GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS

The good news is that I am feeling very good about the willingness and cooperation demonstrated by the TAG Chair to ensure that TAG are seen as transparent and accountable. I have recently here advised of the unfortunate incident whereby neither CPAC, the general public, nor TAG members had been given a copy of a Director's Order issued upon the owner of the contaminated (by Uniroyal) property on the immediate east side of Uniroyal/Lanxess, three years ago. July 26, 2017 to be specific. I had made some assumptions/educated guesses as to the source of the failure to distribute the document to all stakeholders and it turns out that my assumptions/educated guesses were just that and no more. Included in my educated guesses was the belief that our illustrious mayor (Ha!) had been involved and did the Ministry of Environment a favour by agreeing to their request not to distribute the Order.

After further discussion/e-mails it now seems clear that indeed our very own, not in the public interest, Ontario Ministry of Environment are the culprits, all on their own. All communications I have received lay the responsibility for the non-public, non-distributed Order directly at the feet of the Ministry (MECP). That they may have been persuaded by the property owner (Ron Stroh) not to distribute the Order is a possibility. That that non-distribution included the Township of Woolwich is both remarkable and contemptible. That it included the TAG Chair and members is frankly shocking. That it included CPAC and the public is merely disgraceful and totally typical of the MECP and their partners in pollution Uniroyal/Lanxess.

In my book "Elmira Water Woes: The Triumph Of Corruption, Deceit, And Citizen Betrayal" I make my position on the decades long behaviour of the Ontario Ministry of Environment, by any name (MOE/MOEE/MECP), exquisitely clear: their sole purpose is to protect the government of Ontario, not its' citizens and certainly not the environment. They have done this by aligning themselves with the powerful players (multi-national corporations) and simply negotiating face saving deals because the Ministry know that they do not have government backing to come down hard on the big polluters. This is the bad news. This failure to inform stakeholders and the public is exactly what we've come to expect from this co-opted friend of polluters.

"MAKE ELMIRA'S WATER SAFE AGAIN" K-W RECORD

The above headline is from the K-W Record May 8, 2012 edition. It is an Editorial done by the Record in response to Woolwich Township endorsing their committee's determination that the 2028 mandatory deadline wasn't going to happen. Dr. Gail Krantzberg of McMaster University who has extensive experience dealing with contaminated sites had been hired by CPAC/Woolwich to look at the current cleanup plans of the Ministry of Environment (MOE) and Chemtura Canada. She found them wanting badly.

The Record are appalled at the time that's already transpired and the provincial government's "insipid" response of "trust us, the cleanup is working". The Record describe this as totally inadequate and they are correct. Besides Dr. Krantzberg's opinion there are experts in biology, hydrogeology and remediation sitting on CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) who all agree that the 2028 cleanup is not going to happen with the current plan of hydraulic containment.

Of course all the vested interests and guilty parties howled in outrage at both CPAC's position and Woolwich Township's endorsement of them. History would prove a mere three years later that the MOE and Chemtura combined with a new more reactionary Woolwich Council had the solution. It was to attack and slander CPAC, get rid of them and start with a totally new and mostly inexperienced committee of Council namely TAG and RAC. TAG in hindsight have worked diligently despite their overall inexperience whereas RAC were nothing but the same old bureaucrats and agencies that have always been part of the status quo and the "trust us" environment.

OUR MUNICIPAL & REGIONAL POLITICIANS ARE EXPERTS AT USURPING/ABUSING AUTHORITY

They know their way around any and all attempts to make themselves either transparent or accountable. But then why shouldn't they? After all it was their colleagues and contemporaries who wrote the rules in the first place. They sure as heck didn't want to be cornered or inhibited when it came to making decisions that would help themselves, their friends, family or political supporters. It's all about maintaining the status quo. Clearly our society (or at least those at the top of it) have thrived by always having an underclass willing and able to follow the rules and do the very necessary but dirty jobs out there. From grossly underpaid Personal Support Workers to garbage men, roofers, asphalt pavers, bathroom cleaners, maids, contract workers with poor pay and zero benefits, migrant agricultural workers, the list goes on and on. Our society depends on everyone possible contributing but our upper echelons clearly discriminate based upon family name, financial status, income, property ownership and a host of other social variables. The masses are there to be exploited as much as humanly and legally possible. If you wish to exploit them even more than is legal, for example by paying less than minimum wage or working them extra long hours with little or no compensation then the rules are in place to help at least a few of them. Token accountability if you will. The Ministry of Labour through its' Employment Standards Act might, after a long wait, insist that you pay some back wages. That's it, there is no real downside. Just like most of our environmental legislation you can pollute to save yourself millions of dollars and one in a thousand will get caught and have to pay a small part of the cleanup. But real, serious consequences? Extremely unlikely and especially if you are a big boy. Severin Argenton (Varnicolor Chemical) in Elmira, Ontario was a local big fish but in the Region he was little or nothing. Jail time for him. Three and a half months of an eight month sentence. Meanwhile literally a couple of hundred metres away, Uniroyal Chemical, its owners and management never saw the inside of a jail cell despite decades of illegal behaviour, obfuscation and anti-social toxic waste dumping that adversely affected the environment, wildlife and human life. It was of course our local and regional politicians who went to bat for them whenever citizens got a little too pushy for environmental justice. How dare we riff raff call their integrity and ethics into doubt. How dare we demand accountability.

Today's Waterloo Region Record advises that a WLU prof (Karin Schnarr) has been appointed to a three year term on the Waterloo Regional Police Services Board. What a joke. First of all if she had a reputation or career background and lots of knowledge of police issues, problems and misbehaviour, rest assured she'd never have gotten the appointment. Secondly I expect that she is a very smart person and presumably has the normal human characteristics of empathy, common sense and decency. The key is the other six people on the Police Services Board. Even in the scenario that she was a hard nosed, independent thinking person wanting to dramatically improving local policing she'd be outnumbered six to one. And those six have all been selected carefully to be full fledged members of the Do Not Rock The Boat club. The status quo is just fine here in waterloo Region and don't you forget it. Lastly the term of her appointment is a joke. Three years is barely enough to get her up to speed and that's assuming that she's got lots of time to dig deep and to dig up all the local skeletons. Kelly Donovan and the other police women who have been treated badly are but one issue. The Police Board did nothing for them. Carding has been an issue. Driving while Black has been an issue. And on and on and nothing ever changes. Court Settlements with confidentiality clauses are a problem. When the police screw up badly enough and harass the wrong person and then get nailed by both lawyers and courts (civil case), far too often the police pay out even more in return for a confidentiality clause so that the public never learn of their misbehaviour.

It's all about managing what little laws, rules and regulations there are. Municipal Elections Act? Nobody and I mean nobody municipally or regionally wants to touch it with a ten foot pole no matter how egregious the contraventions are. And on and on.

RECORD ARTICLE TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO RELEVANT TODAY

The article was written by a K-W Record reporter by the name of Prita Yalaja. She stated that Woolwich Council essentially did what local big shot developers insisted on. There was of course the predictable denials and howls of outrage by the slighted politicians and staff bleating about process and how only good planning resulted in the final decisions. Here in Elmira development seems to have bounced around from the south end (first residential then industrial/commercial) to the west end (residential) with plans at one time for more development in the north end of Elmira. Surprise, surprise for the last several years it's been all about developing "employment lands" on the contaminated floodplain of the Canagagigue Creek. This of course also includes losing current farmland but hey what kind of planning puts chemical factories directly beside productive farmland in the first place?

Numerous parties have attended the Woolwich public meetings both with and without professional assistance. Any concerns and criticisms of east side development have been effectively ignored with little or no intelligent and reasoned rebuttal. I am still waiting to see the so called costing that would prove that municipal services can be provided more cost effectively on the east side than elsewhere. It seems to me that it's all about developing where your friends and influential people can make even more money while "unexpected" costs and overuns will of course be borne by the taxpayers. Between the contaminated soils and groundwater south and east of Uniroyal/Lanxess as well as the regular flooding I think that huge money as usual will be made by a few with the taxpayers picking up the tab for the additional costs of developing on the east side. This after all has always been the impetus behind growing populations: i.e. download as many costs as possible upon the masses while the privileged accrue the lion's share of the profits.

THE RECORD COMES THROUGH WITH STORY ABOUT UNIROYAL CONTAMINATION ON STROH FARM

Media coverage of Elmira chemical contamination has generally been awful since the Elmira Independent packed it in back in July 2015. I know that the Waterloo Region Record did do a story about the shallow excavations on the Stroh farm (beside Uniroyal/Lanxess) likely in January 2019. Today's story in the Record is titled "Watchdogs say not enough testing near new urban zone in east Elmira". The Record reporter who wrote the story is one Leah Gerber. Oddly while she did e-mail me a week or so ago she never followed up with any phone call or e-mails asking questions or clarifications nor requesting a comment from me. That said she did obviously approach Susan Bryant asking for input which is rather peculiar given Susan's minimal knowledge and input in regards to the east side contamination on the Stroh farm. Either Sebastian Seibel-Achenbach or TAG (Technical Advisory Group) Chair, Tiffany Svensson could have done a better job.

The good news is that despite several errors in the reporting due to not confirming the facts with myself, the author did achieve a number of goals. She had an excellent photograph included which showed the signs along the Canagagigue Creek warning fishermen not to consume any fish that they caught due to chemical contamination. Excellent! Secondly she included the fact that 175,000 gallons per day of LIQUID toxic wastes were were dumped on the east side property from 1948-1970. Thirdly Susan Bryant did at least indicate that the "drainage ditch" i.e. the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm (SDDB) still needs to be investigated and that the investigation work on the Stroh property remains unfinished until the ditch is tested. Of course who knows what is going on in the private meetings outside the public purview. This may well include private discussions with tame, co-opted "environmentalists" who will continue to give the Ministry of Environment, Uniroyal/Lanxess and Woolwich Township the veneer of "public consultation".

DID HELL JUST FREEZE OVER?

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following title on an article: "Ford government water-taking reforms win applause from environmental critics". Yes we are talking about Doug Ford the Premier of Ontario and the leader of the CONSERVATIVE party of Ontario! This is he same premier and same party who were caught on video promising developers that he'd open a big chunk of the Greenbelt for them. Ford and the Conservatives quickly backtracked on that proposed environmentally regressive plan and now they are actually tightening regulations for commercial water bottling companies. These regulations include municipalities having greater input into proposed water taking permits.

Other protections would include priorities being set for water taking when there is short supply and competing demands. Drinking water comes first with environmental needs such as maintaining stream flows, followed by agricultural irrigation. Further down the priority list would be commercial and industrial uses of water such as irrigating golf courses. This article even suggests that golf courses and gravel companies should also pay the same per litre of water rates that bottling companies are now being charged. All of this seems to be good news and environmental groups such as Environmental Defence are publicly saying so.

POLITICIANS ARE REPEAT OFFENDERS BECAUSE THE PUNISHMENT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A SLAP ON THE WRIST

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I'm sure we've all heard that old saying and generally speaking it is true. The "corruption" mentioned of course can be gross, can be severe, can be life-threatening or it can be no more than timid politicians merely breaking rules for which they have no respect. This lack of respect is primarily because of lack of enforcement. Yes we've had too many politicians who think that they can expense all kinds of personal expenses onto the public. This includes costs of one politician's son's wedding. We've also had a former Prime Minister accepting a bag (s?) full of cash from a German lobbyist. In the former case criminal proceedings were undertaken resulting in a conviction and public denunciation. In the latter case nothing.

One of the most common offenses by politicians is the habit of closing what are legally mandated public meetings. While there are only about three legitimate reasons permitted for closed municipal meetings for example, local politicians routinely get creative and manage to slide just about whatever topic they want into those three categories (personal discussions of individuals, legal advice, real estate or proposed property purchases by a municipality). The real purpose of a closed meeting is for a council to discuss something controversial without having to be accountable for their misstatements, inaccuracies and downright sketchy motives on occasion. For example let's say that a municipality has an annual Maple Syrup Festival. Do you think that the municipality want to publicly discuss closing that Festival because they've just learned that their drinking water is contaminated? Hell no. That is going to cost them a ton of lost money which usually ends up assisting/supporting numerous causes in their community. Those politicians do not want to be known at the next election as the politicians who shut down the Festival. Therefore they talk illegally among themselves; individuals present biased or inaccurate information and the rest of the councillors go along with the plan (eg. keeping silent) making less than stellar decisions based upon less than stellar facts and advice. The public are treated as if they were five year olds and incapable of making sound decisions whether to attend or not.

Today's Waterloo Region Record has an Opinion piece by Luisa D'Amato titled "Wilmot council discussions should have been open to the public". These discussions were about both the public behaviour of mayor Les Armstrong as well as about the future of famous/infamous statues currently residing in Wilmot Township. A few years back yours truly got fed up with Woolwich Council and decided that they needed a public upbraiding. One of the upbraidings was in regards to their penchant for closed meetings. At that time they routinely hid from the public without even making much attempt to justify their various closed meetings. Since the provincial Ombudsman at the time (Andre Marin) rapped their knuckles they have improved by at least stating the specific exemption which permits them to have a closed meeting. Of course flagrant lying will defeat this rule and I have no doubt that that has occurred.

So here we have another Waterloo Region Township (i.e. Wilmot) holding private council meetings. Clearly they are more afraid of the public's reaction to their positions regarding their mayor, regarding their statues and regarding racism than they are of the provincial legislation demanding public meetings. Clearly they know all too well that despite Woolwich Township's slight embarrassment over being caught by the Ombudsman, that the "discipline" was just about zero. Hence they break the law of the land with impunity and with disrespect. It seems to me that there is a gross selective enforcement of our laws at all levels of government and that politicians are treated more favourably than those of us who break laws with even less public harm being caused.