Writing this week about CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke’s recent climate change op-ed, I had reason to go and look at his 2016 campaign platform — his “100 More Positive Changes” for the municipality.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link — which I’d saved as part of this article — and was confronted with this:
Source: file:///G:/Cape%20Breton%20Spectator/2019%20Issues/2%20October%202019/Page%20not%20found%20-%20Canada’s%20Official%20Opposition.html
I suppose the mayor, a proud, card-carrying Tory, is free to redirect this link whichever way he chooses (although, officially, there are no political parties involved in municipal politics in Nova Scotia) but if you’re going to use an old website to deliver an overtly partisan message, you should probably make sure that message is coherent — because the obvious response to the question posed above is:
Actually, it was Cecil Clarke who promised me something. He promised me 100 things. That’s why I clicked on this link. Where are they?
As it turns out, CBRM Council formally adopted Clarke’s first, 95-point, “positive change” plan in November 2012, a month after he was first elected, and I found the document on the CBRM website:
Shaping the Future of the CBRM
And then in December 2016, after Clarke was elected a second time, council adopted his “Positive Changes Plan Part II — 100 more changes.” I found that on the CBRM website too:
Positive_Changes_Plan_Part_II_-_100_more_changes (1)
And here’s a flyer “paid for by the committee to re-elect Cecil Clarke” that I happen to have kept from 2016.
Positive_Change_Flyer
And yes, I hear you, it’s time for me to keep my own post-campaign promise and go through all 195 “positive changes” to see which have actually become realities. And really, it should make for interesting reading, filled as these documents are with statements like this:
With no deficit, major debt reduction, no tax increases and efficient modernization, Cecil Clarke’s administration is effectively leading the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
His vision of a self-reliant and more prosperous Cape Breton is moving forward.
It’s a funny line, coming from a mayor who is now using the recently completed Viability Study to prove the CBRM is a financial basket case.
What happens when your vision hits a wall?
