Sentimental Journey

A pollster has taken the Canadian public's pulse regarding the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) of Stephen harper & Iggy Pop.

Yawn.

Try my poll...so to speak...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Pretty much any time you go into the back country, you're taking a risk. And you accept those risks every time you do. You have to be smart. But what happened isn't going to stop me from going up there today, tomorrow, the next day."

Time to Change

The numbers are telling and chilling and unavoidable.

Among Indians 25 to 64 years of age, 38 per cent have failed to complete high school. For non-aboriginals, the figure is 15 per cent. Only three per cent of registered Indians have a university degree, compared to 18 per cent for the general population.

The system that has been in place for some time now doesn't work.

The "system" is that Ottawa gives band councils the cash and the local bands, rife with corruption and nepotism, dispense the funds.

Except that nobody knows how, where or when.

Calvin Helin, a Vancouver aboriginal lawyer and author, says its way past time to change "the system" and get the money where it needs to be - in the hands of the future students.

In addition to being part of the news story quoted above, Mr. Helin is the co-author of an editorial on the subject.

Read it.

It's your money and our future.

Travel Plans

The lovely city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just a hop, skip and a jump from El Paso, Texas is an interesting place.

Only 2,601 people were killed in "drug violence" last year.

That makes over 18,000 similarly killed since 2007.

Where's my passport, now?

Climb Every Mountain

People die in Avalanches in Canada every year.

Many people.

14 last year.

• 2 - Confirmed deaths in the slide
• 30 - Injured, including three seriously and one in critical condition
• 150-200 - People directly in the path of the avalanche
• 4 - Search-and-rescue teams at the site of the avalanche
• 5 - Canine units deployed
• 3 - Helicopters
• 4 - Years the Big Iron Shootout has been held
• 4 - Avalanche deaths in British Columbia backcountry so far this winter
• 26 - Deaths in 2008-2009
• 13 - Deaths in 2007-2008
• 148 - Deaths over the past 11 years

The folks who took to the hills in their $75,000 toys this weekend were well aware of the dangers.

They were emailing one another in advance with warnings.

"....the insanely high avalanche danger that is going to play a HUGE (their caps) factor this weekend."

So, otherwise reasonable, sane adults - some of whom own 5 snowmobiles in one family - choose to do what they do.

Kash Heed is looking at regulation.

Good luck.

Why not give them a Safe Snowmobiling Site and provide medical staff to help them climb clean?

Peace, Order and Good Goverrnment

From the inside, it looks a mess.

Or how else to explain the Urge to Blog?

Bit from the Outside, Canada is veering very close to Heaven on Earth.

Not only are we much admired round the crazy spinning globe, but now those mad handicappers who like to bet long shots on currency are taking dead straight aim at the Loonie.

Why?

Well, like the headline suggests, we are seen as a reasonable and well-ordered people.

Who knew?

And the Other One is...

What Happened?

In the last two days, I have heard two things I had never heard before about a local restaurant.

The Cafe de Paris on Denman near Robson has been a favorite place for Vancouverites for years to have a good steak and French Fries.

The first thing I heard on Friday is that it is now permanently closed.

Then yesterday a friend told me that the restaurant had always been a favorite place for people to buy and sell Cocaine.

Is that true? Was that true?

So I went back in The Province archives and found this story dated two months ago.

Daughter asks: Have you seen my father?

Jon-Michael Preece last seen near home Nov. 30

By Jack Keating, The ProvinceJanuary 15, 2010

The owner disappeared.

Is there an update on this mystery?

Has Preece been found?

Is this a Cold Case?

Is this a drug story?

If you have learned something more current, please share it with us.

One of the Two Greatest Jazz Ballads of All Time

Just Hold Up Your Hand, Dear

You're cousin, Bobby, being the shmock that he is, is texting his girlfriend and walks smack into a moving bus.

You go to the hospital and you get the following report from the Head Nurse.

Bobby is "progressing with difficulty."

Translation?

He's about 12 shakes from dead.

Or. he's "progressing well."

Translation - he ate prunes last night and he read half a newspaper column before drifting back into a sort of coma.

Or, he's "progressing very well."

Meaning, he's organized the ward volleyball tournament and had sand brought in for the first round of competition.

Isn't modern language helpful?

Now, Ontario teachers are getting fed up with hysterical parents shrieking that their little brat got a "C" in multicultural understanding or sex ed or whatever the topic of the day was.

So, ABC's are going out the report card window.

The new cards will say...

You guessed it, you clever ragamuffins, "progressing with difficulty, progressing etc, etc. etc..."

Which means that even if little Hymie or Patel or Shafik or Erin can't spell "mouse" or rhyme it with spouse or house or louse, he/she will always be "progressing" in some form or other.

Now.

Aren't we sleeping better knowing that the education of our children and grandchildren is in such good hands?

Sshhhh...we're making money here!

Big Pharma sells billions of dollars of product to the Ontario Government.

To sweeten the deal, Pharma gives Ontario huge rebates - some rumoured at 40% or better.

That's called doing business.

But, lest other buyers all round the drug-addicted world complain and want maybe a similar deal, Pharma and Ontario carry out their transactions under the famous Cone of Silence.

That's also called doing business.

Now, a bunch of nasty, selfish truth-tellers want this info out in public.

The frightening argument is that this is tax money, public money, that is being spent.

Lots of public money.

God forbid the public should ever know how its money is being handled.

Pharma is now running around with great big black hoodies, trying to shushhh everybody up, lest word get out that they really make such enormous profits that they can easily discount - if the order if large enough, Serge - by almost half.

Keep in mind that pharmaceuticals comprise the biggest single charge in our bloated GDP-devouring health care budgets.

God forbid there might be any transparency in this bazaar.

Just Stop it, You Two

Oh, look.

A B.C. Provincial government is union-busting.

B.C. Health Minister proposes ambulance shakeup

Paramedics could be rolled into new union, but that's a way to break up their local, CUPE official says

What is this - the '60's?

I've now been here in Vancouver almost 50 years.

As long as I can remember, this kind of headline has been a staple.

Can these two groups - government and unions - ever get along in Frontier Land?

I guess that'll happen when the Israelis and the Arabs get it together.

Cellular Division

The other day I wrote about the town of Tofino, which wants no Starbucks, Tim Hortons or Big Macs clouding up its pristine landscape.

As usual, some people called me names.

(There are many among us who know only one way of disagreeing with someone - make a personal attack. They are called children.)

Well, get out the insults, because I've found another little paradise that wants to pull a Brigadoon and stay out of the calendar.

It's the lovely little village of New Denver in the Kootenay Mountain/Slocan Valley neighbourhood.

I've stayed there overnight on a bicycle trip. I like it a lot.

New Denver doesn't want cell phones.

And Telus, being the giant monster that it is, can't brook that idea.

WHAT? SOMEONE DOESN'T WANT US???

So Entwhistle and Co. have gone to all the right authorities to get the RIGHT to do business in New Denver.

The towers are going up as we speak.

Soon the 600 people in New Denver can walk into moving traffic while texting just like everyone else in the so-called civilized world.

One of the "progressives" claims that B&B's and Inns and coffee shops are losing thousands of dollars because tourists won't come to a place with no cell service.

Hogswill.

Cells are an obsession.

Idiots can't see the trees and the architecture in front of them because they must talk and text.

I welcome some No Cell Zones.

Stay small, New Denver.

It's a good thing.

Plant Me, Baby

This is the way we spend your money, spend your money, spend your money...

Somewhere in federal offices, there are two potted plants that cost taxpayers $975 each, a $1,000 doorbell and three rolling blinds worth $1,400.

And that's not even mentioning the $1,000 charge to remove and reconnect a light switch.

QUESTION: How many Tories does it take to change a light switch?

ANSWER: We don't know, but the bill is a cool grand.

And all of this, which the Federal government has actually stood up in Parliament and defended with straight faces, goes to their favorite building managers SNC-Lavalin.

The group oversees some 320 federal properties across the land.

Whose cousin are they?

How did they get all this biz?

Does anybody monitor their performance?

Can you say, "Corruption?" Boys and Girls.

But soft...

It's just that we don't understand the issues.

You see...

Charlie Rate, executive vice-president at SNC-Lavalin, acknowledged that “$1,000 sounds ridiculous for a doorbell.” However, he explained the cost included a voltage transformer and 15 metres of wiring, as well as drywall and a paint job.

“You get up to that number quite quickly,” Mr. Rate said. “These are justifiable when you look at the details behind them.”

Regarding the two exotic plants, he explained the pots included irrigating systems, and that the total cost included delivery and fertilizing, among other things.

Now, aren't we feeling better?

Irrigating systems and fertilizing, right.

With real good manure, no doubt.

Berry Berry Berry Patch

It's instructive to listen to Malcolm Brodie, the Mayor of Richmond kvetching about a recent purchase by his government.

Richmond just paid 5 times the going price for a piece of land.

The government of Canada and the Musqueam band received almost $60 Million for a piece of real estate that was clocked at less than $10 Million.

Brodie voted against this purchase.

And here's what he had to say:

“We bought the land controlled by the agricultural land commission. But what we can do with it? Neither council nor the community has a common vision. To do this without public input has some real drawbacks."

"To do this without public input has some real drawbacks."

That's my favorite part.

Brodie and his City Manager built the skating oval with almost NO input from Richmond citizens.

Now, you can argue that all of that has turned out just fine and you may be right.

But either you work with your community or you don't.

For the good Mayor to complain at this late date is a little disingenuous.

Meanwhile, back at the berry patch...

Richmond City Council has no plans for their new acquisition.

It must be a marvelous luxury to be able to spend $60 Million worth of taxpayers money on something you'll just hang on to for a while until you can think of a fun thing to to with it.

American Heart

The New World

The Globe's front page story today is about the New Face of Canada.

In short, it is and will be "visible minority" face.

That is bringing and will continue to bring new excitement, new possibilities, and new challenges and struggles as cultures rub hard up against one another.

Canada, since the European invasions, has always been a country of immigrants.

Until now, the new Canadians have been largely, mostly, white Europeans.

That caused enough friction and comedy.

Now, every second citizen is from China or India or Africa and a hundred other places round the world.

On the same front page, the niqab/burka melodrama continues in Quebec.

If any story reveals the "challenges," this is it.

What is so interesting is that the Quebec authorities have been absolutely unequivocal.

“There is no ambiguity on this question: If you want to [attend] our classes, if you want to integrate in Quebec society, here our values are that we want to see your face,” Immigration Minister Yolande James said.

On Monday, Christine St-Pierre, the Quebec minister responsible for the status of women, called the niqab and burka “ambulatory prisons” that violate a woman's right to equality.

To complicate matters, the Muslim Canadian Congress, which has called for a ban, applauded Quebec's attitude toward the niqab and burka.

“This is an attire worn in the desert during sandstorms. It's got nothing to do with religion,” said Tarek Fatah, founder of the congress. “It's a very clear sign that women are the possessions of men, and it's being thrust on North America and Europe. Most Muslims are fed up with the niqab and burka.”

It is rare in this politically correct, terribly self-conscious country to see this kind of clear, declamatory positioning.

There is so much that new Canadians bring to the mix -p new and old energies and ideas, wealth, enthusiasm.

And there is so much that we are afraid to ask of new Canadians.

The written driver's test in British Columbia should not be available in 170 languages, including dozens of local Chinese dialects, peculiar to regions and town in the People's republic. It should be available in our two official languages, French and English. Period.

A month ago, I stepped out of a coffee shop to speak to three young men.

I was friendly and polite and non-threatening.

I said Hi and asked where they were from.

When they told me Korea, I greeted them in one of the few Korean phrases I know.

They were pleased.

That allowed me to point out that I had been sitting in the window having my coffee and in the last few minutes I had watched one of them spit on the side walk six times.

I added that 1) I found this personally disgusting and sickening; 2) Spitting on the sidewalk is against the law in BC; & 3) It's a cultural thing. It's just not done here.

The boys were very kind and respectful and offered that they didn't know any of this and that they would be mindful to not continue this habit.

We all shook hands.

But the question remains...

Why didn't they know?

Because we are not spending time with new Canadians and short-term student Canadians and telling them a few simple truths about their new home.

My mother - may she rest in peace - told me years ago that the future of humankind was..."somewhat chocolate."

In another words, the only and best and inevitable way that we will get past all the racial and other differences in the Family of Man/Woman will be intermarriage.

She was right.

But until we get there, we could do a lot better job about honestly getting to know one another and being clear about our mutual expectations.

Art Smart

The Vancouver Art gallery is fighting about its future.

Location, that is.

Stay put and dig down deep for more space.

Or move to that former bus depot spot near the QE?

Many have rightly argued that the VAG doesn't really have the stellar collection that would warrant really really big bucks being spent on a monumental edifice designed by some terribly famous world-beating architect.

But I disagree.

I think a monumental edifice designed by some terribly famous world-beating architect is exactly what Vancouver needs.

That's what cities do.

They declare themselves.

Boldly.

They commission Big Guys & Dolls to build Big Stuff and we all look at the thing every day in passing and every few months we even go in and gawk around and have an expensive coffee and buy a few over-priced note cards and call it a day out.

Why not?

That's what cities have always done all over the world.

Build it and they will come.

School kids and tourists come and pay money. People buy souvenirs. They spend money at hotels.

If we could spend gazillions on Olympics and Trade & Convention Centres, why not spent a bundle on a terrific new crazy-looking beautiful controversial Vancouver Art Gallery?

And while we're at it let's throw in a music and theatre complex.

We laughingly call ourselves a world-class city.

We delude ourselves that the Olympic event - for all that it was great fun and came off beautifully - will now transform us and put us on the map.

Get serious.

Build a new Art Gallery.

Hold a world-wide open competition.

Hire the best.

Spend the money.

Do it.

Wheeeeeee...

Heaven.

Eden.

No Starbucks.

No Tim's.

No Big Mac.

Welcome to the tough, free-thinking pristine community of Tofino.

The local town council is drafting a bill outlawing these and other fast-food chains.

I love it.

Tofino, you rock!