Roger Varley has been in the news business almost 40 years with The Canadian Press/Broadcast News, Uxbnridge Times-Journal, Richmond Hill Liberal and Uxbridge Cosmos. Co-winner with two others of CCNA national feature writing award. In Scout movement over 30 years, almost 25 as a leader. Took Uxbridge youths to World Jamboree in Holland. Involved in community theatre for 20 years as actor, director, playwright, stage manager etc. Born in England, came to Canada at 16, lived most of life north and east of Toronto with a five-year period in B.C.
Slave labour in Uxbridge?
Back in August, when not many people were taking notice, council was presented with a proposed bylaw concerning the maintenance of the township's boulevards. Howie Herrema, still regional councillor at the time, didn't like what he saw and convinced council to send it back to the drawing board for consultation between council and staff.
Now the bylaw is back in the spotlight – and it's just as bad as it was when first proposed. There appears to have been little or no consultation because nothing in the proposed bylaw has been changed.
The main thrust of the bylaw is to take the maintenance and upkeep of boulevards – currently the responsibility of the township – and hand it over to homeowners. Not only that, but it would impose penalties – to be added to the tax bill - on those home owners who were found lacking in their newly acquired responsibility.
Chief Bylaw Officer Andre Gratton presented the proposed bylaw after telling council he had received complaints about the state of the township's boulevards. Since I was doing a lot of door-to-door municipal election campaigning at the time, the only unkempt boulevards I noticed were the ones which only the township could take care of: those running along Toronto Street South in the commercial district. But from Testa Heights to Butternut to Campbell Drive, the residents already take care of their boulevards, as they have done for years. Not because they have to, but because they want to. It makes their homes look better.
One resident on Campbell Drive has erected a beautiful little garden around a tree, including flowers, a small cement bench and a decorative piece of driftwood, posing no danger to anyone. If this proposed bylaw passes unchanged, he will have to rip that oasis out.
As for all the other residents who have tended the boulevards unasked all these years, now they will be told they have to do it or else: the township has spoken! Said maintenance would include keeping grass and weeds cut down to a prescribed height and disposing of any debris or litter or discarded items that might end up on the boulevard. It really is a bit much to demand that homeowners go out and pick up other people's litter and threaten to fine them if they don't.
Of course, there was no mention of lowering the municipal taxes of those home owners who would be forced to take over a service for which they already pay taxes. Nor was there any mention of provisions or exemptions for fragile, elderly or disabled home owners unable to do manual labour.
This might be going a little bit over the top, but I looked up the definition of slave labour and came up with this: “Persons, especially a large group, performing labour under duress or threats”. I'd say this bylaw fits that description.
As has become an all too familiar scenario recently, the bylaw as written also contains some ridiculous side effects. Some of the sillier parts of the bylaw include Section 4.2, which, in trying to cover all the angles, would, in effect, deny our kids the age-old Canadian tradition of playing street hockey. Another, Section 4.6, reads in part: “No person shall mark, deface, wax or damage any . . . sidewalk . . . or pedestrian walkway.” Now, I'll admit I have no idea why anyone would want to wax a sidewalk, but that wording would make it an offence for little girls to take a piece of chalk and draw a hopscotch grid on the sidewalk. It would also make it an offence for the Uxbridge Watershed Committee to go around stencilling goldfish pictures next to storm drains as part of their campaign to keep contaminants out of storm runoff.
Mr. Herrema, in handing the bylaw back to Mr. Gratton, recommended a public hearing be held. Well, folks, that meeting will be on Wednesday, March 16 at 7 p.m., when Mr. Gratton and his staff will be on hand at the township offices to answer your questions. There is no mention on the township notice of any council members being there.
I will have at least one question for Mr. Gratton: if Mr. Herrema was so concerned about the wording of the bylaw in August, why has nothing in it been changed? If there are any changes from the original, I challenge him to point them out to me.
As for the residents of Uxbridge, you might just want to take five minutes and read the proposed bylaw on the township website (www.town.uxbridge.on.ca. I know that's not everybody's cup of tea, but you might - like me – find the whole tone to be just a little too authoritarian.
Mayor Gerri Lynn O'Connor has already stated she wants last year's horribly written graffiti bylaw rescinded. It seems to me she should now ask council to reject this bylaw before it is even passed,
Tell me, am I wrong?
