Random Access

The folks who are reviving the Lakeview Ratepayers’ Association are thinking of having buttons printed up proudly declaring themselves as NIMBYs — with a difference. The difference will be an extra letter, the letter A.
“We’re NIMBY-A's,” says Jim Tovey, the acting president of the ratepayer group that will rebrand itself at a meeting set for Wednesday Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cawthra Senior Citizens’ Centre. “That’s Not In My Backyard — Again.”
After 50 years of living with the soot and the scent of the Lakeview Generating Station, there are a lot of angry people in the neighbourhood wondering why they’re going to be asked to bear the burden of providing power to the broader community again.
Ontario Power Generation and Enersource Mississauga have signed a memorandum of agreement to explore putting a new 900 MW. natural gas-fired plant on the site where a gargantuan pile of coal was the symbol of progress when the plant first started pumping out power in 1961.
That’s making a whole new generation of Lakeview residents mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore.
The community is getting itself organized for a fight over what many people see as a perfectly natural evolution of the property, plugging a new “clean-burning” gas plant into the already-existing infrastructure that links to the grid. It’s in the right place to serve the huge GTA load and people probably think that everybody in the neighbourhood is kind of used to the idea by now.
No, with a capital N, says Tovey. The site may have been redesignated last January to Utility-1 by the City to allow such a plant, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fait accompli. The days when Lakeview would silently accept its fate are over.
“I’ve been looking at the historic stack emissions from Lakeview and from 1978 to 2,000 there were 3.5 million tonnes of pollutants coming out of the stack,” says Tovey who was born and raised in Malton.
The lead pollution from the Arsenals property, the emissions of mercury from the expanding sewage treatment plant and the cumulative effect of the heavy metals and noxious emissions from Lakeview are enough already, said Tovey. “It’s the feeling of the residents that we have already contributed our share. It’s really not our turn anymore.”
Before a power plant is even proposed, there should be a complete environmental assessment, including soil and air sampling in the surrounding community and a health study to confirm or refute the feeling in the neighbourhood that there is more sickness and cancer than normal, said Tovey.
Once a neglected corner of the City, Lakeview has undergone a revival, as the many new homes attest. The gentrifying community includes its share of university professors, engineers and children of the rebellious 60s. “We now have some good intellectual resources,” said the resident, who is in the construction business and has built an authentic 1840s replica home himself.
Those NIMBY-A buttons might come in handy, because the opponents of this plant may need their senses of humour.
It won’t be an easy battle. Mayor Hazel McCallion openly welcomed the possibility of such a plant the day in June when she started the countdown to blow up the Four Sisters. As the majority owner of Enersource, the City has a vested interest in securing reliable, close-to-home future supply for the municipality.
This time, however, it won’t be any walkover. Lakeview is willing, and is getting ready, to defend itself.

Guess the speaker: “Physical education was not my favourite subject. I hated having to change into those stupid bloomers and when the bloomers finally disappeared, there were those ugly polyester shorts. I dreaded baseball because I was completely hopeless at it.
“I was a child who was easily embarrassed and stressed by new situations. In PE, I experienced embarrassment at my lack of skill in sports and stress when trying sports and skills that were new to me.
“With time I became more confident and began to excel in some areas, though I remained markedly awful at gymnastics and dance. Having PE almost every day kept me healthy and pushed me to overcome my shyness and embarrassment.”
Olympian Silken Laumann is talking in her excellent book Child’s Play (Rediscovering the Joy of Play in Our Families and Communities) about the dilemma of mandated physical education. Gym class is the source of painful childhood memories for many overweight and/or athletically challenged students, especially women.
Having listened to a Radio Noon call-in show about the subject I know that for some people, PE combined the worst of both psychological and physical torture, especially if you got a jock teacher who chose to embarrass you because you were missing the volleyball or the field hockey gene.
Despite the above, today is a red letter day for Ontario because mandated phys. ed. is back in elementary schools. Of course, in many buildings with enlightened administrators, it never really went away.
Anyone who works with kids regularly, or has been a parent, knows of the blissful benefits of exercise for children. A little running around takes the mickey out of so many kids, allows them to burn off all that excess energy and, most importantly, means that they focus much better on whatever task awaits them when they return to their desks.
Dr. Mark Tremblay of Active Healthy Kids Canada,(http://www.activehealthykids.ca/) which has been championing the return of phys. ed to schools, has been in Mississauga several times to speak to this issue. He was at St. Vincent de Paul in January 2004 when Premier Dalton McGuinty launched the Activ8 program.
Dr. Tremblay debunked some of the myths about mandatory phys. ed. Rather than damaging academic achievement by adding to the overcrowded curriculum, research strongly indicates that performance is enhanced, even when students have less time for formal studies, especially in math. “As you increase physical education in a classroom setting, the learning rate seems to proceed at a faster rate than if you don’t,” he said. Study after study has demonstrated the benefits of exercise in improving intellectual development and standard test scores.
Not only is getting the blood coursing through your veins good for kids, I’ll bet it’s good for teachers too.
There will always be some people for whom phys. ed is torment but the Ontario government is on the right track with this initiative.
They shouldn’t stop there either. They must train teachers for the job they’ve given them and make Phys. ed mandatory all the way through high school, not just in Grade 9.
“We need to understand that gym isn’t a luxury,” says Laumann, the first-ever recipient of the City’s highest award of citizen merit for her heroic efforts to overcome injury and win a bronze medal in Olympic rowing. “It is a time when kids are strengthening their bodies, developing motor skills and building the attitudes and habits that can lead to lifelong well-being.”

If the first thing you do when you pick up The Mississauga News is to flip to the editorial page and check out the cartoon, you are in good company.
That’s because Steve Nease rules the page, just as he has lo these many years. Steve’s political cartoons provide some of the most acerbic, trenchant, and just plain bang-on commentary on life in our community, our country and our world that you will find anywhere.
It is amazing that Nease, who began working at the dearly departed OJR (Oakville Journal Record) at the end of 1978 and still does page and advertising design for the Oakville Beaver, is still with the chain of community newspapers owned by Metroland Printing and Publishing.
Why hasn’t a big daily paper recognized his immense talent and whisked him off to the big city?
Last year, in Portfoolio — the annual collection of the best political cartoons in Canada — Nease had 15 cartoons published, the most by any of the 42 artists represented. His cartoons are syndicated across Canada.
One done a few years ago touched a nerve that reverberated around the world.
Under the title, Canada’s Worst Nightmare, he drew a caricature of a cow with mad cow disease, wearing a SARS mask and being bitten by a mosquito carrying West Nile virus.
“That one took on a life of its own,” said Nease. “It was on thousands of websites around the world. People in our office were getting it e-mailed to them by people from outside the country saying ‘I thought you might get a kick out of this — not realizing that it was created at a desk about 15 ft. away,’’’ he laughed.
Some of Nease’s very biggest fans have been some of his favourite targets over the years. There are lots of originals of his cartoons hanging in the homes of Don Blenkarn, Carolyn Parrish and Mike Harris.
In one of his many classics, Nease portrayed Blenkarn, looking ever-so-much like W.C. Fields complete with bulbous blinking red nose, in a cheerleader’s outfit leading a cheer for the GST.
Parrish used his cartoon of her as an rogue Canadian missile ready to be deployed against the Bush administration, as a fundraiser on T-shirts she had printed.
Harris may have the biggest collection of all, including the send-up of the Wizard of Oz with the former Tory Premier as the Tin Man. The Cowardly Lion, Dorothy and the Scarecrow diagnose his problem: “No Heart.”
But the “ultimate compliment” is when Nease walks into a house where people have no idea who he is and he sees his cartoons or his Pud strips lovingly posted on that household spot of honour, the front of the refrigerator.
It’s unspeakably unfair that someone who is such a good political cartoonist should also be so talented at the cartoon strip, which is really quite a different form. Through Steve’s paternal pen, we have watched he and his wife navigate the mindfield of child-raising, from cradle to university (Pud is now 23).
Life lessons never seemed so real or so funny.
Instead of buying scads of “parenting” how-to books, prospective parents who want to know what it’s really like should just get a collection of Pud cartoons.
Incredibly, Nease has never had a collection of his cartoons or his strips published.
Since Metroland just celebrated its 25th anniversary, such a volume would be a perfect quarter-century anniversary gift to the community, wouldn’t it?
Maybe we should be thankful, after all, that the world hasn’t figured out just how good he is and beaten a path to Steve Nease’s door.
This way, we get to keep him all to ourselves.

After decades of lobbying by municipalities, it sounds as if the Ontario government might - might - finally be considering holding its Liquor Control Board more accountable for the millions of tonnes of glass that get dumped into blue boxes every year.
Premier Dalton McGuinty mused yesterday about the possibility of creating a return-deposit system for liquor and wine bottles, which make up about 40 per cent of the glass that goes into recycling boxes in Peel now.
It’s about time. The difference between the bottle return system used at The Beer Store, which has its headquarters in Mississauga, and the throw-it-in the blue box mentality of the LCBO, is like the difference between Baby Duck and a classic, aged Bourdeau.
Unfortunately, we won’t be getting the superior Beer Store return-reuse system. That’s problematic at the LCBO, because so many wines are sold in bottles manufactured in other parts of the world. But we should get a system that will allow consumers to return bottles to their source of purchase (or The Beer Store if a proposed partnership reaches fruition.) Then they’ll be recycled.
It’s easy to get jaded about this prospect because it’s been floated lots of times before. With an election looming in October 2007, the fear is that expectations will be raised before that event, only to be dashed by inaction after.
Canada is far behind other parts of the world, and especially Europe, in requiring manufacturers to be responsible for the packaging they create.
Andrew Pollock, Peel’s director of waste management, is one of those who was reading the clippings furiously today.
“We already have a high capture rate of LCBO bottles in the blue box but it should be higher with a deposit return system,” he said.
One of the main problems with glass is that, “it’s so hard to handle because it breaks and causes a lot of wear and tear on the system,” said Pollock. “If we can take the LCBO glass out, we can improve the processing efficiency.”
When glass breaks, coloured and clear glass are mixed together, and new bottles can’t be made from it. It might come as a shock to know that only an estimated 20 per cent of waste bottles get recycled into new ones.
As a result there’s a glut of recycled mixed glass, for which municipalities are busily seeking markets. Peel, for instance, is looking to sell it for glass insulation.
In case you’re wondering, the Region’s new $35 million Material Recovery Facility in Brampton will not be rendered useless by this change, although it may have to be retooled slightly.
However, Peel may have to reopen the new five-year waste contract it just started a year ago because of this major change.
Those are minor inconveniences compared to the major benefit of making the LCBO take responsibility for disposal of the packaging for its products.
If it really happens, we can all open a guilt-free bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne to celebrate, before we return it, of course.

One of the biggest surprises of the last municipal election was the victory of then-York University student Tracy Thomas, 25, who won the Ward 5 seat on the Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board when former trustee Rick Falco decided to run for council.
Thomas, the daughter of former trustee Thomas Thomas, counted 1960 votes in beating the odds-on favourite, Tina-Louise Gouveia of Malton, who trailed by some 700 votes. Gouveia had all of the volunteer connections with the board and the experience on Holy Cross and Ascension of Our Lord school councils. But she didn’t have the votes on the street, as it turned out.
Since her election, Thomas has been low-key, to say the least. She’s missed many meetings at the board, although never three consecutively, which triggers a provision under the Education Act where trustees must pass a motion to excuse the ongoing absence.
Thomas is starting a career and has not registered to seek re-election. It seems unlikely she will. Recent attempts to reach her by phone and by e-mail have proven unsuccessful.
It appears as if the community will be in better hands in the coming term.
There are three candidates registered for the Nov. 13 election, all of whom have extensive experience on their local school councils and the Central Committee for Catholic School Councils.
Hilda Andrade, Clarence Clarke and Rosemary Rosanova Shields know each other from their many years of school council and committee work.
Clarke was planning to run himself in 2003 but his school council co-chair at Ascension, Gouveia, beat him to the punch. There was no point in having two Malton candidates in the race in the sprawling ward.
“I’ve been at meetings where things needed to be said on behalf of Ward 5 and I couldn’t say it,” said Clarke, in explaining his decision to run. “I would like to lend my voice and make a difference,” said the man who was instrumental in having Ascension of Our Lord reconstructed.
Andrade has been involved with Catholic education for two decades, was on the original Central Committee of Schools and is outgoing chair of the school council at St. Francis Xavier.
She’s been thinking of running for a dozen years. Now her four children are old enough for her to do so. “I don’t believe we’ve been adequately represented,” she says, noting that many phone calls and e-mails to the incumbent have gone unanswered.
Like the other candidates, her sympathies lie with the board in the spitting match with the Province over its deficit. Ontario wants the trustees to slash programs for it, Andrade argues. If the “slash and burn” that took programs like music out of elementary schools in the early 90s are any guide, the system will never get them back, she complained.
Shields has kept her hand in school affairs since her daughter entered JK some 16 years ago.
“We need to have people on the board who really want to be there. We have not been well represented as a ward, through absenteeism and lack of communication back to the community.”
Shields would have run last time, except for her mother’s health.
She suspects there won’t be major policy differences among the three candidates. It will be more a matter of varying styles.
If this is the final roster of trustee candidates, it’s already clear that the ward will be the winner, no matter which one wins. As Shields puts it, “I think we’ll be much better represented in Ward 5 and have a real voice on the board.”

From his office window at 77 City Centre Dr., Grant Ouellette sees trouble on the horizon.
“They’re changing the city into Toronto,” complains the 45-year-old, who signed up Friday to become the third candidate to run against Hazel McCallion on Nov. 13 for the mayor's chair.
He sees a good omen in the fact that he was candidate number 99 to sign up for the election. Maybe some of Wayne Gretzky’s greatness will rub off on him, jokes the chartered accountant, who works for Ontario’s Ministry of Finance auditing corporate tax returns.
A father of five children between the ages of 4 and 12, the first-time candidate can see City Hall from his window, and the 30-storey buildings that have popped up behind it. Those buildings make him mad.
Smart growth is not in Ouellette’s vocabulary.
“I’m thinking about calling for a 15-storey maximum (height limitation for buildings) in the campaign,” said Ouellette. “I don’t see why we need 52 storeys anywhere.
“And how come they call it the Marilyn Monroe building? Where’s the Canadian identity in that? Why not the Pamela Anderson building? I’m very patriotic. We have to look out for our country and our city.”
Although he’s never attended a City council meeting, the resident has watched many on Rogers Television. “I laugh a lot,” he says. “Laughing is almost as good for you as exercise,” he explains. He doesn’t specify whether he’s laughing with them or at ’em.
The car has been cast as the devil in the suburban pantheon, but Ouellette doesn’t see it that way.
“People want to drive their cars,” he said. “We need more money for roads. We should really put an extra lane in everywhere when we build something.”
McCallion has generally done a good job, but she’s, “been there a long time,” and perhaps is too close to the people who have built the municipality over the years.
“Things have been way too far to the left,” said Ouellette who would like to try his hand at provincial politics one day. “I’m more of a right-wing individual.”
He opposes market value assessment, would like to see more tourism developed in the city and says reducing the size of high rise buildings might mean you don’t have to stop for a red light on every corner.
The fence bylaw also needs to be repaired, he says, after witnessing a number of nasty disputes between neighbours.
His friends have been urging him to run for years because he is a political animal. “I can’t shut up about it,” said Ouellette, who plans to make a campaign video outlining his platform.
If you’re counting, that makes three ostensible opponents for McCallion — Ouellette, Roy Willis and Donald Barber.

As Bob Dylan famously said, “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
After watching Dalton McGuinty parry with the media yesterday at the Trillium Health Centre, you don’t need a political pundit to see how the Liberals will fight the election that will be held in October 2007.
The announcement of more funding to reduce wait times that took place in the lobby at Trillium’s Mississauga site had the look and feel of an election stop.
And the way McGuinty answered, or rather avoided answering, the questions/provocations from the media in the post-announcement scrum was very telling.
He absolutely refused to be drawn into any discussion of the questionable Liberal tactics in the Toronto by-election, saying simply, “I am proud of our campaign.”
He took every negative critical query and flipped it over to maker a positive statement about his government’s record.
Next year at this time, McGuinty and the Liberals will be fighting a retroactive campaign. By that, I mean they will try to run against Mike Harris all over again and pretend that the kinder, gentler Tory regime of John Tory does not exist.
A question about long waiting lists for hospital services other than the five the Liberals have targeted for wait-time reductions drew this response: “We are making real, solid measurable improvements within medicare and that has been our message from day 1.
“Our test scores are better. There’s better morale and enthusiasm within and about public education.”
Then the Premier posed a series of pointed rhetorical questions that you can expect to hear again on the hustings.
“How many days have been lost to school strikes since we took office? Has the economy continued to grow? Are wait times in hospitals down?
The clear message: You may not be crazy about me but I’m still way better than the last guy you hired.
He may not have Mike Harris to kick around anymore but that won’t stop Dalton from donning his boots.
Beating up a straw man is a lot easier than combating a real, live opponent.
Can McGuinty run the 2003 campaign over again or will the Liberal strategy just raise — you should pardon the expression — a red flag with voters?

Dave Taylor calls it “Mississauga’s best-kept secret.”
Standing on a boardwalk under a leafy canopy amidst the dappled light that always seems to make the floor of the forest a magical place in late afternoon, one is not the least bit tempted to disagree.
Off to the left of the boardwalk stands a gigantic sugar maple tree that is in the range of 400 years old. The specially-sprung walkway is designed to minimize the disturbance of the fungi on the forest floor that are critical to the maple’s survival.
Special boxes have been built along the boardwalk for the white-footed mice who reside in the woods and are the subject of research by a University of Toronto at Mississauga professor.
This is Riverwood, Mississauga’s garden park in progress on the east bank of the Credit River and Taylor is the education director for the Mississauga Garden Council, overseeing the school and public education programs for the property.
“To have this wonderful piece of wilderness one mile from where I live and three miles from the city centre... it’s amazing,” says the 57-year-old, who taught in Mississauga’s public schools for 31 years. “As a photographer and a naturalist, this is fantastic.”
In another life, as the author of 90 books including a new one on Black Bears, Taylor has seen parks all over North America. He’s off to Yellowstone next week.
He thinks Riverwood has the potential to stand among the best of them. “You’ve pretty much got everything that was here in 1850,” he says.
The remnants of a butchered elk have been found in front of the Chappell estate, the former home of MP Hyl Chappell and his wife Grace, whose rose garden has been restored.
There’s hope that the endangered Jefferson Salamander might still be on the property. The kettle pond could be reconfigured to provide a home.
Wood ducks have been seen on the property and students may be enlisted to build nesting boxes for them.
Investigation is underway to see if flying squirrels can be reintroduced to the property. Work by UTM students has shown that wildlife from Erindale Park is moving north to Riverwood. There are two pair of resident coyotes. White-tailed deer seem to be everywhere.
A jump in the population of small mammals has piqued the interest of predatory birds including a Coopers Hawk who has been seen circling with the turkey vultures, which are common.
A pending partnership deal will create a bird-feeding trail. “I hope you’ll be able to see a barred owl waiting by the feeders like you can at Cranberry Marsh,” says Taylor.
Partnerships with Heritage Mississauga, a series of strong garden speakers (like Mississauga’s own Liz Primeau), the ongoing support of UTM staff and student researchers and a walk and talk program that introduces the park through the eyes of the experts, are all building momentum for the park.
For the most part, the gardens in the master plan are still a ways off, but that
doesn’t faze Taylor a bit.
“It should be like Disney World, it should never be finished,” he says.
Interesting comment, but a bad analogy.
For the essence of Riverwood will be the fact that it will be the anti-Disney world, a place where natural beauty can be found in all its unadorned glory in the midst of the urban experience.

Shelley-Ann Solomon calls her business “conscious commerce.”
“It’s about people making a conscious choice to live according to the values they talk about,” she says standing in her I’m For REAL (Revolutionizing Environmental Awareness and Lifestyles) store in the heart of Streetsville. “It’s about understanding that we can do this in small steps; that it’s very important for us to create a better environmental legacy for our children than the path we’re currently on.”
Shelley-Ann and her husband Michael (who is in the St. Mary’s University Hall of Fame for his prowess as a basketball small forward) have shoehorned an amazing array of organic and recycled products, from the linoleum and cork flooring you walk upon to the art that hangs on the wall, into about 700 square feet of floor space down a little lane on the west side of Queen St., immediately south of Pearl St.
It’s not easy to find. You either have to walk down Gagliano Lane from Queen or head to the municipal parking lot in the back before it becomes visible. It’s worth the effort, however, for those who want to put their money where their environmental conscience is.
From portable solar panels to fair trade organic chocolate, from jewellery made from Tagua (vegetable ivory) to belts made from recycled tires (guaranteed to give you 100,000 miles of wear), everything in the store showcases sustainability.
There’s more hemp in this store that in half the head shops in Vancouver.
Opened on Earth Day in April, the Solomons are hoping that their business is as sustainable as their attitudes.
Shelley-Ann, who holds a master’s degree in behavioural medicine, loves to explode the “myth of the purity of cotton” for prospective young mothers. “They use 84 million pounds of insecticides to grow this crop,” she says. Rather than putting insecticides next to baby’s body, where they can be absorbed through the skin, Solomon sells organic cotton, which is processed mechanically rather than chemically. You’ll pay a premium for it, of course, but you’ll feel a lot better when you put baby to bed.
“My rule of thumb is if you can’t eat it, don’t put it next to your skin,” says Solomon.
From candles to hand cream, the philosophy is the same. And Shelley-Ann loves to talk about it.
“I’m the talker. He’s the quiet one,” she says pointing to her husband, who smiles and nods on cue.
Be forewarned. You may go into I’m For Real looking for a shopping experience, but after you’ve heard Shelley-Ann impart her philosophy of environmental responsibility, you may feel as if you’ve had a spiritual one.

P.S. Away on vacation next week. Back in this space Sept. 25.

A Toronto doctor once offered his patients some brilliant advice on how to improve your general health.
He suggested taking a cookbook to bed. Not just any cookbook though. A very special cookbook: Edna Staebler’s Food That Really Schmecks.
He told his patients they should pick out a recipe they really liked to try the next day and invite a friend over to share the meal. He said the experience would be better for them than any medication he could possibly prescribe.
That story came to mind when reading a tiny one-paragraph note in The Toronto Star last week that announced that, at the age of 100, Edna Staebler had died after a stroke in a Waterloo nursing home.
Although she had a long and distinguished career as a journalist and creative non-fiction writer, the Order of Canada recipient was justifiably known best for her cookbooks, Food That Really Schmecks, More Food That Really Schmecks and Pies and Tarts With Schmecks Appeal.
I found a copy, autographed no less, of More Schmecks in the Mississauga Library sell-off section a few years ago and we have enjoyed many meals from it since.
Staebler’s folksy, down-to-earth style is as inviting as the aromas that will waft from your oven when you start trying the recipes, many of which come from the Mennonite community.
Her Speedy Pat-in Pastry recipe was a godsend when the doctor said there was a cholesterol issue to deal with and the taste buds refused to give up peach, or strawberry-rhubarb or lemon meringue pies.
Edna’s books are full of little yarns that precede the recipes like this one for ginger raisin muffins. “One day when four friends were coming to my cottage, I didn’t have an egg to put in my muffins so I had to invent some without eggs. The man of the company ate four, the ladies two apiece and they were the fat ones (I mean the muffins.) The ladies at Marnie’s ate quite a few of these too but they were smaller (again I mean the muffins.)”
The Muffins in Half an Hour section is my favourite of More Schmecks. This one is particularly nice and happened to be the favourite of Staebler’s sister Ruby.

Date and Orange Muffins

1 whole orange 1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup orange juice 1 teaspoon soda
1 cup chopped dates 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg 2/3 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine 1 teaspoon salt

Cut whole orange into pieces to remove seeds. Drop pieces into a blender with the orange juice and whirl until peel is finely chopped. Drop in dates, egg and butter or margarine and give blender very short whirl. Into a bowl, sift the flour, soda, baking powder, sugar and salt. Pour orange mixture over the dry, stir lightly, just to moisten. Drop spoonfuls into buttered muffin tins and bake at 400 F for about 15 minutes. They are super.

It was Aug. 13, 2002 when 31 trustees from nine of the largest school boards in Ontario met at the Peel District School Board to show their solidarity against what they called the bully tactics of the Ontario government.
The provincial Conservative government of the day had just sent in investigators to review the books of the Big Bad Three, the Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa boards that had all illegally and knowingly approved budgets with deficits. They wanted to highlight the fact that the Tories’ much-vaunted funding formula for schools was not working.
Among the most feisty of the trustees at the post-meeting press conference was Toronto’s Kathleen Wynne. She drew applause from her fellow trustees after her impassioned remarks in which she called the provincially-appointed auditors, “henchmen — sent in to do the job for the Premier.”
Tonight, Wynne will be back in Mississauga again, across the road at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board this time, singing a slightly different tune.
Exasperated with the Tory education policy, she ran as an MPP in 2003 when the Liberals won on an education-friendly agenda. Somewhere in Halton Region John Snobelen (speaking of henchmen commissioned by Premiers) is on his favourite quarter horse and smiling broadly.
Now, as the third education minister in six months, Wynne will be the one sending in auditors, investigators, advisors and supervisors (otherwise known as henchmen) to figure out why school boards can’t balance their books.
Methinks she already knows. Methinks she had it figured out when she was a school trustee.
It appears that Dalton and the boys have decided that there’s been a little too much Snobelen-like, Harris-like confrontation with school boards over budget problems from the self-proclaimed “education government.”
Sandra Pupatello (bad cop) is gone and Kathleen Wynne (good cop) is here to calm the choppy waters.
The fact that Wynne will speak to Dufferin-Peel trustees in a public forum tonight signals a change in approach, a change undoubtedly triggered by the fact that the next provincial election is barely more than a year away.
It looks like the Liberals may want to postpone their fiscal fight with school boards for a year, perhaps by commissioning the full review of the funding formula that they promised the last time around.
They’d better be careful how they do it, though. You can bet John The Tory is waiting to paint the Premier as a weak-willed wimp if he and his education minister cave too easily to the school boards.

It’s a case of trying to follow in his daughter’s footsteps for Thomas Thomas, who has registered to run for Ward 5 trustee on the Dufferin-Peel Catholic Separate School Board.
Thomas’ daughter Tracy was the surprise winner of the 2003 race when Rick Falco tried unsuccessfully to get himself elected to City council.
Still a student in computer science at York when she won, Thomas has a new career with Mississauga’s Hewlett-Packard and has decided not to seek re-election because she travels a lot and her new career is very demanding of her time. That’s one of the reasons for her spotty attendance record at board meetings.
There were already three well-qualified candidates (Hilda Andrade, Clarence Clarke and Rosemary Rosanova Shields) in the race when Thomas made up her mind not to run and her Dad jumped into the race.
Thomas was a Dufferin-Peel trustee representing Ward 4 from 1988-91 when he lost a close three-way race. He ran again unsuccessfully in 1994 and, after being convicted of election fraud as a result of voting irregularities in that campaign, he was banned from running for election in 1997.
Perhaps inspired by Cliff Gyles, who ran for re-election in 2003 just a few months after being convicted of two counts of municipal corruption and two counts of breach of trust, Thomas also ran for Ward 5 councillor, collecting 290 votes or 2.34 per cent of the vote.
His conviction is old news that no one is interested in except the media, Thomas said this morning. “That was a long time back,” he said. “I don’t know why people want to bring it back. Ninety per cent of the people don’t even know about it. It’s just the media that bring it up.”
The conviction is probably not even on his official record anymore since it’s been more than a decade since the conviction, he said. “It’s the media who want to keep the thing going.”
It’s understandable that Thomas would like to minimize his brush with the law. His point that most people in the ward probably don’t know about it, however, is precisely why the media should report it.
Past records are always scrutinized intently at election time, as well they should be. Even those little white lies on CVs and election brochures have come back to haunt many a candidate.
It is inevitable that candidates will have to speak to their records, even if they were not convicted. Mississauga Ward 6 candidate Ron Starr had fraud charges against him in conjunction with the operation of a charitable group’s summer camp dropped in April 2002, but you can bet he will be asked about it and you can bet he’ll have a response ready.
At least two candidates in this municipal election have restraining orders against them requiring them to keep a certain distance away from City Hall and the incumbents they hope to replace, as part of their bail conditions. They haven’t been convicted of anything as their trials are still pending.
But if there is a possibility of electing someone to City council who may not be legally allowed to attend the inaugural meeting at city hall, isn’t it the public’s right to know that?