[Videodrome]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ontario-library-service-funding-pc-doug-ford-1.5102406

Doug doesn't want people to read.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Maybe instead of Maple Leaf shirt, Drake should be wearing a "Team Ford" or similar T-shirt in the Queens Park gallery?

From link. Maybe put the "Drake curse" on the PC's.

From link.

 

[kEiThZ]

Doug Ford threatens to change expiry date for Ontario teachers’ contracts

From link.





Doug Ford to change the expiry dates on bread and milk to make them last longer.

There's a few areas I agree with Doug Ford on. This is one of them. Was always BS that the Liberals allowed contracts to be setup to expire at the end of August effectively setting up future governments to be held hostage.

And teachers got some generous deals from the last government in the hopes they wouldn't strike and a sort of payback for the Harris years. But it's led to tons of Boomer teachers hanging on and lots of millennial teacher aspirants out on the street.

 

[Thinker]

There's a few areas I agree with Doug Ford on. This is one of them. Was always BS that the Liberals allowed contracts to be setup to expire at the end of August effectively setting up future governments to be held hostage.

And teachers got some generous deals from the last government in the hopes they wouldn't strike and a sort of payback for the Harris years. But it's led to tons of Boomer teachers hanging on and lots of millennial teacher aspirants out on the street.

Bologna, a contract is a contract and just because Dougie doesn't like the expiry date it doesn't give him the right to bully talk and threaten to interfere in contract negotiations. We all know how he hates unions and would much rather roll back all salaries and benefits in every sector of the working "elites". Teachers as a whole are hard working people and perform services to the community that are unpaid and outside their job description. Doug needs to be very careful because his crass behaviour may result in far greater actions than just a teacher work to rule or strike, as other unions will no doubt in my mind will support their "brothers and sisters".

 

[Northern Light]

Putting aside the premier's bombast......

I don't see moving the date back 2 months to the end of June as some particularly useful panacea, as if teacher's couldn't still strike come September.

What I think would be more useful, and not just for teachers is a move to longer contracts.

Provided governments and unions are broadly content to negotiate COLA/CPI based annual pay hikes, I don't think everything else merits constant revisiting.

Contracts should be revisited when one side (or both) is looking for a substantial change in working conditions, or an extraordinary change to compensation, be that up or down.

I think contracts should probably be 5 years across the board.

I"d even be tempted to say 10, but I appreciate that enough things change in a 10-year time frame that that may be excessive.

Right now the norm is for 3 year deals.

Which means higher negotiating costs/wasted time by both government and the unions.

It should be mutually agreeable to shave those costs and reduce stress/anxiety/threats of job action etc. by having a longer period of peace and stability within a framework deal that everyone can get behind.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Mayor Tory calls province’s cuts to Toronto Public Health ‘a targeted attack’ on the city

See link.

Toronto Public Health says a reduction in provincial funding to public health units across the province will amount to more than $1 billion over 10 years in the city alone.

On Thursday afternoon, ahead of a long weekend, the province invited public health officials from across the province to conference call to detail the cuts, which have not been publicly announced.

The province plans to decrease the number of units from 35 units to 10 and reduce the province’s share in funding to units across the province, with a proportionally bigger cut to Toronto Public Health, according to a financial analysis from Toronto Public Health and Councillor Joe Cressy, who chairs Toronto’s board of health and who was on the call.

Mayor John Tory called the $1-billion cut a “targeted attack on the health of our entire city, and, in particular the health of Toronto’s most vulnerable people” and noted the change was “hidden in the provincial budget without any consultation whatsoever.”

“This is an incredibly serious funding change which puts our city’s health at risk and will put lives at risk here in Toronto and across the province,” he said.


Cressy and the mayor noted essential programs would be at risk.

“Affected programs will include disease prevention, water quality testing, immunization monitoring and surveillance, prenatal support, overdose prevention, food safety regulation, infectious disease control, student nutrition, and more,” Cressy said in a news release.

“This announcement was made despite an indisputable body of evidence suggesting that the best way to prevent hallway health care and improve the health of Ontarians is to invest more, not less, in public health.”

In a statement, the city’s medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, also said the change would have “significant negative impacts on the health of Toronto residents” and that they were “extremely disappointed to hear this news.”

“Whether it is providing school immunization programs, protecting people from measles, influenza, the next SARS and other outbreaks, helping keep our water safe to drink, inspecting our restaurants, pools and beaches, investments in public health keep our city and residents safe, healthy and strong,” she said.

On Thursday, the province refused to confirm the new funding formula or the impact on Toronto Public Health’s budget. In an email, a spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott said Cressy was “fundamentally misrepresenting the facts” but at the same time confirmed they would be downloading some funding responsibility to municipalities.

“We are working directly with our municipal partners as we slowly shift the cost-sharing funding model over the next three years to reflect municipalities’ stronger role,” wrote Elliott’s press secretary Hayley Chazan.


The province currently funds 100 per cent of some programs, including infectious disease control, and 75 per cent of other programs.
Under the new funding formula, the province’s share of program costs in Toronto would be reduced to 60 per cent starting this year and further cut to 50 per cent starting in 2021, according to a financial analysis from Toronto Public Health.

That analysis, provided by Cressy’s office, tallied the impact of reductions over the three years compared to 2018 allocations and concluded the total cut over 10 years would total $1.033 billion.

In the rest of the province, the funding was expected to drop to a 70 per cent share of program starting this year and be further cut to 60 per cent starting in 2021 for all units serving populations over 1 million people, Cressy told the Star.

He said the province confirmed on the conference call that Toronto would remain a stand-alone unit, but did not share the boundaries of the other units or how they would be amalgamated. Therefore, calculating cuts across the rest of the province is not possible right now, Cressy said.

The provincial budget, released last week, claimed the annual savings across the province by 2021 would be $200 million.

The news followed a request from city council earlier this week to the province to maintain the current funding formula.

At Queen’s Park, NDP MPP Marit Stiles (Davenport) said the cut in provincial funding to public health was “incredibly irresponsible and cruel.”

“A lot of us are shocked right now. These are exactly the kind of services that prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases,” said Stiles, noting public health officials are also responsible for vaccination rates, opioid control, water safety, nutrition programs, among other things.

“We need to know that our vaccinations are happening, that our public health services are in place.”

Dr. David Fisman, an expert in infectious diseases and head of the epidemiology division at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said the consequences of cuts to public health are “pretty predictable.”

“Public health is all about nothing ... That’s the fundamental output of public health, is the non-occurrence of events,” he said. “Which for folks who have no sense of history and no knowledge about what happens if you stop preventing disease, then it looks like you’re wasting your money because you’re spending all this money on public health and nothing’s happening. In fact, that is our deliverable — is not having epidemics in the city and not having people disabled by preventable health conditions so that you lose economically that way.”

Coming soon, to a neighbourhood near you: Walkerton Version 2.0 (Now with Doug Ford.)

 

[steveintoronto]

Putting aside the premier's bombast......

I don't see moving the date back 2 months to the end of June as some particularly useful panacea, as if teacher's couldn't still strike come September. [...]

It's not as if this hasn't been done recently, but of course, when you're a paranoid schizophrenic like Ford, everyone is out to get you. Watch that Fedeli fella closely there Doug. The Ides have been extended from March this year...

February 2, 2017 7:41 pm
Ontario elementary teachers’ union agrees to 2-year contract extension

TORONTO – Ontario’s elementary school teachers and education workers have agreed to extend their contracts by two years, leaving the Liberal government nearly free of teacher negotiations ahead of the next election.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario is one of the last major education unions to agree to such a deal, joining the French teachers’ union, several support staff unions, and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association.

ETFO says if ratified, the contract extension will improve the working conditions of its members and the learning conditions of students.

Education Minister Mitzie Hunter says the government is in communication with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation about a contract extension, but there are no dates currently scheduled for formal talks. [...]

https://globalnews.ca/news/3223586/...rs-union-agrees-to-2-year-contract-extension/

Anyone claiming teachers have a "paid Summer holiday" instantly flag they haven't a clue on how the individual teacher's yearly contract works. Their contract is based on the number of days worked, the hours per day, credits needed, etc, etc.

But I digress...obviously Dougie didn't do too well in school, and blames the teachers for his being a moron.

 

[Northern Light]

Anyone claiming teachers have a "paid Summer holiday" instantly flag they haven't a clue on how the individual teacher's yearly contract works. Their contract is based on the number of days worked, the hours per day, credits needed, etc, etc.

Also, there is evidence to support that the long break does disadvantage kids from lower income households. I think a modest reduction in summer break (ending in mid-August) but adding a fall break, the week of Thanksgiving would be a welcome change.

If one wants to bitch about the status quo, it would be nice if a constructive alternative were put up for discussion; rather than reason-less ranting.

 

[W. K. Lis]

It's not just education that Doug Ford has a dislike with, he has a dislike against libraries as well. A carryover from his City of Toronto Councillor days.

Budget cut a sign that Doug Ford’s contempt for libraries persists

From link.

If I have a litmus test for politicians, it might be this: if they don’t understand the value of public libraries, then I don’t trust them. Because a person who doesn’t understand public libraries doesn’t understand community, and doesn’t understand civilization. Libraries are pillars of both.

Why, you may ask, do I take the time to mention this now? Well, it seems the provincial budget has slashed the Ontario Library Service budget by 50 per cent, according to a report Thursday from CBC — an immediate cut “that would need to be absorbed into the current 2019-2020 fiscal year.”

While this cut was unexpected and unheralded — I cannot recall any campaign promises pledging to fight Big Book or stick it to those fat-cat librarians — it’s hard to say it’s exactly surprising, coming from this premier. Doug Ford, when his brother was mayor of Toronto, made his pathological disregard for public repositories of knowledge well known.

Asked if he would close library branches then, he said, “Absolutely I would, in a heartbeat.” He said anyone who reacted negatively to that suggestion was simply taking their cues from self-interested “library groups.” The city was lousy with libraries, he suggested, complaining that there were more branches in his area than Tim Hortons franchises — which there were not — and suggesting that was a bad thing.

You have to think the hatred he expressed towards libraries is real and strongly felt, because it sure wasn’t a calculated political ploy.
As pandering, it was a loser, and likely remains so. According to the Toronto Public Library, 70 per cent of Torontonians use the library regularly, which is an astonishingly high usage rate for a public service. By way of comparison, less than 40 per cent of Torontonians use public transit to get to work. So in 2011, the politics played out like this: people packed public meetings — some of them lasting more than 24 hours — giving impassioned pleas to save libraries. And because of that, the Ford brothers entire budget-slashing agenda was derailed.

After that, Doug was less vocal about his opinion on libraries. But there are signs the attitude persists. Like cutting the provincial library service budget in half, overnight.

To be clear — and fair — this isn’t a cut to the budgets of local library branches, which are generally run and operated by municipal or regional governments. And thank goodness for that. But it isn’t inconsequential, either.

The Ontario Library Service provides support to those local library systems, including an inter-system online loan program that lets libraries share books with each other, collective purchasing and collections sharing, training, and advice. It exists, according to its mission, to ensure Ontarians have “equitable access to library services” including access to worldwide collections and common standards of service. Its services are particularly important to smaller communities that lack the size and budget to create as strong an organization as the Toronto system has (in its more than 100 branches collectively owning more than 10 million books).


People in smaller cities and towns and rural areas need access to decent libraries too.

The writer Susan Orlean, a giant of non-fiction letters, recently published The Library Book, which is part investigation into the seven-hour fire that destroyed the Los Angeles Central Library, part history of the evolution of public libraries, and part personal memoir of her relationship to them. She writes of feeling as if she grew up in libraries — something I, and many readers here, I suspect, can relate to.

A library isn’t just a place to borrow books you might otherwise buy — though it is that. It is a place to access books by the thousands, to refer to them briefly and compare them, and to get access to stores of information (in journals and databases and on microfilm) you can’t get on your own, at least not without thousands of dollars worth of subscriptions. It’s a place to work, away from the distractions of home or the purchase and table time limits of coffee shops. It’s a place to study, maybe alongside work-group partners.

And it’s a place to hang out. I used to do that a lot, having time to kill, just go into the library out of the elements, with access to a washroom and a place to sit down, and with lots of reading material handy. Increasingly, our libraries function that way for teenagers after school — offering hubs where they can socialize and do homework. They serve that purpose for the homeless, in important ways.
“Every problem that society has, the library has, too, because the boundary between society and the library is porous; nothing good is kept out of the library, and nothing bad,” Orlean writes.

Our libraries are places that offer you shelter from the cares of the world when you need it, while simultaneously being places that offer you access to the knowledge of the entire world when you want it. Better writers than me have outlined in detail the role libraries have served as the cornerstone building blocks of civilization. They remain the indispensable centres of community life.

Those are things you want to build up. Instead, our premier and provincial government seem intent on tearing them down.

Maybe if the libraries had more picture books?

 

[steveintoronto]

^ Here's the damnation for libraries: They document truth, and that's a dangerous thing for thugs:
Alberta librarians saving online scientific reports, policy documents before government change

 

[W. K. Lis]

^ Here's the damnation for libraries: They document truth, and that's a dangerous thing for thugs:
Alberta librarians saving online scientific reports, policy documents before government change

Galileo Galilei books could be the first books to go. Doug Ford and Ford Nation can't have any of those books in libraries. An index of prohibited books will be next.

 

[steveintoronto]

^

[...]
Ms. Cuyler said she has archived hundreds of thousands of policy documents and scientific reports online, which will be available through an online portal with the University of Alberta or Wayback Machine.

A similar effort took place in Ontario shortly after the Progressive Conservatives won a majority government in the province last June.

Nick Worby, a government documents librarian at the University of Toronto, led the initiative there.

“Environmental initiatives like the GreenON rebate program were shuttered and then their web presence was removed within days,” he said in a news release. “That information is only available now through the archives by the University of Toronto and the Internet Archive.”

There have also been drastic changes to government information in the United States since President Donald Trump took office.

The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which tracks changes to thousands of government websites under the Trump administration, has said hundreds of web pages providing climate information were omitted from a federal government website. Other pages have been substantially altered to removing mentions of climate and climate change. [...]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/can...g-online-scientific-reports-policy-documents/

 

[adma]

Shades of the Ontario Place heritage-statement page deletion...

 

[BurlOak]

^
Federal Liberals have asked Google to delete dozens of Harper-era web pages from its search results

 

[Thinker]

^
Federal Liberals have asked Google to delete dozens of Harper-era web pages from its search results

The PCO says the material itself was neither deleted nor destroyed and remains available through Library and Archives Canada. So OK if this is another one of your attempts to convert us to your conservative thoughts, I doubt you're succeeding as there are several other questions you have not answered, i.e. the teacher salaries and numerous other inaccuracies. Dropping headlines in this forum and running away from questions are not conducive to conversations or debates. IF you read the article it will tell you OTHER agencies routinely ask to have material to be removed from the web searches, thus cleaning up the crap and doing a little housekeeping as it may be. My hope is for the next provincial govt. to preserve all the Ford crap for eternity so his generation and the next (gag) will be forever reminded of the stupid, horrible decisions his govt. and MPP's have chosen to commit. Stop being a troll!