Donald Trump, Mike Harris and why draining swamps is not a good idea! By Frank Giorno

As an environmentalist, I take a strong exception to Trump’s smug declaration that he is going to drain the Washington swamp.

Trump talks of swamps as if they are bad and need removal or draining.

Even in the metaphorical use of the term, it is obvious, Trump knows nothing about swamps and how important they are to the functioning of an environmentally sound planet and local environment. He also knows nothing useful about how governments work and the value of civil servants.

Trump wild-eyed, crazy

Trump! Drain thyself.

And what Trump calls the “Washington Swamp,” he really is referring to a highly skilled, competent civil service corp of talented people, who have sworn to serve their country and protect the nation’s institution and values.

Serving his country is a concept that the money-crazed, self-promoting, money-grubbing, narcissist, like Trump, has never practiced in his entire life.

If John F. Kennedy’s philosophy was summed by up the phrase, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” then Donald Trump’s philosophy can be summed by by something like this – ” Ask not what your country can do for you, but what your country can do for me!”

Free rides paid by taxpayers to promote Trump’s businesses in New York, Virginia, Mar-a-Lago are the very real examples of the Trump Doctrine of self-enrichment at the public’s expense.

Swamps, bogs, marshes, fens, slews are so important in generating plant, wildlife, bird, fish, reptilian, amphibious and insect life on our planet. Something Trump can’t or won’t grasp.

What is it with fascists and neo-fascists and draining swamps! You may recall that Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, also gained some notoriety by draining the Pontine Marshes – in that case, it was lauded because it helped eradicate the malaria health threat which was savaging Italy.

But in North America, we do not have that problem. Wetlands not only generate species diversity, but they provide protection against flooding from storms and hurricanes, because the cattails and other marsh and swamp vegetation slow down the speed of flood waters.

Those torrents of wildly raging, flood waters we see on TV, are quite often made possible, because civil authorities, in their full blown ignorance, drained swamps and cleared marshlands — wetlands if you will, that helped prevent flooding.

The Charles River Study by the US Army Corp of Engineers (1965) concluded as much when they examined the flooding issues in Boston, Massachusetts.

That classic study is referenced on page 9 of the National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration document Wetlands: A Restoration Guide.

NOAA Guide to Restoring Wetlands

I learned about this when I was the research director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, back in the 1980s, and was fighting along  side the inspirational Jim Richards of the Oshawa Second Marsh Defense Association to save Oshawa Second Marsh from being drained and turned into a harbour that was never really needed in the first place.

Swamps, bogs, fens and marshes contain a wealth in diversity of  species of flora and fauna. They support and contain plants that could hold the secret for curing one of the many debilitating diseases out there.

Getting rid of the metaphoric Washington swamp is also unhealthy, because by doing so, you lose a lot of talent, skill and know how…look at how incompetent Trump’s Washington swamp replacements have been.

Let’s start with his firings during his campaign in 2016: Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort.

Since he assumed the presidency, Trump has hired and fired the follow Swamp-Replacer, Michael Flynn.

He has hired and demoted Kelly Anne Conway; Steve Bannon, the not- so- bright, former editor of Breitbart News, with its open pandering to racist and white, Christian, supremacist sentiments in America.

Recently, word out on the Washington street is, that Donald Trump has the axe ready, and poised to chop his suffering, lamentable spokesperson Sean Spicer.

Trump would be better served if he just shuts up, stops his maniacal late night tweeting, and reins in his insane grandiosity; and  starts listening to experts for once in his sorry, bankruptcy ridden-life – six at last count. Will his presidency be his seventh bankruptcy?

Failure to listen to advice, in his businessmen days back in the 1980s and 1990s, cost him his reputation as a smart deal maker, as author Harry Hurt III points with overwhelming evidence in the must read book “The Lost Tycoon”.

Harry Hurt III if you are reading this please write a sequel — “The Lost President.”

I went through a very similar draining and culling exercise,  while working as a civil servant at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (1989-2000) after the election of Ontario’s proto-Donald Trump-like, Mike Harris in 1995.

During that tumultuous, Harris era, talented civil servants  were laid off  by Mike Harris, in his mad pursuit to pare down Ontario’s expenditures, so he could hand out cash to Ontario voters, and to keep his commitment to a 30 percent tax cut.

harris-mike-swears060214

Former Ontario Premier, Mike Harris, was the Donald Trump of his day (1995-2002). His policies destroyed the Ontario Conservative Party which has not been returned to office over the course of 15 years and 4 elections. This photo shows Mike Harris, testifying at the Commission of Inquiry into the Killing of Dudley George, headed by Justice Sidney Linden. Photo courtesy of CBC

Imagine the humor I felt, when I received a cheque for $200 in the mail from the Harris government, several months after I was purged out his government when my job as Senior Water Quality Communications Advisor was abolished…I had seniority and that was the only way to expel me from the Ontario’s not so civil service (at least it wasn’t under Harris).

I returned the cheque, and told Harris “no thanks, I would much rather be employed.” NOW Magazine ran my letter at the time.

Many fine civil servants, from the Assistant Deputy Minister level to the grunt level, like me in the Communications Branch of Ministry of the Environment, got axed.

Like Trump, Environmental protection was diminished under Harris, and the cuts to water quality inspectors – cutting  staff  by a third, resulted in the seven deaths at Walkerton due to residents drinking contaminated drinking water, concluded a Commission of Inquiry into the Walkerton tragedy.

Like Trump, Harris played a racial identity card to galvanize his base. Harris’ racism was aimed at Ontario’s First Nations, and the killing of Dudley George, two days after Harris took power in September, 1995, is an example of this.

I do not accuse Harris of racism lightly, I merely quote the findings of Justice Sidney Linden in his report into the killing of Dudley George.

CBC coverage of Justice Sidney Linden’s Findings on Ipperwash

In his final report on the Ipperwash Inquest into the Killing of Dudley, George Justice Sidney Linden said: “that he didn’t believe Harris, when he claimed he never made a racist statement about the occupiers, during an informal government meeting with provincial police just hours before George’s death.”

A CBC online report on Justice Linden’s findings states: “Harris acknowledged during his testimony that he wanted the occupation brought to a quick end, but denied he said, “I want the fucking Indians out of the park,” as former Ontario attorney general Charles Harnick alleged during his own testimony.”

“After carefully assessing the evidence, it is my view that Michael Harris made the statement,” Linden wrote. “I agree with Premier Harris’s characterization of the statement … as racist.”

“Harris’s sense of urgency, in contrast to the “go-slow” approach of police,”created an atmosphere that narrowed the scope” of potential peaceful resolution to the occupation, Linden said.”

“The provincial government could have appointed a mediator or negotiator at any time, but did not,” Linden wrote. “The premier could have urged patience, rather than speed.”

“Linden also found Harris and Harnick misled the legislature about the so-called “dining-room meeting” involving government officials and police, and by doing so, contributed to the appearance of inappropriate interference and a lack of transparency by the government.”

Like Mike Harris 22 years-ago, Trump has expressed his racism through the anti-Islamic Executive Orders, and anti- Black, dog whistles, nudges and winks, that galvanized support from bigots like Steven Bannon and the KKK and his deplorable base.

Both Harris and Trump played the divisive politics of the divide and conquer, that plays to the worst prejudices of their  political base.

In Harris’ case, the province-wide teacher bashing broadcast of the fall of 1996, paid for by taxpayers money, will go down as another low point in Ontario’s recent history, along with his involvement in the dynamics that led to the killing of Dudley George, and the gutting of the Ministry of the Environment that resulted in 7 deaths of Walkerton residents from drinking contaminated water in May, 2000.

Yes, I am proud to this day, at being gutted by Mike Harris, around May 20, 2000 just as the seriousness of the Walkerton situation was exploding in his face.

Ironically, I was the Senior Communications Water Quality Communications Advisor, – but Harris and his minions would not listen to my advice to preserve Ministry integrity and undo his cuts to MOE enforcement staff.

Sound advice from within rejected.

I was hardly the only one advising Harris to reconsider his disastrous course. Many senior, life-long civil servants in the Water Resources Branch, like the manager of the Drinking Water Section and the ADM of the Environmental Science and Standards Division; and the ADM of the Operations Divisions, which included the regional inspectors, did the same.

But Harris chose to listen to ass-kissing, sycophants, that he could really do more with less – those voices Harris rewarded with promotions.

When I was approached on many occasions  to put out press statements that Great Lakes Water Quality had improved despite the Harris cuts, I said give me the scientific proof first, otherwise I cannot say Ontario’s water is doing better with less environmental protection.

This was sound advice to the Harris government, because if later, a rash statement like we are doing more to protect the environment with less money being spent,was proved to be a lie – it would destroy the Conservatives Party.

And this nonsense that Harris promoted that the environment was better, cleaner, greater despite the 30 percent cut in inspection staff was, sadly, proved to be a lie, with the tragic, preventable loss of seven lives, as a result of the tainted water in Walkerton, that Justice Dennis O’Connor attributed to the lose of provincial oversight over the operation of that municipal water system.

I am proud to say I resisted Harris and for that –  my position as Senior Water Quality Communications advisor was abolished in an MOE reorganization that was taking place as people were dying in Walkerton, in May, 2000.

Like Harris before him, Trump loves playing to his base by  bashing of  perceived foes – like environmentalists and condemning the media as the enemy of the people.

But Trump plays to a global audience bashing friends and foes alike over free trade and other issues like Canada, NATO, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Japan while praising suspect nations like Putin’s Russia, Turkey under Erdogan and he even said nice words about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – this all defies logical explanation, leading many to wonder about Trump’s mental health.

Like Harris before him, Trump lives in the delusion of his own thinking, and then uses bully tactics to get his way. They both deny responsibility for their failures and blame others instead.

Both Harris and Trump have had deleterious  impacts on their government’s health

Harris Health Care Cuts

Both Mike Harris as Ontario Premier and Donald Trump have had a deleterious impact on health care.

care policy. Harris in Ontario made  deep cuts to health care. In the US, Trump is obsessed with dismantling of Obamacare which according to some polls is more popular with Americans that Trump – 56 percent want Obamacare left intact, while only about 35-44 percent support Trump.

Harris’ policies, resulted in the deaths of eight known people in Ontario — Dudley George, on day two of Harris’ take over as Premier two days after Labour Day in 1995; and the seven people who died from drinking contaminated water in Walkerton in May, 2000.

The final report into the deaths in Walkerton caused by tainted drinking water

CBC News Highlights of the Walkerton Inquiry Final Report

Trump we know has killed many people in Syria with his “showboat” air raid on a Syrian air strip and the dropping of “the mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-airstrike-20170406-story.html

Instead of draining swamps, metaphorical or real, I suggest the American people drain Trump, before he drains the nation, and drains the Grand Old Party, the Party of Lincoln – The Republican Party.

Republicans, especially take note your very survival is at stake.

Mike Harris, Ontario’s Pre-Trump Trumpster, resigned in 2002. Some say he resigned in disgrace as a scandal was roiling over the deaths in Walkerton, the killing of Dudley George.

He also left his wife and his alleged adherence to Conservative family values in 2000 in order to pursue a relationship with Sharon Dunn, a former a CBC news reader who was previously married to millionaire John Sikura. Sikura died, in a still, unexplained, fiery car explosion in 1992.

The Resignation of Ontario Premier Mike Harris

Despite professing to adhere to family values, Premier Mike Harris dumps wife to pursue relationship with former CBC News Anchor

There is no doubt Ontario’s experience and disgust with Harris’s policies and behaviour, left the Ontario Conservative Party, irreparably damaged, and it has never returned to power in the intervening 15 years since he quit and turned the reins over to Ernie Eves in 2002, barely three years after winning a huge majority in the 1999 election. The lack of Conservative Party success at the polls has occurred, despite some woefully weak Liberal Party governments since that party took over control of the Ontario government after the 2003 election.

The Conservatives have failed to form another government either under John Tory and Tim Hudak.  Time will tell in 2018 how current Conservative leader Patrick Brown will do against  the hugely unpopular Kathleen Wynne Liberal government in the next election.

Simply, Harris did to the Conservative Party in Ontario what Trump is doing to the Republicans in the United States.

The so called “Trump effect” that many political and media analysts predicted – declaring  a Trump domino effect across the globe electing fascist, anti-Islamic parties in Austria, the Netherlands and France, countries that all had elections after Trump squeaked into the Presidency in the November US election.

In fact the Trump EFFECT has turned out to be the Trump DEFECT.

Voters have shunned extremism in those three countries, the way Ontario has shunned the post-Mike Harris Conservatives over the course the last four elections over 15 years.

Those three European nations, seeing what havoc and damage Trump is doing to the US opted to vote for centrists parties instead of loonytoon, far right weirdos like him.

A word of advice, based on my experience and Ontario’s experience with pre-Trump Trumpster Mike Harris — Trump drain thyself.

Republicans pay attention. Act now or destroy your own party.

As the typing exercise invented by typing instructor Charles Weller in 1918 puts it —

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. “

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party

Listen to my homage to Edwin Starr’s classic  “War” … I called it “Trump!”

What is he good for! Absolutely Nothing…Say it again.

Edwin Starr was talking about the Vietnam War and how it was destroying the US of the 1960s and the 1970s.

I’d say Trump is doing the same, destroying his country from within, while Putin and the Russians are attempting to destroy the US from outside, as former Obama NSA advisor James Clapper said earlier this week.

I say Trump! What is he good for? Absolutely Nothing! Say it again.

And neither was Mike Harris for Ontario.

Almost 20 years later his party is paying the price for Harris troubled regime.

Political Commentary: “You reap what you sow – Trump sows disrespect and hatred; What! We should respect him! LOL. Get real.”

donald7

Speaking on CNN, Paris Dennard, a paid Trump strategist, said the media and people in general have to show Trump more respect. Problem is Trump spews disrespect and hatred to others with ever word he utters. Its hard to respect a man who has built a political career on disrespecting, name-calling and inciting violence against opponents. You reap what you sow.

Yesterday, CNN had a panel discussion, where political commentator Paul Begala trashed Trump, calling him “a big needy baby” among other things.

Paris Dennard, a Trump strategist on the panel, just made me howl with laughter, when he chided Begala, and all anti-Trumpers for showing a lack of respect for President Donald J. Trump.
LOL…show Trump respect? Come on Paris! I know Trumpenstein pays you to be his ass kisser, but really don’t you think Trump started disrespecting others before the others fought back and disrespected him?
 
Trumper has made his entire career as a belated politician heaping nothing but scorn and disrespect to President Barack Obama starting immediately after Obama won the presidency in 2008.
I don’t believe President Obama ever did anything to deserve the disrespect shown by this ignorant buffoon named Trump.
Ever hear of Trump leading the birther movement? What greater disrespect could Trump throw at President Obama than to declare he was not really an American, and that he might even by a Muslim, even though America was built on religious freedom.
 
Ever hear the “Lock her up ” chants at his rallies?
 
Ever hear Trump call Madam Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary?”
 
There is a saying in Christianity, “You reap what you sow.”
 
Trump has sown fields, after fields of disrespect and incited violence against a protester in Louisville, where now, even one of Trumps own supporters now wants Trump to pay for his fines and penalties and legal costs, because he said he never would have assaulted the protesting woman if not told to do so by Trump.
 
Paris Dennard, you have the gall to chide Paul Begala, and insist we all must respect this man, who only sows disrespect.
Go talk to your minister Dennard, I think you are missing a very basic and crucial truth about life.
Trump has disrespected hardworking men and women in the US Civil service, calling them the swamp. Only to hire his own gang of Wall Street thugs.
He has made fun of a journalist with a disease and mimicked him for laughs.
 
He ridiculed the family of an American soldier who died in Iraq.
 
He has disrespected Americans of the Islamic faith with calls for an Islamic ban on immigrants. He has called people of  Mexican origin murderers and rapists – bad hombres.
 
He has disrespected the American media and started first to bash them because it played well with his base, base, really base supporters.
He has called the media the enemy while blowing loving kisses to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He disrespects U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and America’s First Nations by calling her  “Pocahontas!”. This is being respectful????? A double disrespect in one hate-drenched phrase.
He wrongly accuses President Obama of having wiretapped him, a claim that FBI head James Covey said is wrong and unsupported by the facts.
 
Frankly, I can see now why Melania looked so unhappy that moment during the inauguration.
 
So please Mr. Paris Dennard, spare us your lecture about respecting Trumpster and pay attention to what your boss is doing to America.
 
You can start by removing you lips from Trump’s ass.
 
If you did so, you would see more clearly what a disrespectful man, and hate filled man your boss truly is, and why it is important for all Americans, and American allies to treat him with the utmost contempt and disrespect he is treating others.
 
That is all Trumper ever shows people, even his allies like Canada….disrespect, bullying and ignorance.
Look at his language in raging against Canada’s dairy industry and NAFTA. 
 
Christ said treat people they way you want to be treated.
 
Paris, Trump disrespects people, and what do you expect, they should respect him.
 
Get real Dennard!
Listen to Aretha Franklin, and maybe, just maybe, you can learn about RESPECT!

Hydro One Fired the Wrong Guy! By Frank Giorno

A few weeks ago Hydro One without mercy and reflection brutally dismissed a young man for making sexist comments to a City TV reporter who turned the camera on the drunken yahoos attending a Toronto FC match. But I think they fired the wrong guy.

Hydro One Should Fire Carmen Marcello its President and CEO for criminal billing practices

Hydro One Should Fire Carmen Marcello its President and CEO for criminal billing practices

Even though the young employee did something stupid and repugnant the just released report by Andre Marin, Ontario’s Ombudsman, into Hydro One’s billing practices show the company’s corporate behaviour is even more repugnant and indeed may even be criminal.

If Hydro One is consistent on applying their draconian firing policies the man they should fire ASAP is their CEO and President Carmen Marcello. After all the buck has to stop somewhere right? The tone for corporate behaviour rests with the CEO and President. And whereas the former young Hydro One employee was likely drunk or at least overtaken by the tribalistic behaviour that surrounds sporting events, the corporate billing practices were probably premeditated and developed while sober, one would hope.

Marcello has to go. If he stays it would signal that Hydro One has one human resources policy for the lowly grunts and another for those who run the show like Marcello.

Marcello may be a fine fellow. I do not know him. But right now, Hydro One under his leadership is a damaged company…much more damaged than the antics of a junior employee who when drunk or excited at soccer a soccer match said something stupid. The damage caused to Hydro One under Marcello’s leadership is much,much worst that what the fan could have inflicted on a scale from 1 to 10.

Hydro One should fire him but only after reading the scathing Ombudsman report of how Hydro One engaged in out and out robbery of their clients accounts. What’s that saying about what goes around comes around?

Hydro One’s billing system wrongly charged customers exorbitant amounts on their month bills. (see below for link to the Toronto Star Story). The initial response from Marcello and Hydro One is not encouraging. He accepts no blame and no responsibility. Marcello blames the sub-contracted billing company for all the wrong Hydro One unleashed on its customers.

Andre Marin, the Ombudsman found that in some instances Hydro One acted illegally. Hydro One even lied to the Ombudsman and tried to derail his investigation and then Marin said they even celebrated their deception like a gang of tribalistic soccer fans.

As for the young man who got fired by Hydro One. You did something really foolish and stupid. But you are lucky too. Because who wants to work for Hydro One and its criminal practices? I would suggest that the young man get a lawyer and examine his possibilities. Also I would suggest he publicly apologize for his statements and make a sincere effort to learn and grow from his mistake. Hiding in anonymity is the worst thing you can do. In time select an appropriate media outlet to tell your story, and also to offer a public apology.

The TV camera is a magnet for goofy behind the interviewer behaviour that ranges from a benign HI MOM to the more serious recent developments where boorish males yell sexually provocative slogans at female reporters. In this case the drunk males thought the camera was off. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that if they knew the camera was on they would not have acted as crudely. In fact one of the group of men asks “are you recording this”?

The complete story of how Shauna Hunt found herself confronted by a boorish gang of sports fans is more complicated. This is a story the media will not report in its entirety because it is more about the reckless media moguls who send their employees alone into a hazardous workplace situations without adequate support. Oh come on you say! People should act better than those boorish young men and the Hydro One employee deserved what he got…yes, that would be a great world if people always acted civilized. Hey we would not even need that great institution called the Police Department if people just behaved properly all the time.

For a television reporter going into a crowd to cover a story can be an occupation hazard regardless of gender. And cuts by media companies have made the job even more hazardous.

In the old days, a TV reporter would be accompanied by a producer or a camera man. The producer would select the shot or interview location and shoo away any idiots who interfered with the interview. The camera also would be able to assist if needed. But because of cuts to staff. A TV reporter now lugs the camera and is on their own to fend off yahoos. This time it was a female reporter, but next time it could be an altercation between a fan and a male reporter.

I suggest the reporter if she had any sense of decency would issue a complaint to the Ontario Labour Relations Board and to the Workers Safety Board. But she won’t even though it is a workplace safety issue as much as it is a gender issue. Who wants to get fired right?

Here is the Toronto Star article about the Ombudsman’s Report on Hydro One’s billing practices.

http://www.thestar.com/…/hydro-one-accused-of-deceit-in-dam…