Police Budgets

Here is a timely opinion piece by Mohamad Bsat.  It is called Why is Hamilton's Police Budget so taboo? and can be found at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/election-column-police-budget-1.6587782?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar  

The piece brought back memories from many years ago when I tried to reduce the police budget.I recollected that event in the poem that follows.

                                    ---------------------------------

                The Budget*

On a long ago budget day, a procedural quirk
put a simple regional ward councillor
in a position to freeze the police budget.
Ward councillors don’t obstruct police budgets
because, as we all learned as kids,
the police(man) is our friend
does important and dangerous work
protects and keep us safe and
for all of this deserves to be well paid.

These are things that ward councillors,
even simple ones, should understand.
But since the common sense drumbeat
set the revolution in motion
we have come to know that the best government is
to have practically no government at all
and respect for hard-earned taxpayer’s dollars
is the order of the day.

Others are compelled to run their ship tightly
while the law and order liner sails unimpeded
through the calm waters of political indifference.
On that budget day, the simple ward councillor
Having, for a time, ascended
to the lofty heights of budget committee member
advanced what was (by his own humble admission)
a particularly persuasive presentation
convincing the one colleague who needed convincing
that police spending should be apprehended and
it was a great day for local democracy
or at least it seemed that way.
But the votes aren’t counted
until the politicians raise their hands
and when they did
the police got their money, as they always do.

No media or public witnessed the sad event though
police brass made time in otherwise busy days
to behold the councillor’s misbegotten manoeuvre.
Following his 15 minutes of small town fame
our councillor drove his car like an undertaker.
Even now, my lane changes are by-the-book perfect
and inviolable police budgets escalate still.

                                       ---------------------------------

*Originally published in The Dream The Glory and The Strife, Raymond Fenech (Editor), Barnes and Noble 2016

Looking for Respect

After the recent disturbing verbal assault on Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, I flashed back to 1965.  Remember that hit song Eve of Destruction song by Barry McGuire?  

Songwriter P.F. Sloan bemoaned the disintegration of human respect; found “the whole crazy world  ...just too frustratin'” Grim as it was in 1965, I doubt Sloan or McGuire could have imagined the extent of disintegration we are facing in 2022. 

Based on what I and others observe that is offered up on social media these days this attack on Freeland is not unique. Women. racialized individuals and groups, LGBQT people, non- Christians are all targets.  The list could go on.  

Deputy PM Freeland

In fact, it is pretty much open season for attacks against anyone whose opinion differs from that often anonymous person tethered to the keyboard whose only qualification to shout and fume is their ability to remember a password  

Politicians at all levels are under siege and things are heading downhill fast.

In my time as a municipal councillor (1991-97) it wasn’t like this.  In 1998, after serving for six years I presented a paper at a health promotion conference on local government and how it could work most effectively with community. 

The mainly European audience at a Scottish university challenged my thesis that local government was up to the task.

My theme was based on a fairly positive perception of local government and my optimistic, clearly biased view of elected officials

I put it all down to the fact that we just did a better job of local governance in North America.  The old world didn’t get it.

Then I moved on to other things.

After a nine year break I was back in local politics when my former wardmate moved on down the road to the House of Commons. Nine years away and boy how things had changed.

That change was brought about as people gained access to electronic mail, the internet and social media.

Back in the old days if a constituent had an issue to discuss it could often get resolved through something called dialogue. You remember that concept perhaps.

The councillor would make a phone call or meet in person with the constituent.  There were often nuances or complexities that one or the other had failed to take into account   Issues got resolved.  There was no shouting.

By the 21st century constituents simply had to go to their computer and punch in the requisite putdown, question your integrity and/or intelligence and copy the whole diatribe to everyone on their contact list. 

I should have seen this coming.  Back around 1998 I met futurist Robert Theobald.  Theobald argued that a “failure to listen” by decision makers had meant “that groups with certain attitudes and beliefs may come to feel they have been left out of the democratic process.”  In Reworking Success (1997) Theobald proposed that we move beyond “polar positions” and learn to define problems in wholly different terms.

Something to think about.

In the meantime let’s: 

**Stop the name calling in our public spheres. 

**Teach civics in our schools.  (Ontario is introducing a compulsory half credit program in September 2022 – a positive development)

**Find ways to ensure that news coverage focusses on facts.  I’m pretty sure the earth is round although I haven’t actually seen it in its roundness. We don’t give equal time to the flat earth society.  Why do we give it to crazy conspiracy theorists?

**Establish new rules for social media.  It won’t be simple but a balance needs to be found between the right for us to speak our minds and what is appropriate,  constructive and healthy.