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March 2005
Newsletter
CATCHing Up
Our apologies for the absence of newsletters for many months. As you can imagine, there hasn’t been much good news to report.
However there has been lots of news, and more is surfacing every week. A regular source is the Citizens at City Hall (CATCH)
group which monitors city council and circulates several reports a week by email to anyone who requests them.
If you’re not on this list, and have an email address, we encourage you to contact CATCH@cogeco.ca and get on their list. All of
their material is also available on the internet at www.environmenthamilton.org/CATCH.
We’ve tried to summarize a bit of this material for you below:
“We’re from Hamilton, and We’re Sorry”
A new group calling themselves “Hamilton Friends of Canada” spent two hours in frigid early February weather apologizing to federal
government staff outside their offices in Downsview.
They personally spoke to over 300 staff and gave each of them a letter opposing the $75 million lawsuit launched last November by
the city against federal staff and former cabinet ministers.
The group says the lawsuit is imposing a chilling effect on the enforcement of environmental laws and is harming the protection of
Canada's environment. They describe it as “a lawsuit against ourselves” and say “the only ‘winners' in this lawsuit will be the lawyers
who have recommended it.” There’s much more information at www.friendsofcanada.org.
The city is also planning on suing individuals who allegedly trespassed in the valley last summer.
City Spending to Oppose Citizens
CATCH was the first to reveal that former
Calgary police chief Christine Silverberg
was paid more than $50,000 a month
to ‘deal with’ opposition to the Red Hill
Creek Expressway. She was hired through
the city’s outside lawyer David Estrin, so
the details of what she charged and what
she did are being kept secret from the
public in the name of ‘client-solicitor
privilege’.
Councillor Terry Whitehead called this “a
way of circumventing a policy that was in
place for the city at the time, by having
Estrin hire Silverberg as opposed to the
city, while we paid the invoices.”
Shortly after Estrin was hired in the summer
of 1999, the city began refusing to
release information related to Red Hill,
such as a study on flying squirrels in the
valley. The claim that this material was
protected by client-solicitor privilege was
eventually ruled illegal by the provincial
privacy commissioner, but not until after
the expressway construction began in the
spring of 2003.
Documents released in November show
that main reason the city hired Christine
Silverberg was because the Hamilton police
department refused to align with city
officials against expressway opponents,
especially Aboriginal people.
This was reiterated in comments by
Mayor Larry DiIanni: “They made it very
clear … that their job was not to report to
the city. Their job was to enforce the law.
And they wanted … an arms length relationship
from the city in terms of how
things were evolving. And therefore the
city needed to ready for some things as
well, and again the report outlines that
very, very clearly.”
All of the staff who would have known
about the huge payments to Silverberg are
no longer employed by the city. And none
of the pro-expressway politicians will admit
they knew about the bills either. In
addition, some of Silverberg’s bills were
paid out of the Greenhill sewer project
fund. Altogether Silverberg got $336,000.
Payments to high-priced lawyers, lobbyists
and consultants, including Silverberg,
make up the bulk of the $1.2 million that
city officials claimed last summer was
spent dealing with Red Hill Expressway
protestors. Direct security costs such as
fencing and guards appear to account for
about 10% of the amount reportedly spent
between July 2003 and May 2004. The
largest payments went to Estrin’s law
firm which collected $473,000, or more
than 40% of the claimed protest costs.
Some $53,000 went to a firm hired by the
city to lobby the provincial government.
Financial Hole Just Keeps Getting Bigger
The recent council decision to borrow
the entire principle of the Future Fund
(now known as the No Future Fund) is
directly linked to spending on the Red
Hill Creek Expressway. The fund, set up
in 2002 “to create and protect a permanent
legacy for current and future generations
of Hamiltonians,” is being taken
by city council to deal with the crisis in
its capital budget.
Last year's budget documents warned of
a “dramatic 50% decrease in capital
funding for regular programs (roads, facilities,
etc.) which would take effect in
2004 due to increased debt attributable
to the Red Hill Valley Project and the
Solid Waste Master Management Plan.”
It said the $15 million Future Fund loan
last year “essentially has delayed by one
year, the capital affordability problems ”
but even at that point staff were raising
the option of taking the entire $100 million
from the Fund.
While councillors battle over whether to
allocate money to maintain city trees, or
fix deteriorating roads, there was no
hesitation from the majority to increase
the expressway budget by $15 million
last October.
Even with the Future Fund monies, this
year’s capital budget reveals a further
decline in city assets of at least $150
million. The external debt is set to rise
by $59 million this year, while reserves
will fall by $35 million, and there is at
least a $60 million difference between
planned spending on basic infrastructure
and the amount that is needed to just
avoid further deterioration.
The loan of the $100 million Future
Fund to the city is ironic because the
Fund itself was created by mortgaging
assets of Hamilton Hydro for $137 million.
Customers of the utility are paying
that back on their hydro bills, so the
money doesn't appear in the city's books
as debt.
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