 By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON.
January 23, 2014
In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel, 451 Degrees Fahrenheit, The main character is a civil servant (fireman) whose job is to eradicate literature and other culture, and those who harbour it. Facts can complicate policy, and scientific knowledge can get in the way of pursuing policies for a government determined that it already knows all the answers. Bradbury’s novel is a cautionary tale for a society subject to the whims of leaders more persuaded by dogma than reality.
 The federal government isn’t burning books – they just put them in places where you can’t get at them. Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Commission and Nazi Germany’s infamous 1930’s open-air book burnings were the inspiration for Bradbury’s novel. The act of destroying books is called biblioclasm or libricide, regardless the nature of the destruction. This is hardly a new phenomenon since history dates an early book burning back to the 7th century BC when the King of Judah, Jehoiakim, burned the prophet Jeremiah’s biblical scroll.
 Calgary journalist Chris Turner has written a book, ‘The War on Science’, which documents Stephen Harper’s attack on basic science, science communication, environmental regulations, and the environmental NGO community. Turner claims this is the most vicious assault ever waged by a Canadian government on the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment. And indeed, we have never seen anything like this before.
Turner highlights how the government closed Arctic research stations as oil drilling began in the high Arctic, presumably to hide the effects of that activity on the environment. He notes how research budgets were slashed in agriculture, enabling industry to monopolize our food health and safety. He points out how the nation’s fisheries policy has been turned on its head in order to accommodate development which normally would have been prohibited over concerns about fish habitat and water quality.
Since becoming PM, Mr. Harper has dismissed over 2000 scientists and muzzled those who remain. Media have been confounded in trying to understand complex environmental, and other scientific, issues in the absence of the government experts they had come to rely upon. Indeed, the long tradition of independence of the science community has been brought to an end by a government that prefers to hear what it wants, rather than the truth as it is – bringing to modern life, one day, the Hans Cristian Andersen fable of the Emperor and his new clothes.
Then there are the science libraries being closed – seven out of eleven aquatic research regional libraries, housing decades of irreplaceable information about our waterways and the oceans, have been shuttered. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) spokespeople claim that vital documents are being converted onto electronic format, but the research scientists are crying foul as they watch so many studies being pitched and destroyed. I have nightmares of my writings from my work with DFO being used as kindling for the fires.
 The first census. Even in the time of William the Conqueror they understood that data was relevant. Not the view of the Harper government. I suppose we might have seen this coming. After all, the federal government abandoned the detailed census (long form) a couple of years ago making inter-temporal census tract and other comparisons difficult, if not impossible. I always understood census information to be a key function of government – at least since William the Conqueror pioneered data collection, in 1086, with his assembly of the Domesday book. I relied extensively on census data in some of my research work, and I would have thought Mr. Harper did as well in his earlier life.
The cost of keeping the library records alive is estimated at less than a half-million dollars, which is peanuts for a government happy to spend over $2 million advertising a job training program which doesn’t even exist. And it really pales in comparison to the $40 million annually spent promoting the oil sands. Sorry, but why are we advertising for the oil companies? Clearly then, the decision to eliminate our store of scientific knowledge is not about the cost. It must be about what Bradbury, Orwell and other enlightened authors were trying to tell us.
Stephen Harper came to office with a goal to transform Canadian society, and he has re-shaped much Canadian public policy since winning a majority of Commons seats. He has the mandate, and while I disagree with him on much of what he is doing, I do not deny him the right to exercise his will as Prime Minister and leader of the governing party. But I never thought he was going to take aim at science and knowledge, the very areas Harper himself claims will provide Canada a profitable and sustainable future.
As I write this column Mr. Harper is in Israel. I can’t but be struck by the irony of his affection for the Jewish people, who suffered through their own period of book destruction, as he shuts down our libraries and trashes our own scientific history. In the words of the beloved and insightful German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, from his 1821 play, Almansor,- “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen”: “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
Fahrenheit 451 Book Burning Fisheries libraries The Census Harper Reshapes Canada
Long form Census Domesday Book Canadian Science Libraries War on Science 2
 By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON.
January 17th, 2014
February 13th Ontario electors in Thornhill and Niagara Falls will head to the polls. Thornhill Tory MPP Peter Shurman resigned over expense claims and Liberal maverick MPP Kim Craitor hung up his gun belt late last year. Premier Wynne led off the campaigns promising a new hospital for Niagara. The NDP’s Horwath seems to be hiding, waiting for public input. But Tory opposition leader Hudak has rolled out a bold new policy called the Million Jobs Act. That is a million jobs created over the next eight years. Yes, eight years.
 His strategy begins by cutting corporate taxes to 10 percent, the level former Premier McGuinty was targeting before Andrea Horwath and minority government stopped him. Still, at 11.5% today Ontario has one of the lowest rates in the country. When federal and provincial rates are combined, total corporate taxes in Ontario are well below those in the US. So why is this so important? When you cut taxes, you cut revenues and that means your deficit increases. And as far as job creation driven by tax cuts – that disproven, revisionist, ’Reagan era’ piece of voodoo economics is not supported by any credible economist, anywhere.
 Ontario hasn’t managed – yet – to make the renewable energy sector really come alive – but they are going in the right direction. Hudak further disappoints by echoing the misinformation being churned out by Ontario’s right-wing dailies, blaming the tiny renewable energy sector for Ontario’s high energy costs. As I pointed out in my Dec 14th column, energy rates are high, and getting higher, in large part because Harris and Eves fumbled deregulation and privatization, back when Hudak was a member of their Tory caucus. Was he sleeping and missed it or is he just being disingenuous? It’s not McGuinty’s renewable energy policy but his government’s inability to fix the system that is costing us.
Hudak’s million jobs legislation would bring Ontario into the ‘New West Partnership’, a deal currently among British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan to eliminate trade barriers. It is hard to understand why we Canadians can conclude all those international free-trade deals yet we don’t even have free-trade among ourselves. Wouldn’t it be nice to see one of those excellent BC wines in the LCBO? This is no-brainer policy, and a good one, but it will hardly get us to a million jobs.
Hudak has promised to freeze civil service wages, a reasonable position for a government in deficit, though he appears soft on continuing Harris-era management bonuses, which the Liberals have frozen. Picking on the civil service unions is a key part of his greater strategy – to de-unionized Ontario – turning the province into one of those Tea Party ‘right-to-work’ places he admires south of the border? If freezing civil servant wages doesn’t give him the labour war he wants, then eliminating thousands of education jobs sure will.
To his credit, there is some evidence that high levels of unionization may retard employment growth and, perhaps, even productivity. Unions are a barrier to labour mobility, after all. But trade unions also complement the human relations responsibilities of management – so it depends on what you are measuring. For example, most skilled trade guilds have qualifications criteria and experience as a screening pre-requisite for membership. And unions often form the backbone of workplace committees on health and safety, anti-harassment, conduct and discipline – all of which lighten the load of management and often reinforce normal management actions.
 Union busting: Let’s not forget that the labour movement and progressive taxation is what created the once powerful middle class in our society. Unions’ bargaining power shifted more of the returns from production to labour, putting more money into pay packets which enabled greater consumption by the middle class and spurred economic growth. In addition, the mere existence of large unions helped pull up the incomes of non-unionized workers, the ’free-riders’, particularly when labour markets were tight. It is a complicated issue with potentially serious repercussions for hasty, thoughtless ideologically driven action.
It is no coincidence that the drop in union numbers over the last several decades has been accompanied by an increasing spread in income and wealth between the richest and the rest of us. Without the unions’ collective agreements, progressive governments would be forced to increase minimum wages to well beyond where they are today. And governments of all stripes would need to exercise greater regulatory oversight over workplaces and workplace rules, meaning more, not less, red tape for the business community.
The Million Dollar Jobs plan is really a little bit of good, some bad and a lot of ugly. And even spread over eight years there is no way that Mr. Hudak will see anything like a million jobs from his proposed legislation. Still, it is a catchy piece of marketing which may well attract voters to the PCs in the by-elections — even if it is mostly nonsense.
 If you want you to know they really care – they will spend some of your money on you. Burlington knows all about that stuff – we got our hospital didn’t we? We will know better as the campaigns unfold. The NDP has to decide if they want to stick their necks out and if so how far and perhaps advance some policy. The Liberal government has to roll out the rest of their campaign. The word on the street is that these by-elections are only primers for a general election coming sometime this spring or early summer. So expect to see the parties taking some risks to test the voting appetite for ideas, which is exactly what Mr. Hudak has just done.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background inks:
Million Job Act Tax Cuts and Jobs Corporate Tax Cuts Not the Time to Cut
Unions and Employment Hudak and Unions Energy Myths Energy Subsidies
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON.
January 11, 2014
Getting the horses into the gate is taking a bit of time. The Usual Suspects are not rushing to actually commit – other than the Mayor, none of the incumbents has marched down to the Clerk’s office to file nomination papers.
 Is this a picture we are going to see frequently> Will there be a change in the name on the name plate at city council? There is clearly a race in ward 1 where two candidates have filed their papers; they now wait for the incumbent Rick Craven to file his papers. One total newcomer, Katherine Henshell and a solid Aldershot resident, Jason Boelhouwer, who thinks it is time for a change, have filed their papers.
 Often, whenever ward 1 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward appears at events with the Mayor she sounds more “mayoral” than the man who wears the chain of office. Ward 2 might be very quiet election night – there is every chance that incumbent Marianne Meed Ward will be acclaimed unless the hurt feelings within the developer community are big enough to have them find a name that can be printed on the ballot to run against Meed Ward.
It will be something to see Meed Ward sit out a campaign – she lives for the game, loves the play and the interaction. A side-lined Marianne Meed Ward is not a pretty picture. Trust her to find a way to insert herself into the election even if she is acclaimed; she could well use 2014 to begin her 2018 race for the office of Mayor.
That kind of thing happened in ward 1 when Jane McKenna took the bait an unhappy property owner put out and ran against Craven – only to be severely trounced. However, that did give her a bit of a profile and she took the bait a second time when Keith Strong came calling with the Tory nomination in his hand. This second run had a well-oiled machine behind McKenna and got her into office. It will take more than a well-oiled machine to keep her there come the next provincial election.
 John Taylor, Dean of city Council clearly doesn’t believe in term limits. Ward 3 could be a cake walk for John Taylor – his profile is so high that it will take an exceptional candidate to overcome his name recognition. While Taylor has served the people north of the 407 well, he isn’t one of them and you have to live on one of those side roads to fully understand what rural life is.
For reasons this writer doesn’t understand the rural community has not been able to find one of their own to represent them. Ward 6, which has a large swath of land within its boundaries, is also represented by someone who lives in the suburban part of the city. Burlington’s city council, and the Regional Council as well, desperately needs someone who can speak for the rural folk and represent their interest and life style.
Ward 4 will offer the most interesting race. The incumbent is in trouble but he is redoubtable and is superb at the June to September campaign he runs where he cycles through every street in the ward which runs from Upper Middle Road, Appleby Line, Guelph Line down to the lake, and pours on his charm and bats the baby blues. They have worked for Jack Dennison in a number of his initiatives in his life. Don’t count him out.
 Brian Heagle – seen as a candidate for Ward 4. It is not the dog that wants your vote – could it it beat Brian were it to run? Brian Heagle will run again. Burlington will not be any better off should he win – and he did get within striking distance last time out. They were separated by 1184 votes with Dennison getting 5292. Had he worked a bit harder he could have taken the brass ring – but that’s the problem. Heagle doesn’t do the hard work – and changing his political stripes hasn’t helped him
AND, there is a dark horse out there, thinking it over and taking his time while he decides if elected office is a next step in An already successful career. If this horse is in the race don’t be totally surprised if you find him and Jack Dennison at your doorstep. It is not unusual for an incumbent to decide it is time to leave and do so on the highest note possible. Giving your blessing to a high quality candidate who could well go on to become Mayor in 2018 would add a little lustre to a damaged image in the ward. It might even get Dennison into the Roseland Community Organization.
 Intense to the point of making delegations uncomfortable ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman does know how to drill down into the data and look for results. Ward 5 looks as if it is going to produce a flock of candidates. There will be at least three in the race this time with a couple of other potentials mulling it over. There were 9 candidates in 2006 and 7 in 2010. Incumbent Paul Sharman has his work cut out for him. If he can convince his community he has picked up some people skills and can deliver a bit more than parking spaces on the street and make a sound contribution during the budget debates and not throw everything off track the way he did with his 0% increase in the 2011 debates, he might prevail. The ward has a history of putting forward a number of candidates that often turns into a crap shoot with the tumbling of the dice rather than a clear decisive vote count determining who wins.
Ward 6 – another part of the city with significant rural geography but not all that much in the way of population north of 407, has an incumbent who needs to change the image that has emerged. The former Beauty Queen image doesn’t track anymore outside the die-hard Tory base.
 Is north Burlington ever going to get the kind of representation it needs and deserves? It is going to be up to that community to find a local candidate that can draw support from the people south of 407 down to Upper Middle Road. Sarah Harmer – where are you when we really need you? If a solid candidate emerges Blair Lancaster could be in serious trouble. There is however an opportunity for her to show that she is indeed much more than a pretty face with a pleasant smile. Serving as chair of the Development and Infrastructure Standing Committee gives Lancaster an opportunity to show she does have “cajones” and can deliver on the level ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven does as a committee chair. Only time will tell if she can pull it off. She does have the city’s best General Manager in place to guide and support her. If she does make it happen – there will be no stopping her. A strong performance as chair is essential for her to stay alive politically.
The race for the Chain of Office worn by Mayors is totally unknown. Mayor Goldring has filed his papers but other than that there is no sign or sense that he has done anything which kind of reflects his first term as Mayor. We would really like to see a better Mayor Goldring and believe it is in there – somewhere – it’s just not visible – yet.
 January 10, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
By Ray Rivers
The dealer in a wild-west game of poker was selected by the position of a buckhorn handled knife rotating in clockwise fashion after each hand. If a player didn’t want the responsibility of dealing, he’d pass the buck to the next player. Former US President Truman was given a sign to that effect, which he placed prominently on his desk. The buck stops here – meaning: responsibility will not be passed beyond this point.
 Former US President Harry Truman made sure everyone knew where the buck stopped. New Jersey Republican governor Christie is in the news. One of his staff had shut down a couple of lanes of traffic on a very busy bridge linking his state with New York. This was purely a political action aimed at punishing the mayor of a town at the base of the bridge, a democrat, who refused to endorse Christie. So Christie, a 2016 presidential hopeful, trumpeted that the buck stopped with him then passed it on, denying any responsibility for what his office had done, blaming his senior staff and then firing them.
Doesn’t that sound familiar? Stephen Harper claims he was unaware that his Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was trying to influence the outcome of an audit into the expense claims of Senator Mike Duffy. Harper the micro-manager, who once told Parliament that he had personally reviewed and accepted the expense claims of Senator Pamela Wallin, orchestrated her and Duffy’s removal from the upper chamber for exactly that reason, both of whom had been his personal appointees. He then fired his chief of staff for trying to keep Duffy quiet and announced the matter closed.
In 2008, 23 people died and 57 others were sickened from eating listeria contaminated cold cuts prepared by Maple Leaf Foods. CEO Michael McCain was praised for his handling of the aftermath of this catastrophe. Maple Leaf is a huge company and this was clearly a mistake, an oversight, by plant staff and the inspectors. But 23 people died and he is still CEO. The federal agency responsible for food safety, CFIA, and its minister had commended McCain on his deportment during the crisis but shrugged-off any responsibility on their part – they just passed the buck to the plant operators.
 Hogs slaughtered and ready for butchering. Perhaps that lack of accountability helps to explain why some four years later CFIA inspectors turned a blind eye at Alberta’s XL Meats. This plant which processes 35% of Canada’s beef had a deregulated inspection system but the company’s own inspectors ignored the deadly e-coli bacteria contaminating the meat tenderizing machines. Fortunately only 18 unwary customers were poisoned by the e-coli bacteria. In a system without consequences why expect things to change?
It was also e-coli bacteria in the water supply, which had killed 7 people and sickened half of Walkerton’s 5000 residents in 2000. The town’s water plant operators received criminal penalties, but the Mayor and his council committee just passed the buck. And the Harris government also passed the buck after having deregulated provincial water testing without considering ways of preventing this kind of incident.
And on the topic of deregulation, the disaster at Lac-Mégantic last year involved a shifty railroad entrepreneur, given a special exemption by the feds to run his train with only one operator. Unsurprisingly, the workload was too much for a single operator who didn’t or couldn’t set all of the train’s brakes, allowing the train to escape and destroy the downtown, killing just under 50 people.
The federal transportation safety agency is trying to shift the blame for this incident to other factors, which they should have known about – the explosive trend of moving petroleum by rail, and the documented inferior tank car design being used. This week there was another fiery train derailment, in New Brunswick. Oil shipments by rail in Canada have leapt from 529 cars in 2005 to 160,000 cars in 2013, but the number of dangerous goods inspectors has remained relatively constant. The ratio of inspectors to oil carloads over the period has crashed from 1:14 to 1:4000. Is there any wonder we are seeing this?
China experienced a tragic health event in 2008 when its state-owned Sanlu Group poured melamine (a product associated with kitchen counters) into infant formula to artificially raise protein levels while they watered down milk in the product. After several babies died and hundreds of thousands were sickened (imported pet food in North America was also affected), Chinese authorities beheaded those who had engineered the deadly plot and imprisoned the milk company CEO for life.
China takes responsibility seriously although the buck did stop short of the communist party. Beheading is not yet a part of Mr Harper’s tough-on-crime policy and in any case we need to observe that higher law – you know, the one in the scene from the Mikado – let the punishment fit the crime. So life imprisonment and beheading are out of the question even if you chose your senators poorly and are a control freak.
Under Mr. Harper’s crime legislation there is a mandatory six month prison term for anyone cultivating as few as six marijuana plants in their backyard. Yet, I have never heard of anyone dying from smoking pot, not even Rob Ford. So what about some time in the ‘big house’ for those whose crimes really kill, like e-coli, listeria and flaming trains.
 British Columbia’s fragile aquatic environment could be at risk. Who will be passed the buck when the first tanker full of Northern Gateway dirty oil hits a reef in the fragile aquatic environment of B.C.’s coast – a project exempted by Harper from proper environmental assessment? Who will the buck be passed to when the federal government finally admits Canada will never meet any of Harper’s international commitments on global climate change – but will, instead, further increase our emissions, contribute to climate change and more of the unpredictable weather events we saw in 2013.
Perhaps our federal leaders misread Truman’s famous phrase, thinking he was referring to a dollar bill – even though those don’t exist here anymore. And the US sawbuck (ten dollars) is crashing over our own ten dollar bill as our exchange rate keeps deteriorating. That has got to be hurting snow birds looking for that much-needed southern break each year.
It is little comfort to know that your government will not increase your taxes when all your other costs rise instead. Canada has always been a trading nation but why have we decided to start trading our living standards down to third world standards. And who will take responsibility for the failed and divisive economic policies that are leading us to this economic state – a government fixated on tar sands oil development at the expense of economic development in the rest of the country, or even Alberta. It’ll be somebody else’s fault I’m sure.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
The Buck Stops Here Chris Christie Maple Leaf Foods XL Meats XL Meats 2
Melamine in China Lac Megantic Punishment Fit the Crime
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON January 4, 2014
When we began publishing an on-line newspaper for Burlington the hope was that we would better inform the public and that an informed public would make informed decisions.
We took our leadership from the Shape Burlington report that focused on what that document called Burlington’s information deficit.
I was mentored by the late John Boich, a co-author of the Shape Burlington report, whose wisdom, guidance and approach to life I deeply miss. His boisterousness and his care, concern and love for his city were present in every word he uttered. “Ya think?” he would bellow.
When Burlington lost John Boich, I lost a friend and the best guide I had as to how this city works. One of the things Boich and I wanted was a publication that was fearless, opinionated, open to all opinions; a publication that would pull out the very best from the people of this city.
 Burlington has always had a small group of citizens who get out to public meetings to review budgets, policy proposals and share ideas. In that regard we are fortunate. With the internet as our platform rather than a printing press there was an immediacy that allowed readers to respond. Because we were online and the contents of the newspaper were searchable readers could go back and check out what had been said or done months – even years before.
The ability for people to comment was important to us. Unfortunately, a lot of the comment is pretty juvenile, poorly stated and often nasty and mean.
We publish the name we are given. If there is a concern with the contents of a comment we will test the email address it was sent from. If invalid we frequently do not publish the comment.
 Intelligent people looking at the numbers and making their own decisions: democracy at its best. We frequently talk to the writer and on several occasions we have insisted on meeting with the author. Our objective is to create a forum where views are exchanged and the community at large is better for that exchange.
There have been some comments that were scurrilous, some with terribly foul language. Others have contained information that while not publishable are an insight into behaviour that bears watching.
From time to time we get a comment that represents what we set out to do ourselves. Comments made on the first person in Burlington to file nominations for the ward 1 seat in the October municipal election came in quickly. The comments made by one commentator in particular were informative and we felt useful. This is what we set out to do as a community newspaper – we commend these comments to you:
Rick Craven used to be an effective municipal leader. He listened to ideas, asked questions, worked hard to make a mark for Burlington. All under the great leadership and mentorship of Mayor MacIssac and a fantastic City Manager, Mr. Tim Dobbie. Then came the Cam Jackson era. Craven turned from an effective leader, and a team player, to a one man “lets battle the bully” show. He became a bully himself. He forgot how to be an effective leader, he lost the will to listen, all he wanted to do was fight.
 Burlington citizens discussing a draft of the city’s budget. Councillor Craven is on the right wearing the blue shirt. He’s never regained his better persona of a good leader, instead Craven enjoys continuing to be the bully. You see it at meetings of Council, in the media….. he just loves to bully delegates, others who have different opinions, and the member of council sitting to his left in Council Chambers. If it’s not a fight for him it’s not worth his time. His “my way or the highway” style has become totally ineffective.
Yes, Ms. Henshell, and many who will put their names forward to run in the 2014 election, may not have the political experience at the starting gate. You do have to learn to crawl, then walk, then run. However I’ll vote for emotional intelligence, a team player, and on the job training any day rather than 4 more years of watching a sarcastic, ineffective bully trying to make his, and “his only”, mark.
Mr. Craven has lost the personality it takes to be a good leader. He needs to learn to crawl again, and walk again before he should ever “run” again. It’s a seven member city council, not a one man show. He needs to be re-taught just that instead of continuing on with the selfish traits he once despised.
A break from Council Chambers would be in the best interest for Mr. Craven if he has any bigger political aspirations. Is he a politician…. yes. A great political leader… I beg to differ.
This kind of trenchant observation and the courage to speak is something we welcome and encourage.
By Pepper Parr
Burlington, ON. January 4, 2014
This is the time of year when everyone thinks about the year that came to an end and the year that we are now into. How did I do? Can I do better next year and how will I do that?
What did Burlington as a city do right and what did it get really wrong. Just one of each.
The city’s best decision: Deciding to take on the Burlington Executive Air Park and their blatant attempt to use federal regulations as an argument for not adhering to municipal bylaws.
The city’s worst decision: The decision to sell a small strip of land along the edge of Lake Ontario that runs between St. Paul and Market Streets to private interests.
The best: While both the city and the Regional government should have been on top of these problem years ago, Burlington is at least doing something about the problem now. The Region is still dragging its heels on this one.
 Somehow the owners of the Burlington Executive Airpark convinced everyone that his plans came under federal jurisdiction and that the city had no say in what they chose to do. This location was to be the site of a helicopter operation. The owner of the adjacent property is standing on her property line. While north Burlington residents have been complaining for some time about the problem related to literally hundreds of trucks taking land fill into the air park property on Appleby Line and dumping it they weren’t getting much in the way of response or satisfaction from city hall or their Council member..
It was when Vanessa Warren formed the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition and delegated to Burlington’s city Council and then to the Region that things began to happen. City Manager Jeff Fielding had no time for a lawyer trying to instruct the city on where they were wrong and General manager, Infrastructure and Development, Scott Stewart had no time for organizations that refused to follow the city`s bylaws.
It took the city administration a bit if time to get a handle on the scope and scale of the problem and to get a clear picture of the kind of corporation they were dealing with, but once the think part of the job was done – it didn`t take long for the city to move with considerable force and dispatch. Within months the city and the Executive Air Park were in a court room to determine just what the legal issue was and then set a date with Justice John Murphy who listened to three hours of arguments. A number of weeks later he issued a decision stating that Burlington`s site plan bylaw was valid and had to be adhered to by the Air Park – and then he dinged the Air Park for $40,000 in costs.
The ink wasn`t dry on Justice Murrays decision before the Air Park filed an appeal. That appeal will take some time to be heard in the late spring at best. It may well go to the Supreme Court of Canada. It is a critical decision if Burlington is to control the kind of development that takes place in north Burlington. Vince Rossi can build an airport up there – but he will have to follow the rules and work with the city
Rossi, owner of the Executive Air Park has a $4.5 million mortgage on the property and right now his business plan is in close to a complete shambles. Rossi took a significant risk and while the end game is not fully known, and one never wants to guess how a judge will decide an issue – there are a number of very strong reasons to believe that the city of Burlington will prevail and the Air Park will have to comply with the bylaw which will mean significant scaling back of the 30 foot plus piles of landfill.
A bigger concern to the city is – what happens to the air park should the city win the case? Does all the landfill have to come out? What kind of an air park will be left. Something to think about.
The worst decision the city made was agreeing to sell a number of small pieces of property, some owned by the city other pieces owned by the province to three property owners with house that are at the edge of the lake.
Burlington takes great pride in its waterfront and part of its plan is to put as much of the waterfront property in the hands of the public. The city is now part of a process that is intended to purchase 30 homes currently in Beachway Park, see them demolished and the land cleared for a public park.
 The city would create two parkettes on the extreme east and west side of the lands shown. The part in the center, outlined in a yellow dotted line is a combination of land owned by the city and the provincial government. There are three property owners with homes adjacent to that portion. The one on the left and the one on the right consists of two homes between Lakeshore Road and the water’s edge. The one in the center will become one of the most valuable sites in the city should the sale of the public lands actually go through. That owner will have a piece of land that goes from LAkeshore Road to the water’s edge. At one point the city had a Waterfront Access Protection Advisory Committee (WAPAC) that did some sterling work on opening up small parcels of land the city already owed for public use. Little did they know that the recommendations they put forward would be twisted and made part of an arrangement that would see small parkettes at the ends of St. Paul and Market Streets and an upgrade to Nelson Park which is a couple of hundred yards to the east of the waterfront properties the city decided to sell.
While the selling of the land to private interests is not yet a done deal – it is being worked at and should it be made final and the land sold the opportunity for a pathway that would extend across more of the waterfront for public use will be lost forever.
The purchase of the land for one property owner will rank alongside the deal the Dutch made with the Indians for Manhattan Island. People in Burlington talk about there never being high-rise condominium development along the edge of the lake when that is what we already have in place.
The only Council ember to vote against the sale was Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward.
The Bridgewater project is going to see a 22 storey tower go up on a piece of land that is not much bigger than the lot that will be created should the sale of public lands go through.
It won’t happen tomorrow, might be 50 years before there is major development on land the city now owns between Market and St. Paul streets – but with all that land in the hands of one owner – developers drool for opportunities like this.
 That shore line and the view of the lake is a part of the birth right for every citizen of the city. City Council had no right to sell that property for once it is gone it will be gone forever. When the city agreed to sell the land that was once part of the old Water Street – they sold a part of the birthright of the people who live in Burlington. Wiser city Councillors elsewhere in this country would die for an opportunity to do at some point in the future what Burlington is preparing to give up on.
Worst decision the city could have made. There was an opportunity to lease the land – city chose instead to negotiate the sale of the land. The private property owners will be pushing their lawyers to get this deal done before it becomes an election issue when wiser minds might get themselves elected to Council and put a stop to this stupidity.
Background:
Unlicensed dump
The background on the landfill dumping.
Water street: The issue:
City agrees to sell waterfront properties.
By Ray Rivers
January 3, 2014, Burlington, on.
Oil will dominate much of the Canadian agenda this coming year, as it did last. Expect to see continued rail transport of bitumen unhindered by new federal safety regulations. But also expect a surge in pipeline development with the ‘Northern Gateway,’ the twinned ‘Kinder Morgan’ and the ‘Energy-East’ projects. At the same time it is likely that the Obama administration will approve the ‘Keystone XL’ pipeline, as a domestic political move in the run-up to congressional mid-term elections this year, and a response to the latest oil train disaster in the Dakotas.
All of this capacity comes, ironically, at a time when global oil reserves are expected to top demand. Fractured shale extraction will enable US self-sufficiency in the not too distant future. Hot on America’s heels China and Russia, with even greater shale reserves than the US, are planning some 400 new ‘fractured-shale’ wells. Mexico is opening up foreign investment to expand its production and Libya and Iraq are ready to resume full production. Should Iran cooperate in talks on its nuclear program, there is that additional oil to complement the impending glut for the world market.
 Expensive oil being mined for a market that has falling prices – and toxic to boot. Oh Canada – how could you? All of this means that we will be facing even lower global prices for oil sands (tar sands) bitumen, which is already discounted due to its inferior quality. To make our product more competitive we will see the Harper government try to further devalue the Canadian dollar. That means continued low-interest rates for at least the next year – so you won’t be getting rich from the interest in your tax-free interest savings account. And don’t expect to see lower pump prices since the oil companies will need to pay for all those new pipelines.
On the positive side however, a depreciated currency can be a stimulus for Canada’s declining industrial base, in Ontario and Quebec, though it will realistically take years to turn that around. And the competition from our new free-trade agreements will make that even more of a challenge Declining oil revenues will, however, impact tax revenues. So expect the federal government to further cut social programs and the size of the public service to meet its deficit elimination target by 2015. Expect, also, some sell-off of public assets, including possibly the post office.
US congressional elections will dominate the news from that country in 2014, and though the ‘Tea Party’ Republicans deserve to be tossed out on their ears, and some will be, the House of Representatives will continue to be Republican dominated. Gerrymandering of electoral districts and working-poor electors voting against their own economic interests will ensure a divided Congress. Obama will be faced with ongoing road blocks from his political opponents, prompting him to rule by Executive Order where possible. Don’t be surprised to see him begin the process of normalizing relations with Cuba.
 Major unrest predicted for the Middle East – same as last year. Discussions with Iran over its nuclear program will go almost nowhere, since Iran neither trusts not desires to work with the ‘Great Satan’. The mullahs in that theocracy, not the Iranian president, call the shots. Obama will also be constrained by his own Congress and the hostility of the Republicans to Iran. Israel will continue its dysfunctional threats to bomb Iran, regardless. And expect to see more turbulence in the middle-east as Israel pushes ahead with even more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, making a two-nation solution and that kind of peace almost impossible.
Assad will begin to regain authority over Syria as the splintered opposition, contaminated by Al-Qaeda, loses local and international support. Egypt will continue to experience turmoil even as free elections are held. North Korea will advance its nuclear arms program, despite increasing Chinese opposition. This and the failure to curtail Iran’s nuclear efforts will encourage countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia ,Turkey and Japan to begin developing their own nuclear arms programs. Japan may seek some kind of mutual security pact with Taiwan and South Korea, given China’s heightened territorial protectionism; though history would make that a challenging proposition.
Look for Justin Trudeau’s popularity to increase across the nation as Liberals meet for a major policy congress in Montreal this February. Pundits are desperately looking for the meat on the bones of his oft-stated declaration to rebuild the middle class. Thomas Mulcair, despite his excellent parliamentary performance, has failed to attract new subscribers to his party. His support for the party’s ‘Sherbrooke Declaration’, by which Quebec could leave Canada on a 51% referendum poll – in conflict with a Supreme Court ruling – will cost him dearly among federalists throughout the country, including those in Quebec.
 Best buds? will both still be on the front pages by the end of the year? Stephen Harper will continue to shun any responsibility for Senate-gate, regardless that no one believes him. The RCMP may allow Duffy and Brazeau a get-out of jail card but Wallin and Harb may not be so fortunate. Canada’s teflon-coated PM will likely spin his way out of this mess unless, the once-loyal, Nigel Wright has a story to tell and decides to spill the beans.
The Supreme Court will likely rule that abolishing the Senate requires the consent of all provinces but the election of senators and term limits are under the purview of Parliament. Expect the PM to act early on these recommendations and reform rather than abolish the Senate. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision on prostitution, expect the Harper government to bow to the religious right in his party and outlaw prostitution (currently legal). And then there will need to be another Supreme Court ruling to deal with that law.
Global climate change is a reality and the scientists tell us that related weather events are largely unpredictable, so I won’t try to predict extreme weather events – but they are coming. Canada may finally announce some federal climate change related regulations regarding oil and mineral extraction, and perhaps even an Alberta-style emissions cap-and-trade program. This might be part of the deal for Obama approving that Keystone pipeline. But don’t expect much more on the environment from a government bent on energy extraction at all costs.
The Ontario and Quebec minority governments may go, or be forced to go, to the polls this year. Pauline Marois’ gamble on the ‘Charter of Values’ will have paid off for her and expect to see her win a majority. This would empower her to prepare for the next sovereignty referendum sometime in 2015. Marois will also be emboldened by the successful Scottish vote for independence from the UK later this year. As England considers leaving the EU, expect Scotland to apply to join the trade body and adopt its currency, as Ireland has done.
 Is another minority government the best Wynne can expect if she goes to the polls in the Spring? Kathleen Wynne’s will almost certainly face an election this year. Tim Hudak continues to frighten voters with his reactionary ‘Tea Party’ agenda and Andrea Horwath has found almost nothing to say since she was scooped on the left by the Premier, so expect another Liberal minority to be elected. Given some of the past mistakes of the Liberals, she’d be very unlikely to do better than that, despite her considerable leadership qualities.
Finally, Toronto will elect a new mayor and it won’t be Rob Ford – providing there is at least one credible and qualified candidate in the running, and not so many that Ford rides up the middle. If he loses, this may well be the last we see of this colourful but troubled man who would like to be Prime Minster one day. Unfortunately he will remain mayor for the balance of 2014.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
 December 30, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. There is no question that Rob Ford was Canada’s newsmaker of the year. The chief magistrate of Canada’s largest city, by his own admission, smoked illegal substances and hung around with criminals and drug dealers. He lied to everybody about these and other nefarious activities, and then was forced to apologize ever so insincerely when his back was up against the wall. His antics have made him and his city an international laughing-stock.
2013 was, indeed, a year of scandal and corruption. Montreal’s city hall, arguably, was worse than Toronto’s, though not nearly as colourful. Then there was the Senate fiasco. Stephen Harper’s political maneuvering of Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau and Wright came back to bite him. The pawns doing his bidding were cast aside with the Machiavellian flare of which he is so capable. T he king doth protest too much, me thinks.
 The country seemed to experience one calamity after another. Oil cars running along railway tracks totally out of control. This was also a year of calamity. Call it global climate change or not, 2013 had its share of extreme weather events, including the worst flood event in Alberta’s history, more flooding in Toronto, deadly and record tornado activity in the US and Australia, and finally southern Ontario’s Christmas ice-capade.
 The damage to north Burlington was nowhere near that of Quebec’s Lac Megantic – ours had a certain beauty to it. The federal government, in an unprecedented action, allowed a tycoon to steam his oil-laden train with only a single operator, contributing to the loss of downtown Lac-Mégantic and the deaths of many of its residents
Edward Snowden claims the title of international news maker for 2013. Ironically granted refuge in near-totalitarian Russia, his revelations of US (and Canadian) Orwellian spying activities will secure his place in history as a hero for freedom and the right to privacy. Iran started talking to the rest of the world this year, and agreed to temporarily halt its nuclear program. Syria has agreed to allow the US and Russia to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile. And Russia has shown uncharacteristic tolerance in releasing our Greenpeace activists and its own Pussy Riot punk band members in advance of the winter Olympics.
 Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge. Baby George has brought the promise of renewal to the Royal family and, though less regal, I was blessed with a new granddaughter this year. Ontario’s Alice Munro won the Nobel prize for literature, making her Canada’s greatest living writer. The global economy continued to slowly recover as Europe dug out of the Euro zone crisis, and the worst Congress in US history narrowly avoided another economic meltdown.
Kathleen Wynne inherited Ontario’s Liberal leadership, and with it a very messy legacy from her predecessor. Her abilities and demeanour have become assets in dealing with the gas plant fiasco, a dysfunctional City of Toronto, and a public sector that places its own financial well-being ahead of the public interest.
The new pope Francis brought a breath of fresh air and hope to a religion on the path to eternal irrelevance. The Supreme Court struck down dated laws which had made the oldest profession one of the most dangerous. Justin Trudeau announced his party’s policy to legalize marijuana, following the lead by the US states of Washington and Colorado. Quebec’s PQ government has opened a bridgehead in the fight for sovereignty with a ‘social values’ charter, as a complement to the decades’ old language law in that province.
And then there were the rest of us. The devastation of the ice storm just a few days ago has been met by an even greater force – the unsung heroes in our community. Whether it be the tireless power workers, coming from across the province to turn our light back on; my favourite Milton Councillor who emailed everyone she knew and opened her heart and home to them in their time of need; or a dear friend who directs a non-profit organization committed to housing needy seniors, spending his holidays tending to their needs in the wake of the storm and its aftermath.
 Is 2014 going to be a great year for Burlington, for Canada and for the world? 2013 – We didn’t experience one of those – what an improvement for the better events, but we managed to keep ourselves afloat. I’ll come back with the view I have from my perch on what 2014 could do for 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 where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
 December 24, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. Ray Rivers usually writes for us the last part of each week – but his material has a best before date that happens to be Christmas Day – so – from the pen – or keyboard of the Ridiculous Ray River we give you: A dialogue:
“So come on sweetie, you seemed to manage every other year – how many is it now?”
“Yeah I know, but this year it’s seems like I have to deliver more coal than candy, if you know what I mean.” “What is the problem dearie, it’s your job. Do I have to do all the thinking around here?” “ Ok – you’re right – but do you think you could help me with this, honey bunch”? “Fire away, Santa Baby.”
 The old pitchman trying to sell a Judge on a golf ball scheme. Chretien at the Gomery Inquiry “Jean Chretien?” “Golf balls.” “Again?”
“And Mulroney?” “Has he been good?” “I think so – let me see – yeah he kept his head down this year” “What did he ask for”? “An envelope of unmarked bills… again”. “Why not give some more shoes for Mila and a cheque made out to that disgusting Karl Heinz guy ”?
“Ah, here’s a tough one – Rob Ford”? “I know we’re supposed to give and not take – but let’s do him a favour and take away his recreational drugs”.
 He was born to be different -just how different is something we will have to wait for. “And Justin Trudeau”? “Give him Ford’s drugs.”
“Wow, you’re good at this – so for Stephen Harper some new music so we won’t have to listen to him ruining the Beatles – besides it’s so yesterday… get it, Yesterday. Oh and some anti-depressants to lighten him up little”. “Yes, that’s the spirit you ole flying-sleigh driver – and maybe do something to stop his nose from growing every time he opens his mouth”
“By Jove, I think I’m on a roll. For Pamela Wallin a new board directorship. She no longer has to pretend she is doing Senate work. I’ll put it conveniently in Saskatchewan. Mike Duffy’ll get a subscription to weight watchers and Nigel Wright a cheque for $90,000. I’ll drop off some boxing lessons for Patrick Brazeau, so he won’t get whipped so pathetically by Trudeau next time around.
“Don’t forget to give Joe Oliver and the NEB a lump of coal for pushing so hard for those pipelines”. “Better still, I’ll give him a pot full of tar smack dab from the tar sands – Brer’ Oliver. For Jim Flaherty I’ll just wrap up the Ford brothers, he likes them so much – and sending them to Whitby-Oshawa will be Jason Kenny’s gift as well.”
“For Tom Mulcair I have a shaving kit – you’d think he was competing with me with that hideous looking beard.” “I do hate the whisker burn I end up with after our annual ‘get-it-on’ whether we need it or not, you old red-coated devil.” “Oh – I can’t leave out Elizabeth May. How about one of those old classic two-seat Honda hybrids, now that she has finally got another Green Party member to fill the second seat.”
 Is this the Whitehorse Post Office? “There, you’re almost done. What about that CEO, Chopra, from the Post Office?” “Oh yeah I’ll help him get some exercise… a ‘group mail box’ of his very own in Whitehorse. That man really cares about seniors staying fit. Oh and I’ll give his gold-plated pension to the Salvation Army.”
“Let’s not forget Mike Wallace.” “How about a column of his own in the Burlington Gazette?” “Right, but does he have anything to say? And since you mention that, how about a printing press for Pepper Par so he can give people the feel of a real newspaper.? “There you’re all done. I told you it would’t be that hard.”
“Except for that Ray Rivers character.” “Well I know he’d be happy if we just wished all the readers a very merry Christmas.”
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
 December 19, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. We wish each and every one of the significant seven that set policy at city hall the Merriest of Christmases. . We have watched you; perhaps more than anyone else in the city, as you have done the job you were each elected to do. On this your last Christmas this term we want to put our wish for you in that Christmas stocking you have hung. No pieces of coal from us in your Christmas stockings.
We have watched you for every meeting you have held – well not for those that you chose to go into a CLOSED session for – there were far too many of those by the way.
Has anyone ever done a count as to how many times you have gone into a CLOSED session on the city’s legal travails with the pier? When you do get someone to count you will shudder. It didn’t have to be that way.
Let us run through the seven and tell you what we wish for them. It would not be fair to start with Ward 1 – everyone has been dumping on Councillor Craven recently, so let’s start with the Dean of Council – John Taylor.
 John Taylor, Ward 3: Thoughtful, emotional always come out for the little guy. We would wish John two things – more time at home with his wife and some time to think before he lets his emotions get to his tongue before his brain does. John knows as much as anyone as to how the city works. He struggles a bit to pull some of that information off the shelves in his head and pass the information along.
Would that there were a Senate for municipal politicians – a place people like John could be sent to and where we could call upon them for sober second thought and some refection as to what municipal government is all about.
 Jack Dennison, Ward 4 – Still athletic, still breaking he boundaries For Councillor Jack Dennison in Ward 4 we would wish a membership in the Roseland Community Organization – they chose not to accept his membership cheque and so he is for the most part on the outs with some of the people who make things happen in this city.
We would wish as well, an Ontario Municipal Board decision that is deserved, one that reflects the best for the community he was elected to represent.
 Blair Lancaster, Ward 5: Picture perfect For Blair Lancaster, the ward six Councillor, we wish a clear understanding as to just what a conflict of interest is and to understand as well the difference between the people she was elected to represent and those that have strong vested interests and want to exploit their relationship with her.
As well, we wish her the wisdom to reflect and fully understand the agendas set out for the Standing Committees she now chairs. There are many watching her performance very closely; this is her chance to show those that wonder if she has what it takes. And perhaps a can of tiara polish – might be needed to get her over the finish line come October.
Finally, an appreciation for those voters north of the 407. They basically represent the number of votes Lancaster won by last time out.
 Paul Sharman, Ward 5: Focused, data driven. For Paul Sharman – the Ward 5 council member who came on so strong during his first year and now seems to have gotten his wheels spinning in a thing called the data rut. The art of politics – and it is an art Councillor, not a science, is about people not strategies we wish a biography of Fiorello LaGuardia, the famous Mayor of New York city who loved every constituent he had and often took city buses just to be with them. Irascible, energetic, and charismatic, he craved publicity and is acclaimed as one of the three or four greatest mayors in American history.
We would add to the list of gifts for you, a Friends of Freeman Station – the one you could wear when you apologize for doubting their ability to pull of the magnificent job they have done. Add to that T-shirt the grace to do the smart thing when they delegate next and thank them and ask how you can help.
But that touch of arrogance, just a bit, wouldn’t let you do that. So add a velvet bag you can put some of that arrogance into and then toss it out.
We would add for you a PRESTO pass that you can wave at campaign meetings to show that you are ready to take the bus.
 Rick Craven, Ward 1: Plains Road, Plains Road and Plains Road. Our wish for Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven is for someone to give the man a good tickle along with a train set he can play with. Craven has a bad case of serious, serious, serious. The boy in him needs to be allowed to come out. We don`t think Councillor Craven has bad manners but we do think he needs to use the ones he was given. Politics is not a game for the thin-skinned.
A Dear Abbey book on manners will do the trick here.
So for Councillor Craven – the ability to laugh, have fun, engage people, like the people he represents (not always easy) Set aside your well-marked copy of the Procedural bylaw and accept the gift of Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people. Politics is about people – ya gotta like them and you have to like yourself before you can like others. Time for some deep reflection – there is a hill on the horizon Craven may not manage to get over.
Then there is His Worship. He wants to do a good job, and desperately wants to do the right thing – and to be liked at the same time. Leadership is being able to figure out what the right thing is for the community you lead. That chain of office can be very heavy at times. Each time you put on that chain of office – you need to also take on the strength of character voters thought they saw in you when they marked an X beside your name.
 Mayor Rick Goldring: Compassionate, still looking for the right direction for him. Many describe you as a weak Mayor. Your reasons for running in 2010 were more emotional, with that worked out of your system you can now show the city who you really are with a thoroughly thought out plan. Losing your senior advisor hasn’t helped. There is a very good chance you will be acclaimed – which would not be good for Burlington nor for you. You need to be challenged and further tested and given the opportunity to come through a hard fight and be the Mayor you could be – but that is going to call for you to be stronger, more forthright and more deliberate. Were a strong well focused candidate to come forward – you can be beaten.
So for you Your Worship a good Churchill biography to gain some sense of how great leaders handle crisis and lead their people – the one done by Roy Jenkins is a perfect place to start. We can promise that we will not have put another book by Lance Secretan in your stocking.
We wish you time to spend with the people in this city who raised you, perhaps a long talk with a high school teacher. We wish you time to reach out and find people who can help you shape a second term. Do something that is well outside your comfort zone – be bold.
We wish as well, the smarts to better understand how Meed Ward has defined herself and the introspection to determine how you want to define yourself in the months ahead.
Finally, we wish a candidate that will test your mettle and force you to defend all the decisions you made during your first term. You will be a better Mayor for it – and Burlington will be a better city if you win.
And finally Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward we wish a dictionary with fewer words. Of the three new Councillors she has grown the most and extended her reach far beyond the boundaries of her ward. She is the go to person for many people in every ward – but she talks too much.
 Marianne Meed Ward, Ward 2: She has it figured out – now can she pull it off. Meed Ward no longer has to says she might run for the office of Mayor – other people, many of them, say it for her. She has changed the way all council members communicate with their constituents. Her ward “council” is a close to perfect example of how a Councillor should interact with constituents.
Meed Ward may well run for the office of Mayor at some point in the future – but in the world of politics the future is a long, long way off.
She may well be acclaimed in 2014 – the chances of anyone beating her are slim to none. There is no one on the horizon that comes even close to threatening her.
In the event that she is acclaimed that will keep her out of the 2014 municipal election race – which will drive her bananas. She loves the game; she loves the job she has and she loves working for people.
While Meed Ward has certainly grown there are some lessons to be learned. We wish several large colourful pictures for Meed Ward – each picture will save her 1000 words.
We wish her the opportunity to attract advisors who can guide her as she grows. We wish her the time to take a summer course on economics and finance and how assets can be used as leverage.
There was a time when she had few supporters within staff – that is changing. She has work to do at the senior levels – she is never going to get to the point where she will be exchanging Christmas cards with the city’s planner.
 Burlington’s Significant Seven. The Season is about to settle upon us. Home, family, friends and time to relax and reflect are gift we wish for each and every one of you.
Return to city hall in January and meet with the Clerk to file your nomination papers.
 December 19, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. First it was the milk man and now it’s the letter carrier. The post office is losing money, again, and will be shedding eight thousand letter carriers as it brings an end to an era of time-honoured service. Losing money is not a novelty for Canada Post Office. This organization, originally created as a government department at the time of Confederation, last spent 32 years in the red (1957 to 1989) only to get out of that hole by lifting the price of stamps. And I presume it hopes that strategy will work again this time.
I examined alternate-day mail delivery while at Canada Post back in the seventies and discovered that cutting delivery in-half wouldn’t automatically cut labour costs in-half. Even worse, valuable customers like Time Magazine might have been lost with such a radical service change. I suspect the current postal management will experience some of that. For example, installing and servicing group boxes in built-up areas may end up being more costly than originally imagined by the bean counters at Canada Post. And watch the movement to e-mail accelerate.
Another study, I reviewed, demonstrated the potential cost-effectiveness of Canada Post installing facsimile machines in every Canadian household, as an alternative to letter mail. This was before Al Gore had been credited with inventing the internet. Isn’t that what is happening now? I already receive and pay most of my bills via the internet, and next year my Christmas cards will all be electronic. Mailing is becoming too expensive.
 A picture is worth a thousand words. Isn’t Canada Post heading in the wrong direction? Buy anything on the internet and it’s delivered to your door pronto, sometimes by the Canada Post owned Purolator. There will always be a demand for to-the-door delivery; for the junk-mail distributors, political pamphlets and for all those on-line purchases. Perhaps their strategy is to make letter mail so pricey and unattractive that you decide to choose their premium Express Post service rather than lick a stamp. It’s called up-selling.
 There was a time when a penny got the letter mailed. Today – $1. But Business 101 tells us that increasing your price while simultaneously reducing the quality of service is a mug’s game. Only a mad man would do this, unless he/she wanted to go out of business. If that is Mr. Harper’s strategy, then why not just privatize mail delivery while there is still market share and value, as other nations have done and some pundits are demanding?
It’s hard not to be suspicious that something else is in the soup, as we hear more and more about how pensions are imperiling the profitability of Canada Post. That seems to be the flavour of the month for a government that has no truck with enhancing the nation’s pensions. The federal finance minister just shut the door on expanding the miserly Canada Pension Plan (CPP), at a meeting this week with his provincial counterparts.
 Better pensions – for everyone? He called it a payroll tax and mumbled something about not wanting to raise taxes. But he is only partly right since half of the CPP contribution is paid by the employee, as a kind of forced saving in order to be able retire with dignity. You see Flaherty knows that we either consume stuff or we save our money. And this government wants us to spend more on consumption in the run up to the 2015 election, so his GDP numbers will look healthy as we go to the polls. Retirement issues are too far off in the future for a government determined to win a second majority mandate, and complete it’s transformation of Canada from that liberal society Mr. Harper inherited
Flaherty either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that two-thirds of Canadians don’t have a workplace pension scheme, and a third of Canadians have no savings at all. Today’s CPP is a light-age away from what it was originally intended to be. At about $12,000 a year it is pathetic. Yet, for the first time in over a decade Canadians have started saving more of their own money, so wouldn’t this be the perfect time for an expanded CPP program to lock in those savings?
 Finance Minister Flaherty – the man with the answers. The irony is that instead of enhancing CPP so people can live on their savings, the Harper government would prefer that the federal government keep on handing out Old Age Security (OAS) payments. OAS is a kind-of senior’s welfare program – where the working generation subsidizes those retired. How could that make any sense to a government that claims to be big on fiscal responsibility? Why would saving so you can live off your own money, instead of the government’s, be anathema for a government that believes in personal responsibility? It makes no sense.
Chopping 8000 letter carriers as early as possible will save the mismanaged Post Office pension scheme some money, no doubt. And Deepak Chopra, the CEO of the Crown Corporation. is also asking postal employees to allow him to cut their pension entitlements. But I have to ask why Mr Chopra, a passionate, modern executive with a very impressive biography, doesn’t offer to lead by example. For that matter, what about the minister responsible for the Post Office, Lisa Raitt , Mr. Flaherty or Mr. Harper. Why don’t they offer to cut their gold-plated pensions if they really feel public sector pensions are too generous.
Background:
Canada Post Changes History of Canada Post Privatization Privatization 2 Privatization 3 Pensions CEO Canada Post
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party. While employed as a civil servant Rivers worked at Canada Post.
 December 14, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. It may have seemed like common sense to him. Premier Mike Harris, looking for his second mandate, decided to deregulate and privatize Ontario’s energy system. He was convinced electricity was not a natural monopoly and we’d be best served without an Ontario Hydro. But he couldn’t sell the public utility because it was carrying more debt on its books than it had assets. Cheap energy rates had been a key component of Ontario’s industrial strategy for decades. To keep the rates low Ontario Hydro financed its aggressive growth, including the costly nuclear plants, by running a tab with the province and letting the debt accumulate.
 Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris made radical changes to the way the public pays for hydro. Were the changes good for the public interest? It has certainly been good for the people who run those companies. By 1999, the utility was $38 billion in debt, over $3000 for every man, woman and child in the province. And about half of that was stranded, unsupported by assets. So, instead of privatizing Hydro, Harris broke up the utility into its components, leased out Bruce nuclear, and placed the debt into a separate account to be paid back via our energy bills. That debt has been costing us a billion dollars a year and we will be paying for at least another decade.
Harris didn’t really deregulate the energy sector either – he just broke the stranglehold which Ontario Hydro had held over electricity policy, leaving a vacuum in its wake. Economics 101 tells us that nothing is more efficient than a benevolent, well-regulated and well run monopoly, especially when there are economies of scale, as there are with electricity production. But Harris was attracted to the benefits inherent in the competitive model and was going to implement Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, regardless of the cost. And, sure enough, costs rose dramatically as Harris and Ernie Eves, a Minister in the Harris government, experimented with a totally deregulated market, before finally settling on the hybrid energy supply system we have today. In fact cost increases were becoming so severe that Eves was forced to freeze rates in the run-up to the 2003 election.
 Ontario has made heavy use of nuclear energy. Where we bury the waste from those plants has yet to be resolved. Dalton McGuinty inherited this mixed bag. Like Harris before him, he was convinced that electricity wasn’t a natural monopoly. So rather than try to unscramble Harris’ energy egg, he resolved to make the private/public mix work. His first commitment, though, was to close down the dirty coal plants, which numerous studies had shown were a health risk. The coal plants were also Canada’s largest source of greenhouse gases – greater than the oil sands at that time. To replace them he contracted a combination of renewable and natural-gas energy sources. Renewable energy, which comprises about 2% of your energy bill, has taken a huge beating and ‘bad rap’ by the anti-McGuinty chattering classes.
 Moving energy from where it is created to where it is used is an expensive business. So if it’s not the green energy then why are we paying so much more for our energy than we used to? Well there is that debt repayment charge which adds a little less than a cent per kWh. There is the ongoing reorganization of Ontario’s energy system, with too many agencies, too much duplication and probably too many consultants. Then there are the contracts to purchase power, which are essential in a partially deregulated market. Nobody is going to build a half-billion dollar energy plant without guaranteed market access. And if you want the private sector involved you have to make it attractive for them to participate – but maybe they’re too attractive.
Energy is different from other commodities. Demand for energy varies all the time, depending on weather, time of day, along with a number of other factors. Significant investment is required to meet peak demand and prevent system blackouts. That will involve significant downtime for some facilities in non-peak times. Private investment prefers as much certainty and constancy as they can get or they will need additional compensation to protect their shareholders from financial risk. For that reason the hybrid energy supply model, we have today, will always be more costly than a well run monopoly with the same capacity.
We’ll never know for sure if Harris was wrong to exercise his common sense and scramble the provincial energy giant, one of the largest utilities in the world, since it was a mess at the time. But we did learn one thing last week. As Ontario’s energy minister, Bob Chiarelli, unveiled his long term energy plan, it became painfully clear that the days of cheap energy are long gone in Ontario. It almost makes you wish we still had the old Ontario Hydro back again, at least until you consider the recent spate of monetary excesses by the management of Ontario Power Generation – oh, and that huge debt.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background:
Rivers article August 29, 2013
Coal shut down–
Ontario Power Generation
Ontario Hydro Debt
Competitive vs Hybrid Discussion
The Invisible Hand
Coal Plant Closure
Ontario Power Generation Excesses
Ontario’s Energy Plan
 December 12, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. The Liberal Party of Canada will be holding its Biennial Convention in Montréal in February of 2014 – the Burlington federal Liberals are asking their members to sign on for a weekend trip to Montreal.
While a federal election is not on the calendar until 2015 – the Liberals in this town need all the name recognition a candidate can get – and with the federal Conservatives in the mess of their lives – it would make some sense to find the candidate that can win in Burlington.
 Its going to take more than a high-profile name to make Justin Prime Minister. If the Liberals can get their BOY to be seen in the House of Commons a little more often and begin making comments that make sense rather than make him look a little foolish – there could be a different political party running the country. But – it is going to take more than just the Trudeau name to form a government.
Provincially – with the chances of an election in the Spring better than even – the Liberals are still scurrying about to find a candidate to run against Jane McKenna who has done little if anything for Burlington, but she has managed to become a close to rabid partisan. Should McKenna survive the next provincial election she will become close to impossible to remove.
Tim Hudak is not likely to survive the next provincial election – which will raise the star of our Lady Jane.
Burlington seems to vote solid Tory blue unless there is a really strong name candidate – then they go with the national flow. Should Justin Trudeau up his game and begin to be seen as seriously credible a decent candidate will come forward and Mike Wallace would be in for the fight of his life.
But candidates are not like mushrooms – they don`t grow in the dark; they need sunshine and exposure; they need the interaction of vigorous debate so that voters can see the differences in character and ability and not find themselves having to rely on the political party label to make their decisions for them.
Burlington doesn`t have much in the way of a tradition to be proud of in picking candidates that are superior and able to really represent the city. For a community that is made up of people who are for the most part well-educated and in the top half of the income charts – we can and should be able to do much better than we have done in the past in terms of our political representation.
It`s not the political labels that are the problem – it’s the people wearing the labels.
 December 4, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. Well there you have it. Four by-elections last Monday, Nov 25, and nothing changed. The polling advantage is always with the opposition in a by-election, so while the Liberal numbers were up, they only managed to keep the seats they had – which means the Conservatives won.
We live in a polarized nation with strong party loyalties in some key geographic regions of the country, so that should not have been an unexpected outcome. But even so, in that close Brandan-Souris by-election, more people voted against, than for, the candidate who won. This is because our political system hands victory to the one with the most votes, regardless how small a percentage of all the votes that might be. It’s called ‘first-past-the-post’(FPP) – something designed for a two-party system, which we don’t have.
 Jean Chretien won a majority by splitting the right-wing vote and coming up the middle. Jean Chretien snatched his first parliamentary majority between the jaws of the split right-wing vote, the PCs and Reform, allowing him to come up through the middle and win with the support of less than half the electorate. Stephen Harper is a keen observer of history and a quick-study, so he followed Chretien’s lead. He began by uniting the two parties on the right. Then he focused on eroding the Liberal’s strengths and boosting the NDP in their stead. His strategy worked thanks to the Sponsorship scandal, unfortunate Liberals leadership choices, and an ever-opportunistic Jack Layton, pandering to the separatists. Though Harper’s win was even more skewed than Chretien’s – at less than 40% of the vote – win he did.
But isn’t there something wrong with this picture? Over 85 democratic nations around the world have adopted alternate electoral systems which better represent the public will. And, in my book that makes those nations better democracies. I am most familiar with New Zealand’s proportional electoral system, first introduced following a referendum in the early 1990’s and supported by 85% of the voters. It is a mixed-member system where half the electoral seats are selected via the traditional FPP, as we have here. And then the balance are awarded to each political party based on their share of the popular vote.
Since it is rare that one political party wins an absolute majority in a multi-party system, cooperation and coalitions among parties are the norm. And multiple parties means greater policy choices for the voters. If minority government gives you unease, recall that that we experienced some of Canada’s best government when the parties worked together in a minority situation, with Pearson in 60’s and Trudeau in the 70’s. Still, referenda on moving to some form of proportional electoral system were recently held in B.C. and Ontario, and both failed. In the case of Ontario, the result was unsurprising given the McGuinty government’s almost stealth-like lead-up to the vote.
 Stephen Harper realized he had to unite the right – he did and he has been winning ever since. Federal elections in Australia are conducted using a preferential ballot, another option. Voters prioritize candidates on their ballot. If no one wins a simple majority on the first ballot, second and third choices are counted, as needed, until a candidate meets the 50% threshold. Under this system Jean Chretien would not likely have had three majority terms of office, nor would Harper today. The federal Liberal party adopted a resolution, at their last policy conference, to move to a preferential ballot when they next come to power, but once in power governments often lose heart to change the system that got them there.
Amid Senate-gate and so much attention focused on what to do with the largely symbolic Senate, there has been little discussion about the lower house, the Commons. Ontario MP Michael Chong has been working on a private member’s bill intended to add accountability to the role of the MP and to rein in dictatorial PMs. Chong had been a minister in the early Harper government but resigned over the problematic ‘Quebec is a nation’ resolution, which his boss rammed through Parliament. Given his background and the potential threat his initiative poses for prime ministerial control, it is unlikely his bill will see the light of day.
 The objective of any election is for the voters to win. do Canadians feel they have won today? And even if the Liberals get into government and implement their preferential ballot, what is the chance that a subsequent government would not simply quash that system, the way Harper killed Chretien’s progressive electoral funding program? We might just have to content ourselves with being stuck with an inferior electoral system. And continue to see elections like the one in Brandon-Souris, last Monday, where the Conservative candidate won with a respectable 44% of the vote. Respectable, that is, until we realize that over half of all the voters opposed him.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background:
Michael Chong: Caucus should get to call the shots.
2011 Federal election results:
Brandon-Souris election results
Milla Pickfield is a Nelson High School graduate who decided to spend a year working in the community, helping her Mother with her business and doing volunteer work before she headed to university. She volunteered to try writing and did two piece for us; one with the Chief of Police and an interview with the new Hayden High school principal.
Milla’s most recent piece for us is on the school board, that organization that directed much of what she has done for the past ten years. Her attendance at a Board of Education meeting was a bit of an eye opener for Ms Pickfield.
 November 26, 2013
By Milla Pickfield.
BURLINGTON, ON. I got to my meeting of the Board of Education an hour early; when you have to use public transit or rely on your parents for transportation – your time is not your own
I wasn’t at all sure where I was supposed to go and asked the woman at the reception desk where the meeting was being held – school board meetings are open to the public.
 Milla Pickfield is a Nelson High graduate – understanding the proceedings of the school board was not something high school prepared her for. I was half hoping she could point me in the right direction and expected someone would supply me with an agenda. I was pointed in the right direction – without an agenda. And I had not brought anything else to read.
Half an hour after I arrived, Dr. Frank J. Hayden and his wife also showed up with Jacqueline Newton from the new high school. I had already interviewed Ms Newton and was delighted to meet Dr. Hayden and his wife.
When I was doing some research on what school boards do, I came across a quote that put everything in perspective for me. Sir Ken Robinson once said: “Everybody has an interest in Education.”
Those words resonated with me. I know that I am very interested in education which is why I was very excited to go to a Board of Education meeting. I didn’t know what it would be like, I didn’t know what the people would be like, and I didn’t know what they would talk about. After the meeting, I was left with more questions than answers.
 Dr Frank Hayden – spoke to Board of Trustees who had named the new Alton Community High school after him. It wasn’t a very satisfying experience for me. I don’t usually need help nor do I willingly accept it most of the time, however I did expect someone to greet me upon arrival at the large room in which the meeting took place. That was not the case. No one greeted me or any of the other three students in attendance. Everyone was crowded around Dr. Hayden, which was certainly understandable.
No one approached me and asked if they could help and without an agenda I found myself spending most of my time hurriedly trying to write down all I could and hoping to understand a little later from the notes I was taking. Working without an understanding of what was going on I was forced to pay extra attention to everything they were saying which still did not help. Most of the language used was part of my vocabulary however the fashion in which they used it was not.
I believe myself to be an educated person. I have done everything expected of me; I went to elementary school and high school and graduated from both with relatively high grades, what I lacked in book smarts I made up in common sense, and I can follow many conversations with adults and form and deliver an opinion. I could not follow the meeting of the Board of Education.
I wondered: if I could not follow the meeting how would other people in Burlington understand the proceedings. What about someone who just moved here from a different country; someone who just decided (like me) to drop into one of those meetings; someone with very little knowledge of the education system but with a hunger to learn; ever keep up with the meeting?
The impression I left with was that the meeting was separated into four parts:
First were the speeches which were delivered by Dr. Hayden and a student attending Hayden High.
Second part was passing a whole lot of bills and not talking about any of them.
The third part was mainly focused on speaking about some bills that were to pass and problems they’ve encountered.
Finally there was the freelance period of time, or at least that’s how I understood it. In this time anyone was allowed to bring forward an issue they though important and speak about it to the council.
 Milla Pickfield started an internship as a journalist interviewing the Chief of Police. She ‘aced’ it – wasn’t able to do as well at understanding what gets done at Board of Education meetings. I found the second and third parts of the meeting the most confusing. Perhaps it was the fact that I didn’t have an agenda, so the bills were hard to follow, or maybe it was just the extremely fast pace of the meeting but I have to wonder how someone from the public, like me, would ever follow a similar meeting to that one.
The Board of Education controls a large chunk of our lives, along with a lot of our tax dollars, and we should be able to be a part of the process and understand what’s going on. What I experienced was personally disappointing. I went in with a desire to learn all I could, perhaps understand how our education system works, and see important decisions being made.
I left the meeting feeling as if there was something wrong with me; I should have been able to understand what was going on. I read, I am informed and I understand the English language. When I think about the several hours I spent in the Board of Education meeting, I feel like I wasn’t really there.
 November 22, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. There is on the wall of my office a quote from Edmund Burke that goes:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion
to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.
Those words stuck with me – for we read again and again of the nationally and internationally prominent men who live lives that are public, who seem to feel that the way they treat the women in their lives is of no concern to the rest of us.
I take the view that the way men treat the woman in their lives is probably the most critical indicator of their personality and character – and it is character that matters most in the men that lead us. Think of a major political leader and it is easy to find one that has some salacious gossip attached to their relationships with women they are not married to. Call me old-fashioned, a prude if you like – but the way you treat the people nearest to you is an indication of how you will treat those not as near.
I think Edmund Burke had it right. I remember the images of that young American President standing before the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin and declaring: “Ich bin ein Berliner”, while a massive crowd roared their approval and we saw how he identified with their hopes and their longings.
 Marilyn Monro singing Happy Birthday to President John Kennedy in 1962 And then there is that image of that same President sitting in a ballroom looking smug while the sex queen of the time sang Happy Birthday, while his wife must have been at home cringing with shame.
The current American President doesn’t have so much as a whiff of the philanderer about him; Canada’s Lester Pearson slept in his own bed with his wife every night.
To have the charisma that the public loves to see, to be dashing and glamorous certainly does things for the ego – but if the ego needs that level of massaging, then politics and public service should perhaps not be your first choice.
Have we grown as a society in North America where the morals of the men who lead us are part of the equation we use to evaluate their worth to society?
 November 21, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. Where were you when JFK was shot? Kennedy was young, handsome, rich and the closest thing the Americans ever had that could be called royalty. With that perfectly groomed Boston accent, his speeches were poetry. They went straight to the heart and made you want to cry and/or cheer… “ask not what your country can do for you…”
 President Kennedy speaking the masses of people in Berlin where he made the now famous statement: Ich Bin Ein Berliner. Jack Kennedy was a progressive democrat, who, despite his family’s wealth, promoted America’s post-war movement for income equity through progressive taxation, a pillar of his party and its previous two president before him.
 He believed in other kinds of equality as well. He began the emerging battle for the civil rights of Afro-Americans and started the fight for medicare to protect senior Americans. Kennedy drove the initiative to land a man on the moon; got drawn into that sad conflict in Vietnam; and nearly started WWIII. His marital infidelity is well known and his obsession with communism blinded him from rational policy in Cuba and Vietnam, battles America would never win. Khrushchev treated him like a kid because of his age and lack of experience, but JFK came of age in the Cuban missile crisis.
 Presidential limousine racing the hospital with a mortally wounded President. Barely a thousand days in office, Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s bullet, or several assassin’s, or whatever the latest conspiracy theory suggests took his life and zapped the optimism of an entire generation of Americans. He has been called the greatest President by people of both parties, even in that partisan and divided place called America. His call to youth was answered in the Peace Corps, and by young Americans everywhere inspired by this fresh new leader – one they could call their own. Leadership is about vision and nobody made Americans dream bigger than Kennedy.
When Pierre Elliot Trudeau came on the scene some three and a half years after the tragedy in Dallas, we Canadians embraced our own Kennedy-like PM. He too was a visionary, if nothing else. Calling it the ‘Just Society’ he brought our criminal code into the modern age; enacted the Canada Health Act to secure universal care; brought the Canadian constitution home; raised our standard of living with regional economic development; protected national interests from foreign takeover; and kept Quebec in Canada by introducing bilingualism, multiculturalism, and eliminating the FLQ.
Trudeau, unlike Kennedy, lived to implement his vision. After serving the equivalent of four US presidential terms in office Canadians had developed a pretty good impression of the man and his evolution through the Trudeau-mania and fuddle-duddle moments.
 We knew him as John John, the President’s son playing in the Oval Office of the White House. Yes there were large deficits, a contentious energy program, a partially implemented metric system and some other grievances. But like many, I came to appreciate him even more after he had left office. I often think about where we would be today, as a nation and a society, without his thumb print on our political history. I wrote a book to that effect.
One day Trudeau took a walk in the snow, reflected on his record and retired. He had accomplished much of what he had come to office to achieve. And to his credit he continued fighting the separatists until the end.
JFK never got the chance to implement his dreams and was unable to go peacefully into the sunset. And whether it truly was the family curse or just coincidence and bad luck, neither did the other Kennedy’s. In the end, Trudeau will be remembered for the things he did, Kennedy celebrated for the things he might have done. It was fifty years ago, but sometimes it seems like only yesterday.
Ray’s column will not appear next week. Besides being an author Rivers takes to the stage as well and will be performing in Modern Times – Almost a musical which will be presented at The Pearl, 16 Stevens Street in Hamilton. Thursday to Saturday: 28, 29, 30.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
 November 15, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. So – what’s next with the air park? The city won – the airpark people can appeal – they’ve got 30 days plus a couple of jiggle days to decide what they want to do. The final date for an appeal is December 18. The two lawyers representing the Airpark will be going over the decision with a fine tooth comb looking for grounds to appeal – assuming their client can come up with what it is going to cost to file an appeal.
Meanwhile the city will pull together its team – that will include Ian Blue, the lawyer the city hired to argue the case, and the internal staff that have worked this file.
The city bylaw is pretty specific –
An applicant for a Permit must submit a Control Plan as part of its application which must contain, inter alia, a map showing the location of the site, the site boundaries and the number of factors, the current and proposed use of the site, location of lakes, streams, wetlands, channels, ditches and other watercourses and other bodies of water on the site, the location of the predominant soil types, the existing site topography at a contour level not to exceed 0.5 m, the proposed final elevations of the site, the location and dimensions of temporary soil, or silt stockpiles and provisions maintaining site control measures during construction.
And if the decision stands this is what the Air Park is going to have to comply with.
 This Regional government map shows they knew what the plans were – but they didn’t do anything – instead bought the Vince Rossi argument that the airpark was federally regulated. The challenge is going to be for the city to find a way for the Airpark to comply. City General Manager Scott Stewart explains the Airpark will have to hire a consultant and put forward a proposal on how they think they can comply with the bylaw. Expect to see a lot of back and forth on this one. Vince Rossi has never given an inch in his previous dealings with the city.
The relationship Rossi established with the Ward Councillor Blair Lancaster, which bothered the people whose property was being harmed environmentally and de-valued financially, is not going to get Rossi out of this one. There is one resident who has probably lost 50% of the value of her property now that there are 30 foot hills either side of her lot.
Many felt that Lancaster, was far too close to Vince Rossi. They felt her sitting beside him at a community meeting was a dumb decision and when she was spotted walking out of the court house with Rossi some wondered if any of the confidential information Lancaster is given as a Council member was working its way to Rossi.
 Ward 6 Councillor Blair Lancaster held some of her ward meetings at the Airpark. Area residents didn’t fully appreciate in 2011 and 2012 how tight she was with Vince Rossi. Lancaster had spent a few minutes with Ian Blue, the city’s lawyer and Scott Stewart, general manager for Development and Infrastructure and the point man on this file, after the Judge completed the hearing. Lancaster then walked from the Court house to her car with Rossi. The political optics were terrible – one would expect the Council member to be mindful of her position.
The north Burlington residents have been meeting with senior city staff at regular Saturday morning get togethers at a coffee shop and have been kept in the loop. One hopes that the city will have at least some of that Saturday morning group at the table as they work out how to get the Air Park to comply with the bylaw.
The city expects Rossi to comply with the bylaw using some of the money he made from landfill dumping fees – problem is much of that money doesn’t show up on the Airpark’s financial statements. So where is that money – and we are not talking chump change here.
During the hearing before Justice Murray, Ian Blue managed to slip in the fact that the $2 million plus per year, earned by the Air Park in 2011 and 2012 and a smaller sum in 2013 did not appear on the company’s financial statements. Many want to know where that money went.
The public does know that there is something in the order of $4 million in mortgages on the Airpark property – hard to understand how that debt is going to be serviced with no more dumping fees coming in. Might the TD Bank end up foreclosing on the property and offering t sell it to the city who might operate the place as a municipal airport?
Stranger things have happened. Jeff Fielding, city manager, has council convinced to let him come up with business cases for what he calls Enterprise Corporations. A municipal; airport could be just another enterprise.
Assuming the court case is not appealed the city has some major thinking to do. First how to fix the damage that was done and then to decide just what it wants to do in terms of how it grows north Burlington. It is a development no go zone, designated as agricultural but doesn’t really support an agricultural industry. There are a number equine operations up there, places where you can pick your own berries and pumpkins and quite a bit of hay and soy bean farming.
The mess the city got itself in with the Airpark development was because there was no one paying any attention. The residents were telling anyone who would listen that there was a massive landfill operation going on up there and when people at the Region, city hall and the Conservation Authority made telephone calls they were told that the Airpark came under federal jurisdiction and for a time everyone let it go at that.
 Will this mountain of landfill ever get taken out? It wasn’t until Vanessa Warren formed an organization and went public at both the Regional and city levels that we saw some action on the part of the city. They sent people up and took a look around; the Mayor visited several of the properties and left stunned by what he saw and is reported to have been on the phone to the city manager as he drove out of one property saying he was appalled at what was being done.
The city, to its credit, grabbed this one by the horns and moved quickly and with more certainty and confidence than was ever seen under the term of the previous city manager. When Glenn Grenier, a lawyer representing the Air Park, delegated to city council the city manager advised the Mayor on three occasions during the meeting to send the man packing. Fielding, who is a man you do not want to cross, exchanged words with Grenier in the Council Chamber foyer later. That should have been signal enough for the thickest of mindsets to figure out they had a fight on their hands. But Vince Rossi has never indicated that he took listening very seriously.
Right now he is reading and re-reading Justice Murray’s decision and telling his lawyers to find a hole in the document; give him something to crawl through.
 November 3, 2013
By Ray Rivers
BURLINGTON, ON. At the end of WWII Canada had the third largest navy in the world, the fourth largest air force and the largest volunteer army ever fielded. Since that time we have participated in over 200 international military operations though, with the exception of Korea and Afghanistan, these were largely peacekeeping or international policing exercises.
The only nation which has ever invaded Canada was the USA and they are unlikely to ever do that again since we beat them in 1814. Besides, if they did invade what would we do? Even during the 50‘s cold war Canada was never threatened, except perhaps in our minds.
 National War Memorial – Ottawa So in the late sixties, the Canadian government swallowed a reality pill and changed the role of our military from fighting to peacekeeping. We downsized our war machine, unified the three branches of the armed services and focused on what was most important – finding the path to peace. Hey, and even with a smaller and presumably less effective fighting machine nobody invaded us.
However our current PM is a big promoter of the military, in fact, the biggest we’ve had since the second world war. He has plowed a tonne of money into military hardware such that Canada is now the 13th or 14th biggest arms spender in the world and the 6th among NATO members. Our military budget rose 42% over the ten years ending 2008, he’s changed the names of the air and naval forces as if to restore the good old glory days, and he has his eye on some fancy fighter jets and other toys.
This past week we celebrated Remembrance Day. Always a solemn day, this year our veterans had another reason to be sad. You see the Conservatives introduced the Veterans Charter in 2006, under which a lump sum cash payment has replaced life-long after-service care for disabled vets. It may have sounded like a good idea at the time but the reality has bitten hard. Since the Charter was enacted our vets have been increasingly concerned that the lump sum will be inadequate to cover all the costs relating to their conditions as they age. This is especially true for the younger returned soldiers.
Nobody makes a greater sacrifice for the nation than our men and women who put their lives in harm’s way for us – principally our soldiers, police and firefighters. When they are injured in the line of duty we owe them. It is something to dedicate a day of remembrance with music, wreaths and parades. But it is something else to do the right thing by these heroes and make sure we have got their backs covered, now when they need us most. Canada has been spending a lot of money on military hardware lately, let us not forget our obligations to those who have put their lives ahead of ours.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background:
Canada’s armed forces
13th biggest military spender
Veteran’s Charter Does the Veteran’s charter need a change?
 November 8, 2013
By Ray Rivers.
BURLINGTON, ON. Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Toronto and have to admit that Rob Ford is your mayor? Did he really say he was ‘hammered’ on the Danforth and smoked crack in one of his drunken stupors? And was that the mayor in that police video urinating on a street, behind a school? He was just marking his turf, Toronto. And he’s not quitting the mayor’s office because, in his words, the people elected him to do a job. I guess they deserve the government they elected.
 Ford passes screen test for his first video – drunk on the Danforth. David Simon is a former police reporter and novelist who wrote the television series “The Wire”, describing various facets of criminal life in the City of Baltimore. Chief Blair appears to have followed that script, using telephone records, and then wiretapping to get the real dope on Ford and his gangland-drug buddies.
Not enough to charge him yet but we know where this is going – we’ve seen the Wire.
Ford makes great comedy for the international media but this is really not a laughing matter. The Globe and Mail is taking this seriously. They have called him out as a liar and demanded his resignation. The Star has released another video of Ford going manic, threatening to kill someone in no uncertain terms. The man is out of control but the rest of City Council is powerless, or gutless, to stop him.
And the Wynne government can’t intervene since Ford’s allies would label that political interference faster than you can fill a crack pipe.
At the most senior government level both Ford’s fishing buddy, Harper, and his family friend, Flaherty, are keeping their heads down. I wonder what our law and order PM really thinks of his crack-smoking friend now. Of course, Toronto’s drama has been a great distraction to the other conservative theatre in Calgary, last weekend and in Ottawa, seemingly forever.
Senate-gate overshadowed the Conservative convention in Calgary and the PM, now off-script and acting like a deer caught in the headlights, went with his gut – and let his right-wing base take over the agenda. There was a resolution to restrict abortions and another to declare war on public servants and their pensions. But this is just the appetizer. Canada’s most ideologically positioned right-wing PM in living history, is bent on even more social transformation between now and the next election in 2015.
 Senator Wallin and Prime Minister Harper during better times. Harper is at his best when he feigns the underdog and goes on the defensive against the so-called establishment and the elites. And he did that well – divorcing himself from the senators he handpicked for the Red Chamber and blaming the judges he appointed to the Supreme Court for blocking his will to reform the Senate.
The irony is that Harper is the establishment now. He has been PM for the last seven years. And if he doesn’t like how his program is going, he could always try to change the channel.
Stephen Harper is also Canada’s Teflon man. Like his buddy Ford nothing seems to stick to him, and there are no consequences, at least not yet. The RCMP have apparently just taken possession of Duffy’s emails so that may shed more light on the PMO’s involvement. The expelled senators are threatening to take legal recourse against the government, and no doubt against what they must now consider to be the duplicitous PM, calling the shots that got them expelled. As they say, hell hath no fury like a senator scorned.
 Can the time in the penalty box count as time earned for their pensions? In the meantime, I am getting sick of it all. What was once amusing political theatre is rapidly becoming a boring sad tragedy – enough already! The creative TV series “The Wire“ focused on character development and thus was a refreshing change from most stereotypical good/bad-guy American police shows. But even in this series the bad guys got their just rewards.
 Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province. He developed the current policy process for the Ontario Liberal Party.
Background links:
Globe & Mail calls for Ford resignation
Federal Tories eager to edge away from Rob Ford
Star points to details of Ford behaviour.
Government party makes policy decisions.
Drunk Mayor makes video debut.
|
|
