RUNAWAY WATER BILL

Generally speaking, the movement of fluids throughout a home can be heard by occupants of the home, whether it be forced air from the furnace, the air conditioner kicking out comfort on a blazing hot day, or water moving through the pipes doing the chores that water does.

Watering the lawn with a sprinkler, watering the plants and shrubs and flowers, and filling the pool are all uses of water where the occupants of the home can hear, as much as see.  If the hose is being used outside, you can hear the water moving under pressure from the inside.

Doing the dishes by hand, or using a dishwasher also produces the sounds of fluids in motion, again in this case water.  Taking a shower, drawing a bath, shaving, these all require water, and therefore also make enough sound to be noticeable to anyone in the home.

Either the flushing of a toilet, or a toilet that doesn’t complete the flushing cycle all make water-in-motion noises.  So too does every faucet in the house when in use.

My point here is that we generally have a pretty good idea when our water usage is in action, mostly because we can hear it as much as we can see it.  So if the water was running, from whatever source, for six consecutive days without reprieve, then we’d have some notice of it, with our ears as much as our eyes.

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FLOODING ON HAIG

Just imagine.

A house that’s been there for decades, right here in Renfrew.  Property taxes paid diligently and on time, same thing with the water bill.  Never, ever, in all that time, has there ever had a problem with water in the basement.  Never.

Along comes the year 2023, and the Town of Renfrew has undertaken to pave the road outside this home.  It’s absolutely thrilling.  The street the house is on, Haig Avenue, hasn’t been a safe coffee-drinking road in a long time with all the hills, valleys, and moguls.  But now, the town in going to put down some fresh asphalt, sprucing up the entire neighbourhood, and likely having a positive impact on property values. 

Honestly, what’s not to like?

The engineering, that’s what.

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INDISPENSABLE? INDEFENSIBLE?

The first thing I noticed was the seating plan. 

As a former teacher, changes to seating plans were almost traumatic events for students since they had no idea what neighbourhood of the classroom they may be calling their new home, and, of course, had no idea of who their new neighbours might be.  No matter the intent behind the seating shift, it was inevitable that some students would be delighted by the change, with others less so.  And the major determining factor as to whether you were a “winner” or a “loser” was entirely social, and having to do with friends, or possibly a lack thereof.

I tuned in to the Renfrew Town Council live-feed after-the-fact, viewing it this morning rather than putting myself through the whole death by a thousand cuts experience you get when you attend in person.  And the first thing I noticed was what I call the head table, the one where the big cheeses sit, the mayor — Head of Council — the CAO, and the Clerk.

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MAYOR WRITES THE PREMIER OVER SMP

Things can  happen fast in River City.

I wrote a story a couple of days ago lamenting, once again, the granting of Strong Mayor powers to the mayor of Renfrew, Tom Sidney.  I further lamented the dearth of a legitimate critical media locally that could offer some oversight and accountability to the whole thing.  I mean, if it has to be (SMP or Strong Mayor Power) then we should at least have some form of robust and critically diligent media in place to keep everyone honest.  It looked as though we were destined for the SMP, but not so much for the critical media.

Forty-eight hours go by.  I go to North Bay, then on to Sudbury.  I write a story about bears.  I return to Renfrew, go online because it’s Tuesday, and I know Town Council is going to be meeting Tuesday night, so I kind of want to get the skinny on what may be happening by taking a peek at the agenda.

That’s where I found it, page 116 to be exact, right there in the middle of the haystack, as if it were no big deal at all.

It was a letter from the mayor to the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford.

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“EVERYONE HAS A BEAR STORY”

I was on the road to Sudbury, and CBC Radio was keeping me company.

Claire Cameron was a guest on The Current, a daily show on CBC.  Claire is the author of a book, actually a memoir, entitled “How To Survive A Bear Attack.”  It certainly got me thinking.

She worked as a teenager in Algonquin Park, so when she heard about a young couple being killed in the park by a black bear a couple of decades ago, she took an extraordinarily keen interest in the story and began what she would call her “investigation.”

People manage to die in Algonquin Park every year, mostly as a result of their own negligence, and sometimes as a result of extreme health events, like heart attacks.  For the most part, though, park fatalities will come from health failures, allergies, drowning, and even the car or truck ride just getting to the park.  Way down the list of potentially fatal episodes are death through bear attack.  In fact, it almost never happens.

It definitely happened to that young couple though, and it became apparent that the bear was drawn by their careless storage of food where they had set up camp.  Death, in such circumstances, is a tough penalty to pay for such an oversight, but bears don’t employ that level of higher-order thinking when they’re out and about, almost always searching for, well, food.

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STRONG MAYOR + WEAK MEDIA

What do you get when you simultaneously have a strong mayor and a weak or non-existent media?

This isn’t a joke, where there’s some amusing punchline to follow that question.  This is a joke because this is what happens when the wool is being thrown over our collective eyes.

I’ve already written about strong mayors, about that senseless move by Premier Doug Ford to empower mayors unnecessarily, while at the same time seriously undermining local and municipal democracy.

This comes from a populist premier who champions things like “a buck a beer” and drinking alcohol in public parks.  He’s the guy that allowed alcohol sales in corner and grocery stores, without fully mapping out how all those empties are going to be collected and processed.  He spent millions in penalties to the Beer Store to break an agreement already on place just to get that booze into those stores.  All this from a guy who doesn’t drink himself.

Ford is a guy who moves based upon whatever the last horoscope might have said, or whatever the last lobbyist may have promised.  He’ll bash ahead with his newly-discovered mission until we make him stop.  Then he apologizes, gives us the patented “Gee, golly, shucks,” and we forgive him for it, even giving him credit for having the political courage to admit when he’s wrong.

He is the quintessential ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission kind of fellow.

And full disclosure, I’ve voted for him.  Not every time, mind you, but I have.

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GERMANY AWAKENS

There’s almost nobody left alive today who would remember this from a first-person perspective.

For over eighty years, European security has been guaranteed by the United States.  The continent that had given birth to two world wars, and plenty of others before that, has seen a peace that is virtually unrivalled by any other time in its history.  And as I mentioned, that’s primarily the dividend of having the Americans as a strategic ally.

The enemy is Russia, once known as the Soviet Union, or even the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) as they were once formerly known.  From 1945 until 1991, the Russians were the existential threat, poised as they were to roll right over Western Europe, but held in check by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which had the United States as its most powerful member.  During this time, known as the Cold War, the two sides stared each other down over the barricades erected by the Russians, not to keep us out, but to keep their occupied populations in.

Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself, the victim of its many unsolvable problems, primarily involving Russian incompetence and a general backwardness.  From that point, with Russia a mere rump of its former self, Western Europe, and in fact Eastern Europe as well (formerly members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) began to experience e a peace dividend, where money no longer had to be spent in untold billions to manufacture and procure arms with which to defend their sovereignty against the big bad Russian bear.  The bear was off licking its wounds, and Europe thrived as a result of it.

But the Russians never go away.  Never.

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MIGRANT WORKERS

They come from places where the standard of living is well below ours. In fact, their standard of living makes it a necessity for these people to leave their own country to find work so that they can send the money home to aid their families.

They work in what could be considered an essential service, the harvesting and processing of food. Without them, the seasonal agricultural industry would be in crisis.

How much should they be prepared to endure when they arrive in Canada on Closed Work Permits? And how much are we willing to look away when we see the obvious abuses?

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Everyone talks about Freedom of Information as if it was some absolute right guaranteed by the highest authorities in the land.

Our own local council talks about it as if it was the Holy Grail, and when combined with transparency and accountability, the Holy Trinity of municipal government.

I say that’s all horse-hockey.

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