On October 10th, 2010 I was asked to moderate the 10-10-10 Star mayoral debates. Seeing as how I still have not decided who I want to be mayor I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to find out more about the candidates.

I brought my video camera and have published the video so that others can see what happened that day.

On October 5th and October 7th All Candidate Meetings were held by the Rockcliffe Mews Community Association and the Rothwell Heights Property Owners Association. I really do wish to extend my thanks to these organizations. If it were not for them, I simply would not have had the opportunity to meet and present our ideas to large groups of interested citizens.

When I arrived at the first debate I was surprised to see that mine where the only cameras being set up. I had a video camera on a tripod at the back of the room and used my cell phone to provide this live feed. qik.com can be used for real time video over the internet. The camera in the back didn't pick up the sound of the conversation, thankfully I had a backup plan and you can still listen to the first 40 minutes.

WEB 2.0 is just a slick catchword to describe what the bulletin board system's are doing today. I have been using these kinds of tools for about 20 years now as a side hobby. Cost of this web site? 0$. I already had the domain registered and have been leasing a web server for years. I downloaded the latest and greatest tool, which at the time was Joomla, setup the database and fixed up the template in a weekend. I have just been adding bits of contents every since.    

A lot of people complain about the media for not covering their particular issue. When you understand what the media is and what it is built to do, you realize thats sort of like getting upset with a bird for flying. There is a reason why they are ignoring you and your issues, you just don't understand what it is yet. So what are we to do? Accept that a bird cannot do the work, and figure out ways to do what needs to be done ourselves.

It certainly helps to have the skills and the tools. As your elected representative, you can expect to see all kinds of information on my web site. Now having been in technology for years I know that absolutely nothing compares to meeting in person. So while I have the skills to produce this kind of information myself, by no means will I hide behind a web site. Step #3 of my plan is to open a retail space somewhere in the ward. We will have a public meeting place for citizens to gather and discuss the issues, in person as well as with all these advanced tools. An online messaging forum takes a couple of hours to set up. The ongoing maintenance of validating accounts and moderating discussions is where the real work resides. I can easily set it up and do the account maintenance, moderation is going to be up to you guys. If russian spammers hit it with nasty bestiality porn (Actually happened to a site I helped with. I was horrified when I found that it had been there long enough for search engines to index it and disgusted to see people searching for it and finding it on our servers. I tracked the IP's the people doing it were from Russia.) then we promote people to moderators or disable all accounts from outside our ward.    

When I arrived for the second all candidate meeting I asked if I could move the camera in closer and the sound turned out amazing. Here are the opening statements from the candidates from the meeting on October 7th, 2010  

During the all candidate meeting on October 5th, the topic of H1N1 came up. Michel actually started talking about it. So I told the people what I knew about it. At the end of the meeting Michel and I spoke for a moment, he looked visibly shaken. He had made decisions based on information provided to him from people he trusted and realized that the trust might of been betrayed. 

Is it the best strategic decision to bring up a hot button issue like H1N1 and then tell people they may of sterilized their daughters last year? No. Clearly not. If I was interested in victory at any cost, I wouldn't bring it up. I'm an not interested in electoral victory at any cost. I am seeking this job so that I can represent people and some times that means being the bearer of bad news. Here are the first person accounts of H1N1 vaccine injury here in Canada.   

With my closing statements at the meeting on October 7th, I provided Michel with a printed copy of the flyer and a printed copy of the first person accounts. The camera battery did not last long enough to cover closing statements, but my MP3 recorder did. ;) That's the audio track you hear inserted into the video of the moderator's first question. 

The moderator's first question is on transportation. 

Moderator second question has to do with social programs. Funding for some programs will be picked up by the province which may create a windfall for the city. Would the candidate reserve this windfall for other social programs?

Citizen question number one has to do with law and order. A resident's fence is being repeatedly damaged and this resident is not receiving any defense or support from the city.

Citizen question number two has to do with the interprovincial bridge. 

Citizen question number three is more of an observation of Michel Bellemare's record on the issue of closing local schools.

Citizen question number four seeks to find out how the candidates would use a specific parcel of land.

Citizen question number five seeks to find out how the challengers would communicate with the electorate and asks the question if Michel Bellemare cynically used the office budget to increase communications this year in an attempt to use tax dollars for what could be considered election materials. 

Citizen question number 6 addresses the costs of amateur sports that are dependent upon city assets. 

Citizen question number 7 has to do with representation and seeks a clear statement on which interprovincial bridge option will be supported.

Citizen question number 8 seeks to find out how the perspective councillor would promote issues.

1) Representation

Whenever I have met with my elected representatives it seems that they will listen and then just explain why they are going to do what they want to do. This is incredibly insulting. We are adults, we are freeborn and our consent is required! Why is it then that our political leaders get away with ‘governance’? A fancy word they use to reduce us to children in need of their guidance.

I learned about representation when getting my real estate license. The real estate agent is supposed to ‘represent’ the interests of the person (principal) buying or selling a house. This means that the real decision maker is the principal NOT the agent. All the agents do is shuttle messages between the principals. The agent can provide advice to their principal, but at the end of the day it’s the principal that makes the decisions. Being in multiple representation (i.e. representing the buyer and seller in a transaction) can be more challenging but if you stick to the basics of full disclosure and simply following the lawful guidance of the principals, the job gets done, well.

As an elected representative I need to make the effort to find out how people feel about issues before making decisions. I also need to be prepared to change any position I have taken if clear signals from the electorate indicate I need to do so.

This job is all about representing you, not governing you.

This video does a good job of describing liberty. Once we understand what a free person is, it is much easier to understand the appropriate role of a leader of free people.

2) Taxation

Taxation is a culturally accepted form of armed robbery. Don't believe me about the armed robbery part? Stop paying your property tax and see how long it takes for men with guns to show up. It may take years, but eventually some one is coming to take payment or take the property.

So why do we accept taxation if it's armed robbery? Because it's not armed robbery when consent is acquired. This is Canada and we expect some basic services from our government and for those services we don't mind paying our share.

One problem with taxation right now is that too many decisions are being made with regards to future obligations without public input. When is the last time your city councilor, your MP, or even your MPP called you up to find out how you felt about an issue, before the decision was made? Well if I get in, expect a phone call or a knock at the door, because I want to know how you feel before I make any decisions. Step two of my plan is to hire someone to bring you information and ask your opinion on the issues I am addressing. Consent, it's required. So do it and do it well.

Another problem with taxation right now is we don't have informed consent. How many people actually know all the services that the city of Ottawa offers? How many people are we employing with our tax dollars and what are they doing? We have a say in that matter. The problem is that we don't have sufficient amounts of information publicly documented. How can we acquire consent if citizens cannot find out how their money is being spent? As a city councilor I can really help in this area by being supportive of citizens groups like Open Data Ottawa.   

3) Water Fluoridation

There are sufficient links from this web site to show very serious concerns with Ottawa's fluoridation program (i.e. bone cancer). It's like willingly spending 300,000$ to play russian roulette with 1 in a couple millions odds of death by 20. The water fluoridation program is wrong on so many levels. Let's give everyone back that couple of cents each it costs us to add Hydrofluorosilicic acid to the water. Or use that $300K to save another program that is important. I don't know what to do with the cash savings yet, I have to hear from the people of Ward 11 before I will make a decision on this.

The solution to the water fluoridation program is very simple. We just stop adding it to the water. Fluoride in tooth paste is appropriate. Cavities are caused by bugs that live on your teeth. These bugs eat sugar and secrete acid that burns into the enamel of your teeth. Bathing them in toxic waste will kill them, which will reduce cavities because dead bugs don't poop acid on your teeth. Remember! SPIT the fluoride OUT!@

Sent on behalf of Ann Croll, Chair, Ottawa Child/Youth Housing Advocacy Initiative

Dear Candidate


On behalf of the Ottawa Child/Youth Housing Advocacy Initiative (OCHAI), I am pleased to invite all Ottawa municipal candidates to complete the 2010 Housing as a Child and Youth Health Issue Municipal Candidate Online Survey.


Research clearly demonstrates that housing is a key determinant of child and youth health. Yet, a significant number of children and youth living in Eastern Ontario do not have access to acceptable and stable housing. This impacts their health and well-being. OCHAI is a partnership between the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), community health professionals, housing organizations and child and youth focused groups.  As a group of housing, social service and health professionals, we work in collaboration to improve the housing and health of children, youth and families.


For the 2010 municipal election, we want to make housing and its impact on child and youth health an election issues. We are inviting all candidates to complete our survey. Candidate responses (including no response) will be posted on both our website (www.child-youth-health.net) and CHEO’s (www.cheo.on.ca). In addition, we will compile all responses into a report for presentation to local print, television and radio news media, including the Ottawa Citizen, CTV and CBC.


Our intent is not to endorse any one candidate, but instead we hope to raise awareness and inform the voters of your position and vision of housing for children and youth in our community.


Please complete the survey online by August 25, 2010

 
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (613) 737-7600 ext 3134.

 
Thank-you.

Jama Watt
Coordinator, Partnerships and Advocacy
Child and Youth Health Network for Eastern Ontario
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario
401 Smyth Road
Ottawa, ON K1H 8L1
(613) 737-7600 ext 3134

www.child-youth-health.net

 
http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page249.aspx
http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=4965
http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/housing/index_en.html

If you have followed the links you will see that this is really rather useless in answering the question of who is responsible for social housing. I did a little more checking and found the Social Housing Reform Act which states: 

Designation of service manager
4.  (1)  The Minister shall by regulation designate the municipalities, the district social services administration boards, the area services boards and the other agencies, boards and commissions that are service managers for the purposes of this Act. 2000, c. 27, s. 4 (1). 

Did the Minister designate the City of Ottawa as a "service manager"? Section 11 of the Social Housing Reform Act states;

Service levels, households
11.  (1)  A service manager shall ensure that rent-geared-to-income assistance under Part V is provided in its service area in respect of at least,
(a) the prescribed number of households whose income is no greater than the household income limit prescribed for the service area; and
(b) the prescribed number of high need households. 2000, c. 27, s. 11 (1).

This still does not tell us what the "prescribed number of households" are. If the City of Ottawa is required by provincial legislation to build additional social housing, then there is not much room for discussion here, we have to do it. If we are not required to build additional housing then depending on the will of the electorate we can build additional housing. So at this point I drafted a flyer and distributed over 1200 to people throughout our ward. There was no response, so unless a clear requirement can be shown demonstrating the City of Ottawa's liability or a large number of the citizens in ward 11 express support for additional social housing, I will not be supporting the development of additional social housing facilities. 

Here is the text of the flyer that was distributed:

Thank you,

O’Neil Brooke

There are just so many really important reasons to run for office, where to begin?

Fluoride is one issue that must be fought and won on the municipal level. Must be fought and MUST be won on the municipal level. Fluoride is poison. It is illegal to dump it into a river but if you filter it with human beings, you suddenly can dump it, filtered, into a river. Fluoride reduces IQ, it dumbs us down. It saps our energy with a couch potato syndrome. Fluoride causes cancer in boys, for some reason this symptom of fluoride poisoning does not affect girls. Fluoride reduces our fertility, even the U.S. National Institute of Health recognizes this effect, in owls. $300,000 a year of tax payer money is being spent on poison, which is added to our water. We must stop this! Municipal politics is the only forum where we can fight the battle on fluoride and win, this year. We lose, we will probably be poisoned for another four years.

There are so many more reasons to run. Our current crop of elected officials have forgotten that they work for us. Our consent is required when making decisions! We also expect our elected officials not to get fleeced by the contractors all the time. That's when the politicians are not out there actively helping the contractors and their corporations to fleece the tax payer. 

Take the 300 million water system the city wants to build. As I understand it, during storms and severe weather events our sewer system gets flooded and we discharge untreated waste water into the river. It's not good to discharge untreated waste into the river, we all know that and we want that fixed. 300 million dollars that's how much one of the proposed solutions will cost. But hold on, the discharge only occurs during severe weather and General Provision #6 of Ottawa City By-law 2003-513 states: "Roof drains shall not discharge to a storm sewer, sanitary sewer, partially separated sewer, or combined sewer without permission of the General Manager." For some reason this bylaw is not on the city of Ottawa web site. I had to call and get a copy. Here it is in case you want to read it yourself. ByLaw-2003-513.pdf ByLaw-2003-514.pdf

If I understand this correctly the General Manager is allowing the property owners in the affected areas to discharge storm water in an uncontrolled fashion into the sewer and as a result all of us are going to have to pay for a $300,000,000 engineering wonder of the world.

$300,000,000 at 5% for 25 years means that the city will have to pay $1,744,814.96 a month and by the end we will have paid an extra $223,444,486.53 in interest because of the general manager's decision not to enforce the bylaw. Why hasn't the general manager been fired? Failure to act in the interest of the citizen in negotiations is a breech of trust. City council is the only authority that can hold the city manager to account on this. Would you like me to be on city council so I can tell the city manager to do his job, or face the axe. 

Our bus drivers are being mistreated. Their union has been very good at negotiating pay and benefits and there is no complaint from the bus drivers in this department. The problem is one that has been entirely created by the management team in OC Transpo. For some reason they can't or won't work with the drivers to come up with schedules that are mutually beneficial for the corporation and the majority of drivers. If city council doesn't deliver a very clear message the management team of OC Transpo, we probably will have another strike. Why hasn't anyone on council told the OC transpo management team to fix this scheduling issue or face termination if the bus drivers go on strike again. 

We need councilors that are able to see these sorts of things. We need councilors that have the courage to speak the truth. We need councilors that are going to demand all the contractors working for the city of Ottawa, act in the public's best interest.