This holiday season, cleanse memories of terrible politics with metaphorical flames
City Hall by Paul Dechene
For some, the holiday season is a time to gather with friends and family. A time to share a meal, brightly wrapped gifts and warm memories of the year gone by.
Speaking of warm memories of the year gone by, the holiday season is also the time for Shit Fireplace.
Shit Fireplace is perhaps Regina’s greatest holiday tradition. It was created by Eric Hill and Jeff Meldrum in 2016 — a suitably shitty year — and for it, they gather up a pile of thrift store junk and other detritus that represents a year’s particular brand of shittiness. Then they burn it in an outdoor fireplace.
And film it. And put it on YouTube.
And every year, the fire grows a little more elaborate.
Last year, Shit Fireplace torched a derelict farm building. This year, it made a pyre of a pile of wooden pallets. Other highlights from Shit Fireplace 2022 are a copy of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and an effigy of Elon Musk dressed as Santa.
By the time you’re reading this, Regina city council will have wrapped their 2022. Here is my list of the top council things I’d like to add to this year’s Shit Fireplace.
CATALYST KINDLING Council’s Catalyst Project misadventure continues with their final recommendations expected in mid-January. Based on the recently released results of the Catalyst Committee’s online survey, the majority of Reginans are highly critical of this new direction, with the proposal for a downtown arena having been rejected by an overwhelming majority of respondents and only the plan for an indoor aquatic centre at the Sportsplex gaining strong acceptance. If the Committee’s recommendations will be as driven by community input as they promised, then the aquatic centre will go ahead and the rest of council’s Catalyst ambitions will be fuel for the Shit Fireplace.
BUDGET BONFIRE As I write this, the city’s first multi-year budget has yet to be considered and I’m staring at a 1,013-page agenda package which includes presentations submitted by 83 delegations! I think that’s a new record for budget packages. Without breaks or questions, that’s a seven-hour meeting and as excited as I am to see so many people getting involved with local government, that’s going to be a LONG one to sit through.
However, I have endured epic council meetings before.
The reason I want to consign the entirety of the 2022–23 budget to the flames is all the drama surrounding it.
You’ve probably heard Ward 6 Councillor Dan LeBlanc, who is a lawyer, is representing Florence Stratton and Ward 3 Councillor Andrew Stevens in a court application against new city manager Niki Anderson for failing to follow council direction on the budget.
Back in June, LeBlanc got unanimous council support on a motion directing administration to include a line item in the budget that would provide full funding to the initiative to end homelessness. Despite city clerk and then-acting city manager Jim Nicol confirming at the September budget update that staff were required to include that homelessness line item, when the draft budget was released, that council directive had been consigned to an appendix outside the budget calculations.
In response, LeBlanc initiated the court action to get the budget redone.
Mayor Sandra Masters defends Anderson and city staff by arguing this is just not how budgets have ever been put together. Administration is empowered to make their best recommendation and despite the wording of the motion, she says the intent of council was to follow regular procedure and consider homelessness funding as something that could be added in.
Word on the street is LeBlanc and Stevens’ court action has made Henry Baker Hall a less than festive place. I doubt there’s enough eggnog in the world to return city hall to a state of peace and joy.
NIMBY INFERNO Thing is, Regina actually made solid progress on ending homelessness this year when it approved a housing complex at 120 Broad Street. It’s intended to help people transitioning away from homelessness and most of the cash for the project came from the federal government’s Rapid Housing Initiative. This would’ve been an unmitigated good-news story except, no surprise, the neighbouring community came out to oppose the project saying they had been insufficiently consulted and they didn’t want housing targeted for single men located so close to their local school.
Of course, single men are over-represented in Regina’s homeless population which is why they are expected to occupy a portion of the units in this complex.
You have to wonder how we’re going to end homelessness if communities continue to find creative ways to oppose affordable housing. Solving homelessness will always be an uphill battle until we consign NIMBYism to the flames.
SHAWBACLE BEGONE Two complaints against Ward 7 Councillor Terina Shaw with the integrity commissioner ended in no formal action against her. Since then, she has apologized, promised to do better, changed her surname to Nelson* and been less of a loose cannon in meetings. Here’s hoping this continues and her cringe-worthy moments are in the past. If not: cringe is a difficult substance to burn but if we must, we must.
MORE TO BURN Ward 4 Councillor Lori Bresciani turned a motion to investigate removing parking minimums into a motion to investigate raising parking minimums on some properties. Council expanded the 46 per cent of downtown that’s surface parking by approving another parking lot on Lorne Street. Council added a loophole into the Official Community Plan so they could ignore their residential density targets whenever they want. The Transit Master Plan is getting slow rolled. And on top of all that, Elon Musk is burning Twitter to the ground which may bring my nine years of live-tweeting council meetings from @PDCityHall to a premature end. (Watch this space if I move.)
Enough flame-worthy shit went down this year that we could hit the renewable home heating targets in our all-but-forgotten Sustainability Framework just from the heat coming off Shit Fireplace.
Stay warm in 2023, everybody. And enjoy all Hill & Meldrum’s Shit Fireplaces this holiday season at instagram.com/shitfireplace or Shit Fireplace on YouTube. ■
* The surname change is due to Councillor Nelson completing a divorce process that started before she joined council.