Work Life Balance Doesn’t Exist in Canada

A recent study by an Ontario college says over a third of Canadians spend 10 hours or more at work (though those hours also include the travel time to and from that work).

Everest College in Toronto claims Alberta has the most dedicated workers, with 44 percent of those surveyed saying they spend 10 or more hours per day on office related tasks. Manitoba and Saskatchewan tied at 39 percent, while Ontario and the Atlantic province came in at 38 percent. The west-coast is often mocked for it’s casual hippie-type lifestyles, but maybe that image is true, as only 28 percent of people surveyed from British Columbia said they spend 10-plus hours per day at the office.

Funny thing, when computers were just beginning to enter homes back in the 1980’s, futurists, technological gurus, and computer geeks everywhere were saying that those magic mechanical boxes of blinking lights and whirling noises were going to cut the amount of time spent at work. Some even boldly declared we’d have four-day work weeks by the dawn of the new millennium.

I should have known that was flawed, when 1999 rolled over into 2000, and although everyone was worried about the dangers of Y2K, the work week still was five long, laborious days.

Computers actually in more instances than not, INCREASED our amount of time at the office. They constantly fill our minds with emails, instant messages, and manage our overflowing voice-mails. Instead of walking over to our colleague’s desk to discuss that new report, we just send it through email – and in turn, that once 25-page report comes back to us through email, often hundreds of pages more, and requiring a read through.

Thanks to computers, we can work at home – many offices have secure networks you can link to, and our voice networks – run by computers – allow us to call into conference calls from anywhere around the world.

That also means we can be reached at anytime, anywhere by work. How many of you have taken your office-issued BlackBerry or other smart phone with you on vacation, only to find yourself reading and responding to work related emails?

And if your co-workers can email you even when you are on vacation, they can call you too. “Just email that contract to my BlackBerry, I’ll sign it right away.”

As the labour market continues to shift from an employee-based one, towards contract and temporary consultant-based, more people are burning the midnight oil at the office.

Companies generally don’t care if they burn out a contracted consultant, they don’t have to pay for your benefits, so if you get sick or develop psychological issues from being constantly under the gun, it’s no skin off their back. Need to take time off to deal with that overtime-related stress? Doesn’t bother your “employer” – contractors don’t generally get sick days, extended medical coverage, or other benefits, so it won’t cost your boss anything if you take it off. Worse still, consultants only get paid for the time they spend working, so anytime of is lost wages.

And as more and more full-time staff jobs are lost in the new economy, there are suddenly a whole lot more people willing to work those excessive inhumane hours, just to keep a roof overhead, and food in their tummies.

Statistics Canada’s employment numbers for this month weren’t very good – the Canadian government department which keeps tabs on these things says the economic recovery has slowed down, as thousands more full-time permanent jobs have disappeared, most likely forever.

This tosses fear into the working world, causing those with staff jobs to do whatever it takes – even if it means working more hours than are healthy – in the hopes that our employers will spare our jobs from the cutting block.

And so continues the cycle of constantly increasing working days, and shorter recovery times.

Time for a break . . . I think . . .

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Ontario’s Eco Tax Not Even Managed

A new tax in Canada’s largest province is so poorly mismanaged, that one of the country’s largest retailers has had to issue a public apology for overcharging customers.

Ontario’s eco-fee (provincial politicians call it a “fee” instead of a “tax” because they snuck it through without any debate – public or otherwise) went into effect this past July 1.

The Ontario government claims the new “fee” is supposed to discourage people from purchasing products harmful to the environment, and it is supposed to be applied to the costs associated with recycling and disposing of the harmful products it is applied too.

Learn more about the fee.

However, it appears not only was this new tax – whoops I mean “fee” – brought in without any debate, there was no thought as to how to manage it.

Canadian Tire apologized today, for overcharging customers on a biodegradable shower cleaner sold in its stores. The large Canadian retailer says it will gladly refund the overcharged amount to customers who bring in their receipts.
Canadian Tire blames its computerized Point of Sale system for the error, and says it has since been corrected.

Why is an environmentally-friendly “fee” is being charged on an environmentally-friendly product? Isn’t the whole nature of the eco-fee to be charged on products harmful to the environment, to encourage environmentally-friendly product purchases?

Maybe this mix-up is because the provincial body charged with managing the eco-fee admits they don’t know what they are doing. Stewardship Ontario, admitted it doesn’t have a way to monitor or control how much retailers are charging.

This brought heavy fire from the province’s Environment Minister John Gerretsen, who warned the organization that if it doesn’t implement an auditing system to ensure correct and consistent fees are collected, he’ll end the program.

That’s government talk for – “hey, if you don’t do my job and make me look good, I’ll shut down the program, and you’ll be moved to another government program.”

(No one ever gets fired anymore.)

Seriously, isn’t it the Environment Minister’s job to create the policies and procedures for his own ministry?

Gee Mr. Gerretsen, wouldn’t it have been a better idea to discuss, debate and then decide how to implement this eco-fee BEFORE you put it in place? Don’tcha-think?

But no, you just had to get this tax into place as fast as possible, without any input from anyone other than your own closely guarded circle of – did you talk to anyone about this? Anyone at all?

Naturally, the opposition parties are coming down on the Ontario government over this mess. One politician even saying if elected he’ll kill this new tax right away.

When was the last time you ever heard of a politician canceling a tax completely?

Never?

Me either.

What’s worse, is now our politicians are using our passion for the planet against us. Instead of instituting green initiatives which really are environmentally-friendly, they are instituting policies which just pad their pocketbooks, using the environment as an excuse.

No wonder politicians get a bad rap, and jokes abound about just how far you can trust ‘em.

What will you do next Minister Gerretsen, paint a baby green, toss a sash on it reading “Earth” and then kiss it in front of the cameras for a photo op?

Just remember, if you do that – don’t use the lead-based paint.

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What Would You Do with $95 Million?

That’s the question many people in Ontario, Canada are asking themselves, as today is the last day to purchase a ticket for the largest lottery prize in Canadian history.

Though that $95CDN million is misleading. It’s actually only $50CDN million in the main Lotto Max provincially-run lottery. The remaining $45CDN million will be doled out in $1CDN million prizes to 45 lucky winners.

Even those amounts are STILL misleading, when you take in account the average amount Canadians spend on lotteries – about $300CDN per year – and add in how many years the average Canadian has been playing the lotteries – about 10-years – that’s $3,000CDN.

Then you must pay taxes on your winnings, estimate about 30 percent of $50CDN million -- $15CDN million.

So, realistically, if you were to win $50CDN million, you’d be taking home about $35CDN million – which still is pretty good.

But then you’d probably need to pay some security firm an outrageous amount to keep all the crazies claiming to be your long lost relatives away. And then there are the constant death threats past lottery winners get, from wickedly evil crazies, so you’d be constantly living in a high security cocoon.

Still, that wouldn’t be much of a problem on your own private island in the tropics.
Hmm . . . $35CDN million take-home?

Got to scoot – time to get me a lottery ticket. . .

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Gee Canada Drops $1 Billion on G8 & G20

Property taxes in Canada’s largest city are rising, the country’s largest province is implementing a new combined federal/provincial tax in July, and many are still getting over the effects of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Yet today’s estimate of security costs to protect the G8 and G20 world leaders which will be in Canada for a mere 48-hours have topped the $1CDN billion mark.

The Canadian federal government says it’ll cost at least $930CDN million, but won’t release final dollar amounts until after both events, which are being hosted in Toronto, Ontario, and “cottage country” just north of Toronto, in Muskoka, Ontario.

It is expected security costs will actually be higher than estimates, due to threats and allegations from protest groups.

That’s more than double what it cost Canadian taxpayers to secure the entire 17 days of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

Yes, it is important that world leaders have clear and concise communications – but can Canada afford to spend a billion dollars for a mere 48 hours, to keep these people safe?

At least with the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, much of the costs to secure it were recouped through tourist dollars – if anything tourists are being discouraged to come to Toronto during the G20 and G8 summits.

Much of the downtown core – the heart of the largest city’s entertainment and tourism industry – will be shutdown and off limits due to security concerns during the G20 and G8 summits. Just yesterday, the country’s largest university – The University of Toronto – announced it was ordered to close its downtown campus for the duration of the two-day summit, because it represented a security risk. At great expense to the educational institution, they will be putting students who live on the downtown campus up at hotels, as the campus will be sealed off tighter than Fort Knox.

Other tourist attractions, such as the CNTower, the Rogers Centre, First Canadian Place, numerous theatres, clubs, restaurants, bars, hotels, the major banking skyscrapers, and many other places right in the downtown core will be off limits to anyone who either doesn’t work there, have the right security clearances, or both.

Getting around Toronto and “cottage country” will be hell in late June, when the summits are to occur – roads and highways will be sporadically closed to ferry the high ranking world leaders to the various venues of the two summits.

That and the thousands of people expected to flock to both areas to protest the summits, the leaders, and their policies, don’t make for a tourist-friendly environment.

Would you want to take your next vacation amidst the screams and chants of an angry mob?

Well, maybe the protesters will at least spend some money while at the summits, to help offset the costs?

Wait a sec . . .

Aren’t most protesters twenty-something unemployed students with too much time on their hands?

Guess not.

Oh Canada – what a country.

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Sex In The Classroom – But I Still Haven’t Finished My Pacifier

When is the right age to teach about the birds and the bees in school?

Some say never – they believe parents should teach these things to their kids themselves. Others thank their local school boards, because they fear getting into an awkward and uncomfortable frank discussion with their own child.

In Canada’s largest province of Ontario, the politicians were thinking first grade was a good age to begin.

Public uneasiness about having kids barely weaned off of Barney learning about the differences between boys and girls has since led the provincial government to rethink the proposed new policy, delaying its implementation.

The proposed policy would have introduced sexual identity orientation in grade three, learning about masturbation in grade six, and lessons about anal and oral sex in grades seven and eight.

So, who is right and who is wrong? When are kids too young to learn about this stuff? When is it too late?

The problem isn’t so much a thing of age and time, but lack of cooperation between parents and public institutions.

Kids are naturally curious, and with technologies like smart phones, the Internet and our ever expanding digital television universe, they are going to explore and discover sex and other adult subjects eventually on their own – regardless of all the parental protections put in place.

It is better that kids learn about sex from a parent or teacher, than from flipping on a porn video at a friend’s house.

But then, how are you going to prevent your son or daughter from catching a porno at a friend’s place? You can’t be everywhere – can you?

You can forbid your child from playing at friends places, but then your children won’t develop the social skills they need to live happy, healthy lives.

Maybe instead of having specific classroom sessions on sex, each school board should have sex educators on staff. It would be no different from the child psychologists, developmental specialists, and other specialists many school boards already retain.

So that faithful day, when you learn that the reason your son has been spending so much time over at the Jone’s is because they have the porn channels available all the time, you can talk to your kid’s teacher about seeing the school’s sex educator.

And the school’s sex educator would work with you, your kid, and your teacher, to properly provide the information and counseling for all parties concerned.

That’s the real solution to sex education – it is a partnership with parents, their kids and their teachers.

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Canada’s Biggest Environmental Challenge – Ourselves

Ironic – a day before Earth Day, our dependence on fossil fuels is evidently echoed across Canada’s largest city.

Today, the world’s largest automaker, General Motors (GM) announced it has repaid the $1.4CDN billion in loans it received from the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments – which the company’s president says is a sign the company is recovering from the recession. GM also repaid the $6.7CDN billion in loans it received from the American federal government’s bailout package.

Also happening today in Toronto, Canada, the city says it is expanding bike lanes in the downtown core along some of the major routes, despite a growing divide.

Much like the battle for and against bike lanes in Toronto, the street where they are going this summer -- University Avenue -- is split down the middle by beautiful gardens and statues – it is one of the widest streets in Canada’s largest city.

So why the division?

Some see the addition of bike lanes as an attack against drivers, as one of their lanes in either direction will disappear, causing more traffic headaches.

Others see the new bike lanes as a step forward for the environment and personal health and fitness.

Despite the greater good – for the environment – adding bike lanes in Canada’s largest city won’t amount to a hell of beans, to paraphrase a famous American general.

For some, it will encourage them to use peddle-power instead of gas-power. For those that already do ride their bike wherever they go it will make their life a lot easier.

But the real problem isn’t really being addressed – lifestyle.

In other urban centers, such as New York, Chicago and London, it isn’t uncommon for people to take public transit, walk, or bike wherever they go. Hailing a cab in Manhattan may make you feel like you’re in the middle of a Woody Allen movie, but with gridlock, you’d probably get to where you were going faster if you were on a bike, or even walked.

In most cities around the world, if you arrive anyway other than by your own personal vehicle, there isn’t anything seen as odd or wrong with that – that’s life living in the big city.

But in Canada’s largest city, if you happen to mention you took public transit or rode your bike, people look down on you, as if there is something wrong with you.

“You can’t afford a car?”

Automatically, people in Canada’s largest city assume that if you didn’t drive, there is something wrong with you. You’re not normal, you are an outcast.

Statistics back this up – or at least the part about those who drive versus those who don’t in the city of Toronto. In Canada’s largest city, over 70 percent of the adult population drives.

Politicians buy into these stats too – over past two decades, federal, provincial and municipal politicians have made – and more importantly broken – their promises to expand public transit.

Back in the mid 1990’s, when I was a reporter, I watched as then-Ontario Transportation Minister Al Palladini, sporting a gold-colored hard hat and shovel, broke the ground at was to become the Downsview subway station, along with several other politicos.

Although the Downsview subway station was built, and stands today, I’ll never forget what Palladini said. He proudly declared that this was the start of a massive initiative to get Ontario moving.

His major transit initiatives, aside from the lone Downsview subway station, never materialized. He had plans to expand the subway to York University in the north-west corner of Toronto, and to create a single-fare system across the municipalities outside of Toronto, currently you have to pay two fares.

Thanks to budget cuts, changes in government, and lack of public and political interest, those green transportation plans got shelved.

More recently, just this past month, the province of Ontario took away funding from TransitCity, another massive government plan to expand public transit across Toronto. TransitCity was going to fund the expansion of transit for the next decade – they tossed everything into it but the kitchen sink. From funding for replacing old, outdated, and costly to maintain buses and streetcars with new ones, to increasing bus route services, to building new light rail lines – including one much needed connecting Toronto’s downtown to the airport – were all a part of this big plan.

That plan too sits on a shelf, collecting dust, as the politicians at the provincial level bailed out – transit costs too much, and they’d rather put their funding into what the voters want.

Ah yes, that’s what it always comes down too. It never really comes down to the greater good for the environment, or even to really seriously reduce gridlock – which costs Canadians a billion dollars due to lost productivity. What really matters is buying voters with policies and plans catered to them.

Never mind that part of public life is to do the right thing, if I were a politician, I’d probably do the same – worry about pleasing those who gave me m job, so I could get re-elected.

Or would I?

Actually, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to keep your job, please the voters and do the right thing. All you have to do is lead by example.

If our leaders at all levels of government took public transit, road bicycles, even drove around in environmentally-friendly electric prototype vehicles, then it wouldn’t seem so outrageous a thing to you and me.

Instead, our leaders travel like royalty, in luxury late model vehicles – the American Presidential car is even nicknamed “the Beast.”

That’s why GM is able to pay back it loans – cars versus taking the bus – cars win hands down. When was the last time you saw Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper riding a bike, or standing in a busy subway train during rush hour?

Love them or hate them, we do follow our leaders. That’s human nature, and until our leaders change their ways, it doesn’t matter how many bike lanes they put in Toronto, or any other Canadian city – they won’t get the use they could, had our leaders used them to show us the way.

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Corporate Greed Causes Health Care War in Canada

How far will the mega-large multinational pharmaceutical firms go to make a dollar? Just ask anyone in the province of Ontario, in Canada, where drug stores are cutting staff and hours, while increasing their service fees to their customers in response to the provincial governments plans to make life saving medications more affordable to residents.

The largest drug store chain in the province – Shoppers Drug Mart – announced yesterday it will cut store hours, while another major chain – Rexall (which also owns the PharmaPlus drug store chain) – will start charging for delivery (which is currently free).

Both companies say their corporate changes are a direct result of the Ontario Health Minister’s announcement last week to cut generic drug costs by at least 50 percent, to 25 percent of the original cost of the brand name drug.

The province also has plans to ban the current process where generic drug manufacturers payoff pharmacies and drug stores to encourage the distribution and sale of their products, over the brand name competitors. Pharmacists insist that these often called “allowances” are actually used to pay for extended hours and special free services, such as free delivery to seniors, blood pressure monitoring, and consultations.

Last year, these “allowances” provided a whopping $750CDN million to pharmacists.

The provincial government says these changes are necessary to shave off over $500CDN million annually from its provincial medical plans which cover drug costs for the elderly and the disabled.

What it really boils down to is corporate greed – and the large Ontario drug store chains are clearly showing that. By cutting store hours – many Shoppers Drug Mart locations are open until midnight – charging for once free services – such as delivery and consultations – and firing staff, these companies are causing more harm, when the whole essence of health care exactly the opposite.

Drug stores and pharmacies are a major part of the health care system in most of the western world, as they provide the medicines to cure and calm our illnesses and diseases. In some locals, pharmacists take the very same Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, as doctors, nurses and other medical practitioners take.

Yet these very same individuals are doing harm, by holding their customers – one might even call them their patients – hostage, because they won’t be able to continue their extreme mark-ups on generic drugs, nor will they be able to accept the generic drug firm bribes – I mean “allowances” – to ensure generic drugs are sold instead of the brand name drugs.

According to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, drugs have been overpriced in the province for too long, citing a single dose of a generic heart drug’s costs around the world as an example. The drug costs just two-cents in New Zealand, a dime in the United States of America, but 50-cents in Ontario.

The premier has a point – how come the very same drug costs so little elsewhere, but so much more here?

Corporate greed.

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Happy Birthday Canada – Here’s Yet Another Tax Increase

Canada’s largest provincial government stuck their tax grabbing hands deeper into their residents pockets, and as of July 1, 2010, almost everything in Ontario will be eight percent more expensive.

When the Ontario government merges their provincial sales tax into the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) – which is a combination of the five percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the eight percent Ontario Provincial Sales Tax (PST) many items currently only subjected to the GST will suddenly be taxed provincially as well. All of this takes place when the new combined HST takes effect, on Canada’s birthday -- Canada Day -- July 1.

The Ontario government claims this combining of the two taxes will result of in a cost savings for both the federal and provincial governments in terms of administering the taxation system. And if you check out the provincial government’s website, they are trying to sell this tax increase as a tax decrease for Ontarians – just how dumb do they take us for?

However easier it may or may not be for the government to administer, this is clearly a tax grab for the Ontario government, as the harmonization of the two taxes really adds up when you consider all the things we consume which previously weren’t taxed by the province – but will be once the new HST takes effect.

Some of these higher prices will affect all of us all indirectly. Gas prices will skyrocket by the additional provincial portion of the HST by eight percent on July 1 – which directly affects everyone who drives in Ontario.

Almost everything you pick up off a store shelf comes to that store by truck. An additional eight percent price jump may occur, to offset the additional fuel costs spent to bring those goods to market. This is in ADDITION to any other taxes, because they are the result of an additional tax being levied on fuel, which will directly result in an increase in the cost of getting goods to market.

And you think the trucking companies are going to pay for that? Think again. They will charge more to transport – say groceries such as apples and oranges to your local grocery store. The grocery store in turn, will have to charge more to recoup their costs, so the price of apples and oranges will increase. Even though the cost of apples and oranges themselves did not directly increase by the HST – basic groceries are exempt from the provincial portion of the HST in Ontario.

Dalton McGuinty, Ontario’s Premier says the HST will affect a mere 17 percent of consumer purchases. However, McGuinty is only looking at what the HST is directly affecting – he’s failed to include all the indirect costs associated with his tax grab, such as the cost to get apples and oranges to market.

Previously not taxed provincially, the following items will jump by eight percent automatically when the HST takes affect:

• Electricity
• Gasoline
• Heating Fuels
• Internet Access Fees
• Personal Services (e.g., Hairstyling)
• Professional Services (e.g., Legal, Accounting and Real Estate Fees and Commissions)
• Tobacco

Many of these combine to give you a double-whammy effect – computers use electricity to run so that we can check our email and surf the Internet. Electricity and Internet access fees are both increasing by eight percent each under the HST. Suddenly, your lone computer sitting in the corner costs you an additional 16 percent in taxes just to operate!

A ten dollar haircut will jump to a thirteen percent HST – meaning you’ll now pay $11.30 for that ten dollar trim.

The Ontario Ministry of Finance estimates the typical Ontario home owner will pay an additional $100 per year for electricity and about $125 per year for natural gas heating.

Businesses need electricity and heat as well, and as their operating costs increase thanks to increased electricity and heating fuel costs, they will naturally pass these operating costs onto us consumers, so even products exempt from the provincial portion of the HST will in the end, cost more.

All of these costs come just as the world is starting to come out of the worst economic depression since the Great Depression of the ‘Dirty Thirties,’ so as many of us are still reeling financially, the Ontario government socks us with a hefty right-hook, punching us with another new tax.

Wonderful. Maybe just as we’re getting up from the mat, the McGuinty government will pour some salt in our wounds to remind us of their fiscal sting with new user fees implemented for services which were previously already paid for by our taxes. Oh, they are going to do that too this year?

Welcome to Ontario – yours to discover – as the local license plates say.

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Who’s Paying for the Stuff that Comes Out of Your Tap?

We drink it to sustain our bodies, bathe in it to stay clean and healthy, it is even part of the very molecular structure of what we breathe to live.

Water.

All life as we know it requires water. Life is so dependent on the liquid compound known as H2O that scientists use its existence on other planets as a determining factor in whether there is a possibility of life on worlds outside our own. That’s why they think their once may have been life on Mars, because of trace elements which indicate water once was on the red planet.

All civilizations throughout history have been built on or near water. Battles have ensued, and great wars have been fought over water.

A battle is heating up in Canada’s largest province over who should pay for the life sustaining substance.

Ontario Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) David Caplan has proposed a private members bill which would require all residents of that province to pay the full price for safe, clean, water flowing into their homes.

Caplan’s no slouch, he’s a veteran politician. He’s been a health minister and an infrastructure minister – on separate occasions – and now is known among his colleagues as a backbencher because he’s no longer a minister of anything.

And his private members bill isn’t anything to take one flush at and look away either. Not only would Ontarians on average have to fork over about $50 per month for the right to continue to access their safe and clean municipal water supply, the bill would put into law the public ownership of water.

Maybe Caplan is planning ahead to the next election -- today he announced yet another private member's bill to make Toronto's public transit system legally an essential service. This debate has gone on for years, because every time the over-powerful and greedy union calls for a transit strike, the City of Toronto essentially shuts down due to the massive traffic jams.

Who does own the stuff that flows through your taps? If Caplan’s bill passes – it is already at Second Reading – legally you would.

But wait a sec . . . if you own something, why would you need to pay for it – you already own it?

Caplan’s water bill stems from the Walkerton tragedy a decade ago. Back in 2000, seven people died in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada due to a tainted water supply. The money collected by this new tax on water would go towards ensuring municipal water sources and the systems in place to get those water sources to us our safe and well managed.

In some Canadian municipalities, the water supply systems are well over 100-years-old.

Despite the additional cost to Ontario residents, this water bill really boils down to two issues – the ownership of a natural resource, and whether or not the money collected for the right to access that resource will really go towards maintaining it.

Far more than being cynical, we’ve seen governments create new taxes and user fees for specific projects, only to learn that those monies have gone to other things.

When the Liberals were last in power federally in Canada, millions of dollars were collected to keep track of legal gun owners, and to remove unregistered fire arms.
However, all the money collected was spent long before the Gun Registry was completed, leaving a political mine field for the Liberals, and a mishandled and mismanaged partial list of registered gun owners.

That additional gas tax you pay when you fill up your car is supposed to fund road and highway repairs, public transit systems and other infrastructure costs.

Yet most of these funds have gone into other government programs, leaving our roads and highways full of potholes, and our constantly underfunded public transit systems crushing their very users, by constantly increasing their fares.

Clearly, we just can’t take a politicians word when they tell us specific user fees or taxes collected will go to the specific costs they claim they will.

So should we let the slow meandering wheels of governments declare our water systems publicly owned?

The alternative, unfortunately isn’t all that better – having a privately owned water system, run by the filthy hands of greedy big business.

Although the funds collected by big business would most likely go into maintaining the water supply system, the primary goal of big business is making money. So the costs would constantly increase, as the powers-that-be wanted more and more profits – even if the cost to maintain the system didn’t rise.

We’ve seen this happen with the once provincially owned 407 Express Toll Highway in Ontario, which has seen constant toll increases ever since it was sold off to a private company which now handles all maintenance.

Whatever happens, we’re stuck in the middle of two evils – a mismanaged public system, or an overpriced private system – because water is the one thing none of us can go without.

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How the Media Manipulates Your World

Yesterday, a local Canadian journalist made the news her news, changing the focus from what was really the story, to what she wanted the story to be about.

Who could blame her – we all want our 15-minutes of fame, right? Though when I was a newshound not that many eons ago, there was this murky thing called objectivity which we always tried to abide by.

Being human, it is part of our very fabric to be subjective – that’s just human nature. But good journalists are aware of their own personal bias, and although we may not always be able to check our emotions at the door, we always give all sides of the story to be fair and honest. And we certainly don’t use our subjective opinions to create the story.

Or at least, that’s the way it was way back when I was a reporter. But if you watched Toronto’s CityTV yesterday, you’d think otherwise.

Yesterday, a municipal politician announced he was running for mayor in Toronto, ON., Canada – the elections are to be held later in the year. He made the announcement at a party he held at a nightclub, where fans, foes, and the media turned up for the event.

The CityTV reporter who was covering the event uses a wheelchair to get around. The venue the wanna-be mayor chose to throw his bash wasn’t wheelchair accessible.

Naturally, the reporter questioned the politician on his inaccessible choice for his party, and this dialogue had the effect of overshadowing the rest of the story, making the story all about the reporter’s personal struggles, rather than what the story was really about – a local city counselor launching his campaign to be the next mayor.

Not that accessibility for the disabled isn’t important, everyone should have access to public events. And in Ontario Canada they shall. All public facilities must be wheelchair accessible by 2025 under a new law.

Even the freshly minted candidate for mayor knew this, as he mentioned it in his rebuttal to the reporter who pushed him on this topic, but then the story cut to a scene where the reporter could be heard sighing “awkward” as two men carried the reporter and wheelchair together down a flight of stairs.

The news media covers the news – it shouldn’t be making it up as it goes along. It isn’t as if the news director has a hidden agenda, or maybe the reporter did?
Or maybe they both did?

Though when your news director, a staff reporter, or both, have a hidden agenda, I suppose it doesn’t matter – we make this stuff up, right?

Wrong – very wrong.

Although it is impossible for us human beings to be completely objective and unbiased in our views, when it comes to truth story telling – which is what good journalism is – intentionally manipulating events to sell personal opinions isn’t truth story telling anymore. That’s what opinion and editorials (op ed) pieces are for, because those are clearly referenced as the opinions of the reporter.

When “news” is wrapped in select opinions and packaged as the way things really are in the world, it intentionally misleads and confuses us, instead of giving us the information we are entitled to, so that we can make our own educated and informed decisions.

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New Canada Is the Racially Tense America of the Past

Educators in Canada’s largest city must like jar collections, because they certainly are turning the school system into one.

A jar collection is a mix-mash of stuff you can put into a jar, one jar for each item. Some collectors have different jams, others bottle caps, the point is everything gets put in its own jar. Nice and neat, and nothing interacts with the stuff in the other jars.

That’s just what the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) – Canada’s largest public school board – is doing to solve their child rearing problems.

Black kids not getting along with the other kids? No problem, TDSB created a black only school. This idea originated ironically just as the United S

Image via Wikipedia

tates of America swore in their first black president, showing how far race relations have come in the States. We Canadians can learn a thing or two from our neighbors to the south.

The current problem the TDSB is trying to solve using their separate, isolate and divide mentality is immigration. There is a school in the city’s north-east end in a neighborhood where immigration is so high, they haven’t room for the 600-plus kindergarten-aged children. So, the TDBS has raised the notion of creating a kindergarten only school, just to accommodate all the newcomer’s kids to this country.

It is one thing to keep your strawberry jam in one bottle, so as to not mix it with your grape jelly. It is quite another to separate young kids of different ages, ethnic backgrounds and cultural heritages.

By separating kids on these levels, they don’t interact – and learn and grow – with these kids from different ages, ethnic backgrounds and cultural heritages.
And that fosters hate, racism and bigotry, which are traits which should not be a part of any country’s cultural fabric, let alone a country that prides itself on welcoming people from all nations, such as Canada.

The TDSB may disguise this racist segregation using weasel words such as “black focused school,” or practical arguments such as the fact that they have over 600 kids in one grade, where normally they have maybe 60 to 100 kids in that one grade. But let’s be crystal clear – they are separating kids from all other cultures, and isolating them in their own schools.

Having a “black focused school” is pretty obvious, but the same thing is being done with the immigrant children. Yes the kindergarten classes are standi

Image via Wikipedia

ng-room only full, but the immigrants tend to all be from one cultural group. So intentional or not, once again the TDSB will be separating kids from one specific ethnic group, from everyone else.

A more traditionally Canadian solution would be to break up the kindergarten among other schools in nearby communities, placing kids in other schools across a geographic radius. But the TDSB is following the current trends of racial segregation and cultural divides.

One of the biggest on-going problems in Canada has been the segregation of cultural communities.

Over twenty-years ago, Canada really was a cultural mosaic. The streets were humming with kids from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, playing, learning and growing up together. I remember growing up, playing tag with the other kids in the neighborhood – I always seemed to be “it.” I knew my next door neighbors were Italian, the kids from across the street were Polish, there was a family from the Ukraine, and a few other global villages represented by the other kids. I never really noticed when I was a kid growing up, back then, I was just a geeky little boy, trying to catch one of the other kids so I wouldn’t still be “it.”

The families of these children for the most part got along with their neighbors, embracing the various cultural differences, learning and growing from one another. All the parents looked out for each other’s kids. If a kid scraped his or her knee, it didn’t matter which house he or she went too, the band-aids weren’t cultural-specific, and the parents didn’t care what color the kid’s skin was. They just did what any good parent would do, by mending the kid’s knee, offering a smile and some kind words to make the hurt go away.

Not any more – walk into many a Canadian neighborhood these days and you’ll know instantly what ethnic or cultural part of town you are in. We have China Town, Little Italy, the Greek Village – but we don’t have that once wonderful and amazing Canadian street where cultural ethnicity does not matter, and the kids and parents learn, love and laugh together regardless of the accent of the laugh, or the color of the skin.

I miss that Canada – because that was – and should still be – what it really means to be Canadian.

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