We had considered many options. People. Places. Past knowledge. We knew the subject – youth violence and alienation – required some very specific understanding of the causes and effects of the problem. We had plenty of college and university experts on hand because we worked among them. But somehow we sensed to get to the root of the problem, we had to get closer to the ground. There was a vital element missing in our approach.
It was experience.
Eventually, one of my photo-journalism colleagues at Centennial College, Neil Ward, in order to help Indigenous youth talk about the problems they faced in the northern Ontario community of Grassy Narrows, suggested we let youth experience tell the story.
We gave cameras to the young people there. We asked them to shoot photos and video of their lives, their friends, their world. Then, we asked them to show us the results. In other words, in order to find answers, we went to those who knew. We relied on experience to lead the way.
So, why in the world did the Conservative government of Ontario, Doug Ford’s administration, (back in September) appoint Sajjad Hussain, a person with apparently no background in the world of endangered species to an advisory committee for Ontario’s Species at Risk Program?
Advisers to this program meet twice a year to offer their views about the protection and recovery of rare and endangered species such as bats, bees and Monarch butterflies. I checked the man’s biography; he’s got a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from a university in Illinois. Was he an amateur apiarist? Hobby night-species specialist?
No. He runs a housing development company. Which just happens to operate on the edges of Ontario’s protected Greenbelt lands.
Oh, and if his lack of species experience weren’t odd enough, at the time of his appointment, Mr. Hussain and his company, Sunrise Acquisitions, faced court proceedings regarding default on mortgages connected to a housing development in Unionville.
Meantime, the Toronto Star recently reported that the same appointee to the Species at Risk Program and his partner had improperly diverted $10 million – designated for the housing project – into their own pockets.
Just when you thought the Ford government scandal over the $8.28 billion Greenbelt land swap couldn’t get worse, it appears that instead of placing care and consideration into an advisory role for the protection of Ontario’s environment, Premier Ford’s administration has chosen cronyism. Not experience but expediency.
Putting a person with a dubious background in charge of critical portfolios is just the latest in this government’s endless record of ethical missteps. Remember Premier Ford’s former energy minister, Greg Rickford, who in 2019 cited a blog that denies human-induced climate change, all while he defended the Ford government’s decision to scrap green energy projects in Ontario?
Then, in 2020, there was then finance minister Rod Phillips, who pre-recorded a Christmas Eve video on Twitter by his fireplace in Ajax, telling us to stay at home during COVID.
“As we all make sacrifices this Christmas,” he preached, “remember that some of our fellow citizens won’t even be home for Christmas dinner over Zoom,” Phillips said.
Truth was, Mr. Phillips at the time was himself enjoying a holiday in St. Barts in the Caribbean. Then, when Ford and Phillips both admitted the gaf, the premier dumped Phillips from finance and appointed him minister in charge of Long-Term Care and those hardest hit by COVID. How does that make ethical sense?
Then, back in August from Bonnie Lysyk’s damning auditor’s report, we learned that then minister of housing Steve Clark had allowed his politically appointed aide, Ryan Amato, to orchestrate a process that favoured developers with a potential return of $8.3 billion in profits from swapped Greenbelt properties.
Again, it was a case of political friends, not professionally qualified adjudicators of property development clandestinely running the show. Both Amato and Clark ultimately resigned. All these bad choices in provincial appointments make you wonder whether anyone in the premier’s office bothers to check CVs, assess experience, or put ethics before making vital appointments to the public trust.
I can think of no better analogy than: “Putting the fox in charge of guarding the hen house.”
When my colleague at Centennial College, Neil Ward, retrieved the cameras we’d loaned to Grassy Narrows young people, the results proved overwhelming. When their thoughts and photos were published in the National Post, they won a National Newspaper Award. We had turned to those in the know and they had delivered authoritative, honest results. In other words, we chose experience over expediency.
It’s a lesson some of those in this provincial government don’t yet get.