One of the emails was from Rey Epema. My ‘fact-checking’ (which the emails accuse me of being very sloppy at) reveals that there is a Rey Epema who works for the provincial government’s Department of Justice and Attorney General. I am also told by another source, that Mr. Epema is the spouse of one June LeDrew, one of the three applicants who launched the legal action to quash several bylaws passed by RM 220 McKillop. Mr. Epema practically ‘demanded’ that I respond to his email by January 15th. Mr. Epema is not my boss, and I am not subject to his ‘demands’.
I now have the name of another person who seems to be speaking on behalf of the self-appointed RM220 Ratepayers Association. One other person who sent info to me from the RPA threatened to sue me when I characterized him as a spokesperson for the RPA. I hope that won’t be the case with Mr. Epema. By the way, after that incident, the RPA seems to have removed me from their email distribution list, so I do not receive their emailed news releases. And frankly, I don’t have the time, patience, or mental energy to ‘monitor’ the RPA website or social media sites for their (in my opinion) ‘propaganda-disquised-as-press-releases’. Like the RPA’s opinion of my news article, I find their ‘tracts’ one-sided and very biased. (Dictionary definition of ‘tract’: a short piece of writing, especially on a religious or political subject, that is intended to influence other people’s opinions). As far as I have been able to discern, the RPA is a secretive, self-appointed watchdog group established to undermine and frustrate the efforts of the RM220 council and administration. Who are the key players? As an ‘association’, who are the officers (president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer)? Is it registered? Is it a non-profit? Does it collect and remit GST? Etc. etc. etc.
An RM220 ratepayer (perhaps not a member of the RPA?) forwarded to me a copy of the Queen’s Bench Court decision. In my news article, I quoted directly from the Queen’s Bench Court decision document. I think those facts speak for themselves. So, whose ‘facts’ should I believe ...the Court of Queen’s Bench, or the RPA? The Court states, in paragraph 2 of the judgment, that the ‘original controversy had become moot since the respondent had taken steps to remedy the applicants’ concerns’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘moot’ in part as: ‘having little or no practical relevance’. So, in the case of the RPA lawsuit, the judge declared that it ‘had little or no practical relevance’. I interpret that (fairly, I think) as the Court ‘denying’ the legal challenge due to it being irrelevant.
The emails further claim (as does the RPA website) that, had the RPA not launched and continued to pursue their legal action, RM220 Council and Administration most certainly would not have corrected the legal / regulatory interpretation anomaly that led to the huge tax increase and lawsuit in the first place. In addition, they take credit for ‘saving’ RM220 ratepayers more than $1.3 million dollars in taxes! That is certainly (in my opinion) a real slap in the face to the democratically-elected members of the RM220 council, and its professional staff and provincially appointed advisors. The self-appointed (and certainly not democratically constituted) RPA has the audacity to claim it can better represent the interests of 1,800 RM220 ratepayers than can its democratically-elected council and its professional staff. How arrogant is that?
I was mistaken in my calculations concerning the amount of lawsuit-support donations successfully solicited by the RPA, and the subsequent legal costs incurred by the RPA, so I welcome the clarification. From perusing the information on the RPA’s web page, I understand their original intention (goal?) was to raise $250 from each of 400 people. If successful, that would have amounted to $100,000. From the Court document, I learned how much they were asking in ‘costs’ from the RM. So, I did some math,
The Times went to press late Friday afternoon, January 11th and the RPA did not publish their apparently correct donation and legal cost figures until January 13th. In their January 13th ‘press release’, they included this note in the very, very fine print: Monies were collected from Sept. 21 to Nov 15 via cheque, e-transfer and the RPA Go Fund Me page. The majority of ratepayers contributed $250 but several ratepayers declared financial hardship and contributed less. Over 200 households participated in the legal challenge (assuming 2 people per household) therefore -400 ratepayers were involved. Specific demographic data on participants was not obtained if an e-transfer was made or participants did not submit their August 18 tax notice or personal data with their cheques.
So, by their own admission, the RPA does not know how many actual individuals contributed to their ‘war chest’ (definition from Dictionary.com: money set aside or scheduled for a particular purpose or activity) for legal costs, or what the average donation per contributor was. And, even though they had collected $48,600 to offset their legal fees (only 48.6 percent of their target), the RPA was trying to get the cash-strapped RM of McKillop and its ‘over-taxed’ ratepayers to cover their entire legal costs! What a civic-minded and ratepayer-friendly association!
Thank goodness for a common- sense Court of Queen’s Bench Judge!
-editor, Dave Degenstien
