Sometimes you have to be hit between the eyes with a two by four

Some topics that appear on the newscasts ad nauseum are just not newsworthy after the second or third time. The CBC which has made a swine flu news item mandatory for each night for the past six months is a good example of that. BUT yesterday's news about the 13 year old youth who died in his father's arms was certainly the shocker that brought us all to believe that this swine flu is serious stuff for anybody with undeveloped immune systems. There is no excuse now we know that this virus can kill and kill fast.

So Get Out and Get Jabbed

Scheduled H1N1 Flu Clinics in the County

The following clinics have been scheduled in Northumberland County for people in the first phase considered to be the most at risk of developing complications from H1N1 virus.

Cobourg - Thursday, October 29 - 1 to 6 pm at the Cobourg Lion's Centre on Elgin Street

Port Hope – Friday, November 6 – noon to 6 pm at the Town Park Recreation Centre (62 McCaul St.) in Port Hope.

Campbellford – Saturday, November 7 – 10 am to 4 pm at St. John’s United Church (50 Bridge St.) in Campbellford.

Brighton– Wednesday, November 11 – noon to 6 pm at the King Edward Park Community Centre (75 Elizabeth St.).

Cobourg – Friday, November 13 – 10 am to 4 pm at the Cobourg Lion’s Centre (157 Elgin St.).

Port Hope - Saturday, November 21 - 10 am to 5 pm at the Town Park Recreation Complex (62 McCaul St.) in Port Hope.

Campbellford – Wednesday, November 25 – noon to 7 pm at St. John’s United Church (50 Bridge St.) in Campbellford.

Port Hope – Friday, November 27 – 10 am to 6 pm at the Town Park Recreation Complex (62 McCaul St.) in Port Hope.

People are asked to bring their Ontario Health Card and driver's license.

I can't believe I missed this!

A ritual was disturbed this week. The Cobourg Council agenda was late being published and due to a hectic week the website was not rechecked so the items on the agenda never made it to the commenting stage on Sunday. However seeing another outlet reporting that Cobourg Council had voted to abolish paper voting, this morning, certainly forced me to visit the agenda.

So the topic is now "paperless voting" and will it increase participation in the next election? The voting practice will be:

• each voter will receive, if they are on the voters' list, a PIN number.
• PIN numbers will only register once during the voting procedure
  
• the voting period will be extended as voting day will not be voting day but "cutoff" day
• Although there will be an audit trail, all hits will be registered, there will be no paper trail
• recounts will become redundant, after all who can question a machine

What this will do, which may or may not be beneficial according to your point of view, is to lead to the disenfranchisement of those people who refuse to use computers (and there are still many of them). It also may lead to unscrupulous practices. For example: if the PIN numbers are being mailed out - mail theft of PIN numbers in large and unsecure mail spots (some apartment buildings), Make last minute canvassing by candidates absolutely redundant. The fastest way to get rid of a candidate is to tell them that the household has already voted, "And Yes I did vote for you!!" Finally a savvy candidate with a smart-phone will be able to capture a disinterested household vote by offering to vote for them on the doorstep.

But the biggest omission here is the acceptance of "transparency" by not appointing an "Audit Committee" to oversee the vote. This is allowed under the Municipal Act but doesn't appear anywhere in the motion to setup electronic voting in Cobourg.

It should be noted that an exemption to the purchasing policy is being made to award the contract to the same people who did it last time. This must not happen. Even if Intellvote did such a good job last time make them bid on the job again. After all they would prove to be the lowest bidder - all the development costs were paid for last election - this election is pure profit. Bad decision.

Sunday #4

You knew that with all these posts going up in one day there would be one that may off the wall. Here it is, an email from anonymous, if I suggested this I would stay anonymous too!

"At the risk of being written off as nothing but a grassy knoller, I think you should put this idea up before anybody else thinks of it.

Cobourg does not need a new train station. Nobody asked for a new train station. It just sort of popped up, like magic, out of nowhere.

Today, the story is all over the news that the mafia runs the construction industry in Montreal. Montreal-based VIA was up to its ass in the sponsorship scandal. They lost most of their head office over it. It was noticed, over the years, that untendered contracts for new station roofs, a wholly unnecessary design, station signage, uniforms for engineers (unnecessary and unwanted) -Christ, you name it- were legendary and laughable. But God help anyone who questioned any of it. All of it was run from Montreal -all of it.

So, propose the question will you: Is Cobourg's new VIA Station going to be built by the Montreal Mafia?"

So there it is folks who is getting the "brown envelopes" in this deal?

And you wonder why people are discouraged -

- From the public consultation process. There is a municipal process underway, and has been for a couple of years now. It is the Official Plan Review. The Official Plan is a mighty document that outlines the rules for the orderly development of the Town for the next decade or so and has to be updated every decade or so. Usually the process entails the Town Planner, the Planning Advisory committee and the pol in charge of planning sitting down with the high priced consultant, who will do the work, and amend the previous document. They will insert the planning flavour of the day, "neighbourhood improvement areas", "Growth Pans", and the current ideas on ways to make the community a better place. Along the way, and following the project management plan - a Gannt chart - there will be spaces for public consultation. The members of the public that actually participate fall into two categories, the idealist and the pragmatists. The idealists are just that, people who see the opportunity to make suggestions about bike paths, trees and sustainable environmetal development. The pragmatists are usually people who can see the way to make a buck. Usually the real estate industry who would like to see more areas of the Town favourably designated. This is an important point because the Zoning Bylaw, which is the document that mandates the mechanism of development, is based on the OP. Get a provision in the OP and you can follow it through to a conclusion that will make you money.
But the point of this post is to show that public consultation is not wanted and in fact discouraged. For example. The final public consultation is taking place next week, but it is an Open House, not a public meeting. This is important as Open Houses, the forum where "tables" are manned by experts to answer the various anticipated questions which can be easily deflected because of the intimate form of the meeting, a far different setup to a "public meeting" where questioners actually have to pose questions at a microphone to a panel or an expert. Two things happen at public meetings: all the audience gets to hear the question posed, and this is good - questions will not be repeated and follow up questions can lead to meaningful discussions about complex issues and the presenters are identified to all.
If an interested party has a serious concern, not satisfied by the answers given at the Open House, they will be asked to put it into writing for the consultant's consideration and to form part of the public record. In the case of the OP review next week the cutoff date for all written responses is the NEXT DAY. So if an interested party has a concern, they had better be prepared to stay up all night reviewing the answers given to them at the Open House, the day before the deadline for submissions. A bad piece of timing, but will in fact discourage some comments.

Sunday #2

Having travelled over 2000 miles this week, and all of it on the 401 between Toronto and Montreal, I can categorically say that the money that Northumberland County has spent on the two signs posted at the County boundary is not enough. These signs are cheap and chintzy in comparison to all of the other announcement signs on the 401. If you want to be in the business of image, image is everything. If you want to see a great sign look at the Napanee sign, followed by the Belleville and Quinte West signs, both good nighttime signs. I just hope that the Northumberland signs are not finished products even the Port Hope sign is a better looking one.

And whilst we are on the topic of roads, all I can hope for next week is that a fairy godmother flies over and zaps all merging motorists. If you can't merge properly onto a fourlane highway don't drive! Almost all drivers this week, coming down an entry ramp on the 401, have done two things: travelled at a speed that would give a travelling driver the impression that they are going to collide if that speed was maintained and two, instead of increasing speed and merging in front of the traveller the merger will slam the brakes on at the last minute and fall in behind. Meanwhile the traveller has been frantically scouring his rearview and mentally calculating whether it is safe to pull into the faster lane to avoid the merger.

Sunday #1

The fundraising issue for the Cobourg Community Centre will be over tomorrow night when the Council accepts it's own recommendation to adopt the Fundraising Committee's recommendation that a couple of low paid clerks will be spending, under the direction of the fundraising committee, $150,000 on consultants' fees. A couple of big issues here: one is the composition of the fundraising committee, which until now has been overlooked and is the fix in to bring back Terry Slobodian, he of hospital fundraising fame.
First the composition of the committee and a potential for local conflicts. A successful fundraiser is only as good as their Roladex - who do they have in their files and how many times can you hit on the same people? In the case of the local oversight committee, it has to be called that as in the words of one of its members, "You can't expect us to drop our day jobs and fundraise" Why not? That's what you volunteered for! Anyway back to the issue. Here we have the two biggest roladexes in Town (Linda Kay's and the United Way, and Rhonda Cunningham of the Hospital Foundation) hiring someone to fundraise. The potential for conflict is simple, both the UW and the Hospital require ongoing fundraising, will their roladexes be opened to the CCC guy? Or will the "whales" in those mighty roladexes be stifled for future UW and HF funding? And if they are will the owners - Linda Kay and Rhonda Cunningham be responsible?
As to Terry Slobodian, formerly of Navion and formerly of the Bridgeport Hospital Foundation, coming back. He is now esconced in his own Company, and obviously looking for business, will he be the elephant in the room when the RFP comes out?

Guest Post #3

Deb O'Connor
MAKING POLITICAL STEW

Inspired by William Hayes' recent guest column about the moral rot in our institutions, I've been thinking about the particular rot in our political system, and its effects on ordinary Canadians. Having voted in every federal and provincial election since 1971 I figure my opinions are as good as anybody else's, so here goes.

The problem with the liberals is that they don't really stand for anything in particular besides holding power. They are all for sunshine when it's sunny and they welcome the rain when it comes. Whatever Joe and Jane Public want that week, the liberals will promise to deliver. They believe in polls, pragmatism and expediency; the cornerstones of keeping power. There doesn't seem to be any ideological or philosophical basis behind their platforms, they just go whichever direction the wind takes them. Over the last 20 years, that direction has been a wobbly right turn.

The tories definitely believe in something, namely the Upholding and Advancement of the Status Quo. They fervently want to return us to an earlier time when men were men and women did what they were told. Don't get me wrong, they are ok with women working outside the home, as long as dinner is ready on time. They are passionate about their belief system and frequently attack and ridicule those who are progressive. To their credit, we always know exactly what they stand for, and what we are voting for with the tories.

Now, the NDP, a party and a cause that has struggled in Canada since its formation in the 1930's. Most of our vital social programs, like old age security, unemployment insurance, and health care, historically have emerged from their hard work. Never mind that the liberals stole most of them and then implemented less than perfect programs, we still owe "the socialists" a huge debt of gratitude for their contributions. But do they have a future? In recent years they appear to have abandoned the basic principles the party was built on, and they are scrambling in a fairly desperate bid to continue at all. But, even today's watered down policies offer a clear alternative to the others.

Trouble is, the credibility of all politicans has taken a nose dive over the last few years, and many people can't bring themselves to trust or believe what any of them say. These are the voters who just stay home, and there are more of them with every election. Somehow people have to be convinced anew that politics do matter, that they need to pay attention all the time, not just before an election. If they do that, they will know what the parties stand for, and which one they want to entrust with their precious vote.

At least that's how I see it.

How's this for a shocker

Our very own PM - SH admits in this story he doesn't watch Canadian News - just the American news. Sad!

Another guest post

Fom Deb O'Connor
Northumberland Today: Lost in the Wilderness

Has anyone else noticed the joke our daily newspaper has become? Day after day I click on their site, expecting to see local news and opinion on the issues of the day. What do I find? Endless stories about thefts of ATVs, car break-ins and hapless shoplifters. The few readers left must be scared shitless about the apparent soaring crime rate, huddled in their damp basements lest they be victims of a home invasion. If fear sells newspapers their numbers must be high indeed.

Alongside the fear mongering we find the sickening cheer leading type stories generated by our local movers and shakers, dutifully re-gurgitated for our consumption. Then, the endless editorials written by the geniuses at the Toronto Sun, all with the same right wing message.

For the few real journalists left at the paper, it must be painful going to work every day. Do they know they are the walking dead? It's not like they had any control over what happened to Canadian print jounalism, but they, like the readers, are paying the price now in spades.

It is a sad end to our four former local papers that used to do the honourable job of keeping residents informed of events in their communities. If this is progress, include me OUT!

Finally a truthful protest group

Usually when one reads about protest groups the aims of the group, i.e. to stop whatever is being proposed are couched in high falutin' scientific or environmental reasons as opposed to the unadulterated truth - "My property value is going to be affected". Now a group in Colborne, read about it here, has made that reason the main one in an attempt to stop an apartment building from being built in their neighbourhood. Good for them. Now all we need to do is to impress upon the powers to be that if taxpayers don't like certain ideas it is a legitimate beef to say they don't like it, and not be forced to hire experts to manufacture reasons that sound a lot better to other powers that be.

Sunday reading

One for the "Hang 'em Highers" This story details some problems encoutered when condemned people are on the execution block, and I defy you to say that Capital Punishment is not inhumane. A quote from the story, "A year later, Ohio authorities took two hours to successfully find veins and administer Christopher Newton the lethal injection. The process took so long, he was authorized to take a bathroom break."

BC, Ontario and now the Feds, who can do e-health properly? This story reveals the coming scandal at the Federal level. I wonder if the Harpocrits will blame the Libs on this one?

GoNorthumberland.net tells the world about the local softball Masters called "The Free Spirit"; the team in the World Masters Games softball tournament in Australia, they have actually won the whole damn thing and are World Champions!!! If anybody deserves a ride around the County on a fire truck these ladies do - CONGRATULATIONS.

A scathing National Post editorial here, if the Harpocrits have lost this paper's ed-board they are in trouble!

Where is this guy's anger? One of the many victims of the recession who has lost his pension as a result of the Company closing. Now you ask what can be done? Number one make the pension the #1 secured creditor! People should be raging about pension theft. I am.

Who's not in favour of wage equality? The Leeds City Council, in the UK, has proposed to obey legislation that mandates wage parity, by cutting the male wage -- by 30%. Absolutely disgraceful and these men in this video are absolutely correct in saying that if they lose ths will be the way of the future, "We're the guinea pigs here!"

The never ending tale - give me your money!

This year, as in others, the United Way is out raising money, they want about a million dollars and Mr Patchett is going to get it for them. One of the annual events is "Put your neighbour in Jail" basically (in the name of good fun) you ring the UW and a volunteer cop will come and arrest the person you want put in jail. All in good fun, as of 2pm Friday 65 people had been arrested and 58 jailed, the others fearing publicity paid their way out of the picture. This event was being played out in front of Vic Hall. The 'detainees' were all herded into a fake box of bars and then paraded into the Old Bailey to be sentenced by the Judge. Renee Roberge was playing the part and raised a whack of money for the UW.
The rascaliest miscreant of all was Mr Patchett. Dressed in a fake jail suit he was out playing the shill. as well as being arrested and then being sentenced. I walked in just as he was defending himself on a charge of, "Fooling about Town!". He also managed to get himself charged with contempt for his bufoonery in front of the judge ( I guess his poker buddy didn't like what BP was saying) and seemed very happy to peel off a few hundreds for the privilege.
Just another small part of Cobourg Culture.

PS for a video of the event click here (this link is a clean one!)

A tribute to a good one

Lou Albano, a mighty figure from some of our youth died yesterday, here is a tribute

And the crooks that couldn't get it right

The law of diminishing returns

RIDE CHECKS CONDUCTED:NORTHUMBERLAND -- Twelve RIDE (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere) checks were conducted through the weekend in Northumberland County. One test was conducted, nine Provincial Offence charges were laid and 947 vehicle checked.

This was the story this weekend, couple that with the story of an impaired driver being chased down and booked as part of normal policing in Cobourg on Saturday evening and one has to question the efficacy of RIDE programs. The number of impaired people being caught up in RIDE programs has been going down for years and yet we spend wads of cash on them. Admittedly the cash comes in the form of Provincial grants - read political slush money, but honestly is spending this cash a good return on our policing dollars?

Talking about this with the Chief of Cobourg's police service yesterday the BR was told that it is conventional policing wisdom that the police can catch all the drunks they can but until the courts start to put some of them away for a long time you will always have drunks behind the wheel. "Impaired driving charges are the most litigated of all criminal charges and if you have the money to fight a charge you can succeed in reducing it or winning in court. The seriousness of the offence is not recognised by the courts." Chief Sweet said. And I agree. Until we do what the Scandinavian countries have done - put drunk drivers in jail on the first offence, after catching them with normal police work not a stunt like RIDE, we will not get the offenders off the road. And MADD can huff and puff all it wants but random police checks will not be working either. But, then which politician wants to stand up for civil liberties in the face of MADD - even Jack Layton has caved on this one!

A post from a regular

Hello Friends,

Here's a link to a provocative piece on a subject of importance to all of us. I think that it will interest you.

How to explain the moral rot in our institutions

Let me know what you are reading these days, eh?!

Bill

Get back on topic folks

I have made an executive decision - the comments on previous posts "new comment on a guest piece" and "comment on just wondering" have been closed. A person signing in as Anonymous (who else?) has crossed the line and vented in a personal manner against another poster. If the anonymous person doesn't have the stones to sign their name and still wants to insult people go someplace else or just put the comments on a washroom wall. If the anonymous person had put a name to the comments they would have been published. You can't have it both ways - make personal attacks and then hide behind "anonymous". Not here anyway!

Sunday #6

Had to post this one even though I'm off to drink beer.

A fantastic use of twitter by local 14193 USWA - shades of the immediacy of the Iranian protests driven by twitter. Finally a useful use for this programme!

Sunday #5

I'm off to eat turkey and drink beer! but for your entertainment here is a delightful link to holiday cheer Thanks to a friend for the post.

Sunday #4

Back to an old hobby-horse The labour force stats came out on Friday and the headline was "Unemployment goes down" This creates the impression that more people are working and we are supposed to feel good. But looking at the figures in a way that most pundits don't the BurdReport can show that not only has unemployment not gone down but we are living in the area of the province with the second most unemployed per capita - only NorthWest Ontario is worse. Cobourg is situated in the Muskoka-Kawartha Region for the statistics. Clicking on the image one can examine the stats at your leisure. For instance there are only three columns to study: "unemployment", "labour force" and "employment rate". Compared to this time last year all the 2009 figures are worse than 2008 showing a smaller workforce and participation rate. The regional employment rate also shows the biggest gap between 08 and 09 for the province. Comparing the January figures (not shown) with the September figures, and remember September is supposed to be a peak month for all employment, the unemployment number is the same 9.9%.
What do these numbers prove? To me it shows that if you reduce the workforce and calculate the number of active unemployed as a percentage you can show that unemployment has gone down. But digging deeper you show that this region is in an abysmal state for the unemployed and local pols are doing diddley squat to relieve it. Infrastructure money has failed to produce one visible new job, just jobs for laid off construction workers working on scheduled municipal capital projects - jobs that would have happened anyway, and pitifully few to date, and the EI exhaustees have been abandoned. Sad!

Sunday #3

The first of many extra costs. We all knew that there would be extra costs for the Community Centre project and here is one of the first. A request from the Fundraising Committee (FRC) for $298,000. Click on the image for a full size printout.
An observation, when the committees were setup and staffed with volunteers most of us thought these good volunteering folk were donating a whack of their time for the common good. This committee stacked with local fundraisers has obviously found the job to be too much for volunteers and like all good professionals have found a way to delegate the job, but it comes with a pricetag. Now we can only hope that FRC becomes a mighty fine watchdog now they have offloaded the heavy lifting?

Sunday # 2

What's going in here? On Tuesday evening, at Cobourg Council, a letter is on the agenda from the local Lions Club. There has been a dispute between Council and the Lions Club over the repair of the building the Club leases from the Town. The Club feels that because the building is owned by the Town that they, the Town should be responsible for the upkeep of the building, as opposed to routine maintenance paid for by the Club. The Town feels that because the building may be Town owned, because of the way it was funded, years ago with a Wintario grant, that the Club should pay for all.
But back to the letter. The letter plainly states that unless the Town changes its stance and pays for the roof, the Lions Club cannot afford to do so, tells the Town that it has only two options: the inability to commit to future community projects, or to remove the Club's assets and vacate the building.

So what's the Town's response to the prospect of financial ruin for one of the community pillars? To receive this letter for information purposes. In other words to file, in file 13 - the round filing cabinet, to ignore the problem, in public. I say in public because of the absence of statements of intent from the Council. All we as members of the public, but having a vested interest, can do is hope that there is something going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately this file may be in the hands of "Sluggo" - Councillor "we don't want to set a precedent here" MacDonald. So the public faced with the prospect of watching the Lions Club move out of a building because they can't afford to repair and perhaps the ending of some of its service club activities will have to depend on moves being made behind the scenes, or do we?

Sunday # 1

Lou Rinaldi, that vertically challenged man who represents us with platitudes and apparent indifference to anything that cannot be put in a press release, is defending the provincial move to the HST. After reading much about it I now know what infuriates me about this cash grab. Never mind the fact that it will bite into my disposable income by taxing products which are currently not taxed, but the consumer will pay. This is not a progressive or fair tax. Businesses will be able to claim "input credits" and get rebates. Why should this be. It will mean a huge shift in taxpaying from business to consumer. Totally unfair.
"Business will thrive" says Lou, but at whose expense? If there's anything we know about consumer economics is that there is only so much money to go around and all these moves in taxation shifts do is to move the burden. If the HST and the elimination of Provincial sales tax is doing nothing other than allowing business to claim "input credits" which would not accrue any credit to business, just how will businees thrive as Lou claims. And more importantly why is the Chamber of Commerce all over this one? There is more to this than meets ny eye! The consumer is going to get hosed and they feel powerless to stop it. It will be interesting to see just how successful the NDP is going to be in the next BC by-election, with the HST as a central issue.

Another guest piece

From Deb O'Connor:

WOMEN HAVE BEEN SOLD A BILL OF GOODS

For years now we have been told that women have reached equality in all areas of their lives. We are free to go to school, then pursue worthwhile careers in the big wide world. All the doors are open.

Feminism has achieved its goals and isn't needed anymore, they say. Kind of like unions. But wait, if we take a closer look we see some of the same old barriers, same old thinking, still at play.
You see, in the course of becoming liberated, we failed to shuck those old fashioned responsibilities that have burdened us for so long. Free to work, sure, but when the liberated woman comes home she will likely find partner and children waiting for their dinner. Hope she went shopping on her way home! Then there's the housework, laundry, care-giving for kids and elderly parents and all the other domestic chores to do. Statistics tell us it's still primarily women doing them too.

It's all a crock. Now we are free to get heart attacks and ulcers, drink too much and work too hard, just like men have all these years. The only real liberator has been birth control, the one tool for womens' emancipation that matters. Make that the only tool that matters.

Just wondering?

This story relates the tale of a guilty plea by the Toronto Fire mucky-muck who was clocked at 150kph on his way to a funeral in Kingston. He was allowed to plead down to a lesser charge of speeding from Stunt Driving. Just wonder who else can do this? Definitely not your average soccer mom or Civic roadster!

A guest piece

Submitted by William Hayes:

The Oct 1^st issue of the Globe & Mail contained an opinion piece by historian Michael Bliss claiming “Conservatives have seized the central ground of the political spectrum.” Here’s a link:

Nonsense! No political party pursuing policies such as those noted below occupies the centre of Canadian political understanding:

· blocks progress in reaching international agreement on how to deal with climate change;

· refuses to ratify the Cluster Munitions Treaty;

· inhibits the export of inexpensive HIV/AIDS drugs to suffering 3^rd world peoples;

· and, most recently, characterizes women as a “left-wing fringe group”.

We Canadians have a better understanding of the world and our place in it than these shameful Conservative policies.

Just a quick one!

Sent in by our man about Town, the cultural correspondent - WK. A small clip of Saturday's parade, a Cobourg cultural moment.

Observations from the night shift

Last week, as part of my semi-retirement, (That means that i will take anything that pays) I was driving an eighteen wheeler down the four nothing one for three trips from Ajax to Ottawa. Loblaws has decided, as part of a restructuring, the Ottawa National Gocers warehouse is to be reduced and the City of Ottawa will be reprovisioned from Ajex. Consequently convoys leave every night for a twelve to fourteen hour shift. I have been working that shift. It may have showed in less posts and probably less thoughtfulness in those posts.
So what are the impressions:

• MacDonalds has two things going for it - a well designed top for the coffee cup that contains "Keep-me-awake" coffee and the biggest bargain of all $1.39 sandwiches. Sausage mcmuffins one day and bacon cheesburger the next.
• Queen's Park stupidity - fancy shutting down 75% of the service stations on the 401 at the same time. Total insanity reigns and if the good citizens of South Cobourg object to people peeing in the Bay St bushes wait until we hear accounts of desperate peolpe urinating on the shoulders of the 401. Signs indicating gaps of 150 kms between service stations are signs designed to agitate any full bladder.
• The lack of traffic on the road since the recession started.
  

Stop the whining about needing more Doctors

Report from the MSM
"What they are not taking into account is that it's an incredibly competitive environment. We are going up against communities that have deeper pockets and are wealthier and can put more money on the table," she pointed out. She being Tracy West, the Project Manager of the Physicians' Recruitment Committee.

That's the point - the allocation of Doctors to Ontario, after each one of them has absorbed great gobs of public money for their education, should not be a bidding war. The provincial government has it all wrong, and we are approaching the problem the Rotarian way. That is to go begging for money and then give it to people who don't need it but makes the organisors look good.
There is a disconnect here, we have a local Health Centre that can't get enough patients to fully employ the designed establishment and a local committee saying we need more doctors. So who to believe?

No words yet just links

The power of the Internet and new media - take a look at this wonderful pic. Life on the modern picket line!

One from the professor - Robert Wasburn that is: here