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Latest comments

Michael D on Keeping Track - Bus system overhaul coming to Guelph while GO station might go to Lafarge after all
Steve Host on Keeping Track - Bus system overhaul coming to Guelph while GO station might go to Lafarge after all
G. T. on Abolish the Ontario Municipal Board
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Links of interest

  1. 2009-03-27: The Mother of All Rejection Letters
  2. 2009-02: Road Worriers
  3. 2008-12-29: Who should go to university?
  4. 2008-12-24: Tory aide tried to scuttle Hanukah event, school says
  5. 2008-11-07: You might not like Obama's promises
  6. 2008-09-19: Harper a threat to democracy: independent
  7. 2008-09-16: Tory dissenters 'idiots, turds'
  8. 2008-09-02: Canadians willing to ride bus, but transit systems are letting them down: survey
  9. 2008-08-19: Guelph transit riders happy with 20-minute bus service changes
  10. 2008=08-06: More people riding Edmonton buses, LRT
  11. 2008-08-01: U.S. border agents given power to seize travellers' laptops, cellphones
  12. 2008-07-14: Planning for new roads with a green blueprint
  13. 2008-07-12: Disappointed by Layton, former MPP likes `pretty solid' Dion
  14. 2008-07-11: Riders on the GO
  15. 2008-07-09: MPs took donations from firm in RCMP deal
  16. older links...

Abolish the Ontario Municipal Board

Can someone please explain to me why the Ontario Municipal Board exists? Why do we elect local politicians at all if their only purpose is to express an opinion to a mysterious judicial body?

The developers of the former Lafarge property in Guelph recently told city council that they had no plans to withdraw a pre-emptive OMB case against the city because they would be appealing the city's as-yet unmade decision regardless. Not exactly the spirit of cooperation those same developers told city council not five minutes earlier they were pursuing. But it begs the question, why does such a body exist?

Why is there a body that can overrule cities' elected politicians, their decisions, and their long term plans?

As former BC premier Mike Harcourt so eloquently put it to a conference in Guelph a year ago, "First off, abolish the OMB". I couldn't agree more, it's time for this useless body to be purged from this province.

Posted at 14:28 on March 12, 2008

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