Globe and Mail 

An Ottawa courtroom will be packed today (Tuesday, April 7, 2015) as the criminal trial of suspended Conservative senator Mike Duffy gets underway. The judge-alone trial will give Duffy a chance to clear his name on 31 charges related to the Senate expense scandal, including bribery, fraud and breach of trust. A key question is whether Duffy’s primary residence was in P.E.I. or in Ottawa while he was a sitting senator.  Senators from outside Ottawa can claim up to 22-thousand dollars a year to cover living expenses. Duffy has denied any wrongdoing concerning his Senate expenses, and a $90,000 cheque written by Prime Minister Harper’s former chief of staff to pay those expenses. Many legal minds have said they don’t see how the giving of this money could be construed as a bribe, as the Crown alleges. It will be interesting to see. There is much discussion of a what might come out at the trial that would impact the forthcoming election. The trial is scheduled to last at least 40 days.

A family of four from Delaware is back home after their villa in the U.S Virgin Island was apparently fumigated while they were in the building by the Terminix firm. The chemical used was  a deadly agent, methyl bromide, something that would never be used for such a purpose.  According to reports, the teenage boys, ages 16 and 14 are in comas, in critical condition at a Philadelphia hospital after suffering seizures. Their father is conscious, but cannot move, and their mother has been released. Methyl Bromide is used in farming and insect control in the U.S. and is a highly restricted substance, but is not illegal. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, high exposure to humans can cause central nervous system and respiratory failure.

A harrowing experience like that of a three-year-old girl at the St. Clair West subway station Monday can usually be avoided by showing care when at the bottom or top of an escalator. This is where the steps disappear and loop back under the mechanism. They pass through the teeth of a finely-calibrated guard called a comb. It is closely machined but it isn’t perfect. You can see what they look like in the photos. The damaged shoe shown in the upper photo was caught when it slammed into a comb. If the rider had stepped over the comb, as is advised, the accident would not have happened. Low-hanging clothing is a peril as well. This appears to be how a Montreal woman died last year. It began when the fringe of her long-hanging scarf slipped into the comb. Children don’t know any better and must be watched. They frequently sit down on the lifts, creating a lot of opportunity for clothing to be trapped. Pictures taken by Arda Zakarian of CP24 show the site of the child’s entrapment at the St.Clair West station. There is a lot of chewed up and damaged clothing but it had to start with one little piece. The CBC report says the child was sitting on the steps and her sleeves finally slipped into the comb at the bottom. Earlier reports said the little girl’s hand had been trapped but this was not the case. An alert citizen turned off the escalator and for that act deserves recognition.

The intersection of Spadina Avenue and College Street is a mess, just the latest in the enormous cost paid by the people of Toronto for the inconvenient streetcar dream that the City has indulged for decades. The question superimposed on the picture above can be heard echoing through homes, offices, on the street, Twitter and no doubt on the pillow before drifting off. Why? The most obvious reason is that we own the streetcars. But why do we own streetcars? Who can begrudge those with nostalgia for our past? We do not.  But we are living with a kind of madness on the streets that surely must come to an end as soon as possible.

New green bins are said by the City to be on the way and they are supposed to be racoon-proof. We will believe that when we see it. But if that’s true, the question that comes to mind is a bit puckish perhaps, but are hungry racoons dangerous? There are thousands of them you know. Let’s hope they don’t decide to join ISIS. We say this in jest but it is no joke that the real problem is the pampered Racoon Nation, not the bins. Toronto Sun 

St. John’s radio station VOCM is saying that a man was shot to death when he produced a gun while members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) were investigating threats against Premier Paul Davis. The station says that at least one member of the RNC went to the home of the 59-year-old man in the community of Mitchells Brook on Sunday. There had been what is called a perceived threat via social media. VOCM was told that the officer was only inside the home for a few minutes when the man he was questioning drew a shotgun. That’s when the officer fired his weapon. It does not appear that the victim fired his gun at any point during the incident. The officer was not injured.

The annual Beaches Lions Club Easter Parade has once again provided an enjoyable community afternoon for the east end neighborhood. One of the highlights was a procession of four TTC streetcars from across the decades. The cars, a PCC car from the 30s and 40s, a Witt company car from the 20s, a Bombardier car of the 1980s and the newest Bombardier car, are seen in this order emerging from the Neville Park loop

Barrie McKenna writes in the Globe and Mail that Ontario taxpayers should be very wary of the government’s plan to sell off Hydro One. His analysis of all-party manipulation over 20 years (he calls it meddling) of the electric production and distribution system suggests we have one of the most bloated such bureaucracies on the continent. The comments that follow such columns are often lively. One writer says of the  Wynne government “Traitorous, criminal, shameful, monumentally shortsighted, destructive and breathtakingly dumb.” Globe and Mail