| Ê | URL: www3.sympatico.ca/milan.novak/all/leadership_3.html |
The Regional Municipality of Niagara
2201 St. David's Road, P.O. Box1042
Thorold, Ontario L2V 4T7
To: Regional Chair Debbie Zimmerman and All Municipal Council Members
October 18, 2003
Dear Municipal Council:
Over and above the ongoing matter of NRPS withholding services from me, in view of the upcoming municipal elections, I would like to first address the record of your government.
Instead of using the traditional indicators such as unemployment or job creation rates, I looked to the population and how it has changed in recent years for a concise and comprehensive measure. To account for provincial Tory policies, the following compares the regional changes in population makeup to changes province-wide.
According to Statistics Canada, between 1996 and 2001, the population of Ontario grew by 6.1%, or by 650,000 to 11.4 million and the population of Niagara Region grew by 1.7%, or by 7,000 to 411,000. The percentages in each age group below show how they changed during the five-year period.
| 1996-2001 Population Changes | ||||||||
| Age Group | 0-4 | 5-14 | 15-19 | 20-24 | 25-54 | 55-64 | 65-74 | 75+ |
| Ontario | -8.6% | +5.5% | +10.2% | +2.1% | +5.9% | +13.2% | +3.1% | +21.0% |
| Niagara Region | -15.9% | -0.5% | +3.3% | -5.6% | +1.4% | +10.5% | -2.9% | +25.2% |
What stands out is the first age group 0-4 years of age. The -8.6% translates into 63,000 fewer children in 2001 than in 1996 province-wide and the -15.9% translates into 4,000 fewer children region-wide.
The provincial Tories' approach to government was to remove the electorate from the formula and cater to a select few of their political backers. A government is above all else about and for the people, and their refusal to strive for this ideal showed in their landslide humiliation a few weeks ago during the provincial elections.
Better economic conditions usually mean families having more children. However, the Tory common sense revolution failed to take into account that incomes in most young families are closely tied to the minimum wage and that these families also depend on social programs much more then any other group.
The repercussions of freezing the minimum wage in 1995, gutting of the social net and 15%+ provincial inflation since then will reverberate through the economy for decades to come. When Dalton McGinty pledged smaller class sizes, he certainly did his homework, but his pledge will also minimize the inevitable job loses in the education sector, along with school closures.
Traditionally, children tend to grow up in the communities they are born in. The scenario in the next table assumes the age group 0-4 for Niagara Region to have changed by the provincial average and adjusts the other age groups accordingly, or by the difference of 7.3%.
| 1996-2001 Population Changes, Scenario | |||||
| Age Group | 0-4 | 5-14 | 15-19 | 20-24 | 25-44 |
| Ontario | -8.6% | +5.5% | +10.2% | +2.1% | +5.9% |
| Niagara Region (actual) | -15.9% | -0.5% | +3.3% | -5.6% | +1.4% |
| Niagara Region (scenario) | -8.6% | +6.8% | +10.6% | +1.7% | +8.7% |
The scenario results lined up closely to the provincial averages. When considering the scenario's age groups, the results mean entire families being uprooted from the region and leaving in droves. Had the age group 0-4 been at the provincial level, it would have meant 1,800 more children under 5 in the region. Below is how the region's population changed over a period of a decade, as percentages as well as the actual counts.
| 1991-2001 Population Changes, Niagara Region | |||||||
| Age Group | 0-14 | 15-24 | 25-44 | 45-64 | 65-74 | 75+ | All Groups |
| 1991-1996 | +2.2% | -5.7% | -2.3% | +8.5% | +8.6% | +16.2% | +2.4% |
| +1,710 | -3,065 | -2,810 | +7,085 | +3,040 | +3,620 | +9,580 | |
| 1996-2001 | -5.4% | -1.1% | -4.4% | +12.7% | -3.0% | +25.3% | +1.7% |
| -4,305 | -540 | -5,165 | +11,535 | -1,130 | +6,585 | +6,980 | |
Over a period between 1991 to 2001, the overall population increased by 16,560 while the population 0-14 years decreased by 2,595. This age group presents quite a paradox. During the first half of the decade, at the time of economic recession and high unemployment, it grew virtually in proportion to the rest of the population. As the economy turned around in the second half of the decade, families not only started to have fewer children, but also started to flee the region.
What does it all mean? In short, you massacred your own tax base, and unbelievably during an economic boom. This region is unlike any other. It is one of the oldest and it has much more going for it than anywhere else in the province, beginning with Niagara Falls and ending with its economically strategic location.
When compared with the rest of the province, your record is somewhat of a gem in the area of inept, nearsighted, corrupt and self-serving. The regional chair Debbie Zimmerman has the right idea by leaving politics before her own legacy catches up with her.
The next municipal council will have their job cut out for them in trying to soften the future economic blow. Uprooting families from the region spells lower demand for big-ticket items such as houses or furnishings, a drop in property values, higher taxes and user fees. The radical downward changes in the population were concentrated in the majority of the current and the future tax base. This will inevitably change the demand on the existing public service infrastructure, making it more costly to maintain.
The St. Catharines mayor Tim Rigby, now running for a third term, writes on the city's election web site: "When I first ran for Mayor, it was in the hope that I could help keep our children & grandchildren from relocating to find employment. Today, as the diversity of our economy expands & our opportunity for employment increases, I remain committed to St. Catharines growth & prosperity." Mr. Rigby, what about the other grandparents? The city's population actually dropped to pre-1991 levels on your watch.
It is my hope that the first order of business of the next municipal council will be to build consensus with all the city councils in the region to plan and make decisions on the basis of merit and for the people.
As far as the matter of NRPS withholding services from me is concerned, I will never understand your decision to look the other way of corruption in the top of the police ranks and at the municipal police services board.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/milan.novak/all/leadership_2.htm (NRPS/police services board handling of complaints)
The general sentiment toward cases of police abuse of power is to be dismissive of them. They always seem to sound a bit too unreal to be taken as seriously as they would normally be in other areas of public services. Most people do not realize that unlike any other type of public services you are responsible for, police services are unique because of its command structure. It makes it less transparent and thus more prone corruption and abuse.
Since the beginning of this year, I have been repeatedly asking you live up to your mandate, but instead you chose to play politics with my life and with the life of an 8-year old boy on the account of Niagara College being involved. In my recent email to them, I made it clear that the matter will get to the criminal justice system one way or another.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/milan.novak/all/nc_2.html (email to Niagara College)
I am angry, but not with the demented stalker that Irene Motz is. It is numbing having to beg every one of you and the province over and over to put a stop to crime and protect the community.
I was an easy target for Irene Motz's criminal harassment and her defamatory libel as I was returning to the work force from a prolonged medical leave, or so I thought as it turned out. Your failure to live up to your mandate, along with the province, amounted to dismissing my life as worthless, allowing crime to continue and not just against myself.
Irene Motz, Irene Harrietha or whatever other identity she likes to use, seem to have found encouragement in your corruption. The search link below leads to Google Groups, an online public forum, to her victim #5 that I know of. The story is the same, she is creating reasons to justify her grazed need for control and punishment of all the bad people in this world, or anyone for that matter.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=justcs
I hope that as soon as the new provincial government is sworn in, you will address it with the Ministry of the Attorney General and Ministry of the Public Safety & Security in order for Irene Motz to be investigated. The documents accumulated over the last year suggest that you already addressed it with them, but it a rather different manner.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/milan.novak/all (web site Accountable)
Sincerely,
Milan Novak