 By Pepper Parr
June 10, 10, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It could not have come at a better time for the north Burlington residents who are looking forward to a second day in court where they hope what they see as an errant, illegal land fill operation finally have the boots put to it.
The Gazette has followed this story since we first got word of the truck rumbling up and down Appleby Line with landfill from quite where no one knew.
Three notices of libel during which we were given an opportunity to retract what we had published, notices to two other north Burlington residents as well and then finally a Statement of Claim from the Burlington Air Park Inc., that we had damaged their reputations and needed to be punished to the tune of $100,000 by way of exemplary damages, And this isn`t over yet.
CBC National News has picked up the story which will broadcast this evening on the national network. The following is a transcript of what the CBC will run.
Rural Ontario residents fear contents of soil dumped near their properties
Anger over some landowners accepting millions of dollars worth of soil dug up in Toronto
Jun 10, 2014 11:43 AM ET
Marnie Luke, CBC News
Residents living in rural communities near Toronto are demanding to know what’s in the thousands of truckloads of soil being dumped on property near them.
 Barbara Sheldon’s farmland is located on the edge of Burlington, Ont., and is now walled in by a three-storey berm of dirt brought in by her neighbour, who owns the small Burlington Executive Airport next door.
She is worried about what might be in the muddy mix.
“We’re sitting ducks waiting for the contaminants to leach,” she said.
Sheldon told CBC’s Diana Swain that anyone in the country could face the same problem.
“They could lose everything. That is what happened to me. I lost everything,” she said.
“I’ve lost my property value. For five years I’ve lost the use of my land, I’ve lost the use of my home. I mean, from sun up to sun down and sometimes at night and on weekends we’re talking back-up beepers, we’re talking about dump trucks surrounding me,” Sheldon said.
Need for places to dump dirt will increase
Rural residents are angry that some landowners are taking in millions of dollars worth of soil dug up from Toronto-area construction sites with little oversight. The City of Toronto estimates nearly four million cubic metres of soil will be dug up in the next 10 years for Toronto water and transit projects alone.
With more and more soil being displaced to make room for condos, transit, Pan Am Games venues and other urban development projects, the need for places to dump that dirt is only going to increase.
Some municipalities have bylaws about using private property for landfill, but rules around soil testing and the amount of dirt that can be dumped are muddy.
Ontario environmental commissioner Gord Miller said it’s time for tougher rules as well as clarification on who has jurisdiction.
“We don’t have security on piles, on areas where we know there is contaminated soil … and it can be removed and sort of mixed in and how would we know? So there is legitimate concern when large volumes of soil are being deposited in rural areas with very little checking,” he said.
‘Disingenuously raising concerns’
Sheldon said every level of government she contacted for help since the dumping began five years ago said it wasn’t their responsibility.
 Court documents obtained by CBC News show Vince Rossi, owner of the Burlington Executive Airport, earned more than $855,000 accepting fill at the Burlington airport between the years 2011 to 2013.
In a statement to CBC News, Rossi accused his neighbours of “disingenuously raising environmental concerns.”
Rossi said the Ministry of the Environment has not found a problem with the fill he is using.
He also said that municipal bylaws don’t apply to his property.
“As for the issue of jurisdiction, our view is that only Transport Canada has a say over the nation’s airports,” he wrote.
The City of Burlington took the airport to court last year and got the dumping stopped. An appeal of that decision will be heard on June 11.
Similar disputes are playing out in other rural communities, like New Tecumseth in Simcoe County, which sits on the environmentally protected Oak Ridges Moraine about an hour north of Toronto.
A caravan of trucks began dumping dirt on the local air strip there four years ago, and concerned residents say they haven’t been able to get answers about what’s in the soil or the potential impact to well water.
Voluntary guidelines
Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment issued voluntary industry guidelines last year on testing and disposing of soil. But a report by the City of Toronto’s chief planner raises concerns that the guidelines do not deal with excess soil moved across jurisdictional boundaries.
“As a result, there continues to be a policy and regulatory gap in this area,” the report says.
Concerned citizens and environmental groups have formed the Ontario Soil Regulation Task Force, and are calling on the province to create an enforceable Clean Soil Act.
“That fill has to go somewhere. Somebody’s going to find a place for it, because it’s got money attached to it,” Sheldon said. “Until that money is removed from the fill, they should charge people. You want to put it here? OK, you pay us, developers. The whole system’s broken from the start.”
Miller, Ontario’s environmental commissioner, said to tackle the problem, you have to start at the source.
“The people who dig the holes should be responsible cradle to grave to making sure that soil is not only going somewhere where it’s safe, but somewhere where it’s wanted, and deposited in a manner that’s acceptable to the receiving municipality and the local residents,” Miller said.
The CBC is understood to be planning a series of television features on the problem. The natives north of Dundas will be beating their drums wildly tonight as they prepare for the appeal hearing tomorrow.
 By Pepper Parr
June10, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON The structure is majestic. The hallways are grand; the court rooms ooze of power and authority. The library is magnificent. Within the volumes on the shelves is the legal foundation of the province; the decisions the courts have issued which define us as a society that lives by the rule of law that is applied to everyone equally.
 View of Osgoode Hal;l from Queen Street West The building was named to honour of the province’s first chief justice, William Osgoode
It is here that maybe 20 or so people from Burlington will travel Tuesday morning to hear Ian Blue, QC argue the city’s side of an appeal made by Burlington Air Park Inc., against Justice John Murray’s earlier decision that the air park did have to comply with city bylaws, specifically the site alteration bylaw.
The six-acre (24,000 m²) site at the corner of Lot Street (Queen Street West today) and College Avenue (University Avenue today) was acquired by the Law Society in 1828. The original 2 1⁄2-storey building was started in 1829 and finished in 1832 from a design by John Ewart and W. W. Baldwin.
Between 1838 and 1843, the hall was turned into troop barracks. When the Law Society regained possession in 1844, an expansion was designed by Henry Bowyer Lane; the West Wing and Library were built, with two domes (later removed) over the library to connect the two wings.[5] In 1846 the Law Society entered into an agreement with the government to house the province’s Superior Court at the hall. Today, the building is jointly owned by the Law Society and the Government of Ontario.
 Main law library – there is another reserved for judges.  The belief once was that the wrought iron gates were put in place to keep cattle off the grounds. Not so – but the grounds are truly something to appreciate. Two libraries are housed within Osgoode Hall: the Great Library of the Law Society of Upper Canada and a smaller library for judges. The Great Library was designed by Cumberland and Storm (1857–1860) and features an ornate plaster ceiling, cork floors, and etched glass windows. A War Memorial by Frances Norma Loring (1887–1968), sculpted in 1928, was added to the Library in honor of Ontario lawyers and law students killed during the First World War. Behind the Great Library (and accessible through it) is the American Room, designed by Burke and Horwood in 1895, a more intimate room with a spiral staircase.
 A five judge appeal court panel. Ian Blue and Peter E. J. Wells will argue their case before a three member panel. There is the belief in the minds of some that this case will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada For those able to make the trip, I am reluctantly not with that crowd today, soak up the splendour of the setting and the history that literally pervades the walls and know that you are in a building where the rule of law prevails.
Be prepared for an experience.
 By Pepper Parr
June 8, 2104
BURLINGTON, ON.
Odd how things sometime work out.
Pat Moyle is driving home in his car, wife with him. He takes the call.
Burlington’s Mayor Rick Goldring is on the line.
 Pat Moyle believes he knows why Goldring is calling. Burlington needs a city manager – the one we had found that Calgary was more to his liking. Moyle had recently retired as the Chief Administrative Officer of Halton Region and he knew everyone over there with municipal administrative skills. Moyle thought Goldring was looking for some names of people that might be available as interim city managers until the municipal election is over and a new council is sworn in.
Goldring wanted a little more than a recommendation –he wanted to be able to put Moyle’s name on a business card and have him serve as the interim city manager for as much as a year.
Apparently the Mrs. Moyle wasn’t ecstatic about the idea but Pat wasn’t taking to the Florida retirement stuff all that well – he still had harness he had not worn out and wanted to stay in the game. Pat said he would get back to Goldring but as one listened to Moyle explain the sequence this was a done deal.
Pat Moyle certainly knew what Burlington was all about – perhaps better than many at the “director level” in the city. He knew what the long term issues were, he was more than likeable and had worked with the top line people in the past. And he was certainly no slouch during the six years he served as the Regional CAO. This was going to be a good fit
Then there was that nice little $50,000 plus bonus for the city. Traditionally the municipal sector hires outside consultants who run an add and collect resumes. The tab fir that task comes in at around $50,000 each time.
The bonus for Burlington was that Moyle was going to be attending the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators, taking place just down the road in Niagara Falls. Moyle just took a bigger brief case and began to collect resumes – and get a clear sense as to who might find themselves wanting to move up the food chain and enjoy better beef.
Moyle might manage to clean up some of the problems at the city’s General Manager level as well.
That is the easy part of the job Pat Moyle took on as interim city manager. The rest of June is going to keep him humping. The Burlington Air Park appeal of Justice John Murray’s decision requiring the air park to comply with city bylaws will be heard next week. It will take a few months for a decision to work its way into the hands of the public but by the end of the appeal hearing the city will have a sense as to where this might go. Wise people do not attempt to think through how an appeal court might decide. The decision could be handed down right smack in the middle of the waning days of the municipal election.
There are some very positive upsides to the appeal court decision for the city. Once the legal problems are solved the city can get on with the business of getting it right for the rural part of the city. That may mean different ownership of the air park property.
Less than a week after the Air Park appeal is heard Moyle will have to take part in the mediation of just who owes what for the construction of the pier – which is about to celebrate its first official year of existence.
The median will stretch over several days at the end of which a settlement will have been reached or the case goes to trial. Going to trial would probably be the better thing for this council. At this point no one knows what each of the five parties wants from the other. The numbers get put on the table the first day – which is when jaws we are told will drop.
The financial and emotional damage done to Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd., (HSS) has been absorbed – now they want their money and an apology that will make the past four years easier to have had to live with just a little easier.
When Jeff Fielding was managing the financial and legal side of the pier file he frequently used the phrase “everyone is going to have to give a little”. Fielding had a way at times of being very persuasive – but Jeff Fielding is no longer on the city payroll and his approach won’t work without him.
Moyle is for the most part on his own with a legal team that no longer has an upper hand. HSS is very clear on want they want; AECOM, the project managers have always been in this for the long haul. PV&V , an insurance brokerage may not have to pay a price for siding with someone other than their client. But it is the city that stands to lose the most.
If there is a settlement the public is going to want to know how much the city settled for – and that isn’t a number they will want to put on the table – so the city ensures that a gag order is included in the minutes of settlement.
 Steel re bar being put in place on the pier deck for the second time. First attempt got stripped back to the original beams But if HSS digs in their heels and demands that they finally get paid and be given the level of apology they feel they deserve – and they are the ones who have been trashed by most members of this city council and gotten by without payment of invoice that were approved for payment for more than three years – then the city has a tough one in front of them. The days of everyone having to give a little are long gone.
Assuming the pier becomes a campaign issue – and it should – there is an opportunity for every Councillor and the Mayor to reflect on what they could have done differently
Pat Moyle has been with us as interim city manager barely month – he might be a significantly different man by the end of June. The Senior management team he leads might be quite a bit different before he turns in his keys as well. We got lucky with Moyle and if the idea to sound him out was Mayor Goldring’s – great, finally, some leadership.
 By Ray Rivers
June 6, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
There was no winner in the debates this week, there rarely ever is. Premier Wynne got nailed by the gas plant fiasco as a first question, though she must have known it was coming. I suppose there is no good answer, so an apology and a promise that it won’t happen again will have to suffice.
 The debate was far from her greatest moment -what was with the constant apologizing? In hindsight the gas plant locations were a mistake – every other political party would have cancelled the construction locations.. As the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail has noted, the deficit and debt are not a crisis for Ontario – what I said last week. In addition, Ontario has the lowest cost public service (per capita) in all of Canada. So Hudak’s plans are over the top and wrong-headed. Killing one hundred thousand public service jobs , plunging the economy into recession and crippling our social programs, including health care and education, will not create his illusionary million jobs – quite the opposite. It was remarkable to hear him actually brag about his math skills, given that every reputable economist consulted has called the numbers in his plan rubbish.
 The leader of the party without a platform managed to force an election that wasn’t needed and has yet to understand what corruption is. Add to that getting lost on the way to significant pension reform and you get – leadership? Hudak claims that high energy prices are the reason investment in Ontario is faltering. But he has conveniently forgotten about his days sitting at the Harris/Eves government table, when Ontario Hydro was broken up, expensive contracts given to the private sector and multiple costly agencies created to do what Hydro had once done better. Electricity rates started going through the roof until Eves subsidized electrical bills, adding this to the very debt Hudak now rightly criticizes. In all its cost-cutting the Harris government delayed maintenance of the province’s electrical grid causing brown-outs and contributing to the big blackout in 2003.
And Bob Rae and NDP’s interference in the operations of Ontario Hydro were part of the reason Mike Harris decided to irreversibly break up the agency in the first place. Having said all of that, McGuinty had almost a decade to rectify the mess he inherited and although he has restored system reliability and shut down the dirty coal plants, the energy rates have risen and they won’t be coming down soon, regardless who wins the election. Neither the Tories nor the NDP have any more credibility on this file than the Liberals.
 It didn’t matter how error filled the Million Jobs Plan was – Hudak just plowed right through the facts – the same thing Mike Harris did with his common sense revolution – which we are still paying for.
The province has two very very significantly different futures for us to choose from. June 12th is going to be a long night.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
Debates More Debates Globe and Mail Editorial Opposition Gas Plant Promise
 By Pepper Parr
June 5, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
First it was the provincial election debate, then it was the Stanley Cup games, now it’s the Meltdown in Moncton and with the cup still not won yet – hockey is back in the picture.
Tough for a small town like Burlington to get any air time on national television but it appears that the he CBC National News program on air park problems across Ontario and the Burlington Air Park In., in particular will now be a multi-part effort that will run over a period of time.
The CBC News crew was on site last week recording the damage done, as well as the pristine view the owner of one Appleby Line used to have.
The purpose of the series is to take a look at just what has been happening across the province where small air parks are using their sites to dump fill on – the premise being that they are “improving” their property which they claim is not subject to municipal bylaws but only the dictates of the federal aeronautics legislation.
The situation with the air park in Burlington is a little more advanced than it is in other municipalities. The city won its first court case, which has been appealed and will be heard June 11.
Ian Blue, the lawyer retained by the city to argue the appeal, will be on the air for part of the series which at this point in time is scheduled for June 10th – but every Canadian knows that when the Stanley Cup playoffs are taking place – everything has to adjust that that schedule.
In a note the area residents CBC said: “This is a heads-up to inform you that I have been advised that CBC National News will be airing a report on the fill operations currently underway at various airparks in Ontario – including the Burlington Airpark – and the impacts these have had on the local citizens and the environment.”
They plan to lead the story with footage of the citizens’ rally planned for tomorrow at the Volk Airpark near Tottenham.
 It might take more than a year for the problems with the air park to get resolved – but the noose is now getting tighter and tighter. The city and its citizens along with the hundreds of pilots who make legitimate use of the runways now need to begin thinking what could and should be done with that 200 acres of land. Properly approached by a developer that is prepared to follow the rules and adjust to changing conditions. The end game will soon be upon us. The story was scheduled to be aired Wednesday June 4th, but that got bumped)
CBC had planned to roll them out on Wednesday but The National’s lineup is heavy and the show is delayed because of hockey so we’re holding it until next week.
CBC added that ”we were only able to skim the surface of some of the issues in this first bit of coverage, and there are many issues we’ve either not yet touched on, or have not had time to fully explain. We plan to keep looking into various issues and story lines that came up over the course of gathering elements for this initial coverage, so I will likely be back in touch again in the near future with more questions.”
Burlington is finally going to get coverage of a critical community event from an organization that has much more in the way of resources than the Gazette will ever have.
By Pepper Parr
May 30, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
While the CBC News crew was doing its interview on the Sheldon property on Appleby Line, construction equipment and work crews along with what were believed to be crew managers were seen.
Once it became evident to them that camera crews were on the property filming they retreated but the equipment remained on the site
There is a very solid community in north Burlington that watches what goes on like a bunch of hawks. Their objective is to document and photograph as much as they can; including run off from the air park site where tonne upon tonne of partially inspected fill was dumped without the required sit plan alteration permit.
A Superior Court judge has ruled that the air park must comply with municipal bylaws. Burlington Air Park Inc., has appealed that decision. The appeal will be heard in Toronto June 11, 2014
 Appleby Line property owner does a CBC News interview with view of the landfill dumped without a site alteration permit.  Construction crews skulk away in the background. They appeared not to be available for an interview.  Construction crews continue their work just out of site of news camera crews.
 By Staff
May 30, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Burlington’s annual Kite Festival takes place on Sunday, June 1 at Brant Hills Community Park between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
 Show up, join the fun and build a kite for free, while supplies last. Event attendees will be able to fly their kites in the open space at Brant Hills Park throughout the day.
The event will feature entertainment from:
• Nick’s Juggling Family
• Thompson Clarke, a competitive Rubik’s cube solver, and
• Safari Science.
Face painting, a photo booth and a balloon artist will be part of a fun day.
A variety of vendors and activity providers from the community will be on-site. Local favourites include Burlington B.G.’s and Gymnastics Club, Putting Edge, Momstown, and Health from Within.
 Local kite experts from Hobby and Toy Central will be at the event to answer questions about kite selection and kite flying. An assortment of adult and children’s kites such as easy flyers, diamonds, deltas, stunt and parafoil kites will be available for test flights and to purchase. Hobby and Toy Central will be offering event attendees 10 per cent off all Kite Festival purchases.
 The Kite Festival will take place rain or shine. Brant Hills Community Park is located at 2255 Brant St. For more information about the event, including the entertainment schedule and list of booths, visit the city web site.
By Pepper Parr
May 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The weather was great; fine day to be working outside – but it didn’t work out quite that way for a couple of King Paving workers.
 CBC News crew was on site at one of the Appleby Line properties destroyed by the air park site alteration work being done without benefit of a permit. Program to be aired early in June.  King Paving work crew has difficulty digging a small trench with a backhoe on the south side of the air park. The work was being done on air park property.
The trenching problems just happened to take place the day a CBC National News team was on site to film a portion of a show that will air later in the month on development problems in both Burlington and elsewhere in the province.
The CBC crew appears to want to interview Mr. Rossi but was not able to do so today. Good luck with that effort. Vince Rossi, owner of the air park that is in the middle of a legal dispute with the city, is very choosy about who he gives interviews to. The appeal of the court case the air park lost a number of months ago is to be heard June 11th.
Given both the complexity and significance of this case for both the air park community and the municipal world it might be after Labour Day before a decision is handed down.
A few days after the hearing the city team overseeing this file will review what they heard in the court room and determine as best they can the city’s “plan B”.
Should a decision be available before the October municipal election that may well change the temperature and the tone of whatever the prime election issue is going to be.
By Ray Rivers
May 28, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Globe and Mail, wishes that Bill Davis were running in this provincial election because he represents “the good old days”. But Bill Davis, the Conservative, in all his fourteen years as Premier never once balanced a budget. In fact he was the kind of spender Tim Hudak daily accuses Kathleen Wynne of being.
Davis used public resources to grow the province, opening up the public treasury to improve education, infrastructure, health care, public transit, the environment and electrical energy. Davis understood that growing an economy is like growing a business, the business of good government. You need to invest and sow seeds if you want to harvest and profit. And he understood that investing for the longer term, in areas like education, is important too.
That is why I can’t support Tim Hudak. Even though we both obtained economic degrees at the same university, Hudak must have missed a few classes. I mean does he really want to be Mike Harris redux? Perhaps he is just stuck in time, given all those days he spent in the Harris caucus. Hudak’s promise to fire 100,000 teachers, nurses and civil servants has already sent shivers through the markets. And his war on trade unions would almost make Harris’s ‘Common Sense Revolution’ look like,,, common sense.
Harris learned the hard way that cutting taxes just makes the deficit bigger – which partly explains why he took so long to balance his budgets. By comparison, McGuinty’s growth program saw balanced budgets almost as often, despite the global recession which crippled our auto industry. And do we really want to further slash corporate taxes just so the big banks can make even greater profits?
Hudak’s so-called ‘million jobs plan’ has become the biggest joke in this election campaign. Wente’s reference to Hudak’s economic plan being described as “a load of ripe manure” pretty much sums it up.
And what has happened to Andrea Horwath. She turned up her nose at the kind of budget NDP’ers only dream of – the kind even Bob Rae had never introduced. Ms. Dithers, who took forever to decide to support the last budget, which gave her everything she wanted, was quick to reject this one because it offered the NDP too much. Having caused this election however, she has now decided to adopt essentially the same Liberal budget she’d just rejected as her platform.
Rank and file, and even her candidates, are disowning her. They are just as confused as she is about what she really wants. Lately and sadly, Horwath has reverted to just screaming corruption at the Premier. A false accusation since, while there may have been political pandering and some mismanagement during the McGuinty era, that is not corruption. We know that all governments, including that of good old Bill Davis, have also suffered their fair share of mismanagement and scandals.
Of course, the deficit is an issue and will need to be brought under control, and the debt paid down. But Ontario’s current debt is about the same as that of the federal government on a GDP basis, comparable by that measure to some of the other provinces and considerably lower than Quebec’s. Also, with the low interest rates we have been experiencing, debts and deficits are less of a concern, providing they are used to fund wise investments..
Had Mr. Hudak attended and paid attention to the economics classes dealing with fiscal policy, as I had, he would have learned that it is better to grow your way out of a deficit than to cripple the economy with tough austerity. The recent sad experience of European austerity is a good case study of just that. And if Mr. Hudak doesn’t believe me, he could always consult with that other economist, our PM, to learn about how growth has helped get the nation’s books out of the red.
 Energetic, engaging, open, stable and visionary. Some people think you need to change governments every couple of electoral terms, just to get a fresh start. Except that is not what the people of Alberta have been practicing for the last forty years. The ruling PC party there refreshes itself by changing its leader, usually before that leader reaches his/her best-before date. It is still democracy when you keep electing the same government, if only because the other parties are just too scary for you – as they are in this upcoming Ontario election.
Here in Ontario the PC’s once ruled continuously for 42 years with a number of different leaders at the helm. Kathleen Wynne has been Premier for a little over a year and has shown herself to be energetic, engaging, open, stable and visionary. She is as close as we get to Wente’s Bill Davis in this election.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
Wente on ghosts haunting Ontario
Bill Davis
Balanced Budgets
Alberta’s Elections
Tractor Pull
The NDP (Caplan)
Horwath’s Platform
Horwath’s Problems
Hudak’s Economics
Hudak (Caplan)
Hudak’s Million
Hudak’s Math
By: Peter Jacobsen Toby Mendel Shane Moffatt Cara Faith Zwibel
Originally published on Friday, November 8 2013 in the Toronto Star
Freedom of expression and democracy are being undermined in Ontario. A panel of experts convened by the Ontario government in 2010 found that the threat of abusive lawsuits claiming massive damages, especially for defamation, is deterring “significant numbers” of Ontarians from speaking out on issues of important public interest.
However, there is now hope that action will be taken to address this problem, as the province’s political parties find themselves in rare agreement that it is high time to deal with this threat through strong legislation.
 A court room is an expensive place to be – is this the place where justice gets done. Known as SLAPPs (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation), these dubious lawsuits are often brought by deep-pocketed companies with the specific aim of silencing resource-poor defendants. And they are very effective. The defendants, usually ordinary citizens or public interest groups, naturally feel threatened by the prospect of massive legal fees, disruption of their activities and the possibility of large damage awards. Even when the lawsuits have no merit whatsoever, they often result in a chill on free speech.
Comments on a wide range of public interest issues have attracted SLAPP suits in the past. These include reporting on environmental violations by large companies, exposing corruption and other forms of wrongdoing, and criticizing the behaviour of powerful individuals. In other words, SLAPPs are an attack on democracy. They undermine the ability of civil society and private individuals to act as watchdogs over the powerful.
Unfortunately, the threat of facing a SLAPP suit in Ontario is very real today. Greenpeace Canada is currently fighting a $7-million lawsuit brought by logging giant Resolute Forest Products. Dylan Powell, founder of small environmental NGO Marineland Animal Defence, currently faces a $1.5-million SLAPP from Marineland. The issue of SLAPPs first gained prominence in Ontario when Big Bay Point residents were hit with multimillion-dollar lawsuits by developers.
We need legislative protection from these chilling lawsuits. Anti-SLAPP legislation may affirm a legal presumption in favour of the protection of speech on matters that are of public interest, or engage public participation. If the defendant can demonstrate that his or her statements fall within the scope of this presumption, the burden then shifts to the plaintiff who must show that the case has substantial merit, that it is unlikely that any defence would succeed and that, on balance, the harm it has suffered outweighs the harm that would be done to the public interest if the case were to proceed.
Anti-SLAPP legislation has already been adopted in Quebec and most U.S. states. It’s now time for Ontario to follow suit. Important steps have been taken in this regard, specifically in the form of Bill 83, submitted by the Attorney General to the Ontario legislature in May 2013 – the first government-sponsored anti-SLAPP bill in Ontario.
This follows the first ever Ontarian anti-SLAPP bill, put forward by Andrea Horwath of the NDP as a private member’s bill in 2008. The Progressive Conservatives have also voiced support for this type of legislation, noting that abusive lawsuits represent a serious waste of taxpayer dollars.
Despite these positive steps forward, we are concerned about whether there is sufficient political will to see this through. The parties must not delay in adopting legislation that will champion the human rights of ordinary Ontarians, allow for robust debate on matters of public interest, save taxpayer money and uphold confidence in our legal system and our democracy.
Our organizations, along with more than 150 environmental organizations, free speech groups and unions, call on the Ontario legislature to pass anti-SLAPP legislation as a matter of priority. No less than 64 municipalities and the Ontario Bar Association have also supported anti-SLAPP legislation. It is time to protect Ontarians’ right to free expression.
Peter Jacobsen is Chair of the Canadian Issues Committee of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression; Toby Mendel is Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy; Shane Moffatt is Forest Campaigner for Greenpeace Canada; Cara Faith Zwibel is Director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Bill 183, the legislation that was to create anti-SLAPP legislation that would become law died on the Order Paper when the Legislature was dissolved for the provincial election.
By Staff
May 27, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
For the record:
In the Update to city council on matters relating to the Air Park staff said:
FOI (Freedom of Information requests) to MOE for Monitoring Plan and Details:
In May 2014 staff spoke with the Mediator from the Office of the Information and Privacy  Commissioner of Ontario. The Mediator has begun the process of contacting the third party (i.e. the Airpark) to inform them of the City’s scoped request to try and obtain information that pertains strictly to the proposed groundwater monitoring program at the Airpark, and any associated reports, studies and results. The Mediator is also continuing discussions with the MOE. At this point, staff will wait for further correspondence from the Mediator with respect to the possibility of receiving all or some of the requested information or whether additional discussion or mediation is necessary.
 Drill holes into the tonnes of landfill dumped on the air park property during the last five years. Very little of the landfill was inspected and it was put in place without an approved site plan. A Judge has already told the Air Park that they must comply with the city’s bylaw. The Air Park has appealed that decision which is their right.
What the Air Park cannot do however do is maintain that they are cooperating and have been transparent. The city’s most recent update does not square with what Vince Rossi is saying. Someone isn’t telling the truth here.
In a Letter to the Editor of the Hamilton Spectator Vince Rossi said:
To be clear, every test of neighbouring streams and wells has met or surpassed federal and provincial environmental standards. There have been six inspections, studies and/or tests carried out since 2009. None have indicated a problem with the fill or an adverse impact on local water. Further, after discussions with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, the airpark is in the process of voluntarily completing the most comprehensive study to date by carrying out a test well program
 By Pepper Parr
May 26, 2014
Burlington, ON.
Well we kind of expected it would come to this.
The Burlington Gazette, it’s publisher Pepper Parr, Monte Dennis and Vanesa Warren were served with Notices of Libel during the month of April, three for the Gazette, two each for Dennis and Warren.
 These are the lands that are described as the Burlington Air Park upon which tonnes of uni-nspected landfill were dumped without a city site alteration approval. None of the parties served libel notices chose to apologize and the Gazette decided the articles were not libelous and let them remain on the web site.
The air park lawyers then sued the three people, Parr, Dennis and Warren asking for $100,000 in exemplary damages. The air park set out 23 points in their Statement of Claim. They are set out below along with links to the articles they took offence to
1: The plaintiff claims:
(a) compensatory and exemplary damages for libel of $100,000
(b) prejudgment interest on the compensatory damages and post judgment interest on all the damages;
(c) an injunction restraining the defendants and each of them from alleging that the plaintiff has created an environmental hazard by bringing fill onto its lands that has or may adversely impact the groundwater or surrounding watercourses ;
(d) costs together with HST.
The plaintiff
- The writ describes the plaintiff; Burlington Air Park Inc.,who they are and where they are located. This is the Burlington Air Park Inc.
The defendants
- The defendants are described in sections 3,4,5,6 and 7. This is the Gazette, Parr, Dennis and Warren.
The defamatory publications.
Editor’s note: Links to each of the articles are set out at the end of this piece.
Describes an article: “A “fishy” story – people are being hurt and a part of rural Burlington may have a badly contaminated water supply.
- Our Burlington posted the following concerning the plaintiff on its website https://www .burlingtongazette .ca/:
On or about April 16, 2014 Our Burlington posted the following concerning the plaintiff on its website https://www .burlingtongazette.ca/ :
“North Burlington residents petition the MOE – but they don’t make their demands public.
There were four reader comments attached to that piece; they read as follows
Bob says on April 16, 2014 at 11:37 am
(the Bob comment is not set out in the writ)
reply
Vanessa Warren says on April 17, 2014 at 11:39 am
 Vince Rossi, president of the Burlington Executive Air Park and believed to be the sole shareholder of the private company was sued by the city for failing to comply with a city bylaw. The Court found in favour of the city. The Air Park has appealed. The appeal is to be heard June 11, in Toronto at Osgoode Hall. Mr. Rossi.
The Kovachik family opened the airpark in 1962, and for 44 years operated in harmony with its neighbours and its rural surroundings . You are not allowed to capitalize on that history. The history that you ‘re accountable for is amounting to an environmental disaster in our pristine protected countryside, and you may not manipulate that truth unchallenged anymore.
This is not an airpark improvement issue. This is a landfill issue, a water protection issue, a storm water management issue, a truck entrance and road use issue, and a property destruction and flooding issue.
Are we to celebrate that you ‘ve spent money to improve your for-profi t business? Who doesn ‘t do that? You say you ‘ve spent 4 million in improvements , but what about the income you ‘ve made from charging for untold hundreds of thousands of tons of unregulated fill? What about the protected watercourse you ‘ve destroyed? What about the regionally significant woodlot you gutted? The cost to the environment, the community and the City for your ‘improvements ‘ has been too high to bear.
Ask your immediate neighbours – none of whom have “recently purchased their homes” – bow things have improved for them? Flooded fields are unfarmable. Backyards and septic beds are underwater from silted run off. Sight lines and property enjoyment are destroyed. Anxiety about well water safety is high, and you will not permit the MOE to release on-site testing data. Writing that you ‘ve “always respected your neighbours .. .” is more than untrue; it’s cruel.
There are no unsubstantiated claims. Terrapex Environmental found unacceptably high levels of contaminants like hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the paltry 52 soil reports you were able to provide. Off-site water testing may be fine to date (again, where’s the data?), but how long might it talce for those contaminants to leach into wells?
The City of Burlington legally won the right to impose it‘s Site Alteration Bylaw on airpark property , and yet you still will not comply. The community would truly love to know that your property is NOT full of contaminated fill – why don‘t you give us the verified, third-party data to prove it?
We are all so weary of your attempts to manipulate . Standing up to you and stopping the trucks was never political , it was ethical, and you have no ethical credibility left.
Vanessa Warren Aside:
Hamilton Spectator, please don‘t publish this man ‘s letters anymore. The community around this airpark has been under siege since 2007 and the negative psychological impact of unbalanced coverage like this is enormous.
Ford Motor Company, Mercedes-Benz Canada, Evertz Microsystems, L- 3 Communications , Big Brothers and Big Sisters and PwC Epic Tour Halton – are you comfortable being cited in this letter?
reply
Rob Narejko says on April 16, 2014 at 1:44 pm
It is hard to believe that our legal system allows an individual or a corporation ‘s right to privacy to be intact, when the actions of that individual I corporation are detrimental to the quality of life of others.
The tests were paid for by our government and the government is empowered on our behalf to look after the interests of the citizens. The materials from the land fill I dump are more than likely leaching onto other people’s property. The information from the MOE study should be made public without having to resort to Freedom of Information requests .
I give the City credit for jumping on this issue and for their approach. The rights of one person or corporation should not trump the community‘s rights to know what is there. Without knowing what is there, how will it ever be re-mediated? And what happens to the environmental concerns and the adjacent owner’s property value?
PS Check out the ‘scenic’ asphalt piles dumped in the field on the west side of Walker ‘s Line, just north of the 407 overpass. It will be interesting to see why this road waste material was allowed to be dumped in an agricultural field. Or was it?
Editor’s note: We understand that Mr. Narejko has not been sued.
reply
Roger says on April 16, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Bob could not have gotten it any better . The article in the Spec as self serving and deficent on fact.
reply
 The owner of a property on Appleby Line stands at her property line. Plans submitted to the Region at one point had a large helicopter pad sitting atop the 30 foot pile of earth. The owner of the property on which the heliport was to be built claimed he did not have to get site plan approval from Burlington. A Judge disagreed with him. That decision is being appealed. Stephanie Cooper-Smyth says April 16, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Vincenzo Rossi – we know you follow this website, you ‘ve even posted on it. So if you can see this now, which may be difficult considering how exponentially your nose grew while crafting that exceptional ‘tale ‘ for the Spectator, get this:
You have accepted hundreds of thousands of truckloads of (contaminated) fill since 2008, and all you’ve got to show for ‘improvements ‘ is: you paved over a grass runway, you ‘ve done some alterations to your main runway, you ‘ve built a few hangers.
Really?? Hundreds of thousands of truckloads of fill every year since 2008 . ..for just that?? How much longer are you going to try and dupe the good folks of Burlington?
And one more thing, Vincenzo Rossi: According to the information submitted to Hizzoner at the hearing last year, the income from the hundreds of thousands of trucks to which you sold dumping rights, (last figure released was $85.00 per truck) for ‘improving ‘ your airpark”, doesn ‘t even appear on the Airpark ‘s financial statements in 2011, 2012 or 2013. (Hello CRA?)
As for the legacy of the airpark, (“it’s long and accomplished history in Halton”), which you are attempting to claim: How dare you hijack the reputation and relations that the Kovachik ‘s built!
Since you bought the airpark, Vincenzo Rossi, all you have done is destroyed the environment , misled and deceived the authorities, ruined the lives and threatened the safety of the neighboring community. That is YOUR legacy.
Why don‘t you just go to where ever you sent all the money you earned from accepting all that toxic landfill – you are neither believed nor wanted here by citizens of Burlington.
Editor’s note: We do not know if Stephanie Cooper-Smyth has been sued
reply
Joan says on April 17, 2014 at 2:32 pm
Mabe someone should seek advice from Erin Brockovic.
- On or about April 24, 2014 Our Burlington posted the following concerning the plaintiff on its website.
“Letter to the Spectator editor altered on Air Park web site: still a “lousy neighbour“
The publication by Our Burlington and Parr on April 11, 2014 set out in paragraph 7 above was actuated by actual malice, in that it was published knowing it to be untrue, or reckless as to its truth. In an article dated April 9, 2014 Our Burlington and Parr republished allegations from an earlier posting dated July 16, 2013 that was, at April 16, 2014, still available on the http ://www.burlingtongazette .ca/ website, that the fill on the plaintiff s land was “toxic” and that the plaintiff had been running “an unlicensed landfill operation.” It also republished allegations from an August 5, 2013 posting that was, at April 16, 2014, still available on the http ://www .burlingtongazette.ca/ website, falsely claiming that a Terrapex report established that contaminants were migrating from the plaintiff s property. The August 5, 2013 posting reported that testing was being done of neighbouring wells. When this posting was emphasized on April 9 2014, the City of Burlington had reported on those results in its Burlington Executive Airport Update #6 dated September 9, 2013 as follows: “On August 23, city staff were sent an email by the Region of Halton regarding testing of wells on several properties adjacent to the airport. The email indicated that the MOE and the Halton Region Health Department were working together to sample and analyze the drinking water wells of homes located immediately adjacent to where the fill was placed on the airport site. Well water samples were collected by MOE staff from two properties . The samples were being analyzed for inorganics, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and petroleum hydrocarbons.
Results of this testing were provided to the Health Department. The results were then compared to the health-based Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standards and the Ministry of Environment Table 2 Brownfields standards. The Region has indicated that no exceedances were reported . These results have been shared with the property owners. Permission was given by these property owners for the Health Department to share the results with city staff.”
Further, the publications referred to in paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 were actuated by malice as Our Burlington and Parr published a letter on May 19, 2014 that made the following allegations concerning the plaintiff s president: “… Are his victims, or anyone who ‘s objected to his fill business soon to be ‘buried ‘ as well?
I think the residents of Rural Burlington better start using the buddy system whenever they leave their homes. And I suggest a telephonic head count every morning, and include Pepper Parr’s…”
On May 2, 2014 Dennis published the following letter to the editor m the Hamilton Spectator:
“Tainted Airpark fill a threat to neighbours’ wells.
Improvements to airpark up in the air (Opinion, April 16)
The recent article by Burlington Airpark owner Vince Rossi leaves out important, relevant facts.
The Burlington Airpark’s own soil analysis data, provided to the City of Burlington’s soil specialists, showed that much of the imported fill is chemically contaminated , and represented only a portion of the imported fill. The tens of thousands of loads of fill dumped onto the airpark were spread throughout the site and will require a grid-work of soil sampling to fmd and quantify.
Depending on imported soil types, conditions, groundwater mobility, precipitation amounts and other factors, the negative impacts could take years to be detected in area wells .
Although the dumping has stopped, the concern is that toxic materials will sooner or later leach into neighbours’ wells. The immediate neighbours have experienced excessive water run-off due to the altered drainage. Some of the land is too wet for farming. Some of the wells are silted, making the water undrinkable.
While waiting for a court settlement and the Ministry of Environment research results, residents are suffering from the stress of an uncertain future. The clean up and rectification of this mess could take years and cost millions. Why won’t the Burlington Airpark share the soil and groundwater test results? The airpark claims the data is private and confidential.
The Ministry of Transport directive asks the airparks to comply with provincial and local regulations that do not affect aviation . Federal legislation regulates the safe movement of aircraft. The airpark lost the court case on the validity of the Burlington fill bylaw and plans to appeal in June. In the case of Scugog Airpark, a judgment decreed that fill operations must comply with Scugog’s municipal fill bylaws, which should be the case with all municipalities. This would result in lawfu l, responsible and environmentally sustainable development.
Monte Dennis on behalf of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition”
Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition is not a corporation, nor is it a registered charity. If it exists, it is an unincorporated association of individuals.
Editors note: The cheek, the unmitigated cheek. Both Mr. Rossi and his legal counsel are fully aware of the existence of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition who delegated very effectively at both the city of Burlington and the Region of Halton.
The republications
On April 22, 2014 Our Burlington published the libel notice i t received with respect to the publication described in paragraph 7 above on its website https://www.burlingtongazette.ca/ and Twitter account https://twitter.com/OurBur . Such publication of the libel notice amounts to a republication of the original libel. On or about April 22, 2014 Warren posted the following on her website https://vanessawarren .ca/ and Twitter account https ://twitter.com/VanessaAWarren “Vince Rossi threatens to sue @OurBur for libel. Wonder who is next? #BurlON
#BurlingtonAirpark https:// www .burlingtongazette .ca/air-park-lawyer -threaten-to-sue for-libel-gazette-considering-its-options .. .” The links in the postings amount to republication by Warren of the libel described in paragraph 7 above. Having read the article on Our Burlington ‘s website, Warren knew that the plaintiff was asserting that the original publication was defamatory, yet she maliciously chose to draw it to the attention of persons who might not otherwise have been aware of that publication.
Warren republished the comment referred to in paragraph 8 above on her website http ://vanessawarren.ca/ on or before April 23, 2014. The precise date of posting is not known to the plaintiff , but is known to Warren.
Further, on May 2, 2014 Warren made the following post on her Twitter account: vanessaawarren as follows: “Vanessa Warren @VanessaAWarren •May 2 Thank you Hamilton Spectator for balancing the dialogue and bravo RBGC – well said! https://m.thespec.com/opinion-story /4494486-tainted-airpark-fill-a-threat-to-neighbours wells/” The link in that tweet took a reader to the letter set out in paragraph 12 above.
The links referred to in paragraphs 14, 15 and 16 did not simply make reference to the existence and location of content, they also repeated the sting of the libel in the articles to which reference was made, and encouraged viewers of her posts to visit those sites.
The articles and comments are defamatory and were calculated to injure the plaintiff
In addition to the plain meaning of the words so published , by these words the defendants meant, and were understood to mean that the plaintiff was putting the community as well as groundwater, streams and ponds in the community at risk, or causing members of the community actual harm by having brought onto its land toxic fill that was adversely affecting the groundwater , streams and ponds and the fish living in such streams and ponds . They further meant, and were understood to mean that the plaintiff was preventing the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (“MOE”) from publishing test data in the possession of the MOE. They further meant and were understood to mean that the plaintiff has caused flooding and silted runoff onto neighbouring lands. The defendants meant and were understood to mean that Terrapex had actually performed testing in connection with the plaintiff s lands. They further meant and were understood to mean that the plaintiff had posted on its website an altered version of a document that it had already published in the Hamilton Spectator.
The words printed in the foregoing articles and comments were and are defamatory. The addition of photographs and commentary in the publication referred to in paragraph 9 were not part of the letter published by the plaintiff in the Hamilton Spectator, and would have misled readers into believing that they had been. The allegations that the plaintiff brought contaminated fill onto its property and is putting groundwater, neighbouring streams and ponds and the environment generally at risk are calculated to injure the plaintiff in an effort to delay or prevent the further development of the Burlington Executive Airport. By reason of the publication of these defamatory statements, the plaintiff has suffered damages.
The words published by Warren were also false and misleading in a material respect and were knowingly or recklessly made by her for the purpose of promoting directly or indirectly her business interest in Capstone Farms, contrary to s. 52(1) of the Competition Act, RSC 1985, c. C-34, as amended .
The republications described in paragraphs 14 through 17 above were done with callous disregard of the plaintiff s rights and are deserving of an award of exemplary damages which are necessary to dissuade the defendants from engaging is such conduct in future. The protection of a party’s reputation arising from the publication of false and injurious statements must be effective. The most effective means of protection will be supplied by the knowledge that fines in the form of exemplary damages may be awarded in cases where the defendants ‘ conduct is truly outrageous, as it has been in the present case.
So there you have it. This is what will get presented to a Judge who will decide if we libeled or defamed Mr. Rossi.
We do know this – the city of Burlington and the and the Burlington Air Park sued each other and Justice Murray found in favour of the city. He also awarded the city costs of $40,000.
In asking for exemplary damages of $100,00 from the Gazette, Parr, Dennis and Warren, Mr Rossi appears to be attempting to recover from the defendants the amount he had to pay the city.
We have yet to decide what we will ask the Judge who hears this case what the defendants will seek for the vexatious, egregious and whatever big word lawyers use to say what they mean, in the way of damages from Mr. Rossi.
What we would like most is for Mr. Rossi to follow and adhere to the rule of law that he is now using to hammer two citizens who were exercising their right to speak their minds. As for the Gazette, we can take care of ourselves.
Links to past editorial content:
The “fishy” story.
North Burlington residents petition MOE
Letter to the editor.
By Pepper Parr
May 26, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Well it’s government, municipal government at that –so what did you expect? They need more time. This time – the need is real – the discussions and negotiations are tricky and the city has to deal with a provincial ministry.
 It is a view to die for – and one that citizens of the city might not get to enjoy if the planned sale of this piece of waterfront property gets sold to the three property owner’s whose land abuts land owned by the city and the provincial government. Council didn’t see it that way and they agreed to the sale with a number of provisos.
To dispose of Water Street land parcels and develop Windows-to-the- Lake at the foot of St. Paul and Market Streets in a minimalistic manner (benches and signage); and
Direct the Director of Parks and Recreation to report back with a concept for the Windows-to-the-Lake; and
Direct the Director of Roads and Parks Maintenance to enhance Port Nelson Park with available funds.
 There are three parcels of land currently owned by the city and the province. Council decided to sell the land in the centre and to create small parkettes on the east and the west. The small red line in the centre lot show the delineation between city and provincial lands. The property belongs to the city – which means the public – but many members of this council don’t see the waterfront quite that way.
Council also directed the City Solicitor and Manager of Realty Services to work with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and enter into an agreement for the sale of MNR and city lots between St. Paul Street and Market Street to the adjacent land owners within the next six months. They added to that to have the the City Solicitor and Manager of Realty Services to report back to Community Services Committee if a sale agreement for city lots between St. Paul Street and Market Street has not been reached within the six month period.
The six months is up and the people who unalterably opposed to the idea of selling the land in the first place plan to delegate and ask some hard questions.
The man managing the flow of paper, Ron Steiginga, Manager of Realty Services, is one of the best there is. He was the staffer that handled the transfer, a lease actually, of that patch of land off Fairview that the Freeman Station is now sitting on. On that project he had to deal with the Canadian subsidiary of an American multi-national corporation, the city and a private citizens group – and while it took a while – he got it done. The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) should be a piece of cake for Steiginga.
The staff report lays out the process:
“Given the independent process that the MNR requires, it will take longer than the 6 months to process the agreements and complete all of the negotiations.
“Realty staff has been in regular contact with MNR staff to advise them of Council’s resolution to sell the land to the adjacent owners and to determine what the MNR requirements are to proceed with this matter. In order for MNR staff to consider the sale of the land to the three landowners, the landowners were required to submit individual Applications for Crown Land which were processed by MNR staff.
“MNR staff has recently indicated to the owners that they are prepared to dispose of the filled Crown lands subject to the Ministry policies and procedures which includes the following key provisions:
1. The land must be sold at market value.
2. The City owned Water Street land must be transferred to the three landowners first before the MNR lands can be transferred.
 The property with the fence along the edge has riparian rights – which could be used to extend the public pathway even further. They are working with the three landowners to resolve this issue. “It is clear” said the staff report “that both the MNR and City are in agreement that our respective policies require a fully documented appraisal process to determine the market value, and that both the City and the MNR are using the same valuation method and terms of reference.
 A resident opposed to the sale of the land put forward a proposal that would protect the privacy of the land owners and give the public access to the edge of the lake. The property on the right has riparian rights attached to it – and was rumoured to be going on the market in he near future. The city could have purchased the property, stripped the riparian rights and extended the waterfront trail just that much further. Port Nelson Park is one lot to the east of the riparian rights. Given the time it takes for the owners and/or MNR to obtain and review appraisals, and conduct negotiations, staff expect that this matter will not reach a conclusion for at least an additional 6 months.
The citizen based Waterfront Advisory group apparently don’t like either the look or the smell of this and will be at the Standing Committee delegating. This issue isn’t over yet.
Background links:
Selling the family jewels: Part 1
Selling the family jewels: Part 2
It wasn’t a popular decision.
By Pepper Parr
May 25, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
All the election signs are either for Eleanor McMahon, the Liberal candidate or Jane McKenna, the Progressive Conservative incumbent seeking re-election. Have yet to see a sign for the New Democratic candidate. All those signs make it hard to appreciate that there is a municipal election working its way towards the day everyone will cast a ballot in October.
An exceptionally well connected business person, sometimes described as a pundit, was approached by a member of one of the city’s advisory committees and asked how the pundit would rank things in each of the wards. The member of the city advisory committee had decided that it was time in his career to get involved in local politics and make a contribution at the city council level.
Our potential candidate at first thought he would take a shot at the job of Mayor but decided that he needed to learn to walk first before starting to run.
 There are at least five people who want to eat her lunch: Councillor Blair Lancaster has a fight on her hands – if she runs again. The pundit ranked things this way: Ward 6 is going to have a different council member come October he is reported to have said. Given that there are now five people seeking that seat – the incumbent has yet to file nomination papers – that would seem to be a safe assumption. A lot of people seem to feel Blair Lancaster can be beaten. With a possible six candidates on the ballot it would be a mistake to count the former beauty queen out just yet – name recognition will take a candidate a long way.
Ward 5 is the next easiest to win in opined the pundit. The sense of the pundit was that the incumbent Paul Sharman doesn’t own his ward yet.
Ward 4 is still a tossup, the Roseland Community Organization doesn’t like any of the people who have their hat in the ring and they dearly want to see a strong candidate defeat the incumbent Jack Dennison who will be at his Ontario Municipal Board hearing Thursday and Friday of this week. Dennison has yet to file nomination papers but then he always waits until June to do so.
 Councillor Jack Dennison: is he running again? Councillor Dennison asked the Committee of Adjustment to allow him to sever his Lakeshore property into two pieces so he could sell off a part for a reported $900,000. Many in Roseland thought that was an atrocious thing to do and took exception to their Councillor doing something that would lessen the value of properties along Lakeshore Road.
Ward 3 is going to be a fight for anyone who decides to take on 22 year veteran John Taylor. He can be beaten but it will take a candidate with a lot of energy and a strong start to topple Taylor.
Ward 2 is thought to be suicide territory for anyone who decides to run against Marianne Meed Ward. She is certainly popular – but she has yet to be tested. If she is re-elected by a significant majority – and she should win – she will be a leading candidate for the office of Mayor in 2018
Ward 1 – Rick Craven has a tight grip on that ward – nothing happens in Aldershot without Craven knowing about it and giving it his blessing. He goes bananas when Meed Ward buts in on his territory.
Of the two newbies running in ward 1 Katherine Henshell is the only one that can give Craven any kind of a run for his money. The woman is focused, does her homework and is also very pregnant. Will that make any difference? Shouldn’t – might even get her the Mommy vote – and in Aldershot that counts for quite a bit.
 Councillor Rick Craven, centre, managed to hide behind a council chamber partition while a vote on an Aldershot matter was being debated. Here he sits with Councillors Dennison and Taylor during a budget meeting. The three are the most experienced members of Council. Henshell did tweak Craven’s nose when she told a city council meeting she was the only person speaking for Aldershot and the Bridgeview development brought to a Standing Committee meeting at which Craven didn’t say a word – he wasn’t even in the council chamber – he remained outside the room for all of the more than an hour long debate – walking in seconds after the vote was cast.
One political observer we hear from regularly asked how much the developer had donated to the various election campaigns – we weren’t able to find that information on the city web site. While city hall has the data they don’t put it up on the web site where people can look at the file and learn who gave and how much did they give. This kind of information should be available for every member of council for every election then ran in.
Wonder what the Ministry of Municipal Affairs has to say about that kind of information net being available. A good city Clerk would have ensured the information was readily available.
For anyone to actually beat Craven would be an upset – but then that is what politics is all about.
His worship appears to be heading for an acclamation which is unfortunate. Rick Goldring needs a strong contender to stiffen him up. He’s not a bad mayor, many see him as a weak leader but a closer look, particularly at the way he handled the bringing in of an interim city manager when Burlington got dumped by then city manager Jeff Fielding showed some really good leadership on the part of the Mayor. Maybe he is growing into the office. Nevertheless, a good stiff competition would keep him on his toes.
You won’t be seeing city council candidates at your door until the provincial election is over – could that be a blessing?
There will be plenty for you to ask questions about as we wind our way through the summer.
 Mayor Rick Goldring. He is in the race – just doesn’t have anyone to race against right now. Early in this term of office Goldring said he wasn’t going to go the getting his picture in the paper route. Here he collects funds in a parade for the Old Timers hockey league.
 By Pepper Parr
May 25, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It was an interesting week for the arts. The Arts and Cultural Collective got closer to what its mission will be while the Performing Arts Centre released its program for the 2014/15 season to more than acceptable comment.
Not to be outdone, the former Burlington Art Centre decided to go for a whole new look and re-branded themselves and will forever after be known as the Art Gallery of Burlington – AGB; the place where Creativity Lives.
 The arch in the A is supposed to signify the Skyway bridge – sure – with art the view is always in the eye of the beholder. The BAC, old acronym for the Burlington Arts Centre, made it a bit difficult for many people to figure out which was which. While the BAC – oops, that’s the AGB now, had a much stronger pedigree and “involved” more people, there was still the sense that the building on Lakeshore road needed a stronger look and an identity that made it stand out.
The BAC board put together a very strong presentation during the budget cycle and got the funding they needed to do the re-brand. They brought in John Duff to do the work.
The new name reflects their identity as a centre for art and supporting artists in the community and the evolution of the place as a multi-faceted gallery. For the past several years, the gallery administrators have been working to increase the profile and quality of their exhibitions and promote their acclaimed collection of Canadian contemporary ceramics. Today, they are positioned to host national and international exhibitions, tour their ceramics collection and further develop their award winning educational programs.
The Art Gallery of Burlington also brought in a new curator, Denis Longchamps, who uses the title Director of Programs, has some very clear ideas on the direction he feels the gallery should be going in.
The Art Gallery of Burlington has gone so far as to attach a promise to their brand – to embrace and celebrate creativity and integrate the gallery into the community at large. Delivery on this promise includes the promotion of three key messages:
- Art Gallery – providing the highest quality, stimulating exhibitions and contemporary ceramics collection
- Programs – that embrace the qualities of creativity, inspiration and supporting artistic development
- Outreach – that takes the AGB beyond its brick and mortar and into the community with partner events, school programs, city initiatives and connecting through Art Etc Gallery Shop
The tag line, CREATIVITY Lives Here! is the first example of how the Art Gallery of Burlington is going to define itself an operate.
In a letter to the membership President Ian Ross said: “We are increasing our investment in exhibitions, responding to emerging artists, celebrating our national-significant ceramics collection, enhancing creativity in our educational programs, and reaching throughout our community and forming new partnerships.”
Putting meat on the bones of that statement means that the AGB is committed to celebrating and promoting the innovative and imaginative elements in all that they do and in all that they are. Creativity will be the foundation seen in – Programming – Education – Partnerships – Membership – Strategy.
Founded by a number of guilds, the Art Gallery of Burlington has come up with a way to end the confusion as to who they are – Performing Arts Centre and Burlington Art Centre – PAC or BAC was confusing, but it will take more than a new name to get the message across.
What the public has not seen is the strength, energy and vision of two new staff members who are adding to the strength of the team that was already in place.
Leslie Page who runs the educational side, Johnathan Smith who has built the ceramics collection into what it is today are now joined by Kim Varian, Director of Enterprise and Dennis Longchamps, Director of Programs. This team is what will make the difference.
 The ceramics collection needs a home; a place where it can be properly and effectively displayed. Right now it gets scattered about the gallery with hundreds of pieces stacked on shelves in a storeroom.
Many at city hall have wondered if the land the gallery sits on is the most effective use of that piece of property. Heard aloud were the words: “great place for a high end condo” and indeed it would be. Selling the site would free up some money to build the kind of location an art gallery needs to display its ceramics collection.
More on the new team members, the ceramics collection and where the Art Gallery of Burlington might take the city in a future article.
By Pepper Parr
May 22, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
She was blonde, chatty, good with words and an infectious laugh. He was staid, sounded a bit shy but certainly knew what he was talking about.
The two of them sat in stiff chairs facing each other on the stage of the Performing Arts Centre (PAC) with all the instruments a good band would need to really rock the building off to the side. You knew instantly that these two were not going to be playing any of those instruments.
Connie Smith, an interviewer of some renown, and Brian McCurdy, PAC Executive Director sat before an audience that filled three quarters of the Main Stage to talk about the fourth year program that would go on sale to the public June 2.
The evening was a “sneak preview” of the 2014/2015 program before an audience of multiple ticket buyers and capital donours who soaked up every word. They do need to learn to clap more often though.
The Centre has had its trials and tribulations with the public. It has its core following – they are true believers and will support the organization almost forever. But there is a large part of the city that still doesn’t buy into culture all that much and doesn’t want to see tax money used to support it.
Past deficits certainly didn’t help nor did a subsidy request that people expect to be at around half a million a year balloon to over $1.2 million. That situation saw the first Executive Director exit stage left and some key people leave the board.
 That empty month on the calendar is empty anymore – Brian McCurdy gave the public its first look at the 2014/15 program – BOFFO! McCurdy describes himself as a “reformed trombone player” who once shared a stage with Bob Hope at the Community Auditorium in Thunder Bay. “Not only did I get to play in the backup band, I also played a round of golf with Mr Hope in the afternoon” said McCurdy.
You see him in a blue blazer and grey flannel trousers – effectively going about his business. The program released last night is pure McCurdy – his finger prints are all over it.
He has managed, at least on paper, to press all the right buttons and satisfy almost everyone. The proof will come when the program goes on sale to the public early in June.
The arts and culture business is dynamic and it is difficult to project revenue with a high degree of certainty but McCurdy thinks he can get the subsidy to less than $500,00 – which will please a lot of people in this town.
The Plastique performance is a total delight. Check it out for yourself.
Culturally McCurdy covers all the bases: jazz, opera, classical music, dance and a solid set of programs for the young, young set. There is quite a bit of Cuban material, more jazz than I expected along with a couple of purely Canadian nuggets. The only thing missing was a one night stand by Jimmy Tapp.
There are 16 different program series; there will be 65 productions and 93 performances including the National Ballet doing the Nut Cracker Suite at Christmas.
 The Nutcracker Suite will delight what will undoubtedly be SOLD OUT audiences. The Cushion Concert Series will return and there will be a Community on Stage program that will involve a number of the Burlington favourites. In the past some people complained, rather loudly, that the city had a brand new facility but the local performance groups didn’t get a chance to actually use the stage. The prices they were asked to pay seemed very steep to them. McCurdy and his team are bringing in the Student Theatre for two productions; the Burlington Concert Band has three productions scheduled. The Burlington Footnotes will run for two days with three performances and the Brott Music Festival will run from June 19th to August 14th in the Main Theatre.
McCurdy has created what he calls Series and has one with Jazz, another focused on Comedy, then one with a family angle – the Gruffalo is back. Dance, Blues & Rock have a Series as well. The Entertainer Series will include Jann Arden and John McDermott.
There is a “Marvel” Series and a Global Beat Series. Each series is made up of three to four performances.
The Opera Series will present Pucicini’s Tosca, Verdi’s Nabucco and Mozart’s Don Giovanni all done as cinemas coming from the Royal Opera House.
This reporter had to leave early so I didn’t see the standing ovation Brian McCurdy should have gotten at the close of the evening. The challenge now is to see how it goes at the Box Office. If Burlington doesn’t come through with SOLD OUT signs on most of these programs – the city doesn’t deserve a Performing Arts Centre.
By Ray Rivers
May 22, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It was 1962 and the world was in the grip of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fidel Castro was a rag-tag revolutionary, determined to nationalize American companies in his Cuba, regardless of Yankee pressure. It didn’t take long for Washington to pass judgement on this cigar chomping, bearded upstart – he was a ‘commie’ and was to be spurned. And so, as if in a self-fulfilling prophecy, he was pushed into the welcoming bear-hug of a Soviet Union looking for friends with real estate on America’s backdoor.
 That mushroom cloud from a Pacific Island test site has become the symbol of terror – in the wrong hands – terror would reign. In 1962, Kruschev accepted Castro’s offer to locate nuclear warheads on the island, though he kept the keys in Moscow. Once JFK was shown the evidence he engaged the world in a dangerous waltz with the Soviet leader. But in the end ‘The Russians tried. the Russians failed – homeward bound those missiles sailed’ (Phil Ochs). In return, the US agreed not to invade Cuba and to dismantle some obsolescent missiles in Turkey.
The Ukraine had been the third largest nuclear power in the world before they decided to destroy their weapons and sign onto the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). That was a bold act for which they demanded and got a quid-pro-quo as Russia, USA and UK put their signatures on 1994 Budapest Treaty guaranteeing Ukrainian’s territorial integrity and preserving it from foreign aggression.
Well we all know how that worked out. The US and UK turned their blind eyes as Mr. Putin marched in and swallowed Crimea. So emboldened was the Russian leader by this act of treachery, that he adopted the very same tactics into his play for eastern Ukraine. It turns out the Budapest Treaty isn’t worth the paper it was written on.
 Stock pile of nuclear weapons. No one really knows how many of the things tehre are in the world – too many, Still, there is no question where this story leads, as Russia shows no sign of stopping its subversion and planned absorption of part or all of Ukraine into the new Russian empire. And the US and UK have no intention of lifting their hands in any meaningful way to help, other than the couple of finger jabs they call sanctions. Though there is an election in a few days and that may resolve or rekindle the chaos currently gripping the country.
Ukrainians are Slavic people which originates from the word slave. And that pretty much sums up what happens to passive nations which actually believe in peace. Watching the early events evolve in eastern Ukraine was a bit like reading a Ukrainian version of the 1936 children’s book, ‘The Story of Ferdinand’. Banned by Franco, burned by Hitler, restricted by Stalin but cherished by Mahatma Gandhi, it is the tale about a bull who would rather smell the flowers than fight in the ring. That seems to be a passing story, however, as the Ukrainian military finds its momentum.
Cuba prevented American invasion by threatening potentially deadly nuclear retaliation to rain down on Washington. Would that strategy also work to now protect the Ukraine? Would American or British nuclear missiles sited in Ukraine, close enough to evade Russian defensive systems, and capable of turning Moscow into a bowl of bubbling borscht,deter further Russian aggression. Or would it just hasten the end for all of us.
To be sure the most disturbing aspect of this whole Ukrainian mess is the nonchalance of Obama and Cameron, global leaders who upon inheriting an international treaty to protect Ukraine, have no intention of living up to it. Ukraine would not have given up its nuclear arsenal without the assurances it got to preserve its territorial integrity. And nuclear weapons have become the ultimate defence mechanism – the very reason Obama and the Cameron won’t seriously confront Russia.
So, is that the lesson for the rest of the world? Nobody else is going to protect you from these new renaissance warriors – so you better get yourself a nuke. Does flaunting or outright breaking of international treaties, protocols and laws have no consequences? Are we witnessing the death knell of globalization as new trade restrictions, sanctions, and border controls bring the hope of global free trade to an end?
 Any nation with a coast line and a submarine can transport its weapons anywhere in the world. Background links:
Ukrainian Nukes Canada on Ukraine Putin VS Hitler The USSR
Cuban Missile Crisis Cuban Revolution Nuclear Disarmament
By Staff
May 21, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
It may have moved from top of mind ‘for a lot of people but a local chapter of the Council of Canadians activists, local residents, allies and First Nations blockaded the access road to an exposed section of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline Tuesday morning.
The blockade was to be twelve hours in length as a symbolic gesture; one hour for every thousand anomalies Enbridge has reported to exist on the line.
 Enbridge inspection workers were prevented from getting to their work site on Tuesday by protesters demonstrating against the National Energy Board decision to approve the direction of the flow through the line.  Integrity digs are when crews dig up the soil covering the pipe and inspecting it for cracks and possible leaks. They are checking on the “integrity” of the line and its ability to transport a product. Thepress release from the blockade states that “Line 9 has at least 12961 structural weaknesses along its length. And yet, Enbridge is only doing a few hundred integrity digs. Enbridge has been denying the problems with the pipe for years, and they still refuse to do the hydrostatic testing requested by the province. Are we really supposed to simply trust Enbridge when they tell us that this time they’ll do it right?”
Many of the blockaders point to the disastrous spill from Enbridge’s line 6b into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010, where millions of litres of oil spilled and have so far proven impossible to clean up. They also point out testimony at the NEB that Line 9 has a 90% chance of catastrophic failure in the initial years after its operation is changed.
 For the Line 9 protesters the issue is transporting oil from the tar sands in Alberta through a pipe line that runs through Burlington. This public demonstration in Burlington is the first seen since the National Energy Board approved the reversing of the flow in Line 9. There were a significant number of conditions attached to the approval, one of which was a number of digs to determine the condition of the line that is almost 40 years old.
By Staff
May 20, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Some 300 people gathered at the Convention centre last Thursday, to witness the awarding of Burlington’s BEST awards to seven people who were chosen by their peers as leaders in the community.
There were 29 nominees in the 49th annual awards event that recognized Citizen of the Year; Senior Person of the Year; Junior Person of the Year; Heritage Person of the Year; Arts Person of the Year; Community Service Award and the Environmental Award.
Mayor Goldring put it perfectly when he said: “Volunteers” are the backbone of our community, and add tremendous value to Burlington.” The men and women who are received the awards were recognized by their friends and colleagues as putting forth an extraordinary effort to make Burlington a better place.”
The Burlington’s Best Awards are managed by a citizen’s committee established in 1965 with the mandate of recognizing Burlington residents who bring honour to the city and make a difference in their community.
The Heritage Person of the Year Award is sponsored by Heritage Burlington, a City of Burlington citizen advisory committee. The award goes to an individual who has demonstrated a long-term commitment to the preservation of Burlington’s heritage, and has volunteered his or her time to support the preservation of Burlington’s heritage.
 If it had to do with either heritage or history Les Armstrong was at the meeting – usually with the late Jane Irwin. To have lost both of them in such a short period of time.
The award, quite rightfully, went to Les Armstrong whose service to Burlington covers many decades. He was a longstanding executive member of the Burlington Historical Society. His most recent accomplishment was organizing the Friends of Freeman Station. Burlington truly is a better place because of Les Armstrong and his efforts to preserve Burlington’s history for today and tomorrow; his death late in January lessened all of us.
Community Service Award is sponsored by COGECO, the local cable company and
is given to a Burlington resident who volunteered in the areas of public relations, marketing, communications or special events during the previous calendar year. Nominees will have promoted Burlington’s sense of community by sharing good news or encouraging others to contribute their time, talent and enthusiasm.
The nominees for this award in 2013 included: John Ives, Tomy Bewick, Friday Night Community Team at Wellington Square United Church, Les Armstrong, Gordon Cameron, Trent Schwartz and Beth Hudson
Trent Schwartz and his family sparked the imagination of the city when they decided they would embark on 100 local adventures in 2013. Schwartz tirelessly promoted Burlington by helping to get the word out to everyone about all the fantastic events and activities in our city. Schwartz has been a Burlington ambassador who continues to encourage and inspire local people and tourists to experience the great things the city has to offer while promoting Burlington’s sense of community.
Environmental Award Sponsored by Newalta – a leader in rediscovering resources and changing how industry perceives waste by partnering with its customers, helping them to meet their environmental objectives. The nominees were: Ken Woodruff and Paul Toffoletti
The Environmental Award went to Paul Toffoletti, a dedicated environmental protection advocate who has volunteered with the Bruce Trail Conservancy since 1996 and has been a member of the Burlington Sustainable Development Committee (SDC) since 2008.
As a board member of the Iroquoia Bruce Trail Club, Toffoletti spent a significant amount of time monitoring this ecologically significant parcel of land to ensure that Burlington’s natural heritage features continue to be protected. As vice-chair of the SDC, Toffoletti helped raise the committee’s profile by organizing speakers’ series in Burlington on issues that include climate change, local food and environmentally friendly gardening. He was instrumental in leading the review of development applications and routinely delegated to City Council on environmental matters. Toffoletti has played an active role on the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan Stakeholders Review Committee and continues to serve on the Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark Management Committee. Other environmental initiatives Toffoletti has supported include the Earth Day Hamilton-Burlington Eco Festival and various nature walk events. His dedication and enthusiasm for the environment has raised awareness and inspired others in Burlington to reduce their carbon footprint.
The K.W. Irmisch Arts person award went to a woman who took a big chance and brought one of the most imaginative cultural events to the city when she held the “No Vacancy” installation at the Waterfront Hotel. The nominees were: Selina Jane Eckersall, Christopher Giroux, Tomy Bewick and Jonathon Filipovic
 Selina Jane Eckersall looking over a model of Village Square – the location for her next “installation art” event. She is an entrepreneurial collaborator whose goal is to support and encourage a thriving contemporary art scene that extends beyond the gallery walls and into the hearts and minds of the city’s residents, artists and businesses.
Junior Citizen of the Year
Since 1875, B’Nai Brith has been respected for its groundbreaking work on matters relating to anti-Semitism, racism and human rights, as well as for its strong advocacy and the important social services it provides. Each year, local B’Nai Brith groups across the country reach out to those around them, helping to fund and organize activities that meet the special needs of communities.
The Junior Citizen of the Year Award is given to a secondary school student 18 years of age or younger, who, through devoted and energetic service to worthy causes, has been an example to the community. The nominees for 2013 were: Chad Buisman, Connor Withers, Curtis Kelly and Connor Fraser, Gabriella Paniccia, Justin McNerne
Chad Buisman has been volunteering with the Friday Night Community Dinner at Wellington Square United Church since its inception. He helps to feed more than 200 men, women and children each and every week with varying social, physical, social and emotional needs by supporting the dinners with set-up, food preparation and clean-up. He also organizes crafts for young children and shares his gift of music by playing musical instruments for the enjoyment of guests. Buisman is a volunteer with the church’s weekly children’s ministry program, Ryerson Camp and the City Kidz Foundation in Hamilton. He is a young role model who has spent more than 1,000 hours serving the Burlington community with a genuine humility that is beyond his years.
Senior Person of the Year
Canadian owned and operated, Schlegel Villages’ mission is to provide holistic health care in a home environment, located within an internal neighbourhood design that promotes a caring community, with an emphasis on optimal health and life purpose for each resident. The Village of Tansley Woods Long Term Care Home, the sponsor of this award, offers a rich selection of programs and activities year-round. The home is designed to build community while serving personal needs.
The Senior Person of the Year Award is given to a Burlington resident aged 60 years and over, who, through voluntary actions, has made a significant contribution to the city and its residents. The nominees for 2013 were: Michael Hourigan, Maggie Wheeler, Arnold Koopman, Thelma McGillivra
Maggie Wheeler
Wheeler is a cancer survivor who tirelessly serves the Burlington community. She collects non-perishable items for food banks and crochets hats, blankets and prayer shawls for cancer patients, women in crisis and disabled persons. When she travels to Mexico in winter months, she donates suitcases of school supplies and volunteers with her husband to support local food banks, schools and seniors’ homes. Within Burlington, Wheeler is also a volunteer with the Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, and Sew on Fire Ministries in Burlington. She is truly a selfless, charitable person whose heart touches each person she meets, with never a thought for herself.
Citizen of the Year Award
This award is brought to us by the service clubs of Burlington.
The world’s first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on Feb. 23, 1905. Since then, the club has grown to include 1.2 million Rotarians belonging to more than 32,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries. Service above self is Rotary’s guiding principle. The 2013 nominees were: x Bev Jacobs, Judy Gerdes, Denise Davy, Jean Longfield and Beth Hudson. Of interest and of note is that all the nominees were women.
The Citizen of the Year Award is given to an individual who, through devoted and energetic service to worthy causes, has been an example to the community.
Jean Longfield has positively impacted the lives of thousands of people through her “Gift of Giving Back” program. Beginning in 2007, the annual food drive program has now collected more than 770,000 pounds of food with a collective value of $1.89 million to help less-fortunate people in Burlington and the surrounding communities.
 The Burlington Eagles at a city hall event.
By Pepper Parr
May 19, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Thursday evening Burlington celebrated its BEST – 29 people were nominated for the seven categories the city has within which it recognizes and awards citizens who have contributed to the community.
The day before, in a reception at the Performing Arts Centre, city hall staff met to bid former city manager Jeff Fielding adieu. It was an event tinged with sadness, disappointment and some of that gallows humour that makes its way into events where there is not a lot of joy in the room.
The city was watching a truly dynamic city manager leave after a hectic, topsy turvey 26 month run when literally everything was looked at differently.
City solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol summed it up rather well when she said much of her work with Jeff was first asking if what he had done was legal and then changing documents to make sure it was legal. Jeff Fielding was the kind of guy who immediately went to the edge of an issue and THEN pushed.
 City administration leadership team: city manager Jeff Fielding on the left with general manager community and corporate services, centre and general manager, development and infrastructure Scott Stewart on the right. The two general managers didn’t always pull with the same level of effort. General manager Kim Phillips, who had a choppy working relationship with Fielding, said staff wanted to have a caricature made up to present to Jeff but there wasn’t time to get it done. “Had we managed to put it together it would have been of Jeff on a bicycle heading towards a golf course with his golf clubs over his shoulders peddling by city owned buildings with for sale signs on them.
Jeff Fielding was close to radical in his approach to many of the tasks he took on. He understood fully the need for the municipal sector to change its business model; he knew that what we are currently doing is not sustainable.
Taking the job opportunity as city manager in Calgary gives Jeff Fielding the opportunity to work with a mayor who also knows the current municipal business model will not work – it isn’t working now. Fielding was very comfortable in Burlington; taking the job of city manager for Burlington was to be his last move before retirement. The fertile soil for change that he thought he saw turned out to be thin with nowhere near the nutrients to bring about real growth.
As one watched his behaviour at Standing Committee meetings and became aware of just how big his changes were – it was breath taking. On an occasion when a discussion was taking place in Fielding’s office – almost every square inch was covered with pieces of papers with ideas, comments and questions. There was this itch to write down as much as I could read and to whip out the camera and start clicking away. There wasn’t an issue that Fielding would not at least look at.
 Former city manager Jeff Fielding, on the left, was always on hand with Mayor Rick Goldring. Here Goldring explains to Kilbride area residents what was being done and the time frames the repair crews were working to in their community. He didn’t see any reason for the city to be in the golf club business – we think he was right on that one. He had a team of smart people begin a study of the city’s space needs – asked first what do we have and then asked staff to set out what was needed now and into the future – and then began looking for ways to leverage the city hall property.
Fielding was convinced that city owned parking lots had much more value in them than was being realized and he was constantly looking for ways to get at that value and make it work for the city.
He understood fully, more than most of the city’s population, the importance of culture to the city and the need to hype the Performing Arts Centre and work with the Art Centre to get more value – and traffic – to those locations.
City council wasn’t able to find the money to hire a full time Cultural Development manager in the 2014 budget. During the final delegation from the Arts Collective, Fielding turned and told the speaker that he would look for a way to find the money to hire that person. “I can’t promise I will find the dollars – but I will try” which is more than any of the current council members said.
 Jeff Fielding, on the left, didn’t take prisoners. He let lawyer Glenn Grenier,second from the left, who described himself as an expert on the legislation that governs air parks in Canada, know that Burlington wasn’t buying his story. City solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol and Blake Hurley look on. After the meeting Fielding had some stiff words for Grenier while city solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol and staff lawyer Blake Hurley looked on.
Fielding was direct, blunt and didn’t have much time for the “slackers”. On the other hand he recognized real talent which he nurtured and developed. There are a couple of dozen people on the city payroll who are bigger and better people today than they were the day Fielding arrived. For them his decision to leave now was extremely disappointing.
He turned the way the city does its budget upside down and took staff into a Results Based Accountability (RBA) approach where the departmental silos would be merged in a way that would be exceptionally difficult for some staff.
When asked what would happen to the RBA work that had been done Fielding told this reporter that all the basic budget work is completed and he felt staff could complete the shift. That is a stretch by any definition.
Fielding has made arrangements for people in London where he introduced the RBA approach to work with Burlington’s financial team and that help will certainly be useful. What Fielding has done is take a team of people in probably the best run department in the city and convince them to go way out on a limb with him and do something significantly different. This kind of thing does not happen in the municipal world.
The financial people were excited, motivated; pumped if you will, and at a critical time their coach and mentor walks off the field. As much as we admire Fielding –that decision is difficult to fathom and disappointing as well . The city needed another year to get RBA in place and functioning – it was within Fielding’s power to do that. He chose not to.
Fielding did say that he would have liked to have had one more year in Burlington – the city would certainly have liked to have had him for that additional twelve months. One wonders if the Mayor told Fielding that he was not prepared to accept the resignation at this time and sent him back to his desk. Too much to ask for I guess
Rick Goldring told staff at the reception that the day he advised his fellow council members that Fielding was leaving he saw an event on YouTube where the Mayor of Calgary was introducing Jeff as their new city manager. “I felt”, said the Mayor, “like the guy who breaks up with a girl one night and the next day sees her in the arms of some other guy”.
It was both a shock and a profound disappointment to everyone. One wonders why we did not see this coming.
Fielding raised the bar said the Mayor in his remarks and Fielding certainly did that. The problem was that he didn’t stick around long enough to get his team to the point where they could get over that bar day in and day out. Budget time in 2015 is going to have more than the usual bumps in the road.
 Former city manager Jeff Fielding was strong enough to wear his emotions on his sleeve. Made a difference while he was here. Fielding who is an exceptionally emotional man – came close to losing it when he spoke to the team that he led and explained that there are occasions when opportunities come along and you take them. He added that his decision to move from London to Burlington was a family decision. His wife works with the regional government and the two boys are attending Burlington schools. Fielding took out a golf club membership – this was home.
The decision to move to Calgary was not, Fielding explained, a family decision. He was going to Calgary on his own and would commute to be with his family.
 Pat Moyle, interim city manager, probably until NEXT June, brings years of experience in municipal government having served as Regional CAO and with the Association of Municipalities in Ontario. A steady hand during a period of change. Scott Stewart was the “ying” to Fielding’s “yang”. Fielding looked at things from the 30,000 foot level and could see beyond the horizon and relied on Stewart to execute on the decisions that were made. The two were a remarkable team – the only good luck in all this for Burlington is that Fielding didn’t take Scott Stewart with him.
There are always complex reasons for changes made in one’s life. Fielding was pretty sure that the move to Burlington would be the capstone of his career – but then the phone call from Calgary came and Fielding was unable to say no to an opportunity to return to the city where he once worked in the planning department. There appears to be some unfinished business in Calgary that has cost Burlington the most dynamic and effective administrative leader we have seen for a long time.
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