news report about canada Victorid for to day

After ministry reno, a resort retreat
Management gathering for deputy, 14 others had $20,000 price tag
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
Published: Friday, November 09, 2007

B.C.'s deputy children's minister and 14 of her senior managers held a $20,000 retreat at a First Nations resort near Kamloops just months after completing a lavish renovation of their offices and boardroom in Victoria.

Lesley du Toit, her assistant deputies and regional executive directors met for four days in September at the Quaaout Lodge and Conference Centre on Little Shuswap Lake at Chase, the ministry confirmed.

The meeting drew nine executives from Victoria and six from elsewhere in the province.
Children' Ministry spent $560,000 renovating its leased executive offices and boardroom on Broughton Street.View Larger Image View Larger Image
Children' Ministry spent $560,000 renovating its leased executive offices and boardroom on Broughton Street.
Email to a friendEmail to a friendPrinter friendlyPrinter friendly
Font:

* *
* *
* *
* *

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

The resort's website states that Quaaout Lodge offers a "retreat from the daily grind to a natural sanctuary where your worries float away on gentle breezes in the Thompson Okanagan's four seasons playground." Standard rooms go for $130 a night during the week or $190 for a lake-view Jacuzzi room, the website says.

News of the Shuswap sojourn broke less than a week after the ministry confirmed it spent $560,000 renovating its leased executive offices and boardroom on Broughton Street.

The redesign, which was completed early in the summer, included more than $20,000 in First Nations art to make the boardroom, which can accommodate 50 people, more welcoming to aboriginal people.

The ministry has also been under fire for censoring a review of its Sexual Abuse Intervention Program before releasing it to the Times Colonist under the province's freedom-of-information law. The review found that the agencies working with sexually abused children agreed unanimously on the need for more money -- a fact excised from the report given the TC.

NDP children's critic Nicholas Simons and his colleagues attacked Children's Minister Tom Christensen yesterday, accusing him and his ministry of "misplaced priorities."

"It's clear to me that they chose to have a meeting far away from Victoria despite the fact that they just renovated a boardroom for over half a million dollars," Simons said.

Christensen, who has been under fire repeatedly during the current legislative session, defended du Toit and her staff despite mounting criticism of their decisions. He said such getaways are necessary for managers from time to time, and he called it a "constructive use" of the leadership team's time.

"It's different from them being in Victoria where they may be in the boardroom for a couple of hours," he said. "This was a concentrated retreat that was intended to move a number of items forward and allow for in-depth conversation."

Christensen said the ministry specifically chose the lodge because it is run by the Little Shuswap Indian band and would enable a "better appreciation" of aboriginal issues.

Christensen acknowledged that the Victoria boardroom was renovated for a similar purpose but added that the lodge has an elder who provides cultural awareness training. "My understanding is that staff find that very beneficial," he said.

Meanwhile, the Surrey Association for Community Living released a letter yesterday slamming Christensen over the "more than outrageous" office renovation.

"This association incurred a deficit last year of $100,000, and we continue to operate out of a building that is outdated and that leaks both through the roof and through the floor -- all so that we can make every dollar stretch to the utmost to provide services," president Carol Norman wrote. "And what do we see? We are slapped in the face with a flagrant misuse of funds that should have gone into provision of services for those who need it most and those most in need."

ha ha ha health is free , canada is sucks

missing 6 tooth and I can not eat same as was because I am not billionaire to see and pay doctor for ? is free health care sucks when I get to emergency room in Victoria they didn't have pain killer for me I back and in 2 days with lots pain untiles I pay $50 deposited to doctor to he take out my bad tooth sucks man I fix 5 tooth in university of teharn in 1993 free, how far you like to lies, same as when you go back in Iran, to Iranian, to show your self better as others lets talk and tell the true about this sucks place Canada, is materialist country are government spending more money to paint building to help Canadian I don't know how many homeless in Vancouver having TB but must be lot next times when you get in Bus or in publics be carefully about TB, or HIV guys around you

why canada is sucks when you not supper rich

sucks to Canada because you live in stupid Vancouver and you never travel to in any others place you thinks is best place, they lies to bring riches people immigrant to invest money here , what is your job a drugs dealers ? renting one bedroom over $1000 or shop over $40.000n a month, mass of the homeless over 20,000 homeless just in Vancouver, mass of the crimes 8 murdered in just a 2 weeks , missing child women suicide are you stupid blind to all this or rich guy live in private island or have immigration office

To Haji: These are your issues, and a few humbale, frank advise:

-Canada is among the top best three countries in the world. Vancouver and Victoria are the best cities to live in this planet, according to ALL polls.
-Unemployment in Canada is the lowest since last 40 years( about 5%).
-Canadian dollar is strongest since last 48 years against US dollar (1 C$= US$1.08 as of today.)
-Everyone except handicapped, pregnant women are employed, or employable. Alberta, British Columbia, and all Western Canadian Provinces are importing labor (skilled and unskilled) from all over the world.
- Millions of people are willing to pay thousands of dollar to get to Canada as immigrant.
-There are enough work for you, as an artist or otherwise, everywhere in Canada if you REALLY want to work, PROVIDED you use your talent toward something that is not demeaning, degrading human being.
As far as I am concerned, your work is tasteless, disrespectful to human kind and no one in western world can understand or appreciate your mentality. As you have mentioned frequently, no one gives you any work, CAN'T YOU GET IT WHY?. Change your attitude, look at human being differently, re program your mind toward love and peace, you will get anything you have wished for and you will live on peace and dignity.
-You should have improved your English (it is offered for free to all new immigrants) when you first arrived in the country (still it is not too late, if you REALLY want to improve). With your existing English language and skills, as I have seen in this site, you only can work for Iranian media. (I doubt if anyone, anywhere, except Iranian.com would accept your work, if you disagree, try any other Iranian media and if in fact they print your work, let us know.).
-As long as you do not respect human being, as long as you disagree with equality of men and women, as long as you stay close minded and do not see life differently than what/where you were brought up, as long as you stay in your old cocoon, I guarantee you wouldn't get anywhere and you wouldn't find any decent woman to live with, in Canada or anywhere else in this world.
If you can not and do not want to change, if you keep insulting your host country who looks after you, who gave you a new identity and passport,( If you are desperate, and do not have money and have no income; your health is free, you would be given shelter and food, you would receive pocket money and your transportation is fee), then you must find a place to live better than Canada.
Haji: Do something for yourself, no one will do it for you. Last word: Do not listen and do not get excited to comments given by a few ignorants in this site cheering you for wrong reasons. They are misleading you, do not fall in their ignorant traps.

p.s. Haji: are you using a different name in this site now (sucks canada)?. Your English composition is the same!! hehehe

You proved to be an Ey-ranian

hey nokhod tarsoo, you proved my point that you are an Ey-ranian moftkhor. Leave Haji alone, he has KHAYEH, you do not. He is using his real name, you are tarsoo. Get lost.

I lost my passport and here is your answer

days by days cost of the living are going high and high in Canada, last week ministry of children...spending over $500,000 from are TAX for office renovation , where in Victoria we have over 2000 homeless sleeping on street , same as in Iran Mullahs spending are money on Gun or on religion, same stupid regime in Canada same stupid regime in Iran I became bad luck and move from one stupid place to another's
If I was be drugs dealers yes I should be happy to live in canada and make lots of money

leave canada if you don't like it.

Canada is the best country in the world.
the fact that you RIDEMOON are sitting in your room and
writting shit is the proof, how generous and nice this country
is to KESAFATS like you MADAR GHAHBEH.

DAYAOUS, why don't you leave this country if you don't like it,
huh? MADARSAG answer my question, if you have KHAYEH? huh? why?

why don't you go to CUBA. you can go there even with your fucking
MULLA passport. you can stay there coz it's a comunist country.
a paradise for you POFYOUZ. my friend who didn't like canada went
there and married a nice cuban girl and stayed there. they
have 2 kids now. huh?

She is wearing a cute

She is wearing a cute outfit. Mode rooze.

Haji is as free as a bird!

I believe he feels freedom better than most of us.  Especially those who cut their throats by screaming about freedom and how to protect or implement it.  He is free like a bird! and nothing we say is going to stop him nor should it.  There is an audience for every kind of art.  Hundreds of years ago some artists used to draw nudes in oil paintings.  Should somebody draw vibrators (cordless, not electric like those Haji draws :-) today?! maybe not in oil paintings, but cartoons every now and then.  When you are angry or bitter, you create more emotional pieces than when you are just having a soup.

In support of Haji

Let Haji be free to express his feelings.
-

It is stupid to say when one is angry, he or she writes or tells poems. One must consider the environment or the audience too.

-

Does one laugh at every cartoon? Does one like every cartoon of for example, the Peanut character? Get real and leave Haji be free to express himself.

-

Ey-ranians have learned mooftkhori in Western countries. If you believe in freedom, let Haji experess his feelings.

Haji is.. Haji is

Haji is..
Haji is anti-islamic person. in karhaa ro baraye bar-angikhte kardane ehsasat mikone va inke islam ro bad jelve bede. This is what he's doing and its good:)

We have many artists centered on bitterness and anger

Our contemporary culture is full of them.  When talking about Iran we have plenty of anger and bitterness in our culture, poems and novels.  Saadegh Hedayat the father of Iranian drama/novel wrote about suicidal tendencies.  Simin Daneshvar (who still writes in Iran and is in her 80s now) wrote about bitterness about anger.  Same with Nima and who was that other guy died a few years ago, Shamloo, yes remember him? The current regime in Iran makes people so angry that the newspaper and writers get imprisoned and closed all the time, because they write about anger and bitterness.  Haji has picked this subject which is real.  It is not a pigment of his imagination. He is connecting it to his own life and own desires.  He wants not just a wife but a "hot female".  At the same time he is impatient like all other Iranians.  They shift gears as quickly as possibly only to hit the brakes as soon as they reach 5th gear, due to traffic congestion.  Aren't Iranians impatient?  no really.  All and all he is who he is and people follow his cartoons with interest.  Just like Dilbert writes about office life, he draws about sex life, or lack there of.

Unlike Haj, Strapi attempted to understand instead of lash out

She was shocked about sexuality and relationships too. But you're right, instead of reacting by ridiculing the new lifestyle she encountered she attempted to understand it and pick it apart from a HUMAN standpoint. She didn't like how her roommate treated her parents and lied to them. But she also didn't make fun of her roommate or see herself as superior. Haji is too centered on his bitterness and anger which keeps him from being funny, as bahmani said.

We are working on Haji

But he doesn't need much to change.  I think once he gets into a relationship his outlook will change, that's what he has said himself and in this recent blog here

//iranian.com/main/blog/anonymouse/feminists-vs-hajiagha-debate

we are trying to find a volunteer as he has suggested, to go to Vancouver and have dinner with him, mehmoone ma, and report to us on how he really thinks about women.  A man whose JOB was a cartoonist in Iran and made his living that way, would have plenty of girlfriends, one would think.  Although, he is making it harder for himself, sometimes.  Catch 22.  You want women then you draw women in an unflattery situations!

One major difference between Marjan and Haji would be the ability to mesh with your new country, language, culture, etc.  The older you get the harder it gets and you just get too comfortable.  It's never too late and I think he is only an opportunity away from making it big.  Big enough.

Hajiagha's views

I'm not denying gold diggers exist either. I'm just saying that if he wants to make a statement, he isn't going about it the right way. I'm not trying to change Haji's views.... I'm trying to say that his statements reveal more about him than about gold diggers or problems for immigrants. Otherwise, most of us would be encouraging him.

Marjan struggled as well

Her parents sent her to France and she had to stay there, as a teenager, separated from her mom and dad, with very little contact. In persepolis 2 she touches on some of the hate she encountered. She is more humble in her approach to her haters. I think Haji could benefit from doing the same. It's not just that way in drawing either. Hajiagha is like Reza Pahlavi in that he is his own worst enemy. Go to his web site and you'll see what I mean. Reza over glorifies himself because he wants people to see him like his dad and Haji, also has an extreme personality that turns people off.

Gold diggers = pawn shop patrons later in life?

Haji please draw a cartoon of an old "blonde" naked woman wearing only jewelry, trying to sell her jewelry and her naked self as a "bonus" to an old man who is the pawn shop owner.

Nazanine I was hoping you share with us more about Marjan herself.  Like was she born in Canada? did she move to Canada at an early age with her parents? what did she major in? English? did she have to suffer as many immigrants do?  did she have a harsh life?  Haji's life is not pasteurized and neither is our shenanigans.  We can deny it but it is there.  More these days as media is banging Iran every day and some of us are trying harder to convince others we are not really Iranian. 

Haji has drawn weekly cartoons for Iranian.com for many years, some of what you've said has been drawn before.  Only if Canada would let him show them in an art gallery!

Hajiagha = mostly shock, no awe

Satrapi is also a graphic artist. I attribute her success to her creative style in being able to portray a wide range of people/ages/ emotions in graphic form whereas Hajiagha (to my knowledge) portrays the same woman over and over in different scenarios to represent the collective of "gold diggers" and "over-sexed" people he believes women to be. He doesn't appear to have any understanding of complex female emotion and that is why it is easy for him to simplify women as hot sluts or money loving prostitutes.
Marjan Satrapi hasn't generalized, she has told us a story through her eyes. Hajiagha should tell us a personal story that doesn't relate to his penis or wallet, because no one here is interested in that. I'd rather see him write about the misery of gold diggers as a way to bash their lifestyle. If he tied emotion to it that would help. Gold diggers rarely find love! Anyway I'll leave that to the artist. It's just a suggestion and I'd still like to hear about his view of Marjan Satrapi, if he has read her stuff - otherwise, it's silly to judge

Nazanine tell us about Marjan Satrapi

So we can compare her.  I know she is being nominated for something, but other than that what did she do?  What's special about her? not about her nomination. Just a summary would be fine.

Hajiagha - What are your thoughts on Marjan Satrapi?

Are you jeaous? Angry? Hate her? Love her? How come she has been so successful and you haven't? I think your attitude is holding you back. You are stubborn and have too much entezaar. Why don't you take a lesson from Marjan and start drawing/writing about your life instead of using your talent to bash people? I think that's why you haven't succeeded.

Haji, I thought you

Haji, I thought you quit!!!!(as you said!!!)

Feminists are not gold diggers?

- It is true that in most cases women suffer the most in the divorce. They loose their social status and suffer financial diasters and end up raising the kids alone.

- it is true that not all women are gold diggers.

- it is also true that feminists worked hard to get some of the equalities we see today.

- But it is NOT true that feminists are not gold diggers.  If a women who is going through a divorce and asks a feminist for advise, the feminists is certainly going to say SCREW him.  Stick it to him as much as possible, he owes it to you and you owe it to yourself to think only about yourself. Not that there is anything wrong with it!

Besides we are talking about some cases which men end up loosing the most because women they married were either gold diggers or were told to become gold diggers and this is what this cartoon is about.

Shut up, Stupid Clown! You're a Torshideye Bimokh

You're an uneducated bimokh from the village of Shahrood. Old boys from Shahrood and Sabzevaar are the most backward creatures in Iran. "Observer" is right. you've become a pathetic clown!!! So why don't you kill yourself, loser! Your misery will end and the pages of iranian.com won't be polluted any longer.

study show %50 of women in canada are gold diggers.

or may %45 divorced in Canada this is big numbers guys,

Misogyny of Hajiagha et al

Research indicates that in 85% of cases women's financial situation deteriorates after a divorce and their status falls to the lower strata of their social class. The misogyny of Hajiagha and some of the commentators on this page is indicative of their lack of education and social awareness. Furthermore, Hajiagha and his fans need to know that feminists (women liberationists) are not gold-diggers; they work hard and earn their material comfort by themselves. Those women whom you call "gold-diggers" are uneducated, unemployed and submissive ones who marry and divorce male-chauvinist pigs like Hajiagha and Javad Agha. [Kabootar baa kabootar, baaz baa baaz.] So, don't try to glue women's liberation to gold-digging. It does not stick! Take a course or two on male violence in North-American families, discrimination against women in the workplace and in every social institutions until 1960's and the struggle of Western women against their male oppressors and unfair laws and practices.
.
The only men who are against women's liberation are those who are nostalgic about the olden times (in Iran or in the West) when they could dominate and oppress their women, call it "virility" and get away with it. Intelligent and confident men do not need to dominate women or bad-mouth them when they cannot find submissive ones. Intelligent and confident men do not draw stupid and meaningless cartoons like Hajiagha’s. People like Hajiagha (who has become de facto iranian.com’s CLOWN) and his sidekick Javad Agha need to not only educate themselves but also seek professional help for their emotional wounds.

Javad agha.........I take it you had...........

 I take it you had a bad personal experience with a gold digger? 

 Thanks for your concern on my studies, for a minute there you sounded just like my father many years ago. :o)  I was taking a break and saw this cartoon featured.  Yes, I do need to get back to studying for that killer State of Texas test. :o)  Three friends of mine failed the test on their first try. I prefer to pass it on the first attempt.

 Best wishes,

 Natalia (real name)

You are supposed to ....

Hi Natalia;

You are supposed to be focuing on your studies.
,
Yes, there are individuals which you describe but their number is very small in comparison to gold diggers. When you talk with people you will see what we are talking about. The gold diggers outnumber those who come into relationship to make it work even if there is little money. However, we must forget the environment and crook lawyers to add salt to the injury.
,
May the world forget but not forgive gold diggers.

Javad agha

Haji

Haji ye tekon
Haji do takon
Haji saresho begir bechelon

Go fuck yourself you ignorant cock sucker.

Haji ye tekoon Haji do

Haji ye tekoon
Haji do tekoon
Haji zardalouharo betekoon

If my wife ever does that to

If my wife ever does that to me... her and the guy will pay for it...
i don't care if it is west or even the moon... a mad man will do what he has to do and when he has to do it :P

Ya ali