Corky Evans' Last Speech In The Legislature

This is a copy of Corky Evans last speech in the Legislature.  I wasn't able to be there, but would have changed my schedule had I known.  Corky Evans is an amazing man in my mind.  Politics aside, he's someone who really cares about his constituents and our province.  He also really believes in the process of debate and speaks about the importance of what happens in the Legislature regularly.  I think he's the kind of guy who could give a speech of the back of a pickup truck to 25 loggers and speak their language and capture their hearts. I can't help but admire his humility in admitting his failures and respect the advice he shares with incoming MLA's.  I'm sorry to see him go.

I’m pleased to rise to speak on the budget for the year 2009. In truth, though, that’s really only a context, sort of a procedural rationale, to allow me to speak on the eve of leaving this place in the spring of this year.


I want to start by saying it has been a great honour to serve. I want to thank the New Democrats of Nelson-Creston for being brave enough to nominate me 23 years ago. I know it was then a great leap of faith on their part to think they might make me into a credible MLA, and I’d like to thank the citizens of Nelson-Creston for sending me here on three occasions over two decades.

I want to thank all the wonderful people who taught me to do this work, starting with Anne Fraser-Mall, who had the tough job of trying to make me look credible; then Lone Jones, Christine Hunt, Jane Hertig, Ken MacLaren, Pradik Moda and on and on; and most recently, Lucy Mears. To list all the good people I was lucky enough to share this work with would take over an hour.

Lastly, I’d like to say that for every moment of the time I did this job, I did it as partner with my co-worker and friend, Sandy Korman. It is a truism of this job that somebody gets the credit, somebody’s name is in the newspapers and on all those lawn signs every time there’s an election, but that person is rarely responsible for whatever it is that they are credited with having achieved. In my case, none of what I might have achieved was done by me; it was all done by the great collective us.

I also want to thank my neighbours at home, who looked after me for the last 20 years when I was mostly unable to look after myself, and my family, who put up with this particular career choice and all that it has meant for all of us.

I want to thank the people who make this building and this job happen here at the Legislature — the folks who feed us, those who sustain the building and the men and women who manage to provide security and yet a welcoming ambiance at the same time. Almost nobody in the world gets to work every day in such a beautiful place as those of us who work here. Thank you to all of you who make it possible.

I made my first speech in this room on March 25, 1992. In that speech I tried to explain some of the raison d’être for my seeking office and some of the things I hoped to achieve here. I reread that speech recently to try and figure out what had worked and what hadn’t.

My rationale for running, as described in that presentation, pretty much came down to an argument for local control and against the idea of centralized decision-making. I thought then and, as a matter of fact, I still think that we run this province pretty much on a colonial model and that my time here ought to concentrate on trying to find ways to devolve power away from the Legislature or to share power with the people who live in the regions.

There was a bit of a list of objectives in that speech too. In the 1980s life was pretty tough in the Kootenays, and we had some serious issues to resolve. The Columbia River Treaty topped that list of issues. The elders who sent me here asked for some form of recompense to deal with their sense of plunder that the treaty had visited on our people and our land. Plunder of the region was really the theme of that speech.

I suggested that we might resolve our land use disputes with a comprehensive land use plan; replace the Kootenay School of the Arts, which had been closed by previous government; stop the slow death of the orchard industry and try to learn to feed ourselves again; save the railroads and keep our highways from becoming subsidized industrial corridors; and try to bring an end to the parochial abuse of both our people and our land that the mountains had hidden for so long.

Some of that has actually come to pass. We rebuilt the Kootenay School of the Arts. We funded women’s centres. We doubled the parks system. We invented a partnership with the Crown to share the resource wealth of the great Columbia River, called the Columbia Basin Trust.

Then we took that partnership model, applied it to forest stewardship and created community forests in Revelstoke, Harrop, Creston, Kaslo and most recently Slocan and Nakusp — all of it in an attempt to invent a decentralized decision-making and marketing and wealth-generating model to replace the colonial style of management from here.

Selling the idea of decentralization and local control has not always been easy, regardless of who governed. I remember once when we governed and some of us were trying to convince the cabinet of the day to accept the idea that later became the Columbia Basin Trust and the Columbia Power Corporation.

I was in an argument with the minister of the Crown who did not, at the time, support the concept, and I asked the minister why she stood in the way. She answered: “Because, Corky, we differ on our understanding of the nature of this job, you and I. I think” — said the minister — “we were sent here to govern, and you think, on the other hand, that we were sent here to devolve governance.” That minister’s analysis was right on. That is what I thought, and 14 years later, leaving, that is what I still think.

In those days the notion of local control was just an experimental construct. It was untried and distrusted by both the capitalist right and the socialist left. Capitalists didn’t like it because it flew in the face of their idea of efficiency. They said: “Obviously, it is more efficient to manage everything from one office and one staff and one minister than to try to replicate management around the province.”

Socialists didn’t like it because the idea of the Crown, to them, was the way to ensure that all resources were always used to benefit the greatest good for the greatest number. They argued: “Who are some local people somewhere to say what happens to the wealth of the people?”

Now, though, the idea of local control and management of resources can no longer be said to constitute an experiment or a risk. Here’s the part I’m most proud of. Now we can say that it works.

It works not just from the standpoint of making healthy and sustainable decisions about land and water. It works from an economic and wealth generation point of view too. This is what the present government — the people who designed the present budget that ostensibly, at least, we are here to debate — have yet to learn.

Let me give you some examples. The government desires to create new electrical power for the province. That’s a good idea, and it has pretty much always been a good idea. So who is it that has produced the most green, utterly defensible and controversy-free electric power in the province over the last ten years?

Well, it’s the Columbia Power Corporation. That partnership between the Crown and local people that is Columbia Power has built the Keenleyside power plant on time and on budget, rebuilt the Brilliant dam and power project on time and on budget, and are about to start the Waneta project — and in every case produced union jobs, community stability, wealth and green electricity without flooding a single acre of land.

In forestry, too, it has been proven to work. Something like 21,000 people have been laid off in logging and sawmilling in British Columbia in the last two years, and mills keep closing that may never reopen again.

We in the Kootenays, of course, are having our troubles too, but in my constituency when I came here, we started out 15 years ago with seven sawmills. After reductions to the allowable cut in the interest of sustainability, after doubling the parks system from 6 percent to 13 percent of the land base and after making five community forests in the area, we still have today seven sawmills running in Nelson-Creston.

Why is that? I submit that it is, at least in part, because we have not fallen victim to the absolutely deregulated “Let ‘em go do anything they want” crazy analysis behind the consolidation agenda of the present government. We have maintained a large degree of local ownership and free enterprise competition for logs, and we do not have monopoly control by anybody over our land base.

My thoughts on how we organize an economy and the risks of allowing monopoly capital in any region are not new. In 1948, the year I was born, Tommy Douglas said: “Political freedom by itself can mean being free to go hungry and without a job.” He said: “It can mean being free to produce commodities below the cost of production. Until we add economic freedom to the political freedom we already have, we will never be entirely free as men and women.”

He said: “Whenever the principal assets of our country are in the hands of monopolies and cartels, we believe that they should be owned by the people themselves. We believe that when any economic activity controls the life of a people, it should be owned by the people.”

I think that what Tommy Douglas was talking about is a philosophy that we call social democracy, which was first explained to me by my friend and mentor, log truck driver Bob Cunningham.

Bob explained to me that capitalism was simply the very best way ever invented to make sure that people could find work and feed themselves and eat and trade goods back and forth and better themselves, and that he, a socialist — a democratic socialist — was just fine with that. The trouble, he said, was that capitalism is also a disease which, like cancer, can get out of control and multiply exponentially within the host and kill the very body that it lives within — in our case, the body politic, our society.

Social democracy, according to Bob, was the medicine that was required to make capitalism work without allowing it to get out of control. While I’m pretty happy with some of the things we have managed to achieve at home, boy, have we ever allowed the cancer to get out of control here in British Columbia.

There are special words that we need to describe this kind of capitalism gone crazy that we see today, special words that some of us never even heard before. I was talking to a rancher the other day, and he used the word “oligopoly” to describe the meat-processing industry and the centralization of control that has happened in that industry during the time of the present government. Oligopoly is not a word any of us heard growing up. I first learned that word in correspondence from the manager of a logging company, talking about the consolidation and centralization of control that has happened in his industry, too, in this century, the time of the present government.

The Liberal mindset in British Columbia has pretty well destroyed the old idea of free enterprise in B.C. It replaced free enterprise with monopolies and oligopolies and corporate strangleholds on wealth and land and communities in just about every sector you can name.

We have over the course of the last few years centralized the distribution of food to the point that producers cannot even get the product into the grocery store in the very town in which they live.

We created a corporate computer system that encourages transnational mining companies to buy up the mineral rights that used to go to British Columbia prospectors — who did real, physical work — and to buy those rights without even leaving their office in New York or Bonn or Tokyo.

We have destroyed the independent fishing industry, where men and women for decades thought of themselves as the last real economic adventurers, and replaced their right to fish with corporate armchair fishermen who never go on the water and rent out their licences like land barons of old used to use sharecroppers to farm their land.

I cannot think of a single land-based industry that the Liberals have not managed to turn into some kind of fiefdom. I grant you that this has been an accomplishment without the overt bloodshed that we saw when the same thing happened in Scotland with the clearances, but the outcome is the same and the out-migration is the same, and it will result in the same kind of control. The oligopolies will be the new London rich, running the land on which the people used to farm, fish, run sheep and log.

How in the world did we get into this mess? How did we take this province that we built and ran for a hundred years and turn it into somebody’s fiefdom? Why did our present government think it would be a really good idea to wipe out good, old, independent, competitive free enterprise–type businesses and replace them with monopolies?

Well, you can name the beginning of this kind of thinking anywhere you want. You could just say it started with Maggie Thatcher or the University of Chicago. I like to trace it back to 1989 and the dismantling of the Soviet empire and the fall of the Berlin Wall. When the Berlin Wall came down, instead of celebrating the end of the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat, the whole world seemed to come to the wrong-headed conclusion that the market had defeated the centrally planned economy, and now the market was god and could do no wrong.

The new temples of this religion would be built in the name of the new god, and they would be called think tanks. Governments were then considered an impediment to the sanctity of the market, and the top ten economies of the world that used to be countries became private corporations.

Here in British Columbia the free enterprise party, called Social Credit, would die, and the globalist party, the Liberals, would get itself born. Direction would come down to that government like stone tablets from the temple called the Fraser Institute. The people’s work in this building and in this room would become a sideshow.

I don’t think this Legislature is a sideshow. I know I’m a bit of an anachronism in this regard. I know it’s been popular in Canada for the last 25 years or so for politicians, even, to denigrate politics and public service and legislatures and legal and regulatory measures intended to limit excess, and even to denigrate the public service.

All of us in this room, on both sides, have been living through a time when we learned to call the employees of the Crown by the pejorative term “bureaucrats” in order to dehumanize them and strip their work of the honour and dignity and pride that used to accompany managing this land and human well-being. It reminds me of when the American people learned to call the Vietnamese people gooks in order to justify making war in their country.

In short, it has become hip to belittle the idea of the Crown and the function of this place to generate discourse or to resolve issues. One minister that we all know has even been known to suggest that politicians have better things to do than to serve the people in public, on the record and in this room. I despise this trend, and I would like to see it end now.

I think that government has to exist. I think that government has to raise taxes to do the people’s work and use those taxes to buy civilization. I think parliament has to exist and even meet and use the public record as a way to express alternative ideas about what that civilization should look like and how it should function.

I think there has to be a free press and not a monopoly press. The people who own that press actually have to employ people to report what happens here and to tell the story to whomever wishes to know.

None of this would happen if it wasn’t for this place and if it wasn’t for two sides — or maybe three or six, which I happen to think might be better yet — working here. This present government has for years operated on the view that government is a wasteful indulgence and that capitalism can manage anything better than the people can do it for themselves.

Where I live, the Crown used to plow the snow. Remember that? Now a company does it for profit. We used to run our own ferries here in British Columbia. We owned and sailed more ships than the Canadian navy. Now a company we don’t understand runs them, and companies we don’t know build them in Germany. Governments here for decades managed forests and built roads, and they created electricity. Now all or most of that is done by corporations.

This whole idea that governance is better done by corporations than by the state reminds me of the concept of the invisible hand popularized by Adam Smith centuries ago. Only in its modern iteration, the intellectual construct of Adam Smith has taken on a kind of mythological power — some would say the status of a god — in that the hand is assumed to exist and yet cannot be seen and therefore cannot be questioned.

I would agree that in the relatively esoteric world of finance or in the utterly practical world of land-based business like logging and farming, mining or fishing, private interests are the appropriate interests to manage and to profit from the enterprise. That’s why Bob Cunningham said that capitalism is the best way to make jobs and money.

British Columbia, however, is neither invisible, nor is it an enterprise. Adam Smith used the excellent metaphor of the pin factory to prove his thesis. British Columbia is not a pin factory or some kind of human creation. It is a land mass bigger than Oregon and Washington and California put together, and it belongs to the people.

It belongs more to its citizens in the utterly practical sense of land-ownership than any Canadian province or American state. It is our patrimony, passed on to us by the previous generations of good people working in this room who chose, unlike almost every other jurisdiction in the world, not to capitalize their society by selling the land or the water or the ore or the coal or the trees or the fish. In the simplest sense, it’s the people’s farm, and it takes real, practical, visible human hands to manage and sustain, not the invisible and mythical ones provided by some marketplace in the sky.

I submit that we who work here are the caretakers of the most publicly owned land mass of any democracy anywhere on earth. That makes the people in this room more capable of public good and more capable of failure than our counterparts almost anywhere.

So where are we in the world in history? The speculators out there and the greed specialists have pretty well killed the golden goose, eh? And the transnationals are lined up at the gate to suckle at the public breast. Wow. That worked really well, didn’t it?

The great experiment in replacing government with deregulated and unfettered capitalism has failed all over the world. And here, in this budget, the people are running out of bread, but on the eve of the Olympics we are being reminded to look forward to the circus.

The failures of the Fraser Institute faith are legion, but I’m sorry to say they are not alone in failure. I, too, on this side have failed to achieve a good many of the objectives that I set forward for myself in this place, and it would be unfair of me to suggest that only Liberals are capable of failure.

I’ve been pretty hard on this administration in this, my last speech in this place, but it would be stupidity if those of us on this side made the mistake of imagining that we, in our turn, have not been capable of failure. Way back in that first speech 17 years ago I said I wanted to put ranger stations back into Lardeau and Kaslo and New Denver so the communities could know the forest workers and the forest workers could manage the land that they lived inside of. I failed in that endeavour, and we, too, became enamoured of centralized government and moving the workers to some cities.

As Minister of Highways I personally laid off 400 surveyors that used to work for the people to measure their progress, and that was wrong. As Minister of Agriculture I supervised the closure of offices in farming communities and further alienated government from the people, and that was wrong.

I failed as Minister of Highways to turn the ministry of blacktop into a real Ministry of Transportation, with concern for railroads and water transportation and the issues of public policy that matter still to my constituents. I failed, too, to sustain the wild fishery and personally held the fishery portfolio while the federal Liberals privatized our cherished common property resource.

I failed, except on one occasion, to have the people’s equity listed in the budget documents alongside the people’s debt. I failed, in spite of asking for years, to convince any government on either side to end the idiocy of using gross domestic product as the measurement of our well-being. And in what I think must have been my greatest personal failure, I have not managed ever to make food and farming a part of the political or electoral discourse in British Columbia. Under all governments, we remain last in Canada in support for food production.

What those failures — and actually so many others — suggest, of course, is that some of the stuff we do here works and some of it doesn’t. We are, on both sides, after all, just people. We work in a really pretty place and do work that to me is almost sacred, but we remain just people in really nice clothes.

And nothing is over, hon. Speaker. The stuff that we haven’t done yet, or haven’t done well, is just the work that falls to the next generation of leadership. There will be an election in a couple of months. A whole new group of MLAs, I hope, will work here, joined, I hope, by a younger generation. I have just a little bit of advice for that new group of MLAs.

(1) When you get here, love the building and respect the people who work here, regardless of their station or their beliefs. You came here to argue your ideas and for your constituents, not to assume that you are more right or more important than anybody else.

(2) Refuse flat out to make decisions about land you haven’t seen or communities you haven’t visited. Go there, and then decide.

(3) Sorry, fellas. Refuse to say words that are not your own. You are not an actor; an election is not a screen test. You wouldn’t let anybody else put you in a box, so don’t do it to yourself.

(4) Respect the other side. This place doesn’t work when there is only one point of view. We found that out from 2001 to 2005. If the other team didn’t exist, we would have to split in half and send a faction over there just to have somebody to bounce our ideas off.

(5) Find another way to measure the success or failure of the governments that work here in future than gross domestic product. That measurement belongs to an era that needs to be finished now for the sake of the earth.

(6) Listen up. What you cannot fix, leave alone. If you sell it or give it away, you foreclose the options of future generations.

I said all this because I think my generation’s idea — our very idea of leadership —needs to end right now. We thought, pretty much since World War II, that we could define our success and our failure by measurements of growth. We built a system to make ourselves comfortable by threatening the planet of our grandchildren. When new people come to work here, blame us old folks if you need a scapegoat. Ignore us if you can. Pretend that we just didn’t know any better.

You new people working here, on the other hand — those who work here after May 12…. They can’t help but know. The whole world knows now.

That generation will be the leadership elected into the moment of economic and environmental collapse. They will be the first generation of leadership elected with a mandate to change everything, because no party in these times would be so foolish as to try to run for office suggesting that they will maintain the disaster of the present status quo.

Here’s the good news about change. I think it’s happening already. Intellectually, you can read the demands for change in the pages of The Economist magazine and even in the speeches of the world’s super-elite in Davos, Switzerland, asking for re-regulation to save capitalism by limiting its capacity for excess.

Personally, I feel it happening inside myself. I was driving through Oliver a few weeks ago with a 45-gallon drum of fertilizer in the back of my truck, and I turned on the radio to hear the inauguration of the new President of the United States. Aretha Franklin started singing, and I found that I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t drive because I couldn’t see the road through my tears. When Aretha finished singing, I got back on to the road, and I made it as far as Osoyoos. Then the new President of the United States began to speak.

I hid my face and my pickup truck in an alley behind the laundromat, and I sobbed for 17 minutes. Now, I’m 61 years old, and I’m a guy, and for a little while longer I’m an MLA. And we old MLA guys don’t hide in parking lots and sob in our pickup trucks. I kept thinking: “Why is this happening to me?”

The answer I came up with was simply this. We made it. We, my generation, the generation who watched the Berlin Wall come down and celebrated and then watched the whole world lose its collective mind and despaired, had maybe made it to the end of that terrible, shortsighted, speculator-driven, utterly selfish and self-serving pendulum swing.

Maybe now Bob Cunningham’s medicine might have a chance to save my grandchildren Madeline and Dawson and Sydney’s planet and invoke the economic freedom that Tommy Douglas so desired. Maybe that meant I could go home now.

I beg you, those of you who remain and those of you who watch and those of you who care: don’t let this moment pass you by.

On a Personal Note

It was a proud day at our house yesterday when we all went to watch Zack's final basketball game of the season.  The Spencer Wildcats Gr. 7 team had won a berth in the City Finals.  They were undefeated for the entire year and had beaten the Montery Storm in the regular season. 

Unfortunately.... our guys discovered that there's a difference between the regular season and the playoffs and came up short yesterday afternoon.  2nd place in the city isn't a bad place to be either and we are very proud of the team and Zack.  He has really developed his skills and has become a strong defensive player who scores the occasional basket to help his team offensively as well.  

We celebrated his great season at Red Robins where it was birthday night all around us.  It seemed that everyone was celebrating their 8th birthday.  I suggested I could do the same but the kids didn't think they wanted me to stand on the chair while everyone sang.  I'm thinking .... why not.... being 8 would be fun, at least until someone sent me to bed at 8:30.... 

Finally... .the Prayer Breakfast Photos....

Here are some photo's from our 3rd Annual MLA Prayer Breakfast.  Many thanks to Sharon Jones who braved ice and snow to be with us for the morning.  Sharon is an artist and photographer.  We are also pleased that she is our friend.  Please visit Sharon's website to see some of her amazing work.

Tim Schindel welcoming the guests and MLA's as we started the morning.  This was our best response ever.  (We actually sold out the event which is a first for us.)  We were so happy with the excellent response from MLA's and our partners and ministry friends.

A crowd shot during breakfast.  You can see that we had a full house that morning which was very exciting for us.  We are already making plans for next year and anticipate an even bigger event.

Leonard Krog (Nanaimo) and Pastor Mark Buchanan (our speaker)

Nicholas Simons and Barb Schindel preparing to provide some pre-breakfast music as well as their beautiful presentation of Amazing Grace.

The Hon. Shirley Bond (Deputy Premier and Minister of Education visiting with Pastor Gordon Patteson from Gateway Baptist.

Rachael Smith, who led us in prayer on behalf of the MLA's, (see Rachael's Prayer), Hon. Shirley Bond and Pastor Mark Buchanan. 

Michelle Jones and Brittany Schindel.  Approximately 10% of our attendees were under 20.  We think that's important for our future.

A Dog named FAITH

This is a story about a dog that was born on Christmas Eve in 2002.
He was born with 3 legs - 2 healthy hind legs and 1 abnormal front leg which needed to be amputated.
He of course could not walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want him.
He was rejected and scorned.

His first owner also did not think that he could survive. Therefore, he was thinking of putting him to sleep..
At this time, his present owner Jude Stringfellow came into his life and wanted to take care of him. 
She was determined to teach and train this dog to walk by himself. She thought, all we need is a little faith. 
Therefore she named him 'Faith.' 

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surf board to let him feel the movements of the water. Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and to reward him for standing up and jumping around. Even the other dogs at home helped to encourage him to walk. Amazingly, after only 6 months, like a miracle, Faith learned to balance on his 2 hind legs and jumped to move forward. After further training in the snow, he can now walk like a human being.

Faith loves to walk around now. 
No matter where he goes, he just attracts all the people around him. He is now becoming famous on the international scene. He has appeared in various newspapers and TV shows. There is even one book entitled 'With a little faith¢ being published about him. He was even considered to appear in one of Harry Potter movies.

His present owner Jude Stringfellow has given up her teaching job and plans to take him around the world to preach, 'that even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul.'

In life there are always undesirable things. Perhaps a person who feels things are not going as well as they could will feel better if they change their point of view and see things from another perspective.
Perhaps this message will bring fresh new ways of thinking to everyone. 
Perhaps everyone can appreciate and be thankful for each beautiful day that follows.

Life is the continual demonstration of the power of thinking positive and having faith...Believe!!!

Getting Ready ....

It`s not hard to pick out the MLA`s that aren`t running for re-election.  For the most part, they are the only ones who aren`t saying much during debate on the Budget and Speech From The Throne.  (They are also most likely to be reading news clippings or checking their Blackberry`s during Question Period.)  Everyone else is working hard to get their sound byte or `interjection` (which is Hansard`s polite way of saying that they are talking when they should be listening during Question Period`...)


We are getting ready too.  While we are non-partisan or politically motivated, the truth is that the upcoming election could be among the most important in our history and because of that we see a tremendous need for the church to actively pray during this time.  For the last 9 months we have been building our PrayBC prayer network in preparation for the election campaign. 

Our vision is decidedly different from the one politicians will be working on.  Our goal is to build a comprehensive prayer network that will simply ask God to  use this election to accomplish His purposes for our province.  Our strategy will be to send a daily email starting with the first day of the election campaign and concluding on the day after the election.  Each email will provide a scripture verse, a clear prayer focus and a written prayer.  We`ve designed this so that busiest people can participate with us in a meaningful way.  We currently have just over 1000 people who have committed to praying with us during the campaign. 

WE NEED YOUR HELP!
You can help us in several ways:
1.  If you received this email directly from us, you are already on our email list.  You can help us by forwarding the email to your contacts, prayer group leaders, pastor, etc and encouraging them to join our network as well.

2.  If you received this email through a forward (or you are reading our blog online) go to the PrayBC Blog where you can add your name to our email list.

3.  If you are a pastor or ministry leader.  Please consider encouraging your church to participate with us through anouncements, as part of your preaching and teaching or through using or linking to our 90 second video on YouTube.  We'd also really appreciate your help in spreading the word about what we are doing to other pastors and ministry contacts in your ministry network.

No one has ever attempted anything on this scale within BC.  We are anticipating a network of 10,000 people praying with us on a daily basis during the campaign.  Thanks for being a part of this historic undertaking with us.

Rachel's Prayer

Lord, I come before you now to add my voice to those here. I come to you to thank you for all that you are, all that you have ever been and all that you will forever be. You are never ending. You are all knowing. You are all powerful. You are everything we could ever need or desire. You are the creator of all things, and in You all things dwell. All things were created for Your Glory.


You are the one we look to today. We look to you for your heart, for your will, for your purposes.  We come before you to ask for your blessing. We need you to pour your blessings over us. We are your people, your children. Lord, we need your strength, we need to know your heart. We canʼt touch and bless this world around us without your blessings flowing through us. Please bless us now.


Strengthen us now. Give us your heart, place your desires in us.  I come before you, God, to lift up those you have placed in leadership over us.  Those who pour out their lives to govern and lead. Those, who together make decisions that affect so many lives around them. Jesus, be their strength. Jesus, be gracious to them, pour out your wisdom into their lives. Jesus, give them discernment to understand all that is going on around them. Jesus, touch them with your peace, with your joy, with your very presence.


I pray for these Members of our Legislative Assembly. You love them so much.  You desire so much for them. You care about every area of their lives. Bless them and their families, their friends, those whose lives they touch. Let them be such a blessing to all of those around them.


Please Lord, give them a clear purpose, a clear vision, give them your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your heart to know. Let them lead with Strength and Humility, with Wisdom and Understanding. Let them lead with Love and Mercy, with Compassion and Grace.


I bless them Lord, and I thank you for them. I thank you for their desire to serve, for their desire to do what they can to make this a better place. I bless them God, and I give them to you. You are the Way. You are the Truth, You are the Life. Jesus, you are all that we need. Thank you for your heart. Thank you for your Love.


In Your Name - Amen




RACHAELʼS PRAYER Feb. 26, 2009

2009 MLA Prayer Breakfast Report

I've just come from our Third Annual MLA Prayer Breakfast.  What a fantastic time!  This was our first every sold out event and it was by far the best one we've ever had.  We had a strong turnout of MLA's which is our primary goal, but we also had a fantastic turnout by the church at large in Victoria and at least one guest from Vancouver. 

Pastor and author Mark Buchanan did an amazing job as our speaker.  He was challenging, inspiring and tremendously effective in communicating the key points of Micah 6:8.  He spoke to MLA's while he spoke to us and he did it in a way that was non-threatening while at the same time pointing us to the need to walk in humility before our God. 

Rachel Smith led us in prayer for our MLA's this morning.  She prepared a beautiful written prayer that she read with poise and grace.  I will post a copy of it later today.  I hope that you will enjoy it as much as we did.

Barb Schindel (my wife) and Nicholas Simons (MLA, Gibsons Sunshine Coast) did an instrumental duet of Amazing Grace.  They played the same number during our chapel service in November of 2007. 

We were only able to do this with the help of our partners, friends and local churches and businesses who sponsor tables, buy tickets, volunteer, pray and serve in whatever way they can.  This is a team effort and we all made today a huge success. 

We have some great photo's from this morning as well.  I will upload them to our gallery as soon as I receive them.

In The News...

We were in the news twice last week due to our PrayBC initiative.  In both cases we were noted for having a unique approach. This is great news for us and just adds to the profile that we've been building. 

This is where you'll find us in the Vancouver Sun.  This link takes you to a fantastic BC political site called, BC2009.  Feel free to add comments on either site in support of what we are doing. 

MissionsFest Vancouver - 2009

We just got back from a fantastic 3 days at MissionsFest in Vancouver. MissionsFest is one of the largest Christian gatherings in North America. In addition to speakers like Tony Campolo and Mark Buchanan, missions agencies from around the world were represented at Canada Place. I have no idea how many agencies were represented but reports were that the crowd was in excess of 30,000 people over 3 days. It was a busy and energizing atmosphere.  I could not have done it alone and I was so happy to have several volunteers work with me at the booth.  Donna and Gail had a steady stream of people coming by to see them.  Who could resist those smiles?  (The coke cans on the table came from a booth up the way who were very generous and kept me in particular well fueled with sugar and caffiene during the entire conference.)

This was our first year at MissionsFest as an exhibitor.  Our main goal in participating this year was to meet as many people as possible and tell them about our vision for PrayBC.  Our hardworking team of volunteers gave away just under 300 mugs and about 1000 bookmarks to people who visited our booth.

Here's a picture of Barb and our friend and fellow blogger Sonya from Kamloops.  Sonya and her husband are ministry partners as well and it's always fun to see them.  We saw many other ministry partners and friends over the time we were there and at times it felt like a family reunion.  It's amazing to meet people who pray, give and believe that we need to invest in the lives of leaders in this way.

 

We were so happy to have Rob Parker from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa come by to say hello as well.  Rob and the entire team at NHOP are doing a great work and are a real inspiration to us.  I was able to present Rob with a PrayBC mug.  It's great to know that we will have people praying for the BC Provincial Election all the way in Ontario.

MissionsFest really wanted to focus on encouraging youth and young adults to participate this year and they certainly achieved their goal.  These young ladies will be old enough to vote in the election on May 12 and also joined our prayer network in order to pray but to also be informed of the issues in a non-partisan manner.                                                                 If you'd like to see more pictures from MissionsFest, you can join the Leading Influence group on FaceBook where they will be posted later today. 

MissionsFest Vancouver - Day 1

Today is the first day of MissionsFest Vancouver.  This is the first year that we will have our own booth at this incredible gathering of missions agencies.  I should really be sleeping because this is going to be a long day, but I'm so excited and ready to just get going that I've been awake for an hour.  Barb and the kids are with me and the boys are up as well so it's not a quiet morning here as Barb tries to sleep.

We've got some goals for this weekend.  We want to add 750 names to our email list through a sign up incentive program.  The purpose for the names is to build a prayer network that will pray through our upcoming provincial election.  I am convinced that if we can mobilze people to pray and if we provide leadership and direction through an email/blog and facebook campaign, we can see God do something amazing in and for our province that could affect BC for years to come. 

God has a purpose and a plan for BC that can be accomplished in part through this election.  Given the current challenges, we need the right people in the right places more than ever.  Here's how you can be a part of what we are doing.  Visit www.praybc.blogspot.com and join our email list there.  You can also begin to pray for MLA's on a daily basis now by tracking with us on the praybc blog.  Finally, pray for us this weekend.  We are going to meet a lot of people who are going to resonate with what God has called us to do. Ask the Lord to give us favour with them and add them to our network.

Blessings on you!  BTW, if you are in the area, come see us at MissionsFest.  Our booth site is J8.

Prospering In Difficult Times

You might not know this about me, but I'm a glass 'half-full' guy.  I'm constantly looking for the silver lining and the hidden opportunity.  That being said, it's hard to pretend that there aren't some serious economic problems just about everywhere you look.  The problems are serious and they aren't going to go away quickly.  Aren't you glad that God is not affected by a recession, depression or any other economic term that might be applied to what we are currently experiencing.


I've been thinking about Jacob over the last few days.  You might remember that Jacob fell in love with a beautiful woman named Rachel and promised to work for her father for 7 years as part of the marriage arrangement.  If you are familiar with the history, you'll also know that Jacob's father in law (Laban) substituted for Leah for Rachel at the wedding and Jacob didn't notice until it was too late. Because he really wanted Rachel, he agreed to another 7 years (that makes 14...) to pay for the bride he wanted.  It sounds like a long time and it was especially because Jacob worked as a herdsman.  What made it even longer is that Laban didn't believe in fair play so he kept changing the rules of the arrangement which made it difficult for Jacob to get ahead. 

Eventually, Jacob gets Laban to agree on a deal regarding the herds that Jacob cares for.  Laban will get all of the solid colored animals, Jacob can have all of the streaked or spotted ones.  Laban's herd outnumbers Jacob's but God gives Jacob a strategy to prosper in spite of the obstacles around him.  God tells Jacob to peel branches and place them in the water trough.  When the ewes would come to drink and breed, the peeled branches would be directly before them.  It made no sense in the natural that solid colored animals would produce streaked and spotted offspring, but that's what began to happen as a result of Jacob following through on what God told him to do.  Jacob's herds grew to the point where they were larger than Laban's and Jacob was able to leave the unjust relationship.

Here's my point... I believe that God makes it possible for us to prosper and succeed, regardless of what the economy is doing if we do it His way.  My encouragement to you is to not be fearful in the midst of what is happening around us, but to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and your ears open to the strategies and plans that He has for you.

'For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and a future.'  Jer 29:11

Fear, Faith and Facing the Future

Depending on who you are, there's probably good reason to be afraid as we begin 2009. I heard that in addition to a 1 TRILLION dollar deficit the US Government is preparing a 700 BILLION dollar economic stimulus package. Our Prime Minister is openly using the word 'Depression' to describe the current economic situation. 200,000 Canadians are expected to lose their jobs in 2009.

There's a war in the Middle East (again), a new President in the US who everyone hopes will solve the world's problems (He won't and can't) and Russia is threatening to turn off the natural gas supply to the Ukraine. None of this sounds good. The news is so bad that just today, the family of one of the world's wealthiest men announced that he had ended his life by jumping in front of a train. Apparently the pain and pressure of losing millions in the last few months was more than he could bear. It's tragic, but it underscores a powerful reality. Many people are very afraid of what the future holds.

I am a believer. I believe that God is Big. God is Good and that ANYTHING can happen when we invite Him in. That's why I'm looking at 2009 with a sense of anticipation and expectancy. I am convinced that God has prepared surprises, opportunities, adventures and 'God moments' that go beyond anything that I have ever seen before. The God I know isn't limited by the economy, world events or changes in national or even world leadership. He's not intimidated by any of it. He is unchangeable, unshakable and unstoppable. He is in absolute and complete control and He is constantly working towards accomplishing His plans and purposes for His children.

I am convinced that 2009 belongs to those who believe. When I say that, I don't mean some kind of academic, cerebral recognition that God exists and is alive. I'm saying that 2009 belongs to those who are able to see past the obstacles, challenges and difficulties and into the realm of possibility and opportunity that can only be realized when we stop trying to fix, manipulate and control things with our own abilities, insight and wisdom. When we take our hands 'off', there's room for God to put His hand on whatever it is we are dealing with and in that moment, absolutely anything can happen.

The future is amazing when God is in it! Have a blessed and prosperous 2009!

Launching 2009

Given that this is Jan 3, I'm way overdue on posting something here. Sorry for the delay, but I've been putting a ton of energy into our new website to go live on the 1st. With some great help, we got it published a few days early. Click here to take a look.

I've also made some changes to the PrayBC blog. For the most part we only used it during elections and to promote the Provincial Prayer event in June. What we've done is provide a daily MLA profile and written prayer to make it easier for people to participate as we seek to build our prayer network. We are getting some great feedback thus far which is really encouraging.

I'll be sending out our first email blast of 2009 on Monday so watch for that. If you're not on our list, just click the link on this page to be added.

Have a great Sunday!!

Rethinking 'Busy-ness'

In the past I've been a bit (okay... a LOT) Cruemudgeony at Christmas time. I bought into the whole hype about the busy-ness of the season and just let it get to me. I didn't like the 'extra stuff' that I felt was expected of me during this particular time of the year and I just let it make me grumpy.

Something has changed in me over the last few years. I no longer resent the 'extra stuff' at Christmas time. In fact I've really come to enjoy this time of year and the activities that come along with it. Here's why....

For all of the fuss about whether the appropriate greeting is Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Merry Xmas, Winter Festival or you name it, the bottom line is that most of the world takes this time of the year to celebrate. Whether they acknowledge it or not, everyone is really celebrating the birth of Jesus. It's true that some people have tried to eliminate Jesus from Christmas, or at least try to pretend in some politcally correct way that we all do this for some other reason, but that's a bit like trying to eliminate oxygen from air. He is THE REASON for the Season.

I'm re-thinking 'busy-ness'. Let's stop and think about this for a minute. We might have one (maybe two) office Christmas parties, you might have a kids school Christmas event and then there's that whole shopping thing. Some people put extra time into baking and preparing for guests. So yeah... there can be more activity than usual. The other side of the coin is that most people get 3 stat holidays over 8 days so that's a pretty good trade off from a time perspective.

Here's what I've come to see. This time of year is a celebration and an incredible opportunity to connect with neighbours, friends, family and co-workers. If we approach this from a missional perspective, it's also an incredible time to build meaningful relationships and sow seeds of God's love and hope into the lives of people who have yet to discover His love and grace in their lives.

So... I've concluded that 'busy-ness' at this time of year is simply a state of mind. It's true that there's more that goes on at this time of year than others, but as people who have discovered the truth and wonder of God coming to be among us and more importantly IN US, this is our time, our day and our hour. What we need is a mind shift that moves us out of dreading or complaining about this time to a place where we embrace the wonder and excitement of the season and find God's strength and power in the midst of it.

There's a Wind A Blowin'

Greetings from Moose Jaw, SK, where the temperature is a chilly -22 C (that's about -4 for those of you who read this from the US) and the wind is blowing hard enough from the north that the Canadian flag that flies over city hall is straight off the pole.

What are you doing in Moose Jaw you ask? Well... my wife's grandfather passed away and we all returned for his funeral. All of the grandchildren and cousins were able to come as well. Grandpa was a good and godly man. He was 92 and quite ready to go to heaven to be with Jesus and Grandma. The funeral was on Thursday. It was only -8 with a north wind and I thought that was cold... it's suddenly become very balmy because everything is relative.

So we are here enjoying a few days with family and friends. Both of our parents live here plus some aunts and uncles so it's always nice to come back even though we don't do it very often. Summer is more preferable than winter, although in the winter you don't have mosquitoes. That being said, in the summer you don't get frostbite so it's a bit of a trade off.

Lest you think Moose Jaw is a desolate place, let me tell you about where I'm writing from. I'm sitting in a little coffee bar on the 4th floor of a luxury spa. Our boys are swimming with Grandma, 2 aunts and 4 little cousins. Barb isn't here so I'm opting to write a blog post while everyone has a swim. The pool is just like a hot springs pool. The water is about 104 F but it's very therapeutic and refreshing. There's a small outdoor pool that you access by swimming through a small gate. That's the first place the boys went, although, they've since returned to the main pool. I'm guessing the drifting snow had something to do with that.

I lived in Moose Jaw when the work began to build what they call 'The Spa'. An old hotel was torn down as were some other buildings to make room for what some people saw as nothing but a pipe dream and a white elephant. It was just a dream and someone's idea but through hard work, investment, partnership and a long term commitment the Spa stands alone as a magnificent facility. Someone's dream became their reality because they did more than dream.

Across the street from where I'm writing this, there's a casino. A casino across from a luxury spa probably makes a lot of sense from a marketing and tourism perspective. On the other hand, casinos are all about luck and chance. A hard core gambler might disagree with me, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of skill or creativity required to win at a slot machine. As I write this, I see people going in and out of the casino hoping to get lucky and win enough money that they could fulfill their dreams

The irony is profound to me. On the one hand, someones dream came true because they invested, worked and made a long term commitment to the future. On the other hand, some people are hoping for their dreams to come true based on nothing but the pull of a handle and the spin of a wheel.

This is not intended to be a commentary on gaming so much as it is an observation on life. There aren't many shortcuts to seeing your dreams come true. It's just a matter of creativity, perseverance and investment. Stick with it and you'll see it happen. I am.

Surrendering And Suffering

This came in my email this morning. This is a huge 'life lesson'. It's a lesson that changes the way we live our lives. Sometimes we just need a gentle reminder. I hope this serves that purpose for you.

Tim

Over the last year I have spent more time meditating on and practicing surrendering. Why? Because I have had my share of suffering and have discovered that surrendering is the way out of it and into peace.

Some people feel that fighting is the way to get free. I am here to tell you it is absolutely not. Fighting is the way to stay in pain and suffering. I know you also deal with suffering, simply because you are human.

The Top 10 Distinctions between Surrendering and Suffering

10- Surrendering is simply saying YES to life Suffering is saying NO to life.

9- Surrendering brings the peace that passes understanding Suffering is continual stress, frustration and confusion.

8- Surrendering is simply following your heart. Suffering comes from being driven by your ego.

7- Surrendering empowers people to share Suffering is the result of selfishness.

6- Surrendering allows creativity. Suffering is the result of being reactive.

5- Surrendering is the way to sweet success and victory. Suffering is the bitter taste of failure and defeat.

4- Surrendering flows with the river of life. Suffering tries to swim against the current.

3- Surrendering allows you to have a higher perspective. Suffering comes from an extremely limited perspective.

2- Surrendering is the lesson. Suffering is the teacher.

1- Surrendering gives you the benefits of humility. Suffering is the consequence of arrogance.

Let There Be Peace On Earth

As you know, the Governor General permitted the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament this week. This eliminates the possibility of a confidence vote on Monday and the political scene has become suddenly much more quiet and calm. Strong feelings about what happened in Ottawa last week remain under the surface, but as most people move on to Christmas parties and shopping, there's a peace that has settled on the entire situation.

We know that literally tens of thousands of people across Canada were praying for the Governor General, the PM, party leaders and MPS from all parties. Our request as we prayed was that God would move upon the hearts of the key decision makers and direct them through the voices of advisors and the wisdom that God gives to do what was best for Canada. Without being partisan, I believe that God answered that prayer by providing stable political leadership for our country at this time.

I read something this week that confirmed what I've believed for a long time. God is committed to good government because He loves people. Government provides protection so the people can live, work, play and prosper in safety. Good government is responsible, respectful, prudent and gracious. It champions the cause of the hurting and oppressed while at the same time creating a climate that encourages prosperity and the ability to pursue a bright future. Good government walks with humility and in the fear of God.

One of my disappointments this week was that no one demonstrated the kind of leadership necessary for our nation at the time. The focus was entirely on who who would hold power, form government, be in Cabinet and possibly get a seat in the senate. This falls far short of what we need at this time. To borrow a phrase from President Elect Obama, it really is time to reach across the aisles and work together for the sake of our nation today and for many years to come.

Over the next few weeks, my prayer will be that a genuine transformation of hearts will take place among the key players on Parliament Hill and that genuine leadership would replace the quest for power and control. I will be praying that repentance will replace rhetoric so that God's grace and mercy will flow to our nation in unprecedented ways.

Political Crisis in Ottawa

As you probably already know, there is a very real possibility that the Federal Government could lose an upcoming confidence vote scheduled for next Monday. The Liberals and NDP are working hard on creating a coalition alternative with the intent of forming government should the current government fall.

Leading Influence Ministries is a non-partisan ministry so I have no comment on the political ramifications of what is taking place. However, this week is critical for our nation. We find ourselves in a place where we do not have a defined economic strategy to deal with the global situation and we are now faced with the possibility of an unexpected change in goverment.

I think it's important to recognize that we need to make this a matter of prayer as we ask the Lord to have His way in this very important period in the history of our nation. I remain convinced that the Lord's plans for our nation can prevail if we give ourselves to praying that God will intervene in this situation.

The next few days are probably more crucial than the actual voting day. If the coalition is to move forward and form goverment there will be significant hurdles to cross. If the government is to stand, then the best thing for our nation is for the plans for a coaltion to collapse quickly so that the government can give it's attention to the economy rather than it's own survival. This is truly a situation where something needs to happen quickly.

To that end, I'm encouraging you to pray as follows:
1. That the Lord will work all things to work together for his good and any plans of the enemy would crumble very quickly.

2. That Canada will prosper and be protected in spite of the political uncertainty that we are facing at this time.

So Here's What Happened

Earlier in the week I mentioned that I would be spending more time in prayer for our government and MLA's as they debated the government's 10 point plan to deal with the economy. In addition to thanking you for your interest, I also wanted to tell you what happened.

I continue to be amazed at the response to the email I sent out earlier this week. Over 800 people read it and were praying with us. That is amazing and tremendously encouraging. On Tuesday afternoon I sent an email to the leadership team of the Pastor's prayer group that I belong to inviting them to consider holding their meeting at the Legislature on Thursday morning. I'm delighted to tell you 10 pastors came together to pray that morning. I am so grateful for the favor of God upon the ministry and what we are seeking to do. It was a very dull time in the Legislature that morning as the bill was being debated line by line by a very small group of MLA's, but we prayed that God would accomplish His purposes for our province during this critical time.

I feel like we've turned a very significant corner this fall and that there's a broader level of understanding, acceptance and support for what we are doing. Our last two public events have been well supported by local pastors which is very encouraging.

Even the MLA's I was able to see expressed their appreciation for what we are doing. I have a very clear sense that God is preparing us for the next step in moving the ministry forward here in BC during the Spring session.

Thanks again for praying and standing with us. Knowing you were there has made this an awesome week!

A Call To Prayer

The Legislature resumed on Thursday for what turned out to be a fairly short day. The purpose for this abbreviated fall session is to pass an economic strategy that will help BC manage the current economic situation. Next week, the House resumes business from Monday to Thursday. By all indications, it will be a raucous and combative session as both sides seek to score points in preparation for the election. Politics aside, there is a serious global economic problem that is certain to affect British Columbia sooner or later so it's important to deal with the proposed legislation in a prudent manner with an awareness of the seriousness of the situation and the consequences of a poor set of decisions.

As I sat in the gallery on Thursday, my impression was that, bravado aside, no one really knows what to do because the situation remains so volatile that what may be a good decision today may be a disastrous decision tomorrow. That being said, I am comforted by the confidence that this is not the first time in history that leaders have faced uncertain times. I'm keenly aware that God remains in control and that He is able to either speak to the storm and bring peace or that He will use the storm to accomplish His purposes through it.

In the midst of my confidence, I also see that I must do more than simply observe the leaders and their responses to the markets. I must stand in the gap. Not only I, but we... together... must stand in the gap to pray for those who are making decisions in what has become a very perilous time. If they make decisions that are in keeping with the heart and mind of God, we will benefit as a people and province. If their decisions are contrary to God's purpose and plan, we will face an economic and social disaster.

I'm committing myself to praying diligently for the members of the BC Legislature over the next week as they make decisions. In particular, I suggest that we pray for the following people on a daily basis with the simple request that wisdom and a desire for the highest good would overtake political agendas over the coming week.

Premier Gordon Campbell, Hon. Colin Hansen (Minister of Finance), Carol James, Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Mike de Jong (Government House Leader) and Mike Farnworth (Opposition House Leader)

When you pray, ask the Lord to give these leaders in particular a spirit of wisdom, grace, courage, insight and humility. Our province needs a level of leadership that is able to rise above short term partisanship and political ideology and into a level of unity and cooperation that will result in good decisions being made that will benefit us now and in the future.