What`s Behind the Curtain?
Ontario
2008-10
Daily Online Edition
ON Economic Fundamentals 2008-10
1008ONTR = Oct 2008 Ontario
1008TNTO = Oct 2008 Toronto
1008MSGA = Oct 2008 Mississauga
1008LNDN = Oct 2008 London
1008WIND = Oct 2008 Windsor
1008CATH = Oct 2008 St. Catherines
o:#2f4f4f-->1008BTFD = Oct 2008 Brantford
1008BAOR = Oct 2008 Barrie/Orillia
1008OTWA = Oct 2008 Ottawa
1008HAMN = Oct 2008 Hamilton
1008KWCG = Oct 2008 Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph
1008DAJX = Oct 2008 Durham - Ajax
1008DBRK= Oct 2008 Durham - Brock
1008DCLR = Oct 2008 Durham - Clarington
1008DOSH = Oct 2008 Durham - Oshawa
1008DPIK = Oct 2008 Durham - Pickering
1008DSCG = Oct 2008 Durham - Scugog
1008DUXB--> = Oct 2008 Durham - Uxbridge
1008DWTB = Oct 2008 Durham - Whitby
1008YAUR = Oct 2008 York - Aurora
1008YEGM = Oct 2008 York – East Gwillimbury
1008YGEO = Oct 2008 York - Georgina
1008YKNG = Oct 2008 York - King
1008YMAR = Oct 2008 York - Markham
1008YNEW = Oct 2008 York - Newmarket
1008YRHL = Oct 2008 York – Richmond Hill
1008YTHL = Oct 2008 York - Thornhill
1008YVGN = Oct 2008 York - Vaughn
1008YWSF ->= Oct 2008 York – (Whitchurch – Stouffville)
If you wish to view only one area, you can use the advanced search mode and select the "Result Type" > "Show results as posts".
I have also color coded each area along with the caption to make it easier for you to simply scroll through the posts and locate the ones you are interested in.
All the small towns that have online newspapers are covered on Sundays.
York Region`s Viva bus drivers are heading back to the bargaining table today just as Mississauga Transit workers are preparing to vote tomorrow on a tentative contract.
The 900 Mississauga workers, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1572, have traditionally been the highest paid transit employees in the GTA.
No details were being released pending tomorrow`s ratification vote, said financial secretary treasurer Nicholas Bye.
GODERICH -- One of Huron County`s oldest and largest manufacturers is shutting down, throwing 500 people out of work in a region already hammered by plant closures and layoffs. Volvo Construction Equipment announced yesterday it is closing its Goderich road grader manufacturing operation, formerly known as Champion Road Machinery, by 2010 and moving it to Shippensburg, Penn.
A tightening of mortgage rules and higher interest rates, sparked by the U.S. credit crisis, may cost some Windsorites their homes and limit credit to only the best clients, say agents for two local mortgage companies.
With many large U.S. lenders failing, already bankrupt or awaiting a federal bailout, the credit crunch is slowly having an impact in Canada and particularly in Windsor.
1008HAMN City studies ways to revitalize Gore Park
Twenty-five years after the legendary Gore Park fiasco, Hamilton is going to look at another revamp of the city centre gathering place.
The public works department is beginning a new Gore Master Plan Study to revitalize the area after bus transfer stops now on the south leg of King Street are moved to a new transit terminal on MacNab Street South.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger and city staff have less than a month to convince council the city needs light rail.
Then the focus will turn to persuading transportation agency Metrolinx to fund it.
A Metrolinx draft plan last month shortlisted an east-west rapid transit line from Centennial Parkway to McMaster University for funding -- but it didn`t specify whether it would be a rail or bus line.
1008KWCG Growth strategy calls for fewer detached homes
WATERLOO REGION
Our future includes better transit, fewer detached homes and a countryside line to restrain urban growth.
So says the latest official plan for the region, proposed yesterday by regional council. The growth blueprint, three years in the making, will guide land use until 2029, with periodic reviews. That`s when the population is forecast to reach 712,000, up from 516,000 today.
The plan enshrines provincial legislation requiring this region to become more compact.
All growth in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and four townships must conform.
1008DBRK Taxes, development at top of Skinner`s platform
Randy Skinner is running in the municipal by-election for one reason -- to serve the people of Ward 2.
The longtime Beaverton resident and business owner doesn`t plan on taking shots at the three other candidates -- former mayor Keith Shier and former councillors Karen Windatt and Rossie Baillie -- and admires their service to the community.
Instead, he sees the two-year term for the winner of the by-election as an opportunity to dip his toe in political waters. "I`m not running because I don`t like the other candidates," he said in an interview last week.
1008YRHL Long Viva bus strike expected as talks stall
Commuters are being warned to brace for an indefinite extension of the week-long Viva bus strike in York Region.
Talks broke off again yesterday shortly after the union and Veolia Transport, the company that runs the rapid-transit bus routes, returned to the bargaining table.
"It`s been confirmed this will be a lengthy work stoppage. I don`t see an end to it," said union president Bob Kinnear, less than three hours after the two sides met with a provincial mediator in Richmond Hill.
The aging, money-losing Niagara District Airport is willing to drop its request for $500,000 annually from regional taxpayers to pursue a federal-provincial grant.
The catch: a third of the $13-million infrastructure grant up for grabs would have to come from local government.
"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity," said airport vice-chairman Ruedi Suter.
"With this (grant), we could improve our sustainability to the point where we wouldn`t need annual regional funding."
The hoped-for grant would come from the Building Canada Fund, which requires a one-third contribution from each level of government.
1008CATH Seventh Street land`s unique journey: from peaches, to autoplex, to vineyard
Nearly two decades after a development proposal for a peach orchard ignited what would become one of St. Catharines` first greenbelt fights, the owners of the disputed land have returned it to farming.
A 16-acre site of what was once simultaneously called both prime agricultural land and an inevitable development site, is now growing three varieties of wine grapes.
"It`s an excellent vineyard, very productive and good quality grapes," said west St. Catharines farmer Doug Whitty, who was approached in the late 1990s by John Mann, owner of the land at the northeast intersection of Seventh Street and the QEW.
Whitty, who was already a grape grower, said after both of Mann`s development proposals for the site failed, Mann asked him if he`d be willing to plant and manage a vineyard for him.
Builder Mike Quattrociocchi, under fire again as he starts work on the second phase of a controversial housing project on Grand River Avenue, said he`s upset about misinformation being spread about his work.
Quattrociocchi was referring to a letter to the editor in Wednesday`s Expositor accusing him of dumping soil and concrete from his development in a public park.
"What about those of us who use the park," asked letter writer Ruth Lowe.
"Do our tax dollars count for nothing?"
Quattrociocchi insists he isn`t dumping material from his 20- unit housing project in Shallow Creek Park, but -- with the owner`s permission -- on private property on Alfred Street overlooking the park.
The area`s re-sale housing market boomed in September says the head of the local real estate association.
There were 209 sales last month representing a 20.1 per cent increase over September 2007 and a total dollar value of $47,230,650, Stewart Anderson, president of the Brantford Regional Real Estate Association, said in a prepared statement.
New listings were up 15.5 per with 1,113 active listing currently on the market, he said.
1008ONTR Ontario needs $11.8 billion in federal cash: McGuinty
TORONTO - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty pegged his long-running request for more federal funding at $11.8 billion yesterday, the first time he has attached a dollar figure to his nearly four-year-old campaign for greater "fiscal fairness."
Mr. McGuinty adopted the number from a grim report issued by TD Economics earlier this week, he said. The report predicts Ontario could lose a staggering 250,000 manufacturing jobs in the next five years.
1008OTWA Neighbours, council fear turbine could provide more than energy
Councillors on a committee that handles minor bylaw exceptions struggled for two hours yesterday to figure out what a backyard wind turbine has in common with tall flag poles and noisy air conditioners.
And then, after six months and more than $5,000 worth of research and paperwork, Island Park resident Graham Findlay learned he had to wait at least one more day to find out whether he can erect a small turbine on his Iona Street property, the first application of its kind in Ottawa.
Mayor Doug Craig supports a rapid transit but he wonders if he`ll see modern streetcars running down Hespeler Road in his lifetime.
He`s dismayed at the progress of a $2-million rapid-transit study by Waterloo Region.
The study is looking for the best route for a system of electric trains that would run from Cambridge to St. Jacobs and link the downtown cores of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo.
Residents of a little side street off Franklin Boulevard don`t want six townhouses and a single-family home squeezed into a corner of their quiet neighbourhood.
Richard Padereski wants to rezone a vacant site and a property with an existing house to allow the townhouses and a new, single-family house at Liberty Drive and Franklin.
The townhouses would face Franklin but have a common rear driveway onto Liberty, said Padereski`s planner Jim Collishaw.
The proposed $30-million Oak Ridges Community Centre is being trumpeted as an architectural beauty, which will complement and partner with the area`s most serene natural settings.
The facility, designed by Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners Architects, breaks the mold of ordinary institutional buildings where people gather to enjoy leisure and sports activities, its designers said this week.
Artist`s renditions were unveiled for the town`s steering committee Monday afternoon for the centre, which may be built in an undeveloped field between Bayview Avenue and Helena Jaczek Park.
Toronto officially entered the race to host the 2015 Pan American Games yesterday, attempting to overcome a habit of losing out on premiere world events by launching a bid expected to cost at least $1.7-billion.
Athletes, members of sporting federations, mayors and politicians from around the region assembled at an Exhibition Place gala to cheer on the team charged with securing the event, which could generate $2-billion in economic spinoffs for the region and leave behind a legacy of more than $1-billion in sporting infrastructure.
Despite all the economic doom and gloom, it was the best September ever for homes sales in the London area.
The London-St. Thomas Association of Realtors said 769 homes changed hands, up 19 per cent from the same month last year and a sales record for the month of September. "People have confidence in our local economy and they see our housing prices as a good, long-term investment," said association president Bruce Sworik.
