A Montreal area woman has been given a $219 fine because she was unable to pay the fare for herself and her 2-year-old son with exact change. Pauline Tantost, 24, had been at Montreal Children’s Hospital with the toddler, who was suffering an infection. It was 10 p.m. She offered the bus driver a $5 bill for the $3 fare but he refused it. Ms Tantost sat down on the bus but within a few minutes two inspectors from the transit company, Société de transport de Montreal (STM) boarded the bus and in what other passengers call a targeting of the young mother gave her a ticket for $219.  Montreal media were pointing out this weekend that more than a week after the incident the STM had not interviewed the bus driver involved in the matter. Now they have promised to look into the case.

A 44-year-old man has had his leg severed by shrapnel flying more than 1,000 feet from an implosion site in Bakersfield, California Saturday morning. Some sources say the man may lose both legs. Four other spectators were also injured as a happy crowd gathered at 6 a.m. to watch the demolition of two towers of an old steam power plant belonging to Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Those injuries seem be relatively minor, such as cuts and scrapes to the legs. The demolition workers had established the perimeter using what seemed like accepted margins of safety but in fact the spectators, who were standing where they were permitted, were all in danger of injury. It was luck that there was not more shrapnel like the nasty piece of metal-like junk held in the picture at the right

The New York Fries Poutinerie now being installed at the east end of the Sunnybrook Plaza is about 300 feet from the doors of Leaside High School across Eglinton Ave. E. Let there be chips, gravy and cheese curds for Grade 9, we say. It is their right. And Grades 10 and 11.  Oh all right, Grade 12 and (Principal) Jeannette Plonka too. And vice principals Andrea Parise and Paul Wragget.  Eat hearty, gang. NYF owners South Burger Co. are counting on you. 

Only one of the five winners of Thursday night’s byelections won a true majority. It was Percy Hatfield the union stalwart who seized the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh for the NDP. Hatfield racked up 15,693 votes or 61.1% of the vote. The six other candidates combined didn’t match half his mandate. But elsewhere the election night winners prevailed by gaining a plurality of the ballots cast and automatically invoking the “first past the post” rule of Canadian elections. When people talk of a democratic deficit it’s usually some twaddle about why an obscure interest group can’t get elected.  The real democratic deficit occurs it would seem when a multiplicity of candidates makes it impossible for a voter to act strategically to express his/her will. That’s where the so-called ranked ballots concept applies. It permits voters to pick a first choice and second choice. If the first choice of voters doesn’t produce a majority winner, there is an instant runoff to choose one. Of course there is no way of knowing where second place votes will go and such runoffs will frequently strengthen the position of the plurality winner. The current byelection that jumps out in this context is Scarborough-Guildwood where Ms. Hunter finished 1246 votes ahead of the PC candidate Ken Kirupa. But Kirupa and the third-place NDP candidate Adam Giambone had an aggregate of more than 14,600 votes compared to Ms. Hunter’s 8852. Similarly in Ottawa South, the PC and NDP candidates out-polled the Liberal John Fraser by 3726 votes. All of this is fun to contemplate as the government finds comfort in its two retained seats.  The link takes you to a post about the prospect of ranked ballots being in place for the 2018 Toronto general election   Previous posts

Both Premier Wynne and her Scarborough Guildwood star-in-the-making Mitzie Hunter were expressing a lot of regret as they spoke on the byelection outcomes Thursday. Wynne acknowledged that people are right to be angry about the gas plant scandal and the punishing cost of the Liberal political expediency.  People were angry and they had a right to be, she suggested. “I entirely get that,” she declared.  The Premier called the outcomes a “verdict on the recent past”.  She said  “I have heard it and I accept it. The next election will be about the future. That’s what we’re working toward.”  Wynne condemned the political management of the controversial cancellation of two gas plants as “heavy handed” and “secretive.” “Correcting the mistake that was made in the first place cost more money than it should have, and as a member of the government that made those decisions, I could not be more sorry about that, and I mean that,” she said. “I absolutely mean that.”  Ms. Hunter, who held the east Toronto riding for the Liberals apparently on the strength of her personality, said she understood that the loss of three of the five seats represented a message from voters that they were not happy with the performance of the government. “They deserve better,” she said.