Posts Tagged ‘Councillor Paul Ainslie’
What a Remarkable Town Hall Meeting Last Night in Ward 43
I was humbled to have nearly one hundred and fifty Ward 43 residents come out to a community meeting I held last Thursday on Grey Abbey Trail. The meeting was intended to be held in the park overlooking the Lake, and Toronto Hydro’s anemometer to help educate the community on the impacts of the new offshore regulations.
Unfortunately someone, who the City will not confirm or deny was Councillor Ainslie or a member of his staff, felt the need to apply pressure to the Parks Department and have them call a resident who sent out an invitation to my meeting, telling them that it was against the law for more than twenty-five residents to meet in a park without a permit, permits were never issued for that park, and that no candidate was allowed to discuss an election in a park, wear a button or hand out materials. We asked for a copy of the by-law and asked if they were prepared to have citizens arrested – and they went silent.
They wanted us to shut down our meeting, and not have residents come together to discuss the biggest threat ever to face the community, and hear from the only candidate offering a viable solution.
I am so happy to have such strong support on Grey Abbey Trail that we were able to find a back yard, backing on to the park within a couple of hours to hold the meeting if necessary. Instead, we set up the sound equipment in the backyard, and I stayed about five feet back from the metre tall chain link fence, and spoke to residents from private property about the importance of the issue, thus I did not discuss politics in the park and I was sure to tell them why I had to stand where I was standing.
I promised residents last night that when I defeat Paul Ainslie on October 25th and become their Councillor, the political games will end, and I’ll continue my fight to ensure their rights are respected and their involvement in decision making restored.
Antoinette DiNovo – Paul Ainslie’s Executive Assistant showed up to record and take notes. Once again it appears taxpayers will be paying her to abuse our tax dollars and run his campaign. At least Antonette didn’t have any embarrassing outbursts like Councillor Ainslie did on June 14th and was kind enough to leave after being introduced and called out on her abuse of taxpayer funds to help inflict another four years of failed representation on our community, one neither of them live in. Ward 43 isn’t buying what they’re selling this time and last night’s meeting that had a crowd threefold of the meeting I held three weeks before is a strong sign of the change that’s coming.
Consider that on a night when the heat wave was on it’s forth day, there was a heat alert in place and we were holding a meeting outside, in July that nearly one hundred and fifty residents felt compelled to come out and speak about the issues near and dear to them and the opportunity we have together to reclaim our voice and restore local democracy. Consider that Paul Ainslie doesn’t have a single Ward 43 resident to send to take notes, and is instead either crashing my meetings himself or sending a member of his staff, we’re all paying to do it for him.
I am looking forward to continuing to earn residents trust and support over the coming weeks and months and know that together we can make our community and city a better place to live for all of us.
No Comments »Will Paul Ainslie Run for City Council in Ward 44?
Today was the first day for municipal candidates to make it official and file their intention to seek public office as a Mayoral, Council or School Trustee candidate. So far no candidates have filed to run in my home ward, Ward 43.
Councillor Ainslie currently ‘represents’ (a term I am using lightly here based on his record) Ward 43 – a community he does not live in. He was elected with an underwhelming 39% of the vote in November 2006, meaning 61% of voters had the right idea last time around.
This isn’t the first ward Paul Ainslie has represented and not lived in. You see in January 2006 Paul Ainslie was appointed to Toronto City Council in a 5-4 vote of Scarborough Community Council (that resulted in an investigation by the integrity commissioner into his former boss and one of his five votes – David Soknacki) to represent Ward 41 – another community Paul Ainslie doesn’t live in.
When his nomination went to City Hall for approval, Paul Ainslie gave a speech. After promising to be ‘fair and honest’ he went on to say:
“In the last month I’ve made a number of different commitments if appointed to this position, I will not run in Ward 41 or any other ward in the city.”
If by different he meant ‘bald faced lie’ as Eye Weekly described it he was correct.
In true Paul Ainslie tradition he went on to lie about the lie when I called him on it through the media. He claimed he promised not to run against incumbents, or that he wouldn’t run in Ward 41 – this was after saying he didn’t say anything to this effect at all.
Here is a video showing what he says. After watching him lie repeatedly for six weeks, I went to City Hall, bought the video of that day at Council and a very talented member of the campaign team put the following together for distribution to the media. His response to the video was he was nervous and didn’t mean to say it – but he’s reading.
If you’re going to run for public office, know yourself better than your opponents – and generally speaking lying never works and is wrong, so don’t do it. In fact when Councillor Ainslie wrote provable lies to me in a private email six weeks ago, I offered him this very advice. I told him that making statements that are provably untrue hurts his credibility and therefore the ability of him to represent my community as people can’t trust him if he can’t stick to the truth.
His term as Ward 41’s representative saw him fight to have the pictures of the former Scarborough Mayors placed in the former City Council chamber, trying to get a bi-law regarding aged or tattered Canadian flags. His most bizarre vote was against a pay increase that passed 23-20, then only to change his vote in favour, making the vote 24-19, which was promptly followed by his former boss David Soknacki changing his vote in favour to against, making it 23-20 again.
Currently Paul Ainslie holds the office of Ward 43 – as I previously stated a community he does not and has not lived in at all during the 2006 election or the term. He does not represent the views of residents, or their best interest and continues to lie about his involvement or lack there of – to paper over his failings.
Paul Ainslie lives in Ward 44 – where he has for years and is raising his family. Considering he is about as attached to Ward 43 as he was to Ward 41 – it only seems reasonable that the failed ‘representative’ would once again find a new community to play City Councillor in – as nominations open.
I will tell you this much – his chances are far better where he lives, than in Ward 43 or Ward 41 as I imagine with these residents and Paul Ainslie the old saying ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ is in full play and many residents are lined up and ready to fight to ensure this so-called Councillor, elected on a lie, and publishing lies in hopes of being re-elected doesn’t get that chance again. Maybe that’s why he flipped from Ward 41 in the first place.
He already has lawn signs that say ‘return’ a phrase he chose instead of ‘elect’ like everyone else who ran and had never been elected before and he wisely did not put a ward number on them – making them fully re-useable this time around in his home Ward.
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Reaction to Toronto Hydro Anemometer Meeting in Guildwood
Before discussing the meeting itself, I would like to start by recognizing that Joyce McLean of Toronto Hydro was kind enough to credential me and Jeff Hume, who assisted with video footage of last night’s meeting as ‘media’. I genuinely appreciate her recognition of bloggers and citizen journalists as having a role in public debate and coverage of events. That part was good news.
For some background, this was the third attempt at a community meeting for Guildwood residents, and I have to say was executed better than the previous two attempts. In fairness, the bar wasn’t high considering the first meeting had to be cancelled due to poor site selection, and the second meeting was stacked by grant receiving supporters of Toronto Hydro who blocked residents rights to speak and shouted them down when they finally got the opportunity to. There were still problems with tonight’s format, all of which serious, some of which may have legal implications.
Toronto Hydro Energy Services is an unregulated subsidiary of Toronto Hydro. Toronto Hydro has one shareholder — the City of Toronto. The City of Toronto has 2.5 million share holders who have rights. The voters. Toronto Hydro is considered a ‘local board’ of the City and therefore must follow certain provisions of the City of Toronto Act or ‘a Stronger Toronto for a Stronger Ontario Act, 2005′. One of those provisions is to hold public meetings. That means doors open. Anyone can attend. I’m sure they can still restrict who speaks, just like City Council can restrict who speaks in the Chamber, but we’re all allowed to be in the Chamber. Legally for the purposes of a meeting like this restricting attendance is sketchy at best, illegal at worst. But they still did.
I spoke to a number of residents and found that all residents who received a notice received one dated January 2nd 2009. The notice had a pin number required to register (something you could only do during office hours) and one had to register by January 15th to attend the January 20th meeting. You could also only register two people. I only spoke to one resident who received a notice before January 15th, they had received it on January 13th and registered successfully. Most residents received the notice after and had to call Toronto Hydro for special permission to attend. There was no public notice to let residents know this was an option.
Chris Tyrrell, President of Toronto Hydro Energy Services, apologised for the error. It was a bit of an empty ‘sorry’ considering it was caused by a ridiculous process that is outside the law that governs meetings and likely caused many residents who either didn’t receive or didn’t read the unaddressed ad mail Toronto Hydro sent to them, not to attend the meeting. That means their voices weren’t heard. The National Post is nuts if they think 900 people were in that auditorium. It has a capacity of 960 and there were significantly more than 60 empty seats, even before the Hydro folks offended people, causing walk outs.
I listened to two and a half hours of questions. Not a single resident asked a question or made a comment that spoke remotely favourably of this project. If the slant of questions were considered votes, this would have been unanimous opposition. Toronto Hydro took a bruising from residents. Over the course of the evening the ridiculous non-answers of Toronto Hydro Energy Services staff, namely Jack Simpson, VP Generation, and Joyce McLean, Director of Strategic Issues dodged just about everything they were asked. I will have videos of some of this to follow.
Residents were only given one minute to ask questions, and frustration with the process got so bad on a number of occasions that residents protests temporarily took over the meeting. McLean and Simpson’s answers resulted in groans, mocking cat calls and other signs that residents simply could not believe what they were saying. Hundreds of residents left in frustration as the meeting continued on.
The answer to every question relating to what would constitute a viable project or requests for information about the wind turbine at the EX or the Pickering turbine were met with responses along the lines of ‘that information is commercially sensitive’. Read: so bad, we don’t want to go there. Although if we’re talking about bird deaths, Toronto Hydro can go there to defend turbines. They can also be used to cite experience with these types of projects. When asked if the data they plan on collecting would be publicly available, the answer was no. Because it is commercially sensitive. How you ask? Well that is a good question. Considering Toronto Hydro has already leased the lake bed they plan to put the industrial wind turbine station on, and only they can use their data for financing or throw up these turbines on that site. It’s an answer to a question for a guy who just doesn’t know what to say and is defending a project without merit. Last night that was the story of Jack Simpson.
McLean for her part, attacked research that suggests there is a medical condition called “Wind Turbine Syndrome” that affects residents who live near these industrial applications. She said the data and the forthcoming book, written by a Doctor isn’t valid because it hasn’t been peer reviewed. I’m sure Joyce’s point is really valid for all of those folks living near wind turbines all over North America with similar symptoms… According to Toronto Hydro, their Anemometer data won’t be peer reviewed either. It’s commercially sensitive, remember? Presumably they will try and convince us it’s valid though. She also minimized the bird and bat deaths caused by these things and tried to blame buildings for being the real bird killing culprit. I’m sure Guildwood residents would oppose building buildings off the bluffs too.
Toronto Hydro also tried to suggest that the portion of the bluffs under the water is somehow separate from the bluffs itself. In fact this is the erosion materials from the cliff face and the base of the whole formation. They are one. In fact, I would challenge Jack Simpson who disagrees on this point to get a Geologist to test the materials on the sand bar and compare them to the cliff face. Short of being wet, they are the same. Drilling into one, will cause vibrations and could cause major erosion. I’m not an engineer, but not being an idiot seems like enough to know this will be the case.
Toronto Hydro continues to use deceptive claims when trying to sell the industrial wind turbines we’re not allowed to talk about at meetings. The presentation focused on Denmark’s offshore projects and the fact that Germany has 23 000 megawatts of installed wind energy. Can anyone guess how many offshore wind farms Germany has? – Zero. How many urban wind farms? – Zero. Ok. Moving on to Denmark… Denmark has both, but how many are in residential areas? – Zero. None. Not One. Anywhere in the world is there a wind project in front of a cliff? Nope. No where. This is a completely new idea.
Here is another fun piece of trivia: How many full environmental assessments have actually been done before wind turbine projects have been built in Ontario? HINT: There have been 17 wind projects. Answer? Are you sure you want it? Here goes: Zero. Who needs an environmental assessment when the project has ‘green’ in the title.
Toronto Hydro also likes to talk about coal power and McGuinty’s promise to close all coal power plants by 2014. – Not only will I predict this won’t happen on time, and should McGuinty retire or be defeated, it will probably be shelved all together. Even with 55 000 wind turbines installed world wide, not a single coal power plant has been closed because of it. It’s another bad argument.
I have to say, I was disheartened watching this process play out. It was clear watching the Toronto Hydro Energy Services folks and the local municipal representation that they are sitting there, going through the motions and just waiting to go to Natural Resources to say “see, we consulted”. They did a good job of sitting there, listening and ignoring. The note taker wouldn’t even copy any critical statements verbatim, the only verbatim commentary recorded were the remarks by Hydro officials. Anyone interested in producing a transcript can use www.laforet.ca‘s unedited footage of the meeting, but would need to contact me soon so an unedited copy is kept for that purpose.
I strongly believe residents have a right to control the destiny of their communities through collaboration and local democracy. This a core belief I have as it relates to the role of citizens in a democracy. Any process or decision that forces members of a community to organize and fight their elected officials who are complacent or working against them is the sign of real trouble. Guildwood has a Councillor (Paul Ainslie) who slept through this process early on and has forced residents to fight like hell to stop this. He sits on the Toronto Atmospheric Fund which cut a cheque for $100 000 for this project. He sits on Toronto City Council that cut a cheque for $150 000 for this project. How did residents of Ward 43 find out this was even under consideration? Not from their elected official who would have been involved in the process that saw these sums of money approved. Twice. They heard about it from Roy Wright. Roy is a Guildwood resident with unprecedented levels of energy and a deeper commitment to the environment and nature than most. He has spent much of his time in Guildwood fighting to preserve the natural beach below his home. He has probably talked to thousands of people and organized his neighbours. Together they got every one’s attention. Roy should be commended, but he should not have had to do all that he has to ensure his community is given the opportunity to be involved in the decision making process. He and his neighbours should have been at the table from day one, and an integral part of any decision making process. Listening to our communities shouldn’t be another step, but THE step that decides what does and does not happen. Especially for projects like this that are hardly ‘musts’.
Over the coming days, I will release a number of interviews, and videos from tonight’s meeting. I don’t have a timeline on this, but there should be some news on this front in a couple of days. I don’t expect anyone in the traditional media will have the courage to call Hydro out on this process or the overwhelming opposition the idea has received (none did last time), and therefore I will devote a significant amount of my time to allowing residents voices to speak for themselves so their voices can be heard above the elected officials who won’t fight for them downtown and above Toronto Hydro Energy Services attempts to quell their voices.
Agreat website is http://www.savethetorontobluffs.com/ It is maintained by a strong group of Guildwood residents who are standing up for their community and want their voices heard. Take a look.
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