 By Pepper Parr
October 15th,2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
City Council killed the current iteration of Sound of Music; a musical festival that entertained millions during the decades; they put on a great show that was free.
When it was evident that the city was going to put the boots to the ask submitted by the Sound of Music (give us more money and forgive our debts) I was a bit surprised when the city said they would put out a Request for Expressions of Interest; first thing that came to mind was: Is the fix already in?
In a media release, the city announced that:
 The City of Burlington is taking steps to ensure that a community-focused music festival remains part of Burlington’s waterfront experience. In the coming weeks, the City will issue an Expression of Interest (EOI) inviting event organizers to deliver a refreshed festival at Spencer Smith Park beginning in 2026 — one that continues to bring people together while reflecting the evolving needs and values of our community.
This next step is about renewal and continuity — building on a long-standing tradition while ensuring future events are inclusive, sustainable, and reflective of Burlington’s priorities. The City’s goal is to see a waterfront music festival continue to thrive in a way that evolves with the community and continues to bring people together for years to come.
The city put out a survey – the usual and expected questions were asked. The city said the feedback will play a vital role in shaping the future of music programming in Burlington and ensuring it continues to celebrate community, creativity, and connection.
To complete the survey, visit GetInvolvedBurlington.ca/MusicFestival. The survey will be open until Nov. 17, 2025.
The lingering question for me was: Who is there out there that could pull together a decent event for June of 2026 – eight months away?
If you think about it – and there are people both on Council and within the community, who have done a lot of thinking about this. While the EOI has yet to be released, there are people already talking to people about who could do what.
Does whoever comes forward have to be a not-for-profit? It would have more flexibility if it were an Ontario Business Corporation.
If there were experienced business people holding the equity, expect much better business decisions. People with money are not in the habit of losing money.
The Sound of Music was always terrible at governance.
Deciding if the city is going to do business with a new organization is not something the public should expect anything in the way of public engagement.
My take: The fix is already in.
 By Tom ParkinOctober 15th,2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Unemployment is up in Canada, most sharply in Ontario, where joblessness has gone from 5.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent over the past 39 months.
At a moment when working families need a job creation plan to kick-start a struggling economy, federal Conservatives leader Pierre Poilievre is diverting people’s attention to the scapegoats historically used by conservatives to protect the status quo.
Poilievre is complaining about immigrants taking jobs.
Poilievre has recently called for expelling temporary foreign workers. Many temporary foreign worker programs were built to suppress wages. But Poilievre opportunistically hides behind that injustice, one conservative governments never cared about before, as he tries to conflate a demand to end an exploitative wage program with a push to expel immigrant workers.
And notice this is not a job creation plan. It’s a depopulation plan. It’s a claim that kicking out one working person will free up a job for someone else. But economics just doesn’t work that way — and if Poilievre doesn’t know it, he has smart people around him who do. They just doesn’t care.
Economists can explain the theory of why depopulation is a doomed economic policy. In short, it’s less people working and less people consuming. Depopulation shrinks GDP. Shrinking GDP kills jobs.
But the best explanations are from evidence. And right now, as Poilievre blames immigration for unemployment, the fact is Canada has had near-zero population growth for the past year — even as unemployment rises.
Statistics Canada estimates Canada’s population increased by only 389,000 people from July 31, 2024 to July 31, 2025. On a population of about 41.5 million, that’s less than one per cent annual growth. It’s like watching the population of a room increasing from 100 to 101 — over a year. It’s no change.
But though population has almost ceased, unemployment continues its climb.
Poilievre’s claim has the benefit of getting him off the hook for having not much of a job creation plan. And it helpfully gives permission to the small group of outright racists to push their race-war agenda under the pointy-hooded guise of Poilievre’s legitimate-sounding argument. Great job, Pierre, I’m sure they appreciate it.
But surely last weekend we all discussed our thanks for being in Canada — and not on the United States where division pushed by the president and his corrupt billionaire friends have everyone wondering whether the mid-term 2026 elections will even happen. Or when confrontations with hooded ICE agents will trigger mass violence. Or if what’s coming are even more catastrophic outcomes that lie on the trajectory they are travelling.
Emotions are running high in America, and when that starts, it doesn’t matter what the facts say. You can’t argue facts against a feeling. And that’s something to consider as we try to stop Canadians from getting swept into U.S. political currents.
Yes, the fact is Canada’s population growth is non-existent. That it may even show negative growth in Q4 2025. That we have controlled boarders. They we have processes to determine asylum cases from those that are not. That claims of “mass immigration” or “mass migration” are completely manufactured fantastical nonsense.
But the feelings don’t stop — not even in the people who may not feel happy or proud about having them. But they still do have them.
For us in Canada, our ability to resist being drawn into the MAGA nightmare rests heavily on developing feelings that displace the MAGA emotion, ones that instead build social solidarity.
Against those in Canada who pit worker against worker using zero-sum stories, pressing political leaders for their plan for job creation and renewed economic growth may be an important project of unity in diversity, of building feelings that we are all together in defending jobs and Canada.
 By Gazette Staff
October 11th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Susan Delacourt, a columnist with the Toronto Star did a piece that has to be widely shared.
She asked: “… is the perfect time to ask what kind of friend the United States is to us now, or even if it’s a friend at all. Do real friends ask us to shut up and accept what’s being hurled in our direction — no matter what — with a smile? Is it real friendship when it has to be constantly couched in flattery and genuflection?
 U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: He was clearly talking with Trump’s consent. Lutnick was the president and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, a a global financial services firm that had offices on the 101st and 105th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He invested significantly in technology, establishing an electronic trading platform. In the September 11 attacks, Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees, including Howard’s brother, Gary. Lutnick decided to no longer pay salaries to families of deceased employees after the tower collapsed.. Several days before the column appeared U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick offered Canadians a glimpse into what this U.S. administration expects of this country, and it also could be summed up as: shut up and smile through whatever Trump is throwing this way.
Although Lutnick had been hoping his remarks would remain private, he was talking to a roomful of chatty people and the Star managed quickly to confirm his provocative words as they reverberated through the corridors of the conference.
“America is first, and Canada can be second,” Lutnick said at one point, also advising that this country should be braced to see its auto industry migrate south. Moreover, he said, Canada should just get used to the idea that the trade relationship of the past three decades is over.
“If you look at it where Canada was to where it will be, you’ll be disappointed.”
That, in sum, is where the Canada-U.S. relationship stands now under Trump — in an existential struggle to define how to manage what feels like an affront to the professional and the personal. It’s about where to draw the line.
Even Trump acknowledged that this line is in flux when he was sitting with Carney in the Oval Office. “It’s a complicated agreement, more complicated maybe than any other agreement we have, on trade because, you know, we have natural conflict,” he said. “We also have mutual love.”
 “I wore red for you,” “I wore red for you,” Carney told Trump at the White House.
For a man of Mark Carney’s stature to have to make a comment like that has to be humiliating, unless it is part of a strategy.
At a conference the day after the White House visit Carney repeatedly returned to this whole business of how Canada can be a friend and a business competitor to Trump’s America.
“We also understand it’s America first, not America alone. So the question is where does it go from there?”
“Nostalgia isn’t a strategy. Our relationship will never again be what it was. In terms of that aspect of it, that’s and that’s not a criticism,” he said. “It doesn’t lessen the ties between us as a people,” the prime minister said, but it does alter the economic ties, irreversibly.
That’s a pretty shaky ground on which to navigate a personal or a professional relationship, no matter what business you’re in, let alone the colossal and complicated ties between Canada and the United States. The audience at the Canada-U.S. summit was all ears when any speaker gave them glimpses into how Trump works. Little wonder. It’s ever-shifting terrain.
All over the country this weekend, Canadians will be sitting down with friends and family for Thanksgiving dinner. As often happens when people gather around the table, the conversation may take an unexpected turn. Someone may say something outrageous. Some may realize that a relationship they thought of one way has changed, maybe for the worse, maybe for the better. People will weigh whether to say things out loud or opt for diplomatic silence.
 Susan Delacourt, currently a 10-year veteran with the Toronto Star has worked for the National Post, a columnist and feature writer at the Ottawa Citizen and, for sixteen years, a parliamentary correspondent and editorial board member of The Globe and Mail. She is a graduate the University of Western Ontario (1982, majoring in Political Science). She is also a Masters student in the School of Political Studies at Carleton University. This week in Canada-U.S. relations has very much been an exercise in that same realm, unfolding in front of us at the top levels — Trump and Carney in Washington; top business leaders and players on the field of politics between the two nations, absorbing it all at the summit in Toronto.
It all comes back to one man — Trump, who reportedly just wants to make friends. But Canadians at all levels are asking whether the friendship even works any more and more importantly, what it is going to cost this country.
 By Tom Parkin
October 10th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
It will be pretty hard for Ontario PC Premier Doug Ford to today distract from 47,000 fewer jobs in Ontario in September, but he’ll come up with something. Or maybe hide until he makes his Thanksgiving pumpkin pie video.
 Opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles has routinely pivoted from Ford’s distractions to his jobs record. Ford has been under opposition attack for having no jobs plan despite an unemployment rate that has been on a steady rise since spring 2023. Opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles has routinely pivoted from Ford’s distractions to his jobs record, which has seen 172,000 jobs disappear in the past three months.
Stiles has also seized on recent comments from Ford when he told an elite downtown Toronto business luncheon club that workers just need to “look harder” to find a job.
 A classic Ford distraction. The premier has fought back by pouring out whiskey bottles, doing ice cream photo ops, reviving his fantasy tunnel plan, and picking a fight with municipalities over speed cameras, a tactic that seems to be backfiring. Ford has done everything but acknowledge the province has a severe jobs problem and workers are paying the price for no job creation strategy.
Ontario’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 7.9 per cent in September. While some may try to divert the discussion to Trump’s tariffs or immigrants taking jobs, neither fits the data.
Ontario’s unemployment rate has been steadily rising for more than two years, long before Trump’s election. And it now continues to rise even as Ontario’s population barely even rises, adding only 10,000 people over age 15 in September after adding just 7,000 people in August. Those are increases of just 0.07 and 0.06 per cent, respectively. Ontario’s total population increase thus far in Ontario has been just 0.77 per cent. Ontario’s population has essentially stopped growing this year.
Diversions aside, the problem is in Ontario’s sick economy, which has been hit by manufacturing and construction job losses. Two of eight Ontario vehicle assembly plants have not build a vehicle since 2023. And construction is down from the 2022 housing bubble bust. Those trends and a have rippled into the service economy, especially retail jobs as consumers pull back. And it’s all been deepened by Trump’s tariffs and a mood of malaise.
Ontario’s jobs gloom is showing up in the labour participation rate, the percentage of people 15 years or older who are employed or looking for work. In September a seasonally-adjusted 64.8 per cent of Ontarians were participating in the labour market, down from 66.0 per cent in April 2023.
In September, construction was down by 51,000 jobs since the peak in July 2023 and down 32,000 jobs since the same month in 2023.
In manufacturing, 44,000 jobs have been lost since its peak in July 2023 and down 7,000 jobs from the same month in 2023.
Retail jobs have nosedived, dropping 98,000 jobs since June, after finally climbing back above a jobs peak set back in May 2022, the month after the Bank of Canada raised interest rates from historic lows, busting the real estate bubble.
 By: Joseph A. Gaetan BGS
September 29th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
I no longer delegate or comment directly on the Burlington municipal budget. Not because I lack interest, but because the process has become predictable. Council listens politely, then proceeds as they intended. For this taxpayer, very frustrating — and it raises deeper questions about accountability.
Having been a Condominium Board Director and Treasurer for 10 years I can attest to the fact that under Ontario’s Condominium Act, 1998, a condo board operates with a much higher standard of stewardship. A Board cannot simply add significant new expenses. Section 97 requires them to notify owners, allow for a meeting if requisitioned, and in some cases obtain a two-thirds vote of approval. As an example, if the cost of a change is greater than 10% of the annual budgeted common expenses, it is automatically considered a “significant change.”
 If condo rules applied to municipalities, the development of this site would have had much more public involvement. Still not a firm date on when the project will be completed. Example:
If the corporation’s annual budget = $1,000,000
Any change costing over $100,000, triggers the significant change process. This means the board cannot approve the project on its own – it must notify owners, and in some cases, call a meeting and hold a vote.
Reserve funds are tightly regulated, supported by professional studies, and restricted to major repairs and replacements. Owners are not just consulted; they are formally protected.
By contrast, the Municipal Act gives councils broad latitude. Councils can create or draw from reserves, introduce new programs, and make spending decisions entirely within the annual budget process. While municipalities do consult, the statutory framework does not provide the same direct safeguards that the Condominium Act requires for unit owners. Yet taxpayers contribute far more each year in property taxes than most pay in condo fees.
This imbalance is hard to justify. If stewardship of a condominium’s budget and reserve funds requires statutory guardrails, why not municipal finances? Both involve compulsory contributions. Both are meant to preserve shared assets and services. And both deserve protection from short- term decision-making.
It is time for the province to strengthen the Municipal Act by borrowing from the Condominium Act’s best practices:
Require thresholds that trigger direct taxpayer approval for substantial new spending. Restrict reserve funds to their intended purposes, with clear rules against diversion.
Municipal councils will always need flexibility. But flexibility without stewardship risks eroding public trust. Adopting condominium-style safeguards would restore confidence that taxpayer dollars are managed with the same care, discipline, and transparency already required of condo boards.
 Joseph A. Gaetan is a Burlington resident who comments frequently on municipal matters. He has been wise enough to refrain from thinking about elected office.
 By Joseph Gaetan, Bsc
September 28th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
By any fair measure, the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD) saga has left our community shaken. Parents, athletes, and residents have watched a respected club—one that has served Burlington for decades—pushed aside in a process that raises more questions than answers.
Until now, it was right that Council respected procurement protocols and did not wade in. Rules exist to prevent elected officials from interfering with active bidding processes. But the procurement phase is over, and with it, the firewall that shielded staff decisions from political scrutiny. What remains is not just a contract, but a matter of public trust.
A Timeline That Demands Scrutiny
The Gazette has laid out a troubling timeline. From March to June, BAD followed the rules, submitted documents in good faith, and even provided a legal opinion to support its standing. Yet on June 25, after 5:00 p.m., the club was told it was rejected on a technicality over a document that does not exist in Ontario law. Hours later, GHAC was elevated to the status of “successful bidder.” Days later, the City had to quietly change its press release to account for GHAC’s failure to meet the 85% Burlington residency threshold.
These are not trivial details. They are red flags.
The Stakes for the Community
The most painful part of this story is not buried in policy—it is visible in the faces of the young swimmers who came to Council chambers. BAD has 400 members and 100 more on a waiting list. GHAC, by contrast, is still building its Burlington base. This is not a transition of equals. It is, as one councillor bluntly put it, a zero-sum game. Children will lose opportunities. Families will face higher fees. Burlington risks losing a legacy program that has carried our city’s name across the country.
Why an Audit is the Right Next Step
 The allocation of swimming pool time touches on governance, fairness, and whether Burlington families can trust the City to act in their best interests. Councillor Lisa Kearns’ per the Gazette, has expressed an intention to request an independent audit of the procurement process. This is not interference—it is accountability. An audit would examine whether staff applied the rules in good faith, whether the process aligned with best practices.
This above all is a matter of public interest because it touches on more than pool time. It touches on governance, fairness, and whether Burlington families can trust the City to act in their best interests.
Council’s Duty
No one is suggesting that procurement staff acted with malice. But the appearance of inconsistency, combined with shifting explanations, is enough to warrant a thorough and independent review. Council owes it to the public to ensure that this decision—and any future ones—are beyond reproach.
In the end, this is about restoring trust. Council was right not to interfere while the process was live. After many months BAD and the public is still asking questions. An audit is the only way to answer that.
 By Ray Rivers
September 25th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
We laugh with a comedian and laugh at a clown but there is nothing funny about a fool.
Ontario’s premier Ford has flip-flopped on speed cameras. Perhaps one of his family or friends got a ticket? In all fairness there have been rumours of abuse – people claiming they were billed $100 for going 3 kms over the limit. But rather than fix that abuse, he’s decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater and just ban municipal speed cameras all together.
 Speed Cameras: They are resource efficient, indisputably accurate, corruption-proof, and non-invasive, – People who know speed will tell you that cameras work. They are resource efficient, indisputably accurate, corruption-proof, and non-invasive, – only the license plate appears on the ticket. Your ticket doesn’t affect your driving record, only your pocket book.
To defend the ban Ford is claiming speed cameras don’t work – in the face of ample evidence that they do, slowing traffic by almost 50% in one study. His solution is to pepper our city streets with even more of those dreaded speed bumps. You know the ones that can blow out your shocks, scrape your car’s undercarriage and exhaust system and so on. So you’ll pay for speeding one way or another it seems – a speeding ticket or a car repair.
And what about life saving fire-engines and ambulances which will now have to slow down as they bounce over miles of these new Ford bumps. Of course Hamilton with the worst roads in Ontario is well ahead of Mr. Ford’s new policy because pot holes the size of giant Halloween pumpkins work just as well. Speed bumps may be called traffic calming. They are anything but calming – I bounce over these obstructions in getting to where I want to be.
And since speed bumps slow traffic on city streets, don’t be surprised if the genius running this province decides to place them on highways as well. After all, that is where most fatalities actually happen. Ironically, Mr. Ford normally seems to want us to drive faster. He’s been taking out bike lanes, building new highways, increasing speed limits – so one has to wonder what is driving Ford.
 How pouring prime Canadian whiskey on the ground protects Ontario is hard to understand. Colbert and Kimmel are comedians and Doug Ford’s brother Rob was an unfortunate clown. But Doug Ford, still the most popular Ontario political leader, is just a fool when it comes to speed cameras. So what does that make the rest of us?
 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:
Ford Popular Speed Cameras Camera’s Work 45% Reduction How They Work Speed Bump Damage
 By Ray Rivers
September 20th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
After Dalton McGuinty was elected in 2003, one of the first things his government did was to develop Canadian/Ontario-made renewable energy. Solar systems were as much as 80% Canadian made. Canadian Solar, a private company established in 2001 became a global leader in renewable energy, and still is today.
 There are thousands of small solar panel installations like this across the province – they work very well and in many cases provide revenue for the owners. The solar panels for Ontario’s systems were manufactured largely by Canadian Solar in Guelph Ontario and the steel frames were locally sourced. Unfortunately McGuinty was accused of breaking international trade rules by demanding in-province manufacturing. The Harper government, who never supported renewable energy, presumably pressured McGuinty to discard his buy Ontario policies as violating GATT international trading rules (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs).
Some twenty years later, GATT and it’s successor WTO (World Trade Organization) have become a sad joke. The so-called leader of the free world imposed tariffs and other trade restrictions willy-nilly to suit his mood of the day. He imposed 50% tariffs on everything Brazilian because his buddy there had been convicted for trying to stage a coup – ironically what Trump is alleged to have attempted on January 6th 2001.
 Canadian steel mills are among the best in the world. Keeping them alive is a critical part of realigning the Canadian economy. So Canada’s new prime minister is pushing ahead with a broad-based buy Canada policy. The steel industry hopes that this could move Canadian content of their products to 80% from its current 30% and help offset Trump’s whacking big steel tariffs. Carney is hoping for the buy Canadian policies to be in place by next year at the latest.
 The true story behind this photograph is yet to become public. Prime Minister Mark Carney with Chrystia Freeland as she ends her political career. Her memoirs should be fascinating. But a good place to start would be cancelling the loan the federal infrastructure bank is giving the BC government to purchase four Chinese built ferries. Shame on Premier Eby for not getting the message. He was one of the loudest critics of Trump’s tariffs yet allowed BC ferries to develop an acquisition tender which effectively excluded Canadian ship builders. There is an email trail indicating that Chrystia had almost gone almost postal with rage about the Chinese aspect of this project. Perhaps that why she thought it a good time to leave.
No premier made more noise about against the tariffs than Ontario’s Doug Ford. But his highest priority has long been to build an American led mini-nuclear facility. And once built it will require a steady diet of imported American enriched nuclear fuel for its twenty or thirty year life cycle. That is if it even lasts that long. It is first off the block with untested technology and expected to generate more nuclear waste than the current Candu reactors. No other nation is interested in this kind of reactor- why is Ford?
 Doug Ford’s highest priority has long been to build an American-led mini-nuclear facility. And this experiment will take longer to get into production and will cost an estimated two to eight times more per kWh than the renewable wind and solar Ford killed in his first term. So one has to wonder why Mark Carney would even allow this pig of a project to make into the first five major projects for consideration under Bill C5.
Perhaps Carney is catering to these premiers just in the interests of keeping them onside. I mean they talk a good story about buying Canadian but are full of it when it comes to walking the talk, Still, sucking up to these hypocrites may keep Carney in their favour for the short run but risks destroying his credibility and our national unity in the longer term. Just tell them no!
 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:
Big Five Projects Canadian Solar BC Ferries Eby Complaint Ford’s Folly –
By Pepper Parr
September 17th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
At some point, one hopes, City Council will begin focusing on the concerns and issues of the people that Live, Play and Work in Burlington.
Right now the mistakes and the downright incompetence that surrounds the allocation of limited swimming pool capacity in the city is hurting people.
 Burlington Aquatic Devilrays (BAD), a swimming club that has operated for 40 years, could be close to ending its existence.
It’s membership has plummeted – because the swimming pool space they used to have is no longer available to them.
Pool time has been given to an organization that operates in Hamilton, Waterdown, Dundas, Ancaster, and Stoney Creek.
Mayor Meed Ward and Councillors Galbraith, Kearns, Nisan, Stolte, Sharman and Bentivegna have gone mute. They are hiding behind the argument that Council has no business sticking its nose in procurement matters.
They have muzzled the President of the club.
Some have concerns about the quality of the management of BAD – in our conversations with that organization, we’ve seen nothing that is of serious concern. Keeping everyone happy is not as simple as it sounds.
Councillor Kearns has said she will ask Council to do an audit of the procedure that was followed in the allocation of swimming pool space. For a number of reasons that don’t make all that much sense, what some people thought was going to take place in September has been moved to October. There is no certainty that it will actually happen, and that would be unfortunate.
The people in Burlington who put in hours of volunteer time to run a swimming club are going to have to pressure City Council to reverse the decision that was made by the department that handles procurement matters. Council is in place to represent the needs and wishes of its citizens.
They need to be told to do the job they were hired to do.
By Tom Parkin
September 16th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
 Beating Doug Ford’s communications strategy will require some tough message discipline from the Ontario NDP, starting with setting the story.
On most tested issues, large majorities of Ontarians give poor marks to the Doug Ford PCs, but 45 per cent say they would vote PC anyway, according to an Angus Reid poll released Friday.
 The bottom 12 are pocketbook issues – Ford doesn’t rate well in any of them. That group who rate the PCs poorly yet support them electorally is the mysterious key to Doug Ford’s continuation as Ontario premier.
Unravelling that mystery is the opposition’s central challenge, and that job now falls to Marit Stiles and her Ontario NDP after the Ontario Liberals’ implosion at their weekend convention.
Until yesterday the Ford PCs had the advantage of being able to pick their preferred competitor between two opponents. The PCs picked Crombie and spent heavily on advertising, driving up her negatives, greatly increasing awareness of her, and driving the narrative, eagerly encouraged by the Toronto Sun and key Toronto Star writers, that Crombie’s Liberals were the main threat to the PC Party.
As an opponent, Crombie offered three things: few ideological reasons to prefer her over him; high negatives the PCs could drive higher; and the Liberals’ horrible vote inefficiency.
Framing Ontario politics as a choice between Ford and Crombie goes some way to explaining how only 27 per cent believe Ontario is on the right track but 45 per cent would vote for the PC party, according to Angus Reid.
 Marit Stiles now has a second chance to tackle the root problem, which is Ford’s media dominance. The Liberals’ disarray will at least temporarily disrupt the presumption that the main threat to the PCs comes from the Ontario Liberals, allowing the NDP’s Stiles a new chance to redefine the Ontario political narrative, with herself in the role of main protagonist against Doug Ford.
But it won’t be easy. The end of Ford’s ability to pick his preferred competitor is no guarantee Stiles can cast herself in the key role opposite Ford. It is possible Ford can continue as an unopposed political force in a unipolar media environment.
Ford floods the media zone with opinionated comment, often on issues not in his bailiwick. But whether he is excusing vandalism of municipal speed-check machines, asking the federal government for U.S.-style “castle laws,” or attacking a school board trustee in Tiny Township, Doug Ford dominates as a news source.
As a result, only four per cent can’t state an opinion of Doug Ford while 36 per cent don’t know enough about Stiles to make a judgement, according to Angus Reid.
But Stiles’ low voter awareness is a symptom, which is why a previous attempt to fix it with a name recognition advertising campaign did not work. Stiles now has a second chance to tackle the root problem, which is Ford’s media dominance.
In the United States, debate over how to counter a flood-the-zone strategy has taken several directions. Some focus on the strategy’s ability to sensationalize media, and put an emphasis on — oh so gently, of course — reminding some reporters that journalism is a lot more than writing down the comments of government leaders or dressing up planted partisan gossip as accidental information leaks.
Another direction, recently used with some success by California Governor Gavin Newsom, has been to troll the absurdity and inanity frequently deployed to keep the zone fully flooded.
And there is redirection. Flooding the zone generates white noise and redirects media and voters to minor themes, obscuring the big story.
A counter-tactic of pivoting from the latest distraction to the big story could put Ford on the defence and create policy contrast opportunities. But the challenge is being able to articulate the One Big Story. The U.S. Democrats, in their leaderless ideological and policy incoherence, have been unable to rally around one story.
 Nothing strategic in this stunt. Basically all Ford has is stunt after stunt. Uniting around the big story takes research, personal-political work, fieldwork and discipline. There’s a lot to be done and though the Liberals are in shambles now, they will come back if the opportunity is open long.
Angus Reid’s data points to one pillar of strength for the Ford PCs. Among the 15 issues tested, only on the province’s relationship with Ottawa do a majority find the Ford PCs have done a good job.
But if a good relationship simply means not fighting with Ottawa, perhaps Ford is only getting over a low-set bar and expectations should be raised.
This spring Prime Minister Carney asked premiers to recommend nation-building projects. Doug Ford’s response was poor for Ontarians and a bit offensive to Carney’s offer.
Ford requested federal help building his fantasy tunnel under highway 401, a silly idea that made Carney’s entire nation-building concept look dumb. And while developing the Ring of Fire is important, Ford pushing it on the feds after seven years of making zero progress is throwing his mess onto Ottawa’s lap. It’s actually quite disrespectful.
A better provincial partner would seek federal help on a plan to revive Ontario’s industrial base in a province where 800,000 Ontarians are now jobless. But Ford doesn’t appear to believe there’s a jobs problem, judging from his recent comments blaming unemployed workers for their unemployment. So Ontario has no plan to revive the manufacturing sector.
 Tell the big story about what’s wrong with Ontario. A stronger Ontario partner with a plan to strengthen manufacturing innovation, productivity and investment could ask for federal policy co-ordination to bolster its effectiveness. But there is no plan and Ottawa can’t co-ordinate with a plan that doesn’t exist.
A better partner that wants to keep forward momentum on health care might also seek to sign a pharmacare deal with Ottawa, an idea the Ford PCs have let drop. Four other jurisdictions have signed deals which financially help individuals and businesses while expending coverage.
Kicking down the one strong pillar of Ford’s support might be easier than thought and could combine well with an effort to tell the big story about what’s wrong with Ontario, and why it doesn’t get fixed. Doug Ford should figure prominently in that story because he does.
By Richard Warnica, Toronto Star
September 12th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Charlie Kirk, one of the most influential organizers and activists in American right-wing politics, was shot and killed Wednesday while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, in Orem, Utah. I probably didn’t need to tell you that. If you’re reading this, you likely know the details already: of the shooting and the backlash; of the manhunt (such as it was. The police didn’t catch the shooter. His dad turned him in); and the fiery and largely pointless online debates about who has and has not condemned whom with enough clarity and zeal.
As I typed this Friday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump had just finished telling Fox News that authorities had a suspect in custody. As I finished the piece, that suspect was identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident. Police apparently found both fired and unfired bullets tied to Robinson’s gun engraved with messages that all seemed less ideological than just deeply online: “Hey fascist! Catch!”; “If you read this, you are gay LMAO;” and, in a reference to an obscure meme, “Notices Bulges, OwO.”
By the time you read this, we may know more about Robinson’s background and motivations. But based on past experience, I don’t expect those details, no matter what they reveal, to change much about the debate over Kirk’s killing.
 Charlie Kirk: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” If there’s one thing America has proved again and again, it’s that no shooting, no matter how deadly or high profile, ever changes much of anything. In the U.S., gun murders are part of the fabric, not just of school life and work life, but of political life too. Kirk himself knew that. He considered gun deaths part of the grand American bargain. “I think it’s worth it,” he said in 2023. “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
Nothing changed in America after a depressed student murdered 32 classmates at Virginia Tech university in 2007. Nothing changed after 26 children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary. Nothing changed after Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners at Emanuel Methodist Church. Nothing changed after James T. Hodgkinson shot up a Congressional baseball practice. Nothing changed after Vance Boelter murdered Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband this summer.
Trump held a parade the day Hortman died. I was there. He didn’t even mention her name.
So no, I don’t think Kirk’s murder will be an inflection point in American history. I don’t think it will lead to any actual changes, at least not the kind that would result in fewer gun deaths or less violence in America. I was in Milwaukee, at the Republican National Convention, days after Trump himself was shot and nearly killed at a rally in Pennsylvania in the summer of 2024. I remember all the columns and punditry about how everything had changed, how he had changed, how the race had changed, how politics must change.
Nothing changed. Two weeks later, it was barely a story.
 By Tom Parkin
September 5th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Housing costs skyrocketed on low mortgage rates. But some blame immigrants, and it’s mostly partisan hackery.
Housing price surge came during low in-migration period
Average benchmark GTA house price with inflow of immigrant and non-permanent residents
No matter how much the facts show they are wrong, some people won’t stop blaming immigration for the cost of housing.
No doubt some of it is driven by anti-immigrant sentiment. But it often just seems to be sheer partisan hackery. Since immigration is a federal responsibility, blaming the housing price surge on in-migration puts the blame solely on former prime minister Justin Trudeau. As a bonus it neatly exonerates any Conservative premiers.
But the data is crystal clear. The immigrant theory of the housing price surge is flat-out wrong. Unless effects can come before their causes.
Prices surged while in-migration hit historic lows; they fell as in-migration increased
Our chart above shows the surge in housing prices started Q1 2020 and ended Q1 2022. Prices rose fastest in the Greater Toronto Area, up 53 per cent in 23 months, creating space for rents to rise behind them. Since Q1 2022, when the boom went bust, prices have fallen almost 24 per cent.
So if the immigration theory is right, high in-migration would be associated with rising prices while low in-migration would be associated with falling prices. But that’s exactly opposite what happened.
In Q1 2020, as prices began their surge, flows of immigrants and non-permanent residents fell to lows not seen for years (see chart below). This was the time of COVID restrictions. In Q3 2020, in-migration even went negative as a net 67,000 non-permanent residents left Canada and only 9,000 immigrants entered. Contrary to the “immigration caused it” theory, prices surged when in-migration was historically low.
In-migration moved above the historic trendline in Q1 2022. But house prices that quarter didn’t increase, as the immigration theory would predict. They fell. And contrary to the immigration theory, as in-migration increased to a peak in Q3 2023, house prices kept falling.
The immigration theory of the housing crisis is a totally false narrative, probably invented for partisan gain, though the Trumpian deportation urge no doubt also plays a role.
Causality 101: causes come before effects, not after
Some people are so committed to their partisan or anti-immigrant bias they will look at this data and still declare in-migration caused the price spike that preceded it.
Actually, they won’t. If they started reading this post they stopped long ago, the moment they realized it didn’t confirm their bias. All the facts and data in the world will never change instrumentally-geared minds. And there’s always a pandering politician waiting to tell them they’re right and the facts are wrong.
But for those who like causes to precede effects, the below chart goes a lot further in explaining what happened, though other factors, including government action and inaction, played a role.
A $600,000 mortgage amortizing over 25 years at 5.5 per cent interest cost over $3,600 a month. At 2.0 per cent — a rate commonly available from 2020 to 2022 — the cost of that same mortgage was just over $2,500 a month. Suddenly, a lot of people qualified for a mortgage that could buy a house, setting off a buying frenzy.
And maybe it’s just another very wild coincidence, but the very month the 0.25 per cent rates ended with rate hikes, the boom went bust. Odd, that.
House price surged during 0.25% rate, fell on rate hikes
By Ray Rivers
September 2, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Mark Carney never actually promised that he’d get rid of Trump’s tariffs. He said he’d deal with Trump and build Canada-strong but he knew that Trump was determined to apply tariffs on all of America’s trading partners. And Carney has conceded that some level of American tariffs on Canadian goods and services is inevitable.
He also knows that coping with this massive trade disruption we’re experiencing is going to be challenging. And it may be even worse next year. The USMCA agreement which still allows Canada to export most goods tariff-free expires next year. And given the US president’s feelings about tariff-free trade, the chances of a renewal are slim.
 The choice of re-building our economy or becoming the 51st state. So it is up to us to reinvent the Canadian economy, turning the clock back to a time when Canada was largely self sufficient in how we earned our livelihood. Those would be the days we made things like white goods, guitars and pianos, textiles and leather clothing. Those were the days before we allowed Brian Mulroney and subsequent political leaders to sell us out to the Americans. And now we face the inevitable – the choice of re-building our economy or become the 51st state. There was a reason why Trump used that phrase.
If tariffs are good for big economies, like the USA, they are even more important for the sustainability and perseverance of their smaller neighbours, like Canada. In fact, as Mr. Trump will find out eventually, big economies benefit even more from greater access to international markets. But that door is rapidly closing for him as he alienates his allies and friends,
 Realigning the Canadian economy is going to take time. We will be a stronger, more independent nation. Carney’s decision to take down most of the retaliatory tariffs is a recognition that, with a few exceptions, they dampen economic activity in the short run. It’ll take time for the result of policies geared towards import substitution to kick in. In the meantime Carney’s job is to stick-handle the economy and the tenuous relationship he has with Mr. Trump.
Leader of the opposition, Mr. Poilievre, has voiced his concern that it looks like retreat. And our PM has made significant concessions to American negotiators in the hope of getting a deal in Canada’s favour. His plan is to cooperate rather than resist. But the puck is still on the ice. Elbows up.
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 link:
Carney
August 22nd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Economists with RBC are sounding the alarm on a housing construction slowdown that could hit Ontario far earlier than expected.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released new housing starts data this week, and, on the surface, there was something of a rosy tone. The government agency reported that the seasonally-adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of housing starts edged up 4% in July to 294,085 units, marking the highest level of starts since September 2022.
That would give you the impression that starts, defined as the moment the foundation on a new build has been poured, are on a good trajectory, however, it’s more indicative of development intention from the past. As stated by CMHC’s Deputy Chief Economist Tania Bourassa-Ochoa in a press release from Monday, the “persistently elevated national results are reflective of investment decisions made months or even years ago, highlighting the influence of previous market conditions and builder sentiment on current construction trends.”
Meanwhile, a new report released Wednesday by economists at RBC further points out that while starts are up nationally, construction in the country’s most populated province is sorely down.
 CMHC, Statistics Canada, RBC Economics “Ontario stands out with a steep decline since mid-2024, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area. British Columbia has also seen a moderation, but to a much lower extent,” writes RBC Assistant Chief Economist Robert Hogue. “This divergence is concerning, because it threatens to perpetuate severe affordability problems that exert social and economic hardship on Canadians in these regions.”
“While homebuilders and municipalities are keen to respond, factors like the high development and building costs in Ontario, and substantial inventory are weighing on the initiation of new projects. This raises concern about whether future housing stock can meet demand,” Hogue goes on to say.
According to CMHC’s data, Ontario saw 62,700 starts in July, compared to 77,900 the same month last year, representing a massive 24% drop. “Ontario’s six-month average has fallen to the lowest level in a decade — trending in the opposite direction of what’s needed to achieve the provincial government’s ambitious goal of building 1.5 million new homes over 10 years,” says Hogue. “It’s a similar, albeit less pronounced, situation in BC.”
 Statistics Canada, RBC Economics Alberta and Atlantic Canada are experiencing all-time highs in residential construction, the report posits, so what’s holding back starts in Ontario?
“High development and construction costs are major barriers. Builders saw a rapid escalation of expenses for land, labour, and materials, compounded by municipal development charges and other fees in the past several years,” writes Hogue. “These costs make it exceedingly difficult to bring new housing projects to market at prices prospective buyers can afford, particularly in the expensive GTA.”
Beyond that, Hogue underscores that the supply overload in Ontario, which makes new inventory less attractive than resale, is due to the lower price-point and high availability of the latter. “Meanwhile, investor interest in pre-construction condos — a key driver of housing starts in the GTA — has nearly collapsed,” he adds. “The Bank of Canada’s earlier interest rate hikes, a cooling rental market and declining condo prices have deterred investors, leading to a sharp drop in pre-construction condo sales. Without investor confidence, many projects are unable to get off the ground, further stalling new construction.”
 Canadian Real Estate Association, RBC Economics On top of all of that, Ontario municipalities like Toronto are “issuing more building permits than builders are acting on,” which points to a “major bottleneck” in costs, says the report. Hogue specifically points to development charges, which oftentimes prevent projects from pencilling out.
“The full impact of the current slowdown in housing starts won’t be felt for years in Ontario. It can take two, three or more years to complete a large multi-unit project once the foundation has been poured,” he adds. “Indeed, the GTA market is still absorbing the wave of condo units completed in 2024 started during the pandemic or even earlier. Units currently under construction (more than 93,000 units as of July) are just 11% off from all-time highs in the region, which suggests completions are likely to stay relatively plentiful (albeit diminishing) in the near term.”
 CMHC, Statistics Canada, RBC Economics Hogue underscores that Ontario’s housing construction pipeline, if not addressed, will taper outby 2026. “Any material drop in completions causing a slowdown in the housing stock’s expansion would make it that much harder to close the province’s housing supply gap,” he adds. “It could increase the shortfall and aggravate the affordability crisis if it coincides with a rebound in population growth once Canada’s immigration policy is readjusted.”
This is a topic that has been discussed at length by industry stakeholders, and some are calling the impending reality a “construction cliff.”
Even more troubling is the fact that industry leaders were calling for the “cliff” to materialize by 2027 or 2028, but economists with RBC are forecasting it to happen even sooner.
Originally published in Storey
By Tom ParkinAugust 21st, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Young worker unemployment is up. But it’s not them, it’s the economy (stupid).
As the national unemployment rate has climbed, many news reports have focused on a specific group of victims: young workers.
Unemployment is most sharply up in Ontario, with now 700,000 joblessness. Ontario’s unemployment rate has increased from 0.1 percentage point below the national rate in April 2023 to a full point above in July 2025.
Within Ontario, unemployment is highest in the manufacturing cities of Windsor and Oshawa, at 10.2 and 9.7 per cent. Unaffordable Toronto, the recent ground-zero of a housing inflation and market explosion, is third at 9.0 per cent.
But there’s an alternate view on unemployment, one that shifts the focus from Ontario’s economic problem in manufacturing and affordability to the victims. That narrative shift has real dangers. Or opportunity.
A focus on economic problems can lead to economic analysis, public pressure and hopefully economic solutions.
A focus on who is unemployed can easily divert people into moralizing, helping a politician dodge responsibility for lousy economic management. And it doesn’t take much work to divert people onto age-old moralizing about what’s wrong with young people today.
Aiding dodgy politicians are systemic reasons news media prefers the youth employment narrative rather than focusing on economic problems.
It’s a simpler story. Explaining that soaring housing costs crushed affordability, in turn crushing consumer spending, in turn crushing jobs means maintaining public attention on the bouncing ball. That’s hard. Victim stories are simple. The interviews and pictures are more compelling.
And youth unemployment is a story for a national audience. For almost any news reporter, there is a bias toward crafting a story interesting to a bigger audience. The economic problems of Ontario manufacturing and Toronto unaffordability that are driving national unemployment (including among young workers) are not national stories.
There are some great reporters who take their local or topic beats seriously. But business and economics reporters are full up with Trump tariff stories. Those reporting on Ontario politics are overwhelmed by Ford’s “flood the zone” approach.
At press conferences, Ford yarbles from flights of fantasy to threats of action not in his jurisdiction. Some of those words deserve a mention at the end of a news story. But in a celebrity-focused media space, this inanity gets top space. In the gossipy style of the Toronto Star, inanity doesn’t just lead, it headlines.
Do we need to remind business reporters that Canada can’t fight Trump with 700,000 Ontario workers’ hands tied behind their backs? Or tell certain Queen’s Park reporters to leave gossip, celebrity and inanity to the National Inquirer, 700,000 Ontarians don’t have a job?
Those reminders bring us back to young workers.
It’s always those least integrated into the labour market who suffer most from unemployment.
As hiring slows, finding a job is tougher — and toughest for those with short resumes. And because they are just starting out, more young people are job hunting. So when unemployment rises, young people are the canaries in the coal mine.
Ontario’s 700,000 unemployed workers are a massive waste of economic potential and a massive social cost. Ontario cannot beat back Trump’s attacks when 700,000 workers are sidelined from the fight.
Politicians can try to divert attention onto victims and away from causes, using systemic media biases to help them. But actually helping unemployed young workers requires a reminder that full employment and households with paycheques is how we best protect a strong and independent Canada.
By Tom Parkin
August 19th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The right to bargain and strike is Charter-protected in Canada. But when Air Canada wanted Mark Carney to break the law for them, he did.
Almost 20 years ago the Supreme Court confirmed the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of association protects collective bargaining. And 10 years ago, the court agreed collective bargaining rights includes the right to strike.
It’s not absolute. That freedom isn’t protected if it would threaten the life, safety or health of another person. Police, fire fighters, paramedics, many hospital workers and others can’t strike. But flight attendants sure can. In theory.
 Prime Minister aboard an Air Canada flight in better days: As Prime Minister, he has access to a government-owned jet. Air Canada asked Carney to violate Charter and he did
Yet on the weekend, Liberals, who like to boast about their commitment to a rules-based order, committed some flagrant rules-breaking.
The current Air Canada dispute has its roots in the years when the company was struggling financially. Flight attendants, among others, took major pay concessions. In 2015 they signed an unprecedented 10 year collective agreement to give stability to the airline. Then the inflation surge of 2021-22 added to the concessions they’d already given.
 Michael Rousseau, Air Canada CEO, pockets a “grotesque $12 million last year.” But that 10 years deal is now up. Last year Air Canada earned $3.9 billion. With company executives paying themselves millions — including a grotesque $12 million last year for CEO Michael Rousseau — employees are looking to use collective bargaining to win back the concessions they took.
 Patty Hajdu “unaware of the practice” Flight attendants also hope to end the practice of receiving no pay for ground hours worked. Unbelievably, Minister Patty Hajdu late today on Twitter implied she was unaware of the practice, which she called “allegations.”
Determined to repay their helpful employees with disdain equal to that they regularly inflict on paying passengers, Air Canada executives asked Prime Minister Mark Carney to issue orders taking away flight attendants’ collective bargaining rights. And Carney did.
Carney used an obscure section of the Canada Labour Code the government says gives them the authority to take away the rights to bargain and to strike. It doesn’t.
Canada Labour Code section 107 says the Minister can direct the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to “do such things as the Minister deems necessary.” But the section isn’t exempt from the Charter. It doesn’t invoke the notwithstanding clause. Section 107 itself may not be illegal, but the way it has been used by Carney certainly is.
NDP rediscovers purpose as Poilievre goes silent
Politically, Carney’s attack on worker rights has restored a sense of purpose among NDP MPs dispirited by their epic routing in this spring’s election. NDP leader Don Davies, formerly a staff lawyer for the Teamsters Union, has spoken at picket lines strongly denouncing Carney’s attack on workers’ Charter rights.
In contrast, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has remained silent, offering no public comment, perhaps because his party pioneered use of section 107.
 Lisa Raittwhen she was Minister of Transportation . She knew what she could do with Section 107 of the Labour code. Section 107 was added to the Canada Labour Code in 1984. But it was never used until 2011 when Lisa Raitt, Stephen Harper’s Transport Minister, first used it against flight attendants.
After that, the section went unused for over 10 years. During that time Liberals, with Conservative help, reverted to using special-purpose legislation to take away the right to bargain and right to strike:
- November 2018 — Liberals and Conservatives voted in support of bill C-89, taking away the bargaining and strike rights of postal workers after three days of rotating strikes. NDP and BQ MPs voted against. CUPW took the law to court but four years later, in June 2024, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed CUPW’s case, arguing the case was moot because there was nothing left to remedy. CUPW is appealing the decision.
- April 2021 — Liberals again team up with Conservatives to pass bill C-29, taking away negotiating and strike rights from workers at the Port of Montreal. The NDP and BQ opposed the bill. CUPE is fighting the legislation in court.
Liberals’ Charter violations leaves labour stuck in court
Then suddenly in mid-2024, the Liberals rediscovered section 107 and have since used it rapid-fire, at least six times:
- June 2024 — Liberals take away the bargaining and strike rights of mechanics employed by WestJet
- July 2024 — Liberals take away the bargaining and strike rights of longshore workers at the Port of Vancouver
- August 2024 — Liberals take away bargaining and strike rights of railway workers at the request of railway companies CN Rail and Canadian Pacific Kansas City; Teamsters launch a court challenge
- December 2024 — Liberals take away bargaining and strike rights of postal workers; CUPW launch a court challenge
- May 2025 — Liberals take away the bargaining and strike rights of workers at the Port of Quebec. The order came after an 89 day lock-out during which the employer used replacement workers.
- August 2025 — the current orders against flight attendants.
It’s standard advice for union members to “obey now, grieve later.” And pursuing legal appeals of section 107 orders has been the path the labour movement has followed, up to now.
 Airline strikers defy federal back-to-work order. Their Union leader said he was prepared to go to jail over the issue. He just might. But when court cases drag on for years, later never comes. Meanwhile the hits keep coming. So flight attendants aren’t waiting for later, instead refusing to obey illegal orders now. This is historic stuff.
How this strike plays out will have historic importance to the labour movement and in deciding what kind of Canada we will become.
Hopefully it becomes a searing lesson to Mark Carney.
 By Mark Gillies
January 15, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Burlington is using the month of August to celebrate local history. Sometime ago the Gazette published a series of articles by Mark Gillies, a lifelong Burlingtonian. It is appropriate to re-publish the stories about the people who built this city. This is part two of the Spencer Smith story.
Spencer Smith got to Canada as part of the immigration of British children into Canada and Australia. The children were shipped from England by well meaning people but there were some horrific abuses and I believe it is necessary to expand the Spencer Smith story and learn more about how these boys who, without their consent became indentured servants. They were referred to as “Home Children”.
The poem Spencer Smith wrote, it was included in part 1, aches with the longings of a man who missed so much of a natural childhood.
 Home children on a dock in St. John NB – waiting for trains to take them east. The concept of Home Children started with honourable intentions; with good people trying to salvage young children from a parent-less home, or incredible poverty. Relocate them to a better life in Canada or Australia, that’s all they had to do. What’s the problem with that?
What made the idea work, was that farmers in Canada and Australia faced a severe labour shortage. They had recently immigrated themselves from Europe, cleared their fields, and grew their crops. Only problem was, who was going to do the harvesting, tend to the fields, feed the animals, and everything else that farmers do in this difficult labour intensive profession?
They didn’t have anybody to help. Governments were perplexed as well; those in Canada and Australia were more than happy to bring in immigrants to open up land and create farms. Sometimes they even gave them free land and supplies, but governments overlooked one part of the equation. Who is going work these large farms? They desperately needed a solution, and quickly.
 No doubt about it, everyone at the time believed this was a “WIN-WIN” situation. Spencer Smith’s story was a perfect example of one that seemed to have a happy ending.
Featherstone Martindale & Spencer Smith.
Spencer Smith’s sponsor was Featherstone Martindale from Caledonia. If you have ever been to Caledonia, it seems that about every third person you meet has the last name Martindale. They are a fantastic local family and they show up everywhere in Caledonia. Featherstone was born in 1848 in Haldimand County. Featherstone must not have been impressed by his first name, because he always went by the name Fred. He was a good honest man and a hardworking farmer who desperately needed help on his farm. Fred over the years became a father of 8 children and had married 3 times.
The Farmer’s Wife in Spencer’s Poem
In Spencer’s poem, he speaks of the farmer’s wife who influenced him. Spencer was referring to Eliza Mary Shult, who was Fred’s second wife. His first wife Eliza Jane Anderson died in 1881 after giving birth to a daughter named Ann. Fred married Eliza Mary Shult on January 8, 1883, and the new couple proceeded to have 7 children, the first born was Frederick who died in early 1884. Then another son named Featherstone was born in late 1884, and another 5 children were born between 1886 and 1895. In 2 quick years from 1883 to 1885 Eliza had married, and brought along her own small son named Wilfred McBride who was 5 years old from her previous marriage, when her first husband John McBride died from tuberculosis in 1879.
Spencer arrived on the farm May 21st, 1885 when Eliza Mary was just 28 years old. She was quite a busy young lady herself by the time he stepped down from the carriage. This young lady seems quite remarkable to me, since she still had some extra maternal time to still dote on young Spencer, something that helped shape his life.
 Eliza Mary Shult, the second wife of Featherstone Martindale had a huge influence on Spencer Smith, and he fondly recalls about her in his poem written in 1911. I’m sure old Fred would be quite crusty at times, and probably scared the lads half to death many more times, but Spencer’s poem has a softer edge to it, especially towards Eliza Mary. Eliza Mary died in 1895 from complications of the birth with her last child George Martindale. By this time, young Spencer had already left the Martindale farm. If Spencer actually stayed the full 3 years until he was 18, his servitude would come to an end in January 1888. After the death of Eliza Mary, Fred married a spinster named Margaret Anna Peart in 1907.
The Peart family in Caledonia, which is very large in number, just like the Martindale’s is somehow linked to the Peart family in Burlington, my guess is they are probably cousins. It’s only speculation, but the Jacob Peart farm in Burlington is on the land now occupied by Fortinos, Sears and Ikea, so maybe there was a connection for Spencer Smith to come to Burlington, especially if it was initiated through the Peart families in Caledonia and Burlington. The Peart farm was located directly across Plains Road from the Bell homestead. We’ll never know for sure, but we can at least think about it.
Spencer Smith was quite fortunate and did not face some of the severe hardships that other Home Children experienced. Far too many faced a certain hell of an existence.
The Truth about the British Home Children in Canada
Here’s what really happened to most of the British Home Children.
 This became an economic issue more than anything else. It was strictly a case of supply and demand. Most of these organizations were faced with a huge demand. They had great difficulty in meeting the demand by farmers and governments in Canada and Australia. It was stated at one time that there were 10 applications for every child. So what were they going to do? The answer was simple. Start rounding up any child who potentially was wayward and lived in the area that was to be scoured for recruits. Overly simplified, absolutely, but not by much.
The fact remains, that the original concept was for orphaned children. The reality was that only 2% were orphans. The rest were children in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s true that during these times some parents had great economic problems, perhaps they were unemployed or seriously ill, and they had no choice but to hand over their children to a workhouse, or some other care facility until they could get back on their feet and then bring their children home. The truth is, these organizations to help meet the demand, decided to ship them overseas without their parents’ consent. Most of these children had no idea what was happening to them. The parents did not know either. The children never realized that they would never see their family again.
 Dr. Thomas Barnardo was a very controversial character, and was responsible for exporting thousands and thousands of British children out of England and relocating them mainly in Australia and Canada. Here he is in 1905 leading the Founder’s Day Parade shortly before his death that same year. The largest organization was run under the management of its controversial founder Dr. Thomas Barnardo. He somehow convinced the Canadian and Australian Governments to take these children. Once that was established, then other organizations like the Shaftesbury Homes, the Salvation Army, churches, and others also jumped on the bandwagon. Probably, none of these add on organizations realized that down the road, this program was going to spiral way out of control, and thousands and thousands of small children were going to be totally exploited in this moneymaking scheme to supply cheap child labour to Canadian and Australian farmers. You can dress it up any way you want, citing testimonial cases that turned out good, reminding people that they were paid a small amount, some orphans were adopted by loving families, but in my opinion, the bare bones reality was: Canada, Australia and England were totally involved in a repulsive child slavery program.
Whatever happened to the other 32 boys who made the trip to Hamilton?
When I researched for information on the other 32 boys that made the trip to Canada with Spencer Smith, only about 2 boys continued to surface on available records. The Flamborough Historical Society has documented one of these Home Children. That boy went on to marriage, become a father and worked as a market garden farmer in Aldershot. He turned out okay.
Spencer Smith turned out okay. The others, they completely disappeared. We know some could have been adopted and had their surnames changed. As an outsider, it is basically impossible to track them. We already know that conditions for some children were so severe that they continually ran away from the farms they were working on, and many were beaten to a pulp when they were caught and returned. We know with documentation as proof that over two thirds of all the British Home children were beaten severely. We know that many of these children were not allowed to become part of the family that was caring for them.  They were forced to live in exclusion on the farmer’s property, and not interact with the farmer’s own children or have any friends of their own. They were not loved or nurtured in any way. We know that they were constantly tormented and bullied by other children at local schools, and even adults participated in this human degradation of these children. We know that many just eventually disappeared. Where you ask?
My guess is some were probably murdered when they were beaten so severely by the farmers, and when authorities came around they just claimed that they ran away. Some children because of horrific living conditions probably became so ill, that they died on the farm, and were quietly buried on the property so as not to draw any suspicion. Others may have committed suicide, and became nothing more than John or Jane Does stashed away in a local morgue, waiting for no one to identify them. Whatever the reason, they’re gone, and we don’t know have explanations. Have a look at this story that appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper on April 23, 1930 about a young British Home Child boy named Arthur Godsall who was savagely beaten on a farm in Campbellford by farmer William Albert Hay, age 37.
 Albert had just arrived from England with many other British Home children and they all disembarked at Halifax from the ship Albertic on March 17, 1930.
Albert made his way to the Hay’s farm in Campbellford, and less than a month after he arrived he endured this beating and was finally rescued. That’s just one tragic story, there were thousands of stories just like this. One boy was forced to live outside in the dog house with the farm dog. The farmer fed the dog table scraps, and if the dog was full and if by chance there was any dog food left over, it was for the boy to scavenge. Not to mention that this same farmer viciously beat the boy almost daily. Eventually, he was removed from the farm, and as far as I know this farmer did not face any charges. This is unbelievable, but true. This happened in Canada. If you do some basic internet research, you will find these stories and many more.
What’s really disturbing is just how low profile this tragic event in human history was, and just how little we know of it now. But, it is becoming more widely known, and just recently as victims have finally come forward. In Australia for example, the Australian Government were finally brought to their knees by a public outcry after the public learned the truth from these victims, and the government brought forth an apology for their involvement in this hair-brained scheme. Also, the British Government were totally embarrassed by previous governments’ involvement in this tragic situation also came forth with an apology offered by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And what about the Canadian Government?
 Where do we stand? Sadly, and unfortunately, the Canadian Government has essentially taken the position that this isn’t really a big deal, and no apology is warranted or forthcoming, even though they backed and encouraged this form of child slavery and abuse under the guise of helping disadvantaged children. Personally, I think that Jason Kenney the Cabinet Minister responsible for these remarks was not that well informed on the situation when confronted with the apology question, and consequently brushed it off as unimportant. I encourage you to contact Burlington’s local Federal Member of Parliament, Mr. Mike Wallace, who is a very decent man, and please voice your concern. I would like to think that Mike can champion this cause and help us get this apology from the Canadian Government. It’s long overdue, and it’s the right thing to do.
Here’s how to reach Mike Wallace, Member of Parliament: Burlington Mall Office, 777 Guelph Line, Suite 209, Burlington, Ont. L7R 3N2. T: 905-639-5757 or F: 905-639-6031
House of Commons, East Block, Suite: 115, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6
T: (613) 995-0881; F: (613) 995-1091 or email, mike.wallace@parl.gc.ca
There is an incredible website on the British Home Children. https://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/
It tells the whole story of the plight of these exploited children. It will break your heart to read and watch some of the videos made by former Home Children, these men and women who are now elderly, who have finally broken their silence to tell the real story of what happened to them. The website also has a form that can be signed. It is a petition to persuade the Canadian Government to offer an apology to these unfortunate people, many still alive in Canada, and still suffering mental anguish.
Add the website to your “Favourites”. It is quite large and takes a fair bit of time to go through it properly, so you will likely have to go back several times. The website also is constantly updated with more unbelievable stories about this shameful part of our Canadian past.
By Ray Rivers
August 2nd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
“Time to grow up! Batten down the hatches and expand to new markets. Trade east west. Remove restrictions in our own country…Refine our own oil! Buy nothing from USA. Thank you Trump for a new tomorrow!” (Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish)
There are a number of Canadians still in denial, including Premiers Ford and Moe and federal Conservative leader Poilievre They think that Mr. Trump will relent and drop the tariffs he’s introduced, and we’ll get back to business as per 2024. They believe they can change Mr. Trump’s mind by bending a knee, like Mexico’s president has done, or playing hard ball with punitive counter-tariffs to hurt American consumers.
Mayor Parrish clearly doesn’t see it that way. Trump is not going to change. He’s been talking tariffs for decades and with a compliant Congress and subservient Supreme Court – he does whatever he wants. Besides, he’s convinced that America’s economy is booming thanks to those tariffs. So, unless we are prepared to accept the deal he dictates, confronting or appeasing him is pretty much a humiliating waste of breath.
 We have already paid a high price for thinking we can trust America as a reliable economic partner. Mulroney’s experiment on North American economic integration is over. Canada’s future lies in our own hands, not across the border. We should never have let down our guard and trusted the elephant next door the way we did. We have already paid a high price for thinking we can trust America as a reliable economic partner.
A 2001 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass.,found that jobs fell by 15 percent, from 1989 to 1996, within Canadian industries affected by the biggest tariff cuts. And during that same time, imports from the United States of products previously blocked by high tariffs soared by 70 percent. The Americans were the real beneficiaries of Mulroney’s deal.
There is no question that there will be some dislocation in a higher tariff trading future, particularly for those engaged in lumbering, raw metals, autos and possibly agriculture. But Mayor Parrish insists that Trump has done us Canadians a favour in the long run by forcing us to look after ourselves.
If I read the mayor right, when CUSMA/USMCA expires next year we should just let it lapse. Trump is unlikely to renew it in any case, given his present state of mind. In the meantime, it has thankfully provided a cushion from the shock of the inevitable. But that agreement probably will be gone come mid 2026. So Canada’s future rests on using many of the tools of the past; for example, stricter Canadian broadcast content rules; greater control over foreign investment; and more of the kinds of moderate and reasonable protectionist tariffs Mr Carney has introduced for the steel sector.
 Donald Trump: A more global response might have tempered the power crazy old fellow. It is unfortunate that only Canada and China appear to have confronted the Donald with counter-tariffs, over his tariff escapade, while other nations have just put up their hands and capitulated. A more global response might have tempered the power crazy old fellow, particularly since some of these tariffs have little to do with trading per se.
Good examples of this include: Trump imposing a 50% blanket tariff on Brazil, a nation where America has a large and growing trade surplus, to punish them for prosecuting the insurrectionist former president for plotting a coup. Also, Trump levied a slightly lower fentanyl-related tariff on Mexico than Canada. Yet it is the Mexican border, not the Canadian one, where Americans get almost all of their fentanyl. But when did facts ever matter to this president?
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:
Parrish – Mulroney – Canada’s Tariffs
By Tom Parkin
July 29th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Canadian car travel from United States into BC, Quebec and New Brunswick more than 40 per cent down but a lot less in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The number of Canadian-plated cars crossing into Canada from the United States is down everywhere, but not evenly, according to data from Statistics Canada released July 23.
The largest drop has been in BC where Canadian-plated cars crossing into Canada was down 45 per cent between May 2024 and May 2025, falling from 390,320 to 230,795 crossings.
The smallest drop has been at Ontario border crossings, where 26 per cent fewer Canadian-plated vehicles crossing into Canada in May 2025 than May 2024, falling from with 919,454 to 728,685 crossings.
Canadian-plated cars crossing into Quebec and New Brunswick, both declined 42 per cent. Crossings at Manitoba border points fell 32 per cent. Crossings at Alberta and Saskatchewan border points dropped 27 per cent.
Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador do not have any land crossing points with the United States.
The change in truck transborder traffic shows a generally similar trend, though with a much muted effect compared to cars, presumably because a large portion of truck traffic is based on commercial arrangement rather than personal choices.
Among Canada’s five busiest airport, the change in travel to the United States has also been uneven.
Flights to or from the United States from Toronto’s Island airport was down 32 in May 2025 from May 2024. Flights from or to Toronto or Montreal international airports was down mildly. Traffic from Vancouver International Airport was down the most.
The number of flights between Calgary International Airport and the United States bucked the anti-Trump trend, increasing by 12 per cent in May 2025 compared to one year earlier.
By Pepper Parr
July 28th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
There are five working days before Curt Benson takes on the role of Chief Administrative Officer of the City of Burlington.
 Curt Benson: Commissioner of Development and Growth Management He will hold that title and all the work that goes with it until the day before the new council is sworn in October of 2026
The new council, the one that gets elected in October of 2026 will decide who the next CAO will be.
Benson will continue to be the Commissioner of Development and Growth Management – the most important of the three Commissioners the city has.
Curt Benson is a decent human being. He served as the head of planning at the Regional level. When Regional planning devolved to the municipalities. Burlington was fortunate enough to hire Benson.
He does a superb job – it’s a big job – major developments are in various stages of development; funding from the federal and provincial levels has to be managed – no small task, I might add.
The work load Benson has been handed (Yes, he did accept it) will be brutal. The time to think through the decisions just may not be available to the man. He is fortunate in that he has some grade A people in the planning department.
We wish Benson well and hope that he manages to get some personal time.
There has been no explanation from City Hall on why appointing a CAO for a short period of time was chosen – rather than begin the process of advertising and selecting a new CAO.
Is one of the reasons that the city might have a problem attracting someone with the experience and skills that are needed? There aren’t that many really good administrators out there and Burlington’s reputation as a great place to work isn’t what it was when Hassaan Basit was hired.
 Hassaan Basit I personally don’t understand why a professional enters into a five-year contract and walks away from it 16 months later because a nicer job came along. The reasons given don’t pass my smell test. Personal, family or health matters would justify a decision like that.
During Basit’s final council meeting July 15th, Basit and Mayor Meed Ward couldn’t say enough about how much they enjoyed working with each other.
The current Council is so tight-lipped that none of them chose to make comments about their working relationship with the outgoing CAO.
Not healthy signs.
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By Zakiva Kassam
