…but first, a word from the Sewer.

What a weekend.

If you were anywhere near the waterfront or in any of our city’s parks these past few days, you would have seen folks from across Hamilton and the region gathering for softball, soccer, cricket, bike races, and roller derby scrimmages. You would have seen hundreds of people out and enjoying the company of their friends and neighbours, playing games, experiencing the incredible amenities in this city, and building community in a really profound way.

If you were on the internet, you would have seen the opposite.

This past weekend, a small cadre of former politicians and current developers, all of whom have been espousing increasingly extreme and apocalyptic rhetoric about the state of this city, circulated a dangerous conspiracy theory with reckless abandon. Their upsetting, unhelpful, and unverified screeds over this past weekend should serve as an amuse-bouche for the kind of campaigning they’re gearing up for as we approach the midway mark between the 2022 and 2026 municipal elections here in Hamilton.

So here’s Part 1 of this week’s newsletter, published on Monday for two reasons.

First, I think it’s important to set the record straight on this conspiracy theory quickly so it doesn’t linger and gather steam. Second, my usual Thursday edition was already getting long (it’ll be heavy on history, so get ready for that) and I thought it would be a fun experiment to split things up for reading ease.

This is technically the 70th edition of the newsletter, so I thought it’s about time to try something new!

Today’s edition is #70 - Part 1, focusing on the right-wing conspiracy around busses full of people experiencing homelessness that circulated online this weekend. There’s also an update on another right-wing group that’s come out from summer hibernation, and some fun political news in town.

Thursday’s edition will be #70 - Part 2. I won’t give away too much about that, but a local institution is celebrating a big anniversary amidst ongoing debate about whether we need that institution at all. Stay tuned for that one.

Happy Monday, and on with the show!

All aboard the conspiracy bus

I heard it from a friend of a friend of mine

A few days ago, Joe Mancinelli posted something to Facebook.

A quick background for those who don’t know: Mancinelli is the International Vice President of LiUNA, as well as their Central and Eastern Canada Regional Manager. I am unsure how LiUNA execs are selected, as there is competing information about it online, with some sources saying they’re hired by the president and others saying they’re elected by the membership. Regardless, LiUNA is a construction union-turned-developer and, through their pension fund - the LiUNA Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada (LPFCEC) - the organization has partnered with hedge funds and other developers on a number of large condo projects around Hamilton. Many members of the Mancinelli family are or have been involved with LiUNA over the years; Mancinelli’s father, Enrico, held the same position as Joe, and his daughter, Victoria, is LiUNA’s Director of Public Relations, Communications, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships. Joe’s wife, Enza, is a director with DeMazenod Door, the downtown outreach centre run from St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, and has, in the past, been a high-profile Liberal fundraiser. Joe’s federal donation records show a rather consistent pattern of donations to the Liberals, though he did give $200 to Julian Fantino’s Conservative campaign in 2011. Provincially, Mancinelli has aligned LiUNA with the Progressive Conservatives, forging a strong connection with current Premier Doug Ford.

Okay, more on that later. Back to the post.

Joe’s post on Facebook was entitled, in all-caps: “BUS LOADS OF HOMELESS PEOPLE BUSED INTO HAMILTON!”

It recounts a second-hand story from “liuna members” who were working on one of LiUNA’s condo projects, 75 James South. Apparently, these workers saw a bus “dropping off homeless people on the side of st Paul’s [sic] church, also a drug injection site.” The workers apparently asked the people getting off the bus where they were from (very normal thing to ask) and they responded that they were bussed in from Toronto.

Mancinelli then brings up the Sanctuary City idea, blaming Cameron Kroetsch for it, noting that he never voted for it and saying that, “if we had that on a ballot I can assure you it would loose [sic] handily.”

Mancinelli does not provide any proof. He posts two photos of people experiencing homelessness beside St. Paul’s and leaves the comment there.

Over the weekend, this conspiracy theory spread quickly through neighbourhood Facebook groups, particularly those populated with people who have some issue with Kroetsch. A heritage advocate who has tussled with Kroetsch in the past over, among other things, the naming of Magnolia Hall, provided a Muskesque addition to the post in the Durand Facebook group by simply commenting: “Interesting”.

In the Facebook post, subsequent reposts, and chatter on X/Twitter about it, a host of other figures have weighed in, like former Mayor Fred Eisenberger, former Ward 2 councillor Jason Farr, and Mancinelli’s daughter, Victoria.

Their comments share many similarities, giving us a good idea what the right-wing campaign of outrage farming will look like over the next two years. Their responses provide insight into how they will undermine public confidence in Kroetsch, Mayor Horwath, and the progressive minority on council in a desperate bid to see them replaced in 2026 with a hard-right council that will be more friendly to development interests.

So let’s unpack all this, from Mancinelli’s claim to the keyboard battles that have happened around it.

The bus ticket welfare conspiracy

“Bus ticket welfare” has been a conspiracy theory for a long time. And, like most conspiracy theories, it has some foundation in truth - a truth that’s been exaggerated and misunderstood, spread through word-of-mouth by unreliable sources until it enters the wider public imagination.

In the 1970’s, the Canadian economy began shifting out of the Golden Years of the Post-War Compromise. That’s the oft-cited time when a single-income household of people without formal education would own a home, a car, and have all the middle class luxuries they wanted. It’s heavy nostalgia bait for a dissatisfied electorate that yearns for a simpler time. But, by the early 1970’s, the Compromise was dead and unemployment began ticking up, with many people found themselves jobless and, occasionally, homeless.

New programs began popping up to serve these individuals. Some were run by the state, some by social service agencies, and some by faith groups. In 1971, one of those faith groups opened a centre for unemployed and homeless people in St. Catharines. The centre was opened by members of a breakaway faction of excommunicated Catholics based in the United States and quickly generated controversy in the community for their adversarial relationship with other social service groups. Soon after opening, the group’s “priests” began picketing the provincial welfare office, with the specific complaint that the government was giving unemployed people bus tickets to London and Toronto, thereby sending away “their best customers”.1

This claim was repeated in the late 1980’s by an appointee to the provincial secretariat for the “International Year of Shelter for the Homeless” during his visits to Halton-area high schools. The appointee, Ludovic D’Souza, told students “Other provinces have a simple way to handle homelessness - they give people a one-way bus ticket to Ontario.”2

Neither of these claims were accompanied by any proof at all. In fact, in the second case, D’Souza later said that, because of Ontario’s strong social service net, people were travelling to the province to get assistance, rather than being “shipped” here by other provincial governments.

Throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s, as the impacts of austerity made life harder and the job market began changing in a profound way, more and more social service agencies had to step in to fill the gaps. The Spec profiled a few of them - some aimed at single mothers, some toward people experiencing homelessness, some toward troubled youth, some targeting those with mental illnesses - and noted that each provided bus tickets as part of their service provision. But those were local bus tickets for specific reasons, like getting to work, going to a doctor’s appointment, or taking children to daycare.3

Either because of, or in spite of, these programs, the rumours about “bus ticket welfare” persisted. Last-place mayoral candidate in Hamilton’s 2000 election, Fern Rankin, spread the rumour during her campaign. Rankin, who appeared to have worked in and focused on Burlington during her campaign, told The Spec that “she believes that Halton Region has a policy of offering the homeless there bus tickets to Hamilton.”4 Rakin provided no proof of this claim and placed last in the election, winning just 0.13% of the vote.

It was around this time that rumours about the Alberta government shipping homeless people to Vancouver ran wild throughout the Canadian media. Alberta was, at the time, run by Ralph Klein, one of the furthest right-wing provincial leaders this country has ever seen. Klein had a bad reputation for his interactions with people experiencing homelessness, including barging into a downtown Edmonton shelter in the middle of the night to drunkenly berate the people sleeping there for not having jobs.5

This rumour - for which no proof has ever been provided - even made it into a Spectator article as fact. Klein claim aside, the article in which it was cited was, itself, deeply controversial. The article referenced another local program that offered people bus tickets for work, but mainly focused on “Toronto’s plan to move 1,000 people a year from its inner-city to places like Hamilton.”6

This happened at the height of Mike Harris’ brutal campaign of austerity, which downloaded the responsibility for social service provision to cash-strapped municipalities in an effort to both cut services and pass the blame for cutting those services to municipalities. And, at the time, Toronto’s social service providers did indeed develop a program to move people throughout the region to deal with the strain on their system.

Hamilton’s populist-leaning council members railed against this, with Ward 7’s Bill Kelly saying “If Toronto is going to start shipping their homeless people out here, are they going to send us money as well?”7

One problem: Toronto wasn’t “shipping” homeless people to Hamilton. They were taking people, including refugees, who were in the process of re-establishing themselves, around to neighbouring municipalities to find apartments and jobs. A Globe and Mail article profiles one Zimbabwean refugee family that had help from Toronto social service providers to rent an apartment, buy appliances, and settle into their new jobs in Hamilton, which they said they loved and wanted to stay in. While Hamilton city councillors tossed around horror stories that conjured images of busloads of “Toronto homeless” being dropped into downtown, the reality was that people who were ready to get their lives started were helped to do just that, only in Hamilton instead of Toronto. These were people who contributed to the local economy, worked in Hamilton, and fell in love with this place we call home.

But that has not stopped the rumour from rearing its ugly head every so-often. A Spec article profiling Sister Carole Anne Guay, who ran the Out of the Cold food program for people experiencing homelessness, brought up the bus ticket idea again, though as reporter Denise Davy noted in her article: “they’d heard Toronto people were being given bus tickets to come to Hamilton but they’re not sure…”8 An article from 2019 about the Salvation Army shelter downtown mentions it again, but clearly observes that bus tickets were given to people who had somewhere to go, like a family member’s home.9

It isn’t just limited to Hamilton or the surrounding area. Last year, a Vancouver Island newspaper needed to debunk the conspiracy theory which was ripping through local Facebook groups like wildfire. And, just two days ago, a local publication in Guelph needed to address the conspiracy theory there.

But there is at least one documented case of this happening in Canada. In 2016, two men in Vancouver claimed that the Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services paid for their tickets to the city. This was later found to be true, and the men became minor celebrities, receiving job offers and forcing policy changes in their home province. But, after a report was conducted, it was found that the ministry followed proper procedures because the men had, in fact, requested tickets to Vancouver. Again, they weren’t put on a bus to a strange city against their will. They asked to go because they had supports in Vancouver that they did not have in Saskatchewan.

This seems to be the common theme with all these stories. Social service agencies and the government provide people experiencing homelessness with things like assistance getting around because that’s part of their mandate. Sometimes, people need bus tickets to get to work or see the doctor. And, sometimes, people say they’ll be better suited to moving back home or reconciling with a family member in another city.

It is not the case that people are being lured onto a bus, driven down the highway, and then let out without any safety net around them. People aren’t being moved like cattle; they’re being given the assistance they’ve requested. Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no matter how much this city’s right-wing fringe finds that inconvenient, and the Charter allows people mobility rights.

It is impossible to put up a wall on the highway into town. Canadians have the right to travel around our country and select where they want to live.

And, it must be repeated since the people involved in this story seem all-too-keen to advance a kind of restrictive, narrow, angry localism: just because someone was born in Hamilton does not make them any more deserving of services or support or help than anyone else. I don’t deserve help more than someone who just arrived here, no matter what the right-wing fringe says, screaming incessantly about taxpayers as though our humanity is measured by how large our property tax bill is.

My grandparents, when they stepped off a train at the station LiUNA has converted into a cavernous convention centre, weren’t any less worthy of help than anyone else.

And I have to make this abundantly clear: I love this city - my home - but just because it is in my blood and my bones and my lungs doesn’t mean it’s my place to tell people they aren’t welcome here.

Taking care of our own

There are a few unspoken parts of the “bus ticket welfare” conspiracy that all lead into one another. It starts by placing conditions on providing help. This takes the form of prevalent right-wing talking points about “taking care of our own first”.

Our own. A very weird concept. As if we take ownership over humans based on where they are from.

You hear this a lot from the hard right: Why are we giving money to other countries when there are homeless veterans here? Why are we giving money to people across the province when we have the most need here? Why are people coming here from elsewhere when there are already people here who need help?

The notion is that, if you were born here, you magically have more of a right to access services than people who came here from elsewhere. It doesn’t matter that we collect property taxes from everyone to fund services for everyone, there’s just something better about people who are from here. With that logic, you can start drawing smaller and smaller circles around the people who are deserving of help. Maybe people who are “from here” look a certain way or sound a certain way or pray a certain way.

Which is why Joe’s unprompted reference to the Sanctuary City policy is even more ominous. Hamilton’s Sanctuary City policy, which first came about four council terms ago, was intended to signal to any undocumented migrants that they could access local services without fear that the municipality would report them to immigration authorities. It is intended to allow people in the process of making claims or whose migration status is uncertain to use the library and public health and child care without fearing for their lives. It has nothing to do with homelessness, so it is odd that Joe went there. But it does imply that he’s more than happy with putting walls up to restrict who accesses services.

Once you start placing restrictions on that help, it becomes easier to convince people that providing any help at all is the cause of the problem. That was the case on Vancouver Island last year when local residents began claiming that social services were drawing people to their communities, meaning they should be closed or defunded to preserve the “character” of certain locations. The people peddling the conspiracy in the Cowichan Valley said that “supportive housing will only bring more homeless to our community”.10

These kinds of conspiracy theories serve the goal of undermining faith in the system. They attack social services at the root to encourage people to stand behind candidates who promise to banish them from the community.

Because, at the end of the day, does it really matter where people are coming from? Or does it matter that we are providing any services at all?

Mancinelli’s company/union has significant investments in the downtown core. When 75 James South is done, they’ll want to sell condos. The placement of a faith group that’s providing assistance to the vulnerable is an inconvenience to them. The market is volatile, condos aren’t selling, and it might be hard to convince skittish investors to fork over +$400,000 for a shoebox in the sky when there are outreach centres in view.

The chatter

Of course, this isn’t just about Mancinelli’s conspiracy theory. It is also about the city’s developer-oriented right-wing fringe.

Jason Farr, the Ward 2 councillor from 2010 to 2022, decided to provide his own take on the matter in a response to a post about the conspiracy. His reply is extremely hard to read, jumping and darting between thoughts à la Trump and displays both complex institutional-insider lingo and a stunning lack of understanding about how municipal government works.

Farr slams Andrea Horwath as a “radical left mayor” and attacks Ward 3 councillor Nrinder Nann (Farr is a Ward 3 resident) and the “tax-happy others” on council for the encampment protocol. Farr is under the impression that the protocol attracts people experiencing homelessness and that the city’s “major poverty industries like Good Shepherd and the YWCA” are openly helping people from elsewhere with “local tax dollars”. Without proof, Farr repeats Mancinelli’s conspiracy, saying there “is NO DOUBTING” it is happening. After once again attacking Horwath and “her radical left majority on council” (whom he says is gaslighting Hamiltonians), he calls for some kind of audit to be done about homelessness, before concluding that maybe they should “just come clean and admit that making Hamilton the San Fran of the North is their objective???”

Eisenberger, for his part, said that encampments weren’t “allowed under my watch and should not be allowed now.”

Victoria Mancinelli was rather fixated on this debate. Taking direct aim at Cameron (and also dipping her toes back into the unhinged conspiracy about iElect), she says the “radical left of council” is holding Hamilton back, that all politicians want is a “self-serving photo-op” at the DeMazenod Door (of which, again, her mother is a director), and also repeats the conspiracy theory peddled by her father. Her post concludes with pro-LiUNA comments.

In a subsequent lengthy post on X/Twitter (Victoria pays for X/Twitter verification, which allows her to make longer posts and prioritizes her content above everyone else’s), she takes issue with xenophobic comments about her father made by an anonymous account, accusing Kroetsch (who has Italian heritage) and the “radical left” of being “racist toward Italians”. Joe responds to this supporting Victoria’s accusations. When challenged on this by Kroetsch, Victoria plays the semantics game and, instead, says the NDP “has a history of racism that often goes unchecked. Which is true,” but does not provide any proof. She’s likely referring to ongoing accusations about anti-Semitism or repeating PC MPP Paul Calandra’s claims that the Ontario NDP’s critiques about his government’s ties to the development industry amount to “anti-Italian discrimination”.

She tripled down this morning with another lengthy post about local artist and advocate Matt Jelly, whom she accuses of having “a weird sick obsession with my family.” Saying that Jelly “contributes absolutely nothing to society”, she dismisses him as an NDP-beholden bully while, once again, framing LiUNA as a force for good in our community. Joe comments on this post as well, backing up Victoria’s claims.

Okay, okay, okay. Let’s step back for a second and wade through this. My intention here isn’t to be some gossip rag; I think some of these comments are worth working through because, though it may seem like idle chatter on the internet, the people doing the chattering have power. The Mancinelli’s are a very wealthy and powerful family in the community that have a massive financial stake in the way Hamilton presents itself. And former politicians like Farr and Eisenberger hold a lot of sway in a city that’s as close-knit as ours. So let’s look at all this.

First, let’s consider the framing. Farr and Victoria Mancinelli both used the same phrasing in their comments: “radical left council”. This is the same phrasing the far-right uses in the United States to dismiss Democrats and anyone who isn’t part of the MAGA movement. Here, they’re rolling it out to become part of their messaging in the lead-up to 2026. The hope is that “radical left council” breaks containment and seeps out into the wild. Farr and his coalition of former municipal politicians have enough followers on social media and personally to make sure this happens. It’ll crop up in Spec letters, in more and more social media posts, and start circulating around as a dismissive epithet to slam all of council for perceived or actual failures in our community.

I’ve gone over this before, but council is evenly split between progressive and conservative factions, with moderates who float between both sides on any given issue. There is no “left majority” on council, nor has Andrea Horwath governed as anything other than a moderate. Farr and his friends both on and off council keep attacking people like Kroetsch for the property tax increases we’ve faced over the past two years, conveniently ignoring the reality that it was under the watch of himself and Eisenberger that the city failed to invest in infrastructure and pushed the bill off to other councils, hoping they would have graduated up to some other position (radio commentator, Liberal MPP, etc.) by the time the bill came due and would not have to take the blame.

Farr is an embittered former politician, playing backseat councillor until such time as he can saddle up to power again. Part of that means blaming Kroetsch for his own policy failures.

Second, we should talk about Victoria Mancinelli’s role in all this. Honestly, you have to hand it to her: Victoria really does know how to do communications. She’s great at ensuring she dominates the narrative, is skilled at defining opponents in her own terms, and knows how to make it seem like she’s the besieged underdog, even when she’s the one in the more privileged position.

Victoria wields that privilege like a hammer. From the comfort of the family business, she lashes out at anyone who dares ask questions.

But when a massively wealthy developer with political influence shares an unverifiable story on social media, people have the right to ask questions. We aren’t talking about regular private citizens here. The Mancinelli’s have gone out of their way to remind people they’re in the city’s privileged elite. Victoria’s pro-Israel advocacy has seen her win awards and be featured in major national papers. Joe Mancinelli’s awards are so numerous, there’s a whole page on his website dedicated to them. They have their name on buildings, they hobknob with politicians, they have influence. Joe even donated $1000 each to the campaigns of both Andrea Horwath and Keanin Loomis.

So, no, it isn’t obsession when members of the community ask questions about one of this city’s most high-profile and influential families. In a democracy, we get to ask questions about the powerful elite, even if those elites don’t like the questions we ask.

Onward and forward

There is absolutely no proof that “bus loads of homeless people” are being shipped into Hamilton. There are only stories and rumours - the same kind of rumours and second-hand gossip that have been spread in our community for over 50 years.

That did not stop an executive with one of this city’s largest developers and construction unions from posting about it on social media as though it were absolute fact.

His supporters, many of whom are opponents of Ward 2 councillor Cameron Kroetsch, jumped on the conspiracy, using it to attack the councillor (as well as Councillor Nann and Mayor Horwath), undermine confidence in our social services, and advance their angry culture war, all in service of swapping their critics on council with obedient replacements in the 2026 municipal election. People who won’t ask questions, won’t ignore their calls, won’t show them anything less than absolute loyalty.

Part of this conspiracy was an attempt to saddle the current council with problems created by past councils. Part of it was in service of a larger goal of “cleaning up” the core to secure investments and ensure a healthy return. Part of it comes from being too damn online and thinking your Facebook or X/Twitter echo chambers are any reflection of the real community.

Remember how, in my opening section, I talked about how hundreds of Hamiltonians spent the weekend outside, experiencing this city and building community? You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in those crowds who think our “radical left council” is holding the city back. You’d have to really search to find anyone who would buy angry conspiracy theories about bus loads of “the homelesses” being shipped into the city. And you certainly wouldn’t find anyone who is inspired by the bitter, divisive politics peddled by the main characters in this sad story.

The frustrating thing is that the Mancinelli’s keep framing everyone else as the divisive bullies. But Joe’s post is divisive, dehumanizing, and exclusionary. Victoria’s comments have been exceptionally cruel, attempting to associate Kroetsch with an imagined “radical left” racism toward Italians and saying an accomplished local artist has contributed “absolutely nothing to society”. It doesn’t matter how you frame your arguments, the research you do, or the tone you take; if you oppose the Mancinelli’s and their efforts in this community, you’re a bully, an enemy, or someone with “a weird sick obsession with” the family.

All of this is presented through the lens of LiUNA’s unwaveringly positive contributions and the positivity of their leadership. “We have always advocated for a city that leaves no one behind and have translated our advocacy into action,” Victoria wrote in her anti-Jelly post.

Dismissing your opponents as “radicals”, “sick”, or “childish”, all because they had the audacity to question you does not build a better community. Weaponizing your privilege, trying to silence your critics, and showing utter contempt for democracy does not reflect turning “advocacy into action”.

Indeed, all this sad affair has shown us is who the real bullies are.

Guess who’s back!?

Speaking of the right-wing fringe…

The weekend brought a touch of fall to Hamilton. With school back in full swing, the leaves starting to turn and flutter to the ground, and the crispness of a cool autumn’s breeze drifting through the city, it sure seemed like spooky season had come early.

Blown in on the nippy air was an old spectre, determined to haunt the streets of this city like the vengeful, Scrooge-like miser it is. Yes, in the September 7 edition of The Spec was another slap-dash gaudy ad from our friend over at “Concerned Hamiltonians”.

They took three glorious months off and, as August ended, it seemed like their campaign of mediocrity had come to an end. But they’re back, ready to burn $100’s like they’re a caricature of an oil tycoon.

This ad was almost less coherent than their usual offerings, signaling a little rustiness on their part.

MASSIVE COST INCREASE CITY COUNCIL has NOT DISCLOSED INCREASE Has COST DOUBLED?? Or even TRIPLED???

Weird. But the two question marks after “DOUBLED” and three after “TRIPLED” is a nice touch, assuming they meant that.

LRT is, as any person who spent over $1,300 on a newspaper ad should know, a project of Metrolinx. The Memorandum of Understanding between the city and Metrolinx clearly indicates that Metrolinx is running the show. They’re the driving force behind the project, with money coming from the federal and provincial governments. If you were, oh I don’t know, deeply involved in…let’s say…Conservative politics in any random riding…maybe Hamilton Mountain?…you’d know that those levels of government don’t levy property taxes.

But who needs facts when you have Microsoft Word and a metric tonne of cash to waste?

Anyway, “Concerned Hamiltonians” has, once again, provided a link to a Google Form where you can send them feedback, so do with that information what you will. I, for one, don’t think it would be unreasonable for people to start asking where they got over $43,000 to spend on newspaper advertisements.

Taylor made for the mountain

Sabrina Nanji from the Queen’s Park Observer has a big scoop in today’s edition.

It would appear the rumours are true and Hamilton Mountain NDP MPP Monique Taylor is going to be seeking the federal NDP nomination for the same seat.

This is big news, and will be a massive shake-up for both the provincial party and the Mountain as a riding.

Taylor was first elected in 2011, beating incumbent Liberal MPP Sophia Aggelonitis by a healthy 12.8% margin. She’s been able to hold on to the seat since then, defeating two current councillors (Esther Pauls of the PCs in 2018 and Mike Spadafora of the PCs in 2022) and maintaining a healthy lead over opponents, even as voter turnout has slipped.

The last federal election on Hamilton Mountain was very close, with parachute candidate Malcolm Allen of the NDP losing to parachute candidate Lisa Hepfner of the Liberals by under 2%. If Taylor can unite the fractured Mountain NDP and capitalize on Liberal weakness, she’ll have an easy time beating them.

The challenge will come in who the Conservatives put up as their candidate. They’ve really phoned it in with their picks since 2015 but, considering the party hasn’t earned more than 1/3 of the vote on the Mountain since the Conservatives were created in 2004, they’d have to select a knock-out star to really put up a fight.

Things are looking great for Taylor on the federal side. But that leaves an open question: who will seek the provincial seat in her place? Many of the most prominent political figures on the Mountain are centre-right/right-wing Liberals and Conservatives, leaving few obvious choices for the party to pick from. It is entirely possible that Taylor has been mentoring an ambitious young politico, but I have not heard any verifiable names in a while. Echoing a comment I made last week: “Why aren’t I in the loop!?”

Anyway, with Taylor eyeing the federal NDP nomination, it’s a chance for the party to start rebuilding in Hamilton after a few disastrous years. And with a provincial seat opening up, we might get some interesting movement and see some exciting new faces in the city’s political scene.

Cool facts for cool people

• Ward 8 councillor John-Paul Danko has just cleared his 7th Code of Conduct complaint of this term in office. According to a post on his X/Twitter, Danko was found to have not violated the code by making comments “on how the behavior of homeless individuals, encampments and drug use impacts neighbourhoods and residents.” While I agree that using Code of Conduct complaints now seems to be a way that Danko’s opponents are trying to get to him politically, I think this speaks to the need to a need to change the way politicians interact with people online. A politician’s personal comments - be they Danko’s thoughts on the encampment issue or Jama’s thoughts on the conflict in the Middle East - might upset people, but they should not be policed based on those. It should be up to voters to pass judgement on them, not opaque internal discipline proceedings. Anyway, see my edition from two weeks ago about recall for more thoughts there.

• As Joey Coleman reports, Hamilton is getting new speed humps in 56 locations. There will be humps along 6 sections of road in Ward 1, two in Ward 2, 1 in Wards 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, and 14, and 7 in Ward 12. When I worked with the Strathcona Community Council on a street safety survey, speed humps were one of the main requests from people who were annoyed at cars racing down residential streets at high speeds. This is good news for traffic calming and for neighbourhood safety!