Ww - Wolfville watch - Ww

That’s a quote ripped off from a Mark Steyn piece but we don’t think he’ll mind since he got it from someone else himself.

Our Chronicle Herald cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon has made the national news.

The paper is under fire for publishing this cartoon.

The police are asked to investigate! The police, can you believe it?  - And of course the NS Human Rights Commission. The complainant is Zia Khan, director of the Centre for Islamic Development in Halifax who, on the surface anyway, seems like a reasonable person who should appreciate the right to free speech - He is able to share his views all over the world it appears.

For those of us who have been following the attacks on free speech being fought by Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn this kind of over sensitivity is depressingly familiar.

You might want to let the HRC know how you feel about this case.  hrcinquiries@gov.ns.ca

This is the headline over this story from across the pond.

U.K. voters resoundingly rejected the Labour Party in local elections last week. It was no capricious shift, but a citizen revolt against trendy carbon and nanny-state taxes that empower only bad government.

Can you imagine why the headline and the story appealed to us?

For Labour, it was the worst election in 40 years. In a massive turnout, the Conservative Party took 256 seats in parliament, along with control of 12 town councils and 44% of the vote.

Could it be that world wide, voters are waking up?

Best of all, London’s 5.5 million voters threw out Labour’s biggest bum: Marxist Mayor Ken Livingstone — a man so detested he forced Labour to spend the bulk of its campaign cash to defend his re-election after eight years in power to the neglect of other districts.

The “very big moment,” as Tory chief David Cameron put it, echoed conservative victories in France, Germany, Sweden and Italy and signaled Britain’s alignment with them. The reason was also largely the same — costly, overweening and unresponsive government that does what big governments do best: fail.

What was the driver of this popular uprising? - Over taxation including the green burden.

At a time of high oil prices, Labour taxed motor fuel and, for good measure, threw on a $16 daily “congestion tax” in the city of London.

[Odd. We thought high density was to be welcomed in an ecologically correct world. ]

They raided company pensions and imposed a payroll tax that -

… was so ill-received it drove angry fishmongers in the Labour stronghold of Bury (now turned Tory) to yell “Brown Out” until the tax was withdrawn.

They didn’t stop there.

In London, green taxes were tacked onto everything from renewable-energy schemes to plastic bags. This month, Londoners are bracing for a $50-a-day tax to be slapped on those driving SUVs or luxury cars.

Labour officials were amazingly clueless about the burden these green taxes placed on ordinary Britons and merrily proposed more.

“If someone drops litter, they should be arrested,” Livingstone threatened during his campaign, thinking his resolve would impress rather than infuriate voters with its ecologically correct pettiness in a city otherwise awash in real crime.

Now we don’t really know why but something in that report strikes a chord with us even though the Brits are further down the yellow green brick road than we are. The details are different but somehow the attitude sounds familiar.

Every tax and intrusion imposed by Labour in recent years was justified as being for voters’ “own good.” Ending global warming, reducing carbon footprints, lowering carbon emissions and raising public funding of renewable energy — all were excuses used to hit the voters’ pocketbook with more taxes.

Yet none of these taxes improved the quality of life. Instead, just a few of them — the same ones the green lobby wants here — showed British voters this was a puritanical scheme to reduce the quality of life and substitute a Roundhead feeling of virtue as its own reward. [link to source]

The result was predictable and to be welcomed. They threw the bums out. In London the Greens came fourth. We find this result heartening.

We have hit the press for the second - or is it the third time? Single W has recognised us with a mention in her column in yesterday’s edition of the Advertiser. We quote the bit which refers to us:

I don’t think anonymous bloggers empower people to make positive change. While they may have some pertinent points, why do Wolfvillewatch and some of the Wolfville Ratepayers hide behind their anonymity? As Michael Adams, who has written extensively on civic behaviour, says, “being a citizen means constructive engagement. It’s confronting the other, but not trying to establish a moral superiority that allows you later to blow them away.” [link to source Advertiser, May 6]

She deserves an answer and it isn’t as if we haven’t thought about it … a lot actually, so it isn’t hard to give a response. We have several reasons for our anonymity - such as it is- right to hand and not just because it doesn’t hurt for people to have a little mystery in their lives. “Who is that masked man?” “They seek him here they seek him there…”.

So here they are -

First: The obvious reason that a blogger sometimes stays anonymous is to protect his job, because sometimes his opinion, or whistle blowing, might put it in jeopardy.

Secondly: It is important, don’t you think, that one’s opinions are judged on their own merits and not accepted willy nilly or dismissed willy nilly because of the source. Think about what we say and take it or leave it based on your thoughts about it (we do hope you do think). Would what we say have more weight or less weight because we are lawyers, or male, a former mayor, or wealthy? Would it have less or more weight because we live in an apartment, and we are female, because we are black, or because we have had run in’s with the Town over other issues? Who we “are” should have little to do with the value of our opinions.

Thirdly: Say we lived in Toronto, or Montreal or even, say, Cape Breton and our name was John MacDonald. Which J. MacDonald would that be, and would it matter? What’s in a name?

Lastly and perhaps most important: W is asking the wrong question. The question she should ask is- why is it that in Wolfville concerned citizens feel the need to be anonymous to express their opinions. She should ask the businesswoman who was dismissed by his honour - ” I won’t talk to that woman.“[ Have been corrected by the source. The quote was more like "I have no time for that woman".] She should ask the man who was told “They don’t pay me enough to talk to you.” Ask the woman from Maple Avenue who got her nerve up to speak up at the recent MPS meeting and was told basically “You don’t know what you are talking about”. Ask the landlords who get harassed by Town officials about little things when they protest Town dictates. Ask the property owners who suspect that when they ask too many questions their assessments go up another notch. Ask the organization member who says ” We don’t want to rock the boat; we’re applying for a grant”. Yes, Wendy, please ask around why people don’t feel comfortable speaking up and going against Town Hall face to face.

Not shaved, not cut, but slashed! It just goes to show you what can be done by council if they really set their mind to it. But- say we- too little, too late. Yes, there is an election this year so it is a good year to cut but what about last year, and the year before that, and the years before that? And what about next year? No, we are not gong to fall for it.

We are happy the Town reduced the rate from 1.49 to 1.44 then again last night to 1.41 because that Keep reading →

We are promised a municipal auditor. This is a move we strongly approve of and which is long overdue. It is time our municipal administrations had oversight, a Sheila Fraser like oversight, especially as municipal entities are taking on more fiscal and social responsibilities.

Municipal Relations Minister Jamie Muir tabled an amendment to the Municipal Government Act on Monday that would pave the way for such an appointment.

“There is no doubt that a municipal auditor will provide additional transparency,” Mr. Keep reading →

An ex-firefighter has written a book on his experiences. The author, Russell Wangersky, gave up firefighting in 2003 and is now the editor of the Telegram in St. John’s NL&L. Haven’t read the book but it deserves a profile here.

Russell Wangersky’s nightmare unfolds like this: he is trying to revive a person who has collapsed, and instinctively instructs the small crowd that’s gathered around him to call for help.

But much to his horror, the bystanders simply outstretch thumbless hands that are Keep reading →

We prefer to call it spending. It seems more descriptive to us. Sometimes a picture is worth a whole lot of words [who said that?] Here’s one. Click on the chart for a larger view.

[source]

Later: Some tax posts at Countering the Nanny state

A Macleans editorial points out that governments’ attitude (at several levels) is hypocritical. That’s what happens when you go light on facts, and heavy on political correctness. The wonder is the politicos think, we presume, that we haven’t noticed. Insulted, we are, as Yoda would say.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty revealed this particular version of political science recently when he was explaining his government’s looming ban on “power walls” — retail displays of cigarettes behind the counters of corner stores. “Science has demonstrated Keep reading →

Here is one resident’s reaction to the previous budget meeting and the tax situation in Wolfville.

read it here

Thank you Brian. Hope you will have your say at the meeting tomorrow night.

It is as we suspected. It seems to us that the last budget meeting was a well scripted play put on for the amusement of councillors, with participation of the gallery as added entertainment. As we see it, the white hatted Councillors rode up on their respective hobby horses, verbal guns blazing, and ran the black hatted staff out of town, because the proposed budget was highway robbery, all to the Keep reading →