GuelphToday received the following letter from reader David Gibson
A tale of two cities.
Guelph, Ontario and Paris, France.
We all know that Cam Guthrie is the Mayor of Guelph. Less of us know that he also serves on The Global Covenant of Mayors (GCM).
This July, they met in Paris during the Olympics. Among their collective goals, as described on the GCM website were to advance 'inclusion' and counter 'misinformation.' Not a word from Mayor Guthrie about his representation of Guelph at this event.
However, while in Paris, he did find the time to unleash a barrage of social media posts about visible drug use and the presence of visibly poor people in Guelph's public spaces.
"Open-air drug use in our public spaces is ridiculous. Our cities are in decay because no one will step up & put an end to this madness."
Soon after, he called a special city council meeting to consider another iteration of a Public Spaces Use Bylaw, which, as Adam Donaldson summarized in his recent column, was rejected earlier this year by city council as ineffective, expensive and likely illegal
That hardly matters. This isn't the mayor's genuine effort to address these issues. It never has been. It's a calculated political stunt. Scapegoating the victims of complex social problems is a centuries-old political tactic. Mayor Guthrie will vote for this bylaw regardless of its actual form or the good evidence against it.
That he launched his latest attack on the constituents of our so called 'decaying' city from a literal Parisian palace, I thought about how the poor were treated by the French aristocracy in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
And, upon his return, after ignoring all but the favourable feedback, he took to social media again. This time, to celebrate filling his tummy with rich dessert while in the shelter of a tent. I was reminded of Monseigneur and his chocolates.
In the meantime, or at least until the next election, I suppose the rest of us peasants can just eat cake.
David Gibson
Guelph, Ontario
