Category Archives: Education

Entries focusing on environmental education

YENYR and the Ecohacks

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NO, this is NOT an Icelandic alternative rock group! YENRY is the acronym for the Youth Environmental Network of York Region, and Ecohacks was their most recent conference held at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University.

I had the honour to be asked to be their keynote speaker, but best of all, to tour the classrooms where the Ecohackers were hard at work prior to the keynote. The participants were all highly intelligent young high school students taking on the challenge of designing apps that would help our black mirror society become more environmentally literate.

Here are just a few examples: an app on your phone so you could take a picture of a product and it would give you its entire ecological footprint. Or another that could analyze the air quality of your specific GPS location and produce a time lapse video of your air quality history. Or another that let you know how far your produce had to travel to your store so you could make better “shop local” choices. Or, how about one that would alert you if you left an appliance on – like the proverbial halfway to Florida, “Dear, did you unplug the iron?” Yes, no more turning the car around thanks to Ecohacks!

Of course, being a bit of a rabble rouser, I would walk into each pod of hard working, app designing students and ask, “So, is this the room where you’re designing the dating app?”  It always got a laugh, until one group looked up and said, “That’s a good idea!”

“No, no,” I tried to explain, “I was joking.”

“Yes, yes,” they replied, “Still, a good idea!”

Their idea was to put together an app that would identify all the members of SEN in the GTA – if you wanted to get together for a brainstorming session to make the world more sustainable, you just had to go to the SEN “dating app” and find a group of like-minded, intelligent, respectful students near you and invite them over. Parents would love it!

“Hey, those SEN kids are coming over tonight. Again.”

“That’s fine, dear, Maybe we can go out to the movies then. You know those kids take such good care of the house when we’re away. I wonder if they’ll design an app for my next recipe ingredients – I do want to make sure they are sustainable and ecologically wise.”

So, from a joke about a dating app for environmentally literate students getting together to an app about sustainable development, we’ve come a long way baby. Gro Harlem Brundtland would be proud.

“The children of today are wiser than the children of light,” as my wise old Dad used to say about any gem that I verbalized, I never knew who the “children of light were, but I think I met some of them today at SENYR Ecohacks.

Now, I just need an app to help me find my glasses .. and my keys! “Honey, where are my … ? However, the app that won the day was “Littervision” winning The People’s Choice and Best Hack Award. They had the program that allowed users to take pictures of trash and identify the materials. Also, “Locomotion” won “Best Pitch” – they created the website that allowed people to easily buy local foods.

And all this from the mouths of babes, albeit very bright, very engaged babes The wisdom of the Elders is not a chronological reference point. And although I was their “Elder” keynote speaker, they had to guide me in and out of the building. A senior’s moment, and I trusted their guidance absolutely.

Our future will be safe in their hands if we just let them guide us there.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

 

honestyandtruth

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Seriously, that is the handle on a non-existent email address from an ANONYMOUS reply to my last entry on Truth and the Press. We actually had a productive conversation going until I my “peeps” alerted me to who it was, and the ANONYMOUS replier bailed into cyber space.

As one literate friend cautioned me, “If they’re anonymous with a fake e-mail don’t even respond.” And yet, the initial back and forth was a good discussion. We do believe in a diversity of opinions as long as they are well informed opinions. “Well informed” means that the facts do not come from Fox News or Breitbart or Chicken Little, but from an authentic source,. I still go with the 3P’s – practicing, published, and peer reviewed .

It was when I asked the anonymous replier for whom she or he was speaking, that it all broke down. “The people,” was the reply.

Now that set off all of my “El -Toro Pooh Pooh” detectors. There is no phrase so odious as “I speak for the people” other than “I do this for the good hard working taxpayers of Canada”, or “Trust me, I’m an Olympic gymnastics doctor,”

Someone who hides behind a fake email address and anonymous identity is a TROLL – and a bad one at that. Ugly and hiding under a bridge. The way I see it.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

Truth and the Press, a series

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On Friday, January 5, 2018, a staff member at Metroland Media’s Caledon Enterprise began to badger me by email with a series of intrusive questions involving a private matter before the Integrity Commissioner (IC) for the Town of Caledon. Not wishing to break the public trust and confidentiality regarding investigations by the IC, I did not answer the questions.

Several more emails followed pressuring me to respond by his editor’s deadline prior to the public release of the IC Report. I informed the “reporter” that I would be happy to consider his requests when the Report of the Integrity Commissioner was released publicly in Council. However, by now I was beginning to feel like I was being pursued by the paparazzi and less cordial about sitting down to a Q & A.

What came to mind immediately was a quote from the inimitable character Howard Prince in the closing lines of the 1976 movie, The Front. Howard had been placed in front of a McCarthy era team of aggressive lawyers to answer questions about his liberal left leanings and writings. Finally having had enough of their badgering, Howard ended the interrogation with the memorable words:

“Fellas. . .I don’t recognize the right of this committee to ask me these kinds of questions. And furthermore, you can all go f-ck yourselves.”

However, to answer more completely, The Report of the Integrity Commissioner regarding the complaint in question has now been addressed fully in Council. It was the decision of the Town of Caledon’s IC not to pursue this complaint against Regional Councillor Annette Groves. He also decided not to pursue this most recent complaint against the conduct of Regional Councillor Barb Shaughnessy, who has previously had to apologize in Peel Region for racial slurs delivered at an Ontario Heritage Board meeting, and been charged with violating the Code of Conduct at her own Caledon Town Council.

The complainants in this current case were the Mayor of Caledon, and an unnamed member of the public. The report of the Integrity Commissioner found that there was not enough evidence to prove that private in-camera negotiations had been inappropriately discussed at a public meeting. He also determined that misinformation about taxpayer funded transportation discussed at that same meeting had been later clarified. The IC concluded his investigation. And that should have been the end of the story.

But humble pie is not a dish found on many politicians’ plates. Following the Trump mantra of lie, scream and attack until you win, the games began. Either one or both of the Regional Councillors released the name of the “member of the public” from their private Integrity Commissioner Report to the same reporter who had been hounding me.

Now, in the preservation of public confidence, the Integrity Commissioner chose to release the names of the elected officials involved in the complaint. He also chose to keep the name of the member of the public confidential and had it redacted from all of the official documents. The reason for this is simple. By keeping the name confidential, a member of the public can bring forward a complaint against a politician without fear of reprisal.

Members of the general public do not have the stage of the Council chamber from which to address complaints. As witnessed in the histrionic claims of innocence that followed the release of the Report, some politicians take full advantage of that platform by which to perform for their base and the next election.

Therefore, by publishing the suspected name of the “member of the public” in a local newspaper, the reporter in question violated a public trust. If I were the redacted member of the public, it would make no difference to me. I am quite confident in the truth as I see it in my investigative journalism. And my blog entries have made it quite clear about how I feel about grandstanding elected officials who deliberately mislead their constituents. But some quieter, less confident member of the public might now think twice before bringing forward a complaint against an aggressive, abusive, and bullying politician. Not to mention an aggressive, bullying, and abusive member of the paparazzi.

Lastly, to clarify for the relentlessly annoying “reporter”, I will now answer his questions as if I were the member of the public whose name had been redacted for privacy reasons as determined by the wisdom of the Town of Caledon’s Integrity Commissioner.

For my full answer to the Metroland Media Caledon Enterprise staff, see the opening quote by Howard Prince.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

Let’s Talk Day

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Yesterday was the notable “Let’s Talk Day”, unfortunately sponsored by Ma Bell. However, the intent is wonderful – a chance to bring mental health issues into the open and allow individuals, families and communities to deal respectfully with the realities of differences in sanity. The deep necessity of a day like this was emphasized when Doug Ford announced his decision to tun for the leadership of the already disabled Ontario Regressive Conservative Party. We really need to talk.

However, on a more serious note, I would like to talk about an acquaintance who is afflicted with aggressive narcissistic personality disorder. This person probably has some wonderful character traits, but they are deeply buried beneath a defensive and aggressive exterior. I have attempted both personal and official channels to get his person help, but to no avail.

Even when faced with the absolute reality of gravity, this person will deny its existence if it doesn’t fit the populist worldview of the moment. My acquaintance has also shown a great disregard for reality beyond basic science. For example, although holding no college or university certifications in any profession, this person continuously claims almost superhuman skills in everything from Architecture to Environmental Science. So sad.

Perhaps it is this basic lack of any real competence that makes this person such an aggressive bully. Perhaps it is living with an equally ignorant partner who reinforces the bad behaviour. Perhaps an abusive childhood raised by inflexible,ultra-religious domineering parents (I know, I know – there’s a movie script just waiting…) I have no idea what the root causes of this negative social behaviour might be, but his person desperately needs help.

Let’s talk.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

Shame on Caledon

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Once upon a time there was a little village north of Toronto. It was once known as the “Greenest Town in Ontario” but that was before Highway 50 became one of the busiest truck and traffic corridors in Ontario. The once little green town now bears the shame of bing one of the most congested.

The problem is both local and provincial. Waiting for the Province an Metrolinx to get appropriate public transit into this are has been glacial in progress. So, I have a local solution. Now that the Emil Kolb Parkway skirts the Town, we can put up signs on Highway 50 to direct through traffic to go around the Town – so easy! However, when faced with a wide open double lane road, why detour? Here’s why.

Change highway 50 back to a little two lane Town Road, let’s call it Queen Street, between Coleraine to the south and the Emil Kolb roundabout in the north. Strictly enforce a 50 km/h MAXIMUM speed limitPut in traffic calming planters, bike and walking lans from Tim Horton’s to the south and The Caledon Centre for Wellness and Recreation to the north. That’s tight – only local Bolton traffic on that quiet little road through Town.

As for the BIA – permit short term parking in front of the shops – on both sides of Queen Street during business hours. Insist that the facades of every store look as historically classy as the former dentist’s office at 34 Queen Street South. If you make it attractive and easy to access, they will come. What we don’t need piling thorugh our Town are all the commuters heading north at high speed.

Perhaps, just maybe, the shame will go away and we can justly reclaim our title as “the greenest Town in Ontario.”

The way I see it.

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Skid Crease,

Caledon