Correction: It’s not $2 billion in new taxes – it’s twice that

After releasing their plan to increase taxes in Ontario by $2 billion dollars a year, Metrolinx had to issue some clarifications. Contrary to the impression given by the media release, they don’t want people all over the province to pay for subways in Toronto.

Their plan is to create $2 billion in new taxes raised just in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton to pay for new transit in the GTHA.

The difficulty is that most of that cash – $1.3 billion a year – is supposed to come from a 1% rise in the HST.  But, as Metrolinx notes, the federal government might not agree to allow different HST rates in different parts of the province.

Actually, there’s no “might” about it. The federal government quickly said that if Ontario wants to raise the HST, it has to do so throughout the province.

Foreseeing this, the Metrolinx report suggests that’s no problem.  A 1% rise in HST throughout Ontario will give the government an extra $3 billion – that’s $1.3 billion for Toronto subways, plus a $1.7 billion bonus.

Metrolinx feels confidant the Liberal government can find some way to spend it. Doesn’t the hinterland need better bridges or something?

Their thinking disturbs me: Because Metrolinx wants $1.3 billion from the HST, they propose the government grab $3 billion.

So instead of hitting their target of a total in $2 billion in new taxes (from a rise in the HST, gas taxes, parking taxes and development charges), the government will actually take in an extra $3.7 billion – nearly twice as much.

This is a scheme only the Liberals could love.

To her credit, Premier Wynne is not dancing in the streets. Even she realizes that “Give me more!” is not a great campaign slogan.

On the other hand, it has never occurred to her to try to find even a nickel in her existing budget. Premier Wynne already spends $127.6 billion a year of our money. Is it possible that not every cent is well spent? Surely some programs could get along with a little less. Maybe some programs could be cut altogether.

How about those windmills, for example…?

Tilting at windmills, or how to rake in an easy $200 million

Every time Ontario’s environment minister Jim Bradley speaks to the media, he boasts that Ontario now produces 3% of our electricity through wind power and that this has enabled us to close the coal plants (mostly).

This is a half-truth, plus a lie. Ontario does produce 3% of our power from the wind, but that’s been no help in closing coal plants and cutting back on pollution because wind turbines produce electricity we can’t use.

Starting about this time of year, as temperatures soar, everybody turns on their AC and power demand ramps up. Unfortunately, it turns out the wind prefers to blow in the winter – that’s why we have that bone-freezing phenomena known as wind chill.

On hot hazy days, when we need the power, the wind dies. The result? We can’t use 80% of the electricity generated by wind turbines. Instead, Ontario sells it into the North American power grid at the going rate.

Can windmills produce electricity at anything like a competitive rate? Of course not.

So wind power generates almost no usable electricity for Ontario, and we sell it to other people at a loss of $200 million a year. (You can read the whole long sorry analysis here.)

You’d think the Liberals would stop tilting at these windmills. Not only are they useless and expensive, but rural Ontario hates them, and if the Liberals ever want another majority, they need to win back the hinterland.

Unfortunately, Premier Wynn is taking a different tack. To appease rural Ontario, she’s changing the rules so that the municipalities get more say about whether a wind farm gets built in their neighbourhood, coupled with a cash incentive for saying yes.

But why does she want to build more of these things? Why deepen the economic wound? Basically, it’s a sop for Wynne’s core supporters – the Toronto latte leftists who want Ontario to go green and aren’t too fussed about the details, such as whether windmills actually do any good.

But $200 million a year – that’s an expensive vanity project. It’s 10% of the yearly tax increase Wynn wants to slap on Ontarians to pay for transit expansion (more here). How about if we ditch these useless windmills and reduce the tax increase to just $1.8 billion a year?

Who knows, if she pokes about in the budget, maybe Premier Wynne could find a few more projects that waste a couple hundred million. You start adding them up, and pretty soon we’re talking real money.

The good news, by the way, is that we have moth-balled all of Ontario’s coal-powered generating stations (or will have by the end of the year). But coal power has been put out of business through using more gas-fired plants and more nuclear power – which is not something you’ll ever hear the environment minister mention.

But this is still a win because coal plants are a major source of smog, and in Ontario bad air is real danger. In 2008 (most recent figures available), the Ontario Medical Association reports that smog caused 9,800 premature deaths in Ontario.

These victims are mostly older people. Unable to catch a breath, they die from heart failure.

The other typical smog victims are small children. Every summer, Ontario hospitals see tens of thousands of terrified parents showing up in emergency rooms with tortured children who are turning blue from constricted airways.  

You want to make a fortune? Sell inhalers decorated with images of Dora the Explorer or Diego – you’ll knock the competition right out of the market.

But we've cut back on smog from power plants by using hydro, gas and nuclear. The last thing we need is these useless windmills. 

The plan: To pay for Toronto subways, tax everybody in Ontario for everything, but especially drivers

It’s official. The province’s transportation agency, Metrolinx, wants everyone in Ontario to chip in for Toronto subways, but especially drivers. They’ve proposed adding an extra one percent tax on the HST, plus an extra 5 cents on every litre of gas.

According to Metrolinx, this will cost each of us an average of $500 a year. Unless you live in the suburbs, say Burlington or Oakville, with three kids (or two kids and a live-in parent), you’re a two-car family, and  you commutes into Toronto. Then double that bill: you’ll pay an extra $1,000 a year.

Not all the money will go to Toronto subways. Some of it will be spread out to the suburbs as improved bus service, a "light rail" line (i.e., a streetcar) up Hurontario in Mississaauga, maybe even a couple of extra cars for the GO train. But none of the $50 billion dollars the government plans to spend will come specifically from people who actually use transit.

Oh, transit users will pay an extra one percent on everything, just like the poor schlub in Sudbury who drives to Toronto just once every five years for a Jays’ game, but no increase in subway fares, you understand, no rise in the price of GO tickets. It’s only drivers who specifically get dinged.

The spin is that better transit is better for drivers, too. It’s a kind of trickle up theory. If more people can be persuaded to take transit, there will be fewer cars on the road and less traffic congestion. Except nobody actually believes this.

The cheery reports on the marvels of improved transit, do not actually claim traffic congestion will get better; they say that with improved transit, traffic congestion won’t get quite as bad as it would otherwise.

But even this is nonsense. What drives traffic congestion is a growing population. If Toronto turns into an economic disaster zone – Ontario’s version of a Newfoundland outport – traffic will improve marvellously, because we’ll all move to Alberta.

But if the Toronto area continues to grow, traffic is going to get worse. Eventually, if we’re lucky and the economy continues to expand, we’ll turn into New York or London, and then traffic will truly be a mess.

The real argument for improved transit is simply that better transit can move more people around, and in the Toronto area, we have lots of people who need to get about. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll have even more. So we do need to expand the transit system.

But don't let them kid you. If you’re a driver, better transit will do nothing to shorten your daily commute. Nada. The claim that it will is pure spin without a fact to anchor to.

So here’s where I stand:

First, if anyone’s going to be specifically targeted to pay more than everyone else for better transit, it should be people who use transit, not drivers.

Second, if the government wants an extra $50 billion from us at $2 billion a year – and that’s an improbable minimum, as transit projects always come in way over budget – then it has to be a government that’s careful with our money. Do I have to say the Liberals don’t qualify?

Third, let's start by finding at least some of the money in the province's existing $128 billion-a-year budget. How about half: carve out a billion from the existing budget, and we'll pony up another billion a year in new taxes. As it stands, though, the Liberals don't plan to cut the existing budget by a nickle. Raising our taxes is the only mover they know.

Third, if the government wants a massive tax increase, it needs to bring their case to the people and let us vote on it.

Fourth, the one tax I certainly support is a toll for single-occupancy vehicles to use High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on highways. If you drive, you've seen those empty HOV lanes and you know that as a tool for convincing people to car pool, HOV lanes have been a bust. 

So by all means, let cars with two or more occupants use them for free, but if other people are willing to pay for them, great! It’s a win – win situation. People in a hurry get where they’re going faster, and we all pay a little less in taxes elsewhere.

It’s the one and only “revenue tool” that’s painless. It’s also the one and only tool that’s been taken off the table. Why? The NDP doesn’t believe you should be able to get something just because you can pay for it – it goes against socialist principles. 

So killing the only painless “revenue tool” was part of the NDP’s price for supporting the Liberal budget.

Bottom line: It’s time for an election.

Note: Metrolinx has issued a clarification. They don't want $2 billion a year; they want $3.7 billion. See here.

The Toronto School Board celebrates International Sex Workers’ Day

Every year, the Toronto District School Board publishes a Days of Significance Calendar for students. It includes the holidays of different religions and various UN mandated observances. May 15, for example, is the International Day of Families.

The TDSB also includes the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers on the Calendar.

You might find it odd that the Board thinks violence against sex workers is an issue school kids should worry about. I certainly do. I hope that for most of their school careers our kids won’t even know sex workers exist.

The Board could choose to highlight all sorts of different days. For instance, National Library week was October 17 – 24 and National School Library Day was October 22.  But these don't make it onto the School Board’s Calendar. So why do sex workers rate and librarians don’t?

Other international days get on the Calendar because they were declared by the UN. Not the sex workers’ day. It was actually started by sex workers. Specifically by Annie Sprinkle (that would be her professional name, you understand) and the Sex Workers Outreach Project.

The day is celebrated each year by prostitutes, strippers, porn actors, dominatrixes and, bizarrely, by the Toronto District School Board.

In Toronto, the main sponsor of the sex workers day is Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers' Action Project. This is a prostitutes’ organization which provides many practical workshops for its members. On May 8, for example, Maggie’s offered “Tips on client screening for escorts and BDSM pros” (here).

But Maggie’s focus is also political. As with all the prostitutes’ groups organizing around the December 17th sex workers’ day, they “advocate for removal of all laws that criminalize sex work.”

Maggie’s also thinks that prostitution should be just one more possible career path, without any negative stigma: “Maggie’s advocates that we should all have the right to choose or reject sex work, just as we have the right to choose or reject any other kind of work,” it says on their web site.

Or as the Dec 17th Organization headquartered in New York puts it, they oppose “the stigma and discrimination that is perpetuated by the prohibitionist laws [against prostitution].”

Of course violence against sex workers is wrong. Indeed, it's illegal, as is violence perpetrated against anyone. As for prostitution laws, I don’t have strong opinions one way or the other. But I am clear that the Toronto School Board shouldn’t be jumping in to support any political goal. Period. 

Unfortunately, it's not clear that the Board understands this.

And I find it almost beyond belief that the Board has chosen to promote a day that’s especially set aside to promote the rights of sex workers and the repeal of prostitution laws.

Initially, I supposed that the inclusion of the sex workers' day on the Days of Significance Calendar must be some sort of screw up. Once I brought it to the Board’s attention, I figured the sex workers day would be dropped from the on-line version of the Calendar immediately, and I’d get an embarrassed but thankful email for bringing this to their attention.

That was six weeks ago. I’ve had assurance from the Board that they're taking my concerns seriously, but the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers remains on the Days of Significance Calendar.

As far as I can tell it’s not a slip-up at all. the sex workers day has been on the Board's calendar for at least two years, because in its wisdom, the Toronto District School Board chose to promote December 17th – that special day set aside for prostitutes, strippers, and dominatrixes and the rights of young people to choose such professions without shame.

UN Condemns Richard Falk, the UN's Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories

Richard Falk UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories
and also a notorious antisemite, fond of comparing Jews to Nazis,
and a conspiracy nut who suggests the U.S. was behind the 9/11 attacks

Good News: Thanks to a firestorm sparked by UN Watch, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – after initially refusing to act – has finally accepted UN Watch's demand and condemned UN Palestine expert Richard Falk for justifying the Boston terrorist attack as a form of “resistance” to the sins of America and Israel. 

Here’s how it all happened.

Last week: Richard Falk – whom we got expelled from the group Human Rights Watch in December (see letter here), but still serves on the tyrant-controlled UN Human Rights Council – published an article pinning the blame for the Boston bombings on “the American global domination project.”

It got worse: “[A]s long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment,” wrote Falk, “those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy.”

Here was a top UN official telling Boston’s victims that they got what they deserved, and that America and Israel were to blame. Yet the United Nations was silent. Its Human Rights Council was silent. Its High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, was silent. Falk's academic colleagues were silent. The world was silent.

Monday: UN Watch broke the silence. In a detailed letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, we exposed Falk’s despicable remarks; identified its ignominious messages; and demanded action.

UN Watch circulated the story to thousands of journalists worldwide, launched a barrage of press releases, statements, and blog posts, and posted the facts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

This was the immediate response of Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman: “The Secretary-General did not appoint him and is not responsible for his views.”  The UN was refusing to act. No one would take responsibility.

Tuesday: UN Watch ramped up the campaign. We slammed Mr. Ban’s silence, noting the UN chief had condemned an unheard-of figure in the US who insulted Islam, but refused to do the same when a major figure of his own organization insulted America.

Reporters at the UN pressed for comment. Again, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman refused, saying,“Richard Falk speaks independently... he is free to say what he wants to say.” The UN was doubling down.

By now, however, UN Watch’s campaign began bearing fruit. Stories appeared in Jewish newspapers and blogs worldwide, in Canada’s National Post, Italy’s ANSA news agency, and in a Wall Street Journal column entitled “What the Falk?”

At 3:00 pm, the U.S. Mission publicly condemned Falk’s “provocative and offensive” remarks, and the “absurdity” of his service as a UN human rights expert. “Someone who spews such vitriol has no place at the UN,” said Ambassador Rice, in a Twitter post quickly endorsed by former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio. The story spread further, reported by top news site Politico, Nederlands Dagblad, the Kuwait News Agency, and many others.

Wednesday: Faced with mounting pressure, the United Nations finally reversed course.At 12:07 pm, speaking at the daily press briefing, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman announced: “The Secretary-General rejects Mr. Falk’s comments [which] “undermine the credibility and the work of the United Nations.”

• Now the story went viral, with global headlines from the Associated Press and Reuters: “U.N. chief scolds envoy for implying U.S. policy sparked Boston attack.”
• The British Mission blasted Falk’s “antisemitic” remarks, highlighting it was the third time they had to do so.
• Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird slammed Falk’s “mean-spirited, anti-Semitic rhetoric” and called for him to be kicked out of the UN. “The United Nations should be ashamed to even be associated with such an individual,” he added.

Falk’s defenders, outraged at UN Watch, have now begun to rally, lashing out against us in lengthy manifestos. “UN Watch crafts the smoking gun,” screams a headline on Mondoweiss, a leading anti-Israel website. “UN Watch Better Watch Itself,” warns the headline of an essay by Jeremy Hammond, the publisher of Falk’s article.

Why are they so angry?

Because thanks to UN Watch pressure, their hero, the world body’s most vicious hater of America, Israel, and Western democratic society, was exposed, denounced, and shamed by world leaders—including by the head of the United Nations himself. And rightfully so.

Hamas TV show teaches children to become terrorists

This is child abuse.

Heather Mallick says the terrorist plot is really a Tory plot

"Bottom line? I don't take the train anyway. And neither do my friends."

I admit it, they had me fooled. Like practically every other Canadian, I thought the RCMP had arrested two jihadists because they were planning a terrorist attack. Thank goodness Heather Mallick set me straight. In today's Toronto Star, Mallick asserts these arrests are "dubious."

Who would want to blow up a Via Train? says Mallick. Surely they could think of a better target. "And why would Al Qaeda, Sunni by nature, work with Iran, a Shiite nation?"

None of this fits with Mallick's preconceptions.

But worst of all: "The police press conference consisted of a dozen white male cops - and a token female." Not a brown face among them. Clearly, this so-called "terrrorist plot" is really a Tory plot!

Of course if Mallick were a journalist, she might have found out that the terrorists planned to derail a Via train on the trestle as it was crossing the border between Canada and the States. A train full of passengers falling into the Niagara River would be quite spectacular, even if aimed against a pitiful old Via train.

As for al Qaeda and Iran, yes, they do consider each other heretics. Yes, they'll likely get around to killing each other some day, but like anyone, they have priorities. First, they'd like to kill or enslave the infidels, starting with Americans, Westerners in general, and Jews. And while they're busy with that fairly tall order, they're willing to sometimes work together.

Indeed, The Western intelligence community has long known that al Qaeda has a branch in Iran. It's not a secret. With a few minutes' research. Mallick could have learned that Iran tolerates al Qaeda's presence. Has for more than a decade.

The RCMP says Iran wasn't directing the attack against Canada. But that doesn't mean Iran is innocent. In the wake of the uncovered terrorist plot, Iran has not promised to kick al Qaeda out of the country or to ship the terrorist masterminds off to Canada.

Until two days ago, the intelligence community believed that Iran wouldn't allow al Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks from Iranian soil. Looks like that's changed. And why not? After all what's Canada going to do about it? Bomb Iran?

The Toronto Star wouldn't even support Canada sending a mild diplomatic protest. Heather Mallick doesn't even believe the terror plot was real. She thinks this "dubious" arrest was cooked up to make Canadians support the Tory's anti-terror bill currently being debated in the House of Commons.

As if. As if the Tories, with their majority, need to direct the RCMP to frame a couple of people to help them pass this law. As if, when the Liberals are also going to vote for this bill - giving it the support of two-thirds of the House of Commons.

In truth, the notion that theses arrests are a Tory plot is so mad that you could only read it on an al Qaeda website, or in The Toronto Star. 

Pierre Trudeau and the Boston Marathon bombings

"Within Canada there is ample room for opposition and dissent, but none for intimidation and terror." - Pierre Trudeau announcing imposition of the War Measures Act.

Pierre Trudeau knew something about terrorism and how a society must react to it. In 1970 when the FLQ kidnapped James Cross and Pierre Laporte, Pierre Trudeau’s first reaction was not to express concern for the kidnappers. He did not worry about root causes or say the terrorists must have been excluded from society.

Trudeau went on national television to point out that democracies provide legitimate ways to bring about change, but when faced with terrorism – with kidnapping and murder in the name of a cause – a society must exert its full strength to protect itself.

When a CBC reporter objected to Trudeau’s attitude, Trudeau replied: “Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around…. All I can say is go on and bleed.”

Stephen Harper would never be so openly contemptuous of the feeble-minded, but sometimes a prime minister is obliged to speak his mind.

Earlier this week, terrorists set off two bombs at the Boston Marathon, murdering three people, including an eight-year-old child, and wounding 170 more.

Before the bodies were in the ground, while the maimed were still awakening to discover their legs had been amputated, a senior Canadian politician – the leader of one of our three main political parties – told the CBC that we had to look at root causes, that this attack “happened because of someone who feels completely excluded” and that it was important not to "marginalize people even further.”

In the circumstances, our prime minister really had to speak up for Canada, and he did it with class, without calling anyone a bleeding heart, even without naming the politician who had been so shallow, so callow, so insensitive.

When faced with terrorism, Harper said, you must “condemn it categorically, and to the extent you can deal with the perpetrators, you deal with them as harshly as possible.”

Justin Trudeau’s father couldn’t have said it any better.

Palestinians bulldoze World Heritage site for terrorist training camp

The Anthedon, Gaza’s ancient port, dates back to the eighth century B.C., when Gaza was a major Philistine city

Since the Palestinians were admitted to UNESCO (the UN body charged with preserving the world's heritage), the Palestinians have used it solely as a forum for advancing their political aims. And now Hamas is bulldozing a world heritage site so that they can further those same political aims through terrorism...

GENEVA, April 15 - In an urgent letter sent today to UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova, UN Watch demanded immediate action to stop the Hamas bulldozing of a 3,000-year-old harbor in Gaza for use as a terrorist training camp, as reported today by Al Monitor Palestine Pulse. A copy was also sent to EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton calling on the EU to take action.

The partial destruction of the ancient Anthedon Harbor – which includes the ruins of a Roman temple and archaeological remains from the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras—comes exactly one year after the area was nominated as a World Heritage site.

According the current UNESCO session timetable, there are in fact four agenda items dedicated exclusively to Palestinian issues: Items 9, 10, 34, and 35, while Item 5 includes a fifth report on this issue. Israel is the only country in the world that is targeted for specific criticism in this session.

Previous UNESCO resolutions on these five items were rightly described by US Ambassador David Killion as “highly politicized” and designed to “single out Israel.” The extreme politicization even prompted Russia to successfully oppose discussion of these items, despite vehement Palestinian opposition, at the previous 190th session in October.

UNESCO’s admission of Palestine as a member state in 2011, which caused the organization to lose almost a quarter of its budget when the US suspended its contributions, was justified as a measure to help protect world heritage sites in Palestinian areas.

The Toronto School Board pays $56,531 to change a light bulb

From The Globe & Mail

The Toronto District School Board is reviewing the way it maintains its school buildings – including the oversight of routine plumbing, carpentry and repair work – in an effort to curb costs in the face a $3-billion maintenance backlog and a budget crunch that has led to staff cuts.

For years, the board has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying skilled tradespeople to do menial work. Those costs include, in the 2011-2012 school year: $161,805.37 to unclog toilets; $84,716.18 to check and adjust thermostats; $33,977.63 to hang photos; and $56,531.76 to replace light bulbs, according to data obtained by The Globe and Mail through a Freedom of Information request. (See a school-by-school breakdown and search for your school here.)

 “I’ll be very open and say there’s room for improvement in all areas across the district on roles and responsibilities, [including] our key managers, our key leads in terms of oversight,” director of education Donna Quan said.

She said the reporting structure of the facilities department is changing, and the number of supervising managers is increasing to improve oversight and accountability.

Over the past year, the TDSB has decreased the facilities department’s ratio of trades workers to managers – to 40:1 from 60:1 – and begun flagging work orders with inappropriate costs.

Faced with a looming deficit, trustees for Canada’s largest school board voted in February to cut nearly 250 high-school teaching jobs, including special education teachers and guidance counsellors. They also cut dozens of educational assistants, office staff and vice-principals, but the board still faces a $23-million shortfall. It will be grappling with its operational budget through June.

“We’ve gone to great lengths to rectify overspending,” trustee Sam Sotiropoulos said. “Accountability has absolutely been lacking.”

To get maintenance jobs done at schools, custodians contact managers at the TDSB’s facilities department. These managers, known as family team leaders, consider job descriptions outlined in union contracts, the equipment required and the scale of the task when deciding whether the expertise – and added cost – of a trades worker is needed, according to the TDSB.

Agreements between the unions representing custodians, trades workers and the board list routine duties that should be performed by custodians and those that require the expertise of trades workers. Hanging photos or changing light bulbs, for example, are jobs assigned to custodians under that agreement. But Steve Shaw, a senior manager for the TDSB’s facilities services, said that when the scale of the job is larger, trades workers are sometimes brought in.

“While installation of single coat hooks is expected of caretaking staff, installation of large numbers, e.g. a classroom worth, may be done by a carpenter to expedite the work,” he said in an e-mail.

In explaining the tens of thousands of dollars the board spends hiring trades workers to change light bulbs, Mr. Shaw said that caretakers don’t have the training or equipment to reach fixtures that are more than 10 feet up, in gymnasiums, for example.

Excluding work orders to change light bulbs in gymnasiums, however, still leaves the board spending $46,844.92 in 2011-12, according to the work orders obtained by The Globe. This may include cafeterias, auditoriums and parking lots, according to Mr. Shaw, and some custodians may have to call in trades workers because they are physically unable to do the work and are assigned to “modified duties.”

The school board’s reluctance to close aging, half-empty school buildings despite declining enrolment is also contributing to the high costs of maintenance work. Many are spending more than $1,000 per student each year for school maintenance work done by trades workers.

The top costs in 2011-12 were incurred at John Polanyi Collegiate, where the board spent $2,705.65 per student. Mr. Shaw blamed the fact that the building is operating at 41 per cent capacity, and incurred $155,000 in flood damage. The next most expensive school was Fairbank Public School, where the board spent $2,457.09 per student. Mr. Shaw attributed the costs to the fact that the school is operating at 34 per cent capacity and that “there was a painting program [there] in 2012 and work was done to support the transfer of students from [another school].”

The average amount per student was $272.46.

The board has closed and sold a handful of underused school buildings over the past four years, and former education director Chris Spence shared plans to review high schools for closings as recently as last fall. Recent scandals, however, including Dr. Spence’s resignation over allegations of plagiarism, appear to have put those plans on hold.

Some jobs, such as unclogging toilets and related plumbing, accumulate costs because the work must be done after school, resulting in overtime for the board’s approximately 50 staff plumbers – six of whom made Ontario’s Sunshine List last year, down from eight the year before, for earning more than $100,000.

Concerns over how the TDSB spends on its facilities prompted the Ontario government in December to appoint a special assistance team to help the board overhaul its operations and commission consultants to review its spending. The consultants issued a scathing report and found millions of dollars in potential savings, but efforts to implement them were stymied in January, when former Liberal education minister Laurel Broten renewed hundreds of education sector contracts, including that of the TDSB’s union of electricians, plumbers and others who perform routine work at higher costs, the Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council.

Battle of the Justins – Trudeau vs Bieber

Trudeau tries for cute

I’m voting for Justin!

Not Trudeau. I want someone serious. I mean, Trudeau's 41 years old and, until he entered politics a few years ago, he never had a real job. The closest he came was being a part-time drama teacher. Before that? A snowboarding instructor.

So, no, I want someone serious: I want Justin Bieber.

Unlike Trudeau, Bieber’s got real world experience. He’s still in his teens and already has a wildly successful career. No snowboard instructing for him.

Bieber’s more serious on the issues, too. The Liberal leadership campaign dragged on for ten tedious months, and in all that time, no one’s been able to drag a policy out of Trudeau.

Bieber –  the genuine article

But even though he’s not in politics at all, Bieber ’s big on social issues. He got Access Hollywood host Billy Bush to donate $5,000 dollars to the food bank in Bieber’s hometown of Stratford.

Bieber himself donated $100,000 to Whitney Elementary School. And for his 17th birthday, he asked fans to donate $17 to charity: water, a non-profit organization bringing drinking water to people in developing nations. Naturally, Charity Water's cup now runneth over.

Justin Trudeau is supposed to be the king of new media. He has 199 thousand twitter followers. Justin Bieber has 37 million followers. That’s more than the population of Canada.

Tudeau is supposed to connect with the youth. That’s a giggle! Justin Bieber is a bona fide teen idol!

Really, match the Justins up however you want: Trudeau sucks, Bieber rocks. So let’s get serious: vote for Justin – Justin  Bieber!

Toronto police charge owner of Sam James Coffee Bar with assault and two counts of mischief for spitting and throwing coffee on protesters

Owner of the trendy Same James Coffee Bar on Harbord St. in Toronto

Demonstrators near Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto were reportedly assaulted this week.

At about noon, a man wearing a black toque and fleece (and later identified as the owner of Sam James Coffee Bar) took exception to the protestors, spitting on one, according to the police report.

The man then went to a nearby shop, obtained coffee, and returned with a woman, who was also holding a cup of coffee.

They approached the protesters and threw their hot drinks at them, hitting and damaging some of the signs, police say.

Photo from the Torontoist

The man was apparently a bit slow on the uptake but eventually realized that he was being filmed. He then reportedly assaulted the protester who was filming the incident, trying to grab the camera.

Detective Jospeh Matys of the Toronto Police Service told reporters that no one was hurt during the assault.

“The group’s signs luckily took most of the damage,” he said.

Photo of suspects issued by police

Footage of the event reportedly captures the man going face to face with each demonstrator, shouting, “F--k you!”

Reportedly friends of the man drove up in a white van, forcibly seized the protest signs, and proceeded to load them into the van.

When the would-be thieves realized they were in the 21^st Century and were, of course, being filmed, they threw the signs out of the van and drove away, but not before stomping on the signs and destroying five of them. 

A protester captured the van’s license plate on film. A rumour says it was a vanity plate reading either THUG or IDIOT, possibly both.