LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

Sundry Spring Thoughts

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted May 8, 2009)

On the NHL Dream:

I am excited about the possibility of having a team in town next year. Jim Balsillie has proven before that he sees Hamilton as a viable hockey city. We have many strengths that support his assessment. Council seems supportive. The community is abuzz with anticipation. The media is behind the move. Mr. B. has enough money to make the situation happen. So what is the problem? It can be summarized in two words: Gary Bettman. Bettman vs. Balsillie is the fight of the century for this city and we are all betting on the local entrepreneur over the New York Hamilton hater.

It is time for a clamour of calls calling for Bettman's firing from his post as NHL Commissioner. His hasn't been a stellar record of achievement with so many expansion teams in suspect American hockey cities having failed to attract market share. Local politicians should be calling for his head.

Council should initiate this move by passing a strong resolution at Council asking the Board of Governors to fire Mr. Bettman summarily for ineptitude and divisive policies contrary to the interests of hockey.

On the City's Economic Summit:

I attended the morning session and was impressed. The two speakers who provided the keynote observations were very good informative presenters. One of the gentlemen spoke about the importance of the Creative class to communities, taking his information from the provincially sponsored study conducted by Richard Florida et al. What I took from the information beyond the importance of creativity in a city was the expanded definition of 'creative class'. Florida points out that this class includes the usual creative artists, of course, but anyone engaged in a 'thinking' occupation is part of the class as well. Hamilton is encouraged to expand its reliance of this group.

The second speaker was the chief economist of the Conference Board of Canada and he was an excellent speaker/presenter also. He spoke the macro economic situation in the world, the US, Canada, Ontario and Hamilton. I was surprised to see that on the poverty scale, Hamilton actually compared quite favourably with other communities. This was a notion going very much against the mantra of rampant poverty in our city, which is not to say that we don't have a problem; we do. But it is to suggest that we are actually better off than other communities in the province and country. Council would be wise to dig a bit deeper into this statistic.

Much is being said about who attended the conference and who did not, with politicians taking much of the heat for being absent. Sophia Aggelonitis should be commended for representing the only provincial party who cared enough to attend. Why were Andrea Horwath and Paul Miller not there? Or at least one of them? Why were none of the Federal NDP members present? The lame excuse was that Wednesday was 'caucus' day. If one checks the website on federal attendance, you will see that not one of these members has a perfect record. At least one of them could have attended to show that the NDP cares about the economy. They clearly don't care that much apparently. For the record, the Conservative members provincially (Tim Hudak) and federally (David Sweet, Dean Allison) were also missing. I was surprised to see that the peripatetic Mr. Sweet was away. He is usually everywhere. As a stark contrast, the Liberals sent former Minister of Finance Ralph Goodale to the session. He made some insightful contributions and took copious notes while in attendance. If an MP from Saskatchewan could make the effort to be in Hamilton, local reps should have been there also.

As for the local representation, we had a good turnout I thought. There is some attempt to shift attention by blaming the day, the cost, the lack of inclusivity (Don Fraser from the labour Council and Linda Lukasic from environment Hamilton were there, as were a number of social services types), all I can say is blah, blah, blah. All Councillors are adults. The group was well-represented. If some could not make it because of other priorities or personal concerns, fine. Leave it at that and move on. That is a preferable strategy to engaging in sniping and excuse-finding.

By the way, I find the argument about the reduction in cost for Councillors as a contravention of the code of conduct to be specious and inappropriate. Even if Councillors had been invited gratis, no one should bat an eyelash. Council is there to support efforts by citizens to raise the economic well-being of the community. Their attendance should be part of their job description, and as such should not be seen by anyone as being given a 'favour'. The only one to benefit by their presence is the community. The legal advice given on this issue was lacking in context and understanding.

Finally, I missed the afternoon sessions and that is too bad for me. Last year, the criticism among some was that the meeting was a huge pat-on-the-back exercise. The morning session had a few elements of that, but by in large, the content was well-balanced. The afternoon was intended to hear from the Jobs Prosperity Council to hear specific successes. I haven not had a chance to read their report so will comment only after having done so. But knowing some of the leadership of JPC, I am sure there were good and realistic assessments taken of the state of our progress. I also applaud the attempt to include the youth in this year's summit.

The Loren Lieberman Affair

The press has carried stories on the Loren Lieberman's allegation of inappropriate staff behaviour in the city. He purposely or inadvertently brought himself directly into the mix of some allegedly inappropriate behaviour. Council has no choice but to investigate the comments thoroughly and report openly to the community. If wrong-doing is found, appropriate steps must be taken. I have talked to some staffers who were clearly upset and embarrassed by the allegations and want to see the matter resolved forthrightly. I am sure Councillors feel the same way.

Of the week we have had, there are some good things and some negative things. As my friend Mark Allan says, "That's Hamilton. Get used to it!"

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