"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

Sunday 7 December 2014

A Fiendish Plot ....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Micro Management versus no management at all.":

22:19
Not just Aurora either. Newmarket & Markham among others must have been asleep at the switch. I do know that Aurora received help during that storm from a lot of other places,
Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 7 December 2014 09:32

************************************

 Almost four hundred people read the post  that

indicated only one Municipality made  an application to the Province for help with extraordinary cost of an extraordinary ice storm last winter..

A handful commented.  The focus of all except the above were critical of the  town.

Including me.

But I did note the Minister of Municipal Affairs had informed  the media of  municipal failure to apply for help.

Ontario has 440 municipalities

If half were affected by the storm that means 220  needed help.



What odds only one among them was sufficiently astute  to complete the application  and get it in on
time?

What's the rest of the story?

What  is the Minister's purpose in bypassing municipalities and using media to publicize the issue?

Consider this:

The Municipality is a creature of the Province.

We  are not masters in our  own house.

Boundaries are drawn for us. Terms affixed.

Authority is severely circumscribed.

We are hedged on every side by myriad  government Acts and Regulations and new threats.

We are creatures of the Province.

We have no right in law to exist.

Home  owners are burdened with billions of dollars in burgeoning ,inept, administrative  and legal
expenditures at the Municipal level .

 But authority, responsibility  and obligation to correct that rests entirely on the shoulders of  Big Brother Province .

Papa Bear!!!!

Therein lies  the powaa! ! !

They use it regularly to write new legislation.    . To no useful avail.

Municipalities recently took a shellacking from the Premier with threats of  the awful Ontario Ombudsman oversight.

Run for the hills .

Last week the  Minster's predecessor and newly elected Mayor of Brampton, thoroughly trashed  Brampton council and administration. No-one escaped unscathed.

The same week former Liberal deputy-leader Greg Sorbara appeared on T.V.Ontario to promote his new book about how well the Liberals have done .

Meanwhile.... mega billion dollar scandals  still hang over this government.. A majority win in the last election  did not shift the cloud.

It was the result of a colossal blunder . It was not about finesse.

Shredded documents in the Premier's office notwithstanding, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals still
cower.

There's  no easy  way out.

The  book is not closed.

Maybe the plan is to toss a couple of red herrings into a  new chapter about.failed performance by the Feds  and  perfidy of  local politicians to put the hounds off the scent.

Though that hardly seems necessary.  

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ontarians gave them 4yrs of more BS. 4yrs of doing whatever and however the liberals please. I betting the voter turn out in the next provincial election will be much higher.

Anonymous said...

I'm still trying to figure out who got it right out of all those municipalities.
Sorbara in an interesting guy who knows how to move ahead of trouble. I still recall being puzzled when he suddenly left the scene " to spend more time with his family "

Anonymous said...

This cannot be blamed on the Liberals. Aurorans asked about receiving help from the province and were assured by both staff & the Mayor that the paperwork had been done. I really do not like the over-use of " accountability " but we should have a modicum of it on such things. Otherwise how can there be trust on matters about which we know little ?

Anonymous said...


The most famous speech by Abraham Lincoln, and one of the greatest ever - The Gettysburg Address - concludes with the last three sentences that follow:

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced, It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This is a concept of simple words, simply stated - government of the people, by the people, for the people.

There is not a single politician in Canada who could make this statement.

We appear unable to make our three levels of government work - for the people.

Anonymous said...

I will go on a wait-list to read Sofia Loren's book. Taking a pass on Greg's creation.

Anonymous said...

12:39 got it right. Sobara knows how to stay ahead of trouble. Remember when he was finance minister but stepped aside on this too.

His book: I would not accept it as a gift.

Anonymous said...

16:16
Maybe it will sell in Vaughan ?

Anonymous said...

I did not think there were any Canadian publishers left.

Anonymous said...

I suspect the discussion about provincial funding for that storm is going on in a lot of different places. There should be a common reason for so many missing the first deadline.

Anonymous said...

It might not have been wise to go up against Conrad Black on the Xmas gift book list. People will want to read that after the revues that showed those writing the stuff had not gotten beyond the first hundred pages.

Anonymous said...

Sorbara writing a book? I can see it being a best seller in the fiction humour category.

Anonymous said...

00:14
You find him amusing ? Yikes !

Anonymous said...

9:45 - I actually find it quite hilarious.

Anonymous said...

There are those who believe that Mr Harper wrote that hockey book without any help from the sports expert at the Globe.

Anonymous said...

That hockey book is a poor read.I am a huge fan and was disappointed..

Anonymous said...

A "huge fan" of hockey or Harper, 12:52?