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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

www.cp24.com

Ontario students rally at Queen’s Park to protest OSAP changes

Hundreds of students are expected to gather outside Queen’s Park Wednesday to protest the Ontario government’s changes to its student loan program.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com

Ontario students rally at Queen’s Park to protest OSAP changes​

Hundreds of students are expected to gather outside Queen’s Park Wednesday to protest the Ontario government’s changes to its student loan program.

Carrying placards and cheering “hands off our education,” students began gathering outside the legislature in the late morning. Some also chanted “no cuts, no fees” and “free education now,” voicing anger over recent changes to the Ontario Student Assistance program (OSAP).

“The Ford government’s decision to open the floodgates to tuition increases and the decimation of OSAP will destroy what’s left of education in Ontario,” the the Central Student Association – one of the groups protesting the changes – said on its website.

The provincial government announced several weeks ago that it was boosting funding to colleges and universities by billions of dollars while also lifting a tuition freeze that had been in place for seven years and slashing grants offered through OSAP.

The move will mean the proportion of student assistance given as grants will shift from 85 per cent to 25 per cent, with the rest being given as loans.

Critics have said the move will mean it is effectively harder for many students to fund their educations.

Separately Wednesday, some students in York Region were planning a walkout from classrooms to protest the government’s cuts to OSAP. Students in Durham Region held a walkout over OSAP cuts on Tuesday.


HYXF4R3IQBF2REJ3RHRMTHYRJE.jpg
 
From a Reddit thread...

''I was there (at the protest). Police swooped in as students were leaving at the end of the rally. Nothing illegal happened at the rally. We were dispersing as the protest was over. Suddenly, 20-30 police cars flying into the lot. People were confused, then police began grabbing people by the neck, shoving high schoolers, and hitting people with batons. Unconscionable.
EDIT: NOTES FOR SOLIDARITY & SYMPATHY:
POST-SECONDARY STUDENTS: Join your students unions that are organizing against the cuts to OSAP & underfunding of our education. Organize. This is a move of desperation by the Ford Government. Let’s deliver more popular resistance, and escalate the campaign to save our Post-Secondary Education.
PARENTS: E-mail your MPP. Visit them at their offices. Let your opposition and moral reprehension at this violence against our youth be known. Show up to protests with your kids.
HIGH SCHOOLERS: Organize walkouts. Reach out to the Canadian Federation of Students for guidance. Go to a protest with a trusted adult, or a group of friends. Research protest safety. This is your future too. Get out and fight for it.
THE SYMPATHETIC: Support the protests. Do all of the above w/ MPPs. Talk about it. Don’t accept them spinning the narrative. If you’re unionized, encourage your union to support the students & connect with the student representatives leading the charge.
With this newfound violence, this is no longer about OSAP. This is about (nearly) a decade of provincial rot, austerity, and the clawing back of our public services. It’s time to stand up''.
 
Ontario's porn industry going to see a big boom in the coming years. No more basket-weaving for these youngsters, haha.
 
www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre​

Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.

“I wouldn’t call it an island, but we may look at putting fill in until we can put a convention centre,” Ford said at an unrelated event Friday. “We’re losing out on so many large conventions in the world, because we just don’t have the size.” Ford said he’s spoken with Mayor Olivia Chow and she supports the idea.

“It’s no different than anything else – the environmental process would move forward, but we have a tremendous amount of fill right now, and we need to expand the land,” he said.
The Globe and Mail first reported Thursday that the province is exploring the idea of creating a new island that could be the site for the new convention centre.

Ford last week complained that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is too small, dated and impractical and said the lack of a larger space is costing the city major events.
“We need a world class convention center to attract more tourists, more jobs, and that’s what this is all about,” he said Friday.

He promised Monday he would soon announce a “world-class” 2 million square-foot facility, but did not say where it would be located or provide a timeline. Those comments came as he unveiled a design for the Ontario Science Centre building at Ontario Place.

Opposition critics have called the moves “distractions” from other issues like health care and education. “He’s talking about how he suddenly has to renovate the convention center in Toronto. Like, that’s something nobody has been asking for,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said last week. “And suddenly, that’s his latest idea. This is all an attempt to distract from the state of things in Ontario.”

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which opened in 1984 and is operated as a Crown corporation of the province, has an overall size of 700,000 square feet. Another major downtown Toronto convention centre – the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place – has 1 million square feet of overall space.
 
Last edited:
thettctransitfanatic said:
www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre​

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.

“I wouldn’t call it an island, but we may look at putting fill in until we can put a convention centre,” Ford said at an unrelated event Friday. “We’re losing out on so many large conventions in the world, because we just don’t have the size.” Ford said he’s spoken with Mayor Olivia Chow and she supports the idea.

“It’s no different than anything else – the environmental process would move forward, but we have a tremendous amount of fill right now, and we need to expand the land,” he said.
The Globe and Mail first reported Thursday that the province is exploring the idea of creating a new island that could be the site for the new convention centre.

Ford last week complained that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is too small, dated and impractical and said the lack of a larger space is costing the city major events.
“We need a world class convention center to attract more tourists, more jobs, and that’s what this is all about,” he said Friday.

He promised Monday he would soon announce a “world-class” 2 million square-foot facility, but did not say where it would be located or provide a timeline. Those comments came as he unveiled a design for the Ontario Science Centre building at Ontario Place.

Opposition critics have called the moves “distractions” from other issues like health care and education. “He’s talking about how he suddenly has to renovate the convention center in Toronto. Like, that’s something nobody has been asking for,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said last week. “And suddenly, that’s his latest idea. This is all an attempt to distract from the state of things in Ontario.”

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which opened in 1984 and is operated as a Crown corporation of the province, has an overall size of 700,000 square feet. Another major downtown Toronto convention centre – the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place – has 1 million square feet of overall space.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I really wish Ford cared one 10th the amount for health and education that he did for his excavation/tunnelling/island fantasies
 
thettctransitfanatic said:
www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.
www.cp24.com www.cp24.com

Doug Ford eyeing filling in part of Lake Ontario for new convention centre​

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he’s exploring the idea of filling in part of Lake Ontario to add land for a new convention centre site at the Toronto waterfront.

“I wouldn’t call it an island, but we may look at putting fill in until we can put a convention centre,” Ford said at an unrelated event Friday. “We’re losing out on so many large conventions in the world, because we just don’t have the size.” Ford said he’s spoken with Mayor Olivia Chow and she supports the idea.

“It’s no different than anything else – the environmental process would move forward, but we have a tremendous amount of fill right now, and we need to expand the land,” he said.
The Globe and Mail first reported Thursday that the province is exploring the idea of creating a new island that could be the site for the new convention centre.

Ford last week complained that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is too small, dated and impractical and said the lack of a larger space is costing the city major events.
“We need a world class convention center to attract more tourists, more jobs, and that’s what this is all about,” he said Friday.

He promised Monday he would soon announce a “world-class” 2 million square-foot facility, but did not say where it would be located or provide a timeline. Those comments came as he unveiled a design for the Ontario Science Centre building at Ontario Place.

Opposition critics have called the moves “distractions” from other issues like health care and education. “He’s talking about how he suddenly has to renovate the convention center in Toronto. Like, that’s something nobody has been asking for,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said last week. “And suddenly, that’s his latest idea. This is all an attempt to distract from the state of things in Ontario.”

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which opened in 1984 and is operated as a Crown corporation of the province, has an overall size of 700,000 square feet. Another major downtown Toronto convention centre – the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place – has 1 million square feet of overall space.
Click to expand...
Is the above your opinion or a verbatim copy of the article. If the article is not pay-walled (and even if it is), I think the thing to do is to offer a short summary in your own words (opinion optional). Not to copy word-for-word.
 
Meanwhile now that you're distracted...

Ontario’s Ford government privatization of public hospitals​

From https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/briefing-alberta-is-privatizing-health-care-it-threatens-public-health-care-across-canada/

In the last eight months alone, the Ford government has announced almost $300 million for 61 new private clinics, a number of which are large scale facilities — essentially private hospitals. According to government projections, these clinics will redirect more than 1.2 million patients away from public hospitals for treatment. This is unprecedented. Since the inception of public hospitals and the 1973 ban on private hospitals, no government has expanded private clinics like this. The scale and scope of hospital privatization planned by Ford will undermine, perhaps fatally, our public hospital system. The majority of the new licenses are for private for-profit facilities and a number of them are owned by for-profit chain corporations. In the call for applications, the province explicitly specified, “Sole proprietors, not-for-profit corporations and for-profit corporations can apply to the Call for Applications”.

At the same time, most of Ontario’s hospitals have been pushed into deficit and forced to cut staff and services (already stretched beyond what is possible). Provincial health sector funding is increasing at only 1% per year for the next three years (as per the Fall Economic Statement) — less than the rate of inflation alone, and far short of aging and population growth. For hospitals, the operational funding increase for the first half of this year was 2.36%, according to Government Estimates, again less than half of inflation, population growth and aging (the Ontario Hospital Association is saying they are 6% per year). The government reported another $660 million in the 3rd Quarter Finances (Ministry of Finance) which would bring it up to roughly 4.75% – roughly 2.4% — if they actually flow that money. Bottom line, it is not enough even to maintain existing service levels at current utilization rates.

Those private clinics announcements from the last eight months or so, came on the heels of the expansion of the privatization of cataract surgeries in 2024-2025. Already, this first tier of private surgical clinics has brought in unfettered two-tier health care contravening the fundamental principles and laws that govern our public health care (much like the for-profit long-term care industry). Patients – most of them seniors – are being charged hundreds to thousands of dollars when they go to private clinics for their eye surgery. After receiving hundreds of complaints, the Ontario Health Coalition called all the private eye surgery clinics in the province in December posing as patients. In many towns, the Coalition found that all the private clinics are violating the Canada Health Act and Ontario’s Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act and are charging patients directly for surgery (on top of charging OHIP). In the other towns the majority of the clinics are engaging in this illegal practice. The Coalition recorded the phone calls and will be releasing the evidence in a new report soon.

Despite repeated efforts, formal complaints, lots of media work, a front-page story in the Toronto Star, mobilizing hundreds of people to fill the Galleries in the Legislature and more, the Ford government is refusing to enforce our medicare laws and stop the two-tier extra-billing and user fees. Costs have escalated and are now routinely $4,000 or more per eye, plus $200 or more for eye measurement tests. Patients are already pressuring private insurance companies to cover these costs, which would unravel our public insurance system. The Coalition has multiple complaints from patients who have been charged $8,000 – $11,000 for eye surgery that is covered by our public taxes and for which it is illegal to charge them. Seniors have had to take out loans, use all their savings, and even go back to work at age 70 or older in order to pay. To be clear: it is a violation of the Canada Health Act to charge a patient for medically necessary hospital and physician care. User fees, extra-billing, selling queue jumping and two-tier medicare are banned both in federal and Ontario law. We are deeply concerned because the private clinics openly flaunt those laws. In Alberta, private clinics charge up to $50,000 for orthopedic surgeries and if the private clinics are allowed to expand into orthopedics, gynecological surgeries and more, the unfettered expansion of patient charges will cause widespread suffering and inequality. It is no exaggeration to say that the privatization of our hospitals, which is bad enough, are also a fatal threat to Public Medicare.
Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/x/status/2031004151556051350
 
Ford doubles down on Toronto Billy Bishop expansion plans

Premier Doug Ford says jets are coming to Billy Bishop Airport “one way or another” and labelled Toronto Island residents who may oppose the move as “squatters.”
“Folks. Game’s over....You’re getting a (house for a) dollar a year, but guess what? We aren’t going to worry about the one ‘percenters’ that affect the 99 per cent of the rest of the population,” he said at an unrelated news conference on Monday.
Ford was referring to the unique real estate arrangement on the island that allows residents to own their homes for below-market rates through a trust while paying to lease the land.
According to the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust Corporation, the average priced home on the island sells for between $150,000 and $400,000. Residents must also pay a one-time lease cost for the land, which is currently set at approximately $60,000 on Ward’s Island and $78,000 on Algonquin Island under existing legislation.
Ford’s comments build on an address he made late last month, in which he said he wants to extend the runway to allow for larger planes to make use of the island airport.
It’s an idea that’s been talked about before, but never taken flight, due in part to a lack of public approval. However, Ford said his government’s own polling shows that 70 per cent of those asked want the airport expanded.

Ford calls Toronto Island residents 'squatters' over airport expansion concerns
 
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