Ready, willing and blogging

Whoa!

Having looked at the last time I blogged on this blog software - it was almost a year ago and tonnes has happened since then. I've also been contemplating the benefits of anonymous blogging and have realized there is a little more freedom in what I can and will publish . Besides that, I missed the Blogger interface and ease of editing - I've tried two other interfaces and the editing is very poor.

I guess I missed all the hubbub of the last provincial election but I wasn't totally out of the loop. In that year I managed to rid myself of a whole filing cabinet of paperwork and shredded it myself with my little Zellers paper shredder - it took two weeks. I've been lugging around stuff for too many years like 1992 income tax returns, all my LAN notes from school and other totally irrelevant material.

Looking back, habamus rodentum appeared to have an impact in politics and social change even though I considered it guerrilla blogging. At the time I wasn't sure about blogging but I had too many other fights going on, which blogging on it may have helped. Or not.

I was just reading a recent article in the Hamilton Spectator about the where-abouts of Former Deputy Prime Minister Tony Valeri. The Stoney Creek News had been months ahead of them indicating he was going to concentrate on his position on the Board of Trustees at St. Joseph's Hospital, which the Hamilton Spectator failed to include in their recent article. (St. Joe's webpage on 'Ethical Fundraising' wasn't available at this writing)

One of the on-going issues I've been trying to deal with over the last year is getting missing notes considered medical records (McInerney v. MacDonald, S.C.C., 1992) from St. Joseph's hospital. Having made numerous requests in writing to Marie Lynch, the Chief Governance and Corporate Services officer (at the time the Chief Privacy Officer) in 2004 & 2005, she did not respond in writing as to their where-abouts in the 30 day time frame according to section 55 of the Personal Health Information and Protection Act. To this date neither has Marg Doma the hospital's Risk Manager and it's almost officially 3 years. According to section 72 of the same Act, it's considered an offense for doing so.

But don't ask Chief Brian Mullan to lay an information under that offense clause under that Act. Despite himself and his officers being police officers able to take an information under the Provincial Offenses Act, he never followed up on his promise to me last October 5 2006 when I sat in his office with former Deputy Chief Tom Marlor. The Hamilton Police Service aren't strangers to scandal. Even though the Attorney General has written indicating that it's the responsibility of police officers to take an information, I think Chief Mullan's sitting on St. Joseph's Foundation board has something to do with it. Hamilton appears to be the City of Conflicts.

Now, I was reading over another Stoney Creek News story which quoted Conservative Deputy House Leader Jason Kenney (remember the last election?) on why Tony Valeri should be investigated by the former Ethics Commissioner as reported in the Stoney Creek News at the time, particularly with respect to the his stating the property was recreational. Habamus rodentum posted a story in the National Post listing all the politicians that had 'questionable' properties or financial assets. It noted Valeri's property being listed as recreational when it was actually being built right on his existing property.

Nothing in any article said anything about where the building permit was to allow this, but Hamilton has been having some difficulties in the building permit area - like not issuing them. As for the ethics follow-up, the Ethics Commissioner was removed from his position after the election for his inability to follow a Code of Ethics of his own but mostly he was perceived not to be enforcing Parliament's mandate.

And that's only one instance. A letter that was posted here to the former Attorney General of Ontario, The Law Foundation of Ontario and the Law Society of Upper Canada had an impact on how the public can access law libraries in Ontario. Although not publicized - any further complaints from the public to the Law Foundation of Ontario about the refusal of the public to use a law library will advance another inquiry.

Other well known bloggers have cited HR and government officials were happy to have participated in some stories. (Yes, they knew they were going to be interviewed by the intrepid HR)

Despite my reservations, blogging really does seem to have had a social effect, which is really the whole point of the matter isn't it? So over the last year I've had time to do more research (legal), take care of some outstanding issues that are still outstanding, get my kid off to college and attempt to change the world...

So stay tuned and welcome back because the next posts will offer insights that the main stream media has chosen to leave out of print. I also predicted that there would be another federal election in two years and it's getting close to The Hour of our Discontent.