An election expense?

In these days of hypersensitivity about frivolous Municipal expenses and spurious election costs will anybody but 'chatterers' make any fuss about this - expensive municipal expenditures. Many questions abound:

• How much did it cost, a full page in NToday is usually well over the thousand mark, 
• If the pages were donated why? 
• How much stafftime was put together to make the Council look good?
• Who authorised such an effort?
• How will it be used by candidates and if it is will it count as an election expense?
• Perhaps this could be the first item of business for the newly formed "Election Accountability committee"?

Just another item for the taxpayers of Port Hope to comment on, the topic has already been buzzing on FaceBook!

The battle of the lists

Lists, used to be a place where jousts took place. Now the battle of the lists is who has the largest collection of names to use in the upcoming election between Brocanier and Partridge. On one side you have John Wright, who was handed to Broc by Peter Delanty (a well placed local liberal), the alleged Northumberland 'rainmaker' and on the other you have Martin Partridge who has been collecting lists for years so that he can fundraise for Liberals of all stripes.

The downside is that anybody who has been connected with the Liberals at any time in recent history will now be fair game for phone calls and other messages from both sides. So how will the general population be hit up by these candidates? Using google we find that Brocanier has a website here even has his own domain name 'gilbrocanier.ca' but no facebook page. Partridge has neither but has powerful allies who could create one in seconds - wait for it.

The BurdReport is told that online campaigning will be a way of reaching the electorate. It will be interesting to see just how "Obamamania" goes hyperlocal.

This just in - Mr. Brocanier will have an opponent in the election

Mr Martin Partridge has filed papers for the Mayor's position in this Fall's election. More to come but the MSM will be all over it tomorrow.

Apropos  to the comment above here is NToday's Ted Amsden's story about Martin and his platform. The BurdReport spoke to Mr Partridge and got the same spin. But the punch of his message is that the Town needs to be looked at in terms of 'value for taxes' and only fresh eyes can do that. After all Mr Brocanier has had four years to make an impact on the public perception that taxes are not high and he has appeared to fail as many taxpayers still do believe that their taxes are high.

Did you know........

....that Premier Dad was in Town today? The love of my life, out walking with her sister came upon a gaggle of bodyguards and an entourage at the 'Dutch Oven' this afternoon. Scanning the local MSM I find there is no mention of the event, [no forward work? ed] but NNews says it will have an exclusive interview up on the website, as of yet nothing.

There is a story about PremDad visiting the Quinte YMCA, but nothing about where else he was today. But if he hit the DO you can be sure it was after the dead white tories had left - they might have had a thing or two to say about his government. Interestingly enough Looo was with him amid a press release from John O'Toole the MPP from Durham that publicly castigated both McG and Loo for their activities with local health care. Ahah - the penny dropped, don't tell anybody you are coming and the liklihood of a demo about local health care is dead, cunning like a fox!

Sometimes Councils do dumb things

Port Hope Council often does things that puzzle the constituents. Buying a potentially liable piece of contaminated real estate for little return, carrying a 6 million dollar liability for the Police Service and now refusing to name a street after its most famous living persona - Farley Mowat.

As an interested observer the BurdReport is puzzled by a few things. One is a good reason why a street should not be named after him, the other is an explanation of the vote by the majority of Council and also the absence of a naming policy that would allow/disallow such a thing to happen.

I should suspect that Farley is embarrassed by all the hoo-hah surrouding this proposal, but if he was he should have told the public and the proponents that he wasn't interested, perhaps if he did the Council would then be offended by the snub. Still the episode was allowed to string out and now the answer is no. It's a good job that he and his wife choose to summer on the east Coast as he is missing this confusing saga.

Where's Rob Ford when you need him

Rob Ford is a bombastic populist who is obsessive about Council and public servants' salaries. he also lives and works in Toronto so why should we care about what he thinks? Because sometimes he may be right. In these days of public suffering and the impacts of high taxes anything that can set the public mood is well received. One of his siren calls is to freeze public salaries and for Councils to take a wage cut. Whether that is a correct thing to do is debatable, what is not is the sentiment that wage increases for one sector are not on. With the private sector being hammered with job losses and a poor recovery,  wage increases are just a pipe dream for most people.

So what do we find on the Council agenda tonight? A proposal to give the non-union staff a 2.5% increase in their wages. Is this setting the right example for restraint and if salaries are 75% of out municipal tax billl what is the tax impact? And more importantly as we come into the bargaining season is this the minimum raise to be given, or do we pick favourites and give the cops the 2.5% and then force the Public Works to accept half of that as is done most bargaining seasons.

A week of hot air

This week has been a puzzling one for pundits. On one hand you have Minister Clement holding tight to his decision to abolish the long form of the census. On the other you have just about every organised group in the Country and all those who rely on the data inside the long form complaining very loudly. Finally you have the Head Statisticion resigning in a very public manner saying not only can he not be part of a system that uses skewed data but complaining that he may be subordinate to the Minister but the information isn't.

The move to abolish the long form and replace it with a voluntary survey that will be sent to more homes will not provide reliable data and is based on dogma. That's the view of the opponents. Minister Clement says that the form is intrusive and punishes those who refuse to participate with jail terms. 

The move to abolish census forms is a conservative phenomenom that is being replicated by newly elected NeoCon governments. Posh-boy  Cameron even vows to abolish the census all together in five years. The reason is that because governments set public policy on statistics if you have no stats then you can freely enact silly but neo-con legislation. The classic example is the Harpercrits move to spend billions of our tax money on crime bills when crime is declining. Without the StatsCan figures nobody can contradict the mantra that crime is rising, when it is obviously not.

It is not certain if the Cons will change their minds, perhaps they won't until internal polling shows that is either a winner or a loser. All it does is expose the hamhanded political moves of our Prime Minister, enough of them will dent his reputation, and we can hardly wait for it to happen.

Just what is going here?

We have two prolific writers in Cobourg. One gets paid to do it and one just , well does it. Professor Robert Washburn, a former journalist for the Cobourg Daily Star and now a Professor of New Media Studies at Loyalist College writes a  biweekly opinion piece for the CDS   NorthumberlandToday. His style is to apply his journalistic skill to the problems of the day, usually municipal issues and point out faults in the system for those who may not be aware of the finer points of current issues.

The other guy, is a person who's been around the block many times in his career as a watchdog of Council, he even ran in the last election for Deputy Mayor against Gil Brocanier. But in his latest series of letters to the editor Manfred Schumann is causing local watchers to wonder just what is really going on. Now that he has finished flailing Gil Brocanier for whatever perceived sins of the day he may or may not have committed he has picked up on Washburn's columns. His latest rebuttal of the the last column is here and it follows the style of the last rebuttal of the previous column - a really milqutoaste and prosaic criticism of the column but the thrust of the rebuttal is simple - lay off the criticism of Council they are doing the best they can. Surprising support from a guy who has had nothing but scorn for some of the positions that Council has previously taken.

Perhaps as Councillor Turck of Port Hope said last week about an asinine comment made by Jeff Lees's comments about Council remuneration, "It must be an election year!'

Manfred has not made a decision about filing nomination papers yet, or if he has he hasn't made them public. Maybe he has decided after all these years, "You have to go along to get along!"

A Guest Post - one from Dan

Dan Christie

Two weeks ago I was on Vancouver Island -mostly to attend the Vancouver Island Music Festival halfway up-island near Courtnay/Comox. Comox of course is home to  a large Canadian Forces Base. I also spent ten days in Victoria where just across the harbour is another military base, Esquimalt, the west coast headquarters of Canada's navy.

While there is a stretch of road called The Veteran's Memorial Highway just north of Victoria, there doesn't seem to be anything as openly promoted as Ontario's Highway Of Heroes. As a matter of fact almost nothing about the military seems as openly promoted in B.C. as it is in Ontario. Sure, because it happens to be the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy, Wharf Street in Victoria is festooned with tasteful banners on lamp posts honouring the occassion.

But what I didn't see (and believe me by Day 3 I was actively looking) was a single "We Support The Troops" bumper sticker. Not a one.

Why is this? Does it have something to do with the euphamism 'The Left Coast'-the laid back attitude brought on by mountains, sea breezes and hehheh...good shit?

Or are we here in Ontario just more of a redneck persuasion -given to more overt displays of patriotism -especially really maudlin patriotism- than other parts  of the country? And if so, how much of a role do small town newspapers play in pushing that patriotism?

Psychologically, I already live in a small two-bedroom in James Bay. All that remains is to sell everything -including two snowblowers- and move.

Is this the end of the Rinaldi regime?

Lou Rinaldi has been coasting and it shows. A pathetic defence of Provincial decisions and a lacklustre performance in the recent Hospital cuts debate has not helped his image a a dynamic MPP, but what did?

With Lou's performance in the background the shocking announcement from Brighton's Mayor, Christine Herrington, that she has pulled her nomination papers from the 2010 election speculation will abound about her motives.

So are the two circumstances related? There has always been a rumour that CH wants to be more than a small town Mayor and she even participated in the Federal Liberal nomination contest.

Our money is on Lou announcing that he will not run again early next year, CH grabbing the brass ring and going for the election in 2011

While on Lib politics - on a trip downtown yesterday morning  bumped into candidate Kim Rudd. Complete with a guy following her around with a camcorder on a tripod she was gladhanding at the Farmers' Market. Wonder where Rick Norlock is these days, sitting pretty on his newly acquired pension he probably doesn't care much? As long as he carries his blackberry ready to receive the latest talking points from the propaganda centre, it doesn't matter where he is the message will still get out.

Charity Cannot Fix Canada's Affordable Housing crisis

Our esteemed host on the Burd Report today asked why Habitat for Humanity has become such a popular organization, crammed with A-list volunteers and boosters, along with government at all levels.

The answer becomes apparent when we think about how charitable groups operate and how they are different from government mandated social programs that are applied with standard eligibility criteria across the board.

All charities, particularly Habitat, continually promote their dedication to helping "deserving families". The ugly term "deserving children" is even heard, as if any child could be undeserving of basic needs. But the charity gets to decide what deserving means and exactly who meets that criteria. Contrast that with social programs which start from the premise that everyone who meets the well known financial criteria qualifies for the program.

The key difference is our social programs are based on our beliefs in equality and justice. If a need has been established and it is the government's mandate to meet that need, impartial standards are set to ensure fairness in the program's application. That doesn't solve the problem of sometimes lengthy waiting lists, but does guarantee everybody is treated the same.

But the charity has too much power that often goes unchallenged. Those rejected as "undeserving" are often not told why, and certainly don't have the appeal rights a rejected applicant to a government program enjoys. The charity calls all the shots.

That's a major reason charities are loved by right wing groups like the Fraser Institute. They point out in one of their books by Chris Sarlo that the beauty of charity is that one can withdraw support if one decides they don't like what the charity is doing. Like maybe helping someone the donor deems to be undeserving. United Way worries about that and encourages their agencies to keep donor happiness at the top of the pinnacle, even having a role in what kind of services the agencies can provide.

Our friends at the Fraser Insititute actually advocate that government get out of providing social programs altogether, and let charities take over completely. That way they can weed out the undeserving and ensure all help provided is based on undefined standards set by the privileged donor set.

This battle between the principles of charity and justice has been raging since government in civilised countries began making provisions for the disadvantaged, reducing the role of the church parrish in doling out bread and shelter. We need to make sure that justice wins, and that people understand the difference.

John Daly just can't get a break

Golfer John Daly, a flamboyant personality (he was wearing purple paisley pants yesterday), has had more downs than up finally might have achieved redemption from his personal demons yesterday with a low score at the British Open, but he was eclipsed by a much youger Irishman who tied the lowest score ever in a major golf event - nine under.

Here is a wonderful piece of writing about Daly and his performance from the Daily Express in the UK. One quote - "Calm and Daly have not been regular bedfellows during a volcanic career which has included four divorces, five PGA Tour bans and on-course fines totalling £65,000, but St Andrews has a beatific effect on the reformed rabble rouser."

John Daly is a classic example of "art imitating life". Who would have thought that when Kevin Costner made the movie "Tin Cup" that it could be based on a real person!

This story has many backstories

Iggy came to Town! This report from NNews tells of his visit, we will discuss the undercurrents.

• Iggy is on his summer tour and despite buses breaking down all he has to do is assemble the stamina needed to endure such a tour and be able to fend off boredom and to demonstrate enthusiasm for politics. He had better be a people person or stay away from open mics. Iggy needs more than a bus trip to sell himself, he needs to opt out of the coalition government he is part of. How many times have the Libs propped up the CRAP party in the last two years. How can he convince the voters that he is an alternative when he is an active part of Harper's coalition?
• It's about time that 'affordable housing' became a mainstay of public spending. Political scientists will tell you that good public policy includes public spending on public housing. We now know that "Council Estates" are a bad idea but mixed housing is good. There are ways to deliver good public housing and drive the economy as well. Iggy should be explaining how. In a comment this week the BR was asked to detail its ideas about the recovery and where public money should be spent. Housing, energy retrofits and grants to help homeowners to do the job should be a mainstay of the recovery. energy grants have been cancelled by Harper - why?
• Now for a bit of class warfare. Habitat for Humanity has quickly become an A-lister, one of the NGOs that government will readily support. Why? Is it because one of the first supporters was ex President Jimmy Carter - that definitely helped. In Northumberland HforH has grown rapidly and the BurdReport would suggest that one reason would be the kind of support it has garnered for the Board. HforH has worked hard to get the A list of Board members, ex-professionals and fully fledged Rotary members - good for them. But we would ask why do the elites add their weight to this NGO when others constantly look for members. Do I see a lineup for the Board on an equally successful and worthy NGO - Beyond the Blue Box? No, helping lower income people, or even working to support them is not fashionable.
• Kim Rudd has poked her head above the trenches! That's a story in itself. But where did she do it? At an Iggy event - braunnosing the Boss. Keeping a low profile and waiting for the Harpercrits to make a mistake and implode in an election is no way to build a profile. Flipping burgers at partisan BBQs won't gather any column inches so candidates have to get out, all candidates! We have three nominated opposition candidates in this riding and not a word from any of them so far in this, a two year election period.

"We have gained back all the jobs we have lost in the recession!"

That's the mantra being chanted by the government spinmeisters and Chamber of Commerce boosters. But is it true? when one looks at the latest Statscan tables it is not true in this region of the Country. Muskokas-Kawartha is still in pretty bad shape. The figures are shown below.

JUNE              2008          2010

workforce      186,600     179,800

labourforce    199,400     193,800

unemployed   12,800         14,000

Just wanted everybody to know the figures so that the next time you hear the mantra you can tell the chanter to go check the figures.

Could this happen here?

This post on a blog gives the inside scoop on an incident in Calgary where a SunMedia photo guy was involved in a punchup with the local constabulary when he was told to stop taking pics at a crime scene. The question is "could this happen on the Lakeshore?". According to local commenters the pic takers in this area have a pretty cozy relationship with the local guys in blue. Pete Fisher (NorthumberlandToday), an award winning lensman, has often been suspected of being in on busts as they ocurr, but what is wrong with that even if it does aggravate the competition? It's the pic that counts. Being a small area where we all know who the players are, it is hard to imagine such an altercation taking place between photogs/journos here. But it could where aggressive Police come into contact with aggressive pictakers. we should be so lucky that it doesn't after all I'd hate to see Ted (Amsden), or Peggy (McCarthy) or Pete facedown on the ground pinned by a cop just for doing their jobs. However with aggressive policing becoming the norm, witness the activity in Toronto lately (Israeli police training is suspected for the uniform response) how long will it be before that training will be implemented here? Not for a long time we hope.

A thought that will not go away

In the aftermath of the G20 debacle all sides are struggling to either setup a public enquiry or pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Polls show that the public view of what went on is mixed but few people wish to be overly critical of the State or its role in the operation of the Police. Toronto Council passed a motion thanking the Police and its Chief and they hope that all is now well.

But, is it? We have the Provincial Government and the Police telling us that the special conditions of the Publlic something act that allowed the searches and detainment of anybody within 5metres of the fence didn't exist. We had the fact that anybody who was deemed by the Police to be worthy of stopping was. Random search and forced self-identification was the norm and anybody in the area was forced to comply.

So how was this made possible? The Police now tell us that they have the power to search  anybody and anything "if they suspect a possible breach of the peace". So the searches are not random (that would be a Charter contravention) but lawfully executed whenever  the Police suspect something. The sooner these guys are hauled off to the the Supreme Court for a ruling the better.

Here is a video from"TRNN' The Real News Network an independent news organisation with international credibility that explains the background and issues of this problem - rights and freedoms

 Another  TRNN video with a 'rightwinger' from the "National Post" defending the actions of the situation, interesting comments and questions from the interviewer. here

Playing withthe taxpayers' money

It happens all the time, those without a lot of money become spendthrifts once they have their hands on the public till. Cobourg has the Frink and the Community Centre, both imposssible projects on their own but throw in public money and we watched the green stuff fly.

Port Hope is a very good example of "our eyes are bigger than our stomachs" syndrome. This small municipality already charges its homeowners a large sum of money to live there, some say the highest taxes are in PH, but with MPAC calculations comparitive tax rates are had to figure out. But high taxes don't seem to faze the good burghers and we have the image of a cashflow problem with the taxpayers paying for an 8million overdraft carrying charges. An (un)expected 9million over-run on the sewage treatment plant, a controversial buy of agricultural land for a business park and now the prospect of untold millions in future liability if the harbour is purchased for the 'bargain price' of $300K. Oh I forgot - if you add in the full implementation of the Police Services Board report on bringing the Service up to Provincial standards another 6million.

Yet not one word of this financial puzzle from either the incumbents or the candidates for this Fall's election. Can we presume that the citizens of PH either don't know or don't care? This we do know is that at least one member of Council is in favour of the harbour purchase even going so far as to suggest that PH buy its own dredger instead of using Cobourg's (They hate to pay for anything that comes from Cobourg!).

So with only the 'usual suspects' decrying the financial goings-on the BurdReport wonders what it will take to have a debate about this.

A very good question

As Blogspot continues to screw up the Blogosphere, despite being owned by Google and its multi-billions (you would have thought they might support some of their endeavours but I guess counting money is too important a task to split away from), a comment popped up that required more attention than it would get being buried in the comments log.

The gist of it was, "Ben can you tell us when the coordinator system came in and what was used prior to it?"  Good question.

The coordinator system came into being in 1985, when the Angus Read era came to Town. Major Angus Read, a retired Army Officer had settled in Cobourg after commanding the now closed Ordnance Depot on D'Arcy St. Fitting right into the social milieau of the cocktail set and the Rotary Club he, or others, decided that the then Mayor (who has recently died) Mac Lees was past it and needed to be replaced. In a move that I have never got to the bottom of Mac announced his retirement as Mayor after a couple of decades of public service and the Major won the election on a promise of bringing the Town into the 20th Century.

One of the first things he did, as he had a majority of new members, was to implant his style of top-down management. Making the clerk subordinate was easy, Bryan Baxter was the consummate civil servant and they produced a plan to eliminate the system of 'standing committees'. Cobourg Council used to meet every two weeks and in the other two weeks three standing committees used to meet. I can't remember the names of them but I do know that the incumbent councillors of the day used to proclaim, in their campaign literature, that they were the "Chairs" of this committee or that committee. Anyway all councillors had to be kept occupied as there more then than now. 

Back to Angus's 'efficiency drive' he had determined that items of business, usually planning and development pieces were taking too long in committees and slowing down the business of Council. A matrix was produced and it laid out who could talk to whom, who reported to whom and a councillor was given a 'portfolio' of responsibilities. Hence the coordinator system. All coordinators reported to Council about their activities to the committee of the whole, which was created to replace one of the regular Council meetings. An informal protocol was created, and it still exists today, where knowledge of each portfolio was hoarded by the coordinator and if questions were asked by another councillor it seemed to be resented by the portfolio holder and interpreted as interference. This attitude still persists today. Consequently when one approached one councillor for an answer to a general problem one would be directed to the guardian of the information. This also leads to a system of cronyism as most councillors want to achieve something, usually a staff item of little importance, votes must be cultivated so all councillors 'go along to get along'.

So the result is an atmosphere of a club of narrowly informed coordinators as a opposed to a group of well informed concillors. That's my version of the past folks please correct me if I am faulty in my institutional memory. all I know is that the present system is systemically disfunctional as far as democratic engagement goes but probably very efficient in policy delivery. But that's why we have pols and bureaucrats and never the twain should meet but as we see it has for many years as members of Council appear to be bureaucrats not politicians.

Blogger is screwing up

Readers will have trouble with comments today the google setup is not performing, i guess all they want to do is make money not a decent interface.

Sometimes it works other times not but I will try to publish them all one way or another

ben

This topic has been a nagging itch

After the G20 furore one would think that everyone would forget what happened. Unfortunately not for the dozen or so people still held in prison or the conspiracy theorists trying to expose the state's involvement in the riots . We do know that as well infiltrating the 'Black Bloc' the Police had inside plants some of them may have been 'agents-provocateurs' as they were in the Montreal riots a few years back. The investigators need help in identifying one such person.

By collecting video like this



Many questions are raised especially about the identity of the fellow allowed, by Police inaction, to jump all over the police car. This man was dressed in a snazzy flak jacket, not your normal Black Bloc issue tee-shirt and disappeared too easily into the crowd after his performance. Why wasn't he snatched up?

Anyway a blogger called "Pushed to the left and Loving it" has chronicled these problems and asks for help in identifying the man in black. Check out her website here for the story but be sure to click on her home link to get some great stuff.

Here is another horror story: let you be the judge of this one. Shouldn't have been there or wayward police?



OK here's a workaround the comment problem:
Merklin Muffley has left a new comment on your post "This topic has been a nagging itch":

|A blogger looking for answers, eh Ben. Kinda like after-the-fact citizen journalism. I wonder what a real journalist with real bona fides and a real hate on for anyone encroaching on their turf would think of that?

Maybe Christie Blatchford could let fly once again and in her own self-discrediting, ass-kissing way let us poor dummies in on what's REALLY going on out there.

(Ah....whadda I care. I'm enjoying the entirely agreeable climate of beautiful Victoria at the moment -on my way to Courtney for the VanIsle Music Fest this weekend. Nothing like a cold pint of Granville Island lager at The Bent Mast to straighten me out. Got to Victoria from Van by way of a DeHavilland Twin Otter piloted by some 19-year old kid from Glasgow with an accent so thick you couldn't understand a word he said -and my relatives are all in Paisley for chrissakes. Cheers all!)

Just what is going on here?

The local Hospice Associations are sending mixed messages, probably to the detriment of its volunteers. In a letter published in the NorthumberlandNews here, the Chair of the Campbellford Hospice extols the virtues of the organisation. Now we have a letter, sent to all the Staff and volunteers of the Hospice Associations see here on the LHIN website, proclaiming the process of "voluntary integration" of amalgamating the two Hospice Associations with the County's Community Care organisation.
Interestingly enough, on that webpage we have an announcement that 1% of the LHIN's funding will be devoted to 'community funded health providers'. so the other shoe drops and it's another Biron masterpiece. Shut down the hospital clinics - score a brownie point for an 'integration process' and attach the palliative care to the ongoing moves to the amalgamation of hospice care - score another one for an 'integration process' and now you have two big brownie points for extra hospital funds by outsourcing, closing and connecting.

Can we have it both ways?

A mighty fine comment:
"This site is packed top to bottom with complaints about Council, yet now it is discussing giving Council a pay raise."
This comment appeared as #25 in response to the post of yesterday wherein the BurdReport argued for some truth in the matter of Cobourg Council's workload and the attendant plea from Councillor Mutton to pay the council more money.
This site has faithfully chronicled the failings of the current Council and its members, as well as congratulating them from time to time on good stuff. But perhaps the last post, about the plea for more money failed to show one of the underlying complaints about the issue, the way that incumbents whine about those who consider the job should be paid more and self servingly play to ignorant electors. Jeff Lees in Port Hope did it this week by suggesting a pay freeze for Council, causing Councillor Turck to wryly observe, "It must be an election year!".
Another commenter made the point that perhaps, because all those who tell the public that they are serving the public want us to believe that then there should be no honorarium - let them serve for nothing. Another commenter made the point that because there are people on Council of independent financial means the pay should be set at $50,000 and then all other income be deducted from that - innovative.
The BurdReport's position is very clear - both the system of governing; the coordinator system, and the composition of Council is faulty. So here is the plan:

• Council should be restructured into committees of the whole for three of the four weeks in a four week cycle. Planning, Financial and Operating committees should meet weekly and feed all the issues into a Council meeting that meets every four weeks.
• The Councillors should be paid at the rate of $30.00 per hour for every hour spent on Cobourg council business. This is meant to compensate councillors giving up their evenings.
  
• The meetings should take place in the evenings to allow the public to attend, This comment was emailed to me, by a sitting member of Council, and is very telling,"Consider that to reduce staff overtime, advisory committee meetings are more and more being moved to day time or reduced in number. This directly impacts the ability of citizens to participate." Perhaps less staff should be assigned to meetings then the public and council could make their own decisions, after all aren't they supposed to set policy rather than take direction?
• The Mayor should be actively seeking new members of the public to sit on Council, most incumbents see newcomers as a threat to their existence.
• Term limits must be imposed, A successful councillor needs to regenerate, and I will promise you if the unseated councillor is introspective they will look back and see their faults.
• The Council term must be reduced to two terms of four years
  
• Elect half of the members of Council each election
• Elections must be held every other year

These suggestions may not satisfy those readers who complain that all everybody does is bitch and fail to make constructive criticism but they are a start!


The latest comments that Blogspot will not accept:

Wally Keeler has left a new comment on your post "Can we have it both ways?":
Wally Keeler disses the Northumberland News Report Card on Cobourg's town councillors.

More G20 opinion

Last week, on a CBC radio show it was revealed, by a protestor from Montreal, that she and many others were photographed by undercover police at the Toronto Bus Station as they dismounted. These mugshots were then used by snatch squads to pull suspects from the crowd by the police.
In a related story here, details of Police surveillance by the authorites in the UK are outlined and decried. It appears that the Police all over the world are using the same script and as such we must be aware of them, just as they must be aware that their efforts can be curbed. The County of Kent, again in the UK, has just been ordered by the courts to pay three protestors damages for unauthorised bag searches. It can be done here but first of all a reliable and impartial Inquiry must be convened. Bill Blair's kangeroo court will not suffice.

A wail from the inside

Councillor Mutton raised a legitimate concern on Monday evening and after a smidgeon of discussion was ruled out of order. She may have been out of order but the topic wasn't. Filed under the category of "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys" MM wanted to talk about a pay raise for Council. Noticing that the rest of her colleagues were earning fat pensions or married to a rich spouse she rightly asked, "What about a raise?" (paraphrased).

Ploughing old round is always tough and the last people you want to debate the topic of Council pay is the Council, for as we know each one of them will tell the public, "I don't want a raise - I would do it for nothing after all I am serving the public!" - Bollocks, each one of them is pandering to an ego or is one of the 10% of the population that likes going to meetings and opining, knowing that their opinion is being heard - they like the sound of their own voices. It is exhilerating to know that what you say is considered as important.

The problem with the present system is that there is a preponderence of the same kind of people sitting on council - retired white men who are superannuated. There are exceptions councillor Macdonald for instance was a househusband and in the past working people have served John Lindsay of the School Board and myself, who had an understanding employer. Working people are, and have been, few and far between when one looks at Council composition. One past Mayor told me that it cost her $26,000 a year just to replace her in her business when she was on Council business.

As a result this job is considered by ignorant people and the incumbents to be a part-time job. It may be, but part-time should still pay. Council members tell me that they can spend up to 20 hours a week in council duties, it should be noted that the Council meetings are only a small part of the job. Throw in dog-catching committees, police service boards and conservation authority meetings and it soon adds up.

So when the electorate looks at the elected Council after the election and mutters, "Is that all there is?' just remember there is one simple reason for this - good people want to be compensated.

Celebrating Canada Day

A Canada day rant!
Today's the day we collectively celebrate the country we live in. And as we chose it by default or purpose we must all like it here? Well I do but am perturbed by a couple of things that the Country has allowed to develop. These same concerns would be voiced if I lived in other western countries so Canada is not unique in these developments.
First of all let me define my version of Freedom. Simply put Freedom is the ability to live anywhere, behave within the bounds of decency and decorum, assemble anywhere on public property, not be subject to demands from authority to justify why I am where I am, not have to produce ID on demand and to be free from demands to open bags and be subject to search and seizure. Gee I guess I have just rambled on about the value of the Charter of Freedoms. What a wonderful document!
So why do we complain so much about these values? Because they are being eroded bit by bit and every time one of them gets chipped away the next one is at risk.
After three full days of a cacophony from the air waves about the behaviour of the Toronto Police at the G20 demos there are a couple of conclusions. One is that Proactive Policing should be examined. In other words can we allow the Police to charge into a crowd to 'snatch' suspects or do we allow the 'suspects' to put themselves into a position that proves conclusively that they are in fact perpetrators and them arest them. The other is to define just what basic rights we have. Are the bags we carry subject to random search or not. Can this basic freedom be abrogated by 'special conditions'? The classic example is that when we voluntarily go to concerts and ball games we offer our bags for search. But we also choose to be there in the first place. Walking on the sidewalk is no activity for a search or to submit to an ID check. Anecdotally I have been told, many times, that the local Police, when they stop young people at the dead of night that they are told to "empty your pockets" what justification is there for that? I am sure that the officer who demands it knows that the demand may be illegal but does it anyway knowing that few people will complain.
In this excellent essay, Murray Dobbin, writes that these events are part of a larger problem and that the Police activities are part of an effort to control the public not to contain them. In conclusion, without being dramatic all I can do is to quote Niemolle: "THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.........." - you know the rest!
So my message is be watchful and don't be afraid to speak against perceived injustice as you see it, we are allowed to do it - just don't be afraid to do it!

A postscript from another commentator here, it's about the orders, confusion and mayhem in Toronto.