Never an original or deep thinker, young Tim Hudak, whose recent decision to rely on demagoguery in place of reason by condemning unions as the reason for the poor economy in Ontario, has provoked a spirited response from Star readers, some of whose letters you can peruse here.
While I have sometimes been critical of my former union, The Ontario Secondary Teachers Federation, both in this blog and my other one, I have always been a supporter and advocate of unions. I was particularly surprised and pleased that yesterday, in contrast to the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) accepting a deal with the McGuinty government which sees the elimination of the retirement gratuity amongst other deep concessions, OSSTF's Ken Coran, along with three other union heads, refused to give up the fight.
In what would be regarded in normal times as a major concession, OSSTF has already offered a two year wage freeze, and modest cost of living salary increases in years three and four in exchange for protection of the retirement gratuity, something the McGuinty government has refused to consider.
Apparently the reason the Catholic union so blithely surrendered it is that it has been eliminated in the majority of their boards over the years. However, few understand why the gratuity is much more than a perk to teachers. Yes, it is true that we enjoy a defined benefit pension, but that is the only benefit that we take into retirement; there is no dental or health plan other than what retirees purchase for themselves. For example, mine costs over $3000 per year, and offers some coverage for drugs and dental, but with significant limitations. So essentially the gratuity, usually half a year's salary paid out upon retirement, covers that cost for about 10 years.
Now I realize even that is much more than many enjoy, but the fact is that private companies, especially those with unions, do provide health and dental benefits to its retirees, a fact often overlooked by those eager to denigrate unions and teachers.
And speaking of union-bashers, Heather Mallick, in today's Star, has what I regard as a rather simple-minded column in which she essentially argues for compromise/capitulation to McGuinty's demands, lest the recalcitrant unions bring down a fury of anti-unionism on their heads a la Tim Hudak and Wisconsin-like union-busting legislation.
While that may come, especially given the level of both public ignorance and antipathy regarding the vital role unions play in a healthy economy and political system, my attitude has and always will be the same:
Go down with a fight. There is honour in losing a battle, but little in waving the white flag.
Earlier this week Mr. Del Mastro, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and MP for Peterborough, complained about an Elections Canada investigation into his 2008 campaign, saying he’s frustrated he has no way to present his side of the story.
Now, the opportunity appears to be close at hand.
But oh, the suspense is killing me. Will he avail himself of this opportunity to 'set the record straight"?
I am sure that like me, many despair over the state of democracy in Canada. Not only is it under continuous assault by a federal government that has repeatedly and consistently shown its contempt for the concept, but it also suffers from widespread citizen disengagement.
Probably the two are inextricably connected.
In an interesting column today entitled Canadians need a forum to raise their voices against undemocratic leaders, The Star's public editor Carol Goar writes about a public trust called The Carold Institute, whose mission is to promote active citizenship, democratic participation and social change.
A recent panel discussion hosted by the institute stressed three essential observations and lessons that put our present perilous state into perspective:
- those with power — politicians, police and bureaucrats — don’t think they should have to share it. “They don’t like citizens and they don’t think they have any role.”
- governments are quick to slap pejorative labels — violent, dangerous, anarchic — on people who challenge them.
- citizens have to use the tools they have — solidarity, the willingness to stand up to authorities, the ability to reach beyond their own ranks — to keep democracy alive.
These are lessons we all would be wise to remember and take to heart in the long hot summer of discontent ahead.
The piece also offers the reader a sharp contrast to the Harper tribute presented over at Canada's self-proclaimed 'newspaper of record by the increasingly sycophantic senator-in-waiting, John Ibbitson, who extols the Conservative Cabinet and goes so far as to describe Environment Minister Peter Kent as a good and faithful servant, without even a hint of irony.
Regarded by some as a master of platitudes, Toronto District School Board Director Chris Spence says that things are getting better.
As outlined in The Star's investigative series, the board, in the thrall of Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, which forms the backbone of the TDSB’s facilities division, has for years been grossly overpaying for simple repair jobs. This was well-known to administrators and board officials for many years, and in 2006 a review was conducted by consultants Blackstone Partners, who then submitted a report to officials in January of 2007.
Despite the passage of almost six years, we are told today by Mr. Spence that some progress has been made, and the report is “working its way through the committee structure” at the board.
In what passes for clarity, lucidity and justification (cynics might call it base political posturing), the former football player drew a sports analogy:
“To use a football analogy, we are trying to move the yardstick. There is no quick fix,” said Spence, who became director two years after the review. “But I am not running, I am not hiding from the problem.”
“Blackstone took us so far. Some of the work we are doing now will take us farther,” Spence said in the interview.
To continue with Mr. Spence's sports metaphor, given the lack of specifics about this putative progress, combined with the aggregate revelations of the Star's series, some might conclude that it is time for this team to be kicked out of the league.
We know about the loathing part, but July 10 will answer the title question.
First, bullets flew through the Eaton Centre food court. Then, two weeks later, on a sun-filled patio in Little Italy. On Sunday, a man was shot while hundreds watched a fireworks display in the city’s east end. Just 24 hours before that, a stray bullet grazed a toddler’s leg in North York.
Yet Mark Pugash, Toronto police spokesman and spinmaster, tells us there is really little to worry about here.
I guess, despite evidence that would seem to contradict this skilled communicator, This is the best of all possible worlds.
Canada continues to be an outlier amongst Western nations as the sole exporter of death, aka asbestos, a topic that I have written about many times on this blog. The federal government continues to perpetuate the lie that the highly carcinogenic substance is safe if handled properly, despite the fact that the Harper regime vetoed an international proposal last year that would have made labeling and safety instructions mandatory.
Now, aided and abetted by that criminally negligence federal stance, Quebec's Premier Jean Charest has given a $58 million lifeline to continue mining this lethal export.
The Star has a good editorial today excoriating this measure. I hope you will read it and keep the issue alive this summer should you encounter your Tory M.P. lurking about the constituency.
A new article published in The Nation paints a grim portrayal indeed of the future we face as a nation when this pact is finalized, going well beyond the compromises made in NAFTA.
I urge you to read it, and consider what each of us can do, given the fact that we, our children and our grandchildren will all be the poorer for this absolute betrayal by the Harper government.
H/t to Kev.
The conclusion the cynic would draw (that's me) is that the report suggests no need for the changes Harper has made in the OAS.
H/t Brandon Laraby
I recently wrote a brief post on young Mr. Hudak's simple-minded and dysfunctional 'vision' for returning Ontario to its former industrial glory: gut the unions, a policy which, if ever enacted, would be disastrous for the men and women who currently enjoy workplace benefits, decent wages, and protection from arbitrary dismissal thanks to their unions.
In today's Globe, economist Jim Stanford offers some insights into the source of inspiration for the lad who would be premier, inspiration which sharply diverges from the traditional values held by Ontario's Progressive Conservatives before the advent of Hudak's hero and mentor, Mike Harris.
I often think that governments, especially our current federal one, hold the people they 'serve' in absolute contempt, regarding us as little more than Pavlovian creatures who will respond in a predictable and desired way if we are given just the right stimulus. Tell us the economic apocalypse is fast approaching, invoke the example of Greece as our future UNLESS we all submit to the discipline of austerity measures, and we are all expected to fall in line, nodding grimly but compliantly at the harsh measures needed 'to ensure our future.'
Government propaganda has worked countless times in the past. Why should now be any different?
Well, maybe it will work as usual, but in times past we have not had the kind of unbridled access to information that the Internet has made possible. If we are gullible once more, then it has to be by choosing to remain woefully ignorant.
One of the best sources of information that doesn't merely mirror the Harper party line is The Toronto Star. In today's edition, Linda McQuaig provides some much-needed perspective on the current hyperbole peddled by the Prime Minister and his enablers.
Enjoy the read as her insights and views on the economic situation offer us the opportunity to be something more than subjects in one of Harper's many lab experiments.
Two reading recommendations for Monday morning:
The Star has a good editorial suggesting that the Harper government's efforts to find a buyer for the Experimental Lakes Area in Kenora is just a sham, an empty public relations exercise. As the editorial points out, the reseach facility has been making key contributions to the study of freshwater lake ecologies for 50 years but saw its funding eliminated in the omnibus budget bill, in all likelihood because it advances scientific knowledge about water management and restoration that runs counter to the Harper agenda of almost unfettered exploitation of our resources, no matter the environmental price to be paid.
My other recommendation is a letter from Salmon Lee, Mississauga, who points out the flaws in young Tim Hudak's grand scheme to destroy unions in Ontario.
As always, the Star provides ample insights into the ideologies that masquerade as informed and careful deliberations by our political 'leaders'.
To what I suspect is the surprise of few, young Tim Hudak, to whom I have made the occasional reference in this blog, continues to underwhelm as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. His latest 'policy', perhaps hatched at the supper table with wife Deborah, to make Ontario more 'attractive' to employers by breaking unions, is the kind of preposterous pandering to the extreme right that one would expect from an alumnus of the despotic Mike Harris era, when he served in the latter's cabinet.
Treat yourself this Canada Day by enjoying Martin Regg-Cohn's dissection of young Tim's fatuous thinking in a column entitled Tim Hudak’s Tory vision for a low-union, low-wage Ontario.
In my non-virtual life, I like to think that I am a reasonably pleasant fellow who enjoys the small pleasures life has to offer, has a decent sense of humour, and can see the good as well as the bad of this world.
I sometimes fear, however, that in my blogging life I am turning into one of those grim, overly earnest and shrill presences for whom the political apocalypse is at hand. I wish I could say that this blog entry was going to be different, but that would be untrue.
The truth is, I find little to celebrate on this Canada Day, the latest reason blazoning forth on the front page of my Sunday Star with this headline:
Tories slash funding for young offenders by 20 per cent
The Star exclusive reveals that the Harper government has slashed 20 per cent of federal funding for youth justice programs in Canada, cutting $35.6 million used to supervise and rehabilitate young offenders....
In typically Orwellian fashion, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson made no mention of the drastic cut Wednesday in a news release that trumpeted “continued support” for the Youth Justice Services Funding Program.
Apparently there are three components to the programs that are now in jeopardy:
- measures to target violent young offenders,
- measures to rehabilitate and reintegrate youth in trouble with the law,
- measures to deal with less serious types of offences outside the formal court process.
Given their predilection for seeing the worst in human nature, I suspect the Harperites were most offended by the rehabilitation and reintegration elements of the program.
So, while the Harper regime continues to target the most vulnerable amongst us, and while it continues to attack and try to dismantle traditional Canadian values that emphasize the primacy of the collective over the individual, I shall not be celebrating Canada Day.
Now, time for a bike ride to try to restore my equanimity.
As has already been reported, the price of admission for Canada's entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is the acceptance of everything thus far negotiated. Although all of the talks are secret, with corporations but not citizens privy to its contents, this much is known: the TPP enhances corporate rights to sue governments when public policies interfere with how, when and where they make profits - in others words, a further abdication of our national sovereignty, a process that began under NFTA.
This link includes a video that offers some insight into what is going on behind our backs, and it is nothing less than an absolute and utter betrayal of all of us. Although spoken of from an American perspective, don't forget that the changes discussed will apply to all signatories.
In the Star's latest installment on the board's relationship with Jimmy Hazel and his Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, we learn that the board will will set up an electronic system to flag high costs charged by its maintenance and construction workers.
We also learn the following:
- the TDSB has asked the education ministry for a “deep operational review” to be conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers;
- an end to charging individual principal’s school accounts for construction and maintenance work;
- a high-level meeting set for trustees to question staff about the problem.
While on the surface, these measures look like swift and decisive reactions to what the Star's investigations uncovered, based on my own experience as a teacher who dealt with many administrators/politicians, I interpret them as mere political expedients, crisis responses to embarrassing revelations that, of course, the board already knew about since there have been so many complaints over time about these practices, complaints that the board, from the Director on down to the trustees, in their 'wisdom, chose to ignore or, as they say, 'sweep under the rug'.
If you doubt my assertions, reread the series carefully for all the clues of a cover up, probably sparked by both organization inertia and the conventional wisdom that it is impolitic to 'make waves' lest the wake disrupt one's upward career trajectory. As I have expressed elsewhere, institutions are notorious for this kind of willful blindness.
And if you have any doubts that the board's putative new openness is anything other than a charade, consider this:
The Star, which is continuing to investigate, has been trying to obtain a copy of the school board’s database listing work orders and costs.
Thursday, we received a letter from the TDSB’s lawyer, Giselle Basanta, announcing that the Star’s request was received and “we will respond to your request according to the provisions of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.” No other details, and no timeline for response, were provided.
Hardly a beacon of light in this whole murky affair. At least Jimmy Hazel and his people have been more direct and honest about how they feel:
At the trades council, Hazel and officials have released a letter condemning the reporting in the Star.
A story in today's Star reports that the Harper regime is cutting the budget for guided tours, ensuring some 20,000 fewer visitors will actually get a peek inside the majestic buildings housing the seat of Canada’s national government.
The cynic residing within me suggests that our overlords think it prudent that the masses be reminded as little as possible of what they have lost under this cabal.
Now frequently the new last refuge of the scoundrel, the passive voice is very popular with politicians far and wide, even if they don't hold elected office.
In response to a comprehensive report by retired judge John Morden on the police brutality and abuses of Charter Rights committed during the June 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto that cast the Police Services Board in a particularly bad light, Board chair Alok Mukherjee admitted “mistakes were made,” but stopped short of apologizing for the board’s inaction in G20 planning.
The other politician in this sad episode, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, acknowledged “lessons learned” from a new report criticizing the Toronto Police Services Board’s inaction on G20 summit planning, but denied a fundamental communication problem between police and the civilian body tasked with overseeing them.
What those lessons were, the good chief declined to say. And, of course, he refused to apologize for anything.
The reversal of the Rosseau Muskoka's decision to extort take 50% of its masseuses' tips, owing to the backlash sparked by The Star's earlier report, is but one of many reasons I am a proud subscriber to Canada's most widely-read newspaper.
The following is a brief excerpt from a comprehensive report by retired judge John Morden on the police brutality and abuses of Charter Rights committed during the June 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto. In it, he addresses the failure of the Toronto Police Services Board, headed by Alok Mukherjee:
“The board has limited its consultative mandate and has viewed it as improper to ask questions about, comment on, or make recommendations concerning operational matters,” said Morden.
“The board’s approach in this matter is wrong.”
In earlier times, of course, this magnitude of incompetence would have warranted resignations or dismissals.
Nowadays, sadly, it simply becomes a public relations challenge to overcome.
My understanding is that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair will start the process of 'massaging' the report shortly with a news conference.
Perhaps a silly response, but tired of Nations being painted as evil when it is not the people but the clowns like Harper, McGuinty and others that purport to reflect values that certainly are not mine to the rest of the world..............
See if the following doesn't dispel some of your stereotypes about Russians. Amazing what we can learn when we remove the filters of government propaganda and media biases. Perhaps the Internet truly is the great leveler:
With all of the finger-pointing in the Star's latest installment on the Toronto District School Board's questionable relationship with Jimmy Hazel and his Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, I think it is safe to infer that all involved parties have truly entered the digital age.
I suspect this report ranks right up there with headlines such as Expect A Hotter Than Usual Summer.
In what I guess in his world passes for bold and innovative thinking, young Tim would like union membership to no longer be mandatory and would outlaw the “forced paycheque contributions” unionized workers make to political causes.
Hudak said that “the more flexible the workplace, the greater demand there is going to be for workers.”
“If you have a flexible workplace where businesses can adjust to market conditions the more likely they’ll open up in that jurisdiction.”
I suspect the flexible workplace the callow Master Hudak has in mind would be filled with all kinds of perils for the newly enfranchised worker:
To learn the truly tragic dimensions of this Harper maneuver to silence yet another dissenting scientific voice, please check out this article by Michael Harris. After reading it, I think you will likely agree that the health of Canadians is pretty low on the list of Dear Leader's priorities.
Because, I guess, young Master Hudak believes in work-place democracy.
Can the workhouses be far behind?
Now 31 years old, Beah, a very bright, articulate and talented writer effectively conveyed in his memoir the horror of his experiences as a child soldier, conscripted into the army at the age of 13 to fight the rebels in Sierra Leone, although the bloody, inhumane behaviour of each side made them virtually impossible to distinguish.
I suspect it is the kind of world that Kadhr is very familiar with, uprooted as he was from Canada by his fanatical father at a young age and moved to Pakistan and Afghanistan to become part of Al Qaeda’s jihad against the West.
There is a story in today's Star about the ongoing efforts of a group of professors from Edmonton who developed a curriculum of study for Khadr, still languishing in Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Echo thanks to the reluctance of the Harper government to repatriate him. It is a story that goes beyond the stereotypes and the sensational headlines one usually associates with the Khadr name, a story suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there is something very salvageable about this former child soldier.
Of course, we have a chance of recognizing that something only if we are willing to relinquish our preconceived notions about the sole remaining Western inmate languishing in America's Cuban prison.
The other day I posted a link to a remarkable video showing Dr. Chris Keefer interrupting Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver's announcement at Toronto General hospital to protest Bill C-31, the legislation that will deny to those claiming refugee-status life saving drugs.
Bernie Farber has written a piece in The Huffington Post lauding the doctor's courage and integrity as he further explores the implications of this legislation.
While hardly surprising, the decision of TDSB chair, Chris Bolton, to have a facilities committee look into The Star's embarrassing revelations about its inappropriate and very costly relationship with Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council is wholly inadequate.
As today's Star editorial tartly observes, It was exactly what taxpayers have learned to expect from politicians facing embarrassing revelations.
Yet another indication of an organization in deep decline.
Admittedly, the ideological girth of Toronto's chief magistrate makes him an easy target. Always outspoken, heedless of who he offends, with the political instincts of a brawler, Rob Ford has made it abundantly clear to most that he is incapable of growing in the job.
But in my view, his problems go beyond his obvious limitations as a leader. There is also a maliciousness about him when it comes to gay people, his refusal to attend the gay pride flag-raising event only the latest symptom.
In her column today, Rosie DiManno skewers Ford's oft-repeated excuse that the Pride parade conflicts with his family's long-standing tradition of gathering at the cottage on the Canada Day weekend, and suggests that if the rumour that he is uncomfortable around the exhibitionism that is a feature of the parade is true, arrangements could easily be made to put the mayor far from “offending’’ participants.
However, I suspect his barely-concealed contempt for the gay populace of Toronto was unwittingly or perhaps intentionally revealed on the final radio show of the season that he shares with brother Doug.
During the program, Doug Ford made the following suggestion:
“We should be as patriotic as anything,” said Councillor Ford. “We should be having a Canada Day parade. We should have the troops going down with us waving the flags,” he said.
Mayor Ford piped in. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
His brother pledged back, “Next year, let’s make it happen.”
Of course, not a word was said about how such a parade would conflict with the aforementioned family tradition.
A powerful and negative message from Toronto's chief magistrate.
And like the good Pavlovian creatures the Conservatives assume the electorate to be, they eagerly await our unbridled panic.
Dr. Chris Keefer interrupts Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver:
Although it hardly qualifies as a startling or original insight, something occurred to me this morning as I was reading my Sunday Star. Two front page items, one about the bullied bus monitor, Karen Klein, the other about five-year-old Lovely Avelus a Haitian girl rescued from the ruble of the earthquake two years ago, reminded me of a truth that is regarded as inconvenient in some quarters: we are a communal species.
While the hard right tries to get us to think only of ourselves, the better to promote its agenda of selfish isolation and rampant consumerism, the two aforementioned stories strongly help us to realize that when a face is put on human suffering, we respond with the magnanimity of a species that cares about each other.
It is a realization that our current 'government' does not want us to dwell upon as it promotes programs that largely depersonalize and objectify our fellow human beings. And it is always easier to ignore those people if they are not fully human in our minds.
Take, for example, some recent changes, either pending or already enacted:
Bill C-31, championed by Immigration Minister Jason Kennedy and coming into effect June 30, will see massive reductions in health care to refugee claimants.
SUBTEXT: Many of 'those people' are bogus claimants who are just trying to scam the system.
One of the more pernicious elements of Bill C-38, Harper's budget omnibus bill, is the change in Employment Insurance eligibility. This link from Sun News exemplifies why the government feels it can get away with these changes.
SUBTEXT: Jim Flaherty has said there are no bad jobs. Clearly, those who disagree with this program change are layabouts swilling beer and watching tv when they should be out 'pounding the pavement' like hardworking Canadians.
The changes In OAS age eligibility, far enough in the future not to affect anyone over the current age of 54, divides and conquers dissent. A sizable proportion of people will be unaffected, playing to their more selfish sides.
SUBTEXT: The government has repeatedly justified this change by saying that younger people should not be burdened with higher taxation to pay for the benefits of 'those people,' the older demographic.
So, by cultivating a mentality that thinks only in stereotypes, the Harper government is slowly but inexorably trying to convince us to abandon our traditional concern for the collective, one of the foundational values of Canada that makes it different from so many other countries.
Whether or not this agenda succeeds is really up to all of us, isn't it?
I have to start this brief entry by invoking an old cliche: the best defense is a strong offense. That certainly seems to be the strategy 'Environment' Minister Peter Kent is pulling out of his very limited playbook at the UN conference on the environment in Rio as he intones that Canada must stop the spread of “misinformation” on the environment by ecologists with an ideological agenda.
While the world's anger builds at Canada's abdication of its environmental responsibilities as it hastens to deepen even more the profits of resource companies, Kent's message is both predictable and preposterous. Everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along and pay no attention to those domestic ecoterrorists like David Suzuki spreading lies about the good work his government is doing on the environmental file.
Try telling that to the flora and fauna that will be destroyed thanks to the most recent depredations made possible by Bill C-38.
What is the priority of organizations that are mired in embarrassing public revelations about fraudulent spending of taxpayers' money? The development of a good PR plan.
At least that is what I gleaned from Part Three of The Star's investigation of the Toronto District School Board and its relationship with the Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council run by Jimmy Hazel.
While the story details the cozy relationship that exists between Hazel and the board, including ordering his members to campaign for and donate money to the trustees and the provincial Liberals during elections, (with real consequences for those who refuse,) the most interesting aspect to me is the reaction of both the board and Hazel's organization.
At a private meeting Wednesday of school board trustees, where the Star’s investigation was discussed, [trustee Sheila] Ward told those in attendance that “trustees should be muzzled” until the TDSB has a solid communications plan in place to deal with the Star stories. Note that the response is to deal with the stories, not the problems the stories uncovered.
Not to be outdone, Jimmy Hazel appears to be following the same strategy:
Hazel, who initially unleashed a profanity-filled tirade on a Star reporter, has hired Ross Parry, a former official in the Liberal government. Hazel said Parry is helping him fine-tune his responses to the media. Parry, who was also the TDSB communications chief in the late 1990s, is helping Hazel put “all the information we collected into prose.”
None of this is the least bit surprising to me, given the cynicism I have expressed about organizational behaviour in this blog and my other one many times over the years. What does surprise me, however, is their openness in detailing how they plan to deal with the messenger, not the message.
And the wheel goes round....
That is the description that Lawrence Martin applies to the Harper government in his latest column for iPolitics as he reflects on the vital and valiant role journalism played in uncovering the Watergate Scandal 40 years ago.
However, while acknowledging some bright spots, Martin laments the unevenness of the contemporary Canadian journalistic landscape in holding the Harper regime to account. Especially interesting is that while lauding some efforts, he withholds any praise from his own employer, The Globe and Mail, which will not come as a surprise to those who see it as little more than an apologist for a Prime Minister drunk on his own power.
As is always the case, this latest piece by Martin is well-worth the read.
Unless the Toronto District School Board is staffed by a raft of incompetents, it has to have known what is going on.
As I wrote in my blog post yesterday, an investigation by The Toronto Star has revealed theft on a massive scale in the form of grossly inflated charges to the board for even the simplest of routine maintenance tasks by employees under the exclusive contract enjoyed by the Maintenance & Construction Skilled Trades Council headed by Jimmy Hazel.
In Part 2 of that investigation, the newspaper reports a number of interesting aspects to this scandal, the most interesting to me being the reaction of top board officials Director Chris Spence and school superintendents and deputy operations director Penny Mustin, both of whom refused to offer any comment on this massive waste of tax dollars.
The school board is also refusing to release a copy of its internal tracking database that contains details of the annual 1.8 million hours of work the board’s electricians, carpenters, plumbers and other trades claim they perform.
Based upon my 30-year career as a teacher, having been witnesses to much cowardly political behaviour on the part of administrators, my guess is that database will never be made public, the feeble citing of 'privacy concerns' being the likely justification.
My own experience in education taught me that the last thing administrators want to do, afflicted as they are with an unquenchable thirst for advancement, is to rock the boat. It is far easier, (and certainly more politically expedient unless the truth is revealed by a crusading newspaper) to conceal or simply accept things crying out for redress. That way it doesn't get messy, and one's career-path usually continues unimpeded. (Oh, the tales I could tell.)
And so I shall end as I began. The TDSB had to have known what was going on. Wait for the next installment of this sad saga, as those in power all establish their poses of 'plausible deniability.'
I would it were otherwise.
Given the Harper government's flagrant contempt for democracy and the Canadian people, I think we should all be worried by the implications in this story and this one regarding ongoing secret Pacific Trade Deal negotiations.
One of the Atkinson Principles guiding The Toronto Star is to champion the rights of working people; to my ongoing delight and gratification, however, this tenet does not mean the paper gives a free ride to labour and unions.
Today's edition is ample testament to that fact. Another of its excellent investigations has uncovered what many would say are corrupt and extortionate practices on the part of the Maintenance & Construction Skilled Trades Council headed by Jimmy Hazel.
As outlined in the story, the Council, which has an exclusive contract with the Toronto District School Board, has been charging exorbitant amounts to the cash-strapped board, one example being the installation of a pencil sharpener at a cost of $143, another the placing of an electrical outlet in a school library for $3000.
Perhaps one of the article's most disturbing revelations is the fear of retaliation rampant amongst both tradespeople and principals if they make a fuss about these pratices. Added to the fact that Council President Hazel initially met the Star's inquiries with a stream of profanities, followed up later with patently contrived excuses of 'clerical errors' in the billing suggests yet another example of wrongdoing crying out for remediation.
As I have said before in this blog, while I strongly believe in supporting unions, that support can never be uncritical, unquestioning, and unconditional.
With the specter of the Parliamentary Budget Officer taking the Clerk of the Privy Council to court, a momentous question looms over our public affairs: will the Harper government answer a single legitimate question about its conduct of Canada’s public business?
Or is the government’s message that we can all go pleasure ourselves until 2015?
And so begins Michael Harris's penetrating and insightful analysis of a wounded democracy under continuing threat in Canada.
It is very interesting to note that despite their often uneasy relationship, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has learned some lessons about how to use budget omnibus bills to gut environmental protection from that master of duplicity, Stephen Harper. Thomas Walkom provides the details in today's Star.
