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.
Posts
16 comments:
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.
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 "
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 ?
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.
I will go on a wait-list to read Sofia Loren's book. Taking a pass on Greg's creation.
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.
16:16
Maybe it will sell in Vaughan ?
I did not think there were any Canadian publishers left.
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.
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.
Sorbara writing a book? I can see it being a best seller in the fiction humour category.
00:14
You find him amusing ? Yikes !
9:45 - I actually find it quite hilarious.
There are those who believe that Mr Harper wrote that hockey book without any help from the sports expert at the Globe.
That hockey book is a poor read.I am a huge fan and was disappointed..
A "huge fan" of hockey or Harper, 12:52?
Post a Comment