2019-41

Saturday November 23, 2019

November 23, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 23, 2019

Hamilton sewage scandal: What happened, and why was it kept secret?

Last week, The Spectator revealed Hamilton city council knew in January about a massive sewage spill into Chedoke Creek but kept the details secret.

Here’s a surface-scraping primer on the scandal so far.

February 26, 2008

An overflow tank gate was left partly open for four-and-a-half years, releasing an estimated 24 billion litres of raw sewage into Chedoke Creek, which flows into Cootes Paradise, between January 2014 and July 2018.

Confidential city reports leaked to The Spectator note staff don’t know why the gate was left open or who did it. A separate gate mishap between January and July 2018 caused 30 per cent of the mess.

The full magnitude of the big leak was discovered after citizen complaints of stench in the area in July 2018.

What’s a combined sewer overflow tank?

Hamilton has nine large tanks that hold wastewater until it can be deposited into the Woodward Avenue treatment plant.

The tank in question, called the Main/King tank, was built in the 1990s and holds 75,000 cubic metres. It’s located at Cathedral Park at 707 King St. W.

“The automated monitoring systems at the CSO tank did not detect the discharge, nor was the discharge visible to staff during monthly facility inspections,” the city’s confidential documents note.

What about the watershed?

June 24, 2015

The July 2018 spill was a “huge setback,” said Tys Theijsmeijer, the Royal Botanical Gardens’ head of natural areas.

“Basically, all the oxygen was sucked out of the water, the algae growth was rampant … and so many plants, like water lilies, were just wiped out.”

The city didn’t tell the RBG, which is the steward of Cootes Paradise, the full volume and duration of the problem, however.

More than 240,000 litres of “floatable material” was removed from the surface of Chedoke Creek and taken to the Woodward Avenue plant.

The city faces a Feb. 14, 2020 deadline to submit an ecological risk assessment and, possibly, a remediation plan for Chedoke Creek. The confidential city reports suggest dredging the creek could cost $2 million.

What did the city tell (and not tell) the public?

July 16, 2014

The city told the public about the spill in July 2018 and posted warning signs around the popular paddling spot, but the full magnitude of the disaster was kept under wraps.

Staff and outside legal counsel advised council against publicizing the estimated 24-billion-litre volume and more-than-four-year span, as well as releasing consulting reports.

The rationale was that doing so could expose the city to financial risk amid a Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks investigation with potential fines of as high as $6 million.

What’s the political fallout?

Councillors say they opted for secrecy to protect taxpayers from financial liability, citing the legal advice they received.

All members of council voted in favour of confidentiality, but three councillors — Nrinder Nann, Maureen Wilson and John-Paul Danko — also cast dissenting votes at various times.

Nann and Wilson have since called for a public apology and the release of all documentation.

But councillors have also directed staff to investigate who gave The Spectator the confidential reports, sources say.

The sewage scandal has also made waves at Queen’s Park with NDP MPP Sandy Shaw (Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas) scolding the ministry for not telling residents about the full extent of the leak. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Friday November 22, 2019

November 22, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 22, 2019

Doug Ford government spent $231M to scrap green energy projects

Provincial documents show the Ford government spent more than $230 million to cancel renewable energy projects that included a partially-built wind farm in a cabinet minister’s riding.

December 1, 2018

The spending was revealed Tuesday in question period by the opposition NDP, who accused the Ford government of throwing away money on scrapping energy projects as the Liberal government did earlier in the decade.

The province’s public accounts for 2018-19 show spending of $231 million by the Ministry of Energy on unexplained “other transactions.”

October 19, 2018

Inquiries by an NDP researcher uncovered that these “other transactions” were “to fulfil a government commitment to wind down renewable energy contracts” including the White Pines wind farm in Prince Edward County.

Premier Doug Ford promised that electricity ratepayers would not be on the hook for scrapping the wind farm, which was one of the first acts of his government after taking power in June 2018.

“Wasting $231 million to cancel hydro contracts is the sort of thing the previous Liberal government did during the gas plant scandal,” NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said on Tuesday.

The associate minister of energy, Bill Walker, said the province didn’t need the power from the White Pines project but didn’t deny the cost of the cancellation.

“This municipality was an unwilling host from day one. They did not want the turbines. We did the right thing,” said Walker in question period.

October 12, 2012

Walker pointed to actions of the previous Liberal governments, whose moves to cancel gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville ended up costing upwards of $1 billion, according to the province’s auditor general.  

“I’ll take fair criticism for decisions that were made when we were in government,” John Fraser, the Liberal interim leader, said Tuesday at Queen’s Park. “But I also believe that this government’s going down the wrong path with energy and electricity, and tearing up these contracts was the absolute wrong thing to do.”

June 24, 2013

The White Pines wind farm is in the riding of Todd Smith, the PC MPP for Bay of Quinte and the government’s minister of children, community and social services.

“This is a project that residents of Prince Edward County had been fighting against since it was proposed,” Smith told reporters Tuesday.  

Four out of the nine turbines approved for the project were built in 2018. After the election, the new government put a stop-work order on construction. Crews are currently working to dismantle those four turbines.

“For this government to rip up contracts and literally rip wind turbines out of the ground is a huge waste of money and makes absolutely no sense,” said Green party Leader Mike Schreiner. (CBC) 

 

Thursday November 21, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 21, 2019

Why Chrystia Freeland is the indispensable Trudeau cabinet minister

Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland have been very good for each other. Not for the first time, the future of the Liberal government — and a lot else — seem to be riding on the two of them finding success together.

August 28, 2018

“She is someone with whom I worked very, very closely, and with great success, on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the challenges of the American administration,” Trudeau said Wednesday afternoon, using the most delicate language possible to describe the experience of dealing with Donald Trump’s White House.

“We know that as we move forward on issues that matter across the country, like energy and the environment and other large issues, we will have to engage in a strong and positive way with different orders of government.”

During a phone call with Trudeau in the summer of 2018, at perhaps the most contentious moment of the prolonged struggle over NAFTA, Trump described Freeland as a “nasty woman.” In some circles, that’s a badge of honour in its own right.

But Freeland came away from that prolonged drama with a claim to having played a pivotal role in preserving this country’s most important trading relationship at a moment of unprecedented instability.

May 16, 2019

Her reward is the title of “deputy prime minister” and responsibility for helping to hold together the world’s largest democratic federation at a time of profound change and uncertainty.

It’s the culmination of a political career that began six years ago when Trudeau and his top advisers recruited Freeland to run in a by-election in Toronto Centre. Trudeau had become Liberal leader just six months earlier and Freeland became his first star candidate — the first evidence that Trudeau could attract smart and accomplished people to serve alongside him.

Freeland was something like the platonic ideal of a Liberal candidate: a Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who had become an internationally recognized journalist and author in New York. And while the Conservatives were scoffing that Trudeau wasn’t ready to lead, Freeland was ready to line up behind him.

From Trudeau’s perspective, not all of his star recruits worked out for the best (Jody Wilson-Raybould, most notably) but Freeland became central and integral to his government.

A year before she joined the Liberals, Freeland published her second book, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. Once in the fold, she was an important voice in shaping a political agenda focused on increasing taxes on the wealthiest and building supports for the middle class.

October 20, 2016

In Trudeau’s first cabinet, she was made international trade minister. There, she dragged a free trade deal with Europe to completion — famously displaying “visible emotion” during the final push. She was not a natural politician but she slowly got better at it. (CBC) 

 

Wednesday November 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 20, 2019

Why affordability is (was) dominating Canada’s election campaign

(Article published 6 weeks before editorial cartoon was printed)

September 19, 2019

Canada’s political party leaders are making affordability the central talking point of their election campaigns, rolling out targeted measures to alleviate the financial strain besetting voters.

Though broad economic data show the nation’s economy is humming along, Canadians are still feeling tight on cash. The worsening global outlook and unprecedented policy uncertainty are adding to the apprehension.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, along with the leaders of smaller parties are seeking to parlay that stress into votes as the clock winds down on the Oct. 21 election, by promising a slew of tax cuts and other measures to make life more affordable.

“Politicians are putting their finger on something, some form of financial anxiety about rising costs, or concerns about future rising costs, or future standard of living,” said Jennifer Robson, associate professor of political management at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Here’s why consumers are feeling pinched.

It’s old news that owning a home in Canada’s biggest cities has become an almost impossible goal for much of the middle class. Skyrocketing prices in recent years pushed potential buyers to the sidelines. New mortgage lending rules, so-called stress tests introduced by federal regulators in 2017, put ownership even further out of reach for many.

September 12, 2019

Toronto and Vancouver are easily Canada’s two main cities where residents are struggling to find an affordable place to live. The average selling price for a single-family home in Vancouver was $1.51 million in September, and $1.1 million in Toronto. Renting in those cities is no easy feat, either, as low vacancy rates have pushed up prices for accommodation.

Elevated real estate prices are the main driver of the country’s record household debt ratios, now the highest in the Group of Seven. Buyers took out larger and larger mortgages as the housing market heated up, even as incomes failed to keep pace. As a result, household savings rates are hovering near the lowest in decades, and the debt service ratio — which measures the share of disposable income paid toward principal and interest — climbed to a record in the second quarter.

While overall price inflation in Canada has been relatively benign, shoppers have experienced sticker shock on many basics. Prices for fruits and vegetables jumped as much as 60 per cent in the past decade, according to Statistics Canada. Child-care and tuition costs rose upwards of 35 per cent, and public transit prices ballooned by 50 per cent.

To top it all off, wages after accounting for inflation have remained relatively flat, even as costs for rent and basic goods increased. A puzzle for many economists and policy-makers is why unemployment is hovering near record lows, yet incomes are struggling to pick up. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Tuesday November 19, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 19, 2019

Pelosi hints that a USMCA deal might be near. It’s a wise move for Democrats

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested both that President Trump may be impeachable due to “bribery” and gave her strongest signal yet that the House Democratic leadership is close to a deal with the White House that would enable the passage of Mr. Trump’s update to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In fact, she said those two seemingly contradictory things within the same news conference. Politics is indeed a strange and wondrous business.

June 22, 2019

Thank goodness. Governability can no longer be taken for granted in Washington, much less actual legislation. The impeachment of Mr. Trump along what are so far highly partisan lines threatened to deepen the dysfunctionality, despite promises from Ms. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders that the House could “walk and chew gum at the same time.” Ms. Pelosi’s optimistic words regarding the NAFTA revision, which Mr. Trump calls the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), were clearly carefully chosen and confirm that she was serious about her pledge to continue attending to the people’s business while the hearings proceed. This is a tribute also to the several dozen moderate members of her caucus, many first-termers elected from swing districts, who recognize that it is in their interest — as well as the country’s — to preserve stability in the hemispheric economy.

December 4, 2018

Stability is the operative word. Though highly unpopular in many quarters, especially the (often Democratic-leaning) industrial heartland — where it was blamed for loss of jobs to lower-wage Mexico — NAFTA, for better or worse, legally defines the multitrillion-dollar economic relationship among the United States and its two neighbors. To blow it up and revert to the higher-tariff status quo ante, as Mr. Trump threatened to do both in his 2016 campaign and as president, would have been disastrous.

On the other hand, having gone into effect in 1994, NAFTA was due for modernization, particularly to take account of new developments in e-commerce. Therefore, when Mr. Trump agreed to engage with Mexico and Canada in a renegotiation of the deal, it was wise for Democrats not to dismiss the effort out of hand, even if it might mean ultimately having to share credit with a Republican president for an initiative they had long promised to mount themselves.

October 2, 2018

On the merits, Mr. Trump’s deal is a tweak to NAFTA, disproving his hyperbole about how bad the old agreement was and how good his new one will be. It does indeed improve e-commerce rules and crack Canadian dairy protectionism. For the most part, though, the USMCA deal is about managed trade, not free trade. Its key provisions would set minimum autoworker wages in Mexico and guarantee higher North American content for cars and trucks made in the three signatory countries, so as to protect U.S. Jobs.

The realistic alternative, though, is a rupture with Mexico and Canada, which is why Ms. Pelosi and the moderates in her caucus are right to work with Mr. Trump, and why we hope they will see the USMCA through to House passage, send it to the GOP Senate for likely approval — and then move on to other business, impeachment included. (Washington Post)