{"id":2345,"date":"2013-05-29T01:24:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T05:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2345"},"modified":"2013-06-05T17:53:35","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T21:53:35","slug":"politics-as-usual-a-force-for-change-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-a-force-for-change-2\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: A Force for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Within the context of the political realm, it\u2019s certainly been an interesting few weeks for the GTA and indeed the country as a whole.
\nI don\u2019t think it is mere hyperbole to suggest that as a result of the absolutely shameful shenanigans within the Senate, the Province and the Mayor\u2019s Office of the city of Toronto to name just a few, there is an imminent crisis of confidence in our elected officials.
\nAverage Joe on the street must be shaking his head in disgust at the disreputable conduct shown by those in whom we have placed our ultimate trust \u2013 those whom we have elected (or as in the case of the Senate \u2013 NOT elected!) to govern our affairs.
\nThe Senate expense imbroglio has bubbled to the point of boiling now, with the resignation of the senior-most advisor to the Prime Minister, Nigel Wright. While Mr. Wright has fallen on his sword, the questions are swirling as to what, if anything, the PM knew about the payment made to Senator Duffy and when.
\nIt is a distasteful and unseemly situation for our PM to be in.
\nIn addition to questions about the PM\u2019s potential role in the affair, the country is further scandalized as we have four Senators and counting that are being investigated by various levels of authority \u2013 from the Federal Ethics Officer to the RCMP. Allegations of fraud are being bandied about.
\nIn Canada\u2019s biggest city \u2013 Toronto \u2013 the controversy with Mayor Ford continues to deepen. We learned late Thursday evening that Mayor Ford has fired his Chief of Staff, demonstrating yet another questionable action by a thoroughly beleaguered Senior elected official.
\nIt begs the question \u2013 just what the heck is going on? Every day a new debacle. I think I can hear the hooves of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse on their way\u2026
\nBut an even more important questions springs to mind – what can we (and I am using the royal \u201cwe\u201d here) do about it all?
\nTo be blunt \u2013 not a heck of a lot. Once you\u2019ve marked an \u201cx\u201d beside someone\u2019s name, and enough people have done the same, then that person gets to occupy that seat for the set term, regardless of what he or she has done.
\nYes, there are a few \u2013 miniscule few \u2013 reasons how and why an elected person can be turfed from office.
\nBeing tossed into jail for example \u2013 not while on trial, mind you, as the folks in London are learning\u2026
\nHowever, it is virtually impossible to remove an elected official from office or hold them accountable for their actions while in or as a result of their time office. Just look at the situation in Montreal.
\nLiterally decades of (allegedly) corrupt activities by all manner of elected officials and only now are they being held accountable. The cynic in me believes that the inquiry will have limited results. I doubt all those responsible will be held to account, and certainly not to the extent that they deserve to be.
\nIn my opinion, while the process by which we elect and are governed by the members of our various levels of government is a truly democratic process (leaving aside the issue of appointments; I think I\u2019ve made my point about the appointment process so I won\u2019t rehash it here); there\u2019s nothing democratic about the processes that keep them there. There is no accountability once they are comfortably ensconced in their elected seat.
\nThe supposed legislative accountability mechanisms (the Election Act, the Conflict of Interest Act, Municipal Act etc.) are not accessible in any reasonable way. They are uniformly costly, lengthy, byzantine in design and implementation, and ultimately useless.
\nThose poor souls that do try to use one of the few accountability tools available and hold an elected or formerly elected official to account are vilified for being \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d or having an axe to grind.
\nThis is, of course, on top of paying enormous legal bills for the privilege of going to court on the public\u2019s behalf.
\nThere should be greater checks and balances to ensure that those in office do not run roughshod over the very people and communities they have been elected to serve.
\nOne easy check and balance to institute at the municipal level at least is recording closed session meetings. The public has a right to know that in the event that there is a question about what was or was not decided in closed session, that there is a record \u2013 an accurate record.
\nI wager that many a community would have avoided whopping legal bills had there been a real record of closed session shenanigans of their councilors.
\nCouncillor Thompson made just such a motion a few months back (as I did 4 years ago!) and the staff report and motion was before Council last week at GC and will be further debated this week at Council.
\nI will reserve my comments on the motion to audiotape closed session until after the Council vote. I am interested to hear the debate and, of course, the vote. Should be \u201cilluminating.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s it for this week, until next week, stay informed, stay involved, because this is after all, Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Within the context of the political realm, it\u2019s certainly been an interesting few weeks for the GTA and indeed the country as a whole. I don\u2019t think it is mere hyperbole to suggest that as a result of the absolutely shameful shenanigans within the Senate, the Province and the Mayor\u2019s Office of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2345","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-BP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 19:20:19","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\/2345","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=2345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}