City Hall works to undermine Free Press in Oshawa

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
May 23, 2011

On May 12, the Mayor attended the 356th Annual Mayor's Breakfast, this hosted by the Christian Business Ministries Canada (CBMC) of Oshawa and District.

This was a public event and presumably the Mayor was going to make some pronouncements about this city. In anticipation of these announcements, Tamara LeClair, a talented local videographer, requested permission to film the event.

She was given permission by the event organizers who in turn informed the Mayor`s Office who refused the request---there being the rub that fires the inspiration for this column.

Countless others, not seeking permission, may of course have informally videoed or recorded the event. In such public events, we have been conditioned by experience to have implicit and implied permission to photograph, record, or video, unless that permission is explicitly denied either verbally or by signage

So while Ms. LeClair was polite in asking for permission to video, there was little need to do so. And of course, the mainstream media never seek permission in recording of news events, often recording at the outright annoyance of the subject of their cameras

The situation is quite different, obviously, in small private gatherings where the substance and privacy of individuals, by the nature of the gathering, is seldom for public consumption.

The Mayor`s Office, in turning down the video request, and in fact, any time they turn down an opportunity for publicity, raises serious questions.

While at first blush, the video refusal sounds insignificant, upon reflection it has huge implications for democracy and the governance of this city.

Politicians and public officials thrive on publicity and see it as a necessary component of their political success. Thus they’ll put city business on hold to go and cut a ribbon...as long as the press is there.

All politicians operate with the same motto, "Any publicity is better than none!” Unless, of course, it is the kind of publicity recently earned by the disgraced Head of the International Monetary Fund.

In a deeper vein, information is an absolutely necessary component of a democracy. According to Canada`s Supreme Court, it is a basic right of citizens to be informed of all viewpoints, as part of their enlightenment, in order to make informed ballot choices.

So straight jacketing formal and informal media limits public information and thus undermines democracy itself.

And in this age of social media, every individual can be a legitimate public commentator, and in fact, can often be as powerful as the traditional press.

This is, of course, where democracy started in the first place. Every individual had opportunity for input, comment and discussion in gatherings in public squares. And the internet and social media is now that public square of much of the social discourse and dialogue. Democracy has come full circle!

The decision to disallow LeClair's video seems to have been made by Mayor John Henry`s Executive Assistant, Mark Sheriff, an appropriate surname for a guy to straitjacket the Mayor into the straight and narrow.

Sheriff, as you will recall, is the Past President of Colin Carrie’s Conservative Riding Association that was instrumental in getting Henry elected. When Henry got elected, Sheriff resigned from that role to take his present Executive Assistant role in the Mayor’s Office.

And Sheriff, as a rabid Conservative, will get the inspiration for his political decisions from his hero, Stephen Harper, whom you will recall limited the press to five questions in the recent election. Harper wanted to keep his message straight forward and scary about what others would do to the economy without being handcuffed into explaining details of his own record or his plans for the future and why they would be better.

He simply wanted to make unsupported and unsubstantiated declarative statements unsullied by any sloppy explanations that in themselves would raise more questions in the public`s mind. He just wanted to dumb down his message so we ordinary folks could understand it. The truth of what he was saying didn’t matter.

So Sheriff, having made the decision to refuse the videoing, then worked to justify his decision. He stated LeClair, 1) didn't run a legitimate business, 2) didn't make money at it, 3) would use the video for other than personal use, and 4) would redistribute the video on facebook. He also stated that she was "unaccredited"---all clues as to how City Hall would conduct its public information campaign.

In response to questions on how to become accredited, “The Sheriff” indicated that it was necessary to be on City Hall’s List of media contacts without stating how to get on that list.

Sheriff stated that he couldn’t permit “just anyone” to video Henry because they would then have to let everyone and his brother have that right...and that will just not happen as respect for the office would be lost.

Sheriff didn’t explain how Mayor John Henry's tooling around Southern Ontario to various City and Town Council meetings in a Mackie's Moving Van to seek support for extension of the 407 highway to Hwy /35 enhanced respect for the office of Mayor of the City of Oshawa!

In any case, Sheriff’s attempts to explain his refusal to allow Ms. LeClair’s videoing of Henry's speech was obviously an amateurish grasping at straws to justify a decision he had made---but it does speak volumes about how city hall information is going to be disseminated.

Sheriff’s refusal in this case ignites serious concerns undermining the basic principle of the “free press” to report various sides of issues, events, and personalities, unhampered by the whims of City Hall.

It implies an attempt by City Hall to allow media access only to those selected which calls into question the selection criteria. Is it only those media outlets that would put a positive spin on all City Hall activity, no matter the smell, that is favoured with City Hall accessibility?

We do know that City Hall only advertises in a few “friendly” newspapers and allows distribution of those publications in the libraries and other city facilities. To keep that “friendly” designation, those papers a) print frequent pictures of prominent city politicians, b) print frequent puff (public relations) stories on prominent politicians, c) print frequent “rose-coloured glasses” stories about the city, d) never print hard stories that are critical of politicians or City Hall operations, and, most importantly, e) never do any investigative reporting to scratch below the surface of City Hall operations.

This lack of objectivity is a severe disservice to Oshawa voters and means that city taxpayers are kept in the dark about many “sensitive” stories such as the mysterious, abrupt, hasty, sudden, surprising, and completely unexpected departure of Commissioner Stan Bertoia who controlled the largest budget of any city hall bureaucrat and who was responsible for letting contracts for public works and many expensive consultant’s reports. Bertoia left a city salary of $189,000 for one of about $110,000 for a much more junior position with the TTC, a resignation that is extremely unlikely to be voluntary.

It is amazing that no other city newspaper has taken up this story. It seems gaining favour with city officials and the politicians to boost their advertising revenue from City Hall is more important than real investigative reporting to properly inform city readers.

Funny---the only city paper to take on stories like this, the Oshawa Central Newspaper, does not get any advertising revenue from the city.

Guess that is because the Central is not a propaganda rag for City Hall. It takes its responsibility very seriously, particularly with this watchdog column, in commenting objectively with informed opinion on City Hall.

Newspapers have played an important role in the development of Free Western Societies over the last 200 years, one of the principal reasons democracy has flourished, and the Central Newspaper does not take this important responsibility lightly.

City Hall's insistence on patronizing only friendly newspapers is discriminatory, anti democratic, and censorship of the worst kind, and a supreme disservice to city ratepayers.

Real social change has come from newspapers that take their responsibility seriously...and that will not change at the Central.

We shall persist as the only FREE PRESS in Oshawa, unconstrained by any need to remain popular with the politicians.

You, the Citizens of Oshawa, are the most important players in our game---and our pledge is to be diligent in our reporting to you!

We shall continue to feed you a caviar and fine wine menu of information rather than the stale bread and polluted water you might get from other city news sources.

You can depend on us!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

It’s a GOOD DAY for Canada....Welcome Prime Minister Layton! Good Riddance Mr. Harper!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
May 2, 2011

If the polls prognosticating a vote surge for Jack Layton’s NDP turn out as predicted by the pollsters, we’ll have a new Canadian Government at the end of this voting day.

It’ll be a nightmare for Stephen Harper but a godsend for the Canadian people.

Fortunate for Canada, distrust and dislike of Stephen Harper runs as deeply within the walls of the House of Commons as it does out on the hustings, so even if Harper’s Conservatives do win a minority plurality, they will lose the government very quickly through a non-confidence vote of the House of Commons.

Jack Layton, predicted to have the second most number of seats will assume the Prime Ministership with the assistance of the other parties.

A potential coalition government would undoubtedly include Liberal MP’s but not BLOC as the NDP and Liberals alone would constitute a majority according to the current poll results.

There is danger of a constitutional crisis with such a scenario.

Following an election, it is the responsibility of the Prime Minister to call the House to Session and the timing for so doing is solely his responsibility. According to the Constitution, the House only has to be called into session once in any 12 month period and the Conservative Government winning the most seats could not be dissolved without a loss of Confidence Vote in the House.

If the House of Commons is not called into Session by Stephen Harper, his Government could not be rejected by the House.

In order to postpone his inevitable defeat in the House of Commons and retain his control of Parliament, it is not too far fetched to suggest that Harper might refuse to call Parliament into session for a lengthy period of up to the year allowed by the Constitution. After all, he did Proroque Parliament on two occasions---once to avoid a Loss of Confidence Motion that was going to carry in the House and the other to avoid tabling embarrassing information regarding Canada’s treatment of war prisoners in Afghanistan.

Part of the reason Harper has lost the confidence, not only of Parliament, but of the Canadian People is that they’ve come to see him as a contemptuous strong-arm demagogue, rather than the democratic and conciliatory “Pearson-esque” and principled leader Canadians deserve and expect.

After all, conciliation and co-operation are defining hallmarks of the Canadian psyche and of the traditions of Canadian Parliament since 1867 in governing the widely divergent interests of this great country.

And Canada’s priorities in governing produced the best country in which reside in the entire world, up to the last decade, according to international measures of such things.

We have slipped in international ratings over the past decade through cuts in support services for Canadians---and with Conservatives in power, the plug would be pulled on more "People Services" as concentrated spending would be directed to jets, jails, and corporate tax cuts rather than expenditures directly affecting Canadian’s support services such as Universal Health Care, Canada Pension, transfer payments to support higher education, decent housing and opportunity for all, women’s right to choose, etc., all of which are factors in determining liveability ratings.

Over this entire election campaign, rather than telling us the policies he would put in place, Harper has engaged in character assassination of Michael Ignatieff combined with his key campaign mantra that Conservatives are the best economic managers, and that anything other than a Conservative majority is dangerous and reckless, and that his leadership has led the G8 in economic recovery. Further, Harper claims only he knows what was best going forward for job creation and the economy.

Doug Porter, Deputy Chief Economist at the Bank of Montreal, was quoted in Friday’s Star stating that a Harper majority troubles Bay Street as it would embolden Stephen Harper to impose even tougher austerity measures which would be a mild threat to the recovery of the Canadian economic recovery.

Porter also states that the NDP surge is not a concern to Bay Street as Layton’s approach to governing would be to demonstrate his party capable of prudent government as Tommy Douglas did in Saskatchewan before introducing "novel" policies like Medicare.

What? Medicare a novel policy? It is now one of the foundations of this country and a model for the world.

Rather than scaremongering about NDP reckless government, Harper should acknowledge former Saskatchewan NDP Premier Tommy Douglas who lifted Saskatchewan out of the Depression while pioneering public health care and balancing the books through five majority governments.

Harper also fails to acknowledge a whole ream of successful and respected NDP leaders including BC’s Dave Barrett (Gov’t. Car Insurance, Gov’t Question Periods, Agricultural Land Reserves), Manitoba’s Ed Schreyer who developed the province's hydroelectric wealth and public auto insurance while investing heavily in affordable housing, introduced pharmacare and homecare, and Gary Doer¸ former labour leader and 10 year Manitoba NDP Premier won three majorities on economic policies that delivered balanced budgets, tax cuts, the lowest unemployment rate in the country, increased spending on education and health care and expanded public day care, a project later cancelled by Stephen Harper. On August 28, 2009, Stephen Harper appointed Doer Canadian ambassador to the United States

Despite this great NDP political leadership and in response to the NDP nation-wide surge in support putting the NDP ahead of the Liberals at approximately 100 seats, Harper has turned his attack ads, smear campaigns and doomsday scenarios against the surging NDP campaign of Jack Layton.

Rather than reckless and ramshackle leadership defined by Stephen Harper, the history of NDP leaders in Canada need not apologize to anyone for the excellence of their leadership and contributions to Canada. In support of that excellence you might think of NDP leaders Roy Romanow, Stephen Lewis, Mike Harcourt, and Ed Broadbent, as well as the current premiers of Nova Scotia and Manitoba, Darrell Dexter and Greg Selinger.... Ramshackle and reckless leadership---get real Mr. Harper!

Harper’s major policies, of course, are to put Canada deeper into the huge deficit he created by spending $30B on jets, $13B on jails (I guess to jail those who wouldn’t be able to cope with all the social program cutbacks necessary to pay for Harper's jets and jails), and $6B more of government revenue losses resulting from Harper’s final instalment of corporate tax cuts he had promised to promote job and productivity growth.

Harper’s promises to create jobs and improved productivity with corporate tax cuts are strongly disputed by Statistics Canada which has demonstrated that past corporate tax cuts simply went to increased executive bonuses, increased dividends, and increased corporate capital pools....and no increased jobs or productivity gains. In summary, Harper promised to help the working classes when in fact he was simply directing more capital to his rich friends in the corporate world.

Harper forgot to inform the Canadian People that following giant 2008 infusions of government capital into Canada’s banking industry, his economic and fiscal statement the following month projected budget surpluses going forward three years when the actual deficit ballooned to $55B in 2009, the largest deficit in Canada’s history.

Harper then announced $4.5B worth of public spending cuts on civil service wages, provincial equalization payments, and no new infrastructure investment that would have compounded the recession difficulties. Fortunately Harper removed these cuts due to threats of non-confidence motions.

Harper is all over the economic map like a drunken driver....just doesn’t seem to have any consistent economic direction at all.

Even’s Harper’s claims that Canada leads the G8 in economic recovery is in dispute by experts.

According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Canada’s unemployment rate was 18th and 13th on GDP growth performance out of 34 countries, 6th out of G7 countries in GDP per capita, 5th on productivity growth, and had the second highest trade and investment income deficit exceeded only by the USA.

These OECD figures demonstrate that Harper is misleading the Canadian people in our economic health. Rather than leading developed nations as he suggests, we are more following up the rear.

Stephen Harper has set himself up as the only leader able to lead Canada into the future and has warned of the dire consequences of anything but a Conservative majority. The Canadian people will show him what they think of this.

I must confess that all of these prognostications and opinions were written last Thursday, days before the vote and many are written in the presence of a die-hard conservative supporter who is claiming a majority Conservative victory.

The bets are on to see who is more accurate in their forecasting.

The visitor, however, would vote Conservative even if he were the last acknowledged Harper supporter on Earth....but hey, radicals, zealots, fanatics, and true believers can never be convinced of the real truths even if it hammers them between the eyes...and Harper must now be praying that many of his true believers don’t wake up with a renewed common sense on election day.

Besides a change of Federal Government in Ottawa, there will be other major changes.

We can expect Harper to resign or get pushed out by his party, Ignatieff to surrender the Liberal Leadership potentially to Bob Rae, and a call to unite the center left parties----which I predict will be the Liberal Democratic Party....You heard it all here first!

Canada needs your voice. Be sure to vote today!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Oshawa Voters Have a Clear Choice in the May 2nd Federal Election

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
April 25, 2011

By the time you read this, the Federal Election will be one week away and hopefully you are planning to vote. After all, it is a responsibility of every citizen to exercise this right that is still being fought for in many parts of the world.

It’s unfortunate that many citizens take the right for granted and fail to take advantage of their opportunity to have their “say” in the important task of choosing a government for our nation.

I took the opportunity to vote in last Friday’s advance poll and was impressed with the numbers of people exercising their franchise on that day. Obviously there is a lot of voter interest in this election and we hope the voting turnout is high across the country.

This election gives voters a real choice between two distinct philosophies and two main directions ahead for this country. There’s the Conservative’s Jets, Jails, and Corporate Tax Cut Agenda vs. the Liberal and New Democratic Party Agendas that focus more on social programs like health care, pensions, and educational opportunity.

There are the campaigns that focus on hopes and aspirations of ordinary Canadians vs. those that focus on scare mongering, attack ads, and benefits for Corporate Canada.

Harper’s main message, for example, are the dire straights Canada would find itself in if he was not given a majority. Many citizens, of course, feel the reverse is true. That Canada would be changed significantly if Harper had a majority and unfettered ability to implement his extreme right wing agenda that he has developed over a number of years as policy wonk for the Reform and Alliance Parties.

But then, right wing politics, like religion, is worshipped unquestionably by the fanatics and true believers....and reports are now surfacing that Harper’s political philosophy is hugely influenced by the fundamentalist Alliance Church he attends. This despite the fact that the vast majority of Canadians, unlike the United States, believe in the separation of Church and State.

By way of illustration, Harper’s church opposes abortion and women’s right to choose, supports a law and order agenda and capital punishment, is anti-gay opposing same sex marriage, opposes stem-cell research (anyone here remember “born again Christian" George W. Bush on this?)...all faith based values that Harper would want to impose on the Canadian public given a majority, a dangerous practice in Canada’s pluralistic society.

This, of course, is part of the American way where the strongest right wing Republican supporters and opinion leaders are the Bible belt fundamentalist church groups...the politically motivated Gerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of TV evangelism fame, that hold sway in influencing the American political agenda...and Harper has often been criticized as a PM that wants to Americanize our country...and giving him a majority government would be a good start to pushing our country to the intolerant right.

Last Wednesday, political forums were held at the John Street Branch of the Senior Citizens Centre and another held at the CAW hall sponsored jointly by CKAR radio and the CAW...and the contrast among the candidates was as broad as the philosophies that divide them.

Conservative Colin Carrie did not have the intellectual, debating or presentation skills or knowledge of the other two main candidates and thus came off as a much weaker candidate despite the seven years he’s been our MP. Many of his answers were simply read out of the Tory Platform Book, and he made some preposterous statements such as his criticism of the Liberals for their negative TV ads. While I don’t recall seeing any such Liberal Ads, I suppose he was wanting to go on the offensive to deflect criticism away from the Conservative character assassination ads that have flooded the airwaves for the last year criticizing Ignatieff with lines like “He didn’t come back for you.”

Liberal Candidate James Morton is a polished, cerebral, and slick Toronto Litigation Lawyer who is past president of the Ontario Bar Association, Osgoode Hall Law Professor, Media Commentator, and author of 17 legal texts. His practice focuses on commercial, criminal, and constitutional litigation at all levels including the Supreme Court.

James Morton is a most impressive candidate and would be sure-fire cabinet material on any Liberal majority or minority government if elected.

Unfortunately, as a parachute candidate, he is unknown in this parochial city that prefers well-known Oshawa names and it is doubtful whether even this “star” candidate can make up sufficient ground in the short election period. Beyond that, the Liberal Riding Association has not had a good campaign organization for some number of years.

Oshawa’s NDP Candidate, Chris Buckley, is impressive in another way. Born and raised in Oshawa, he is president of CAW local 222 and lead Canadian negotiator for GM workers. In June 2008, Mr. Buckley received international attention for leading the historic fight against the closure of the GM Oshawa Truck Plant. He has been a long time fighter for pension and EI reform, and worker’s rights. He has put his money where his mouth is for years in terms of fighting for reforms for workers and for ordinary Canadians.

More importantly, during the candidate’s debates, Buckley very impressively demonstrated his quick repartee and his straight-talking “shoot from the hip,” “down to earth” style, the kind of guy that really knows how to make sense to ordinary people and says what they want to hear. Both Buckley and Morton, if either got elected, would be sure to find themselves in a cabinet seat in a minority parliament coalition government.

Both Morton and Buckley, if elected, have the skills, ideas, intellect, communication abilities, and talent, and a big view of important national issues to influence policy nation-wide on the governing of this nation while Carrie, if re-elected, would continue to be one of the uninfluential back row trained monkeys that raise their arm to vote when they were told to do so.

In his presentation, Carrie bragged about providing federal funding for many city projects, like Federal Grants for lighting for the Senior's Center pool rooms, highlighting his belief in the role of an MP as delivering mickey mouse “pork barrel” peanut-sized morsels of our tax money back to us in vote-buying Federal Grants. He's unlike his fellow Conservative, Tony Clement, who was able to direct $50M away from Parliament Approved Border Infrastructure Programs to his own Muskoka Riding just in time for the 2 day G8 summit there.

Both Liberal Morton and NDP Buckley mentioned the need for pension reform citing the need for guaranteed worker pensions. The simple method, both agreed, was to amend the Bankruptcy and Creditor Act to move pensioners to the head of the creditor line in the event of bankruptcy. They also mentioned prohibitions against corporations raiding surplus pension funds. Never again should there be workers, like those at Nortel, for example, that lost their pensions and their security after lifetime employment because all of the capital was siphoned off by creditors leaving pensioned employees high and dry.

In terms of pensions, Harper’s and Flaherty’s plan has already been floated as a trial balloon---they want to privatize the CPP to provide extra commissions to their banking and insurance industry friends and remove the idea of guaranteed pension benefits.

Both Morton and Buckley criticized the Conservative's corporate tax cuts stating that Stats Canada demonstrates that jobs are not created by corporate tax cuts but that the proceeds from the cuts goes to shareholders and increasing corporate cash reserves.

Clearly Carrie was outclassed in every way by his opponents. He often read answers to questions directly from his party briefing books, rambled on in ways unrelated to the question if he didn’t know what to say to it, and had some very nonsensical answers. In a question to how he would promote good job growth in Oshawa, Colin Carrie stated the same asinine answer that John Henry had spouted at the CAW hall during the Mayoral Debates. Carrie said Oshawa has a deep water port, the main rail line across the country, we’re on the superhighway linking Oshawa to markets, and we have an airport....how stupid an answer since we’ve had these attributes for the last 50 years and still have a net outflow of good manufacturing jobs.

It’s logical that Carrie had the same answers as John Henry to that question though as they both had the same speechwriter as their campaigns were intricately connected, Carrie even donating the maximum $750 to Henry’s Campaign, moneys that probably came from Carrie’s MP Expense budget funded from your tax dollars. Carrie donated over $2000 to 7 or 8 municipal candidates, likely from the same taxpayer funded expense account with involvement in a municipal campaign unheard of from Federal Politicians.

Carrie tried to tell the audience that the election was about the government record, financial responsibility, lower taxes (for corporations, he forgot to say but not for individuals), more jobs, the Conservative budget and an election Canadians don’t want while Buckley countered that the election was about contempt of parliament, health care, pension and EI reform, and worker rights, and cutting government waste as he referred to the $1.2B weekend photo op G8/G20 summits that trampelled the Constitutionally Guranteed Civil Rights of Canadians.

Buckley stated that any tax breaks should go to the workers generating profits in the economy and not the fat cats wanting to line their pockets on the backs of the workers.

Recent polls put Morton at 17.4% support, third behind Carrie at 44.8% and the NDP’s Buckley at 31.6% with the Greens trailing at 5.7%. While these polls are changing daily with the most recent poll showing Layton’s NDP overtaking the Liberals into 2nd place, one should remain vigilant about these polls (See most current poll) because they could have a roll in your voting choice.

Canadians can vote on principle like voting for the Greens in this city or they can vote strategically to insure the election (or defeat) of a specific party.

If they support Conservatives guns, jails, and corporate tax cuts agenda and a prime minister who shows contempt for parliament they should support Colin Carrie. If, however, the find Harper’s leadership to be dangerous for this country, they should vote strategically for a larger objective, and that is to cast a vote against Harper.

In Oshawa, that means throwing their support behind the candidate most likely to defeat Colin Carrie. The candidate in the best position to defeat Carrie is the NDP’s Chris Buckley. Buckley should get the vote of strategic voters who are afraid of a Harper majority.

While the Liberals Morton would be an outstanding parliamentarian for the city and for the country, polls show him to be so far behind Buckley that he has little chance to win and thus voting for the Liberals in this riding is like voting for the Greens....throwing away your vote towards the greater objective...the defeat of Stephen Harper and his jets, jails, and corporate tax cuts right wing law and order agenda.

In any case, please make your choice...and vote! Canada needs your voice!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Does Stephen Harper Deserve A Majority Government

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
April 18, 2011

It seems a new bombshell is dropping every day and all seem to question Stephen Harper’s credibility, honesty, transparency, respect for Parliament and for the Canadian people.

Mr. Sincerity, Stephen Harper, thanks Seniors for their contributions... read from a teleprompter of course!

Our Federal Parliament approved $131M under the “Border Infrastructure Fund” to ease traffic congestion at our border crossings and you’d expect every penny approved to go to that purpose, wouldn’t you? Yet more than $50M of that cash was siphoned off for projects completely unrelated to expenditures Parliament had approved.

Every Canadian has cause to be damn angry at the lack of honesty, transparency, and accountability of the ruling Conservative Government which shows distain and disrespect for Parliament and for the Canadian people at almost every turn.

That $50M of Parliamentary approved funds to ease border crossing congestion went straight to "Tammany Hall" vote-buying spending rampages in Conservative Tony Clements’s riding for Stephen Harper’s photo-op $1.2B G8/G20 summit.

Harper’s bait and switch tactics are deceitful and dishonest at best and criminal at worst.

The G8 Legacy Projects funded with moneys approved for the border infrastructure improvements include public toilets, Muskoka roads, sidewalks, and parks improvements, improvements to downtowns in Huntsville, Bracebridge, and Gravenhurst, new highway signage, tourist information centers, and airport improvements, all of these projects quite distant, in some cases 100 Km, away from the G8 summit site.

I do suppose it is possible that if President Obama, or one of the other G8 leaders cloistered at the Deerhurst Inn Resort, found time to drive about for a little tourist site seeing on the two day Muskoka Conference, they may have found nature calling and shouted out to their driver....”Stop the Limo...I’ve got to have a pee at those public privies over there!” After all, when nature calls, job 1 (or job 2 for that matter) is not far behind! So spending the $275,000 for these privies 20 km away from the conference center might be a useful contingency (LOL!).

On the other hand, one could assume that the $50M spent in Tony Clement’s Muskoka riding was blatant vote buying. Even some conservative supporters are turned off by these tactics...and you should be too!

Vote buying is a common strategy for Harper's Conservatives! Two members of the Julian Fantino’s Vaughan Conservative Riding Association, one a former Federal Conservative Candidate, resigned their riding membership last week to protest $10M of your tax money being given to the Vaughan Health Centre in a fundraising drive being spearheaded by Fantino’s former fundraisers. This looks like a giant Harper payback for helping get Fantino elected!

It seems the bloopers, blunders, boners, bungles and botch ups orchestrated by the Harper Conservative boneheads never end. There’s another one every day! And you ain’t seen nothing yet!

The roots of the Harper Conservatives arose out of the Western Canada Reform and Alliance Parties which were seen as extremist and intolerant due to a number of statements by Reform MPs which were considered to be racist, homophobic, or sexist. The Reform Party called for the privatization of various government services that the party believed could be better provided by the private sector. These government services included a number of state-owned corporations including Canada Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Petro Canada (sold in the last couple of years under the Harper administration to Suncor Energy), and Harper and Jim Flaherty have recently floated trial balloons suggesting privatizing the Canada Pension Plan.

If the Conservatives get a majority government, we are sure to see the re-emergence of the right wing legislation reflecting the Reform ideas Harper described in his firewall letter to Premier Ralph Klein such as replacing the Canada Universal Health Plan with a two-tier private and public health insurance system, anti abortion legislation, and reduced social program expenditures, all publicly supported by Stephen Harper in his writings. Harper once stated that he favoured scrapping universal health care and replacing it with "for profit" U.S. style health care. Harper's principal objective is to Americanize all aspects of Canadian Society creating a society favouring the rich and privileged...and armed---with Harper's intent to scrap the gun registry.

One of the keys to Harper's present election platform is a reduction in Corporate taxes from 18% to 16.5%...and these corporate tax rates are already among the lowest in the world. The lost government revenue necessary to balance the huge defit budgets, of course, will have to be picked up by you, Mr. and Mrs. Middle Income Earner, either through tax increases or the slashing of social programs.

We have seen inklings of Harper’s Right Wing and Extreme "My Way or the Highway" Agenda in his trampling of Civil Rights during the G20 Gadhafi style police smackdowns, his government’s withdrawal of government CIDA grants for Kairos, a church-based aid group because it supported abortions in its third world work (the famous Bev Oda “NOT” controversy), and Harper’s key current election platform of funding Jets, Jails, and Corporate Tax Cuts all funded through spending cuts to support the poor and middle class through spending on higher education and social programming to provide opportunity to ordinary Canadians.

In showing distain for Parliament and its traditions, Harper refused to provide documentation to MP's about the costs for the jets and jails he proposed and thus was ruled by the Speaker of the House to be in Contempt of Parliament, the first time a Westminster Democracy of any of the 178 in the world following the British Parliamentary model has been found to be in contempt of its Parliament---a serious matter that Harper puts down to simple political gamesmanship.

Harper calls potential coalition governments "dangerous and reckless"...no way! They are the common governments in many countries and are likely to be so in Canada into the future as long as the Bloc wins support in Quebec at the expense of the old line parties.


Coalitions governments now exist in Britain and in Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, Israel, and many other countries, and Lester Pearson's 1960's Minority Liberal Governments brought us National Health Care, Canada Pension Plan, the Auto Pact, and the Canadian Flag---productive governments indeed!

Harper’s misrepresents the truth on so many fronts in his efforts to retain control.

He rants about the “dangerous” and “reckless” coalition that will result if Canadians don’t give him a majority yet his Conservative Party is a coalition of the Reform, Alliance, and the Progressive Conservative Parties.

Also, in 2004, Harper plotted to form a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois in order to wrest the Prime Ministership from Paul Martin’s minority Liberal Government and in a TV interview in 1997 strategized overthrowing a minority Liberal Government by a coalition of conservative parties.

Harper does not respect the traditions of Parliament. When he was about to lose confidence in a House of Commons vote, or when he wanted to squelch the release of sensitive information, he has simply closed down parliament---twice---not at all protective of the traditions of Parliament followed by “honourable” Prime Ministers!

And yet Harper continues to dispute the recent “Contempt of Parliament” ruling of the speaker.

He’s a guy that makes up the rules as he goes along. He obviously believes that the ends always justify his means.

With Harper’s history of coalition building, it is extremely dishonest for him to now call them reckless and dangerous!

Dangerous is what Harper would be if he ever got a majority government and started implementing some of the programs he developed as a policy wonk for the Reform Party.

Fortunately, I don’t believe that Harper will get that majority he craves because his campaign launches a different controversy every day. He has been courting the ethnic communities with government handouts, and as I write this, Etobicoke Centre Conservative candidate Ted Opitz’s campaign team has asked multicultural groups in the riding to wear “ethnic costumes” for a photo op backdrop at Harper’s televised rally in the riding. This has resulted in controversy within the ethnic communities as costumed ethnics appeared with signs “Is this ethnic enough?”, “I’m Canadian,” “Harper’s Photo Op Prop,” “I’m very ethnic,” “CTV news...Is this ethnic enough for you,” etc, ridiculing the request from the Conservative Campaign Team.

My gosh, we just barely got over the story about Stephen Harper’s Campaign Team ejecting a young girl from a rally as the planning team found a picture of her and Ignatieff on her facebook page.

Interesting how Harper is so keen on screening stuff like this when a recent story describes a 70 year old top Harper advisor, disbarred lawyer Bruce Carson,who had spent jail time for fraud (5 cases) and was recently “outed” for influence peddling in negotiating federally funded water purification contracts with aboriginal communities in which his 22 year old girlfriend would get 20% commissions. Incidentally this same advisor had been invited to dinner at the Prime Minister’s 24 Suffolk Drive residence accompanied by his former live-in girlfriend, a woman deported from America for running a prostitution ring and for money laundering.

There’s a new scandal every day and we’re only seeing a small sample of what we’ll get with a Harper majority.

Lord! Please save Canada from a Stephen Harper majority!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Oshawa---Prepare to be Amazed!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 31, 2011


There are a couple of Oshawa City Hall topics receiving coverage and comment in the media and considerable criticism in the social media this week.

First is the appointment of a replacement local councillor for the disgraced Mike Nicholson who refused to be sworn to council after winning a seat in the election, an occurrence that undoubtedly could only happen in Oshawa, and in two elections in a row in Oshawa--- “Believe It Or Not!”

This is so bizarre, it could probably be featured in the Ripley column by the same name for those old enough to remember the syndicated newspaper cartoon panel which pictured items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims.

Anyway council deliberations for Nicholson’s replacement will take place at a February 3rd Special Council Meeting and should be great fun for all who want a good night of free entertainment and a night of democracy (or not) in action.

Council has decided to appoint rather than call an election to fill the vacancy so some favored son or daughter is going to be gifted almost four years of part time employment requiring approximately 10 hours a month at a salary of approximately $300 per hour (1/3 tax free).

The lucky recipient will also be placed in a “shoo-in” position for election in the regular municipal elections in 2014.

The idea of appointment, and the appointment process itself, has generated giant Facebook debate by the chattering classes on both the pro and anti appointment sides of the question.

Of grave concern to some is that the right to be a candidate is contingent upon being nominated and seconded by a council member. This has led some to observe that, while candidacy in a regular election is open to all, is non-political, and is automatic upon applying and posting a fee with the city clerk, the appointment process chosen by council is more akin to council opening up its arms to consider only “friends” into the club and is therefore seen as cronyism and nepotism.

In supporting his successful motion to consider any interested candidate nominated and seconded by a member of council, John Aker stated, ”Everyone (every politician, he meant!) will be able to bring forth a candidate. It satisfies democracy. No one (no politician, he meant!) is excluded.”

So democracy we learn is about giving politicians the power to select council members, not the people. Hell, you learn something new every day! There are rebellions occurring today in Tunisia and Egypt by citizens who oppose that view as well as civil unrest in many places in the world where the people are too repressed even to rebel.

The process of requiring all those considered for appointment to be nominated and seconded by a sitting council member makes politicians themselves the gatekeepers of who can be considered and this is a very dangerous precedent.

It is however, the distinctive mark of dictators and despots worldwide who bestow their blessings on the chosen thus insuring continuation in perpetuity of the beliefs and policies of those in charge. Hell, they'd never appoint someone with new ideas who brings new or contrary thinking to the club.

The other danger in City Council’s process is that the names of those interested in the position is secret and only the names of those nominated will be made public. While citizens will not get a chance to vote, they will not even know who expressed interest in the position, unless they are nominated, to speculate on reasons for council’s choice.

The politicians have turned down a by-election because of the cost. But hey! There is a cost to every election and so should we throw out the idea of democracy to save money? Maybe dictators are just efficient cost savers!

As astute Facebook writer, Tom Mitchell stated, “If Mayor John Henry really thinks that money is the issue in filling the vacant council seat, he should hold an auction. Get a grip your worship!” Mitchell continued, “Politics isn't the office furniture biz!”

In terms of appointing rather than electing politicians, I’ll never forget a young guy I met whose Chinese name translated into English as “Red Star Rising.” He had reported to Shijiazhuang, the Capital City of China’s Hebei Province where I worked, to have his Assignment as Mayor changed to another city. At the time, knowing a little bit about Democracy and the Electoral Process in the free world, I was a little surprised to see politicians being directly appointed by a government. But now I know you needn’t go all the way to China to witness this phenomenon. You can see it right here in Oshawa.

But anyway, make sure you skedaddle down to city council chambers for the special meeting on Thursday Feb. 3 if you want to see all the fun. As with other meetings this year that might generate considerable public interest, this decision will be made on a night when Rogers Cable does not televise the event....All in the interests of non-transparency and non-accountability of course!

The second event of interest this week is Mayor John Henry’s infantile publicity stunt to hightail it out of Oshawa in a jump seat astride a Mackie’s 24 wheeler Moving Truck to various Golden Horseshoe Mayor’s offices and council chambers seeking support for Oshawa’s opposition to the Provincial Plan to terminate construction of the expanded Highway 407 at Simcoe Street.

The 407 issue is one that John Henry didn’t mention on the campaign trail so it appears he is a Johnny-Henry-come-lately to the cause. All of the considerable public interest so far has been generated by the superb leadership of the issue by Columbus resident, Rosemary McConkey. She has organized bus protest groups to Queen’s Park, has organized extensive sign campaigns, has generated media coverage, and has brought in many prominent speakers and politicians, even MP’s and MPP’s and the Provincial Leader of the Opposition to focus attention and interest on the cause.

And while many issues simmer in this city with little apparent action, our mayor is now hopping on McConkey's 407 bandwagon and cavorting around in a giant moving truck with prominently displayed, “Mackie’s Moving,” emblazoned on the side to chat with Golden Horseshoe Mayors and Councils. They must be impressed!

I wonder whether Premier McGuinty would have sprung to attention in Peterborough recently if he’d seen Henry jump out of the moving truck to greet him?

Maybe use of the Moving Van was symbolic.

During the campaign, I spoke to a number of people in new housing subdivisions north of Taunton who reflected to me that if they’d known about the enormous taxes here, they’d have never come. And the high taxes have decreased their house values below their outstanding mortgages trapping them here. If they could afford to move, they would, I was told repeatedly.

So maybe Henry’s use of the Moving Van was symbolic of this widely-held sentiment...even Henry is grabbing a moving van out of town!

In one report, I read, in response to criticism of being “anti-green” in burning all the gas in the giant rig rather than driving in his car, Henry said, “The truck was going past St. Catharines anyway and so I just hitched a ride.” There was no report on how he was getting home---the bus, hitchhiking, or helping to unload the Mackie’s Truck and then catching a ride back in the empty rig.

While it is common for municipalities to get their ideas supported and sanctioned by other municipalities, and numbers of such requests appear on Oshawa City Council Agendas every council meeting, it is extremely unusual for busy mayors to have the time or interest to make personal representations at many out-of-town council meetings. Mayors who do this either have time to burn or get an image boost from such public appearances....and John Henry might need an image boost after spending 20 years driving around in a truck to pick up office equipment for repair!

Maybe with all these meetings from Cornwall to Windsor, Henry is hoping to bolster his image and buttress support for a run at some higher office. LOL! If so, nobody best see him scamper out of that 24 wheeler!

With this PR stunt, it is obvious we have a mayor more interested in PR than substance. As PM Harper's conservative plant in the city, he is following his leader well....no substance, no action or leadership here, but flying around the world playing the big shot while looking for photo ops. Henry is learning well at the hand of his master!

With this Mackie Truck antic, Henry is continuing as a mayor of image rather than substance.

Anyway this image of Mayor John Henry jumping on the Mackie’s Moving Truck has sure enough generated tons of publicity for Mackie’s.....and tons of ridicule for Oshawa!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Hey! What are we getting for our tax money?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 10, 2011


City taxpayers gambled on a new council, and so far it looks like we’ve elected duds. Even though we haven’t seen any leadership come from Mayor John Henry, we haven’t seen any initiatives come from any of the other council members either. It appears as if everyone so far is just sitting back waiting for something to happen. It's follow the leader without a leader!

Hell, we haven’t even had any disagreements or arguments or putdowns on council yet to lead to a little excitement. At least with the last council, we could expect frequent dissention at every meeting to provide for a little newsworthy comment.

So far, our Regional Councillors have each earned about $20,000 of our tax money and it is appropriate that taxpayers now have some kind of accounting of what we’ve gotten for this expenditure.

In the first ten weeks of this new council, the situation has to be classified as a zero-sum game----total political salaries and expenses = $176,925 (approximate), taxpayer’s benefit = 0. In zero sum parlance, this means that city politicians have so far in the 10 weeks of this new term cost city taxpayers approximately $176,925 and have not yet received a penny of value for these tax dollar expenditures.

Oh, Mayor John Henry has received his new Equinox, paid for out of his personal money as we’ve been told, and if this is so, he is to be congratulated. That is, of course, unless he simply pays for the car out of his weekly $100 minimum car allowance that he will arrange to at least give him the perk enjoyed by his fellow council members. Perhaps as mayor, he will have this car allowance ballooned to some higher level commensurate with his increased responsibility.

His Equinox, though, is a neat sleight of hand. He gets to business expense 30% annual depreciation on the car, write off any car loan interest, receives a 100% credit for the HST, receives a tax writeoff of 100% of all auto expenses, and an inflated tax free weekly gas allowance to pay for the car. Neat! He gets to play a hero looking after our tax dollars with the same net benefit to him----a free car!

He, along with his fellow council members will undoubtedly get their tanks topped up free at the city gas pumps that service all city vehicles. This would, of course, be in addition to the auto allowance that is supposed to fuel their vehicles. It would be an eye opener to see an accounting of all those who are able to use this fuel depot.

Saying as how Henry bought his own Equinox (yeah?), I guess he is entitled to decorate it however he wishes. I have heard a report that he has had a red maple leaf plaque with a blue “O” (for Oshawa) emblazoned on the red leaf. On a quick glance, I’m told that the crest looks surprisingly like the Federal Conservative Logo which is a blue “C” on a red leaf.

If this “crest story” is true, and I’d love to hear confirmation from someone who has seen the car, it does make sense for Henry to give credit to the Federal Conservatives and to the efforts of Oshawa Federal Conservative MP, Colin Carrie, whose campaign team, sign locations, and election machinery got John Henry elected.

Colin Carrie’s unprecedented level of meddling in Oshawa Municipal Elections was extremely unusual as politicians at one level do not typically meddle in the affairs of another level of government.

Carrie’s meddling in city politics is not a new revelation and has been reported in past “Eye on City Hall” columns.

But we are now learning amazing revelations that John Henry’s campaign manager, Mark Sheriff, has been appointed the Mayor’s Executive Assistant. Nothing surprising in that...except that Sherriff has just resigned as president of Colin Carrie’s Conservative Riding Association to take on Henry's Exec. Asst. job.

We now have all of the powers of the Oshawa Conservative Party installed in the Mayor’s Office willing and eager to have their chains yanked by Ottawa.

I had speculated in a past column that John Henry was personally recruited to run as a Mayoral Candidate by Colin Carrie and of Carrie’s strong connection with the Henry Campaign by his attendance at Henry’s side on election night as votes were being counted and his attendance at Henry’s private victory celebration at Downtown’s Thirsty Monk Restaurant following the victory. Now we know that the Henry Campaign was completely orchestrated by the Carrie election machinery and that Carrie was intimately involved right from the beginning. Carrie is Henry.....and Henry is Carrie...our Federal MP and our Mayor are one and the same. Dangerous!

With such an intimate connection between Carrie and Henry, there is sure to be no Federal/City disputes....that whatever Ottawa wants for Oshawa, it gets. Henry will endorse anything the Feds want for Oshawa, for example, the Federal / City Harbour Agreement to guarantee more industrial development at our lakefront. It doesn’t matter what the people want. It’s all part of a plan by Carrie to have Ottawa dictate city politics and policy for us.

None of this Conservative takeover is co-incidental but a well-organized plan. We know also that Carrie had a role in the election of Tito Dante Marimpietri and John Neal. A worthwhile question remains, which others of our new council members got the support of Carrie’s election machinery?....and why?

As a side note, I have it on good authority that the Woodstock Council had a significant turnover and that all members of that Council are now Federal Conservative Party Members.

Perhaps it is not too stretching to theorize, that Stephen Harper is making attempts to extend his electoral control across the country right down to the municipal level. After all, that would be consistent with his practise of exercising iron fisted control over Cabinet Members and his Conservative Caucus.

Perhaps Carrie’s meddling in Oshawa Affairs, and the apparent meddling in Woodstock’s Municipal Election, foretells a Harper Conservative Agenda to grab a tiller on all political affairs across the country. That would be dangerous for democracy, dissent, and an alternative voice. That could lead to G20 type policing fiascos across the country. It’s only in dictatorships where one guy pulls all the power.

In America, political organization by the Republican and Democratic Parties extends right down to the precinct (neighourhood level) and all political candidates for all offices at all levels run on the Republican or Democratic (or Independent) ticket with voters being largely identified at the neighbourhood level as registered Democrats or Republicans.

Is the Federal Conservative Party participation in Oshawa’s Municipal Election, orchestrated by Colin Carrie, part of Harper’s Grand scheme for the nation...to Americanize Canada politically and grab unfettered control by organizing Conservative Control right down to the city and neighbourhood level with local political offices being held by candidates chosen by the national party? With his strong arm control he’d be the “President” (or dictator) of our country.

We already know that Harper would like to Americanize our nation by cutting out Canada Pensions (which has recently been floated as a trial balloon), cutting out transfer payments for health care and higher education, and reducing the power of the Federal Government vis-a-vis the Provinces. As President, with neighbourhood control, he might have far greater control in reaching these objectives.

I have regularly reported politics as a game of pay-offs and deal-making for votes and of course personal ambition is never far from the surface.

The chattering classes in Oshawa have upped their volume in questioning John Henry’s honesty, transparency, and integrity in honouring his election pledges, particularly in respecting city voters which was a major campaign pledge.

They were particularly disappointed in Henry for nominating and voting for Roger Anderson as Regional Chair as Anderson was the chief proponent of the garbage incinerator being built on the city borders.

I have heard from an inside and reliable source that discussions will take place shortly to “re-balance” representation on Regional Council by the various member municipalities. This is a “given” as growing populations in Ajax, Pickering, and Whitby are under-represented relative to the slower growing Oshawa. Despite the imbalance, city representatives in the past have successfully resisted and staved off any reduction in Oshawa Regional Representation.

I have now been told by insiders that John Henry agreed to a “secret” deal to not oppose any reduction to Oshawa Regional Council representation as a trade-off for the overwhelming support he received for his prestigious $6000-$7000 seat on the Durham Police Commission. We’ll have to keep an eye on how this plays out.

Personal ambition in politics often trumps the public good. Stay tuned!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Clothes Make the Man…Even Transforming Mild-Mannered Clark Kent into Superman

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
JuLY 12, 2010

WATCH CBC DOCUMENTARY ON THE POLICE VIOLENCE AT TORONTO'S G20 SUMMIT


FULL DOCUMENTARY OF TORONTO G20 POLICE VIOLENCE

CALL FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY IN G20 TORONTO SUMMIT


FINALLY---HAVE RULED THAT THOSE ILLEGALLY DETAINED CAN SUE!!! --- IT'S ABOUT TIME




How appropriate! The Queen is in Manitoba laying the cornerstone for a new Museum of Human Rights as I write this column on Canada Day Weekend. This has been a defining year for our Nation---the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the Queen’s Canada Week Visit, and the recent G8/G20 Conference. This was a year Canada made a mark on the world.

The world view of Canada has changed forever.

The recent Vancouver 2010 Olympics were accompanied by serious security and safety concerns, and so the police presence was highly visible. Everywhere you looked on every street corner were police from across the country proudly displaying the regular uniforms of their police service which acted as a symbol of a strong unifying force within the country….police from every region of the country pulling together for the common good and they did us proud. They were everywhere, groups of two or three police smiling and chatting amicably with passersby as friendly helpful faces assisting the crowds. And everywhere you looked, public areas and secured areas were defined by colourful posters in the green, blue, and white colours of the Vancouver Olympics, displaying motifs of the various winter Olympic sports.

Protesters came from far and wide to oppose the tremendous costs which might well have been diverted to the homeless, the poor, the native communities, the environment, or to combat corporate irresponsibility and inequitable distribution of wealth, etc. Similar protests accompany all world gatherings for the rich and privileged.

Some of the protesters were professional protesters---social activists moving from site to site to exhort their views. As with all such protest groups, the vast majority were simply law abiding spectators witnessing the event or enjoying the party atmosphere….not much different than witnessing Canada Day Celebrations at Parliament Hill or spectating at the Gay Pride Parade or Caribana or the Santa Claus Parade.

There is a possibility of problems everywhere that people gather---and everywhere it is the police responsibility to protect the public safety. They also have the responsibility to uphold Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms which guarantees citizens freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. The Charter also protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Upon arrest or detention, the Charter gives the citizens the right to be promptly informed of the reasons, to retain counsel without delay, and to have the validity of the detention determined. All citizens have the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

Toronto Police Motto---"To Serve and Protect"...Photo Credit--Richard Lautens, Toronto Star

WATCH THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE!

Every one of these constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms were widely ignored during the G20 Conference as if they didn’t exist. And so police actions are going to be tested in court actions brought by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and calls to the Federal Government for a public inquiry are being made by Amnesty International, and after rejecting public inquiries into the police action, the Toronto Police Service Board has now acceeded to public pressures announcing an independent public inquiry as I write this. The Ontario Ombudsman is investigating the misinformation given by the police about their ability to demand identification of everyone approaching within five metres of the secured meeting area or face arrest.

A facebook site with over 10,000 "friends" as I write this has been established to document some of the policing infractions and increase public pressure for an independent public inquiry over the G20 police actions.

The police presence at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics handled security well. The few minor problems that erupted were handled with dispatch, professionalism, wisdom, and only the necessary police presence. No huge police demonstrations of strength and power were evident which would have incited rather than ameliorated any potential problems.

The Olympic security organizers must have attended Psychology 101 lectures and were well aware that aggressive behaviours provoke an aggressive opposition. Too bad, the G20 security organizers didn’t attend the same lectures.

Everyone knows that dress defines a person’s attitudes and behaviours. And in all of the resulting personas, the behavior is largely predictable. Dress can even turn a mild mannered Clark Kent into Superman---a superhero in battledress---ready to fight aggressively for his beliefs.

In Toronto, the 10 foot chain link security fence and the massed police presence numbering in thousands clothed in riot gear was in stark contrast to the Olympics security measures. The G20 police with their shields, billy sticks, hard helmets, face masks, and black superhero outfits defined the police attitude, and foreshadowed the predictably aggressive behaviours the police were to deploy. The police rhymically banging their shields with their billy sticks revved up the crowds and stoked up the cops. All of the trouble provoked by the police was predictable.

Such though is to be expected as a function of a federal “law and order” government that sees everything as white and black, as either good or evil, with little in between, a party so strict in its party discipline that all messages are controlled by the prime minister’s office. I suspect that the parameters for policing this summit were laid down by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and its “iron hand control” over everything it touches. This philosophy of absolute and overwhelming power never works. And now the Harper Government want no part of any probe that may point a finger back at them!

What a contrast, the Olympics policing and the G20 Toronto Summit policing, where the massed police presence, oppressive visual appearance, and aggressive policing philosophy has been highly criticized with widespread calls for a public inquiry and the resignation of Police Chief William Blair. Hundreds of YouTube videos of G20 police action have gone viral and have trashed Toronto’s reputation as one of the world’s great cities and destroyed Canada’s reputation as a peaceful, free, and tolerant nation with a great respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.

Police action has defined Canada and the G20 Summit with headlines in the national and international press like, “G20 Summit: smashing,” “A Black Eye for Democracy,” and “Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people.”

A YouTube search will unveil thousands of videos of questionable police action with the super-hero clad police in huge numbers advancing lava-like in their star-wars getups, morphing over protesters and spectators alike, and then rushing, apparently unprovoked, into the crowds with their billy sticks swinging and sucking up individuals to be dragged behind the police lines, roughed up in many cases while the police immobilized them with plastic ties fixing their wrists behind their backs before dragging them off. In some cases rubber bullets and tear gas were fired into the crowds. In one video, I saw, a young man was hugging his obviously frightened girl friend when the police, probably in a display of macho dominance in front of the girl, power-dragged him off to her screams. In another video, the police advanced aggressively swinging their billies on a group sitting passively on the road singing Oh Canada, with their backs to the officers.

You tube videos will also show massed riot gear clothed police officers "kettling" citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and indiscrimately detaining and arresting them. Similar incidents in a recent London England economic summit were found by the British High Courts to be illegal and this will have some impact on class action suits of those similarly detained in Toronto.

Interestingly, there was no police presence around the burning cruisers or around those causing mayhem on the streets. As police seldom abandon their vehicles, there is speculation that the police planted and abandoned cruisers in the “trouble zone,” and may even have been responsible of torching them with some of their members planted among the protesters. There have been reports that the torched cars had been stripped of all of their computer and communications gear and fuel and gas caps before being abandoned. It was interesting that no police or fire service intervened to stop or limit damage to the police vehicles, nor, despite the presence of thousands of security cameras and police helicopters, was there any police presence around a Black Blok group rampaging up Yonge Street smashing store windows from Queen to College.

It has been stated by some of the police involved that they were ordered to “stand down” and not intervene in some of the destructive havoc being perpetrated by the Black Blok anarchists.

A theory being advanced is that authorities needed to allow and possibly incite some level of destruction to combat public criticism of the immense security costs.

This would not be the first time that undercover officers have infiltrated rampaging protesters and took a lead as Agent Provocateurs in instigating violence and destruction. In the 2007 Montebello Summit, police admitted such actions following press photos that showed three members of the rampaging and destructive group of rioters were wearing the same police issued riot boots as the riot gear clad officers.

The media and viral YouTube visuals are not what anyone previously would have identified with Canada or Canadians. In future, it will be hard for government officials to criticize nations accused of practicing police/government brutality against its own citizens.

Close to 1000 innocent citizens, the largest mass arrests in Canadian history were arrested and detained in crowded holding cages with open door toilet facilities, no beds, and inadequate food and water over the G20 weekend, and about 800 were released without charges showing the arrests were unjustified, while the remaining 200 were charged with minor offences like resisting arrest.

The unjustified detentions and use of excessive force is now the subject of lawsuits being raised by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Government Officials have now acquiesced to public pressure and have announced a public inquiry into the G20 police actions.

As Thomas Jefferson once said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. Let’s hope that the recent G20 tyranny turns to renewed liberty, as those responsible for this assault on Canadian people pay the price, through the ensuing lawsuits and public inquiries.

We can’t have this happen again in Canada!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Thanks for all your help boys…Don’t know what we’d do without ya!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 10, 2010

We’ve just passed the Federal Income Tax deadline and so that seemingly never-ending river of cash that floods governments at every level is obviously on our mind. No wonder they all seem compelled to spend like drunken sailors just to keep from drowning in all our cash.

And now on the eve of the new HST, which will increase Ontarian’s family tax loads by almost $800 annually, our minds are becoming focused on just what we get for all this money.

Recently our Prime Minister prorogued parliament so his commitment to Canada’s business did not interfere with his enjoyment of the Olympic Games. His $9000 an hour flights on government jets cost taxpayers about $45,000 for each of his trips to Vancouver or $90,000 for the round trip. This is only a small portion of his costs, however, when his accommodation, hospitality, security, venue tickets, etc., are included. His total Olympic costs undoubtedly cost the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars.

When Harper's Defense Minister, Peter McKay, took the same flight some months ago, he was asked by the press why he didn’t fly commercial. “Because it didn’t meet my schedule,” he responded. Well lah de lah. I took a flight out to Vancouver to volunteer in the Olympics, and guess what, I had to make my schedule fit the plane’s schedule. I couldn’t ask all you taxpayers to pool your cash to send me the Harper/McKay way!

Anyway, all this got me to thinking about where a lot of our tax cash goes and this exposes that strong sense of entitlement, the wastage, and the secrecy in too many places, even here in Oshawa with our local city government members, some of whom would be unemployed and unemployable were it not for their council seats. It's a fact that not one of our sitting council members made nearly as much in the private sector as they do from their Oshawa City Council political positions! And none of them has ever lived as high on the hog as they do now snorting at the public trough.

It’s not only here in Oshawa where Mayor John Gray feels he can use your tax monies to fund MBA’s for his friends, pay off parking and other bylaw infraction fines using a city visa card, use your tax monies to provide himself with a $40,000 birthday party, demolish council chambers and parts of city hall so that he and his political friends can get bigger office spaces and their names on a new building, and Louise Parkes, arguing for bigger office budgets so she can travel more on your dime, or Brian Nicholson arguing that university tuition money should be hidden in office budgets to hide these expenditures from you. After all, our taxes are the highest in the GTA and among the highest in the country and we wouldn’t want to lose this distinction, would we?

So Council…keep on spending, spending, spending….and we’ll keep on giving, giving, giving!

Whatever you do, don’t jeopardize our #1 rating as top taxpayers in the GTA! We want everyone in the GTA and in Canada to “Prepare to be amazed”….After all, city taxpayers reportedly spent $100,000 for some creative mind to come up with this motto-crap under our Mayor’s watchful eye.

Of course, voters have to be concerned with more than excessive spending by City Council. We have to be concerned that Councillors do not give away the store. How so, you ask!

Elections are expensive. With the General Vote and City-wide campaigning in Oshawa now, the upper spending limits for city councilor, regional councilor, and mayor are now approximately $80,000, $90,000, and $110,000 respectively. Politicians turn chiefly to the development industry for their election funds. Of course, we know he who pays the piper calls the tune…and so the developer’s political donations are nothing more than vote buying. Pleasing donors with "friendly votes" insures repeat donations for the next election. Thus politicians may give away our city store.

Politicians may give away the store, as is the case in Oshawa, with the smallest development lot levies in the GTA thus forcing the highest property taxes in the GTA on residents. Taxpayers then in Oshawa are called upon to subsidize the housing development in this city.

The largest proportion of campaign funds in Oshawa comes from the Development Industry with Mayor John Gray leading the pack getting the 77.47% of his campaign donations from the corporate sector.

Part of the real concern about use of our tax monies is the secrecy involved.

Because of inadequate controls, politicians can spend their office budgets with impunity. They can use these for hosting their friends at the Legion, buying birthday gifts for their children, taking their friends for a big night on the town, or buying flowers for their spouse. While all of these are admirable expenditures, they are not admirable uses for your tax money or mine.

When John Gray spent $40,000 of your tax money on the Stephen Colbert Day (The Mayor’s birthday party), he refused to let even his fellow councilors know the cost and it was left to one of them to file a $100 freedom of information request to get the costs disclosed.

Even at the Federal Level, the 308 MP’s and 105 Senators are very secretive about their “office budgets”, an acronym, of course, for the personal expense use of our tax funds and have been resisting audits of that half billion dollars of “petty cash” by Federal spending watchdog, Sheila Fraser, for some time. Each MP and Senator burned up $1,210,653.75 on average for their expenses...amazing.

All parties are complicit in upholding the culture of hidden Ottawa receipts, one of the few stashes of taxpayer funds not yet subject to review and audit. They have their own Public Accounts committee of parliamentarians to do this, they say. Unlike the spending scandal by British parliamentarians that ended the careers of 30% of them in 2009, we have no castle moats to clean in Canada and our guys don’t pay prostitutes for their professional service…oh yeah!

Locally here, city politicians rave that their salaries are tied to salary increases won by unionized city staff. I fail to see how this justifies politician’s excessive salaries. Doesn’t this tend to allow for excessive wage increases for all city staff as the politicians realize that they will personally benefit from big staff increases?

And salaries are excessive! An inspection of Ontario’s “Sunshine List” (Public Sector Salary Disclosure List) shows over 100 city employees making over $100,000 annually.

An email I received, signed “Angry Taxpayer” asked me to explain how at least 12 Maintenance Supervisors in the Regional Works Department could be making over $100,000 per year and why a foreman on an asphalt crew made over $130,000 when this job in the private sector would pay less than half of that. You’ve have to admit there are no explanations except that things are running wildly out of hand…and you and I, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are paying for this largesse….even while struggling to put bread on our own table!

Recently questions of mileage allowances have been in the press. One Toronto city manager who earns in excess of $170,000 claimed $17,483 for business use of his automobile in 2009, a Toronto city engineer claimed $29,000 in the last two years and the highest claiming Toronto politician, Norm Kelly, claimed $14,000 in the last two years. That’s only slightly higher than the $10,400 tax-free every one of our Oshawa politicians claimed over the last two years. But hey! Our politicians don’t deserve near as much as those Toronto guys because our guys don’t have to drive so far and we don’t have to cope with all that heavy city traffic.

Some Oshawa city employees are claiming over $800 weekly for using their own vehicle for city business. That’s more than many workers in this country get in salary and more than it would cost the city to rent a vehicle from Enterprise or one of those big rent-a-car places.

But who gives a damn about costs when you can just reach deeper into the pockets of those generous Oshawa taxpayers to fund all your extravagances.

And now we find out that Regional politicians from Ajax, Pickering, and Clarington are sitting on the board of Veridian Corporation and Pickering reps are reaping handsome stipends and expenses of $29325 (Dickerson), $27845 (McLean) and $15493 (Pickles) annually to oversee the operations of the former municipal electrical distribution companies they sold to Veridian. The two Ajax and the two Clarington reps are no doubt harvesting the same.

No wonder we’ve been hearing rumblings for years about Oshawa City Politicians wanting to sell Oshawa taxpayer owned Oshawa Power Utilities Corporation to Veridian….There’s big personal bucks sitting in those hills for the politicians to do this. Many of the City Politicians could add another $30,000 to their annual income by selling off OPUC in exchange for a job of sitting on the Veridian Board of Directors….Isn’t it great how politicians are always looking out for our interests?

Thanks for all this public service boys….don’t know what we’d ever do without ya!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/