Roger Benham Curriculum Vitae

I am an idealistic green who passionately believes in the importance of what we are doing. I very much believe in the protection of the environment for our grandchildren and of the most disadvantaged. I was a successful architectural consulting mechanical engineer (P.Eng.) in 1981 when I retired for a life in the backwoods in the Rockies and the Bulkley Valley. I've hand built two farms carved out of the raw aspen woodland. I now feel a powerful urge to do my duty as I have watched society from outside for so long. I am a landscape photographer. Together with my wife Jeannie, I sing and play guitar and keyboard at local music festivals and on local stages. I received an M.Sc. after a B.Sc. in Engineering Science from the University of Durham in England. I came to Canada in 1974 and became a citizen in 1980. I studied Greek Philosophy and Sufism. I am in the process of trying to restore my P.Eng. status so that I can advise people about the field of alternative energies.

Far too kind words from Judyth Mermelstein, which sure made me feel I've done something useful!

Hello all,

Though I am a "movement Green" rather than a "party Green" at this point, I applaud the efforts of outside-the-"hub" GPC members to put the party back on a competent, effective and *ethical* footing after the débacles of the period since the fall of 2003.

It is perhaps only natural that those who like the way the party has been run recently (as a privately-held company with some dubious principles and a policy of "cabinet secrecy" and illegitimate expulsions) would try to undermine the candidacy of Roger Benham for the position of Party Secretary, a position he has held for some time and acquitted more conscientiously than most who have held that position over the party's history.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that some members of the 2003-2004 Federal Council did their utmost to prevent the ballot by which Roger was elected to that position -- to the point of violating the party's own normal rules and practices in filling the position with an appointee, and of stonewalling for weeks while members pressed for the required mail-in ballot.

Once elected, and unlike what GPC members had come to expect from that Council, Roger began his term by issuing the several sets of detailed Council minutes (on both the Council list open to observers, and the discussion list for members) which had been unaccountably delayed by the interim appointee chosen by the "hub."

As those familiar with the process will know, Roger is correct in stating that the Secretary of an organization releases the minutes of a given meeting only after those who participated have had the opportunity to read them over and propose corrections and the body has formally voted to adopt the minutes as amended. It cannot have been easy for Roger to fulfill his duties as he wished, given that the Council on which he sat did indeed want to keep the membership on the "mushroom diet" to which Dan so colourfully alluded.

Personally, I can only speak about the period up to 2005 when I ceased receiving messages from the party lists (except the ones touting tax credits and asking for donations, and the media releases), Up to that point, however, Roger's English minutes (as complete as the sitting Council would permit) were provided quite promptly, whereas there was usually a delay of weeks for a much-abbreviated French version to be released by the Francophone Secretary whose sole responsibility was to provide the translation. Where the English minutes were delayed, a careful reading of them once issued usually provided clues to why they had been held back, such as the unwillingness to implement committee recommendations or the ongoing effort to privatize the party's finances into the hands of sitting Council members alone.

The reality is that there was nothing funny about the lack of transparency and accountability, or the treatment meted out by some of the "hub" to individual Council members who had been elected by the membership and felt their duty was to the members and the party as a whole, rather than to the small group of individuals exploiting the party as they saw fit. I think it is a testament to Roger's good sense and good nature that he remained to look after the membership's true interests despite the temptation to lose his temper and quit ... as I surely would have done if pressured as he must have been.

It would be kind to assume Erich Jacoby-Hawkins was merely misinformed when he blamed Roger for incompetence, inability to delegate, inability to use appropriate technology and so on. No such kindness applies to the group who have been attempting to remake the party in their own image the past few years -- they know exactly why they are trying to keep Roger from being re-elected by the 2006 ballot. It is my sincere hope that the truth will spread to all party members and ensure that the smear campaign does not succeed.

As for the rest of "The FreshStart Team," most of their names are familiar to me from discussions either within party channels or the GPC-members Yahoo group to which I was also subscribed until I left the party at the beginning of this year.

Catharine Johannson has also acquitted herself admirably as Manitoba representative. I am convinced Kathryn Holloway was really removed from Council by Council for trying to do the finance-related job she was elected for rather than for any wrongdoing on her part. Neil Sinclair served not only as Saskatchewan representative but also on the revenue-sharing committee whose recommendations meshed with the 2004 general meeting's resolution better than with the desires of the "hub." Constantine Kritsonis is a longtime Green who served the party well in previous functions, and I have no doubt he would do so again if elected. I don't know Jean Francois Pinel or Albert Sévigny (fellow-Montrealers) or Paula Boutis, Doug Anderson or Daryl Manning personally but from what I've seen of them via the Internet, they are good people who want the GPC to succeed on its real merits, not by manipulating the membership and the Canadian public. And every Canadian Green knows Elizabeth May's competence, dedication and persistence have served the cause better outside the party than most "party Greens" have ever done within it.

They are all good people and deserve a chance to sweep out the Augean Stable the GPC has become so that the principles it was founded and intended to uphold can govern it both internally and in its relations with the Canadian electorate. It is my sincere hope that their effort succeeds.

Sincerely,

Judyth Mermelstein

Montreal, QC

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I'm not sure my endorsement will cut much ice with those who believe the GPC did well to start acting just like all the "grey" parties, but I hope it will at least prompt a few people to look into the party's recent history and compare it to what a Green party could achieve in Canada if it focussed on the real goals instead of maximizing internal central control and minimizing member input and participation.Please keep me posted on your progress.

Regards,

Judyth

List of Nominators for me to be Secretary:

I do not know who actually got their nominations in on time but here is the list of those who said that they would:

Andy Shadrack (ex-BC GPC Organiser)
Gail Bowman (Andy's wife)
Stephen Kronstein (BC)
Catharine Johannson (Manitoba Representative)
Mike Nickerson (Ontario Representative)
Lynette Tremblay (Deputy Leader from Quebec)
Jeremy Stiles (PEI Representative)
Fiona Roe (Nfld and L Representative)

After the fact (as I could not reach him by e-mail) Raphael Theirrin said he would gladly have nominated me.

Kind Words from Others:

From: Andy Shadrack (ashadra@telus.net)
KasloJuly 3, 2006Roger Benham asked me to nominate him, and when I do it means that I endorse that person and believe that he or she can do the job. Roger is an independent thinker and a dissident, and I think that we should always elect someone to Federal Council who marches to the tune of a different drummer. That said, Roger is not strident with his dissidence.

I wish Becky Smit well and have actually invited her to sit on a panel at the Green Party national meeting in Ottawa entitled Running to Win. That said, Becky will still be my second choice, as Roger has been living his deep green values for a very long time and I believe it is essential that we elect at least one deep green to Federal Council.

Respectfully Submitted

Andy Shadrack

Andy Shadrack was the top Green Party candidate in BC in 1996, breaking 11%. He was also the top candidate in Canadian elections in 1997 and 2000, breaking 6% both times. In November 2005 he was elected Director for Area D, Regional District Central Kootenay, with 51% of the vote in a two way race with a 65% turnout. He was the BC Organizer for the GPC from October 2003 to November 2005, and also served as Legal Liaison to Elections Canada and as the Compliance Manager from December 2003 to March 2006.

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From Judyth Mermelstein:

It seems Hell has indeed frozen over -- I find myself in complete agreement with Markus Buchart about something!

Markus Buchart wrote:

>This message is in support of party secretary Roger Benham.>...

>Only an unsufferably biased person could say that RB doesn't take excellent minutes. You can tell that he has recourse to audio recordings of meetings because of the detail he records. I don't detect any 'spin' to his account of meetings. I've noticed that I often disagree with his votes at meetings (in fairness, I don't have accesss to the same information he does as a council member and might vote like he does if I did). But if RB has an interested position, it doesn't carry over to his minutes. Whatever one can say about the behaviour of the current Federal Council, its Secretary can't be faulted for faithfully recording what it discusses on the record. In fact, I'm sure there are at least a few people who wish Roger were less diligent.

JM: (Anyone bilingual enough should compare his work withwhat passes for the French version of the minutes!)

MB: The English minutes faithfully record each unconstitutional process adopted, every instance where rejection of an idea as inappropriate ledto its being reintroduced later when fewer objectors were present, and the general haphazardness by which facts are prevented from interferingwith the unwriten agenda. Such transparency and democracy as still existdespite the GPC's "inner circle" are largely to Roger Benham's credit.

JM: I don't know what Roger thinks personally about all the goings-on(though I could hazard some guesses based on his previously-expressedcommitment to the Global Green Charter and the party's adopted constitution and policies) but when he undertook to act as Secretary, he quite rightly set out to perform his duties with the meticulousness and fidelity the role requires.

MB went on:
>I sent a 'fan' letter to the GPC web team two weeks ago praising the minutes and their taker. I wrote that he really captures the sense of the debate in meetings well and that it must be an incredible amount of work to make the minutes that detailled. I'll bet it takes RB at least 2-3 hours for every hour of meeting time to write minutes that well.

JM comments: "At least" is right: probably a good deal longer.

MB:> My only comment to the web team was that the minutes are posted with too great a time lag, but I suspect that has nothing to do with RB and, even if it does, it's more important to have good minutes with a lag than bad minutes completed right away.

JM: Perhaps I should point out here that the minutes cannot be posted beforethey have been approved by Council as complete and correct. This is done at the meeting following the one covered, so there is automatically a time lag over which the Secretary has no control. In theory, this shouldbe no more than a month and less if Council meets sooner.

MB: >People should be criticized for what they do and don't do. Let's not dump on someone for a job well done like RB and his minute-taking. Such unfounded criticism makes his critics look a little nuts.
Markus Buchart
Winnipeg, Manitoba Thurs. Oct. 20/05

All dumping on the contents of the minutes should probably be directedto the Council itself through its Chair or to the Ombuds Committeedirectly. (Not that I think that would do any good...)

Judyth Mermelstein (GPC member no longer in good standing) Montreal, Quebec

Judyth later wrote: ... Anyway, I need hardly say that I greatly admire your patience and forbearance in dealing with the general chaos in Council, and that Ihope you plan to tell the inside story at some point in the future. Take good care of yourself, Roger. The GPC needs all the sanity it can get, and your continued presence can only be a good influence.

See Also:

http://gpcminutes.blogspot.com/

http://groups.msn.com/rogerbenhamphotography/

http://skeenagreenparty.150m.com/

Why I wanted to be Re-elected as Party Secretary
I tried to present to the membership in my meeting minutes in as unbiased a way as I could what Councillors individually said about ideas. Whenever they objected I either accepted their word for the error or I checked the recording I'd made on my computer to see the truth. I altered the minutes accordingly. I felt it was really important that members be given the opportunity to learn something about how Councillors behaved and what they said at meetings. Any member can attend a Council meeting but teleconferences are at the expense of the member and last for over two hours. Any member can go to the GPC website, find the index and so find the meeting minutes. I tried to thus enable members to almost be able to have attended the meeting. It was very obvious to me that those on the right wing of Council objected strongly to me doing this as they do not like seeing their words in print. Those on the left wing never objected which tells a story in itself.
I really wanted to be on an Elizabeth May lead Council. She is a wonderful asset to the GPC.

Since I was not re-elected, I'll have time to finish making the greenhouse just started when the above photograph was taken and I'll have a lot more time for gardening and making stuff to sell at my market stall in Smithers (Farmer's Market). But I'll miss the contact with Elizabeth May!

If nothing else, vote for her; she is far more important than I am!

My Rant about Money
Caring about individual members, very small riding memberships, tiny EDA's all became secondary to doing what the hub wanted, spending vast sums on the office, talking about borrowing ever greater sums because when spent during election periods, half would be returned to the GPC by Elections Canada afterwards and the GPC would generate so many more votes by spending that money that it would receive so much more $1.75/vote Elections Canada money that we'd easily repay such new debt. The EDA's are all aware that payment of debt must be done by the hub before any revenue is shared so in effect the hub borrowing money delays the hub having to give out revenue sharing to the EDA's. It does this on the dubious grounds that the hub generates votes which translate into more revenue for the EDA's. All along the thinking anyway refuses to admit that for every $400.00 donation by a taxpayer to the GPC, the rest of Canada's taxpayers (95% of them) did not vote for the GPC but are paying $300.00 of that money. Further, when the GPC spends a million dollars during an election and consequently receives back $500,000.00 from Elections Canada, it is again the 95% of Canadian taxpayers who did not vote for the GPC who are giving that money. I have campaigned in elections against this highly immoral misuse of the political financing system and for me to now support it would be disengenious. It ranks as bitterly as the 75% tax rebate on political contributions as opposed to (is it?) 17% tax rebate on charitable contributions. It is clear that Canadian politics values itself far more than caring for the poor/ starving/ homeless etc. I do my wife's taxes and it grates me seeing the relative values Canadian taxation puts on her contributions to my political campaigns as opposed to to what she gives to World Vision and Greenpeace. Personally a reversal would seem much more caring (i.e. were her contributions to World Vision rebated at 75% and to the GPC at 15%). The Canadian Government and people would be viewed more generously by the rest of the world especially if instead of those rebates, the government matched every dollar given to World Vision by citizens with $3.00 of Canadian money. I believe that it is really important to uphold moral values and this is one where we should be making a stand. As it is, we are doing just what the other major political parties are doing; it is not unreasonable to suppose that were we ever elected to government, we would similarly behave just like those other parties behave and take little regard to any of our promises. It is clear to me that Council has members who seek power and concern themselves far more about that than worrying about environmental degradation and global climate change. Consistently it was me who spoke about these things in Council with support from Mike Nickerson at times. The rest of Council wanted MP's elected and to govern. I believe that it is really important that the GPC be seen to be different. John Grogan, who ran for leadership in 2004, once proposed that we should give at least our first $1.75/vote money to feed the hungry. We would have generated massive press and public notice/favour had we done so. We still could give a proportion of it to charity. We could equally save 25% or 50% of all that federal money to spend entirely within an election period so that we do not have to borrow anything. Our vote received in 2006 hardly proved that our spending since 2004 had been justified in raising the popularity of the GPC with Canadian voters. Perhaps if we'd given the money to World Vision we'd have received far more votes.

GPC Council 2004

So this is the GPC Council in October 2004. Kate was "suspended" for probably telling the truth but too vehemently for Jim's liking in February 2005. Elio resigned when it became obvious that Jim was after him as well (he once raved about how Elio was unsuitable for Council because his voting record was so often in opposition to the rest of Council ... a reason if valid that I could have been removed easily). Dave F. left to go into a monastic type retreat. Ken left because he could not stand the nastiness. Julie left to become part of staff. Eventually Bruce left because he felt Council was not following its own rules and was bickering too much. We once thought Melanie was on the left wing and liable for "disposal" along with Catharine and I but her vehement pushing for Jim to be paid probably ensured that she be counted amongst the faithful. She votes in all directions and I gave up trying to understand her a long time ago. Oh that fellow on the bottom right was Dave S. who first introduced Council to the concept of governance. I expected to intensely dislike him but actually found myself respecting him. He fell out of favour with Jim within about six months of this photo. That's me in the front middle as I'd just set up the camera and they told me where to be. For a long time we carried on with many vacant positions but gradually these got filled though unhappily largely with Jim's choice appointees. Council seemed to move ever towards the right.

To tell you a little bit about myself, my life, my home.

So this is where I live, two pictures below of my self-built home 15kms into the "bush" from Telkwa, BC, with here a view of the Telkwa Mountains from Smithers where my wife's home is.

Below also is a picture of my wife and I on stage at the Kispiox Music Festival. I am a musician who plays keyboard, piano, guitar, mandola, recorder, dulcimer and dabbles on a few more. I have been performing solo and with my wife on stage at music festivals in North West BC for about ten years. I was a folk singer in the sixties and seventies in England. I have been composing music since I was eleven and have had several performances recently when I compose everything that I play on the spot.

I am (obviously from all the photos) a photographer selling cards and framed photos in Smithers and Telkwa. I also sell them, together with fair trade organic chocolate truffles, occasionally furniture and marmalade and chilli pickes, all of which I hand make, at the local farmers market in Smithers.

I was born in England (1947), educated in private (boarding) schools, graduated with a degree in Engineering Science from the University of Durham, obtained a master's degree in Environmental engineering from the Polytechnic of the South Bank in London, worked as a design contractor in London then emigrated to Canada in 1974. I became a P.Eng. working in architectural mechanical engineering, designing big buildings such as office towers including one in downtown Calgary, shopping centres (I worked on the concept design of the West Edmonton Mall) and hospitals. I became an expert in energy re-use, recovery and conservation. In 1980 I decided to drop-out and try living a life in the Rockies. I spent 10 years there building a homestead farm which I carved out of raw woodland. I moved out of the Rockies and spent a couple of years travelling before buying 160 acres of woodland East of Telkwa. Again I carved out a home which is an ongoing project. I do hug trees but I also possess now 5 (was 7) chainsaws and a bandsaw sawmill. I use aspen and cottonwood almost exclusively. I am always building something and as I write I'm building a 25' x 14' greenhouse at our Smithers home.

My favourite activities are walking in the mountains or in woodland along trails with my wife and making music. Unfortunately a fall off a building in 1988 has reduced this dramatically but we still do some. I love camping out alone with my wife in the wilderness or travelling and camping out away from it all as we go. I'm not a city person though I can manage in one.

Photos of Roger Benham's home "Woodmere Lodge" high above the Bulkley Valley floor East of Smithers BC.

Photos of Roger Benham and Jeannie Boyce on stage at Kispiox Music Festival 2004 and Roger Benham at home.


Commentary resulting from the Ottawa In-Person (face-to-face) meeting of the GPC Council, June 10th and 11th, 2006

I stress that the things that I say in this section are my opinions and not those of the GPC Council. I have felt the need to add this blog because it is almost impossible to state properly one's objections to Council Decisions with which one does not agree in the 10 to 20 seconds the Chair allows. Each Councillor speaks at the most twice, usually only once, about each issue debated and each time one speaks one is limited to one minute, sometimes less. A vote is called as a result with very little in depth argument or careful study of the issues and alternatives. I have several times stated that a vote should never be taken at the meeting but should be held over for several days allowing letters to be written properly stating arguments. Council will not do this.