The right to be informed

Fishing for news on the Kamloops city hall website I came across a media release inviting members of the community to a public forum on Tuesday, Feb 8. The forum was "for the public to give input to this year's municipal budget and five-year financial plan," the release explained.

The only thing is, I didn't hear about this until two days later and had I not been look on the Internet for news such as this, I fear I would have never known. I'm not blaming anyone in particular, I just feel that this event should be more publicized. Maybe, it was, and I just happened to miss all of it, but then why is this information not being offered to the category I fit into?

It could have been advertised on campus, the radio, word-of-mouth even; talk up an event and it becomes common knowledge.

However, then comes the next problem our society face, would anyone really care?

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. The community could be informed but it doesn't mean they are willing to actually go and ask their questions and hear what the city is planning on doing with their money.

For example, skimming the 2010 - 2014 financial plan, I read that the total revenue is almost $124,000 and yet the total expenditures are almost $115,000. I would have liked to know what is happening with that left over $9,000.

Furthermore, as much as it is the responsibility of city hall to inform the public, it is the public's responsibility to be informed.

This forum could have been the opportunity to get more from this city. Want more parks, just ask. More garbage cans around town? This was the community's chance to have the voice I hear so many complain we don't get.

It's not enough that 1,769 people are opposed to creosote rally on facebook because only a few hundred actually showed up.

The good, the evil and the olympic freebies

Kamloops is attracting national attention but not in the way it wants.

On Feb. 6, the Globe and Mail wrote an article, Mayors split on ethics, and even legalities, of accepting free tickets, about the good and the evil mayors of BC, with Peter Milobar, mayor of Kamloops, representing the dark side for accepting an Olympic package valued at a few thousand dollars.

The package includes: tickets to the opening ceremonies, box seats for a men's hockey game and accommodations in Vancouver.

"Sometimes there are things that only the mayor gets invited to," Milobar said in the article. Well that's good for him, perhaps he became mayor just for these opportunities, as cited in the article it is his responsibility as mayor to attend these corporate events.

Well at least he is getting Kamloops on the map by appearing in the Globe and Mail, but does he really think he can represent Kamloops by attending the events? It is not as if, the cameras will come swooping in on him as the announcer realizes Kamloops is in the house.

Where Milobar thinks this is his right as mayor to receive a few perks now and then, others beg to differ.

In the article, Attending Olympics shows support for a Kamloops company: mayor, Kamloops this week wrote about how Sharon Gaetz, mayor of Chillowack, not only thinks accepting gifts and freebies is morally wrong, it is illegal by violating the Community Charter.

I found the section in the community charter about restrictions on accepting gifts, and it seems that if the gift is for personal gain then the community politician receiving said gift, should not be fit for office. What part of cheering on the home team in a celebration is not about personal gain or enjoyment?

Politics in Plain English: Prorogation

Prime Minister Stephen Harper couldn’t stand the heat so he got out of the kitchen which is now starving the House.

“Stephen Harper is absolutely wrong in proroguing parliament and I think it was done in the most self-serving, partisan way possible,” Michael Crawford began, when I asked to tell me what he thought of prorogation.

“The opposition parties, particularly through the special committee, is investigating this and were really holding the government’s feet to the fire on the issue of how Afghan detainees were treated once transferred from Canadian to Afghan authorities. What was beginning to show was that Canada probably knew that they were putting detainees at risk when they were transferring them. That’s a very serious problem,” Crawford said, mainly believing that parliament was prorogued so Harper could avoid this issue. He explained that this is forbidden by the Geneva Convention and said if found true, it would not be a stretch to consider that the Canadian government was aware of possible war crimes.

“So what do if you are the prime minister in this situation?” he asked.

“You simply prorogue.”

“Most people don’t understand prorogation,” Crawford said. “We are hearing now from every servant that prorogation is natural and it has happened 104 times and on and on.”

When he said this I thought for a moment about what I would do as a journalist receiving this statement. If I were to question the process only to hear that it had been done over a hundred times before, I would think that it must be normal. I realized this is one of the challenges facing uneducated journalists. It is easy to be fed facts that make everything sound alright but there is more to it than that.

“Yes it is a normal part of parliamentary procedure, but it is really only done at the conclusion or near the conclusion of the parliamentary agenda,” Crawford said. “As an agenda winds down it is common for parliament to take a break and come back a couple weeks later to regroup and address a new agenda and set a new stage.”

“Well that hasn’t happened here. We had 30 to 40 bills moving through the House that are all gone. We had bills sitting in the senate waiting royal assent that have to go back and be reintroduced into the House. So, it’s not like we were at the end of a legislative agenda, we were in the middle of it.”

“Harper was just running and hiding on the Afghan detainee issue.”

“But he also had good reason to get out of the spotlight because of the incredible embarrassing performance he put in Copenhagan.” According to Crawford, Canada did not set any hard targets or put forth any strong emphasis on environmental progression: there were no timelines set or any sort of measured goals.

So maybe he personally had reason to lie low for a bit but did this mean Canada should have been subjected to this decision also?