Alan Pickersgill - The View From Here

(March 18) - They really are a pathetic bunch. There is no other accurate way to describe them and it’s no surprise Brenda Chamberlain wants to get away from them. The federal Liberal caucus members have become the laughing stock of the country. They cannot even pretend to be the opposition party any more.

Look at the record. When he was elected leader, Stéphane Dion had branded himself as the environmental guy. Dion delegates on the convention floor draped themselves in green scarves. The green-skinned Liberals from Guelph were elated at his victory. But where is it all now? The green scarves might just as well have been saved for St. Patrick’s Day for all the good they’ve done the environment.

A couple of weeks ago, on March 7, the NDP introduced a motion calling on the government to introduce the Clean Air and Climate Change Act. The Liberals refused to support it. Only 10 of them showed up for the vote. The rest were told to stay away.

As a show of bravado, a Liberal MP introduced a bill to give tax breaks to families purchasing registered education savings plans. It passed in Parliament and was on its way to becoming law. Then the Conservatives said they didn’t like it. Did the Liberals have the spine to stand up for their own idea? Not a chance. Last week they voted in favour of a government motion to kill the tax break they introduced.

These are just two of several examples of Liberal bravado turning into empty bluster. Stéphane Dion looks just like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, a pitiable shadow of the promises made 15 months ago. Dion is so obviously scared of an election there is only one question about him Canadians are left asking: what will he help Harper do next?

Maybe not all Canadians. One of those who isn’t asking is Brenda Chamberlain. She’s getting out while the getting is good. I doubt that Dion’s constant directives to the back benches upset her too badly. He doesn’t want them showing up for work, and she wants to spend more time with her family. A perfect mix. How many people dream of finding a job where the boss tells them to stay home, the cheque will be deposited in the bank for them? Chamberlain has been living this dream.

In a couple of weeks, she will stop staying home and collecting a pay cheque. She will start staying home and collecting a pension cheque. We will be without an MP for a while. We’ve sort of been without one for a couple of years anyway, but in April it becomes official.

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As I write this column on a Friday evening, news is coming out that Robert Latimer has been given an early parole and a lot of folk are applauding. I’m not one of them.

The deliberate taking of another human life is always wrong. It doesn’t matter if it is a crime of anger, a crime of passion, a crime of war, a crime of capital punishment, or a crime of fatigue. It’s wrong.

No matter how severely disabled your daughter is, you do not kill her. I have never met Robert Latimer and don’t want to. I won’t declare that he is an evil man. He probably isn’t, or at least not more so than the average inmate of a minimum security prison. Many people who also never met him are saying he’s a compassionate man. In my world, compassion does not put a child in a pick up truck, hook a hose to the exhaust pipe, turn on the engine and lie to the paramedics and police when they show up afterwards.

When Latimer killed his daughter, he was exhausted. So are most parents of disabled children. Yes, there should be better support systems in place for them. I’ve been advocating this for all my adult life.

When we come nose to nose with the knowledge that they are not there, what should we do? More importantly in this case, what should we not do?

The lack of adequate care is not a license for weary parents to commit murder. Those who do should be treated no differently than any other person who deliberately carries out a plan to kill a defenseless child.

(March 04) - Politicians are supposed to be political. It’s what they do. People expect it of them. When they stop arguing for the things they care about, they have to explain themselves. Otherwise, the people who supported them become confused. Like now with June Hofland’s sudden declaration of a conflict of interest with regard to decisions about redevelopment of the former Lafarge land.

The city councillor has declared that she has a “pecuniary interest” in the decision. She has a home in the neighbourhood. The development will affect her property values, she says. Therefore she can have nothing to do with debating it or voting on it.

Pardon the expression, but what a load of hooey. Think about it. Everyone who sits on city council must either own or rent property in Guelph. It’s a basic requirement of the job. Everything they do, every decision they make, affects their property value. They could slash the operating budget by canceling weekly garbage collection. Send the trucks around once a month instead. Taxes would plummet. So would property values. No one but the most ardent libertarian would want to live here.

If a tax-cutter from the lunatic fringe went to council and seriously proposed this, would all thirteen of them have to declare a conflict of interest? If they argued against it, would they be driven by a pecuniary interest to protect the value of their homes? To a degree, they would be. So what? They should be. In defending the value of their own homes, they also defend the value of their community. Not just the financial value, but also the social value. Everyone benefits when wisdom prevails.

Hofland is not the only one with property in the neighbourhood. She’s not the only one worried about the big boxing of residential communities. When she ran for election in 2006, she won largely because of her activity on the Lafarge file. She was President of the Howitt Park Neighbourhood Residents’ Association. She trounced a long-standing councilor who was widely perceived to be too sympathetic to the big boxers.

Now she says people think she is “leading the charge against the development.” Well, well. Isn’t that a surprise. She was leading the charge before November 2006, she was elected because of it and she shouldn’t stop now. Hofland is an intelligent, passionate and articulate believer in the need for wise planning. She argues for decisions that improve the economic, social and environmental health of her community. It’s too late to turn back now. It sends the wrong message that community activism is motivated by narrow self-interest rather than an understanding of the bigger picture and the wider implications of what we do.

Hofland says she sought advice from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. They weren’t sure, so she went to her lawyer. He did what most lawyers would do. He told her to be careful. She took being careful to mean stepping aside. Stepping aside means another wet blanket can douse the fires of political passion. The blandification of our city is moving relentlessly from the shape of our neighbourhoods to the shape of our government. They are two sides of the developers’ coin..

I think the people of Ward 3 want Hofland to continue leading this charge. They expect it of her, just as we expect all politicians to do the things we elect them to do. It’s not just Ward 3 either. It affects the entire city. If and when Costco and its friends land on Silvercreek Parkway, the temperature won’t just rise in the Howitt Park neighbourhood. The rest of the city will go up with it. We will be frogs in a pot, not noticing the gradual changes until it’s too late to jump out.

Hofland is one of the people who try to keep us out of the pot in the first place. We cannot allow her to be silenced. We need her to hang in there, doing what she has always done. I hope you will all help convince her to reconsider. Get her e-mail address or phone number from the city web site and contact her. Speak to her colleagues on council and ask them to talk some sense into her. Tell them all there is no conflict of interest when a community member defends community.