Category Archives: The Issues

Municipal

Another empty Abbotsford city council promise

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Another empty Abbotsford city council promise.

City council assured us that fees at Abbotsford Recreation Centre would not take a large jump to cover the additional operating costs of the Plan A addition at ARC.

I now find myself paying a 13.1% fee increase to use ARC. To council, habituated to just reaching into taxpayers pockets for more, a 13.1% increase may not seem like a large jump in fees, but to me, coming as it does out of my pocket, it is a large jump.

I am not really surprised by the double digit price increases given council’s record of promises made and broken, along with their misleading or incorrect statements on City financial matters. Particularly in light of what was revealed about council promises made and not kept with respect to the crematorium issue.

I have no doubt that the City will have an excuse for the 13.1% raise; excusing making being the one thing the City and council excel at.

Actually, I am not really interested in whatever excuse they come up with for this double digit increase. The real excuse I am interested is the one they will come up with as the cost overrun on Plan A closes in on 50% ($42.5 million).

It’s bound to be a whopper.

Homeless, Provincial

Torn

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As I drive along listening to my car radio I repeatedly hear the provincial government’s radio advertisement to inform people of the rent subsidy program for families whose income falls under $35,000.

Listening to these ads I am torn.

I am glad for those the Province chooses to help and that the government has recognized at least this limited acknowledgement of the cost of housing and the level of need/poverty in British Columbia.

Unfortunately the government continues burying its head in denial of the reality of the higher levels of poverty and need their ideology denies.

Worse is that this denial appears to be driving the few provincial Liberals who have removed their ideological blinders and opened their minds and eyes, enabling them to see the desperate levels of need, to leave the government in frustration over party leaderships blind insistence on continuing to deny a Reality they have no wish to see.

Perhaps Mr. Campbell could explain what makes some BC residents worthy of his governments aid and others unworthy of help in recovering their lives?

Homeless, Municipal

New Recovery House Policy

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Mr. John Smith still has not answered the most important question concerning the recovery house policy.

Mr. Smith and council have failed to answer: “when you close a ‘bad’ recovery house, where are the people/residents going to go”?

I support closing bad recovery houses, probably not for the same reasons as Mr. Smith, but I do support closing them. But, and isn’t there always a but with a people problem? But I felt, and still feel, that Mr. Smith and council need to have a plan in place so the people in those recovery homes that will be closed have a place to go – rather than mindlessly adding 100 – 200 more homeless to the overcrowded, overrun streets of Abbotsford.

Since it appears the Mr. Smith and council have followed their usual policy with taxpayer questions, they did not listen and ignored the question, I want to pose something to think about for the citizens of Abbotsford who will be affected by the new recovery home policy.

Before celebrating the closing of a recovery house in your neighbourhood – where are the people who live in the house going to go?

Recovery houses were a market response to the demand for affordable housing. When you close a recovery house there is nowhere else the residents can afford to move to.

You may not have liked a recovery house in your neighbourhood but are you prepared for the ex-residents seeking shelter in you carports, crawl spaces, sheds or trees around your/their neighbourhood? With nowhere else to go the people are going to stay in the neighbourhood they know – your/their neighbourhood. That is their comfort zone and where they will want to stay.

Perhaps any newly displaced residents of recovery houses can find rides to Mr. Smith and other councilors homes and neighbourhoods?

After all they have been aware of the question of where displaced residents of recovery homes will go for over a year and … done nothing to address this question/aspect of the new recovery homes policy.