City
Morning Brew: Peter Sloly in the Spotlight, City Accused of Lake Pollution, Border Crossing Labour Issues, Creba Case Publication Ban
Photo: "Last weekend of the summer..." by chewie2008~, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
He's young, he's driven, he's risen through the ranks faster than anyone before, and he's black. At just 41 years of age, Peter Sloly is one of four officers in the Toronto Police Services that are at the Deputy Chief rung... which means that soon enough Toronto could have its first black chief of police. Hopefully the media attention doesn't hinder his chances as much as it props him up.
A major oopsies back in 2006 could end up costing the City of Toronto millions of dollars. After being granted special, emergency permission to dump partially-treated sewage into Lake Ontario, someone on staff forgot to close a bypass gate and the lake continued to be polluted for an additional 3.5days. Wow.
Labour issues at the Fort Erie "Peace Bridge" Canada-US border crossing meant that just 3 of 15 lanes were open on Sunday, causing severe backlogs at it (and slowdowns at the other land crossings in the Niagara region). Apparently 15 people "called in sick" but Ottawa knows it's not a communicable flu or virus that's gone around; it's employee dissatisfaction with their tightening budget that's triggered the job action.
Is our court system prejudice against the media and citizens' abilities to provide a fair trial in high-profile cases? Once again, we're seeing a potentially extended publication ban on the Jane Creba homicide case, even though the Supreme Court of Canada dictates that bans only be imposed when there's actual evidence of compromised defendant rights, not merely speculation.
Toronto Police are still searching for Mariam Makhnaishvili, a teen that went missing in Forest Hill a week ago. They're now taking their efforts to two area schools, in hopes of learning more about her potential whereabouts.
And if you've been offline all weekend, on what was a gorgeous final weekend of the summer, here's what blogTO was up to:
- Beverly got wrapped up in Clubland's delicious soup haven RaviSoups.
- Christopher headed up to a new MMA gym in Vaughan to challenge UFC fighter Diego Sanchez, who was a no-show.
- Connie and Chandra reviewed some more films at TIFF and announced the winners, including Precious as peoples' choice.
- Briony found some bargains on clothing Penny Arcade Vintage.
- Crystal chatted with city councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, about life in the city and cycling.
- Daniel stopped some fashionistas in their tracks, and found that some are still sporting shorts.
- Elizabeth art crawled Queen West.
Discussion
7 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
The CBSA officers who work in the Niagara and Erie regions are paid a lot of money for what they do (oh, and they're unionized too). To be complaining about budget cuts by delaying commerce is just ridiculous. I hope they realize what they did hinders more than helps their situation. I doubt the public is anymore on their side after a stunt like that.
Yet another fine example as to why the whole thing should go private.
Still, always funny that when the lowest level employees decide to stop doing their jobs and the whole place shuts down. Who is really necessary and who should be cut back - the public facing jobs or the many many levels of management that exist?
A properly managed company can do wonders. It happens all the time. In fact, that's where all the money comes from to pay unions. That and taxing people. If you want examples of how union jobs are wasteful, take a camera around Toronto and you'll find them everywhere. It's why they need unions to begin with, to protect their lazy ways.
Doing a little research reveals that the government has significantly reduced the budget for this agency, which is resulting in uneven work schedules, the elimination hundreds of positions, and the addition of significant workloads based on less people. Some may think that this is just day to day in the business world, but less we forget that the Canada Border Service Agency is in fact a law enforcement agency. How would you feel about Toronto Police having to do twice the investigations with half the officers. Would you feel safer walking the streets with less police presence? If not, then why should it be acceptable that the front line to our nations security and sovereignty be any less important? I'm not trying to say that how these officers went about the work action was right, all I am pointing out is that besides the obvious of keeping an eye out for suspected terrorists, criminals, narcotics, and weapons, these men and women that protect our borders also look out for kidnapped and missing children, and ensure that goods that are coming into the country comply with safety regulations. That in itself should be worth the government revisiting the budget issues in an effort to make the work conditions a little more favourable.