Gordon Prentice at Large - Politics in Newmarket
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
In July I asked my MPP, Christine Elliott, the Deputy Leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, for her views on whether the Chair of Durham Regional Council should be elected by the voters at large or by a handful of members of the Regional Council.
She won’t tell me.
Durham is home to her former riding and where she still lives.
Before 2014, the Chair of Durham Regional Council was appointed by its members – as happens in York Regional Council today. But there was a referendum in Durham’s constituent municipalities in 2010 (with voters overwhelmingly in favour of direct election) and the Region switched from an appointed Chair to one elected by the voters at large in 2014.
Election in full swing in Durham
As I type this out the election in Durham is in full swing with five candidates battling it out for the job. Here, in York Region, we have the silence of the graveyard. We hear no clash of opinions between Steven Del Duca and Mario Racco and others, grabbing the attention of the voters, offering alternative visions of the future.
York region’s population is bigger than PEI, Newfoundland, Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan, and is rapidly closing on Manitoba. Yet the person who leads York region will be indirectly elected by 20 people on 6 December 2018 at the inaugural meeting of the new Council.
The first highly anticipated direct election by the voters at large for York Regional Chair was cancelled by Doug Ford with Elliott, now MPP for Newmarket-Aurora, uncritically supporting his decision.
From 2006-2015 Elliott was the MPP first for Whitby-Ajax and then Whitby Oshawa in Durham Region.
Mum's the word 
So far as I can gather Elliott chose not to express a view on the direct election of the Chair of Durham Regional Council and refuses to engage with me on this major issue of public policy.
Elliott does not reply to my emails and neither has her constituency assistant, Sarah, acknowledged them. I have twice asked for an appointment with Elliott and my requests disappear into the ether as if they had never been made.
This is not how the system is supposed to work.
Doug Ford is on record boasting about how he returns calls to constituents and praises PC MPPs who make a habit of doing this. But that's not Elliott’s way.
Minimum wage rebuff
She didn’t meet people arguing for an increase in the minimum wage who asked for a meeting several times.
I’ve asked candidates running for Durham Regional Chair if Elliott expressed a view but they can’t recall. She kept her views to herself. In all her years at Queen’s Park she was silent on the issue. There is nothing in Durham’s local newspapers. She has left no footprints in the sands.
But Elliott is against the direct election of the Chair of York Region.
And she won’t explain why it’s OK for Durham but not here.
Update at 6pm: I'm getting emails from people who have been in touch with Elliott - sometimes on multiple occasions - who haven't received the courtesy of a reply. If this has happened to you please let me know at
I won't quote you by name unless you specifically ask me to.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
I am not a member of the Facebook Public Group “Newmarket Votes” but I take a look from time to time to see what they are talking about. 
The owner of Main Street’s Fourth Dimension Comic Store, Steven Gilbert, posted some inventive cartoons of our councillor wannabees which were removed by the site’s administrator after a torrent of complaints.
Newmarket's History Hound, the straight-laced Richard MacLeod is the Witchfinder General, dubbing the cartoons “demeaning” and demanding their immediate removal.
MacLeod declaims:
“There is no place for that sort of art in a political forum.”
As a student of history he should know better.
Long Tradition
There is a long tradition of political cartooning, poking fun at the high and mighty and those seeking elected office and long may it continue.
Earlier today I wander down to the Comic Store and chat with Gilbert.
I ask him if he is related to Linda Gilbert who is running for School Board Trustee. With a chortle and then a booming laugh he yells: 
“Doesn’t she wish!”
(That, Richard, was another joke.)
He admits his cartoons are juvenile and not everyone's cup of tea – the product of a lifetime reading MAD magazines and comics from the same stable.
But candidates who have been immortalised by Gilbert’s pen should feel flattered.
Better that than being ignored.
You can see the full gallery in the window of the Fourth Dimension Comic and Games Store, 237 Main Street South, Newmarket.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
If I lived in Newmarket’s Ward 5 I would be voting for Ron Eibel in the election on Monday.
The incumbent councillor, Bob Kwapis, won the downtown Ward in a crowded by-election in 2016 after Joe Sponga threw in the towel for reasons which have never been fully explained.
It was a spirited campaign involving seven candidates and Kwapis cruised to victory with 803 votes well ahead of the runner up Darryl Wolk (479 votes) and Tracee Chambers (444 votes). Ron Eibel came fourth, limping home with 105 votes. But I am sure he will do a lot better this time.
Kwapis spent a fortune on the by-election campaign. Money was no object.
I’ve been re-reading the blog I wrote two years ago about Bob Kwapis who, then and now, comes across as jolly and engaging. That hasn’t changed. He smiles a lot and that’s good. But does he deliver? How does he measure up now that we have seen him at work for two years?
Kwapis is skilled at self-promotion. His election leaflets list “recent achievements” which suggest he is the go-to man if you want something done in the Ward.
But steer well clear of Bob if you have a planning problem. If he invites himself to your house offering to help just say no. More likely than not he’ll side with the developer.
Kwapis refuses to ask awkward questions
The Clock Tower is, of course, the issue that dominated the last term of Council. It is an incontestable fact that the Director of Planning, Rick Nethery, misled the public by allowing the development’s FSI (a measure of density) which he knew to be false to appear in the report going up to councillors for decision on 28 November 2016.
I asked Kwapis on 11 April 2018 if he would ask Nethery when he (Nethery) first realised the FSI was false. Kwapis said it was a matter for the OMB. And since the OMB was cancelled following the settlement between the Town and Bob Forrest on 4 May 2018 Kwapis has let sleeping dogs lie. (Mayoral front-runner, John Taylor, just as incurious, also refuses to ask Nethery.)
“Very proud”
Kwapis is “very proud of the recent success in negotiating the Clock Tower development agreement”. But what part did he play and what has he done since then?
Coleen Forrest, the wife of the developer Bob Forrest, told us on 4 May 2018 that the new concept plans for the Clock Tower would be available “very soon”. That is getting on for six months ago. Has Kwapis asked what is causing the delay? Is Kwapis being proactive or just being a spectator again?
The historic commercial buildings on Main Street have been left empty and boarded up for years now. What happened to his plan to get displays in the empty shop windows? Are the old buildings prepared for winter? Will they be heated? Has he asked to see the interiors? Is he doing anything more than taking the credit for what people like Ron Eibel have done.
Ron Eibel was a lead character in the Clock Tower story. He was instrumental in blocking Forrest’s plans. And he has stuck with the issue which is still, in large part, unresolved.
Ron Eibel: quick thinking with a sense of humour
Ron Eibel is a quick thinker and is someone prepared to ask difficult, even awkward, questions. In the new Council he would be a burr under the saddle – but not in a disruptive non-collegial way. To be effective on Council you have to get along with people of all stripes and he could do that. But we need a counterweight to the groupthink that infects and contaminates Council decision-making.
There has been no candidates’ debate for the Ward 5 election this time around but I remember the one held at the Newmarket Theatre for the 2016 by-election. Eibel was the only candidate without a note in front of him – answering the questions fluently and showing a firm grasp of ward issues.
In a toe-curling performance on 15 May 2017 veteran councillor Dave Kerwin – who is now stepping down – described Bob Kwapis as the “Jewel of the Council” for backing a developer against a local resident. Kerwin gushed:
I know you have a backbone and that to me means everything."
Perhaps Bob Kwapis could now show some of that backbone by asking Rick Nethery when he first realised key information on the Clock Tower was false.