Depositors and stockholders at Scotiabank are looking at news stories about the bank’s “restructuring” costs and digital plans for what it all means  Scotia hinted at  the restructuring charge earlier setting aside money for bad loans apparently largely related to the energy (oil) sector. Profit for the quarter was down nearly 12 per cent compared to $1.80 billion of net income during the same period last year. After adjusting for the $278-million restructuring charge the bank’s second-quarter profit rose four per cent to $1.86 billion, or $1.46 per share. The president, Brian Porter, said loan losses in the energy sector are expected to decline next quarter. He says: “Customer behaviours and preferences continue to evolve, and Scotiabank is driving a digital transformation across all customer touch points in order to deliver a consistently excellent customer experience.” Touch points? Hope there are still a few left.

 

Any day police can return a stolen puppy to its 12-year-old owner is a good day. Let’s count this to be the case as Peel cops somehow tracked down a youth who snatched Junior, an American Bulldog, away from the lad as he and another boy played with their dogs in a park. Police are expected to have more to say about this Tuesday.

The broken subway car door which stayed open even after it had been reported to the train guard has cost a TTC employee his job, the transit union says. Bob Kinnear acknowledged that incident was very serious but he said management should release audio of the guard speaking with transit control to make sure no undue pressure was placed on the employee. Failure to lock the door shut led to an exciting and dangerous ride across the Don Valley with the door wide open. It happened as the eastbound subway train left Castle Frank Station. The ride was captured on video by rider Kamel Javed and is seen as the link below. Brad Ross of the TTC said there are mechanisms and protocols that must be followed to deal with doors. “Close, lock, isolate them and then barricade them,: said Ross.  See the thrilling Open Door ride

Appletree Farmers Market will set up this summer on Wednesdays in Trace Manes Park. The first will be Wednesday June 8, 2016 from 3 to 7 p.m. They will continue through to August 24, 2016. This market will complement several others locally as shown.

The hugely popular and very dangerous Cooper’s Hill Cheese Chase in Gloucestershire, England has been held, an annual event possibly rooted in pagan fertility beliefs. It is so dangerous it is banned — after a fashion. The chief constable always issues a warning that the foolhardy cheese chasers who tumble down the steep 3 in 1 hill do so at their own risk. There are always some injuries but nothing recently like the 1993 toll of 15 people to hospital. Since the early 1800s the game is to run or fall down the 200-feet course to capture a 9 pound round of Double Gloucester Cheese. The cheese roll is a  dangerous object at 110 km or so. The hill chase is said to have originated in pre-Christian chasing of firewood down the hill which was somehow related to  fertility. Who knows.

For the first time ever, women have placed one, two, three at the top of the Toronto Fire Service Academy’s graduating class. Here they are: Annemieke Struyk, Katherine Shirriff and Whytney Hooker in this late video from the CBC.

Leaside Volleyball 15U girls a have won the silver medal at the Penn State University tournament over the weekend. Great season ladies and welcome home.

Leaside 15u girls grab silver at #pennstate tournament. Great season ladies! #proudclub https://t.co/qIcDucwbD1

— Leaside Volleyball (@leasidevbc) May 30, 2016

This video was taken down. Previous: This trailer park-style confrontation in the parking lot of the Mississauga Costco at Dundas and Dixie has revealed again the dangerous underbelly of ordinary folks in hot weather. Or maybe all the time. The police have cautioned them all which is sensible.

Premier Wynne has made the formal apology which was expected Monday on behalf of the Ontario government to First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities for what she called the “brutalities” suffered at residential schools. “I apologize for the polices and practices supported by past Ontario governments and for the harm they caused,” she told the legislature as Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors looked on. “I apologize for the province’s silence in the face of abuses and deaths at residential schools. And I apologize for the fact that the residential schools are only one example of systemic, intergenerational injustices inflicted upon Indigenous communities throughout Canada.”

A plan to merge three ravine lots on Hudson Drive in Moore Park as the site of a new 6,000 square foot home will be heard before the Toronto and East York Committee of Adjustment (COA) June 15, 2016. The addresses are 157, 153 and 151 Hudson and are now held by a numbered company.  The new frontage will be more than 100 feet and according to drawings filed with the COA will feature a landscaped terrace or garden to the north side of the new property.

MPRA ADVISORS

Mail sent on Monday among residents in the north end of the neighborhood says that “development advisors” on the board of the Moore Park Residents Association are concerned that the development as proposed is not suitable for the neighborhood. It asks people to send their views to the MPRA in preparation for the June 17 meeting at Committee.  City link.

300 South African firefighters have arrived in Fort McMurray to help fight the wild fires that continue to rage. Here they are at Edmonton offering a chant and song of support.

Officials at the Cincinnati Zoo did the only thing they could think of to make sure that a toddler who had fallen into the gorilla pen would survive. The lad, 4, had somehow crawled through a fence which extended some ten feet above the pen of a 400-pound gorilla named Harambe. The big animal seized the boy like a kind of curiosity, holding him by the leg and standing him up but always hanging on. The child was terrified. The zoo explained that a tranquilizer was not a safe option. It does not work quickly and always causes a gorilla to have an angry reaction when struck by the dart. So they reluctantly shot the big animal.