It's getting hot in here

Just as a cool snap hits, this story about extreme heat came to my attention:

Air-conditioning fees probed [London Free Press]

Suzanne Young, 49, who couldn't afford a $50 monthly fee to run an air-conditioner was found dead earlier this month in her sweltering apartment. Another Sarnia resident, Stanley Scott, 58, was found dead in his basement apartment three days later.

Bradley had asked [Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, John] Gerretsen to protect tenants from being gouged by landlords for extra air conditioning fees.

In a reply, Gerretsen said he has asked ministry staff to consider changes to legislation to help residents remain cool in their rental housing during the summer. [read more]

Our current building has the same fee (a generic $50/month fee for 'large applicances'), but I know for a fact that it's not levied on everyone. It would be nice if the law acknowledged the necessity of climate control - or at least the depravity of denying it to those at risk.

Canadian ZENN's electric car

Toronto Company Has Electric Car But Our Government Won't Let Them Sell It - "Although the car is now available for sale in 48 US States, no Canadian government has approved it for sale in Canada. In fact, Queens Park refused to even entertain the idea until Al Gore cornered Dalton McGuinty earlier this year and insisted that he make it happen." [BlogTO]

John Tory's GO Transit 'solution'

Journeyman pro-transit activist Steve Munro lays the smack down on Ontario PC leader John Tory's recent comments on how he'd get the GO trains running on time:

[His] solution to GO Transit’s on-time performance problems is to fire managers if they cannot meet the targets. Although this is a refreshing change from the usual right-wing habit of blaming everything on the unions, it is no more realistic or responsible a platform...

Tory needs to own up to his own party’s legacy, to changes in funding and downloading of costs to municipalities, and say what he would change. The Liberals may have left some Harris policies in place for their own convenience, but if there are things Tory would change, he should say so. He should acknowledge the damage that was done the last time his party ran Ontario and set himself clearly apart from that regime. [read more]

Not only is Steve's blog a must-read for GTA transit nerds, but his thoughtful posts also tend to draw a lot of fascinating perspectives from others in the form of comments (to which he often replies individually in italics, letter-to-the-editor style!).

Ontario to ban 'old' lightbulbs - "The Ontario government said Wednesday it plans to ban the current bulbs and what it calls other inefficient lighting technologies by 2012 in an effort to reduce the province's electricity consumption and lower the greenhouse gases that cause global warming." [Toronto Star]

MMPissed off / PR me a river

This column by Ian Urquhart ran in dozens of local papers owned by the Star today:

Electoral reform: The good, the bad, the ugly - "Last weekend, the citizens' assembly on electoral reform, which has been meeting regularly with little or no press scrutiny, voted to back an electoral system called "mixed member proportional," or MMP. The system is used in Germany, New Zealand, and a few other places..." [Toronto Star]

Despite the headline and a few rhetorical flourishes at the start and finish, the article is really just a one-sided review of all of the potential drawbacks of an MMP system with absolutely no reflection on the flaws of the present system. It pains me to say this, because his reporting on many other aspects of provincial politics is usually pretty solid, but I swear he's written exactly the same anti-electoral reform screed at least a dozen times in the past few years, adopting the same pretense of dispassionate analysis each time. Here's another recent piece on the citizens' aseembly; most of the others I'm thinking of are hidden inside The Star's pay-for-access archive.

I wish I knew more about Mr. Urquhart's personal political views, because my working theory is that partisan Liberals and Conservatives are pleased as punch with the status quo because, even though they may lose and have no power whatsoever, the promise of eventually having total power on the basis of a minority popular vote share is just too tantalizing a possibility. New Democrats, just as obviously, are sick of being marginalized as "fringe" radicals despite the substantial support of the public.

The overall impression one gets from his clippings on the subject is that, like a few other people I know, he is perfectly willing to admit and accept that first-past-the-post is undemocratic; but, what the heck, it sure is convenient and stable! He also fears the decline of "broad based" (read: brokerage, rule-at-any-cost, promise-whatever-it-you-must, i.e. Liberal and Conservative) parties in favour of "fringe" (read: issue-based, principle-driven) parties, and then audaciously claims that minority coalition government is an "oxymoron" despite decades of solid historical counterexample from countries using various forms of PR.

I'm sick of hearing the establishment viewpoint echo back and forth in the press, tempered only by a few dissenting letters to the editor. Wouldn't it be more interesting to find out what the majority of Ontarians -- the disaffected, cynical, politics-is-just-BS crowd that grows bigger every year (for good reason!) -- think about the relative merits of illegitimate yet convenient winner-take-all majorities versus highly representative but tricky and compromise-producing minorities? Or for serious, informed debate on the subject from expert scholars who've devoted their professional lives to the topic?

If people who have seriously weighed the issues were given a public platform, rather than written off as naive, unrealistic wonks, electoral reform might have a chance. But of course, that's not the point. Ontario's Liberals, just like BC's Liberals, designed the citizens' assembly process to fail. With the help of this sort of punditry, it almost certainly will.

No new funds for affordable housing

Thanks for the thoughts, but where's the money? - "Two days ago, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty complained that Monday's federal budget fell short of the dollars that Ontario was seeking. "Justice delayed is justice denied," said the Premier of the Harper budget. The same can be said of Premier McGuinty's own budget, which falls far short of delivering the dollars that would lift Ontario children, and their families, out of poverty." [Wellesley Institute via CNW Telbec]

Now that's a tidy raise

Minimum wage to rise, Liberals to fight child poverty - "Sorbara commissioned University of Toronto professor Morley Gunderson to study the impact of a $2 hike. Gunderson, paid $24,000 for a sobering 50-page report that took him six weeks to complete, found such a dramatic rise in the wage could cost even more jobs than the 66,000 the finance ministry had estimated." [Toronto Star]

Before I go nuts with math here, a disclaimer: none of what I'm about to spew out is is by way of impugning the quality or accuracy of Prof. Gunderson's study, or his deserving to be properly compensated for key economic policy advice.

But $24,000 divided by 6 weeks = $4,000 per week, which begs the question:


In other words:

• 40 hrs @ $100/hr;
  
• 20 hrs @ $200/hr;
  
• 10 hrs @ $400/hr;

I think it's safe to assume that the professor didn't manage to squeeze in an extra full time job moonlighting for Queen's Park. I suppose $200/hr is probably a decent ballpark guess at the effective wage paid for his study.

Anyhow, putting it a (few) other way(s):



To earn $24,000 today, you'd have to clock:

• 3,504 hours (88 weeks full-time) @ 2003's $6.85 pre-Liberal minimum wage;
  
• 3,000 hours (75 weeks full-time) @ today's $8;
  
• 2,341 hours (59 weeks) at 2010's proposed $10.25;
  

Finally, Prof. Gunderson's 2005 U of T salary (excluding benefits): $140,970.32, for an effective wage of $67.77/hr assuming 52 weeks at 40 hrs/wk.

Ms Sorbara's in a groove - OK, so Greg Sorbara's daughter Martina moved to England, became a pop musician, and is now mostly naked in The Star? Oh, right, it's *Sunday*. Thanks, Torstar!

Gilding abysmal housing record - "Judging by the sod-turnings, ribbon-cuttings and new projects announced regularly by the Ministry of Housing, you'd think the provincial Liberals were well on their way to creating the 20,000 units of affordable housing they promised in the last election...Since [McGuinty] became premier, just 2,894 new units of affordable housing have been built. Another 2,446 are under construction and 1,304 are in the planning and approval stages." [Toronto Star]

Bag ladies (and lords), rejoice

Ontario curbs scavengers seeking big bucks from bottles - "Starting Monday, customers were charged a recycling fee of 10 cents or 20 cents a bottle for liquor or wine purchases. The money is returned when the empties are brought to a Beer Store. However, nothing prevents people from returning bottles bought before Monday and claiming a deposit they never paid." [CBC; also Toronto Star]

I've been saving wine bottles for a couple of months myself, but only because I learned that the vast majority of glass put in Ontario's blue boxes ends up in the landfill. 10 or 20 cents to haul your bottles back to the Beer Store is hardly a giant unwarranted payday. Maybe giving a little sugar to people who haven't paid the deposit on their empties is a relatively cost-effective way to publicize the recycling program? Certainly cheaper than the TV spots they've been running.

I wish they could be returned to LCBOs, as they tend to be more conveniently located next to bus routes and subway stations than their Beery cousins. By way of evidence, I offer up BeerHunter.ca, which is a handy way to locate your nearest booze peddler.

Reason #1,700 to raise the rates!

Mom took kids on coin laundry crime spree - "A Kitchener mother brought along two of her children while she and her boyfriend broke into apartment laundry rooms to steal money, a judge heard yesterday... The mother mainly played the role of lookout for the boyfriend who stole hundreds of dollars in coins from laundry rooms and vending machines last fall, court heard. All the mother got was money for groceries. She also has a 15-year-old daughter who is developmentally handicapped. The woman lives on a disability pension of about $1,700 a month for her and her three children." [KW Record]

That's about $20k each year for one adult and three children, one of whom is seriously handicapped. When push comes to shove, they'll have to raise money to live in just a fraction of human dignity somehow - so why not raise the rates, already!

NDP leader wants $10 wage vote - "'New Democrats will not sleep, we will not slumber, we will not rest until Ontario has a $10-an-hour minimum wage and every working person in this province gets a fair day's pay for a hard day's work,' Hampton said yesterday in his keynote address at the provincial NDP convention in Toronto." [Toronto Star]

Review minimum wage, Tory urges - "He proposed a commission that would consult broadly with business and social justice groups annually and decide whether the minimum wage, which rises 25 cents to $8 an hour next week, should be changed to reflect economic conditions." [Toronto Star]