As to that labour dispute between CLRCS and OPSEU 472, getting answers and seeking accountability is a difficult thing, solely and exclusively because of the unwillingness, reticence, and perhaps even disingenuousness of three different camps, all of them nestled on the management side of this.
I’m not here to label anyone as being a liar because, well, it’s not good form. Plus different people have different views on what lying is, especially in this day and age where concepts involving different versions of truth get tossed around, where my truth might not match up with your truth. So the moral repugnancy around lying that once was the social norm has been replaced with the idea that competing truths can exist, that there is no one universal truth surrounding anything, but rather oppositional truths which, upon analysis, are really just another way of deflection from the real truth, whatever that is.
Hope I didn’t lose you there. It sounded smart when I was typing it down, but it got philosophical pretty quickly, and it momentarily distracted me from my real topic today, and that is the behaviour of three separate yet intertwined entities; the Executive Director of Community Living Renfrew County South, The Board of Directors for that organization, and the local MPP Billy Denault.
All three of these entities are, in my opinion, failing miserably to uphold the responsibilities attached to their positions. All three have their version of a fiduciary duty to protect the interest of clients first and foremost, even if by upholding that duty they put themselves at some form of unpleasantness or disadvantage. Again in my opinion, all three know full-well what they’re responsibilities are , and all three have appeared to render themselves purposely blind to them.
There’s something to be said about that ethically if in fact true.
The Executive-Director’s agenda appears to be one of clawing back things negotiated in the last collective agreement, especially things involved with seniority, working conditions, staffing, promotions, things of that nature. My assumption is that she wasn’t too thrilled when her workforce organized and joined OPSEU, so this time around, she might see an opportunity to wrestle those hard-fought-for conditions away from the workers. Their elimination would give her a free hand to do whatever she wanted however she wanted, and would cement what seems to be this personal inclination to be the top dog, as in THE TOP DOG. Her empire would be complete if this goes the way I think she wants it to go.
She’d also like to take a chainsaw to the popular Day Program that CLRCS has traditionally run, since turfing out all those clients would save even more cash. She’d tell you that’s an inevitable result of funding realities, but offers no opinion of those “realities” nor any ideas on how to get those realities changed to different, more appropriate realities. Instead, it appears she’s prepared to use the provincial government as political cover so that she can executer these goals, with these being just two examples
If true, this is cynicism of the highest order, something noble people would not be happy to hear about.
In her world, this might make her look like the perfect manager. In our world, this might take on the look of a perfect charlatan.
In any world, if true, it’s flat-out unacceptable.
There’s a reason the workers joined a union. From what I hear, relations between management and workers have been off-kilter for many years prior to this current strike, not because the workers were demanding the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the night sky, but rather because management seems to take pleasure in the diminishment of its own work force. Kicking the legs out from under the union is, again in my questionable opinion, the ultimate and un-stated goal of the Executive-Director.
I could say much more on this entity, one of the three, but I’ll save that for another day.
What can I say about the Board of Directors, this shadowy group of accountants and HR-types that sits atop the Executive-Director on the organizational chart? They exist in the shadows and don’t like any commentary directed towards them because it makes them feel uncomfortable and how dare someone criticize them. Can’t people see that they’re all volunteers for Pete’s sake? Upstanding citizens and all that?
I guess anyone who self-labels as a volunteer is beyond reproach or scrutiny, but I’m sorry to have to point out that merely volunteering for something doesn’t mean you get to make up all the rules around who is accountable. In theory, if you volunteer for something, and that something causes harm to a segment of the population, then that volunteerism has to be in question as to its mission fidelity.
I volunteer too, and over the course of a lifetime, there’s a good chance I’ve done more of it than any of these folks. Never in any of those endeavours did I take my volunteering as a free pass from accountability or fidelity to mission.
Reading the mission statement of Board members is very impressive, although it skews unhealthily in the direction of management types, the kind that are traditionally hostile to unions. Was this Board selected and recruited because they were going to be instrumental in bringing voice to power, or even truth to power? Were they selected because of their strong advocacy for the clients that they “serve.” Or were they selected because they all have the same mind-set, especially when the organization knows there’s going to be a standoff with the union because of a contract that expired in 2024? A stand-off that was provoked by government and management alike?
And what about the two Board members that don’t seem to fit the same profile as the other six? Where are their voices?
It’s important to note that, despite the impressive duty description, it’s right there on the webpage; the Board of Directors have no operational control over the day to day things connected to the agency. That power belongs exclusively to the Executive-Director. So that clear delineation of power suggests the Executive-Director is more or less totally sovereign over what goes on with the agency, rendering the Board of Directors as mere window dressing. I believe they all got their positions through her, so if true, that’s as much of a conflict of interest as it is a power imbalance.
Paper tigers, baby. Paper tigers.
I could say much more on this entity, one of the three, but I’ll save that for another day.
What to make of MPP Billy Denault.
He has an agenda too, and it’s a simple one; keep your goddamn head down and wait for this whole mess to blow over so that people will stop asking you about it, that is if they can find you in the first place.
Billy’s new, but that newness is really not in play here, as in reality, even experienced and wizened PC MPPs across the province are doing the same thing. Meaning that every single one of them are singing from the same Looney Tunes song sheet, saying they’re not involved, it’s management and the workers exclusively.
See, this is one of those areas where dishonesty comes to the fore, institutional dishonesty, and it’s perpetrated by people who have been awarded the peoples’ trust in a provincial election. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that voters don’t choose candidates or parties because they’re hoping to get lied to. And because of the power behind that word, I’ll soften it to something like disingenuousness. It’s not on the same scale as lying, as it’s more of a distortion or deflection of the truth. But it definitely registers on the dishonesty scale if all this its true.
Let me see if I’ve got this right.
The MPP says he and his government are not involved. The provincial government funds Community Living, albeit inadequately. The government is also spending an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money paying for replacement workers at premium rates, feeding them, putting them up in hotels, and transporting them to job sites. Further, they’re spending additional money hiring security guards and private investigators, who are making money hand-over-fist because of this. Their wages, meals, lodgings, and transportation are also paid for.
So it sure as hell seems to me that they’re involved and they’re involved plenty. But Billy says they aren’t.
Is this not an obvious disconnect? Where the so-called facts don’t fit the picture on the ground? And can somebody please explain to me what this kind of thing is called, when a person says something they know to be false, but puts it out there as “truth.”
In my opinion, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is the pre-eminent villain in all of this. They do it deliberately and they don’t care how much it costs if it means doing battle with detestable union folks. It appears they’d rather throw money at rich dudes that donate to them and private dicks sitting in cars staring at empty buildings, rather than giving much less money to honest workers looking to get a fair shake. It’s ideological and it’s abhorrent.
Billy dare not say anything, and that’s why he’s gone to ground, unless you’re going to wave your chequebook around. Then he might show up for a sniff.
Billy’s transgressions appear to be two-fold.
First he puts out a boilerplate statement he knows not to be true, or is not an accurate reflection of what’s going on. That’s guilty by commission.
But then he disappears, never to be seen or heard from again, this at a time when many of his constituents, perhaps even supporters among them, are being purposely targeted and hurt. And he stands aside and says nothing. This is guilt by omission.
So take your pick. Which of these attributes is desirable in your elected Member of Provincial Parliament? Or is this the kind of cynical behaviour we now seem to meekly accept from politicians, the new norm as it were?
I’ll let readers speak for themselves, but this isn’t the kind of thing that’s acceptable to me. I know being a politician, especially one who feels they have integrity, is a difficult proposition, one where you’re always going to find yourself in awkward spots. But nobody told you to run, nobody made you run for public office, that was your choice, so step up to those awkward moments. Don’t demean the office by presenting yourself as just another stereotypical two-faced politician.
There’s no need to diminish yourself just because the guy that’s making you do it is the premier of Ontario, a man with a stunted and vexatious agenda that he managed to suck you into.
True leadership requires such a person to stand against such things, to dare to be different, to dare to stand ups for what’s right.
Each and every time.
And honestly, if that can’t be accomplished, if that’s too much for a person, well the hockey tape place in town is hiring. Maybe things would be better for you there, where you don’t have to come across so poorly in front of your own people who need you.
I could say much more on this entity, one of the three, but I’ll save that for another day.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 