Governments recently made these corner stores the frontline of the anti-smoking crusade. It is a worthy effort. It is an important effort. Smoking is the number one cause of wrecked lives. The dilemna extends to the corner store in that most shop owners need the flow of income from cigarette sales. For them it is the difference between a good living and a subsistence existence.

The government should toss the corner stores a reward for their efforts in the reduction of smoking. For years the idea of liquor sales in the form of beer or wine, bandied about in society. And in rural areas, like Neys Park, Montreal Harbour, and Dunc Lake have been allowed to sell some liquor, wine or beer. The program has been largely successful to provide seasonal service to both local people and tourists.

In many ways the corner store operators are better equipped to monitor local use. The reason that they seem to screen out youth and others is because of their common contact with the local people. The Ontario Liquor Control Board can still maintain stores and full inventory stores. In hand with that the Corner Stores should be allowed to carry several brands of beers and wines. Society will hold together. Mom and pop stores can maintain their sparse incomes. And people can get some drinks without having to drive to the liquor store.

This dog is Lola… She is not a Pit Bull. … Rather she is a she devil… Manipulating people… She forced me to use this picture.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Energy prices climbed astronomically. It wasn’t an unexpected thing. Potential fuel shortages and decreasing energy supplies were forecast as far back as forty years ago. And ironically those prices force buyers into acquiring more energy efficient automobiles.

When the fuel prices shot up, the North American car manufacturers were producing thousands of gas guzzling Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV). The market collapsed as buyers looked for smaller more economic models. The North American governments invested short term unsecured loans in the billions to anchor the drifting industry. Since then, some of that money, not all has been returned to the tax payer. However much of the billions of losses from governments to the financial and real estate sectors in the United States (USA) will not be coming back to taxpayers.

Hundreds of millions of financial dollars continued to be paid out as reward bonuses to the very same executives who had dug the global financial pit. No poor people were rewarded for their tax contribution. But two years after, when governments try to rebalance all the books they continue to deprive the poorest in society of adequate welfare or support funding.

This war on poverty declared so long ago all over the world didn’t include the poor. Governments continue to give monies to all sorts of projects organized by higher class friends in the belief that this is the way to deal with poverty. Conservatives especially the vowed Christian ones are loathe to help poor people. They honestly believe that the more money that rich people have after a tax reduction winds up back in the economy. They fail to prove that is the case.

There is one method of economic stimulus I can testify to. If the government gives rich corporate citizens millions of dollars a large percentage of that money will disappear into Swiss or Caribbean banks. However, if they spend a couple of billion and spread it out amongst the poor in just Ontario alone, there will be billions of dollars worth of economic stimulus because all of that money will be spent in Canada.

When the Mike Harris, Ontario Provincial Government cut welfare rates by a third, at first it was cheered by thousands of small business owners. In the City of Toronto alone, thousands of small store and small business owners went bankrupt because of that policy. The insidious fact remains. If you genuinely want to stimulate the economy make sure the filter of that stimulus money goes to the most efficient money distribution vector.

The best vector isn’t the wealthy class. The best vector to full financial recovery remains by way of the poorest class. Give a rich man one hundred dollars and its rarely spent outside of the savings account. Give a poor man one hundred dollars and all of it, winds up back in circulation. Many poor people remain too poor to maintain a bank account. If they retire debt, they restore debt soon enough and all that goes to local loan institutions. All that money continues in recycling local economy.

It is no accident that the best economic times it is the Liberal or Democratic party that is in power. An extra one hundred dollars in tax break to middle class and wealthy people is not the same as one hundred extra dollars in the pockets of the poorest classes of society. Tax reductions hurt the economy. Extra money to the poorest stimulates a sluggish economy.

Contract talks do not exist between the union and the management of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). Despite Mayor Rob Ford’s insistence that the province legislate that designation. While that law was being enacted, a smaller city bordering on Toronto suffered a transit strike by a bus operator on contract to provide public transit. Those workers, doing the identical jobs as TTC employees were not deemed essential nor legislated back to work.

The TTC union called the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has approached the TTC management and Commission to begin negotiations. No response to date. Indeed the ATU likely does not expect one since the City reneged on its commitment to its Fire Fighters. Fire Fighters are also deemed essential public employees.

Two years ago a municipal strike occurred where many workers who possessed the right to strike managed to get a small increase in wages after a strike lasting almost a month. Even nonunion personnel eventually got raises because of the inequities of the wage increases and it was those nonunion employees that stuck by the city management keeping some key services operating. To date the Fire Fighters seem to have been forgotten and haven’t received any pay increases.

It is one thing to use the term essential to indicate the importance of one’s position within the social matrix of a city. It is quite another thing for the management negotiators to use the term “ essential” as a weapon in bad faith bargaining.

When examining the critical relationships between the management and working personnel of the TTC it is patently clear that the former abuse the relationship. When the ATU were declared essential in Toronto good faith bargaining should have instantly begun. The TTC Commission insisted that these people were essential, meant it simply to block any strike action.

Examine the term essential for the moment. Yes, when public transit unions go on strike there are a lot of people inconvenienced. Fire Fighters work saves lives. Transit operators do not approach that function. Public transit is a service, but it clearly is not a life and death service like police, the fire department. There are at least two million cars in Toronto. There are several thousands of legal and illegal taxis. Getting around can be difficult but not impossible. The assignment of the term ‘essential’ when applied to the TTC is exceedingly dubious at best.

Why does the TTC Commission apply such draconian methods to prevent a system wide work stoppage? The reason is simple. The management possesses contempt for its own employees. Instead of bargaining they let the senior levels of government to do their dirty work, the work they are supposed to be doing. Its labor relations manifest abysmal. And such a low standard of working relationships translates onto the job performance and the quality of the service provides.

The use of the word essential says less about the transit employees and states just how incompetent and dour the TTC Commission truly is. As long as this job environment persists, economies cannot evolve and operations costs continue into the excessive.

I sat back and thought about the Gay Pride Parade. Originally what was it all about? It was about freedom. It was about liberty. It was about respect.

40 years ago Sue-Ann Levy would likely have been fired or at least forced to resign for admitting what she was, in her critique of Rob Ford. That was wrong on Levy’s part. Human rights over have been delivered over the last generation. And one of the most important mechanisms for the achievement of due rights and respect was the Gay Pride Parade.

But the shelling of Rob Ford, contravenes the entire fundamental purpose of that very same parade. The very same people who demanded their individual rights and respect are insisting on forcing a person to attend their event(s). That seems hideous.

Look people, some individuals are uncomfortable around people they are unsure about. It is patently obvious to anyone that Rob Ford is very uncomfortable doing something like attending a parade. It is totally his individual right to say, “I don’t want to go.”

And if the Gay Pride Parade people have any respect whatsoever for the original meaning of the parade itself, recognize that Rob Ford deserves his individual right, and respect not to go. Ford never said for anyone else not to attend.

Ford didn’t bring in the power of the Toronto Police Riot Squad. Ford didn’t say ban the whole parade.

He just said… He didn’t want to go. And that should be the end of it, if the original importance of the Gay Parade is to be honored. Its all about individual rights and respect, so dish it out. Give the man a break.

One real peeve. For the majority of its length , its called College. For the short length between Yonge and Parliament, its called Carlton. Could some council get the stones, to give it a single name?

To his own credit, Cherry does a lot of charity work. Not every person defines a clear agenda of good and bad. Cherry seems one of those truly yang ying sort of characters.

To his discredit though, he champions the Conservative’s most right wing agenda. Like most Conservatives his analysis of political situations remain unproven. For instance do the math related to Cherry.

He was born and became 16 around the year of 1950 and 18 around 1952. He has never claimed to have been a member of the armed services although recently some manic Conservative butt-kissing military commander made him an honorary officer in the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. And the reason I point this out is simply because of Cherry’s age and hockey career.

He did make it to the NHL to fill up a couple of holes for a single game. He didn’t stay in the league for long. He made his career in the American Hockey League which is no shame for there was only six elite NHL teams. Yet even there he was a knock about player.

Pointedly, Cherry never did stand up for the country then. He didn’t walk the talk, he does now. Cherry didn’t take the opportunity to volunteer in the Canadian Armed Services to go over to Korea and help defend freedom.

When it was time to step up… He didn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any impediment to his recruitment. Anyone who was capable of playing hockey certainly could handle a rifle. He might excuse because he had a family. A lot of the modern soldiers in Afghanistan are married. A lot of the volunteer Canadian army in Korea were young married people.

Guy Fidel, a man of Lebanese descent, not so famous served in Korea. He was a superb hockey player, good enough to make it to the NHL at that time. He wasn’t a hypocrite. He didn’t complain about the weakness of others. He didn’t urge others to do as he did. He fought on the cold barren hills of Korea while Cherry basked in hockey glory.

And sport is no excuse. Cherry presents himself as a selfless hero supporter of the armed services, when he clearly was never that duty bound as a younger man. Service was an inconvenience to him. Today he supports the Canadian wars in Asia. Your kids can die when none in his family makes that commitment. One defines that as hypocrisy.