MORE STREET TALK

Should the homeless be allowed to risk life and limb by sleeping outside in cold weather?

Should we, the righteous, be allowed to intervene?

Do civil rights trump the preservation of life?

These are just a few of the questions being raised by the prospect of a new law in BC that would allow the police to take homeless people to shelters against their wills when the weather is miserable and life-threatening.

Somehow we must find a balance as a community between the extremes of a jackboot police state that is only concerned about cosmetics and a laizzez-faire do-nothing society that allows people to die in our streets in the name of freedom.

This is what I think.

Police and others should be encouraged to actively try to get homeless people into shelters as often as possible even when the weather is not particularly life threatening. If that makes police occasional social workers, so be it. Often, they are already being social workers and that's fine.

If a street person absolutely and resolutely refuses to move to an offered shelter, what are we supposed to do? Some would argue that we must act on that person's behalf and move him or her to safety against his or her will. He hasn't the clear mental capacity to make the decision for himself, goes the argument.

I would say that only in the rarest of instances should we use force and compel the move.

What are those rare cases?

I can't say.

But when it comes to life and death decisions, people on the front lines, like the police, make these choices quite often, usually unnoticed and unheralded.

I think the guiding principle should be encouragement, rather than law and force. And active, regular encouragement. Deliver the message on a daily basis that living on the street is not the best idea and that alternatives exist. If, in fact, they do exist.

If, on rare occasion, force or law is brought into a situation as a last resort, I will have o judge that moment when I see it.

DEFENDING THE SCARY

Canadian courts are continuing to do their level best at protecting the rights of criminals and terrorists.

Mohamed Harkat lives in Ottawa. He has been an al-Qaeda terrorism suspect since 2002, and, as such, under heavy surveillance by CSIS and other police forces.

Colin Freeze, writing in the Globe, calls this "extremely onerous house-arrest conditions."

I have a news flash for Mr. Freeze.

What is extremely onerous is that terrorism suspects are living next door to us, that what's onerous.

Now another wise judge has spoken, This one has decided that Harkat's years in custody and under surveillance have reduced the threat Harkat may once have posed to national security.

Really?

Clearly the good judge was not a fan of the Monkey's, who could have easily taught him that "I'm a believer," holds true for lovers and fanatics of many a stripe.

THE STREETS

On Friday, I parked the car on Cordova near Abbott.

I had a meeting with a colleague in his offices on Water Street.

While I was paying for my metered parking with my cell phone, an addict came up beside me saying, "I don't want to interrupt you, sir, but..."

I was listening on my cell phone to the instructions from the robotic voice on which numbers to press and when.

I waved the guy off, as in, "Get away from me."

An hour later, I was returning to my car.

Suddenly, someone was yelling at me. I just about jumped out of my crinkly old skin.

Of course, it was another addict, who also didn't want to bother me but...

Coming up behind people and hollering isn't on this guy's list of Not Great Ways to Start a Productive Negotiation.

When he made his inevitable pitch for money, well, imagine how surprised you'll be when you learn that I said, "No."

It's a wondrous great thing that all these elected officials over the past thirty years have wrought for us with all their grand schemes and solutions to problems and designs for a New World.

The face of so many years of bad public policy is right there for all of us to see - and survive - on our very own streets.

This morning, Rich Coleman announces that he will pass legislation that will empower police and others to take the homeless of the streets in really bad weather.

David Eby, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, questions the timing of this initiative, its real life efficacy and its potential clash with our famous Bill of rights.

"Whether we like it or not, staying out on the streets is their right."

Who can say why, after all these years, the BC Liberal government has chosen this moment to care about the homeless.

2010? Very possibly.

It is well nigh impossible to see the Campbell administration doing anything that isn't cravenly political in its intent.

Nevertheless, getting freezing, starving, soaked people of the street for a few nights, even against their will, is not such a terrible bad thing to do...if you can do it without breaking their arms or tasering them dead while you're at it.

On the other hand...Eby's points are all well taken. Taking people off the streets, while it may be what those of us who live in homes find most desirable, is not as easy or as simple as it sounds.

As Will Lohman's wife said, "Attention must be paid."

POWER POLITICS AND ANGER

David Shribman is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and executive editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

He has written a terrific guest column featured in today's Globe about the animus that has characterized the health care debate in America.

In short, he argues that this fight is about the role of government in people's lives and the power that they may or may not have or relinquish.

Please read this piece.

NOT SPEEDING TO A CONCLUSION

The police are a riot. Really.

A yellow Corvette and a black Corvette go screaming by on a main thoroughfare in sunny downtown Surrey.

By the time they are finished their little imitation of the Indy 500, an 83-year old man sitting quietly on a bench at a bus stop has lost his legs.

Now here's the official report.

Police Friday were careful not to say “street racing,” but are investigating witness reports that both cars, which were apparently Corvettes, were driving alongside one another.

They're looking at whether speed was a factor.

You think?

Mr. Yellow Racer has sped away into the ether.

The police are questioning Mr. Black Racer.

THE LACK OF HARMONY TAX

Most of the powers that be are determined to assure us that the approaching HST will be good for us and that it makes imminent sense.

Balls.

Economists at the TD Bank differ.

Their report states clearly that while Big Biz will find a $6.9 BILLION windfall, you and I will be paying more for practically everything.

And that includes the food we buy at the grocery store and the food we eat in restaurants.

Nice.

No small wonder Bill van der Zalm and Carole James are doing the public tango together today in protest.

Like your phone can cable services don't cost enough, they'll be going up.

So will prescription drugs. That's helpful to the economy in general and to the aging population in particular.

This is a bad idea at any time.

In this climate it is suicidal.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

Canada's Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, has apologized for her department sending body bags to native communities in the north.

The minister is herself an aboriginal and her apology was clearly deeply felt and sincere.

As it should have been for an act so insensitive and downright stupid.

Native leaders have turned their backs on the apology, which is their right.

200 body bags.

What were these idiots thinking?

Iggy Pop has seized the opportunity for another foto op. What a ghoul. How desparate is this geek?

To my posting on this subject, I received far too many ugly racist comments, most of which I rejected.

TOYING WITH SUCCESS

Judge Thomas Gove is featured in today's Globe, sharing with us his feelings about the Downtown Community Court.

His report is largely anecdotal and it is encouraging in the tiniest way.

But the central problem remains unaddressed.

A community court that directs addicts and others to responsive treatment is the right idea IF AND ONLY IF AND WHEN SUCH REAL TREATMENT EXISTS IN THE REAL COMMUNITY.

Here, in Vancouver, such treatment is by and large not available. Ask any parent of any young drug abuser.

Not only is such low-cost results-oriented treatment not available, most of the powers that be actively argue against it. They would rather hand out more needles and free crack pipe kits and open more clean shooting galleries, including mobile units that will bring addict nightmares to your local neighbourhood.

Not too far away however...

In Winnipeg, for the past 35 years, courts have been consistently sending addicts and others to the Behavioural Health Foundation. On a budget of around $6 Million a year, the BHF works with over 100 people in residence at a time. Do the math. That's about $60,000 a year per client. Cheap. Lunch money.

Results? BHF now claims over One Million Clean Man Days. Each day one client remains clean and sober is a Clean Man Day.

I was there recently. I met women who, after years of prostitution and addiction, are completing their school programs, re-uniting with their children and families and moving back into the community as strong, independent citizens.

Now, why isn't such a program here in BC?

Well, you ask that question of the politicians and the "experts."

They will give you every manner of excuse. But the truth is that if they weren't all sleeping under the same cozy blanket, if they weren't all beholden to a thousand interlocking bureaucrats with a million irrelevant rules-as-obstacles, BHF could open a facility here this afternoon and help Thomas Gove and his Community Court.

Until then, the good Judge's brave efforts can continue to be called "an experiment."

My god, an experiment?

That court and the kind of treatment that is available but not supported here should have been public policy 40 years ago.

TROJAN HORSES

Health Canada.

Don't you just love 'em?

Determined to get the jump on the H1N1 pandemic, Health Canada has sent some goodies to a number of northern Indian Reserves, which appear to be much at risk.

Oh, look, a big box from Ottawa. Let's open it up, Mother and see what the good White Man has sent us, the Big Old Lovable Sweetheart.

Yes, there are sanitizers and hand wash, and masks and...and...what the heck!

Body bags.

That's right.

Body bags.

Nice. Thoughtful.

A number of the native leaders returned these handsome gifts to the front door of the Winnipeg offices of Health Canada.

Genius.

Thank goodness we have this level of brilliance working for us.

And sensitivity.

Gone with the Wind

Is a citizen's right to privacy holy? Written in blood? Sacrosanct?

Suppose you steal or murder and you are caught.

Don't you suddenly forfeit much of that supposed right?

Well not apparently if you are a snivel serpent.

Two tax-agency workers diverted refunds to their accounts

Almost half a million dollars gone, but so are the crooks and our best friend in the whole world, Rev Canada, will not tell us their names or if they were ever charged or convicted of anything.

This will be especially cheering the next time we pay something on our tax accounts and get to think about the criminals who are stealing our money.

OOPS THERE

Yesterday it was Mobina Jaffer, Senator, Lawyer and Heavy Biller.

Today, it's former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer.

Are they related? I have no idea.

Mr. Jaffer forever entered my bad books when, in 2001, he had his assistant impersonate him for an interview on a certain radio station that employed me at the time. His assistant lied, of course, and said that Jaffer wasn't aware of the subterfuge.

You could just hear the scofflaw laughing at his bum boy and saying, "Hey, I've got lots to do. You do the interview. It's on the telephone. They won't know whose voice it is. Hahaha..."

It takes a certain warped mentality to play with the perceptions of radio broadcasters and their audiences so cavalierly.

Well, now Jaffer is really in the soup.

DUI and cocaine charges.

This is a guy who used to run anti-drug ads in the local press.

Perfect.

A WORK IN PROGRESS - soon I will perfect this technology and I can do video monologues here each morning...

PUBLIC SAFETY

With yet another dreadful assault on a bus driver, Transclunk has been busy wringing its little paws in public.

Get serious.

Drivers should be entirely protected inside plexiglass cover and have nothing - repeat nothing - to do with the maniacs who get on their vehicles. The sole focus of drivers should be driving.

Security guards should be on every - repeat every - bus.

Passengers should be able to "enjoy" the safety and security of a ride unmarred by drunken craziness.

This will cost money.

So be it.

Try collecting fares on your Skytrain, dimwits.

24

Mobina Jaffer has many firsts to her name.

First East Indian, first Muslim and first African appointed to the Canadian Senate.

Now, she has added a new distinction.

She can't add.

When not lolling about in the highly productive Red Chamber, Jaffer has been representing a Catholic order in some troublesome lawsuits they've been fighting over child abuse in residential schools.

Only problem is the Law Society, who will normally put up with almost anything to protect their own members, is investigating Jaffer and her son for billing improprieties.

Among the other tell-tale signs that not all was kosher in the lawyer's charges was this choice item:

Charges made for more hours than there are in a day.

Of course, so much of what we do in life is based on our belief systems.

Who knows? Maybe Jaffer subscribes to ideas that claim there are infinite numbers of hours in a day. Thus, her defense could reasonably be Freedom of Religion.

Yes, that's it.

I've got it now.

Case closed.

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.

THE FRONT PAGE

It is not often that the front page gives us three chewable morsels, but today is just such a day:

1. That heat-seeking missile known as Jack "I have no idea" Layton is delighting in the spotlight as he and Iggy Pop strive for The Election That No Person in This Country Wants. Read John Ibbitson's column dissecting the idiocy that substitutes for political discourse these days in Canerda.

2. The Canadian military and the Canadian embassy are giving up on their Great Firecracker Scheme. Thank God for small mercies.

In case you missed it, some genius decided that Americans weren't appreciating enough our wonderful efforts in Afghanistan. The way to get their attention, genius surmised, was to build a fake Afghan village in the backyard of the Canucklehead embassy in Washington, D.C. and, using Hollywood pyrotechnics, blow the things up with much gusto and noise.

It has taken Defense Minister Peter McKay to rush to the rescue of these fools and point out that blowing things up and causing smoke and noise a few blocks from the White House just days after September 11th is not exactly the swiftest of all possible party plans.

Perhaps you think I am making up all of this. Read, read.

3. Snivel serpents at Transpo Can have now spent close to $11 Million on nothing.

Yes, that's right.

They are billing many fun expenses on a project that doesn't exist, even if the expenses have nothing to do with the imaginary project. Proximity will do. If your meal was anywhere within 500 kilometres of what might some day become the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, then hey, Helen, claim away!

The only problem with this little Monopoly game is that the dollars spent are...yes, real Canadian Tax dollars that you and I have earned and shelled over to these miscreants.

Will any ever be prosecuted?

DOUBT!

REBELLION

Part of the process of individuation is making choices that distinguish us from our parents and families.

The banker can pretty much expect his son to become a rock drummer.

But little Jeffrey Bronfman has taken this notion to comically new heights.

In a story that could easily have been, or might yet become, a Hollywood script, we find JB, a Jew and the son of the largest whiskey sellers in history now running a "religion" in the wilds of New Mexico that is part Christianity, part psychedelic tea and zero consumption of alcohol.

Hahahahaha...

Really, you can't write material like this.

But, if for no other reason than to prove that your jaw is still working this morning (It will drop as you read.), you should try consuming this little fable.