Scapegoats, Policemen and Firemen

Scapegoats, Policemen and Firemen

Something strange happens when cities, towns, provinces and countries run out of money. They look for scapegoats.

I’ll get to that in a moment. First we have to tie together some seemingly disparate items.

Item one. We survived the 2008 debt crisis but we are on shaky ground. We are $2.7 billion in debt with carrying costs of over $200 Million per year. We have a new arena and a new museum to pay for, all with interest rates on the rise. Our carrying costs might rise dramatically in the next few years.

So, do we blame the American investment companies that caused this world wide near collapse? Partially, but we were, in fact, insulated by much more conservative Canadian banks – thank goodness.

Item Two. Edmonton police recently announced that they spend a large portion of their time in hospitals waiting with in-patients 

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Edmonton+police+officers+spend+hundreds+hours+hospital+emergency+rooms+chief/8817606/story.html). Edmonton Ambulance attendants (EMT) also spend an enormous amount of time in hospitals with in-patients waiting for admittance.

Do we blame the Provincial government for cuts? Maybe. It would certainly help free up city resources if we were not hospital attendants as well as police and EMT.

Item Three: The Globe and Mail recently printed and article that I worry may become a common refrain. Please see:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/a-nation-of-100000-firefighters/article13647608/

According to this article, fire fighters are overpaid and under worked. I don’t know if that is true but I don’t like the feel of the article. It feels like scapegoating for municipalities that have lost control of their budgets.

So let’s tie these three together: Provinces and Municipalities are under economic pressure; Police and EMT, paid for by Edmonton, are doing work that should be paid for by the Province.  What I mean by this is that extremely long hospital emergency room wait times in Edmonton are tying up our front line EMT and Police officers to "babysit" while they wait with incoming emergencies.  The cost of this waiting is downloaded to Edmonton; we don’t see any simple answers because it took years to get into this financial mess and we want either i) quick solutions or ii) scapegoats. Since there are no simple answers we get scapegoats.

Scapegoating doesn't solve economic problems it creates anger and frustration and draws attention away from the real problems. Let’s try to avoid such feelings here in Edmonton by foreseeing what is coming and avoiding it the simplest of ways; lets balance the books and pay down our debt and work hand in hand with the province to get our police and EMT out on the roads. It is not as fast as blaming others people for our own mistakes, but it is how grown-ups solve problems. Solve the real issues without being distracted from them by knee jerk reactions.

What we need to do is elect people that know what they are doing; experienced people that can balance the budget.