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.
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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.
4 comments:
My son plays a sport. He is good at it and it is a sport that suits his abilities. Many other boys play this sport too. They are not, what one would call "NHL or NFL" hopefuls, but the play.
We do not get much support and we pay over $200.00 for the boys to play. The club they play for does subsidize their costs but provincial monies help offset insurance costs of about $125.00 per player.
What does Gordo and that idiot(s) ministers for sport (3 of them, count them 3!) want? Only NHL hopefuls and Olympic ability only children to play sports?
What they will get is a tranche of boys and girls who will turn to "sex, drugs, and rock 7 roll" instead of playing sports.
Maybe Gordo's drug dealing gangster friends (you know, the guys who use the relaxed Casino rules to launder drug money) need more cash flow from children.
Let's face facts here, Gordo and his mob of degenerates are stealing monies earmarked for children to pay for strictly political decisions (to enrich political cronies) such as RAV/Canada Line; turnstiles for SkyTrain; Gateway; and the new Gordon Campbell Fraser River Bridge.
Anyone who now supports the Olympics, supports cronyism, gangsterism, money laundering, drug dealing and corruption.
Evil Eye
I heard that the provincial government is giving "medals", imprinted with provincial government stuff, to the labourers who helped build Olympic facilities. A friend of mine was given two "medals" by mistake and just gave one away to a buddy. How much money, I ask you, has the government spent on these hundreds if not thousands of medals they are giving out to people already making $30 hour or more? My blood is boiling!
I was what is considered an at risk child. Parental alcoholism.
The arts were my salvation. I wasn't very good at sports but I sure recognize their value.
I found creativity in the other programs that seem to get cut quite often.
Band,drama, and Creative writing classes.
The classes that allowed me to find a place in life and lessen the stress of a difficult childhood. It's most likely the reason i never turned to drugs.Tried smoking dope and it put me to sleep. Not what you want when you're trying to create.
Small amounts of money and a huge return in keeping kids happy,active and connected.
the bottom line for the Liberals is the bottom line. This Gov't needs money in a bad way and they will take it from the poor and the middle class way before they'll take it from the rich ( or the upper 10 percent as they are often called ). Just wait for the cuts to come after the Olympics and those bills start to roll in ! You ain't seen nothing yet as they say.
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