American response to Canadian government rejecting trade offer.

via GIPHY

Concept of a Plan

I have a concept of a thing that may or may not be planned.

When a presidential candidate claimed to have a concept of a plan for healthcare, people laughed. Now that same candidate is a president in a war and when asked what was his exit plan for this war, he said, “It’s simple.”, then said an outcome. Not a plan. What he thinks is a plan, is really the outcome of whatever the plan is. He could be an idiot (most likely) or, and stay with me, the most incredibly adept liar of all time.

OK. For the record, he is factually the most incredible liar of all time. No one else is even close. So I thought, why can’t I have a concept of a plan? If someone asks what my plan is for the next five years, I can just say I have a concept of a plan.

I have a notion of a thought.

I have a rumination of a dream.

I have an ideation of a reality.

I have a sketch of a position.

I have a cartoon of a hypothetical.

I have a maquette of a theory.

I have a charette of a policy.

I have a System of a Down.

I have a bromide of a platitude.

I have a recipe for disaster. It’s really something, which is better than nothing, even as it’s worth noting that it is actually no thing. It is without a doubt, a concept of a plan.

The Best Things

The freedom of the open road is not taken on free bicycles.

They say the best things in life are free. Whoever they are. Unfortunately, they are incorrect. Sure, a hike, sunshine on your face, a nap in the shade are all free, but let's see how long you last walking around, basking in the sun without any clothes, shoes, or breakfast. Some things in life are free. The smell of a newborn: free. The smell of a newborn's diaper: also free. Are they the best things in life?

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Our American Problem

Trying to contemplate this from a respectful distance.

In 1990, I worked and lived in the Netherlands during a summer internship, and something interesting struck me. The strange polarities of European thought and opinions of America and Americans. On one hand, Americans were bourgeois boors without healthcare or grace. On the other hand, American chutzpah, military might, and knowhow not only helped defeat Fascism but also helped rebuild and reimagine Europe through the post-war period. Hollywood was denigrated while American moviemaking was venerated. American politics were reviled, but American authors and artists were revered. The idea of America’s self-important exceptionalism was something to be mocked while Americans as individuals were well thought of. It was totally fine pretending to be a cowboy wearing American blue jeans, while listening to American rock ‘n’ roll and jazz while crapping on American kitsch. Initially, I thought it was hypocritical but later appreciated that you can enjoy some aspects of a culture while recognizing the stuff that isn’t so good. American jazz, Wayfarer sunglasses: good. American flag speedos: bad. America’s Jim Crow South: bad. Americans landing on the moon: good. American military might to destabilize geopolitical norms: not so good.  American military might used to secure peace: good. America is not the best. Not in rates of literacy, child mortality, health care, income inequality, personal safety, freedom of speech, democracy, or life expectancy. Yet the idea of America is a pretty good one. Then I read this from Robert Reich:

“Dear allies of America, please don’t confuse our president with us.”
—Robert Reich

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The Good Old Stone Age Days

This is the life I imagined.

Did someone say they wanted to bomb us back to the Stone Age?

Oh, I can only hope to go back to the Stone Age. Simpler times, you know? No working for the man! No work at all. No mortgages, no bills to pay, no escalating gas prices and food lines. No social media! No screens! No tech at all. The only tech we need is fire and pointy sticks. Just you, on your own, against the world. You want a drink? Stick your face in some water and slurp up as much as you want. Hungry? I'm sure there are some berries on some bush somewhere. Lonely? Follow another group of similar-looking sapiens, roll around in their poop until you smell like them and they accept you as one of their own. Want a relationship? Fight someone until they tire out and take advantage of their limp body. Oh, not "woke enough" for you? Don't worry, you probably had to fight a bunch of people before you found the one right for you. By the way, no one cares about "wokeness", that's another thing in the Stone Age: no stupid politics. In fact, no ideas at all. We're all out here trying to survive, man! No one's got time for pollsters and door-to-door canvassers. No doors at all. No lawns for lawn signs. No signs! No lawns! Great! No lawns to mow. That just means more time for me to lie around (maybe in a cave or up in a tree) avoiding being eaten by large cats.

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Art Therapy

❮ ❯

1 / 12

Serpent got your tongue.

2 / 12

Nothing to smile about.

3 / 12

Dozy Don

4 / 12

Best ballroom evah! Now on hold.

5 / 12

Many people are saying he has a "huge" serve.

6 / 12

Fired AG says "What?"

7 / 12

Chairman of the Bored

8 / 12

Oblivious/Oblivion

9 / 12

Big boys get big toys.

10 / 12

No really, where is Europe?

11 / 12

Fake it 'til you make it!

12 / 12

The one and only FIFA Peace Prize Winner!

❮ ❯

Use the arrows or dots to go forward or back

I’m not a therapy kind of guy. Not because I believe a long bike ride is better than therapy, but because a long bike ride is more fun than therapy. Also, I do this thing where I write my feelings down in a private journal that I then post on the Internet for everyone to see but for no one to find. While my mind is full of ideas and things to try and stuff to make, I haven’t ever really expressed myself fully through art the way, say, professional artists do (presumably).

My very first day at design school, our professor said, “I wanted to be an artist, but it turns out I was too tidy.” I knew then I’d found my people. I’m not only too tidy to be an artist, but, I feel, how to put this kindly, I’m too happy. When I’m not being happy, I’m mostly OK. Of course, I get sad, perhaps depressed, frustrated, and an all-round sour puss. But not enough of a sour puss to want to make a painting about it and tell everyone it’s a picture of flowers when, in fact, it’s a symbolic representation of my unresolved grief over the loss of my parents.

Trust me. I’ve tried to be that kind of artist. There was bad poetry and some truly terrible paintings. Instead of projecting my real feelings, these terrible paintings looked an awful lot like the covers of bad sci-fi paperbacks. “The tiger represents my desire, but the chain around the tiger’s neck is the repression of my freedom. The comely woman in the fur bikini holding the chain represents an attractive woman I saw in a movie poster once.” You know what I mean.

In truth, the thing is, I am pretty repressed. It’s a condition most commonly called, “Normal”. Being too Normal can really hold you back in creative endeavours. We on the Normal Spectrum can often be found to be pleasant but unexceptional in any way. But our Normality is just a mask. Not a creepy Venice Carnival kind of mask, but the shield we put up to get by in this crazy world.

The only thing I’ve found to drop my shield, my force field of normality, is sketching. Even then, it takes quite a lot of sketching before a flow state is reached, and something comes loose like a cat that jumps to life and runs wildly around the house in a state of unknown euphoria. It may not last long, and then it fades away. That phase is outside of time. It is its own country. It has its own weather and phases of the moon. That, for me, is even better than a bike ride, which, as I’ve said, is a good bit of fun.

Like any rational person, I’m feeling a lot of stress from the cacophony of crises we find ourselves bombarded with this year. Many of these crises stem from or are embodied by one man. A single idiot has caused more harm in a year than a half dozen caused in fifty. I will not name him, as the existence of his name on yet another page only perpetuates his presence. How do you gain power over the powerful? You make them small and silly. That’s what cartoons are for. So here is my closure. My control. My anger. My spite. My spit. My venom. Some silly drawings of an unserious “short-fingered vulgarian”. These drawings are my art. They are my therapy.

Not now, never or shall be

All the tea that's fit to spill.

Thank you for coming here today to hear my announcement. For the record, I want you all to know that I am not now, nor ever have been, nor ever was, nor ever shall be in a relationship with a now deceased sex-trafficking pedophile or his criminal accomplice.

Certainly, we may have moved in the same circles, ellipses, tangential lines, parallel paths, adjacencies, intersecting lines, x-axis, y-axis, or vanishing lines, but we were not in what you might refer to as a relationship. Of course, we were relational in the sense of different celestial bodies that have some kind of gravitational effect on each other and had seen each other across a room and may have, in what is considered societal common courtesy, approached one another and greeted each other in a non-committal arm hug (definitely no bodily contact). Perhaps our cheeks brushed against each other’s, causing a small electrical spark that merely reflected opposing charges, which in turn may have caused a sensation in the skin that stimulated a natural response in the limbic system. That response, combined with other senses inherently triggered, a tingling throughout the rest of my body in what some people may refer to as a domino effect of the nervous system that set off a sort of avalanche of hormones and burning desire, but that is a normal and a common response to meeting someone dangerous, intoxicatingly charismatic, and powerful. It's the type of contact you might have in a multi-coupling orgy with dozens of strangers in a darkened, poorly decorated room on a tropical island. I'm not talking about a weird "Eyes Wide Shut" kind of deal, but more of a bacchanalian, Roman affair where bystanders and servants kept a record of your number of orgasms throughout the evening (how else would you know who deserved tickets to the 50-50 door prize?).

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Tomorrow Begins at Midnight

1955. A family tests an underground fallout shelter. I guess we've lived through other crisises.

“Trump says killers of protesters will ‘pay a big price’ and urges Iranians to ‘take over your institutions’”
The Guardian

Apparently, the killers of Iranian protesters in Iran will have to “pay a big price”, but killers of American protesters by American authorities get a free pass? I get it. The US has reached Idiocracy.

Reading the news from the US, from the shooting death of Renee Good by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross, to family separations, to people being grabbed at their refugee hearings, to assaults on people and democracy, the FBI raiding a reporter's home, media companies firing detractors of the administration, declarations that the US must "own" Greenland, references to Canada as the 51st state, a narcissist adding his name to memorials to other presidents, cutting funding to not-for-profits, destroying foreign aid that endangers lives, using the Department of Justice as a cudgel of private vengeance, forcing law firms to bend the knee or be banned — all of it — just makes me absolutely livid. I'm only referring to political news from the US, but there are so many other upsetting news stories it becomes overwhelming (the environment, foreign wars, the economy). I had forgotten there's even a name for it: polycrisis. Polycrisis was coined to put a name to what seems like an onslaught of terrible things. What is difficult to see is how interconnected so many of these things are.

From the Guardian:
"Our globalized world is built on interconnecting systems, and when one gets rattled, the others do too – a heating climate, for instance, increases the risk of pandemics, pandemics undermine economies, shaky economies fuel political upheaval."

Which is what makes it so overwhelming. I can feel my blood pressure rising and heart pounding. It’s infuriating. So I’ve just avoided it. I basically went from turning the other cheek to turning my face away in disgust.

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The centre will not hold

William Butler Yeats, in 1932

This might be a long walk but please, walk with me.

Lately, everything’s been a bit much, hasn't it? Just everything. The growing environmental crisis leading to devastating wildfires, floods, landslides and droughts which the oil and gas sector and their minions in government who depend on their economic clout, choose to ignore. The ongoing attacks on Ukraine by Russia. The devastating, disproportionate and disgusting onslaught of Gaza by a west-backed non-democratic Israeli government which we accept because doing something might lead to something worse (though how that could be is beyond me). Continual economic strife caused by an American administration too daft to know what it is doing. That same administration’s quick step into trying to rid the US of all migrants and refugees through autocratic means using questionable arrests and deportations. The same administration is trying to rewrite several decades of advancement of women’s rights and LCBTQ+ acceptance. The same administration’s attempt to ban books and artistic expression which they deem anti-American. Lastly, I suppose, because to give any more examples would be overkill, is the bald-faced corruption of that same administration using their government platform to enrich themselves and their friends (either through cryptocurrency schemes or accepting large gifts from foreign governments). We don’t actually have to look that far. The Ford government in Ontario has made it their policy to dole out money to their friends and patrons who might benefit from any of their unnecessary schemes under the guise of infrastructure. I will also note that none of these governments causing such havoc are lefties. They are hard-right conservatives (from the MAGAites, to Putin, to Netanyahu). They are only growing in number from being elected in Italy, Hungary, and Poland to rising in the polls in Germany and France. Against their namesake, they aren’t conserving anything, especially not norms, which they are dismantling with glee.

It’s hard to put into words or even to know how to react. Then I heard this from Ezra Klein’s podcast:

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Propagandanista

Propaganda? Advertising? Art?

"All art is propaganda.", or so wrote George Orwell.

"All art is political", so said Mao, or was it Hitler? Or Donald Trump?

"(The Movie industry) is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!"
Ah, yes, that was The Great Pumpkin.

The origin of the word propaganda comes from the efforts of the Catholic Church to "propagate" the faith. From Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622. Thus, in simplest terms, whatever messages and meaning you wish to promote, and how you do it with material you create and disseminate, artistic or otherwise, is propaganda. Radio broadcasts, music, theatre, film, art, advertising… think of all the possible swag you can get from a conference. That's propaganda. It took on a negative connotation when governments created extensive information programs, especially between the Great War and World War II. That political relationship and the advent of the profession of Public Relations cast a malodorous pallor over the word and the tactic of using any means necessary to inform (or more particularly, to misinform) the public.

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Private Peeps

My funny dicks.

I stood before the customs agent as neutral as I could. A blank piece of paper. Like an unthreatening swath of undyed muslin. I took nothing, I gave nothing. I had been fairly anxious about going through US customs for a work trip given everything being reported and rumoured. The anxiety was soon quelled by boredom after several frustrating lineups. If the anxiety doesn’t get you the boredom will. After two or three benign questions, I was directed to stand in front of a camera, remove my hat and glasses and stand still. My photo was then taken. No one asked me. I was told.

A similar thing occurred coming back in Toronto going through Canadian customs. Remove your hat and glasses and hold still for your unrequested portrait. Then the kiosk produced a small portrait of me on a slip of thermal paper. In the week in between those photos my picture had been taken numerous times by work colleagues at restaurants or by the government of California as I drove south on the 101 as I tried to avoid the toll lanes. Who knows how many other times I was in the background of someone else’s photos or surveilled by some other government’s camera.

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Misfortune Cookie

You can't trust anything cookies say these days.

“Avoid agreeing with people merely to keep the peace.”
This was what was written, in red ink, on a tiny strip of paper inside a faintly sweet biscuit, known as a fortune cookie. Seems like good advice unless, its real meaning is not to be confrontational so as to make you more of a pushover. It is, after all, a piece of advice from a fortune cookie which are a Chinese invention so could it really be disinformation? Are they trying to plant ideas of weakness, conformity, and passivity into the Western consumer's mind? I was about to use my fortune cookie’s "lucky numbers" as a new password when I paused and wondered, "Is that what they want me to do? Easier to guess my password if you've suggested my password to me!" How many people have followed the advice of a fortune cookie without realizing it’s exactly what the people’s republic wanted all along? My eyes opened to the real harm of taking advice from a confection of dubious origin.

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Everything’s Computer!

In the future, everything's Computer! Even kitchen and breakfast.

“Everything’s Computer!”, so said the mad king sitting in a plastic chariot.
Microwave ovens? Computer!
Broadcast television? Computer!
Electric cars? Computer!
Social media? Computer!!
The Internet? That’s Computerrr!!
AI? You better believe that’s nuthin’ but Compooter!!
Everything’s Computer!

Remember when we thought putting Computer in everything would make everything work better all the time? Remember when we thought connecting everything Computer (which at this point might as well be everything) to the Internet (which is computer!) and it would make our fridges smart enough to help us drink fresher milk? Now we’re going to put AI inside Computer which is inside everything and is connected to everything else and it won’t cause any harm at all.

Like it wouldn’t suddenly take over the power grid and turn off all the traffic lights at night to save money. It wouldn’t raise the temperature in refrigerators to spoil all our food to raise food sellers’ profits. It wouldn’t call you randomly and ask for $10,000 in bail money for the release of your nephew in the voice of your nephew. It wouldn’t scam your grandmother. It wouldn’t funnel money from the treasury and invest in bitcoin to fund a series of coups in the Balkan states. I’m absolutely sure it wouldn’t transpose the names of Estonia and Lithuania on every published map as an unsanctioned improvised defense strategy. It wouldn’t rename The Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America then to Big Gulf of Water brought to you by Taco Bell, then rename it The Pepsi Halftime Gulf Brought to you in partnership with Verizon. It wouldn’t invent a new kind of porn that blends seafood with anime and broadcast it to screens, large and small, across the planet (OK, I’ve just been told it’s already done that). It wouldn’t spread disinformation to destabilize economies. It certainly wouldn’t take your job by making you redundant.

Well, it might do that.
Actually, there’s a good chance it will.
In fact, there is a 97.9% chance it has already happened.

All the Weirdness in the World

Bob Dylan, Newport Folk Festival, 1965.

Watching the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown it was striking to see not simply the florid period of Dylan’s output but how it was a part of the unfolding events shaking the world. At the heart of it was the postwar power and cold war shadow that was the USA. Sound familiar? Fear of nuclear armageddon, political upheaval, unwanted war, the environment, and fights for freedom and equality were the fabric of the quilt that was tearing at the seams of 1960s America.

I didn't appreciate the music of the 60s as I do now. Films like The Big Chill were a show of strength of the Boomer generation and when they were running things, all pop culture and music would directly refer to the time of their youth. We were constantly told by aging journalists, DJs, and music directors that Dylan was a mysterious deity, a genius, and oft suggested he might not be mortal. That was the bee in my bonnet and that bonnet was my cross to bear. As a Gen Xer, I recognize that the music of my youth is now popular and much revisited in many Marvel films and film franchises that returned from the dead for no particular reason (Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters etc.). Don't worry. This is just a brief blip as we Gen Xers are not a big bunch and we're getting older and would like to retire before the Earth is entirely engulfed in flames.

They say "Victors write history", but they forget to mention that the generation that comes after the victors get to rewrite history. I have reached the age when history starts repeating itself and it is very ugly. Let's go back some 40 years ago. Oh, I was a bright-faced boy who could not keep up with being cool, so I didn't bother. I couldn't afford it (the looks, the music, the whatever). I discovered my musical tastes later than a lot of people. In fact, I think I discovered that any of my tastes (music, film, art, books) would never be fully "discovered" but would be a continuous thing I am always chasing, finding, understanding or being wrong about. It's often said that the tastes, likes, and dislikes that you form as a teen are the ones that influence and inform your choices for the rest of your life. I can't really argue against that though I'm sure many would. One thing I think The Olds get wrong about teenagers in general, is that they don't know and understand the flotsam and jetsam of the world. Of course, teens don't have the weight of bills, work, and taxes on them, but they can have a keen eye for simplifying big issues into black and white. The moral greyness of adulthood hasn't clouded their eyes with corneas of experience.

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Not So Fast

How many clothes do you really need? Image by Midjourney.

On another chilly minus-umpteen centigrade February morning I donned a thin, red fleece that is one of my most worn and cherished items of clothing. It cost $19 USD. That was 25 years ago. That means it has cost me about 76¢ per year or put another way, about less than a fifth of a penny per day. It is from "fast fashion empire" H&M. I bought it in New York City before the brand had any presence in Canada.

This isn't the only item I have from retailers like Uniqlo, Old Navy etc. Many of them over a decade old. Mind you, I have on a occasion purchased some items from shops that are either long gone, or should be. A summery short-sleeved cotton shirt from "Jean Machine" comes to mind. As I recall, it was dirt cheap, I wore it about a half dozen times and on one sunny day, the back of the shirt went from dark gray to a bleached out pale colour. Additionally, the fabric had become closer to dust than fibre. The cloth was even too weak to be used as a rag. It had to be tossed. I have never been back to a Jean Machine location, and am now even wondering if such a place actually existed. Is it a machine that made jeans or one made from denim? So yes, I have bought super cheap clothing that couldn't withstand a single washing, but most items I have purchased, outlasted my interest rather than their usefulness.

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Hard News

Hard at work in the newsroom circa 1942.


People who study and report on how news media construct news stories will often say that news outlets do not influence what consumers think but are more or less reflecting what is in the zeitgeist at any given time. Until I see otherwise, I would refute that. Why? Because of how many times we find out, often years later, just how wrong they were and what damage those mistakes have done.

I’ve heard this suggestion before, but this podcast from Radiolab about Stockholm Syndrome debunks the idea that hostages become empathetic and form a bond with their captors. The notion is so ingrained in the public consciousness that it seems it must be very well established by authorities in science and psychology. Turns out, it is not. Not only was it never verified by anyone who has ever actually studied the victims of kidnapping, but no one from the original event, a bank robbery and hostage-taking in 1970s Stockholm, was rarely ever interviewed. Instead, references to the original hostage-taking were either assumptions, hearsay, or entirely invented. There are probably many different reasons why some people stay in cults, abusive relationships, or form an affinity with their captors, but it isn’t a thing called Stockholm Syndrome. The fact that “Stockholm Syndrome” is not really a thing, but became a kind of shorthand to describe everything from hostage negotiations to the behaviour of cult survivors and victims of domestic violence and abuse, is not only surprising but also maddening. What is stated in this episode, but not much discussed, is that the general description and definition of Stockholm Syndrome largely came from news media. From there, it weirdly entered academic papers and back into popular culture through references, mostly conjecture, to events that felt similar to the description and definition largely invented in either news reporting or popular media.

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The Fifth

A depiction of the Gunpowder Plotters, their trial and execution by Crispijn van de Passe the Elder.

That wasn't so much as a "barn-burner" of an American election as much as it was a burn-down-the-barn-and-everything-in-it. I guess it was appropriate that this election was held on Guy Fawkes Night, which commemorates the Gunpowder Plot by a group of disgruntled Catholics to blow up the British parliament. Now we are all left staring at the glowing embers of what was once American Exceptionalism. Congratulations, your democracy is now an exceptional heap of ashes. Don't worry, ours might be next. Hey, we did learn, however, that you don't need explosives to blow up democracy, just use xenophobic rhetoric to get the job done. To my American colleagues who were given the day off to vote, they can say, "I'll always remember the moment democracy died, at least I had the day off." For myself, I'm happy about the human brain's capacity for cognitive dissonance. Sometimes more descriptively referred to as "compartmentalization". It allows us to stow away the bad thoughts and continue on with our lives. Keep calm and all that stuff. I imagine my mind not as a palace with many rooms but as a large room full of index card drawers, where the "bad thoughts" are kept in what is more like a "bits & pieces" or "odds & ends" drawer. Every kitchen has one and so does my mind.

In that odds & sods drawer are the stuff I know exists, but I'm going to pretend doesn't. I know that cows are gentle beasts with lovely big eyes, I know that pigs are quite clever, that lambs are cute, and rabbits are fuzzy, but I also know that all of these beasties are delicious. Delicious recipes for attractive members of the animal kingdom are kept in an entirely different drawer. Now added to the drawer is that politically, one of the most influential nations on this big blue marble is sleepwalking its way to an authoritarian, Christian-nationalist, misogynist, racist, protectionist, unfettered capitalist republic. I'm sure I'm forgetting some aspersions, but you know, they can be thrown in the drawer later.

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We’re going to need some rope,
pt. 3 

Hold on to your values there, Tex.

Conservatives are WEIRD, and so are liberals and progressives. WEIRD is an acronym for people who are Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic. This isn’t merely a lens through which we see the world. It’s a culture that has changed and shaped our brains.

The ability to read isn’t just a skill you learn but it affects the physiology of your brain, which in turn affects your perception of the world. If shown an image of symbols that are letters that make up a word, we can’t help but read it (which is something we don’t do with images, see “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” by Rene Magritte). It turns out WEIRD people think more individualistically than non-WEIRD people, who think more about themselves as part of a social network.

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We’re going to need some rope,
pt. 2 

Conservatives didn't invent hypocrisy, but they do hold many of the patents.

I understand, to a certain degree, "social conservatism". Some people don't like change. Some people want things to be the way they used to be. That's fine for them, and if they don't like things like gay marriage, no one will force them into a gay marriage, but why be a buzzkill on someone else's life? I don’t expect anyone else to be as interested in pencils as I am. If someone doesn’t want anyone to tell them how to live their life then they shouldn’t tell everyone else how to live theirs. Like telling them what books they shouldn't read, who they shouldn't love, how they refer to themselves, or how to handle their own body. Conservatives can't get enough of telling other people what to do. It can sometimes feel like Conservaties don't stand for anything but have a laundry list of what they are against. Conservatives didn't invent hypocrisy, but they do hold many of the patents, trademarks and copyrights.
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We’re going to need some rope,
pt. 1 

Upon crossing the Don River via the Queen Street Bridge, I happened upon a plaque with a brief history of how The Don River went from a popular recreational spot to an industrial resource. I succumbed to the mantra, “Always read the plaque.", and discovered in 1890 that The Don River was “improved” by straightening it, to prevent flooding (it worsened it) but also, and more importantly, to be a resource for industry to exploit. To be clear, the government paid to change the course of a river on behalf of local industry.

It reminds me how the current Ontario government wanted to release about 3000 hectares of protected greenbelt land so developers could build housing on it. The government said we need more affordable housing. We do. Yet houses built on formerly protected land wouldn't be high-density, affordable housing but low-density, expensive housing. Over 130 years after The Don River was straightened, the government was again changing the landscape on behalf of local industry.

“The Official Opposition NDP issued a statement criticizing the Premier’s Greenbelt comments, including his assertion that his government has “one of the best environmental records in the history of Ontario.” The statement pointed to his moves to curtail the powers of local conservation authorities, cancel 700 renewable energy projects, and weaken protections for endangered species, and said: “Um, okay Doug.”

Eventually, the plan to develop the Greenbelt was rejected by everybody, even the government's "base", which forced them to cancel their plans and even bring in legislation blocking anyone from doing anything that stupid again.
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