| Scanned, recopied or Internet copy, if there are errors, please e-mail me with corrections: Opening comments: More at the end. Hamilton City Council votes to ban FP's BIA brochure ! The Missing News and government can be seen as being of the same mind as this issue develops. An imprint point to understand how the behind the scenes dealings work and what is not reported. This is from a political party's news letter so it does have that slant to it but none-the-less it is a story of one more skeleton in Hazel McCallion's closet that the media has not properly covered. The fact that the Freedom Party of Ontario was involved in this matter should not be seen as a Freedom Party event but rather when you fight City Hall, people in the community need all the help they can get and any political party is better then none. Parts of the below have been left out ... to make it shorter. Freedom Flyer 10 - the official newsletter of the Freedom Party of Ontario - Summer 1987 BIA CAMPAIGNS DRAW Hamilton City Council votes to ban FP's BIA brochure! Freedom Party's provincial warning campaign against Business improvement Areas [BIAs] became much more aggressive in the months from January to May of this year, continuing the process outlined in the last issue of Freedom Flyer. In terms of its implementation, the campaign is pretty straightforward and uncomplicated. When we learn of a business community with an existing BIA, particularly where there is already internal opposition to it, our BIA Warning brochure is delivered to businesses in the area, accompanied by a covering letter explaining the issue, why Freedom Party is involved, and who we are. Also enclosed is a card that can be mailed to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and a return envelope and response card. When we hear of a BIA being proposed in a business community in Ontario, we follow the same procedure. The only difference in dealing with existing BIAs and proposed BIAs is that we have a very good chance of preventing the latter from forming, while abolishing existing BIAs is a very difficult and tedious undertaking. ... MISSISSAUGA Our visit to Oakville produced an unexpected benefit. Only a week following our mail drop there, a businesswoman from Mississauga happened to be a client of a downtown Oakville hair salon. She made a remark about how corrupt her own BIA in Mississauga was, and the salon's owner (bless her!) passed our BIA brochure on to her and said "These people were here last week about BIAs." That's how we came to meet Pat Pleich of the Barn Antiques which is in the Clarkson BIA in Mississauga. Pat is an individual completely committed to ridding her business area of its BIA, a task she has taken on, largely on her own, for the past five or six years. But like Ron Boyko of the Jamesville Street North BIA (Hamilton) and Bob Adams in North York (who finally had an existing BIA in his area abolished last November), she is unrelenting in accomplishing her goal. Every businessperson in Clarkson knows Pat, and she is armed to the teeth with facts, figures, and the usual stories of pervasive corruption that all BIA-fighters eventually collect. As a consequence of meeting Pat, Fp Action Director Marc Emery, with the constant advice and assistance of Halton-Peel FP representative Bill Frampton, coordinated our effort to deliver our BIA Warning brochure to all three Mississauga BIAs: Streetsville (80 businesses), Clarkson (150 businesses), and Port Credit (350 businesses). In direct contrast to Oakville, where business reaction was restrained but media reaction was substantial, reaction from the businesses in all three Mississauga BIAs was much more vocal and supportive of our campaign, but the weekly Mississauga News placed a complete news blackout on our activities by refusing to print anything critical of BIAs. Nevertheless, rapid and encouraging activity is underway. All three BIAs are being petitioned for abolition as we go to press. The petitions were produced by Freedom Party and signatures are being collected by local businesspeople. ... Veteran BIA fighter Ron Boyko of the Jamesville Street North BIA (see last issue of Freedom Flyer) passed on to us the name of another established BIA that was facing internal opposition from its members (Ottawa Street) and he also told us about two proposed BIAs (King Street and Barton Street) where we delivered our BIA brochures in early May. Response to our material was hot, as most businesses on Ottawa Street completely agreed with our stand, and some good contacts were developed. In contrast, one businessman on King Street was so incensed at our attempt to derail the BIA proposed for his area that he nearly physically struck our volunteers threatening that he'd "make it so that you'll never be allowed back in Hamilton again!" His threat may be supported by Hamilton's City Hall. Unlike all other Ontario municipalities who have been (perhaps grudgingly at times) cooperative in supplying us with BIA information, Hamilton refuses to supply us with information on BIAs even though such information is clearly within the public domain. The administration forced us to make our requests in writing, promising to send us the information requested under such circumstances, only to refuse us upon receipt of our written request! HAMILTON CITY COUNCIL VOTED UNANIMOUSLY Hamilton City Council is acting even more strangely than its administrators. Four weeks after our BIA mail drops in Hamilton, its City Council voted unanimously to condemn Freedom Party's BIA Warning brochure --- and further recommended that the Attorney-General investigate us under the Criminal Code Section 177!!! This is the law that was used to prosecute Ernst Zundel for "spreading false news" and reads (much to our nation's shame): "Everyone who willfully publishes a statement, tale, or news that he knows to be false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years." Council's motion was covered by Hamilton's CHCH-TV news, which included an interview with Hamilton's Ward 3 alderman Verlaine, who proposed the motion. While news cameras panned extensively on our brochure, Verlaine remarked, "This pamphlet is changing the way businesspeople think," and that it might result in the cancellation of future plans for more BIAs in business areas of Hamilton! FREEDOM PARTY LOOKS FORWARD TO FACING The Attorney-General's office is now faced with the unpleasant prospect of considering Hamilton City Council's bizarre request. Of course, from Freedom Party's point of view, a challenge of this sort would be most welcomed. Not only would we prove extensively every assertion in our brochure, but we would be in a legal position to subpeona Hamilton's civic administrators, politicians, Mayor Mel Lastman, Toronto's Mayor Art Eggleton, London's Mayor Tom Gosnell and Bernard Grandmaitre, of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. A court challenge would force them to corroborate for the courts and media, our side of this corrupt BIA legislation. We would also be able to present dozens of friendly witnesses whose stories would make our currently circulated information seem to be merely a preamble to the real story behind the issue. ... [COMMENTS BY DON B. - ] |
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