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FILION’S BLAME GAME IN AN EFFORT TO DISTRACT FROM THE COMMUNITY’S LEGITIMATE CONCERNS
Willowdale Manor Seniors Home -- Modular Housing Project at 175 Cummer Avenue -- Councillor Filion’s Friday January 21, 2022 newsletter (see link here) has now confirmed “The project is indefinitely on hold…”.
There is also mounting evidence that the City has poured tens of millions in public resources into this ill conceived development -- Enough money for the City to have purchased an actual condo unit for each of the 59 homeless men Mr. Filion wants to house in containers on the front lawn of a seniors home!
Mr. Filion has blamed MPP Hon. Stan Cho and condemned Voices of Willowdale for spreading “ deliberate falsehoods”.
Mr Filion won’t admit that all 3 major neighbourhood community groups (Bayview Cummer Neighborhood Association, Silverview Community Association and Voices of Willowdale ) are on the record against the taking of these parklands at the front door of a seniors facility housing hundreds of elderly residents.
And Mr. Filion claims that that the thousands of people who have signed online and written petitions are all “misinformed” by “deliberate falsehoods”. Of course Mr Filion is being untruthful -- as he wildly misrepresents the very well articulated issues on the public record at
- VOW website
- 13 comprehensive online newsletters at VOW NEWS
- dozens of articulate evidence based online posts VOW SOCIAL
It is our opinion that Mr. Filion is walking a fine line between hardball dirty politics and unethical and potentially illegal conduct. Mr. Filion and his enablers at the City are trying to circumvent all the rules. They refuse to disclose information and they refuse to participate in any hearing run by an independent tribunal, which determines whether the rules of land development are being properly respected.
They do so, in typical authoritarian style, claiming they must act quickly and not be subject to any questioning or oversight because they are rushing to address an urgent need. This excuse seems especially lame when one notes that the City has had almost a year to go through the normal process but has refused to proceed normally. There is only one reason they would do that --- because they know the site would never pass scrutiny under the Planning Act. They are insistent on forcing a square peg into a round hole. This behaviour by public officials is now well beyond unacceptable.
It is tragic that it takes neighbourhood volunteers to come to the defense of frail seniors housed in a City run home, for whom English is a non-native language or in many cases don’t speak English at all.
The community’s outrage at the secret and dictatorial approach led by Mr Filion, to strip seniors of their rights to their legally protected parklands, and without due process, is something this Councillor cannot wiggle out of. His deceptive approach is an affront to the community he claims to represent. The fact Mr Filion moved away from this community and now lives in the decidedly more upscale Beaches neighbourhood makes it even worse.
Thank heavens a government representative who has the power to stop this abuse of process did listen – and that is MPP Stan Cho. The person being attacked by Mr. Filion for “pandering” is in fact the only one listening to seniors, to residents and to the rules of our democratic system.
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