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June 2004
Newsletter
What Do We Do Now?
 As this newsletter goes to press, two people are occupying trees near where city contractors are scheduled to blast an 80-metre hole in the face of the Niagara Escarpment. They began their tree-sit on May 31 and yesterday (June 12) about 75 people successful re-supplied them with food and water, despite attempts by security guards to keep the sitters isolated.
This brave action symbolizes the desperate situation facing our Red Hill Valley and the undying movement on her behalf.
In April and again in May, delegations to the Niagara Escarpment Commission failed to obtain the legal action necessary to stop or even delay the blasting plans. Late May also saw the city council approve the issuing of $56.5 million in expressway contracts despite the absence of necessary approvals from four government regulators. Other contracts are scheduled to be issued in the fall to begin work on the Barton Street interchange and the excavation of 70,000 tonnes from the toxic Rennie Street dump.
But all is not going according to plan for Mayor DiIanni and others in the pro-expressway party. In mid-May they took a sharp slap in the face when Andrea Horwath won a landslide victory in a provincial byelection in Hamilton East. Horwath, one of the most outspoken opponents of the expressway took 65% of the votes against the DiIanni-backed Liberal whose brother had been the incumbent. Horwath's margin of victory far exceeded anything that had been obtained by former MPP Dominic Agostino. Now two more key members of the pro-expressway gang - federal cabinet ministers Tony Valeri and Stan Keyes - stand a good chance of being defeated on June 28.
There has even been good news in some council decisions. For the first time in 20 years, the budget for public transit was increased - by a whopping $12 million, while council also took the unprecedented step of rejecting a proposed jump in transit fares and found $1.3 million to revive the city tree planting program. More recently, plans were unveiled for increased parkland in upper Stoney Creek and a million dollars has been committed to cycling initiatives after three years of doing nothing.
These are small gains compared to the loss of the valley, but they point to a growing awareness that the outlook that produced the expressway is understood by more and more people as bankrupt. The pavers have brought Hamilton residents a 6% tax increase (almost the exact amount being spent this year on the expressway), and another drop in the city's credit rating, but demands for change are also growing.
Neighbourhood associations recently formed a city wide coalition to defend the interests of older communities in Hamilton. The reversal of the transit hikes owed a great deal to the December establishment of a Hamilton Transit Users Group (TUG) which distributed over 6000 flyers in seven languages, met personally with the majority of councillors and has held more than a dozen public meetings.
There are also new eyes at City Hall. Activists of CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) are monitoring virtually every committee meeting and generating transcripts of much of what occurs. They have covered more than 60 meetings since the beginning of the year, and issued more than 50 news articles on their website at www.environmenthamilton.org/CATCH . They circulate a weekly review of the upcoming agenda items and have scored a string of achievements in improving citizen access at City Hall.
This expanding movement for change suggests that the final chapter in the Red Hill Creek Expressway battle is yet to be written. Several years ago Friends postulated that two outcomes were possible: (1) the city or other governments could smarten up and stop the expressway; or (2) they could proceed to build it and thereby ensure the demise of the old Hamilton politics.
We who have fought so hard to protect our valley can't stop now. If we shut our mouths and hang up our hats, the lies will become the official history. We must not allow that to happen. The expressway, even if it is built, is inexorably retrogressive and part of the past. It will join Jackson Square as another Hamilton disaster. We are the future. Truth, youth and justice are on our side, and we will triumph.
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