Category Archives: Consider

MPs are missing in action

Gord Kurenoff’s column about Tory MPs missing in action raised a few thoughts on the matter.

When did the Langley officials ask MP Mark Warawa to “show them the money”?

Was it before the project began or was it recently as he toured the nearly completed centre? The time to line up funding by senior levels of government is prior to starting the project when you have the maximum political and PR leverage.

While I am not happy that Ed Fast failed to get Abbotsford any federal funds I think that pointing fingers at his failure to be proactive in seeking funds distracts taxpayer attention from those who should face an inquisition over the fact that when it comes to protecting Abbotsford’s taxpayers pocketbook it was to much trouble for even one member of city council to pick up a phone and ask Ed Fast to earn his keep by securing federal funds.

Of course, if council was to engage in such proactive behaviours as asking the local MP to get federal funds it would create work for them. They would have to follow up, make more phone calls, letters to the prime minister … Be proactive, seek out opportunities that would be to the advantage of the citizens of Abbotsford? That kind of behaviour would get in the way of cutting council meetings back to twice a month.

If we are going to censure or impeach our local MPs let us do it for the major failings they have committed recently.

No Conservative MP should have been re-elected after permitting Stephen Harper to call the unwanted and unnecessary recent federal election.

Conservative MP’s turned around and added grievous damage and insult to the injury already done to Canadians when they permitted Stephen Harper’s megalomania to cause him to see himself not as leader of a minority government, but as ruler by divine right of Canada. Canadians are still waiting for the bill and fallout of that reckless cretinism.

Not a peep out of Conservative MPs about Mr. Harper’s recklessness and delusional fantasies of omnipotence. If, as suggested by Mr. Kurenoff, this behaviour of kowtowing to Mr. Harper’s every whim is as a result of Randy Whiteitis and their desperation for political power the fallacy and irony in this behaviour is dumbfounding.

Focusing on avoiding Randy Whiteitis the behaviour of the Conservative caucus and party has become so lemming-like they blindly follow Mr. Harper off the cliff of “how to blow a pending majority government” time and again.

Despite the millions of dollars of spin the Conservatives spent on Stephen Harper’s image, the Canadian people made clear that they did not trust Mr. Harper with a majority government; a judgment bourn out by his behaviour after the recent election.

In leaping from the frying pan of Randy Whiteitis the Conservatives have leapt into the fire of Stephen Harper’s being unacceptable to Canadians as the leader of a majority government and lacking the courage to leap out of the fire.

Generosity = ?

Watching the 11 PM news on Christmas Days as the last minutes of the Christmas Spirit Season ticked away had me pondering the concept of generosity and what generosity truly incorporates and embodies.

In the 2 – 3 weeks before Christmas the news was full of reports of “generosity”. Christmas Day the television news had video and stories of the homeless and hungry being served their Christmas dinner. The front page of the local paper had a picture and story of Christmas dinner being served, with the local politicians et al photographed demonstrating their “generosity” by serving meals to the homeless and poor.

On Boxing Day bringing out cookies brought groans of “oh no – more food” from the homeless who have been so stuffed with food over the past few weeks, their stomachs are full to the point they have no room even for sweets.

The homeless have also faced the “generosity” of being given so many gifts that they need a pack mule to carry everything around with them.

Yet as we move into the New Year of 2009 the homeless and poor will be hungry and in need of gifts once again, but alas “out of luck”. Until the 2009 Christmas Spirit Season opens again and “generosity” is once more a required must do.

So what is generosity? Is serving Christmas dinner or donating a gift to a Christmas bureau generosity?

Or is true generosity something that lives within a person, practiced and reflected in that person’s behaviour 365 days a year – not something switched on for the three weeks before Christmas and put away on the day after Christmas – Boxing Day, the High Holiday of Greed.

Consider that the politicians photographed serving Christmas dinner to the homeless have the ability to take the lead in ending homelessness. Yet year after year they have chosen to make excuses, shuffle paper, point fingers – but not to bestir themselves to create a single bed for the homeless or to provide leadership to end homelessness.

Ponder the question of whether loading the homeless down with gifts to the point they cannot carry it all is generosity or thoughtless behaviour? Would it not be more beneficial to the homeless if this largess was spread out over time? Of course that is neither as publicly visible nor as easy, requiring time and effort beyond the Christmas season generosity window.

One of the casualties of having embraced greed as the economic, operational and philosophical base for our society is having lost the understanding of what generosity is; as we become more self-centred and significantly less generous, except where required or it is politically correct.

What type of society we want for ourselves, our children and our children’s children?

Do we want to continue to have the kind of society we have built with greed as the economic, operational and philosophical underpinnings?

Or do we want to nurture the flickering flame of generosity into an incandescence that lights and enlightens our society?

Generosity does exist, lived and practice by some members of our community.

One of the meals served on Christmas Day was on a small bit of parkland on Gladys Avenue. It was a little late being served because it was first necessary to bring in a front end loader to clear the snow in order to be able to set up the tables, chairs and serve the food.

While this meal was served on Christmas Day it was not served because it was Christmas Day but because it was Thursday and Christmas just happened to land on a Thursday this year. There is a group of individuals who have been serving dinner on Thursday nights come sun, rain or snow.

Ironically, in light of the season, they were serving food to the homeless in the snow and cold because none of the three organizations calling themselves Christian in the area are willing to allow them to use their premises, for the winter months only, to provide shelter from the weather to the people being served dinner.

Ironic that with all the cries about the need to keep Christ in Christmas it seems to have been forgotten, or the understanding lost, that it is not about one day or even a short-lived season but about keeping Christ and the spirit of generosity alive in our hearts and behaviour through the entire year.

As the blank pages of the New Year unfold, what will you choose to write upon those pages in 2009?

Path to Hell paved with “for their own good”

A chill went down my spine and across my soul listening to Vancouver’s new Mayor Gregor Robertson talking about forcing people, “for their own good”, to behave in a manner he judges is an appropriate and wise.

Frighteningly no one on the news report disputed his statement and others echoed the “force them for their own good” sentiment. Hopefully this lack of a disagreeing cautionary voice was a result of editorial decisions by news staff and not from a lack of those questioning the wisdom of going down the “force them for their own good” path – no matter how well intentioned the steps onto that very slippery slope may be.

The police officer who let her light her candles made the correct decision. Someone was appalled that I would give candles to homeless people living in tents or other makeshift shelter. I know how important they can be to providing heat to survive in frigid weather.

The same day the news had reports of people killed in house fires. Does that mean that we should force people not to live in houses because fires will happen, houses will burn and people will die?

Yes the death of the woman who died in the fire in her modified cart was tragic, but the tragedy was not that she refused to come inside. The tragedy is that we as a society have failed to put in place the resources that would have allowed for the building of a relationship of trust with the woman and the existence of housing/shelter she would have found acceptable.

The true tragedy will be if we heedlessly, thoughtlessly plunge down the “force them for their own good” path. History is full of examples of what happens when we as a society decide what is good for somebody or a group and force them “for their own good” to do what we, not they, want.

Just ask members of our First Nations who were forced into residential schools “for their own good” while looking at the damage done to our First Nations and their cultures and society in the name of “their own good”.

In this case forcing people to behave in a manner “for their own good” is not about their own good but about making society feel better, salving society’s conscience over the consequences of its decision to abandon these most vulnerable people and all to often avoiding having to invest the time, resources and effort to deal with the issues in a manner that would truly be of benefit to those in need.

I have been one of the people who Mr. Robertson wants to “force for their own good” to behave as he sees fit.

While I acknowledge that appropriate housing and supports would have been helpful, what I really needed was the time and personal space to find my way to recovery. “Forcing me for my own good” would have denied me the chance to find that path and to find recovery and myself.

Royal Pian in the Neck.

As I start writing this I am sitting in a chair in the Emergency room at the new Abbotsford Regional Hospital.

A cyst in my neck has developed an infection becoming painfully swollen, filled and bulging with pus and other ichors. The pain and the desire to deal with the infection before it spread throughout my body sent me off to my doctor.

Who said it was a matter that needed to be dealt with at the hospital so I headed off to Emergency.

The hour and a half spent in the waiting room was not unexpected and I relaxed and wiled away the time watching several cooking shows on the food network which was playing on one of the several TVs situated around the much more spacious waiting room.

My name was called and I followed the nurse into the emergency room where I entered one of the curtained cubicles and sat down to await the doctor, who arrived shortly.

Taking a look at my neck he expressed his displeasure and upset with the fact that my neck had not been opened and the cyst removed at my doctor’s office rather than sending me to Emergency.

However when this same cyst had developed an infection last year, the doctor at the walk-in clinic only lanced the infection to allow the pus and assorted ichors to drain telling me , as I was handed a prescription for antibiotics, that I needed to go to the hospital to have the cyst itself removed.

Now I really do not care who was correct about where the cyst should have been removed.

What I do care about is the ER doctor expressing his displeasure with me being directed to Emergency, then stalking off to deal with, as he put it, “…real sick people” and leaving me sitting around for hours wondering when he would get around to treating my neck seemingly fallen to the bottom of his list because of his displeasure with my doctor sending me to Emergency.

It was unfair and unprofessional for the ER doctor to allow his pique with my doctor sending me to Emergency to affect his interactions with and treatment of me.

Running out to plug more money to feed the voracious appetite of the parking meter machine I did find myself wondering if part of the reason it takes so long in the ER is because it costs $2 an hour to park with no maximum set as to the amount that can be extorted. I wonder how much faster people would be in and out of ER if a maximum parking charge of 2 hours was set for ER patients?

When the ER doctor deigned to return to me, again raising the subject of my doctor’s action, I was very careful to be noncommittal to avoid spending more hours sitting in the ER. He opened up my neck, cleaning out pus, ichors, and digging out the cyst then sending me off saying I probably did not need antibiotics and that I could have the packing removed in three days or even remove it myself.

Later that night as I was washing the blood that leaked out of the wound and into the collar of my shirt, sincerely regretting the lack of pain medication as the freezing wore off and contemplating the use of alcohol as a pain killer and/or sleep aid, I decided to pay an official office visit to a nurse of gentle hands and compassion the next day. Who did indeed carefully and gently change the bandage for me

When she heard I had not been given a prescription for antibiotics she handed me some extra bandages instructing me to change the bandage every day and pay careful attention to the discharge and if it looked like an infection was setting in to see a doctor for antibiotic treatment.

I was told that I should seek out someone to remove the packing in the wound, rather than remove it myself as suggested by the ER doctor. Preferable someone with access to wound packing materials in case it needed to be repacked. That I should have the packing removed sooner rather than later to avoid any complications or problems.

Fortunately she also informed me as to what over-the-counter pain medication I should seek out to provide relief from the pain.

It was much more pleasant, helpful and informative to deal with a medical practitioner behaving in a considerate and professional manner.

Reality Check

I spent some extra time with some homeless friends today as a reminder and reality check.

There is this kafuffle going on concerning the building of safe, affordable, supported housing in Abbotsford with BC Housing and Social Development picking up the cheque.

It was not the fact that none of us know what type of housing were are talking of at this point and won’t know what type of housing it is that is proposed to be built until the submissions are made in response to BC Housing’s call for proposal submissions that had me seeking a reality check.

The reality check was set in motion by the comment from someone experienced with politics in Abbotsford who said that the way to win a council seat was to come out in opposition to building this type of housing or housing of this type on these sites or for building this type of housing only in the “right place” and that supporting this housing, no matter how badly needed, was political suicide.

I had found myself thinking along those lines as I sat at both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s public meetings. It was on my mind when I got up to speak on Thursday evening. When speaking to someone after Monday’s council meeting I found myself wondering if I should admit my name and that I was a candidate for council. I knew what the proper course of action was and I took that course of action but I was aware of the political implications and was tempted to take easy way out.

That temptation had me heading off to spend time with some homeless friends for a reality check and a reminder – of who I am and what I stand for.

Abbotsford has some serious problems it must address such as homelessness. A major reason homelessness and related social problems have become such a large and pressing issue is the failure to deal with the problems. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the failure is the result of avoiding having to make unpleasant decisions and tough, unpopular decisions.

To often the politically astute choices are the wrong choices because the politically astute choices are choosing not to deal with the problem in an effective manner to avoid conflict or making an unpopular decision.

So it was that I sat down to talk to my homeless friends about this because they have a way of cutting through the angst and inner conflict of such dilemmas to ground one in the harsh reality of the streets and remind me of who it is that I am and that I am prepared to stand for something rather than rolling along whichever way the wind is blowing.