[Avery Raskin]

Hi again…more photos from Ottawa with Andrew have been
added to the set. Please go here to view…

http://homepage.mac.com/araskin/

Cheers,

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Our illustrious webmaster is a little busy today so we have some
new files in a new location for you for now. We'll move them to
the main FEAT pages later on:

http://homepage.mac.com/araskin/

From the menu you can click through the photos from Ottawa,
Sabrina on CKNW yesterday and Geoff Plant on CKNW earlier
tonight…minus all the ads and other extraneous audio. From
any of the pages you can access the others in the text links at
the top of the page. From the menu you can click the little arrow
button to go to the page. Enjoy.

You need QuickTime Player for the audio files – if you don't have
it yet, it's a free download at:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Cheers,

Avery

[Avery Raskin]

Hi gang…I have posted pictures of Andrew K. in Ottawa…Please
feel free to peruse them at:

http://homepage.mac.com/araskin/PhotoAlbum14.html

[Avery Raskin]

I find myself in the rather strange position of having to defend
the NDP, since Cindy has implied that the Liberals were the
lesser of two evils when it comes to our children. Actually, while
neither of the predominant provincial parties has been any
friend to our children, the NDP were at least honest about it. It
was the NDP who told us straight out that it would be a cold day
in hell before they EVER did anything to help our children. And
they were true to their word as long as they were in power —
they never did anything to help our children. The Liberals, on
the other hand, made all kinds of promises and bent over
backwards to be our friends before the election. Ted Nebbeling
brought Jean and Bev and myself to lunch with the members so
they could see us clearly while he tabled our petition in the
house and said he would fight until our kids had equal access to
medical treatment. About a dozen other Liberal MLAs fell all over
themselves making promises to never rest until our kids got
proper access to the medical health system for Lovaas ABA
treatment. And then they were elected and suddenly stopped
taking our calls.

So the truth is we have no friends in the provincial government,
and it remains to be seen if we have any in the federal. Let's not
forget that the new Health minister is none other than our old
five-minute premiere Ujjal, who used to wear the NDP colors
before deciding he wanted to go federal. He was certainly not
our friend when he was Premier and likely won't be now either.

[Avery Raskin]

Yes, well, I'm up too, Nancy, but I sure don't have as much
energy as you right now ;-) I'm just sitting here wondering if our
friends in Victoria have sent their letters to all the Auton and
Anderson families yet, telling them their children are no longer
eligible for their "programs." Since most of the Auton case
originators now have children in double-digit ages, let alone 5
and under, I'm sure it will only be a matter of days or weeks
before we all get our "so sorry, but there's just not enough
money to go around" letters. I'm sure they will express plenty of
sympathy for our children and express their admiration of our
"roles as our children's advocates" before washing their hands of
our kids once again. We are unfortunately back to the bad old
days, when government can make pleasant noises and do
nothing. They will be pleasant until the current wave of publicity
dies, and then they will shove the knives in. I wish I could be
more optimistic, but I was there to hear all the promises Gordon
and his gang made, and they haven't lived up to one of them, so
it's very hard to take him at his word now.

And Nancy, thank you for having the energy to press on with the
battle, since the war is indeed back on.

Avery

[Author]

Posts