To Remember Is To Have Real Power

I realize that on the surface, the troubles we face in Ontario are likely of little more than passing interest to those living in other jurisdictions. However, wherever citizens live, any government that chooses to lie to its electorate has a corrosive effect on democracy. Some will ask, "What is the point of voting if, after they are elected, they renege on their promises?" That, and similar sentiments undermine faith in our institutions, and that is never good for social cohesion. We have only to look to the United States to see that truth.

Passive acceptance, shrugging cynicism, defeatism: these are the reactions that the Doug Ford cabal both provoke and likely hope for. That, and an electorate with a notoriously short memory. But perhaps this time it will be different, given the brazenness of the Greenbelt theft, the stench of betrayal and corruption of this $8 billion gift to wealthy developers assaulting us daily. The fact that Tory insiders are exultant because the legislature does not resume until late September should only add to our collective anger; that, and the egregious contempt this corrupt administration is showing for our intelligence, evident in Ford doubling down on his messaging that this is all about a stalwart way of meeting the housing crisis.

I sense that messaging is not working. On Sunday, a rally in Pickering protesting the Greenbelt decimation saw hundreds turn out.

“Waiting for Doug Ford to do the Right thing,” read the sign propped up beside the skeleton, mimicking a tableau usually reserved for jokes about Maple Leaf fans waiting for the Stanley Cup.

Pickering is home to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve — a swath of land once called the “Crown Jewel of the Greenbelt,” that lost its protection when Ford’s Progressive Conservative government made changes to the Greenbelt lands in late 2022.

“We’re not going to let the premier weather this storm,” said Abdullah Mir, 30, the co-chair of a Stop Sprawl Durham. “That’s what these people think, that this whole thing is a joke, and we’re just going to roll over and forget about it. This isn’t the end of it.”

Indeed, judging by the editorials and voluminous letters to the editor, the electorate may have a longer memory than is healthy for a corrupt government's longterm viability. Here are a few letters from The Hamilton Spectator suggesting that the government 'messaging' is not working.

Remember a broken promise 

The honest report by Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysk confirms that Doug Ford and housing minister’s chief of staff and minister Steve Clark must go due to lies and Greenbelt decisions rendered. The disregard for Ontario’s public intelligence with their broken promises is ridiculous. Would the First Nations Leaders continue to intervene due to their success with Douglas Creek and Land Back Lane and everyone support all the groups and agencies that are trying to hold Ford and friends accountable. Prime farmland and environmentally sensitive areas require protection from the thieves.

 

Will all Ontario voters please remember the broken promise by Ford?

 

 

Garry Young, Canfield

Don’t hook up new houses

I wonder if any city is under a legal obligation to connect a new survey to their water and sewer systems. If not, why not just let the developers know that they will not be hooking them up and see what happens.

 

Terry Middlemiss, Hamilton 

Time for Ford to go

Doug Ford is a dangerous concoction of arrogance, incompetence and greed. He is an offence to the voting public and our democratic process. He should be removed from office forthwith including his entourage of lawless delinquents. 

 

 

This abuse of power is crying out for an investigation by the OPP for what he has done and will continue to do if left in office

Ross Prince, Hamilton

A better Greenbelt solution

So, removal of 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt could result in a $8.3 billion windfall for select developers. Corruption? To be determined. Incentive for corruption? Obviously.

 

When land is required for community interests (say an LRT system), the owners of said land do not “win the lottery.” Instead, the government expropriates the land, paying fair market value. Why not the same rules for developers? 

 

If opening up Greenbelt land is truly required to address housing concerns (dubious to say the least), then expropriate said land at the nonspeculative current fair market price and sell it back to the highest bidder after the zoning changes are made. Voilà, the $8.3 billion windfall goes to all citizens of Ontario (at the price of green space lost forever), not a select well-connected few.

 

 

Such a change would remove a strong motivation for corruption. As an added bonus I also suspect it would result in developers suddenly becoming much more interested in infilling or building on currently available serviced land than on lobbying for zoning changes. 

 

Kirt Kushnie, Waterdown

 

 

 

There Will Always Be A Place For Doug Ford

H/t Greg Perry

Some people have very deep, expansive pockets.

UPDATED: A Time Of Reckoning

 Most have probably heard about or seen the video of the violent confrontation occurring in Montgomery, Alabama the other day. A riverboat was unable to dock because a group of white louts took up its berth. After 45 minutes of trying to get them to move their small vessel via the ship's PA, the Black co-captain of the riverboat went ashore and tried to untie the vessel. It was at this point that fisticuffs ensued.

Was this a racially-motivated group assault? I don't know if it necessarily started that way, but other than the possibility that those responsible for the misplaced craft were simply poor white trash doing their thing, it would seem that they took exception to being told to do something by a Black man. 

Once they began pummelling him, several other Black people came to his assistance, and the melee ensued. The following video is a powerful statement as to why so many came to the beleaguered co-captain's aid. It is well-worth watching, and is a potent reminder of the racial violence that pervades American history and culture, as well as the sense of community evident as people rose to the co-captain's defence.

If this topic interests you, I strongly recommend a Vox article that first looks at the dog-whistle, racist C&W song, Try That In A Small Town, sung by Jason Aldean; it then juxtaposes the song's sentiments with the brawl. Aldean's defenders say the tune is simply about promoting a sense of community and defending its people and values; the song's references and venue (the latter a site of lynchings) belie those sentiments. 

The writer then looks at the sense of community that surfaced as the Black co-captain was being pummelled by the white thugs. It would seem Aldean's song was never intended to include the safety and community of Black people.

Feel free, of course, to draw your own conclusions.

UPDATE: Damien Pickett, the Montgomery riverboat co-captain, explains what he experienced:

Pickett told police that the captain had asked a group on a pontoon boat “at least five or six times” to move from the riverboat’s designated docking space but they responded by “giving us the finger and packing up to leave”. Pickett and another deckhand eventually took a vessel to shore and moved the pontoon boat “three steps to the right”, he wrote.

He said two people ran rushing back, including one cursing and threatening to beat him for touching the boat. Pickett wrote that one of the men shouted that it was public dock space, but Pickett told them it was the city’s designated space for the riverboat. He said he told them he was “just doing my job”. Pickett said he was punched in the face and hit from behind.

“I went to the ground. I think I bit one of them. All I can hear Imma kill you” and beat you, he wrote. He couldn’t tell “how long it lasted” and “grabbed one of them and just held on for dear life”, Pickett wrote.

Hoping Against Hope

If you are part of the Doug Ford cabal, you must certainly and ardently hope the above is true. If it isn't, you may intuit that you are in big trouble with the electorate, despite the crowing of some Tory insiders that the legislature does not resume until the end of September, long after an often somnolent public has gone back to its repose.

If letters to the editor are any indication, the public mood is sour over the Greenbelt corruption that is obvious to most. Here are a few of those letters:

We must hold our premier accountable

• Toronto Star
• 11 Aug 2023

Ford’s sweetheart deal betrayed public trust, Aug. 10

Ontario Place, the Science Centre, Greenbelt, Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve … where will all of the corruption in the Ford government end? The auditor general’s report on the Greenbelt and land swaps notes a total lack of playing by the rules that the public expects from our elected leaders. An audit demands accountability and proof of integrity. This government needs to be held accountable and the first action should be to demand the resignation of the minister and staff accountable to us. 

Jane Veit, Scarborough

Now that we have the auditor general’s report, perhaps the Trudeau government will at last stand up to Premier Doug Ford. How did Ford’s plans at Ontario Place get away without an environmental assessment or an impact assessment? The feds are responsible for federal areas of jurisdiction that Ford has encroached upon. Federal ministers could intervene but … crickets. The unholy alliance of Freeland and Ford is hopefully at an end as Ford digs a grave for himself. That is unless Ford is thrown a lifeline by the Liberals who may see advantages to propping up Ford rather than defending the environment. 

Bruce Van Dieten, Toronto

When former mayor Rob Ford was coach of a high school football team, he genuinely thought that commandeering a municipal bus to get his players out of the rain was a perquisite of his other job as mayor of Toronto. Like his younger brother, Premier Doug Ford has trouble with the idea that the use of democratic power should be limited to projects that benefit citizens, along with the democratic concept that it is the duty of each elected representative to honour that restriction. 

Don Reynolds, Toronto

Premier Doug Ford proposes to remove about 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt zone in order to have land for building houses. At the same time, he intends to put about 9,400 acres into the Greenbelt zone. Why not leave the 7,400 acres alone and build houses on the 9,400 acres elsewhere? This looks like a winwin solution, except for the developers who benefitted from the swap. That is a risk that persons speculating take. 

Jacob Psutka, Toronto

"Banana Republic Corruption"

H/t Theo Moudakis

If you have read anything coming out of Ontario Auditor General's report into the removal of Greenbelt lands for development, you will know that the stench of corruption is deep and pervasive in the Doug Ford government. I watched Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark's damage-control news conference this afternoon, and it was staggeringly unconvincing. 

No heads will roll, not even that of Clark's chief of staff. All the hapless duo would admit to was that they are committed to "improving the process."

The following analysis sifts through the facts concisely, articulating the truth to be found in this sordid debacle:

As the video host says, this is banana republic corruption, writ large.

Blame Trudeau

Everyone else does.

THE PROVOCATION: 

Justin Trudeau

@JustinTrudeau

·

Aug 6

We’re team Barbie.

Famous windbag Piers Morgan expressed his displeasure this way.

“So glad I’m not Canadian.”

But the ramification of the 'transgression' goes far beyond old Piers' disapprobation: 

THE CONSEQUENCE:

The galaxy has spoken.

When Education Becomes Perverted

 “If you’re not straight, white, and conservative, it doesn’t feel safe” - Raineesha Day, California teacher.

Having had a career as a teacher, I have always believed in educations's mitigating effects: it can help bridge the gap between ignorance and critical thinking and can mean the difference between poverty and economic stability. Most importantly, it can contribute to citizens' healthy, knowledgeable participation in their democracy.

But all of those benefits are predicated on an education system that is honest and earnest, that sees itself as a conveyor of truth rather than a weapon to promote ignorance. Sadly, both in Canada and the United States, as I have written in many posts, it is the latter that often prevails today.

In The Guardian, Robin Buller writes about a deplorable situation in California where education has become weaponized by a right-wing faction.

The small southern California city of Temecula made headlines across the US when its school board banned critical race theory and attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.

On Wednesday, a group of parents, students, teachers and a union sued the Temecula valley school district, alleging the critical race theory ban violates California law, the right to due process and the right to be free from discrimination. If the court rules in their favor, lawyers on the case say it will set a new precedent for the right to fact-based education in California public schools.

 It appears that the real problems began during the pandemic, when parents objected to school mask mandates. As we know from our own experience, that brought out the extremists who, in this case, managed to elect three board members who appear to believe that ignorance is bliss. Homosexual icons like Harvey Milk and so-called Critical Race Theory wound up being banned.

In the spring of 2022, three new school board candidates – Danny Gonzalez, Joseph Komrosky and Jen Wiersma – ran on platforms that opposed masking and vaccine requirements, accused the teacher’s union of working against parents’ interests, and suggested standard curriculum had been replaced by “sexualized” material. 

 The developments echoed those in other parts of California and across the country.

Reshaping suburban school boards was part of a national Republican strategy in 2022 to energize voters. Often, those interventions were funded by national conservative groups with deep pockets, like Moms for Liberty, the American Council and Turning Point USA. The campaigns of Komrosky, Gonzalez and Wiersma were financed by the Inland Empire Family Pac, which is headed by a local evangelical pastor.

And such repression has real-life consequences.

In past years, homophobic and white supremacist graffiti has been scrawled in public spaces, football fans at the local high school have greeted a visiting team with loud racist taunts, and a mayor was forced to resign following the release of emails in which he made racist remarks about police violence against people of color.

Tuesday Cortes, a 16-year-old queer student, 

... said she was bullied for her sexuality throughout middle school, with limited intervention from school administrators. In eighth grade, Cortes said, classmates chanted “there’s only two genders” during recess and mocked her for her short hair.  

Black parents have also been made understandably uneasy by statements from the board such is this:

...board member Komrosky called CRT a “racist ideology” that uses “division and hate as an instructional framework in our schools”. Gonzalez and Wiersma did not respond to questions.

The only real brights spots here is the fact that sane and reasonable people are fighting back against the unhinged through the lawsuit that has been filed. That, and the fact that both parents and people like Cortes are unbowed.

[Involved parent Jennifer] San Nichols and others say the events will not push them out of Temecula. If anything, the ban has had the opposite effect, bolstering their activism.

“The harder they try to suppress us, the harder Black and Brown parents will push back,” said [Christina] Johnson, the mother of three. “I am staying for as long as I can.”

The final word goes to Cortes, who correctly identifies the poison that ignorance can engender:

...ensuring that the history of gay rights is taught in school is a critical part of preventing anti-LGBTQ+ bullying. “If queer history isn’t available to learn, we will never progress and people will stay full of hatred and ignorance,” she said.