Details

Tom Vegh cannot defend his voting record on environmental and land use policy. So he invents a new one to hoodwink the voters.

In his on-line campaign ad Vegh says:  

"I will continue to support the protection of agricultural and environmentally-sensitive lands."

That statement is untrue.

And Vegh knows it is untrue.

One year ago, almost to the day, I posted a blog:

Protecting the Greenbelt: Taylor's way or Vegh's?

In view of Tom Vegh's unwillingness to tell the truth about his voting record I am re-posting it. 

Gordon Prentice 22 October 2022

Protecting the Greenbelt: Taylor's Way or Vegh's? (Originally published 25 October 2021)

This Thursday (28 October 2021) York Regional Council will be asked to ratify a decision taken in Committee on 14 October 2021 that redesignates 1,400 acres of “protected countryside” in Markham and Vaughan to allow uses that would otherwise be prohibited in the Greenbelt.  (The "fingers" to be opened for development are shown in red on the map below.)

The developers’ proposal was backed by elected members in a 15-5 vote with Newmarket’s Mayor and Regional Councillor on opposite sides of the argument.

The Town’s Mayor, John Taylor, condemns the proposal – privately initiated by developers - which he claims would set a damaging precedent. 

But Newmarket’s Regional Councillor Tom Vegh takes a different tack, voting in favour of the developers’ proposal but for reasons he keeps to himself. Vegh says nothing throughout the one-and-a-half-hour-long debate.

Residential, commercial and industrial uses

York Region planning staff tells elected members the application to amend the York Region Official Plan 2010 would change the land use designation from Agricultural to Rural which:

“would allow for additional non-agricultural uses such as rural residential, commercial, or industrial uses rather than limiting the uses to complementary open spaces uses that meet the intent of the Provincial Greenbelt Plan, the 2010 York Region Official Plan and local Official Plans.” 

The staff says approval

“would have implications on the other Greenbelt lands currently recommended through the Region’s Municipal Comprehensive Review for redesignation from Agricultural Area, and potentially similar Greenbelt lands beyond York Region.” 

Follow the money

Taylor weighs in against the developers’ plans claiming they are in it for the money:

“If there (were) no financial gain or if all the financial gain related to the land that could be developed for housing could be put into a Community Trust then this amendment wouldn’t be being pursued.”

Taylor says the issue is best left to the Municipal Comprehensive Review which is due to report in six months, in April 2022.

Newmarket Today’s coverage is here.  

Vegh should explain

This Thursday (28 October) the Regional Council will be asked to endorse the Committee’s decision and instruct staff to prepare a bylaw giving effect to the developers’ proposal which had been received the day before.

Tom Vegh should tell us why he took the developers’ position – against the advice of his colleague, John Taylor, and the combined planning staffs of Markham, Vaughan and York Region and a host of other independent and impartial bodies.

We don’t pay Regional Councillors (or MPs and MPPs for that matter) to sit there and suck their thumbs and say nothing. Expressing an opinion on controversial issues is part of the job description. (Tony Van Bynen please take note)

1 November 2021

But if Vegh remains silent on 28 October we can look forward to the upcoming Newmarket Council meeting on 1 November 2021 when councillors will get an update on developments at York Regional Council, either from Taylor or Vegh.

I suppose the Mayor could pull rank and give the report back. 

Personally, I’d prefer to hear from Tom Vegh.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The lawyer acting for the developers is Ira Kagan who acted for Marianneville in Glenway.

The Greenbelt is always under threat. Eternal vigilance is needed to protect it.

Update on 28 October 2021: Letter from the Greenbelt Foundation dated 27 October 2021, put before York Regional Council on 28 October 2021.

And one from the York Federation of Agriculture.

 

 

Details

This afternoon I am out and about with my little band of volunteers.  

There are four of us.

We are in Alexander Road and the streets off it.

It is a beautiful day. Blue sky and warm.

Polished to Perfection

My stump speech is now polished to perfection. I now need only a few seconds to launch into it.

Behind the first door I knock on is an elderly man with a Scottish accent. I think to myself, no problem.

Before I can properly introduce myself he growls that York Region employs too many people and slams the door in my face. I am left bemused: What about the Police? What about our water supply? What about… 

He is gone.

Three men in a garage

Now I am talking to three men in a garage. They get me talking about Liz Truss. And Brexit. And what’s happening in Britain. I tell them I could talk for an hour on these issues but we are getting off-point. They say I can put a lawn sign up.

Now I am talking to a woman about health and social care. She works in that field. I tell her that health care and social assistance is one of the biggest employers in Newmarket. I want it to stay that way.

I mention Southlake and (in my view) the crazy idea of splitting Southlake into two. Ambulatory care at the Davis Drive site and acute care on a new site outside Newmarket, possibly up to 10km away. 

We are being told a split site solution is the way forward when, in reality, it will give rise to as many problems as it will resolve.

Months ago, I asked Southlake to see the minutes of the meetings that brought forward this recommendation. I was told my Freedom of Information request would cost me hundreds of dollars and I was given no timeline on when I would get the answers.

Kindred spirits

Now I am invited in to a house where two women quiz me on my environmental credentials.

The living room has a wonderful array of huge leafy plants.

I tell them we are kindred spirits.

And we talk about all sorts of things. How do we save the planet?

I am in no rush.

Gordon Prentice 21 October 2022

Note: The 2019 employment survey from York Region is the latest one available.

Details

For the local press the big question is what I am doing on election night. Have you planned anything with your supporters? 

I am being pressed to give an answer. As if that’s the biggest issue.

What’s happening? Where are you going to be?

Why?

Personally, I’d rather the local press ask Tom Vegh why he didn’t deliver on specific promises made to the voters in 2018. I’d like them to ask Vegh why, in his election flyers, he invents membership of task forces that don’t exist.

Why does he make false claims for keeping tax rises low? Why does he take money from people in the development industry? Why does he vote to open up 12 square miles of open countryside for development? Why does he vote against his own Mayor, John Taylor, instead of supporting him?

Why does he dissemble when the facts that contradict him are readily available?

Why wouldn’t he debate with me?

Disqualification

And why don’t they ask him how he felt about facing disqualification after the 2018 election for spending over the statutory limit on self-funding? How did he feel about being bailed out by people in the development industry?

Why didn’t he speak in the debate on John Taylor’s motion at York Regional Council to give a capital grant of $1M to save the Inn From the Cold from itself becoming homeless?

Why are our local press and media so incurious? Why don’t they just ask him?

Why does Tom Vegh lie? Serially.

No. 

They just want to ask what I am doing on election night.

Gordon Prentice 21 October 2022

Cartoon from the Comic Shop, Main Street South, 2018

Details

Yesterday I stumbled upon a YouTube video from the UK Parliament marking 20 years of televised proceedings of the House of Commons. 

I had quite forgotten that I played a minor supporting role in Tony Blair’s first Prime Minister’s Questions on 21 May 1997.

I look a lot younger than I do today and the question I put to Blair was, on reflection and with the benefit of hindsight, delivered with too much intensity.

I point an accusing finger at the benches opposite. 

"Does my right hon. Friend appreciate the indignation and outrage felt among bus passengers in north-east Lancashire, who have been left high and dry by Stagecoach? Even as I speak, bus fares are going up, services are being cut, drivers are leaving in droves and the situation is in crisis. Is not such a situation, where private monopolies have driven out public interest, a shaming indictment of the previous Government's policies?"

I still have the tie.

Use the red bar at the bottom of the screen to scroll to 26 minutes 25 seconds in.

Gordon Prentice 21 October 2022.

 

Details

I have been blogging about sewage for years.  

It’s an important topic but, understandably, few of us want to talk about it.

Last year, with a Provincial election around the corner, the Ford Government paused York Region’s plans for a new wastewater treatment facility in East Gwillimbury. The Environment Minister, David Piccini, told the Legislative Assembly the Region’s plans were stale. He wanted a team of experts to look at the issue afresh and come up with recommendations. (Graphic: the project as described by York Region)

On 7 October 2021, he told MPPs:

“The proposal provided by York region in 2014 calls for a new waste-water treatment facility to be built in the town of East Gwillimbury. It would treat about 40 million litres of sewage per day. York region refers to this facility as a water reclamation centre and its process would involve four levels of treatment for waste-water, including microfiltration and reverse-osmosis waste-water treatment technology. This is leading-edge technology and its use in the Upper York Sewage Solutions project would be a first for Canada. The project also involves off-setting programs for phosphorus to reduce phosphorus through a variety of stormwater measures, such as retrofitting existing stormwater management ponds through the Lake Simcoe watershed.”

“If passed, this bill will lay the framework, and this government will establish an expert advisory panel to dig into the options and their associated bodies of water and advise on the best possible solutions. I look forward to the expertise they will bring in a variety of areas, including land use planning and waste water infrastructure.”

So, we wait to see what they come up with. 

The treated wastewater either goes up to Lake Simcoe or down to Lake Ontario. It could also be used for irrigation.

Gotta go

But its gotta go somewhere.

As it happens, at an event a few weeks ago I found myself at the same lunch table as my new MPP, Dawn Gallagher-Murphy.

I delicately ask her what her views are on the North York Sewage Solutions project.

She says she will follow the recommendations of the “expert panel”.

I tell her:

“No! No! No! You cannot sub-contract your judgement to a so-called panel of experts when you haven’t read their report or their recommendations.”

Surely, being an MPP means more than organising Corn Roasts and BBQs and cheering from the sidelines.

She should have a view on this critically important policy issue. Even if it is only provisional.

A blank stare is not really good enough.

Gordon Prentice 20 October 2022

 

 

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