By Pepper Parr

February 6th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

With Council just a bit over halfway through the Budget motions the projected 7.08 % increase moved up to 7.12 %

Councillor Nisan returns to the Council Chamber.

Councillor Bentivegna has 6 of the 15 motions under his name while Councillor Rory Nisan had 4 in his name.

We have to note that a fully masked Councillor Nisan has returned to the Council Chamber. We don’t believe he has been at a Council meeting since the start of the pandemic in 2020

Finance Director Joan Ford told Council that she hoped the budget could be wrapped up in a single day to which Councillor Sharman gave a quick thumbs up.

The Budget meeting is being chaired by Councillor Kearns who is giving Councillor Bentivegna the roughest ride he has ever had in his five years as a Council member.

The to and the fro between senior staff and council members has been interesting – this council has shown that it wants to do things differently.

By Pepper Parr

February 6th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

How does a debate on continuing the Holiday Market that took place in 2021 and 2022 turn into a discussion about the Santa Claus Parade?

That was an easy question to answer.

The Holiday Market wasn’t exactly a raging success – weather had more to do with the event’s failure to get real lift off.

Suddenly, everyone wants the Santa Claus parade in their ward. The Santa Claus parade has taken place for more than 45 years in Burlington. Organized by a citizens group that works out of the city’s Festivals and Events office it is the premier holiday event in the city.

It looks as if it was Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns who came up with the idea that the Holiday Market could take place at the same time as the Santa Claus Parade – which is held a little earlier in December when the weather had in the past decade been warmer.

There were of course all kinds of details to be worked out but the idea was getting a decent reception from Council members – until we learned that there was a movement to hold the parade in ward 1 and then also in ward 6

No one saw that coming.

The City’s Festivals department is now going to have to work out just what they are going to do with the Santa parade in 2023.

Santa had to get taken around in a fire truck during the worst of the pandemic.

In 2021 and 2022 the parade amounted to a fire truck roaming through the streets of the city with a Santa in the jump seat waving away.

Councillor Galbraith wants to see Santa tootling along Plains Road

Councillor Bentivegna wants to see Santa in ward 6. Hows that for delivering service to the residents?

As the debate was moving along Councillor Galbraith said that “he and Councillor Bentivenga “ have been approached by the Santa Claus parade. Group and there may be a Santa Claus parade moving to ward one and potentially Ward six in future years.

“So you may want to put when the Santa Claus parade runs through the downtown as a slight amendment to this direction. Because I don’t think it will matter if it’s running down Plains Road when the Holiday Market is going to be scheduled.

“So, I’m just going to say no.

“I assume that this direction is to align those two when the Santa Claus parade is downtown. I assume that’s if it’s scheduled anywhere else it doesn’t really matter right ?

Kearns popped up with: “My understanding is that when material changes occur to a previously approved festival or event that those changes have to come before Council. And I think we could explore that at that time. But we can defer that question to the to the director of recreation, community and culture if you wish

Councillor Paul Sharman brings up a possible force majeure

Councillor Sharman then piped in with: “I just have a couple items of feedback. I’m totally on board here. So dealing with that previous question about the parade. I didn’t have that in mind. It could be going elsewhere. But I think we just need to, perhaps a suggestion for councillor Kearns to modify the word contingent.

Because what if there’s like a force majeure with Santa Claus parade one year and then we can’t have the Holiday Market because of this staff direction so how about just requesting alignment or expecting alignments with the annual Santa Claus parade and then if it should come to pass that the Santa Claus parade moves, then we’re still bulletproof there. So that would be my first suggestion to Councillor Kearns.”

You could see where this discussion was going; a force majeure for the Santa Claus parade?

A force majeure clause in a contract releases a party from fulfilling their contractual obligations when circumstances beyond their control impede them.

By Ray Rivers

February 5th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The provincial Liberal party is Ontario’s green party. The last decade and a half of Liberal rule from 2003 to 2018 were the greenest years in Ontario’s history.

In 2014 Ontario became one of the first jurisdictions anywhere to phase out its reliance on coal fired dirty electricity generation – the number one historical cause of global warming. That was also the single biggest reduction of carbon emissions in Canada, ever!

Ontario became Canada’s leading jurisdiction in implementing clean passive solar and wind renewable energy.

In its place Ontario became Canada’s leading jurisdiction in implementing clean passive solar and wind renewable energy. By the time they had been replaced as government, more than 92% of all the electricity in the province was being generated without using fossil fuels. Ontario led the rest of the country in wind capacity adding 5,060 MW of wind capacity between 2005 and 2019. And with 2,670 MW installed, Ontario had about 97% of Canada’s solar capacity in 2019,

The Liberals established an emissions trading regime to efficiently facilitate industrial carbon emission reductions and avoid the requirement for a carbon tax. They brought in powerful incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles (EV) and created the framework for an extensive network for EV charging across the province, including in apartments and condos. And the Liberals created the Greenbelt in 2005, the most extensive protective barrier to urban sprawl anywhere in the world.

It is questionable that the Greens or NDP could have practically done more to transition the province towards energy sustainability and on the path to reducing Ontario’s carbon footprint. In fact the changes the Liberals introduced so threatened the dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, those with vested interests in oil and gas, and the climate change deniers, that they were booted out by the elect-Doug-Ford dinosaurs.

For those that read my columns leading up to the last provincial election you’d remember that Mike Schreiner won the debates hands down. He hit the points the Liberal and NDP leaders only slept through, and took Ford to task, not only on his environmental policies but health care failures as well. So he is not only a good leader for the Greens but, if debates mean anything, would probably be a great leader for Ontario as well.

Change the colour of tat sign to red – and it will do just fine in the next provincial election.

Hasn’t anyone in the Green Party woken up to reality and smelt the coffee. In last June’s election, that party scored only 6% of the vote, whereas the Libs and Dippers split the rest (about 25% each) of the non-Ford vote, allowing Ford a free pass to a four year virtual dictatorship. The Green Party is acting like the Ralph Nader of Ontario politics. Left of centre Nader stole enough votes from Gore to help Bush steal the presidency in 2000.

There was a letter from some 40 prominent Liberals inviting Schreiner to come over and lead their party. In response some 75 Greens penned a response saying that the Libs should join them Greens. It’s a brilliant idea. As someone famous once said, ‘a rose by another name would smell as sweet’.

So call it the Liberal Greens or the Green Libs or whatever, but get your collective act together and stop Doug Ford before he does even more damage to this province than he already has. If you love this province, that is.

Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Family doctors

Those gas plants

Greens think Liberals are trying to steal their leader

National Post thinks pursuit of green party leader is a new low for Ontario Liberals

Eight reason why Schreiner is a good fit for the Liberals

Ford for got what he learned when he was a municipal councillor

Pepper Parr

February 5th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

It was George Armstrong, Captain of the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team (they called it a club in those days) who scored the winning goal and accepted the Stanley Cup on behalf of his team mates

George Armstrong, Captain of the 1967 Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team

The sixth game in the playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens was a thriller after which Frank Selke, who went on to become a General Manager of both the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens, said it will be a long time before people see a game like that again. Little did Selke know just how long that would be. Toronto hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since that marvellous win in 1967

In accepting the Stanley Cup Armstrong said when asked if he ever had doubts about winning, “You have to have confidence and we believed we could win, even if we had to go back to Montreal for the final game”.

Announcements made before or after a hockey game are big productions today.  They were a lot different in 1967.

Today NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said when announcing that Toronto would be the l0cation of the 2024 All Star hockey game. “Toronto is the centre of the hockey universe” There’s so many things that we can do in Toronto to celebrate the Annual All Star

The Leafs held the inaugural NHL All-Star game in 1933, a fundraiser for injured star Ace Bailey that pitted the Stanley Cup champion Leafs against an assembly of the best players in the rest of the league.

Similar fundraisers were held in ensuing years until the All-Star Game itself was institutionalized in the 1947-48 season. Maple Leaf Gardens held the event seven times and the Scotiabank Arena – back when it was called Air Canada Centre – held it once in 2000, when the format pitted all-stars from North America against players from Europe.

“We haven’t had an all-star event (in Toronto) since 2000,” said Daly. “Obviously, the league’s grown a lot since, and they’ve expressed an interest over the last number of years. It’s their turn.”

The Leafs are on a blazing winning streak this year and will play in the finals – but that 5-2 loss to Boston last week reminds people that while Montreal is always a challenge – Boston often turns out to be an even bigger challenge.

By Pepper Parr

February 4^th, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

A group of about 40 people who belonged to the Liberal party , sent a letter to Mike Schreiner, Green Party member of the Legislature inviting him to run for the leadership of the Liberal party that is now down to eight members sitting in the Legislature.

Mike Schreiner on the campaign trail

Schreiner at first said he had not seen the letter and later said that he needed some time before accepting the invitation.  He wanted to talk to his party members.  Oh to be a fly on the wall where those conversations took place.

The provincial Greens and Liberals are now in a state of excited frenzy: the Greens are saying if you want Mike as your leader join us.

The Liberals are saying that there are more things that both parties agree on than they disagree on and that the province would be a better place if they had a leader like Mike who would attract the voters the Liberals badly need.

There are some that claim sending a letter to Schreiner dissed the four people who have already declared themselves as leadership candidates that will run for the Liberal leadership.

The Liberals, both federally and provincially have always poached the best that the socialists had and are now quite prepared to do the same thing to the Greens.

Jagmeet Singh, federal New Democrat leader, is keeping the Liberals in office and at the same time getting new programs for Canadians that the Liberals talk about but never quite deliver on.

Back in 1970 Pauline Jewett, a federal Liberal until Pierre Trudeau brought in the War Measures Act became a New Democrat that the Liberals always hoped they could coax back into the party.  They didn’t know the real Pauline Jewett; a woman of strong views and stronger convictions.  Not the first feminist the country has seen but a woman who made a real and lasting difference.

Doug Fisher, an MP for eight years who went on to become a celebrated journalist and columnist for the Toronto Telegram and then the Toronto Sun, knew more about Canadian politics than many other members of the House of Commons.  He was always near or part of conversations about merging the New Democrats with the Liberals federally.

“I chose to lead the Green Party of Ontario because we do politics differently. We are committed to honesty, integrity and making decisions that put people first.”

Didn’t happen back then and probably won’t happen with the Greens either.  Because politics is and always will be about power and what you can do with it – the provincial Liberals might convince themselves that Mike is their man.  What the Liberal party approach to government would do to the heart and soul of Mike Schreiner is an interesting question.

The Greens love him – they should, he is the only person who managed to win an election as a Green candidate.  Some members of the Green party have said they would hate to lose Mike but if he runs as a Liberal and loses – they will take him back as a Green. That is certainly showing the love.

The provincial Liberals meet in Hamilton early in March for their AGM – that’s when they will set out the date and rules for choosing the next leader.  If Mike runs it may well be a coronation – recall what happened to John Turner when he returned to politics.

Schreiner once said: “I chose to lead the Green Party of Ontario because we do politics differently. We are committed to honesty, integrity and making decisions that put people first.”

Had do you decide to run for the Liberal leadership and walk back a statement like that?

Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.

By Pepper Parr

February 3rd, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The plans to build thousands of homes to meet the rising population planned for the province puts pressure on the  infrastructure that will have to be built to manage the waste water. Flushing the toilet is just the start – that waste has to get to a wastewater treatment plant that may not have been built yet.

There is another electronic newspaper that is doing some very good news reporting.  Narhwal, a publication that started in British Columbia recently created an Ontario office where they have done some exceptionally good work on the property transactions that have plagued the Ford government.

On one particularly good series they partnered with the Toronto Star

In a recent article writer Fatima Syed reported that: “In York Region, the population is set to double by 2051. That means moving tens of millions of litres of more water from the Lake Huron watershed every day,” Fatima told me.

“Where would that wastewater go, exactly? The answer to that question has been a pressure point for 14 years. After over a decade of debating whether to build a new treatment facility, the province finally decided last fall to move more water down south to an existing treatment plant on Lake Ontario instead. To do so, it’s eyeing the protected Oak Ridges Moraine, through which it wants to expand a network of pipelines.

“Moving water from one Great Lake watershed is known as an intra-basin transfer, and it’s a big deal.  For Lake Huron — and Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, which flow from it — it means a loss of water, at a time when levels are already often low. For Lake Ontario, it means absorbing more wastewater: treated wastewater, yes, but the water body is also coping with an unprecedented number of sewage spills, and facing other environmental pressures.

“One leak in a pipe, and there’s poop in your drinking water!” Fatima said jokingly. “Well, not exactly, but the chemicals that treat sewage could put a strain on the drinking water for the region — and we don’t want that to happen.”

“And it’s not just a question of sewage or its possible impacts on Ontario’s environment.

“It’s also about an international agreement signed in 2005 by Ontario, Quebec and eight U.S. states which explicitly bans the movement of water from one Great Lake basin to another.

“At the heart of the agreement is the health of the Great Lakes — one of the most unique water ecosystems on the globe, they hold 85 per cent of North America’s surface freshwater. Great Lakes experts told Fatima they worry Ontario’s decision will lead other signatories to wonder why they should honour the agreement when the whole region is facing intense development pressures.

“The consequences could be so dire, with two watersheds in the Great Lakes and a protected area, we have to start thinking about it now,” wrote Fatima Syed.

“If the Ford government wants to put shovels in the ground as quickly as it’s indicating … we have to start planning properly for our poop.”

The Narwhal has shown that with the right kind of funding the public will get to learn a lot more about what the various level of governments are doing.

Narwhal has managed to get funding from a number of Foundations including the Metcalf Foundation, the McConnell Foundation and the Echo Foundation.

The editorial staff is decidedly female which draws support from those who want to see more women in lead roles in the news business.

As for the waste water: Some of it might be headed for Lake Ontario; source of our drinking water.  Thanks Doug

By Pepper Parr

February 3rd, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The speed with which information moves in the electronic world is at times astonishing.

The folks at the Drury Lane Theatre offered us two comp tickets to the Music Hall 2023 production that starts March 3rd and runs for 12 performances.

We decided to turn the free tickets into a contest and ran a story offering the tickets if people could tell us what the name of the retailer is that will be opening up in the Burlington Centre (formerly the Mall) later this year. Our hope was that people would use the search feature of the Gazette to dig out the information

We posted the story at 10:09 am.

At 10:19; ten seconds later a winning entry came in.

The Zellers sign comes off the store in 2012. Zellers returns to Burlington Centre later this year as a unit inside The Bay location.

We were stunned and realized that what we should have done is taken the winning entries, put the names in a hat and asked the people at Drury Lane to draw a name and that person would be given the two free tickets.

Ten seconds to get a response from Gazette readers: That is going to be part of the story we tell advertisers when we open up the newspaper to advertising later in February.

By Staff

February 2nd, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The comments made by readers of the Gazette were appreciated. I made the decision to cease publishing very early – at around 3 in the morning, when I had to come to the conclusion that I just did not have the financial resources that were needed to continue. A number of people congratulated me on “my retirement.” This was not a retirement.

The runway had come to an end – continuing with the financial resources available was no longer possible. Readership grew almost every month.

Since the announcement, a number of people have asked: How can we help ? So there will be conversations in the days ahead. I am required to keep the newspaper “in print” for a number of days; so whatever I was doing in the past I will be doing for a little longer.

Last Thursday, iGaming Ontario (iGO) released its Q3 revenue report. OntarioBets.com shared the following information

The province is now into regulating online Gambling in Ontario – it has proven very lucrative business for the gambling site operators.

In the period between Oct. 1 – Dec. 31, 2022, online casinos and sportsbooks collected $11.53 billion in wagers, a 91% increase over Q2 (July 1 – Sept. 30, 2022) and does not include promotional wagers or bonuses.

Total gaming revenue in Q3 was $457 million, a 71% quarterly increase.

The online Ontario market went live on April 4, 2022 after decades of grey market operations. Since then, 36 operators and 68 sites have launched as part of regulated gaming and sports betting.

There was a 45% quarterly increase in active player accounts, bringing the total to 910,000, with an average monthly spend of $167 on each account.

It looks like even with a decades-long history of a billion-dollar grey market, fully legal regulated gaming in Ontario is only going to get stronger as the market matures.

For the full story, please visit: Ontario iGaming and Sports Betting Numbers Up Sharply To End 2022 (ontariobets.com)

By Pepper Parr

February 2^nd, 2023

BURLINGTON, ON

The Baby Boomers – They are the generation that changed everything as they went from babies to teenagers to parent to grandparents and now as people that need care in their waning years.

The Baby Boomers have always been noisy, they forced change and they now want better service from the governments that taxed them.

A community based Long Term Care Coalition has said it has to be: Seniors’ care first. Bickering later.

We were told in 1996 how big the problem was going to be – 30 years later governments are not yet ready.

In 1996  Boom Bust and Echo became a national phenomenon that demonstrated the power of demographics to help us understand the past and forecast the future. The book was on the Canadian best-seller lists for over 3 years and sold more than 300,000 copies. Boom, Bust & Echo revealed Canada’s demographic profile at the beginning of the 21st century, as a new population shift had profound implications for our economic and social life.

People want a comprehensive seniors’ care plan, using the law to combine principles and enforceable standards into health care funding.

This call is going to be the subject of a ZOOM call on Friday, February 3, 2023, 9:30am ET

Zoom link: https://torontomu.zoom.us/j/97351675823

Seniors’ having dinner at a Waterloo area long term care home.

Mike Perry, co-founder, Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes Long-Term Care Coalition will be joined by Dr. Amit Arya, a Palliative Care Physician working in long-term care.  Laura Bulmer, RN, Chair, Canadian Association of Continuing Care Educators: CACCE and founder – HSPAOntario: www.hspaontario.org

WAith them will be Dr. Joseph Wong, Founder of Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care; Yee Hong annually serves more than 15,000 individuals across the Greater Toronto Area. It is the largest non-profit nursing home in the country, providing a full continuum of community care and supportive housing services.

This group is calling for a true national plan for seniors’ care, with transparent, measurable and mandatory conditions that are enforceable, securing improved services in long-term, home and palliative care. With a new wealth of front-line staffing in decent working conditions, the Health Care Transfer can be the core foundation of healthcare across the nation.