Posts Tagged ‘Scarborough’
Simcoe Day – Sir John Graves Simcoe and the Scarborough Bluffs
Today is the Civic Holiday, or Simcoe Day as it is called in Toronto. Sir John Graves Simcoe is an important man in the history of our province and our city. Had Sir John Graves Simcoe not implemented many of the important policies he did during his short tenure as our first Lieutenant Governor, our province and country may have taken a very different shape.
As Lt. Governor, Simcoe moved the capital of Upper Canada to York, later Toronto and ordered the establishment of Fort York to defend it from possible invasion from the United States, whose army he’d known well from his time as a British Officer during the Revolutionary War. As Lt. Governor, Simcoe made Upper Canada the first jurisdiction in the British Empire to outlaw slavery. He also brought Upper Canada it’s courts, modern trials, english common law, and laid plans to develop much of our early infrastructure.
His establishment of Fort York was essential to Upper Canada’s naval defense during the War of 1812. The fall of Fort York in 1813 and the looting and burning of York undertaken by American troops was deemed justification for Britain’s burning of Washington DC in 1814.
Simcoe sent surveyors to survey the lands of other townships, including Glasgow, the settlement that would later be known as Scarborough after his wife, Lady Simcoe set eyes on the mighty cliffs that mark Scarborough’s shores. They reminded her of Scarborough England, she recorded in her diary, and later pressured her husband into changing it’s name. Those diary entries kept by Lady Simcoe have given scores of Ontarians that followed a window into life in colonial York and Upper Canada.
The Scarborough Bluffs are something I’ve often written about, and yesterday afternoon I took advantage of the beautiful weather and the long weekend by taking a walk from approximately Jack Miner School just East of Galloway Road to the Bellamy ravine – where I climbed back up. Along the way I took many pictures of the cliffs, whose image has changed much in my lifetime, and I suspect would not be recognizable to Lady Simcoe, but are nonetheless a truly magical gem we’re so lucky to have in our City.
I took over 100 pictures of various things I saw along my way, and will share others in due time. Today’s pictures are of the beauty of the cliffs, and the realities of erosion along the bluffs.
I hope everyone enjoys Simcoe Day, and takes a moment to imagine what life would have been like when all of our City was as natural and overgrown as the Scarborough Bluffs remain today. I know I can’t help but do this when surrounded by the beauty of the Scarborough Bluffs, a natural environment I will continue to fight with residents of Guildwood to preserve.
Video of Sight and Sound of the Scarborough Bluffs from the foot of Sylvan Park
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – By Galloway
Scarborough Bluffs - Guildwood – By Galloway
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood: Erosion’s Impact on a Tree
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Facing East
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Mud Slide from Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Bluff Clay Drying after Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Bigfoot Lives!
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Water runoff from Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Sylvan Park Beach
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Erosion
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Water runoff
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – Impact of water
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – More Erosion water runoff
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – More Erosion water runoff
.Scarborough Bluffs – Cathedral Bluffs
Scarborough Bluffs – Guildwood – From Sylvan Park
3 Comments »Wait a Minute – Smitherman DEFENDS Energy NIMBYism now?
So let me get this straight… Residents of Scarborough and their three Ontario Liberal lap dogs ’representatives’ (this is in quotations because I hear this is what they’re supposed to do, but fail to see any evidence of it happening) are told to sit down and shut up when they legitimately oppose environmental concerns and breaches of law committed by Toronto Hydro as part of their plan to install turbines, but Minister and MPP Bartolucci of Sudbury can get away with totally supporting nuclear power, but opposing waste being stored in his constituency? Isn’t that the essence of NIMBY? ‘Sure it’s a great idea, but not in my constituency’ – that’s NIMBY right?
He’s even allowed to cite ‘landscape’ – read aesthetics in opposing this plan and gets away with saying, he thinks its a great idea to build nuclear plants, so long as Sudbury does not have to deal with spent nuclear fuel. What a totally ridiculous proposition. Meanwhile in Scarborough there isn’t enough wind to create energy, and yet we’re still expected to live with the health and environmental impacts without proper review and tolerate a law breaking, totally ignorant proponent that doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing.
The opposition of Guildwood residents to Toronto Hydro’s breaches of law, and total disregard for health and environmental impacts saw us insulted by the Premier and his Deputy and a law passed with a clause the Premier said was designed to block communities like mine from participating in democratic decision making.
What’s more – that Nuclear power Bartolucci so willingly supports being built on the shores of Lake Ontario – hundreds of miles from his precious home, kilometres from mine, and with legitimate impacts on the Lake my community lives on, and receives its drinking water from. Could anyone be a more irresponsible in pushing public policy than this?
Liberal friends in Scarborough Guildwood, including those very close to Minister Best – who was publicly silent on our community’s behalf and failed to even attempt to publicly represent our views – tried to convince me that she couldn’t because she was in Cabinet and didn’t have the ability to speak out against the government. I said I thought she could, and offered to help her and her office develop the messaging that would allow her to stand between government and community to see our issues heard publicly, without getting her thrown out of Cabinet. They didn’t disagree, they just never took me up on it. Liberals were afraid big bad George would get her if she did.
Smitherman has come out in defense of Bartolucci’s blatant NIMBYism – even though Smitherman doesn’t believe Bartolucci has valid points.
‘Energy Minister George Smitherman said he doesn’t share Bartolucci’s reservations, but defended the comments, saying his colleague “is allowed to be a local MPP” as well as a cabinet minister.‘ Critics question Liberal’s energy plan – CTV May 26 2009
It was made quite clear to me that under this Liberal government Scarborough Guildwood is not entitled to a local MPP who also serves as a Cabinet Minister. My Liberal friends in Scarborough Guildwood can continue to get upset when I raise this point privately, and now very publicly in the face of total hypocrisy, but voters don’t care of their MPP gets a car with a driver, a bigger staff and more money – they want a voice and if the incumbent won’t provide it, elections will change who that representative is, and the perks of Cabinet will be lost anyways.
If the opposition parties get candidate selection and fundraising right, this will be the case in Scarborough Guildwood – and George Smitherman’s ‘playing to the crowd’ approach to public speaking will continue to serve up gems to seal the fate of those who cowered when it came time to vote for or against the Green Energy Act, a vote Margarett Best, Lorezno Berardinetti and Wayne Arthurs – spent hiding in the hall so they didn’t have to go on record either way.
I’ll never understand how it feels to hop into bed with folks whose ethical backbone is so weak they are OK knowingly killing family pets because it would be inconvienant to solve the crux of the problem, and so ignorant of their own equipment they assure parents children are safe – a couple days before electrucuting a dozen small children. Ladies and Gentleman this is the corporate mentality at Toronto Hydro Energy Services (THES Legal Department – again feel free to fact check and request any inaccuracies be corrected. Naturally we know these things are provable… so same deal as before? you read, you fume, and don’t reply?) vampire Personally, I couldn’t do it literally or figuratively – yet I know quite well there are folks in Dalton McGuinty’s government who are quite comfortable with this, including George Smitherman, Toronto Hydro’s prime defender and ‘knee capper’ (George, your swipes at mine didn’t take).
Toronto Hydro’s illegal application, lies and attempt at scientific review that would probably not meet the rigor of a primary school science fair is now under review of the Ontario Minister of Environment and the officials at the Ministry of Natural Resources. They have the opportunity to end it here and force Toronto Hydro to do a real review and recognize they are going to cause significant environmental damage and regardless of how dense Joyce McLean and Jack Simpson are – something will have to be done to address it.
I’ll start making bets that come 2011 – Toronto Hydro Energy Services will be no closer to putting turbines in the Lake off the Scarborough Bluffs, and the three swing ridings that are currently in envy of the people of Sudbury’s representation, will be changing hands, proving that bad public policy is also bad politics. Hey if George Smitherman can just keep talking, he’ll practically write the flyers for opposition parties.
2 Comments »Scarborough Standing Up and Standing Strong
Rest of Toronto – you’ve gone and done it. Once again the rest of Toronto has come up with a ‘great’ plan for Scarborough, and this time instead of being the good neighbour, Scarborough is saying no. No we won’t tolerate our rights being taken away, no we won’t let you do untold damage to our natural environment, and no we won’t allow you and your bought and paid for supporters to tell us what to think. We will stand up and we will stand strong.
It started in Guildwood when Toronto Hydro Energy Services allowed folks who rely on grants to stay alive (and receive them from folks with a clear bias in favour of Toronto Hydro) to stack the meeting on a Class B Environmental Assessment and deny residents their right to participate. It turned a serious process into a circus and turned community concern into community action.
Franz Hartmann – the Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance was front and centre as were a number of other folks who know so little about Scarborough they couldn’t even read a bus schedule to see that their school buses were unnecessary as the TTC does exactly the same route they chose to take. He still defends his actions, even if Toronto Hydro recognizes how inappropriate it was. Hartmann made himself and his supporters the butt of many jokes about how little one can know about Scarborough while trying to get in the middle of an issue on the ground.
Toronto Hydro, their allies and hangers on have been totally dishonest in their representation of the merits of the project, it’s impacts and the sad thing is each of these organizations and people behind it survive on public money that they are using to attack members of the public.
I’ve lost a lot of respect for a number of organizations throughout this process.
Toronto Hydro is one organization I will always look at with mistrust due to the completely irresponsible and illegal approach they’ve taken so far, as a means to push this project forward.
The City of Toronto as defined as Toronto City Council is one that I will have great difficulty believing has the best interests of Scarborough at heart, considering it is they who are pretending not to see what Toronto Hydro is doing to this section of the City.
The Ontario Liberal Party – a party I’ve been involved in for years, but appears more interested in who donates than what is best for the Province and it’s people.
The Toronto Environmental Alliance and the David Suzuki Foundation each had a moral obligation to stand up and protect our great lakes, defend the Scarborough Bluffs – one of Lake Ontario’s most defining geological features against the unknown, and unstudied risks of a possible wind farm. Instead they listened to their biased financial contributors (some of whom also are funding the project TEA is supporting), and who have a financial interest in proceeding without the protect studies and tests. For it’s part the Toronto Environmental Alliance tried to silence those of us who were forced to make a very difficult decision and oppose a renewable energy protect.
The Premier – Dalton McGuinty. Someone I will not be able to vote for in 2011. Simply put, he trashed my community, and is sitting back and ignoring our concerns while those who are in favour of what is about to happen fill his re-election coffers.
The Deputy Premier – George Smitherman. Simply a disgrace to this province. How anyone can listen to anything he has to say and take it seriously is beyond me. He damages the view of government each time he opens his mouth. I used to think he could be a neat mayor.
Local Elected Officials. Both provincial and municipal representatives have a responsibility here. Neither have used even a fraction of the tools in their toolbox to help. Both have window dressed instead. As someone who has been involved in politics, I know how it works. I know what the limits are and neither Paul Ainslie or Margarett Best have done anywhere near what they could, if they chose to.
We’re still greener than any other part of Toronto. We have the highest rate of waste diversion, we’ve protected more parkland per capita than anywhere else and our former City’s symbols, whether the Civic Centre, the Flag or even our name are based on that amazing, awe inspiring 14 kilometre stretch of shoreline that is so unique on this lake.
Like Elizabeth Simcoe, the wife of Upper Canada’s first Lt. Governor, many of us have loved the bluffs since our first sighting of them. We will defend them, as countless generations going back to Canada’s first people’s who lived in their watershed and along their cliffs have dating back 8000 years. I wrote about Elizabeth Simcoe and Sir John Graves Simcoe in August. Here is the link to that. Scarborough Mirror: Scarborough has special connection to Simcoe Day
Scarborough residents have allowed a lot of NIMBY politics downtown see us host aspects of infrastructure that others didn’t want. We did so quietly and with the glass half full approach. But this is something many of us simply cannot stomach. Allowing someone to do untold damage to the Bluffs, the very core of Scarborough’s identity as a city is simply intolerable.
Toronto Hydro must know there could be a devastating impact on the fish habitat the Toronto Region Conservation Authority started rebuilding under the old City of Scarborough. They must know there could be severe impacts on shoreline erosion and the Bluffs, on the birds and bats that live and migrate through the area. They must know there could be real health concerns for fish, humans and anyone else that interacts with the lake.
Why do I say this? Because something has them so scared they refuse to do a full environmental assessment to discredit me and the thousands of other Scarborough residents who are digging in and fighting what is quickly becoming an epic battle to protect our lake, and generations of nature conservation from the irresponsible destruction that comes when a few downtown politicians and some irresponsible executives get together and decide to do something this stupid.
We’re standing up, we’re standing strong and getting stronger as we await the next number of battles with Toronto Hydro Energy Services and anyone else who is so mindless to think there are not consequences from something like this.
I have never been more proud to be from Scarborough or Guildwood as I am now. Standing up with residents of my community and standing strong against moneyed interests who frankly don’t care what happens to us, is something anyone involved can and should be proud of.
One thing is for sure, with two elections in the next two years or so, folks who support this idea can also expect some electoral consequences as well.
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