By Pepper Parr
May 2nd, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
Well that didn’t take very long.
After a couple of videos that had Doug Ford, who is running for the office of Premier of Ontario, explaining to unidentified groups what he was prepared to do with Greenbelt lands – the public reaction was close to fierce.
Within a day he back tracked – and that idea was off the table.
He appears to be trainable and needs to be watched.
The Ford comments did flush out of the bushes a couple of the local developers with their view that they looked forward to building affordable housing in the Greenbelt.
The Greenbelt in rural Burlington is not the place where affordable housing is going to be built. Affordable housing has to be close to transit.
Halton Region doesn’t have a coherent affordable housing policy. The city of Burlington isn’t in the affordable housing business – that is a Regional responsibility.
The Region is at least half a decade behind creating the much needed affordable housing policy and working with the four municipalities that make up the Region.
A lot of work to be done on this file. Burlington’s current crop of politicians need to press the Region to come up with a policy – taking some ideas to the Region wouldn’t hurt but that isn’t going get done by those in office today.
The city is now into full election mode – citizens want to watch and listen carefully to what those seeking your vote have to say.
One has to admit this was a great issue to maximize news coverage. Only to reverse course overnight claiming he listened to voter concerns. Afraid these kind of strategies could do him well in this age of mistrust of government.
If Doug Ford is willing to listen to the people as he claims, perhaps there is an opportunity for people in Burlington. We clearly don’t want the overintensification that the mayor and council like to remind us was foisted on us by the provincial government (of course, they have shown no leadership or courage in standing up to the provincial government). And don’t get me started on Eleanor McMahon who once again, just as in the school closing fiasco, has been missing-in-action. Let’s ask Doug Ford to return decision-making and accountability to the people of Burlington.
“Trainable?” Someone who can “hit the ground running” fully trained would make a more effective premier than someone like Ford, who will have a long, low-sloped learning curve ahead of him.
It’s doubtful if Doug would have retreated if this issue had been reported after he had won the election.