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by Fred Kirby                               March 1, 2006

If someone on council suggested that the sun always rises in the east councillors Hewitt, Roppel, and Ribey would want to refer it to committee for further study.

The proposal for voting by mail was not new when Deputy Mayor Donald raised the issue. Many municipalities had adopted it. We elect councillors with the expectation that they will come to meetings prepared. The information is available. It was apparent from the questions raised that our rural representatives were not prepared to discuss the issue. They did not do their constituents justice and wasted the time of others.

Those opposing the voting by mail system spoke of the likelihood of fraud. If fraud is a concern then the current system should have been abandoned years ago. False names on voters’ lists, ballot stuffing, lost ballots, and names from tombstones are all part of our current system. With all the pitfalls of the current system, I have never heard of any election, federal, provincial, or municipal requiring a trust company to oversee the counting of ballots. To suggest we need a trust company if we vote by mail insults all those responsible for tabulating the results. Roberts again shows his contempt for the democratic process and municipal staff.

Coercion did not end with the secret ballot. Coercion takes many forms. Domination in a household is still too common. Uncritical acceptance by youth of opinion in a household can lead to coercion when parents fail to teach their children how to think independently. I have met women who say they always vote as their husbands directs. ‘Father knows best’ is still, unfortunately, with us. Coercion, whether it is overt or not, occurs regardless of the voting system. It is difficult to prove regardless of the system.

Fraud and coercion are possible no matter what voting system is used; they do not belong when discussing policy. How the policy is implemented belongs in another discussion.

Universality, inclusiveness and accessibility are the essential ingredients for any voting system. We have universality but inclusiveness and accessibility are only present in principle, not in reality, in our current system. We all have the right to vote but only can vote if we can be physically present to cast a ballot, with the exception of the proxy vote, and impracticality here. Our present system disenfranchises a great number of voters. That is neither right nor fair. Voting by mail corrects this injustice.

A dual system decision like the pipeline decision and the ward decision is neither fish nor foul and would only make us a further object of ridicule. Do we really want to be seen even more ridiculous?
Since fraud and coercion are spurious arguments and voting by mail meets the test of inclusiveness and accessibility better than the present system, the real reasons for opposition must be elsewhere.

Considering where the main opposition comes from, is the unspoken reason resistance to change or is it fear of how cottagers will vote? It would be useful to know. Arguments are more quickly resolved when honesty is part of the mix.

March 8, 2006

To-day is International Women’s Day. It is a day of celebration and a day of mourning. Throughout the world we are moving, like treacle in winter, towards equality between genders. Someday, not in our lifetime, equality might be attained and we will finally catch up with the Stone Age, an Age where there was equality between man and woman. We have a strange idea of progress.

Recently the CBC ran a series on the plight of women in Pakistan. Honour killing, a grotesque term if ever there was one, is rampant where women are murdered for some perceived slight to the family’s honour. A woman is raped when her brother ogled a landlord’s daughter. The sister is unable to prosecute lest she be charged with adultery, which is a crime, and no longer marriageable because of the rape, her life is finished. A female doctor working in the clinic of an oil refinery was gang-raped by security guards supposedly protecting staff. When the doctor complained to hospital staff she was told to keep quiet about the incident. She did not keep quiet and was publicly persecuted for doing so. Even President Musharraf went on television to denounce her and say the rapists were innocent in spite of the evidence against them. Such are the daily attacks against women in Pakistan and the attitude towards them after the attacks. The victims become the accused.

In Mexico 500 women have been murdered in recent years near the USA border. Not one murder has been solved.

In Pakistan the vast majority of these obscene acts are committed by illiterate, ignorant peasants living in a culture unchanged through the centuries. In Mexico there is a deeply ingrained macho attitude combined with poverty, systemic corruption, and widespread crime.

While such terrible acts of violence against women in these countries can never be accepted, one can understand it. But how do we understand the behaviour of politicians and ordinary citizens in Canada in the face of continued violence against women? By what trick of the mind do we accept the abuse of vulnerable women in our society?

Women’s Shelters go begging for financial support. Victims of violence and their children are left to scrape along in poverty while the pious and the secular walk by on the other side of the road. We do not live in a backward, isolated mountain village rife with poverty and illiteracy; we live in Canada, a rich nation. We live in wealthy Ontario. In Kincardine we have one of the highest average incomes in Canada. In Bruce County, and certainly in our area, we can more than solve the financial concerns of our Women’s House overnight if we wanted to. The politicians can resolve the financial plight of the women and children if they desire. That we and the politicians do not is to our everlasting shame.
Many years ago a wise politician named Frank Chambers said to me “Fred, never let them tell you there is no money. It is always how they want to spend it that matters.” Governments waste millions; we want the latest toys.

Though literate and wealthy, can we really say we are better than the men in Pakistan?

March 15, 2006

Headlines in the Sun Times tell us, “New clinic (is) key to attracting doctors: study.” So what happened in Kincardine? We have a clinic (the Kincardine Community Medical Centre), yet we have doctors who are overworked and patients that are orphans. These conditions are not solved by the existence of the Centre. What we do not have is a building that meets the needs of all citizens. I write of those with disabilities or with limitations who need to attend the Centre.

The lack of appropriate features for citizens who most likely have to attend the Centre more frequently than the average person is unacceptable. What community spends $500,000 plus related costs, including the cost of the land, for a tourist booth but does not build a fully functioning medical building? What kind of a municipality do we live in that we spend a million dollars to keep down an increase of taxes in Ward Two (my ward) but build a Medical Centre on the cheap? Perhaps the cutbacks on space requirements cannot be corrected now but why, after three years, have other building design flaws in the Medical Centre not been corrected?

In July 2005, I was invited to join members of the Municipality’s Accessibility Committee on a tour of the Medical Centre. The CAO, John deRosenroll, also attended the tour. Following the inspection for possible barriers to those with handicaps, the recommendations were to be written and circulated. To date, I have not seen those recommendations. Budget discussions start in April and since the needed changes have waited three years, those with handicaps should not have to wait another year to be accommodated. I therefore offer my recommendations. I apologize for my own delay; I was trying to let the system work.

Today I write of the exterior issues. The parking for those with disabilities is too far away for practical use by anyone needing to transfer to a wheel chair or having difficulty walking. In inclement weather someone transferring to a chair would be soaked or frozen by the time he or she reached the door. There are other barriers in approaching the front door. What is needed now is what was required when the building was first designed. A marquee should be built over the main door, large enough to allow vehicles to drop off those using chairs or others needing to be driven to the door. Though the building is in a terrible location, the addition is feasible or the whole front entrance could be moved.

Since our current mayor, Glen Sutton and deputy mayor, Sandy Donald, led the planning of the building, it is only proper that they take the lead again in adding the marquee – just as long as they do not seek advice from their previous choice of architect. We should not forget that Larry Kraemer was mayor at the time. At the opening of the centre, Mr. Kraemer cut the ribbon but, when one looks at what was built for the overrun costs, I question how much oversight Mayor Kraemer gave to this important project.

I feel obliged to mention the path from the Centre over to the hospital. It slopes to the side. It does not present a barrier as such but it does make for difficulty when operating a wheel chair. The path did not have to be this way. Lack of care brought this about. While allowing for the particular features in the area, no thought was given to the needs of those with handicaps.

My next recommendation involves both the hospital and the municipality. There is a need for a sidewalk from Queen Street up the hill to the hospital, built in compliance with accessibility design standards. There should be two handrails on the inside, one at walking level and one at chair or scooter level. Do not waste time arguing who will use it. The public will use it. Those with handicaps are an integral part of the public. If we do not accept that then we do not understand the principle of accessibility.

In September 2003 council said it was giving $134,451.78 to the Centre. The mayor at that time, Larry Kraemer, said that this was the last trip to the well. What Mr. Kraemer and committee chairman Glen Sutton failed to acknowledge is that if a job is done poorly and is incomplete then it is not the last trip to the well. The cost of my recommended changes and the cost of those changes still needed inside the Centre are not new expenses. The job was never finished in the first place. They know that.

The Medical Centre should be on the budget agenda this April and discussions with the hospital regarding the sidewalk should start now. Doing the ethical thing does not require laws and regulations. Accessibility is a matter of rights.

March 22, 2006

A note to Randy Roppel regarding his position on the Vote-by-Mail debate: civil and human rights are far too important for you to continually use ‘rights’ frivolously in so many instances. Many noble men and women have died for the rights of others. Being asked to write your name on a mail-in-ballot has nothing to do with rights. A by-law removing your right to vote is a rights issue. Please learn the difference and quit degrading what could be intelligent debate. (Click photos to enlarge)

Now to the sewage overflows that took place on Monday 13th. Sewage water was freely flowing from two manhole covers, one was discharging into the creek on the South West corner of the Kincardine Golf and Country Club and then into the lake where it formed a scum, the other was in the middle of Golf Course Trail pouring out on the golf course and onto adjacent properties. Sewers also overflowed on Lovers Lane.

No one enjoys the experience of sewage flowing onto their property, into their houses, and into the lake where people swim and from which the municipality takes its drinking water. The possibility that the sewage could overflow has been known for years. One such overflow occurred three years ago.

At that time a resident met with Mayor Sutton, The Public Works Committee, and Works Manager O’Rourke. It was recognized that illegal hookups to the sewage pipe were the cause of the backups. Did our elected representatives and senior manager say, “We must put an end to this now”? No, they did not. Did they say, “This could be a serious health matter and we must solve it without delay?” No, they did not. They ignored the problem.

Coming back to the present, O’Rourke is quoted as saying “the problem is caused by the illegal hookups of sump pumps, eavestroughs, and foundation drain.” Manager O’Rourke now says he is taking the matter to Public Works to enforce the by-law. That is the committee of which councillor Ron Hewitt is chair, the same Ron Hewitt who knew about the problem three years ago.

Manager O’Rourke would now give the violators time to change their drainage. This is not right. They have had plenty of time; there were public notices in the newspapers stating these hookups were illegal and, of course, the Municipality knew illegal hook-ups existed. The Municipality should compensate the residents, pay for the damage and pay for the cleanup. Then, perhaps, the Municipality would not treat citizens with such a cavalier attitude. Manager O’Rourke, Councillor Hewitt, and Mayor Sutton should have concern for the victims who bear the consequences of Municipal negligence. O’Rourke is not quick on the draw and Mayor Sutton practices avoidance to the extreme so that the only hope is for angry citizens to assert themselves.

The violators should start paying a substantial fine, say $100 every day they maintain the illegal hookup. The meter should start running immediately. Double the daily charge every four weeks and I assure the mayor such action will get the violators’ attention. Consideration should go to those affected by these illegal acts and negligence, not the reverse. Read more HERE

March 29, 2006

Winston Churchill described democracy as the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others.

Bernard Crick in his classic work, In Defence of Politics, says, “Politics may be a messy, mundane, inconclusive, tangled business, far removed from the passion for certainty and the fascination for world-shaking quests which afflict the totalitarian intellectual; but it does, at least, even in the worst of political circumstances, give a man some choice in what role to play…and some ability to call his soul his own.”

Politics to-day has fallen into disrepute. A recent survey of trustworthiness placed politicians at the bottom of the scale. Yet there is no more dishonesty or skullduggery today among our politicians than in any other era. Scandals, broken promises and disappointments have been with us since we started voting in governments under a revolutionary system called democracy. Our first prime minister, John A. MacDonald, was caught soliciting money for his campaign in what became the Pacific Railroad scandal.

Modern government attracts the usual mix of the population. There are rogues and saints, the bright and the stupid; the sober and the drunks present in our governments just as there always have been. We elect people whose goal is power and influence; we also elect those who wish to serve the people and make their country or community better than they found it. They are the honest, decent folk who make the art of politics commendable; we do not give them enough credit for their contribution.

The difference today is that the public has more information about our politicians. A politician makes a faux pas and we are told about it the same day. What was whispered about years ago is nowadays on the 6.00 o’clock news. John Robarts was an effective premier of Ontario but, had the public known about his private life, many would not have voted for him. We have information but seldom process it accurately.

Robert Stanfield was an intelligent, decent man who succeeded John Diefenbaker as leader of the Progressive Conservative party and rebuilt the party. Yet, when he was pictured eating a banana at the convention and later haplessly trying to kick a foot ball at a CFL game, the unthinking public picked up a negative image of Stanfield. Some said he was the best prime minister we never had. He was honest on the hustings and the public defeated him for it. If we want honest politicians who do not break their promises we should support, not scorn them. In the last provincial election Howard Hampton was honest in saying that taxes will need to increase if our shattered services are to be rebuilt. The public voted for Dalton McGuinty who promptly brought in the hospital tax.

We say we want honest government; we yearn for capable leadership but then cast our vote guided by our own selfish dictates and then complain about the results.

Democracy requires citizens to be thoughtfully informed. It requires citizens to move beyond narrow special interests and elect politicians who will govern for all people. I believe there is a common good, a community in which we all share responsibilities and rights. Is a tax break good for me if it leaves the poor hungry and without shelter? No, for the community is demeaned. Building cheap, concentrated social housing saves me taxes but creates a slum which deteriorates the whole community. Should I pay more for public education? Of course I should. Quality education strengthens the fabric of society. My life will not be enriched by voting for selfish ends!

It is said that we live in a consumer society, a ‘me’ society. Why should the average politician be different? If a politician feels he or she needs to appeal to our selfishness to get elected then, too often, he or she will do so. Why then should we be surprised when promises are broken? The politician was just saying what we wanted to hear. If we find cynicism in politicians, do not censure them too much for we brought it about. Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine in New York, was known for helping new immigrants get settled, acquire citizenships, passports, and getting through government red tape. Acknowledging weddings and funerals was their stock in trade. Tammany Hall was a power for 50 years. They were also known for rampant corruption including brazen criminal activities. Voters’ self-interest kept them in power.

Politics is the foundation of democracy and the rule of law prevents it from becoming government by the mob. It best functions when a community-minded electorate chooses men and women who will serve all the people with little mind for themselves. It is called service and duty, and is honourable...