 By Pepper Parr
April 19th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
There are a lot of people very unhappy with the Premier.
 Dr. Adelstein Brown, Chair of the Science Table , keeps a safe distance from Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Health. Members of the Science table who advise the Chief Medical Officer of the province who then advises the Premier are talking about resigning.
They don’t think the Premier understands the gravity of the Covid19 situation and how close we are to being out of control.
Leader of the provincial Liberals want the Premier to resign – Stephen Del Duca said: ““Doug Ford is the worst Premier in Ontario history at a time when leadership matters the most. He should resign now before he makes things any worse. If he does, I will be the first to commend him, because it takes real guts to get out of the way when he’s screwed up this badly. But he won’t. Because he only cares about himself and his special friends.”
That’s just politics – Del Duca has yet to win a seat to even sit in the Legislature.k
It is becoming very clear that this government cannot seem to get ahead of the crisis. Paid sick leave for those people who have the crummy jobs, live with large families, often in congested space, work for a bit more than the minimum wage and having to use public transit doesn’t seem to be something the province is prepared to do.
 Premier Ford uses data provided by the Science Table as a prop during a media event – but doesn’t follow the recommendations that came with the data. Money can’t be the issue – the Premier keeps saying “whatever it takes”. It takes taking care of the people who work in the hospitals who are approaching burn out, the single parent who works in the supermarket and now has to figure out how she is going to care for her children with schools closed.
The decision to give police the authority to stop people at random and have them justify why they are out of their homes was a stretch when the public was informed – then at least 30 police forces in the province declare they aren’t going to use the authority – the province backs off.
There is a health crisis that is barely under control.
There is a confidence problem as well.
 By Ray Rivers
April 18th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
When you are wrong, you are wrong. The adult thing to do is to just admit it. The debate on carbon taxation is over and Mr. O’Toole has his job cut out educating those dinosaurs in his party who couldn’t even concede that climate change is real.
 With O’Toole’s ‘green’ rewards, the more often you fill up your car the more more points you earn. Everyone had been expecting to see his long promised Tory environment policy, ‘Secure the Environment’. But no one expected O’Toole to include a carbon tax, after all the criticism he had heaped on that idea.
Perhaps that is why O’Toole’s tax actually resembles a loyalty card, a kind of Petro-Point collector. Though since it is mandatory, it’s still a tax, something he doesn’t get. And he clearly also doesn’t understand that the incentive should be to reduce green house gas emissions. With O’Toole’s ‘green’ rewards, the more often you fill up your car the more more points you earn. And those points in your personal low carbon saving account entitle you to a ‘green’ prize of the government’s choosing – rather than a guaranteed fixed rebate on your taxes each year.
Some environmental groups have lauded O’Toole though they note that the bar for him to jump was pretty low. And this may all seem like heady stuff for the Tories, but his environmental plan reads like something the Liberals might have written a couple of decades ago – before we all wasted so much time talking about climate change instead of doing something about it.
Setting a goal of 30% for electric vehicles (EV) sales by 2030, may sound new age, but 30% pales when compared to Quebec’s decision to ban all gasoline car sales by 2035. And the Tory policy document offers no real plan on how to get there.
For a party which sells itself as a tax fighter and calls out its opponents as big taxers and spenders, fiscal conservatives will be holding their noses on election day. There are new taxes proposed for luxury vehicles, frequent flyers and even second homes, in addition to the new carbon tax. It is no wonder that the folks at the Taxpayers Federation are going ballistic, calling O’Toole out for breaking his promises.
 Another billion for car battery development, another billion for hydrogen power from natural gas and five more billion for carbon capture and sequestration And there are billions of dollars in new spending thrown in, as if the traditional Tory pre-occupation with debt no longer matters. There is a billion promised to develop mini nuclear power plants, another billion for car battery development, another billion for hydrogen power from natural gas and five more billion for carbon capture and sequestration – which involves pumping oil sands emissions into the ground and praying they will stay there.
O’Toole has borrowed from Andrew Scheer’s environment playbook, promising more natural gas exports to other countries to help them reduce their coal burning, whether they want it or not. And that probably would lead to more discussion of new pipelines. Interestingly he has backtracked on his party’s opposition to the Liberal’s low carbon fuel standard much as he has now accepted federal carbon pricing for industrial polluters.
There is a brief mention of ‘carbon border trade tariffs’ to level the field for Canadian companies competing against producers in other countries with less constraining environmental standards. This is something the Biden administration is also considering, though it’s an uphill battle against the free trade lobby. Still O’Toole is only committing to study the idea.
While O’Toole talks about increased energy supply he ignores the lowest cost option, the lowest hanging fruit – renewable energy. The Biden administration, south of the border, is banking on wind and solar to drastically shave US carbon emissions. Driving electric or hydrogen powered vehicles will not get Canada to its carbon goals if the electricity that charges/powers them comes largely from carbon based fuels.
 O’Toole’s proposed carbon tax is seriously flawed and may actually lead to increased carbon emissions, rather than reduce them O’Toole understands that the party he leads is out of step with the majority of Canadians, even in Alberta, who expect the country to deal with its pollution and meet its international climate goals. ‘Secure the Environment’ was intended to correct that imbalance. Unfortunately the plan is still too ideologically driven and still too overly consumed with a dying resource sector.
O’Toole’s proposed carbon tax is seriously flawed and may actually lead to increased carbon emissions, rather than reduce them. Further, his decision to introduce his own carbon tax and claim that it isn’t a tax, is shameful behaviour for someone aspiring to Canada’s highest office.
Why not just admit he’s changed his mind and now accepts the existing carbon tax framework, much like he has done for the industrial polluters. And why not confirm the reality that the carbon tax has neither proven a drag on the economy, nor overly hurt working Canadians. Otherwise he wouldn’t be promoting carbon taxation, even if by another name.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Background links:
Secure the Environment – Loyalty Cards – Worst of Both –
 By Tammy Fox
April 16th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
I find it beyond belief that we have been existing in this Twilight Zone of a pandemic for over an entire year now. COVID has, and continues to have, absolutely devastating effects on everyone – personally, professionally, economically, socially – you name it.
 Tammy Fox, Executive Director, Burlington Performing Arts Centre We invested a great deal of time, effort and funds in developing a sold COVID-safety plan for BPAC last summer so that by early fall we would be in a position to welcome back reduced-capacity audiences in the safest way possible. We increased our air filtration, purchased plexiglass screens and every type of PPE available.
We invested in a socially-distanced ticketing system and seating plans, as well as patron self-screening software. We thoroughly sanitize the venue at least three times daily. When we were finally permitted live audiences of up to 50 people for October and November we scrambled to put together an exciting ‘mini-season’ of incredible artists, like Tom Cochrane, Chantal Kreviazuk, The Spoons and more.
We sold out every performance and I watched as my technical staff’s eyes welled up with tears on our ‘opening night’, overcome with emotion at having the opportunity to finally return after 6 months of suspended operation to what it is that we all do best. To the industry that we love. And then just like that we were slammed back into the ‘red zone’ and the stage lights went dim once again.
Now we are once again in lockdown. We are struggling to understand why we are not permitted to support our community and the Canadian arts ecology when we all need it most, by at the very least offering livestream performances. A typical livestream production might involve 5 – 10 people, between staff and artists, carefully and safely socially distanced in our incredibly spacious venue – but no, the province has deemed that too risky.
Film shoots involving 100 cast and crew are ok. For a long while, allowing hundreds to cram into malls and big box stores was ok. But no livestreaming allowed! Once simply can’t help but feel that the notion of the arts being somehow superfluous, non-essential to the health and spirit of a community is now up in lights on the marquee for all to see. It’s a very scary time for our industry, which has been deemed ‘the hardest hit’. Our industry will be the very last permitted to return to full operations. Ours will take the longest to fully recover.
With that said, there is an incredible amount of heart and effort going into advocacy efforts for the live entertainment sector. Federal agencies are doing what they can to keep us sustainable until life can return to ‘normal’. I do believe that people are eager to return. I feel that people are now truly becoming aware of the cavernous gap left in our lives and in our communities when the performing arts go dark. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone – but absence will make the heart grow fonder!
 There will come a day when there will once again be a full house At present, I think that the best that we can hope for is offer a series of performances outdoors on our Plaza this summer. I hope to see us being permitted to operate at a percentage of capacity by the fall. At some point someone has to do the math and see that 250 patrons spread out across a 718-seat venue is safer than 50 people crammed into a Walmart check-out line.
 An outdoor performance on the plaza where the best seats were on a marble bench. In the meantime, we are constantly trying to find ways to support our staff, our patrons and our local artists and arts organizations and to keep our volunteers informed and engaged. We have been working with the HDSB by offering students a virtual education series, and we are developing an artist residency program that will see us offering our space and services to local artists. And mostly, we are working towards remaining optimistic and keeping the faith that we will hear that applause again one day soon. It will happen.
Because the show must go on!
Tammy Fox is the Executive Director of the Burlington Performing Arts Centre
 By Lana Parker
April 16, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
Despite the lack of data documenting benefits to children, and emerging evidence of several drawbacks and harms, the Ontario government is discussing making full-time online schooling a permanent “choice” in public education.
This idea is being introduced without adequate research, and stands to become the latest measure that raises inequality and threatens the viability of education as a public good.
The Globe and Mail obtained an Ontario Ministry of Education presentation dated March 22, 2021, detailing the prospect of continued virtual learning after the COVID-19 pandemic. The province aims to partner with TVO to offer “fully independent online learning” for “Ontario and out-of-province secondary students” and also mentions continuing “synchronous remote learning” for elementary students.
The proposal coincides with apparent plans to continue to help fund Ontario education by selling curriculum abroad. In 2015, Ontario reported it had agreements with 19 international private schools that pay the province to deliver the Ontario curriculum.
Unpacking the known harms
 While the COVID-19 environment has produced unique challenges, many of the greatest difficulties for young people have been associated with the forced shift out of schools and into online learning. Online learning does not replace the complex, relationship-oriented learning and social environment in schools.
Fully online learning has had consequences for mental health, with increased feelings of social isolation. There have also been challenges to physical health, as youth grappled with a lack of physical activity and deteriorating eyesight. Even among older youth learners, motivation and engagement prove difficult to sustain online, with a higher potential for dropping out and worse outcomes for disadvantaged students.
Despite the negative outcomes associated with full-time online study for youth and without sufficient data to support its rationale, the Ontario government is introducing an unasked for “choice” that would set a detrimental precedent for public education.
More screen time?
Some might argue that getting students comfortable with online technologies prepares them for future study and the workforce. In my research on youth literacy and online engagement, however, I explore how student proficiency in navigating technology should not be mistaken for understanding complex information.
 My work is part of a wider body of emerging research that examines how students make sense of the online environment — and how being online affects their literacy skills, including their capacities to form critical questions and navigate misinformation and disinformation.
I have also determined that literacy learning can be strengthened when students and teachers explore the emotional implications of contentious issues in a classroom community. In other words, leaving students alone in front of screens for even more of their already online-immersed day does not improve their critical thinking or engagement.
 For adolescents, learning online doesn’t replace in-person interactions with teachers, other students and community members. These interactions, far from superficial or inconsequential, are at the heart of how students learn well. In the pandemic, many teachers have voiced concerns about how an online environment hampers their ability to tailor learning and to support their students with the full range of strategies that are available in the classroom.
Yet another worrying aspect is the risk to student privacy. There is ongoing concern about how tech companies may be gaining unprecedented insight into children’s lives and how data may be used.
There are also issues of tech monopolies that muddy the line between public education and private enterprise.
Generating revenue
Students have opportunities to engage with online learning in Ontario’s current framework. There is no need to introduce compulsory online courses or the option of full-time online learning.
With all the issues implied by full-time online learning, why would Ontario consider making this a permanent feature of public education? Before the pandemic, in February 2020, the government .
In a confidential Ontario government document written sometime between March and August 2019 and obtained by the Toronto Star, the current Ford government detailed a plan to dovetail cuts to school board funding with the opportunity to “to develop (a) business model to make available and market Ontario’s online learning system to out-of-province and international students.” It is telling that the document did not foreground the benefits of full-time online learning for students.
The reasons for this shift can be attributed to the ongoing drive to privatize public education through the twin aims of reducing costs and generating new revenue. The 2019 document also mentioned examining “feasible options for selling licensing rights to courses/content to other jurisdictions.”
Curriculum sales
The current discussions should be seen in the context of Ontario’s drive to create revenue streams through international student tuition and sales of curriculum to international schools.
Ontario’s March 22 proposal for online schooling describes a plan to develop curriculum and offer an education with little teacher support.
This “business plan” follows Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announcing the appointment of a former CFL commisioner to the role of TVO’s CEO. TVO’s website has been recently retooled to include an emphasis on “digital learning.”
Potential future harms
For children, fully online learning creates the conditions for further educational inequality. It is a particular risk for children with special education needs.
It can also produce unintended consequences: a recent study based in Ecuador showed female students working online were more likely to spend time doing housework than their male counterparts. It is not unimaginable that some families could select online schooling for their children so they could help with household work, care for family members and potentially supplement family income by entering the labour market earlier. The move also risks limiting opportunities for extra-curricular socialization and learning, including experiences with the arts and sports.
Once poorly researched educational policy comes into practice, it is difficult to undo irrespective of data that details its harms. Such has been the case with the introduction of standardized testing in Ontario, which marginalizes newcomers and students with exceptionalities, and encourages a narrow curriculum.
Over time, a policy of “choice” for full-time online schooling weakens public education by diluting in-person opportunities for students and eroding funding. An impoverished public system drives families into private schools, which further erodes the public good. Defunding and marketization will leave public education in a race to the bottom.
Background links:
Expanding student access to on line and remote learning – the provincial government agenda
Toronto reveals secret provincial government report about on-line learning –
Laura Parker is an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Windsor
 By Eric Vandewall, President and CEO Joseph Brant Hospital
April 15th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
A short walk from Joseph Brant Hospital is Spencer Smith Park, a beautiful green space by the waterfront where, in past years, friends and families would gather in large numbers to enjoy the warm weather, music and food festivals and open-air movie nights.
We know how difficult this year has been for everyone – we feel it too. We all want to return to a time when we could enjoy the simple pleasures of pre-pandemic life. But we urge you to be patient, stay home and follow all public health measures. We need your help to avert a crisis.
 Eric Vandewall Across Ontario, we are seeing enormous strain on our hospitals, and JBH is no exception. The new Variants of Concern have quickly taken hold and are fueling this third wave, causing a rapid surge in cases and hospitalization of patients with more severe symptoms.
At JBH, we are currently at 94% capacity and reached full capacity this past weekend. In just two weeks, the number of COVID-19 patients in our care has more than doubled and continues to increase daily.
We are doing everything we can to make beds available to the rising number of patients – both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 – who require urgent, life-saving care. We have put all non- urgent surgeries and procedures on hold. We have added four intensive care beds and will be adding three more by the end of this week – 31 beds in total. But resources are limited, and may not be enough if the demand continues.
 Pandemic Response Unit We have been working with our regional and provincial partners in managing COVID-19 care, so that no one hospital is overwhelmed. We have the capability to transition our Pandemic Response Unit – which is currently serving as a Halton Region Vaccination Clinic – back to providing COVID-19 care within 24 hours. We would continue to run the clinic, which has already administered more than 10,000 vaccinations, in another part of the hospital.
Like many of you, our JBH staff and physicians have made enormous sacrifices during the pandemic, and your unwavering support has meant so much. You helped us get through it, and we need your support once again.
Please follow public health guidance. Stay home unless it’s essential, such as buying food or picking up medication. Wear a mask, wash your hands frequently, physically distance from others and do not gather with anyone outside of your household.
There are skeptics who will try to convince you that this is all unnecessary. I can assure you, they are wrong. If this upward trend continues hospitals will be overwhelmed.
 By Julie Hunt Gibbons
April 15th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
Many of the challenges of this pandemic have been solved through the use of technology. The tools of technology have allowed the world of work to continue from a safe distance. Education in Canada has been no different.
Last year’s March – June shut down in elementary, secondary, and post secondary in Ontario was facilitated by the use of online learning, both synchronous and asynchronous, through a host of different learning management systems and educational platforms and applications. This year our provincial public health challenges have varied by population and demographic and we have used technology to respond accordingly.
 Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education Here in Halton, and the surrounding GTHA, students have experienced a variety of synchronous and asynchronous fully online and hybrid learning models in response to the need for student cohorting and swells in Covid-19 numbers. The recent pandemic response, coupled with decades of technological innovation and growing use, have led many people to cite technology as the panacea for educational change in this province and around the globe. They would do well to read Justin Reich’s latest book, Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education” (2020).
Reich does not base his claims on recent pandemic events. In fact, he wrote this book prior to the onslaught of COVID-19 and points out that the supposedly transformative educational technology of the past decade has done little to revolutionize learning. He debunks claims such as:
Harvard Business School’s 2009 claim by Clay Christensen that predicted that half of all American secondary school courses would be online by 2019,
Sal Khan’s claim that Khan Academy videos would reinvent education,
Sebastian Thrun of Udacity’s claim that in 50 years we’d have only 10 institutions of higher education in the world as a result of the success of massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Sugata Mitra’s claim that students no longer need schools or teachers as groups of children with access to the internet could teach themselves anything.
Computers will be part of classrooms – but they will not replace classroom teachers. Reich addresses MOOCs, autograders, computerized “intelligent tutors,” and widely adopted popular educational software in-depth and traces their hype, their potential,and their ultimate shortcomings. According to Reich, despite their economic success in making their creators wealthy, their benefit has been to primarily wealthy students and they have done little, if anything, to combat growing inequalities in education. Thus this has not been “true innovation” and has not radically changed the educational system in any way. Rather these tools have been adapted, tested, used or not used by educators within the system.
Technology does, and will, continue to play a crucial role in the future of education but as nothing more than a tool for classroom experimentation and the expansion of educators’ pedagogical toolkits.
None of this should come as a surprise; the pandemic has evidenced extreme growth in the use of educational technology, but the key lesson of our online learning experiments in a pandemic have been that there is a want and need for human interaction. Educators have the uniquely human skills to engage (or not engage) students. Education is at its essence a human skill and human pursuit. Change and improvement to education must come from human iterations. There is no magic technological wand.
I join Reich in his confidence that when we take stock of the education our schools provided in our schools during the pandemic, we will see evidence of many new technological classroom and teaching strategies reflective of staff learning and the practicing of technological skills. These are valuable skills and our schools can and should build on them, continuing the process of learning how to teach, learn, and use our digital tools more effectively. Educational improvement is a journey, not a destination and technology can shape and accelerate this journey but technology alone cannot transform education.
 HDSB Superintendent Julie Hunt Gibbons
Julie Hunt Gibbons Halton District School Board Superintendent of Secondary Program & Student Success, North West Oakville Family of Schools was a part of the team that created the iStem courses that began at the Aldershot High school.
Julie was born in Ottawa, graduated from TA Blakelock in Oakville then attended: University of Western Ontario | B.A. Hon. | Sociology and Political Science; University of Windsor | MA. | Sociology (Socio-legal Studies) and University of Toronto |B.Ed. |Intermediate and Senior qualifications
Julie didn’t intend to be a teacher. She did a Masters in Sociology (Socio-legal studies) thinking it would be a good stepping stone to Law School. It was while working as a Teaching Assistant that she fell in love with teaching.
By Andrew Drummond
April 14th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
This past weekend, over 2000 NDP delegates from across the country met at a virtual convention to discuss what direction the party should take moving forward and what policies are important for the NDP to push in the next federal election. The convention was not without its hiccups, and technical difficulties dominated the event in its first 24 hours. Delegates with a disability in particular were frustrated as captioning for the proceedings was not immediately available.
 Jagmeet Singh – a resounding 87% endorsement The most publicly notable part of any political convention in Canada is the vote to endorse the Party Leader. NDPers gave Jagmeet Singh a resounding 87% endorsement which was higher than expectations. Jagmeet also gave a keynote address on the Sunday of the convention where he compellingly argued that without the NDP’s influence the country’s vulnerable would have been for worse off than they were. He quoted a line from a popular meme online: “I’ve heard it said that in this pandemic, we’re all in the same boat. I disagree. We’re not actually in the same boat. We’re certainly in the same storm, but some of us are in leaky lifeboats.” Singh also called out that the Liberal proposal for the CERB program had been $1,000 per month with a 3-month maximum. Only through the pressure tactics of the NDP caucus was the amount and duration increased.
But the core of any convention is the passing of policy the NDP grassroots wants the party to fight the next election on. More than 800 policy resolutions were submitted by riding associations across the country, and delegates prioritized those and then debated over the three days of the convention. The most notable new policies passed are below:
 He’s just an old fashioned millionaire. Make the Wealthy Pay Their Share (80% marginal tax on incomes over $1,000,000)
Delegates in favour of this resolution argued passionately that Canadians earning this amount of income should be more responsible for ensuring a more equitable distribution of wealth across Canada. While exact figures aren’t available, the 99th percentile income in Canada is less than $300,000 per year. The number of Canadians making over $1,000,000 is incredibly small and yet a tax on those individuals would secure considerable funding for programs to help all Canadians.
Re-Establish a federal minimum wage at $20/hour
Delegates on this resolution were focused on the relationship between a minimum wage and a living wage. And after some discussion, delegates were aligned to the idea of $20/hour being necessary because of the incredibly high cost of living in many areas.
Halton was given as an example where the living wage here was $20.38/hour the last time it was calculated in 2019. The wage would only impact federally regulated companies but would hopefully have a significant impact on local economies as well.
Add Long Term Care standards to the Canada Health Act
The experience of Ontario has been noticed by people across the country. Delegates have been outraged at the poor conditions LTC residents have been forced to live in while the private companies managing the sites have been giving out huge dividends to their shareholders. With this policy, the NDP takes a stand that across the country LTC homes will no longer be allowed to be run as for-profit enterprises. It would also enshrine in the Canada Health Act a commitment that any federally funded LTC facility be required to provide a minimum of 4 hours of daily care.
Permanent Paid Sick Days for federally regulated companies
The research in the lead up to this policy shows that 58% of Canadians do not have any paid sick leave. Beyond that, the much touted CRSB program is not suited to day-to-day needs. When a worker starts getting sick, they need that first day off to prevent others from getting infected. The NDP passed a policy demanding 7 permanent sick days per year for all federally regulated companies. It is a very big step towards normalizing paid sick days as required in all businesses.
Canada’s Place in the World
 Refugee camp support has always been a large part of Canadian foreign aid. Historically, the NDP convention has shied away from taking stands on foreign policy. Resolutions calling for international action rarely get prioritized and debated. However, at this convention, the NDP delegates prioritized 2 powerful resolutions calling for action from Canada. First was to unequivocally support farmers in India against the repressive corporate takeover being funded by the Modi government. The second was calling for a boycott of all products made in the Israeli occupied territories as well as an embargo on arms sales to Israel until a fair peace is established with the Palestinian people. This was a landmark policy choice that puts the NDP clearly on the side of those being oppressed and demands Canada take action on the world stage.
 Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party NDP convention 2021 was not perfect. The technical glitches marred what could have been a bigger unifying experience for delegates (Amends were made by refunding delegate fees to all members with a disability). But policies were passed that will drive the NDP platform for the imminent federal election expected later this spring. They are bold, progressive policies that will brand the NDP clearly as the most progressive platform between the major parties. They also give a clear strategy to escaping the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
The 2021 NDP Convention made clear that the NDP members have a vision for what Canada should be and how it should take care of its people so no one is left behind. Protecting LTC homes, and fighting for a federal minimum wage will make real, material difference in the lives of Canadians. The biggest message from convention 2021 was that the NDP members share a common vision with Jagmeet Singh and are passionate about fighting for that vision in the next election.
Andrew Drummond was the NDP candidate for Burlington in the last provincial election.
By Ray Rivers
April 12th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
A record breaking 4000 Canadians participated in the Liberals’ fully virtual 3 day, 60 hour, biennial policy convention this past weekend. And 26 policy resolutions were adopted including; a national pharmacare program, a universal basic income (by a vote of 491-85), and national standards for long term care, as the top three priorities. These now become party policy.
 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Mr. Trudeau delivered a blistering closing address which looked every bit like a pre-election stump speech. Trudeau claims he has no interest in an election at this time. But the polls are good for the Liberals, Canadians are finally seeing vaccines arrive, and the opposition is divided.
Erin O’Toole is battling his own party of climate change deniers, and a-woman’s-right-to-choose is the ghost still haunting the party. Then Mr. O’Toole has some suicidal issues of his own making; namely, bringing back assault weapons and killing the CBC.
The new Green Party leader finds herself in a tussle with the party’s old guard amid accusations of racism. The NDP is struggling to find an issue on which it can out-left the Liberals, and their leader has faded into the background and become the de facto silent partner in the Liberal minority government. And Trudeau must know that every single election during COVID has returned the incumbents, and even propelled a few into a majority position.
Mr. O’Toole is calling for a public inquiry into Canada’s response to the pandemic. That piece of theatre could spell trouble for Mr. Trudeau, given his government’s failings in border control, as recently reported by the Auditor General. Still the Liberals claim they’d welcome such an inquiry. Perhaps they figure it would allow them to focus on the failures of the provinces.
At the outset the provinces rejected Trudeau’s offer of invoking the federal emergency measures act and claimed jurisdiction over administering public health measures to keep the epidemic in check. And they have largely failed, repeatedly, except in Atlantic Canada, allowing this country to recently surpass the US in new COVID infection rates.
Given that most of the provincial premiers are political allies of Mr. O’Toole – one could ask where his voice was in any of this. And in an election Trudeau would claim credit for the economic measures he introduced: workers sick pay, wage subsidies and CERB; which just about everyone supported.
Trudeau has been pretty consistent at following through on his party’s resolutions. Cannabis legalization is a case in point. And he even tried to implement electoral reform before giving up and breaking his promise of change. But he has expressed dislike for the universal basic income policy which almost everyone else in his party wants. So people may be wondering whether Mr. Trudeau is really as liberal as one would expect given his record of financial deficits.
 Mark Carney comes out of the closet – he’s a Liberal The keynote address by former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney got the Liberal chattering class excited. Would he make a suitable replacement for Mr. Trudeau were the Liberals to lose the next election? Carney, who has finally come out of the closet to announce his liberalism, would bring a huge amount of financial credibility to a government now running up massive debt. Perhaps this could be another Paul Martin moment – someone loved by both liberals and fiscal conservatives.
 Chrystia Freeland,, Minister of Finance preparing a budget that will set new deficit records ? And speaking of money, Canada’s current finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, talked about a window of political opportunity for her pet initiative, a universal child care program. Among the other resolutions were a couple demanding a Canadian ‘green new deal’ and a post pandemic ‘green’ recovery. And, interestingly, the fourth priority item called for a high speed rail network.
All of these progressive measures will involve some new spending and Canada is already heavily into the red just from all the pandemic security blanket measures. So it was discouraging that relatively pocket-book painless resolutions to increase capital gains taxation and introduce an inheritance tax for estates valued over 2 million were defeated.
Perhaps the delegates think we can grow our way out of debt, or that we should wait for inflation to shrink the relative size of what we owe ourselves.
There wasn’t a lot of media coverage of either this event or the NDP convention on the same weekend. The front pages are mostly full of the passing of Prince Philip and the ongoing misery of COVID infections and deaths and the race against time to vaccinate our people. But, whether right or left or in the middle, media coverage of COVID has become more united and has coalesced around a common theme. Our governments have let us all down.
Still 4000 Canadians had enough faith in the future of the Liberal party to make their voices heard at this policy convention, even if it has to be conducted over the internet. And sadly even that number was smaller than the number of people who contracted viral infections in Ontario the day after the convention concluded.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Background links:
Liberal Convention – Priority Resolutions – Basic Annual Income –
Green New Deal – Mark Carney Coming Out – Mark Carney –
Our Governments Fail Us – Ontario Failures – Why Does Tam Still –
Lockdowns Meaningless – Public Health Canada Meltdown –
By Pepper Parr
April 10th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Is there anyone saying the provincial government is doing a good job in managing the pandemic – the only people who are saying anything positive are the politicians. Their advisors have been pressing for stronger measures to stop the spread of Covid19
Ontario is caught between a rock and a hard place. We don’t have any facilities where we can manufacture the virus and we are having problems getting the vaccines the federal government has ordered.
 Managing the supply of the vaccines under contract isn’t working very well. The federal government has contracts with just about every vaccine company but none of them are delivering on time.
There are delays upon delays. The supply was so short that the rate at which second doses of the vaccines was increased. Difficult to understand how the scientists can invent something and issue instruction saying the product should be applied four weeks apart and then, when the province finds they don’t have enough to deliver on that prescription – they make the second dose months later – and that seems to be OK.
It has to be because the supply just isn’t there.
 Listening to the advice of people who put the public ahead of politics is proving to be a challenge for the Premier. The politicians are playing political games – Prime Minister says I sent you 2 million doses – and the Premier replies – sure you did – yesterday.
This is beginning to look and sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera.
We failed the seniors’ community, because the most of the long term care homes are run by the private sector where profits come before service.
We can of course vote the politicians out of office – any assurance that the next lot that get elected will be any better?
The public service is a good place to work. That sector however, seems to have forgotten what serving actually means.
There have been some upsides. The science community has performed, for the most part, superbly. They were able to come up a vaccine in a very short period of time. And the leadership from the science community has pressed the governments to listen.
Finding men and women who bring courage, tenacity and a belief that public service is a calling is the challenge for the rest of us. Hoping for the best isn’t going to be enough.
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 Ray Rivers
March 30th, 2021
BURLINGTON,, ON
OPINION
Erin O’Toole gave up a huge opportunity to advance the theory that he is a new kind of conservative. He says he wants to move his Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) into the more electable political centre of Canadian politics. That would allow him to challenge the centre-left Liberals for that block of voters who can make the difference between forming government or lingering in opposition.
 Conservative leader Erin O’Toole But then his response following the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of federal carbon pricing disappointed a growing number of Canadians who have come to accept the carbon tax as a necessary treatment for our fossil fuel addiction. And it took only a few hours after the court announcement for two of his biggest provincial allies on the tax, Scott Moe and Jason Kenny, to desert him, concluding they would now surrender and likely develop their own provincial carbon taxes.
Ontario has not yet said what it is planning to do, except that it will respect the court decision. Presumably that means doing nothing but watching the feds collect the money and redistribute it as they have been doing. Ford, who came to power after the political assassination of former leader Patrick Brown, killed Brown’s plans for a provincial carbon pricing scheme with great aplomb.
 A label that just wouldn’t stay in place. Ford then dismantled the in-place efficient Ontario’s cap and trade carbon pricing system at a cost of at least $5 million . That move is costing the province an additional $2 billion annually in revenues. Then Ford allocated $30 million in his losing effort to fight the federal carbon tax, and spent another $4 million advertising against the tax.
Then there was the cost of producing sticky labels mandated to go on to gas pumps across the province….and promptly fall off again. Fortunately the court decision against the stickies saved Ford, a former label company executive, the embarrassment of presiding over a law and a label that just wouldn’t stay in place. All in all, not bad for a government promising to cut waste.
The Supreme Court ruling has left everyone trying to figure out where O’Toole really stands. On the one hand he has to be admired for entering the lion’s den of his party’s last convention, to declare that climate change is real. Unfortunately the lions disagreed and, behaving like the dinosaurs they are, sent a red-faced O’Toole home, mumbling something about killing the carbon tax anyway.
But the paradox of promising to develop a Trudeau-beating climate plan and promising to kill any kind of carbon pricing scheme at the same time has never dawned on him. He has continued to push the big lie that the tax hurts the poor and the disadvantaged which – thanks to the rebate – it doesn’t. But then why should a little truth get in the way of well-established anti-tax ideology?
He is right, though, that the carbon tax would eventually kill jobs – oil industry jobs in an industry on its way to irrelevance. Recall how politicians in Quebec used to worry about the loss of asbestos industry jobs, even as the workers were dying from asbestosis. That debate ended and despite all the fears, the world did not.
Once all of the provinces introduce their own carbon taxes, the federal tax might almost be moot. Except to be effective a carbon tax has to keep increasing. So that means that the feds will still be setting the rules. And that is why the court decision is so important; to keep carbon pricing advancing and on a level playing field across the country.
It’s clear that O’Toole hasn’t thought this all out. But he is still apparently working on his own climate change plan, which will be handicapped without the incentives offered by higher carbon prices. What might he include then? He could be expected to offer even more subsidies to the oil companies as they try to bury their emissions, something called sequestration. And he might commit to more nuclear power? But don’t expect him to mention carbon pricing.
 Emissions: They are killing the planet Quebec recently committed to ban the sale of gasoline powered cars by 2035. Mr. O’Toole could hitch onto that as a national policy. There is also speculation that the USA under the Biden administration may be looking at a gas guzzler ban as well. Banning the sale of appliances which use fossil fuels, like gas water heaters, would be an even more effective way of curbing the demand for carbon based fuels. Though one can only imagine how those dinosaurs that compose O’Toole’s base would react to that idea.
But no matter what final policy package Mr. O’Toole selects as his plan, to be effective it will have to involve the eventual closure of much of Canada’s fossil fuel industry. And those jobs and all that oil income for the western provinces, where his political power lies, is why he rejected the carbon tax in the first place.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Background links
O’Toole on Carbon Taxes – Supreme Court – Conservative Dinosaurs –
By Pepper Parr
March 25th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Political leadership is something that has to be grown.
They don’t just fall off a tree like a ripe apple.
Public service is seen as honourable with good salaries and wonderful benefits.
The current city council has a very young group of people. They had an exceptionally steep learning curve and at least two have yet to get to the point where they are competent. They may never get there.
 If Lisa Kearns jumps to Queen’s Park – that opens up the ward 2 seat. The ward 2 council seat is now in play – that will become official when Lisa Kearns comes out of her political closet and confirms that she will carry a Liberal flag come the 2022 provincial election. She will do so when it is to her advantage.
Question then is – who will replace Kearns? Kimberly Calderbank has said she will run again.
Roland Tanner has realized that he would have been a terrible Councillor and has decided to stick to his information technical pursuits. His 905er podcast does not appear to be any better than his description of how he would do as a politician.
The word abstemious might apply.
There is a young man in the city who appears to be grooming himself for a shot at the ward 2 council seat.
David Vandenberg, studied political science at McMaster, served as campaign manager for Rick Goldring in 2018 – that didn’t turn out very well – more the candidate than the campaign manager.
 Name a charity group that needs help – and David Vandenberg will be there. Vandenberg gets involved in organizations focused on helping other people. He is currently part of the Wellington United Church Meals Ministry that prepares take-out meals. It grew out of the Friday Night Community Dinners that were cancelled due to Covid19 issues.
The giveaway sign that David Vandenberg was going to throw his hat into the ring was the Burlington Dave podcast that Vandenberg hosts four times a year.
Vandenberg explains his podcast pursuit this way:
 The Vandenberg score card “Burlington is full of folks of all ages who strive every single day to create a virtuous, equitable and compassionate community. Reflecting on over a decade of local engagement, I have had the privilege of learning about our community, the heroes within it and the landscape in which we live – here in Burlington, Ontario.
“I hope to highlight some of our local heroes, business champions, and heritage and community issues through this blog.
Vandenberg introduces himself to people who visit his Facebook page this way:
“If we have not met before, thanks for popping by! If we know each other, welcome back! My name is David Vandenberg. I am a passionate community leader and speaker in the Halton Region. My deep commitment to innovative community and city-building inspired me to work in the advocacy space for local organizations.
 Vandenberg on a Zoom call “I am a recent McMaster Grad who now works as the Operations Manager of the Meal Bag Program at Wellington Square United Church. Outside of work, I love to capitalize on our proximity to hiking and biking trails, sit on boards of local charities and advocate for issues and people that are close to my heart.
“Building bridges is what I do. I truly believe that when we work together in our community, we can drive a bigger social impact. I hope you enjoy hearing about some of the incredible people, businesses and stories I have to share with you here in Burlington.”
That is about as political as a profile can be.
 David Vandenberg with his Mother Our first reaction to young Vandenberg is – Good Luck to you, young man. Your heart appears to be in the right place.
And then we ask: Have you ever had a full time job at which you were more than a volunteer. We are aware of some internships you’ve done – all good.
We would like to see situations where you worked hard, got promotions and added responsibility. Were placed in situations where you gained what the soft liberal set call “lived experiences”.
There was a quote you put up on the Facebook that impressed me.
If that is the way you think, if you really have that level if realpolitik you just well might grow into a credible and effective politician.
Goodness know the city could use more of those.
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.
“You have a variant (B.1.1.7) that’s 50 per cent more transmissible and you’re using the same tool box and control efforts that barely worked against the previous variant…So of course the prevalence will increase. It might be a bit more or a bit less but if you’re reopening and you have a more transmissible variant, cases will increase. It’s not even really rocket science.” (Chris Bauch, University Research Chair in the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo).
By Ray Rivers
March 21st, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
That vaccines are rolling out across the province is comforting, except that we’ve hardly made a dent in getting to herd immunity. About a million doses have been administered and we need more like 20 times that amount to allow us to get back to some kind of normal. And now we hear that there is a third wave of infections on our doorstep, driven by the variants which are as much as 50% more contagious, demand more hospitalization and are more deadly. So, we are in trouble.
 A field hospital set up by the Army in a parking lot at Sunnybook hospital For over a year now we’ve been in some kind of tiresome on-again-off-again series of restrictions against interpersonal contact. But Ontario’s premier has an itchy trigger finger and can’t break the habit of jumping the gun. He’s done this before. Despite predictions of a second wave last autumn, Ford relaxed public health restrictions resulting in record breaking infection numbers, nearly full hospitals and about 1000 more fatalities. And then Ford refused to re-impose further restrictions until the end of the year, again despite medical advice, and after the virus had firmly embedded itself in our community.
And now, even as Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table has told him that we are headed for an ever greater third wave of infections, Mr. Ford is threatening to lessen restrictions on congregate activity rather than tighten them. Having rescinded the stay at home order he has just recently authorized more establishments to reopen. Despite all the impressive compassion he delivers at his media briefings, he clearly doesn’t get it – doesn’t understand the dynamics in play – or it’s all just an act.
 The image on the right is what scientists think the spike portion of a variant virus looks like. Right now we are in the midst of a race between the new virus variants galloping at full speed to infect and kill more people versus protecting enough folks from the virus through vaccination. And the virus is winning. We know this virus continuously mutates, and it’s pure math that the more virus present, the greater the probability of mutation. Just look at the UK, South Africa, Brazil and more recently California. Who knows, there may be an even more powerful variant around the corner?
We have been told that by September everyone in the country should have been administered the vaccine. In as little as six months, then, we might be in a position where the viral contagion no longer will keep our businesses shut and our families and friends distant from their loved ones. It’s a long time but not as long as what the Premier’s failed public health policy has put us through so far. We either choke the virus by locking down or we face the potential consequences of a viral epidemic largely left unchecked.
So Mr. Premier. It’s time to stop gambling with our health and declare a proper lockdown. This province needs a new game plan to check the virus while we get the rest of our population protected with vaccines.
We need a complete province-wide shut down of all congregate activities which are not completely essential, and some kind of compensation for those people whose incomes will be lost in the process. We need another stay at home order and possibly a Quebec styled curfew. We need to close the Ontario border to interprovincial travel, as Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces have done. And we need to keep it that way for at least three weeks, from what the experts are telling us.
It’s not an impossible task. China, where the virus originated, did this last year. The country has had an occasional outbreak since, imported from outside the country, but has been able to trace and isolate all contacts. And life is pretty much back to normal there now. It is the same story with Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. There are no Chinese or New Zealand variants being created. And their communities have not had to experience second, let alone third waves of infection.
We only need to look at the Atlantic provinces which are Canada’s star performers in fighting the epidemic. History will show that those jurisdictions which dealt effectively with the epidemic have come out of it relatively unscathed. Meanwhile those which failed, like Ontario, have seen their small businesses devastated by the on-again-off-again restrictions; witnessed increases in inequality, mental illness, government debt; and, sadly, unforgivable loss of human lives.
New Zealanders went back to normal last year after only a few weeks in total lockdown. Today, the only way the virus enters there, as it did everywhere else, is by international travel. But even a single new case warrants a total lockdown there, including area roadblocks and severe penalties for those flaunting the rules. Had Mr. Trudeau followed the lead of his friend, Jacinda Ardern, we would have had an effective quarantine system in place over a year ago, holding those foreign variants in check.
 New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern, won re-election based on her leadership during the Covid 19 crisis in her country. Will Ontario re-election Doug Ford based on his performance. Prime Minster Ardern is a hero in her country for leading the people in their fight to eliminate the epidemic. She won an overwhelming parliamentary majority in her last election, something rare for any country with a proportional representative electoral system, and the first such win in New Zealand’s history. She is so well regarded that NZ scientists recently named a newly discovered subspecies of the weta, a giant flightless cricket after her – the Hemiandrus jacinda.
We also recently uncovered a new species here in Canada, identified first in the west end of Toronto. It has been tentatively named the the Etobicoke slug. Still, I doubt anyone would suggest renaming it after our premier, despite the sluggish way he has been dealing with the epidemic. And besides wasn’t there a 70’s Canadian pop group with that moniker?
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Background links”
Third Wave – Variants The COVID Story – Australians – Atlantic Success –
Jacinda – The Etobicoke Slug – Doug and the Slugs –
By Pepper Parr
March 19th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
Set out below is a statement the Mayor posted on her Facebook page.
What disturbs me is what a colleague described as “… so much “me too, me too” that it’s embarrassing – like something out of High School.”
 Mayor Marianne Meed Ward Missing is any sense of grace or civility. Mayor Marianne Meed Ward knows that her Council colleague Lisa Kearns earned the identical professional designation but our Mayor was not able to congratulate the ward 2 Councillor for her accomplishment.
Missed was an opportunity to tell people that Burlington is probably the only municipality in Ontario (perhaps the whole country) to have two people on council who have earned the designation and both are female.
What is wrong with this woman – it isn’t just all about her.
Where are her oft used phases: collaboration, working together as part of a team. Meed Ward says frequently that Burlington has a “giddy up” city council.
The statement explains why several of the Councillors don’t want to put up with the way the Mayor interacts with them. Not a good sign as Council moves into the final term of their mandate.
Time for a reset if she expects to get re-elected.
This is such a disappointment after the success of getting a new Official Plan in place and changing where high rise developments will appear.
She can be better than this.
 By Blair Smith
March 19th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
A press release received today from PSD CITYWIDE announced “North America’ Top 20 Open Cities”.
PSD is a corporation with offices in Burlington that serves the municipal sector as consultants, advisors and software providers.
 The organization that gave the city the award published a lot of background material for the municipal sector. Their award sounded like something worth knowing about and certainly something worth celebrating. The ‘presser’ begins with “Today, PSD announces North America’s Most Open Cities with the City of Edmonton, Alberta maintaining their number one spot for the fifth consecutive time. Next, Ottawa, Ontario moves into the second place spot, with Winnipeg, Manitoba coming in third. All top 3 organizations achieved excellent scores and made great strides this year in all three competency categories.” According to the ranking, the City of Burlington is tied with the City of Coral Gables as the 9th Most Open city in North America.
On its face this appears to be a remarkable achievement and one certainly worthy of having a temporary primacy of place on the COB and/or Mayor’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and various other social media accounts. However, appearances (and awards) can be deceptive. First, just how many jurisdictions were included in the ‘competition’ and analysis? Remember there are over 400 municipalities in Ontario alone. How many more (or comparable governance bodies) across Canada; how many state and county organizations? The number must be well into the thousands. But, according to the press release, only 41 organizations across North America participated. Is the response then even statistically relevant?
Secondly, to implicitly associate Open Government with the survey’s three evaluation contexts for “open data” is perhaps both misleading and inaccurate.
Open data does not automatically equate with open information and most certainly does not, in itself, constitute open government – not even close. So, the sampling is statistically insignificant, the association perhaps misleading and the ranking virtually meaningless when you consider the sample size. Even so, how did the responding organizations do? How shining is their example? Well, the average score of the 41 was a completely miserable 34.9%. Burlington in the exalted 9th position was barely above 50%.
Really, this is hardly something worthy of a press release; if it does perhaps the banner should read “North America’s Top 20 Most Open Cities Are Still Closed Shops To Their Citizens”.
Blair Smith is a retired provincial civil servant who delegates frequently at city hall and has very strong views on both open data and open, transparent municipal government.
By Pepper Parr
March 16th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
How did this get so screwed up?
The province had months to create a web site that people would use to register for a Covid19 vaccination.
They day they opened it up – it failed. They appear to have fixed it.
 On the same day the retired Army General who was overseeing the distribution of the vaccines in the province quits. Maybe the $20,000 a month he was being paid (this on top of an Armed Forces pension) wasn’t enough. Or maybe he stood back and saw nothing but a disaster on its way and chose to step aside. Question – did he get vaccinated before he quit?
There are very legitimate concerns about one of the vaccines; the AstraZeneca vaccine is reported to have resulted in blood clots in some people.
The Prime Minister assures us that the batch that had the problems is not the batch of vaccines that we are using in Canada. Do you feel assured? I don’t.
Remember the thalidomide tragedy; those poor souls only recently got acceptable support and compensation.
For those who don’t recognize the word thalidomide it was a pharmaceutical that was prescribed for pregnant women. Far too many gave birth to children with no arms – just stubs instead of a fully formed arm.
Tragedies like this happen when governments fail to do the job the public expects. There is good reason to ask if the same kind of incompetence, let’s be candid and call it what it is – stupidity, is happening to us now.
We have failed terribly to ensure that we would have access to the vaccines the government should have known would be needed.
The buck on situations like this rests at the very top.
Instead all we are getting from the leadership at the federal and provincial levels are bromides – people are beginning to become frightened; the last thing we need is a public that no longer trusts and begins to do what human beings do – look out for their own interests.
The best source of the news and information people need in Burlington comes from the Regional level – The Public Health Unit for Halton struggled like everyone else at the beginning to get organized.
When this is all over hopefully there will be an opportunity to tell the full story about the job these people have done.
In the meantime, we wait. There is more that can be done. Governments react to protest – if you are worried, scream blue murder and let the leadership at the federal and provincial levels know that what they are doing is just not good enough.
There have been a few examples of superb leadership – try naming one.
Elections will take place in the not too distant future.
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 Jan Mowbray
March 16th, 2021
MILTON, ON
I have a real problem regarding the dearth of information available with regard to vaccinations.
Living in Halton, specifically Milton, my friends and I are exhorted to visit the Halton Region website for vaccination information, which I have done several times now. It’s been time wasted so far. The only information there pertains to the 80+ crowd and while I would never wish to deny the group early dibs at the vaccine – God and everyone else knows how hard this pandemic has been on seniors – where am I in the picture?
 But what about the 70 plus group, which is where I am? Why is there no reference at all on the Region’s website for the rest of us – the +70s, the 60’s etc.? Even a vague mention that you have our backs would be encouraging, that you know we’re here and waiting, with increasing impatience.
In Toronto, they’ve gone from vaccination information for the 80+ group, front line workers, and many others. No mention of the 70+ cohort but I’ve seen quite a bit of information for the 60+ to get their shots.
All very good for those living in Toronto but meanwhile, back here in Halton, how about information for vaccinations for those below 80?
I got a Tweet today from one of our regional councilors telling me to visit the Halton website for vaccination information. Thanks, Mike, been there, done that. I’m no more aware than I was before your Tweet. Not happy. I just want some, ANY, information.
Jan Mowbray was a member of the Town of Milton council for two terms
By Pepper Parr
March 11th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
If you are a true democrat there is nothing nicer than an election.
If you’re a candidate – the push for power and a chance to get things done that you believe need to be done can be quite a rush.
2022 is an election year for both city hall and the provincial legislature. And this time around we just might see people holding a seat at city hall thinking they rather like the seats in the Legislature.
The Liberals are out looking for a candidate – a number of people have been approached – two and maybe three council members.
 Some Liberals thought she was too divisive. Not, surprisingly, the Mayor, who we thought had her eyes on the seat that Jane McKenna currently holds, would be in the running.
Meed Ward could not walk away from the work she has set out for herself, and the city of course, after just one term as Mayor.
We were surprised to hear Liberals saying, not suggesting, that Meed Ward was too divisive. I didn’t see that one coming.
 Councillors Stolte, Kearns and Nisan: were all three invited to look at Queen’s Park. Two of them were.
The Liberals we are hearing from – no one is talking for attribution and the current President of the Burlington Provincial Liberal Association isn’t returning our calls, suggests to us that Lisa Kearns has indicated she could get used to travelling to Toronto for work.
I have been working on a sit down meeting with Kearns (she knows what I want to talk about) for the best part of this week – we haven’t managed to line up dates that work for both of us.
Bit of cat and mouse going on.
While 2022 is well over a year away, in the world of politics you begin organizing and putting out the feelers to the financial people.
The day of the big big dollar donations is over – takes a lot of work to bring in those hundreds of $50 and $100 dollar donations.
In 2022 things will get a little rushed as well – the province will send us to the polls on October 3rd and the municipalities will do the same thing on the 24th of October.
 Doug Ford – He just might have a deal for you. Covid19 has messed up everything taking place – it will probably do the same with the provincial date.
If Doug Ford can get a bit of a break and get enough of us vaccinated before those variant strains of Covid19 begin to run rampant he would be smart to call a snap election.
Problem with that is we really haven’t seen very much in the way of smart thinking so far have we?
The scientist’s world-wide have gotten us to where we are and for that we should all be grateful.
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
March 8th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Woman’s Day 2021
Is it going to be different this year? If it is, I suspect we will not be aware of it right away – social change works that way.
 It is a starting point. Is the #meToo movement behind us? It shouldn’t be. It’s work is not done yet.
The shift is taking place, more women are now serving on the boards of major corporations. Women are now heading up some of those corporations.
Sexual harassment, which is not always that well defined, but that is no reason for not tackling the issue head on.
It isn’t enough for woman to be standing up and telling about how they were mis-treated – some of the behaviour they experienced WAS criminal. Some was misunderstood – that however does not let men off the hook.
Changes are taking place within the world of both men and woman. I can’t speak for the woman in this world – they are quite capable of speaking for themselves.
My thoughts today are – how do men adapt. Awkward question – but it too has to be addressed.
 That is a painful experience Wearing pink high heels one day a year isn’t going to do it. Mouthing a couple of words when you think you might be quoted isn’t going to work either.
Men are going to have to begin to listen and learn to hear what is being said.
Women are equal – truth be told they really are more equal than men. They actually get it and are forgiving enough to understand that many men don’t get it.
Being forgiven doesn’t mean you continue with the old habits. Those habits came out of the society we men were raised in and while that doesn’t excuse the behaviour it is enough to allow us to reflect on what did take place and to resolve that we have to change.
Start with simple honest respect and learning to say you are sorry.
Most of us have experiences in our past that we are not proud of; today could be the day we think about what we did and resolve to be different.
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 Ray Rivers
March 6th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
“I’ll slash funding for English TV and CBC News Network, and end funding for digital news.”
(Erin O’Toole – Feb 14, 2020)
He said it plain – no love wasted for the national broadcaster, even on Valentine’s Day.
 Erin O’Toole – Defeated Andrew Scheer in the leadership contest – now he wants to form a government. There were issues which I really wanted Erin O’Toole to clarify for me when I set out to request our interview. First, O’Toole has promised that his climate change plan would deliver faster carbon emission reductions than Mr. Trudeau’s plan. And he would do it without the provision of a carbon tax, which would be relegated to the dustbin in an O’Toole government. And he’d do all this while pushing for more oil pipelines and oil.
So what and where is it – this magic plan? Well it’s still a secret. It’s still being developed. It probably has to stay that way, until he becomes PM, so the NDP don’t take credit for inventing it should the Liberals implement it. The mind boggles.
Another issue is Mr. O’Toole’s preoccupation with firearms. It’s true he spent a good part of his life in the military, but he ended up as a flight navigator. You’d think he’d know more about a compass than a gun, so perhaps this is just pistol envy. Still he has made this a major plank in his platform.
He points out that the biggest trouble with today’s gun control is the lack of public education about guns. And then in one breath he declares that Canada’s firearms control system actually works really well, and efficiently.
And then in the next breath says that his top priority would be to scrap the existing Firearms Act. And he’d cancel the requirement for vendors to keep a record of who purchased guns. And while he was at it he’d also kill the legislation the Liberals recently introduced banning assault rifles, high capacity ammunition magazines and silencers.
 Leader of the Opposition Erin O’Toole figuring it out That would mean potentially allowing powerful military-type weapons systems including the M16, AR-10, AR-15 and M4 firearms, onto our streets, or at least our gun cupboards. He has received an A grading by the lobbyist outfit CCFR (Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights).
O’Toole has gone after the Trudeau government for not doing more to stop the smuggling of firearms across the US border. And he may have the answer. Just make these weapons legal here as well, and smuggling would be unnecessary.
A third of his Tory membership are COVID action deniers. Or at least they want the governments to stop restricting economic activity and get back to normal, whatever that can be when this epidemic is killing our senior citizens and threatening to spread like wildfire. For example, Flamborough Glanbrook MP David Sweet, having himself come back, quilt-free, from a foreign vacation, says let it rip.
O”Toole himself is ignoring this growing chorus of voices around him who are telling him to be like Texas. You have to die from something anyway, right? But it does take a lot of courage to go after Trudeau for not doing enough to keep the virus out, when a sizeable chunk of his membership is saying let it be.
 It was the R. B. Bennet, a Conservative government that formed the CBC Finally what is it with O’Toole’s promise to defund the CBC? It is a little difficult to appreciate why the federal Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has such a long standing animosity against Canada’s national broadcaster. After all, the CBC was a service originally initiated back in 1932 by R.B. Bennet, a conservative PM.
One might think the Tories object to the cost of the annual subsidy paid to the CBC, some $1.2 billion a year. But a sizeable subsidy is annually paid out to the other Canadian broadcasters, private though they are. And if it’s about the cost, why squash the English television and digital news services, ironically the only part of the corporation which brings in advertising dollars? It may actually cost more to kill the CBC than to keep it intact.
 CBC – the country’s most trusted news source. No question the other networks wouldn’t mind seeing the CBC gone. It’s still competition, even though they already have a much greater audience. But the CBC/Radio Canada is the most trusted news media in the country. And we are in the midst of a brave new world of fake news. One only needs to look south of the border and the role fake news played in the assault on the US Capitol.
In fact over 80% of Canadians support our national broadcaster and want to see the CBC continue and even expand its broadcasting agenda. So why would someone running for prime minister want to unstick the glue that in many ways keeps us all together, including our remote indigenous population and Francophone Canada.
 Erin O’Toole – knows how to fight back. We do know that this contempt the Tories harbour for the national broadcaster goes back to the troubled relationship Mr Harper had with the media, and the CBC in particular. He even tried to set up his own news system and in the end the party turned to the right wing extremist paper, The Rebel. In fact a former director of the Rebel ended up running Andrew Scheer’s campaign.
Erin O’Toole, after being criticized for his party’s association with The Rebel, swore off giving any more interviews to that right wing rag. He must have sworn off the Burlington Gazette as well, because he and his office ignored my requests for an interview. I got an immediate automatic email thanking me for contacting him, both times, but then it was crickets. So we didn’t really have a discussion, but I’m still waiting for that phone to ring.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Background links:
Let the Pandemic Roll – David Sweet – Recovery Plans –
Trust in the Media – Polling – Anti-Choice –
The Rebel – Climate Plan – CCFR –
O’Toole on Guns – CBC – CBC Public Support –
By Pepper Parr
March 4th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Once the decision is made to settle on just what the tax rate for a year is going to be the politicians get to justify it.
Each brings their own perspective and point of view to the decision that has been made and want to ensure that their constituents are aware of the work they did and why they deserve their vote at the next election.
Burlington has a seven member Council.
In this article I want to focus on the role Councillors Stolte, Nisan and Mayor Meed Ward played in producing the tax rate.
The 4.14% increase is the city’s portion of the taxes collected and used to pay the bills and ensure that there are reserves in place to protect when there is a financial failure. That number is what matters to the people who pay the taxes.
The tax payment you send the city happens to include the tax rate set by the Region for their expenses and the tax rate the Boards of education set to keep the schools operating. The city collects all the money and sends the Regional levy to the Region and the school board levies to the school boards.
 Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan – served as Chair of the Committee that debated the city budget The debating and bickering that takes place to arrive at a tax rate takes place at a Standing Committee. This year that committee was chaired by ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan. Mr. Nisan did not cover himself with glory while doing the task; he was difficult, less than fair to some of the Council members and tended to be authoritarian while doing the work.
He was acrimonious, discourteous and rude at times when the job of chair calls for a deft, mature understanding of the wishes of each Council member, drawing them out and letting a consensus come out of it all.
On far too many occasions it was clear that Nisan did not understand the numbers – he would say “that is nice to know” when it was actually essential that the Chair have a solid grip on what each number meant.
 Chief Financial Officer Joan Ford; always ready willing and able to mentor members of Council Burlington has a Chief Financial Officer, Joan Ford, who bends over backwards to explain what can at times be arcane and difficult to understand. She is always ready, willing and able to mentor the Chair – Nisan didn’t appreciate or take advantage of what was available to him.
Mr. Nisan has shown a preference for aligning himself with the Mayor and championing her wishes and aspirations rather than creating a path of his own. It is hard to be certain just what Rory Nisan does stand for.
Like every other member of Council he will have to stand for re-election in 2022. He doesn’t have a lot of time to let his constituents know and see who he really is and what he wants to get done. Other than wanting to be the Mayor’s choice for Deputy Mayor – it is hard to point to something that has made a difference. There was a splash pad set up in his ward – but that idea was put in motion by his predecessor.
The Mayor said at the beginning of the budget proceedings that the 4.99% increase budget Staff brought in was not going to fly – her target was 3.99% and she fought hard to get that number.
She didn’t have the support of enough of her council members to make it happen – some found the drive for that 3.99% was misplaced and that the purpose of the budget was to serve the needs of the citizens and not the aspirations of a politician.
Meed Ward, to her credit, realized the 3.99% was not going to happen. “The goal is not going to be met,” she said; “let it go” and she did, adding that there is no shame in aiming high.
The Mayor said on numerous occasions that her objective was to “leave more money in the pockets of the tax payers”. The words had a populist tinge.
 Took positions that challenged what others were advocating; kept pushing for more transparency. Councillor Stolte was the star of the budget debates – she consistently, but respectfully, challenged the views of her colleagues and questioned the Clerk on several of the decisions he made.
Saying:
“My comments in regard to whether or not to endorse the 2021 Operating Budget will be highlighted in two components today.
“In regard to the tax rate that we have landed on, I believe it is the result of a great deal of hard work by our Finance Department and this Council, and a great deal of effort to balance the needs of the community with solid financial stewardship and protection of City assets.
“There is still a great deal of work to be done within the City of Burlington to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and the financial inefficiencies that are inherent in an overly bureaucratic organization, but we have begun to see some positive changes in this regard and I look forward to the citizens of Burlington reaping the financial savings from these improvements in the future.
“The second component of my comments is in regard to the PROCESS involved when staff and Council are tasked to determine the priorities, sacrifices and compromises necessary to manage a city budget.
“It was mentioned earlier today that I had brought forward a Staff direction in March of 2020 that was unanimously supported by Council. It stated to:
“Direct the Chief Financial Officer to plan a Council Workshop in June of 2020 with the subject matter of “Vision to Focus – Budget 2021”. The purpose being to allow staff and Council the opportunity to collaborate on high level priorities, values and vision leading into the 2021 budget process in an effort to concentrate the focus and priorities of Council.”
“Comments may be made that this plan was impacted due to COVID-19 but in hindsight, the 2021 budget still needed to be dealt with and the need to collaborate with Council on focus and priorities, at the start of that process, still should have happened.
“I am disappointed that another Budget cycle was completed without the benefit of a more collaborative Staff/Council process at the outset and I appeal to our City Manager to commit to ensuring that this process improvement is implemented for the next Budget cycle for 2022.
“Curiously, as we endeavored to land this Budget, further process and best practice challenges came to light.
“When we began this term of Council in early 2019 we were oriented to understand that we would receive recommendations from staff in regard to agenda items that needed to be discussed in private, behind closed doors.
“Over the last two years the regular practice has been for Council to receive advice that we “need” to move into Closed Session and this recommendation is always accepted by Council without debate, as merely a point of procedure.
“During the 2021 Operating Budget process I presented an amendment which became the topic of much debate with the City Clerk and City Manager’s Office.
“It was recommended by staff that this amendment be discussed in private, behind closed doors.
“I challenged this recommendation and it quickly came to light that this was a very rare occurrence for a Closed Meeting recommendation to be questioned by Council and I was informed that it was inappropriate for a Councillor to question a staff recommendation of this nature.
“This is not how the municipal democratic process works … Staff’s role is to make their best professional recommendation and our role on Council is to assess this recommendation and concur or contest based on whether or not we believe the recommendation represents the best interests of the residents of Burlington.
“Ultimately, the decision on the Budget item was in the hands of Council, where it should be…but the process involved in this discussion was what was of concern.”
Stolte’s comments have the potential to bring about a change in the way council meetings are managed. The doors need to be open as much as possible.
This Council worked very hard to produce a budget that met the needs of the tax payers and at the same time underlined the goals they had when they sought election to city Council.
There are lessons in the budget experience for every member of Council; hopefully they will take the time to reflect on what took place and learn from both the mistakes and the successes.
This council was supported by a well-tuned finance department who met every challenge put to them and then some.
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.
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