WDO Night in Canada

by Jay Arthur

Well, what interesting times we live in. And I think we've seen the best and the worst of times this past couple of months.
Two months ago I was lamenting about the less-than-level playing field on which the blue box funding negotiations take place, and how poorly equipped the good folks at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) are to take on the mighty industry lobby.
Where, I cried, is  the knight in shining armour it so desperately needs--even if he is wearing an oversized hockey sweater, in keeping with the mandatory winter sports metaphor?
And then, just a few short days after sending my scribblings along the ether to the editor, and ultimately to the reading public via the publication itself, AMO sends out an Alert.
Tell us what you really think about those in-kind ads, it said.
And they did. The ads are no good and we want cash instead, they said.
This is of course not "news" to anyone, but it helps in these matters to have these things verified.
And this then is the message the AMO reps took to the Waste Diversion Ontario board the very next week.
There was a new face at the table this time. Someone had finally noticed that Toronto had not renewed its AMO membership (it's a long and rather sad story, primarily about ego…).
And so the new AMO chair was now formally occupying the seat formerly occupied by Toronto councillor Bas Balkissoon.
By all accounts, Roger Anderson was not wearing an oversized hockey sweater or riding a white charger, but it does appear that there was a bit more muscle in the board room. The

elbows were suddenly a little higher and no one was holding back when there were collisions on the boards. Just ask Team CNA/OCNA.
The backroom boys can lobby the referee all they want off the ice but there is a rulebook and Roger and company have every right to ask that those rules be respected.
     In the meantime, Team CSR continues to rule the ice at the WEEE arena with a dream team. (There has to be a better way to describe the e-waste "stream"  - darned Europeans.)
    As the only side with players on the ice for the first two periods of the research playoffs the ref seemed to have little choice but to award the points to them.
    But if they win the third period I think we will see the word "conflict" in several sports page headlines.
How they even have the nerve to enter a team is beyond me.
    What is also beyond me is why CSR wouldn't put their star players from MacViro and RIS up front, rather than adding their names at the end of the roster.
     But then, you have likely heard enough about ego for one day.