Community is about Sharing, participation, and Fellowship.

Reading the letters to the editor from Andrea Mikulan and others over recent weeks serves to explain the city’s tagline “city in the country” as these letters underline the fact that while Abbotsford is a city, it is not a community.

A quick check of a dictionary shows that community is not just about a group of people having common interests it also involves/requires sharing, participation, and fellowship.

Sharing, participation and fellowship. Community is not about every citizen having an account and all these accounts balancing out so that what you put in is exactly what you get out. Trying to achieve such a balance is not only unrealistic, it is impossible.

Community is about compromise, about meeting the important needs of people or groups of people within the community. Sharing, participation and fellowship.

Are our Sikh citizens an important part of the community of Abbotsford? Is this crematorium important to that Sikh sub-community? Is there a reason they are seeking to build in/on cemetery Land? (My understanding is that a tenet of their faith requires that such a crematorium be built on cemetery land.)

If you (we) answer yes to these questions, then as a Community Abbotsford must facilitate the process of bringing the crematorium into being and not get bogged down in beguiling, irrelevant arguments.

What do I mean by beguiling, irrelevant arguments? Arguments such as:

“… and have never expected any public funds to meet our private needs.” is an erroneous statement. One of the reasons to get together in a city is to spend public funds on meeting private needs for roads, water and sewage systems, swimming pools, schools etc.

Or perhaps Ms. Mikulan’s point is that with only 20% (Sikh) vs. 80% (non-Sikh) there is not a large enough private need, enough people with a private need for a crematorium for this private need to be become or be considered a public need?

Now there is a dangerous precedent since that logic leads to a quagmire. Following that train of thought since I voted No to Plan A, actively campaigned against Plan A and will never use any of the Plan A facilities I should be exempt from any tax levy to pay for Plan A. Then there are the schools I have never used, the baseball and soccer fields I have never used, the Friendship Garden I will never use and so on and so on and so on ….

“… would negate the principle of separation of church and state, …” I had not realized that this proposal would make the Sikh faith the official religion of Abbotsford and that our laws would now be based on the Sikh faith. The principle or separation refers to preserving the secularity of government and freedom of religious exercise, not to forbidding transactions between government and religious institutions.

Following the logic behind Ms Mikulan’s separation of church and state argument all the churches in Abbotsford would have to relocate in some other jurisdiction since transactions such as property taxes, water and sewage fees etc. would be prohibited. While an interesting concept it is an irrelevant argument.

“… compete head to head with the private funerary businesses …” Yes, so what? We have long, proud tradition in Canada of forming co-operatives to deliver services at reasonable rates. I draw the reader’s attention to our Health Care system, particularly what happened with the private health facility that was opened last year in Vancouver.

“… attract private enterprise …” This is really reaching for straws. Faced with the reputation and behaviours of Abbotsford city hall and council I have grave doubts that the fact the city transferred a piece of the only current property in Abbotsford upon which the crematorium could be built to the Sikh community to build on would ever be a consideration on which a decision would be made on whether or not to locate in Abbotsford would be made.

“ … purchase suitably zoned land, raise the funds and build it.” We are running out of burial plots because of a lack of any other “suitably zoned land”. Perhaps we should suggest they purchase a magic lamp and use the genie to solve this dilemma?

The Sikh community has raised the money to build the crematorium and as I understand it have changed the original proposal so that they will now form a society to be responsible for operations and any losses.

The Abbotsford Ratepayers have suggested that the Sikh community purchase land and have the city turn it into a cemetery. Now assuming that this could (at least in theory) be done in an acceptable time frame this seems pretty reasonable … except for the “…city turn it into a cemetery.” requirement.

As those who have dealt with city hall and council without benefit of friends in the right place can tell you the words reasonable and reasonable time frames have little or nothing to do with city hall and council. If you have any doubts about this I refer you to the people attempting to build a Sandman Inn in Abbotsford.

I can well understand why the Sikh community would prefer the “bird in hand” land of the existing cemetery rather than chance dealing with city hall and council on rezoning and creation of a new cemetery.

This reluctance to rely on the mayor or councillors is made even more understandable by their failure to provide what is most needed on what has become a divisive matter in our city – leadership. Although this lack is not a surprise given the lack of leadership on poverty, hunger, homelessness, mentally illness, addiction and other pressing issues in Abbotsford by council. Indeed the mayor and council’s main goal in dealing with the crematorium issue appears to be to avoid having to stand up and be counted.

The crematorium is important to the Sikh community; the Sikh community is an important part of the community that is (or at least should be) Abbotsford; therefore the crematorium is (or at least should be) important to the Community of Abbotsford.

For our COMMUNITY we must facilitate bringing into being the crematorium. If the only way to achieve this goal in a timely manner is through the use of land in Hazelwood Cemetery, then that is what should, must be done.

The Access Abbotsford community forum left me considering whether awareness is a necessary and important part of the foundation on which you build a community. Leaving me mulling over the idea that part of being a good citizen is becoming aware, truly aware – not just thinking one is aware.

I used to see a curb cut at an intersection and assume that makes it accessible to wheelchairs etc. It turns out that is not necessarily true. Is the cut wide enough, positioned in the right place, flush with the street?

It was pointed out that that it does not matter how accessible the city is if you cannot get out of your home. The gentleman making this point lives on a bus route but unfortunately it is a bus route that not all the buses used for that route are wheelchair usable.

Thinking about this it occurs to me that partial accessibility is not really a viable or acceptable concept in making a community accessible to the disabled. The business or location destination being accessible and living on a bus route with wheelchair access does no good if it is not possible to get from the bus stop to you destination.

The City of Abbotsford needs to make accessibility a priority, in fact the priority in any situation that affects accessibility.

An example or three: Any development or redevelopment should be evaluated with respect to accessibility and be approved only when accessibility is maximized. Work such as that currently along South Fraser Way between Bourquin and Gladwin (a major area) needs to be evaluated and designed so that improving accessibility is part of the work to be performed. With something as simple as road repaving, what standards do we need to set for the work to ensure accessibility is maintained and enhanced?

A small difference between the new road surface and the concrete curb cut-out is a small step for me but a major barrier to a wheelchair. I heard today that John Van Dongen found out that these types of little discrepancies can dump you out of a wheelchair.

The City of Abbotsford needs to make accessibility and inclusion a priority not just in words but in deeds.

I believe that a major part of this requires consulting the disabled, seeking their advice and judgment, and then acting on that input. It is clear our focus and evaluation cannot be based upon what the standards or current practices are but upon what actually works. It was made obvious to me today that to achieve accessibility we cannot use standards set by people who do not have the expertise you only get by living with and experiencing the challenges the disabled face every day.

As citizens we need to increase our awareness (www.accessabbotsford.ca) and to instruct our Council and City Staff that accessibility takes precedence in their planning and decisions on any matter that will have, or if properly thought out can have, an effect on accessibility. That their actions must increase accessibility.