Reports on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Finally Released

The Ford government has kept secret a series of reports it commissioned on climate change impacts and the government action needed to protect us.

A group I belong to, Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!), worked tirelessly to get these reports released.

SCAN!’s months-long Freedom of Information campaign finally achieved the release of these documents on December 8th. You can find the reports at https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/ontario-adaptation-campaign/

Earlier in the year I wrote about efforts to get the reports. See the following.

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Looking for the Reports

I have just submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Ontario government. This is a first for me.

The origin of the legislation that put FOIs in place goes back many years. It was part of the Accord adopted following the 1985 election when the NDP agreed to support David Peterson’s Liberals for two years.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) legislates access to information held by public institutions in Ontario subject to specific requirements to safeguard the personal information of individuals

Adapting to Climate Change

All governments brag about transparency. The current Ontario government is no exception. In fact, Premier Doug Ford, a chronic embellisher, claims there has never been a government as transparent as his.

So, you could say that my FOI request is a test of that assertion. My interest is getting information on Ontario’s climate change plans. With the country burning this summer, people losing their homes, firefighters being killed and extreme weather events now common one has to wonder what government has planned to respond to such conditions in the future. So that is what my FOI request is about. How does the government plan to adapt to climate change?

There is a bit of a story to this.

A group I’m involved with took some initiative. The Ontario Project of SCAN! (Seniors for Climate Action Now) has members knowledgeable about adaptation strategies. They were aware that the Ford government had done some work on this matter.

In fact, the Ford government has put together major reports on the urgent task of anticipating and reducing the impacts of climate change. In November 2019, the Ontario government appointed an Advisory Panel on Climate Change led by Paul Kovacs, a professor at Western University and an expert in the field of disaster risk reduction. The creation of this panel was no secret. It was announced publicly.

It seems most of the reporting was completed nearly two years ago. But the reports were kept secret until recently. One of them is now available likely because of public pressure.

This past January, Jennifer Penny, one of our members who previously worked as a climate change adaptation researcher, submitted a FOI request to find out what had happened to this reporting.

“Ontarians want to see these reports! But even more, we want to know what the government is doing to protect us,” says SCAN!’s Jennifer Penney.

She got a response of sorts.

FIPPA: “What is the name of the report?”
Jennifer: “We don’t know. It is being kept secret.”
FIPPA: “What was the date of the report?”
Jennifer: “Don’t know that either. It’s a secret.”

This seems to be how the FOI process works - transparent government in action, much like looking for light through a brick wall.

So, an open letter and petition entitled Release the Report was prepared and circulated. Over a few weeks in the summer more than 1,300 people signed the petition.

Then on a Friday afternoon in late August with no fanfare the Provincial Climate Change
Impact Assessment appeared on the Government of Ontario’s website.

Its 530 pages are filled with what the CBC called “grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario.” We’ll have a soaring number of days with extreme heat, more extreme flooding and more frequent wildfires. The agriculture sector faces risks of declining productivity, Climate risks will be highest for Ontario's most vulnerable populations and this will “continue to amplify existing disparities and inequities."

In some ways the report tells us what we already suspected. But such suspicions are confirmed by experts.

The report does "the best job that's been done to date describing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather," Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo told the CBC.

SCAN! had been looking for two reports. One was released. Imagine our surprise. Turns out there are actually four reports. Three companion reports, including one on Best Adaptation Practices, are still hidden by the government.

Those reports are what I’m asking to see in my FOI request.

Bob Wood
October 6, 2023

Up North

There is no doubt that some projects we work on are more memorable than others.   

As I clean up old files (so I’ll have room for new files) I stumble on ones I barely recall. But here is one well remembered completed project that calls out for an update. 

Thirteen years ago, I was asked to do a story on Chuck Ealey, a Canadian Football player who played in the seventies.  There was a one-hour documentary coming out on him called The Stone Thrower and a book with the same title written by his daughter Jael Ealey Richardson. *  

The occasion for doing this was the 100th anniversary of the Grey Cup.  I like many sports, follow some, but really don’t like writing those typical “he shoots, he scores” stories.  My interest is in the sociological side of sports.  So, this assignment was perfect.  You’ll see why.           

The 1972 Grey Cup held December 3rd at Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium was decided by a last-second field goal with the Hamilton Tiger Cats winning an exciting match over the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Rookie quarterback Chuck Ealey was the star of that game and that season for the Cats.

The game represented much more than the typical east-west Cup Final and this is why: Ealey shouldn’t have been in a position to earn the game’s MVP award, because in a just world he would have been quarterbacking in the National Football League.

Bowl victories and an undefeated college record (35-0) at the University of Toledo weren’t enough to get Ealey drafted by an NFL team. Prior to the draft, his agent sent a “well-thought-out, professional, not harsh” letter to all NFL teams, Ealey recalled. 

The essence of the letter went like this: “The only position I’m interested in playing is quarterback. Thank you for your consideration.”

He wanted to play QB because clearly, that was the position where he excelled. But an Afro-American had no chance to compete for a quarterback position in the NFL of the seventies. There were no takers among NFL general managers.

“There was an overall stigma in the NFL at that time that African Americans were not to be playing quarterback,” recalled Ealey. And so, Ealey, the quarterback, moved on.

This story isn’t unique, of course.

Charles Officer directed the movie, The Stone Thrower.*  Officer had considered doing a “bigger picture” that would have looked at other Afro-American quarterbacks who came up here to play. Standouts like Warren Moon, Condredge Holloway, Damon Allen and Bernie Custis all had to come north for their opportunity.

In 1951, Custis, a star quarterback at Syracuse University, was drafted sixth overall by the Cleveland Browns. But the Browns had no intention of letting him play the pivot position so let him go to Hamilton. Custis became the first Afro-American regular starting quarterback in North America. Earning all-star recognition in 1951, he was moved to halfback the next season.

“It’s the same story,” said Officer. “Bernie Custis coming up here and then getting switched over. He had to come here for a reason.”

Officer, an Afro-Canadian actor, writer, director and former semi-pro hockey player, believed that by documenting Ealey’s journey he could tell the bigger story of what was going on in American society in the seventies.

Meanwhile, Jael Richardson, Chuck’s daughter, had been on a journey of her own, recounted in her 2012 book, similarly called The Stone Thrower: A Daughter's Lessons, a Father's Life.**  Richardson was born after her father’s football career had ended. As an adult, she would go to Ohio with her dad.

“When we went back to Toledo, people would start screaming ‘Oh there’s Chuck Ealey’ and ask for autographs,” Jael’s father recalls. “She’d go, so who are you? What did you do?”

Ealey acknowledges that he “never shared a lot of the story of how I got here.” 

It is hard today to fully appreciate the barriers Chuck Ealey faced growing up poor in the racially divided city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a typical American small town. Portsmouth was the kind of a place that valued football players but didn’t let black children swim in their public pools.  Located on the Ohio River and bordering Kentucky, the city was a significant pass-through point on the route of the Underground Railroad and the opportunity for freedom in Canada for fugitive slaves.

Ealey remembers the prejudices that held him and others back and contrasts that with the freedom “to do things a lot differently” that he found when he arrived in Hamilton.

“There were none of the issues that socially held you back or that seemed to hold you back in the States,” he stated. And so, Ealey was able to continue with his winning ways that memorable rookie season, 1972, in Hamilton, all the way to the Grey Cup win.

Director Officer documents how Ealey, denied the opportunity to play quarterback in his native land, essentially followed that same path that slaves had taken to get to Canada. As Officer told me of his movie: “It is a significant Africo-American story that has everything to do about being Canadian.”

Today nearly half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL are Afro-American.  However current research shows that from 2010 to 2022, teams were chronically underrating Black quarterbacks in the draft and significantly underpaying them when they were signed. *** 

*Officer’s movie Stone Thrower can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmL1EvtQy3E

**Jael Richardson’s successful debut novel Gutter Child was published in 2020.  

*** https://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/nfl-draft-analysis-racial-bias-quarterbacks-18355172.php

Media Release - SENIORS’ GROUP FORCING ANOTHER FORD CLIMBDOWN

I'm involved with a Senior's Climate group called SCAN!  This morning SCAN! put out this media release.  

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For immediate release, November 6, 2023

The Ford government is finally going to release climate reports it has kept hidden from public view. 

Thanks to the efforts of members of SCAN!(https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/), the Ford government is finally preparing to release four reports on how it should be protecting Ontarians from climate breakdown. One has been hidden for two years. The others were kept hidden for the better part of a year.

Late Friday November 3, SCAN! adaptation expert member Jennifer Penney was notified that the government will soon be releasing them in response to several Freedom of Information requests she has made.

It took the retirees more than a year of direct requests to the Ministry of the Environment, Freedom of Information filings by multiple individuals, media interviews, and an open letter signed by 1,400 Ontarians to get the government to show us what it should be doing about adaptation to climate breakdown.

“These reports provide expert advice for Ontarians, for our communities, for our governments, to guide efforts to protect us from the impacts of severe climate events” said Dr. Penney.

“Scientists have long called on governments to implement comprehensive adaptation programs. It is unconscionable that the government has sat on this guidance for so long. It shouldn’t take a bunch of retirees making a fuss to get it to move.”

One of the reports is from the Advisory Panel on Climate Change, appointed by the government in 2019. It was led by climate change adaptation expert Paul Kovac and was submitted in November 2021. But it has not been seen since.

 The Technical Report of Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment (PCCIA), dated January 2023, was quietly released in late August, seven months after it was submitted. It only hinted at what needs to be done to protect Ontario from climate breakdown.

Among these hints, the PCCIA Technical Report emphasizes the need to “protect and strengthen the Conservation Authorities Act and Environmental Assessment Act”.  This advice runs counter to Premier Ford’s mandate letter to the Environment Minister, which required a review of environmental legislation that impacts businesses to ensure it didn’t place “undue burdens” on the private sector.

“As the PCCIA Technical Report insists, we need ‘accelerated action’,” said Penney. “I sincerely hope this government soon shares what that action will be.” 

Seniors for Climate Action Now! Is a rapidly growing voluntary organization mobilizing seniors to call for emergency climate action at all levels of government.

Further information: Jennifer Penney, jp1146@gmail.com, 647-458--0404

Encampment Update

Earlier this year I wrote about a legal case pertaining to homeless encampments.

Justice M.J. Valente of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had ruled that the Region of Waterloo couldn’t evict people living in tents from a vacant lot the Region owns. https://whenthemayorsmiles.blogspot.com/2023/03/encampment-precedent.html

At the time I understood that the ruling was precedent setting and would impact other municipalities.   It seems I was overly optimistic.

According to the Advocacy Centre for Tenants of Ontario (ACTO) municipalities are responding to the needs of their residents in different ways. 

Some are using enforcement and displacement as a last resort.

And some are taking a different approach. Take Cambridge, for example.

They are “focusing on clearing and forcibly removing residents, resulting in people being displaced with nowhere else to go,” claims ACTO, an Ontario specialty legal clinic.

"Some of these people were evicted three times in a matter of two months,” Ashley Schuitema, staff lawyer at Waterloo Region Community Legal Services (WRCLS) told Cambridge Today’s Joe McGinty.  https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news/legal-action-in-the-cards-after-cambridge-encampment-evictions-7652134

Up North, Sault Ste Marie looked at other City’s bylaws and figured they could amend theirs.  Just in time for winter they decided to protect their parks. The only Council opposition came from Ward 3’s Angela Caputo according to CBC News. 

"I think it's imperative that we shift our attention to creating and advocating for a system to end homelessness rather than enacting laws to try and police our way out of it," said Ms. Caputo. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/social-services-legal-challenge-poverty-issues-1.6952421

Some cities like Kingston are in court where the arguments revolve around how much housing is available.  There is always lots of debate on such numbers. 

Let’s get real here. It is obvious to anyone that rental rates and availability are beyond the means of increasing numbers of people in the province.

Municipalities are spending taxpayers’ dollars on fighting our fellow citizens in courts.  The Hamilton Spectator reported today that lawyers representing Hamilton tried to recover court costs from those without housing who are in an ongoing human rights battle with the city.  Instead, Justice James Ramsay ruled the City should pay costs of $5,000.  

The last word today goes to ACTO:

“The Charter dictates that unless and until encampment residents are provided with truly accessible accommodation, evictions should not occur. Moreover, encampment residents deserve to be consulted and involved when municipalities are attempting to find solutions for them.”

Looking for the Reports

I have just submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Ontario government.

This is a first for me.

The origin of the legislation that put FOIs in place goes back many years. It was part of the Accord adopted following the 1985 election when the NDP agreed to support David Peterson’s Liberals for two years. 

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) legislates access to information held by public institutions in Ontario subject to specific requirements to safeguard the personal information of individuals

Adapting to Climate Change

All governments brag about transparency.   The current Ontario government is no exception.  In fact, Premier Doug Ford, a chronic embellisher, claims there has never been a government as transparent as his. 

So, you could say that my FOI request is a test of that assertion. My interest is getting information on Ontario’s climate change plans.  With the country burning this summer, people losing their homes, firefighters being killed and extreme weather events now common one has to wonder what government has planned to respond to such conditions in the future.  So that is what my FOI request is about.  How does the government plan to adapt to climate change? 

There is a bit of a story to this.

A group I’m involved with took some initiative.  The Ontario Project of SCAN! (Seniors for Climate Action Now) has members knowledgeable about adaptation strategies.  They were aware that the Ford government had done some work on this matter.

In fact, the Ford government has put together major reports on the urgent task of anticipating and reducing the impacts of climate change. In November 2019, the Ontario government appointed an Advisory Panel on Climate Change led by Paul Kovacs, a professor at Western University and an expert in the field of disaster risk reduction.  The creation of this panel was no secret.  It was announced publicly.

It seems most of the reporting was completed nearly two years ago.  But the reports were kept secret until recently.    One of them is now available likely because of public pressure.

This past January, Jennifer Penny, one of our members who previously worked as a climate change adaptation researcher, submitted a FOI request to find out what had happened to this reporting.

“Ontarians want to see these reports! But even more, we want to know what the government is doing to protect us,” says SCAN!’s Jennifer Penney.

She got a response of sorts.

FIPPA: “What is the name of the report?”
Jennifer: “We don’t know.  It is being kept secret.”
FIPPA: “What was the date of the report?”
Jennifer: “Don’t know that either.  It’s a secret.”

This seems to be how the FOI process works - transparent government in action, much like looking for light through a brick wall. 

So, an open letter and petition entitled Release the Report was prepared and circulated. Over a few weeks in the summer more than 1,300 people signed the petition.

Then on a Friday afternoon in late August with no fanfare the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment appeared on the Government of Ontario’s website.

Its 530 pages are filled with what the CBC called “grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario.”  We’ll have a soaring number of days with extreme heat, more extreme flooding and more frequent wildfires. The agriculture sector faces risks of declining productivity, Climate risks will be highest for Ontario's most vulnerable populations and this will “continue to amplify existing disparities and inequities."

In some ways the report tells us what we already suspected.  But such suspicions are confirmed by experts.

The report does "the best job that's been done to date describing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather," Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo told the CBC.

SCAN! had been looking for two reports.  One was released.  Imagine our surprise. Turns out there are actually four reports. Three companion reports, including one on Best Adaptation Practices, are still hidden by the government. 

Those reports are what I’m asking to see in my FOI request. 

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More information on SCAN! can be found at  https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/

Listen to the story of the hidden reports on  All in A Day with Alan Neal at https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-92-all-in-a-day/clip/16009552-seniors-climate-action

Through Paphlagonia with a Donkey

Like many others my travel plans have been restricted since the spring of 2020.

Recently however I was able to take a literary trip along with Simcoe writer David Beasley with the re-release of his book Through Paphlagonia with a Donkey. The book, originally published in 1983, documents David’s travels in remote northwestern Turkey in 1958.

He was 27 when he set out with a donkey he named Bobby along a route that ran parallel to the Black Sea through a wild area in modern day Turkey which carries the ancient Greek name Paphlagonia.

Unlike most of us when travelling David “deliberately avoided researching the history of Paphlagonia” as he “did not want to ruin the element of adventure and surprise…”

David believes that to know other peoples you must “enter into the spirits of their ways.” Present day travellers may not subscribe to this view.

Prior to actually hitting the road David was mistaken for an Englishman and had a pistol pointed at him.  A crisis was averted when there was clarification that while he spoke English, he was in fact a Canadian citizen.

“Travelling through a foreign land amongst people who more often than not mistook me for an enemy was not pleasant.  Like a refugee, I fled from one town to the next, always a subject of curiosity, never feeling part of the land or the people.”

Further along the road David was also misidentified as a Russian, a spy, a travelling salesman and a German.  These characterizations typically came from those with some position of authority in the many villages he passed through. On the other hand, ordinary Turks seemed quite accepting of his visits and offered hospitality and generosity that one would not find in western society.

The book also provides insights and background in to the complex history of the region.

“My journey with a donkey into ‘nature was not to escape life but to find it; not to escape self but to find self,” wrote the author.

 A good reason to read an excellent book.

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ON Saturday May 27^th from 2-5 David Richard Beasley will launch his Through Paphlagonia with a Donkey at The Ledge, 31 Norfolk St North, Simcoe.

Copies of his other books, including Sarah’s Journey will be available. Also, a new release Operations of the Army Under General Wolfe by Adjutant-General Buller with Major Richardson’s A Canadian Campaign of the Right Division in the War of 1812 and Richardson’s Recollections of the West Indies will be available.

Still Going On

                                            C'mon talk to me
                                            So you can see
                                            What's going on
                                            (Marvin Gaye - 1971)

Recently I found myself thinking back to the spring/summer of 1970. I was young then, still a student - twenty years old.  

It’s May 4th.  And I have a vague recollection of preparing to leave my parents’ house for a night shift in Hamilton at Stelco’s #2 Rod Mill.  Around 10 p.m. I heard the news. There had been people killed in a shooting earlier that day at Kent State University (KSU).  

What were my thoughts at the time?  Mainly about myself I’m afraid.  Two years earlier I had embraced a rather unrealistic dream of attending Kent State on a track scholarship.  If I had been granted one, I would have been finishing my second year at a small liberal arts school in conservative northeastern Ohio. It was only 275 miles away from home. What would I have been doing when the shots rang out?  Would I have been protesting? Studying? Out for a run? Sleeping in?

Unknown individuals had burned down the campus ROTC building on May 2nd. On this Monday students and other demonstrators had been in their third day of protesting the invasion of Cambodia and escalation of the Vietnam War.  President Nixon had described the military action as an “incursion.” A euphemism, I’d say.

You’ll remember that four students were killed. Perhaps you’ll recall more details - like nine wounded (one permanently paralysed) when twenty-eight National Guardsman fired off about 67 rounds in just 13 seconds.
 

CSU Archives/Everett Collection

A 20-year-old from Youngstown Ohio, speech therapy student Sandra Lee Scheuer,  was one of the four who died that day. Ten years later Canadian Gary Geddes in his poem Sandra Lee Scheuer wrote:
                         

                        She did not throw stones, major in philosophy
                        or set fire to buildings, though acquaintances say
                        she hated war, had heard of Cambodia.

Shortly after the tragedy Neil Young, having come upon a picture of a KSU student “dead on the ground,” documented the event with the song Four Dead in Ohio.  Crosby Stills Nash and Young recorded it.   Almost overnight Four Dead was a hit and became one of the best-known protest songs in history.   It pointed fingers, named names.  

                            “Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s Coming.
                            We’re finally on our own.
                            This summer I hear the drumming.
                            Four Dead in Ohio."

Protests expanded across America; schools closed.  People took to the streets.

The violence spread down south to where Jackson State brothers.  Learned not to say nasty things about southern policemen's mothers. (The Beach Boys - Student Demonstration Time, 1971.)  

Many miles south of my home late on May 14th, more students were shot.  This was at Mississippi’s Jackson State College, a school attended primarily by black students. State and local police fired hundreds of rounds into a women’s dormitory from just 30-50 feet away. Every window was blown out on the street side of the building.  Two young black men were killed. At a minimum twelve were injured as it is likely others were fearful of reporting their injuries.  

Across from the besieged girls’ residence on Lynch Street, a 17-year-old high school senior, a runner who dreamed of attending UCLA, heading home from a part time job, was gunned down.  Later that night family members searched for him.  Incredibly, no one in authority reached out to the family to say Earl Green was dead.  Unbelievably, no one was ever held responsible for his death or that of 21-year-old father and Jackson State honours student Phillip Lafayette Gibbs.

The Jackson College shootings never received the big headlines and media attention that Kent State did.  The uprising that triggered the excessive police response was less about the war and more about that other American bifurcation – racial injustice.

Back Home
 
Later in that summer of 1970 I was part of the Torch Team that carried the ceremonial flame to Flint Michigan for the CANUSA games. The games were, and still are, an annual gathering between Flint and Hamilton Ontario promoting goodwill through amateur athletics.  Twelve of us covered the 250-mile distance through Port Huron arriving in Flint on a Friday evening to officially open the games.

Over that weekend I was privileged to meet other young athletes; Americans my age, with interests similar to mine.   But their obsession, among the men at least, was the recently introduced military draft and whether their birthdate would be drawn and not the many trivial pursuits that engaged me. 

I returned to school in September where among other subjects I studied U.S. and Canada comparative politics. Peace order, good government - that’s us.  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what America is built on.  That was the basics back then that I grasped to the extent a young student could.  Today, I wonder if the relative consensus in our political life in Canada contrasted to the extreme polarization down south can be traced to these different guiding principles.

Looking back, I can hear sirens wailing, the shattering of glass, the acrid smell of a burnt armoury, pinging of M1 military rifles. I can sense the fear of an unknown future and try to imagine the frustration felt by those dealing with racism and discrimination.  Plus ca change.

Where I live now is only 17 miles to America.  Somehow it seems farther away.

Encampment Precedent

Here is a longer version of an article I wrote that was published in the Hamilton Spectator on March 25th.  You may find it at https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2023/03/25/kw-encampment-precedent-could-apply-in-hamilton.html

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Last year in Hamilton a judge ruled that an encampment could be cleared from a city park as there were enough shelter spaces in the system to accommodate those living in the encampment.

It was a different judicial result in Kitchener when a ruling came down in January.
Justice M.J. Valente of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the Region of Waterloo can’t evict people living in tents from a vacant lot the Region owns. It is believed that the ruling is precedent setting.  

You can read Justice Valente’s 51-page decision at https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-ONSC-670-Ruling.pdf

The issue revolved around a vacant lot at 100 Victoria Street in Kitchener’s downtown.

The Region wants to use the space for a lay-down area for the construction of a transit  hub. 
Back in December 2021, Waterloo had evicted tenants from an encampment on Stirling Street East using steps they believed “were consistent with the requirements of a by-law.”

They did concede that “the manner in which these actions were carried out did not reflect the dignity of those living at the encampment.”  No kidding!  Staff enlisted the help of a road maintenance crew with heavy equipment to clear the Stirling Encampment. 

As a result, the Region felt the need to clarify how it might enforce its legal rights and so brought an application to seek the direction of the Court.

It was the Region’s opinion that the conditions at the encampment posed a risk to the health and safety of encampment residents as well as to that of others. As a result, the Region determined that the encampment had to be disbanded. 
What is it like in that encampment?  

Every individual will have their own story but one that Justice Valente heard from 32-year-old Kathryn Bulgin, homeless for approximately 6 years, is instructive.   Ms. Bulgin is a victim of both physical and sexual assault and currently suffers from drug addiction.   Before living at the Victoria street encampment, she slept in hotel rooms, shelters, behind dumpsters and couch surfed. 

For her and many others shelter bed accommodation can be “very stressful” because there (is) no certainty if a bed (will) be available.  Ms. Bulgin (does) not have a watch or phone.”  The result is that she can’t always return at a designated time to claim a bed. If evicted from the encampment Ms. Bulgin would simply move to another campsite.

This is an important issue that Justice Valente explores in considerable detail. Shelters don’t work for many people.

Dr. Andrea Sereda is a physician practicing at the London Intercommunity Health Centre in London, Ontario. In testimony, she cited five reasons why encampments have advantages over shelter use.  Encampments decrease isolation and risk of fatality and decrease forced transiency that increases the odds that the unhoused can maintain a connection to outreach services. They give people a sense of community. minimize sleep deprivation and provide physical and mental rest.

Interestingly staff challenged Dr. Sereda’s value as an expert because she had not talked to any residents of the encampment.  Staff’s contact with residents was far from comprehensive.  

As local governments are inclined to do, the Region developed policies and procedures that would apply to the estimated 1,100 individuals considered homeless in Waterloo..  Justice Valente had some praise for their work; he had some criticisms as well. For example, it seems staff presented data in a way that would justify their opinion.  Small actual increases in incidents calculated as part of a risk assessment at the encampment site looked a lot more concerning when presented as percentage increases.  

Advocates have long argued that housing is a basic human right.  In fact, the government of Canada supports the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing as part of their National Housing Strategy.

Section 7 of the Charter states that  “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Justice Valente took a look at the fairly extensive litigation that has occurred regarding the right to shelter as it relates to Section 7 of the Charter.  His conclusion can be summarized in a few words.  

The individuals encamped at 100 Victoria St. have a right to be there under Section 7. 

“Because the By-Law prohibits the erection of shelter protection that is necessary to protect homeless individuals from risk of serious harm, and there is currently inadequate shelter beds in the Region, I conclude that it violates the Charter protected right to life,” writes Valente.

Shelter Beds

Municipalities have made this argument for years.  It goes like this: “There are vacancies in the shelter system.  So people are able to stay in shelters.”  

But the actual number of shelter beds available or not available is contentious. 
Justice Valente picks this up recognizing “that it is not just the number of available indoor sheltering spaces that frames the right but also whether those spaces are truly accessible to those sheltering in parks.”

The Region made two other arguments that were rejected.

First, they contended that the Charter doesn’t apply because the encampment residents were looking to protect property rights, which are not Charter protected.  Not so, said Justice Valente.  They weren’t making such a claim.  Encampment residents just preferred to be close to services they regularly use.

Another Regional argument was that previous Ontario court decisions supported evictions.  But those decisions dealt with parks, where the broader public had an interest in using, not a vacant lot such as the site in question.

If evicted from the encampment where will residents go, Valente wondered. Likely to live rough or set up camp somewhere else.  What choice do they have?  Creating shelter to protect oneself is, a “matter critical to any individual’s dignity and independence.” By preventing this, the Region interferes with the “choice to protect itself from the elements and is a deprivation of liberty within the scope of section 7.”

Waterloo Region has decided not to appeal the ruling. 

Sharon Crowe, a lawyer involved in the Hamilton case,, is optimistic that the decision will be a catalyst for change.
  
“Not only are they not appealing, they are investing $163 million into housing and homelessness.”

The City of Hamilton is now back at the table talking with advocates. Hopefully, others will follow suit. 

Empty Buses

(Here is a little story on public transit I made up based on my experience as a municipal councillor  many years ago.)  

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One thing I’ve learned in my short career in municipal politics is that municipal politicians know how to problem solve.  It is what they do.

And the elected officials at Clarovista City Hall are no exception.

Take the issue of public transit for example. 

Public opinion is divided on transit in Clarovista.

Some people want it.  And others don’t.

Now the people who want it are mostly those that use it or would use it if the service was any good. 

Those that don’t want it or don’t want much of it or don’t want it on their street mostly have garages and two or three cars in their driveways.

These people with cars and garages worry about buses a lot particularly the matter of empty buses.  And they let their Council members know how they feel.

Councillor Roger Harris is particularly responsive.  Few buses run through Councillor Harris’ ward.  

Those that do certainly look empty to his constituents.

I’ve tried in public and in private conversations to explain empty buses to Harris. They happen routinely in the transit world, I say. They get empty when going in the opposite direction to rush hour peak flows and at the end of routes. Some times of day are less busy and some areas of the municipality have fewer riders. 

Harris himself has not been on a bus since riding a yellow one to day camp back when Diefenbaker was Opposition leader and C.D Howe and the Liberal Party were arrogant and flogging pipelines.

Harris has ideas for transit management to address the empty bus dilemma. Small buses are the way to go. They cost less and the optics would be better.  And, if the route ran every hour instead of every 20 minutes, we could save money.  Councillor Harris puts energy into the sketching out better routes for the buses.  Tricky stuff.  

Tonight, we receive the annual transit review.  It is the only area we review each year.  Questions of staff focus on efficiency, pros and cons of raising fares, decreasing support from the province.  

Councillors have ideas in all of these areas.

But Councillor Harris’ brainwave stops the meeting.

“Why can’t the buses just go back to the garage when they are empty?”

by

Ken Williams

Former Councillor

Ward 5

Clarovista

Truth Has Vanished

Like the passenger pigeon it seems that truth has vanished forever from our political discourse.
 
Not that long ago when Trump was President of the United States and still tweeting he posted a tweet where, in one sentence, he made 4 false claims.  (A tweet is about  two short sentences.)
 
This came as no surprise to those paying attention to the state of today’s politics.

The People's Premier?

In Ontario the Premier, of his self-styled Government for The People makes promises like:
                              

                No one will lose their job, absolutely no one.
                      
                I’ll lower hydro rates by 12 per cent.
                             
                We won’t touch the Greenbelt. of Ontario 
 
It is not enough that the promises are unfulfilled but that such statements are repeated so often that they become assumed authentic.

So what about truth?

Eric Blair, Spanish Civil War Veteran

George Orwell  had something to say on the matter. The English writer argued that history had, in fact, stopped in Spain in 1936. Orwell had seen that reporting in Spain’s newspapers “did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.”

 

Orwell, then a virtually unheard of English writer known as Eric Blair, worried that the “concept of objective truth (was) fading out of the world and lies would pass into history.”

 Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!)

For the past couple of years I’ve been involved with a group called Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!) https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/
 
SCAN volunteers spent a good deal of time and energy prior to the June 2nd provincial election documenting Ford’s crimes against Climate.  New crimes against the environment like the More Homes Built Faster Act are being documented but it is hard to keep up with this repeat offender.   These crimes all seem stem from the kind of thinking that denies objective truth.  A case in point is the rationale recently put forward to open up lands in the Greenbelt  in order to build so-called affordable housing. 
 
Much has been written and said by experts, advocates and citizens regarding Bill 23 the More Homes Built Faster Act (2022).  Here is SCAN!’s view https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SCAN-Climate-Crime-34-2023-01.pdf
 

The Ford government is well aware of the opposition to their measures but has calculated that the public will just accept them because they are passed.  

We can`t give up the fight.  Here are some resources and links you can check out.
          
Resources and Events
 
*You can find Environmental Defence at https://environmentaldefence.ca/
 
*Changes to maps and Official Plans can be found at https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6216#decision-details and https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6217
 
*Alliance for a Livable Ontario is at https://www.liveableontario.ca/
 
*The Land Between, a grassroots non-governmental organization, has materials on the  consequences of the legislation and what you can do at https://www.thelandbetween.ca/bill23-stealingourlegacy/#Solidarity

*The webinar Bill 23 and the Greenbelt – What`s Next? runs about an hour and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_j49m11Q7w

*Stop Sprawl Halton’s website is at https://www.stopsprawlhalton.org/

Lessons Learned from Delegating

Sometime when you’ve got nothing better to do head down to your local Silly Hall or Regional Government (if you are lucky enough to have two municipal governments) and delegate.

 It is your civic duty. In that spirit I combed my hair, put on the closest thing that I’ve got to church clothes, and headed off to the Region of Halton Canada some time back to address the budget. 

Delegating is always a learning experience. 

Here is what I learned. 

First, when you are finished speaking don’t sit down. Once you sit down Councillors will ask staff questions and you will have no ability to respond. Staff can say anything like: Bob Wood has a point but he would have more credibility on poverty issues if he hadn’t got his Grade Eight diploma out of a vending machine. 

Second, Councillors will not ask questions that you are expecting. I came prepared to answer in the negative as to whether I or members of my immediate family and/or committee colleagues had ever been members of the Communist Party. You can imagine my surprise when asked whether I thought water rates are regressive. 

Third, expect to engage in philosophical first year university discussions when you believe the agenda is fairly focussed or alternatively expect to focus on the agenda when you would like to engage in airy fairy dialogue. 

And finally, remember when you get the urge and feel like delegating that these issues are always too complicated for the public. That is why God created politicians, I guess.

Canada Jays, Moose and Citidiots

Typically in November we take a trip to Canada’s oldest provincial park, Algonquin. 

We’ve been doing this for quite a few years.  There is no great plan behind these trips. 

They started out when my son had responsibilities for volunteers who came to Norfolk County to assist with migration monitoring at Long Point.

A large number of species can be observed passing through Long Point in the fall but some of the more notable Canadian birds never make it this far south.  This unofficial November trip at the end of the migration season gave these volunteer birders an opportunity to see these birds before they returned home to the U.K., B.C., and Mexico or further afield.  

Looking back on these recreational outings, I wonder if there are some climate change lessons to be learned.

The main interest on these trips is to locate and observe boreal bird species - pine grosbeaks, boreal chickadees and crossbills.  Another boreal bird – the Canada Jay - although not hard to find - is of interest to casual as well as avid birders.  Algonquin is the extreme southern limit of its range.  The last time one of these passerines was seen here in Norfolk County was October 1975.

These birds are unique. They will feed from your hand and a common sight is to see them land on the heads of park visitors at the Spruce Bog Boardwalk. They’re the only birds in the boreal forests that stay on territory for the entire year. Through an astounding ability to store food, the Canada Jay survives long cold winters by living off thousands of pieces of food hidden in boreal vegetation.  Remarkably, research shows that the Canada Jay actually remembers where they’ve hidden food.

For nearly fifty years, most Algonquin Park Canada Jays have been colour banded thereby providing an excellent database on the species. There was a time when they inhabited all the land along Highway 60.  Not now though.

The cause of that decline is almost certainly climate warming.  Warmer temperatures in the park mean that the stored food isn’t lasting as it did in the past.

According to researcher Dan Strickland:

“As global temperatures rise, we can expect that insects, berries, pieces of meat or mushrooms stored by Canada Jays will spoil more rapidly. This will occur even in the winter and may be especially serious when repeated freeze-thaw events accelerate the degradation of perishable food. The cumulative effect of such warming may be that early-nesting (Canada) Jays have less stored food to feed their nestlings than in the past and fewer young jays are produced as a result.” 

Is it possible that a species that resides in all of the provinces and territories and is under consideration as our National Bird will become locally extinct? 

Moose

Back on Highway 60, I’m recalling an encounter with moose from ten years ago - a cow and its calf. (below left)  Although 800,000 people visit each year there isn’t much human traffic in the Park this time of year but on this day this pair attracted a bit of a crowd. Many passersby left their cars to get close to nature thus imperilling themselves and their vehicles.  Experts tell you never approach a moose and stay in your car if observing because they’re big (cows about 400 kg), protective of their young, and can run about as fast as a horse.  

Photo by Graham Wood

Older son Ross got it right that day when he called these wildlife observers “citidiots.” They seemed under the impression that the moose had been placed by the swamp for entertainment as part of some kind of roadside petting zoo. 

One has to wonder whether the ignorance on display that day has some connection to today’s climate warming deniers.  Not as overt stupidity as that practiced by those citidiots disturbing the moose but further evidence that some of us city folk just don’t get it.

Moose populations are in decline in some areas.  The science is tricky.  The latest published Moose Aerial Inventory for Algonquin from 2015 suggests there is a population of 2,655 individuals within the 7,725 square kilometre park.  Not as high as it was, but not bad and, in fact, in density terms among the highest in North America.  But there is danger from winter ticks.  That warmer weather we mentioned is increasing the survival rate of tick eggs.  These ticks actually travel on moose bringing on anemia, fur and weight loss and infection particularly in calves.

The UN Secretary-General recently sounded a warning: 

“Floods, droughts, heatwaves, extreme storms and wildfires are going from bad to worse” and are “breaking records with alarming frequency. They are the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction,” declared António Guterres.

These extreme events occupy our attention for a day or two of the news cycle.  We sympathize, shake our heads but comfort ourselves that these calamities are happening somewhere else - not in our back yards. 

Perhaps more subtle changes such as those impacting birds and mammals in our own backyard will be more successful in bringing attention to the impacts of climate change. 

Time’s a wasting!