Toronto schools are in crisis. First came the announcement of the swimming pool closures. The protests continue and alternatives are being sought. Clearly the dust hasn’t settled on this issue yet, and now comes another bombshell – a plan to close schools with poor enrolment.

This issue is more widespread than originally thought. Changing demographics and rising housing prices have literally forced families from the city into the suburbs. It has been reported that:
• 93 of 560 schools in the city of Toronto are operating at less than 50% capacity
• Each year Toronto has declining enrolment to the tune of 4,000 fewer students
• Since 2001 the enrolment in the Toronto District School board has declined by 30,000 students

In order to balance the budget this year $74 million has to be cut from the budget and these under utilized schools seem to be a good place to start – at least on paper. The trustees will be meeting to discuss establishing a standard optimal school size, the distribution of schools, grade structure, integrating middle schools with the lower grades, and other factors that contribute to the management and allocation of assets. The current recommendations are for elementary schools with 450 students and high schools with 1,200 students.

Clearly school closures seem to be a logical and necessary step to balancing the budget and to make the most efficient use of the existing resources. Needless to say emotions will run high and no matter what decisions are made, many people will be unhappy. Do you think that it is a good idea to close schools with less than 50% enrolment?

Come down to the Second Annual Toronto Green Living Show from April 25 – April 27 at the Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place.

Everyone talks about “living green”, but this show will teach you how to do it by making practical changes in your life. Over 400 exhibitors and industry experts will be on hand with information, suggestions, and solutions in areas including energy, building, transportation, education, business, home and garden, fashion and beauty, food and beverage, health and fitness, and travel.

The Toronto Green Living Show hours are:

Friday, April 25th from 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Saturday, April 26th from 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Sunday, April 27th from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Tickets for adults are $12.00 if you buy them at the door but only $10.50 if you buy them online. Students and senior pay $9.00 at the door or $8.00 online. Take public transit, parking is expensive. The 509 Harbourfront streetcar from Union Station or the 511 Bathurst streetcar from Bathurst Station will get you there.

Some great features of the show include:

• Main Stage presentations by celebrities and environmental experts
• Hundreds of new products
• CANÜhome - a beautiful, sustainable, and affordable one-story housing unit
• Organic Marketplace where you can shop for local, organic, fair trade products
• Test, Ride and Drive - experience green transport first hand by test driving battery, hybrid, and fuel cell electric vehicles
• Eco-friendly fashion shows
• Green Living Kids Zone - family activity centre with crafts, games, live performances, and speakers
• Organic wine, beer, and spirits lounge where you can sample and learn about organic beer and wine and the local wineries and breweries that make them.

Every day the news headlines are CITY OF TORONTO BROKE, CITY OF TORONTO RAISES TAXES, CITY OF TORONTO CUTTING BACK SERVICES DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS. It appears that the only thing that the city has money for is very large salaries. The number of employees at City Hall who earned over $100,000 has increased by 47% from last year going from 2,010 in 2006 to 2,965 last year. How is this possible in a city that is broke?

Read this list and weep!

• Toronto City Manager Shirley Hoy has an annual salary of $322,128 plus benefits worth $9,079.00
• TTC chief general manager Gary Webster earned $273,735 with benefits of $13,731
• Police Chief Bill Blair earned $270,052 with a benefits package of $1,480
• Toronto Chief Financial Officer Joe Pennachetti earned $244,897 in salary and $13,309 in benefits
• Medical Officer of Health David McKeown earned $225,801 in salary and $9,787 in benefits
• Deputy City Manager Susan Corke earned $225,595 in salary and $11,735 in benefits
• Toronto Zoo CEO, Calvin White earned $208,963.86
• Toronto Library, City Librarian, Josephine Bryant earned $195,743.10
• Director of Transportation, Gary Welsh earned $176,051.85
• St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, General Manager, James Roe earned $145,924.79

The troubled TTC has 111 staff members earning over $100,000 per year. This is an absolute scandal and many feel that in the real world (a non-governmental job) these salaries and benefits would not be paid for the same jobs. The prevailing wind is that the City of Toronto is in great need of some internal housekeeping in the form of reducing payroll costs by reevaluating salaries and downsizing their workforce – just like companies who have no money do in the real world.

Why are the taxpayers of Toronto working full time for minimum wage and living below the poverty line when the city clearly has an overabundance of money for salaries?

Jose Lima’s huge lottery win didn’t go to his head. It went to his heart. He shared his $14.5 million Lotto 6/49 win with the community that he has been serving 7 days a week for the last 23 years. Known in the neighbourhood as “Joe the Butcher”, Mr. Lima gave away over 22,000 kilograms of chicken legs worth over $30,000 on Thursday, April 3rd, the 5th anniversary of his father’s death. Approximately 5,000 people stood in line outside the O Nosso Talho butcher shop on Bloor St. W, east of Dufferin Street, many for over 2 hours.

On third of the chicken legs were sent to the second O Nosso Talho location on Dundas Street West where hundreds of people were lined up as well. Each person who lined up received a 10-pound bag of chicken legs. The butcher shop finally closed at 8:00 PM depleted of chicken legs.

When Mr. Lima began buying lottery tickets 10 years ago he made a promise to share the wealth with his employees and his customers if he ever hit it big. Good to his word, each of the 50 employees in the two O Nosso Talho locations received $5,000 gifts.

With a windfall of $14.5 million, most of us would retire post haste, but not Mr. Lima. He is however planning to slow down from 7 days a week to working 2 – 4 hour a day for 4 or 5 days a week. And he is going to start taking golf lessons so that he can get out and play with his brother Julio. Don’t you just love it when nice things happen to good people?

Toronto, we’ve dodged the bullet. Commuters can happily go about their business as usual and not scramble to make alternate arrangements to the GO Transit buses. At the eleventh hour, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587 – representing 1,200 unionized bus drivers, ticket agents and office workers - and GO Transit have struck a tentative deal averting a strike. The agreement was brokered by a conciliator. The terms of the deal have not been made public. However, it is common knowledge that two major points of disagreement in the contract negotiations were wages and job security. The workers have been without a contract since June 1, 2007 and have been in a legal position to strike since December 10, 2007.

A strike would have shut down Go bus service completely, disrupting the lives of approximately 30,000 Torontonians. Many of those affected would have most likely looked to the Go Trains as an alternative. However, the union was planning to set up pickets at the Go Transit stations, which would have caused a great disruption in service. Although in theory the strike would not have any effect of the Go trains, it is not known how many employees would have crossed the picked lines. Currently it is estimated that 165,000 Torontonians use the GO trains daily.

Although there is an agreement in principle, in order for it to take effect it must be ratified by GO Transit’s board of directors and in a membership vote by union members. No date for ratification has been announced yet. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Do you think that an essential service like public transit should have the right to strike?

The Land Transfer Tax and the Vehicle Registration Tax are now the law. The Land Transfer Tax comes into effect on February 1. No date has yet been announced for the implementation of the Vehicle Registration Tax because the logistics haven’t been worked out. It is however estimated that the new tax will take effect sometime this fall. But, Mayor David Miller is not done picking your pockets yet. If he was his way your pockets will be turned inside out and you’ll be looking for change on the street.

Since the “Stronger City of Toronto Act”, which granted the city new taxing powers, came into force on January 1st, 2007, Mayor Miller has devoted himself to dreaming up new cash grab tax schemes. Unfortunately he is not very creative. It’s just the same old discussions on the same old items. The City of Toronto is proposing new taxes on:

•    Tobacco
•    Alcohol
•    Parking
•    Billboards
•    New home-buying
•    Driver’s licenses
•    Road toll
•    Entertainment tickets - movies, theatre, and concerts
•    Garbage collection

The only new one on me is the tax on billboards. Otherwise the rest are the old standards in tax proposals. Aren’t there any new items that we could tax? Toronto has had enough of taxes and Mayor Miller knows it. So he proceeds to insult our collective intelligence and call them “revenue tools” instead of taxes and constantly complains that our financial problems are due to insufficient funding from the province or the feds. It’s everyone’s problem but his. Polling has shown that the people of Toronto want the city to get their own house in order and deal with their own spending before they even hint at more taxes. After all, what’s the point of collecting more taxes when the city doesn’t have the brains to make sound fiscal decisions with the money collected?

To sign the No New Taxes Petition, follow the link below.
https://secure.lexi.net/ctf/petitions.php?petition_id=40

Last fall the City of Toronto was thinking of getting into the food services business. They actually wanted to purchase 35 carts and lease them out to independent street vendors. Their plan was to diversify from hot dogs to ethnic fare, making the choices healthier and more in keeping with the diverse ethnicity of Toronto residents. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it. If I told you that it would have required the City of Toronto to take out a $700,000 would you still think so? No one else did either. Mayor Miller had no choice but to remove the $700,000 loan from the 2008 capital budget – a good move considering the amount of services that he cut citing lack of funds.

Not content to let this ill-fated plan die, Toronto has now resurrected it in a more modest form. It seems that no one really objected to the plan. It was the $700,000 loan that was highly objectionable. The current proposal involves a pilot project with 15 food service carts to be located in public parks or squares this summer. Under the new plan the City of Toronto will purchase the carts and then select where the carts can be located. They will be actively pursuing a private partner to help with the financing. Vendors would be selected according to the following criteria:
•    Financial viability
•    Compliance with city bylaws
•    Experience
•    What type of cuisine they are planning to sell
•    How healthy the food is
•    Reputation

This is bad news for existing hotdog vendors who would not be eligible unless they agree to give up their vending licenses. A full-scale program could begin in 2009. Do you think that the City of Toronto should be in the food service business?

You still won’t stop drinking and driving. The RIDE program officially ended at midnight on January 2nd and these were the results.

•  The OPP nabbed 1,200 drivers
•  In Toronto 217 suspensions were issued and 55 drinking-related charges were laid
•  In Ontario, 334 people have been charged with alcohol-related offences, and another 842 received license suspensions
•  On New Year’s Eve alone, the OPP issued 40 driving suspensions, arrested 13 motorists on impaired driving charges, and laid 148 other charges

What part about NO DRINKING AND DRIVING do these people have trouble understanding? The problem drinkers are so hardcore that the new feature of the RIDE program this year was the institution of an early morning shift created to catch drunk drivers on their way to work. It just boggles the mind!

Although we tend to focus on drinking and driving as a “holiday problem”, the sad truth is that it is an ongoing problem. As a result OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino will continue the RIDE program all year round. This year the RIDE program will conduct spot checks on a daily basis so that hopefully we can make a real difference in getting drunk drivers off the road and punishing them for their crime. Yes, drunk driving is a crime. In 2007 there were 80 alcohol-related deaths and that is just plain murder.

If you see a drunk driver on the road or see a drunken person get into a car and drive away, please call the OPP immediately at 1-888-310-1122 or visit the OPP website by following the link below.
http://www.opp.ca/english.htm

Many commuters, sick and tired of the endless gridlock on the 400 series of highways opted to pay the tolls and take the 407 ETR instead. And as a reward for your patronage the toll rates on the 407 ETR have gone up every year on February 1st for the last 4 years. And this year will be no exception. The 407 ETR, the only privately owned toll road in the province, has raised the peak rate price by more than 8 cents in the last 10 years. Just last year the peak rate price increase was 1.35 cents.

Motorists who use the 407 ETR will not be amused to know that the rate is increasing 9.4% on February 1st for cars, minivans, and SUVs, making the new peak rate price 19.5 cents per kilometer in the “regular zone” – from the 401 intersection in the west to the 404 junction in the east. In the “light zone” - the remainder of the highway from the QEW in Burlington to Highway
401 and from Highway 404 to Brock Road in Pickering – the peak rate price will be 19 cents per kilometer. The off-peak rate in both zones will be 18 cents per kilometer. The rates for single unit trucks will be 38.5 cents per kilometer and for 18-wheelers the rate will be 57.75 cents per kilometer. The big price break will be for transponder customers, who will be offered a 30 % discount on the transponder lease fee if they choose an annual transponder lease fee instead of a monthly fee.

Of course the party line is that the increases are so that the company can continue to add new lanes. What do you think? Is it road improvement or a cash grab?

The Toronto Transit System’s 501 Streetcar has received high praise indeed. It has made the National Geographic’s list of the world’s top 10 trolley rides because it is one of the longest transit routes in all of North America and it is a very scenic route. The 501 Streetcar line is almost 50 kms long and runs from Long Branch on the Mississauga border to the city’s easternmost streetcar loop at Neville Park. Currently it accommodates 43,500 riders per day during the work week. Unfortunately ridership has dropped dramatically in the last 25 years due to overcrowding, delays, unannounced route changes, and the expansion of the Bloor-Danforth subway and the Scarborough RT.

Never-the-less, the National Geographic was duly impressed and will include the 501 Streetcar in a new book called “Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Greatest trips”. You may take the 501 for granted, but she was named one of the world’s best trolley rides. The 501 is not a tourist line. It is an actual transit line used by the people of Toronto and it is one of the longest lines in North America. Traveling on the 501 is like seeing a microcosm of City of Toronto. Here are some of the sites that can be seen along the 501’s route:
•    The Beach
•    City Hall
•    Osgoode Hall
•    Impressive architecture
•    Nathan Phillips Square
•    Queen Street West with its funky shops, art galleries, bars, and restaurants
•    Old mansions
•    New Condos
•    Urban life
•    Industrial areas
•    Suburban life
•    Luxury
•    Decay
•    Parkdale
•    Roncesvalles
•    The waterfront
•    High Park
•    The Queensway
•    Lakeshore Blvd.
•    Long Branch

It really is quite marvelous when you come to think of it, as long as you are not in a rush to get to work and there isn’t a car stuck on the track……