OH MY BUT DOES LUISA D'AMATO EVER DISS THE WRDSB TRUSTEES

Twenty years ago I found a number of Waterloo Region District School Board Trustees to be weak, ineffective and incompetent. At the very same time I found a number of others to be concerned, honest and caring. However for senior management/administration overall I found them to be lying, corrupt self-serving toads. Names come back to me from long ago. Cec, Howard, Jim . I shudder with disgust as those names cross my mind. In hindsight it's hard to remember specific lies, although specific contemptible actions involving their lawyer "Surfer Boy" are flooding back. The basic memory is a pack of yellow, lying bullies hiding behind power and money. The money they freely used to harass parents via the legal system. The bullying included connections with senior Regional Police in order to arrest and harass parents standing up for their children. Just an overall pack of filth at the Board back then.

Nowadays who knows how bad they are? I do know it's difficult not to chuckle when I keep hearing that WRDSB trustees are acting like children. Even back in the early 2000s I recall the WRDSB being assailed over the Ron Archer scandal. Same characters, same behaviour. Defend the teacher no matter how ignorant, stupid or illegal their behaviour because afterall the Board needs to get along with the teachers' unions. Parents can always be charged or harassed via sympathetic and idiotic legal means bought and paid for by the very same parents taxes .

Well Luisa D'Amato has raked the WRDSB trustees over the coals yet again. Really hard to feel any sympathy for them. The title of her Opinion article is "High school drama-but from adults".

MUNICIPAL CODES OF CONDUCT FOR THE PUBLIC

Well first off this makes me think of the imbalance in power and authority. I have to ask is the next progression in this line of thinking a Code of Conduct for battered wives? Afterall abusive husbands have rights to don't they? From their position of most likely superior physical power why shouldn't they impose their will, appropriate or otherwise, upon those with less power and physical authority? You get the point.

Then there is the blatant hypocrisy of the whole idea. Those most likely to abuse their authority and behave disrespectfully and rudely to other people are those with the power and authority in the first place. This perfectly describes our Woolwich Council and some of the truly ignorant behaviours they have demonstrated since late 2014. Cambridge Council sure seem to be attempting to blame the citizen victims with this latest step. Or is this simply a face saving device for Cambridge Councillors & Mayor who have been taking a public shellacking over the multiplex sports facility including their banning of their own Councillors at the private sportsplex committee meetings? All in all it appears to me that Cambridge Council are far more in need of a Code of Conduct as well as impartial and unbiased enforrcement of it. This article is in today's K-W Record.

OUR SHAMEFUl ONTARIO JUSTICE SYSTEM

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following article titled "Trial delays spark review of charges". We are advised that the backlog is so immense that a first degree murder case has been thrown out due to the Crown's inability to bring the case to trial within four years of laying the charge. The Supreme Court of Canada passed the "Jordan" decision last July which stipulated that 18 months delay is reasonable for provincial cases and 30 months for cases before the superior court. The Ontario Crown Attorneys Association estimates that there are about 6,000 criminal cases that that could see charges withdrawn or stayed. They are laying the blame squarely on the Ontario government for their failure to increase the numbers of judges and prosecutors as well as having more court space.

This of course makes me wonder if this is the real reason that Election Act charges were dropped against Mayor Sandy Shantz in Woolwich Township. While the out of town prosecutor claimed that the charges weren't in the public interest was he perhaps suggesting that it wasn't in the public interest to let murder or rape cases be thrown out in order to appropriately prosecute other lesser charges? That would be understandable although I would prefer some transparency on the matter. Don't give guilty politicians the opportunity to lie more by claiming afterwards that see they really didn't do anything wrong when in fact they bloody well did.

NASTY POLITICS IN CAMBRIDGE

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries an Opinion piece by Luisa D"Amato titled "Infighting over the multiplex is not doing Cambridge any favours". Generally I agree with Luisa's take on the situation rather than on the Record's Editorial today in favour of the ruling by Cambridge Council excluding fellow Councillor Jan Ligget from attending closed meetings of the Multiplex Committee. This latest issue is but a corollary of the manner in which Mayor Craig and several fellow councillors like to do business. That would be in secret, out of sight and with no messy input or criticism from citizen stakeholders.

Citizens rightly believe that this new rule by Mayor Craig and his cronies on Cambridge Council is all about excluding Councillor Ligget from these meetings so as to prevent her from being further informed and possibly better prepared to counter arguments at Council in favour of a multiplex sports facility being built in the wrong location. Jan Ligget has clearly and often shown her belief that Council must rule on behalf of as many members of the electorate as possible, not just the few. She helped lead the initial attack against the allegedly done deal of the complex being built at Conestoga College. It appears as if the Cambridge Council clique still have their noses out of joint about that. This is simple and nasty payback and does not help Cambridge citizens. Shame on the majority of Cambridge Council.

JUDICIAL SLOWNESS NEVERENDING

So this morning we received yet another adjournment of the Scott Hahn Election Act charges. To date the Crown have not yet advised the Court (provincial) as to whether they the Crown will proceed on these private charges. The same runaround occurred with the Mayor Sandy Shantz case with literally months and months of adjournment prior to the out of town Crown finally stating that they were dropping the charges. I was advised this morning that any charges dealing with politicians must be given to an out of town Crown in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Fair enough but why waste everybody's time with two court appearances only to advise the judge that it's going to an out of town Crown if this is essentially automatic in the first place? Then why wait another six weeks and that Crown has not taken steps to interview the person who laid the private charges? It all seems on the face of it as an exercise in delay.

CLEARLY ANY ASSHOLE CAN RISE IN POLITICS

At least in a democracy we've always been able to pretend that our leaders are somehow superior. Smarter, more experienced, more visionary etc.. At worst they have simply been better looking. We now owe a vote of thanks to Donald Trump in the United States. He has proven his own prediction back in 1998 that he could get elected President by Republican voters because they are so stupid. He stated that he could tell them anything and they would believe him.

Certainly both Canadians and Americans and probably every other country in the world have had god awful human beings as leaders. That is the joy of democracy whereby the majority of ill informed, unknowledgable persons are able to inflict their poor choices upon the rest of us. President-elect Trump has driven this fact home. I don't even need to list the blatantly stupid nonsense he has blathered publicly over the last year and a half. His rants have been sexist and racist. His public insults have been beyond anything ever seen even in the rough and tumble of American politics. His lies have been well documented and exposed all before the election. He lost all three debates with his opponent Hillary Clinton yet he still won the election. What a disgrace and embarassment to democracies everywhere.

Perhaps Trumps disrespect and contempt for any and all who disagree with him will ignite a revolution. A revolution of not prodding people into voting. A revolution such that voter ID legislation does not limit voters but perhaps a basic IQ or at least minimal demonstration that a voter knows something, anything about who he is voting for. Perhaps the revolution will change the system of party affiliations such that one can actually get elected without being a member of either U.S. party whether Democrats or Republicans. This change can come about voluntarily and democratically now or it can come about after the American people have torn down their own system of governance. The status quo is not acceptable.

SEGREGATION OR SOLITARY CONFINEMENT OR ISOLATION

A rose by any other name smells as sweet. Similarily shit by any other name smells just as bad. Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys the following story titled "The cruelty and indignity that indicts us all" written by Martin Regg Cohn. Mr. Cohn is commenting on the four years in solitary confinement suffered by Adam Capay. As Mr. Cohn indicates no judge ever sentenced Mr. Capay to solitary confinement. That is all on the shoulders of the Warden in charge of the jail in Thunder Bay.

Both federal and provincial legislation indicates maximum number of DAYS that a prisoner is to be in solitary. Weeks, months and years are inhumane if not barbaric. That has not stopped Ontario and other Canadian jurisdictions from doing just that. Words and expressions such as "Administrative" segregation do not make solitary confinement any better. They are simply excuses and red herrings. If society are going to sentence people to incarceration then they bloody well have to have humane facilities and methods to do so. Anything less "bespeaks a cruelty and indignity that indicts us all.".

WRDSB TRUSTEES BACK AT IT AGAIN

O.K. something is off in regards to these stories in the Waterloo Region Record. Firstly Cindy Watson has always been the good guy in my eyes. She's been the constant conscience of the Board of Trustees for many years. Mike Ramsay seems to have done many good things although a very long time ago he did get into serious trouble over using a Board credit card while he was down south on holidays. Therefore I really can't get a handle on the latest incident in which Cindy Watson has accused Mike Ramsay of violating the Waterloo Region District School Board's code of conduct. This code of conduct in my opinion is a crock with its' insistence that Trustees can only say nice things about fellow members plus WRDSB staff and administration. The title of the story is "Trustee turmoil deepens at Waterloo School board". Overall any bad press dealing with the WRDSB is music to my ears after how the filthy scum treated me and my family twenty years ago. Hard to shed a tear for them.

WPIRG'S LOST FUNDING

The Waterloo Public Interest Research Group has been around since 1973 at the University of Waterloo. They have tackled hundreds of public interest issues over the decades but have recently lost their student funding in a vote participated in by only 1/4 of the eligible student voters. Dr. Kelly Anthony has commented on this situation in an article in the October 29/16 Waterloo Region Record titled "Lost opportunity for UW advocacy group.

Essentially he? feels that there was a campaign of misinformation and misunderstanding to remove this automatic $4.75 fee paid for by students. He/she is hopeful that the remaining 3/4 of the students will reconsider as this WPIRG (Waterloo Public Interest Research Group) has done much good over the decades on issues involving homelessness, human rights, gay rights, climate change and other environmental matters.

DEMOCRACY:THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY

On Wednesday November 2/16 the Waterloo Region Record published the following story titled "LGBTQ suits: Ottawa "purged" workers". Boy it really makes government stand out doesn't it? This was in Canada which has an inaccurate world wide reputation for being decent, humanitarian and non aggressive to it's citizens. I can only imagine how bad other governments around the world are if Canada is seen as one of the best.

Apparently discrimination is O.K. as long as the majority are in favour of it. Racial discrimination thrived for centuries in the U.S.. Sexual orientation discrimination thrived and still does in various places around the world. Gender discrimination, religious and even body type discrimination continues. Body type as in fat shaming. How about personality discrimination? Activists face this all the time. You have to develop a thick skin when dealing with professional, corporate and government liars. Then unavoidably you become hardened and more quick to attack perceived criticisms and insults. You are less likely to believe in honest mistakes and more likely to pounce on perceived lies. Perhaps for those who have rarely been lied to in their lives trust is much easier. Those however who have dealt with professional liars for decades are much quicker to see and expect lies. Those who have been betrayed and back stabbed by "friends" are less likely to assume the best in people especially those they have not known for a very long time. Then the very same people who have lied to and deceived you are the first to complain that you've become hardened or less tolerant of other's failures. If you haven't become hardened you would have run for cover a very long time ago.

Apparently even after homosexuality was no longer a crime in Canada both the Canadian military and government were firing employees for their orientation. Talk about "leading" from the back of the bus. Talk about petty bureaucrats and their political masters circumventing the law. In fact nothing has changed. They till circumvent laws they don't like even as their behaviour harms Canadian citizens.

FOUR YEARS IN SEGREGATION - IN ONTARIO

Some experts believe that segregation is a form of torture. Certainly isolation and deprivation of normal or even abnormal human conversation and interaction is at the least a form of psychological torture. We all hopefully remember the local case in Kitchener of 18 year old Ashley Smith who choked herself to death while guards watched and under orders, did nothing. It was beyond disgraceful that here in Canada criminal charges were not laid and prosecuted against those in charge who permitted that totally unnecessary loss of life and yes torture of a young girl with indefinite isolation and segregation.

In the current case recently described in the Waterloo Region Record, Adam Capay was charged with the murder of a fellow inmate four years ago. He has since been in segregation. The title of the article is "Four years in segregation wrong, says premier". Mr. Capay's segregation has included being held in a plexiglas cell with the lights on 24 hours per day. I wonder here in Ontario if we did that to an animal in the zoo if there wouldn't be an uproar and a scandal. It seems that our provincial counterparts are just as bad as our federal Correctional Services Canada.

INNOCENCE CANADA

Last week in the Waterloo Region Record one of their Editorials was titled "Fund this vital watchdog". The vital watchdog is Innocence Canada formerly known as The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. Various well known cases of wrongful conviction include David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and Steven Truscott. Since 1993 this organization has freed 21 individuals serving time in prison for crimes they did not commit. The total of 26 exonerations in Canadian history have resulted in 190 years behind bars for these wrongly convicted citizens.

This non-profit organization can no longer fund themselves. They have done excellent work on behalf of justice in this country. Despite that or I hate to even think it, perhaps because of it, they have recently been denied funding by the federal department of justice. Yes this group have shone a light upon various serious weaknesses in our justice system. That combined with their clearing Canadian citizens of wrongful murder convictions should be the determining factor. Embarrassment or political posturing should not be part of this decision.