It is Time to Swing Open the Doors of Our Niagara Regional Headquarters to Fully Vaccinated Citizens
A News Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper
Posted July 25th, 2021 on Niagara At Large
Last Thursday’s meeting of Niagara Regional Council began on such a high note.
Why do individuals like West Lincoln Mayor and Regional Councillor David Byslma get to hijack valuable time at our Regional Council meetings with nonsense that may appeal to their peculiar base, but have little to do with the challenges most Niagara residents are facing in this region? Where is the Niagara Regional Chair and his gavel? Is anything out of order?
The high note came shortly after the Region’s Chair, Jim Bradley, called the July 22nd meeting to order, when Susan Venditti, who recently retired as CEO of Start Me Up Niagara (an organization that has done so much selfless work for fellow citizens in need, delivered some gracious words for
Then, in less time that it takes to fire a backyard barbecue up high enough to cook some ribs, the meeting devolved into a ‘Alice in Wonderland’ script featuring the Mad Hatter in subterranean world that very few of the rest of us in this Niagara regional are living above ground.
The Mad Hatter – my latest brand for the ever so loopy West Lincoln Mayor and Regional Councillor Dave Bylsma – interjected not once, but twice during the meeting to raise the issues of COVID-19 vaccines and women’s menstrual cycles and the burning down of churches.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I turn into a Niagara Regional Council meeting I am hoping to hear our elected councillors discussing and debating some of the real challenges we face in this region, around jobs, affordable housing, the need for a robust regional transit system, containing urban sprawl, a climate action plan, and on and on.
What in in the name of any God you may worship does women’s menstrual cycles have to do with any of the very real struggles people across this Niagara region are facing today?
Why are we hearing about menstraul cycles at our muncipal council meetings while we are not yet through facing down t global pandemic ravaging life on this planet in a century – not to mention a climate emergency that right now, in real time, is burning up, flooding and destroying whole communities?
This is the second time, within a matter of a month, that Niagara residents have been treated to non-sensical garbage at Niagara Regional Council meetings.
At a Regional Council meeting last month, a large amount of time was hijacked by one of this Region’s worst bully politicians – Niagara Falls Mayor and Regional Councillor Jim Diodati – and a clan of his sycophants and enablers on the council using our acting Chief Health Officer, Dr. Hirji, as a scapegoat for the continued restrictions on travel across Canada/U.S. border crossings.
It might just be that if fully vaccinated citizens were allowed to return to the Niagara Regional Council chambers again, some semblance of reality would set in.
These Niagara Regional Council meetings are turning into a region-wide joke, and I think those of us who live here and pay taxes for all of this should be asking why our Niagara Regional Council headquarters and these meetings are not open, face-to-face, with the public.
This insular, cocooned situation of only letting Niagara citizens – many of whom are now fully vaccinated – watch these meeting on a small screen at home is diminishing citizens’ opportunity to engage with their elected representatives and participate in democracy.
Why not let fully vaccinated citizens enter our Regional Headquarters and witness these meetings, face-to-face, when we have everyone from grocery store workers to front-line health care workers out there facing members of the public, whether the people they are serving are vaccinated or not?
Perhaps if these meetings were truly open again, the discussions and debates may be more focused on issues that truly matter to the people of Niagara.
Why should we, the people of Niagara, be forced to go through the ‘Looking Glass’ again, for any more madness that has little or nothing to do with life on the ground here.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
To watch the July 22nd Niagara Regional Council meeting at issue here, click on the screen below –
To read a news commentary Niagara At Large posted on the recent dumping on the Region’s acting Medical Health Officer, click on – https://niagaraatlarge.com/2021/07/14/why-does-niagara-need-a-chief-health-officer-when-we-have-dr-diodati/ .
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Niagara At Large 
I am more concerned with whether there’s a vaccine to inoculate us from Coun. Bylsma? I would be afraid of catching whatever he’s got that somehow turns an elected mayor into a raving lunatic. I’ve met much saner people being held on psychiatric wards! Why are these people being held against their will on a psych ward while this guy is free to roam around and turn his home community into a laughing stock?
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