Category Archives: The Issues

You know you might be an Ideologue if …

… Your first reaction to a report from your own handpicked advisers is to make excuses rather than consider and address the issues they highlight as needing action. Exactly what happened with the report released December 13, 2007.

The BC Progress Board – 18 business executives and academic leaders handpicked by Gordon Campbell – named BC the second-worst province in the country on a number of social indicators.

“The most troubling social indicator is the proportion of British Columbians living below the low-income threshold,” says the report, which calls the social condition category “one of the most compelling considerations” for judging a society.

The report says the proportion of people living on low incomes in B.C. has been greater than other provinces through much of the past decade.

The government’s response came in the form of Minister of Employment and Income Assistance Claude Richmond making excuses and offering explanations of why the board was wrong. Together with the old political standby, vague promises that the government will take the report seriously and see where improvements can be made.

It is this type of “what problem, I don’t see a problem, sorry not in my ideological world view”, non-responses that explain why this is the second year in a row for BC’s unacceptable rating and position on the list. As long as the man at the wheel sees only what his ideology allows him to perceive, excuses and denial will be the response to issues lying in the blind spots imposed by ideology.

Mr. Campbell needs to ponder the words of Robert Frost, or if preferred, George Bernard Shaw.

Mr. Frost warned that donning the blinders of purpose will, like the blinders on a horse, inevitably lead to narrowness of point of view. Mr. Shaw cautioned that the moment we WANT to believe something, one becomes blind to arguments against it.

If Mr. Campbell fails to shed his ideological blinders, stop making excuses, listen to his own hand-picked experts and address the social issues existing in our cities and province …… his hand-picked Progress Board will continue, year after year, to find increasing social problems and inequities.

If you are going to hand-pick experts to report, it would be prudent to listen to them and address the issues they bring forward as requiring attention.

Rather than blindly saying “Neigh”.

SIGH!

Could someone please explain to the Parks, Recreation and Culture department that they exist to provide citizens with services; citizens do not exist solely to provide large sums of money through their taxes to Parks and Rec?

Walking into the pool at ARC I found another sign that Park’s and Rec attitude towards the public seems to be “Bleep the public, it is all about Parks and Rec.”

There is a large bulletin board on the wall that WAS in use as a place to post notices and fliers of interest to the public from both non-Parks/Rec sources and from Parks/Rec itself.

No more. In the middle of this largely (and strangely) empty board is a notice informing the public that this board is now only for the use of posting Parks/Rec fliers, posters or information.

The notice does contain the statement that at some indefinite point in time, in some unspecified location, a bulletin board for the public (who foots the bill for ARC and its bulletin boards) will appear. There is no explanation of why the public could not continue, as it has for decades, to post on the bulletin board until such time as another board could be installed.

What public convenience or usage is next on the Parks/Rec hit list?

Gordon Campbell – Ideologue?

Having a firmly held world view based on one’s Ideology is like travelling through life and the world around you wearing a set of blinders. It narrows your vision down to tunnel vision, denying one a full and true view of the real world existing around you.

It is this narrowness of vision that can result in the ideologue being taken by surprise by things such as homeless and addiction issues, a mistake-prone child protection system, the B.C. Lotteries scandal. It can lead to a management style where the Ideologue keeps the reins firmly in his hands because he is the keeper of THE VISION. At some point you begin to lose valuable people because of this interferrence. You also lose some of your best people because your Ideology blinds you to issues they see as important.

Labour Minister Olga Ilich’s unhappiness manifested itself in her confirmation that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election. Finance Minister Carole Taylor is also leaving, with reports saying she’s grown tired of Campbell’s managing style and his refusal to see and deal with social issues of concern to her.

I read with interest a piece by Keith Baldrey about Campbell and recent events which included his evaluation that Campbell is “… incredibly well-versed in all sorts of issues, and can talk knowledgeably about everything from forestry to health care and climate change.” Undoubtably Mr. Campbell would agree with this statement – as would many others.

Therein lies a major problem, perhaps the major problem, with and for Campbell and his Liberals. An Ideologue is well-versed and knowledgable within the framework of his Ideology. If the reality of the causes and solutions of issues lies outside his ideology, an ideologue will find causes/explainations that fit within his world view. The problem is that solutions based on addressing the wrong causatity factors cannot suceed in bringing about the outcomes needed to address the issues. This is particularily true in many of the social issues because at their root lies people, giving rise to very chaotic cause/effect/solutions conditions.

I see the results of this clash between BC Liberal Ideology and reality daily – increasing numbers of homeless that include seniors and families; increasingly unaffordable housing; wage levels that even at full time, people cannot live on; increases in those sufferring mental illness and addiction ending up homeless and on our streets; poverty etc. Social problems that do not lend themselves, or the methods for addressing them, to ANY ideology. These types of issues have to be addressed based on the way they are, their reality, not upon how we want them to be.

Mr. Baldrey may be correct that their ” …continual lead in popularity has allowed the Liberals to retain a lofty air of arrogance…” I am not totally agreement with his conclusion that this lead ” ….has prevented them from realizing a pattern of problems may be developing.”

Undoubtably popularitity, success and arrogance can/will cause one to miss developing problems. However it seems to me that many of the developing and growing problems that face the BC government are growing in the blind spots caused by Campbell’s and the Liberal Party’s Ideological blinders.

One can only hope that if Campbell and the Liberals begin to worry about re-election, it may give those in the party with a wider, non-ridgid worldview an opportunity to cause Campbell and collegues to remove their Ideological blinders.

Are the new All-Weather fields SAFE?

I admit it came as no surprise to read about Abbotsford having problems with the contract and installation of the all-weather soccer fields.

Sadly, it would only surprise me if the city managed such a project without mishap and with sound management practices. Given the current council and city management, successful implementation and installation of any capital project and contract seems pretty much a Forlorn Hope.

What is of concern to me about mismanagement of the soccer fields, in contrast to the last fumbling mismanagement exercise, is the possible consequences.

Award a pool construction contract to a company who has never built a pool and you get the Centennial Pool debacle. Worst comes to worst you only have a leaky pool – and the high costs of repair. Athletes and other users are in contact with the water, not the pool structure itself.

With an all weather soccer field the athletes and other users are in direct contact with the playing surface, the structure, of the field. An artificial surface over artificial support materials, on a foundation/base prepared to provide proper support for the field.

These different layers need to be installed and bonded securely, safely and above all properly. Which is why you schedule the installation for a time of year were you could expect good, dry weather and want to have the installation done by a crew experienced in the installation of these types of materials.

Not during the cold, rainy weather of our local winter. Not with inexperienced labourers.

Because if the installation is not done RIGHT you have an increased, significantly increased, probability of the field itself causing serious or crippling injuries to the citizens of Abbotsford and visiting teams using the fields.

The question of increased risk to the safety of those using the field is what is of primary concern to me. I can live with the usual ineffective, wasteful and costly management by council and staff – as long as the safety of those using the field is not negatively affected.

Not just because of the potential for costly lawsuits, but because citizens have a right to expect the City to provide playing surfaces that are well constructed and safe for citizens and their children.

So I want to know what has council and staff done to ensure proper and safe installation?

RE: Compassion Park sparks real results

I ‘m sickened by the damage and misery that result from the Abbotsford Salvation Army and its PR machine constantly harking upon how successful its outreach program is in housing the homeless. It present s a false and misleading picture of what is happening on the homeless front in Abbotsford, allowing “leadership” in Abbotsford to avoid taking action by citing non-existent “real results”.

The outreach program at the Salvation Army is more about generating good-looking numbers to ensure more funding than it is about generating lasting, positive results to help the homeless to move off the streets.

The public would be shocked and dismayed at the facts an independent audit of the 180 people claimed by the Salvation Army as housed. Of course, that is using my definition of what I would mean by housed: they remain in housing and off the streets at the time you claim them as being housed successfully.

This would mean that those on the list who lasted only days, weeks, until the end of the month or a month or two before ending back up on the streets would not count as successful – although they are counted “successful” in the Salvation Army’s books. It would also mean the Salvation Army could only count an individual once – not every time their outreach “successfully” placed them in housing.

Such an audit would reduce the number of “successful” outcomes in housing the homeless to a number that would not even require removing your shoes to have enough digits to total those still housed and off the streets.

Public awareness of the truth will deny city council and other community leaders false “results” to hide behind, forcing them to face reality and act. One can only hope that public scrutiny would force the Salvation Army to change focus from good-looking numbers and PR to reality-based positive outcomes and results.

Until public awareness of the facts behind the claims of “real results” occurs I can only shake my head and remember the words of Franklin D, Roosevelt “Repetition does not transform a lie into truth.”