HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-07-04, Page 5Other Views
Childcare, taxes and other issues
Life’s not free for U.S.’s first family Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
During a recent North Huron Council
meeting, Deputy-Reeve Trevor Seip
said that those 65 years old shouldn’t
be supporting child care services in the
municipality any more than they already are.
The statement came during a discussion
about expanding the staffing of the successful
North Huron child care services, during which
he pushed cost neutral changes to the program,
meaning that the increases in costs from
having more full-time (and better qualified)
staffing would fall to parents using the
services.
Before I start pointing fingers, I’d like to be
clear that I am a parent and I have my daughter
Mary Jane in childcare outside of North Huron
(because North Huron child care services is a
bit of a misnomer, it’s really Wingham child
care services, which is the opposite direction
my wife travels for work).
Normally, in this space, one might expect
me to side with Seip: saying that a service or
infrastructure that is not absolutely mandated
by the township shouldn’t be funded through
taxes. Child care, however, while not
mandated, is an essential service as far as I’m
concerned.
Let me be clear here: I’ve felt this way since
before Mary Jane was even a twinkle in my
eye. I’ve felt this way since I first bought a
home in Blyth, the second-highest taxed area
in Huron County, by the way, nearly nine years
ago.
Why is child care, and especially affordable
child care, an essential service? Because it’s
how you attract and retain families.
Having affordable, reliable child care is
pretty much essential if you want young
families to come to an area and, if you’re a
loyal reader of my column, you know that, in
the past, I’ve called young families a panacea
for all the ills facing a cash-strapped township.
Young families move into an area and shop
locally because they don’t want to cart their
kids across the county. They funnel money
into community centres and local sports,
require homes of appropriate sizes for families
(meaning more real estate value and higher
property values, leading to the collection of
more taxes) and keep local schools open.
I’d go so far as to say that, before
entertaining increased costs for people who
use the North Huron Child Care system, it
makes more sense to dedicate half the
economic development budget for the
municipality to child care. Having
inexpensive, quality child care is going to
bring at least as much development to the area,
in terms of families, as any move by the
committee will.
Affordable, quality childcare doesn’t just
encourage people to move to the municipality,
it also encourages people from outside the
municipality who use the services to shop in
North Huron.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve
stopped at a grocery store in Clinton on my
way to pick up my daughter because I’d
forgotten to pick something up before leaving
Blyth and wanted to shop before I picked
Mary Jane up. Other non-North Huron parents
will (hopefully) do the same in Wingham.
I keep hearing that council members, both at
the municipal level and at the county level,
want to make their communities more
appealing to young families, but with each and
every move they seem to be actively
attempting to drive families away, especially
in North Huron. We live in a municipality
where, instead of committing to lower taxes
across the board, we have council members
saying families should pay more to live and
utilize North Huron services, but we may all
be on the hook for a multi-million dollar dam
restoration that was fought for by those same
retirees Seip wants to spare.
That right there is “bass ackwards” as the
great minds behind Letterkenny would say.
So back to the idea that those without
children shouldn’t pay into the childcare
system: that’s as silly as suggesting that those
without children shouldn’t have to pay taxes
into the school system.
The entire community benefits from both.
Well-funded education and child
programming lead to healthier communities,
so everyone should pay into it: new families,
established families, bachelors, bachelorettes
and retirees. Even families like mine who, due
to where my wife and I work, have to pay for
childcare services outside of North Huron,
should still be expected to pay for it through
our taxes.
(And this is all ignoring the fact that some of
these retirees, or their children, may have
benefitted or been employed by these
services.)
Why should we all pay into it? If Mary Jane
decides she wants to live in North Huron
somewhere down the line, I want it to be the
best place possible. That means focusing on
the right expenditures, now like childcare
which will attract families and tax dollars and
business, not multi-million dollar pipedreams
like people water-skiing in a pond in
Wingham.
As the great Red Green often says, “We’re
all in this together,” so why pretend we’re not?
Everyone should foot the bill for services that
benefit us all.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 4 2019. PAGE 5.
Friends like these...
I’ve probably been pretty hard on Ontario
Premier Doug Ford lately. Sure, there are
the rock bottom poll numbers, his below-
Kathleen-Wynne-level popularity and just
about every media outlet deeming his first year
in office as an unmitigated disaster, but you
have to say the guy seems like a good friend.
I have to admit, frankly, that I wish I were
friends with the Premier. Not only does it seem
like he can throw one hell of a barbecue, but
he’s a guy who really takes care of his friends
and takes the job-creation bull by the horns.
You could easily run out of fingers and toes
counting the number of cars Ford has added to
the gravy train for friends, allies and PC Party
failures, all while cutting front-line employees
from numerous public service sectors.
Ford has made stopping the gravy train one
of his mantras, assuring Ontarians that his
government is “for the people” and not the
insiders. This level of nepotism would be
shocking for any politician, but when it’s
someone who has declared war on the gravy
train, it looks like The Emperor’s New Clothes.
First, there was Ron Taverner. Ford tried to
force his family friend into the position of OPP
Commissioner with the precision and nuance
of, well, a Ford. He had to bend the branch so
Taverner could even reach the fruit, lowering
the qualifications for the position so his buddy
could be appointed. This came after –
according to reporting by the Toronto Star –
Taverner was offering a job running the
Ontario Cannabis Store for six figures and
considered for a deputy-minister position
despite, again, being unqualified.
And now, it seems, Ford’s team is full of
friends, family and PC loyalists, all making
big (taxpayer) money in simple positions – all
because they’re friends with Ford.
With the resignation of Ford’s chief of staff
Dean French, Katherine Pal, an appointee to
the Public Accountants Council, also left. She
was French’s niece. Speaking of the Public
Accountants Council, Ford also appointed his
family’s lawyer Gavin Tighe to the council.
There are others. A past party president has
been handed a three-year healthcare advisor
term, while one of Ford’s campaign advisors
has been appointed as a trade representative to
the United States for $350,000 per year.
And if you’re a failed PC candidate, let me
tell you, the world is your oyster. That’s how
Cameron Montgomery landed in a $140,000-
per-year education position. (If I ever have to
look for a job, I’m putting “failed PC
candidate” on my résumé.)
Ford resurrected four appointments to keep
everyone happy, paying between $165,000 and
$185,000 per year, so people could look after
Ontario’s business interests in locations like
New York City and London. Two of those
positions were vacated when direct links to
French were reported. The other two jobs went
to Ford’s brother Rob’s former chief of staff
and another past party president.
Good news! You don’t have to be a failed PC
candidate to get this treatment – current MPPs
are getting it too (though you could make the
case that they’re failing in real time). Ford
handed 31 MPPs parliamentary assistant
postings, adding $16,600 each, per year, to
their six-figure salaries. (That’s over $500,000
more per year; $2 million over the next four.)
Ford’s got a big wallet and if he likes you,
dinner’s on him. But he’s paying with our
money and our lives are being governed by
Ford’s friends and family and other failures.
So... Doug, if you read this – I can fail at
stuff too. I can be a good friend and I have lots
of room for improvement in my bank account.
As I read Becoming, the best-selling
memoir of Michelle Obama, former
U.S. first lady, I couldn’t help thinking
living in the White House doesn’t sound like a
lot of fun. The term, “bird in a gilded cage”
came to mind.
Not that there aren’t perks that come along
with living in a 132-room mansion with its
own bowling alley and swimming pool and
36 bathrooms, none of which she had to
clean. The master suite she shared with Barack
was larger than the entire apartment she’d
grown up in with her parents and brother on the
second floor of her aunt’s Chicago house.
Perhaps best of all, Barack went to work on
another floor of the same building instead of
being away all week as he had been when he
served in the U.S. Senate or the legislature of
Illinois.
But the simple freedoms you and I take for
granted are not available to the “leader of the
Free World”. In a country in which four
presidents have been assassinated and others
wounded in similar attempts, keeping the
president safe has become an obsession.
How much their lives had changed became
instantly evident to the Obamas when the
President-elect’s plane arrived in Washington
following his election victory in November,
2008. Pulling up to the aircraft was the
President’s motorcade of at least 20 vehicles
including a number of police cars and
motorcycles, a number of black SUVs, two
armoured limousines with American flags
fluttering on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation
truck, a counter-assault team riding with
visible machine guns, an ambulance, a signals
truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles,
seven passenger vans and then a following
group of police vehicles.
When their daughters Malia and Sasha were
to attend their first day in their new Washington
school, Barack realized that it would create too
much commotion with his huge motorcade if
he was to drop the girls off. Instead Michelle
and her mother accompanied the girls in a
black SUV with bulletproof glass.
The simplest things required planning. If
one of the girls was going to attend a friend’s
birthday party, the Secret Service must first do
a security sweep of the home where the party
would be held.
Once Malia was invited on one of those
spur-of-the-moment outings with friends to get
ice cream. For safety reasons she wasn’t
allowed to ride in another parent’s car but the
head of her security detail had taken the day off
so Malia had to wait for an hour until he
arrived from his suburban home.
Within the White House they were
protected by bullet-proof glass in the windows
which also deadened sound from outdoors (one
gunman did shoot at a residence window
during their term). Going outside, however,
was problematic. If anyone from the family
wanted to step outside on the Truman Balcony,
overlooking the South Lawn, they’d first have
to alert the Secret Service who would have to
shutdown the nearby street and move the
crowds of tourists who regularly gathered
there.
My favourite example of the cost of this
security to the ability of the first couple to
enjoy the freedoms you and I take for granted
is the tale of their one and only “date”. Back in
Chicago they’d developed a custom of going
out for dinner when Barack was home from
Washington or the state capital of Springfield.
In the spring of 2009 they decided to have a
date including dinner and a play in New York.
The Marine One helicopter picked them up
on the South Lawn and flew them to Andrews
Air Force Base where they boarded a small Air
Force plane (at least not the massive Air Force
One) to fly to New York. Another helicopter
took them into the city. Police cars blocked all
cross streets along their route as their
motorcade took them to the restaurant,
disrupting the schedules of thousands of
people.
At the restaurant, any customers who
arrived after they did had to submit to a sweep
with a magnetometer wand to make sure they
didn’t have hidden weapons. At the theatre, the
whole block out front had been closed hours
earlier by police. By the time the entire
audience had passed through metal detectors
and settled into their seats, the show started 45
minutes late. Though they enjoyed both the
dinner and play, by the time they’d arrived
home the Republicans had already issued a
release saying it had all been extravagant and
costly to taxpayers.
Knowing that it had required hours of
advance meetings between security teams and
local police made their date seem selfish and
heavy, Michelle writes. “It involved extra work
for our staffers, for the theatre, for the waiters
at the restaurant, for the people whose cars had
been diverted off Sixth Avenue, for the police
on the street. . . There were too many people
involved, too many affected, for anything to
feel light.”
Keith
Roulston
From the
cluttered desk