The Ottawa Humane Society asked for the $19, 000 report. They invited the Humane Society of the United States in to make suggestions on how they could improve their services.
Now, the Ottawa Humane Society is in a jam.
It’s been over a year and the main thrust of 488 recommendations, public consultation, has yet to take place. Was this report a waste of money or not?
Probably not.
However, the suggestion of formal public consultation is questionable in the face of other methods.
Scrap the formality.
Scrap the “public consultation.” It’s clearly turning into a waste of time.
The society has valid reasons for the delayed consultation. They have been implementing some of the 488 recommendations and are having a tough time deciding which ones to consult the public on. They are still trying to figure out how to fund it. Yet it’s been over a year.
This consultation has been promised several times. They are either holding off because they are busy with other things, or this suggestion of a one-time public consultation is a complex undertaking. Or maybe the society is just disorganized.
When consultants asked the Ottawa staff what their community thought of them, they drew a blank. Nobody could answer this gray and fuzzy question. This is why public consultation was recommended.
Executive director Bruce Roney pointed out that the public isn’t aware of just how limited the society’s budget is.
It is not the Toronto Humane Society, he says. The Toronto Humane Society raises $10 million dollars a year.
It’s time to take some lessons from Toronto. It’s a solid bet that the staff there have a pretty good idea how their community responds to their efforts.
It’s likely because all their fundraising efforts built a relationship with Torontonians.
Every interaction with the community is an opportunity for feedback.
Public consultation will happen naturally if they just market themselves better. Schmooze with the people a little more. The report isn’t a waste of money.
The wording just need not be taken so literally as the message needs to be taken seriously.
This is a public relations problem. The society’s time and effort would be better spent on this dilemma rather then meeting once a month to devise a strategy on how to get public opinion from a one-shot consultation.
— Laura Aiken
he $100 million spent by the federal government on two Challenger 604 business jets might not be a bad investment considering Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s ability to pile up more mileage than a travelling Hoover salesman.
Consider Chretien’s travel log in 2000, when he managed visits to China, Central America, Jamaica, Dominica, Okinawa, Paris, Lisbon, Berlin, the Middle East, and the list goes on. The total cost for his trips to international conferences and meetings that year — $12.6 million.
Travelling the world has become something of a hobby for Chretien, but not a cheap one. Canadians are being forced to support Chretien’s penchant for globe-trotting, and each year since 1994 the bills have been growing steadily larger. In 1994, Chretien’s trips to international meetings cost $3.3 million. In 1997 the bills had grown to $6.7 million, and by 1999 reached $10.3 million.
The rising costs of Chretien’s travels present an alarming trend, as the number and cost of these trips can’t be easily justified. There’s been no clear call for greater Canadian representation at international meetings, nor do these travels reflect a change in foreign policy.
The prime minister’s growing international travels may indicate the PM is winding down his political career – following in the footsteps of his political mentor Pierre Trudeau – with another self-aggrandizing, costly legacy project.
Granted, it’s imperative Canada be represented at NATO, APEC, or G8 meetings. Canada has clear links with these international organizations. But other trips have a less obvious value. For example, in 2000 Chretien travelled to Turkey for a meeting of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation Europe. The costs: $876,000.
The most expensive trips, however, have been Chretien’s Team Canada missions. While the worth of these trade missions seems somewhat dubious, the costs are clear cut. Chretien’s Team Canada mission to China in 2000 cost a staggering $6.7 million. The missions also appear to have become more extravagant. Costs for the 1995 Team Canada mission to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia cost a modest $1.4 million. The 1997 mission to Mexico City, Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago cost $4.5 million.
What’s most disturbing, however, is when these global excursions are compared to Chretien’s travels inside his own country. Westerners might have had a better chance sighting a Sasquatch than a prime minister in the past eight years. From 1997 to 2001, Chretien spent more time vacationing in Florida than in Western Canada. While Chretien made three trips to Winnipeg in a year-and-half period, each one was for party fund-raisers. As a result, Chretien took back to Ottawa some $700,000, reported the Winnipeg Sun in 1999.
It’s time the high-flying prime minister was grounded, and told that being prime minister means trying to deal with at least a few of the issues facing Canadians. Travelling the world, and sticking Canadians with multi-million dollar bills does nothing.
Laura Aiken–