B.C. LIBERAL CATALOGUE OF PROBLEMS

I don't like carping about my provincial government. I wish there were no reasons for faultfinding. The Liberals under Christy Clark's leadership are responsible for some concerning decisions and policies. Here they are.

CANADIAN IMMIGRATION AND SHARIA LAW

Symbol of Sharia. crescent moon & Venus star

I said yesterday that Canada as a culture has made a perceptible shift to the Left and this is demonstrated with the election of the current Liberal federal government. The Liberal policy agenda became attractive to a majority. This government will make decisions from the Left of Centre on vital issues in 2016 and beyond. Furthermore I vaguely expressed apprehension about some issues and the choices to be made. Today I am expressing one specific area of uneasiness.

It is an Immigration and Sharia Law item.

PETER CAMERON – CAN TEACHERS EXPECT A FAIR DEAL?

Photo is by David P. Ball

Let’s examine how likely it is that teachers will get a fair deal with Peter Cameron as chief negotiator.

Cameron is the hired gun negotiator mandated to bring resolution to the Liberal government and BC Teachers dispute. Cameron’s reputation as a strong and shrewd spokesperson was birthed at the vanguard of the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers (CAIMAW) in 2002 when he was their chief mining negotiator. Then he was on the workers’ side. He was appointed as a union panelist on the LRB (Labour Relations Board) for a four-year term. In an acrimonious departure he left CAIMAW to join Unifor and Health Sciences Association becoming its executive director in 1990. In 1992, he became NDPs assistant deputy health minister. He was now on employer's side and he never returned to the union side of the negotiation table.

He immediately brokered a ‘social contract’ with the B.C. Health Care workers that was a win-win for government as well as workers. However, under the Liberals, Cameron, at no time has negotiated for workers, any deal outside the tight-fisted government imposed guidelines and restrictions. This displays his hand, his loyalty. He could broker a wage increase for teachers if he chose to do so because he clearly understands that the government does have money despite the denials. Instead of the evenhanded skill of a celebrated negotiator, he now plays to the public with predisposed comments that predict another inequitable conclusion for teachers in B.C.

In the above piece, I have précised a remarkable article written in The Tyee on 24 May 2014, by Rod Mickleburgh, entitled, ‘Who is the Man Steering the Fortunes of BC Teachers.’

POLITICIANS AND CHILDREN/ Part 390 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

I am usually hopeful. Today, not so much.

The contentious spirit, the vast expenditure of monies evidenced in our British Columbia political climate as individuals vie for control of political parties and ultimately for the governing mandate of the province is a waste of resources of all kinds. This is however a diminutive display in a small arena which typifies what humanity is doing on a much larger scale around the world. Wikileaks are merely a temporary embarrassment for nations treating one another with suspicion and disrespect in the midst of a veneer of good relations. Elsewhere North Korea simply ignores the politics and aggressively blows up South Korean property. And all of this, for what?

Back to British Columbia. Progress is inhibited because there is so much wheel-spinning as individuals and parties protect themselves. Working together is a concept that eludes our kind. We can theorize but the personalities who are driven to acquire power are hot-wired to fight for factional interests. That's because they get to the power station by accommodations to special interests which thereafter must be placated. The greater interest and greater good of the whole, the province, the people, the seniors, the children, the disabled, the students, the teachers, the medical professionals, the tradespeople, are given perfunctory attention. The resources of this province should be viewed as belonging to all of us. Somehow the government has philosophically divorced itself from us but refused to accept this. From an historical anecdote, our government is the kind that gives the province's teachers grief and delay at the bargaining table and then follows it up by an outlandish in our faces raise for MLAs.

Our government is the consumer society. It devours money. It passes legislation and creates programs for the self-serving purpose of generating more usable dollars to consume on projects that do not matter and do not help the whole. Yet when the budget and the funds are challenging, the really important ministries and services that help us are slashed or eliminated. Isn't that right? Haven't you read about this before?

Yes, well, sorry about all that, but it is illustrative of my frustration with the upper echelon of the Ministry of Children which should and could work together with the Representative of Children and Youth, rather than moving instinctively into a defensive posture. An objective appraisal of MCFD by the Rep should be seen as helpful and on the other hand the Representative could be making constructive suggestions over the months rather than presenting a landmine report once every couple of years. We really know how to do things incorrectly. And the Governing Liberal Cabinet refuses to put money where it would do the most good. So, I need another dark roast coffee right now to fortify me to think about our provincial leaders who cannot be trusted with the best interests of children when they spend most of their time marketing themselves, roasting their opponents or planting IEDs for one another. It would be so refreshing to hear a politician speak about ministry to children, parents and families from a position of sincere commitment.

Public Trust, Power and Corruption / Part 380 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Public Trust, Power and Corruption

A fundamental theme of democracy is the concept of the public trust which asserts that within the public there lies the true power and future of a society and therefore the trust that the public invests in its officials must be respected.

A young person was speaking with me about the seeds of cynicism that have germinated and developed into full grown pessimism. At first one surmises this is cynicism about government but closer inspection reveals it is cynicism about persons, people, humanity. So few people come to power without becoming tainted or even derailed. The reality was captured in a phrase. “Power corrupts: absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

There is more to this adage which derives from a quotation by Lord Acton, who was actually John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, in fact Baron Acton (1834–1902). As an historian and moralist he summed his thought in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 with these words: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." What chance had public trust if that revelation becomes our starting point? Another ancient, William Pitt, the Elder, The Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778 is recorded as having made an equally profound and disturbing statement in a speech to the UK House of Lords in 1770. "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it."

If the Liberal caucus is comprised of many who have already compromised their respect and the opposition NDP has nothing better to show, where are we to look for leadership and guileless aid when we want something as simple as mercy or compassion?

Employees within the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development are not elected officers yet to them has been invested a responsibility that in some circumstances has not unlimited power but immense power which when employed can shroud its actions under a legislatively sewn cover of confidentiality and privacy. That without question has generated a pattern of conduct and job performance that has not been in the best interests of children and families for countless thousands of British Columbians. Public trust has been lost for all of these in their elected officials and others employed within governmental ministries. I mentioned to that young person with whom I spoke that he had articulated his eroded trust issues much sooner than I have. I have waited until my senior years to realize how awful things are. Now, I am almost overcome by the avalanche of disappointments. The few untainted MCFD employees whom I earlier mentioned must be as much or more discomfited by what they see around them each day.

Will the true champions please stand up? Will the honourable call for accountability? Will the untarnished stand out as attractive leaders?

PROUD MARY KEEPS ON BURNING/ Part 378 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

PROUD MARY KEEPS ON BURNING
Mary Polak has been treated fairly on my blog. I report what is to be reported. I have not taken unkind shots at her. Perhaps I am like one hundred other journalists who are politically polite. Not so Alex G. Tsakumis, an insider, politically savvy writer, whose blog is easily the most straight-shooting prose you will find in cyberspace. So if you want another good way to fill five minutes of every day, check out his Rebel with a Cause site.

Some days ago, when Bill Bennet was getting axed by his Liberal Caucus amigos, Alex wrote a post. Mary Polak had been tiptoeing to explain the Cultus Lake incident in which for nine days a disabled girl was stuck with her dead mother's body. Straight-shooting means that sometimes the target gets wounded or dead. Tsakumis' target was proud Mary and the article was entitled, 'Bill Bennett Booted but Mary Polak Rewarded?! Democracy in B.C. Politics–Non-Existent.'.

I have pasted the article in its entirety here because I am very concerned about the governance of our province, and particularly now as it relates to the welfare of children and their families.

“Think about this. On all the news programs and in the papers this morning, and for the last week, we are consumed with the story of a 14 year-old Down syndrome girl, who for nine days, soaked in her own urine and excrement, was trying to nurse back to life her mother’s rotting corpse.

But this is apparently of no interest to presumptive Premier Kevin Falcon, or contender Rich Coleman, or dreamer George Abbott and the deeply delusional, ‘Basi-Virk’ excuse pinch-hitter Mike DeJong. NOT ONE of them stood up in Cabinet today and demanded Children and Families Minister Mary Polak be immediately fired.

Why should Proud Mary, Gordon Campbell’s chief loyalist in caucus be fired?

Read on.

After the young girl’s two courageous brothers begged the Ministry of Children and Families to intervene two months ago and extract the girl from her alcoholic and drug addicted mother, the Ministry, in turn, left the child in a definitively at-risk position, where if she had not been discovered when she was, within two days, she too would have perished.

In subsequent interviews, Minister Polak, in what I can charitably describe as a woman suffering from the most severe case of PMS in the history of the menstrual cycle, mouth frothing with indignation, high-gloss manicured claws growing, proceeded to provide the most disgusting display of media deflection and excuse-peddling I’ve seen in years–angry, defiant and nasty. Sound familiar?

But Polak’s Campbell-fueled fib factory is rewarded with the crown for winning ‘Survivor of the Dimmest’. Not a single Cabinet member went after her for such a despicable display. Not one of them cares about the fact that Judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, MCFD watchdog, has written a letter to the Minister complaining that the incident with the Prentice family was not only NOT reported to her, but never even booked by the Ministry.

That was a week ago.

No response from Deputy Minister Lesley DuToit (a hand-picked Campbellite) or Minister Polak herself whose is content to gloriously writhe under the cover of the Campbell tartan.

She doesn’t care. She fabricates conditions upon which this near double tragedy unfurled. She takes a position most offside of an honest word.

And yet Bill Bennett is jettisoned by his Cabinet colleagues for telling the truth. Mind, if Bennett felt the throne was occupied by the wrong royal, what was he doing sitting at the round table for as long as he did?

Only in Gordon Campbell’s universe do you survive for being a rube or a charlatan. If you tell the truth, they rip the phone from your hands and send a disgraced Cabinet member to display your head on a stick.

While Mary sits, laughing…”

Clearly Alex doesn't want to sit with her to fix things. He merely thinks she and others deserve to be gone.
Post title suggested by the song Proud Mary, written by John Fogerty and made famous by Credence Clearwater Revival and by Tina Turner, and the Post theme derived from Mary Polak, Minister of Children, B.C.

IDEALISTIC IMAGINATION IN TORMENTED TIMES / Part 198 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Read the Comments that follow the post

In my ideal world, the employees within a government ministry paid by the people of British Columbia and charged with the responsibility of caring for a sector of the population are humbled by an awesome sense of obligation. Each treats the task as a privilege to make a difference.

From the moment that the legislation comes down to inaugurate a ministry as crucial to societal well-being as assisting families and protecting children, that Ministry becomes a symbol or radical change. This Ministry becomes a virtual new and emerging movement of humanitarian love and economic aid and physical and emotional security. Its representatives inspire confidence and hope and trust runs deeply among all levels of the ministry and between the personnel and the public. Any established patterns and methods from a prior initiative are abandoned. The dreamers and designers of the Ministry determine not to attend international symposia or family and child welfare conferences in the United States or the UK. They choose to reject the formulae of other provinces and countries where the results are suspect. The philosophy of ministry and the practical logistics are newly dreamed, designed and implemented. Critical to the design and implementation of the services that will be offered is an engagement with the multi-faceted culture that is British Columbia. A decision is made early not to transform distinct cultures into one homogeneous identity but to respect the various expressions of family and values and life. There are negotiables and non-negotiables. Among the non-negotiables are the self-evident values of the worth of individuals, of children and of families, the paramount commitment to protect children, and the resolute determination to make families work. In everything that is negotiable, that is, how parents raise their children, whether protectively or with liberty, with or without conventional diets, with religious instruction or not, with trendy clothing and hairstyles or simplicity, this Ministry determines not to make it difficult for those who are seeking to do their best. The Ministry becomes willing to adapt for the sake of helping parents and families to succeed. Child removal becomes a true last resort after every effort to equip parents is exhausted. The Ministry takes the approach of being as pliable and adaptive as possible so that confrontation and competition disappear when dealing with parents and caregivers and families.

This future cannot be experienced without embracing and experiencing change. The reality of change is the promise of altruism. In my ideal world, the Ministry is staffed by an army of selfless, self-denying, public-spirited, self-forgetful, considerate and generous public servants. Only in this way can the future of British Columbia become better than the past that we have been experiencing over the last several years and witnessing in the news these last several weeks . I watched Premier Campbell's enthusiasm during the Olympics. I loved the spirit of the Olympics and thoroughly enjoyed the images of competition and success and the stories of athletes and teams and countries. I would endorse Campbell for another term if he could become enthusiastic about comprehensive transformation as I have described. That would be a more lasting legacy than fourteen gold medals, an Olympic Cauldron and an Athlete Village.

I know: "When the spark of brilliance meets the cold stream of reality, idealism is often the first casualty."