Details

We are very fortunate to live in Canada. 

Our elections are free and fair. We all accept the results.

Candidates can sleep in their beds at night safe in the knowledge they are not going to disappear in the early hours. As happens in some countries.

If they lose, they pick themselves up, dust themselves down and live to fight another day.

Regular Maintenance

That said, our system is not perfect and it requires regular maintenance if it is to stay in tip-top condition, just like the car in the garage.

Churchill is often quoted as saying:

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

This is an an elliptical version of his statement in the House of Commons in 1947:

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”

Either way, the meaning is clear.

Kept in the dark

Voters will never have perfect information when they cast their ballot. But sometimes they are kept completely in the dark or, worst still, deliberately misinformed.

When people in Newmarket-Aurora voted in the Federal Election on 28 April 2025, only a tiny handful (maybe not even that) knew that the Liberal candidate was carrying a mountain of debt arising from a failed business venture. If the voters had known about this would it have shifted a few votes? Probably.

In the 2016 referendum on Brexit, many voters were swayed by Boris Johnson’s bogus claim that

“We send the EU £350m a week: let’s fund our NHS instead”

Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union committing the greatest self-inflicted economic harm to the country in a generation.

Many UK voters who voted to leave now have buyer’s remorse.

Deformed democracy

So, elections – and referendums – have consequences. We need look no further than the deformed democracy that is reshaping Trump’s America.

Not long after I posted my blog (on election day) about the Liberal candidate here in Newmarket-Aurora I got this email from one of my readers:

“Too bad you needed to release this today.”

To which I replied:

“Too bad she didn’t tell us before when she could have woven it into her story."

But, to reassure you, my post won’t make a blind bit of difference. Tiny readership.”

We are lucky to have Newmarket Today with its splendid young journalist Joseph Quigley reporting on the issues that matter.

And, thankfully, we have the CBC, authoritatively sifting the wheat from the chaff, allowing voters to make an informed decision. Imagine the furore if the CBC withheld information from the public because it had unearthed an inconvenient truth?

Unavailable

Sometimes the information voters need is simply unavailable.

Scandalously, all three Party Platforms were published after the start in voting in the advance polls.

And election debates involving local candidates are going the way of the Dodo.

When I ran for election as the Town’s Deputy Mayor in 2022 (and was comprehensively defeated) my opponent resolutely refused to debate with me. 

And now he says of Monday’s result:

“The people have spoken, and in a democracy, the people are never wrong. Congratulations to Sandra Cobena on her decisive win in Newmarket-Aurora.”

Next year, if he has the nerve to run again for Deputy Mayor I hope he will tell people he has historically been bankrolled by developers. He is their friend. 

Shallow pool

The people can be wrong if they are not given the information they need to make an informed choice. I don’t blame the voters. I blame the system.

Not enough people are engaged in our politics. They have other things to do with their time. So the candidate pool for the Federal and Provincial Parliaments is incredibly shallow.

On the Liberal side in Newmarket-Aurora, Jennifer McLachlan was acclaimed. Before her Tony Van Bynen was acclaimed. Before him Kyle Peterson was acclaimed. And this for a job with a base salary of $210,000.

On the Conservative side, Dawn Gallagher Murphy was appointed as candidate by the Party leader. Before her, Christine Elliott was shoehorned in to replace a candidate found cheating.

Soft underbelly

The report on Foreign Interference by the Honourable Marie-Josée Hogue, shows us that nominations – totally unregulated by Elections Canada – are the soft underbelly of Canadian democracy. The new Parliament has got to tighten things up.

Politics is a rough old trade and it is not for the faint-hearted. 

But it should be clean. 

Is that asking too much?

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Details

 Voter turnout in Newmarket-Aurora was 70.66% compared with 60.58% (2021); 67.3% (2019); 68.25% (2015) and 64.01% (2011). It was above the national turnout figure of 68.63%. Previous results are here.

Details

Monday 28 April 2025 at 1.30pm 

The Liberal Party candidate in today’s Federal Election in Newmarket-Aurora, Jennifer McLauchlan, is deep in debt to the Royal Bank of Canada as the result of the collapse of the Cachet restaurant she ran at 500 Water Street in downtown Newmarket.

I learned yesterday about the proceedings in the Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket on 24 January 2024 which resulted in an Order to repay the bank sums totalling $296,831.

I have spent the morning examining the Court files and wading through reams of legal documents.

Default

But the issue seems clear enough. The Royal Bank loaned Jennifer McLaughlan a very substantial sum of money which wasn’t repaid as planned. She defaulted.

She admits most of the allegations made by the Bank in their Statement of Claim.

McLaughlan says in her Statement of Defence filed with the Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket on 11 September 2023:

“(Cachet Restaurant) ceased operation as of May 29, 2023.This was after a notice had been issued to the defendant (her) by the Landlord, the Town of Newmarket, with their intent to RFP (ie Request for Proposal) the business location in 2024. Therefore, the termination of an active Purchase and Sale Agreement for the business which was to be realised March 31, 2024. Should the (Town of Newmarket) not have taken this direction, the terms of the loan dated March 24, 2017 would have been satisfied…

She goes on:

“The Defendant Jennifer McLauchlan, did provide a personal guarantee for the agreement March 24, 2017. However, due to the financial crisis caused by the Covid 19 Pandemic, Ms McLachlan did sell her property and invested her personal financial portfolio to remain compliant with the obligations of the agreement and maintain the operation of the business. As a result, the business was placed on the market for sale in June 2022.”

In financial crisis and with no fixed address

She challenges paragraph 4 of the Bank’s Statement of Claim which states that Jennifer McLaughlan “is an individual residing in Newmarket, Ontario and at all material times… was a guarantor of the obligations” she had made with the RBC.

She hits back:

“In relation to paragraph 4… Jennifer McLachlan… is an individual NOT residing in Newmarket, Ontario. The Defendant is currently in financial crisis with no fixed address and has been residing through out the province of British Columbia,”

I have no idea what that means.

Sympathetic

In her judgement in favour of the bank on 24 January 2024, the Hon Madam Justice Fraser was clearly sympathetic to the situation McLachlan found herself in:

“The Defendants (McLachlan and her Ontario numbered company 2560451) had a restaurant in Newmarket which did not survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court has sympathy for the Defendants’ position and Ms. McLachlan’s desire and attempts to meet her financial obligations as reflected in her statement of defence. However, it is plain and obvious that the statement of defence does not disclose a reasonable defence, that it should be struck, and that judgment should issue. The claim for interest is substantiated on the material before me. The fees claimed are fair and reasonable. Order to go in accordance with the draft filed as signed by me.”

Voters were completely unaware of all this – as was I until moments ago after wading through the documentation and trying to make sense of it as best I could.

As I tap this out people are in the very process of voting on who should represent them in the new Parliament.

How do I feel as I stop typing?

Sad and disappointed probably sums it up best.

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Details

If I were the Chair of Newmarket Public Library, Darryl Gray, I would be mortified. (Photo right with CEO)

The Library’s “Report the Community 2024” claims a “significant growth in membership”. But where is the evidence and who do we believe?

The Library Chief Executive, Tracy Munusami, told the Province there were 24,136 active library cardholders (ie members) in 2023 and 22,234 in 2024.

Membership Decrease

I posted a blog on 10 April 2025 calculating there was no increase as claimed but rather a drop in membership of 7.9%.

The following day, 11 April 2025, Ms Munusami tells me she filed with the Province a revised membership figure of 17,893 for 2023 – down 26% from the previous year. This allows her to claim a huge percentage increase in new members between 2023 and 2024.

The Board was not told about this significant revision.

Ms Munusami tells me: 

“We have a staff member who is responsible for the report annually. That person went on leave on April 11, 2025. At that time, I took over completing the report, found the error, and reported it to the ministry.”

But the report was complete by 4 April 2025 when I found it on the NPL website. And although, astonishingly, it was not attached to her report to councillors on 7 April 2025 it was by then printed, posted and complete. She told councillors the report was being released on 7 April 2025 when it was already up and posted before the weekend.

Nodded through

And what happened at the Library Board meeting on 19 March 2025 when the draft “Report to the Community 2024” was on the agenda? Did the Chief Executive walk the Board through the numbers, explaining how these stellar membership increases were arrived at? Did the Library Board ask any probing questions? Or was it just nodded through without comment?

Ms Munusami tells us there were 9,476 new members between 2023 and 2024 but we do not know how many people were simply renewing their memberships over that period. Before Ms Munusami took over the reins, in August 2021, a distinction had always been made between genuinely new members and those who were renewing.

Previously, the Library Board was given a detailed month-by-month breakdown of Library usage and membership, new and renewals. This practice continued for a short while the new CEO got her feet under the table and then abruptly stopped.

Degradation

Since the Chief Executive was appointed nearly four years ago we have seen a steady degradation in the data coming out of the Library. 

Who decided to end the practice of giving the Board detailed Library data in a time-series which allowed meaningful comparisons between years? Why was this done? 

Now we are in the Alice in Wonderland situation where Ms Munusami cannot explain why membership spiked dramatically in 2022, going up to 27,780 from 23,589 in 2021. She tells me:

“I don’t have a reason or explanation for any spike between 2021 and 2022. I was still taking the time to evaluate how statistics were being captured.”

Spark of curiosity

Wasn’t she curious? 

As Darryl Gray noted in the foreward to the Library’s 2023 report to the community:

“They (libraries) are places of knowledge, exploration and ideas. Where inquiry comes alive and where the spark of curiosity is lit.”

In early 2023, when the 27,780 figure for 2022 was filed with the Province, Ms Munusami had been in post for, at the very least, 16 months.

Although I’ve asked the Chief Executive for a note on the parameters she set for the database clean-up and how it was carried out, I am still none the wiser. I was simply told:

“The clean-up process occurs at the end of the calendar year and we delete most expired accounts…”

Scrutiny

Just like the financials, we need usage and membership figures from the Chief Executive that can withstand scrutiny.

The Chief Executive gets $172,000 a year to run the Library efficiently, in charge of a multi-million dollar budget. (Last year the Library got a grant from the Town of $3,781,775 and another $64,401 from the province.)

I’ve seen lots of back-slapping and congratulations about how well the Library is doing but, to me, it is all sophistry. 

If I were in Darryl Gray’s shoes I’d call a special meeting of the Board to get answers to the outstanding questions.

It can’t just be business as usual. 

Or can it?

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Click "read more" for email exchange with CEO.

Details

Last night I nipped down to the magnificent David D. Simone Performance Hall at the Town Square in Aurora for the latest candidates forum hosted by former Aurora Mayor, Geoff Dawe. 

The evening was designed to give a stage to all the candidates running in Newmarket-Aurora and, to our south, Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. 

In the last Parliament both ridings were held by the Liberals, Tony Van Bynen (who is retiring – again) and Leah Taylor-Roy who is the incumbent and running for the second time.

Low expectations

I went along with very low expectations.

I no longer expect feisty exchanges and the clash of opposing views, deeply held. Those days are a distant memory. 

Now everyone is reading from a script. The candidates aren’t even allowed to challenge or interact with each other. It’s politics as an analgesic. Low energy, killing any excitement.

As expected, the Conservative candidates Sandra Cobena and Costas Menegakis didn’t show up. And neither did the two paper candidates being fielded by the NDP.

I saw in front of me Jennifer McLachlan (Liberal, Newmarket-Aurora) and three candidates from Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill.

Star of the show

Leah Taylor Roy – who originally said she would only turn up if her Conservative opponent did – was the star of the show.

She was thoughtful and knowledgeable and her answers to the questions posed were persuasive and to the point. She got a round of applause from an otherwise comatose audience when she spoke about the need for electoral reform. Her riding is regarded as a bell weather and it would be a tragedy if she lost as a result of a split in the non-Conservative vote.

She confronted Tom Muench on stage about infringing election law.

Tom Muench from the Green Party was a huge disappointment. His ponderous, meandering replies were a complete turn-off. He reminded me of the pub bore constantly telling the audience that if they knew as much as he did - about pretty much everything - they would, in awe, vote for him. There was nothing recognisably Green about anything he said. Where on earth do political parties get their candidates from?

People's Party

Alongside Muench, sat Igor Tvorogov from the People’s Party of Canada. He is anti-vax, pro Protest Convoy, pro-white European, anti everyone else. Oh yes! And he didn’t know the meaning of the word “portfolio”. 

Dawe asked the candidates if they were successful which portfolio would they like to be offered. After a long convoluted answer from Igor (he wants to be Minister of Software) Dawe sighed:

“The question was meant to be whimsical.”

New to politics

Jennifer McLachlan is a thousand times better when she forgets the notes in front of her and talks from the heart. But this only gets her so far. I sense there are still yawning gaps in her knowledge on a range of important issues. She explains:

“I am new to politics and I have some learning to do. I have Mr Van Bynen who has been mentoring me over the last while and he will continue to support me while I head to Ottawa and work with the community after. People always ask how are you gonna fill his shoes? And I say there's no chance I will fill his shoes but he's passed me the torch. So let's see how fast I can go with it and run around this riding as much as I can.”

Oh dear! 

That means safe and middle of the road and unadventurous. That’s not what I want in my MP. I want a free thinker and someone who will use the platform they’ve been given to speak out and make a difference. Throw away the crutch. Don’t lean on your mentor indefinitely. Be yourself.

The curse of the old banker

It appears that despite his multiple retirements over the years Tony Van Bynen is destined to be forever in our lives. It is the curse of the old banker.

Only five days to go.

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