When I was growing up and watching my favourite crime thrillers on television, there was always a point where some mob guy had a gun to some other poor guy’s head and, before dispatching the fellow into the Great Beyond, would offer the absurd comfort by saying “it’s business, not personal.”
I always thought of how relieving it must be that your murder wasn’t a petty personal act, it was just a procedural thing to make things smoother for the bad guys. I mean, thank heavens it’s not personal, right? I suppose it makes all the difference, and offered a soon-to-be murder victim some measure of solace before the Big Bang Theory took on a more, well, personal meaning.
You don’t get that level of courtesy with today’s murderers, and it makes me wonder, where did all the good people go?
In all honesty, if I’m Renfrew Reeve Peter Emon, I’d be a little inclined to think that all these political assassination attempts chucked my way by my fellow members of Council were a little bit on the personal side. I’ve heard of the saying that, if you first don’t succeed, try, try again, but for the love of Pete, when are people going to stop throwing darts at this guy?
During the past Council meeting, much-ignored Integrity Commissioner Tony Fleming weighed in on the latest charge facing Reeve Emon, that being that he allegedly violated a conflict of interest rule by voting on a motion pertaining to his removal from Council-directed boards and committees.
To be completely honest, when original incident happened, on January 28, 2025, I too felt that there was a conflict in place with him voting on a thing having to do with himself, but I often get things wrong sitting alone in the gallery with all my friends, not including all my good friends on staff and Council. But as it happened, nobody mentioned anything one way or another, and as my life went forward, I didn’t think it was worthy of a thousand words of my time.
But oh no. Somewhere in the background, lost in the moment and in all the moments that followed, somebody in the room filed it away for use as a dart. And somewhere in the ensuing weeks, that somebody, maybe even somebodies, filed a complaint that warranted an intervention and investigation by Tony Fleming, who gets paid to look into things, offer a report, be universally ignored, and then thanked for coming out, again either via Zoom or not via Zoom. If I was Tony, I’d be plenty salty about all this, but as long as the Town’s cheques still get cashed, the affront to my personal integrity might be lessened, although I bet he doesn’t like it. It doesn’t matter if you still get paid, when people ignore your work, it’s a little invalidating. Kind of makes a fella wonder why we go through the whole dog and pony show in the first place.
But that’s another lengthy article in the future. Today it’s about Reeve Pete.
Mr. Fleming did his due diligence and after going through his rationale, proclaimed that he saw no conflict in Reeve Emon voting on a measure involving his ban from these boards and committees, which must have sorely pained the would-be sniper, the identity of which is unclear to me, but I have to say I’ve got a couple of culprits in mind.
It makes me wonder if this was part of some broader effort to diminish the reeve in advance of the next municipal election, where Emon may well decide to run for mayor, especially if he wishes to remain part of Renfrew County Council, where he currently serves as Warden.
In an earlier report by Fleming late last year, it was found that Emon did, in fact, violate the code of conduct by engaging in a bit of political payback for the councillors who led the initiative to give him the proverbial boot from those boards and committees. A little bit of “How do you like me now?” to thank them for their efforts to run him off Council. It’s the old saw that the road from Damascus to Tel Aviv also runs from Tel Aviv to Damascus, and that, if you’re going to throw stones at my glass house, I’m going to throw them at yours, you bastard.
Fleming found Emon to have violated the code of conduct by attempting to have some other councillors heaved from their own boards and committees. If you’re wondering why boards and committees are political battlegrounds locally, you should understand that members of Council receive a stipend for each body that they’re a part of. It’s not like anybody’s going to get rich here, but if you saw what councillors and the reeve make in compensation, you’d see why the committee appointments are in such high demand. It’s either that or start a meth lab.
Back then, Fleming recommended a couple of sanctions of sorts, including an apology. Council decided that there was no need for that sort of thing, so they wished Tony a good night, a hale and hearty farewell, and then went forward with whatever it was they were tripping all over that night. For the record, Emon did make remarks after the finding, and if I remember correctly, did express some measure of regret for having his “attempts” at humour taken the wrong way, and recognized that the onus was on him to make himself clear in the emails or perhaps not send them at all.
We all sang Kumbaya and moved on in the peace of Christ.
The most fortunate among us was Tony Fleming, who got to leave the meeting and do just about anything else with his night, every single one of his options better than all the rest of us who stayed. Especially me, the only freaking guy in the room not getting paid.
Anyways, Tony came and went, the meeting went on, the sun continued to rise in the East and set in the West, and Bob’s your uncle, unless he’s not.
There are still some nineteen months before the next municipal vote, so still plenty of time to organize another attack, or simply lay in wait for Reeve Pete to make another alleged mistake.
But with that said, unless something of an egregious nature takes place, I hope this kind of pettiness comes to a close. From my own observations, I see absolutely no reason to think that Peter Emon is anything other than a responsible elected representative, to the point where his peers keep picking him to be Warden of Renfrew County.
I guess time will tell as we move forward into the middle of 2025.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 