COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

By Lisa Robinson - Pickering City Councillor At The City of Pickerings 5pm special meeting of council I voted against moving forward with the staffs recommendation to have a copy of Pickering’s Official Plan review to be sent to the region of Durham Planning & Economic Development for many reasons. First and foremost, there has been no community engagement or comments thus far. To be in accordance with Planning Act Requirements, the special council meeting had to be advertised. The corporation of the City of Pickering decided to use the Toronto Star as their avenue, unfortunately, residents, stakeholders or businesses have never had any correspondence delivered directly to them letting them know this is how they would be notified of important City meetings. I also mentioned that I thought it was unfair that because of this, the people of Pickering and beyond would now have to spend their hard-earned taxed dollars to purchase a Toronto Star newspaper daily so they don’t miss any other opportunities to have their voices heard being that, the Toronto Star is not a community newspaper. Why is the Corporation of the City of Pickering so against posting in this fine local Newspaper? “The Central” is the only local community Newspaper that we have left in Durham, and in my opinion, instead of making excuses as to why we should not post in this paper, we should find ways to make it work, so you the taxpayer can be well informed. Another important point I made was that our online records management portal was down the night before the meeting and we don’t actually know how long it was down for. It could have been for one day or many, making it hard for those to comment or even know about the meeting. As a result, stakeholders may not have had adequate opportunity to access the agenda and related documents, limiting their ability to provide informed comments. Given the importance of transparency and public participation in our local government processes, I recommend that any comments received at the special meeting be included for consideration as part of the review process. These comments included: There was no authentic community engagement, Lack of accountability, the official plan should be for the people by the people and not driven by developers, and their should be transparency – and not influence by developers. I then proposed that this matter be referred back to staff to be brought forward at the next council meeting in order to achieve community engagement and comments but not one member of Council would second. There have been claims that our Council Meetings have been hijacked by outsiders, and that they are wasting Councils time speaking on topics that they find irrelevant. First of all, I don’t think the council should be taking it upon themselves to judge whether or not a topic is relevant. We were elected to listen and represent the people, even those with opposing views. Council fails to remember that we regularly endorse other municipalities' staff reports, and it would be highly hypocritical of us to only listen to those in power but not their people. We support global issues like Ukraine using taxpayers' money, and we receive provincial and federal funding. I could go on about how we have 4 members who sit on the region of Durham Council, or how our libraries, malls, recreation centers and programs are open to anyone and everyone, not just Pickering residents. They use our roads, and parks, attend our community events, and so on. The real problem is not having outsiders participate, as most of them are groups that represent 1000’s of people in Pickering and across Durham. The real problem is that, due to Pickering Councils behavior and passing of bylaws that are taking your right to speak and participate away, this has created the want for more engagement and to have their questions answered by elected officials. In my opinion neither staff nor council want to have to deal with it, or they would have not started implementing all these censorship bylaws to stifle conversation. Council was elected to serve the public and their interests, not to dictate what they feel is important, or unimportant, or to dismiss legitimate concerns of the people. In a blatant act of collusion, the minutes will show that everything on the agenda passed in a 6-0 vote, as the Mayor refused to recognize me, disallowing me to question, speak or vote on any matters because I refused to participate in his hypocritical rules for thee but not for me type antics. The whole agenda was then passed without any debate, even knowing that we were breaching our own bylaws regarding our street naming policy for Porsche which prohibits street names that confer a competitive advantage or promote specific brands or products. I brought this up at our Executive Committee meeting on May 6, asking what if Volkswagen, or Ford wanted to do the same thing and the mayor indicated that if they want to invest 75 million dollars then they could break our policies too, and that he would even name a child after them. So, there you have it when money talks, everyone looks the other way. Ordinary citizens are secondary to the interest of those with deep pockets. Setting A dangerous precedent and letting everyone know that Pickering has a casual attitude towards policies and that we opened the door to potential exploitation and abuse by corporate interests. There was also the EDI Strategy, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, to which both Pickering residents and communities beyond are not happy with. After doing lots of research we are seeing that both in the USA and Canada, EDI programs are being banned as these programs are being found to be discriminatory. We need to evolve as a society beyond divisive identity politics and splitting people into groups based on the colour of their skin, religion, and their sexual preferences, and refocus on treating people as individuals based on their character and promoting merit. As for the Community visitor plan, this was a decision of council not the public to move forward with the collection of Pickering resident's and visitor's data through methods such as tracking your cell phones and geo-fencing. Not only without your permission but without having adequate safeguards in place posing serious privacy risks to you, our residents. The council approved an agreement to execute a data usage license with Enbridge Gas to collect natural gas consumption data of your homes, and businesses. Agreeing to give Enbridge the right to monitor and collect your data, the Corporation of the City of Pickering received Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) through the Municipal Climate Action Incentive Offer. The Municipality now has the ability to request this data within two years of the application date. On February 5th Dale Quaife the City’s IT manager stated that we do not have any measures in place to protect the people of Pickering’s sensitive information. That’s another topic in itself, for another day, until then, the bigger question that needs to be asked is, why does the Corporation of the City of Pickering want information on how much gas consumption you as a personal homeowner or business use? As for Council's decision to involve the Ontario Human Rights Commission while a judicial review is in progress demonstrates a blatant disregard for the legal process. During my tenure, I have endured sexual, psychological, and threatening harassment by members of the Council. When I requested that these words be included in the initial letter to the OHRC and that it feature the names of all Council members, they refused. This reveals their character and indicates that they have personal vendettas against me driven by politically motivated actions and that they seem to feel they are above the law. That’s it for this month’s Robinson’s Council Highlights. For more information on any of these topics or anything else you would like to know about, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Happy to chat. God Bless "Strength Does Not Lie In The Absence Of Fear, But In The Courage To Face It Head-On And Rise Above It"