CITY HALL: The New Superior Class: BENN
We need to acknowledge that the current occupants of city hall who are insisting on changes in attitudes and changes in behaviour are just the most recent generation of colonialist settlers.
The omnipresent mantra of those denouncing the people who arrived on the North American shores a few centuries ago focuses on how the invaders deigned their own practices and values to be of higher quality than those of the local inhabitants of the time. Of how the colonialist settlers structured their society to reflect their preferences. Of how the colonialist settlers refused to countenance the concept that the local inhabitants might have an equally valid way of living their lives. That the local inhabitants had to change to meet the new, higher standards.
Flash forward to today. The current generation of people who populate city hall, and for that matter dominate the social media, are no different than the generations that arrived hundreds of years ago. The values of today’s denizens of city hall are superior to those held by the local inhabitants. The locals who have lived experience in their neighbourhoods are not permitted to express their concerns to their betters. The locals will just have to accept that their lifestyles, their wants, and their needs are inferior to what is being forced upon them, to meet the new, higher standards.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
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So, maybe there is some value to fElon Musk’s Department of Government Elimination after all. Let’s start with the youngest staffers.
I doubt that was at all the intent of Ron Benn’s post at all.
Reform is surely needed at City Hall but it won’t come as long as Ford is in power. He has taken significant power from the City. He has challenged democracy by allowing a 1/3 vote to be sufficient to pass Mayors by law, and has closed communities or neighbours ability to appeal development decisions. Staff no longer have to meet rigorous employment status. Many, too many hires now are former Councillors and kids with largely communications training from Councillor’s offices.
sisco and Closely, my column has nothing to do with the actions of either Mr. Musk nor Premier Ford.
What I was attempting to communicate is that city staff and councillors are too arrogant to even notice, let alone contemplate their hypocrisy. Their actions and words of late clearly demonstrate that they do not believe that they have anything to learn from the communities that they insist on inflicting their (non)solutions on. Their actions and words of late clearly tell the people that their lived experience is of no importance. Just like the previous generations of colonial settlers, the ones that they denigrate every chance the opportunity arises, were too arrogant to learn anything from the indigenous people who lived here prior to being ‘enlightened’ by their superiors.
Ron, the old saying of ‘staying too long at the trough’ comes to mnd … the longer some councillors remain in office, the more arrogant and deaf to the taxpayers they become.