HIRING SHORTAGE ALSO EXTENDS TO ELECTION, AS CANDIDATES HARMLESS; OR ARE THEY?

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

MUSKOKA — Spring forward or fall back?

Monday’s election is a chance to hire councils with real vision and guts.

So where are they?

The local labour pool has long had a painfully thin bench for qualified workers in all fields at all levels. Witness the hospitality and trades sectors.

For hire signs are now only outnumbered by candidates offering — well — nothing.

No inspiring ideas. No hope.

Muskokans are waterlogged. We’ve become a subservient class left to do the bidding of consumer-rich conservatives.

Jobs that once paved streets and offered choice on main drags are history for bedroom burbs like us.

This likely means more of the status quo after Oct. 24.

But it can all change within three days.

However, ballots show that may not be the case.

Harmless as all candidates seem — they’re more likely to be just rearranging the deck chairs on the Segwun.

They could do more harm by doing little to nothing more than most have done for decades.

Take for example Gravenhurst. What about a bypass from West Gravenhurst to Hwy. 11 south? That would have kept dozens of diverted transports this week from driving down main street.

The Gateway to Muskoka is flat — which admittedly many people do like to walk. But it lacks any pizzazz or vitality. There’s no appreciable art despite a culture department and councillor with that background.

Look at the literature or websites and you don’t see running mates with the 2022 skill set that is proactive rather than reactive. None are progressive; all are regressive in their age old recycled, copied inactions.

Too many of the veteran candidates of several terms are relying on their previous time in office, when growth stagnated under their watch. Shrinking council discussions could least include term limits.

There are far too many career politicians whose shelf life has proven them stale.

It’s like the Muskoka saying: ‘I’m not out of work, I’m a contractor.’

No wonder it’s said: “If you don’t move forward, sooner or later you begin to move backward.”

It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of opportunities to showcase and exploit a diamond in a rough Ontario.

While in Huntsville and Bracebridge there’s talk about rebuilding and moving the district’s hospitals — nary a word was spoken about transforming those two monoliths into housing as was done more than a decades ago in Parry Sound for seniors when its new hospital was built.

If only forward-thinking councils had acted likewise with the Muskoka Centre in Gravenhurst almost 30 years ago.

Recent Gravenhurst councils have severely mis-managed that file for three decades, despite ample opportunities to mitigate disagreements between developers and disagreeing lake associations.

If there’s a will there’s a way.

There’s a lot of rhetoric this campaign about housing, but no concrete talk about opening the doors at town halls and township offices and allowing a clean sweep of staff whose anal red tape efforts have for decades have caused this living crisis.

It’s now being left to the province to enact new building code legislation forcing municipalities to allow more duplexes and triplexes; along with two and three more housing units within the same home without expansion of the footprint.

Measures councillors should have taken in the past if they were so concerned about the homeless.

However, the Ford government is mistakenly putting a limit on conservation authorities’ interventions, restricting their comments only to where flood plains may be affected.

All of this the premier says to put a halt to NIMBYism and bothersome “conservation barriers” and appeals to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (formerly OMB).

Municipal Housing Minister Steve Clarke fairly says the province will force towns and cities to target housing growth that includes affordable housing within “inclusionary zones” for development.

Further he said Ontario intends to “disentangle” the duplication of planning approvals at upper tier levels of government like the District of Muskoka, to expedite growth.

Folks at the old One Muskoka group couldn’t agree more while seeking ever more integration.

That shows how Doug Ford’s “strong mayors” pilots in Toronto and Ottawa lead to leaders who toe the Tory line.

With new mayors in Gravenhurst and Huntsville — and possibly Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes — along with a new district chair the next four years these councils are crucial.

As the GTA sprawl and migration descends deeper, managing growth means being open and responsive while at the same controlling one’s destiny.

For decades Muskoka has depended on the reliability of safe and secure tax-free seniors’ housing at the expense of middle and lower class minorities.

The province has finally seen that and is attempting to address the “missing middle” — as I’ve long preached.

Municipal governments have little leeway when it comes to discretionary spending (save for Muskoka Lakes), once roads and too high staffing costs are accounted for.

In Muskoka a living wage mostly means a government job or a government pension. Minimum wage is a Muskoka wage.

But there a myriad of little things that councils and staff can rectify readily within their cost controls. Councillors who drive around either don’t see them or don’t strongly care or understand enough to put them forward at budget times.

But there must be strong governance top down, which has too often seen cases of mayoral acquiescence when it comes to who’s signing salaries.

That doesn’t mean sharp outbursts that could misrepresent taxpayers and keep HR busy.

And with another pending slump or recession certain, those in charge of the municipal digital transfer payments must be more widely diverse in their thinking and outlook.

Talking to most candidates it’s as if the only world they know is their own — or a gated community on a Caribbean island.

To say they are conservative in their viewpoints is liberal.

Be bold, make mistakes. Reverse course. Act fast and decisively. Don’t hide behind consultants. Do your job. Do what’s right. What most people, the taxpayers want.

If the Brits can pick a new PM inside a week, surely Muskoka can elect someone, anyone who can think and act outside Muskoka with new effective ideas.

There’s a lot to offer if you vote for the right councillors and mayors.

If we have them — or else we can retrain them.

Otherwise we’ll have to hire from outside the district as too many businesses have been forced by councils to do.

But look how that worked before in Gravenhurst with its CAOs.

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