I know this story is several months old now, but it isn’t too late to talk about it. St. Joseph’s Hospital and London Health Sciences Centre embarked on restructuring the hospital system here a long time ago and both hospitals say they are very well “integrated” now. Cliff Nordal, the current CEO of both hospitals, had a significant role in this restructuring.

Cliff Nordal is retiring, and good for him. Why wouldn’t he? He took in almost $800,000 in salary and benefits last year! Considering he’s been the CEO of St. Joseph’s for over 20 years, I’m sure he’s got a very comfortable nest egg to retire on.

Then the debate began: should LHSC and St. Joe’s continue under one CEO or go back to two? Well, St. Joe’s decided they wanted to go back to having their own CEO because “St. Joseph’s remains a health-care centre with a mandate based on Catholic values.”

I thought this was an interesting argument for a publicly funded organization. While some of the folks over at the blog of AM980′s Nathan Smith (a very well written blog entry at that) pointed out that Catholic-funded schools obviously promote “Catholic values,” they are also required to teach a provincially mandated curriculum. Don’t think for a second the potential similarities haven’t crossed my mind!

What I find most interesting is the “Catholic values” they want to promote, and the experiences friends of mine have had at the hands of the practitioners at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

So, exactly what “values” are the staff so concerned about protecting and promoting that patients can’t get elsewhere?

• The Catholic Church is anti-contraception. Given the seemingly rampant increase in sexually transmitted infections being seen in seniors engaging in promiscuous sex, would St. Joseph’s Hospital staff still promote the use of condoms?
• Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Would overweight/obese patients be treated differently, given staff may believe the patient is going to Hell? (Yes, it makes me laugh a little every time I see an overweight Catholic)
• Greed is also one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Would very wealthy patients be given the cold shoulder because they spent their lives pursuing wealth? After all they’re going to Hell too, aren’t they?
• What about members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities? I can only imagine what treatment they might receive!

Publicly funded healthcare institutions should adhere to the Canada Health Act and be done with it. Promoting Catholic “values” is irrelevant to providing good diagnostics, treatment and bedside manners. Leave your personal beliefs at home, stop costing taxpayers more than needs to be expensed (e.g. hire a single CEO to replace Mr. Nordal) and get on with providing the healthcare patients so badly need!

Photo by plousia

London implemented a pilot project last summer that supposedly cost $140,000. The project? Letting people park overnight on city streets. The $140K cost comes from the apparent revenue loss of parking tickets that are normally issued to the poor saps caught leaving their vehicles on the road in the middle of summer.

A lot of people loved being able to leave their cars on the street. House parties, people too drunk to drive home or hail/call a cab (admit it, you’ve been there!), or a simple lack of parking in your driveway or on the lawn. The reasons you may need to leave your car on the street are numerous.

And yet when it came to studying the pilot project and deciding whether or not to allow this permanently, city council voted no. Why? Well, heaven forbid they lose that $140,000 for a second year in a row!

The travesty of it all!

If I recall correctly, and something that Gina Barber pointed out in her blog earlier today, is a system that Judy Bryant proposed. While Ms. Bryant is a city councillor I respect very much, I disagree that her system of issuing temporary parking passes to those that request them would actually work. It may sound good on paper (though I disagree that it sounds good at all), the task of requesting, issuing and tracking said temporary parking permits would probably cost the city more than the revenue it could possibly generate.

Where would people get the passes? How much would they cost to make? How much would they cost to track? How much would it cost to make sure they’re hard, or nearly impossible, to forge?

I see people abuse disabled parking permits more often than I’d like to admit. Wouldn’t such a small system be easily abused? I can only imagine the predicted revenue and then subsequent massive discrepancy such a system would generate in the city budget.

Photo by Video4net

An acquaintance of mine posited that extending the hours that people need to pay for parking would probably make up for the lost revenue. I agree with him. Downtown parking meters only require payment between 8am and 6pm. Why not extend that to 8pm year round? That should more than make up for allowing overnight parking.

So what did London city council approve last night instead? To give themselves back the 5% pay cut they took in 2008 as a “gesture,” as Gina Barber so nicely puts it, to show they understood what Londoners are going through. I challenge any city councillor to explain, with a straight face, to someone who’s been out of work for most (if not all) of the economic downturn/recession how they can support giving themselves back the 5%.

My biggest problem is that this council seems to get very little done. If I felt like London taxpayers were getting their money’s worth, I wouldn’t complain. But I don’t believe they do! There are some terrific city councillors, but the majority of them seem to prefer just sitting around and debating things instead of actually getting things done. In fact I think London would get a lot more done if some councillors/Board of Control members would just up and quit or retire.

So to end this rant so succinctly… London city council, either start getting things done that deliver visible, measurable results or risk being voted out in October. I hope that Londoners are finally sick and tired of being hosed and really pay some serious attention to this fall’s elections!

Food 2030

The UK government recently unveiled Food 2030 – a food strategy designed to ensure that Britons have access to high quality, sustainably farmed/grown, food that benefits both the farmer/grower and the consumer. At the same time Food 2030 should ensure that people have good jobs, a reduction in greenhouse emissions and food waste.

Not bad for something that only went out for public consultation in August 2009! That’s right – the British government invited citizens and other stakeholders to comments from August till October 2009. It seems Defra took the results of the consultation away, compiled the strategy and released it last week to the masses. The 24 page strategy summary (PDF) goes over what the UK wants by 2030 (informed consumers making good choices, less impact on the environment, a secure food chain, etc), along with how the government proposes they get there. The BBC covered the announcement here.

Tomatoes by Ben

Overall, there isn’t much to gripe about. I’m sure that some folks won’t like the mention of research and science helping to produce crops that require less water, fertilizer and chemicals but the reality is that high yield crops are a must if we are to food a growing population. Earth will hit 7 billion before we know it and we all have a responsibility to make sure those folks get the nutrition they need.

It would be great to see the Canadian government be so forward thinking. Just one year after massive drought caused food prices to skyrocket (more so than they did here) and caused riots, the UK has taken the initiative to put together a plan that will encourage citizens to take more responsibility for themselves. It’s especially encouraging that 3 major grocery stores only sell free-range eggs now – a move by Loblaws/Real Canadian Superstore or Metro like that would further sustainable food cycle efforts immensely!

Web Communities

Farmers and consumers alike are increasingly turning towards the Internet in order to identify where the nearest source of sustainably grown food can be found. Change.org identified 5 popular websites where people are connecting and I particularly like Local Harvest because it includes Canadian sources. If you’re a Canadian farmer producing organic, sustainable or low impact produce please add yourself to Local Harvest to make it easier for the rest of us to find you! Better yet, if you know of a good Canadian directory please leave me the link in a comment.

Vertical Gardens

There are many examples of people growing vertical/urban gardens. Again, Change.org has linked to several different ways you can setup your own urban/vertical garden, from thrifty to eco-chic. One of the greatest benefits I see from the vertical garden boom happening is a greater amount of plants taking carbon dioxide out of the air, a much cheaper way to grab fresh produce when you need it and also something nice to look at in your home. This is also a good way to use typically unused space in a home or apartment.

I hope that provides you with some food for thought – both literally and figuratively! While it’s becoming easier everyday to get your hands on food that was produced in a sustainable manner, it will still be some time before all the pieces of the puzzle come together. We can all chip in and help out though.

I will also mention that I’m going to be speaking to the folks over at Local Food Plus soon about their organization – how it works, how we can get it to expand beyond its current Toronto-centric focus, where they get their funding, etc. I hope it proves to be a mutually beneficial conversation!

Publish your offers on your websites. That way the public is informed, the media has access to it and the “other side” can’t distort your numbers because everyone can fact-check.

Unfortunately, ATU Local 741 President Pat Hunniford has already replied to my idea basically saying that it’s not going to happen. Here is the full text:

Good afternoon ATU Local 741,

I am submitting this message via your website in the hopes that it reaches union President Pat Hunniford.

I have a great idea: hopefully you are willing to listen.

If you’re afraid that the LTC will distort the numbers in Local 741′s latest proposal, then make the proposals available for the public to view online. That would take about 5 minutes to either put it up as text on the union’s website or to put it into PDF format for download.

That’s it, that’s all it would take! Then the general public has the ability to fact-check the other side and EVERYONE wins.

I’m not interested in what the offer is because I’m not the mediator. But this would go a long way toward building goodwill amongst the citizens of London despite the strike. At the very least it would look like something’s getting done.

President Pat Hunniford replied:

It is the Union’s position not to negiotiate in the media or to publish offers or the company position on any web site. The company and city hall has taken that action and has caused more problems that it has solved.

I also e-mailed LTC General Manager Larry Ducharme the following text:

Good afternoon Mr. Ducharme,

My name is Derek Silva. I live in the London area and work in the city of London. I’m contacting you in the hopes of helping to move the strike forward as far as negotiations go.

Mr. Hunniford recently stated in the London Free Press that he doesn’t trust the LTC not to take their numbers and twist them somehow. I’m not siding with either the LTC or the union, but I believe I have a solution to this alleged problem and have already sent a message to the union regarding this idea.

I propose that the ATU Local 741 and the LTC make their proposals and counter-proposals available on their respective websites, either in plain text or PDF format. This would allow the general public and the media to act as fact-checkers and quelling the war of words currently going on in the press. It would take just a few minutes to make this happen assuming that the latest proposals were probably written in word processing software (WordPerfect, Word, OpenOffice, etc.) and saved to a hard drive somewhere in the organization.

I hope you take this idea into consideration going forward. This would allow the LTC to receive proposals in writing and also to counter-propose in writing.

If I receive a response from Larry, I’ll post it here.

Lately it has been clear that the requirement and use of unions in the developed world is no longer necessary. Indeed, unions seem to be doing far more harm than good these days. First it was the catastrophic downfall of the North American auto manufacturers (not the only cause, but a big one no doubt). Three months ago, here in Ontario, the union representing driving examiners at the DriveTest centres, which are run by a private company called Serco (clearly outsourcing it was a big mistake) went on strike and there’s no end in sight to that one.

The DriveTest strike has so far caused people to lose their licenses due to non-renewal, delayed young drivers from getting their G1 learning permits and also caused people testing for new licenses (A-Z, A-D, etc.) to lose the opportunity for employment. What good is that doing for the province and our economy?

But that’s the reason for me writing this. Lately, every strike in the developed world (I refer mostly to much of Europe and North America) is about money. Many well-paid, hardly skilled workers wanting more money for work that almost anyone can do with little training. Automotive factory unions, retail unions and the like no longer do the economy, the companies they are employed by, or the employees they represent any good.

If you think I’ve gone off the deep end on this one, think again. I previously worked at a non-unionized automotive parts plant making good money with plenty of opportunity for career advancement. I started out machining parts (adding bolts, clamps, etc.) and then moved to the manufacturing portion because I made it known that I would like to (yeah, that’s really all it took!). They needed help, they had a willing participant… I got the call.

If an employer really cares, they listen to their employees. That’s one of the good things unions have brought us – better rules, a more level playing field. But much of that progress has ended, and now all they want is more money.

Case in point: The LTC strike. From what I can tell, bus drivers are currently paid over $24/hour to DRIVE A BUS. This requires little special skill minus a driver’s ed course and passing the driving exam. But that’s what they get paid, and they want more. Somehow the union has got it into its members’ heads that they’re worth… get this… $30 an hour. That’s what they want! And, unfortunately, precedents have already been set in other cities (Hamilton is often cited though the Hamilton area is almost twice as big as London). They want to be paid over $200 a day to drive a bus around the city. Where do I sign up?!

And this problem certainly isn’t isolated to London, Ontario or Canada. A Boeing plant in Seattle lost a contract to another division in South Carolina because Boeing saw the Machinists Union in Seattle as a big strike threat. Why? Because the Seattle Machinists Union has gone on strike over 3 of the last 5 contract offers from Boeing. Meanwhile the South Carolina plant voted to decertify the Machinists Union there in September.

If I was a Boeing shareholder, I’d be applauding the decision.

And in the other London (England), a union that runs the bus service on the east end of the city started a 48-hour strike on Friday. Why? Stereotypically, they want better wages and benefits. Those drivers are currently paid between $49,000 and $62,000 a year (I converted to Canadian dollars for a better comparison). I know the cost of living in England is higher than it is here, but that’s got to be decent money still. If I’m wrong, please let me know.

The rumours I heard when Toyota was looking for a location for their new plant, before they settled on Woodstock, was that they were screening people for their attitudes towards unions somehow. If this is true, I’m sure they went about it in a way that didn’t violate any laws (or at least they tried to). But still… clearly there’s an aversion to unions by business owners. Why? Because it becomes clearer and clearer every time that unions no longer help to progress fairness in the workplace – they want money, and as much of it as they can get; business viability be damned!

The solution? I think the solution is to elect good political representatives (and stop voting for a particular party but for the best candidate) and make your voices heard. I think the solution is to walk with your feet – if your boss won’t listen, go to HR. If HR won’t listen, talk to a lawyer. If your lawyer tells you you don’t have a case, then either what you think is an injustice either isn’t or there isn’t a law against it yet. Either way, you should probably re-examine the so-called “problem” you have with your employer.

Not to mention, it’s easier than ever to start your own business. So if you hate your boss that much, be your own. There are a lot of ways to start a business, either with your own money or someone else’s.

My solution to the LTC strike is one that has been echoed on Twitter: Shutdown the London Transit Commission. Start up London Transit Services instead (or London Street & Rail, or the We’ll Get You There Commission – who cares?), post up jobs for as many full-time drivers as it takes to staff the service and start them off at $17 or $18 an hour with raises according to performance or the consumer price index (CPI, a.k.a. the cost of living). I bet you this new London Transit will get thousands of qualified applicants clamouring for jobs. Screen the hell out of them, make sure to hire some people who haven’t worked for the old LTC and let’s get going.

I know what at least some of you are thinking – what about the people who still want a union? No problem – if they don’t like raises indexed to the CPI, let’s give them a performance based system. Let’s make sure comment cards along with golf pencils are available, as well as a feedback page on the website, knowing full well that people who complain will be more vocal than people who really enjoy the service.

Promote the heck out of the fact that drivers will be based on their courteousness, how often the bus is on time (taking factors outside of their control into account like construction and accidents), and how often they don’t stop for people that are running for the bus (I’ve been a victim of this and have seen it happen too many times – meanwhile the same bus driver has time to stop the bus, get off and grab a coffee at Tim Horton’s). Make it EASY for people to give this feedback, one way or another, and put together a scorecard. Done.

There are thousands of people who can’t get to work, school, the grocery store, the pharmacy, etc. thanks to this ridiculous strike. It’s clear the drivers are only looking out for themselves – let’s treat them to be a little more altruistic by incorporating a good customer service attitude into their performance evaluations.

And I know I’m not alone.

I want my $451,000 back. That’s right, every single penny of severance that was recently afforded to Diane Beattie after the LHSC Board of Directors forced her to resign.

When a scandal like this one breaks out, there is no reason whatsoever that such gross misconduct should result in such a comfortable severance. $451,000 is almost two years worth of Ms. Beattie’s annual pay ($250,000 – not bad, huh?).

This entire issue has been handled very poorly. The audit outing the $3.3 million untendered contract was produced 2 years ago, yet the public wasn’t made aware of it. Her friend Kelly Butt telling the London Free Press that what she did was right in the business world. That’s a load of bull seeing as the LHSC doesn’t belong to the normal business world – it’s a world where taxpayers foot the bill in an era where we very rarely see tax decreases even when promised… and those decreases usually lead to increases somewhere else.

Not to mention that if a CIO were caught mishandling $3.3 million at any other company when it can be proven someone else could do the work for cheaper, you can bet your ass they would be fired with no severance whatsoever. It’s gross misconduct and breaks every due diligence rule in the book. Why the LHSC Board of Directors didn’t just throw her out on her butt is beyond me.

I really like the way the Autopro at Wharncliffe & Riverside put it:

“Break Company Rules
Get $451000
Where Do I Sign Up?”

Indeed! Maybe it’s time we replaced the entire LHSC Board of Directors and C-level executives? If they’d like to keep their positions, I urge the Board to begin including all tenders, bidders (along with proposals) and winners into the annual report. It’s my hard earned money they’re spending and I have a right to know where it’s going and how it got there.

Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government really, really needs to clean up it’s act. This week was the first time I agreed with something Andrea Horwath and that, to me, is not a good thing. Lastly, CEO Cliff Nordal, stop looking for the source of the leak. They did the right thing and exposed something very, very serious. You’re only making yourself look like a jerk and that’s the last thing you need. If I were on the Board of Directors, I’d be asking for your head on a silver platter.

I don’t know if you know this or not, based on reading past posts, but I quite enjoy my civil liberties. I like having a driver’s licence, I like being able to walk around town without constantly being watched (except for the areas of downtown London with surveillance cameras), I like that police need probable cause to pull me over or arrest me, etc.

I know what you’re thinking – “Well duh Derek, we all like those parts of living in London/Ontario/Canada.” Indeed, and yet lately the Ontario government, led by Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, seems to be taking an ever increasing level of control of our lives.

Most recently are two major items of contention – the smoking ban (in vehicles) when children are present and the impending cell phone ban which is now set to come into effect October 26, 2009. The police are going to be on an education and warning campaign for several months though, and won’t start issuing tickets until February 1, 2010.

Disclaimer: I am not a smoker, and I do have a child of my own.

That doesn’t lead me to believe, though, that adults need to be smart enough and care enough about their children not to smoke in their vehicle on their own accord. Having the government legislate against this behaviour impedes on a person’s rights to do what they please without overtly causing any harm. I don’t buy the argument that opening the windows while smoking does not help, and last I heard there were no clinical trials to backup that claim (if you can prove otherwise, please do so).

That issue, unfortunately, is said and done with and I have no great amount of power to change it at the moment. American President Obama has set a good standard by speaking to adults as if they are adults – why can’t we treat our own in this way? “Hey dude, smoking in your car while you have kids in there is a bad idea and here’s why…” should suffice. If that can’t convince them, the solution should not be to simply ban the activity.

226 - Drive to Seattle by eyeliam | Flickr

This does, however, bring us to today and the soon-to-be-implemented ban on talking on your cell phone while driving (and holding it). The logic for this ban astounds me – talking on your cell phone (while holding it) is supposedly very distracting, leading to crashes and general mayhem. That’s a bunch of bull. Holding and talking on your cell phone is no less distracting than a number of other things that are currently very legal to do in your vehicle, which I’m going to get to in a moment.

I do want to point out that texting while driving, in my opinion, is very dangerous. This typically requires a person to take their eyes off the road for, perhaps, several seconds at a time. When you consider the statistics on people falling asleep at the wheel for just 2 seconds, it’s easy to make a correlation.

But talking? Nope, I don’t buy it. I know and see hundreds of people everyday that drive with only one hand on the wheel whether they’re on their cell phone or not. What puts them in a situation very comparable to the scenario the government is so afraid of is driving with one hand on the wheel AND talking to a passenger(s). How is this any less distracting than talking on your cell phone, especially if it’s an argument?!

That being said, if the Ontario government (and several other provinces) are going to ban texting and talking on your cell phone while driving (although buying a headset or speakerphone exempts you from the ban), then I propose we ban many other distracting things, such as:

• Advertisements within 250m of roads
• Driving around with crying/upset children
• Attempting to soothe crying/upset children (either verbally or physically) while driving
• Talking to passengers in your vehicle while driving
• Listening to the radio/music while driving
• Eating while driving
• Putting on makeup while driving (I witness this pretty often)

All of these things distract you at least a tiny bit while driving, although a better way to put that is that they all require one to take some level of concentration away from the act of driving. So they should all be banned, right? If not, then why does the cell phone ban make sense in the first place?

All of the pertinent information is located at the link in the paragraph above. Why this is newsworthy is that all of the provinces are boosting their wind power generating capacity by considerable amounts; and that’s a great thing, because studies I’ve read have shown that Canada is one of the best places in the world to harness the wind. The Ontario Wind Atlas helps prove the point, providing a great visual way to tell where the best places (and how high the towers need to be) in Ontario are.

The Globe & Mail also tells of new projects in Quebec, BC and Manitoba. If all goes as planned in BC in the spring, these 4 provinces combined will have doled out contracts to bring on around 3,800MW of clean, renewable energy in a year. I’d say that’s some decent progress!

I guess the main point here is that, at least on the surface, it would seem that Canada is finally starting to play to it’s strengths. Solar is certainly something that needs to be included, but when we have so much wind (and let’s face it, the great lakes region certainly does), why not use it?

The other good news is that the jobs these help create will certainly be welcome, and somehow I don’t think that the companies will be looking for very long before the right people apply for them with the way the economy is right now.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of .bullish