Even in 2007, fight against racism continues
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Someone asked Diane Parker recently if the stand against racism she is organizing isn’t just another special-interest group looking for attention. Does anyone really believe our immigrant population is a special-interest group? And do they also believe that taking a public position that states racism and discrimination are wrong is just attention-seeking? Parker is the new diversity education co-ordinator for Kamloops Immigrant Services (KIS). It’s her job — just less than a month in the position — to put together the annual event that marks the International day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21. Traditionally in Kamloops, supporters gather outside the courthouse with their signs deploring racism. Some people speak out and all the motorists heading home down Columbia Street probably wonder what’s going on. And that doesn’t give credit to the goal these people are pursuing. In their own way, they’re doing what they can to draw attention to the fact that Canada is a country built to a large extent on immigration. It draws hundreds of thousands to its shores every year. About 200 of those people looking for a new life — and perhaps a better one — make their way to Kamloops. There is reason to celebrate the strides people have made in the way they treat others. Consider something as simple as why March 21 was chosen by the United Nations as the day to protest discrimination. It goes back to 1960 in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police killed 69 anti-apartheid protesters and wounded another 180. The group, some 5,000 strong, was protesting the new Native Laws Amendment Act, which would have required all black South Africans to carry a pass that restricted their movement in “white” areas. The incident led to the banning of the African National Movement. This was three-and-a-half years before Nelson Mandela was arrested and imprisoned for 27 years for his leadership of the anti-apartheid movement. It was five years to the day before Martin Luther King started his civil-rights march in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery. It was another time. So, for Parker, the event she’s planning for Wednesday is an opportunity to celebrate the massive steps that have been made in how we treat each other. But it’s also a time to remember that it wasn’t that long ago members of KIS, and other supporters, were standing along Westsyde Road with signs deploring the swastikas and hateful language that had been painted on some buildings in that area. It’s a time to wonder why the KIS website has a link for people to report discrimination they have experienced in our city. It’s a time to wonder about the beatings some First Nations people must endure simply because they come upon that hostile redneck undercurrent that exists in Kamloops. It’s a time to wonder why some people still think it’s OK to use the “N” word and that an apology isn’t needed when a public official expresses a truly ridiculous opinion about homosexuality. Parker says she’s never been much of a protester. Marches weren’t for her. But this one matters not so much because it’s her job to put it together, but because she’s learned so much about the history of the day, why it came to be, about the blood that was shed. She’s seen discrimination around her. She’s lived in Vancouver and has come to realize how lucky we are to live in a place like Kamloops. In fact, she’s organizing a meeting of community and regional representatives to get together and talk about bringing more immigrants to Kamloops — and convincing them this is the perfect place to call home. And no matter how hard she tries, how hard other organizations work to attract immigrants to Canada, to B.C. and to Kamloops, all that can be undone by one stupid act of racism. That’s why it’s important to gather on Wednesday at the courthouse and take a stand. Immigrants are our future. They’re going to fill those jobs that are going begging now. They’re going to help staunch that skills shortage we’re experiencing. They’re going to bring such diversity and warmth to our communities. They’re special — but they’re not special interest. And they deserve our support. dale@kamloopsthisweek.com |
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
It will never go away — so what should we do?
Mar 09 2007
How do you fight reality? It’s not easy, but Bob Hughes is going to try. And the fact that he knows he really won’t win in the end doesn’t matter, as long as he can teach people along the way to see beyond their own prejudices.
You see, Hughes, the new executive director of the AIDS Society of Kamloops (ASK), assumed his new job in January right about the time another controversy flared up about the SHOP (Social and Health Options for Persons in the Sex Trade) program ASK operates.
A hallmark of the program when it was operated under the auspices of Kiwanis House was its drop-in component, which provided sex-trade workers with access to advocates and information, while serving up a hot meal and allowing them to feel like everyone else, if only for a while.
Sometime during the transition from Kiwanis to ASK, that part was dropped and the city’s social planning council wanted to know why.
Its members also wanted to know what the city was getting for the $68,000 a year being put into the program, up from the $13,000 spent annually when Kiwanis ran it.
Hughes knows he won’t be able to stop the sex trade in Kamloops and that’s the first reality he has faced.
It’s an age-old trade — it was there in biblical times and it will be there when our great-great-great grandchildren have grandchildren of their own.
As much as he might want to, Hughes won’t get sex-trade workers off the street.
For each one who exits the trade — which is the goal of SHOP — another young, confused, addicted, terrified woman will take her place.
And that’s another reality — as is the reality that the basic law of economics applies as much to this business as any other.
If there’s a demand, there will be a supply.
That’s an area where Hughes thinks he might be able to make some inroads.
At a public forum next Wednesday on the sex trade, he’ll raise the idea of possible steps that could be taken to reduce the number of johns out there.
Ideally, he’d like to see a john school back in the city, but acknowledges this will require the co-operation of other agencies, in particular the RCMP.
Hughes says he’d also like to see more co-operation from businesses in dealing with the sex trade.
Rather than ranting about them, he would like to help educate business people to know the right procedure to employ if they find their office or store part of a stroll.
If the worker appears sick, call 911, Hughes says. If they look like they’re out there under duress, call the RCMP.
Otherwise, call ASK, so Hughes can send out a staff member to mediate the situation, get a dialogue going and hopefully resolve what could otherwise be an ugly confrontation.
Because the other reality, whether we like it or not, is that for many people, the presence of a sex-trade worker is scary.
It’s intimidating.
It is annoying.
It brings all those emotions to the forefront, but rarely brings out empathy among those who view the trade as a deviant social blight.
Education is another reality Hughes wants to address. As a starting point, he’s organized the forum at the Henry Grube Education Centre from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
It will be more than hand-wringing and talking; two members of Western Canada Theatre will perform briefly, each presenting a monologue.
One will take the perspective of the businessman, the other the view of the sex-trade worker.
Dr. Stan Fike, a local doctor and social advocate, will give the keynote speech and the participants will then break into smaller groups to brainstorm issues and potential solutions.
The goal, Hughes says, is to ideally come up with a community response strategy.
Because the ultimate reality is the sex trade is here and no matter how much railing and gnashing of teeth people do, it’s not going to go away.
All we can hope for is that we learn how to become a more caring and understanding community that works together to help these women get their lives back and get off the streets.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Nothing’s clear when science jousts with God
Mar 02 2007
Some people may find it ironic that, once the family of Bob Calderoni prevailed in court and treatment began again on his failing kidneys, he died.
Even his daughter, Catherine Donnelly, acknowledged the treatments her father received on the last day of his life likely killed him.
But for the Calderoni family, that’s not the point. They wanted Bob’s future decided by them and by the God they believe in fervently, not by a medical system they saw as cold and dismissive.
So, when Bob finally died, it was because his family told the doctors to stop the CPR they had been doing for so long. This was God’s will. They could accept it.
Because if anything can be said about the Calderoni family, it is this: They believe in the sanctity of life. They believe in the will to live. They believe in the power of prayer.
They believe in things so far outside the clinical, scientific foundation that forms our medical system that the two might as well have been speaking different languages in recent days as Bob’s medical care became an issue for each.
Since KTW first wrote about the dispute surrounding Bob, an otherwise healthy, athletic father of three who was rarely sick, we’ve been receiving a lot of feedback. Some of it has been in favour of the hospital, some in favour of the family.
But that’s what you get when you’ve got science on one side and God on the other. There really is little reconciliation to be had.
There were some facts on which all could agree.
Bob was a strong, healthy 67-year-old being treated for a urinary tract infection when, on Sept. 28, he suffered a massive bleed at the back of his brain near that crucial stem area. His wife, Alma, found him on the floor, unconscious, a condition from which he never recovered during his five months in Royal Inland Hospital.
The family knew the doctors were right when they said it was a traumatic injury, one from which few people recover.
But few isn’t everyone. There’s that wriggle room for hope.
Room for prayer.
As time went on, doctors even talked about bringing Bob out of the coma using a drug that has shown some success. They started the treatments and the family believed they were seeing signs that Bob wasn’t really in a vegetative state, but rather locked in and struggling to break free.
It was another chance for hope.
Another time for prayer.
Then the infections started and the drug had to be stopped. Bob went from one infection to another, so many that Alma — who admittedly has an obsession about germs — started to confront the nurses about the cross-contamination she feared was happening.
Again, it’s not unusual to pick up an infection when you’re in the hospital. Stay long enough and you might get plenty of them. Her fears weren’t necessarily unfounded.
However, by then, the nurses knew that Alma is devoutly pro-life, as is her family. She would sit in Bob’s room and sing hymns. She would play religious music for him.
She would pray.
Her entire belief system is based on something completely foreign to those whose lives revolve around predictability and science.
Because Alma just believes.
The next thing she knew, she was being restricted from her husband of 47 years. What had been around-the-clock access to be with him became the posted visiting hours. She couldn’t argue with the nurses and doctors anymore.
In fact, some doctors on Bob’s case refused to speak with any family members.
Imagine yourself in that position. Someone you love deeply is in the hospital, unable to speak for himself, and the people charged with his care won’t talk to you.
And then, this hospital’s administration overrules the family’s wishes and imposes a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order on that person you love.
It was all too much for the family to take.
So, when they argued in court to have the DNR removed, and the judge did so for 14 days to give them some time to find new doctors, the Calderoni family once again had control over Bob’s life.
And that’s all they wanted — control to make the decisions themselves, knowing that God would listen and guide them.
I don’t understand that kind of blind faith. Science makes sense to me.
But a part of me wonders if, had that been my husband lying in that hospital bed, whether I would have done anything different.
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Ottawa can have Oda; we’ll take our women
Feb 23 2007
Oh, the irony. The federal government’s website refers people interested in information on International Women’s Day events in the country to a Status of Women link.
Click on the link and you’re taken to this notice:
“Object not found! The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated.”
OK, perhaps I did something wrong. Click again. Same message. Click again. Same message.
It’s kind of like listening to the federal minister responsible for women’s issues, Bev Oda, talk about her portfolio. Or her decision to cut all funding to women’s advocacy and lobby groups. Or her decision to close 12 of the 16 regional offices run by the Status of Women Canada agency, including the one in Vancouver.
It’s like listening to Oda explain why she’s removed women’s equality from the Status of Women’s program mandate, made research and advocacy on women’s issues ineligible for federal funding and cancelled the court-challenges program.
(That program, with an annual budget of $2.8 million, essentially paid lawyers to challenge court decisions. Among its successes were seniors winning the right to collect employment-insurance benefits, guaranteeing English-language rights in Quebec and providing gay people with constitutional equality protection. Anyone can see why that program needed to be killed.)
Or it’s like reading the following exchange between Oda and the federal NDP critic of the portfolio, Irene Mathyssen, who asked on Feb. 14: “When can Canadian women finally achieve real equality in our country?”
Oda’s reply: “The women in Canada know that they will achieve full participation in Canadian society when they continue to support the government.”
It gives me goosebumps knowing this is the person who is charged with ensuring the equality and equity of women in Canadian society.
Fortunately, there are plenty of women in Kamloops who inspire much more confidence than the minister. Women like the members of the Soroptomist club, who annually recognize a local woman who has made a difference in the community.
Women like the members of the Business and Professional Women of Kamloops, who also annually recognize a woman who is a role model for others in the city.
(And nominations are still being accepted for that award, which will be presented, along with the Soroptomist honour, at a gala dinner on March 12 at The Plaza Hotel.)
There are women like Cynthia Davis, agency co-ordinator for the Kamloops Sexual Assault Centre, the women at the Y Women’s Emergency Shelter, those same Soroptomist members and Anita Strong — the amazing woman behind the counter at the Smorgasbord Deli — who will host a celebration of March 8, International Women’s Day, at the deli during a breakfast of music, fun and, of course, speeches about the lot of women in this life.
It’s open to everyone from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Later that day, another group of role models — the status of women committee at Thompson Rivers University and the Kamloops Labour Council — will host another event at St. Andrew’s on the Square.
These are just a few of the local women who actually make a difference in the lives of other women.
We could add so many more to the list. Women like:
n Tina Lange, who is inspirational not only in her personal life story, but in the way she has grown into the job of city councillor;
n Pat Wallace, who has the political savvy and tenacity that Lange will also probably exhibit when she, too, is the veteran female councillor years from now;
n Wenda Noonan, whose Echo should have faded away by now. That is the lot of small niche newsletters, but hers keeps on going and going;
n My friend Betty O’Brien, who has dealt with more tragedy in her life than any woman should have to, but she deals with it and moves on. Some day, Teighan will show how much she has learned from her grandmother.
To all the others I didn’t include, just know this: Bev Oda may have the official designation of responsibility for the status of women in Canada, but each one of you actually holds that job.
And, as befits women, you carry it off well, never asking for credit or congratulations.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Voters will recall who wasn’t standing with them
Feb 09 2007
Mayor Terry Lake — protester.
Sounds like an anomaly, but there he was Tuesday, with fellow council members Tina Lange, Jim Harker and Arjun Singh, standing with the dozens and dozens of child-care workers, parents and supporters at the front of city hall, child-care centres having been closed for the day to condemn the federal government’s child-care program (or, as some might, lack thereof).
And not only did Lake stand with the group, he stood in front of them and proclaimed his support for their cause.
Lake went on to criticize business for not coming out to protest federal funding cuts to child care.
And then he went out into the crowd and encouraged Lange to get up and speak out, too, something she hadn’t planned on doing.
But her address was strong, militant and exactly what the crowd wanted to hear.
Harker said later he chose not to speak because, well, let’s just say he thought he might have railed against a certain member of Parliament with whom he has some fundamental disagreements.
And Singh did what he does so well, mingling with the crowd and voicing his opinions.
All are smart decisions that will no doubt stand them well when they next run for re-election.
The four of them weren’t alone in their wisdom, recognizing this issue as the galvanizing, universal one it will likely become.
School board trustee Dick Dickens was there, as was June Phillips, representing Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Kevin Krueger.
Phillips also addressed the crowd, reading a letter from Krueger with his regrets for not being there and including the political rhetoric that so often accompanies these “non-political” issues.
Federal NDP candidate Michael Crawford also spoke, but that’s to be expected of someone who has no doubt caught the whiff of fear emanating from the current MP’s office.
And Crawford’s no stranger to protest speeches.
Make no mistake, however.
Although everyone on both sides of the child-care debate will insist it’s not political, but rather about the children, it’s the most political of issues facing us right now.
It’s pitting the different levels of government against each other, making for some strange podium-mates (a Krueger representative and Crawford at the same event?) and will come back to haunt MP Betty Hinton, should she choose to seek re-election in the much-anticipated vote likely to come in the next few months.
And that’s because we’re talking about that most basic of human emotions — caring for our children. It’s why Patti Pernitsky, a veteran child-care provider, counted 1,396 separate honks during the four-and-a-half hours she stood on Overlanders Bridge Tuesday.
Her sign protested the federal cuts to child-care support, in which the Conservatives replaced the Liberal government’s plans with the $100-per-child subsidy for kids under the age of six.
That’s a lot of honks.
It’s a lot of people who agree a three-year waitlist for child care is simply ridiculous.
It’s a lot of people who have likely experienced themselves the difficulty in finding quality care for their children.
The thing about parents — and moms in particular — is that they don’t like it when anything affects our kids.
They get angry.
They get vocal.
They get protective.
They’ll honk their horns in support of the people who provide care for our children.
They’ll honk for the people we would hire to provide care for those children, if the spaces were available.
They’ll remember this when that federal election finally arrives.
It won’t be an issue that disappears in all the posturing and promising.
Then, they’ll go out and vote.
They’ll remember Krueger, Lake, Singh, Lange and Harker were with them when they stood in the cold for their kids — and they’ll remember who wasn’t there.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Laughing her way to a February gigglefest
Feb 02 2007
I’m not a funny person. I’d like to be funnier — or at least write funny once in a while.
I seem to be always surrounded by reporters who not only see the humour in situations — they can write about them that makes even me giggle.
Which is an accomplishment because, as I said, I’m not a funny person.
It would be really neat to be able to write like entertainment reporter Mikelle Sasakamoose or the boss, Christopher Foulds.
They’re funny.
Danna Johnson, our former entertainment reporter, still makes me laugh with her new blog of views on life around her. (It’s at http://mindcandyjuice.blogspot.com/. Check it out. The woman’s got a warped view of the world.)
Anyhow, Pat diFrancesco got me thinking about laughter when she sent out an invitation to a Feb. 22 gathering of women, the sole purpose of which is “to laugh!!”
DiFrancesco asked me if I wanted to attend. It might be an interesting experiment, since my children say I have no sense of humour at all, while my husband says I try to hard to be funny — and fail every time.
After all, the e-mail says the event “is a laughing matter.”
It says to come down if “you think you are funny, people tell you that you are hilarious, you look funny (OK, maybe that qualifies me), you have an infectious laugh (KTW photographer Dave Eagles says it’s a scary one) or you can’t stop the giggling.”
Apparently, humour has been making the news these days.
Down in the U.S., the media, not one to normally show a sense of humour when covering political events, went wild when would-be president Hillary Clinton answered the question “What in her background equips her to deal with evil and bad men” with nothing more than a look at the audience.
Yes, that kind of look.
Everyone laughed and it’s been fodder for many columns since, all once again talking about the wackiness of the Clinton marriage.
Perhaps the Washington power duo take their funny cue from that bastion of humour, Friedrich Nietzsche, who once said, “You must laugh 10 times during the day and be cheerful; otherwise, your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night.”
I’m sure Bill has caused Hillary more than one gut pain.
Everyone knows laughter is good for you, maybe the best medicine. Reader’s Digest has been mining that statement for decades.
But now, a study in the International Journal of Psychiatry and Medicine says that people who are dealing with severe diseases have a better survival rate if they laugh, an improvement of as much as 31 per cent, the researchers say.
Another study, published in Motivation and Emotion, says that laughter also improves relationships. Something about reminiscing about when you did laugh, sharing that memory with your significant other and you both bond in the remembrance.
Yet another study — and this one I really like — says laughter helps you lose weight.
Published in the International Journal of Obesity (of course), the researchers say that if you giggle for 15 minutes a day, you can lose up to five pounds during a year.
Now that’s funny.
There’s even something called laughter yoga, which boggles the mind because yoga practitioners are supposed to chant, aren’t they?
And look serene?
Apparently, this combines yogic breathing with laughter, and it’s been featured in a lot of different publications, from the Financial Times to National Geographic.
My friend Darla Gray does her bit to teach me humour. She’ll send me the funniest jokes, ones that — yes, family, pay attention here — I laugh at. I just never seem to be able to remember them correctly, or tell them to anyone without blowing the punchline.
So let me leave you with the most recent joke to interrupt a family dinner. As expected, it has political roots, coming from the mouth of federal Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.
It goes like this:
Dion: “Have you heard the shortest bedtime story?”
Interviewer’s reply: “No.”
Dion: “It’s called Bam The Dog. A car goes by. Bam, the dog! Now go to sleep.”
Apparently this isn’t an animal cruelty joke. And the fact I thought it was made the boys laugh even harder.
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
The very real need to heed an ethical creed
Jan 26 2007
There’s an old saying that journalists only have other journalists for friends because, eventually, we make everyone else mad at us.
And, if we’re doing our job right, it’s more than a saying — there’s a strong element of truth to it.
Being a journalist really isn’t a nine-to-five job.
We don’t really look at the world the way others do.
Everything is a potential story, every person a possible contact.
It’s a weird way to live.
We not only look at the traffic accident we’re driving past, we debate whether to stop, find out what happened, shoot a photograph and then head to work to write the story.
We’re always on the lookout for the next big story, the next super scoop.
It makes it difficult for us to be, well, just like the person next door, an average person living an average life, doing the kinds of things everyone else does.
Former school board trustee Lal Sharma still reminds me of the time when, as a parent and a member of the District Parent Advisory Council, I wrote a story on a school board meeting no other reporter from Kamloops had covered.
He didn’t like the story and rightly pointed out to me that I had been there in my other role — parent.
I explained that, as a reporter, I can’t ignore a good story — especially one the competition won’t have. And especially if it’s going to be on the front page, as was this particular story.
The Canadian Association of Journalists, to which I belong, takes ethical behaviour by reporters and editors seriously.
It has a long, detailed code of ethics. It spells out all the dos and don’ts and a detailed section on conflict of interest.
The CAJ says journalists should not hold office in community organizations “about which we may report or make editorial judgments. This includes fundraising or public-elations work and active participation in community organizations and pressure groups that take positions on public issues.”
It also says journalists “lose our credibility as fair observers if we write opinion pieces about subjects that we also cover as reporters.”
That’s why, for example, I won’t report on the current debate about the SHOP program.
I’ve volunteered there.
I have friends from my involvement with it. I have strong opinions about the way the program for sex-trade workers is being operated now.
My involvement came about from an assignment to write about the program several years ago.
I wrote the story, got curious about the entire issue, spent some time looking into it and writing more about it — until the time my objectivity, both as I see it and as others see it in me, was gone.
So now, I write columns about SHOP and other issues about which I care deeply.
And I don’t cover them as news stories.
And I satisfy the needs of my other side — parent and citizen — by helping small agencies, ones that aren’t likely to ever be on the reporting radar and, if they are, it won’t be in an area on which I report.
It’s crucial journalists heed an ethical creed.
If we don’t, we compromise what the CAJ states in its ethics preamble as “our privilege and duty to seek and report the truth as we understand it, defend free speech and the right to equal treatment under law, capture the diversity of human experience, speak for the voiceless and encourage civic debate.”
It’s a privilege we should never take lightly.
Even if it means we can’t do all the things we’d like to do as a private citizen.
Because, if we do our job correctly, we forfeit the very right that we defend so vigorously through our reporting.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Remember: They are all someone’s daughter
Jan 19 2007
Two Christmases ago, I spent several hours of a Friday night at the New Life Mission with some incredible women.
We had dinner together, sat around and talked and handed out bags with Christmas presents in them, including bath salts, soaps and scarves I had made for the occasion.
Two other women added stuffed animals, many of which they had bought at garage sales throughout the year and then cleaned up.
It wasn’t much, but then, these women aren’t used to getting much in their lives. For a few hours, we were just a bunch of gals gabbing and eating and enjoying each other’s company.
Because, when your place of employment is the street and the tool of your trade is your body, it’s not always easy to put a smile on your face.
It’s just as important in the lives of sex-trade workers to be treated as people as it is to educate them about heart disease, AIDS, HIV, STDs and the like. And that’s where the city failed these women when it caved to the outrage of members of the North Shore Business Improvement Association last year and removed the drop-in focus from the city’s Social and Health Options for Persons in the Sex Trade (SHOP) program.
Fortunately, there’s a push on now, thanks to the city’s social planning council, to revisit that mistake and perhaps make things right.
It’s so easy to be indignant about the sex trade. After all, they’re just hookers, right?
Wrong. They’re women, mothers, sisters, daughters. They’re victims. They’re survivors.
They’re the people my mind goes to immediately when news breaks of a body found somewhere in the city because, if they are one thing, they’re vulnerable.
SHOP used to be run by some remarkable, nonjudgmental women, notably Grace Howse and Lisa Armstrong — women who saw their clients as women themselves, as people needing support, care and, yes, love, to boost what’s left of their self-esteem.
Because, without some measure of inner confidence, the odds on any of them ever taking the first step toward exiting the sex trade are remote at best.
The women came together as a family and left the outside issues and disputes back on the streets — and together there was respect, dignity and honour shown to each other.
That’s where the AIDS Society of Kamloops, which assumed the SHOP program last year — and talked the city into increasing the annual SHOP budget to $68,000 from $13,000 — has failed.
But it’s not alone. The city has to share some of the blame for letting a group of business people force their own prejudice onto a program that could have worked.
Instead, it’s the out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude.
One need only read the minutes of the council meeting when the contract was approved to see the kind of mindset at play:
“The AIDS Society of Kamloops facility . . . was never intended to be a hangout but rather a centre for individuals to seek counselling services and protection as needed.”
Hangout? This is how the city views a drop-in component that gives the women a modicum of respect and, under its previous administrators, a hot meal, a place to relax and, if needed, a shoulder to cry on, a street nurse to talk to, an addiction counsellor to approach, if they had the strength to do so?
When did outreach become, as also noted in the minutes, “referrals to other agencies as appropriate”?
Tell that to the street nurses and Howse and Armstrong, who would comb the streets looking for the women to bring them into the warmth and camaraderie of the SHOP drop-in site.
Or who simply drove the strolls, doing a head count to at least ensure the women who weren’t coming in were accounted for.
The social planning council dropped the ball on this one.
Whether they get the right answers, though, is questionable, as the city has chosen Kamloops’ crime-prevention officer to do the program review. Why? Because he has the time and he has a PhD in criminology, the planning council was told this week.
While the degree is certainly laudable, it falls short of qualifying him to do this study.
His mindset is crime and as long as we keep viewing sex-trade workers as criminals, we won’t move forward.
And one of the identified “partners,” according to the city, is the NSBIA, the same group of businesspeople who ranted about the program.
The city and the social planning council just don’t get it.
And they won’t until each one of them gets out there on the street and talks to the women themselves.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
When words can make all the difference
Jan 12 2007
By DALE BASS
I take great delight in telling people our youngest son was not expected to talk.
Because now, he rarely doesn’t.
The dire prediction came from a well-meaning developmental pediatrician who was trying to prepare us for life with an autistic child.
My son was only two years old and, at that point, it seemed like we’d be swallowed into a black hole. The good doctor did his best to reassure us that, with a lot of work, our baby could develop to some degree.
The key, he said, was getting him to talk.
And he recommended an intense language-intervention program that, obtained privately, would have been beyond our financial means. The local university, however, offered it through its speech-pathology program as a way of exposing its students to the role of language with infants.
Words became our focus.
Written words, rhymed words, sung words, play words, goofy words. We would surround Sean with words and, as he became older, printed words entered the mix. Stop signs. Store signs. Cartoons. Books. Anything at all that involved language.
We’ve always been a literate family — probably because both of us have our roots in journalism — but it was this program that clarified just how crucial literacy is, even to a toddler.
Recognizing the role words play in a child’s development is something all parents can do.
Merlene Sibley of the Kamloops Early Language and Literacy Initiative (KELLI) says it can be as simple as reading a recipe together before making the dish to — well, in our house, it’s reading the newspaper.
Not because we insist (although on occasion, I kind of do), but because it’s modelled every day.
It’s the interaction between parent and child, centred on communication, that’s important.
The benefits start early.
Studies have found children as young as 18 months experience strong brain-development stimulations when stories are read to them. Reading daily helps children develop strong academic skills, especially in mathematics.
In my son’s case, his fascination with words has given him another tool to express emotions the autism often makes difficult for him to address.
Our house is covered in notes he has posted with reminders — “If Liam is sleeping in, please use a noisemaker” is our favourite.
When he’s angry with me, I’ll receive a note with his issue spelled out in very strong words — “Be a good wife and don’t make me clean my room” is one of the most recent — that facilitate his need to communicate with his difficulty expressing emotional language.
KELLI offers Parent-Child Mother Goose programs for parents, caregivers and young children to share in rhymes, songs and oral stories.
The parents learn how to use their natural communication skills and all the participants get to share in the joy of watching their children interact and have fun — all the while learning.
The programs are offered at schools throughout Kamloops at different times.
More information is available by calling 554-1040.
KELLI, along with the city, the public library and Starbucks, is sponsoring Family Literacy Day on Jan. 27 from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the old courthouse, at First and Seymour.
It will be a day of free activities, crafts, music and stories.
Storytellers will include Mayor Terry Lake, Fire Chief Gary McCall, Leslie McPherson from the RCMP, librarian Sharon Parker, some of the Kamloops Blazers — and me.
I don’t know what book I’ll be reading yet — I told Merlene to pick out an appropriate one, preferably with big printing and little words. Maybe one by one of my favourite authors, and the honorary chairman of Literacy Day, Robert Munsch, who wrote the quintessential book on feminism, The Paperback Princess.
It will be a fun day, and that’s what learning should always be.
Mark it on your calendar.
And talk to your family about it.
Even if you don’t come down, you’ll be doing your part to improve literacy.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
© Copyright 2007 Kamloops This Week
Youth program faces cuts
There are plenty of youth on the streets of Kamloops takinga dvantage of the safehouse on River Street.
There just aren't enough volunteers for the house to offer everything it can.
Kelly Kelland, executive director of Interior Community Services (ICS), which runs the house, said they need about two dozen volunteers to re-open a drop-in centre in the basement of the home, a place where young people can go and cook a meal, have a shower, do their laundry, use the computer — or just be off the streets.
About two years ago, the centre was operating from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., but that was due to the presence of a dedicated volunteer co-ordinator who kept it staffed. When funding for that position ran out, the co-ordinator was let go and the position has not been filled since.
During its heyday, however, it was a busy place, said Karen Rosenke, community development manager for ICS, with plenty of volunteers lending a shoulder — and an ear — to the young people who stopped in.
"It's a wonderful place, a warm, cozy, safe place for youth to come to," Rosenke said.
Adult volunteers are needed for as little as an hour a week. A criminal record check is required, training is provided and there are always staff at the home, which also provides a short-term residential program.
Volunteers must be bondable, and be mature and patient, as well as enthusiastic and able to communicate effectively.
Volunteers are also needed to help clean up the yards at the home and at other residential sites ICS owns.
Anyone person or group interested can call Rosenke at 376-3660.
Copyright, Kamloops This Week
Food bank honoured
A program operated by the Kamloops Food Bank and Outreach Society to help feed children has been recognized by Rotary clubs as the best community project.
Four of the organization's chapters support the Rotary Volunteer Adventures after-school program, said food bank executive director Marg Spina, and they presented the project at their recent conference. It was recognized as "innovative and creative thinking, providing a dignified solution to hunger," she said.
Other Rotary clubs throughout the region have asked for information to set up similar programs, Spina said. The project provides children — which comprises the largest segment accessing the agency for food — the opportunity to help at the food bank, receive a meal and earn credits to buy items from its thrift shop.
"It was recognized as a nice way of delivering food to people who need it," Spina said, "and it doesn't feel like a handout."
She said the children taking part in the after-school program were delighted when they learned it had won.
"The kids felt so wonderful because they won it. It was their program that was recognized."
The local Rotary clubs also received an award for best public relations.
The conference included 60 Rotary clubs from the British Columbia Interior into Washington state.
Bread, not circuses
It may not warrant Gomery Commission perusal, but the federal supporting communities partnerships initiative (SCPI) has been a colossal waste of money in Kamloops.
The money, part of the National Initiative on Homelessness, was originally given out with good intentions: to start programs and enhance existing ones to help reduce the number of people living on the street, couch surfing or selling themselves to have a place for the night.
But the money came with a big proviso. It was for a short term, often just a couple of years, and it would not be repeated. The agencies and individuals receiving the money had to come up with their own sustainability.
Thus we have the closing of the Women's Emergency Bed and Breakfast, a haven for women on the street; the loss of the travelling RV that brought services and resources to the kids on thestreet; the reduction of hours for the Canadian Mental Health Association's Kamloops branch evening drop-in program for youth; and many more.
It isn't easy to get a social program up and running, established, accepted — and spend the time needed to find other funds to keep the program going. In that way, SCPI was short-sighted, and a lot of great programs have been affected. And that means the people they helped are affected.
There's been a lot of press recently about the number of homeless in Kamloops. It's good to see the media paying attention to this issue because it's a crime that our society can't help the helpless.
My previous managing editor, Gord Kurenoff — who is now at one of the helms of 24 on the Coast — used to kid me about my mantra whenever the Olympics was discussed: "Bread, not circuses."
Yes, it's old and hackneyed but it's still true. To waste millions upon millions for needless enterprises when we have people living — and dying — around us on the streets and in poverty is wrong.
And the federal SCPI funds, rather than helping the situation, has just delayed the reality that homelessness and poverty continue.
Ministry to apologize for letters
May 15 2005
By DALE BASS
Staff reporter
More than 300 letters of apology are coming to Kamloops residents this week from the provincial Ministry of Human Resources (MHR).
Richard Chambers, dir ector of communications for the MHR, said the ministry was unaware letters had been sent to former so cial assistance clients, dem anding complete information on all sources of income.
The letter was brought to his attention by Kam loops This Week.
The letters went to more than 300 Kamloops residents who still receive medical support through the province's medical services plan, but who are either employed or on Canada Pension Plan disability benefits. They asked for names of any dependents, a list of all income sources and amounts, plus bank balances.
Some recipients who called the local MHR office for an explanation were told if they didn't provide the information, their medical benefits would be cancelled.
"This is an old letter. It should never have been sent. It was sent in error," Chambers said. People with disabilities who are employed or on CPP "will continue to receive their medical benefits. They don't have to provide any information. They will get them as long as they need them."
Chambers said discussions ministry officials have had with staff who issued the letters are confidential, but added that steps were being taken to ensure such an error doesn't occur again.
Winken, Blinken and Nod
Wouldn't it be nice if just once, a political party leader would actually answer a question posed during a televised election debate?
Rather than start out facing the questioner, mouthing a few words to show the leader actually understands the topic, before they turn to the television camera -- to talk to voters -- give a direct answer.
There were few of them during Tuesday night's "debate" between the British Columbia Liberal leader and premier Gordon Campbell, New Democratic Party leader Carole James and Green Party leader Adriane Carr. And, despite all their protests that this election campaign leading up to the May 17 vote would be about policies, plans and promises, it has become jsut what most of us expected, a campaign of finger-pointing. Nothing more.
Give Carr credit. She asked pointed questions that should resonate with any parent. How can we be the most literate place on the continent if the number of school librarians are being cut, Mr. Premier?
Good question. I listened, but really couldn't find an answer other than Campbell says B.C. will be the most literate location in North America. Without enough teacher/librarians, I guess.
Carr again: How can we believe you when you promise better long-term care beds for our seniors when you keep cutting long-term beds for our seniors. Yes, the question was that simple, but the answer certainly wasn't. It had something to do with that inept previous NDP government and the Liberals having to make difficult choices.
James tried to look premier-like, and pulled it off well but the one trait she showed she shares with Campbell is the inability to really talk to the voters when she stares into that television camera. To tell us what she really will do. It's fine to say she has a plan; Campbell had a plan too. Given the nature of this campaign, at least in Kamloops' two ridings, it's difficult to know exactly what that "plan" contains. It's nothing more than slogans and posturing -- and voters deserve better.
Maybe under the new election system -- assuming it's approved by the voters -- there will such a preponderance of candidates of many stripes and colours that some of them will really talk to voters about issues.
It woudl certainly be nice, for a change.
Bad time to get sick
By DALE BASS
If you want to get a first-hand look at what the provincial Liberal government has done to the province, get sick.
Sick enough to need to call an ambulance - preferably at night.
While this isn't something I would wish on anyone, experiencing a trip to the emergency room at Royal Inland Hospital, by ambulance, in the evening, will open your eyes to the sad state of our health care. And it's not an anomaly. What's happening here in Kamloops is happening at other communities throughout the Interior.
Earlier this week, a representative of the paramedic union talked about a situation in the Fraser Health Region, where a paramedic begged ER staff at Royal Columbian Hospital for 90 minutes to help a patient who was about to have a seizure.
Not enough money is being put into our health-care system. Our ER staff is overworked. Some ambulances spent this past winter driving not on winter tires, but on all-season radials. Response times for ambulances are abysmal not because of the personnel involved, but because there aren't enough of them to handle the medical emergencies that happen every hour of everyday.
This is nothing new. In 2003, ambulance workers, expressing concern about what, at that time were anticipated cuts, and which later became reality, went public with their beliefs the cuts would hurt patient care.
Some nights in Kamloops, medical personnel say there are only two ambulances on duty for the entire city.
And don't assume they can drop off their patients, fill out the necessary paperwork and head back out to take the next patient to hospital - they have to stay, sometimes for hours, until their patients are processed.
Anyone who's been to the ER in the past several months knows how long a wait that can be.
There's more to point to the disaster that our health-care system has become. Consider the recent revelation recommendations made by a coroner investigating the death of a man in the Kootenays were removed from his report when it was released.
The facts are simple: The 75-year-old man fell, rupturing his spleen. He was taken to Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, but could not be treated there and was transferred to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail. It took six hours to find a bed and a surgeon to treat him. By then, he had bled to death.
The recommendations identified deficiencies at the Kootenay Lake General Hospital, while noting they did not contribute to the 75-year-old man's death.
The provincial NDP, smelling an issue it can rally behind in the run-up to the May 17 provincial election, has demanded an explanation from Health Minister Shirley Bond for the discrepancy. A spokeswoman for the Interior Health Authority has said the IH took sufficient action in dealing with the man and his injuries and responded to the recommendations, putting them into place.
Bond, in an admission that some might find unbelievable, replied Wednesday that she has no authority over the coroner's office, as it is independent.
Perhaps she's missing the point. As the minister responsible for all aspects of health care in this province, she should be able to find out why a coroner's report left out relevant recommendations. She should be able to find out why the injured man was shuffled between hospitals and if his care there was adequate.
And if she can't find out, what good is having a health minister?
Bond will be popping up in the news a lot in coming weeks as we approach the election date. Finance minister Colin Hansen - the former health minister - announced this week the February budget will have plenty of goodies for everyone, with major investment in the health-care system. So try not to get sick until then.
Dale Bass is a reporter at Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Fridays. To comment, e-mail editor@kamloops thisweek.com.
© Copyright 2005 Kamloops This Week
MLAs hiding from voters
Claude Richmond and Kevin Krueger need some lessons on what constitutes special interests.
The two incumbent MLAs declined participating in Saturday's all-candidates' forum at the Farmers Market, sponsored by the Kamloops branch of the Council of Canadians, and won't be at a women's-issues forum on Wednesday because they're being put on by what the pair calls special interests.
They will, however, be at an all-candidates' meeting sponsored by the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce - which is itself a special interest group, representing 700 local businesses.
It's interesting they have taken this stand, since the Liberal election campaign is one based on special interests. Check out their election advertisements: both Richmond and Krueger proudly proclaim their party's commitment to education - a special interest area - and health care - another special interest topic.
They said they don't want to go to meetings that have packed the audiences with supporters of specific parties or issues, who will ask questions. Do they not realize participants of the business-backed forum will be in attendance and will ask business and economic questions? And do they expect us to believe they won't have their own supporters in the audience, ready to stand up at a microphone and throw some low-ball questions at them?
The pair of MLAs went on in explaining their refusal to take part in these forums by saying they're limiting their public participation in mass-audience gatherings to just two for the entire campaign. Isn't the key to being elected getting out and talking to the public? Wouldn't an audience of a few hundred people gathered for a couple of hours get their message out better than a door-to-door walk for two hours?
Krueger and Richmond spend much of their public time deriding the "usual suspects," "big unions" and the NDP. They hide their partisanship behind these criticisms. In the end, they are their own special interest groups.
-- Dale Bass, Kamloops This Week
The small cost of faith
By Dale Bass
It's difficult to know what role - if any - religion should take in the health-care system.
On one hand, you have ministers, priests and other religious folk gathering on the lawn of Royal Inland Hospital to lobby for retention of the chaplaincy and the ministrations of Viktor Gundel.
On the other hand, you have ministers, priests and other religious folk gathering on the lawn of a hospice in Florida, lobbying for the retention of a feeding tube in the body of a woman whose brain long ago died.
Throw into the mix the role faith can play in the healing process and it's one confused situation that is being controlled - in both situations above - by people with motives less about the role of God in healing and more about their own agendas.
For the record, I'm not in favour of having a chaplaincy service at a hospital. But, as evidenced by the ongoing outpouring of cash to keep Gundel's job at RIH, the avalanche of letters to the editor we have received during the past two years and the passionate discussions about the issue I have been involved in and listened to, it's obvious I'm in a minority on this one.
But then I've never been in a medical condition where I might question if there's a God or if she even cares about how I felt. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist and author of On Death and Dying, identified five steps one goes through in coming to terms with mortality. Among the wisdoms she spoke was: "For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death."
Spirituality, at the least, is an underlying force in the steps Kubler-Ross wrote about, steps experts now confirm people will go through as they deal with a terminal illness.
It's not a far leap, then, to assume for many, spirituality is an issue in their health-care needs.
And, unlike proselytizers who live for the next soapbox, Gundel is a quiet man of faith who doesn't preach, but rather listens, confirms and cares about each person with whom he comes into contact.
It could be something as simple as coming out of the emergency room to help an ailing person get out of the car. I've seen him do that, in pouring rain, and his presence somehow calmed a distraught mother rushing her injured child to care.
I've never witnessed him ministering at the other end of the health spectrum, but a good friend found himself in that position recently, and Gundel was the first person he turned to for solace, compassion and a shoulder to cry on.
In Sunday's Kamloops This Week, reporter Danna Johnson continued her coverage of the debate about keeping the chaplaincy. As part of that coverage, KTW ran the salaries of Interior Health Authority staff who make $100,000 or more. The list we took the information from, which is accessible on the web, was much more detailed, listing all salaries $75,000 or more.
When you total it all up, it came to $51,197,842.18 in 2004, with expenses of $1,427,074.30. The entire IHA payroll last year was $628,774,634.30 with expenses of $8,668,297. That's just IHA staff, not doctors, nurses and other specialists.
It's the cost of the bureaucracy that runs our region's health care.
Gundel's supporters estimate it would cost about $60,000 a year to keep his position. That's less than .0001 per cent of the total 2004 salaries. You'd think they could find it somewhere to ensure those patients for whom spiritual care is essential are able to receive it when they need it, not when there might be volunteer clergy available.
Dale Bass is a reporter at Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Wednesdays. To comment, e-mail editor@ kamloopsthisweek.com.
© Copyright 2005 Kamloops This Week
Betty obvious by her absence
By DALE BASS
It may not seem fair to criticize a politician two weeks in a row, but the latest faux pas committed by MP Betty Hinton cannot be left unchallenged.
As local police, firefighters, search-and-rescue volunteers, seniors and children gathered together to honour the four murdered Alberta Mounties, Hinton was in Edmonton.
Sure, she was there to attend the national memorial service being held to remember the men killed in an ambush in Mayerthorpe.
But she was invited to be here - and she wasn't.
It's not the first time Hinton has ignored a local event. Sometimes her absence can be explained; she's been in Ottawa during parliamentary sessions, or on vacation, or out of the country.
But there are some things a member of parliament is expected to do and she should have been here, sitting with her constituents.
She wasn't at the breakfast last Saturday to mark International Women's Day, even though she had returned to Kamloops the day after the Edmonton memorial. This from the woman who, at one time, was her party's women's issues critic.
She has yet to respond to any requests from the Kamloops chapter of the B.C. Schizophrenia Society or the SHOP program, despite telling Kamloops This Week in June last year that she saw her major issue to be "fighting for people who aren't capable of fighting for themselves."
When a local delegation went to Ottawa to appeal for federal aid for victims of last year's wildfires, they skipped providing any of their submissions to Hinton, saying she wasn't part of government, but rather an opposition MP. The MP didn't say she felt snubbed - but expressed puzzlement the group would ignore her.
While she thought it wrong she was overlooked because of the former Alliance Party's status, Hinton thinks nothing of using her party's opposition status to explain why some things don't get done.
She could take a lesson from Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Kevin Krueger, who, despite being in government, knows where to be and when - and how to use the media to get his message across.
Krueger is accessible to the media and speaks with commitment and passion about the issues, whether you agree with him or not. If he says he'll get funding from the province for a project, he gets it.
So where's the federal money needed for the Tournament Capital of Canada project? It's not in city coffers. In fact, Mayor Mel Rothenburger has said he believes it will be easier to get money from the province than the federal government to make up the $6-million shortfall the project is facing.
Take a close look at the money Hinton has laid claim to have brought to the city and you'll see that often, it was cash headed here anyway. During the 2004 federal election campaign, Hinton said she'd brought $42 million to her riding from various federal ministries but more than half of that - $23 million - was for the water-treatment plant that received its funding not from Hinton's efforts but from hard work by the mayor, city council - in particular Coun. Sharon Frissell - and city administrators.
The $42 million also included research grants to the University College of the Cariboo, money that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with academe.
And then there was the debate about Fulton Field, with Coun. John O'Fee, then the Liberal federal candidate, accusing Hinton of taking credit for work on expanding the airport and its building. When she said she had spent three years working on the project, O'Fee asked who she had talked to, given she had never spoken to him as the airport society president, or the facility's general manager.
But give credit where it's due. Hinton worked hard on retention of the buoy system in the South Thompson River. She was in front of the media, out with petitions, holding meetings, and the buoys are still here.
Dale Bass is a reporter at Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Wednesdays. To comment, e-mail editor@ kamloopsthisweek.com.
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© Copyright 2005 Kamloops This Week
Celebrate uniqueness
By DALE BASS
When former managing editor Gord Kurenoff talked with me about writing a weekly column, he had one proviso: It wasn't to be all about my family.
It's not a good idea to write about family, he said. After all, you have to go home to them and there are enough people in this world who journalists will anger. Best to keep the family on our side.
But, with apologies to Kurenoff, this column will be about my family. It springs from a simple question my sister asked me recently: Do I ever wish our youngest son, Sean, wasn't autistic.
The question seemed strange to me; my reply seemed equally strange to her.
Of course not, I said. He wouldn't be Sean. He'd be someone else.
It's the conundrum parents of autistic children face daily. Their personalities are so tied up in the way they view, and interact with, the world that with each breakthrough made, they change.
This doesn't mean we don't fight vigorously to get everything we can to help our children crack the autism shell, even just a bit, and help them learn to function in the world, even if the way they interact in society is something we don't always understand.
It's not an easy fight. We have a provincial government which has spent thousands of dollars to fight a court decision that our children have the right to funding for therapies that may help them develop. It was a matter of principle, politicians said at the time. The courts can't make these kinds of decisions.
Nonsense. It was all about dollars and cents and deciding some disabilities are worthy of funding while others aren't.
We've had to contend with the ridiculous idea that, once our children turn seven, the therapies they have been accessing - speech, physical, occupational - will be provided by the school system.
More nonsense. We have never had an occupational therapist work with Sean while in school. His speech therapist, a wonderful woman, is so overburdened with clients she can provide only counselling, advising the school support work of useful strategies.
We're on our fourth - or is it fifth? - provincial social worker overseeing Sean's file. Each has been understanding, accommodating and helpful, but burnout, government cutbacks and layoffs have reduced their staff number to the point where these caring people too, have more clients than they can help at the level they want to.
In Sean's case, we have been lucky to have had gifted, dedicated school support workers, starting with Carmen-Anne Schultz in kindergarten, a woman with a motherly quality that eased his transition from the known of home to the unknown of school. Then there was Claire Biefeld, who knew just how much to challenge him and when to step back.
The last three years, in a situation of which other parents of disabled children are jealous, we've had Sue Mauro, who bonded immediately with our little guy and has guided him into the middle grades, showing him he can do things doctors once told us would be impossible.
Then there was Mary Angus, a saint of a teacher who moved up a grade to work with Sean a second year. Her innate ability to see beyond the disability to the child living with it helped Sean discover a love of words - which could be genetic, given both parents are journalists - and of music (a gene only his father could have passed on, unless tone-deafness is a trait.)
The point to this column: Beyond attempting in some way to explain what it's like to live with autism, it's a call for us all to wake up and accept differences, be they mental, cultural or something as simple as the colour of our skin. A federal government report this week drew attention to the fact that a good third of our country's residents believe they have been the victim of discrimination at some point in their life.
The parents raising children now are, for the most part, the ones who embraced peace, love and understanding in the 1970s. Somehow along the way, these same teens, now adults, have lost those beliefs - and they pass these attitudes to their own children.
Sean has experienced this contempt and, bless his heart, his 10-year-old brother has stood up to adults more than he should have to, explaining his brother is autistic and his behaviours sometimes aren't the same as the rest of us.
I hate the fact Liam has to do this. Maybe it's time we all realized that, if we were all the same, the world would be mighty boring.
Dale Bass is a reporter at Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Wednesdays. To comment, e-mail editor@kamloops thisweek.com.
© Copyright 2005 Kamloops This Week
Sad politics of human rights
By DALE BASS
If same-sex marriage is truly a human rights issue for Paul Martin, he's certainly quiet about it.
Most human rights advocates could occasionally be mistaken for zealots; they believe passionately in the justness of their causes and they proclaim it loud and long to the masses.
They believe - and they want you to believe, too.
But not Martin. He mouths the words but lacks the passion or commitment. And he lacks the commitment of an advocate to use his position as prime minister and require his caucus to vote in favour of this human right.
That's all it is. Take God out of the debate. The divorce rate in Canada shows that the "sacredness" of the marriage ceremony is nothing more than a one-day show.
Yes, some religious services describe marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but they go on to include the command "till death us do part." StatsCan reports in 2002, the latest year data is available, for every 100 marriages in British Columbia, 41 will end in divorce.
One union under God until death parts us? Not very likely for many of us.
So take this back to its core. Marriage is a legal right. If you believe in human rights, there is no option. You must support them.
Our own MP, Betty Hinton, prefers to hide behind the sham of a "survey." She'll do what the "majority" of her vocal constituents want.
Such hypocrisy is unworthy of our support. She'll never get a "majority" opinion from her survey. She won't even get a healthy minority replying.
Those who believe passionately one way or the other will likely complete it; for most constituents, the survey will go out with the trash.
We elected Hinton to be a leader. To take a stand and do the right thing. Make those tough decisions. Stand up for our Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
It would be great if she believed as strongly in human rights as she appears to believe in the infallibility of her party leader, Stephen Harper.
Has anyone heard her say anything about Harper's outrageous statement to a group of Sikhs in Toronto, when he declared allowing same-sex couples to marry would put the country's ethnic diversity in jeopardy?
"This is a threat to any Canadian who supports multiculturalism," he told the group. "It is a threat to a genuinely multicultural country."
Even members of his own party condemned those statements - but not Hinton.
People who invoke the name of God in this debate muddy the issue.
When my husband and I married, we had to buy a licence from the government. A judge or justice of the peace could easily have filled in for the Anglican minister who presided over the ceremony. We had to register our marriage with the government for it to be deemed legal.
God may have been there but she had nothing to do with the legality of our union. God's involvement was in deference to me, a lapsed Baptist with an ingrained and truly unrealistic fear of hell and damnation, than it had anything to do with the merger or our two families.
The late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had it right. Government doesn't belong in our bedrooms. It certainly has its place in the marriage ceremony, but that's it. And it has a duty to uphold human rights. This is not optional nor should it be swayed by vocal minorities on either side.
It's not something that should be left up to individual consciences. We elect leaders to lead. We expect them to uphold the laws of the land. This is one of those moments. Martin, Harper, Hinton - they all need to forget about their re-election worries and do the right thing.
Dale Bass is a reporter with Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Fridays. To comment, e-mail editor@kamloopsthisweek.com.
© Copyright 2005 Kamloops This Week
Bad time to get sick
By DALE BASS
If you want to get a first-hand look at what the provincial Liberal government has done to the province, get sick.
Sick enough to need to call an ambulance - preferably at night.
While this isn't something I would wish on anyone, experiencing a trip to the emergency room at Royal Inland Hospital, by ambulance, in the evening, will open your eyes to the sad state of our health care. And it's not an anomaly. What's happening here in Kamloops is happening at other communities throughout the Interior.
Earlier this week, a representative of the paramedic union talked about a situation in the Fraser Health Region, where a paramedic begged ER staff at Royal Columbian Hospital for 90 minutes to help a patient who was about to have a seizure.
Not enough money is being put into our health-care system. Our ER staff is overworked. Some ambulances spent this past winter driving not on winter tires, but on all-season radials. Response times for ambulances are abysmal not because of the personnel involved, but because there aren't enough of them to handle the medical emergencies that happen every hour of everyday.
This is nothing new. In 2003, ambulance workers, expressing concern about what, at that time were anticipated cuts, and which later became reality, went public with their beliefs the cuts would hurt patient care.
Some nights in Kamloops, medical personnel say there are only two ambulances on duty for the entire city.
And don't assume they can drop off their patients, fill out the necessary paperwork and head back out to take the next patient to hospital - they have to stay, sometimes for hours, until their patients are processed.
Anyone who's been to the ER in the past several months knows how long a wait that can be.
There's more to point to the disaster that our health-care system has become. Consider the recent revelation recommendations made by a coroner investigating the death of a man in the Kootenays were removed from his report when it was released.
The facts are simple: The 75-year-old man fell, rupturing his spleen. He was taken to Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, but could not be treated there and was transferred to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail. It took six hours to find a bed and a surgeon to treat him. By then, he had bled to death.
The recommendations identified deficiencies at the Kootenay Lake General Hospital, while noting they did not contribute to the 75-year-old man's death.
The provincial NDP, smelling an issue it can rally behind in the run-up to the May 17 provincial election, has demanded an explanation from Health Minister Shirley Bond for the discrepancy. A spokeswoman for the Interior Health Authority has said the IH took sufficient action in dealing with the man and his injuries and responded to the recommendations, putting them into place.
Bond, in an admission that some might find unbelievable, replied Wednesday that she has no authority over the coroner's office, as it is independent.
Perhaps she's missing the point. As the minister responsible for all aspects of health care in this province, she should be able to find out why a coroner's report left out relevant recommendations. She should be able to find out why the injured man was shuffled between hospitals and if his care there was adequate.
And if she can't find out, what good is having a health minister?
Bond will be popping up in the news a lot in coming weeks as we approach the election date. Finance minister Colin Hansen - the former health minister - announced this week the February budget will have plenty of goodies for everyone, with major investment in the health-care system. So try not to get sick until then.
Dale Bass is a reporter at Kamloops This Week. Her column appears Fridays. To comment, e-mail editor@kamloops thisweek.com.
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