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by Fred Kirby                              May 2,  2007

The issue of councillors’ pay is in the air but, before I address their remuneration, let me offer a qualified apology for saying in a previous column that councillors claiming expenses irritated me like a sliver under my nail. The analogy was excessive. I should have saved it for Toronto councillors who cannot be moved from the pigs’ trough even with the knowledge that the city is facing bankruptcy. There are acceptable expenses for which councillors should be reimbursed.

I say somewhat “qualified” because I still have reservations on some expenses. There were 48 people in the department where I worked in downtown Toronto. Only three of us lived in the area; the rest lived as far away as Orangeville and Markham while a number came from Mississauga. They were paid according to their job classification and not for the distance they traveled to work.

This council has made some constructive moves: putting an experienced person on the Westario Board rather than the mayor, not appointing a councillor to the Bruce Telecom Board and correcting the mayor-elect for his illegal use of funds for his office. I am prepared to listen to reason anytime but I cannot agree with an increase in a pay other than COLA.

Council was prepared to grant a five year contract for a full-time position that should, by any realistic assessment, be a part-time position. That was an extremely poor piece of judgment and their subsequent decisions regarding the airport resembled a shotgun poorly aimed. I was never one to grant merit pay when not deserved. It was not a meritorious act when council was prepared to throw away more than $300,000 without the slightest scrutiny.

It is a specious argument to compare salaries with other municipalities. Comparing sizes of municipalities and budgets tells us nothing about the quality of government. Members of Meaford’s council deserve a cut in their pay because of their behaviour while others may have earned a raise. Increases in remuneration should reflect the quality of service received by the municipality’s taxpayers.

Since members of council knew what their compensation would be when they decided to seek office, since there has been no extraordinary increase in the workload and since no action by council has brought any dramatic increase in revenue, there is no compelling reason for a pay increase other than what COLA offers.

May 9, 2007

Politicians at every level have a problem being open with their constituents. In fact, they have difficulty being open among themselves. Stephen Harper, by controlling all government business from his office, tells us that he does not even trust members of his own cabinet let alone the public. At the municipal level, Meaford’s council has continually gotten itself into a bind and have lost a popular theatre company because of council’s inability to be open with all parties and with the public. There has been a similar battle in the South Bruce Peninsular council. In each case council was not acting in the best interest of the public.

Kincardine council members should be out and about talking with citizens listen to their opinions and sharing their own. When I walked Queen Street, I found no one who agreed with council’s offer of a five year contract or the money involved in operating the airport. It can be educational for members to do routine walk abouts. In the six years plus that I have followed council only one member of council, Laura Haight, ever initiated a contact with me; heaven only knows how they reach out to other interested citizens. Politics are not conducted in a cocoon.

Open discussion does not need to conclude in complete agreement but it does move the argument along and both sides have an opportunity to learn. Of course, to do that, we must be comfortable in our own skin. One of the reasons I enjoy working with youth is that they are seldom defensive, eager to learn, and not slow in expressing themselves.

Our mayor, Larry, once spoke of a university in Kincardine. Perhaps he did not express himself well but it is an excellent idea. Those who laughed demonstrated their own lack of what constitutes a university. Larry should be sharing his vision with the citizens, create open discussion (no committee please) and bring a sound idea to fruition. But Larry must first put it in the public realm.

Apart from those concerning employee matters, in camera session should be as rare as crocodiles in the Penetangore River. Persons approaching council with a business propositions should have to justify, against stringent rules, their desire for private meetings. Citizens have the right to know what council does with the trust granted it. It is our business after all.

Allowing citizens 15 minutes to ask questions at council meeting may meet some needs but it is a long way from making council open to citizens. Dialogue will bring forth more information than a simple question. And get rid of that miserably designed website; it is a terrible communications tool.

Democracy does not occur once every four years; it needs to be practiced daily.

May 16, 2007

I am aghast to learn some members of council were peeved (euphemism – this is a family paper) with me because of my articles regarding the airport. Should I be surprised that writing about good government and responsible management upsets politicians? It is unfortunate for responsible government when politicians govern by their emotions rather than with their brains. As the note in the margin of the preacher’s sermon read, “Point weak, scream.”

Those on council with their shorts in a knot reminds me of Mark Twain’s famous quip, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

What I look for in council is a modicum of professionalism. Some want to learn and move forward; too many rely on what religion refers to as revealed truth lacking any critical aspect of self and conjuring facts that do not relate to reality. That is no way to administer a multi-million dollar organization. Would any council member who is in business give a five year contract to an employee without any assessment of performance? Would they award a full-time, five-year contract before determining whether or not a full-time person was required? No, they would not because that would involve their own money.

Council needs to explain to the taxpayers why they can make such financially poor decisions, tell us taxes have to be increased, and then ask for a raise. Council members whose noses are out of joint have no cause for indignation. It is the ordinary folk, on small pensions or working for far lesser wages than what many others earn in this town, who should be angry. It is the elderly couple living in their cottage, struggling because of an unfair tax system, who should be disgusted with the waste. I have talked with retailers who would love to have the deal that Council offered freely to operate the airport.

And while I am looking for professionalism, why do Larry and others keep telling me the airport is important for economic development, yet have its manager reporting to the Works Department? The position should report to Economic Development. This recent flurry of activity should be led by the Manager of Economic Development where there is already a committee. If staff is hired to do a specific job then have them do it, otherwise it is just another total waste of money and personnel. Redundancy and inappropriate use of staff create further waste and inefficiency.

Even now council is prepared to award a five-year full-time contract to the successful applicant for the airport manager’s position in January. Again, there is no attempt to keep down costs. As with the Enbridge negotiations, a majority of council members demonstrate no evidence of stewardship. It is the citizens who should have their noses out of joint. It is the citizens who should be angry.

May 23, 2007

It was in the 1830’s when the first newspaper in Upper Canada, the Colonial Advocate, was attacked and its printing equipment dumped into Lake Ontario.
William Lyon MacKenzie was its publisher and editor who spoke out against Ontario’s first Old Boys-style government of upper-class English Tories and the Church of England represented by John Strachan, Bishop of Toronto. The Colonial Advocate spoke for the common people and for representative and open government. For that it was attacked.

Before the Republic, France was governed by three estates: the First consisted of nobles, the Second of clergymen, and the Third of commoners. The story goes that years after the Revolution, Edmund Burke looked up from the floor of the British House of Commons at the Press Gallery and said, “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than all of us.”

Today, when too many newspapers and TV have succumbed to the persistent pressure by the powerful advertising and entertainment sectors to attract an unthinking audience and reporters are no better than publicity hacks, the concept of the Fourth Estate is more important than it ever was.

Consider this: there would have been no Watergate scandal and no resignation of a crooked president, Richard Nixon, had it not been for two young court reporters for the Washington Post who picked up the story of deception, lies, and money laundering by White House staff and who pursued the story to its sordid end. Though rumours of the scandal had been floating around Washington for some time, no one in the prestigious White House press gallery picked it up because those reporters had been seduced by the power and dazzle of the White House. They could not see that the emperor wore no clothes.

Likewise with the Federal Liberal Party’s advertising slush fund scandal, the rumours floated around Parliament Hill while Liberal members gladly helped themselves to the largesse offered, no questions asked. It was not until the Globe and Mail sent two reporters to investigate, that the extent of corruption became known.

The war in Iraq is a textbook example of what happens when major media are restrained by power, ill-placed patriotism, and a continuous barrage of lies. The media lions failed their duty, their claws pulled by owners whose only thought is about profit not news; the pussycats simply repeated the President’s propaganda. There were exceptions such as Harper Magazine whose courageous publisher, John MacArthur, has stood against the lies and the horror from the beginning; others in broadcasting and print media lost their jobs for speaking out. But they were right, and followed a great tradition of keeping the government’s feet to the fire. Had the mainstream press and TV News stations also spoken up, a tragedy could have been prevented.
The existence of an independent press functioning as the Fourth Estate is essential in a world where governments at every level answer to the citizens less and less, where lobbyists and international corporations, such as Enbridge, have more sway with the elected than does the ordinary person. If the press will not speak for the people, who will?

May 30, 2007

Should we be teaching morals, ethics, and good behaviour in our schools? The reality of our society suggests that teaching young children morality does not prepare them for life. We accept behaviour from adults for which we would chastise a child. We teach children to tell the truth, share with others and be fair. Parents drop off their kids at church where they will be taught about brotherly love and the lesson of that wonderful story, The Good Samaritan.

Adults so rarely practice these precepts that when an adult is observed to be doing so, we celebrate that person as someone special. At the same time we may also think him or her a fool.

What we tell children has no relationship to the me-first society, based on pleasure, money and power. There is a real danger of seriously confusing the child during his or her vulnerable years.

Teaching a child not to lie is a terrible preparation for a successful career in politics. Our Premier and Prime Minister have both been caught in blatant lies and self-serving behavior; yet they will be rewarded by being elected again and applauded for their cunning.

Teaching ethics in school will do nothing to enhance the child’s chances of success in the media business where advertising and entertainment is now its primary focus. Reporting the truth and tackling contentious public issues is no longer wanted in a self-centered pleasure society so we turn out budding media people with writing techniques, but no nose for news or fire in the belly.

The role of a lawyer in a corporation is to enable executives to do whatever they want without getting caught. The basic rule is to stay within the law while ignoring the spirit of the law. Today, accountants, rather than being the financial policemen, help in this obsessive drive for power and money.

On the local level, the young watch politicians who believe rules were not made for them and that there is little to be learned. Teaching of sharing and consideration for others will not help children in this environment.

It is not secularization that brings me to say teaching children morality does not prepare them for society; rather, it is this society of greed, power, pleasure, and self-serving ambition that informs me.

The temples of worship now are Wal Mart and Canadian Tire around which is celebrated December’s great consumer festival. A lesser deity has revealed itself in our municipality; the wind generator with its beckoning arms has risen, served by priests in expensive suits with suppliants flocking for easy money. That is the society for which we need to prepare our children. It is not my society, but it is what the people want.

I am sorry for the children; they deserve better.