Fat Louis -Seems like City Council can’t do anything right.

An Odd Thought
By Fat Louis

They say nothing ever disappears on the Internet. You post a stupid comment or a risqué photo and those momentary misjudgements are out there forever, floating around the electronic ether for the whole world to see. Careers have been ruined by this digital dilemma. Hell, lives have been ruined.

There is, however, one notable exception to this rule—the Ontario Government’s secret Gas Plant Scandal emails. You remember that little debacle right?

For those who’ve blocked the memory it was a particularly dark time in our province’s history, a time when the ruling Liberal government essentially bought the Ontario election by capitulating to NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) special interests and cancelling construction of a multi-million dollar natural gas plant. That move cost the taxpayer over a billion dollars (money spent already + cancellation fees + lawsuits + building a replacement plant) and garnered the Liberals two desperately needed seats in provincial parliament. The media dubbed the scandal ‘The Billion Dollar Boondoggle’—a catchy enough name—but then things got worse. People noticed the whole thing stunk and the police looked into it. Only someone had erased all the emails!

For anyone else on the planet deleted emails aren’t really deleted. A bit of computer magic and Presto! those emails are recovered. But not these Liberal emails. No, thanks to some not-quite-criminal tricks—including hiring high priced computer experts conveniently loyal to the Liberal party—those (probably incriminating) documents are gone forever. Not even the RCMP could find them. And they tried really, really hard…we’re assuming. A lot of that investigation has yet to be released to the public. But there’s nothing suspicious in that. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Concerned Ontario citizens had no clue what was said in those emails…at least not until now. That’s right people, we have found the ‘lost’ Ontario Gas Plant emails—and they are even more damning than you imagined!

We’ll skip the technical details (we teamed with journalists from L’Oignon to delve the hidden depths of the ‘dark’ Internet). The meat of the issue isn’t the how but the what—like what was said, what laws were broken, and, most important of all, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? And that meat is rotten, turning green, and covered in maggots!

Fear of libel lawsuit prevents us from posting these documents. But some samples include current Premier Kathryn Wynne’s tongue-in-cheek comment, “McGuinty? Try McGuilty!” Various incriminating hashtags were shared among Liberals including: #ontariopeoplesogullible; #billiondollarvote; #pullmyfinger’ #whosmeltitdealtit; #deleteall; and the most popular, #anythingtogetelected.

There are thousands of pages still to go through. No doubt the really juicy stuff will soon come to light. Capreol On-Line will continue wading through the filth. Journalistic integrity demands it—even if doing so leaves our reporters feeling soiled and ‘icky’. Ontario deserves the truth. And if you can’t trust a small-town website who can you trust?
Part of the problem was the vagueness of the bylaw. Did ‘open air’ include enclosed fire pits? What about chimineas and other such ‘outdoor’ fireplaces? Would the new rules affect wood burning barbeques? And where did campgrounds fit in? Were there special rules for certain more-rural areas? The city would have a lot of angry campers if bonfires got banned.

Sure other cities in the north have fees for outdoor fire permits. Of course their costs are a fraction of what Sudbury proposed. And they don’t bother with none of this indoor-inspection BS either. But that’s typical for our city. Forever finding ways to outdo everyone else…too bad it’s never in a good way. Thankfully city council saw the error of their ways (it took a while but they got there) and set the motion aside. Now citizens need to stand guard against the next bit of foolishness.Read Fat Louis' previous columns