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Morning Brew: August 22nd, 2008

Posted by Sameer / August 22, 2008

13 Comments

Spectacular sunset over BMO FieldPhoto: "Spectacular sunset over BMO Field" by absinthe**, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Friday August 22nd, 2008:

For you and me and the thousands of other people that rely on the TTC to be working every day to get around, public transit is an essential service. That's not the case for TTC management and the union, who both agree that workers should be allowed to strike as part of labor disputes.

You hear the warnings everywhere: be careful what you put on Facebook and other parts of the web, or it may come back to haunt you. Now, Ontario's information and privacy commissioner make that even more explicit by hosting a one-day conference youth privacy online< just as school is set to begin.

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CityNews asks: do Canadians care more about the US election than their own? The answer, if I polled the Canadians I know, is simple: yes. Surprised?

A Toronto travel agent has been charged with fraud after allegedly using his clients' credit cards without their permission. Yes, I know it's shocking: travel agents still really do exist in this world where everyone books online.

Numbers continue to go up. Those numbers include the inflation rate rising by 3.4% (blame oil prices), listeriosis cases going up to about 30 (blame tainted meat), and funding for Canadian research hospitals going up by $554million (blame the excellent research they continue to do). I guess you take the good numbers with the bad.

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Gregg / August 22, 2008 at 08:44 am
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The US election is a conspiracy to keep people from finding out the evil truths about the corporate, self-appointed, world wide police force. It's up there with award and reality shows and makes me sing verses from Floyd's Animals album.
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Paul / August 22, 2008 at 09:00 am
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If the TTC became an essential service, labour costs would go up even higher than they are now. My TTC pass costs enough already, thanks.
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Greg Smith / August 22, 2008 at 09:00 am
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Funny now most media says the TTC wants to maintain the "workers' right to strike", but fails to mention that this is also to preserve its own "right to lock workers out". Coverage of collective bargaining issues is so often one-sided... ah, well.
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Greg Smith / August 22, 2008 at 09:02 am
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Funny <em>how</em>... argh.
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guy lafleur / August 22, 2008 at 09:08 am
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There is an additional premium you have to give workers when you declare them an essential service, because they've lost the right to strike, but I think the TTC should do it anyway.

Take the hit in the short term, but start cutting benefits, employees and start contracting more out. They can't strike in protest and, in the long term, labour costs will fall.
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Christopher King / August 22, 2008 at 09:12 am
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The reason I feel that Canadians give a darn about the U.S. elections is that we are so inundated by them through our media outlets, who don't give the Canadian elections half the scrutiny (but then, we don't have the farce of the two years pre-show either).
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binlazer / August 22, 2008 at 09:18 am
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US elections - also, the President can be equated to leader of the world. That might have something to do with it.
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Greg Smith / August 22, 2008 at 09:24 am
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Guy Lafleur said: "...start cutting benefits, employees and start contracting more out [and] in the long term, labour costs will fall."

But in the 'essential service' scenario, changes to the collective agreement (e.g. benefits cuts) would be subject to the discretion of an arbitrator. Such cuts could be difficult to obtain. Also, it's not just a one-time hit to the TTC but rather an ongoing tendency for the arbitrator to favour the workers.
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guy lafleur / August 22, 2008 at 09:29 am
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Sure, but the city has to be willing to set the bar low from the outset. The arbitrator will have to find a point somewhere between the two positions. The cuts would be somewhat tempered by the arbitrator, but if the city continues to be aggressively low in its positions, costs will trend down.
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Ryan L. / August 22, 2008 at 09:39 am
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We should care about the outcome of the US elections as our economy relies heavily on them. Sadly, our economy likely relies far more on their election than it does our own.

If only we had some better candidates to choose from, perhaps we'd care more about our own.
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RBeezy / August 22, 2008 at 10:44 am
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anyone who takes the TTC on a regular basis would be surprised to know they're not already on strike. bus and train drivers operate like they're on a work-to-rule campaign.

the U.S. election is electric and always filled with dynamic characters. in Canada, we have Stephen "Shake my hand, son" Harper, Jack "I'm so left, I'm right" Layton, and Stephane "The Librarian" Dion. the closest these lameasses get to being exciting is...well, I don't have a punchline for that one.
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Greg Smith / August 22, 2008 at 10:57 am
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In defence of dynamic & electric librarians everywhere, I'll have you know that should be Stephane "The (political science)<em>Professor</em>" Dion.
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RBeezy / August 22, 2008 at 11:49 am
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hey Greg, some of my best friends are librarians. I think I slighted their profession by including Dion.

How about Stephane "The bologna and mayo on white bread sandwich" Dion?

nothing's more boring than that.
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