 By David Goodings
August 24th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Cindy (not her real name) is a woman of about forty with a winning smile and a full head of long brown hair.
She has been working at minimum wage jobs for many years, often juggling several jobs at the same time. You have to be tough to survive in today’s world of precarious employment and Cindy is a survivor. A few months ago while talking about her present life and her struggle to make ends meet, Cindy was asked what it would be like to make $15 an hour. “That would be awesome,” she replied matter-of-factly. “That would be pretty sweet, I think.” [1]
Isabella Daley is another woman in her forties, well educated and highly articulate, with a wry sense of humour. She knows how tough it is to raise her children (and her condescending cat) while employed at minimum wage jobs. In a candid video produced for Living Wage Hamilton she imagines how her life would change if she were paid a living wage, currently $15.85 per hour in Hamilton. Not only would she be able to pay the rent and utility bills, she could do something for her toothache before it became unbearable, and let her daughter have a friend come for dinner. Isabella knows well what it is like to be one of the “working poor”. [2]
The Ontario Government’s proposed legislation, the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act 2017, includes raising the minimum wage to $14.00 in January, 2018 and to $15.00 a year later. It will be warmly welcomed by Cindy and Isabella and hundreds of thousands of other people as roughly 30 percent of Ontario’s workers are paid less than $15.00 an hour. [3] The government is also legislating that part-time workers be paid the same as full-time workers, and is allowing employees two paid emergency days and five unpaid ones each year.
As expected, the business community, represented by the Chambers of Commerce, is sounding the alarm about catastrophic job losses and dire effects on the economy. One recent study [4] predicts that approximately 185,000 jobs will be put at risk across the province. However, job losses on this scale are, literally, unbelievable as there is abundant evidence from past experience in the US and Canada that minimum wage increases have almost no effect on overall employment. A recent article in the Toronto Star [5] cites research in the US that examined 22 federal minimum wage increases between 1938 and 2009. It found “no correlation between those increases and lower employment levels.” A similar Canadian study [6] covering the years from 1983 to 2012 “found almost no evidence of any connection whatsoever between higher minimum wage levels and employment levels in Canada.”
So, who benefits from keeping the minimum wage low? First, executive officers and shareholders of large corporations—the source of about half of minimum wage jobs in Ontario. For example, the Weston family’s conglomerate, Loblaw Companies Ltd. which includes Loblaws, No Frills and Shoppers Drug Mart, estimates that raising the minimum wage to $15 will cost $190 million in additional wages. But last year the company paid shareholders $1.1 billion, almost 6 times the cost of the wage increase. [7] It looks as though the business community is asking Cindy and Isabella to accept “poverty wages” in order to make the executives and shareholders a bit wealthier.
Secondly, let’s consider the case of small businesses such as restaurants and independent retailers. The owners may respond by laying off employees or reducing their hours, or by raising prices, all of which have consequences for the successful running of their businesses. Alternatively, they may be able to absorb some of the cost of increased wages, or will eliminate jobs through automation. In any event it is very unlikely that the owners will feel much hardship from having to adjust their business models.
Corporations and small business owners should also be aware that when their employees receive fair wages they tend to be more productive, have better morale and better health, and are less likely to leave for another job. Businesses may also benefit from the fact that minimum wage workers spend almost all their wages locally.
Thus the debate on raising the minimum wage comes down to a straightforward choice: significantly improve the lives of Cindy and Isabella and thousands of other people like them, or maintain the financial returns of shareholders, executives and business owners. Fortunately the Liberal Government is in no doubt about what is the right thing to do.
 David Goodings was born in Toronto and studied mathematics and physics at University of Toronto and Cambridge. He was a Professor of physics at McMaster University for thirty years and has been a resident of Burlington since 2001. He is an active member of Poverty Free Halton and Living Wage Halton. Married to Judy for 37 years which may be why his favourite piano piece is: Ain’t Misbehavin’ by Fats Waller.
Sources:
[1] Working on the Edge, a video on precarious employment: www.livingwagehalton.ca
[2] Isabella Daley video, What a living wage would mean to me, on youtube.com
[3] Why politics drives a minimum wage wedge, Martin Regg Cohn, Toronto Star, May 31, 2017
[4] Bill 148 causing greatest chaos among business community in over a decade: chamber president, Kathy Yanchus, Burlington Post, August 17, 2017.
[5] Minimum wage hike won’t bring ‘doom and gloom’, economists say. Open letter by 40 Canadian economists endorses proposed provincial wage increase. Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Toronto Star, July 4, 2017.
[6] Wage Mythology. The minimum wage and the impact on jobs in Canada, 1983-2012, by Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford. Report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, October 2014
[7] Yes, Mr. Weston, you can afford a living wage, Angella MacEwen and Cole Eisen, Hamilton Spectator, August 14, 2017
 By Pepper Parr
August 22, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
This article has had a correction, Pearson will not open in September of 2018
The Going Back to School process has begun – the school supplies are being bought and fresh new clothing is being chosen.
News Analysis
Parents are learning what the fashion trend is going to be this year and the first timers are going to get a chance to learn what it is like to take a bus to school.
All seven high schools will open this year; it will be different next year.
The Board of trustees voted to close two of the city’s seven high schools: Lester B. Pearson will not open in September of 2018 and Bateman high school will not open in September of 2020.
 At first it was Central high school parents fighting to keep their school open. They put forward very compelling arguments and they were taken off the recommendation list.  Bateman high school was put on the recommended for closing list when Central high school was taken off the list.  Lester B. Pearson parents were never able to get the kind of traction they needed to change the minds of the trustees. Ward 3 trustee Andrea Grebenc who attended Pearson said she could not find a reason for voting to keep the school open. Both high school parent groups filed a request for an Administrative Review of the decision the trustees made– that review looks at the process used to make the decision – not the merits of the decision.
The parents had to file a request for the Administrative Review within 30 days of the decision – both met the July 7th deadline; the Board Administration had 30 days to respond to the request for a review – they did that by August 7th. The Ministry of Education now has 30 days to decide if there is any merit in the request for a review and to consider the position taken by the Board.
That gets us to sometime in the middle of September.
It would be a little naïve to expect any changes.
The Halton District school Board has been hit with Administrative Reviews before – the end result then was no change.
There is a very unhappy public in Burlington; parents are unhappy with the way the city failed to take a position on closing schools; many feel that the process used to make the decision was so flawed that the trustees should have taken the option that was available to them – and that was not to close any of the high schools at this time until there has been an opportunity for an in depth look at just what the problem is and if there is any likelihood of a change in the number of students that are going to attend high schools.
Burlington was in a situation where one high school was at 135% capacity (Hayden) while another was at about the 65% (Pearson) capacity level. That situation was the result of the traditional feeder schools for Pearson were filling Hayden instead.
The Program Accommodation Review process was new to the people of Burlington, new to the school board as well and in hindsight many people realize that it should have been done differently.
The school board trustees didn’t really deliver on their mandate – they took a hands off approach to the issue during the PAR process and then got swamped with the more than 50 delegations they had to deal with.
Kelly Amos, the chair of the school board was flummoxed on several occasions when it as clear she was in over her head with the process. At one critical meeting she had legal counsel for the Board giving her one opinion and a parliamentarian who had been brought in to provide advice and direction giving her a different opinion.
 Ward 5 school board trustee Amy Collard livid with the decision made by the Director of Education wears her feelings. One parent made the both astute and disturbing observation that the school board gave less time to deciding whether or not to close high schools than the city did on what to do with the Freeman station – which is now doing quite nicely in its new location.
The biggest problem the public has is the quality of the current school board. With the exception of Ward 5 trustee Amy Collard, the Burlington trustees are not delivering on the mandate they were given when they were elected.
 From the right: Vice chair Graves and Chair Amos – who along with the other trustees are expected to hold the Director of Education Stuart Miller on the left accountable – something they don’t appear to know how to do. They don’t know their jobs; they don’t ask hard questions; they don’t really hold the Board staff or its Director of Education truly accountable.
While the trustees may be nice people their job is to ask the probing questions. They have chosen to be nice and operate as what has become a bit of a clique that has a tremendous opportunity to make a significant difference but instead chose to take a pass.
Expect to see a lot of different names on the Burlington ballot in the October 2018 municipal elections.
Burlington can do better than what we have.
 Leah Reynolds on the right. She gets by with a little help from her friends. City Councillor Meed Ward on the left. We have a board where a trustee – Leah Reynolds – feels it is acceptable to receive text notes and advice on her computer from a member of the PAR, Marianne Meed Ward, who is also a city Councillor, who many believe expects the trustee to replace her should the council member run for the office of Mayor.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the behaviour of these two women, but Chair Amos pointed out that it was not against the code of conduct.
What the Chair failed to realize is that the letter of the law is important and relevant – it is however the spirit of the law that should prevail.
Of the 11 trustees on the Board of Education – four come from Burlington. Collard was the only one to vote against the closing of Bateman High school. Collard and Papin voted against the closing of Pearson.
 From the left- trustees Papin, Reynolds, Ehl Harrison and Grebenc sat in on most of the Program Accommodation Review committee meetings as observers. There was no opportunity or occasion for them to make their views known at that point in the process. The remaining seven members of the Board voted for the closing of both high schools. It is a little unsettling to realize that it was possible for trustees who do not represent the voters of Burlington to vote for the closing of high schools in Burlington even if the Burlington trustees had voted to keep them open.
There was not much in the way of a common cause between the four Burlington trustees. Three of the four bought into the Director’s recommendation to close the two high schools.
The sense that those trustees are keeping those seats warm while they battle for you is something that belongs in your Santa Clause and Easter Bunny box.
 By Staff
August 19th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Facts, opinions and political speeches – they are certainly not the same thing.
The Liberals have set up a media feature they call Facts Still Matter that they use to hammer almost everything Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown says.
So far the Conservatives have not come up with a way to counter the Liberal hammering.
The Gazette has not been successful in getting through to the Conservatives for comment and reaction.
In the most recent Facts Still Matter the Liberals maintain that;
 Leader of the Progressive Conservative opposition Patrick Brown Patrick Brown delivered a doozy of a speech to the Stratford Chamber of Commerce yesterday, littered with 19 false claims. This is a new record for a single speech, even for Brown!
Not only did Patrick Brown, in a very Trump-like manner, call our fact checks “alternative facts”, even though they are always credibly sourced, but he doubled down on his outright opposition to a $15 minimum wage in Ontario.
He then moved on to spread misinformation about healthcare, the economy, workplaces, and infrastructure just to name a few. If he wants to give speeches to Chambers of Commerce in Ontario, Patrick Brown needs to remember that Facts Still Matter in Ontario, and Ontarians deserve to hear it.
He Claimed: “[Ontario] is subsidized by other provinces…and no Liberal spin or alternative facts can hide that” and “No one wants to settle for a province that is a have-not Ontario”
Fact: He can use all the Trump lines he wants but that doesn’t change the truth. In 2016-17 Ontario paid $6.9 billion into the equalization program and only received $2.3 billion from it. In addition, according to the Mowat Centre, “Ontarians have consistently contributed more to the federal government in total tax revenue than they have received in federal spending in return.”
He Claimed: “Our credit rating is worse than Quebec”
Fact: This isn’t true. Moody’s and Fitch have the same rating and while S&P’s rating is higher for Quebec,
 The Brown statement does have some merit; Quebec,s credit rating is a touch higher than Ontario’s. (Source: https://www.ofina.on.ca/ir/rating.htm, https://www.finances.gouv.qc.ca/en/Financement_Quebec61.asp)
He Claimed: “You can see your economy sliding”
Fact: Ontario has led the G7 in economic growth for the past 3 years.
(Source: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2017/07/ontarios-economic-growth-continues-to-lead-g7-countries.html)
He claimed: “She’s giving free hydro to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.”
Fact: We’ve seen this one from Patrick Brown before. The last time the provincial Conservatives were in power, they spent $900 million importing electricity over two years just to keep the lights on. Given our position of strength, Ontario is a net exporter now, benefitting ratepayers to the tune of $230 million in 2015.
(Source: Independent Electricity System Operator)
He claimed: “The day after…they proceeded with 1100 more contracts.”
Fact: Wrong. Todd Smith, Patrick Brown’s very own PC energy critic, was on the Agenda with Steve Paikin on March 6th, 2017, admitting this was entirely inaccurate.
Here’s the exchange:
Steve Paikin: “But they’re not signing any new contracts. So the tweet says she signs the next round of bad energy contracts tomorrow is inaccurate, right?”
Todd Smith: “Yeah, Okay. I’ll say that’s inaccurate.”
(Source: https://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/wynnes-power-play, https://www.ieso.ca/sector-participants/feed-in-tariff-program/overview)
 He claimed: “You could see hydro rates spike by as much as 61 percent after the election.”
Fact: Wrong. The Fair Hydro Plan is already reducing electricity bills by 25 per cent on average for families, small businesses and farms. Lower-income Ontarians and those living in eligible rural and northern communities are receiving even greater reductions, as much as 40 to 50 per cent.
As part of this plan, rate increases will be held to the rate of inflation for four years.
(Source: https://news.ontario.ca/mei/en/2017/05/ontario-passes-legislation-to-lower-electricity-bills-by-25-per-cent.html)
He claimed: “And we’re seeing, we’re seeing hundreds of millions of dollars of [greenhouse] investment flee to Michigan and Ohio, because of hydro”
Fact: The greenhouse industry is actually expanding here in Ontario. Just this March, Greenhill Produce announced a new $100-million development in Lambton County that will create up to 300 new jobs. NatureFresh Farms is also building a $400-million distribution centre in Leamington. Both new investments build on the nearly 3,000 acres and 81,000 jobs already here. The Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers also says the industry has grown here by 150 acres a year.
(Source: https://www.lfpress.com/2017/03/14/chatham-kent-operator-looks-north-to-lambton-county)
He claimed: “What’s the point of having these [changing workplaces review] consultations if you already made up your mind?”
Fact: The all-party committee, which includes Conservative MPPs, is meeting next week to debate amendments.
(Source: https://www.ontla.on.ca/web/committee-proceedings/committee_business_agendas.do?locale=en&BillID=4963+&CommID=144&BusinessType=Bill&detailPage=agendas)
He claimed: “I just came back from the municipal conference in Ottawa—the Association of Municipalities of Ontario—they talked about this huge infrastructure deficit”.
Fact: Whether it’s last week’s announcement that we are expanding Highway 26 in Collingwood, laying the first track for the Eglinton Crosstown in Toronto, or reaching a major milestone through the ground breaking of the Groves Memorial Community Hospital in Wellington County, we continue to make record infrastructure investments in communities across Ontario. Patrick – use this handy website to check your facts!
(Source: https://www.ontario.ca/page/building-ontario)
He claimed: “The Auditor General said we could be seeing cost overruns of 25 percent, because we don’t measure outcomes, we don’t measure performance.”
Fact: We know that AFP delivery costs less than the traditional way of delivering large, complex projects – in fact, the model has saved the province $6.6 billion! We know this because every year since 2013 we’ve had independent, 3rd party organizations review the performance of our projects. What have they found? 96% of our projects were completed on budget.
(Source: https://www.infrastructureontario.ca/Third-Party-Reports/)
He claimed: “You might have not have heard this but they cut the amount of medical emergency positions by 50 recently…It means we’re going to have less physicians to the province of Ontario”.
Fact: Since 2003, the number of physicians practicing in the province has increased by over 34 per cent, which is more than 7,300 additional doctors practicing in our health system today.
(Source: Ministry of Health)
He claimed: “They fired 1700 nurses over the last year and a half”.
Fact: Since taking office in 2003, more than 28,949 nurses have begun working in Ontario, including 11,000 registered nurses. In fact, in 2016 the number of nurses employed in nursing increased for the twelfth consecutive year showing our clear, consistent commitment to improving health care in Ontario.
(Source: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care)
Some of the Liberal responses are a little on the tepid side.
What wasn’t tepid by any definition was a comment from a Gazette reader who pointed out that:
 Liberals telling provincial Conservative leader Patrick Brown that facts still matter?
Pot, I would like you to meet Kettle.
Email deletions, high level bureaucrats on charges for elections bribery and the Premier did not but “should have or ought to have known,” what her operatives were doing on her behalf.
Never mentioned Carbon Tax during election but introduced as perhaps the second largest tax grab in provincial history along with serious inflationary pressure down the road.
Green Energy costs Ontario more than any other jurisdiction in NA for electricity.
Sold the furniture to pay the rent, OPG. Now we own the 4th largest Coal burning source in NA.
Sweetheart union settlements a year before the contracts are due to buy labour peace and election support for 2018.
Cost of staying in a provincial park has increased nearly 100% in 10 years.
I could go on but I have to go to work so I can afford all these new Taxes, I mean Revenue tools.
Ouch!
 By Pepper Parr
August 8th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
It is less than a year away. In June of 2018 we will elect a provincial government.
The provincial Liberals have been in office since 2003 and are described by many as tired and no longer have that edge one needs to govern a province the size of Ontario.
 Katherine Wynne decided to sell part of Hydro to raise the money for needed infrastructure projects. Many thought she had made a serious mistake. Hydro rates bother a lot of people and the selling of a significant part of Hydro One is seen as close to criminal by many.
The attention being paid to the upgrading of our infrastructure – roads, rails – and the building of hospitals has been admirable. Will all that be enough?
Wynne put immense pressure on the federal government to improve the Canada Pension Plan by creating an Ontario pension plan – the federal government caved in and improved the federal plan – something every Canadian can be grateful for.
The raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour suggests the Wynne government hasn’t completely lost touch with what the province needs. The pressure from the private sector is immense – Loblaws is lobbying her fiercely.
Patrick Brown is going to have a Joe Clarke experience. Keeping the provincial economy sound and maintaining the NAFTA agreement with an American president who wants to tear it up before he gets committed to either a mental health institution or a prison is not a small matter. Something well beyond the capacity of Patrick Brown.
When deciding who you want to run the government, being angry and wanting to get rid of what you have, requires a look at what the options are. The pickings aren’t all that inviting.
Andrea Horwath hasn’t excited anyone other than the limited NDP base and the support for her there isn’t exactly overwhelming. And there doesn’t appear to be a number two within the NDP ranks.
Patrick Brown struggles to define just what it is he wants to do – and seems to have an edition of his platform that is tailored for whichever part of the province he is in.
In Burlington it has been difficult to get a sense of what the Conservative candidate, Jane McKenna, has to say or to even get a look at her.
The Gazette has reached out to the Conservative’s in Burlington – they haven’t been returning calls.
Brown is still learning his way as the Conservative party leader – he should be aware that he isn’t going to hold that job for all that long.
 When she was a speaker at the federal Conservative leadership convention earlier in the year it was evident what the Mulroney game plan was – Caroline was headed for the leadership o the provincial Tories. The game changer is Brian Mulroney’s daughter Caroline, who has been nominated to run as the Conservative candidate in York–Simcoe, north of Toronto. She appears to have a home in Forest Hill, a very tony part of Toronto and a home in a township within the York Simcoe riding.
The team guiding the Caroline Mulroney nomination campaign are keeping her away from national media while they woo the locals. The sitting member for York Simcoe, is the longest serving female member of the provincial legislature and has thrown her support behind Mulroney.
Caroline Mulroney did not decide to enter provincial politics to sit as a back bencher at Queen’s Park. That is not the way the Mulroney’s do business
She will win the York – Simcoe seat and while she has zilch legislative experience the pressure on Brown to put her in his shadow Cabinet is something he will not be able to resist. Should he win the provincial election, which is a big assumption, the pressure to put her in his Cabinet will be even stronger.
The Mulroney’s are going to do to Patrick Brown what they did to Joe Clarke.
It will not take too long for Caroline Mulroney to outshine Patrick Brown and begin the move to ousting the poor man when there is a leadership convention.
Jane McKenna, who has been particularly adroit at figuring out where the power is in a room, will find herself warming up to Ms Mulroney as quickly as she possibly can.
 She has a strong profile: Caroline Mulroney is a lawyer, has experience in the financial sector and the required philanthropic foundation. Ms Mulroney is in this for the long term. Should she find herself on the Opposition benches the goal will be the same – to gain the leadership of the Conservative party in Ontario.
So what the public wants to do is look very carefully as Caroline Mulroney – is this the woman that is going to restore the Progressive Conservatives to power in Ontario?
Patrick Brown might, and this is a small might, defeat Kathryn Wynne. She is a formidable campaigner and she does not like to lose. She also believes that Ontario has done well by the Liberal government she has led.
These are all small matters – Catherine Mulroney is going to lead the Ontario Progressive Conservative party and will at some point defeat the Liberals.
 Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and daughter Caroline arrive at the church for the state funeral for the late Jim Flaherty. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Wynne might prevail and get back in but 2018 will be her last election and there is no one on the Liberal front bench that can take the leadership and defeat Ms Mulroney.
The only thing in the woman’s way is any stupid mistake she could make. Highly unlikely – her Father will be up to his ears in her campaign and he will call in every favour he has and then some.
An opportunity to create a Mulroney dynasty is too much for Brian Mulroney to take a pass on.
 By Staff
August 4, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Ray is taking what he feels is a much needed and well earned break to re-fresh and get some work done on his next book which has the working title of The Draft Dodger.
He has found a publisher interested in this most recent book.
He will return to these pages immediately after Labour Day.
 Ray Rivers, shamelessly flogs his book every opportunity he gets. Rivers published The End of September in 2012.
By Ray Rivers
July 28, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
In a first-past-the-post parliamentary system only two political parties will ever predominate. That potentially limits the development of ideas and policies since the tendency is for the parties to become entrenched. We see this in spades south of the border where their famous time-honoured arcane system of checks and balances has devolved into little more than a battleground for partisan bickering over established positions.
That is where third parties come in – to generate new ideas and expand the discussion. Of course a proportional representative electoral system is natural habitat for third parties. But we’ve also seen the successful co-operation and contribution of third parties during times of minority government. In fact these were periods where some of our best legislation has been created.
Third parties, especially those with little hope of ever having to actually govern, can push the envelope of what is possible and make the unimaginable imaginable. That is how we got universal national health care. But once a mainstream party adopts a good out-of-the-box idea it gets the credit and power, and the third party continues to linger in the shadows. That is the story of Canada’s NDP. Always a bridesmaid and never a bride.
 Jack Layton took Quebec with his Orange Wave but died before he got a chance to really wide that wave. Jack Layton tried to change that scenario. Coming up to the 2011 election, Layton sold his soul to the Quebec separatists, all but promising them political sovereignty. And it worked. Disillusioned with the Bloc Quebecois and not inclined to support Harper or Ignatieff, voters in that province went Orange (NDP) in droves, and almost as a protest vote. For the first time in their 50 year history – and beyond their wildest dreams – the New Democrats got into the game as Canada’s official opposition.
 Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair one of the best Opposition speakers the House has seen in some time. He reminded one of the great John George Diefenbaker with a beard instead of jowls. Thomas Mulcair, replacing Layton, chose his own version of the ‘Third Way’, the political philosophy that led to Tony Blair’s string of victories in the UK. There is no right or left only the correct, the Third Way. So while he may have planned to govern from the left, he campaigned from the middle – campaigning as if he were Stephen Harper light. And he lost in a political arena filled with voters wanting a change from the previous decade of ho-hum, nasty and back-from-the-past.
So at the first gathering of the faithful, the NDP rank and file showed Mulcair the door as the party once again sought to discover its old activist self. Fresh from the pen, the elite radical left tossed the Leap Manifesto and its visions for a carbon-free Canada onto the table, as a starting point. The NDP had come home to the fringe after its brief sojourn in the big leagues.
So there are four candidates in a race even more subdued than the Tories just ran. There is less oxygen in the room now when they meet. Already a couple of potential candidates have dropped out, some have been disqualified by the onerous rules, and a whole raft of potential candidates are sitting it out. The truth is Justin Trudeau has stolen their traditional place as Canada’s left-of centre party, at least for now, and the NDP needs to go back to the drawing board… and maybe change their name.
The NDP was an experiment from the beginning, a 60’s merger between a populist agrarian-based socialist party, the CCF, and a large labour movement, the Canadian Labour Congress. After all, this kind of marriage had worked in other Commonwealth nations, Britain in particular, propelling a workers’ party into power. But Canada is a different political animal.
 Charlie Angus – As solid a Socialist as you will find in this country. Can he win the NDP leadership and then do something with the party? Popular northern Ontario MP Charlie Angus is the person to beat as they move towards the October vote. But as we saw with the recent Conservative leadership contest nothing is a given, especially when the NDP, like the other two main parties in their own leadership races, are using a preferential ballot. But whoever wins this contest will have an uphill climb to re-invent the NDP if it is to remain relevant as a political force.
Among other matters the party needs to consider its relationship with labour. The long-standing linkage with labour unions has likely hurt the party as much as it has ever helped, particularly as Canada continues to de-unionize. And in recent times so much of its traditional labour support has drifted to the Liberals, as unions seek to increase their influence with a sympathetic governing party.
Of course the NDP have formed sub-national governments across the country, and are currently in charge in BC and Alberta. There is a strong political following in BC, though the Greens are biting at their feet. And Alberta is a work in progress, with enough promise to force the parties on the right into a marriage of convenience. These governing experiences serve to perpetually push the national third party to become more centrist and broaden its appeal.
Yet these broadening efforts have also cost the NDP support. Others, like the Greens have sprung up with single issue campaigns which typically erode NDP support as they more effectively focus on an issue. And perhaps there is a better future jointly for both of those parties on the left.
 Rachel Notley – strong enough as the Premier of Alberta to force the Conservative interests in the province to join forces to beat her. Alberta’s loss if they do. Or the NDP might consider jumping into bed with the Liberals who had, after all, stolen much of their traditional thunder in the last election. But there must also be resentment and disappointment with Mr. Trudeau’s betrayal of those dippers who voted Red as the best hope ever of achieving electoral reform, and converting their popular vote into its equivalence in seats in the national assembly.
Still, even if the New Democrats never make government, they need to take heart that they have and do make a difference. As indeed have all the other third parties who have been elected to Parliament, be they Reform, Social Credit/Creditists, Greens, or even the problematic Bloc Québécois. And for that reason alone this leadership contest should be important to all of us.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
NDP – Leadership – BC NDP – NDP Historical Support
By Ray Rivers
July 21, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Canada’s aboriginal leaders have once again demonstrated how they sometimes don’t do themselves any favours. Last week, having been invited to attend the Council of the Federation where the provincial and territorial leaders meet biannually to discuss national issues – they staged a perfect no-show. Their boycott was put down to their offence at not being given a voice at the ‘Table’ equivalent to that of the premiers.
Unlike the premiers, charged with managing Canada’s sub-national governments, aboriginal self-governance, at best, approximates the authority given to municipalities. So it is unfortunate and dysfunctional when indigenous leaders take their adopted First Nations misnomer to heart. In a united Canada, these First Nations, comprising a million and half people, about 4% of our population and widely dispersed throughout the country, will never be more than a notional nation, as important as they were to our past and should be to our future.
 First Nations’ authority comes from a patchwork of treaties signed with the Crown over a century ago and the Indian Act, an even more inappropriate misnomer. Although there are some very successful reserves operating, as for example Walpole Island and our neighbours in the Six Nations, many are poorly managed and dependent on federal largesse for their survival, especially those in remote northern locations.
Back in 1969 Pierre Trudeau tabled a white paper proposing to repeal the Indian Act and scrap all of the historic treaties. He would have given the reserves to the individual band members and closed down the Department of Indian Affairs realigning health care, education and welfare to the appropriate provincial authorities. His proposal, a response to the failure of aboriginal policy and the Indian Act over the previous century was widely opposed by the aboriginal community itself, and he dropped the idea.
Canada’s earliest parliamentarians considered the native population uncivilized. The real purpose, arguably, of the Indian Act, which received royal ascent sometime between Louis Riel’s rebellions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, was to civilize them. It was racist and sexist and designed to promote assimilation of the native population, though officially its purpose was to oversee and administer the welfare of the 600 or so native tribes and bands, and attending to the requirements of the treaties they signed with the Crown.
The Fathers of Confederation envisioned a future where aboriginals would eventually be integrated into mainstream Canadian society, they called it enfranchisement. That would eventually negate the need for an Indian Act – once there are no longer any ‘Status Indians’ -those covered by the Act. Bribes were offered for band members to relinquish their status. Anyone attending a post-secondary institution, serving in the military, joining the priesthood or just wanting to have the right to vote had to surrender their Indian status.
 Women who married off the reserve would lose status, but men didn’t. And then some rocket scientist figured that snatching children from their parents and placing them miles away in ‘residential schools’ was the ultimate approach to achieve assimilation – though admittedly no one could have imagined the sexual and other physical abuse the children would be exposed to in schools operated by religious orders.
Canada’s First Nations’ development has not been a happy story. We hear all too often about how they generally experience lower income levels, poorer health, higher incarceration rates and shorter life expectancies. We cringe when hearing the horror stories of life at Attawapiskat and Davis Inlet. We find it hard to fathom this whole ugly matter of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), currently the subject of a national inquiry.
There is a long laundry list of recommendations coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the residential school program, though interestingly none of the recommendations effectively deal with what inspired that program in the first place, the Indian Act. The Commission referenced the need to pay attention, if not adopt, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada was one of only four or five nations which voted against it and we had little choice given the blatant conflict with our current policies under the Indian Act.
Over the years, subsequent governments, including that of Stephan Harper have attempted to make the Act less sexist and more focused on self-help and self-government. But the Indian Act remained a source of discrimination between those with status, primarily those living on reserves and eligible for various federal subsidies, and those without. In a landmark decision last year the Supreme Court struck down that discrimination, now ensuing that all First Nations, Inuit and Metis are subject to the Indian Act.
 Indigenous games – 2017 This decision will be expensive for the government to implement unless we re-invent how we manage our relationship with Canada’s first inhabitants. And it does provide both the indigenous community and the rest of us with a unique opportunity to reset how we live with each other. Perhaps our current PM would benefit from a review of his father’s old White Paper. And what better time to initiate such a dialogue, as we congratulate our indigenous athletes for their participation in the half-century old North America Indigenous games held in Toronto this year.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
First Nations – More First Nations – Canada Day Protests –
Premiers’ Meeting – Truth and Reconciliation – Indian Act –
Status for All – Beyond Indian Act – Trudeau’s Proposal –
Missing and Murdered – Status Indians –
By Ray Rivers
July 14th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
It is a revolution coming to a shopping mall or car dealer near you. There is a veritable flood of affordable electric vehicles (EV), the new Tin Lizzies, that will be pouring into the auto market in the near future. And as Tesla has shown you will be able to buy one at Yorkdale Shopping Centre or on-line as well as through the traditional car dealer networks.
Quebec leads the country with EV sales, though the number sold to date in this country is relatively low compared to other vehicle sales. But it is rapidly changing and that is the story we need to be paying attention to.
 The Portland Oregon airport expects to see a lo of electric cars – they have installed these charging stations. To accommodate that growth there are over 5000 public EV charging stations across Canada according to the Canadian Automobile Association, which has an online map for when, inevitably, someone is running on their last drop of electrons. And the government is rapidly growing that network in this province.
Electricity is no stranger to transportation. Elevators, escalators, commuter trains, trams, subways, ski tows, and golf carts are all electric. In fact EVs were among the first horseless carriages produced. The giant General Motors in the mid 90’s, in anticipation of California’s strict auto emissions laws, produced more than 1000 EVs (called EV1) in a pilot lease program. The experiment was so successful that, presumably under oil company persuasion, GM took back the vehicles and destroyed them disappointing many otherwise satisfied drivers.
 When Henry Ford introduced his Model T – it came in Black and only black. The Telsa offers a little more choice But Tesla is the game changer. Introducing high-end quality cars, Tesla blazed the trail and was soon mimicked by other luxury car makers. In this way the EV developed niche and has become associated with speed, quality, reliability and high prices. That’s a long stretch from an EV being nothing more than a road-worthy golf cart. And it worked, sparking interest among autophiles and prompting a huge outcry for an affordable EV with sufficient battery capacity to accommodate most personal driving needs.
So last week Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the production of the first of its bread and butter EVs with a 300 kilometre range. Tesla first announced this vehicle, the ‘Model 3’ a couple of years ago and has since accumulated about half a million $1000 cheques from folks reserving their place to get one. Tesla Motors, barely a decade or so in the car business and still waiting to make a profit on its vehicle production, is already worth more than Ford Motors in market value. It’s owner the effervescent Musk, founder of Pay Pal and Space-X, is obviously doing something right.
But not everyone agrees we should be ditching the old guzzlers and moving to EVs. One of these is the editor of the Financial and National Post, Kevin Libin, who recently penned an epitaph on the EV based largely on yesterday’s sales numbers. He also referenced two studies, a Swedish one claiming lower CO2 emissions from driving a gas guzzler than making the EV’s batteries; and a Chinese paper claiming that charging the batteries alone emits 50% more than sticking with gasoline.
Libin might have checked an April copy of Forbes which lays out the carbon footprint for the Tesla and includes a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists which demonstrates that an EV reduces CO2 emissions by 53% over gas power even where coal is burned, as per the USA or China. And that number rises to 84% for a jurisdiction like Ontario whose electricity production is about 80% carbon free.
 Volvo has announced that in the near future it will manufacture just electric cars. In any case those kinds of distraction haven’t put a stop to Chinese owned Volvo’s plans to sell only EVs and hybrids as of 2019. And for a cold northern country, EVs currently make up a third of all new car sales in Norway – where electricity is fossil-fuel free. In the UK, authorities are so concerned about EV growth potential that they worry there may not be enough electricity produced at the brand new Hinkley Point nuclear facility to meet future demand.
 The Sir Adam Beck damn at Niagara has all the capacity the province is going to need to power up the charging stations and the GO trains that are due to be electrified in the not too distant future. Following the break-up of Ontario Hydro with the associated brownouts, blackout, and soaring electricity rates in the early 2000’s, the Ontario government vowed to ‘keep the lights on’ by ensuring there would always be adequate electrical capacity to meet our needs. It was an expensive promise with an untested public/private electrical system requiring the issue of long term fixed supply contracts. And it was also a system requiring massive infrastructure spending to rectify years of neglected maintenance.
As a result of all that investment, Ontario, which had been forced to import almost a billion dollars of electrical supply in the final two years of the Harris/Eves government, was able to export almost a quarter million dollars worth of energy in 2015. And with all that capacity we can keep the electrons flowing for days when the sky is cloudy and/or the wind is still. We also now have a precautionary margin in the event that one of the nuclear facilities, which together supply roughly half of our electricity, fail as they have done in the past. And just as importantly, there will be sufficient capacity to meet the needs of an EV future and the end of the gas guzzler.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
EV Sales Canada – EV Recharging Network– Volvo 2019 –
FP Article on EVs – Tesla 3 – EVs and the Oil Industry – EV Myths–
EV vs Gas Pollution – Tesla Not So Green – Tesla Reductions –
EV Reductions – Who Killed the EV – Grid Blackout 2003 – UK Hinkley –
Ontario’s Nukes –
By Ray Rivers
July 7th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
They called him an enemy combatant, a bastardized term for ‘prisoner of war’ invented by the Bush (II) administration to rationalize bypassing the established rules of war, the Geneva Convention. This is the global superpower which claims to hold the moral high ground, yet refuses to sign on to the International Court of Justice. So it should be unsurprising that it would make up its own rules and embrace dishonoured practices like torture or unlimited confinement.
Should anybody feel sorry for Canadian-born Omar Khadr?
 Omar Khadr as a boy His father, widely accused of being a terrorist and confident of al Qaeda leader bin Laden, had taken him to that troubled land of Afghanistan when Omar was barely a teen. But the fifteen year old Omar had been working at an Afghan militia compound, video-taped assembling land mines – the kind of IEDs which may have ended up killing Canadian soldiers.
The Americans invaded the compound with a hundred soldiers using high explosives, helicopters and planes, and killed the four or five fighters who had been protecting the premises. In the fracas Omar Khadr was shot a number of times in the back or chest, and something happened to his eye. But he managed to hurl a grenade, likely in an act of self-defence, which is believed to have exploded killing one American soldier and wounding another.
Of course there is no such thing as self-defence if one is an enemy combatant. So they hauled Khadr off to the extraordinary prison and torture chamber that been constructed at Guantanamo naval base (Gitmo) in occupied Cuba. And he was held there for about a decade before facing a military court and confessing under duress to his ‘crime’. Once convicted he was allowed, by our Supreme Court, to return and serve his time in Canada.
 Omar Khadr has said he wants to prove to Canadians: that I’m a good person.” Back here he appealed to the courts and won a number of judgements, about being a juvenile when imprisoned; about the complicity of three subsequent Canadian governments – Chretien, Martin and Harper – in his imprisonment and interrogation; and that his rights under the Charter as a Canadian had been denied. Out on bail Omar Khadr had sued the Canadian government and its taxpayers for millions of dollars as compensation for the injustice our leaders allowed to happen on their watch.
Among other things, Canada never requested, in fact refused to allow, that he be re-repatriated to face justice here, instead of being held at Gitmo. This is in contrast to what British and Australian governments had done with their citizens, captured by the Yanks and accused of being enemy combatants.
So the Justice Department is giving him an apology and 10.5 million dollars, something that has enraged most Canadians who will likely never ever see a million dollars in any one place, let alone ten and a half.
I have followed this case for a number of years and essentially concur with Canada’s highest court that he had been treated unfairly and that his rights as a Canadian had been denied him. I think he is entitled to an apology for that. He was a juvenile at the time of his arrest and should have been treated appropriately. And his human rights were violated as he was subjected to advanced interrogation, aka torture. It was Omar’s father who led him to jihadism and terrorism. How much should the son pay for the sins the father?
On the other hand Omar was in a bad place; he was involved with people linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban; he had been doing a bad thing, making war materials to be used against allied forces, including our own; and he did fight back likely killing and wounding the soldiers as charged. For that he is facing a US judgement against him by the families of the US servicemen injured/killed for over $130 million in damages. Realizing they’ll never likely see that money, the American families have been trying to block the payment being made to Khadr by our government.
What’s with the money? Shouldn’t a legal claim for monetary compensation be justified by some kind of demonstration of financial damage or loss? How likely is it that the American soldier Omar presumably killed would be worth $130 million (US) to anyone but his wife – to whom he’d be priceless? And did Omar lose out earning $10.5 million while in a US rather than Canadian prison? Or had he been released early by a Canadian court, would he have earned that amount of money when his only known vocation was assembling land mines?
Of course he could have become a child pop star or hockey player, but that would have been difficult to do from prison. Still, Khadr had to organize his own legal defence in both the US and Canada, because his home country had written him off. For that he is entitled to compensation for legal costs – but I would hope his solicitors are not charging him more than ten million dollars.
Some politicians are comparing the $10.5 million to the few hundred thousand that is awarded to injured and disabled Canadian veterans of war. Such seemingly unfair treatment will not be easily forgotten as we approach the next federal election, something opposition leader Sheer is already warning us. Should we be rewarding the guy who made the kind of bombs which maimed and killed Canadian soldiers?
The government may argue that it minimized our financial risk by settling out of court rather than losing another case to Omar, who had been demanding twice as much. But at least a legal decision would be easier to accept than our government setting such an important precedent, voluntarily paying off an ex-con, still on bail, and former terrorist – child though he was.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
Enemy Combatant – A Political Albatross – It’s Justified –
US Court Judgement – Blocking Canadian Compensation –
Juvenile Issue – Supreme Court Decision –
 By Pepper Parr
July 1st, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Forget the politics for the moment.
It is really remarkable that a 30 year old woman sits as a member of cabinet in the federal government. And that she represents Burlington which has a strong, deep conservative history is also remarkable.
Karina Gould walks the streets of our city, is one of the most approachable people you will ever meet with a level of sincerity that rings true.
 Politicians don’t rank all that high in the public mind – this one is different.
Admittedly she has served just the one term in office so far and many people would be hard pressed to tell you what she has done for the city. Her hands were part of the push that got major funding for the Joseph Brant Museum.
CBC did a short piece on three very young politicians that included Gould – worth watching. The link to the piece is set out below.
The three are part of the setting of the agenda for the next 50 years. CLICK for the news clip
https://watch.cbc.ca/the-national/-/the-national-for-june-30–2017/44b8224-00c9890cd9b
Ray Rivers
June 30th, 2107
BURLINGTON, ON
As Canadians watch how our friends south of the border grapple with developing a better system of health care coverage, it is hard not to be just a little smug. After all, we figured it out back in the sixties, what is the matter with them? We came to consensus long ago that ensuring adequate health coverage for our citizens was essential for a healthy and growing economy.
 A massive Canadian flag was passed hand over hand amongst a huge crowd in Montreal days before the citizens of Quebec voted in their referendum to remain a part of Canada. Canada may be a ‘developed nation’ but it is still growing. Our most valuable natural resource is our population. And sick people don’t contribute to our economy, they are a drain. Further, people fretting about whether they can afford to pay for basic health services are distracted and not at their fullest potential. So providing affordable health care coverage is an economic benefit that easily justifies the cost.
And our single payer health care system is efficient. The numbers say it all. Per capita health care in the US is twice what it costs Canadians. It consumes over 15% of GDP there, versus only 10% in Canada. And even with their massive health insurance system, governments in the US still spend almost a quarter more than their Canadian counterparts.
One would assume that the more expensive US mixed public-private system, including their Medicare and Medicaid, would produce better results, better health outcomes. But it doesn’t. In fact Canadians have higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates.
The World Health Organization (WHO) granted that medical responsive was marginally better in the US, at least for those who could afford care. But even with all the money Americans spend, our health care system still ranked seven positions ahead of our neighbours to the south, in the 2000 WHO overall ratings.
That is just one reason I love this country. Universal health care. It may have been the brain-child of CCF/NDP leader Tommy Douglas and packaged nationally by Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, but it was implemented across the country by politicians of all stripes including Social Credit. And that’s another reason I love this country – our political leaders occasionally do come to general consensus and get it right.
Yes there was debate, and there still is, mostly about ideology and philosophy, about how single payer is the next step to socialism. That is the same kind of discussion our US cousins have been having for decades. And the critics will complain about how our health care is rationed with waiting lists for some services. But it is rationing by medical urgency rather than by the pocket book.
Recently the media reported on a women who showed up at a Mississauga walk-in clinic with her son and demanded to be seen by a ‘white doctor’. If you missed this story, it’s OK.
 We welcomed them – knowing that we will be a stronger country because of them. Because that’s another reason I love this country. Nobody supported her in her racist rant. Canada is a land that was built by immigrants and a nation that welcomes people from elsewhere to join us in developing our great Canadian project. As our Governor General recently said, we are all immigrants.
So as I celebrate Canada’s 150 year birthday, I’ll be thankful for our embrace of diversity, for our good government and because our health care coverage is automatic. That is something our American friends cannot say, even today while they still have Obama Care.
And they know that the day after their big July 4th birthday bash their government will be introducing some kind of Trump Care – a plan which only 12% of the people support and which will leave another 22 million without any health care coverage at all. Happy birthday Canada.
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
Comparative Health Systems – Mississauga Rant – Governor General on Immigrants –
Post Obama Plan – Canada on its 150th –
By Staff
June 29th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
While the Board of Education staff get on with the process of closing Lester B. Pearson in 2018 and Bateman high school in 2020 parents from both schools have taken a “not so fast” approach and are seeking an Administrative review of the process that was used to make the decision.
 Steve Armstrong, the lead from Pearson high school on the request for the Administrative reviews reports that they are “well along the path on getting our documentation together for submission.”
“On the signature front we have greatly exceeded our minimum required. We have two piles going one for the official qualifying signatures, and a second for those such as students who wanted to show support, but don’t count against the required number. We’re going to send both as a show of support.
 Bateman students and parents protesting. Armstrong reports that “Its been everyone’s interpretation of the procedure that each school slated for closure needs to request an Admin Review so team Bateman is also well along. We are conversing with them to make sure that were appropriate there is overlap, and in some areas there will be individual school issues
 Pearson high school parents asking for a review of the decision the Board of Education made to close the school. “Yesterday’s announcement putting future PARs on hold was interesting, but it remains to be seen if it has any impact on us….assuming for now it doesn’t so we’ll keep pushing.”
And push they will.
Expect more on this in the months ahead.
By Staff
June 29th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The House of Commons rose for the summer last week. It is out to the BBQ circuit for most of them.
 Oakville Burlington North MP Pam Damoff lets it rip in the House of Commons. When Pam Damoff the Member of Parliament for Oakville Burlington North, meets with her constituents during the summer, they might want to know a bit more about what she has done on their behalf.
One of the things she did was give a very short but rip snorting speech about decorum in the House of Commons.
Click to her what she had to say – You go girl!
Damoff will be reading from Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, a novel by Drew Hayden Taylor that weaves a story of magic, the bonds of family and a mysterious stranger that appears one day in a sleepy Anishnawbe community. July 12 from 7:00 – 8:30pm at Tansley Woods Library in Burlington.
 By Staff
June 28th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
We didn’t see this one coming.
A date in Hamilton is said to be the most expensive you will encounter – even higher than Toronto.
The research for this dubious WORD was done by EliteSingles, a national organization in the relationship business.
 They totaled up the cost of a typical date night in Canada – and found that Hamilton is Canada’s most expensive big city for a romantic night out, with Toronto coming in second place! Those in Ottawa get off lightly – a date night in the city is below the average cost.
The full study is on their web site – including a rundown of date night costs in 10 of Canada’s biggest cities, and a global dating comparison that shows the cost of dating in 25 cities around the world.
They have highlighted the price differences in two interactive, shareable maps that you can find on our site.
If the love of your life is in Hamilton – be ready to spend more than your Canadian Tire money.
Given that just about everything in Burlington costs more than in Hamilton – especially when it come to gasoline prices – Oakville might be an option.
The full scoop is HERE
By Pepper Parr
June 26th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Everyone is blaming the eleven trustees for the decision they made to close two of Burlington’s seven high schools.
 The trustees needed a clear signal from the parents – they didn’t get one. All they did was their job. The signals they got from parents were pure self-interest. Central fought like crazy to get their name off the close list. They did that by organizing and putting facts on the table.
Lester B. Pearson put very solid facts on the table – they had the best of the arguments to not lose their school.
 The Board staff did everything they could to tell parents that changes were in the wind. The Bateman parents at first paid no attention whatsoever about the school closing issue – they saw themselves as safe and did nothing.
When they realized they weren’t safe at all – that they were at serious risk they had to scramble to get their story out. It was a very solid story – few people outside Bateman knew how successful a school Bateman really is. The closing of that school is going to be very disruptive for families that have had more than their share of disruption.
The trustees were faced with a situation where the Board made a recommendation, then changed that recommendation and then proceeded to hold several meetings that left few parents happy with the way things were going.
 It was too little too late – Bateman parents who deserved better treatment got caught up in a turf war they didn’t see coming. Many of the students at the school will suffer because of their individual circumstances. It didn’t need to happen this way. What was clear during the Program Accommodation Review (PAR) process was that no one really wanted to see a school closed. It took a bit of time for the PAR committee to coalesce as a group and when they did it was evident that they had within them the capacity to come up with some innovative ideas. They needed more time.
One Gazette commentator pointed out that the city spent more time on deciding what to do with the Freeman Station than the school board allowed for the parents to have a meaningful input on the school closing decision.
When city hall made the wrong decision citizens moved in and got it right – on our sesquicentennial next Saturday you will be able to tour a really well preserved Freeman train station that served this city well. Citizens inevitably make the right decision – they just need some leadership.
The PAR committee learned, much to their surprise, that what they understood innovation to mean was not what the parents meant. What we saw was the size of the divide between a protected part of the economy (school board staff) and the private sector that has to earn its bread every day.
 Option # 7 don’t close any of the high schools.  Option 19 – the Staff recommendation,  What turned out not to be possible for the PAR committee to do was to settle on just the one recommendation and that was to not close any schools and to change some of the school boundaries.
It was there for them to choose – #7.
But instead the different communities chose to protect their own turf and do whatever they could to save their school.
Imagine – just imagine if the PAR had settled on the one option – # 7 and then said to the trustees – don’t you dare close any schools until this issue has been thoroughly reviewed and the community agrees on what is best for the whole community.
 Delegations argued their individual school case and in doing so lost an opportunity to put a collective case in front of the trustees and direct them to listen to the parents. And imagine if every one of the 50+ delegations had said the same thing – don’t you dare close any of these schools. Direct the staff to do a better job of coming up with a better solution.
Had the PAR committee and the delegations done what they could have done – do you think the trustees would have voted the way they did?
And had the community pulled together the way they could have we would not have the rancour and really bad feelings between the parents at one school feeling as aggrieved as they have a right to feel.
The matter of those 1800 empty seats is a concern – the world is not going to come to an end if many of those seats remain empty for a while. The 1800 number isn’t apparently the real number – it is somewhat less but it is an issue that needs serious attention.
The trustees had little choice – they didn’t fail – the parents failed. What the trustees got was a set of very mixed messages – close theirs but don’t close mine. Some argue that the Board of Education set things up so just this would happen. I don’t believe they did – but if they did – did we have to follow that direction?
All you had to do was say No! Every one of you – just say No! That didn’t happen and the trustees went to the safest corner they could find – the wishes of the staff. One Burlington trustee who campaigned on no school closures went along with her colleagues and voted to let Bateman high school close.
The upside, and it is small, is that trustees get chosen again in just over a year and maybe someone will find a way to get something on the agenda that takes a second look at the decision made June 7th, 2017.
The properties are not going to be sold to developers for years – if they are sold at all. Right now the plan is to close them and that is a decision we have to live with because we let it happen.
Those who buy into the belief that Burlington is the best mid-sized city in the country are probably the same people who claim downtown Burlington is vibrant.
We are really better people than this.
Work together, work for each other and make the place the city that has more than a wonderful waterfront and a magnificent escarpment going for it.
By Stephen White
June 21st, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
There are far too many initiatives in play, and far too little time to fairly and effectively read, review, understand and absorb the cumulative impact that all of these development proposals will have upon the City.
This process is not being effectively managed and the Mayor and Council need to wake up to this reality.
 Citizens do show up for public meetings and are very willing to participate – but the number of meetings being held now is more than most can manage, Citizens are attending meeting after meeting trying to get a grasp on what is going on. These meetings make a mockery of public participation because they assume the average citizen:
1) has had the time to review materials;
2) is able to attend public meetings and forums despite other personal and business commitments;
3) has reviewed content online; and
4) has had sufficient time to ask and receive informative answers to poignant questions.
Add to this separate meetings and discussions around smaller planning projects, school closures, etc. and it is a lot to absorb.
We are all being held hostage because of Kathleen Wynne’s intensification mandate.
This sad, sorry, pitiful government has one foot in the grave and despite the Gazette’s optimism it is not a certainty that their re-election is assured.
 Citizens are replacing their governments when they are unhappy – Burlington will have its next municipal election in 2018. The Liberals should take a long, hard look at recent results in B.C. and Nova Scotia if they want confirmation of that.
Add to that growing public dissatisfaction with the Trudeau government, and recent policy initiatives that will prove incredibly costly and problematic to implement (e.g. a 32% increase in the minimum wage by January 2019) and you have an election minefield ready to explode.
At a minimum the timeline for review and implementation of these planning initiatives should be extended by a year to eighteen months.
Let’s agree to take the time and do it properly and fairly rather than subscribe to an artificially imposed timeline.
 Stephen White is a Certified Management and Executive Coach and founder of Competitive Edge Coaching based in Burlington, Ontario. Stephen is a member of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce and also serves on the Chamber’s Political Action Committee.
By Ray Rivers
June 16, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Ray Rivers and his wife Jean spent a few weeks in Ukraine where they taught English as volunteers in a not for profit school and visited a Canadian army base while there, This is part 2 of that adventure
Donald Trump, in his short time in office has at least one accomplishment under his belt. He has shamed NATO participants into boosting their defence spending. The Canadian government has just announced a 70% increase in the defence budget over the next ten years. But even that will only get us to 1.4%, still well below the 2% NATO target.
 The Canadian ice breaker Sir Wilfred Laurier The critics of enhanced defence spending will point out that the only nation which ever invaded Canada is now our closest ally, protecting us under its nuclear umbrella, and all the while peacefully sharing this country’s only land border. But climate change is opening up the vast arctic to development potential, and across the divide lies an expansionist Russia. And while there is no truth to the rumour that Vladimir Putin plans to invade Santa’s workshop in the North Pole and put St. Nicholas in charge, a rapidly militarizing Russia with a despotic leader in command does pose a concern.
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Ukrainians believed they were safe in friendship with their former occupier and Soviet partner. In fact, that peace loving nation wanted nothing more than to transform its proverbial cold war swords into plowshares. It surrendered the third largest nuclear arsenal for a piece of paper signed by the US, UK and Russia, promising Ukrainian territorial integrity. And look at how well that worked out for them.
I visited a former Soviet base in north-western Ukraine which had been virtually boarded-up until they were attacked and the war started in 2014. Today 200 Canadian and an equivalent number of American troops, are helping Ukrainians reacquaint themselves with the lost art of war, including field medicine, strategy, tactics and weapons. It was a slow Saturday afternoon when I was driven to the base but I did get to observe a dozen or so snipers firing their 50’s era soviet Dragunov rifles – still a highly rated weapon despite its age. Having been a good shot in my youth, I would have liked someone to invite me to fire a round – but shooting is serious business for these professional killers.
Training is helpful but what Ukraine really needs are modern defensive weapons and weapon systems to stem the toll in human life inflicted on a daily basis by Russia and its proxies. After three years of aggression in the east, not a single NATO partner, including Canada, has offered up much more than helmets and night goggles. On the other hand this country seems to have no difficulty sending advanced armoured equipment to places like Saudi Arabia, a nation with a troubling record of human rights violations.
 Turning swords into plowshares – a statute that sits outside the United Nations building in New York city. And the plowshares thing – how has that worked out? Imagine if the Canadian government had nationalized all of our farm land 70 years ago and then suddenly tried to privatize it back again. Picture how that would happen in a world without real estate agents, registry offices or estate lawyers, and a bureaucracy with virtually no experience in land transfer. It is a miracle that land reform wasn’t total chaos instead of just a slow agonizing process. But today, the collectives are gone and 40% of all farmland is in private hands, including some owned by foreign corporations. And those private farms now produce 70% of the nation’s agricultural output.
One of the teachers at the school I was teaching at had studied economics in the old days – Karl Marx, of course – and complained that life had really been better under communism – at least people had jobs. But then she couldn’t explain why the Soviet Union had collapsed, nor could she offer a suggested pathway to improving the current economy. And going back to the USSR is not an option, even if the other Lennon’s fellow Beatle thought it made a good song.
Curiously I have yet to encounter someone who has anything good to say about the country’s president, Mr. Poroshenko. They complain about him being one of the well-heeled oligarchs, with money invested overseas, and question whether he has really closed down his Russian chocolate factories as he had promised to do.
Yet to this observer he seems to have delivered a good amount in his three years as president – halting and reversing the advance of the Russians/separatists in the south east of the country, restoring the economic balance in the economy, delivering an association agreement and a visa-free travel arrangement with the EU, and starting the process of routing-out corruption.
But perhaps that’s part of the problem. Ukrainians are too critical, expect too much of their leaders, and perhaps not enough of themselves. Some dislike having lost the security of life in the old socialist world and would turn the page back if they could. And others are perhaps uncertain or insecure about plunging into the risky world of market-oriented capitalism, even after a quarter century of so-called freedom. But everyone believes that corruption is at he heart of the country’s economic problems. And no doubt the oligarchs, with their vast wealth and positions of power, have much to answer for.
 Significant disparity in the distribution of wealth in Ukraine. From all appearances the big cities with their modern supermarkets, trendy shops, restaurants and bars, filled with well dressed, with-it, Ukrainians are just like those in the rest of Europe. Though underneath that modern facade lies an economy, still bound in the past, struggling to survive and hoping to take off into the future. And Ukraine has much to offer, particularly for tourists. It is one of the best bargain destinations anywhere given its current exchange rate. I treated nine people to dinner and drinks in one of the best Georgian restaurants here for a little over $100 the other night.
But they have got to get the tourists to come here in the first place. And that would include finishing that pointless war in the east, regardless that there are virtually no signs of conflict anywhere in the rest of the county. And that would also entail more effort to make tourists feel at home in their own language or at least one they feel comfortable using – one of the reasons I’m here teaching English.
In that vein, Ukrainians have mulled the possibility of dropping the difficult (for us) Cyrillic alphabet in favour of the Latin script, like the one we use. Poland did this years ago, and former Soviet republics Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are now making that change. Although Latin lettering can already be seen on some Ukrainian street signs, such a move towards complete replacement would threaten Russian cultural dominance even further. And that might be the best reason of all.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington in 1995. 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:
Part 1
Military Spending – Ukraine Military Mission –
Trudeau Visting Ukraine Base – Dragonuv Sniper –
Land Reform Issues – Language Matters – More Language –
By Staff
June 15th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The Ontario Legislature has adjourned until September 11, 2017.
Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon set out what the government has done and the direction they expect to go during the balance of their term.
 McMahon talking to seniors during her annual Tea. McMahon is the Minister of Tourism Culture and Sport and a member of the Treasury Board – she is part of that group that determines policy and the direction the government wants to go in – they measure the risks that are both financial and political.
Governments do what they believe is best for the public that elected and what they feel they have to do to stay in power – it is always a very delicate balance.
In her report to Burlington citizens McMahon said:
 McMahon at a community event just after the August 2014 flood. she was instrumental in getting provincial funds into the hands of those whose homes were seriously flooded. Ontario is creating opportunity and security for the people of Burlington and across the province through a series of comprehensive measures introduced during the spring legislative sitting. These measures support good jobs, fair workplaces and better wages, prepare our workforce for the new innovation economy and make life more affordable for workers, students, seniors and families.
Ontario’s economy is in a relatively strong position. However, many people are not feeling that growth in their everyday lives. To help more Burlington residents get ahead and stay ahead in a changing economy, the government has announced actions that will make a positive difference in people’s lives. These are possible because Ontario has balanced the budget. These actions include:
• Raising the minimum wage and creating more security for employees through landmark changes to employment and labour laws
• Making prescription medications free for everyone 24 years of age and younger through OHIP+: Children and Youth Pharmacare — the biggest expansion of universal Medicare in Ontario in a generation
• Launching a pilot project to assess whether a basic income can better support workers and improve health and education outcomes for people on low incomes
• Making it more affordable to buy or rent a home, expanding rent control and bringing stability to the real estate market through Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan
• Lowering electricity bills by 25 per cent, on average, for all residential customers and as many as half a million small businesses and farms
• Providing access to affordable, quality licensed child care for 100,000 more children, including 24,000 in 2017–18
• Making it easier for Ontario businesses to grow and create more jobs by cutting red tape and reducing regulatory burdens
• Creating tomorrow’s jobs today, and attracting talent and investment by funding transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and 5G (fifth-generation) wireless networks
• Continuing to stand up for Ontario workers and businesses by actively defending the province’s trade and investment interests with U.S. legislators and businesses.
 Burlington MPP Eleanor|McMahon with a constituent. “Actions introduced this legislative sitting are part of our plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives” said McMahon
The province goes to the polls on June 7th, 2018 when the government will have to defend this record which includes selling off a significant part of Hydro One and cutting hydro rates by 25% knowing that those rates are going to have to rise – but not until after the provincial election.
The provincial government finally eliminated its deficit, but its debt is rising to new heights.
 The 2008 recession forced the province to borrow – that borrowing has slowed down – but they are now selling off highly valued assets – Hydro One – to raise funds. The deficit is the financial shortfall during any one fiscal year – we spent more money on providing services and paying interest on the debt than was brought in as tax revenue
The debt is the money we borrowed when there was a deficit and we didn’t have the money to pay our bills.
One of the things Ontario did was sell a portion of Hydro One to the public. That raised a tonne of money which the province is using to pay for large infrastructure projects that we would normally have had to borrow money to pay for,
The province’s first balanced budget in a decade gets rid of a deficit that had at one point reached about $20 billion, and the government is projecting that balance will continue through to 2020.
The debt, however, is another matter. It is projected to be $312 billion this year, or roughly $22,000 for every Ontarian. It is projected to grow to $336 billion in 2019-2020.
The province’s net debt has tripled since the provincial Liberals came to power. In the last budget presented by Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives before the 2003 election, the debt was about $110 billion.
The overall size of the budget, meanwhile, has roughly doubled – from $71 billion in 2003 to $141 billion this year – the government is spending more money which is fine just as long as tax revenue covers all the spending – and that the tax rate is something the voters will live with.
Interest on debt is the fourth largest spending area, at $11.6 billion. It is also projected to be the fastest-growing spending area, at an average 3.6 per cent a year from 2015 to 2020, compared to an annual 3.3-per-cent increase in health and 2.8 per cent in education.
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown maintains : “There is no plan in the Liberal budget to get the debt under control.”
 Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown maintains : “There is no plan in the Liberal budget to get the debt under control.” “We are spending more servicing the debt each year than we’re spending on all transit and provincial highways, more than we’re spending on the Ministry of Children and Youth Services…more than on care for seniors, more than investments in our post-secondary education, more than supporting northern communities,” he said.
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said debt is in fact being managed. “A first step to managing debt is coming to balance,” he said.
 We have gotten into a borrowing habit – is this the way to run an economy? There are different views and different political philosophies. It is complex – but we are paying the interest on this debt. “The debt-to-GDP ratio is improving”, Sousa said, “and the percentage of the budget that goes toward servicing the debt is considerably smaller than it has been in years.
“We’ve locked in those rates over long periods of time to minimize volatility and risk,” he said.
 The choices if you don’t like the Liberal government: NDP leader Andrea Horvath and Progressive Conservative leader of the opposition Patrick Brown. The net-debt-to-GDP ratio is down to about 37.5 per cent from a high of roughly 40 per cent in recent years, but the government hopes to wrestle it down to pre-recession levels of 27 per cent by 2029-30. In the interim, the government has set a target of reducing that number to 35 per cent by 2023-24.
That’s the big picture – you get to decide if you can continue to live with it or if you want to get somebody else in the legislature and see if they can do a better job. They do work for you – never let them forget that.
 By Staff
June 15th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
This should be interesting.
Tom Muir and Greg Woodruff, both Aldershot residents want to publicly debate Rick Craven the city Councillor for Ward 1.
Muir has been a thorn in Craven’s side since he first got elected to office. Woodruff, who ran for the office of Regional Chair in 2010, is no less determined than Muir to make his point – just not as prolific.
There is a potential development on Plains Road on the property that currently is home to a bingo hall and a Home hardware.
 Location of the property on Plains Road that a developer has expressed an interest in developing. A developer, National Homes, hasn’t filed anything with the city – so it is just talk at this point but then that is the way things work in some wards.
A developer will get cozy with the ward Councillor and learn as much as he can from the politician. Developers don’t want to go to the Planning department without some assurance that they are going to get more than a fair hearing.
When the developer has done as much as they can to create the conditions they need – they then make a formal application and the development is now in the hands of the professional planners employed by the city.
The Planning department follows all the procedures and the protocols that are in place and in the fullness of time they prepare a report on the merits of a development project that goes to city council where it is debated.
 Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven is proud of the improvements that have been made along Plains Road – some of his residents don’t share his views. Councillor Craven made mention of the development in the Newsletter he publishes and sends out to anyone who asks to have their name on the newsletter list. That’s where Muir and Woodruff became aware of the development – and they swung into gear.
When Muir first got wind of the developers thinking he sent the following to Councillor Craven:
Rick,
This notice of intended redevelopment of this large plaza personifies the issues that people have about what’s happening in Aldershot, and has been happening for some time now.
The wholesale replacement of commercial with what is basically residential, with token retail, makes a mockery of the mixed use, work, shop, play, walk, enjoy, idea.
 Councillor Craven refers to the Plains Road Village Vision and believes it has resulted in a different and better community- he has a number of constituents who don’ share his vision. But nobody at City Hall, including you, seems to listen and all we hear are excuses – like we need to get rid of all the commercial we have, to get more population, so we can somehow get commercial back at some time in the future. This is a joke?
This will never happen, as there will be no place to build meaningful commercial. You heard all the people comments the other night telling you this. What response we got from you guys was; well this plan goes to 2040, so wait and see.
My wife and I have frequented the Home Hardware, Dollar Store (previously Shoppers), the restaurants there, for a long time, and years ago what was a grocery store where the Bingo is. This plaza is one of the few places we find things we need and will walk to. We were very happy to have Home Hardware down here. We can’t walk to the Home Hardware in Waterdown.
All that is in your description of intentions for this site is tear down residential – town homes and mid-rise condos, and of course the token retail. There seems to be nothing anything like the present commercial in this intention statement.
You will recall we had a Canadian Tire, which suffered the same fate. The token retail there is significantly empty and does not offer a lot to replace what was there in services. We can’t walk to Burlington Mall or to Clappisons Corner.
I need to remind you about the Drewloe development replacing the large commercial – grocery store, department store, bank, liquor store, small retail – and the controversy of the bylaw change escaping attention still irks people. No place to walk to the replaces this commercial.
The retail there still has a lot of empty. The Busy Bee from the Bell Motel, Foo Ho, parcel tear down moved in but there was already one across the street next to Hauser/Tim Horton.
The 24 hour fitness gym that moved in is across the street from The Fitness Firm, where you go. That building is also in waiting for a tear down.
I can see from the planning meeting the other night that this is just going to accelerate, sweeping everything away, and there will be no large enough parcels left to build anything commercially significant to replace what we lose. And given the spectacular rise in home prices, this residential conversion is developer irresistible, and I don’t see much resistance from city planning or you.
This is exactly what is terribly wrong with what is being done. The walk, transit, bike plan accompanying this is a farce and doesn’t fit with the reality, which like was also said the other night, it’s all going to be about cars and no place to park
 Plains Road – no longer just the highway to Hamilton but now a Main Street in a part of the city with an identity of its own The south side of Plains Rd meeting completely ignored a mention of the meeting on the same subject a couple of years ago You will recall my complaint then about rampant speculation going on then, that wasn’t even mentioned to the public when they were asked what they wanted, but all I got was a brush off.
At the recent meeting, the planning manager in attendance didn’t seem to know what was going on in this respect of land assembly. Does she really not know what’s going on?
And there was no mention at all of what people had said they wanted, and issues raised, at the meeting 2 years ago. What a waste of their time and my time.
I won’t go on further, as I find it very disturbing, and I’m starting to wonder more and more why I bother because I don’t see from my engagement over many years that city hall gives it attention in a respectful manner. I have been at several meetings where the staff in attendance look, first bored, then frustrated with questions and points, and then annoyed.
I really can’t blame them the way the reality is and it’s their job.
I can agree with more residential development, where it fits (three ten story building on Solid Gold does not fit with neighborhood right to the North), but the speculation and wholesale conversion and tear down of commercial to further this is too much.
Greg Woodruff adds to the discussion with:
I agree with this all.
Staff policies are de-commercializing Aldershot. Staff don’t care or want commercially viable stores, because the parking and space requirements of real commercial means less people on a lot.
 Greg Woodruff They have turned the place where we live into a math problem and the only problem is the human bugs that don’t quite act as they want.
From 5 years ago Aldershot has:
1) Less trees than ever
2) Less stores than ever
3) More traffic congestion than ever
If you think applying the same policies for the next 5 years reverses this I’d say you lack the ability to perceive reality.
Yes eventually you will get a handful more bikers and walkers, but this will be offset 25 to 1 with people who now have to drive for the basic commodities of living
Reversing this is easy: Put in the official plan the ground floor of any building must be all commercial, commercially vented, transport truck access and 1 square foot of parking for every 1 square foot of retail space.
Yes 10% or 15% less people will live in that building, but something will be around them.
If you think density alone makes a great place there are several shanty slums around the world with great densities you can move to.
Craven responds with:
Greg and Tom,
Thank you for your input.
 Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven digging out a business card for provincial Liberal leadership hopeful Sandra Pupatello. Craven at the time was considering a run for the provincial seat. I will not engage in an online debate with you since both of you seem to have more time than I do – and since the City has not received a formal redevelopment application yet.
Having said that – you should know that I personally met with the owner of the hardware store yesterday to discuss his situation. We all want to keep the hardware store if possible.
Otherwise, I find both your comments to be overly negative and lacking in long term perspective and vision.
Thanks again for writing.
Muir isn’t prepared to let the member of council for the ward off quite that easily – replies with: (Muir tends to write long – brevity is not his strength).
We all have the same 24 hour days and 7 day weeks.
I have so much experience dealing with this stuff I was able to write what I did in 20 minutes. Greg likely wrote his piece in 10 minutes, as he has been telling you this for years, as have I. I have large file folders with many such attempts to be heard.
 Tom Muir The city, Mayor, Planning, and you are always soliciting comments and engagement in all kinds of things, and that takes time, lots of it and more, but you complain if we take the time to respond, because you say you don’t have time?
So like I said, respectful listening and attention is not something I expect to receive from you, so thanks for proving my point.
Since you are not on for an on-line debate – frankly, I’m not either, as what we are telling you, and much more, is factual, and is beyond debate – I suggest we all get together, especially to debate your personal long term perspective and vision. I would like to do a reality check of your assumptions.
I hear vagaries about it at every meeting, as you tell us what you say is going to be done regardless of what we think, but these don’t provide an opportunity to have debate and discussion between us all. As I recall from many meetings, you don’t have many people who aren’t concerned about the same things, have similar views, and they express them.
So how about a real debate on this?
Anyways, regarding long term perspective, and vision – this is philosophy of science. The long term perspective, or future, is what the present becomes as we make our decisions and actions real concrete step by step.
Using our capacity for conscious foresight, our ability to logically simulate the future in imagination, is what we are using to tell you what we think is happening in concrete terms, and where it will logically lead.
We don’t lack a long term perspective, we have a very well founded one, based on fact based reasoning, logical outcomes, and where this leads to. Where is your reasoned argument?
You say we are overly negative, but we are telling you facts about reality, proposed changes, and how they are being lined up, and what they lead to.
This leads to something negative in our minds, different from what you say, and not a future we want.
But when we look for you to show the same kind of thinking, you don’t get past the more people part, forget the past consequences as concrete examples of our concerns, like what Greg and I wrote about, and you just tell us it will all work out, so don’t worry, be happy.
The staff do the same thing – they say; remember the plan goes to 2031 or 2040, so who knows how things will happen, they say. No comfort at all.
 It’s a 25 year plan that sets out the strategy for our growth. To get to 2040 we have to move through all the years between here and there, where you say the good things we already have, that we are going to lose along the way, will somehow mysteriously re-materialize, in ways you have no explanation for.
Well, we know that if you do certain things, other things will logically follow. We can see that it happened in the recent past, and the same mechanisms are still in action and will lead to more of the same. Greg said, and I agree, that If you think applying the same policies for the next 5 years reverses the negative trends he cites, I’d say you lack the ability to perceive reality.
Greg suggests several constructive and practical things, including requiring fully functional commercial on the first floor of every new building, as he describes, and has provided more details on elsewhere. This is not about opposing development, but making it work for all functions, and for all people, not just the landowner and developer.
If we really are, as staff emphasized, in a paradigm shift, then let’s internalize and generalize it all across the plan. Not just density of people, on every parcel, but accompanying density of uses and functions.
Not just more people, more density, less meaningful commercial and retail, less trees and green – try for that on the south side of Plains when condos in the pipeline and more want to sprout – and more traffic congestion, because more people density means more car density, and the walk-able necessary commercial spaces, frequented often, are gone.
It’s elementary. So how about a real debate on these things, face to face? The meetings we have are not enough.
Where will all this go?
Nowhere but Craven must have begun to realize that these two are not going to let this issue die a quiet death.
Stand by.
By Pepper Parr
June 11, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
It was billed as her annual BBQ – which she called a Chat and Chew – held at the Lions Park in the downtown core where most of her strength exists.
Held on a Friday evening – seemed like a good time. The weather was as good as it gets.
 Figuring it out. It was a large site and there was plenty for the kids to do including a pony ride.
There were information booths galore.
There was free food courtesy of Turtle Jacks.
There were pieces from what we call the Gazebo willows available for those who wanted a keepsake.
There was a fire truck and a police car.
But there was no buzz – no sense that anyone was having fun.
It was certainly a political event – that’s what these things are and held where her political strength exists but ward 2 city Councillor the Marianne Meed Ward’s event seemed to be missing something.
 There were information booths galore – just didn’t seem to be a lot of people walking around. The Gazette didn’t make use of the event to engage the Councillor in conversation – we were there to observe.
Was there any political fallout from the school closure decision the Halton Board of Education made to close two high schools earlier in the week?
 Ward 2 city Councillor Marianne Meed Ward at her Chat and Chew community event. Meed Ward will get credit for ensuring that the high school in her ward didn’t get the chop; she is also getting some blowback for what some described as a conflict of interest in serving on the Program Accommodation Review Committee (PARC ) that was involved in whittling a 40+ school closing recommendation down to five – one of which was Central high school.
When the Director of Education submitted his original school closing recommendation his top choice of the 19 options he and his staff came up with had the closing of Lester B. Pearson and Central high school at the top of the list.
 Terry Ruff former Central high school principal speaks to the first meeting of parents telling them how he two previous attempts to close the school failed. That announcement mobilized the Central parents who left no stone unturned in their drive to get their school off that list.
Once the Director’s recommendations were public the PARC was formed and Central high school chose Meed Ward to represent them. There were howls of protest about a conflict of interst. Meed Ward had a son at the school and she was asked to take on the task.
She brought formidable political skills to the work she did.
The Gazette attended every meeting of the PARC and found Meed Ward to be much less effective at the PARC than she was at city Council meetings.
There were times at city council when Meed Ward was close to brazen, which we see as a plus. She was focused and direct and asked more questions than any other three members of city council.
The rest of council often roll their eyeballs when she asked for yet another recorded vote.
We didn’t see the same kind of energy during the PARC meetings.
 Marianne Meed Ward at one of the seven PARC meetings. The Director of Education, Stuart Miller did change his recommendation from closing Central high school and Pearson high school to closing Bateman high school and Pearson.
Many howled at that change and argued that it was influence from Meed Ward, a member of city council and the Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon that swayed Miller.
Stuart Miller changed his mind when he saw all the evidence that was collected and put forward by the Central high school parents. Meed Ward didn’t have any undue influence – she was part of a team with formidable skills that they put to excellent use.
They were creating teams and assigning tasks days after the school closing announcement was made. The held a silent auction fund raiser and pulled in $14,000 which allowed them to print up signs that were on almost every lawn in the ward.
They demonstrated and they did their homework. They figured out that it was going to cost $400,000 every year for the foreseeable future to transport the Central high school students to either Aldershot high school or Nelson high school.
$400,000 a year – every year was a stunning number – that was only going to go higher as transportation costs rose.
 The distance Central high school students would have to travel if Central was closed and they were transferred to either Nelson or Aldershot high schools is 6.4 km; the distance between Bateman and Nelson high schools is 1.9 km. The disruption to student extra-curricular life for the students would be immense.
If Central high school was closed their students would have had a 6.4 km trip to either Aldershot high school or Nelson high school. If either Bateman or Nelson were closed those students would have a 1.9 km trip – many would be able to walk to school.
The map and the rationale Central parents provided was one of the most compelling arguments for not closing that high school. The Burlington Downtown Business association put forward a strong argument for keeping the high school open as well.
Most of the points the Central parents made seemed rather obvious when they were looked at closely and on wonders why the Board of Education staff didn’t see what the Central parents discovered.
The Central parents challenged almost every decision the Board staff had made; they missed nothing,
The decision to close Bateman instead of central was made. Central is really in very rough shape physically – mostly as the result of neglect, is going to need a lot of money to be brought up to an acceptable standard. It has an acceptable bit of charm and a lot of history going for it but when compared to what Hayden has got – Central pales in comparison. It is what the Central parents are prepared to accept or have accepted in the past.
 Meed Ward with Mayor Goldring: she is more comfortable with herself as a speaker and she wants his job  There just didn’t seem to be a lot of people. Meed Ward has an almost tribal relationship with her constituents – they don’t all think she walks on water but they see her as the member of council that works hard for them and has a vision for the city that other members of council don’t have – including the Mayor who Meed Ward has always wanted to replace.
When she was running for the city council seat in 2009 she wanted the job of Mayor when Can Jackson had it.
For reasons that are not all that clear she chose not to run against Goldring in 2014.
There was a point at which there was little doubt that she was going to run against him in 2018; there now appears to be some doubt.
Were she to remain a city Councillor she would win the ward hands down in 2018 – is the rest of the city ready for her as Mayor?
There are hundreds of them in ward 5 that will campaign actively against her – with a little help from the sitting council member Jack Dennison who is giving every indication that he will run again in his ward, Meed Ward may not be able to pull off a majority of the vote in that ward.
Is the dis-satisfaction from some over the role she played on the PARC going to hurt her longer term political aspirations?
They well might.
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