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

A free for all

I will be unavailable to post regularly for the next two weeks so how about it folks - submit your opinion and really make this an open line show. Mail in the submissions to
theburdreport and I'll post it under your name or a nom-de-plume. Any topics will be fair game.

It's now official we have four candidates in NQW.

The fourth candidate of the usual four was nominated by acclamation this afternoon, in the Citizens' Forum at Victoria Hall. Pat Clark, introduced to the collected New Democrats by Patty Park, spoke for about twenty minutes and was applauded numerous times for hitting the right spots for the members. In an off the cuff discourse Pat spoke about the need to protect what progressives have built in the past - the Social Safety net. "The Social Safety Net is too important to lose!" was one line. Another was "The State should be an instrument for public good." Speaking about the new world, "We need to learn to live with a little less and provide those who can't with enough!" Stirring stuff for Social Democrats. But his speech was not buried in the past as he spoke about the need for Green Jobs and "There's lots of room for local green investment strategies and making linkages with local groups"
One of his better lines, for me, was his opening statement where he spoke about the need for change. "We need real change, not like Obama's - that's change that props up a failing system - we need fundamental change!"
Finally if you think that Pat Clark is just another young political groupie, like the other parties have, this guy has earned his chops. Patty Park told of his involvement in a pilot programme - FIVE years ago where he was working with the Help Centre and local migrant workers in Northumberland County where as a part of the job he learned to speak to them in their own language, in just a few weeks. Leaving there he went to Frontier College to mentor migrants in the tomato fields. Yep he has done hard time not just fancy constituency work.

Sunday for Monday #1

Do you want these devices in the downtown area? Two issues come to mind: one is the size and location and the other is the size of the advertising.
These bins, the number has not been specified, but in Colborne bins are placed about 50 metres, sometimes less, and are prolific so how many bins do we want? The other issue is that the adverts on the sides will be bigger than the dreaded "sandwich" sign boards. So do we want commercialism to detract from the heritage slant to the area?
All is not lost, these ugly and advertisement driven receptacles will be on a 60 day trial. My opinion is simple - unless we can improve the capture rate of the existing facilities why should we go for it unless of course the royalities from the ads/bins are so great that we can't refuse the offer!

Tomorrow is Nom-Day

Tomorrow's the day for Pat Clark, I bet he will remember this one for a long time.
First public appearance, having to say something meaningful for the audience, Wanting to make a good impression and above all, not look like a young twit. Go for it Pat you can do it. Hope to see you all out - even non-members are welcome.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

This ancient warning came back to me as I read the report of a company in Port Hope planning to set up a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Port Hope. The sceptic in me tells me that I'm from Missouri and will believe it when I see it. Remember the web based graphics art facility that was going to set up shop over there - what happened to it? Anyway whilst clapping PH on the back for snagging the location a couple of nagging thoughts keep hanging around. One where was Cobourg in all of this? While only getting what one pays for, we only have half an Economic Development department. Wendy Gibson works her butt off doing ED stuff but the big announcements, and presumably activity, resides in the Mayor's office. A while ago the CAO told me that there were tons of enquiries, (my words - none of it has translated into action). A rumour persists that a big prospect for the empty GF building has flown the coop ad there is little activitiy on the site except a sign blaring that the place is for rent.
But back to Cobourg's effort to attract the wind turbine plant. When did Cobourg hear about this (if they did) what did Cobourg do about it and if the plant was interested why was it not pursued. The public deserves an answer, we pay a fair amount of money for ED and if all we do is produce reams of stats and a glitzy website it obviously is not working.
On the topic of wind turbines don't forget the "Info" meeting set up by a group of "Interested" citizens to discuss a project proposed for the Grafton area. Note the first person to utter NIMBY will get tossed out on their ear! Tonight, Centreton Town Hall 6.30pm
But the other nagging thought is the structure as announced: a guy from Port Hope has links with an Owen Sound company partnering with Linamar in Guelph. How many actual manufacturing jobs will happen when Linamar has a large and efficient machine shop in Batawa, not an hour away from here? So strike out the manufacturing side, now all we have is the assembly side, not many jobs there with a limited production schedule. So is it really going to be 75 jobs. The biggest question of all is the industry itself. Nice concept but hard to implement. There is a transmission problem, the grid is overloaded and without Hydro One building more lines not many more windmills can be taken on.

Tomorrow's stuff today

And there isn't much of it. I'm off to work out of Province in the morning so no time to dig out material and opinion. But live with this quick announcement:

Northside Grill Thursday night, a quickie concert by the lady on the left.

Grammy nominee Eliza Gilkyson in concert this Thursday Sept 24th at The Northside Grill, 92 King St. West, Cobourg
Ticket price: $22 Advance tickets / $27 at the door Dinner package:$50 (for 6pm dinner and 8pm concert
To reserve call 905.377.9709

A brave bunch of folks

Local 14193 USWA went on strike three weeks ago, and they are still manning the picket lines with good cheer, convinced in the righteousness of their cause. The issues still outstanding after six months of bargaining are changes in language and the refusal of Cameco to assume the extra cost of funding retirees benefits the fact that a 0% in the first year and 2% in the second was offered also rubbed salt. In 2004 each and every member took a pay cut to maintain the benefits of the retirees and in this round of bargaining they asked the Company for another 15 cents to maintain the same level for the retirees. As there was no money offered in the first year the benefit funding was in deficit because there was no monetary package to take the 15 cents from. So that funding is a huge issue for the members and when the Company proposed to change the language of the Long Term Disability definitions from "own occupation" to "any occupation", it became obvious that the Company wasn't prepared to deal with the problem of injured workers the Union wasn't prepared to have to take the Insurance Carrier to court to settle a grievance, the strike loomed large. Grant McBride and Troy Bone, President and Vice-President explained the problem and also told me that support for the 137 strikers was strong in the Steelworkers, I had just missed the regional Director's visit, when I turned up at the picket line for a chat. A strike vote of over 98% put them on the picket lines. Since then donations have been coming in and the Strike Fund is strong and will probably produce an average of $300 p.w. to help defray lost wages.

In a related story story this is one of the vans that the Security Company - Corporate Investigative Services, are using to monitor the strikers. This Company's website is here, gumshoes.com !! (Sounds like a Janet Evanovich novel, not a professional strikebreaking firm) Sitting in the van here and another one 25 yds away at least seven men and women were spotted idling their time. Just what they are supposed to be doing is a mystery but the Company has taken over a floor of the Comfort Inn in Port Hope to accomodate the multitude of security people. Grant McBride told me, "These guys have a budget of $564,000 and our benefit request will only cost $41,000 so you go figure where their (the Company) priorities are."
Wandering over to the van I asked a chap called Weber, that's what the nametag said, and asked if he would say anything about his job. "I can't say anything to you, who are you?" "Can I speak to your manager", I continued. He got on his phone and said, after a while, "All I can tell you is that I work for CSI and you will have to talk to Head Office in Lambeth for more details." "Thank you Mr Weber, you told me nothing, so I will not tell you who I am." was my reply.

Such is the life on the picket line.

This story has so many layers. Management laid off salaried 79 workers from the Cobourg plant during this strike. The Cobourg plant, up until about five years ago had steadfastly refused to join the Union. Why should they they argued, "we get all the benefits the workers in Port Hope get and don't have to pay dues!" So how did management treat these loyal company loving people? They laid them off out of seniority and arbitrarily and then blamed the Union. Funny strike tactics being employed here by management.

PS follow 14193 on Twitter - /14193

Found something worthy of a Monday comment!

In this letter to a local paper College St resident James Loken makes the case that short term job creation announcements may be bad for the health of the Community. Basically he states that the decision to build a new VIA Rail station next to the present one is folly and will not provide adequate services on the limited space available and will not handle the traffic in the future. I agree with him.
If the Town of Cobourg is going to spend millions of dollars on the upgrading of D'Arcy St. and has planned for the build of Kerr St, in the land North of the tracks between D'Arcy and Division, why don't we plan for a state of the art facility in that area instead of the unsafe location it is in now. Surely we should not be in the business of turning VIA Rail money down but it's only good planning to tell them that the present site is not suitable for the next one hundred years. Road access is abysmal and unsafe, parking facilities are non-expandable and a new station house beside an old one is silly. Maybe the visionists on Council can see further than the noses on their faces and really think about this one instead of reading the press releases and drooling down the front of their shirts!