AN ABUSE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY - SLAPP SUITS BY PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

The Waterloo Region District School Board has done it. Likely at least one of our municipalities have tried it. Now the Waterloo Region Police Board are doing it. A class action lawsuit was filed against them a couple of years back regarding their treatment of female police officers. The blue wall really is only about the boys in blue. The allegations in the lawsuit describe various despicable actions by male police officers, generally those of higher ranks although not exclusively.

Kelly Donovan, a former police officer, has challenged them and taken them to court. Her allegations have been supported by many other female officers as well as by some senior male officers. Despite this the Police Board have filed a suit against Kelly Donovan
alleging that she has broken her resignation agreement. It also appears that the Police Board are using some sort of legal loophole to get around recent amendments (2015) to Ontario's Libel laws. This is shameful behaviour when public institutions break the laws in the first place by harassing and discriminating against employees and then turn around and use public funds for over the top legal SLAPP suits. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Instead of a long overdue housecleaning at the top, we the taxpayers are facing the spectre of those in charge hiding behind both taxpayers money and the courts in order for them to misbehave with impunity. This has to end. Senior police management along with the Police Services Board and our local regional politicians are debasing the reputations of many fine and professional rank and file police officers by their circle the wagons and bury their heads in the sand approach to this long standing issue.

IT"S 'S' NO JOKE: A PLAGIARIZED TITLE

O.K. so the somewhat plagarized title comes from an article by Luisa D'Amato in today's Waterloo Region Record. The full title of her opinion piece is 'S'no joke: City adds insult to injury on sidewalk snow." Firstly I agree this is not my normal topic for this Blog. Oh heck I'm doing it regardless.

Ms. D'Amato has related an incident earlier in the week when a woman phoned the City of Kitchener to complain that the snow plough had thrown a lot of snow onto her freshly shovelled sidewalk. She had done her civic duty and more by cleaning it and didn't appreciate the city making her do a legally mandated chore twice. She was advised that she was still obligated to reclean the sidewalk although a city route supervisor could come out and inspect and he or she would determine if there was too much snow for the homeowner to remove again. Quoting Ms. D'Amato "What unbelievable gall for a municipality to not only order property owners to clean up city-owned sidewalks but also to threaten it may force the property owner to clear them again after the city made a mess."

I agree with Ms. D'Amato on this matter. I also agree that in my opinion the law really is tenuous on this matter of demanding that the non-owners of the property (sidewalk) must clean those sidewalks upon pain of financial penalty. It is long past time that the cities took over sidewalk shovelling/plowing and left the homeowners to shovel their driveways if they so wish. This is exactly what is done in Elmira and as I live on a corner lot I'm happy about that.

Now let's up the ante. What do you think after a heavy snow when you see the snowplow clean the street by both throwing the snow on the city owned boulevards but also into the end of the sidewalk and into the end of your perhaps freshly shovelled driveway? Imagine now if you have a double driveway and you are a corner lot and the snowplow operator drops his blades literally fifty or sixty metres upstream from you. He comes around the corner of the main street picking up snow, drops a small proportion of it into the end of the sidewalk then proceeds for the next twenty metres picking up more snow only to throw the whole three to four foot high mess into the bottom of your double driveway. Now the snow that was thrown into the end of the sidewalk does get shovelled out by the city sidewalk plow.

You the homeowner are left to deal with the major blockage at the end of your driveway. If the law is going to be used to threaten homeowners then how about this? What about the city being charged with public mischief for blocking the end of your driveway? If they are willing to clear the snow that they have blocked the end of the sidewalk with (in Elmira) then why not use that same plow to clean out the end of my driveway a scant twenty metres away? To me this is an obvious case of preventing a homeowner from enjoying the use of his property. How well can you use your property if you can neither access it or depart from it? How dangerous is it for elderly citizens (like me) to be blocked into our homes by the city owned snowplow?

THE THREE STOOGES - ENVIRONMENT, LABOUR & TRANSPORTATION

Just to be fair there are other provincial ministries which careful examination over decades will convince you are also either incompetent, corrupt, or poorly managed. Justice is one that comes to mind quickly. Interestingly these provincial ministries don't appear to either improve or get much worse regardless of which party is currently in power.

Today we'll look at the Ministry of Labour and the Workman's Compensation Board (ie. WSIB). Oh by the way I long ago nicknamed it Larry. The Ministry of Transport I call Curly and of course the Ministry of Emvironment is Moe.

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Worker's compensation system needs overhaul, expert says". The funniest line in a non-funny story is "His report could lead to a modernizing of the way Ontario assesses workers' claims for restitution-a contentious issue today after sick or injured employees gave up their right to sue their employers more than a century ago." Yes I remember it well. There was a huge referendum and lots of media and overall explanations by government reps along with guarantees of worker input into the decision making of the Compensation Board. Bull....!

The expert Dr. Paul Demers is pulling no punches when he states that "The workers' compensation system is over 100 years old , and it hasn't kept up with the times." He also has stated that "...it has failed to adapt to the hazards some work[places have exposed people to."

The science behind workplaces causing cancer and other diseases has been with us for decades and even longer. It is a huge red herring pretending that simply more knowledge and more science are required. What is required is more humanity, more compassion and especially more honesty all in short supply with those in charge of our compensation and labour laws.

O.M.G. IS THIS MORE OF THE OLD "PASSING THE TRASH"?

I first came across this expression "passing the trash" back in the early 2000's when the K-W Record was filled with stories about Ron Archer and his pedophile ways at the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB). The story earlier this week in the Record is titled "Former school VP jailed on sex charge now faces five more charges." Teachers and possibly even a principal or two used the expression to describe the WRDSB standard operating procedure of transferring problem teachers to different schools when their behaviour or other problems got to the point of those in charge no longer being able to deflect, excuse, deny, or cover up. Apparently Ron Archer in his twenty years at the WRDSB had been transferred repeatedly allowing the new schools to lie to parents complaining about his behaviour by saying oh he came to us with excellent credentials and reputation and we have no idea what you are talking about regarding his provocative behaviour with children. I and my wife were lied to in this same fashion by school authorities in regards to another matter.

We now learn that teacher Rueben Lazar had been transferred six times in a thirteen year career with the Board. The first five on the list were public schools and the last one was a high school. That in itself is interesting as the students would have been older and likely more aware of innuendos or even subtly inappropriate behaviour I would think. Regardless this expansion from one criminal conviction resulting in a ten month jail sentence to an additional five charges involving two more alleged victims is very concerning. I repeat my question in the title of this posting namely : "Is this more of the old "passing the trash"? Does the WRDSB continue this practice despite their public claims years ago that they had stopped doing it?

A YEAR'S END LAMENT

Poverty is with us. Some of it can be claimed to be the result of self destruction such as alcohol and drug abuse. The reality is that many addictions start by self-medication required to ease psychological pain. Guilt, worry and past traumas haunt human beings. None of us are perfect and all of us mess up in our lives.

People in jail over Christmas we might think are there because of their own fault. The trouble is the percentages of Canadian/Ontario or others in jail who to date are unconvicted is shocking. At any time more than fifty percent of those imprisoned in this province are awaiting their trials and undoubtedly many will not be convicted of the offence of which they are charged. Others will be yet the courts tend generally not to look at mitigating circumstances except perhaps in the severity of the sentences. I recall being absolutely stunned that Daniel P. Reeves, here in Kitchener-Waterloo, spent five years in pre-trial custody. Good Lord and this is Canada, a democracy. Yes he was eventually convicted of fraud but why the hell, for an non-violent offence, did he spend five years behind bars prior to conviction?

Politically we have idiots in charge of the asylum. Trump to the south and Doug Ford down in Toronto are the most obvious. Ford is attempting to destroy the Clean Water Act and the Greenbelt Act. He would like to undo environmental protections because he believes that the environment is no more than a left wing conspiracy. How do you argue, enlighten or consult with minds like that?

We like to think that we are progressive and that all human beings, at least here in Canada, are treated equally. That is a joke as well. The rich are always treated much better than the middle class or the poor including by our own government and courts. Women are making progress only for us to learn how badly powerful and influential males in Hollywood have gotten away with bullying and harassment forever. Our own female police officers face rude, ignorant and even illegal behaviour by males from the Waterloo Region Police Services. No recent news on the fate of their class action lawsuit but our courts,money and entropy will ensure that it will be a long time before that is resolved. Women in other police forces, the military and yes even in Parliament face nasty behaviour. Sometimes even our universities are not as inclusive as they should be whether for undergrads, grads or professors. There is even the unequal treatment of those teachers/profs who haven't gotten onto the tenure highway or achieved permanent employee status and are living contract to contract.

Swinging back to our judicial system there is an old saying that we have the best judicial system in the world ... that money can buy. If you have a million dollars available you can buy top notch, long term, professional legal representation when you need it. Believe me you need it each and every time you step into a courtroom no matter how honest and law abiding you are or have been. That perversion must change but the vested interests involved are in control just like in our educational, police, and health systems. Improvement will not come as long as some within the system are doing just fine thank you.

WE THE SHEEP MUST BE MOLLIFIED

So refreshing to know that Liz Witmer, chair of the (corrupt?) WSIB, has ordered a review of the files of 300 hundred former rubber workers. Of course there may very well have been 3,000 whose health and lives were affected by the working conditions in various rubber related factories around Kitchener-Waterloo but that's beside the point for the WSIB, the Ministry of Labour and our provincial government. It's all about scoping at the very start so just in case an adverse decision results, you've already limited the financial damages to your budget and the damages to your credibility and reputation.

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Rubber Town: Workers, families hope for answers from WSIB review". The skeptics aka knowledgeable people are blunt in their assessment of the alleged promised review. "It's a public relations exercise." It's also a bureaucratic, minimum one year exercise by the WSIB. Allegedly it's all about the science and the records and what individual workers can prove they were exposed to according to Scott Wilson a WSIB board member. I believe that that is primarily nonsense. Why should the workers who are now sick and dying have to "prove" anything other than where they worked and from when until when? They were never given the records of which chemicals were in which departments. They were never given written lists of the chemicals in the products by the factories. The science of solvent poisoning has been available since the late 1800s and in the ensuing 100 years and more the science has only become more definitive and more obviously hazardous.

WSIB spokesperson Christine Arnott suggested that they want to undertake a review in a "thoughtful and deliberate way using the best approach." She also advised that they are working deliberately to put a plan in place as soon as possible." Isn't that just sweet? In my opinion they will indeed be deliberate and thoughtful in putting together a plan. They will deliberately take as long as humanly possible in order for as many as possible sick rubber workers to pass on thus lowering the financial liability of the WSIB. Is it even possible that managerial bonuses are at stake based upon the numbers of rejected claims that are overturned in the review as in the fewer overturned past decisions the higher the bonuses?

My father worked for Uniroyal in Elmira for twelve years and then for thirteen years at the Breithaupt Street plant. The Breithaupt Street plant has been mentioned twice in this series as having very polluted air. I wonder as in Elmira if the neighbours were also adversely affected by the fumes from the plant? By the way my father became sick a year after retiring and died at age seventy-three.

OH THANK GOD, ELIZABETH WITMER IS CONCERNED

Well her concern plus twenty-five cents that sick or dead rubber workers did not receive from Workman's Compensation won't buy them a cup of coffee. That is exactly what her "concern" is worth, that is nothing. Gee where was her concern when many of them fought the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) for years and lost to get their rightfully owed financial compensation to pay for lost work, lost wages and lost family members? While she was collecting her six figure plus salary, sitting in a plush air conditioned office accepting huge work related risks such as a papercut from her paycheque, rubber workers in Kitchener-Waterloo were being poisoned and dosed with carcinogenic chemicals all day long. Carcinogenic chemicals that their employers, scientists, chemists and the government have known about for many, many decades. Some of those same chemicals caused the first diagnosed bladder cancers in Germany in the late 1800s for God's sake!

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries this story titled "Rubber workers' claims to be reviewed." Allegedly a "dedicated review team" from the WSIB will re-examine more than 300 claims filed by rubber workers. Odd but I wonder what that "dedicated review team" are doing right now? The WSIB are understaffed we are told so which other claims will now be set aside to free up staff for this review? I also wonder if the WSIB will re-examine claims from dead rubber workers. Or how about dead rubber workers who either do not have immediate family or they too have passed on? Will the WSIB compensate the estates of rubber workers who lost everything; their health and all their assets paying for health care and prescriptions?

This is simply one more sham by government on the people as the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Kudos to the Record for their series of articles and shame on both the Liberals and Conservatives for continuing to serve the wishes of their corporate clients at the expense of the health, safety and financial needs of the public.