Get your kid outside - have them join Scouting

Scouting is a great program that teaches you outdoor skills, leadership, citizenship and personal development.   Here in the Victoria are we have 35 groups that you can join.

Scouting is a program that goes from age 5 to 17 and is available to girls and boys.

• Kindergarten to Grade 2 - Beavers
• Grade 3 - 5 Cubs
• Grade 6 - 8 Scouts
• Grade 9 - 12 Venturers

I am a Scout leader with 3rd Douglas.  We meet Wednesday evenings at Scout house at 505 Marigold.


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This year in the Scout section we will be building mindstorm robots, canoeing, kayaking, sailing, hiking, volunteering on environmental projects, and camping for about 16 nights between now and June.

In the past the scouts have hiked to Cape Scott, canoed the Sayward Forest Canoe route, built model rockets and a lot more.

If you want to know more, come by Scout house on a Wednesday evening

Rose Henry running for council

Here is what was posted on Vibrant Victoria

On November 20th, a vote for Rose will be a vote for social justice and an effective way to challenge the barriers of race, class and gender privilege that typically prevail in the realms of political decision-making.

Rose has contributed 25 years of mostly volunteer front line community-based social services for the poor and marginalized in this city. Her many activities have included:

*anti-racism education.

*advocate for literacy and access to education as a tool for empowering the poor and marginalized. Giving recognition to the thoughts that education is a part of the solution to helping with eradication of poverty.

*instrumental in starting up local community economic development projects the Bent Nail recycling wood project, which allowed the poor and the street community entrance into work force.

* advocated for the creation of the Needle Exchange, ensuring the safety of drug users in the city.

* spearheading the effort to promote the right of the homeless to vote in elections, 1990

*author and distribution of the Red Zone and Street Newz, street community publications

*represented the Victoria community at the Global Anti-racism conference in Durban South Africa

*Organized the B.C Womyn's Walkout for recognition of the value of unpaid women's work and the impacts of poverty on women.

*Organized the public burning of ballots during the Liberal government’s racist referendum on aboriginal rights.

*Consistent advocate on behalf of the poor: mobilizing campaigns against the anti-panhandling by-law, for the right to access public benches, against transit fare increases, and for affordable housing.


Highlight of Most Recent Struggles:

-persisting in a 3.5 years court battle with the federal government over the voter ID requirements (Bill C-31 of the Electoral Act).

-In last year’s infamous Supreme Court case, Victoria vs. Adams, Rose was a key witness and supporter of the right of homeless people to erect shelter.

-Rose continues in this struggle for the right of unhoused people to live in Victoria’s parks and boulevards, specifically by supporting the campaign to challenge the City of Victoria’s new Traffics Bylaw.

As most of you would know, local social activist Rose Henry has entered her third campaign to break the cultural barrier at City Hall in becoming the first aboriginal person on council.


Over the past three years I have had the privilage of of working with Dr. Budd Hall Professor Director of the Office of Community-Based Research from UVic (OBCR), Bernadette (Bernie) Pauly RN, Ph.D
Associate Professor, School of Nursing Scientist, Centre For Addictions Research of B.C. (CARBC) & (Homeless, Housing and Health Research team and Street Stories) and Jutta Gutberlet - associate professor (MOTHERS” Project-Binning).

Here is what she stands for:

Rose is an outstanding voice for the poor and the homeless in our community, having devoted an accumulated almost two decades of service at the Native Friendship Centre, Sandy Merriman House shelter for women, Victoria Street Community Association, Together Against Poverty Association and the Vancouver Human Rights Coalition. She stands up for the rights of the most marginalized and dispossessed in our city.


She is herself a survivor of a racist colonial system and the foster care system and who faces the multiple barriers of being a First Nations woman, a visible minority, who has lived in poverty her whole life and who has the great strength of being able to authentically represent the reality, issues and needs of a whole segment of the population whose voices are systematically excluded and ignored in the realms of political power, privilege and decision-making.

City Hall has long been the domain of the privilege and the comfortable, the educated and the middle class.

It is no coincidence that the issues affecting the poor are year after year given short shrift. Class interests on city council have almost unanimously been with those who stand for big development and private profits before people's real needs, affordable housing, public transit and poverty alleviation.

Rose is no newcomer to social justice struggles. She operates on substance and not slick. She is one person who will put the urgency of Victoria's pressing social issues at the top (rather than the bottom) of the agenda at City Hall. She is a compassionate and hard-working advocate who will serve beyond the call of duty to press for solutions to the growing problems that our community faces: addiction, homelessness, intolerance, housing affordability, public safety.

Rose has stood with all of us in the social justice community for a long time. It's time that we stood with her now.

Rose can be reached at rose@homelessnation.org

Rose Henry Campaign Team

Fourth candidate for council - Susan Woods

I was impressed with Susan when she ran four council in 2008.   She was one of the candidates from the last go around that I had coffee with and this lead me to back her.

I will drop her a line and find out about why she is running and what she wants to see council do if she is elected

Time to discuss amalgamation - Thursday Sept 30th 7:30 pm

I have been letting people know about a meeting I am hosting this week to discuss amalgamation on municipal governments in this region.   It is more than high time for this to happen and it is time for a group of people with some energy to start making it happen.

People are all welcome to come to 3103 Harriet Road, corner of Harriet and Maddock.  Meeting to start at 7:30 pm.

So far the attendance looks like it will be smallish, but a group that is very engaged about local government in the CRD.  My hope is that what will come out the meeting of some sense of what amalgamation could look like and a clear path of what needs to be done to achieve this.

We will see where it all leads.

I will hold another meeting towards the end of October to continue the discussion.

Pedro Mora

So I feel like a bit of a fool, I do know Pedro, he attends the Fern Street Meeting of the Quakers here in town where I am member.

I had honestly never heard his last name so I had no idea the two Pedro's were one and the same.

I will post some more about him later when I get a chance to talk with him properly about running for council

Text of Pedro J Mora's campaign pamphlet

Victoria City Council by-elections
November 20, 2010

Here is your opportunity to start a new political system.

Currently, voting on Election Day,

You legally abdicate your responsibility to make any more political decisions.

You legally assign all decision making to the political representative of your choice.

Consequently, you legally disempower yourself from effectively participating in any local political choices.


Consider an alternative political system,

Where you select a political delegate who will represent NOT his or her choices, but only the voter’s choices.

The public consensus shall be clearly measured on a perpetual, secure polling system, similar to

www.nowpolling.ca

If you are ready to participate in self-governance, now is the time
to make a revolutionary political change… from the current “Representative Democracy” into “Direct Democracy”
Vote for your perpetual right to “Initiative, Referendum, & Recall”
Vote for Pedro J. Mora for City Councilor

By-Election

We now have three declared candidates in the race now

Barry Hobbis
Marianne Alto
Pedro J Mora


I will start by saying I know nothing about the third candidate, I just got his announcement in my email.  I will post the text of his pamphlet in a separate post.

Hello Komrades,

I am not retiring yet from our chaotic society. Instead, I am running for city council in Victoria, so if you are an eligible voter in Victoria, and the spirit moves you to nominate me, please let me know, so we can get your signature on my nomination application.

If you are not an eligible voter in Victoria, but have some friends who are, please forward it to them.

Please find attached my platform pamphlet.

Pedro J. Mora

I vote therefore I count!

Meanwhile Barry Hobbis and Marianne Alto have both run for council before and neither one ran impressive campaigns in the past.

Barry ran in 2008 and came a distant 15th, though he ran the campaign as a lone wolf and this time around has a campaign team.  It also makes difference that there is a very small field.    I see a vote for Barry as a vote of non-confidence in the Mayor and a vote against an new bridge.

Barry announced months ago, but I am seeing little evidence of a campaign from him on the ground, I know it is early, but I had thought I might have seem something more since labour day.

Marianne ran in 2005 for the VCE - the former NDP municipal farm team that elected Dean Fortin and Pam Madoff to council.   She came 10th and was only 54 votes out of getting elected.  Frankly I put her loss, and that of the other three VCE candidates that lost in 2005, down to the very weak and lackluster campaign that was run.   The VCE should have been able to win two to three more seats in that election.

I would call her the pro Mayor candidate, the status quo candidate.  She should also benefit from an endorsement of the Victoria Labour Council - though maybe not as much as I would normally expect in a by-election as the voter turn out is likely to be higher because of the borrowing referendum for the bridge.

If Alto wins, the dynamic of council remains much as it is now.  If Hobbis wins the dynamic changes, but the 'left of centre' core group on council still has a functioning majority.

Fringe Festival - Canning Season

Last night we went to watch Canning Season: A Fun Frolicking Variety Hour.  In classic Fringe fashion, the title and one paragraph blurb not only did not tell you about the show, it actually mislead you.  That said, we liked it.

The production is by two women from Vancouver, Lani Claxton and another woman who we did not catch the name of.   The production had moments of brilliance and some moments of very subtle underlying humour that could be very easily missed.

What was the actual content?   That does not matter, it was a classic one performer doing numerous different personas, though this time with the sidekick.

The main performer was wonderfully over the top with her various characters, but for both of us it was the sidekick off in the corner on the Theremin that stole the show for us.  She had his perfect body humour for the production and could make us crack up with the nuances of her face.

These two women are close to having something truly great, with some work it could be there.

At the end of the day it was worth the $11 each to see the production.

Single Family Home Price to Fall to $435,000 by February 2012

The Victoria Real Estate Board stats are in for August and it is BAD! 425 total sales is about 50-60% of the 'norm' of the last six years for August.  This comes in the wake of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives paper on the housing bubble in Canada.


Total Sales for August

• 2010 - 425 - 7th highest out of 8 so far
• 2009 - 764 - 5th highest (Sept 12 sales higher)
• 2008 - 517 - 7th highest
• 2007 - 846 - 8th highest (Spet marginally higher)
• 2006 - 694 - 5th highest
• 2005 - abt 750 - 6th highest 
• 2004 - abt 685 - 6th highest

Total Single Family Home Sales for August (I do not have detailed monthly data from before January 2006)

• 2010 - 197
• 2009 - 366 - 8.9% of year's sales
• 2008 - 244 - 7.3%
• 2007 - 399 - 8.9%
• 2006 - 328 - 8.2%

Based on these numbers, total sales for 2010 for single family homes will be low, I am estimating 2800 to 3000 total single family home sales for the year.  This would be the lowest number of sales since the early 1980s.



So what has been happening with the price?  Average single family home sale price has dropped from $615,004 to $586,676, that is a 4.6% drop in one month. This means a house selling now will have seen more or less no increase in value in the last three years. The June to July drop was 5.3%.   That is close to 10% in two months.   


2008 as a very bad year for local real estate, in terms of single family house sales it was the worst one since two years in the late '90s.   Peak to trough in 2008 saw a 16.5% drop in prices.   


How far could prices fall?  2008 saw a rapid increase in the number of properties on the market in the first eight months of the year, 2010 saw an even faster increase.    This fall and winter looks to be the worst market for sales in close to a generation, at the same time the number of units on the market is not far off record levels.   September 2010 will 4000+ units seeking out 150 buyers, 25 units for each actual buyer in the month.   In comparison, at the peak of the market in 2006, there were 2-3 units for each buyer.  This is a ten fold increase in available properties.   The ration in September of 2009 was about 9 to 1.

Seeing that the prices have dropped so quickly in two months and the selection available is at a record level, the buyers in the market will be picky, very picky.   So where could it go?   If we take the 1990s as a benchmark and apply the rate of inflation to single family homes, a realistic average price is about $325,000.   Is there a chance we could reach this price?   Within a year or two this could very well be the case.   This sort of scale is the drop they saw in Toronto in the early to mid 1990s.   The early 80s in Vancouver were even worse, if that is where we are at, we could see a drop to $250,000


As of right now, anyone that bought a house after February 2007 is looking at no increase in value or a loss in value.   Factoring 2% inflation and a 5% cost to sell a house, anyone that bought a house after February 2006 is looking at no net gain in real terms.   The only people that are actually ahead of the game are those that bought more than five years ago.


One impact of this is that there a lot of people that are going to be falling into negative equity and this will lead to a rise in repossession.   Reposed houses take the market down because they are priced lower and they tend to empty.   A bigger impact will come from people not being able to sell and move up the property ladder.   


There were people that bought houses and saw $100k increases in value in a couple of years.   This allowed them more equity for their next house and allowed people to move to better neighbourhoods and bigger houses.  If this stops, Gordon Head is in a lot of trouble.


Finally, there are a lot of people out there that are no longer going to be convinced that buying a house is a good idea at all and that they are better off renting and saving money.   Certainly I was strongly influenced by my experience as youth in the 1979 - 1982 boom and bust in the Lower Mainland.   This dissuaded me from buying a house close to Gonzales Bay for under $50k in 1985.


So my final projection is that we will see total market drop in average prince for single family homes of about 33% by the spring of 2012 of $435,000.

Fringe Festival is on

I remember the Fringe from back in the late 80's when Randy Smith started it all.   My ex Catherine worked on it one year.

This year is the first time in five years that is is realistic for me to get to any performances.   I am trying to choose some plays to go to this year and I am happy to get input from the people out there about what is good to see.

So here are the shows I am thinking about:

• Die Roten Punkte - they speak to me on many levels
• Das Kabarett - could be too depressing
• The Excursionists: A Matter of Seconds - sounds like the sort of English humour I miss
• Ginger Ninjas
• Mahagonny Songspiel - Brecht is something I love
• The Cabinet of Dr Caligari - I am curious to see what they do with the old film
• Canning Session - just sounds like good comedy
• The Genghis Khan Guide to Etiquette - the title alone is a reason to go
• Public Confessions of a Public Servant - this is a government cube farm town....
• Breakfast in Vegas - sounds like my sort of performance
• Human Body Project - hmmmmm?
• The Money Fast - Wes Borg is part of this, he is formerly part of the Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, I should take my kids to this show
• ONEymoon: (A Honeymoon for One) - sounds funny

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Amalgamation - Time for people to meet on this

There needs to be a more serious move towards amalgamation in this region than what has been going on.  I am going to offer to host an evening to get some things rolling.  

What we have already out there

• Jim Legh's Amalgamate Blog
• Discussion on Vibrant Victoria
• Facebook Group

There was another group out there, Lesgov, but I can no longer find a link to it.

I would like to host an evening to discuss the idea of amalgamation on Thursday September 30th at 7:30 pm.   If the numbers are low I will host it at my home, if numbers look larger I will move it some other location.

Please drop me a line if you are interested in coming out - bernard at shama.ca

Please post your thoughts on what should be discussed and in what form