Maybe I have covered one too many dead student stories to find Mayor Joe Fontana very funny.
Just flipping through my mental Rolodex, I can name a dozen or so kids who died too soon during my 20-year newspaper career. I know there are more. I have certainly covered the deaths of far more students than that, for many of whom my paper never reported the cause of death even though it was clearly recorded on the police report.
You’ll find parents aren’t quick to put that kind of information in an obituary. ‘Died in an alcohol-related incident’ isn’t what you want for your child’s epitaph.
Each makes my heart ache, especially now as a father myself.
I feel for these kids. You know, it’s hard enough at their age to make the right decision, given a combination of budding maturity, peer pressure and a campus drinking culture allowed to fester across North America for too long. Try as we might – as parents, university staff, colleagues – we cannot make decisions for them.
So understand it doesn’t help when you have supposed grown-ups deciding to walk around like idiots.
Enter Joe Fontana.
Seems His Honour got caught up in the moment addressing hundreds of first-year students during O-Week. I wasn’t there, so I don’t have a direct quote from my ears. But many students who were have reported it widely, especially across social media. The mayor has even defended his comments, not walking them back one bit.
“Your school president is going to tell you to work hard, but I say that’s bullshit,” Fontana reportedly said. “If you’re in trouble, call the police. But if you’re having fun, call me, ’cause I wanna join.”
Now, I know the mayor is a notoriously unpredictable speaker, one who shoots his mouth off with all the subtly of a rusty chainsaw. Usually, he is just an embarrassment, akin to that uncle who has one sherry too many before Thanksgiving dinner.
But this ranks among his most patently offensive, and even dangerous, moments.
I know we are a non-confrontational university. We are polite, even to the point of catatonic, when it comes to calling out the city. President Amit Chakma isn’t going to jump out publicly on this. He prefers a diplomatic posture.
OK, then let me say it:
You would be hard-pressed to find a more ridiculous statement made by an elected official to a body of young people. Fontana owes not only those students, but this university, an apology.
There are numerous people on this campus who have worked too hard for too long not only to shed our once strong ‘party school’ image, but to make this a safe environment for students to live, work and play. The mayor’s comments are an insult to that work, and show an ignorance of what faces today’s campus leaders.
“If I would have went up there, and I would have started to lecture them, you know what? They would have started to hiss, boo and tune me out,” Fontana told the London Free Press last week.
Seriously? Those were the two options – getting booed or acting a fool?
You don’t see Amit showing up to a ribbon-cutting for the city’s latest methadone clinic, saying something like “I don’t care what your mayor says, pop ‘em if you got ‘em. And if you score some Oxy, gimme a call.”
What an opportunity the mayor had to stress the nature of community he expects from these kids getting their first taste of London. Talk about how London will embrace them as friends, citizens, volunteers, mentees and the like, but also explain how they will be held accountable like adults if they show disrespect to the city.
In other words, it was an opportunity to be the grow-up in the room, and not one of the gang.
Believe me, His Honour will be the first one out there decrying the youth today when the next Fleming Drive riot takes place. And I wonder where he will be when the next student turns up dead from a drinking-related incident.
Sadly, it will happen. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next. But it is one of the truisms of running a small city filled with young people. Tragedy will strike.
It’s a solemn promise we make as an institution charged with the care of young people. More than our promise to educate is our promise to keep them safe. Without it, without that trust, the whole system collapses.
So to have a mayor, a supposed grown-up, address a crowd of incoming students like an amped-up frat boy is beyond embarrassment. It’s dangerous as it reinforces an attitude many have fought against for years.
A lot of Joe’s supporters will just chalk this up to ‘Joe being Joe.’ But I am not so quick to write it off. Just because you cannot shut up, doesn’t mean what words erupt forth don’t have consequences.
I would say the mayor needs to think before he speaks. But we know that’ll never happen.
So perhaps we don’t need to extend the invite next year.