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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 02 October 2026

With our Library again in turmoil it’s time for Board meetings to be put on-line. 

At the moment, if you want to know what the Board is talking about you've got to take yourself along to the Library and sit in.

Years ago when I wandered in to the Board Room for the first time, Board members were so shocked to see a member of the public they all stood up in turn and shook my hand.

These days, as was the case back then, the public is noticeable by its absence.

Town gives Library $4M  

The Library gets a lot of public money but very little public scrutiny.

In 2025 the Library received an operating grant from the Town of $3,953,368 and just over $70,000 from the Province. 

At Tuesday’s “Meet and Greet” I asked all the candidates running for election if they would support streaming Library Board meetings. Almost all were in favour.

The odd man out is Tom Vegh. He may be in favour but I never got the chance to talk to him about it. He flounced off before I had exhausted all the questions I had for him.

Former Library Board member, Ward 3's Jane Twinney, is in favour. So too is current Board member, Ward 4’s Trevor Morrison. Ditto the acclaimed Bob Kwapis.

Kelly Broome to move motion putting the Board on-line

I asked the current Library Board Vice Chair, Ward 6's Kelly Broome, if she would bring a motion forward to the Library Board recommending its meetings go on line. She agreed and her motion will be considered at the next Board meeting on 21 October 2026. (Photo right)

After the meeting, the affable Bob Kwapis (whose Ward 5 is home to the Library) emailed me:

"Thanks for your question about the library meetings. I used the Council meeting example with you, however it would be more appropriate to use the BIA meetings as an example.  All BIA meetings are broadcasted, this is one of the reasons that the BIA meetings are held at the Council chambers. The chamber is all set up for live broadcast, and it makes it easy to do. I am not sure if technical modifications would be needed for the library to broadcast their meetings. Beside that possible limitation, I do believe that the library meetings should be broadcasted, similarly to the BIA meetings."

Since my deputation to the Library Board on 17 December 2025 about library statistics I have been a fly on the wall at every Board meeting since. Sitting at the back, behaving myself. It is the best way to find out what is going on. And even then you don’t get the full picture. The minutes are terse and uninformative. 

Guarded and Monosyllabic

The whispering Chief Executive, Tracy Munusami, is guarded and monosyllabic. According to the staff she’s never in the building. 

Long-serving employees, loyal to the library, are a particular target of hers. They get the death stare. 

Ms Munusami has been in the job for over five years now with “outreach” her big thing. Too bad her aloof and disengaged management style has alienated Library workers every step along the way.

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Note: An increasing number of Ontario libraries are now streaming Board meetings. This is our near neighbour, Georgina.

CUPE rep Amanda Pearson speaks for staff on 30 September 2026

and before that on 15 April 2026

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 30 September 2026

Newmarket’s Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor is running for a third term and, once again, there is no election debate. The local Chamber of Commerce and the local media no longer organise them. And, tragically, no-one else is stepping into the vacuum created except in Ward 1. (See below)

Instead we have a "Meet and Greet".

So, I wander along to Newmarket’s Seniors’ Meeting Place last night (29 September 2026) to chat to all the candidates running for election. I also bring along a thick sheaf of Tom Vegh’s flyers from earlier campaigns, hoping for an update on promises delivered, discarded or still work in progress.

It goes off the rails right away. As soon as Tom Vegh spots my iphone he moves into cardiac arrest territory, declaring he isn’t going to be interviewed.

I wave his leaflets from his 2018 campaign which was an open race.

The then Deputy Mayor, John Taylor, was going for the top job and the Deputy job was vacant.

Tom Vegh WILL 

I am intrigued by some of Vegh’s vintage promises:

“Tom Vegh will double the number of housing subsidies available for Newmarket seniors.”

and

“Tom Vegh will triple the number of spaces available for affordable supportive seniors’ housing.”

I want to know what definitions he was using. A quick tour of the literature tells me it is complex and I need help in understanding the full picture.

There’s assisted living for high risk seniors. There’s long term care and so on. I want Tom Vegh to explain it all to me. He says:

“We’re working on it at York Region.”

I say:

“Eight years later, you’re working on it?”

Vegh replies:

"Still working on it, and we have increased it."

By this stage the Deputy Mayor is anxious. He is desperate to escape rather than do the adult thing and chat for five minutes.

Tax rises below the cost of living

What about:

“Tom Vegh will limit tax increases to the cost of living.” 

Vegh repeated this promise in 2022. 

Most years the Town/Region tax increases have been above the rate of inflation. 

And we were told that:

“Tom Vegh will convert the old fire station on Main Street into an artists’ hub.”

It is now a pub. 

Vegh just finds it difficult to persuade people to his point of view.

There is no shame in making a promise and failing to convince your colleagues – Vegh’s vote on the Council has the same weight as everyone else’s. 

But just to sit like a lemon and not argue the case is unconscionable.

Newmarket + York Region tax increases vs. inflation

Election Debates

A healthy democracy is more than the simple counting of votes. The voters should be engaged and informed especially in this new world of AI which can produce sophisticated election material targeted at specific demographics with little human input. A lot of stuff from Vegh again focusses on seniors.

But we've got to look beyond the election flyers and lawn signs. Candidates also need to be tested one against the other. 

And the time honoured way of doing this is by the election debate, impartially moderated by an independent person acceptable to both sides.

Sanitised

A “Meet and Greet” is not a substitute for an election debate. It reduces our municipal politics to its most elementary and sanitised form. No opportunity for candidates to quiz and test each other’s policies and proposals on a public stage. 

If Newmarket’s Mayor were to fall under a bus tomorrow and a vacancy unexpectedly opened up, does anyone seriously believe a “meet and greet” would be enough to meet that moment?

In fact, John Taylor tells me he strongly believes in election debates.

But how are they going to happen if the Chamber and local media refuse to get involved?

What is to be done?

The answer is for municipalities themselves to step up and use the powers they already have (or what ChatGPT tells me they have).

ChatGPT comes with a health warning – and it does get a lot of things wrong – but I am told:

“In Ontario, there is a strong legal basis for a municipality to fund and commission an independent, arm’s-length body or individual to organise non-partisan candidates’ debates, including debates for municipal, provincial and federal elections. The municipality would need to structure the arrangement carefully, particularly around neutrality, municipal resource policies and the statutory role of an integrity commissioner.”

It’s now urgent. 

The Conservative candidate (and now our MP), Sandra Cobena, did not participate in any public all-candidates’ debates in Newmarket Aurora during the 2025 Federal Election. (She attended a school debate at Sacred Heart which was not open to the public.)  Likewise our Progressive Conservative MPP, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, boycotts debates. The list goes on.

And debates for municipal candidates at Ward level are becoming rarer year by year.

But intriguingly, there is a debate for Newmarket Ward 1 Candidates (an open contest with no incumbent) at the New Roads Performing Arts Centre in Pickering Crescent, Newmarket on Monday 19 October from 7pm – 8.30pm. But double check the date, time and venue.

So debates are not entirely a folk memory yet.

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Read more: The Case Against Tom Vegh

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 28 September 2026

It was a beautiful sunny early Fall afternoon in Newmarket. And down at Riverwalk Commons there was a decent turnout for Dawn Gallagher Murphy's fifth taxpayer funded BBQ. 

Our MPP was flanked as usual by Spiderman and (I think) Marie "let them eat cake" Antoinette.  (Photo right)

The event ran from 2pm-4pm. But after 3.30pm things were seriously winding down.

You could get a camera angle suggesting the place was teeming with people. Or, if you wanted to, you could give the impression it was half deserted.

Here is my selection taken at various times during the afternoon. 

We shall find out in due course how much this cost us.

In the meantime, and while she pulls all the invoices together, I asked ChatGPT to tell me what what Gallagher Murphy has said recently about the deficits being run by the Province.

"The clearest statement I found in Dawn Gallagher Murphy’s own words was in the Legislature on 21 October 2025. She criticized the previous Liberal government for having “raised taxes, ran deficits and allowed Ontario’s credit rating to fall,” then said the Ford government had “restored fiscal discipline and put Ontario’s finances back on track.” So her identifiable personal position in the material I found is that past Liberal deficits reflected mismanagement, while the current government has restored fiscal discipline. Her website simultaneously published forecasts showing continuing Ontario deficits and a later date for returning to balance." 

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 27 September 2026

It has been brought to my attention - by the Mayor himself no less - that my description of his position on electoral reform was inaccurate.

I opened my blog with this statement:  

Newmarket Mayor, John Taylor, is in favour of mandatory voting, supports electoral reform and – with all its challenges and some real dangers – is on the side of AI. And he would like to see education become the responsibility of regional councils (in two-tier municipal areas like York Region) or single tier municipalities elsewhere. And education should develop curiosity and creativity, fostering debate, discussion and democracy. 

At no point in the evening did Taylor express support for electoral reform. He said he was in favour of compulsory voting which was, I think, the first time I’d heard this. I made the mistake of conflating this with his previously stated views on electoral reform. This was just sloppiness on my part.

I’ve known for years that Taylor is an “unabashed fan of ranked ballots”. He said that way back in 2019. I don’t know if that is still his position. 

Compulsory voting is different from embracing a new electoral system, replacing First Past the Post.

"I'm an unabashed fan of ranked ballots"

This is what Mayor Taylor told his colleagues on 14 May 2019 at a Special meeting of the Town’s Committee of the Whole:

“I'm an unabashed fan of ranked ballots. I think in this context, it's a little tricky. The financial consideration, the fact that we're doing online voting, and we're just getting going on that, and the fact that we only have London (Ontario) to look to, and, you know, you want to manage your risks and manage everything else, but I think there's a great deal to be said for it. 

I think this last election here in Newmarket was relatively, if not very polite, and having witnessed many over many, many years that aren't necessarily that way. I believe that there's evidence internationally that ranked ballots can do a lot to improve the tone and tenor of elections, and create a different type of conversation, a more respectful debate, focussed on issues and ideas, over personalities, because of the fear that you could lose people's second place vote, if you start slandering, frankly, their candidate. 

… in most communities, in every election, there's at least one race that might be changed, and the other way of putting that is that, in every, in many elections, someone is elected that the majority of residents would not have voted for.

And a ranked ballot takes that out. That means that the person that most want gets elected. And you don't have this vote splitting with one person with 30% or 35% of the vote, getting elected, even though the majority of people wouldn't have voted for them if there was a system in place where they could express that. 

So I think there's clear democratic advantages. I think there's advantages to the respectfulness, and we need to think deeply about the voter disenfranchisement due to the tone of elections North America wide..."

As I say, I don't know if this is still Taylor's position.

If his views have changed I shall let you know.

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Update on 28 September 2026: The Mayor tells me earlier today: 

"I think electoral reform deserves our attention given the well documented shortcomings of our first past the post system. I like ranked ballots especially for municipal, possibly for provincial and federal too. I would have to spend a lot of time studying options and examples to be sure about what reform may or may not work at the provincial and federal level but our current system creates enough democratic shortcomings that it warrants a serious look at all options. I hope Canada takes a deep dive on this issue and creates a meaningful dialogue on the pros and cons of the various options. This work is long overdue." 

I am glad that's sorted out.