“I don’t endorse candidates,” said Eisenberger. “I was invited as the mayor of Hamilton. I was there to support getting more diverse councillors at city hall.”
Bedi said he invited the mayor to attend his campaign office opening.
“He didn’t endorse me directly,” said Bedi. “He did say that I would be a good choice. I appreciated what he did.”
Collins said he was initially surprised the mayor would attend such an event. But he refused to comment on Eisenberger’s participation.
“You will have to talk to the mayor about that,” he said.
Please read the full story here. Comments?
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Fred better hope the Collins doesn't decide to back one of his opponents. That could cost him ward 5.
ReplyDeleteHighly inappropriate and unprofessional of you unless you intend to attend ALL other candidates events in ALL of the other Wards.
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced that the invitation would be offered though....
Fred, some advice:
ReplyDeleteYou shouldn't spend time and energy trying to stack the council deck when your own job security is tenuous at best.
Hey Mr. DiFalco, isn't this something you wrote a while back?
ReplyDelete"Council is made up of 16 councillors (including Mayor Fred). Two are women. None appear to be members of visible minority groups.
The makeup is noteworthy, because it does not mirror or approximate Hamilton's diversity. Representative government works best when the government actually represents the community in which it governs.
Certainly one can achieve an understanding of issues related to different cultures and race by being connected to those communities.
But it is not an ideal substitute for the perspective that could be brought to bear from those with lived experience and who are part of those communities.
This is a systemic issue, which will require "out of the box" thinking in order to arrive at a solution leading to balanced representation."
Fred must be cribbing your notes. Too funny!
I think the bigger story here is that Jaswinder Bedi is in fact: Dr. Jaswinder Bedi, who has a Phd in Plant Pathology, with decades of international study and work experience -- who now, works as a taxi driver - in Hamilton!!
ReplyDeleteThe news article referenced here, specifically mentions this: "Bedi, who is originally from India, currently works as a taxi driver."
Successive career politicians like Bratina, Fred, and DiIanni have turned to immigrants in the most cynical manner to grab their votes, come an election -- Yet, after spending hundreds of thousands of tax-payers dollars on funding so called 'immigrant inclusion' groups -- they have materially failed to better the professional lives of hundreds of local residents who are highly qualified foreign trained professionals.
The now infamous images of DiIanni's campaign launch event had over a dozen South Asian immigrants standing behind him in solidarity, yet he has not had a single piece of worthwhile policy in place during his tenure as mayor, to materially impact their careers or personal and family lives.
Most immigrants like Dr. Bedi, inadvertently get into business, or many become taxi drivers or gas station attendants to make a living after being marginalized professionally in Hamilton.
Fred's policies have attempted to do one better on DiIanni's inactions. So, now we have a few tax payer subsidized immigrant groups supposedly attempting to find "solutions" for the last four years -- under the direction of a co-chair/and senior council member who leads the HCCI -- who has a day job with the Hamilton Spectator as a managing editor -- an organization which has single handedly managed to deeply hurt the very cause of "inclusion" in our city - through their intentionally slanted and categorically biased coverage of all the contenders in this election!
Such organizations most recently have been used to project Fred as a 'progressive savior' of the immigrants, whereas the facts of their performance to date prove otherwise.
So for Fred or for that matter even the other two career politician - DiIanni and Bratina to cozy up to immigrants before an election - is not just a cynical strategy, but is a manifestation of a deeply flawed trait - that uses such immigrant groups and immigrants to their political advantage when it suits their purpose. Beyond which they have no interest in finding lasting solutions to the debilitating conditions faced by most immigrants in Hamilton.
Shame on those who play around with the human vulnerabilities of immigrants for political profit.
Mahesh P. Butani
Mayoral Candidate.
Mahesh, you sound like a bigot. It's very unbecoming a mayoral candidate.
ReplyDeleteKim,
ReplyDeleteWould you be kind enough to point out the sentence or words in Mr. Butani's post above - that has made you say that he sounds like a bigot???
Your interpretation of the above post is very poor, or your grasp of the English language is just plain bad. In any case your most silly comment only exposes the fact that either you are a supporter or a staff of one of the three above, or you work for the Spectator and are doing a knee-jerk to his honest and fair assessment.
Having read most of Mr. Butani's thoughts here and on other blogs, including his campaign web site, and having also met him a number of times to discuss his platform, I can say he cares more for the residents and new immigrants in our city than most local politicians would ever dare to care.
It is apparent that Mr. Butani has really rattled the cage of the three career politicians with his observation, and it is quite clear that these career politicians have foolishly rushed once again to the most vulnerable and unsuspecting immigrants for their votes, while doing little for them when they have been in power.
Kim, do you know why we have the highest number of immigrant professionals and Phd's still driving cabs and delivering pizzas in our city, while so much public money is wasted on friendly consultants and cozy committees year-after-year to study and write even more reports on the problems faced by immigrants?
Having a coloured chief of staff, or a chauffeur who is a visible minority, or just using the term 'diversity' often, does not qualify for being a progressive. It only points to the continuing lack of real policies and laws which removes the underlying conditions that cause exclusions in the first place in our community.
'Observer',
ReplyDeleteMahesh has now accused Andrew Dreschel, and to a lesser extent, the 3 major mayoral candidates of being racist. I can see no basis for doing so except a sad attempt at media exposure. This betrays his own cynicism and hate-mongering.
Butani is right, there are so many qualified engineers and scientists, doctors, lawyers who cannot get work here because of some immigration technicality or another. So why ask us to prove 72 points when you don't intend to equalize our qualifications when we get here? Canada (okay this is a federal issue) probably has the most overqualified minimum wage workers in the world!
ReplyDeletePioneer gas at next to the GO downtown, the folks there are amazingly educated! What's worse is if you are "ethnic" and speak English well, no one will ever hire you in Hamilton. They can no longer racially pigeonhole you, so you might as well not get hired.