cktimes.ca Archives for Notes from a Garage


Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Things don't seem to add up in Chatham-Kent and war on the horizon

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Finally, the good weather has arrived – and it's been a long, long winter this year so most of us are ready. As I reported last week, I did my Good News Report from my front porch the last two weeks. The first week, I talked about creating positive vibes to try to ge the winter weather to move on. Well, this week I reported that it must have worked and, man, does it feel good to have a warm sun on your face again. Glad to have all you folks who headed to Florida back for the duration. Shouldn't be long now before things really heat up. Don't know about you, but I can't wait.

Well, the forces that want our forced amalgamation re-examined are gaining momentum, and from what I'm hearing, they should be. I had a lengthy conversation with a member of Chatham-Kent Council the other day and he's a bit flabbergasted at what's going on. He told me several stories of wanton waste of taxpayers' dollars and said we're all going to be in a state of shock once the word is released later this week about how many of our bureaucrats are currently earning over $100,000 per year. Now, I know I can't talk about Chatham, but I know that in the old town of Wallaceburg there wasn't anyone even close to that lofty figure – so, how did we end up with so many people over the magic threshhold? I'd like to know also why it's costing us about $6 million this year for consultant's fees if we have such a highly paid and presumably highly qualified staff. Things just don't add up in Chatham-Kent as far as I'm concerned. I talked to another person who said they supported Diane Gagner for Mayor because she came from a business background and he thought she'd seriously attack the C-K budget. That hasn't happened and he's one very disappointed fellow. While I agree with the mayor's strategy of trying to raise our profile outside of Chatham-Kent, I also think we should be getting our own house in order. Let's have a review of this whole amalgamation issue. I would certainly support that.

In that same regard, I had a conversation with David Caplan, MPP for Don Valley East and the Liberal Municipal Affairs critic at Queen's Park. We talked mostly about the amalgamation issue, but I had to add a few comments just before we said good-bye. I told him that it looks like the Liberals might get a chance to govern this province after the next election – I also told him that they'd better have their act together if they get elected, because people are sick and tired of just about all politicians these days. We are quite simply fed up with being lied to. On issue after issue, from the GST to Free Trade to you name it, governments at various levels have simply not been truthful to us. So, I told Mr. Caplan, we are very gunshy about all governments. If the Liberals win the next election, they will have some chance to change that – this means that they should stick to what they promise while trying to get elected. If they promise to let people reconsider amalgamation, they better make sure it happens. I hope they're listening.

As I write this, it's almost certain that we're going to war – not Canada directly, but a war that will affect us nonetheless. The world is such a small place these days, that we feel it whenever anything of major significance happens anywhere. And I'll stick to the line I've taken right from the start away back on Sept. 11. Dropping bombs and killing people will not solve any of the world's problems – it will just create more. We should be fighting our wars with flowers and food – we should be showing the rest of the world how generous we are and how good we are at sharing. It's something we learned as children but seem to have forgotten as we grew to adulthood. Most of the world resents our wealth and our better-than-thou attitude and we should be trying to deal with that. Bombing the crap out of anyone, even a patently evil guy like Saddam Hussein, won't create peace in the long run. Haven't we learned anything from 5,000 years of world history. We bomb them – they bomb us – we bomb them – they bomb us. It's the way of the world and it's time for a change. If you want to see how I feel, check out my Humanist Manifesto at the bottom of this column. It's the way I feel.

I must say that I went to see the movie Chicago last week. It was okay, but I had to leave partway through to avoid throwing up. Too much action and motion on the big screen giving yours truly a bad case of nausea. Going to the movies used to be one of my favourite things, but I've had the same experience the last few times. Most modern movies look like they were filmed using a hand-held video camera with a smokey filter over the lense. I think we've made so much progress in movie making technology that we've ended up back about 1925. Strange, but true.

cktimes columnists Jeff Wesley and Phil Shaw ran into each other in Key West Florida over the holidays. There's some small world stuff for you, eh? But I guess it just points to the fact that cktimes is everywhere.

Out of time for another week. Have a great one and keep hoping for warmer weather. And remember..."Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may."



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.