Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was blamed for the great Chicago fire of 1871 that destroyed over 17,000 buildings and killed nearly 300 people. It was claimed that Mrs. O’Leary was late milking the cows that day and that one of them kicked over a lighted lantern and started the fire. Many years later, it was determined that a pipe-smoking neighbour of Mrs. O’Leary started the fire by carelessly discarding a match in the barn. These days it is the need for more housing that has become a convenient scapegoat for justifying a series of arbitrary actions that threaten to darken the future of municipal governments in Canada.
0 Comments
More decades ago than I care to remember, I was asked to speak to an elementary school class about local government. The young people in the room appeared less than enthusiastic about the speech they were about to hear. I decided that getting their attention was the key and I explained that local governments were responsible for such services as water supply and sewage disposal. Without such services, I noted, the drink that you take from the water fountain in the hall might come from someone flushing a toilet elsewhere in the building. There were a series of gasps, grunts, and gagging – and I had their full attention for the rest of the class. |
AuthorC. Richard Tindal, Ph.D is a retired Professor of Government. He taught for 30 years at St. Lawrence College, Kingston and was an occasional Visiting Professor at Queen's University. He has also written and consulted extensively about government. Archives
October 2023
Categories |