Why waste time and money to say nothing?

The new premier clearly enjoys the chance to knock off some of the no-brainer stuff that riles British Columbians. I thought fondly of Christy Clark myself on the long weekend, when my family converged for a picnic at Rathtrevor Provincial Park and didn’t have to pay to park.

If she’s making quick fixes behind the scenes, too, I’ve got one for the list. How about a look at the way the province communicates with media?

It’s been a dispiriting experience these past 15 years to watch governments close the lid on communications.  

You’ll catch me at parties on this one, holding forth to some unfortunate party-goer about being from a generation of journalists who actually remember interviewing deputy ministers.

And nowadays? We exchange emails with "government communications and public engagement" staff (formerly the Public Affairs Bureau), who work very hard to answer our questions without actually saying anything.

You can still get interviews with cabinet ministers, of course.

But in most cases that just means you’ll now have a name to put to the bland, say-nothing comments that the communications people were going to give you anyway. You still don’t have the information you went looking for.

 The unhealthy fixation with trying to control the government “message” started during the NDP era of Glen Clark, in the late 1990s.

Communications under his leadership was a dense pad of cotton wool wrapped tight around government, one that kept a journalist wandering in a whiteout for days. Interviews with knowledgeable people inside government gave way to frustrating exchanges with friendly communications staff who mostly didn’t know a thing about what you were asking about.

The situation worsened under Gordon Campbell. His government gave up any attempt at neutrality in 2002 and converted communications positions to political appointments. All pretence of being an information bridge between government and the public was abandoned, and PAB became a fully politicized arm of the premier’s office.

That marked a major shift. The old PAB was in the business of helping media connect to people in government who knew the answers. The new one worked to shut that down.  

Government represents the people. We are intended to be kept in the loop about what’s going on in B.C., and heard when we question government decision-making.

But beyond the principled argument, running a communications department like you’re Kim Jong-il is also just plain stupid in the information age.

Keeping a lid on things is no longer an option. Government merely forfeits the chance for input into a story - and looks dishonest and secretive to boot - when it hides information, silences its experts, and teaches its people to repeat “key messages” even when they don’t make one damn bit of sense.  

This is not a sexy issue to sell to the public, I admit. Journalists have tumbled ever lower down the list of professions the public distrust. I’m bracing for the “cry me a river” comments that follow anytime I’m perceived to be whining on behalf of media.

But like us or not, we’re still the public’s best bet for finding out things you’d never know otherwise. Media pressure is still one of the most reliable ways to try to right a government wrong. A civil society doesn’t want to give that up.

Even positive stories are getting hard to do now if it involves talking to a government employee.

I set out to get an interview with a particular income-assistance worker a while back after I kept on hearing really nice things about her from people living homeless in Victoria. It took weeks of emails and phone exchanges with worried-sounding communications staff to make it happen.

The communications staffer who sat in on the interview said he couldn’t recall media ever having direct access to a government employee. I launched into my I-used-to-talk-to-deputy-ministers rant.

There are some very good communicators working for government. The problem is not communications staff, it’s the way they’re being used.

Nor has it all been a downward spiral when it comes to government communications. The province’s Web site is a treasure trove of information for journalists, and a resource that didn’t exist back in the days when senior government managers still spoke aloud.

 But sometimes a journalist just needs a real person. They need someone who knows what’s going on because it’s his or her job to know. Christy Clark must know that from her own recent experiences as a radio commentator.

Premier, please lower the drawbridge. We need to talk.

What are we to conclude about this development - everyone on the government side of the Pickton inquiry gets their legal funds covered, but there's no help for sex workers, aboriginals or residents of the Downtown Eastside. Does that not strike you as just a little obvious?
Public funds can't be treated like a bottomless pit, of course. And yes, you don't want to think too long about the massive sums that will have gone to lawyers by the time the various aspects of the Pickton case have run their course. Imagine what those millions could have done to change the lives of the women who were Pickton's victims - and could still do for the women who continue to be out there on the street night after night, risking their lives with every "date."
But really, to stack the deck quite so blatantly is just plain offensive. If there's no more money for lawyers so that sex workers can be heard as part of the inquest, then funds need to be pried out of the hands of some of the groups on the government side to even things out.

New University of Victoria research shows that exercise can improve the brain function of people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Good on the Saanich News for putting this story out there - the official statistic is that FASD affects about one per cent of the babies born in any given year in Canada, but an anonymous screening of newborns at a Toronto hospital a while back put that figure at three per cent.
It's a miserable brain injury at its worst, as it affects the child's ability to measure risk and learn from experience long into adulthood.
Those most affected by FASD do poorly in school, run into trouble with authority figures, are at higher risk of homelessness and addiction, and risk their own life and limbs on a regular basis due to poor decision-making. We saw a lot of people with FASD - some diagnosed, many we just suspected - during my time at PEERS among the most multi-barriered women working the outdoor stroll.
So it's a happy day to hear of a simple exercise regimen that helps people manage after the fact. But of course, FASD is completely preventable, so I hope we also do more to spread the word about the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Alcohol remains the most damaging of the recreational drugs to use while pregnant.

B.C. criminal records now searchable on-line

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 sent me the link. It's being done in the name of transparency, but I just don't know if it's good to remove all transparency around someone's criminal record. Traffic violations are now public, too.
It's certainly going to make it more difficult to "put it all behind you." It could make it very difficult for people who commit comparably minor crimes to get a job, regardless of whether their crime has anything to do with the kind of work they were trying for.
***
Just found out this came about in the fall due to a series done by TC reporter Lindsay Kines. I'm a fan of Lindsay's work, but still not quite sure how to feel about this new freedom.

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, etc.
I would assume that even the specifics of how a particular group home (or "specialized resource," as MCFD calls the kinds of homes where the Tasering occurred, as they house just one child) is fair game for a media query, as long as the individual children aren't identified by name.
That said, MCFD does make it really, really difficult to get information. Nothing in that piece of mine actually came from the Ministry. I did contact the Public Affairs Bureau, which is what you have to do if you're a media person looking for answers. But I knew from past experience that I would get nothing useful back from their communications people.
So media do need to be prepared to do some sleuthing when they do an MCFD story - but then again, that's the raison d'etre for even having media, isn't it?
 It's also much easier for me as a columnist than if I were a reporter - we're both required to have solid sources, be truthful and to be very careful to avoid libel and defamation, but a columnist has more freedom to voice an opinion and present information without saying specifically who the source was.
Fortunately, we are in the age of social media, and need not wait anymore for hometown media to decide whether to cover a story. On-line newspapers like the Tyee would be interested in stories like this one, and there are a number of savvy political bloggers in B.C. who might also do their own digging.
I'd suggest people shop out a wider variety of writers when looking to take a story public, and not just rely on the traditional media. However, all "public" writing is still subject to the libel laws and the Web is still very much the wild, wild west, so seek out proven writers who you trust to do a thorough, responsible piece.
Here's what I got back from MCFD's communications department when I asked them about how they contract for foster homes and what qualifications an operator has to have to get those contracts. Please note that while it may be true that most requests for proposals are posted on BC Bid, that does not appear to have been the case for Jordy Hoover's homes, or for the many other "one-offs" for vulnerable, high-risk children that the Ministry now funds all over the province:

The ministry does not specifically track the number of for-profit vs not-for-profit contractors for residential services; those contracts are held by the individual regions and would require a substantial amount of staff resources to calculate a specific breakdown.

 In most cases, requests for proposals to provide residential services are posted on BCBid.com. The specific requirements for each contract varies depending on the individual needs of the children involved. Children and youth living in staffed specialized homes may include children and youth with intellectual or physical disabilities, mental health issues or behavioural difficulties and who are unable to reside in either their own home or a foster home. The requirements for the facility would vary according to the specific challenges of the children it was meant to provide care for.

 As an example, there may be a requirement that the proponent possess a knowledge of aboriginal culture, have experience in dealing with physical disabilities,  or have expertise in caring for children with complex needs.

 For all proponents – new or existing – there are additional requirements for the staff working with clients that would again vary depending on the individual children involved. All staff would need to undergo a criminal record check and would need to be adequately trained and have access to ongoing training and supervision to meet the needs of their respective jobs.

 More information can be found in the ministry’s Standards for Staffed Children’s Residential Services at http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/child_protection/pdf/standards_residential_services.pdf