The Garden City Refugee

DOGE Niagara

February 24, 2025

South of the border, lefties are losing their minds over the Trump administration’s new DOGE. Slush funds for pet projects are being slashed left, right and center. And with it goes the dependence on the state these Marxists crave. Slowly, but surely, the swamp is being drained. I can practically hear the sludge circling the drain.

Not that I expect one any time soon, but there is a clear need for a DOGE in Niagara. And though hardly exhaustive, here are some of the more obvious targets for defunding:

• Public Health: During the war, they gleefully basked in the limelight of their own self-importance, selling themselves as divine gifts sent from on high to save us from Armageddon. Today, their bureaucrats are desperately trying to cling to relevance by spending our money reminding us to bundle up for the cold weather. Well, gee, thanks. I’d have gone out in a short-sleeved T-shirt and froze my buns off if it wasn’t for Public Health. And for the handful of people still on the booster train, they’re still pushing those poison injections that have killed so many and are directly responsible for the excess demand on our already strained healthcare system. There’s perhaps no more obvious target for a massive budget cut, if not an outright elimination, than Public Health. And just think of how many lives would be saved without these poison pushers, who are still coming for your children.
  
  
• St. Catharines Downtown Association: These left-wing ideologues sit in their ivory tower and see themselves as the saviors of our crumbling downtown. How could downtown business owners possibly survive without us? they must wonder. When, in fact, they would do a lot better without them. It’s enough of a struggle to keep a business afloat downtown without having to pay additional taxes to the SCDA, which effectively functions as the municipal arm of the anti-business NDP, at times, working against the interests of their involuntary members. Worse still, those involuntary members have virtually no voice as to the organization’s governance. And yet the SCDA emphatically claims to represent them and any suggestion that the SCDA is anything else other than God’s gift to downtown is met with scorn and derision. Saying such a thing on their social media sites will get you blocked. Pay your taxes and shut up is their attitude. The SCDA is a scourge on our city and its elimination is long overdue. Support our downtown, but defund the SCDA.
  
  
• DEI: Slowly, but surely, DEI is being wiped from the landscape. Large corporations and even universities are ditching it in favor of merit-based systems. Long overdue, I say. It should never have been a thing in the first place. Yet did you know that the City recently sunk a million dollars of your money and mine into this divisive Affirmative Action program? And the Region is fully on board with it as well. All while our “mayor” and councilors moan and groan about budgetary pressures. When directly asked why the funding was approved, the late Councilor Garcia bumbled and stumbled while punting the question over to an unelected staff member. Every dollar spent on DEI is a wasted dollar. It needs to be eliminated yesterday.
  
  
• Neighborhood Micro Grants Program: Next time you wonder why your property taxes are so high, look no further than the City’s Neighborhood Micro Grants Program. Residents can apply for up to $1,500 in funding to support neighborhood projects and events such as picnics, potlucks, community workshops, book exchanges, arts and crafts, food drives and more. Wheee! Picture Santa Claus in his sleigh going up and down your block tossing money out of a sack. Who says Christmas is just a late December thing? Sounds great. Except that Santa’s sack is filled with your money. To say the least, this is an absolutely outrageous waste of our stolen money and needs to go by the way of the dodo bird posthaste.
  
  
• Community Gardens Funding Program: Community groups looking to establish new gardens or improve existing ones can apply to receive matching funds from the City. See above. Santa 2.0. If you want to plant tomatoes in your back yard, go for it. But do it on your own dime, not mine. How this program has escaped the chopping block is beyond me.
  
  
• Summer Jobs Program: Recently, the City set up a booth at the Niagara College Career Fair, recruiting for summer student jobs with their Green Spaces, Historical Services and Aquatics teams. Work with us to make a difference in our community, they say. Funny, but I always used to think that property taxes were for roads and sewers, not as a summer jobs program for Niagara College students. The City can make a bigger difference in our community by axing this along with a shitload of other positions.
  
  
• Politicians: No region in the province has more municipal politicians per capita than here in Niagara. And yet reducing that number is not a priority, according to the ghost of Jim Bradley. You wouldn’t be getting enough representation, he says. As things currently stand, we’ve got an army of politicians, but virtually no representation at all. Adding a hundred more won’t mean a thing. What we really need is a lot less. And politicians who believe the state is the servant, not the master.