News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 9.7K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 41K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 5.5K     0 

199822610_1684881761900062_8986957519700798543_n.jpg
From link.
 
afransen said:
These are not the same thing.

Generally, in the US, outside money is considered to be a problem in their democracy. Here people are clamouring for the right of interest groups to exercise influence through money.
Click to expand...

Money is deeply embedded in politics on many levels.

The same government (Ford) that sought to somewhat limit 3rd party advertising also doubled the donation limits.

In other words, some kinds of money that work for 'x' are fine...........while others that work for 'y' not so much.

I would be happy to support 3rd party advertising restrictions, during an election year.

But I would equally like to see:

Donation limits dropped to $100
All tax incentives for donations eliminated.
The $100 is total cap {not to each candidate and party etc etc.)

I would also like to see tighter conflict-of-interest rules both while in-office; and for a material period afterwards for any member of cabinet.

Further, why not extend donation restrictions to leadership races; AND, ban the sale of new party memberships during leadership races, you must be a member in of party 'x' in good standing for 1 year prior to a leadership period to vote.

Finally, lets make cabinet agendas public, by law. Certain advice can to cabinet can still be confidential; but that has to be voted on, in a recorded vote and the broad subject must be public.

Similar to the City.
 

How the Ford government’s love of MZOs is increasingly benefiting private developers with ties to PC and local politicians​


From link.

The mayor’s unusual request blindsided his colleagues.

In October, Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua sprung resolutions on his council to approve three special zoning orders that would allow the province to expedite construction projects some of his fellow council members say they knew nothing about.

The developments would be fast-tracked through minister’s zoning orders, or MZOs, a controversial and blunt tool used sparingly for decades that is now being wielded with alarming frequency by the Ford government.

Skip Advertisement
Two of the MZO requests put forward by Bevilacqua were for projects that could add close to 10,000 housing units, and the third for a warehouse on provincially protected land, normally off-limits to developments.

All three, as council members found out later, were associated with the Cortelluccis, a prominent family of land developers based in Vaughan.

“We have never done it this way,” said local councillor Marilyn Iafrate, who unsuccessfully pushed back on the requests, asking for public hearings before making a decision. “No applications, no staff reports, no public hearings. Zero. It was basically like ‘This is what we want. Approve it.’ ”

Once approved, the MZO request goes to the Ontario government. And with Doug Ford at the helm, it’s high season for fast orders. One of the MZOs approved by Vaughan council last Oct. 21 was granted by the province 16 days later — a decision that can’t be appealed.

The Ford government has handed out 44 permanent MZOs since 2019. Last year alone, it issued 33 — more than twice as many as the previous government did in 15 years.
Click to expand...
1623684539793.png

Ontario’s prolific use of the zoning tool has upturned a decades-old planning system that had specific processes, protections and transparency built into it, say critics of MZOs, including residents, local councillors and MPPs. And in turn, it has created a system that appears to be less about procedure but more about who you know.

The Ford government says these zoning orders are being used to benefit the people of Ontario. However, a Torstar investigation shows they are increasingly benefiting a select group of prominent land developers with strong ties to municipal leaders and the Ontario PC party.

Iafrate wasn’t the only councillor who wondered what was going on when Mayor Bevilacqua proposed three MZOs.

“Why one (developer) over the other?” said councillor Sandra Yeung Racco. “Is it because they have donated, do we have to treat them differently?”
Click to expand...
A little more than a year before Bevilacqua introduced the three MZO requests, the Cortellucci family made a $40-million donation to the new hospital in Vaughan that now carries their name. They also donated millions to the city’s first hospice and university campus, on top of tens of thousands of dollars to candidates running for local council and even more to the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.

“An historical evening for the City of Vaughan,” Bevilacqua beamed when he announced the Cortelluccis’ hospital donation at a sold-out mayor’s gala featuring luxury cars on display and an opera singer. He shared a story about how his father, a newcomer to Canada 50 years ago, rented trucks to the Cortellucci family, who were also then starting out.

In attendance were local PC MPP Stephen Lecce and a tuxedoed Premier Doug Ford, who spoke highly of the family’s humility and generosity.

The mayor’s requests for MZOs alarmed a number of residents, too.

In February, they filed a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner asking why Vaughan “should endorse MZOs at the expense of public consultation,” and “circumvent the local planning process and prioritize this developer’s application, ahead of all other active applications that followed and abided by the local planning process.”

The commissioner reviewed the “informal complaint” and said the mayor was in compliance with city rules. However, she said the process, if left unchecked, could cause council to become a “very permissive body,” allowing its members to act in their own self-interest “rather than in the interests of the municipality or the public.”

The mayor’s request would let the Cortelluccis queue-jump almost 500 other applications before the city that were following the normal planning processes, the complaint said.
Click to expand...
Vaughan council passed the mayor’s request for the three MZOs, and the Ford government granted two of them. The third, which would see the removal of provincially significant wetland and forests if approved, is still pending.

It’s not known if the donations played any role in Vaughan council’s decision to ask for the MZOs or the province’s choice to approve them. There’s nothing illegal or improper about developers donating money to politicians and charitable causes.

Mayor Bevilacqua, who noted one of the developments aims to bring in needed public housing, said he acted in the public interest. He said he brought in the proposed MZOs at the request of his staff. “I am just one vote. If the council doesn’t endorse it, it doesn’t go anywhere,” he said. “Ultimately, the province will decide if they want to issue an MZO. I don’t make that decision.” He also said that not every hospital donor got an MZO.
Click to expand...
MZOs take precedence over any local or regional council planning decisions. Only the province can hand them out or revoke them.

“We will never stop issuing MZOs for the people of Ontario, the people that need housing,” Ford said earlier this year.

Despite Ontario’s vast size, the Ford government has only issued MZOs in a core of the province that revolves around the GTA.

They have been used to approve a glass factory, giant warehouses, nursing homes and large subdivisions. They have authorized projects on provincial land, helped municipal governments add affordable housing and allowed non-profit groups to build seniors homes.

Of 44 MZOs issued in the past two years, 38 have gone to Toronto, the regions of York, Peel and Durham, and Simcoe County — some of the wealthiest parts of the province, where population growth is expected to jump in coming decades and land is most expensive.

...
Click to expand...
1623684712488.png


How do you spell CORRUPTION?

(-P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E-) C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E-S.
 
So......the Ford government, apparently in an attempt to change the channel from the above story.......proudly boasting it is expanding the Greenbelt by adding 360 hectares up near Lake Simcoe.......

Removing the lands from plans for development.....

*****

They omitted from the presser, that they were essentially forced into it......when the LPAT........over-rode the development permissions for most of a North Gwillumbury Forest site.......and ordered environmental protection.....
after a tenacious fight from local environmentalists.

News Release here:

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca news.ontario.ca

What really happened:

1623850433085.png


Save the North Gwillimbury Forest

www.savengforest.org

As a side note.....the Minister threw in this promise:

I am also proud to commit to adding two acres of protected and enhanced green space for every acre of land developed through the use of an MZO.

Of course, destroying 1 acre of high quality forest or wetland, then protecting 2 still means destroying 1/3 of said habitat..........

A rather meaningless commitment.
 
Johnny Au said:
But again, the vast majority of anti-vaxxers are pro-life and pro-abstinence.
Click to expand...
Though there are different kinds of "pro-life"--for instance, I reckon that a lot of anti-vaxx mommy bloggers constitute a more secular kind of "pro-life", if only because, as mommy bloggers, their children are their raison d'etre, they're advancing the more generic cause of motherhood through their own obsessive-compulsive reporting on their own practices in the name of motherhood. And thus those who abort or impede reproduction simply aren't on their radar. (And as far as pro-abstinence counts: I suspect a lot of mommy bloggers would rather their children remain forever children, because once they get into adolescence they get minds of their own, thus negating the mommy bloggers' purpose)
 
adma said:
Though there are different kinds of "pro-life"--for instance, I reckon that a lot of anti-vaxx mommy bloggers constitute a more secular kind of "pro-life", if only because, as mommy bloggers, their children are their raison d'etre, they're advancing the more generic cause of motherhood through their own obsessive-compulsive reporting on their own practices in the name of motherhood. And thus those who abort or impede reproduction simply aren't on their radar. (And as far as pro-abstinence counts: I suspect a lot of mommy bloggers would rather their children remain forever children, because once they get into adolescence they get minds of their own, thus negating the mommy bloggers' purpose)
Click to expand...
What do you expect?

A CBC blogger once compared parents with dictators:


...and that's without mentioning Tiger Mothers.
 
Johnny Au said:
What do you expect?

A CBC blogger once compared parents with dictators:


...and that's without mentioning Tiger Mothers.
Click to expand...
Well, never mind Tiger Mothers; there's also a lot of more generic helicopter/snowplow parenting.

But in a way, the parenting "dictatorship" optimum ought to be that which broadens horizons, rather than limits them--and something which at least thoughtfully infers *something* beyond childhood and the family unit. And unfortunately, that can be difficult to achieve in an era when post-physical media and culture becomes ever more individualized--a "dictatorship" needn't mean a silo.

Plus, when the children gets "minds of their own", one has to accept the likelihood that they'll be "better than you" in certain regards--and that, in fact, is a good thing. When in fact, a lot of the problem here is with *tinpot* dictatorship, where there's an underlying obliviousness to, or fear of, that "better than you" oxygen--and even when the kids are allowed a bit of spoiled-brat "freedom" whether by way of Ford-girl "influencing" or Capitol rioting, there can be a stuntedness that betrays the tinpot origins...
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top