Time to second mortgage the house, or the like: the new Senators jerseys are hitting the street and buying a pair doesn’t come cheap. Fancy never does. I recollect paying less for a semester’s tuition at Carleton. But I was struck less by the cost ( I mean isn’t fancy worth it?) than by the casual mystery in the presentation. Why are the Senators represented by the Roman soldier? A warrior, it is addressed by the design team, who is grittier and more determined than the predecessor. One more representative of the new team which, it is clearly noted, is supposedly on the verge of winning, of accomplishing something. So how does a Senator convert to the ranks of the Praetorian Guard? Or, more to the point, why?

Not too much of a stretch to the Forum on the Rideau. Elect a few folks to manage the budget, sometimes the fancy of senators, and you end up with the whole crew guarding their favourite pork, to invoke an equivalent prevalent in a tired republic to the south. So while we thought the councillors were making sure the police and firemen were paid, that human waste still rolled downhill, and that the occasional bus ran on time, or what we might refer to as a basic city services, it turns out that the real agenda was the defense of social services, city transportation strategies to take us into the next ice age, and of course a plan to defeat the mother of all municipal insurgents, trans-fats. As you might have guessed, yes the latter items tend to drive up taxes.

Nope, fancy is never cheap. And…stuff…adds up. Perhaps the toilet tissue question is lost on this covey that actually claim they are going to try something new like hire city staffers based on their competence rather than a profile. What imagination, but I digress…the toilet tissue option: there are three ways to manage the process of preparing the tissue and getting the job done. You can fold the tissue in the palm of your hand. Or, you can roll it repeatedly about the spread of your extended fingers, or you can give the roll a godawful rip and just mash the whole mess into your hand. Needless to expound, but even a casual evaluation of these three methods shows a marked tendency to waste as you translate from folder, to roller, to masher.
So, from Senatorial folder to Praetorian masher. Ante up in the tax game.

Aah summer! Unlike some red-green climate change doomsayers I for one look forward to a warmer climate, exotic plants and animals and an ocean beach that only takes me an hour to get to on a Sunday afternoon in March. And then there are the secondary benefits.

There is nothing quite as inspiring to the male “drive” than the flip-flop clad red toe-nail painted feet of a beautiful woman on a beach by the ocean…or anywhere for that matter. I say let’s herald in the coming warming trend and spew out those Green House Gas emissions into the atmosphere. Never mind the increase in medicare cost caused by more people with respiratory problems coming to the emergency wards. With summer starting in April and ending in October, and I do mean summer not Spring and Fall…summer, and the horizon festooned with red toe-nail, flip-flop wearing lovelies the more SUV’s we buy the quicker we’ll get to that ocean-beach playground, probably sooner than the city of Ottawa and its amalgamates will build an LRT system.

But hold on, we don’t have to wait for the flip-flops and hotter air. After all this is Ottawa and these days there is no greater concentration of GHGs than in the Nation’s Capital. And some people don’t think that CO2 emissions are caused by human activity! Nowhere, I might, add, is this warming trend more concentarted than in Ottawa-Orléans, and no one wears the flip-flip, sans the red toe-nail polish - thankfully, better than our own M.P. Royal Galipeau.

So how is it that Monsieur Galipeau wears a flip-flop so well? In a recent public information pamphlet M. Galipeau says that he will not bring jobs to Ottawa-Orléans because those jobs are simply a way of “…awarding federal jobs for political reasons either to reward a faithful, federal riding or to buy votes in a coveted riding.” This is of course consistent with his insistence that if people want jobs in Ottawa-Orléans they “…should vote Liberal”. Oddly he may actually get his wish. But what is really odd is that in the same pamphlet M. Galipeau says he will promise “new Jobs” from the “New Economy”. Then he has the temerity to say that “Steeling jobs from other Canadians to move them to a coveted riding used to be in vogue, but is unfair and outdated.” Indeed, unless you’re a Conservative. Flip-flop!

Well M. Galipeau, perhaps you should tell this to your boss Mr. Harper. How happy would the boss man be with his straw boss if he knew you would suggest to him that the Portrait Gallery was stolen from Ottawa and moved to Calgary? I think the RCMP should start an investigation right around the middle of the next election about allegations of the theft of art from the National Capital.

And then there is the cape crusader’s side kick, that boy wonder of the “New Government of Canada” Pierre Poilievre, born in Calgary Alberta by the way, who stole the RCMP from Ottawa-Orléans to put it in his west-end riding of Nepean - Carleton “Holy Liberal License Stephen!”. Flip-flop!

And finally M. Galipeau seems to think anytime jobs are created they are somehow allocated according to some pre-established criteria. I think he will find, if he can keep staff long enough to do the research for him, that there is a kind of economic criteria that the conservatives use to justify their “thefts”. It’s called neo-classical economics and it suggests than under the stupid theory of marginal utility and the sterile calculus of neo-con economics it makes perfect sense to steal because it makes economic sense. Or wait! Maybe the conservatives are just so vengeful that they felt it necessary to do the eye-for-an-eye thing and offset Jean Chretian’s Shawinigan art gallery nonsense in 2003. However, we should be reminded that that was not a permanent gallery and does not own it’s own collection like the portrait gallery now in Calgary. Anyone out there who thinks that jobs will accrue for Calgarians raise your hands. Do Calgarians need more jobs? Now everyone that thinks so raise your hands. I thought so! Is this not political favoritism? Flip-flop!

You see M. Galipeau ensuring economic development for Ottawa-Orléans is a part of the reason we elected you and apparently according to your pamphlet you seem to understand this.. You say you have new federal jobs for Ottawa-Orléans? M. Galipeau I know you have some inkling of what a zero sum game is therefore it strikes me as contradictory or at least flip-flopish to suggested that any jobs accruing to our riding will somehow not impact other ridings in Ottawa or Canada for that matter. Better check with the boss on that one. Or perhaps you are going to personally train people to give tours of the House of Commons since by now you must have a thorough knowledge of the highlights from the ahem resources you “borrowed”. But perhaps that would take you away from your more important responsibilities, like being substitute speaker. This, in fact has no doubt been a priority for you, witness the pride with which you wear its garbs in public outside the House of Commons. Wow! Can you do that or did you buy your own for effect? Unlike the priority of bringing new jobs to our area, one which you seem to have suddenly discovered, your tenure as M.P. has been an unmitigated promotion of your own political careerism. Flip-flop…well done!

M. Galipeau stop contributing to Climate Change. And if you want to be seen wearing flip-flops please make them the foot wearing kind, sans the painted red toe-nails…please!

Is it any wonder that when we are confronted with disappointment, that some of us do seek the council of the sages? I can think of no more appropriate sage to consult than that giant of Scottish intellect Robbie Burns. And you thought I was going to say Adams Smith who would also be useful to muse about Larry O’Brien’s famous and oft quoted phrase, “zero means zero”. So let’s invoke Mr. Burns, why don’t we?!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Where in the world does anybody who knows history, and thankfully sees economics as weird mathematical voodoo, get the idea that an on going project like a city can be run like a business. A city is not a business. People don’t live together in an urban settlement to increase their marginal utility. Pareto optimal is never achieved in the business world so why would it suddenly become possible in a municipality. Oh, sorry! It actually could but we would have to cheat and provide services not because we could make money from them but because, now here’s a concept, we need them.

Ok maybe it’s not all that black and white. There is certainly some services that the city of Ottawa and its amalgamates could unload onto the private sector…catering for example. Moreover, running a public corporation does not preclude one from the process of being fiscally responsible. Please take note that I did not say anything about fiscally conservative. Which frankly these days is almost an oxymoron? Ooo! I just had a thought. If the Americans have a moron in office what do we have at the head of our government? An oxymoron! Think about it, for years he and his ilk have proclaimed a love affair with fiscal conservatism and now he’s spending money like a drunken sailor on a Las Vegas furlough. But I digress.

I think Larry O’Brien is not of Irish background. I think he’s actually Italian. His response to the media yesterday when asked about his promise not to increase property taxes was “…the election is over” I don’t know if anyone has ever heard of the Italian rule of driving which goes, “what’sa behind me isa nota important!” Be sure you say it with an Italian accent or it doesn’t work. So you can see where one might think that the orange in that O’Brien flag is actually red.

It might have been more useful for Mr. O’Brien to quote the great Robbie Burns “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men” At least it would have been more credible and a “wee morrre sincerrre”.

The lead on the cityoforleans.ca website, “no taxation without representation!” is certainly reminiscent of the continental experience with George III and indeed leads to the insight that Orleaneans may feel less than well-served by that turn of the century amalgamation folly with the City of Ottawa. The long-story, short version, probably hinges on the notion that a lot more tax dollars are going downstream to the Rideau than are returned in services or development, and the rank of councillors representing Orleans who could impact that flow or vision at the municipal coliseum is too thin.

At a ratio of 3/21, is Orleans adequately represented, or is amalgamation simply another example of conquering by division?

Perhaps use of the term amalgamation is too kind. The typical definition, to unite to form a single entity, was no doubt advertised with positive tales of efficiency and tax savings so profound that, when stretched end to end, would reach the outskirts of Kamloops.  My guess is that efficiencies and implied taxable kickbacks barely make it to the Queensway and no out-of-pocket savings were ever realized on the eastern front.

Combine the above two paragraphs and some citizens might tend to the tea in the harbor option.

There are a host of terms that can be employed, perhaps more accurately than amalgamate, to describe the behavior of a static or declining city state that needs new blood in the least and more dollars in the best outcome. There is annex, or take, join or incorporate as a subsidiary. Or what about Ottawaization, or become like us and wave OC Transpo transfers that are good for a hundred miles. Or, we can skip over the romance verbs/nouns for adventure and empire and go straight for the Huns’ views of municipal management; lebensraum und anschluss we’ve read about. How about a vulgar variation: taxensraum?

What are we saying here: de-amalgamate, dis-annex, re-Orleanize?  George should understand (the second time around.)

T.J. Snodgrass