By Pepper Parr
July 17th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Most of us got through last week – but not everyone fared well.
Mortgage rate increases are ruining some families; the heat that has become oppressive. The Climate change issue is now top of mind for the thousands that basically ignored it a year ago.
Some serious thought has to be given to how city council wants to handle transit – free rides bump into the cost of converting to an electric fleet.
One Gazette reader reported pointed out that Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster said a traditional bus comes in at about $700,000 range, while the electric version come at about $1.5 million.
We know what the diesel buses do to the environment – but cutting over to electric buses can’t be done in the immediate future. And if it could will the public put up with the increase and at the same time make transit free for everyone?
Another Gazette reader took exception to our comment that there was a level of greed driving up rental rates – 20% plus increases – is hard to attribute to the rising costs for property owners.
Somewhere something has to give – and the one thing that can’t give is the environment.
Fires in western Canada have cost the country the lives of two firefighters, 100 families in an Ottawa suburb are looking for trades people to repair their homes.
There are parts of Burlington that understand what flooding did to their basements in 2014.
City Treasurer Joan Ford has a very tough budget to craft – council will disappoint her with some of the decisions they make.
Residents will see the beginnings of the budget in September – it isn’t going to be pretty.
Leadership at the federal and provincial levels has been terribly disappointing; does anyone want to ask how that $10 a day for daycare program is doing.
It took the federal government close to a year to get the agreement in place with the province – all the other jurisdictions already had their agreements completed.
Once the province has its agreement with the federal government – it then has to turn to Regional governments to determine how the daycare sector is going to become part of the funding plan and at the same time thousands of certified child care workers have to be found and trained.
One of the few construction cranes to be erected in the city.
The housing needed to accommodate the half a million people that are going to come to Canada has yet to be built – the development industry has realized that affordable housing is not a part of the industry that offers the profits that the high end condominiums offer.
Has anyone seen a crane going up on any one of the development sites that have been approved?
Far too many of the development applications are waiting for their Ontario Land Tribunal(OLT) hearings; the developers don’t like the Official Plan that was passed by the current City Council and are hoping some of the items they dislike can be changed.
The City has not done all that well at OLT hearings.
The problems, the pain and the grief are far from over.
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
