#LdnONT elitism rears its ugly head

Anyone who knows me knows I love my city. I wasn't born here in London, Ontario, but for 22 years it's been a wonderful home for my family and an amazing place to raise three kids. We've been able to lead a life here that simply wouldn't have been possible anywhere else, and for that we are grateful.

Loving my city, however, doesn't mean I'm blind to its faults. This is a city that hasn't always embraced diversity as much as it should. It could do a better job taking care of those who need more care. It has failed to take on, head-on, the kinds of issues, like transit, economic stimulus, and sustainable growth, that competing cities in our region and elsewhere embraced decades ago. We've often been so focused on petty political infighting that we've forgotten how to compete.

Every year, the mayor speaks at the State of the City breakfast at the downtown convention centre. This year, the sellout crowd of 1,400 heard newly elected mayor Ed Holder lay out his vision for London. As expected, his speech was chock full of potential. He led with a promise to create 13,000 jobs, and also pledged to do more for our most vulnerable citizens. Better transit, improved safety, and a more efficient permits and approvals process, rounded out his list of must-dos.

Sounds great. If you were there.

In past years, the event's organizer, the London Chamber of Commerce, has arranged a livestream of the speech. In the leadup to this morning's event, journalists covering it shared on social media that they expected the livestream to be available.

No dice. At 8:12 a.m., London Free Press reporter Megan Stacey confirmed that there would be no livestream, and London Chamber of Commerce CEO Gerry McCartney was the one who made the call. Here's Stacey's tweet:

"No live stream. Chamber of Commerce boss Gerry Macartney has put the brakes on that, says 'this is a private event. People buy tickets.' Can’t have it live streamed to the masses at home. Also says it screwed up equipment last year."

The response, as you might expect, was swift. Londoners of all political stripes scorched their social media feeds for most of the day, making it clear that they felt this decision was elitist to the core, and an ugly example of the kind of thinking that has long held this city back.

I fully concur. This isn't a football game whose multibillion-dollar TV deal requires broadcasters to black out the broadcast in the host city for fear of killing ticket sales. This is a democratically elected mayor sharing his perspective with the citizens of the city he leads.

With 1,400 people stuffing the main hall of the convention centre, it's obvious they didn't need to sell any more tickets. And even if it hadn't been a sellout crowd, the optics of three Airbus A-380s worth of people representing the business elite of the city - because they can afford the price of a ticket, or are sufficiently privileged to work for a sponsoring organization - having exclusive access to this critical message are, on a good day, ugly.

The thing is, I've worked with Mr. McCartney many times over the years, and I've always admired and respected him. Still do, in fact. But that admiration doesn't temper my disappointment in his inability to effectively read the population's tea leaves, and the reality that the very misconceptions he's worked so hard for so long to banish were reinforced, and then some, by his boneheaded decision to shut the livestream down.

The message, intended or not, was easy to follow: If you can't afford a ticket, you don't deserve to hear your mayor speak. Put another way, you've got to pay for access.

The "it screwed up equipment last year" is a damning statement about a city that's invested so much in attracting high-tech business to its core. London is far better than this - I know this because I work every day right in the middle of this ecosystem - and having our Chamber of Commerce so blithely block access because it fears losing ticket sales and it lacks the technical chops to livestream a guy talking from the podium for 30 minutes is a serious misstep that should not be allowed to stand the next time our mayor approaches a microphone.

Your turn: Thoughts?