I have actually had a request to get with it and update my blog. I see it has been almost a month since I last wrote anything. I do believe I have writer's block, or cramp, or something.
A lot of water has run under my bridge since the last post in the middle of October. The flu shots came to town and people lined up like good little soldiers and got the shot in the arm to protect themselves from the seasonal flu and the H1N1. After that it was down hill all the way because the government decided to alleviate the wait times they would now try to do it in an orderly fashion. I really have to laugh at that because we could have handled the crowds at a local level. Oh well, it will get done.
I attended the AUMA convention in Calgary from November 3-6. My fellow councillors and little old me spent some bonding time in the big city. The convention was at the Telus Centre and we stayed at the Westin which was a good seven blocks away. I got lots of exercise. I attended some very good sessions. One of them was with the Minister of Health and Wellness, Ron Leipert. He was under the gun since people asked the hard questions about the debacle with the immunizations, the shortage of physicians and how communities are left out of the mix when it comes to recruitment and the inevitable questions about wait times to see specialists.
I was actually waiting to ask a question of Mary Anne Jablonski who is the Minister of Seniors and Community Supports. I was all primed and ready to go but she did not show up for some reason or other. My question was going to be about the fact that Coronation has been a part of the Castor and District Housing Authority for over forty years and we are still waiting for that board to pursue funding opportunities to build senior's housing in Coronation. This Housing Authority is mandated by the provincial government to provide housing for the "area" but so far it has only built senior's manors and a lodge in Castor. Somehow that is not quite right. There is a ministerial order which gives this board requisitioning powers as well. Each year, for the past forty plus years, our taxpayers have had a portion of their tax dollar sent to this housing authority. So far Coronation has not seen any benefit from belonging to this regional board.
Coronation and District Senior's Housing Society was formed about three years ago now but we are told that if we want to apply for any funding to build affordable senior's housing in this community we have to do it through the regional board of which we are already a member. When Town Council requested that the housing authority pursue funding opportunities for Coronation we were told that it was too big of a project and the current management did not have time........When Town Council asked that our two Senior's Manors be managed by the regional housing authority we were told that there was no time to do that either. So we pay our portion through our tax dollars and see no benefit whatsoever.
Anyway, I was going to ask Minister Jablonski when she was going to get around to looking at this ministerial order which basically puts hand cuffs on our community. The request went in well over a year ago and I for one am sick and tired of waiting.
Our Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ray Danyluk, addressed the AUMA delegates. What I heard was that he wants to hear about our concerns and he also said that he is the "avenue to the government" for all of us. Well I am going to take what he said to heart and when I e-mail my question to Minister Jablonski I will be CCing it to Minister Danyluk as well.
We have asked our MLA Doug Griffiths for some help with this and all he could come up with was tell us to form another regional board. I personally do not think that we need to do this since we are already part of a board which is mandated to provide housing for our senior residents in our area. Why should we form another one?? It does not make sense to me.
Well, with that I will end this blog.