UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

Politics is a four letter word, two times over. It is a contemptible practice fortunately of only one species on this planet. I expect that the day after human beings were conversing more or less intelligently; one of them realized that by careful manipulation of words they could for their own benefit, deceive another.

Almost all repressive and regressive legislation is written with flowery words to hide its' true intent. Even the titles of various pieces of legislation are incredibly hypocritical. The provincial Liberals Bill 115, known as "The Putting Students First" Act is one such example. The Liberals sold the education farm repeatedly to both the School Boards and the teachers' unions for one purpose only and that was votes. Now public opinion has inevitably turned against paying public employees far more than the rest of us can ever hope to earn. So the liberals are hammering the teachers' unions with Bill 115. "Putting Students First" should be renamed more honestly as "Putting the Liberal Party first".

Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record advises us that the proposed mega quarry in Melancthon Township has been defeated. The title is "Bittersweet victory leaves its mark" written by Jessica McDiarmid. The article does emphasize that residents were divided on the project especially those who had sold their farms and those who wanted the potential jobs. The sheer size of the project garnered the attention of people throughout Ontario and especially those communities whose water supply originates in the highlands of the area. This would include the source of the Grand River as well as the Nottawasaga and others.

For me I wish this article had mentioned the political moves that went on. It is my understanding that the local Council did not support the project and indeed had looked for support from other municipalities through the AMO (Assoc'n of Municipalities of Ontario). That was crucial. Far too often we see local Councils promising transparency and accountability and then doing the deed in the dark of the night, out of sight and unaccountable. Right now Woolwich Township still have numerous environmentally unsound proposals before them. They have promised to support their local citizens and yet while I heard major community criticism against the Jigs Hollow Pit and virtually zero local Woolwich residents in favour of it; three Council members did the deed. They gave their approval to a Settlement Agreement which included an unmonitored and unsupervised recyling program for asphalt and concrete. Politics and democracy failed again.