Tag: renfrew

SMALL TOWN RACISM

And then there was Dave.

It’s not his real name, but it’ll have to do for the purposes of telling my story, a story that needs to be shared.  I also don’t want to use his real name because I don’t want to embarrass him, and more to the point, his family.  Because, Dave is no different than a lot of other Dave’s out there, so why single him out, right?

You see, Dave is a racist.  Not even a little bit of one, but rather a racist with a paid-up-in-full membership to AOA, or Assholes of America, a subsidiary of ROA, or Racists of America, a family-oriented group complete with chat lines where you can spend time dumping on those goddamned immigrants you saw at Walmart earlier in the day, when you stopped in after church, the place you pretended to be a Christian for reasons unknown.

Dude, if there’s a God, he already knows you’re a racist, so you might just as well carve an extra hour for yourself on Sunday mornings rather than go to all the work of showing up and be a hypocrite.  But then again, you don’t go to church for God, do you?  For you, it’s mostly about the appearances you put in so that other folks think you’re a great guy.  And after all, it’s not like you’re the only racist sitting in church on a Sunday morning, right?  For heaven’s sake, the place is full of them.  Go ahead.  Tell me it’s not.

It’s like we’re going to need Jesus to come down and throw one of those money-lender freak-outs to reclaim his Father’s house from the imposters who take up space within it.  No doubt I’ll get all caught up in the mayhem, but hey, I went to Confession just a little over a week ago, so how much sin could I have possibly accumulated?

However much sin I’m burdened with, I’m not a racist.

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HR LIASON: A PIÑATA THAT ISN’T THERE

Oh my God.

I can’t think of anything better to really say as the HR Liaison issue came up a third time, and for a third time it was like wading in a pool full of absolute muck.

I’ve never encountered brick-think on such a scale as I witnessed Tuesday night at the Renfrew Town Council meeting.

These people seemingly have a huge degree of difficulty when it comes to determining how Stage 3 grievances are to be heard.  It’s not the most complicated of things, but you’d never know it from sitting in this room for what seems like hours talking about the same thing over and over and over again, all the while cancelling out options with votes as the back-and-forth debate rages, and heads shake.

All of the very worst things that come to mind when criticizing Council come to the forefront on this particular issue.  Add to that the usual ambiguity and imperfection from certain staff by way of explanations that don’t address the question.

It’s like watching a blind-folded kid swinging wildly at a piñata, only there’s no piñata.  Or if you prefer, taking a bunch of cats for a walk without a leash. Walking through a cornfield?

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BEWARE THE GENERALS

I promised myself that I wouldn’t write anything about Donald Trump.  After all, what could I possibly add to any commentary about that man and his MAGA movement?

So far I’ve managed to steer clear of anything to do with the guy, and that’s saying something, since he’s talking about absorbing Canada into the United States, which on most days would filter its way into the pile of things that might grab my attention. 

It’s January 20th, and I’m watching a home-building show on Global, totally because every single other channel is covering the gong show that Trump has managed to morph the presidential inauguration into.  I understand that, sometimes, it’s okay to stray a bit from the iron rigidity of tradition.  But to turn something like an inauguration into another form of a Trump MAGA rally is tough to watch. Elon Musk, as well, is entirely difficult to watch.

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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

RETIRING MPP’S GET NO RESPECT THANKS TO MIKE HARRIS

It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to Mike.

In fact, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even remember me, since for him, I’m one of those ephemeral faces that have cluttered up his life as he climbed his way to the very seat of power at Queen’s Park some thirty years ago.

We parted company, Mike and I, back in 1995 when he was elected Premier of Ontario and began his scorched-earth campaign to unravel all manner of supports for Ontario’s vulnerable populations.  I should say that I parted company with him, and that he didn’t break a sweat, much less notice.  So he won’t be troubled by today’s column, because he won’t read it, passing as it will well below his radar.

I knocked on doors for the guy, worked the phone banks, was a poll captain, speech-maker and speech-writer.  But the last time I spoke to him was when I saw him get out of a car at the Renfrew County Plowing match back in the early 1990’s.  We came abruptly face-to-face.

Continue reading “RETIRING MPP’S GET NO RESPECT THANKS TO MIKE HARRIS” →

SMALL TOWN ELITES

Honestly, they’re just people, no different from you and I.

If all goes right, they wake up in the morning blessed with a new day.  Some get the kids ready before hustling them off to wherever it is the kids go for the day.  Some take out the trash before heading to work, because it’s, well, Tuesday.  Some get up earlier because that new hair straightener from Amazon was on the step yesterday when they got home.  A few wake up crusty, regretting those last few drinks that had them crawling into bed mere hours before and now crawling out of bed looking for the Tylenol.

It’s all pretty normal stuff, the kind of life tapestry that’s unfolding all around as others do the same things more or less, except for the night shift folks, who I won’t talk about because they wreck my narrative.

People, getting a start to their day, one foot after the next, inexorably leading to wherever it is they themselves go for the day.  Almost an old-school Norman Rockwell feel to it.

Some work for others, some work for themselves.  Some are part of the workforce, some provide jobs for that workforce.  Some have their own businesses, some own their own businesses with storefronts along the downtown corridor.  Some work for the public sector, most for the private.  And every single one of them, a lot of them anyway, are salt of the earth types, the people you see at Walmart or No Frills or Timmies, or the rink on a Saturday morning.  Their kids mix with yours, they mix with you, and it’s all a beautiful tableau of everyday life here in The Valley.

What could possibly upset all this, and transform these very same people into something less than a beautiful slice of everyday life?

Giving them a faint sniff of something they mistake for power.  That’ll do it almost every time.

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GETTING TO KNOW RENFREW TOWN COUNCIL: PART 1

Two years ago, on October 24, 2022, Renfrew residents (well, some of them, anyway) cast their vote for candidates vying for Renfrew Town Council positions.

It’s important to note that only 2,788 out of 6,459 eligible voters cast ballots that day, representing 43.6% of the total number of people in town who qualified to vote.

Hardly a ringing exercise in democracy, but there you go.

Voters got one vote for mayor, and I believe four (maybe five?) for councillor.  Eight individuals ran for councillor. A voter did not have to use all of their votes for councillor if they chose not to.

The following graphics will show what percentage successful candidates received of the actual vote, as well as a percentage relative to the potential eligible vote.

Also featured are committee and board assignments, as well as other positions with flowery titles.

So, for your information, here is Renfrew’s Town Council on the second anniversary of their landslide victories.

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ONTARIO’S BIG CITY MAYORS ASK PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT FOR HELP.

Ontario’s Big City Mayors group got together recently, as thy do, and no surprise, homelessness and the impact that it has on their communities was top-of-mountain when it came to topics under discussion.

When these discussions were completed, the mayors delivered a statement, as they do, but one that was more of a direct public appeal to the provincial government to do something, anything, to lift the onerous pressures homeless persons have on Ontario’s cities.

The folks in Pembroke would be able to appreciate that better than most, I’d say.  Far better than places like Renfrew, I’d warrant.

The BIg City Mayors had plenty to say about homelessness, some of it good, much of it the same old tired ideas that have led to nothing but have only shifted the problem onto some other area of society or provincial government responsibility.

One thing brought up, and it’s all the rage now across the country, is the idea of involuntary treatment for people addicted to drugs and who are homeless.  There are always segments of every population that are more difficult to manage or service for a myriad number of reasons, and with the topic of homelessness, these are the types that create the most onerous burden in terms of dealing with them from a police, public health, and social services point of view.  Throw in mental health and you’ve got one of the primary reasons, aside from bank greed, that there’s a homeless crisis to begin with.

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NEW BROOMS SWEEP CLEAN: JUST WATCH OUT FOR THE SCRATCHES ON THE FLOOR

Many of us from a certain generation are familiar with the old axiom “new brooms sweep clean.”

I guess it was a bit of old, grandma-type wisdom where it was established that a new broom, with its brand new bristles firm and steady, could get that dirt the old worn-out broom in the corner couldn’t handle anymore.  The new one swept all before it, and with a little bit of weight behind it, there would be nothing that could escape it.

It might also scratch your floor.

Politics can be like that.

You get a government, or a board, or a similar collection of individuals given a certain task or mandate.  Maybe they start out okay, but over time, stuff happens that leads to the impression among their constituency that they have to be sent packing, whether through their perceived ineptness, incompetence or for the simple fact that they’re tired and have gone flat.  And then comes the statement that grows and grows and grows, a statement dreaded by incumbents everywhere:  “It’s time for a change.”

Hence the need for a new broom, so to speak.  And what do brooms do?  Well they sweep, with new ones even sweeping clean.  Sweeping clean politically will more often mean that every, or almost every existing member of that government, or board, or council, or committee, what have you, will be replaced by someone new, and often extremely inexperienced.  And maybe even packing a grievance.  Or an agenda.  Or, gasp, both.

Continue reading “NEW BROOMS SWEEP CLEAN: JUST WATCH OUT FOR THE SCRATCHES ON THE FLOOR” →

HOMELESS: DOING A BETTER JOB AND SAVING A WHACK OF CASH WHILE DOING IT.

I did a video story earlier in the week regarding homelessness in Renfrew and the surrounding area, a story that had elements of criticism, as well as praise, within it.  I followed that up with an article giving credit and encouragement to some of the stakeholder groups or agencies (in this case police) that have made meaningful and positive contributions to the effort around homelessness.

Today, in what will likely be my final kick at this can, I wish to offer solutions, not of my own making, but crafted by folks living in other parts of North America and involving the very same issue.  I don’t want to come across as exclusively critical of the efforts, or non-efforts that I see as I learn more about this topic.

So I want to throw some ideas out there for an alternative approach, ideas not originated by me, but noted by me as having some real honest-to-goodness potential.  Unlike some politicians that are exclusively critical, I’d like to show up with some ideas about how to make things better.

One effort, in Austin, Texas, is operated by a group that identifies as Mobile Loaves and Fishes.  If you’re Christian, you may recognize the key element of that title from something you may have experienced in Scripture, a story we’ve all heard many times along the way.  The story of Jesus feeding the assembled masses who gathered to hear him along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  The Mobile part of the title alludes to the fact that this group operates mobile food trucks as well as the community I’m talking about.

I’m not here to talk about the food truck.  But I will speak to their Community First! Village concept, something now in operation and humming along rather nicely.

Continue reading “HOMELESS: DOING A BETTER JOB AND SAVING A WHACK OF CASH WHILE DOING IT.” →

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