How I Voted

I voted yesterday.

I will be out of town on November 15th, so I voted at a surprisingly busy Dunbar Community Centre polling station.

Following is the list of people for whom I voted.

In each case, I voted for these people because I know them or know something or two about them that I like.

I did not vote for the terminally cute.

MAYOR

Peter Ladner, NPA

COUNCILLOR

Suzanne Anton, NPA

David Cadman, COPE

Heather Deal, Vision

Michael Geller, NPA

Lea Johnson

Raymond Louie, Vision

Tim Stephenson, Vision

PARK COMMISSIONER

Constance Barnes, Vision

Sarah Blyth, Vision

Richard Mayencourt

Ian Robertson, NPA

Marty Zlotnik, NPA

SCHOOL TRUSTEE

Patti Baccus, Vision

Heather Holden, NPA

Eileen Le Gallais, NPA

Tactic - Nothing More

Robertson drops fare fight, pays up

Gregor Robertson and his team have acknowledged that continuing the story of Gregor Skips His Fare and Kvetches in Court is a real lose-lose proposition.

Will people notice that this was bad decision making and bad karma from start to finish?

Probably not.

The team have correctly understood that they have nine days to go and they do not want FAREGATE staring at them on November 15th.

They are right, for all that they have been wrong.

I May Have to Get My News from Somewher Else

I'm a newspaper guy.

I like to read the local daily in the morning.

It's a habit I developed as kid growing up in Winnipeg reading the Free Press.

As I approach 66, I may soon have to abandon and adjust.

The new look of the Vancouver Sun offends me.

On Tuesday night, Barack Obama was declared President Elect of the Unites States of America.

On Wednesday morning, the lower half of the Sun's front page was unreadable irrelevant opinionation by Barbara Daffy about how Obama's presidency will effect Canada. I guess this is some editorial committee's notion of "news you can use," a phrase I detest.

I don't read the news to "use it."

I read the news to be informed.

This morning, the bottom half of the Sun's front page is an unreadable irrelevant opinionation by religion writer Douglas Todd about how Obama's presidency will effect assisted suicide issues in Canada.

If I want to read messages from the Pope, I'll check into the Vatican News, thank you very much. For all of Todd's writing skill and attempts to be interested in all things religious, he is writing in my opinion always as a Christian. That's not a bad thing. It is simply that I am not interested. I am especially not interest on the front page where I want to learn about what is going on today somewhere in the world.

In short, I may not last much longer with this newspaper.

They want me to read all their blogs. Sorry, got a blog of my own - n0t interested. And they want me to care about their columnists on the front page. No thanks.

Susan Rocks On

Province page 7 - full page ad - November 5th/08

Who paid for this full page ad that is masquerading as a news story - tiny
print at the top of the page....."special information report". Hmmmmm.....
"Focus on the Canada Line" - featuring new businesses along the line.
Certainly not the individual small businesses.

Canada Line? The CVBIA? Real Estate developers? TransLink? City of
Vancouver?
Provincial government?

Fabulous PR. When do the rest of the Small Businesses that have endured
three years of neglect and generic project promoting spin, have our full
page info-mercials in the Province forward news?

No mention of 'Dadeo's' - the last celebrated new business to come in after
Tomato left Dadeo's has been closed for two months now. Along with scores of
others.

I guess it might be a bit awkward to spin how many families have been nearly
bankrupted, and are desperately clinging to what's left of their once
successful businesses. I guess the nice new road is irrelevant when you've
already lost everything.
But hey. Things are so-oo pretty now, what with all the new park benches and
sidewalks. People will forget, right? They will forget how this Provincial
government just wiped out our life savings, and ran us over with their
Olympic train.

Breaking news. There is nothing to celebrate on Cambie until the despicable
way the small businesses have been tricked and treated is rectified with
compensation.

Money seems to be no obstacle for this project - to continue unmitigated, to
spend millions on slick ads to promote itself, and to fight any attempt from
the community for compensation for the loss of all we once had have, both in
and out of court.

Gordon Campbell even recently tossed another $53 million of taxpayer money
to Canada Line when they gambled and lost their operating funds in the
sub-prime mortgage market.
Petty cash for this bunch. But zilch for the families who invested their
lives in this community.
SNC Lavalin has millions in profits for this year - even in this economic
downturn, yet our government props them up, and stubbornly refuses any
operating money for the businesses that they destroyed.

There is no excuse for this abuse of power.

Susan Heyes
HAZEL&CO
Cambie Street
604 687-0721

A Criminal Justice Veteran Speaks Out

Hi David

Thanks for the emails leading me to your blog. I think your position on the requirement to testify is bang on with the exception you are blaming the wrong people. The culprit in this matter is the law thanks to Pierre Trudeau and the wonderful Canadian Charter. The real issue in all of this is do we have two sets of laws one for the community of criminals and another for the police. The Charter guarantees certain rights one of which is a fair trial for all. In the case of the RCMP and the tasering issue there is only one question to be answered and that is "did the RCMP members act within the force options as set out in the RCMP procedures"? That is it. If they did go to the next step and examine the procedures and determine whether or not the use of tasers under certain circumstances is a useful tool for the police. Does it save more lives and injury for the police and suspect or doesn't it?

We have been very careful in this Country to ensure the right to a fair trial takes precedent over all other considerations. Unfortunately, we have a prosecution in this Province that has lost its way. The job of the prosecutor is to present evidence under the rules of law to the court. In the US the prosecutors are not the friend of the defendant or the police the are the enemy and should be. The RCMP should not be compelled to testify at any hearing prior to a decision being made about criminal charges the same right all citizens enjoy.

If the people of Canada are so appalled by the system which we all share why in hell are they not doing something about it. Did you see anything in the last election that placed this issue as a priority for any of the Parties? No.

Unfortunately I must declare myself to be one of the crazies like you that believe our enabling approach to the drug problem is dead wrong. By that I mean dead wrong for the addicts. We both have worked extensively with addicts and know that approaches like needle exchange and safe injections sites lead to more deaths of addicts than the average person can imagine.

I realize most people think the RCMP are trying to cover-up the incident. That is preposterous when you consider it is such a public story. They, in my opinion, are doing what they have to do to protect the rights of four citizens who happen to be members of the RCMP.

Vern Campbell

It Won't be Very Long