WHY DID CPAC TURN DOWN WOOLWICH'S OFFER TO MEET?

 The meeting was turned down for a whole host of reasons. One, I believe that it was initially misrepresented by Woolwich Township as a meeting solely between CPAC and Woolwich Council when in fact other participants had been invited by Woolwich including Tiffany Svensson (TAG Chair), David Brenneman (Woolwich CAO) and likely Rae Ann Bauman (Woolwich Clerk). Now any of those three might have been acceptable (or not) for a meeting on a different topic. They were not remotely acceptable for a meeting to remove RAC and TAG. Now of course neither was Sandy Shantz particularly acceptable for anything but as a council member (mayor) we felt that excluding her from a council meeting might be seen as an unreasonable demand no matter how much we would have enjoyed it.

Then there was the egregious exclusion of Sebastian S.A.  Despite a recent, problematic outburst by Sebastian he is both a CPAC and a TAG member and frankly next to myself has put far more time and effort into the Elmira crisis than any other CPAC member. For this he should be excluded from a CPAC/Council meeting? I think not!

We were well into the process when we were advised that in fact the whole process was a Council initiated "Review" of the Terms of Reference of RAC and TAG. Well there are many ways to express my and others response to that. "Piss Off" is the first to come to mind. The second and more decorous response is that why would we discuss the Terms of Reference for two dishonestly initiated and dishonestly mandated groups? Yes there are honest, decent people who have been hoodwinked (or not) into joining TAG but that does not negate that TAG and RAC's fundamental purpose is to both provide cover to Lanxess Canada and the MECP  as well as to give the veneer of honest public consultation which they are not.

Also initially CPAC were advised that the eight to ten CPAC members would have all of one hour to talk to six Woolwich councillors. Again you know the initial response to that bullsh*t I hope.

At one point we were told that there could be as many as sixteen to eighteen participants and this was when CPAC were actually hopeful to get four or five CPAC members to attend. So who else was invited by Woolwich? Maybe the MECP? Maybe Lanxess? Maybe the GRCA? Maybe the Region?  

So the question now is : Has the Township (i.e. Council) given their head a shake and are prepared to offer a two to three hour meeting to say half a dozen available CPAC members to discuss why RAC and TAG have grossly failed to promote the public interest versus Lanxess and the Ministry of Environment's interests?