LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

Oily Politics in the City of Hamilton

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted July 7, 2008)

There is an organization in the city called CATCH, which stands for Citizens at City Hall, or as one pundit labeled them during my tenure: Citizens Against City Hall. They are a bit of a paper tiger now for two reasons: one is that they have a Mayor in place who listens to them, feeling that his narrow election victory was due to their considerable efforts to unseat me. He is wrong on this, but Fred firmly believes it. The second reason is that they hold sway over a number of Councillors who champion their anti-business agenda with the bright Councillor Brian McHattie leading the charge.

During my tenure, Councillor McHattie was content to allow the retired councillor from Flamborough, David Braden, to lead the anti business charge. It was a futile effort, however, because I knew that Braden was never going to command the respect of his colleagues since they barely listened to his rants. I also suspected that CATCH was making the snowballs and Braden was throwing them. His aim was never very good though and that must have frustrated the CATCH masters!

In fact, Braden was like Cassandra of Greek mythology. You might remember that Cassandra was given the power to foretell the future by the God Apollo who just wanted to seduce her. Later, Apollo turned on Cassandra and caused her prophecies to be interpreted as lies by those who heard them. No matter how accurate Cassandra’s words, people just didn’t believe them. David Braden and CATCH had a Cassandra/Apollo relationship. No one took poor David seriously even when he predicted the rise of oil prices and the doom and gloom about ‘peak oil’. No one took David very seriously, I am afraid.

Now CATCH has a new champion in the starring role, the likeable, smart and philosophically compliant Brian McHattie. I have seen Councillor McHattie mature in style over the last term and this one. He has also gained in reputation and has let his influence be felt, for better or for worse, on a number of fronts: the Lister Block, where he fifth-columned the Council process by appealing directly to a misguided Provincial Minister of Culture (she is no longer there, having messed up in Sarnia during the election) and the pesticide issue, where he reportedly got rid of all citizen input into the committee process to get what he wanted. He was also one of the Councillors who killed the Maple Leaf Foods deal as a sop to CATCH-like supporters, despite his comments to me that the jobs created by Maple Leaf Foods would be good for Hamilton’s poor. He also favoured not suing the Federal government over its role in the Red Hill Parkway delay, having friends and associates in the Federal agencies who might be ‘outed’ as part of the process. Cynics might conclude that Brian is putting personal friendships ahead of Hamilton’s interests on this issue. I honestly believe that Brian thinks he is doing the right thing.

Recently, Councillor McHattie tried very hard to derail the Airport Employment Lands’ process a few weeks ago. I know that he was meeting with members of Hamiltonians for Progressive Development, which also has close ties to CATCH, as Council was about to deal with the issue at their Committee of the Whole meeting. If I were a fly on the wall in the Councillor’s office, I’d bet they were strategizing their arguments and approaches.

I also would not be surprised that the Councillor tried to influence local government MPP’s and perhaps Ministers into CATCH’s way of thinking. He was probably rebuffed at the political level. I do find it curious that at the bureaucratic level, a Mr. Victor Doyle, at the last minute, sent a letter of concern to Council without giving staff a chance to first vet the letter so that staff could inform Councillors of the importance or lack thereof contained in the concerns. By the way, recently staff have dismissed Doyle’s strategy as having been tried (and failed) elsewhere in Ontario. I have no way of knowing whether there was ‘co-operation’ between the Councillor’s office and the provincial bureaucracy, but that formula was tried and proved successful in the Lister deal. It makes one think!

Now Councillor McHattie, who, along with CATCH and Hamiltonians for Progressive Development, lost the vote on Airport lands badly, is asking staff to produce a report on ‘peak oil’ to see if any dire warnings related to the cost of oil, and the availability of oil might yet be used to derail the Airport Employment Lands’ next phase. It seems that the opponents of this concept will not stop trying to defeat it in any way they can. The unfortunate part, as I said in an earlier piece, is that Hamilton’s financial sustainability is dependent on the airport land’s process moving forward.

Council was not fooled by Councillor McHattie’s stalling tactics. Councillor Lloyd Ferguson and Councillor Brad Clark insisted that any ‘peak oil’ report consider implications in the entire city, and that Airport Lands Employment processes move ahead concurrently with the production of the study on ‘peak oil’.

It is ‘oily politics’ to use one report (on Peak Oil) to stall Council’s will on another initiative (the Airport Employment Lands). I know all about these tactics. I was once accused by David Braden of holding up the ‘peak oil’ study. He was lying, of course. I did no such thing. That didn’t stop CATCH from reporting the lie in Nov. 2006:

Braden charges that Peace and Mayor Di Ianni were opposed to the examination of the implications of peak oil for Hamilton. “They wanted to hush hush the whole thing because it would – if there is going to be a serious change in the economic structure of our economy because of fuel and the availability of cheap fuel, one of the first things that could be affected – and everybody that is knowledgeable or interested knows this – is air travel, particularly air freight.”

Do you see the similarity between what Braden said then and what McHattie is saying now? Also, do you see how much more clever McHattie is than the blunt-hatchet approach of the Flamborough Councillor? Here is what Brian recently said:

“The reason I focused on the airport employment growth district phase two study is that the concept of peak oil and energy constrained future – all the things that were discussed in the first peak oil study that was done several years ago.”

The Councillor, who might be a dark horse in the 2010 Mayoralty race (poor economic development for the city if that were to ever happen) made his point out of concern for what is happening internationally. He never once stated that he wanted to see the end of the Airport Employment Lands’ process using this study. But that thrust was certainly implied. And it was commented on by the other councillors. Here is what Councillor Ferguson had to say in avoiding a delaying tactic:

“I’m not sure that it was the intent to put the whole thing on hold for this report to come back by October 14th. I thought the intent was for this to run concurrently. I’d like to propose an amendment that we simply remove the part after review, or take the part out that states: of the study terms of reference prior to phase two study beginning; therefore allowing both projects to go forward concurrently. And I also agree with councillor Clark on the issue of – I’m not sure that we should focus the peak oil study just on the airport employment growth. It should be on the whole city.”

Is it wrong for Council to include a report on Peak Oil as part of the analysis? In a word, “no”! In fact, I think it is important to be aware of oil issues and carbon implications as we move forward as a community in everything we do. But I also believe that the economy and economic considerations are very important to all communities and especially ours which has been suffering economically for generations now. What I also believe in is transparency in government. Or, put another way: what I object to is thwarting the democratically stated will of Council on any issue by backdooring your opposition; and mostly what I object to is doing it in such an ‘oily’, disingenuous way.

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