Scarborough shootings: Rob Ford’s response to gang crime gets cool reception from premier....

Toronto Star, July 18, 2012.

The headline was with regard to the unprecedented shooting of two people, fatally, and the wounding of 23 more. Since then there have been four more shootings in The City of Toronto.

Naturally, Mayor Rob Ford is angry and upset with this level of violence and wants to call an end to it, so he has called upon the premier, Dalton McGuinty, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper for assistance. We haven't heard from Stephen Harper, but McGuinty's response was fairly typical for him.

In the above mentioned new story he is quoted as saying, “It’s a time for us to be reflective and not reflexive,” McGuinty said during a stop in his Ottawa riding Thursday."

He is also quoted as saying, "Political leaders should not so much to come to the table with demands of each other, but rather questions for ourselves that we need to ask.”

In other words, the most that is likely to come out of these meetings is talk--McGuinty's general approach to things. Mind you, he's quick to move if there's the prospect of votes to be had. Case in point: The moving of a generating plant from Mississauga (at a cost to taxpayer of $190M) to save votes in that city.

McGuinty fiddled while ORNGE officials danced and partied....

The more we learn about the ORNGE morass (Ontario's air ambulance service) the more appalling it becomes. The latest revelation is the astonishing salary increase given to the former chairman, Chris Mazza (a former emergency room doctor), i.e.,

"Back in 2007, Mazza’s annual salary was $298,000. That was the last year his salary was made public on the provincial sunshine list. The next year, ORNGE began creating for-profit companies and took the position that executive salaries would become secret.

Sometime in 2009, Mazza, a former emergency room doctor, told board chairman Rainer Beltzner and others that his skill and expertise had caught the attention of another company. Mazza did not identify the company and the board did not ask for proof. The Star has not been able to confirm that a company and job offer existed.

“He was being poached by a private firm, that’s what the board was told,” the source said. “His compensation had to be increased.”

More on the ORNGE investigation

Enter Luis Navas, a compensation specialist Mazza met when they both did their executive MBAs at the Richard Ivey business school in London, Ont.

Navas wore several hats at ORNGE over the years (he is now gone from the air ambulance firm). He was a board member, chair of the board’s compensation and governance committee, and eventually a paid executive (how much ORNGE will not say) working on international business in Florida.

In talks that involved Navas, a decision was made by the board to increase Mazza’s salary and bonus to $1.4 million in 2010. Also, in late 2010 and early 2011, Mazza was given an additional $1.2 million, made up of interest-free, no-term loans and a large cash advance against a future bonus. Some of that money went to purchase and renovate Mazza’s new home in Etobicoke. ORNGE has attempted to recover some of that money.

According to the recent testimony of Beltzner, the ORNGE board hired “independent external consultants to conduct an exhaustive study and provide recommendations to the board on compensation for both ORNGE executives and the board.”

Beltzner, in his testimony, did not mention Mazza’s job offer as a catalyst for increased pay.

But Beltzner did say that in late 2011, with storm clouds circling around ORNGE, he “became aware that Dr. Mazza’s professional corporation was being paid substantial amounts for services apparently not being provided. I took immediate steps to stop these payments and informed the ministry’s internal auditor.”

Beltzner was paid $200,000 a year as chairman. The person who replaced him as chair does the job as a volunteer." Kevin Donovan, Toronto Star.

Not bad, eh? Wouldn't you like to have a salary increase of 245% in a time of recession? Meanwhile, McGuinty smugly complains about the cost of doctor's compensation in Ontario. Can you believe it! The man has absolutely no shame whatsoever.

Dalton McGuinty and Hydro One (OPG) ... A study in incompetence!

Specifically: It is a study of incompetence, waste, greed and downright stupidity on the part of Hydro One and various politicians--including Ernie Eves and Dalton McGuinty.

Consider this: In 2002 the then Chairman of Hydro One, Eleanor Clitheroe, was fired because she: "used credit cards contrary to company policy. They [Ontario Power Group Board] said she also obtained club memberships at the company's expense. Many of those memberships had no business-related purpose, the board said. Clitheroe is also said to have used Hydro One service providers to do renovations to her home."

At the time she made over $2.2 million, including $174,000 for a car and $172,000 in vacation pay. Clitheroe also stood to get $6 million in cash if she left Hydro One for any reason, and she stood to receive an annual pension of up to $1 million."

During Clitheroe’s tenure, no bookkeeper, accountant, civil servant or administrative chief at Hydro One ever noticed that the same employee costing us $330,000 in limousine rides was taking some $214,000 in car allowances. If any of them did notice, they kept mum. During the entire Clitheroe reign, there were no enterprising reporters ringing alarm bells.

Oh, and by the way, she got a $6.5M severance package and a $300,000+ annual pension when she went out the door.

And if that isn't bad enough, her replacement chair, Tom Parkinson 'resigned' after it was disclosed that he improperly charged his secretary's credit card with $45,000 of expenses.

The then Minister of Energy, Dwight Duncan, (now Minister of Finance) wouldn't reveal the exact amount Parkinson was paid to walk away, but Parkinson was Ontario's highest paid public employee, earning $1.6 million in salary and bonuses last year. His severance package could have been worth as much as $3 million.

So, if you want to know why hydro bills went up an average of $4.00 per month, take a long hard look at the above.

Gerry Burnie

PS. Has anyone any idea how much money has been collected through the "debt retirement charge?"

***

And while we're on the topic of Debt Retirement Charge...

Anyone know what "defeased" means? In the Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation's statement it reads: “The Electricity Act, 1998, provides for the Debt Retirement Charge (DRC) to be paid by consumers until the stranded debt is defeased.” see: http://www.oefc.on.ca/debtmanage.html. However, I've checked two dictionaries, i.e. Webster's and Oxford, and I can't find it.

I opt for another election in Ontario...

If that is what it takes to get rid of Dalton McGuinty!

And here's $1B reasons why:

DO WE NEED MORE REASON THAN THIS?

Some bureaucrats are just overpaid, insensitive jerks...What do you think?

Take this case in point.

I recently returned from an out-of-country vacation. Not an easy feat for a man of 76 years curtailed to a walker (due to a failed hip operation), and a mild form of Parkinson's Syndrome. 

Now, to get back into the country Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (the same folks that collect our income taxes) requires you to fill out a declaration stating that you are:

• Not importing guns or other weapons into Canada (even after being thoroughly searched by US security before boarding)
• Not bringing agricultural products (such as forest of trees) on your walker
• And that you are not carrying money in excess of $10,000 dollars (I wish!).

That’s all fine and dandy, and If I could I would, but the reality is that I can hardly hold a pen let alone write with it.

So picture this: There I am with two pieces of luggage on my lap, holding my walker in front of me, while an airline assistant pushes me along on wheelchair. We approach this hulk of a man who is doing nothing but looking surly, and his first words are “You haven’t completed your declaration … You MUST complete the declaration.” I then explain my dilemma and ask him politely if he would do it for me. Well … You’d think that I’d asked him for a loan of $10,000 so I could carry it across the border by the way he rolled his eyes and threw pencils about.

So what do you call a guy like this? He obviously hasn't any respect or compassion toward a senior citizen, or a person who is obviously physically handicapped even if my Parkinson's isn't visible.  Therefore, "a Jerk" maybe only a mild epithet.

How about a few suggestions? Add you comments below

Here's what's wrong with Dalton McGuinty's government...

An Ontario government agency that can't account for $700M of taxpayer's money is immune from disclosing its exec's salaries.

Ontario released its sunshine list of public sector employees who make more than $100,000 a year on Friday, and while the document is much longer than in past years, it also contains a few glaring omissions.

The top executives of scandal-plagued air ambulance service Ornge, including former chief executive Chris Mazza, are nowhere to be seen on the list. The Ministry of Health says it's because the private side-companies created by the top brass at Ornge shielded them from the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, and that it's working to compile a list regardless. 

"Ornge has agreed to reach out to all individuals who have made over $100,000 in 2011 to get their permission to post their salaries on Ornge's website and that work is ongoing," said Zita Astravas, press secretary for Health Minister Deb Matthews in an email on Friday. 

"Going forward, all employees at Ornge will be subject to the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act and will appear on the Sunshine List." 

Mazza made $1.4 million before he was fired in January following a scandal at the air ambulance service. The organization's finances are being investigated by police for "irregularities," and the provincial government has promised to provide more transparency into Ornge's dealings in the future. 

In a report that came out earlier this week, the province's auditor general slammed the high salaries of the organization's former executives and directors. But they're not the only one making a decent wage at the air ambulance service. About 135 other staff at Ornge are on the list of over-$100,000 earners, including several paramedics. 

Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell was once again the best-paid public employee in Ontario, making $1.8 million in 2011 including his salary and benefits. Mitchell's job includes overseeing 12,000 employees, two nuclear power plants and much of the electricity production and delivery in the province.
About 7,700 OPG workers earned more than $100,000 in 2011, making up the largest group of workers from a single organization on the sunshine list. 

Bonuses, pensions and other non-taxable benefits aren't included in the salaries on the list, meaning most of those listed get additional financial benefits that don't have to be reported. 

There are 78, 901 names on the 2011 list, about 7,300 more than the previous year, an increase of about 10 per cent. 

Others on the list include police officers, hospital employees, city workers and of course, direct government employees. 

Following the list's release, Conservative MPP Jim Wilson held a news conference urging the premier to freeze government workers' salaries immediately.

Source: CTV News http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/ornge_execs_not_included_on_sunshine_list/65c14bab

Yet another McGuinty assault on seniors

 News item: "Ontario may crack down on drivers with dimentia" 

[see: http://autos.sympatico.ca/auto-news/13170/ontario-may-crack-down-on-drivers-with-dementia]


The following is a letter that I sent to an Ontario newspaper expressing my views. It needs no further explanation.

I swear that if Dalton McGuinty could he would confiscate all seniors’ money, use their properties as daycare centres for unwed mothers, and ship us (seniors) to Baffin Island.

The first thing he did when coming to office was to rescind Ernie Eves’ property tax rebate for seniors—legislation that had already been passed. The second thing was to remove the ceiling from hydro so that my energy costs are now almost equal to my mortgage payments.
Then he enacted a ‘health premium tax’ so that my generation of seniors became the first to pay for health services after sixty-five.

And now he is proposing a graduated driving license for seniors, claiming seniors are subject to dementia.

Whether or not this is true, all doctors in Ontario are required to recommend to the Ministry of Transportation that an individual’s license be revoked for medical reasons. This suggests there is a secondary reason behind such a heavy-handed proposal, and given McGuinty’s record I suspect it has a lot to do with all those administrative dollars it would generate.

Besides being an insidious erosion of civil liberties, there is also a question of priorities here. At a time when the major oil companies are poised to price some Ontarians out of their cars anyway, it appears the only concern Bob Chiarelli and Dalton McGuinty have is restricting seniors.

As a seventy-six year old writer working on my fourth novel, I am willing to test my mental capacity against McGuinty’s anytime, and if this proposed legislation passes I am going to prove my intelligence by removing myself and my money out of Orillia; out of Ontario; and out of Canada. Let McGuinty ponderously ponder that one.

Gerry Burnie,

Only you can end the senior menace

News item: The McGuinty Government may crack down on senior drivers in the Province of Ontario.

*sigh* Here we so again!

I swear that if Dalton McGuinty could afford to get rid of seniors, he’d turn our homes into day care centres for unwed mothers and ship us off to Baffin Island. Mind you, you’ll notice that this proposed crackdown comes in a non-election year.

The claim is that seniors may be suffering from dementia, so here’s a handy list of things to watch for. No: If you see any senior exhibiting the following symptoms, notify Dalton McGoony immediately.

• Died hair—especially orange, purple, lime green or puce.
• Body piercings—especially eyebrows, tongue or belly button.
• Driving erratically while talking on a cell phone or texting
• Listening to rap music in excess of 200 decibels, or that will shatter windows at 200 feet
• Mooning pedestrians on the sidewalk
• Driving while tending a kid in the back seat.

Remember: Only you can stamp out the senior menace!

I'm not the smartest guy in the world...

Not even close, but sometimes I feel pretty adequate compared to some of the other turkeys I hear or read about. Take this dumb-ass politician, MP Sana Hassainia, who is bent out of shape because she was asked to remove her kid from the House of Commons chamber during a session.

Now the rules of the House clearly state that no unelected person is allowed on the floor during a session, and a baby is clearly unelected, but this MP is obviously one of those people who think that having a kid not only gives them carte blanche over rules, but also other people’s rights–i.e. quiet enjoyment of a meal.

In fact, I can’t begin to count the number of meals I’ve had ruined–even in expensive restaurants–by someone’s obstreperousness kid screaming its lungs out or even playing tag while the parents looked on, admiringly of their little darling(s).

Equally culpable in my opinion are those types, generally women, who, upon see a sleeping baby have to “coochie-koo” it until they get it all hyper. Then, apparently satisfied, they go one chatting while the kid screams its lung out.

No, compared to insular thinking like that I fair fairly well in the IQ department–if only because I can think in two dimensions; what suits me and what suits others. It’s called enlightened self-interest. I can also manage 360-degree thinking at times, which is something that politicians like Sana Hassainia (et al) haven’t mastered yet.

As an example of modern parenting, however, Ms Hassainia is a sterling model (which is not a compliment).

Amzon: A good reason to keep Barnes and Noble as a viable alternative

You can generally tell when a company reaches monopoly status, or very near it, when it starts to loose contact with the people who helped carry it to the top—the suppliers and clients. Another indicator is when that company looses sight of its understood mandate (i.e. to serve the public—meaning all the public) and starts to act cavalierly. That, in my experience, describes Amazon.

My first experience came when I published my second novel, Journey to Big Sky, through CreateSpace (a subsidiary of Amazon Corp.). However, when it was listed on both Amazon.com and Amazon-Canada there was no product description—the kiss of death for any novel. I pointed this out to CreateSpace but got no where, and, of course, there is no way you can contact Amazon apart from their carefully controlled means (which doesn’t include complaints of this nature).

To be truthful I didn’t press it because I wasn’t really satisfied with the way I had written the story, and so I reworked it from beginning to end and published it as Nor All Thy Tears: Journey to Big Sky—once again through CreateSpace.

This time around it did get listed on Amazon.com with an all important product description, but Amazon-Canada listed it as “Unavailable,” which, if anything, is worse than no product description. Moreover, Amazon.com has yet to include it under “Canadian gay fiction,” even though it is about a Canadian politician set it Toronto and Ottawa. In other words, it couldn’t be more Canadian if it was wrapped in the flag and drizzled with maple syrup!

Meanwhile, it is rated #3 on Barnes and Noble`s “Romantic Fiction” list of approximately 64,000 titles—of all genres. I conclude therefore that the novel is not without merit.

Needless to say I’m biased in favour of Barnes and Noble as my book carrier of choice, but I believe it is in every writer’s interest to keep B&N as a viable alternative. Mine is not the only novel listed on Amazon without a product description. I’ve come across quite a number in my search for stories to review, and because of it the authors have lost the exposure I could have given his/her novel.

So, given that one can’t complain to Amazon, what can be done? Well, I’ve redirected all my “Go here to purchase” links to Barnes and Noble. Admittedly this isn’t going to drive Amazon into bankruptcy, but if everyone did the same it could make a difference in Amazon’s attitude—for the better one hopes.

Please think about it.

There are about 2,700 Landed Immigrants on Canada's "Most Wanted" list

These characters are accused of crimes against humanity in their home countries--i.e. muder, torture and rape, etc. [See 680 news item, "Ottawa expands Canadian Border Services Agency's fugitives list."]

Of course, the first question must be: How did they get into this country in the first place? Second, these are only the 2,700 we know of, so how many more are there out there?

A possible answer to the first question might be Canada's fixation with multiculturalism, to the point that it puts out the welcome mat for all and sundry with a foreign address. However, we are improving in that department because we at least know who these 2,700 goons are.

Mind you, that doesn't help so long as the prevailing practice is to leave the door open for more of these thugs to freely walk through it--collecting full social benefits along the way. It also doesn't help that the prevailing attitude about Canada is that, culturally speaking, it doesn't exist.

To end, let me make it clear that I believe qualified immigration is fine, I also believe multicuralism is fine--so long as it doesn't supplant those traditions which make this country uniquely Canadian--i.e. the RCMP's stetson-style hats, and respectfully removing one's hat in a Legion.

Otherwise, it must be seen as an insult to the pioneers who made this country great.

There's very little "Canada" left in "Canadian"

I first began to notice this with the so called “Canada Day” celebrations, this year. The airwaves were full of self-congratulating promoters touting the various multicultural events that were planned. However, there wasn’t even a single mention of our pioneer nation-builders who built this country with the sweat of their brows, and who lie forgotten in its soil. Indeed, from all the multicultural hype one would get the impression that Canada—at least culturally—began with the first plane load of immigrants to land at Pearson International Airport.

Nor did these Canada Day celebrations mention all the Canadian accomplishments for which we can be proudly Canadian. For example: The longest street in the world (Yonge Street, 1187.1 mi) was built between the 1790s &1812; the discovery of insulin was a Canadian accomplishment; the standardization of time was also a Canadian innovation; as was the game of basketball. The list goes on and on, of course, but the point is that things Canadian get swept under the carpet in favour of foreign imports, and this just isn’t right. In fact, it is downright shameful!

Multiculturalism is fine, but it isn’t Canadian. It is what it implies, i.e. an amalgam of various cultures that are being superimposed over an indigenous Canadian history and culture by a few effete, trend-setters, who view anything imported a being terruhbly chic. Meanwhile, Canadian history and traditions are being superseded in school curricula to the point where they will soon be forgotten altogether.

My personal gripe has to do with my latest novel, Nor All Thy Tears: Journey to Big Sky. It is a story set in the farming community of Pefferlaw, Ontario, as well as Toronto, Ottawa, and the ending includes Big Prairie Sky Country, Saskatchewan. In other words, it couldn’t be more Canadian if it was wrapped in the flag and drizzled with maple syrup. Yet, I had to go out of the country to have it published, and presently Amazon-Canada has it listed as “Currently unavailable.” [It’s available on Amazon.com].

I’m not arguing the merits of the story here—although it has received a five-star review—but at least offer it for sale in the author’s home country and let the readers decide.