Gangs in Toronto

May 13 - Several stories about gangbusting tactics by the police here, here, here, and here, and it was done with the cooperation and assistance of local residents.

Now if only the courts do their parts ...

Also, it looks like there will be funding to track sex offenders in Toronto after all.

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Go Leafs!

May 2 - Game 5 is crucial (shouldn't that be critical?)

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Anti-semitism in the GTA

May 1 - Another anti-semitic attack in the Toronto area, this one at an Oshawa synagogue Oshawa vandals deface synagogue.

This seems to be somewhat different than previous incidents in that the vandals seemingly knew details of anti-Semitism and Nazis.

23:58: There is something about this incident that seems particularly, I dunno, maybe threatening? maybe more pointed than some of the earlier ones ... the defacing of that particular rock, for example, seems to imply this is a more targeted attack than the spray-paint and run tactics employed before. I hope I'm just letting my imagination run away with me.

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5 reasons we hate Bobby Clarke

Apr. 28 - Toronto's Top 5 column.

I'm going with #1, and #2 is why the mute button is used when Clark's mug shows up on the TV.

We hate the flyers,
Bobby Clark's a maggot
A whiny little maggot

(By the end of this round of the play-offs, I might even know all the words to the song.)

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Groups say ... never mind

Apr. 28 - Special interest groups in Ontario say that we, the taxpayers, won't mind paying extra money to keep their pet projects afloat (Grits say you want deficit.

The groups, involving a total of 254 people in six cities, ...

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MFP Scandal Review

Apr. 25 - It all started with computers and an arrangement with MFP Financial Services Ltd. in Mississauga, which claims to provide innovative solutions.

Corruption concerns raised in computer probe - Ya think?

Alarm bells began sounding in Toronto after municipal officials in Waterloo, about 100 kilometres to the southwest, found their financing costs for a new sports park had blown up by more than $100 million to $227 million.

As with Toronto's computers, MFP had arranged the Waterloo financing.

A closer look showed the computer deal, which had been slated to cost about $43 million, had somehow ballooned to about $83 million.

In due course, council opted for a full-blown judicial inquiry to find out how Toronto taxpayers had ended up paying an average of more than $8,000 for personal computers, many of which are now obsolete but still in use and still sucking up tax money.

The final bill to the city will exceed $110 million. Toronto taxpayers are shelling out another $15 million for the inquiry.

Read the whole thing with especial attention to the references to Tom Jakobek.

A lot of people would have voted for Tom Jakobek in his run for mayor had he not been caught in a foolish lie about a stupid plane trip (at the time, most people assumed that he accepted a free ride. Turns out it may have been figurative as well as literal.)

What was presumed to be ethical idiocy has expanded to something worse, but the decision was made in January to end the first phase of the inquiry early so they could focus on the city's dealings with two US based consulting firms. As the article notes, in 2002 provincial police found no grounds to file criminal charges against any of the players.

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Toronto Affairs

Apr. 2 - Yet another reason to wonder if Toronto will ever grow up to be a responsible adult: T.O. surplus fight heats up (excerpts):

Toronto council has no choice but to spend almost all of last year's $39-million budget surplus on items recommended by city bureaucrats, insists budget chief David Soknacki. Councillor Jane Pitfield last week complained that city officials recommended spending most of the cash instead of leaving it to politicians to determine what to do with the money.

Never mind that bureaucrats wasted millions of Toronto taxpayer dollars in the MFP affair because the City Council approved a bureaucrat-recommended contract without reading it. Who runs this city, anyway? I don't recall elections for any of the bureaucrats. more...

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Toronto aids Bam earthquake survivors

Jan. 3 - One of the things about living in a city like Toronto is that you always seem to know, within a few degrees of separation, someone who is directly affected by a disaster like Bam, so these catastrophes inevitably have a personal connection. GTA aid for Bam has been swift and enormous.

There's an onsite report on Canadian Red Cross activities in Iran here.

GTA residents can go to the David McAntony Gibson Foundation website, contact Rahul Singh at 416-998-7813, or telephone the Red Cross at 1-800-418-1111.

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Toronto Affairs

Dec. 26 - I'm not a science person, so I don't know how feasible this really is: Garbage disposal going hi-tech.

"I have heard of success stories around the world and even in other North American cities," she [Councillor Jane Pitfield] adds. "I don't think the City of Toronto needs to make this complicated; I think we need to show leadership."

Earlier this year, 51 companies answered the city's call for firms that are interested in eliminating trash by means other than landfilling or mass incineration. Many of those firms are involved in using extreme heat in the absence of oxygen to eliminate garbage and form gases that could be used as fuel.

Under current plans, council will formally ask companies in the first quarter of the new year to submit proposals to establish test sites for new disposal technologies.

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Maple Leaf Garden spared

Dec. 24 - Loblaw's has withdrawn its offer to buy Maple Leaf Gardens saying renovations would be too expensive.

Why not keep it for minor hockey? According to this article, doing so would pose direct competition to the Maple Leafs Sports' Air Canada Centre.

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Les Shaw's generosity to the troops

Dec. 22 - There is one Canadian who knows the Price of freedom and is expressing his gratitude directly to the families who have lost loved ones: 76-year old Les Shaw is sending the families of American soldiers who died protecting democracy overseas $2,000 and $2,500 to the familes of the 6 Canadian soliders who died in Afghanistan.

"We in North America and other parts of the world, we take freedom for granted," Shaw, who now lives in Barbados, said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

"Yet here's these young fellows and their families who are giving the ultimate sacrifice to sustain the freedom we enjoy."

Shaw sent a letter with the gifts:

"It is too easy for many of us in North America to take our wonderful freedoms for granted; obviously, your loved one did not," Shaw's letter reads.

"Please accept this small token as a gesture of heartfelt thanks from an appreciative Canadian. Spend it however you think your fallen hero would want."

The letters prompted more than 100 heart-wrenching replies, many stuffed with family photos and other tokens of remembrance from grieving parents, widows and widowers whose anguish leaps from the page.

Shaw's 22-year old nephew is in Baghdad with US forces. He went public with his gifts when casualties continued after his planned cut-off date of July 31 and hopes another will step in to continue his philanthrophy.

UPDATE: Smug Canadian has some interesting thoughts here.

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Deed sold dirt cheap

Dec. 22 - Days before the Toronto City Council voted to stop the construction of a bridge linking the mainland to Toronto Island, the Federal government quietly sold a portion of lakefront property located at the end of Bathurst to the Port Authority. The land is the loading point for the ferry slip and a parking lot and be necessary for the building of the bridge. The property is valued at $7,028,000 and was sold dirt cheap for $300,000.

The unannounced sale was discovered by a lawyer going through land registry documents.

NDP federal leader and former Toronto City Councillor Jack Layton brought the sale to the attention of the media:

Layton said while the federal government announced they would respect the wishes of Toronto city council, they were handing over a vital piece of land needed to build the bridge.

"Not only that, they're subsidizing the construction of this bridge because they gave the land at cut-rate prices," Layton said.

"You can't buy a house in Toronto for $300,000, never mind a prime piece of real estate on the waterfront. This is incredible."

MP Dennis Mills (Lib.) said he knew nothing about the deal and that he believes that no more condos should be built on the shoreline preserving the land for public use.

MP Dennis Mills spoke at last April's "Friends of America" rally in Toronto, and recently announced he will not seek re-election.

UPDATE: The government responds that there was nothing secretive about the deal, and that the land can only be used for parking or getting to the Toronto Island Airport.

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Toronto Affairs

Dec. 6 - Since our City Council (aka Havana Hall) thinks it wiser to protect the lakeshore for condominium developers than address issues like garbage disposal and safety in the streets, I suspect it will be up to Congress and the Dept. for Homeland Security to force our city to accept their responsibilities.

A recent post from Interested-Participant is part of a cross-border attempt to keep the issue of transporting Toronto's garbage to Michigan at the forefront. Maybe someone from London (Ont.) would like to jump in? I've read enough complaints from people along the 401 corridor to suspect that they too take issue with the daily truckloads of garbage that pass them.

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Toronto Affairs

Nov. 30 - Interested-Participant posts on the controversy over Toronto shipping our garbage to Michigan. According to the article he links from the Toronto Star, the EPA will be in Toronto to for three days touring solid waste transfer, composting and recycling facilities in Toronto, as well as in York, Durham and Peel regions. I could have saved them the trip: they'll find mountains of recyleables with no place to go because no companies are equipped to handle that much metal, glass and paper.

The program for recollecting the items was begun before a plan was made to re-direct the items. The blue box program is around 10 years old, and they still don't have a workable plan. That's how things work in Toronto.

Sadly, it is more likely that the US Congress will act long before the City Council here finishes "reviewing" the issue. The feckless Council doesn't want to take the kind of decisive action needed to find a Toronto solution to a Toronto problem, and their past actions have been to hope the problem would just go away.

The garbage issue was a point of debate in the recent mayoral race, of course. Failed canadidate John Tory had proposed building a garbage incinerator, which newly elected Mayor David Miller had rejected as too expensive and environmentally dangerous, but had no counter proposals. The paranoid faction won, even though other municipalities have incinerators with built-in safeguards that make the practice safer and cleaner than any other method of disposal.

Mississauga, our neighbour immediately to the west of here, incincerates their garbage. But they also have a strong mayor and council. Considering how fast that city has grown, you have to figure that there are more sensible people leaving Toronto than staying.

In an earlier post which featured an astonishing discovery of mixing hospital waste with garbage, Interested Participant wondered if Canadian environmentalists are of the NIMBY variety. I can affirm that they are, at least the ones in this neck of the country.

BUT anyone who reads the London Free Press will have noted columnists and letters to the editor which complain about the truckloads that merely pass that city on their way to Michigan, so in this case, at least, the NIMBY element isn't just directed at the US but within Canada as well.

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Toronto's $1million payout to departing politicians

Nov. 15 - In a not-terribly-suprising reaction to the $1 million payout Torontonian will have to pay to departing councillors, the mayor and staff, the reaction has been swift. The payout is not limited to defeated incumbents but also to those who chose not to run. Ain't public service grand? Monetary pay-outs are detailed in the article.

Some side-hurrahs are owed to Etobicoke Couns. Rob Ford and Doug Holyday (whose penny-pinching ways with their office budgets so infuriated their fellow councillors that a special resolution was passed at City Council in an effort to get those councillors to bill the city more) and have weighed in strongly against the pay-outs.

But some kind of special honourary award should be given to this man:

Councillor Fred Dominelli said he will not pocket his $3,578 cheque because he did not stand for re-election.

"I don't think I deserve the money and I don't want it," said Dominelli, who was appointed to fill Disero's seat in May. "I just got appointed and I feel guilty for taking the money from taxpayers."

But he won't leave the money in the city's coffers. He'll to donate it to a church that can't afford insurance.

"If I leave it with the city, the city will blow it on some foolish thing," he said. (Emphasis added)

That quote should be immortalized, say by engraving it over the entrance to City Hall.

Dominelli is challenging the rest of the outgoing council not to accept their severance cheques or to donate them to charity.

Tim Ivanyshyn, manager of council services, said yesterday none of the departing councillors has so far said no to the payout.

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Balancing the budgets

Nov. 14 - The Canadian Surplus shrinks to $1.6B for the first half of the fiscal year (April-September) which is somewhat less than the $4.6 billion recorded in the same period last year.

In Ontario, it seems there was a slight miscalculation by the incoming Liberal government for a projected deficit (as in the departing Tory government had balanced the budget as they had claimed) and there would in fact be a small surplus instead of a shortfall of $5.6-billion for the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2004.

[Finance Minister Greg] Sorbara had said a day earlier that a final accounting would show 2002-03 ended up in the red to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars despite boasts by the Tories of a $524-million surplus.

"I double-checked my information and I wasn't entirely accurate," Mr. Sorbara said in an interview.

While the projected excess has "shrunk very significantly," there is likely still "a small surplus, not a deficit," he said, adding the books have yet to be closed on the year.

But even as one hand gives, the other is quick to take away. Toronto taxpayers may need to pay out over $1 million in severance pay to departing city councillors and their staff.

"Oh, my gosh," said budget committee member Jane Pitfield, who never figured the payouts would be so high. "Taxpayers would be shocked that so much money is being wasted."

I think Torontonians are way beyond shocked, but thank you for thinking of us.

"This is just highway robbery," bristled penny-pinching councillor Rob Ford, adding that councillors and their staff take the job knowing it could last only three years. "I guess we're not in such rough shape after all," said Ford, referring to the city's financial situation.

Councillors and the mayor are entitled to a month's pay for every year of service, over and above their pensions, up to a maximum one year's pay.

Note the inclusion of the phrase "above their pensions." Yes, they get a sizeable pension for being on the job for three years, but that's a scandal older than me.

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MFP inquiry reveals ethical idiocy

Nov. 6 - I've resisted posting about the ongoing inquiry into the MFP scandal (it's a Toronto thing) but this finally cracked my resolve: Ex-treasurer defends MFP role:

Former City of Toronto treasurer Wanda Liczyk says MFP salesman Dash Domi didn't outfox her on the computer-leasing deal that has blown up in the city's face. Liczyk testified yesterday at the inquiry into the MFP scandal that Domi booked her an appointment with an exclusive hair stylist, extended invitations to dinners and hockey and basketball games and got tickets for Leaf games for her sister because he was a "nice guy."

How f***ing stupid are the people who work for the City of Toronto? Hello? I used to be involved with a minor sports association, and whenever a parent walked up to me with a big smile and flattery I knew without any doubt that they wanted something! And I didn't control millions of dollars (fact is, I barely controlled anything: the game was settled on the field) but I knew I was being set up to be used.

That Ms. Liczyk is so needy and in need of affirmation indicates that she and the others involved in this scandal lack the basic qualification for stewardship: brains.

Liczyk spent another day on the witness stand insisting her relationship with Domi was typical for her and a salesman and there was nothing improper.

So he played you! It was his job. Admit it. Learn the lesson. Be an adult.

The inquiry is investigating why a $43-million computer deal with MFP ballooned out of control, costing tens of millions more.

I can't go on. Read the whole thing. It stinks.

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Why they hate us (who live in Toronto)

Aug. 30 -- Hate Toronto, that is. The Canadian alerted me to an open letter to the PM (which PM?) and Premier published yesterday in the abominable Toronto Star:

Over the last two years, a remarkable civic consensus has been building in Toronto. Business, labour, the voluntary sector, education, and local government have been working ... to create new ways to ensure that the Toronto region remains prosperous and competitive. The Toronto City Summit Alliance released "Enough Talk, An Action Plan for the Toronto Region," in April. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to endorse that action plan and set out a timetable for each of your government's contributions to implementing it.

"Enough Talk" is a road map for improving our city region.... The action plan sets out realistic ideas for expanding the Toronto region's affordable housing stock, re-invigorating public transit, and building community services infrastructure in our poorest neighbourhoods.

Translation: send more money to a city that screws up every money-spending project they touch, makes more unworkable plans to spend more money that . . . oh, never mind. You already know all this.

The civic workers (and teachers union) has this city by the nuts. We can't even find a place in Canada willing to take our garbage, at least that portion that isn't strewn on our streets.

Whenever I hear someone opine "If only we had someone like Rudy Guiliani" I choke because Rudy had something we ain't got: a city population behind him with the same resolve to make the hard calls and get things done.

"Enough Talk," SHUT UP. We live in a dysfunctional city because we have the most useless, weak-kneed City Council in the history of All City Councils and THEY LISTEN TO IDIOTS LIKE YOU LOT.

UPDATE (or should that be OUCH!): No less a personage than Colby Cosh has taken Toronto (in the form of Robert Fulford, National Post columnist) to task for a totally different example of its egocentricity (or could that cosmocentricity? patriacentricity?) for failing to notice the substantial bits of real estate to the West that are also Canadian.

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Frugal Etobian Councillors

Aug. 26 -- Etobians are rather proud that the two most frugal councillors in Toronto are from our area. The office expenses of the members of Toronto City Council are under scrutiny and it always makes for interesting reading. Remember: they are allotted $53,100 per year and have another 4 months to go.

Sue-Ann Levy of the Toronto Sun also looks at the office expenses and applauds Rob Ford in her column Frugal councillor scopes his colleagues' expenses (link will die shortly.)

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