A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Local police officer takes a stand against drug prohibition David Bratzer and I share at least one opinion in common: That it costs us a pointless fortune to maintain the charade of having effective drug laws in Canada. Me holding that opinion: No big deal. Anyone who knows the kind of things I write about wouldn’t be too surprised to discover I’m of the belief that Canada and the U.S. have made a complete hash of things by treating a health and social issue like a criminal matter. But Bratzer holding that opinion: That’s just a little different. He’s a Victoria police officer - the one tasked with enforcing those laws. I suspect there are many more who think like Const. Bratzer inside the department, as you’d expect would happen to anyone tasked with patrolling Victoria’s ridiculous streets for any length of time. But it’s still not a view that’s expressed publicly by police very often. In fact, Bratzer is one of only two active police officers in Canada who does public speaking on b...

Early-morning street tour speaks volumes for what hasn't changed Giant box of day-old doughnuts: Check. Three big jugs of coffee and a whole lot of sugar and cream: Check. Final essential item: Two packs of cigarettes, enough for one smoke each for the first 40 people Rev. Al Tysick sees on his regular morning rounds. He goes out every weekday morning at 5:45 a.m. to wake up people sleeping on Victoria’s streets. He started doing it seven months ago, after funding changes at the rebuilt Our Place street drop-in resulted in shorter opening hours. He buys the cigarettes with his own money, because getting a free smoke in the morning means a lot to people. “It’s like taking a bottle of wine to a friend’s house,” says Tysick as he parks the Our Place van at our first top on 800-block Fort Street. “That’s what we’re doing this morning: We’re going to their house.” Tysick’ wake-up call is a kinder, gentler version of the one that people will get an hour later, when police do their own m...

Media wrong to conspire in hiding kidnapping news Best wishes to Mellisa Fung, the intrepid CBC reporter who was released last week from what must have been a horrific and traumatic month imprisoned in a cave in Afghanistan. She’s safe, and I’m very glad to hear that. But what are we to make of recent word that the world’s media reached a private agreement to keep her kidnapping a secret until now? With no disrespect to Fung or those who wanted to keep her safe, I’m stunned by the news. As happy as we are to have Fung back, the truth is that most of us didn’t even know she was missing. That’s because in a most unusual development, the global media agreed from the outset not to report on her high-profile kidnapping. It’s easy to get caught up in the spirit of the moment and see the media’s decision as evidence of the industry finally thinking about whether it’s helping or hurting with the way it covers the news. “We must put the safety of the victim ahead of our normal instinct for full...

Voting a crap shoot at municipal elections In just over a week, we’ll pick the mayors and councillors who will lead B.C. communities for the next three years. It’s an incredibly important job. We “hire” municipal councils to tend to dozens of vital tasks in our communities - from dog-catching and parking tickets to policing, planning, roadwork and economic development. A single term of bad council can turn a community on its ear for years to come. Councils also play an important role in representing our interests at the provincial and federal levels. Municipalities generate a scant eight per cent of the total tax base in the province, so we all want councils that are strategic and clued-in to ensure they’re effective at “managing up.” You’d think that the hiring process for a big job like that would be done with the utmost care. You’d think we’d be really conscious of wanting to pick the right people to lead our communities. But you’d be wrong. In truth, 70 per cent of us won’t even sh...

Silence is golden, and frighteningly rare I look at birds differently these days than I used to, ever since getting a great pair of binoculars a couple years ago that opened my eyes to the incredible variety of birds out there. But I quickly learned that if you really want to see birds, the trick is to stand still for a few minutes and listen. In the stillness, life goes back to normal in the spot you were just about to rush past, and you hear a whole lot of bird talk that you’d never have heard otherwise. That there’s meaning and purpose in silence is hardly a new philosophy. But it took birds for me to find it, and to remind me of how much of the world we no longer hear simply because we’re drowning it out with our own noise. What will the future hold for this cranked-up, hyper-communicating world of ours if we forget that? There are days at the bird marsh when the sounds of loud cell phone conversations are just about as common as those of the song sparrow. We’re living in a time wh...