While reading about Premier Ford’s $6 million fundraiser in the Toronto Star the other day, I got to the part where it described the attendees at the $1,500 a-plate dinner when the name of Oakville’s Mayor popped right out, and I dropped the paper. I was horrified and spent the day wondering why. I wondered why he was there, and I wondered why I was horrified.
Besides being Mayor of Oakville, Rob Burton is a Canadian and has as much right as any of us to support the political party or parties of his choice. And it isn’t as if he snuck in the back door. Nobody did. Readers of the Star article might have gotten the impression that the reporter stood at the door and watched the developers, the lobbyists, the mayors and others waltz right in to see, be seen, enjoy some table talk and a political speech. But if you are a fan of transparency, you might be disappointed to know that the door to the dinner was closed to the press.
For a while, I had a problem with this.
Behind a closed door, six million dollars worth of donors, many of them with conspicuous interests in government decision-making, paid big money to hear the Premier of All The People of Ontario share his plans for our future with small risk that the rest of us might find out.
Sometimes I have to stop myself, or I might get cynical.
After all, you want folks who paid more for dinner than the average monthly grocery bill of a Toronto family of four to feel they got their money’s worth. A touch of exclusivity can’t hurt.
For an article she was writing for the Oakville News on the subject of the PC Party fundraiser, Kim Arnott invited Mayor Burton to comment, and he declined.
Honestly, for a while, I thought I might be the only one who found our Mayor’s presence at that dinner troubling. I was relieved to see that article here. Other Oakville residents, voters, and taxpayers apparently find it noteworthy, too.
But experience has taught me that in matters of human behaviour, things are rarely simple, and it is often worthwhile to dig beneath the surface.
Why did Rob Burton pay $1500 to hang out with Doug Ford and his fan club?
Why doesn’t he want to talk about it?
Hypothecating might begin with a review of the Ontario Municipal Act. It tells us that the Ontario government gives our municipalities powers that it can decide to take away. In fact, if our provincial government chose to merge Oakville with Mississauga and Burlington and eliminate the names of the communities in favour of, say, Fordville, our municipal government would be powerless to stop it.
(To be clear, I have no reason to believe anyone but me has ever even dreamt such a thing, but it makes the point: Oakville exists at the pleasure of the Ontario government.)
Ontario municipal mayors and reeves and councillors have good reason to fear the interference of the provincial government in their affairs, our affairs.
Consider the role of LPAT, the Land Planning Appeal Tribunal and its forefather, the Ontario Municipal Board, the infamous OMB. The members of these groups are appointed by the provincial government to consider and perhaps overturn decisions made by our elected councils. Oakville’s resistance to these groups’ advocacy on behalf of developers and such has made legal services an important line item in Oakville’s budgets.
I feel like I should apologize for any difficulty a reader has in trying to follow this, but the reality is a complication in our system of government that makes political accountability difficult for the voter to ascribe.
Here’s an example: Oakville traffic is a bigger problem all the time. Oakville is growing. In fact, it is growing faster than many residents would like. Some municipal politicians have implied or promised that they can prevent this growth, but it’s not true. As a result, a lot of us hold our mayors and councillors responsible for growth because we expect them to do something about it.
This shell game, this obscuring of responsibility and authority, has served politicians well at all levels from Ottawa on down. The growth of Oakville is the growth of Ontario which is Canada’s growth, and 75 per cent of that is immigration based on our federal government’s immigration policy. (Our economy and our morality drives immigration policy, even if we have difficulty deciding how to deal with growth.)
It is politically tempting to take advantage of confusion. Some will remember the era of provincial downloading of some provincial services to municipalities some decade or two ago. The provincial government demanded that municipalities pick up and pass on the costs. Provincial government got political credit for cutting costs that our municipalities had to take the blame for raising taxes to pay for.
Whew!
But what does this have to do with Rob Burton publicly donating $1,500 of his own money to the political benefit of our premier?
Well, think about it.
If Rob Burton, Mayor of Oakville, can use his relationship with Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, to prevent insensitive development from being forced on Oakville, I would not criticize his decision.
In fact, I would be in favour of the town approving the expense.
It would be a small price to pay if Oakville can preserve heritage neighbourhoods and avoid 84-storey buildings on the banks of 16-Mile Creek.
