The Moore Park Residents Association will hold its Annual General Meeting on Thursday April 12, 2012 beginning at 7 pm. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church at the corner of St Clair Ave. East and Clifton Road. The agenda is very full. An abiding matter is the state of the cremation equipment in Mt Pleasant Cemetery, located just north of Moore Ave and west of Mt. Pleasant Rd. The Cemetery has announced that it will install new a cleaner furnace and baffling equipment made by the leading manufacturer of such in equipment in Holland.  Another notable announcement is the decision by President Tim Costigan to step down from that job after more than four years of service. The will be filled by ballot at this meeting.  

Starting this month, Chai on Bayview will be open for dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Owner Lambert Moo will prepare a rotating menu of Grilled Salmon, Grilled Tilapia and a Thai Curry  of Chicken, Tofu and many vegetables served with rice and Bok Choy. 1575 Bayview (416) 932 0294 

A record number of Hungarian refugee claimants arrived at Pearson International Airport in September and October, with an unprecedented 91 asylum-seekers landing in a single day on Oct. 26, according to data obtained from the Canada Border Services Agency. The National Post reports that when Immigration Minister Jason. Kenney visited the airport last weekend, the answers to his first question were myriad: Canada is a safe, multicultural country. It has a quality health-care system and education is free. Economic opportunities abound. It is a “nice place to live.” Canada welcomes newcomers. It pays them welfare. And what of his question about the number of Hungarians who drop their claims? The process takes too long. Toronto’s bed-bug situation is insufferable. From Peter Rehak’s blog EYE on Central Europe. 

Those who participate in the Earth Hour switch-off of  electricity are enormously well-intentioned and may, indeed, see the future clearer than do we. Perhaps they anticipate how the practice of turning off power when you would normally be using it helps address global warming. Everybody understands turning off the lights and other electrical equipment when they’re not needed.  But as a vision of how we address global warming, Earth Hour, even as a purely symbolic act, raises questions. The population of the world is exploding. There are said to be 130 million babies born per year.  It’s easy to see what this means for electrical demand. Furthermore, this growth in population is fuelled by biological, religious and in some cases state imperatives.  The process is irreversible. Again, we don’t pretend to know much about the science of global warming.  Earth Hour may in fact achieve concrete psychological progress toward control of warming.  But we would be foolish not to understand that in the end, the world is not going to turn off the lights. Even as they sat in the darkness Saturday, many people will have been texting electrical messages to each other. Power demand is insidious. Our salvation, if it may be called that, lies perhaps in the work which is on-going to find cleaner and more efficient means of creating power.   

In  the 2010 municipal election, the tight race in Ward 26 saw Councillor Parker come up the middle between Jon Burnside and  Mohammed  Dhanani to win a plurality victory.  Both Burnside and Dhanani ran strong races and it might be said they split the opposition vote in a crowded field of candidates. Now, as Mayor Ford ponders Mr. Parker’s vote in favor of LRTs over subways, the mayor is hinting he might oppose Mr. Parker’s re-election in the balloting of 2014. The Toronto Star notes this in a story in which it calls Mr. Parker an “impeccably credentialed conservative”. In the 2010 election the Star endorsed Mr. Dhanani over Mr Parker. Mr. Parker beat Mr Burnside by merely 415 votes. In a footnote, it may surprise many Leaside residents to  know that Ford himself actually won Ward 26 by a paper thin margin of 50 votes out of some 16,594 cast.

It’s a journalism thing, for sure. “One-cent coin won’t come back like a bad penny” says the Edmonton Journal In Toronto the Metro Handout shouted “Penny Antics” (huh?) We could follow the sense of the CBC’s “Does getting rid of the penny make ‘cents’?”  The Winnipeg Free Press offered “Their two cents: Canadians share ample opinions on scrapping the penny”  Still out west “Budget pinches penny‎” says the Star Phoenix. The two cents strain runs strong along the east shore as well. “Your two cents’ worth is now worth nothing‎” opined the  Whig Standard. Very good gang.  Can we get in on the fun? How about “What’s it to you copper?” Or, “It costs us money, penny wise. And, yes, it’s laboured but “Penny just an unneeded ex-pence.” 

The federal government is getting out of the business of policing nutrition claims on food labels as part of cost-cutting at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The move, outlined in the budget, will help the agency cut $56.1 million from its overall budget by the next fiscal year. It will now be up to consumers to go to companies or industry associations “for resolution” if they suspect bogus health claims or exaggerated nutrition claims on food packaging. “The government will change how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency monitors and enforces non-health and non-safety food labelling regulations. The CFIA will introduce a web-based label verification tool that encourages consumers to bring validated concerns directly to companies and associations for resolution,” the budget document says.