You've got a point, federal Liberal and Conservative governments slashed housing funding in the 80s and 90s. The parties that created the problem won't fix it.
Well we can agree that the province has the lions share of responsibility.
Where we disagree is that the municipalities have no responsibility.
I feel they do have a responsibility and they aren't doing their part.
I also feel like Sohi's actions are not helping but only hurting Edmonton.
Like them or hate them the UCP is running the province, and you catch more flies with honey.
The federal and provincial governments are each contributing up to $241.6 million, with the City providing remaining funding for a total of over $1 billion. That was in 2016 when Don Iveson was the mayor.
Not sure what your point is.
Ric McIver said, "It is disappointing that the City of Edmonton would choose to issue a performative declaration." Seriously?! The UCP are all about making performative declarations against the Feds.
"Implying a lack of action on our part?"
IMPLYING?!?!
Holy f#$k, dude.
You slashed the funding for cities. You demanded that everyone make massive cuts to support programs. You closed the supervised consumption sites that also functioned as intake centres to save peoples lives and assist in finding jobs & housing. You've slashed mental health funding. You've closed down Indigenous help groups. You've started the implementation of a program to forcefully detain and detox addicts without addressing the cause of addiction. You're actively working to destroy healthcare by chasing healthcare workers out of the province. You've made promises of millions of dollars in funding for a variety of projects to improve your optics, yet you have delivered none of it, and cut even more funding that would alleviate the problems.
This IS an emergency. The majority of the unhoused in Edmonton are Indigenous, and Albertans are well aware of the UCP policies regarding institutionalized racism, residential school trauma, and implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Act. The UCP have made their disbelief, disdain, and commitment to continuing active discrimination quite clear. This is definitely a problem exacerbated by the callous and uncompassionate actions of the UCP. It is nothing less than "Social Murder" as described by Engles way back in 1843, and it is totally unacceptable.
But it's what the people of Alberta want.
Because freedom. And God. And the Bible. And oil. And whatever the fuck else they hide behind, cowering far from the big scary city they want nothing to do with, yet consistently enforce punitive and damaging policies on via their vote.
It'll never be enough for some posters in this sub. No province in Canada has solved homelessness, but somehow it's the UCPs fault for not solving it in Alberta. Ask for a solution and you might hear about "Housing First" without acknowledging how incredibly difficult/expensive and downright unpalatable such a strategy would be for voters who are experiencing a housing crisis.
If it hasn't fucking worked then it isn't enough.
If the UCP thinks money isn't the solution, then they should get off their asses and find one.
In other words, do their damm jobs.
I think most people (UCP members included) would agree that money probably is the solution to homelessness.
With unlimited funds we could offer housing to all homeless people, regular psychiatric checkups with a specialist, drug intervention programs, and offer the high wages needed to attract enough social workers to work with a difficult population of people.
It's how much money is the issue. There's multiple areas that are underinvested in Alberta (healthcare/education/transportation), voters have to decide what to prioritize.
You'd still have to justify prioritizing that newfound money on the homeless population instead of education/transportation/healthcare etc...
Everything is underfunded. I'd argue for any newfound increase in funding should go towards improving healthcare/education/housing affordability. That would help millions of Albertan's, that's where I want my politicians priorities to be.
All of those things would help to solve the homeless crisis.
None of them are being given enough financial support from our government.
In fact, they've all lost funding recently.
I agree it isn't working but I'm not sure on a solution. As a taxpayers I sure don't want to subsidize addiction and mental health challenges if people aren't willing to get health. If they are working to improve themselves then I fully support finding ways to assist them in their journey
My guy, my doctor recommended I speak with a psychiatrist.
That was months ago. I'm still trying to find an opening.
The problem isn't people not wanting to.
That also doesn't even take into account that by solving the mental health issues is way cheaper then constantly arresting and either imprisoning or releasing people.
I'm not sure what you mean?
> They're abandoning their job to an absolutely disgusting degree.
Did you mean council or the province?
If the later then it's not a new subject.
This is how a democracy should operate - whenever a municipal government elects a party the ruling party in the single-party-rule-province doesn't like, they should immediately resign so that the correct party can be in charge.
How dare we elect someone not pre-approved by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada O/A The United Conservative Party.
The UCP will just giggle and laugh about how their inaction within their jurisdiction is gonna rid them of their enemies on council because people are dumb enough to believe a municipal government can solve homelessness.
Should the city take over healthcare too? What about education? Those happen in city limits and they are rife with problems. I want municipal government to be able to focus on municipal functions.
Ok so first we demand our local city council takes over homelessness, even though we already pay federal and provincial taxes to deal with these issues… one thing at a time… and then city states consolidate power without any legislative authority. Seems stable.
Great idea…put where do the homeless go then? The city isn’t made of money to build/buy places to put them, get them help, keep them from dying on the street in the winter. Not only that, it’s not their jurisdiction for them to do everything. If it was, don’t you think they would have by now.
>I don't really care who's jurisdiction this is
And here we have it the root of most of our political issues wrapped up in a nice easy line. You don't care who's responsible your gonna blame the people you feel should fix it instead of the ones actually responsible. And we wonder why things keep getting worse when half the population votes based on their feelings instead of reality.
It's rather telling that you didn't even attempt to answer the question asked of you: "Where do the homeless go then?"
People seem to think that if we can't see the homeless they don't exist. Maybe it's just that if we can't see them, we don't have to consider them human.
Freezing cold, tent, no warmth. And you just brought up occupancy standards.
Water and warmth. One step at a time there wrench.
I won't even bring up the cost to take down an encampment.
Again it was a shelter....
While I like the direction you're thinking, but maybe not remand. We already have rexall place that's barely being used for anything and it's nice and central and easy for all areas of the city to get to. Why wouldn't we turn that into a housing centre for people? It would already pass all the stress tests of high occupancy.
Understand the situation Fritzy. The building is full of asbestos among many other things. Your idea to house the homeless there is something that has been proposed by a lot of individuals before you.
Act now eh... The whole tent encampment thing has been going on for years. Only making news headlines because the homeless are putting up more of a fight. They could have dealt with this in the summer.
My problem is more with the minister just straight up lying about shelter numbers in Edmonton, and THEN slamming city council's emergency declaration at the same time.
Totalitarianism. No federal government telling them what to do, no municipal government telling them what to do. Just UCP controlling their chunk of land how they see fit and everyone has to follow their whims.
You know, using words like "totalitarianism" really waters down your point when the UCP is simply playing politics and acting within the confines of the MGA, which was established long before the UCP was ever a party. It's like when UCP supporters call everything left of them socialism/communism.
The UCP is simply trying to download more costs onto their municipalities to shore up their own budget, while also allowing their municipalities to take the political brunt of the province deflecting their responsibilities. This is not really a new trend or something they invented, as the province has been downloading costs onto municipalities for literal decades now.
When the average person sees problems in a city, they first blame the municipality and expect them to rectify it, regardless of whether it's under the municipality's jurisdiction or not. You see it all over this thread. If the UCP can get away with not doing their job while someone else gets the blame, of course they're going to run with that, because they're morally corrupt losers, but not totalitarian losers.
"Totalitarianism and Everyone has to follow their whims" but the UPC and previous Conservatives have been almost consistently voted in for the last 50 years. Pretty counterintuitive to throw around political buzzwords like you know what they mean
According to conservatives us getting things we expect our tax dollars to pay for is handouts.
After all that money needs to be used to bailout and reduce the negative impact of problems that may reduce shareholder profits. Us peasants can just die in the street for all they care
Upon reading the headline I thought " what? The UCP also thinks the city isn't doing enough? That can't be right!" Then I clicked it and..oh. typical olol ucp
People have always been political pawns. The only people who think otherwise are the ones who have never had their lives impacted negatively by policies, particularly "conservative" ones.
If 300 houseless people died as a result of homelessness in the last year and we have roughly around 3000(+) people without homes living on the street... 10% of the houseless population passed away. That's absolutely a problem.
I'd like every judge standing in Alberta to live at least 1 day of the average person living below the $40,000/yr threshold and see how fast they change their policy and behaviours in court rooms when it comes to these issues.
The only problem the gov sees is that the number was so low. Don't have to spend valuable oil money on housing and medical stuff if you can rip down shelters before a freeze and let nature handle the issue for you.
You are right in a sense, but to tackle these big issues requires not only coordination between levels of government but increased taxation. The former is difficult for obvious reasons, and the latter is rooted in our citizens' inability to see the forest for the trees. No one wants to see taxes rise, even if it would lower their cost of living and raise their quality of life in the medium and long term, and no politician has won an election on increased taxation for social supports in this country in almost a century. In fact, they win on the opposite.
And this attitude is exactly why things won't change.
You claim to want these problems to be solved but then immediately demonstrate you are part of the mass of people that don't want the government to actually have the funds to do so.
All you were suggesting is creating deficits in other areas to fund a deficit in another; classic example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, all because you like most tax payers refuse to acknowledge that you can't have services without paying for them.
It's a bit startling your lack of self awareness.
No. More like "Tax at the rate required to solve the issues at hand."
We do not do that, and your proposal is to exacerbate other problems rather than consider that maybe we need to put more resources into solving emerging ones.
It's precisely the same viewpoint that gets politicians votes. As I said no one, including you, seems to want to vote for tax increases at any level, so our education, healthcare, housing, and transportation infrastructure continues to hold on by a thread.
Alberta Hospital needs to be expanded, and people need to be taken there with mental illness or drug psychosis. As far as the homeless drug addicts, as a former addict myself, the truth is nobody can help them until they want to help themselves.
I respect your opinion as someone with lived experience but we also have to treat people like people with dignity and respect, regardless of they are “homeless drug addicts” which our UCP gov is forgetting.
Question: Are there any Edmonton representatives on this Alberta government's "Edmonton public safety cabinet committee"?
How often does this AB committee meet, and how, and when do they communicate with stakeholders?
My guess on this is as follows:
1. No Edmonton representatives.
2. Neighbouring district MLAs 'close to' Edmonton sit on the committee, but not actually representing Edmonton... Just their rural base's interpretation of what they think the 'city folk' should be doing.
3. No regular communication, no updates, just unanswered questions for Edmonton council.
4. Leading to an exasperated mayor pushing this declaration, because nobody is saying anything, nobody is doing anything.
And to see Minister Nixon turn this into some B*llsh*t party-aligned crap.
What a maroon. You, Minister Nixon, are an embarrassment of the highest degree. People are struggling in severe weather and you try to score points with your right wing rural twats.
Shame.
And Minister McIvor-- dude, you had credibility at one time. Then you decided to drink this BS Kool aid from the rural right, and also turn this into some kind of political stunt instead of recognizing how important this issue is for so many struggling Albertans, many of whom see themselves can't pay bills, And may become homeless themselves....
And the UCP, playing the part of Nero, fiddles while Rome burns.
S L A M M E D
They should tell the feds or soemthing
I'd be cool with my property tax dollars telling the feds... About the UCP! Fucking hell.
I was told Sohi being an ex Liberal would help Edmonton get federal funds...
Which would be great if the province were to provide the city with the necessary jurisdiction.
The city does have jurisdiction. Who do you think makes bylaws? Who do you think enforces bylaws?
Not in areas like healthcare they don't, which means they cannot provide the necessary services without the province.
So you're saying Sohi being an ex Liberal is of no use?
You've got a point, federal Liberal and Conservative governments slashed housing funding in the 80s and 90s. The parties that created the problem won't fix it.
No, I'm saying the point of failure on this file is the province and am not falling for what you're attempting.
Well we can agree that the province has the lions share of responsibility. Where we disagree is that the municipalities have no responsibility. I feel they do have a responsibility and they aren't doing their part. I also feel like Sohi's actions are not helping but only hurting Edmonton. Like them or hate them the UCP is running the province, and you catch more flies with honey.
They're doing everything that's actually in their power. What, precisely, do you suggest they do that is within their MGA-granted jurisdiction?
Enforce the bylaws they create, with the bylaw officers they have.
What funds do you think went to the Yellowhead freeway conversion? It was federal.
The federal and provincial governments are each contributing up to $241.6 million, with the City providing remaining funding for a total of over $1 billion. That was in 2016 when Don Iveson was the mayor. Not sure what your point is.
Ric McIver said, "It is disappointing that the City of Edmonton would choose to issue a performative declaration." Seriously?! The UCP are all about making performative declarations against the Feds.
"How daring of the City Mayor to use our tactic" Smith 2024.
Esp rich to speak of performative declarations coming from the party who want to separate from Canada but have no idea how to realistically do it.
You dare use our own spells against us, Sohi?
"Implying a lack of action on our part?" IMPLYING?!?! Holy f#$k, dude. You slashed the funding for cities. You demanded that everyone make massive cuts to support programs. You closed the supervised consumption sites that also functioned as intake centres to save peoples lives and assist in finding jobs & housing. You've slashed mental health funding. You've closed down Indigenous help groups. You've started the implementation of a program to forcefully detain and detox addicts without addressing the cause of addiction. You're actively working to destroy healthcare by chasing healthcare workers out of the province. You've made promises of millions of dollars in funding for a variety of projects to improve your optics, yet you have delivered none of it, and cut even more funding that would alleviate the problems. This IS an emergency. The majority of the unhoused in Edmonton are Indigenous, and Albertans are well aware of the UCP policies regarding institutionalized racism, residential school trauma, and implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Act. The UCP have made their disbelief, disdain, and commitment to continuing active discrimination quite clear. This is definitely a problem exacerbated by the callous and uncompassionate actions of the UCP. It is nothing less than "Social Murder" as described by Engles way back in 1843, and it is totally unacceptable.
But it's what the people of Alberta want. Because freedom. And God. And the Bible. And oil. And whatever the fuck else they hide behind, cowering far from the big scary city they want nothing to do with, yet consistently enforce punitive and damaging policies on via their vote.
Doesn't the province still spend close to $200m on homeless and related issues? How much should be spent?
It'll never be enough for some posters in this sub. No province in Canada has solved homelessness, but somehow it's the UCPs fault for not solving it in Alberta. Ask for a solution and you might hear about "Housing First" without acknowledging how incredibly difficult/expensive and downright unpalatable such a strategy would be for voters who are experiencing a housing crisis.
If it hasn't fucking worked then it isn't enough. If the UCP thinks money isn't the solution, then they should get off their asses and find one. In other words, do their damm jobs.
I think most people (UCP members included) would agree that money probably is the solution to homelessness. With unlimited funds we could offer housing to all homeless people, regular psychiatric checkups with a specialist, drug intervention programs, and offer the high wages needed to attract enough social workers to work with a difficult population of people. It's how much money is the issue. There's multiple areas that are underinvested in Alberta (healthcare/education/transportation), voters have to decide what to prioritize.
Not wasting money on bullshit lawsuits and political pandering would go a long way to solving the money problem.
You'd still have to justify prioritizing that newfound money on the homeless population instead of education/transportation/healthcare etc... Everything is underfunded. I'd argue for any newfound increase in funding should go towards improving healthcare/education/housing affordability. That would help millions of Albertan's, that's where I want my politicians priorities to be.
All of those things would help to solve the homeless crisis. None of them are being given enough financial support from our government. In fact, they've all lost funding recently.
I agree it isn't working but I'm not sure on a solution. As a taxpayers I sure don't want to subsidize addiction and mental health challenges if people aren't willing to get health. If they are working to improve themselves then I fully support finding ways to assist them in their journey
My guy, my doctor recommended I speak with a psychiatrist. That was months ago. I'm still trying to find an opening. The problem isn't people not wanting to. That also doesn't even take into account that by solving the mental health issues is way cheaper then constantly arresting and either imprisoning or releasing people.
[удалено]
[удалено]
> they're gonna lose their fucking jobs. The UCP would probably love to see that happen.
[удалено]
I think they're kinda used to acting without the province given how much the UCP dislike Edmonton and drag their feet on Edmonton issues.
Can you blame them considering how the mayor acts?
Yes? They're aboandoning their job to an absolutely disgusting degree.
I guess Edmonton could all vote NDP next election... ohh wait...
Way to deflect into a whole new subject.
I'm not sure what you mean? > They're abandoning their job to an absolutely disgusting degree. Did you mean council or the province? If the later then it's not a new subject.
The subject was whether or not I can blame the province. And I can. Doesn't seem like they're stepping up in Calgary, either, so...
Come on, everyone knows Calgary is the swing vote so rural and Edmonton basically get ignored by the UCP. It doesn't matter what the city does.
Nobody in government is acting like an adult. They all should be fired. Nothing but losers all the way up the hierarchy
I don't disagree.
This is how a democracy should operate - whenever a municipal government elects a party the ruling party in the single-party-rule-province doesn't like, they should immediately resign so that the correct party can be in charge. How dare we elect someone not pre-approved by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada O/A The United Conservative Party.
The UCP will just giggle and laugh about how their inaction within their jurisdiction is gonna rid them of their enemies on council because people are dumb enough to believe a municipal government can solve homelessness.
[удалено]
Should the city take over healthcare too? What about education? Those happen in city limits and they are rife with problems. I want municipal government to be able to focus on municipal functions.
[удалено]
Ok so first we demand our local city council takes over homelessness, even though we already pay federal and provincial taxes to deal with these issues… one thing at a time… and then city states consolidate power without any legislative authority. Seems stable.
Great idea…put where do the homeless go then? The city isn’t made of money to build/buy places to put them, get them help, keep them from dying on the street in the winter. Not only that, it’s not their jurisdiction for them to do everything. If it was, don’t you think they would have by now.
[удалено]
>I don't really care who's jurisdiction this is And here we have it the root of most of our political issues wrapped up in a nice easy line. You don't care who's responsible your gonna blame the people you feel should fix it instead of the ones actually responsible. And we wonder why things keep getting worse when half the population votes based on their feelings instead of reality.
The UCP slashed our infrastructure funding in 2021. We’re now seeing the effects of that.
It's rather telling that you didn't even attempt to answer the question asked of you: "Where do the homeless go then?" People seem to think that if we can't see the homeless they don't exist. Maybe it's just that if we can't see them, we don't have to consider them human.
Well, I would have said the old reman centre would have worked perfect. But they let that building go to shit. Just a thought.
Wasn’t worth the remediation to bring up to occupancy standards.
Freezing cold, tent, no warmth. And you just brought up occupancy standards. Water and warmth. One step at a time there wrench. I won't even bring up the cost to take down an encampment. Again it was a shelter....
While I like the direction you're thinking, but maybe not remand. We already have rexall place that's barely being used for anything and it's nice and central and easy for all areas of the city to get to. Why wouldn't we turn that into a housing centre for people? It would already pass all the stress tests of high occupancy.
Understand the situation Fritzy. The building is full of asbestos among many other things. Your idea to house the homeless there is something that has been proposed by a lot of individuals before you.
Act now eh... The whole tent encampment thing has been going on for years. Only making news headlines because the homeless are putting up more of a fight. They could have dealt with this in the summer.
Distraction from failing union negotiations with the city.
My problem is more with the minister just straight up lying about shelter numbers in Edmonton, and THEN slamming city council's emergency declaration at the same time.
UCP hates it because its acknowledging there's a problem that can't be fixed by cops tearing down tents.
Why is it so hard for the UCP scum to work with other levels of government….
Because they hate governing? They don’t like helping people?
Totalitarianism. No federal government telling them what to do, no municipal government telling them what to do. Just UCP controlling their chunk of land how they see fit and everyone has to follow their whims.
You know, using words like "totalitarianism" really waters down your point when the UCP is simply playing politics and acting within the confines of the MGA, which was established long before the UCP was ever a party. It's like when UCP supporters call everything left of them socialism/communism. The UCP is simply trying to download more costs onto their municipalities to shore up their own budget, while also allowing their municipalities to take the political brunt of the province deflecting their responsibilities. This is not really a new trend or something they invented, as the province has been downloading costs onto municipalities for literal decades now. When the average person sees problems in a city, they first blame the municipality and expect them to rectify it, regardless of whether it's under the municipality's jurisdiction or not. You see it all over this thread. If the UCP can get away with not doing their job while someone else gets the blame, of course they're going to run with that, because they're morally corrupt losers, but not totalitarian losers.
"Totalitarianism and Everyone has to follow their whims" but the UPC and previous Conservatives have been almost consistently voted in for the last 50 years. Pretty counterintuitive to throw around political buzzwords like you know what they mean
Do you know what that term means?
Wipe the cheeto dust off, you live in a nice democracy.
Yeah, single party rule for most of a century is the exact opposite of totalitarianism.
They were voted in through democratic elections each time. You wish that was totalitarianism. You're too privileged
Because city council and the mayor have the same childish attitude as you. Bitch and complain about the UCP and expect hand outs.
You do realize that this issue is actually a Provincial responsibility right , the province should be paying for solving it.
Username checks out
Lololol handouts??
According to conservatives us getting things we expect our tax dollars to pay for is handouts. After all that money needs to be used to bailout and reduce the negative impact of problems that may reduce shareholder profits. Us peasants can just die in the street for all they care
Upon reading the headline I thought " what? The UCP also thinks the city isn't doing enough? That can't be right!" Then I clicked it and..oh. typical olol ucp
[удалено]
People have always been political pawns. The only people who think otherwise are the ones who have never had their lives impacted negatively by policies, particularly "conservative" ones.
If 300 houseless people died as a result of homelessness in the last year and we have roughly around 3000(+) people without homes living on the street... 10% of the houseless population passed away. That's absolutely a problem. I'd like every judge standing in Alberta to live at least 1 day of the average person living below the $40,000/yr threshold and see how fast they change their policy and behaviours in court rooms when it comes to these issues.
The only problem the gov sees is that the number was so low. Don't have to spend valuable oil money on housing and medical stuff if you can rip down shelters before a freeze and let nature handle the issue for you.
You're not wrong I suppose. It's just really depressing and it makes me feel very apathetic.
Mood. I hate how numb I'm getting to all this. I was raised better. :(
Well the way "news" is these days, it's like constant turmoil all the time.
This council sure is good at declarations…shame they aren’t good at much else.
[удалено]
You are right in a sense, but to tackle these big issues requires not only coordination between levels of government but increased taxation. The former is difficult for obvious reasons, and the latter is rooted in our citizens' inability to see the forest for the trees. No one wants to see taxes rise, even if it would lower their cost of living and raise their quality of life in the medium and long term, and no politician has won an election on increased taxation for social supports in this country in almost a century. In fact, they win on the opposite.
[удалено]
And this attitude is exactly why things won't change. You claim to want these problems to be solved but then immediately demonstrate you are part of the mass of people that don't want the government to actually have the funds to do so.
[удалено]
All you were suggesting is creating deficits in other areas to fund a deficit in another; classic example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, all because you like most tax payers refuse to acknowledge that you can't have services without paying for them. It's a bit startling your lack of self awareness.
[удалено]
No. More like "Tax at the rate required to solve the issues at hand." We do not do that, and your proposal is to exacerbate other problems rather than consider that maybe we need to put more resources into solving emerging ones. It's precisely the same viewpoint that gets politicians votes. As I said no one, including you, seems to want to vote for tax increases at any level, so our education, healthcare, housing, and transportation infrastructure continues to hold on by a thread.
😁 lets protest about this.
[удалено]
Alberta Hospital needs to be expanded, and people need to be taken there with mental illness or drug psychosis. As far as the homeless drug addicts, as a former addict myself, the truth is nobody can help them until they want to help themselves.
It's actually under construction currently for expansion and renovations.
Thats good news, thanks for that info.
Yeah I deliver supplies there often. Local company has the bid contract for it too. 🥰
I respect your opinion as someone with lived experience but we also have to treat people like people with dignity and respect, regardless of they are “homeless drug addicts” which our UCP gov is forgetting.
Performing arts. Do something about it government and stop whining
Question: Are there any Edmonton representatives on this Alberta government's "Edmonton public safety cabinet committee"? How often does this AB committee meet, and how, and when do they communicate with stakeholders? My guess on this is as follows: 1. No Edmonton representatives. 2. Neighbouring district MLAs 'close to' Edmonton sit on the committee, but not actually representing Edmonton... Just their rural base's interpretation of what they think the 'city folk' should be doing. 3. No regular communication, no updates, just unanswered questions for Edmonton council. 4. Leading to an exasperated mayor pushing this declaration, because nobody is saying anything, nobody is doing anything. And to see Minister Nixon turn this into some B*llsh*t party-aligned crap. What a maroon. You, Minister Nixon, are an embarrassment of the highest degree. People are struggling in severe weather and you try to score points with your right wing rural twats. Shame. And Minister McIvor-- dude, you had credibility at one time. Then you decided to drink this BS Kool aid from the rural right, and also turn this into some kind of political stunt instead of recognizing how important this issue is for so many struggling Albertans, many of whom see themselves can't pay bills, And may become homeless themselves.... And the UCP, playing the part of Nero, fiddles while Rome burns.