James Gordon Interview, Part Three: Government's Inability to Follow Through

In the third part of my conversation with Councilor James Gordon we talked a bit more about the "nuts and bolts" of local politics. The first part deals with on-going issues where it appears that Council had made a decision---and yet, nothing substantive ever seems to change. 

Cloudwalking Owl · Fourth Question First Interview

 

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In the first part I mention Hugh Whiteley, who was a professor (I assume retired) in the 

Hugh Whiteley, from Face Book.

Engineering department at the U of Guelph. He used to spend a lot of time going in front of Council raising issues---so much so that I can remember some people saying that he was an "honorary member of Council" himself. One of the points that he repeatedly raised was that the city had made a decision that whenever a piece of land along the Speed or Eramosa rivers came onto the market that the city should purchase it and make it into a publicly-accessible park. Unfortunately, whenever some of it did become available, there always seemed to be a reason why the city never did buy it.

I got in touch with Whiteley and he sent me a power point presentation that he'd created for when he gave a talk on this issue. According to it, in 1993 the city Council created a "River System Management Master Plan". In fact, he says that "the City of Guelph became the first city in Ontario to adopt a management master plan for its river and stream corridors". The idea was that the Speed and Eramosa rivers have an undeniable value to the community, and as such should be integrated into a combination wildlife corridor and recreation area. Formally, the city called this the "1997 Greenway Vision and Plan". This was adopted as part of the official plan of Guelph in 2001. 

According to Whiteley's slides

The Phase 3 Official Plan Update (OPA 48) adopted by City Council in
2012 and approved by the Ontario Municipal Board in 2017 replaces
the OP policies implementing the Greenway Vision and Plan and its
integration of all types of open space with an OP open-space policy
framework restricted to City of Guelph parks

But according to Whiteley, this change only came from staff recommendations and shouldn't have superseded the Council decision. Instead, Council should have passed a new Recreation Parks & Culture Master Plan, which it hasn't since 1993. (The city is currently in the process of creating a new one, but the first public consultation was supposed to happen last winter, with a final draft being created by this fall. The pandemic has probably significantly delayed the process---which the website itself warns.)

It appears that the brave new world of Guelph riversides being linked together into an integrated wildlife corridor and park system just dissolved into bureaucratic goo once it left Council. That left Prof. Whiteley to become the conscience of Council---reminding them of that one meeting where they had a bold vision for the future.

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It might get people to loosen up their purse strings a bit if they realized that the above little section required about a half dozen hours seeking-out Hugh to find out how to contact him, reading various "false leads" (the official master plan of Guelph comes to about 400 pages), and, then working through what Whiteley sent me---besides just writing. This is just to explain that gathering news for the community is "an actual job that requires actual work" (to quote Adam Donaldson from an interview that went nowhere because my sound recorder wiped out most of the conversation). 

I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here because I think it should be said. Years ago I wrote a story about the Guelph Carnegie Library and I spent many hours working through microfilm copies of the old "Mercury" newspaper. In the process, I gained a new respect for reporters. Beyond their daily missives, there really isn't any record at all of many different key events in this city. Recently I realized that the same thing could be said about "The Guelph-Back-Grounder". I carefully save each new story in the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" so even if Blogger goes under, academics, students, and, interested citizens from the future will have the same opportunity I had when I looked at the stories around how the Carnegie library was built and torn down. 

If you think that this work is important and needs to continue, pay for it! It's easy to do using Pay Pal or Patreon. As much as a dollar a month would make a lot of difference! I'm not proud, though. If you want to slip me some money or payment in kind---that's OK too. Indeed, if someone wants to be a "patron" and make a significant on-going financial support that would help too.

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I also mentioned Susan Watson, who's been battling with Council to provide as much

Susan Watson, photo by 
Bill Hulet

parkland as the official plan mandates for quite a while. As near as I can tell, the current official plan mandates that there should be four different types of parks with different rules governing each:

• "Urban Squares" (I assume, like St. George's square downtown)
• "Neighbourhood Parks": 0.7 HA/1,000 residents
• "Community Parks": 1.3 HA/1,000 residents
• "Regional Parks": 1.3 HA/1,000

Add these together and you get the number of 3.3 HA/1,000 people in residential communities. 

Adding to the complexity, the city approved a new parkland dedication By-law in 2019. Just to give people an idea of the complexity of trying to figure out these rules, consider the following quote from page four:

(d) Where land is located outside of Downtown and is to be Developed or
Redeveloped for residential purposes with a total proposed density equal to or greater than one-hundred (100) Dwelling Units per one hectare (1ha), the greater of:



i. a portion of the Land not exceeding 1 hectare (1ha) per three-hundred (300) Dwelling Units, but in no case to exceed thirty-percent (30%) of the total area of the Land, or;
ii. five-percent (5%) of the total area of the Land; shall be conveyed to the City for Parkland.

After hours of trying to make sense of these planning documents I've come to the conclusion that it's almost impossible to figure out exactly how much land any given new subdivision should be contributing to any particular park. That's because there are different classifications of what a "park" is and the total amount of parkland added together across the entire city. This makes sense to me simply because each new development project can't be expected to build it's own parks---if it did, every small one would have a tiny park attached to it. It makes a lot more sense to consolidate the portion each development brings to the table into an organic whole that services the entire city. That's why businesses are allowed to offer a cash payment in lieu of land sometimes.

If this wasn't bad enough, the provincial government under Doug Ford brought in a proposed omnibus bill titled "More Homes, More Choices" that among other things (including cannabis regulation, endangered species, conservation authorities, etc) that changed the rules around parkland acquisition. This passed on June 6th of 2019 and it complicated things even more for the city. According to a legal website that I found discussing this subject, parkland is associated with "section 42" of the Ontario Planning Act. 

In a nutshell, this analysis suggests that municipalities can now levy a "Community Benefit Charge" (CBC) that will be used to fund a variety of different services:

• Libraries
• Long-term care
• Park development (eg. playgrounds)
• Public Health, and
• Recreation

The amount that a city can charge through the CBC is capped at 15% of the market value of the land for single-tier municipalities (Guelph is one), which means that when the money comes into City Hall, parks will be just one of several "soft services" that will be lined up, cap-in-hand, for their payment. Municipalities that already have regulations mandating park acquisition may still keep doing this, but only if they don't start charging a Community Benefit Charge. As you might imagine, this might put Guelph in the position of having to balance off parks against the proposed new library. 

I hope that the above discussion shows the sort of wild complexity that makes it very hard for the average citizen or even City Councilor to understand what is happening with regard to setting aside land for new parks. And that pretty much leaves developers and staff in the driver's seat. Just like the discussion I had with James about the proliferation of red tape one needs to wade through to receive social assistance (see The Administrative Burden of Social Programs), it appears that managing development has become so complex that it is pretty much impossible for a non-professional to understand what is going on. Two questions arise from this insight: "how effective is democratic oversight when things are so hard to understand?", and, "is the complexity that ties both politicians and the public into knots a bug in the system---or a feature?". 

It's generally a bad idea to try to parse out intent, so I won't do anything more than raise this question. But having said that, if we do want to continue to have some semblance of public oversight with regard to a great many things---including park acquisition---I suspect that citizens and elected officials are going to have to demand that more of our official documents be written in plain English instead of legal gobble-de-gook. 

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Image from the David Suzuki 
foundation website. Photo by
Jennifer Roessler

Councillor Gordon mentions that he personally shepherded the Blue Dot affirmation through Council as one of his first acts after being elected, but that not much seems to have come out of it. Contrary to what James assumes during the interview, I actually hadn't heard of the Blue Dot municipal program until he mentioned it. It turns out that it is an outgrowth of the David Suzuki foundation and in a nutshell it suggests that municipalities adopt a resolution saying that they consider environmental rights on par with other rights that our society affirms and supports to a greater or lesser degree. As they say on their website:

A municipal declaration of environmental rights is a commitment to decision-making principles that protect, fulfill and promote the right to a healthy environment. A community’s specific declaration might include a commitment to use the best and latest available science to ensure that the right to a healthy environment is always considered when decisions are made. A declaration can also include a commitment to set clear environmental objectives and targets for air pollution or other issues of relevance to the community. Finally, a declaration can ensure municipalities remain accountable through regular assessment and public reporting.

(Page 7 of Today We Decide: the Blue Dot Organizer Toolkit)

I checked on the website and it lists Guelph as having passed a resolution in December of 2015. There are now 174 municipalities that have passed this resolution, and the city has letters from then Premier Kathleen Wynne and then Environment Minister Glenn Murray acknowledging that they received letters from Cam Guthrie and pointing out that the province of Ontario already has had an Environmental Bill of Rights since 1993. Other than that, I suspect that the resolution is not much more than an empty gesture.

I mentioned earlier that I hadn't heard about the Blue Dot project. That's probably because over the years I've developed the ability to "tune out" symbolic programs. My belief is that the easier it is to show your support for something, the less real influence that it will have on the world around you. Indeed, I stopped going to a local spiritual community after a guest speaker told the congregation that "anyone who signs a petition is an activist" and everyone present murmured their assent to this proposition. In contrast, I'm of the opinion that the only real way you can tell if you are getting somewhere is if you start being watched by investigators and get threats. (I've had both things happen over the years. Among other things, I once caught a private eye who'd been hired by a political party in Queen's Park snooping into my background. Another time I had a judge threaten to take away my house and life savings through legal costs when I was involved in a lawsuit against a multinational corporation.)

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The next part of our conversation centred on programs that governments have passed, which have been embraced by the staff, and, which have done a great deal of good---but which the majority of citizens I meet don't know anything about.

The first one I mentioned was the Canadian Child Benefit (CCB). I've heard from social workers that it has had a tremendous impact on poor families---especially single-parent households. If you doubt it, take a look at the table that I found in a Canadian Centre for Policy Analysis publication titled Economic Contribution of the Canada Child Benefit: A Basic Income Guarantee for Canadian Families with Children .

According to this chart, the poorest 11.4% of all Canadian families with children received over $1,000/month, this is real money going to the poorest children in this country. Of course, this doesn't help all poor folk. But after decades of political parties mouthing platitudes about ending child poverty, the Trudeau Liberals have actually done something real about it. Personally, I think that this is something people should be shouting from the rooftops. But outside of one tradesman who told me it allowed him to support his family during hard times, I've never heard anyone but social workers praise it.

We also talked about the Elliot, which is a Guelph retirement home that was originally started in 1903 as a private charity called the "Guelph Home for the Friendless". It continues to this day as a non-profit charity, but which the city has put a significant amount of money into and the province has recognized through the a petition in 1963. As Gordon pointed out during the first part of our talk, the Elliot Community (as it is now called) has been something of an "oasis" in the present pandemic. This is a pleasant contrast to the dismal way that some for-profit homes have fared during the pandemic.

An overhead picture of the main Elliot Community complex on Metcalfe.
From their website. Used under the "Fair Dealing" copyright provision. 

The other very Guelph facility is the Guelph Junction Railway. It has the distinction of being the very first railway in the entire Commonwealth to be owned by a municipality---and is still one of only two in Canada. It came about in 1886 by way of a special act of the federal Parliament because local merchants believed that the Grand Trunk Railway wasn't providing good enough service at a reasonable price. Since it is municipally owned, it's management doesn't have to make a profit. This means that they can plough back a it's operating surplus into maintenance and keep it's freight fees low to encourage local businesses. And, as you can see from the map below, it allows Guelph industries to connect with three different railway lines. (Click on the image to see something bigger. Unfortunately, this map is the only thing I could find to show you.)

The purple line is the Guelph Junction Railway. From the GJR website. 

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Councillor Gordon mentioned that he thinks it's the job of a politician to let the public know about the good that the government has been doing. But in my conversations with other elected officials I've found that many of them have a hard time blowing their own horns. Instead, they complain that reporters tend not report the good stuff that they do---presumably because it isn't "newsworthy". The way they have explained things to me, all they think that they can do is put out a press release and hold a media event. Beyond this, they talk as if there is absolutely nothing at all that they can do. This sort of passive attitude towards letting people know about the good they do has always been counter-productive, but it's somewhat suicidal in this time when local news production is in free-fall. We can't expect the free market to provide adequate news coverage anymore. And if we allow people to forget about all the good that government has done, we run the risk of letting demagogues promote the idea that "government is the problem---not the solution". And that wouldn't serve the public good at all. 

To that end, I would suggest that it is tremendously important that governments put more energy into creating useful, easy to navigate, and, understandable public websites. And in doing so, they have to create an internal culture in the bureaucracy that fosters the ability to communicate in clear and precise language. This would probably involve a huge internal battle because it would involve fighting against the tendency towards risk aversion and the general "covering of the ass" culture of career civil servants. (When I worked at the University I often thought that the coat of arms for the place should consist of a roll of toilet paper rampant with the Latin motto of Tegimus asinum!) Another way of understanding this is to suggest that it would need to follow the "BBC model" instead of the "Joseph Goebbels" one. That is, to emphasize building long-term public trust through honesty instead of short-term influence through cover-ups and half-truths.  

If governments did a better job of this, it might be a lot easier for both the public (and what journalists still exist) to find out the good that politicians are doing---and where they've failed to follow-through with the decisions already made.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Crisis needs to be dealt with!