Out with the old…

As Kingston’s electoral races head into the home stretch, people keep asking, “Who should I support for Mayor?” Unlike the last go-round between developer Harvey Rosen and teacher Rick Downes (with surveyor Kevin George’s surprise candidacy tipping the balance in favour of the eventual winner), the lines may not seem as clearly drawn.

Best take today’s campaign pledges with a good bit of skepticism. Rather, have a look at how the two incumbent contenders voted on key issues in the recent past. Glance at Harvey Schachter’s very useful “Eight Votes” article http://www.kingstonlife.ca/ for details.

Mr. Matheson and Mr. Gerretsen were on the same side in the votes to retain the Springer naming rights for Market Square – though no one uses the name of those moneyed interests when they talk about going down for carrots or a skate.

The two were also of one mind on bowing to the building application by US big box behemoth Lowe’s, even though the scheme on Springer-owned land violated the Official Plan. Ditto with taking the next step in the Span To Sprawl (aka the “Third Crossing”) the budget-busting boondoggle that would raise taxes to stratospheric levels should a future Council be unwise enough to fork over the $150 million plus it would cost. Both candidates opposed the anti-democratic wing proposal to do away with district voting, bringing in an at-large system that would favour candidates with deep pockets.

But on the question of having non-union workers collect green waste, Matheson was opposed and Gerretsen thought outsourcing the work was a good idea. Gerretsen also supported continued selling of water in plastic bottles in city facilities. Matheson opposed. Gerretsen voted against the contentious affordable housing plan for Barriefield, with Matheson supporting. Gerretsen wanted to buy the S&R building, Matheson didn’t.

So it seems to be a bit of an anticlimactic saw-off. No wonder people are uncertain.  It is safe to say that even though Gerretsen wants to appear to straddle the middle in good Liberal fashion, he has usually sided with the right wing bloc (Rosen/Foster/Smith/Hector) and Matheson seems to sway from side to side.

The other candidate is Barrie Chalmers, who wants to run the city like a business. His claim to be able to cut taxes by two per cent annually, leading to an 8% tax reduction in four years,  deserves to be treated as the joke that it is. Ditto the man’s pamphlet claiming that he’s a “real person” and not a politician. This begs the question: What happens to him – and his identity – should he win?

Also in the running are three Queen’s students who have the laudable goal of getting young people interested in politics. According to the Kingston Community Foundation’s recent Vital Signs report, voter turnout is lowest in Kingston neighborhoods with lots of students.

So it really comes down to Matheson and Gerretsen, two men with one term on Council under their belts. Matheson is not nearly as well organized or funded as Gerretsen, who also has name recognition on his side. Having a father who’s been a political fixture hereabouts almost forever is a huge advantage given the low level of public engagement with politics at all levels. It’s especially low with respect to municipal politics where a minority even bothers to vote: Name recognition counts.

Another things that counts – indeed, more than who becomes mayor — is the political composition of the next Council. In the end, the Mayor is only a single vote on Council, though he (all candidates are men) certainly has a bully pulpit and more power in important day-to-day dealings with the civil service. It seems to me that there are three kinds of contests for the twelve Council seats up for grabs.

Slam Dunks

Lisa Osanic, a strong voice for the environment, will have the easiest time of it. She was acclaimed in west end suburban Collins-Bayridge district. Rob Hutchison, a social democrat who represents downtown and the near north end in King’s Town, should have no problem getting re-elected. And Liz Schell should win easily in Portsmouth District, adding the voice of a committed arts activist who is critical of the Span To Sprawl.

One-On-One Races

*In Williamsville longtime build-it-now booster Ed Smith is being challenged by former Councilor Jim Neill. See my Sept. 24 posting. This one is too close to call. A Neill victory would be a big boost for the left because it would mean that a trade union activist would replace a loyal spear carrier for Kingston’s conservative faction. Property developers are no doubt concerned.

*Sydenham District’s contest pits incumbent Bill Glover against the aging Floyd Paterson. Political lines are not quite so clear here. Glover is an ardent heritage conservationist who voted against the Barriefield affordable housing project and for bottled water. But he’s been active in long overdue efforts to reform the City’s affordable housing provider and improve public transit. He opposed the Span To Sprawl and contracting out. Paterson, on the other hand, has a record of supporting the right wing when he sat on Council. He supported Mayor Rosen on all his big ticket spending projects including the Big Rink (aka Krock Centre).

*In Trillium District Vicki Schmolka faces off against Bryan Paterson. Schmolka, another environmentalist and chair of the crucial Planning Committee, has irritated many in Kingston’s establishment – and particularly property developers – with her championing of a new Official Plan that favours density in the city centre over suburban sprawl much preferred by developers and their political allies. In my last blog entry I pointed to one of Paterson’s key endorsers, realtor and longtime build-it-now booster George Stoparczyk. Recently, we’ve learned of Paterson’s links to Canadians for Moral Clarity, a national right wing advocacy group based here in Kingston.

Paterson is a member of the Third Day Worship Centre on Sydenham Road. Canadians for Moral Clarity shares an address with Third Day and is also spearheaded by that church’s Pastor, Francis Armstrong, described as an “accurate prophet” on the faith community’s website. His wife and fellow Pastor Edith is “a mighty prayer warrior.” CMC is clear enough about its political orientation, with action alerts about abortion and euthanasia, though I could find nothing on its advocacy-oriented website about poverty and environmental issues. CMC’s stated goal is to “impart a vision of spiritual and moral renewal in Canada and to reshape Canadian society.” So while the web site urges us to support Harper’s 2008 proroguing of Parliament in the face of what seemed like certain Conservative defeat, we are not urged to support a private member’s bill like C-300. That one, backed by some of Canada’s more progressive churches, would hold Canadian mining companies to account (they receive huge taxpayer subsidies) for their rampant environmental and human rights abuses in the Third World. Warriors choose their battles.

Paterson’s website has no reference to his faith background, nor should it. It is, however, noteworthy that US-style political evangelism seems to be alive and well in Kingston. And a serious candidate for Council is linked to it. Paterson’s campaign seems well-financed, but we won’t know who’s paying the bills until after the election. (More on this when the numbers come out.) We do know that Schmolka has refused any money from unions or private corporations.

For an informed and insightful look at the intersection of politics and religion in Canada, see Dennis Gruending’s “Pulpit and Politics.” http://www.dennisgruending.ca/pulpitandpolitics/

Out in Countryside District we have another two-way tussle between the unpredictable Joyce MacLeod-Kane and Jeff Scott. The former’s voting record is all over the map. She voted for the Span To Sprawl and bottled water, as well as for contracting out. In spite of  her privatization position (she recently waffled on the issue at a Canadian Union of Public Employees meeting) she still garnered the support of the local Labour Council. Scott, a former backer of his opponent, appears not to offer much of substantial difference to MacLeod-Kane. They differ over whether Council should have a Rural Affairs Committee and, like most everyone else, they’re worried about too much traffic going too fast….but still want to build that Span.

Finally, Kingscourt-Strathcona has been vacated by the best orator in Kingston politics, Steve Garrison. A Liberal party member, Garrison still consistently supported the left, a counterpoint to Leonore Foster on the right. His seat is being contested by former Councilor Brian Evoy and newcomer Sandy Berg. The latter, a “Top Rotarian,” put up a website long on biographical detail and short on policy content. Lots of  emphasis on slick marketing phrases like “smart, affordable choices.” Evoy is backed by the outgoing Garrison and the Labour Council. Both Evoy and Berg have significant volunteer experience, with Evoy highlighting “I AM YOUR NEIGHBOUR,” perhaps a reference to Berg’s address outside the district she wants to represent. Berg is backed by the outgoing  Foster, with Garrison supporting Evoy. An interesting race.

Free-For-Alls

The remaining districts are being contested by more than two candidates. My previous posting discussed the North End race in Cataraqui, where six men are running. Will Rick Downes’s name recognition factor help him in the same way that Mark Gerretsen is surely counting on a familiar moniker?  The main contender would seem to be Jeff Welsh, backed by the familiar Meers clan, who had this district as their stronghold.

In Lakeside incumbent Dorothy Hector, a loyal supporter of the Rosen faction (again, see Kingston Life article) is up against a strong challenge from Labour Council Treasurer Joan Jardin. The choice seems clear, but who knows? Two other candidates, including banker Doug Cameron, are in the running. Will the three newcomers split the anti-incumbent vote of people who have complained of Hector’s lack of responsiveness to neighborhood concerns? Or will people in a district with generally high voter turnout discern who the main ideological adversaries are?

In suburban Loyalist-Cataraqui, Kevin George joins Jim Neill, Brian Evoy, Floyd Patterson and Carsten Sorensen (see below) in the Comeback Kid sweepstakes. George was formerly a Kingston Township and post-amalgamation elected representative. He’s facing a challenge from plucky Princess Street barber Pat Vecchio and David Peterson, proud of his work as an air force reservist. Conservationists with long memories may recall George’s support (back in the Township days) for the notion of selling off Lemoine Point lands that eventually became part of the Conservation Area.

Finally, Pittsburgh district, longtime fiefdom of build-it-now booster Leonore Foster.  And the only East End candidate who does not have a go-go line on the Span To Sprawl is the above-mentioned Carsten Sorensen, a realtor. The other three men place the “Third Crossing” at the top of their priority lists. Sorensen, a Pittsburgh Township councilor at the time of amalgamation, is surely taking a savvy stance in pointing out how the Span would jack up everyone’s taxes. But how that will play in the district most affected by the scheme is anyone’s guess. Interesting.

Photo courtesy of Peter Boyle

Kingston’s political season kicked off, as usual, with early September’s Labour Day parade and musical picnic in leafy Skeleton Park. Billy Bragg and Utah Phillips were singing songs of union battles, their militant messages piped across the old boneyard from speakers mounted on a BMW Z4 sports car.

It was a day for this sort of curious paradox. Outgoing Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen surprised many by showing up to address the workers in front of City Hall. He hadn’t joined the two other contenders for his job (Mark Gerretsen and Rob Matheson) in the parade down from the park. But the property developer did cause a few jaws to drop when he closed his brief remarks by attempting to lead the crowd of unionists in a rousing chorus of Solidarity Forever.

Mr. Rosen, it should be noted, is hoping to snare the Liberal nomination and succeed Peter Milliken as Kingston’s man in Ottawa. How else to explain Mr. Rosen coming out singing for the working class?

September is also when the United Way fundraising campaign gets going. The trade union movement is a big source of United Way money via workplace donations. So it’s traditional for the United Way leaders to show up at the Labour Day parade to raise the flag and press the flesh.

Sure enough, the United Way was there at Skeleton Park. Their former campaign chair Ross Toller had, however, diplomatically disappeared as chair of the group’s “Campaign Cabinet.” Mr. Toller, a Corrections Canada official, had just exited stage right, replaced at the last minute by Empire Life boss Les Herr. Toller had also been a front man for Stephen Harper’s prison farm closure policy. Given Kingston’s overwhelming onslaught of opposition to the farm closure, having Toller at the helm was obviously a huge blunder. Choosing someone so closely associated with the Harperite scheme was like picking the advance man for the avian flu. Not the best idea for a fundraising effort.

The United Way funding campaign and the interminable Liberal nomination process aren’t the only campaigns gathering steam as the leaves start to turn.

The municipal race is heating up. Many local left wing chins started to wag when former Councilor Rick Downes jumped back into the fray, having jumped in and then hopped out again this past summer. Seems Mr. Downes, who said he had to withdraw from the mayoralty race because of a bad leg, is running in the North End. He used to live in the Kings Town district, the area around Skeleton Park. This was his base for his tight race for the mayor’s job with Harvey Rosen back in 2006. The issue then was the LVEC, aka the K-Rock Centre but always known to me as The Big Rink. The Rink is, of course, doing what so many predicted. It’s bleeding public money. And now that longtime Rink booster Leonore Foster has decamped along with Harvey Rosen, the only developer-friendly pol left from that era is Williamsville Councilor Ed Smith.

Mr. Smith kicked off his campaign with a remarkable display of ethical flexibility. His website at first listed as a top “endorsement” that of Kings Town Councilor Rob Hutchison. Turns out that the quote from Hutchison was not an endorsement at all but a quote from a magazine article. Mr. Hutchison, a longtime social democrat, would hardly be endorsing Smith, a fervent right winger. When Hutchison objected, Smith simply changed “endorsements” to “endorsements-testimonials-quotes.”

Mr. Smith’s sole Williamsville opponent this time around is former councilor Jim Neill. The loquacious Neill is a Labour Council activist and a hard-working, experienced campaigner. Smith won Williamsville in 2006 in a crowded field. The head-to-head tussle this time will be one to watch.

Another tussle between left and right is in Lakeside, where Dorothy Hector is facing off against Joan Jardin. Ms. Hector consistently sides with Rosen & Co., voting to contract out waste collection, keep selling bottled water in public facilities and bend over for hardware giant Lowe’s original plan even though it violated the Official Plan. Ms. Jardin has been treasurer of the Labour Council and active in the teachers’ union. Unlikely that she would support contracting out. Two others with lower profiles are after the Lakeside seat.

Finally, a two-way contest that pits Vicki Schmolka against Bryan Paterson. Schmolka consistently voted against the Rosen-Hector-Smith faction. She’s being challenged by Bryan Paterson. How do we know where Paterson stands on the political spectrum? Look no further than Paterson’s glowing home-page support from ex-pol George Stoparczyk, who held the seat before Ms. Schmolka. Stoparczyk, a realtor, was a predictably fervent supporter of the Big Rink and a stalwart of the Council right.

Also of interest is the race that Rick Downes entered at the last minute.

The Cataraqui district includes the city’s North End where the Meers family has held sway almost forever. With Sara Meers leaving electoral politics, her father Dave – he held the seat for four terms – has endorsed Jeff Welsh. Mr. Welsh recently helped the successful union campaign among Queen’s teaching assistants and seems to be the favoured candidate of the local left. With five people in the race and everyone except Mr. Welsh leaning to the political starboard, it had seemed that Mr. Welsh had a good shot at the seat. So when the former NDP candidate (federal and provincial) Downes decided to run, local leftists complained that Mr. Downes consulted no one, criticizing him as a loose cannon. It all makes for a fascinating contest in a district that has historically had low voter turnout.

In Portsmouth, think about the division between Harold Hemberger and Bill Wornes on the one hand and Liz Schell on the other. The men are big fans of the Span To Sprawl (aka the “third crossing”) although their websites offer no explanation of where the budget-busting $150 million – or more – will come from. Unlike the Span supporters, Ms. Schell wisely asks about its sky-high cost and the effect on Kingston’s urban development pattern. Kingston’s new Official Plan aims to alter the historical pattern, finally getting away from Sprawl.

That’s all for now. I’ll be coming up with more election ruminations as October 25 approaches.

Photo courtesy of Rob Mooy, KTW

Coming up two years ago (September 2008), my partner, Don, and I got rid of our car. As with most forward-thinking moves in our household, Don was the driving force behind this decision (he maintains he was the undriving force). He’d read that the biggest single way to cut your carbon emissions was to get rid of your car so after yet another consultation with our (great, honest) mechanic, and anticipating a $3,000 bill merely to bring our not-very-old car up to speed, we decided to try doing without a vehicle altogether. We sold it for scrap, and took the leap into car-lessness.

Then we waited for things to change, because surely things would change dramatically once we were without a car.

And we waited.

And we waited.

Yes, there were some changes, but they were minor. I now had to take the bus to work at the Isabel Turner library out near the Cataraqui Centre mall. This added some time to my day, but the first day I realized there was a huge payoff: while in transit I could read. I didn’t have to pay attention to weather conditions (no more getting out and scraping the car on frigid mornings; no more last-minute discoveries that the gas tank needed to be filled and I’d have to leave earlier than planned); I didn’t have to pay attention to other drivers on the road who clearly didn’t know how to drive. Instead, I left my house, walked to the bus stop, got on the bus, and arrived at work in a mellow frame of mind — whether it was raining, sleeting or snowing, it made no difference, and since I had no idea whether anyone cut the bus off in traffic my blood pressure remained even.

I was surprised at how good the bus system was, although I’d like to point out to the transportational Powers That Be that many of us who work in the west end do get off work after 9 p.m. and don’t want to have to spend the hour it takes to get back downtown now.  Maybe a few more post-9 p.m. buses could be put into circulation.

Back to our adventures in car-lessness: to do the family grocery shopping we took a bundle buggy, or two of us took knapsacks, and here was another revelation: once I factored in driving, parking, loading and unloading the car, it turned out that it took about the same amount of time to do the shopping with a bundle buggy as it did with a car, plus I got outside and I got exercise (yes, that’s me you’ve seen pulling a bundle buggy up Ordnance Street hill on Saturday mornings — great cardio workout).  On top of which, without a car there was NO impulse shopping, no thoughts of “Oh, I think I’ll just pop out to the mall to pick up a door mat,” which invariably led, once I was in the store, to other, ancillary purchases. Not having a car saves you money in so many ways.

But — and it’s a big BUT — it’s possible for us to lead a life without a car primarily because we live in Kingston, which, so far, is a walkable town, a town where you can live in or near the downtown core and find all you need within a ten or fifteen minute walk. I say so far because in the last few years we’ve lost several important resources: No Frills closed (thank goodness for Food Basics), as did the S&R department store. I’m not here to plug for any specific retailers, but (and the mayor knows this, because I e-mailed him about it) S&R was the only place in downtown Kingston where one could purchase reasonably-priced kids’ winter wear, household appliances, realistic bathing suits, shoes, and any number of other day-to-day items without breaking the bank. I realize other stores are attempting to step into the void left by the closure of S&R, but so far no other retailer can offer the wide selection that S&R did, and City Hall has a responsibility to people and families (taxpayers that we are) who live downtown to do its best to ensure the core doesn’t turn into a wasteland of boutique stores and high-priced restaurants, which seems to be the way things are going, which would be too bad. Because the main lesson I’ve learned walking around Kingston is that the things that make it easy to live here without a car are the same things that make Kingston a great place to live: accessibility; a sense of community, which grows when you run into your neighbors and friends around town, and which makes the city feel like a safe, friendly place; and the easier it is to get around, the more you get around — which is good for you, the community, and the environment. A city where you don’t have to get in a car to get what you need is the most sustainable city of all — let’s keep Kingston that way.

Melanie Dugan lives in Kingston and loves to rant, since she believes ranting is a cornerstone of a  healthy democracy. She is pleased and honoured to be included on this august blog.

A sad garden of skeletal remains

Private investors with close links to the government have announced plans to create a pro-government newspaper to publicize good news and promote the state’s agenda.

An August dispatch from Johannesburg. South African president Jacob Zuma, faced with an unprecedented wave of poor people’s demonstrations and labour unrest, has also introduced a Protection of Information law aimed at journalists violating the “national  interest.” 

What does this have to do with the Kingston Whig Standard and my decision to join the legions of others who have given up – and given up on — the paper? 

On one level, the story is an old one, often told by longtime Kingstonians of a certain age. 

The Whig, once owned by the local Davies family, was sold to Southam twenty years ago. Since then, it has passed through the hands of various corporate owners, including those of the disgraced Conrad Black. The once a proud, well staffed and written paper that covered local affairs like the morning dew is now owned by Montreal’s Peladeau interests. The Quebecor octopus includes among its directors the disgraced Brian Mulroney.

Now that the Whig is part of Pierre Karl Peladeau’s Sun Media, local coverage has been diluted. Local editorials are rare. One of the few remaining reporters — and the only woman left in the newsroom — still spends all her time coverings the courts. The result? The most mundane petty offences are treated as news: “Teen pleads guilty to threatening another male while enraged.”

Management has even removed each staffer’s wastepaper basket from the newsroom….and the whole building. 

Quebecor bosses also cancelled the contract of the firm that looked after the Whig’s office plants.  The thriving greenery shriveled into a sad garden of skeletal remains. An all-too-obvious metaphor for the fate of the entire paper. 

When the Customer Service Supervisor asked a friend why he was cancelling the paper, Larry Scanlan’s reply was succinct. 

“The reason? I’m really disappointed in the quality of the newspaper — the lack of local coverage, the lack of good local columnists, all those Sun Media columnists, the woeful op-ed page. I feel a terrific allegiance to the newspaper; I worked for the paper for eight years in the 1980s when it could say with pride that it was one of the finest mid-sized dailies in the land. My history with the paper goes back thirty years, and I can assure you the current version cannot hold a candle to the old one. I will sound old and curmudgeonly by saying so, but I have seen a steady decline. Enough.”

Such is the carnival of ineptitude that lands on my doorstep every morning that I had for months been thinking of not renewing: Lost pet stories on the front page. A cascade of single source stories. “Receive” spelled incorrectly in headlines. Disgraced Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich’s name spelled BLOGojevich in a headline over a wire story that had the man’s name correct. 

More important than the editing blunders is the inescapable fact that the paper has a trashy look to it. That’s in good measure because the Whig is now overflowing with shared pages prepared off-site in a non-union sweatshop.

Then there’s skewed news judgement. On Sunday July 25 the New York Times and the Guardian broke the huge WikiLeaks.org story revealing 76,000 classified U.S.  documents about the Afghan war. The Whig missed the story completely. It belatedly ran a very brief item two days later, but the angle was not the startling revelations about civilian deaths and other “collateral damage” that have so damaged the NATO effort. It was about how the leaks might “endanger Canadian troops.” 

But these signs of declining competence pale next to the crude political agenda that has come to dominate Sun Media outlets. Which leads me to the second reason for not renewing my subscription. 

It has emerged that one Kory Teneycke had taken over Sun Media’s political coverage. 

Now, ever since the Sun chain bought the Whig we have watched as the editorial pages started to be paved with right-wing columnist like Peter Worthington and Lorrie Goldstein. (That is, when Whig editors who once featured an array of locally written opinion pieces weren’t putting reader photos of people sitting on a statue.) It was bad enough to have the eyes blur when confronted with screeds from climate change deniers and poor-bashing zealots. But now Stephen Harper’s former media handler was handling the political coverage in the local paper. And suddenly we’re getting an overdose from the right-wing extremist Ezra Levant. 

I had known that Teneyke was fronting Peladeau’s effort to set up a Canadian TV network modeled after Fox News in the United States. But word that Harper’s former mouthpiece was now determining the slant of the local paper spoke volumes. 

“It’s not every day,” observed Globe & Mail columnist Lawrence Martin, “that a prime minister sees his one-time spokesperson taking control of a giant media chain’s coverage of his government.” 

There you have it. I can no longer abide the idea of paying for a degraded paper that ships money out of the local market with the explicit aim of helping Harper. Soon after taking over Sun Media’s political helm, veteran Ottawa columnist  Greg Weston disappeared. He had just exposed Harper’s outrageous “security” spending for the G-20 summit, along with the exquisitely embarrassing “fake lake.” 

Christina Spencer has also walked the plank at Sun Media’s Ottawa bureau. She was the last experienced journalist to serve as editor of the Whig Standard. 

I started “taking the paper” – as my grandmother used to say – when I moved to Kingston 21 years ago. It was automatic, like getting the phone hooked up.  I also began to contribute to the Whig and even continued to do so after they stopped paying freelancers anything close to professional rates. 

I’ll miss longtime Whig reporter Paul Schliesmann’s coverage of city politics. The paper has a couple of other journalists left who really know the town. They still run Gwynne Dyer’s well informed and iconoclastic articles about matters military, but they will likely soon disappear.  I suppose I can find the weekend Doonesbury on-line and in colour, but it won’t be quite the same. 

Today’s Whig looks increasingly like a Harper house organ. It’s also a spooky reminder of what those private interests with close links to the South African government have in mind for that country. 

(Both Lawrence Martin and Larry Scanlan will be appearing at the Kingston WritersFest September 22-26 http://www.kingstonwritersfest.ca/.)

Your tax dollars hard at work: Watching you.

August 9 dawned sultry and hot, with a heavy mist ghosting over the low-lying fields surrounding Kingston’s Disneyesque Collins Bay pen. Crickets chirped as the cows were milked for the last time at the adjacent Frontenac Institution’s prison farm.  Born on that farm, they were headed for a stifling ride along the 401.

The cops, not known for any sense of irony, had put up a flashing sign. Cattle health at risk.

At the main intersection leading into the jail complex, a police phalanx surrounded a group of demonstrators. They milled about chatting the mood a mixture of anger and sadness.  It was one last local show of support for the cows and the prison farm that for a century provided meaningful work and, they believed, a measure of rehabilitation for convicts.

That same morning a John Howard Society report revealed a vicious cycle of poverty, prison and homelessness. Many inmates are on a grim treadmill, cycling between jail and homelessness. A third of convicts said they’d be living in a homeless shelter upon release, with another 12 per cent reporting that they had no idea where they’d go when released.

Facts matter not to the Harper government. They try to make hay by putting the boots to convicts, Canada’s most despised people, figuring cynically that a population fed on an endless stream of cop shows and sensationalized crime reporting by an increasingly dumbed-down media will pay off at the polls. No matter that  their US-style “truth in sentencing” proposal would swell the jail population, costing us an additional $5 billion annually according to Parliament’s own Budget Officer.

This while crime continues its decline, according to Statistics Canada. But the Harperites are working on that one, too. The same morning citizens opposed to the farm closure were manhandled into an unmarked police bus, former Statscan chief Munir Sheikh wrote one last appeal to reason, urging the government not to eviscerate the census that provides us with so much vital information.

Speaking in Vancouver, Harper repeated the lie that his ministers had been retailing for weeks: It makes no sense to prosecute people who don’t fill in their census forms “with fines and jail terms.” (No one’s ever been jailed for a census violation.) Harper claimed that “this was not the appropriate way to get the public’s co-operation.”

Given Kingston’s unprecedented opposition to the prison farm closure – the din of drivers honking in support of the demonstrators was at times deafening – Harper’s ostensible concern about public co-operation was laughable. He clearly has a similar ignorance of irony displayed by the cops doing his dirty work in Kingston.

The mass police presence that morning was clearly aimed at intimidation.  Video cameras and still photographers recorded us. The local cops, some of whom looked distinctly uneasy,  were buttressed by a hard-faced squad from the Ontario Provincial Police, drone-like in their storm trooper appearance. The ceaseless blaring from the passing commuters played a backdrop to chants.

Hey, hey, Ho, ho….Save the cows….Let Harper go!

We are gentle angry people, and we are singing, singing for our farms.

The day’s climax came at 8:15 when the cops moved up to surround us, preventing anyone from getting near the roadway. The atmosphere became tense as the first cattle truck lumbered up to the intersection. Retired letter carrier Stuart Pike, Kingston’s stalwart demonstration sound man, was playing John Lennon

Well we all shine on….Like the moon and the stars and the sun….Well we all shine on….Everyone, come on.

A flurry of activity on the southwest corner resulted in the arrest of several people, including farmers and Royal Military College professors. It was unclear if they had succeeded in blocking the road or that the cops, taking a leaf from the police state tactics of the recent G-20 debacle, simply indulged in a spot of preventive detention. Why? Because they could. It remains to be seen whether mischief charges will stick. Maybe in today’s Canada, merely appearing to be ready to defy the authorities is grounds for a criminal conviction. Maybe not.

The whole thing was over by early afternoon. Fifteen had been arrested. And, of course, save-our-farms mascot Stormy the Donkey.  Stormy’s owner, campaign organizer Jeff Peters – sporting buttons for Liberal nomination hopeful Bill Flanagan and NDP candidate Dan Beals — was hauled off with the donkey in tow. Local activist lawyer Pam Cross grabbed Stuart Pike’s microphone, urging the cops to release the animal that has long sported a blanket that might have been a bit unfair to the beast: “Conservative Prison Farm Consultant.”

“We don’t want any animals hurt,” she shouted. “Stormy is not a threat to the state.”

It was a moment of humour in an otherwise gloomy day. I’ve never been to a non-funeral gathering where so many were in tears.  The mood was perhaps best caught by Howe Island farmer Dianne Dowling, a key planner of the spectacularly well organized campaign. The retired teacher and National Farmers Union activist spoke to the crowd before the first truck made it out, her impassioned remarks tinged with sorrow and anger.

“We have an insane, inhumane prison agenda ahead,” she predicted. “My heart is so full of appreciation for all of you and for all that we have been through in the past 18 months.”

Indeed, the save-our-farms movement is a remarkable coalition, the widest I’ve seen in my 21 years in Kingston. Local food supporters. Environmentalists. Unions. Farm organizations, including the usually cautious Cattlemen’s Association and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Social justice activists anxious about Harper’s jail-‘em-all agenda.  Faith communities. The support has been massive. Three hundred at a rain sodden dawn demo in July. Five hundred on an even wetter afternoon the day before the cows were rustled away.

Questions remain. Will Harper spear carrier Brian Abrams be forced to wear his party’s utter defiance of near-unanimous local opinion – not to speak of his boss’s unspeakable prison agenda – come the next election? What about rural Conservatives (Canadian Republicans, not “Tories”) like Scott Reid? How can he account for his party’s poking a sharp stick in the eye of southeastern Ontario’s entire farm community?

And, finally, what will come of the energetic coalition that worked so hard for what so many people believe in?

Naturally Good - Tara

I went downtown to buy stationery and mail a letter the other day.

Once upon a time you could go to Mills Office Supplies  at Bagot and Brock (now an army recruiting outfit) before you did your post office business. No more. Now there’s no competition in the office supply racket, so I have to go to Staples – aka the Business Despot. They have greeters, just like Wal-Mart. Corporate concentration spawns homogenization.

But I suppose that we should count ourselves as lucky that this big box category killer (you can get bottled water at Staples) located downtown. Otherwise, where would we go for printer paper, stickies and the like?

After Staples, I rolled over to post office. What used to be called the Dominion Public Building in many a town is a monument to modernism here. It has a bright, airy space where you buy stamps and get parcels weighed. The ceiling is lofty. The staff are friendly. The place even smells good. Papery.

Then I headed down Princess Street and left my bike on the shady south side just below Wellington, across from Wayfarer Books. And because anxious debates about the future of downtown are much on the public mind, I paused to take a look across the street at the buildings on either side of Wayfarer.

To the east is Tara Foods, a vital downtown destination store employing some twenty people. The retail/wholesale business has a homespun feel. The building’s façade is impressive, freshly painted and inviting. It features upstairs apartments under a metal roof, the new dormers added when the store moved from King Street back in the late 1990s. The green awning creeps out automatically, according to the sun’s position.

Then, two doors up the street, is the Sleepless Goat. “The Goat” is a worker co-op, a funky spot unique to Kingston – like Brian’s Record Option up the street. The Goat has no greeters, no hostess. But it is always packed with the young people that the local economic development people insist that we need to attract and retain.

When I stood looking at The Goat, I was amazed – but not surprised — by the difference between its building and the one housing Tara Foods.

The Goat is housed in a three storey Victorian structure that is in need of work. The apartments above the café have decaying aluminum windows that I suspect help to heat the outdoors in winter. The street door leading upstairs is surrounded by faded metal cladding stained with rust. Paint is peeling from chipped bricks. The mortar is crumbling. There’s no apparent sign that the building’s owner has recently invested much of the $64,800 in rent collected annually from the Goat.

Tara’s spiffy building is owned by the fellow who runs Tara,  German immigrant Rudi Mogl, who came here thirty years back. He clearly brings a sense of pride to his downtown property. The Goat’s scabrous building is owned by the Springer interests.

Brian's Record Option - A Classic Spin

Kingston boosters have lots of claims about the things that make this place unique.

Fort Henry was home to nineteenth century remittance men, dissolute toffs from upper crust families paid by their Victorian parents to stay away from home. It remains a 21st century tourist attraction. But other cities from Quebec City to Niagara-on-the-Lake boast forts.

Lately local anniversary retailers have been working themselves up into a lather about 2015, when John A. Macdonald would have turned 200. He lives on among those who subscribe to the Great Man theory of history. But the only significant landmark that smacks of The Old Chieftain is Bellevue House, where he lived for a few short years before becoming famous.

We can boast about City Hall, designed by pioneering architect George Brown. An imposing structure, it’s certainly worth a gander. Inside hang portraits of Great Men of local significance, Kingston’s former mayors.

Indeed, if uniqueness is what it takes for Kingston to live up to what was once its official slogan – You’ll Be Amazed! – we have to look elsewhere. The prisons come to mind most immediately. This is Canada’s jail capital. We have a great prison museum. But for some reason few seem to be boasting about the penitentiaries.

In fact, if you’re looking for uniqueness – and many a tourist is doing just that – you have to wonder along Princess Street just below Division. There, nestled among the student drinking spots that are free of anything but corporate character, you’ll find a place that really is unique to Kingston. Downtown Kingston. Without the exclamation mark.

It’s a record shop. One that oozes character. An overflowing waste basket sits atop a dusty old turntable just inside the door. Both seem to be threatened by a teetering bookshelf jammed with a haphazard collection of biographies. The carpet has not had even a passing acquaintance with a vacuum cleaner.

The state of the place is not, however, what makes it unique. Although the proprietor surely stands alone among concept-conscious retailers by cultivating an image of grottiness. The fact is that I have never been in a store where you can learn so much, where there’s such a stunning array of stuff on offer.

I’m referring, of course, to Brian’s Record Option.

If, for some reason, you’re numbed by nostalgia for bubblegum rock, you will surely be able to find that elusive vinyl disc by The Archies. Stonewall Jackson and Charlie Pride are on offer along with Black Sabbath and the Bee Gees. There is a good classical section and a respectable collection of jazz. During the rigorous investigation that produced this article on a thick vinyl disc marked “Hi-Fi: Living Sound Fidelity,” a copy of a Berlin performance by Ella Fitzgerald from the early ‘60s. Brain’s is also the right spot should you want a poster advertising the Meatloaf classic Bat Out of Hell.

The store stocks over eighty thousand new and used vinyl discs, five thousand cassettes and ten thousand CDs. Students, a mainstay of this permanent jumble sale, love poring over the countless posters. “Awesome! Led Zeppelin.”

All of this, plus the musician biographies, poster books and a ready supply of used turntables, makes Brian’s a browser’s paradise. Despite the fact that the display of old 45s looks like it has been arranged by a snowblower.

A young teenager once came in and, looking up at a poster, remarked, “Hey! That’s Julian Lennon’s father.” The lad’s own father could only look sheepish, but the man with the Lennon-like wire rimmed spectacles who is always standing behind the counter let out one of the stentorian guffaws familiar to anyone who has ever passed more than a few moments in Brian’s.

If his Record Option is unique, so is Brian. If he knew a lot about music – particularly folk, blues, country and rock – before he first opened thirty years ago, he an encyclopedia now. I asked him about Lads, the store cat who was once a fixture in the store.

Lads dies awhile ago and Brian recalled how he would always sit on the counter display of the alphabetized cassette tapes, right over the Ms. This led to a discussion of early Van Morrison recordings. Apparently Astral Weeks was not the Belfast Cowboy’s first album, as I had always thought. There’s an early disc, a collector’s item on Bang Records. Brian even knew the name of that label’s owner.

“Every few years I ask myself if I’m making enough money to get by and if I’m still happy,” explains Brian. “If the answer is ‘Yes,’ then I renew the lease.”

Sounds like a fine business philosophy, not to mention a philosophy of working life.

Brian sports a long, unevenly trimmed beard and describes himself as a “weird guy” because he likes to work alone. He has never really had any employees, just the odd temporary person hired to sort the massive inventory. The sorting, however, obviously never got completed. Besides, Brian isn’t alone very often. People are always in the store, browsing.

Over the years Internet sales have grown. But the idea of ramping up the business to make more money has little appeal.

“Gradually the Internet stuff will take over the income, but I could never close the store because I’d never be able to talk to people from behind the counter.”

Sounds like a sensible view of arranging your life.

Originally from Montreal, Brian jokes that by the time he finished his university studies in sociology, psychology and criminology, he knew that he was prepared to run a record store. He did a survey of Ontario cities and decided on Kingston, “a very boring city at the time.”

But the location right between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, the large student population and the growing tourist trade convinced him that this was the place to go into business. So he joined what he describes as “alternative” business like Phase 2, Tara Natural Foods and Chez Piggy that were emerging at the time.

Brian has an uncanny sense of his inventory, despite the clutter. He reports that there are “some real gems” in the basement.

A young customer who’s younger than Brian’s store asks if he has something by The Pariahs. Diving into the nether world that is the back of the shop, Brian soon returns with a copy of Home Is Where You Hang Yourself.

I summon up the nerve and pick my way to the back of the store, uncharted terrain for all but the most intrepid browsers. I’m finally deterred by a landslide of rolled-up posters.

“Some guy was going through my Christmas posters and made a real mess back there,” says Brian, with no apparent attempt at irony. “It hasn’t been the same since.”

What makes Brian’s Record Option unique is that there’s no other place like it anywhere. At least that I know of. If you’ve never visited, it’s worth exploring this Kingston institution.

You’ll be amazed.

A version of this article appeared several years ago in the PIC Press