A Quick Word for the Internet Trolls

For the social media trolls and whingers who never take the time to read, or listen, or check facts before spewing out their bile, here are a dozen points to consider before you bloviate further (yes, I realize the chance that the hard-of-thinking will actually read this is slim, but I live in hope):

1. The judicial inquiry (or as it’s known locally, the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry or SVJI) was NOT a criminal investigation. It was an examination of processes. No criminal charges resulted. No one went to jail.
2. Not everyone agrees with the opinions, recommendations, or conclusions presented in the inquiry report. But it did NOT recommend criminal charges against anyone.
3. An OPP investigation opened in 2013 looked into the same events as the SVJI. OPP interviewed dozens of people, examined bank records, and read emails. No criminal charges resulted. No one went to jail.
4. Being a brother, sister, a friend, or an employee of someone is not a crime, not even when they were involved in business deals at the same time or with the same companies as the municipality.
5. The town never paid for or employed anyone on council’s brother, friend, or employer in 2010-14. 
6. It is not illegal for a company to hire or contract with someone you or Brian Saunderson don’t like.
7. Being a Liberal is not a crime, no matter what some diehard Conservatives here wish.
8. Municipalities do not have a say in who private companies hire or contract with.
9. Provincial laws are clear on who and what constitutes a conflict of interest in municipal politics: brothers, sisters, and friends do not.
10. Making political decisions Brian Saunderson didn’t approve was never a crime.
11. The lawsuits Saunderson and his sycophants propose filing against people who committed no crimes are civil, not criminal. They are simply a money-grabbing attempt by a group that refuses to accept responsibility for their own actions and make others pay for the inquiry that Saunderson, Ecclestone, Madigan, Jeffrey, and Doherty approved launching in 2018. 
12. Suing people for making political decisions that Saunderson didn’t approve of in 2012 is not justice or accountability. It is simply petty revenge and abuse of power.

Please try to get your facts straight before you rant about alleged crimes, criminals, and “justice.” Calling people “criminals” who have never been charged with a crime is libel.

Since 2015, more than $10 million of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on a personal vendetta. This has never been what we pay our taxes for. That money should have gone into community projects, fixing our town, maintaining infrastructure, upgrading the water plant, or helping local businesses survive the lockdowns. Instead, it mostly went into lawyers’ pockets  (and, curiously, a lot of those lawyers’ pockets are in a firm that Mayor Saunderson and Councillor Hamlin worked for).

Collingwood deserves better.