Interview with Flamborough Councillor Dave Braden
Nov 7, 2006
Conducted by Maggie Hughes on McMaster radio program “The Other Side” on CFMU 93.3.

“The Other Side” is broadcast at noon every Tuesday.

[7:18 – tape included musical introduction and part of previous program]

Hughes: “He is known as the odd man out on city council. The outspoken new urbanist … councillor Dave Braden from ward 14.” …

Hughes: “Do you want to tell us why you dropped out [of the mayor’s race]?”

Braden: “I think that in looking back I’ve been involved in politics for 15 years. There’s a time and a place, I think, and I’ve spent the best part of my adult life involved in this. It’s great to think that there’s change and evolution and that other people can come along and do a better job than was done before, so I was prepared to walk away and to do something else – and I’m a busy person with a lot of interests. What happened was I didn’t see anybody coming that I thought could win this race against the incumbent mayor, and I thought it was particularly important to put the issue on the table, and for the citizens to really know what the issues were and then to decide, hopefully along the lines of the issues who should be the mayor. So when nobody was in by Labour Day weekend, I gave it some time, because I didn’t want to be there. I jumped in. Lo and behold, somebody else jumped in immediately after me. …”

Hughes: “Well that’s the mayor’s seat, but why did you give up as a councillor?”

Braden: “…I’ve tried to do things as a member of council not being better than or different from but one of. And I think at this point what Hamilton really needs is leadership. It doesn’t just need one more … within the fifteen. It needs real leadership. And I thought, either I’m going to go after the leadership, or I’m going to do other business.”

Hughes says she’s watched the candidate debates … “I’m actually frightened. There’s nothing there. There’s no content. The few people that have thrown their hat in don’t seem to know the issues. I was so upset watching it on Cable 14 … went down to city hall to ask a question of Fred Eisenberger. … It has just been a comedy show. It makes me laugh.”

Braden: “I agree with you that it’s so bad, but it’s hard for me to laugh. It’s so serious. I think that the situation in Hamilton is in fact different from other municipalities. … Hamilton has not been in a transition from being an industrial city to being a rural mid-city or a city that is more and more progressive. It simply hasn’t. … And that’s one of the really scary issues. And to move with the times we have to have leadership, and I believe also, that one of the things that we need is a fair and balanced and comprehensive press that is ready to tell us – and a conventional press I’m talking about.”

Hughes: “Mainstream media. They’re sadly lacking.”

Braden: “That’s right, and just to jump right to the conclusion. If CBC radio was in this town, we wouldn’t have the same government and we would be dealing with the issues.”

Hughes comments on media shortcomings

Braden: “If people had any idea what the financial situation was in the city, and how the deal making that is either in council or behind closed doors in city hall – those that are sceptics would have the negative concept reinforced very strongly.”

Hughes notes the issue of debt.

Braden: “Well the debt just isn’t getting any play these days. The debt is going to be much much worse next year than it is now. And what we hear from the city staff and then reiterated by the conventional mainstream press is that things are fine. Let me just put it in a context that I think that all of us that are concerned with balancing our budgets at home or in business would understand. We have an infrastructure problem, in the city of Hamilton right now, that I can describe this way. We need an additional – this year - $100 million to keep the present assets of this city in reasonable condition. And that doesn’t include at this point, the water and sewer, because those things are paid for by rates and by homeowners who are buying water and then paying to have their sewage taken away. So that’s $100 million more per year that we need this year, and that we will need for the rest of our lives. So that’s the sustainable level in today’s dollars. Of that $100 million, we are looking at dealing with a tiny fraction. Which means that next year it will be $100 million plus sort of the compound interest from this year.”

Hughes: “Does that mean we’re going to have another winter of sewers flooding people’s basements, pipes blowing up?”

Braden: “What it means is that we have an overwhelming financial problem that we don’t know how to deal with. And one of the things that at least I’ve been successful in, is getting that number documented and assessed. And apparently the Hamilton staff have come up with a sort of a formula to prove this. And they’re going across the country sort of selling this idea. Because the first place you have to start is you have to know what’s going on. Again, there’s a role for the mainstream press, and if it’s not the mainstream press then an outfit like this that will tell the people in Hamilton what’s really going on. So that’s the first financial problem that relates to the debt. The second one is that we are overspending our revenues every year. We’ve got it down from about $95 million, on average, over the last five years, to about $70 million. So we’re only overspending – only, I say – our revenues by about $70 million a year. If you add this to the $100 million for infrastructure, it’s about 170 – which means you’d have to increases taxes, today, by 34%. Now nobody is willing to do that, and in fact we believe that there are many people that simply won’t be able to pay. Let me tell you something about the taxpayers that we don’t understand – and we mean the vast majority of people, that not only listen to this station but pay their taxes. The economic development sort of strategy for this city, if you look at what is actually been happening, it has nothing to do with creating jobs, but it’s been with building new houses and suburban sprawl. That in fact has been the main direction of this city for the past 30 years. We have had independent consultants that we have hired, hoping they’re going to say something nice, which have come back and basically condemned our record by saying we really haven’t done anything.”

Hughes: “We’ve gone backward.”

Braden: “That’s right. No city wants to – politicians don’t like that word backward – so they want to pretend that building new houses is something positive. They think it’s strictly numbers are important, as opposed to the quality of life or the quality of those numbers.”

Hughes: “But does that make any sense when the houses are for a certain bracket only and then we’re building new infrastructure when the older infrastructure’s polluting the downtown even more?”

Braden: “I think a lot of people realize that everybody needs balance. So we need a share of the rich houses because the rich people might be investing here, and we need a share of the poor houses cause there’s some people that, for whatever reason, simply can’t look after their own affairs, and we need to help them.”

Hughes: “They can’t look after their affairs simply because they’re ill and they’re on a pension and they don’t get enough income to pay what is required for a one-bedroom apartment…”

Braden: “What we need to do is somehow [16:39] amongst the negativity and the disenfranchisement of the voters, and the complete disfunction of the council” interrupted by

Hughes: “Let’s talk about the disfunction of council. You know I do believe that we are the only municipal council that’s actually had people disrupt the council chambers in protest. It says something when we have to have a citizens action group set themselves up with a press function. They are the only truly reliable source of information for people who can’t get down to city hall. That says something right there.”

Braden: “You wonder if it’s actually sort of a practiced strategy for those who are in power and want to maintain power to promote apathy and to disenfranchise citizens, to avoid sort of real learning and real progress, and to make people feel completely incompetent, and that they have no sort of value or ability to affect change.”

Hughes: “Well, it’s insulting.”

Braden: “It’s insulting. I need to say you need to be positive. I’ve been an individual who has not accepted money for a number of elections from anyone, and I’ve been lucky enough to get elected. The views that I have, I think are extremely progressive, if I do say so myself.”

Hughes: “Well I don’t call them progressive. I call them, you know, reality … from the news that I watch and see.”
Braden: “But reality in this town would probably be seen as progressive, at least by many. But there is such a huge force, and it’s very strong, to curtail intelligence, to curtail bright new ideas, to sort of stomp on people or alienate people who really do have a good idea they want to see come to fruition.”

Hughes: “Yeah, they don’t listen to the people.”

Braden: “…Now council is just a bunch of individuals, but I think a lot of the culture of the council lies with the direction of the mayor’s office. And unfortunately we have stepped back a whole long way in three years. I have never seen, in fifteen years, the amount of negative change that’s happened in the last three years.”

Hughes: “People tell me he didn’t choose to run for mayor – Larry Di Ianni we’re speaking about – that he was basically requested to run by his developer friends. And of course most of our listeners know about the Joanna Chapman situation, having to force it into the courts for the overfinancing. We’ve been dealing with a bunch of developers running city hall for the last 30 years, and picking and choosing who gets into power, and therefore getting the bylaws and zoning change that …things in the suburbs.”

Braden: “I tend to agree with that sort of negative sentiment. I don’t think it’s clear if the mayor’s a puppet for some business interests, or if it’s perhaps the other way around. Even so there is a partnership there” interrupted by Hughes: “So who does it serve?”

Braden: “That’s interesting. We actually take an oath soon after we are elected to do what we think is the best for our community and we’re supposed to take that seriously. And I think in most cases, people do. But there’s an expectation now that’s developed in this particular municipality. It seems to me there’s a whole lot of tolerance internally. So if you are in government like I am, there’s a lot of tolerance for this sort of serious game playing. And I can tell you by an example, because I think you always give an example. Everybody knew with regard to the mayor’s campaign expenses, and the concerns about the legality of those expenses, or the appropriateness of those expenses, that really, we needed to get to the bottom of this. This wasn’t just an embarassment to the mayor. It was certainly an embarrassment to all members of council, probably to some staff members, and in fact to the city at large. When council was then presented with the information from the woman from Dundas, who had taken her time to look into the expenses and how in fact they were all recorded, according to our oath that councillors take when they are elected, we are to vote for what is the right thing to do, and we are not to be biased and not to be personally in support of a particular person, but we are to do what’s right. And” interrupted by Hughes: “What is the right, Dave?”

Braden: “Well the right is obviously to have the person who was going to assess the legitimacy of those expenses to have it done, and for council to have it down – for council to take the leadership and have those figures audited. There was only one person on our council that voted to have those records audited.”

Hughes: “Who was that?”

Braden: “That was me. So what this example proves is that all of the other members of council, for whatever reason, did not do what their oath implied, and what they promised to do. And the interpretation that I get from that is, the culture is so strong here to preserve this idea – it’s really a disguise – of unity, that people were doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.”

Hughes: “I think they were afraid.”

Braden: “Well they are afraid, but we are in this job to do the right thing. If you listen to the people who are running. You know there are new boys, get these things right, that change … sitting around the table – and I’m not sure how many there were that night – and of those fifteen, one person voted to do the right thing and the other people were reluctant. And I can agree that it’s difficult to vote against one of your own, but in fact that’s what you run for. … Let me talk about trust. I’m a business person and we come from a family that business is important. If the head of an economic group is seen to be … and I think that clearly that’s how I read this situation, other single groups or businesses simply don’t want to come there. People talk to you about why is it that businesses aren’t coming. And the cheap simple answer is that they said there’s no land that’s ready for businesses. There’s vacant properties. I mean there’s lots of opportunities here if you want them … Truth is if you are a successful businessperson, or you work for a successful business, you want to put that business in somewhere you are proud of it and where you think it’s going to make money. Make no mistake, the reason that most businesses are here is to make money because that’s how this world works – like it or not. So this is one of the only communities – if I draw a circle around 50 miles of Hamilton, this is probably one of the only cities that I wouldn’t look at.”

Hughes: “But we’re supposed to be so strategically important, our location is great. We needed the Red Hill Expressway because of our location, the Mid-Pen’s coming through it.”

Braden: “I think we have to look at this fairly. If you just want to listen to a particular radio show, or you want to look at very, very oversimplistic answers – let’s build the expressway, and jobs will come – I hope the people will look back and say you know none of this stuff which has been promised has is actual, other than taxes are going up.”

Hughes asks how much progress Hamilton has seen since Di Ianni’s election in 2003. Notes “the expressway is going, the Summit Park east, all these other developments are happening”.

Braden: “Those guys are so good at talking and some people might be fooled into thinking, you know, that that really is progress. I think if you listen and hear that our financial house is in order – and our financial house is just anything but in order – and the second thing is that the only thing they want to talk about is our residential development. Now there is some commercial development that goes along with it. Residential development and power centres don’t make a community or make a city. You know when we talk about intelligent people and commitment, there is nothing wrong with the intelligence of our mayor. He’s a bright guy.”

Hughes: “Well then why is he doing what he’s doing?”

Braden: “Well, and I think the issue people need to ask of Larry, where’s the real commitment. I think that the people of Hamilton need to wake up a little bit and see.”

Hughes: “They’re not getting information, and unless they don’t work and have the time of the day to go down there and listen to four or six hours of discussion. The mayor is giving an argument saying for business to start we have to have[25:13]…”

Braden: …I’ll tell you something that most people don’t know, and the city is reluctant to give this air time, but we know factually from specific local studies, and we also know from general research studies, that by and large for every new house of any kind – whether it’s a townhouse, or a semi-detached house, single family house or an apartment – that every one we build in a greenfield area in fact requires more direct and indirect cost to look after than it provides in taxes. What that means is every single new house we build raises everybody else’s taxes. That’s not something that most people understand and it’s certainly not what this city wants to explain.”

Hughes: “How do we change that?”

Braden: “Well, we have to get that word out and really it goes back to one of the reasons that I dropped out of the mayor’s race. If the mainstream press does not tell the people what in fact we think they need to know so we can show the information. If people realized that the economic development program is just to build subdivisions, and now we’re finding out that every time we build new subdivisions is costing us more money. So we know that every new house we build in Binbrook is just craziness, because the cost of looking after that development so far away – and let me just give you for a second – when Binbrook got approved as a potential settlement area serviced by sewers, there was a strong commitment – I was at the committee – that it would be a sustainable community and by and large it was tried to keep in line our relationship between jobs and adults. So it wasn’t a one to one relationship, but of two adults in a family, on average one and a half people of those two working, we will have some number close to that one and a half for local jobs. So we wanted to set aside the land so that jobs could be located so people could bike or walk or take public transit – now there isn’t public transit of course in Binbrook. It’s very interesting that within about two years those developments that are dominated by a couple of developers – and everybody will recognize their names – it’s very interesting that from the very strong commitment given at the council meeting as to what kind of relationship there would be between residents and employment – and lo and behold there is now no land set aside for jobs – I don’t mean in an absolute sense, but by and large there is nothing to speak of.”

Hughes: “Well the mayor keeps going back to the airport, the aerotropolis. That’s where the development, that’s where the jobs are going to go.”

Braden: “Well let me talk about the aerotropolis. Again I apologize for the fact that city people are intentionally being treated like fools and they’re not capable of thought. In the airport area, we had a meeting right after amalgamation – Bob Wade was the mayor, but I can remember hearing that there was a potential that the airport could be a significant area to promote jobs. And there was approximately 750 acres around the airport that could easily be justified and we could work on. The problem was that there were no services. I recall saying at that point, look we can find, it looks like about $5 million would be enough to get some water, and get some sewer and get some road capacity so that together we really could offer some land immediately. So if there were businesses that wanted to be near the airport, or the airport was just an okay location, but it would be serviced, we’re ready to accept the building of new buildings so that we could get some jobs. Early in 2001, … we had to get going to get the benefit of the industrial land and those wanting industrial land near the airport. In the now almost six years really not much has got done, with a few exceptions. But really not much has got done, no major investments. But when it was discovered about two years ago that we had really no industrial land ready, and we had no money in the bank ready to subsidize this, and the fact that if we didn’t put our own money in nothing would happen, we became terribly embarrassed. So I think what happened was, out of the blue, and out of the blue I presume either the city mayor’s office or the city manager’s office – because the initiative did not come from council. Out of the blue hatched this sort of hollywood idea of aerotropolis. And instead of taking 750 acres which was realistic and probably affordable, in order to get some play in the press and try to buy some popularity among voters who they think aren’t too smart, they talked about 3000 acres for the airport.”

Hughes: “Yeah, where does that come from?”

Braden: “It’s a completely arbitrary figure. And rather than doing something realistic, they thought that they could talk about something that sounded good but it only sounds good to people that really aren’t very clever. Now it did two things. One is for businesspeople and for people who care about their community, it was just another form of alienation. The people of Ancaster were disgusted that here was this thing hatched. There was no study of need to say we need 3000 acres. There was no credible plan about how it was to be serviced. The amount of money to service it is astronomical, so that they kept that kind of quiet and hidden, and they just talked about the idea of we need jobs, wouldn’t this be great. [30:54] But we’ve needed jobs – the consultants said – for 25 years and we’ve been incompetent in 25 years to get those jobs and to lay the groundwork to get them. So now what’s happened – and of course you know the mayor and the city manager and those of their supporters are trying to put a spin on that they won the aerotropolis issue, because it’s now not going to the Ontario Municipal Board. It now has to go to a thorough assessment” interrupted by Hughes: “That’s what should have done in the first place”

Braden: “Absolutely. This is the cart way before the horse. It’s just a political idea. I’m a planner. I mean once the economy is booming, and doing something like what’s happening in Calgary, you really have to get proactive because demands of growth are just epidemic. Here we don’t have any growth. Our problem is in terms of jobs. We’ve got no growth. And in fact the current jobs we have, on average, they’re deteriorating. They’re becoming more poorly paid jobs, less good jobs. … We are going straight down hill.”

Hughes asks to backtrack a bit and fill in a few blanks such as the debt issue was raised by Braden but dropped off the radar.

Braden: “Well let me start with this. Unfortunately in the Hamilton context we end up setting bad examples. When we started talking about the airport, we had been talking in the previous two or three years, we were talking about the need for an idea what would happen if the price of energy, basically fossil fuel, does start to rise very very quickly and what the consequences of that might be. Now the view of the city is ‘here he goes again, the glass is not even half full, the sky is falling’. This is the sort of demeaning arrogant comments you get from somebody who wants to preserve a powerbase but doesn’t want to deal with knowledge. … The details of this story are important. Finally we got a commitment that I think people were simply forced to accept. It wasn’t something they wanted to do. The motion came from I think Sam Merulla that we would have a peak oil study to see what this sort of peak oil phenomena was, and how it might affect us. In the context of that discussion, we said we need to have this information, and we need to have it before budget starts. Because if this thing is as serious as certainly I made it out to be, we would want to start perhaps altering the direction and perhaps the priorities of our budget. So that’s the reason we had to have it in advance. There was a clear commitment to that. So let’s say that we asked for this study in July, and budget started maybe in September, but they really don’t get going to more like Christmas. What happened in the process where there were delays, I kept repeatedly asking what’s the progress and we were always told formally – and there’s an obligation for this to have to, well, should be, to, in formal session, treat me and the others on council honestly and I think with respect.”

Hughes: “Okay I’ve got to step in here, first for that study was not accepted.”

Braden: “Richard Gilbert. He was the author of that report and he had some assistance from one or two other people. When I was told that in fact the city had received a direct report from Mr Gilbert, and that they had made some comments about it and returned it to him, it piqued my interest. And I can remember Brian McHattie also. So he heard this and thought well this sounds a little strange. So we asked for copies of the draft and the city manager’s response – which again may have an ounce of truth to it, but really was just an obstruction – was that the report didn’t belong to the city; it was the intellectual property of the author.”

Hughes: “Wow.”

Braden: “So I phoned the author up. Clearly I found that we had a number of business associates in common, and he said, look, as far as I’m concerned, you can have that study. This is not a problem. And I did these things formally, and on the record. What I asked in council what the status of this draft report was, the city said, well we sent the comments in. I immediately phoned Mr Gilbert and said, they said they’ve already sent you the comments. Do you have them?”

Hughes: “It didn’t get to the councillors. It never did.”

Braden: “It not only didn’t get to the councillors. The comments that the city staffer said were sent in, were in fact not sent in. We waited a week to find out if maybe they got hung up in the mail and Mr Gilbert was going to Europe. So a week later I phoned just to confirm. And Mr Gilbert, you can see very clearly, he won’t want to comment on this. But this whole issue was treated by the city manager and by the mayor as just a farce. They wanted to hush hush the whole thing because it would – if there is going to be a serious change in the economic structure of our economy because of fuel and the availability of cheap fuel, one of the first things that could be affected – and everybody that is knowledgeable or interested knows this – is air travel, particularly air freight.”

Hughes: “Because of the cost of the fuel.”

Braden: “That’s right. It just won’t become economical to send anything. So what this demonstrates is that in fact the city is not running in an honourable way; it’s not managing with integrity. The professionalism is gone. I mean for a city staffer to come up at council and to very clearly lie to me in that council, and then for the mainstream press to allow that to happen. I mean you know the mainstream press sees itself as the official opposition. So the whole thing is a plot to denounce the reality of a growing concern, and to sort of step in line and be a bit of a puppet for whatever these new propaganda issues are that are emanating from the first floor of city hall. And the first floor is the city manager and the mayor.”

Hughes: “Playing devils advocate, why would the mayor do this?”

Braden: “I think that they’re – I mean I can’t speak for the mayor and how he thinks. I do respect his intellect, but I can’t understand other than to say, well this is politics. I think that the mayor’s record was particularly poor in economic development, which he sees, I think, as something which needs to be important. This was a way of” interrupted by Hughes: “No bad news?”

Braden: “No bad news. No dealing with reality. Let’s just get off it, and coming along and saying we’re going to have 3000 acres for the airport. That’s going to try to put these guys at bay. Then when people …, and for those that might have forgotten, basically what it said was, the chances are better than 50-50 that within 10-15 years the price of electricity and the price of fossil fuel, that we normally have in our life – what your, gas at the pump, or fuel for our oil furnaces – is going to be four times what it is today. Four times.”

Hughes: “ …number of people, and even the … coming to this community. If you just think of it that way with the current prices.”

Braden: “It’s really threatening. Keep in mind in Hamilton we have problems moving from a primary industry town to a sort of a worldly competitive town. We’ve never made that change yet.”

Hughes: “I heard Clive Doucet’s speech saying cities now are not the same as they were. Cities have evolved. Cities can no longer be a manufacturing independent little study. They’re part of a bigger economy now.”

Braden: “I think that they are increasingly, and it’s difficult to see how we’re going to move from where we are to how we’re going to fit in. And if we’re going to have to compete sort of evenly of if we are going to take some special advantages we have here and turn those advantages into real economic advantages.”

Hughes: “…we have a lot of people employed at the hospitals, a lot of people employed at the university.”

Braden: “Well let me tell you about the university. I mean it just makes sense here, in this city, the way I read it, not too long ago, I’ll call them the master fathers – I think it was the president and a couple of VPs and some other people probably in the graduate school of business – invited the city councillors down to Mac just to try to promote a kind of if not friendship at least a familiarity with the two institutions. One being the city, the other being the university. I can tell you without hesitation that the university, McMaster, is seen as a bit of a threat, because there are smart people that have real ideas and they’re at the forefront. They are the leaders. In our case, the city fathers are the ones that are regressive. They never want to be seen to be foolish so they really don’t want to associate with McMaster.”
Hughes: “So you’re saying the city is not working with McMaster no matter what?”

Braden: “There are isolated examples. We’re providing the courthouse you know for McMaster to use as it sees fit, and we put a substantial grant into the former Westinghouse plant on Longwood Road. What I’m looking for is cooperation. For example, probably the status of McMaster didn’t go up much when a hundred profs signed something that said it’s a stupid idea to build the Red Hill Expressway. Right? The city doesn’t want to hear what intelligent people have to say, when they have a broader view and a much more comprehensive view than maybe the city politicians or the city staff.”

Hughes: “They’re okay to teach their kids, but they’re not okay to listen to…”

Braden: “…Let me just give you an example. The Lister Block. The Lister Block for your listeners is owned by the LIUNA union group. It’s a downtown building that has a very interesting history and it seems to be an important, though dilapidated building on James Street North. The city decided to have an agreement with the LIUNA group to rent space at about double what the normal high quality office space is…. And in a sense the city is paying for the whole building, but we’re only renting a part of it for a shorter period of time. The original was for fifteen years. One of the things that I admire about a university is you get people who really can think clearly. Had the city said to the university, we have $15 million to spare to work to invest downtown. What we want to do is create as much bang for the buck, as much value as we can, by inserting this money into downtown to see what kind of proposals first we might get, and what kind of things might work the best to spin off other investments. So in other words, in the Lister proposal we took one business, basically one building, and we put $10-15 million into that one project. When I speak to business people who have investment downtown, they are saying as I would say – why did we not put a proposal on the table because we may in fact fix fifteen, or maybe two sides of two blocks could have shared that money and made a commitment to say maybe for every $100,000 they got, invest say $300,000. Instead of clearing up one building, we may have in fact cleaned up two blocks.”

Hughes: “So what your giving is a prime example of how the city’s been working the last three or four years. …”

Braden: “…This is a sole source thing. It’s coming from one particular area. This doesn’t meet anywhere near the test of investigation, and then to make matters worse, there is an association between that business and political campaigns. And it’s a reality. So if you are a bit of a cynic, and there is every reason based on the history of this city why people are becoming cynical – if they say that for the 10,000 properties downtown, they get nothing and one property gets $15 million. It’s pretty easy to become a cynic.”

Hughes agrees that many people don’t get the information which makes it difficult to make the right decisions, and her radio program is trying to change some of that. “But what we also need to do is think about some positive action…”

Braden: “Well I think the one thing is that I think people really have had enough. I think the status quo political culture is hoping to find their best balance for intimidating and bullying and disenfranchising and just making people apathetic. And really, they’re doing a great job. … Or as in the conventional press, not getting any coverage. Now there’s a woman running for the mayor’s position who is female. Right? Diane … What I wanted to provide, and lots of people can provide this is a sense of honour, of trust, of respect. What I want is to have someone who I think actually believes what they are talking about.”

Hughes: “Do we have anybody running who does, do you think?”

Braden: “I can only comment on the person that is there now and frankly I’m completely disillusioned with that. I think that you have to give people a chance. You hope that, if given the opportunity, people will step up to the plate. But I use the example of the audit. If 14 people out of 15 did not do what they know is the right thing to do there is an underlying problem of a culture or a behaviour that we have to get to.”

Hughes: “I don’t think that Hamilton’s exclusive when it comes to those things.”

Braden: “No, but I think it’s much worse. I was involved in a smaller government before. This is absolutely ridiculous, and it sends a bad message. The one thing I’m going to enjoy about being retired from this particular activity, is that I then concern myself with people, one, that I can trust, and two, that are positive.”
Hughes: “And have integrity back. We’ve got a problem with trust. So let’s talk about with the activists groups. What are some of the questions that you think people should be asking?”

Braden: “I think this poverty issue especially here in Hamilton needs a lot of understanding, a lot of commitment, and it’s going to take a lot of risk. And while I agree with the idea that poverty doesn’t take money, I think in this situation it will require a lot of money, and it’ll be consistent money.”

Hughes: “We’re wasting our money.”

Braden: “Well we may be. We may have, as I’ve heard people say, a sort of poverty industry here – all sorts of things in terms of grants” interrupted by Hughes: “Nothing’s getting to the streets. If I don’t see a person who is homeless having a better life within five years of a plan.”

Braden: “We get caught on tangents, especially politicians. The other day there was a debate about making sure that there was a fair wage policy. Well I agree with the concept of a fair wage policy. We have very expensive wages in some of our industries in this particular town. For instance, in the city, we pay our workers at the city very very well. There’s not any interest in looking at the wages that we pay ourselves, that’s myself included, or our assistants. Our wages appear to be a sacred cow here. In fact if you’ve got a job with the city, I don’t see how you could earn less than $35,000 a year unless it’s summertime work.”

Hughes: “Then the city better start hiring the poor.”
Braden: “There are changes happening. There are some good people we’ve got on council recently. People who are elected that are on council at the present time, that are prepared to speak their mind in a way that they are not intimidated or they’re not being effectively bullied. So they’re putting real ideas on the table, and change starts with ideas. And hopefully if they are good ideas, they get mulled over, and some action through commitment follows. Right? In the past, I think a few years ago I think there was a lack of people who were willing to take the risk to put good ideas on the table. So I think this is getting better understood. What we in the minority think, those of us who value education and learning and preparation for taking risk, see that there are more and more people that are willing to accept that kind of stance. We are always being challenged by those who are trying to demean us or intimidate us, or bully us, or whatever else it is. And I use that word bullying appropriately. So I think that the number of candidates and potential good councillors is looking good.”

Hughes: “We have a lot of … activists who would be willing to stand behind such councillors too.”

Braden: “Right, and that’s another good thing about this. I think the people are so frustrated – this is the everyday citizenry – that there are a number of groups getting established. And some are very grassroots and some are with privileged people, and some less. At one end, the group known as the Hamilton for Progressive Development. There is a business group that really in the past has had nothing to do with politics. This is a business community. And they were so disgusted and so threatened by the lack of planning and the seriousness of the impact of what this aerotropolis thing might look like, that out of nowhere they got established. They became very credible. They were very open. They set a good example of how government ought to be. So since citizenry is now saying, you know, we’re just waiting for one more mini crisis or one more threat, and a whole new group is going to evolve. For people like me who I think have brought some real new ideas to the table, the reaction of the first floor of city hall is to downgrade and to demean.”

Hughes: “Yeah, they want to shut you down.”

Braden: “Oh, absolutely. Anybody that has some good ideas that don’t fit their agenda. Are the politicians prepared to spend money on poverty, on reducing poverty, especially for the long term? And if they are, what are they prepared not to study. Because if you simply say, I’m going to lower taxes, or we’re going to spend $5 million on poverty, you have to at the same time say, where are you going to get that money from.” [48:35]

Hughes: “Well they are. They’ve given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Roundtable.”

Braden: “I know about that. That’s nothing. I mean if we’re really going to deal with poverty we’re going to deal with housing, and we’re going to deal with nutrition and we’re going to deal with jobs. You know, are we prepared to ensure that every kid that comes to school hungry is going to get a hot meal? That’s a very tangible thing, it’s a very needed thing. There’s a member of my family that is teaching in an area of downtown – lower town not downtown – where people are not coming to school adequately clothed, and certainly not coming adequately fed. This is the situation and we need to start somewhere. It would seem to me having nutritious food in your belly is a good place to start.”

Hughes: “Housing is a good start too, but a lot of that is provincial mandate.”

Braden: “Okay, can I talk about housing? Again, I want to talk about ideas that we can do. I’m tired of complaining. We’ve got lots to complain about. We’re going to build 63 new townhouse units at some location in upper Stoney Creek called Bridgewater Court.”

Hughes: “Yep. That hasn’t moved for five or six years.”

Braden: “Right. Well it’s supposed to happen … When I look at myself in the mirror I want to be able to say I’m doing something about this problem. So I’ve offered the city to run that project for $1.00 and to build the most efficient housing in North America at the standard for the City of Hamilton. And I’ve said to the city I will run this project and I will get volunteers and I will bring the cost of this project about five or ten percent below what it costs to build minimum housing. … As you might know, I’m involved in energy conservation. Instead of building houses in which at the end of the month the poor may not in fact pay their heating bill at the end of the month, I want to build houses where the heating bill is inconsequential.”

Hughes: “Energy efficient housing?”

Braden: “Right. So we’re going to build housing for the poor, which we all know we need. But then we’re going to build it so it has no heating requirements, or next to none. It’s the poor who need the benefit of energy conservation. It’s not me. I can afford a few dollars.”

Hughes: “Is that project controlled by the city or is that totally controlled by the province?”

Braden: “Well the province is providing the land either at a dollar or something. Habitat for Humanity is in, and I’m a founding member. When you come along to this city and you say, I’m going to solve this problem; I’m going to save you money, not only now but we’re going to build better housing that has a much higher quality of life and longevity. So instead of building a house that’s going to be obsolete in 22 years, these houses are probably pretty good for 50. We put all that up, and the city can’t act. One of the reasons the city can’t act is it just simply doesn’t know how to act progressively without a lot of delay. And secondly it has an ego problem. They don’t want anybody else to get some credit for doing something good. It’s a very very selfish organization.”

Hughes: “Surely they can script this in a way that would make them benefit?”

Braden: “Yea, I told them I’d make this project better and smarter and more frugal than anything else.”

Hughes: “How do we bring some of this stuff that you’re talking about out into the open, in front of the public?”

Braden: “I’d think you’d have to ask them a question they can’t talk around. In other words, if it’s the hot meal, and somebody – and I’m sure the public health department – could figure out that perhaps 25 percent of the people are coming without a hot meal – you know, for breakfast or for lunch – and they need it. There should be a price for that. So let’s say the price is $6.5 million a year to ensure that children get a decent meal. We need to know if people are going to do it.”

Hughes: “Well I’ve heard the head of community and social services, Jo-Ann Priel, flatly state to anti-poverty groups – don’t expect any more money from the city, we’re tapped.”

Braden: “Well, I mean, that’s the whole thing. If the city is so hard up to say that we can’t do this. If we’ve got the money to try to win the Commonwealth Games or for a fancy golf tournament, or you know to give ourselves a raise. It’s unusual. You know, we get automatic raises, every year. Even councillors. Just for the record.”

Hughes: “We should make public the salaries of all staff.”

Braden: We’ll maybe because we are basically part of the same community. We have somehow got to make this work. If it’s only $6 million to feed everybody for a year, my goodness. I think if all the city workers gave up half – and it shouldn’t just be the city workers. But if somehow we could sort of say, because we have to find the money, all of us earn want to more money than we’re earning, but in fact some of us are in fact earning enough. And if those of us that are willing to say we earn enough, that we need to share, we need to figure out a way. No-one benefits when people are on the streets and people are hungry.”

Hughes: “Now you’re talking about corporatism and greed and …”

Braden: “Well I’m not even opposed to greed. But most of us have an element of greed I think. I mean, I do. I’m most aware of this in the broader community. I don’t want a … where there are people who are doing great and there are other people who are suffering. I mean I get no pleasure, and I want to get pleasure in my life as I get older. So we need to make sure that the vast majority, if not everybody, are doing better. We need to know if people that are running will have the confidence to stand up and do the right thing. Somehow they need to be asked a question, so when it’s extremely unpopular to do the right thing, whether or not these people will have the courage to do so. And one of the ways you can tell this. If they are already aligned with those people that are in government that have proven that they have a lack of integrity, or a lack of ethics or a lack of honesty. Sad to me it says everything. So there a number of people who are running in this election who are really puppets for a particular mayoralty candidate. And to me, that just speaks volumes. Anybody that sort of says we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, our debt situation is fine. Those people are either completely fools, or they’ve been so indoctrinated that this whole thing is completely beyond them. We are really in a very tragic state and it’s just so frustrating and so debilitating.”

Hughes: “Well the first thing is to recognize it. The second thing is to get that truth around which is what stations like myself and the CATCH people try to do. The third thing is to, once you’re aware of the state of things, is to stand up and have the moral courage to stand up in public and say I don’t think your idea is a good idea, but the fourth and most important thing is what can we do?”
Braden: “One thing you can do which is really quite easy is they can vote. And that’s important. I think vote for somebody – I mean we need a difference, so at this point I’m ready to say anybody but … if other people, including incumbents, have proven that they’re not interested in fixing the situation, then we need to move. There are a number of people on council, that they need to have a few more supporters. If I can mention, this woman Julia Kollek in Dundas. I mean here is a person that is bright, that has done some things.”

Hughes: “And has found out the reality of the poverty in Dundas. … Ask for people to pay attention to that…”

Braden: “Well we need a lot more people like that. And her chances are probably good, because Dundas sort of acts and behaves like a community. They are interested in those things. There isn’t a lot of turnover. It isn’t a suburb. We need to get people with a brain and with some sort of compunction.”

Hughes: “And people willing to listen to those to educate them.”

Braden: “Yeah you know we’re living now in a culture – in Hamilton in particular – where learning and education and life experience are all frowned on. What we’re looking for is who will be peon or a puppet for this less than honourable direction. That’s the kind of people that a certain candidate wants to line up so that he in fact can then do whatever he wants.”

Hughes: “So the reality is for the last three years, no we haven’t moved forward, we’ve actually moved backwards?”

Braden: “We’ve moved way backwards. I mean the distrust. You know in terms of specific directions, Hamilton needs jobs. Here’s something that it really needs. We can handle some gridlock. You know gridlock annoys everybody. But they’re not only intellectual jobs, all sorts of jobs, but preferably jobs that aren’t just flipping hamburgers or stocking the shelves. We need those to and we will always have those. We need much of the jobs in the middle towards the top. We’re getting nowhere on there. When we have a city run by a city who has now been found guilty and has the sort of audacity to when he gets caught doing something wrong, to try and attack an individual in Dundas, while really he’s the problem and she’s really the principled member of the citizenry that is doing the job that the Ministry and press should have done. So the mainstream press will tell you off the record, If you know any reporters – we got caught with our pants down. Joanna Chapman showed us what we should be doing. What the press has done, instead of admitting this, and the lack of I think integrity of the press here is disgraceful.”

Hughes: “I wanted to talk specifically about the Spectator and I’m going to talk specifically about one reporter, Nicole MacIntrye, who I sit with on the press bench, who has only been with the Spectator for two years and therefore may not have awareness of the past patterns of how business is done in the city, but she has stated at the public forum with Clive Doucet that was put on by the Friends of Red Hill, for the information situation on how do we move our city forward in the future. She says there’s a difference between the reporters and the editorial columns. Okay?”

Braden: “Of for sure, for sure. I agree that there is, and I’m thinking of journalists. There must be a base level of integrity that they’re supposed to have” interrupted by Hughes: “You can have all the integrity that you want, but if you’re not informed, what are you going to write about?”

Braden: “Very quickly, with Joanna Chapman’s activity, the newspaper could learn that they missed the boat and that they should do something about it. Now I had one reporter come and tell me that because they dropped the ball at the beginning, they then were too proud to jump back in. So then what they chose, well that story we missed, now the story is why is Joanna Chapman going after the mayor.”

Hughes: “Yeah, and paint her out to be [Braden agrees] From where I sit this mainstream media is quite biased. They don’t look at the full side of the picture. They don’t sit back and look enough. And there’s one conclusion that is common sense for everybody. If the mayor was an honest person with nothing to hide, no hidden agenda, why did he put people through such a long drawn out – I can’t show you my books, or I’ll show you my books if – do you remember in the beginning he said my books and pages are open to anybody from the public right after he got elected. Come to my office and I’ll show you who my sponsors were, my donators, etc. I went, and no, you couldn’t.”

Braden: “Well let me tell you this. In this whole idea about the mayor’s activities in regard to the campaigning and then the follow-up investigation through the audit, through a lens, through lawyers, it became evident to me – and I never went to one of them because while I’m not a fan of the mayor, …it’s not a personal thing and I was just sort of disgusted by his actions. And he dragged me down. I don’t need anybody else to drag me down. I can make a fool of myself on my own. You know the city was sending lawyers to every single court hearing. I’ve asked for an assessment of value of all of the court time spent that was caused by the mayor and what I call his shenanigans. Of course, I’m not getting that, because now the administration of the city – in Wade’s time, by and large, the city manager worked for the council. We now have a city manager who might as well be the executive assistant of the mayor. The city manager doesn’t work for council.”

Hughes: “Well that’s been proven a few times … He often doesn’t know anything when asked for a report.”

Braden: “And the city manager’s making comments to me and commitments to me and he just doesn’t keep them. So we’ve got a thing that’s completely out of whack, and I’ve made sure that the Spectator knows this, and the Spectator is not interested in covering it. Let me give you another example. It’s a small thing, but it’s an idea because I’ve confronted the Spectator and they’ve said, you know, the news does the news, the news is unbiased. So about three weeks ago we have a committee of the whole meeting. We’re having trouble getting a quorum. A quorum is the minimum number of people that are required to start the meeting, and the reporter, and I don’t need to mention who it was, but she did some investigation on those people who weren’t at the meeting and so precluded the meeting from starting on time, what were they doing? And a couple of councillors were in their offices and I guess felt that their duties in the office were more important than attending the meeting and that’s their decision. But I brought to her attention where the mayor was – and the mayor was on a radio station being interviewed and apparently doing a combination of campaigning or telling what the city was doing – and the Spectator knew that the mayor was, I think for his own benefit, I’ll make that assessment, spending his time away from his duties. And I think the mayor was the only one that I could see in the article that wasn’t mentioned in terms of his whereabouts. So that’s not an editorial issue. That’s a news issue in which the newspaper people are not treating everybody equally. I mean, I have never been treated equally or fairly by the Spectator, never.”

Hughes: “Well that’s why we have CATCH on the press bench. And if you really want to know who’s at meetings and all that…”

Braden: “If people could start getting a hold of that CATCH, that news service.”

Hughes: www.hamiltoncatch.org.

Braden: “Is that what it is. I mean people will start getting thoroughly upset and CATCH in fact will in the end bring down the Larry DiIannis of the world.”

Hughes: “Well they’re just pointing out the facts.”

Braden: “Well, that’s right, you see if we knew the facts.”

Hughes: “…and that’s one of the reasons why I keep doing this radio show is the poor don’t have access to computers.”

Braden: “Right. I’m not against the people at the Spectator… but you have to do something, you have to do something in your own small way, and then you have to try to part of a bigger group to do something in a big way. And while people tell me that this is not the way to handle this, it’s one way. I actually don’t read the local rag anymore. And I find I feel better in the morning for not reading it. I find there is too much negativity.”

Hughes: “Okay, there’s a new problem for our public though, and our voters. If they’re feeling the same way, and they’re not reading.”

Braden: “Well they ought to try this, because boy, it helps out on the recycling box, taking it out.”

Hughes: “So how are they going to get their information?”

Braden: “Well they should read CATCH. If you want negative information, and you really want to pay for it, well then I would continue with the local rag. But some of the little papers, if they have it, I hate to say it, but I actually read a Toronto paper on weekends now. Because I will somehow know what’s going around and I want some faith that what I’m reading is something to do with the truth. I don’t care if they’re a little biased, but I want to know what’s going on.”

Hughes: “Well you said in the beginning of the show, if we had CBC radio here, we wouldn’t have such a problem.”

Braden: “What’s if anything to me is, I think so many people are saying exactly the same thing. That’s why I come down here to this station. And I hope people will – I don’t expect them to take my point of view. But I expect them to try thinking, because there is a whole lot of people like me here who are disgusted with what’s going on.”

Hughes: “There is something wrong. We cannot deny there’s something wrong even if we hear people … for what Mayor Di Ianni has done. I mean the bottom line if he was not trying to hide something, why did he not come forward. Why did he wait until it was in the court – I don’t know – third time or whatever. Faced with 41 charges, did actually plead guilty to four, and then said his integrity was intact. I’ll never forget that. How can you keep your integrity after you’ve pled guilty to doing something that you know is a wrong thing to do. It’s not a stupid … He’s not a newby when it comes to politics. And I’m not saying this just to attack the man. I’m saying this because he has embarrassed me as a Hamiltonians, and I am fed up as a person who lives in this city. And that’s all. He can … if he wants to change his tactics, I’d vote for him. But I don’t trust him anymore.”

Braden: “I think he’s burned his bridges and that he lives in sort of a fantasy world. And perhaps he’s like other politicians, but I’ve rarely met them like this. He’s interested in power. I’m interested in governance. I don’t think he has any interest in governance at all. He just wants power.”

Hughes: “People are in politics because of power. … So I want to thank current councillor, for the moment, for another week or so, Dave Braden for coming down to the studio and giving us some background information on what to look for when we’re listening to the candidates talking about what they want to do for the city, and other candidates saying what they have done for the city. Ask questions. Don’t let them run on with their …talk I did this, I did that. ….” [1:05:52]