Let’s just say the Mayor started it when he told the residents of Ottawa that homeless people were like pigeons, and if we would just stop feeding them they would go away.
I’ll be at City Hall at lunchtime. I don’t have any dancing shoes, but I do have a blankie.
On a related note: If the Mayor doesn’t like the idea of poor people eating, I wonder if he has plans to keep them from breeding?
Hope you made it and I hope it went well. People really do need to protest about this sort of thing. How did he get to be the Mayor?
Kat that is an excellent question. Some people think he was elected because he was the choice of the right-wing hate radio crowd, and it’s got some momentum going.
I’m not as cynical as that. I think voters got swayed by the idea that a new face with a fiscally conservative business background might be just what we need.
And of course he promised no tax increases, which always sways a certain chunk of voters.
This why I voted for him – what you said:
” I think voters got swayed by the idea that a new face with a fiscally conservative business background might be just what we need.”
Plus I couldn’t stand voting for Chiarelli any more and I was concerned about Munter’s spendthrift leanings. Munter may have been talking a good show about not spending but I don’t think his heart was in it and I just don’t think he’s practical enough (practical the way my mother says it) to be mayor. Now that I think about it, O’Brien has turned out to be not very practical either. We need someone practical!
(Definition no. 6 at dictionary dot com: inclined toward or fitted for actual work or useful activities: a practical person.)
Julia, I wonder if it’s possible for a government to be both fiscally conservative and socially progressive, or if the two are mutually exclusive. I don’t think we’re going to find out from Larry O’Brien.
I do believe in living within our means though, as individuals, families, and communities – as long as we don’t throw people out because we deem them to be worthless.
You know Zoom, I think this is the next big thing in political parties: “if it’s possible for a government to be both fiscally conservative and socially progressive,” – what you said. It’s unfortunate that we’ve just had the conservatives in an uproar redefining themselves (well, for the last 20 years, since 1990 at least) and we have a Green Party, because the time is getting ready for just such a new party and I think voters are partied out. There was a movement in the early 00s to redefine political leanings away from the right-left linear continuum, toward a grid with four quarters on it. And I bet a ton of folks would fit into that fiscally conservative and socially progressive quarter and currently, there is no party for them. Right now, we have to choose one or the other. How can we start something, I wonder?