City
Morning Brew: May 2nd, 2007
Photo: "Parking Meter Politics" by blogTO Flickr pooler Brendan Lynch
Your morning news roundup for Wednesday May 2nd, 2007:
Gas price fluctuations continue to be an anomaly in the GTA, with most stations selling at $1.08/L yesterday. Am I the only one that finds it difficult to top up and round to the dollar at these prices? A microsqueeze of the nozzle, and you're looking for a penny. Check out torontogasprices.com for deals across the city.
The city is planning to bump up metered parking rates by $0.50/hr., an adjustment that should bring in an additional $6million for the city. I find city parking rates to be reasonable, but yesterday I left my car on King St. a little too long and by 4:15pm it was towed and cost me $193.56 :(
More than half of the province's elementary schools with students in need of ESL instruction aren't staffed with required specialist ESL teachers. Funding rates for ESL programs aren'tt matching the pace of immigration, and those kids must feel pretty lost in the sea of standard English instruction.
Imagine this... You sponsor your immigrating cousin Guido, and in doing so sign a federal contract vowing to support him financially for 10 years. Guido hates your cooking, abandons you, cuts off all ties, and (without your knowledge or consent) ends up being a welfare-collecting bum in Sarnia. 5 years pass. You then get a bill for $50,000 from the provincial government insisting you repay the province for Guido's welfare. What's wrong with this picture?!
Crossroad Puzzle's dog ate its homework, but the game will return next week.
Discussion
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Sure, because for the planet's sake we must punish anyone who has different transportation needs than us.
That was sarcasm, Ben. If you're ranting about the look-at-me fat businessman in the Hummer, or the grandstanding punk in the tricked-out Honda, I'm with you. But if you want more blood from the family of five that needs to get to daycare/school/work in areas not adequately served by public transit, you're just mean-spirited.
That said, I don't think it would be unfair for Canada to change the system to one where instead of a permanent visa that a temporary one is granted for the first few months until the sponsored person has "ties to Canada" after which it would be unfair for a sponsor to pull the plug and thus a permanent visa (and the ongoing support obligation) could continue in the current fashion for the remaining term. In my view this would cope with the situations where sponsors stiff their mailorder brides but also unscrupulous sponsoreds stiff their sponsors.
My point: the provincial government should have a way of notifying the sponsor right away, not after 5 years of payments go to the immigrant. Or they shouldn't grant social assistance to the immigrant at all (because they have a contract-obligated sponsor).
Granting the runoff immigrant assistance and waiting 5 years to tell the sponsor what's going on is balogna (totally unfair).
Idiotic and small-minded comment.
I have a personal grudge against idiots with cellphones perpetually stuck in their ears. So you must all give up your cellphones because, um, er ...they're killing honeybees!
Thanks, Matt, I think I'm getting the hang of it! ;-)