Extreme Cold Mismanagement at Emergency Management

18Jan2019

Extreme Cold Mismanagement at Emergency Management

Homeless populations are particularly vulnerable to extreme cold weather. Bitter cold is life threatening to the homeless and other vulnerable individuals. 

Contrary to their own official documentation and policy, Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) failed in their duty to respond promptly and effectively to the extreme cold weather event Calgary experienced from 12Jan2020-19Jan2020.

Unlike Edmonton, Calgary has no official policy or protocol on Extreme Cold Weather Response to Protect the Vulnerable. 

Edmonton City Extreme Weather Protocol
Edmonton City Policy: Supporting Vulnerable People During Extreme Weather Conditions
Edmonton responds to Extreme Cold 

What CEMA was supposed to do, but didn't:

CEMA Annual budget: $5.2M

6 Years & Counting, When Will Calgary Have an Ombudsman?

An Ombudsman for Calgary. It's an imagineCalgary Target for 2008, but yet, 6 years later, Calgarians are still waiting for Calgary City Council to initiate this official policy. Montreal & Toronto have civic Ombudsmen. 

Alberta provincial government dollars are available as defined in the MSI: "Eligible operating projects include capacity building activities that improve efficiency or effectiveness..." 

Let's look a little closer at how an Ombudsman can strengthen our municipal democracy:

The Role of an Ombudsman
The institution of the ombudsman, first created in Sweden more than 200 years ago, is designed to provide protection for the individual where there is a substantial imbalance of power.
Initially, this imbalance was between the citizen and the state but as the institution has developed, it has embraced other sectors.  Ombudsmen now exist, not just in the public sector, but also covering the private and independent sectors.
As well as considering complaints about public services, Ombudsman Association member schemes consider disputes between consumers and companies or between universities and students, for example.
However, in the private sector, coverage is fragmented and sparse with, in a very few cases, some duplication (where the ‘industry member’ can choose which scheme to belong to). None of this is ideal, but will require legislation to improve the situation as few sectors now readily establish schemes voluntarily.

What Ombudsmen Do

• Ombudsmen offer their services free of charge, and are thus accessible to individuals who could not afford to pursue their complaints through the courts.
• They are committed to achieving redress for the individual, but also, where they identify systemic failings, to seek changes in the work of the bodies in their jurisdiction, both individually and collectively.
• They can generally undertake a single investigation into multiple complaints about the same topic, thus avoiding duplication and excessive cost.
• They are neutral arbiters and not advocates nor “consumer champions”.
• They normally ask the body concerned and the complainant to try to resolve complaints before commencing an investigation.
• They usually seek to resolve disputes without resort to formal investigations where this is possible and desirable.
• Where they identify injustice, they seek to put this right.

In the private sector, ombudsmen usually have the power to make recommendations which are binding on the bodies in their jurisdiction unless successfully challenged through the courts.  The cost of their services is normally met by a charge to the bodies in their jurisdiction.  Most are established by, or as a result of, statute, and the relevant industry or sector is obliged to participate in the scheme.

For more info on an Ombudsman, please consider following the City Ombudsman Project on facebook or the Twitter account: @OmbudsmanYYC

With thanks to the Ombudsman Association.

Paul Hughes, 2014
@paulyhughes

Vancouver Developer's Continued Neglect of Calgary Property

Vancouver Developer's Continued Neglect of Calgary Property

The pics say it all. Continued negligence of an inner city lot on a busy auto/bike/pedestrian corridor. Not an iota of concern from the property owner on the impact on a neighbourhood of an almost non existent property management strategy.  Their motto is DILLIGAF. Similarly, the City of Calgary needs to create stronger legislation that deals with abandoned, neglected properties close to dense population. Efforts to beautify should be encouraged, not "foiled".

From the CBC Story of May 22, 2012: Potato garden plot foiled by city and landowner:

"Randolph Pratt of Adera Developments said his mortgage firm wants the garden removed, but will not pursue trespassing charges. He says everyone is passionate, but misdirected in this case."

Pratt states that Adera Developments (p604.684.8277) of Vancouver no longer owns the company but rather Scarboro Projects Ltd, who he now also owns in a not so subtle "sleight of land", shell game manoeuvre. Pratt needs to reassess his company's misdirected negligence of his property. During the interview Pratt became increasingly agitated, repeatedly stated the property was "Not controversial", stated he had no idea that John Mar had gone down to electoral defeat and eventually hung up. Pratt, adamant that landscaping was part of the management contract, said the property was well maintained prior to his abrupt end to the conversation. He was aware of the City bylaw tickets and denied that it is in fact Calgary taxpayers who are on the hook for his Vancouver based firms property negligence. 

The management company contracted by Pratt stated they have only been asked to do minimal site management - snow, graffitti & erect a fence. This has been done competently.

The City of Calgary has now been forced to hire a contractor, at taxpayer expense, to maintain part of the property.

Contracted workers, on Calgary taxpayers dime,  work to maintain basic community standards on Randolph Pratt's property:

Collection of ignored bylaw infraction notices served to Randolph Pratt, Adera Developments and Scarboro Projects, that would make Saul Alinsky blush:  

randolph pratt, randy pratt, adera developments, scarboro projects, calgary, yyc, potatoes for the people, p4tp, yvr, vancouver, developer, negligence

Boston has Adopt-A-Hydrant, Calgary has this...

Boston's Adopt-A-Hydrant Program.

Calgary's Neglect-A-Hydrant-oh-and-don't-forget-to-ignore-the-bench-too Program:

Straight to Hell

A favourite song from my youth was Straight to Hell by The Clash.

M.I.A. used the Clash track in her huge hit Paper Planes.

Fittingly, it's the soundtrack for the City of Calgary's quasi efforts to divert waste (resource) from the landfill.

The items below are headed Straight to Hell, aka the Calgary Landfill. 
It will not be sorted. Hello, Sorting Stations!
It will not be reused. 
It will not be recycled.
It will not be used for something useful and thereby eliminating the need to extract those materials from the planet. 
It is a resource that will be turned into a waste by City of Calgary inaction. 
It will decompose over the next 1000 years and perhaps with a methane capture system, 1/1000th of the energy via LFG (Landfill Gas) will be recovered. 

The City of Calgary has waste diversion targets that are almost comedic when juxtaposed with on the ground action. While European cities are implementing intelligent sorting and diversion strategies, achieving 95%+ diversion from landfills, our unused resources (aka waste) are going to Straight to Hell. 

Every Person in Calgary

This is a dot map of every person in Calgary.

Brandon Martin-Anderson created the project to map every person in Canada and the US, using census data. Here's the original project.

Top 3 Paulin8 posts from 2012

3... 2... 1...  The top 3 Paulin8 posts from 2012...

#3  30th Aniversary of The Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms

 

#2 The Economic Case for Urban Agriculture & Household Food Security

 

And....... #1 Canadian Right to Food Trial

 

Calgary Transit should encourage this type of development at all LRT Stations

Why can't @CalgaryTransit encourage this type of development at all LRT Stations?

96 + 1 Books for Foodies

 The real #1 Foodie book in my opinion is Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability (MIT Press, 2011) by Julian Agyeman and Alison Hope Alkon

Explains #FoodJustice better than anything else I've read.

 

Here's some more books for the foodies in your life:

1        Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley
2        The $64 Tomato by William Alexander
3        The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball
4        The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
5        The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais
6        The Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler
7        Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
8        The Secret Life of Food by Clare Crespo
9        This Life Is in Your Hands by Melissa Coleman
10        Plenty (Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet) by Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon
11        Urban Homesteading-Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume
12        Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
13        The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien and Rachel Kranz
14        Stolen Harvest by Vandana Shiva
15        Wheat Belly by William Davis
16        Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz
17        Righteous Porkchop by Nicolette Hahn Niman
18        Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
19        The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
20        The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz
21        Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
22        Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
23        Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz and Sally Fallon
24        The Viking in The Wheat Field by Susan Dworkin
25        The Phytozyme Cure: Treat or Reverse More Than 30 Serious Health Conditions with Powerful Plant Nutrients by Michelle Cook
26        An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler
27        Eat & Run by Steve Friedman Scott Jurek
28        Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement by Paula Manalo
29        Eat the City: A Tale of the Fishers, Foragers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, and Brewers Who Built New York by Robin Shulman
30        Bread Bones and Butter, Jeffrey Hamelman
31        Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
32        Turn Here Sweet Corn
33        Obligate Carnivore
34        Eat and Run
35        Bidoche, Fabrice Nicolino
36        BET THE FARM by Frederick Kaufman
37        GUT AND PSYCHOLOGY SYNDROME by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.
38        Farm City by Novella Carpenter
39        A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
40        The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way by Michael Phillips
41        Greenhorns
42        The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why by Jonny Bowden
43        Folks, This Ain’t Normal, Joel Salatin
44        Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese by Bruce Weinstein, Mark Scarbrough and Marcus Nilsson
45        Aquaponic Gardening by Sylvia Bernstein
46        Life Rules by Elllen LaConte
47        Folks this Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
48        Holy Cows and Hog Heaven by Joel Salatin
49        The Art of Fermentation By Sandor Katz
50        Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale
51        Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living by Doug Fine
52        The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities by Will Allen and Charles Wilson
53        The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff’s Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food by Gary Lincoff
54        Flour Power: A Guide To Modern Home Grain Milling by Marleeta Basey
55        Fateful Harvest by Duff Wilson
56        Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan and Luke Shanahan
57        Save Our Soil by Christopher Bird
58        Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Barbara Kingsolver.
59        Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
60        The Ecology of Eden by Evan Eisenberg
61        Gaia’s Garden – Toby Hemenway
62        The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe
63        Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front  by Joel Salatin
64        The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (New York Review Books Classics) by Masanobu Fukuoka, Larry Korn, Wendell Berry and Frances Moore Lappe
65        Beautiful Corn: America’s Original Grain from Seed to Plate by Anthony Boutard
66        The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
67        Sowing Seeds in the Desert by Masanobu Fukoka
68        The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure  by Joseph Jenkins
69        The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather
70        Gathering by Diane Ott Whealy
71        The Heirloom Gardener by Jere and Emiliee Gettle
72        Nutrition by Rudolf Hauschka, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards
73        Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
74        The Good Life byHelen and Scott Nearing
75        Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale
76        Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon
77        100-mile diet
78        Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way by Wesley Green
79        Beating the Food Giants by Paul A. Stitt
80        Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer
81        Unjunk Your Junk Food-Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks by Andrea Donsky
82        Sugar Blues by William F. Duffy
83        Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice
84        Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
85        The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pillan
86        Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley
87        Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
88        Salt: A world History by Mark Kurlansky
89        Nourishing Traditions
90        Pacific Feast by Jennifer Hahn
91        The Makers Diet. Dr Jordan Ruben
92        Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
93        Teaming with Microbes, Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis
94        Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
95        The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler
96        The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency by Anna Hess

Let it Sink In on Linked In

Calgary Centre = Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

 

Calgary Centre

The #1 hurdle to housing families in Calgary

I have asked numerous times that a damage deposit & 1st month's rent fund be created. This is the #1 hurdle to families becoming housed in Calgary.

The fund would be accessed as a loan. Repayment based on financial capacity.

Here's what damage deposit and 1st month's rent looks like on a $2000/month rental...

$2000 + $2000 = $4000 This must be paid before taking possession. Very difficult for a young family to both be unstable/homeless and save $4000.  

A single person, renting a basement suite at $800/month... $800 + $800 = $1600... Again, difficult to accomplish when not in a stable home environment. 

The City of Calgary has some very expensive maps, they just don't follow them. 

Here's an example from City of Calgary's "Social Outlook":
"A lack of sustainable funding also challenges
the ability of many agencies to provide longterm
support. At the same time, there is a lack
of coordination among service providers, and
competition for funding limits their ability to fully
explore and capitalize on partnership opportunities.
Access to programs and services could benefit
from partnerships between organizations such
as schools, family resource centres, mainstream
organizations, immigrant serving agencies and
ethno-cultural groups" (Hurlock et al, 2004; Howard
Research, 2001, Boakye, 2009).

Social Outlook www.calgary.ca/CSPS/CNS/Documents/social_outlook_2011-2016.pdf

Caged Hens & Ethical Eggs

Canadian Right to Food Trial: Decision Appealed

Canadian Right to Food Trial: Decision Appealed ~Calgary Herald, October 6, 2012

Info on the Canadian Right to Food Trial:

Canadian Right to Food Trial Verdict: 31 page decision
http://www.scribd.com/doc/105846002/R-vs-Paul-Hughes-Canadian-Right-to-Food-Trial-Decision-2012-Calgary

Canadian Right to Food Trial Appeal
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Calgary+food+activist+loses+backyard+battle/7195346/story.html

Canadian Right to Food Trial aggregated info on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canadian-Right-to-Food-Trial/173802076068200

Canadian Liberated Urban Chicken Klub
http://www.facebook.com/groups/CLUCKCANADA

"To Fix Food System, increase Local Food Production" says Olivier De Schutter, UN Right to Food Rapporteur

"To Fix Food System, increase Local Food Production" says Olivier De Schutter, UN Right to Food Rapporteur.

UN Expert Warns Of Global Public Health Disaster Caused By Unhealthy Foods

imagineCalgary, Lost in the BureaucraZy

imagineCalgary, an exquisite democratic tool built by citizens. The bible for Gov 2.0 aficionados. The Holy Grail of citizen engagement. A blueprint for deep systemic change.

imagineCalgary... RIP. No longer a blueprint for deep systemic change, but rather buried deep in the system, covered in layer upon layer of bureaucraZy, a sparkling document of hope languishing in plain-vanilla.

Regrettably, we are missing imagineCalgary targets as consistently as the Flames are missing the playoffs.

Here are just two examples:

1. BY 2008: OMBUDSMAN, City Charter of Rights & Freedoms, ET AL




2. By 2010, 100 per cent of Calgarians have access to nutritious FOODS



The Mother of all citizen engagement processes is in dire straits, mired in bureaucracy.

SOS, #YYCCC, SOS...

Missing (Dodging) imagineCalgary Targets

Governance

Food

Missing (Dodging) imagineCalgary Targets

They are dropping like flies these days. Time for a concerted effort to revisit, update, evaluate and (gasp) meet the targets our city has committed to.

Governance Target 9 By 2008, and every year thereafter, groups/organizations/government report on how they have considered and adopted the imagineCALGARY targets and strategies that are relevant to them and in which they have been identified as having a role.

Food Target 4 By 2010, 100% of Calgarians have access to nutritious foods.