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Northern Light said:
Sooo...

Minister Clark............he of MZO fame; and also Del Duca-like pressers where he was last seen announcing a 'sign' for a river..............

Is at it again today............he announced the expansion of the Greenbelt in Durham Region.............oh....wait.....you thought he was protecting heretofore unprotected land???

You would be mistaken! They're adding Darlington Provincial Park to the Greenbelt (which carries a lower level of statutory protection than is the case now) but that would seem moot
as I don't believe there was any threat of Darlington being developed, LOL.

The associated presser about nothing, can be found here: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/...darlington-provincial-park-into-the-greenbelt

How Seinfeldian.............
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I can't help but get a good laugh at these "greenbelt expansions" - the PCs want to look good and progressive on the matter, and this is how they do it without actually doing anything progressive on it.

Most people's understanding of the greenbelt, it's legislative tools, and how it actually influences land use planning is so limited from my experience anyway they won't know any better.
 
Johnny Au said:
In Ontario, right hand sues left hand. Or is it the other way around?
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If you are referring to the environmental fine, it was a regulatory fine, not a civil judgment (which would be the Crown suing the Crown). It's right in Section20 of the Act: "This Act is binding upon the Crown"
 
Meanwhile...

Interested Rondeau cottagers will have to wait on province's decision on proposed lot sales​


The interest is there by a majority of Rondeau Provincial Park cottage leaseholders to purchase their lot, but there's no indication, yet, when or if the sale will go through.

From link.

While more than 90 per cent of Rondeau Provincial Park cottagers who responded have indicated a strong interest in purchasing their lots, there’s no indication yet when – or if – the sales will go through, Chatham-Kent’s top administrator says.

This keen interest from the Rondeau cottagers – gathered by the municipality as a first step in a proposed Chatham-Kent-brokered sale – was recently shared with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Don Shropshire said.
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“Now the province will decide if they will go forward because they own the land.”

As for next steps, provincial officials indicated that Chatham-Kent had approached the ministry with a proposal to purchase the cottage lots from the province and then sell these lots to the individual cottage leaseholders.

“The ministry is considering this proposal and considering options to provided long-term certainty to cottagers for use of their cottage lots,” ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler said. “Before any decisions are made regarding the future of private cottage lots in Rondeau Provincial Park, we will consult with Indigenous communities, stakeholders and the public.”

The ministry didn’t provide any details or thoughts on the potential resale of lots by those not interested in purchasing the land.

“At this point, no decisions regarding the long-term use of private cottages lots in Rondeau Provincial Park have been made,” Wheeler said in an email.

The proposal to have the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks sell the lots to the 279 cottage leaseholders was initially discussed during a May 10 council meeting, where details about the Municipality of Chatham-Kent being involved to help broker a deal was outlined. While the Rondeau cottagers own their buildings, they don’t actually own the land. Instead, the cottagers have remained in the park on periodic, short-term lease extensions.

The first step was to determine the level of interest in purchasing the lots, which involved the municipality directly asking the cottage leaseholders.

Shropshire said more than 250 cottagers indicated interest in purchasing their lots. Twenty-three of the leaseholders didn’t respond to the municipality’s inquiry while four indicated they had no interest in buying the land.

The average value of the 225 waterview lots had been assessed by a provincially hired firm at $114,500 while the six waterfront lots were each valued at $129,000. The remaining 45 interior lots were appraised at $52,000 each.

If the sale of lots proceeds, the arrangement would require Chatham-Kent to provide a $29.2-million payment to the province and then negotiate individual lot sales with leaseholders.

Shropshire said the municipality is willing to try to arrange this deal because “we think it’s a good thing overall that people are living and spending their money in Chatham-Kent.”

Before Chatham-Kent invests that $29 million, he noted, there would have to be a legal agreement in place that arranges a same-day transaction to sell the lots to the cottagers.

Chatham-Kent, Shropshire said, has no interest in holding on to the properties. All direct costs involved in the sales would be passed along to the cottage owners.

“The residents of Chatham-Kent are not going to subsidize this,” Shropshire said.

The previous cottage lease – the result of a two-year extension – expired on Dec. 31, 2019.

In a letter received by Chatham-Kent council in 2019, Rod Phillips, the then-minister of the environment, conservation and parks, said the government recognized the importance of Rondeau Provincial Park to Ontario’s protected areas, as well as the contributions of the cottage lots to the community.

Phillips added the matter of extending the terms of the leases was complex and required an approach that “balances the interests of the public, Indigenous communities and cottagers, while being fiscally responsible and maintaining strong protection for the natural and cultural values within the park.”

At the time, Phillips mentioned in his letter the possibility of the Ontario government “taking steps that may enable cottagers in Rondeau Provincial Park to remain until 2038, subject to the completion and outcomes of required processes.”
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Rondeau Provincial Park – the second oldest in Ontario – is nestled on a sand spit that extends into Lake Erie and, in a typical year, welcomes more than 160,000 visitors.
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Science, education, and Doug Ford. That's worth a laugh!

COVID-19 shows that we need more education on infectious diseases. As a teacher, I’d like to see Ontario modernize its curriculum​

From link.

Across Canada provinces have made recent changes to their education curriculums.

Here in Ontario, the provincial government updated the math curriculum to include financial literacy and coding for all Grade 9 students, extending the changes made for Grade 1 to 8 last year. At the forefront of Ontario’s update have been discussions about providing learners essential skills to prepare them for a future workforce.

However, with the economic and health toll that COVID-19 has taken on our country, what we are missing is how to best prepare students for future pandemics.

Earlier in the pandemic, there was a significant gap in the public’s understanding of infectious diseases and the scientific community. Since then mask wearing, social distancing, handwashing and vaccinations have become a part of our cultural zeitgeist, and the education initiatives undertaken by public health deserves much credit for this increased understanding.

Nonetheless, with some continuing to question each of these measures, including getting vaccinated, provincial governments should see this as a warning sign that continued work needs to be done to strengthen scientific literacy amongst Canadians. This should start with modernizing provincial science curricula to include teaching students about pandemics and infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
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The last time Ontario’s Grade 1 to Grade 8 science curriculum was updated was in 2007. When this curriculum was last changed, the likelihood of a global pandemic was significantly underestimated. As a result, Ontario’s current science curriculum makes zero references to infections, pandemics, vaccines, handwashing, mask wearing, social distancing, or any other buzzwords associated with coronaviruses.

With collaboration between education experts, school boards, parents, unions, medical professionals, and scientists, Ontario’s Ministry of Education must develop a curriculum that teaches infectious diseases in a scientifically accurate and developmentally appropriate manner. As implemented with coding and financial literacy in the math curriculum, teaching infectious diseases should be infused into the science curriculum for all students in all grades. This includes lessons on mask wearing and handwashing in younger grades, to how pandemics emerge, transmit, the importance of vaccines, as well as the underlying biology of infections for older students.

When the pandemic began in March 2020, I made it a priority to discuss COVID-19 in my classrooms. My students and I discussed the scientific evidence supporting precautions and I even invited Dr. Issac Bogoch into a virtual meeting to answer my students’ questions about vaccines. I found that this intentional teaching of COVID-19 not only increased students’ understanding of the pandemic, but I also saw it as an opportunity to build an empathetic classroom community, make learning engaging and applicable to students’ lived experiences, as well as help curb anti-Asian racism that rose out of scapegoating.

As the new school year begins in a few weeks, attention will undoubtedly surround the safe return for both students and education workers. The recently released back to school plan is one step. I would argue that we need to lower class sizes in order to ensure student and staff safety for this upcoming school year. However, we need to remember that COVID-19 will not be the last novel infectious disease that the world will face, and preparation should continue beyond the 2021-2022 school year.

That is why making infectious diseases a permanent part of Ontario’s science curriculum is one of the many necessary steps our province must take to prepare students for the current and future pandemics.
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Ontario Court of Appeals dismisses SCI appeal by Ford government​

From link.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has unanimously rejected an appeal from the Ford government to reinstate the Student Choice Initiative (SCI).

The SCI, which was introduced in March 2019 by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, mandated Ontario universities to offer students the option to opt-out of non-essential fees such as student unions, campus clubs and campus media. Some fees remained mandatory, such as athletics and recreation, health and counselling and academic support.

To ensure compliance, universities were expected to report annually to the ministry. In the case of non-compliance, the school would have to reimburse students. If the school could not reimburse students, the ministry had the option of reducing the institution’s operating grants given to them by the provincial government.

At Carleton, the policy led to funding cuts for campus clubs and organizations and campus media groups such as the Charlatan. CUSA service centres, such as the Womxn’s Centre and the Food Centre, also saw losses in funding.

In May 2019, the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario (CFS-O) and the York Federation of Students (YFS) filed a lawsuit against the Ontario government, arguing the SCI encroaches on the autonomy of student unions and organizations in Ontario.

The Divisional Court of Ontario quashed the SCI in November 2019, stating that the Ontario government acted without statutory authority by mandating the guidelines, which the court said violates the autonomy that universities and student government bodies at colleges are granted through various University Acts and the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act.

“We find that the university guidelines are beyond the scope of the Crown’s prerogative power over spending because they are contrary to the statutory autonomy conferred on universities by statute,” the decision read in part.

In March 2021, the provincial government appealed against the Divisional Court decision. On Aug. 4, 2021, the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal.

“The ancillary fees framework conflicts with the legislation governing Ontario’s colleges and universities and cannot be imposed upon by the exercise of executive authority,” Justice Grant Huscroft wrote in the decision.

“The Minister [of Training, Colleges and Universities] has no authority to fetter the exercise of the universities’ discretion concerning student associations in any event — again, not because universities are immune from regulation, but because the Legislature has chosen not to regulate them,” Huscroft wrote.

The government was ordered to pay $20,000 in legal costs to the CFS-O and YFS.

In a press release, Kayla Weiler, national executive representative for CFS-O, said the ruling “reflects what students have been saying across the province.”

“Students’ unions exist on campuses around the world to provide students with a united voice, advocate for change and operate essential support services,” Weiler said. “Ontario’s students deserve the same and it is not the place of the Premier or Minister to interfere with long-standing democratic processes.”

The release called for the provincial government to respect the decisions of the Divisional Court of Ontario and the Ontario Court of Appeal and refrain from taking the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Did spending less on COVID cost us?​

From link.

Holding back COVID-fighting money might have cost us much more.

Recently, Ontario’s Auditor General released a scathing report that reveals that Premier Doug Ford and his government tied themselves in knots to avoid spending COVID-19 funding to fight COVID-19.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk revealed that the government manipulated their reporting to show a combined total for the amounts spent and the amounts committed for future spending and failed to track a whopping $4.4 billion.

“Failure to distinguish between these two amounts can adversely affect decision-making, as a combined total does not give an accurate picture of the actual progress of the initiative,” reported Lysyk.

Essentially, Ford was holding back money we needed to stop COVID-19. On July 21, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario confirmed it — $10.3 billion in pandemic-fighting funding was withheld by Ford.

What did this mean on the front lines of the pandemic?

Long-term care didn’t receive enough staff for infection prevention and control. Schools didn’t get the extra staff they needed to create smaller class sizes, nor did they all get HVAC upgrades to keep students and staff safe. Hospitals and nursing homes were shorted on critical personal protective equipment, such as masks. Local businesses didn’t get the help they deserved to keep the rent, staff wages and b

Again and again, Ford looked for the lowest-cost ways to fight COVID-19, which explains why — when the third wave was rising out of control — his solution was an attempted shutdown of our children’s playgrounds, rather than pricier public health measures such as testing, tracing and isolating cases of the virus.

Investing in doing those things right certainly could have made the shutdowns shorter, less painful and less costly to our economy.

The Ministry of Long-Term Care missed the Aug. 20, 2020 deadline to report to the treasury board on infection control in long-term care homes. The fact that the government did not work with urgency to complete this report given the painful and tragic number of COVID-19-related deaths in long-term care is a significant failure that adds to the grief of so many families.

By that point, the COVID-19 Long-Term Care Commission had already laid out a multitude of problems with the state of long-term care in the province and the Canadian Armed Forces had painted a disturbing picture of the lack of infection prevention and control in long-term care.

This only reaffirms how little care and funding the government put into improving safety. In Kitchener, we saw 50 deaths at the Revera Long Term Care Home, Forest Heights.

Ford also put support for working folks battling the pandemic at the bottom of the priority list. According to the auditor, pandemic pay didn’t move out until weeks or months after it was due, and on top of the delay, the ministry did not have a plan in place to track which front-line workers had received payments, leaving some in the lurch.

Pandemic pay was not enough money, and not offered to enough workers. It was supposed to arrive in April 2020, but was not distributed to front-line workers until June and July. At that time, workers were coping with incredible stress — some of them from inside long-term care homes that were humanitarian disasters — while then Finance Minister Rod Phillips (now long-term care minister) was on vacation.

It was expected that this report would uncover Ford being slow to spend pandemic funds — but the extent to which he sat on the money while COVID-19 grew out of control is astounding. Beyond a lack of accountability, the government’s failures to track and report $4.4 billion in spending and to distinguish between planned and actual spending affects Ontario’s ability to prepare for and respond to future crises. We need to learn from this experience.

Withholding COVID-19 money cost us so much more in the long run. It cost us financially. And it cost us in terms of more illness, more loss of life, and longer, more painful lockdowns.

When you’re drowning, withholding the life preserver for a rainy day is a bad choice. I hope we can all agree, bad choices must have consequences.
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