Grandparents live in blessed times
Aug. 10, 2007
Twice in the last month, I’ve been asked whether I love my grandchildren as much as my children.
I do. But I understand why people who aren’t yet grandparents might be uncertain on that front. It’s hard to imagine loving anyone as much as you do your children.
Of course, that’s a key factor right there in terms of getting things started.
Grandchildren are the children of your children, after all, and thus loved by your son or daughter more than anything in the world. If nothing else, you’ll love your grandchildren because your children love them so much.
Fresh off a 10-day holiday with our three grandsons, however, I’m newly reminded of all the other ways that grandchildren find their way into your heart. Doubters, worry not.
Mine are ages eight, seven and four. My partner and I have been spiriting them off for little holidays almost from the beginning - initially as a gift to their weary parents, and soon as a routine event.
First came Bowser Bill’s, which had grassy fields and gentle shoreline well-suited to outdoor naps and a baby’s tottering first steps. I envisaged years of peaceful seaside idylls with the little ones.
But the years slip away even faster with your grandchildren. This year’s idyll manifested as boisterous jumps from a rope swing into the Englishman River and icy plunges into the depths of Cameron Lake. Back at camp, Robert Munsch had to make way for R.L. Stine on the motor home bookshelves.
I won’t try to tell you that hanging out with the grandkids is all happiness and light.
Looking after small children is exhausting in middle age, and there are moments on our camping holidays when I’m frazzled, furious and badly in need of a time out. At moments like that, I can only express my gratitude to the inventor of the portable DVD player.
There were times on this last trip when I would have been way happier to have just me and my partner enjoying our little motor home, quietly taking in an evening’s sunset instead of mediating the bickering over whose marshmallow will be first on the fire. There were times when the last thing I wanted to do was spend my morning in the splash zone of the jam-packed campground pool.
Overall, though, the holidays are quite wonderful. I’m young again when I’m with the grandsons, and grateful to be able to relive years with my own children that I didn’t know enough to value the first time around.
It’s a bit like being given a second chance at raising children - this time with the benefit of experience as well as the broader viewpoint that comes with aging.
So it’s all just a little easier. More relaxed. You don’t sweat the details nearly so much. You don’t try to win every battle, and get way better at avoiding one in the first place.
From this distance, it’s also easier to see the impact of genetics. I once believed that it was all about nurture, but have come to appreciate through my grandchildren the profound effect that nature also plays.
One of my grandsons, for instance, appears to have been born to walk on logs, go on the fast rides, swim in the deep water. It’s only in the last couple of years that he’s accumulated enough experiences to know to slow things down a little.
The other two - brothers - were infinitely more cautious as toddlers. They’ve grown more comfortable with risk only by building up enough safe experiences to convince themselves that they’ll be OK.
Alas, the arguments and unhappy moments that might have been avoided with my own children if only I’d had a better grasp of who they really were underneath it all. I couldn’t see for looking that so much of who they would grow up to be was already there when they were born.
Perhaps the best part of time spent with your grandchildren - or any children, really - is that it allows you to have fun again. You do things that your rational, sensible adult self just wouldn’t do in the regular scheme of things.
Would I choose to plunge repeatedly into a cold, cold swimming hole above Englishman River Falls if not for three young boys calling me in to join them? Or dope myself to the eyes on anti-histamines in order to survive my horse allergy long enough for a trail ride at Tiger Lily Farms?
Would I crawl on my elbows in a half-metre of water through the endless shallows of Rathtrevor Beach? Try to tempt butterflies to land on my head?
Not likely. While I’d love to think that my inner child will always be readily accessible, the truth is that it mostly takes kids to get me acting like a kid.
The days when my own children filled that role slipped past quicker than I ever could have imagined. Like the song says, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
I’d never make the same mistake twice. God bless grandchildren.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Caution essential to revamp of BC Wildlife Act
Aug. 3, 2007
Hunting isn’t my thing, but I recognize it as a genuine B.C. activity beloved by tens of thousands.
So I’ve worked hard at staving off any kneejerk reaction to recent news that the Environment Ministry hopes to get another 20,000 hunters out into the woods over the next few years.
Six per cent of British Columbians hunted 25 years ago. Nowadays, just two per cent of us do. In real numbers, that’s a 50 per cent drop - from 168,000 active B.C. hunters in 1981, to 84,000 today.
I can see why hunters might want to bolster their ranks. I can also see why the government is on side, given the potential boost to the economy of B.C.’s struggling rural communities that could result from increased hunting activity.
But look beyond the headlines about the push for more hunters, and you’ll find more substantial things to worry about. While a few more hunters likely won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, other proposed changes to the provincial Wildlife Act are potentially less benign.
Whatever you or I might think about hunting, the reality is that it’s a traditional B.C. industry and a pleasant seasonal past-time for resident hunters.
The various aspects of hunting generate roughly $50 million a year in B.C. The money flows from a number of sources - from the sale of hunting licences to recreational local hunters wanting a freezerful of venison, to the big-ticket extravaganzas booked by rich U.S. hunters in search of big game.
Hunting revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to tourism overall. They represent a mere one per cent of the $5-billion tourist industry, and a fraction of the $900 million generated every year by the wildlife-viewing industry.
A thoughtful, well-enforced Wildlife Act is obviously key to keeping all those industries healthy while also protecting the wonderful birds, fish and animals we’ve been blessed with in this province. A series of public consultations around the act has just wrapped up, and the Environment Ministry’s 2007-2010 service plan has also put forward several major operational changes for consideration.
Boosting the number of hunters is part of that plan. But there’s also a proposal to deregulate many aspects of the commercial hunting industry, and to hand off oversight to an industry-led board that would take over much of the supervisory functions currently done by government.
That’s considerably more scary than a campaign to find more hunters.
The Liberals’ viewpoint - leaving aside their ideological drive toward smaller government - is that those making money from a resource are the most motivated to look after it into the future. If you’re a guide-outfitter making a good living at helping U.S. hunters bag mountain sheep, you’re presumed to have more of an interest than most of us in making sure that B.C. doesn’t run out of them.
I get the theory, and appreciate that self-interest very often creates positive change in surprising ways. B.C. guide-outfitters, for instance, often end up as passionate advocates of saving old-growth forest, because logging disrupts grizzly-bear habitat.
Unfortunately, history is littered with any number of catastrophes that resulted from leaving industry insufficiently supervised.
When oversight falters, terrible things happen. Surely we’ve devastated enough fisheries, forests, mines and pristine wilderness in B.C. alone to have seen that for ourselves, and that’s not even counting things like the leaky-condo debacle, toxic prescription drugs, corporate fraud and numerous other examples of industry malfeasance.
I don’t mean to suggest that anything like that is going on in B.C.’s hunting industry. No doubt most folks in the industry are abiding by the rules, even in the absence of significant enforcement on the ground.
Yet we still need to think long and hard about what it would mean to shift to “outcome-based” oversight of the industry, as detailed in the ministry’s service plan.
For those not used to the jargon, achieving an outcome simply means you accomplished a specific goal. You made more money. Found more customers. Saved more lives. Gave better service.
But when it comes to natural resources, outcomes are a tricky business. On the one hand, industry could turn out to be better stewards of the resource than government itself. On the other, maybe not - and the damage could be irreparable by the time we realize that under an outcome-based regulatory system.
The challenge lies in balancing the needs of today against those of tomorrow. The reason B.C.’s rural economies are floundering right now is because previous generations didn’t get that balance right. We’ll be picking up the pieces from our shattered forest and fishing industries for a long time to come.
In terms of managing B.C. wildlife for the future, 20,000 more hunters isn’t likely to be the tipping point that brings things crashing down. The same can’t be said for handing over to industry the bulk of regulatory control for this precious resource.
Aug. 3, 2007
Hunting isn’t my thing, but I recognize it as a genuine B.C. activity beloved by tens of thousands.
So I’ve worked hard at staving off any kneejerk reaction to recent news that the Environment Ministry hopes to get another 20,000 hunters out into the woods over the next few years.
Six per cent of British Columbians hunted 25 years ago. Nowadays, just two per cent of us do. In real numbers, that’s a 50 per cent drop - from 168,000 active B.C. hunters in 1981, to 84,000 today.
I can see why hunters might want to bolster their ranks. I can also see why the government is on side, given the potential boost to the economy of B.C.’s struggling rural communities that could result from increased hunting activity.
But look beyond the headlines about the push for more hunters, and you’ll find more substantial things to worry about. While a few more hunters likely won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, other proposed changes to the provincial Wildlife Act are potentially less benign.
Whatever you or I might think about hunting, the reality is that it’s a traditional B.C. industry and a pleasant seasonal past-time for resident hunters.
The various aspects of hunting generate roughly $50 million a year in B.C. The money flows from a number of sources - from the sale of hunting licences to recreational local hunters wanting a freezerful of venison, to the big-ticket extravaganzas booked by rich U.S. hunters in search of big game.
Hunting revenues are a drop in the bucket compared to tourism overall. They represent a mere one per cent of the $5-billion tourist industry, and a fraction of the $900 million generated every year by the wildlife-viewing industry.
A thoughtful, well-enforced Wildlife Act is obviously key to keeping all those industries healthy while also protecting the wonderful birds, fish and animals we’ve been blessed with in this province. A series of public consultations around the act has just wrapped up, and the Environment Ministry’s 2007-2010 service plan has also put forward several major operational changes for consideration.
Boosting the number of hunters is part of that plan. But there’s also a proposal to deregulate many aspects of the commercial hunting industry, and to hand off oversight to an industry-led board that would take over much of the supervisory functions currently done by government.
That’s considerably more scary than a campaign to find more hunters.
The Liberals’ viewpoint - leaving aside their ideological drive toward smaller government - is that those making money from a resource are the most motivated to look after it into the future. If you’re a guide-outfitter making a good living at helping U.S. hunters bag mountain sheep, you’re presumed to have more of an interest than most of us in making sure that B.C. doesn’t run out of them.
I get the theory, and appreciate that self-interest very often creates positive change in surprising ways. B.C. guide-outfitters, for instance, often end up as passionate advocates of saving old-growth forest, because logging disrupts grizzly-bear habitat.
Unfortunately, history is littered with any number of catastrophes that resulted from leaving industry insufficiently supervised.
When oversight falters, terrible things happen. Surely we’ve devastated enough fisheries, forests, mines and pristine wilderness in B.C. alone to have seen that for ourselves, and that’s not even counting things like the leaky-condo debacle, toxic prescription drugs, corporate fraud and numerous other examples of industry malfeasance.
I don’t mean to suggest that anything like that is going on in B.C.’s hunting industry. No doubt most folks in the industry are abiding by the rules, even in the absence of significant enforcement on the ground.
Yet we still need to think long and hard about what it would mean to shift to “outcome-based” oversight of the industry, as detailed in the ministry’s service plan.
For those not used to the jargon, achieving an outcome simply means you accomplished a specific goal. You made more money. Found more customers. Saved more lives. Gave better service.
But when it comes to natural resources, outcomes are a tricky business. On the one hand, industry could turn out to be better stewards of the resource than government itself. On the other, maybe not - and the damage could be irreparable by the time we realize that under an outcome-based regulatory system.
The challenge lies in balancing the needs of today against those of tomorrow. The reason B.C.’s rural economies are floundering right now is because previous generations didn’t get that balance right. We’ll be picking up the pieces from our shattered forest and fishing industries for a long time to come.
In terms of managing B.C. wildlife for the future, 20,000 more hunters isn’t likely to be the tipping point that brings things crashing down. The same can’t be said for handing over to industry the bulk of regulatory control for this precious resource.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Lured into the Facebook vortex
July 20, 2007
I try to be discerning in my choice of trends, and certainly didn’t expect to like Facebook. The idea of becoming somebody’s on-line “friend” was just a little too high-school for me.
But the e-mails kept coming, most often from people who I hadn’t heard from in ages. They’d invite me to be their “friend” and post happy little pictures of themselves to lure me in.
The requests piled up unanswered in my inbox. But then my cousin’s wife in Kuwait sent me an invitation. With all that distance between us, it just seemed downright rude to refuse to be her Facebook friend.
And things just kind of went crazy from there.
For those unfamiliar with Facebook, it’s the invention of California computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg, who was just 19 when he launched the “social utility” Web site in February 2004.
He and a group of Harvard classmates (some of whom are now suing Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea) took a few stabs at different kinds of on-line networking before finding one that really clicked.
First came Coursematch, which let Harvard students see who else was taking the same classes. Then came Facemash, one of those “hot or not” Web sites.
That last idea got Zuckerberg in big trouble with Harvard’s administration, as he’d taken student images from the university’s Web site without seeking permission. He quit Harvard shortly after and launched Facebook.
Membership was initially restricted to Harvard students. But within months, it opened up to include the seven other “Ivy League” post-secondaries in the northeastern U.S.
Soon after, anyone with a college or university connection was eligible. By 2006, all you needed to qualify for Facebook membership was an e-mail address.
The Web site is essentially an electronic meet-and-greet - a combination of blog, chatroom and electronic photo album. Given that I can barely make it through all the electronic communications I’m already getting in a typical day, I wasn’t planning on finding anything about Facebook enjoyable.
But it got to me. I started out a skeptic just trying to be nice to a relative living abroad, and in no time at all had transformed into an enthusiastic Facebook user. I still don’t really know how that happened.
I suspect it started with the picture.
Posting a photo isn’t a Facebook requirement or anything like that. But once you give in to that first invitation to be somebody’s “friend,” how long are you going to be content with having a big question mark come up instead of your picture every time you send them a message?
So you upload. And then you go to your site to see how the picture looks and discover that somebody you went to junior high with has written a message on your “wall.” Somebody else has sent you a “gift” - some teeny little electronic image of a birthday cake or a cheery glass of bubbly (Choose gifts with care - a puppy in a basket will set you back $1 US).
Next, your eyes stray to the status section of your page, where various Facebook friends have posted brief comments about their activities of the moment. “Rebecca is hung over,” says one, which tells you all you need to know about whether the birthday bash you’d heard about earlier had gone off successfully.
Further down the page, a new friend - who’s in fact a long-lost one, from grade school - posts a dozen photos from Calgary of a party she was at, and writes nice comments beside your own photos. Pretty soon, you’re sharing memories that you forgot you even had in common.
The young have embraced Facebook most fervently. Of the almost 350,000 Facebook users who belong to the Vancouver network (which includes the Island), only 500 of us are ages 48-55. The numbers only get skimpier from there.
Older people will love the concept once they give it a try, and I’m already cooking up plans to lure a few Web-savvy seniors out for a Facebook test drive. In the short term, however, membership does skew a little young.
But there are benefits to that, too. I’m now hearing from some of my kids’ friends, who were regulars at our house back in the days before everybody grew up and set off to see the world. I’m stumbling onto people who I’d completely forgotten about, sharing life’s small details with people I didn’t even conceive of ever talking to again.
It’s not all happiness and light, of course. I haven’t yet fully grasped the very public nature of Facebook for those who choose to leave their sites open to all Facebook members, and am occasionally indiscreet.
Last week, I inadvertently broadcast to the Facebook masses that my daughter was sick with terrible diarrhea and camping out on our couch. A few days later, I loudly proclaimed that my mother looks much better for having lost some weight. (Note to self: The Wall is public. The Wall is public.)
But hey, we’re all friends here. And as it turns out, I’m not minding that at all.
July 20, 2007
I try to be discerning in my choice of trends, and certainly didn’t expect to like Facebook. The idea of becoming somebody’s on-line “friend” was just a little too high-school for me.
But the e-mails kept coming, most often from people who I hadn’t heard from in ages. They’d invite me to be their “friend” and post happy little pictures of themselves to lure me in.
The requests piled up unanswered in my inbox. But then my cousin’s wife in Kuwait sent me an invitation. With all that distance between us, it just seemed downright rude to refuse to be her Facebook friend.
And things just kind of went crazy from there.
For those unfamiliar with Facebook, it’s the invention of California computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg, who was just 19 when he launched the “social utility” Web site in February 2004.
He and a group of Harvard classmates (some of whom are now suing Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea) took a few stabs at different kinds of on-line networking before finding one that really clicked.
First came Coursematch, which let Harvard students see who else was taking the same classes. Then came Facemash, one of those “hot or not” Web sites.
That last idea got Zuckerberg in big trouble with Harvard’s administration, as he’d taken student images from the university’s Web site without seeking permission. He quit Harvard shortly after and launched Facebook.
Membership was initially restricted to Harvard students. But within months, it opened up to include the seven other “Ivy League” post-secondaries in the northeastern U.S.
Soon after, anyone with a college or university connection was eligible. By 2006, all you needed to qualify for Facebook membership was an e-mail address.
The Web site is essentially an electronic meet-and-greet - a combination of blog, chatroom and electronic photo album. Given that I can barely make it through all the electronic communications I’m already getting in a typical day, I wasn’t planning on finding anything about Facebook enjoyable.
But it got to me. I started out a skeptic just trying to be nice to a relative living abroad, and in no time at all had transformed into an enthusiastic Facebook user. I still don’t really know how that happened.
I suspect it started with the picture.
Posting a photo isn’t a Facebook requirement or anything like that. But once you give in to that first invitation to be somebody’s “friend,” how long are you going to be content with having a big question mark come up instead of your picture every time you send them a message?
So you upload. And then you go to your site to see how the picture looks and discover that somebody you went to junior high with has written a message on your “wall.” Somebody else has sent you a “gift” - some teeny little electronic image of a birthday cake or a cheery glass of bubbly (Choose gifts with care - a puppy in a basket will set you back $1 US).
Next, your eyes stray to the status section of your page, where various Facebook friends have posted brief comments about their activities of the moment. “Rebecca is hung over,” says one, which tells you all you need to know about whether the birthday bash you’d heard about earlier had gone off successfully.
Further down the page, a new friend - who’s in fact a long-lost one, from grade school - posts a dozen photos from Calgary of a party she was at, and writes nice comments beside your own photos. Pretty soon, you’re sharing memories that you forgot you even had in common.
The young have embraced Facebook most fervently. Of the almost 350,000 Facebook users who belong to the Vancouver network (which includes the Island), only 500 of us are ages 48-55. The numbers only get skimpier from there.
Older people will love the concept once they give it a try, and I’m already cooking up plans to lure a few Web-savvy seniors out for a Facebook test drive. In the short term, however, membership does skew a little young.
But there are benefits to that, too. I’m now hearing from some of my kids’ friends, who were regulars at our house back in the days before everybody grew up and set off to see the world. I’m stumbling onto people who I’d completely forgotten about, sharing life’s small details with people I didn’t even conceive of ever talking to again.
It’s not all happiness and light, of course. I haven’t yet fully grasped the very public nature of Facebook for those who choose to leave their sites open to all Facebook members, and am occasionally indiscreet.
Last week, I inadvertently broadcast to the Facebook masses that my daughter was sick with terrible diarrhea and camping out on our couch. A few days later, I loudly proclaimed that my mother looks much better for having lost some weight. (Note to self: The Wall is public. The Wall is public.)
But hey, we’re all friends here. And as it turns out, I’m not minding that at all.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Victoria street issues are everybody's problem to deal with
July 13, 2007
Being part of the mayor’s task force that’s trying to figure out the street problems in Victoria’s downtown has given me the opportunity to hear about the issues from every viewpoint.
I’ve been heartened to learn that virtually everybody is worried. We need to be.
But it’s also been discouraging to realize how many of us feel powerless to do anything about it.
My most recent conversation as a member of the task force steering committee was with a group of downtown landlords. They gave me one disturbing anecdote after another when asked about the problems they were experiencing.
One had recently seen a woman raped in an alley off Johnson Street, on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon. The woman was screaming as her attacker beat her with a hammer.
Police were called. The woman, who lived on the streets, refused to press charges, fearing “street justice” if word got out she’d brought charges against her attacker. End of story.
Other landlords chimed in with more disturbing tales - stories about installing yet another iron gate across yet another entry way, and of the relentless accumulation of discarded needles around their property.
Once blessedly rare events, hunting for needles and hosing down urine puddles are now just part of the daily routine for merchants on some blocks.
Prime commercial leasing space in a few critical areas is sitting empty for months - even years - because potential tenants don’t want to risk doing business amid the street problems, say the landlords.
They talked of parking lots where a car break-in is now virtually a given, and how the sight of sick, crazy people setting up camp on your building roof has grown so common that it’s lost its shock power.
And of course, they all had a story about some baffled, angry customer wondering what the hell was going on. It’s tough to sign up a new leaseholder for the empty building down the way when she has to step over used needles and a big splash of reeking urine just to view the place.
For those who don’t live, work or shop in the downtown, it probably all seems a little theoretical.
Indeed, that’s a major reason for the problem. With only a small percentage of the region’s population experiencing the misery, most people seem quite content to sit back and wait for the City of Victoria to sort things out. Their mayors and councils are more than happy to do the same.
But what we’re seeing in the downtown is the ugly face of 20-plus years of flawed decision-making at the provincial and federal level, with a little globalization and international drug trafficking thrown in. Victoria simply can’t set all of that right on its own.
We have a growing street problem in our urban centres because we unthinkingly created the conditions for an underclass. Blame a deadly combination of policy paralysis, social-welfare cuts and ideologically driven health-care “strategy,” and a world that changed too fast for some people to ever catch up.
Even if the City of Victoria could find the money to fix such massive challenges by itself, it doesn’t have the authority. Issues of health, social welfare, crime and child protection are all responsibilities of the provincial and federal governments.
Righting the many wrongs that have created the problems in the downtown won’t be easy, or fast. It will take significant amounts of planning, strategizing, innovation, political action and luck. It will require that we put aside political differences once and for all around social health, and embark on a well-considered strategy that spans at least the next decade.
A big job. But if everyone in this fractured region of ours would engage, it’s possible. Because as powerless as we tend to feel, the fact is that we have all the power we need to make a difference.
The mayor’s task force is an excellent beginning. The people sitting around that table are thinkers, movers and shakers - powerful folks in their own right. Put them in the same room with the people who know what’s happening on the front lines, and you’ve got a 360-degree view of the problems and all the knowledge you need to figure them out.
But the task force doesn’t have the money to fund whatever solutions are identified. Nor does it have the authority to override political stances - for instance, the federal government’s objection to a supervised site for street-level drug addicts to inject - or the ability to reshape provincial and federal policy.
Fortunately, we citizens have that power. Our political process is far from perfect, but it still responds well to pressure.
Money must be found. Flawed policy must be addressed. Sick people bouncing around our streets deserve to get the help they need, and landlords deserve to be spared bearing grim witness to violent rapes on otherwise sunny Saturdays in the region’s most popular shopping district.
Make it happen, people. We’re the only ones who can.
.
July 13, 2007
Being part of the mayor’s task force that’s trying to figure out the street problems in Victoria’s downtown has given me the opportunity to hear about the issues from every viewpoint.
I’ve been heartened to learn that virtually everybody is worried. We need to be.
But it’s also been discouraging to realize how many of us feel powerless to do anything about it.
My most recent conversation as a member of the task force steering committee was with a group of downtown landlords. They gave me one disturbing anecdote after another when asked about the problems they were experiencing.
One had recently seen a woman raped in an alley off Johnson Street, on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon. The woman was screaming as her attacker beat her with a hammer.
Police were called. The woman, who lived on the streets, refused to press charges, fearing “street justice” if word got out she’d brought charges against her attacker. End of story.
Other landlords chimed in with more disturbing tales - stories about installing yet another iron gate across yet another entry way, and of the relentless accumulation of discarded needles around their property.
Once blessedly rare events, hunting for needles and hosing down urine puddles are now just part of the daily routine for merchants on some blocks.
Prime commercial leasing space in a few critical areas is sitting empty for months - even years - because potential tenants don’t want to risk doing business amid the street problems, say the landlords.
They talked of parking lots where a car break-in is now virtually a given, and how the sight of sick, crazy people setting up camp on your building roof has grown so common that it’s lost its shock power.
And of course, they all had a story about some baffled, angry customer wondering what the hell was going on. It’s tough to sign up a new leaseholder for the empty building down the way when she has to step over used needles and a big splash of reeking urine just to view the place.
For those who don’t live, work or shop in the downtown, it probably all seems a little theoretical.
Indeed, that’s a major reason for the problem. With only a small percentage of the region’s population experiencing the misery, most people seem quite content to sit back and wait for the City of Victoria to sort things out. Their mayors and councils are more than happy to do the same.
But what we’re seeing in the downtown is the ugly face of 20-plus years of flawed decision-making at the provincial and federal level, with a little globalization and international drug trafficking thrown in. Victoria simply can’t set all of that right on its own.
We have a growing street problem in our urban centres because we unthinkingly created the conditions for an underclass. Blame a deadly combination of policy paralysis, social-welfare cuts and ideologically driven health-care “strategy,” and a world that changed too fast for some people to ever catch up.
Even if the City of Victoria could find the money to fix such massive challenges by itself, it doesn’t have the authority. Issues of health, social welfare, crime and child protection are all responsibilities of the provincial and federal governments.
Righting the many wrongs that have created the problems in the downtown won’t be easy, or fast. It will take significant amounts of planning, strategizing, innovation, political action and luck. It will require that we put aside political differences once and for all around social health, and embark on a well-considered strategy that spans at least the next decade.
A big job. But if everyone in this fractured region of ours would engage, it’s possible. Because as powerless as we tend to feel, the fact is that we have all the power we need to make a difference.
The mayor’s task force is an excellent beginning. The people sitting around that table are thinkers, movers and shakers - powerful folks in their own right. Put them in the same room with the people who know what’s happening on the front lines, and you’ve got a 360-degree view of the problems and all the knowledge you need to figure them out.
But the task force doesn’t have the money to fund whatever solutions are identified. Nor does it have the authority to override political stances - for instance, the federal government’s objection to a supervised site for street-level drug addicts to inject - or the ability to reshape provincial and federal policy.
Fortunately, we citizens have that power. Our political process is far from perfect, but it still responds well to pressure.
Money must be found. Flawed policy must be addressed. Sick people bouncing around our streets deserve to get the help they need, and landlords deserve to be spared bearing grim witness to violent rapes on otherwise sunny Saturdays in the region’s most popular shopping district.
Make it happen, people. We’re the only ones who can.
.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Love the work. Hate the money-grubbing
July 6, 2007
Three years ago, I stepped into the unknown on the work front. I went from being a full-time newspaper columnist to the executive director of a grassroots social agency that helps sex workers.
It’s been hard, good work. But the time has come to pass the torch. PEERS Victoria will soon be in the hands of a new executive director, Chris Leischner, and I’m glad to feel in her the heart, energy and experience for the challenges ahead.
When I tell people I’m leaving PEERS, they generally assume it’s the problems of the people we help that has worn me out.
Yes, it’s fairly stressful to work with people struggling to keep it together. Their problems are ultimately the problems of PEERS if we’re the ones trying to help them figure things out.
But on all but the worst days, I didn’t mind any of that. The far more stressful aspect of the job was the constant need to look for money to do the work.
I hadn’t thought much about the nature of non-profit work before I took the job at PEERS in the summer of 2004. Believe me, it was a steep learning curve.
A non-profit agency shares much in common with private business.
Revenues and expenses. Marketing plans. Human-resource issues. Government regulation. We both grapple with customers and competitors, and better ways to maximize profit while minimizing cost.
But there are significant differences, too.
Joe’s Shoe Store, for instance, succeeds because Joe runs the kind of business that customers love. Once he’s figured out how to please customers, all is well.
The typical non-profit, however, is doing the equivalent of handing out free shoes to anyone who needs them. It can’t count on revenue from its customers, and instead must find another way to cover the cost of all those shoes.
My five previous years in management at the Times-Colonist stood me in good stead at PEERS. The basic management functions are the same.
The endless search for money, however - that was new. I just had no idea that the work of non-profit was funded so precariously.
I understand the dilemma. The taxpayers and donors whose funds fuel the work of non-profits dislike being tied up for the long term, and there are thousands of worthwhile, hungry agencies out there.
But the constant trolling for money is soul-destroying. And to then see people trapped in miserable circumstance because the services aren’t there - well, that gets pretty hard to take.
Non-profits aren’t the only ones living with uncertainty, of course. Back at the shoe shop, Joe may not know whether his store will be around next year any more than a non-profit knows whether its funding will continue.
Joe, however, has the option of trying to be the best darn shoe shop on the block. For a non-profit, doing good work doesn’t guarantee anything.
You could have plenty of satisfied customers walking through your door in the non-profit sector. But that’s not the same thing as having the money to help them.
I found that awfully discouraging.
What could be done about it? A shift to contracts, perhaps.
Whoever is putting up the money for social services deserves to know what they’re paying for, and what societal changes to expect at the end of the day. Contracts provide an opportunity to map out such goals.
More importantly for non-profits, contracts offer stability - five years, maybe even 10 in some distant dream world. For agencies that for the most part live year-to-year, that would be a wonderful thing.
Helping people to their feet is a slow, hard process. It takes time, and no amount of wishing that it were otherwise is going to change that. Oh, the hours I could have given to other PEERS pursuits had I had the luxury of relaxing even for a moment around whether the money for the work would continue to be there.
Granted, a stabilized non-profit sector would require putting an end to using social issues as political fodder. A 10-year contract could conceivably span two or even three governments.
Fortunately, nothing but good would come from moving social issues out of the political realm.
No government ever contemplates eliminating cancer services, or leaving people with broken bones to tough it out. Such matters are by and large beyond the scope of politics.
Extend the same courtesy to health issues like addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse and brain injury, and life will get a whole lot easier for non-profits and the people they serve. Meanwhile, the community would benefit from having problems dealt with rather than merely pushed from one neighbourhood to another.
But we’re a long way from anything like that, and it’s time for me to step aside before I get frustrated to the point of forgetting the many good parts of my time at PEERS.
I’ve loved the work, and will really miss the people. But looking for money all the time just kind of wears a person down.
July 6, 2007
Three years ago, I stepped into the unknown on the work front. I went from being a full-time newspaper columnist to the executive director of a grassroots social agency that helps sex workers.
It’s been hard, good work. But the time has come to pass the torch. PEERS Victoria will soon be in the hands of a new executive director, Chris Leischner, and I’m glad to feel in her the heart, energy and experience for the challenges ahead.
When I tell people I’m leaving PEERS, they generally assume it’s the problems of the people we help that has worn me out.
Yes, it’s fairly stressful to work with people struggling to keep it together. Their problems are ultimately the problems of PEERS if we’re the ones trying to help them figure things out.
But on all but the worst days, I didn’t mind any of that. The far more stressful aspect of the job was the constant need to look for money to do the work.
I hadn’t thought much about the nature of non-profit work before I took the job at PEERS in the summer of 2004. Believe me, it was a steep learning curve.
A non-profit agency shares much in common with private business.
Revenues and expenses. Marketing plans. Human-resource issues. Government regulation. We both grapple with customers and competitors, and better ways to maximize profit while minimizing cost.
But there are significant differences, too.
Joe’s Shoe Store, for instance, succeeds because Joe runs the kind of business that customers love. Once he’s figured out how to please customers, all is well.
The typical non-profit, however, is doing the equivalent of handing out free shoes to anyone who needs them. It can’t count on revenue from its customers, and instead must find another way to cover the cost of all those shoes.
My five previous years in management at the Times-Colonist stood me in good stead at PEERS. The basic management functions are the same.
The endless search for money, however - that was new. I just had no idea that the work of non-profit was funded so precariously.
I understand the dilemma. The taxpayers and donors whose funds fuel the work of non-profits dislike being tied up for the long term, and there are thousands of worthwhile, hungry agencies out there.
But the constant trolling for money is soul-destroying. And to then see people trapped in miserable circumstance because the services aren’t there - well, that gets pretty hard to take.
Non-profits aren’t the only ones living with uncertainty, of course. Back at the shoe shop, Joe may not know whether his store will be around next year any more than a non-profit knows whether its funding will continue.
Joe, however, has the option of trying to be the best darn shoe shop on the block. For a non-profit, doing good work doesn’t guarantee anything.
You could have plenty of satisfied customers walking through your door in the non-profit sector. But that’s not the same thing as having the money to help them.
I found that awfully discouraging.
What could be done about it? A shift to contracts, perhaps.
Whoever is putting up the money for social services deserves to know what they’re paying for, and what societal changes to expect at the end of the day. Contracts provide an opportunity to map out such goals.
More importantly for non-profits, contracts offer stability - five years, maybe even 10 in some distant dream world. For agencies that for the most part live year-to-year, that would be a wonderful thing.
Helping people to their feet is a slow, hard process. It takes time, and no amount of wishing that it were otherwise is going to change that. Oh, the hours I could have given to other PEERS pursuits had I had the luxury of relaxing even for a moment around whether the money for the work would continue to be there.
Granted, a stabilized non-profit sector would require putting an end to using social issues as political fodder. A 10-year contract could conceivably span two or even three governments.
Fortunately, nothing but good would come from moving social issues out of the political realm.
No government ever contemplates eliminating cancer services, or leaving people with broken bones to tough it out. Such matters are by and large beyond the scope of politics.
Extend the same courtesy to health issues like addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse and brain injury, and life will get a whole lot easier for non-profits and the people they serve. Meanwhile, the community would benefit from having problems dealt with rather than merely pushed from one neighbourhood to another.
But we’re a long way from anything like that, and it’s time for me to step aside before I get frustrated to the point of forgetting the many good parts of my time at PEERS.
I’ve loved the work, and will really miss the people. But looking for money all the time just kind of wears a person down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)