Category: Uncategorized

THIRD PARTY REPORT: SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

In a previous article I referred to the Third Party Report by WSCS Consulting into the Ma-Te-Way situation as a flawed document.

I should be clear that in no way am I questioning the integrity of the authors of the document, nor am I diminishing the level of rigour, depth, and detail that was put into what was, essentially, a very difficult job.  I want to make sure that I come across as applauding the work done, and the report proffered.

There can be no such thing as a perfect document because there’s no such thing as a perfect investigator, author, or subject matter, all involving three heavily involving human elements.  In the case of this report, it’s the third part, the subject part, that made the compilation of information and the cobbling together of that information more than just your average challenge.  It made it virtually impossible to get down to the absolute brass tacks of the issue, although the authors did successfully pull back the curtain on much of what transpired in what has to be the Town of Renfrew’s biggest debacle ever.

One needs to be careful when bandying about allegations regarding others, and that need for care can often lead to an extraordinary level of caution when attempting to report on items that may involve measures of incompetence, negligence, and malfeasance.  And sometimes that can lead to a report that hovers around the periphery rather than drilling into the potentially dangerous areas.  This report navigates those difficulties about as well as one might hope for.

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COUNCIL BACK IN CHAMBERS

It’s been a long layoff, with council stuff sort of taking a back seat here over the course of the holidays, but with the arrival of the second full week of the month, open council meetings are now part of the crunch.

And they’ll start with a bit of a crunch if the most recent agenda is any indication of what may happen when we all convene in chambers this evening.

Two cases being investigated by the Integrity Commissioner will have reports delivered, one involving Councillor Andrew Dick, and the other Reeve Peter Emon.

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LISA ROBINSON: UGLINESS IN MUNICIPAL POLITICS

There’s probably a lot of different ways in which to view somebody like Lisa Robinson, and I have made that attempt, but in the end, it’s always pretty much the same for me.  That is to say that, if I were to ever meet the woman, I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t like her.  And I’m equally confident she wouldn’t be lining up to join my fan club either.

Lisa Robinson is a councillor for the City of Pickering, just northeast of Toronto.  When I see or hear about people like her, it makes me want to offer up prayers of thanks for the elected members of Renfrew Town Council that we have.  As critical as I can sometimes be, there is nothing on offer here in Renfrew that can be considered as approaching what Robinson is to Pickering.

In a charitable rendering, I’d put her on the same footing as your Marjorie Taylor-Greenes, or your Lauren Boberts, Sarah Palins, or Kari Lakes of the political universe.  Maybe even a Cheryl Gallant type of figure, although that’s cruel.

A mean-spirited, sneering, and unnecessarily provocative human being bent upon one thing and one thing alone, that being the political chaos she sews that serves as her preferred working environment.  There is nothing sacred when it comes to these women, in that they’ll attack you at the drop of a pin yet cry indignant persecution if ever confronted or challenged.

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OTTAWA VALLEY RESCUE

There is no shortage of heroes in society, and they come from a variety of different places, different occupations, and different backgrounds.

Today I’d like to highlight the people who volunteer their time towards animal rescue operations here and elsewhere.  Locally, that would be the Ottawa Valley Rescue.  Included in that are the people who take on the role of fosters for animals in the process of transitioning to what is hoped to be a permanent home.

Not every animal involved with this organization arrived there as a result of neglect or abuse.  That said, it’s shockingly troubling to learn just how many of them are from a challenging background like this.  Equally troubling is the total attitude of disregard that many people have for domestic animals, and it’s the Rescue that has taken on the responsibility for the rehabilitation of the animal where the goal is a permanent and loving home.

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BEACH PARTY AT THE ARMOURIES

For the record, the sign is announcing an impending Beach Party.

When you’re walking down a sidewalk fighting off a windchill of -25°, just about anything associated with the concept of warmth sounds like a good deal.

As Canadian as I am, and as durable a soul as I like to think that I am, the idea of beach sand and waves lapping along the shoreline does the heart a kindness.  The cruelty comes with the knowledge that I’m apparently the only person in all of Canada who doesn’t take a winter vacation of some sort down south.

I guess somebody’s got to stay back and keep those driveways cleared, the fires burning, the economy pumping along.  So, if you were ever wondering, that’s me.  I do all of that.  While you go south.

This past week has been plenty cold, so the sign was a beacon straight into my heart.  A Beach Party, right here in Renfrewtown, at the Armouries.  A place for me to go if the Canadian winter gets to weigh on me a little too much for my liking.  But my thinking is, who else will be there if the rest of you are all off in Florida, Arizona, the Carolinas, Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, and all those other places in the Caribbean, South Pacific, and along the Mediterranean?  Like, who’s left?

It doesn’t really matter, I guess, so long as they have a pavilion where you can sit in a lawn chair and have one of those machine-gun sprinklers pound away at you.  Now that I don’t smoke anymore, that sounds like it would be fun.  It was a bitch when you were trying to enjoy a dart with the experience.

A bit of frisbee toss would be nice, I guess, although I’m roughly forty years removed from my last frisbee toss, which may well be the makings of a night at RVH.  Perhaps I’ll leave the frisbee for the young ones.

I don’t drink anymore.  How in the hell am I supposed to enjoy all of this without drinking?  I mean, c’mon!  Do I just sit there with a fake smile and a little cup with an umbrella sticking out of it, and maybe a little straw?  That’s not the beach I remember.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m absolutely grateful this event is planned.  And I’ll bet it’s a real winner, no reason to think otherwise.

Colourful attire, calypso music, the Beach Boys here and there, maybe even some of that old Dick Clark style dancing on the beach action, where I feel I’d really shine.  I’ll bet it’ll be a lot of fun.

I guess for me, though, it might be necessary to not draw on my past beach experiences and attempt to translate them to this beach experience.  I do, however, need to keep in mind that it’s the beach and the people that are the two critical elements.  All the rest of it is decoration.  

So if I can master that, I ought to be okay.

COVER PHOTO: Image by quanghieu_st1 from Pixabay

RADIO STATION DEAL REVIEWED AFTER FIVE YEARS

In four years, the deal a local radio station signed with an apparently unauthorized and unsupervised member of Renfrew Town staff will come under review, with the town having the opportunity to back out of the deal.

It’s my opinion the town should do just that.

I won’t get into the ins and outs of it, but that radio station should not have their name on that building, Ma-Te-Way, nor should they be allowed to refer to it as they currently do, like it’s theirs.  Because it’s not.

This will become an issue in the next municipal election, whether the status-quo types like that or not.  The sun shines for us as it shines for them, and I’d like to see God’s will and testament where he bequeathed all of that to any fast-one artists who think they run the place.  You may read into that the possibility of town elites, town staff, or town politicians.  Those running outside their lanes need to be shown their lanes, or disqualified from the event altogether.

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MOVING FORWARD WITH A DEBENTURE

 A debenture is a financial product.  More specifically, it’s an investment product where an investor or investors lend their money out over a fixed term and containing a fixed rate in borrowing costs.  In English, that means money is lent by people who have it to people who need it, but the people who need it can’t pay it back in full or in lump sums other than the agreed upon yearly payment.  So, with a thirty year debenture, the borrower has to pay the agreed upon allotment every year for the entirety of the thirty years.

It’s good and bad for both parties, or pro and con if you like that better.  For the lender, you get steady payments every year that you can count on, and at a rate of interest that’s locked in.  So there’s some security there that the investment will continue to yield the anticipated returns.  There is no change to the interest rate and no change to the term.  And the borrower can’t pay it off early and rob you of potential earnings.  If the interest rates in general go down, your investment is protected and secure because it’s locked in at the fixed rate.

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Après moi, le déluge.

Après moi, le déluge.

Attributed to French King Louis XV, the statement is generally taken to mean that, once Louis and his acolytes are gone and swept away, then the stink is really gonna hit the fan.  The biblical reference to a flood is a nice touch, but I don’t think Louis had the flood as a cleansing event, but rather as a drowning event, but I suppose that’s up for debate and dependant upon perspective.

Today is the day I do something I ought not to do, not because it would be wrong or improper, but because it will be ridiculed and dismissed as completely out of touch.  But then again, imagine me being completely out of touch, yet correct in the end?  The first part happens more than often, the second I can only hope for, although it’s another one of those cases where I desperately don’t want to be right.

I never voted for Pierre Trudeau but recognized his merits despite everyone at the time being in hate with him.  I did vote for Brian Mulroney, twice in fact, and maintained that he was a good prime minister when he was the Political Bandito #1 at the end of his two terms.  Historians now view both men, despite their weaknesses, perceived or real, to be among the best of our prime ministers.  It took me thirty years to be right on one of them, and forty to be right on the other, but lets’s face it, the present lasts for a second, while the past stretches back forever.  As they say, hindsight has 20/20 vision, but in my case it took decades for that vision to become more acceptable.

I don’t feel I have another thirty or forty years to play with, although there might be an outside chance at the former, so I don’t have the luxury of hanging around and being vindicated by the passage of time and history.  So I’ll make my remarks right now, and predictably take dump trucks worth of scorn from all the people in the world smarter than me, which is apparently everyone.  I may even lose readers because of this, but there it is.  The guy in Nigeria has seemingly left me, so all is lost anyways.

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LIBERAL ASPIRANTS MAKING THEIR CALLS

Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, and Christy Clark do not read my opinion pieces.  Neither do François-Philippe Champagne, Frank Baylis, and maybe Dominic Leblanc.  If they did, they’d likely detect a whiff of pessimism in my view of the chances of anyone taking over the leadership of the federal Liberals and staging a miraculous, Disney-like turnaround of political fortunes.

Are they all fools?  Hardly.  They didn’t get to where they are by being anything of the sort.  But Michael Ignatieff was no fool, either, and where the hell did he end up?  And some of you are probably even asking, who the hell is Michael Ignatieff?  Which is kind of my point.

What do these people know, or think they know, that I don’t?  The quick, top-of-mind answer is, plenty.  Again, they’re them, and I’m me, and it isn’t even close.

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