Obama's Message To His People...

...but on Wall Street

Did The Hudsons Bay Trading Posts Have...

...a bow wow section along with the beads and other shiny trade merchandise?

In All Fairness Jack And Olivia Didn't Do Anything Wrong...

...and they should be given credit and lauded for their expertise at milking the system and there were examples as far back as when they were Toronto City councilors and living in "subsidized" housing.

Lorne Gunter: Duke Layton and Duchess Chow at least owe us transparency

Chris Wattie / Reuters

After the furor this spring over their expenses, MPs late last month quietly released a few broad particulars about what they spent last year to run their offices and travel back and forth from their constituencies to Ottawa. In the 2009 budget year, 304 MPs received nearly $143-million for staff salaries, travel, meals, accommodation in Ottawa, constituency office rent and expenses, flyers, hospitality and advertising. That’s an average of $469,000 per member of Parliament.

Sure, it’s a lot, but the average U.S. Congressman spends nearly twice that amount — and there are 435 of them. And remember, we are talking about hiring staff back home, renting an office, leasing computers and copiers, flying to and from the home riding to Ottawa several times a year and renting a place to live while in the nation’s capital. This money is not going directly or even mostly into our MPs’ pocket. Read More »

Mandela Legacy?

South Africa's youngest high-living politician

 By Erin Conway-Smith — Special to GlobalPost

Published: March 11, 2010 06:44 ET

 

South African Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress Youth League, is controversial for his lavish lifestyle and allegations of corruption. Here Malema arrives at the final draw for World Cup 2010, Dec. 4, 2009 in Cape Town. (Getty Images)

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Julius Malema is the enfant terrible of South African politics, a young man known for his big mouth, controversial opinions and important friends, but lampooned by the country’s editorial cartoonists as being dressed in diapers.
When Malema, leader of the ruling African National Congress’s youth wing, turned 29 last week, he celebrated in typical showboat fashion: a rented stadium in his hometown of Polokwane, live music, high-profile political guests and $100 bottles of Moet & Chandon champagne which he gleefully sprayed at attending media.
The party, which cost an estimated $60,000, seemed an astonishing choice of event for a young politico who has come under attack for his lavish lifestyle.

More...

Copenhagen Carbon Footprint

$$$$ flowing into the Copenhagen treasury......

Not Someplace Tourists And Working Poor Would Clamor To Visit In Mid-February

Waterfront renaissance

December 05, 2009

Toronto's neglected waterfront has long been lamented as a place where much is planned and nothing ever gets done. But the situation appears to be changing for the good.

The latest evidence is the proposed $200 million condo, office and retail complex planned for a sterile plot of land just south of the Gardiner Expressway and east of Lower Sherbourne St. The building has been designed by Moshe Safdie, the legendary architect behind Expo 67's Habitat complex, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and Terminal One at Pearson International Airport. With its high terraced gardens and spectacular views of Lake Ontario, the 36-storey residential tower promises to be both eye-catching and environmentally sound. That's appropriate for revitalizing a section of the city that is supposed to showcase Toronto as a leader in green urban design.

Waterfront Toronto, the tripartite agency responsible for redevelopment of the lakeshore, has also broken ground on a host of other projects, including George Brown College's new waterfront campus, in this same East Bayfront neighbourhood, stretching between Jarvis and Parliament Sts. Sherbourne Park, with its majestic woods, water and green spaces, is set to open next summer, along with Sugar Beach, next to the Redpath sugar refinery. And employees are scheduled to move into the Corus Entertainment building in the spring.

Worth noting is that the Gardiner Expressway – supposedly a barrier to waterfront revitalization – hasn't blocked any of these projects.

After an achingly slow start, Waterfront Toronto finally seems to be hitting its stride. There are still issues of concern, to be sure. According to the waterfront corporation's website, the East Bayfront neighbourhood is supposed to include 1,400 units of affordable rental housing. But the complex designed by Safdie contains none.

On the whole, however, it appears that following decades of bureaucratic inertia and infighting, Toronto is finally on the way to developing the spectacular waterfront the city deserves.

Could Of, Would Of, Should Of, So What!

I must of missed the post postmortems of other cities that hosted these events and how the citizenry benefited on a permanent basis.....

Protesters can spoil more than a Games bid TheStar.com - Columnist - Protesters can spoil more than a Games bid

September 01, 2009

Royson James

The sad, sweet sound of protest hung in the air around Varsity Stadium yesterday, even as the scoreboard flashed the sign welcoming an evaluation team in town to weigh the merits of awarding the 2015 Pan American Games to the Toronto region.

The voices did not punctuate or offend. Sandwiched between chants, drumming, African-American spirituals and rants against privatization and the perils of rampant capitalism, the dissent barely registered.

Mass media, cued to record the anticipated noncommittal musings of the evaluators, hoped for a spark of anger or rage from the protesters – anything with a hint of emotion, something that might suggest the fight matters.

We've got protest songs, a measured and responsible answer to the mini-Olympics that could be coming to town. The Pan Am Games barely register in people's minds. So it's little wonder that the protests opposed to the Games carry so little weight.

The protesters have one major problem: Toronto has not benefited from missing out on world's fairs and Olympic Games.

Dissidents would say the city avoided massive debts. They forget we missed out on massive infrastructure improvements.

The prevailing view is that Olympic bids and such massive efforts serve to distract a city from its priority – which is to make life better for its citizens. No mega projects, and city hall would, presumably, get its priorities right. Wrong.

John Clarke from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is well practised in the argument: "The record of these extravaganzas is such a horrible one, a hideous one," that the debate is one-sided. Athletes' villages built for events like Olympics and Pan Am Games result in gentrification, higher housing prices, dislocation of homeless people, social exclusion and other ills, he says.

"Hey, hey, hey ho, the Pan Am Games have got to go."

That message was particularly loud in the early 1990s, during the run-up to the bid for the 1996 Olympic Games. Bread Not Circuses was the protest group of the day, and it did not go quietly. In fact, bid leader Paul Henderson still blames the group, and the help it got from then-city councillor Jack Layton, for sabotaging Toronto's chances.

Toronto did not get the 1996 Olympics and it did not get the housing others demanded. In fact, the net effect was worse. The 1996 Games would not have given us all the housing protesters wanted. But losing the Games got us nothing.

If there is a link between the mega projects and public assets and priorities, it seems that without the catalyst of the mega projects, public investments and improvements move at a snail's pace.

Fast-forward to Toronto's bid for the 2008 Games. One of the very first projects approved by all three levels of governments, to boost Toronto's bid, was the remake of the subway platforms at Union Station. The TTC and others had been concerned for years about overcrowding at the busy station. In fact, in 1998, Year 1 of the amalgamated city, they took then-mayor Mel Lastman on a tour of Union Station to show him how potentially dangerous it had become.

But nothing happened. Until the bid for the 2008 Olympics, when money suddenly appeared from Ottawa and Queen's Park to fast-track the Union Station renovation.

Well, no Games, no Union Station subway platform fix. For years. Design concept was approved in 2004. Artwork, 2008. Tender is set for November. Completion? 2014. Without the catalyst of the Games, the project has languished. Nothing moves municipal or provincial or federal agendas along quicker than an international deadline.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Different Strokes......

It's the media's fault: KISS

By BRETT CLARKSON, SUN MEDIA

Gene Simmons isn't about to KISS and make up with the media.

What Did The Saviour Of South Africa Accomplish?

South Africa's District 'mine'

Geoffrey York

Residents of the Soweto slum where District 9 was made hope the film will shed light on their living conditions and embarrass the government Aug 24, 2009

It Would Be Interesting To See Who The Delegates Are.......

Elect a unifying force

When Aboriginal Canadians gather next month to elect a new leader of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, an organization founded to represent off-reserve Aboriginal Peoples, they will not be just be answering the question of who leads the congress, but perhaps who actually represents Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.