MB Toronto
Morning Brew: pay-per-use toilet malfunctions, record high Great Lakes' temperatures, public sector wage freeze proposed, Yonge & Gould building fate remains unknown, Netflix coming to Canada, Byrone Sonne bail hearing
Toronto's first public pay-per-use toilet went out of service briefly yesterday, and a reporter from the Toronto Sun just happened to stumbled upon it in out-of-service state. Met by a locked door and perpetual coin return, a little bit of investigative reporting revealed that a malfunctioning seat was responsible for the automatic shutdown and service call. Since this first unit (costing $400,000) opened on May 19th, the Harbourfront toilet has seen 3500 paid uses (amounting to $175 total intake), although the statistics are somewhat skewed low because some families go in and use the facilities together. Eww.
The Great Lakes are poised to see record-breaking water temperatures this summer. Lake Superior is usually 6°C in mid-July but is reading at a much higher 13°C. Lake Ontario is 2-3°C warmer than usual. Climate experts suggest that the mild winter is mostly responsible, and how the delicate ecosystem will respond to these types of changes remains unknown.
Ontario has a $21-billion deficit and finance minister Dwight Duncan has his sights set on freezing the wages of about 1 million public sector workers as a cost-cutting measure. Freezing salaries of teachers, nurses, and bureaucrats whose contracts are soon up for renewal could save the province $750 million (i.e. we could shave 3.57% off that massive deficit), but the proposal is certain to be met with vehement resistance from the unions representing the workers -- as it probably should be.
Remember the building at Yonge & Gould that had an exterior wall collapse way back in April? The former Empress Hotel is still behind hoarding and its future is still very much unknown. After consultation with engineers, the Mumbai-based owners decided to demolish the building but the City wants it preserved and have had it designated a Heritage site. The owners now have until August 7th to apply for demolition under the Heritage Act.
Netflix, the popular US-based on-demand online film and television service, has announced plans to enter the Canadian market in the fall. Unlimited viewing of streaming movies and TV will be available for a low monthly fee. It'll be interesting to see how already (sort of) established competitor Rogers responds, given that it'll be their bandwidth many subscribers will be using.
Byrone Sonne, the man facing explosives and weapons charges related to the G20 summit, is scheduled for his bail hearing today (which has already been delayed and rescheduled more than once). Authorities believe he was conspiring to commit heinous crimes, while those who know him in professional circles claim that he's an expert in security and surveillance and the materials he possessed were benign. Is "testing security to make sure it's effective" a crime? That question may be what this trial ends up focusing on.
Photo: "A Bike Ride Along the Leslie Street Spit" by collette v, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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It's not easy to do and would need a constitutional change but the savings recouped would probably go further than any wage-freeze and would (hopefully) get rid of some horrible teachers in the system at the same time.
One problem: who judges which teachers should go in your scheme? I assure you that every form of evaluation of teachers I have seen is arbitrarily motivated. Trust parent or student evaluations, some of whom want to cover their own incompetancies? Trust administrator evaluations, most of whom disliked teaching enough to use promotion as a way to get out of the classroom? Trust teachers to evaluated their peers in some way that doesn't become a popularity contest? Use student performance, in a way that accounts for the students' backgrounds, and doesn't put the blame for student/parent sloth on teachers?
You get the idea. Merging the boards would get rid of much of the administrative staff, leaving more money for the front line. We can all agree on that.
In the computer world, yes it's a crime. Wonder if that will set precedence for physical security "testing"
Also, @LJ - so you advocate layoffs, but then you'll complain when you wait at a hospital for a long time, your highway has pot holes, your kids have 30 other classmates in the classroom, or when it takes too long to get a license renewed. Just because you were laid off doesn't mean that all employers should lay off people (it also wouldn't help to put more people on unemployment insurance that the province would pay for and ultimately lower consumer spending and thus tax revenues, increasing the government's burden during a period of high unemployment).
This is what net neutrality is supposed to defend against.
Suck it up and take a hit like the rest of us.
That was probably their goal since they bought it. They wanted the land, not the building.
It's way too common in this city for a developer to buy a lovely old building, let it deteriorate until something collapses, then have it condemned so they can put up something ugly and huge.
And the alternative is not Bell.
Acanac, Teksavvy and other DSL resellers are cheaper and just as fast as Rogers/Bell, just as reliable.
Check broadbandreports.
The federal government has a huge deficit..
the city has a hugh deficit
and the province has a hugh deficit...
tax payers can only support so much government- they will need to cut back on spending...reducing wages is better than layoffs!!
W wage freeze will do two things. It will shrink the OPS through attrition. There will be mass retirements. You have no idea how many dinosaurs are simply showing up to top up their pensions. A wage freeze will pretty much all but force these people to retire. And, it will create openings for the younger people who work for the province, through the large number of retirements that would be expected.
A wage freeze is a great idea.