Monthly Archives: October 2013

10.12.13
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What we have here is a failure to communicate

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The right of a homeless man to pick up garbage in downtown parkettes sparked debate on several fronts this week, none of which has diminished the seeming absurdity of the situation.
Caught in the middle is Jason McComb, the advocate for the homeless who, as an employee of the Downtown Development Board, has done an admirable job of keeping the downtown core as neat and tidy as is possible in a disposable world.
In a conversation with Jason last week, he bemoaned the fact he was no longer welcome to clean up litter in any of the Talbot Street parkettes.
He was under the impression city CAO Wendell Graves and parks and recreation director Ross Tucker had banished him from the green spaces, based on a memo sent to the DDB this past summer.
This corner requested a copy of that correspondence for clarification.
“I understand that DDB summer students may be doing or have done some maintenance/cleaning activities within the downtown parkettes,” writes Graves.
“Given that the city has staff in place to look after these areas I would ask that the DDB students refrain from work within the park areas.”
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10.05.13
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Is it Tea Party politics or worker choice?

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In our conversation with MPP Jeff Yurek last week, we promised to focus on his party’s white paper, “Paths to Prosperity: Flexible Labour Markets.”
The talking points sent this way by Yurek’s legislative assistant William Ross stress the white paper, which was adopted last month at the PC convention in London, aims to address “the requirement that workers, as a condition of employment, be a union member; and the requirement that workers must pay dues or fees to a union in order to keep his or her job. These dues are automatically deducted from paycheques and union bosses are not required to publicly disclose how the money is spent.
“Third party, empirical economic data seem to support the idea of worker choice,” Ross points out. (The information forwarded by Yurek’s office is available at the end of this post.)
Critics like the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) warn the PC party is formally adopting U.S. Tea Party labour politics that advocate policies “that would undo the rights working people have had in this country for more than a half century.”
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