The Curse Of News Literacy

There are some days I almost wish I weren't a newspaper reader. That way I wouldn't be confronted  daily with the world's stupidity and perhaps not constantly haunted by a jaundiced view of humanity.

In my previous post I wrote at some length about the buffoonery that defines the Doug Ford government here in Ontario; while I briefly return to that subject now, I shall also take a look at my disappointment over Jagmeet Singh's recent pronouncements. Just bear with me, if you are so inclined.

First, a peek at our Pavlovian premier, Mr. Ford. The previous government, under Kathleen Wynne, mandated charging plugs for all new house and condo builds in 2018. Mr. Ford, in 2019, stripped that provision out of the building code. Despite his heavily investing in EV battery plants for Ontario, he will not reverse that decision.

... after lobbying from developers who said the plugs added $500 to the cost of a new house, Ford stripped them from the code. He also ended rebates of up to $14,000 for buyers of EVs and scrapped chargers from GO Transit stations and other public locations.

Why, when EV investment is so important to the Ontario economy, would he continue to hang tough?

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, who tabled legislation modernizing the building code on Wednesday, warned that keeping new home costs low is more important than mandating EV chargers.

“Look, I think homeowners can make that decision on their own. If you’re wanting to buy a EV, we encourage you to do it — that’s why we’re making massive investments in that,” Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“But if that’s something that you want to do, then the homeowner themselves can undertake that. We want to keep costs of building new homes down,” he said.

The price of installing an EV charger in an existing home can be between $1,000 and $3,000 — much more than putting one in during construction.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the Tories “are ideologically opposed to building the infrastructure we need for electric vehicles” and that has economic consequences.

“Is Ford Motor Company delaying the building of their plant and retooling their plant in Oakville because they know we don’t have the infrastructure in Ontario to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles?” said Schreiner.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the 'soundness' of the government's 'thinking'. 

Things are not much better on the federal scene. I must confess to my surprise and disappointment with NDP leader Jagment Singh, who now seems to be waffling on the carbon levy and thereby succumbing to the siren call of populism.

The federal New Democrats no longer believe a consumer carbon price is necessary to fight climate change, Jagmeet Singh suggested Thursday.

The new position, which appears to break with the NDP’s previous support for the policy, was outlined in a speech Singh delivered at the Broadbent Institute’s annual policy conference in Ottawa on Thursday. In it, he distanced his party from the federal Liberals’ flagship climate policy, which has drawn criticism from across the country as the levy and its accompanying rebates increased this April.

Singh condemned the approaches of both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to the climate crisis, and said tackling it “can’t be done by letting working families bear the cost of climate change while big polluters make bigger and bigger profits.”

Sadly, this move lends legitimacy to the prattle of PP and the provincial premiers, who seem to speak as one in denouncing the levy as a burden on all of us, despite the fact that most come out ahead with the feds' quarterly rebate checks. 

I will give Singh credit for one assertion, however.

Referring to a March report that concluded industrial carbon pricing systems were far more effective than the consumer levy on fuel, Singh told reporters that the New Democrats “want more attention on the policies that are the biggest drivers of lowering emissions,” such as the industrial price on pollution and methane regulations. 

Industrial carbon pricing systems would be a reference to such protocols as cap and trade. Yes, the very same system that Doug Ford dismantled when he came to power, a move that led to Trudeau imposing the carbon levy on all of us. Interestingly, even as Mr. Ford and others rail against the levy, no one seems to have any interest in bringing back cap and trade. Why not? You would have to ask Mr. Ford and his friends in high places for the answer.

I also don't have a direct answer as to why the electorate cannot make the journey from A to B and connect the dots that would show the arrant hypocrisy of people like Ford when they indulge in the political theatre of fed-bashing.

Hence my jaundiced view of humanity.

Small Minds And Big Power

It will probably come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I have a rather low opinion of our species. There are too many small-minded people thinking they are the smartest people in the room, reflecting the classic Dunning-Krueger effect. Nothing can be done about this reality, as they seem wholly incapable of taking any semblance of instruction.

The real problem, however, is when politicians target that audience for their political support. We see it, of course, in the U.S. as Don Trump cultivates his MAGA morons. Unfortunately, the problem also occurs closer to home. We see it in PP's simplistic aphorisms like "spike the hike' and "axe the tax", his answer to climate change mitigation efforts. And here in Ontario, Doug Ford has no doubt provided sociologists and political analysts all manner of fodder when it comes to populism. Indeed, he has made an art out of promulgating the picayune.

Ford, our very own arrested development premier, has made a virtue out of small-minded policies at the expense of constructive, long-term ideas. As you know, thanks to his 'magnanimity', we no longer have to pay licence plate renewal fees, at an annual expense to revenues of $1.2 billion. Add to that the ongoing gas tax 'holiday', and you are left with a substantial gap in the provincial treasury. And perhaps you have heard of Ford's latest scheme to force the LCBO to bring back paper bags to spare the expense of having to buy a reusable one if you have forgotten yours at home, all in the name of making life more affordable.

One of the problems when you concentrate on the 'needs' of the 'little guy' is that you think you can fool everyone and ignore those who want real intelligence in decision-making. Take, for example, his latest scheme. Because his government is woefully behind in the goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, Ford's solution is to count the rooms in Long-Term Care homes and dormitories. 

It's an idea being met with ridicule in the legislature. Rob Ferguson writes:

“What are they going to count next … jail cells?” New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles said Tuesday as she criticized Ford for fighting fourplexes as a way to improve the housing supply.   

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra — who on Wednesday will announce new measures to “cut red tape and help municipalities build” — pushed back at critics with his own argument.

“Obviously, student housing is very important,” he said.

“Every time we build new housing, or a college or university campus builds new housing, that is more housing that is available in the community. I don’t think that’s a very difficult concept to follow.”

Why such transparent fraud?

To meet its 1.5-million target, the province needs to build an average of 150,000 new homes annually.

But the last two years, the actual numbers were well below that, with 109,111 in 2023 and 80,300 in 2022. Soaring interest rates and higher building costs driven by inflation were factors.

 Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, a former three-term mayor of Mississauga, accused the government of “trying to prop up their numbers with dorms and retirement units because they’re not meeting their (housing) targets.”

“It’s misleading, and it’s just a shell game,” she told a news conference at Queen’s Park. 

“You can’t even have a microwave in a dorm room. My goodness, that is not a home,” Stiles said in an exchange with Calandra in the legislature’s daily question period.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner mused whether the government might go further.

“At this point, the government is going to start counting tents,” he quipped.  

Stiles's, Crombie's and Schreiner's objections are based on an assumption that the electorate is not stupid. That is likely a miscalculation on their part. In any event, people who know things, read papers and keep up with events are clearly not the target audience the Ford government has in its sights. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

Stupidity: The Epidemic

 

For those who are congenitally stupid, I have much sympathy. For those who are stupid yet think they are the smartest person in the room, I have only disdain. And it is the latter that this post seeks to address.

Although I have written on this topic before, stupidity's myriad manifestations continue to hold me in a perhaps unhealthy grip. But I know that I am not the only one who is both fascinated and repelled by this subject. Last week, on one of my regular walks with a few of my retired colleagues, all of whom actually read and are aware of the world around them, the topic of stupidity as it relates to Trump's followers arose. As is always the case when we gather, we had a spirited discussion as to possibly explanations of the cult for whom the Chief Grifter can do no wrong.

Later that day, one of them sent me an article by a neuroscientist named Bobby Azarian who offers this interesting definition of stupidity:

Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be “smart” while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that “you can’t fix stupid,” but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.

Indeed, to add to the above, I would say that having some humility about our own limitations is part and parcel of being critical thinkers.  Thus, for example, I accept the scientific consensus on Covid vaccines, a topic that so many with no expertise claim to oppose because they read something contrary on the internet or in a chat group. It is a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby people think they are smarter than they are and know things that others don't. As Azarian says, they are ignorant of their own ignorance.

The problem is especially worrisome because such people tend to be attracted to confident, strong-man leaders.

For example, Donald Trump — despite not having any real understanding of what causes cancer — suggested that the noise from wind turbines is causing cancer (a claim that is not supported by any empirical studies). It is well documented that on topics ranging from pandemics to climate change, Trump routinely dismissed the opinions of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to understanding those phenomena, because he thought that he knew better. It’s bad enough that politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t recognize their own ignorance and fail to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when making claims that can affect public health and safety — but what is really disturbing is that they are being celebrated for their over-confidence (i.e., stupidity).

I hope you will find an opportunity to read the entire article, but I shall close with one more excerpt from it:

This new theory of stupidity I have proposed here — that stupidity is not a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but a lack of awareness of the limits of one’s intelligence or knowledge — is more important right now than ever before, and I’ll tell you why. The same study by Anson mentioned above showed that when cues were given to make the participants “engage in partisan thought,” the Dunning-Kruger effect became more pronounced. In other words, if someone is reminded of the Republican-Democrat divide, they become even more overconfident in their uninformed positions. This finding suggests that in today’s unprecedently divided political climate, we are all more likely to have an inflated sense of confidence in our unsupported beliefs. What’s more, those who actually have the greatest ignorance will assume they have the least!

And in this American election year, that is very, very worrisome. 

 

Take My Money. Please!

With even Britain's Labour Party avowing no new taxes on the wealthy, it is refreshing when one reads about people of means asking to be taxed more. In the United States, it is the billionaire Warren Buffett who clamours for fair taxation. His Buffett Rule came to prominence when he

publicly stated in early 2011 that he believed it was wrong that rich people, like himself, could pay less in federal taxes, as a portion of income, than the middle class, and voiced support for increased income taxes on the wealthy.

Regrettably, there is little such appetite in Canada, where that kind of talk is met with dire warnings of doom, the myth being that we are overtaxed. No one wants to impose penury on the wealthy, since they already do so much for us, eh? However, one individual is piercing the 'party line'. Claire Trottier writes:

Despite being part of the 1 per cent myself, ... we’re not addressing the underpinning factors that are accelerating the concentration of wealth and power into an ever shrinking percentage of individuals.

The solution is right in front of us: we need to tax me and people like me more and that means taxing wealth. 

She points out that the gap between the very rich and the rest of us is widening.

Canada’s roughly 50 billionaires have seen a 51 per cent increase in their wealth since the beginning of COVID and have more assets than the bottom 40 per cent of Canadian households combined. And it’s getting worse, as hugely disproportionate sums of wealth created in the last 10 years have gone to the top 1 per cent while the bottom 50 per cent have gotten practically nothing.

Given the crises in housing, food prices, general affordability and the climate, Trottier wants to see some changes. 

 I am one of over 250 millionaires who signed an open letter presented at the World Economic Forum at Davos saying that we would be proud to pay more tax in the form of a wealth tax. 

Polls show that a majority of Canadians support the idea of a wealth tax. 

All of society would benefit from a wealth tax. I’m not interested in being a rich person in a poor country. I want to live in a society where everyone can live a dignified life today and where we can mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change in the future.

Unfortunately, as I tried to point out in my previous post, the biggest impediment to fair taxation seems to be our government and the titans it chooses to fawn over and listen to. Until that changes, expect the gap between the rich and the poor, and its attendant policy failures, to continue apace.

 

 

 

Repost: Sometimes, All You Can Do Is Feed The Birds

Let's face it: life is grim these days, the Israeli-Hamas war but another reminder of our collective inhumanity, not just in the perpetration of evil acts of destruction but also in the very debate about whether a ceasefire in the killing of Gazans should be considered. with over 10,000 Palestinians dead thus far, that the question has become a huge heated topic of debate perhaps tells us a great deal about how far we have sunk. I am reminded of a term that was often used on the television series Law and Order: depraved indifference.

Additionally, given the rapidly deteriorating conditions of the world politically,  environmentally, socially and just about every other way one can think of, rather that simply disengaging in life, and hiding in our caves. is there a solution that is realistic and eminently doable.?

Over a year ago, I posted something about my personal philosophy that perhaps provides a partial solution, at least for me. Here is that post:

For many years, there was a popular saying that everyone seemed to know: "Think globally, act locally." Basically, it was a call to consider the global environmental implications in every decision we make. Not a bad sentiment, but I find myself living by something quite different in these latter days of my life.

In my backyard, which is perpetually sun-challenged, I have an array of drought-resistant perennials ranging from Hostas to Black-eyed Susans to Purple Coneflowers. Unfortunately, I have never had any luck with my Milkweed efforts, but at least the 'garden' offers something for pollinators.

Also in the backyard I keep a birdbath and two bird feeders, both of which I replenish regularly. Seeing the birds come and the bees collecting pollen offers me a small measure of comfort in these dark days. Because, when you think about it, sometimes all you can do is feed the birds.

The above  essentially encapsulates what has become my philosophy of life. Recognizing that the big issues like war, famine, drought, massive climate change, to name but four, have little likelihood of remediation, I was forced to change my outlook in order to keep even a semblance of hope and positivity.

Feeding the birds both literally and metaphorically allows me to maintain my humanity. Metaphorically, it means doing some good, usually locally, where I can. Such acts do not have a world-shaking impact but perhaps might make someone else's life just a little bit better or at least reduce their suffering in a small way.

I will not bore you with details of how I try to practise this philosophy, but opportunities to help abound: community refrigerators, hot-meal programs, volunteering, foodbanks, mentoring, helping a neigbour, providing a sympathetic ear to someone in distress,  just being present for another, etc.. Each of us, in our way, in our own communities, can help to "feed the birds." 

In my life, I have much to be thankful for. I accept the goodness in my life with gratitude, knowing that days of grace are guaranteed to no one, nor are they really ever merited. As grateful as I am, if I can do even a little to show monetary/emotional support for individuals who are suffering, I feel called to do so.

We sometimes really do underestimate what a kind word, a sympathetic voice, a show of support or a small donation can achieve in someone's life.

No Friend To The Environment

 

Readers will know that Ontario premier Ford cares little for environmental matters. One remembers his rash act upon assuming power of enthusiastically tearing up 750 green energy contracts, costing Ontario taxpayers over $230 million.

“I’m so proud of that,” Ford said of his decision. “I’m proud that we actually saved the taxpayers $790 million when we cancelled those terrible, terrible, terrible wind turbines that really for the last 15 years have destroyed our energy file.”

Now that the carbon is coming home to roost, one would hope Ford has gained insight into his monumentally stupid act. One would, of course, be wrong in that hope. Indeed, Ontario's reliance on fossil fuels has grown, seeking to meet energy demands that those torn-up contracts could have easily met, and at a much better price.

Take, for example, the gas power plants that are proliferating, originally touted for occasional use during peak-demand periods.

An investigation by the Toronto Star has found, however, that many of the province’s gas plants are operating far more often than their proponents say, effectively transforming them from rarely used peaker plants into baseload power plants that run almost all the time.

As a result, Ontario’s clean electricity is getting far dirtier, producing millions of tonnes of climate-destabilizing carbon emissions and spewing toxic pollutants into the air in some of the most densely populated urban areas in the province.

 “This will make air pollution worse, make climate pollution worse, and negatively affect Ontario’s competitive advantage in having a clean grid,” said Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.

“And on top of that, because fossil gas is so much more expensive than solar, wind and water power, it’s going to increase our electricity bills.”

Like almost everything else this tone-deaf, environmentally-inimical cabal does, the destruction of green-energy projects fits the profile of an administration still stuck in a 1950s mindset, refusing to acknowledge the peril we collectively face.

Here is the view of two Star letter-writers:

A sweet deal for gas companies, not the Earth

• Toronto Star
• 6 Oct 2023

Toronto’s Portlands gas plant ran 21 hours a day this summer, Oct. 1 

Have I got this right? As the rest of us are trying desperately to cut back fossil fuel use, the Doug Ford government chooses to run gas plants almost full time in the GTA when cheaper and greener sources of electricity are available. And now the plan is to ramp up pollution and carbon emissions.

Who’s been having massages together to cook up this sweet deal for the gas companies?

Robin Wardlaw, Toronto

Solar power can meet the peak demand

• Toronto Star
• 6 Oct 2023

Toronto’s Portlands gas plant ran 21 hours a day this summer, Oct. 1

The Doug Ford government’s policy expanding gas-fired power generation is a far more egregious and expensive missstep than the much criticized move of a planned “peaker plant” by the former Liberal Dalton McGuinty government.

The article reveals that Ford’s current plans for expansion will cost at least an unnecessary three quarters of a billion taxpayer dollars.

Gas-fired power generation is a technology we need to minimize soon if we want to fight climate change, reduce deaths from polluted air, and save the taxpayer’s money that the government is now planning to spend on building power plants that must soon be phased out.

Gas-fired plants were originally introduced to meet themajor peaks from air conditioning demand. This peak coincides with maximum solar power generation, and experts tell us such solar generation can meet the peak demand. It is cheaper, non polluting, aids in tackling climate change, and can be placed close to demand (saving transmission costs and transmission power losses).

The Green Energy Act (scrapped by Ford) encouraged both the business and residential investments needed for growth in electrical demand, and did it without needing massive government spending, no depleting of finite natural gas resources, not polluting the air we breath, or worsening climate change.

I also wonder if the planned builders of the proposed gas generating stations are friends of Doug Ford.

Bill Chadwick, Newmarket

Still not convinced? Well, there is also the matter of the secret 95-year Therme Spa lease at Ontario Place that Mr. Ford has engineered, a contract that will cost taxpayers over $600,000 to build an underground parking lot for its customers. However, the real cost goes beyond the monetary. Building this thing will require the destruction of 1500 trees, but in the minds of the vandals, this is a small price to pay for a "world-class spa." The environment? What environment, they dismissively ask.

It is enough to almost wish that Ford's original vision of a giant ferris wheel, mall and monorail on the waterfront had come to pass.

UPDATED: Yet Another Inconvenient Truth

 

crimes against humanity

1. a deliberate act, typically as part of a systematic campaign, that causes human suffering or death on a large scale.

One hardly knows where to begin, but one knows how it ends, at least in Ontario. The consequences of the Doug Ford cabal's depredation of the Greenbelt will hit home. Home to sensitive ecological systems and increasingly valuable farmlands, those lands and lands like it will become increasingly vital as global heating continues apace.

The CBC reports  that a study the Ford government commissioned learned in January of the dire future that awaits us all. Particularly interesting is the fact that the Fordians sat on the report until late August.

What were they trying to conceal?

The report – called the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment – projects a soaring number of days with extreme heat across Ontario, as well as increases in flooding and more frequent wildfires. 

Its 530 pages are filled with often grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario, including:  

• The agriculture sector faces risks of "declining productivity, crop failure, and livestock fatalities."  

• "Most Ontario businesses will face increased risks due to climate change."

• "Climate risks are highest among Ontario's most vulnerable populations and will continue to amplify existing disparities and inequities."

None of the news is good, but it does underscore for anyone with critical thinking skills the folly of the Greenbelt theft.

...they project how an expected rise in the number of days with extreme heat – 30 degrees and up – will have impacts on Ontario's growing seasons, businesses and human health.  

By the 2080s, the report forecasts that southern, central and eastern Ontario will average 55 to 60 such extreme heat days per year, a nearly fourfold increase from the current annual average of about 16 days. 

Northern Ontario, which experiences an average of 4 extreme heat days annually, is projected to see upwards of 35 such days each year.

One sees the reason for obscuring this report for so long when looking at its recommendations.

"Changes in Ontario's climate are expected to continue at unprecedented rates," says the report. "It is important to recognize how these findings can be used to spur action to protect residents, ecosystems, businesses and communities across Ontario." 

The report lays out the ways the researchers expect climate change to affect each region of Ontario along five broad themes: infrastructure; food and agriculture; people and communities; natural resources, ecosystems and the environment; business and the economy.  

 The president of the Climate Risk Institute, Al Douglas, 

says Ontario's food production and agriculture are particularly vulnerable to climate change. 

"Yields will decrease," he said. "It will affect the overall health of livestock. It will pose indirect threats to things like water availability, water quality. It'll indirectly impact soil health and soil quality." 

The future is perilous; food scarcity will be common, as will be flooding, both of which demand protection of sensitive lands. Only the most benighted and the most venal will fail to understand the gravity of what we face. I suspect both adjectives apply to the Ford bandits. 

UPDATE: A new online poll finds that people are very unhappy with the Ford government:

... seven-in-ten (69%) Ontarians are angry or annoyed about Doug Ford’s plan to rezone parts of the greenbelt for housing, up 8 points from December 2022. Only 17% of PC voters are pleased or happy about the plan.

 

 

 

 

 

Unabated Fury

If the people of Hamilton are any indication, the citizen fury against Doug Ford's brazen and corrupt theft of Greenbelt lands continues unabated.

In a meeting ostensibly called to get input into the kinds of benefits the city should negotiate with provincial minions, compromise and collaboration were the last things on people's minds.

The feisty crowd booed when Premier Doug Ford’s name was mentioned and cheered when city planners said council has formally called for all affected lands, including parcels in Ancaster, Winona and Mount Hope, to be returned to the Greenbelt.

...many residents — dozens wielding signs condemning the Progressive Conservative government or calling to protect the Greenbelt — showed up urging council to abandon any negotiations related to potential development.

Michelle Silverton earned applause from the feisty crowd in urging the city to pay attention to “people power” on display Wednesday and refuse to participate in any development talks. “This is what democracy looks like,” she said.

An inflamed electorate can be a dangerous thing for those in power, especially those not easily taken in by the strange and essentially truculent tone taken by the new housing minister, Paul Calandra, who just the other day suggested that more lands may be removed, owing to a housing crisis that he clams has changed since the last government report, led by some Tory diehards like Tim Hudak, said such Greenbelt appropriation was not needed.

And the outrage is hardly limited to Hamiltonians, if letters to The Star are any indication:


Doug Ford’s fatally flawed Greenbelt plan must be stopped in its tracks, Sept. 6

I strongly agree with your editorial, but the core problem goes beyond the GTHA and it threatens human existence. Simply put, developing open space accelerates deadly global warming and pollution and shrinks food supplies. Approving such costly-to-taxpayers-to-service projects, including with expanded and new highways, will ultimately result in more suffering. That is far more criminal than backroom deals between developers and politicians. You can build new homes elsewhere, but you can’t create more oxygen, water, and arable land.


We’ve arrived at the cusp of climate disaster because we’ve ignored or deliberately buried the science. Will officials show the courage to stop the Greenbelt plan and similar ones across the country and turn toward brownfield development or will they continue to drive us to oblivion?

Brendan Read, Nanaimo, BC

There is a line in William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” that may well sum up Premier Doug Ford’s handling of his Greenbelt fiasco: “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”

Scott Kennedy, Toronto


At a time where valuable farmland is shrinking all over the world due to climate change and overdevelopment, I’m surprised that the Ontario government would allow useful arable land to be wasted on private development. I understand that there is a desperate need for housing in Canada and elsewhere in the world, but wouldn’t it be more logical to develop areas of Ontario with less arable land? Fertile soil is a terrible thing to waste. Luxurious homes/condos just won’t put food on the table for Canadians.

Michael Pravica, Henderson, Nevada


The Star should start to fact check Premier Doug Ford’s comments about the Greenbelt as it did for former U.S. President Donald Trump, especially the egregious lie that “the people have spoken — we won’t touch the Greenbelt.” I counted at least 10 lies and mistruths in the last two weeks alone.

James Wigmore, Toronto

At the very least, this entire sordid escapade shows that voter apathy, at least in this case, is not something the Ford thieves should be counting on.

A Crime Against Everyone

 

The Enclosure Movement was a push in the 18th and 19th centuries to take land that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village, or at least available to the public for grazing animals and growing food, and change it to privately owned land, usually with walls, fences or hedges around it.

The public noose of scrutiny continues to tighten around Doug Ford's neck as people refuse to be the dupes he and his cabal obviously take us for. His insistence that the housing crisis is the the sole reason for stealing much-needed Greenbelt lands rings increasingly hollow, especially in light of what it ultimately represents: criminal behaviour, insider trading that warrants an exhaustive investigation, including scrutiny of the developers themselves who are being so richly rewarded. The fact that the RCMP is now pondering whether to start a probe (what there is to ponder is beyond me) only increases the stench of corruption that envelopes the entire cabal.

It occurs to me that there is another dimension to all of this that recalls the Enclosure Movement of Great Britain. Because of human greed, land that had benefited the many became restricted to the moneyed class. Like that era, the removal of Greenbelt lands is an offence against the collective. All of us will suffer so that the few can be richly rewarded.

Although for the most part the Greenbelt is privately owned, the fact that it is vital to all of us, especially in these fraught times of climate crisis, deepens the perversion of these sell-outs. Much needed farmland, wetlands, etc. being sacrificed on the altar of obscene profits mean we will all suffer. We will have less food that can be grown; we will have less absorptive capacity for increasing amounts of rainfall supercharged by climate change. We will have less greenspace which, as David Suzuki has phrased it, is part of our much needed natural capital. And of the trees that will be destroyed in the development of McMansions, not affordable housing, I will not speak.

All of this makes me very sad, not so much for myself but for current and future generations, all of whom, long after I am gone, will be paying a heavy price for the greed and the enrichment of the few; their names are now part of the public record, prolific prevaricators who insist that there is nothing to see here, all the timing of purchases being mere 'coincidences'.

Greed is obviously not a new phenomenon, so I shall end this post with a quote from my favourite American author, John Steinbeck, who, in The Grapes of Wrath, wrote the following in relation to fruit being destroyed amidst mass poverty and starvation:

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here that topples all our success. The
fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and
the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die
because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And
coroners must fill in the certificates-died of malnutrition-
because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.

Apply that to our rapidly deteriorating world, and I think you will get his drift.

Adding Fuel

In the debased species known as humanity, it perhaps is not surprising that the very wildfires consuming us have become fuel for yet more deranged people and their 'theories'. Here are two of my favourite examples of our ongoing slide into social, political and spiritual senescence:

The embers of one particular theory were fanned Thursday morning by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was asked by podcast host Ryan Jespersen about how she reconciled her government’s resistance to emission reduction schemes with the reality that climate change is contributing to more damaging fires.

“I think you’re watching, as I am, the number of stories about arson,” she responded. “I’m very concerned that there are arsonists.”

 The question of arson seems to have taken hold in certain corners of the internet among users who share stories of people charged with arson, and given oxygen not only by Smith, but by federal politician and one-time Conservative leadership hopeful Maxime Bernier, who tweeted earlier this week that he bet “a good portion” of the fires had been “started by green terrorists.”

Then there is this illustration of supreme idiocy: Nicholas is fighting fires in Alberta. The rumour is that the military that came to help isn’t even Canadian…it is the UN. Here, not to fight fires, but to round “them” up and put them……where? IDK .

“Our guts are telling us it’s round up time”

That's all I have the heart for today. 

A Political Prisoner

 

                                                                   

                                                                        BUT

During my reasonably long life, I have been witness to an array of political leadership styles and sensibilities: the inspirational, the aspirational, the ideological, the bumbling and, worst of all, the stupid. Here in Ontario, where I reside, it is stupidity that is on daily offer from Premier Doug Ford.

I'm sure Doug sees it quite differently, doubtlessly convinced his 'ability' to wade through and often eliminate red tape and see through 'scams' is the kind of bold leadership the province needs and is benefitting from. 

- Why all this endless talk about the future of Ontario Place? Just bring in a giant spa, sign a 99-year-lease, and have the taxpayers fund an underground parking lot to the tune of about $700 million.

- Need more houses? Cut development fees and build on farms and wetlands. 

- What's wrong with having such close ties to developers who benefit from inside information? Fostering close relations with movers and shakers is how to get things done.

Sadly for Doug, there are too many 'stupid' people who fail to appreciate his genius. Take their attitude toward development of  the Greenbelt, which our Ford recently called "a scam."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the Greenbelt a “scam” on Thursday as the NDP accused his government of hiding from new reports about the area’s planned development.

“We have a Liberal government that [got] a bunch of staffers, randomly got a highlighter and went up and down roads. They were going through golf courses, through buildings. It was just a big scam as far as I'm concerned,” the premier said of the 2005 government which established the space.

Ford made the comments in response to questions about reports that suggested his office discussed changes to the Greenbelt months prior to announcing it would be removing 7,400 acres from 15 different areas of the area for development. He denied that his office discussed the changes in August, as was reported by Canadian investigative online magazine The Narwhal.

Sorry, Mr. Premier. Not so fast. Victor Doyle, one of the developers of the Greenbelt Plan, begs to differ.

Ontario’s Greenbelt is fundamental to the environmental, agricultural and economic sustainability of the Golden Horseshoe. In calling it a “scam” — defined as a dishonest or illegal plan or activity — Premier Doug Ford has disparaged the Ontario civil service along with countless professionals, citizens, politicians and the municipalities, conservation authorities, civil society organizations and community groups that devoted their time and knowledge to create the largest and most strongly protected Greenbelt in the world.

Globally recognized and recipient of both provincial and national awards, the Greenbelt ensures clean water by protecting our aquifers and rivers that feed the Great Lakes. It protects our forests to provide clean air and habitat for plants, wildlife and pollinating insects. It protects vast tracts of the best farmland in Canada, which are a fundamental component of our economy and food security and it plays a critical role in combating the impacts of climate change by mitigating flooding, sequestering carbon and moderating temperature.

The real scam is the premier's insistence that the Greenbelt is needed for housing.

Today, leading research by civil society organizations and the Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario show there are over of 200,000 acres of approved, unbuilt land for urban uses in the Greater Golden Horseshoe with over 2 million units planned, 1.3 million of which are either under construction, approved or applied for.

This does not include the 60,000-plus acres of farmland the minister approved for urban use this past fall just in the GTHA. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to remove any land from the Greenbelt, which is supposed to be the counterbalance to the permanent urbanization arising from development of the above lands.

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To an idiot, simple solutions are ubiquitous. In many ways, I feel like a political prisoner, shackled to a government that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. 

Would that there were enough intelligent voters to rectify the situation in 2026.