Given the world economy, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Hansen are not likely to open the provincial purse for something as unimportant as kindergarten or day care or more teachers or spaces for children.
Not when that road to Whistler has to be completed, no sir. Not when there are cement and glass monuments to be built.
We, the hapless voters, are trapped between a government that has a cheezy, almost inhuman vision and an opposition that, if elected, would probably create an unholy mess.
Nice choice: Moral bankruptcy vs. financial bankruptcy.
This time on the most obscure grounds. The prosecution is taking all the way to the highest court in the land their argument that they must not reveal the identoty of a key informant.
All of that may be supremely important somewhere, somehow.
But.
This case has now become the poster child for jutice delayed is justice denied.
We can hardly be called lone cynics if many of us now believe there are other forces at work here.
The trial will now most likely not be heard until after the spring provincial election.
The Vancouver Sun editorial, on the day before the municipal elections, goes on for several weighty paragraphs and then (has the good taste?) doesn't have the male dangly parts to endorse either Peter Ladner or Gregor Robertson.
And you wonder why I cancelled my subscription.
At the good advice of my two dearest friends in the world, I am taking a real break.
The Berner Monologues blog will be shut down for the next two weeks. It will re-open on Friday, November 28th.
Most forlorn among you will be the extremely bereft and sick man who hates me so much, he lives only to read my blog and send me his daily hate mail.
Dear Hating Man With No Apparent Other Purpose,
I hope, in the coming 14 days, you find some dog to bark at or grocery clerk to suspect of cheating you. I pray you may latch onto some other radio show, TV program or website that excites your juices as much as my work does.
I pray also for your family. You must a beach party on wheels.
For all the rest of you...
Bon vacance, bon chance, don't let the new Vision City Council, Park Board and School Board depress you too much.
1. I cancelled my Vancouver Sun subscription yesterday. My new Globe & Mail delivery will begin in 2 weeks. Goodbye Milo, goodbye Mildew, Goodbye Yappy. Goodbye to front pages without news.
2. Leaving this morning for 2 weeks on Vanciouver Island to do some writing and relaxing. I will write blog every morning, BUT...
I email the blog through my main serve, Shaw.ca, and unless I am literally connected to them as I am at home base, it is impossible to send much mail.
Therefore, if you enjoy these ramblings from time to time...just to be sure you see them, please BOOKMARK this page today and check in on it.
3. MY PREDICTION for the civic election results on Saturday night in Vancouver:
Gregor Robertson and the Vision team will all but
annihilate the NPA. You will see a city council, park board and school board dominated by Vision electees.
You will also see a city council even worse, if possible, than the one about to dissolve.
The following is a great example of why we can’t afford to have Gregor Robertson as Mayor with his mentor , Joel Solomon—the brains behind the Endswell Foundation and a leader in social enterprises that are trying to accelerate the pace of social change.
ONE OF ENDSWELL FOUNDATION’S “VENTURES”
went bankrupt in April ‘07
In the words of IMPACS founding Execeutive Director Shauna Sylvester as written on the blog of the Vancouver Social Enterprise Forum:
“Why would an organization that had an incredible board and staff team, an extensive network of allies and partners, a long-pipeline of potential projects and a ten-year history of working with civil society organizations in Canada and internationally fold? In part, I think it was because IMPACS was an entrepreneurial organization. It operated as a non-profit enterprise in an environment where the supports have not yet been fully developed to support such organizations.”
Translation:People who operate non-profits and try to compete in the business sector as “social enterprises” can’t survive because operating a non-profit is not like running a business. The people who run non-profits usually don’t have business skills and business experience. They measure success differently therefore they can’t be as accountable as business must be to survive.
“In their memo announcing the bankruptcy, the board of IMPACS identified two key issues: the federal government severe cutbacks of non-profit organizations (IMPACS client base) and the lack of core funding. To these two issues I would add:”
Translation:Those of us who can’t admit our own failure can only look to blame someone else. We were a on-profit group that was used to relying on taxpayer handouts controlled by governments. Seeing our demise, when we tried to be something other than a non-profit, we realize our “business model” that was supposedly at the core of our social enterprise venture was flawed because it was not at all about doing business, but it was about relying on handouts from taxpayers—handouts that aren’t available to “businesses”.
·“the increasing transaction costs of dealing with government (which were not compensated)”
Translation:You have to pay for expensive accounting when your “non-profit” managers try to run a business and screw up the books so much they can’t acocunt for the taxpayers’ dollars they were granted by government.
·“the irrational accountability structures that some government departments like CIDA and Industry Canada put in place (that shifted by the hour and were entirely dependent on who was on the other end of the phone),”
Translation:Can you believe it? The government wanted us to account for the taxpayers dollars they gave us? What crap!
· “ the lack of appropriate financial instruments for social enterprise organizations (social enterprises need patient capital),
Translation: no right-minded investor would trust us with his investment dollars knowing that we know nothing about running a business.
·“the lack of consultants with expertise in social enterprise management,”
Translation: people whose experience is limited to the non-profit sector have no skills or knowledge to compete in the business world.
·the lack of a level playing field for NGOs in government procurement (unlike their private sector counterparts, IMPACS could not charge their billable rate for government contracts that they bid on and won - they could only charge the actual cost of salary and benefits),
·the inappropriate regulatory regime for charities (e.g. the restrictions on advocacy and the restrictions on operating a related business),
Translation: the law doesn’t allow you to raise money for charity and use it instead for political action. You also can’t use tax sheltered charitable dollars by laundering them through a business that “masks” as a charity.
·the increasing cost of insurance (and the rise in liability, especially working in conflict zones), and
·the lack of a skilled ‘labour pool’ (there are many people who are skilled in working in non-profit organizations but it is very rare to find people with the values, the entrepreneurial sensibilities, the international outlook and the strategic orientation to work in an organization like IMPACS).
Future bleak for Mr. Robertson's neighbourhood Published in the Vancouver Courier: Monday, Nov.10.
This weekend Vancouverites head to the polls to choose our next mayor. On most issues, both candidates-NPA Coun. Peter Ladner and Vision Vancouver hopeful Gregor Robertson-sing off the same song sheet.
But what about the Downtown Eastside? Our city's ugly blight. Our six blocks of shame. Our little election's Iraq war.
Both candidates promise to clean up the neighbourhood in time for the 2010 Olympics. Yet both cling to former NPA mayor Philip Owen's Four Pillars drug strategy, which relies heavily on so-called "harm reduction" to combat addiction and crime. And both believe in the Insite supervised injection site, harm reduction's shining obelisk at 139 East Hastings.
However, Ladner says "no" to more injection sites. One is enough. The Insite model, he says, should not be exported to other areas of the city. But Robertson wants more. He envisions a city teeming with Insites. He supports erecting similar models in yet-to-be-named neighbourhoods, so junkies from Point Grey to Hastings/Sunrise need not travel far for their fix. Possible Robertson campaign slogan: "No fun city? Not for long."
Additionally, during the Courier's mayoral debate in October, Robertson failed to pooh-pooh former COPE Mayor Larry Campbell's idea of a government-funded crack house, where addicts inhale a soul-crushing toxin as nurses hand out shiny new crack pipes to the living dead. Possible Robertson campaign slogan No. 2. "Team Robertson: we'll try anything once." Robertson also wants to establish a "roundtable on prostitution," and said he was "not in favour of legalized brothels, at this time."
At this time. Right. How about after you get elected? How about after your roundtable, packed with harm reduction aficionados, calls for indoor "work sites" and a red light district?
Possible Robertson campaign slogan No. 3. "Vote Robertson: they love him in Amsterdam." Simply put, Robertson doesn't get it. The Downtown Eastside requires a cultural revolution, not more government enabling. The seven years since Owen ushered in his Four Pillars strategy have been a disaster. By all accounts, things get worse every day. The open drug market thrives. Chinatown is under siege. Homelessness has doubled, a trend owed not only to a lack of housing but to the Downtown Eastside's courtship of drug users.
Which leads back to Insite. Most Insite users typically shoot up elsewhere at some point during the day. And Insite accounts for less than five per cent of all injections in the neighbourhood. Still, proponents claim Insite reduces overdoses, needle sharing and public injections. But they don't consider the cultural consequences.
Why do people come to the Downtown Eastside? Because that's where the drugs are. Insite removes yet another impediment for drug abuse and surrenders the moral ground to drug dealers. Insite perpetuates a culture of drugs and excess-the two staples of addiction. And as with B.C.'s reckless methadone maintenance program, Insite offers no mandatory treatment. For every heroin addict Insite "helps," countless others are spawned in the dreary environment Insite helps create.
And Robertson wants more. Perhaps he's listened to vocal members of B.C.'s medical community-a viper's nest of harm reduction PhDs. Folks like Dr. Julio Montaner, head of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the "independent third party research and evaluation" organization charged with justifying Insite's existence. Or UBC's Dr. John Hepburn, who helped pen a scolding letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007 after the Conservatives dared question Insite's effectiveness. Hepburn frequently cites the "best interests of patients" in his Insite defense--a revealing statement that embodies the narrow thinking of harm reduction fanatics.
Note to Dr. Hepburn: the Downtown Eastside is not your office waiting room, where patients thumb through back issues of People magazine while waiting for prescriptions. Policies administered in Insite's sterile confines have wide-reaching ramifications that can't be discovered in a UBC laboratory. The neighbourhood is rotting, and we'll never keep up with the destructive results of wanton drug abuse if drug abuse is part of the solution.
So when you hit the polls this Saturday, cast your vote carefully. The fate of many addicted and mentally ill people may hang in the balance. An expansion of harm reduction will expand the Downtown Eastside. Like Obama says, it's time for "Change We Need." Nobody needs more "harm reduction" help from city hall. Or more accurately, nobody deserves that.
Gregor Robertson and the Vision team in their flurry of daily announcements included the other day the list of contributors to Robertson’s mayoral campaign.
It is no doubt honest and true.
But it hardly tells the story.
Dig deep enough – and why hasn’t any Vancouver journalist done this? – and you will learn that Robertson is backed by a very curious group of strongly interwoven people, all of the same stripe, all of the same background and inclinations, many sharing corporate affiliations, many Americans, and all with a special take on the world.
Each of the persons named below and each of the corporations or non-profits are all inter-linked. They all know each other well. They all are principals in same or linked companies. They can all be “Googled,” with the most interesting results. They have similar lives and apparently similar dreams and goals.
It is the latter that should concern Vancouver voters. Their Yellow Brick Road will cost you dearly.
Gregor Robertson’s main financial support comes from a group of people, many American citizens, starting with Joel Solomon. Solomon, originally from Tennessee, has just become a Canadian citizen. He is the money and the brains behind Happy Planet Foods. He is Vice-Chair of Tides Canada Foundation, chair of the board of Hollyhock Retreat, involved with IMPACS, The Tyee, Pivot Foundation, Pivot Legal Society, and The Endswell Foundation, among others.
He and Carol Newell are Founders of Renewal Partners. Newell is the heir to the U.S. Rubbermaid Co. fortune.
Robertson has received help (funding? cash?) from the following American citizens:
Andrew Beath, Founder, Earthways Foundation, Malibu, California; Gary Hirshberg, Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt, Londonderry, New Hampshire; Paulette Cole, ABC Home and Planet Foundation, Manhattan, New York; Allan & Marion Hunt-Badiner, San Francisco; and Dr. Andrew Weil (bearded Oprah guru), Tucson, Arizona, among others.
Another key player is a man named Drummond Pike, who is the Founder and CEO of Tides USA. Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 non-profit projects across the US, launches and operates green non-profit centres and has granted more than $500 million dollars since 2000 alone.
Pike could be the poster boy for all of these folks. He lives in Mill Valley, California and describes himself as “a licensed commercial river guide in the Grand Canyon and is an amateur wine maker. He is also an avid runner and squash player.”
In other words, he is fabulous and wonderful.
Everyone I have mentioned is fabulous and wonderful. They are almost all enormously wealthy.
Their public presentation is all about giving and philanthropy. Their private reality is money, real estate, power and more money.
They have almost all been criticized and scrutinized for laundering money from one donor or charity to another, often without much question about results or accountability.
They are all ardent believers in the mantra of the “triple bottom line.” This hot paradigm, this vogue of the privileged class, calls for corporations to focus on “people, planet & profits.” You not only have to make money, you have to have happy employees and green goals and processes. If your CEO or chief administrative assistant wants to take a few weeks off in the middle of sensitive negotiations, that's cool. Because we want everyone to be happy.
Here’s the triple headed problem.
Why is support for Gregor Robertson’s run at the Vancouver Mayor’s Chair coming from rich Americans? If Ladner or Campbell before him had the backing of rich Texas right wing fundamentalist arms manufacturers, can you imagine the stink?
What do these people and Robertson really want?
I’ll take a guess.
They want to use public money to further their special social goals.
For example, yesterday, approaching and cashing in on Remembrance Day in the most cynical way, the Vision team announced that they wanted to insure that City Hall would be working on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for Canadian Veterans.
City Hall? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
This is a Health issue and therefore the complete purview of the Federal and Provincial Governments. The City has no role in such an issue, nor should it.
And as you know, we've done such a great job at the city level with addictions, mental health and homelessness.
But, if Robertson and his crew win on Saturday – as they surely will – watch for the onslaught of 1001 new social engineering programs. Watch for the marriage of city coffers and time and energies with some familiar non-profits and foundations.
As surely as George W. Bush has been widely acknowledged to be the puppet of known and unknown masters like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Halliburton et al, Gregor Robertson is the pretty face of a movement led by wealthy ideologues, living in the shadows.
They are determined to change the world, one kumbaya moment after another. Which would be their prerogative, except that they are making a play to use your money.
Now that I am looking at a foto of Kerry Jang, Vision Candidate, I realize that I saw him again at our second mayoral debate on October 29th.
He appeared at about 7, a half hour before the debate began, looking somewhat lost.
I thought he was the same man who had stared and glared at me so threateningly the last time out, but I decided to choose kindness and emppathy, and I greeted him warmly.
He pretended not to know who I was.
I asked, "Aren't you with the Vision team?"
He said, "No."
I indicated that Vision had a table in the hallway if he wanted to chat with them before the debate.
He drifted over in that direction and I never really noticed him again for the rest of the evening.
But think about this.
One night he is attacking me verbally and staring at me maniacally and is completely in 5th gear.
28 days later, he is pretending to be anonymous and not who he is and hiding in the shadows.
This is a Professor of Psychiatry, a member of the Federal Mental Health Commission, and a candidate for Vancouver City Council?
Protect us, Oh Ye Who Guides the Stars.
BY THE WAY...
The Jang photo is taken by Linda Solomon, the sister of Joel Solomon, who is featured in the Robertson story (that will appear tomorrow morning) above.
For those who wonder how bad it can get for cities under the thrall of incompetent politicians who think the can play with the Wall St. boys, here's a quick tale of Birmingham Alabama. It is bankrupt to the tune of $3.2 billion, for a new sewer system,designed to serve a mere 146,000 people. It was initially estimated to cost $250 million. It bumped to $1.2 billion. Then the geniuses who run the city council went to Wall St. hedge fund firms. The debt soon ballooned to $3.2 billion, for a sewer system intended to serve a city the size of Victoria.
But Alabama doesn't brush over these things. So far there are 21 convictions for this scam. More to come. The whole story is in the October 27th issue of Fortune magazine, which is probably read by 4 people in left wing Vancouver. Worth a read. It could happen to us, unless of course we think we're smarter than the folks in Birmingham. That would be a tad elitist, wouldn't it.
Vision council candidate Kerry Jang is a Professor of Psychiatry at UBC and a member of the Federal Mental Health Commission.
He is also a candidate for City Council.
Here is a short story on Jang's behaviour.
At the first Mayoral debate on Oct. 1st at the Library downtown, I asked a question of Ladner and Robertson about busing in ethnic voters who knew little about the issues, didn't speak English and were given fake ballots by the Vision team.
Jang, who was in the audience, sprang to his feet and yelled, "How do you know if they knew the issues?"
The debate continued until its natural conclusion at 9 pm.
When 300+people were milling about after the debate, Jang stood a few feet away from me and glared.
Glared psychotically and threateningly.
I said, "Yes?"
And we went off ranting at me, "I know who you are! I know what you're all about!"
Then he stood a few feet away from me and stared at me with complete hatred.
I have spent half my life working with criminals and drug addicts and I know danger when I see it.
I made sure that I could see him clearly in the crowd until he left. And I made sure I knew where the security people were as well.
Professor of Psychiatry and member of the Federal Mental Health Commission,
Any money that may have been loaned is fully secured by the real estate and by other assets as well," Malek (Millenium principal) said in a brief telephone interview. "There is absolutely no exposure for the taxpayer.None."
Rule of Life # 7: As soon as you hear that everything is safe, head for the life boats.
Today the headlines are all about who leaked the document?
Who cares?
Let's say for a moment that the world is not entirely black or white.
Let's imagine that somewhere in the middle ground All Secret and All Exposed are not reasonable options.
When you hear Philip Owen or any other elected official going on about how the public will know things in due time, of course you are offended by the sheer arrogance.
But certainly it must have been possible, it must still be possible, for City Hall to share enough information with the public about SPENDING $100 MILL LION TAXPAYERS MONEY to satisfy our grubby little curiosity.
Sensitive negotiations can be respected.
But when an elected body of alleged government promises enormous amounts of public funds on a deal shrouded entirely in secrecy, something is off kilter.
And all the happy-go-lucky columnists insisting that everything will be O.K., kids, does not make it either right or suddenly pleasing.
To save his bacon, Peter Ladner must tell us something useful and understandable about this Village Idiot deal.
Standing in the rain in the DTES and talking about 400 square foot portable tin can temporary shelters that are a bad and arrogant idea at the outset will not win the election.
Perhaps the most important thing you need to know about the upcoming civic elections has nothing to do with what the candidates are promising or what their recent crimes may have been.
No.
The really important thing comes from a Frances Bula piece in Saturday's Globe & Mail.
Here it is:
In 2005, the number of people who voted in Vancouver was 32% of eligible voters. In Victoria, 26%; in Prince Rupert, 46%; in Chilliwack, 15% and in Kelowna, 31%.
Hello??????
Tomorrow is a National Holiday.
It is called Remembrance Day.
You buy a poppy from a boy scout and wear it as a badge on the lapel of your raincoat.
But you don't vote.
Let's say it again for the 900th time.
Men and women fought and died in World Wars so that you could have the honorable privilege of throwing away your franchise, behaving like a selfish neanderthal and not exercising your right to vote.
Oh, we know.
You don't like the candidates and this is your little rebellion.
You are too busy.
When we are too busy to practice the simplest rites of democracy, we are rushing headlong to a precipice...and texting while we do it, no doubt.
It is your civic and moral responsibility to vote.
It doesn't matter that the quality of candidates has fallen dreadfully in the last 20 years.
It doesn't matter that you don't like Jack over Bob.
A couple move to Canada for the express purpose of subverting local laws and culture.
Their entire lives are devoted to criminal behaviour. They make fake passports, drivers' licences, marriage certificates and university degrees.
Their work is top notch. The police say it is impossible to "tell the difference."
This is a particularly heinous crime because...if we can't trust identifying documents, what can we trust?
Of course, by now, clever reader that you are, you can see where this is going.
Straight into the judicial toilet.
Out the front door because the police didn't have the right paperwork when they walked into this fine couple's home.
Rights infringed in bust, judge rules
Couple charged with making counterfeit documents acquitted
In throwing out charges of possession of forged documents and instruments of forgery, (Judge)Blouin warned the couple not to look on the acquittal as vindication. The evidence found in their home, the judge said, was a "serious crime" that could impact national security. "Short of violence I can't think of many more serious offences."
But he found the actions of the police even more serious, saying officers had entered the house without "much in the way of grounds."
Read the entire story from The Toronto Star here and light a black candle for Pierre Elliot Trudeau who has given us such a gift that never stops giving.
Oh yes, then go vote for his talented son because he has curly hair.
The line from General Motors to the Cambie Bridge is direct, unavoidable and frightening.
General Motors is a breath away from Don't Bother to Resuscitate.
They have suffered from insufferable mis-management.
The story about two keys - one for the door and one for the trunk - says it all. They couldn't find a CEO who would holler down the line, "One effing key, you eejits!"
And putting all your yeggs in the SUV basket made real sense. As much sense as Lehman Brothers putting all their yeggs in sub-prime mortgages.
Now if GM goes - and we can feel the vacuum rush already - what fun effect will that have on economies round the world?
Iceland is broke? Good grief. There are no safe havens. Unless you're one of the the regular Davos lunchers and you're privy to the Harbours of the Night, wherever they may be.
You think the Olympic Village project is going to be just fine? What's your name, Pete McMartin? What are you injecting these days? No wonder so many educated people support Insite - they know they may need it soon for themselves.
VillageGate has just begun. The mud will thicken considerably. The more you hear a Larry Campbell burp from the Red Chamber "Everything is fine," the more you should worry.
Now, the Vision team is re-writing history.
In George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the pigs, who rule, begin each day by re-writing yesterday on the side of the barn walls.
Gregor Robertson, Raymond Louie et al are calling for a re-vote on the Millennium Loan Caper. They have the bald-faced audacity to claim, on behalf of Louie and other Vision incumbents who were there at the in-camera Give-Away Barbecue and who voted Ay, in favor, that "there were facts we didn't have."
Hahahahahahaha...
Presumably, Ladner and Sullivan and the NPA folks didn't have these mind-altering facts either. What were they all injecting?
This is poli-spin of the most transparent kind.
Get real.
To save his bid for the Mayor's chair, Peter Ladner must give the voters something, some small tidbit of real information, some assurance - if any is possible - that there is a clean upside to this story somewhere in the future.
Until that happens...
The deal stinks, everyone was part of it, shut up and vote already.
Some of you may have been unhappy that I haven't published your comments on Barack Obama's election.
Some of you are cynical and superior about everything.
Loosen up. Try to be gracious and hopeful for a moment. You might even smile, who knows?
Obama has enormous challenges ahead, and no doubt he will stumble, even stumble badly.
But try to keep the blades sheathed until they're really needed.
Until then, allow yourself to consider that a decent and intelligent man - not a god, and certainly a wily politician - is now in the place where a fool has reigned for eight years. That alone should be cause enough for celebration. If you can allow yourself that.
In the meantime, read Maureen Dowd's reflection on matters presidential in the NY Times of the other night, thanks to my good buddy, Bill.
