The South Bayview Bulldog

Jane Pitfield has told Kris Scheuer in the Town Crier that although she has been asked, she will not seek a candidacy in the forthcoming provincial election. This story also outlines Ms. Pitfield’s current business ventures.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has set a goal of unionizing the folks you deal with behind the postal counter in hundreds of Canadian drugstores, including Shoppers Drug Mart. According to CUPW, there are more than 2000 such counters across Canada and the number is growing. The “pharmacy post offices” have been part of Canada Post’s divestiture of bricks and mortar post offices. The union says that so far it has organized 211 employees in Montreal and Saskatoon at other pharmacies.

“City Council gives green light to Arena Expansion Project Great news! When City Council approved the 2011 Capital Budget on Thursday, they gave the official go-ahead to the arena expansion project at Leaside Gardens.
Thank you! This is a major milestone on the long road to our second rink and it’s a good time to pause and thank all those who have worked so hard on the project over the past decade, and particularly in the past eighteen months. Thanks to the members of the expansion committee and to our three primary partner associations – the LSC, LHA and TLGHA – who continue to work closely with us as we move towards the goal. I would like to single out Expansion Committee Chair Paul Mercer for keeping things on track, and Councillor John Parker for bringing people together at City Hall and clearing the road for approval.”

The Premier has declined to call another “full-scale” inquiry into G20 policing. There’s plenty of inquiring going on already, he said. It would be a treat if someone decided to launch a full scale inquiry into what the G20 demonstraters were all about. Why were people out there? Had habeas corpus been secretly repealed? Had Harper declared himself president for life? What were these demonstrations intended to protest? What was the purpose? At the time, semi-hysterical and self involved people were saying things like “It’s our right to protest” as if this explained why they were there. However while they may not have had to explain to the police why they were out there, the Court of Public Opinion does wish to know, and its judgement will be dismissive in the absence of a reasonable answer.

Yikes. People logging on all over North America to their Gmail accounts are finding instead a welcome page which Google displays to newcomers. The mail is gone. PC Magazine.

Local customers of HSBC will wish to watch the news from Britain tomorrow to see how much money Stuart Gulliver, the new chief executive of their bank, got by way of a bonus for his labours in 2010. Mark Kleinman writes in his blog that Mr Gulliver has been awarded a bonus of between £5m and £7m. That would be $8m to $10M Canadian. HSBC will report its results and you can judge whether the bonus (whatever it is) was justified