By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON October 7, 2011 – It was another provincial election campaign that never seemed to develop any energy or drive. That was on the surface. There was a hopeful feeling amongst the Liberals that this time they had it. They felt they had a stellar candidate and the Premier had come to the riding and things looked great on the organizational side of things as well.
But that isn`t the way the numbers turned out at all.
Jane McKenna the Progressive Conservative Candidate took the riding with 40.4% of the vote – with 20,048 ballots having her name on them. Karmel Sakran the Liberal candidate got 36.1 % and 17,903 votes. Peggy Russell, the NDP candidate got 18.8 % with 9347 votes.
McKenna got 2,165 more votes than Sakran. When Joan Lougheed ran against Joyce Savoline in the 2007
 She had the most signs, she got the most votes - and now she is your MPP. by -election Savoline won by 1,778 votes and when Marianne Meed Ward, now a member of municipal council ran against Savoline in the full 2007 election Savoline got just 1824 more votes than Meed Ward.
McKenna, the candidate that was acclaimed at close to the last minute (I think she was the second to last candidate to get nominated in the province) and who many felt she really wasn`t qualified and certainly didn`t have the support of everyone in the Burlington Progressive Conservative Association – turns out to have done better numerically than any other Progressive Conservative in the last three provincial elections.
Talk about her inadequacies all you like – the lady can win elections. The people who go looking for candidates for the other two parties, especially the Liberals will want to look at the numbers very closely.
Peggy Russell`s campaign was managed by Cory Judson – who had been the candidate in the 2007 by election where he got 5% of the vote and again in the 2007 full election where he got 11%. Peggy Russell pulled in a solid 18.8% – nothing shabby about the Russell numbers.
Were they good enough for Burlington to grow to the point where the city will pick up whatever is in the air from the other side of the Bay and make our air orange Not likely.
The voter turnout numbers were apparently very poor for Ontario this time out – we heard just 45% of the voters entitled to cast a ballot bothered to do so.
For McKenna to get the numbers she did – and make no mistake about her numbers – they are better than previous Tory candidates did in the 2007 elections. They were in fact as good as those that Cam Jackson posted in the 2003 election.
 Peggy Russell did better than previous NDP candidates. Solid campaign as well. So the city just might have a candidate that has traction.
The Progressive Conservatives who have almost always owned the Burlington seat in the provincial legislature got their leader Tim Hudak to make at least a pit stop in Burlington the last full day of the campaign – and the turnout wasn`t all that great. didn’t matter, McKenna is doing something that connects with the people who put the X on the ballot.
A city that has elected Liberals federally but hasn`t elected a Liberal provincially since 1943 has decided it will remain blue. It looked like it was going to be an exciting election and it was – the province may find itself with a minority government – but in Burlington there is a new Progressive Conservative member going to the provincial legislture. She may have more surprises for us.
One of the small pieces of election trivia – A source that has precious little validity, Community Media Burlington, published the result of a straw poll from people that follow its tweets. had For the Burlington riding, by party, the votes were … NDP 23%, PC 32%, Liberal 43%
This same poll had Dave Bedini beating Marianne Meed Ward in the last municipal election.
The results for this were released just before 8:30 pm and must have had the Liberals ecstatic –
 Sakran expected to win this election - it will take some time to figure out where and why he lost. Was it the blue machine? Sakran ran the better campaign and was the better candidate but Burlington was not ready for whatever it was Sakran had to offer. the NDP numbers were probably close to the mark.
The advance poll in Burlington was up 38 percent over the last provincial election. Just over 52% of the eligible voters came out in 2007. The voter turn out numbers, not official yet, were said to be a very poor 45% this election.
Members of the different political parties gathered at different locations in the city; the Liberals at the Burlington Hotel and Convention Centre, the New Democrats at the Black Bull and the Progressive Conservatives at their campaign office on Fairview.
There were two occasions when the CBC computers had a clear 54 seat majority for the Liberals; once at 9:37 pm and again at 10 pm – but on neither occasion were they able to maintain the number. And on neither occasion did the Liberals gathered at their location let out anything in the way of a cheer. The Liberals had the largest crowd, the Mayor plus Councillors Taylor and Craven put in an appearance. Didn`t see any municipal people at the Tory chow down. Mike Wallace, the Conservative MP was in attendance along with all the other Tory usual suspects.
It is traditional in Burlington politics for the defeated candidates to call on the winner and congratulate them. Alyssa Brierley, the federal Liberal candidate paid a call on winner Mike Harris and hung around for some time. Karmel Sakran is reported to have popped in and popped out of the McKenna campaign offices.
By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON October 6, 2010 – Redo that budget and get in some money for the $75.00 fine the city wants to levy for those caught using their skate boards on city streets. Add the victim fee and that $75. which will get you as close to $100. as you want to be.
The city isn`t all that concerned about the money – it just wants to find a way to be able to control the people that are behaving recklessly and feels that a $75. fine will do the trick. Problem with the fine is that there are all kinds of legal and Highway Traffic Act concerns.
This is a delicate area – just about every kid that doesn`t use a bike, uses a skate board to get around and the law as it stands now says you cannot use a skateboard on a public road. You can use it on a side walk or in the bike lane. All the police can do now is talk to you – there is no penalty for them to levy.
The city thinks that giving the police a tool they can use will solve the problem – and when they do that they shift that problem to the police who are going to be expected to exercise discretion.
The problem is with gangs that see skate boarding as almost an extreme sport. Ward 1 councillor Rick Craven reports that there are kids who gather at night on Kerns Road where the hills and the grades are great for skate boarding. They get out there with a van and a video camera, film the thrill ride of someone speeding down the hill and post it on You Tube. The police are powerless for the most part because even if they do catch the kids behaving recklessly they can only warn them off.
Council wants to give the police a bigger stick and wanted to talk about ways that a system of fines could be put in place. But they didn`t want the police to be slapping a $75. ticket on every kid using a skate board on a public street – they wanted the police to use their discretion.
 Can you imagine drivving up the street and seeing this coming at you? Not reckless but not the safest thing to do either. Police didn`t attend the Committee of the Whole meeting – city staff said they were invited, the police say they weren`t. Our information from our media man at Regional Police was that :“ I have spoken with the Burlington Operational Inspector who advised me they were aware of the meeting you are referring to, but they (police) were not asked to be in attendance for it.“ Go figure. Methinks staff were being a little disingenuous. The police are aware of the problem and they too would like to see a solution. They are the people that have to attend when there is an accident and report that a young person has suffered serious head injuries.
Giving police the ability to issue a ticket and then expecting them to use their discretion reflects a bit of misunderstanding as to what police do. They are there to enforce the law. Give them clear rules and they will do their job – expect them to use their discretion and you invite nothing but problems. I suspect too that traffic offence lawyers will have great fun with this one should a ticket case every get to traffic court.
That said, there is a problem. Kids are creating dangerous situations in parts of the city where there are really good hills they can speed down. The city put up signs saying Skate Boarding was Prohibited – the kids tore down the signs.
The problem however is not limited to parts of the city with steep grades. Recently there was a serious accident involving a van and a young man on a skate board who was luging along a flat street. Luging is when a person lays flat on a skate board. The driver of the van just didn`t see the person on the skate board.
This problem is going to call for some very creative thinking by people who are very familiar with the Highway Traffic Act. A new fine of $75. and expecting the HRPS to exercise discretion isn`t the answer to this problem.
Educating the kids isn`t going to solve this problem either. The vast majority of the kids who glide along quiet residential streets with buds plugged into their ears meaning they don`t hear traffic approaching are harming no one. It is just a few that are creating a problem – let`s find a stick that won`t cripple them when they are hit with it – but let`s not put our police in a situation where they have to solve a problem we can`t solve.
The Highway Traffic Act says that bicycles can be used on the streets. Blades and boards can be used on a sidewalk or in a bicycle lane if one exists. Can you imagine the howls from the public if all the skate boards are suddenly on the side walk ?
Sergeant Dave Cross, the Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) media man, advises that HRPS does not have a Skate Board Swat Team, so we shouldn`t expect to see cruisers out on the prowl along Kerns Road every night
And as for Officer who gave me a speeding ticket for doing more than 60 on Walkers Line, ( I thought the limit was 80) – he did exercise some discretion and cut it back a bit and saved me some points. Will that kind of discretion solve our skate board problem ? Is it worth a try ?
The officer who caught me was parked behind a cluster of bushes – are we going to see officer hiding in hedges along Kerns Road with bicycles at the ready to race after skate board miscreants ?
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By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON October 4, 2011 – In the world of newspapers and other media you learn to protect your sources, but at the same time be sure that your sources aren’t using you – and when a source does not identify themselves, by which I mean you don’t really know who they are – be very, very, very careful – because that source usually has something to hide and they want to manipulate the process.
A number of months ago there was an email address burlingtonpierwatch@gmail.com – a citizen who had developed an interest in what was happening at the foot of Brant Street. The Pier watcher disappeared during the summer and has now re-appeared with information that they could only have been gotten from the lawyers involved in the dispute with the city.
Your city council has finally resolved what has been a debilitating and financially expensive experience, but to the credit of both the Mayor, his council and senior city staff – plus those secretive folks in the city’s legal department, the pier project is now back on track and with a bit of a break with the weather you will be out on that Pier in the summer of 2013.
 Expect to see men and equipment out on the Pier any day now. The lawyers of course can now begin their squabbles - the city has a strong casse. It has been an exhausting process and an expensive one in terms of money spent on lawyers and consultants not to mention the staff time the construction errors ate up. But we are past that – and we truly are past all that.
However, there are those that want to limit the damage to themselves and they are using the electronic media to mess things up a little while the lawyers work towards some kind of a settlement.
The parties in all this are primarily, Zurich Insurance, the company that put up the performance bond – they want to get out of that mess for as little as possible.
Henry Schilthuis and Sons, the original contractor who walked off the job when they found that they couldn’t complete the job with the design they had been given and Aecom, the company that now owns the engineers who did the original design work.
The city is suing both for $7.5 million and $10 million respectively and looking for $3.5 million from the insurance company. These are large sums of money and the people being sued will fight very hard to get the amount of the claim they are going to have to pay down to as low as possible.
So when you see things like what is set out below being sent out you begin to wonder – who is the Pier Watcher and who is he working for and where is he getting his information ? Read on and decide for yourself.
Enter Howard Wise – the construction lawyer you would rather have on your side.
Clearly HSS Construction is not planning to back down from the Brant Street Pier fiasco. In fact, they’ve decided that Howard Wise will be replacing Phil Horgan to lead the HSS legal battle. This only can signal that the gloves are coming off. Horgan is known as a construction lawyer who concentrates on reaching solutions. Howard Wise has a reputation of fighting and winning.
This seems to be a shift for Henry Schilthuis, (president of HSS) well known for his gentle demeanour and his default to working out problems (HSS hasn’t been embroiled in a lawsuit in over 50 years until the pier came along). It could be that the bonding company is pushing HSS to start playing hardball and teach the municipality a lesson. There are concerns among bonding companies that municipalities are relying too heavily on bonding companies to solve what are contractual disputes.
What does all this mean? Goldring and company now know Election Issues #1.
Language like “teach the municipality a lesson” and the concerns of the bonding company – interesting. Will the Pier Watcher come forward and identify himself ?
Election issue # 1 is to deliver on your promises and Goldring said he would finish the Pier and his Council has gone along with him. All the critical votes have been 7-0 Promises by the Mayor have been delivered.
By Staff
 BURLINGTON, ON September 29, 2011 You know someone is running a little on the scared side when they start slinging mud. However, with every story there is often a grain of truth – and truth be told, political parties do have to fund their campaigns and when they need money it usually calls for a trip to the bank.
And banks don’t give money away – so when you need a loan and you don’t have much in the way of assets – what do you do? You have to get someone to co-sign the loan, which appears to be what the New Democrats did recently.
Nothing wrong with that. Every one of us has kids that need a helping hand and we put our “John Henry” on the line for them.
If there is a financial understanding between an organization and a political party it is usually wiser to get the story out before someone else puts it out on you with their spin and not yours.
There was a time when the federal Liberals always had a Senator who was also a Director of one of the largest banks close at hand, so that when an overdraft had to be approved all it took was a phone call.
The NDP has never formed a government and has never been able to give goodies to the banks – and so they have to look to other friends for support. Nothing wrong with that – just come clean fast.
Here’s the story the provincial Liberals have out on the
New documents reveal that Andrea Horwath misled reporters and failed to disclose the true relationship between the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation and the Ontario NDP.
Asked this morning if Cornerstone plays any financial role in the NDP campaign, Horwath said “None whatsoever. None whatsoever. It’s a separate corporation, separate board of directors, no role whatsoever in our campaign, no financial, you know, no financial connection whatsoever. It’s completely separate.” (Andrea Horwath Media Scrum, September 29, 2011)
And she continues to duck questions on the whereabouts of $100,425 of taxpayer money and another $100,000 in union funds granted to Cornerstone for accessibility.
But that’s not the whole story. Horwath was in a position to know how her party raises money.
Documents obtained by the Liberals reveal that links between Cornerstone and the NDP are far greater than previously believed. Not only are all 8 members of the Cornerstone board current or former board members of the NDP, but the corporation is actually bankrolling the NDP’s campaign.
Land registry documents show:
• Cornerstone served as collateral for a $4,350,000 loan that is currently financing Horwath’s 2011 campaign
• Cornerstone served as collateral for a $3,450,000 loan that financed the 2007 NDP campaign
And contrary to Andrea Horwath’s claim that Cornerstone “has nothing to do” with her, new documents also reveal that Andrea Horwath sat as an ONDP Vice President when the Cornerstone fundraising scheme was hatched, and served as the 2007 NDP Campaign Co-Chair. (OntarioNDP.com)
The Cornerstone campaign’s sole goal was to purchase a property that would finance NDP election campaigns:
• “The Cornerstone Campaign is a 3-year capital campaign aimed at purchasing a permanent party headquarters in order to finance future election campaigns…purchasing a building will allow the Ontario NDP to continue to qualify for election campaign loans.” (NDP Cornerstone Campaign, The Business Case, pg. 1)
It’s time Andrea Horwath told reporters and Ontarians the truth on the NDPs intricate relationship with Cornerstone. It’s time she said what the NDP did with the $100,425 they received from the federal government and provided assurances that money was not funneled to the NDP campaign. It’s time she returned the money.
 When you need money for a project - and an election is a project - you pay a visit to a friendly banker, and if that banker isn't really friendly, you take a freind along who can co-sign for you. All the politicalparties do it - the Liberals want you to know how the NDP is doing it. Why? What’s interesting about the comments the Liberal’s released about Cornerstone is that they never say what the company does, who owns it and how long it has been around. Cornerstone is a marketing company that deals primarily in the creating and marketing of lists of names. Everyone uses lists of names. When you get an offer from a credit card company mailed to you they bought your name from a broker who developed the list and kept it active. Good list brokers develop and maintain very sophisticated lists and market them. It’s all part of the way products are brought to people’s attention and sold. If you live in an apartment you don’t want an offering for a lawn mower and a good mailing list will not have apartment dwellers on lawn mower lists.
The really good list development people can put together a list that is very tightly targeted. That’s what Cornerstone does and if they have enough money in the bank and are able to help a political party obtain the loan they need – nothing wrong with that. Just be clear and up front about it. Play it straight.
Could all this “new” news from the Liberals be because Andrea Horwath did quite a bit better than the Liberals expected in the all candidates debate earlier this week – and that her position in the polls has risen a bit more than the Liberals are comfortable with and they need to knock her down a point or two? Just asking.
By Casey Cosgrove
 BURLINGTON, ON September 28, 2011 – Is it just my imagination, or does there seem to be a noticeable lack of interest in Burlington over the coming provincial election ? Naturally, those working on a campaign, directly for a candidate, or as advocates for a specific issue (like the hospital or mid-peninsula highway) probably won’t see it this way as the city serves as a daily campaign battleground until October 6th.
The mainstream media is covering the election as usual, but on the ground here in Burlington, there seems to be very little buzz. One usual predictor of interest – lawn signs – also tells the story. Take a drive through the city and you will see relatively few lawn signs staked into the grass Burlington.
A reading of local newspapers, blogs, campaign brochures, and discussing the coming election with neighbours, friends, and a network of young families in Burlington in recent weeks, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the level of interest among Joe Voter.
I conducted a small, informal survey with 41 busy, working, middle-income individuals, mostly commuters, and most with school-aged children. These folks are common working Burlington families – a demographic each of the political platforms I have read appear to be targeting on paper. Of the 41 respondents, 26 will vote in the Burlington riding, while 15 (who live in the Orchard or Millcroft) will vote in the Halton riding. All are Burlingtonians, but none described themselves as politically ‘active’, or are involved in any of the campaigns under way in either riding.
I asked five basic questions.
1- Will you be voting in the coming election?
2 – If you are voting, have you decided whom you will vote for?
3 – How will you determine who will get your vote? (local candidate, party itself,
party leader, party platform, a combination, a specific issue, or other).
4 – Have you seen a candidate at your doorstep yet? Does that matter to you?
5 – If you are not voting, have not decided, or are reluctant to vote, why is that?
19 of 41 respondents (less than 50%) said they will definitely be voting in the coming election. 12 said they might, while 10 said that they won’t bother to vote. Interestingly, 14 of the 19 who will be voting have already decided whom they will be voting for.
Of the 19 sure voters,
10 said they vote for the party itself,
2 on particular issue,
3 for the local candidate,
1 the party platform,
2 the party leader, and
3 indicated it was a combination of all of the above.
Of the 41 respondents, only 1 has seen a candidate show up at their door. When asked whether this mattered to them, 16 said they’d like the chance to talk to candidates while 25 said it does not matter to them if a candidate shows up at their door. Some even stated that they would prefer if they did not see a candidate. It is worth mentioning that only two respondents were seniors, the rest were younger families, which may better explain this particular result.
As you might guess, the most intriguing, and disturbing responses were to the last question – ‘if you are not voting, have not decided, or are reluctant to vote, why is that? The responses to this question included
‘why bother, they break their promises anyway?’,
‘I cannot tell the difference between them’,
‘my vote wont count in Burlington anyway’,
‘I do not trust any of them’,
‘I do not feel informed enough to vote’,
‘I do not like politics’,
‘I do not know the options well enough’,
‘there is no issue that I feel particularly strongly about’,
‘I waited 2 hours last election’ and
‘they are all the same, so I do not care who wins’.
We often focus on the percentage of people that do not vote, but we spend little time analyzing this reluctance or refusal to participate in this
 Platforms are full of smoke and mirrors, and are like moving targets. There are plenty of reasons to be disillusions and even disgusted with elements of our electoral process. democratic right. It seems clear that many people in Burlington are feeling a lack of engagement, a lack of trust, and a feeling that their vote does not matter. Why is this? Are those that do not vote just plain lazy and unappreciative of this right that was fought for?
Perhaps a few, but many have good reason to be fed up. Election promises are often made and broken. Partisan ‘spin’ has become a prime tactic in campaigns. Loca
l candidates often ‘hide’ behind the leader, not sharing much about their own credentials and vision.
Once elected, representatives are basically forced to toe the party line, or else they can expect to get comfortable in the backbenches. A vote for a truly independent thinker may be a ‘lost leader’ if that party ends up governing.
Elections seem to be used as much to confuse people as to bring clarity, as the lines between the existing parties have blurred substantially, fighting for a piece of the ‘middle’. Aspiring candidates spend much of their time obsessing about those in power, rather than trying to engage people with their own ideas and vision.
Platforms are full of smoke and mirrors, and are like moving targets. There are plenty of reasons to be disillusions and even disgusted with elements of our electoral process. Getting elected is the prime goal of those campaigning so there will be no acknowledging these issues during a campaign. Smile, stay on message, disregard and poke holes in the opponents platform and ideas. Just win.
I am among those that have never missed an opportunity to vote. I am sometimes offended during elections, and I don’t always have a clear choice that I feel great about, but I always vote. I care enough to find something I feel strongly enough to vote for. This is not simply about getting people to cast a vote.
Rather than berating people for not exercising their right to vote, perhaps we should spend more time engaging citizens, exploring things that they do care about, and making them feel heard. If one really cares about something, and feels ‘heard’, they will vote every time, guaranteed.
Casey Cosgrove has lived for all but five of his many years in Burlington where he has been active in the community. He ran as city Councillor in the 2006 municipal election. He teaches leadership a the University of Guelph and is on leave as a Director of the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy.
By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON September 19, 2011 We will soon have a year of operation under our belts – time to bring you up to date on who reads us, how often they read us and what we are adding to the menu.
We went live last October, the 19th to be exact and in the last six months have published more than 350 stories. More than half a million pages (504,278 to be exact) have been read by the more than 27,000 people who have come to the web site. Those 27,000 people visited the web site more than 68,500 times in the last six months. The average reader looks at between 3.5 and 7.5 pages.
When the city did it’s semi-annual survey of how satisfied people were with the quality of service the city delivers they were asked where they got their information – 28% of the people who answered the survey listed Our Burlington as one of their sources of information and 25% said they get some of their information from Cogeco Cable. Just 33% said they get their information from City Talk, the newspaper the city publishes and distributes to every residence within the city.
 Our Burlington was less than six months old when this survey was done. The numbers speak for themselves. One of the major advantages of an electronic media – or a newspaper on a web site – is that you can go in and search everything we have ever written. Everything stays on the web site. Ouch!, some might say.  Experience in the political trenches and a life-long Burlington resident Casey Cosgrove will bring a viewpoint with a bit of an edge. His focus will be on community and leadership – especially making leadership accountable to the community. Two new regular contributors are joining our ranks this month. Casey Cosgrove is going to write regularly on community and the leadership communities need to prosper. His column will be Casey on Community. Casey, who was a candidate for Ward 5 during the 2006 election and came in second – losing to current Mayor Rick Goldring by less than 500 votes. Many are convinced that has Casey had another week of campaigning he could have beaten Goldring – who would then not have been the Ward Councillor nor gone on to defeat Cam Jackson in the 2010 election. There are those who are grateful Casey lost.
Besides writing for Our Burlington, Casey is an avid hockey coach and is in the arena with sons Jack and Evan almost every day and on the road with them close to every second weekend. He is currently on leave from his job as Director of the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy (CCFL). He teaches leadership at the University of Guelph. He is married to Bryna who also teaches business at both Seneca and Sheridan College. The family includes daughter Kate. All were seen in the Terry Fox run last Sunday.
The CCFL was created to build and develop financial literacy among low-income Canadians. It works with governments, businesses and communities to help people save and invest wisely. Launched in 2008, the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy (CCFL) is a division of the national, charitable organization SEDI. The CCFL is the first of its kind in the country. It is the only Canadian centre that delivers easy-to-use money management training to low-income groups. It works through partnerships with community-based social agencies in an effort to effect positive change.
The goal is to educate Canadians to make informed decisions about their money and the financial resources available to them. To achieve this goal, the CCFL aims to combine efforts with governments, businesses and community organizations. Casey, who is frequently quoted in the national news media has been involved in improving the financial literacy of low income families for more than 15 years. He is currently on leave from CCFL.
 Everything in the Cosgrove household is family focused. We don’t think Bryna play goalie (yet?) but everyone works for the team. The whole family of five took part in the Terry Fox run last Sunday. Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI), the parent organization, is a Canadian national charity which has been at the forefront of initiatives that enable people to save and invest wisely and participate in the economic mainstream. The organization’s work focuses on three areas: financial literacy, asset building and entrepreneurship. Since its founding in 1986, SEDI has helped shape significant social policies in Canada by conducting market and policy research and by acting as a knowledge broker between communities and governments.
Later in the week we will be introducing a well-known, nationally we might add, blogger who has a strong Conservative and conservative streak to him. He can be positively acidic with some of his comments. Russ Campbell will be more fully introduced later in the week.
We had an unfortunate hiccup with our service last February but we recovered and settled the differences that brought about the disruption of service.
Since then we made significant revision to the look and feel of the web site and will introduce many more in the weeks ahead.. We originally allowed for immediate comment and feedback but had to disable that feature because we were getting literally thousands of comments most of which were nonsense spam. We have figured out how to eliminate the spam and the ability to comment will be back in place by the end of the week. We look forward to whatever you have to say. We will be tweeting anyone who wants our 140 characters of comment.
For a period of time someone at City Hall put a block in place and people at Brant Street weren’t able to read us. That got lifted – we still don’t know exactly who put the block in place but it has been lifted. At some point we will get to the bottom of that.
Since our arrival the number of media covering city hall committees has increased – on occasion there are four media people at council meetings. We were the only media organization that covered all nine sessions of the Strategic Planning meeting. We are about to publish several articles on that exercise. Your city council and city hall staff learned a lot about themselves and the city they work for during the Strategic Planning Sessions. One of our early stories on the Strategic Plan is at this link..
We are not giving Education or Sports the attention they deserve nor are we adequately covering entertainment and culture effectively. Now that we know the business model we have is sustainable we can invest more into the organization and begin adding full time staff.
We think we have reduced the information deficit just a little and hope that we have entertained as well.
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By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON September 14, 2011 – The press release said “urgent” and the sender apologized for the short notice but there was going to be a press conference outside city hall. Wow – we thought, must be something hot. Burlington city councilors Craven and Meed Ward were going to be on hand.
Then we wondered – did the people organizing the press conference know that the plaza in front of city hall was being torn up while repairs were being done? Guess not.
Moments later there was an email from Liberal Media people in Ottawa with mention of a breakfast the Premier attended in Ottawa where he talked of the tax increase that would hit Ontario municipalities if a Hudak government were elected.
The picture was suddenly quite a bit clearer – this was a concerted effort by the Liberals to take their municipal message to every city and town across the province. The Liberals are well organized – they pump out several press releases every day.
So, the press conference was on – we gathered on the part of the city hall plaza that wasn’t being torn up and three media people, one photographer, two candidate staffer, the two council members who identify themselves as Liberals and the candidate and listened as Liberal Candidate Karmel Sakran read a prepared statement. And that was it – they are called photo ops and an opportunity for a candidate to communicate with the larger community. Democracy in action.
 Liberal candidate Karmel Sakran has a real race on his hands. Last week he held a short notice press conference on an issue that was being raised across the province What was it Sakran wanted to say ? Basically the same thing the Premier said to the people at the Mayor of Ottawa’s Breakfast – “we won’t down load anything on you.” We won’t do what those dastardly things the Tories did to you. But gosh guys – Mike Harris has been gone for some time and while you are working at pinning a “Harris Lite” label on Tim Hudak – and that isn’t hard to do, can we not get some balance in here?
The Premier said:
“We believe the provincial government should pay for provincial responsibilities — so municipalities have what they need to provide a great quality of life for their people. Ontario Liberals get that. The Harris-Hudak PCs didn’t,” said McGuinty. “Now the PCs are at it again. They want to go back to the days of downloading to balance their own books — costing taxpayers money and robbing cities like Ottawa of vital public services.”
The PCs have already proposed the first of their new downloads — making municipalities pay for hazardous waste disposal. Their scheme would make Ottawa property tax bills skyrocket by at least 6% — costing the average family about $186 per year.
The last PC government stuck municipalities with a $3 billion bill for provincial programs like seniors’ drug costs and services for the disabled or unemployed. This left less money in municipal budgets for other services like policing or snow removal, and made property taxes rise.
Ontario Liberals partnered with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) on a plan for uploads that would reverse the damage from the last PC government. When finished, it would put communities on stable footing so they can plan for the future.
Ontario Liberals are committed to finishing that job — and honouring that commitment.
Sakran was a little more blunt. He said the contrast between the Liberals and thhe Progressive Conservatives is pretty clear. They down load …. We upload
They cut – we build
They believe in the politics of division. We believe in working together to move Ontario forward.
Sakran mention a tax increase of $186 per household that would be needed to fund the plans the Tories have put out in the Change Book and refers to it as a “hardship”. Hardly! It amounts to less than fifty cents a day 0 a little perspective would help here.
Sakran adds this line: “Or the local library will be closed.” Really, there isn’t a hope in hades of this city ever closing the library. That kind of statement is divisional.
This election is about leadership and making alarmist statements isn’t leadership. They amount to scare tactics which we don’t need. Put the facts before the votes and they will figure it out.
 Councilor Rick Craven, thought to be a Liberal, let his colours show when he appeared at a press conference with Candidate Sakran to decry any possible end to the funding agreement the municipalities currently has with the Liberal government. Downloading costs to the municipality in the Harris years did a lot of damage to Ontario municipalities and the Liberals deserve credit for reversing a lot of that damage. McGuinty deserves credit for what he is doing for education and his green energy initiative is admirable. Does he have it right? We don’t know that yet but he is doing something positive and showing that he is working his way through difficult times.
The municipalities, through their organization, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, AMO, worked out an understanding with the Liberal government that amounted to $1.5 billion of which $1 billion has been delivered. Tim Hudak, leader of the Progressive Conservative opposition has said that he isn’t committed to following through on the last half a billion and that does have municipalities up in arms. The municipalities fear a return to the days when the province stiffed them by down loading all kinds of services to the municipal level. Harris’s government just said – here you deliver these services and find a way to pay for them.
 Marianne Meed Ward, the Liberal candidate in the last provincial election gave then MPP Joyce Savoline a real run for her money. She then decided to run municipally where she now gives city council a real run for its money. Because municipalities are creatures of the provincial government they have to do what the province tells them to do. That’s what had Councilors Craven and Meed Ward out in public with Sakran warning there is a serious problem with any suggestion that the AMO agreement might not be followed through on. No one wants a return to the Harris days and the fear is that Tim Hudak, who was part of that Harris government, is going to take the province back to the days when downloading was the rule.
Locally, McKenna, the PC candidate had nothing to say about Hudak’s thoughts on the downloading issue. The community is not seeing nearly as many press releases from the Progressive Conservatives.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON September 15, 2011 When city council committees meet to do the business of directing the city they do so in public. They meet with the appropriate staff – in public where all the facts are heard by everyone in the room.
When the bids for the completion of the Brant Street Pier were opened it was done in public – no one knew what the bids were until the envelopes were opened – in public.
This is the process that keeps people honest and allows a public to be informed.
The Burlington city council goes into “closed session” which means the media has to leave the room and a sign gets posted on the door to the Council Chamber saying Council is in closes session.
 Councillor Craven is the best procedural person on council but he too can let something slip by. To his credit, he recognizes his mistakes and does something about them. One of the Council committees recently went into closed session to talk about a matter related to the Paletta Mansion, which Council had learned was losing a pile of money. There was no reason given as to why they were going closed – they just say it is confidential and the media has to accept that. Any council member can ask that they go into closed session. Ward 1 councillor Meed Ward has on occasioned mildly questioned going into closed session but she has never said no – which she has a right to do.
When they come out of closed session council never tells you what was discussed. The Clerk knows but she (usually female) is bound by an Oath of Secrecy..
During one such meeting, the Chair of the committee that was coming out of closed session said they had discussed the Paletta matter – and then added that there were questions raised about the Pier as well. THAT was a no, no.
Your council has a right to decide something is confidential and they can talk about that and only that in a closed session. So when Councillor Craven mentioned that Pier questions had come up I asked him later why that was done..
He agreed that it should probably not have been done. I advised the chair of the committee that I would be writing him formally and lodging a complaint.
Councillor Craven is a pretty proactive chair and he looked into the issue, discussed it with the Clerk and made the following statement last night at a Committee meeting.
It has been pointed out to me by a member of the news media that I made a procedural error at our last Community Services Committee.
I announced that we were going into closed session to discuss the Paletta Mansion
When we came out of closed session I announced that, while we were in closed session, there had also been a couple of questions about the pier.
I have met with the Clerk about this matter.
The member of the news media was correct..
I should not have allowed the pier questions in closed session because the had not publicly stated his intention to ask these questions before we moved into closed session..
In the future I will be more vigilant in ensuring that we stick to the announced subject in the closes session, and I ask that all members refrain from asking questions on other topics, unless they announce their intention in public before we go into closed session.
Now on the surface this might look like someone being overly picky and sensitive. Not the case. Your city council goes into closed session far too often – and when they are there you, the public, have no way of knowing what was said other than the subject they went into closed session to discuss. And, as Craven’s comments show, – they will talk about other issues while in closed session. There is no oversight and while the Clerk has considerable influence legally, there isn’t a member of the Clerk’s office in this city that is going to challenge a chair.
There is a different, healthier ethic developing on this council. Burlington is a better city for it. The information identified in the Shape Burlington report is being narrowed.
Councillor Craven has served notice that he will be more vigilant and he will. Councillor Sharman, the other councillor that chairs a committee, as well as their respective co-chairs now know that they need to respect the public’s right to know.
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By Staff
 BURLINGTON, ON September 13, 2011 The Mayor is ready to put on the third in a series of Inspire sessions that he holds at the McMaster University DeGroote School of Business on Thursday September 29th – 7 pm. This time we get to hear Tom Rand, one of those successful software entrepreneurs that survived the dot com bubble in 2000. He sold his company in 2005 when it had reached the xxx level
 Rand is the Inspired speaker – part of Mayor Goldring’s efforts to bring intelligent debate to the city. Rand now focuses his efforts on carbon mitigation and is active in Cleantech venture capital, technology incubation and commercialization plus public advocacy. Rand is the Cleantech Practice, Lead Advisor at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto and sits on the board of a number of clean energy companies and organizations, including Morgan Solar.
 The first 100 people at the Inspire event to be held at the DeGroote School of Business on the South Service Road on September 29th will be given a copy of Kicking Tom’s book Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit: 10 Clean Technologies to Save Our Word, will be the focus of his talk on the 29th. In a different approach to getting his books into the hands of people Rand is giving away 100 copies of his book at the event.
Rand has a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, a MSc in philosophy of science from the University of London / London School of Economics and an MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto. He speaks publicly about the issue because it is his belief that we have yet to have a serious, public conversation about the threat of climate change, and the economic opportunities afforded by the global transformation to a low-carbon economy.
“I’m really just a guy trying to slow our gallop toward an over-heated climate. Doing what I can with what I’ve got.” Is how Rand explains what he does.
 Tom Rand is a part of the group of people who work out of one of the most impressive operations in the country. The MaRs centre is an incredible learning place that brings new ideas to the market. Log into www.marsdd.com Kick is richly illustrated and accessible. It addresses achievable solutions that will have a real and meaningful impact on the future for our children. It’s been conceived to appeal to a broad range of readers on multiple levels. For those who skim read and pull quotes and captions, Kick provides an engaging glimpse of this fascinating subject. For those who seek deeper understanding, the lively, factual text provides an easy-to-understand summary of the technologies and supports all claims with scientifically verified end-notes-from a politically neutral technology expert. Kick will engage, entertain and educate the public about one of the most important subjects of our time. The book deals with Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Biofuels, Hydropower, Ocean, Smart Buildings, Transportation, Efficiency and Conservation and the Energy Internet.
Rand has an interest in the Planet Traveler – North America’s Greenest Hotel. The building was an abandoned structure in downtown Toronto when Tom and his partner Anthony Aarts bought it. During 2008-2009 it was converted into a low-carbon hotel. The target was to reduce carbon emissions from business-as-usual by three-quarters. Using existing technologies, and leveraging only 5% of the buildings value that target is being met. Technologies deployed include geo-exchange heating and cooling, solar thermal and PV, high-efficiency lighting and drain-water heat recapture. The geo-exchange pipes were the first to be buried under a public laneway in the City of Toronto.
 It’s a different hotel – Tom Rand thinks it is one of the best examples of how we can cut down on carbon emissions. The overall lesson? “Buildings are really low-hanging fruit when it comes to emissions reductions”, says Rand. “Not only can we reduce emissions by three-quarters or more, we can make money doing it.”
Rand points out that we ” have just left the hottest year on record. While experts again try to ring alarm bells, our media still gives voice to the pseudo-intellectual pursuit of climate skepticism. Perhaps while Rome burned, some bravely questioned the finer qualities of fire. Perhaps on Easter Island, as the last trees fell, some elders courageously debated the necessity of wood. These days, Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail columnist and Rex Murphy, CBC voice, sing in tune with the likes of Glenn Beck, sincerely believing their skepticism to be a form of intellectual virtue. It is not.”
German chancellor Angela Merkel calls the low-carbon economy the “third industrial revolution.” A new energy internet supplied by clean energy sources like biomass, wind solar, hydro, and geothermal has spread across the continent. There are new storage technologies like compressed air and low-friction flywheels. Large-scale efficiencies make economies more competitive. If Canada gets it right, we’ll sell this stuff to the rest of the world.
The transition to a low-carbon economy brings huge economic opportunity, but it is not optional.
While Wente asks whether humans can control the climate, global average ocean temperatures hit record highs. More ominously, as the oceans have warmed since the 1950s, plankton levels have dropped 40 per cent. As goes plankton, so goes the rest of oceanic life.
Skepticism becomes a vice when applied to a broad consensus of expert opinion warning of existential danger. The policy commitments demanded by climate science need broad public support. Skeptics erode that support without intellectual justification.
Let’s be clear, says Rand. We have known since the early 19th century that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, insulating the earth like a blanket. In 1965, the U.S. president’s Scientific Advisory Committee warned the build-up of carbon dioxide would cause changes in the climate. By 1989, then U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher declared to the UN General Assembly that climate change was the single greatest threat to our very existence. There are other informed opinions.
Thatcher, no shill for the environmental movement, was scientifically literate. The same cannot be said for those who scoff at the accumulated wisdom of our scientific elite. All national academies of science in the developed world have endorsed the basic premises of human-caused climate change. The only scientific argument remaining is not about whether climate change is real or imagined, but whether the results will be catastrophic or merely disastrous.
Yet untrained skeptics assure us that the dangers of which the scientists speak may not be real.
For Murphy, public acceptance of expert opinion on climate change amounts to religious indoctrination. Wente asserts that climate cannot be controlled by human behaviour. Beck argues that it’s a Communist conspiracy. The purported dangers are at best hypothetical constructions of a few scientists, at worst mere monsters under our bed, easily dismissed with a dose of adult skepticism. The skeptics explicitly cast themselves against the orthodoxy of our time, as noble knights standing up to society’s pressure to conform.
This is nonsense. Climate change is not like politics or a painting. The opinions of laypersons are not relevant. It’s hard science, and the truth of the matter has been settled by those qualified to make the judgment.
But we’re far past the complex theoretical models now. Ask an Australian farmer what climate change means. The same climate instability that brought Australia the longest drought in human memory, now unleashes catastrophic flooding. To B.C. foresters, it’s the pine beetle destroying their timber. Lloyd’s of London, like most insurance companies, faces escalating costs due to extreme weather events. Russia’s scorching summer, which temporarily ended grain exports, and the floods in Pakistan are but appetizers before the main event.
The pseudo-intellectual pursuit of climate skepticism delays Canada’s participation in a new economy, and it makes it harder to have that public and adult conversation we so desperately need: the one about how volatile nature has become, and how angry it will get.
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By Staff
 BURLINGTON, ON September 14, 2011 – Lawrence Solomon, is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud. He says:
New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans
The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.
The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.
In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.
The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory cre dence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.
The mobilization to rally the press against the Danes worked brilliantly, with one notable exception. Nigel Calder, a former editor of The New Scientist who attended that 1996 conference, would not be cowed. Himself a physicist, Mr. Calder became convinced of the merits of the argument and a year later, following a lecture he gave at a CERN conference, so too did Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist in attendance. Mr. Kirkby then convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets.”
But Mr. Kirkby made the same tactical error that the Danes had — not realizing how politicized the global warming issue was, he candidly shared his views with the scientific community.
“The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century,” Mr. Kirkby told the scientific press in 1998, explaining that global warming may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.
The global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.
Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years — this column will be the first that most readers have heard of it — because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby and other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” and to downplay the results by “making] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.” The CERN study and press release is written in bureaucratese and the version of Mr. Kirkby’s study that appears in the print edition of Nature censored the most eye-popping graph — only those who know where to look in an online supplement will see the striking potency of cosmic rays in creating the conditions for seeding clouds.
CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the path to the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won’t yet permit a celebration of the find.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON September 14, 2011 – Just so you know and just in case you were confused the Lady Jane sets the record straight. She said:
“In an Inside Halton article a quote was attributed to me that does not accurately reflect my views or those of my Party.
“The PC Party of Ontario and I welcome new Canadians to Ontario. We believe however that Dalton McGuinty’s affirmative action program is wrong. We have 550,000 Ontarians who are unemployed and yet the Liberals want to pay $10,000 each to hire foreign workers.
“I hope this clarifies my position and regret any confusion this may have caused.”
 McKenna: - This is her first significant election and the learning curve is steep and there isn’t a lot of time. Hopefully there will be fewer goofs that become provincial campaign issues. The Lady Jane is Jane McKenna, Progressive Conservative candidate FOR THE Burlington seat in the Ontario Legislature.
Up until very recently Burlington had this problem with a pier that wasn’t getting built. Media throughout the province had us looking like country hicks and the pier was becoming known as “the mistake on the lake”. But we persevered and got that problem back on track and are in the process of becoming known as a community that knows how to overcome adversity.
Then Wham! – a candidate in the provincial election comes out and says something really, really dumb, a comment that was against everything most Canadians stand for and hold dear.. Try as she might, Jane McKenna, Progressive Conservative candidate for Burlington isn’t going to be able to get this albatross off her neck easily. Watch for it to come up during the local debates.
And now Burlington is becoming known as the home of the lunatic Conservative fringe. At least the members of the local Progressive Conservative association can’t be blamed for the candidate – they didn’t pick her.
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By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON September 13, 2011 “If this one doesn’t want to make you throw up, nothing will. That was Warren Kinsella’s opening line in his blog on comments local Progressive Conservative candidate Jane McKenna./ Kinsella is a born Liberal – he can’t help himself and he plays the game for keeps – no prisoners for this guy – knee cap them and leave them at the side of the road. He goes on to say:
Tea Party Tim Hudak’s campaign of intolerance swung through Burlington, with his hand-picked candidate smearing new Canadians with the sort of language that will blow your mind.
Jane McKenna, a failed municipal candidate whose previous priority was getting more booze outlets in her area, told the Burlington Post that she opposed helping new Canadian citizens get the certification they need to work in their chosen profession. If that’s not enough, McKenna then went on to say:
“When did we become for immigrants?” That’s a quote.
 Bought the blue pin strip for the election. Suits her? Here’s a newsflash for McKenna, and her “leader,” who have piloted Ontario campaign 2011 straight into the gutter on only day three of the contest: Canada and Ontario have always been “for” immigrants. We are, in fact, a nation of immigrants.
As former PC leader John Tory has said, Hudak has been “stirring up envy and negativity” in the election campaign. And, like John said, Hudak himself favoured a more generous plan to assist newcomers just a year ago. (Meanwhile, the Ontario Liberal plan, Tory noted on his drive-home radio show, was “one of the best investments” we could make. He’s right.)
Hudak and McKenna’s attacks on hard-working, tax-paying citizens demeans them, and their party.
I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but I think they lost their capacity for shame long ago.
I’ll be watching the local contest—Burlington—closely to see whether the Liberals or the NDP can break the decades-long grip the Progressive Conservatives (PC) have had on the local seat.
Russ Campbell, a respected commentator on things conservative and Conservative who gets his mail delivered to a Burlington address wasn’t about to let Kinsella use up all the oxygen and piped in with:
“This is an important choice for PC party members in Burlington, for the odds favour our party beating the Dalton McGuinty Liberals in the Oct. 6 general election. And wouldn’t it be nice to replace retiring incumbent MPP Joyce Savoline with another PC, continuing the riding’s PC-blue tradition for another four years.
 With the support of Ted Chudleigh who is running in Halton and Joyce Savoline who is retiring from public office Jane McKenna on the left was able to handle one of her early press event quite well. Regular readers will know that I was less than impressed with the PC nomination process that unfolded in Burlington. However, in Jane McKenna, we seem to have a local candidate with a chance of keeping the seat for the Tories. Oh, I’ve expressed reservations regarding Ms. McKenna’s lack of related experience and the fact she never had to undergo the scrutiny of a nomination contest—as the only candidate seeking the nomination, she was acclaimed. But when you’ve been given cream, you set about finding a way to make something nice, like ice cream.
One of the indispensible benefits of a nomination contest is the need for candidates to go through a mini-campaign, during which riding association members can assess each candidate’s organization skills, media savvy, personal background and related professional experience, not to mention their ability to communicate effectively. With luck, the candidates’ core values and beliefs may also be revealed, because, during the time they are seeking the nomination, they don’t have to toe the party line and keep “on message.”
But we have what we have, so I took advantage of an offer to meet Ms. McKenna, which she’d made a couple of weeks or so ago. In chatting to her, I sought answers to the sort of questions I would have expected to come up during the nomination process. And I got answers; she ducked none of my questions.
I won’t go into much detail here since the meeting was meant more for background than as an interview per se. I will, though, share some of my impressions.
Overall, Jane McKenna is a very presentable candidate: she’s local, intelligent, articulate and shows spunk. I pressed her at times, but she remained composed and stuck up for herself. And, when I expressed criticisms, I didn’t get the sort of defensiveness one too often gets from politicians. She basically acknowledged my criticisms when she felt they were accurate and otherwise gave me reasonable-sounding explanations.
I was most interested in hearing Ms. McKenna’s position on local issues like hospital funding, mid-peninsular highway, urban growth and mineral extraction on the Niagara Escarpment. Ms. McKenna seems to have a sound grasp of local issues, and she did not repeat party “talking points,” instead she gave real answers. These were not always the answers I wanted to hear, but they did seem genuine. I also tried to gain a sense of how deep were her commitments to those positions.
Basically, her positions seem to align with those I believe are most widely held in the riding. She’s obviously done her homework, is a quick learner and seems to understand the core concerns of her constituents. If she didn’t always have a grasp on these local issues—and I’m not saying she didn’t—she obviously has used her resources and intellect to get up to speed before the election officially kicks-off.
 McKenna used to sell advertising – she knows how to listen and she knows how to make her point. With some luck and all her pluck working for her she just might convince enough of the Tory vote to get out on October 6 – there is enough blue blood in the city to win it – just as long as they don’t listen too closely to what se has to say – according to Warren Kinsella We here in Burlington don’t live on an island and must take into consideration the realities and pressures we face as a part of a broader community, at both the regional and the provincial levels. Ms. McKenna gets that.
In short, folks, Jane McKenna will do fine. At least, that’s the way I see it.
Well that wasn’t quite the way Campbell saw it at first glance but then, for an old Tory like Campbell, seeing the Burlington seat go to a Liberal was perhaps more than he could swallow – so he instead gulped and decided to go with the devil that he at least knew something about.
Sort of like horse racing – you pick your winner and you place your bets. What I want to know is this: Did Campbell send the Party a cheque?
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By Pepper Parr
 BURLINGTON, ON September 10, 2011 – I guess it’s something we have to do – but these are our children and that we have to train people to see what we as parents sometimes do not see – a very disturbed child that chooses to act out and harm members of the community.
A media release from the Halton Regional Police Service explained that ” in conjunction with the Halton District School Board, Halton Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, Conseil Scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud and the Provincial Schools Branch (Milton), continues to provide its staff and community partners with exceptional training in the field of student threat assessment.”
People are being taught to assess and interview students they suspect could be a threat to the community. Given the tragedies that have taken place in schools in the past, and we are not talking about just the United States, it has happened in Canada as well, prudent policing would call for this type of training.
The media release went on to say: “Professionals in the school and community system participated in Level 1 Threat Assessment Training this past June. This month Principals, Police, Social Workers and Community partners will gather for additional in-service Threat Assessment Training referred to as “Clinical Interviewing in Threat Assessment.”
“The intensive two-day training session on September 13th and 14th funded by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correction Services focuses on strategic interviewing of key individuals including the threat maker(s), target, collaterals and parents/caregivers as part of the threat assessment process. A more comprehensive look at types of high-risk youth is presented to the participants.”
And so we have Correctional Service people teaching school board staff how to identify, evaluate and asses our children? Looks that way.
Family life is not what it used to be. Separations, divorces, unemployed parents – all this bring stress into a household and children react to that stress. One of the way they react is to act out against the community they don’t understand and have difficulty living within. We are doing something wrong as a society.
The press release went on to say that: “The Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment & Trauma Response, led by Mr. J. Kevin Cameron assists schools and other professionals in understanding the impact of trauma on systems and how to respond in ways that allow schools and communities to deal with serious situations in ways that encourage healing and foster growth rather than divisiveness.”
J. Kevin Cameron we are told, led the crisis response team following the 1999 school shooting in Taber, Alberta and was subsequently seconded by the Alberta Government to the Taber Response Project. He spent 13 months consulting with U.S. sites that experienced school shootings as part of his study of traumatic aftermath including threat related behaviour. Mr. Cameron is an official with the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress. In concert with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Behavioural Sciences Unit he developed Canada’s first comprehensive, multi-disciplinary threat-assessment training program.
The in-service training will be held September 13th and 14th at Gary Allan High School 2350 New Street, Burlington. For more information, please contact: Inspector J Gordon at 905 825 4749.
Someone somewhere has decided we need this kind of training. I think the money would be better spent on more phys-ed teachers and an upgrade to the library.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON — Premier Dalton McGuinty highlighted the Ontario Liberal Plan to build a high-skills, high-wage economy during a visit to Burlington today.
“Whether you’re raising a family in Burlington, Hamilton, Oakville or anywhere in between, our plan to move forward into a better future for your family is working,” McGuinty said. “Across Ontario, all families need a stronger economy to support our schools, hospitals and quality of life. Our Ontario Liberal Team is working hard to help build that quality of life.”
 The politicians want to create excitement and as much buzz as they can. Thus the big campaign buses and the building up of anticipation. The handlers move the crowds up close to the bus and create a line the candidate walks along shaking hands. All the true believers get to these events. Here Premier Dalton McGuinty steps off the bus to a campaign event for Karmel Sakran. McGuinty was joined at the event by Burlington candidate Karmel Sakran, along with fellow candidates, Sophia Aggelonitis, Mark Cripps, Ted McMeekin, Donna Tiqui-Shebib, Indira Naidoo-Harris, Kevin Flynn, Katie Trombetta and Greg Crone.
“In a world where 70 per cent of all new jobs will require a postsecondary education, we are committed to investing in our people — in their skills, in their education — to build the world’s best-educated workforce,” said McGuinty. “We’re creating the advantage needed to compete in the new economy.”
It was the same old, same old canned political speech – the kind of thing her will be doing every day of the 29 days left in this campaign. I am waiting for the day that a Premier or the leader of a political party sits down and talks with people and gives up on the idea of saying something that will make the six o’clock news.
Earlier in the day McGuinty apparently tested an all-electric car and them immediately touted his plans for a solar society. I wanted to hear what the car was like to drive and I suspect everyone else in the room wanted the same thing.
The Premier did get a great reception. Karmel Sakran’s campaign office on Guelph Line was packed – it was standing room only with a couple of dozen people who had to stand outside.
 Didn’t expect to see Ward 3 councilor John Taylor on hand to see the Premier but there he was along with Ward 1 councilor Rick Craven – each getting their handshake and political blessing Ward 3 Alderman John Taylor was also in the crowd wearing his best grey pin stripe suit, as was Ward 1 councilor Rick Craven wearing his best red shirt. The crowd, and this was a crowd also included Ward 2 councilor Marianne Meed Ward who was the Liberal candidate in the last provincial election and gave current member Joyce Savoline a good run for her money.
As people streamed out of the room, which wasn’t all that large, there was a look on the faces of the people, – almost a bit of a glow on their faces – and I thought to myself – it looks as if they have been blessed. I’m not making this up. There was a buzz in the small plaza.
Premier McGuinty is not the greatest of campaigners – he gives the speeches but his strength is one on one and why he didn’t engage a half a dozen people individually and then apologize that he couldn’t talk to everyone and explain that there were a couple of stops left before he could tuck in for the night.
Candidate Sakran was of course ecstatic. People in the small but very crowded plaza were saying that they couldn’t remember every seeing premier of the province in Burlington.
McGuinty worked his way through the crowd, boarded the bus and left for the next destination. Burlington had gotten its visit.
Sometime later in the month Tim Hudak will come through town and do his thing and it will be on the six o’clock news. If the crowd isn’t as large or as enthusiastic – get ready for a shift in the political culture of this city.
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By Staff
The Halton District School Board is the lead on the new Alton community complex that is scheduled to open sometime in 2013 (before the Pier?). A contract to construct the multi use facility at the intersection of Tim Dobbie Drive and Dundas Street was awarded today to Bondfield Construction of Concord, Ontario.
The joint facility will cost approximately $40.2 million, to be shared by each of the partners – City of Burlington, Burlington Public Library, and the Halton District School Board. Site preparation will begin immediately, with the official groundbreaking anticipated for September 2011. The architect for the project is Svedas Architect Inc. of Burlington.
“We look forward to working with our partners to bring this unique facility to completion, and to offering families a state-of-the art high school in north Burlington,” says David Euale, Director of Education for the Halton District School Board.
Representatives from the school board, Burlington Public Library and City of Burlington signed a three-party agreement August 17 at Burlington City Hall to move forward with the project with completion scheduled for fall 2013.
 The last major development in Burlington is under construction in the Dundas and Appleby Line area and will include an integrated high school, library and community centre. The facility, located at Dundas St and Tim Dobbie Way, includes a high school built to accommodate 1,200 students, a recreation complex, and a shared library which will be used by the public and the high school. A joint construction team that includes the City of Burlington, the Burlington Public Library and the Halton District School Board will manage the project. Construction began on the adjoining Norton Park in spring 2011 where a skate board rink is being constructed.
The Alton Project will include a 147,069 square-foot (13,663 square-metre) school, an 11,840 aggregate square-foot (1,100 aggregate square-metre) joint integrated library and a 53,886 square-foot (5,006 square-metre) community centre. A common entrance, parking and other shared areas will connect these buildings.
“Families in Burlington will benefit from the expansion of library service to the Alton community while benefiting from having a high school and community centre close by,” adds Library Board President, Carrie Brooks-Joiner.
This shared Alton facility will include four competition-sized double gyms, a three-storey high school with a 200-seat auditorium, and a shared 11,840 square-foot (1,110 square metre) integrated library which will be used by the public and the high school, with flexible classroom and public meeting space.
In partnership with Burlington Hydro, the complex will support a rooftop solar system, which will feed energy back into the city’s power grid system.
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By Pepper Parr
This is the third in a series of interviews on the three candidates running in the provincial election taking place October 6th. Each candidate was asked the same questions.
Along with their answers are the impressions and insights gained from the time spent with each candidate. Some we had met before the interview – others were new to us.
There are those in the community who describe Our Burlington as a news source with a “Liberal” slant. Not true. As the publisher of Our Burlington my responsibility is to the community. On balance I personally tend to vote Liberal but have voted for other parties. John Robarts was a great Premier and Bill Davis did a really good job as well. One’s political party is a philosophical choice but my view is that you look for the best person to represent your community. We started this series with Karmel Sakran, the Liberal candidate, and then Peggy Russell, the NDP candidate. In this issue we publish our interview with Jane McKenna, the Progressive Conservative candidate. The intention is to follow up with the candidates as the election progresses.
BURLINGTON, ON August 24, 2011 – The one issue that come up again and again with Burlington Progressive Conservative Jane McKenna is family and community. The Escarpment is not her concern – “we need roads so that people can get from place to place in a decent amount of time.”
 Jane McKenna, Progressive Conservative candidate for Burlington in the forthcoming provincial election. Ready for this level of public office? She wants to be the voice for the community at Queen’s Park. There isn’t however a list of any length of the things she has done in the community. McKenna has been employed in media sales with a number of publishing and brand development companies in the city. McKenna was working as campaign manager for Rene Pepin who withdrew from the race. Shortly after Pepin withdrew Brian Heagle also withdrew which left the PC’s with no candidate. McKenna filled the breach and was nominated at one of the shortest nomination meetings this city has ever seen.
Just because there isn’t a lot of political experience doesn’t mean this lady is going to stand still. She has a lot to learn but she also has a tremendous capacity to learn and she is a tiger when it comes to going after what she wants.
The Mother of five children, all born at the Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital she will tell you if you give her three seconds, has sold ideas or services all her life – and if McKenna ever calls on you to sell you something – get out your cheque book.
McKenna isn’t a thinker – she’s a doer. “I went as far as grade 13” she will tell you. “What you see is what you get” she adds. The problem is that there just isn’t that much to see. Perhaps we will see more during the Chamber of Commerce all candidate breakfast September 27th
 Strength in numbers. McKenna on the left with Halton Progressive Conservative candidate Ted Chudleigh and current Burlington MPP Joyce Savoline. McKenna will lean heavily on Chudleigh as the old master shows her how it’s done. She has the Burlington Progressive Conservative machine behind her – what isn’t clear is just how well oiled that machine is less than sixty days away from the election. The campaign probably will not want for money – there are some pretty deep pockets within that band of blue brothers and the cheques will get written.
The challenge is going to be to get out the vote – and on that level McKenna brings an engaging personality and impressive energy to everything she does. Can she motivate the Conservative base and does she have a campaign team that has the drive, energy and experience needed to pull this off? Many of the team come from the Cam Jackson era – and that is not good news.
There are those that believe McKenna fit the profile that the Progressive Conservative party had for the riding – a younger, professional, presentable woman. Burlington, while conservative has in the past elected women to both federal and provincial seats. Paddy Torsney, whose brother Brian is the president of the company McKenna works for, represented Burlington very successfully for a number of years. It was problems with the Liberal leadership that cost Torsney her seat in 2006.
Joyce Savoline was Regional Chair and is the current MPP. Women work – pick one that looks the part and go with her, would appear to be the criteria that was used to choose McKenna who got the nomination at a meeting that lasted less than 20 minutes.
For McKenna the PC leader Tim Hudak’s Change Book sets it all out and she tends to read directly from the book.
 McKenna has good listening skills which she will use intensely for the next 50+ days. McKenna ran in Ward 1 during the 2010 municipal election and came in last. She was basically a Bill Carty sponsored candidate. Carty apparently had an issue with the city at the time relating to a property he had offices in and he had targeted the sitting Council member Rick Craven. McKenna didn’t live in the ward and didn’t generate much in the way of traction.
 Keith Strong, a local conservative mover and shaker, is believed to be the conservative who suggested to McKenna that she go after the PC nomination. She was originally the campaign manager for Rene Pepin who withdrew from the nomination race Politicians have been known to grow once they are elected. Rick Goldring stumbled a bit during his first few months in office and he didn’t exactly inspire in the last election. He did however put out the best set of policy papers and he did have a very clear idea as to why he was running. He won because the city just didn’t want either of the other two candidates running. Goldring has grown into the job of Mayor and he has a lot more growth in him.
Does McKenna have growth within her ? No way of knowing that yet, at this point all we have to go on is a hope that she will grow into the job if the city decides she is who they want.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 12, 2011 — It was a unique idea – why not put a school, a library and a community sports complex all in one place and attached to each other ? And why not do it in a brand new community. Do you think it would work?
Burlington is in the process of finding out if three organizations that are in place to serve the public can adjust their operating procedures enough to be able to work together. Cindy Mercanti, Manager Recreation Services for the city of Burlington speaks glowing of the process and how well it has worked so far.
Getting this project to the point where shovels will begin to dig into the ground had to work its way through reams of paper – and you know what that means: lawyers. There were so many lawyers on this file that they had to hire a law firm to write the definitive agreement to ensure that no one party favoured themselves. Nancy Shea Nicol advised a city council committee that herding the lawyers was not quite as difficult as herding cats and that except for some concerns with the drafting of the operating agreement – it went pretty well.
Organizationally it was quite a challenge but fair minded people with willing hearts put together a collection of committees and got on with the job of making it happen.
 The last major housing development in Burlington is well underway. Occupancy should begin late in the year. At this point, August of 2011, construction on the skate board park is well underway and should be opening sometime in the fall. Off in the background of where the skate board rink is being built one can see the frames of new houses going up and construction vehicles running up and down Tim Dobbie Drive, the street that dissects the location which is immediately north of Dundas and west of Walkers line.
The Skate Board park and playing fields will be to the east of Tim Dobbie Drive with the combined library, community sports centre and the school will be on the west side along with additional playing fields. The North Burlington Skate Park is being built as part of the Norton Park development. It is targeted to be complete mid-October, 2011.
 Manager Recreational Services for the city of Burlington, stands in front of the transit being used by engineers as they work on the construction of the skate board rink that is part of the Norton development across the street from the high school, library, community centre complex. The only thing not on the site (yet?) is a Tim Hortons. The Alton community was the last large greenfield residential construction project for Burlington on land that had been zoned for housing. At some point in the not too distant future some of the lands that are designated employment lands may get re-designated and become available for housing but at the moment Alton is the last big one – and big it is.
The city of Burlington, who are not the lead on this project, insisted that all the agreements be in place, signed and approved by the various boards involved before any tenders were awarded.
 The community site is on the eastern side of Tim Dobbie Drive north of Dundas. A sports fields and a skate board rink are on the east side. Rink is expected to open in September.
The lead on the construction side of the project is the Halton District School Board. The project was tendered and the best bid came in from Bondfield Construction at a cost of just over $40 million. Burlington’s piece of that cost is $13.9 million. The bid is good until August 17th – the same day that the city will open bids from construction companies for the completion of the Brant Street Pier. If all these project get completed on time 2013 is going to be a ‘gang busters’ year for Burlington. We may not be able to live with all that success. Shovels are expected to go into the ground for the community centre part in September. The project has yet to be given a name. Please not another politician, there is a veteran who got passed over just awhile ago – maybe time to remember him?
At a July Council committee meeting council members were brought up to date and advised how well the project was going. The only hiccup was mention of a budget shortfall. There no panic, but at the time the HDSB was still shy close to $1.7 million for their part of the project.
The Burlington Library, The Halton District School Board and the City of Burlington are all part of this unique arrangement with Burlington Hydro in the mix as well. They are installing the solar panels that will be on the roofs collecting sunshine and pumping that energy back into the electricity grid.
 Architects rendering of what the three part complex will look like. A high school, a community centre and a library are all linked together into a single complex. Construction is scheduled to start in September.
So – what’s the big deal about this project. To most people it would make sense to have a library, a school and a community sports complex all in one place. The students could use the library, which would be part of the complex and evening sports events could use the gymnasium facilities that are part of the school. Common sense was written all over the idea. The stumbling blocks were at the organization level, where the operating cultures are quite different.
A high school principal runs one kind of organization and has obligations that must be met under the Education Act while the Chief Librarian runs a significantly different origination which is, yet again, quite a bit different that a community centre. Parks and recreation has a totally different culture and operating procedures. Each had to be identified and understood by all the parties involved and then adjusted enough to be able to work together seamlessly. Getting them all pulling together at the same time and in the same direction was much easier said than done. But in Burlington – it looks as if it is going to get done.
The people behind this are thinking well outside the box are not just linking up a couple of buildings. Heating and air-conditioning – vital – but did there have to be three separate systems? Why not just the one – sure but then how do you figure out how much each participant pays when the hydro bill comes in and who gets the benefit of those solar panels on the roof ?
Are you getting the sense that there were a lot of committee meetings going on. You betcha there were. And the lawyers were in their big time. First there was an all party Joint Development Agreement that set out the sharing of the design ands construction costs. Care to guess how many drafts that went through?
The project came together when Leo DeLoyde, GM Development and Infrastructure, asked then newcomer Scott Stewart if he would talk to the people at Parks and Recreation to see if anything could be done
This project however is planned as much more than a collection of organizations coming together to benefit from synergies and scale and the cost savings that come from a larger project. The group involved the Burlington Tourism office which was the first signal that something quite a bit bigger is planned.
 Once the building is open and operational the layout above give you a sense of what will exist and how all the parts are linked together. One wonders where the hallway monitors at the high school will end their rounds. Maybe no monitors?
The city wants to create a centre where provincial level sports events can take place and Burlington is being positioned as the community that has it all. The focus is going to be on floor sports: basketball, badminton and volleyball are the original focus. Meetings have already been held with the provincial sports organizations and while there are no events scheduled for the facility yet – those 32 foot ceilings and four courts all in one large space with up to date change rooms and a large venue – will certainly put Burlington on the map for the provincial level sports community. Burlington Tourism will finally have something to sell – I mean Spencer smith Park can only take you so far.
While having a flashy new facility with all the whistles and bells will certainly draw flies, it has to work as a single entity – and that is where the magic in this initiative exists.
There was a Steering Committee, a Construction Team as well as an Operational Team, and various sub-teams. The Steering Committee has representatives from all three organizations and is overseeing the project and the development of the various agreements. The Construction Team deals with all aspects of construction and has representatives from all organizations as well as the architect.
 Cindy Mercanti stands before the bill board that shows what is about to be built on the site north of Dundas and West of Walkers Line. Major change for that part of Burlington. The Operational Team assisted the Construction Team with detailed design and has led in the development of the operating model and operations and maintenance agreement. Similar to the Construction Team, representatives from all three organizations participate. And there are sub-teams all over the place from the three organizations. As Cindy Mercanti explained it: “This was a very collaborative process” The city team included Parks and Recreation, Roads and Parks Maintenance and Community Strategic Initiatives
The three groups of people from three significantly different organizations made this happen. Let us return and tell you who they are and how they managed to make it all come together and work – so far.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 11, 2011 – There he was, a top notch professional, an experienced hospital administrator trying to re-shape and redevelop a hospital that is badly in need of an upgrade, An institution that has not had any major work done on it for more than forty years in a community that has grown significantly in the past ten years with a population that is aging and in need of different kinds of care. A hospital that went through a deadly C difficile epidemic that cost 78 people their lives because the hospital was old and very hard to keep clean enough to prevent the spread of newer more virulent viruses.
 Nice guy, great at what he was hired to do. Got abused by the politicians. Made to stand up and basically say nothing. They had him up there on a platform, looking a little like a monkey on a chain tethered to an organ grinder who was peddling the same old tune. Poor Eric Vandewall had to stand up there and say what he has been saying for years, give me the funds I need and I will get you the hospital you need and deserve.
He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of one of the largest employers in the city and responsible for one of the most important institutions in the city. And he had to be excited and say how happy he was, and indeed he is happy, but he doesn’t yet know just how the government is going to get him the funds to build the hospital he has to run. And given that it looks as if the provincial government is going to go the Alternative Funding Plan route(the government doesn’t have the money to pay for the hospital) – Vandewall may not have all that much say in just what kind of a hospital he will get to run. They’ve got the guy tending to the minutia and not focusing on the bigger picture and ensuring he has the best team he can recruit to give the community the hospital it needs and deserves.
A member of the provincial government was on hand at the “announcement” event to spout for more than ten minutes, assuring the community that the hospital was going to be redeveloped. That it was going to happen.
Of course it is going to be redeveloped. The question is exactly when and how much has the government actually committed to the project. Where are the time lines ? Where are the funds ?
The event was an announcement of “historic” proportions. What was historic about repeating what has been known for some time – that the government is going to re-build the hospital ? They couldn’t not re-build, not if they want to have a hope in Hades of ever getting elected in Burlington. It’s been a long time since a Liberal represented Burlington in the Legislature – 43 years and counting.
Ted McMeekin, former Mayor of Flamborough, former member of Hamilton’s city Council and now the MPP for Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Westdale was on hand to make the announcement along with MPP Sophia Aggelonitis, MPP for Hamilton Mountain who is also the Minister of Revenue for the province and the Minister Responsible for Seniors as well.
Aggelonitis was supposed to be on hand for the announcement but was reported to be struck in QEW traffic. This on the day that Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that if the GO trains were more than 15 minutes late riders would have the cost of their fare refunded. Aggelonitis could have taken the GO train like the rest of us and been on time.
Vandewallderwall must have wondered why he spent so much money on renting a fancy white tent that was filled with just about every politician drawing a paycheck – and there were a lot of those on hand, each congratulating themselves on how wonderful this announcement was.
What announcement? Nobody said anything new. We weren’t told how much money the government has committed to the redevelopment of the hospital. We weren’t told when construction would start – not one single dollar amount was mentioned nor was one date mentioned.
Liberal Candidate Karmel Sakran, who sat on the hospital board and was on the committee that hired Vandewal said after the press conference that all one had to do if they wanted to know what was being spent was do some research. Wonderful idea but there are no numbers on the hospital web site nor are there any construction start dates. It was a little on the embarrassing side for Sakran. Here he is, running for office with a campaign that is in very good shape, doing all the right things and ahead of his competition who has yet to open her campaign office and he finds himself sitting in a room with everyone waiting for an announcement that really didn’t get made.
The press conference was originally going to be on the Tuesday but got moved forward a day. One would think the government could plan things well enough to ensure that the Minister making the announcement could get into the riding the Liberals have a slightly better than even chance of winning and have at least a shot at the Halton seat.
Ted McMeekin, member for Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Westdale has shoved Joyce Savoline aside and is doing every media event he can. Savoline, the current MPP for Burlington, is the Progressive Conservative member of the opposition for Burlington, was not at the event. McMeekin , said he had called Savoline four times but she never got back to him. A very reliable source informed me that Savoline apparently wasn’t invited and was very disappointed because the hospital was one of her favourite projects.
After the dignitaries had done their bit, McMeekin said the reason dollar figures were not announced was that the government didn’t want to say publicly what was going to be spent so that contractors wouldn’t know how much money was going to be available. What a crock! Either McMeekin didn’t know – unlikely, or he had been told that announcement would get made by Aggelonitis. Or the government doesn’t want to talk at this time about their Alternative Funding Plan, whichever, it was a cock-up on the part of the government and a waste of everyone’s time.
In his press release Mayor Goldring said: “Phase 1 of the Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital redevelopment is more than $300 million. The planned local share is $120 million. The Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation has committed to raising $60 million through a fundraising campaign in addition to the city’s contribution of $60 million.” The city already has $4.8 million sitting in a bank account and they are going to sit on it until there is a rock solid Memorandum of Understanding in place. The city’s money may get used to build the parking garage. How embarrassing.
It was a non-event, waste of taxpayers money – and all apparently because Minister Aggelonitis couldn’t get to Burlington on time to tell the whole story and tell us just how many big bucks were going to be spent.
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By Pepper Parr with excerpts from Brian Heagle’s Facebook page.
BURLINGTON, ON August 9, 2010 – Interest in the provincial election has begun to heat up. The candidates have opened up their campaign offices and before long you will see them at your door. All three political parties are holding BBQ events and fund raisers and we can expect to see lawns on signs in the near future.
My colleague, and frequent subject of news stories, Brian Heagle, has asked: “Do you think social media will really make a difference in the upcoming Provincial election? In Burlington’s case, none of the candidates have much of a presence, commitment or following – so far.”
As you may know, Liberal’s Karmel Sakran’s website has been up and running for awhile, but I haven’t found a specific one yet for NDP’s Peggy Russell.
 Peggy Russell wants to bring her ten years of political experience at a school board trustee to the provincial legislature. If she manages to win the seat she will be a voice to be reckoned with – if she wins. At present, Burlington voters will find little in terms of local issues being highlighted (although Liberal’s News section does include some items/links, including “hospitals, not highways” messaging). In terms of local candidates, voters may also have to dig deeper than websites if they really want to know and compare them (Liberal’s Biography offers a few brief details but PC’s Bio is somewhat vague, including references to “community leader” and “self-educated entrepreneur” but without providing leadership or business positions held).
In other words, it seems media types will be heavily reliant on Our Burlington to be informed and engaged. Of course, it’s also up to us citizens to step forward, get engaged and then vote. Too often we seem to neglect that part of the civic engagement formula for elections.
However, social media may not be at a stage yet where it will have much influence, at least not in Burlington. Lots of thoughtful comments on my Facebook page when I posted this week about the role of social media in politics.
Cory Judson, campaign manger for Peggy Russell the NDP candidate tends to not let a day go by without sending out half a dozen notes to his friends. It can get a little much at times but he is an NDP trooper and nothing is going to stop him.
 Sakran has all kinds of community experience that should serve him well and he has made inroads with the Conservative crowd in the city. Will that be enough to deliver a seat to the Liberals that the Conservatives have held for more than 43 years? A recent research report said Small Business people are not all that keen on Social Media and that 47% don’t make any use of it. Suggesting that political campaigns are similar to a small business operation isn’t that much of a stretch
It isn’t clear yet what the over riding issue is going to be for the Burlington and Halton ridings –although the Niagara to Greater Toronto Area highway (NGTA) is certainly going to be front and center.
Some elections turn out to be a battle between the leaders; others are about clear cut issues province wide. That doesn’t seem to be the case yet – we probably won’t know until Labour Day. Burlington’s Strategic Plan is going to have NGTA stamped all over the thing.
 McKenna said at her nomination that she had 71 days to win the provincial election – that’s certainly a challenge for an untested candidate but she has Ron Foxcroft and Keith Strong in her corner – and those two are certainly not political lightweights. So Heagle asks: Okay, Burlington, is this single local issue (the proposed NGTA highway) enough to sway your vote on October 6? Jane McKenna, the Burlington Progressive Conservative candidate supports her Leader’s position – build a highway through the Escarpment because it will create jobs. The Liberals have promised not the build a highway through the Escarpment. The NDP doesn’t want the high built.
www.votesakran.ca/Biography
www.votesakran.ca
Full disclosure: Brian Heagle has run as a municipal candidate and put himself forward as a candidate for the Progressive Conservative nomination but withdrew before the nomination meeting was held. Heagle was at one point being groomed as a Liberal candidate by the late John Boich.
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By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 4, 2011 Is it really going to be THE defining issue during the provincial election that has now begun to gain some momentum? There is certainly going to be a lot of chatter with everyone looking for a way to get their two cents worth in.
 The arrow tells the story in the clearest possible language – that is where the province has said in the past it wants to build a highway. Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne said recently that there wouldn’t be a highway built through the Escarpment – but not everyone believe her and the Progressive Conservatives have been very clear – they will build a highway through the Escarpment.
What got his ball rolling – and it was just waiting for a bit of a push – was the visit to the city by Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Transportation for the province. She was brought into town by Liberal candidate Karmel Sakran to take part in a closed door Round Table that included Mayor Goldring, Regional Chair Gary Carr, Ward 3 Councillor John Taylor who has been a tireless fighter for the preservation of the Escarpment, and the Liberal Candidate for Halton Indira Naidoo-Harris. Geoff Brock and Susan McMaster of the Stop Escarpment Highway Coalition (SEHC) were also on hand.
Wynne told the media after the Round Table session that Ontario’s Liberal government has no plans to pave over the escarpment, according to Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who was in Burlington yesterday to discuss the controversial Niagara to GTA corridor.
Wynne assured local politicians and citizens’ groups gathered that the provincial Liberals aren’t moving forward with a 33-km highway that connects Hwy. 403 in Ancaster to north Burlington.
“People need to move around. There is congestion on the roads and we need to address that. But we don’t need to destroy environmentally-sensitive land in order to do that,”
“The fundamental thing I hear is that people in this community are very concerned about a road that will disrupt a sensitive environmental area that really is the basis of the quality of life in the area. That’s why our government stepped back from this.”
The event, which took place in Burlington was organized by Liberal candidates Karmel Sakran (Burlington), Indira Naidoo-Harris (Halton) and Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale MPP Ted McMeekin. Given who the sponsors were – what did you think the Minster was going to say – add to that, if they play their cards right, the Liberals have a decent chance of taking both the Burlington and Halton seats.
During the session Minister Wynne made the comment that while she is the Minister of Transportation the people she directs tend to see themselves as employees of the old Department of Highways – and as the Minister pointed out, highways are one mode of transportation, but she directs a ministry made up of people who are deeply ingrained and committed to the construction of highways – and indeed Ontario has some magnificent roads.
 Burlington Councillor John Taylor, probably the most vocal and persisitent person on Council when it comes to the Escarpment and how to defines the city makews a point at the Roundtable held in Burlington recently.
Taylor said in an interview that he has met with the Minister on previous occasions and believes what she has to say. “She gets it” said Taylor but he added that to the best of his knowledge the Minister has never actually driven through the area.
One of the ideas the SEHC people had was to arrange for bus tours through the Escarpment for people who live in Burlington but don’t fully realize how magnificent a piece of geography we have and the damage that a highway would do to that part of the city.
Taylor, who has been fighting to ensure that urban development doesn’t take place north of Highway 5 (Dundas) had to give in a bit when the 407 was put through in 2000 and live with development between Highway 5 (Dundas) and the 407. He believes fervently that if there is an NGTA highway, development will go up so fast between the existing 407 and wherever a new highway is built that the Burlington we know will disappear before our eyes. NGTA is the acronym for Niagara Greater Toronto Area highway that has in the past been called the Mid Peninsula highway.
Developers salivate when they think about the opportunities to build homes should a road cut through the Escarpment. Local farmers would think they were on their way to heaven and able to think of retiring to the sunny south with nary a winter driveway to be cleared. Ward 1 Councilor Rick Craven argues that much of the land north of the 407 is already in the hand of patient developers.
 Looks do tell and it doesn’t look at if Mayor Goldring on the left is buying what Minister Kathleen Wynne is selling. Karmel Sakran, in the middle, is just delighted that the Minister is in the riding mentioning his name. Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring liked what the Minister had to say but if the photograph is any indication of what Goldring really thinks – well you can almost see the grains of salt he is taking with the words he is hearing. Goldring makes the comment that the announcement is nice but adds that there was nothing in the way of an announcement from the Ministry of Transportation about the highway. What we got was a politician rolling through town handing out promises. And keep in mind that this will be the last election for Premier Dalton McGuinty – which means a leadership contest when he decides to resign – and Kathleen Wynne is being talked up as a potential for the Office of the Premier
SEHC has chosen to celebrate what Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne had to say – that Ontario’s Liberal government will not move forward with a highway that would cut across the Niagara Escarpment and Halton Region’s Natural Heritage System to connect Highway 403 in Ancaster to North Burlington.
“Ontario needs a modern, multi-modal transportation system if we want to stay economically competitive and decrease commuting times,” says SEHC spokesman Geoff Brock. “We are pleased the Province recognizes this and is willing to take another look at its transportation plans.”
 These signs popped all over North Burlington in February – Do they represent the feelings of the people south of the QEW? The 11-member SEHC, composed of citizens’ groups from Niagara to Oakville, worked with the City of Burlington, the Region of Halton and MPP Ted McMeekin, to oppose to the highway. The SEHC also commissioned a Natural Capital Study to highlight the $912 million value of green infrastructure services that would be lost if the highway were to be built.
“The quality of the Natural Capital Study and the value of its analysis certainly deserved the attention it received from the Minister,” said Susan McMaster of Citizens Opposed to Paving the Escarpment, a Member of the SEHC.
“We are pleased that Minister Wynne saw the logic in our group’s position: a highway isn’t needed now and, with gas prices rising rapidly, certainly won’t meet Ontario’s needs in years to come,” said McMaster.
SEHC – the Stop the Escarpment Highway Coalition is made up of 12 groups with a combined membership of 7,000 people. Citizens Opposed to Paving the Escarpment (COPE), Oakvillegreen Conservation Association, Lowville Area Residents Association (LARA), BurlingtonGreen, Coalition of the Niagara Escarpment (CONE), Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), Milton Green Citizens Group, Environment Hamilton, Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society, Sidrabene Latvian Camp, Cedar Springs Community.
The organization came together during an early February meeting when the city and a mixed group of local activists met to talk about a joint response to the surprising announcement from the province that it wanted certain data inserted into both the Regional Official Plan and Burlington’s Official Plan. Councilor Taylor spear-headed a public meeting that brought some 800 + people out to a local arena and more than a couple of dozen to their feet to protest against the idea of a road cutting through the Escarpment. That public meeting saw both the MPP from Burlington, Joyce Savoline and the MPP from Halton, Ted Chudleigh, troop to the front of the room and mumble a few words about listening to the community.
 View from Mt Nemo - If there is ever a highway cut through Escarpment land it will open up land like this to housing developments – and tear the heart out of what Burlington is as a city Flash fast forward to Mayor Goldring’s office last week, a day before he left for vacation and hear him say that “this issue is a hill he could die on”. The Mayor has a fine print of the Escarpment on the wall of his office.
In sharp contrast to the Liberal’s position, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak promises to build the highway if elected. The Niagara to GTA (NGTA) highway is expected to cost up to $6 billion. SEHC says the price is too high, not only in terms of destruction to valuable agricultural land and natural areas, but also because it will impair the Province’s ability to invest in the sustainable, multi-modal transportation system that citizens and businesses really need.
 For the SEHC people this as a pivotal issue in this fall’s Provincial election. The group is working to understand, and publicize, the position of all local provincial candidates on the highway as part of this year’s election so voters can make an informed decision on this issue.
The group is also looking to the Federal government to step up to the plate on transportation planning. Rail plays a major role in sustainable transportation planning and the Province can’t do it alone. So far the Federal government has been absent from the conversation. SEHC thinks this is unacceptable since rail is their responsibility. “Putting rail and a National Transport Policy on Ottawa’s agenda is a high priority for us,” said Brock.
 - Mayor Goldring and John Taylor at the Roundtable on the Escarpment. The Minister of Transportation certainly heard their words – did she feel the passion?
A number of people point out that the NGTA corridor has three parts to it and while the province might stall and hold back with the portion that was being planned for the Escarpment, if the other portions get built – they would then say they “have” to build the final portion. Thus Geoff Brock of COPE says “we have to be ever vigilant” and make sure that the Environmental Assessment never gets completed. Mayor Goldring is of the same mind. He says he will feel much better when he hears that the Environmental Assessment has been cancelled. At this point – it is still a task being done.
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