Matt Todd's Pursuit of Idyll Minds

If you worked for someone else but had to choose your own pay rate, and no matter what you picked, a large number of shareholders would be indignant, how would you determine fair value for your work?

Some say that it’s none of my concern because I knew what the rate was when I offered to do the job. But what happens now that I’ve spent 4 years in the job and cannot deny or rationalize away the fact that the expectations are different than I thought it was, and now different than it was, when I started?

Some say that any pay change should take effect for the next council. Funny, no one seemed to mind when council made immediate cuts to its allowable expenses. Because serving as a councillor is a public service and paying taxes is not voluntary, it is assumed that, even if the councillor comes to realize the position is undervalued, out of compassion for the taxpayer, a councillor should be willing to make sacrifice for the remainder of the term. But how much sacrifice is reasonable?

Some say that someone else should choose the number. Previous councils had a committee of citizens determine the rate. Those committees looked to other cities to determine a market rate for a councillor. They looked for what they felt was a reasonable increase in the context of other cities. But there is no competition between cities to attract councillors, so if there is no market, how can there be a market rate? And looking only to determine a fair increase assumes that the rate is already generally appropriate. So how is the rate itself fairly determined?

The political reality is that there is no right time for an elected person to review their own pay. In our intuitive sense of fairness, no one should be choosing their own rate of pay – it is an obvious conflict of interest, fraught with opportunity for abuse – especially when the person paying has no choice but to pay whatever rate is chosen – that taking someone’s money for a self-interested purpose without their explicit blessing is akin to stealing.

So what is fair?

Though entirely uncomfortable with the process that got council to a decision last night – it certainly wasn’t an altruistic, idealist decision – but I do feel it is the right one.

The new rate would be measured against the average wage earning income for a White Rock citizen. The variable is the amount of time councillors spend on the job.

I believe this is fair because I would then be paid based on the community I serve. I was elected to represent the interests of the community, I think the fairest way to value that role is to reflect the community I’m representing.

I also believe that the manner in which the rate is calculated should acknowledge the time required to do the job.

While I agreed in the last remuneration review that the rate should be set for after the next election so that incoming councillors can infer that citizens have given them permission to serve in this role at the prescribed rate, I now believe that debating pay rates for councillors during an election would only serve to distract from more important issues and creates opportunity for political opportunism that does not consider with sober thought the value of the time and effort required to fulfill the role.

I admit, it is very difficult for me to turn away from that principle. It seems like I am having to choose between competing principles. And in that case, I am choosing based on how I believe those principles would relate to practice – based on my experience of what would really happen as opposed to what should happen in theory.

I think, when it’s thoroughly thought out, it’s fair to base council’s remuneration on the citizens we serve factored by time spent fulfilling those duties, and that the change be implemented to reflect the work I’m doing now.

I got a call last week from a lady who said she had been the first female School Trustee in Abbotsford 40 years ago. She had to deal with the prevailing attitude at the time that a board room was no place for a lady. Sure enough, she introduced some novel and apparently disturbing ideas. She argued that, in order to be good role models, there should be no smoking at the meeting table. She was ridiculed.

What seems ridiculous to me is that it was only one generation ago that women were believed subserviant and the convenience of a nicotine addict was more important than a school trustee being a good role model or the health of the people around them.

Thank you, Ms. Henson, for pioneering women’s civil rights and the promotion of health responsibility. 40 years later, we’re still battling the same selfish attitudes. Hopefully my grandchildren will be just as surprised with my story about how, back in 2006, people felt entitled to smoke tobacco on restaurant patios despite all the obvious risks and discomfort to everyone around them.

Should our residential taxpayers be paying for ads and brochures to promote local businesses?

At least 90% of White Rock’s tax base are people’s homes. In the tax pie, everything other than residential is a very thin slice. And that small proportion is shrinking due to the construction of new homes rising much faster than new commercial spaces.

So what do our home owners gain from helping to pay for White Rock advertising?

I don’t know the answer to that question, which is why I think it’s a waste of your money. We should leave the marketing campaigns to our business community. Our BIA and Chamber of Commerce should be tasked with promoting local business. That’s what they are there for.

I think our residents have higher priorities for the property taxes we collect from their homes before helping businesses promote themselves.

It is now 2050. I wrote this letter in 2006, before I even met your grandmother, to apologize for the mess that my generation has left for you.

The government of Canada, 44 years ago, proposed a plan to deal with pollution. They seemed to believe that it was best for the economy if we didn’t make difficult choices too quickly for reducing pollution. Instead, for decades, we continued to pump more and more toxins into the air. The government figured you should clean it up.

I am very sorry for all the health problems and environmental challenges you’re now having to deal with. It was thought that someone would probably have eventually invented new technologies for fixing our messes. But they didn’t see irony in the fact that it was technology that was creating the pollution in the first place. Now you’re having to make the hard choices and challenging changes that we didn’t have the guts to do. You’re having to do it now because it has an immediate and obvious impact on your quality of life.

As unbelievable as it may sound, back in 2006, there were still a lot of people who were fiercely resistant to sustainable land-use planning. In their choices as consumers, they were reluctant to buy things like efficient light bulbs because they were more expensive. Also, most people wouldn’t buy diesel or hybrid cars, which was the cleanest technology available on the market at the time. There wasn’t much sense to their reasons. I think it was just a cultural resistance, like the Greenland Norse and other societies that refused to accept that their cultural identity or consumer preferences were suicidal.

I am so sorry you are now having to live with the consequences of my generation’s stubborn refusal to risk our quality of life in order to protect yours. We made a big mess and left it for you to clean up. I agree, it was very selfish and ignorant.

Sincerely,
Matt Todd
Your Grandfather

Yesterday’s Province had an editorial by John Martin titled “Anti-smoking bullies have gone far enough in their regulatory jihad”

This is my reply.

As instigator of the proposed smoking ban in White Rock, Mr. Martin implies that I am a “righteous bully in a regulatory jihad”. He is correct.

I believe very strongly that every person should have the maximum degree of freedom possible. But what if one person exercising their personal freedoms impairs the freedoms of someone else?

What happens when a person who chooses to feed a nicotine addiction in public causes someone else discomfort or bodily harm? Is it righteous to choose health as a priority over drug addiction? If it is, then I am.

It sounds like the underlying assumption supporting Mr. Martin’s opinion is that smoke outdoors simply disappears: no harm, no foul. He doesn’t believe outdoor smoking is a problem. So, since a jihad is a holy war against unbelievers, then maybe that’s what this is.

As a smoking diner indulges their nicotine addiction on a patio, indeed the breeze takes their smoke away. But en route, it is carried past the faces of others and often blown into the restaurant’s open windows, doors and air vents. Perhaps Mr. Martin’s opinions would be different if he had asthma, a heart condition, or appreciated the risk to children and expectant mothers?

It is becoming better known that tobacco smoke kills over five times as many people as the sum of all car accidents, suicides, murders, and illegal drugs every year in Canada. Though historical tolerance makes us blind to it, nicotine addiction has a very serious and significant negative impact on our quality of life. Research proves smoking bans as the most effective tool for preventing exposure to smoke, and the second best for reducing smoking rates.

And so, if a bully is a person who uses power to intimidate those who are weaker, and if knowledge is power, and if confusion or lack of knowledge constitutes a weakness, then I suppose I am an unintended bully since I apparently have a greater understanding of nicotine addiction issues than Mr. Martin, who appears to be confused as to why I would want to restrict someone’s freedom to poison the air that others have to breathe.

These are the points I’m hoping I will get across clearly at tomorrow’s City Council meeting.

There are three main arguments people seem to make when resisting smoking bans:
• I have the right to do whatever I want with my body;
• it’s a legal product in Canada so the city has no business telling me I can’t smoke it; and
• if people can’t smoke on White Rock patios, they’ll just go to Surrey, which will put White Rock restaurants at a competitive disadvantage.

rights of one person should not diminish another’s
Scientific research suggests that 90% of people who smoke are addicted to nicotine. Considering that trace amount of second hand smoke has immediate health impacts on asthmatics, children, and people with heart disease, the freedoms of those people and their right to health should take precedence over appeasing a drug addiction.

legal purchase and possession does not impart unfettered legal use
Just because tobacco is legal to purchase and possess does not mean you should be able to use it in any and all places. Legal purchase does not give a right to smoke in public. It does not override others’ right to clean air.

marketing clean air should be a competitive advantage
I keep hearing that if White Rock bans smoking on patios, restaurants will lose business to Surrey patios, which will still allow smoking. My question is, which patios in Surrey would get an advantage? There are very few patios in Surrey. The only ones I can think of that are ever used are Sawbuck’s (which is essentially a smoke pit) and the two places in Crescent Beach.

I think White Rock patios are successful because of their views and location. That is their competitive advantage. Are nicotine addicts really the market that White Rock wants to cater to as a city that has a stated goal of becoming a city of health excellence? Being smoke-free should be seen as a competitive advantage, as supported by market research. Statistically valid phone polls prove that a small percentage of people will go out to restaurants less often if they can’t smoke, but more people will go out more often if they know they won’t have to breathe smoke. That means it is more likely that a ban on patio smoking would actually be good for business.

purpose of it all
The point of a patio smoking ban in White Rock should be to protect the health of the people who work in restaurants (many of whom are youth) and people who are especially sensitive to tobacco smoke – children, asthmatics, and people with heart problems. Let’s make their health a priority.

I will be a panelist on channel 10 Omni’s The Standard this week. Topics are the Afghan war, same-sex marriage, and MacKay & Stronach. These are the points I’m hoping to get across clearly.

Afghan war
The only morality we have any business promoting in other countries is basic human rights. And we should first and foremost be modeling those tenets. Our only role should be to support the people of their country defend their human rights. It’s hard to see how aggressive armed combat fits into those principles. Does Canada have the appetite to be an aggressor? At what point does our presence do more harm than good?

Same-sex marriage
What we see here is a conflict between our principles of personal freedoms as defined in the Charter of Rights and our cultural heritage that defines a family as a man, woman and children. But that definition has been long obsolete. As long as you aren’t harming anyone and it involves consenting adults, I have no business telling you what you can or can’t do with your penis.

The challenge is that our definition of family has such deep roots in our cultural identity that this conflict with our (relatively) new principles is threatening to our fundamental beliefs about our life’s purpose. What we are witnessing is an awkward evolution of our culture. We have fought for and embraced principles that value personal freedom, now we are trying to figure out how they fit in our values. We are wrestling with our own identity.

Peter McKay & Belinda Stronach
This has nothing to do with Stronach and McKay, it’s an illustration of why our elected representatives are seen as ineffective at resolving issues on our behalf. This type of behaviour is part of what feeds citizens’ distrust and cynicism of politicians. I think we should expect a much higher degree of respect and decorum in how MPs treat each other. They should be role models for children. If they are, in fact, representatives of our society, then we have some soul searching to do of our own. Should name-calling, assumptions, personal attacks and judgments be tolerated? Is this how we solve problems in our communities? Is this how we should treat each other?

The way this controversy unfolded also highlights another problem in public life – being physically attractive is an advantage for getting elected, but a disadvantage in public life. If Stronach were ugly and unfriendly, would anyone care who she is dating? And is the preoccupation with her sex-life distracting people from the issues that actually impact on our lives?

On the Opinions page of today’s Peace Arch News, It is truly sad to read the petulance of a few veterans on the issue of pay parking.

This is exactly the reason governments are reluctant to give a special benefit. If you do it once, it seems people get a sense of entitlement.

Instead of being thankful that they got over a year of complimentary car storage, some veterans are indignant that the Year of the Veteran has passed and the rules will soon revert to normal.

Squabbling over fees for car storage diminishes the sanctity of the valiant efforts made in defence of democracy and human rights.

It is dishonorable of veterans to claim that the risks they took on our behalf entitles them to park their car for free.

Building height is not the linchpin of White Rock’s Official Community Plan.

To suggest, as many have over the past couple years, that the entire OCP is now null and void because council has allowed increased building height in a select area, is to admit that they don’t know what an OCP is and the purpose it serves. It also demonstrates an inflexibility and closed-mindedness that is most unfortunate. I’m not suggesting that everyone should accept the taller buildings. I’m not suggesting that everyone should be happy with them because I said so. I’m just disappointed when people write letters to the editor worrying of one thing (impact of building height on the character of the city) yet complain about something else (claiming that the OCP is now invalid). Such melodrama actually distracts from their concerns.

The shrapnel from those claims might do more harm than intended. It would be counter-productive to declare the OCP nullified. Building heights in the Town Centre are only one small piece of a very comprehensive document. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration; self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects. – Apple dictionary

This is exactly what I am trying to not be. I’ve seen it happen to other people who have been elected. It would be easy to do. Elected people are privy to a lot of privileged information. We are expected to learn about the issues we deal with. We are provided packages of background material, workshops, and expert advice. We talk with people outside our normal social circle. All this extra input can change an elected person’s perspective. It can also make us feel as though we have a perspective that is more knowledgeable or more enlightened or more important than the common Joe. It becomes a self-perpetuating trap – the more we buy into the pomp and privilege of the responsibility, the more isolated we become.

From observing others over the years in the same role that I am in now, I know it is important to not define myself with my title. It is also very important to understand the difference between colleagues, associates, and friends. But most important is to always remember that it would be highly unusual to be the smartest person in the room, and likely always possible that my assumptions could be proven wrong. I’m hoping that remembering this will inoculate me from two debilitating political diseases: distended ego and narcissism.