A County Council Report Card

Steve Campbell

After trying to tear down the cellulose-ridden bureaucracies of the provincial and federal governments, it’s time to turn my attention inward.
As Harper’s Tories groan under the weight of their own free-wheeling scandals, and spin doctors stay awake at night trying to find a way to make their renegade cohorts look acceptable in the press, Wynne’s Liberals are now under attack by the metro newspapers for their Draconian implementation of the Green Energy Act, and trying to put a smiley-face on the billions of dollars of debt incurred by their Ministries (except for Ministry of Health, which hopes to balance their books by helping rural people die outside of costly hospitals).
In a thoughtful, modern, techno-savvy democracy it would be nice to have a Big Red Eject Button in each home, so we could reverse the stupid decisions we made in the last elections. It would be curious to see what would happen to a democratic government that needed to answer to its people.

Hell, we have Siri! now – artificial intelligence – thanks to Apple. Maybe IT should run for office! Fake intelligence is better than no intelligence at all! It could certainly answer questions better than Rob Ford, and has no need for booze or crack or, for that matter, sleep!

But, to the point – though we have no hope of replacing our Momma and Poppa Governments with a New Boss who (quoting The Who) looks just like the Old Boss – we do have a municipal election coming up, and all of our pent-up feelings of vengeance can be vetted on them! Baby Government.
Before I make my ‘way-before-the-election’ comments, let’s get a few things straight.
I can sympathize with our County Council. Our financial situation seems to have degraded a little more with every year that has passed since Amalgamation. Sure, it was supposed to be the Road to a Bright Future but, right on the heels of pulling all the townships into one big amorphous money-sucking blob, the Feds decided to balance their budget.
I believe it was Paul Martin, as Finance Minister, who earned applause and a halo for bringing Ottawa’s finances into line. Everyone forgot to look at where the money came from: downloading of services to the province and municipalities, and cutting back on transfer payments to those two levels, to cover the increased costs of the services they unwillingly inherited.
So we only had a few seconds to cheer about a balanced budget before the province started stripping itself of costly services, like road maintenance, and sending those bills to us. Proud Provincial Highways became County Roads – and that gift came with a hefty pricetag.
Funny thing is, politics being politics, everyone has someone different to blame: Chretien, Mike Harris, Bob Rae, Dalton McGuinty, Stephen Harper.
Even Paul Martin and John Turner got caught in the mix, and proved that ex-Finance Ministers turned Prime Minister are about as popular at a party as a 300-pound Revenue Canada Auditor with herpes.

All this downloading came at a time when the County was battling with the forced merger of its random employees into one finely-tuned, well-oiled, poorly-funded machine.
Jumping ahead, it’s amazing that our Councils have done as well as they have, since proper funding, from Mom and Pop, which used to pour from the heavens like rain, had been reduced to occasional handouts, usually to bolster some political agenda and garner some much-needed Good Press.
I know some Councillors are waiting with a cocked gun to their head for my Report Card on their performance, but they can relax. I think this last group has done a pretty good job.
Despite the amputation of their vocal chords by the Province, they fought for our future in the battle against Industrial Wind Turbines, while giving the nod to less-invasive and better-located solar projects. In the same way, they joined with us regular folk to slam their heads against an uncaring Ministry of Health (HealthUncaring Ontario?) to try to prevent the castration of our local hospital.
Like us, they had the heart and decency to fight for what is right, even knowing the battle is lost going in. So I’ll give them that.

Overall, this Council appears to be the tightest ship – as far as being cohesive while still bringing opposing opinions to the table – that we’ve seen since the Big Amalgam. Some former Councils, to me, were riddled with old vendettas, personal differences, behind-the-scenes political manipulation, and building voting blocs of like-minded councillors who stuck together on every vote.
On the down side, I was disappointed that Council once again voted themselves a pay raise, hot on the heels of a tax hike. It was a modest increase, granted, and I don’t deny it is justified. But it irks me that small business owners have seen their pay rise and fall depending on the year, the markets, the products sold and the weather, and we don’t have the luxury to grant ourselves a little something extra to cover inflation.
This is reflected by our letter-writers and bloggers, who are feeling the squeeze of increased costs in food, gas and electricity in their own homes, without the means to whip out a pen and create more money.
Many were upset with the tax hike, but we also need to understand that we still demand increased services – like expanding recycling and garbage pick-up, and a wacky winter which can soak up the year’s road maintenance budget in a few weeks.
As we know, there is no free lunch, and we need to pay for what we get in return. As long as this is reasonably balanced, we need to accept it.
[Historical note: The term “no free lunch” dates to the 1930s, after the end of Prohibition. Newly-opened bars in the Depression offered a free lunch to their customers … which turned out to be a bowl of salty pretzels or peanuts, which increased their booze sales. Hence the ‘lunch’ was not really free.]

As a final note (and an ‘F’ grade), I’ve dealt with and talked to a lot of County employees and I’m not sure the seemingly random shuffle of County staff into new positions was an effective change.
My read is that some employees got plunked into new jobs, with no training by outgoing staff, and some of the changes did not take advantage of the ‘skill sets’ already acquired by staff in their previous positions. On the good side, it did remove some top-level staff that I considered to be ‘empire-builders’, so time will tell how this balances out.
I’m sure there will be lots more for us to talk about as the incumbents and hopefuls check in. They’ll be our future, because Mom and Pop don’t seem to listen to us anymore.