THE NEWS COMES HOME

My son coaches football.

He does this for no money. He does it because he loves the game and he loves working with the kids.

Now, he tells me that the famous Gaming money cuts from Victoria have directly impacted his team and their entire league.

B.C.'s community football teams feel budget cut

Last Updated: Sunday, September 13, 2009 | 4:39 PM PT Comments35Recommend15

CBC News

Community football associations are the latest group to complain about funding cutbacks from the British Columbia government.

Several teams have come forward to say their gaming grants were thousands of dollars less than they expected.

The province has already announced cuts to education, arts, literacy and health care as it tries to deal with a $2.8-billion deficit.

The Vancouver Trojans, an East Vancouver community football team, say they're getting significantly less than the $83,000 they were promised in July.

"I can imagine cutbacks … times are lean, it's a recession, you gotta cut back," said Trojans president Kerry Mann. "But do you gotta cut back from $83,000 to $15,000? That's $70,000. Well, where's that gonna come from?"

Mann said the news means the team's future is uncertain: "The first thought that comes to mind is, we can't even finish the season. We can't even afford to rent another bus."

Bob Watson, the Trojans' coach, said the province should have let teams know months ago they would be getting much less money than in previous years.

"It's right up there with the HST [harmonized sales tax]. They threw it in there, nobody anticipated it. When I voted for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals in the last election, they didn't mention any of these things. It's a little bit underhanded, I believe," Watson said.

The B.C. Community Football Association told CBC News it knows of several other football clubs complaining about cuts to their grants.

No one from the Ministry of Housing and Social Development was available for comment on the weekend.

* * *

When I sked my son if that meant the end of the season which just began, his answer was this:

Hi Dad,

I think we will finish our season. Some of the volunteer executives paid for new equipment and uniforms on their credit cards because they had to be ordered in time for the start of the season, and the Govt had already promised the funds to our organization. A couple of them are in for $15,000.00 or so, each.

OK. Rich Coleman.

Explain this to those boys and their families.

And let's get Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid over to the park to show the tight ends and wide receivers and inside tackles how to shift their joyful energies to dancing in the streets.

PROSTITUTION WARS

The Salvation Army wants to protect some women from harm.

They will open a 10-bed facility for some prostitutes who would urgently like to leave the so-called business.

Sound reasonable? Sound laudatory?

Not if you are the Pivot Legal Society.

Pivot wants to legalize prostitution and therefore sees any gesture towards "helping" hookers as a statement that the sex trade is bad and that just isn't nice, is it? Pivot argues that the Sally Ann demonizes prostitution. The Pivot plan is to legalize all aspects of hooking which they believe will make life safe for what they insist on calling "sex workers."

Declaration.

I spent 10 years working with drug addicted prostitutes.

I never met one who liked being a hooker. I never met one who believed in having a safe life as a hooker.

Every woman I met wanted to end the cycle and get out of "the life."

Many did.

The Sally Ann should be congratulated and thanked for this initiative.

Pivot is the poster child for woolen-headed wishful non-thinking.

When someone wants to provide 10 beds of shelter for the preyed upon, they should shut up.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"There is nothing to suggest that Mr. Kinsella played a key role in the sale."

This from Madame Justice Elizabeth Bennett, as she retires from the BC Rail case.

Don't worry. The defense can still call for Kinsella's documents if they can turn up some new evidence. Hmmmm...

Meanwhile, what a lovely cup of tea certain of our "leaders" must be having today.

Careful, boys, you may choke on the cookies from laughing so hard.

PEOPLE SKILLS

So you write little musings to yourself about life and death and the next thing you know the police acting like the Gestapo burst into your home, beat you up and drag you off screaming to the psych ward.

TV movie of the week?

Maybe next week, but for the moment this is a true and horrifying story from Toronto.

Read Christie Blatchford's column and lock the doors.