I’d like to thank the Committee of the Whole for allowing delegations today, and accepting my request to speak.

Today, we’re all here, packed into our new City Hall, anxious about this City’s future again. We’re all here for a great debate on the future of Canada’s best kept secret: The City of Hamilton. This should be a cause for celebration rather than consternation.

All of our hopes are tied to another big civic megaproject. It feels like we’ve all been riding a bull. It’s up to us, here, today, to either let that bull throw us off, or to take that bull by the horns and make sure we end up with a solution that benefits all of our communities at the end of the day.

It should be seen as a good thing that so many people have gotten involved in this discussion, that so much passion exists in our community. A new generation of leaders have come of age in the midst of this debate.

I think something needs to be said today: no one big project will never “save” our City. No one project will change everything overnight. No one project will solve all of our problems. Hamilton’s success is tied to a whole host of finer details and complex realities.

How did we get here? Do we want to continue this fight for another five years until this Stadium gets built, or recommit ourselves to a mission altogether more important?

We’ve spent a year on this debate and many millions of dollars, all told, in staff time and land purchases. Citizens on all sides of this debate have taken time out of their busy schedules to be a part of this discussion. We can’t walk away today with the sense that this time and energy was completely wasted.

When this kind of project becomes an argument of site selection, we pit one part of town against another and we do a disservice to the spirit of cooperation enshrined in our City’s official motto: Together Aspire, Together Achieve.

Let’s start a new decade, together, as a truly united City of Hamilton. Let’s take all of this momentum and rededicate ourselves to tackling all the complex issues we’ve been ignoring. Let’s bridge the divide between the public and this City Hall. Let’s keep this discussion going for years to come.

In this site selection process, we’ve seen a private company, already heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, try to jury rig the public process, at the highest level. They’ve tried to define all the terms of how our taxdollars are spent on a facility to house their private investment.

But because a millionaire took over an organization with a name and identity that has sentimental value to the community, some of us seem willing to write that millionaire a blank cheque. We’ve been asked to compromise on what we know is best for our City, and we’ve been asked to do instead that which is only good for the Cats. No other private company in this City would get away with it.

All the other businesses in this city that work hard every day to add to our economy, toil away without this kind of support. And they don’t threaten us to take that investment and leave.

I ask, that today we adopt a new mission, and we leave a legacy larger than a football. The money we’ve been planning to invest in the Stadium project was to come from the Future Fund- the largest disbursement of this fund to date. We’d be using money marked for our Future on three weeks of games, and then 10 games of football a year. As a young person who wants to stay here for the rest of my life, I sincerely hope our future holds more than that. We can do better.

We need to reinvest in our neighbourhoods, to re-engage our community, and clean up some of the most neglected parts of the City.

To bring it all back, there’s one vision that stands out to me in all of this- let’s build a clean and green city by 2015.

I had a very interesting month.

My eyes were forced wide open to see some core realities of what the future holds, and what the past has left behind. Decades of neglect and abandonment have been revealed to me- in a way I don’t feel qualified to comprehend, problems that seem too big and complex for a 28 year old frumpy weirdo to figure out on his own. I need the whole community’s help.

I believe that reclaiming our neighbourhoods, cleaning up our industrial legacy, and adapting these former brownfield sites into employment growth districts for new, clean industry will be the defining mission of my generation- the question is whether we start today, or we leave it until my generation gets a chance to lead. We are the generation that will inherit whatever decision is made today. Think about that. Young people have come together, with very little resources but with pure hearts, to ask that our future in this City is assured. To ask that the public interest is protected from those who have only private gains in mind, all for a game. I’d like to remind this council, that the people of the City of Hamilton are your most important legacy tenant.

Together, we can leave a legacy larger than a football. And we can start a league which is truly our own. Bring it back to basics. Give us our neighbourhoods back.

Let’s go Clean and Green by 2015, and give new meaning to our old motto:

Together Aspire, Together Achieve.

Good afternoon and good luck.

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My Remarks to City Council/Committee of the Whole.

I’d like to thank the Committee of the Whole for allowing delegations today, and accepting my request to speak.

Today, we’re all here, packed into our new City Hall, anxious about this City’s future again. We’re all here for a great debate on the future of Canada’s best kept secret: The City of Hamilton. This should be a cause for celebration rather than consternation.

It should be seen as a good thing that so many people have gotten involved in this discussion, that so much passion exists in our community. A new generation of leaders have come of age in the midst of this debate.

I think something needs to be said today: no one big project will never “save” our City. No one project will change everything overnight. No one project will solve all of our problems. Hamilton’s success is tied to a whole host of finer details and complex realities.

How did we get here? Do we want to continue this fight for another five years until this Stadium gets built, or recommit ourselves to a mission altogether more important?

When this kind of project becomes an argument of site selection, we pit one part of town against another and we do a disservice to the spirit of cooperation enshrined in our City’s official motto: Together Aspire, Together Achieve.

In this site selection process, we’ve seen a private company, already heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, try to jury rig the public process, at the highest level. They’ve tried to define all the terms of how our taxdollars are spent on a facility to house their private investment.

All the other businesses in this city that work hard every day to add to our economy, toil away without this kind of support. And they don’t threaten us to take that investment and leave.

We need to reinvest in our neighbourhoods, to re-engage our community, and clean up some of the most neglected parts of the City.

To bring it all back, there’s one vision that stands out to me in all of this- let’s build a clean and green city by 2015.

I had a very interesting month.

Together, we can leave a legacy larger than a football. And we can start a league which is truly our own. Bring it back to basics. Give us our neighbourhoods back.

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