelling around the province making spending promises using the imaginary extra $1.5 billion the NDP’s phantasm budget raises.

Of course, had the NDP put the welfare of citizens ahead of the welfare of the NDP there would be 1.5 billion real, not imaginary, dollars to build hospitals.

Instead political expediency and the opportunity to count coup on the Liberals had Adrian Dix and the NDP campaigning for (and convincing) voters to return the $1.5 billion HST bribe to Ottawa rather than use it to address the need for major hospital spending on St. Paul’s, Royal Inland, Haida Gwaii and other projects.

As usual the media is careful to tell British Columbians only what they want to hear; shunning the communication of any information to British Columbians they have a need to know, but don’t want to know/hear about.

‘All the news you want to hear and none of the news you need to know but don’t want to hear or think about.’  

Focusing on the street theatre aspects of the election and, as carefully as the politicians, ignoring the true issues facing BC – the painful nitty gritty reality voters do not want to hear or think about.

Politics as usual in BC.

Although……. I am hoping to be surprised on Election Day by the election of two independent MLAs to represent Abbotsford East and Abbotsford West.

Caveat emptor, Finances, Life, Provincial

Motivation: an Evaluation Tool

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There is nothing we can do about the majority of British Columbians having voted to repeal the HST and return to a PST, except suffer the pain and pay the price.

That Bill Vander Zalm, Adrian Dix, the NDP, the media and the majority of BC residents decided it was a good idea to send $1.5 billion back to Ottawa, instead of using it to construct hospitals and other needed infrastructure, is a triumph of motive over rational, thoughtful decision making.

Leaving us to decide “how important is it” that we start construction to replace/renew St. Paul’s Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital and any other capital projects before the five years (at $300 million a year) of repayment to Ottawa are up.

If it is decided that we cannot wait the remaining 4 years of repayments to begin construction of hospitals or other capital projects, then taxpayers are going to have to suffer the pain of paying the hundreds of millions of dollars of additional taxes needed to offset the $1.5 billion returned to Ottawa.

As stated there is nothing we can do about the return of the PST on April Fool’s Day but endure the consequences.

But with Election Day on May 14, 2013 only weeks away, it behoves us to seek to understand why the majority of British Columbians decided removing $1.5 billion from the BC budget and returning all those dollars to Ottawa was a good idea.

Because with the challenges facing healthcare, education, the economy, indeed the future of British Columbian’s standard of living – we cannot afford such large scale misinformation or foolishness.

Voters must set aside wilful denial, face the need to set priorities, make tough choices and recognize we cannot have unlimited healthcare or other government services UNLESS WE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR UNILIMTED LEVELS OF SERVICE.

The complexity, lack of easy answers and the importance of beginning to address the issues demanding BC voters set priorities, make it imperative that voters are informed about and understand the actual state of BC’s finances and the ability of those finances to purchase and deliver services (i.e. healthcare) to citizens.

Wise decision making requires the facts, not rhetoric or spin or false ‘knowing’.

Throughout his HST crusade Mr. Vander Zalm ducked questions as to the $1.5 billion repayment to Ottawa or suggested it would not have to be repaid, even though Ottawa had stated if the HST was repealed the money paid to BC to bring in the HST would – not surprisingly – have to be repaid.

That $1.5 billion repayment is – not surprisingly – resulting in painful negative consequences for the citizens of BC. If Mr. Vander Zalm’s crusade had been about the HST and concerned with the best interests of the citizens of BC addressing the $1.5 billion repayment would have been part of Mr. Vander Zalm’s crusade.

If Vander Zalm’s motivation was not the HST or the best interests of the citizen’s of BC, what could his motivation for his anti-HST (let’s repay Ottawa $1.5 billion) crusade have been?

Given that the existence of the BC Liberals offered an alternative for voters to the Social Credit and thus allowed Bill Vander Zalm’s actions as leader of the Social Credit to destroy the Social Credit, it is easy to see how the Liberals and Gordon Campbell became a target of Vander Zalm’s enmity.

In light of Mr. Vander Zalm’s behaviours as leader of the Social Credit there is no surprise in him putting his personal interests above the interests of the province and its citizens by ignoring the damage repaying $1.5 billion would inflict on BC and its citizens and pursuing the opportunity the HST presented to reduce the liberal Party’s popularity (electability),

For Adrian Dix and the NDP the lack of leadership, the inability to forgo the opportunity to gain public popularity at the expense of the liberals and the failure to put the interests of the citizens of BC ahead of Adrian Dix and the NDP’s quest for power disqualifies them from forming the government.

Any party leader and party who would put their personal political interests ahead of the extremely negative consequences that would result for BC and its citizens from repaying $1.5 billion to Ottawa, lacks the ethics and trustworthiness to address the growing number of issues and difficulties facing BC.

To this day Mr Dix and the NDP continue to try to have it both ways, scoring public popularity while refusing/avoiding responsibility for the negative consequences their support of the HST repeal has, and continues to, cost British Columbians.

In taking the easy way out in seeking to bolster their sagging approval ratings, rather than standing firm as was best for BC, the Liberals share in culpability for the negative consequences the repeal of the HST with its $1.5 billion dollar repayment results in.

Motivation, actions and behaviours are far more useful in evaluating stated policies, trustworthiness, character, leadership, ethics and fitness to govern than any words uttered by political parties and their leaders.

While disappointing, in this day and age it is a given that politicians and political parties are about their own interests, telling voters what voters want to hear, not telling voters what they don’t want to hear, avoiding issues etc. It is why one can predict that the NDP platform in this election will be vague to the point of meaningless.

The most important lesson voters need to take away from the HST debacle is not how venal politicians and political parties are, but that the media (print, radio and television) have no interest in and are NOT about informing the public.

When speaking to Mr. Vander Zalm after the return to the PST the media continued to fail to ask Mr. Vander Zalm why he thought returning $1.5 billion to Ottawa was a good idea; what healthcare and other services Mr. Vander Zalm favoured cutting, what hospital construction he favours forgoing, to repay the $1.5 billion to Ottawa.

As Mr. Dix and the NDP run  around the province talking about the failure of the Liberals and the need to build hospitals or spend money on this or that – has the media ever asked Mr. Dix and the NDP how the government is suppose to spend hundreds of millions of dollars when Mr. Dix and the NDP convinced voters to send $1.5 billion back to Ottawa? Did media ever demand Mr. Dix and the NDP explain why they thought sending $1.5 billion back to Ottawa was a good idea? Or ask what Mr. Dix and the NDP would cut and/or forgo to pay for sending that $1.5 billion back to Ottawa.

Of course not. Bringing up issues would have interfered with the entertainment value, the spectacle and the rhetoric.

And of course, acknowledging their culpability in the repeal of the HST and the return of $1.5 billion to Ottawa would put a damper on media running around crying the sky is falling and we need to spend, spend, spend……..money the province does not have.

Has the media ever asked the teachers what healthcare programs the teachers are calling to be cut so the money can be redirected to the education budget? Because the only budget expenditure large enough to cover the cost of the $$$$$ the teachers are calling on the government to spend is healthcare.

Unless the teachers are calling on the government to eliminate an area of spending (the courts and jails for example) to cover the cost of the large increase in education spending the teachers are calling on. Or perhaps the teachers are calling for the imposition of hundreds of millions in new taxes to be poured into education?

Media does not ask the important question of where the money will come from, it quietly takes its 30 pieces of silver for running the teachers ads calling on voters to vote for their children by voting for any party that will dramatically increase spending on education as though the $$$$$ to pay for spending can be found in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

“We cannot talk about that, people don’t want to hear it”; “Talking about that would reduce ratings, have people turning off or (shudder) turning to the competition”; If it bleeds it leads; the slick, entertaining programming called news is a profit center where the bottom line – not the quality or value of information presented (or not presented) – is the focus and the motivator.

The owners of the media have every right to focus on making money rather than delivering informative, well rounded, balanced reports that increase, not decrease (as it currently does), the public’s ability to make informed decisions.

If you watch Mike Holmes, there is a viewer advisory displayed at the start of the program and every time the program returns from a commercial break.

To protect voters and citizens from being mislead or influenced by the misinformation inherent in today’s broadcast media programming, programming that passes itself off as providing viewers with news and information, should carry a warning that the underlying operational imperatives of the program are based on ratings and financial considerations – not about the public’s need to know.

Media has become about selling the sizzle and ignoring the fact the meat is badly contaminated with Salmonella, E coli, Listeria or Campylobacter.

A lot of people in the media, and some everyday people, really aren’t in search of the truth. They’re in search of something worse than that. Money, yeah. I think the media’s the kind of a thing where the truth doesn’t win, because it’s no fun. The truth’s no fun.      Jack White

Finances, Provincial

BC Hospital Capital Investment

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When you heard/watched/read the medical staff at Royal inland Hospital stating the hospital has been running at over 100% every day since 2013 began, what thoughts were triggered in your mind?

My thoughts went back to Monday April 1st as I was standing at the cash register in a thrift store digging for the extra 21 cents imposed on my $3 purchase by the return of the PST.

As I dumped the change out in search of that 21 cents, I thought about just how appropriate it was that the PST came back on April Fool’s Day.

April Fool’s Day being appropriate only because there is no Stupid’s Day.

Because no matter how you spin it, switching back to the PST from the HST was so financially irresponsible, it blew past the line of colossally irresponsible behaviour into ‘did everybody eat several extra bowls of stupid’ territory.

Forget the petty stuff everyone seemed intent on being bogged down in. Yes many will be happy they do not have to pay 7% provincial tax when they eat out – at least until the eateries put prices up by more than 7% to cover the cost savings lost with the return to the PST.

Because all the ‘the government lied’, ‘they promised’, ‘7%! – the government is going to destroy the food services business’ etc is meaningless when contrasted with the consequences for British Columbia and its citizens of repaying $1.5 billion  to Ottawa.

Want to replace or renew Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital or St. Paul’s Hospital? That will require an investment approaching $1 billion and, well Sorry, but that $1 billion is being repaid to Ottawa.

Have other important major capital projects that need investment, renewal or replacement? Sorry, but that 1/2 billion dollars is being repaid to Ottawa as well.

Because the majority of the citizens of BC (those who voted to repeal the HST plus those who did not vote against the repeal of the HST) chose to repay Ottawa the $1.5 billion, rather than using the $1.5 billion dollar bribe Ottawa used to ‘encourage’ BC (and Quebec) to adopt the HST in construction of/at St. Paul’s Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital or other projects.

So as the media and the opposition joyfully (and unhelpfully) run around pointing out the government has not committed funding to hospital construction, we need to remember that the reason government does not have money to fund hospital construction is that Bill Vander Zalm, Adrian Dix, the NDP and the media convinced the majority of BC residents that sending the $1.5 billion back to Ottawa was a good idea.

 

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothin’ can beat teamwork.  Edward Abbey

Addiction, behaviour, Consider, Life, Mental Health, Municipal, Provincial

Shaminder

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I knew Shaminder Brar for close to a decade, starting at a point where I was homeless and on the streets of Abbotsford as a result of my own mental illness.

And while hearing of Shaminder’s death by hit and run, be it accidental or otherwise, did evoke a feeling of deep sadness, the feeling I most associate with thoughts and memories of Shaminder is pain.

Seeing the pain mental illness, self-medication through drug (legal and illegal) abuse and being a pretty young woman with an addiction inflicted on Shaminder, being witness to the slow striping away of Shaminder’s dignity and seeing her reduced to a husk, to the animal humans are at our most basic level……….was painful.

Painful not in the way of “breaking my leg was painful’, but painful in the sense of having a tiny piece of one’s humanity ripped away

I once spent close to four hours sitting in a small room in emergency at the old hospital with Shaminder and someone who, seeing the level of distress and pain Shaminder was in on that day, insisted on taking her to the hospital and press-ganged me into accomplishing this.

Four hours because that is how long it took emergency to find someone to help Shaminder and if we had not stayed with her, Shaminder would not have stayed either. More damning than the four hour wait was that even had Shaminder been capable of getting herself to the emergency ward at the hospital it is probable the behaviour and attitude of the staff would have sent her fleeing. It took the body language and attitude ‘you will provide help to this young woman or I will remove your head and get the help she needs from your replacement’ to motivate the staff.

During Fraser Health’s current fiscal year I have lost two people to suicide, and nearly lost a third, as a direct result of the rationing of mental health and substance use imposed by budget constraints.

So jumping on the “she was as much a casualty of the health care system as she was victim of any car accident” bandwagon is tempting.

I will not take the easy way out and jump on the bandwagon because it ignores the numerous other important factors that contributed to Shaminder’s Fate and, perhaps most importantly, it would be a terrible disservice to all the ‘Shaminders’ who remain in desperate need of help.

It is very easy to attack mental health because in matters like this their hands are literally tied behind them by privacy issues. The most that mental health can say is simply that there is a great deal of information and detail that the public is unaware of and will remain unaware of because of privacy laws.

I am in no way trying to absolve mental health and the Health Care system. They bear a share, perhaps the lions share, of responsibility for what aid Shaminder did not – and did – receive. But mental health does not bear sole responsibility. Responsibility for Shaminder’s Fate is shared widely and if our only reaction is to find someone to pin the blame on we are abandoning all those in similar circumstances as Shaminder was abandoned.

Although I in no way want to contribute to their pain, I could take some of the statements Shaminder made about her family, add in the psycho/social/bio realities of being human, mix in some rumour/innuendo and accuse Shaminder’s family of abandoning her to her mental illness, addiction and the streets of Abbotsford.

Or focus on the fact that while the Warm Zone helped keep Shaminder alive, it could be painted as enabling Shaminder and failing to build the bonds that would have helped Shaminder make healthier choices. One must not leave out all the other agencies and organizations whose stated purpose is to help those like Shaminder;  agencies and organizations that required Shaminder change to suit their needs rather than being flexible enough to adapt to Shaminder in order to meet her needs and that either enabled or failed to establish the needed working relationship – or both.

And if we are pointing fingers at government agencies that are charged with helping people who need help, where were social services during these years?

Then there was the Health Minister (now Finance Minister) Mike de Jong and the governing Liberal party, who for crass political reasons avoid addressing the growing problems/issues that are causing increasing failures of the healthcare system to deliver adequate healthcare.

These issues and problems threaten the nature and future of the healthcare system, but because addressing these issues and problems would involve telling voters unpleasant realities they do not want to hear – which voters punish by voting for the opposition – none of the current political parties has the leadership, intestinal fortitude, integrity or principles to act in the best interests of the citizens of BC rather than the (short term) best interests of the politicians of BC.

And then there is the major obstacle that Abbotsford City Council is to the homeless seeking to recover their lives. An obstacle that not only played a major part in this tragedy, but bears a major responsibility for additional lives lost over the years and will bear responsibility for lives lost in the future as a result of their behaviours.

It is a part that grows as the City steps up their harassment of the powerless, the homeless, social misfits and all those who not only will not conveniently disappear, but insist on resurfacing time after time after time after time…….

Without housing to act as a stable base, a foundation upon which to reclaim and rebuild her life, what chance did Shaminder have?

They speak of the homeless as failing to be ‘medication compliant’, but how can you be medication compliant when even the questionable stability of a camp as a place to have shelter from the elements, to sleep and to leave one’s meagre belongings is denied by a City Council that hunts you down and turns you out onto the streets of Abbotsford at the same time their actions deny housing for the hard to house?

Would being ‘medication compliant’ or keeping appointments be at the top of your ‘To Do’ list when you have no idea where you will sleep tonight, much less tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?

Survival topped my list. If I wasn’t so stubborn, a stubborness enhanced by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Recovery and Wellness would not have remained on my ‘To Do’ list. And even when they remained on my ‘To Do’ list, it was only the good fortune to have a PDA (a Sony Clié) into which I could enter where and why I needed to be and set it to make sure I was reminded and had enough time to get where I needed to go……..

I have shared my “Theory of PDA Recovery” with various Case Managers at Mental Health, who acknowledge how useful a PDA would be to the homeless in making it to their appointments, taking their medications etc.

Stable, supportive housing can supply reminders and help in following the unique path that each person seeking Recovery and Wellness must find and follow.

There are solid reasons that the American Psychiatric Association recognizes ‘Housing First’ as an approach, perhaps the best approach, to helping the street entrenched homeless, the mentally ill, those abusing drugs (alcohol, prescription, the free enterprise street drugs) find their way to Recovery and Wellness.

Experience has demonstrated that, as counterintuitive as it may be, providing housing helps people to seek Recovery and Wellness quicker and provides support – a vital ingredient in finding Recovery and Wellness. Although given that human beings are involved, nothing should really be a surprise.

There are multiple targets to point fingers at and shout “J’ accuse”.

We have become a culture needing to find someone to blame and demonstrate our innocence, our lack of responsibility for the matter.

We seek someone to blame, make excuses, make it someone else’s fault and absolve ourselves of responsibility for causing The Matter – and perhaps for resolving the Matter?

Like the other major issues we seek to wilfully deny, avoid taking responsibility for correcting, do not want to hear or think about, want neat, easy, fast solutions………there is plenty of responsibility to go around among us all.

Society, the government is us. We have built the society we live in through our actions; we have gotten the government we deserve as a result of our actions.

Take a look around at ‘best practices’ for dealing with homelessness, mental illness and misuse of drugs of all stripes. We could make impressive progress in addressing these and other challenges we face today – if we where to choose to and if we were willing to make the commitments and do what is necessary.

But while we will complain, complain, complain……. we have become a province, a country, a society that seeks somebody to blame rather than accept responsibility for acting to correct what needs correction; a province, a country, a society that is unwilling to make any effort or sacrifice to address the growing number of issues that need our attention, decisions made and actions taken; that chooses not to see that the route to our wellness and prosperity requires that we renounce greed.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and over and over…..expecting a different outcome.

If we want outcomes different from those we are getting now, our actions and behaviours have to change.

To change our actions and behaviours we need to change ourselves.

We need leadership that, rather than encouraging the worst in us (for their personal benefit), challenges us to be the best we can be. We need New leadership that is not about racing to the bottom, but about struggling to the top.

We need to stop taking the path of less resistance, the easy way out and accepting the Lowest Common Denominator; we need to demand and strive for excellence from ourselves.

Rather than wilful denial of issues we need to return to what Canadians have always done when faced with daunting issues – whatever is necessary to overcome the obstacles.

An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…

“A fight Between two wolves is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.

“The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

“This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old chief simply replied, “The one you choose to feed.