Last week, Coun. Erwin Wiens all but confirmed something we’ve thought for a while: He seems to think you’re stupid.
It’s not just you, though. Wiens, the deputy lord mayor, thinks a lot of residents are stupid. In fact, the majority of you.
Far too dimwitted to be able to be able to have unfettered access to public documents like site plans.
Those documents are technical and very hard for you to understand. And if you see them, you’re probably just going to start spreading misinformation because you will, undoubtedly, misinterpret it.
Oh, and by the way, if Wiens agrees to let you see them, he’s being a big meanie to the poor old developers.
Woe are they in their mansions, hosting parties for the political elite that you don’t hear about (Wiens joined Premier Doug Ford for a private function at the home of his cousin and major developer Rainer Hummel on Monday night. Details of exactly why have not been answered by Ford’s office).
You might think this a big holiday joke. That no person who represents the public could really say those kinds of things. But it’s not. He said it literally last week to council.
“People who don’t understand how to read something very technical will piecemeal it and not understand it,” he said as part of his defence for supporting keeping documents offline.
And in response to Coun. Sandra Connor asking that the site plans for Parliament Oak be made public, “Why put this motion forward? This is meant to target someone unfairly for political purposes, that’s all it is.”
Despite Wiens’ opposition, council decided to make those documents public.
We asked Wiens point blank if he thinks people are too dumb to see them, to which he said of course not.
He says it’s like putting instructions for brain surgery online and expecting people to understand them.
We imagine brains are a bit more complex than construction and land deals. But who are we to say? We’re just as dumb as you.
He also forgets to mention that nobody in town would be doing the “brain surgery.” That would still be left to the professionals.
So, we still don’t quite understand the problem.
Don’t think too hard about it. You might burst a vein in your very dumb, old brain.
Instead of free and easy access to site plans, Wiens would prefer that you march into the municipal offices so you can sit at a desk and see them in the warm embrace of a municipal town hall.
For the extra-brainless among us, staff can sit you down and explain it to you like you’re five.
We’ve heard that if you promise not to file a freedom of information request, they’ll also give you a free lobotomy (OK, that one was a joke).
But in all seriousness, our editorial last week about the town’s marathon campaign against transparency was just scratching the surface (“Editorial: Concealing documents is not openness,” Dec. 5).
It truly seems some politicians are doing everything they can, finding any reason they can, to keep public information away from the public and limit what the media has access to.
Another perfect example of this is how the town tries to control its employees, and now its committee members, by saying they can’t speak to the media without town approval.
Perhaps Wiens really does fear misinformation will be spread around, or what people’s motivations are when looking at the documents. And maybe there would be misinformation. Maybe people would target developers they don’t like.
But nobody, not Wiens, Zalepa, Doug Ford nor Justin Trudeau has the right to conceal those documents for that reason.
It’s not up to politicians to police people’s thoughts or actions. It’s people’s right to view these documents, whether they are planning experts or not. Public documents are public documents and should be easily and readily available. Plain and simple.
After a conversation with Wiens on Wednesday afternoon, he did concede that if the plan is to make all site plans accessible, he would support that.
That’s fair. And that’s exactly what this editorial is calling for. All public documents should be easy to access in 2024.
If the town wants to limit misinformation, all it needs to do is clarify rumours when they arrive — a much simpler and more transparent process than trying to deter people from accessing information. Because misinformation is going to happen anyway and thinking that withholding information will fix that is just foolish.
We, as a people, should start turning the tables by filing freedom of information requests at critical mass. We should do it daily. We should have a non-profit organization responsible for doing so, with directors and volunteers and archivists — the whole shebang.
Maybe then — once the town has to increase the budget again to hire more staff just to manage all the information they want to limit your access to — our elected leaders will understand this information belongs to the people.
It belongs to obtuse you, your dense neighbour and your witless newspaper editor.
Creating a healthy relationship goes both ways
One thing that is probably true, though we did not find it in any scholarly books, is that building a healthy relationship is two-sided.
As the media, we can be heavily critical of our elected officials. It would be irresponsible not to be when they make poor or unfair decisions. After all, the newspaper is the voice for the people. It’s our job to do so.
But equally important is recognizing and encouraging when politicos are trying to do something right.
That said, we wanted to give a thumbs up to Coun. Maria Mavridis this week for sharing a breakdown of property taxes on her website, mariamavridis.com. This kind of act is above and beyond and helps residents understand where their tax dollars go.
Another kudos to the councillors who voted to post the Parliament Oak site plans online for all to see. We agree this development is of major public interest. However, all developments are of interest to at least some of the public. Let’s see more sharing of information and less tucking it away in a back room.
Kudos to the councillors who voted to pause approval of short-term rental licences. These should-be-illegal operations are removing homes from our community and replacing them with for-profit businesses.
The litany of problems with that has been explored deeply and it’s good to see council taking a step back to address the problem — because we can’t speak out of both sides of our mouths: Council either supports increasing the housing supply, or it doesn’t.
Our leaders simply can’t approve a slew of housing developments in the name of creating more homes, while simultaneously allowing homes to be converted into unsupervised mini-hotels to increase the income of those wealthy enough to purchase property. Not to mention how these rentals often degrade the quality of life of neighbours.
Let’s see more good.
