Children are NOT a Priority of this Government

Despite the protestations of Children & Family Minister Tom Christensen, it is clear that the Monumental Premier does not keep short people clearly in his sights.

No, he is busy with roads and bridges and ski runs and business-destroying transit lines.

Judge Thomas Gove made large and small and all-significant recommendations in his 1995 report.

Judge Ted Hughes did the same in 2006.

Both came to their similar conclusions after substantial expense of public monies; expenditures which would be welcomed if anyone bothered to listen or follow-up with that word so foreign to governments - "ACTION."

Now, May Ellen Turpel-Lafond. the province's new watchdog for children and youth, has issued an almost identical report calling for a new kind of attentiveness.

Of course, The Minister, who should have resigned last year when yet another child "in care" died, has said, "We welcome the report. It is consistent with the direction we are going in."

The Tom Christensens and Gordon Campbells of the world just never quite get it, do they?

Christensen rolls out all the numbers and dollars they are spending to improve matters. New bodies, new "systems."

But it's not about more money, more workers, more computer programs.

It's about getting the people on the front lines really, sharply tuned to the subtleties of working with families and children at risk.

What are the real issues? The real indicators of trouble? The real signposts of safety? Whom can be trusted? Whom cannot? When is the right time and where is the right place for intervention? Families or fosters?

Every situation is new, yet every situation holds some echo of the one before it.

This government continues to ignore children at risk. And when, in embarrassment and desperation in finally turns to the matter it hand, it inevitable responds with what it knows - throw more green at the problem, buy it off.

Maybe that works for ferry boats and lumber mills, but it doesn't work for the suffering child.

Charter This!

Will some Canadian government ever find the courage to rid us of Trudeau's most heinous legacy - The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Or, at the very least, amend it, so that it is no longer an instrument of avoidance for felons?

A career criminal - at the old age of 23! - pleads guilty to murder. His victim's shot up body is found in the murderer's trunk. He further admits to an undercover cop that he expects to get 25 years at least because he definitely killed this guy.

Result?

Court declares his Charter rights were somehow compromised and he serves two years for spitting on the sidewalk, or something.

Moments after his release from Kiddy Jail, he is found in his apartment with enough high powered weapons to begin a small revolution.

The Charter is a laughing stock.

Change it or chuck it.

CODA: The scoff's armament-filled apartment is in Yaletown on Homer Street.

I wonder if The Nutty Mayor has appealed to the Preem, "No shooting after 2 am, please!"

Give it Up

Not one of the people on the BC Ferry's board, all of whom voted themselves exorbitant pay raises, is skinny.

They are all managing quite well, thank you very much and they need another $50,000 and $1,500 per meeting like I need more polka music.

Jimmy Pattison is the role model here.

He ran Expo 86 day in and day out, counting which food stands did better and picking up candy wrappers, for $1. That's right, one dollar.

The already sufficiently comfortable heads of corporations who sit on public boards like the BC Ferry Corpulence should VOLUNTEER THEIR TIME.

End of story.

How Often is a Trombone?