City
Morning Brew: eHealth Head Fired, Google Street View Delayed, Recession Hits Sex Trade
Photo: "Docked Boats" by *Visual Noise, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Sarah Kramer, the head of eHealth Ontario and target of much controversy (mostly related to contract and spending decisions), has been fired amid continuing developments in the growing scandal. What does this mean for the electronic health record transition program? Likely more delays to the process, and hopefully more sound operating budget decisions going forward.
The recession is hitting even the most unlikely of industries. The Star ran a piece this weekend, revealing huge drops in the street price for sexual services from prostitutes. Oral sex, for example, now has a going rate of $20 compared to $60 just last fall and escort services are seeing less business as well.
According to provincial data, less than half of children in grade 6 enjoy reading. I find this rather alarming. Is this an effect of portable video game and DVD distraction culture? Fallout from the demise of effective parenting? Residual effects of cost-cutting cutbacks of school library staff?
$3million were raised at the annual Ride for Heart charity bike ride this weekend - a significant chunk of funds that make the temporary closure of our downtown highways well worth the minor inconveniences caused.
There was plenty of violence, death, and injury in the GTA this weekend. Read all about it, or skip clicking the link and put it out of sight and out of mind.
Back in early April, Google was saying that their Street View feature would be introduced into Toronto's online Google Maps searches within weeks. But delays have clearly pushed back the launch, and all we know now is that they still plan to introduce it "soon".
Discussion
11 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
Re: Discount Sex
$20 for oral? Hmm... time to do my part to revive the economy... I think I'll go shopping tonight. ;P
Re: Google Street View
Bummer... cuz I think I was captured for about 20 secs when I passed the Google car last month. We hit the same stop sign at the same time, I was on my motorcycle and reoignized the tripod/camera on its roof, so I enthusiastically waved as it drove passed me. Since the camera takes images at 6 sec intervals, there's a good chance I'll be immortalized on Google.
@Kenny.
Re. Discount sex.
I am not certain the cost of obtaining topical ointment to get rid of the terrible rash you will recieve if you shopping for of Oral on the streets of toronto.
BOH!
I've seen the Google street view camera several times around downtown/midtown Toronto so I'm assuming they're still working on it.
Why isn't Sarah Kramer put in jail - instead she gets 10 weeks severance for paying herself hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses. Maybe this is the free health care everyone's hoping for?
eHealth is not only about medical records. It's about Telemedicine too.
Here's an idea - TTC to be precluded from opening the subway late on Sunday mornings when the DVP and/or Gardiner is scheduled to be closed. I'm told crosstown traffic was mental early on Sunday, much of which likely people who would have taken the subway had it opened at 0600 rather than the usual 0900 but for whom the 300 takes too long because of the traffic and the Bloor "refurb" around Yonge Street.
I'm sure that the heart charity would be happy to pay the TTC for the overtime......or not. Perhaps the ever-generous Toronto taxpayers could pick up the tab? Or (as someone will almost certainly suggest) we should force TTC employees to work for free.
My point is, who is going to pay for it?
The subway doesn't open until 9am on Sundays???
Wow, I had no idea. Is this a more recent cutback, or are the TTC's calendars still set to 1962? Either explanation is plausible...
Good to know there's no quick way across town, even on transit, on the morning of the annual Ride for Margarine.
i don't think the price drop for hookers have anything to do with the recession. With so many online hookup sites now, why do you even have to pay for sex?
as for the ehealth thingy, she didn't do anything wrong.. it's called a signing bonus.. she didn't steal the money.. if anything, those who offered her the job should be questioned.... as if the GM workers are not being paid similar to hers now with the bailout money
The DVP was great on sunday. I was going 75 km/h at some points on my bike. I rarely get that in a car on DVP.
The subway should really be open earlier on sundays. Since pretty much all retail business is open 7 days a week people need transit access to their jobs.
I’m not sure either, but to be frank, anyone can take a picture of my house and put it on the Internet and I’d be none the wiser. At least Google lets me ask for it to be removed. At least I have some control over this data, some recourse to action.