BNS looks to Latin America, China says Porter

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Rick Waugh and Brian Porter
The new president of the Bank of Nova Scotia, Brian Porter, is sticking with the bank’s South American strategy. Previous post. As Mr. Porter’s accession was announced today he told media that Scotiabank will check “its “existing footprint” in Latin America and Asia when looking for acquisitions. He takes over next November from Rich Waugh as BNS chief executive. Waugh has been Scotiabank’s leader for a decade and is a 43 year veteran of the bank. He has overseen the country’s most international bank with extensive operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Scotiabank has also been building operations in Asia. Earlier the year, the bank announced that a fund management joint venture with the Bank of Beijing received regulatory approval for a license to operate in China. 

Premier Kath ventures onto tricky ground

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Premier Wynne treads on tricky ground when she says she will intervene in the affairs of Toronto “if it’s necessary.” Most people will hope she was talking only for effect.  Because, as John Parker (Ward 26) said on CP24 today the affairs of the city are being discharged. There’s a problem in the mayor’s office, to be sure, but the Premier has her own problems to clear up, Mr. Parker suggested. This view of things goes to the reality that you don’t have to like Rob Ford, or his apparently hopeless judgement in his personal behaviour, to understand that he was elected by the people of Toronto. It must be left to the people of Toronto to get rid of him, if that is their decision. More than that, however scandalous and just plain wrong Ford may be, his dogged defense of saving money is just as popular as it has ever been. Too bad that the much more sauve Dalton McGuinty wasn’t as careful with public funds. It’s outrageous, but it makes the point when a local talking head says he would rather have Rob Ford on crack as mayor than David Miller sober.     

Canada’s economy has 2.5 percent Q1 growth

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Finance Minister Flaherty is talking like a minister who owns his portfolio. He says he intends to be the Minister of Finance now and later, even as expectation grows that the Prime Minister will shuffle the cabinet this summer. Flaherty has reason to brag as figures show Canada’s economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter, the fastest in more than a year. That was better than already optimistic private-sector estimates and the fastest in six quarters, according to Statistics Canada. Flaherty has also sent a scorching letter to Ontario finance Minister Charles Sousa telling him to forget about adding a percentage point to the provincial portion of the HST. That would take the total to 14 percent, something Flahrety is dead set against. Christina Blizzard. 

Microsoft brings back “Start” in Windows 8.1

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Microsoft is trying to fix what it got wrong with its radical makeover of Windows. It’s making the operating system easier to navigate and enabling users to set up the software so it starts in a more familiar format designed for personal computers. The revisions to Windows 8 will be released later this year. The free update, called Windows 8.1, represents Microsoft’s concessions to long-time customers taken aback by the dramatic changes to an operating system that had become a staple in households and offices around the world during the past 20 years. AP

Talbot tenants must fight in Winnipeg not Leaside

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A meeting of residents of the Talbot apartments on Bayview Ave. was held Wednesday night at St. Anselm’s Church. The meeting is said to have agreed that the  landlord, through his various agents, is totally unreasonable to ask all tenants to just clear out by August 31, 2013.  The tenants say there is every reason to do the renovations planned in a phased manner. No need for anyone to be thrown out. But will the Civil Service Superannuation Board of Manitoba see that what it is doing is in fact quite heartless? Elderly people expected to leave after as much as 40 years of their lives spent in this pleasant little enclave.  One woman is 90. We said in an earlier post that the CSSB had taken care to put lots of distance, legal and geographic,  between itself and the tenants of the Talbot apartments. But the power to change the CSSB’s high-handed approach lies solely with the members of the board’s investment committee. That’s why this battle should be fought in Winnipeg, not Leaside. The employees and pensioners of the Manitoba Government are, we daresay, decent people who know a heartless landlord when they see one.  Do they wish to have this thing done in their name? We doubt it. Then there is the Manitoba Legislature. Knowing people, we feel sure there are members of the Manitoba Opposition who might wish to ask during Question Period about the unreasonable behaviour of the CSSB. The government party in Manitoba is the NDP. The deputy minister of finance sits on the CSSB investment committee. (Shame). The Opposition is the Progressive Conservatives. Oh yes, call the Winnipeg Free Press too. 

Rogers kills City News Channel, 62 jobs lost

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It’s a stunning media story in what seems to be a world where any news channel is a good news channel. Rogers Communications Inc. is killing off City News Channel after 20 months of operation. Scott Moore, president of broadcast at the Rogers Media division, announced the decision to immediately shut down the channel on Thursday. City News Channel was thought by media watchers to be the signal that would challenge CTV’s CP24. For whatever reason, Rogers has no stomach for that competition.  In fact, Rogers handling of City News Channel has been odd from the start. It seemed an easy thing for Rogers to bundle the City signal into its package of news sources for which some customers pay good money, and thus deliver a more consistent audience to the service. But they did not. Instead, City News channel seemed to travel all over the dial almost as if Rogers wasn’t in control of where it landed. Short term, it is easy to see how Rogers will cut some costs.  Longer term, BTV and Citypulse at Six are going to have to watch their local flanks carefully.

Ford “blurted out” location of video says Star

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Robert Benzies and Kevin Donovan have written a brief story in the Toronto Star today (Thursday, May 30, 2013) saying that Mayor Ford told  aides “not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was.” Mr. Ford is then said  to have “blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units — 1701 and 1703 — at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago.”   

Search for body of man who tried to save dog

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Police on Humber Thursday morning
A tragically familiar tale is being played out on the Humber River this morning as police search for a young man who went into the swollen waters yesterday evening to try to resuce his dog. In the event, the animal, a Pug, rescued itself but the man has not been seen since. Today, search crews are on the Humber in inflatable Zodiac rescue boats poking around rocks and parts of the shoreline in a sad mission to find a body.  The search by Toronto firefighters and police officers was suspended because of darkness Wednesday night, almost four hours after the man, who is in his 20s, disappeared in the river near Lawrence Avenue West and Weston Road.

Don’t let the big bad Gridlock get us Premier Kath

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Every premier is a happy majority of one who can win any argument, especially when the NDP is right there to help him/her avoid an election. So it is, as reported by the Star, that Premier Kathleen Wynne is not backing off on raising taxes or fees to fund improved transit for the GTA and Hamilton. Right you are, Premier Kath. We like ’em strong in Ontario. Those who may wonder about the validity of all the no-brainer public opinion polls in which the electorate seems to really want networks of LRTs to everywhere are just bystanders at this stage. It’s a little like asking if someone wants free money. Or, “Hey buddy, want an LRT running up to your front door?” But we suppose that the research about “gridlock” is better than that, and that it can be shown that “gridlock” is going to get us. Locking us forever in its grid. How terrible. Or is it still true that life’s worst fears are seldom realized? 

Dr. Henry Morgantaler dead at age 90

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Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the man who helped overturn Canada’s abortion law 25 years ago, has died at his Toronto home. He was 90. Morgantaler’s long journey to legalize abortion may be seen on Wikipedia. But it may be said that his four court battles in Quebec and Ontario provided the foundation for legal abortion in Canada.  In particular, these trials resulted in jury acquittals for Morgantaler in defiance of the criminal law of the day and the direction of the courts. The decisions effectively undercut any legislation that sought to restrict abortion by showing that the law could not be enforced.