For some reason it just strikes me as appropriate to be terminated by the Salvation Army on Halloween.
At 11:21 AM on Friday October 31, 2014 in the office of Community Ministries Director Nate McCready I was handed the paperwork of my termination and in turn handed over the envelope that contained the Salvation Army swipe card and keys in my possession.
When Mr. Barkman didn’t supply the details following his announcement of a plan to solve homelessness in Abbotsford [February 2014] I thought he had decided to wait until the municipal election campaign to set out how he plans to bring about Abbotsford not needing housing for homeless persons in 2 years.
The campaign for seats on Abbotsford’s City Council has begun and Mr. Barkman is running for re-election, but there has been no mention of any Barkman Homeless Plan.
At least one assumes that Mr. Barkman meant he has a plan to end homelessness in Abbotsford when he voted to turn down $$millions of dollars$$ of provincial funding by voting down the ACS Housing First project stating: “We need housing now, not in two years.”
Because, if Mr. Barkman didn’t have a plan to end homelessness in Abbotsford, and Abbotsford will need housing for the homeless in two years, surely Mr. Barkman should have voted to accept the millions of provincial dollars and to build the ACS housing proposal?
After all it would have been nonsensical [or as John Smith called it – irrational] for Mr. Barkman to vote against building housing the city would need even more desperately in two years.
Unless………… “We need housing now, not in two years” was simply another example of an Abbotsford city councillor excuse mongering and the totally vacuous, totally absurd “We need housing now, not in two years” was the best pretence Mr. Barkman could fabricate for voting to turn down millions of dollars from the province and to continue Abbotsford City Council’s policy of increasing the number of homeless on the streets of Abbotsford?
In which case Mr. Barkman voted down the ACS Housing First proposal for reasons he is unwilling to publicly admit to.
So Mr. Barkman, did you vote NO because you have a plan or for self-serving reasons?
Watching the Misadventures of Abbotsford City Council I wondered why somebody didn’t do something about this debacle.
Then I realized I AM SOMEBODY.
Deniability: noun; 1. the ability to deny something, especially on the basis of being officially uninformed; 2. the ability to deny something, as knowledge of or connection with a repugnant activity
Politicians and politics have always been long on promises and short on delivery, but over recent decades the promises have become longer and delivery extremely short.
As if that was not bad enough, over recent years politicians and politics have become long on deniability, while responsibility has headed towards non-existence.
The federal government downloads as much cost and ‘stick it to the provinces’ as it can; the provinces point fingers at the federal government and distance themselves from responsibility by downloading and sticking ministries and crown corporations with responsibility for problems; municipal governments point fingers at ministries and the provincial government insisting it is all the responsibility of the provincial government and they bear no responsibility for acting; the voters stick the politicians and politics with all the responsibility for problems by insisting politicians not tell voters anything they do not want to hear and punishing anyone who dares to speak of reality on an issue.
And so it does not matter how despicable, unconscionable or inhuman an action or action is because………nobody bears any responsibility for what occurred or occurs. And so the despicable, unconscionable and inhuman move from being the results of an error to being rare to being uncommon to not that unusual to ‘that is the way it goes’.
It is how the despicable, unconscionable and inhuman become no big deal; where the question becomes “what is wrong with that?”
Where it is business as usual for Vancouver Costal Health to have an employee take a frail, elderly woman from Squamish and drive her into Fraser Health and dump her in Abbotsford – a city she has no knowledge of or connection to – not at a Fraser Health facility, but at the emergency shelter.
Apparently there are no resources or facilities in all of Vancouver Coastal Health healthier or more appropriate for a senior citizen than an emergency shelter in Abbotsford.
Where a non-Vancouver Coastal Health medical professional notices the blood stains on the elbows of the sleeves of the maltreated senior’s shirt and after looking at her elbows gently helps her to the nursing station so the wounds on her elbows can be treated and bandaged.
While the Vancouver Coastal Health employee states that acute had said her elbows were cared for; before scurrying back to Vancouver Coastal Health.
While the senior explained she had hurt her elbows when she fell and had to crawl for help.
Nursing and shelter staff are well aware that an emergency shelter is no place for any senior citizen…….but what choice do they have? Toss her on the street?
As inappropriate as the emergency shelter is for this frail elderly woman, she is at least somewhere were the staff [people, her fellow human beings] are compassionate and caring.
BC Hydro’s newly appointed [July 2014] President and CEO Jessica McDonald, BC Hydro’s Board of Directors [Appendix 1 below] and BC Hydro – a Crown Corporation – have chosen to become directly, personally involved in/with homelessness in Abbotsford.
They have chosen to pre-empt a question currently before the BC Courts – if not Jubilee, if not Gladys then where do the homeless go?
They have chosen to ignore questions raised by a BC Crown Corporation, an instrument of the BC Government and the citizens of BC, acting to pre-empt a matter currently before the BC Courts; not next year or at some indefinite point in the future but before the Courts NOW.
They have chosen to become involved directly with homelessness in Abbotsford and to pre-empt the question of the Charter Rights of homeless Canadians currently before the BC Courts, without a clear, demonstrable, imminent risk that required or demanded they act now and prevented them from waiting another month or two [or three] for the BC Courts to adjudicate the question of: Where do the homeless go?
In choosing to pre-empt the BC Courts on the question of the Charter Rights of Canadians CEO Jessica McDonald, Stephen Bellringer [Chair of the board], Bill Adsit, W.J. Brad Bennett, O.B.C., Larry Blain, James M. Brown, James P. Hatton, Q.C., John Knappett, Tracey L. McVicar, Janine North, ICD.D, John Ritchie, Jack Weisgerber and the Crown Corporation BC Hydro have, in addition to the disturbing precedent of a Crown Corporation usurping a matter before the Courts, taken on personal responsibility for answering the question Abbotsford City Council has never answered: Where do the Homeless Go?
Since, by their own choice and of their own free will, CEO Jessica McDonald, the Board, employees of BC Hydro and the Crown Corporation BC Hydro have chosen to become involved in homelessness in Abbotsford and pre-empt the BC Courts on the question of the Rights of Canadians and where are the homeless to go they have, as a consequence, made themselves responsible for – and to – the homeless in Abbotsford for answering where the homeless are to go………
“When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory“A responsible choice is a choice that creates consequences that you are willing to assume responsibility for.” Gary Zukav
……We [I, the homeless, citizens of Abbotsford] await the unveiling of BC Hydro’s plans for the relocation of the homeless from Gladys, and BC Hydro’s answer – and plans – to the thorny question of where the homeless are suppose to relocate to.
Appendix 1
Stephen Bellringer, Chair of the board
Bill Adsit
W.J. Brad Bennett, O.B.C.
Larry Blain
James M. Brown
James P. Hatton, Q.C.
John Knappett
Tracey L. McVicar
Janine North, ICD.D
John Ritchie
Jack Weisgerber
Yes Andrew, the homeless – being Canadians – have Rights that are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And as anyone who is following the matter knows, The Abbotsford News obfuscation notwithstanding, the case is about the Rights and Freedoms all Canadians are entitled to and protecting the Rights and Freedoms of Canadians.
Anyone even moderately informed is aware the court case is not focused on the right of the homeless to camp in city parks. The right to camp in a city’s parks is a right only as a consequence of and in redressing the city’s violation of the Charter Rights of the homeless. As Section 24 states:
As to the question of the need to go to Court……..where else, how else, would Mr. Holota have us, have Canadians, settle fundamental questions about Charter Rights and Freedoms and questions concerning the violation of those Rights and Freedoms by governments [in this case the municipal government of the City of Abbotsford]?
Pistols at dawn in front of City Hall?
Unfortunately it is highly unlikely that the question of whether the factual errors, lies of omission and disinformation written, printed and disseminated by Black Press and Andrew Holota about homelessness, the homeless and the actions of the City of Abbotsford are a violation of the Rights and Freedoms of the homeless or simply served to abet the City of Abbotsford in its continuous violation of the Rights and Freedoms of homeless Canadians will be asked or answered.
As a result, although they may be culpable, neither Black Press nor Andrew Holota are likely to suffer any consequences for contributing to the violation of or violating the Rights of homeless Canadians in Abbotsford.
Mr. Holota’s editorial is rife with statements demonstrating the part Black Press and Mr. Holota have played in creating conditions in Abbotsford where going to court to protect the Rights of homeless Canadians from the City of Abbotsford is not a matter of choice but of necessity.
“....the homeless issue in this town got hijacked by special-interest groups.”
Pivot is a non-profit Society [supported by the community through thousands of donations] whose purpose is to represent and defend the marginalized and disenfranchised by defending their human rights through the provision of access to the legal system. In doing this Pivot also protects the Rights and Freedoms of all Canadians.
Perhaps to Black Press, Andrew Holota and the City of Abbotsford a non-profit Society widely supported by its community, a Society that defends the Human Rights, the Charter Rights of the disenfranchised, is a special interest group.
To the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the poor, to all those without the resources to defend their Rights Pivot is a Champion who fights for and defends the oppressed.
It is understandable why, as the oppressors, the City of Abbotsford, Black Press and Editor Holota would view anyone, anything or any group that would fight for and/or defend a class/group of people that the City of Abbotsford, Black Press and Editor Holota wish to oppress, harass, persecute and victimize as a ‘special-interest’ group. In protecting the interests of the homeless Pivot acts against the interests of the oppressors, threatens to force an end to the oppression and drags the oppressors into court, out of the shadows, into daylight and makes a public display of them.
It would be interesting, potentially entertaining, to see by what convoluted process Editor Holota came to label the Abbotsford chapter of the Drug War Survivors, whose membership consists almost entirely of those who have been homeless, are homeless or in the process of becoming homeless as a special interest group vis-à-vis the subject of homelessness in Abbotsford.
To the Homeless in Abbotsford the motivation of Barry Shantz in founding the Abbotsford chapter of the BC/Yukon Drug War Survivors is moot.
What matters to the homeless and all others who are powerless in Abbotsford is that the involvement of Mr. Shantz and the DWS solved a years old dilemma, a dilemma not limited to just the homeless – the barrier raised to holding the City of Abbotsford accountable for its actions by prohibitive legal costs.
Whether it was/is the City of Abbotsford’s violation of the homeless and powerless or the costly illegal subsidy agreement with the Heat, bottomless taxpayer pockets, at least from the view of Abbotsford’s municipal government and politicians, has been an insurmountable barrier to those seeking Justice.
Until Pivot, and the community that supports them, stepped forward to say ENOUGH to the City of Abbotsford and its politicians.
Pivot a special interest group? I suppose if you consider an interest in Human Rights, in protecting the Charter Rights and Freedoms of all Canadians [not just those of the privileged or wealthy], in standing up for the marginalized and disenfranchised as a ‘special’ interest.
Personally, irregardless of what the City of Abbotsford, its’ politicians, Black Press or Andrew Holota obviously believe I do not regard the behaviour of Pivot as ‘special’; to me Pivot’s behaviour is simply the behaviour of the ethical, behaviour the City of Abbotsford – although highly unlikely to – could learn a great deal from.
As English philosopher Edmund Burke stated “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
