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Forgiveness part two

I would like to clarify what I mean by forgiveness in regard to the Ward 5 situation.

I am not confusing forgiveness with justification or excuse for bad behaviour. I do not believe that there are socially acceptable crimes or misdemeanours. People should be held accountable for their own actions.

While I do not know what goes on behind the closed doors of the Council and the Mayor’s offices; I do hope that The Ward 5 Councillor has realized the error of her actions and apologized for the hurt she has caused. If she has apologized then I would also hope that those whom she has hurt accept her apology and grant forgiveness.

Yes, forgiveness is a many-faceted gem of the human spirit. Yes, the offender must first admit wrong doing and ask for forgiveness. That is where the word ‘hope’ comes in; I do not know that forgiveness has either been asked for or given. I hope, for the sake of everyone involved and for the residents of Ward 5 that it has.

For those who are not in the mood to be forgiving or simply suffer from the Like-a-Business Syndrome; the voters of Ward 5 have, with the new four year term of office @ plus or minus $125,000 per annum, made a half million dollar contract with the Councillor to represent them. Time is money. Four years is a lot of time and half a million dollars is a lot of money. It would be a shame to squander all that on petty bickering and squabbling until the next Municipal Election.

In 1982, Mayor Hazel McCallion was tried and convicted of Conflict of Interest.

(Thanks for the comment Mr. Singh. While the mayor was charged with violating the Conflict of Interest Act and the judge said that she had violated that act in four places, the mayor was found not guilty because the judge ruled she had committed a bona fide error in judgment.)

John

Stephen Wahl wrote: "……Help me here; can anyone else claim purity of thought and action throughout all their tenures of elected office?.."

Is that called 'socially acceptable crime'? How could you tolerate and justify corruption!

Ms. Eve Adams' handling of office is no different from that of her predecessor Mr. Cliff Gyles. Unlike Eve, Cliff's spouse wasn't a 'business consultant'. Therefore, the funds directly ended up in his own hands that eventually bought him his own cell in jail.

Of course, "…. let’s move on.", but keep WATCHING!

- Ward 5 resident

The Lords Prayer - Excerpt

Before each City of Mississauga Council session the Lords Prayer is said.

“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those”

“As we forgive those”

Kind of along the lines of “do unto others”, and I believe that was said by the same guy was it not?

Forgive; don’t necessarily forget, because otherwise one might be prone to repeating the mistake; but forgive and move on.

It would not have been easy for the Mayor to accept Eve Adams return to Council but it would have been a show of forgiveness and compassion if she had.

The Citizens of Ward 5 deserve better than to have their choice of their Councillor to be openly and cruelly shunned in a public ceremony that was meant to be welcoming and inspiring. The limp- wristed handshake was embarrassing and mean. Even if Ms. Adams deserved it her constituents did not.

Even after the Ward 5 election ‘scandal’ broke; from my observations more of Eve Adams signs were put up than was taken down.

Eve then not only received the majority of the vote, she received 20% more than she did in her first election in 2003. Ms. Adams was not alone in the Ward 5 race; she was up against several qualified contenders.

Demos Kratos – People Strength – Democracy and the people have spoken.

Indeed Ms. Adams may have some personality traits which at times are difficult; don’t we all?

Indeed Ms. Adams may have partaken in questionable activities during an election campaign. Help me here; can anyone else claim purity of thought and action throughout all their tenures of elected office?

So let’s move on.

Learn from mistakes.

Say sorry.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those.

KUDOS on another fine Blog entry, John. Loved your "The case of the flimsy flipper".

I mean WASN'T it, though.

You wrote:

"If Mayor Hazel McCallion hadn’t made her disdain for returning Ward 5 Councillor Eve Adams clear enough in her post-election remarks about how disappointed she was with the return of the incumbent to office, it became painfully obvious to even the most casual observer at the inaugural meeting of City council last night."

I wasn't a casual observer, John, my eyeballs were glued to the webcast! Videotaped the entire thing yessir and saved it to my computer (which according to Terms of Use, I was allowed to do.) Playing back the Adams oath of office, video replay shows Adams' right hand move up on the word "biased" and flicking her hair over her right ear on the word "corrupt".

Classic displacement activity that was.

You wrote:

"While the mayor went out of her way to get out of her seat and go all the way to the far end of the wing of the dais to give new Ward 10 Councillor Sue McFadden a big, fat welcoming embrace, McCallion could barely muster the strength to offer Adams a flimsy flipper. Talk about holding a cold hand."

Yep. And did you notice that Carolyn Parrish had to go over to The Hazel, hold out her arms to get a hug from the Mayor? At least McCallion did hug back --I credit her that.

McCallion was really POWER-TRIPPIN' with the hugs and the distance she bothered to walk to congratulate a councillor, huh, John? Talk about a sociological-behavioural Motherlode of Hierarchical Insights that Inauguration was!

Found it ultra-ironic that after all THAT, a Rabbi steps forward and offers Prayer for kindness, understanding, forgiveness, spurning favouritism --yessir. ZIPPED RIGHT OVER everyone's head that Prayer did.

And MY, John, aren't YOU the fashion-studmuffin here when you observed:

"While Adams choice of attire cast her as the scarlet woman, the mayor looked resplendent in a new ivory dress."

EVERYTHING looked "resplendent", John. Crafty use of lighting.

You wrote:

"Too bad she didn’t spend more time on her inaugural address, which — rather than looking forward to inspire us about what is to come in the next four years — looked back and rehashed all of the old familiar themes."

Videotaped that too, John.

I can mouth some of it from memory now, "Toronto just talks about its Waterfront. WE do it!"

"Yes, we're behind in transit, but Mississauga is STILL LEADING TODAY FOR TOMORROW!"

And my personal favourite, "MISSISSAUGA IS THE BEST CITY IN CANADA! My staff keeps telling me so!"

Regarding the potential for an elected regional chair, you wrote:

"It’s interesting to note that while chairs in most other regions are elected at large, and Durham recently held a non-binding referendum Nov. 13 that showed 90 per cent of voters there want direct election of the chairs in future, it has never even been raised for serious discussion in Peel.
We have a whole extra year this term around to kick the idea around."

Sorry, John, I disagree. What we REALLY have is "a whole extra year this term" before we get told --NO SOAP RADIO!