 By Ray Rivers
October 31st, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Part 1 of a 2 part column.
There is no better way to determine the winner in horse races or athletic track events than first-past-the-post (FPP). It is crude and simple but very effective. However an election is not a horse race.
And as for gambling, there is a kind of gaming we employ in our politics – something we call strategic voting. In this last federal election over a third of voters claimed that they had voted strategically, switching their vote from their preferred party to another one. Almost 40% of those switches went to the Conservatives, likely in the west, where the Liberals were deliberately shut out from Winnipeg to Vancouver. And almost half of those who ultimately voted Liberal did so even though the NDP was their first preference.
 Canadians lining up to vote – do they have a chance of getting the representation they deserve? Clearly something is wrong with our system. If not broken, it could at least be made better because politics should be a serious business, not a crap shoot. And like a crap shoot so many voters are playing the game blind – looking at the polls and making strategic decisions they can only guess will work out for them. A lottery might be a better metaphor.
I’d like to vote for the party whose platform, and perhaps even leader, most appeals to me – doesn’t everyone? Instead we play this game of second guessing the outcome. We vote for a party we may not really want, just to make sure that the one we really don’t want doesn’t get in. Crazy huh? A casualty resulting from relying on a very imperfect and outdated voting system which was never intended for a multi-party democracy.
In fact what voters are doing is playing the odds. It is a kind of intuitive preferential voting in a FPP system. But a real preferential or ranked ballot allows electors to prioritize their selection of candidates, and thus parties. If no candidate gets at least 50% of the vote then second and third choices are counted until somebody gets at least half the voters. That winner is a first, second or third choice of the majority of the voters.
Preferential balloting is a variation on the theme of FPP, since everything but the ballots and counting remain the same. The political parties use preferential balloting in their leadership contests and municipalities are jumping in with at least one foot. It better reflects the public’s wishes and is more democratic. So why not move this approach to, arguably, the most important political contest of all – federal elections?
Mr. Trudeau understands this, or at least did when he was campaigning and promising, in 2015, to get rid of our archaic FPP system. Why he just didn’t implement this system following his 2015 election win is a good question. He decided to follow parliamentary procedures and create a committee. But the committee was dominated by the opposition and they outwitted him, recommending proportional representation, but demanding a national referendum. And ranked ballots never got past the idea stage.
 Doomed to perpetual opposition under a preferential voting system. The Conservatives likely have a larger and more loyal base than the Liberals and they certainly raise far more money. Half of those voting Tory had made up their minds before the campaign had even started compared with less than a third for the Liberals. But over 60% of Canada’s electorate prefer liberal-type to conservative policies. So the Conservatives, having become even more anti-progressive in the last couple of decades, would be doomed to perpetual opposition under a preferential voting system.
Yet, as we see, the Tories can and do win under the unranked FPP. For example Mr. Ford won Ontario’s last election with a majority of seats and only 40% of the total vote. And yes many of the party’s candidates failed to get 50% of the vote but slipped up the middle. It is little wonder some voters cannot be bothered voting, the odds are stacked against them unless they are fans of either of the two main parties.
And then there is the hope of political reconciliation. Since a preferential ballot more accurately represents the wishes of the majority of the voters, the main parties on the right and the left would be forced to move more to where the bulk of the voters are if they want to win. Political reality rather than abject ideology should end up playing a greater role in policy. And the third and fringe parties could continue to offer ideas, even though they would face the prospect of fewer elected members themselves, and possibly an eventual demise.
 Had the Liberals decided to use a preferential ballot they might easily have landed a majority. It was a horse race you could they’d have won. That is the downside. That Canada under a preferential balloting system might devolve into a two party system. It would be nice to think that Trudeau was dissuaded from changing our balloting system for that reason – that he was primarily concerned about the consequences for the third parties. After all given the outcome of October’s election, a preferential ballot might easily have landed him a majority. A horse race you could bet he’d have won.
 Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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:
Federal Election Results – Strategic Voting –
 By Pepper Parr
October 31st, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
It is a nasty, sneaky, dishonest way of explaining to tax payers how much of a tax increase they are going to be hit with.
The tax bill people get includes taxes levied by the school boards, taxes levied by the Regional government and taxes levied by the city of Burlington.
It was found to be more efficient to put all the taxes on the one bill – it also made it easier to collect.
 The Board of Education determines how much money they need in the way of taxes; all the city does is collect it for them. The city has zip influence on what the school board levy in the way of taxes to pay for the operation of our school system. All the city does is collect the money and pass it along to the school board.
 Burlington has seven votes on the 24 member Regional Council – input on the tax levy – nothing more than that. The city has some (not very much) influence on what the Region decides they need in the way of tax money to operate the services they provide: police, the water system, waste management along with health and social services.
The only tax level the city controls is what they spend on delivering the services they provide.
In the 2020-2021 budget that is to go before Council in November reference is made to “unfunded service enhancements which if added to the budget brings the city tax increase to 4.73% (2.76% when combined with the Region and Education taxes).
The public is looking at a tax increase of more than 4% – probably close to 5% once they decide just how much they want to spend on climate control matters.
What Council does when they play around with the numbers is akin to the 17 year old, single daughter who says to her Father: Daddy I am just a little bit pregnant.
Taxes are inevitable. Treat the public with the respect they deserve and tell them the truth. Stop the pussyfooting around.
 This city council has an opportunity to teach the bureaucrats to be more open and honest with the tax payers.
By Pepper Parr
October 29th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 The land between Lakeshore Road and Old Lakeshore Road has been referred to as the football every since we started publishing. Why would the city want to name is the peanut? Is it a football or a peanut?
What most people know as the “football” was referred to as the peanut by Director of Planning Heather MacDonald at one of the Action Plan sessions last week.
 Is it a football ….  …or a peanut? It is probably the most significant piece of developable land left in the downtown core.
In time it might equal Spencer Smith Park in importance to the look, feel and public open space in the city.
Right now there are developers crawling all over the land with proposal for developments that will rise more than 25 storeys.
The Carriage Gate Group subsidiary Lakeshore Old Burlington gave a presentation to a very small group at a public meeting recently. No one has yet to explain why that meeting was so poorly promoted.
 Not much of that quaint, walk-able community in this 3d model of what the CORE Development group want to dump into the ‘football’. The CORE Development group gave the public a good look at what they have in mind for the properties to the west of the Burlington Old LAkeshore proposal.
They will be making the required Statutory presentation to city council on November 5th at city hall
 Lakeshore Mixed use precinct – on the north and south side of Lakeshore from Locust to Martha. Each property will have its own rules put in place. During the two Action Plan workshops the city held for residents some people wanted to know why the “football” and the Lakeshore Precinct were not included in the public think sessions.
They were told by the Director of Planning, Heather MacDonald that those precincts were to be the subject of separate studies once the revisions to the adopted but not yet approved Official Plan are in place.
One can sympathize with the workload the Planning department faces but the “football” and what has been defined as the Lakeshore precinct are just as important as the look and feel of Brant Street if not more so.
What makes Burlington the city it is – is the lake.
 At the eastern edge of the football – the tower will become the gateway to the downtown core.  This structure is to the immediate west of the latest Carriage Gate Development.
The millions spent on the Pier; the millions spent on getting public access to the lake at the foot of the Bridgewater development and public access to the lake through that development will be for naught if there are no rules that apply to the football and the Lakeshore precinct.
At this point there are two mammoth development applications for the “football” on the table
Let us not repeat the terrible mistake with that Anchor Hub – the label that got stuck on a tiny bus terminal.
Related news stories:
The stunning development planned for the “football”
Can high rise development be brought to an end?
 By John Cole
October 29th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
With MLB players expressing themselves like never before, author Jason Turbow explains how baseball can maintain its code of respect and fair play.
It’s Game 1 of the 2019 National League Divisional Series.
 Ronald Acuña Jr: He stands and watches as it sails towards the wall, and remains in the batter’s box as it drops into the 10th row of seats. He lets out a roar and begins his slow, celebratory trot around the bases. Ronald Acuña Jr. – playing in just the fifth playoff game of his career – launches a fly ball into left field. He stands and watches as it sails towards the wall, and remains in the batter’s box as it drops into the 10th row of seats.
He lets out a roar and begins his slow, celebratory trot around the bases.
Normal behaviour after hitting a home run, you might think, but baseball’s code has been broken.
Four games later, against the same opposition, Acuña Jr. steps up to the plate again. The Atlanta Braves need a hero. They trail 13-1 in Game 5, with their chances of reaching the next round all but extinguished.
Acuña will not, however, get a chance to be that hero. The pitch drills him on the arm. Revenge has been served.
Don’t celebrate a home run. Don’t bunt to break up a no-hitter. Don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game. Don’t walk across the pitcher’s mound. These are just a few of baseball’s many unwritten rules.
If you break them, then expect consequences. More often than not, those consequences come in the form of a well-directed pitch, as Acuña Jr. now knows.
Such retaliation has been commonplace in the MLB for decades as players take it upon themselves to enforce their code, even when it’s their own teammate who is in the wrong.
 Jason Turbow, author of The Baseball Codes, recalls a story from 1996 involving Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Roger Cedeño. The Venezuelan stole a base against the San Francisco Giants with an 11-2 lead late in the game, infuriating the opposition.
His team-mate, Eric Karros, headed over to the Giants’ dugout and told them: “We’ll handle this.” When reporters were allowed into the Dodgers’ clubhouse after the victory, following the team debrief, Cedeño was wiping tears from his eyes.
Things are, however, starting to change.
Bat flips are becoming a common sight. Players are beginning to express themselves in ways the sport has never seen.
“The beautiful thing about the unwritten rules, for me, is that they are ever-evolving,” Turbow explains.
“The code that ball players abide by today is very different to how it was, even 10 years ago, which was in turn very different to a generation before that.
“People just aren’t as offended now as they used to be about these things.
“For example, it used to be you couldn’t dig in to the batter’s box – you co uldn’t shove your toe down into the dirt to get a good foothold – at the risk of offending pitchers back in the sixties and seventies. No one even notices that now.”
The move away from strict adherence to the code has been gradual, taking place over many years, and can primarily be explained by a change of mentality among modern baseball players.
Before free agency rules changed in the 1970s, movement between MLB teams was restricted, meaning many played for a single franchise for the bulk or entirety of their career.
This, Turbow explains, is why the unwritten rules were so strictly enforced.
“Up until the free agency era you were on a team, more or less, for life,” he says.
“Some players got traded, some players got released, but the only way you left a team was if they didn’t want you anymore. And thus, you built bonds with your teammates. You built antagonism with your opponents.
“In the modern era, players sometimes jump from team to team every couple of years. They go on vacations in the off-season with each other, they share agents, they do charity golf tournaments together.
“Every team is filled with players who have friends on every other team. The antagonism just isn’t there anymore.
“Whereas once you were offended by something a stranger, or an opponent who you already had antipathy toward, would do, now your opponent, who you like, is doing that same thing, you’re not even going to think about it.”
The increasing number of international MLB players – such as Acuña Jr. and Cedeño – has also contributed to this shift.
More than 25 per cent of players in the league now come from outside the USA, hailing from 20 different countries, all with their own way of playing the game.
“When it comes to integrating foreign players, there is going to be a transition process,” Turbow says.
“The brand of baseball they play in Latin America, for example, is very different.
“Celebrations are embraced down there. They are expected. This is the kind of baseball that those guys grew up learning, and now they’re bringing it to the United States.
“The Asian players, particularly the Japanese players, tend to play by even stricter rules than the Americans.
“Korean players flip the heck out of their bats. It’s all about getting used to each other.”
 Recently, however, the MLB has taken matters into its own hands. Advertising campaigns titled ‘Let The Kids Play’ and ‘We Play Loud,’ released ahead of the post-season in 2018 and 2019, explicitly condone behaviour that would previously have been condemned. Bat flips, showboating, celebrations. Anything goes.
“This officially codified the idea that these kids can show emotion on the field – they can flip their bats, they can celebrate themselves in ways that fans find appealing,” explains Turbow.
“It is baseball’s way of trying to grow the fanbase, especially among a younger demographic.”
Baseball traditionalists are, however, not making it easy for MLB. They continue to cling onto the code, passing it down to younger generations.
Right now when a pitcher throws at a batter who has only just stepped in and not yet begun his 15 step routine (touch helmet, grind foot, cock elbow five times etc) it’s called a “quick pitch. That’s called unsportsmanlike like.
The game was designed by the best teams to move slowly. Anything done to change that pace unsettles everything. For a game that throws so much money into tactical analysis, baseball is terrible at tactical innovation
As a result, the sport is currently going through a transition period where the old and the new coexist uneasily, particularly with regards to celebrating.
“In previous generations, bat flipping was a no-no. Pitchers would get viscerally offended, sometimes to the point of throwing a baseball at an opponent in retaliation.
“We’re now in this weird grey area in that there are still some pitchers who feel that way. Never mind that baseball has officially decreed it appropriate to flip a bat, there are still some pitchers who get annoyed at it.
“That creates some cognitive dissonance when it comes to how players behave on the field. They’re still trying to work it out.”
How, then, does baseball move forward? Can these unwritten rules, formed over a century or more, coexist with modern, fast-paced baseball?
“I think so,” asserts Turbow.
“These unwritten rules are fluid – they evolve. The idea of showing respect on the field is compatible with players having outside personalities, Twitter accounts and whatnot.
In the meantime it is a great game to wager on.
“It’s only when it comes to celebration that the hardliners and the traditionalists have a problem, and the traditionalists are dying off on a daily basis.”
So perhaps, in five years’ time, Acuña Jr. will be able to stand, admire and celebrate without fear of retribution being hurled at his ribs at 90 miles per hour.
John Cole has been watching baseball for more than four decades. His Dad took him to his first game. He likes the pace of the game and all those unwritten rules – but knows that changes are in the making.
 By Pepper Parr
October 28th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Update:
In the closing sentence of this article we said: “They wonder why Burlington could not find a decent Catholic candidate to represent them..
The they was the Catholic community. Several readers questioned the Catholic reference, informing us that the candidate didn’t have to be a Catholic and that is correct. What we were saying is that many in the Catholic community in Burlington wanted someone to represent their views in the House of Commons. The Conservative party leadership appeared to like the look of Jane Michael. Many Catholics in Burlington didn’t. And many who were not Catholic were terrified that Michael would get the traditional Conservative vote and take the seat. Sanity prevailed.
It is just a little after the votes were counted and the riding of Burlington re-elected Karina Gould that the Gazette was finally able to communicate with a second person who was able to confirm what we were given by a Burlington resident on the way Elizabeth Jane Michael was named as the Conservative Party candidate.
We wanted someone to corroborate what we had learned – but were not able to do so before the election.
Our source wrote the following. We have been able to confirm that the writer is real but for personal job related reasons we cannot reveal the names of either source.
“I could easily add to all the ‘unusable’ dirt I hear you have been receiving about Jane Michael, but I’m not going to do that now.
“The line you have about Burlington conservatives not being able to understand how Jane Michael became the Conservative candidate is certainly true. The information I have will shed some light on this and explain why CPC chose Jane Michael to be Burlington’s candidate. This is just me putting the threads together. Jane Michael’s Campaign Manager is Paul Marai. Their history goes way back. They served eight years together as trustees on the HCDSB. Marai also has a big connection to the Conservatives.
“Here are a few of bits of info:
Elizabeth Jane Michael was sanctioned by the HCDSB in May of 2018 for ‘violating code of conduct’ at an in-camera meeting.
“In a news report in another publication HDCSB Anthony Quinn said: “The reprimand may not seem like much, but it’s the strongest sanction available to the board under the legislation.”
 Paul Marai was Michael’s Campaign Manager. He is also the Director of Digital operations for RMG – The Responsive Marketing Group Inc “At the board’s public meeting May 15, 2018, vice-chair Paul Marai read a motion announcing the sanction and stating the penalty: Michael is barred from attending two board meetings, removed from her position on the discipline committee and excluded from the search for a new director of education “from the beginning to the end of the hiring process.”
“Michael had the highest trustee expenses while with HCDSB. Many other controversies.
“Michael’s Campaign Manager, was Paul Marai who is a Digital Director of RMG – The Responsive Marketing Group Inc. This company does work for political parties, and election work from federal to municipal. One service they provide is robo calling.
“In RMG marketing material RMG is described as an industry leader for over 20 years. “Responsive Marketing Group is Canada’s preeminent integrated political marketing services company. We bring together decades of experience in voter contact, fundraising, and cutting edge data science to offer unparalleled audience insight and engagement services.”
“RMG does work for the Conservative Party of Canada and has done work in the Burlington and neighbouring ridings for years provincially and federally. Paul Marai, through the company RMG, has a connection to Andrew Scheer’s campaign team and Conservative party staff.
“Marai was helping Jane when she tried to win the PC nomination in 2016.
“This ‘Michael to Marai to Scheer/Hamish Marshall connection’ is why Burlington conservatives ended up with Jane Michael.” Hamish Marshall was Andrew Scheer’s campaign manager.”
Our source adds that “there is certainly nothing wrong with all these connections.” She felt the public had a right to know.
Our first source gave us basically the same information.
The Conservative Party liked the strong Catholic anti abortion position Michael had taken and were prepared to go to some lengths to get her there.
But there was just too much that didn’t smell right and the voters of Burlington decided to stay with the incumbent. Many strong Conservative Catholic voters in Burlington spoke to the Gazette saying that they couldn’t stomach the candidate they were told they had to take.
They wonder why Burlington could not find a decent Catholic candidate to represent them.
They are out there.
Related news stories:
Gazette hacked.
Pepper Parr is 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
October 22nd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Some people made watching the election results come in an event. There were groups of Canadians around the world gathering to watch Facebook pages where the CBC was streaming the results live.
Ward 6 city councillor Bentivegna managed to coax a CBC reporter to his home where friends and family got together to eat and talk and analyze what they were seeing. There was Angelo and his family on national TV.
Each of the campaigns met once the polls closed and waited for the results.
The Karina Gould Liberals celebrated at Emma’s Back Porch.
 Political columnist Ray Rivers keeping an eye on proof reader Jan Mowbray and Publisher Pepper Parr. Photo credit: Jean Rivers The Gazette editorial team had to both watch the result play out and think how they were going to cover each of the three campaigns that were taking place in Burlington – the city is covered by three different ridings. One riding, Burlington, is just the city; Milton includes the northern part of the city while Oakville North Burlington includes both the city of Burlington and the Town of Oakville.
The television networks focus on the bigger picture, offering glimpses of what is taking place in each of the ridings.
The CBC decision desk announced that Justin Trudeau was going to be the Prime Minister, then added later that he would have just a minority of the votes that were Liberal – which meant cozying up with one of the other political parties.
CBC did an outstanding job on both the analysis and the graphics that were available to the viewers.
The talent gathered around the television studio was impressive. Peter Mansbidge was there sitting beside Bob Rae – both men had great insights into what had taken place in the past.
The At Issue Team was on hand with Chantel Hebert providing an inside look at might be expected from Quebec. Turned out we shouldn’t expect all that much from the BLOC party. They made it very clear they were in Ottawa to protect the interest of Quebeckers – the federation wasn’t of all that much interest to them.
The people who write for and put the Gazette together were both viewers and journalists – we were both watching, taking it all in and deciding how we wanted to cover the win in each of the three ridings that include parts of Burlington.
Earlier in the day I predicted what the election results would be. A loyal but critical Gazette reader sent me a note saying: “Remind me please in January not to follow and bet on your Super Bowl tip. One for three in your election predictions!” And that is why you never see me at a race track.
 Political columnist Ray Rivers reacting to the news that Jodi Wilson Raybould had been elected in British Columbia. Photo credit: Jean Rivers We decided to have some fun and created a Burlington Gazette Mountsberg Bureau and argued the merits of each of the wins and losses across the country as the results rolled in.
I thought the Jodi Wilson Raybould win was great; Rivers didn’t share my enthusiasm. He thought the SNC-Lavalin issue was off the table completely and on that he might be right; the BLOC doesn’t want to be part of that one. I still think the Prime Minister mis-handled that problem.
We all agreed that Prime Minister Trudeau may not have had all that much interest in changing the way the votes are counted. Jagmeet Singh is in the House ready to ensure that the change gets made.
Interesting times ahead.
By Ray Rivers
October 22nd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
As the final results were coming to an end the CBC switched to final comments by the leaders. For a brief moment I thought CBC had picked up the feed from those horrible debates where the leaders talked all over one another. Nobody obviously had coordinated their appearance so at one point all three of these guys were on the screen at the same time and the tough decision at the CBC was who would be given voice.
 Jagmeet Singh – holds the balance of power in Ottawa. Trudeau gave a prime ministerial address about national unity, though what else could he say after the big wipe out in the west. Singh fell back on his stump speech, about this fictional kid suffering from some ailment and worrying about how his parents were going to be able to afford the drugs.
Scheer was combative, couldn’t wait for that next election and he’ll be ready – because it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you get to be PM. And being 30 plus seats behind the Liberals he knows the knives are out.
The most important take away message from Monday night is how our electoral system is failing us as a nation:
1. The BLOC had only about 1% more of the popular vote than the Green Party (7.7% vs 6.5) but won 32 seats to the Greens’ 3;
2. The NDP had more than twice the popular support across Canada than the BLOC but ended up winning 8 fewer seats;
3. The Conservatives won the popular vote yet lost the election.
 Lisa Raitt lost to a newcomer and now leaves the political arena. Our FPP system is unrepresentative and unfair. Of perhaps lesser consequence, we sadly watched knowledgeable and experienced politicians, such as Lisa Raitt and Ralph Goodale get burned just because they were running for the ‘wrong’ political party in the wrong geographic area.
Four years ago Justin Trudeau promised to change our electoral system. But the parliamentary committee he created took on a life of its own and ended up recommending a mixed member proportional (MMP) system. That is currently the most popular and workable electoral system globally, but since the electoral reform committee demanded a referendum the recommendation got shelved.
The fact is that every referendum on MMP in Canada has failed so far, largely because, like gun control and climate change, attempts at rational discussion eventually degenerates into partisan positioning. And even if the parties stopped bickering it would still take a monumental effort to educate and possibly convince Canadians to opt for this relatively more complex, though inherently more fair, electoral system.
It is no secret that Trudeau would have preferred keeping the first-past-the-post (FPP) system coupled with a preferential ballot. So it is unclear why he just didn’t implement that. After all, he had obtained a mandate for electoral change in the 2015 election. Had he brought in the new ballot it is most likely Trudeau would have won another majority in Monday’s election.
The second take-away of the election result is that these are some of the most polarizing times we’ve seen in this country. The rise in western alienation over oil has helped to spawn a renewed enthusiasm in Quebec for national sovereignty. Further, Alberta politicians have insulted Quebec over the equalization formula, using it to attempt to blackmail the province into accepting a highly unpopular pipeline.
 The pipe line that will never be – it would get western oil to eastern Canada. The west really needs to take some time to read the tea leaves. First of all, they should understand that fossil fuels have no long term future. Building a pipeline with a forty year life when almost nobody will be burning oil in twenty is a totally irrational policy. So it’s time to get on with diversification.
Trudeau undoubtedly knows that about pipelines, but he is willing to compromise his principles as the cost of governing all Canadians. Yes, that love is unrequited. In fact Trudeau is irrationally hated in the west, much as his father was. And these folks are willing to let their animosity for the Liberal party rule out any chance of being involved in decisions that will affect them. Cutting themselves out of the governing party is cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
So this may be the time for tough love to come back for Alberta and Sask. To survive as a minority government Trudeau will be forced to act on his four year old promise to end the subsidies the oil companies get. And that will mean tougher times for unsustainable petroleum operations and speed up coming to grips with the future.
 Rachel Notley, a New Democrat who lost the a renewed Conservative party in Western Canada called the United Conservative Party. Albertans still don’t get it that Liberals only agreed to allow the TMX expansion go ahead because former premier Notley imposed a carbon tax and other measures to reduce the province’s longer term climate changing emissions. Should the Liberal’s political survival depend on now cancelling that project, who would be there to represent Alberta’s interest in Cabinet?
 They bickered and did everything they could to diminish each other: Just Trudeau and Andrew Scheer. This was a difficult election. The Liberals didn’t really have a platform, running on their record, more of the same, and topping up with some new goodies. The Tories had a short list of things they would do, but then they also promised a number of cuts only at the eleventh hour – but none of that measured up to what you’d call a platform. They were convinced that attacking and smearing Trudeau’s character with lies and made up stuff was all they needed to do to win.
In the end one would have to say that climate change became the dominant issue of the election. Two thirds of all votes went to parties which were committed to take action on the climate. The carbon tax is here to stay, as is the ban on oil shipping off the northern coast of BC, and as is the new environmental approval process and a plan to become carbon neutral by 2050.
The Conservatives are a western based party, spun off largely from the former Reform party. They may offer some lip service to reducing our carbon foot print but they were not prepared to do anything serious to reduce Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels or its place in our economy. And that is the biggest reason Andrew Scheer lost.
Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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:
MMP – Preferential Ballot –
By Pepper Parr
October 22nd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
When you take more than 50% of the vote from a former Cabinet Minister who has been elected in the riding three times – you have done something significant.
After that – what’s next for Adam van Koeverden?
 Turns out he has known the Prime Minister personally for more than 15 years; the two men appear to work together very well.
Koeverden has to first learn to become a Parliamentarian and to establish his own network; learn the ropes and figure out where he can shine.
 Four Olympic medals and two world championships to his credit. A successful four Olympic medal winner would make sports an obvious place to dig in.
Turns out that Koeverden has some well-developed views on housing issues and some solutions to the affordability problem the country faces.
Adam was raised in the co-op housing community; a form of housing in which you are a member of a co-op and you have the right to a residence with the understanding that you will be part of the team that maintains the property.
The residents never have any equity in the housing. The equity stays with the co-operative organization.
 Co-op housing is attractive, well built and not subject to unfair rent increases. In most co-ops there is a membership fee but that isn’t a huge amount of money – and when you leave the co-op you get your membership money back.
Co-ops have to limit their membership to a number that is a bit above the number of housing units they have. Just about every co-op in the country has a long membership waiting list.
Well managed co-ops work – the problem is that many are not that well managed.
In Canada many of the co-ops are organized by people from the same nationality. People from the Scandinavian countries have been very successful at forming co-ops and running them very effectively.
Keoverden believes that co-ops are the solution to Canada’s affordable housing crisis.
At one point CMHC Canada Mortgage and Housing pumped millions into the co-op community. They moved away from those programs about a decade ago.
Reviving this form of housing is something Adam will want to advocate. It might be something the government with a fresh mandate might adopt – it certainly has potential.
 The Co-op community is bigger than many realize. The downside is that Canadians have been raised to believe that a normal life is to get an education, marry, have children, buy a starter house, fix it up and when you need more space for more children you do an upgrade.
That was the deal in the 60’s, 70’s and the 80’s. It isn’t the deal today.
There would have to be a huge educational job to convince Canadians to give up on the idea of ever “owning” a home and instead settle for having the kind of space you need and know that your rent is not going to increase every year.
Expect to hear a lot from the Canadian Co-op Housing Federation on this issue.
 The strength of character and the discipline to win at the Olympic level will serve K well- it will pay dividends for Milton as well Whether it is sports or co-ops housing Adam Kovererden is going to have an impact . Time will tell where it is going to be.
What will all this mean for Milton? We are going to have to wait and see how Kovererden decides how best he can serve the community because once he sets his mind on something he usually succeeds – just count the medals.
Previous news stories:
It did get him elected
Background links:
For more information on co-op housing CLICK here
By Pepper Parr
October 22nd, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
What does the Karina Gould win in Burlington tell us and what can we expect from her in the 24 to 36 months ahead of us before there is another federal election?
There are all kinds of problems the Liberals have with the people in Western Canada – and they will get resolved in some way – enough to keep the country together is another matter.
Let’s talk about what this election tells us about ourselves.
The 6.5% of the vote that Gareth Williams got for the Greens is more than disappointing. He got less than 5000 votes.
 Gould didn’t miss much in the way of work time while pregnant. The son became a feature on those occasions hat she took the child to work. Did Burlingtonians not care all that much about the state of the environment? Or was the concern over the threat from Jane Michael, the Conservative candidate, so strong that every progressive vote went to Gould to ensure that Michael didn’t win the seat?
Despite the hundreds of negative comments made about Michael and her decision not to take part in debates where she would have to defend her positions she did take 33% of the vote. 23,467 were prepared to accept the way Michael ran as a candidate. Proof positive that there is a solid vote that is not Liberal in Burlington. Was it a Catholic vote or a Conservative vote?
We heard from a number of strong Conservatives who were embarrassed with their candidate and deeply disturbed by the way she got the nomination in the first place.
How Burlington overcomes that divide is something Gould is going to have to work on. Good luck on that one. The responsible, decent Conservatives are going to have to find people who truly represent them if there is to be any change.
 Despite putting forward a very credible case for the Greens Gareth Williams was not able to pull in much in the way of voter support. Back to that environmental vote. Gareth Williams did a very good job of setting out the Green Party case. He just didn’t get the buy-in he deserved.
The New Democrats selected a nice lady to carry their banner. It takes more than nice to win an election.
What does Karina Gould do now?
 Karina Gould at a Parliamentary committee. We are all but guaranteed to have a lot of discussion about the way we choose who is to represent us in the House of Commons. Gould was the Minister of Democratic Institutions. Prior to her appointment the Liberals had not been able to make any progress on getting a buy-in from the other political parties and basically gave up on the idea.
Gould was brought in to ensure that the job the previous Minister, MP Maryam Monsef, wasn’t able to do didn’t get any worse than it was.
Karina Gould found herself standing before the national media in front of the doors to the House of Commons Chamber explaining that there would not be any change to the way Canadians chose their federal leaders.
Will the Prime Minister keep her in the portfolio – he should. Will she be able to craft a response to the problem and get a solid buy-in from her Cabinet colleagues? Hopefully yes for the sake of the country.
The New Democrats will work at making this their issue and pressing the Liberals to do something soon. The Liberals need at last 16 of those votes to get their Speech from the Throne and the next budget passed. Gould has her work cut out for her on this file.
 This was the last major greenfield site in Burlington – there is nothing affordable being built. There are other demanding tasks that Gould will need to focus on. Building housing that is affordable is vital. Gould can certainly support the case for building housing that people, especially younger people, can afford so they can remain in Burlington where housing is far from affordable.
Finally, Gould has some reaching out work to do. She has been very good at it. Her support for One Burlington was a good start. Helping those conservatives that need a home where their values are respected is a bigger job than Karina Gould can do – it will take time.
By Pepper Parr
October 21st, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
The electioneering is over.
Now the citizens of the country get to choose who should lead at the federal government level.
 This is what a debate is about. Why can’t we have stuff like this in Burlington during our elections? I suspect that we are in for a bumpy ride and some big surprises – which should come as no surprise.
What do we know now about the candidates that wanted to represent Burlington in Ottawa? Not much more than they wanted to tell us unfortunately because for the most part we really didn’t grill these men and women.
There were no debates – we did the usual Burlington polite thing.
Burlington doesn’t appear to be very comfortable with holding people accountable for what they do.
Debates, when they are moderated properly, give audiences a chance to see the candidates in action; see how they respond to the thrust and parry of a debate.
Candidates and potential candidates need to know that there is a bar of expectations they have to reach. You have to be good, really good, if you want to represent Burlington in Ottawa.
Debates bring out the best in candidates and they put a spotlight on the flaws. The public is entitled to that level of transparency. If someone believes they have what it takes to represent the public – show us.
Unfortunately, Burlington has never had an organization that will take on that role. Cogeco doesn’t want to offend anyone – all they want to do is ensure that their cable TV license is never put at risk.
The Chamber of Commerce isn’t much better – they seem proud of their Q&A approach to candidates: Never rock the Boat, and for heaven’s sake don’t disrupt – bad for business.
 Church halls were filled – the public wants to hear what candidates have to say. ECoB has done some very good work. They televised the municipal events that took place and drew crowds that filled church halls. It was evident that the public wanted more.
The ECoB events made it clear that it was time to look for stronger moderators; people with more depth and the capacity to push the candidates.
What isn’t immediately evident is that you get better representation when you push. A look at what Burlington has at the provincial level and what it has been offered at the federal level on the Conservative side of the political spectrum xxx
One can only wonder what John Robarts, probably the best Premier the province has ever had, would think of what we have done to the Conservative reputation.
A long time Gazette reader told us of a time when there were “ratepayer” groups throughout the city that communicated with the school board and city council. Those parents aged and their children grew up and the world changed.
The pressure on households is much different these days; parents don’t have as much time. In most households both parents work, and there are a lot more single parent families. Also, government is much more complex and the needs of the community are greater.
Students face an environment that is a lot different than the one their parents experienced. We also have a community that was nowhere as large as it is today – the baby boomers are moving into retirement and the millennials have made it clear that at least some of them expect to be at the table.
The bureaucracy is different as well – it doesn’t respond the way it used to; the pace is different, development is much more aggressive and the relationship between the electors and the elected isn’t what it could be.
These are changing times – and we are going to have to adapt. How well we adapt will determine whether Burlington really is the “best place to raise a family. It is a city where people, nature and businesses thrive.”
 By Daniel St George
October 21st, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 This is the Escarpment where there are farms that thrive. Enough to make farming viable ? No one really knows. Burlington has a large rural area that makes up close to half of the city’s geographic area – much of it is excellent land that could support profitable and sustainable agriculture. Much of it is owned by developers who rent it out on terms that are not all that beneficial for farmers.
Despite those limitations there are a number of very productive farms that can make use of some of the innovative technologies to make farming better, smarter, and more efficient.
When used in the right way, it can also help drive transformational change across the food value chain to address the most challenging agriculture and food problems facing our planet. At least that is the promise from most of today’s ag-tech companies.
The biggest risk is that this promise, is just that, a promise. Technology today is not moving the needle far enough to meet farmers’ expectations and address the biggest challenges our planet is facing now and in the future. Challenges such as climate change, population growth and changing consumer demands.
 Tractors like this were used across Canada. There was once a huge debate on whether or not rubber tires could replace those steel wheels. This machine was driven by steam fired by a wooden furnace. Innovation in agriculture has helped farmers and growers throughout time, from horse-drawn tilling machines to automated tractors. The rate of this innovation over the last 10-20 years has exploded, and the number of agribusiness start-ups has followed suit.
Globally, investments in the agribusiness and food sectors have tripled since 2004. Agriculture technology has become a global phenomenon, with start-ups growing by over 80 percent each year since 2012.
In Canada, farm income has risen each year since 2003, except for a brief downturn in 2018. In a recent study by RBC in Canada, the study found that the sector could contribute up to $51 billion to the economy by 2030, through boosting technology investments, building new skills and addressing labor shortages.
The real question is not necessarily how we can get more and better technologies into the hands of farmers. Instead we should ask ourselves how we can better aggregate these technologies across farms at scale, combine disparate data sets and drive insights to improve key metrics such as yield, and to improve crop planning and variety, including growing conditions such as soil quality.
However, Innovation is also a double edged sword
Every day farmers are bombarded by offers of new technological advances and innovative solutions. These include everything from farm management systems to soil sensors and innovative farm machinery.
 This ongoing innovation is increasing the complexity of purchasing decisions and farmers are often wondering whether the value is really there. Not to mention, many of these technologies are often too expensive, especially for farmers who own small to medium sized farms. In addition, many farmers find they do not get the full value from these technologies as they often only utilize a small portion of the functionality that the solution is capable of.
For example, in a recent research paper in the journal for Agriculture Systems, it mentions that data collected by farm technologies is heavily under-utilized, and there are significant challenges with data quality and availability, as well as a lack of integration between technologies.
A recent comment by a farmer who uses an automated self-drive tractor says, “It hasn’t really improved productivity on the farm, and it hasn’t allowed me to relax because I still have to keep an eye on it. It’s a lot harder than we think to apply technology to farming in a way that truly helps farmers. That’s the challenge.”
Large companies are squeezing margins and farmers are feeling the pinch. The food value chain has become a fragmented set of silos with different players all wanting a piece of the pie. And farmers are the ones who are suffering. Without an economically sustainable farm, many of the global challenges we face today will never be addressed.
How do we then overcome this problem? How can we utilize technology to move the needle further and do farmers bear responsibility for driving this change? What role do other organizations play such as cooperatives, food manufacturers, governments and trading companies?
Innovation paired with foresight can yield world-changing results
The world faces a challenge in providing enough food to feed its growing population. The current rate of agricultural productivity is not sufficient to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion people by 2050.
To solve this and other future challenges, agriculture needs orchestrated innovation. When used in the right areas and for the right purposes, innovation can move the needle significantly to address these fundamental macro-challenges.
 The problem facing the farm community is getting their product onto these shelves in a sustainable, profitable way. The farm and the supermarket operate in separate silos. Traditionally, the food value chain has resembled a relatively linear model, from research (e.g. seed and varieties) and production to harvest, process, packaging, distribution, and sales. The value chain is made of companies who play specific parts within the system but often not across its entirety.
Often, these companies don’t share information and compartmentalize expertise and knowledge along the value chain. This lack of collaboration limits their insight.
When innovators’ focus narrows, the technology they invent might end up hurting farmers and consumers or only help a select few, rather than helping achieve a greater good. Innovative foresight to leverage technology and apply it in the right areas to drive value is critically important.
A three-pronged road to innovation grounded in data, collaboration, and sustainability.
How can agricultural innovation ensure that new technology minimizes the risks and maximizes the benefits?
The answer lies in three fundamental areas:
1. Connecting disparate data sets across the value chain to drive greater insights—such as digital farming platforms.
2. Creating ecosystems of organizational partners to share data and best practices and to work together on uncovering exponential rates of productivity and farming yield using ecosystem-driven business models.
3. Designing business models that drive value back into the farm, while at the same time being sustainable and economically viable—with a focus on farmers and growers.
Who can address the macro-challenges we face globally and what are digital farming platforms?
What types of ecosystems do we need and how can we develop a more vertical-integrated value chain?
And who is going to get it all started?
Daniel St. George is a Senior Managing Consultant, Digital Strategy in the Agribusiness Sector.
By Pepper Parr
October 20th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
What to say about Jane Michael, the Conservative Party candidate whose name will be on the ballet you are handed on Monday?
 Jane Michael Jane Elizabeth Michael chose not to take part in the BurlingtonGreen all candidates debate; she chose not to participate in the videos that were done about each candidate, she chose not to take part in the session at Nelson High School where all the candidates met with the students.
We are advised that she did take part in the Chamber of Commerce question session where she is reported to have had difficulty with several of the questions and asked to have more than one of them repeated to her.
The Gazette has had more than two dozen comments made on Michael and more than five separate emails from people who were very concerned about the candidate and her past performances while a member of the Halton District Catholic School Board where she served as Chair for a period of time.
Michael was sanctioned by that Board for behavior that was never set out.
Her federal nomination was described as questionable by a number of people who wanted a nomination meeting – not a decision by the federal party on who the candidate should be.
There is a very damaging couple of paragraphs in Patrick Brown’s book Take Down in which he explains why Michael did not get the provincial nomination when he ran against Jane Michael.
 Photograph of the page from Patrick Brown’s book Take Down. Her public position on and votes against initiatives to stop bullying against LGBTQ kids and vaccinating young girls for HPV is a matter of public record as are the bankruptcies.
The hard line social conservative stance on homosexuality, politicizing it and dividing the community with it are consistent worrying concerns brought up again and again.
The Gazette runs into people at different events who are politically active – we have yet to hear one person have anything positive to say about Jane Michael. Many of these people are lifelong dyed in the wool Conservatives.
Michael would not make herself available for an interview with the Gazette.
Our past experience with Michael led us to the conclusion that she is a very strong Catholic with views that are some distance from the mainstream.
Described as homophobic by some, and a right to life advocate on the issue of abortion.
Political candidates are supposed to have views they are prepared to debate and support publicly.
There are those who will claim that Burlington is a Conservative community and that 40% of the vote- which is often more than enough to win the seat, goes to the Conservative party almost automatically.
Most of those in the other political parties’ will never say publicly that they fear that silent Tory vote will tick off Michael name on the ballot just because it is there.
There is a lot of gossip on line – Reddit seems to be where most of it sits – that stuff has to be taken with more than one grain of salt. However, we’ve never seen this much written negative comment about one candidate.
Burlington has five people running for the seat in the House of Commons – they fear that Michael just might have enough in the way of baked in party support that will get her to the House of Commons.
By Pepper Parr
October 20th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
So who is it going to be?
There are three constituencies representing the people of Burlington.
Milton, which covers parts of wards 3 and 6 – the northern part of the city
Oakville North Burlington which cover part of eastern Burlington and part of Oakville.
Burlington is where the bulk of the people in the city will vote
Maps of all three are set out below.
Where is the vote going to go? Some of the best political minds in the country don’t know; what seems to be pretty certain is that we will have a minority government. The Conservatives believe they will form that government – the Liberals are just as certain.
The NDP and the Greens aren’t going to form a government – but one of them will probably hold the balance of power.
Our take on the candidates:
 Sean Weir for the Conservatives in Oakville North Burlington  Karina Gould for Burlington  Lisa Raitt for Milton. Burlington where the candidates are: Karina Gould, the incumbent; Gareth Williams – Green Party; Lenaee Dupuis – NDP; Peoples Party – Peter Smetana and Jane Michael – Conservative.
The Gazette sees Karina Gould as the best choice – although Gareth Williams has done a superb job for the Greens even if he didn’t put in as much time as he should have campaigning. How and why Jane Michael ever got the Conservative nomination has astounded most of the Conservatives we talked to.
The candidates in Milton are: Lisa Raitt – Conservative; Adam van Koeverden – Liberal; Eleanor Hayward – New Democrat; Farina Hassan – Green Party and Percy Dastur – People Party
In Milton, new comer Adam van Koeverden has a chance – we think Lisa Raitt will hold her seat.
The candidates in Oakville North Burlington are: Sean Weir – Conservative; Gilbert J. Jubinville – Peoples Party; Pam Damoff – Liberal; Nicolas Dion – New Democrat and Michael Houghton – Green Party
In Oakville North Burlington Sean Weir could beat Pam Damoff. She hasn’t been that strong a Parliamentarian.
We will learn just how serious people in the Halton Region are about Climate Change when we see what the vote count for the Green Party is – the surge in the New Democrat vote is yet another sign that in
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.
 The portion of Burlington that is in the Milton constituency  Oakville North Burlington  Boundaries for voters in Burlington.
By Ray Rivers
October 19th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt describes the current campaign as the nastiest since Kim Campbell. “Isn’t this the nastiest campaign” I asked, and Milton’s Conservative MP, Lisa Raitt, completed my thought with “since Kim Campbell”?
Andrew Scheer’s campaign started out short on policy but long on name calling and character assassination. He has taken the offensive in every sense of the word, hurling insults like ‘phoney and fraud’, ‘criminal’ and ‘liar’ at the prime minister. And his campaign has been involved in creating and disseminating so much disinformation, it makes the Russian troll factories look like amateurs.
Leaflets falsely claiming Liberals were going to apply capital gains tax on your primary residence. Adverts in the Chinese language media that Trudeau was going to legalize hard drugs. Rumours that Trudeau had been fired from his former teaching job; a} because he’d had an affair with a student; and b} because he had an affair with a student’s mother.
 A “Climate Barbie Doll”. Really? Scheer’s campaign manager is Hamish Marshall, a former corporate director and contributor to ‘The Rebel,’ an ultra right-wing medium which has been soft on white supremacist stuff and/or anything sympathetic to the red neck crowd. The Rebel attempted to discredit Canada’s environment minister, labelling her Climate Barbie, until she faced them down for their pathetic attempt at character assassination.
The Conservatives started the campaign saying Trudeau is ‘not as advertised’. Indeed the Aladdin costume stunt did surprise/shock many of us, but older Canadians would have watched Justin grow up as son of one of Canada’s most flamboyant and longest serving prime ministers. We actually know a lot about the Trudeaus. And after four years as prime minister it is hard to understand how ‘not as advertised’ even makes sense.
But Mr. Scheer is that proverbial fella in the glass house throwing stones. He tried to lie about his work experience – neither a broker nor having met accreditation criteria to be one. He tried to conceal his firm position against a woman’s right to choose. He refused to apologize for his earlier anti-LGBT same-sex marriage rants. And he tried to hide his dual nationality, while attacking other party leaders and a former governor-general for theirs. And he must/might have broken US law by crossing the border without using a US passport.
 Regrettable – it did take place 20 years ago when he was a much younger man. But Mr. Trudeau apologized for his ethics violation, for having worn an Aladdin costume and for having mismanaged the SNC prosecution issue. Scheer had never accepted ownership for his past mistakes, has shown no remorse, and appears not to have learned from those experiences. And that just makes him look even nastier.
And it seems to be contagious. Jagmeet Singh has caught the bug. Making things up as he goes along, he has been taking shots at his Green Party opponents, trying to align them with the ‘nasty’ Conservatives. Then as his poll numbers started to climb he turned his attack onto the Liberals, claiming they are in the pockets of the corporate giants, playing the offended sympathy card. His pitch for Pharma care, which all three left-of-centre parties are promising, included erroneous claims that drug prices are rising, when generic drugs have, in fact, fallen over the last decade starting back in the Harper years.
 Elizabeth May scolding the Prime Minister. But unlike Mr. Trudeau, Elizabeth May has strenuously fought back against these false accusations. At the outset, Trudeau had pledged not to campaign on wedge issues, but the Liberals have now started to fight back, though it is probably too late. Mr. Scheer has been effective at tearing down Trudeau’s character – and in this election of personalities that seems to be all that matters. And the debates just made that all the easier.
 Kim Campbell Kim Campbell’s 1993 campaign gets the prize for scraping the bottom of the barrel, and there have probably been other ugly ones before that. It is hard to believe that two seemingly likeable people, Kim Campbell and her campaign manager John Tory, would do such a dastardly thing. But desperation makes us behave in unpredictable ways. So take heart if you don’t think this has been the nastiest campaign yet, there are still a few days to go.
Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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;
Kim Campbell – Dirty Campaign – Lies About Drugs –
Conspiracy Theories – Rebel Media – Scheer Campaign –
School Affair Lies – NDP Lies – Scheer US Travel –
Scheer More Lies – Scheer Angry – Not the Nastiest –
By Ray Rivers
October 19th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
It was the fall of 1972. I had cast my ballot in Orangeville, where I’d been working as purchasing agent, then hit the road for Ottawa. I’d been offered a better career job with the federal government.
On route one of our vehicles lost its electrical system just outside of Ottawa and we spent the night in a motel watching the election results that night. When the dust had settled I was left wondering whether I would still have a job. The Trudeau Liberals had lost their solid majority and had fallen into the uncertainty of minority government.
 Pierre Trudeau. It had been a tough election. The over-riding issue during Pierre Trudeau’s first term was national unity. Trudeau had ended the immediate threat of separatism by introducing the War Measures Act, eliminating the terrorist organization, the FLQ. But Quebec’s quiet revolution would ensure that the demand for equality in the federation was far from over. So the Liberal government introduced official bilingualism, a concept at least as politically divisive as today’s carbon tax. Though fifty years later there is no longer any debate – it was the right thing to do.
Baby boomers had been pouring into the job market in record numbers, competing for scarce employment with still growing numbers of US draft dodgers arriving across the border. And the economy was recovering from the downturn of the late sixties. New grain markets had been opened up in China. Canadian cultural industries were on the move. Economic growth was projected to exceed by over 6% and the federal budget was close to being balanced. Indeed the land was strong.
So Pierre Trudeau somewhat arrogantly decided to run on his record rather than lay out a new vision for the future. But nobody was reading the fine print and that almost put an end to his vision of the just society. Voters are human after all. They want to know what’s in it for them.
So when Justin decided to run on his record he followed his father’s footsteps and polls show will end up much like his father did, if he is lucky. Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh on the other hand have promised affordability, and suddenly their polls are swelling. Affordability? This is the number one issue for Canadians, more important than protecting our survival and the planet’s climate.
 Justin Trudeau Yet Canada’s economy has never performed better – doesn’t that mean affordability? And this performance is largely the result of policies enacted by the Liberals after 2015, when the nation was teetering on the brink of a recession. Close to a million people, including 300,000 children have been lifted out of poverty, exceeding the government’s own projections and making this the lowest rate of poverty ever in Canada’s history.
Employment is at a record high and unemployment is the lowest since we started recording those numbers. Inflation is at historic low rates as are interest rates, and economic growth is among the best in the G7. Affordability? What else would one expect of a government? Well there is the matter of house prices and the still growing gap between the wealthy and the rest of us.
Housing prices are a function of demand and supply. But there are serious physical limits to increasing supply in our sprawling communities. Only Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party has a viable short term plan – reduce demand, cut off the number of immigrants coming here – the number of people looking for new housing. But his policy is simply dismissed as Donald Trumpian racism. And there may, indeed, be some of that among some of his candidates.
Humanity is almost never satiated, that is both our weakness and our strength. When the times are good as they are now, or as they were when PET arrogantly trotted out ‘The Land is Strong’, those who now have more want to know why they can’t have even more. Pierre Trudeau ended up losing his majority thanks in part to a brilliant campaign by the NDP’s David Lewis and his catchy refrain ‘Corporate Welfare Bums’. Why can’t we have some of theirs?
All of the opposition parties today are claiming to cut corporate welfare, though nobody seriously believes that would happen with the Tories. Even their lower class income tax cut will benefit the wealthy more than the middle class. And aren’t they promising to restore those unfair tax breaks for the business sector? And seriously, have we forgotten Stephen Harper and Doug Ford?
 Jagmeet Singh Jagmeet Singh may be a newbie in federal politics but he is a quick learner. He knows that if you want people on-side you simply tell them what they want to hear. As the third party he knows he won’t have to deliver at the end of the day. And look how Mr. Scheer’s false promises have been working for him. He started his campaign by telling everyone he would put more money in their pockets.
Singh has pulled a page out of David Lewis’ campaign book and is telling people he’ll make their lives better and more affordable by guillotining the heads off the rich and using them to feed the disadvantaged. Steal from the rich and give to the rest of us. Now isn’t that more appealing than just saying ‘The Land is Strong’?
Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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:
Comedy or Cringe – !972 Budget –
By Pepper Parr
October 18th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
 Did we get it right? A year ago today we all woke up and headed for the polling station during the day and elected ourselves a new city council.
Did we get it right?
Most people appear to think that we did. There are certainly some who think mistakes were made but on balance we have seven people who have a clear vision as to where they want to go.
Next Monday we get to go to the polls again.
Let us try and get it right.
There is a lot of small minded bickering and pettiness being voiced.
Is the dual citizenship that Andrew Scheer has really that big a deal?
Is it what the creation of a government is decided on?
 The people, you and I get to decide who runs that |House of Commons. Think really hard about who you send there to do the job. The Black face was and is a big deal – but it was 20 years ago. Has Justin Trudeau grown up? Has he learned a lesson?
Do we trust him?
That applies to all of them – do you trust them?
There are some very big, fundamental issues before us. If we don’t get them right – we are in serious trouble.
 When this falls apart – we all fall apart. It will not be a pretty picture. There is a tipping point, a point at which we cannot go back.
Are we there yet?
How close to that tipping point are we and do we really want to test it.
If we are wrong – there really isn’t a future.
There is some hard hard thinking to be done.
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
October 15th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
On October 9th, the Gazette published an Opinion column by Tom Muir that was based on his attendance at a Local Planning Act Tribunal. A link to that column appears at the bottom of this article.
It was lengthy, which is typical for Muir.
LPAT hearings are not bed time reading.
The readership response to the article was surprisingly strong.
On Saturday, the 12th of October the Gazette received the following from Kwab Ako-Adjei, Senior Manager of Government Relations and Strategic Communications.
 “I wanted to take the opportunity to provide a clarification to a recent article, https://bit.ly/2q5unMg.
“The article includes a lengthy opinion in which the writer states that City staff had no responses or barely participated in the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) hearing for the proposed development on 92 Plains Road. However, neither the article itself or the opinion make clear that the hearing before the LPAT was a settlement hearing in which the City and the appellant were in agreement on the proposed development and the associated amendments to the City’s planning documents.
“In a settlement hearing, evidence must be provided to the Tribunal to support the settlement. This evidence typically is in the form of the expert opinion of a land use planner from one of the settling parties, as it was in this hearing. The other settling parties, such as the City in this case, do not call further duplicative evidence to support the settlement. It is in hearings where parties such as the City and a developer are not in agreement on the development proposal where the parties call their own witnesses to provide expert opinion, and cross examine opposing witnesses.
“It would be misleading to suggest that because the City did not have its planner provide an expert opinion that she did not act appropriately or that she did not represent the interest of Council’s decision to support the proposed settlement. Rather, the City’s legal counsel made submissions on the appropriateness of the settlement, including in the context of the in-force Official Plan. The LPAT hearing officer will consider the expert evidence provided, along with the submissions of the appellant, the City and the two participants to the hearing, and make a decision in the matter.
“The Notice of Settlement Hearing was also posted on our website, https://www.burlington.ca/en/services-for-you/92-Plains-Road-East.asp so residents could be aware of the hearing.”
We take the view that Opinion pieces are something you candisagree with but that the facts the writer puts forward are not debatable.
We sent the comment from the city to Muir and asked for a response from him. Muir said:
“I don’t know what to say as this just confirms what I said – the City staff Planner said nothing and the Legal staff said not much more and as I stated, which this writer appears to agree with.
“They did and did not do everything I said, and they have what I think are disclosure and professional duties as members of professional associations, that they didn’t act on.
“And the writer missed the part (section 3) of the story that indicated it was a settlement hearing as a part of it.
“The message initially went to MMW and TC and they knew it was a settlement hearing, and item 3 in the piece is as follows –
3. This indicates that the City agreement with the proposed settlement included agreement that the adopted but not legal OP was on the Table and they agreed to let the applicant Planner use it right from the start – they had the evidence from the applicant lawyer and they had to have agreed to it in order to say they had a settlement. The applicant Planner used an anonymous authority to say that someone at City told him this was the City directions anyways so he used it.
 Tom Muir “The City staff said nothing about the misinformation and the frank falsification of parts of the applicant Planners testimony under oath. I raised these points under oath and they know the facts but said nothing, so going along with it.
“And is it professionally appropriate to remain silent about my point 12, (and 10) as follows;
12. In EO 86 the Planner rewrites the statement of the in force OP so as to remove the second of the “shall” policies wording and change it to “is intended to” with respect to maintaining the residential appearance and character of the property.
“This is a frank and deliberate lie to falsify the policy statement wording. City staff said nothing.
“In my view, this blows up the Planners credibility and trust. I would also cite my point 10 above.
“Does this mean that “expert witnesses” can say anything they want? And the City staff bears no responsibility for untruths that they are frank and legal partners to? The writer says the City agrees and does not bring duplicative evidence to support the settlement. Therefore, they agree with it all.
“The City Planner is not an expert witness as the writer implies and this is my experience that I can document but is beyond this space.
“After the Hearing, I wrote her asking for information on my points 10 and 11 and I’m still waiting for a response. There are other requests from me that have also remained un-responded to.
“I stand by what I wrote, and caution the writer that I have a great deal more that I can say on this.
“This story was a short form briefing for the recipients.”
Muir was not told who sent the concern about the Opinion piece he wrote nor was he contacted by anyone from city hall about his opinion. He has said he is still waiting for responses from the Planning department.
We asked a number of other people we respect for their take on note from Kwab Ako-Adjei.
“Something doesn’t make sense here” was one response. “If the City wants to correct something that they feel needs correcting why didn’t they simply ask you for Tom ‘s contact information.”
The writer who insisted that their name not be used added: “Whatever your decide I would suggest you keep at arms length. Don’t put your name to anything in print. City’s Opinion Piece not The Gazettes or Pepper Parr’s opinion piece- with “none of your salt or pepper.”
“I still wonder what is motivating this? Why the need for this public exoneration? Who are they chastising The Gazette or Tom Muir?
Link to the Muir piece:
By Pepper Parr
October 15th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Things to keep in mind as you think about where you want your ballot to go on Monday.
Worth noting is that the number of people who voted in the advance polls increased by 25% over the last election. Some clearly wanted to register their vote.
Will the numbers for 2019 exceed the vote count in 2015?
The issues are pretty clear.
Prime Minister Trudeau debating Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer – it got nasty at times. What I find myself thinking about is the debate behaviour and the spending promises.
These are all educated people who can read without moving their lips. Their parents surely taught them some manners.
The public wants to hear what they say; we want to hear sound, solid, supportable, cogent arguments. We didn’t get much of that.
Could the moderators not have threatened to cut off the microphones of those who talked over another speaker? There were a few occasions when one of the female moderators clamped down on a speaker. It needed to happen more often.
 Yves-François Blanchet leader of the BLOC debates Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democrats. The people who moderate have a responsibility to first set out the rules, warn what will happen when a rule is broken and then enforce the rules.
Can you imagine the behaviour change if a moderator turned off the microphone of a speaker who kept butting in on another speaker’s time?
 Green Party leader Elizabeth May goes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an English language debate. The public deserves better, the process deserves better. Demand better.
Now – the spending. These people are asking to be THE leader of the country while they throw your money around like confetti at a wedding and give the public quickie accountings as to just how they are going to pay for those promises.
This is irresponsibility at a dangerous social level. The politicians give us what they think we want to hear – we applaud them, elect them and then complain bitterly when they fail to deliver on those ‘promises’.
There are lessons here for both the elected and the electorate.
By Ray Rivers
October 14th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Canada is one of the world’s leading contributors to climate change. Here are some facts:
 Canada’s climate is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. 1. Canada is the 38th most populated nation on earth and we have the 11th largest economy;
2. But we are also the seventh (7th) biggest global emitter of climate changing greenhouse gases (GHG);
3. Each Canadian produces 22 tonnes of GHG per year, the highest among all G20 members and nearly three times the G20 average of eight tonnes per person;
4. Canada’s climate is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world; and
5. The UN says we have twelve years – three election terms – to make major reductions before we reach a point of no return for our climate.
As Canadians go the polls all of the political parties but two are committed to significant GHG emissions reductions. Only the Conservatives and the Peoples Party have platforms which will allow emissions to continue to increase, virtually unabated. And given that Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are either leading or tied with both in popular support and the potential seat count, this should be a serious concern for Canadians everywhere.
 Andrew Scheer and Doug Ford: Is this a scene we are likely to see repeated? A Conservative party election would negate all of the current government’s recent initiatives on climate action, much as Ontario saw happen with the Ford government. Ford reset, lowered, provincial emissions targets after taking office, but has failed to make progress even on these. And unsurprisingly Mr. Scheer’s climate program mostly parallel’s Ford’s, including ending carbon pricing.
Elizabeth May’s Green Party has the most ambitious plan to reduce emissions, virtually doubling Canada’s committed reductions to the Paris climate plan – 60% by 2030. Unfortunately her plan is probably not realizable, at least not without a major buy-in by all Canadians. Her plans include banning the sale of gasoline powered cars by 2030. That would be fully a decade ahead of a similar law in B.C. and would necessitate the availability of over two million new electric vehicles for sale by 2031.
Sounds crazy, I know. But that is why the carbon tax makes so much sense. The tax increases annually as the availability of emission free vehicles and charging facilities become available. The existence of an ever increasing carbon price sends a powerful market signal to both buyers and vehicle manufacturers – shift to non carbon alternatives. And if you use an alternate you are rewarded by the rebates.
 William Nordhaus Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and the world’s leading economist on climate change, has been awarded the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for “integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis. Short of sending people to jail, market place mechanisms are the most effective way of changing behaviour and in this case, getting people out of their gas guzzlers. But don’t take my word for it, check with just about every environmental economist out there, including the guy who won a Nobel prize recently for exactly that thesis.
What is it that so-called business friendly Tories like Ford, Kenny and Scheer don’t get?
But May also wants to shut down oil production and the TMX (Trans Mountain pipeline) expansion. She’d start her attack on the oil polluters by cutting the subsidies. But she isn’t nuts, or as extreme, as some might think. Even Mr. Harper, back in 2015, joined other G7 leaders in calling for an end to fossil fuel usage by 2100. Ms. May just wants to speed that up… a lot . And for someone who has spent her entire life working for the environment she should know what she is taking about.
After all, if we only have twelve years until the big turning point when global warming becomes irreversible and takes on a life of its own, 2100 is at least 70 years too late. Mr. Trudeau is calling for Canada to be carbon neutral by 2050. But even that is too late, given what the climate scientists are saying.
Mr. Scheer, with his support base largely in western Canada likely gets his science from the oil companies, though many of those also support carbon pricing and movement to cleaner energy production. But he still thinks he can build more pipelines and expand the oil sands. And to add insult to injury he is also planning to cancel an EV purchase incentive program.
 The world as we need to at least begin to see it. Even though Mr. Scheer has no plan to eliminate the deficit during the next government cycle, he still speaks to it as if he did. And everyone can agree that we don’t want to saddle future generations with massive financial debt. But none of that will matter once we upset the earth’s climate such that the global support systems are badly damaged and we can only bequeath a sick planet to our children and theirs.
Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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:
Canada Produces Most GHG –
Most Powerful Tool –
Ford Does Nothing on Climate –
Harper G7 End of Fossils –
Dirty Oil –
The Polluters –
 By Pepper Parr
October 9th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
The Gazette received the following from the city three days afrer the article appeared.
“I wanted to take the opportunity to provide a clarification to a recent article, https://bit.ly/2q5unMg.
“The article includes a lengthy opinion in which the writer states that City staff had no responses or barely participated in the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) hearing for the proposed development on 92 Plains Road. However, neither the article itself or the opinion make clear that the hearing before the LPAT was a settlement hearing in which the City and the appellant were in agreement on the proposed development and the associated amendments to the City’s planning documents.
“In a settlement hearing, evidence must be provided to the Tribunal to support the settlement. This evidence typically is in the form of the expert opinion of a land use planner from one of the settling parties, as it was in this hearing. The other settling parties, such as the City in this case, do not call further duplicative evidence to support the settlement. It is in hearings where parties such as the City and a developer are not in agreement on the development proposal where the parties call their own witnesses to provide expert opinion, and cross examine opposing witnesses.
“It would be misleading to suggest that because the City did not have its planner provide an expert opinion that she did not act appropriately or that she did not represent the interest of Council’s decision to support the proposed settlement. Rather, the City’s legal counsel made submissions on the appropriateness of the settlement, including in the context of the in-force Official Plan. The LPAT hearing officer will consider the expert evidence provided, along with the submissions of the appellant, the City and the two participants to the hearing, and make a decision in the matter.
“The Notice of Settlement Hearing was also posted on our website, https://www.burlington.ca/en/services-for-you/92-Plains-Road-East.asp so residents could be aware of the hearing.”
If you have heard of LPAT; know what the acronym stands for – read on.
If you don’t – quit now.
LPAT is Local Planning Appeals Tribunal.
It is the level the developers and city can turn to when there is a difference over a development proposal.
Few of the people who follow this stuff have much that is positive to say about the tribunal.
A handful of people chose to sit in on an LPAT hearing at city hall recently.
Tom Muir, one of the types that keeps up to date on this stuff attended – here is what he had to say on what he saw and heard,
I want to provide you with a short briefing on my experience. I have provided you with extended notes and comments on this appeal evidence so I will stick to key points and, as it turned out, a long one page of 13 points.
1. The Lawyer representing the City, David Klacko, and the City Planner, Melissa Morgan, indicated to the LPAT Chair that they would not be presenting any testimony or evidence. Over all, from my perspective over the entire Hearing they might as well have not been there.
 Architectural rendering 2. The Applicant lawyer and Planner disturbed me when they went straight to the adopted Official Plan as the first argument in the Policy Frame supporting the proposal (Item 12 of 112 in the Evidence Outline).
I was further disturbed when the City Lawyer and Planner said nothing at this time about this and as supposed professionals with obligations of disclosure, did not indicate that this adopted OP was not in the City Policy Frame for policy and thinking in this application.
It was only at the very end of the Hearing after all the testimony was done, did the City lawyer say about 20 words to indicate that the adopted OP was not in the City policy frame here, but that the proposal conformed with the in force OP.
3. This indicates that the City agreement with the proposed settlement included agreement that the adopted but not legal OP was on the Table and they agreed to let the applicant Planner use it right from the start – they had the evidence from the applicant lawyer and they had to have agreed to it in order to say they had a settlement. The applicant Planner used an anonymous authority to say that someone at City told him this was the City directions anyways so he used it.
4. This applicant Planner stated that the amendments requested conform with the general policy directions of the new draft Burlington Official Plan (EO 107). He also stated that this adopted OP conforms to the Halton Region Official Plan when this is patently false as the Region did not approve it on the grounds of non-conformity. The applicant lawyer tried to argue that the adopted OP is legal and can be used.
5. Overall, in this Planner testimony, there was a great deal of emphasis on the adopted OP in support of the application and settlement. In this testimony, given under oath, there was a total disregard and no mention for the “shall” or mandatory OP and Zoning policies specific to this site. City staff made no comments. There was no explanation or planning rationale provided for disregarding the “shall” provisions. City staff said nothing.
6. I was given 20 minutes to testify under oath and I raised a large number of issues from this previous testimony and from my own evidence. I will provide only a few of the key issues here. The City Lawyer did not cross examine my testimony.
6. There was applicant Planner disregard to compatibility policies with only 1 criteria mentioned (upper floor setbacks) out of the City policy number of 13. City staff said nothing.
7. Nothing was said or evidence provided about the City policies on intensification adjacent to existing low density neighborhoods. City staff said nothing.
8. There was no evidence or testimony about the City Policies around Urban Design and City Guidelines for Mixed Use and Residential Mid-Rise Buildings. City staff said nothing.
9. These policies are indicated by the City as policies subject to “shall” be done for all proposals. Nothing was said or done by either Party on these.
 Site rendering. 10 The applicant Planner misleadingly wrote in EO item 10 (Subject; Surrounding Land Uses), and further stated under oath, that a “property at 105 Plains Rd received approval in 2013 for demolition (done) in order to construct a mixed use building, however, building permits for the mixed use building have not yet been issued. In addition, in oral, he stated that an 11 storey building was planned. This was not only misleading and untrue, but there is no such application in the City files.These statements were presented as I noted, as a surrounding land use and were taken by the Chair as a factual support for the 92 Plains proposal.
City staff said nothing to factually clarify the truth of the matter. I wrote the Planner yesterday asking for this information, which she should have, but I have not heard anything back.
11. The applicant Planner repeatedly (10 times; EO 11, 39, 54, 56, 62, 67, 72, 83, 99, 111i) and incorrectly stated, that the proposal at 92 Plains Rd was within 500 meters of the Go Train station, which is a MTSA, and therefore the site is in the Mobility Hub area having a 150 unit/ha target. He used this to repeatedly argue support for the proposal and this is misinformation used in a misleading way repeatedly.
This estimate of distance is important because of the MTSA target boundary, so I had two different distance estimates to dispute this in testimony. The first is an estimate from Google of 600 meters straight line, and a second is by car from parallel to the Go station building estimated straight down Waterdown Road to Plains RD corner light, which is about 650 meters. Note that these are straight line distances and nothing moves to the GO in a straight line from the site on 92 Plains Rd.
City staff said nothing to clarify.
12. In EO 86 the Planner rewrites the statement of the in force OP so as to remove the second of the “shall” policies wording and change it to “is intended to” with respect to maintaining the residential appearance and character of the property.
This is a frank and deliberate lie to falsify the policy statement wording. City staff said nothing.
In my view, this blows up the Planners credibility and trust. I would also cite my point 10 above.
13. In the written and spoken under oath testimony the applicant Planner committed a significant number of omissions of relevant evidence, states partial evidence resulting in misinformation, untruths such as above, fallacies such as non sequitors, false dilemmas, begging the question or circular arguments that have the conclusion wanted based in the premises, and others beyond this space.
 Tom Muir making a point at a community meeting. I have written more here than I expected and there are many more points I could cover. I will also say that the City staff, and the applicant Planner, having professional and disclosure duties associated with the law and planning professions and oaths of office, could have helped me and the Hearing and Chair, with getting to the truth and the facts, but they chose to remain silent and not assist in this.
What was clearly wanted, and certainly delivered, was a set of OP and Zoning amendments that is custom made to fit the settlement proposal. What the real plan or truth is has nothing to do with it.
In conclusion, I will say again that this settlement will have implications and consequences as a precedent setting model for what is to be willingly enabled, permitted and allowed in Burlington. It will be carried into whatever size you want to think of everywhere.
This is where your new Plan is going. “Ye who enters here, abandon all hope.”
Tom Muir is an Aldershot resident who knows more about Development Charges and far more than anyone should know about development in the western end of the city.
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Ray Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, 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
