Travesty Averted

I would like to thank all MR council for righting a wrong to the users of Volker dog park and postponing the shutdown before options can be explored, with the obvious exception of Al Hogarth and Michael Morden who acted like a couple of spoiled brats because they didn’t get their way. After the May 27 Th. Council meeting it is quite easy to see how situations like this particular fiasco transpire with Mr Hogarth’s apparent contempt for democracy and due process and of course the help of his hand puppet sidekick Michael Morden.

The one lesson we should all learn from this distressing exercise is to not give in to bullies or psychos no matter whether they are sitting across from you at a council meeting or throwing rocks through your windows or egging your house or even trying to kill or maim your furry family members. 

The users of dog parks should not have to do walk arounds looking for poison kibble, glass, tacks, fish hooks and have to change the water in the dish and then worry and hope to god you did not miss anything, every time you go to the park.

Now to ensure this is not a hollow victory we need to change the laws and put some teeth in the animal cruelty laws and make the poisoning and maiming and other cruelty done to animals a felony and put a few of these monsters in jail as a warning to others that commit these heinous acts with impunity and even if they get caught it is a misdemeanour, no big deal, no real consequences, this is after all not a victimless crime. 

Terrorism Rewarded

May 15/ 2014 I went to a hearing if you could honestly call it that, in reality it was a sham at best an insult at worst, over 1300 signature were collected in under 3 weeks and the petition was presented to the Parks board and a couple of speakers presented a compelling case for the users of the dog park to be involved in this important decision.  
The meeting took place at MR City Hall about the iminent Volker dog park closure and was the result of a huge public backlash because all the people that use this important facility were undemocratically left out of the process of the ultimate fate of the dog park, and consequtently the media was inundated by angry letters of outrage over the lack of proper procedure for taking such a drastic arbitrary action as closing the dog park without proper consultation. 
The truth is none of the issues used to justify the closure are valid the noise problem does not exist and strategically placed hedges would cut that down even more, the dust problem is totally fixable by the installation of a heavy duty playground turf, the hours the park is open can be adjusted to please everyone, and the bio hazard is non existent the e-coli allegedly found are found only on cattle, sheep, and goats not dogs, but apparently none of these issues was really the reason the dog park is being shut down, we heard from Al Hogarth that he voted to shut the park down because he was afraid of the threat of violence and for fear of the dogs safety and another couple members said that was their main concern also, isn’t that sweet. 

This is a failure of council as they should have told RCMP to make sure this facility was safe and the only way to do that was instruct RCMP to catch this monster, but that never happened. Not only that but all the complaints should have been addressed to the satisfaction of all, except of course the few individuals that are beyond pleasing. 


I want to thank the few members of the council that did not take the cowards way out to protect our furry family members and at least tried to do the right thing.

Over a year ago my dog was poisoned at Volker dog park and nearly died, along with two other dogs that also thankfully recovered from the poisoning. I don’t know how many dogs were cut or maimed by the glass and tacks and fish hooks strewn around the park with the poisoned Kibble but when I phoned the RCMP about the poisoning I told the officer I might not take my dog back to Volker dog park and he said to me “so you are going to let him win” I thought about it and said NO, we talked about putting infrared cameras in the trees and what else could be done to catch this monster, so every time I went back to the park I would empty the water dish put clean water in the dishes and do a walk around looking for glass, poisoned kibble or old balls and anything else suspicious, basically doing everything I could do to reducing the risk to my beloved furry friend, all the time assuming the RCMP were taking steps to catch this monster.

I have to wonder what kind of world we are now living in where a few bullies and psychopaths can force change on all the rest of us. Since when has any level of government not only succumbed to the violence and terror of a terrorist but also rewarded them for their terrorist acts. 
Ask yourself what would happen if this monster had been targeting the children in the adjacent school ground, perhaps leaving poisoned candies or shooting at them, would they have shut down the school or playground, I don’t think so, they would have made it a top priority to catch the criminal and he would have either stopped his violent terrorist acts or been caught, but in this case the criminal still to this very day continues his terrorist acts with impunity, but it is just dogs right. The RCMP obviously never told put in the cameras and consequencialy never pursued and brought to justice this monster, all because the powers that be never told the RCMP to get this guy yesterday, whatever it takes. 

This monster should have been targeted, caught and made an example of, as what he did is not only against the law, but a cowardly crime against total innocents that cannot protect themselves against monsters such as these.

This whole issue is about “NOT IN MY BACK YARD" and I have news for these people the Volker dog park is not their back yard it belongs to the people of Maple Ridge.

Star Chamber

It would seem something is rotten in Maple Ridge, after witnessing the farce that passes for due process in the Parks and Recreations board meeting of May 15/2014 in Maple Ridge council chambers as pertains to the parks boards arbitrary decision to shut down Volker dog park in a Star Chamber like decision with only one side of the issue represented, that was done literally in secret with the users of the park only finding out about the dog park closure after the decision was already made, especially in light of the fact that that decision is contrary to the explicit recommendations of the original Parks Board staffs recommendation. 

If this is the way this council and it’s various departments function it is no wonder they get so upset when someone like Corisa Bell dares to raises questions about pending issues. I can only guess how many other municipal issues have been handled in this partizan, undemocratic, one sided, dictatorial manner. 

Here is something I find nearly impossible to understand, it was almost a year ago my dog was poisoned at Volker dog park and the glass, tacks, fish hooks and poison have continued constantly right up to this day, here is the question the RCMP have been involved from day one, I know because I talked to them about it and we talked about how to catch this monster but as far as I know the infrared cameras were obviously never installed as the criminal has never been unmasked, is it really possible that the RCMP can not find the guilty party in an ongoing crime after a whole year of investigation surely even Elmer Fudd could have caught this monster by now in a crime being committed in the very same location in the open for over a year, how is that possible, have the RCMP even been told to investigate these heinous crimes against dogs and and their families or have they been told to stand down because they already know who is committing these crimes and they are being protected by someone. 

Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done, and in this case we certainly have not lived up to that ideal. 

It would seem that Maple Ridge Parks and Recreation board and Council is following Victoria’s and Ottawa's lead and doing the peoples business in dark secret rooms with vested interests.

See no Evil Hear no Evil

Randy Kamp Conservative MP extraordinare, a man and government with a finger on the pulse of the nation, sensitive to the wants and needs of Canadians of every creed, colour and economic demographic. Quote Randy Kamp “ We don’t see a lot of opposition” unquote, seriously, Mr Kamp is talking about the seriously misnamed "Fair Election Act” C-23 which short of blood running in the streets of Canada has had nothing but condemnation from every faction of Canada, Constitutional scholars, political scientists, past chief electoral officer Jean Pierre Kinsley, present chief electoral officer Mark Mayrand and past Auditor General Sheila Fraser has called the bill “an attack on democracy", and private citizens all over Canada have been hitting the streets of nearly every town and city of Canada including a demonstration that Mr.Kamp failed to notice as he will probably fail to notice another protest on C-23 on May 10 at 1:00 PM in front of his office, and miracle of miracles even Herr Harpers rubber stamp Senate have given the thumbs down to this undemocratic unconstitutional attempt to disenfranchise certain voting groups in a desperate attempt to hold onto power, even his mentor Preston Manning had unkind words about it. This attempt to Americanize Canadian voter suppression has even got the attention of international democracy watch groups but Mr. Kamp apparently hasn’t seen a lot of opposition.
Possibly the worst part other than the obvious attempt of voter suppression and total lack of respect to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the fact that it does absolutely nothing for the actual flaws in Canada’s voting system but are not seen as flaws by a government more interested in stealing the next election than improving Canada’s democracy. Instead of increasing the amount of money spent on elections mostly 2nd and 3rd party money this should be eliminated or at least cut down drastically not increased or how about a proportional voting system and maybe a box for “none of the above” for people that want a protest vote and no excuse for not voting. 
Love him or hate him at least Pierre Trudeau left Canada a more democratic country than when he was first elected.

These are just a few of the changes we need in Canada’s democracy, but these are important issues for Canadians that need to be debated by Canadians according to their merits for the betterment of our democracy and Canada not to be dictated by some dictator for his own benefit and self interest.
As far as Randy Kamp Mr. hear no evil, see no evil, I can’t honestly say, say no evil, all-told this is not a good virtue when you are the perpetrators of that evil.

RED HERRING 2

What a surprise our local town cryer Randy Kamp totally agrees with C- 23, the Conservatives claim to want to fix our democracy and get more people to vote but most of all stop all the voter fraud, I hardly see how that is possible when the whole exercise will make it harder to vote for 10s if not 100s of thousands of legitimate voters, never mind the fact that much of what they propose is totally against Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms, "the right of every citizen to vote, guaranteed by s.3 of the Charter, lies at the heart of Canadian democracy” even prisoners get to vote in Canada, the charter also says “A voter can establish Canadian citizenship verbally by oath” I have to wonder what will happen to absentee voting ballots under this new law or will they also be disenfranchised as well. 

The extent of the so-called voter fraud C-23 is supposed to fix involved less than a dozen people in the last election, hardly what I would call a voter fraud crisis.

Mr. kamp is right about one thing there were “significant irregularities” in the last election but as has been proven in a significant number of instances these were committed by the Conservative party, the so-called Robocalls and other crimes and irregularities and these will only get worse because many of the people that are the watch dogs of the elections act and watched for these crimes and irregularity’s such as the Chief Electoral Officer have been removedly with this affront to Democracy.

There are many things wrong with our Canadian Democracy and electoral system as Mr. Harper and his accomplices have proved repeatedly but they involve first past the post elections, wilfully breaking existing laws, improper proroques and 2nd and 3rd party advertising and less than truthful constant attack ads and corruption in the House and Senate and last but not least the unreasonable power and advantage money plays in our political system. It is clear this is a despicable clumsy attempt to get even less voters out on election day which plays well for the Conservatives. Another thing they fixed was now you and me can contribute $1500.00 dollars to elections, I don’t think they had you and me in mind for that one but the CEOs and the Conservatives will be happy.

If the CONS are truly serious about eliminating election fraud they would simply not run any candidates in the next Federal election which would eliminate not one but two problems, first it would not only eliminate 99.9 percent of election fraud but bring Canada back to it’s former status as a Democracy. Hopefully our new government would then prioritize fixing some of the more obvious real flaws in Canada’s electoral and Democratic system such as first past the post, elected Senate with more powers and sorely needed checks and balances, deal seriously with corruption in the House and Senate and taking the money out of the electoral system, and last but not least coming up with a version of Democracy that doesn’t totally depend on the good character or lack off character of our elected representatives as to whether Canada has a functioning healthy Democracy or not.