Author: Ian Chadwick

Retired writer, editor, reviewer, media relations & communications consultant, municipal politician. Ukulele player. Aficionado of Shakespeare, Horace, Machiavelli, Chaucer, Cicero, Homer, socialism, science, Godzilla, ERB, & tequila. Curmudgeon, skeptic & cynic. Lay historian. Community volunteer. PC gamer. Avid reader. Woke socialist. Loving husband. Companion to one dog & three cats. Passionate about my small town. Perennially curious about everything. My writing is copyright © protected.

EPCOR and The Block’s Big Lie

For all their evils and their wrongs, the Soviets did some things very well: propaganda and disinformation. As one writer commented in the Spectator, “Communist ideology dismissed the idea of truth as a bourgeois construct. What mattered was power; and you baptised as truth those doctrines which provided it.” Stalin defined truth as what he said it was. The Soviets were such masters at it from an early stage that George Orwell declared that history stopped in 1936; after that there was only propaganda. So good were they at it that their methods and techniques were copied by other states ……… click below for more ↓

Guillermo, monsters and me

2017-11-17 2023-04-28 Arts / Culture / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Pop CultureOne Comment

Tucked away at the bottom of a tall display case in the ‘At Home With Monsters’ exhibit at the AGO is a small collection of seven old, well-thumbed books, all by the 19th century French naturalist and entomologist, Jean-Henri Fabre. At the very bottom of the pile, its title almost hidden in the shadows, is The Life of the Spider, first translated into English in 1913, but not translated again until 1971. The books subtly reflect the importance director and artist Guillermo del Toro places on insects in his works. He calls them “living metaphors” and adds, “They are so ……… click below for more ↓

Remembering those who served

2017-11-11 2017-11-11 Family history / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / War & MilitaryOne Comment

It’s at this time of the year, as we approach Remembrance Day, that I think most about my family, especially those who have died. I wish I had known when I was younger what I know today, so I could have asked them more about their lives, and about their service in the military, about their wars. I have read a lot about those wars, about the military and political history of the last century; it’s a topic I never tire of reading about. I wish I could have learned more from my own family about what it was like, then. ……… click below for more ↓

Alectra says no: The Block screwed us again

2017-11-10 2017-11-10 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / User fees and costsLeave a comment

The headline on the media release reads, “Alectra selling its shares in Collus PowerStream to Collingwood.” What it should add is that Collingwood residents and taxpayers were betrayed by members of their own council and administration. After a three-year campaign to screw us, The Block have won a major victory in abhorrent behaviour. They are privatizing our electrical utility and next year will do the same to our water/wastewater utility, to the same corporation. Our publicly-owned utility will be sold to EPCOR, an out-of-province, for-profit corporation that pays a dividend to the city of Edmonton only, and that will raise ……… click below for more ↓

Open vs secret at Collingwood Council part 2

2017-11-09 2017-11-09 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

In the previous part of this story, I provided dates of meetings and events in the terms of the previous council (on which I sat) and the current council. I documented how last term, the sale of one half the share of our electrical utility (Collus) was sold to the municipally-owned PowerStream (now Alectra) through a very well-documented, open and transparent process. I compared it to the secretive, deceptive process used by The Block on Collingwood Council, and the administration. Last term, residents and stakeholders were engaged and informed. This term we have been ignored, avoided and lied to. Last ……… click below for more ↓

Why the panic over Julie Payette?

2017-11-05 2017-11-06 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Canadian Politics / Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Politics / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

Governor General Julie Payette made comments in a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Conference on Nov. 1 in which she encouraged her audience at a science convention to ignore misinformation, fantasy and conspiracy theory, to support facts and science, and to engage in “learned debate.” That has the right furious, and as is their wont, making both fallacious claims about her words while launching ad hominem attacks against her. It’s particularly galling to the right that not only is Payette a woman, she’s smart and accomplished: a former astronaut and an engineer. That means the right gets wildly incensed ……… click below for more ↓

In camera, closed door meetings in Collingwood, 2015-17

2017-11-02 2017-11-02 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water7 Comments

Using the agendas posted on the town’s website, I tallied up the number of Council’s in-camera meetings for three specific topics this term: Collus-PowerStream (including the share sale, shared services agreement, advice from Mark Rodger and board appointments); the hospital redevelopment, and the airport (including the request for a letter of intent and possible sale of the airport). There are several other items listed for in camera discussion that may be related to one or more of these, but since I could not pair them with motions or later news items, and the listed descriptions were inadequate, I did not ……… click below for more ↓

Open vs secret at Collingwood Council

2017-10-31 2017-11-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water4 Comments

How two Collingwood councils handled the utility sale process very differently Last term, Collingwood Council went through a lengthy, open and public process to sell a portion of its electrical utility, Collus. That open process – with full discussion, community involvement, consultation and public input, and local media coverage – resulted in 50% of the utility being sold to PowerStream (an Ontario-based LDC owned by three municipalities, now merged with Alectra). The shared utility is now called Collus-PowerStream. It’s about to be sold to a private, for-profit corporation based in Alberta. This term, our town has negotiated in secret to ……… click below for more ↓

It’s about the process, stupid…

2017-10-31 2017-10-31 Blog & Blogging / Collingwood / Conspiracy Theories / Council / Critical Thinking / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Personal Reminiscences / Political fads / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

My negative comments on the impending privatization of our electrical utility (and potentially our water utility once the first deal is sealed) drew some online criticism recently. None of those critics refuted any of the facts I offered, or attempted to debunk any of the numerous documents I quoted and linked to. Nor could they. After all, they are easily proven, well-documented facts. But still, they called me a liar and attempted to use other cheap ad hominem tactics to discredit me.* However, regardless of their like or dislike of me, the facts remain, the facts speak for themselves. Facts ……… click below for more ↓

The secrecy and deception behind Collingwood’s utility sale

2017-10-26 2017-10-27 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

Meetings held behind closed doors late into the night. Personal vendettas. Kickbacks. Conspiracy theories. Scams and phony reports. Backroom deals. Unethical politicians conniving. Dubious legality. Shady characters pulling strings from the shadows. Scheming. Minions acting like thugs. Cowardice. Hidden contracts. Lies and deception. A deal they can’t refuse. A financial shell game. The betrayal of public trust. If that sounds like the ingredients for a crime novel, to me it reads like Collingwood Council’s secretive, unethical “process” to sell our public utilities. The public was betrayed by The Block. The process has a stench of corruption about it. And don’t ……… click below for more ↓

Collus in purgatory

2017-10-20 2017-10-20 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Staff and administration / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

Purgatory is how a staff person described to me the current situation of our local electrical utility, Collus-PowerStream (CPS). It’s the result of The Block’s and the administration’s incessant interference, manipulations, contrivances and scheming over the past three years. And it was evident, Wednesday, at the meeting where CPS presented its draft Distribution System Plan, a strategic plan for future maintenance and growth. They’re in purgatory because The Block have made the utility’s future uncertain. They cannot accurately craft business plans, strategic plans, cannot make any long-range plans for growth or sustainable development because they never know what new hurdle ……… click below for more ↓

The secret costs of the EPCOR deal

2017-10-19 2017-10-23 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administration / Taxes / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

Whether or not The Block sell our share of our public electrical utility to the for-profit, Edmonton-based EPCOR, it will still cost taxpayers millions. And I don’t mean just the rising costs of sole-sourced lawyers and buddy consultants the administration has hired (well over $1 million already, and the bills keep coming in). I’m talking about the hidden costs The Block won’t divulge because they don’t want taxpayers to realize how really bad a deal they’ve made with this devil. And it all happens behind closed doors, Monday, Oct. 23, 2017. No public input allowed on the sale of our ……… click below for more ↓

The ignorati rise

2017-10-14 2017-10-14 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery2 Comments

Chapman University recently published the results of a depressing, but hardly surprising, survey that shows American believe in codswallop continue to rise. Not political codswallop – this is the supernatural, paranormal, wingnut type. And the numbers are huge. Or yuge as the ignorati-in-chief would say. The article notes, “nearly three-fourths of Americans do believe in something paranormal.” While we expect that sort of muddle-headed, superstitious thinking to be widespread in the 13th century, that’s truly sad in the 21st century. And we don’t expect it in the country that put a man on the moon, invented the iPad and the ……… click below for more ↓

The dogshit dilemma

2017-10-10 2017-10-10 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Manners & Civility / Pets & Animal Behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

We have a problem with dogshit. Well, all municipalities do, of course, but ours is increasingly evident: it’s everywhere. And with the growing popularity of pets and our growing population, it’s becoming worse.* How do we deal with it? We pick it up, of course, as we dispose of it in our own garbage bins or in those provide by the municipality downtown or in our parks. That’s not merely what the bylaw says we have to do: it’s what responsible, mature pet owners do. Sadly, we seem to be in the minority. Way too many folk leave it for ……… click below for more ↓