"From the Left"The 2000 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 2000.
Table of Contents
Christmas comes early this year for the hundreds of thousands of workers in Ontario who are not protected by a collective agreement. The Ontario government is about to stuff a big lump of coal into their work socks. The legislature is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a law that allows employers to schedule 60-hour workweeks and dole out vacations one day at a time. They are taking the Employment Standards Act and rewriting it into the Employment Sub-standards Act. This is the Act that sets minimum working conditions for most jobs in the province. These conditions can be improved if you have a union bargaining a contract for you, but employers can't legally impose lower terms of employment. Under the existing Act, workers can be required to work up to 48 hours a week, with overtime paid after 44. Under the new Act, employers will be allowed to schedule up to 60 hours in a week, with overtime paid only if a four-week average exceeds 44 hours. In their normal Orwellian double-speak, the government is couching these changes in language designed to make it sound quite benign. It will give employers and employees more "flexibility," they say. A Ministry of Labour document says it permits "workers to balance their work and personal lives and ... employers opportunities for improved efficiency and competitiveness." It's easy to see how this benefits the employer. They can approach a worker on Monday morning and say, "we've got to get that Dithers job out the door by Friday. How about working 60 hours this week at straight time, and take two days off next week?" Will it work the other way?. Imagine a worker going to the supervisor and saying, "hey, boss, my daughter's in a hockey tournament next week. How about I work 60 hours this week, and take a couple of days off next week?" I can see the Dithers job going out on schedule, but I don't see dad in the stands watching his daughter score the winning goal. Today, the worker putting out the Dithers job gets 92 hours pay for the 84 hours worked over the two weeks. After tomorrow, it will be 84 hours pay because it averages out to less than 44 hours a week. The Guelph and District Labour Council has been handing out leaflets for a few weeks, explaining the impact these changes will have on workers. On November 28, Brenda Elliott stood in the legislature and denounced them as "union bosses who are wrongly suggesting our government is somehow imposing a 60-hour workweek." The government says it is not being "imposed" because it is voluntary. A worker must agree in advance to the longer hours. What will be the fate of the solitary, non-union worker who declines to put in the extra hours needed to get the Dithers job out the door? Or the young worker applying for a job who is confronted with a question during the interview, "will you agree to work extra hours when required?" The workplace is not an equal rights environment. To suggest, as Elliott does, that workers and employers have the same flexibility under this law is dishonest and cruel. I spent the last two Saturday mornings standing outside the farmer's market and some malls, handing out leaflets and talking to people about this law. They don't agree with it. I hope that those who told me this will call Elliott before the Wednesday afternoon vote. If she is flooded with phone calls and faxes, maybe she'll think twice about pushing this bad legislation through. The workers are getting their lump of coal for Christmas. At the same time, the employers are getting a basket of goodies they could only fantasize about before Mike Harris came down their chimney. The best Christmas present the people can hope for now is that Bell starts listing union organizers in the Yellow Pages. go back to the table of contents
Bob Runciman, a leading intellectual in the Mike Harris government, responded to last week's federal election by calling for yet another new right wing political party. He thought they should go back to the drawing board, get rid of Stockwell Day and Joe Clark, and start all over again. Maybe he still thinks Tom Long is the answer to their woes. After all, if Long can resurrect a couple of thousand corpses from Gaspe cemeteries, he ought to be able to resurrect the right. Except it isn't simply a matter of leadership. Once again, the majority of voters in Canada clearly rejected the policies of the Reform Alliance, Runciman's favourite federal party. A look at the result in Guelph shows the federal leaders and campaigns had almost no effect in swaying voters. Neither did the local candidates or campaigns. There was almost no movement in the popular vote between the 1997 election and this one. Brenda Chamberlain got 47.7 per cent of the vote in 1997 and 48.1 last week. The NDP got 10.4 per cent in both elections. The Conservatives and Reform combined for just over 38 per cent both times. The national result isn't much different. The Reform Alliance and the Tories combined for 37.7 per cent across the country; the NDP had 8.5; and the Liberals 40.8 per cent. The "small c" conservatives are barking up the wrong tree when they whine about a disunited right. In the years since Brian Mulroney brought the conservative movement into thorough disrepute, it hasn't mattered a bit how united they are. Canadians don't want them back. If they ever want back in the game, they will have to ditch the Reform Alliance and move back in with the Tories. Joe Clark easily out-campaigned Stockwell Day. Had the Alliance not muddied the water, the Tories could have finished with more than the 78 seats the two parties totaled. It is also true that without the Alliance, the NDP would have won more than the 13 seats they came away with. We'll never know if this would have changed the result in Guelph. Edward Pickersgill did an excellent job for the NDP and proved to be the most skilled debater at the all-candidate meetings. He deserved to finish a lot better. Max Layton did his best to hide from the more odious parts of the Alliance platform. As much as he wished it wasn't so, his Party does provide a comfortable home to various stripes of right wing fanatics. I don't think he is one himself, but those who are were attracted to Social Credit in the olden days, then Reform and now the Alliance. They are the only Party with a candidate who had to withdraw from the election after making a racist remark about Asian students. Conservatives in Guelph are playing a dangerous game when they flirt with the Alliance. They'll get further ahead when they stop it. As far as the NDP is concerned, there will be a lot of soul searching
in the next few months. They have to figure out why a clear campaign
message and a strong local candidate still could not break through
the 6,000-vote wall they keep hitting in Guelph. It is true that
many people who may have voted NDP went to the Liberals to head
off the very remote possibility that the Alliance might win. Had
this not happened, the NDP may have reached the 15 per cent plateau
where they recover the election deposit and some campaign expenses.
It wouldn't have put them over the top, though. The secret lies
with the 30,000 people in Guelph who didn't vote. The NDP has
to figure out why they feel left out of our democracy, and decipher
a way to bring them in. The answer is not to shout the message
louder. They've heard it, and yawned. The answer is to do a bit
less preaching and a lot more listening. go back to the table of contents
Canada's health care system has always been a bit of a mixed bag. Trips to the doctor, or care in a hospital are fully covered by OHIP. Dental work, physiotherapy, chiropractors, nursing homes, prescription drugs and other services are either not covered at all, or only partially. It hasn't always been this way. There was a time when none of the above was publicly funded. When we talk about privatizing the system, we are talking about altering the balance between public and private, moving it back from the balance we have today to the days before 1962. That was when the NDP government in Saskatchewan enacted the first provincial health care plan. Three years later, a Royal Commission led by Emmett Hall recommended implementing this model across the country. The federal government acted on the recommendation in 1966, setting up a universal and program with common standards throughout Canada. Although they never say it openly, there are people in Canada who want to shift the balance in favour of private health care. The Liberals have been slowly strangling the public system by withdrawing money. Five years ago, Paul Martin introduced massive cuts to transfer payments for health and other social programs. The Conservatives, under Brian Mulroney, declared Medicare to be a "sacred trust." They cut federal funding from 30 to 23 per cent. The Reform Alliance leader was Treasurer of Alberta when that province expanded the role of private clinics. They all mouth the usual platitudes about how important it is, but they are taking it away by stealth. They can't do it any other way. They are very well aware of an Angus Reid poll from last December showing 55 percent of Ontarians favoured raising taxes for health care, 66 percent rejected a two-tier health care system, and 65 percent were against limiting health care services provided by OHIP. Canadians want to shift the health care balance, but they want it moved towards more public involvement, not less. We know the consequences of privatization are higher costs, diminished access, less efficiency, lower quality of care, and loss of public control over vital services. We also see the other side of the coin. Those who can afford the higher costs will get increased access to services. There would be two standards, one for those who can pay the higher bills, and another for the rest of us. That is what is meant by "two-tier health care." There are eight local candidates on next Monday's ballot. Four represent political Parties that have never elected anyone. Without diminishing the issues they raise, it is safe to say they won't turn their electoral fortunes around this year. Our next MP will represent one of the other four Parties. Three of these, regardless of what they say in their campaign speeches, will reduce public involvement in our health care system. When given the chance, they did it before. If given the chance again, they'll do it again. All three are committed to the folly of cutting taxes for wealthy Canadians, and they have to get the money somewhere. There is only one Party Canadians trust to defend health care: the Party that brought it to us in the first place, the one that pushed it to the forefront of this election campaign. When judging political Parties in an election campaign, it is always best to take what they say with a large grain of salt. Their inclination is to say what they think the voters want to hear. In poll after poll, Canadians affirm their desire to keep and strengthen our public health care system. No politician would ever say they want to privatize it. So read between the lines, and pay attention to what they have done. The leaders of the Liberal, Reform Alliance and Conservative Parties have all helped weaken our health care system. The NDP has built and strengthened it. We need them to have a good, strong caucus in Parliament. Think about that when you vote on Monday. go back to the table of contents
The municipal election is now behind us, and I think it turned out well. The wide range of viewpoints held by Guelph residents is represented around the council table. Advocates for both the environment and development are there, and political views run the range from the NDP to the Reform Alliance. This is the way it should be, but it's seldom the way federal elections turn out. Our "first past the post" system of electing constituency MPs has a way of skewing the result in favour of a Party that doesn't enjoy majority support in the population at large. A well-crafted system of proportional representation could give our federal parliament the kind of balance we achieved locally. As it is, we go back to the ballot boxes next Monday under the rules as they exist today, and we'll just have to make the best of it. Before we get any further, and possibly to save some people the time it takes to write an irate letter to the editor, I should remind my good readers that this is a political opinion column. It has been for over five years. I write from a particular point of view, as identified on the masthead. This viewpoint was shaped during the late sixties, and strengthened during many years as a CAW union activist. I argue for positions that I believe will improve the lives of working people. This often involves defending policies advanced by the political party I think most often represents the interests of workers. I will be doing that again in this election where, the more alert readers in the crowd will have noticed, the NDP candidate and I share the same last name. I've known him for 54 years. He's alright. But you don't need me to tell you that. He has earned an excellent reputation around town for the work he's done helping people find decent housing and showing them a way out of the cycle of poverty. He doesn't just promise help, he gives it. Best of all, he doesn't need to misrepresent his achievements in his campaign literature. Enough of that. We have policies to deal with. Policies should decide elections, not family ties, or wetsuits, or an ability to run up and down stairs quickly. The federal government has done such an outstanding job at cutting transfer payments for social programs, they are now boasting of a $130 billion budget surplus. If this election is about anything other than the Prime Minister's ego, it is about the surplus. What should be done with it? Three of the candidates contesting the election in Guelph-Wellington want to use the surplus to cut taxes, a move that is of most benefit to wealthy Canadians. They differ only on the extent to which they will subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and famous. This is the wrong way to go. The money should be reinvested into our social programs and returned to the people from whom it was taken in the first place. Since the dark days of the Mulroney government, we have seen successive governments cut the programs that people need. Whether the Employment Insurance fund, health care, education, housing or the environment, we have been told time and again that we have to make sacrifices and tighten our belts. We did, because we were given no choice. Now we have one, and the choice we make should be to tell the government it's time to put the money back. Jean Chretien, Joe Clark and Stockwell Day are all busily pointing their fingers at each other, all blaming the other guy for allowing the encroachment of two-tier health care into Canada. The fact is, they are all to blame. Clark was part of it when he was a Mulroney cabinet minister. Day was part of it in Alberta. Chretien has been driving the final nails into the health care coffin. None of them merit our support. go back to the table of contents
Like a jumbo jet moving through the unregulated North American skies, the U.S. presidential election crash-landed in a Florida swamp. It is now a week later, and officials still haven't identified the survivors. The casualties are well known. Democracy, truth, and reason all fell victim, alligator bait for the hordes of lawyers who descended on the state to tie up the people's will in courtroom shenanigans. It's enough to make any self-respecting American cry, and the rest of us sit back and laugh. It is fitting that all this is happening in the country that arrogantly preaches to the rest of the world about democracy. This is the country, after all, which toppled democratically elected governments around the world, and readily sends in troops whenever access to oil and other resources is threatened by the people who own them. No matter how the lawyers argue the case, the fact remains that Al Gore got more votes nation-wide than did George Bush. Even without the Florida result, where they are arguing over a difference of less than a thousand, Gore is almost a quarter of a million votes ahead of Bush. The popular vote is standing at 49 per cent for Gore, 48 for Bush, and three for Ralph Nader. In most "first past the post" electoral systems, that should be clear enough to produce a winner. Not down there, though. The people don't elect their president. The Electoral College does, and it is obviously not bound by the will of the people. This "college" is an archaic relic of the past when that republic's founding rulers did not trust the people to decide who would lead them. The current rulers obviously still don't For all the faults of our own parliamentary system, this would not happen here. A system of proportional representation would work well for us, and go a long way to fixing the imperfections in our system. An advantage we have over the Americans is the larger number of viable political parties representing a wide spectrum of viewpoints. The U.S. is stuck in a two-party regime because that is where the money wants them to be. It costs billions of dollars to run a campaign in the States these days, and smaller parties can't get noticed because they can't get sufficient financing. As a result, the two big parties serve the same interests, and the average eye has trouble seeing much difference between them. We are in danger of being led down this road. Our large daily newspapers are portraying the current election as a battle between two parties, the Liberals and the reformed Alliance. They are trying to write the NDP and the Tories out of the picture, and they have never given any serious consideration to smaller contenders such as the Green Party. These parties, though, play an honourable role in keeping our country as one of the world's best places to live. The reformed Alliance has no mathematical chance to form the next government. They will not elect anyone east of the Ontario-Quebec border. At best, they might pick up a couple of rural Ontario ridings. Between them, the four western provinces have a total of 88 seats. If the reformed Alliance won every one of them, they wouldn't come close to the 151 seats they need for a majority government. Even if a reformed Alliance government isn't going to happen, they will get enough western seats to tug the Liberals further to the right. We will need a strong NDP caucus in Ottawa to pull the government in the other direction. Without it, we can kiss our health care system good bye, and start looking forward to the two-tier system being introduced in Alberta. Then we'll be one step closer to the Florida swamp where American democracy lies in near ruin. go back to the table of contents
The municipal campaign is all but over. The candidates can spend the weekend bending a few more ears and shaking a few more hands, then wait nervously to see how their messages were received. We should all congratulate the people who put themselves up for consideration. It shows a healthy interest in the democratic process, and affirms the importance of the issues involved at such a close level. Now it is up to the rest of us, the voters, to show that we share in this interest. The city government should be elected by more than the 40 per cent who traditionally get out to the ballot box. Seven people were nominated for the two council seats in Ward 1. The incumbent councilor commutes the short distance to the ward from his home outside the city. As a resident of this ward, my choices are Ian Findlay and Joe Young. Findlay because the problems associated with big box stores will be with us for a while, and we need a strong voice on council defending local merchants. Young because he was a good mayor and should have a chance to share his experience with the newer members of council. I'm not sure what's been happening on the other side of Eramosa Road, but four of the candidates in Ward 2 listed policing and public safety issues among their top priorities. One of them wants to bring Wal-Mart to the corner opposite Woodlawn cemetery. This should be a good enough reason not to vote for John Newstead. The incumbent, Sean Farrelly, has been an effective voice for six years. He's earned another term on council. Of the other six, Dan Moziar seems to be a good choice. In Ward 3, my choices would be Kim Iezzi and Maggie Laidlaw. Iezzi presents a very thorough resume of community involvement in a wide range of social causes. This work was recognized earlier this year with the presentation of a Woman of Distinction Award. Laidlaw has a similarly impressive list of community work. Either one of these two women will improve the vision of council. Together, they could accomplish good things for their ward. I used to live over in Ward 4, and we did have problems with water and air quality caused by some of the industry in the northwest corner. It could be the air, or the water, that explains the strange things happening on the other side of the Hanlon. Gloria Kovach is emerging as the left-winger in this bunch of candidates. Enough said about that. Ward 5 experiences the opposite problem - more good candidates than seats to fill. The two incumbents, Cathy Downer and Bill McAdams, have both done effective work over the past three years. Also in the running is Josh Shook, a former local affairs commissioner on the University's student association. Within the next few years, we will feel the effects of a serious student housing crisis. It would be good to have Shook on council when we are looking for a solution. Maybe Ward 4 could draft one of these three candidates. And what can I say about Ward 6? Welcome back, Marilyn and Walter. Finally, your choice for mayor. My vote is going to Karen Farbridge. She gave, by far, the most thoughtful presentation at the all-candidates' debate and the most comprehensive answers to the questions posed by the Tribune editorial board. Her record as a councilor over the past six years has been outstanding, and she has the ability to work with people of varying viewpoints and help them reach consensus. The other candidates seem to share a very bleak view of the current state of Guelph, and its future prospects. Farbridge obviously believes in the city, the people and the future. Her campaign slogan says it all: Make a great city better. go back to the table of contents
You've got to wonder about Dave Kendrick and his 60-day action plans. In my column last Friday, I suggested that the world has passed him by. As the election draws slowly but surely to its conclusion, I become more and more convinced of this. He may think it sounds good to promise the world in two months, but how can he deliver? This isn't a provincial or federal government we are electing next Monday. Political parties contest those levels of government, and the winning team can exercise caucus discipline. A premier can do almost anything when backed up by a large and loyal caucus. Mayors don't have this luxury. City councilors in Guelph don't run as partisans of any political party. There is no caucus for the mayor to whip into shape and from which to demand support. A mayor can't act alone. She must have the support and approval of Council. Motions must be moved, seconded and carried. While Kendrick completely avoided answering last Friday's question on growth, he once again compared running a city to running a corporation. They are not the same. He can't just bark orders and issue directives and expect the councilors to snap to attention and carry them out. Especially considering the probability that many of the incumbents will be re-elected. Kendrick has just spent an entire campaign insulting them. How can he now expect to build consensus and cooperation? Remember what happened when John Counsell went to Imperial Tobacco looking for funding for the River Run Centre. He didn't secure prior approval, and his credibility with councilors went down the tubes. Kendrick is trying to do Counsell one better. With his 60-day action plan nonsense, he is blowing his credibility well before the election takes place. When the candidates tried explaining how they would balance growth with the preservation of our quality of life, Jim Sinclair showed that he hasn't really thought about it very much. He thinks it is "doubtful" that growth would have any affect on quality of life. Wake up, Jim. The connection is well established. Phil Cumming wants the city to get closer to the development community by building a "solid, positive relationship" with them. He says nothing about the concerns expressed by the large number of people in Guelph who are working for balanced, sustainable growth. His vision for the city obviously does not include the environmental community or the advocates for decent, affordable housing. A balance between quality of life and growth can't be achieved without limiting the power of developers. Gary Walton, one of the two credible candidates for mayor, wants us to emulate neighbouring cities like Hamilton, Brantford, Kitchener-Waterloo and Burlington. These are communities that gave developers almost everything they wanted and are now suffering. What Walton needs to understand is that these cities are starting to look at Guelph as a model they want to learn from. The trouble is that the consequences of the mistakes they made in the past are very difficult to undo. We can see this in Guelph when we look at what resulted on those occasions when we were seduced by the development siren song. We will be stuck forever with the overpass on Wellington Street, and the increased traffic flow and speed it will create. Having stumbled once, we can avoid doing so again with the expansion of highway 7 to Kitchener, an emerging issue that was not mentioned by any of the candidates. The other credible candidate is Karen Farbridge. Among them all, she provided the most comprehensive answer to the problem of balancing life and growth. Her vision is a refreshing alternative to the gloomy predictions offered by Walton. He would have us believe that without fast and furious growth, we'll die within 10 years. Farbridge says we must understand where we want to be in 20 years, and develop the strategies that will get us there. That makes sense to me. go back to the table of contents
Something happened in Canada about fifteen years ago, and we are still feeling its effects. It may have begun when Brian Mulroney introduced the GST, the most reviled tax in recent memory. Ever since then, our attention has become focused on taxation. But we never think about the good things taxes can bring us. We are encouraged to think, instead, of how governments waste our money, how taxes are too high, and what we can do to avoid paying them. The result is that when politicians are asked about taxes, it is usually - as in the case of last Tuesday's question to our mayoralty candidates - because we want to know what they will do to lower them or, at the very least, how they will stop them from going higher. Although taxes have become the boogieman everyone loves to hate, they are not, in and of themselves, bad things to have. Simply put, taxes are part of the revenue governments bring in to pay for the programs they are elected to administer. Sure, there are bad taxes. There are also good ones. Somehow or other, we have to pay the cost of providing the services associated with living in a civil society. The trouble is that taxes are unfairly distributed. Most of us carry too much of the cost because the rich and the corporate don't pay their fair share. This is a problem originating at the top of the tax pyramid, at the level of federal taxes, and which filters down through the provincial level. Politicians at both levels are desperate to be seen as tax cutters. But every time they do it, they also have to get rid of something that had been costing them money. They either lay off public sector workers, or they cut back on the programs they provide. There's no other way around it. They can't decrease their income without also decreasing their expenses. I would like to ask politicians the same question as our would-be mayors answered, but couched a bit differently. What services do you think a city council should provide, and how do you intend to raise the money to pay for them? As it is, the answers supplied were all fairly neutral. There was some sentiment with three of the candidates for staff cuts. Klotz said it out loud. Sinclair hinted at it, suggesting we should cut "the garbage truck fleet in half and (institute) two shifts for collection." Cumming also leans this way, letting developers "install required services according to city guidelines, with city staff responsible for inspections and approvals." Walton rather naively suggested taking advantage of "new initiatives being offered by the federal and provincial governments." Doesn't he realize it is the new federal and provincial initiatives that got us into this mess to begin with? Kendrick's depth of anger against the previous council shows through in his response. Maybe, during his days in the sun, tax increases were never "eight full points over the rate of inflation." Back then, he wasn't charged with the task of keeping the city afloat in the context of provincial government downloading. The world has passed him by. In any case, as Farbridge said, "tax rate increases have not exceeded inflation during the last six years, despite new costs from downloading and the loss of over $8 million in provincial grants." This election is not about tax cuts. It is not even about a tax freeze. It is about maintaining quality services at a time when distant levels of government are undermining them. If we listen to the Harrises and Chretiens of the world, we would think that if a service doesn't make money, governments shouldn't provide it. If it does, they should contract it out to the private sector. All but one of our mayoralty candidates have bought into this idea to one extent or another. We're lucky to have her. go back to the table of contents
One surprising thing about this election is that no strong local ward issues have come to the foreground. Three years ago, the need for community services in the west end was a hot topic. It defined much of the debate in the other wards as we struggled over where to place the new arena. Most people are now happy with the downtown location, and Ward 4 concerns have been met. The new recreation centre on the corner of Paisley and Imperial, a branch library and a fire and ambulance sub-station have relieved the pressure on the other side of the Hanlon. This year, the Ward all-candidates meetings have been too quiet. Their most notable feature is the lack of people showing up to hear the candidates. There were only 10 people at the Ward 4 debate. The turnout for Wards 2 & 3 was better, but only marginally so. This, again, is in contrast to 1997. I lived in Ward 4 at the time, and attended the debate. The room was full. The difference this year cannot be pinned simply on a lack of substantial issues. They are present, and some are serious. They are just not getting out. I think that a big reason is the location chosen by the debate sponsors. Last time around, they were held in the Wards. Our debate in Ward 4 took place in a church on Whitelaw Rd. This year, they were all held at city hall, and attendance plummeted. Organizers should take a lesson from this. To be successful, they must bring the debates to the people rather than try to bring the people to the debates. There have been local issues raised, and they deserve more attention. In Ward 3, for example, we have the problem of adequate housing for the large number of students coming to university. Throughout the city, according to the Guelph and Wellington Housing Committee, there are fewer vacancies than there are people on the waiting list for subsidized housing. Josh Shook, the former Central Student Association officer responsible for municipal affairs, pointed out that in the next three years the student population will increase by over 3600. Where will we put them? How will be control the strain on population densities, sewage services, waste disposal or traffic movement? How will the councilors from this Ward help the rest of us understand the immense pressure we are all under as a result of provincial government downloading? How about the construction of the overpass at the intersection of Wellington and the Hanlon? A lot of people west of the expressway still shop at Willow West Mall and the other stores along Silvercreek. It's always been an adventure crossing the Hanlon, especially when walking or cycling. When the overpass is complete, traffic speeds will go up. Most of this ward was not designed with pedestrians in mind. This is now getting worse. How will the councilors calm traffic in Ward 4? How will the Ward 6 councilors make the new residents around Clair Rd. feel like they are part of the Guelph community? Road design down there seems designed to smooth their way out of town. How can we make them feel more at home here? There are still two weeks left before we vote. During this time, we will be overwhelmed by federal politics. Don't lose sight of the smaller pieces of our own little puzzle. How well we put it together will have a much bigger impact on the quality of life in Guelph. On balance, we've had a pretty good local government. It was fractious at times, because not all councilors agreed on all issues. They don't have to. All they have to do is make good decisions, and most of the time they did. It's up to us to understand the issues and choose the candidates who will keep the city vibrant, attractive and liveable. go back to the table of contents
Thank goodness for VCRs. Last Tuesday, there were two political events I wanted to attend, and luckily the mayoralty candidate's debate was broadcast live. I could tape it and catch it later in the comfort of my home. The best part is that we can get instant replays, just like in a baseball or hockey game. There are sometimes occasions when a candidate scores a goal, or commits a foul. It's not exactly the Jumbotron in my TV room, but it's still good to see them again. There were six people on the ice. A full hockey squad. Two-thirds of a baseball team. One rookie and five veterans. The rookie did reasonably well, stumbling a bit on issues such as big box stores and the smoking by-law. He'll get better if he chooses to stay in the league. Among the others, Farbridge scored the most goals without committing any fouls. Kendrick was just the opposite. Lots of fouls, but no runs batted in. The only thing missing was a chorus of who let the dogs out when Cumming declared that it was through his diligence that the police and fire departments got their new radio system. That should end the cheesy sports analogies. In their opening remarks, Kendrick and Farbridge set out two completely opposing views of where the city is, and where it should be going. Kendrick expressed pride that "he was not part of the previous city council." He took all the credit for just about everything done by the city councils of which he was a member. On his list of accomplishments are such things as the Stone Rd. Mall expansion, the Evergreen senior citizens centre, the wet/dry recycling centre and many others. All, he is happy to say, done without feeling the need for extensive studies or expensive consultants. Farbridge responded by saying "we are dealing with much more complex issues today than ever before, whether it is water quality or waste water treatment, and we cannot afford to be wrong." There was a lot to be learned about their attitudes to governing from this exchange. Kendrick obviously does not recognize that administering a city like Guelph involves co-operation and consensus building by councilors and staff. There were a lot of people other than himself involved in developing the initiatives undertaken during his lengthy term as a councilor. As I recall, he didn't support all of them at the time. But he's happy to bask in the glory of times gone by. If councils back then had spent more time consulting and studying the implications of their decisions, maybe we wouldn't still be saddled with the effects of some of their larger mistakes. Farbridge, on the other hand, recognizes that as a councilor, she is part of a wider community and is willing to listen to good advice and live with democratically arrived at decisions. You won't hear her whining about issues on which she was in the minority, as Sinclair still does with the downtown stadium, or Cumming with the smoking by-law. On issues of growth, their differences are also profound. Kendrick supports growth for its own sake. He wants us to be larger than Kitchener or Cambridge. Farbridge, on the other hand, wants to control our growth, to make sure it is sustainable. "Now is the time," she said, "to redesign our economic development approach to set clear goals and benchmarks to maintain our strong diversified economy and to keep our community attractive and appealing.' She knows that people don't come to Guelph so that they can take advantage of shops and businesses. The shops and businesses come to Guelph so they can be close to a great little city. That should be the bottom line for us. Kendrick will allow the tail to wag the dog. I don't think any of us want to let that happen. go back to the table of contents
If democracy only meant showing up at a polling station on election day, we'd be a model for the world. We get lots of chances to vote. Beginning with the federal election in October 1993, and counting two more to be held in November, we'll have had three federals, two provincials and three municipals. That's eight trips to the ballot box in seven years. In November, we get two chances in two weeks. Candidates for the municipal election are now in place, and there is no shortage of them. Federal candidates are still being chosen by a couple of the parties. It will be interesting to see what effect the two campaigns have on each other. Federal political decisions have filtered down through the provincial government and landed on the desks of municipal politicians. Under successive Conservative and Liberal regimes in Ottawa, payments to the provinces for social programs were gutted. The Harris Reformatories responded by downloading many of their responsibilities to the cities. When we vote on November 13, we need to choose candidates who understand this dynamic and who are prepared to make good decisions that will help our community survive in the harsh political climate that surrounds us. Then, when we vote again on November 27, we can pass judgment on the arrogant politicians who got us into this mess. These are the people who, whether Liberal or Reformed Alliance, prefer to pander to the wishes of wealthy Canadians and corporate donors. The people who would rather hand out tax breaks than fund hospitals and schools. If democracy is about participation, and having a voice in community affairs, the highest level of popular involvement should be at the municipal level. City councilors are generally more approachable, and the decisions they make have a more direct impact on our lives. As one example, take the need for a comprehensive transportation policy. We have to get away from the idea that we should build wider roads and larger parking lots. We must, instead, increase our public transit system and provide traffic calming systems in residential districts. This would cut down on speeding, and discourage cut-through traffic in what should be quiet neighbourhoods. The new council should be composed of people who understand that widening Gordon St. to four lanes will be disastrous. It would soon become, effectively, an expressway through emerging residential areas. The Hanlon is bad enough. We don't need another one running, like a dagger, into the heart of the city. The residents in the west end of the city, and those to the south, did not come to Guelph so that they can live on the edge of a racetrack. They should be able to walk or bicycle to shops, a library branch, or a community centre. Their children should be able to play safely in parks close to their homes, and getting to and from them should not be an adventure. Whenever I speak with people who live in other cities, they marvel at some of the good things we have accomplished in Guelph. Our wet/dry facility is the envy of many. When Toronto was going through a very divisive debate about garbage disposal, Guelph was held up as an example of how it can, and should, be done. Visitors from the "bedroom communities" around Toronto are constantly impressed by the health of our downtown. Our heritage buildings, the old stone churches, the locally owned businesses, the clean streets, everything points to a well-run, vibrant city. We have, in this election, some very good candidates who understand what a great city we have. They will keep what is good, and work to improve the areas that need improving. We also have candidates who have bought into the single-issue politics of tax and program cuts. In the next column, we'll have a look at who is who. go back to the table of contents
We can't help but see the dark shadow of federal and provincial politics falling over the unfolding municipal election. Most of the large issues are made much more complicated because higher levels of government are off-loading as many of the costs of citizenship as possible. The federal government cut back on transfer payments to the provinces. The provincial government downloaded to services it had provided. The buck stops at the municipal level because there is nowhere else for it to go. The city can't do anything but live with the added cost of providing the necessary services to our community. We need libraries, cultural centres, recreation centres, clean parks, safe streets and all the other elements that make us want to live in our great little city. The 13 people who emerge victorious in the election need to deal with problems not of their making. One example, which does not get a lot of attention, is the changes forced upon us by the reorganization of Ontario Hydro. It was broken up into two separate companies, one for power generation and the other responsible for delivery of power to consumers. At the same time they regulated how public utilities such as Guelph Hydro must be restructured to mirror this reorganization. This is resulting in added costs that are being passed on to us through increased rates. Among these are new administrative costs associated with the separation of retailing, distribution and generation and a new provincial tax levied to pay off the debt left by the old Ontario Hydro. The new, privatized utilities are forced to be profit-making corporations that compete for shareholder value with other companies. If they were able to set themselves up as non-profit entities, they could provide efficient and economical power to homes and businesses. The province refuses to allow this. The new mayor, and the 12 councillors who will help her administer the city, must have the background and ability to find their way through this and other nightmares resulting from provincial downloading. When they come knocking on your door, or when you attend an all-candidate meeting, ask the candidates how they intend to deal with this. It's the type of issue that will separate the wheat from the chaff. A continuing concern for the city is our ability to manage growth. There will be a lot of talk during the campaign about Guelph's withdrawal from the "technology triangle." This was a joint venture with Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo designed to attract high technology companies to the area. In one sense, this was a good idea. The targeted businesses provide generally high skill jobs, and the industry itself is fairly clean. The downside to it is that we need a parallel municipal plan that ties the attraction of new businesses to our ability to provide the services they need. This includes everything from transit plans to move employees to and from work to the sewage and waste disposal facilities the increased load generated by them. These concerns also lie behind the debate over the introduction of new "big box" stores. This has nothing to do with building a wall around the city and jealously guarding our traditional way of life from encroachment by the forces of progress. It has everything to with ensuring that we are able to sustain our growth without endangering our environment and our future. Ask the candidates how they will deal with issues related to growth. A third serious issue is housing. The province shifted responsibility for social housing onto the city, creating what could become a crisis in our ability to provide decent housing to low-income citizens. To what extent will Guelph be able to shoulder the weight? What ideas do our candidates have to ensure that people are not forced out of their homes, or condemned forever to substandard houses? Make them give you answers before you give them votes. go back to the table of contents
I guess being part right is better than being all wrong. Back in January, I made a prediction that we would have two high profile women running for mayor, and that one of them would win. We’ll have to wait until November 13 to see if the second part of the prediction comes to pass. Only one of the two women I was thinking about has chosen to run for the top spot on Council. The other will try to keep her Ward 4 seat. One interesting piece of the municipal puzzle is in Ward 3. Maggie Laidlaw is still the only declared candidate for councilor. Norm Jary has announced his resignation and Dan Schnurr is still agonizing over what, if any, political future is in front of him. His decision is made a wee bit harder because of the uncertainty about when the Prime Minister will call a federal election. It could happen in November, and Schnurr has his eye on the Reform-Alliance nomination. If Chretien decides on a fall federal election, it will likely take place before the municipal election date of November 13. This means the election call will have to be on or about the first of October. Schnurr could wait until then to decide which game of musical chairs he wants to play in, but it would still be a gamble. Had Norm Jary not retired, Schnurr’s dilemma would not exist. He would have declined the City Council opportunity. He knows that in a Jary, Laidlaw & Schnurr mix, he would have come up short. He doesn’t want to head into a federal campaign having just come out of a losing municipal one. With Jary out of the mix, Schnurr has a problem. If there is no fall election, and depending on who else jumps into the Ward 3 race, he might get back onto Council. But then there will be a spring election and he will have to give up his Guelph position to run for the Reform-Alliance. And then he won’t be elected. Their chances are so slim here that even the NDP has a better chance of winning in Guelph than does the Reformed Party. Regardless of which way he jumps, Schnurr loses. Ward 1 already has four nominated candidates, with Joe Young standing by as a probable fifth. This is the ward that has given a council seat to someone who doesn’t even live in the city. I have always thought it should be a requirement that a councilor must live in a ward in order to represent it. Failing this, at the very least, city councilors should live in the city. Phil Cumming got around the ward residency issue because he has a business in Ward 4. Sean Farrelly lives across the road from Ward 2. Search through all six Guelph wards, and you won’t find Rocco Furfaro’s home address anywhere. Speaking of Cumming, he is now a spent force in Guelph politics. After a single term as a council member, he has decided to run for mayor. This is the man who chooses to violate the restaurant smoking ban in the licensed section of his laundry business and who gives comfort and solace to others who do the same. Don’t forget that soon after he was elected in 1997, he had to be removed from the city finance committee for obstructing the 1998 budget process. Considering the available choices, Cumming’s chances of being elected mayor range from slim to none. In the next three columns, we will have an opportunity to look at the issues in this municipal election in more detail. When judging the incumbent members, we can rely on their records. When judging potential newcomers, we need to look at how they plan to ensure that Guelph’s future growth is both planned and sustainable. go back to the table of contents
Mike Harris took one on the chin last week, and it looked good. He lost a by-election in a constituency widely regarded as safe Conservative territory. It was the Liberals who landed the knockout blow. The Hamilton area Riding went Tory in 1999 by a majority of more than 12,000 votes. Last week, they lost it by over 9,500 votes. Rather than admit that his policies are being firmly rejected by the very people he thought he could count on to support him, Harris chose to stick his head firmly in the sand. "While the voters did not choose our candidate today," he was quoted as saying, "I believe they still firmly support the things this government stands for - lower taxes, balanced budgets and job creation." This is ridiculous political spin-doctoring. The fact is that people around the province are discovering that lower taxes result in the disintegration of the communities and social programs we built together over many years. In the case of Hamilton, this was most evident in the amalgamation of several small towns with the larger city. The provincial government forced a similar merger on the several cities that made up Metro Toronto. Harris forced this amalgamation through secure in the knowledge it wouldn't hurt him too badly in the next election. He doesn't have much support in Toronto to start with. He should have known it would hurt him in the area around Hamilton. Last week's by-election became necessary when the former Tory MPP in that area resigned in protest against the merger. This is another side of the environmental coin being spent in Walkerton and other communities around Ontario. People are learning from bitter experience that the price we pay for lower taxes is just too high. ***** In Guelph, we are fortunate to have a determined group of community activists waging an effective battle to preserve the little things that make our city a good place to live. These little things include the independent businesses struggling to stay alive while keeping our downtown healthy. The Residents for Sustainable Development are getting national attention for their spirited campaign to keep Wal-Mart out of the city. They carried the battle to the Ontario Municipal Board, and won a crucial decision that will force Wal-Mart to open its books and show how much they make through sales revenue and how much they leave behind in the communities where they operate. It is expected that this will prove that nearly all the money is channeled south of the border and they have only a minimal positive effect locally. Appeals are flying all around the court system, the University has jumped head first into the muck, and Canadian Tire is fighting for an even bigger store on Stone Road. This will come to a head soon. There is another OMB hearing scheduled for September 15 at City Hall. A decision on Wal-Mart’s appeal of the sales figure disclosure order is expected in mid-October. A hearing on the Canadian Tire application is set for November 21. It's all coming together just in time to be a major municipal election issue, which is exactly what it should be. There ought to be a wide campaign debate about development. Expansion has to be planned to ensure it does not outstrip our ability to provide the increased municipal services that result. For example, a decision on whether or not we want Wal-Mart is about much more than the chance to buy clothes for cheaper than we can get them downtown. It is also about things like how we move people to and from the store. Do we build wider streets and larger parking lots? Or do we expand and upgrade public transportation? These are questions best answered through a democratic election campaign. go back to the table of contents
A report released last week by Statistics Canada shows that 3.7 million Canadian workers now belong to a union, up from 3.6 million in 1999. Growth in union membership exceeded the growth in employment during the first half of this year. Most of this has been in the private sector. Public sector union rates declined this year, but the losses were more than offset by private sector unionization. Newfoundland still leads the country, with 39.2 per cent of workers there belonging to unions. Alberta is lagging behind the rest of us at 21 per cent. Six Canadian provinces, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, saw an increase in the numbers of new union members. There are many factors contributing to this growth. A main one is obviously economic. According to Statistics Canada, average hourly earnings of unionized workers were higher than those of non-unionized workers: $19.43 an hour compared with $15.99 for full-time workers, and $16.66 compared with $9.94 for part-time workers. Full-time female unionized workers earned 90% of the hourly wages of their male counterparts. Unionized women who worked part time earned 9% more than men. Non-unionized women earn about 60 per cent of men’s income. You can add onto this the value of the standard benefit packages negotiated into most collective agreements. If you belong to a union, you have a better chance of being covered by a group insurance policy that will pay most, if not all, of the cost for prescription drugs, dental care and glasses. These things alone more than offset the cost of union dues. Another major benefit to belonging to a union is health and safety. Unionized workplaces have a higher rate of compliance with health and safety laws and regulations. They are also much more likely to have a functioning joint health and safety committee. In the past few years, there have been an alarming number of young workers killed, or permanently disabled, on the job in Ontario. Most of them were in non-union jobs. Within a six month period last year, two young men, one 18 and the other 16, were killed while cleaning dough making machines in bakeries. There have been other tragedies, and in each and every one of them the employer was charged and convicted of violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Would these young people be alive today if their workplace was unionized? It's hard to say for sure, but they probably would be. They, and their co-workers and supervisors, would have had easier access to the training programs that could have helped them recognize and eliminate the hazards they face. Compounding the tragedy of these deaths and injuries are the roadblocks the Ontario government throws in the way of young people who want to join unions. As Statistics Canada found in their study, the chances of not belonging to a union are higher for young workers. They are left to fend for themselves in situations that are often very dangerous. To make matters worse, the Ontario government recently proposed changes to the Employment Standards Act. Today, the standard workweek in Ontario is 48 hours. The government wants to increase this to 60 hours, averaged over a three-week period. They are proposing other changes affecting vacation time and statutory holidays among other things. Without a doubt, these changes will dramatically affect the way workers are treated in unorganized workplaces. Today, as much as ever, workers need unions to protect their standard of living, their health and safety, and to defend themselves against attacks by right wing governments. Think about this next weekend, while you are celebrating Labour Day. go back to the table of contents
There used to be one conservative party in Canada. Sometimes, when Canadians wanted a switch from the Liberals, it won elections. Not very often, mind you, but it did win some. Then Preston Manning came along and, with help from some disenchanted westerners, started a second conservative party. It didn't do very well at first, but began picking up speed after Brian Mulroney all but destroyed the first one. The brainiacs in charge of the Reform Party then decided the reason they couldn't win seats outside the western provinces was because of vote splitting. The philosophers of Reform theorized that with two conservative parties drawing from the same voter base, the Liberals would always win. They demanded that the original conservative party dissolve itself in the cause of uniting the right. The original conservative party refused, arguing that the Liberals used to lose elections before Reform came along. Now they each have their own leaders, neither with a seat in Parliament. The by-elections that might get one or both of them a seat in Ottawa will take place on September 11. Stockwell Day, from Alberta, is running in a British Columbia riding. Joe Clark, also from Alberta, is running in Nova Scotia. In a display of old boys club solidarity, the Liberals are not fielding a candidate in either riding. They say it wouldn't be sporting to stand in the way of Day and Clark's smooth road into Parliament. The Conservatives are not running a candidate against Day, possibly out of old boys' sportsmanship, possibly because they got barely five per cent of the vote there in the 1997 election. The Reform Alliance, principled opponent of vote splitting, is running a candidate against Clark in Nova Scotia. The odds are that Day will win his seat. Jim Hart, the incumbent who is trading the seat to Day for future considerations, got over 53 per cent of the vote in 1997. Clark is not a sure bet in his. Scott Brison, the Tory who is stepping aside for Clark, got 36 per cent last time. The Liberal took 30 and the NDP came in third at 19. Reform got 13 per cent. One of the provincial members for the area is a New Democrat. With the Liberals taking a pass and the Reform Alliance splitting the conservative vote, there is a very good chance that the NDP will emerge as the winner in the Nova Scotia by-election. That, all by itself, would be a welcome turn of events, but it won’t solve the problem lying behind Reform’s whining hypocrisy. The problem is our "first past the post" system of elections. Reformers are not the only ones to wrestle with this. Bob Rae had an article in the Globe and Mail recently in which he said: "A significant majority of Ontario voters rejected the Harris agenda in 1999 -- their votes were split between the Liberals and the NDP because those two parties were unable and unwilling to take the necessary institutional steps to create a common alternative before the election." A sort of unite the middle response to the Reformatories. Buzz Hargrove, a very influential labour leader who wouldn't go as far as Rae in terms of institutional steps, advocated "strategic voting" as an answer to vote splitting. He preferred the NDP, but could live with Liberals if that's what it took to beat Harris. None of these schemes provide the answer. What we need is an election system guaranteeing that political parties are represented in Parliament in direct proportion to the support they have within the population. Under proportional representation, votes are never split and individual votes are never wasted. It's an idea whose time has come. go back to the table of contents
While walking along the Fish Point nature trail on the southern tip of Pelee Island, we were struck by the wide variety of wildlife. Much of it can't be found anywhere else in Canada. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert at identifying different species of plants and animals, but we did see four eastern fox snakes in the brush beside the trail. This non-venomous snake is a threatened species, now found only on this island. The trail winds its way through a Carolinian forest, unique in Canada. Above us, in the treetops, birds sang freely. I got a passable photo of a beautiful yellow bird, about the size of the blue jays and cardinals that occasionally chow down at our bird feeder here in town. Down at our level, out in the marshy areas, we saw cormorants, herons, and - of course - tons of seagulls. In fact, the tip of Fish Point, the furthest south anyone can get and still be in Canada, is covered with seagulls. To get to the Point, the trail leaves the forest and breaks out onto what should have been a wonderfully picturesque beach. It should have been, but it wasn't. It was here that a pleasant morning walk took on a disturbing and ominous tone. The beach is littered with the decaying remains of dead fish washed up from Lake Erie. I asked the curator of the Pelee Island Museum about this, and she told me it is a problem that has grown noticeably worse this summer. She said a team of researchers from the University of Guelph is looking into it. Apparently, carp and other bottom feeding fish are particularly affected. Something in Lake Erie's water is poisoning the fish. At the end of June, the International Joint Commission (IJC) issued its 10th biennial report on Great Lakes water quality. It says carp found in water near Windsor and Hamilton "have about 65 times the toxins of a hot dog." We won't get side tracked here by the use of hot dogs as a benchmark for levels of toxins. That, if you'll pardon the pun, could be meat for a future column. Of concern now are the effects of pollutants on fish and the effects eating them can have on people. These include damage to the neurological systems of children and developing fetuses. Particularly at risk, according to the report, are the children of pregnant or breast-feeding women. Scientists on both sides of the border have been worried about the quality of lake water ever since the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire in 1969. The trouble is that the two federal and several state and provincial governments who have some responsibility for the water have done virtually nothing about it. In the United States, less than 2.4 per cent of known contaminated sediment is being cleaned up. On the Canadian side, the amount is only 0.2 per cent. Governments committed to tax reductions would rather leave the cleanup to nature. It's doesn't cost them anything. But the IJC estimates this could take several generations to accomplish. Go down to Pelee Island one day and look across the lake from Fish Point. With dead fish lined up at your feet, you can see the towering smokestacks of Sandusky, Ohio. You don't actually see the pollutants flowing into the lake, but you know they are. When you see the carp corpses piling up, you know we're poisoning our planet faster than Mother Nature can clean it up. She can't do it herself. Governments must provide the resources to help her. go back to the table of contents
It is odd. Summer days are generally considered to be lazy. In the newspaper business, they are the dog days, the days when nothing much happens. So if they're so lazy, why do they flash by so quickly? No one ever accused February of being lazy, yet it plods along at a snail's pace. The shortest month of the year takes twice as long to get out of our way as do two summer months put together. There were two national leadership races this summer. You can be forgiven for not noticing the second one, because it didn't get anything close to the national media attention as did the first. But in truth, it was just as, if not more, important. Matthew Coon Come was elected to replace the incumbent, Phil Fontaine, as leader of the Assembly of First Nations. He managed to do this without having his photo splashed across the front pages of the Globe or the Post for the two months leading up to the vote. Neither he nor any other candidate felt the need to boost support with fraudulent membership lists. Had the media been paying attention, we would have been shown an honest process leading to an important outcome. Dignity and respect don't sell as many papers as do glamour and hype. It's too bad, because the First Nations leadership set the tone in which land claims and other historic grievances will be approached in the next three years. Coon Come is a Cree from northern Quebec. During his term as Grand Chief, he led a successful fight to stop development of a Hydro Quebec project that would have flooded Cree land and displaced his people. He is very much an activist leader who is not afraid to go nose to nose with provincial and federal politicians. He has a lot of issues to deal with, and he brings a lot of energy and creativity to the search for solutions. The best that can be said of the other leadership race is that it's over. Tom Long, the alleged wonder boy of Ontario politics, showed himself to be a self-serving manipulator, bringing all the worst characteristics of a back room spin doctor out into an open campaign. He spent millions, and ran up another million in debts, by backing the wrong candidate twice. First, it was himself. Then it was Manning. Long made the mistake of believing his own hype and now his credibility is in shreds. He can take comfort in the knowledge that he is still regarded as the best and brightest Ontario reformatories have available. As the summer days whiz by, the local municipal election is taking shape. Ward 1's very popular city councilor, Karen Farbridge, is a candidate for mayor, and Maggie Laidlaw has just declared her intention to run for a council seat in Ward 3. Laidlaw will be up against Dan Schnurr and, if he chooses to run again, Norm Jary. Jary has been a fixture at City Hall for so long that he'll be a shoe-in for re-election. The contest will be for the other seat. Schnurr has made a name for himself as a strong opponent of any municipal involvement in what he calls "mega-projects." He'd sooner cut taxes than provide community recreation centres. Laidlaw is well-respected by local environmental and education activists. She had a very impressive result when she ran for the Liberal nomination for the last Provincial election. It's good to see her in the running. Any other local activists who share her opposition to Schnurr's narrow vision should pitch in and help with the campaign. go back to the table of contents
Oh Canada. We just celebrated the first Canada Day since the 1900s faded into history and it looks as though things are going from bad to worse. It was encouraging, last week, to see how much the Canadian political right is in disarray. But we shouldn't gloat too much, because the left isn't in much better shape. Both sides are being torn apart by controversies that ought never to have happened. On the right, the Long campaign came up short and crashed in flames amid revelations of fraudulent membership lists. On the left, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) just imposed sanctions that will effectively shut out one of the largest and most active unions in the country, badly hurting our local labour council. It is really absurd to watch the Reform Party shed crocodile tears over vote splitting and the need to unite the right under one political party, which just happens to be theirs. Ten years ago, they were united. The Progressive Conservative Party was the vehicle, and they rode it to two consecutive majority governments. Then the Reform Party came along, born out of western resentment about the role Ontario and Quebec play in the political life of the country. If there is disunity on the right, blame can be laid right at the feet of the Reform Party. They were the vultures who swooped down and fed on members who abandoned the sinking conservative ship. Don't forget that Tom Long was an important back room advisor when the ship went down seven years ago. He resurfaced as an advisor to Mike Harris, whose government will soon drown in Walkerton water. Long couldn't even win the Reform Party leadership vote among Ontario members. Now Reform faces a choice between two fundamental hard right wingers who have absolutely no appeal to most Ontario voters. Good for Reform. Let them keep on committing political suicide. The trouble is, we are not doing much better on this side of the fence. The CAW has about 1100 members affiliated to the Guelph and District Labour Council. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has about 150. CAW members are actively involved in the Guelph labour council, and always have been. SEIU members are not, and never have been. Yet it is the CAW members who are being shut out. Eight SEIU local unions in Ontario decided they wanted to leave the international union and affiliate with the CAW. The SEIU charged the CAW with raiding and the CLC upheld the charge. As this was going on, individual bargaining units within the eight locals took advantage of a clause in the Ontario Labour Relations Act giving them the right, within sixty days of the expiration of their collective agreement, to choose which union will represent them. Overwhelmingly, rank and file members chose the CAW, in some cases by unanimous votes, but always by over 90 per cent. In all cases, the will of the members was clear. I have been a member of the CAW for 23 years. Well, 15 years. The first eight years I was a member of the UAW, the international union from which the CAW escaped. In all those years, I never for a moment believed that Canadian workers should belong to American unions, which is what international unions really are. There is no other country in the world where workers belong to a union headquartered in another country. The Canadian Labour Congress had a chance to support the right of Canadian workers to belong to Canadian unions. They dropped the ball, and our labour council got hit. Oh, Canada. go back to the table of contents
The long day's journey into night is almost over. Tom, Stockwell and company have ended their campaigns, and the Reformed Reform Party is mailing out ballots to members, and preparing to accept leadership votes either by post or by telephone. It is not clear yet if Canada Post has initiated delivery, or if Bell is installing lines, into Gaspé cemeteries. The Long campaign claims to have signed almost three thousand new members in that region, but reporters have been unable to locate any of them walking about. His Quebec organizers admit they paid the $10 individual membership fees for them. Will campaign workers have access to the special security codes these "members" must enter to register their votes by phone? If individual members are unlikely to vote, possibly because they are unaware they joined a Party they've never supported, could the people who paid the membership fees feel they have the right to register proxy votes? People on the Gaspé peninsula overwhelmingly supported independence in the neverendums and consistently give huge majorities to Bloc and PQ candidates. If there is any substance to the incredible claims coming out of Long's Quebec campaign, it could be because people think that if they won't be voting Reform anyway, who cares who wins the leadership? Most Canadians don't. ***** Statistics Canada reported last week that the gap between rich and poor in Canada is growing wider. Ten years ago, people in the top 20 per cent income bracket earned 11 times as much as those in the lowest 20 per cent. Now it has widened to 14 times as much. In addition, the report says "families in the lowest 20% garnered 7.6% of all after-tax income in 1989, but by 1998, their share had dropped to 7.1%. Meanwhile, the 20% of families with the highest incomes, who received 37.0% of all after-tax dollars in 1989, saw their share go up to 38.8% in 1998." Almost half of all single mother families in the country are living in poverty. This is the inevitable result of the economic policies followed by successive federal and provincial governments across the country. All have seized upon the idea that prosperity will flow from lower taxes and smaller government. It's obviously not true. There should be no surprise that a lot of people living in poverty are getting angry at governments that refuse to recognize this and insist on doing whatever they can to enrich their friends and marginalize those at the bottom end of the social ladder. The riot at Queen's Park last week should have been a wake up call for the Tories. But they still don't get it. Either they don't understand the harm they're doing, or they don't care. I suspect the latter. ***** It was good to see the Supreme Court uphold the federal government's gun control legislation. A long time ago we figured out that cars can be dangerous things if operated improperly. The vehicles themselves have to be registered with the government. Drivers have to prove their competence through written and practical tests before getting an operator's license. Why should guns be any different? Not so good to see the Saskatchewan Minister of Justice go on television to denounce the decision. He said his government will not help prosecute gun owners who defy the law. It's a shame to see an NDP government swallowing the hysterical rhetoric of the gun lobby. I hoped they would have more spine than that. go back to the table of contents
In the few weeks since the Town of Walkerton discovered that its water supply was poisonous, water quality problems have surfaced in at least ten other Ontario communities. From Freelton in Southern Ontario to Dryden in the north west, rural communities are finding they can no longer depend on their wells to deliver drinkable water. For the people of Walkerton, this is a calamity. For the provincial government and its environment ministry, it is a crime. Seven deaths have been confirmed, and at least four others are being investigated by the coroner's office. In addition to this inquiry, the OPP are investigating to see if any criminal liability is involved. Last week, Mike Harris reluctantly agreed to set up an independent judicial inquiry into the matter. Harris' conduct since this tragedy came to light has been appalling. At first, he journeyed up to Walkerton to tell residents that it was all the fault of the previous NDP government. This was a cynical attempt to deflect attention from the dramatic cuts in environmental protection implemented during Harris' five years in power. They have slashed over $100 million from the ministry budget and laid off 900 people. They closed the environment ministry's water testing labs. Among the ministry staff who lost their jobs were 27 people in the investigations and enforcement branch. When shifting the blame didn't work, Harris tried to set up a legislative committee, dominated by his own Party members, to look into it. This was widely seen as a brazen attempt at a cover up, and he was forced to back down. Now he wants to limit the inquiry's scope to Walkerton's four wells and water treatment plant. It is not good enough to clean up the water in that small town, possibly punish some town officials, and declare the problem solved. We need to know all the complex factors that contributed to the disaster and ensure they are not repeated elsewhere. The inquiry must be free to look at all the elements that, combined, brought us to this shameful point. Among these are the unregulated disposal of animal waste; the growth of factory farms; industrial discharges into the watershed; the impact of downloading on water safety; and the links between contaminated water and government cuts to the environment ministry budget, services and staff. Because most water scares around the province hit rural communities, it is essential that we know the impact of modern farming methods on the environment. In 1995, for example, approximately 17.9 million hogs were raised by 20,000 producers in Canada, mostly in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. That is 885 pigs per operation, a far cry from the old family farm. It's big business, employing nearly 100,000 workers and generating over two billion dollars annually. There are 124 farms immediately surrounding Walkerton and hundreds more within a five-mile radius. Modern farming involves huge amounts of industrial chemicals. It should be treated like any other industry and comply with all the appropriate regulations. Disposal of the waste generated by factory farms is largely unregulated. A recent Ontario Pork study of a sample of 50 farms indicates 16 per cent of hog farmers had waste storage leakage and 22 per cent had ground water contamination in areas surrounding manure facilities and barns. The Walkerton inquiry must have a long, hard look at this situation. There was a time when people moved out of cities in search of clean air and water. Now they are finding that the best they can hope for is bottled water. Is this the price we pay for tax cuts? How much Evian can we get with a $200 tax rebate? go back to the table of contents
Last week, a pair of corpses stood up and looked reasonably healthy. At the same time, another pair of supposedly healthy bodies was found in the grave. This might have seemed odd to the casual observer, but it's not strange at all. The ones who stood up aren't really dead, and the ones who fell down aren't really as healthy as we've been told. Just about all of our national media have been trying to convince us that the Liberals and the Reformed Reform are the only choices left to Canadian voters. The Conservative Party is on life support and the New Democrats have lost their relevancy. This is the picture the papers want us to see and believe. Sadly for them and their monied friends, the people who matter don't see the picture, wouldn't believe it anyway, and don't share the same reality as the national editorial boards. The Conservatives narrowly won a by-election in Canada's easternmost riding. They got a few hundred more votes than the New Democrats. The Liberals - the Toronto Star's pick for the only Party that matters - came in a distant third. Reformed Reform - favoured by both the National Past and the Globe and Mail - narrowly edged out the Extreme Wrestling Party. There are a couple of lessons to be learned from this. The first is that we shouldn't believe everything we read in the papers. Ownership of Canadian news media is concentrated in a very few hands. Most of these hands are attached to the end of Conrad Black's arms. One thing these few owners have in common is that they are very wealthy and very powerful. They also have strongly held opinions that are shaped by their wealth. To maintain the illusion of impartiality, they allow dissenting views into their pages, notably Rick Salutin in the Globe or Dalton Camp in the Star. But by and large, their heavy hitters all toe the Party line. That line, at this moment, is that there are only two political parties that matter. All the others just get in the way. To guarantee their easy access to power they try to deny voters the right to make informed choices. Another lesson is that no matter how carefully the Reform Party tries to repackage itself, it is still singing the same old song. Even if all the back room manipulators who helped Brian Mulroney cripple the Conservative Party move into the back rooms of the Reformed Reform Party, it will not change. No matter what it says, it will never be your voice. It will always be the voice of rich, selfish Canadians who would rather pay less tax than have healthy social programs. They don't care if the rest of us have to live with diminished health care or an impoverished education system. They can afford to pay for privatized services. The result of the Newfoundland by-election does not mean that the Reformed Reform Party is dead. Not by a long shot. There are still ridings out west where the Extreme Wrestling Party won’t even come close to them. Nor does it mean that either the Tories or the NDP are about to automatically bounce back to the levels of support they once had. They might, but there are no guarantees. What St. John's East did indicate is that the Canadian political body is still healthy and Canadian voters can be alert enough to make up their own minds about things. They are not cattle to be led around by the nose by the Conrad Blacks of the world. That should give us all a reason to cheer. go back to the table of contents
Congratulations to Mayor Joe Young. Last week he spoke out against the use of chemicals to control weeds and pests on our lawns. Young is concerned about the effect that spraying chemical weed killers could have on the health of children who suffer from asthma and other breathing problems. He is absolutely right, and should be commended for bringing this matter to public attention. I hope that he and the majority of city councilors can turn this into something more than just a statement of personal preference. It should be city policy. A couple of weeks ago, Halifax introduced a by-law to ban lawn and garden chemicals. If successful, it will be the largest Canadian city to do so. Fifty-five other municipalities across Canada are considering similar action, but most are waiting for the outcome of a legal challenge launched in Quebec by a lawn care company. The case is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court. A public opinion poll indicated that 83 per cent of the people in Halifax support a restriction on lawn chemical use. I suspect this sentiment will be shared by most people in Guelph. As I walk around the streets in my neighbourhood, I notice a lot of homes drastically reducing the amount of grass in the front yard. Rock gardens, shrubs, ground covers and other perennials are, in my eyes, much more attractive than a bland blanket of grass. A good ground cover requires little maintenance, retains moisture and reduces the growth of weeds. It makes a whole lot more sense than spraying toxic substances that harm the environment and make people sick. ***** It's fortunate we still have a reasonably good health care system, because Ernie Eves is making me sick. His budget last week added a paltry $49 million to health care spending, a small fraction of the $22 billion spent in 1999, and nowhere near the $1.8 billion deficit carried by Ontario hospitals. At the same time, the Reformatories cut education funding by $104 million. The budget gives an unprecedented $4 billion in tax breaks to corporations by cutting their tax rate in half, and over $2 billion in income tax cuts, most of which goes to benefit higher income earners. To see where these tax cuts are directed, take a look at the reduction in taxes on capital gains. This is investment income from sources such as playing the stock market. About 68 per cent of capital gains go to people with incomes greater than $100,000. That is three per cent of the population. We are all supposed to be happy about this because Ernie is going to send each of us a cheque for $200. I think most people will see this for what it is - an absurd attempt to buy the good will of the people who are being hurt by the Harris government. I don't expect many people will return the cheque to Eves with a note instructing him to spend the money on health care, education, the environment or social housing. What we can and should do is donate the money to one of the many charities that are becoming overburdened dealing with the victims of Tory policies. ***** Speaking of Tory policy, they now intend to force all Ontario school students to recite a pledge of allegiance to the world's wealthiest freeloader and all her heirs and descendants. The monarchy is a relic of a feudal age which placed great value on the wealthy lords and ladies, and treated the ordinary people, the serfs and peasants, with contempt and disdain. Maybe that's what's behind Harris bringing in the oath. go back to the table of contents
Last month, Imperial Tobacco was fined $200,000 as a result of the March, 1998 death of Thomas Abbott, a worker in its Woodlawn Rd. plant. In most years, about 300 workers are killed on the job in Ontario. In 1999, three of them were teenagers. Thousands of others die every year from diseases caused by exposure to workplace toxins. These are terrible statistics to think about as we pack our lunch boxes and head off to work every morning. They should also concern those of us who don't, those who go in to offices or other clean jobs. At the same time as the rate of occupational disease is rising among factory workers, the rate of cancer is also rising in the general population. April is cancer awareness month, a time for the Canadian Cancer Society to raise funds for research. Last Saturday was Earth Day. Next Friday is the day of mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. All three events are closely linked. The World Health Organization estimates that 90 per cent of all cancers are environmentally induced. Most environmental carcinogens originate in a workplace and are emitted into the air, land or water. Anyone with Internet access can get a feel for the severity of the situation by looking at the National Pollutant Release Index at www.npri-inrp.com. Enter Guelph in the search form, and get ready to see several local workplaces and the amount of poison they release into the environment. It's not a pretty picture. The Index still uses 1997 figures, but there is no reason to think anything has improved since then. After years of trying to deal with the terrible number of deaths, injuries and illnesses, Canadian unions are starting to identify workable solutions, some of which are already being introduced in Europe. At the top of the list is something called extended producer responsibility. This is the concept that the manufacturer of a product accepts responsibility for all the waste generated throughout the production process from the extraction of raw material right through to final disposal. Counties such as Germany and Sweden, for example, are phasing in a regulation requiring automobile companies to take back their cars when they are no longer usable. The vehicles are to be disassembled and the parts either reused or recycled. A couple of American States require battery manufacturers to accept back nickel cadmium batteries at the end of their usable lives. Ontario, on the other hand, refuses to enforce its regulation about refillable soft drink containers. The idea is that by regulating the environmental impact of a product throughout its full life cycle, we will begin to eliminate workplace toxins and develop green jobs that use clean production processes. If this idea catches on, perhaps the concept of sustainable development will become less of an oxymoron. It will require a radical shift in attitudes all the way from how engineers design workplaces to how we care for our lawns and gardens. If we don't, we will soon run out of options. The labour council is asking people to meet in front of City Hall at 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Their rallying cry is to mourn for the dead and to fight for the living. As important as it is to grieve for those workers who fell victim to workplace hazards, it is even more so that we prevent it from happening to others. In doing this, we have to remember that the workplace and the environment are two sides of the same coin. When we clean up one of them, we also clean up the other. go back to the table of contents
Mike Harris thinks it's fine to have a book in school libraries showing students how to load and fire a hand gun. He also thinks any student who brings one to school should be immediately and automatically expelled. One of the most confusing items in a teenager's life is the mixed signals received from adults. It's not a new thing, affecting the students of this modern age. It's been part of life from long before those distant days when people of my age were teenagers. Usually, the problems were caused by the "do what I say, not what I do" approach to child rearing. Young people learn more by observing adult behaviour than they do by listening to adult lectures. It has always been that way, and I suppose it always will be. This is why Harris' recent behaviour is so appalling. The provincial code of conduct Harris announced last week falls into the "do what I say" category. It is completely at odds with the "not what I do" category. His government joined a court challenge attempting to overturn federal gun control legislation. Never mind that just about every police department in the country supports registration of fire arms. Never mind that most Canadians support it. The provincial Conservatives have fallen under the spell of the gun lobbyists and want us to keep going down the road to unrestricted gun ownership. One of the biggest organizations behind the Ontario gun lobby, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, produced the book which instructs students in the fine art of handling rifles, shotguns and pistols. Harris said some teachers might find the book "handy." No doubt some students will as well, judging by the recent experience of shootings that injured three kids in Toronto area schools. I can't remember a time when students were allowed to bring a gun to school. Nor have they been able to bring in drugs or alcohol, swear at teachers or commit criminal assault upon each other. To that extent, there is nothing new or noteworthy in Harris' code. The new part, which is also the objectionable part, is that teachers and principals will have the unilateral power to suspend and expel. At the moment, a teacher who feels a student has committed a serious offense must report it to the principal, who investigates the matter and decides whether or not to issue a suspension. If an expulsion is felt to be in order, it has to go to the school board. The student and parents can represent and defend themselves before the decision is made. Harris is taking these checks and balances out of the picture. As a group, as members of good unions, teachers are fine people who provide an invaluable service to families and to society. But buried in their ranks are some incompetents, some people who can and will act out of spite. They will now have unstoppable power. Under no circumstances should one person ever be cop, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. The Harris code of conduct bestows all this onto individual teachers and principals. If he is allowed to get away with it, it will be because, once again, the full force of the adult world is being brought to bear against those who are struggling to find their way into it. This is not a way to fix any of the problems invading our schools. We need to send a clear message to the students that we are on their side, that the journey towards learning is a never-ending trip that people take together. Kids are not the enemy, Mike, unless you choose to make them so. go back to the table of contents
Where can we turn when we can't trust our trustees? What used to be a local school board run by local trustees has become a distant board, run by distant people. Last week, it announced a secret deal, arrived at behind closed doors. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks the deal was a good one, either for the school board itself, or the larger community in which we live. To call it fishy is to downplay the stench released when this mess was unwrapped. A historic school building, an old yellow brick house and 1.2 acres of land, all sold as a parcel for $175,000. The house itself, on a residential sized lot, would have fetched that much on the open market. But it was never put onto the open market. It was quietly sold to the first and only land developer to put in a bid. The price, miraculously, was marginally higher than the alleged appraised value of the property. Can we see the appraisal? Nope, sorry, it's a secret. The brick house has been occupied for 32 years by United Way, but they were caught off guard by the quick sale, and the low price. The school is occupied by community groups providing well-respected services to the people of Guelph, groups like Art Jam, the Guelph International Resource Centre and the Guelph and District Labour Council. Interestingly, at the same time as details of the sale were being revealed, we also learned that Art Jam's director, Sue Richards, is to receive the annual Women of Distinction Award for arts and culture. If schools must be closed, these organizations were developing a model for the uses to which they can be put. Art Jam asked for a time extension to develop a business plan and competitive. The Board turned them down. Why? Sorry, says the chairperson, can't tell you. It's a secret. All this secrecy can only breed suspicion. Who are Charleston Homes, and how did they get access to something about which the property's tenants were kept in the dark? Is the table being set for yet another highly profitable land flip? Did any of our elected trustees stand up for our interests in this deal? These and other questions must be answered before the sale is finalized. The school, after all, is our property and it should not be ripped out from under our feet this way. There must be a way, either through a strenuous and loud public outcry, or through a legal challenge, to get this halted. Art Jam must be given a fair opportunity to put in a competitive offer, and the community must be allowed to scrutinize the terms of the sale. The saddest part of all this is that it could have been predicted, and almost was. Back in October, 1997, your humble columnist raised an alert about amalgamated school boards. A local school board, it said here at the time, "ought to know best what is appropriate for our community. (It) does now, while it is still made up of local trustees we can call up and talk to. After November, this will be gone." It's a shame to say I told you so, but the ultimate blame for this scandal rests at the feet of Mike Harris and the high school dropout he put in as Minister of Education at the time. If we continue to starve our public institutions to satisfy the narrow self interest of the tax-fighting business elite, we will see more of these outrages in the future. go back to the table of contents
So Phil's Diner has been taken to task, charged with allowing customers to smoke. The impending court case will determine the validity of the bylaw, and when the dust settles we'll see how well it survives. Some of the arguments against the ban have been quite amusing. Last week, we were told that this is one of the reasons we fought the last war. I wasn't around at the time, but I have many relatives who were, and I've worked with lots of veterans over the years. None of them ever hinted that one of the many freedoms under attack by fascism was the right to smoke in a pub. The very thought of it trivializes the issues for which tens of thousands of people died. We have also heard that cigarettes are legal commodities purchased over the counter in stores across the city. True enough, but it doesn't follow that they can therefore be used wherever the purchaser sees fit. You can buy a packet of condoms at any drugstore, but you can't use them in Phil's Diner. When all is said and done, the bar owners will either win their point, or they won't. If they do, I hope someone takes a serious look at a similar problem with public swimming pools. There are many people who have an almost uncontrollable need to urinate whenever they are immersed in water. At the moment, they are forced to leave the pool and go somewhere else to satisfy this urge. This is very inconvenient for them. In fact, many have stopped going into swimming pools as a result. It appears to me that all swimming pools should have a designated urinating area to accommodate those who need to go. Everyone else can swim in the non-urinating section. This is what the folk down at Phil's Diner would call a win-win solution. Independent truck drivers, on the other hand, are in a no-win situation. Last week, some of them drove their rigs slowly along major highways for a few days. Their protest against high fuel costs started to run off the road when they steered in the direction of fuel taxes. A quick look in the rear view mirror showed that taxes are not to blame. Gas pump prices are set by the oil companies and have increased several times since the last tax hike. In fact, the taxes paid on fuel do not cover the cost of maintaining the roads used by these huge vehicles, or the cost of cleaning up the environmental damage they cause. To take one example, according to a document circulated by the Green Party, over 35.6 million litres of gasoline are sold every day in Ontario. They estimate that when all the factors involved between the refinery and the pump are calculated, almost 43.5 million litres of pollutants are produced. Air pollution alone causes about 1800 deaths in Ontario every year. This is a compelling consideration that should make us rethink our national transportation policy. We have to get away from our reliance on truck transportation. Maybe we also need to get away from our addiction to throw-away consumer products that are of questionable value in the first place. For example, we don't need to have our highways clogged with trucks bringing loads of Swiffer Sweepers to stores across the land. There has to be a better way to manage our resources. Until we find it, the truck drivers should get some protection from the people they work for. At the same time, we must come to grips with the fact that they are bringing us luxuries we can't afford. go back to the table of contents
The other night, as I flipped through the television channels, I stopped for a while at a cultural highlight of our modern era, the World Wrestling Federation. There wasn't any actual wrestling going on, though. Someone named Cactus Jack, an unpleasant looking fellow with filthy hair and hardly any teeth, was wandering around the ring, microphone in hand, making a speech about the harm he wanted to inflict on another wrestler. I don't think he, or anyone else, really believed any of it would ever happen, but it made good theatre and had the paying customers on their feet in enthusiastic applause. After a few moments, I got the remote working again and soon found the parliamentary channel. There wasn't much difference. Preston Manning, the Vince McMahon of Canadian politics, and his Cactus Jack replacement, Diane Ablonczy, were threatening to wreak havoc on their Liberal opponents Jean Chretien and Jane Stewart. What is most upsetting about all this is the issue over which the two tag teams chose to go to the mat. There was no similar uproar when the Liberals stole millions of dollars from the pockets of unemployed Canadians by transferring funds from Employment Insurance into general revenue. Outrage over Chretien's role in the treatment of APEC protesters in Vancouver has disappeared into yesteryear's recycling bins. There was no fuss when the environment minister became a spokesperson for American trade concerns at a Montreal conference on genetically modified foods. Not a peep while the Canadian government uses the World Trade Organization to bully European countries into lifting their ban on the importation of asbestos, one of the deadliest fibres ever to have entered manufacturing processes. There are hundreds of reasons for Canadians to get angry with the government, some more compelling than others. The mess caused by Human Resources Development Canada’s handling of their transitional jobs fund is one item on this long list. It is certainly a serious matter when government grants are handed out without a proper system of accountability, but that is not what has the official opposition's shorts in a knot. Even though they branded it a "billion dollar boondoggle," none of them seriously believes all that money has gone missing. Some of it went to people in their own ridings, and under the rules of this particular game, MPs have to approve of the grants before they are given out. Diane Ablonczy, for example, had to approve the $7 million that went to her Calgary riding. The trouble is that much of the cash was given without application forms being completed, without clear business plans in place, or without follow up checks to gauge its effectiveness. Important enough concerns, but is the fury only about sloppy paperwork? Obviously not. The Reform Party is committed to a diminished role for government. They don't believe in taxing citizens to pay for services, because they don't believe government should provide them. They don't believe government should regulate private businesses, and certainly don't believe it has a role to play in job creation. They have long opposed the transitional jobs fund in principle, even though they were always willing to take its money in practice. When the wrestlers on TV bash each other with chairs, or take their fights out of the ring and into the aisles and corridors, they would have us believe they are unencumbered by any legal restrictions. The police don't come looking for them after the match. The Reform Party salivates at the thought of giving corporations this same freedom. The difference is that the WWF knows it is all theatre and fantasy. go back to the table of contents
There is, we are often told, a thin blue line separating our civil society from lawlessness. It allows decent folk to get about their lives while the forces of evil are held at bay. This has become an effective marketing slogan for police forces across North America. Like all good slogans, it contains a bit of truth and a lot of hyperbole. Police officers, like most other workers, do a difficult job that can be dangerous. Again like other workers, they need to receive the training and tools they need to ensure their health and safety on the job. The line between civility and chaos isn't quite as thin as we are expected to believe, though. We give police the support they need, and we expect them to carry out their responsibilities impartially. They are supposed to act without regard to their personal opinions about the politicians who make the laws they are asked to enforce. For the most part, this works. There are fault lines in the process, and these are exposed from time to time when the police are told to deal with striking workers, or when they mishandle non-violent political protests. We can deal with these events through mechanisms that flow from the fundamental principle of civilian control over the police. We have to remember that individual police officers, in their private lives, should have as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else. They can join a political Party, donate money, and support and vote for the candidate of their choice. But when they put on a uniform, or act collectively as a force, they have to be scrupulously neutral. Politicians and governments come and go, but the duties of police officers remain constant. Unfortunately, the union representing police officers in Toronto has crossed the line and thrown the relationship between police and society into question. They have decided that some politicians are "enemies of the police" and they are raising money to investigate, discredit and defeat them at the next election. Their campaign is accompanied by threats and overt acts of intimidation. This is an unacceptable turn of events, and it should be stopped before it spreads. The politicians declared to be enemies of the police in Toronto believe that police officers should be accountable to the public. If they use their weapons, or a civilian is injured while being placed under arrest or while in custody, the officers involved should explain themselves. Several Toronto police officers, including union president Craig Bromell, have had their actions investigated. None were convicted of wrongdoing. People who insist on bringing some integrity to this citizen review are not "enemies of the police." They are defending the distinct roles we assign to government, the courts and the police. In bringing us to this sorry position, the Toronto police are hiding behind a defense of their union's right to act independently on behalf of its members. Once again, we see a little bit of truth swallowed by a lot of hyperbole. Their union can negotiate pay and working conditions, and vigorously defend its members in grievance hearings. It can not insulate its members from the limits society has placed upon them, and it must not use its power to investigate and intimidate incumbent politicians or potential candidates for public office. What we see in Toronto is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Because of the type of work they do, and the special place they occupy in society, the police can not make the rules or set themselves above the law. When they do, the democratic fabric of our community begins to unravel. go back to the table of contents
I have never been one to take the laws of arithmetic lightly. They are not things to be flaunted, or changed from one day to the next. They certainly can't be broken just because politicians and television networks around the world want a gigantic party. When counting to 100, you don't start at zero and end at 99. Unless, apparently, you are in the business of delivering instant gratification to consumers who can't wait for the real thing. I realize all this doesn't make much real difference in the lives of real people, but it can change our perspective on events. Think about books for a minute. Like a well-crafted novel, the 20th century had an attention-grabbing opening of war and revolution. Suspense grew as tension developed between the constructive and destructive uses of science. Now we are into the conclusion, where plotlines converge and loose ends are tied up. Seen this way, the America Online merger, for example, should be seen as a concluding chapter of a dying century, rather than a trend setting introduction to a new one. As loose ends go, the ones who most deserve to be tied up are our right wing politicians. Right now, I can think of at least three good examples, and this is without even touching on the Harris government. Locally, we have Phil Cumming and Dan Schnurr. They are both behaving like petulant children who can’t get their own way. Whether Cumming likes it or not, the council to which he belongs passed a bylaw banning smoking in bars and restaurants. He owns a laundromat with a licensed snack bar, and has chosen to allow patrons to smoke there. Granted, he is not the only restaurant owner in town to allow smoking, but he is the only one on city council. As such, we have the right to expect a higher standard of behaviour from him. A city councilor who brazenly breaks city by-laws should be removed at the earliest opportunity. If the rest of council can't impeach him, the voters in Ward 4 should do the city a favour and bounce him in the election next November. Schnurr isn't breaking any by-laws, but he is showing contempt for the democratic process. Most other councilors don't support most of his positions, so he has pronounced them a bad bunch. He seems to think the only good council is one that agrees with his narrow view of the world. This is a dangerous position for any politician to take. Any council without him on it will be an improvement. On the federal scene, we have Preston Manning in self-destruct mode. At the moment, he is the leader of a regional political party that, at last count, was below the NDP in public opinion polls. The Progressive Conservative Party has said repeatedly it wants nothing to do with him. Voters in eastern Canada have said they don't want anything to do with Reform. They are not going to suddenly embrace Manning if the Party changes its name. If party members vote against the so-called "united alternative," Manning will pack his bags and go home. If they vote for it, many current members will pack their bags and go home. The Tories will stick with their Party and their leader, and Manning will be left with a smaller rump group than he has now. Either way, he loses and Canadians win. With |