THIS IS BIZARRE

One would think that the sanctity of our electoral process would be front and centre. It is after all the basis of our alleged democratic system of government. If it is then why does it tale an individual citizen to haul miscreants into court rather than our very well paid police and our Crown Prosecutors? Why when given evidence and testimony clearly indicating contraventions of either provincial legislation or even of a judicial order; do our judicial authorities fail to act?

If it is a simple trespass, theft or vandalism both the police and Crown jump right to it with charges being laid and prosecution and trial following in due course. Why when it involves the Municipal Elections Act or even a Superior Court ruling that has been blatantly violated, does the Police and Crown shrug their shoulders? Citizens should be expected to inform, advise and provide evidence within their capabilities and knowledge of the matter. They should not be expected to navigate the intentionally user unfriendly judicial system which certainly appears to be awkward, stilted and overly complex; primarily to keep lawyers in high paid employment.

The mayor of one of our regional Townships was reinstated to her position 2 1/2 years ago CONDITIONAL upon her filing a FULL and COMPLETE Financial Statement. This she did not do. That which she filed still did not capture all of her election expenses. This was clearly pointed out, with evidence, to the local Prosecutor and then to the out of town Prosecutor Mr. Kelly. I will state that in my opinion he was a serious disappointment compared to the next Prosecutor Mr. Carnegie who at least went out of his way to thank and congratulate the citizen (moi) who had brought this matter to his attention.

The ongoing situation in Woolwich Township has been an eye opener to me. Another councillor it turns out has likely been making decisions, lobbying other councillors and overall been in a position of trust and authority for many years all illegally. The law says that he must file Financial Statements after each election. The legal penalty is forfeiture of his position AND he is not allowed to run in the next election. Wow! One woolwich Councillor has filed a grand total of two Financial statements after running successfully in FIVE municipal elections. How the hell does he keep his seat? Collusion amongst his peers , municipal staff and the provincial authorities is my opinion on the matter. This is beyond a disgrace and is third world country democracy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

DEMOCRACY IN THE WORKPLACE

While as a general rule I would suggest that the likelihood of democracy in the workplace is somewhere between slim to nil. There are of course exceptions to every rule. A strong union will have contract language that not only covers working conditions, wages, benefits etc. but also stipulates a working environment that frowns upon favourtism, nepotism, harassment, intimidation and more importantly than all the others, abuse of authority. Abuse of authority is essentially what far too many Canadian businesses are all about. Sure senior managers and owners want money but once you've got that it's all about respect to the point of deference from your underlings. Brown nosing, ass kissing and deference on all matters, business related or otherwise, is not preferred; it is demanded.

Smart business owners of course prefer to attract and keep the best help possible whether or not the jobs they provide are particularly technical, complicated or demanding of high education. They simply know that the nastier and pettier they treat their employees the more likely the better ones will find something else and the dumber, lazier, less caring but more tolerant of abuse employees will stay. Here in Ontario at least we have lots of dumb employers.

Then we have the Ontario Ministry of Labour. I refer to them as the Larry of the Three Stooges. The Ministry of Transport are Curly and then the Ministry of Environment (MOE) are of course MOE. The MOE are mandated to participate in public consultation. This occurs mostly in cases of local contaminated industrial sites. It is of course a sham. In Cambridge we had a citizens' committee with Ciba-Geigy and Canadian General Tower (CGT). Northstar Aerospace may also have had a company led committee. Here in Elmira we have had a very good CAP (Citizens Advisory Panel) at Sulco (Canada Colours). That was however due to the excellent behaviour and ethics of the company involved. They seriously embraced the ethics of both public consultation and of *Responsible Care. The Varnicolour Chemical Liason Committee was good but that was exactly zero thanks to the Ontario MOE who did everything in their power to minimize, deflect and coverup the true seriousness of the Varnicolor situation.

As long as we have a mickey mouse, underfunded and overworked Min. of labour it will function no better than the MOE. All the rules, regulations and laws in the world are useless if the enforcing agency are incompetent or overwhelmed. Much of that, similar to the MOE, is done intentionally at the provincial cabinet level. Thus if you are a non-union employee in a company with little or no ethics etc. you will certainly never find anything even remotely approaching democracy in the workplace. Refer back to the first paragraph to see how they operate.

JUSTICE COLIN WESTMAN

Well this is one of those rare occasions where I disagree totally with Luisa D'Amato's Opinion column in the Waterloo Region Record. The title of her column in today's paper is "Bouquets and boos for 2017". Maybe the "disagree totally" is an overstatement. Essentially I'm a little bit shocked at her strong criticism of Justice Colin Westman. He apparently is retiring on January 28, 2018 and Luisa states that she is "counting the days". My shock and disappointment with Luisa is not due to Justice Westman's decision in a specific case which has upset her. In fact I too was quite taken aback by the provided facts and details in the case involving the treatment of three women by the owner of a restaurant in Ayr. I too felt that the Judge was too sympathetic with the perpetrator who did plead guilty to simple assault of three of his employees. While "flicking, pinching and poking" the women is indeed assault, thankfully it is at the extreme lower end of assaults. The owner did plead guilty however Justice Westman did no service to either women or employees in general with his sympathy and compassion expressed in court towards the accused and now convicted individual.

My disappointment is because of a lifetime of realistic and compassionate sympathy to accused who come before his court. I have read literally for decades Justice Westman's words, comments and sentences that he has given to either those charged or convicted for various "crimes". Some of those crimes literally were for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a hungry family. Some of them were as much society's crimes as they were the individual's. In other words while it's hard to understand his words and thoughts in the most recent case, overall Justice Westman in my opinion has been a beacon of light in a justice system that far too often treats minor offenders far too harshly. If Luisa really wants to criticize inept, incompetent and or biased judges I have a far more deserving candidate for her. In my opinion Justice Robert Reilly deserves far more censure and public outing than Justice Westman and possibly more than all the others. I am aware of three different examples of what I believe is his misconduct, bad judgement and or bias. If citizen victims in his court had more money they would appeal his asinine decisions and or formally complain about his words and conduct to the Ontario Judicial Council or whatever other body allegedly disciplines deserving judges.

"NOT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST"

In my opinion when either a police officer or a Crown prosecutor use this above term in the title what they really mean is that it's too much in the public interest. In other words it's all about somebody in the public eye who wields power and influence and hence might retaliate if they felt that either the police or the Crown's office were too readily holding them accountable to such trivialities as the law. Afterall many of our esteemed politicians seriously believe that both rules and laws are there simply to maintain order and discipline within the masses. They are absolutely not there to be ever wielded against sitting politicians. Clearly former mayor of Woolwich Township Todd Cowan thought that he was immune from a) getting caught b) being held accountable to the law if caught.

It really is stunning when we look at the difference in how both the police and the Crown handled former mayor Cowan versus sitting mayor Shantz and sitting councillors Bauman and Hahn. Talk about a hands off policy. They made me jump through hoops and loops from the start to the end, all of which I accomplished. Different Crowns advised me that they needed more evidence here on this particular matter before they could go ahead. I so provided. They still wimped out.

The local Crown twice stepped back and had out of town Crowns come in to handle the Ontario Election Act cases. He readily stated that this was to make it clear that he the local Crown was not being influenced by Regional politicians who certainly have authority over things like police budgets, maintenance and repair of courtrooms and buildings. I presume that judges and court staff are paid by either Waterloo Regional government or by the province. Regardless I suspect that all of these civil servants may have learned that so called judicial independence only extends so far. Certainly I would be shocked in serious criminal cases such as manslaughter, murder and serious assaults if there was any favourtism shown to local or regional politicians. Unfortunately I can't say the same in regards to favourtism in less serious criminal or civil matters.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST BONANZA

The Waterloo Region Record carried the following story titled "Region owed $35 M in defaulted fines". What a disgusting, self-serving cash cow system of parasitic non-blood (money) withdrawal from the public. There are literally tens of thousands of opportunities to fine drivers whose behaviour has caused property and health damage to citizens going about their business. Oh no it's all about sucking money out of drivers who haven't caused an accident and are simply getting from point A to B expeditiously. That means not sitting behind assholes driving in the fast lane with cars piling up behind them. It means pulling out in front of slow moving vehicles approaching who are slowing down because they don't know where they are going and they may wish to put their turn signals on at the last second. It means knowing that the vast majority of drivers no longer signal their turns because they know that other than speeding and drinking while driving they will not get a ticket for blocking traffic, driving slowly and impeding everyone else at every opportunity.

Meanwhile the province and the Region are in cahoots. The Region actually collects these fines and uses them for general revenue. They count on so many fines per year as part of their budget process. Hence the regional police are under pressure "to serve and collect". It's no longer about public safety, if it ever was. It's about revenue generation and collection.

MERRY CHRISTMAS (Yesterday) & HAPPY BOXING DAY ( Today)