"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

Saturday 21 November 2015

THE ARGUMENT DOES NOT WASH



Anonymous 
 has left a new comment on your post "IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE":

The lot in question was located within lands designated "Suburban Residential" and in that context was required to have a frontage of 100.' The actual frontage was 155'.

I do not agree that "The comment is an example of nothing useful." Nor do I agree that the OMB was justified in its decision because they were following the province's dictate of "infilling." Is a golf course going to be plundered and turned into a future slum because of infilling? You really should see a large copy of the plan. And are the neighbouring houses going to appreciate in value or do the opposite?

The town is going to rake in millions of dollars in development charges so it can say we are all better off for this.

I'd like to see someone make Frank Stronach an offer that even he couldn't refuse, buy his golf course and turn it into four story high condos. The town would be licking its slathering lips as it applauded. Zoning be damned. 

Posted by Anonymous to  Our Town and Its Business at 21 November 2015 at 19:22


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I've been finding it hard to stop thinking about Paris, young people at a concert,murdered in unimaginable horror ......Syrian refugees streaming along country roads ,children in their arms wrapped in blankets against cold and wet....everything they own in a plastic bag.... no idea where they are going .......no hope but for the kindness of strangers.

 And many of the strangers ready to blame the victims for the crime against them. 

I look at young faces of terrorists and wonder what turned them into monsters and the broken hearts of their mothers and fathers.  

I need to be distracted. 

An argument about a golf course being "plundered" and "slums" being built on lots with less than a hundred feet of frontage is hardly that. 

But it's what there is. 

So I published it.  

The first municipal conference I attended as a regional Councillor was in St.John's, Newfoundland. 

Cod had  vanished with factory fishing and times were very bad. Outport communities seemed paralyzed by the problem. Faculty at Dalhousie University went into communities  and video-recorded what people had to say about the problem.They brought the film back to the university for editing and months later went back to show the finished product to  participants. 

It was as if they took thoughts out of their heads....for scrutiny and finding obvious weakness in arguments and barriers to problem solving. 

I was impressed.

In my judgement, the argument in the comment  possesses no merit. The  opposite in fact. 

I  thought it might be interesting for readers to consider  arguments presented to Council and likely  to the Ontario Municipal Board by opponents of the development plan. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Blame-Game is Ugly.
To blame refugees for the madness of home-grown terrorists is completely crazy.
Most of our information is filtered through the US so it is difficult to avoid seeing just how ignorant
some of their presidential candidates are behaving.
But maybe we have to see in order to keep us from slipping into the same patterns.

Anonymous said...

I'm more afraid of some mid-twenties white guy off his meds, waving a confederate flag and a gun than I am of anyone
who is from an immigrant family.

Anonymous said...


22:10

You completely fail to get the point and your judgement is erroneous, as it occasionally can be. Next time do a little research.

The "less than 100' frontage" is a completely separate piece of land in a suburban residential zone.

Have a lot at a large scale plan of Highland to see the future slum of minuscule lots. You will literally be able to flush the toilets in your two neighbouring units.

Anonymous said...

There is probably a waiting-list at the OMB. That leaves lots of time to compile those lists of objection.

Anonymous said...

It's sad how these refugees are being used as pawns by politicians and the media. And citizens both in the US and Canada are just soaking it all in. I'm not afraid of any refugee that comes to our country for a better life. I am afraid of all levels of our government s and how they process these poor people. There have been people on the waiting list to come here and now they're on the back burner because of a political election promise. We're all being played like pieces in a game board.

Anonymous said...

14:05
I am not sure so don't run with this. But - I did hear that those already on the waiting list will be dealt with first. I
have read so much that I have no idea where that info originated. Possibly in the Globe,

Anonymous said...

Refugees are due in a week or so - privately sponsored ones can go to their sponsor towns/cities. Others may spend some
time on the bases. Just families, women and kids.