The South Bayview Bulldog

The City of Toronto has reached a tentative agreement with CUPE Local 79, which represents the City’s 21,000 active inside workers. Details of the agreement will be released once it is ratified by the Local 79 membership and subsequently approved by City Council. A new agreement with the City’s 4,200 active outside workers, represented by Toronto Civic Employees’ Union Local 416 (CUPE), was approved by City Council on February 29. City services and programs continue as usual. This news release is also available on the City’s website: http://bit.ly/1QtK9RZ

DAYCARE, CITY ARENAS

A settlement pending ratification will ensure continued operation of municipal daycare and other community services, such as arenas and community centres. Leaside Garden for example will see business as usual because of a settlement.

THESE ARE “GOOD JOBS”

Mayor Tory had spoken Wednesday about the negotiations and did not seem hopeful. Nonetheless, many others felt that the union’s ongoing complaint about what seemed like incidental issues was not sustainable. This was underlined by the recent agreement with Local 79’s sister local (416) representing outside workers. In the end, Tory’s assertion that City jobs are good jobs must surely have resonated with the many clerical and maintenance employees who would have plainly been hurt by a strike.

A baby western lowland gorilla is doing well after being born in an extremely rare C-section operation at the Bristol Zoo in the United Kingdom. The job was done by a renowned local gynecologist Dr. David Cahill. Cahill is interviewed by CNN’s Jeanne Moos at home after his challenging task. The 11-day-old infant, a girl, weighed only 2lbs 10oz at birth and initially needed help, including mouth-to-mouth, to breathe on her own. Currently the young, yet-unnamed gorilla is being hand-reared round the clock by a small team of gorilla keepers.

Former Mayor Rob Ford is in Mt. Sinai Hospital in what family members and doctors agree is a fateful battle with cancer. The former mayor has had surgery for the rare soft-tissue cancer discovered during 2014 and although he always been determined to recover there is a shadow over the former chief magistrate.

NO RAILWAYS, HIGHWAYS?

Quebec has said it will launch a legal battle against the Energy East Pipeline, a conduit intended to make Canada energy independent from foreign oil.  Executives of TransCanda Corporation said they are taken aback by the new opposition to this national project. Some observers have said that if prevailing notions about pipelines had applied in earlier times to railways and highways, Canada would remain a largely unpopulated wilderness.

Torstar Corp. has reported another staggering multimillion loss for the fourth quarter of 2015, normally a period when a company should make at least some money.  Analysts expecting a small profit per share got instead another loss. The company posted the surprise loss due in part to the Star’s slumping print ad sales. This is a story that has dragged on through several years and has seen the paper’s share price plummet. It ended trading Wednesday at $1.94, down more than five dollars since the beginning of the 2015.  Some analysts think the day that the Star converts to a full digital tablet publication cannot be long-delayed. That’s what happened to Montreal’s La Presse, another icon of print news. It converted to tablet-only format and claims to be doing well. The Star has a similar  tablet, Star Touch, based on the La Presse model and is investing heavily in it.  But the hemorrhaging cash cannot be ignored forever. Today Torstar said it had written down its newspapers’ value by more than $200 million, contributing to a net loss of $233.4 million, or $2.90 per share, from continuing operations, compared with a year-earlier profit of $20.9 million, or 26 cents a share. Revenue fell an amazing 8.4 percent to $213.7 million.

Gord Martineau has retired from CityNews after nearly 40 years as the anchor of the 6 p.m. news on the station which became the jewel in the crown of CHUM Broadcasting. Martineau and his co-host Anne Mroczkowski became a powerful television team for the then CityPulse at Six which advanced and sustained the CHUM franchise for years. CHUM was broken up when the heirs to its founder, Allan Waters, decided to sell off the assets after Waters death in 2005. Mrcozkowski was released from City by owners, Rogers Communications, about five years ago. It appears from online writings that Rogers also made the decision to retire for Martineau. Such endings are common in the television industry.  “Gord is one of the most beloved anchors in the country,” said Dave Budge, General Manager of CityNews Toronto. “Gord has been a trusted face invited into the homes of our viewers for the past four decades and a leader in the vision of City.”  The television station said that CityNews would recall Martineau’s career this week during the evening and late night newscasts “reflecting on his most memorable moments, ground-breaking interviews, and heartfelt moments from the past four decades”.

Andrea Christidis

Jared DeJong, 25  of London pleaded guilty Wednesday to the traffic death of Leaside High grad Andrea Christidis, 18, last October 7 as she walked home on the campus at the University of Western Ontario. An agreed statement of facts revealed that DeJong, who was not a Western student, was on campus drinking with friends at the campus pub for three or four hours. Evidence showed DeJong had an over 80 mg reading of alcohol in his blood. when his vehicle mounted a sidewalk and killed Ms Christidis. Witnesses said road conditions at the time were “perfect” and that DeJong’s vehicle was seen travelling very fast and at one point cut in front of a public transit bus. Video from the bus showed DeJong driving on the wrong side of the road. The car went through two intersections without stopping, causing other drivers had to try to avoid it., It then jumped a curb and struck Ms. Christidis, throwing her 10 metres. She died in hospital two days later. He will be sentenced April 28, 2016

The grid is from the City’s new snow plow locator website if you want check for yourself. The mid-morning picture outside Bonnie Byford Real Estate on Bayview Ave. shows a lot of work has been done but it is very messy to cross without snow boots.

Rexall (known for decades as Pharma Plus) will sell its 470 drugstores to the U.S. health-services company McKesson Corp for about $3 billion. Rexall is owned by Calgary-based Katz Group, which describes itself as one of Canada’s largest privately owned enterprises. Daryl Katz, Katz Group founder and chairman, is also owner and governor of the Edmonton Oilers. Rexall said McKesson will continue to operate the stores under the names Rexall and Pharma Plus in Canada. The sale is expected to close in the first half of 2016 and require regulatory and shareholder approval including the Competition Bureau and the Investment Canada Act. McKesson has a long history in Canada providing medicine, health-care supplies and information technology to other companies in the health-care arena. In a release, the two companies said Rexall and McKesson have already been working together for 20 years. There are Rexall stores in South Bayview in the Sunnybrook Plaza, at 320 Moore Ave and on Mt. Pleasant Rd.north of Briton House.  Rexall cuts back on dispensing staff in South Bayview 

A poll by the American Auotomobile Associatin (AAA) has found that 75% of some 1,800 drivers asked said  they would not feel safe in a driverless vehicle. But it’s worth noting, AAA says, that 60% said they would like access to some kind of self-driving feature, like self-parking, lane departure warnings, adaptive cruise control, and other options the next time they buy a new car.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has voted to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, from 18 to 21. The vote comes after New York City, Boston, and Hawaii passed similar laws. The Board of Supervisors vote was unanimous, and the law is expected to go into effect in June. In Ontario the minimum age to buy tobacco is 19. San Francisco will be three years more stringent than the state of  California where 18 remains the legal age. The effectiveness of such limits is unknown but it certainly seems likely to slow down the smoking habit which is often formed before the age of 19. It is impossible to stop some kids from smoking but this law makes it more difficult for them to begin.

It is a jaw dropping accident even from China, where there seem to be some incredibly bizarre accidents involving children. Watch as the back of a family van opens on a highway in Suzhou and a child rolls out onto the road.

Good morning. Sorry about the mess but as this photo taken in Moore Park reveals it has a beauty to it. We can only imagine how fine it would be to slide down the hills at Talbot Park this morning. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

9.4 OFFICIAL

SCHOOLS TALK BACK TO COMPLAINERS

The poor conditions on the roads prompted school bus cancellations across the GTA, including Toronto, Peel and York regions. The CBC is carrying an amusing story about how some school boards are using Twitter to talk back to grumbling kids who want the day off. In some areas, classes are being held, as they are here, but buses are cancelled. It is a cold cleanup and it will be colder as temperatures drop to as low as minus 14 or lower tonight. But next week,beginning Saturday, will be much warmer. Weather Network

Lovely evening shot of the Leaside Bridge from Don Valley trails