Monthly Archives: October 2011

The news from this year's Commonwealth gathering of the colonies is joyful as they continue to put the final touches on plans for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee next year. The only other monarch to spend sixty years on the throne was that other famous hanger-on, Queen Victoria, whose reign lasted sixty three years and seven months. She died in 1901 at the age of 81, the same age Elizabeth will reach in the spring of her Jubilee year.

News media is focussing on how the change in succession rules adopted by the Commonwealth nations to allow first born females to take the throne instead of deferring to later born males, is being heralded as a victory for women and a sterling example of how the monarchy is adapting to the reality of equality of the sexes. While it's a sensible rule to change, it's not the rule that needs changing the most, and it's hard not to speculate that the entire scheme was designed mostly as a smokescreen so we won't notice their glaringly obvious failure to change the Big One.

Elizabeth, who took the throne at age 27, brought with her an heir apparent, young Prince Charles, who was already five years old. He will be celebrating his sixty fourth birthday during the Jubilee year, still waiting to take the throne he has spent his whole life preparing for. His only achievement to date has been his position as the longest serving heir apparent in British history. Have the monarchy tinkerers forgotten entirely about him in focusing on making succession simpler for the unborn children of his son and our next heir-apparent, William?

This situation evokes similarities to that of King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, who was sixty when his mother finally vacated the throne by dying on it in 1901. His reign was short lived as he died himself in 1910, as the famous Victorian Era faded and transformed into modern life. No shy prince, he's said to have bedded some fifty five women over his lifetime and was known to revel in the high life of the aristocracy and wealthy sophisticates.

Charles really hasn't been much different. While he had only one big scandal, that of Camilla, who may or may not be a descendant of a child fathered secretly by then Prince Edward, it was a doozie that had huge consequences and brought the Royal Family down off their pedestal rather dramatically. Today he seems to be more settled, just waiting around for his turn. His grandmother, the Queen Mum, lived to be over one hundred, and his mother, Elizabeth, looks perky and healthy as all get-out at eighty. How long will she last, he must wonder at least sometimes.

In the past, monarchs hanging around well past their "best before" date likely wasn't much of a problem. If not killed in battle, or be-headed by some greedy relative, they'd die naturally in what we'd call their middle age, but that was before modern medicine and better nutrition and health developed. Here in the New Millenium, we need a rule about retirement for the monarchy. Sixty years is enough, I say throw them one hell of a party for their Diamond Jubilee, then give them a gold watch and send them off to Balmoral to spend their days fishing for salmon. If all the advisors and minions are too intimidated to suggest this to the Queen, then she needs to take the lead and make the announcement herself, handing over her crown and sceptre to her son now, before he starts collecting his Old Age Pension. It's the only polite thing to do.

Following news that an OPP constable was tasered by his sergeant in "an incident" October 14th at an Alliston detachment, OPP Association President Jim Christie declares that "you  really don't want to encourage this type of performance management".

Ya think?

With Port Hope's water supply cut by at least half and no end in sight for a week or more, town officials must be going full tilt trying to get the pumps working again. For families with young kids, sick family members, and staff and residents of nursing homes especially, it will be no small task to run households with that most basic of utilities curtailed, and many businesses will be hard pressed to continue operations too.

With this just being the latest in the Hill Town's municipal misadventures, you'd think Mayor Linda Thompson would be tripping over herself offering her sincere apologies to town residents, along with a heaping side dish of compassion, understanding and her personal assurances that everything possible will be done to rectify the problem quickly. You'd think.

But no, not our regal Linda Thompson. According to Val MacDonald's story in NToday, instead she went to a press conference and threatened people with complete cut off of their water if they used so much as a single drop more than whatever she and her minions deem is the correct allotment of the stuff. Incredibly thoughtless, and equally incredible insensitivity toward the very people who trusted her with the job of overseeing the well being of their community. It's bad enough that the first pump has been broken since mid-September, but with the second one down now for the same reason, this is no time to be imperial.

From long experience as an advocate I know a landlord can't cut off vital services without immediate action from the Province's Enforcement Unit of the Ministry of Housing. On whose authority can a municipality do it? What will the Mayor do, send out inspectors to stare at water meters to see if they're piling up too many litres? How many staff will that take? Maybe they'll set up an anonymous tip line, like the odious Crimestoppers program only for water.

It's unbelievable that the municipal leader of our Port Hope, the gem that wishes to sparkle brighter, thinks bullying and threatening town residents with arbitrary denial of a vital service in a time of crisis is the appropriate thing to do. If she wants to encourage co-operation, this really isn't the way to inspire it. Maybe she needs a time-out in the corner to think about that, I'm sure lots of folks in that town are wondering too.

Always looking to find humour in any of our local municipalities' activities, this latest from Councillor Rick Austin in Port Hope satisfies that mission well. In Northumberland Today's endless series of reports from various Councils, Mr. Austin is boasting now about the award recently given to their Finance Department. Called the "Diamond Municipal Solutions Achievement Award", the honour is bestowed "in recognition of their perseverance and strength of vision, use of technology and dedication to delivering a successful implementation project".

Quite a mouthful, and impressive, until it's revealed that the award is actually for installing a new software system to update financial records, and was bestowed by the same software company that sold the stuff to Port Hope in the first place. I guess it's true that one hand washes the other, but we probably weren't supposed to notice the connection between the supplier and the award.

Now, as memory serves, it was a little over a year ago that Port Hopers were aghast to discover a sizeable amount of money had gone missing somewhere in the municipal coffers, and no clear explanation was ever offered to explain it even though an election was looming. There were those embarrassing irregularities like dredging bills that tripled in size while no staff thought to bother Council by telling them about it. That revelation cost someone his job as a scapegoat for the elected officials' dismal failure to keep tabs on the budget they're accountable to manage. Then there's the alleged back-room deals with Cameco over the Central Pier buildings, a story that hasn't ended yet.

But never mind, it's all good. The staff has learned to operate a new computer system, and surely that alone is enough to overcome the bad smell that often emanates from the corridors of power in Port Hope. Now that's news!

A Big Bad Boss:  The Municipality of Brighton is being dragged into the 21st Century by it's new leader – Mark Walas. A local businessman who is younger than the Brighton demographic is now applying  principles of the marketplace in his approaches to municipal administration. Cleaning house at the top by removing longterm employees and musing about privatisation has had one result – Brighton now has a Union. The public employees – a very conservative lot – have decided to join CUPE. The sleeping giant has woken up and signed Union cards. This is not new news as it happened during the last few months but what is noteworthy is that this is the second successful Union application in three years in Northumberland amongst very anti-union employees.

Mayor Mark Coombs, in Cramahe Twp., with his meddlesome entries into the workforce and apparent favouritism to former employees also suffered the same fate – his employees joined a Union. Just goes to show that the best organiser is still the same one – a Bad Boss! Given the workforce tensions of today and the silly rantings of pro-business types who achieve power and start to muse about "efficiencies" is it any wonder that threatened employees turn to a Union to sort things out?

Quite frankly we at the BR think these moves are great and support all Bad Bosses, let`s have more of them!

Rumours have been circulating for awhile that the proposal to widen Highway Two, allowing for an extra lane in each direction will include roundabouts, but it was still a shock to hear that three of the stupid things are being contemplated along that short stretch of highway. Not only do the experts want to plonk one down at the edge of both Cobourg and Port Hope, they want one at Theatre Road too. These will defeat the purpose of road widening entirely as drivers will face a slower, not faster commute between towns.

With a public meeting coming up next Tuesday at the County offices, at least we have a chance to oppose the idea. First off, I'm not a fan of roundabouts. I've lived in two Canadian cities afflicted with them, Victoria and Edmonton, and never found anyone with a single good word to say on their behalf. Now we have two of them in Cobourg, on D'arcy Street, where they may do a marvellous job of slowing down traffic, but serve no other purpose except annoying people who have somewhere to go and would prefer a direct route to get there.

While at least the experts are admitting roundabouts will slow traffic, they have failed to tell us why they want to do that. There may be a few seniors who prefer to drive slowly, but the vast majority of us just want to get where we're going as quickly and safely as possible, and the County should be trying to meet that need, not thwart it. Interesting to see in the Kitchener Waterloo Record today that their regional council is pondering how to fix their latest roundabout, which has racked up 26 collisions since opening in August. This particular roundabout is in an urban area, where they are more appropriate, just imagine how much mayhem could be created at Theatre Road where motorists will be forced to slow down drastically to navigate the useless and completely unnecessary intersection.

The sharp-eyed Depuy Mayor of Hamilton Township, Isobel Hie, has already made comment about the cost, at $750,000 for each one, and we can only hope the other penny pinching rural County Councillors will see sense and ditch this stupid and counter-productive plan. What is needed here is a double lane road similar to what exists between Oshawa and Bowmanville, one designed to quickly and safely move people between the two cities.

It's not called a highway for nothing; turning it into some sort of fanciful "culturally attractive" idyllic route just makes no sense with the thousands of trips people take on it every week. They just want to get there, no muss, no fuss, and no delays either. It's time we got our way for a change. Don't forget to show up at the County Open House next Tuesday, October 25th, from 5 to 7 pm, and tell them what you think of their pie-in-the-sky plans to turn every trip between our two major towns into an even worse travel nightmare than it is now.

Last week a baby faced MP named Russ Hiebert, representative for South Surrey, Whiterock and Cloverdale, B.C. held a press conference in Ottawa to talk about his very own private member's bill, C-317, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act. The purpose of this bill is to compel unions to file a set of financial statements yearly to the government which will be posted on the Internet for all to see. At least that's what he's saying, that this is just an extension of their Accountability Act to ensure public institutions are accountable to the public. Just routine, nothing to worry about, move along.

It's unclear just how the determination that unions are public institutions was made, but his press release says something about how unions provide "public benefits" and therefore public disclosure is required. Heibert's statement claims that it is "a bill to provide for the financial disclosure of how these public benefits are used". That seems like a weak excuse made up to justify what many expect to be a relentless assault on unions on all fronts, financial and otherwise. With the tory government's noses stuck firmly into the negotiations of three different unions in the last six months, that seems closer to the truth. They sure don't like those third party election ads paid for by unions and coalitions and they are out to stop them, no doubt about that. Ditto for the union movement's habit of spending on social justice issues and organizations that oppose their ideology. In fact, plain old fashioned union busting is what this is all about, and this move is just the beginning.

Canadian Labour Congress head Ken Georgetti put out a routine back-at-ya press release of his own but downplayed the threat behind it, saying just that it was an attempt to bully unions and distract people from the real economic issues Canadians are facing. He either doesn't see the big picture here or is downplaying it for now while the CLC waits to see what happens when the Bill comes up for debate. Georgetti did point out that union members have the right to examine their union's books already, the numbers aren't kept secret from them, and decisions on how and where to spend their cash are made democratically by each union's membership. Since every union is made up of only those qualified members who pay dues to the organization, and the benefits are paid out to those members, it's hard to see how a union is a public institution. Sounds more like a private club than anything else.  

Private Member's bills usually go nowhere, but this is not just any MP proposing it. Hiebert got elected in 2004 and is now re-elected for the fourth time since then. Since taking his seat he has worked on many high profile files within government; for Information, Privacy and Ethics where he played a leading role in the Mulroney/Schreiber hearings; US/Canadian border issues like trade and security; Safe Streets alongside Jim Flaherty, has served as Parliamentary Secretary in the Defence Department as well as Intergovernmental Affairs, worked in Finance and Human Rights and is a big shot in the Parliamentary Commonwealth Association. He's an up and coming star who's clearly being mentored and educated by the Inner Circle. He's perfect too, fresh faced, with wife and four "lovely children" according to his website. In his spare time he likes to golf, go fishing, and scuba dive. He's gung ho on traditional marriage and hard on crime. At age 42 this year, he's just starting to gather steam, and politicians like to have lawyers like him around to make sure they don't step unwittingly into quick sand.

Just how far this Bill will go is anyone's guess right now, but one thing we can be sure of is that it's just another salvo in the government's war against working people and unions.

Here it is, early Monday morning with a promise of some sun at day time. This scribe has been inflicted with a sudden and acute case of severely f**ked up back, with no pain meds in sight, unless we count my efforts at self medication which won't be described here. Suffice to say when it hurts too much to sit at the computer not much gets done. Even reading the news of the day is painful and concentration is utterly shot.

However, the Occupy Wall Street Day of Action, if I may call it that, has launched what just might be the Great Awakening of the sheep across North America. With over twenty events in Canada alone, worldwide the response has been tremendous and isn't likely to fade away anytime soon.

I figure, in my pain racked state, that there are three responses to the Occupation. First are the ones who love it, relish it, and are eager to keep the momentum going; then the ones who say they hate it and don't undestand what the flap is all about. Finally, the sheep who have been wakened up. They don't yet know what it's about but they want to find out. They know something is wrong, seriously wrong, and they are open to finding out what it is and how they can fight back.

Call me an old shit disturber, but it seems to this old girl that rising up to action is the only way the People have ever triumphed. Whether it's nice ladies chaining themselves to lamposts to win the vote or black Americans refusing to sit at the back of the bus, nothing less is required for real change to happen.

The world is at a vital cross-road right now. Our population just hit seven billion, and those who aren't doomed to starvation want to live like us here in our North American paradise, where food and water are plentiful and we can waste as much as we want, indulge our every desire for material comforts. Our challenges are immense and need urgent attention. If these events serve to awaken Joe and Jane Citizen to the cruel reality about to befall us, and give them the will to stand up and oppose those who would enslave us, then let's go for it. We can't afford to be passive observers anymore.