X Marks the Spot

People often talk about how poorly our politicians conduct themselves, how Question Period in the House of Commons or the provincial Legislature is embarrassing to watch. What's remarkable is that they don't understand how insanely childish nearly everyone acts in such situations. All one needs to do to understand this is attend an open public meeting held by a politician.

Tonight, it was a showdown between Ward 2 Peel District School Board Trustee Don Stephens and the parents of students at Lorne Park Secondary School and its feeder schools.

Stephens wants to take the extended French program out of Lorne Park and put it in Clarkson Secondary. He wants to do this because enrolment at Clarkson is declining and is expected to continue to do so. Enrolment at Lorne Park is high, and is expected to remain high.

This, apparently, is enough to make men threaten one another in front of children.

Here's the situation. There's a group of people in a room who all agree that moving the program is a bad idea. One woman expresses a dissenting opinion from the group. A man demands, by yelling and aggressively pointing his finger at her, that she stand up and identify herself, even though no one else in the room, other than the trustee and a school board superintendent, had either stood up or identified themselves. Another man, standing close to the dissenting lady, tells the aggressive pointer that there's no need to point or speak to a lady that way. Aggressive Pointer says something inaudible to the lady's defender, then the lady's defender says to Aggressive Pointer, "You shut your mouth."

Wait. It's clear that these are adults, right? Because they are adults, talking about a program that 280 students in the school use.

Here's another priceless moment.

Stephens mentions that most of the people who live in the area, second and third generation Canadians, are not reproducing with much gusto. Some are only having one child. Some aren't having any. And the houses are too expensive for most new immigrants, who tend to have more children and less money, to move into the area. That's why enrolment is decreasing.

Then a lady says, very loudly, loudly enough to drown out all the other loud people speaking at the same time (though I admit I am paraphrasing here), "Are you crazy? I work in social services and new immigrants have four or five children." Then she added, and this is a direct quotation, "Holy schmoly."

That's right, she actually said, "Holy schmoly," which, I think, is the silliest thing one can say.

It was even sillier, of course, because Stephens, as another parent pointed out to the Holy Schmoly Lady, did qualify his statement by mentioning that he was talking about second and third generation Canadians, not new immigrants, which she would have known had she been listening.

Then, of course, there was the parent who worried about Clarkson's test scores, social demographics, and security detail. Because apparently Clarkson Secondary School is the next worse thing to a maximum security prison.

The main problem with this meeting, and with every open public meeting held by a politician, is that there were parents there who had creative and well thought out ideas about the situation, but they were largely forgotten when the next questioner, and many questioners, openly accused Stephens of being in the pockets of the rich folk in the Watercolours development, who would be allowed to send their kids to Lorne Park if his boundary change is passed.

Maybe Stephens is in those well-lined pockets. How am I to know? But to repeatedly accuse him of being so, based, it appeared, on envy and not evidence, was rude and slanderous.

I really just wish there were fewer hot heads at public meetings, that's all I wish. Maybe out west. Just two more work days until I head out west, hoping the PetShopBoys were correct when they sang that "things are peaceful there."