Bag the Bylaw
A law against littering isn’t going to make Winnipeg cleaner
Nick Ternette
Television commercials exist to sell us stuff.
Recently, Take Pride Winnipeg urged city councillors to adopt
a clean-neighbourhood-and-environment bylaw similar to one just
passed in England. The bylaw would fine litterbugs $160 for an
offence.
Tom Ethans, executive director of Take Pride Winnipeg, said such
a bylaw might make people more responsible.
Winnipeg, in fact, is an extremely messy city. Take Pride has
developed a ‘litter index’ that measures how clean
different areas are. The index rates areas from one to four, with
one being the cleanest and four the messiest. Winnipeg, as a whole,
measured 2.08, and St. Boniface was determined to be the cleanest
area.
When I was growing up in Germany, there were strict laws about
cleanliness. In fact, I remember seeing many signs saying “Verboten,”
which meant that you couldn’t litter or even walk on the
grass.
It sounds extreme, but it made Germany a very clean place. What
was interesting is that very few people were ever fined for littering.
Keeping things clean was part of the country’s culture.
While I sympathize with Take Pride, I question the point of such
a bylaw. Creating a bylaw that isn’t enforceable simply
doesn’t make sense. There aren’t enough police officers
to enforce the bylaws we already have.
On the other hand, I am very supportive of Coun. Mark Lubosch’s
suggestion that the city make more money available for non-profit
groups (instead of spending $100,000 to bring in former New York
mayor Giuliani) to work alongside city workers to clean up neighbourhoods.
Unfortunately, not all neighbourhoods have neighbourhood associations
(such as the Wolseley Residents’ Association). If such groups
were created across the city, perhaps they could get funds to
hire students to work in their neighbourhood, cutting grass for
seniors, painting over graffiti, picking up litter, etc.
• • •
I recently received an absolutely astounding e-mail from a fellow
activist. It concerned an upcoming city summit in May.
After Mayor Katz first publicly announced the summit, my friend
e-mailed the city and tried to register for the event. He was
told that the 200 delegates had been preselected. The city agreed
to put him on a list in case someone dropped out.
Taxpayers’ money is financing the event, and yet delegates
are preselected and it is impossible to find out who they are.
The names are not listed on the city’s website or on the
sites of any councillor.
Also, Mayor Katz said the delegates are a good cross-section of
students, seniors, businesspeople, labour representatives and
activists. Yet none of the 300 people I contacted (academics,
businesspeople, activists, etc.) had been invited, including,
for example, Dave Angus of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce or
Peter Holle of the right-wing Frontier Centre think tank.
Is this a meeting of Mayor Katz’s personal friends? Who
are these people?
Nick Ternette is a community and political activist, freelance
writer and broadcaster. |
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