CPOW To You

Here are some excerpts from the speech that received the biggest round of applause in the evening at the Mayor and Council's now Special Council meeting in Tecumseh.

Mr. Mayor and members of council:

My name is Alan McKinnon. I represent several hundred people from across Windsor and Essex County as the founder of Citizens Protecting Ojibway Wilderness.

Concerning the City of Windsor’s response to the DRIC, I would like to say the following:

The most immediate threat we should be considering is not the threat to the neighbourhoods along Talbot and Huron Church, or the threat to neighbourhoods in Lasalle or the threat to the natural areas of Ojibway.

Those threats are indeed very serious and we are all correct to be concerned about what the future holds.

But what is being threatened and bulldozed at this very moment is the truth.

This Mayor and council were elected on a platform of INCREASED openness and transparency.

This Mayor and council were elected on a promise to work toward a SOLUTION to the border problem.

Instead, we got a border plan created without any public input at all.

All real details of that plan remain hidden from citizens using solicitor client privilege between a New York City consultant and a Toronto lawyer.

We got a record number of secret in camera meetings on the border. Its been 14 months since you tabled the first Schwartz report. The Windsor Star says it cost over 2 million dollars so far.

Real leadership doesn't wait 14 months to have a public meeting about an issue that will affect us all so profoundly. Strange that the City spends considerable time and re-sources having public meetings on their “guess” as to what DRIC may do next.

Its been over 4 months since the DRIC released their map showing the Talbot/Huron Church corridor. Ask yourselves, residents of Talbot/Huron Church....why the last minute rush to get "public input" from you now?

The city hired a 500 dollar an hour lawyer to make sure the DRIC heard them loud and clear about the DRTP... they made sure the DRIC heard them loud and clear about the EC Row Expressway.

They are not rallying behind you..what is happening here tonight is purely political.

Ask the residents of Talbot road... That same five hundred dollar an hour lawyer made sure the DRIC heard the city loud and clear about Talbot road back in January 2005 with the original Schwartz Report.

Loud and clear The City recommended Talbot road as the route. There was no tunnel demanded then. They served all of you up.

Now they're trying to say they are rallying behind you. Newsflash: It's an election year. Thats why after 14 months without a public meeting, suddenly they have to save face. They have to save votes.

The threat to the truth is evident in everything the City has said about the Schwartz Plan. We've all heard, "If its a choice between saving trees and saving children's lungs, we have to choose saving children's lungs".

Well I'm a tree hugger, but I couldn’t agree more. I am a father first. But the City's own consultant showed that the City's preferred route through Ojibway would affect MORE homes and businesses, including schools and churches, than the Huron Church route.

The only difference? Those homes and businesses are in Lasalle and don't vote in Windsor. It is despicable that even when this was brought to City Hall's attention they persisted with this rhetoric. My children's lungs, because they breathe in Lasalle, don't count.

That's not the 21st century solution we've been promised. Betraying your neighbour and paving a protected forest to save votes is as old as the hills.

The threat to the truth is evident in the Mayor repeating over and over this week that the DRIC are coming in from out of town to destroy our quality of life. Nonsense. The DRIC did not stop the 401 out there 50 years ago. They are here to try and find the best solution. They are not the enemy. That is divisive and counter productive rhetoric.

I know we all feel like we are the only community to experience such a difficult situation. The truth is it is happening all over this country every day...highways are expanded, communities are disrupted. But from these experiences a huge amount of regulatory policy and legislation has been created so that these processes can find the best solution in a way that is fair and transparent. A cornerstone of these policies is meaningful public participation.

This meeting is not meaningful public participation, your resolution is already drafted, your submission to the DRIC is already drafted. This is a campaign stop, a mere photo-op.

The threat to the truth is evident in the way the City has dealt with senior levels of government. When the Prime Ministers Office, the Premier, the federal and provincial transportation ministers came to town last April, the City didn’t even show up. They say they were standing up to the senior levels. Let me ask you, if the decision makers where you work wanted to visit you, even if you had serious disagreements, would you just not show up?

Real leadership doesn't pout. Real leadership is mature and diligently works to find common ground and grow compromise. Real leadership builds relationships, it doesn't poison them by embarrassing those very same people who will make the decisions that affect us all.

That's not standing up to them, that is lying down. That says "We don't respect you" and invites them to disrespect us in return.

Real leadership is not secretive.

One part of the Schwartz report I think was correct was the notion that we should GO BIG. Paving a nationally significant wilderness area and betraying the 50 year legacy of community conservation effort behind it as well as the City’s Official plan is not going big.

Thrusting the problem onto your neighbours and saying "problem solved" is not going big.

Real leadership would build a regional coalition and put an end to neighbourhoods battling neighbourhoods. A regional coalition could stand up to the senior levels and get a real 21st century solution.

Mr Mayor, You promised us a solution but you have become part of the problem.

Real leadership knows when to step up, and when it can't step up, it knows to step down.

Real leadership is exactly what has been lacking on the border issue, and exactly what is lacking in the City’s response to DRIC.