January 31, 2010 should go down in history as the turning point of the Federal Government, the day the Conservatives finally went too far in pushing Canadians away from the values they share. That was the day the Conservatives, led by Environment Minister Jim Prentice, announced Canada’s greenhouse gas ‘reduction’ targets to the United Nations and to the rest of the world. The numbers are depressing for their lack of courage and their inability to impact the global climate crisis. For those not in the know, the Conservatives have decided that a mere seventeen percent reduction from 2005 levels is all that this government is willing to do. Unfortunately, this is not nearly as laudable a goal as they would have you believe. Most of the rest of the world has decided to use 1990 as a benchmark, and if we were to use the same then we would actually be committing to a three percent increase of 1990 levels as the benchmark for our so-called greenhouse gas ‘reductions’.
It is a shame that our apparent reductions will still be a net increase from our 1990 levels and that there was seemingly no input from the scientific community regarding the Conservative Party’s proposed commitments, particularly in light of how much public support there is for Canada to pull its weight in the global struggle. A 2009 poll from Angus Reid shows that a firm majority of voters support climate change legislation, including a legally binding international accord. Yet another large majority of voters, this time from just the province of British Columbia, a battleground province in federal elections, say that protecting the environment should take precedence, even over economic growth. The polling landscape clearly shows that Canadians and especially British Columbians care about the environment. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives should remember that when they present their lackluster emission targets. Perhaps if scientists had been allowed to contribute to the discussion instead of big oil, there would have been harder targets in place, targets that would have actually made a difference in reducing human impact on the environment.
Harder targets are needed, and it has become apparent that the ruling party does not consider the environment an issue worth their time. These substandard emission caps will not change Canadians’ impact on climate change, but there is another way to make a significant impact on the world stage. Bill C-311 is a private member’s bill that will once again be sent through Parliament once it is back in session. This bill, which has not been drafted by the Conservatives and has never once received support from the Conservative caucus, includes harder caps that are backed by real scientific consensus. Please call your local Member of Parliament and urge them to support Bill C-311 once it returns to Parliament, it is our chance to tell Harper and his Conservatives that his emission caps are not good enough for the world and certainly not good enough for Canadians.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Lament of the priviliged
I wonder if anyone notices the things I notice anymore. Look around you, middle class of the West. We're having a whole dialogue without even seeing each other, sometimes without even having met each other. We live in such exciting times, where technology continues to make our lives so much simpler than they were, so much better than they were.
Except for the people we've left behind, the people who don't have what we have, who can't have what we have because the money simply isn't there. Things haven't gotten better for them, things haven't even stayed the same for the poor. This is our shame as a society, or it should be our shame. These people, they are no different from you or I, save for the circumstances of their lives. But to see how we treat them as a society and as individuals how we react to them, you would think there was something wrong with them. Its wrong. Its not the Canadian way. Its not what my grandfather fought and died for. We have, and without cause, forsaken them in our quest for a simpler life.
Earlier this week, I encountered someone who exemplefies my point exactly. I say encounter since we never got to talk, never got to understand and introduce ourselves to the other. He simply passed through my life, without knowing the impact he made that night. He was a panhandler, you've seen them everywhere and he was no different from any other. He wanted to wash the car I was in, my partner and driver suggested that he move on and that she wasn't interested. What struck me was how he responded. There wasn't a mean or selfish thought to him, all he said was God bless us, and he moved along without asking for a single thing from either of us. Here was this person, a person with far less than either occupants of the car, and rather than begging or demanding something, he simply accepted his fate without protest. It shocked me. I got to really look at the person before he left my field of vision, and for the first time in many years, I knew fear. Not fear that he would cause me harm, I could see he wasn't that kind of person. No, this was a more basic fear, this was a fear that I could have been that person. He looked like me, and it made me realize that it could have been me, and that maybe in another life it was me. Here was someone who was not even in the prime of his life, forced to curtail any possible potential he may have had simply so that he could find food and shelter for a cold winter's night. I tried to find him not even half an hour later; it breaks my heart to know that the person in question was gone, and so was the police vehicle I had spotted in that same area in my initial passage through the area. I can never know what actually happened, but it breaks my heart to think that this person, a child in reality and no older than myself, could have been taken away for doing what was necessary in order to survive.
How can we, as a society, accept such things as a reality? We have so much, and the homeless and destitute have so little. How can we accept a society and a reality that has children grifting in order to survive through the night. What does it say about us as a culture where, instead of offering aid to these people, we treat them as though they were beneath our contempt. As young children, we were taught simple lessons by our parents and by our schools; be kind to others. Share what you have. See the best in people, instead of the worst. But somewhere, we all in society have forgotten those simple, classic messages. I look to you, my readers, to help change this. You are the future, we all remember those lectures and lessons in some fashion or another, now is the time that we have to start acting on them instead of betraying the promises we made to our families. Because these people are our family too, we are all family in this world and what we have done is to let down those members of our family who aren't as lucky as we are. We need to start being kind to these people instead of fearing them. We need to start sharing what we have with them instead of hoarding what we can spare to people in true need. we need to see the homeless as people, not as things to be avoided. In this way, we can form a more perfect world, one where no one need fear being left alone, left without a means of reaching their potential.
I call on you all, my readers and my friends; stand up and look around. Look at what we have wrought in this world, what we claim is an equitable society but in reality leaves more and more of our most vulnerable behind. Change a life. All it takes is one person to change a life and save our poor from the worst of life. Help me, help them, help our society reach its potential.
Except for the people we've left behind, the people who don't have what we have, who can't have what we have because the money simply isn't there. Things haven't gotten better for them, things haven't even stayed the same for the poor. This is our shame as a society, or it should be our shame. These people, they are no different from you or I, save for the circumstances of their lives. But to see how we treat them as a society and as individuals how we react to them, you would think there was something wrong with them. Its wrong. Its not the Canadian way. Its not what my grandfather fought and died for. We have, and without cause, forsaken them in our quest for a simpler life.
Earlier this week, I encountered someone who exemplefies my point exactly. I say encounter since we never got to talk, never got to understand and introduce ourselves to the other. He simply passed through my life, without knowing the impact he made that night. He was a panhandler, you've seen them everywhere and he was no different from any other. He wanted to wash the car I was in, my partner and driver suggested that he move on and that she wasn't interested. What struck me was how he responded. There wasn't a mean or selfish thought to him, all he said was God bless us, and he moved along without asking for a single thing from either of us. Here was this person, a person with far less than either occupants of the car, and rather than begging or demanding something, he simply accepted his fate without protest. It shocked me. I got to really look at the person before he left my field of vision, and for the first time in many years, I knew fear. Not fear that he would cause me harm, I could see he wasn't that kind of person. No, this was a more basic fear, this was a fear that I could have been that person. He looked like me, and it made me realize that it could have been me, and that maybe in another life it was me. Here was someone who was not even in the prime of his life, forced to curtail any possible potential he may have had simply so that he could find food and shelter for a cold winter's night. I tried to find him not even half an hour later; it breaks my heart to know that the person in question was gone, and so was the police vehicle I had spotted in that same area in my initial passage through the area. I can never know what actually happened, but it breaks my heart to think that this person, a child in reality and no older than myself, could have been taken away for doing what was necessary in order to survive.
How can we, as a society, accept such things as a reality? We have so much, and the homeless and destitute have so little. How can we accept a society and a reality that has children grifting in order to survive through the night. What does it say about us as a culture where, instead of offering aid to these people, we treat them as though they were beneath our contempt. As young children, we were taught simple lessons by our parents and by our schools; be kind to others. Share what you have. See the best in people, instead of the worst. But somewhere, we all in society have forgotten those simple, classic messages. I look to you, my readers, to help change this. You are the future, we all remember those lectures and lessons in some fashion or another, now is the time that we have to start acting on them instead of betraying the promises we made to our families. Because these people are our family too, we are all family in this world and what we have done is to let down those members of our family who aren't as lucky as we are. We need to start being kind to these people instead of fearing them. We need to start sharing what we have with them instead of hoarding what we can spare to people in true need. we need to see the homeless as people, not as things to be avoided. In this way, we can form a more perfect world, one where no one need fear being left alone, left without a means of reaching their potential.
I call on you all, my readers and my friends; stand up and look around. Look at what we have wrought in this world, what we claim is an equitable society but in reality leaves more and more of our most vulnerable behind. Change a life. All it takes is one person to change a life and save our poor from the worst of life. Help me, help them, help our society reach its potential.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Unqualified Nominee to social work board
A woman by the name of Heather Stilwell has recently been appointed to the BC College of Social Workers. This is a disappointing appointment that will drag British Columbia back into the past, not further into the future. Miss Stilwell is or has been a member of five separate anti-abortion groups, and has spent decades trying to take away a woman’s right to choose. She was also a former leader of the Christian Heritage Party, which emphasizes extreme right wing social viewpoints. Of course, this is the nominee of BC Liberal Minister Mary Polak, so there isn’t as much surprise about the nomination, considering the two of them worked together as members of the Surrey School Board to try and ban books depicting same-sex couples in a positive manner. Her tenure on the Surrey School Board was categorized by her extreme positions. Perhaps her most damning work on the school board was her vote to ban sex education and condom distribution in Surrey classrooms. Studies have shown that sex education and easily obtained condoms reduces the rate of accidental pregnancies and STI transmission, but those facts mean nothing for Miss Stilwell, whose right wing agenda would rather pass on ignorance to students, rather than giving them the tools they need to make informed decisions regarding their sexual health.
The nominee has taken other controversial positions in the past, positions that will not resonate with the majority of British Columbians. Among her more outstanding beliefs are the ideas that global warming is not real, going so far as to pass a motion that if Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is shown in classes, videos which dispute global warming must also be shown, regardless of their scientific merit.
Members of the College are appointed to the board for a single year, but in a year much can be done to reverse the gains our society has fought for decades to achieve. Write to Minister Polak and tell her that it’s not acceptable for her to nominate her unqualified friends to sit on a board that determines the work of our social workers. Give us a nominee and a board that will do its work without a hidden agenda Minister, not one that can impose your own right wing worldview on the rest of us.
The nominee has taken other controversial positions in the past, positions that will not resonate with the majority of British Columbians. Among her more outstanding beliefs are the ideas that global warming is not real, going so far as to pass a motion that if Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is shown in classes, videos which dispute global warming must also be shown, regardless of their scientific merit.
Members of the College are appointed to the board for a single year, but in a year much can be done to reverse the gains our society has fought for decades to achieve. Write to Minister Polak and tell her that it’s not acceptable for her to nominate her unqualified friends to sit on a board that determines the work of our social workers. Give us a nominee and a board that will do its work without a hidden agenda Minister, not one that can impose your own right wing worldview on the rest of us.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
BC Liberals hide shameful record of failure
This year’s BC Progress Board report contains the usual prerequisite good news that the Liberals can point to as showing that they have indeed been doing things in the past eight years other than lining their pockets full of taxpayer dollars, but there are some numbers within the report that need to be discussed, particularly because of how badly they reflect on our province and how the future is looking less promising for our youths instead of more promising.
British Columbia currently has a very high ranking among the provinces of Canada for people under LICO after taxes. By comparison to the rest of Canada, British Columbia has the highest percentage of families under the Low Income Cut Off after taxes, with the rate approaching twenty percent in major urban areas. This level of poverty comes as average wages are the third best in the province, demonstrating that the average is almost entirely based on increases in the top earners’ salaries and not on a benefit to those people who need the money the most in society. This level of poverty is unlikely to improve, as British Columbia’s high school graduation rate is continuing to decline, this year reaching a new low of only 70.5% of high school seniors being projected to graduate from high school this year. Combined with statistics showing a mere 49% of aboriginal students graduating within six years at a secondary school, future generations appear to be saddled with an increasing risk of falling into poverty, as the board itself notes in its reasoning for tracking high school graduation rates. What is most disturbing about this statistic is that, as with most other areas of development in British Columbia, it is rural BC that loses out and has the lowest graduation rates, excepting Victoria, which appears to be an anomaly among urban centers in the province. Poor education scores in rural British Columbia are not limited to secondary school graduation rates. This same study has shown that citizens in rural BC are less than half as likely to obtain a post-secondary degree as their urban counterparts.
The rural to urban divide continues in other areas of BC development. Life expectancy continues to be an issue for rural British Columbia, with life expectancies almost two years lower in rural BC as compared to urban areas. Rural British Columbia is also failing to produce as many new businesses as the urban areas, with the per capita rate in rural BC being less than fifty percent the rate for Vancouver and other urban areas in the province.
Of course, there are a few places where the urban and rural parts of the province are being failed equally badly by the BC Liberals. Our children are being failed by the government right from the moment they are born, with a greater percentage of live births being underweight than ever before. This can only come from the fact that there is less primary care available to mothers during their pregnancy period, no doubt a side effect of the Liberals’ cuts to health care funding. Personal and property crimes are also well above the national average and have not been improving either. Vancouver, as a city, was ranked sixteenth among seventeen large urban centers for crime, and the rest of the province does no better, being ranked as the second worst province for personal and property crimes. A very small solace can be taken for urban British Columbians; whatever crime they have is much worse in rural BC, with personal and property crimes being sixty percent more likely to occur in rural BC than in urban British Columbia.
The statistics here were taken from the Government’s BC Progress Council.
British Columbia currently has a very high ranking among the provinces of Canada for people under LICO after taxes. By comparison to the rest of Canada, British Columbia has the highest percentage of families under the Low Income Cut Off after taxes, with the rate approaching twenty percent in major urban areas. This level of poverty comes as average wages are the third best in the province, demonstrating that the average is almost entirely based on increases in the top earners’ salaries and not on a benefit to those people who need the money the most in society. This level of poverty is unlikely to improve, as British Columbia’s high school graduation rate is continuing to decline, this year reaching a new low of only 70.5% of high school seniors being projected to graduate from high school this year. Combined with statistics showing a mere 49% of aboriginal students graduating within six years at a secondary school, future generations appear to be saddled with an increasing risk of falling into poverty, as the board itself notes in its reasoning for tracking high school graduation rates. What is most disturbing about this statistic is that, as with most other areas of development in British Columbia, it is rural BC that loses out and has the lowest graduation rates, excepting Victoria, which appears to be an anomaly among urban centers in the province. Poor education scores in rural British Columbia are not limited to secondary school graduation rates. This same study has shown that citizens in rural BC are less than half as likely to obtain a post-secondary degree as their urban counterparts.
The rural to urban divide continues in other areas of BC development. Life expectancy continues to be an issue for rural British Columbia, with life expectancies almost two years lower in rural BC as compared to urban areas. Rural British Columbia is also failing to produce as many new businesses as the urban areas, with the per capita rate in rural BC being less than fifty percent the rate for Vancouver and other urban areas in the province.
Of course, there are a few places where the urban and rural parts of the province are being failed equally badly by the BC Liberals. Our children are being failed by the government right from the moment they are born, with a greater percentage of live births being underweight than ever before. This can only come from the fact that there is less primary care available to mothers during their pregnancy period, no doubt a side effect of the Liberals’ cuts to health care funding. Personal and property crimes are also well above the national average and have not been improving either. Vancouver, as a city, was ranked sixteenth among seventeen large urban centers for crime, and the rest of the province does no better, being ranked as the second worst province for personal and property crimes. A very small solace can be taken for urban British Columbians; whatever crime they have is much worse in rural BC, with personal and property crimes being sixty percent more likely to occur in rural BC than in urban British Columbia.
The statistics here were taken from the Government’s BC Progress Council.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)