Category Archives: Consider

I am tired too – a Reply

This was written in reply to a letter sent to SCN at http://www.somethingcool.ca/ which the editor forwarded to me for a reply.

I have to agree with you George, the homeless problem is getting really tiring. I too am sick and tired of the behaviours that allow this problem, not only to continue, but to grow. You know what else I am really tired of?

I am tired of 80 year old retirees ending up homeless and at the emergency shelter because their pensions no longer can cover the skyrocketing cost of housing in the lower mainland. While on the topic of affordable housing I am not only tired of, but outraged by the fact that an increasing number of the homeless work 40+ hours a week but at salaries so low they cannot afford to live in the communities they work in.

Not to mention how tired I am of a society that allows a mother and her children to have to chose to live in their car because she cannot earn enough to both pay rent and maintain her automobile – which she needs to get to work.

I am tired of seeing the mentally challenged and those with special needs fall through the cracks onto the streets and into the emergency shelter. I am sickened by the difference in quality of life between those with challenges and special needs who are fortunate enough to get access to the limited funds and programs society condescends to provide and those who find themselves alone and at the mercy of an indifferent system.

I am tired and appalled by the numbers of mentally ill people wandering the streets, many ending up in addiction as they self medicate. I am tired of the holier than thou attitudes taken by many people towards those who suffer the scourge of addiction and people who usurp the Deity’s role/sole right to judge a person. I worry when I find myself thinking along the lines of “s/he is nice and deserves help; s/he is such an a*s that they do not deserve consideration and to be treated with humanity”.

I am tired of watching the indignities and hardships inflicted by the behaviour of the MEIA office in Abbotsford as contrasted with the behaviours with offices in other parts of the province. I am tired of a system that is focused on denying help to those we feel don’t deserve help, to the point where it denies badly needed services to those truly in need of aid.

I am tired of politicians and a public that would rather, happily, spend $150,000 a year to throw someone in jail, than to invest $15,000 a year in getting that person sober, mentally well and an opportunity to live a life of their own design. I am tired of a system of recovery and rehabilitation that is demonstrably not accomplishing the positive outcomes it should, but to which politicians, bureaucrats and much of the public cling. I m tired of local politicians who say the right things but do nothing worthy of note and whose actions reveal their words to be nothing but political bafflegab.

I am tired of a society that whines about the decline of morality and spiritual values as it steps over the homeless sleeping in the street, turns it back on seniors, children, families, mentally ill, mentally challenged, the working poor, growing economic unfairness, wages inadequate to sustain life, ….

I am tired of all that and more. Which is why I write to Fred about homeless happenings in Abbotsford. Because the homeless issues in Abbotsford are issues across our country; important societal issues that we must address and that say a great deal about just what type of society we really are.

It is why I advocate for those who so desperately need an advocate and a voice. Why I created http://www.homelessinabbotsford.com/; I write to our local, provincial and national press; I get in the face of the Georges of the world, so they at least have to work at hiding their heads in the sand; it is why I have to move by the end of this month; it may very well be why I had to suffer mental illness, an old life lost, homelessness, recovery and a new, very different than expected life.

I am tired of it, so I work to be an agent of change.

You are tired of all this homelessness stuff – what are you doing to redress homelessness and other social ills?

You can stop bitching and work towards solutions and positive outcomes ( ‘cause if you have time to bitch about a problem, you have time to do something about the problem); or you can bury your head in the sand in order to ignore the problem and stop bitching; in either case (do something, do nothing) stop bitching.

Oh, and if you want pabulum masquerading as real news and issues, I suggest you try the mainstream press.

Afganistan Mission

This is a reply to the mission statement column in the Abbotsford Post of August 27 which has been reproduced for purposes of clarity below my commentary.

The Glaring Omission in Mr. Taylor’s August 28, 2007 mission statement is any Afghanistan mission statement demonstrating that this is a War worth fighting and not merely “a war of politicians and politics”.

The Valium of self-delusion Mr. Taylor speaks of would appear to have been administered to himself.

Afghanistan was not who attacked the US on 9/11 but terrorists. Being in Afghanistan, helping the US to pursue its anti-drug policies in wiping out the opium crop (from which heroin is made) upon which Afghani farmers depend for cash to live on and killing innocent civilians, does nothing but create enemies and more terrorists.

Fools rush in where wise men know better than to tread.

If we are unwilling to treat our addicts and help them into recovery, insisting on pursuing a foolish policy of ignoring capitalism and market forces via reducing demand through addiction recovery, there is no need to compound the foolishness by creating enemies – the farmers will be happy to sell their crop to us and don’t care if we then destroy it.

Wise men know that a terrorist in Afghanistan is not a threat to us in Canada – until someone bankrolls the terrorists thus allowing them to travel from Afghanistan to Canada, hide within Canada preparing their strike and providing the materials needed to commit terrorist atrocities.

Wise men know you go for those who bankroll the terrorists.

But Saudi Arabia is a friend of the Bush family and the US government; is extremely wealthy and generous to their friends; and controls the Saudi oil fields. Afghanistan is poor, unable to buy friends and influence.

He is correct on one point and both right and wrong on another. He is correct that the troops deserve our support and while correct that a firm withdrawal date should not be set, his implication that we should condemn our troops to an indefinite stay, suffering bleeding to death from a thousand cuts is criminal and flawed.

The bitter pill our troops must swallow is that they were betrayed by their government. Worse is the fact that this betrayal was perpetrated on them by a minority Government – the minority Conservative government who, while able to send our forces into harms way, had no ethical or moral right to commit out dedicated forces personnel to shedding their blood and lives in a purposeless and unjust war.

As the words of John Stewart Mills quoted by Mr. Taylor make clear – “war is an ugly thing” and if we are to be “willing to fight” and ask our forces to shed their blood, it must be a “moral” cause “more important than personal safety” and “worth war”.

The Balkan’s ethnic cleansing was. The Sudan with its genocide would be. Foolishness, political opportunism and cronyism are not.

A War of Politics and Politicians is not a war worth our nation’s treasure and blood, it is an ugly thing we should never have been involved in and that ethics demand we disengage from.

It’s a war, politicians

So Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and Liberal Party of Canada leader Stéphane Dion are threatening to bring down the federal government and provoke a general election if Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t give a firmdate for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan.

I wonder who they asked about that?

Not the members of Mission’s adopted regiment, the Royal Westminsters (the ‘Westies’) I bet. Anybody who has met these young men and women at events in Mission or at Master Corporal Bason’s funeral has heard a very different story. Many of these fine young people have signed up for the task force TF1-08 which means they, as militia citizen soldiers, have volunteered for service in Afghanistan.

Our young soldiers understand something these two self-interested political parties do not.This is not totally surprising since the Liberals cold bloodedly gutted our armed forces and the Bloc represents that portion of Quebec society that has always regarded defending our country as a purely Anglo task.

What our soldiers understand is that this is a war. It is not a peacekeeping operation or a police action, it is a war. On 9/11 our closest ally was attacked. Anybody who believes that attack was just on the U.S. and that Canada is safe is not just wearing rose-coloured spectacles but is also suffering an overdose of the Valium of self-delusion.

Imagine, as a soldier, being told, “your country expects you to lay your life on the line for a set of ideals. But after 2009 these ideals will cease to be important and everbody can come home.”

It is a novel concept – go to war but, first, declare an end date. Wars aren’t like that, they last until you win or lose.Thank Heaven for the young soldiers of the Westies and those and of the legendary Van Doos currently in Afghanistan.

They are ready to defend our country and they also believe that in bringing freedom to a people previously mired in a totalitarian, despotic and cruel medieval theocracy they are serving Canadian ideals. The Canadian Armed Forces are, sadly, used to being over tasked and ill-equipped. They can accept that they are being sent to war in secondhand German tanks, which are replacing a previous generation of secondhand German tanks, or in armoured vehicles whose armour is about as effective as that on an ice-cream truck. But, it is a much more bitter pill to swallow to know that they are effectively being betrayed by their own government.

Yes, war is terrible and the death of any young soldier is an enormous human tragedy. But it is worth remembering that the casualty rate we are suffering in Afghanistan is lower than the murder rate in Toronto.

So when the Westies are next in Mission – after the parade Nov. 11 in the Legion – consider dropping by and shaking their hands. Hopefully that will convince them that those for whom they are fight worth fighting for.

Above all, remember the words of John Stuart Mill: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Emerging Abbotsford Police State?

I was leaving the Dragon Fort eatery the other day when I paused to observe an Abbotsford Police Department (APD) officer in an unmarked car stealthily wielding a camera. Looking around to see what or who was being so slyly photographed I recognized the subject of his attention as a new arrival in town.

There was something deeply unsettling about the image of an APD officer in an unmarked car surreptitiously taking photos of someone merely standing on the sidewalk.

One can understand police thinking in this matter: new face, tattooed and standing around in “that area” of the city. But understanding is not authorization agreement to or approval of this behaviour. The thought of the APD secretly photographing us is chilling, bringing to mind the behaviours of the secret police of the old communist state apparatuses and other despotic regimes.

One is left pondering the implications of this behaviour; wrestling with the morality of spying on citizens and wondering about the legality of secretly photographing any citizen.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms, privacy laws and requirements that the police obtain warrants would appear, from the behaviour of the APD, not to protect citizens from clandestine police spying in Abbotsford.

How many other pictures have the APD taken? Just how many secret police files on citizens does the APD maintain and exactly what is the purpose or use of these secret police files?

These questions and other problematic APD conduct underscores how essential it is we put in place and exercise citizen oversight and control of the APD before we find ourselves living in an Orwellian police state, living the novel 1984 with Big Brother watching our every move, seeking to control us and our thoughts.

Election Reform

While I agree with the essence of Mr. Bucholtz’s assertion that election reform is needed; I must dispute his premise that Single Transferable Vote is the reform the electorate should be demanding in making their votes count.

Mr. Bucholtz’s statement: “I am a strong believer in improving democracy, as opposed to just taking an apathetic approach to it” includes two problematic assumptions.

That STV is an improvement to democracy is debatable since STV and alternative reform proposals add complexity to elections. I am also uncomfortable with the assumption that nonparticipation and nonvoting are the result of apathy. It may well be that people currently feel no cadidate represents their views and positions.

I heard and hear far to may people who are not voting for policies but are holding their noses voting for “the least objectionable” outcome.

We should be pursuing a course of electoral reform to put the power back into the hands of the people, keeping reform simple. Thus I advocate adding one simple choice to every ballot cast at every level of governance in Canada – NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Democracy is defined as: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

Power is only vested in the people in an electoral system that offers them a choice to exercise their vote for agents of their choosing. One could well argue that currently we are not a democracy since we are offered a limited number of bad choices made by others from which to choose our agents.

With one simple bold reform we can return the power back to the people, reclaiming it from politicians, political parties and the “powers that be”. In any electoral area where “none of the above” receives the most votes none of the candidates or parties are permitted to run in the next round of election.

The election process is repeated until such time as a candidate is judged and found to be worthy of exercising the voters will and power.

I will not claim this will be a neat process. In fact I truly hope that the votes held under this reform are incredibly messy and require several rounds of voting.

Fundamentally voters will be able to insist on being offered good candidates. The second (and any other needed) round should, with the elimination of party politics and politicians, be extremely lively offering opportunities and choices for a most eclectic offering of candidates.

We should also get the re-introduction of debate on issues, problem solving, policies, leadership and other positive outcomes. The new system should ensure the opportunity for many, if not a majority, of independents, new faces, new ideas, the evolution of new alliances and parties.

Yes it will be a little chaotic at first but as the author Alan Dean Foster wrote: “Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.”

BE BOLD, embrace change, Carpe Diem.

Kevin Ellis – one year AD

Kevin Ellis was one of the unknown and faceless people that are only referred to as “homeless”. But when he died July 18th, he became a figurehead for the way those in his situation are treated. In this case, it seems he was treated poorly and shown the dark side of humanity in his final days. In the end, it seems he had only two allies – a fellow homeless man and a complete stranger.

So began an article published here on SCN (something cool news) July 31, 2006. Kevin Ellis was a homeless man suffering from a respiratory illness but was sent home from the Abbotsford Hospital and died a short time after. Indeed, only two people seemed to really pay attention to his passing – a woman who happened to see him while he was at the hospital and one of his fellow homeless friends, James Breckenridge.

We asked several of Abbottsford’s homeless last week if they feel that the local hospital was treating them better and most said no. One man told us that he had been in a car accident but when he went to the hospital, he was kicked out because he had drugs in his system. Another woman made a similar complaint, claiming a needed operation was never given because of her history of drug abuse.

While these complaints were not independently verified, they do paint a picture of Abbotsford’s streets that looks very similar to one painted a year ago. To get a more in-depth perspective on the issue, we asked James Breckenridge to comment on how things have changed in the year since Kevin Ellis’ death, if indeed they have changed at all.

Remembering Kevin Ellis – By James Breckenridge

In the year since Kevin has passed, things have definitely have not gotten better. They may have gotten somewhat worse due to the increased numbers of homeless, especially new faces, on the streets of Abbotsford.

More people = more visits = more incidents = more strain = less tolerance. I continue to hear about bad treatment from hospital staff and they continue to try to ship people to the shelter who are in an altered state of consciousness.

Kevin was in so much pain those last weeks, days of his life that he wanted to die. I know he spoke of this to me and other of his friends so I have no doubt that he welcomed death as an end to an intolerable level of physical, emotional and spiritual pain.

When I think of Kevin I hope he has found peace.

I am not sure if I am infuriated, incredibly saddened or some combination of both because the system, we as a society, as the human race failed Kevin in so many ways. From the abused child to the homeless addict devalued and treated as less than an animal by society, the medical system and the social welfare system.

Kevin was not a saint; he was a wounded human being who turned to drugs to escape the pain. Unfortunately there is no real escape from that kind of pain until you deal with the wounds and what it was that inflicted the pain. It is why I believe we need to change how we think of and deliver the support needed for the far to many others like Kevin to find peace in life rather than finding peace only in the oblivion of death.

Kevin’s death did not bring great change, was for society at large just the death of another disposable life, an unremarkable death of another drug addict. On the other hand there was the woman who had seen Kevin’s treatment at the hospital and wrote a letter to the local papers on what she had seen. There is no doubt that his treatment and death had an effect on her and we have no way of telling what or who her words in the paper affected.

Like a pebble dropped into a still body of water, sending ripples out, there is an affect but we cannot judge just what or who a given ripple may impinge on