It has been 12 years since I launched Babel-on-the-Bay.com. Initially a frequent theme was Barrie’s city council. They were often humorous digs at the mayor, with city councillors relegated to the chorus. There was a gap in the commentaries when I decided to help my ward councillor become mayor.
It did not take me long to realize that Barrie was a different political scene from what I was used to in Toronto. I found that there wasn’t as much party politics involved in the local politics and a better neighbour to neighbour relationship. I found I was working with conservative and new democrat supporters to get a liberal elected mayor. It was a fun campaign and we won against two former mayors and a former member of the legislature.
But having a liberal mayor and a mainly conservative council was not such a good idea. Much of what needed to be done over the next 12 years did not happen because of the conservative majority on council and the ‘not-invented-here’ (NIH) attitude of the municipal employees. Problems that could not be fixed with asphalt were not welcomed by either council or staff.
And if our current council had not embarrassed the entire city the other day, we would be no more than an over-taxed city with a do-nothing city council.
Our new mayor is a conservative nebbish who spent one term in Ottawa and wisely chose not to run for a second term. Why he wanted to be mayor was unfathomable to those of us who paid attention to his previous terms representing a ward and his less than stellar service in Ottawa? We had been ignoring him until this week.
This is a guy, who as MP for part of Barrie, vehemently opposed safe injection sites for drug users in the city. Despite not being a lawyer, he was strongly opposed to this attempt to save lives because he considered the sites illegal.
Now as mayor of our city, he and the council passed a motion directing staff to take action against panhandling in Barrie, giving homeless people food on city property, without a permit, and providing a shuttle service to send thehomeless elsewhere, while getting the provincial government to pay for it.
When the motions came to council for approval, they weaseled out because of the scathing publicity they were getting from residents of Barrie and across Ontario.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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