{"id":9403,"date":"2014-12-23T23:21:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T04:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=9403"},"modified":"2015-01-21T18:16:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T23:16:05","slug":"politics-as-usual-a-promising-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-a-promising-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: A Promising New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For my final column of the year, I will touch on two pieces of legislation that \u2013 if enacted \u2013 will have both impacts on, and significance for, Aurorans.
\nFirst, the Regional Chair position may finally be a one by, of and for the people of York Region.
\nThe recycled motion put forward by MPP Ballard has already passed second reading and it is looking good to be enacted at some point in the New Year.
\nThis motion \u2013 to make the Regional Chair an elected position \u2013 has been tried by multiple politicians multiple times. Let\u2019s hope fourth time is a charm?
\nThe foes of the process are commenting on the fact that running an election Region-wide will be difficult, costly and thus limiting. \u201cLimiting\u201d is an interesting choice of words. Right now the \u201ccandidates\u201d are limited to basically one, or maybe two people that a very select group of people deem worthy.
\nThe voting public has no say in who can run, who can be nominated or even who can be \u201celected\u201d.
\nSo, the argument that making the position subject to general election somehow \u201climits\u201d who can run is, well, specious at best.
\nThe potential candidate list is already extremely limited. How much more limited could it get?
\nIt is true though that a Region-wide election could result in the reality that perhaps only candidates with money \u2013 and a lot of it \u2013 will be able to run for the office. Maybe so, but at least we, the voters, will know who they are and what they stand for.
\nRight now we have no idea who the candidates are until the night of the vote! Candidates for Regional Chair in 2018 will be forced to put out a platform, speak at debates, make themselves known publicly \u2013 in short, provide us with at least some knowledge of why they should sit in that chair, and why we should let them.
\nAnd that\u2019s a good thing.
\nThe second motion making its way through the legislature is the SLAPP legislation. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation. These types of lawsuits are launched for no other reason than to shut people up through fear \u2013 fear of financial ruin.
\nA reality with which three Aurora families are all too familiar.
\nThis new Act seeks to prevent those in power and\/or those with money from abusing their office or their financial status. It will prevent those who hold elected or corporate office from waging legal war on those who dare to question decisions made by speaking their charter-guaranteed right to an opinion.
\nThis legislation has also passed second reading.
\nOnce enacted, Aurorans will never again be faced with a situation as we did in 2010 of unwillingly funding a legal war against private citizens. Our MPP Ballard spoke and voted in favour of this legislation while in the House. Odd. He did exactly the opposite while at the Council table.
\nNo matter.
\nBetter late than never to see the truth and come to the right decision.
\nIf nothing else, with the enactment of the aforementioned legislation, the New Year will see the promise realized of greater access to democratic office and greater protection for those commenting on it. And that\u2019s great for all of us.
\nAnd on that note, to all our readers, may you have a truly joyous holiday \u2013 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
\nSee you all again in 2015.
\nUntil then, 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 For my final column of the year, I will touch on two pieces of legislation that \u2013 if enacted \u2013 will have both impacts on, and significance for, Aurorans. First, the Regional Chair position may finally be a one by, of and for the people of York Region. The recycled motion put […]<\/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-9403","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\/p3D2k4-2rF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 05:17:43","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\/9403","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=9403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}