Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

[Videodrome]

So, Doug answered questions this time and didn't break out the clapping staffers.

 

[EagleEye]

So, Doug answered questions this time and didn't break out the clapping staffers.

I saw a tweet from Cynthia Mulligan where she said they wouldn't have a hard cap on questions and the clappers would stop. Who knows how long it will last.

 

[steveintoronto]

It was a matter of time:

Is it time to abolish provinces?
Scott Gilmore: This middle tier of government makes no sense in an increasingly urban Canada, and its distorting effect on our politics will only get worse
by Scott Gilmore
Aug 13, 2018

Provinces are anachronism that have long outlived their usefulness and should be abolished. I recognize this sounds melodramatic, but hear me out.

Provinces made sense in 1867. When Canada was born, the country may have been smaller, but the distances were far greater. It took days to get from Ottawa to New Brunswick, and British Columbia was weeks away. Centralized government was simply not possible. Devolving authority to regional governments, in distant Victoria for example, was unavoidable.

So, the dominion was divided up along mostly arbitrary lines marking the logistical and administrative limits of regional officials in 1905. Thankfully, this is no longer an issue. With jet travel and telecommunications civil servants don’t need to be within a day’s horse ride of the public they serve.

When our provincial system was established over 80 per cent of Canadians lived in rural settings. The scattered population of northern Ontario could not be expected to organize itself into self-managing municipal governments if everyone was 10 portages away from each other. In those circumstances, provinces had a useful role to play making sure a road eventually made its way to Sioux Lookout.

But once that road was built, everyone moved to Toronto. Now 80 per cent of the population lives in cities—where their public services are managed by increasingly important and justifiably influential municipal governments. The provincial legislatures, by contrast, are governing over increasingly empty tracts of land.

And these 13 different legislatures, scattered from the Arctic to the Maritimes now oversee 13 different bureaucracies, replicating the same services 13 different ways. Instead of having one unified approach to health care, we have a patchwork of systems that work in some cases and don’t in others. The medium wait time for a medically necessary treatment is 26 weeks longer for a Canadian living in New Brunswick than it is for someone in Ontario. A math teacher in Quebec is armed with 225 hours of university training in the subject—in other provinces it is less than 18 per cent of that. In some provinces you can buy a beer on Sunday evening. In others, don’t even think about it. For a population our size, this replication and disparity is not just inefficient, it is ridiculous.

[...]

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/is-it-time-to-abolish-provinces/

 

[Northern Light]

It was a matter of time:

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/is-it-time-to-abolish-provinces/

The unrealistic nature of the piece notwithstanding..........its also bad policy for most of the country.

Amalgamation showed that bigger is not necessarily better or more efficient.

There are certainly times when that is true; but more often its not.

Larger bureaucracies remain further removed from both the people they serve and their own front lines.

Northern Ontario goes on about this issue often as it is, noting that Queen's Park has no clue what its like to operate in fly-in, fly-out communities, places with no public transport, communities that don't have 7-day a week medical services etc.

Imagine how much more of an issue that would be with unitary government.

Complete rubbish.

The only place where there is some argument to be made is the maritimes.

There its still not about a unitary regime, but an argument for consolidating 3 (or 4) provinces into one 'Acadia' as it were, to produce some modest efficiencies and shared resources.

It probably won't happen even there.

Certainly, not anytime soon.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I think it's a matter of asking, are we better off with more people on drugs, but fewer deaths, or fewer people on drugs with more deaths. The first group will side with the liberals, the second group with the conservatives.

Well, it help made the ex-councillor and current premier and the ex-mayor of Toronto, so it can't be that bad, or Liberal right? And on that matter, someone apparently thought it was just a "health issue" that has to do with "losing weight" in a certain TV "tell all".

As to the injection sites - there are clearly community effects (and not entirely positive ones). It would be wise for proponents to not ignore that since how well you manage those effects is part of making SIS palatable for communities that hosts them.

AoD

 

[steveintoronto]

The unrealistic nature of the piece notwithstanding..........its also bad policy for most of the country.

Amalgamation showed that bigger is not necessarily better or more efficient.

There are certainly times when that is true; but more often its not.

Larger bureaucracies remain further removed from both the people they serve and their own front lines.

Northern Ontario goes on about this issue often as it is, noting that Queen's Park has no clue what its like to operate in fly-in, fly-out communities, places with no public transport, communities that don't have 7-day a week medical services etc.

Imagine how much more of an issue that would be with unitary government.

Complete rubbish.

The only place where there is some argument to be made is the maritimes.

There its still not about a unitary regime, but an argument for consolidating 3 (or 4) provinces into one 'Acadia' as it were, to produce some modest efficiencies and shared resources.

It probably won't happen even there.

Certainly, not anytime soon.

Best I clarify:

I wrote "It was a matter of time" until such articles started appearing in response to the ham fisted approach of the Ford truck. That beside, the time of the 'city-state' has come for Canada, and Greater Toronto is an excellent example.

 

[jje1000]

Mmm I think that logic's incomplete. For the record, I'm not against safe injection sites and believe that they do save lives, but I do think there are side effects that need to be managed as well- and all-in-all it's really just a band-aid on top of deeper societal issues.

So yes, it's true that these clinics are located in areas with higher recorded transient/drug-using populations, but it's foolhardy not to believe that safe injection sites don't have concentrating & knock-on effects as well (like shelters)- transient populations are not landscape features that can be pinpointed- they move according to their support networks (friends, dealers, addicts) and safe spaces. Hence the need for positive detox programming & effective planning, and not letting the whole situation spiral into self-reinforcement like what happened in Vancouver DTES.

More on that- concentrating these services (like in the DTES) creates a toxic environment that encourages addict behavior and creates a situation that allows dealers to thrive (higher densities of addicts and their support networks).

Troisi found an unlikely ally in Wong-Tam, who agreed they’d seen “a dramatic increase of criminal activity, assault and theft in the neighbourhood.”

“The concentration of drug consumption is creating a very difficult to manage situation,” Wong-Tam said. “I absolutely agree we need to spread this out and other communities (in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke) need services.”

Toronto Public Health runs the supervised injection site on Victoria St. and said it’s seen a “notable” increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness because of the warmer weather and “significant” local housing challenges.

https://www.thestar.com/news/toront...sites-here-downtown-city-councillor-says.html

 

[Thinker]

Tesla sues Ontario over electric car rebate cancellation
Electric car maker Tesla Motors Canada ULC is suing the Ontario government, claiming it has been treated unfairly in the government's decision to cancel an electric vehicle rebate.

And so it starts....

 

[EagleEye]

https://globalnews.ca/news/4392076/.../?utm_source=@globalnewsto&utm_medium=Twitter

Tesla strikes back

 

[steveintoronto]

Tesla sues Ontario over electric car rebate cancellation
Electric car maker Tesla Motors Canada ULC is suing the Ontario government, claiming it has been treated unfairly in the government's decision to cancel an electric vehicle rebate.

And so it starts....

I just got in, read that headline story, and came straight to this string to post that. I'd mentioned ancillary spin-offs to this in the King Street Pilot string, as it's all tied into "Pilot Section" of the HTA. Don't have exact reference handy, but here's the connection:

Background: On January 1, 2016, Ontario launched a 10-year pilot project under the Highway Traffic Act (HTA) to allow for the testing of automated vehicles (AVs), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Levels 3 to 5 on Ontario's roads by eligible participants under certain conditions.
A Pilot Project to Safely Test Autonomous Vehicles – Summary of

I'll directly tie that into the Energy Act later, Flinstone Ford is waging a war on innovation, not waste. Not that the morons who support him would know the difference.

Not getting mentioned in this CP story is the Nafta angle: (edit: And this, *by far* could do the most damage, more later on this)
https://www.thestar.com/business/20...0476AF8A93F6714D097B721A&utm_campaign=bn_4574

 

[Northern Light]

Tesla sues Ontario over electric car rebate cancellation
Electric car maker Tesla Motors Canada ULC is suing the Ontario government, claiming it has been treated unfairly in the government's decision to cancel an electric vehicle rebate.

And so it starts....

To be technical, but not pedantic, they aren't suing because the rebate was cancelled. Governments have a right to not offer rebates for the purchase of private goods.

The issue here is that the specific change made by the Conservatives only allows the rebate to be paid to those who bought electric cars through an Ontario dealer as opposed to the company directly.

The issue at hand is fairness to existing customers who arranged purchases predicated on a credit for which they were eligible.

So long as the government allowed anyone who entered into a deal to purchase before they cancelled the credit, to receive it, there is no legal claim, to my understanding.

Per CBC

When it cancelled the EHVIP, the province promised to honour the incentive for those who have their vehicle delivered, registered and plated if it was purchased from a dealer before Sept. 10. However, the province said the incentive would end immediately for those who ordered their vehicle directly from the manufacturer.

Tesla Canada argues the government "deliberately and arbitrarily" excluded its customers, while providing no warning or the chance to offer any input.

"The Minister of Transportation's decision suddenly left hundreds of Tesla Canada's Ontario customers in the unfair position of no longer being eligible for the rebate they had expected to receive when they ordered their vehicles," the lawsuit states.

"While purchasers of other brands and from other dealers will still receive the rebate during the transition period."

To my eyes, it does appear to be a tort to effectively interfere w/a pre-existing contract.

 

[steveintoronto]

To my eyes, it does appear to be a tort to effectively interfere w/a pre-existing contract.

Nafta, Chapter 11. Very, very bad timing. How idiotic is Ford? Ford Motor Company should sue for defamation of their name. Trump is going to be all over this, albeit a good part of this Tesla model is Cdn content.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/rep...arn-from-nafta-legal-battles/article15579209/

 

[JGHali]

It was a matter of time:

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/is-it-time-to-abolish-provinces/

It's an extremely "Upper Canadian" article. First, other than the Prairies, every province entered as an existing colony, so the borders are not strictly "arbitrary". Second, having differences across provinces is not a bad thing (e.g. the buying beer on Sunday example). Not everything has to be like King and Spadina. Third, "trade barriers" are talked about a lot yet there seem to be a lot of companies operating around the country irrespective of provincial boundaries. Last, provincial identities are of varying importance around the country. And people in big places tend to be ignorant about small places (and often vice-versa). Most central Canadians can't even pronounce Newfoundland properly.

The only place where there is some argument to be made i s the maritimes.

There its still not about a unitary regime, but an argument for consolidating 3 (or 4) provinces into one 'Acadia' as it were, to produce some modest efficiencies and shared resources.

It probably won't happen even there.

Certainly, not anytime soon.

The Maritimes already share resources and coordinate things like medical services and air ambulance, to take one example. As for PEI, there are sovereign states with smaller populations and smaller territories, and it's still bigger than any of the territories.

Newfoundland hasn't even been part of Confederation for 70 years yet.

Poor Dougie's attempt to sidetrack council next week. Not sure this means what he thinks it means...

View attachment 153712

Well certainly they've been an important constituency for him and his brother in the past.

 

[steveintoronto]

Best I clarify:

I wrote "It was a matter of time" until such articles started appearing in response to the ham fisted approach of the Ford truck. That beside, the time of the 'city-state' has come for Canada, and Greater Toronto is an excellent example.

 

[zang]

Newfoundland hasn't even been part of Confederation for 70 years yet.

Funny thing on that point; my wife's grandfather was in the Air Force and stationed in Newfoundland during WWII. It was considered "overseas" duty.