August 30, 2013
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. The province’s premier will be taking in Burlington’s Ribfest Saturday. Kathleen Wynne plans to spend an hour in the city, where no doubt she will be reminded that we are the safest city in the province, have the lowest crime rate and the slowest growing population – and anything else anyone said about us that was at all nice. The negative stuff – is there any?
Mayor Goldring chats with then Minister of Transportation Kathleen Wynne. He wasn’t buying what she was selling then. Saturday the Mayor will squire the Premier around Ribfest.
The visit is just one of those “popping in to say hello” things. Mayor Goldring had plans to be in Spencer Smith Park selling beverage tickets – he might just sell a handful to the Premier and perhaps talk about additional funding coming our way.
These casual get togethers can have interesting outcomes.
Wynne has been to Burlington a number of times in the past. She was in town during the last provincial election when everyone made sure she fully understood our views on any highway the province thought it was going to ram through the Escarpment. Wynne has been Minister of Transportation in the past and said during one of her visits that the problem with the transportation ministry bureaucrats was that they never got over being the Ministry of Highways when roads was what they were all about.
Now that Wynne is Premier she has to think about the bigger picture which certainly includes roads but also includes an economy that isn’t what it once was. She has an aging population that needs a different level of care, probably not what the current model of hospital can provide. She has parents who want the best education for their children that their tax money can buy and a population that is much more diverse than when she got into politics.
Mayor with the Premier: best buddies?
Wynne is certainly a different kind of politician. Her lifestyle choice and her willingness to say that yes, “she did puff”, gets us out a phony stage where everyone knew but no one ever said anything. There was a time in this province when you couldn’t get a picture of a politician with a glass of beer in their hands.
Wynne has taken to touring the province on the weekends and Spencer Smith Park is a decent place as any to get out of the car for a walk – a little side trip out along the pier will put some colour in her cheeks and give those escorting her around an opportunity to explain, perhaps, how city council overcame immense resentment on the part of taxpayers over the cost of the thing but that Council bit the bullet, persevered and now everyone loves the thing.
The Premier is expected to be out there taking orders for ribs between 1:00 and 2:00 pm.
Goldring should take some time away from selling beer tickets and explain to Wynne how the wasted $300M – $1B in power plant money could have been used to support the building of perhaps an additional hospital in this city; then give her a puff of whatever he smokes, and both can go for a long walk off the end of what ultimately turned out as being a shortened pier. Also, just curious to see if the legal bill for the management of the final stages of construction of the pier exceeded the total cost of the substandard parts which were at issue. It is hard to believe Goldring continues to assert that he does not know the final cost of the pier construction; maybe because of what will be an embarrassingly high legal bill. Wynne is part of a group of politicians who admit to not knowing the total amount of money lost on a power plant that was not even built. Maybe Wynne is here to advise Goldring on an effective public relations ‘spin strategy’ ahead of next year’s municipal elections, why else would she show up, what business is there to do here at the ribfest? How can anyone take either of these two seriously, especially when they start talking about economy, transportation, and health care? Simple, forthright, transparent, fully accountable decision making without chronic reliance on a committee consensus approach to governance, and simple business sense is what we need from civil service leadership, not the circuitous rambling that these two generously supply. Puff away Wynne; puff away Goldring; puff away all the people’s money. Not to worry, we can always raise more infrastructure and hospital funding through cupcake sales, or, donations made at the ribfest.