Citizens across Ontario are increasing their scrutiny of councils and individual members of Councils' behaviour. Couple this with a shift in personal obligations under the Safe Drinking Water Act it's time to focus on your personal responsibilities as a Councillor. AMO presents the Personal Responsibilities workshop that will look to answer questions that include, but are not limited to:
- Can I ask the municipal solicitor a personal question?
- Who can I ask for advice from?
- Can council force someone off of council?
- What does it mean to be a reasonably prudent person?
- Does my municipality need a code of conduct?
- How do I know I have a pecuniary interest?
- What legislative protections do I have?
- What are my personal responsibilities as a Councillor?
- The above workshops are taking place in March and April 2013. They cost $400. plus HST. They are being held in March and April. By that time, Councils in Ontario will have been in office almost thirty months with eighteen months to go.
- The Safe Drinking Water Act is the bogey man.
- Former Premier Mike Harris did away with The Ontario Water Resources Commission. It provided
- badly needed support to small hard-up municipalities to keep their drinking water safe.
- In Walkerton,a Council hired a totally inadequate individual for the job.
- People died. The poor sad fool went to jail.
- In response , the Province passed legislation that makes every elected Councillor responsible for the safety of the drinking water.
- They did not restore e function of the Ontario Water Resources Commission/
- In Toronto , a thirteen million dollar public inquiry revealed thoroughly reprehensible, if not criminal, conduct in purchase of computers millions of dollars over budget.
- Sex . bribery and corruption were involved.
- Nobody went to jail. The Province passed legistation allowing municipalities to write Codes of Conduct, complete with penalties providing an Integrity Commissioner is retained.
- So who in an AMO workshop is going to advise Councillors whether their municipality needs to have a Code of Conduct ?
- How many nincompoops were elected in the last municipal election needing a bunch of redundant municipal servants to give them that advice?
- And by the way, where do all the superior individuals come from to fill the ranks of Integrity Commissioners with impeccable judgement and unimpeachable integrity?
- Who provides the warranty ?
- The job is advertised. Remuneration changes hands Who's to say the Integrity Commissioner isn't making decisions that will allow him to please those who need to be pleased for him to keep the job?
- Everything we understand tells us he will do exactly that. If he doesn't, he will undoubtedly be stripped of authority lickety-split.
- There's a new comment about what's not being taught in school.
- Check the proficiency of language in the questions posed above . It reads like English may not be well taught either
- Toronto District School Board's Director of Education was plagiarizing other people's work while holding a job that likely paid him in four figures
- He was cheating.
- Guelph University carried out a study a few years ago that established 53% of students cheat to obtain their degree.
- Faculties know about it but it suits them to turn a blind eye.
- Significant academic instruction is being withheld or made optional. Sports and music are extra-curricular so teachers can withold that too if the union orders them to do so.
- But if enough municipalities can be persuaded to send ding-bat Councillors to workshops at $400. a pop plus tax , everything will turn out just fine.
Good stuff; only one minor correction.
ReplyDeleteIn the public schools, music is part of the curriculum
and in high school it is an option. Perhaps the music you heard that was being omitted when the the high school teachers were on strike might have been band practice?
Bureaucratic make-work. That is like the exams and classes that real estate agents have to keep taking to keep their licenses. Taught by people who know everything & have never actually sold a house. But you still have to take the courses & pay the fees.
ReplyDelete•Can I ask the municipal solicitor a personal question?
ReplyDelete•Who can I ask for advice from?
•Can council force someone off of council?
•What does it mean to be a reasonably prudent person?
•Does my municipality need a code of conduct?
•How do I know I have a pecuniary interest?
•What legislative protections do I have?
looks like someone has been drinking the Region of York Kool Aid again ,jiberish BS like this could only have been hatched out in the bowels of the Region
ReplyDeleteI think we should hire Dick Cheney to come to Aurora for five years and run things his way.
If he was able to shove Bush II to the side and start and conduct a couple of wars, he should be able to straighten out our little group of mental and moral misfits.
Obviously democracy is not working, or if it is, it is to the benefit of the rats and the slugs.
Has anyone paid attention to the daily anguish of the Catholic church, where one cardinal after another removes himself from the papal conclave for sins, of the flesh, real or imagined?
Or, how our federal and provincial budgets are created, in secret, behind closed doors, in the offices of the Prime Minister or provincial premiers. Kathleen Wynne is already a spent force, before she has begun. In Alberta and BC premiers are on the ropes with the braying sounds of the hounds at their heels.
It is remarkable how the vaunted F-35 fighter jet is now being re-bundled into a package that includes a hereto previously unknown program whereby our ancient F-18's will have their lives extended. And in the US the F-35's very existence is being threatened by some in Congress who say it is simply too expensive.
The federal Auditor General is to retire shortly, much to Harper's great anticipation and glee . The former is suggesting that the cost of two resupply ships for the military will cost more than $4 billion and there is no company in Canada capable of building them. But there are studies galore at multi-million dollar costs to tell us how all this will come out right in the end.
Possibly Lucid was ill-named, or a figment of someone's imagination, but it sounds like it is toast. Why not organize a dog and pony field-day weekend organized by our talented kids, with our assistance? Let's see what they could do instead of wasting time and money debating youth centres and hiring consultants to tell us what we should already know.
As for the trio of literati councillors, they should take a cruise this summer, and hope that their ship's engines and power fail and that they have to float around the Caribbean for a week having to use baggies. This would show them how they make the rest of us feel.
10:43 PM, aren't you just a little ray o' sunshine.
ReplyDelete