Thoughts and Opinions On Today's Important Issues

Friday, July 20, 2007

Reneging On A Doomsday Clock Promise


I figured it out. Eddie may really be the re-incarnation of former Prime Minister William Lyon McKenzie King. It is said about King that:

  • "Privately, he was highly eccentric with his preference for communing with spirits...His occult interests were not widely known during his years in office, and only became publicized later."

However, that is not why King interests me. He is the wartime leader in Canada who said the famous line:

  • "Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription."

I want to demonstrate conclusively that Eddie has carried on his tradition. I want to prove to you that Eddie is a true "politician" as was said about him in the Senate.

A reader wrote the following to me and I promised to carry out his wishes:

  • "Can I very humbly suggest you could put your FOI request calendar back up again, but this time count down to the DRIC open houses in mid-August as Eddie/Sam's doomsday clock."

Actually what I was going to do instead was to guess when Sam was going to present his proposal to Council and use the clock for that. I really intended to do that. Honest. I thought I could guess the day since it was to be presented before DRIC. Then I heard Eddie's interview on CKLW. I could not do it. No mortal could read Eddie's mind now. I had to break my promise to a reader.

Oh sure, you think you are smarter....well then what is the answer

(I think the host was Peter Langille instead of Melanie) [NOTE: I tried to cut out most of Eddie's irrelevancies as easy as that was to do. It made the quotes much shorter]

  • Peter: First off, do you have a date for the city's announcement?

    Eddie: The issue that we are dealing with is, we are responding to DRIC and this is not the fist time that the city has responded to DRIC... The same thing is true this time around Peter. We know that DRIC has now established a timeline with regards to when they will be coming out and what their proposal will or may not be. We will find out on the 14th or the 15th... We will be taking their information and our experts will be reviewing their information and making formal submissions to DRIC on behalf of the community once we know what it is that they are announcing.

    Peter: ...Your response will come clearly after the 14th or 15th?

    Eddie: It may. We may have, we have enough information right now I believe based on the last time DRIC came out.... so there may be opportunities for us to have open houses but right now. What we have told our team is to review the information that DRIC has out there, come back to us and if we need to come out before, we will, if we need to come out after, we will and it could be a combination.

COME ON. Be fair. Is it before or after or both? He may surprise us and not do anything. Or it may be any combination of the preceding.

However, I can hear some naysayers complaining that I am just being selective. What else did he say in the interview? Let me oblige:

  • Eddie: And through those discussions we have indicated to them as we have in the past that we believe that tunnelling needs to be part of the solution.

    Peter: I am going to hang on one word you said there and that's tunnelling be part of the solution... do you mean that the tunnel could start somewhere other than at highway 401 and highway 3 intersection - it could be further down the route?

    Eddie: The community has spoken loud and clear. They want tunnelling, they want a tunnelled route...So when I say that tunnelling is part of the solution, we believe tunnelling needs to be in the solution.

    Peter: What about concerns from organizations like the Windsor Crossings and the college that a fully tunnelled route past them might be problematic?

    Eddie: Well that is why we say that those are the consideration need to be certainly taken in account... There may be, there may be a better way of constructing a road and our position has always been that you don't build roads today that you did in 1950

So much for the Marra Motion and tunnelling! Yes I know. As the Mayor said before, tunnelling is just a starting point.

Want more huh...glutton for punishment

  • Peter: Is there any possibility that what the city will respond with could be outside of the area of continued interest.

    Eddie: We already have past submissions and I think we have a sufficient amount of information in front of DRIC as to other possible corridors in the past. Right now I think our focus is on the existing corridor... They have told us flat out, this is the corridor. I think what we have to rely on is our past submissions as to why they are perhaps better choices for corridors but right now we need to focus in on what is the best option here.

So what route does he really want?

Funniest lines of the interview have to be the following:

  • Eddie: "We've communicated to the residents and we feel for the residents. We are on their side.. There is no reason why residents should be put through what they are being put through."
Four years of inaction under this Mayor, meaning an investment of the $300M BIF funds is not being used resulting in over 10,000 high-paying direct and spin-off jobs badly needed in this area at this time in limbo. The program ends in September. Stop "feeling" for us and do something!

And finally, the best example of firm leadership and decisive action:

  • Peter: Now first a much more important question - pampers, huggies, no-name or cloth?

    Eddie: Anything that works.

Yuppers, that's my Mayor---anything that works. For him!