By Pepper Parr

February 11th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

Revision were made to this story after its initial publication.  Some of the quotes were attributed to the wrong person.

We got a note from James Schofield, who tells us that he reads the Gazette and added that there was “a line in your piece on the code of contact that caught my eye.

“Lancaster said that the incidences of harassment and intimidation have occurred both internally and externally and appear to be linked with the insurgence of social media, media, increased communication and participation with the public.

“It may be worth some reflection on the role the Gazette plays in relation to this.

“I’ve largely stopped commenting on your site. I won’t go as far as to say I’ve been harassed or intimidated, but I’ve certainly had my character and motives called into question and been the target of juvenile name-calling. Far from being a place for respectful dialog and an intellectual debate on issues and ideas, I find the Gazette’s comments are often replete with ad hominem arguments and those with entrenched ideas spewing vitriol at anyone who dares express an alternative point of view.

“So I just don’t bother trying anymore. And I suspect I’m not alone. I think that’s a problem, because as the moderate voices keep their heads down we lose out on a diversity of opinion, and the comment section increasingly becomes an echo chamber for those with a particular way of thinking.

“For example – how many commentators have written anything critical of ECoB? Or in support of council’s efforts to pass the Official Plan before the election? Even on something as banal as trying to make it easier to ride a bike around this city, few are willing to stick their necks out. Why poke the bear? Yet when I listen and talk to people in the community — many of them Gazette readers — I find a broad diversity of opinion on these matters. You’d never know it from reading the comments.

“I’m thankful you’re at least moderating comments — I can’t imagine how much junk you must filter out as it is. A real name (and ideally, validation of that name against a social media account) would be a good step. But I think the recognition that commenting on your site is a privilege, not a right, and certainly not a “free speech” right, is also important.”

We consistently have to tell people that we will not approve their comment.

In the back and forth email with Schofield we asked: Are we part of the problem? We wanted to be part of the solution.

Schofield said “I don’t know if you’re part of the problem or not. You’re at least serving a helpful role in providing some form of media coverage in a city otherwise devoid of it. But I feel there is a strong echo chamber effect, both in the comments, and in the editorial content you feature. “Aldershot resident thinks…” and the like tend to pull from the same streams of consciousness as your most frequent commentators. Can you do more to foster some diversity — both in ideology and in demographics? Can you find some female voices and some young people to complement your “angry old man has something to say” content?

Schofield makes an exceptionally good point – one that has bothered us for some time. There are some very very good comments – and boy is there ever a lot of crap that doesn’t see the light of day.  Our objective was to give people a place where their comments and ideas can be published and shared.

In the the past few days the comments on the cycling survey the city is running are a case in point. There are people on both sides who go at it day in and day out and make the same argument.

The New Street Road diet idea was a disaster in the way it was executed and I think that the views of those opposed it were part of what brought the city the point where they realized it had to be cancelled.

The idea never got a chance to have a true trial run – mostly because the city found that the road was continually under some form of construction.

Schofield said he did not want to “dwell on New Street but I largely agree with you. As one of the instigators of the whole saga I’ve learned a lot from the entire experience. I still think it was a sound idea, but poor execution, and a 2 km stretch that didn’t connect to anything useful on either end didn’t set it up for success. Lessons learned and we’re moving on.”

Part of the purpose of the comments section in the Gazette is for new information to come to the surface, a place where sound, rational ideas can be voiced and a place where a citizen can hold the politicians they elected to account and ensure that the bureaucrats actually serve the interests of public.

Related content:

Lancaster asks for an anti-bullying – harassment Task Force.

By Tony Schafer

February 8th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

Having attended meetings of the ECOB, the mayor’s reverse Town Hall and the January 23, 2018 committee meeting, I get an overall sense that this Council has betrayed the citizens of Burlington.

You seek our support to get elected. We elect you because we believe you will represent our interests. We work with you to develop a vision of what we want our city to become in the future and this is reflected in the Official Plan (OP). You then embark on a history of deal-making with developers that ignores this plan and what was at one time our collective vision of the future.

The introduction by staff at the January 23 committee meeting included a detailed history of many meetings held to engage the citizens of Burlington in the development of a new OP. It seems you wanted to convince us that staff and Council had done everything it could to get our input. Unfortunately for us citizens, your feedback of the way this was playing out was poorly communicated and whether this was by accident or design we will never know.

Approval of the 23-storey building across from City Hall was a wakeup call that you had your own agenda, and that a new OP would have no more integrity with this Council than the last OP. That was the first time it became crystal clear to me that the vision of the future was being formed by a small cadre (with one exception) of omnipotent demigods we call Council.

The people of Burlington who have come forward in the debate on the new OP overwhelmingly oppose what you are doing. While this may not be a large enough sample to extrapolate this opposition to the entire population of Burlington, it should provoke you to give pause in this process and seek a new vote of confidence from the people to proceed.

In a February 1 article in the Burlington Post, the deputy City Manager is quoted as saying “by delaying the approval, Burlington would lose an opportunity to shape how growth and change in the city and downtown is going to occur”. Since we are talking about an OP that looks decades into the future, it is a huge stretch of credibility to believe that a delay of several months until after the municipal election will make any difference in how this plan unfolds.

If you truly believe that the majority of our citizens support your plan then you should have no concern with putting your belief to a test with an election.

On the other hand if you persist in ramming this unwanted OP down our throats, we can only hope that there will be a sufficient slate of new candidates in the fall election so that this Council, will be removed from office in a free and democratic vote, and replaced by elected officials who will work with the citizens of this community to develop an OP that truly represents a vision of the future that we can all buy into.

 

By Ray Rivers

February 2nd, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

What could be more conservative than Doug Ford announcing his candidacy for the leadership of the provincial party, live and direct from his mother’s basement? It’s called family values and if the Fords are anything, they are family. Doug’s father, also a Doug, was an MPP under the great Mike Harris, so Doug Jr. comes to his politics honestly.

Much as Justin Trudeau did, Mr. Ford is seeking to fulfill his destiny, ascending to the lofty political top rung which is his divine right. The divine right of the political elites. This is not new – it is how we practice what we like to call western democracy.

South of the border there are the Bush boys, Ron and Rand Paul, the Kennedy clan and now the Donald Drumpf dynasty with Ivanka Trump lining up to become the first woman president of that country.

Back in the great white north we made Paul Martin’s son, also Paul, our 21st PM. Jack Layton’s great-granduncle, William Steeves, was a Father of Confederation. His grandfather Gilbert was a Quebec cabinet minister, his father Robert was a federal cabinet minister, his son Mike is a Toronto Councillor and his widow, Olivia Chow, was a companion MP and an also-ran just behind Doug Ford in the last election for mayor of Canada’s largest city.

Dominic Leblanc followed his father Romeo into the federal House. Then there is John Clement and his stepson Tony. Joe and his son Robert Ghiz were PEI premiers. Quebec’s premiering Daniel Johnson was succeeded by sons, Pierre-Marc and Daniel. Of course there was David and Stephen Lewis; James and Peter Lougheed; Elmer and Peter MacKay; Ernest and Preston Manning; Harry and Robert Nixon; Grant and Rachel Notley; and Jim, David and Tim Peterson, and their sister Deb Matthews.

More relevant to the PC leadership race there was the husband and wife team of Jim Flaherty and Christine Elliot. Elliot got her comeuppance running for leadership last time and was beaten by the now disgraced Patrick Brown – though there is still suspicion about how he won. And while the particulars of Brown’s departure are still pretty much of a mystery, it’s looking more and more like an inside job. Somebody or a lot of somebodies wanted him out.

No sooner had Brown left the building but his party president Rick Dykstra was also shown the door – something to do with sexual misadventures during his time with the federal party. And that has dragged the federal Tories into this mess as well.

Caroline Mulroney is at least a new face. And the sins of the father are not necessarily those of the daughter. But anyone who read Stevie Cameron’s ‘On The Take’ will be swallowing hard before voting for her just because of that name. Mulroney may have been a success in the business world but she can’t help but come across as an opportunistic carpet bagger, and hardly the savior to restore respectability to a party heavily mired in scandal and in-fighting.

Doug Ford was the first candidate out of the gate. Despite his own royal blood, he claims to want to represent the real Tories, the grass roots crowd – as opposed to the elites. But it really depends on how one defines elites. He may not be the brightest star in Tory heaven but nobody should count him out. He ran a close second to John Tory in the last mayoralty race, losing by only 60,000 votes in a very competitive race.

His brother Rob was loved by his followers and Doug was his puppet master, except for the crazy drug and alcohol-induced incidents, which Rob needed no help in orchestrating all on his own. So Doug can count on the full support of ‘Ford Nation’ in this race. And he knows a thing or two about business, successfully operating and expanding the label company his father started and bequeathed him.

And his entrepreneurial acumen runs deep into his more youthful days when he was reportedly a major player in Toronto’s drug scene. And that is exactly the kind of experience this province needs as it prepares to introduce legalized marijuana to the public. He might even still have his list of contacts and suppliers, who knows? He has been accused of hanging out with some pretty unsavoury criminal characters as well – hey but friends are friends.

Ford continues to deny this part of his history despite all the evidence the media has uncovered about his past as a hash supplier, and we’re not talking corned beef. But today Doug, like his brother before him, preaches law and order, tough love for all the criminals and crooks. He comes from the Mike Harris school of cutting taxes for the wealthy, privatizing public services, gutting social services, and cutting red tape.

Elliot and Mulroney have just announced they too are in the race. There may be a couple more wannabe’s announcing before the February 16th deadline and that will make it an even more interesting and exciting donkey race. But the voting will be by over before March 10th when the new PC leader will be announced.

Ford has also announced that he is dropping his bid to run again in this year’s municipal elections against John Tory. And that makes sense since running against Tory, a former leader of the Ontario Tory party – and with a name like that to boot – would be strategically unwise. He doesn’t need to alienate any more conservatives than he already has.

Even so, it’s unlikely John Tory will be doing much to support him in the leadership race or even in the provincial election should he become leader. Hearing how Ford had announced his candidacy, Tory couldn’t resist quipping that he’d love to follow the Ford method of announcing his own candidacy, but his Mom lives in an apartment.

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was 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.     Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Canadian Political Families –   Doug Ford –    Dykstra –

On the Take –    More Ford –    Even More Ford –

Even More of Ford –    Ford Family History –    Defence of Ford’s History –

Ford’s Basement –

By Rick Goldring

February 1st, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

The Gazette has published all but one of the eight State of the City addresses. Links to those addresses are set out at the end of this unedited address.

 

Good morning everyone. I would like to offer a warm welcome to the annual Mayor’s State of the City Address.

Thank you all very much for joining me this morning. It means a lot to have so many people here.

I would like to recognize the Burlington Chamber of Commerce for hosting this event, as they have done for many decades.

In particular, thank you to Keith Hoey and his team, Marty Staz and the board of directors, along with the volunteers and membership. Together, you facilitate many different programs and events throughout the year that helps bring the community together and build relationships that are essential to the prosperity of business in Burlington.

And thank you to all of today’s sponsors.

Congratulations to Bell for another successful “Bell Let’s Talk Day”. Your efforts since 2010 are making a significant impact in de-stigmatizing mental illness.

Before I commence my remarks, I do want to comment on the format this year.

In preparation for this year’s state of the city address, I took a look at last year’s event and watched and listened to myself for the full 45 minute speech. That was very hard work. My team and I decided to break up the long winded 45 minute speech by shortening the formal speech and then breaking into an interview with Tim Caddigan, Senior Director of Programming from Cogeco asking me some questions which will include questions from a few of you who are here this morning.

You all have a question card at your table. If you could please use it to write down your questions; there will be staff going around collecting these cards right after my speech, during a video presentation.

My colleagues from Burlington City Council are with us today. I am proud to work alongside these men and women who are deeply committed to our city.

Please welcome councillors Rick Craven, Marianne Meed Ward, John Taylor, Jack Dennison, Paul Sharman and Blair Lancaster.

Our City Manager James Ridge is here, along with many staff from the city today. I am proud of the dedicated, competent and caring staff working effectively every day to make this city the best it can be.

I am very pleased to welcome our regional Chair Gary Carr, Oakville Mayor Rob Burton, Halton Hills Mayor Rick Bonnette and Milton Mayor Gord Krantz. It is great working with you as we build strong communities and a prosperous region at Halton Regional Council.

It is a privilege and an honour to serve as Mayor of Burlington.

Each day I reflect on how grateful I am for everything that I have in my life. I am thankful for the education I have had growing up in Burlington.

I am thankful for my family, especially my wife Cheryl who is here with me this morning.

I firmly believe that we should all be grateful for where we live, whether it is Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Halton Hills or Hamilton. These are all great communities.

Now I have been inclusive and respectful of our neighbouring municipalities, I am going to focus on Burlington!

Best Mid-Sized City in Canada

If you haven’t heard, MoneySense Magazine has recognized Burlington as the best mid-sized city in Canada five years in a row.

We are the safest region in Canada. Burlington alone saw a thirty-one percent drop in crime over the last five years.

We have a healthy and resilient economy. Last year, our city added over twelve hundred jobs, an increase of eighty-eight percent year over year.

We continue to maintain a higher than average percentage of jobs to population ratio. We have the highest ratio in Halton Region, even higher than Waterloo Region or the cities of Markham, Brantford and Hamilton.

A significant number of Burlington families are financially stable.The latest census data shows that Burlington has an average household income that is twenty-five percent greater than the provincial average.

Our unemployment rate nationally is lowest it has been in forty years at five-point-seven- per cent and our local unemployment rate is a percent below that at four-point-six per cent.

Our residents are well educated. Seventy-three per cent of us have post-secondary education and the average rate of residents holding a University degree in Burlington is higher than the provincial average.

We live longer. The life expectancy in Halton Region is about seven to eight per cent longer than that of provincial average. We don’t just live longer; we live longer with lower incidences of morbidity – the incidence of disease and illness – than the provincial average.

The percentage of Burlington residents whose income is below the Low-Income threshold is five-point seven per cent versus the province as a whole at nine-point-eight per cent.

Despite the fact that Burlington is flourishing overall we need to recognize that there are people in our community who are struggling. No city is immune to social issues like mental illness, addiction, accessibility, isolation, women and children abuse, unemployment, underemployment and poverty, including some of our youth and seniors and many others.

We are fortunate that in addition to the great work being done through Halton Social Services and Housing, there are not-for-profit agencies, service clubs and faith communities that reach out and fill some of the voids.

Burlington Economic Development Corporation

In 2017, we saw significant growth in Burlington’s economy. On top of adding over twelve hundred jobs, we saw a significant reduction in the Burlington Office vacancy rate.

Some of the new companies we welcomed to Burlington include Amec Foster Wheeler, an international energy and industrial company, A-Z-X sport, a promotional products manufacturer and distributor and Cardon Rehab, an innovator in the physical therapy equipment business.

2017 was a year of expanding the supports available to support businesses to innovate and grow in Burlington.

Crossroads Media Centre is an example of this, it was recently acquired by a private investor. In the coming months, the Centre will transform to become a multi-use facility offering state-of-the-art television studios and digital media facilities.

The Halton Hive, Burlington’s first co-working space and business centre for entrepreneurs, startups, and digital content creators, has relocated to the Centre and will be integral to the re-imagining of the space and the growth of a vibrant community of complementary businesses. This is an exciting development for Burlington and Halton Region, with more announcements to follow soon.

Last year, when I stood before you for the 2017 State Of The City address, I announced the signing of a lease for Burlington’s Innovation Centre, TechPlace just around the corner at 5500 North Service Road and a few months later in June, the doors were open, and they were in business.

Today, I’m excited to tell you how TechPlace has thrived beyond our expectations.

First, I want to share with you how TechPlace came to be. In a 2016 report, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce identified a critical gap in Canada’s business growth strategy. Forty per cent of new jobs in Canada come from companies less than five years old, but they failed short of growing into large organizations.

It was clear that in Burlington we needed to do our part by nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship. Not just in Burlington but the GTA west region leveraging relationships within Halton and Hamilton. After all, the business community does not look at municipal boundaries, they look at regional markets.

Today, TechPlace is operating at full capacity with businesses on a waitlist.

Innovative technology companies from Dubai, Finland, Kitchener-Waterloo, Mississauga and Burlington have been accepted into TechPlace’s Launch Pad program and are thriving in their new environment.

For example, in October, representatives from BEDC met with a company named Orfer – A leading robotics manufacturing and robot automation company based out of Finland. Orfer was looking to establish a North American headquarters, and the company had met with many municipalities across the GTHA. After just one meeting with the BEDC team, Orfer decided TechPlace was the new home for their soft landing. And Burlington is the place for their new North American headquarters.

Service Path is yet another success story. This company helps organizations automate their sales processes and reduce the time to quote for complex services. This industry that didn’t exist ten years ago is now a forty-two billion dollar industry. Since settling into TechPlace, the company has hired more staff and is looking to expand within Burlington.

This is precisely the kind of activity we anticipated. Fostering new partnerships within the startup ecosystem and creating a destination for new and growing technology companies to tap into new ideas provides opportunities to network and collaborate.

I want to congratulate everyone at the BEDC for the success of TechPlace. TechPlace is helping to put Burlington and the whole GTA west on the map as a centre for entrepreneurship and innovation.

The BEDC has also been working with key stakeholders to make sure that we have the land we need to attract businesses to Burlington.

In order to support the City’s strategic plan to be a City that Grows, Burlington must make the shift from Greenfield development to redevelopment, intensification and the creation of mixed-use amenity rich employment hubs that meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s employers.

We have over one million square feet of land in the development pipeline that will head to the market.

This means one million square feet of land, ready for new industrial, commercial and institutional spaces in Burlington. Having these spaces ready for businesses looking to locate, expand or start-up in Burlington is an important value-add, to the site selection process.

To attract innovative and prosperous businesses and people to our city, the focus will be on developing and leveraging a strong brand that positions Burlington as a highly attractive business location and a place to call home.

Evolving City

Burlington City Council is in the process of finalizing a new Official Plan for the City that is set to see approval in the spring.

There is nothing simple or easy about where we are as a city.

When you pave over farmer’s fields for suburban sprawl; it is relatively easy to take out a piece of paper and plan where roads, parks, schools, retail stores and homes are built. I contrast that with the redevelopment of existing underutilized areas.

Our draft plan outlines the areas where we will grow.

Fifty per cent of Burlington’s one-hundred and eighty-five square kilometres is protected from development. This area includes much of North Aldershot and the area north of the Dundas – 407 corridor that includes Mount Nemo, Kilbride and Lowville. The vast majority of people we talk to want to keep it that way.

Thirty-four per cent of our city is traditional neighbourhoods and it is critically important that we maintain the character and integrity of those neighbourhoods.

Eleven per cent of the city is our employment lands primarily around the QEW-403 corridor. These lands are crucial to our current and future economy and work force providing a variety of career opportunities for Burlington residents.

The remaining five per cent of the city includes the areas around our three GO Stations and our downtown. These are identified for most of the increased population and corresponding job growth.

After decades of Greenfield development of traditional single-family home neighbourhoods, we are now in essence built out.

This is reflected in the 2016 census data that shows Burlington having the lowest population growth in over fifty years.

Between 2011 and 2016, we grew from 176,000 people to 183,000, which works out to an annual growth rate of around point-eight per cent and the vast majority of this increase occurred in the North East part of the city. Excluding this area of the city, our annual growth rate is only point four per cent.

We know that most cities grow over time – this is just natural – but the question is often asked. “How much should we grow by?”

The Conference Board of Canada states a growth rate of one-point-one per cent is optimal and suggests a higher rate if there is a disproportionate seniors’ population.

Why will Burlington’s population increase?

Some of the reason for this is that we are mandated to grow by the province. We know that primarily because of immigration, the population of the GTHA will grow from seven million to ten million people by 2041.

We know that Halton Region will grow from 550,000 people to one million. While Burlington’s 2031 target is quite modest, the 2041 target will be defined in 2019 at Halton Region.

Our Proposed New Official Plan is for the next twenty-five years and beyond.

A stable and growing economy requires a core working age population. Communities with no growth cannot sustain a strong economy as the workforce ages.

Canada is addressing declining birthrates through immigration, and cities must also grow their population to remain economically vital and sustainable. Too little growth constrains the economy; too rapid growth stresses services and infrastructure.

We need to continue to create as much variety in our housing stock as possible and housing will take on different forms that are no longer the traditional detached dwelling.

We will provide opportunities for ageing baby boomers to downsize. It’s critical that the housing supply is increased – to improve affordability for younger residents and so that families are not priced out of our traditional and new neighbourhoods.

Without reasonable growth in our housing stock, real estate prices will increase even more than they are currently and the pressure on school enrollment will be unabated.

Our vision for the areas around our three GO Stations will provide Burlington residents with the benefits of walkable neighbourhoods.

The Aldershot Mobility Hub area is already seeing development. As more people move into the area, there will be an increase in jobs, amenities, stores, restaurants and pubs that everybody can find value from.

And this growth can help lead to that grocery store in the west end that many people have been asking for.

Residents will have access to all day fifteen-minute GO Train Service within seven years and sooner than that we will see fifteen-minutes all-day service provided by Burlington Transit along the Plains Road and Fairview Street Corridor.

And with more people living in the downtown, current businesses will thrive and new businesses such as stores, restaurants and other services will be attracted to move to the downtown.

When I ask people what they like about living or working in the downtown; invariably the answer is “You can walk everywhere.”

You can walk along our waterfront, to the Burlington Performing Art Centre, to the Art Gallery of Burlington and to the new Joseph Brant Museum when it opens as well as to stores, restaurants and cafes.

It’s exciting to think that new developments will have car share and bike share programs. This will result in some residents making the shift and choosing not to have a car or reducing multiple car ownership because they can walk, cycle or take transit for the vast majority of their trips. And, if needed, they can use the car share program for long distance trips or to make larger purchases that don’t happen on a regular basis.

This type of lifestyle is healthier and reduces the carbon footprint. We know this isn’t a lifestyle that will work for everyone, but in time, it will be desirable to many.

Deciding how Burlington will evolve isn’t just about new buildings and where they will go.

We are making an improved commitment to ensure that new development will be architecturally attractive and unique, with a great feel for pedestrians on the street. By doing this, we will be proud of how our city looks and continues to grow.

A publication titled “Intensification: what it is and what it promises” on Neptis Foundation website said this about intensification.

“Intensification is promoted as a way to achieve several benefits.

First, if population growth can be accommodated at higher densities, or within existing urban areas, or both, less Greenfield land will be required for new housing.

Second, research shows that when density increases beyond a certain level, automobile use declines in favour of transit, walking and cycling.

Third, where surplus infrastructure capacity exists in urbanized areas, adding more people to these areas make more efficient use of public urban infrastructure such as water and sewer pipes, as well as soft infrastructures including schools and social services.

In short, development in already urbanized areas plays to the city’s strengths rather than spreading its resources over an ever-wider territory.”

Public Engagement

Building a beautiful and vibrant Burlington is a never-ending marathon. There are always many hurdles to cross as the city will be around much longer than any of us.

Public Engagement is a critical piece of the decision making process for municipalities.

The City of Burlington was named the Organization of the Year by the International Association for Public Participation for applying the “Community Engagement Charter” adopted in 2013. It recognizes our mandate to consult and engage with residents in all matters.

As one judge put it “Employees now ask how to engage — not whether we should or not”.

As I look forward to our continued progress with public engagement, I am inspired by a 2017 lecture given by Bret Stephens of the New York Times to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia titled ‘The Dying Art of Disagreement’.

He suggests that we may be failing in how we deal with disagreement and that disagreement is critical to a decent society.

I want residents to know that Council recognizes the importance of accommodating differences on the many issues that we face as a city. The view is shared that “every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.”

To be successful, I am drawn to some simple advice from Bret Stephens of the New York Times that reads

“To disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, and watch closely. You need to grant people with alternate views moral respect; give people the intellectual benefit of the doubt; have sympathy for people’s motives and participate emphatically with a different line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded by what has been said.”

We will continue to develop and improve how we connect with residents and engage our community and support discussions around issues with strongly held viewpoints – that is democracy.

Partnerships

In order to build a great city, you need to have great support and great partnerships.

We are fortunate to have that with our federal and provincial representatives.

Last year, we received over eleven million dollars from the Federal and Provincial governments through funding applications for various city projects.

Six million dollars of that was for the Joseph Brant Museum Expansion, which allowed us to break ground for the work that has begun this winter.

Once completed, the museum will expand from the current five thousand square feet to seventeen thousand square feet of barrier free space for gallery displays, interactive programming, the storage of collections and community outreach.

It will also become a destination and a beautiful addition to our waterfront.

We also partnered with the Province of Ontario, the City of Hamilton, Mohawk College and Sustainable Hamilton Burlington to launch the Centre for Climate Change Management at Mohawk College last year.

The centre is the first of its kind at an Ontario college and will help accelerate the region’s transition to a low-carbon economy and support Burlington’s Community Energy Plan, which has already made a significant impact in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The partnerships we build with our neighbouring cities and the different orders of government are crucial to the success of Burlington.

As Helen Keller said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”

Connected City

I mentioned earlier that Halton residents have a higher life expectancy than the rest of the province and the country.

I believe a major contributing factor is the opportunities in Burlington to be mentally and physically active, to be engaged and to build relationships that result in a sense of belonging within our community.

2017 was a banner year for community building and togetherness in Burlington.

In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, the city initiated a goal of reaching one-hundred and fifty Love My Hood events. The program was designed to build a healthier Burlington by engaging and empowering residents to come together and host events celebrating their neighbourhoods.

I’m happy to say we surpassed our goal of one-hundred and fifty with one-hundred and fifty-eight Love My Hood events.

This initiative attracted residents of all ages. We had a fourteen-year-old boy who hosted a block party that brought one-hundred neighbours together.

You’re never too young to make an impact and initiate change in our city. Last summer, we opened up a brand new playground at the Bolus Parkette in the Aldershot community.This park was designed by local kids and built by the community members. The playground has created a place for culture and community activities to thrive and has provided a positive sense of place, inclusivity and community.

A special thanks to the McNally Foundation for their tremendous financial support not just for the playground but also the journey that got us there.

In August last year, the new Michael Lee Chin and family patient tower opened which is a major milestone in the redevelopment of Joseph Brant Hospital. The renovations to the original tower of the hospital will continue this year.

This past November, Burlington’s Carpenter Hospice broke ground on a significant capital redevelopment that will see the construction of a new state-of-the-art resident wing and a new wellness outreach centre that will extend the Carpenter Hospice care into the community.

I am proud to say that I am the Honorary Chair of the capital campaign for the Carpenter Hospice’s Making Room Redevelopment Project.

Thanks to the generous contributions from donors over the last decade, Carpenter Hospice has over three million dollars saved, and now it’s up to us, the community, to raise three million dollars more to reach the goal of six million.

I know I can count on the support and generosity of residents and businesses in our city to make this happen because when there is a need, our community comes together like no other.

Ladies and gentleman, these are just some of the reasons why Burlington continues to be the best mid-sized city in Canada.

This concludes my formal remarks. While Tim Caddigan and I get comfortable on the chairs, please turn your attention to the video.

 

Previous State of the City addresses:

State of the City 2011
State of the City 2012
State of the City 2013
State of the city 2015

State of the City 2016

State of the City 2017

The Gazette has published all but one of the eight State of the City addresses. 

By Ray Rivers

January 25, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Damn I hate when that happens. Now I owe my publisher, a bottle of single malt over who’ll win the election this year. But I won’t give it to him until election night, just in case Brown manages to defy gravity and bounce back.

We don’t know anything about the allegations of sexual misconduct which have led to this yet, though that detail seems irrelevant at this point. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, here in Canada. But it is pretty incriminating when virtually all of his office staff had resigned because he initially wouldn’t – though he has now. No doubt we’ll be getting the tabloid details in weeks to come, but it sure looks like he and his political career are toast.

The Ontario PCs will have a major test before them to appoint a new leader and determine if they move away from the platform Brown had assembled. Despite Liberal accusations that he was playing stealth with his carving knife, this was one of the most progressive and middle-of-the-road Tory platforms in over a generation.

Given that most Ontario voters still had no idea who Patrick Brown was, this gives the PCs a chance to grab the limelight in Ontario politics and introduce a new leader. And depending on their choice that may more than compensate politically for having to shed Brown when the polls looked so good for them. So this may not be the gift for the Liberals that some pundits might speculate it is for them.

Still, this has to be a huge personal defeat for Brown who had spent his entire life up to now priming himself for political leadership. If the facts prevail against him in this case, that will be another huge lesson for everyone, and especially males with a penchant for whatever it was he did that led to this.

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was 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.     Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Patrick Brown resigns.

There was someone waiting in the wings – she never expected to become the leadership this way.

Publisher’s note:  Whenever Rivers has to pay up on his wager debts he invites me to his home and we seem to consume all of the bet that I won.

 

By Rory Nisan

January 23rd, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

After writing my article “Emerging Democratic Issues at City Hall” on December 21, I hoped for more respect for the views of Burlington citizens and, more generally, a more transparent attitude from the City as it enters a critical time in its development. Time will tell, yet there have been numerous developments in recent weeks that continue to give cause for concern for the state of our city from a democratic perspective. Here are four:

(1) The letter from City Manager James Ridge to EcoB:

While within his right to send a toughly worded letter threatening legal action related to a couple of political lines on a website, Mr. Ridge would benefit from using more honey and less vinegar. He could have invited ECoB for a meeting to discuss his concerns and to hear from ECoB also. It would be entirely proper and reasonable for the City Manager to reach out to a community group and meet with them and hear their concerns.

Instead, he used the threat of employing taxpayer money to sue the taxpayers themselves. Would expensive litigation have benefited the City, the taxpayers or ECoB? In fact, the only beneficiaries would have been the lawyers. ECoB could have called his bluff but took the high road and removed the supposedly offensive language from their website without delay.

Mr. Ridge should seek out the high road also.

(2) #GetTheFacts
A social media campaign is underway from the City of Burlington, using the hashtag GetTheFacts to make posts on Facebook supporting the draft official plan. Having worked in strategic communications myself, I can see the hallmarks of a deliberate intent to change citizens’ views about the downtown hub especially.

What is wrong with the city promoting its own plan? If it were an agreed upon, final document, there would be no problem.

However, this plan is anything but official. City Council has not voted, yet the unelected communications arm of the city is promoting the plan in order to sway the public’s opinion and that of city councillors, and is using taxpayer funds to do so by paying the salary of the communications staff.

If you don’t believe there is a strong bias, take a look at this post, which states that “higher density developments are located near the Burlington GO station away from the downtown core” when the proposal for the downtown includes permission for 17-story buildings. If 17 stories isn’t high density in Burlington, I don’t know what is. #GetTheFacts is the hashtag but these sound more like alternative facts.

The city has no business influencing anyone about plans that are not approved. This is textbook anti-democratic.

This is almost certainly not the case of a rogue social media specialist. These deliberate strategies are typically thought through and assigned at senior levels. I have found the social media team at the city to be second-to-none in professionalism and providing information to the public.

This campaign should stop immediately; the City needs to get out of the way and allow the democratic process to unfold.

(3) $278,970
We learned recently that Mary Lou Tanner has been promoted to Deputy City Manager. A new position was created, and Ms. Tanner won an internal competition to be named to the role.

The City Manager should feel free to re-organize as he sees fit, but he asked for new money to pay for the position, instead of making the internal sacrifices necessary to have a new senior executive role.

Councillor Meed Ward put forward a motion asking that the new salary be included within the existing corporate management human resources budget but it failed at committee.

How much is a Deputy City Manager paid? Her exact salary isn’t known but once CPP, EI, benefits and other costs are added up, the new position will cost the taxpayer $278,970.

Is that good value for money? What else could the city do with that kind of cash? Here is one hypothetical example of many: the cost of a pilot project in Oakville in 2011 allowing seniors to ride free one day per week was estimated to be $45,200 per year and increased ridership on Mondays during the pilot by 578%. A rough, back-of-the-napkin calculation would indicate that we could allow seniors to ride free six days per week for less than the cost of the new Deputy City Manager.

Here is another idea. The $278,970 could be divided into four salaries of $69,742 to hire some top-notch staff to create a unit dedicated to improving the level of consultation and dialogue with taxpayers, building on best practices and ensuring that citizens’ view are heard at the highest levels and fully considered.

(4) Timing of the Reverse Town Hall
The Reverse Town Hall was a good initiative — an example of what Burlington needs in more supply. However, it was set at the last minute and on the same evening as a critical meeting for ECoB.

A charitable view of this would be that it was an unfortunate coincidence of timing.

A less charitable view would be that there was an attempt to undermine attendance at ECoB’s meeting by forcing people to pick between engagement sessions.

As an optimist, and giving the benefit of the doubt, I prefer the former view. However, even that scenario would indicate an unfortunate lack of consideration of the political calendar in Burlington. More careful attention should be taken in the future, and if the City were taking a more inclusive approach to an important citizen-based committee, this error would not have occurred as outreach to ECoB at the same time as this event would have been on someone’s calendar.

Several of these four issues are connected in some manner, and they all concern democratic practice at City Hall. In an election year, I hope we can aspire to do better.

Councillors and the Mayor were given a mandate to govern in 2014. However, that mandate is not a carte blanche. They must return to the citizens regularly to check the pulse and ensure they are not outstripping their license to govern.

The Mayor taking questions at his State of the City Address is the right thing to do (though $45 tickets makes it very difficult for low- or fixed income individuals to be able to afford to attend and ask questions), as was the (unfortunately timed) Reverse Town Hall. Whenever an elected official puts themselves in the hot seat and takes un-moderated questions it is a positive development.

However, this City Council does not have a mandate to undertake the major changes envisioned in the updated Official Plan. A change of this magnitude needs to be put to the voters, if not as a referendum, then as an important element of an election’s discourse. Luckily, the 2018 election is right around the corner so it would be no trouble at all to delay a decision a few months.

A good and necessary first step was taken when the decision on the new Official Plan was delayed to April to allow more consultation. Going into important debates this week, we need more of this kind of reflection of the will of Burlingtonians.

To put it in social media terms, this should be #OurDecision.

Rory Nisan is a long-time Burlington resident and Lester B. Pearson High School alumnus. He has been an active member of the Save Pearson community organization.

 

Related content:

Nisan on Emerging Democratic Issues at City Hall

By Ray Rivers

January 22, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

It’s 8 am on a sunny Saturday morning and you’ve received a message on your phone, also blaring on radio and TV, that there is a missile of unknown origin coming your way and you need to seek immediate shelter. That is the kind of terror that people living in Hawaii recently experienced. That it was a mistake this time, a technical error, doesn’t make it any less gut wrenching. In fact that incident begs the question about our country’s readiness to face the unthinkable.

There is a no-brainer – ban the bomb – but that’s not going to happen because it’d have to be global. Singing Kumbaya from the universal planetary hymn book just won’t cut it, and neither will hope and prayer. But then who would want to do this to us? Canada has no international enemies, right, except maybe ISIS or the Taliban? We are otherwise at peace.

And if peace ain’t enough, there are some of those anti-missile defence systems. Shooting down your enemy’s missiles is almost as old an idea as the missiles themselves, going back to Germany’s V1s and V2s. The Russians now have more modern ABMs, so does Israel, China, India and the USA of course.

There used to be an international treaty banning the development of anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM). But then GW Bush tore it up and in the process empowered/emboldened one very paranoid former KGB agent by the name of Vladimir Putin. And the Russians responded by tearing up the treaty limiting multiple warheads (MIRV). MIRV missiles with ten to fifteen individually targeted warheads are real hard to find and get and the latest Russian technology makes these warheads even harder to take out.

All of this kind of talk takes us back to the cold war option of mutually-assured-destruction. Unless one can guarantee there are enough accurate ABMs to take out all the incoming nukes it’s back to the Doomsday scenarios, fallout and bomb-proof shelters, as they have retained and restored in Moscow.

Of course Ronald Reagan who was fond of Star Wars, got a lot of laughs, but back in 2005 Bush Junior tried to involve Canada in its military’s efforts at developing a fleet of North American ABMs. Despite years of testing and development and more money handed to the military-industrial complex than anyone can imagine, performance is still less than perfect. And perfect is what is needed if you are to prevent a multi-megaton nuclear missile from cleaning up your neighbourhood, giving new meaning to the term urban renewal.

Periodic test failures provide little comfort that these systems with highfalutin names like THAAD and Aegis would actually do the job. We can tell by the near panic we hear from the man in the White House every time his favourite Rocket Man over there fires off one of his new toys. They certainly couldn’t stop North Korea’s launches over Japan with their ABMs. What makes anyone think these systems could really stop the big one should it ever be coming to a location near you?

Paul Martin, clinging to power with a slim minority government and facing opposition from the Bloc and NDP, told Bush a big negatory back in 2015. Canada would not be in. And seriously, if there were four nuclear ICBMs headed to North America targeting Settle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver – and a Canada/US missile defence system could only intercept three of them – which city would get the short straw?

But some issues never go away. Media folk, perhaps prompted by US defence contractors, raised the topic again last week as Canada co-hosted an international summit on North Korea’s nukes, out in our own la la land, Vancouver. The purpose was to discuss enforcing sanctions on Kim’s little ole’ republic ahead of any negotiations, or something like that. And being the gracious hosts we are, we handed over some chump change (~$3 million) to the cash-starved US to continue to monitor the Russians and Chinese as they breach the UN sanctions.

Of course the hermit dictatorship wasn’t invited and neither of its two influential neighbours China and Russia attended either. So neither of those nations were able to explain why they violate the very sanctions they committed to when they voted for them. There were also suggestions that this would demonstrate to the often belligerent US president that negotiations, rather than the bully-pulpit, or worse, might be more effective. But Trump couldn’t attend, perhaps needing to get some exercise and attend to his putter… or doctor.

There were speeches by foreign ministers from some 20 countries apparently, but only Japan and the US really mattered and neither of those had anything new to add. I’m glad I didn’t attend, well actually I wasn’t invited. But had I been, I would rather have headed for a couple days of something more stimulating up at Whistler. Though at least Vancouver’s weather was a little warmer for a boondoggle than Ottawa’s or Burlington’s, but still too cold for those used to Mar-a-Lago.

But the good news was that this so-called summit had no sooner begun then it was upstaged by serious diplomatic events happening on the Korean peninsula. After a phone call and series of meetings North and South Korea have agreed on a joint athletics team for the 2018 winter games in Pyeong Chang (S. Korea) early next month. And they are talking about other stuff too – so who knows maybe they’ll be restarting peace talks? We’ve seen this movie before but perhaps the ending will be different this time.

Of course Trump is taking credit for this new dialogue, and it is not inconceivable that his fire and fury may have actually helped. But the peace prize, if there is one, will have to go to South Korea’s recently elected pacifist president Moon Jae-In – who came into office promising dialogue. And if that means Kim will ultimately be retiring his nukes, then we here, next door to his real nemesis, will be able to sleep soundly again. And that might put to rest any talk of rushing to pour real Canadian cash into an American ABM system, which has yet to prove its reliability.

Fellow NATO partners Turkey and Greece have recently purchased Russian-made S series anti-missile/aircraft systems. France has developed its own system. And we in Canada have a defence co-operation treaty and a free trade agreement with Ukraine, which had built many of the former Soviet systems, including those massive SS-24 nukes with 10 warheads, back in the day. Under attack from its more technically advanced neighbour now, this eastern European nation is actively seeking partners to help fast track development of its former missile and missile defence industries.

Perhaps we need to be looking longer and further afield if a missile defence system becomes a priority for this country and peace is no longer the answer. After all, there is merit in that the old adage that good fences make better neighbours. Just ask the Ukrainians.

Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was 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.     Tweet @rayzrivers

Background links:

Hawaii Missile Alert –  Canada and US ABM –  More Canada ABM –   Nightmare Scenario –   Joint Attack Preparation –   NK Summit –   ABM Tech –   Korea Talks –   Vancouver Summit –    Olympics –    Vancouver Summit –

Canada Contributes –    American ABMs –    American ABMs Failures –