I watched history last night as the Mayor of Hamilton got censured by his colleagues for his conduct.  I felt the air suck out of the Council Chambers when Council voted unanimously in favour and none spoke to the motion. I heard insiders tell me their versions of events in the hallway even before the meeting was officially over.

At the end of the meeting the Mayor said he would use “introspection” to learn from this, and soon after Councillor Whitehead was telling CHML Bratina had “the makings of best mayor for the city”.  

Councillor Merulla - the author of the motion and the man who unleashed a maelstrom with his comments to me in this week’s Laircast http://bit.ly/GV9Aua  - now wants us all to start a new chapter so we can get on to more important things.

I want the Mayor to learn from this, Council to work together better, and the drama to end - especially after this week.

This week behind-the-scenes Hamilton was at its worst.  Sure politics is a blood sport, but this week the knives were particularly sharp.  I had a few pointed at me for my interviews in the Lair. Angry phone calls, emails from insiders flying around, too much talk of lawyers and slander. It’s a wonder anyone got any real work done.

I have on very good authority that Council’s decision to vote as a unit, to have no discussion and to not do an in-camera intervention, was in large part due to the comments Sam made to me in the Laircast and the subsequent advice Council received.

Some Councillors did not support Sam’s statements, some likely did not want to get into trouble, and others did not want to heap any more embarrassment on the city.

So knowing the reason for the abrupt  180 from some Councillors, and the rationale behind Council speaking (or not speaking) with one voice, I am both hopeful and skeptical.

First the skepticism: Since it was such a messy process to get to that decorum we witnessed last night can we really believe they will all move past the dagger throwing and give the Mayor a fresh start?  

Can such a dysfunctional political culture really begin to function?  

Shouldn’t we have each of our representatives state on the record why they supported a historic motion - even if its after the fact - for the sake of transparency?

These are legitimate questions that anyone who has watched Council closely over the years needs to ask.

So why am I hopeful? Because as I looked at all of the beautiful Hamilton babies at a Momstown event this morning, I need to believe that we can be better than this for them. For the future of our city.  For the poor who need help. For the young entrepreneurs who have faith. For all of us.

I need to take Council’s ability to come together in a critical moment and use restraint  to mean that they can work together when it matters on other issues.

I need to believe that the prayer delivered at the start of last night’s Council meeting  for “unity and harmony” has resonance for all who heard it.

So I will keep my skepticism at bay while I watch closely for evidence that Council will indeed lead the city in starting a new chapter. I will hope for a productive, progressive and low-drama city government to emerge.

I am prepared to turn the page.  Are you? 

Don’t kid yourself - the scandal rocking Hamilton that is known as Peggygate is not just about money.  It’s not even really about Peggy.  

Peggygate is about much more than Peggy Chapman the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, her shocking 30k raise, or the attempts to shift blame to City Staff.

It’s more serious than that.  Peggygate is really about Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina and what the Hamilton Spectator columnist Andrew Dreschel recently dubbed his “political paranoia”.

Paranoia is defined as: “An illogical fear or suspicion of people, companies or organizations being consciously against you, and the belief that they are constantly trying to ”get” you… the thought process, which is heavily influenced by anxiety and/or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion” (Urban Dictionary).

There is evidence of this political paranoia dating back to before the word Peggygate existed.

A week before the Mayor and Peggy made that fateful call to give me as Producer of the OShow the exclusive about her raise, I had conducted an interview with them on my podcast www.laircast.com where the Mayor immediately railed against the media for their agenda against him - a complaint he had already made in other forums.

The subsequent raise to Peggy, the public announcement of it, and the storytelling about its origins wasn’t just about fair compensation. The raise was also about sending his critics a clear message that he would defend his often maligned and most valued, loyal employee at all costs.

The message may have been sent, but the cost to his reputation was so grave that it made the decision a totally irrational one.

His political paranoia was even more painfully on display in this week’s explosive missive to the Hamilton Spectator.  He was so vitriolic and accusatory that it has caused Council to consider censuring him AGAIN, and Hamiltonians to inundate me with emails, Facebook comments and tweets - from a former Cabinet Minister who calls the scandal “an embarrassment for Hamilton” to people asking about his state of mind.

There is a warning in media relations that you don’t want to chum the waters of a scandal because the media sharks will smell the blood and start a feeding frenzy on you.

Bratina’s letter this week wasn’t just throwing chum in the water - he slit his neck and threw himself in the shark tank. 

It was such a destructive move that yesterday on the Bill Kelly Show on 900 CHML,  Bill and I struggled to understand why a smart man would do such an ill-advised thing http://www.mediafire.com/?051qkqcfkekxjj1

The important question is: if the Mayor doesn’t change course how do we stop the destruction that is Peggygate?

How do we stop this scandal that is wasting Council’s time, distracting Hamiltonians from other important issues, embarrassing our city, and hurting the Mayor and those closest to him - including Peggy?

Council must try to deal with the underlying issues - not just the Mayor’s official conduct.

They need to deal with the anger and political paranoia the Mayor is displaying.  They need to understand why their colleague feeling so besieged and help him out of his growing isolation.  

To merely have the Mayor fire Peggy, or punish him by censure is to potentially reinforce what he may already be feeling: that people are out to “get him” and those close to him.

Yes Council can and will continue to function well in spite of all the drama coming from the Mayor’s Office - but they shouldn’t - to let it fester is to do a disservice  to the citizens of Hamilton, our productivity and our image as a City.

We have two years left in this term of office.

It’s time for Council to get past their justifiable outrage and punishment options, and find a substantive solution to the real Peggygate problem. Fast. 

I love text messaging.  The most popular communication tool on earth, it has had an amazing impact on the world.  Think Arab Spring - protest movements can organize themselves on the go with this affordable, effective tool giving them an advantage for the first time over oppressive regimes. Even my husband and I talk much more during the work day with quick texts than we ever did with just email.

Using text messaging to send sexy messages (or sexting) has been around for a while and also has its obvious benefits.  Even for teenagers it is a convenient way to flirt (I am not advocating for teenage sexting but let’s be real - much of adolescence is exploring your sexuality).

So given my appreciation for the technology and my liberal attitudes towards sex in general, I surprised myself by my visceral reaction to a tweet from a CHCH TV reporter about young girls sending naked pictures of themselves via text.  I really lost it though, when I learned their pictures are being traded like baseball cards by boys.

I thought: “Just when I thought we had reached more equality as women we have girls being exploited and traded.”

I put my outrage out on Twitter and collected a range of responses from “boys are just horny” to “its not a lack of equality, its lack of wisdom”, to an explanation that they may just want attention.

I am sure all of these are true.  But I think we are missing something more insidious in this discussion beyond the obvious fact that girls are still so needy for male approval that they are exposing themselves. (Ugh)

We are missing the fact that girls are too competitive with EACH OTHER.  Every woman knows that when girls spend hours getting ready to go out it is to impress other girls not boys.  Guys don’t care about the latest fashions or nail colours.  They probably prefer less makeup.  But that doesn’t stop girls from putting hours of time and all their cash into clothes and beauty products.

If you were a teenager you know this.  If you saw Mean Girls you know this.  If you watch any reality show where they divide teams into genders (like a recent episode of Top Chef Texas) the narrative is always that the females will destroy each other in a competition to the benefit of the more team-oriented men.  As unappealing as that is to me there is truth to it.

So I can’t help wondering if sending out naked pictures knowing that other girls are doing it too, and that they will be viewed by more that one person - essentially judged - is in part a more destructive level of competition between girls.

Competition is great - but hanging your self-worth on the need to best your competitor at any cost is dangerous.  

These girls will be mocked, minimized, and have to endure a lifelong regret that only the digital age guarantees. We could do stupid things in high school and hope everyone forgets over time. No more thanks to the internet. They are stuck with stupid.

So this begs the question:  How can I possibly protect my daughter from this kind of voluntary self exploitation?

My best guess is to teach her self respect so that she instinctively knows her body is too precious to casually share.

But isn’t there more we can do than just try to install self respect in our daughters?  

As women we can model examples that are less catty and competitive, more supportive and self-assured.  

We can channel our competitive instincts to changing the world for the better - something I believe women may be uniquely positioned to do.

Let’s show high school girls that not only is sending naked pictures of yourself NOT the way to get the guy, it is also not necessary to compete with other girls to the point of damaging yourself.  As a females we are simply better than that.

PS - as soon as I tweeted out the link to this blog I received a suggestion from a mother that I wanted to share:  Team-building exercises for girls: GENIUS.

The all guilty verdict in the Shafia “honor killing” trial caught me off-guard. It wasn’t the verdict itself (which was a no-brainer), it was how fired up I became when I heard it.

As a woman this a blatant case of the worst kind of violence against women. When you kill a woman or girl because they are female it’s Femicide. Screw a misguided sense of “honor” - it is about control, power and pride (in the vice sense of the word). 

This was also a blatant case of parents killing their children - inconceivable to me as a mom. I am looking at my 18 month old daughter as I write this and hope she grows up to be a liberated, self-determining, confident woman - all the traits that seemingly got the Shafia girls killed. Tragic. 

And as a Canadian I am fiercely proud that we sent a message to the world that while we are a welcoming nation, we defend the universal values of human rights and justice for all. 

My hope in all of this is that the girl terrified of her abuser knows that we don’t think she deserves to be hurt for being HERself - that she is a victim and there can be justice. 

And that the abuser feeling a need to control and punish a woman thinks twice - because there is no honor in hurting a woman and he will be brought to justice. 

I have hope this message will mean these three girls and woman didn’t suffer and die in vain.

Let’s get the message out.  Let our actions help bring honour to their memory.