Municipal Campaign Reform

Campaign Reform is usually spoken about in America where huge money is raised, extorted, solicited and cajoled to and from candidates and donors to political campaigns. A move in Toronto might spark reform all over Ontario but don't bet on it happening here. A major part of the reforms that Toronto is discussing is the banning of donations from Corporations and Unions. Provincial reform now limits donations from those sources to a maximum of $750 to an individual and a total of $5,000 during a campaign to all candidates, from the same donor. If banning corporate/union donations ever took place here no candidate could afford to run. In every municipal election that I have ever seen, every financial report filed six months after the election has been shown that donations from individuals have been as scarce as hen's teeth. Almost all of the candidates declaring donations revealed that the sources were local developers. In fact it was so bad, a few years back, that one particular development company donated substantial sums to incumbents and none to newcomers. It was probably just a coincidence that this particular developer had a planning application before the incumbents which needed to be voted on just before the election took place. The public only found out about it six months later when the incumbents were re-elected and the developer got his planning permission. When asked about the linkage, one incumbent muttered, "It's not illegal to take donations so I did!"
This Cobourg Council, just like every other small town entity will be dragged kicking and screaming into campaig reform, because the status quo is mighty fine for them. Nobody has ever spent the maximum amount allowed and nobody ever queries where the money has come from. After all the donations do not have to be declared until six months after the election.
In fact them only piece of meaningful election reform will never happen here because the move would be too transparent. I refer to the notion of declaring donations within 30 days of receiving them. Imagine going to the election booth knowing just who was bankrolling a candidate, an amazing piece of knowledge. Never happen!

The chickens have come to roost

Port Hope Council really has a problem that has to settled very shortly. The issue of the facilities that house the Port Hope Police will not go away this time nor can it be put off any longer. The PHP need a new building and in the light of potential inadequacy reports from the province need a new home right away. A newly released report quotes a consultant as saying a total cost of $6.21 million, and that doesn't include the cost of any land is needed to build a facility to Provincial standards. Two reports were presented to the PSB: in addition to the facilities report thare was a report that outlined the expenditures for a new communications system - $1.6 million.
So if the PH PSB votes to go ahead with an independent police service renewal program the taxpayers of Port Hope will pay for it when Port Hope Council votes to approve the Police budget. A total of $7.81 million over the next ten years with the majority of that upfront for a building program. Just how long the province will allow the PSB to operate under inadequate standards is another question.

Crunchtime is here. What will Port Hopers do? Especially when the Ward 2 residents have no love for the urban Ward 1 force, they prefer the OPP.

A lively three way debate. The OPP boosters in the former Township (Ward 2) haven't forgotten the loss of the proposed shift to the County OPP, the Port Hope Chauvinists who will not consider anything other than a home-grown solution and the pragmatists who will look at anything that will save money and makes sense (even a collaboration with Cobourg).

Guest Post

Deb O'Connor

LAWYERS: FORCE FOR GOOD OR EVIL?
First off, let's be clear that I am not a lawyer, but I worked in a legal environment long enough to have an informed, but informal opinion, of the genre. Second, the lawyers I came to know and respect worked for Legal Aid in the clinic system, so they have made a choice to work exclusively for the disadvantaged. While I don't know it for a fact, I suspect these are a different breed than the Bay Street shark variety.

But one thing most lawyers have in common is their adherence to the Law, and to their Rules of Professional Conduct. Make no mistake, lawyers are a distinct sub-set of the human species, and their peculiarities set them apart from the rest of us. When they rattle on about Conflict of Interest and other legalities that make little sense to mere humans, they really mean it! Nothing matters more, in fact, and the only thing they fear is the Law Society of Upper Canada, which wields a big stick.

They understand there can be a huge difference between Justice and Law, the former being what society aspires to, and the latter what we actually have. No amount of teeth grinding or wishful thinking can make the two the same, although as laws change, the line is always blurred. Those lawyers unwilling to accept that, or simply wanting to change it, often enter politics where our laws originate.

Lawyers don't generally see their clients as people; they just represent whatever legal issue they are pursuing. Lawyer wear blinders in that regard; they are only interested in the facts of the issue and how to prevail, not in the client's personal life problems. What can sometimes seem like coldness and disinterest is simply a focused lawyer doing their job, which they clearly see as solving the legal problem in front of them.

What lawyers often have, in my experience, is a wicked sense of humour. Not generally shared among outsiders, it's their own personal safety valve to stave off the effects of work stress. Believe it or not, lawyers can be a veritable barrel of fun given the right occasion and enough good scotch.

But would you want a lawyer in your own family? They can also be royal pains in the butt, especially when they insist on pointing out the Law and its ramifications. And, they stubbornly refuse to give legal advice in areas of the law they don't practise, so your real estate lawyer cousin will not provide advice on your divorce no matter how many times you ask.

Good or evil? Depends on who you ask, and who the lawyer is! But even if you hate the breed, most of us can agree anarchy is not a reasonable alternative, and that's what we would have without the Law and lawyers to navigate them.

Welcome to the new readers

Welcome to the BurdReport, I am repeating this as a story, in the NNews, mentioned the BurdReport and published a link.

For those who haven't been here before please click on all the links, especially the archives on the left. I have been at this a long while and there's plenty of content. I write about anything that strikes my fancy, especially local news. You will get both sides of an issue and probably an analytical opinion to boot and the chance to make an instant comment.

And so it goes on

To my astonishment the Norlock story and his crown for being the Champion leafleteer is marching on., and the election approaches. To this end Party PR is flooding in.This press release has come in, and before the Ruddites get shirty about not having the same privilege I will print all that comes in. The Ruddites do not have the BurdReport on their media list so we don't their pearls of wisdom - send 'em in it gets printed.

The HST is an issue that crosses Provincial boundaries, the Feds have to approve the HST bribe money, consequently Mr Norlock is on the hot seat as he takes orders from Harper that conflicts with "Little Mike" Hudak's campaign against the HST.

click on the image to enlarge

A question for the Cramahe watchers

Bylaw Officer Jim Harris appears to be taking it on the chin, producing reports that Council doesn't either like or take much notice of. His latest, a treatise on the legality of a patio fence at the Queen's hotel, appears to have produced an interesting Council meeting, to say the least. Bob Owen, of Cramahe Now reports that Mr Harris introduced his report about the option and legality of a year round fence around the patio at a Council meeting. The owner of the fence, Councillor Tim Gilligan Jr (he of baseball bat fame) promptly declared a conflict of interest and then moved to the delegation table and debated the issue with Council. A most innovative use of the C of I regulations.
The upshot was that once again Cramahe Council put the boots to a report produced by Mr Harris, a previous one being the Farmers' Market bylaw controversy, now what? Will Marc "quick draw. I can fire you" Coombs get rid of this officious man, just as he has removed all of the people who displease him. Remember Lee Dekeyser, Ken Wood and other minions of the Township?

The HST - what do we know about it?

OK this is from a non-economist so don't get wound up about the numbers just critique the reasoning. We are going to get a new tax and people will get tax rebates and business will get a lower corporate tax rate. This where it gets sticky. Consumers pay more actual cash but will get tax rebates (up to $1,000 cheque in the mail) and the promise of more jobs from a more efficient business sector. The business advantages are becoming quite clear, they will get a lower tax rate and relief from paying tax on items purchased for the business. The HST is widely seen as a contributor to making businesses more competitive because it does not tax businesses' purchases, including many capital items, that were subject to the old retail sales tax. If this is true then that help for business is good. What isn't good is the lowered corporate tax. Corporate taxes are paid on net income, just like personal tax. You reach the net by deducting expenses from the gross income. The more allowable expenses there are will determine the amount of net income. The rest is profit. Profit can be used in many ways but is usually taken out of the business by the owners. So, in my reckoning if a business owner has profit and don't forget that there is a high amount of net income that is not taxable before hitting the threshold, it's all gravy. Why are we making it easier for a business owner to cut his costs (and increase productivity) - good and allowing the owner to keep more profit - bad?

People with hurt feelings, please line up

Are there any more groups out there that need apologies? If so get in line because there will always be craven, grovelling and vote-seeking ploiticians willing to utter any apology necessary. Today it was the Australians apologising for accepting thousands of kids, who would have starved, and the British PM will follow suit next month (Extracting the most political mileage from the situation Gordon Brown announced he will apologise next month!). As readers may deduce from the words today I have little truck or trade with political apologies. They are a political device that works for Pols but not people. If Pols want to apologise for their transgressions why don't they apologise for not fixing Society's ills. The 30 odd billion spent on the war in Afghanistan could have paid for an expanded heath care sytem an unemployment relief system that maintains families and a host of other remedies to lift us from this man-made recession.

Why I love the CBC and hate it too!

The CBC is a charm, a wonderful experience. If you don't think so go to the website and download the Remembrance Day podcast for the Vinyl Cafe, as an example. Stewart McLean's readings of submitted recollections were dreadfully funny, on topic and very moving and not a tale of battles either. But the network drives me nuts. As with every other radio station in the Country it is really only working half the time, the other half of the day is a repeat of the daily stuff. The other bane is that when events happen every program in the network has to have a story . Consequently, as an example, the Berlin Wall commemoration was pounded to death by every producer in Front St. this week . Driving down the 401, in the middle of the night is a very boring occupation. Miles of miles of white line watching is only relieved by what you hear on the radio. There are five different wavelengths between Toronto and Montreal. After punching the frequencies into the presets you can get seamless broadcasts. But if you listen during the day you have nothing to listen to at night. So love the content hate the repeats.

Sunday #3

Driving down King St, this morning I noticed a plethora of shiny stainless steel waste bins. There are 15, in my count, placed on both sides of King St between McGill and Spring St. I also noticed that there is no advertising on any of the bins. This is a wonderful chance for the owners of the bins to accrue some public acceptance of these shiny montrosities. They could ask local artists to display their work. The bins are not producing one penny of ad revenue now, they should get us on their side by offering the space to local artists.