Strike pending for local youth services workers
By Mallory Clarkson/London Community News
August 9, 2012
More than 100 youth receiving mental health treatment and care from a local agency may go without if its employees take to the picket line later this month.
The approximately 120 Craigwood Youth Services employees have been without a contract for two years. After failed attempts to negotiate a new agreement with the employer, the workers — who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) — say they’ve hit a brick wall and are prepared to take action.
“We do not want to (strike), but it made it easy to walk away from the table … because the employer refused to take items off that were non-negotiable,” said Jonathan Guider, member of OPSEU’s bargaining committee.
The main points of contention for union members are the employer is asking for a zero per cent pay increase over four years and is attempting to negotiate against pay equity increases that were awarded to the workers about six years ago.
“We’re out pay equity money all the way back to 2006 and that’s one per cent added on each year,” Guider said. He clarified employees were supposed to see that increase in pay annually, but haven’t.
“They’re behind in their pay equity obligations and we’re not supposed to be bargaining it; it’s already an award.”
Guider argued that while recently the employer retroactively paid out past-due equity payments from 2008 to present, there’s still a couple of years owed to Craigwood’s employees. This would total around $4,000 for each worker.
As for zero-per-cent salary increases over four years, Guider said OPSEU members are both “upset and offended” with that offer.
“Our members were prepared to take two years of zeros — the wage freeze that’s being pushed on all of the public servants,” he said.
A four-year wage freeze, however, is out of the question.
Mick Chalmers, another OPSEU bargaining committee member, added the employees are already struggling financially.
“Some of the same excuses that he (the employer) gives us as to why he can’t afford to give us any sort of increase in pay is when he talks about how the agency’s cost of living continues to go up,” Chalmers said. “We’ve got 100 or so members who are facing the exact same increases every day and we’re struggling.”
Additionally, changes to the complaint process are also being tabled by the employer, but are considered non-negotiable items by the union.
Unless a “reasonable offer” is made during an upcoming mediation session on Aug. 15, Craigwood staff will be seen marching out front of the agency’s facilities, picket signs in hand.
The agency’s executive director, Lothar Liehmann, couldn’t be reached for comment.
http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/
Secret Ontario Place documents tell a story of success, not failure
By Bob Hepburn
Editorial Page
August 8, 2012
When the provincial government announced the sudden closure in February of Ontario Place, it portrayed the waterfront park as a money-losing disaster.
But, in fact, Ontario Place was not on the ropes.
Indeed, the Toronto waterfront park was well on its way to a dramatic turnaround, with overall attendance, revenues and visitor satisfaction up significantly in 2011, documents obtained by the Star indicate.
Surprisingly, though, the Ontario government cited only outdated statistics when it announced it was shutting down the park, arguing it was costing up to $20 million a year, was underutilized and was suffering huge declines in attendance.
The sharp discrepancy between what the McGuinty government told the public when it closed the park and the documents obtained by the Star raises serious questions about why Queen’s Park acted so quickly to close most of the park, including the water attractions and Cinesphere.
Why did Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and Tourism Minister Michael Chan make Ontario Place’s operations look worse than they really were?
Was it to clear the way for an eventual casino on the site?
In recent months, Duncan has been championing the idea of a “golden mile” of luxury shops and entertainment on Toronto’s waterfront and Paul Godfrey, chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., has called for a casino-resort near the lakefront.
Ontario Place employees and suppliers “were absolutely shocked and ambushed by the abrupt, unplanned and thinly defended closure of Ontario Place,” one top official with close knowledge of Ontario Place said.
“It should never have been closed. No reason for it. ‘Saving money’ is a red herring in the overall scheme of things.”
Last February when they announced the closure, Duncan and Chan said the province would save $20 million annually, that crowds has dropped from 3.2 million a year in the 1970s to barely 300,000 in 2010. They also suggested most of the facilities were obsolete. The closure resulted in the loss of 48 full-time jobs and 600 summer positions.
“Ontario Place has been a drain on the government treasury for many years . . . it’s no longer sustainable,” Chan said at a Queen’s Park news conference.
“The park does not draw enough people to its gates to keep it sustainable in its current form,” Duncan told reporters.
However, the documents obtained by the Star show Ontario Place attendance in 2011 actually rose 89 per cent over 2010 levels. They also show revenues from rides, ground admissions, concessions and retail sales and Cinesphere tickets also increased dramatically last year.
Importantly, the documents indicate the park was on track to operate at a break-even point by 2015 — just three years from now.
Also, they show that Ontario Place was about to enter the 2012 season with plans to drive attendance and revenues even higher, largely due to more than $10 million in improvements approved by Queen’s Park in areas such as the popular water park and Cinesphere.
By releasing mostly outdated statistics, the McGuinty government created the impression that Ontario Place was not turning around, but instead had flatlined.
A finance ministry official, who asked not to be named, said Wednesday that the 2011 statistics were not available when Duncan announced the closure. The official also provided data from the Ontario Place annual report that showed a $12.9 million net loss for the park in 2011, the highest in the last decade. Part of that loss, though, was due to major new spending on the water park and Cinesphere.
Here are some of the key points in the documents obtained by the Star:
First, total attendance in 2011 was 880,000, far above the 300,000 figure cited for 2010 by the government. The 2011 figure includes 563,000 for the park, 255,000 for concerts and 61,000 CNE “crossovers.” In fact, the highest single-day attendance record was set in 2011 on Canada Day when 40,916 people entered the park. In addition, Ontario Place officials had told provincial bureaucrats they fully expected attendance would rise to 1.1 million in the next year or two.
The government claimed 3.2 million people visited the park at its peak. However, those figures are highly questionable because they were based on vague “crowd estimates.” Accurate turnstile counting didn’t start until 2002, at which time attendance was measured at 1.2 million.
Second, instead of costing a total of $20 million a year as the government claims, the average 10- to 20-year operating deficit at Ontario Place was between $2 million and $3 million. That’s significantly less than the cost to Queen’s Park of other provincially supported public institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Ontario Art Gallery and the Ontario Science Centre.
For the coming year, Ontario Place revenues were expected to grow by 50 per cent and the deficit was expected to fall by 35 per cent. That would have put the park on a path to operate on a break-even basis by 2015.
Third, Queen’s Park approved more than $10 million in improvements to Ontario Place that were implemented barely a year ago. If it was so eager to improve the park not so long ago, why did it shut the entertainment venue so suddenly? Some $5 million was spent to expand the water park, including a huge new slide that not a single child has ever ridden down. The water park was projected to generate a $2-million profit.
As well, $2 million was spent last year to renovate Cinesphere with a new IMAX 3-D theatre. Attendance was up more than 80 per cent last year over 2010, with sellouts over the Christmas period.
Ontario Place management had extensive plans to attract new sponsors, more concerts and new attractions in 2013 and beyond, including having the park open earlier in the season and close later.
Overall, the documents show that 2011 was arguably the most successful for Ontario Place in many years.
And yet Queen’s Park never released this information when it announced the park closure, using 2010 figures to put a bad face on the park’s future.
“You’d never get away with that in the private sector,” the official said. “Are they trying to use ‘yesterday’s’ information to sell the public the idea that Ontario Place had to be pulled off life support, when more recent data suggest the patient was improving?”
So why was the McGuinty government so eager to close Ontario Place?
Did it want to clear the way for a casino? Or for luxury condos?
Two weeks ago, a government-appointed advisory panel led by John Tory, chair of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, tabled a report that called for parks, private residences and business on the Ontario Place site. It did not recommend a waterfront casino.
What is clear from these documents is that although Ontario Place may have been languishing, it wasn’t dead. Its pulse was improving — just before the government pulled the plug on it.
It’s time Queen’s Park came clean on all the information it has on Ontario Place.
And it’s time it told the public what it really has in store for Toronto’s waterfront.
OPSEU fights changes to pension plans
By: Arron Pickard – Sudbury Northern Life Staff
July 25, 2012
Strike pending for local youth services workers
By Mallory Clarkson/London Community News
August 9, 2012
More than 100 youth receiving mental health treatment and care from a local agency may go without if its employees take to the picket line later this month.
The approximately 120 Craigwood Youth Services employees have been without a contract for two years. After failed attempts to negotiate a new agreement with the employer, the workers — who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) — say they’ve hit a brick wall and are prepared to take action.
“We do not want to (strike), but it made it easy to walk away from the table … because the employer refused to take items off that were non-negotiable,” said Jonathan Guider, member of OPSEU’s bargaining committee.
The main points of contention for union members are the employer is asking for a zero per cent pay increase over four years and is attempting to negotiate against pay equity increases that were awarded to the workers about six years ago.
“We’re out pay equity money all the way back to 2006 and that’s one per cent added on each year,” Guider said. He clarified employees were supposed to see that increase in pay annually, but haven’t.
“They’re behind in their pay equity obligations and we’re not supposed to be bargaining it; it’s already an award.”
Guider argued that while recently the employer retroactively paid out past-due equity payments from 2008 to present, there’s still a couple of years owed to Craigwood’s employees. This would total around $4,000 for each worker.
As for zero-per-cent salary increases over four years, Guider said OPSEU members are both “upset and offended” with that offer.
“Our members were prepared to take two years of zeros — the wage freeze that’s being pushed on all of the public servants,” he said.
A four-year wage freeze, however, is out of the question.
Mick Chalmers, another OPSEU bargaining committee member, added the employees are already struggling financially.
“Some of the same excuses that he (the employer) gives us as to why he can’t afford to give us any sort of increase in pay is when he talks about how the agency’s cost of living continues to go up,” Chalmers said. “We’ve got 100 or so members who are facing the exact same increases every day and we’re struggling.”
Additionally, changes to the complaint process are also being tabled by the employer, but are considered non-negotiable items by the union.
Unless a “reasonable offer” is made during an upcoming mediation session on Aug. 15, Craigwood staff will be seen marching out front of the agency’s facilities, picket signs in hand.
The agency’s executive director, Lothar Liehmann, couldn’t be reached for comment.
http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/
Secret Ontario Place documents tell a story of success, not failure
By Bob Hepburn
Editorial Page
August 8, 2012
When the provincial government announced the sudden closure in February of Ontario Place, it portrayed the waterfront park as a money-losing disaster.
But, in fact, Ontario Place was not on the ropes.
Indeed, the Toronto waterfront park was well on its way to a dramatic turnaround, with overall attendance, revenues and visitor satisfaction up significantly in 2011, documents obtained by the Star indicate.
Surprisingly, though, the Ontario government cited only outdated statistics when it announced it was shutting down the park, arguing it was costing up to $20 million a year, was underutilized and was suffering huge declines in attendance.
The sharp discrepancy between what the McGuinty government told the public when it closed the park and the documents obtained by the Star raises serious questions about why Queen’s Park acted so quickly to close most of the park, including the water attractions and Cinesphere.
Why did Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and Tourism Minister Michael Chan make Ontario Place’s operations look worse than they really were?
Was it to clear the way for an eventual casino on the site?
In recent months, Duncan has been championing the idea of a “golden mile” of luxury shops and entertainment on Toronto’s waterfront and Paul Godfrey, chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., has called for a casino-resort near the lakefront.
Ontario Place employees and suppliers “were absolutely shocked and ambushed by the abrupt, unplanned and thinly defended closure of Ontario Place,” one top official with close knowledge of Ontario Place said.
“It should never have been closed. No reason for it. ‘Saving money’ is a red herring in the overall scheme of things.”
Last February when they announced the closure, Duncan and Chan said the province would save $20 million annually, that crowds has dropped from 3.2 million a year in the 1970s to barely 300,000 in 2010. They also suggested most of the facilities were obsolete. The closure resulted in the loss of 48 full-time jobs and 600 summer positions.
“Ontario Place has been a drain on the government treasury for many years . . . it’s no longer sustainable,” Chan said at a Queen’s Park news conference.
“The park does not draw enough people to its gates to keep it sustainable in its current form,” Duncan told reporters.
However, the documents obtained by the Star show Ontario Place attendance in 2011 actually rose 89 per cent over 2010 levels. They also show revenues from rides, ground admissions, concessions and retail sales and Cinesphere tickets also increased dramatically last year.
Importantly, the documents indicate the park was on track to operate at a break-even point by 2015 — just three years from now.
Also, they show that Ontario Place was about to enter the 2012 season with plans to drive attendance and revenues even higher, largely due to more than $10 million in improvements approved by Queen’s Park in areas such as the popular water park and Cinesphere.
By releasing mostly outdated statistics, the McGuinty government created the impression that Ontario Place was not turning around, but instead had flatlined.
A finance ministry official, who asked not to be named, said Wednesday that the 2011 statistics were not available when Duncan announced the closure. The official also provided data from the Ontario Place annual report that showed a $12.9 million net loss for the park in 2011, the highest in the last decade. Part of that loss, though, was due to major new spending on the water park and Cinesphere.
Here are some of the key points in the documents obtained by the Star:
First, total attendance in 2011 was 880,000, far above the 300,000 figure cited for 2010 by the government. The 2011 figure includes 563,000 for the park, 255,000 for concerts and 61,000 CNE “crossovers.” In fact, the highest single-day attendance record was set in 2011 on Canada Day when 40,916 people entered the park. In addition, Ontario Place officials had told provincial bureaucrats they fully expected attendance would rise to 1.1 million in the next year or two.
The government claimed 3.2 million people visited the park at its peak. However, those figures are highly questionable because they were based on vague “crowd estimates.” Accurate turnstile counting didn’t start until 2002, at which time attendance was measured at 1.2 million.
Second, instead of costing a total of $20 million a year as the government claims, the average 10- to 20-year operating deficit at Ontario Place was between $2 million and $3 million. That’s significantly less than the cost to Queen’s Park of other provincially supported public institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Ontario Art Gallery and the Ontario Science Centre.
For the coming year, Ontario Place revenues were expected to grow by 50 per cent and the deficit was expected to fall by 35 per cent. That would have put the park on a path to operate on a break-even basis by 2015.
Third, Queen’s Park approved more than $10 million in improvements to Ontario Place that were implemented barely a year ago. If it was so eager to improve the park not so long ago, why did it shut the entertainment venue so suddenly? Some $5 million was spent to expand the water park, including a huge new slide that not a single child has ever ridden down. The water park was projected to generate a $2-million profit.
As well, $2 million was spent last year to renovate Cinesphere with a new IMAX 3-D theatre. Attendance was up more than 80 per cent last year over 2010, with sellouts over the Christmas period.
Ontario Place management had extensive plans to attract new sponsors, more concerts and new attractions in 2013 and beyond, including having the park open earlier in the season and close later.
Overall, the documents show that 2011 was arguably the most successful for Ontario Place in many years.
And yet Queen’s Park never released this information when it announced the park closure, using 2010 figures to put a bad face on the park’s future.
“You’d never get away with that in the private sector,” the official said. “Are they trying to use ‘yesterday’s’ information to sell the public the idea that Ontario Place had to be pulled off life support, when more recent data suggest the patient was improving?”
So why was the McGuinty government so eager to close Ontario Place?
Did it want to clear the way for a casino? Or for luxury condos?
Two weeks ago, a government-appointed advisory panel led by John Tory, chair of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, tabled a report that called for parks, private residences and business on the Ontario Place site. It did not recommend a waterfront casino.
What is clear from these documents is that although Ontario Place may have been languishing, it wasn’t dead. Its pulse was improving — just before the government pulled the plug on it.
It’s time Queen’s Park came clean on all the information it has on Ontario Place.
And it’s time it told the public what it really has in store for Toronto’s waterfront.
OPSEU fights changes to pension plans
By: Arron Pickard – Sudbury Northern Life Staff
July 25, 2012
thespec.com
Thu Aug 23 2012
Stephen Smith addresses guards gathered in front of Barton St. jail.
Barry Gray/Hamilton Spectator
A health and safety dispute at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre that has had 200 corrections officers out of work is the “tipping point” for similar fights across the province, says the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
“There is no job on this bloody planet worth injury, no job worth getting killed,” OPSEU president Smokey Thomas told a crowd of corrections officers from across the province who gathered outside the Barton Street jail this morning to rally.
Thomas said he was proud of the local officers and said it is management who should be disciplined.
If the issue isn’t resolved this week, OPSEU leaders promised to go to Queen’s Park Monday and seek a face to face meeting with the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Madeleine Meilleur.
Corrections officers promised to gather outside the provincial legislature buildings to rally there.
Local OPSEU leader and corrections officers Stephen Smith said the ministry sent a new resolution offer that will be voted on today. However, it’s unlikely to be approved because discipline against the 200 officers who refused to work without their safety vests remains on the table.
Dan Sidsworth, OPSEU corrections division chair said the dispute “could escalate to a province-wide action.”
Management has been running the jail since last Thursday, after corrections officers refused to return to work unless they were allowed to conduct a full search there wearing their stab-proof and bulletproof vests.
The search had started Monday, Aug. 13, after a piece of a metal fixture went missing, but was stalled the next day over the health and safety dispute.
The jail remains in a “rotational lockdown,” including allowing inmates out to shower and use phones. Visits are now being allowed, but Ross warned the public should call first.
Inmate programs are cancelled.
Last week, the Ministry of Labour found the work refusal was not justified under provincial legislation. But OPSEU maintains that its members have done nothing wrong.
Spokesperson Brent Ross said Wednesday the ministry is “currently considering its next steps,” but would not elaborate on any details.
[email protected]
905-526-3199 | @NicoleatTheSpec
North Bay Jail guards wearing vests
By DAVE DALE, The Nugget
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:37:37 EDT AM
OPSEU members from Thunder Bay, Monteith, Sudbury and parts of southern Ontario gathered at an information protest July 19 in front of the North Bay Jail. Union representatives say there are not enough jail guards causing facilities to lock down and that overcrowding in cells leads to friction and assaults.
North Bay jail guards started wearing protective vests for routine duty this week in solidarity with colleagues across the province protesting workplace safety issues.
Last week, management at Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre didn"t permit guards to wear stab-resistant protective vests while conducting cell searches.
Guards had discovered a broken piece of metal was missing, suggesting a weapon may be in circulation. Management refused their request to wear the vests, claiming it interfered with inmate/guard relationships.
Guards refused to work, citing unsafe working conditions, and a general lockdown was required as management took over. A rotating lockdown was initiated days later.
The Ministry of Labour ruled there was no safety issue to justify the work refusal, but the incident highlighted capacity and staffing issues guards have been raising this summer.
“Sadly, rather than working with us in order to create the most progressive and safe work environment possible, our employer"s culture of intransigence continues to cause needless conflict,” said Mike Bisaillon, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 616.
“What most of us find extremely frustrating is the way the ministry seems to make it up as it goes along,” Bisaillon said. “The reason they gave for not allowing the officers in Hamilton to wear their vests was that it would create a "barrier" between them and the inmates.
“Are they kidding? I mean, here is an organization that across the province has sat idly by while staff assaults have more than doubled, often leaves inmates housed three (or more) to a cell, operates with such low staffing levels that it causes the inmates to be locked down for days at a time, cut off from communicating with their families either by visits or even phone.
“Some reports had inmates in Hamilton not getting showers for close to a week … and with all of that they now claim that the simple wearing of a vest would create a "barrier?" Give me a break. With all of the real barriers that correctional officers currently face, I find a statement like that simply astounding.”
OPSEU members from Thunder Bay, Monteith, Sudbury and parts of southern Ontario held an information protest in front of the North Bay Jail last month.
Bisaillon and other union representatives said there are not enough jail guards which causes facilities to lock down inmates and put three to five in cells designed for two people more often, leading to friction and assaults.
In North Bay Court Tuesday, a Sturgeon Falls resident pleaded guilty to several offences and his lawyer advised the court the majority of his 18 days in the city jail were spent sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
A Ministry of Correctional Services spokesman recently provided statistics showing little change in the number of incidents of inmate-on-jail guard assaults from 2010 to 2011. There were 162 in 2010 and 161 in 2011.
But Bisaillon said there were 485 assaults on jail workers in Ontario in 2011, 518 reported in 2010 and 222 in 2009. He said he is not sure why the ministry counts only incidents and not the number of jail guards assaulted.
He said the union believes those numbers will be higher for 2012.
Asked if there has been a rise in violent incidents leading to jail guard injuries and what those statistics are, ministry spokesman Brent Ross said the “ministry does not provide medical information related to our staff.”
The ministry said inmate-on-inmate assaults went up slightly to 2,816 in 2011 from 2,692 in 2010.
Asked if the ratio between jail guards to incarcerated individuals decreased in the past two years and what the guiding policy is regarding minimums, Ross said the ministry is reviewing staffing levels provincewide.
“Each institution is unique and each must determine the staffing levels appropriate for the facility,” he said, noting Ontario"s correctional system is running on average at 95% capacity.
“We have no control over the number of people admitted to our custody, or the length or circumstances of their stay,” he said when asked about current capacity issues.
Ross said the ministry has a modernization strategy to address infrastructure challenges.
He said 2,000 beds are being added to the system in the near future when the Toronto South Detention Centre and South West Detention Centres are completed.
Also, he said the Toronto Intermittent Centre is operational with a capacity of 320 beds for male offenders.
Last month, an OPSEU president of the local at Monteith Correctional Centre said two units were shut down, forcing inmates from Northern Ontario communities to be sent hundreds of kilometres away from their families, legal representatives and support systems.
Strike pending for local youth services workers
By Mallory Clarkson/London Community News
August 9, 2012
More than 100 youth receiving mental health treatment and care from a local agency may go without if its employees take to the picket line later this month.
The approximately 120 Craigwood Youth Services employees have been without a contract for two years. After failed attempts to negotiate a new agreement with the employer, the workers — who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) — say they’ve hit a brick wall and are prepared to take action.
“We do not want to (strike), but it made it easy to walk away from the table … because the employer refused to take items off that were non-negotiable,” said Jonathan Guider, member of OPSEU’s bargaining committee.
The main points of contention for union members are the employer is asking for a zero per cent pay increase over four years and is attempting to negotiate against pay equity increases that were awarded to the workers about six years ago.
“We’re out pay equity money all the way back to 2006 and that’s one per cent added on each year,” Guider said. He clarified employees were supposed to see that increase in pay annually, but haven’t.
“They’re behind in their pay equity obligations and we’re not supposed to be bargaining it; it’s already an award.”
Guider argued that while recently the employer retroactively paid out past-due equity payments from 2008 to present, there’s still a couple of years owed to Craigwood’s employees. This would total around $4,000 for each worker.
As for zero-per-cent salary increases over four years, Guider said OPSEU members are both “upset and offended” with that offer.
“Our members were prepared to take two years of zeros — the wage freeze that’s being pushed on all of the public servants,” he said.
A four-year wage freeze, however, is out of the question.
Mick Chalmers, another OPSEU bargaining committee member, added the employees are already struggling financially.
“Some of the same excuses that he (the employer) gives us as to why he can’t afford to give us any sort of increase in pay is when he talks about how the agency’s cost of living continues to go up,” Chalmers said. “We’ve got 100 or so members who are facing the exact same increases every day and we’re struggling.”
Additionally, changes to the complaint process are also being tabled by the employer, but are considered non-negotiable items by the union.
Unless a “reasonable offer” is made during an upcoming mediation session on Aug. 15, Craigwood staff will be seen marching out front of the agency’s facilities, picket signs in hand.
The agency’s executive director, Lothar Liehmann, couldn’t be reached for comment.
http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/
Secret Ontario Place documents tell a story of success, not failure
By Bob Hepburn
Editorial Page
August 8, 2012
When the provincial government announced the sudden closure in February of Ontario Place, it portrayed the waterfront park as a money-losing disaster.
But, in fact, Ontario Place was not on the ropes.
Indeed, the Toronto waterfront park was well on its way to a dramatic turnaround, with overall attendance, revenues and visitor satisfaction up significantly in 2011, documents obtained by the Star indicate.
Surprisingly, though, the Ontario government cited only outdated statistics when it announced it was shutting down the park, arguing it was costing up to $20 million a year, was underutilized and was suffering huge declines in attendance.
The sharp discrepancy between what the McGuinty government told the public when it closed the park and the documents obtained by the Star raises serious questions about why Queen’s Park acted so quickly to close most of the park, including the water attractions and Cinesphere.
Why did Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and Tourism Minister Michael Chan make Ontario Place’s operations look worse than they really were?
Was it to clear the way for an eventual casino on the site?
In recent months, Duncan has been championing the idea of a “golden mile” of luxury shops and entertainment on Toronto’s waterfront and Paul Godfrey, chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., has called for a casino-resort near the lakefront.
Ontario Place employees and suppliers “were absolutely shocked and ambushed by the abrupt, unplanned and thinly defended closure of Ontario Place,” one top official with close knowledge of Ontario Place said.
“It should never have been closed. No reason for it. ‘Saving money’ is a red herring in the overall scheme of things.”
Last February when they announced the closure, Duncan and Chan said the province would save $20 million annually, that crowds has dropped from 3.2 million a year in the 1970s to barely 300,000 in 2010. They also suggested most of the facilities were obsolete. The closure resulted in the loss of 48 full-time jobs and 600 summer positions.
“Ontario Place has been a drain on the government treasury for many years . . . it’s no longer sustainable,” Chan said at a Queen’s Park news conference.
“The park does not draw enough people to its gates to keep it sustainable in its current form,” Duncan told reporters.
However, the documents obtained by the Star show Ontario Place attendance in 2011 actually rose 89 per cent over 2010 levels. They also show revenues from rides, ground admissions, concessions and retail sales and Cinesphere tickets also increased dramatically last year.
Importantly, the documents indicate the park was on track to operate at a break-even point by 2015 — just three years from now.
Also, they show that Ontario Place was about to enter the 2012 season with plans to drive attendance and revenues even higher, largely due to more than $10 million in improvements approved by Queen’s Park in areas such as the popular water park and Cinesphere.
By releasing mostly outdated statistics, the McGuinty government created the impression that Ontario Place was not turning around, but instead had flatlined.
A finance ministry official, who asked not to be named, said Wednesday that the 2011 statistics were not available when Duncan announced the closure. The official also provided data from the Ontario Place annual report that showed a $12.9 million net loss for the park in 2011, the highest in the last decade. Part of that loss, though, was due to major new spending on the water park and Cinesphere.
Here are some of the key points in the documents obtained by the Star:
First, total attendance in 2011 was 880,000, far above the 300,000 figure cited for 2010 by the government. The 2011 figure includes 563,000 for the park, 255,000 for concerts and 61,000 CNE “crossovers.” In fact, the highest single-day attendance record was set in 2011 on Canada Day when 40,916 people entered the park. In addition, Ontario Place officials had told provincial bureaucrats they fully expected attendance would rise to 1.1 million in the next year or two.
The government claimed 3.2 million people visited the park at its peak. However, those figures are highly questionable because they were based on vague “crowd estimates.” Accurate turnstile counting didn’t start until 2002, at which time attendance was measured at 1.2 million.
Second, instead of costing a total of $20 million a year as the government claims, the average 10- to 20-year operating deficit at Ontario Place was between $2 million and $3 million. That’s significantly less than the cost to Queen’s Park of other provincially supported public institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Ontario Art Gallery and the Ontario Science Centre.
For the coming year, Ontario Place revenues were expected to grow by 50 per cent and the deficit was expected to fall by 35 per cent. That would have put the park on a path to operate on a break-even basis by 2015.
Third, Queen’s Park approved more than $10 million in improvements to Ontario Place that were implemented barely a year ago. If it was so eager to improve the park not so long ago, why did it shut the entertainment venue so suddenly? Some $5 million was spent to expand the water park, including a huge new slide that not a single child has ever ridden down. The water park was projected to generate a $2-million profit.
As well, $2 million was spent last year to renovate Cinesphere with a new IMAX 3-D theatre. Attendance was up more than 80 per cent last year over 2010, with sellouts over the Christmas period.
Ontario Place management had extensive plans to attract new sponsors, more concerts and new attractions in 2013 and beyond, including having the park open earlier in the season and close later.
Overall, the documents show that 2011 was arguably the most successful for Ontario Place in many years.
And yet Queen’s Park never released this information when it announced the park closure, using 2010 figures to put a bad face on the park’s future.
“You’d never get away with that in the private sector,” the official said. “Are they trying to use ‘yesterday’s’ information to sell the public the idea that Ontario Place had to be pulled off life support, when more recent data suggest the patient was improving?”
So why was the McGuinty government so eager to close Ontario Place?
Did it want to clear the way for a casino? Or for luxury condos?
Two weeks ago, a government-appointed advisory panel led by John Tory, chair of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, tabled a report that called for parks, private residences and business on the Ontario Place site. It did not recommend a waterfront casino.
What is clear from these documents is that although Ontario Place may have been languishing, it wasn’t dead. Its pulse was improving — just before the government pulled the plug on it.
It’s time Queen’s Park came clean on all the information it has on Ontario Place.
And it’s time it told the public what it really has in store for Toronto’s waterfront.
OPSEU fights changes to pension plans
By: Arron Pickard – Sudbury Northern Life Staff
July 25, 2012
Premier Dalton McGuinty (QMI AGENCY files)
No one should be more reviled, and more sought for prosecution, than those whose perversion leads them into the exploitative and sick underworld of child pornography.
These are the lowest of the low.
Where once upon at time it was done on the down low, with pervs exchanging black-and-white photographs and grainy 8-mm films in seedy backrooms, child pornographers now have the virtual anonymity and the world-reach provided by the Internet.
These pornographers, as a result, have embraced this cyber technology like addicts to a narcotic.
Child pornography can be now be buried and encrypted on hard drives and memory sticks. It can go live via webcam, and posted on deeply layered websites. And it can be shared with thousands, and sold to thousands more, with the mere click of a mouse.
And it always seems to be one step ahead of law enforcement.
When provinces do their budgets, law-abiding citizens do not expect public safety be among the first cuts made when debt and deficits become unwieldy, and no law-abiding citizen would expect the safety of children from predators would ever be downgraded.
But it has happened in Ontario under the inept government of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty with a budget cut that will give child predators an unexpected sense of security.
Reporters across the country should check the fine print of their own province’s budget cuts because this cut, in particular, has managed to go virtually undetected.
Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Sciences is one of the most extensive laboratories in North America, a renowned facility specializing in the analysis of crime materials from the biological to the electronic.
Child pornographers love electronics, of course.
It’s their conduit.
Back on Aug. 14, in a document obtained by QMI Agency, Anthony Tessarolo, director of the Centre of Forensic Sciences, which is operated by Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, announced that budget cuts “committed to” by McGuinty necessitated the sharing of the pain through the centre’s electronic unit being shut down.
Tessarolo claimed the entire unit was deemed to be “under-utilized,” which meant walking papers for all six uniquely specialized staff scientists, as well as their manager.
There are good cuts in government, and there are bad cuts. This cut is outrageous.
The employees at the Centre of Forensic Sciences now facing unemployment do not grow on trees. They are highly educated in computer sciences, mathematics and criminology, and skilled in retrieving data from files that have been erased or deleted from the electronic devices of suspected criminals, and that includes computers and cellphones that have been heavily damaged.
They can venture into cyberspace and restore deleted e-mails and Internet chat logs that will assist police in tracking criminals involved in such rackets as human smuggling and organized drug rings.
But running down child pornographers makes their day.
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union which represents the soon-to-be turfed scientists, also calls the cuts ridiculous. And, for once at least, there is agreement.
“Even by the standards of this government, which has gone after the deficit with outrageous abandon, the loss of highly skilled experts in crime fighting is beyond comprehension,” he said. “That the government is prepared to go easy in the pursuit of some of our more notorious suspected criminals is an audacious move.”
Chris Pittens, president of OPSEU Local 579, the scientists’ direct representative, also reflected the opinion that the McGuinty government has its priorities twisted.
“The loss of these skilled workers represents a setback in the fight against crime in Ontario,” he echoed. “It’s a well-known fact that criminals are becoming extremely skilled in the use and abuse of the Internet and other forms of electronic information technology.”
Back in February, in the largest child pornography bust in Ontario, police arrested 55 men from across the province for various sex crimes against children, all while knowing that at least 8,880 child pornographers were actively online swapping and downloading pictures.
It’s obviously an uphill battle. With computer experts at the Centre for Forensic Sciences about to be eliminated, however, the winning odds that child pornographers already exploit will go up demonstratively.
This is not only a government putting public safety at risk, it’s a government making vulnerable children more vulnerable than ever.
It verges on the criminal.
— Bonokoski is QMI Agency’s national editorial writer
VIDEO: Ontario jail guards rally outside Barton
By Nicole O’Reilly
thespec.com
Thu Aug 23 2012
Stephen Smith addresses guards gathered in front of Barton St. jail.
Barry Gray/Hamilton Spectator
A health and safety dispute at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre that has had 200 corrections officers out of work is the “tipping point” for similar fights across the province, says the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
“There is no job on this bloody planet worth injury, no job worth getting killed,” OPSEU president Smokey Thomas told a crowd of corrections officers from across the province who gathered outside the Barton Street jail this morning to rally.
Thomas said he was proud of the local officers and said it is management who should be disciplined.
If the issue isn’t resolved this week, OPSEU leaders promised to go to Queen’s Park Monday and seek a face to face meeting with the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Madeleine Meilleur.
Corrections officers promised to gather outside the provincial legislature buildings to rally there.
Local OPSEU leader and corrections officers Stephen Smith said the ministry sent a new resolution offer that will be voted on today. However, it’s unlikely to be approved because discipline against the 200 officers who refused to work without their safety vests remains on the table.
Dan Sidsworth, OPSEU corrections division chair said the dispute “could escalate to a province-wide action.”
Management has been running the jail since last Thursday, after corrections officers refused to return to work unless they were allowed to conduct a full search there wearing their stab-proof and bulletproof vests.
The search had started Monday, Aug. 13, after a piece of a metal fixture went missing, but was stalled the next day over the health and safety dispute.
The jail remains in a “rotational lockdown,” including allowing inmates out to shower and use phones. Visits are now being allowed, but Ross warned the public should call first.
Inmate programs are cancelled.
Last week, the Ministry of Labour found the work refusal was not justified under provincial legislation. But OPSEU maintains that its members have done nothing wrong.
Spokesperson Brent Ross said Wednesday the ministry is “currently considering its next steps,” but would not elaborate on any details.
[email protected]
905-526-3199 | @NicoleatTheSpec
North Bay Jail guards wearing vests
By DAVE DALE, The Nugget
Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:37:37 EDT AM
OPSEU members from Thunder Bay, Monteith, Sudbury and parts of southern Ontario gathered at an information protest July 19 in front of the North Bay Jail. Union representatives say there are not enough jail guards causing facilities to lock down and that overcrowding in cells leads to friction and assaults.
North Bay jail guards started wearing protective vests for routine duty this week in solidarity with colleagues across the province protesting workplace safety issues.
Last week, management at Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre didn"t permit guards to wear stab-resistant protective vests while conducting cell searches.
Guards had discovered a broken piece of metal was missing, suggesting a weapon may be in circulation. Management refused their request to wear the vests, claiming it interfered with inmate/guard relationships.
Guards refused to work, citing unsafe working conditions, and a general lockdown was required as management took over. A rotating lockdown was initiated days later.
The Ministry of Labour ruled there was no safety issue to justify the work refusal, but the incident highlighted capacity and staffing issues guards have been raising this summer.
“Sadly, rather than working with us in order to create the most progressive and safe work environment possible, our employer"s culture of intransigence continues to cause needless conflict,” said Mike Bisaillon, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 616.
“What most of us find extremely frustrating is the way the ministry seems to make it up as it goes along,” Bisaillon said. “The reason they gave for not allowing the officers in Hamilton to wear their vests was that it would create a "barrier" between them and the inmates.
“Are they kidding? I mean, here is an organization that across the province has sat idly by while staff assaults have more than doubled, often leaves inmates housed three (or more) to a cell, operates with such low staffing levels that it causes the inmates to be locked down for days at a time, cut off from communicating with their families either by visits or even phone.
“Some reports had inmates in Hamilton not getting showers for close to a week … and with all of that they now claim that the simple wearing of a vest would create a "barrier?" Give me a break. With all of the real barriers that correctional officers currently face, I find a statement like that simply astounding.”
OPSEU members from Thunder Bay, Monteith, Sudbury and parts of southern Ontario held an information protest in front of the North Bay Jail last month.
Bisaillon and other union representatives said there are not enough jail guards which causes facilities to lock down inmates and put three to five in cells designed for two people more often, leading to friction and assaults.
In North Bay Court Tuesday, a Sturgeon Falls resident pleaded guilty to several offences and his lawyer advised the court the majority of his 18 days in the city jail were spent sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
A Ministry of Correctional Services spokesman recently provided statistics showing little change in the number of incidents of inmate-on-jail guard assaults from 2010 to 2011. There were 162 in 2010 and 161 in 2011.
But Bisaillon said there were 485 assaults on jail workers in Ontario in 2011, 518 reported in 2010 and 222 in 2009. He said he is not sure why the ministry counts only incidents and not the number of jail guards assaulted.
He said the union believes those numbers will be higher for 2012.
Asked if there has been a rise in violent incidents leading to jail guard injuries and what those statistics are, ministry spokesman Brent Ross said the “ministry does not provide medical information related to our staff.”
The ministry said inmate-on-inmate assaults went up slightly to 2,816 in 2011 from 2,692 in 2010.
Asked if the ratio between jail guards to incarcerated individuals decreased in the past two years and what the guiding policy is regarding minimums, Ross said the ministry is reviewing staffing levels provincewide.
“Each institution is unique and each must determine the staffing levels appropriate for the facility,” he said, noting Ontario"s correctional system is running on average at 95% capacity.
“We have no control over the number of people admitted to our custody, or the length or circumstances of their stay,” he said when asked about current capacity issues.
Ross said the ministry has a modernization strategy to address infrastructure challenges.
He said 2,000 beds are being added to the system in the near future when the Toronto South Detention Centre and South West Detention Centres are completed.
Also, he said the Toronto Intermittent Centre is operational with a capacity of 320 beds for male offenders.
Last month, an OPSEU president of the local at Monteith Correctional Centre said two units were shut down, forcing inmates from Northern Ontario communities to be sent hundreds of kilometres away from their families, legal representatives and support systems.
Strike pending for local youth services workers
By Mallory Clarkson/London Community News
August 9, 2012
More than 100 youth receiving mental health treatment and care from a local agency may go without if its employees take to the picket line later this month.
The approximately 120 Craigwood Youth Services employees have been without a contract for two years. After failed attempts to negotiate a new agreement with the employer, the workers — who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) — say they’ve hit a brick wall and are prepared to take action.
“We do not want to (strike), but it made it easy to walk away from the table … because the employer refused to take items off that were non-negotiable,” said Jonathan Guider, member of OPSEU’s bargaining committee.
The main points of contention for union members are the employer is asking for a zero per cent pay increase over four years and is attempting to negotiate against pay equity increases that were awarded to the workers about six years ago.
“We’re out pay equity money all the way back to 2006 and that’s one per cent added on each year,” Guider said. He clarified employees were supposed to see that increase in pay annually, but haven’t.
“They’re behind in their pay equity obligations and we’re not supposed to be bargaining it; it’s already an award.”
Guider argued that while recently the employer retroactively paid out past-due equity payments from 2008 to present, there’s still a couple of years owed to Craigwood’s employees. This would total around $4,000 for each worker.
As for zero-per-cent salary increases over four years, Guider said OPSEU members are both “upset and offended” with that offer.
“Our members were prepared to take two years of zeros — the wage freeze that’s being pushed on all of the public servants,” he said.
A four-year wage freeze, however, is out of the question.
Mick Chalmers, another OPSEU bargaining committee member, added the employees are already struggling financially.
“Some of the same excuses that he (the employer) gives us as to why he can’t afford to give us any sort of increase in pay is when he talks about how the agency’s cost of living continues to go up,” Chalmers said. “We’ve got 100 or so members who are facing the exact same increases every day and we’re struggling.”
Additionally, changes to the complaint process are also being tabled by the employer, but are considered non-negotiable items by the union.
Unless a “reasonable offer” is made during an upcoming mediation session on Aug. 15, Craigwood staff will be seen marching out front of the agency’s facilities, picket signs in hand.
The agency’s executive director, Lothar Liehmann, couldn’t be reached for comment.
http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/
Secret Ontario Place documents tell a story of success, not failure
By Bob Hepburn
Editorial Page
August 8, 2012
When the provincial government announced the sudden closure in February of Ontario Place, it portrayed the waterfront park as a money-losing disaster.
But, in fact, Ontario Place was not on the ropes.
Indeed, the Toronto waterfront park was well on its way to a dramatic turnaround, with overall attendance, revenues and visitor satisfaction up significantly in 2011, documents obtained by the Star indicate.
Surprisingly, though, the Ontario government cited only outdated statistics when it announced it was shutting down the park, arguing it was costing up to $20 million a year, was underutilized and was suffering huge declines in attendance.
The sharp discrepancy between what the McGuinty government told the public when it closed the park and the documents obtained by the Star raises serious questions about why Queen’s Park acted so quickly to close most of the park, including the water attractions and Cinesphere.
Why did Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and Tourism Minister Michael Chan make Ontario Place’s operations look worse than they really were?
Was it to clear the way for an eventual casino on the site?
In recent months, Duncan has been championing the idea of a “golden mile” of luxury shops and entertainment on Toronto’s waterfront and Paul Godfrey, chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., has called for a casino-resort near the lakefront.
Ontario Place employees and suppliers “were absolutely shocked and ambushed by the abrupt, unplanned and thinly defended closure of Ontario Place,” one top official with close knowledge of Ontario Place said.
“It should never have been closed. No reason for it. ‘Saving money’ is a red herring in the overall scheme of things.”
Last February when they announced the closure, Duncan and Chan said the province would save $20 million annually, that crowds has dropped from 3.2 million a year in the 1970s to barely 300,000 in 2010. They also suggested most of the facilities were obsolete. The closure resulted in the loss of 48 full-time jobs and 600 summer positions.
“Ontario Place has been a drain on the government treasury for many years . . . it’s no longer sustainable,” Chan said at a Queen’s Park news conference.
“The park does not draw enough people to its gates to keep it sustainable in its current form,” Duncan told reporters.
However, the documents obtained by the Star show Ontario Place attendance in 2011 actually rose 89 per cent over 2010 levels. They also show revenues from rides, ground admissions, concessions and retail sales and Cinesphere tickets also increased dramatically last year.
Importantly, the documents indicate the park was on track to operate at a break-even point by 2015 — just three years from now.
Also, they show that Ontario Place was about to enter the 2012 season with plans to drive attendance and revenues even higher, largely due to more than $10 million in improvements approved by Queen’s Park in areas such as the popular water park and Cinesphere.
By releasing mostly outdated statistics, the McGuinty government created the impression that Ontario Place was not turning around, but instead had flatlined.
A finance ministry official, who asked not to be named, said Wednesday that the 2011 statistics were not available when Duncan announced the closure. The official also provided data from the Ontario Place annual report that showed a $12.9 million net loss for the park in 2011, the highest in the last decade. Part of that loss, though, was due to major new spending on the water park and Cinesphere.
Here are some of the key points in the documents obtained by the Star:
First, total attendance in 2011 was 880,000, far above the 300,000 figure cited for 2010 by the government. The 2011 figure includes 563,000 for the park, 255,000 for concerts and 61,000 CNE “crossovers.” In fact, the highest single-day attendance record was set in 2011 on Canada Day when 40,916 people entered the park. In addition, Ontario Place officials had told provincial bureaucrats they fully expected attendance would rise to 1.1 million in the next year or two.
The government claimed 3.2 million people visited the park at its peak. However, those figures are highly questionable because they were based on vague “crowd estimates.” Accurate turnstile counting didn’t start until 2002, at which time attendance was measured at 1.2 million.
Second, instead of costing a total of $20 million a year as the government claims, the average 10- to 20-year operating deficit at Ontario Place was between $2 million and $3 million. That’s significantly less than the cost to Queen’s Park of other provincially supported public institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Ontario Art Gallery and the Ontario Science Centre.
For the coming year, Ontario Place revenues were expected to grow by 50 per cent and the deficit was expected to fall by 35 per cent. That would have put the park on a path to operate on a break-even basis by 2015.
Third, Queen’s Park approved more than $10 million in improvements to Ontario Place that were implemented barely a year ago. If it was so eager to improve the park not so long ago, why did it shut the entertainment venue so suddenly? Some $5 million was spent to expand the water park, including a huge new slide that not a single child has ever ridden down. The water park was projected to generate a $2-million profit.
As well, $2 million was spent last year to renovate Cinesphere with a new IMAX 3-D theatre. Attendance was up more than 80 per cent last year over 2010, with sellouts over the Christmas period.
Ontario Place management had extensive plans to attract new sponsors, more concerts and new attractions in 2013 and beyond, including having the park open earlier in the season and close later.
Overall, the documents show that 2011 was arguably the most successful for Ontario Place in many years.
And yet Queen’s Park never released this information when it announced the park closure, using 2010 figures to put a bad face on the park’s future.
“You’d never get away with that in the private sector,” the official said. “Are they trying to use ‘yesterday’s’ information to sell the public the idea that Ontario Place had to be pulled off life support, when more recent data suggest the patient was improving?”
So why was the McGuinty government so eager to close Ontario Place?
Did it want to clear the way for a casino? Or for luxury condos?
Two weeks ago, a government-appointed advisory panel led by John Tory, chair of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, tabled a report that called for parks, private residences and business on the Ontario Place site. It did not recommend a waterfront casino.
What is clear from these documents is that although Ontario Place may have been languishing, it wasn’t dead. Its pulse was improving — just before the government pulled the plug on it.
It’s time Queen’s Park came clean on all the information it has on Ontario Place.
And it’s time it told the public what it really has in store for Toronto’s waterfront.
OPSEU fights changes to pension plans
By: Arron Pickard – Sudbury Northern Life Staff
July 25, 2012