When the Fish Rots …

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One of the cornerstones of environmental literacy is the ability to detect and analyse patterns and understand how those patterns connect. Those can be patterns in the behaviour of animals and plants, weather and climate change, and the physical processes and properties of Earth. It can also be applied to politics and responsible governance.

In the natural world, for example, what is behind the connection between a decline of wolf populations in the North and a dramatic rise of the Canada Jay population? Turns out that when the wolf population is eliminated, the moose population booms. With all those moose around, the moose tick population explodes. In mating season, the male Canada Jay loves to offer a fresh juicy moose tick to his prospective mate, which leads to a lot of baby jays! It also leads to a severe infestation of ticks. More on this in a later post.

Applied to human behaviours, the search for patterns is equally revealing. Consider the old biblical adage from Timothy 6:10: “Love of money is the root of all evil,” along with the more modern observance that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Add a little lust into the mix and you have the Holy Netflix Trinity of sex, money, and power that makes the wheels of a corrupt government go round and round.

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that we observe a pattern of powerful monied people donating to politicians’ campaigns and fundraisers, and then being granted the fast track to their projects without regard for the rules of law. Let’s say that those politicians claim that they are only helping their constituents move the projects along, and show little or no remorse when accused of breaking the codes of conduct for their office. Let’s say that they then publish glowing media reports about how happy their constituents are while also attacking any citizens who expose their questionable integrity.

That particular pattern would indicate a less than responsible state of governance. One in which money and power, rather than the voice of the people and the laws of the land, manipulate the decisions of government. If we introduce sex into that mix, consensual relationships between, let’s say, a Governor and a Land Baron, then we have a conflict of interest situation which would render any decisions made by that Governor suspect and invalid. Hypothetically speaking.

As Hamlet said, “More honoured in the breach than the observance. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. That one may smile and smile and be a villain.”

There’s an old saying that the fish rots from the head. It actually starts to rot from the guts and that rot spreads through the whole body. Maybe it’s time to get some fresh fish.

The way I see it

Once Upon a Time in Nodelac

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Once upon a time, there was a beautiful kingdom known as Nodelac. It had a benevolent Queen and an honest Governor and it thrived and prospered. It grew from a little milling village into a sizeable town over the years and the people were happy.

Of course it takes many materials to build a town, and so the people sawed and dug and ploughed and sewed while still protecting their wild green spaces. One year though, the people looked at a great hole in the ground that they had dug and said, “Hmmm.  This is a mess! We will have to clean this up!”

So the Queen and the Governor summoned the Nature Guard to supervise the clean-up and certify that the hole in the ground was rehabilitated. So it was written, so it was done! Over the years the hole in the ground became a beautiful lake surrounded by green fields filled with life – flying, fluttering, crawling, hopping, slithering and loping creatures of all shapes and sizes!  And the people called It their Wildlife Sanctuary.

Over time, the Queen passed on and was replaced by a King who liked holes in the ground more than wildlife sanctuaries. The King then gave new powers to the Governors under his “Ruthless Governor’s Law”  This new law, and a lot of bags of gold from the King and his wealthy Barons, made a few of the Governors also begin to love holes in the ground more than wildlife sanctuaries. Some of the Governors refused to follow the new law and maintained the peoples’ voice in their towns. But many gave in to power and greed.

Sadly, the Governor of Nodelac was seduced by these new powers and by large bags of gold from a wealthy land Baron who looked at their beautiful Wildlife Sanctuary as a chance to horde even more gold. The Baron bought the land surrounding the Wildlife Sanctuary! Then he convinced the Governor that if he got permission to fill in that “old hole” he could build an unaffordable new community on the ugly flattened landscape.

Although many of Nodelac’s people and elders opposed the destruction of their beautiful Wildlife Sanctuary, the Governor set in motion a series of edicts to let the Land Baron quickly get ready to fill in the beautiful lake in the middle of their Wildlife Sanctuary. The people were angry, the elders were angry, and all the little creatures were scared.

“We must do something,” they cried. “We must let all the citizens of Nodelac know that this Ruthless Governor is violating the Queen’s edict that our Wildlife Sanctuary is royally certified and protected. We cannot let the Land Baron buy our future!”

The people then exposed the corruption and draconian decisions that perverted the voice and rights of the citizens of Nodelac They rose up and deposed the Governor, shamed the betrayers out of town, banished the land Baron, and shortly thereafter toppled the King.

And the good people of Nodelac and their Wildlife Sanctuary lived happily ever after.

*****

Now, dear Readers, imagine that this is happening right in our own backyard. What would you do to save our Wildlife Sanctuary? As Robert Bateman once said to me, “Skid, we never save anything by moaning and groaning about them once they’re gone. We save things by celebrating the beauty of their existence while we still have them.”

Wise words by which to live and act.

The way I see it.

***

Footnote: The exact location of the mythical Kingdom of Nodelac is uncertain. The Gaulish colonists who first displaced the indigenous peoples called it Nord du Lac.The second wave of Anglo-Saxon colonists blended the name to Nodelac.

When is a Mayor’s Gala NOT a Mayor’s Gala

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In the Town of Caledon a fundraising Gala was held on May 2, 2025 that saw thousands of dollars given out to support a wide variety of very fortunate community organizations, The generosity of the donors is admirable, and the organizations who received funding from the Gala must be very grateful. But the event itself has raised some questions when almost a month later the “Gala” was reported under a different title.

How did an invitation from Mayor Annette Groves to the “Mayor’s Gala 2025: a community fundraiser for 14 community organizations” become, in the gala committee’s invitation, the “Annette Groves Community Gala“? Did what appeared to be a Caledon event turn out to be a private function?. As reported in the May 29th edition of the Caledon Citizen it is called the “Annette Groves Community Gala“. But the online Eventbrite site for ordering tickets to the Mayor’s Gala 2025 carried the following invitation: For the purposes of responsible governance, fiscal transparency and accountability, a little clarification would be appreciated.

Mayor's Gala 2025 Tickets, Fri, May 2, 2025 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite

You see when a Mayor’s Gala is announced it is assumed, quite rightly, that the Town or City of which the person is Mayor is helping to organize the event. Take for example the City of Ajax which describes it’s annual Gala this way:

“Since the Inaugural Gala in June 2019, the Ajax Mayor’s Gala has raised $1,300,000 net to support organizations making a meaningful impact in our community! In keeping with The Ajax Mayor’s Gala tradition, the purpose of our shared experience is to benefit charitable organizations and not-for-profits doing great work in our community.”

And the tickets aren’t cheap, with five sponsorship levels running from $10,000 to $30,000. Now that’s a lot of fundraising! But for a really big show, mark June 10, 2025 on your calendar! That’s the City of Vaughan Mayor’s Gala. Last year they raised 1.1 million dollars for local organizations. Again attendance isn’t cheap. You can be a Presenting Sponsor for $100,000 all the way down to a Corporate Table for only $5000.

Or, if you don’t have enough to do this pre-Christmas there’s always the Nov 29, 2025 Pickering Mayor’s Gala. The point is that towns and cities are always throwing fundraising events. But you won’t see the Ajax Mayor calling his event the “Shaun Collier Community Gala”, or the Pickering Mayor writing his own boastful article about the “Kevin Ashe Community Gala”, Or the Vaughan Mayor hosting the “Steven Del Duca Community Gala.”

So, what’s so different for the town of Caledon? An event originally titled as a Mayor’s Gala alludes immediately to the Town associated with that Mayor. People buy tickets and make donations based on that relationship. It is a fundraiser guided by the ethics, principles and policies of the Town, open to full financial disclosure and public accountability.

But when it becomes “Joe Schmo’s Community Gala”, not organized by a Town or City, that is a totally different matter. That can be a financial wild west show with money trails leading in all sorts of directions. Well, at least according to fans of Ozark. And the gifts doled out to the various community organizations are not done under the auspices of the Town. These are now personal donations from the Gala organizers.

What’s so odd about this recent Gala in Caledon is that it was clearly advertised on Eventbrite, the online ticket seller, as an “Invitation from Mayor Annette Groves to the Mayor’s Gala 2025” and yet weeks after the event Mayor Annette Groves wrote a glowing report in the local Caledon Citizen,  in her own Mayor’s column, about the “Annette Groves Community Gala

The Town has said they were not involved in the organization of this fundraiser, so who were the organizers of this sold out event? Will there be a full public accounting of all the monies raised, a list of the donors, and how the funds were distributed? If it is not the Town giving out this charitable money, then who? Queries to the Town of Caledon’s Communications Department for clarification were not answered by publication time.

In Caledon’s last municipal election campaign, a mayoralty candidate made this statement: “I believe in responsible government, fiscal transparency and accountability.”

Good words by which to live and lead.

The way I see it.

UPDATE. June 4, 2025, Town of Caledon Communications has responded that, although this is not a Town sponsored event, “This was Mayor Groves’ Annual Community Gala, which she held as a fundraiser to support local organizations doing meaningful work in Caledon.”

So, this event is clearly Annette Groves’ private Community Gala. Stay tuned.

*****

*image from Eventbrite

 

 

The Last Child In The Woods

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When my last child was born, I decided to retire early and become a stay-at-home Dad. After thirty years of teaching other people’s children the joys of outdoor and experiential education, it was time to have a classroom of just my son,  It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Before he could walk, I backpacked him through every local park and trail we could find. I wheeled him in a stroller to my Faculty of Education classes at York University.I sat him down in the autumn leaves by the edge of a tiny babbling stream so he could listen to the water. I sat him on the chair of a kick sled as we glided along the snowy trails of the Canadian Ecology Centre.

When he could walk, we hiked together everywhere, and worked together at the Caledon-King outdoor campus of the Toronto-Montessori School setting up gardens, orienteering courses and high ropes course challenges. My wife got us hooked on geocaching, so every family road trip became an  adventure. We went on canoe trips, watched the whales spouting from a campsite in Cow Bay, canoe trips in Algonquin Park, camping on Pancake Bay, kayaking in Nova Scotia. It truly was the best of times.

They say the personality is firmly established in those early years, and I hoped his would be rooted in natural systems with every biophilic synapse tingling in his mind. He is a man now, and a fine one. This is also my legacy, that the last child in the woods carries all of those memories, and will keep them alive.

The way I see it.

The Peacemakers

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My third child is simply a child of light. A boy who moved with non-stop energy and a joy of exploration that was a wonder to behold. As a result, of course, in many of the pictures I have of him as a child he has no front teeth. You can only swing through so many trees and climb so many boulders before nature takes its course with an abrupt stop now and then.

He was also the peacemaker, the person could calm anything down with his smile and laugh. He now lives in Oregon, in a beautiful valley with his wonderful wife, and a whole new family of friends who love and respect him as much as we do. Just hearing his voice on the phone makes my heart soar.

His peaceful and loving presence on the planet is also my legacy.

 

The way I see it.