The South Bayview Bulldog

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has announced what has to called a complicated series of reductions and increases in Ontario hydro rates. His best bet it seems from all of this is that homeowners will pay as much as $120 moire a year for power. This results largely from the Liberal government’s decision to eliminate the Clean Energy Benefit, which provided an average monthly reduction of $17 a month. “We are expecting (hydro) to go up less than $10 a month,” Mr. Chiarelli acknowledged to reporters after announcing two other moves to cut costs for customers, the elimination of a debt retirement charge and a new program to cut prices for low-income families.  Chiarelli said the proposed Ontario Electricity Support Program will slash the monthly electricity rate for a low-income family by $20 to $50 a month. Under the plan, a family of four with an annual income of less than $28,000 would be eligible for a $38 monthly ‎credit for a total of $456 per year. “It a shell game,” said Tory energy critic John Yakabuski.“No one is arguing that low-income families don’t need a break but what this government doesn’t understand is that the cost of electricity is becoming unaffordable for everyone,” Yakabuski said.

Loblaws has announced that its Joe Fresh brand will partner with Montreal-based Aldo Group to make a line of  women’s, men’s and kids’ footwear. The Joe Fresh ALDO products will appear in Loblaws in the spring of 2016.

The horrifying turn of events in the Germanwings air disaster has left airline authorities speechless. The president of Lufthansa, owner of the discount airline, said he was stunned by the idea that a co-pilot would purposely crash an aircraft full of passengers. Nonetheless, evidence from the cockpit recorder suggests this is exactly what happened. But there is nothing in the background of Andrea Lubitz, 28, to support this insane turn in his behaviour. It will no doubt be part of the investigation to learn as much about this young man’s psychiatric state as possible.

The French prosecutor in the Germanwings investigation is saying the co-pilot took deliberate action to send the aircraft into a descent. “At that moment, the co-pilot is controlling the plane by himself. While he is alone, the co-pilot presses the buttons of the flight monitoring system to put into action the descent of the plane. “This action on the altitude controls can only be deliberate.”  “The most plausible interpretation is that the co-pilot through a voluntary act had refused to open the cabin door to let the captain in. He pushed the button to trigger the aircraft to lose altitude. He operated this button for a reason we don’t know yet, but it appears that the reason was to destroy this plane.” BBC

Richard Quest

Richard Quest, the CNN correspondent, is speculating on the astonishing news of tonight that one pilot was locked outside the cockpit and unable to get an answer from his colleague still inside. He believes that the pilot inside suffered a medical emergency. Quest said that explanation seems more likely, although it does not exclude, the possibility that the pilot committed suicide with 150 people aboard the plane. As reported below, the cockpit voice recorder apparently reveals that one pilot left the cockpit for reasons unknown. This is not unusual. On his return, the pilot was unable to raise his associate inside or even get an answer. In the end, he is heard trying to break down the cockpit door. Quest comments on policy regarding a second person in the cockpit at all times. There was none in this case it seems. The medical emergency explanation would also lend itself to the normal flight behaviour of the aircraft until it crashed into a mountainside.

In a shocking revelation, recorder evidence shows that one of the pilots on the German Airbus A320 plane left the cockpit and was unable to return before the plane went down, killing everyone on board. The evidence was recovered from a cockpit voice recorder, as reported by the New York Times. “The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,” an unnamed investigator told the Times.“And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”“You can hear he is trying to smash the door down,” the investigator added. The reason for the pilot leaving the cockpit is not yet known.

Ontario will effectively establish two hydro rates at the beginning of next year — one for households earning $28,000 or less a year and one for everyone else. The cost of lowering the effective rate for those specified will be paid by the users in the upper tier at an average surcharge of 70 cents a month. This revelation was made Wednesday evening by CTV News which did not offer a source for the information. But the report was quite detailed. The plan will come into effect on January 1, 2016 CTV said. The number of households designated for the lower tier will receive a monthly decrease in their bill of $30 a month. According to CTV, the number of such families is judged by the government to be about 500,000. Monthly hydro charges vary throughout the South Bayview area but it is not uncommon for households to see bills of $450 to $500 a month. It’s estimated there may be as many as 5,000,000 households among the province’s 13,000,000 people.

Here’s an umbrella that will warn you when you are about to walk off without it. Sorry it’s so rainy.