FROM WAR TO WILDERNESS
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VICTORIA – Whenever people say politicians are all alike, can’t be trusted and look out only for themselves, I tell them they should meet Cyril Shelford.
Cyril is no longer in politics. Hasn’t been for 25 years. But back in the days of W.A.C. Bennett, he was minister of agriculture. He was a true gentleman then and he is now.
His thanks for serving the public faithfully and with dedication was a thwack across the back with a two-by-four, swung by an angry protester during the 1972 election campaign, at the end of which he and the Social Credit Party were defeated.
Cyril comes from true British Columbia pioneer stock. His father, Jack Shelford, settled in central British Columbia, near Bella Coola, during the early part of this century. The Shelford Hills are named after him.
His father’s journey to British Columbia, via South Africa, where he served in the Boer War, America, where he earned a living as a carpenter, and Alaska, where he became a proficient trapper and woodsman, are the subject of a book just published by Cyril. I met for coffee with Cyril, and he gave me a copy.
"From War to Wilderness" is a book that should be mandatory reading for every British Columbian, particularly every young British Columbian. It tells a fascinating and inspiring story in letters written home by Jack Shelford of war, adventure and an indomitable will to succeed, no matter what the obstacles.
The trail of letters describes the horrors of the Boer War, where young Jack serves with the British Cavalry. It was the war that changed Jack forever. Emotionally drained, he decides to get as far away from people and socalled civilization as possible.
Leaving England in 1903, Jack makes his way across the United States, stopping and working only long enough to pay for the next leg of his journey. Eventually, he arrives in Vancouver, where he stays in a boarding house at 109 Hastings Street, then a mud road with a sawmill at one end and forestry operations at the other.
He tells of lots being sold on Granville, near False Creek, for $18, less than three days’ wages for a carpenter, but decides against buying because he feels that Vancouver will never grow beyond a fishing village.
Jack’s letter from Alaska provides an insight into what life on the frontier was like. During winter, he looks after his trap lines, with a dog sled his only transportation and the dogs his only company. In the summer, he cuts wood which he sells to the steamers plying the rivers of the north.
Humorous anecdotes abound, as in the story about a Hudson Bay fur buyer who was trying to get the better of some Indian trappers. With great pomp, they declare him an honorary Indian, giving him the name of Walking Eagle. What did the name imply, he wants to know.
Well, when an eagle eats too much he’s so full of excrement that he can’t fly. And you, they say, richly deserve that honor.
He tells of an old prospector friend who had lost all his teeth and spends the long winter nights whittling himself a pair of dentures from a piece of hardwood. When they finally fit, he glues bear and wolverine teeth into holes he had drilled into the dentures. "Now I eat you with your own teeth," he says, eating his first bear steak with his new teeth.
When his brother expresses an interest in joining him, but wonders if he’s suited for pioneer life, Jack writes back: "Take no notice of what people say about how tough it’s going to be. Just go ahead and blaze your own trail."
Eventually, Jack decides it’s time to settle down and raise a family. He buys land near Bella Coola, builds a log cabin and starts farming and ranching. Then he asks his sweetheart in England to come over and marry him. He picks up Safie in Montreal where they get married.
When Safie first lays eyes on the 80-acre meadow that stretches below the house, and sees the snow-capped mountains beyond, she says: "This is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen, and when facing difficulties in life ahead, I can always walk up to his spot and remind myself how fortunate we are to live in the most beautiful place in earth."
Cyril’s mom and dad are both buried on that most beautiful place on earth. And thanks to his dad’s letters, we can now share in the wonder and excitement of its discovery. From War to Wilderness should be in every school library in British Columbia. The book can be ordered through book stores. The price is $19.95 and well worth it.
NEW LAWS MAY SAVE CHILDREN’S LIVES
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VICTORIA – A few weeks ago, I said that the death of yet another child in the government’s care, this one at the hands of her foster mother, demanded the resignation of Children and Families Minister Penny Priddy.
It was an unfair comment, and I accept the admonitions, some gentle, some no so gentle, from many readers. It was a comment born of frustration and despair with a system that seems to be unable to protect society’s most helpless and vulnerable. If we can protect our salmon stock – and I believe we will – why can’t we protect our children?
Priddy, an extremely likable and hard-working cabinet minister, is just as horrified by the deaths of so many children in her ministry’s care, and her resignation would, of course, not change anything. It would be a gesture, no more. Better to take action, and that’s what she did.
Last week, no doubt under pressure from Priddy, the government got off its butt and introduced some changes, recommended more than a year ago in Judge Tom Gove’s report on child welfare, that just might offer better protection to children at risk.
When passed, the new legislation will give social workers the tools to help troubled families without actually having to remove children from the home, a process that can take some time.
The new law will allow the ministry’s child protection workers to apply directly to the court for "supervision orders." Those orders will allow a child to remain in his or her home, but with supervision and monitoring provided by a ministry worker, a contract worker or even an extended family member.
Under existing legislation, the ministry must first remove the child from the home, and in some cases, it may then be possible to return the child under a supervision order, but only after protracted court proceedings.
Those legal hurdles proved fatal for little baby Molly who died recently in foster care, even though a judge had given custody of Molly to the birth mother’s sister, who was ready to care for the girl.
"This new procedure will be much less traumatic for the child and the family than being uprooted and returned," says Priddy.
Supervision orders could also call for a "plan of care" which could include things such as providing support services for the parents, day care or respite care.
If a parent doesn’t live up to the terms of a supervision order and, thereby, put the child at risk, the child could be removed from the home forthwith.
At the same time, the government moved to give new and expanded powers to Children’s Commissioner Cynthia Morton.
One major change will give Morton the right to investigate "critical injuries" that occur to children who are receiving government services. Again, those new powers would apply to cases such as that of Baby Molly.
The new legislation is virtually assured of sailing through unopposed. Liberal opposition critics have already indicated that they fully support it. Their only negative reaction was that the changes should have been introduced long ago, and that’s a fair comment. Gove made the recommendations more than a year ago.
No legislation will ever protect all children from neglect or abuse, but the changes just introduced, along with existing legislation and the powers given to the Ministry of Children and families, should go a long way to stem the flood of child deaths that has horrified British Columbians in the past few years.
We will never know how many children’s lives will be saved by the changes in legislation. But I fervently hope not to have to write about yet another child’s death.
I wish Penny Priddy all the best in her difficult task. She is a good person who takes her duties seriously. And no, she shouldn’t resign.
IMPRESSIONS OF GERMANY OF THE 90S
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VICTORIA – Just back from a brief visit to Germany to attend the funeral of my sister-in-law. And even though the occasion was a sad one, I was able to do a little travelling and gather impressions that bear some fascinating comparisons to Canada.
As in Canada, the number one political issue in Germany is jobs. The re-unification of the two Germanys a few years ago, followed by the near total collapse of the economy in the former communist part, is stressing Germany’s social and economic fabric to the breaking point.
The country that had to import foreign workers by the millions 30 years ago to feed its economic miracle and considered four per cent unemployment unacceptable is now reeling under the impact of a 12-per-cent jobless rate in the western part and 18 per cent in what used to be East Germany.
Cuts to social services are deeper than those imposed on Canadians. Health care is a constant political battle ground. Pensions are being slashed. Taxes are going up.
Still, Germany’s exports are at an all-time high. What’s missing is consumer confidence. People are refusing to buy cars, refrigerators, stoves, clothes and everything else in the quantities necessary to keep the internal economy healthy.
Many Canadians think that environmental organizations put the kibosh on development and progress. They ain’t seen nothing yet.
There is a nuclear reactor in Koblenz, a mid-sized city at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. It was built some 17 years ago to provide badly-needed electric energy. It is considered the safest and most modern in Europe, but it has not produced one kilowatt of power.
Shortly after completion environmental groups went to court to have it shut down. And ever since the issue had been tied up in the courts.
Meanwhile, it is costing taxpayers $500,000 a day to keep the reactor maintained and completely staffed with some 400 people. They could fire the thing up and have it feed energy into the grid within two hours.
If the eventual outcome of the issue is a supreme court order to dismantle the reactor, the land or province of Rhineland Palatine is expected to go bankrupt.
On another environmental front, Greenpeace has done an effective job of drawing the German public’s attention to what it considers unacceptable forest practices in British Columbia.
A lot of ordinary people I talked to are convinced that we rape and pillage our forests. I also talked to a forester who was in B.C. earlier this year, inspected a lot of forestry operations and told me that Greenpeace is wrong.
But politicians rarely listen to experts. They listen to pressure groups, and we can expect more opposition to German lumber imports from British Columbia.
Part of the opposition to our forest practices comes from the realization that Canada is one of the few places the has some old growth left.
Even though two-thirds of Germany, one the world’s most industrialized nations, is covered with forests, they are not like our forests. German forests are highly-managed. There hasn’t been any old growth for hundred of years.
Germans come of Canada to experience a real forests. On my return trip, the plane was packed with Germans, all of whom were looking forward to a two or three-week trip by camper through Beautiful British Columbia. They want to see our forests, not our forestry.
Like it or not, in today's global thinking, more and more people believe they have a rightful stake in the planet’s wonders, no matter where they are. And British Columbia’s forests are fast becoming the proprietary property of international environmentalism and consciousness.
TAXPAYERS FOOTING HUGE TRAVEL BILL
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VICTORIA – Just in case provincial government bureaucrats haven’t heard, there’s a marvelous invention on the market these days: it’s called a telephone, and you can use it to talk to practically anyone in British Columbia.
For the more adventurous, there is video-conferencing, which can be achieved by way of a cheap little camera via the Internet, allowing face-to-face conversations. The point is, you don’t have to travel to talk to someone. Yet, that appears what bureaucrats are doing on a huge scale.
Every year, British Columbia taxpayers fork out about $100 million in travel expenses for public servants. Hey, I’m not making this up. Nor did B.C.’s Auditor General George Morfitt, who criticized the travel expense bill as excessive in a report last week.
Morfitt’s survey showed that in 1995, public servants logged 44,197 round trips between Victoria and Vancouver. A further 338,915 return trips were made between other B.C. communities.
A helicopter service between downtown Victoria and downtown Vancouver, operated by Helijet Airways, is one of the most popular and most expensive ways to travel between the two cities. It ran the equivalent of five flights daily each way, filled with public servants.
Morfitt wasn’t kidding when he said we had a problem on our hands. The question is how do we solve it.
Making every public servant who has to travel between Vancouver Island and the Mainland take the ferry doesn’t make sense because it takes a lot longer and would, therefore, be more expensive.
The only way to drastically reduce that $100 million travel bill is to cut down on travel, period.
Morfitt’s other target was the golden handshakes paid to senior executives leaving the public service. The financial watchdog said that one in four severance packages he examined was excessive and "disturbing."
The government managed to take some wind out of Morfitt’s sails by pre-empting his report with the introduction the week before of legislation that will curb future golden handshakes in the public sector.
The legislation will enable government to ensure that severance packages are based on principles established by common law. It will also enable government to recover money paid in excess of regulation, remove flexibility for public sector employers and their executives to negotiate deals that don’t stand up to public scrutiny.
Finally, the legislation will prevent anyone from receiving severance pay in case of voluntary resignation or termination with cause.
Although Morfitt didn’t single out any individuals, he cited certain Crown corporations as the major culprits in the area of excessive severance payments. They include B.C. Hydro, B.C. Transit and the Workers’ Compensation Board.
The Workers’ Compensation Board alone, Morfitt said, handed out six severance packages he found "excessive and unreasonable."
The Liberals used Morfitt’s report to gleefully pounce on the government. He said the legislation to curb golden handshakes comes a little late in the day.
"It is closing the barn door after the entire herd has left. There is not a lot of comfort to be taken from the fact that six years after paying off their friends, they’re now figuring out that they shouldn’t be doing it," Campbell said.
For the average downtrodden taxpayer, however, it’s better late than never. It’s a good piece of legislation that should prevent future handshakes from being too gilded.
Now, if we could only get those bureaucrats to use the phone instead of travelling all over hell’s half acre to the tune of $100 million a year.
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