…but first, a word from the Sewer.

Where does the time go?

You might have noticed there was no newsletter last week. That was not for lack of trying. I started working on pieces almost immediately after I published my November 7 look at the HealthBox debate.

I wanted to include pieces on all the absolute nonsense that has transpired over the past little while, since it seemed like things were coming at us with lightening speed.

There was the dumb little “mass deportation” farce in front of Jackson Square (the fascists got what they wanted - attention and establishment outrage). There was the expected collapse of some of the oldest buildings in Hamilton across from Gore Park (Hamilton’s developers strike again!). There was the resurrection of the imaginary “war on cars” at last Wednesday’s council meeting (folks, is it anti-union to ride a bike?).

Since then, I’ve written and rewritten versions of this edition multiple times. All I managed to get to was the lengthy debate over the Notwithstanding Clause, which now seems slightly dated.

I’ve gone back over it again and again and again. I wanted to write at length about all these things. But I just couldn’t make it happen. The words weren’t coming and, when they did, they were garbled and pitiful.

I think this is because, honestly, I’m really sad these days. Less despondent than two weeks ago, but still pretty sad.

There’s the dire gloom of the season, the ever-worsening job market, the general anger in the population that is unavoidable and anxiety-inducing. And, looming largest in my mind, is the current state of politics.

***

The outcome of the American election on November 5 smothered a little something in me. I know I shouldn’t have, but I let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, that plucky band of American centre-right liberals could pull it off with their gun-toting prosecutor at the top of the ticket. They’d hold back the tide of authoritarianism for another four years until such time as we could all watch in horror once more as the world’s lumbering superpower in decline flirted with the fringe of the far-right.

In the lead-up to their election, respondents consistently told pollsters that the economy was their number one issue. In a Pew Research poll from September, 81% of voters said that was one of their top-ten issues - the single most important for voters identified with both candidates. Gallup polls from October indicated that the economy was the only issue a majority of voters said was “extremely important” when it came to making their choice in the voting booth. Ipsos polls showed that, just days before the November 5 election, more Americans expressed concern over the economy than “threats to democracy”. What little I watched on election night itself validated this when exit polling data showed voters basing their choice on the economy above everything else.

And, yet, the Democratic campaign contained nothing of substance for people who were struggling or are looking with unease into a future that seems more and more uncertain. There were throwaway lines repeated by late night talk show hosts and the campaign’s celebrity backers about helping people buy homes and start businesses and give them tax credits if they have children.

But, in the end, that was no match for the simple message advanced by the Republican campaign. That message, summarized by Ryan Broderick over at the Garbage Day newsletter, was: “I will make you wealthy and hurt everyone you hate.”

That will be the dominant theme running through global politics for the next few years. Maybe even decades.

It’s not that everyone is on board with that message. The president-elect only picked up 2.5 millionish votes, compared to his 2020 performance. The vice president’s campaign lost over 7 million votes. A small minority of loud, angry, ill-informed people will start to matter more than the majority of tired, broken, disillusioned people. That latter group is tired of being misled and let down by tepid champions of the broken status quo who try to wow the people with flashy gimmicks, only to mask their inherently selfish policies.

And, what’s worse, they just aren’t interested in learning. Instead of sitting back and asking how they can better address the very real economic concerns of an increasingly squeezed working class and a rapidly disappearing middle class, leaders in the Democratic Party are tripping over themselves to blame the party’s policy on trans rights. It was a policy they never brought up, that their own candidates said no one asked them about, and that was only raised by the Republicans as a scare tactic. AND YET there are elected Democrats and members of that party’s leadership convinced that their “tolerance” of trans people cost them the election.

***

REGARDLESS, we’ve entered an Age of Retribution. An increasingly angry band of voters with little-to-no civic literacy will vote, not for policies that will help them, but to punish politicians who they see as singularly responsible for every mistake connected to government. Opposition politicians will try to harness this anger, weaponizing it against their enemies and riding into power on a wave of popular frustration, only to have that wave turn against them not long after they start making decisions that will inevitably be unpopular with some people. A spiral downward into the warming embrace of hell.

This is, in part, because we’re in a moment where facts don’t matter. Where “intellectuals” are an occupying force to be overcome. Where ideas are an encumbrance and where pure, unadulterated, unrestrained, bottom-of-the-gut feeling is what guides us.

Feelings don’t care about your facts.

That puts me in a weird spot. I spent 14 years in post-secondary, learning all that I could and, more importantly, learning how to develop reasoned, tested, principles positions. I studied politics and history and planning and labour and geography. I wanted to master those topics and learn about the world around me so I could contribute meaningfully to the conversation. And now the conversation has moved from how to build a better world to how we can better shove nerds into lockers.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have a difficult time seeing my place in civic life these days. I’m a relic of a bygone time and I’m only in my mid-thirties. I’m a person who gets excited by ideas and policies in a time when those things are a hinderance, not an asset. I write long newsletters that frame local issues through a progressive lens when what people really want are short blurbs and disorienting quick videos that reinforce their preexisting notions.

I know we need to do a better job with civic education. Being an engaged democratic citizen means committing to learning everyday and our institutions must pivot to putting civic education front and centre.

I know we still need policy and that there are engaged, committed, passionate people in our community, desperate for change. We have to find those people, collaborate, and give each other the space to learn from one another.

I know all is not lost. I just don’t know how to find my way back onto the trail.

***

This is the 80th edition of the Sewer Socialists. I love highlighting what happens in this city and engaging with our democracy through this publication. But I need a little bit to recalibrate and reassess.

I’m taking the next week off. Likely the week following as well. I aim to be back on December 12, hopefully with some idea as to how I can move forward. In order for me to keep going, I need some time to refocus, so I’m giving myself permission to stop and think for a second.

I wanted to thank all my readers, subscribers, and donors who have stuck with this project. Your feedback and support means so much to me. Do not fear; I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be back with more local commentary before you know it.

Okay, on with the show!

Can’t Notwithstand It

Constitutionally speaking

Canada’s constitution has...some flaws.

As guiding documents go, it is outdated, clunky, and all-too-easy to ignore when convenient. While a constitution is supposed to act as a foundational document onto which other aspects of a country are built, ours has provided a rather unstable foundation. The last time it was updated, it did not include any significant changes that would have taken into account some important contemporary advancements, like the fact that Canada’s urban population is much, much larger than our rural population.

Today, over 73% of Canadians live in municipalities that have a population of 100,000 or more, but every single thing their local government does can be overridden by a self-interested provincial government because municipalities are a footnote, stuffed into the bullet point list of responsibilities given to provinces.

One of the most obvious flaws is actually tacked onto one of the recent additions to the constitution. Canada’s constitution was amended in 1982 by the government of Pierre Trudeau. The main goal of that round of changes was the patriation of the constitution, finally giving Canada final and complete authority over its own constitutional document. This was in contrast to the previous system, which allowed the British Parliament to have a final say over any changes. While that round of amendments included some important updates, like an attempt to enshrine treaty rights and laying out some basics on how to further amend the constitution, the most important new addition was an update to the Canadian Bill of Rights from 1960.

That document was the brainchild of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and sought to establish some basic and firm rights for Canadians. But that was just a “federal statute”, meaning it did not apply to provincially . It was a start, but it needed something else to make it more effective.

When Pierre Trudeau’s government patriated the constitution, it provided the perfect opportunity to “entrench” an updated document - the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - into the constitution, giving all Canadians rights that must be recognized by all governments in the country.

Or, it would have, had it not also included Section 33.

Section 33 of the Charter is the Notwithstanding Clause. It allows Parliament or any provincial legislature to pass legislation that would otherwise violate Sections 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15 of the Charter.

What are those sections?

Section 2 is about “fundamental freedoms”, like the freedom of thought, belief, expression, assembly, association, etc. The absolute baseline of a contemporary democracy. Section 7 is the “right to life, liberty, and security”. Sections 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 are about your legal rights, like the right to have legal counsel, be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. And Section 15 is the right to equal treatment under the law.

So Section 33 allows a provincial government to pass a law that would otherwise violate those fundamental freedoms.

When it was added in 1982, Section 33 was intended to be a check on judicial power. There was a worry that judges would become the only people able to interpret the Charter and would, with that power, begin nullifying provincial laws all willy nilly. But, pretty quickly, what was intended to be a check on judicial power became a tool for provinces to use when they wanted to advance controversial legislation. The bollard against runaway judicial power became a blunt instrument to be used in favour of runaway provincial power.

Quebec was the first province to use it, first employing it to diminish Anglophone language rights and then adding it onto loads of legislation through to this day, most recently using it on another restrictive language bill in 2022. Saskatchewan and Ontario have used it to override the rights of union workers. Alberta tried to use it to attack equal marriage, but marriage is a federal responsibility, so that was just for show. The Yukon territorial government even tried to add it to a land use planning bill, but it wasn’t used as intended and quietly ignored.

It should be noted that it was never used in the history of Ontario until Doug Ford came to office. Since then, he’s threatened to use it or actually used it with reckless abandon.

Doug’s challenge

On October 28, Doug Ford was having one of his regular standing-awkwardly-at-a-lectern-five-metres-in-front-of-workers press conferences and made a flippant comment about the issue of homelessness.

“Why don’t the big city mayors actually put in writing that they want the province to change the homeless program, make sure we move the homeless along, and why don’t they put in ‘use the notwithstanding clause,’ or something like that,” and then, for good measure, he threw in this taunt: “Let’s see if they have the backbone to do it.”1 

Ford made these comments because, back in January of 2023, Justice M.J. Valente of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the Region of Waterloo couldn’t use a by-law to evict encampment residents without providing any alternatives because such a by-law would violate Section 7 of the Charter - the right to life, liberty, and security. Valente observed that the by-law violated the Charter “because of complex economic, personal, and social circumstances, including the shortage of accessible shelter spaces in the Region [of Waterloo] for homeless persons. The homeless of the Region have no place to live, rest and sleep without severe risk to their health caused, in part, by the By-Law’s prohibition to erecting any form of shelter on the Region’s lands.”

Because the Region had nowhere else for people experiencing homelessness to go, banning them from camping in parks would have been a direct threat to their life. Even just experiencing homelessness has a major impact on one’s life and security; data from Toronto indicates men experiencing homelessness have a life expectancy 24 years less than the general population and a mind-blowing 42 years less for women - exactly half the life expectancy of housed residents.

The Valente ruling is what we’ve been operating under all this time and the reason Hamilton has an encampment protocol rather than a full-on ban on encampments. It seeks to create order as a stop-gap until such time as sufficient supports are provided while ensuring to not contravene the ruling.

Ford, as Premier, has the power to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause and implement a blanket ban on encampments in Ontario. He can allow municipalities to ignore the Valente ruling by drafting legislation which includes an invocation of Section 33.

And let’s remember, he’s not above imposing his will on municipalities and has played fast-and-loose with the Notwithstanding Clause in the past. He threatened to use it to change Toronto’s ward boundaries in the middle of the 2018 municipal election even when civic leaders said they didn’t want it.

There’s nothing stopping him from using it and there would be very few political consequences to his invoking it - he used it before the last provincial election for the “Protecting Elections and Defending Democracy Act, 2021” and again after the 2022 election for the “Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022”. He won the 2022 election in a landslide, is leading in the polls, and has the power to run this province like a god king, so there is literally nothing stopping him.

But he wants to make municipal leaders beg for it. He wants the good little mayors to line up behind him and wants to blame his failings on those rebellious local leaders who shun his goodwill. No need to fund healthcare and build housing when you can pin the blame on all those “loony local lefties”!

And, oh boy, did some municipal leaders beg. A collection of 13 of Ontario’s most right-wing mayors rose to the challenge and did exactly what he wanted. Under the cover of Halloween, the Gang of 13 sent a formal letter to Ford asking him to pretty please override the human rights of Ontarians, use the Notwithstanding Clause, and go to town. It was so dramatic, they earned two extra converts to their cause in the days that followed, bringing the total number of Notwithstanding Mayors up to 15.

The specific ask was to “amend the Trespass to Property Act to include a separate section for repetitive acts of trespass, the penalty for which should include a period of incarceration, and to further permit a police officer to arrest a person who commits repetitive acts of trespass after having been directed by the police officer not to engage in such activity.” There are other requests, like forcing people into “mandatory community-based and residential mental health care”, forcing people with addictions into rehab, and more “guidance regarding the open and public use of drugs being prohibited in the same manner as the open consumption of alcohol.”

Shortly after the Gang of 13-turned-15 sent their letter, Hamilton’s Ward 5 Councillor, Matt Francis, announced his intention to bring a motion to our council that would seek the body’s approval to make a similar request. Originally scheduled for a later General Issues Committee meeting, Francis sped his motion up and brought it to a meeting of Council on Wednesday, November 13.

And what a performance it was.

The sound and the fury

As matters before council go, Francis’ motion doesn’t include much detail. It includes four “whereas” statements, two of which are variations on “Doug Ford said we could ask for this”.

The actual motion, if passed, would have ensured:

A few minutes after 11:00 AM on November 13, Francis’ motion (7.8 on the docket), seconded by Ward 14’s Mike Spadafora, came to the floor.

Francis was first on the list, given a chance to introduce and justify his motion.

He began by stating emphatically (albeit in a measured monotone that was both disarming and unnerving) that “our Hamilton taxpayers are being taken advantage of,” because the city has “signaled to all the homeless people throughout the Province of Ontario that Hamilton is a place to come and camp.” He rejected the notion that the city’s focus on housing was acceptable because “we can’t house every single individual from all over the province in this city alone.”

His comments echoed those we’ve heard from this city’s populist right: “We have consistently invited more and more people and told them that Hamilton parks are the ‘sanctuary’ for your tents and drugs and we will do nothing about it.”

There’s that word again. Sanctuary. There’s a shadowy group in town that consistently brings up the concept of “sanctuary”. Local developers keep saying it. Former politicians keep saying it. Front groups and anonymous X/Twitter bots keep saying it. It keeps being used in the wrong context, applied to the wrong situations. It’s never corrected. The right keeps tying unrelated things together and keeps getting away with it. It’s like watching them build their own counternarrative - their own alternative reality - unimpeded and untethered to decency.

He continues on, raising apocalyptic spectre after apocalyptic spectre. “If there ever was a time to signal to the homeless of the entire province to come to Hamilton, rejecting this motion is it,” he says calmly. “We have turned our city into a provincial campground.”

He doesn’t relent. He doesn’t waver. He pivots, positioning himself as the champion of women and children and the defenceless masses.

“Mothers with their children have the right to use the parks they paid for. Everyday taxpayers have the right to go for walks in their parks. Children have the right to use their parks without the fear of stepping on needles. Families have the right to use the park without fear of passing by someone with a shotgun in their tent. Women have the right to feel safe in their own backyards; currently, many do not,” he speculated.

His framing is clear: this is a motion meant to save a wayward city. As a call for sanity in a time of disorder. As a way to stand up for those we hold dear in the face of an invading army of outsiders. We must curb rights to restore rights. We must take away freedom to ensure freedom. We must be brutal to restore order. Order, order, order.

And then, he sets up a tripwire, turns to his colleagues, and dares one of them to push him.

***

His last words spoken on the motion are designed to provoke.

“Rather than being so intent on standing up for drug addicts, using our parks as a provincial campground,” he says, “we need to start standing up for the rights of the everyday taxpayers to use the amenities that they pay for.” He’s cast his fishing line out. He intends to continue, but he is interrupted. Someone has taken the bait.

It’s the mayor who he’s managed to reel in. She hands the chair to Deputy Mayor Brad Clark and calls a point of order, recognizing that Francis is impugning the motives of his colleagues. Clark agrees, and instructs Francis to apologize and “just move on.”

The stage is set for the showdown he wants.

“I will not apologize for that and I will always stand up for the rights of mothers to use their parks,” he declares. He’s muddied the point, reframed the conversation, taken control of the narrative once more. He’s being silenced for standing up for the defenceless, not being held accountable for attacking his colleagues. No matter how hard Clark tries, Francis will hold onto that narrative and not let go.

Clark gives him another chance, but he’s intent on inching closer to the point of no return. It’s what he wants, after all. Push me, he’s begging. I dare you. I want it.

“I will not apologize for standing up for the rights of women and mothers and families and children to use the parks freely,” he proclaims, performatively defiant.

He’s asking his colleague, his usual ally, to make an example of him.

Clark plays into this. “You know me,” he says, “I follow the rules fastidiously. I am suggesting to you to think very clearly about the next few words that you use.”

There will be no clarity. “I will not apologize,” Francis says calmly, “and I will not apologize for standing up for the rights of women, mothers, childrens [sic], and families to use their parks safely.”

At this point, something deeply strange occurs.

Clark gets clarity from the clerk about his rights as the acting chair of the meeting and, when told he can expel a member, says: “You’re putting me in a very awkward position, councillor.”

Francis, unmoving and unmoved, softly whispers into his mic, “It’s okay.”

The tone is unsettling. It’s sad and paternal. It’s uncomfortably emotional, but in the wrong direction - reassuring, rather than outraged. It gives away the mystery of the whole show, like seeing the magician palm your card instead of slipping it into the deck.

He’s asking Clark to push him over that tripwire. He knows it is going to happen and, in that moment, he’s come to terms with it. The shrapnel will hurt, but it needs to be done.

There’s an eerie silence in the room that goes on a beat too long. Clark, trying to give the young culture warrior one more out, offers a last chance to make an apology.

Francis refuses and repeats his packaged line about defending women and children. Councillor Maureen Wilson buries her face, Councillor Nrinder Nann turns away from Francis, Councillor Tammy Hwang silently hangs her head. They all know what’s going on. It’s embarrassing. It’s painful to watch. It would be exciting, if it wasn’t so staged and transparent.

Clark uses his authority as chair and expels Francis from the meeting. As he’s gathering his papers, the Ward 5 councillor once again whispers a soft “okay” into his mic. It’s not the explosive fury that we would expect from a Bratina or Whitehead, bellowing into the chamber about the injustice of it all.

As soft as his response was, he got what he wanted. The next morning, on the front page of the Spec, above an ad for a pawn shop and beside the photo of Erixon Kabera - who was shot by police in his own apartment a few days earlier - is the smiling face of the maligned crusader who was expelled from council chambers for standing up for the rights of women and children and families. Francis is now the champion of the defenceless, thrown from an uncaring, ineffective, liberal chamber by another woke mob that is determined to, as he said, stand “up for drug addicts” rather than “everyday taxpayers.”

The motion doesn’t matter anymore. He’s already won.

***

There’s some procedural wrangling now that the mover of the motion has been expelled from the council chamber. Francis quietly packs up his things, satisfied with his martyrdom, as the rest of the body carries on.

Spadafora, as the seconder, becomes the mover.

The mover is gone, long live the mover.

Councillor Esther Pauls is all-too-happy to join as the new seconder. The motion sputters back to life as its creator heads for the door.

It lives

The revived motion jerks forward awkwardly. Spadafora is uninterested in providing any justification, instead passing the spotlight off to Pauls. He’s a foot soldier, not a general in this culture war. May as well let the seasoned members of the team lead the charge.

She forges onward, starting off the comments in favour of using the Notwithstanding Clause. These comments fall into twoish clunky categories.

Pauls’ comments fall into the first category, which broadly speaking is: “we’re doing this for your own good”. This line of reasoning posits that the use of the Notwithstanding Clause isn’t taking away rights, it’s giving people experiencing homelessness safety by funneling them into existing services.

“The reason we’re putting this nonstanding [sic] clause is because we’re actually protecting the homeless by removing them from unsupervised outdoor encampments,” she says.

There are overdoses and fires and wild animals in encampments, she claims. “There’s a park in my ward called Bruleville Park. It’s a forest. Somebody called and said there is an encampment there and they are so concerned because there’s coyotes there and there’s raccoons and they were asking how we can protect this gentleman from living there and I had no answer. I said we have a by-law,” she said, before trailing off.

One can assume Pauls means Bruleville Nature Park, not Bruleville Park. The latter is a small playground beside the Board of Education building. The former is a wooded expanse on Limeridge Road East.

The confusing parks naming system aside, the point stands. Pauls is saying that, through this motion, Hamilton would be signaling to people experiencing homelessness that “we’re doing this for your own good.” It ignores the fact that there isn’t enough shelter space, there aren’t enough supports, and there is inadequate access to existing resources. Each of these things pushes people into encampments. Negative experiences with the existing system - the system she wants to force them back into - is the reason some people reject help at all.

“My thing is, I want them out of the parks because we care for them,” she says later in the meeting. She says it’ll be cold soon and that, by stripping them of their rights, it’ll force them to move on from parks. To where, she does not say. Throughout the debate, there are vague references to investments in shelter beds, but no acknowledgement that those shelter beds are not ready and not suitable for everyone. Pauls’ framing - that the city must be cruel to be kind - falls flat when the reality of the situation is raised.

Pauls’ stance is, quite objectively, patronizing. It is “old school”. It is rigid. It is frightening, particularly to any of us who endured years of non-secular schooling and the soul-warping message that “fear is love”.

A few throwaway lines uttered by Pauls near the end of her comments highlight her attitude: “As a mother of four boys that didn’t want to do what I said, I made them do what I said because, if not, they would be in trouble. If not, they would have consequences.”

I made them do what I said. They would have consequences.

Bringing people experiencing homelessness in from the cold won’t protect them from that chill.

***

The other comments in favour of Francis-turned-Spadafora’s motion boil down to “let’s take back our parks”.

Tom Jackson made this case when he said: “Please, let’s not abandon again the large, large segment of our population that simply want to enjoy - safely, peacefully - their one natural area being their neighbourhood park without fear.” He takes Pauls’ comment about encampment fires and turns it around, saying that it’s “scary” for neighbouring homeowners.

But Jackson added a little spice to his argument, blaming the encampment protocol itself for homelessness. This was a more structured way to do what Francis attempted before being booted from the meeting. “We had many, many neighbourhoods and representatives of neighbourhoods saying ‘please, council, our parks are not a solution to homelessness’,” he said. “I agree that this council did not create homelessness, but the protocol enabled it.”

Jackson told his colleagues he wants an end date to “rescinding the protocol,” failing to acknowledge that it is in place because of Justice Valente’s ruling and the idea that, without it, there are no limits on where encampments can go. But he does say that Ford’s offer to use the Notwithstanding Clause - which Jackson calls “a wonderful opportunity” - helps “remove the impediment” that is any legal issue around encampments. It is important to remember that, in this case, the impediment is the right to life, liberty, and security.

Ward 9’s Brad Clark acknowledges this, but spins it a little. “Section 7 is interesting because, while people keep talking about the rights to life, security, and I forget the last point,” Clark says, searching for the word liberty. He is unable to retrieve it, and moved on to painting a vivid tableau of a dystopic hellscape that has apparently become of the parkland of Upper Stoney Creek.

“I’ve got residents who have experienced…at least they’re claiming this…quite a great deal of fear and angst because of what has been happening in the parks. This is not made up. These are people who are experiencing it. They are taking their kids to the parks and they are experiencing people who are yelling and screaming and cursing and throwing things and threatening. They’re experiencing seeing people laying on the ground in a stupor with a needle hanging out of their arm. They’re experiencing people…I’ll use the much more relaxed term of ‘making out in the parks’…without clothing. People getting up in the morning and taking their clothes off and showering. These are things that people are experiencing and no matter what we do, without our former park by-law, it is going to continue,” he says.

A side note here: According to the City of Hamilton’s Encampment Response Team, since January 1, 2024, of the hundreds of complaints and identified encampments, there has been one confirmed encampment in Ward 9, located within the Felker’s Falls Conservation Authority lands on the side of the escarpment. It was identified on September 24 and, after two weeks, was dropped from the city’s list of active sites, as it was dismantled and was no longer of concern. It pops up again periodically, but it is unclear if that is the same encampment or a new tent. And, of course, it is possible that Clark is referencing complaints from constituents using other parks.

Back to his comments. It almost sounds, by his phrasing (“things that people are experiencing”) that he might be opting for the compassionate approach. But his strong endorsement of the Notwithstanding Clause - and his declaration that he will not support “any more investments on the homelessness file” - makes it apparent that the “people” to whom he is referring are residents and not those actually living with the mental health and addictions and homelessness issues he’s raised.

After a long, long while, Spadafora speaks up, albeit in a noticeably hesitant way. He, taking his guidance from his now-expelled colleague, thanks “our taxpayers” for their work on addressing homelessness. But, he also notes that, without invoking the Notwithstanding Clause and banning encampments, “at the end of the day, I don’t see the road where the parks go back to our children, to our families, umm, for recreation…we’re not gonna get them back and we’re going to continue to spend millions of dollars of our taxpayer’s money…”

Near the end of the meeting, after an attempt to punt the motion into 2025 failed, J.P. Danko shares his thoughts. He takes issue with one of his colleagues’ framing and says that, under the current structure, the rights of residents to use parks have been “superseded by the rights of those living there.” The use of the Notwithstanding Clause, in his conceptualization, will allow Hamilton to “respect residents’ rights”.

In typical fashion, Danko also took to the far-right social media site X/Twitter to re-up his stance and generate a little online buzz. Over a photo collage of encampment fires, Danko posted: “Disappointed #HamOnt Council voted to allow resident’s rights to continue to being effectively suspended in city parks…[at]fordnation offered a solution to break the strangle hold encampment supporters have used their court challenge to force encampments in parks - Council said no.”

The request that the Premier use the Notwithstanding Clause to strip unhoused Ontarians of their rights has been turned around and warped. Instead of the reality of Section 33, council’s right-wing has instead argued that the mere presence of a tent in a park constitutes the “suspension” of “residents’ rights”.

That’s the lens through which proponents of the motion view the situation. There is no balancing of rights. No attempts to respect the fundamental human rights of encampment residents, no clunky and awkward protocols meant to bring order to a disordered system, no use appealing to a far-away provincial government for material help. There are just downtrodden taxpayers and an invading army comprised of “the homeless” and their bleeding heart champions on council - a municipal elite that, once again, has caved to the woke mob and denied the silent majority their justice. It is, to council’s increasingly right right-wing, the duty of that body to ensure taxpayers can experience parks without impediment, even if it means stripping human rights away from vulnerable people.

***

On the pro-human rights side, the arguments all amounted to something along the lines of “if we use the Notwithstanding Clause, we’re taking rights away from people instead of focusing on the real issues.”

“The only solution to homelessness is housing,” said Nrinder Nann, before emphatically stating “The Notwithstanding Clause is not a solution.” She had a few good lines, including taking some around the council horseshoe to task for playing the blame game and abrogating their responsibility to be leaders.

Councillor Alex Wilson provides one of the clearest definitions to their baffled colleagues. “The Notwithstanding Clause means a piece of legislation can move forward notwithstanding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this case, the right to life, liberty, and security. The obstacle being discussed,” Wilson says, directly challenging Jackson’s framing, “is the right to life.”

Councillor Ted McMeekin provides some history, admits he was a “young Conservative in high school because I admired John Diefenbaker so much…[because] he was a wonderful, wonderful man” (one can assume he means because of his push for a Bill of Rights and not for his terrible track record and fundamental reorientation of the Tories toward populism), and rather succinctly says “taking away the rights of people is an issue of political convenience.” He says, bluntly, that he “didn’t sign up for” taking away the rights of the most vulnerable.

Councillor Mark Tadeson turns Pauls’ comments around, saying that people experiencing homelessness are safer in identified encampments because “they are accessible by support staff.” Beyond that, he calls the attempt to use Section 33 “a simple solution to a complex issue…we can’t go from where we are now to 0 overnight.”

In this debate, we got to see a little of the old Andrea Horwath we all came to know while she led the ONDP. That opposition leader spark which had dimmed so much over the past two years was briefly reignited when she provided her take on the motion.

“I don’t know where to start,” she said, “except to say that the Premier of Ontario doesn’t need us asking them to utilize the Notwithstanding Clause. They have that power. They’ve used it already. So there’s no need for us to ask for it or not ask for it…it’s not in our purview.” Horwath is right; there’s no need for this debate. This is theatre for theatre’s sake. It’s a distraction and a lousy one at that.

She continued: “Every time we have these conversations, we identify that the responsibility for the provision of supportive housing, of partnering in affordable housing, of addressing mental health concerns that folks have through the Ministry of Health, addressing the realities around another health issue which is addictions…those don’t belong on the property tax base.” She summarized this sentiment by noting that they were having a debate about asking the province to use a power they already have instead of demanding the province come to the table and address other challenges they, again, have the power to address.

Horwath called the vote and councillors picked their sides. Clark, Pauls, Jeff Beattie, Danko, Spadafora, and Jackson voted in favour. Had Francis been in the room, he would have as well, which still meant it would have died 7 to 9.

Rights and the right

The pro-Notwithstanding crowd gave us two basic arguments and a few other lines of attack that are worth analyzing.

The first is Pauls’ argument in favour: we’re doing this for your own good.

Pauls made the case that, by asking the Premier to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause, the city would be protecting people experiencing homelessness from the elements, from accidents, and from wild animals.

But all of that is predicated on the idea that people experiencing homelessness have somewhere to go. The City of Hamilton’s Housing and Homelessness dashboard provides us with some clear stats. They’re a little out-of-date, but they give us an idea as to what we’re working with.

In January of 2024, there were just under 1,600 people who were “actively homeless”, around a third of whom had been experiencing homelessness for over 6 months. There were, at that time, 320 individual shelter beds and 72 family rooms for people experiencing homelessness. In September of 2024, the city approved opening another 192 shelter beds and authorized the more structured outdoor shelter site on the Barton-Tiffany lands with another 80 beds.

There are more people experiencing homelessness than there are shelter spaces available, presently and in the future. Simple as that.

This means that many of the people experiencing homelessness have absolutely nowhere to go.

If council would have approved a request to Ford and had Ford’s government pass provincial legislation on encampments, our elected leaders would have created a situation where people would have been arrested and jailed, ostensibly for “trespass”, but, in reality for having mental illnesses, addictions issues, trauma, disabilities, and/or for simply being poor.

In essence, Pauls is making the case that the city should help people experiencing homelessness by jailing them, institutionalizing them, or forcing them into potentially unsafe situations with landlords, friends, or family members.

I made them do what I said. They would have consequences.

***

The second argument was the one advanced by Francis, Jackson, Clark, Spadafora, and Danko: we’re taking back our parks.

This perspective flips the argument, making the case that asking the Premier to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause, strip rights away from encampment residents, and, once again, invite the province to legislate on local matters would somehow actually be in service of restoring rights to residents. They make the case that, because of the presence of encampments, residents no longer have the right to use their parks.

Provincial legislation on encampments would, by necessity, give police the power to arrest people camping in parks. That would directly override encampment residents’ Charter rights to life, liberty, and security. Because they are poor and/or ill and/or have been forced from their living situation, they would be jailed. Their liberty would be revoked because they have no where safe to sleep and, out of desperation, pitched a tent in a park.

To the councillors making this argument, that’s a suitable response to the situation. Not that residents have lost the right to use parks. Not that residents have seen their personal liberties infringed upon. Indeed, all there seems to be is the perception that resident security is at risk because of the presence of tents in their parks.

Clark made that clear with his dystopic tales of mass chaos and lawlessness caused by the single encampment in Ward 9. But if someone’s security is genuinely challenged - if someone is threatened or harassed - there are already laws against that.

What council’s pro-Notwithstanding crowd was asking for wasn’t a law to protect people against intimidation, violence, and robbery. Those are already illegal. What they were asking for was a law against “trespassing” in a park. That language was in the ask from the 13-turned-15 big city mayors. It would certainly be in any provincial law on the matter.

And “trespass” means the person doing the trespassing isn’t supposed to be there. Like they’re not a part of the community in which they’re existing. Like they’re an outsider.

So, based on the legal specifics at play here, what those councillors were asking for was the power for police to eject people deemed to be outside of our community because, through their existence in the vicinity of housed residents, they have created a situation where residents perceive themselves to be in danger.

This was a motion intended to expel outsiders.

In his opening salvo, Francis made that clear when he said: “We have consistently invited more and more people and told them that Hamilton parks are the ‘sanctuary’ for your tents and drugs and we will do nothing about it.”

They’re bussing them in. They’re coming from outside. They’re an invading force.

***

Aside from the tired lines about standing up for the “taxpayers who fund parks”, this bleeds into the other line of attack used by council’s right-wing.

In almost every statement in favour of restricting the human rights of encampment residents, supporters invoked “families, women, and children”. As Francis framed it, there are dangerous drug addicts on one side and defenceless women and children on the other. The outsiders are boiled down to nothing but their illness. The people under siege are framed as weak, helpless, and vulnerable. The councillors leading this crusade become their protectors, whether they want it or not.

Council’s right-wing is conjuring images of family units that only existed in advertisements from the 1950’s. There are the good Hamiltonians - people in nuclear family units, people who directly pay property taxes, people who reproduce and consume and dutifully punch in for their shifts - and there are other people.

Clark danced close to something adjacent to that when he talked about encampments in parks. “[Residents are] experiencing people…I’ll use the much more relaxed term of ‘making out in the parks’…without clothing,” he told his colleagues. This is eerily similar to the language used to justify the mass surveillance and intimidation of queer Hamiltonians in local parks prior to the 2010’s. The spectre of public sex has long been an obsession of the extreme right, overblowing an issue and using the few instances where people have seen anything to justify exclusionary policies that put “families” before everyone else.

It’s a fantasy straight out of MAGAland. Big, strong, conservative men are here to smash and blast their way through the roadblocks put up by the educated elites and their woke defenders, restore law and order, punish the morally tainted, and save Hamilton’s women and children from the clutches of evil outsiders.

Make Hamilton Great Again!

The whole thing is a far-right fever-dream come to life. Hell, the only thing salvaging this vote is that the oft-maligned block on council - the Ladies and the Gays (plus Craig)™ - was joined by Mark Tadeson and Ted McMeekin in voting this down.

But this should set off alarm bells across Hamilton. A near-majority block of council is so single-minded in their pursuit of order that they’re willing to restrict human rights, narrow the definition of community, and alienate massive swaths of the city to achieve their goal. And their goal - the over-policing of marginalized people - isn’t even the only option.

***

As Alex Wilson said during the debate, “I respect the work this council has been able to do in building consensus - or at least close to it - around investments in housing, investments in moving affordable housing forward. Those are the real solutions that we need to keep pushing on. Excited to get back to that work after today’s debate.”

That perfectly encapsulates that’s happened. Making progress on this issue as a single municipality is hard. It’s going to take time. Building a strong foundation does not happen overnight. There has been a push toward that, but more needs to be done. That work isn’t being done when Francis and Danko and Pauls bring forward culture war motion after culture war motion that would divert staff resources, distract council, and divide the city further, all in the service of generating headlines and new blurbs for their e-newsletters. Hard work needs to be done, and Francis’ motion was not in service of that.

This doesn’t even touch on Francis and Danko’s framing of this debate. Francis was removed from council chambers for accusing his colleagues of only caring about “drug users”. Danko posted that the Notwithstanding Clause is “a solution to break the strangle hold encampment supporters have used their court challenge to force encampments in parks”.

More than anyone else, both these councillors have been using the dangerous and divisive language of the right-wing fringe to settle their scores. Danko’s language in particular - that “encampment supporters” have a “strangle hold” - is so, so, so inappropriate. That’s a deliberate mischaracterization of the situation, as every advocate has been clamouring for housing and investments in health care and addictions support. Every single person in this fight knows encampments aren’t a solution. They’ve said as much to council time and time again. But Danko is determined to spin this situation to his advantage, even if it means mischaracterizing his opponents and driving a wedge deeper into our community.

How many code of conduct investigations are we up to now?

***

Francis’ motion to request Premier Ford use the Notwithstanding Clause to strip encampment residents of their rights failed. But council’s right-wing block still managed to win the day with their antics and their posturing.

Their approach will play well with an angry base - that same angry base I mentioned in my commentary before this piece - and will soothe something in the guts of the permanently outraged. But nothing they did, or have done all term, has brought us any closer to justice.

They haven’t brought the same passion to fighting for more housing - they brought their passion to stopping housing from being built. They haven’t brought the same passion to fighting for better healthcare and supports - they brought their passion to a motion to stopping investments in safe supplies and connection to supports. They haven’t brought the same passion to fighting for real, meaningful solutions - they brought their passion to demonizing and othering and maligning the most vulnerable in our community.

Their passion, it would seem, is employed to playing politics, notwithstanding the needs of our city.

A good post

Saskatchewan’s municipal elections were held last Wednesday (and new elected officials were inaugurated today…wild how fast it all works out there). The extreme right was shut out of school boards and mostly kept off local councils. Still, this was a worry leading up to their vote:

Grey Bike Lanes

I will, on occasion, still take a look at the Spec’s Letters to the Editor page. Back in February, I did an in-depth analysis on the Letters section, looking at the overall sentiment in each submission, the classification of letters, and the preponderance of certain letter writers (whom I called “superscribes”) who skew the conversation with a barrage of submissions.

On Wednesday, November 20, one of those superscribes had yet another submission published in the Spec. That submission was their 29th this year.

This particular superscribe manages to get away with a lot more than most. They will be published on back-to-back days on the same topics, and their letters are often angry musings about their own experiences in the city. Very few of them have a connection to any identifiable story in the paper. The Letters section seems to be their version of social media, amplifying their personal grievances with enthusiasm.

The opinions they share are a sampling of dated and insular concerns. One of their letters from May lamented the prominence of French in Quebec. A submission from June stands up for landlords in the face of “entitled” tenants. A piece from October includes the line “It seems the only immigrants [we] want are the illegals and refugees; the ones we have to support with our tax dollars.”

Mostly, though, this superscribe has two pet obsessions: encampments and the War on Cars. In the space of one week in September, this person had three letters printed in the Spec - two complaining about how hard it is for them to drive in the city and one about how taxpayers shouldn’t have to support people experiencing homelessness.

Wednesday’s letter lists the bike lanes that are a personal inconvenience to them (Upper Paradise, Herkimer, and Charlton, it seems), but includes this interesting line: “We are a city of mostly seniors and we are not going to start riding bikes, no matter how many lanes there are.”

Now, I know we’re in a “post-facts” era and that reality doesn’t matter to many people anymore, but this is a telling line, isn’t it?

Hamilton isn’t a “majority 65+” city. Only 18.3% of Hamiltonians are 65 or over, according to the last census. That’s fewer people than there are between 15 and 29 in Hamilton and lower than the Canada-wide proportion of seniors in the population (20%). And there are so many senior cyclist in the area that there’s a whole advocacy and events group - Cycling Without Age (CWA) - that has a Hamilton/Burlington chapter and a regular newsletter. In 2023, CWA Hamilton/Burlington hosted a number of events, including at long-term care facilities, and had 665 unique participants ride adapted and accessible bikes.

So, sure, that permanently angry superscribe from the west mountain didn’t do any research before submitting a letter to the Spec. But what their comments really show is how closed their social circle is. Hamilton isn’t “a city of mostly seniors” - you just haven’t gotten out of your car, wandered down the street, and met people from different generations. Seniors do ride bikes - you just have such a small circle of close associates that you haven’t met any of the many Hamiltonians over 65 who do cycle. The headline for their letter is “bike lanes are for the few”. Are they? Or have you isolated yourself so much that you can’t see the facts for your own biases?

In my February analysis of the Spec’s Letters to the Editor page, I concluded that:

Not only are those sentiments consistently negative, they’re riddled with inaccuracies that reflect the letter-writers’ own narrow view of the world. That’s not informing the conversation; that’s just another example of how we’re not having conversations based in reality.

Despite this, the aforementioned superscribe will continue to be published, railing against investments in our municipality that create space for all. That seems to be the tone for our civic discourse right now. The city’s made for me, now get out of my way!

Cool facts for cool people

• Check out The Trillium’s reporting on how a bunch of rich Tory donors managed to, once again, sway provincial policy, this time on the issue of bike lanes.

• The entire town council of Dawson City, Yukon, refused to swear allegiance to the King after being elected. No one’s quite sure how to move forward now, but all I can really say is: good. One step closer to a republic, folks!