What Avril Said

Avril Lavigne famously sang, "Why's everything got to be so complicated?", and in a year of getting up close and personal with how municipal government works, I frequently found myself humming that song. I'm starting to understand why and I'm sorry to report, there is almost never an easy or quick way to solve issues and complaints, mostly because of rules and agreements that are already in place.

I've actually started to tune out a bit when people say to me, "Why can't they just..." As soon as anyone whips out the word, just, I just... realize they may not know the ins and outs of how stuff gets done and who's responsible for what.

For example, "Why can't we just say no to every and all new developments, and declare that Collingwood is full?", as a few people have suggested to me. Well, because municipalities exist entirely 'at the pleasure of the province', and we have to do what they say. We are allowed to make plans about what development goes where and how much of it we will allow, but those plans have to conform to the plans of the province and the county when we make them. Not just the province, but a whole whack of things at the province, like the Places to Grow Act, and the Provincial Policy Statement and the Municipal Act and several other pieces of legislation, too. So, if the province says Collingwood can have 62-thousand people by the year 2041, then, that's how many people we have to be ready to accommodate. Which is what they say, by the way. Sort of. It's complicated. The county's plans, which were passed this past year, go to 2031, but the province's plans, which are still in the making, go to 2041 and the allocations for population are different in those two documents so far. In addition to the plans is the LPAT, formerly known as the OMB, which developers can complain to if their plans get rejected by the town, costing us lots of time and planners' and lawyers' fees and there's no guarantee who will win.

Another example is, "Why can't they just... pick up my garbage every week like I want them to?" Not surprisingly, the answer to that one is... complicated.

First of all, garbage is not the town's job; it's the County's job.

Secondly, the trouble with trash in our area comes partly because of the economy, partly because of some zealous negotiations and perhaps because of some misunderstood circumstances. Once upon a time (about seven years ago, I think. Maybe 10), Simcoe County made a deal with a waste company to contract out its garbage and recycling services. A few years later, another company bid on and got the job, in what at the time was seen as a helluva good deal for the taxpayers of the County (that's you and me). The deal was so good, it was almost too good to be true. Well, last year, the too good to be true part started coming true, when the company that was doing the job, started not doing the job so well. They couldn't get enough drivers. Even with pretty great wages, they couldn't live up to their contract; even with bonuses and some pretty impressive incentives, there still weren't enough people willing to do the work of slugging your trash and recycling and driving the truck they slug it into. To be clear, there are a lot of people who are simply not strong enough to do that work. Furthermore, the economy is good enough that people who would take such a job unwillingly, don't have to, because there are so many other choices. If a person can get paid almost the same amount of money to work somewhere warm and dry without having to leap into and out of a big truck to lift heavy, smelly, disgusting items into that truck, which they also have to drive on snowy tiny country roads and wee small town streets, many of us would take a lower but still livable wage and choose the warmth and comfort. That extra five bucks an hour, for a lot of people, is not worth doing a job that is, in the case of the green bins, literally, shitty (diapers and dog doo now allowed!). What would it take, pay-wise, to lure enough people into the difficult jobs? 60 dollars an hour? 80? What would you say if trash collectors were paid more than your kids' teachers? Also, remember the company with the contract is a for-profit company, after all, and you'd have even less service if they go bankrupt to fulfill the contract.

So, because of these complicated factors, we have blue bins left out in the snow for days and garbage not always being picked up, and frustrated, complaining people. There will be more complaints next month when we start to get trash collected only on opposite weeks to recycling. You can just take your recycling to the dump yourself; it's free and no one's stopping you, but will you? Most of us won't. The question is, how many of us will start scouting out private bins or illegally dumping trash in the countryside? It remains to be seen.

So, that's two examples. And here's a third: "Just who am I supposed to blame when I can't get you what you want?" Well, that one is really not complicated: municipal politicians blame the other levels of government. As seen above, sometimes it's even true.