 By Pepper Parr
June 15, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Like many good ideas – it starts out in a basement or someone’s garage and if it is right it grows from there.
The Burlington Chapter of 100 Women Who Care were meeting in a pretty drab looking community room at Tansley Wood and while the number of people involved was growing the rate of growth was a little disappointing.
Then out of the blue, BDO offered to cover the cost of a location that was certainly higher up the food chain. The June 18, 2014, from 7:30 – 8:30 p.m. will be held at the Burlington Golf & Country Club at 422 North Shore Blvd. E., Burlington.
BDO is the fifth largest single national accounting and advisory partnership in Canada with over 100 offices nationwide. It is a member of BDO International Limited, a UK company. The offer to pay for the Golf and Country Club space makes for a much nicer setting.
Marion Goard, one of the Burlington Chapter’s founding members announced that another local business – Dermetics, a firm that offers medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology services had stepped up and gotten involved.
The Dermetics support is unique and solves a problem that many small local firms have when deciding where and how to support the community. “The office manager at Dermetics” explained Goard, “reached out to me with an offer to support 100 Women. The rationale behind this is that they receive a fair number of requests for support from various sources and have a tough time determining who to support. By being involved with us, they know that their financial contribution is going to great causes, is being spread out across the city and they get their staff involved.
 Dermetics registered 10 memberships with Woman Who Care. This allows 10 of their staff to attend the meetings where they participate fully – as if they were funding their donation themselves however Dermetics will write the cheque to the recipient organization.
This is something a number of organizations might find very useful – it allows the company to support the community without tying up staff in the selection process. It also lets staff attend the meeting and be part of that selection process. It will be interesting to see if anyone else picks up on this.
The 100 Women Who Care model has its roots in the United States with several chapters forming across the U.S. and Canada since 2006. The mandate of the group is simple: 100 women or more meet four times a year to choose from three charities nominated for consideration. Members cast their ballot and then each write a $100 cheque for the charity that gets the winning vote. The goal is to raise a minimum of $40,000 annually ($10,000 x 4 meetings) in support of local initiatives.
The Burlington Chapter, founded by Marion Goard, Pat Grant, Megan Teall and Laurel Hubber, held its first meeting at the beginning of this year raising more than $3,000 for the Burlington Humane Society. At their second meeting they raised $4,000 for Halton Women’s Place.
Part of the appeal of 100 Women Who Care is that at each meeting the beneficiary of the last donation has a chance to address the membership to thank the group and to share how the donation will have an immediate impact in our community. “On Wednesday, Kaitlin Gordon, Development Coordinator from Halton Women’s Place will share with us how our $4,000 donation is making a difference to women’s lives in Halton. After Ms Gordon’s presentation, our members will listen to three 5-minute presentations about three new charities, take a vote and make their donations to the chosen beneficiary immediately afterwards,” says Goard.
Heading into the third meeting, support for 100 Women Who Care Burlington continues to grow. “We always welcome individual members as well as businesses who wish to be corporate sponsors to join us at our June meeting,” says Goard. “And whether you are new to the group or are already a member, we’re sure everyone will be excited to see how a small group of women can make a difference in our community – in just one hour.”
You can RSVP your attendance to info@100womenwhocareburlington.com. Nominations for charities/organizations can be filled out online ahead of the meeting at Nominations will also be accepted the night of meeting.
Registration begins at 7:00 p.m., with the meeting starting promptly at 7:30 p.m.
Goard does point out that the Burlington Chapter has some catching up to do. “I learned that the Greater St. Johns March donation exceeded $29,000 and they have over 900 ‘Likes’ on their Facebook page. We definitely have a ways to go to keep up with them. I’m not sure what’s holding things back here.”
Maybe the Golf and Country setting will make the difference.
 By Staff
June 15, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
They are relentless.
They send the emails out by the hundreds of thousands.
Their costs are minimal.
They need one of two things – people with more greed than common sense or people who don’t fully understand internet technology and what happens when they click on a link.
This is particularly difficult for seniors who can remember the day when they had phones run by a local operator who made the connections.
 If you click on that box your problems will have just begun. It means being vigilant – if it doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t and if you don’t understand what you are being asked to do – then don’t do it. And if it sounds too good to be true – then it isn’t true.
Set out below is the most recent scam. We do not bank with CIBC. How the fraud artists got our email address is beyond me – it’s not hard to get. That address will get bundled with millions of others and sold to someone who will then use that list to send out millions of email – all they need is one and they make more money with that person than they make in a year.
Some people have been ruined because they clicked on what they saw as a great opportunity. For the fraud artist it was a great opportunity.
 By Ray Rivers
June 14, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
What a night; what an election! Ontario voters have rejected the roller coaster, recessionary, austerity program the opposition PC’s were promising. Instead we have bought into the hope, promise and reconstruction offered in the last provincial budget by Premier Kathleen Wynne. And the NDP, which had precipitated the election, ended up being marginalized.
 The promise was clear – not to see how well she delivers on that promise. PC leader Hudak also announced he was stepping down as leader, something which will be music to the ears of the growing number of Ontario conservatives who don’t share his ‘Tea Party north’ vision for this province. The Globe and Mail, which had been critical of Hudak’s ill-conceived election platform surprised many with its conditional endorsement of the PC leader (Tory minority). Reports indicate that the Editorial Board may have been coerced by the paper’s owners, apparently causing dissent among editorial board members and making a mockery of the claim of independence for ‘Canada’s so-called national newspaper’.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath needs to consider also stepping down, given her disappointing performance over the last year and during the campaign. Horwath falsely accused the Premier and her party of ‘corruption’. Then, having caused the election, she was inept at producing a credible platform of her own – leaving her fellow candidates and party supporters baffled and rebelling. What was clearly a cynical play to expand her party’s seat count failed miserably and cost us all – paying for an election we neither needed nor wanted.
By her unqualified victory last night Wynne has freed herself from the legacy of the McGuinty era scandals which had plagued her from her first day as Premier. Moreover she now has a mandate to lead the province onto the path she has promised would restore the provincial economy. And of course, she will need to grapple with the significant budgetary deficit still ahead as well as a debt-load inherited from the years past.
That will likely mean paying attention to the revenue side of the equation as well as the cost side. So Ontario residents should expect a return to a more equitable and fulsome taxation regime. The province has the most efficient (least cost) government in the country. So while she will need to consider ways to restrain the mushrooming size of government services, that alone will not be enough to remove us from the ‘have-not’ list of provinces.
There were other big changes in this election as well. Locally, Burlington, where I once ran, against the odds, finally went Liberal with Eleanor McMahon winning after 70 years of Tory dominance. Ted McMeekin, in Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough and Westdale, retained his seat and can be expected to resume duties in Premier Wynne’s new Cabinet.
Halton voters put an end to the 20 years of Ted Chudleigh’s reign as Liberal Indira Naidoo-Harris pushed him out, convincingly. Chudleigh’s ouster represents the changing demographics of one of the fastest growing communities in Canada – one that he and his friend Mayor Gordon Kranz created. Can a similar fate be in the cards for Kranz this upcoming municipal election?
Premier Wynne has been given four years to implement her program of renewal and reconstruction for Ontario. This is an heroic undertaking given the global world we live in and the lack of support from a federal government best described as anti-Ontario. To be successful the Premier will need all of our support – after all we are all in this Ontario together.
Background links:
Voters Decide Liberal Win Wynne Settles the Debate Globe Editorial Board
 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.
 By Pepper Parr
June 13, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Hello Burlington. An historical day for the city – you’ve elected a member of the provincial legislature from a different political party. Burlington is no longer Tory Blue. The earth did move. We know how it happened – the why might take a little bit of time to understand.
 Eleanor McMahon, MPP elect for Burlington  For Eleanor the world of politics wasn’t one of those “love at first sight things” She was given an opportunity to help out and found herself in a place where her mental and physical energy could be used. An Assumption High school student Eleanor went on to do an arts degree at the University of Windsor and spent a year in France doing graduate work. She has also done certificate programs at the University of Waterloo and Trent University.
Mom was a woman with a university education, far from common at that time. Her world was the laboratory where she worked at the thinking end of a microscope.
An opportunity to work in Ottawa came her way and as a shy, inquisitive 23 year old Eleanor headed for Parliament Hill and spent a number of years working with John Turner, who to this day is a close friend. McMahon worked for Jean Chretien and can recall going to more than one hockey game with the then Prime Minister.
Communications and strategy were the McMahon strengths; where she took the dictum that if you didn’t know your history you were bound to repeat it.
When McMahon was a high school student Model Parliaments were a part of the curriculum – that is probably where the high school baseball player got infected.
 Burlington can expect to hear a lot from this lady. Eleanor’s Dad served in the Canadian army taking part in several of the major campaigns in Holland and Italy. His leadership ability got him to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, the British military leadership school that trained the men and woman who won the second world war.
Dad returned to Windsor after the war and began civilian life in the automotive sector where he handled what we today call logistics. Getting parts to where they were needed involved a lot of paper shuffling during that time when carbon paper was what you used to make a copy.
He worked with Chrysler and turned down several opportunities to move from Windsor and up the management ranks. Family was the core value and having everyone at the dinner table mattered most.
When it was suggested that the McMahon dinner table might resemble the television program Blue Bloods where several generations of NYPD officers shared a Sunday meal, McMahon nodded and said – that was pretty much who we were.
Conversation with McMahon is filled with some of the Liberal political greats – she would refer to John when she talked about John Turner or Jean when she talked about Primer Minister Chretien but it was always Mr. Gray when she talked about the late Herb Gray, probably her first and most influential mentor.
McMahon spent a considerable amount of time with the United Way in Ottawa and with Petro Canada where her communications skills were valued.
 Prior to being elected McMahon was the Executive Director of Share the Road, an advocacy organization that worked towards getting bicycles and car drivers to learn to share the road She took up the challenge and was in the race. The help that was needed from the Ontario Liberal party was delivered and the local riding association under the leadership of Roland Tanner got the troops into the trenches for a short but intensive campaign. It was something to watch the way McMahon bonded with people – I knew then that the woman as a natural, I also knew that this was Burlington and there was more than 70 years of history to overcome.
Saturday after Saturday the word would go out – “we are gathering at Tim Hortons” and working a particular part of the city. On some occasions McMahon had the Premier with her. McMahon was the better campaigner.
In the closing days of the campaign the McMahon campaign pulled off a coup that few expected possible in Burlington – they managed to buy the front page of the Burlington Post. While the advertisement was identified as an “advertorial” it looked like the real thing to a lot of people. That stiffened up the race and must have generated howls of disdain from the McKenna camp. It brought a front page apology from the Post to anyone offended by the advertisement. It was a sign as well of things to come: McMahon took 43.3 % of the vote a sold 5 points more than McKenna.
McMahon now has to build a solid Liberal constituency organization and create the relationships with the various organizations that she is now in place t represent at Queen’s Park.
It might take a bit of time for McMahon to bring about the change Burlington is going to have to adjust to – she will have her plate full with Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club lunches that want to see the new member of the legislature.
Getting sworn in and learning the ropes at Queen’s Park will keep her busy during the summer and into the fall season.
Getting a grip on what the immediate, near term and long term issues are for Burlington will take time. There will be those who will want to create their own relationship with the member and determine how much influence they can have.
Eleanor McMahon knows the game of politics as well as anyone and brings an ethic and a set of personal values to public office this city has not seen in some time. She is in office for four years – time enough to show what she can do. The timber that makes up the back bone of this woman is the kind of wood cabinets are built with Not immediately – but in time Eleanor McMahon will serve as a member of cabinet. And we will be very very proud of her.
The day she stands in the legislature to give her maiden speech will be significant and filled with personal emotions. It was in that Legislature that Bill 126 “Ontario Road Safety Act” was passed. It became known as Greg’s Law, in memory of OPP Sergeant Greg Stobbart, Ms. McMahon’s husband, who was killed while on an off duty training ride on his bicycle on June 6, 2006 in Milton, Ontario just north of their home in Burlington.
 By Pepper Parr
June 12- 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The bigger picture of the Burlington Air Park Inc., appeal of a lower court decision is now becoming clearer.
There are losses and there are losses – this one was a trouncing.
In the Appeal Court process has each side giving oral arguments based on the documents that were prepared beforehand. That collection of documents is called a Factum.
The appellant, in this case the Burlington Air Park Inc., proceeds first. At any point during the oral arguments either of the three appeal court judges can intercede and ask questions.
Peter Wells spoke for more than two hours and delved into all the reasons why the lower court ruling, the one given by Justice Murray in Milton should not stand. They ranged from inter jurisdictional immunity to the argument that the court case was never about the content of the landfill – which came as a surprise to the 11 Burlingtonians in the court room.
One of the judges asked Wells if the air park could faithfully obey federal laws why could they not obey municipal laws?
Wells later said that Justice Murray misunderstood what the real issues were. Several in the court reported later they they believed this was the point at which Wells lost his case. Several of the observers felt Wells glossed over the environment issues and one appeal court judge asked Wells directly if he thought Justice Murray was wrong. Wells said he believed Justice Murray was wrong.
Prior to the hearing Burlington Air Park Inc., filed a motion to have new evidence submitted. The court accepted the new evidence and then asked Wells what any of this had to do with the Murray decision.
The new evidence was related to an action the city had brought against King Paving that was later dropped; discussions about King Paving being able to bid on future city contracts and the Pinchin Environmental report dated April 7, relating to a “groundwater monitoring program limited environmental site assessment. Terrapex is currently reviewing that report for the city. It is a very, very complex detailed report .
The judges didn’t see it as relevant.
They took another short break, returned to the courtroom and advised Mr. Wells that they were deciding to dismiss his appeal.
Ian Blue didn’t have to say a word. He didn’t have to defend his Factum. The appeal court judges didn’t see a case to be argued and everyone was dismissed. The moment the judges were out of the court room the Burlington crowd burst into spontaneous applause.
It was over
The justices also awarded the city $22,000 in costs. These court cases are fast becoming a profit centre for the city.
The city put out its press release saying the “Court of Appeal for Ontario has upheld the decision that the City of Burlington’s site alteration bylaw applies to the Burlington Executive Airport.
“The city’s bylaw is valid and binding on the Burlington Airpark and the city is able to enforce its bylaw.”
The Mayor is a happy camper: “The city has shown its commitment to the residents of Burlington in keeping the site alteration bylaw in effect, even in challenging circumstances. He congratulated city staff who persevered in doing the right thing for our residents in ensuring that fill does not continue to pile up on the site and that there are some controls in place to help our community when affected by operations such as the airpark.”
Many of those residents are wondering why the land fill was allowed on the site in the first place.
Ward 6 Councillor Blair Lancaster, who has had her problems with the residents directly impacted by the land fill dumping, said “I am pleased for the people who live near the Burlington Airpark that this decision has been upheld by the Court of Appeal. This is an important moment for those residents, and I am hopeful that things will improve for them.”
The city will meet with legal counsel to determine next steps.
The site alteration bylaw allows the city to regulate how a piece of land can be altered, such as through filling, grading or excavation. The city is updating its site alteration bylaw, which regulates how a piece of land can be altered through filling, grading or excavation, and is hosting a public information meeting to review the new version on Thursday, June 19 from 7 to 9 p.m. at City Hall, 426 Brant St., Room 247.
The really critical question is – which version of the bylaw will be used to bring the air park to heel – and are we done with the appeals?
Barbara Sheldon, who has suffered the most damage at this point – but there are neighbouring farms that will not know for years if they will suffer damages and who knows when whatever is in that fill is going to work its way into the water table, has become the “poster girl” for the movement opposed to the air park work. She has done a CBC News interview as well as a CFRB radio interview and is seldom at a loss for words had this to say about the appeal dismissal: “The verdict of the Appellate Judges, upholding Justice Murray’s ruling that the City can enforce its site alteration by-laws, may be the first, real turning point to the restoration of the properties and lives that Rossi has willfully and deliberately damaged since he bought the Airpark.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Rossi’s proven history with this community has destroyed any possible belief from me that Mr. Rossi will ever comply with the City or respect his neighbors.
“What I do have hope for, is that the pilots will now take back their ‘club’ and restore it to the wonderful, recreational airpark that was built and operated for 60+ years by the Kovachiks’, and that it once again co-exists in harmony within the community and the City of Burlington, as it did under their ownership.”
Vince Rossi does not make himself available to the Gazette. He is currently suing this newspaper on a web site along with two north Burlington residents for damaging his reputation and has asked the court to award him $100,000 in exemplary damages.
Defences are being prepared – a court date has yet to be determined.
Rossi said he will be meeting with his legal team to determine how to proceed with the planned expansion of the air park. He apparently expressed hopes that the city ““might be more conciliatory.” Rossi is reported to have said: “We’ve been conciliatory with the city all along up until this recent situation. It’s not like we did anything the city was not aware of.”
 City general manager Scott Stewart talks to members of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition during a council meeting break. On the far right sits Monte Dennis, of of the people being sued by the air park; in the row behind sits Vanessa Warren who is also one of the defendants in the libel suit with the air park. On the left, standing is Blake Hurley, the city legal staffer who handed the air park file for the city. Seated on the left is Ian Blue the lawyer who has done some very good work for the city. Vanessa Warren, founder of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition and a candidate for the ward 6 council seat in the October municipal election, hopes that this decision will open up the blockages on getting environmentally based information from the province and that the Ministry of the Environment might soon be able to go on site and test the soil “which is the problem.”.
 Vince Rossi, president of the Burlington Executive Air Park and believed to be the sole shareholder of the private company, met with north Burlington residents. He took all the comments made “under advisement”.. Right now the city and the MOE are battling over Freedom of Information FOI requests that have been made and denied. They city is either at the mediation or adjudication level on several of these FOI requests.
Where is all this going? It probably isn’t over yet. The air park has a very significant $4.5 million investment and they aren’t just going to walk away from it.
Ideally for the community the land fill will eventually get tested – and if it found to be damaging – then it has to come out.
Who pays for that? The people who own the land. Right now Vince Rossi own the air park and no one can see his bank foreclosing on the mortgage they hold – they don’t want title to the land.
There is a 200 acre piece of prime land up there – at some point someone is going to have to come up with an idea for the property. Vince Rossi believed he had a great idea but he has not managed to sell that idea to anyone.
Don’t expect any innovative ideas from the council you are going to elect in October
 By Pepper Parr
June 12, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It was a healthy crowd. They were attentive and at Nelson High to listen to a debate between Progressive Conservative incumbent Jane McKenna, Liberal candidate Eleanor McMahon in and Janet Mowbray representing the NDP. All want to be elected as the Burlington representative in the provincial legislature.
Other than the debate sponsored by the Canadian Federation of University Women, debate this turned out to be the only opportunity to see the candidates debating
The audience was attentive with the focus on what each political party would do for the province in terms of education.
The lines between the policies were as clear as any citizen could possibly want them to be. The Progressive Conservatives were blunt – they want to see 100,000 fewer civil servants on the public payroll which meant cuts at the educational, medical and public services levels. While cutting in these sectors was to be brutal – the promise was to create 1 million new jobs in the private sector.
The issue for the PC’s was the level of debt the province is carrying. The Liberals weren’t as constrained with debt – they saw debt as what was needed to fully recover from the 2008 recession.
The differences in the political party decisions are fundamentally clear – and we don’t hear that many people talking about a “great” program from any of them.
The New Democrats are still fighting the collective agreement battle of the 2011 election – the Liberal government of the day certainly did themselves no favours when they tinkered with the teacher’s collective agreements. Liberals now argue that the number of teachers needed problem has been fixed and that jobs were not lost – which the Tories say is part of the problem. They point to declining enrollments but nothing comparable in the way of lowering of the teaching compliment.
The Liberals believe that the only way the province is going to grow the economy – we still are not fully out of the 2008 recession – is to ensure that we have the labour force with the education needed to take up the good jobs they believe will surely come if the province stays the course.
The Tory’s are obsessed with the size of the provincial deficit and are prepared to cut, slash and burn – whatever it takes to get the civil service reduced.
The Liberals argue that cutting those education, health inspector and hospital staff will significantly reduce the quality of life and the life style Ontarians have come to expect.
 If you voted the political party – these were your choices – and the differences are stark. The campaign locally has been harder fought at the door to door level than most people realize. The Association of University Woman held their debate during which it is reported McKenna did better than the Nelson High event.
The cancellation of the Chamber of Commerce breakfast (they said no enough tickets had been sold) was a blow to the community. Many suspected the Tories in this town suggested the Chamber event be cancelled – McKenna wasn’t looking all that good at public meetings.
At some point during the campaign Cam Jackson was seen going door to door with McKenna. Those must have been really old solid Tory polls.
The brilliant cover page ad the Liberals ran in the Post stunned many. It sure looked like a real front page – but it was a paid advertorial that has McMahon sweeping the election.
Then she Toronto Star report that had Burlington going Liberal after 71 years of Tory rule- that boosted moral at the Liberal campaign office on Fairview. Some may have been surprised that the Post sold their “front” page – but a buck is a buck – I guess.
There is a time when the quality of the candidate over rides the party choice – and on that level Eleanor McMahon was the most sensitive to the issues, the most persuasive with her arguments and the most able to listen.
McKenna has been backing away from cuts in the education sector. She is reported to have said the PC’s will not be cutting education spending however she did see a need for better allocation of resources in the educational sector.
Jane McKenna has served one term as the MPP for Burlington. She was a close to last minute choice for the nomination in 2011 and was surely the most surprised and delighted woman in the city when Keith Strong approached her to accept the PC nomination.
The question many have about McKenna is: What has she done for Burlington? At a city council meeting recently ward 1 councillor Rick Craven asked why they had never once seen McKenna. “We’re paying her” was Craven’s comment “she should at least appear before us.”
Where the Liberals are weakest is with the profligate spending during the McGuinty years. There was nothing wrong conceptually with Ornge except that the government forgot they were supposed to keep an eye on what their agencies do. Where was the oversight? E-health was necessary but how did the government get hornswoggled into paying the salaries they paid?
At one point during the lead up the vote it looked as if the Liberals might have squeaked through with a slim two seat majority. That would not have been because they are the best choice – they are all disappointments and the citizens of this province deserve better.
Leadership is supposed to be about hope, promise, a better day and a better society – having “chicken little” shout at me saying the sky was going to fall in was not something I needed – thank you.
When Wynne said again and again that she was sorry about the gas plant decisions during the leaders debate I didn’t feel that we were in good hands.
That the gas plants were going to be cancelled was a given – all three parties knew that -it was the way the government sent good dollars after bad out the window as they settled with the contracting companies. The public had a right to better stewardship over public funds
At the Nelson High event candidates were given four questions prepared for the candidates taking part in the Nelson High event – they were given the questions before the event which explained why all of the candidates were reading from documents in front of them
Was it a debate? Not really but it was certainly a chance to see where each candidate and their party stood on an issue.
Other than door to door visits most of the public had not had a chance to see two of the candidates. The evening at Nelson High was an opportunity to see how much Jane McKenna had grown as a member of the legislature – unfortunately she hasn’t grown in either stature or a sense as to just what being the member of the legislature for a community is all about.
McKenna did however make it very clear what the Progressive Conservatives would do and many in the room felt the shudder of the Harris days. However, there were many that recalled all too well what Bob Rae did to the province when he was the NDP Premier.
McKenna, who is usually very quick with facts and numbers, got caught up on her some of the numbers she was putting out.
The politeness and courtesy between Liberal candidate McMahon and NDP candidate Mowbray was so distinct when compared to the brashness and hard words used by McKenna. At one point Janet Mowbray had run out of time answering a question and McMahon turned to her and said – “use some of my time. It was noted as well that every candidate for the Burlington seat was female.
For those that went to the event as hard core partisans – McKenna did fine. For those who were reflective and thoughtful – they would have left the room wondering what kind of a society they want and if McMahon represented that society. The difference between McMahon and McKenna was palpable.
A speaker brought to the audience’s attention that Mowbray was once a Liberal and did not live in the riding. McMahon was quick to point out that while she lives in Burlington her residence is about six blocks outside the constituency boundaries.
The issue for the audience was those 100,000 pink slips Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has said he is going to hand out. McKenna is quick to add that much of that reduction in people on the payroll will come through attrition.
The campaign is over, people are now making their way to the polling stations and by the end of the day we will know what we have in the way of a provincial government for the next four years.
If it turns out to be Kathleen Wynne – expect her to face two different people the next time out. Hudak’s leadership will not survive another loss – and the New Democrats will begin looking for a leader who had s a plan and a vision.
Should Tim Hudak prevail and become Premier Ontario then we have to wait and see how far he goes with his plans to significantly change the way the government provides services and support to the taxpayers and how they grow the economy of the province.
Monday of next week A Different Drummer Books and Burlington Public Library will feature a guest with both knowledge and insight on just how parliamentary democracies work.
Michael MacMillan will talk about his book: Tragedy in the Commons that documents the views of former members of parliament who speak out on Canada’s Failing Democracy. Monday June 16 7pm at the Central Library.
 By Pepper Parr
June 11, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Based on an as yet verified report from the Osgoode Hall Ontario Court of Appeal, Burlington Air Park Inc., appears to have lost the second round in efforts to build an air park without having to comply with municipal rules and regulations.
A panel of three judges dismissed the appeal on the spot – which is a bit unusual. Frequently appeal courts take time to review the documents and the pleadings and then write their decision and release it at a later date.
The Burlington Air Park Inc., can seek leave to appeal the decision of the Supreme Court.
We will seek additional details on this matter and follow up.
The tide has certainly turned on this situation. The city can now begin thinking about just what it is going to require of the air park in terms of compliance with the site plan by-law. And residents who have suffered significant property value losses can begin to think in terms of damages they will want to seek.
 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 Pepper Parr
May 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
On the night that the Montreal Canadiens were showing North America that they really knew how to play the game by beating the New York Rangers 7-4 – 175 sports people took part in the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame 2014 Inductee event. (Two night later the Habs lost the game and the semi-final series.)
Mayor Rick Goldring presented a certificate with a pin from Council to Jesse Lumsden in recognition of his participation in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.
The inductees were – Dr Frank Hayden, Ken and Elaine Lake – long time track and field officials, Jesse Lumsden – Olympic Bobsledder – former football player and Nelson grad and Melanie McKay – Olympic Swimmer
 Elaine and Ken Lake – tireless workers. Elaine and Ken officiated in Edmonton at the World Outdoor Championships, at the Vancouver Commonwealth (1994), at the PAN AM Junior in Windsor, at the World Junior in Charlettown, and finally in Toronto at the 2012 World Athletics Deaf Championships.
At the NOC Level, Elaine served as Vice Chair for Human resources for six years, and when she left in 1992, she passed the position on to Ken. Both performances have been excellent and most of their work is still applied today. At the provincial Level, Elaine served as the Ontario Officials’ Council Chair for 1977 -78 while Ken covered the same position during 1984-85. In addition, Ken acted as OOC’s Vice Chair, Evaluator and Clinician, and member of the Provincial Test.
Lance Nethery – NHL Hockey Player – is currently CEO of the Cologne Sharks in the German Hockey League. Centre Lance Nethery played 41 NHL games during the early ’80s. He was a fine goal scorer who put up impressive numbers in college, the minors, and European leagues.
The Toronto native scored 91 goals in four seasons at Cornell University. After scoring 32 times in 29 games, he was chosen 131st overall by the New York Rangers in 1977. He was named to the ECAC first all-star team twice and the second team once and was a two-time selection to NCAA east first all-American team.
During the 1979-80 season Nethery adjusted well to the pros by scoring 62 points for the New Have Nighthawks of the AHL. He was called up by the Rangers in 1980-81 and scored 23 points in 33 games but eventually lost out to centres Mike Rogers, Mark Pavelich, Mike Allison, and Robbie Ftorek.
Nethery began the 1981-82 season on Manhattan but was returned to the minors then traded to the Edmonton Oilers for veteran goalie Eddie Mio. He played three games in Edmonton but spent most of his time with the CHL’s Wichita Wind where he scored 35 goals in only 46 contests. He battled injuries in 1982-83 before joining the HC Davos club of Switzerland the next year. Nethery was a dominant scorer for his new club and led the Swiss League with 46 goals in 1985-86. He retired in 1988 after leading Davos to two Swiss Elite League championships.
Mayor Goldring added in a comment later that he and Lance are the same age – went to school together from Kindergarten or Grade 1 to Grade 13 – two Nelson Grads. “We played on the same house league team when we were eight. One of my more vivid memories is scoring my first goals in organized hockey with Lance being the first to congratulate me.”
 Jesse Lumsden – set records that have yet to be broken. JESSE LUMSDEN: is a hometown boy who loved to play all kinds of sports. But his passion was football and he was good – so good in fact that in 2004 this former McMaster Marauder was awarded the HEC CRIGHTON trophy recognizing the most outstanding collegiate football player in Canada. In the same year Jesse was honoured by the CIS as not just the best football player in the country but the best university ATHLETE in the country.
Jesse followed in the footsteps of his father Neil who had an accomplished career at the University of Ottawa and ten remarkable years in the CFL. 2014 is a memorable year for this father-son team. Later this year Neil will be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame while his son is recognized now in his hometown as a member of the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame.
Jesse earned football prominence very early in his Nelson High School career. He captained the 1999 Nelson Lords to an undefeated season, earning a trip to the Metro Bowl played in Toronto’s Skydome. A clear underdog, Nelson defeated a bigger and much older Toronto Central Tech team to win the provincial title. This gifted running back was named the game’s MOST VALUABLE OFFENSIVE PLAYER AWARD and a Greater Toronto Area All-Star.
Heavily recruited, Jesse selected McMaster where he made an immediate impact. He electrified spectators (and coaches too) with his speed and elusiveness. In his third year he broke the single season O.U.A. rushing mark gaining a remarkable 1497 yards and averaging 8.4 yards per carry. He also tied the single season touchdown record with 20. His sensational season earned the Nelson grad McMaster’s Male Athlete of the Year. In his senior season he continued to tear up the turf rushing for 1816 yards – averaging 10.2 yards per carry and establishing a record 21 touchdowns. He was named OUA 1st Team All-Star and CIS All-Canadian and he repeated as Mac’s Athlete of the Year
As a young man Jesse dreamt about playing pro ball in the NFL. Even though drafted in 2004 in the first round by the Hamilton Tiger Cats he was drawn south of the border where he signed as a free agent with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. The Cats hoped he would return to Tigertown. And he did. Jesse had an incredible rookie season and earned a spot as an Eastern all-star. Injuries short-circuited the talented young man’s six year CFL career.
This gifted athlete recently turned his athleticism to bobsledding. Recognized as one of the top brakemen in the world, the Nelson grad has twice worn the Canadian singlet on the world stage at the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games. Today we recognize his football talent and welcome “hometown hero” – Jesse Lumsden – to the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame.
DR. FRANK HAYDEN: Frank Hayden had a high school named after him but before that he was a major moving force in the creation of what was first known as the Special Olympics.
A pioneer sets out to explore and find new territory. He/she must have vision but along with this rare quality must come perseverance, tenacity and diligence. Dr. Frank Hayden displayed these qualities and much more in his quest to provide sporting opportunities for those who are developmentally disabled and intellectually challenged.
 Frank Hayden with Ontario Lt Governor after receiving the Order of Ontario In the early sixties, testing of children with intellectual disabilities revealed that they were only half as physically fit as their non-disabled peers. It was assumed that their low fitness levels were a direct result of their disability. Dr. Hayden questioned this assumption. He conducted research which concluded that, given the opportunity, intellectually disabled people could become physically fit, and acquire the physical skills necessary to participate in sport.
His belief and understanding led him to conceive the idea of Special Olympics, a national sports program for people with an intellectually disability. His proposal was originally rejected by the Canadian government, however, his research became known to the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation in Washington D.C. So he went to work with Eunice Kennedy Shriver for the next seven years. Here he served as Director at the Kennedy Foundation and was the catalyst in establishing federal legislation to assist persons with a disability.
He returned to Canada and worked to establish a similar program here. Canada’s first games were held in Toronto in 1969 with 1400 athletes. In 1975 and assumed the position of Director of the School of Physical Education and Athletics at McMaster. From there Dr. Hayden persisted with his dream and established the Special Olympics Office of International Development , assisting with the growth of International programs from 15 to 50.
His list of achievements and awards is remarkable. Here are a few: Honorary Member of the Canadian Olympic Association; Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999 and Order of Canada in 2000. Also, he was recognized recently by the Halton Board of Education as the name of their newest and ‘state of the art’ secondary school here in Burlington is Frank Hayden High School. Dr. Hayden legally incorporated “Special Olympics Inc.” and today the program provides training and competition for more than three million athletes in more than 170 countries.
Olympic swimmer Melanie McKay was also recognized and inducted into the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame. A biography of Ms McKay was not available.
 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 Pepper Parr
May 28, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON. You have to understand Ron Foxcroft and his affinity with the world of sports. He has been around every game that is played and while he can, on occasion, get the ball in the basket – that isn’t what he is known for.
 The whistle business all started on the floor of a basketball court. Earlier in the week there was a need to talk with Ron Foxcroft – getting to him is not easy – he is on the go from just after seven to late into the evening most days.
But get through we did – and started our conversation asking if he had caught the game – that being the one where the Habs took a hockey game in the direction it was meant to go – 7-4 with a hat trick for the Canadiens too boot. “Of course I got to the game – I had to rush out of the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame inductee event but I saw that game.”
 The Official Whistle of the NHL with a logoed edition for the Stanley Cup finals provided by a high school dropout who lives in Aldershot.  Then he adds – “did you know that Foxcroft International made the whistles – the logoed whistles for the NHL final?
No we did not know that – would you send us a picture? And here it is. Another Foxcroft product.
We chatted about the stupendous game goalie Dustin Tokarski is putting in as he stands between the pipes. Of course we all know the kid used to play for the Hamilton Bulldogs – which at one point was owned by Ron Foxcroft.
What matters of course are those whistles – will they blow at the right time? For the right team?
We will be watching the two remaining games and hopefully the cup – the Stanley Cup, will rest where it belongs – in the head office of the Le Club de Hockey Canadien. It really should be at the Forum, just along St. Catherine Street in Montreal – half a block from the Toe Blake Tavern.
That was a different era – but the hockey then was still the same – great! Jean Beliveau, Maurice Richard, Guy Lafleur – the dream goes on.
Background links:
Foxcroft on his own court.
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 28, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
It is the offence that cuts into the hearts of parents whose children are sexually molested.
Parents trust their children to teachers, coaches and others that play a part in the growth and development of their children.
When a person in a position of trust and authority abuses that trust the reaction is one of total and complete revulsion, especially when there are young people involved. All but impossible for a parent to look behind the abuse – it is foul, despicable and cuts to the core of what we as a society can bear. Too much – punish.
The Halton Regional Police continue to investigate sexual assault allegations against Sean Hewson as additional victims have come forward. Hewson was a Sailing Coach instructor.
On Tuesday, May 27th, 2014, Halton Police laid an additional sexual assault and sexual interference charge against Sean Hewson.
The Court has imposed a publication ban which was put in place on May 23rd, 2014.
Mr. Hewson has been remanded to Thursday the 29th of May, 2014 where police will be laying more charges in relation to a sixth victim.
The Halton Regional Police encourage anyone with information to contact D/Sergeant John Mans, Child Abuse and Sexual Assault Bureau at 905 465-8760.
The community’s task now is to aid in the investigation and to be part of the healing and recovery of those assaulted. This is a very hard time for many.
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