November 10th, 2009 Andrew Cash
By Andrew Cash
Well, we knew there had to be a hitch when Stephen Harper got up at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to sing a Beatles song. Setting the bar sufficiently low – it was a song Ringo sang, after all – is a Harper specialty.
But as the country woke up to the image of our wooden PM at the piano, many Canadian recording artists were twigging to yet another arts cut – one they say will hobble Canada’s specialized music community.
And like Harper’s arts misstep in the last election, this one – the chopping of the Canada Music Fund’s Canadian Musical Diversity component – has once again engaged and enraged a grassroots arts revolt. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in All Blog Posts, Canadian, General, Music and Digital Culture, Now Magazine, Politics, Toronto | No Comments »
October 20th, 2009 Andrew Cash
The tireless folks at The Stop have come up with a fairly chilling little on line tool called Do The Math that compares our ideas of what it costs to live with health and dignity in Toronto with what a person actually makes on minimum wage or receives on Ontario Works. It takes a few minutes to fill out the survey that asks you to estimate the various costs from shampoo to cable, food, rent etc that are incurred in an average month. I filled out the survey skimping on a number of things. For example I didn’t include any car costs and listed entertainment and recreation at $50 bucks a month which includes cable. My total was $1980 a month. If you want to get really basic and cut out the entertainment and recreation you’ve got it down to $1780. But, according to the site a person working 35 hours a week at minimum wage makes $1429. And that is the best case scenario for many folks. If you are a single person on Ontario Works you’re getting $572. If you are on Ontario Disability Benefits you are getting an income of $1429.
I urge everyone to go to the site and do the math. It is quite sobering.
Posted in All Blog Posts, General, Human Rights, Politics, Toronto | 1 Comment »
September 23rd, 2009 Andrew Cash
T.O.’s got one of the highest urban jobless rates in the country — but guess what? We’re copping fewer EI benefits.
By Andrew Cash
I started the day Monday (September 21) sitting at the back of a banquet hall at the downtown Hilton watching 1,000 T-dot business folks give a lukewarm welcome to what had been billed as a major speech by Michael Ignatieff outlining his economic vision.
Maybe they were just eager to dig into their lunch.
By the end of the day, I was at the back of another room, this one a town hall meeting organized by the Good Jobs for All Coalition at Ryerson, listening along with about 75 others to some hair-raising stories of big-city unemployment.
The two events seem to encapsulate the disconnect I’ve been feeling over Ottawa’s hot potato: Employment Insurance. At the beginning of the summer, the Liberals stepped up to the plate demanding EI changes – or else.
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November 25th, 2008 Andrew Cash
Sure, turbines are great, but eco-bullies could tone down the sermon
By Andrew Cash
Ah, there’s nothing quite like a public meeting in Scarborough to make me feel nostalgic for my childhood home – and for the merits of good old-fashioned political education.
The wind energy showdown, Monday, November 24, at Laurier Collegiate in Scarborough’s Guildwood Village seems, at first glance, like a classic NIMBY battle pitting local residents against downtown greenies and Toronto Hydro bureaucrats.
But it doesn’t really look that way to me, despite the fact that I’m blown away (excuse the pun) by the idea that wind fanning off the Bluffs could power the city’s first turbine operation.
I guess the problem here is that this isn’t an Ontario Municipal Board hearing where folks have to pack the hall because the process is unfair and rich lawyers are trying to take over neighbourhoods for rich developers.
This is a Q&A – one already cancelled once for lack of space – where residents have their sole chance to get Toronto Hydro to address their concerns.
Enviros, hyped and over-organized, don’t seem to get that this is their big opportunity to meet the community, find common ground and ultimately win them over.
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Posted in All Blog Posts, Environment, Now Magazine, Ontario, Politics, Toronto | No Comments »
September 23rd, 2008 Andrew Cash
Tarnished golden boy tries to resurrect hope against people’s choice Nash
By Andrew Cash
It’s a glorious, sunny Saturday morning, the second-last day of summer, but Gerard Kennedy is standing in the middle of a shitstorm.
Mainstreeting on posh Bloor West Village, where even the No Frills seems high-end, Kennedy, shirt sleeves rolled up, suit jacket perpetually thrown over his shoulder, spends much of the morning sticking up for the guy he made Liberal boss, Stéphane Dion.
“You picked the wrong guy,” says more than one passerby.
“You should have been the leader,” remark others.
A number of the locals stop to give him an earful about how bad Dion’s sales job of the Green Shift has been.
While it isn’t all bad news, it’s clear that there’s more on the line for Kennedy than simply knocking off popular NDP incumbent Peggy Nash. Like maybe his political career.
“That’s a no-brainer,” he says of the stakes in this campaign.
He’s still in debt from his failed leadership bid, his party’s campaign has yet to catch a big wave, and many blame him as leadership kingmaker. The former provincial education minister needs a win.
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August 20th, 2008 Andrew Cash
Mayor Miller’s vacation stopover was cold comfortwhen the city needed a hug
By Andrew Cash
Like many, including T.O.’s pols, I’m on holiday with my family when Sunrise Propane blows. Heading back into town later that day, all the while scanning the car radio dial for any syllable of information, we finally stumble on an interview with David Miller.
It’s a conference call with reporters from Vancouver, where, the radio interviewer explains, the mayor is on vacation. Fair enough, I guess.
As I veer off the 401 onto Highway 2 to duck the traffic snarl heading into the city, I’m expecting the mayor to tell reporters he raced to the airport the minute he heard about the explosion and demanded a seat on the next available flight home.
What he says, however, in his almost aloof syntax, is that he’s returning to Toronto on an “early flight.” WTF? Early afternoon? Early morning, after a good night’s sleep and a jog around Stanley Park?
Wow. I’m thinking 12,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Can you give us at least a bit of urgency in your voice? The good news is that he does return quickly. The bad is that he leaves quickly, too, back to his holiday. Very bad.
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January 31st, 2008 Andrew Cash
A Class act, finally
Board does the right thing and votes for black-focused school
By Andrew Cash
When the “s word,” segregation, gets uttered again, there’s an audible groan from those sitting around me.
I’ve ducked out to the overflow section at TDSB headquarters on north Yonge Tuesday night, and am watching the debate leading up to the board’s historic vote on creating the first Africentric school in Toronto on closed-circuit TV.
About 70 others are here, too, and the main chamber’s jammed to the rafters. They’re all black. I’m the only white, and I find myself wondering how many of those whacking this issue with the “s’’ word ever actually mix with those not of their own kind.
The folks here – young parents with little kids, students, elders, professionals, punks – have been waiting for three hours. They’re good at waiting. I’ve seen many of them before at different public meetings in the north end. Waiting. Waiting for the city, the province or in this case the school board to finally listen.
Their patience is humbling. What many (not all, for sure, but many) have been saying is that an Africentric school is part of what they desperately need if they have any hope of rescuing their mostly male at-risk youth.
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Posted in All Blog Posts, Education, Now Magazine, Ontario, Politics, Race Relations, Toronto, Youth Issues | No Comments »
January 17th, 2008 Andrew Cash
Matter of trust
School safety tome shockingly calls for a narrowing of trustees’ role
By Andrew Cash
If you’re a mandarin at the Toronto District School Board, the temperature may be a bit too hot this week. Julian Falconer’s exhaustive report on school safety, dropped January 10, left no stone unturned. But among all the details about sexual harassment and intimidation, the tome goes somewhat silent on one striking fact: if you’re a concerned parent and want to talk to your elected school board rep, good luck.
Fact is, our harried and elusive crew of trustees are busy doing something else a lot of the time. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re earning a poverty-line wage to oversee a multi-billion-dollar public institution – one critical to your child’s future.
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Posted in All Blog Posts, Education, Now Magazine, Ontario, Politics, Race Relations, Toronto, Youth Issues | No Comments »
December 12th, 2007 Andrew Cash
Build it, they will come
That the board now has to ponder Africentric school is an indictment of its complacency
By ANDREW CASH
If faith-based funding is the third rail of Ontario politics, then this isn’t a good time for anyone to be planning a publicly funded separate school.
So perhaps it isn’t surprising that the Toronto District School Board’s ruminations on creating an Africentric alternative school are kicking up so much dust.
But here we are. Between 40 and 50 per cent of Caribbean-born students (most of them males) are in danger of not finishing school or have already dropped out.
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Posted in All Blog Posts, Education, Now Magazine, Politics, Race Relations, Toronto, Youth Issues | No Comments »
July 19th, 2007 Andrew Cash
PORTLANDS power play
Residents walk out of consulting committee charging Energy Centre kept them in the dark
By Andrew Cash
Laundry isn’t the only thing being hung out to dry this summer in Smogtown. Take Toronto’s east-end neighbourhoods, which have always been our industrial ashtray.
In the bad old 80s, residential backyards in south Riverdale had to have their lead-laced soil removed, and the Commissioner Street incinerator was blithely burning garbage.
And while we can’t be sure that the dust on Riverdalian stereo speakers isn’t still laced with lead, locals also have to deal with the Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant to the southeast, a grand contributor to the generally crappy local air quality.
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Posted in All Blog Posts, Environment, Now Magazine, Ontario, Politics, Toronto | No Comments »
