Earlier this week Mr. Del Mastro, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and MP for Peterborough, complained about an Elections Canada investigation into his 2008 campaign, saying he’s frustrated he has no way to present his side of the story.
Now, the opportunity appears to be close at hand.
But oh, the suspense is killing me. Will he avail himself of this opportunity to 'set the record straight"?
I am sure that like me, many despair over the state of democracy in Canada. Not only is it under continuous assault by a federal government that has repeatedly and consistently shown its contempt for the concept, but it also suffers from widespread citizen disengagement.
Probably the two are inextricably connected.
In an interesting column today entitled Canadians need a forum to raise their voices against undemocratic leaders, The Star's public editor Carol Goar writes about a public trust called The Carold Institute, whose mission is to promote active citizenship, democratic participation and social change.
A recent panel discussion hosted by the institute stressed three essential observations and lessons that put our present perilous state into perspective:
- those with power — politicians, police and bureaucrats — don’t think they should have to share it. “They don’t like citizens and they don’t think they have any role.”
- governments are quick to slap pejorative labels — violent, dangerous, anarchic — on people who challenge them.
- citizens have to use the tools they have — solidarity, the willingness to stand up to authorities, the ability to reach beyond their own ranks — to keep democracy alive.
These are lessons we all would be wise to remember and take to heart in the long hot summer of discontent ahead.
The piece also offers the reader a sharp contrast to the Harper tribute presented over at Canada's self-proclaimed 'newspaper of record by the increasingly sycophantic senator-in-waiting, John Ibbitson, who extols the Conservative Cabinet and goes so far as to describe Environment Minister Peter Kent as a good and faithful servant, without even a hint of irony.
Regarded by some as a master of platitudes, Toronto District School Board Director Chris Spence says that things are getting better.
As outlined in The Star's investigative series, the board, in the thrall of Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, which forms the backbone of the TDSB’s facilities division, has for years been grossly overpaying for simple repair jobs. This was well-known to administrators and board officials for many years, and in 2006 a review was conducted by consultants Blackstone Partners, who then submitted a report to officials in January of 2007.
Despite the passage of almost six years, we are told today by Mr. Spence that some progress has been made, and the report is “working its way through the committee structure” at the board.
In what passes for clarity, lucidity and justification (cynics might call it base political posturing), the former football player drew a sports analogy:
“To use a football analogy, we are trying to move the yardstick. There is no quick fix,” said Spence, who became director two years after the review. “But I am not running, I am not hiding from the problem.”
“Blackstone took us so far. Some of the work we are doing now will take us farther,” Spence said in the interview.
To continue with Mr. Spence's sports metaphor, given the lack of specifics about this putative progress, combined with the aggregate revelations of the Star's series, some might conclude that it is time for this team to be kicked out of the league.
We know about the loathing part, but July 10 will answer the title question.
First, bullets flew through the Eaton Centre food court. Then, two weeks later, on a sun-filled patio in Little Italy. On Sunday, a man was shot while hundreds watched a fireworks display in the city’s east end. Just 24 hours before that, a stray bullet grazed a toddler’s leg in North York.
Yet Mark Pugash, Toronto police spokesman and spinmaster, tells us there is really little to worry about here.
I guess, despite evidence that would seem to contradict this skilled communicator, This is the best of all possible worlds.
