A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

What will be left after the Liberals? I don’t know if you lived in B.C. back when we were actually building community services instead of tearing them apart, but I did.  I was one of the taxpayers helping fund it all. So how am I supposed to feel as that same taxpayer, watching all that investment be dismantled because we’ve got a short-sighted, self-interested political party at the helm with some very sketchy ethics? People, what are we doing here? Please tell me we’re not actually prepared to just sit back in seething silence until the next provincial election in 2013. I think I might have to move away if that’s the case, just to stop my head from exploding. What gets me the most is the sheer arrogance of the decision-making in the last couple of years.  A colleague recently reminded me that the same arrogance gripped the New Democrats in their final term, so maybe it’s just what happens when parties get to believing their own myths. The government’s active role in the pot...

Read this story out of Indiana and weep. There would have been a time I couldn't have imagined people in B.C. and Canada ever finding themselves in a similar situation, but not anymore.

Here's a very thorough recounting of the terrible injustices going on right now for people with developmental disabilities in B.C. It's from a B.C. blogger who attended a big meeting in Vancouver on Monday over the $22 million in cuts to group homes and services going on right now. Share this information far and wide, and jump on one of the action items at the end of the blog entry. This is wrong!

A disturbing story out of the U.S . on the disproportionate impact the housing crisis is having on black Americans. Some scary figures in here beyond that issue - like the fact that almost five per cent of recent borrowers in the U.S. have lost their house to foreclosure.

I'm in Vancouver tonight, working here for a couple of days. As always, I can't figure out how I feel about this city. It's beautiful on a day like today - the sun shining, the beautiful mountains aglow in the distance. The high rises in the city core are things of beauty in their own right, catching the sunlight at different angles in the daytime and then turning into sparkling jewels as the night closes in. I drove along the Stanley Park waterfront at dusk today and marvelled at the city scape across the way, perfect right down to the neon-blue and green light spilling down the side of one of the tallest buildings like an electric waterfall. And yet. Something about a tall city always makes me feel lonely. I don't know what that is - is it the spots of light all signalling other human being out there, yet no way to actually make contact? I'm in one such Rapunzel's tower myself at the moment, on a high enough floor that my only company is the lights from neig...

Another insightful report from the team of Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, representative for B.C.'s children and youth, and provincial medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall. Lots of good information in this highly readable report.

Thank you, community-builders - where would we be without you? Organizing an event is an unusual undertaking at the best of times. Things get even more interesting when you’re dependent on community donations and goodwill to pull it off, as has been the case for the three years I’ve been doing the annual Project Connect event for the street community. Doing anything to benefit the poor evokes a peculiar reaction in some people, as if it’s sainted work. But staging an event like Project Connect, sponsored by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, is less the work of saints than it is of community worker bees.   They fill my heart with hope for a better day every time I have the privilege to see them in action. Every year, the outpouring of goodwill and effort reminds me of how much can be accomplished when everyone steps up to the plate even just a little. From the local businesses that donate gift cards and products to the hundreds of people in the community who donat...