Municipal

Abbotsford’s $expensive$ AHL pipedream

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I cannot predict whether or not Abbotsford will get an AHL hockey franchise.

What I can predict is that if Abbotsford should get an AHL franchise all the financial dealings and contracts between Abbotsford City Council on behalf of the City of Abbotsford, the investors bringing the franchise to the city and the AHL will be buried deep in the bowels of City Hall and securely hidden from the people who will be footing the cost of the required yearly seven-figure subsidies – the beleaguered and impoverished Abbotsford taxpayer.

I can also predict council will have a multitude of excuses for why they will not or cannot release the information that would allow calculation of how many millions of dollars taxpayers will be required to pay to subsidize any AHL team in order to entice that AHL team to locate in Abbotsford.

AHL President David Andrews made it clear that any Abbotsford team will be responsible to fully subsidize teams increased travel costs to travel to Abbotsford for games. The expense of paying this cost will be in addition to the increased travel costs a team located in Abbotsford will face in travelling to away games.

Simple mathematics reveals that covering increased travel costs will require 1 – 2 million dollars a season. Where is that money going to come from? Where else but Abbotsford taxpayers?

There are numerous other costs and subsidies I can think of that could well end up coming out of Abbotsford taxpayer pockets in order to entice a hockey team to Abbotsford.

Which is why full disclosure on all the costs and contracts connected and/or associated with the new arena complex and its operations is required. While it may be publicly embarrassing to leave the new arena dark, it is likely the most economically and financially sound decision to make.

With the economy in the worsening shape it is, the besieged taxpayers of Abbotsford simply cannot afford to pour millions of dollars of operating subsidies into the arena every year on top of the millions paid out in debt and interest repayments for sole purpose of allowing council to save face.

behaviour, Consider

Path to Hell paved with “for their own good”

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A chill went down my spine and across my soul listening to Vancouver’s new Mayor Gregor Robertson talking about forcing people, “for their own good”, to behave in a manner he judges is an appropriate and wise.

Frighteningly no one on the news report disputed his statement and others echoed the “force them for their own good” sentiment. Hopefully this lack of a disagreeing cautionary voice was a result of editorial decisions by news staff and not from a lack of those questioning the wisdom of going down the “force them for their own good” path – no matter how well intentioned the steps onto that very slippery slope may be.

The police officer who let her light her candles made the correct decision. Someone was appalled that I would give candles to homeless people living in tents or other makeshift shelter. I know how important they can be to providing heat to survive in frigid weather.

The same day the news had reports of people killed in house fires. Does that mean that we should force people not to live in houses because fires will happen, houses will burn and people will die?

Yes the death of the woman who died in the fire in her modified cart was tragic, but the tragedy was not that she refused to come inside. The tragedy is that we as a society have failed to put in place the resources that would have allowed for the building of a relationship of trust with the woman and the existence of housing/shelter she would have found acceptable.

The true tragedy will be if we heedlessly, thoughtlessly plunge down the “force them for their own good” path. History is full of examples of what happens when we as a society decide what is good for somebody or a group and force them “for their own good” to do what we, not they, want.

Just ask members of our First Nations who were forced into residential schools “for their own good” while looking at the damage done to our First Nations and their cultures and society in the name of “their own good”.

In this case forcing people to behave in a manner “for their own good” is not about their own good but about making society feel better, salving society’s conscience over the consequences of its decision to abandon these most vulnerable people and all to often avoiding having to invest the time, resources and effort to deal with the issues in a manner that would truly be of benefit to those in need.

I have been one of the people who Mr. Robertson wants to “force for their own good” to behave as he sees fit.

While I acknowledge that appropriate housing and supports would have been helpful, what I really needed was the time and personal space to find my way to recovery. “Forcing me for my own good” would have denied me the chance to find that path and to find recovery and myself.

Consider

Royal Pian in the Neck.

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As I start writing this I am sitting in a chair in the Emergency room at the new Abbotsford Regional Hospital.

A cyst in my neck has developed an infection becoming painfully swollen, filled and bulging with pus and other ichors. The pain and the desire to deal with the infection before it spread throughout my body sent me off to my doctor.

Who said it was a matter that needed to be dealt with at the hospital so I headed off to Emergency.

The hour and a half spent in the waiting room was not unexpected and I relaxed and wiled away the time watching several cooking shows on the food network which was playing on one of the several TVs situated around the much more spacious waiting room.

My name was called and I followed the nurse into the emergency room where I entered one of the curtained cubicles and sat down to await the doctor, who arrived shortly.

Taking a look at my neck he expressed his displeasure and upset with the fact that my neck had not been opened and the cyst removed at my doctor’s office rather than sending me to Emergency.

However when this same cyst had developed an infection last year, the doctor at the walk-in clinic only lanced the infection to allow the pus and assorted ichors to drain telling me , as I was handed a prescription for antibiotics, that I needed to go to the hospital to have the cyst itself removed.

Now I really do not care who was correct about where the cyst should have been removed.

What I do care about is the ER doctor expressing his displeasure with me being directed to Emergency, then stalking off to deal with, as he put it, “…real sick people” and leaving me sitting around for hours wondering when he would get around to treating my neck seemingly fallen to the bottom of his list because of his displeasure with my doctor sending me to Emergency.

It was unfair and unprofessional for the ER doctor to allow his pique with my doctor sending me to Emergency to affect his interactions with and treatment of me.

Running out to plug more money to feed the voracious appetite of the parking meter machine I did find myself wondering if part of the reason it takes so long in the ER is because it costs $2 an hour to park with no maximum set as to the amount that can be extorted. I wonder how much faster people would be in and out of ER if a maximum parking charge of 2 hours was set for ER patients?

When the ER doctor deigned to return to me, again raising the subject of my doctor’s action, I was very careful to be noncommittal to avoid spending more hours sitting in the ER. He opened up my neck, cleaning out pus, ichors, and digging out the cyst then sending me off saying I probably did not need antibiotics and that I could have the packing removed in three days or even remove it myself.

Later that night as I was washing the blood that leaked out of the wound and into the collar of my shirt, sincerely regretting the lack of pain medication as the freezing wore off and contemplating the use of alcohol as a pain killer and/or sleep aid, I decided to pay an official office visit to a nurse of gentle hands and compassion the next day. Who did indeed carefully and gently change the bandage for me

When she heard I had not been given a prescription for antibiotics she handed me some extra bandages instructing me to change the bandage every day and pay careful attention to the discharge and if it looked like an infection was setting in to see a doctor for antibiotic treatment.

I was told that I should seek out someone to remove the packing in the wound, rather than remove it myself as suggested by the ER doctor. Preferable someone with access to wound packing materials in case it needed to be repacked. That I should have the packing removed sooner rather than later to avoid any complications or problems.

Fortunately she also informed me as to what over-the-counter pain medication I should seek out to provide relief from the pain.

It was much more pleasant, helpful and informative to deal with a medical practitioner behaving in a considerate and professional manner.