I’ve been a fan of his heartfelt memorials to his dogs in the “Pets Remembered” section for years, which I guess is why Mal Connors’ writing seemed so familiar to me when I came upon his full-page ad in the Times Colonist last week.

I saw his signature at the end of the 1,600-word letter he paid to run in the Dec. 5 paper, and thought, of course! It’s the Rainbow Bridge man. Thank you, Mal, for the opportunity to learn a little more about you after all these years.

As I now know, the Rainbow Bridge man (that’s how he closes the memorials to his dogs, “See you at Rainbow Bridge”) is the owner of Island Carpet Service, Mal Connors. He’s 73 years old, married to Lizzie, father of four, and retiring after 43 years of doing business in the region.

His ad was essentially a long and deeply personal letter to his customers and friends, every bit as heartfelt as his pet memorials.

“As my tour comes to an end in the work force I would emotionally like to pass onto you all, young and to folks like myself of developed years, these words. I have them in my home gym, office and kitchen: Be unlimited. Be Fearless. Be on top of your game. Be personable,” he writes in the ad.

The letter took him a month to write, he told me, and cost him $4,800 to run in the paper. “You can spend money on different things. I spend it on that,” says Mal, who also doesn’t flinch at the cost of the big memorials he runs for his dogs.

Mal listed his contact number at the bottom of the ad. His phone has been ringing steady ever since the ad came out, including a fellow from the Northwest Territories who called late at night to tell Mal his words had “real resonance” for him.

“People are telling me it’s an amazing letter - such an inspiration, simple and honest,” says a grateful but slightly puzzled Mal. “I just want to say thank you to them for even dialling my number. I’m just so humbled by the phone calls, and they don’t stop coming.”

Even if you’ve never read a Mal memorial, you’d know he loves his dogs by that ad. He writes about the seven dogs, several cats and pet crow that have passed through the family home, and urges readers to “be caring, gentle and show respect to your dogs and other valued pets and give them your daily love. Please, never forget them. “

He’s an interesting man, judging by his ad. But who’d expect any less from a man who mourns his passing pets so generously? Anyone who has known love for an animal knows there’s great grief in saying goodbye, which is why I’ve always appreciated that Mal puts his out there.

Mal has outlived nine dogs in his lifetime.  His current dog is Starlit, a white German shepherd from the Cariboo.

But the family’s lab, Dave, died in September, and Mal is thinking about checking the SPCA for another dog or two. “I’ve got a quarter to a half-acre to farm here,” he says. “There’s room.”

He laminates the memorials to past dogs and hangs them in the kitchen. He has most of their ashes, too.

There are costs to doing it the way Mal likes to do it, but again, he doesn’t flinch at those. He pays the pet crematorium to give his beloved pets a sendoff in a “clean oven,” and patiently waits the two hours that it takes to collect the ashes and bring them home.

“Dogs aren’t for everybody, but they kept me on top of my game,” says Mal. “Cleaning their water bowls, taking them out to Beaver and Elk lakes, all their different personalities. Dogs are a big part of my life.”

I asked him about the Rainbow Bridge reference. He says it’s from a poem. I looked for it on-line, but the links were mostly other heartbroken pet owners saying goodbye to their own dear pets. Wikipedia says the author is unknown, but a kind reader who saw my piece in the TC this morning has now sent me the link. 

“My pets are all waiting for me at Rainbow Bridge, and we’ll cross it together into Heaven,” explains Mal. “I’m not a religious guy, but that’s what I believe.”

Well, Mal, I hope your time at the bridge doesn’t come anytime soon. But you’re in for one heck of a happy reunion when the day comes.

Until then, carry on. The world needs more people with heart.

Good piece by Paul Willcocks in this morning's TC, and I'm not just saying that because he's my partner. (As he'd be the first to tell you.) Excellent stats about what's really happening in B.C. around unemployment. The fact that the government press release was so deliberate in avoiding the truth of these figures serves as a reminder that nothing coming out of the highly politicized Public Affairs Bureau should be taken at face value.

I don’t think of myself as an anarchist. But I admit to feeling quite buoyed by the implosion of B.C.’s two major political parties.

We’ve lived through some tempestuous political times here in B.C. It seems we routinely elect governments that we soon grow to despise. Definitely not the best way to run a province, and I do think we need to work on that.

But there’s a whole other part of the blame that lies with our political parties, which have definitely been ramping up the weirdness in the last 15 years or so. I hope this latest chaos shakes them to their roots, and wakes the rest of us up to the fact that there really are better ways to do this.

I’ve been surprised by the media reaction to the resignation of Carole James this week, much of which has portrayed the 13 dissident New Democrat MLAs as the bad guys. I certainly agree with the standard view of her as a lovely, caring woman, but that’s got little to do with whether she’s a good leader.

I had the pleasure this fall of attending a workshop put on by Ian Chisholm, a local leadership coach who always gets me reflecting on what a leader looks like. He calls it a “gift word” - a title that others give to you because you’ve earned it in their eyes.

That’s a long way from the way we use the term at the political level. Most of us in B.C. are living under the rule of “leaders” we don’t even know, let alone hold in high esteem.

In my dream world, we’d be a province governed by collectively minded independents, probably something along the lines of the citizens’ assembly pulled together by the province in 2004 to investigate electoral reform for B.C. Good people coming together for the betterment of all.

Instead, what we’ve got are two political clubs picking party leaders with no regard to what the rest of us think, who by default become our premiers if we vote that party in. No wonder so many British Columbians grow disillusioned with government leaders so quickly - it’s never us who chooses them.

That the Liberal and New Democrat parties are both muttering at the moment about the need to invoke more party discipline speaks volumes about the flaws in the leadership process. Would a real leader ever be afraid to hear what their team members had to say, or to appreciate and act on other opinions? We’re just in for more of the same if the only lesson the parties have learned from recent events is to clamp down harder.

The leaders in my life earned that designation by acting with integrity and vision, in ways that left me and anyone else they encountered feeling valued and connected. None of them were afraid to hear out their critics and act on what they learned.

So is it a surprise that many of us in B.C. feel we just don’t get the leadership we deserve? Even our political parties now seem to share that angst.

Gordon Campbell has been asking for it for ages. Rule like a king and the serfs are bound to rise up sooner or later.

Carole James losing her lustre is more recent, but things blew up quickly once dissent took hold and the yellow-scarf incident was clearly the kiss of death. I think she’s to be congratulated for recognizing that when 40 per cent of your team is openly against you, it’s time to go.

Who would we pick for leaders in B.C. if it were up to us? I don’t see why it’s such an impossible dream to get out from under the party system and get more of that happening.

Yes, B.C.’s first and only referendum on electoral reform failed in 2005, despite the great work done by the citizens’ assembly. But the chance can come again if we just keep pushing. It needs to.

At any rate, this new rebel spirit among MLAs is hopeful in the interim. If we must have parties, let’s at least have ones that encourage independent thinking, genuine representation and true leadership.  

Say what you will about the old Social Credit party, I remember it fondly for its individualism compared to the authoritarian and controlling parties of today. May the winds of change blow them apart.

More evidence of the high price we're paying for tolerating a growing gap between rich and poor in our country. I can't help but feel we've been tricked - all that talk about freeing up wealth so it could trickle on down, and the result turns out to be a concentration of wealth among the richest Canadians and diminishing tax dollars being spent on services for average Canadians.

Seems like our governments always have massive amounts of money to waste on the projects they get enthusiastic about, like the $3.6 million the feds spent NOT redesigning cigarette packages in an effort to scare off young smokers.
This kind of news is what gets me most when governments are going on about the need for restraint in  difficult times. I'm sure you've noticed that reduced spending is only ever a pressing issue when it involves programs and services that the average Canadian would benefit from.