Summer Editorial Series – The List

There’s nothing like a little time out of town to give you perspective and appreciation. Last weekend, I was in downtown Indianapolis for GenCon, a convention of gamers that’s the largest of its kind in North America. This was the weekend after that whole debt ceiling nonsense had been resolved and the same weekend that saw the United States lose its prestigious AAA credit rating, which it had possessed for nearly 95 years.

But on the streets of Indiana’s state capital, where a homeless individual or other needy person seemed to be taking up residence on every corner at the intersection of Washington and Capital, none of that mattered. Better still, none of that seemed to matter to the people handing out postcards outside the convention centre, advising people going in of the importance of living, and if necessary dying, by the word of The Bible. Perhaps they hadn’t heard that connections between Dungeons & Dragons and Satanism had been debunked decades ago.

In the back of my mind was the comfort that I has heading back to Canada; where people were smarter, where they were more caring, and where radical Christianity hasn’t gotten a stranglehold. When I woke up Monday, it was literally morning in Canada. And then I saw the front of the Toronto Sun. Handed down from on high, or wherever it is that their editorial board meets, were the three main focuses that they thought should make the top of Mayor Rob Ford’s to-do pile: licensing bikes, panhandling, and getting rid of surcharges for plastic bags.

Now, I can’t for the life of me understand the appeal of Mayor Ford; he has all the personality of Boss Tweed, but has the extreme misfortune of being a politician in the Information Age. (Guy can’t even flip the bird at cautionary citizen pointing out his law violating Blackberry use behind the wheel without making CP24.) Still, he won the election, he’s the mayor for three-and-a-half more years at least, but should these really be the three most important things he needs to get immediately?

Certainly, the Sun thinks so. After Monday’s cover story, they launched into a week-long series of covers demanding, practically ordering, that something be done about panhandlers. First of all, what’s the urgency? Second of all, can one get rid of the poor like they’re overstock cookies at a bake sale? Solving the problem of all the poor people on the street requires one of two solutions: social spending to help these people out with the programs and services they need (which I’m sure would tick Sun editors off) or two, rounding them up in debtors’ prison and poor houses like the social welfare state never came into effect in the first place.

What about licensing bikes? Were does that come from? Actually, I know where it’s coming from, the recent, well-publicized traffic incidents involving cyclists. Incidents, mind you, where the cyclist was usually at fault. That is regrettable, and while I don’t necessarily disagree with the notion that a bike should be licensed, should making it so really be in the Top 3 of Mayoral priorities in Canada’s biggest city. Besides the whole thing smacks of “Summer of the Shark” syndrome, something’s made the news a couple of times in quick succession, which means a clear and present danger is there and it needs to addressed. It’s the chicken and the egg problem of the modern media: Problem A is in the news because it’s an immediate threat, and it’s an immediate threat because it’s in the news.

Last, but certainly least, is the matter of paying a nickel for a plastic bag at the grocery store. Aside from sorting your recyclables and being mindful of much electricity you use, it’s literally the least you can for the environment. No Frills has been doing it for years, I wonder if Ford pushes through on this and the by-law is repealed, will Toronto take the grocery store chain to court? What am I talking about, it’s not like they’re Guelph.

But seriously, this is a matter of world-crumbling urgency? How can you fault a law that encourages people to be more environmentally conscious, while making them pay a premium for using something that harms us and the planet? Doesn’t the Sun know there’s a big floating pile of plastic in the Pacific the size of some larger U.S. states? What am I talking about? They’re too busy swearing under their breath trying to find pocket change for a plastic grocery bag.

Perhaps once the immediate problems of these three issues are resolved, Ford can get busy working on other issues. For instance, there are trees in Toronto with too many leaves. Doesn’t he know people are going to have to rake them up in another month? Also the TTC subway trains make too much noise, but we don’t want to pay more for quiet trains. Maybe you should be writing this down…

Summer Editorial Series – The Pinko Commie Manifesto

“Actually I'm wearing pink for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything.” That’s what Don Cherry told the gathered politicians, reporters and general public in December at the swearing in of Mayor Rob Ford. Undoubtedly, this admission was prompted by the audible gasps heard form the crowd when Cherry stood up in a hot pink sports coat that would even make Barbie call gauche on the Hockey Night in Canada commentator.

The “pinkos” Cherry was referring to were people vocally opposed to Mayor Ford’s “roads are for cars only” policy. “Grapes” then went on to compare Ford favourably to former OPP Chief Julian Fantino, and lauded both men for their honesty before wrapping up his address with a hearty “put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks.” Don Cherry, class act.

But this editorial’s not about Cherry, or even Ford for that matter (he’s suffered enough… for now). But Cherry’s comment is the harsh reaction that encapsulates a growing feeling of negativity towards bikes and bike riders. In Guelph, the philosophy of a city being bike friendly was tested again recently with the introduction of a bike box at the intersection of Stone Road and Chancellor’s Way.

For the uninitiated, a bike box is a space reserved for bikes at an intersection where a bicyclist can pull up in front of a line of cars and thus get to turn the corner before the car traffic. The use and implementation of the bike box falls in a kind of grey area so far as traffic law is concerned, but some are wondering why the city’s squandering so much time and effort to accommodate bike riders when many of them either a) don’t obey traffic rules to begin with, or b) are a nuisance and the city should be more occupied with improving traffic flow. CAR TRAFFIC.

Others have mentioned that a lot of bicyclists don’t use the roads, and still use sidewalks when perfectly good bike lanes are already there. A reasonable point, but speaking as a bike rider myself – not to mention the fact that I’m also a frequent pedestrian – car drivers in the City of Guelph are scary as hell. Scary. As. Hell.

I have been at an intersection, crossing with the light, walking at a reasonable pace, and have seen out of the corner of my eye some car creeping around the corner so that they literally don’t have to stop for me. There’s something so sinister in this. A tacit implication that maybe if you don’t start moving faster then this car driver will lower the boom on the gas petal and just mow you out of the way. And then there are the ones that don’t slow down at all. The ones that take the corner and miss you by inches. You can literally feel that breath of wind as the car just zoomed around the corner behind you.

Now that’s not to say that bicyclists are victimless. Certainly there are a number of riders who are rude, they ride too fast, they don’t observe basic safety, they don’t signal and they switch from sidewalk to road with reckless abandon. But for the cautious majority, I can understand perfectly the nagging fear that riding on roads, especially ones with no clear bike lane, can lead to potential doom. To coin a phrase, in the battle of car versus bike, the car always wins.

There was a headline lately that Guelph Police had fined 36 bicyclists in a safety blitz, mostly for riding on the sidewalk and disobeying traffic lights and stop signs. I bet the amount collected from 36 bike riders will be a tidy sum, maybe enough for the Chief of Police to buy everyone at the precinct a donut and coffee. But as I pointed out last week, it was reported in April that the City has yet to collect $5.2 million in overdue fines going back six years for offenses like speeding and careless driving. I predict that any rider defaulting on his ticket will have the court system on him faster than by-law on Led Zeppelin.

This isn’t a call for bicyclist anarchy in the Royal City, but an appeal for rationalization. Bikes are fun, they encourage exercise and they’re part of a more sustainable, liveable community. And while people on bikes may occasionally skirt the law out of indifference or ignorance, the same can be said for car drivers, and the potential negative effects can be much more severe. For years, the term “pedal to metal” was associated with driving fast in your car. Let’s change that. Let’s make bike riding gangsta, and leave commie comments to the guy in the pink sports coat.

An Essay on Civility in Politics (Or, “Don’t be Hatin’”)

So I was thumbing through NOW (like I usually do) and I came across a letter regarding a past issue about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his push to privatize the city’s garbage pick-up.

“I read your article on the garbage debate and sensed a little bitterness toward our mayor,” wrote Mike Holt. (Of course where he got an idea like that, I’ll never know.) “I, for one, am very proud of the citizens of Toronto for electing Rob Ford and feel he is doing a wonderful job. I savour every defeat of the socialist councillors and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.”

He continued, “First Ford, then a majority for the federal Conservatives, and in October a landside victory for the PCs in Ontario. I have never been prouder to be a Canadian.”

A couple of things concerned me while reading these words. One is the fact that in order for this man to be a proud Canadian, the majority of Canadians must support his political views, and two is the continuing notion of total warfare in politics that I’ve been seeing ever since the commencement of the last Federal Election.

To bring this back to Guelph, someone posted a comment on my blog, Guelph Politico, shortly after I adjourned for the Victoria Day long weekend. The comment was attached to a story I wrote about Conservative candidate Marty Burke a couple of days after the May 2nd election. I don’t think I had given a second thought to Burke or his disastrous campaign since hitting ‘Post’ on that article, but what was it that Al Pacino said famously in The Godfather Part III…

“Just curious as to what you feel qualifies you as any type of political expert?” asked the anonymous poster. Well there’s this monthly cheque I get from Echo Weekly. But seriously, what? Am I being called out? Because that’s what it feels like. But the poster goes further.

“Have you a graduate degree in political science? Have you worked behind the scenes for any of the parties? Are you a party member?” he or she asks.

First, I do not have a degree in political science. I have a plain old BA in History from the University of Guelph, where I also did take a several political courses. You know who else got a BA in History from the U of G? David Akin, an Ottawa reporter for CTV, Global and now host of The Daily Brief on the Sun News Network. Like me, he cut his journalistic teeth as Editor-in-Chief of the student paper The Ontarion.

As for the other two questions, no, I’ve neither worked behind the scenes for a party, nor have I been a party member. Do I have to be in order to better understand politics? One of the reasons I’ve never signed up for a party is because I enjoy by status as an independent. I find it better to keep my political options open, at the very least to make it easier for me to appear impartial as political reporter and commentator. But honestly, I’ve never in my adult life found myself drawn enough to a particular party to be a member.

“Or have you just taken the five minutes it takes to fire up a new blog through blogger, and viola you consider yourself and therefore implicitly demand others respect your opinion because you’ve actually taken 20 minutes and written an article? [sic]”

Well I’m not sure that sentence entirely makes sense, but I get your gist. And it actually took me 10 minutes to set up the blog and that includes choosing the template, and adding the words “Guelph Politico” to a picture of Guelph’s skyline I took for the banner. Oh, and then there’s the over 500 posts I’ve generated in nearly three years, and the hours I’ve invested in writing and doing research and searching out contacts and going to various events.

And I don’t demand others respect, I just seem to get it. Here are the names of a few people that have treated me like a journalist: Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, Mayor Karen Farbridge, the entirety of the 2006-10, and the 2011-14 city councils, Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, Stephane Dion, and numerous candidates in elections at all levels of government. And that’s just politics.

“Sorry Adam I see so much horse shit in your articles, plain lies in fact. You’re actually very lucky no one has decided to sue your ass yet.” Well, if they did decide to “sue my ass” as you say, I hope they enjoy their settlement win of X-Men comics and old Babylon 5 tapes (RIP Jeff Conway, AKA: Security Chief Zack Allen).

I won’t bother to ask Anonymous to point out the “plain lies” I’ve perpetuated. “Lying” has become a blanket term used by people of all political stripes to attack people that disagree with them. My conduct and my credentials have never been called into question until this past election cycle, and I’m sorry to say that it’s because of the growing state of poisonous partisanship.

Speaking on violence after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy said that hatred forces us to look at our brother like aliens, “Alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community.” He asked people to remember that “that those who live with us are our brothers,” and that perhaps “we can begin to work a little harder, to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”

May the same be said of us after a nasty election.

Stories to Watch for in 2011

1) Signs and Rumours of Dollar Signs.

Unless the City of Guelph discovered the lost city of gold while digging up every other road in town this past summer, then we’re likely facing a similar budget crunch as the deliberations for 2010. Budget packages won’t be prepared for council until January 31st, but delegations won’t be heard on matters of the budget until the February 22nd meeting and a final vote won’t be taken on the capital and operating budgets until March 2nd. But those are the stats, the real question is what’s going to happen? Dominate economic trends haven’t changed much in the last year, and since all the councillors, as candidates, campaigned on smart fiscal management, the balance of spending and taxes is more precarious than ever.

2) All Systems GO

Let the countdown begin because hopefully, by this time next year, when I have to go to Toronto on a weekday morning, I can sidestep the increasingly frequent two-and-a-half to three hour commute and take the GO Train. It’s been a long time in coming and as a bonus it was announced last week that the City is looking at discounted fares for GO riders taking city buses to their trains. I’ve taken a bat to the City of Guelph for its treatment of transit and transit users this year – repeatedly – but this is a brilliant move. I hope this is the start of good things for transit users in 2011.

3) Dark Ford of the Sith?

The most talked about local politics story of the year may not have anything to do with Guelph. The election of Rob Ford as the Toronto’s Top Politico came to extreme disappointment to a lot of Hogtown progressives, and in return Ford has yet to fail to disappoint their disappointment. Ford’s latest trick is to muse an abolition of the 5 cent plastic bag fee, a “tax” (as Ford’s people call it) that according to some sources has spared the globe the garbage created by about a billion little plastic shopping bags. In an interview with the Guelph Tribune, Mayor Karen Farbridge says that she and other mayors of Ontario municipalities will be watching the Ford revolution in Toronto carefully to see what works, and more importantly, to see what doesn’t work.

4) To Vote or Not to Vote…

The Prime Minister may be planning a cabinet shuffle, if he hasn’t implemented one already, but the real question is if we the voters are going to get the opportunity to shuffle the government this year as well. Certainly since the Fall 2008 Federal Election there have been rumblings and grumblings of votes of no-confidence and possible replacement coalitions, but in the last two years, a lot of those opportunities came to not. (Certainly, we all remember the big anti-proroguing protests this time last year.) And the opportunities don’t look too bright in the near future. The Liberals seem perpetually stuck in neutral and the by-election last month in three ridings didn’t prove much. Although there’s been some talk of a showdown over the Federal budget this spring, no one party has the heft or reason to force an election. But if they were, the spring would be a natural time to do so since the nation’s most populace province will have other concerns in the fall…

5) …Like An Actual Election That We Know Will Take Place

One election that we do know will happen for certain in the next calendar year is the Ontario General Election, which will not only determine whether or not our MPP Liz Sandals will keep her job, but will determine if her boss, Dalton McGuinty, does as well. A third re-election for the provincial Liberals is not a sure thing though, especially in a year that saw the implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and the announcement of higher hydro rates.

Having said that though, McGuinty’s government wasn’t as slammed over the HST as the B.C. government where referendums and court action have followed the HST turnover. In a recent Ipsos Reid poll in November, Tim Hudak’s Tories was up 41 per cent over the Liberals 32. But it’s worth noting that in an Angus Reid poll around the same time in 2009 had the Tories at 41 and the Liberals at 27. By mid-February, the Liberals were back up to 41, but it’s been a slow slide back down ever since. In other words, it’s still anyone’s ball game.

By the way, our local provincial and federal representatives will be holding a New Year’s levee on Sunday January 9th at the Italian Canadian Club from 2 pm till 4 pm. Who knows, it may be Sandals and Valeriote’s last levee together. Stay tuned.

All I Want From this Next Council…

Dear Guelph City Council,

I’ve been a very good citizen of the Royal City this year, and I would like to get a few items for next term. Before I begin though, my Mom says I should thank you for the things I got last term. The new roads and infrastructure was really nice, once we had them assembled, of course. The new City Hall is pretty swanky, but it’s almost too nice to play with. The improvements on the Provincial Court House were pretty cool, but I didn’t like that Hanlon Creek Business Park so much, but my parents say we need it so…

But seriously folks, there are some developments that I wouldn’t mind seeing coming out of council in the next four years (if not sooner). Primary among them is the transit hub.

Such a monumentous undertaking, converting an entire section of Carden Street into a one-stop shop for local and inter-city public transit, was the last item being funded by cash from Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill to be shovel-ready. Are we going to get an extension on that loan, or are we going to have to eat it, which, if I know the city of Guelph and its past actions, will mean transit cuts? The good news is, as of last Thursday, it appeared that no eating would be necessary.

And really, what’s the deal with Ward 1 Councillor Bob Bell wanting to take a minute and edited the plans. In case you missed the Mercury article he said that he wanted to cut the number of bus bays at the hub from 22 to 18, and that those four cut bays “could be accommodated along the Gordon/Norfolk streets corridor.” So it’s a transit hub where there’s an 18 per cent chance that the bus you really want is a couple of blocks and a five minute walk away.

While I appreciate the councillor’s due diligence, I am aghast. I thought the City couldn’t revisit a construction plan once the shovels were in the ground. At least, that seemed to be the argument when the Hanlon Creek Business Park started to get going. Sadly, as I walked from one store to the other last Wednesday in a vain effort to find bus tickets (because apparently stocking up suppliers on the first day of the month so that they don’t run out is too much to ask), I wondered if former Mayoral Candidate Ray Mitchell was right. “Transit is the fallback position to cut when money is needed as it primarily hurts the poor, and we know they don’t vote” said Mitchell in his Candidate Questionnaire for Guelph Politico. “Cutting bus services was probably the meanest thing this council did.”

I know I’ve been harping the transit issue a lot this year, but it really does seem like there’s a concerted effort out there to perpetuate the myth that freedom is a car that you yourself ride in alone and that buses and trains are for poor people and hippies. Parking for the transit hub has been a concern, but I ask, why does one have to drive their car to the bus station? Or the train station? Or at the very least, why is their no encouragement from the City to car pool? If everybody’s going to the same place anyway…

With Rob Ford in Toronto ending “The War on Cars” (Worst. Covered War. Ever.) I wonder how long it will take his thinking to trickle outward from the GTA. Roads are for cars! Bikes are for sissies! Street cars are stupid! If you can’t drive a car, at least have the decency to travel by way of a dark tunnel underground where car people don’t have to look at you! First of all, can we get Clarence Odbody to stop by Rob Ford’s house this Christmas before he turns Toronto into Potterville? And second, if the increasingly long drive to get anywhere hasn’t given you a clue, I’m out of ideas on how to get people to think of transit more positively, and not wrinkle their nose at the thought of taking a bus.

Anyway Council, there’s some milk and cookies in it for you if you figure out a way (not that that’s a bribe or anything). In the meantime, stay cool and good luck with the term ahead.

Signed,
A random lunatic (with his own newspaper column)

Rants and GFOMM

I Rant on Your Grave

Hey Guelph! Thanks for voting!

Or at least that’s I would say if more than one-third of you actually gave a damn and voted.

But seriously, thanks to the 33.9 per cent of Guelph that did give a damn and got out and voted. You are the real heroes, and that’s maybe the saddest thing I’ve ever typed. Not that you voted is sad, but the fact that so few of you couldn’t get yourselves to a polling station and fill in four little boxes with a pen is an epic tragedy worthy of Sophocles. Where was the anger? The outrage? The pettiness? Nothing. Sense of civic pride and responsibility? Crickets. Okay.

But seriously, what’s the deal? Are people in Guelph any less frustrated with the economy, taxes and services as compared to, let’s say, Toronto? In the T-Dot, 53.2 per cent came out to vote for *sigh* Rob Ford. Perhaps voter dissatisfaction was higher in Toronto, while the number of people in Guelph who were either content with city leadership, or discontent with the choices offered, was stratospherically high. Considering that there are people in the world that brave bullets – or worse – to vote, what’s our excuse?

Ed The Sock did a bit during the 2006 Municipal Election saying that 36 per cent of people voted in the 2003 election, so majority rules: no more municipal elections. We’re not there yet are we? Surely, the 66 per cent that didn’t vote in Guelph last week  will agree that this reaction is extreme, yet still one wonders why we can’t hoist more people off the couch and into a voting booth.

Of course, people can’t get over their ignorance either. A woman named Jeri Scheffer wrote a letter to the Guelph Mercury on Election Day decrying the fact that her child’s school was being used as a polling place, like every other school has been since at least when my mom was a kid. But if this woman’s misalignment with, you know, how society works was messed up, there was the other side of the coin that was slipped in to her letter so surreptitiously that you you’d almost miss it.

Yep, Ms. Scheffer doesn’t vote, and she said so right in black and white before taking the school board, the school, the trustees and everyone to task for not keeping her informed about the fact that the school’s gym – far from where the kids sit in class – serves as a polling station and probably has since time and memoriam. A better metaphor for this election I can’t think of: A person mad at the system that they can’t even be bothered to participate in. Oh well.

Fill Your Brain

This weekend is the annual Guelph Festival for Moving Media, or what used to be called the Guelph International Film Festival, if your memory goes back that far. The one thing that GFOMM does best, if it can only do one thing, is inspire you and invest you in some unique documentaries, shining a light on people and issues in small towns and big cities across the globe. This year’s program looks to be no exception with environmentally-minded flicks, compelling docs about the arts, and some short animated films for adults only (not like that).

Let me include a few recommendations. First, and this is no particular order, is The So-Called Movie. Savvy Canadian music lovers will be able to name check So Called, a musician and artist based out of Montreal who gave one of the most rockin’ performances from this year’s Hillside Inside. The NFB doc about this madcap man of music is a definitely a fun watch if nothing else. Another neat movie, albeit with a more advocate bend is A Different Path, which follows activists from across North America as they try to overcome the tyranny of the single-occupant automobile. Along similar lines, check out the Friday night performance of Polydactyl Hearts who will be performing their new show Hello Adventure, as well as their now classic show Le Cyc.

For information and the full program and schedule, go to http://www.festivalofmovingmedia.ca