"From the Left"The 2003 Guelph Tribune columns
"From the Left" opinion columns which appear every second Tuesday in The Guelph Tribune, more frequently during the municipal and federal elections. These columns appeared in 2003.
Table of Contents
Last Monday, City Council finally adopted the SmartGuelph initiative as a framework for future planning decisions. This will give our political leaders, and city staff, a context in which to prioritize and approve new projects for Guelph. They will now consider a triple bottom line that gives equal weight to the social, environmental and financial implications of their decisions. It is a good thing they have done this, and we should all acknowledge the foresight of the nine councillors who voted in favour. It was disappointing to see both councillors for Ward 1, where I live, oppose this forward thinking document. When they spoke in the very lengthy debate leading up to the vote, they raised some very confused arguments. They seem to think that because a Smart Growth initiative did not work in Portland Oregon and some other large American cities, it can’t work in Guelph. There is a serious logical breakdown in this reasoning. Before going much further, I should point out that I have had the enormous privilege of writing this column for the best part of eight years. In that time, I have been able to comment and pass judgment on the good, the bad and the ugly of municipal, provincial and federal politics. After witnessing recent Guelph debates about waste management, pesticide use, housing development and Smart Guelph, I want to offer my services to the people in a more direct and concrete way. I have decided to get in the game and become a candidate for City Council. I will campaign for one of the two council seats in Ward 1. I believe this election will be about planning for social, environmental and financial responsibility. All the major issues facing the city, things like the wet dry plus sorting, negotiations with SUBBOR, closing the landfill site, traffic calming, pesticide use, road reconstruction and housing can all fit nicely into this envelope. I don’t know anything about the future intentions of our two incumbent councillors, Joe Young and Rocco Furfaro. After a long and distinguished career in city politics, both as mayor and councillor, Young has made some important and positive contributions to Guelph. He has been on his game for so long that it was a shame to see him strike out over SmartGuelph. Furfaro, on the other hand, has struck out so often and dropped so many balls that it is time he was taken off the field and put on the bench. The studies about Portland with which Young and Furfaro opposed SmartGuelph were one-sided efforts by people who were always against the smart growth idea anyway. There are other studies by groups like Northwestern Environment Watch (NEW) that tell a different story. Their document This Place on Earth 2002 has Portland “splitting the difference” between the ugly sprawl of Seattle and the development of Vancouver with “compact, pedestrian-friendly communities accounting for 80 percent of the city's population growth over a decade.” The point is that you can always find studies to support any point of view. You can also set benchmarks, look for best practices and learn from the successes and failures of other communities. It is better to do this than to view an alleged failure and throw up your hands in despair. Needless to say, I am excited at the prospect of campaigning for a council seat, and I have been encouraged in this decision by a wide cross section of people living in Ward 1. I am very interested in hearing what you, my readers, think about it. You can express your thoughts through letters to the editor or by visiting my newly developed and constantly evolving campaign web site at www.alanpickersgill.ca. I hope you agree that when it comes to social, environmental and financial planning, I will be a smart pick for a Smart Guelph. With thanks to all of you loyal readers, I won’t say good bye because I will see you on the campaign trail. go back to the table of contents
Sometimes things don’t turn out as well as we want. When this happens, it is not because we planned to fail. More often than not it is because we failed to plan. To find an example of this, look no further south than the corner of Gordon St. and Clair Rd. This is rapidly becoming the focal point of Guelph’s south end development. As such, it can also be a good case study for what happens when a city council fails to plan. The story began more than ten years ago, long before most members of our present day council were first elected. The councilors of the day yielded to some very heavy pressure and lobbying by the home building industry. The developers wanted to open up the Clair Rd area, but there were no city services out there. No city sewers. No city water. The houses went up anyway, and after they were occupied, retail and other businesses located there service the new residents. But the infrastructure to support them was still missing. This year, work crews finally began connecting the south end to the city. It is a huge project that also involves rebuilding Gordon St. Because of the chaotic and unplanned nature of this south end development, we are all on the hook for an extra $2 million to keep traffic flowing past the retail businesses while construction is underway. There was nothing particularly clever about all this. It is characteristic of the DumbGuelph model that our mayor and some councilors are trying to lead us away from. They want to take us forward to a future based on SmartGuelph. Good for them for doing it. We need it quite quickly because pressure is already building to open the lands south of Clair Rd. for new homes. The area isn’t ready for development yet, but why would the home builders worry about that when there is money to be made. In a nutshell, DumbGuelph allows developers to build new houses as quickly as they can be sold, regardless of the city’s ability to absorb them. SmartGuelph allows developers to build new houses in areas that have been connected to the city. It is almost a no-brainer. But there are still people around town, some of them on city council, who want to stay stuck in the DumbGuelph quagmire. It doesn’t make much sense, but there they are. The SmartGuelph initiative grew out of a consultation process involving about 1500 people. It contains, among other things, a framework that lays out a timetable for development, a way to set priorities and move forward in an ordered and orderly fashion. City councilors will be better informed when they make development decisions. They will know about the positive and negative ways in which a project might affect the community. Who in their right minds would want to say no to this, and leave the city in the same loop that keeps leading us back to the Gordon St. mayhem? There is good news, though. The initiative is not dead in the water after all. It failed to pass a tied vote, but there has never been a motion to reject the work of those 1500 citizens. It can, and probably will, be brought back to the council table for another look. If every councilor is in attendance, it will pass by at least a 7 – 6 vote. The majority should be much wider, though. Some councilors who voted against it last time did so largely because of a misunderstanding. They should support it after their questions have been answered. It still won’t be a unanimous vote. There are a couple of councilors who are determined to poke sticks in the mayor’s eye no matter how badly they damage the city as a result. The only way to change that is to change them next November. If council cannot find a way to resuscitate SmartGuelph, this will be the second time in as many months that they turn their backs on the fruits of citizen participation. It happened to the pesticide review committee. It should not happen to SmartGuelph. go back to the table of contents
Ernie Eves might call an election tomorrow. Or not. A week or so ago, I would have bet money that he will. The signs were all in place. The Liberals and NDP have had their election platforms out for a long time now. Eves released his election platform a week or so ago. The Tory candidates and campaign managers were all wined and dined on the weekend. Ontario elections have to be held on a Thursday, with a minimum campaign period of 28 days. Calling an election tomorrow would allow exactly 28 days to campaign for a vote on the last Thursday of June. There has never been an Ontario general election in July. The most common dates are in late Spring, May or June, and early Autumn, September or October. So it looked for all the world like Ernie was good to go tomorrow. He has to go sooner or later, so why not now? Then that damnable SARS epidemic came back. The Tories are anxious to take a couple of new tax cut ideas out for a run. One of them will allow homeowners to deduct part of their mortgage interest from their income taxes. Take a look around the province and see the number of welfare recipients and people on disability allowances. They have all had their benefits cut, their shelter allowances frozen, their rents increased, their grocery bills gone up, and generally they’ve been beaten up and ground down and spit out by the Ontario government. Or take a look at the working poor across the province. Since the Tories gutted the Employment Standards Act and made it even more difficult to join a union than it already was, a significant number of Ontario workers have seen their real incomes slashed. Now Eves wants to give them all the chance to subsidize some people who are better off than themselves. I’m sure that all the poor folk – and their number has increased during these Tory times – will be tickled pink to know that the services they used to depend on, which were cut back to give all the rich folk a break, will likely be cut further to give the rich folk yet another break. Just about everyone who comments on this mortgage interest deduction thinks it’s a stupid idea. Don Drummond, the TD Bank’s chief economist, thinks it is dumb. So does a vice-president of the Royal LePage real estate company. So do all kinds of other people who own homes and pay mortgage interest. This was Ernie’s shiny new toy, though, and he wanted to take it out to show his friends. When people started to see it, they would likely ask him what it cost, and where did he get the money to pay for it. Then he’d have to say it didn’t cost much, only a few billion dollars or so, and we can get the money by cutting some more government red tape. Oops! Once that is said, people will remember that cutting Environment Ministry “red tape” brought us seven dead and thousands ill in Walkerton. Then they will remember that cutting Ministry of Health “red tape” brought our public health system to the point where it could not adequately deal with the first SARS epidemic, never mind this newly resurgent one. If he does call the election tomorrow, we will toss him out of office on June 26. If he doesn’t call it tomorrow, he might do it in the Fall. If he doesn’t do it in the Fall, he will have to go next Spring because that is when his time runs out. At best, we have a month to go. At worst, a year. Either way, Tory mismanagement is catching up to them. It is just amazing to think that they think another tax cut will make us forget about SARS, forget about Walkerton, and forget about the mess our province is in. go back to the table of contents
Gary Carr, a Conservative MPP from Oakville, has finally reached a conclusion the rest of us have known for a long time. The provincial government holds the legislature in utter contempt. Carr is the Speaker in the legislature, a job that requires him to be sort of the impartial chairperson, presiding over parliamentary sessions, maintaining order, and generally looking after the administrative bits and pieces necessary for a government to operate smoothly. After Ernie Eves and Janet Ecker took the unprecedented step of releasing their budget outside the legislature and inside a Magna auto parts factory, both opposition Parties asked the Speaker whether or not this was a good thing to do. Last week, he ruled that it was not. Before anything can be done, though, the legislature itself has to vote on it. With a comfortable number of obedient puppy dogs at his back, Eves will no doubt survive the vote. If he were to lose it, he would probably be forced to resign in disgrace and call an election, something he is desperately trying to avoid. Even though he is getting closer and closer to his legal limit, Eves knows now that the damage he has done is catching up to him. The odds are that he will be defeated. It will not be the budget mess alone that brings him down, although it is a good symbol of everything else that plagues him. Toronto has just been through a horrible health panic that has been felt in towns like ours. The SARS epidemic was made worse than it needed to be because of the deep cuts made to public health budgets. It wasn’t caused by the cuts, of course, but our ability to deal with it was greatly affected. Doctors and nurses across the greater Toronto region were stretched to their limit even before the first case was diagnosed. Tony Clement, the provincial Minister of Health, astounded the nurses when he admitted he did not realize that many of them work part time in two or three different hospitals in order to make up one full time job. He is completely out of touch with the reality faced by health care workers across Ontario. It was his government that cut 10,000 nursing jobs soon after it came to power. The public inquiry into the Walkerton disaster clearly found that the deaths and illnesses were caused by cuts made to the Ministry of the Environment while our own Brenda Elliott was on the job. If there is ever an inquiry into the SARS disaster, similar findings will be made. The mess was made worse by cuts to the Ministry of Health. Evidence about the damage done to our province is piling up. It is not just the environment and health care. It is also education at both the public school and post-secondary levels. The provision of basic services like electricity or public transportation has worsened. We need a government that takes the task of governing seriously, that does not show such open contempt for the democratic process. We need a government that understands the fundamental importance of the public sector. If we have learned anything at all from Walkerton and SARS, it is that our district health units need stable funding so they can maintain adequate staff levels. Public health must never again be taken for granted. Never again should a district health unit’s funding be cut back so that a tax cut can be pushed forward. After eight years of Conservative government, there are many things we need very badly in Ontario. Topping this list, the one thing we need the most, is an election. It is the one thing Eves is most reluctant to give us, the thing he is most afraid of. He can put it off for a while longer, but he can’t escape it forever. Sooner or later, Eves and Elliott and the rest of them will have to face the people. The sooner it happens, the better. go back to the table of contents
The Tribune’s publishing schedule and the City of Guelph’s decision making schedule are slightly out of balance. Deadlines demand that columns in the Tuesday paper have to be submitted by Monday. A lot of the decision making by the city happens on Monday evenings. Last night, for example, the city’s Planning, Environment and Transportation (PET) Committee met to hear delegations and to debate the recommendations of the Pesticide Review Committee. This was their second meeting to hear delegations. They had one meeting on April 10, but there were too many people on the list to be heard in one night, so last night’s meeting was scheduled to hear from those who didn’t have the chance to speak the first time. By now, the committee will have come up with a recommendation that city council will deal with sometime in May. As I write this, I don’t know which way they will decide. For a wild moment, I thought I had lucked out though. I went to an Internet web site called Guelph Alert. This web site is apparently dedicated to the “citizens and taxpayers of our wonderful city” and claims to be “not affiliated with any political organization or group.” I felt quite fortunate to find a politically neutral site where I could buy a bumper sticker urging regime change in Guelph. Imagine my excitement when I saw a “Code Red Level Guelph Alert” dated April 19 2003. In breathtaking prose, I was told I could “get it here - The FINAL Pesticide Review Report. The final report is complete and available for download well in advance of the debate being over. Just like a final score in a baseball game being announced before the game has reached all nine innings ... the Mayor's fix was already in.” Wow, I thought. Thanks to this politically neutral group, I can find out on Sunday what will be decided on Monday and my column on Tuesday will read like it was written on Wednesday. How often does a small town columnist get this lucky? As it turns out, not very. What they posted a week ago was the report the pesticide review committee released in December 2002. It was on the city’s web site in January. I’m not too sure how the Mayor’s “fix was in.” When the right moment arrives, the politically neutral folk at Guelph Alert will probably let us know. If you look deeper into their web site you will find some hints. For example, you can find an expanded version of a letter published in this paper last Tuesday. Norah Black reveals startling evidence linking several people who favour restricting pesticides with organizations that actively support the environment. Bill Hulet, for example, is a member of the Green Party. Why didn’t he admit to this when he ran as their candidate in 1988, 1990 and 2000? Henry Kock, believe it or not, is an “interpretive horticulturalist.” No wonder he hates pesticides! Oxanna Adams donated paintings to OPIRG and has links to the Arboretum. There is more. Ms. Black ferreted out some very damning evidence and we should all be grateful to her for bringing it to light. It should help the city give the green light to all the weed men who want to spray whatever they want, wherever they want. Heck, someone who is keen to belly up to the bar and drink a pint of Killex is obviously much smarter than the rest of us. Whatever the PET Committee recommends on pesticide use will go to city council next month for a final decision. I hope they will have the good sense to support the six citizens randomly selected to review the evidence. Even if they do, the debate about what is to be done with weeds will last as long as the one about what to do with garbage. Right through to the election next November. By then, the smart lawn care companies will have had a whole summer to learn there is as much money to be made protecting the environment as there is by assaulting it. go back to the table of contents
The downtown peace vigil has a new life. The city issued a permit allowing the participants to keep witnessing against the mayhem and chaos in Iraq for at least another month. In mid-May, they will reassess the state of affairs and make a decision about prolonging the vigil for another month. To listen to the talking heads on most news networks, one would think the war is already over. According to CNN, the “coalition” is the winner, the “regime” is the loser, and the Iraqi people are the beneficiaries. If you turn off the picture and turn up the volume, you might almost believe it. But if you mute the volume, you get a completely different impression. The war is not over, and it is not likely to be finished any time soon. The images of civil violence and looting in Basra and Baghdad are revolting enough in themselves. To see American and British troops standing back and detaching themselves from all responsibility is shameful. The Geneva Convention clearly compels occupying armies to secure the territory they have conquered, to protect the civilian population, and to safeguard property. They clearly refused to do this. In fact, they contributed to the mass hysteria when they helped topple statues and destroy huge images of Saddam Hussein. The troops could just as easily have maintained some order and prepared the ground for a peaceful transition from the old regime to whatever it is the Americans have in store for Iraq. The posters and statues would still have come down, but not in a way designed to whip up the fury and fan the flames of anarchy. The networks all thought it great sport to show image after image of Iraqis carrying furniture, plumbing and all manner of junk from government buildings. What you don’t hear about is the looting of West German and Slovakian Embassies, the pillaging of the French Cultural Centre in Baghdad, or the awful plundering of Iraq’s National Museum. Here in Guelph, we treasure buildings that are over 100 years old. We just celebrated the city’s 175th birthday. Think about that and consider that Iraq has over 7,000 years of recorded history. Their National Museum contained 26 statues of Assyrian kings, all more than 2,000 years old. They were destroyed, along with just about every other treasure in the collection. When George Bush brayed on about preserving the wealth of the Iraqi people, did he even consider for an instant the cultural wealth? Or are oil reserves the one and only measure he understands? The Americans are obviously aware of the location of government buildings in Baghdad, because they bragged about their ability to bomb them with precision. They knew where the museum was, and had a responsibility to assign platoons of soldiers to guard it. But this war was never about preserving Iraqi wealth for the Iraqi people. Right from the start it was about preserving Iraqi oil for American corporations. They would not waste time and resources securing history and culture when there are still oil wells to secure. The regime in Washington does not care about this. They never did and never will. They didn’t care about Iraqi civilians when they heard a report that Saddam Hussein was at a meeting in a popular downtown restaurant. They dropped 8,000 pounds of bombs on it, hoping they could kill him. Fourteen civilians were enjoying their supper and minding their own business when the bunker busters landed. Hussein was somewhere else. The way the Americans are acting, peace will not come to Iraq for many more years. The way they are talking, the chaos could soon be exported to Syria or Iran. While the troops are in the neighbourhood anyway, they might as well liberate a few more oil fields. I don’t know how long the peace vigil participants are planning to stay in the Square. The way it’s going out there in the world, they could all be graduated and moved away before their objectives are met. The world’s best hope is to see some regime change in Washington as soon as possible. go back to the table of contents
(NOTE: This column was a satirical April Fool's prank and appeared on the From the Right side of the page under Jon Dearden's name. On the same day, he wrote a satirical From the Left column.) There have been some startling developments coming from the upper levels of the Canadian Alliance recently which will be publicly revealed very soon. I have learned from a friend, someone who is close to people on the national executive, that they will soon announce they are abandoning plans and efforts to seek a merger with the Progressive Conservative Party. They are, instead, going for a closer working relationship with the New Democrats. If they can’t navigate their way to a full merger, they will urge members of the Party to resign and join the NDP. I wasn’t very enthusiastic at first, but the more my friend talked about it, the more sense it made. The New Democrats have jumped into a strong second place in the public opinion polls. Even the unpopular Tories are running ahead of the Alliance. Pursuing a merger with them, he said, would be making one tiny Party from the remnants of two. He wanted to join the winning team while he still could. As one of the Party leaders very eloquently put it to him, “we have to get on this boat before the train leaves the station.” When you think about it, a daring move like this has been tried successfully already. Over in Britain, years of government by Margaret Thatcher and John Major left their Conservative Party virtually unelectable. Some forward thinking strategic planners saw this coming a mile off, and worked Tony Blair into the leader’s position in the Labour Party. Blair went on to win the election that Major was doomed to lose. Blair has magnificently held on ever since. There are still some of the old Labour Party lefties in Parliament, people who just can’t climb out of the last century. They don’t present too much difficulty, though. As we saw in the British debate on the liberation of Iraq, Blair can always rely on the votes of the traditional Conservatives whenever he is in trouble. If things keep going according to schedule, Blair will restore his country to the Tories in the next general election. On the subject of gutsy political gambles, I have to give a quick tip of the hat to city councilor Rocco Furfaro. He is raging about the new Wet Dry Plus sorting system and isn’t afraid to say so. If he is this mad just now, imagine how angry he’d be if he lived in Guelph and actually had to sort his waste the way we do. One of his innovative suggestions is to scrap the whole thing and toss everything, recyclables included, into the Eastview landfill. The sooner we fill it, the sooner we can erect some more inexpensive commuter homes for people working in Toronto. Another great thing about Furfaro’s plan, if we follow its logic, is that we can keep on spending our money buying things we can throw out. When Eastview closes, we can start dumping it all into the river until that bit if nuisance is filled up. Then we can build another wide road connecting the Hanlon to Arthur St. South, cutting five minutes off the commute to Toronto. We could call it the Furfaro Freeway. Furfaro is able to see the big picture so clearly because he does not suffer the same conflict of interest shared by the mayor and the other councilors. As residents of the city, their decisions on issues such as waste disposal, pesticide use, parking meters and other things affect them directly. How can they be expected to exercise clear judgment when their minds are clouded by the potential impact their decisions will have on their own lives? This problem does not just exist in Guelph. It is faced by people in cities and towns across Ontario. David Young, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, promises to fix it. After they win the coming election, the Tories will amend the Municipal Act to prohibit people from running for election within the cities in which they live. He is going to call it the Rocco Restriction. go back to the table of contents
Ernie Eves is taking up the path charted by other right wing conservative leaders such as George Bush, Tony Blair and Jean Chretien. They are all deciding that if the established vehicles of democracy, and the forums in which they are held accountable, cannot be manipulated to their own ends, then they are to be ignored. In the face of massive opposition in the general population and within his own Party, Blair is determined to toady up to the United States. The British bulldog, past symbol of the old Empire, has been replaced by an American lapdog. Nobody really regrets the loss of empire, but the loss of self-respect and dignity is an embarrassment to those of us who were born on that tiny island. George Bush finally realizes that international support for launching an unprovoked war is dissolving. He can’t bully and bribe his way to a successful United Nations vote so he plans to abandon that institution of international accountability and declare his war on his own. Jean Chretien has offered a “compromise” that fails to declare the attack on Iraq as unacceptable. What it is intended to do is smooth the waters and pave the way for the Americans to get what they want, if only they could be persuaded to have a little patience. Now Ernie Eves is getting in on the act, although without the terrible international consequences the other three are flirting with. Eves is doing it with his budget. His plan to release the budget on television, in front of a carefully selected studio audience, is shamefully contemptuous of our parliamentary traditions. It has never happened before, either federally or provincially. A government budget sets priorities for programs while laying out projected sources of revenue. It is always delivered inside the legislature and followed by a budget debate and a vote to adopt it. Until the budget is adopted, the government does not have the authority to pay its bills. Eves has decided that the legislature will not sit again until April 30, more than a month after the March 27 television broadcast of the budget speech. When the politicians sit down together again, their attention will be focused on a Throne Speech in which the Tories will make whatever promises they feel can help them snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Then, if things are allowed to get that far, Eves will shut the legislature down again and call an election. It could be called earlier, but the likelihood is for a general election on the first Thursday in June. When the campaign gets here, we should all remember that Eves does not think the legislature is important enough to conduct business in. He does not think the properly elected members of the opposition should be given the opportunity to challenge his budget assumptions and question his priorities. He does not think the two-thirds of Ontario’s population, the people who did not vote for the Conservatives in 1999, have a right to be heard by his government. Gary Carr, the Speaker of the legislature and a Tory MPP, said in the press last week that the consultants running the Tory re-election team made the decision about the budget, and that he believes they're actually running the province. Carr is quite right. The televised speech should not be considered a true budget speech. It is nothing more, nor less, than an election campaign event. As things stand at the moment, the cost of this shameful, insulting episode will come from tax dollars. The recent barrage of misleading television commercials about health care and education, which are also pre-election government propaganda, are being billed to us. The NDP House Leader, Peter Kormos, spoke for all beleaguered and neglected Ontarians when he demanded that the bill for studio time, camera operators and other related costs should be paid for by the Conservative Party as an election expense. As we are rapidly finding out, Ernie Eves wants to shut down the wise and reasoned arguments of people like Kormos. go back to the table of contents
It’s that time again. Time for all of us to gather in St. George’s Square and burst into song. We’ll need to bring James Gordon down to lead us through a rousing chorus of The Wet/Dry Blues. The words should be etched into all of our memories by now: “Is it wet or is it dry? Somebody please tell me how I know if it goes in a green bag or a blue, it’s something I still do not get, is it dry or is it wet?” Gordon’s song was written back in a simpler time, when we had a fifty-fifty chance of getting the waste into the right bag. Now we have a third option, and the choice now is supposed to be clear. Or at least the bag we use is supposed to be. The new system kicks in across town this week, and already people are worried. How can we keep three bags on the go all at the same time? What if we put a used paper towel into a blue bag? What if we put the paper towel roll into the clear bag? What if we travel all over town, from Zehrs to Price Chopper to Food Basics and back to Zehrs and can’t find a clear bag for sale anywhere? What if we live in week A and bring the clear bag to the curb in week B? Judging by the letters to the editor in our two newspapers, our city is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. It’s not really that bad, though. The good thing about the new wet dry waste separation method is that we have to think more carefully about how we consume and what we throw out. Instead of getting mad at the city for having to put packaging into a different bag then the contents, we should be questioning why we need to deal with the packages in the first place. Large cities across Canada are struggling with their garbage. This became tragically apparent in Toronto last summer when the city workers went on strike. Within a week, that city was choking on tis own waste. The downtown sidewalks were plugged with garbage bags, city parks were plugged with illegally dumped garbage bags, and people were fighting with each other at the gates to the landfill sites. We produce too much garbage for our own good, and most of it is completely unnecessary. A couple of weeks ago, my Windows 98 melted, leaving me without a functioning computer for over a day. A few years ago, this wouldn’t have been a crisis, but now I depend on my computer for my living. Before getting everything back to working condition, I upgraded to Windows XP. The new software came in a large box contained in a hard plastic shell. To get at it, you had to cut open the clear hard plastic, open the box, and find some cardboard pieces which served only to hold a CD with the new operating system. It could just as easily been packaged in something about a tenth the size. When I puzzle over what garbage bag to put all this packaging into, I shouldn’t get mad at the city. I should get mad at Microsoft for its absolutely wasteful ways. We are throwing out much too much stuff. Instead of putting the Tim Horton’s cup in one bag and the lid in another, why not re-use a travel mug and not throw anything out? Instead of raging because Zehrs doesn’t have enough clear garbage bags, why not rage because Zehrs has begun packaging its meats in horribly wasteful containers? It is the producers, not the consumers, who are ultimately responsible for the strain on our landfill site. The core of any waste management system is not disposal. It is reduction. If we can get this under control, we can sing out another of James Gordon’s songs about the golden days gone by when St George’s Square was pretty. It’s the only way to lose those wet/dry blues. go back to the table of contents
Cities and towns across Canada are beginning to deal with petitions and resolutions opposing a war in Iraq. Vancouver, Victoria, Sackville, and Port Elgin have already adopted anti-war statements. Guelph is one of a large number that will soon be asked to deal with the issue. Some local citizens have already presented a draft resolution to council, and are busily gathering signatures on petitions to support the move. There is a hard copy petition, with real signatures written with real pens. There is also a new technology, Internet petition that people can sign electronically if they point their computers to petitiononline.com/gfp2003/. By late Sunday, there were over a thousand electronic signatures on it. An interesting side issue is that the drafters of this petition set a condition requiring people signing it must be residents of Guelph. This is a good idea, because it gives city council the assurance that the message is coming from their constituents. It would be an equally good idea if, when it gets to the council horseshoe, only residents of Guelph should be able to vote on it. The petition itself is relatively moderate, and isn’t really an anti-war statement. It is more of a condition setting thing. It says that Canada should not join in an attack on Iraq without “a legally valid resolution of the U.N. Security Council” and a vote in Parliament authorizing such action. I signed it, even though I don’t think an attack should be launched under any circumstances. War is the ultimate expression of political failure, and we should never allow ourselves to get to that point. It is also looking less and less likely that such a resolution will pass in the U.N. anyway. Calmer heads seem to be running governments on continental Europe than can be found in North America. The threat remains, though, and we are still a long way from guaranteeing that a war over Iraq’s oil will not take place. Our council should join the growing number of cities around the world that are making a statement in favour of the peaceful resolution of conflict. They will hear some arguments that it is none of city council’s business, and that they should keep their attention focused on potholes and parking lots. International affairs, they will be told, does not fall within their mandate. Such arguments are completely wrong. It is very much the job of city council to reflect the wishes of its residents. The wish for peace was graphically demonstrated last Saturday when a large number of Guelphites took to the streets in opposition to a war. Educated guesses put the number at about 750 people who joined millions of people around the world in this cause. Had the day not been so bitterly cold, I am sure many more of our citizens would have come out for the event. I know of many who were reluctant to take their children out for an extended walk and to stand around listening to speeches while freezing in the Square. Health concerns kept many others away. We in Guelph are probably not much different from people across the country and around the world. Public opinion polls show that majority sentiment is against an attack on Iraq, especially when there are numerous controls in place ensuring that it is not posing a threat to any other country. What should be of concern to our city councilors is the incredible harm that will be done to the people of the Middle East, many of whom are relatives of people living in Guelph, and the environment of the entire globe when the bombs begin falling. We will not be immune to the catastrophic consequences that will follow. There are not enough rolls of plastic sheeting or duct tape in the world to protect us from the chemical pollution created by bombed out oil wells. We already saw the damage done 12 years ago. Why would we want to do it all over again? It is very much the business of city council to say that we shouldn’t. go back to the table of contents
A while ago, my wife signed a petition urging Brenda Elliott to do something or other that would benefit our community. Last week, Lynne got a letter saying that it was not the policy of the Eves government to do such things. Enclosed with the letter was a pamphlet outlining the types of services people can get from Elliott’s constituency office. The pamphlet contains a map, reproduced here, that is supposed to show us where her office is located. Anyone who had to rely on this map would be hopelessly lost. About the only thing this map shows us accurately is how completely out of touch with reality Elliott has become. Doesn’t anyone in her office proofread these things before they are printed? Or look at them before stuffing them into envelopes? Anyone who sends me an e-mail listing of at least six things wrong with the map will receive an electronic version of A Brighter Idea for Ontario’s Cities: An NDP Urban Vision for the 21st Century. Send the e-mail to alan@sentex.net. Considering that she can’t even get the simple things right, it comes as no surprise that Elliott doesn’t understand the more complex issues she must deal with. Things like homelessness and poverty, and the struggles of single mothers to improve their lives. These are the sorts of things that fall under her jurisdiction as Minister of Community, Family and Children’s Services. She is still refusing to even consider the recommendations of the coroner’s inquest into the death of Kimberley Rogers. Last week, a group of families filed human rights complaints against Elliott’s ministry for its failure to fund intensive treatment programs for autistic children. Her ministry is also being criticized by advocates of a fair disability support plan who describe Elliott as “vague.” After a homeless woman in Toronto abandoned her baby outside City Hall, Elliott had absolutely nothing to say about any plans she may or may not have to help families find decent, affordable housing. Elliott was a dismal failure as Environment Minister, and she is doing no better in her current portfolio. ***** The federal government has introduced legislation which will ban political donations from corporations and unions. Officially, every political party, from the Alliance to the NDP, thinks this is a good idea. Personally, I find it offensive and simple-minded to equate corporations and unions in this way. It makes sense to prohibit corporate donations because they are not democratic organizations the way unions are. Unions are funded by dues paid by members who meet regularly and vote on the policies they want to adopt. They should be allowed to donate some of their own money to a political party if they choose to do so. One interesting piece of the legislation brings political funding in the direction of proportional representation. Parties will receive an annual allowance based on the proportion of valid votes received in the most recent general election. This is a departure from the way time is allocated in Question Period, or on the free political broadcasts. These are always based on the number of seats held in Parliament. Public funding of the infrastructure of democracy should be based on popular support, not first past the post results. The Canadian Alliance does not much like the idea, but political parties have been assisted by tax money for about thirty years now. It’s the price we pay to ensure that all political viewpoints are able to be heard. go back to the table of contents
As we look out over our pleasant and snow covered city, we can think through all the burning issues that confront us locally and realize that they dwindle in importance when seen in context of the truly dangerous moment we find ourselves in. Unless a little sanity shows up, within a couple of weeks the dogs of war could be unleashed again. George Bush is anxious to set them loose over the skies of Iraq, once again proving to the world that the American military is not afraid to fight against a country that can’t fight back. They’ve proven this many times before, in Grenada, Panama and other similarly ferocious nations that posed no threat whatsoever to the American people. They proved it 12 years ago, when they kicked the stuffing out of an Iraqi military that had neither the will nor the capacity to defend itself. They’ve been proving it ever since as they almost daily carry out bombing raids over Iraq. Finally, they proved it when they backed down from a confrontation with North Korea when it became obvious that the Koreans would put up a fight. If there is anything encouraging lately, it is in the numbers of people around the world who marched and rallied against the war last Saturday. From the tens of thousands who gathered in large cities like Washington and Toronto, to the hundreds in small towns like Pembroke, people were speaking out against an attack on Iraq. A group went from Guelph to the march in Toronto, and they should be congratulated for doing it. In all the chatter indulged in by television’s talking heads, there is one question they never raise and which they cannot answer. What gives the American government the right to determine who will govern another country? For most of the last century, one of the most reprehensible governments in the world held power in South Africa. They were shut out of the United Nations, expelled from the British Commonwealth and generally shunned. The Americans did not rally up a “coalition of the willing” to storm Johannesburg and install a new government that would not terrorize its citizens. What is different now? Why the rush to get into Iraq? It has nothing to do with the alleged war on terrorism, because there have been no links found between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. It has nothing to do with the treatment of Iraqi citizens, because the Americans prop up much more brutal regimes in other countries. It has nothing to do with “weapons of mass destruction” because Iraq does not possess any that compare to those in American hands. It is all about oil. Iraq has the second largest reserves in the world, and the Americans want unfettered access to it. All of this has a very real and practical impact on the important municipal issues we are dealing with today. In addition to participating in peace marches, there is other concrete action we can take. In the next couple of weeks, we will embark on a debate about the SmartGuelph report to be released this week. The debate should carry through at least until the municipal election. This report will help plan the future development of the city. In the past, the measure of progress has been the tightness with which we are tied to the consumption of fossil fuels. The more we grew, the more reliant we became on oil. The end result has been increasing threats to our environment, and a massive threat to the health and safety of families living in the Middle East. Maybe it’s about time we stepped off the treadmill and took the time to look at where we are going. There is a better direction. We can develop solar power, wind power, or hydrogen fuel cells. We can use cars less and buses and trains more. We can design cities where most of the things we need are close to hand, within walking distance. Our future depends on our ability to find a smarter way to grow. go back to the table of contents
When I reviewed my New Year’s column from last year, I noticed the two dominant municipal issues are still very much with us. These are the cosmetic use of pesticides and the zoning war with Wal-Mart. We are a lot closer now to resolving the pesticide issue. One of the best ideas to come out of City Council was placing this question before a randomly chosen panel of Guelph citizens. In a process similar to that of a jury trial, albeit with important differences, the pesticide committee heard evidence from both sides and delivered their verdict. They found that the cosmetic use of pesticides should be ended. At some point between now and the spring planting season, Council should pass the necessary by-laws to enforce this verdict. There will be a municipal election this year, and most incumbents will be running again. Both pesticide use and big box stores should become compelling campaign issues. If they do, I think our citizens will choose overwhelmingly in favour of a healthy local environment and business community, A local issue that will not go away, and which must be dealt with by provincial politicians is the future use of the Wellington Detention Centre. Thanks to a disgraceful performance by Brenda Elliott, it will not be used to house immigrants and refugees awaiting hearings. Elliott’s behaviour smacked of racism and showed a callous disregard for the livelihood of more than 100 correctional officers who would have worked there. Unless Ernie Eves gets cold feet, there will be a provincial election this year. It is highly unlikely the Tories will get a third term. It is almost guaranteed that Elliott will not. Province-wide issues such as Hydro privatization and public education will dominate the election and bring down many strong Tory MPPs. Weak ones like Elliott will be crushed by the weight of the constituency concerns she has mismanaged. The local Liberal candidate, Liz Sandals, is desperately trying to distance herself from her former friend and close political associate, Brenda Elliott. The Liberals will put up a good fight, but it will be a hard sell convincing voters to buy a used Tory to replace a worn out one. The NDP candidate, James Valcke, is a fresh new face in local politics. His agricultural background gives him a clear understanding of the concerns in the rural part of the Riding, and he is very active in several community organizations within Guelph. Valcke is a vocal critic of Elliott’s inept handling of constituency affairs. The Green Party is running Ben Polley, owner of a local construction company, Harvest Homes. Polley is a committed environmentalist whose company builds innovative straw bale houses. The Parties have already begun their campaigns, and I predict the winner will be either Sandals or Valcke. Valcke will be helped by new developments at the federal level. Three major Parties are going through a leadership change. The first one up is the New Democratic Party. A new leader will be elected later this month. My guess is that Jack Layton will win, and that he will significantly raise the profile and credibility of the Party. To an extent, this has already begun. In the six months since this leadership campaign began, membership in the NDP has increased by over 40 per cent. The new one member one vote system they adopted at their last convention led to most of this growth. Membership in Ontario is now as high as it was in the early days of the Rae government. The momentum from a Layton victory will still be flowing if Eves calls a spring election. The federal Tories will choose their next leader at the end of May, but so far no one seems to want it. The Liberals seem intent on having a coronation for Paul Martin, but not until November or December of this year. With all these events happening at all three levels of government this
year, combined with the ever-present threat of another war over oil, we
are in for a turbulent and political 2003. go back to the table of contents
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