Will anyone save an old building?

Armchair Mayor column for The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, May 29, 2010

Have you ever seen that photo of the CPR locomotive chugging down Victoria Street? It’s one of the most famous historic pictures of our city. It hangs in many local homes as a reminder of the early days of life in Kamloops.

The picture was taken looking west to east on West Victoria, and on the lefthand side several of the buildings of that era are visible — they are among the most beautiful, picturesque buildings of the time, some woodframe, some made from the famous Kamloops brick.

Just as the rails no longer run down Victoria Street, every building in that photograph is gone. Except for one, and that one might not be with us much longer, either.

Currently known as the Christian Men’s Hostel, it was built as the Federal Building, home to the Post Office and other services. It’s one of those buildings we figured would always be there.

Just as the beautiful, symmetrical Commercial Block, and the stately Bostock building were once part of our cityscape. I watched with great sadness many years ago as one, then the other, and others on that block were bulldozed. In some cases, the bricks went to fireplaces as conversation starters in new homes. For the most part, they exist only in pictures, like the one with the steam locomotive.

Sure, the land is being put to good use — the Bostock building was replaced by the New Life Mission, for example, but new buildings, despite all their functionality, usually lack the dignity of the old ones.

The threat to the Federal Building comes as the result of the hostel being moved down the street to the squat, ugly box known to most as the Rendezvous Hotel. That hotel, too, was once a fine heritage building before it was damaged by fire and reincarnated as the stripper bar commonly called the ‘Vous.

Once the hostel is moved there, the future of the Federal Building becomes uncertain. It’s unlikely it would be repurposed for commercial uses, and equally unlikely it would be obtained for civic use as the Old Courthouse and Cigar Factory Building have been.

Often, government is the only one that can save such buildings, but there seems no prospective governmental use for this one. I fear the wreckers will once again descend on West Victoria to knock down the last vestige of that 1890s-early 1900s period of our history.

Maybe I’m being overly pessimistic — maybe the owners, current or future, will find uses for the building as it stands, but given the dreadful record this community has in saving important heritage buildings I wouldn’t expect it. It’s just business.

Believe it or not, there is no legislation that could protect that building. The City, via the Heritage Commission, has a Heritage Recognition list, and a new Heritage Registration list. The old wooden Federal Building/ Christian Hostel is on the Recognition List but not the Registration list.

Not that it matters a great deal. The only real difference between the two is that the former is maintained and updated with the cooperation of the owners of buildings, and plaques placed on their front facades to denote their heritage significance.

The latter is just that, a list. There are no legal requirements attached.

“At this point, there is no protection on that building,” Kamloops museum manager Elisabeth Duckworth told me this week. Nor any other, actually.

Will a champion emerge? I don’t see anyone on City council who might be willing to take up the challenge to save this building. Jim Harker is the council’s appointee to the Heritage Commission, and he does attend some of the meetings. But will he fight for it?

Many cities hire heritage planners to work for the preservation and protection of their important heritage stock. Our City doesn’t even consider heritage buildings important enough to send a staff member to sit in on meetings of the commission.

Carla Stewart, when she worked in the City’s planning department, had a real passion for heritage, and worked hard on behalf of the commission. She was instrumental in saving the Wilson House from destruction (it was moved from Wilson Street to Tranquille Road and now serves as the offices for the North Shore BIA).

Even then, she was expected to do it off the side of her desk, and now that she’s left Kamloops the commission is on its own. Not even the commission — which is currently without a chairperson — has reacted to the news about the potential loss of another building.

We are, it seems, in a trough when it comes to commitment to our heritage structures. Will anyone take up the call, or shall we all just check yet another one off the list?

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress.com

Sometimes politics is just too ridiculous

Armchair Mayor column, The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, May 22, 2010

One of my favourite movie lines, in one of my all-time favourite movies — the 1970 film Little Big Man — is spoken by the Jack Crabb character played by Dustin Hoffman.

Pondering the fact that his life had been saved by the murder of one of his best friends by one of his mortal enemies, Crabb says, “The world was too ridiculous to even bother to live in.”

One could adapt that line this week to say, “Politics is too ridiculous to even bother with.”

More specifically, our Ottawa politicians are so ridiculously out of touch that one wonders why we listen to them.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser — foolishly thinking Canadians have a right to know if Members of Parliament are spending their money appropriately — wants to audit the expenses of Members of Parliament. MPs — who seem of a view that the AG’s job is to keep an eye on everyone else in government but not them — have politely declined, telling her it’s none of her business.

This piece of astute decision-making came through something called the Board of Internal Economy, an all-party committee (four Conservatives, three Liberals, one New Democrat, and one Bloc) whose job it is to oversee the operating budgets of the House of Commons. Only the Bloc member supported Fraser.

Some of the reasons given for rejecting Fraser’s request are pretty interesting, such as, it hasn’t been done before so it can’t be done now, and why would Fraser want to audit the people who hired her?

As is usual with such things, backbench MPs are left trying to stickhandle their way between public backlash and the party line as best they can. Cathy McLeod says there are adequate safeguards in place already to make sure MPs don’t abuse their expense accounts, because KPMG does an audit and the AG would simply be duplicating.

“There is a process in place for accountability,” she told me yesterday, but admits she’s been hearing from constituents who aren’t impressed.

In response, she’s posted her 2009-2010 expenses on her website. A good idea, but it provides only the barest of information on office expenses for staffing, travel, advertising and lease, and on “goods and services provided by the House.”

The latter shows $129,487 in travel, while her office budget shows $251,197 for “staff and other expenses” and $25,062 for advertising, for example.

A full audit would break down those expenses into individual receipt items to reflect if they are within reason. McLeod, to her credit, says she’s happy to provide exact information to anyone who asks.

But she isn’t quite taking the bull by the horns. In a written response to constituents who express concerns, she states that “I personally believe an additional audit by the Auditor General is expensive and redundant given the systems we have in place.”

She assures them that it’s “nearly impossible for Members to abuse the budget” because of all the controls.

She adds, though, that she will express their concerns to caucus.

As reasonable as this sounds, it begs the question why, if MPs have nothing to fear, they’re acting very much as if they do. With all those controls in place, and everything being so squeaky clean and above board, would they not want to go out of their way to satisfy Canadians that our federal Parliamentarians are not indulging in the profligate misspending exhibited in other governments.

Canadians, after all, are used to hearing stories about Nova Scotia MLAs using public money to buy big-screen television sets, and British MPs expensing swimming pool maintenance, tennis court repairs, and moat cleaning to taxpayers.

In such an environment, would it not be politically prudent, not to mention proper, to enthusiastically embrace the auditor-general’s modest proposal?

The incomparable Rex Murphy captured this sentiment best the other night on his Point of View segment on CBC’s The National (which, by the way, Cathy McLeod watched).

“Why are our politicians afraid of Sheila Fraser?” he asked.

“Why is she allowed to look into every corner of government spending, summon whole departments, but not welcome to look into the public expenses of people elected by the public who are spending the public’s money?

“Their brains are on prorogation. They have been talking about busty hookers and borrowed Ferraris for so long they have no minds left to think with.

“Stonewalling the auditor-general is the dumbest move in the history of Canadian politics. . . . Can they not see how odd, shifty, condescending, privileged, one rule for thee another for me, this makes them look?”

Or, as Jack Crabb would say, “The world is too ridiculous.”

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress.com

Community involvement versus journalism

I’ve argued for years that journalists need to be involved in their communities, and that worries about conflict of interest are only what you make them.

Last Friday, through my involvement with the Graffiti Task Force (I serve as its vice president), I was made aware of the fact that our coordinator Gord Giles had been charged with theft in connection to the RCMP auxiliary program. Shortly thereafter came the dreadful news that Gord had taken his own life.

That is an event that any journalist, having heard it in the course of his or her job, would normally have rushed into print. I didn’t, because I didn’t receive the information in my position as editor of The Daily News. Some might say that I neglected my duties to my own newspaper by not using the information. Others might say that if I’d used it I would have been guilty of a conflict of interest.

I subscribe to the latter view. If I used confidential information obtained through my service with various community groups, I wouldn’t be on any of those groups for more than five minutes. I serve on eight community boards and committees, and I’m privy to confidential and sensitive information from all of them. I  look at it this way: if I wasn’t on the Graffit Task Force, I would never have heard about Gord Giles that Friday afternoon, so journalism was no further behind than it would otherwise have been. And, would the world really have been a better place if the paper that employs me had published the information a few days early, before family and authorities had been properly prepared?

A reporter learned of Gord’s death early this week and published a story Tuesday, but without the details because nothing was released at that time. This morning, RCMP held a press conference with family members to outline what had happened.

They were the right ones to make the decision about when to release the information.

I admit I feel pretty anxious when I have to “sit” on information sometimes. I wouldn’t be much of a newspaper guy if I didn’t. Not long ago, some information was leaked to the media from one of the boards I serve on, and I suspect it might have come from another media person who serves with the same organization. That one really disturbed me because when media people do serve in a public capacity they have to be doubly sure to keep confidences, otherwise we’re all under suspicion.

If I’d received the information about Gord Giles from someone else, in my capacity as a newspaper editor, I would have felt obligated to assign a reporter to look into it right away. But, it didn’t, and I’m content to let things play out in such circumstances. And I remain convinced that media people can be faithful both to their roles as journalists and as citizens of their communities.

Behind Closed Doors — Life At City Hall Chapter 9

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS — LIFE AT CITY HALL

 

Chapter 9 — Reality Check

 

This is the ninth in a series of articles written for this blog about my years as the mayor of Kamloops between 1999 and 2005. It’s intended for anyone who has an interest in how civic government works. This chapter picks up the story in the weeks after the new council was elected.

‘You are not in charge around here; we are.”

—   A senior City manager to the new mayor.

 

It’s a universal piece of wisdom that change is difficult, especially for those who have become used to doing things in a certain way for a long time.

I fully expected there to be some resistance to the changes I had in mind for City Hall, but I was surprised at just how strong it turned out to be. The change I wanted to effect, and felt I had a mandate for, centered on the main theme of my campaign — open, transparent government.

 Given the barriers that had to be passed in 2000, you will perhaps appreciate why I’m so disappointed about the records of mayors and councils since I left civic politics, beginning with the way they’ve closed the doors once again on that most fundamental of corporate exercises — strategic planning.

 As I explained in the previous chapter, prior to 2000 the City of Kamloops hadn’t even had a strategic plan. What it had was a shopping list of things of things to do; it actually looked like something you’d scribble down in a spare moment before heading for the super market to buy groceries.

 In the newspaper industry, I was used to setting aside a weekend with the senior management group to hammer out priorities for the coming year and the next five years. Those priorities had to be articulated as fundamental principles and priority actions. Success in achieving objectives had to be measurable.

 There was no such blueprint in the City. There was no sense of vision, nothing about energy and spirit and taking Kamloops in an upward direction. I wanted a document with some feeling, in which mayor and council could speak to those things, provide direction for staff, and which could be the basis for an appended corporate strategic plan that staff would then use to carry out defined goals.

 To get there, I figured it was time to open up that strategic planning session to one and all, anyone who wanted to hear firsthand what their civic leaders had in mind for the city for the next three years.

  With six new members of council, there was clearly a mandate for change. 

Joe Leong was a council veteran, and I always found him to be supportive of what I was trying to do. He seldom stood out from the crowd, but he was a good team player.

 The two other incumbents, Pat Wallace and Sharon Frissell, were close friends. I didn’t know Frissell very well, but found over time that she tended to follow Pat’s lead — if Pat took a particular side on an issue, Sharon usually supported her.

 Pat was the well-respected veteran of the council. Cliff Branchflower referred to her as “Her Majesty.” I’d known her for some 20 years, since before she got involved in municipal politics. It’s impossible not to like Pat Wallace. She’s generous, funny and smart.  In the years to come, we would disagree on many things, but we would get over any hard feelings and move on. Though she treated me badly at times, and she felt the same way about me, she could be as formidable an ally as she was an opponent.

 As a newspaper editor, I’d often written things she didn’t appreciate, and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I recorded in my journal that I invited her to lunch to clear the air because she’d backed Pat Kaatz for mayor and I was hearing gossip about things Pat was supposedly saying about me.

 “Of course, this got back to me and so I met with her to try to straighten her out,” I wrote. “I asked her to please stop, and commented that, ‘We don’t have to like each other, but we should at least try to get along.’

 “That would come back to haunt me.”

 In hindsight, that was not the smartest thing for me to say, because while I said it as a reflection of what I thought was her opinion of me, she took it to mean I had no intention of being friends. She remembered it, and quoted my own words on occasion when we disagreed on something.

 And, it didn’t take long — about as long as it took to make committee appointments.

 Appointments are a tricky thing because nine different people all have their wish lists, all have different schedules, and they all have different sets of experiences and talents.

 Spreading nine people among more than two dozen different committees with varying mandates and workloads is a challenge, let me tell you.

 In other words, all have different demands. However, I met with everybody and worked on it for a couple of weeks and was pretty pleased with my first attempt.

 That is, until Pat, who had left on a trip before I completed the list, got back in town, and all hell broke loose.

 I’d left her off the Yellowhead Highway Committee, which turned out to be one of her must haves. I hadn’t realized that, through a previous appointment to that committee, she’d been elected to the board and badly wanted to stay on it.

 When I was informed of this I immediately corrected it, but Pat considered it an intentional slight. 

 Even some of the newbies were nervous about this radical notion of open government. Frissell talked to Peter Sharp, who backed her up in rejecting an open planning session.

 “You will NOT allow the public to attend,” he informed me in an email.

 After a few back and forths, I compromised by scheduling a short in-camera session as part of the agenda, but would go no further. If any councillor didn’t like it, I decided, he or she could stay home.

 On the Saturday of the meeting, I wasn’t sure if I’d be the only one in the room, but they all showed up, though they didn’t all like it. Dave Gracey, who I came to know as a very intelligent, creative man with a strong sense of right and wrong, called for a break-out discussion about the role of the mayor. Without me.

 It rattled me for a moment, but I figured, what the hell, let’s get the showdown over with. I knew our facilitator Greg Scriver would keep things on track so I retired to another table and wrote down what I thought the role of mayor should be, how he should go about leading the “team.”

 Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in wanting to shake things up, and when councillors came back with their report on the discussion, it was pretty close to what I’d written down on my sheet of paper.

 It wouldn’t be the last time I’d find myself facing down the pack, and councillors weren’t the only ones reluctant about change. A few steps down the hallway from my office was that of the chief administrative officer, Joe Martignago. I liked Joe, and got along fine with him, but it became clear there was a culture in City Hall that encouraged the mayor and council to rely heavily on staff. Administration seemed to be setting policy instead of just carrying it out — at least more than I was comfortable with.

 Joe preferred members of council to make appointments if they wanted to talk to him. He had a disconcerting inability to make eye contact when having a conversation — his eyes would be focused somewhere below your chin as he talked, and the first time it happened to me I thought I must have spilled soup on my tie.

 This was my somewhat less-than-auspicious introduction to City Hall. Nobody ever said leadership is a bowl of cherries.

 NEXT: Being mayor.

Sorry, skaters, but you’ll have to be patient

Armchair Mayor column, Kamloops Daily News, May 15, 2010

I heard a story recently from a runner who was heading down the Columbia Street hill when a young skateboarder rocketed past, freedom personified, hair waving in his wake. He was, clearly, in the zone.

Until he hit a high spot in the cement, tumbled ass over teakettle — getting tremendous air, as they say in skating parlance — and landed on his back. As he lay motionless, my informant, fearing the worst, picked up her pace to get to him and offer whatever help she could.

Was his back broken? Was his helmetless skull fractured? Were there shattered limbs? Would he be paralyzed for life?

“Are you OK?!” she asked as she reached for her cell phone to call 911.

His eyes flickered open and, without moving, he said, “Whoa, man…. that was insane.”

Then he picked himself up, collected his board, and went on his way.

Skaters have amazing resiliency, which compensates for with their frequent lack of common sense. Skateboarding is a highly skillful athletic endeavour. It takes balance and concentration just to make the things go in a straight line without falling off (as I discovered when I officially opened the McArthur Island skate park several years ago by skating through a ribbon).

It’s carried out on very hard surfaces — concrete or asphalt — and, for that reason, it’s risky. Wearing helmets is gradually catching on, but many skaters still regard them as something only a wuss would be seen in.

Skating is not just a hobby or a sport, it’s a culture, with a uniform and a language all its own, a world in which FS 540s, McTwists, heelflips, goofy-foots and ollies reign.

I admire skaters and enjoy watching them perform, but I’m having trouble with the proposition that, first and foremost, skaters are dedicated environmentalists who want to save Mother Earth from fossil fuels.

Good on them for not adding to the carbon footprint, but the fact longboards and skateboards don’t run on gasoline is incidental to the main reason for riding one — fun.

The current debate about freeing skaters to use city streets at will has nothing to do with whether motorists should show more common sense or whether we all need to do more to stop climate change.

What it’s about is public safety, including that of the skaters. They’ve become part of the multiplicity of users of a road system that was designed for 3,000-lb. (or, around 1,500 kg. if you prefer, or about the same as a large rhinocerous and one of his friends) cars, not for six-lb. (or three kg., or about as much as a chihuahua) boards with four tiny wheels and no brakes, seatbelts or steering wheels.

Maybe the day will come when skaters are given a proper share of the road in the same way cyclists are claiming their piece of roadway real estate. Even that, as every cyclist knows, is a work in progress — skaters will have to wait awhile.

It’s not as though the City hasn’t done anything for skaters. When they promised to stop wrecking the stairways of public buildings and getting in the way of drivers if only they had somewhere to practise their skills, the City built them a $400,000 skateboard park. (As it happens, I voted against it because I didn’t want the City to borrow the money, which didn’t please my teenage son.)

In return, the skaters promised to keep their beautiful new park — one of the best in Canada — free of graffiti. Today, that park is a trouble spot for the local graffiti task force charged with keeping Kamloops free of tagging.

So when people talk about the bad rap skaters have received, I have to point out that today’s skaters have inherited a certain lack of cred from those who’ve preceded them, but neither are they offering anything in return if the City gives them what they want.

They simply ask for a free ride, with no commitment even to a code of safe behaviour. That, at least, would give our local lawmakers pause to reconsider.

In the meantime, the City is left with the public safety issue. The current regulations — which, it has been brought to my attention, I signed into law — allow skateboarding on city streets with the exception of a specific few with steep hills. Those are Columbia, Batchelor Drive, Summit Drive, Pacific Way, Hillside, First and Third Avenues, Highland Drive and Aberdeen Drive. In addition, they can’t ride in traffic or on sidewalks in commercial zones.

That’s not victimization, it’s reasonable limits on behaviour. Fines range from $25 to $2,000, which is typical for a City bylaw. Only the most chronic offender would be fined at the top of the scale.

The skater who had the “insane” ride down Columbia Street could just as well have landed in nearby Royal Inland Hospital or even in a wheelchair, and if a pedestrian had been walking up the hill there could have been two victims.

There’s plenty of scope for responsible skateboarding in Kamloops, but no freedom is absolute.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress.com

An appeal to Grouchy, BenDover and bigwindbag

Armchair Mayor column Saturday, May 8, 2010, The Kamloops Daily News

Modern technology is wonderful.

Our ancestors had to communicate by fax. Nowadays, we receive more letters to the editor by email than we do through Canada Post.

Now, though, you don’t even have to email it in. You can simply post a comment on a newspaper website, and it appears almost instantly.

Nicknames are fine. It’s not necessary to be accurate, polish up your writing skills, or even to be polite, because no one will know who you are anyway.

I enjoy a well-crafted rebuttal, a rapier comeback, a quick linguistic thrust as well as the next person. Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I wish it weren’t quite so free. We’re losing our knack for respectful debate. I hate to harp and whine on this point, but we’re becoming an anonymous society where people don’t have to stand behind what they say.

The instantaneous and anonymous environment of newspaper websites, including our own, encourages, shall we say, a little too much candor. Those who post comments all too often lose their focus and end up insulting each other instead of analyzing the issue. If someone disagrees with you, well, that person must be an “idiot” or a “loser” who’s “off his meds” and should “go back to bed.”

In searching for clues as to why this is and what to do about it, I came across mentions of a book by Dr. Pier Massimo Forni called Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct.

Forni has appeared on Oprah, but don’t hold that against him. He co-founded the John Hopkins Civility Project in 1997 to examine the importance of politeness in contemporary society.

“To learn how to be happy we must learn how to live well with others, and civility is a key to that,” he writes in his book. “Through civility we develop thoughtfulness, foster effective self- expression and communication, and widen the range of our benign responses.”

Forni’s thoughts focus on everyday rudeness, as opposed to what I’d call pro-active rudeness. On the one hand, there’s stupid driving, loud parties, coughing in front of someone without covering your mouth, or answering your phone in a movie theatre. Those are all examples of lack of consideration for others.

On the other hand, this Internet thing goes well beyond passive rudeness to seeking opportunities to be mean.

Forni notes that a combination of stress and anonymity can breed rudeness. I’ve always been intrigued by people who always seem hostile, who are incapable of discussing without expressing their deep-seated anger, who can’t disagree without raising the volume and degenerating into insult.

Some angry people are comfortable in the spotlight, but many control and channel their opinions if everyone knows who they are. It’s human nature to be more polite when you face someone than when that person can’t see you and doesn’t know your name.

Website commenters too often forget at least two of Forni’s 25 rules — respect others’ opinions and give constructive criticism.

If people had to sign their names, as they do in printed letters to the editor, I’m convinced the level of respect would go up, and so would the quality of debate.

Yet, it’s not at all impossible to have a civil online debate anonymously. Coun. John O’Fee is in the midst of an informative back-and-forth with anonymous opponents on the water issue. Both he and those who disagree with him are providing rational, well-backgrounded arguments.

It’s when commenters pile rebuttal upon rebuttal upon rebuttal of the “you’re stupid,” “no, you’re stupid” variety that the whole exercise becomes unproductive.

Years ago, we ran a column by Judy Martin, who writes on etiquette under the pen name Miss Manners. She continues to be the go-to expert on all matters relating to politeness and rudeness.

A reader who got trashed by a blogger recently asked Miss Manners “how should one respond to rudeness?”

“Gentle Reader,” she began, as she always does. “Anyone who has a driver’s licence ought to know how to deal with belligerent strangers: Speed away as fast as you can. That is not to say that everyone out there is waiting to run you down. But some are. The proper response, Miss Manners assures you, is not to.”

I fear that’s exactly what happens when website comments on a particular issue are dominated by a few, and when those comments stray from the point in an offensive manner. People who would like to have a good debate instead speed away.

During the past week, we had 216 comments on The Daily News website. Well over half of them, 128, were posted by just a half-dozen nicknames.

As the days progressed, it was a seesaw race between Grouchy, BenDover and bigwindbag, but Grouchy edged ahead and won going away with 46 comments. BenDover was a length back with 33, and bigwindbag was a close third with 25.

Back in the pack were saywhat with 10, followed by Moonriver and Kamloops 2155 nose to nose at seven. Bigwindbag won the one-day sweepstakes, posting an admirable 16 comments in a single day.

I applaud the commitment of those who devote a good part of their personal time to furthering debate on important issues, and would ask one thing of them — do what you can to encourage more debate, rather than discourage it. I appeal to Grouchy, BenDover, bigwindbag, Moonriver and Kamloops 2155 to use your prominence in this cause.

As the Johnny Mercer song goes, “accentuate the positive,” at least in the way we respond to each other. “Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”

Let’s bring civility back to the Internet one website at a time.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

Kash Heed an innocent bystander

A lot of B.C. politicians are brushing up on their conflict-of-interest primers and searching for their campaign-donation lists right about now.

Kash Heed, the on-again off-again B.C. solicitor-general, is off again, resigning this morning for the second time. This time, the problem is Terry Robertson, the Vancouver lawyer appointed as special prosecutor to look into allegations surrounding Heed’s election campaign of last year. Robertson found that Heed was clean, but that charges should be laid against some of his campaign workers.

Premier Gordon Campbell immediately gave Heed back his cabinet job. But yesterday, Robertson faxed a letter to the Ministry of the Attorney General revealing that his law firm had donated $1,000 to Heed’s campaign, and that Robertson was therefore resigning as special prosecutor in the case. The amazing part is that Robertson knew about the donation when he accepted the post.

There’s some irony in the fact that newbie politicians are routinely afforded lessons on conflict of interest, usually provided by lawyers. The issue of campaign donations is invariably part of it. Now we have a lawyer who neglected to remind himself of the most basic of conflict rules.

A campaign donation does not necessarily bar a supporter and a successful candidate from dealing with each other in all cases. The rule is that if one party benefits financially as a direct result of the donation, that’s a conflict. It’s a stretch to think that a $1,000 donation from the Harper Grey law firm influenced Robertson in dealing with the Heed case, but that wasn’t for him to decide.

Law firms are among the biggest supporters of politicians at all levels. They are commonly hit up for donations, and readily pull out their chequebooks to write donations of $500, $1,000 and up if they think the candidate is worth supporting.

Robertson’s letter provides some fascinating insight into his thinking. It says he did not believe the donation by his law firm represented a conflict of interest with connection to his job as special prosecutor on the Heed case. It wasn’t until he concluded that Heed shouldn’t be charged with anything did he revisit the conflict issue and conclude that he should step down.

It would seem that if he had recommended charges against Heed, in his mind there would not have been a conflict, and that it manifested itself only due to the clean bill given Heed. One would think he would have foreseen the possibility that Heed would be cleared, and what that might imply, conflict-wise.

What Robertson failed to ponder was a fundamental of conflict of interest: no matter what the technicalities, if there’s a likelihood of perceived conflict, you excuse yourself from the situation as if there were a real conflict.

Meanwhile, Heed must be in political and personal hell, for he’s an innocent bystander in the whole thing. First, he was betrayed by the three campaign workers who put him in a tough spot without his knowledge, then by a special prosecutor who should have known better.

SLAPP lawsuits said to target activists

When Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. president Kim Sigurdson let it be known that environmentalist Ruth Madsen might “pay dearly” if his company incurs heavy costs for her appeal of his air emissions permit, some people took him seriously, some wrote it off to Sigurdson just blowing off some steam.

He’s clearly annoyed at having to put up with further delays to his project, wherever it might go. When you’re developing new technology and new business opportunities, time is money, and he has a lot invested in his gasifier project.

A recent story out of Ontario would seem to suggest that so-called SLAPP lawsuits — “strategic litigation against public participation” — are more than talk.

It tells of David Donnelly, who fought a $1-billion condo and marina complex planned for cottage country near Toronto. Donnelly is a lawyer who represented the Innisfil District Association in the fight to stop the development. After the appeal was turned down by the Ontario Municipal Board in 2007, developer Kimvar Enterprises Inc. slapped him and his client with a suit for $3.2 million, the amount it alleged it spent fighting the appeal.

Donnelly claims corporations are targeting “small town activists” because they’re vulnerable, and that it has put a chill on opposition to such projects. Kimvar claims it just wanted to get back what it cost to defend its interests. A spokesperson pointed out that the development was substantially altered to satisfy concerns before the challenge got underway, and that it had thousands of pages of science to back it up. Kimvar says the association simply ignored environmental studies that showed the development wasn’t a threat.

In the end, accusations of a SLAPP were thrown out, and the appellants didn’t have to pay costs but they they did tally up $1.25 million in defense costs.

Now here’s the thing. Some jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP legislation. B.C. does not. Maybe that’s why Madsen made a public appeal for support at last weekend’s peace march.

Why politicians and journalists are the same

If a journalist were to suggest to a politician that they’re very much alike, the politician’s reaction would probably be similar to that of the lovely Elizabeth Swann when Capt. Jack Sparrow told her the same thing.

“We are very much alike, you and I. I and you. Us,” said Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Except,” replied Swann (Keira Knightley in real life), “for a sense of honor, and decency, and a moral center. And personal hygiene.”

I used those quotes to illustrate for a group of 200 mayors and councillors last Friday the gulf in perception between two seemingly very different groups of people.

Politicians and journalists are often in conflict, yet they have a great deal in common. Indeed, there’s an uncanny resemblance between them.

For one thing, I said, both are wildly unpopular. We are both regarded as rather untrustworthy. Public opinion surveys that ask which professions people trust unerringly put firefighters at the top of the list, and politicians at the bottom, just ahead of telemarketers. Print journalists are a few rungs above that, but not by much. Those who answer such surveys say they base trustworthiness on perceptions of integrity, commitment to promises, and reliability. Apparently, politicians and journalists score pretty low on all three counts — people don’t trust politicians to do what they say, and they don’t trust the media to accurately tell them about it.

I figure the reason for this is that both politicians and journalists do their work under a glare of public scrutiny like no other two vocations. Everybody makes mistakes, but the whole world seldom knows about it. If a politician blows it, or a journalist, everybody knows.

As Warren Kinsella (a longtime adviser to the federal Liberals) put it, “We (politicians and the media) are bound together in perpetuity in a marriage from hell.” Kinsella doesn’t think much of reporters, regarding them as intrinsically evil, duplicitous, lazy, unethical, unscrupulous con men.” That’s a quote directly from my own notes taken from one of his speeches at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference a few years ago.

If Kinsella is right, then all politicians are likewise intrinsicallly evil, duplicitous, lazy, unethical and unscrupulous. I don’t believe that’s inherently true of either.

Here’s the thing. We in the media have long believed we can do a better job than those who govern. Ergo, we’re politicians at heart.

This isn’t new. A famous British journalist, William Thomas Stead (who died on the Titanic by the way), wrote that “newspapers are the greatest force in politics” and believed in “the natural and inevitable emergence of the journalist as the ultimate depository of power in modern democracy.” 

William Randolph Hearst, the famous American newspaper owner, took it a step further and put words into action. He’s often credited with starting the Spanish-American War of 1898, and sometimes blamed for the assassination of President William McKinley based on the stands taken by his papers. “The force of the newspaper is the greatest force in civilization,” he said, echoing Stead. “Newspapers form and express opinion. They suggest and control legislation… . The newspapers control the nation because they represent the people.”

Probably a few modern journalists wish that were so, but eventually Hearst gave up trying to rule the world from his office in the New York Journal and ran for election himself, with mixed results.

No doubt, if the media were in charge (I call it a Mediacracy, clever if I do say so myself), there would be no crime, no drug abuse, no prostitution, no poverty, no pot holes, no pollution, and no barking dogs.  Maybe even no water meters. Of course, the country would also be flat broke, but we in the media tend not to bother with such details.

While they say politicians should never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel, there’s one thing the media can never do, and that’s legislate. They can criticize, they can advise, they can persuade, but ultimately the only authority for making decisions in a democracy is with those we elect. That’s a heavy responsibility, and a huge attraction for anyone who has as a goal the betterment of his/her community or country.

That’s why so many media people run for politics. Because politicians and journalists have the same agenda. All that differs is the tools they use to achieve it.

Why I’m not jumping on the anti-HST bandwagon

Armchair Mayor column, The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, May 1, 2010

I appreciate the anti-HST bandwagon rolling past my corner of the world, but I’m going to resist hopping on, at least for now.

I fully appreciate the fact that HST is the most unpopular move the Liberals have pulled since they tried to privatize the Coquihalla. Yes, I know Terry Lake couldn’t get elected dogcatcher right now (no offence to our friends at animal control), and Kevin Krueger would likely be consigned to cleaning out kennels.

Lake will have to build a public plaza outside his constituency office if many more protests are staged in front of it.

And I definitely understand that the only language Premier Gordon Campbell seems to understand is the language of political survival, and that he sometimes has to be on the brink of extinction before he pulls out the surrender flag.

The government pulled a fast one on the public and has done a lousy job of convincing us they’re doing the right thing.

Despite all that, I am hindered by a tendency — I know, it’s a fatal affliction of mine — to put a lot of stock in people who actually know what they’re talking about.

I’m not referring to Finance Minister Colin Hansen, who was in town yesterday on his Damage Control Tour. I mean the guys who live, breathe and work this economic stuff.

Guys like economist Jon Kesselman, who provided the Business Council of B.C. with an eight-page report. Kesselman holds the Canada research chair in public finance with the graduate public policy program at Simon Fraser University.

He argues the HST is way better than the alternative — retaining the PST, which he calls antiquated. Keeping it would be a drag on the B.C. economy, he says.

“Sales tax harmonization fulfils all the standard economic criteria for good tax policy with flying colours,” he wrote. “However, harmonization has been woefully deficient in B.C. with respect to another, non-economic, criterion: public acceptability.”

Some two dozen business groups — including the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, B.C. Trucking Association, B.C. Construction Association and others — have signaled their support for the HST.

It may be good for business, but what about consumers?

Elsewhere, Kesselman wrote, “. . . Retaining the PST will continue to impose large but hidden tax burdens not only on the poor but on all consumers. . . . Apparently, HST opponents prefer to pay their taxes in hidden, covert ways rather than in the highly visible manner of a value-added tax.

“Before casting their stones against the impending HST, critics should take a closer look at the decrepit and crumbling structure called the retail sales tax — the tax that they are implicitly supporting.”

Meanwhile, trying to work on that “public acceptability” issue, Hansen made the most of a few hours here Friday, speaking first to a couple of hundred delegates to the Southern Interior Local Government Association — consisting of mayors and councillors from the B.C. heartland — at Sun Peaks.

Then, with Lake in tow, he drove into town for a Kamloops Chamber of Commerce luncheon, followed by a one-on-one with the chamber board.

He did well, considering the challenge. He denied the government ever promised in the last election not to bring in the GST, saying the closest the Liberals came during the campaign was saying that “The HST is not contemplated in the B.C. Liberal election platform.”

That may be the finest parsing of words since Bill Clinton vowed with a straight face that he’d “never had sexual relations with that woman.” What Hansen neglected to mention was that, if the Liberals were thinking at all about the HST, it might have been fair to mention it during the campaign.

“There’s no question the (anti-HST) campaign has built up a head of steam,” he said, but quickly added that the anti-HST movement is spreading a lot of misinformation. He pointed to several parts of the pamphlet being used by the anti campaign, saying it claims home heating, legal fees, rent and strata fees will all cost more. Not true, he said.

Of course, Hansen has an interest in pamphlets these days, being turned down by Elections B.C. just this week on his plan to do a pamphlet of his own. The apparent reason is that he left it too late.

Indeed, it looks very much as if the government has left its explanation of why the HST is a good thing much too late.

An Angus Reid poll a couple of weeks ago showed that more than 80 per cent are willing to throw in with Bill Vander Zalm and sign the anti-HST petition. It seems near impossible to stop it, which will put the B.C. Liberals in an embarrassing and awkward position. They’ll very probably have to ignore the wishes of the people as they struggle with the constitutional and contractual conundrum that will result.

That, in turn, could trigger recall and, at the least, a huge problem that could be fatal in the next election.

There’s a certain attraction to putting a government over your knee and giving it a sound spanking. Yet, at the same time, we may be biting off our own nose to spite our face.