Understanding the subprime crisis and its real victims

Here's your chance to be the only on your block who understands the subprime loan crisis, what it
means for the average Canadian and why it's so alarming.
The crisis has driven down stocks and sent U.S. real estate values plunging. As a result, among other things,
demand for B.C. lumber has plummeted.
Canadian banks have lost billions. Thousands of families have lost their homes. The U.S. government, the
supposed free-market champion, has used taxpayers' money to bail out banks and investment companies that
recklessly lost money.
And some individual Canadians have seen their life savings vanish.
Here's what happened.
Once, banks lent people money to buy homes and then collected the mortgage payments for 25 years. They made
money as long as the payments kept coming. So naturally they were careful to loan to people who looked able to
pay them back. The banks also made sure the houses were worth enough that they could always foreclose.
About 30 years ago, very clever investment bankers had a good thought. They went to the banks and pitched the
idea of bundling hundreds of these mortgages together, calling them asset-backed securities and selling them as
investments, promising annual payments to the security holder.
The investors got a good return; the banks gave up some revenue but got all their money up front, instead of
waiting for 25 years; the middlemen got a big commission.
It was a success. A rising real estate market gave everyone comfort; even if a few borrowers did quit making
payments, the increase in value in their homes would ensure they could be sold for more than the debt. The
investors felt safe.
People and funds flocked to buy the securities. The banks and financial institutions needed to start writing a lot
more mortgages so they would have something to sell.
But now they weren't thinking much about whether the homeowner could keep making mortgage payments for
25 years. They were looking to find a buyer to take the debt off their hands within six months.
Subprime loans, they called them. Homeowners paid higher interest - which investors liked.
But they put nothing down, or got big mortgages they couldn't really afford. Lenders offered low payments for
the first two years - long enough to bundle the loans and flog them as asset-backed securities to investors.
And people rushed to get the mortgages and buy houses. We're optimistic. We figure we'll find a way to make the
payments. If not, our houses will have risen in value. We'll sell, pay off the mortgages and come out ahead.
Everybody was keen.
So imagine you're in charge of this business for a hot investment bank, pulling in $7 million a year. You have to
sell more secutiries this year than last, or you're toast.
Everybody got a little loose about quality. Banks make bad loans to new homeowners. Investment houses grabbed
dubious mortgages. Some were shifted on to unsophisticated investors, or they couldn't be sold and banks were
stuck with them.
Then it collapsed. Mortgage holders defaulted. Lenders seized homes but couldn't sell them, as property values
fell. Individuals found their savings had vanished.
The public corporations stuck with the securities on their books had to admit they weren't worth what the
managers had claimed - not even close. One big company, Bear Stearns, was worth $20 billion a year ago. Last
week, it was bought for $1.2 billion.
Shareholders and securities' owners got creamed.
And a lot of people made a lot of money along the way.
It's remarkable on one level. This was a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars that produced nothing. It
made money by persuading people to take increasingly greater risks in the hope of reward.
The lesson is that you can't really trust anyone. And the big guys don't pay a big price for their sins.
Footnote: Hearings have started on a proposed plan to settle with Canadian investors, including about 2,000
individuals who are being offered a fraction of the value of the securities. In return, they will have to give up their
right to sue the banks, investment houses and individuals who sold them the bad investments. The early reaction
has been fiercely negative.

Les resignation raises more questions for Liberals

The resignation of John Les and the revelation that he's been under police investigation since last June could add to the Liberals' headaches.
Les did the right thing, resigning as soon as he learned that the RCMP is looking into possible wrongdoing when he was mayor of Chilliwack in the late 1990s.
And, it's critical to note, just because the RCMP is investigating doesn't mean Les did anything wrong
But after dealing with the Dobell affair, and with the BC Rail corruption scandal still hanging over their heads, this is not good news for the Liberals.
And 48 hours after the surprise announcement at 5:30 p.m. on Friday - a favourite time to release bad news - the government still hasn't answered some important questions.
Worse, that task will likely fall to Attorney General Wally Oppal, whose mediocre performance in such situations keeps government communications types braced for a train wreck.
The first questions will be about why Les was able to keep his job as the province's top law enforcement officials for the last nine months.
The man responsible for policing - including, at least nominally, the RCMP - was under investigation by the force.
Les says he didn't know about the investigation until Friday, so he couldn't resign. Premier Gordon Campbell said Saturday he wasn't told about it, so he couldn't ask Les to resign.
So who did know? Specifically, did Oppal know? And was it the right decision by the assistant deputy attorney general to keep the investigation secret? That's who gets to make that decision.
The special prosecutor system was introduced by the Socred government in 1991. It was intended to reduce the risk of real or apparent political interference in police investigations that involved government.
If government lawyers were placed in charge of reviewing the evidence and deciding on charges in such cases, then they might fear career repercussions or feel other pressures.
So if a case involves a politician or government, the assistant deputy attorney general has the option of handing responsibility to an outside lawyer.
The ministry and the Law Society of B.C. collaborate on a standing list of lawyers to handle the assignments; the assistant deputy attorney general appoints one from the list.
It's a good framework.
But this case, along with the BC Rail investigation, raises questions about how well it's working.
The biggest problem in the Les case is the secrecy. If it was appropriate that he resign once the investigation was made public, why was it not appropriate that he resign when it began?
The government's Criminal Justice Branch says its "general practice" is to keep the appointment of a special prosecutor secret unless the public finds out about it somehow.
But the report that led to the creation of the process didn't call for that level of secrecy.
It suggested that the appointment of a special prosecutor be withheld from the public only when the information's release might undermine the investigation. That's not the approach the government is apparently taking.
The other questions will be about whether Oppal knew about the investigation and the special prosecutor.
The original recommendations suggested the attorney general could be kept aware of the progress of significant cases. Did Oppal know about this one? Did he consider whether the premier should be told, or Les should step down?
And would the public ever have found about the investigation at all if a CBC reporter hadn't forced the government's hand?
The Liberals will likely revert to the same kind of stonewalling they've used, with some success, in dealing with the Dobell case and the BC Rail scandal.
And they will point out, quite rightly, that everyone needs to remember that Les is innocent at this point. He says he's confident he'll be cleared.
But another cloud is hanging over the government.
Footnote: The original policy called for "senior criminal lawyers in private practice" to be appointed special prosecutors. But in the B.C. Rail case and now in this one, the ministry has picked lawyers who, while highly regarded, are not known for criminal work. Given the massive problems in the B.C. Rail case, this raises questions about why the change was made.

Paying taxes as a step toward happiness

Maybe it's age, but I'm thinking a lot more about happiness.
There are all sorts of things that drive us - providing a good life for our children, security, fear of failure, a need to impress or outdo someone else, making the most of our talents or helping make a better world.
But shouldn't happiness figure in there somewhere?
The idea makes politicians, at least in North America, edgy. Maybe they just don't believe happiness is a legitimate aim.
Or perhaps they fear the search for happiness might make us selfish and self-absorbed, uncaring about our obligations to our neighbours. People might work less and grouse about taxes more.
Turns out the politicians are wrong. The drive to be happy should make us kinder and more generous, not more selfish.
That's the conclusion I'd pull from some research just published in Science. UBC psychology prof Elizabeth Dunn was part of the team. Among other studies, they interviewed a group of employees at a Boston company to assess their general happiness.
The company had a generous profit-sharing plan. At year-end, the staff got cheques for between $3,000 and $8,000.
Six to eight weeks after the bonuses were paid, the researchers interviewed the same people to see how the money had affected their state of mind.
Those who bought gifts for others or donated to charity showed greater gains in happiness that those who bought something for themselves or cleared up a credit card bill.
So money can buy happiness - but only if you spend it on someone else.
The results are consistent with other research that found happiness tends to be linked to helping others. Even small amounts committed to making things better for other people resulted in greater happiness.
The findings fit with other studies on income and happiness. One of the most cited - though that's not necessarily an indication of reliability - surveyed people around in 65 countries between 1990 and 2000.
It found that up to about $13,000 per person per year, increasing income meant increasing happiness. After that, higher income produced much smaller gains in happiness.
It makes sense to me. I've been paid quite a lot of money, and been unhappy. I've had income dramatically lower, and been pleased with life.
There is, for most of us, a comfort zone. If paying an unexpected car repair bill or a child's school costs is a big problem, then happiness is reduced. But broadly, income and happiness have much less to do with each other than people expect.
Which leads, in a winding way, to politics. Governments have increasingly a ccepted the idea that taxes are inherently bad. Tax increases, the construct goes, should make people unhappy; tax cuts should make them happier.
The assumption has already been proved dubious. One survey found 60 per cent of British Columbians would welcome higher property taxes in return for improved services. Another indicated a majority Albertans didn't want the $400 rebate the Klein government sent out in 2006; they thought the money should have been spent on health care and education.
The happiness research reinforces the point. Taxes are, on the most basic level, a form of using our money to help others. Practically, we gain - our parents don't wait as long for needed medical care, our child gets a better education and the walk to work isn't marked by so many homeless people sleeping in doorways.
But the research suggests that we'll actually be happier as a result of paying taxes to make life better for others.
That's an important distinction. Happiness only increases if the money is actually improving life for others. If it's being wasted or spent on dubious priorities, then we do get surly.
Still, there's an important lesson there for political parties. If the public thinks they're competent, then paying taxes might actually make people happier.
Footnote: Canadian governments don't worry much about happiness. The B.C. government has a couple of hundred performance measurements, but not one that deals with how happy we are. But in Bhutan, the Peace and Prosperity Party has just swept into power with a platform that includes measuring "Gross National Happiness." British Conservative leader David Cameron has backed similar proposals.

Nurses' union wins round in fight against two-tier care

It's been one of the great frauds in B.C. Governments have proclaimed the importance of equal access to health care, while ignoring the expansion of clinics that offer special treatment for those who can pay.
The clinics and surgical centres are routinely breaking the law, both the Canada Health Act and the province's Medicare Protection Act. It's illegal to charge a premium for services covered by the Medical Services Plan.
You can buy optional treatment, like cosmetic surgery.
But you can't pay extra so your son is treated ahead of some other, sicker child.
That's the service the various clinics and centres offer every day. But the provincial government chooses to pretend it's not happening.
We are supposed to live by the rule of law. But there's little recourse for the average citizen when a government decides it's above the law.
Or there didn't seem to be. The B.C. Nurses' Union has changed that.
I like judicial activism. Ideally, people could count on their MLA or MP to stand up for them and the law.
But with almost all power in the premier's or prime minister's office, that won't happen. So the courts stand in for our local elected representatives.
The nurses' union filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court against the attorney general and Medical Services Commission for not enforcing the Medicare Protection Act and allowing two-tier care.
The government argued the case should be tossed out. It was none of the union's business whether the government enforced the law, the lawyers said.
And who says the government has to enforce its laws anyway, they argued. (I'm paraphrasing; for the source, go to www.courts.gov.bc.ca. Click on this week's Supreme Court decisions in the menu on the left.)
Justice Stephen Kelleher disagreed. "What the union is doing in pursuing this position is well within what a democratic trade union normally does in our society," he ruled. "The courts have recognized that unions have a legitimate role to play in engaging in broader political and social processes of society." The union's members would be hurt if the basic principles of medicare were abandoned, he noted.
It seems a stretch. I'd argue that a union's role is to represent the interest of its members.
But the ruling also seems in the public interest. It's important that sick kids' opportunity to get medical care shouldn't depend on their parents' ability to pay.
If the government won't enforce the law, and individuals can't afford to, perhaps unions have the responsibility be default.
This is, once again, one of those issues that cuts across party lines. The expansion of two-tier care really got going under the NDP government in the 1990s. It stood by while private clinics and surgical centres started offering speedy treatment for those willing to pay to jump the queue in the public system.
The Liberals have mostly continued to practice willful blindness as two-tier care expanded in obvious violation of the law.
The federal government fines the province for Canada Health Act violations related to user fees most years. B.C. has the worst record among provinces. But nothing happens.
There was a brief flurry of provincial interest in enforcing the law. In late 2003, then health care minister Colin Hansen brought in legislation to uphold the Canada Health Act and prevent two-tier care. It was debated and passed in the legislature with overwhelming government support.
But three weeks later, Premier Gordon Campbell apparently changed his mind. The law has never been put into effect.
So far, Canadians have supported the principles of the Canada Health Act, particularly the notion that care should go to those who need it most, not those with the biggest bank accounts.
But in B.C. - and other provinces - governments have chosen not to enforce the law. The union's legal action lawsuit might change that.
Footnote: The lawsuit, launched three years ago, doesn't challenge the private delivery of services, only some operators' practice of charging extra fees for speedier access. Governments are free under the law to contract with clinics for necessary treatments, as long as the patient doesn't have to pay any extra user fees.

Government trying to keep evidence from Frank Paul inquiry

Frank Paul's death almost 10 years ago has raised harsh questions about racism in B.C. Police, the justice system, the provincial government are all under a dark cloud.
Now some key players - the government prosecutors who decided not to lay any criminal charges in the case - are trying to avoid scrutiny at the public inquiry belatedly called into Paul's death.
It's a grim story. Three weeks before Christmas in 1998, two Vancouver police officers found Paul semiconscious in alley. They called a patrol wagon to take him to jail. A video shows the native man being dragged from the wagon to a hall outside the cells.
A nurse walks past. Then an officer decides Paul isn't drunk. He's dragged out of the jail by his feet.
The officers drop him in an alley. Hours later, police find him dead.
And then, for the next nine years, stonewalling and cover-up. None of the people or institutions that should have been concerned - the coroner, the police complaints commissioner, the police board, the solicitor general, the premier - did anything.
Until last year, when mounting pressure from First Nations and human rights advocates forced the government to call a public inquiry.
The inquiry evidence hasn't got that much attention, but it has been important. One police officer offered emotional testimony, expressing his remorse at leaving Paul to die.
Another insisted that the man was not drunk, even though he couldn't walk out of the jail.
Larry Campbell, then coroner, now senator, couldn't offer a good reason why he hadn't ordered an inquest.
Then solicitor general Rich Coleman has yet to explain why he rejected the police complaints commissioner's request for a public inquiry. Coleman feared, among other things, that an inquiry would uncover allegations of racism against the Vancouver police. That seems a reason to hold an inquiry, not to avoid one.
The inquiry has been hearing from the witnesses it considers important.
Until now. The provincial government is going to court to try and prevent Crown counsel from testifying about the decision not to lay any charges against the officers involved in Paul's death.
Inquiry commissioner William Davies has ruled that he wants five Crown prosecutors to testify about the procedures they followed in deciding against charges in the case.
Davies noted that the Criminal Justice Branch of the Solicitor General's Ministry was one of the public bodies specifically identified as subject to review in the inquiry's terms of reference.
"The branch is currently under a cloud, for its response to Mr. Paul's death. It is too early to tell whether or not that cloud is warranted," he said.
But the government is going to B.C. Supreme Court to oppose the requirement that Crown prosecutors testify at the inquiry. Its reasons are unconvincing.
The government argues that prosecutors should not have to account for or explain their decisions to lay charges or decide against them under any circumstances.
Having them testify "opens the door for government, special interest groups and others to put pressure on Crown prosecutors to proceed with criminal charges in circumstances where it is not warranted."
There are three problems with the argument. First, it's unclear how having the prosecutors explain their thinking and the process allows special interest groups to pressure them. Especially given how infrequently such inquiries are called.
Second, it suggests that there is no accountability for prosecutor's decisions not to lay charges. Judges' decisions can be appealed; prosecutors, under this model, would be not just independent but omnipotent.
And third, the attempt to block the evidence from being heard suggests the government still does not understand the critical need for answers in this case.
Frank Paul's death was followed by years of actions that prevented the truth from coming out. The government shouldn't be continuing that secrecy.
Footnote: The B.C. Supreme Court is unlikely to hear the province's arguments until May. Meanwhile, the continued efforts to keep prosecutors from providing evidence is angering First Nations organizations, which complain the government is reneging on Attorney General Wally Oppal's promise of a full and open inquiry into Paul's death.

Disabled kids aren't getting the support they need: report_

I can't imagine anything more challenging than being the parent of a disabled child.
It's not just the effort, the commitment that goes into making sure your child has the best life possible. Not just the exhaustion and expense and emotions and the toll on other relationships.
The parents also know that someday they won't be there. And then what will happen to their children, who can't care for themselves?
We've accepted the idea that this is a shared responsibility. That when parents can't cope, the government will provide help. Therapy and support, perhaps places children can go occasionally weekend a month while their parents have a small break, sometime specialized residential care.
Most of us would want to be there for those families.
But the provincial government isn't doing a good job. It's even ignoring a 2007 B.C. Court of Appeal decision that found the government has been breaking its own law by denying help to those who need it.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the Representative for Children and Youth, has just reported on how well we're doing in supporting these children and families.
It's not great news.
Families who decide they need help can't figure out where to go. They face a "complex, fragmented service delivery system." That's a big barrier if you're already spending every waking moment caring for your disabled teen.
It's often not even clear where they should start. The Ministry of Children and Families and Community Living BC, the government's agency delivering services to people with developmental disabilities both have roles, too often poorly defined.
Even if families can find their way to the right office, the problems aren't over. Turpel-Lafond found wait times - or getting needed help at all - are a significant problem.
No one really knows what's going on. Or, as the representative puts it: "There is insufficient public accountability and measurement of child and youth outcomes. At present, with respect to CLBC and MCFD services to children and youth with special needs, it is not possible to decipher who is getting what services, by whom, at what cost and with what outcome. "
And there is the government's shame. It insists that once people turn 19, they are ineligible for help if they score at least 70 on an IQ test. Only five per cent of the population has IQ scores that low.
The policy discounts other problems that might keep them from making their way successfully - fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, ADHD, big psychological problems.
The B.C. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal have both ruled the policy violates the government's own laws
But Turpel-Lafond says that continues to be the government's policy, despite the court ruling.
Her report includes examples that show the ridiculous destructiveness of the policy. A 17-year-old boy with a range of serious psychological and behaviour problems was removed from his last foster home after he assaulted the family's six-year-old son.
The children and families ministry had nowhere for him, so social workers arranged a placement in a Community Living BC home. There's a lot of support and supervision, so it's expensive - $8,000 a month. But he's doing well.
But he's aging out of care, as the social workers say. And although his IQ tested below 70 in the past, a new assessment put him just over the cut-off.
So, once he turns 19. Community Living BC says he's on his own.
Social worker and forensic services assessments say he won't make it. The young man is a risk to harm himself or others in the community once he turns 19 and the support is withdrawn, they say.
It's wrong and foolish stupid to condemn someone to a costly failure in life to save money - especially the long-term cost is much greater.
Turpel-Lafond has offered a useful guide for improvements. The government should welcome the help.
Footnote: Turpel-Lafond criticized policies that see help cut off for children in government care when they turn 19. "A prudent parent wouldn't send a developmentally impaired 19-year-old to the street and the state shouldn't do that," she said. Children in care should get transitional help until they turn 24. Christensen said the current policy would stand.

Liberals, Campbell look bad in Dobell affair

The Liberals' biggest problem in the Ken Dobell scandal isn't the long-time Campbell advisor's illegal activity. The most troubling aspect is the failure of the premier's office to see the problems, let alone deal with them.
Even when concerns were raised about Dobell's activities and access, the premier's office denied any problems.
Jessica McDonald, the premier's deputy and top public sector manager, investigated. There was nothing for the public to worry about, she reported.
But there was. This week a special prosecutor - appointed because of opposition pressure - reported on the case. He concluded Dobell had violated provincial law by failing to register as a lobbyist, even though he was trying to influence government policy for paying clients.
He also found a "substantial likelihood" that Dobell could be convicted of the Criminal Code offence of influence-peddling.
The City of Vancouver had hired him to try and get provincial money for social housing; his lobbying activities included meeting Housing Minister Rich Coleman. At the same time, Dobell was being paid $250 an hour as a special advisor to Premier Gordon Campbell.
"One of the reasons he wanted the title Special Advisor in his contract was 'the linkage to the premier,'" prosecutor Terrence Robertson reports. "Mr. Dobell recognized that people would assume that he would make recommendations to the premier and that those recommendations would have some credibility."
So when Vancouver hired him to get as a consultant, in part to get housing funding from the province, Dobell was likely breaking the law, the prosecutor found. It's against the law to take money in return for providing special influence in government.
Robertson decided against influence-peddling charges, saying they wouldn't serve the public interest. Dobell held an honest but wrong belief that he wasn't breaking any laws and co-operated completely. The lead RCMP investigator "saw this as a case in which there was no corruption," Robertson said.
And conviction would likely result in an absolute discharge anyway, the special prosecutor said.
Dobell agreed to plead guilty to failing to register as a lobbyist and repay the $6,950 he was paid for his time spent meeting provincial officials. Attorney General Wally Oppal denied there was a plea bargain, but it looked that way.
It's a grimy, sloppy business. Dobell has been a close Campbell associate since the mid-80s, when he was the Vancouver city manager and Campbell was mayor. When the Liberals were elected in 2001, Dobell was hired as deputy minister to the premier. He ran the show for Campbell.
And through that time, he had an excellent reputation.
In 2005, Dobell stepped down and went into business as a consultant. Campbell was his best client, hiring him as a special advisor at $250 an hour with annual payment cap of $230,000. He chaired the Vancouver convention centre project - that didn't work out so well, given the massive cost overruns - and represented the province on the Olympic organizing committee. Dobell worked on the softwood lumber dispute, coastal forest problems, conflicts with teachers, the Gateway transportation project and as a lobbyist to push B.C.'s interests in Ottawa.
He even kept an office in the government's Vancouver headquarters. But Dobell had other clients, including the City of Vancouver. The work included getting money from the province. And who better to lobby than someone who Campbell valued so highly that he was paying $250 an hour for his opinions.
The conflict should have been obvious. No matter what Dobell might have thought, potential clients could reasonably expect him to have the inside track as a special advisor to the premier. Other municipalities, for example, must have wondered whether their housing plans were being ignored because they didn't have the premier's associate on the payroll.
Campbell and the government still haven't acknowledged any wrongdoing. Dobell is still a lobbyist, trying to woo the government on behalf clients. And the Liberals are looking more arrogant than accountable over the whole issue.
Footnote: Attorney General Wally Oppal was left to handle questions about the affair and he offered nothing but repeated claims that it would be inappropriate to comment until Dobell pleaded guilty. Campbell said only that he respected Dobell as a person. The Liberals would have slammed such responses from an NDP premier under the same circumstances.

Day is wrong: Kids need their moms, even in prison

Stockwell Day's reaction to the news that a mom will raise her baby inside a B.C. penitentiary shows why the Conservatives still make people nervous.
Sure, prison isn't a great place for a kid. But can anyone argue that toddlers don't really need their moms? Or that everything will work out nicely for a child apprehended by the government and launched into a life of changing foster homes and overworked social workers, to be cast adrift at 19?
Lisa Whitford is the mother. In 2006, she shot Anthony Cartledge, her common-law partner, in Prince George. He died. She was arrested at the scene. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to six years. With credit for time in custody after her arrest, the sentence means up to four more years behind bars.
When Whitford shot Cartledge, she was pregnant with his child. The baby was born while she was awaiting trial -- Jordyn, a girl.
This isn't some heartwarming movie. Whitford has had a wretched life. She was abused as a child, raped as a teen and has been an addict and criminal. Her first three children have already been apprehended and ended up in government care.
But she has done well with Jordyn, who is almost one now and thriving. In a rare sentencing decision, Whitford was allowed to keep Jordyn with her in prison. She'll serve her sentence in the Fraser Valley Institution, where she and he child will have a space much like an apartment, only with guards.
This alarmed Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. He called for an urgent review of the program that allows mothers to look after their babies in prison.
That's fine, if the interest is in the children's welfare.
But Day, sadly, went farther. He was concerned, the Globe and Mail reported, about "the message that is sent to serious offenders when they are permitted to retain custody of a child while incarcerated."
It's an appalling thing to say. Should children suffer to send a message to offenders?
And does Day really think that women like Whitfield, shotguns in hand, will stop to consider whether they might be pregnant and at risk of losing contact with their unborn child before pulling the trigger?
I have two children and three grandchildren. They are, I am convinced, better off with their parents than in the government's care. Even if their mothers were in prison, they would be better off.
That's not a criticism of foster parents, or child protection workers. As a group, they have my admiration. Many children emerge successfully from the system. And many enter with big problems, physically and emotionally.
But I would work terribly hard to keep a child I knew from going into care. There are too many shuffles between foster homes, too much struggle and a terrible end to support on the day they turn 19 -- when they really need a helping hand.
Statistically, children in care face huge disadvantages. They're likely to end up living below the poverty line and more likely to be in trouble with the law. They're less likely to finish high school and much more likely to be homeless or on welfare.
It might all fall apart for Whitford. Her lawyer says caring for Jordyn has given her "a sense of worthfulness, something to live for. She cares so much for this child."
The program works for moms. Research on the American version of the program found that offenders whose children were taken from them were almost four times as likely to re-offend as moms allowed to keep them.
Critics have suggested prison is no place for a child. But it could be as safe and healthy as some of the apartments or neighbourhoods where children are being raised now.
Little kids need their mothers. (Fathers too.) And this should be about little kids.
When Day makes it about punishing their mothers, it's alarming and a little creepy.
Footnote: It's hard to see why the program has become enough of a priority that Day wants an immediate review. In Canada there are two or three women and children participating in the federal mother-child prison program. There are thousands of children in worse circumstances on reserves and in cities, yet Day's government hasn't ordered any immediate action.

The ins and outs of the carbon tax

The Liberals' carbon tax took quick fire from a lot of different directions.
Within a few hours of the announcement, the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, the B.C. Government Employees Union and the B.C. Green Party had all zipped off press releases complaining about the carbon-tax plan.
Which means it's at least an interesting idea. If right, left and enviros are united in skepticism, the tax has made an impact.
Of course, there was a lot of praise too, from a wide range of sources too.
I don't think you can argue against the principle. The government, reflecting the views of most British Columbians, has decided greenhouse-gas emissions must be reduced dramatically to slow global warming.
That means, fundamentally, burning fewer fossil fuels - gas and coal and oil.
There are other approaches. You can plant trees and can claim you're creating a carbon sink to offset some of the gas you burn in your drive to work. You could pay somebody else to reduce their emissions and count that as your contribution.
But really, meaningful action means emission reductions. That means changes in the way we live - car pooling or insulating our walls or at least walking to the store sometimes.
And while some people will start taking the bus just to help reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions, many more will park their cars if gas prices hit a painful point.
That's the principle behind the carbon tax. The government figured out how much greenhouse gas each fuel produced when burned. (Diesel is worse than gas in cars; oil is worse than natural gas for home heating.) Then it calculated a tax that was intended to work out to $10 per tonne of greenhouse gases produced this year, rising to $30 a tonne by 2012.
So the gas tax will start at 2.4 cents a litre this year and rise 1.2 cents a litre each year after. By 2012, it will be 7.2 cents a litre.
That's one problem with the plan. Gas prices are about 10 cents higher than they were a year ago - in Victoria they jumped six cents in hours this week - but not many people have changed their driving patterns.
And if people haven't considered it worthwhile to put in a more efficient gas furnace, it doesn't seem likely that a one-per-cent tax on natural gas - perhaps an extra dollar week in heating costs - will be move them.
But you've got to start somewhere.
The tax could influence business decisions. But that's a little worrying. Will an energy-dependent company install a more efficient power source or expand into Alberta or Idaho, where there is no carbon tax?
Or will not much of anything change? Les Leyne, the Times Colonist columnist, raised that point with Taylor in the press conference.
B.C. emits about 66 million tonnes of greenhouse gas a year. The government has passed a law saying that has to be cut by one-third by 2020. Without changes, the growth in our population and energy appetite would probably take emissions to more than 80 million tonnes by then.
In 2020, emissions will have to be cut by 22 million tonnes from today's level. But Leyne noted, the carbon tax is only projected to reduce emissions by three million tonnes.
At best, that's 14 per cent of the way to the goal.
There are lots of measures still to come. It sounds odd, but capturing the methane gas from dumps and burning it for heat or power makes a big difference.
The cap and trade system, while still to come, will theoretically encourage companies to reduce their emissions. If they come in under their cap, they can sell the credits to less-successful companies.
But not much will happen when the value of emissions is $10 per tonne. The province plans to charge itself $25 a tonne to cover its carbon emissions. The money will go into its Pacific Carbon Trust, which will use the money to reduce greenhouse gases. (The idea that Gordon Campbell can give the trust $4 to erase the emissions from a round-trip between Vancouver and Victoria is odd.)
Strange days and wild waters. But British Columbians wanted their government to do something about climate change. And it's taken the first steps into the unknown.

The five-point B.C. budget guide

OK, here's the five things you need to know about the budget in about 700 words.
First, you're going to get a cheque in June for $100 per person in your household. It's called the "Climate Action Dividend" to try and link it to the budget's green theme. The government hopes you'll use the money to buy a bicycle or a more efficient fridge.
Really it just reflects the fact the government - once again - wildly underestimated revenues in last year's budget. It was on track to a $3-billion surplus this year, and to facing tough questions about why people were waiting for knee surgery or paying such high taxes with all that cash piling up in the government accounts.
So you get a cheque. The measure will cost government $440 million.
Second, you're also going to pay more for gas, oil and other carbon fuels. A new carbon tax will be based on the amount of greenhouse gases the fuel produces, starting at $10 per tonne this year and rising to $30 a tonne by 2012.
Beginning July 1, you'll pay 2.41 cents a litre in a carbon tax on gas - something like $50 a year for a typical family. It will go up 1.2 cents a year. All fuels will be taxed. Figure $35 extra this year if you heat with natural gas, $50 if you heat with oil.
The tax will bring in $338 million this year, rising to $880 million within two years.
The government wants the tax to be revenue neutral -any new money taken in is to be offset by other tax cuts.
So it's made several other tax reductions. A carbon tax tends to hurt low-income families, grabbing a larger share of their limited income. People eligible for the federal GST credit - about 25 per cent of British Columbians - will get $100 per adult and $30 per child. (A carbon tax also hits rural residents harder, but there is no special aid for them.)
Personal income tax reductions will be worth $215 million. For a family of four with household income of $70,000, the savings will be about $200 a year. For a family with an income of $120,000, about $360.
Corporations will get $170 million in tax cuts this year.
Third, this carbon tax is a leap into the unknown. No province or state has a similar tax. The business reps in the budget lockup appeared unsure how much the tax would affect them.
For some industries, like money-losing pulp mills, it's clearly bad news. They'll pay more for fuel and, since they aren't profitable and paying taxes, they won't benefit from the tax cuts.
Broadly, it looks resource industries - which generally use a lot of energy and can't pass increased costs onto their customers - are most worried.
Fourth, beyond the carbon tax, this is largely a status quo budget, for better and worse. Spending leaps a bit this year, thanks to some one-time initiatives, but is forecast to increase less than three per cent in each of the next two years.
So health spending, for example, will rise about six per cent a year for each of the next three years. Not enough to actually allow the health authorities to deliver needed care, but not the noose some had feared.
It showed that the public's message in the conversation on health - that people would to preserve decent care - got through.
It's also status quo in terms of government neglect of some critical areas. The funding to deal with homelessness is almost non-existent. There is a token commitment, for example, to help 1,065 families with rent subsidies of about $80 each, a tiny step. More outreach workers will be hired and shelters will stay open in the daytime.
At a time when some 10,000 to 15,000 British Columbians are homeless and communities across the province are being damaged, the inaction is baffling.
Fifth, there was a broad sense that this government sees the province's future in the Lower Mainland. There was money for mining exploration and incentives to encourage movie-making in the North and Interior.
But the focus was on tech and Asia-Pacific opportunities and financial institutions.
And that, in about 700 words, is what you need to know from this year's 10-inch stack of budget documents.
I hope.

Throne speech surprisingly interesting

Maybe I've been doing this stuff for too long, but that seemed an interesting throne speech from the Campbell government.
It's foolish to get too fired up about the ritual. There's not necessarily a link between all those words, read by the lieutenant governor, and what government actually does.
But the speech read by the province's first aboriginal lieutenant governor - a significant milestone - had some interesting ideas. Both good interesting and bad interesting.
Take three. In education, health and climate change.
The government promised a serious look at dramatic improvements in early childhood education. A new agency will "assess the feasibility and costs of full school day kindergarten for five-year-olds." It will also look at providing parents with the choice of day-long kindergarten for four-year-olds by 2010, and for three-year-olds by 2012. The report is to be done by next spring - a few months before the election.
The change could be hugely positive, especially for kids from poorer families. The reality is that a five-year-old from an affluent family, with a stay-at-home mum and play groups and story times and junior gym is a lot more ready for kindergarten than a five-year-old growing up with a single-parent earning just above minimum wage.
A good early childhood education program would let more children start school confidently and capably. That success could carry them a long way.
And if cost is an issue, then the FSA test results could be put to good use. Start the program in the schools with the weakest performance in basic skills.
In health, there's proposals to cheer and to fear.
The government seems keen on doing things cheaper, which is good. It wants nurses to do more - sewing up wounds and such. And it wants their schooling cut from four years to three, another good change. Better more nurses - or doctors - slightly less well-trained, than a shortage.
But it's also still pitching the myth that we can't afford health care. The government wants to pass a law making "sustainability" a sixth principle under the Canada Health Act, alongside equal access to care and the rest. It's unclear what that means, but the suggestion is that access to care will be cut to reduce costs.
And maybe, at some point, there will be have to tough limits on car.
But we're spending relatively little on health care in B.C. today. Internationally, health-care costs in Canada are smaller share of GDP than most Western countries - about one-third less than the U.S.
In 1985, government health care spending was five per cent. By 1995, it had risen to 6.6 per cent. The increase has slowed since. This year, it will be about 7.2 per cent. Given our rising expectations and aging population, that's not an unreasonable increase.
Looked at another way, government health spending consumes about one-third of revenues today - as it did in 1995 and 1985.
And the throne speech promises a study of an Independent Living Savings Account. It sounds like an RRSP, except you can only use the money for care when you're old - home support or residential care.
That would benefit people with money to set aside. And those who didn't have any extra income available would subsidize their tax break.
And it raises questions how limited the government believes support for seniors in the future, if it's warning people to set aside money today if they can.
On climate change, the throne speech was alarmingly short on specifics. Campbell was clear that the government wasn't going to be deterred from tough action.
But there is a sense of a great leap into the unknown here. The targets are in place, but the government still doesn't seem to know how to get there or what it will cost.
Footnote: The throne speech included a big flood of ideas and initiatives. But there were some gaps. The big problems in the forest industry - right now and the coast, and coming in the Interior - received no real attention. And there was no mention of the Heartland, or whatever the current favorite term is. The challenges of smaller communities no longer seem a priority.

The premier used to think mental health was important

Things are badly out of control on Victoria’s downtown streets, and in communities across the province. More and more addicted and mentally ill people have ended up on the streets and the problems have hit a critical point.
How did this happen? The short answer is that government — and most of us — chose to ignore the problem. It just wasn’t a priority.
Premier Gordon Campbell can explain that as well as anyone.
Back in 2001, Campbell eliminated the office of the mental health advocate. The office was created in 1998. That was four years after the ombudsman had recommended an independent monitor in a critical report on mental health services. The NDP government was no better at paying attention to these issues.
Campbell said the advocate wasn’t a strong enough response. That’s why he was naming a cabinet minister to be responsible for mental health and addiction services.
“A minister of state for mental health is clearly a requirement,” Campbell told the legislature in 2001. “Let’s assume that the last government cared about mental health. They failed people with mental illness miserably.”
Why?
“I would suggest that they did it because there was no one focusing on mental health issues,” said Campbell.
But the minister of state for addictions and mental health never seemed to get much done, beyond some reports and useful mailings to doctors. The evidence on the streets and from families showed things were getting worse.
After the 2005 election, Campbell decided mental health and addictions didn’t need a minister after all. The job followed the advocate onto the dust heap. Since then, people in desperate need of help have created growing street problems.
Some communications person is likely even now preparing a letter to the editor for the health minister to sign in response to this column. The government spent more than $1 billion on mental health and addictions last year and did this and that.
But that’s like boasting about how much you spent fixing your car, without acknowledging that it still doesn’t run. Governments are not elected to spend money, but to help solve problems and provide needed care.
Look at the streets. Talk to families trying to get help. Things are worse.
The answer is also misleading. The government allocates almost no money for mental health or addictions — $8 million for the entire province in 2005-6. It tells the six health authorities how much they can spend on all services and leaves the rest — mostly — up to them.
The budgets aren’t based on what’s needed to provide care. So the authority managers and medical staff decide where the money should go. Fixing knees or catching up on seniors’ long-term-care needs tend to be more compelling than treatment beds for the mentally ill or addicted.
Those people don’t have influence. They don’t hire lobbyists. They aren’t effective in advancing their own needs; if they could do things like that they wouldn’t be on the streets.
So until they become a sufficient irritation, they are ignored.
If you are diagnosed with cancer in B.C., you’ll get excellent care. If you’re alcoholic, or schizophrenic, you won’t. Even the throne speech this week didn’t deal with addiction and mental illness as health issues.
Things might be changing. The problems have become big enough that the community has taken notice. Politicians respond to that.
But how wasteful this has been. In lives, in preventable crime, in health-care costs.
Campbell was right in 2001. Unless someone is focused on the issues, advocating for the ill and holding government to account, we’re likely to see more years of failure.
It’s time to bring back the mental health advocate.
Footnote: Another gap needs to be filled. The Liberals had a minister responsible for seniors’ long-term care in their first term, but axed the position in 2005. The Premier’s Council on Aging recommended in 2006 that a minister of state for aging be appointed “to champion a co-ordinated change agenda across government.” At the least, a seniors’ advocate could ensure that their interests — particularly around issues like residential care — are represented. Many seniors don’t have family or friends to advocate for them or raise concerns.

Risky session ahead for Liberals

The MLAs will be back here this week, for the Throne Speech, the budget and all the rest of the spring sitting.
Of course, you might never have noticed they were gone. For people who pay close attention to provincial politics, this will be a big three months. For most people, not so much.
I find it interesting, although most days dispiriting. These are capable people, respected in their hometowns. The ideal would see them coming together to debate measures that would make life better in the province. They might divide along
party lines, but they would respect each other's intelligence and commitment - or if not, the fact that the voters had chosen them. They would be full participants in government.
It's not like that. Much of the session is a weird, ritualistic game, from the rudeness and shouting of Question Period to the set speeches for and against legislation. Useful things get done, but they're islands in a sea of
embarrassing foolishness.
Still, it's what we've got. And, as I said, some useful things do get done.
This session could be the last chance for the government to do take any significant action that requires legislative approval.
The next election will be May 12, 2009. The Liberals haven't been keen on fall sittings; next spring will be an election session, as much show as substance.
This will be the chance to make some good laws.
But that's been a problem for the Liberals. They were elected in 2001 with the basic hope that they would be better than the NDP government they replaced. Competent, in a word.
Generally, the Liberals were suspicious of government and convinced it should be smaller.
Those were broadly justified views and responding to them kept the Liberals going for the first few years.
Then what? Cutting the size of government can't be a perpetual task and at a certain point the public is looking for positive efforts to deal with their concerns.
The Liberals pitched their first budget after the 2005 election as a senior's budget. The 2006 effort was supposed to be a children's budget, an acknowledgement of the mess the government had made in services for families.
Last year, the theme was housing.
But once the snappy graphics and backdrops for the budget announcement come down, interest seems to fade.
It's hard to say that things have got better for seniors, children or the homeless or people struggling to afford housing in any material ways.
This year the theme is likely to be climate change, with a budget that proposes some concrete actions to build on the dramatic rhetoric of the 2007 throne speech.
That's a challenge. The business community is worried the government will go too far and hurt the economy. The public, having been told by Premier Gordon Campbell that this is a global crisis, is expecting some significant measures.
The Liberals will have some other measures to announce - things like the new proposal to encourage burning waste wood to generate power.
There should be announcements about what B.C. will do with its share of the federal $1-billion aid program aimed at helping single-industry towns hurt by the high Canadian dollar. The province is to get about $133 million.
The session also means the New Democrats have question period four days a week to raise tough issues.
There are a lot of good targets. There are the obvious traditional favorites for any opposition - health care wait times, the continued mystery about the direction of the Children and Families Ministry, Olympic costs.
And the NDP will also focus on public safety concerns, from the gang killings in Vancouver to the disorder created by the mounting populations of homeless, addicted and mentally ill people on the streets across the province. The New
Democrats think the Liberals are vulnerable on law-and-order issues.
It all starts next Tuesday with the Throne Speech. With barely a year to go
before the election, the stakes are high for both parties.
Footnote: The big, dangerous issue hanging over the government is the corruption trial in connection with the B.C. Rail sale. Campbell has dodged questions on the case so far, but the government's ongoing efforts to keep evidence from the
court and the special prosecutor's failure to meet the legal requirements for disclosing documents could blow up in the next two months. The trial is to start in mid-March.

A weird way to hand out playground money

I just glanced at the government press release last month announcing $1 million in funding for 66 selected school playground projects across the province.
It did seem like be a column might be lurking in there somewhere. When did government decide that its responsibility stopped once the school building was up?
Who made the decision that if kids expect more than a field, their parents should get cracking and raise the money?
For most of the last few decades, playground equipment was something governments provided for children. Often a bit unsafe, maybe, but part of the neighbourhood.
No more. Parent advisory councils are supposed to come up with the money for swings or climbing structures and make it happen.
Which is not too bad for some schools. If Jesse's dad owns a construction company that can provide a crew to install things, the work is taken care of. And maybe Willow's mum, the lawyer, will offer to prepare a couple of wills for someone as an item in silent auction. People pitch in, the $30,000 is raised, the children have somewhere to play. That's how it worked in my neighbourhoods.
But for other schools, it's not so easy. If parents are scraping by, or local economic times are hard, or they just aren't interested, then the playground doesn't get built.
If we were a poor province, you could understand. But when the fiscal year ends March 31, the government will likely have a surplus of close to $3 billion. Last year it was $4 billion.
There is a great deal of official worry about children's fitness. But playgrounds are too expensive.
Anyway, I didn't write that column.
But Jason Harshenin, editor of the Grand Forks Gazette, was considerably more alert.
He wondered why Hutton Elementary School's Parents Advisory Council had been left off the list. The parents had raised $37,000. Pretty good for a school with 240 students. They applied for provincial help through ActNow B.C. for another $23,000. No luck.
Harshenin found out that more than 600 schools had applied for funding under the program designed to encourage children to be more active. Between them, they had $11 million in proposals - about $18,000 per school.
The government only wanted to spend $1 million. It handed the problem of rejecting more than 90 per cent of the requests over to the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils.
So Harshenin asked the confederation how it decided to distribute the money.
A lottery, he was told. The confederation didn't have the time to look at individual applications to assess how urgently they needed help or whether the proposal made sense. All 600 schools' proposals went in a hat, and 66 winners were drawn.
Harshenin was incredulous. Why would the ministry "allocate $1 million to playground funding without instituting some funding formula or funding mechanism for how that money is distributed, especially in light of some of the major challenges facing forestry-based communities in the Interior?"
The ministry pleaded ignorance. We just sent the cheque for $1 million. After that, well, whatever.
Harshenin was also suspicious. Was it really a lottery? Why did only one school in the Kootenays get help? Why wasn't the government more responsible in handling taxpayers' money?
Good questions, but no answers.
I read the column, thought it interesting, and with Harshenin's consent put it up on my blog (www.willcocks.blogspot.com).
And then, as so often in these days of the Internet, things got even more interesting. The blog allows comments. One poster noted that fewer than half the parent advisory councils in the province are members of the provincial association and wondered if non-members had a chance at the money.
Another parent noted her school had received $10,000 from the parents' council confederation, even though all the money needed for a playground had been raised.
Which highlights the issue. If the government can't afford to pay for all playgrounds, why isn't it least distributing money based on need or some logical criteria?
Footnote: Thanks, obviously, to Jason Harshinen for doing all the real work. His column can be found at his brand new blog at www.harshpointofview.blogspot.com.

Liberals look to have run out of forestry ideas

These are tough days for the forest industry. The future doesn't appear much better.
And the government looks like it has pretty much run out of ideas. When Premier Gordon Campbell made his eleventh annual speech to the Truck Loggers Association convention last month, the contractors were hoping for a meaningful announcement.
Instead, Campbell announced another round table to look at the problems and report to cabinet every three months. The membership and terms of reference were still to be set, he said.
The effort can't hurt, but it looked like one those announcements that governments make when they really don't know what to do. It might have been unfair just to focus on the lack of ideas in Campbell's speech.
But two days earlier, the provincial Forest Practices Board had released a report that indicated companies and government no longer considered forest sustainability the top priority.
The board looked at 54 helicopter logging sites on the coast. In more than half, the companies were taking out the most valuable cedar trees and leaving the aged hemlock around them. There was no replanting or thinning. The forests were being mined, not sustainably managed.
The board found logging plans were often shoddy, but the companies were following the province's rules.
It was another indication the industry has moved into its twilight, at least in terms of government attention.
Then, a few days after the premier spoke to the truck loggers, the auditor general released a report on safety in the forest industry. It too was grim.
Back in 2003, the government expressed concern about the death and injury rate. Campbell pledged to cut them in half in three years. He appointed a task force (which is somehow different than a round table).
Auditor general John Doyle's review attempted to look at the results. But there weren't any. The death and injury rates are unchanged. Government policies were part of the problem. Safety inspections had been cut sharply.
Policy changes meant responsibility for safety shifted from the land leaseholder or owner - usually a big company - to hundreds of contractors with a few employees. They didn't have the experience or resources.
And there was "race to the bottom" in forest practices because of economic pressures, the auditor general found. That, combined with the lack of enforcement, led to unsafe practices.
The bottom line? "The goal of eliminating forest worker death or serious injury has not been achieved.''
Taken together, the three developments are discouraging. Then add the government's decision to shift vast tracts out of the working forest on Vancouver Island, because companies want to make more selling it for real estate development.
And throw in the slow response to the coming disaster when timber supplies are slashed because of the pine beetle devastation. The government has been pretty good at salvage efforts and Interior mills have improved their efficiency.
But beyond some vague hopes for wood-based power, there are no plans in place to help the industry and communities cope with the decades required for pine forests to regenerate, even with aggressive replanting efforts.
The provincial government's big forestry overhaul in 2003 seemed to make sense. Companies gained more freedom to do what they liked with Crown timber. The change meant mill closures and job losses, but government and industry said it would bring investment and a more competitive industry. A shift to market-based stumpage was supposed to help resolve the softwood dispute. But the measures didn't work and the government didn't adapt to their failure. There are no easy solutions. We've stripped the best parts of the forest - ones that took at least 500 years to grow - in about 40 years. Everybody involved grabbed the easy money.
And B.C. faces competition from other regions that operate more efficiently. But still, this is an extraordinary resource. It should provide jobs, in the woods and mills and pulp and paper towns, for thousands of British Columbians for decades to come.
And while the government will point to lots of funding announcements and initiatives like the round table, the fact remains that the Liberals' policies over the last seven years haven't worked and there's no change in sight.

Government playground funding system just plain weird

I just glanced at the government press release last month announcing funding for 66 school playground projects across the province. It seemed wrong that playground equipment is no longer considered something kids are entitled to. The government won't pay, so parents have to raise the money. That's easy in some schools, way harder in others.
Jason Harshenin, editor of the Grand Forks Gazette, paid more attention. It turned the grants covered about 10 per cent of the school playground requests. And they were awarded by lucky draw, not need.
Here's his excellent column.

Grant lottery irresponsible
By Jason Harshenin
Grand Forks Gazette
When the Hutton Elementary School Parent Advisory Council (PAC) initiated its fund raising efforts to replace the school’s old and dilapidated playground, nobody anticipated that the British Columbia Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC) would not support their fundraising efforts.
Hutton PAC members applied for grant funding through ActNow BC – a “partnership-based, cross-ministry health and wellness Initiative” that is supposed to “promote healthy living choices to improve the quality of life for all British Columbians”. BCCPAC administered the funding and selected a lottery in order to do so. According to BCCPAC communications and media coordinator, Gabrielle Moore, over 600 schools initially applied for the funding and between them they requested $11 million dollars in funding. Only 66 schools across the province, however, were distributed the $1 million allocated by the Ministry of Education.
Obviously there is a major need for better playground equipment across the entire province. Obviously not enough money has been set aside to address this concern.
But when asked why BCCPAC opted to pursue a lottery as opposed to looking at individual applications and assessing need, Moore stated that volunteers run BCCPAC and they simply do not have the human power needed to scrutinize individual applications. When I asked Moore if she was concerned that the ministry of education would allocate $1 million dollars to playground funding without instituting some funding formula or funding mechanism for how that money is distributed, especially in light of some of the major challenges facing forestry-based communities in the Interior, Moore was unresponsive. I asked Moore to contact BCCPAC president Kim Howland. I would like Howland to explain why BCCPAC utilized a lottery system and whether the decision to hold a lottery was politically motivated. I would also like to know why the ministry of education would agree to that criteria for funding when it would want its $1 million spent on the schools in most need of support.
According to Ministry of Education spokesperson Lara Perzoff, the ministry was not aware that BCCPAC opted to use a lottery; however, Perzoff is identified as the contact person on the ministry’s press release.  I would also like to know why the majority of the schools on the list are in Liberal ridings and in the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island. And why did only one school in the entire Kootenays (both east and west) get funding?
So far the Hutton PAC has raised $37,000 in just over one year. Pretty impressive to say the least. Hutton PAC is now determined to raise the rest (over $60,000 ) by summer so kids going to school this fall will have a new playground to enjoy – a playground that is safe, fun and helps to get them active. In the mean time, I will wait to hear from the ministry and from BCCPAC. Maybe they can explain to me why the children and families at Hutton Elementary school have not been supported.

Jean's Eastside visit just a 2010 preview

Michaëlle Jean's visit to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside should be a wake-up call.
The Governor General toured the tormented streets last week, a visit that went predictably awry. She was flanked by a bunch of security people; many of the residents jeered and called questions. (Most of the rougher comments were directed at the Vancouver councilor along on the walkabout; Mayor Sam Sullivan stayed away.)
Jean said she wished she had been able to see the area without so much fuss. She could have, just by slipping into town early and walking around. She wasn't likely going to be recognized down there.
The whole weird event was a reminder of what's ahead two years from now when media from around the world descend on Vancouver for the Olympics. Short of gathering up the addicted, homeless, mentally ill and dirt poor and busing them out of town, there is almost no chance that the horror show will be on full display in 2010.
People who don't get to Vancouver - or don't venture into the few blocks off the business and tourist zones - likely don't know how bad it is.
The five or six blocks of chaos aren't necessarily dangerous, at least in the daytime.
They are, though, sad and horrifying both. This isn't like the old days, when a few hundred alcoholic men made up the Eastside skid-row community. Some of them drank in parks and fought and panhandled and froze to death on cold nights.
But they were a small problem, one everyone was used to.
Today the same streets are like something out of a bleak movie about the future, when social order has collapsed. I've travelled a little bit, in some poor and strange places.
Nowhere have I seen any place as weird. (The South Bronx in the mid-seventies came close; with its blocks of burned out buildings it looked like there had been some sort of war, complete with aerial bombardment.)
There are stores, but customers run a gauntlet of the sick and addicted to get to them. Sketchy looking pawn shops and vacant storefronts predominate.
The sidewalks are the living room for people with nowhere else to spend time. They're skinny, pale, dressed badly and often obviously sick - coughing, or with abscesses. They gather in groups. Some shout, some in deep conversation with voices only they hear. No one looks real young, but who can tell. Some look like they're grandparents, except everything's gone wrong.
And drugs are everywhere.
It is crazy: Part Third World and part science fiction.
There are a lot of reasons. We closed mental institutions over the last several decades, but never provided support for the people who had lived in them. Now many have fallen to the Eastside. Addiction and drug polices have been a dismal failure. Housing and welfare polices haven't worked.
Perhaps most significantly, we haven't worked at prevention - at catching young mothers before things spin out of control, at supporting kids so they don't slide into addiction and hopelessness.
Now our failures are about to go on display for the world. As the Michaëlle Jean tour showed, all this makes good television. It will be a perfect colour story for every TV station from every country in the world in 2010 - how blocks from Olympic hockey games, and minutes from condos worth million, there's another, wretched British Columbia.
And the more intrepid reporters will take the story a little farther - a feature on the troubled street scene in Victoria, or drug problems in almost any town or city.
The government has taken a lot of useful steps in the last few months, especially in working towards protecting or creating housing. Even small communities have got funding for outreach workers to help people find and keep homes.
But it's not nearly enough to even patch over the problems by 2010. Either the government has to get much more serious, quickly, or the world is going to get an ugly eyeful when the Games are on.
Footnote: The heckling and abuse were the roughest treatment Jean has experienced since starting the job more than two years ago. The visit ended with protests outside a formal dinner. One man was tasered by police.

Why do governments make it harder to escape welfare?

Judith Maxwell says real progress on poverty is being made by communities and businesses, not government, and looks at some of the government policies making things worse in this column. in today's Globe.
And coincidentally, Victoria columnist Jody Paterson tells one man's story that demonstrates the problem here.

Manley's report raises too many Afghan doubts

The question of continuing the war in Afghanistan largely comes down to how much Canadians trust Stephen Harper.
The Manley panel report on the mission this week was grim reading.
Harper asked the five members to recommend whether Canada should extend the military mission, scheduled to end next February.
The members, led by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, said yes, with conditions.
But in looking at the effort so far, the panel found things have badly managed by the government.
That's no reflection on the troops. The report noted their commitment and great efforts.
The government, though, has not shown the same dedication to the mission's importance.
It hasn't equipped the troops properly or ensured that there were enough of them to maintain security.
The $100 million a year being spent could be used much more effectively.
The government hasn't set clear benchmarks or objectives and has failed to push for more support from other NATO countries. The mission hasn't received continuing, serious attention from the politicians.
And the government hasn't been open and candid about the mission in communicating with Canadians.
I'm stating things more bluntly than the Manley report, but not much. (It's at www.independent-panel-independant.ca. Check for yourself. Not to be melodramatic, but people's lives are at stake.)
This is not really a partisan issue. The Liberals committed Canada to fighting in Afghanistan with no real plan or vision. The Conservatives have continued to treat the responsibility without the required seriousness.
Despite all that, the panel recommended that the military mission continue past 2009. The effort in Afghanistan is improving lives there and preventing the country from once again becoming a haven for terrorists, it said. And there is a chance at least of limited success - seeing Afghanistan emerge as a stable, sort of democratic, very poor country.
It's a troubling report on a troubling mission. There's sharp criticism of the current commitment and no ringing endorsement of a path forward.
That's as it should be. This is not a simple decision, or one that can be decided on the basis of simplistic sloganeering.
The panel does recommend conditions be set on Canada's continued military involvement in Kandahar.
There are simply not enough of our soldiers to maintain peace in the violent region, it found. Unless other NATO countries will add 1,000 troops to the 2,500 Canadians, we should withdraw.
Our soldiers also lack basic equipment that would make the mission safer, especially by reducing their vulnerability to roadside bombs.
The panel said that unless helicopters and unmanned aerial reconnaissance drones could be provided within 12 months, we should withdraw.
And it found the government has to change the way it approaches the war, bringing a much more serious, focused effort to its planning and management.
The prime minister should be leading the effort to increase the role played by other NATO troops and set clear goals and benchmarks to measure progress.
And the government should communicate honestly with Canadians about what's going on in Afghanistan.
This is pretty horrifying stuff, really. Almost 80 Canadians have died in Afghanistan. The troops have risked their lives and made a difference.
Yet the government has not done its part to equip them, support them or manage the effort.
There's no simple answer to whether Canada should continue this mission, from my perspective. There is the chance to improve life for the Afghan people and increase our security. But there is also a huge cost, in lives and dollars, and a risk of failure. Afghanistan has overwhelmed outside forces for centuries.
One critical factor is trust. Will Canada insist on additional NATO troops and pay for helicopters? Will the government be honest in measuring the mission's success and failures and communicating them to Canadians, or will it continue to mislead? Can the Harper government - or for that matter a Dion government - be trusted to provide the support and leadership and attention needed?
If it was my child or brother being asked to serve, the answer would be no.
Footnote: Harper said he welcomed the report but would take a few days to decide on the government's response. Stéphane Dion said the Liberals continue to believe the current combat role should end in February 2009. Harper has promised a vote in Parliament on the mission, but has not said when that might be held. None of the parties should be keen on an election that would turn into a referendum on the war.

Conservatives self-destruct over nuclear plant

Gary Lunn is taking quite a hammering these days. The natural resources minister and Victoria area MP has got seriously on the wrong side of the national press.
If you read the papers — especially the two national newspapers — you’re probably wondering how Lunn could qualify for a driver’s licence, let alone a cabinet job.
He’s been soundly bashed for his role in the Chalk River nuclear reactor fiasco.
Here’s the stripped-down version of events. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a federal Crown corporation, operates a 50-year-old nuclear reactor at Chalk River that produces about two-thirds of the radioactive isotopes used in medical tests, like cancer screening.
You can’t store them, so no one has reserves; if the supply is disrupted problems mount quickly.
The Chalk River reactor was supposed to be replaced 15 years ago; the federal government has spent $300 million on the project. But the replacements aren’t ready.
People are nervous about nuclear energy. So the government set up the Nuclear Safety Commission as an independent licensing agency. Its job is to make sure nuclear reactors meet licensing requirements.
Chalk River didn’t. The back-up cooling system needed to protect against a meltdown wasn’t in place.
When the commission learned the problem hadn’t been fixed during a maintenance shutdown in November, it refused to allow the plant to start up. The licence requirements had to be met.
The government seemed to take a long time to figure out what this meant. Lunn’s office was sent an e-mail, but didn’t grasp its significance.
Then everyone went into panic. People’s cancer tests were cancelled; other countries wanted answers. Lunn sought advice from experts, who told him the plant had operated without the back-up system for decades and there was no increased safety risk. Everyone was clamouring for the isotopes.
So he called Linda Keen, the head of the commission, and pressured her to allow the plant to open, despite the violations. She looked at the commission’s mandate – public safety – and couldn’t justify allowing the plant to operate when it couldn’t meet the licensing requirements.
Then things got ugly. Prime Minister Stephen Harper implied Keen was out to make the Conservatives look bad because she had been appointed by the Liberal government.
It was an unfair charge; Keen had a career in government as a non-partisan manager.
Worse, Harper’s comments revealed that he knew the smear was false. His purpose, he said, was to convince the Liberals not to try to score political points over the shutdown. A pre-emptive dirty trick, you might say.
Ultimately, the government did what it should have done all along. It asked Parliament to pass legislation allowing the plant to re-open despite the licensing problems. All parties supported the proposal. Problem solved.
But by that point, Lunn and the government looked bad. The whole point of the Nuclear Safety Commission is to enforce the licensing requirements in the interest of public safety. Part of the purpose is to take political pressure out of the equation.
When Lunn called Keen and tried to pressure her, he brought politics back into issues of nuclear safety. That’s wrong.
Things got stranger, and worse. Lunn then wrote a letter – leaked to the media – to Keen asking her why she shouldn’t be fired.
The day before Keen and Lunn were both to appear before a Commons committee, Lunn did fire here — at 11 p.m.
Harper says Keen was fired because she showed poor judgment in not appreciating the seriousness of the isotope shortage and finding a way to keep the plant open.
But the commission is legally charged with ensuring nuclear safety.
The bigger problem is that it looks like Keen is really being fired because she wouldn’t cave into Lunn’s political pressure.
And that sends a message to all the other independent commissions and agencies that are supposed to protect the public interest free from political pressure. Obey the politicians in power, or face firing.
Footnote: The whole affair also drew public attention to years of neglect of reactors at Chalk River and huge spending on new reactors that don’t work. And it raised questions about the regulation of the nuclear industry at a time when it’s finally hoping for new power projects in Canada.

The hard part is coming for Campbell on climate change

This whole climate-change issue will be tricky for the Liberals, practically and politically.
The controversy about a new carbon tax on gasoline is a good illustration of how complex the issues will get.
It's one thing for Premier Gordon Campbell to declare global warming a threat to the Earth and commit the province to a major effort to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
Actually doing something about it is trickier. Since Campbell's conversion a year ago, there hasn't been a lot of action. The government knows that without some concrete measures in the budget, it faces a credibility problem. If you've declared war on a global warming, you better follow through.
So the government needs to show something significant - beyond targets plucked from the air and a plan to buy carbon credits to offset ministers' plane travel - in the budget.
But there is a cost to most of the measures that would help. An affordable, reasonable cost, I'd say. But not everyone sees it that way.
The gas tax expected in the budget is a good example. The plan is apparently to introduce the tax at 3.5 cents a litre and raise it progressively in coming years.
It's a sensible measure that works in two ways. Higher gasoline prices would encourage people and companies to use less. That's a basic law of economics. People might cut travel or bus or buy fuel-efficient cars when the time comes. Companies would look for ways to deliver goods twice a week, instead of daily.
And the money from a gas tax could fund efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions - for transit or research or green power production.
But a lot of people think of this as a tax grab, especially the people more likely to vote Liberal than NDP. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation - which, in B.C, has become a credible voice - is opposed.
It's a balancing act for the Liberals. This week, Campbell announced a 12-year, $14-billion transit plan. You might have expected that to be the kind of thing that could be funded by a gas tax. But the premier was emphatic that there was no connection.
One reason could be found in criticism from Maureen Bader of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. Almost all of the transit money will be spent in the Lower Mainland; the gas tax will hit all British Columbians.
It's an interesting challenge for a politician like Campbell, who after a reckless first term seems intent on staking a solid claim to the political centre. It has worked; despite some big problems last year the Liberals still have a comfortable lead in the polls.
Given good judgment and reasonable luck Campbell can steer a course that leaves the NDP with almost no room to make gains. Unless the worst happens, from the Liberals' perspective, and there's some sort of splinter party on the right.
There's no sign of that. But Campbell's careful separation of the transit plan and the gas tax suggests an effort to manage this all very closely.
That makes the handling of the gas tax revenues - assuming the tax is introduced with the budget - interesting. Financed Minister Carole Taylor has been unclear what would happen to the money, expected to start at $200 million and rise to $2 billion a year.
One option would be to make the tax truly revenue neutral, with offsetting cuts elsewhere. The government could impose a 3.5-cent a litre gas tax and take in about $200 million in revenue and cut the sales tax by one-half per cent, returning the same amount to taxpayers.
Taylor is leaving the door to a sort-of neutrality, where the money would go to new climate-change measures.
It's all going to be interesting. Campbell has made a major commitment, an important one. But delivering remains a big challenge. The first real test will come Feb. 19, with the budget.
Footnote: Campbell got caught in wildly misleading spin on the transit announcement. The $14-billion plan would result in a cumulative reduction of 4.7 million tonnes of emissions, he said. But that's the total over the next 12 years. By 2020 the transit plan will reduce emissions by 650,000 tonnes a year - 1.6 per cent of the reductions needed to meet the province's commitment.

No need for Harper to delay on Mulroney inquiry

Let's get on with the inquiry into those fat envelopes of $1,000 bills Brian Mulroney took from shady German businessman and fixer Karlheinz Schreiber.
And into why Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't act on allegations and documents Schreiber sent to him in March - more than six months before the scandal re-erupted.
Harper has accepted the need for an inquiry. And he says he'll accept the framework set our in recommendations by special advisor David Johnston last week.
But he wants to wait until a Parliamentary committee completes its hearings into the affair, which could drag out over months.
If the issue was just about Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber between 1992 and 1996 - the $225,000 in cash the former PM admits taking in hotel rooms - you could make a case for waiting. The committee might discover information that would help the inquiry. And there's no need for haste. Mulroney is long out of politics and there are few implications for anybody in public life today.
But while those dealings are Johnston main issue, he also believes the inquiry should answer questions about the role of Harper and his senior staff.
It's riskier to wait for answers to those questions. The minority government could fall at any time and Canadians would be asked to choose whether to continue Harper's time as prime minister.
There's been much speculation about when that might happen. Commentators disagree on who would benefit from an early election. The poll results aren't encouraging the Liberals or Conservatives to take risks.
But an election could still happen. It would be better for both Harper and Canadians if the inquiry were done by then.
Johnston ruled out a wide-ranging inquiry into all the allegations stretching over a 15-year period.
That's reasonable. While there are disturbing issues, any inquiry would become unwieldy, costly and probably inconclusive.
Instead, Johnston decided 17 questions needed answering. The first 14 all related to Mulroney's business dealings with Schreiber in the 1990s. The last three are about Harper's inaction after Schreiber sent hundreds of pages of evidence to his office last March.
It's worth going through Johnston's questions.
What were the business and financial dealings between Schreiber and Mulroney?
Was there an agreement reached by Mulroney while still a sitting prime minister? If so, what was that agreement, when and where was it made?
Was there an agreement reached by Mulroney while still sitting as a Member of Parliament or during the limitation periods prescribed by the 1985 ethics code? If so, what was that agreement, when and where was it made?
What payments were made, when and how and why? What was the source of the funds? What services, if any, were rendered in return for the payments?
Why were the payments made and accepted in cash? What happened to the cash; in particular, if a significant amount of cash was received in the U.S., what happened to that cash?
Were these business and financial dealings appropriate considering the position of Mulroney as a current or former prime minister and Member of Parliament?
Was there appropriate disclosure and reporting of the dealings and payments?
Were there ethical rules or guidelines which related to these business and financial dealings? Were they followed?
Are there ethical rules or guidelines which currently would have covered these business and financial dealings? Are they sufficient or should there be additional ethical rules or guidelines concerning the activities of politicians as they transition from office or after they leave office?
What steps were taken in processing Schreiber's correspondence to Prime Minister Stephen Harper of March 29, 2007?
Why was the correspondence not passed on to Harper?
Should the Privy Council Office have adopted any different procedures in this case?
The entire cases raises troubling questions about way politics and money interact in our system. Failing to seek answers would signal our acceptance of dubious practices.
And failing to seek them as quickly as possible raises a whole new set of questions.
Footnote: No one knows how long the Commons committee could take to complete its investigations. The chair said he'd expected work to continue at least until the end of February, but there's no certainty given the potential for new evidence and political wrangling. It could Harper hopes to influence the committee to cut its inquiries short.

Carbon tax the best way to cut emissions

You would think that most of Canada's governments would agree on the power of the marketplace.
That's what's driven the great advances in computers, for example, that let anyone with a few hundred dollars buy a machine that outperforms anything available at any price two decades ago.
And it's what makes the drug trade so resilient in the face of decades of police activity. As long as there's serious demand, suppliers will take the needed risks.
But when it comes to climate change, Canadian governments - even free enterprise ones like the federal Conservatives - are reluctant to rely on market forces.
This week the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy weighed in with a report on climate change. More specifically, what needs to be done to reduce greenhouse-gas emmissions.
It was mostly a good news report. The roundtable, an advisory panel set up by Brian Mulroney when he was in office, said Canada could make dramatic cuts without significant harm to the economy.
But it said that to make that happen, the government would have to introduce a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, or both.
The principle seems obvious. Companies and governments and individuals won't change their behaviours without some incentives, especially if the change involves short-term sacrifice.
Businesses, for example, have an obligation to make profits for shareholders. If reducing emissions would cut those profits, they're unlikely to take action.
A carbon tax would provide the necessary incentive, the roundtable reported. A tax on fossil fuels - gas and diesel and coal and oil - would make it smart for companies and individuals to use less of them.
The cap-and-trade system works on the same principle. The government - or an agency of government - would set emission caps for industries and organizations. If a company couldn't meet its target, it would have to buy offsetting credits from some other company that was emitting less than it was allowed.
Again, it's a market-based incentive. If carbon credits have value, then it's worth investing in cleaner fuels or more efficient processes. There's an actual return on investment.
The roundtable's support for the idea isn't surprising. The group includes environmental and business leaders. It's headed by David McLaughlin, who until August was Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's chief of staff.
The group has both an understanding of the environmental issues, the business risks and the value of letting the market drive change.
But it took federal Environment Minister John Baird a matter of hours to reject the report's conclusions.
Partly, Baird was just playing politics. "We think a new tax sounds like a Liberal idea," he said, a silly way to dismiss the proposals without dealing with their substance.
He also says the government will ensure that big emitters will pay in some still-to-be-determined way under the Conservatives' climate-change plans.
But the roundtable found that without a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, the federal government would not meet its targets for greenhouse-gas reductions.
None of this is new. The European Union has a successful carbon-credit trading market and B.C. is working with several states and provinces to launch one.
And Sweden and Norway have carbon taxes. Quebec introduced its own version in October, imposing a 0.8 cents per litre tax on gasoline. The revenue - about $200 million a year - will go to greenhouse-gas reduction measures. Finance Minister Carole Taylor is also considering some sort of carbon tax as part of next month's provincial budget.
The plans would have to be well thought-out. The roundtable said the carbon tax should start at a low level and increase gradually, to give industry a chance to adapt.
If that's done, it said, there would be no serious economic impact.
And Alberta has raised legitimate concerns that a carbon tax would see money taken from the province and redistributed elsewhere.
But the problems are manageable. The Harper government should not be so quick to reject its expert panel's advice.
Footnote: The report offers a good backgrounder for the coming provincial budget. Premier Gordon Campbell declared climate change a central issue a year ago and the province has announced tough targets. But so far, there are few details. The budget will be watched closely for signs of progress.

Basi-Virk trial faces more delays, troubles

More troubling developments in the Basi-Virk government corruption case.
It's been more than four years since the raid on the legislature and the RCMP's warnings about the reach of organized crime.
Things have dragged terribly. Now, the special prosecutor appointed by the Attorney General's Ministry has taken his battle to have a witness testify in secret to the B.C. Court of Appeal. The trial date was set for March; that's now unlikely.
To recap. The RCMP searched the legislature in connection with allegations of corruption in the $1-billion sale of B.C. Rail. Dave Basi, key aide to former finance minister Gary Collins, and Bob Virk, aide to then transport minister Judith Reid, were charged. A lobbyist for one of the bidders will apparently say he supplied the bribes. He wasn't charged.
Progress has been slow, mostly because of failures by the prosecutor and RCMP. In our system, the Crown has to disclose the evidence it has collected to the defence. The process is supposed to be about justice, not winning convictions.
The prosecutor and police have failed to meet their disclosure obligations, drawing repeated rebukes from Justice Elizabeth Bennett,
The latest twist is the prosecutors' application to have a police informant provide evidence in secret.
Not only the public and reporters would be kept in the dark; the Crown wanted defence lawyers barred from hearing the evidence. It's an aggressive legal move, based on a three-month-old Supreme Court of Canada decision.
Last month Bennett rejected the prosecutors' application and ruled the defence lawyers should be present.
But now special prosecutor Bill Berardino is challenging her decision in the B.C. Court of Appeal. Figure a long delay as a result.
It's a tricky issue. Perhaps the testimony is important and can only be obtained in secret. Berardino would have an obligation, you could argue, to fight to ensure it is heard. If he didn't, he could face criticism for not pursuing the case diligently
But the appeal raises fairness issues. Prosecutors can spend endless amounts of public money on hearings and appeals; defendants are mortgaging their futures to pay their legal bills. For the prosecutors, delays have few consequences; for defendants they mean more months or years with unproven criminal charges hanging over them.
Another big issue is about to break. Premier Gordon Campbell promised complete co-operation with the investigation. But now the government is arguing some documents should be kept secret, even though they are relevant.
The government is citing lawyer-client privilege. Anyone has a right to keep conversations with their lawyer secret. That's considered one of the protections needed to allow people the right to a proper defence.
But anyone can also exercise the right to waive solicitor-client privilege - to say that they have nothing to hide and consider the first priority getting at the truth. (The Liberals, in opposition, urged the former government not to use solicitor-client privilege as a justification for withholding information.)
The Campbell government's effort to withhold evidence is a big mistake.
The other interesting development comes courtesy of Bill Tieleman, columnist for 24 Hours, a Vancouver free newspaper (and a New Democrat). Tieleman, who has done a first-rate job covering the trial, did a freedom of information request for the notes of a government public affairs staffer who had been monitoring the trial daily.
There's nothing wrong with that. Given the nature of the case, the government has reason to want to know what's going on.
But Attorney General Wally Oppal originally offered some quite goofy reasons for the premier's office watch on the trial when the news broke. The staffer was there to help the media and the public, he suggested. The FOI response shows that was not true.
This is all getting awfully messy. And much muckier days are ahead.
Footnote: The wrangling over disclosure and other issues has generally not made much news. Expect that to change this year as the trial grows closer and the legal issues - like the Crown's desire to have witnesses testify in secret - become more significant.

If this is such a great place, why aren’t we happier

We can be a smug lot here in B.C., especially in Victoria.
But we’re the least happy people in the country, according to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, which looked at peoples’ satisfaction with their quality of life in 18 Canadian cities.
Victoria — the oceanside city of gardens and warm weather — ranked last. We’re the least happy people in the country when it comes to the way we live.
The happiest city is Saint John, N.B., also an oceanside city, but in most ways the opposite of Victoria. It’s a city of industry and faded glory, not gardens. There’s a pulp mill on one side of town and a sprawling oil refinery on the other. Poverty is much more prevalent; the average family income is 15 per cent lower. The climate is much harsher — cold, snowy winters, foggy, gloomy springs. On many levels, the city has struggled for much of the last 100 years.
So why are the people there happier than us?
I’ve lived in both, and propose two reasons. (They fit with a larger theory of geography as destiny.)
Saint John’s glory days ended in 1860; since then there has been a steady exodus of people, mostly seeking work and opportunity.
It’s not just that people moved away. It’s who moved away. For decades, Saint John has lost the ambitious, bright and career-focused. It was not a place of opportunity. Those who sought it – in business, or science or any other area – picked up and moved away.
There are thousands of exceptions. But Saint John, like much of the Maritimes, lost a lot of bright, achieving people over the years. Bad news for the communities in many ways.
There’s a flip side, though. The people who left — by definition — placed a lower value on community and family and friends. If those things were important to them, they would have stayed.
The people who remained valued those things, and nurtured them.
And they are happier today.
Here in Victoria, the population has been increasing for decades. The people who come here aren’t interested in career. This is a pretty small backwater, really.
And they aren’t that interested in community or family. They chose to leave those things behind, after all.
They’re interested – generalizing broadly - in a pleasant, easy place to pursue their individual interests – especially things like gardening and golf and sailing and hiking that require warm weather.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It might indicate selfishness or self-absorption. Equally, it could show a commitment to exploring individual interests and passions.
But the result is that a lot of people not much interested in community have ended up living here.
And the study suggests that we’re less happy as a result.
This isn’t all just my — logical — conjecture. A colleague reminded me of a reader research project done about a decade ago for the Times Colonist. The consultant, from the U.S., found our market interesting in part because people here had what she called “low news needs.” Their interest often stopped at the property line.
There’s nothing definitely good or bad about all this. People have a right to pursue personal interests, ambition or a great fondness for the place they grew up.
But the research does suggest that we pay a price in happiness for our lack of community here.
We should worry about that. In fact, it’s puzzling how little weight we give to the whole idea of happiness in thinking about the way our society or community or lives function. We measure economic performance religiously, and even monitor health stats and school performance scores. The Progress Board can tell you how British Columbia ranks with other provinces on everything from research spending to poverty to environmental protection.
But not in happiness.
It’s something worth thinking a lot more about. Who wants to live in the least happy city in Canada?
Footnote: The decline of geographic community has been one of the biggest changes in North American life over the past 40 years. We were bound together in a web of social relationships – church groups, service clubs, community sports leagues, curling clubs, even neighbourhood gatherings for drinks parents who gathered Friday nights for drinks and games – that has largely unravelled.