I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, they’re completely arbitrary. If you want to change something about yourself and it’s Dec. 15, why do you have to wait until Jan. 1 to initiate said change? Why not start right now?
That’s why New Year’s resolutions fail. You figure that it’s Jan. 1, you need to decide what aspect of your life desperately requires a change big enough to plant the flag in the ground, and you declare it. If you were serious about the change in the first place, you would just do it, but you’re not so what’s the point of still doing it after a couple of weeks?
That’s why I’m presenting the following not as New Year’s resolutions, but as New Year’s suggestions. Follow them or don’t follow them. If you think a suggestion is worthwhile, or if it’s important, then you will make the change, but if you don’t, you won’t.
Shall we begin?
To you, the reader, I suggest volunteering. Perhaps you’re already a volunteer, but if you’re not there’s no shortage of need in the community among a whole variety of groups from humanitarian causes to local sports organizations and the arts. Volunteering is an expression of desire to make the community a better place, and most of the time the only thing you need to bring is your enthusiasm.
To city council, new and old members, learn how to take a punch. The fists are coming for you anyway, whether you’re responsible for the thing that people are angry about or not, and ‘councilsplaining’ why a delegate’s wrong doesn’t win you the points you think it does. Passionate people can be like a volcano, sometimes you have to get out of the way as it erupts and then take advantage of the calm afterwards.
To all future delegates at planning meetings, I suggest you get used to the idea that your neighbourhood’s going to change. Thanks to Bill 23 (and others) the deck’s been stacked against you, so being blatantly adversarial is going to get you no where fast. Ask yourself, what can I live with in this neighbourhood? Where’s the red line? Also, what is it that our area needs that we can leverage?
To our local developers, I ask you to play fair. That deck stacked against the people has been stacked in your favour, so be magnanimous in victory. Make neighbourhoods your friends, not obstacles. And be transparent. Don’t’ say “affordable housing” when you mean 10 per cent off the market-driven unaffordable price, and don’t say “walkable” when you just want to skimp on the parking.
And speaking of parking, to everyone that’s about to raise the red flag when the comprehensive bylaw review comes back, get over it. We’ve created a car dependent society and it’s killing us. Finding places to put our blessed and sacred automobiles is a waste of precious space as we turn potential greenfields and spaces into asphalt covered platforms that absorb heat in the summer and are a pain-in-the-butt to maintain in the winter.
One more word about parking, and this is directed to the people and businesses based downtown, you have to decide if you’re about parking, or about walkability. Does it make sense to say, “Hey, drive downtown, park your car, and walk around!”? In a town where transit travels from all corners of the city to the core once every half-hour, why isn’t that being promoted on the DGBA's web-presence?
Back to city hall though, and for the clerks office I’ve got to point out that there’s some work to do when it comes to compiling a real record of the discussion and activities with local boards and committees. I’m a little vexed by the fact that most of these meetings are still taking place as a hybrid, but no one bothers to hit the record button and then post the meeting to YouTube or the like.
And while the use of digital maps to file complaints or tracking the local snowstorm response with an app is an impressive use of the technology to make city services more accessible, I worry that given the current political climate, we will focus more on customer service concerns than broader democratic ones.
There’s no doubt that the provincial government is taking us for a proverbial bath with Bill 23, Strong Mayor powers, even Stronger Mayor powers, and whatever’s coming next, but we are not powerless. I would like to encourage us all to meet Queen’s Park Draconian simplicity with the creativity and innovation I know we’re capable of.
Premier Doug Ford and his ministers have divorced themselves from the idea that they have to work collaboratively with others, and their responses to various crises show either a startling lack of imagination, or a startling inability to care. How many former municipal politicians sit in the government benches, and how many of them would fine if, during their council days, the Ontario government imposed their will on them like this one does?
I guess we’ve hit the “do unto others” portion of this fortune cookie, which is good advice any time of year, but I prefer something less Biblical.
“The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high — to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.” John Kennedy said those words at the Democratic National Convention in 1960, but they’re still good for today.
Kennedy was talking about a “New Frontier”, and if there’s ever an appropriate time to be talking about a “New Frontier” it’s 2023, now nearly one-quarter of the way through the 21st century. Every new year is a new frontier, a chance to leave old things behind and try new things. A resolution is a promise, and it’s always a good time to promise to do better in the future.
