A clerical employee at McEwan University in Edmonton took the word of an authoritive-looking email that said all payments to Clark Builders, a firm constructing a new building for the university, should be re-routed to a new bank account. As a result, the university is out nearly $12 million. The school didn’t realize what had happened until Clark called to ask why it hadn’t been paid. Of the $11.8 million diverted by this fraud, police say $11.4 million has been frozen in bank accounts in Hong Kong and Montreal although when and how it might be returned is unclear. It is a statement about carelessness, but also about the authority that we place in email. Accountants say it is unfair to pin the blame on low-level staff. Bank account changes, they are say, are unusual. They should be treated like a request to access your own bank account. Such changes should be sent right to the top of an organization. But it seems no such protocol was in place.

Petroleum analysts are predicting regular gasoline in Ontario will be priced at 132.9 cents/litre by Saturday morning because the shutdown of US oil refineries during impact of Hurricane Harvey. The punishing prices may last there months some experts predict. The storm has knocked out significant oil drilling and refining capacity in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, and on Wednesday, the largest U.S. oil refinery shut down. The operator of a major pipeline carrying fuel to the East Coast said it was running at a reduced rate.

CANADA-US ONE BIG MARKET

Although Canada has no shortage in gasoline, prices are established by a continental North American market. Petro-Canada will get the market price for gas shipped to the US and Canadians will pay inflated prices the same as Americans.  Listen to Dan McTeague of GasBuddy.com discuss Soaring Gas Prices on Newstalk 1010 http://fw.to/USUcrIb (recorded August 31, 2017).

300 RSVPed

The Guitar Guys

Everybody was there

Smokin’ Cigar at 1540 Bayview cebebrated 20 years in business Thursday night with a large turnout of customers to see what was new in fine cigars, and get some of their favorites. Owner Trae Zammit said he had recieved 300 RSVP to attend from patrons. The Guitar Guys string trio was playing for the entertainment of cusotmers and people passing by.

Share with rubber cones

Eastward on north side of St. Clair

Where am I?

Subway is down here somewhere

Slate Asset Management, owners of 2 St.Clair East (where the subway stops) are busy remaking the intersection. Work at 2 St. Clair and other (but not all) of the eight buildings owned by Slate has made the corner a barrel of fun. Signs suggest that a better day is on the way in 2018. Yonge-Delisle plan swings light onto Slate Asset ambitions

Randa Elyassir, 20

Parking lot

The sister and other relatives of Randa Elyassir, 32, are appealing to the public for help in finding the young woman, last sen as she left a fitness class on the afternoon of August 24 in York Region. From there, it seems as if she vanished from the parking lot of the Vellore Village Community Centre at Villa Royal Ave. and Weston Rd in Vaughan. York Regional police found her purse filled with personal belongings but Randa was nowhere to be seen. She has not contacted her sister, with whom she was close nor attended events she was said to be anticipating. York Regional Police are not saying what they think happened but they must face the prospect that the woman was abducted. She is described as Arab, five-feet, 10-inches tall and 160 pounds. She has tanned skin with a muscular build. Her hair is shoulder length, brown and wavy. She has brown eyes. Randa was last seen wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt, a light-coloured vest, and light-coloured pants. Anyone with information is urged to contact York Regional Police No. 4 District at 1-866-876-5423. Anonymous tips can be provided through Crime Stoppers

Narrow entrance and exit

Wildcats make cookies

Apple Fest coming

Riverdale and Pape

Idas Levato

Lauren Evans was commenting with more than a trace of sarcasm Thursday that it was a “great idea and not a fire hazard at all having everyone at Davisville Station enter and exit through one tiny staircase.” Upper right, this is the finished product of several chaotic posts at #Leaside by the Junior Wildcats related to the making of cookies. A good rescue for cookies is to lace ’em with chocolate. Great work ladies. Below that, a reminder from the Bayview Leaside BIA that Apple Fest is coming. It is scheduled this year for the weekend of September 30 and October 1. Lower left, here’s the totally unhaunted house at the corner of Riverdale and Pape Aves. which was the locale for the remake of Stephen King’s “It.” The scare fest will be in theatres next week. If you like this type of thing, Inside Toronto waxes on about the woo woo clowns and the Hollywood demolition of harmless dress up. Finally, the estimable Idas Levato was asking why it is she was required to go to Davisville Station to get her (16 to 19) daughter a Presto card. The TTC advisory says a kid can get it with the school photo ID but that was apparently refused and mom had to trek over with her daughter’s health card. Good question.

Labour Day Weekend events will excite the City and municipal staff are hoping no one will get too excited about the road closures and traffic that come with the activity. A news release describes the attractions and what they mean for getting around. Many look like a lot of fun. There’s Fan Expo Canada at the Metro Convention Centre, Buskerfest at Woodbine Park, the Labour Day Parade and Canadian International Air Show at the CNE and the start of Toronto Fashion Week in Yorkville.  What’s open in Toronto on Labour Day

Maëlys de Araujo

Wide search underway

Pont-de-Beauvoisin.

A man has been detained by French police as a huge search continues in eastern France for a 9-year-old child who vanished from the scene of a wedding at Pont-de-Beauvoisin.near Chambery. Maëlys de Araujo was last seen Wednesday at a children’s area of a reception hall. The are conflicting reports as to whether the 34-year-old who is said to be known to police was a wedding guest. He has given an inconsistent account of his whereabouts. Maëlys had gone to the wedding with her parents and elder sister as well as other members of her family. Some 180 guests tried to find her before police were called and a search began. Local police, search and rescue teams, divers and cavers have been searching the heavily wooded area but have so far failed to find a trace of her. Sniffer dogs lost the scent from Maëlys’s cuddly toy in a car park outside the wedding venue, AFP reported, suggesting that she could have been taken away by car. The search was continuing in driving rain on Thursday but a policeman told French TV that the prospect of finding anything was becoming less and less likely.

It is the chance of a lifetime to make fun of a woman who is the often aloof author of novels for the intelligentsia This would be Bennington Heights own Margaret Atwood. She has long ago left Bennington and now she, her husband Graeme Gibson and others like grocery store magnate Galen Weston Jr. are objecting to an eight-storey condo development that would apparently have balconies overlooking their Admiral Road backyards. Members of the anti-NIMBY warrior brigade are out in force joined this time by “shocked, shocked” members of Atwood’s own progressive issues elite. How could their darling be so, well, so not in my backyard. In fact it’s easy. We wish to defend the right of Atwood to resist the violation of the privacy of her backyard. Why should she not complain. It seems entirely reasonable. No one will starve because of it. We suspect eight storeys with  balconies in Bennington Heights would mean war and rightly so. Atwood out of touch with condo complaint Observers taken aback by Margaret Atwood condo development controversy in Toronto

Exceeding ridership projections

More seats than a streetcar?

Toronto Transit Commission says their new express bus routes have been more successful than anticipated. Of the five new express routes that were added in March 2016 —  185 Don Mills Rocket, 199 Finch Rocket, 188 Kipling South Rocket, 24E Victoria Park Express, and 186 Wilson Rocket — four have either met or exceeded their ridership goals, Mayor Tory said Tuesday. CBC

The driver of a car that slammed into a concrete utility pole at St. Clair Avenue East, east of Andrew Avenue last Saturday has died in hospital of his injuries. He was 33. The vehicle was a 2000 BMW 323i which for reasons unknown left the roadway in an unusual mid-morning occurrence.

Sarah Purves

Her work

An Apple/TTC collaboration

The razor takes a vacation

At the top of this Wednesday medley, Sarah Purves writes to the Leaside Community about her painting. Check link. Mid-right, Apple Music reaches into the Davisville Station to promote Tracks on Tracks with a concert this morning by Shawn Hook. Quite a secret event until it was over but you may choose to buy in. Below that, facial hair on Ward 22 member Josh Matlow with daughter Molly and the walking strawberry (who may deserve a better name). Compliments to all.