WHEN MUNICIPALITIES PRACTICE CENSORSHIP

when municipalities practice censorship By Joe Ingino Editor/Publisher ACCOMPLISHED WRITER/AUTHOR OF OVER 800,000 Published Columns in Canada and The United States “I live a dream in a nightmare world” Always Remember That The cosmic blueprint of your life was written in code across the sky at the moment you were born. Decode Your Life By Living It Without Regret or Sorrow. - ONE DAY AT A TIME - I always joke. When something does not seem right. Press, the ‘DON’T DRINK THE WATER’, button as it is the only explanation why one municipality after the other keeps falling for this out of control wave of disrespect towards taxpayers. Politicians across Durham like to fill their mouths with words like, inclusion, equality, fairness, openness. With catch phrases like “Supporting our local economies, our local businesses.” What they do not tell you is that if they can’t get a photo opt out of it or they benefit directly some way. You are black balled. I remember the days, when Oshawa was going from a public place to an institution. Members of the public would make presentations, become emotional over the lack of support from those elected and lash out. The most notorious was the Bill Steeles incident. A local activist that was set up by the City of Oshawa. During a particular municipal session. The City had called in for undercover to sit in chamber. During the meeting. Steeles was ruled out of order. Subsequently he was assaulted by a security guard as it appeared on a Rogers broadcast. This assault was resisted only to have the three undercover, jump him and remove the citizen by force. Since then, City of Oshawa chambers has become a fortress. 2 million tax payer dollars to protect staff and council members. Did you know that the Mayor of Oshawa has a body guard? 2 million of your tax dollars due to the incompetency of those elected on how to deal with the public and hostility. This past week. I witnessed Pickering becoming Oshawa. During the recent Pickering town meeting. Councillor Robinson vs Mayor Kevin Ashe standing feud, hit a fever pitch. Where is the integrity commissioner that is supposed to monitor and control such behavior coming from the Mayor. The Mayor during the meeting was asked by a delegate to apologize to a female councillor for telling her that if she did not behave he would put her on a short leash. When questioned why he would treat his fellow council woman with such respect and indirectly calling her a bitch. The mayor lost it and became silenced and would not apologize. In turn he tried to justify his statement ‘as that not what it means...’ Since the closing of Metroland. The politically motivated controlled through contract favored media company. The City refuses to do business with The Central unless we meet a particular criteria that was not mandated from The STAR. This type of unfair business practice does not serve anyone and contradict the ‘support your local businesses.’ The city has no way to get the word out to tax payers. One would have thought to support the only in print newspaper. No, instead they set up road block, while the City tax payers suffer in the shadows. All municipalities across the region have taken the path of forcing citizens to go online to get information, including important notices that they by law should be publishing in this paper. No instead municipalities have opted for posting notices online and deeming them published. This way they can control and monitor what they put out and that is censorship. This is wrong in so many ways but also a easy way for municipalities to contravene the Ontario Municipal Boards root purpose. This being that municipalities should be maintained at arms length in order to avoid censorship and or cohesion Clearly all municipalities fail to recognize the difference between what is deemed a post and what is deem publishing. By definition: Publish means to issue something for sale or distribution, while post, in this context as a verb, means to make public something-or-other. Provincial laws and regulations require municipalities to purchase public notices in newspapers, which are defined in the Legislation Act as a publication “printed in sheet form, published at regular intervals of a week or less and circulated to the general public.” Criteria that the award winning The Central has met for over 29 years. So why the exclusion in a region that prides itself on being inclusiveness, fairness, and openness to all business. Are their actions not hypocritical? The problem with modern day councils is that those we elect to office do not have the life experience and or the intellect to make the decisions they are faced with. What do they do. They turn to staff. Staff main objective is to keep their high paying jobs. They are given a task they do it to the best of their abilities. In turn. Councils take their recommendation as gospel and make decision that in many cases end up costing the tax payer dearly. This in part is why taxes keep going up. It is not about cost. It is about bad decision and wasteful spending. Staff does not care as they are doing their job. Council does not care as if something is a failure...they acted on staff recommendation. This leaving out the, “LEADERSHIP”, out of the equation. Council members that have sat for years, know best. Make no trouble and you be elected on name recognition time and time again. This is not the people’s representation. This is a dangerous game of collusion at best. You don’t play by their rules. You are black balled. They become untouchable and protected by law they make as they go along.