Saturday morning (6/2) I attended an event to honour the 2012 Moraine Heroes. Five (5) individuals or groups were nominated by peers for their contributions to making the Oak Ridges Moraine a better place. King Township personalities figured prominently this year. Jane Underhill, former Ward 5 Councillor, was nominated in the Municipal Leadership category.
The introduction for Debbe Crandall who was nominated for a Lifetime Achievement award included an anecdote about the 1st meeting of citizens in 1991 and how Debbe Crandall got involved. Two King residents, Dorothy Izzard and Margaret Coburn went to her home and asked her to join.
You can read more about the winners here.
There are a couple points made by the award recipients which particularly resonated with me.
Jane Underhill’s closing point was that to protect the ORM it is very important to make a change in the municipal campaign funding legislation whereby corporate and union donations are not allowed. Given that the next municipal election is 2014 and the review of the ORMCP is 2015, Jane is right: it would be a significant intervention. Interestingly, City of Toronto has made this change already.
Fred Johnson, who also received a Lifetime Achievement award, related a significant life lesson he had earlier in his career: a very important stakeholder for a Planner is the citizens and the community living in the landscape as they are surely the ones who know it.
Debbe Crandall talked about the power of a “collective.”
We are all so fortunate to have these heroes..let’s all be inspired!
Individual campaign donations are really nickels and dimes in comparison to the millions that developers pour into local hospitals and civic projects. Those millions of dollars of developer support are evident by their names emblazoned on buildings, wings of hospitals, libraries, leisure complexes and more. Doesn’t this put municipalities in the tenuous position of some sort of reciprocal ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’? With colossal amounts of developer dollars helping municipalities build infrastructure, it is small wonder they feel a sense of entitlement.
Gloria Marsh, York Region Environmental Alliance
So glad you commented Gloria. You have made excellent points and in my humble opinion it cannot be denied as an issue or a risk. Developers, citizens, elected officials…we are all in there with needs and with varying abilities to contribute. I think what is important is that the donations are upfront and transparent. The elected officials need to have the integrity to not make decisions solely based on a “scratch which felt good” to use your metaphor. And I guess we count on the citizens to keep a wise eye on the decision making.
As for the campaign donation question. i) if indeed all candidates refused such from corporations or unions (either voluntarily or by legislative reqt.) it would be a level playing field for the candidates. The problem is when one candidate’s ethics say “no” but the competition doesn’t; and therefore the former has to spend more time/effort getting equal $$ for the campaign. ii) From my limited experience (one campaign only so far and <2 years in office) I can appreciate that it is easier to stay objective when there has been no financial support.