 By Pepper Parr
December 7th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It has been a tumultuous week for the city – and for the staff at city hall.
 If there is a morale meter at city hall it isn’t giving a very high rating these days. The City manager left the building on Tuesday, no word yet on who the interim city manager is going to be.
There is a Deputy city manager in place so things won’t spin out of control.
There are people in the city delighted with the dismissal of the city manager; they have hopes that there will be a few more dismissals in the not too distant future.
While all this takes place there’s serious damage being done to the mid-level people who do all the grunt work.
Burlington has a number of superb staffers, I could name more than 100 people, that I have worked with, talked to that are sincere, professional and very good at their jobs. They are career civil servants who work hard to manage hard issues.
One has to wonder how many are polishing their resumes and looking around for a better place to work. There are a lot of benefits to working in the municipal sector; the money is good, the benefits terrific and the pension grand.
And those things matter but that isn’t why the really good people get up every morning, go out the door and take on the tasks they have to deal with.
Burlington has some real issues that are complex and won’t yield to a simple answer.
The really good men and woman are well aware of the problems and they are more than capable of finding solutions. With a few exceptions they have not been well led. They do deserve better.
They will sign out at city hall this afternoon, head home to their families and wonder just where things at city hall are going to be six months from now.
There is the possibility that some of the really good ones will be gone; some into the private sector others with a different municipality. It will be our loss.
 Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 8th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
 By Ray Rivers
December 7th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Our American neighbours tend to see Canada as that socialist state on their northern border. We do have single-payer health care in each province and there is a national broadcaster partially funded by the federal government. But we are a lot less socialist than we used to be back when our federal government used to run a national railway, our biggest airline and our very own oil company, Petro-Canada.
 Today Canadian governments of all political persuasion agree that oil production is best left to the private sector. Except, we don’t leave it alone. Federal and provincial governments annually subsidize the oil sector by almost three and a half billion dollars – just under a hundred dollars for every man woman and child in the country. And that doesn’t include Mr. Trudeau’s recent purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Of course the governments spend tax dollars on a lot of things, like defence, education and health care, but mostly for services which are not for-profit. But business is supposed to be business, and no commodity is more market oriented than oil – just watch the daily fluctuation at the gas pumps. And note that, with annual profits into the billions, PetroCan and its partner Suncor are one of the biggest items on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
But the markets are telling us that the cost of producing oil in Alberta exceeds the value of that resource in the marketplace. Of course there is a glut of the stuff globally today and it’s now a buyers’ market. But while the best quality crude has dropped to as much as a third of its peak value of only a couple of years ago, oil sands bitumen is bottoming out at $10 a barrel.
 Leasing rail cars – a lot of them are made in Hamilton. And even though a new pipeline or another 7000 rail cars would help move that oil to Asian markets where the price might be better, it’s still low quality oil and some of the most expensive to produce. So neither another pipeline nor more rail cars make economic sense as an investment. If they did wouldn’t industry have already taken care of that? In fact wasn’t lack of profitability behind Kinder Morgan blackmailing the federal government into buying its old pipeline.
Mr. Trudeau had no choice, politically, you might say but to buy that last pipe dream politicians east of the Rockies sleep on. He had to be seen helping an Alberta whose premier had embraced a carbon tax, among other things. Rachel Notley is acquiring some 7000 new rail cars for the same political reason. It’s something we call corporate welfare.
There is panic in the oil patch. So Notley, acting on a proposal from the non-socialist opposition parties, is also intervening in the market by winding down oil production, hoping for a better match with market demand and improved oil prices. It is probably a political set-up, staged by her opponents, hoping she’ll pay a price at the polls come next year’s provincial election. Then the odds are against her anyway.
 Only zero emitting cars will be sold in B.C. after 2040. But the odds are also against the oil sands enduring. General Motors just closed its largest assembly plant in Canada, in Oshawa, claiming it’s crossed over to building electric vehicles. And that is a common theme by auto execs everywhere as they enter the growing movement to end the reign of guzzler. Only zero emitting cars will be sold in B.C. after 2040.
Long the target of the greenies everywhere, Barclays Bank shareholders have now demanded it pull its investments out of the ‘tar sands’. The plastics industry, the other main user of petroleum, is also under attack, particularly for single uses and packaging . There is this island of waste plastic the size of France in the middle of the Pacific ocean. And even in our once pristine Great Lakes plastic residue can be found in just about every fish species.
Of course prices will go up again before they go down again, and so on. Then, there are still millions of gasoline powered cars, gas heating appliances and so on. So the petroleum industry will not disappear over night, nor forever, as has Quebec’s deadly asbestos industry. But only a fool should want to put more money into expansion of the oil sands.
And guess what? The carbon tax is not to blame for the current crisis. Though Alberta has one, which is even more progressive that the one the feds will be implementing in most of the rest of Canada early next year. But then Rachel Notley gets it – unlike her fellow premiers immediately to the east of her. Besides she’s seen how Canada’s first carbon tax has worked out for her neighbour just across the Rockies.
BC has had its carbon tax for a decade now. But it hasn’t stifling the economy as Ontario’s Mr. Ford would mislead all the people of his own province. Quite the contrary, because or in spite of its carbon tax B.C.’s economy has been growing at a rate of 3.5% for the last four years. And the federal carbon tax is modeled on the one that pioneered in Lotus Land. Imagine what it might do for Ontario’s economy Mr. Ford!
 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:
Alberta Oil Crisis – Canada’s Fossil Fuel Subsidies – Buying Rail Cars –
Oil Cuts – Plastic Bags – Pipelines? –
Barclays – BC Zero Emissions –
By Pepper Parr
December 4th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
A reader wrote:
Okay, here we go.
Now Meed Ward has a target on her back.
She didn’t give the elected Councillors a chance to speak?
My guess is that they begged her for more time so that they hone their skills as speakers.
But hey- that wouldn’t give newspapers a chance to shoot down a really wonderful new mayor who should be lauded for her intelligence, empathy and generosity of spirit.
How about giving her a break!!
Mayor Meed Ward does not want any breaks. She would be offended if you offered her any.
I didn’t hear the Justice who swore them in suggest we give them a break. I heard just the opposite. Justice Quinn said to the audience and to the new council. These people are going to hold you account. He didn’t say ‘Hold them accountable but give them a couple of weeks to get the feel of the job.’
In a couple of week this council will be going through the budget – and if I heard the Mayor correctly she wants to keep the tax increase well below the 4% we have seen for the past seven years.
These people have known from the get go that they have a big job in front of them. They all worked hard to get elected – they wanted the job.
No breaks. Burlington citizens did that in 2014 and look at what that council did for you?
What this writer has forgotten is that a democracy has the elected and the electors – and both have to do their work if a democracy is going to work.
The 2010 Council learned they could get away with a lot and several of them trampled all over delegators.
Your job dear reader is to hold their feet to the flames. No breaks.
Imagine if you did give them a break? That would perhaps encourage some of them to ask for “a little more time” and before you know it they are getting away with it.
You throw them in the deep end – they will learn to swim very quickly.
 Council members getting ready to read their Declarations of Office. The Gazette didn’t hear them asking for a break.
By Pepper Parr
December 3rd, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The old order changeth.
This evening a new city council will be sworn in: five of the seven member council will not be returning – two retired and three were defeated.
 Just two left standing We can’t find anyone who remembers seeing anything like this in Burlington’s history.
The Mayor was defeated, replaced by ward 2 city Councillor Marianne Meed Ward.
Councillors Dennison and Lancaster were also defeated.
Councillors Craven and Taylor retired.
Two issues dominated the election: the approving of an Official Plan that did not have wide public support and the demand for a change in the way city council engaged the public – failed to effectively respect people who delegated at city council is a better way to put it – and the lack of acceptable public engagement.
The distance between council and staff and the public made itself painfully evident in the remarks made at the final meeting of the current city council when Deputy city manager Mary Lou Tanner commented on the outgoing council and its working relationship with Staff.
City Manager James Ridge was absent.
Tanner spoke of the excellent, professional way that Staff and Council were able to work together. Saying a strong positive relationship existed doesn’t mean it did.
 Plains Road; an old suburban highway transitions into a vibrant urban main street. The contribution made by Councillors Craven and Taylor deserve comment: Plains Road is a different place today than it was when Rick Craven was first elected. And the developments taking place in the community are an improvement over what was in place when he got there.
Craven didn’t have the best of relationships with sectors of his ward; the Beachway people wish he had never been elected. A number of people don’t think he understood the mix that was needed along Plans Road.
He could never come to terms with Marianne Meed Ward who ran against him in ward 1 – he prevailed and Meed Ward moved into ward 2.
There is the suggestion that Rick Craven just could not live with the idea that he would have to work with Meed Ward on her terms. Some have suggested that is a large part of why he chose not to run for another term. Had he run he would have taken more than 50% of the votes.
The piece that he wrote and made public about Meed Ward was regrettable.
 Councillor Craven may have felt his McMaster jacket would ward off some negative comment. There will be more tall buildings but nothing any higher than the Drewlo Development that lost its building permit for a period of time when the played fast and loose with the development that had been approved.
Developers found they could work with Rick Craven. Did he compromise himself in doing so. One would be very hard pressed to point to anything that was just plain wrong in the ward.
Craven was tireless in his efforts to make sure that Aldershot was not forgotten. He has superb relationships with Staff.
He was the best chair of a Standing Committee this city has seen in some time. Yes, he was abrupt even dismissive at times but he kept the agenda going.
Publicly there was nothing touchy feely about Tick Craven. All business.
Privately he could be a funny.
 More candidate than Craven could manage? Sandra Pupatello on a trip through town looking for local support for her Liberal leadership bid. Craven was prepared to let the party romance him. He once told this reporter as we sat outside the Council Chamber at Conservation Halton that he had thought about running for Mayor.
He took a serious look at running for the provincial seat as a Liberal. Sandra Pupatello was a little too much for his taste.
Craven was usually able to take the long view and see the bigger picture – where he fell short was in explaining that bigger picture to people.
Craven is now, officially, a senior citizen. He isn’t going to sit at home and read old city council agendas. He will be a valued observer and hopefully he will tune in with comments from time to time.
There has been word that he will join one of the development organizations in the province.
 Taylor was always a careful listener John Taylor, the Dean of City Council, found that the job was getting harder and harder to do. Keeping up was proving difficult and he had the strength to realize that it was time to move on. For John Taylor the moving on is not going to be as smooth.
He will miss the people at city hall; his job as a Councillor was his life.
He was one of the true liberal voices on council and always went more than the last mile to solve a problem for a constituent.
He was probably working the telephones in the forenoon while his assistant packed up his papers for him.
Taylor wants to stay involved, has his eye on a specific appointment that he will get.
 If the public was in the room – so was John Taylor – listening carefully. He has a huge store of knowledge, he was there when the big decisions were made.
He could be cranky at times but for the most part he was genial, available and he cared.
He worked for the rural people in the North West side of the city. The provincial plans for a highway that would run through Kilbride and Lowville was not going to happen while John was the ward 3 council member.
He was the rural voice on council. His constituents loved him; community meetings in his ward were more like family get togethers.
The three members of council that were defeated at the ballot box had failed to connect with the public. Rick Goldring just didn’t hear what the vocal groups had to say. He will never be forgiven for selling that part of the waterfront between Market and St. Paul Street.
 The house on the right was built when Jack Dennison to an appeal to a Committee of Adjustment decision to the Ontario Municipal Board and won. Blair Lancaster should perhaps not have run; health issues were making it difficult for her to do the job.
Jack Dennison was able to stay in office because the number of voters on the ballot allowed him to split the vote. This time there was just the one candidate running against him and she did very well.
The house that Dennison built on the severed piece of the Lakeshore Road is up for sale; the house next door with the historical designation has been rented.
In his closing remarks Dennison said: “See you around”. Wonder where he will live?
 By Ray Rivers
November 30th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Almost every aspect of Rod Phillips’, Ontario’s environment minister’s, climate change plan is something we’ve already done or are doing. In short it’s yesterday’s news.
For decades the federal and provincial governments, and other semi-government agencies have been doing exactly what the province is calling new; working with the private sector on developing performance standards and cleaner technologies. It was the McGuinty government which first introduced regulations adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline.
 But we have all heard the alarm bells. The people who actually understand global warming are imploring governments everywhere to heed the urgency of taking action. In that regard this ‘new’ Ontario climate action plan is akin to the proverbial rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic. Improved seating may allow a better view of the icebergs floating ahead of the ship but won’t stop the collision.
The problem today is less about how cleanly we extract energy from fossil fuels, it’s that we continue to use fossil fuels at all when cleaner alternatives abound. Mr. Phillips likes to use the example of how Ontario reduced its emissions by 22 percent from 2005, as if he were the Liberal environment minister back then.
But that reduction came about because we stopped burning coal to produce electricity, not because we improved the efficiency of the scrubbers. And to add insult to injury for the lonely scattering of Liberals in the back benches, Mr Phillips is also claiming credit that today Ontario’s electricity system is mostly carbon free. Yet scarcely half a year ago he and his boss, Mr. Ford, called it a ‘mess’.
This plan has no legs, no heart and no teeth. There are no details or any kind, only a set of best intentions. By focusing primarily on industry, the government is dismissing all of the actions all the rest of the people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. And the $400 million carbon trust fund is more than a drop in an ocean, but it is hardly adequate if one were serious about significantly reducing carbon emissions through technological change.
 It is a program that worked for everyone. Ontario is following Australia’s lead in abandoning emissions trading and carbon pricing and hoping that technology will save it. But the low hanging fruit has been already been harvested. And like Australia, Ontario will miss it’s Paris agreement related emissions target. But even more importantly, we will have lost the momentum which made us the most successful jurisdiction in Canada when it came to reducing our carbon footprint.
There is an irony when the minister muses about possibly imposing financial penalties (fines) on large emitters, for those companies still operating in the province. But how is a financial penalty for generating carbon emissions not some kind of carbon tax by a different name? Won’t the cost of those fines not get passed down to consumers and families?
Cap and trade was an industry friendly approach to lowering emissions. It treated emitting industries as partners in solving the climate change problem. The Ford government is threatening instead to criminalize our industrial enterprises. That is if it is serious about going back to the old command and control approach, involving fines and courts and maybe even prison time. So much for the province being ‘open for business’.
 Ethanol: a policy that Ontario is looking to rekindle and expand despite the fact that recent evidence shows it is bad for the environment and even worse for the climate. Bio-fuels like corn and firewood are considered renewable resources. When they grow they absorb CO2 even though burning them ultimately releases it. That was the rationale for adding corn-derived ethanol into gasoline introduced over a decade ago by the McGuinty government. That is a policy that Ontario is looking to rekindle and expand despite the fact that recent evidence shows it is bad for the environment and even worse for the climate.
At best this plan is one of those motherhood/fatherhood concept papers. It begs for description by cliches. It could have been worse. It’s really is too little too late. Nobody should have been expecting much given where Mr. Ford was coming from, so at least we weren’t disappointed.
The truth is we have seen this movie before though it seemed fresh yesteryear when Doc and Marty took us ‘back to the future’. And at least they weren’t travelling in a gas guzzler running on ethanol.
If the Ford Government was looking to provoke the federal government into bringing its carbon tax into Ontario, it couldn’t have done a better job than with this sad package of old ideas stolen from the days when global warming was still just another academic research topic.
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:
Ford Climate Change Plan – More CC Plan – Even More CC Plan –
Ethanol – Clean Technology – Australian Approach –
 The Gazette invited readers to tell the city council that will be sworn in next Monday what they felt were the more important issues that could be acted upon in the first 100 days of four year term. So far there have been some very good ideas; there are also some ideas that suggest the writer was not all that well informed.
Jim Young, an Aldershot resident involved in the early stages of the Engaged Citizens of Burlington (ECoB) initiative has also been a member of the Burlington Seniors Advisory Committee that has been advocating for a better transit deal for seniors.
By Jim Young
November 30th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
In a previous Op Ed for The Gazette on the “First Hundred Days” I asked for patience and realistic expectations from a new council. Most of the issues that gave rise to the electoral shake up at Burlington City Council are simply too big and complex to expect them to be resolved in the first hundred days.
The “Adopted” Official Plan, Changes to The Downtown Mobility Hub and the missing Transit and Parking Plans all require significant work by staff and review and reconsideration by council. They may also require Regional approval and compliance with Provincial Legislation. So while work on these gets underway in the first hundred days, don’t expect quick results on these portfolios. Given the last fiasco on the OP, we should be demanding that council and staff take appropriate time to seek our input and get the OP right this time.
However one immediately winning issue that can be achieved as a simple 2019 Budget Amendment, is “Free Transit for Seniors during Off Peak Hours” (10.00 to 2.30 Monday to Friday). An idea whose time has surely come.
This was originally proposed by Burlington Seniors Advisory Committee in 2016 for the 2017 budget and defeated by 6 votes to 1. The idea is detailed in BSAC Position Paper “Improving Transit for Seniors Improves Transit for Everybody” and has since been adopted by Burlington for Accessible Sustainable Transit (BfAST) who support the idea and for other disadvantaged groups and as part of a more comprehensive Long Term Transit Plan.
 Jim Young with Director of Transit Sue Connor. In the BfAST 2018 election All Candidate Transit Survey, all six Councillors elect and Mayor elect indicated support for the idea. Some wholeheartedly, some with qualification, suggesting it might be expanded to other disadvantaged groups.
The buses already run empty during those off-peak hours so the only cost is an amount of lost revenue and that is not overwhelming. Based on figures supplied by Burlington Transit in 2016 I calculated it might cost between $48,500 per year and $72,750 depending on the rate of uptake. The previous Director of Transit agreed the cost for a one year trial would be less than $100,000. In an email to me his biggest concern was that any trial would prove so popular, it would be difficult to repeal. It is less than one half of one percent of the city transit budget.
It is possible that provincial funding for transit, a complex formula based on ridership (not revenue) might increase enough to offset any loss of revenue.
Perhaps Transit Director, Sue Connor, who has won the respect of city staff and transit advocates equally, can provide updated figures for the cost, the potential Provincial funding increases and whether there might be an overall gain for Burlington Transit.
As well as filling our mostly empty, off-peak buses the “Improving Transit Paper” details the impact of: Reducing Traffic Congestion, Improving Road Safety, Reducing C02 Emissions, Providing a Dignified Alternative for drivers who lose their Drivers License to age related issues. It also outlines some economic benefits for the city and local businesses and the health benefits to seniors who suffer from social isolation.
 Bfast events that bring citizens up to date on transit events are always well attended. Might they be heard by the new city council as well? So come on Mme. Mayor and Brand New Councillors. What are you waiting for? This will help Fill the Buses, Reduce Traffic Congestion, Improve Road Safety, Provide Economic Benefit for Local Retailers and help improve the Health and Well being of our Seniors; all of which I’m sure were on your platforms.
This is a win – win – win for Council, for Burlington Transit and for Seniors. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate that our new council listens to our citizens and delivers on its election platforms and positions.
Related news story:
Seniors Advisory committee request for a pilot project doesn’t get past a Standing Committee
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By Ray Rivers
November 29th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It is nothing short of dishonest for federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer to blame the announced closing of General Motors (GM) operations in Oshawa next year on a federal carbon tax – which has yet to be implemented. It is equally dishonest for the Ontario premier to be running around blaming everything on the policies of the previous Liberal government.
 One of the bigger business operations in the province had decided to leave. There was nothing the province could do to keep them. GM was clear that this was a corporate-wide restructure which is closing at least one plant in Canada and several more in the USA. It has to do with excess production capacity for gas guzzlers and the company’s failure to adjust to changing markets. And nothing Mr. Ford could offer, be it lower taxes, lower electricity rates, fewer labour regulations or a cash grant, would make the company change its mind. Ford was told definitively by GM’s management, as they hung up the phone – ‘the ship has left the dock’.
The traditional big three North American auto giants, and GM in particular, are chronic slow learners and always late to the game. The first electric car was invented by a Hungarian dude back in the early 1800s, over half a decade before Mr. Benz patented the first gas guzzler. By the turn of the century there were almost twice as many electric as petroleum vehicles on the road in America. But cleanliness, simplicity of operation and fast acceleration eventually lost out to the increased range and the lower costs of the more complicated Model T.
GM is not fondly remembered for its own history with electricity. In response to California’s emerging tough fuel and emissions standards in the 1990s, the company piloted the EV1 project. Everybody who drove one loved the car but for some suspicious reason GM killed the project and destroyed the cars anyway.
Two decades later, to compete with the Prius hybrid, the Chevy Volt, a miserable compromise of inadequate battery range and an inefficient on-board gasoline charging system, showed up. Its ultimate demise this coming year will result in few tears. Only last year GM finally got the memo and produced the all-electric Chevy Bolt with a battery range into Tesla territory. These cars are built in Michigan and their batteries in Korea.
 Neither our governments nor the company saw the writing on the wall – that doing the same things will give you the same result. It was barely a decade ago when, as GM nearly folded-up camp, it came cap-in-hand to the Canadian and US federal and sub-national governments, begging for a handout to ride out the GW Bush recession. Canada and Ontario wasted no time asking how much, and we ended up with a combination of loans and equity totaling almost $14 billion.
The US set specific environmental conditions before issuing the lending instruments and ultimately got all of its money back and then some. The Harper government sold off our equity early in order to present a balanced budget for the 2015 election, and ended up losing $3.5 billion as a result.
In addition there was apparently a billion dollars which had been signed over to a GM entity which no longer exists. There was some kind of ‘old GM’, as opposed to a “new GM“ and the new one isn’t about to pay the money back. This for a company which earned over six billion in profits last year.
Cars are like a narcotic. If GM is a junkie then our governments are the the enablers, feeding its habits and ignoring the consequences. Neither our governments nor the company saw the writing on the wall – that doing the same things will give you the same result. Instead of sending the company to rehab, the governments just benignly encouraged GM to keep doing business as usual – making the same old cars – the same old mistakes.
GM claims the 60 year old Oshawa plant is unsuitable for production of the new generation of EVs and autonomous diving cars. Indeed the facility may be old but isn’t a car a car? Auto companies regularly run different models on the same assembly line. GM is doing that now, building trucks on a line formerly used for sedans.
And why have we all been blindsided by this closure announcement? The company has a contract with its labour union which extends beyond the planned closure date, surely the union should have been consulted. The union president is convinced GM is on a path to also close the other two factories it operates in Canada. What does that hold for the security of pension and benefit obligations?
 The Leggat family have been in the car retailing business for a long long time. GM was once Canada’s largest auto maker. Does its executive brain trust think there will be any remaining buyer loyalty after this caper? Once the dust has settled GM might as well take their dealership operations with it if it closes the door on Canadian production. The union boss, Jerry Dias, wants Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Trump to impose a 40% tariff on GM cars built in Mexico and China. That would teach it a lesson Dias says.
We know little of GM’s corporate decision making process, but perhaps somebody should have listened when it warned that Donald Trump’s recent tariffs would end up in a smaller GM. Trump’s reaction to the US plant closures, threatening to remove the federal subsidies for buyers of GM EVs, is as wrong headed as his tariffs were. Those EVs are currently built in America, after all.
GM claims that it has seen the light, joining Ford Motors, Volkswagen and others in shifting from gasoline to EV production. Once upon a time, six months ago, Ontario buyers used to get a provincial incentive for new EVs, as buyers do in several other jurisdictions across Canada and throughout the USA. And a carbon tax raising the cost of gasoline would encourage more car buyers to join the EV crowd. These policies are consistent with the direction the new GM is heading.
 Leader of the federal opposition Andrew Scheer with Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Note the picture to the left of former Toronto Mayor the late Rob Ford But it doesn’t sound like retaining those Wynne government pro-EV policies would have kept the Oshawa plant open any more than Mr. Ford’s killing them did. Scheer and Ford need to take a step back and re-examine their own policies before they heap unwarranted blame on their political opponents.
Pointing fingers and slinging mud are unhelpful at this time. And putting up signs saying ‘Ontario is open for business’ is a waste of time when the business model the government is using dates back at least thirty years. Like the evolution of the automobile its past time to move into the 21st century.
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:
Who Killed the Electric – History of the Electric Car – GM Trade Unertainty –
Open for Business – Trump’s unintended Consequences – Trump Tariffs –
Bailouts Don’t Work –
 The Gazette has invited residents for their thoughts on what the new city might try to achieve in its first 100 days. A lot of wishful thinking and some misunderstanding of how the city actually works. Interesting comments.
By Bryce Lee
November 28th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Have often thought the ward boundaries should shift, to accommodate two extra councillors account some wards are geographically larger than others. Even the load so to speak.
No more structures blocking the view of Lake Ontario.
The lake is perhaps the greatest asset this City has, do not lose it to developers!
No more fancy homes on Lakeshore east to Guelph Line.
 The issue is the portion shown as parkette. The city had three options: keep the land and develop it as a parkette, lease the land to adjoining property owners until the city decides on its long term use or sell the land. The city sold it. Over a long time that entire area should become a linear park. Selling those lots on Lakeshore Road between Market and St Paul to home owners was stupid and short sighted.
Let the council delegations be heard, good amplification is required; citizens must not be ignored. They voted the current Councillors in; they can just as easily be voted out in four years!
 Approved – all but impossible to change the decision  Developer is expected to appeal the council decision to keep the structure to 17 storeys – developer wants 24 – same as the approved building across the street. As to the planned monstrosities opposite the current city hall and elsewhere; the so-called Official Plan needs to be reviewed. Such tall buildings should be fronting the edge of Metrolinx railway line, not in the downtown area. Keep the downtown building height to six stories, set back from the new wider sidewalks.
Have affordable shops on perhaps the ground floor or even the second floor.
Motorized vehicle parking should be at the rear of said structures or below level; 1.5 vehicles per household please. Employees should also be afforded parking, below street level.
 We are an automobile based society We are an automobile based society regardless of the method of propulsion; make charging stations available payable by bank card. The car park with Elizabeth on the east and John Street on the west should be a many level parking garage with retail shops and professional offices on the ground floor and second level, shops to be fronted on the streets mentioned above.
Maintain, if possible, the residential areas of old Burlington below Ghent Avenue; homes constructed post WWII, and occupied for the most part by baby boomers.
Keeping those aforementioned residences allows residents to walk to most locations; The Brant Street No Frills plaza needs to be retained; grocery outlets are few and far between in this City unless one has suitable transportation.
City sponsored transportation should have free Sundays and free all the time to seniors.
Ensure all of the provincial subsidy is used; smaller electric powered (solar?) buses with frequent service is required.
And if the current Provincial Premier wants to merge Oakville and Burlington to Hamilton, tell him he too could be voted out of office, sooner than later!
 Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward My own thoughts on Meed-Ward: she will be a one term mayor, as were the two previous female mayors of Burlington.
She was wonderful as a Councillor however a mayor requires a whole different mindset. She will stumble and in four years be out of office.
As for the other newly elected Councillors; being a ward Councillor requires time; time far beyond what the incumbents know. A Councillor is a 7/24/365 job; no rest during the four years; while elected.
 By Gary Scobie
November 25th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
There are two major issues need repair at City Hall.
First up is respect. That would encompass respect by members of Council for one another as well as respect by Council for citizens that come to City Hall to delegate their concerns. It is not a small matter to appear at Council with a prepared delegation text. It takes time and thought to prepare an argument for or against a motion and hopefully allow a better solution if there is one. The standard “Thank you for coming” response is quite a de-motivator for most citizens to ever think of appearing a second time.
I’m hoping a near total refresh of Council will start off respecting themselves and others. Citizens will be watching.
Second up is the attitude by the current Council (henceforth referred to as the old Council) of eight years that the Province alone is to blame for the over-intensification of downtown Burlington. No, the Province didn’t mandate 20 plus storey high rises on Brant and Martha Streets. The Council of 2005 accepted without a whimper the designations of Urban Growth Centre and Anchor Mobility Hub downtown. They both designate density targets within these overlapping zones, but not height. It was the developers, the Planning Department and in end the old Council that translated density over an area into one-off high rise buildings that each over-intensified the lot they sat on. It was and is the cumulative affect of adding tall buildings, without adequate parking, expanded roadways or inviting transit that will clog our streets for decades to come if it is unchecked by the new Council.
The old Council looked at the downtown as an infill area to intensify beyond targets, beyond our current Official Plan and against the wishes of the current residents. The Planning Department aided and abetted. The developers cheered. Building only for future residents without keeping in mind current residents is not a recipe for success, especially if future residents realize what a transportation-restrictive neighbourhood they have bought into to now become current residents.
The rush to pass a flawed Official Plan before the election put the icing on the cake for over-intensification. Most of the new Council ran on platforms against the new Official Plan over-development.
The new Council can talk to the Province about the two designations, can talk to the Region about the Official Plan and can talk to (and hopefully listen to this time) citizens who will accept moderate intensification and no more.
It may take longer than 100 days, but these are the issues that I would like the new Council to tackle.
 Gary Scobie is a ward 3 resident who has delegated and usually gave more than he got from a Council that didn’t have much time for him He has served on Advisory Committees and has been active citizen by any standard. In this photograph he is seen delegating before city council.
 By Andrew Drummond
November 24th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
On Nov 21, the Ontario Government led by Doug Ford passed Bill 47, the so-called “Making Ontario Open For Business Act”, which cuts a number of worker protections in Ontario. It specifically:
– Allows an employer to force an employee to get a sick note if they take an unpaid sick day. It also allows the employer to force an employee to get a doctor’s note to explain a leave day taken to care for an ill family member
– Repeals the inclusion of step-brothers, step-sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, and nieces as people for whom you can take family leave or bereavement.
– Repeals the section of the Employment Standards Act that requires employees be paid equally for doing the same work
– Repeals the minimum wage increase scheduled for January 1, 2019
– Repeals any entitlement for employees to paid sick leave
The stated purpose of this Act is to increase Ontario’s competitiveness to attract and keep business. Premier Ford stated “Businesses tell us that job growth starts with cutting the burdensome, job-killing red tape that drives investment and jobs out of Ontario.” However, the question needs to be asked: If Ontario business is prospering so well, why do we need these changes that will fall most heavily on the backs of low income workers? From January to September 2018, Ontario has gained 122,700 jobs. Ontario’s unemployment level in 2018 has hit its lowest level since 2000. Why then do we need to hurt working people to give the corporate sector more money?
As detailed in an article in the Gazette in October, the minimum wage increase to $15/hr did not need to be halted. Burlington businesses have coped well with the increase to $14/hr and many of the minimum wage employers we have in this city are thriving with new ones opening all the time. There is no crisis in Burlington that required this draconian action.
Another key article of the Act is to remove an employee’s entitlement to 2 paid leave days a year. The Retail Council of Canada pushed Ford to do this with evidence such as “One employer noted that, as of August 31, 2018 (66% of the way through the year, calendar-wise), 57% of the yearly paid PEL eligibility had already been used by employees.” So the argument is essentially that because people are using most of their sick days they shouldn’t have them. How does that make sense? People get sick. People have sick children to care for. Ensuring that a low income mother doesn’t suffer financially for being ill seems like it should be in everyone’s interest.
Beyond stripping the two paid leave days, the government has also moved to restrict people’s ability to take UNPAID leave. Now for any leave (bereavement, Caring for an ill family member, personal illness) an employer can demand proof that the leave was required (i.e. a doctor’s note). The Canadian Medical Association among others has attacked this portion of the bill. Dr. Gigi Osler, president of the CMA pointed out “Requiring sick notes can introduce unnecessary public health risks; patients who would have otherwise stayed home may spread viruses or infection while out to get a sick note,”
Also, consider the local impact. There are only 9 walk-in clinics in Burlington and the majority of those close by 7pm with limited weekend hours. During the day, wait times can exceed 2 hours as the clinics are overloaded with people who actually need care and not just a note. Adding new people unnecessarily to those lines will hurt everyone in the city and reduce the impact of health care services across Burlington.
Then there is the cost. A doctor’s note for illness usually costs between $20-$30 at a walk-in clinic. The people Bill 47 is targeted at are workers at or around minimum wage. They typically cannot afford the loss of income with taking an unpaid day off. Now under the new legislation they will need to not only forgo that day’s wages, but if their employer demands a note, they will actually have to pay to be sick. This is not the way to help people on low incomes.
The last provision that will cause considerable hardship is repealing the requirement that people be paid equally for the same work. The RCC argues “While this sounds fine in theory, these provisions have thrown off numerous issues. The first of these is that there are very significant cost implications for retailers.”
Retailers will need to absorb a cost for paying their part time workers the same as their full time ones however, there needs to be consideration for what is fair. People should be paid for what work they are doing, and the existing rules still allowed different pay by seniority. The previous law was only protecting employees from being underpaid by arbitrary means.
In January of this year, labour law came into effect that significantly improved the lives of low income workers in Ontario. Over the time it was in place, Ontario gained large numbers of jobs and our economy is currently incredibly strong with record lows in unemployment. Despite that the Ford government felt it is necessary to change the laws in the hopes to drive job growth. In Burlington it’s clear that companies providing low wage jobs were not in crisis.
So, the question has to be asked again: Why do we need to hurt working people to give the corporate sector more money?
 Andrew Drummond was the New Democratic candidate for the Burlington seat in the provincial legislature last June when Doug Ford was made Premier and Jane McKenna was elected in Burlington.
Related news story:
Minimum wage earners lost $1750.
By Ray Rivers
November 24th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The only similarity between the federal economic statement and the one Ontario announced last week was that neither has a plan to deal with their growing deficits. Canada’s debt as a percentage of its GDP is the second lowest among G7 countries – higher than Germany but lower than the USA and less than half of Japan’s numbers.
 We cant just print the money we need. Despite all the alarm-ism during the last election, Ontario’s debt compared to its GDP is quite a bit lower than that of our national government. But unlike a provinces, which can only control its levels of taxation and spending, the federal government also controls and/or influences interest rates, currency exchange rates and the money supply, including printing our money.
When Donald Trump cut US business taxes Canada had to respond or run the risk of watching new business investment move to larger markets south of the border. Canada has long had lower effective corporate taxation rates than the USA but that competitive advantage has now mostly vanished. And cutting corporate taxes to restore that advantage would have added tens of billions more to the deficit, making it a non-starter.
 “America was no longer the fair-minded economic partner we had come to know.” But it was really Trump’s trade policies that made our government sit up and take notice. America was no longer the fair-minded economic partner we had come to know. The painful process of renewing NAFTA, the unwarranted and costly tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the US role in slashing the price of Alberta oil required a new strategy – one of trade diversification.
For those who lived through the government of the first Trudeau this is a bout of deja vu. Pierre, faced with an unfriendly Nixon administration, developed what was called the ‘Third Option’ – hoping to diversify our dependency on trade away from the US. The Third Option, which also gave us our domestic metric system, largely failed as a trade strategy.
Britain was joining Europe which was itself pre-occupied resolving internal trade barriers, Japan was struggling with its identity as an emerging economic powerhouse, and China turned the tables on us making us trade-subservient to them. Then Richard and Pierre were replaced by Ronnie and Brian who bonded beautifully, and they buried what was left of the third option. Canada and US agreed to lower trade barriers in a process that eventually included Mexico in NAFTA, and the rest is history.
 We are so tightly integrated to the American economy that it would be very difficult – if possible – to lessen that integration. So today we are even more closely integrated into the US economy with three quarters of our exports and a third of our GDP tied to US markets. After all it is so much simpler to just load a truck and drive it across the border than to be bothered shipping overseas to foreigners. We share a common culture and language (except for Quebec), and the US is a prime travel destination for Canadians looking to escape the cold, making us sometimes more American than the Americans.
But we do pay a price when it comes to national identity, and in the end we can find ourselves alone, being bullied by our major economic partner who thinks it has found its own third or fourth option – the nationalist cry of America First. We have since negotiated a number of other so-called free trade agreements, most importantly with Europe (CETA) and also Asia and the Antipodes (CPTPP,) so it is time we put our money where our mouths are on trade diversification.
But it will take some money to restructure our economy onto more of an export footing. The goal of boosting Canada’s overseas exports by 50 per cent by 2025, will not be met just by accelerated depreciation, but it is a good start. And the business community, manufacturing in particular, is besides itself with praise of this mini-budget. For once they are not complaining about a growing budgetary deficit.
Increased manufacturing would enable Canada to better diversify its exports beyond our current raw materials mix, and may also lead to greater import substitution – though that is not the stated goal. Almost as a footnote, companies investing in clean energy production also get this break.
And just to be fair, other businesses will also be entitled to an accelerated depreciation though at a lower rate. Depreciation rates will be raised from four to twelve percent for a pipeline company, for example. And where is our pipeline is the lament of the Alberta oil industry and its government?
 The Alberta government wants the federal government to help pay for oil tankers – Ottawa hasn’t said yes to that request. They were disappointed that the federal government didn’t pamper them by supporting the price of oil in this budget, or offer to pay for more rail cars – after it had already bought a pipeline company. Perhaps Mr. Trudeau was concerned that he’d be accused of starting a national energy program? And besides how could he reconcile a subsidy for oil when the government is imposing a carbon tax?
The federal government is also planning to redirect and speed up some of its planned funding for the national infrastructure program into marine ports, roads and railways to expedite overseas trading opportunities. And yes this throws last election’s deficit targets into the toilet not that Mr. Trudeau was on the road to balance the budget next year anyway.
There is no guarantee even if Trump is defeated in the next federal election that Democrats would not be just as protective when it come to trade. In fact there have already been rumblings from the new Congress-elect that they will want to re-examine USMCA. One has only to recall how the Canada-friendly Obama administration implemented a “Buy American” clause in the US stimulus package as he undertook to fight the 2008/2009 recession.
Conventional wisdom is that you run a deficit in a recession and a surplus in good times. The Liberals are making the case that, given the deficits in our economic infrastructure, there is no better time to invest than when the economy is booming and the money is rolling in. After all, how prudent would it be to balance our federal budget for the short run only to forego investing to make our economy viable for the longer run?
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:
Countries by Debt – Fall Economic Statement – Canada’s Economy –
Business Reaction – Third Option – 50% Export Growth –
Manufacturers Happy – Will it Work –
By Pepper Parr
November 22, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
In December of 2014, the city council that was first elected in 2010 sat behind a table on the stage of the Performing Arts Centre waiting to be sworn in. his was the first time the swearing in ceremony took place at that venue.
Trumpeters from the Burlington Teen Tour Band were in the gallery to the left of the stage; the sound of blaring trumpets heralded the event.
While the council being sworn on December 2014 was a repeat of what residents elected in 2010 there was still some electricity in the air.
As each member of Council was announced, after they had been sworn in, the applause for Marianne Meed Ward was just that much louder, lasted just that much longer than the applause for anyone else on that stage. If two people had stood up and shouted “bravo” and clapped loudly I swear she would have gotten a standing ovation.
 Mayor Elect Marianne Med Ward at the Polish Hall on election night Mayor Goldring may not have recognized what was going on but the 2018 election campaign had begun.
On Monday, December 3rd, Meed Ward will be recognized as Mayor and the trumpets will blare. The Meed Ward supporters will see this as the beginning of a new dawn.
It is far too early to tell if Marianne Meed Ward is going to grow into a great Mayor. There are still a lot of people out there that do not wish her well.
She is going to have to work with five people who have never served on anything that has had input into city policy considerations. Angelo Beneventigna is familiar with a lot of the people at city hall and has more in the way of understanding as to how the city works than most of the others.
What Beneventigna has to figure out and realize is that he wasn’t elected to be a “friend” of those who handle the day to affairs of the city but to assure that they are always accountable to council and to the wider public they serve.
Meed Ward will be something of a den mother for the first 18 months.
Paul Sharman, a man that Rick Goldring once said was the best strategic thinker he has ever met, will be sitting on the same stage.
 Councillor Sharman with his back to the camera debates with Councillor Meed Ward during the 2011 Strategy Planning sessions. Sharman will be the odd man out on this council. He brings a reputation for abrasiveness and a tendency to be abrupt with people. He is more comfortable getting his own way.
When he became BFF (Best Friends Forever) with Councillor Craven there was little hope of there being much in the way of collaboration. Sharman consistently referred to Meed Ward’s “ideology” which wasn’t one he shared. He was more comfortable with his own. The Gazette began to refer to Sharman as “Mr. Data”; he always wanted more data. Over time we realized that the request for more data meant that Sharman didn’t have to make a decision.
Goldring saw Sharman as the best strategic thinker he had ever met – We won’t test the veracity of that statement. However, Paul Sharman does come at what he does from a strategic perspective.
 Intense to the point of making delegations uncomfortable ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman does know how to drill down into the data and look for results. In 2010, to the surprise of many and shock to others, he fist nominated himself for Mayor. When Rick Goldring filed nomination papers for the office of Mayor, Sharman muffled his ambitions, withdrew the nomination for Mayor and nomination himself for the ward 5 council seat that Goldring was vacating.
Meed Ward needs Paul Sharman to get through the first 18 months. He is the only person on the new Council that can get a budget passed. He might even manage to somehow produce a budget with a 0% increase. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in city reserve accounts; – Sharman knows those accounts better than any of the newbies..
Could he find a way to loosen up some of that money?
 Funds to pay for the break water barrier were found – all the city had to do was raid the Hydro Reserve fund. If the outgoing council could find a way to use $4 million plus that was in the Hydro Reserve find for the breakwater facility at the LaSalle Park Marina – Paul Sharman can find a way to wiggle some funds out of other reserve accounts. This of course will drive the Director of Finance bananas – that department likes nice thick reserves earning solid interest for the city.
Many people are watching how Meed Ward handles herself in the first 18 months. The people she took political power from are quite willing to see her fall on her face.
The pressure will be immense, which will be nothing new to Meed Ward. The current council has bullied and harassed this woman for the past eight years. Some of the behaviour bordered on the kind of thing you report to authorities that can take corrective action and ensure that there is due process.
Her council colleagues were not the only level that harassed Meed Ward; the failures in the Clerk’s department are legion.
Meed Ward tried hard to establish a good working relationship with Mary Lou Tanner when she was first appointed as the Director of Planning. Her efforts didn’t take.
In the months ahead, expect Councillor Sharman to go into his “smarmy” mode and do his best to charm the newcomers. He has reached out to all of them.
He will sit and wait patiently and should Meed Ward not be up to the job she has taken on – Paul Sharman will try to convince the city that he can do the job – for he was the best strategic thinker Rick Goldring had ever met.
 The mandate is thin – the hope runs very deep. Meed Ward’s mandate is thin. However, she has the goodwill and high hopes of many of the people who want to see the core values that are Burlington be recognized, kept and built upon.
Too early to tell if the battle lines for the 2022 election are drawn.
For her fans, and her supporters – stop lauding and convincing yourselves she can walk on water. What Marianne Meed Ward needs is to be held accountable day in and day out.
In 2014 she asked people to trust her – they did and she changed the way the city operates.
She will need that trust going forward.
Related news stories:
The day city council beat up Marianne Meed Ward
By Ray Rivers
November 20th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
They’re calling it an ‘economic outlook and fiscal review’. After all it’s been less than six months since Ford rode his big blue machine into the premier’s office. But it’s clear from this economic statement that his team hasn’t yet sorted out all its priorities, even as the brain trust tries to deliver on some of the promises from the election campaign.
The deficit was just one of Ford’s prime promises, and the PC’s s have managed to wrestle it down by a whacking half billion dollars to a mere $14.5 billion. Of course the deficit would be even lower had Ford just accepted the auditor general’s estimate rather than creating his own numbers. But it makes better politics if you can claim you inherited a huge deficit.
And what we are seeing of the accounting is a little confusing because Ford’s finance minister, Vic Fedeli, insists that they actually saved the taxpayers over three billion dollars. He is obviously referring to the price of the environmental programs his government killed. But getting rid of ‘cap and trade’ also killed the goose that laid the golden egg which funded those green initiatives.
 The statement is pretty clear. Is it the direction the Ontario economy should be going in? Conservatives are about nothing if not cutting taxes. And Ford, true to his word, has run up half billion dollars of new debt by providing a tax credit for those earning less than $30,000. This credit, called LIFT, is being sold as an alternative to allowing the minimum wage to rise to $15. But nobody is buying that since two thirds of workers in that income range already don’t pay any taxes. And allowing minimum wages to rise wouldn’t have increased the deficit.
He is also dabbling in trickle down economics by killing the income surtax for the wealthiest in Ontario – those earning more than $300,000. Tax cuts at the top and bottom mean that the middle class will need to make up the difference eventually – subsidizing everyone else.
And while the government may take credit for a four cent gas pump price drop, that should be kept in context. Market forces alone have reduced prices by over 25 cents from earlier this year, and those forces may just as easily reverse direction into the future. And then an imminent federal carbon tax will cost at least another four more cents.
 A program that will last less than a year. Very tough on those that lose the benefit. Perhaps the biggest cost saving in this mini-budget actually comes from dropping the universality of the ‘OHIP plus’ drug plan, excluding those with an existing private health plan. Clearly this was something the previous Liberal government could have done and it is a good example of the kind of efficiency Ford had presumably been talking about. Education spending appears to not have been touched and health spending has increased ever so slightly, helping Ford keep his promise of providing more beds.
The government is taking heat for terminating three oversight agencies which monitored francophone rights, child care and the environment. Despite promises to continue to deliver this oversight through the auditor general or ombudsman offices, it is unlikely the Environmental Bill of Rights will survive. And there is a double whammy for Franco-Ontario residents as a French language university proposed for Toronto is also canned. That is on top of the three satellite university campuses Ford has already chopped.
 Is never cutting costs good financial stewardship? Overall this mini-budget is about austerity as the government looks into the nooks and crannies of its programs to save some tax payer dollars. Of course much of those saving will end up funding the PCs own priorities, like the tax cuts and the senseless fight with the federal government over the carbon tax – which legal experts expect them to lose. A hiring freeze has also helped keep the cost of government down, although Ontario already had the lowest provincial public sector costs per capita in Canada.
And the overall effect of the budget will be contractionary at a time when Ontario is likely nearing the end of its economic boom cycle. Cutting the renewable energy and energy retro-fit programs, formerly a key growth area, will hurt all the working people that Ford keeps promising to help. Trickle down tax cuts for the rich never pay for themselves in increased economic activity and serve more as drain than an economic pump. Finally, the lower income tax cuts pale compared to the economic spending power of a $15 minimum wage for those who spend everything they earn.
But, Ford did deliver on his Buck a Beer promise – sort of.
If this budget was intended to stimulate growth and employment it is a failure. And despite the rhetoric and hype, Ford is pretty much retaining most of the previous government’s initiatives, even if that means turning what he called a Liberal mess into a PC mess.
Except when it comes to the environment! The often promised new climate change plan is nowhere in evidence and if it ever does arrive may likely surface as a piece of tokenism – like a page from the former Harper federal government’s playbook on the environment. But we should remain optimistic.
 Catastrophic fires in California are now an annual thing.  Flooding on the east coasts and hurricanes that demolish communities are now part of the hurricane season. For a budget which does so little, especially even it comes to the deficit, its pictorial presentation as a comic book almost seems appropriate. But there are serious issues facing the province and one of the most critical is nowhere to be seen, not even in the closing statement… “We gladly tighten our own belts now, knowing that it will provide this generation and future ones with the secure, prosperous future they deserve.”
What good is it to balance the books when the very planet our lives and livelihood depend on is in peril?
Notably absent from Ford’s mini-budget is any attempt to mitigate the province’s contribution to global warming. That is no less serious a public concern than the debt, especially for Ontario’s youth. But at least we can take comfort from the immediate extension of liquor store hours and the upcoming whacky weed stores next year.
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:
Mini-Budget – Cutting Oversight – More Cutting –
Even More Cuts – Environmental Commissioner –
We asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department and worried about annual tax increases of around 4% annually. Here is what Vince Fiorito thought.
By Vince Fiorito
November 20th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Congratulations to Burlington’s elected City Councillors and Mayor! May you govern wisely for our community’s benefit!
 These were the rules Mayor Elect used at her ward meetings. The city adopted them for city wide use. Your First 100 Days sets the tone with constituents, city staff and various interest groups. Please treat everyone with dignity and respect to foster a cooperative, collaborative environment at city hall. You never know who can help or hurt you, including former political rivals, their supporters and the person who waters the plants in your office? Why the plant person? They overhear conversations as they water plants and know much more than they let on; same with the person who empties the trash. I recommend you get to know “everyone” at city hall.
We need a Mayor at the helm with all Councillors rowing in the same direction to make progress on important issues. I recommend all Councillors fly their ideas by the Mayor first before making public pronouncements.
Within the first 100 days, everyone must have a firm understanding of how the city collects and spends our money. I recommend an independent audit of city finances to establish baselines to measure improvements, as well as identify past poor decisions, waste and mismanagement.
You have a mandate to change the city Official Plan and solve traffic congestion problems. Please design our city to accommodate walking, biking, taxis (fleet owned autonomous vehicles), public transit and delivery vehicles. Make developers accommodate and pay for their fair share of improvements which increase property values.
All new development must prioritize creating affordable, accessible housing for seniors living on fixed incomes and millennials moving out of their parent’s basement.
We need to reform our electoral system to make every vote count, even when 11 candidates run against each other.
 Vince Fiorito with a piece of equipment that got dumped into the Sheldon Creek ravine. On the environmental front we need:
• lids on Blue Boxes
• a city wide tree by-law
• a plan to relocate the Aldershot Quarry
• a ravine management policy
• a biodiversity and endangered species management policy
• an invasive species management policy
• a recognized right to know about local pollution sources
• a program that makes polluters pay for improvements to the ecological systems that clean our air, purify our water and producing uncontaminated food
 Vince Fiorito, a ward 5 resident and an acknowledged expert on invasive species and local environmental issues. He was named the Sheldon Creek Steward by Conservation Halton
By Pepper Parr
November 19th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
With Thanksgiving and Halloween behind us the next holiday Season has to be Christmas.
How do you know it is here? Check out the mall parking lots. Or look for the community Christmas trees that are going up.
 It looks as if Aldershot was the first community to erect a ward level Christmas tree. Aldershot appears to be the first ward in the city to put up a tree. Mayor Elect is doing the right thing early in the game – getting out with people in Aldershot, wrapping her arms around the shoulders of the ward election winner and the second place candidate – the job now is to pull the community together and show them how people can work collaboratively and cooperate.
 Mayor Elect Marianne Meed Ward with Kelvin Galbraith, elected to represent ward 1 and Judy Worsley who placed second. Hopefully Worsley will stay in with the Aldershot BIA. Some questions that come to mind?
The new council will be sworn in on Monday December 3rd at 6:30 pm at the Performing Arts Centre. When the event took place in 2014 there was a motivational speaker – Ron Foxcroft did the honours then.
Does the Mayor Elect have any say in who that speaker should be? And if she does who should Marianne Meed Ward choose to address the audience? Who is there out that that has the kind of public profile needed to attract attention and who has a message that will represent what Meed Ward wants her council to stand for and someone who will resonant with the audience.
Ken Greenberg was in Burlington a couple of years ago with a strong message on how municipal governments can build community. He is one the better recognized planners in the country – speaks around the world.
If Jane Jacobs were alive she would have been a natural.
The decisions Meed Ward makes in this first hundred days are vital to both bridge the gaps that exist between those who won and those who lost and at the same time send a message – this is who we are and this is what we want to do.
Deliver that message with strength, humility and a tablespoon of kindness.
Outgoing Mayor Rick Goldring made it clear that if called upon for advice he would be available; Meed Ward would be wise to lunch with him several times during at least her first year in office.
Sometime in the near future she will announce who will staff her office. The person she chooses as Chief of Staff, assuming she retains that position, will be interesting.
Meed Ward set out a part of her agenda when she used a point of privilege at the final meeting of the current municipal government to make it clear that personal attacks were no longer going to be tolerated.
She said:
 It started at the Polish Hall on election night: where it goes – only time will tell. There were a lot of high hopes in that hall. Meed Ward said “it was very unfortunate that a member made comments that were a personal attack. .
“We have seen enough of that.
“We saw it during the election
“We see it around this table
“It is a new day
“This stops here
“It stops tonight
“The new council will have respect for each other.
“Respect for the people and respect for staff”
Meed Ward has let the city know some of what she stands for; she has been applauded for not letting this slide by.
Related news story:
A strong statement was made: This stops now.
We asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd. There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; with the thinking coming out of the Planning department and worried about 4% tax increases. People voted for a new path to get the city out of the rut many feel it is in.
By Don Fletcher
November 18th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
“What a great initiative!
Asking for engaged citizens’ ideas, prior to the swearing in of our new Council.
While not original, I think the primary objective of the new Council has to be to “fix” our proposed Official Plan.
 By “fix”, I mean to retract from the Halton Region’s inbox our current proposal, and in particular, modify and resubmit a downtown plan (with community support) to be a mid-rise (4-8 storey) community, as opposed to the proposed high-rise ( 14- 25 storey) alternative.
Why?
Because:
1) This is what our Mayor-elect Marianne Meed Ward campaigned on. Trust needs to be restored.
2) The urgency of the submission was self-imposed and the Region will understand, given the “sea change” based on this issue at City Hall.
3) It’s what most engaged citizens want, because they felt that they were being ignored with its’ hasty approval. It became an “election issue”, maybe the central one.
4) It will unquestionably be the “elephant in the room” with all other matters. Deal with it upfront!
5) The developers need certainty with what is permissible in making future investments.
6) LPAT, unlike its’ predecessor OMB, treats the Official Plan as an enforceable criterion (I.e. teeth).
7) The Official Plan has longevity, unlike many of us.
 Planning staff put together charts and posters to advise, educate and inform the public. Okay. So nothing radically new there!
I would like to add a “how” we could do this..
Relationship is the medium for results and accomplishments.
I learned this as an executive of a $5B successful Canadian public corporation.
We have a largely new Council with a current understanding of what the residents want, and a staff that mistakenly thought they did.
I’m not a big fan of the one employee of Council, City Manager construct, with all of its’ implications. It feels as though we, the citizens through their representatives, are having our input constricted through a straw.
I recommend that the new Council convene an offsite (3-day) planning session, with all the functional heads in the administration (including the City Manager) at City Hall, to work through the City’s values, objectives and plans. A derivative benefit of such a meeting would be to begin developing those relationships needed to move the City forward and in a positive direction.
I know of a few very capable facilitators who could help.
What should I be paid for this idea?
A seat at the offsite meeting table. After all, I am a management consultant.”
Don Fletcher is a downtown Burlington resident who has been a city council watcher for some time. Before retirement he was a senior vice president with a public Canadian company in the communications and entertainment field.
By Pepper Parr
November 16th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It was the last meeting of a city council first elected eight years ago.
It took place in make-shift space while a refurbished council chamber was being completed next door. Seen as a “lame duck” municipal government with a mandate that had mere weeks left, it was still fractional, and unable to work as a cohesive whole.
Council meetings traditionally end with members of Council speaking to concerns in their wards. In this instance they all chose to speak of their achievements during the eight years they served the public.
The Strategic Plans, which up until this council was first elected, were traditionally the plan that a Council was set for the four year term.
In 2011 city council decided to create a 25 year Strategic Plan that they expected other councils to follow. New city councils are not obliged to stick to that Plan created in 2011.
The Official Plan got sent off to the Region where it has to be approved to ensure that the city’s OP fits with the Regional OP. The problem with that is most of the newly elected council didn’t buy into the OP that was passed against the objections of the vast majority of the 30 + people who delegated before city council earlier in the year. That story isn’t over yet.
City manager James Ridge was absent; the city staff position, delivered by Deputy City Manager Mary Lou Tanner, was that council and staff had worked very well together.
If one were to define the issues that motivated many of those who elected a new municipal government, the disrespect many people felt the council had for the people who were delegating and the degree to which council relied on Staff reports that. Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward and now Mayor Elect consistently pushed staff for answers. The other members of Council, for the most part, accepted the reports. Mayor Goldring did get better at asking questions during his second term.
It was clear to anyone watching the web cast that John Taylor is going to miss being a city Councillor. It had become the focus of his life – he is literally counting the days until he has to give up his parking spot and turn in his security pass – they will probably let him keep the one he has. Expect him to be on the phone on December 3rd, trying to resolve an issue for someone. He said that being a city councillor was the :“Best job I ever had.”
Councillor Lancaster told her colleagues that the event she will remember most is the occasion when she repelled down the side of a 26 story tower.
Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison wasn’t quite ready to give up his job or accept the fact that he lost his election.
He had the temerity to say that: “A portion of my traditional support was taken away by the vote Marianne Team and my opponent with non-factual information with the result that the enjoyable honour I have had of serving my constituents and the city is over. I guess I am not too young to retire. See you around.”
It was a stunning, totally ungracious comment made at the last sitting of the current council at city hall.
The Dennison comments were followed by a few words from Councillor Lancaster who said the event she remembers most fondly was the day she repelled down the side of a 26 story building. Not sure where the value to the public was in that event.
Mayor Goldring closed out the comments by talking about what he felt had been achieved during the eight years he was the Chief Magistrate.
Mayor elect Meed Ward began to respond to the Dennison comment when the Mayor pointed out that comments were not debatable. Meed Ward replied that she wanted to make a”point of privilege” which the Mayor didn’t fully understand and turned to the Clerk for direction.
Meed Ward said she could help the Clerk and read out the section of the Procedural by law that states when the integrity, character or reputation of a member is made a “point of privilege” allows the member to draw attention to the remarks and the member has the right to respond.
She then proceeded to make the point that was really what the election was all about.
Meed Ward said “it was very unfortunate that a member made comments that were a personal attack. .
“We have seen enough of that.
“We saw it during the election
“We see it around this table
“It is a new day
“This stops here
“It stops tonight
“The new council will have respect for each other.
“Respect for the people and respect for staff”
It was a blunt direct statement from a woman who had to put up with at times disgraceful behavior on the part of every member of council.
No more.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd – tell us what you think has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in.
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department and worried about annual tax increases of around 4%
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
By Jim Young
November 15th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The first thing Burlington has to do is to breathe. Everybody just take a deep breath. We have voted to change council in a massive way that has replaced not only most of the Councillors, but hopefully has transformed the viewpoints and attitudes that previously prevailed. We, and they, now need a little time to digest this.
If I have learned only one thing in my years of committee involvement and delegation at City Hall; it is that municipal politics move slowly and when we consider the importance of city actions and decisions that is probably a good thing. So where is the need to rush?
On October 23rd, we awoke to a new mayor, five brand new city and regional Councillors and one returned incumbent. Our new mayor is smart, savvy and brings eight years’ experience on council to her new role. But, with the utmost respect and support for her, she needs time to adjust to her new role which I have no doubt she will accomplish.
Our new Councillors need time to get their feet under the table, understand their new roles and some of the procedures and protocols of the job. Even the returning Councillor Sharman may need time to adjust to a new and very different council in which he may now find his views in the minority.
Individually we may have voted for or against them but they are now our democratically elected City Council and, as such, deserve our backing and support, at least until we get an honest and reasonable opportunity to judge them in action. Let us not rush to criticize or condemn.
City staff also need time to adjust to their new reality too. If our new Councillors hold true to their promises of change, this will create a seismic shift in many of the directions they have been following up until now.
Like a large ship, any city needs time to change course. This is not a time for recriminations or wholesale staff changes. We need an orderly transition to the new citizen/city paradigm we have been promised.
 Regional Councillors displaying the new 2 gallon blue boxes. They have one more meeting as a Regional government before their term of office ends. Perhaps more important than the first 100 days of the new council are the few remaining days of the outgoing council. Until the new Councillors officially take their seats on December 3rd, we are at the mercy of outgoing City Councillors who also double as Regional Councillors. This leaves them with a major say in the Regional Adoption of the New Official Plan which the majority of them favoured but was the main reason so many of them are no longer city Councillors.
We must demand that they accept that the people have spoken finally and emphatically against the adoption of The New Official Plan and conduct themselves accordingly. For them to vote at the Region to adopt the Plan, while perfectly legal, would be morally repugnant and an act of unparalleled vindictiveness on their part.
The outgoing Regional Council should must defer to the clearly voted wishes of the people of Burlington. They have spoken and deserve that the outgoing council take the high road on this matter.
Meantime let us not rush to oppose our new batch of city Councillors or demand immediate answers to long term issues but support them in their transition and give them the opportunity to live up to their promises.
We elected them, let them prove themselves worthy. In order to do that they need and deserve a little breathing room.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
They get sworn in on December 3rd – tell us what you think has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in.
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department and worried about annual tax increases of around 4%
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
Krista Richards doesn’t see much that she likes at city hall.
By Krista Richards
November 13th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
This election we almost got a full clean sweep of council. That is a huge message for this new council.
 Lori Jivan, Acting coordinator of budget and policy patiently leads people through an explanation of the budget and the workbook the city created. Hitting the ground running is an understatement. The most obvious thing to deal with is the new budget. And more to it, how the City treats the taxpayers and Citizens of Burlington with how they spend our money.
In the past 4 years, City Hall including past council, spent money recklessly on “nice to haves”, 3rd party contractors, and consultants that even a high schooler could see was a waste of money. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs John Q Taxpayer had City Staffers (NOT ALL OF THEM), ignoring emails, phone calls, lying to residents, and giving favors to their friends. And yet, no transit plan (8 years that has been talked about), infracture is horrible, the OP, etc etc etc. This HAS TO STOP.
The most direct way, to start to right the ship…… control the money! Control departmental spending, 3rd party contractors rebilling for the same job 3 times because they messed up. Stop hiring consultants who are friends of a friend. These few examples of reckless spending, goes hand in hand with the Citizens of Burlington being treated like persons of servitude. There is a great deal of money that could easily be trimmed from the budget with no loss of service. In some respect, services could be increased if someone actually put some effort into their department(s).
 City manager James Ridge City Staff at all levels should be put on notice by this new Council that they are there to serve to Citizens and not the other way around. New Council should be going through old budgets NOW line by line, and not just trust the staffers on what they say. There is a lot of smoke in those lines. While doing so, this will send a clear message for the City Manager and staff to wake up and do their jobs, if not a lot of dead weight, bad attitude paycheck collectors needs to leave. Making room for people honestly get what public service means and want to do it well.
The Citizens of Burlington voted for change. We need fiscal, ethical and moral responsibility at City Hall. If this new council accomplishes this very thing, it wont be easy but they will be well on their way to doing exactly what we elected them to do.
 We have asked Burlington residents that we know and have communicated with in our seven years of operation what they think the new city council needs to do in its first 100 days.
The Councillors gets sworn in on December 3rd – what has to be done in that first 100 days to set a new path and get out of the rut many feel the city is in ?
There are a lot of people unhappy with transit; even unhappy with the thinking that is coming out of the Planning department.
We asked the people we knew, they aren’t all friends of the Gazette, what they thought could be done and should be done.
By Penny Hersh
November 12th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
 The residents voted in a new council with the mandate for change. Will it be what residents expect in what they perceive as a reasonable time frame? That is yet to be determined.
In response to this request and because Engaged Citizens of Burlington – ECoB feels that resident involvement is essential I asked the seniors who attend the current events class I am a part of for their input.
In no particular order this is what was expressed.
– Get control over development.
– Culture change at City Hall – Council needs to direct staff, not the other way around.
– Council needs to stop depending solely on Staff Reports.
– Council needs to work with the Provincial Government – Regarding” Places to Grow” and the demands put on Municipalities to reach the mandated target set out for them.
– Council Meetings should take place throughout the City not only at City Hall. Parking is a problem downtown, and if the meetings take place during the day there is a parking fee.
COMMUNICATION:
– Town Hall Meetings – to explain in “layman’s language” what is happening. Telling people to go to the City’s website is not the answer.
– Newsletters from Councillors that do more than just detail events happening in their wards. High praise for Marianne Meed Ward’s “ A Better Burlington”.
– City needs to hire a Public Relations firm to make Municipal Politics “resident friendly”.
 Together we can make a greater change in the culture at City Hall, and never again have to wait for an election to make our voices heard. The change Burlington needs requires commitment from City Hall and the citizens of Burlington alike, and it needs to start now. Together we can make a greater change in the culture at City Hall, and never again have to wait for an election to make our voices heard.
To be part of this change ECoB is asking residents to participate in the resident ward level committees that are being formed. More information can be found on our website Engagedburlington.ca To sign up email us at info@engagedburlington.ca and make your ward level committee a success.
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