Quote of the Day: “Drawing up policy blueprints is a task for which there has never been a shortage of eager candidates. We can only hope that those policies will be based on hard facts about the real world, rather than on rhetoric or preconceptions.” Thomas Sowell
Rob Deutschmann appears to be a rather successful full time lawyer in the Region. (I’m really, really trying hard to not let my “bias” against personal injury lawyers show through here…) He is also a part time (by definition) Regional Councillor. But he has time constraint issues in trying to maintain his practice and also fulfill his councillor duties. So he hired two assistants (out of his own pocket, I assume) to help him with the Regional duties in the same way he has a bunch of assistants to help him with his practice. But according to the Front Page article by Liz Monteiro, this simple and straight forward solution has caused issues with other councillors who suggest that: “Some councillors say it’s unfair because not all regional politicians have the means to hire independent staff to help them serve their constituents.” Really??? Monteiro tells us that Councillor Colleen James asked Regional staff to consider creating a policy on whether councillors can hire external staff. Really??? So, are Waterloo Regional citizens better or worse off by having Deutschmann do his job more efficiently than other Councillors? “It creates an uneven playing field and I find that really problematic…” said Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe. She needs to give her head a shake…