To Snub Or Not To Snub, That IS The Question

You have to read to the end of this BLOG....It will be worth it.

I am playing a hunch!

I have sent the moles out on a mission. Get me a photograph of either Sam Schwartz or David Estrin or both arriving at Windsor Airport to meet with the Mayor and Council for the in camera session before the Special Council Meeting on Friday. I am sure that we'll get a photo unless David drives in from Toronto or they both arrived at Detroit Metro and drive in from there. They better not do that or Eddie and Federica Nazzani will be furious that they are not using YQG.

If they think that they will outsmart me, I'll have a mole trying to photograph them as they go into the Council Session.

If I get the Photo, I will do a BLOGextra. Wow, is this how paparazzis make a living? Just wait until Larry Horwitz and Pam Anderson are seen together again!

Why am I going to all this trouble you might think. I was rather surprised that there was going to be an in camera session on Friday afternoon. I shouldn't have been since I reckoned that the session was designed to plot the strategy both for the Interim Control/Demolition Bylaws matter and for the Saturday MPPs/Mayors meeting.

I decided that I would try and think like the Mayor to figure out what his game plan was for the session with the MPPs and the County Mayors. If Sam and David were coming, then I expected fireworks! They would not be coming in just for the by-laws. There had to be more.

All this week the Mayor and his pitbull have been badmouthing the Senior Levels and the County Mayors saying that they may try to gang up on the City and force a cheap solution. Now why would the Mayor do this if he actually confirmed that he was going to attend the meeting? That sounds like "snub" talk to me.

I had heard that the Mayor in his acceptance of attending the meeting said that he wanted a separate meeting either before or after the big meeting with the MPPs. Now what could that be about I wondered. The answer was obvious if Sam and David were coming to town. Eddie was going to present Greenlink to them.

That wasn't such a bad idea I thought. But I wondered if Dwight and Sandra could listen to a "proponent" on the road a few weeks before DRIC came out with their answer. It would be easy for someone to attack the DRIC result saying that the Ministers influenced it after listening improperly to Eddie, Sam, David and probably the 10 Councillors too for added pressure. That would put the Ministers into an impossible position since it was so close to the Report day.

If I could figure that out, so could the Mayor. After all, he has all of these high paid and smart Toronto and New York advisors around him. Obviously, a meeting with the Ministers would be embarrassing to them and they would have to decline such a meeting.

The Trap Was Sprung! This was Eddie's opportunity to walk out. He would not have to "snub" but THEY would force him not to attend or force him out. The only question now was when would he decide to do so.

If I thought like Eddie, here are some of the alternatives that came to mind to consider:

• 1) if the Ministers refused to meet in advance, he just doesn't go at all accusing them of bad faith because they have never seen the Greenlink proposal, or it appears that Dwight has not. How can the Ministers hold a meeting when they lacked knowledge and Eddie was ready, willing and able to share it with them
  
• 2) if they foolishly agreed to meet in advance, since he is such a Council booster--- well when Councillors are necessary to take a hit and so that they can share in the blame since he was just following their orders -- he would bring the Councillors, Sam and David with him and then walk out when the Ministers declined to meet with everyone ie they would see the cast of hundreds and not want to participate knowing they had been set up.
  
• 3) if they foolishly agreed to meet after the main session, he would bring the thundering hordes with him and then walk out of the main session with them trailing behind him since he would accuse everyone at the main session of a bad faith following the script of this week.

I just have this image in my mind of the Pied Piper with the children following behind him. It seemed so appropriate.

Obviously, Windsorites would have to stand up and cheer for the Mayor and we could not criticize him for snubbing because he wanted to attend and in fact in two cases would have attended. It is the big bad Ministers and their "bought" County Mayors who have been influenced by the private proponents who are responsible and who forced him out.

Why, if this does not convince Windsorites, the Windsor Star and the Sheriff to come back and support him, then nothing will!

But hold your horses. There is one final alternative. This week of name-calling has all been a fraud. It is just theatre designed to fool the masses. Why in the Star today, it is said:

• "Mayor Eddie Francis said Thursday local MPPs are using a weekend meeting with county mayors to force the city's "surrender" in a dispute over a new border route.
  
  "What they are doing is bringing the mayor into a room and use LaSalle, Tecumseh and others to gang up on Windsor to get us to surrender our request for a better solution," Francis said."

Oh my goodness, this is bad. There is a vulgar term I could use to describe what the scene Eddie detailed is like that uses the word "gang" in it but I dare not since this is a G-rated BLOG!

If you read more of the story, there is a slight glimmer of hope:

• "Pupatello, Ontario's economic development commissioner, attempted to calm the waters Thursday during a 90-minute meeting with The Star's editorial board."

And this:

• "Duncan has also toned down his comments since last week's outburst"

But there is even more going on I believe. In Chris Schnurr's BLOG, someone named Vincent Clement said

• "I just heard that the Federal Government will be represented by Jim Prentice, Industry Minister, at the Mayors/MPPs meeting. I think the Province and the Feds have had enough of the bickering and will tell King Eddie exactly how things will work."

Clement claims he works in the City Planning Department I believe but it must be a pseudonym or he would be in big trouble. Let's assume he is right. Why would a Federal Minister come here? If he comes, then Ontario Transport Minister Jim Bradley has to come too since it is his file, not Sandra's or Dwight's. Cabinet etiquette and all that.

I do not know about you, but I do not believe that Ministers are coming to Windsor to help solve the dispute between Eddie and the County. That is too petty and unimportant for such powerful people. They are coming here to announce some kind of a deal if they are coming.

The 2 new Ministers will be the heroic "peace-makers" who will save the day! Eddie will bend a bit, the County will bend a bit and so will the Senior Levels. It would not surprise me to see some type of a Greenlink/DRIC road announced PLUS a deal on Manning, Lauzon and E C Row. Why it would not suprise me either if the price was $2.6B, the strange number that Henderson signalled 3 times in his columns.

We will see all of the politicians smiling and shaking hands too in a photo-op to prove that there now is a truce. One slight glitch that will not have been decided quite yet....who pays the extra cost, the one billion dollars? The road cost is supposed to be paid 50/50 between the 2 Senior Levels but I expect that the Province will ask the Feds to pick up a good chunk of the extra billion since the Ontario economy has been so hard hit. The Federal contribution in other words would be about 70% of the total cost if they paid $1.8B of the $2.6B price-tag. It would be justified as a one-time deal so other Provinces would not get too upset at the bigger Federal share if it goes through.

If this last alternative wins out Saturday, Windsorites will have been played for fools by the politicians at all levels. The drama would have had more twists and turns than a Shakespearean tragedy at Stratford. However, isn't that par for the course as far as politics is concerned.

So there are the alternatives as far as I am concerned. Let us see which one is right! I know where my bet would be placed.