The South Bayview Bulldog

Fears are growing that a power-hungry president Erdogan is taking advantage of public opinion against the recent coup attempt to cleanse the country of liberal-thinking officials in all capacities. The Turkish government Tuesday issued short notices that it had fired nearly 24,000 teachers and another 1,577 university deans. This concern arises in a fear for democracy in the once-secular land and a concern that many of those being purged make Turkey stronger against external attack. It seems obvious that none of these people knew anything about a coup. Would you have the courage to speak up for them in this atmosphere?

The new Canada Child Benefit payments begin this month. The government has posted a calculator online to let you estimate what you might get if you have small kids at home. Just make sure you have your 2015 or 2014 tax return handy because you need to enter your net income information, plus information from lines 117 and 125.

The LCBO is tweeting Tuesday that it will open an “Australian boutique store” in the SmartCentre liquor playground on Wicksteed Ave. next Friday, July 22, 2016. No worries mate.

R Hill and Markham fire crews have rescued a trapped man from Thornhill trench today. https://t.co/8en6yMiUoV pic.twitter.com/c9EKLP5ssR

— Marney Beck (@MarneyBeck) July 18, 2016

Twelve-thirty six has giggled about the peccadilloes of Adam Giambrone but it might have been wiser to warn Brooklynites about the monstrous St. Clair Ave. Berlin Wall for streetcars which is Mr. G’s signature act while in charge of the late unlamented Transit City.  Here’s what 12.36 said: “Adam Giambrone got Googled in NYC. “This is the ‘Canadian Anthony Weiner’ and he works for us now,” reads an online headline above a story about the one-time Toronto city councillor, who has been appointed to oversee the Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar line. “I didn’t handle the situation very well,” Giambrone told New York magazine about the couch scandal that scuttled his 2010 mayoral run. “I didn’t come out and tell the truth because it was difficult for me personally.” Good enough for page two!”

Millwood Road is fully open after crews repaired a gas leak at a home on Millwood at LeMay Rd. The leak occurred when workers misjudged the location of the line during renovations

Richard McLaren

Russia ran an elaborate system that both covered-up and encouraged athletes to use illegal drugs in the 2014 Olympics. The breathtaking dishonesty has been released in Toronto by University of Western Ontario scientist Richard McLaren on behalf of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. He tells of a rotten system that started at the top with the minister of sports and went down through elaborate deceptions about positive results. McLaren calls dope testing of Russian athletes the story of the amazing disappearing positive results. The minister was told of every positive result and his instructions to the lab were uniformly to report them as negatives, or non-use of drugs. The entire system was an invitation to Russian athletes to dope themselves at will. McLaren’s report says the Moscow laboratory operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes within a state-dictated failsafe system. Russia’s Ministry of Sport directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athlete’s test results.

Metrolinx has released a video on the pedestrian and auto restrictions to apply as they build the Laird station and its secondary entrance. We’ve cut to the essential information here but if you wish to see the whole video, click the YouTube logo.

All Ontarians will wish Premier Wynne good luck in eliminating the deficit in 2017. Today she noted that first quarter results for 2016 show the Ontario economy growing at an annualized rate of three per cent, the highest in Canada and all G7 countries. The member for Don Valley West said she is confident the province is on the road to eliminating  the current $5.7-billion deficit next year as promised. That is just the amount Ontario has been adding to the gross debt however and the plan for reducing that $300 billion millstone is an open question. The annual carrying charge on the debt is said to be $11 billion, twice the annual deficit. But, with the economy growing, the premier says she’s very encouraged by the momentum of Ontario’s growth, especially with so many uncertainties in the global economy.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis says his name is too long to fit on a bumper sticker when asked if he might be Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential choice. He could be a big hit on the Danforth however. Meanwhile last-minute preparations by journalists and convention workers are underway at Quicken Arena before the start of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Monday. On the eve of the U.S. presidential nominating conventions, three new surveys Sunday showed Clinton with a consistent advantage over Republican Donald Trump, even as American voters view both of them unfavorably. The edge for Clinton to become the first female U.S. president, ranged from four to seven percentage points over Trump.