{"id":10009,"date":"2015-03-04T22:23:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T03:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10009"},"modified":"2015-03-04T22:23:25","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T03:23:25","slug":"politics-as-usual-public-agendas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-public-agendas\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Public Agendas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you think politicians should provide a minute-by-minute accounting of their day, like a lawyer submitting a bill?
\nThis thought jumped out at me the other day while watching American news and they were talking about the president\u2019s daily schedule. I don\u2019t recall the issue but what did stick out for me was that the president\u2019s schedule was public at all. The security issues public scheduling presents would seem insurmountable. I don\u2019t think the secret service would appreciate it if the President availed himself of foursquare.
\nThinking the schedule was only available to the press, I did a little research. Sure enough, after a quick google search I was provided with the President\u2019s public schedule for February 23. It was pretty scanty and it was only his public schedule, but it was sufficiently detailed to let me know where he will be and what he will be doing for a goodly portion of his day.
\nIt made me think \u2013 do we have a similar expectation for our leader?
\nI did a quick search for PM Harper\u2019s public schedule. Couldn\u2019t find anything. No public schedule available. (Perhaps it is, but I wasn\u2019t able to find it as easily as I could find the President\u2019s). Even without this public schedule though, we know where our PM is. We have the tweets to prove it \u2013 in two official languages no less.
\nWhat about at the municipal level? Do our fearless leaders post their daily agendas? It depends on the leader. As with all things related to Ford, there was much hue and cry about the Mayor\u2019s public schedule \u2013 and the fact that he didn\u2019t post one. Miller had a public schedule. Tory has a public schedule. A number of other big city mayors post their schedules. As a consequence, during the Ford era there were multiple FOI requests for access to the former mayor\u2019s daily schedule.
\nOnce the schedule was finally released, it revealed what many suspected \u2013 or hoped for, would be a more accurate description – gaps of \u201cpersonal\u201d time for which he refused to provide more detail.
\nNot to defend the ignominious Ford, but what was the purpose in accessing his schedule? Embarrassment obviously.
\nPerhaps Ford is not the best example of what a mayor should do, but he is a good example of the fact that a politician\u2019s day isn\u2019t 9 to 5. Regardless of his personal foibles, he must be given credit for his indefatigable responsiveness to residents\u2019 concerns regardless of the hour. A councillor\u2019s day extends well into most evenings and weekends. Answering calls. Attending events. Dealing with disputes. Public schedules don\u2019t account for that.
\nA Mayor is a highly public person. So is the PM. So is anyone in public office. It\u2019s not like they can play hookie\u2026and if they do \u2013 as the Ford debacle well demonstrated \u2013 it will be noticed.
\nBesides, if you want to know where they are NOT supposed to be, well, you won\u2019t find that out by reviewing a public schedule.
\nPersonally, I am not interested in whether our Mayor, or our MPP or our MP is at a ribbon cutting or in a staff meeting. I am interested in whether they are working hard on our behalf \u2013 that means, do they answer my calls? Do they show up at council meetings prepared? Do they show up for votes in the House of Commons? Do they represent me and my community\u2019s best interests? If the answer is \u201cyes\u201d then they are doing their job. <\/p>\n

Until next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Do you think politicians should provide a minute-by-minute accounting of their day, like a lawyer submitting a bill? This thought jumped out at me the other day while watching American news and they were talking about the president\u2019s daily schedule. I don\u2019t recall the issue but what did stick out for me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Br","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 05:59:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}