A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

I'm feeling very divided about a new  B.C. government initiative that makes all criminal records searchable , on-line, for free. The media person inside me is pretty damn excited about it, because it means I can plug in the name of anyone I'm writing about just to see if they might have a criminal record - and hey, that's kind of cool when you're in the business of scrounging up information on people. It also makes it a heck of a lot easier for people who have to do criminal-record checks on volunteers, as it ends that slow business of having to go to the police station and wait (not to mention pay money in some cases). But the social-advocate side of me is thinking whoa, this is wild. Can't you see every employer in the city wanting to run every staff member's name to see if they have a criminal record? Is that good? The initiative appears to have emerged with virtually no media attention - I found out only because a friend in the social-services sector sen...

A response for Jay, who posted a comment on my piece last week about the Prince George specialized foster home owned  by Jordy Hoover, where an 11-year-old boy was Tasered by police last month. Jay says somebody tried to get the Prince George media interested in this story last year but the newspaper said they couldn't write about MCFD unless an issue came up in the legislature. Jay was wondering whether this was true when it comes to what the media can or can't do. While it certainly is easier for media to write about things once they become matters of public record, it's a load of hooey for anyone to suggest that media can't get into MCFD issues until they're raised in the legislature. Yes, there are publication rules around identifying a child who is in foster care, so media can't name a child. But there's nothing stopping the media from looking into the way MCFD contracts, how much it pays people for those contracts, how it selects its contractors, et...

Insite can't be allowed to close Writing a column means finding some quiet time to let yourself think. Which is how a morning walk this week in brilliant sunshine turned into a long and dark reflection on my readiness for civil disobedience if Ottawa tries to shut down Vancouver’s supervised injection site. A few of my activist acquaintances have pointed out that I’m not much for actually showing up at a protest, even when it’s an issue I feel strongly about. I suspect they take that as an indicator that I’m a bit of an armchair quarterback (even though the truth is that I just think writing is the more effective protest tool for me). Still, ever since I heard a retired medical health officer vow years ago at a Vancouver harm-reduction forum to chain himself to the door of Insite if that’s what it took to prevent its closure, I knew I felt the same way. Count me in for a blockade if it comes to that. I have great faith in our court system to get past the unthinking politics of th...

I'm not a regular Margaret Wente reader (she's such a contrarian), but I caught her column in the Globe today and it led me to this great piece in the Guardian by George Monbiot. It's a eyes-wide-open look at the difficulty of getting past the heartfelt intents and declarations of the environmental movement and actually doing something. 

It's unbelievable and deeply embarrassing that our own federal government is trying to shut Insite down , based solely on an ideological viewpoint. The safe-injection site is a health service, and a very effective one. The case will be heard by the federal court on Thursday - here's hoping they've got more savvy and an open mind than our political leadership.