"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Morning News

Aurora is listed in a Toronto Star article as one of 190 best places in Canada to live.

Toronto is 47th and it comes between Thunder Bay and Aurora.

I'm assuming its us. There's nothing else to identify. I know of two other towns named Aurora  but they 're in the U.S.

So I guess that makes us 48th. Doesn't feel  different.Our name will  probably still not appear on the weather map.Even though we have two exits off the 404.

Claiming to be the 48th best town in Canada to live doesn't sound like much without  accompaniment  but it's nice to know.
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George Smitherman is in the news this morning. He was Minister of Health when air ambulance system,Ornge was set up. The scandal is back in the news again and he was  asked to comment. 

Some general stuff about how easy it is to" throw politicians under the bus" .That's true.  But it's  just another one of those pesky hazards of the occupation.

“What did the ministry do? Let’s call them what they are — the funder. What did sugar daddy do?” he said, adding bureaucrats should have “tightened up their cash flow to get their attention.”


Instead, ORNGE paid $600,000 in taxpayer-funded MBA degrees for seven ORNGE executives and bought a $15.6 million Pearson airport-area headquarters that was renovated for $478,000.

While some senior Liberals have privately tried to blame Smitherman for the ORNGE imbroglio, Matthews wasn’t going there on Tuesday.

“We had a very serious lapse of leadership at ORNGE. I’m not going to second-guess the minister who was there at the time it was set up,” she said.

“I do believe that it was set up with all the right intentions, but what we have learned is we did not give ourselves enough oversight capacity and we’re going to rectify that.”

Last fall, McCarter was stonewalled by ORNGE officials and Matthews had to step in and tell them to cooperate.
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The Honorable Matthews is the current Minister of Health. Mr. Smitherman was  Minister of Health when the scandal erupted .
Because he is no longer a politician he is obviously less limited
in how he might respond. .

He no longer needs to fall upon his sword to save the government harmless.

In some respects, a  comparison between  the Ornge scandal  and the "imbroglio" we have  with the Church Street School building. can be made.

The town is "the sugar daddy that provided the funding"

The town "did not give itself enough oversight and we need to rectify  that."

There has been "stonewalling".

Funding should have been cut off to  get the attention desired.

The town is not the supplicant.

The role of "sugar daddy" doesn't fit  with most of us either.

And if it has anything to do with being 48th best town in Canada
to live, I would just as soon be 50th,

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"In some respects, a comparison between the Ornge scandal and the "imbroglio" we have with the Church Street School building. can be made."

In some respects not.... Please don't try to make this tempest in a teapot with the ACC more than what it is... The current council trying to reverse a deal by the previous council.

The Ornge "scandal" (to use a term The Star likes to use) is a significant province-wide issue that has potential impact with residents' health and well-being. There is no such possibility here unless a painting falls off the wall.

Anonymous said...

Council should just do it on March 27.

But no, we will be presented with a Committee Report that recommends Terms of Reference for yet another Committee, one whose work will drag on into fall, and then even if the termination notice on the existing agreement is approved it will have no effective meaning.

The existing agreement expires December 31, 2013.

What thimble-heads will be appointed to draw up a new agreement?

It is extremely difficult to understand Council members' dereliction of their responsibilities and duties.

Aurora residents and taxpayers expect a Council that governs, one that oversees the expenditure of their money in a wise and accountable manner, one that understands the voters are supreme, not politicians, not staff, not a special interest group.

Anonymous said...

Councillor Ballard must read Evelyn's Blog. He is tidying up the verbiage and visuals of his Gala in order to pull himself more into compliance with the Municipal Act. He is no longer the ' sponsor', but the 'host' of the event. And, in a gesture to complaints about the cost of an evening of hot air, he has reduced the cost of a ticket by $50.00. Price for one ticket is now only $250.
Still way too much compared to other evenings in the same time frame but a step in the right direction. The
Aurora Pantry will get my cheque for $250.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but Newmarket is ranked 13th best! Grrrrr...

Anonymous said...

"Yeah, but Newmarket is ranked 13th best! Grrrrr..."

So what? Does this detract from your daily lives? Maybe Newmarket is 13th because they have not had a Town Council that spends so much time on stupid internal wranglings. Maybe they are 13th because they scored higher on the polyester pants scale? Or the fact they have more dollar stores?

If you consider the source of the list, I don't really care.

Anonymous said...

You're bang on, 10:37!