Possibly A Lesson For Canadians...

Opinion


In India, charity begins – and stays – at home

BUT When They Need A Handout Or Someone To Keep The Peace We're At The Top Of Their List...

Canada is a global heavyweight in the eyes of emerging powers: survey

Among old allies, however, we’re nothing but lightweights, poll finds Jun 21, 2010

Been There Doing That.....

...but when shopping in a mall I do go out of my way to look for the kettle but when I look at who is manning the kettles I get a feeling this has been farmed out to the private sector but I still give.

As cashiers guilt us into giving, it seems the kettles are running dry
Dec 22, 2009 2:41AM EST

Salvation Army is short of campaign goals; could donor fatigue be the reason?

ROY MacGREGOR

Why DO We Bring In Migrant Workers?

Too lazy in Halifax to work?

By STEPHEN MAHER Ottawa Bureau
Tue. Nov 24 - 4:46 AM

OTTAWA — If anyone ever stops Nova Scotia farmers from hiring migrant labourers to harvest their crops, they would destroy a lot of businesses because unemployed Nova Scotians don’t want those jobs, says Gerald Keddy, the Conservative MP for South Shore-St. Margarets.

"Nova Scotians won’t do it — all those no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax that can’t get work," Mr. Keddy said Monday.

He said if you want to "shut down the Annapolis Valley, and every market garden operation and all the apple industry, then don’t bring in immigrant labour. We’ve got 20 Christmas tree growers using immigrant labour this year."

» ALSO SEE: Tree grower defends using Mexican workers

Mr. Keddy was upset that a reporter called to check out a rumour that he had hired migrant labourers to work on his Christmas tree operation.

"Why would the question be asked?" he said. "Why would it matter?"

Mr. Keddy has an eight-hectare Christmas tree operation, which he runs with his kids. They don’t bring in any migrant labourers, but Mr. Keddy said nobody should criticize farmers who do because "they can’t get enough local labour."

It’s also great for the workers from out of the country, he said. "They pay the guys 10 or 12 bucks an hour. It’s a great job for the Mexicans. They’ve got to pay either their way up or their way back. It’s not slave labour here."

( smaher@herald.ca)

Let's Not Forget The $$$ Raised Privately

Africa Aid is like the AIG Bailout
George Ayittey Americans were justifiably outraged when AIG, which received billions in U.S. taxpayer money in bailouts, paid out hefty bonuses to its executives. So where is the outrage when African leaders, who receive U.S. taxpayers money in foreign aid, build palaces for themselves while their people wallow in abject poverty? Read the whole thing on the TED blog.
Being Right is Not Wrong

Where IS Bono?

Matt Gurney: After lunch we'll discuss the hungry
Posted: April 10, 2009, 3:13 PM by NP Editor Filed under: Full Comment,Matt Gurney
I have bad news, folks. Apparently, we're not just facing a global recession, climate change, and a bloody war to protect a government we don't like very much. There's also a global food emergency. Thank the heavens, though, the G8 is on it.Hunger is, of course, a serious issue. That cannot be denied, and there's nothing there to make light of. What is easily mocked, however, is the fact that the G8 is now, for the first time, convening a summit to address the issue, and is trumpeting this as an accomplishment. First of all, what took them so long? Hunger is a part of the human condition. You find it scattered everywhere across our cultural memory. Jesus had to feed the multitudes with loaves and fishes, and Oliver Twist endearingly had to ask for some more gruel. There's about a two thousand year gap there, so it's safe to assume that people desperately needing food isn't a recent development.
Click here to read more...

Do We3 Have Safeguards In Our Handout Deal

Stephen Harper - Call Your Office

The UAW Reneges;

Last week's deal was supposed to hold both the managers' and unions' feet to the fire. In handing out the taxpayer money, the White House insisted the auto union cut worker pay roughly to the levels of their successful competitors, Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

For $17 billion in emergency bailout cash and possibly much more later, it was a reasonable request. As President Bush said, "The time to make the hard decisions to become viable is now — or the only option will be bankruptcy." He added that a deadline of March 31 for the industry to prove its "viability" and other limits "send a clear signal to everyone involved."

Well, if so, the United Auto Workers didn't get it.

Just days before Christmas, the UAW let it be known it'll fight any concessions on wages and benefits. "An undue tax on the workers" is how union boss Ron Gettelfinger described it as the UAW reneged on the deal almost before the ink was dry.

This will go down as one of the most cynical acts of political manipulation ever. The UAW agreed to one thing with President Bush, knowing full well President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats were big recipients of union largesse and would let them slide. They read the situation correctly.

h/t

Posted by Kate at 10:46 AM

Charity Begins At Home

Especially for many members of the left wing.......

December 21, 2008
Bleeding Heart Tightwads
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so. more

Sally Ann $600K Short Of Kettle Goal

Here Is A City Thant Knows How To Treat Poverty

I am sure Comrade Miller could find a few $$$ to compete......

MILAN POOR TO GET SEIZED CAVIAR

Well Intentioned BUT...

.....the actions of Comrade Miller and his flunky Kyle Ray remind me of the guy in the bar is buying drinks for his buddies while his wife and kids are at home munching on mac and cheese. How does the saying go; Champagne tastes on a soft drink budget.

Taxpayers foot bill for Botswana fund

Mayor defends money sent to fund AIDS relief in Africa as 'good on us'

By SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN

While Mayor David Miller's regime was busily dreaming up new ways to tax Torontonians in April, 2007, a Global Aids Prevention fund was quietly approved by council to fund AIDS projects overseas.

A total of $200,000 from that city-sponsored fund has so far gone to create a youth centre for the South East District Youth Empowerment League (SEDYEL) in Ramotswa, Botswana and to initiate preventative AIDS measures for young women both in Botswana and Nairobi, Kenya.

This special $100,000-a-year fund is over and above the more than $1.5-million in grants given to 47 projects this year to undertake HIV/AIDS prevention education programs in Toronto.

The money was handed over the past two years to Schools Without Borders -- a Toronto-based community agency. A report to the board of health in May, 2007 notes that this agency is "well-positioned to help support and implement a range of initiatives pertaining to youth engagement in Botswana, Kenya and Toronto."

Councillor Kyle Rae, chairman of the AIDS Prevention Community Investment Program, could not be reached for comment. A staff member in his office told my Sun colleague Bryn Weese that the councillor is away on city business.

"He's not in Canada," said the woman staffer, refusing to say exactly where he is.

The city's Botswana project co-ordinator, Barbara Emanuel -- a senior policy adviser in public health -- said the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has funded an HIV/AIDS "capacity building" partnership between Toronto and the South East District of Botswana since 2002. That funding is separate from the $200,000 provided by Toronto.

Emanuel said the new city-funded Global AIDS initiative -- in place for the past two years -- was a commitment made by the mayor and Rae when Toronto hosted the International AIDS conference in August, 2006.

Some of the money -- $40,000 -- went to create the youth centre in Botswana, some went to further support the FCM/Toronto partnership and some was spent to bring youth (training) leaders from Africa to Toronto, Emanuel said.

Julian Caspari, managing director of Schools Without Borders, said the money was used primarily to open the Ramotswa centre -- the new home for SEDYL -- and to operate Safe Spaces programs for young females in Botswana and Kenya. These programs provide sexual health training and teach the young women to be "facilitators" and "role models" in their own communities, he said.

Caspari also confirmed that the centre just opened officially in mid-October, an event he attended.

Emanuel confirmed she was there as well -- as part of the wrap-up mission for the FCM partnership -- along with Liz Janzen, director of healthy communities for public health and Councillor Rae.

She said FCM paid entirely for the $14,000 mission, some $3,000 or $4,000 of which went to the official opening.

"There was no city money at all," she said.

Not entirely.

When I checked with the city's director of council services, Winnie Li, she said Rae claimed some "minor" expenses for the Botswana trip but wouldn't say what they were, noting the details will be posted online with the year-end expenses report sometime at the end of February.

Asked why taxpayers should be footing the bill for AIDS initiatives in Africa -- when many are struggling to pay their vehicle ownership, land transfer and garbage taxes -- the mayor got quite heated in his response yesterday.

He challenged me to note in my column that Toronto's property taxes are lower than the rest of the 905 municipalities.

So I am -- but with the proviso that none of those municipalities have any of Miller's other creative taxes or the highest commercial taxes in the GTA.

On the Global AIDS initiative itself, Miller said Toronto should be taking this kind of leadership, being a city of the world.

"I certainly support the fund. At the AIDS conference I committed to expanding our efforts to working internationally on AIDS," he said, insisting I was incorrect to suggest the city funding for Global AIDS Initiatives only began in 2007. (I was not.)

He added that people in this city would say they are proud to be supporting this kind of initiative -- the "right kind of project."

"People would say 'Good on you, Toronto,' " he said. "I think Torontonians would be delighted."

Community Input Lost In The Bowels Of Toronto Silly Hall

Wychwood Barns

We can't find $$$ to send kids to school with a full stomach;

Charity in danger of going under

but we can find money for projects like:

Masterpiece or a big mess?

Joe Mihevc thinks Toronto's newly-opened artistic community is terrific. I beg to disagree

By SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN

This is Toronto Coun. Joe Mihevc's masterpiece.

The midtown councillor is so protective of the newly-restored Artscape Wychwood Barns -- a multi-use complex dedicated to the arts and the environment that has been in the works for eight years -- that he begins our recent interview cautiously.

"You're not going to beat up on me?" he asks before leading me on a tour of the complex, reported to cost at least $21.2 million and subject to nearly as much local backlash as Mihevc's other pet project, the as yet incomplete $100-million St. Clair dedicated streetcar line.

On the surface, the transformation of what Mihevc calls the one-time "Union Station to the North" -- five derelict streetcar barns dating back to 1913 -- is brilliant.

No green detail has been spared -- from the geothermal field that heats and cools the building to the year-round temperate greenhouse, to the 24,000-gallon cistern used to flush all the building's toilets and to irrigate the greenhouse, to the deliberate lack of (car) parking on-site.

A 127,000-square-foot park -- including an off-leash dog area and an ice rink in winter -- surrounds the complex.

The concept of a community of artists living and working under one roof would make creative city guru Richard Florida proud.

The reconverted "Barn 1" houses 26 affordable units for "verified working" but nonetheless starving artists. There are also 14 studios for artists judged by an Artscape committee of peers to have "bona fides" credentials and experience.

The plan includes providing year-round space in the reconstructed "Barn 2" -- the Covered Street Barn -- for community events, exhibitions and meetings.

Alex Flores, a Mexican painter focusing on environmental issues, opened her studio doors on Nov. 1 and is thrilled to be part of a community of artists.

"Being part of the Wychwood Arts Barns is like being part of something that is alternative and good for the earth," she told me.

Tim Jones, president and CEO of Artscape, said their aim was to provide creative people "affordable space" in an environment where they can "collaborate and share resources. It was to create an environment where artists and environmentalists could rub shoulders."

Mihevc adds many arts and environmental organizations came together with the local community and found a "very creative way" to finance and build the project.

But opponents question not just the price but whether it would have ever gotten off the ground without the tremendous infusion of public money.

While Mihevc has been involved with the potential redevelopment since the TTC first declared the property surplus in 1998, he claimed not to know exactly who gave what dollars to the project.

The $21.2-million publicized as the project's cost does not include the city's expenditure of $3 million remediating and improving parkland surrounding the barns, or the partial demolition of "Barn 5."

A 2005 city report notes Mihevc arranged for $1 million for the project from a Section 37 agreement negotiated in his ward. It was in that year -- while being questioined about the 26 affordable units -- that he confirmed Artscape had been handed a 50-year lease on the land for $1-a-year and the prized parcel had never been "evaluated as to its market value."

MANY CONCESSIONS

Since then, the city has coughed up a number of concessions for the project including waiving development fees and property taxes and a $3.5-million capital loan guarantee on the project's $7.4-million mortgage.

Former Toronto city councillor Howard Levine, who lives next door to the new complex, feels the subsidy to save the Barns has been "just staggering."

He questions Mihevc's contention that the surrounding Wychwood community now supports the project -- insisting the project's opponents are just beaten down.

"This is the most manipulated, railroaded project I've ever seen in my life," said the planner. "A tremdendous amount of energy and political wheeling and dealing was expended to make this happen."

While Jones claims the complex must now stand on its own two feet financially, Levine says he doubts Artscape will ever recover even its annual operating costs.

He may have a point. I got the feeling during my tour that Artscape isn't really interested in making the project sustainable in the true sense of the word.

Take the rent paid on the artist studios. Artscape's director of properties, Bruce Rosensweet, told me the artists pay "more or less" gross market rent of $17 per sq. ft.

But when I later clarified the amount with him, I learned that was for a year, not per month -- meaning rent on a typical 250-square-foot studio is a meagre $4,250 per year.

I also asked if the Covered Barns portion -- a sizable space -- would be rented out for weddings or other private affairs.

"We're not going to do a lot of weddings and we don't care," said Rosensweet.

"There are a lot of hoops to jump through (to rent this space)," added Artscape's Ray Stedman.

Levine isn't surprised with that attitude. "This project is all based on subsidies," he said, arguing an agency unaccountable to the taxpayer has run "roughshod" over the process of local government.

"It has been a nightmare ... it is a clear indication of the dysfunctionality of the city."

---

THE ARTSCAPE WYCHWOOD BARNS PRICE LIST

TOTAL REPORTED COST: $21.2 million (not including parkland)

- Overall government funding: $10.3 million

- Feds: $3.1 million

- Province: $3.3 million

- City: $3.8 million ($1 million in cash, $2.8 million in in-kind contributions)

- Private funding: $10.9 million

- Fundraising: $3.5 million

- Private financing: $7.4 million (backed with a three-year $3.5-million capital loan guarantee from the city)

- Artscape provided 50-year lease on the land for $1 a year; city waived development fees and property taxes; remediation of the land.

COST OF 26 AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS

TOTAL FUNDING: Approx. $2.9 million or $111,538 per unit

- Canada/Ontario affordable housing grant: $1.8 million

- City affordable housing grant: $450,000

- Waived development, planning and building permit fees: $187,000

- Rent-free land

- Annual property tax waiver: $8,357

- Annual rent supplement payment: $100,000

COST OF CITY-OPERATED 3.3-ACRE PARK

- Parkland improvements: $1.47 million

- Partial demolition of Barn 5: $425,000

- Environmental remediation of site (including parkland): $1.8 million

- Annual operating costs of park: $142,000

OTHER:

- Artscape received a $253,800 grant from the Toronto Arts Council in 2008.