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.

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*image from Eventbrite

 

 

Aren’t politics ironic, don’t you think?

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Irony, by common definition, is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. As students of English Literature, we learned that dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows what is going on, but the characters in the poem, novel, play do not.

Political irony is a little different. It occurs when politicians say or print or graphic something that is the total opposite of who they are and/or what they do or have done. The effect is not humourous but it does tend to emphatically highlight their hypocrisy.

Two examples will suffice to illustrate this concept clearly. The WE Charity controversy that dominated the media for much of 2020 was created by the Conservative and NDP parties for the sole purpose of tarnishing Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada. Although all of the spurious accusations against the government and its leader were found to be groundless by the the federal Ethics watchdog, the WE Charity was destroyed.

This was an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. They started it on a dream when they were teenagers, and it brought inspiration, opportunity and global success to youth around the world for over 25 years. In the summer of the pandemic when students desperately needed employment, the Conservative led attack against WE crushed the dream and their program to provide projects and grants to post-secondary students across Canada.

Less than a month after the dust had settled on the WE controversy, we received a full colour brochure in the mail from our local Conservative Party of Canada MP, Kyle Seeback. It had his smiling face on the front cover beside the banner headline “Opportunities for Youth” … too little, too late Kyle.  That’s political irony and hypocrisy in action.

 

The second example is closer to home. On November 26, 2020, Caledon Regional Councillor Annette Groves voted against her own Town of Caledon at the Region of Peel. The subject of the vote was a motion to reduce Caledon’s Regional Councillors by 2 and add 2 seats to Brampton’s delegation. Her colleagues in Caledon were totally blindsided. At a time when Caledon’s population is expected to grow exponentially over the next ten years, losing representation at the Region made absolutely no sense at all.

At a Special Session of Council streamed live on November 30th, Ms. Grove’s actions and the passing of the motion were widely condemned by citizen delegations and Councillors alike. The next day in our Canada Post mailbox, I received a full colour three-page fold out brochure. There on the front page was Ms. Grove’s smiling face beside the banner headline, “Dear Friends and Neighbours.” That’s political irony and hypocrisy at its finest.

With friends like these, we don’t need enemies. But we may need a lesson in media literacy to remind us that all that glitters is not gold. Those happy smiling faces and weasel word headlines are designed to lure us into the lie. Remember carefully the words of warning in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

O’ serpent heart hid with flowering face! Dove-feathered raven, wolfish-ravening lamb.Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st.

Yes, when political irony is in play, put on your sunglasses, look past the glitter, and pray we don’t get fooled again.

The way I see it.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

*images from politicalbrochures.com

The Betrayal of Caledon

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On Thursday, November 26, 2020, Caledon was betrayed by one of its own citizens, one of its own elected representatives. That person was Regional Councillor Annette Groves. And here is how it unfolded.

At the Region of Peel Council meeting that day, Mayor Patrick Brown of Brampton walked a surprise Motion on to the agenda that would remove two out of the five Regional Councillors currently representing the citizens of Caledon at the Region of Peel. The two seats that Caledon lost on Council would go to Brampton. Normal procedural guidelines and debate were suppressed and the Motion passed with the support of the Brampton and Mississauga Mayors and Councillors. The Mayor and Councillors from the Town of Caledon voted against the Motion with one notable exception … Caledon Regional Councillor Annette Groves.

Caledon’s Mayor and the other Caledon Regional Councillors were totally blindsided by the surprise walk-on Motion. Regional Councillor Jennifer Innis is hoping the Town Council will swiftly address Grove’s vote against Caledon’s citizens.

Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson responded immediately with an emergency communication to Caledon citizens: “This surprise motion is unacceptable. Representation on Council is important. This discussion warrants greater respect than a walk-on motion. If there are problems of representation to be addressed, they can’t be at the expense of diminishing Caledon’s voice on Regional Council. We are going to continue to play a bigger role economically for the region and in the Greater Toronto Area. Now more than ever, we need effective representation.”

A Special Live-Streamed Council Meeting was quickly called for November 30, 2020 to address this crisis. Local online news reporting on the reduction of Caledon’s significant reduction of representation at the Region of Peel drew a swift commentary from one Bolton resident:

“This surprise Motion was walked on by Mayor Patrick Brown and supported by Caledon Regional Councillor Annette Groves. It is totally unacceptable for a representative of Caledon to deliberately sabotage our representation at the Region of Peel. If allowed to stand, this act of betrayal will put the growth planning for Caledon at the mercy of Brampton and Mississauga politicians and their influential developer puppeteers.”

Citizens of Caledon should now be calling on their Council representatives to hold Regional Councillor Annette Groves accountable, publicly censure her, and in a recorded vote unanimously condemn her actions.

Regional Councillor Grove’s latest betrayal of Caledon is a confirmation that she is unfit to serve and represent our citizens.

The way I see it.

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Skid Crease, Caledon

NOTE: The Peel Region meeting from November 25 is currently being streamed online.

* image from toronto.com