Kris Scheuer (me).

The above headline Good Night and Good Luck was the sign off of famous American radio journalist Edward Murrow.
Well friends, after 13 years in journalism and 10 of those reporting on news, politics and city hall, I am signing off from reporting.
At least for now.
I said goodbye to my colleagues for the last 8.5 years at the Town Crier, and hello to a new team in public affairs at St. Joseph’s Health Centre
On May 4, I started an exciting and challenging new career with a one year contract as a communications associate at St. Joe’s hospital in Toronto. After just over a week on the job, I am already learning a lot and am busy writing for our website www.stjoe.on.ca. Some of my articles (two so far) will appear sans byline under the What’s New section. I will be writing monthly features for Hospital News, articles  for biweekly Connections newsletters , three editions of In the Community publication and website stories.
So far, I also attend hospital events and write about them, interview surgeons, nurses and other health care staff for profiles on them, new procedures, advances in health care, about teaching medicine for the next generation.
I will be helping with events around the hospital’s new wing Our Lady of Mercy opening later this year and our annual report.
Our department does internal communication to all staff in the hospital on any changes of procedure, policy, legislation, equipment, etc. And we handle external communication for every department in the hospital in coordination with the CEO.
At some point, I will be a spokesperson for the hospital and share the 24/7 on call role with my boss.
I remain a lifelong Torontonian and when appropriate can comment on life in Toronto from my perspective.
Keep you comments coming on anything I have written, will write or any of your observation on news and life in Toronto. I look forward to posting again soon.
After my contract is up in May 2012, I will either continue in communications at the hospital, elsewhere or venture back into journalism. We shall see what the future holds. I will of course keep you posted.

NDP leader and MP was re-elected in Toronto Danforth. Photo courtesy of NDP.

Here’s  a look at the 22 Toronto elected members of parliament voted in in last night’s federal vote.
1) Beaches-East York winner NDP Matthew Kellway got 41.6% to beat out incumbent Liberal Maria Minna.
2) Davenport winner NDP Andrew Cash got 53.6% ousting Liberal incumbent Mario Silva who got 27.8%.
3) Don Valley East winner Conservative Joe Daniel got 36.7% edging out Liberal incumbent Yasmin Ratansi who got 34.5%.
4) Don Valley West Conservative John Carmichael won with 43% beating Liberal incumbent Rob Oliphant with 41.8%.
5) Eglinton-Lawrence saw another upset as Conservative Joe Oliver won with a convincing 46.8% over longtime Liberal incumbent Joe Volpe with 38.5%.
6) Etobicoke-Centre Conservative Ted Opitz squeaked out a win with 41.2% and just 26 votes over Liberal incumbent Borys Wrzenewskyj with 41.1%.
7) Etobicoke North winner was Liberal Kristy Duncan with a convincing 42.5% over Conservative Priti Lamba with 32.2%.

Eight) Etobicoke-Lakeshore Conservative Bernard Trottier pulled off a huge upset with 40.4%  booting Liberal MP and party leader Michael Ignatieff who got 35.1%.
9) Parkdale-High Park New Democrat Peggy Nash a former MP won back her seat with 47.2% beating the Liberal incumbent MP Gerard Kennedy  who got 32.9%.
10) Scarborough Centre Conservative Roxanne James won with 35.5% compared to Liberal incumbent John Cannis with 32%.
11) Scarborough Southwest New Democrat Dan Harris won here with 35% with Conservative candidate Gavan Paranchothy coming 2nd with 31.8% and Liberal Michelle Simson getting 29.1%.
12) Scarborough-Agincourt Liberal Jim Karygiannis win convincingly with 45.4% over closest rival Conservative Harry Tsai with 34.2%.

Conservative Joe Oliver beat Liberal incumbent Joe Volpe in Eglinton-Lawrence.

13) Scarborough-Guildwood Liberal John McKay was re-elected in a squeaker with 36.1% and just 600 votes more than  closest rival Conservative Chuck Konkel with 34.5%.
14) Scarborough Rouge-River NDPer Rathika Sitsabaiesan won with 40.5% over closest rivals Conservative Marlene Gallyot with 29.9% and Liberal Rana Sarkar with 27.4%.
15) St. Paul’s Liberal Carolyn Bennett was re-elected with 40.6% against closest challengers Conservative Maureen Harquail with 32.2% and NDPer William Molls with 22%.
16) Toronto Centre Liberal Bob Rae was re-elected with 40.9% over closest challengers NDP Susan Wallace with 30% and Conservative Kevin Moore with 22.6%.
17) Toronto-Danforth New Democrat MP and party leader Jack Layton easily re-captured his seat with 60.5% over closest rival Liberal Andrew Lang with 17%.
18) Trinity-Spadina NDPer Olivia Chow was re-elected with 54.1% over Liberal Christine Innes with 23.2%.

Liberal John McKay was re-elected in Scarborough-Guildwood.

19) Willowdale Conservative Chungsen Leung got 39.9% with a margin of victory of fewer than 1,000 votes over Liberal incumbent Martha Hall Findlay who got 41.7%.
20) York Centre Conservative Mark Adler pulled off a victory with 48.5% beating incumbent Liberal Ken Dryden with 33.3%.
21) York South-Weston NDPer Mike Sullivan won with 40.1% ousting Liberal incumbent Alan Tonks with 32.6%.
22) York West Liberal Judy Sgro got re-elected with 47% support over closes challengers NDP Giulio Manfrini with 27.8% and Conservative Audrey Walters with 22.1%.

What happened? Carolyn Bennett won in St. Paul's but the Liberals dropped to third party in government. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Towm Crier.

May 2 was a bittersweet night for Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who held onto her St. Paul’s seat but saw her once-dominant party face defeat of historic proportions.
Bennett, a popular Liberal member of parliament and former doctor, obtained about 40 percent of the vote. Though she still garnered a healthy lead, even Bennett felt the sting of Liberal backlash. In the past five federal elections, she’s garnered over 50 percent of the vote.
But the mood was decidedly sombre at her campaign party at Grano Restaurant as she and other staunch supporters watched Liberal incumbents across the country lose seat after seat.
“It’s congratulations and condolences all at the same time,” Bennett said to the crowd, acknowledging her win and the devastating Liberal defeat across the country.

Bennett has represented St. Paul’s since 1997 and has been a member of government, in opposition. She now finds herself in a new position of being part of the third party as the Liberals dropped to 34 seats nationally.
Bennett said she was committed to re-building her decimated party.
“It’s hard for all of us to see the strongholds slip away,” Bennett said. “We will spend the next little while figuring out what happened.”
Second place went to lawyer and Conservative candidate Maureen Harquail with just over 32 percent of the votes.
At the Fox and Fiddle, Harquail was upbeat when she spoke about Conservative leader Stephen Harper who will keep his job as prime minister and yet again form the government, this time as a majority.
“I’m thrilled by what we accomplished in St. Paul’s,” she said. “I see it as a victory, I am proud of my team.”
Harquail said on election night she plans to head back to her job as a lawyer.
While the NDP increased its seats nationally, St. Paul’s has been traditionally held by either the Liberals or Conservatives.
First-time federal candidate William Molls, 23, pulled in 22 percent for the NDP. Green party candidate Jim McGarva obtained 4.6 percent, while Libertarian John Kittredge received less than one percent. Results as of press time.

St. Paul's MP Carolyn Bennett was one of a few dozen Liberals who held onto their seats. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

 Wow. What a difference a day makes.
At the beginning of May 2 before all the votes were cast, this was the make-up of parliament:
Conservatives: 143
Liberals: 77
Bloc: 47
NDP: 36
Green: 0
And by the end of election night May 2, this is how the next parliament will look according to Elections Canada at 2:19 am May 2 evening/May 3 morning:

RESULTS
Conservatives majority government with leader and Prime Minister Stephen Harper: 167 (increased 24 seats).
NDP official opposition (first time in history) with leader Jack Layton: 102 (increased 66 seats).
Liberals (third party for first time ever): 34 seats (down 43) and party leader Michael Ignatieff lost his own Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding.
Bloc: 4 seats (lost 43 seats) and the party leader Gilles Duceppe lost his own seat in Laurier-Sainte-Marie.
Greens: 1 seat (first time ever elected in Canada) with party leader Elizabeth May winning in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding.

Toronto's Public Works Committee has voted to push ahead with Mayor Rob Ford's plan to contract out garbage collection west of Yonge St. Photo by Dan Hoddinott and Illustration by Shadi Raoufi/Town Crier.

The city has moved closer to contracting out residential trash collection west of Yonge Street.
Despite every resident or group who presented to the Public Works Committee during the nine hour proceeding speaking against the idea, councillors voted 4–2 to put garbage collection out to tender along with cleaning up parks and litter vacuuming of all the city’s streets.
Public works committee chair Denzil Minnan-Wong told the media privatization will reduce the size and cost of government.
“It will save us over the life of contract – $60 million,” he said.
City staff recommended the city seek bids for contracts of between five to nine years that could cost the city about $250 million. It will also reduce the city’s workforce by at least 300 jobs and save the city about $8 million a year, according to the report.
Contracting out curbside waste collection west of Yonge Street for up to nine years would be worth between $200–300 million according to what Geoff Rathbone, general manager of the solid waste management told the committee.
A seven to nine year contract for litter and recycling collection in city parks would be worth about $30 million. A five year contract to operate mechanical litter vacuums would be worth less than $20 million as would a contingency contract to pick-up residential garbage citywide (in the event of a public contract disruption).

 However, not everyone agrees that this is a good idea.
Mark Ferguson president of CUPE 416, who represents garbage collection workers, said after the vote, “this is a demonstration they are prepared to contract out based on ideology and not facts.”
More than 70 people signed up to speak to councillors bemoaning the loss of good paying city jobs and casting doubts on the projected $8 million in yearly savings.
Many also raised questions about the true costs and that the city actually saved $4 million by giving garbage pick-up in York to city employees after it was previously privatized.
Councillor Perks told the Town Crier he doesn’t buy it.
“This will not save the city money,” he said. “You pay for workers, trucks and disposing of it (garbage) at the end.”
Perks said that the price for disposal is fixed no matter who does it and the trucks are cheaper for the city to buy so wages and benefits are the only potential savings, including possibly not paying workers who are injured or sick.
He also insists that because of increased legal fees, a fairness monitor and more careful scrutiny required with the private sector will also add to the cost.
“Those costs of monitoring and costs of the (private sector) profit are larger than the savings you get cutting workers wages and benefits,” said Perks.
The next step is for city council to vote May 17 on whether to send these contracts out for requests for quotations. However, it may be the last time that City Council has a say as city staff recommends the final decision on the winning bid go to the Bid Committee.
The Bid Committee is made up of the city manager, chief financial officer, the committee’s clerk and department heads but no elected officials. Normally the Bid Committee doesn’t approve contracts over $20 million or for a term of more than five years, but a staff report recommends bypassing that policy to speed up the decision and save money sooner.
“Postponing the award of contracts will delay the significant savings the city can anticipate,” states the report.
The report recommends contracting out beginning in spring or summer 2012 and each month the decision is delayed will mean the city will lose $600,000 in projected monthly savings.
Perks is concerned about the private sector bids not coming to council for scrutiny.
“All they are telling us is it will be some kind of garbage pick-up and it will be cheaper than what we have now,” Perks said. “We are being asked to spend a quarter of a billion with only that information, which is a violation of city bylaws.”
Unless council votes otherwise, the qualifying requests for quotations will come to directly to the bid committee in September for a vote on the winning bid.

L-R: Xander Anderson, Andrew Polanyi, Bowen Pausey and Liam McMahon presented the city with a petition asking to remove the ban on street hockey on city streets. Kris Scheuer/Town Crier file.

Teen Andrew Polanyi just wants to play street hockey with his friends without risking being hassled by the man.
“There’s a sign right in front of my house saying, ‘ball hockey prohibited’ and ever since that sign has been up neighbours have been coming up to us,” 13 year old Polanyi told the media during a Public Works committee hearing on Tuesday. “Some of them have been taking our pictures and sending them to the police and threatening to call the police.”
Currently, anyone found playing road hockey on Toronto streets could face a $55 fine. But in reality no one is charged or fined, said Ron Hamilton, manager of city traffic operations in Toronto and East York.
“I’ve been with the city for 40 years and I can’t recall anyone in Toronto being charged or fined by police,” said Hamilton. Polanyi and three of his friends were at the committee meeting to present a 125 signature petition asking the city to rescind the ban on road hockey. However, it is unlikely that kids will be legally facing off on Toronto streets anytime soon.
Hamilton had prepared a report on the issue which recommended either keeping things the way they are or overturning the bylaw, but the committee chose to take no action.
Committee chair Denzil Minnan-Wong wanted to permit the teens to come back in May to speak to the committee, but his fellow councillors rejected that option. Minnan-Wong said he’s happy to meet with the teens to hear their concerns.
Not surprisingly, the teens weren’t happy with the outcome.
“Hockey is our sport,” Polanyi told the media. “We are Canadian. We should be able to play our sport.
“Newmarket has a bylaw that you can play ball hockey on streets. It’s even more important in Toronto because we have less backyards and less yard space and parents can’t always go to the park with you.”
The major concerns around changing the bylaw have to do with the safety of the participants and the impact impromptu games could have on traffic flow.
“There’s a way to deal with that now,” said Councillor Josh Matlow. “Kids scream ‘car’ when there’s a car and ‘game on’ when the car is gone. Kids have done that for a generation.”
Further complicating the matter is that the existing bylaw applies to all roadways: local streets, collector roads, minor and major arterials and expressways. Some have suggested making changing the bylaw to exempt local streets, but Hamilton said it isn’t that easy.
“A local road in the city could see 3,000 cars a day and a suburban local road may see only 200 cars a day. So you have exempted both of these local streets,” said Hamilton.
The bylaw’s existence surprised Laurie Smith whose son Xander Anderson plays ball on their street near Woodbine and Danforth avenues.
“It never occurred to me that one wouldn’t be allowed to play,” Smith said.
“I would like to see it rescinded on certain streets. It can’t be on a really busy arterial road where the speed limit is 60 but on our street the speed limit is 40,” Smith said.
She may get her wish sometime in the future. While the issue is dead for now, councillor Matlow plans to bring a motion to city council possibly as early as May.
“I will move a motion at council that is a reasonable response to staff concerns to develop a way for parents living on slow moving side streets to accept responsibility for their kids playing street hockey,” Matlow told theTown Crier.

Get ready, midtown, to face the envy and scorn of the rest of Toronto.
A new, underground version for a 25 km Eglinton LRT is moving ahead, thanks to a joint announcement by the province and the city.
Good news, right? Yes, except that the previous plan included $8 billion for surface LRT routes along Finch, Sheppard and Eglinton, and converting the Scarborough RT into light rail transit lines. Then-incoming mayor Rob Ford pronounced that plan dead on Dec. 1.
Mayor Ford wanted the Eglinton line fully buried, so that it won’t interfere with traffic. That’ll be achieved except for a small elevated portion as it approaches Kennedy subway station. Burying the entire rapid streetcar line will increase the cost of the Eglinton project by at least $2 billion.
The result is the $8.4 billion the province had set aside for four will now be entirely eaten up by two: Eglinton and Scarborough. As a result, the new plan cancels LRTs on Sheppard and Finch.
But here’s the kicker: The city will be on the hook to pay back $49 million in costs already incurred for the Sheppard and Finch routes to provincial agency Metrolinx. That is a lot of money down the drain for a decision by a mayor who claims to value respect for taxpayers.

Metrolinx spokesperson Vanessa Thomas says the estimate of $49 million in sunk costs is mostly for work on the environmental assessments, designs or engineering and project management for Finch LRT and Sheppard LRT.
“The next step is to negotiate the terms of how those costs will be paid back,” Thomas says.
The mayor signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the province and Metrolinx, promising that the city will pay back any costs already incurred for the original projects.

But back to the good news for midtown, which is the 25 km Eglinton route moving forward. Midtowners already saw tunnels for an Eglinton subway buried by former premier Mike Harris in the 1990s. Residents and businesses along this vital east-west corridor have waited a generation for a route on Eglinton that’s faster than the current buses that struggle in congested traffic.

Mayor Ford promised commuters a shorter trip on Eglinton.
A trip from Kennedy to Laird Avenue takes about 28 minutes by bus, he said, and a surface train down the middle of Eglinton would be only eight minutes faster.

“Our new plan will cut that travel time in half,” he told the media.

Mayor Ford promised Finch won’t be left in the cold, as the city will run enhanced bus service from a Humber College station to a new Finch West station, to be built as part of a separate subway extension.

And he announced, perhaps for the first time, subway service on Finch within a decade.
But Ford’s big push is to leverage $4.2 billion from the private sector to build a new Sheppard subway line, from Downsview to Don Mills station and then east to a new terminus at Scarborough City Centre.

He promises to report back with a financial plan on how to achieve this goal.

As midtown councillor Joe Mihevc told reporters at the March 31 transit announcement, the city will have to pay back the private sector if they do invest billions in a Sheppard subway. And in his view there’s no guarantee it’ll even happen.

Said Mihevc: “The suburbs get screwed. Transit riders get screwed. The people along Finch get screwed and the Sheppard subway, if it ever gets built, will in-debt the city to such an extent that not only will my children, but my children’s children will be responsible for paying for it.”
In the meantime, get ready for rapid transit on Eglinton. Midtowners aren’t the only ones who want this to happen. But don’t be surprised if you get some disgruntled looks from people in the suburbs as they tell tales of their daily commute on crowded buses.
They still dream of one day getting rapid transit of their own.

Parkdale-High Park is a rematch between Liberal Gerard Kennedy and the NDP’s Peggy Nash.
Kennedy won the seat in 2008 when he beat first-term incumbent Nash.
This showdown mentality was on display during an all-candidates debate at Swansea Town Hall on April 13.
One of the contentious issues of the evening was Kennedy’s attendance for Parliamentary votes. Nash’s team was passing out a Globe and Mail article she said is based Hansard, the complete minutes of Parliament. An addendum to the article claims between Nov. 2008 and March 2011 Kennedy missed 122 votes and was present for 241 out of the 363 total votes.

NDP candidate and former MP Peggy Nash. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

Kennedy’s team countered he was present for 272 votes and 32 paired, a system whereby an opposition and a government member both agree to be absent for the vote and are not normally counted as absences, for a total attendance record of 304 votes out of 363.
The two candidates had a few exchanges regarding this at the debate at one point Kennedy appeared quite emotional as he said, “Don’t accuse me of not working hard for this community.”
He said he attended votes in Ottawa even at times when close family members were battling severe illnesses.

Nash didn’t back down even using part of her closing remarks to say that she too had family members close to death and made it to votes when she was MP.
“His (voting) record is part of the public record.”
The debate tackled a wide range of issues including climate change, Canada’s image on the world stage, jobs, immigration and helping seniors.
Before the debate Kennedy told the Town Crier helping seniors, health care and jobs are topics he’s hearing about at the door.

Conservative candidate Taylor Train. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

“There are still 460,000 more people either out of work or working part time that want to be working full-time,” said Kennedy, who represented the riding provincially from 1999-2006.
During an interview after the debate Nash decried the practice of strategic voting which some experts think could rob the NDP of a chance in a number of ridings.
Because the Conservatives aren’t going to win in Parkdale-High Park, she said, a vote for the NDP won’t risk voters waking up to find they’ve elected a Conservative MP.
“I think it’s changed from past campaigns where (strategic voting) was a dominant message,” said Nash. “What I am hearing more is people are voting more with what they believe … So I try to encourage people to vote for who’s going to be most effectively as their representative.”
While the May 2 vote in Parkdale-High Park looks to be a straight Kennedy vs. Nash fight, other candidates made their voices heard at the debate.

Christian Heritage Party candidate Andrew Borkowski. Photo by Kris Scheuer/Town Crier.

Local resident and Conservative candidate Taylor Train told the debate’s audience that he takes steps at home to make the world a little greener.
“I use a rack to dry my clothes and a clothes line to dry my clothes when the weather is better. It starts right here how we can changes things.”
The former soldier was also quite passionate as to why Canada is serving in Afghanistan.
“We are in Afghanistan so girls can go to school without having acid thrown in their faces … so gays won’t be buried under mud brick walls.”
The Christian Heritage candidate Andrew Borkowski was born in the riding and mentioned working, playing and volunteering locally, brought up his anti-abortion stance on more than one occasion.
On a question on supporting seniors Borkowski told the audience, “We have to stop the practise of abortion which wipes out money that could be used to support seniors.”
And on a question of support for the CBC, Borkowski said he’d defunded until it changed its “anti-Christian bias”.
“I’d like to see a Being Erica episode where she redoes her regrettable abortion,” said Borkowski.
On his vision for Canada, Borkowski said he’d like to see “babies, babies and more babies.”
“By 2060, I’d like to see us at 70 million double what (population) we have today.”
The election is May 2 and the Parkdale-High Park race also features candidates Lorne Gershuny from the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Green Party’s Sarah Newton and Marijuana Party’s candidate Terry Parker.

Mayor Rob Ford said the city will wait to see if Queers Against Israeli Apartheid participates in the Pride parade before the city decides whether to fund it. Francis Crescia/Town Crier file photo.

Mayor Rob Ford is taking a wait and see attitude before deciding if Pride Toronto should receive city funding this year.
For Ford, the funding issue hangs on whether the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid participates in this year’s Pride festival.
If the organization doesn’t participate, then Ford said that Pride Toronto can still get a city grant of about $125,000.
“Last year council agreed if they don’t (participate), they (Pride) will get their money after the parade. That’s what we agreed on,” the mayor said at an April 15 media scrum. “If they (group) does march in the parade (Pride) won’t get their money.”
The city also provides in kind services for police security and clean-up worth around $250,000. The mayor did not know if those city services would be impacted if Queers Against Israeli Apartheid aka QuAIA participates in the parade.
QuAIA issued a statement April 15 announcing that it would not march in the parade, but would instead participate in activities outside the parade. It said now there will be no excuse not to fund Pride.
“Rob Ford wants to use us as an excuse to cut Pride funding, even though he has always opposed funding the parade, long before we showed up,” stated Elle Flanders with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. “By holding our Pride events outside of the parade, we are forcing him to make a choice: fund Pride or have your real homophobic, right-wing agenda exposed.”

Ford he will believe the group won’t participate when he sees it. Pride Toronto originally banned the group from marching last year but then reversed its decision and allowed them to participate.
“Last time they said they weren’t (marching) and they did,” said Ford.
One of the ongoing issues is whether allowing QuAIA to participate that Pride Toronto contravened the city’s anti-discrimination policies.

Councillor James Pasternak. Photo courtesy of James Pasternak.

“To date, the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid’ has not been found to violate either the Criminal Code or Human Rights Code (Ontario),” wrote city manager Joseph Pennachetti in a report going to the city’s Executive Committee on April 20. “City staff has therefore concluded that the participation of QuAIA in the Pride Parade based solely on the word ‘Israeli Apartheid’ does not violate the city’s anti-discrimination policy.”
Councillor James Pasternak has been outspoken about Queers Against Israeli Apartheid participating in the parade. After the city manager’s report came out, Pasternak sent out a press release on April 13 expressing his shock and dismay.
“QuAIA is advancing a preposterous analogy of the Israeli-Palestinian question,” he wrote. “The group is using the suffering under the old apartheid regime in South Africa to demonize the state of Israel and its supporters.”
“This shameful discourse — born out of ignorance and fuelled by intolerance — has caused great pain in many communities and has tarnished Toronto’s reputation.”
After the group decided April 15 not to participate, Pasternak released another press statement, “The morning after the parade will be the time to determine if QuAIA and Pride Parade have complied.”
The Pride week festivities include community events from June 24 to July 3 capping off with the main parade on July 4.
The Executive Committee will discuss the city manager’s report on the festival on April 20 and it will go to city council May 17–18.