 By Staff
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
She was an older person. The criminal took a total of $150,000 from the woman’s bank account through a series of transactions over a period of time.
Halton Police need the public’s assistance to identify this criminal.
Between June 11th and July 2nd, 2014, the elderly victim was contacted by unknown persons whom she believed to be family members, asking for a loan.
This unknown person arranged for the elderly victim to be picked up by an alleged taxi driver who subsequently transported the victim to her financial institution and assisted the victim in the transfer of funds.
On three occasions, this “taxi driver” transported the victim to her bank and facilitated the transfers, totaling $150,000.00.
Police are requesting the public assistance in identifying this unknown suspect.
Suspect description:
Male, White
40-50 years
Tall/large build
Long straight hair (just past shoulders)
Clean shaven (possible chin growth)
Sideburns
On all occasions, suspect wore knee length shorts, t shirt, black zip up vest, white runners.
Please contact D/Cst Nada JOVIC at 905 825-4747 ext 2344 for any information relating to this occurrence/suspect.
 By Staff
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The Burlington Community Foundation released the different aid packages that will be available and the processes they expect to follow. The information was released at a media event at Central Arena Wednesday morning.
What types of funds are available to victims?
The BCF Flood Disaster Relief Committee has identified two types of financial assistance for flood victims:
1. Advance funds to help with costs associated with emergency living expenses
2. Assistance for Losses and Damages for more complex requirements
What are the details of the Advance funds?
Advance funds of up to $1,000 will be made available to victims who have no insurance coverage for emergency additional living expenses. Eligible costs are: evacuation costs, accommodation and meals, and essential clothing.
How do I make an Advance funds claim?
Applicants are asked to complete an Advance Funds Claims Package that includes filling out a form, attaching receipts, and providing all requested information. The package must be submitted to the BCF Flood Disaster Relief Committee at Burlington Community Foundation, 3380 South Service Road, Unit 107, Burlington, Ontario, L7N 3J5 by October 4, 2014.
 The form can be found at www.burlingtonfoundation.org or residents can call 905 639 0744 ext.223 to arrange for an Advance Claims Package to be mailed, picked up or delivered. Our Committee is committed to assisting people in completing the form to expedite the claims process if that is requested.
Advance funding is being made available through generous community donations received from Burlington friends, neighbours, businesses and organizations.
How long will it take to receive Advance funding?
The Committee will work quickly to ensure these funds begin to be disbursed as rapidly as possible, and plans to start approving funds by September 15, 2014.
What are the details of the Assistance for Losses and Damages funding?
The Assistance for Losses and Damages funding is designed to assist victims in greatest need with more extensive losses and damages, and who were either uninsured or underinsured for their building and/or contents. Homeowners and tenants, small businesses, non-profit organizations and farms can apply. Applicants will be required to fill out a more complete form that will be made available at www.burlingtonfoundation.org by September 30th. At that time, more information outlining what expenses are eligible will also be provided.
How much money will victims receive?
The amount of funding provided depends on two variables – how much money is raised in the community during our fundraising campaign and whether the City of Burlington’s application to the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program (ODRAP) for 2 to 1 funding is approved.
It is important to note that throughout our fundraising campaign the City and our MPPs will be communicating with the province on the status of the ODRAP application.
The Committee will review status of the 100 day community fundraising campaign on October 4th, at which time they expect to be in a position to determine how much funding is currently available to provide some further financial assistance to those in greatest need. Victims will be asked to submit an Application for Assistance for Losses and Damages funding with a specified deadline date provided. This process is more complete and will take more time. It requires the services of an insurance adjuster who will assist in determining the level of damage and relief. The claims process will adhere to ODRAP guidelines to ensure our process meets ODRAP’s terms and conditions.
How will the BCF Flood Disaster Relief Committee determine eligibility for Assistance for Losses and Damages funding?
The Committee will work to provide some financial assistance to victims in greatest need and will work closely with the insurance adjuster to determine and communicate the process, timelines for review and decisions on funds provided.
Who is the insurance adjuster?
Following ODRAP guidelines, the Committee is currently requesting three quotes from reputable and qualified insurance adjusting companies. We expect to make a decision by September 30th.
How often will the Committee communicate to flood victims, and the community at-large, to provide updates and new information?
The Committee is committed to communicating regularly to flood victims and community members. We will post updates on the BCF Flood Relief website at www.burlingtonfoundation.org every two weeks, or more frequently when important information becomes available.
By Pepper Parr
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
“We need money and we need it now” was the way local disaster fund chair Ron Foxcroft put it to an audience of about 50 people at the Central arena Wednesday morning.
 Front of the Burlington Community Foundation web site explains what they are all about. Foxcroft, chair of the Disaster Relief Fund that is raising the funds made it clear to anyone in the room that the only thing that mattered was raising the $2 million target. If we don’t raise those dollars there will not be any money to hand out.
 Foxcroft, who is loquacious when there is a microphone in front of him, explained just how “simply unheard of” the flood was for the city. Toronto’s flood was 100 mm, Hurricane Hazel was 121 Burlington got 191 mm of rain in a couple of hours.
Mayor Goldring said there were now 3100 homes flooded to date as well as a number of businesses.
Foxcroft has set a high bar to get over; he wants the bulk of that $2 million target on the table by October 4th. He calls it his hundred day campaign which takes him to the middle of December but the bulk of that money is needed now.
 Disaster Relief Fund chair Ron Foxcroft will drive the fund raising part of the program. Want to see the biggest part of the $2 million in the barn by October 4 – gives himself 100 days to complete the job. Foxcroft estimates that the loss on the residential side is $83 million with an additional $10 million in commercial operations.
“Something between 10% and 20% of the residential damage is uninsured –which is $8 to $16 million dollars. “We aren’t going to be able to raise that much money but the target of $2 million to be raised locally is more than do-able and Foxcroft is setting out to make it happen.
We will be knocking on some hard doors in the days ahead.
Foxcroft reported that there was now $350,000 in donations. There is still a lot of money raised by small groups that is working its way to the Disaster Fund bank account that is being managed by the United Way.
Foxcroft said that something between 400 and 500 people are going to need help; he hoped there would be enough to help all of them.
The Rotary had 60 volunteers out at Ribfest. Their official number has not been released but the number of $40,000 plus was mentioned.
Colleen Mulholland, Rick Goldring and Mike Wallace sent the $1000 Exgratia grant they received from the Region along to the disaster fund. Foxcroft passed along the $20 he won in a Tiger Cats, Argonauts bet – if that target is to be met Foxcroft is going to have to make bigger bets.
Some people found themselves wondering why nothing was happening. Foxcroft explained that he was moving quickly on the raising of funds locally. Mayor Goldring added that the Burlington applications are moving at the “speed of light” compared to what other municipalities have experienced in the past.
The Disaster Relief Committee is not just about raising money – it is about distributing funds to people who need the help.
There will be two aid packages.
One with an upper limit of $1000 to cover immediate essential such as paying for accommodation because people cannot live in their homes.
Some people lost all their clothing. This aid package is for immediate needs.
Funds for this $1000 aid package will be available as early as September 15.
 Burlington Community Foundation president Colleen Mulholland has been at the wheel of the organizational effort to get a process in place that will raise funds and then distribute those funds – soon. The second package is for those people who were uninsured or under-insured and is quite a bit more complex and will require more paper work “and it will” explained BCF president Colleen Mulholland “take more time”
“There are procedures and protocols within the ODRAP program that we are going to comply with” she said. “We are not going to get caught off side on this.”
The forms and procedures for both aid packages will be on the BCF web site.
 The level of desperation for some was evident when a man from the audience said he had no insurance – this is the fourth flood we have experienced in a year and a half. “What are we supposed to do” he said, “it makes you want to cry”.
Indeed it does – and on Wednesday morning there were no hard answers for anyone. There weren’t even promises – there were processes.
This is not going to be easy for anyone. The first part is to raise funds locally and then press the province to come through with what the existing legislation does permit. Burlington just has to convince the bureaucrats that we need their help.
The information people will need, will be on the Burlington Community web site September 4th.
 By Pepper Parr
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 2 of 3
The residents of Elwood Street, a short number of yards from Tuck Creek that spilled out onto New Street, held a Street festival that had the Burlington Teen Tour Band playing for the audience. It was a good crowd but no one spoke to the 750 or so people milling around buying hot dogs, hamburgers and T-shirts.
No one said anything. The Mayor was there, the ward Councillor was on hand; pleasantries were exchanged – but not even an update from the Mayor.
 Interim city manager Pat Moyle knows something about managing local disasters and while his job was to be on board to help staff complete the work they have in front of them and keep the ship of state upright until he goes before council, sometime in 1Q of 2015, with three recommendations for a new city manager.
Pat Moyle got his new business cards early in May and was in full harness before the end of the first week on the job. He handled, rather deftly, the settlement details on the pier. The city did the smart thing and got right out in front of the story when the results of the settlement were made public. The city had sued everyone involved in the project and didn’t get the satisfaction they had hoped for but they did get a total of $1.5 million that was in a pool of funds that were to be distributed. The pool of funds came from all the other parties except the original contractor. The city didn’t have to put any money into the pool either and they got an additional amount of $500,000 they didn’t have to return to the contractor.
The city stood up and said they had won – and that was that. Nice move – for once the city got in front of an issue instead of having it steam roll over them
That was followed by a truck driver who was drinking more than coffee or smoking more than a cigarette crash into the Skyway Bridge because the cargo box part of his truck was in the raised position. That stunt tied traffic up for a long most of a weekend.
So when the call came to get back to Burlington right away Pat Moyle was ready to move into Emergency Measures mode. There was a Disaster management plan that had been put together by planners that had all kinds of appendices attached to it – few of which met the Burlington situation according to Moyle
“Contacts”, said the city manager “are the most important thing in a disaster. You have to know who to call and the people you are calling have to know you.” We had an infrastructure that could not handle the sudden demands that were made of it – and while Moyle didn’t come right out and say so – it was clear that he didn’t think the city was as ready as it should have been.
 “Climate change is undeniable and what we saw August 4th is the new reality”, said Moyle. James Smith, candidate for the ward 5 council seat said as much in his 10 point plan in which he referred to a 2007 report that set out the infrastructure challenge but didn’t get acted upon.
There are no immediate short term solutions explained Moyle; something that James Smith would disagree with. He thinks there are immediate short term solutions that won’t solve the problems wrought on the community by the August 4th flood but they will, if Smith is correct, prevent anything as disastrous happening again.
Moyle attended the Association of Municipalities (AMO) conference with the Mayor and said “Goldring was everywhere. There wasn’t a button hole he didn’t latch on to as he told the city’s story. According the Moyle Goldring was able to tap into a number of senior municipal affairs people and explain what had happened to the city and the kind of help needed.
Working through the ODRAP process has convinced Moyle, who believes Flamborough MPP and Minister of Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin shares his view, that the process is far too bureaucratic. Burlington’s contribution to the evolution of provincial policy just might be an overhaul of the ODRAP program. The city would prefer a cheque.
Many senior people at city hall kept referring to the Region as “missing in action”. Those water pipes that couldn’t meet the challenge and those sewage pipes that sent their cargo in the wrong direction are Regional responsibilities.
It would have been a little re-assuring to see the Regional Medical Officer of Health out on the streets of Burlington saying she didn’t see any situations where the public health was at risk/
The Commissioner of Public Works Jim Harnum has been scrambling to keep up with the demands for answers to questions that are not all that clear; most don’t have a simple answer.
 The Regional web site tells us that Public Works is in place to provide safe, clean drinking water, treating sewage in state-of-the-art facilities, constructing and maintaining regional roads for the safe travel of people and goods, waste and recycling collection, or protecting the environment.
Moyle, who was at one time the CAO for the Region and certainly understands how the place works explains that there has to be a place for water to go. “We need better storm sewer capacity – and that means land and the developers are loath to provide land that they cannot build something on” said Moyle. Many properties once had small swales that got covered over or were perhaps replaced by a swimming pool and we are paying the price today for forgetting some of the fundamentals about the managing of storm water.
Part 1 of 3
Part 3 of 3
 By Pepper
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 3 of 3
I had occasion to take the GO train the day before Ribfest started and bumped into an old university friend who was once in the fund raising business in a big way. He got bought out by a large bank (go figure that one) and he moved on to other endeavours. I agreed not to identify the individual because he has a high public profile in the academic world.
He had some word comments on Burlington’s disaster experience. “It may be too late for Burlington to raise the funds they need” he said. The city has failed to adequately tell its story and without a story the wallets just don’t open. Giving money to people who need help is an emotional thing – raise the emotions and you raise the funds.
“And” he added “there has to be a consistent public voice. It has to be daily, the community leader – and it really doesn’t matter who that leader is – just as long as there is one the public can identify with – has to be out there daily with new information giving people the re-assurance they need.
“Focus on the activity, not on the outcomes and empower people to make decisions and say no to something they don’t feel is right” he said . “What is important in any fund raising initiative is determining who is at the table. Based on what I’ve seen there doesn’t appear to be all that much in the way of “grass roots” involvement. You seem to have all the established groups running the show” the source added. He noted that the Red Cross was in the field very quickly – but asked – where was the Salvation Army?
“There is no place for the 9-5 mind set when raising funds for disaster relief and the effort has to involve the grass roots” said this source.
The biggest task is telling the story – the people impacted have stories to tell – and those stories matter.
 Ron Foxcroft who can now walk around town with his head held high after the squeaker of a score in the annual Labour Day CFL game between Toronto and Hamilton – the Tiger cats took it by a point, tells the story of “a lady at the game, single mom, with a son in a wheel chair, Spinal Bifida since birth, handed my son Dave $10. She said, this is for the Burlington Flood Relief Victims. HOLY COW.”
Those are the stories that move people to dig deeper.
“I think Burlington’s city council is way outside their comfort zone with this one” said the former fund raiser. “My observation is that they are more involved in being self-congratulatory – how long are they going to talk about being the best mid-size city in Canada? Don’t get me wrong – Burlington is a fine city – it just doesn’t have all that much in the way of an identity which is why they need other organizations to define them.”
What has become evident to many is the lack of a Standing Committee with procedures in place ready to move in fifteen minutes into the community.
 There are people calling MPP Eleanor McMahon a “rock star” which would horrify her – but her contribution to the getting help from the province has been superb. There has been some really great efforts by some people. Burlington’s MPP, Eleanor McMahon is being referred by people as a “rock star” with her consistent performance. At times it seemed as if she was everywhere. She has been tireless in her work at the provincial level – prodding the government she is a part of to deliver for the city. Publicly McMahon uses all the right words; privately she can be very direct and tart.
McMahon has that public touch – we saw it during the provincial election that brought her to public office and we are seeing it now as she works to get people the help people need. McMahon appears to believe that government is there to help people and if she has anything to do with it – government is going to deliver.
My fund raising source says “Burlington has less than 60 days to get this done and it may already be too late to capture the public’s imagination and emotions.
Ron Foxcroft tends to concur – “We have to drive this and we don’t have a lot of time” he said. This is going to be a private sector initiative and I am confident that the people who can help in a big way – will help in a big way. Great comment, but more than 30 days after the flood there was a total in the United Way account of $150,900 – which is a long, long way from the $2 million that is said to be needed.
There was the suggestion that the fund raising arm get in touch with Fortino’s and see if they would use their cash registers as a collection point. In the past Fortino’s has been the focal point for other fund raising efforts and while those may have been corporate decisions – Fortino’s is a franchise operation where the owners have a strong local identification.
Imagine if you were to be standing there with your wallet in your hand ready to pay for the groceries and the cashier asked if you would like to put a twoonie into the Disaster Relief fund? Do you know how many people walk through those cash registers? Of course you do – you are often one of the people in line waiting to pay for the food.
That idea was floated last Wednesday – waiting to hear an announcement.
Wednesday morning there will be a media event that will focus on the fund raising part of the drive and explain the process and procedures that will be in place for those who wish to apply for financial support.
Let’s see what the province has to say to the people of Burlington.
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
 By Pepper Parr
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 1 of 3 parts
The rain just poured.
The city manager was away for what was a long weekend for everyone; Pat Moyle didn’t learn about how bad things were until he went into town the following day – the Tuesday and learned that Burlington was in the middle of a disaster much bigger than the December ice storm.
He was at his cottage celebrating his Father’s the 90th birthday; within hours he was on his way back to Burlington – in a hurry.
People in Burlington were stunned. There was basically nothing in the way of communication from the city until well into Tuesday. People were talking to people; those in wards four and five had been through this before, some more than once before – but much of the rest of the city had not experienced this kind of weather.
Aldershot was basically spared while the council member for Ward 3 made the very inconsiderate remark that he had some “repeat customers”
Councillor Meed Ward – ward 2 said later that there was very little damage in her ward – which didn’t stop her from getting things going, making phone calls and looking for ways to help out.
 By the end of Tuesday it was clear that the city was in the middle of a serious disaster. CHCH television in Hamilton took up the story and there was a lot of tweeting – but if you’re not part of a tweet string – you’re out of the loop. There was no central source of information.
The Region began promoting their 311 service at which people could report the extent of the damage to their homes. This was the collecting of information – which was critical data, the city needed to quantify the damage in order to make its case for support to the province – but none of that meant all that much to the people whose basements were under water and people were still in that “stunned” stage with water as high as their knees.
By Wednesday the Red Cross had people out on the street trying to get a sense as to just how bad the damage was. Before they were done their work they had knocked on more than 10,000 doors
 The Samaritan’s Purse was first out into the community helping. They understood what disasters were all about – they came to Burlington to help. Meanwhile the Samaritan’s Purse had people in homes working at cleaning up the mess. By the end of the first week they had restored more than 35 homes.
The city held a press conference – more for TV than anything and then held a community meeting in one of the harder hit parts of town. That event was exceptionally emotional and very uncomfortable for those from the Region. Regional chair Gary Carr is reported to have not wanted to even attend the event.
Mayor Goldring was exceptional at this event. The compassion people needed was there; the mayor, who was also flooded, listened and responded in a way that few have seen in him before. Deep down he is a bit of a softy – and that was what people needed at that point.
City hall was scrambling to determine what they could do. They knew a little about the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program (ODRAP) which has two parts; funds made available to a municipality for damage done and funds made available to individuals. Burlington put in a request for funds as a result of the December ice storm – no money from the province on that one yet.
The public part of the ODRAP program requires a municipality to create a local Disaster Relief Committee. It took Burlington close to a month to get that committee in place. The city first had to pass a motion at Council asking the province to declare the city a disaster area. That happened August 14th – ten days after the flood.
 The early objective was to tell the stories as widely pas possible using every media available. A T-shirt was as good as a television screen The province has yet to actually declare Burlington a disaster area. What was evident to thousands of people in the city, wasn’t as cut and dried (no pun intended) to the province.
Burlington had gone after the public part of the program for the winter ice storm; they have yet to see any of that money. Getting money that would go into the hands of people harmed by the disaster was something city hall was not up to speed on.
Mayor Goldring then began to reach out to community partners for the help needed. He touched the Burlington Community Foundation (BCF) to take on the leadership role of creating the local Disaster Relief committee. BCF president Colleen Mulholland took the lead on that even through her own home had been badly flooded.
It took a little longer than many expected to get the basics of the Disaster Relief Committee in place and name a chair – that was supposed to happen on the 27th of August but got pushed back a day. All the public saw was a terse announcement naming Ron Foxcroft as the chair.
Foxcroft was to lead the fund raising side while former city manager Tim Dobbie was to handle the dispersement of the funds that were raised.
Goldring got on to the Burlington/Hamilton United Way and asked them to accept donations for the Disaster Relief fund. Newly appointed United Way head honcho Jeff Valentin, took on that challenge and had a portion of the United Way website set up to receive donations.
Problem was that the flood restricted itself to water and sewage – there wasn’t that much money flowing to the fund even though there were several large donations in the first few days. Newalta stepped up very quickly with $10,000 and the BCF put $15,000 of their money on the table to which CUPE added $10,000.
Before the start of the Labour Day weekend there was just over $150,000 in the account – to be fair there is thousands of dollars from different groups working its way to the account.
 A Rotarian stacks the buckets that were used during Ribfest to hustle as much as possible from a potential audience of 150,000 + Goldring then reached out to Linda Davies, president of the Lakeshore Rotary – and asked if they would use Ribfest as a fund raising event. Davies got on the telephone and within hours had a buy in from all four Burlington Rotary organizations and then displayed the plastic buckets that would be used to collect twoonies and paper money, if people were so inclined, at the Ribfest kick off.
Things were coming together very well on the fund raising side – at least the potential is there for all to see. The proof of course is in the pudding and we’ve not seen that yet.
Part 2 of 3 parts
Part 3 of 3 parts
 By Ray Rivers
September 3, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Prime Minister Harper has been among the strongest opponents to Russian aggression in the Ukraine. And now he is being asked to belly-up to the NATO bar – put his money where his mouth is – and raise Canada’s spending on defence to a full 2% of GDP, the prescribed level for defence spending. Canada currently spends about 1.3 percent of its GDP on the military, some $22 billion in 2012. Getting to 2% would cost us at least another twelve billion a year. And that would wreak havoc with Mr. Harper’s plan for a balanced budget come election time next year
 Prime Minister Stephen Harper has always been a strong NATO supporter – except when it comes to our financial commitment. Canada has some significant sovereign interest in the far North – we may one day need strong NATO support. Canada is not the only slacker. For example, Germany’s defence spending is 1.4% of its GDP, and together the two nations are trying to block a new resolution mandating the 2% level. By comparison the USA spends almost 4.5% of its economy (GDP) on defence, about the same percentage as Russia and twice as much as China. In fact, the US spends more on defence than the next 10 nations combined, and over seven times as much as Russia. America is also the largest contributor to NATO, providing almost a quarter of the association’s budget, over $700 million in 2010.
“To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” was how the first Secretary General of the North American Treaty characterized NATO’s purpose at its founding in 1949. In addition to the 28 member states there are an additional 37 participating in some sort of partnership arrangement, which included Russia until recently. In total NATO members are responsible for roughly 70% of all global spending on military activities. It is an ‘all-for-one’ and ‘one-for-all’ club, although the invasion of Ukraine has some worrying that it might have soured into an ‘every-one-for-themselves’ club.
For forty years NATO provided an effective deterrent against a hypothetical Soviet invasion, we believed. Then looking for a new lease on life following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it extended its reach to engage in non-NATO area missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya. Ukraine, which had served with NATO members for most of these conflicts, as well as in Iraq, had received conditional admission into NATO in 2008. However, following election of a new president it withdrew the application and claimed non-aligned status. Then came the citizens’ revolt and impeachment this year; and Russia invaded to show its displeasure, to grab a naval base, and to deter Ukraine from joining the EU.
So NATO members are meeting this week to contemplate their raison d’être and decide what to do about a Russia, which until recently had been embraced as a partner, but whose leader is now being compared to Adolf Hitler. Canada’s PM, a hawk on Russia will be demanding that NATO supply arms to Ukraine, at a minimum, and his plea will be echoed by those former Soviet dominated nations on or near Russia’s border. Canada to its credit has already sent non-lethal military supplies and offered loan guarantees to Ukraine.
But Germany’s Merkel, who was born in East-Germany, and Obama keep repeating this meaningless mantra that ‘there isn’t a military solution’, to what is, after all, a military problem. So anticipate a deadlock at this week’s meeting with Germany and the US blocking arms supply, and in turn calling for more sanctions, notwithstanding that the sanctions to date have been totally ineffective at deterring Russian aggression.
Sanctions have been used very effectively in the past, South Africa being a classic example. But for an ambitious, supposedly virile, shirtless ‘he-man’ and former KGB agent turned president, intent on re-creating the Tsarist empire of the past, sanctions are for pussies. Putin’s militaristic nationalism has been popular back home. And he continues to dig himself into a hole while he aggresses to the applause of a nation restricted to a one-sided story – a nation which is moving progressively towards becoming a Soviet-style police state again.
 How much of this part of the world do the Russians want? And at what point will NATO decide enough is enough The west, it can be argued, might have stopped Putin in his tracks had they shown strength from the beginning. Deterrence rather than meaningless threats and ineffective sanctions might have discouraged Russian adventurism in eastern Ukraine. Instead, naive appeasement has merely served to embolden Putin and to further enable him to commit more aggression, as we have seen. What was preventable in March has become an eventuality today.
Ukraine has announced that it plans to again seek NATO membership. Nobody is really sure how membership would apply or what it would mean for a nation already at war and partially occupied by Russia, so it probably won’t happen in the near future. And NATO may be content just to publish updated reports on the Russian invasion, all the while issuing empty threats as we watch Russia annex whatever it wants of Ukraine, and maybe some other states while it is at it.
There has been an announcement on the creation of new NATO military bases in the former Soviet republic/satellites, though they will not be staffed for fear of violating some 1997 treaty with Russia. But Putin, who has broken a score of international agreements and laws on his pathway to building his empire, will no doubt object anyway. A good offence can better a poor defence, as he once chronicled…“Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner,…It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me.” (V. Putin)
 Canada shares a border with Russia in the arctic – where there are rich mineral resources. Canada Stephen Harper has been right on this issue from the beginning but it is questionable whether he can make the case for NATO to actually meet Russian aggression with action. His credibility will be diminished if he is seen as a laggard in meeting Canada’s contributions to our own defence (the 1.3% of GDP). And it is not that we don’t need to enhance our military, particularly in the north. We are totally outgunned by our major competitor, Russia, be it in the air, on or under the sea.
If nothing else comes out of the NATO meeting in Wales this week our PM needs to return with a commitment to raise Canada’s capacity to defend itself – and that defence will be in the north, against a resurgent and aggressive Russia. After all, defending Canada’s sovereignty in the north has long been one of Mr. Harper’s goals, and once again on this issue he is dead right.
Military Spending
NATO apending
Canada’s Spending NATO Spending Military Money Kosovo
Bosnia
Afghanistan
Putin Cornered –
 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.
 By Pepper Parr September 2, 2014 BURLINGTON, ON Wow! Do you know what they did over on Elwood Street last Monday?
 Glenn Nicholson, the man on Elwood who came up with the idea of holding a street event to raise some money for the local Disaster Relief fund. His team brought in more than $20,000. They raised 20 big ones – $20,000. That is a truly amazing number and one that Ron Foxcroft chair of the local Disaster Relief Committee is going to have to bust his buns to better. Foxcroft will bring in more money – he has a bigger field to work – but relatively Glenn Nicholson, the guy that got the Elwood Up the Creek event off the ground. Nicholson is the kind of leader that is quick to point out that the $20,000 number wouldn’t have happened without a lot of help – and that is certainly true . But those volunteers would not have had a chance to come forward if Glenn Nicholson had not first stepped up. Great work. Nicholson pointed out that the amount of money that gets to the Disaster fund might be a little less than $20,000. “We have a few invoices that haven’t come in yet – the insurance bill and the cost of the T-shirts.” But still – $20,000 is a lot of hot dogs.
 By Pepper Parr
September 2, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
He`s running for office and tackling a major problem in ward 5 – and he`s letting people know there are solutions to the problem – but the city has to take action and do so now – to solve a serious problem.
Should James Smith take the Ward 5 seat from incumbent Paul Sharman – we now know what his first act is going to be at the first Development and Infrastructure Standing Committee meeting.
In prepared remarks Candidate for Burlington’s Ward 5 in the October 27th Municipal Election, James Smith, addressed the need for immediate solutions required for Burlington’s neighborhood’s that have ongoing flooding and sewage back-up issues.
 Ward 5 candidate James Smith believes floods like this can be prevented. Smith asks and answers two questions: “How do we fix this problem?” and “How do we pay for it”?
For the first time during this devastating flood, someone has said publicly what could be done and how it would be paid for. The citizens of this city have not heard a word from city hall nor the Regional offices as to what could be done.
Smith proposes a ten point plan that puts the city to work immediately for those affected by the August 4th and previous floods. “The city”, he says “has allowed this problem to go unresolved for far too long. We need action now!”
Smith maintains part of the issue is administrative. “Some of the answers were made known to council as far back as 2007 in a report: Understanding Storm-water and Residential Flooding & Proposed Actions & Strategie s, July 2007– which has yet to be fully acted upon.”
Letting reports sit and collect dust has to end, said Smith. “As a City Council we either act, or we specifically and publicly choose to reject staff recommendations. Having problems languish is no solution. Burlington needs a protocol for not letting staff reports and recommendations sit and gather dust.”
Smith points out that in the July 2007 report there were two reasons, for basement flooding due to sewage backup, identified: downspouts and weeping tile connection to sanitary sewer lines. “These two problems should be our first priority.”
Smith’s ten points address the problem. “This council and the current Ward 5 Councillor have allowed this to be neglected.” Smith doesn’t mention the fact that the current Mayor represented ward 5 prior to 2006.
Smith addresses how we pay for these actions. “Many people have asked, as I’m presenting these ideas: How do we pay for them? Money now allocated in development accounts must be re-allocated to solve this problem and, he adds money budgeted for the roads should be spent on this urgent need.”
 James Smith, on the left, led the Friends of Freeman Station in saving the building from a scrap heap. He sits with the Freeman five, the people that are leading the restoration of the building on Fairview next to the fire station Smith also points out “the city presently has more than twenty million dollars budgeted for rebuilding North Service Road and the Walkers Line intersection: this money was allocated to allow for IKEA to move to the area; that move isn’t going to take place -, spend this money now helping those affected by the flood.
The following is Smith’s ten-point action plan for the city and the Region of Halton to fix the flooding problem in Burlington neighborhoods:
Smith sets out immediate plans and longer term plans. His immediate actions are:
1: The Region of Halton and the City of Burlington must implement a program, fully paid for by the Region of Halton and the city of Burlington to disconnect foundation drains (weeping tiles) from the Sanitary Sewer System in the areas most frequently experiencing the problem of sewer backup.
2: The city has to make downspout disconnection mandatory. We know the areas worst affected, get the word out, and inspect property for non-compliance. Like foundation drain connections the Region of Halton and the City of Burlington have to pay for this program.
3: Add or enlarge Storm-water capacity and catch-basins where required and retrofit sanitary sewer access points to prevent storm water from entering the Sanitary sewer system and add sewer venting where required.
4: Re-write storm water management rules; Burlington has ignored provincial norms for decades. Specifically we need to bring top of bank and setback rules to provincial standards (or exceed them), reverse the city’s preference for burying creeks and creek channelization, forbid the construction of box culvert crossings of creeks, improve debris clearing of creeks, and forbid development upon, and the destruction of swales.
5: Enact a private property tree by-law. Trees can help retain storm water, and can prevent soil erosion reducing creek flow rates and reduce the harmful effects of storms. (As part of my volunteer activity, over the years, as a member of the Conserver Society, we lobbied against a number of plans by the City of Burlington that would have allowed the destruction of wood lots, channelizing of creeks and encroachment on setbacks of watercourses. If our group had not been successful in preventing the destruction of the Sheldon Creek Wood Lot, the damage from flooding on August 4th would have been much greater in my opinion). The City and the Region needs to also set a goal of increasing the area of our Tree canopy.
 Smith and other candidates,notably Ward 4 incumbent Jack Dennison, point to the wrong way to handle storm water. Longer term solutions:
1: Evaluate and improve Burlington’s emergency response systems and protocols. The events of August 4th are at least the second time this year the city was not up to the job of emergency management. We need a best practice solution to responding to crisis, and communicating with our citizens during a crisis.
2: Set a goal to reduce the area of impermeable surface in the city and the Region. Develop planning regulations that reduce the percentage of hard surfaces in all building permit applications, require greater on-site storm water retention and promote permeable paving systems and implement their use at all City and Regional facilities.
 Smith wants the city and the regional governments to pay for disconnecting downspouts and installing backwater valves and sump pumps in some of the city’s dwellings. 3: Better fund the Regional Conservation Authority and evaluate the uploading of Storm- water management to the Region of Halton
4: Have the Region of Halton Purchase and develop a 3D modeling platform in co- operation with the Colleges and Universities in the Region. This should be an open sourced platform and either housed in a regional theatre, or, better yet, as a mobile presentation kit that can be taken to public meetings. This system should allow for producing Digital Terrain Modeling of the Region, as well as populating this platform with Utilities, Geological, Geomorphological, Roads and Building Intelligent Modelling as well as important flora.
This system could be used in the Region as a visualization tool to study a variety of topics from proposed building projects to storm water management. Tools like this are now being used by some jurisdictions in the UK and Europe. A tool like this would greatly aid in finding solutions to flooding and sewer backup. As building permits are issued, more refined topographical information needs to be included in permits to limit negative storm water impact to neighbouring properties.
5: Evaluate less costly alternatives to traditional concrete sewer pipes (ie PVC), thereby reducing costs and freeing up capital for many of the ideas outlined here
The August 4th rains are a wake-up call on climate change, said Smith. The city, he said needs to take climate change more seriously and do a better job planning for extreme weather events, especially when it comes to rezoning and storm-water management.”
 Everyone wears a smile at the signing of an agreement between the city and the Friends of Freeman Station – getting to this point was not made easy by a majority of city council. James Smith is second from the left. Smith understands there may be legislative difficulties in implementing new spending priorities in an election cycle. “I’m urging Burlington City Council to adopt my five short term actions in principle and petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs to give his approval for this spending so we can get a start before the construction season comes to an end.”
Smith adds one more comment, a plea actually for more donations to the Flood Relief. “Many people’s lives have been turned upside down. As a community we need to do the right thing and dig deep to help our neighbours. Go online to help with Burlington Flood Relief by visiting: https://www.uwaybh.ca/urgent-burlington- flood-relief/”
Smith was the chair of the Friends of Freeman Station that worked tirelessly to save the old railway station that is now being restored after being moved to a new foundation beside the Main fire hall on Fairview.
 By Staff
September 2, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
 So much for the summer we didn’t really have – here we are rolling towards a fall season – which will perhaps be a lot nicer than the past 90 days.
Theatre Burlington is doing their part to make the fall season more endearing with their production of “Sherlock Holmes and the West End Horror”, a comedy/mystery by Marcia Milgrom Dodge and Anthony Dodge
The production is a merry madcap mixture of mystery, murder and mayhem. A despicable theatre critic has been murdered, and Holmes and Watson are soon visited by George Bernard Shaw, an aspiring Irish playwright who entices Holmes to take the case.
As they cross swords with the most famous literary luminaries of the day — Oscar Wilde, Gilbert & Sullivan, Henry Irving, Bram Stoker, and a young H.G. Wells, Holmes and Watson come face to face with their own celebrity as they pursue the killer in this rollickingly funny whodunit.
You can say this about the two playwrights – they do know how to drop names.
Show dates are: September 19-20, 25-27, October 2-4 2014
All at the Theatre Burlington- Drama Centre (beside Central Library, 2311 New Street. All shows start at 8:00 PM
Adult- $22.00 Senior- $20.00
Reserved Seating- Call the Box Office 905-637-1728 to order your tickets now.
By Pepper Parr
September 1, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Communities organize themselves in various ways. Almost a month ago many of the people in Wards 4 and 5 were scrambling to save as much of their possessions when their basements were being flooded.
 The food lines wound their way back and forth on Elwood Street. The Bake Sale was a hit and the T- shirts also did very well. That little red head, with blonde Mom behind her gets the hair from a grandmother. That was a month ago and there has been a lot of anguish, despair and hard kitchen table conversations about the financial impact since then.
Many had insurance that covered their situation but just as many, perhaps more, had insurance that is proving to be inadequate. All have homes that are less today than they were August 3rd.
Each household works through its situation differently, some talk to immediate neighbours, some work with their extended families. The placement of homes in suburbs is such that community is different. People aren’t always as close. Burlington has districts, but it doesn’t have neighbourhoods with strong sense of identity.
There are few large apartment buildings where people gather in a party room.
For those in that pocket of Burlington, west of Walkers Line and north of New Street – a short, short walk to Tuck Creek that over ran its banks and did serious damage to the infrastructure – their sense of humour came to the rescue and they organized a street party.
It seemed like a good idea to Glenn Nicholson, the Elwood Street resident who came up with the idea of holding an event for his neighbours. He then watched it grow to the point where he was able to get the Burlington Teen Tour band and CHCH television coverage. Not bad for a local kid. Glenn Nicholson, an Elwood resident decided to organize an event for his neighbours. It was going to be small – just for the people on the street at first – but when the name of the event got around – the occasion grew like topsy. “I have about 35 volunteers and we expect somewhere between 1000 to 2000 people.
Nicholson did get loads of support from his ward Councillor. Jack Dennison made phone calls and got permit fees waived and someone got the Burlington Teen Tour Band out on the street for some marching band music.
We don’t know yet how much Nicholson and his volunteers managed to raise – we will report that when it is available.
 The T shirt says it all for a lot of people. They called it “Up the Creek” which reflected just how many of the people flooded felt as the struggled to save their homes with little in the way of support from the city corporately.
City hall decided to outsource the resolution to another organization and asked everyone else to take on a task while the city worked on recovering as much as it could from the province for the damage done to its infrastructure.
 Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison chats with Mayor Goldring and his wife at the Elwood Street Up the Creek event. The Mayor apparently chose not to wear one of the Up the Creek T shirts. While Calgary is a much bigger city and the flood it was hit with this year was bigger – there wasn’t a day that the citizens of Calgary did not see and hear from there Mayor. Naheed Nenshi, Calgary’s Mayor was everywhere.
Yes Calgary has better media than Burlington ; we are squeezed between Hamilton and Toronto – but a little creativity on the part of the media people at city hall could have had video done and posted on the city web site and loaded up to YouTube.
The Mayor could have gone into communities and meet with people. He did this the once – to great effect. Handling people and their issues seems to be within the Mayor’s comfort zone; certainly not the case with Gary Carr the Regional Chair.
 Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon is everywhere. She is being referred to as a “rock star” by Ron Foxcroft, chair of the Disaster Relief fund. Would it have been different were Goldring being opposed in the municipal election for the job of Mayor? Most certainly – but while it isn’t too late for someone to step forward – those who hold their breath waiting for another name to appear on the ballot are going to have health issues.
For those who felt they were left “Up the Creek” – they will work things out and come away with a different understanding as to what their municipal level of government is doing for them.
 By Pepper Parr
August 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
A Fundraiser for the Judy LaMarsh Fund honouring the contributions of four great women in the advancement of women in Canadian politics will take place at the Holiday Inn on the South Service Road on September 6, 2014
Cost: $75 regular, $50 for Laurier/Victory Club members, and students. Tickets can be purchased on-line at www.liberal.ca/
 The Honourable Paddy Torsney, Permanent Observer to the United Nations for the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Permanent Observer to the United Nations for the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Permanent Observer to the United Nations for the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
What is remarkable about the event is the invited guests:
The Honourable Paddy Torsney; Member of Parliament, Burlington, 1993-2006
The Honourable Bonnie Brown; Member of Parliament, Oakville, 1993-2008
The Honourable Senator Betty Kennedy; Senator, Ontario, 2000-2001
The Honourable Beth Phinney; Member of Parliament, Hamilton Mountain, 1988-2005
The Hon. Dr. Carolyn Bennett, MP for St. Paul’s Toronto will be speaking.
This event is the 20th that Paddy Torsney has sponsored in Burlington. Torsney was the woman that gave federal Liberal candidate Karina Gould the political bug.
For Torsney it was all about breaking barriers and paving the political path for women in Halton, Hamilton and across Canada. After losing the 2006 election to Mike Wallace Paddy Torsney worked as a lobbyist in Toronto and Ottawa and then accepted an appointment as the Permanent Observer to the United Nations for the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Torsney is also a member of the Privy Council.
Everyone tells me I need to use Social Media and I guess they’re right – but I find it confusing and it takes a lot of time which is the one thing I don’t have.
James Burchill, one of the city’s most shameless self-promoters, which is what has made him the success he is explains that “one of the main reasons this important task doesn’t get done is simply because it takes time. Let’s let him tell his story.
 By James Burchill
August 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Social Media is time sensitive – if you’re going to do it – you have to do it right. Social media updates, these micro messages (while short) still require time to plan, to write, to consider the overall strategy (more on that later) and time to publish.
Time management and performance studies show an interruption costs us about 15 minutes of lost time before we are able to regain our former productivity. Assuming you had to stop 3 times a day and tweet, and 2 times a day to update your Facebook page, that’s 1 ¼ hrs just there — 17% of your day.
Think about it, add a little buffer to this and you’ll easily spend 20% of your time on this task … that’s easily ONE DAY PER WEEK spent on social media!
We can all write, they teach us this basic skill from a very early age but documenting your required groceries, or penning a letter to Aunt Maggy is not the same as crafting compelling copy for business use.
And being able to perform when required and ‘get creative’ takes practice and training. You’ve heard of writer’s block, – it’s a real phenomenon and professional writers have techniques to combat this wasteful problem.
 Then there’s the issue that all professional writing is not created equal. I’ll let you in on a secret, within the hallowed halls of writers there exists a snobbery; a class system of sorts. At the risk of having ink spilled on me at the next writers ball, some writers craft content to inform, others to compel. Persuading your prospects and client to engage and interact with you is key.
If all you needed is time and the ability to write well then you are good to go – but it isn’t that simple. In fact it is quite complex. You need to know about the technology too. You need to know how to leverage the various platforms properly and ensure you don’t goof or post to early or too late. You need skills to make these byzantine platforms turn chaos into a symphony of concordant content.
Simply put, you need to know how to use the tools. And to keep things interesting, the programmers behind these tools keep changing the game! Blink and you’ll miss an update or some other neat new function.
It requires an overall integrated marketing strategy; working in a vacuum sucks – literally.
Creating any marketing messages and syndicating them at random is a recipe for failure. And if you imagine social media is all hip, cool and “off the cuff” then you are dancing with disaster.
Better to think of your marketing messages as sled dogs, they all need to be pulling in the same direction to gain traction and make head way.
It does yields results, if you do it right. And outsourcing the task gets it done on time and as agreed. You get results – guaranteed.
And further to this, the actual efforts yield, SEO lift, increased exposure and legitimate back-links to your target URL are huge values. SEO means Search engine optimization.
 You also get additional results in the SERPS (Search Engines Results Page) listings – and any time you can secure another top 10 slot, it’s a space your competition cannot.
Google’s mandate has always been to provide the best answer (content) to those searching. Google is always updating its algorithms to single out and better reward unique content. So if you thought re-hashed, spun, or scraped content would work … Think again.
It becomes clear that making social media work for you means getting help. OK I’m biased because this is service my team and I offer our clients, so I’m not going to get into magical numbers that “prove” how much of a good deal it is to outsource. But if you sit down and really look at all the twiddly bits & pieces that go into this task each day/week/month … it adds up quickly and outsourcing costs a fraction of the typical annual salary equivalent.
Leads generated from social media content marketing are more likely to convert into business. The science behind this is solid and speaks to millions of years of behaviour. Think crowd sourcing, social proof, ‘monkey see, monkey do’ and a myriad of other psychological precepts.
Social Marketing content gets found – the first part of a successful online marketing strategy.
Social Marketing content gets shared – necessary for your message to move through the market.
Social Marketing content works 24/7/365. You pay once for its creation and syndication and it just keeps on working. The same can be said about articles too, the Return in Investment (ROI) is amazing!
 James Burchill is the founder of the Social Fusion Network that sponsores a monthly get together where people network and do some great business. SFN is about connecting, promoting and supporting local business using social media and in-person networking events. It’s FREE to join your local SFN and membership includes all our chapters. He also sponsors the semi annual mini-trade show at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. Learn more
By Pepper Parr
August 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Those people who earn their living as artists – have a rough row to hoe. Artists get asked to do any number of things for free. We all assume that their art is far too expensive and we want to buy too cheaply, hold it until the artist become famous and then sell for a fortune.
 Margaret Lindsay Holton Burlington artist, Margaret Lindsay Holton is having a family-friendly SOLO art exhibition in the Hamilton Beach Rescue Community Hall at 316 Beach Blvd, on the Hamilton Beach Strip, Sunday, Sept.14th, 2-5pm. FREE lemonade, with free parking at the back of HBRU. ‘
 Summer Haze; Piano improvisations on a century-old Bell Upright – Performed by Margaret Lindsay Holton Holton ranges over several disciplines – never adverse to trying something new and different. Along with her art, Holton will be releasing a CD, Summer Haze; Piano improvisations on a century-old Bell Upright.
Pinhole photography is something Holton has been doing for years. She describes this as “the oldest known form of photography on the planet first used in Asia around 500 B.C, and in the West, around 500 A.D.
For Holton this is photography without the use of lens or fancy gadgetry that lets a small pinhole of light into a completely blacked-out cavity. This incoming ‘pinhole’ of light creates a reverse image of what the pinhole is facing, in other words, a ‘negative’. Today, from this ‘negative’, a ‘positive’ print is pulled using conventional darkroom developing techniques. In other words, the ‘positive’ photo image is what you see as a ‘finished’ photograph.
 Leaves you with the sense that you are seeing both summer and the beginning of the fall colours. Holton is fascinated that any ‘image’ can transfer without any mechanical intervention. She likes how this process forces her to ‘slow down’ in the act and art of taking pictures. Pinholing is the epitome of ‘slooow photography’. An exterior shot, on a good bright, cloudless day, can easily take 3-4 minutes of exposure depending on the camera she am using. She only get ONE shot per camera. Interior shots can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, again, depending on the incoming pinhole light source.
 Sugar Shack: Crisp feel, strong colours – about as Canadian as you can get. Hamilton Spectator art critic Jeff Mahoney had this to say about Holton pin hole work: “Perhaps more than any of the other arts, photography is the horse that memory rides on. Music can take us back, but it is not documentary in nature. And literature, for all its reach, precision and poetry, remains essentially abstract, from a sensory point of view, everything left to the imagination.”
“A memory is not what happened, it is not the thing that is being remembered. It is a shadow of what is being remembered, and a picture is a shadow of that shadow.”
“We try to get at memory to get at the life, the time, the emotion behind them. But the sources are no longer available and immediate to the direct senses. Their residue in the brain gets mixed up with static; extraneous feelings, psychic noise, dream and mental error. We use pictures and other media to get at memory, to fix it. And that confuses an already confused issue even more. Pictures are partial stories, subject to perspective and quality of light, leaving out much — smell, sound, touch, temperature, heart rate, context.”
“How are all these ideas contained in Holton’s art? In two ways. Computerized photo collage and pinhole photography. In the first, the collages, Holton uses computer manipulation to layer several colour photographic images, sometimes of the same subject taken from different and/or overlapping angles, sometimes of different subjects. Now this is what memory looks like. Or at least feels like.”
“Memory’s Shadow confirms our impression of Holton as an important mixed-media practitioner, with a genuine artist’s eye and a probing intellect.”
This is an artist worth spending some time with.
 Moody, soft use of colour leaves a sense significantly different than the Sugar Shack piece. Directions: If driving in from either Niagara or Toronto on the QEW, take the Eastport Drive ‘turn off’, and then turn into the ‘Hamilton Beach Community’ via Beach Blvd. Beach Blvd is only one long road for the length of the beach strip. The Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit – 316 Beach Blvd – is on the west side.
If you want to follow Holton – make a note that she is partaking in ‘Doors Open’ on Sept 27th at the Different Drummer Books, signing copies of a new WW1 short story anthology, ‘Engraved: Canadian. She has one story in the 16 piece anthology.
By Pepper Parr
August 31, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
People get the government they deserve.
If voters do their homework and read the election material they can arrive at a conclusion and decide who they want to vote for. The voters usually get it right.
However, the voters need information – and they are entitled to quite a bit more than what appears on the handouts candidates give people at the door.
Burlington doesn’t have much in the way of a tradition of pulling candidates together and letting them debate each other.
Given that it looks as if the Mayor is going to be acclaimed – because he has done such a great job? – some of the steam has gone out of our municipal election.
Most people don’t fully appreciate that the men and women they elect to council are also our Regional representatives. Given the disastrous flood damage August 4th – there are people in this city wondering just what the Region has done and what they are doing now about the consistent flooding in wards 4 and 5. Many in ward 6 also wonder what the Region has in mind for the Air Park.
 There are some good races. Ward 6 is perhaps the best example – with seven people having declared themselves for the seat held by Blair Lancaster – which she won by just a couple of hundred votes
The Burlington Gazette will be hosting a debate amongst the ward 6 candidates.
The following invitation was sent to all the candidates who have declared their candidacy.
TO: Burlington Ward 6 City and Regional Councillor Candidates:
It appears that the current battle for Ward 6 Councillor may be the most contentious in many years—and rightly so. There are many serious issues in this Ward and each of you has a pressing need to make your positions on these understood.
After numerous requests and a great deal of consideration, The Burlington Gazette has agreed to host a Ward 6 – All Candidates Debate.
We have secured the beautiful theatre at Dr. Frank J. Hayden Secondary School on Wednesday, September 24th from 7pm. to 10 pm., for this event.
I will be moderating the debate; the format is quite simple. Each candidate will be provided two minutes for opening remarks and two minutes for closing remarks – the order of these will be determined by a random drawing of your names, in your presence, immediately prior to the debate at 6:45 pm.
I have recruited a panel of experienced journalists who will create and direct questions to each candidate. You will be given a limited amount of time for a direct response to the question asked of you. That will be followed by a period of time for an all-candidate debate on the question.
The debate itself will conclude at 9:15pm., after which we will take questions from the audience until 10 pm. I will direct and monitor the questions from the floor to maintain a civil and respectful evening for all participants.
You are encouraged to bring your supporters – as well as your marketing material, which you may wish to distribute before and after the event. The Gazette will be promoting this event and we anticipate that each of you will want to do the same.
I’m certain you’ll agree that this debate will provide you with an unsurpassed opportunity to reach the critical mass of concerned constituents and active voters, in the most efficient and powerful manner.
In order to set up the theatre to accommodate everyone, we need to know that you will be participating and the estimated number in your group of supporters who might attend. If you choose not to attend please advise us – no later than Friday, September 12, 2014.
I wish each of you success in your campaign endeavours.
Pepper Parr
Publisher
Burlington Gazette
The Hayden High School theatre will hold 220 people – the debate just might turn out to be the primo event in this election cycle. Several of the candidates are excellent speakers.
By Pepper Parr
August 30, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
There he was – standing at the entrance to Spencer Smith Park, white bucket in hand, hustling for loose change and paper money if you had a mind to give that to him. Mike Wallace was beating the bushes in that folksy style he brings to the public part of the job he does – all for the benefit of the Flood Disaster Relief fund.
 Mike “Joe Cool” Wallace out shilling or flood victims.  The bucket guys were everywhere. People going to the Ribfest almost had to run a gauntlet to get in – the Rotary was not letting you forget that there was a need and they were there doing their darndest to fill it.
The damage done to homes went from damp floors to water that was up to the ceiling in basements and inching its way into the rest of the house.
The Mayor’s home was flooded and so was that of Mike Wallace, Burlington’s member of parliament; proving that the rain gods don’t discriminate.
Wallace just got the inventory from his insurance company and said “it look as if we are going to be OK – but I am still doing small pieces of clean up. I couldn’t find the iron yesterday – it was in one of the boxes the restoration people did when they cleared up the mess from the water that seeped into the basement.” Wallace added: “We didn’t have water above our knees but after a foot, it really doesn’t matter, does it” he said.
“The dumpster was just taken away from my house this morning”, he added.
Wallace mentioned that he had not heard a word from anyone at city hall about how his office might help out. Most people thought the help was going to come from the provincial government – which is true – but what most people don’t know is that all of the provinces have an agreement with the federal government that gets federal money to the provinces when there is a local disaster.
 Crowds were good -weather held – and coins were being put in those buckets. Enough? We will know Tuesday morning. The Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Relief (ODRAP) request to the province to be declared a disaster area hasn’t been accepted by the province yet – even though Burlington is beavering away collecting money – there is $150,000 in the bank with many more thousands in the pipeline and on its way into the account the United Way has set up for the disaster relief fund.
By Pepper Parr
August 30, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
Burlington slides to the end of the month of August wondering if we really had a summer and asking questions about the challenges some of our neighbours face.
For the more than 1000 households impacted by the flood the month of August was somewhere between “another damn flood” to horrific – that may have wiped some people out.
 Catherine Brady talks to a volunteer about providing tax receipts for those who choose to donate real paper money. It has taken the organized part of the community almost a month to prepare a response and to get a major fund raising drive underway along with the processes that will put aid in the hands of the people who desperately need it.
The community itself has raised just over $150,000 to date. The target has unofficially been set at $2 million.
The Burlington Community Foundation was asked to take on the task of putting together a community based Disaster Relief organization required by the province if there is to be any provincial funding added to what the community comes up with.
The Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program (ODRAP) allows the province to match what the city raises on a two for one basis. The funds dispersed by the Disaster Relief Community have to adhere to pretty strict provincial policies and procedures.
The Disaster Relief committee, chaired by Ron Foxcroft will have two components: fund raising and the dispersement of funds raised by the community and those funds provided by the province on a two-for-one basis.
The province has yet to say that they are actually going to give Burlington any money. They didn`t give Toronto any money when it had the huge flood nor did Mississauga get funding. The number of homes seriously damaged in Burlington is much higher than it was in those other communities.
The deciding factor for the province will be the need but most importantly – how well the community comes through for those who need the help. Premier Kathleen Wynne has been to Burlington a number of time and she personally asked Eleanor McMahon to stand as the Liberal candidate for the constituency – and of course she won. But that provincial cheque is not in the mail yet.
Former Burlington city manager Tim Dobbie will be handling the dispersement of funds part of the Disaster Committee. There will be a public Roll Out Event on Wednesday September 3rd at the Central Park Arena at 10:00 where details will be provided.
Frank , a Rotarian steadies the stack of buckets that will be used at all the entrances to Spencer Smith Park during Rib Fest. This weekend at Ribfest, the Lakeshore Rotary Club will host the annual event that brings more than 175,000 people to Spencer Smith Park, where they take in concert events and chow down on those ribs.
This year the event involves all four Burlington Rotary clubs whose volunteers will be at the entrance gates and walking around the park with white plastic buckets that they want to see filled with loose change – preferably twoonies.
Enjoy the ribs, take in some of the music – just don’t leave the park with any loose change in your pocket. Those buckets will take paper money as well.
Link to related stories:
By Ray Rivers
August 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
The Premiers of Ontario and Quebec have met and agreed to work together as never before, building their economies and reducing barriers to the movement of goods and services between them. Other parts of Canada, the west, through the New West Partnership, and the Atlantic provinces, are doing something similar. With a federal government mostly missing-in-action in so many ways, it is inevitable that provincial leaders would look to some kind of sub-national organization as a alternative.
 The Father`s of Confederation thought they got it right – but the Senate they wanted isn`t the Senate we have today. Inadequate federal leadership was all too evident as the leaders of Canada’s provinces and territories got together for their annual summer meeting at the Council of the Federation in Charlottetown this week. The premiers hold two of these joint meetings a year in what is emerging as an evolving component of Canada’s political landscape. Though invited, this PM doesn’t attend, preferring to deal with the jurisdictions individually.
The agenda kicked off with discussion of the tragic systematic disappearance of aboriginal women. Stephen Harper’s misunderstanding and misrepresentation of that issue last week has been greeted with outrage and disgust. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, as well as the first nations organizations, have called him on his insensitivity and his resistance to getting at the root causes.
Harper has also isolated himself on pensions, even though the provinces had demanded enhancement to CPP at their last meeting. According to recent polls. only 15 per cent of Canadians are “very confident” they will have enough money to retire “comfortably” and 69 per cent believe the federal government should take the lead. In fact 63% of Canadians believe that existing premiums should be increased and 55% say the provinces should move on their own if the federal government doesn’t. So Ontario’s premier Wynne is receiving a lot of attention for her plans to introduce a provincial pension plan to supplement the CPP.
Provincial leaders are also addressing the need to eliminate the barriers to trade among themselves, something the Harper government has been pushing. And provincial regulations are problematic since they can restrict the free movement of goods and services and impair cross border labour mobility. Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall no sooner finished grandstanding on the need for Ontario to become more open than he realized his New West Partnership may also be a culprit. And the good news for those of us who want to see B.C.’s excellent wines in the LCBO is that Premier Wynne has agreed to… consider it.
The Council of the Federation is becoming a significant force on the Canadian political scene, a scene where an ideologically constipated federal government is putting real meaning to the term ‘conservative’. As the Council wraps up its meetings it is no surprise to see the perennial demand for renewed federal finding for health care and infrastructure. Of course these demands will fall on deaf ears. Mr. Harper’s government has given its last word and closed the taps.
As the Council meeting was drawing to a close in lovely Charlottetown, the leaders posed as if in an 1864 remake of the Fathers (and Mothers) of Confederation. This was another successful Council meeting, again demonstrating how to mobilize consensus among so many Canadian leaders representing such diverse provincial and regional political perspectives. One has to wonder whether the Council of the Federation doesn’t really capture what the real Fathers of Confederation had originally been contemplating when they invented the Canadian Senate. And wouldn’t this body or something like it be a perfect replacement for our current chamber of lost souls?
 Prime Minister Stephen Harper – can put up a really good fight. Given how out-of-touch the PM is on so many issues of national significance, it is little wonder that his numbers are dropping and people beginning to ask whether he’ll even be around for the next election in 2015. It wasn’t that long ago that Harper was considered invincible and destined to win another majority government. But the polls are telling a different story as we get closer to the election.
Atlantic Canada seems ready to give the new Liberal leader the vast majority of its seats, as Trudeau’s popularity in that part of the country climbs to a new high. And Ontario is once again turning to Liberals in numbers that bode for a potential ‘majority’. But it is always a long time in politics until the next election. Then there is the west, which will follow Harper, as night follows day, except possibly for Vancouver Island where marijuana is the leading agricultural cash crop.
Recent gerrymandering, politely called re-distribution, will hand Harper more than 20 potential new seats compared to a mere 2 for the Liberals. Finally, nobody knows where Mr. Mulcair’s hold on the vast majority of Quebec seats will end up.
 Will the Trudeau mystique holdÉ Despite what everyone concedes is a good performance by Mulcair as opposition leader, he and Harper are downright boring, compared to the energetic Trudeau. And after nearly a decade of the same old tired face in your face, Canadians are ready for a change. Harper’s vision of a nation converted from pot smoking Libs to little obedient red necks has failed to materialize, or perhaps this is just a new generation rejecting the past, as they always do.
As the Canadian economy starts to sputter from the fallout of the international crisis in Europe next year, some folks might wonder if Harper will take his own ‘walk in the snow’ and allow a fresh new leader to replace him. There are a good many potential candidates including Peter MacKay, Joe Oliver, James Moore, Lisa Raitt and John Baird. With the exception of Baird, who has demonstrated strength in his foreign affairs ministry, these candidates also carry enough baggage to keep them from breaking out of Harper’s musty closet.
And it is unlikely that Mr. Harper will let go of the reins just yet. He is a strong-willed and confident individual who will, no doubt, expect to be there for his party, winning again – just as his favourite anti-Christ, Chretien, used to do.
So expect him to be there for an autumn vote if his numbers continue to fall and it smells like at least a minority Conservative government. And if he can manage to arrest that ‘Mr. out-of-touch’ look, he might well call a spring election in the hope that Mr. Trudeau’s magnetism will have come down from its high.
Background links:
Ontario- Quebec Council of the Federation Aboriginal Women Wall on Aboriginals Atlantic Polling Ontario Polls
Harper’s Decision Harper’s Succession Replacing Harper Harper will Resign Gerrymandering
Ray Rivers writ es 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.
Editor`s note. When ever Ray Rivers has a chance he will get in his view that the Senate should be abolished and that marijuana should be made legal. He just can`t help himself.
By Staff
August 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
We all know what Rib Fest is – we get ourselves to Spencer Smith Park where we have to look through a haze of smoke to see the lake. The crowds are usually very good, the eating tables tend to have places to sit down and chow down on those ribs – they ain’t bargain prices but that is not the purpose of the event.
 Last year Premier Kathleen Wynne tried her hand at flipping ribs. Her tutor on the right didn’t think the Premier should give up her day job. The event is the largest Ribfest in Ontario. That happens because the Lakeshore Rotary, that has just 65 members, manages to pull together 600 volunteers to make it happen.
The funds they raise support: Community Living Burlington; Compassion Society; Hamilton Food Share; Salvation Army; RCBL Scholarship Foundation; Athletic Scholarship Foundation; Kenyan Scholarship program; Joseph Brant Hospital; Sew-on-fire Ministries; Wheel Chair and Specialized footwear and Earth Day.
This year they have been asked to lend strong support to the Flood Disaster Relief Funds drive.
Mayor Goldring called Linda Davies, President of the Lakeshore Rotary Club, and asked her if she would help out with the need to raise funds. Davies immediately called the other three Rotary presidents in Burlington and by the end of that day they had pulled together a team and had their show on the road.
RibFest 2014 was going to be another super-duper event and at the same time it was going to become a “premiere” fund raising occasion for disaster relief.
You are going to see dozens of people wandering the grounds and at the gates, carrying plastic buckets and asking for a donation of at least a Twoonie.
With attendance at the 175,000 level – the flow from RibFest could add as much as $250,000 to the public fund raising drive.
During the Kick off lunch OnSite, an organization that does set up work on the grounds, put up a donation of $500 and said they were challenging two people to take part in an event that was a twist on the ALS dunking campaign.
Sometime during the weekend these gents will be dunked with – not cold water – but BBQ sauce. One of the two asked how much it would cost him to get out of taking part in the event. It is going to be a different RibFest this year.
The entertainment line-up is superb:
Friday August 29th
 Noon to 2:00 pm Mike Stevenson and Friends
2:30 to 4:30 The Kat Kings
5:00 to 7:00 pm The Groove Corporation
7:30 to 9:00 Elton Rohn; a tribute to Elton John
9:30 to 11 Simply Queen; a tribute to Queen.
Saturday August 30th
 11:30 to 1:00 Grindstone Blues Band
1:30 to 3:00 – Stinky and the Hotrods
3:30 to 5:00 Runaway Angel
5:30 to 7:00 Community Soul Project
7:30 to 9:00 Justin Time
9:30 to 11:00 Freedom Train
Sunday August 31st
11:30 to 12:30 Bare Blue Sea
1:00 to 2:00 No Sugar Tonight ; a tribute to the Guess Who
2:30 to 3:30 Tim Park and the Younger Guys
4:00 to 5:0 IN2U
5:30 to 7:00 The Soul Project
7:30 to 9:00 Images in Vogue
 9:30 to 11:00 The Spoons
Monday September 1st
1:0 to 2:30 Corey Lueck and the Smoke Wagon Blues
2:45 – Rib judging events
3:00 to 4:00 Desire; a tribute to U2
4:30 to 5:30 Scarecrow; a tribute to John Mellencamp
6:00 to 8:00 David Love Band
By Pepper Parr
August 29, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
There has been some movement – is it enough?
 Ron Foxcroft has been appointed chair of the Burlington Flood Disaster Relief Committee which will Roll Out its Action Plan September 3rd.
The public will hear how things are going to roll out on Wednesday, September 3, 2014 – 10:00 a.m. at the Central Arena Auditorium.
There have been meetings galore and the structure is in place – with lots of small details to get completed. The Flood Disaster Relief Committee was formed by the Burlington Community Foundation (BCF) at the request of Mayor Goldring.
Colleen Mulholland, president of the BCF, swung into action and began pulling together the team that will both drive the fund raising campaign and set up the process and procedures for distributing funds as well.
Foxcroft has business interests in both sports and trucking. Best known for inventing the internationally celebrated Fox 40 whistle – which is officially sanctioned by the NFL, CFL, NCAA and the NBA – Ron was a professional basketball official for three decades. Off the court, he’s also a legend among community supporters – recognized as the 1997 Hamilton Citizen of the Year, 2011 Burlington Entrepreneur of the Year and holds an Honorary Doctor of Law from McMaster University.
Foxcroft understands the plight of the people who were flooded in this city. His basement was flooded three years ago. On August 4th he was scrambling to make sure his pool didn’t overflow and flood him once again.
Foxcroft, who is the ultimate team player, says his first email at 5:00 am is from Mulholland and his last is from her at 11:00 pm. “This lady is a dynamite organizer and has a Rolodex worth dying for”, said Foxcroft
Foxcroft is off to New York for an National Basket Ball association meeting but will be back in town for the Tiger Cats game on Monday. Asked exactly where that game would be played – because it doesn’t look as if the spanking new stadium is going to be ready – Foxcroft said “the big LED signs that will be used during the game are in a Fluke truck – and the drivers of those trucks know where to drop them off.”
 We reminded Foxcroft that if Burlington had taken up the challenge to have a stadium built in Aldershot back in 2010 this problem wouldn’t exist. “True” said Fox, “but you know, we didn’t give Burlington all that much time. We met on boxing day and needed an answer by the end of February. Foxcroft who is the ultimate private sector guy was reminded that he bought Fluke Trucking in less time than that.
Watch Foxcroft create a superb fund raising team. “We’ve already got some major commitments, but we know that all we have is 60 days to get this done.
The total donated via the Burlington United Way fund raising site is now at $150,000.
Tim Dobbie, a former city manager of Burlington is going to head up the funds distribution side.
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