From the Mouth of Cripps

'The only positive from great stadium debate'

In this week's episode, Mr. Cripps presents some notions that I'm sure would be received with open arms by- Well, by the sort of people he writes for.

Basically, the thrust of his piece is twofold:

1) "We need a change at City Hall. We need some new blood, some new ideas, a new approach to finding solutions and working through problems."

2) He sees the public outrage and passion expressed at the stadium mess will translate into increased voter participation.

I feel the need to note these additional points:

3) "I expect there will be a significant shift at City Hall after the Oct. 25 election. Some people may only vote based on their opinion about the stadium issue, but at least they'll vote."

4) "I imagine there must be some concern by some politicians at the prospect of campaigning with the stain of a lost Pan Am stadium and a departing CFL franchise on their resume."

5) "Some (school) trustees push their political loyalties onto our children, designing and implementing policy aimed at circumventing parent's (sic) rights."

I'm going to attempt to go through them all, doing my best to explain just why I'm gnashing my teeth.

1) Well, as I've been saying here and elsewhere (mostly at The Hamiltonian), the notion of 'change for change's sake' is- Well at the very least, naïve. And for a Managing Editor to take this tack...

If there's a problem with the effectiveness of Councillors, then the very least that's required is to make a thorough examination of their voting records, their attendance, their interaction with their constituents, all the variables. But to simply get enraged about one issue and then with the resulting hate-on, feel the need to 'toss 'em all out'... Strange behaviour indeed. (And to my mind, worse than the average politician's, the supposed cause of the communal ire.)

When you vote in new politicians, you hope that fresh ideas and fresh ways of seeing issues will more than compensate for the lack of experience in the arena. Sometimes this proves to be the case, sometimes not.

But the other side of this coin is the concept of 'term limits' for the sole sake of ensuring fresh blood. Which doesn't make any sense to me at all, especially where talent is concerned. But I'll get to the crux of the matter here, in a moment or two.

2) Increased voter participation is fine. As long as the voters are informed. Again, more on this shortly.

3) Oh! Absolutely marvellous! It's not an issue that the voters don't have qualified opinions, just that they're voting. OK; so if we had mandatory voting, how would Mr. Cripps then feel about what the voter's role is in the system? Would he feel more inclined to believe that voters would then be obligated to possess a greater awareness of what's going on locally, so they'd be casting a more informed ballot? Otherwise, if we're just happy that people are voting- God, I don't even want to complete the remainder of that sentence.

4) Why? No one politician will be responsible if a) no stadium gets built, and b) the Ti-Cats leave. And besides; there's no crime in the former happening. If we can't find the right way to do it, then we can't find the right way to do it. Only the immature and the stoopid see this as a 'Must Do' situation. As for the latter, Mr. Young's situation... Well, as much as I don't believe any of this was handled particularly well, more than anything else, it illustrates how awry things can go when the public good is paired with private need. Despite seeming to run parallel.

5) Sorry, I can't even mount the effort required to address this one. "...designing and implementing policy aimed at circumventing parent's (sic) rights." Funny; this line all by itself shot Mr. Cripps' credibility to Hell for me. I had to go back and re-read the rest of the article, just to prove to myself that he'd at least been rational in being out-to-lunch elsewhere.

In summary, Mr. Cripps sees increased voter turnout as the only positive from 'the great stadium debate', that as long as more people vote, that in itself will be a 'positive'. If they make questionable choices, no matter. What does matter is greater turnout. More is better, after all.

Maybe Mr. Cripps should consider running for Council. He seems be what so many dissatisfied voters are clamouring for. And you know what they say; 'We get the government we deserve.'