Councillors Take City to Court

Earlier this week Canadian Dimension published a story I wrote on city politics in Regina. It is not quite a man-bites-dog story but neither is it something that happens every day.   

Daniel LeBlanc, a Regina City Councillor is taking his own municipality to court.  Here is that story. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/regina-has-a-plan-to-end-homelessness-so-whats-stopping-it

Councillor Daniel Leblanc

There have been some developments since that article was published.   On Tuesday most of the Regina Council signed on to a notice of motion that the Councillors who initiated the lawsuit have violated the Regina code of Ethics by-law.MN22.7 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-city-council-mayor-manager-lawsuit-homelessness-1.6675651

To consider such a motion at yesterday’s (December 7th) Council meeting required unanimous support of Council.  That was received yesterday as the two Councillors who were involved in the suit did not vote because of what, I believe, would be a conflict of interest in Saskatchewan municipalities. https://regina.ctvnews.ca/regina-city-council-passes-motion-of-confidence-in-city-manager-niki-anderson-1.6185099 

In part the motion read: 

 “affirm and convey [council’s] continued confidence in City Manager Niki Anderson” and “express its disappointment over the negative impact on City Council’s operational integrity and oversight that the initiated court action has created.” 

Court proceedings are scheduled for next Tuesday ahead of Regina’s December 14th budget meeting.

A Thought on the Norfolk County 2022 Elections

There was a bit of a brouhaha November 17th 2020 down at the corner of Colborne and Calamity.  Maybe you will remember the occurrence.

Mayor Kristal Chopp called it a witch hunt, proceeded to axe and replace the Deputy Mayor and then left the building.

Of course, when Elvis left the building cheering crowds called for an encore but on the anniversary of the day when two rival municipalities Buda and Pest found a way to get along and merged a similar bonhomie was not to be found in Norfolk County. 

What about this witch hunting phenomenon?  It became the accusation du jour.

Witch hunting can be traced back to 18th century BC in ancient Egypt and Babylonia where punishment for nasty magic was addressed in the earliest law codes. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible  brought the term back and into the world of politics during the McCarthy era.   More recently, former President Trump consistently cast himself as a witch hunt victim on a par with the defendants in the Salem Witch Trials. 

Norfolk has its own tradition with the hunting of witches. Perhaps the witch trap used by Norfolk’s first settler, John Troyer, should be relocated from Norfolk Archives to Council Chambers to prevent any further transgressions.

However, lost in the excitement of that November afternoon’s shenanigans was the whole matter of the need for some clarity on what exactly the Norfolk Deputy Mayor does.

According to Norfolk Council’s procedural by-law as amended in 2017:

Deputy Mayor shall mean a Member of Council who is appointed, by By-Law or resolution of Council, to act from time to time in the place of the Mayor when the Mayor is absent from the municipality or absent through illness, or when the office is vacant and, while so acting, such Member has and may exercise all the rights, powers and authority of the Head of Council and this authority is delegated by Council under Section 23.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001 c.25

Not really helpful, is it?

Whatever the outcome on October 24th here is hoping the new Council will function with a much higher level of decorum and respect for its members and citizens.

And maybe they will update that procedural by-law as it relates to deputy mayor duties. 

Writing a Letter

Yesterday I sat down to write a letter to my Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP).

I’ve written similar letters in the past and received no response.  Perhaps I need a new approach. 

Maybe my letters haven’t been clear enough. Do my sentences run on? Does my correspondence suffer from subject verb disagreement?  Surely it must be one of these errors as I ‘m quite certain there would be no disagreement with my theme – fairness.  We all support fairness, don’t we? 

Specifically, my fruitless letters have attempted to address the lack of fairness of the social assistance system in Ontario.

There is much to be said about social assistance.  Space limits me.    First let’s talk about rates. In Ontario there are two basic programs.

The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is one. This program is designed to help people with disabilities who are in financial need pay for living expenses, like food and housing. 

Ontario Works (OW) is the other program.  OW helps people in financial need pay for living expenses, like food and housing.  Both programs can also give support in finding a job.
 
You have to qualify.  It isn’t easy.  But more about that later.

There was a time when social assistance rates bore some relationship to the real cost of living.  Not often did that occur but 1993 was a year where it could be argued that some fairness had been achieved.

Then along came Mike Harris.  During the 1995 election campaign, the poverty denying golf pro teed off on single mothers who were receiving assistance depicting them as some sort of boogie monsters ripping off the oppressed taxpayers of Ontario.  

Harris’s fabricated characterization was successful - politically at least. In 1995 he reduced social assistance rates in Ontario by 22%. It was one of the first acts of his new government.

Former Premier Mike Harris
made Big Cuts to Social
Assistance

Let’s be clear. There was no economic rationale for this move – just a mean spirited, ill informed attempt to make social assistance rates unattractive and presumably to make people find jobs that didn’t exist or that they weren’t qualified to do.

Today those rates are far below poverty levels.  How far?  A single parent with two children receives $1989 per month on ODSP.  The shelter allowance for a single person receiving OW is $390 per month.  Try finding a place to live for $390.  

Earlier this year, John Stapleton, a respected public policy guru, took a look at rates. He went back to those fairer 1993 rates and built in the 16.2% inflation that had occurred up to January 2022 and came up with new rates.    OW and ODSP would have to be raised 67% to get back to those levels.

What needs to happen?

A few years ago advocates drafted legislation that proposed a simple idea. An expert panel would be set up.  Each year the panel would recommend appropriate evidence-based social assistance rates to the Provincial Government. There were details but that was the idea in a nutshell.

An Act to Establish the Ontario Social Assistance Rates Board was introduced for first reading as a private member’s bill in the Ontario Legislature in June 2007. Unfortunately, the Legislature was prorogued the next day in anticipation of a fall election, meaning the Bill was effectively discontinued. Similar efforts have been launched since with the same result.

MPP Ted McMeekin proposed
a rates board in 2007

Another less talked about change took place nearly twenty-five years ago when the Family Benefits program was changed to ODSP. 

First, access to social assistance was made much more difficult as people were forced to reduce their assets before qualifying.  Many “stupid rules” were introduced - over 800 according to a 2004 report from the Ministry of Community and Social Services who ironically administered the stupid rules.  Front line workers spent at least 80% of their time on administrative issues, like filling out forms etc…, and not addressing the needs of recipients. 

With these changes qualifying for the program became a big issue. A majority of people applying for ODSP were turned down.  People had the right to appeal internally and then if unsuccessful they could go to a body called the Social Benefits Tribunal, an administrative body that deals specifically with appeals regarding social assistance, for a final appeal. 

A lot of hoops to jump through but if you did the hoop jumping you were usually successful in your appeal.  In fact, if you had legal help your chances of winning were over 90%.  That legal help (usually in the form of a community legal clinic caseworker) was then seen as a problem so the legal clinics’ funding was cut.   

I’m going to take another shot at writing that letter.  There is more that could be said about fairness but I’m fairly certain that any fool can see that the system is unfair.  Why waste time with that argument.       

I need to focus on eliminating those run on sentences and getting the verbs to agree with the subjects.

Police Budgets

Here is a timely opinion piece by Mohamad Bsat.  It is called Why is Hamilton's Police Budget so taboo? and can be found at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/election-column-police-budget-1.6587782?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar  

The piece brought back memories from many years ago when I tried to reduce the police budget.I recollected that event in the poem that follows.

                                    ---------------------------------

                The Budget*

On a long ago budget day, a procedural quirk
put a simple regional ward councillor
in a position to freeze the police budget.
Ward councillors don’t obstruct police budgets
because, as we all learned as kids,
the police(man) is our friend
does important and dangerous work
protects and keep us safe and
for all of this deserves to be well paid.

These are things that ward councillors,
even simple ones, should understand.
But since the common sense drumbeat
set the revolution in motion
we have come to know that the best government is
to have practically no government at all
and respect for hard-earned taxpayer’s dollars
is the order of the day.

Others are compelled to run their ship tightly
while the law and order liner sails unimpeded
through the calm waters of political indifference.
On that budget day, the simple ward councillor
Having, for a time, ascended
to the lofty heights of budget committee member
advanced what was (by his own humble admission)
a particularly persuasive presentation
convincing the one colleague who needed convincing
that police spending should be apprehended and
it was a great day for local democracy
or at least it seemed that way.
But the votes aren’t counted
until the politicians raise their hands
and when they did
the police got their money, as they always do.

No media or public witnessed the sad event though
police brass made time in otherwise busy days
to behold the councillor’s misbegotten manoeuvre.
Following his 15 minutes of small town fame
our councillor drove his car like an undertaker.
Even now, my lane changes are by-the-book perfect
and inviolable police budgets escalate still.

                                       ---------------------------------

*Originally published in The Dream The Glory and The Strife, Raymond Fenech (Editor), Barnes and Noble 2016

Looking for Respect

After the recent disturbing verbal assault on Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, I flashed back to 1965.  Remember that hit song Eve of Destruction song by Barry McGuire?  

Songwriter P.F. Sloan bemoaned the disintegration of human respect; found “the whole crazy world  ...just too frustratin'” Grim as it was in 1965, I doubt Sloan or McGuire could have imagined the extent of disintegration we are facing in 2022. 

Based on what I and others observe that is offered up on social media these days this attack on Freeland is not unique. Women. racialized individuals and groups, LGBQT people, non- Christians are all targets.  The list could go on.  

Deputy PM Freeland

In fact, it is pretty much open season for attacks against anyone whose opinion differs from that often anonymous person tethered to the keyboard whose only qualification to shout and fume is their ability to remember a password  

Politicians at all levels are under siege and things are heading downhill fast.

In my time as a municipal councillor (1991-97) it wasn’t like this.  In 1998, after serving for six years I presented a paper at a health promotion conference on local government and how it could work most effectively with community. 

The mainly European audience at a Scottish university challenged my thesis that local government was up to the task.

My theme was based on a fairly positive perception of local government and my optimistic, clearly biased view of elected officials

I put it all down to the fact that we just did a better job of local governance in North America.  The old world didn’t get it.

Then I moved on to other things.

After a nine year break I was back in local politics when my former wardmate moved on down the road to the House of Commons. Nine years away and boy how things had changed.

That change was brought about as people gained access to electronic mail, the internet and social media.

Back in the old days if a constituent had an issue to discuss it could often get resolved through something called dialogue. You remember that concept perhaps.

The councillor would make a phone call or meet in person with the constituent.  There were often nuances or complexities that one or the other had failed to take into account   Issues got resolved.  There was no shouting.

By the 21st century constituents simply had to go to their computer and punch in the requisite putdown, question your integrity and/or intelligence and copy the whole diatribe to everyone on their contact list. 

I should have seen this coming.  Back around 1998 I met futurist Robert Theobald.  Theobald argued that a “failure to listen” by decision makers had meant “that groups with certain attitudes and beliefs may come to feel they have been left out of the democratic process.”  In Reworking Success (1997) Theobald proposed that we move beyond “polar positions” and learn to define problems in wholly different terms.

Something to think about.

In the meantime let’s: 

**Stop the name calling in our public spheres. 

**Teach civics in our schools.  (Ontario is introducing a compulsory half credit program in September 2022 – a positive development)

**Find ways to ensure that news coverage focusses on facts.  I’m pretty sure the earth is round although I haven’t actually seen it in its roundness. We don’t give equal time to the flat earth society.  Why do we give it to crazy conspiracy theorists?

**Establish new rules for social media.  It won’t be simple but a balance needs to be found between the right for us to speak our minds and what is appropriate,  constructive and healthy.   

D-Day

*Nearly 150,000 Allied troops landed or parachuted into the invasion area on D-Day, including 14,000 Canadians at Juno Beach. My father was one of the men who landed that day.

(This piece adapted from the Sherbrooke Fusilier War Diaries originally appeared in The Dream The Glory and the Strife edited by Raymond Fenech - 2018 Hidden Brook Press.) 

Found in the Sherbrooke Fusilier War Diaries 
                
June 4-6 1944                                              
                                                                                     
High winds and low clouds stall D-Day 24 hours.          
In spite of the wind the flotilla sails southward                        
all night via charted channel waters. Men ruminate     
over what awaits on shore then land is sighted             
at 1000 hrs off Berniere-Sur-Mere. Craft start                        
the run in to the beach, men quite calm                        
sitting on top of their vehicles watch the shore.   
The Regiment lands, moves forward, no casualties                  
but next day German tanks make a first appearance,  
force the CDN infantry to retire with 63 killed,              
wounded or missing. Later, ready to move on                
a half hour notice, the sun sets amidst black                          
banks of clouds leaving a dirty red smudgy sky             
with the boom of distant gunfire broken                        
by the sharper rattle of nearby machine guns.
Everything seems ominous. Everyone is on alert.          
                                                                                   
July 18, 1944                                         

The shadow of death passes over Headquarters. 

In minutes, 21 cm mortars take thirty-one lives. 
Heavier casualties than a normal day’s fighting.            
                                                                                                              
August 25, 1944                                           
                                                                                     
An extensive map issue arrives showing vast
distances and fabulous advances imagined by HQ.
Startling indeed, as those left from D-Day recall
the slow, difficult struggle for CAEN and the
devastating exploitation and FALAISE assault.
Two days later considerable friction develops                 
among all command levels. Little is accomplished         
due to the lack of appreciation by the Infantry              
of issues arising using armour in country where
dense woods greatly limit the traversing of guns.
                                                                                     
September 1944 – May 1945                                                                                                                                                                     
A few men who were through the thickest fighting                  
are a little jittery yet but doing well and should            
soon be over it as the Regiment fights on in NWE. 


The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and 10,000 sailors and the RCAF contributed 15 fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons to the assault. Total Allied casualties on D-Day reached more than 10,000, including 1,074 Canadians, of whom 359 were killed. By the end of the Battle of Normandy, the Allies had suffered 209,000 casualties, including more than 18,700 Canadians. Over 5,000 Canadian soldiers died. (From the Canadian Encyclopedia.)

We Must Act Without Delay

I am a senior concerned about future generations; i.e., I want them to have a future on a livable planet.

A UN climate report predicts quicker global warming than anticipated.  It is a “code red” for humanity, according to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The Intergovernmental panel on climate change conclusions were clear. We must stop fossil fuel expansion, rapidly phase out the production and burning of fossil fuels, and invest heavily in renewable energy.

Meanwhile in Ontario Doug Ford has:

• Spent over $230 million to tear up green energy contracts.

• Ripped out Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations that had been installed at GO Stations.

• Cut the big energy users electricity bills while shifting those costs to citizens.

• Cancelled rebates on EVs.

• Gutted conservation authorities’ ability to protect communities against flooding and erosion.
  
  
  

• Weakened the Endangered Species Act to promote development.

• Escalated the use of Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZO’s) to push through development on sensitive ecological lands and 

• Scrapped the provincial tree-planting program.

 
These are but a few examples of Ford’s lack of understanding of the climate emergency we are facing.  Incredibly, this week he claimed that building more highways was a solution to the crisis.
 
We need to protect wetlands, waterways, forests and other natural ecosystems. We must create adaptation plans that range from climate risk reduction to strengthened income and food security provisions.
 
We must act without delay.