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Friday’s headlines

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• On the surface, fee hikes sound fair. They’re not [ Toronto Star ]
• City homeless program a finalist for UN award [ Globe and Mail ]
• Public tree removal can cost $300 [ Globe and Mail ]
• When Wood Green Ravine was ripped up yesterday, so were the lives of the residents who lived nearby [ Toronto Sun ]
• George Brown College in discussions for site near Redpath [ National Post ]
• City Hall bites: Mint backs off, garbage gets pricier, and city looks to axe council’s $23,000 dinner budget [ National Post ]
• School board’s funding crunch could sink Toronto’s pool program [ Globe and Mail ]
• Why schools aren’t safe [ Toronto Star ]
• Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence [ Globe and Mail ]
• Crime in the classroom [ Toronto Sun ]
• Violence in Toronto’s schools is citywide: report [ CBC.ca ]
• ‘Tragedy’ to strip judge of office [ Toronto Star ]
• Governments revive plan for high-speed trains between Quebec, Ontario [ CBC.ca ]

8 comments

  1. the tree cutting at Wood Green Ravine remind me of the trees that were cut at the CAMH site.Even though the neighbours were ther to protest and try to keep toronto green, the great tree advocate Joe Pantalone allowed the cutting!He has done little to live by his own words.SHAME!

  2. nice to see that the dinner served to councillors will be cut, but don’t be surprised if they get some sort of other allowance to eat at hy’s instead.

  3. Not sure if George knows this, but its labour law for employers to provide dinner to employees who are forced to work through regular dinner time that exceeds the 10 hours in a day. This happens in the corporate world but somehow councillors should be denied this right?

    Not feeding councillors on a 15 hour day shift is part of George’s short-sightedness on the money issues at City Hall. Its the fact that councillors have control over only 1/3 of the city’s budget! There is little room to squeeze but blowhards like Sawision keep ignoring facts and spreading lies about politicians based on very little substantiated facts.

  4. To take Binkley’s comment one step further, Council isn’t just a bunch of politicians sitting in a room. There’s many, many City staffers that have to be present either because the item they are subject matter experts on is up for debate or could be up for debate before the day of Council ends or they are required for technical support or they provide clerking services or they support the media gallery (and the list goes on). So in some way, shape or form, these bureaucrats will have to be fed or compensated pursuant to the relevant labour laws that Binkley references, and those laws apply to all employers in Ontario.

    I’m starting to think George is less like a broken clock (right twice a day) and more like the 2007 Miami Dolphins (.063 winning percentage).

  5. Oh gracious…it’s high speed train proposal time again. That wonderful time when some level of government tries to secure funding from another level of government just it time to have the whole thing derailed by an election. It cost them a few million before and it’ll be another few million again to find out that the rails are too old and there are no high-speed passes, all of which will have to be fixed before a high-speed rail link can be established.

    So what if were 20 years behind the Europeans and Asians on this. Hell, we even got beat by the Americans. It’s not like our country was founded on the railroad or anything. You can thank Brian Muldouchebag for pushing that little source of national pride so far onto the back burner that we may be a couple more governments away from seeing anyone really take it seriously.

  6. LOLOL one of the arguments years ago for a pay hike for councillors was that they needed it to pay for food because they work so hard.So the councillors now come under labour laws as well.Damn I thought that they were elected officials hmmmmmm.
    As you well read individuals and well informed persons might realize I said nothing about the employees and only bring up the position of the councillors.Please read before you complain.The salary for councillors will be more than $100,000 per year soon,not including expenses and pension benefits.Let alone the numerous perks that unofficially come with the “job”.

    Rosario was right!When I asked him during the provincial election why he even bothered to run considering he had no power whatsoever in parliament,considering he wasn’t going to keep any of his promises anyway, his response “the pay is good”. Nuff said,says it all.I digress…..

    Adam loved your interview,glad you are just confirming my bent about the one sided media.

  7. re: George Brown College

    At least there is one college that believes in locating in an urban area.

    I chose George Brown [St. James campus]when I graduated high school because I wanted — NEEDED to live and go to school in an urban area and it is literally the only option. (Unfortuantely, I did not realize that no dorms and a convenient location meant that none of my peers would be local; instead the suburbs would follow me and my peers would all be GO commuters, but thats another story)

    It occurs to me that college is to suburbia as university is to the urban experience. I grew up in an environment where university was vaguely derided as ivory tower uselessness. Seems that kids growing up in the city just naturally plan to go to uni from what I’ve seen.

    Plus, they’ve already a cookie factory [St. James Campus], a sugar factory would be a logical move!