Category: Uncategorized

THE POLITICAL EVOLUTION OF JOHN MCDONALD

I’m pretty sure that Renfrew Councillor John McDonald has always had game.  I don’t think you can be a big-city police officer without having a certain predisposition for getting to the bottom of things, and it appears that trait and that predisposition has transferred to his work on Renfrew Town Council.

All that said, at least from my perspective, the councillor has found his political and administrative accountability game, or has refined it, in the several months that I’ve been following Council.

Being a politician, and being an elected councillor, are not things that are easily done.  Like any job or endeavour, it takes a bit of time to sort out the environment, the players, the issues, and the answers involving those issues.  You don’t just open a jar of political acumen and pour it out on a plate.  Instead, it’s something that’s learned and earned, and if you’re earnest in your reasons for being a councillor, then that learning and earning are important parts of the process.

Councillor McDonald appears to be well on his way.

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CONSERVATIVE TV ADS ARE BRILLIANTLY BRUTAL

I’m a little disappointed at the craftsmanship, the tone, the acting, and the messaging.

Disappointed in a professional sense, in that I come from a history of political marketing, promoting, and advertising.  But that said, from a personal point of view, I’m equally encouraged that the failings alluded to in the first sentence are all to be found in the latest round of Conservative election television ads.

The usually sure-footed Tories have completely lost their way in an area where they were once kings.  They now look like the cut-rate hired help.  I suspect when they kick Pierre Poilievre out of the leadership of that party, they’ll be putting the boot to his communications guy, Sebastian Skamski, as well. 

So these ads, while terrible, are beautiful.

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LOVING YOUR CYBERTRUCK WHEN NOBODY ELSE DOES

That Tesla Cybertruck is truly something to behold.

It appears that more and more of them are out and about in the wild, so sightings of this futuristic beast are becoming more commonplace.  In fact, there’s even a couple in town.

I have to confess I have no idea what it must be like to own and operate one of these vehicles, with their supposed bullet-proof glass, a feature that I’m sure Elon Musk has included in all his personal vehicles, or at least the ones he shuttles around in.  I can’t say whether the vehicle could stop an RPG — Rocket-Propelled Grenade — but I did see Musk himself shatter the window with a rock in an attempt to prove that you can’t shatter the window with a rock.

And honestly, when it comes to rocks, why waste them on the truck when you could be flinging them at Elon himself, easily the most loathed man in the world, which is a hell of a statement when you consider some of the people who walk this planet at the same time that he does.  So why smash on the monster when you can get your licks in on Dr. Frankenstein instead?

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BRIAND CARRIES UPC BANNER IN ARP

I spent a few minutes before starting this trying to think of something good to say about Randy Briand.  It was harder than it may sound, and in the end, I could only really think of one.

I don’t know Randy from a head of lettuce, so in fairness to him, I should make the effort to learn more about him before I weigh-in on whatever it is that he’s all about.  

So I did.

Salt of the earth is Randy.  Born in Petawawa into a military family, he served himself as a weekend-warrior in the Reserves, an infantry officer by his own account.  A school teacher for over thirty years, with a couple of years way up North working with indigenous children before returning home to become an Ottawa Valley farmer.  With a resume like that, what’s not to like, for heaven’s sake?

I don’t know of Randy’s formative years, where he developed his belief system and moral and ethical compass, but he apparently went through a catharsis of some sort when he met Grant Abraham, the leader of the Alberta-based United Party of Canada.  Abraham either solidified Briand’s world-view or he totally knocked it on its ass, but either way, Briand has emerged as whole, a complete man, one who has found himself a home in a new political party when all the others had failed him.

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LONG LINES GREET VOTERS

I went to vote on Good Friday, the first available opportunity to do so.

I showed up at Ma-Te-Way and noticed that both parking lots were fairly busy, but there’s lots of stuff that goes on in that place, and I wasn’t really sure how a stat holiday like Good Friday would impact any of those things, so I just assumed it was the fitness and hockey crowds taking up those spaces.

As I pulled up, I did take notice of a number of people standing outside the main doors to the complex, and it looked from a distance that many of them had voting cards in their hands,  but I just optimistically assumed that these were voters in need of a smoke.  As a non-smoker, their need to pound back a dart or two before making a big and important choice was something I could understand, although my own choice had never been in doubt.  So I clutched my own voter card, and dressed in my Good Friday Mass clothes, made my way to the place where the bright yellow election arrows were pointing, there to exercise my democratic franchise.

It was a line.

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MANNING SQUAWKS ABOUT FEDERAL VOTE

When Preston Manning speaks, people listen, that is until they cringe.

The populist evangelical western fear-monger has the kind of voice that ranks right up there with nails on a chalkboard, and it would be a real treat to hear him and American Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having a conversation.  That is, of course, before your teeth started to hurt and your eyes started to bleed.

The son of one of those strange bible-thumping preacher-premiers that only Alberta can produce, Preston seems to have picked up the Social Credit mantra of his father Ernest and carried it forward into the present day.

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COUNCIL ASKS FOR STAFF ORGANIZATION CHART

A number of councillors have made a point of requesting an employee organizational chart for the Town of Renfrew, but they’ve been somewhat stymied by a staff leadership that doesn’t feel inclined to release such a thing, ostensibly because it’s not something they “typically” do.

Which when you get right down to it, is staff-speak for we could if we wanted to, but we just don’t want to.

Which is staff-speak for you’re going to have to try a lot harder to get us to create, then release such information, and we’ll stonewall you until you and the other councillors make us do it through an explicit direction from Council.

I won’t go too much into how impressed I get when somebody tells me something can’t be done, or won’t be done, because, well, that’s not the way we typically do things. A statement like that doesn’t make me want to back off, it makes me want to insist that you go “atypical“ and give me the information that I’m entitled to.

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INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER FINDS NO CONFLICT

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?

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RENFREW GETS A STRONG MAYOR

Ontario premier Doug Ford has proposed extending so-called “strong-mayor” powers to 169 additional municipalities in Ontario, and the Town of Renfrew is one of them.

What makes a strong mayor out of a mayor?

Simply put, it allows the mayor, as Head of Council, to push forward agenda items without obtaining a majority vote of other members of Council.  It’s something usually reserved for large urban areas like Toronto, or Ottawa, or any other densely-populated metropolitan areas.

But Renfrew?  And also Arnprior, Pembroke, Deep River and Petawawa?  Because they all made the cut, whereas urban powerhouse Douglas got left out, most likely because they’re part of a township government, and I guess we haven’t yet arrived at the point where rural townships require strong mayor powers.

The changes, if implemented, take effect May 1, 2025.

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