Category: Municipal Politics

A Richler’s epiphany on Toronto.

by Peter Lowry

In a somewhat rambling op-ed for the Toronto Star the other day, Noah Richler tells us of his experience as a sacrificial lamb (candidate) for the New Democrats last year. He also explains (sort of) why Bombardier cannot seem to deliver Toronto’s streetcars.

Being a Montrealer by birth, Richler’s decision to run in Toronto-St.Paul’s was fuel for a Babel-on-the-Bay commentary last July. Our concern was that the NDP were just using him and his father’s name in a meaningless cause. There was just no way Mordecai Richler’s fame would help his son defeat the Liberal’s Caroline Bennett.

And it turns out the son really did not understand Toronto. He says he thought Toronto—St. Paul’s was just like all other Toronto electoral districts. He was actually surprised that people at their door accused him of being a parachute candidate.

Now he tells us this entire political business was to research a book he has written on being a candidate. We doubt that it could ever be turned into a movie starring someone like Robert Redford as “The Candidate.” That movie has already been made.

But what ticks us off about this article is that Richler accuses the Toronto MPs—who are all Liberals—of being unable to articulate the city’s needs in Ottawa. Frankly there are some that do a poor job of that but overall, there are some very good representatives for the city in Ottawa today.

In the negative, is the example of MP Adam Vaughan from Spadina—Fort York who thinks he can speak for all Toronto by getting Transport Minister Marc Garneau to end all speculation about Bombardier whisper jets flying out of the Island Airport. To get Garneau to blatantly interfere in that way with a city council decision is not representing the city.

But what Richler really does not realize that among the people guilty of not taking a unified approach in supporting the city are his fellow NDP. All he had to do was look around and see who the best supported candidates were. They were the downtown clique of NDP candidates in Toronto who neither understand nor want to understand the needs of the suburbs.

And anyone who thinks that you can beat up on Quebec-based Bombardier over late delivery of Toronto streetcars is not very political. Toronto is trying to help Bombardier solve their problems. Richler just wants to stir up trouble for the company.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Doors still open to municipal corruption.

by Peter Lowry

If virtue is its own reward, what is the reward for hypocrisy? And what does it mean when municipal politicians tell you that there will be no more corruption when they ban corporate and union donations? What problems does that solve?

What is the point when the most important contributions to campaigns are not recognized as being of value? These contributions can create literature, develop campaign strategies, plan and prepare speeches and create a persona for a candidate that might be far from reality. When companies, unions, and community organizations decide to support a candidate, how does the voter separate the truth from the image that has been created? And what is the value of the campaign work ‘contributed’ at the urging of the employer or union? That is the hypocrisy of municipal politicians not accepting money from corporations and unions.

What is more serious is continuing to allow candidates to self-finance their campaigns? Why have no limits been set in Ontario on what municipal candidates can spend? Do we only want the rich to control our municipalities?

But there are still so many ways around the rules. Developers who really want the support of city councillors can find many routes for their donations to reach the intended candidate. There are many pressure points.

And yet the Ontario government keeps polishing their buttons on their pledges to end possible corruption in provincial and municipal politics. The only problem is that the people who really know how the system works are never asked to help solve the problems. It is the people skilled in running political campaigns who know the work-arounds, the loopholes, the opportunities to make things happen.

Instead it is the politicians themselves who make the decisions and it is the academics who pontificate on the process. The apparatchiks who make things happen are kept hidden from the light of day.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Toronto’s organized hypocrisy.

by Peter Lowry

Would someone please explain to Professor Patrice Dutil at Toronto’s Ryerson University that the city already has party politics at City Hall. Of course—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—it is all kept quiet because we never want anyone to be held accountable. And if the Ryerson prof wants confirmation, he should ask our old friend from Ryerson, David Crombie.

When David’s Civic Action Party (CIVAC) put together a motley group of mostly Conservatives by another name in 1969, the late Senator Keith Davey spearheaded our openly Liberal attack on City Hall and the New Democrats profited from our mistakes. It gave the New Democrats the stronger base they wanted in city politics, Crombie became the ‘Tiny Perfect Mayor’ and a thoroughly chastened group of Liberals went back to their day jobs.

We had walked into a trap. Professor Dutil should appreciate it. It is taught as Hypocrisy 101 in politics and city administration. Almost to a person, the aldermen, controllers and mayors throughout the various parts of Toronto at the time wrapped themselves in the cloak of purity and their devotion to representing their constituents. The Liberals were made out as the bad guys. And the choice of Professor Stephen Clarkson from the University of Toronto as leader of the loosely aligned Liberal mob was a disaster.

It would be nice to say that we learned from our mistakes but no such luck. Using Professor Dutil’s check list we can report that nothing was gained.

First the professor tells us that parties can educate. Hell, it is almost impossible to educate parties. Just look at the mess the Conservatives and New Democrats are in today. And the day that a party label means any consistency in programs, promises or actions, check the number of blue moons in the skies.

He thinks that parties do a good job of screening the individuals they recruit. Tell that to the Senate of Canada! And tell that to the voters in Peterborough where the former MP is still appealing his prison sentence.

The political scientist professor thinks parties can punish the miscreants in their midst. Holding MPs and MPPs accountable seems hard enough. Despite parties being behind most individual municipal representatives, they are responsible to nobody but themselves.

The prof also thinks parties can be held accountable for their promises to the voters. Good grief, we can only hope he is not telling that to impressionable young Ryerson students.

The simple answer to the professor’s ambitious ideas is that the city is a creature of the province. The provincial parties will never allow Toronto to be run by any party other than the party in charge at Queen’s Park.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Don’t forget Canada’s Minister of Pot.

by Peter Lowry

Canada is certainly a slow-moving country. It takes six years to get the right just to have your day in court. How long it will take to actually get a class-action case to court is another matter. The only thing is that as time marches on, we should never forget the role played in the G-20 abuse of human rights by then Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair.

He might now be spending his days checking out the marijuana quality across Canada for the Trudeau government but he is still the person who could have stopped the entire G-20 embarrassment for Toronto.

In 2010, Blair asked the Attorney General’s office at Queen’s Park what law would authorize the police-state measures he was being asked to use during the G-20 meeting hosted by Prime Minister Harper in Toronto that summer. They could not find a reference to support it so the Ontario government gave him the wrong legal reference. He had a responsibility to question the obvious error. He did not. He let the events of that summer weekend in Toronto happen. He failed in his responsibility to his job and to the citizens of Toronto and Canada.

Bill Blair had been the poster boy for chiefs of police across North America. It took the Toronto Police Services Board another five years to get rid of him.

Imagine the embarrassment to the Liberal Party when Justin Trudeau personally picked the former police chief to be the Liberal candidate in Scarborough-Southwest. The embarrassment was felt strongly by progressive Liberals. Justin not only broke his promise to the party but showed very poor political judgement.

But there is a wide gulf between bad judgement and criminal responsibility. Toronto never even got an apology from Blair about the events of the G-20. He dumped the blame on an underling who was supposedly the only senior police presence in Toronto at the time.

We are obviously supposed to believe that Blair and the other chiefs were all enjoying a peaceful weekend at their summer cottages while police cars were being torched in Toronto. It seems nobody thought to interfere with a few stupid anarchists from Montreal rampaging and doing malicious damage on our city streets. Yet the next day, innocent pedestrians were rounded up like cattle and illegally searched and imprisoned.

It was a time of infamy. And Bill Blair has to take his share of the blame.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The manipulation of preferential voting.

by Peter Lowry

Back in the 1970s, we elected two aldermen (now called councillors) in each Toronto ward. The person with the most votes was known as the senior alderman and was given more perks and opportunities. The toughest part of campaigning for an aldermanic post at that time was convincing your supporters to not vote for a second choice. They thought if they did not vote twice, they might be doing something wrong.

It is the same problem you run into with preferential voting. The voters are told to list their preference for first, second or third choice. They end up voting for people that they do not even know. You do not want your voters to do that if you are serious about winning. And, if they insist on making a second choice, you want their second choice vote to be for losers, not front-runners. You hardly need to spend 50 years in Canadian politics to learn to manipulate preferential voting.

But here are those brain-dead, so-called Liberals at Queen’s Park promoting preferential voting for Ontario municipalities. The City of Toronto has thankfully rejected this form of voting after some reconsideration. At least other cities are being allowed it only as an option.

But there are those who think preferential voting is a great idea. They suggest that preferential voting will increase voter engagement. How it will do this is never mentioned. Frankly the concern is that it will confuse more voters than it will intrigue.

And anyone who thinks the need for second and third choice selections will reduce negative campaigning is day dreaming.  The funniest claim of all is saying that it will give the voters a greater say. In what?

Preferential voting is supposedly designed to make sure that the person elected has broad and even majority support. Doing that in a field open to as many candidates as want to run is an almost impossible challenge. That is why primaries and run-off election systems were developed. If you really want to have someone whom the majority of voters can approve, the only workable system is to have a second vote for the top candidates.

As the voters in France say about their run-off system, you vote with your heart in the first go-around and you vote with your brain in the second. For volatile voters such as the French, the system seems to work.

In Ontario, we just need smart voters who can do the math on who is helped by preferential voting.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Don’t get between the Photogs and Politicos.

by Peter Lowry

Years ago at a dinner three of us were chatting at the head table reception. There was the Ontario party leader, a prominent member of the federal cabinet and this writer. The three of us were discussing nothing important and we studiously ignored the photographers and TV camera people recording our innocuous three-part tête-a-tête. It would have been a pleasant chat except for the constant pokes in the back from party wannabes who wanted to get in the shot.

It is why at Rob Ford’s funeral the other day you saw this mixture of politicos among the losers from Ford Nation. At least the politicos were able to reserve seats in St. James Cathedral. The losers were outside in the circus tents. (Their time was later at the Ford-funded wake.)

But there was the Premier, former premiers, the Ontario Cabinet, MPs and MPPs, the Mayor and councillors who were allowed inside with the family.

And the widow Ford had never looked so good. She looked like Cinderella, freed from life as a scullery maid. Even the kids did their bit for the family. The only sour note was brother Doug Ford weeping as he tried on Rob Ford’s political mantle.

The best photo shots of the event were the hundreds of Ford Nation people and others who followed the hearse on the way to the Anglican cathedral.

Frankly this commentator was not invited. Anyway, we refuse to go to the funeral of someone we disliked in life. We have known too many Rob Fords in politics and there will obviously be more in the future. You could swear that American presidential hopeful Donald Trump is a graduate of the Rob Ford Finishing School.

Funerals are for the living as we understand it. Just who the funeral was for on Wednesday in Toronto is an open question. It made a substantial contribution to the news media needs. It brought politicos out where they could be seen and heard weeping crocodile tears for Rob Ford. It brought out Ford Nation for a last hurrah—the food and circuses circuit will hardly be the same under his older brother.

But however fleeting, the politicos had their moment in the cameras’ eyes. The publicity at this level of event is free. And not since William Shakespeare wrote of Marc Antony’s eulogy, nobody expects anything meaningful or important to be said at a funeral.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

It’s leadership that builds our future.

by Peter Lowry

This is just an idle thought for a bleak February in Barrie. It is what a difference leadership can make. This comes to mind with the sour grapes announcement by Laurentian University that they are dumping their partnership staff and students at Georgian College. It reflects the abysmal failure of the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, Barrie City Council, Georgian College and the college’s University Partnership program. There was no leadership.

And it is leadership that greases the gears of this world in which we live. And frankly, Barrie will have none of that. This city is run by a grossly conservative cabal of civil servants, pathetic politicians and outside interests that hardly give a damn for our city.

There is no better example of this disgrace than Patrick Brown MPP. In years of representing this city in Ottawa, he never once demonstrated any leadership that would aid his city. As Ontario opposition leader, Brown harps at the Wynne government over the Hydro One fiasco that has already left the barn. Yet what did Brown say about the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities denying Barrie a university? Nothing.

Did you know that Kingston, Ontario that hosts the prestigious Queen’s University is much smaller than Barrie? The very successful Georgian College could become Georgian University at the stroke of a pen at Queen’s Park and it would open an entirely new vista for the city and for Simcoe County.

But do not look to City Council for help. Those milk toasts get their leadership from the city’s civil servants and that is taking the city nowhere. One look at that train station to nowhere on the bay will tell you where this city is headed—but watch the realty taxes keep rising.

Barrie City Council is so weak and leaderless it cannot even save Central Collegiate from being demolished. It is the only high school available in downtown Barrie and Simcoe County’s school ‘experts’ are going to bus our downtown students to portables in the burgeoning suburbs. This city cannot even look after its high school students.

And please do not laugh at the Liberal MPP presently representing Barrie at Queen’s Park. She was picked to be exactly what she is: a vote for Ms. Wynne.

Now if we had someone such as former Georgian College president Brian Tamblyn running provincially two years from now, we could have a Member of the Legislature who knew what he was talking about and could get things done. He is a potential MPP who would stand up for Barrie and make sure that the city had the facilities it needs. You wonder who could talk him into running?

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

It’s not the pipelines, it’s the bitumen.

by Peter Lowry

Thank goodness for mayors who can call a spade a spade. Not every city enjoys that luxury. The only problem is that mayors and their municipalities have no jurisdiction over pipelines. What they do is posture for their voters and then conveniently remember it is not their bailiwick when the going gets tough.

Toronto Mayor John Tory blew by the pipeline issue in the last Toronto election because he did not want a fight with fellow Conservative Stephen Harper at the time. Toronto has a pipeline right through the city that is currently preparing to pump diluted bitumen through high density housing areas. It was quietly given the final go-ahead in the middle of last year’s federal election.

But if it was just crude oil, there would not be the concern. The Enbridge Line 9 is an old pipeline that has pumped crude oil back and forth for almost 40 years. With increased line pressure and the corrosive nature of bitumen, it is a disaster waiting to happen. What is particularly grating is that the National Energy Board approved the Line 9 reversal to specifically pump crude oil at a variety of high pressures. There is no mention of bitumen in the NEB order.

Bitumen is what you get when you wash the sands out of tarsands. Bitumen is a potpourri of chemicals in a viscous tarry substance that can be converted to synthetic oil. It can be pumped through a pipeline by diluting it with hydrocarbons, heating it and pumping it at high pressure. When it gets to a refinery, the conversion process creates vast quantities of what is called bitumen slag which can be used as a highly polluting fuel. This is a major component of what is referred to as downstream carbon emissions. Bitumen is polluting our environment even before it becomes fuel for your gas-burning automobile.

Bitumen is a triple threat polluter. The tar sands exploiting companies are polluting the Alberta environment with vast acreages of settling ponds for the polluted water and tar sands residue. The refineries dread the bitumen slag that can blow like a dirty cloud over their communities. And bitumen spills from a pipeline are a triple threat that can never come clean as on water the hydrocarbon thinner floats and the bitumen goes to the bottom, while on land the bitumen can seep down and pollute the water table.

While Prime Minister Trudeau will bend over backwards to try to save the Alberta tar sands, the mayors are right. There is no redemption for bitumen to be shoved down a pipeline. Rebuilding the Canadian economy has to be high priority but it cannot be done at the expense of our environment.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

What if nobody voted in the by-election?

by Peter Lowry

We had a by-election for council in a Barrie ward the other day. Admittedly it was the middle of winter but you would think that more people would have voted. Out of almost 10,000 potential voters, only 17.5 per cent bothered to vote. It makes you wonder what the heck the city would have done if nobody bothered to vote?

It would not have happened though. Since one of the 12 candidates lived in the ward he would have won by default. He was the only one who could vote for himself.

Babel-on-the-Bay made no prediction on this race. It had to be the candidate with the best ground game. And nobody runs a great ground game in the middle of a Barrie winter. It is like when you put up your signs and the next day there is another dump of 30 centimetres of snow.

But we had an idea about the guy who won. He watched closely when we were running the mayor’s ground game the first time the mayor won. He was a sitting councillor at the time and lost his seat then because he thought he was a shoo-in. We hear now that he had the best ground game of any of the 12 candidates in this by-election. And he admitted what a tough job it was.

Yet he had the worst signs. They were smaller than the rest, had poor visibility and were badly located. The guy with the best signs—that were not obviously Conservative—even had his picture on them. They were impressive. He finished the race out of the money, back with the field.

Second place went to a local sports broadcaster. The guy does a great job on the Barrie Colts hockey games but obviously not enough voters in the ward have cable or are interested in Barrie’s Colts. He should not feel badly, if the ward people do not have cable, they also would not be able to watch the Barrie Council meetings.

Third and fourth place in the by-election went to a Conservative wannabe and a Liberal who has contested a federal nomination in the area.

Also finishing out of the money was one of Patrick Brown’s favourite real estate agents and a Liberal who just completed an appointment on the police services board.

Nobody asked this apparatchik for advice. We cut our political teeth on the frozen ground of municipal winter elections. No advice was asked; none was given

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

 

Justice denied: The Yatim trial.

by Peter Lowry

At one time the Toronto police force was among the most respected in Canada. It had the overwhelming support and trust of the citizens it served. That is no longer true. The trial of Constable James Forcillo for murdering Sammy Yatim has told Toronto citizens that the police consider themselves above the law.

The lesson of the trial is that it is alright to shoot a drugged young man for not doing what the police were telling him to do. He was given less than a minute to comply with instructions to drop a penknife and come down out of the streetcar. The jury decided that it was alright to shoot Sammy Yatim three times—and kill him.

But it was not alright to shoot him six more times. That, the jury opined, was attempted murder—even though Sammy Yatim was already dead. It took the jury six days of deliberations to come to that conclusion. You can just imagine the arguments in the jury room over that stroke of genius.

What is particularly galling in this situation is that the Toronto Police are closing ranks around their still-being-paid fellow constable Mr. Forcillo. It seems that police union boss Mike McCormack believes in the Nuremberg Defence. What that means is that Forcillo says he was only doing what he was trained to do. That means his defence for murder is that he was doing what he was told. To accept that defence, the courts would be denying international legal principles more than half a century old.

The best weasel of all in this fiasco is the stand taken by current Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders who claimed that the verdict showed that Toronto police are responsible to their public. He went on to say that the police are considering changing how they train officers. And if that is how they have been training police then more than Chief Saunders should be fired.

The disappointing note in all of this is the impact it is having on many of the youth in our cities. The message they are getting is that the police believe they can use lethal force at their discretion.

You can compile a long list of misdeeds by police but you need to remember that real reform starts at the top. We have many effective and competent police officers in Canada. They are desperately in need of good leadership.

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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]