Caledon Deserves Better

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On March 22, 2018. In their Letter and Commentary section, the Caledon Enterprise published a letter by Derek Clark titled “Caledon deserves better”. Mr. Clark forgot to mention that he declared himself to be a candidate for the position of Regional Councillor Wards 3 and 4. A significant oversight since his letter was a direct assault on the sitting Council member in the Wards.

In his letter, Mr. Clark proceeded to take strips off current Regional Councillor Jennifer Innis for being a good councillor. Ms. Innis had spoken out on a radio talk show where she is a regular guest. She had commented on a case where the previous Caledon Mayor and her family had been threatened and bullied by development interests who were not happy with the Town’s planning.

Well, yes, Mr. Clark, the bullying and threats and assaults actually happened and were reported to the OPP. And yes, Mr. Clark, one of the accomplices served a three-year jail sentence for his role in the abuse. And yes Mr. Clark, the current Mayor had a rock thrown through his front window during another disagreement over the Town’s planning. This was also reported to the OPP. Time to be afraid.

This bullying and threatening is physical and psychological and intimidating, whether it is having someone beat up your husband or slur you on social media. Imagine Mr. Clark, if someone in Palgrave attacked you on social media with the #heknew just because you had hosted a reception at your home for Patrick Brown, allegations against whom have not yet been proven. And this kind of intimidation is already happening in Caledon months before the municipal election.

So, I couldn’t agree more with Ward 3/4 Candidate Derek Clark when he concludes that “Caledon deserves better.” Certainly much better than the pre-election self-interested slant contained in his letter. Before attacking Ms. Innis, Mr. Clark was an enthusiastic volunteer on Ms. Innis’ campaign team in the last municipal election. It was only when Ms. Innis decided not to run federally and vacate her Ward for a very eager Mr. Clark, that the collegial atmosphere dissipated. The mantra that Mr. Clark espouses in his letter seems to come straight out of the playbook of the two politicians in Caledon who continually oppose the Town.

Before going to print, I asked Mr. Clark and Ms. Innis the same questions by email. Only Ms. Innis had responded by Press time. These are her answers:

  1. Was Mr. Clark a member of your volunteer election committee?
  2. Did Mr. Clark encourage you to run for a federal nomination?
  3. Are you, like Mr. Clark, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada?

“Yes, Mr. Clark was an avid and dedicated volunteer and friend. He was a supporter until his decision to run for Council in the fall of 2017.

Yes, Mr. Clark encouraged me to seek the federal nomination for the Conservative party for the 2019 general election so that he may either run for Regional Councillor or Area Councillor in Wards 3&4.  After much consideration, I clearly conveyed both to Mr. Clark and the current Area Councilor, Mr. DeBoer my intention and wish to continue to serve as a Regional Councillor. While I was humbled by the encouragement and support received by many, I have committed fully to the good people of Caledon and will be seeking re-election as the Regional Councillor for Wards 3&4.

Yes, While partisan politics has no place at the municipal level, I am a proud Conservative Member.  And further, I am also proud of my employment history and the opportunity to have learned from some our finest Conservatives, like Hon. Ernie Eves, late Hon. Jim Flaherty, late Hon. Chris Stockwell and MP David Tilson.  In my role as a Regional Councillor, I work collaboratively with members from all political parties as it serves in the best interest of Caledon and Peel.”

Clearly and honestly answered, Regional Councillor Jennifer Innis. There is nothing more satisfying in political reporting than getting a straight “Yes” or “No” answer to your question, along with factual truth in the details. No spin or fake news here.

As to Mr. Clark’s letter, there is nothing more despicable than seeing the desire for power corrupt the vocation to serve.  Sorry, Mr. Clark, Ms. Innis is absolutely correct. If your letter is any indication, the good politicians of Caledon have every reason to be afraid. And the citizens of Caledon have every reason to vote very carefully in the upcoming election. I am very afraid, Mr. Clark, that you have already lost all credibility.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon Journalist

image from Twitter

Contaminating the Environment

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In early March of this year, there were reports of hazardous waste being dumped along the roadsides of Caledon. Police reports from March 5th and 12th indicate that the materials came from a synthetic drug lab. Not only is the air, water, and soil being contaminated, but also the personal and social environment associated with drug production, trafficking, and addiction.

This kind of hazardous waste is easy to spot – usually dark garbage bags or large buckets dumped on the shoulders of side roads away from prying eyes. It makes detection of the perpetrators difficult in a rurban area with homes well back from the road and infrequent traffic to witness the crime.

In my twenty years of community clean-ups in Caledon, I have found more than my share of garbage bags dumped unceremoniously in the ditches. Usually these bags would be filled with construction waste or sod or the excavations from frustrated homeowners digging out the clay from their backyards. Yes, hard to believe, but not all developers lay down the appropriate clean fill and the required 10 cm of topsoil before they lay down the sod.

This kind of waste disposal  is illegal dumping, and the fine for that in Ontario is $500 to $5000; the cost for illegally dumping hazardous waste is much higher. A recent case in Leamington, ON saw North Shore Express Ltd. Fined $150,000 and its owner Daniel Andrew Tiessen sentence to 30 days in jail and two years’ probation from holding a position of responsibility in any corporation. And that was for non-hazardous sludge.

In 2013, Walmart was fined $82 million for illegally dumping pesticides, bleach and fertilizers into American municipal waste streams. Walmart was not alone in this wrongdoing – Target, COSTCO Wholesale and Walgreens also shared fines in the millions to tens of million dollars. The bigger you are, the harder you fall.

That applies as well to the other type of type of environmental contamination going on in Ontario right now. With Provincial and Municipal elections coming up in the next few months, you can expect the toxic sludge to be flowing fast and furious as candidates trade barbs with incumbents while they campaign for a place at the public trough. Here in Caledon, it has already started.

While we are fortunate to have a majority of our Town Council possessing integrity, civility and respect for both each other and the majority of residents in Caledon, there are always the usual suspects. And as new candidates and coalitions jockey for their voices to be heard, the nasty underbelly of political campaigning gets exposed. During my brief stint as a federal political candidate I was cautioned that “Politics is a blood sport.” After watching the leader of my Party at the time get betrayed by competing power brokers, I withdrew rather than play that game.

However, some are playing the blood sport very well in Caledon. In my mailbox this week I received a plain brown 8×10 envelope with a stamp (but no postmark) with a printed sticker to my name and  address No return address, and inside was an equally anonymous single sheet of dark red paper, an interesting choice since it is very difficult to photocopy clearly.

This single sheet attempted to cast aspersions on a sitting Area Councillor by including an accusation that his donations to a certain federal political party, and a candidate’s leadership campaign last year for that same party indicated that he was “Trump-esque” in his philosophy. It referred to concerned residents in Bolton which is not even a major player in this Councillor’s Ward. Further it included a copy of Elections Canada funding records showing the details of those donations. Something that is easy to obtain if you sit on or have access to the executive branch of a political party.

As of the time of publication, both the Conservative Party of Canada and Elections Canada had responded positively to my emails, and both groups were actively working on identifying where the information originated. Since the stamps for the mailings had to be purchased, and it turns out it is connected to a municipal candidate, it would be considered an expense for a municipal campaign. Financed municipal campaigning is prohibited before May 1, 2018.

There is also the case of a sitting Regional Councillor for that same Ward who was recently the target of a vicious social media smear campaign impugning her integrity for her association with a controversial political leader. These attempted smears are egregious for two simple reasons. First there are no Party alignments in municipal politics – councillors are elected as independent citizens. Secondly, a person’s personal choice of political philosophy and associates is their democratic right. It is a person’s actions in public that speak louder than words. Both of these sitting incumbents are intelligent, social justice focused, economic conservatives and as far from anything “Trump-esque” as I can imagine.

It is hard to know where toxic waste like this originates. One could presume it is coming from competing candidates, or maybe a disgruntled citizen, or a litigious developer’s lobby group. So far there is only one declared candidate for that Ward, but there are other factions in the Town of Caledon who would love to see their voices come to power.

Well, if they play the game with toxic waste and hazardous materials, they should be outed, publicly shamed, and fined in the order of other “illegal dumping” penalties, including a lifetime ban on running for public office or campaign lobbying anywhere, ever again. This is one time I agree wholeheartedly with the “Not In My Backyard” philosophy.

Any person or their team who hides behind anonymous slurs and misinformation campaigns should be run out of town. This same kind of dirty politics cost my Ward one of the best, most genuine, hard working and honest councillors ever elected. We cannot afford to let it happen again. Caledon citizens be alert! Whether they are dumping hazardous waste into our ditches or our mailboxes or our social media sites, it’s all toxic. And we all need to remember that the price of good governance is eternal vigilance.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

* images from oaklandnet.com and stockfresh.com

Defamation and Libel Primer

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In November of 2017, I published a piece titled “Defamation and Libel and Smears, oh my! In it, the meanings of defamation and libel were clearly covered. However, one of my readers asked me to re-clarify for him the differences in relation to another article, so here is the simpler primer.

In the Province of Ontario and across most of the civilized literate world, if you say something about someone that is true, it is NOT defamation. If you say something about someone that is false, but does not damage their character or reputation, it is NOT defamation.

The main difference between defamation and libel is that the former is in speech and the latter is in print. Print it in a newspaper or magazine or blog, and it’s libel.

So for example, if you write in a blog that a certain journalist does not have professional credentials and smear his reputation, and it turns out that the accusation is not true and you were using misinformation, that is libel. If you say those same false things in public or private, that is defamation. Now, if when discovering your error, you withdraw the offending accusation, and make a full and sincere apology for your error in print, you’re a decent human being. If not, there’s a rock waiting for you to crawl back under.

In a recent blog, I commented that a colleague of mine, a well-respected local reporter and editor, had written an insightful commentary about gun violence and bullying. In that editorial he asked for answers, to which I responded last week with an article titled “An Easy Answer for Bill.” Bill also published my shorter Letter to the Editor response in his paper last week.

In his original article, Bill confessed to having been part of a group in school that had bullied other students. One day one of the targets of his taunts threatened to kill Bill. The situation was resolved without violence, but being a man of good conscience, it made Bill reflect on, as he put it so eloquently, “trying to navigate through adolescence while crashing into people trying to do the same.”

When I concluded my editorial on how differently that could have ended in a high school in Florida, I commented, “Just be grateful, Bill, that the boy you bullied in school didn’t carry an AR-15.”

Now, for my challenged reader, although this gave a fine opportunity to clarify the difference between defamation and libel (and compliment Bill on his eloquence) there is nothing even remotely associated with either defamation or libel in my editorial. Learning to read and comprehend is such a valuable skill.  These editorials are written for graduate level readers. According to the good old Flesch-Kincaid analyzer, the Star and Globe & Mail and National Post all come in at upper high school levels. On the other hand, the Sun is at a Middle School level and may be easier to understand for some – it uses a lot of pictures.

In summary, it is defamation if spoken, libel if printed, and neither if the words are true.

And, dear reader, I’m still waiting for that full and sincere apology.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon,

Member in good standing with the Canadian Association of Journalists

* image from azblackpeek.com

Justin and the “K” Conundrum

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I have a friend who I admire very much as a teacher and a dramatist. He decided he wanted to try politics. He worked hard and was very successful. So successful that he became the leader of his political party!

He was also very photogenic and charismatic and so were his wife and family. They liked to dress up. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with him and he loved having his picture taken with everyone. People began to wonder if he liked having his picture taken and playing dress-up more than leading his country.

The trouble really began with the K’s. The 3 K’s to be specific. No, no – not the KKK – that group is the polar opposite of his world view! I am referring to Khan, Kinder, and Khalistan.

The first misstep was a family holiday with his friend the Aga Khan. Now, if he had been a private citizen, no problem. But when a country’s elected leader takes a private holiday courtesy of a major contributor to his political party, that has to be approved by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner prior to departure. Oops.

The second misstep was the approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline using an approval process set up by the previous government. That process was unscientific, approved by an energy board made of partisan appointees, and lacking in full community involvement. Justin promised to change all that. He didn’t. That was complicated by his smack down of young woman challenging his position. He  shouted at her angrily and had her ejected from the public meeting. For all the country to see on the CBC. Really.

The third misstep was a costume trip to India in which Khalistan terrorism overshadowed the photo ops. Especially when one of his Sikh MP’s on the trip invited a convicted terrorist criminal to the party, involving two events. The  Khalistan separation issues got linked to several other Sikh members of his Party, resurrecting 329 ghosts from the 1985 Air India bombing. To complicate matters, Justin and his team tried to spin the story by having a senior civil servant place the blame on an Indian government conspiracy instead of squarely on the back of his own MP. Bad enough to try to squirm out of taking full responsibility for an international screw-up without also insulting the Indian government in the process.

Time to get the good ship Justin back on course.

Just like there is no “I” in “team” here is no “K” in “sunny days.”

***

Skid Crease

Canada’s Greenwash

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 On March 15, 2018 the government of Canada declared that it was going to dedicate $500 million to projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. Brilliant. The year is 2018. It is thirty years since the alarm was sounded in Toronto by the World Meteorological Society. In this case, better late than never doesn’t quite cut it.

 

But, if there is any good day to celebrate Canada’s Greenwashing, it surely is on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m sure most of our politicians are kissing the blarney stone right now.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says the government’s Low Carbon Economy Challenge will hand out the $500 million over the next four years to fund projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while also saving energy and creating green jobs.

I have a couple of suggestions. First, put the $500 million into a Precautionary Principles Fund for mitigating the coming flood, drought, fire, ice storm, Arctic thaw, and coastal erosion insurance claims. Secondly, if you really want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, suspend all developments in the tar sands, thirdly close all coal fired electricity plants,  fourthly stop extracting oil and fracking gas, and finally convert fossil fuel company dinosaurs into twenty-first century renewable energy corporations.

It is making me gag to hear our government offer $500 million to explore solutions that were proposed thirty years ago. It’s like gun violence – the solution is easy. Control the guns! You want to significantly reduce greenhouse gases? Then shut down the industries that produce excessive greenhouse gases and don’t approve projects like Trans Mountain Pipeline that encourage more fossil fuel use! You want to stop violence against women? Expose and #MeToo the heck out of stupid, abusive men!

This is the KISS principle, consensual of course, for environmental literacy.

Your community wants clean water? Don’t dump toxic chemicals or sewage into the watershed. I’m sure Grassy Narrows would have appreciated that private corporation requirement with stringent government oversight and enforcement instead of a lazy blind eye.. Don’t reward people with a $500 million taxpayer bailout when they are so environmentally illiterate that they don’t  realize it’s not a good idea to defecate in the community well. “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Well then, stop doing that!”

Canada stands tall on the world stage, represented by wonderful and well-meaning people, lauded in the myth of our green environmental standing by dint of our tiny global population. But per capita, we are major players in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

This is not my opinion alone. Try this from a November 2017 news report by Bob Weber of the Canadian Press for CBC:

“To an international diplomat, the irony is painful — the country that promised action on climate change is falling behind while the country that has spurned a major treaty on the issue is making progress.

That’s Canada and the United States, Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, said Wednesday.

“It’s a bit of a paradox, here,” Gurria told The Canadian Press. “In Canada, you have a situation where you have a very strong political will to reduce, but effectively it has not gone on the planned road.

“In the United States, you have a government that has pulled out of the (Paris) agreement, but in the United States you are having a reduction in emissions.”

Gurria has high praise for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government’s strong vocal support for climate change. Gurria said Trudeau made a real contribution to reaching the Paris deal in 2015 in which 169 countries promised to reduce their emissions enough to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius.

But when the signatories get together next year to take a look at each other’s progress, Canada may not be so much in evidence.

“You have here a very proactive and decisive leadership moving in the direction of reduction of emissions, and a very active participant in the Paris agreement and a very active participant in the whole of the world’s move,” said Gurria, who was in Toronto to speak at the Munk School at the University of Toronto.

“While at the same time, the local situation is showing that speed of reduction is not as fast as one would have wanted.”

Yes, Bob. Yes, Canada. Yes, Catherine. Not what we wanted by March 2018. And not worth $500 million to start now. The train has already left the station. Either shut down the big emitters or stop proselytizing. Our children are the first recognize a greenwash and. like the students in Parkland, they want action, not a greenwash stuck in the spin cycle.

The way I see it.

***

 Skid Crease, Caledon

 *image from climatenadcapitalism.com