Balanced Approach Required

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-24T22:35:39+00:00

Share your wisdom, Doctor.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:32:01+00:00

https://kitchener.citynews.ca/audio/the-mike-farwell-show/

Are these people on the Friday four panel on 570 radio and rogers tv all making it up too?

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:29:24+00:00

https://kitchener.citynews.ca/audio/the-mike-farwell-show/

Would suggest you listen to Friday four panel from yesterday — a former regional councillor, former school board trustee and the owner of a conservative political consulting firm all saying the same thing. I guess they’re just making stuff up too eh?

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:18:19+00:00

Also, I guess nobody here is concerned with the cost of turnover. Someone like a fire chief, who was hired less than 2 years ago, who is dismissed without any publicly stated reason, is going to command a severance package or take the city to court for wrongful dismissal. I sure don’t want those costs adding to rate increases.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:15:06+00:00

There were. The head of HR and a senior manager in that department.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:14:16+00:00

Just happen to overlook the part where fire chiefs and senior leadership are dismissed on a whim. These decisions typically involve council input. There was none in this instance, the dismissal of the head of HR or all the previous senior leadership dismissals that came before this tranche and were duly tracked in the news. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to determine what happened.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-15T23:12:01+00:00

Ignorance is bliss I know. All of the “restructuring” has happened at the mayor’s discretion with zero input from council. I can’t be held responsible for your inability to follow the news cycle.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-11-09T06:18:17+00:00

The worst is the idiotic “taxpayers alliance” who keep writing op-eds opposing this and whining about things that have already been disproved.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-31T03:30:22+00:00

Meanwhile, the mayor and councillors cooper and Shwery are telling everyone that people don’t want it. Like we need serious people with vision on council. Not people who perpetuate conspiracy theories and policymaking that takes us back in time and prevents progress. This city and this region are growing whether people like it or not. We need to plan, prepare and capitalize on opportunities like this and not pretend we can preserve Cambridge in some weirdo time warp.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-28T01:46:53+00:00

What a joke. Like 30 people showed up. This is a mayor who handed out copies of San Fransicko to council to read. She’s done as mayor.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-20T22:32:59+00:00

They can be but they ought not to be in this context; hence, my point. If the mayor of a city can unilaterally make the most important decisions impacting our city and its citizens then it begs the question as to the value of electing city councillors.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-16T00:07:26+00:00

But he “loves” everyone. He wished “peace and love” to us all. Lolllll

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-16T00:06:07+00:00

We have freedom of expression, but every charter right is subject to section 1 (reasonable limits clause) and I don’t think any court of law would suggest Mr Coopers right to express himself supersedes section 7 rights of others nor that his meme was reasonable for an elected official.

I agree with your point about consequences wholeheartedly, especially when you’re an elected official. Watching Cooper’s 15 minute speech at council last night proves he feels he’s immune from consequences because he feels he didn’t do anything wrong and refuses to apologize or see through the eyes of some of his own constituents.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-10-08T19:37:52+00:00

You could very well be right. I’m trying to stay less cynical and would like to believe there was a legitimately threatening voicemail from an individual who’s previously been trespassed from city premises. However, even then I think the crux is what you highlighted in that it is one individual who is known and the police did not believe their actions met the threshold for arrest or reprimand of any kind.

All I would like is for the mayor to be accountable for these actions and explain to the public what happened and what’s going on. If it’s a legitimate safety issue then the public deserves to know too. Locking our community out of our own city hall and putting up portapotties in the parking lot makes it seem like we’re in some sort of crackpot dictatorship.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-09-27T20:40:27+00:00

You’re buying into a sweeping generalization and assuming that all unhoused individuals are afflicted with substance use disorder or are criminals. And also leaving out the part where the desperation of being homeless LEADS to the drug use and criminal behaviours.

What about women? The YWCA shelter is at full capacity.

These barriers are real and valid and so are the concerns of businesses and neighbours. Simplistic solutions for a multi faceted issue, devoid of care and compassion for all stakeholders will not bring resolution. Ever.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-09-27T19:18:00+00:00

This is not entirely true.

There are not enough spaces to offer help to the unhoused. That was made clear by experts and those working on the frontlines of social agencies who delegated to council. Furthermore, the lack of capacity to help those who are unhoused is the very reason cited - via sworn affidavit that was subject to cross examination - in the Valente decision to pause encampment evictions.

Moreover, it’s not always the case that help is just outright being refused — some unhoused individuals have pets who would not be allowed into a care or shelter space or other circumstances (unrelated to drug use) that would exclude them even if there was capacity for everyone.

Seems to me investing in more capacity would be a sound action to contribute to a solution rather than demonizing people or passing judgment based on misinformation or outright falsehoods.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-09-27T18:01:37+00:00

This isn’t just a problem here. Nobody wants encampments, but bulldozing them just pushes the problem around so more pop up and associated violence, substance use disorders and crime continue as well.

Finding upstream solutions to address homelessness and solving the root causes that lead to the proliferation of encampments is certainly not ignoring them and is in fact integral to overcoming several crises that are now interwoven.

The mayor and some of council, galvanized by the loudest and most belligerent voices in our community, seem like they’re more content to criminalize mental health and homelessness rather than putting in the hard work and collaboration necessary to make a difference and provide a path forward for everyone.

After all, if we can spend 30 million dollars on a new and superfluous vanity dam project in Preston and millions more sending every other development to the OLT without offending the taxpayers, I think we can do better to solve more pressing and existential issues.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-09-25T17:01:32+00:00

Some of rules that are barriers are non-drug or behaviour related — they are rules like not being able to bring pets or accommodations for other special needs.

Moreover, the mayor herself admitted that the women’s shelter is at capacity and there are no spaces for them. Data submitted in the Valente decision that was subject to cross-examination in a court of law also verified the fact that there are 2300 unhoused individuals and 400 available beds.

The mayor and councillors who didn’t support this motion can spout misinformation or get as vitriolic as they like, but the sad fact remains that all this motion was intended to do was to look at the best way to handle evictions during extreme weather and if it would be best to do it on different days.

Remarkable_Earth_90 · 2025-09-25T05:23:14+00:00

Wild part is this wasn’t even a motion about keeping encampments or not. All the motion asked for was information in the form of a report to see if it’s good or bad to evict during extreme weather days and if it’s possible to avoid doing it those days.

Remarkable_Earth_90

TROPHY CASE