How appropriate to be posting my last blog before departing for France this afternoon, and to feel the powerful urge to use a French expression (or part of it, anyway) in my title for today. My sensation of déjà vu takes me back to exactly three years ago, August 2012. Just like I’m about to be, I was in France; and just like then, EC has decided to call its members to vote on new bylaws during the dog days of summer. I find it remarkable that the announcement of last week orders members to ‘get informed’ and ‘get engaged’, and then makes absolutely no effort to inform or engage. If you, dear member of EC, decide you want to follow EC’s instructions, you will have to wade into those 17 pages of bylaws (and don’t forget to read the four page ‘articles of continuance’). Given the level of apathy we’ve seen up until now, I would be willing to bet an umbrella drink that this bylaw vote is more likely to break number records at the bottom end of the voting spectrum than the top.
It’s not that I disagree with the bylaws, but I believe I’ve already made enough pointless effort at getting y’all to vote the last two times around. With not even one shred of meaningful information about what the bylaws contain in EC’s press release of last week, I’d have an awfully long post to write if I were to make up for that shortfall. I’ll help you out with one thing, however – the reason the bylaws failed a few months ago. If you recall, the provinces got their knickers in a right twist over the fact that the new bylaws would take away voting privileges for provincial affiliate members who were not also EC sport license holders. The provinces were not without justification at their outrage, but as I pointed out in my writings around that time, if no one votes anyway, the provinces were kind of fighting over a boyfriend they didn’t even want.
The new solution to this problem, if I’m reading the bylaws correctly, is to take away EVERYONE’s vote. Here is the relevant text:
‘EQUINE CANADA has three (3) categories of membership and each category of membership shall designate nine (9) qualified delegates to be Members to represent the membership category at meetings of Members:
(a) Category A – Equestrian Sports;
(b) Category B – Provincial and Territorial Sport Organizations; and
(c) Category C – National Equine Organizations.’
So there. If no one can agree on who gets what slice of birthday cake, no one shall have any at all. But again I return to my earlier point about lack of voter participation. I actually believe that EC members’ interests will be better served by not trying to get everyone to vote on every little thing that no one gives a flying hoot about. That is, of course, provided that the nine designates are volunteering their time and brain cells for the right purposes. Accountability, never a strong suit for our beloved national equestrian federation, will be tested to an unprecedented degree with such a system of representation. But, of course, no one cares anyway, right?
I was assured that this latest bylaw egg, lovingly incubated into existence, has received the thumbs’ up from sport, industry, and even those cantankerous provinces. Judging from the absence of red-ink ‘vote no!’ emails from said provinces, I am going to believe what I’ve been told. And if those three groups have given their stamp of approval to this latest proposed incarnation of EC’s governance, then I guess we should too. If we can be bothered, that is. You can, uh, vote (yawn) online for the next couple of weeks…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Or if you really can’t think of anything better to do with a travel piggy bank or a lovely day in September, you can vote in person at a meeting in Ottawa on September 26th. Wake me up when it’s all over.
In other, much more exciting news, I’m going to be blogging frequently over the next eight weeks from France and Spain. Chorizo, my beloved wing dog, has begged me for his own blog so that he can share awesome photos of his adventures and stories of how popular it is to be a dog named Chorizo in countries where they actually know what chorizo is. The hardest part of Chorizo’s trip (and ours) is right off the bat, when he will be wheeled away from us at the airport this afternoon, not to reappear until we arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport ten hours later. He might be low enough to fit under the seat in front of me, but about a foot of wiener would be sticking out front and back. So it’s a long snooze in steerage for him, and I’m already looking very forward to seeing his smiling face in Paris tomorrow.
A bientot, from a forward-looking wiener
