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Do you care?

You don’t care. You don’t care about housing for the homeless. You don’t care about people sleeping on streets. You don’t care about lack of medical care in our hospitals. You don’t care about ever crowing seniors centres. You don’t care about refugees families fleeing chemical bomb attacks or dead children washed up on shores. You don’t care about the environment. You don’t care about someone having to work 4 jobs to get by. You don’t care about he education system. You don’t care that young people have to pay more to go to college or university or trade school. You don’t care that people on social services don’t have enough to live never mind get back on their feet. You don’t care that things will not be better for our children and grand children. You don’t care.

Of course in your head you’re arguing with me or saying you give to this charity or volunteer for that cause but all of that does not prove that you care. What it proves is that you give to charity or volunteer while poverty increases, homelessness increases, education systems degrade, health systems degrade, women are run over in Toronto, and that our fellow Canadians who live on the streets or who work at Walmart are looked on as disposable. You d’on’t care.

If you did really care you could change, in an instant, all of the negatives above and we would live in a better country. But you haven’t and I don’t think you will.

Here’s some interesting fact “For every dollar corporations pay to the Canadian government in income tax, people pay $3.50” or that “Canada’s 102 biggest corporations …have avoided paying $62.9 billion in income taxes over the past six years”

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or that ““Last year, Canada’s Big Five banks — BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank and TD — occupied the top five slots on Report on Business Magazine’s Top 1000 ranking of the country’s most profitable companies. Collectively, they booked $44.1 billion in pre-tax profit. (Their just-reported 2017 profits were even higher.) ….analysis found those five banks avoided $5.5 billion in tax.”

Also important to know is that according to Policy Note writer Iglika Ivanova “ There has been two fundamental shifts in who pays taxes in Canada since the late 1990s:

A shift of the tax bill from business to families (through large reductions of corporate income taxes and a proliferation of business subsidies and tax credits)

A shift of the tax bill from higher income to middle and modest income families (through personal income tax cuts at the high end and an increased reliance on regressive taxes)

But we, and an electorate, could change all this. We could make sure banks pay their fair share, that corporations pay their taxes, that the wealthy pay a tax like we had in the 60’s or mid seventies. We could do that and fix every major social, infrastructure, and wage problem we have in Canada in the next 5 years.

But you won’t. Instead people will say and post on social media that immigrants are taking our jobs, or the Fraser Institute will post something about taxes going up by 1000% and you’ll repeat knowing it’s not true, or you’ll complain about teachers making to much money, or about how your city is spending money on transit and what the hell do we need transit for anyway, or you’ll buy a new BMW SUV or Ford F150 and sigh sadly over the whales dying on beaches whose bellies are filled with plastic, or you’ll blame the politicians because they’re all crooks or useless but you elected them.

 The picture above is from a series done by the Toronto Star  and is a great example of how we used to care as a country. Can you imagine today that? Can you imagine if we said to our municipal, provincial and federal governments that we want you to build 20,000 new homes a year for those that need them and hoe this would change everything on our country? Can you imagine that?

I know you can.

But will you? Will you do something about it using the most powerful tool you have …..your vote? Well it is Christmas time isn’t it. And isn’t Christmas a time for miracles? And couldn’t we use a miracle right now? You could use you vote next time and create a miracle. Demand that Banks and corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share and then that hope for a miracle will become a reality. That’s all it would take to fix all our infrastructure and social issues from transit to homelessness from bridges to eduction. Your vote.

But turning Christmas wishes into realities is your choice. The questions is will you make that choice and change the course of Canada from less caring to a caring and just one or not? Well that Christmas Miracle is up to you.

Roger and Me

I was on twitter the other day criticizing a municipal politician on a call he was making regarding public transit and on came Roger to attack me. Now I have to say that Roger really doesn’t like me, though he might protest he does or is neutral , but if you go back and look at our twitter interactions, there have been a number of times I criticized an elected official and Roger jumps in with both feet and usually on my head. Now I have to say I don’t have a lot of time for Roger either. I think we’ve talked in a person a total of 10 mins but in that 10 mins impressions are made of one another and for Roger he doesn’t like me and I’ve no love lost for Roger either.
So What? Why are you sharing this with us you ask? Well I think it’s worth understanding how personal relationships, or the lack of them, can effect public discourse. In my case Roger thinks I’m a misinformed bully who doesn’t know what I’m talking about and am to blame for the public housing woes in our city. To me Roger is a self appointed political troll who formerly held office and is part of the AM talk show controversy gang. If there’s a progressive idea then Roger wants to kill it.
So here we are, two 50 something year old men, arguing like 5 year olds in the school yard, because we don’t like one another. Global is local and local is global when it comes to politics.
I’m willing to bet good money that many a degenerating political argument is fuelled by this kind of animosity. Tump and Obama is widely held to have come from a correspondents dinner held by the White House while Obama was president. Notley and Kenney. – well that is fairly obvious with a short google search. And the list goes on and on. Personal dislikes or grudges turn into long standing dislikes that flair up and die down.
In the case of Roger and me, well he’s been calling me out for at least 5 years, and I’m sure I’ve called him out as well. But all of this doesn’t solve the question of political discourse and it’s decline. Is political discourse declining ? Well more that it’s going back to the way things were in the 19th century with papers and pamphlets calling political opponent’s everything under the sun. Roger and I haven’t quite got to that standard yet but amongst some Canadian and US politicians it sure is there with Triumph recently calling the Democrats in Congress scum.
Now I don’t know if Roger and I are a symptom of the lack of civility and respect in public discourse or merely the expression of some good old fashioned personal rancour, but it doesn’t take much to see Roger and me replicated across all kinds of political parties, issues, and conflicts. I’m not proposing a solutions to all this, way above my pay grade, but I do think it’s worth thinking about how personally motivated these attacks and arguments can become. For Roger and Me, despite anything he might say, I think it is personal. We just don’t seem to get along and if we don’t get along how many others don’t? Just something to consider as you digest your Sunday politics

A Deeper Remembrance

I am, like so many of you , thinking of Remembrance Day. My Great Uncles and Grandfather served in World War Two. Came from their homes around Maesteg in Wales and were flung across the continents of the world to stop a man who wanted to erase whole chunks of humanity and put his jack boot on the throat of the globe. I am so grateful for their service and their sacrifice . So grateful to their wives and children who stayed at home while bombs fell. So grateful to those men and women who worked the factories to supply the arms and equipment to end the thugs reign. I Remember.

But I also remember what they lived through before the war. The privations of the depression. Seeing their fathers flung out of work and their mothers standing in bread lines. Nothing very glorious or heroic about what millions across our planet went through only then to face a conflict on a scale the likes of which humanity had never seen.

But that generation, and yes they were The Great Generation, came through the depression and a world war and looked around and said somethings have to change. In the privileged west, whilst the planet began the slow process of rebuilding, they began to build. They built public education on a massive and well funded scale. They brought in access to universities and colleges for whole tranches of people who before the war would never have been allowed through their ivied entrances. They brought in health care on a scale that eradicated so many diseases that mere decades before would have left people buried rather than go on to raise families. They instituted labour reform so children didn’t have to work and that a persons dignity was ensured while they did it. This growth led to a growth in rights and freedoms that had never been seen since nor after. They were The Great Generation.

Sadly their children, The Boomers, turned their backs on this progress and decided that corporations have the rights of people, that tax cuts are better than service increases, and that greed is good. The generation that demanded freedom and said don’t trust anyone over forty went on to curb education, health care, working rights, and have brought us to the point we are at now.

Don’t get me wrong. There are enough of my generation, Gen X, who did their part as well and there are a good number of Gen Y lining their pockets and following the example of the previous generations. But after The Great Generation invented the middle class and grew it so prosperity was more about sharing wealth than owning it, The Boomers started to pull it all down. In a whirl of deregulation and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy they started an avalanche to a time before The Great Depression.

We as a species are often stupid when we try to act as a large group. A person who would gladly share their food with someone who didn’t have any or would welcome a stranger in need into their homes are the same ones who vote in leaders and governments who have bankrupted the promise of the spring the Great Generation started.

Today we reap the harvest of what The Boomers created. Weak or stagnant wage growth that began in the 80’s carry through to today despite the increase in productivity by workers. It takes 13 to 29 years today for Gen Y to save for a home in contrast to the mid 70’s when it took and a average of 5. And Gen Y leaves with more school debt than any generation previous and have not inherited a world that was better for them as it was for their grandparents.

So this Remembrance Day I’m not only thinking of my Grandfather and Great Uncles who served but I am also remembering what that generation did to rebuild after that largest of wars. The building of infrastructure, wages fairness, a better world for their children than they had, an expanded and funded eduction system, a universal system of medical care, and a progressive system of taxation that made sure millions would not fall back into poverty. That’s what I am remembering this November 11th. I’m remembering the Great Generation, with all their flaws, and remembering the slow loss of many of the things they built. I remember the scope of their accomplishments and hope today we will begin to renew the promise of what they started.

In A Narrow Space

There are the finger wagers who say “ you’re too angry”, the rage blinded trolls who make personal attacks, and the indifference and fear of the middle. I wont be arrogant enough to count myself amongst any of these group but do count myself with those that work to make change in our community be it for the most vulnerable, or for business, or for political change. I count myself amongst those who week in/ week out, on social media, and in endless meetings, add our collective community effort to creating change.

But on social media it doesn’t matter what you say or do you’re going to be be criticized. Recently i was criticized for being to “angry” on twitter. I have been told that I have burnt too many bridges, or that i won’t get anything i care about done if i am demanding, and have been told I am not demanding or angry enough. Both of these are common complaints hurled at my feet.

Up until very recently I was deeply wounded by these words. I would carry them around inside for months or would try to “change my behaviour”. But more recently I have come to realize that while some might think me to angry and some thing I don’t go far enough, I have decided that both sides are right but that their criticism are fundamentally flawed.

Sure we can stand around shaking our heads at those on social media who are demanding or angry or scream at those who aren’t “doing enough”” but ultimately both are a restricting way to move the world forward.

Frankly when issues from poverty, social issues, wages fairness, basic equity and equality haven’t changed in decades, I feel justified in not only being angry but furious. I no longer have the patience to “work through the system” or to “ join institutions “ while the fundamentals of our communities get worse. I have been working on some of these issues for more than 20 years and so, having some serious skin in the game, I have a right to get worked up and to point my finger at the slow movements of our leaders in the face of the real human sufferance I can see around me.

Then there are the trolls and the haters who pollute social media and take these issues and weaponize them for their own entertainment or out of a need for revenge. These people take what is good clean outrage, or a great coming together of community, and they be-foul it. These people make it nearly impossible for themselves to be a part of the solution and end up making everyone flee the field rather than be personally attacked day after day.

Then there are the people in the middle. They sway back and forth between the finger wagers, the righteous angry, and the trolls. But really they mostly end up nowhere and would rather not bother than get involved. Some say that we should feel sorry for those in the middle because they are caught between these groups but i have no sympathy for them. The majority middle needs to wake up and stop being so preciously self involved that they’d rather not get help at all unless it Si to quietly drop of some food in an anonymous box at the checkout. It was this group that elected an Ontario government that seems to be working at dismantling our provincial social safety net. It was this delicate middle that elected governments that gutted education, health care, and allowed tax cuts to the largest corporations and most wealthy. So I don’t have sympathy if they flee social media and the public square. They have been doing this for decades before twitter and its no surprise that they still do this today.

As for the finger wagers and the trolls? They are what they are and will not change, and even if they don’t, I’m happy to talk to most of them. As for me I’m still furious and still trying to work on change despite the indifference of the middle and the finger wagging and trolling of the others. But I, and so many others, could use your help.

My Friend Steve (In Memoriam)

There are some people you meet in your life that become a kind of reference for the place you live, the times you have, and the triumphs and failures you go through. My friend Steve was one of these people for me.

I had come in contact with Steve before I moved to London. In 1999 my brother and I were talking in that kind of half serious/half joking way of creating an internet service provider company. So when moving to London became a fast reality I reached out to The London Economic Development Corporation ( LEDC) and it was Steve who replied.

Frankly I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or what I was talking about, but with the bravura that comes with being in my 20’s, I bulled ahead. When I arrived in London in December of 1999, Steve, with his usual grace and charm, invited my wife and I over for diner. Fortunately for us Steve, his wife Sharon, and his brilliant son Jeff had some people in common with us. The Longstaff’s. Kip and her sons, Nic and Michael, had a long standing relationship with The Glickman’s and on that December evening my wife and I arrived and began an 18 year relationship with the Glickman’s.

Jeff and I created plays together, had serious long talks about art, and I have had the joy of being a part of his work as a film maker. Sharon has always been generous with her time and expertise in design, and my wife Heather always made sure Sharon got our year end newsletter. But then there is Steve. My reference for my time in London.

Steve was there during the struggles and triumphs we’ve had with our daughter Erynn. Steve was there when , with my gifted friend Jennifer Wigmore, we created the Theatre Arts program at Fanshawe – Steve sat on the first advisory committee. Steve was there to see some of the plays i directed and preformed in. Steve was there during my time with Emerging Leaders, always encouraging me and always supportive. Steve was there with Sharon when we bought our home and quietly suggested i needed a good stereo and helped me choose one at his business, London Audio.

Steve was there with thoughtful advise on the many times I fell flat on my face and had few friends. Steve was there. That’s the point. Steve was there to introduce me to London, to make a family from out west feel welcome in a new town, to show me the good places to eat in town, to introduce me around, to offer his wisdom and insight, to share his sharp and riotous wit when we sat together, and …well …to be Steve.

About a year ago I received an email from Sharon. Steve wasn’t doing to well and things were difficult, but Sharon was very grateful for our year-end newsletter and wanted to let me know how Steve was doing. Steve had Alzheimer’s.

I asked if i could come and spend time with my old friend and over the course of the next year I was blessed by the time I had with him.

Steve was born and grew up and married in Montreal. He went to University there and like many others decided his new family needed to leave that city and find opportunities elsewhere. London is where he came, and with his family, created London Audio. Steve served on many Boards in our community including Kings and at The Grand Theatre. He gave back to his community again and again and in so doing quietly added to the tensile strength of our forested city.

During this last year he memorialized his life in Montreal and London with me. He would tell me again and again of the accomplishments of his sons and how deeply proud he was of them. He told me of his childhood on the streets of Montreal and of his early married life with a brilliant young wife. He would share with me his philosophies of business – you must make sure the customer always gets what’s right for them. He shared his thoughts on politics and religion and the deep admiration and fondness he had for his friends and colleagues.

My most cherished memory of this past year though is sitting quietly, no words needing to be spoken, and listening to music. We would sit for a few hours and listen to his favourite album, K.D. Langs Songs Of The 49th Parallel. Sometimes I would play my ukulele and sing for him and sometimes we would sit and talk. It was… very good.

In his last week of life we was hospitalized and I would go and visit him to spell off Sharon or Jeff for a short time. I would sit and play K.D. Lang and just be with him. I was with there the day he died. Jeff and Sharon had left for a quick bite and so I sat and played his favourite music and offered what comfort I could. We spent two hours together . Me holding his hand and him, eyes closed, listening to his music. I left at around 4:30 p.m. that day. Picked up my wife from work, went home and ate some supper. It was 90 minutes later that Sharon let me know he had died with Jeff and her next to him.

His funeral was a triumph of a life well lived. His three sons lionized their father with humour, honesty, and deep love. London came out and marked the passing of someone who made a difference to our little city, not with flash and spectacle, but with quiet service and dignity. And his friends, those of years, and those of his life in business , came and shared the grief of his passing.

For me Steve’s funeral marked something else though. It marked my time in this city and pointed to a way of being and engaging – a way I have often failed at. It pointed to the loyalty of friendships long developed, it pointed to the strength of serving community, and it pointed to the pleasure of living a life well.

It was a privilege to know Steve. From my first moments in this city to his last moments among us. It was an honour to spend time with him in his last year. It was a joy to hear him telling me the stories of his life and it was with pride I watched his family, friends, and community honour his life. Thank you Steve for your generosity of spirit, your warm and joyful wit, and for allowing me to be a small part of your life for the last 18 years. I have been marked by our time together and will carry your examples with me in my heart.

Thank you dear friend

Rest In Peace.

You’re a good person. Right?

You are a caring person, aren’t you? Sure you are! You give to charity, you volunteer in your community, you post encouraging things on facebook to people who are having a hard time, and you show your love to your friends and family. You are a good person.

But if I put you together with a group say the size of a city are you still caring? With a group the size of a province or state? How about as a country? The reality is is that while you show many excellent qualities as an individual when we become a collective, we are not nearly so nice.

What are you talking about you ask? Well in my little city there is a 20% child poverty rate. In Sri Lanka, there are thousands of Rohingya killed. In Europe and In North America there is a growing exclusion of immigrants. In the UK between 2011 and 2017 homelessness shot up 60%. There is a shrinking middle class as a small number sit comfortably amongst the elite or much more likely in the ballooning serving classes. Thousands of children are starving to death in Yemen, and South Sudan and the planet is warming to such an extent that unless we cut out world emissions by half, then the world will descend into climate chaos that will make millions homeless and kills hundreds of thousands.

So while YOU are a kind person WE, collectively, are so cruel that we allow these crimes against our fellow humans to happen unimpeded.

Well fine, you think, but what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I’m only one person. I don’t have any power.

But this is where you’re wrong. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for people that allow this to happen. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for lower taxes for yourself. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for those who are suffering to receive less, for corporations to receive more, and for the service that would alleviate many of the worlds problems get fewer and fewer dollars.

“Well, I give to charity!” I hear you saying. Well yes, you do but charities, both global and local, are a way for you to do a little to ease your guilt or to reinforce your good impulses. Charities are the single best way to justify governments ( which you voted in) to not pay for the service we need in our nations. We donate to charities so we don’t have to pay increased taxes for poverty, education, mental health, homelessness, or refuge services. Charities are a stop gap, a cheap, ineffective fix, that allows us as citizens to avoid our responsibleness to our fellow citizens.

Governments should pay for poverty, for refugees, for health, for education, for end of life care, for infrastructure, for all the services that charities or private businesses have no business being in because that business is our collective responsibility. Let business sell us phones and cars and presents to put under our Christmas trees, but take them out of the care of our fellow citizens. In a world of governments that take care of its citizens we don’t need charities. They become irrelevant.

“But we can’t afford all that,” you say. Well, more wealth is traveling across our globe now than in the history of our entire planet combined. Yet we, as citizens, chose not to pay for these issues to become solved once and for all. We as the wealthy, middle class, the poor, decide not to pay to address the growing needs of our fellow citizens or our planet. We choose to allow corporations to pay as little toward the well being of our fellow citizens as possible. We decided to enable the Über wealthy not to pay; we chose as the middle class to spend as little as possible, we decided to do this every time we go to the ballot box to vote. We decided to allow this growth in suffering to keep growing.

But I thought you said I was a nice person? You are. As an individual, you are a very thoughtful and kind person. But once I put you into a group that votes then you’re not very nice at all. You’re selfish. You, collectively, chose to turn your backs on your fellow citizens and allow suffering across the globe to increases.

So during this time of good will on earth and people of good will I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy, kinder, and more thoughtful New Year.

Ward 5 – The Choice

election scrabble

Let’s talk about the Ward 5 race ‘cause that’s where I live, and I have a vested interest. In the ward is the incumbent, Maureen Cassidy, who has served the last term on Council as our representative for Ward 5. Running against her in the election are some people. Notably Randy Warden, who ran and lost n the last election, Charles Knott and Shane Clarke.  What has marked this election across the city, and here in Ward 5, is misinformation, sign wrecking, and anonymous attacks through websites and signs.

Sadly this seems to becoming a norm in London, and I don’t think the media pay enough attention to the trumpifying of our local elections. That said I want to talk about these candidates and who I feel should choice for Ward 5.

For a majority of candidates in Ward 5, there is little difference between the anti-BRT candidates. They oppose BRT without a lot of details. Most say we need to reconsider BRT because of cost, the need for “better” consolation, or that it won’t fit our future needs. Again their clams are light on details and strong on ten-word opinions. The problem though is that Ward 5 residents need the next ten words to understand exactly what their plans are beyond “further discussions or consultations” or “ preparing us for autonomous vehicles” that may or may not ease traffic.

The problem is with these claims, and others that include safe consumption and development is that they don’t have any credible alternatives and are so sparse on details that we could be another decade waiting for any response to growing congestion in London while they discuss and consult. We need action now, not in 2029, on our severe infrastructure and congestion issues. If you want some thoughts on BRT from some leaders with some credibility and experience, then I suggest you read our former mayors ( and outstanding past Ward 5 councillor)  Joni Baechler and Jane Bigelow here on the facts of BRT

About some of the candidates:

Randy Warden is an outstanding volunteer in our community, especially with St.Johns Ambulance and The Canada 150 celebrations. He has given a lot of his time, and his efforts to London should be applauded for this. That does not make his sparse platform and his views on serious issues affecting London very detailed. On his platform page Randy has two lines on job creation, two lines on BRT, two lines on making life easier for families, and two lines on making life easier for families. If you watch the Ward 5 debates you see the same pattern of sparse answers and hardly any details. Randy’s campaign tagline is “leadership you can trust” but it’s tough to do that when there is little substance to his campaign. Randy is a nice guy and a great community volunteer but we need leadership, and a significant part of leadership is clearly articulating a vision and plan for where we are and what we should do. Randy doesn’t do this.

Charles Knott:  I haven’t been able to find much out about Charles other than his campaign website and Linkedin profile. He’s lived in London for some time and went to The London School of Economics to complete masters degree in science. He worked for a bread company and a motor company in customer service, has created a flooring business that supplies Mixed Martial Arts( MMA) companies, and is a manager of a sports clinic. I haven’t found anything about community service or volunteering. Charles has many of the same views as Randy does, though with more words that describe essentially the same viewpoint. You can read his platform here. Again my complaint is the same as I had for Randy – lots of declarations but few details backing up his clams. Charles talks a lot about job creation, and rightly so, but anyone who has spent any time on economic development will tell you that City Councils have little control of job creation. They can create small incentives through development but Councils are severely limited by law on what they can do to attract business to a city. The industrial land development was an effective way Council did this in the last two terms. But it is also important to understand that according to LEDC ( London Economic Development Corporation), who is charged with attracting business to London, says there are 1500 jobs available right now to at great companies. Our problem is we can’t attract and retain the talent we need to fill those jobs. We have a talent attraction and training gap problem in London, not a business attraction problem. How do you attract young professionals to our city? Well, there’s a lot of research on that, and googling Richard Florida is an excellent place to start as is looking at the CityLab website.  I don’t find Charles to be a credible candidate – claims and assertions are fine, but they need facts and details to be believable.

Shane Clarke: I have a lot of time for Shane Clark as he works on issues that are close to my heart. Poverty, mental illness, addictions, and the serious crisis we have in this city when it comes to our most vulnerable fellow Londoners. Shane has only three issues on his platform. Addictions, affordable housing, and snow removal.  I really respect Shane’s commitment to working and advocating with those who are most in need of our attention and focus. Think Shane also has an outstanding character and his care for his fellow Londoners is evident in his work and his volunteering. If my first choice for Ward 5 wasn’t elected, then Shane has the humility to listen and the strength to stand up for his values and our Ward. Check out Shane here

Maureen Cassidy: Maureen has been a long time advocate and volunteer in London especially when it comes to development issues in our ward. Joni Bachelor endorsed her 4 years ago as her choice to replace her, and again this election, and I believe she has done an outstanding job advocating for our ward and major issues across our city. Fiscally she was a part of the Council team that brought in multi-year budgeting and lowered our city debt by 10%. Maureen has advocated and works on issues from poverty, to indigenous issues, to very complex development issues. Throughout she has been consistent, and I believe very effective as a Ward 5 Councillor. I have had my disagreements with Maureen on some big issues, but she has always taken the time to hear me out and at times modify her views if she thought mine were valid.  Have seen her do this with fellow Ward 5 residents as well. She is not afraid to face tough issues and never takes a position for the sake of an easy political win.  I know her to be steadfast, very competent, and above all someone whom you can trust to work for the best interests of Ward 5. Here’s another reason why I support Maureen. She has details to her platforms and facts to back them up. Unlike Randy or Charles, she has more than ten-word answers. I respect that a lot and appreciate the time and thought that went into it. Here is Maureen’s platform and importantly here is the endorsement of some people who are leaders in Ward 5 and London.  I encourage you to vote for Maureen’s re-election as our Ward 5 city councillor because she has shown courage and commitment in the face of adversity and more importantly stood up for Ward 5 while facing it.


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Solid Ground

We have gone through what seems to be an unending series of calamities and misfortunes that at times for me seems to shake the fabric of the world and I am left standing like a witness to a mugging. What was stolen was us, the collective we, and the ground we were standing on. The place where the crime happened is our forested city and perhaps like many bystanders we let this crime happen.

Our Annus horribilis began with racism on ice that fled to discrimination in a market which catapulted into park occupation in hopes of equality that was then dismantled which hurtled into the eroding of the middle class jobs, locked gates, and picket lines, that then staggered into the facts of increased poverty, lower employment, lack of opportunity for newcomers and new generations, that slid into the daily horror of bullying which finally sighed into the wavering of our belief in public office.

We also had moments and movements of hope this last year. Gatherings of the concerned and optimistic, heartfelt conversations over beer and coffee, presentations of excellence and inspiration, and revelries of who we are in dance, music, theatre, and words. These shared experience in twos and threes, hundreds and thousands, made the last year bearable when things seemed to have no chance of being better.

In the face of all this some come to the front to offer a way forward and drop out of site when they cannot find consensus, some are tenacious and keep iterating and creating, hoping that the next time the combination of idea, people, and place will coalesce into a magic moment and it will all come together. The majority will stand on the sidelines and remain mute hoping for a brighter day.

It is to all of you that I am writing this. I am writing because i believe that in order to know where you are going you have to recognize where you are and where you have been. I have been in places of bright optimism and bleak pessimism. In places where I have been comforted and have offered comfort. In places of screaming in rage and in places of counseling clam and tolerance. And it is in that we find the rub dear reader.

We are in a time and place of wild swings of intention and action, of inattention and inaction, of tolerance and rage, of expectation, hope, cynicism , decay and rebirth. We have no solid ground to stand upon and survey where we are and what we are doing, and know not where or who we want be today or tomorrow.  We are ricocheted around these times like rubber balls on concrete walls and we are left unstable.

We have lost the old solid footing of community institutions like churches, clubs, political parties, and often the comforting familiarity of community, neighbor and family. If this is the case then we must build new institutions on the old or rebuild that which has crumbled. Organization that do the work now that was once the purview of government and who work for the common good should come together and buttress each other, standing forward as places for community to grow from. Our institutions of higher learning can no longer look inside their own walls or so far beyond them thy the cannot see the people living around them. We live just outside the doors. Collective recognition of old institutions like churches should begin because they are the ones feeding and caring for the most untouchable and unloved amongst us and do this despite our growing disbelief and distrust in them.

Those with voices clear and strong need to step forward now and take up the reins of leadership in our community with the pledge that they will restore our faith in the offices of political power but with the understanding in their marrow that all of that power is derived from the people who live around them. They must pledge to never shun the input for those that gave them this great gift of trust and pledge that they will work tirelessly, not for themselves, but for us and our collective hope for a better place to be and live.

If we do this then we shore up the ground we are standing on and have a stable place to build upon and to look out at the world. If we decide to do this then we must not only point out what is wrong but point out how to make it right.

This is not about policy or party but rather it is about belief. The belief that we can achieve anything if we have the collective will to do so and that if we chose to, we can stand together again on solid ground.

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Hot Cocoa Mix 2

2 cups powdered milk
1/4 cups Cocoa
1 cup powdered sugar
Dash of salt

For a richer mix add 1/3 cup powdered non-dairy creamer or 1 tbs malted milk powder. Mix all ingredients together. Place 4 tbs of mix into mug. Fill with boiling water.

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Cajun Country -- New Iberia, Louisiana


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Calgary Stampede Talent Search offers $20,000 in cash prizes to top winners

Ian Sadio, the winner of the 2018 Stampede Talent Search. Kerri Singh 403.970.6766 www.2cr / Calgary

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In 2018, Ian Sadio yo-yoed his way into Calgary Stampede history and $10,000 when he was crowned the winner of the Stampede Talent Search.

On Saturday, he’ll bring his show back to the Boyce Theatre, not as a competitor but as a returning champ who will also announce 2019’s winner.

Having the past winners show up to cheer on new contenders is a proud tradition at the Search. And with each passing year, the crop of performers who have used the annual competition as springboards to a thriving career gets bigger.

“A lot of our winners and contestants go on to bigger and better things,” says Trish Bronsch, chair of the Stampede Talent Search committee.

“We’ve got kids that are down in Nashville and Las Vegas working with Cirque du Soleil, and Europe. It’s really a stepping stone for individuals to move on.”

No story about the Stampede Talent Search would be complete without the obligatory roll call of past participants who have risen to career highs since competing in the 38-year-old contest.

Top of the list, of course, is country superstar Paul Brandt. At the National Music Centre, the Homegrown Country exhibit features the colourful shirt Brandt wore and his mother made — clearly, he was going through a Garth Brooks phase — in 1992 when he became the talent search champ. Others who have gone on to notable careers include 2007 winner, singer-songwriter Michael Bernard Fitzgerald. Leaving Thomas, made up of 2012 winner Annika Odegard and 2012 Don Weldon award-winner Bryton Udy, have a thriving career in Nashville. Pop sensation Kiesza was a past contestant. Singer-cellist Lizzy Munson, who won in 2016, went on to perform with Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Cole Bradley is an up-and-coming young singer in Nashville. He won fan favourite awards in 2012 and 2013 when he went by the name Cole Hruska.

Sadio was likely the first yo-yo artist to win the prize, but he has already proven inspirational. Bronsch reports that a yo-yo artist was a contender this year. So were singers, concert pianists, a tap-dance ensemble, ballerinas and even a young master of the guzheng, an ancient Chinese string instrument.

More than 200 people auditioned from across Canada for the 39th edition of the search. Those aged six to 21 can participate, although performers 12 and under do not compete for the prizes.

Fifty-five competed in the preliminary rounds. That was whittled down to 24 for the semifinals, which were to run Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, 12 finalists will compete for prizes. In a new twist, this year there will be two “wild card” contestants, those that don’t make the cut based on the panel of judges but are chosen by audience members via a ballot on Thursday and Friday.

So that means 14 will be vying for more than $20,000 in cash and a variety of other goodies, worth a total of $38,000.

“Our Talent Search is diversity of performance,” she says. “You are competing against other genres, which is really exciting. It’s really the flavour of America’s Got Talent.”

 The second night of semifinals takes place on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the Boyce Theatre. Finals are Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at the Boyce Theatre.

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How turmoil in Hong Kong could boost real estate prices in Canada

Some in the real estate industry say they've seen a spike in interest from Chinese buyers in the past 60 days

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The fallout from Hong Kong residents’ months-long clash with China’s government could put further pressure on the real estate markets of Vancouver and Toronto, as well-heeled expatriates and new Chinese immigrants seek safety in Canada, say market observers.

“Yesterday, we had a listing where three different groups came in on a bus, they were all touring homes in Metro Vancouver and they were all from Hong Kong,” Adil Dinani, a Royal LePage real estate adviser based in Vancouver, said last week. “They’re very keen to bring capital over as the situation in Hong Kong worsens.”

Dinani has noticed a spike in interest from Chinese citizens during the past 60 days. Canada is already a well-trodden path for Chinese residents, with Vancouver home to 500,000 ethnic Chinese citizens, and 300,000 Canadians residents living in Hong Kong.

Vancouver has been the world’s weakest luxury housing market for the past year, according to a recent report by Knight Frank LLP, a residential consultancy. Luxury prices fell 13.6 per cent in the previous year. Knight Frank’s study defined “luxury” as the top five per cent of the housing market.

The consultancy attributed the decline to the city’s 20-per-cent foreign-buyers tax and one-per-cent empty homes tax.

“We could see a spike in the luxury market very fast. That’s the one that’s been affected most by our downturn,” Dinani said. “It’s probably going to be very clear in the next couple of months how this plays a role and where prices go.”

The combined benchmark price for all property types across Vancouver slipped to $998,700 in July, 9.6 per cent lower than in June 2018 and the first time the price has dropped below $1 million since May 2017, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

Dan Scarrow, president of MacDonald Real Estate Group Inc., has also seen increased attendance from Hong Kong buyers at open houses and showings, although he believes any changes will take some time as people make the big decision to leave their homes.

Protesters with umbrellas and protective gear face off with riot police at Kowloon Bay in Hong Kong on August 24, 2019. Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images

“It’s really a question of, is there an exodus immediately because of the political fallout or is it more of a slow drip over the next 20 years as people start making plans for the long term?” he said.

As of Aug. 23, one Hong Kong dollar (HKD) was equal to 17 cents Canadian, so a $3-million home in Vancouver would cost a Hong Kong buyer just under $18 million HKD, compared with $19.5 million HKD a year ago. The more favourable exchange rate, combined with lower benchmark prices, would more than cover for the foreign-buyers tax.

“Global market decisions always dominate, but (in Vancouver) we’re probably more affected by global events than other places in Canada,” Scarrow said.

But tensions between the island and mainland China have also spilled into Canadian streets.

We could see a spike in the luxury market very fast

Adil Dinani, a Royal LePage real estate adviser

Vancouver has been rocked by clashes between supporters of China and pro-democracy Hong Kong in recent weeks. On Aug. 17, pro-Hong Kong demonstrators had a sign stating, “No riots. Only tyranny,” said Kevin Huang, co-founder of the youth-focused non-profit Hua Foundation, who reported one of these clashes. At one point, he said, some Chinese nationalist supporters began chanting, “China is your daddy” in Mandarin.

“It was witnessing something that has always been here in Vancouver,” Huang said. “But most people who aren’t of the community or don’t know the Chinese community too well don’t realize how fractured it has always been, especially along class lines and geopolitical lines.”

Toronto is also seeing an uptick in foreign interest in the form of marketing agencies focused on Hong Kong buyers, said Tom Storey, a Royal LePage representative based in the city.

He said the Ottawa and Montreal real estate markets could benefit the most from a possible Hong Kong exodus, given that neither city has a foreign-buyers tax.

“We don’t see a specific increase in buyers from Hong Kong, but in inquiries wondering about the home-buying process in Montreal,” Amy Assaad, a Royal LePage real estate broker in Montreal, said.

Financial Post

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Assassin’s Creed

Posted on May 19, 2019

Assassin's Creed Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Assassin’s Creed
Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

A boy sees his dead mother at his home in the kitchen, his father seemingly the killer standing not fat from her looking away. He tells his son to run, that there are people coming from him and that he must not be found.

Queue thirty years later and the boy is now a man and on death row for a murder he committed. He is injected with the poison and hours later wakes up in a different country in a lab and told he is officially dead but now part of a secret organisation to find the Apple (a device of knowledge and power) to kill off a group known as Assassin’s Creed. To do that he needs to become one and a device is used to pair him with an ancestor’s memories from five hundred years previously who was one of the said Assassin’s.

What follows is a race against time between the Templars and the Assassin’s in a battle to find the Apple and for the Assassin’s to stop humanity from losing free will…

First up, this film is complex in its storytelling and if you don’t concentrate easily, you will lose the thread just as easily and wonder what the hell is going on. I was tired from a long day when I watched this and drifted off during parts of it, so had to keep going back to certain scenes to find out what the hell was going on?

Saying that though, it is a very good film and leaves it open for a sequel which I believe would work if the writers and directors don’t get too bogged down in too many threads to the story. People are easily confused nowadays sadly and don’t have much patience I find, losing interest very quickly although anything with the great Brendon Gleeson and Jermey Irons in I’ll watch in a heartbeat.

Many critics didn’t like this film but I found it to be everything it could be and more besides. It definitely paid homage to the games of the same name.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if a tad predictable in parts.

Michael Fassbender
Marion Cotillard
Jeremy Irons
Brendan Gleeson
Charlotte Rampling
Michael K. Williams

Justin Kurzel


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Record Number Of Legionnaires’ Cases In 2018 Risk Lives, Cause Cleanup Headaches

(iStock/Getty Images)

Cases of Legionnaires’ disease reached a record high in 2018 — a more than eight-fold increase since the numbers began to climb nearly two decades ago.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday 9,933 cases in 2018 of Legionellosis, which includes both Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever. Legionnaires’ disease made up the vast majority of cases, according to the CDC.

And the problem may be exponentially larger than what’s reported to public health officials. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine estimates that as many as 70,000 people may suffer from the disease each year, according to a report released in August.

Hot tubs, hotels and hospitals across the U.S. continue to be hotbeds for the potentially deadly disease, which people contract after inhaling mist or water droplets contaminated with Legionella bacteria. It causes severe pneumonia-like symptoms and kills 10% of those sickened. Nearly one quarter die if they contract the disease in a health-care setting.

Water that sits stagnant in old pipes, cooling towers or hotel rooms can become a breeding ground for the dangerous bacteria to grow and fester when water is not cool or hot enough. Experts point to a number of causes for the explosion of cases across the country: decaying infrastructure, an aging population, greater testing for the disease, water conservation efforts and even climate change.

National news has been transfixed by the sometimes deadly cases around the country, from the four fairgoers killed and nearly 150 sickened by a hot tub exhibit at a North Carolina state fair in September to multiple hotel guests struck ill at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel this summer.

But fighting the problem is an expensive undertaking. The annual cost of treating Legionnaires’ disease, based on hospitalization claims, was $434 million in 2012. It has likely grown with the uptick in cases. Flushing out water systems or even redoing them to get rid of the bacteria costs far more. California alone has spent $8.5 million this year cleaning up an outbreak at a Stockton prison that killed one inmate.

For facilities, the consequences of finding the bacteria can be catastrophic, even if not deadly. The water often must be shut off, leading to negative media coverage, the potential for lawsuits or financial ruin.

In Washington, D.C., the public psychiatric hospital St. Elizabeths relied on bottled water for weeks this fall after Legionella bacteria was detected, and some patients filed a suit claiming “inhumane, unsafe, and medically dangerous conditions that risk the health, mental health, and safety” of patients. The suit also alleged, “Patients cannot shower, wash their hands, or use the toilets regularly. Fecal matter, urine, and menstrual blood are accumulating in the bathrooms.” The remediation alone has cost more than $1 million, according to The Washington Post.

The fear of that kind of financial hit leads building managers to resist testing or actively looking for Legionella, said Laura Ehlers, who directed the study for the National Academies.

And even when facilities have water management plans in place to prevent the bacteria, it still is still showing up.

As cases were reported in Missouri last year, state officials investigated 61 hospitals, nursing homes and hotels from last fall until late this summer, according to a document Kaiser Health News obtained through a public records request. Seven of those facilities tested positive for Legionella bacteria even though each had a water management plan in place.

Since 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has mandated that health care facilities have such water management plans. But even with a good water management plan, Legionella risk is ever present, according to Jonathan Garoutte, administrator of the Missouri health department’s section for environmental public health.

“Legionella finds places within large complex water systems to hide,” he said.

The Challenging Consequences Of Legionella Growth

Following a 2015 Bronx, N.Y., outbreak, which killed 16 and sickened 138, the CDC redoubled its efforts, CDC epidemiologist Chris Edens said.

The officials are finding that as temperatures rise and summer extends, that could spur more bacterial growth.

“If devices like air conditioning units are used for longer periods of time that could certainly pose a risk,” Edens said.

Ehlers also pointed to an unusual source: the green building movement. She said LEED-certified buildings and other efforts to conserve water often hold such water at temperatures that are unsafe.

“It’s made a growth dish for Legionella,” she said.

As cases have risen, the CDC has increased communication about outbreaks, created a water management toolkit and helped CMS set a 2017 rule requiring health facilities and nursing homes to have a water management plan to reduce the risk of Legionella.

However, officials updated the rule in 2018 to clarify that CMS does not require health care facilities to test for Legionella or other waterborne pathogens. “Testing protocols are at the discretion of the provider,” the directive said. CMS did not answer questions for this story.

While the CDC and other officials say a testing requirement would be unnecessarily expensive for smaller facilities and divert attention from analyzing the water management system as a whole, Pennsylvania-based Legionella consultant Tim Keane argues that the policy lacks any teeth without such a requirement.

The National Academies also called for a change in this rule in its report.

“Unless you’re measuring for Legionella, you don’t really have complete confidence that your plan is working,” Ehlers said.

Missouri’s St. Clair Nursing Center, located an hour southwest of St. Louis, faced a water shutdown after Legionella was detected last September. The facility brought in port-a-potties during remediation, along with bedside commodes, while their facilities flushed out the deadly bacteria, nursing home administrator Denice Marsh said.

It helped that the center already had the mandated water management plan in place and had stocked up on three emergency gallons of water a day per resident for three days — a supply it had to refresh for six weeks.

Marsh said St. Clair Nursing Center made it clear to its patients and their families what was happening — and not a single resident left amid the cleanup.

The Mercy health care system faced two positive Legionella tests in the past year — one in its outpatient cancer center in Springfield in May, and another at Mercy Hospital St. Louis in February.

Flushing out Mercy’s cancer center plumbing after Legionella bacteria was found in four areas required extensive work, according to Mercy spokeswoman Sonya Kullmann. About 75 Mercy employees worked through the weekend to proactively call around 5,200 patients. The hospital system then offered free testing for Legionnaires’ to anyone who did not feel well — which 120 people took them up on, costing $30,000. All tested negative.

After all of that, the Legionella bacteria turned out to be a type that does not cause Legionnaires’ disease.

Eliminating The Problem?

A key question for facilities is how much to proactively guard against the bacteria so they don’t end up footing millions of dollars in bills if Legionella is found. Edens stressed that deciding whether or not to make complex water systems foolproof can be a life or death decision.

“Our message is that cost is worth it,” Edens said. “It can prevent people from getting a disease and prevent people from dying.”

George Roberts Jr., board president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials and the Northeast Texas Public Health District’s CEO, echoed that sentiment, while stressing that hospital systems and others should also be motivated by this potential liability of a Legionnaires’ outbreak.

“If something in your water system is causing your patients to get sick, they’re liable for that,” he said. “It’s probably far above what the cost of fixing the problem would be.”

Roberts knows the challenges firsthand. He’s currently working to address an outbreak that sickened at least seven and is possibly connected to the East Texas State Fair in September.

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Related Topics

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San Mateo County Maple Street Correctional Center San Mateo County Maple Street Correctional Center / Redwood City, California, USA

San Mateo County Maple Street Correctional Center

The mesh performed multiple duties on the building’s façade by adding to its inviting design and acting as a sun screen. It also contributed to the project's sustainability. We wanted to celebrate the water coming off the roof and running down the mesh fins to a bioswale garden where it is filtrated before draining into the streets.
- Alan Bright, FAIA, Senior Principal - Design, HOK
  • Location: Redwood City, California, USA
  • Year Completed: 2017
  • End Use: Government
  • Architect: HOK
  • Engineer: Structural: SOHA Engineers
  • General Contractor: Sundt Layton
  • Installer: Kwan Wo Ironworks
  • Owner: San Mateo County Sheriff's Office

A model for corrections with compassion, the 260,000-square-foot, $165-million San Mateo County Maple Street Correctional Center in Redwood City, California is an inviting building designed to change the way families and community members interact with those in custody to help them move through the system and return to society. It also serves as a civic gateway to a new neighborhood featuring parks, community housing and other buildings close to the water’s edge. In designing the facility’s curved glass exterior offering open views of green space and the San Francisco Bay, architects chose Cambridge mesh to perform multiple duties on the building’s facade.

Six decorative mesh fins in Cambridge’s Mid Balance pattern stand off the façade and rest perpendicular to the glass using the Scroll attachment system. Lit by LED lights at night, the fins create an inviting look to the building.  By day, the fins celebrate the building’s sustainable design and channel rainwater from the roof into a bioswale garden.  Round caps on top of each fin collect an equal amount of rainwater that then spills across the mesh and into the garden below where it is filtrated before flowing into storm sewers.  While seeking a very open, light-filled space, the architects specified a mesh pattern that can also act as a sunshade.

The mesh contributed toward the corrections center’s LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Cambridge mesh is manufactured from recycled materials using a cold forming process that generates less environmental impact than processes for heat-treated products.  The mesh is not susceptible to weather, is virtually maintenance-free and has an indestructible life-cycle. Maple Street is an AIA Justice Facilities Review award winner.

Photo Credit: HOK/John Swain Photography

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San Mateo County Maple Street Correctional Center | Cambridge Architectural

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For information on how to manage your tickets for the Camping World Kickoff, Click Here

Tickets for the primetime clash on August 24 between the Florida Gators and Miami Hurricanes can be purchased on Ticketmaster, the official ticket marketplace of the Camping World Kickoff.

Whether you’re looking to celebrate with a large group of friends and family or you’re planning a corporate outing to host clients or reward employees, a luxury suite offers a premier experience with a level of sophistication unmatched anywhere else in Camping World Stadium.

To learn more about purchasing a suite for the Camping World Kickoff, click here.

Ticketmaster’s Exchange platform is a fan-to-fan resale marketplace that verifies ticket authenticity before it is listed to provide transparency and safety in the purchase process. All tickets purchased through this platform are validated so fans are never turned away with a fraudulent ticket.

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PRIMESPORT is the Official Gameday Experience Provider of the 2019 Camping World Kickoff. Packages can include official game tickets, hotel accommodations, pre-game field pass, and souvenir.

Get your official 2019 Camping World Kickoff game tickets and travel packages now!

Mobile Entry

Florida Citrus Sports has enabled mobile ticketing for this game. If you purchased your tickets through Florida Citrus Sports, view our mobile ticketing guide here.

To learn more about how to use mobile entry if you purchased through Ticketmaster, check out their guide.

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Proximity of variables in a 2-D PCA plot

What does it mean when two variables are close to each other in a biplot?

Select the option below that provides the correct answer to this question. Which variables are very important in both dimensions and which are only important in one of them?

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SmartClean Robotic Vacuum in Action

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Watch the SmartClean Robotic Vacuum in action, tackling more messes and more surface types.

The SmartClean® Robotic Vacuum's powerful suction, unique brush roll, and edge-cleaning brushes pick up dirt, dust, and hair so you don't have to.

The SmartClean® Robotic Vacuum gives you automatic, effective cleaning whenever you want, all over your home. Its powerful suction and unique brush roll design gather dust, debris, and hair so you don't have to.

Its Revolution® navigation system provides excellent coverage, even under furniture, along edges and corners, and in other hard-to-reach places.

SmartClean offers automatic return to its self-charging docking station, scheduling cleans when it's convenient for you, and other fantastic, helpful features.

Triple-Action Cleaning System. To deliver a reliable, more complete clean, the SmartClean Vacuum features dual spinning edge brushes for corners and edges, a rotating brush roll to unseat and lift embedded debris and hair, and strong suction to gather loose dirt into the dust bin.

Multi-Surface Adaptability. The unique design easily recognizes and adapts to multiple floor types including low-pile carpet, hard floors, tile and laminates.

Smarter than the Average Vacuum. Opticlean® sensors find dirt and debris in those heavily trafficked areas you want to clean the most.

Invisible Wall Technology keeps the vacuum in the rooms you want to clean and out of the ones you don't.

Convenient, Flexible Cleaning. Schedule the SmartClean to go over your floors while you're away so your clean doesn't get in the way of your everyday life. It even returns on its own to its self self-charging docking station when the cleaning is done or when the battery needs recharging.

Lithium-ion battery for a lasting, powerful, hands-free clean. Easily navigates under and around furniture, including beds, tables and chairs.

What's included in the box: 1 - SmartClean® Robot Vacuum; 1 - Lithium-Ion Battery; 1 - Power Adapter; 1 - Docking Station; 1 - Invisible Wall (requires 4 AA batteries, not included); 1 - Filter (located inside dust bin); 2 - Edge Cleaning Brushes.

1 year limited warranty.

Robotic vacuums are great helpers for a busy lifestyle and are meant to help keep the house clean in between regular vacuuming.

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There are two streams for students to specialize in either classical or contemporary dance:

The Classical stream is for intermediate/advanced ballet students and includes more advanced training in ballet and pointe.

The Contemporary stream is for intermediate-level ballet students and includes additional contemporary training and the option of less advanced pointe classes.

Dance Performance
Dance Performance

Student Selection

Students auditioning for this program should have a minimum of five to seven years in classical ballet and have reached an intermediate level in classical ballet for the Contemporary stream and an advanced level in classical ballet for the Classical Ballet stream; pointe work is required, as well as training in Jazz and/or Modern Dance.

Further Study Can Be:

The Mentorship Program with Canada’s Ballet Jörgen The Junior Company with Canada’s Ballet Jörgen

Program Standards and Learning Outcomes

The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:

  1. Perform advanced classical ballet and modern dance technique in choreographed solo and ensemble productions.
  2. Perform jazz dance technique in choreographed solo and ensemble productions.
  3. Sing at an intermediate level using pulse, rhythm and metre in both solo presentations and chorus productions.
  4. Create artistically expressive dramatic characterizations in a dance context at an advanced level in both solo and ensemble performances.
  5. Present self professionally at auditions and in industry environments through resumes, biographical backgrounds, and photographs to advance artistic and career opportunities.
  6. Develop self-knowledge and reflective practice to make informed artistic, pedagogical, personal development and career choices within the performing arts industry.
  7. Apply pedagogical skills and concepts to educate students in the areas of ballet, modern and jazz dance training.

Tuition & Fees

$5,887.00 * ‡

Additional cost

* Amounts listed are the total of tuition, materials, student service and ancillary fees for the first two semesters of programs starting in Fall 2018. Fees are subject to change for programs starting in Fall 2019 and at later dates.

‡ There will be a $60 audition fee (payable in cash or cheque only) when you arrive on the day of your audition for P101, P105 or P106.

International students: Visit the International Fees and Related Costs page for more information.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this online calendar is subject to change without notice. It should not be viewed as a representation, offer or warranty. Students are responsible for verifying George Brown College fee requirements.

How to Apply

Admission Requirements

Applicants are selected on the basis of their academic achievement, including the required courses, and any other selection criteria outlined below.

  • Ontario Secondary School Diploma or equivalent**
  • Grade 12 English (C or U)
  • Interview
  • Audition – Auditions will be held in spring and fall. For more information on auditions, including dates and times please call 416-415-5000, ext. 2196 or visit
  • A minimum of intermediate level training in Classical Ballet (5 –7 years); pointe work is required, as well as training in Jazz and/or Modern Dance.

** Mature student status (19 years of age or older and no ossd)

Mature Students may take the Admissions Assessment for English, OR may consider upgrading to achieve the credit(s) needed in English.

Please note that George Brown is committed to ensuring that applicants will succeed in their program of choice and meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee admission to the program. Applicants may be required to have grades higher than the minimum requirements stated.

Course Exemptions

College or university credits may qualify you for course exemptions. Please visit for more information.

International (Visa) Students

Visit the International Admissions page for more information.

Apply to

Ontario Colleges

Pay for GBD Audition

Career & Post-Graduate Opportunities

Your Career

Our graduates are working! Some of the many places they’ve found work include:

  • Traditional dance companies and festivals: apprenticing, performing and touring with established dance companies and festivals such as Stratford, Ballet Jörgen Canada and the Charlottetown Festival.
  • The project-based dance industry: applying for funding for their own projects, choreographing, founding companies, joining/forming groups and producing shows, and performing in festivals, cabarets, theatres and resorts.
  • Film and television: appearing in productions and music videos and developing dance on film projects.
  • The dance training studio industry, driven by television and live dance competitions: teaching, choreographing, coaching and judging, as well as founding and taking ownership of their own studios.
  • The dance fitness and workshop industry: teaching and developing the expanding market of dance fitness and specialized workshops and taking this product across Canada and abroad.
  • The sports and dance teams industry: cheerleading, and forming and joining dance teams.

Some graduates continue on to arts and master’s degrees in universities and continued professional development in fields such as circus performance, personal fitness, stage management, nutrition and physical therapies.

Some of the companies our graduates are working for:

2015 Pan Games Dance Artist, A2D2 Aerial Dance, Abroad in Australia, Mexico, Germany, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, USA, Lebanon, Artists Play Dance Theatre*, Ballet Espressivo, Ballet Kelowna, Blaze Entertainment, Blue Ceiling Dance, Cadence Ballet*, Canada’s Ballet Jörgen, Carnival Cruise Lines, Charlottetown Festival, Chimera Dance Project, Circus Orange, Dance Fuzion, Dance Ontario, Disney Cruise Lines, DivaGirl Entertainment, Drayton Entertainment, Dusk Dances, Elite Stage Productions, Hamilton Tiger Cats Dance Team, Honey Kats, Human Body Expression, Jay9 Dance Projects, I/O Movement*, La Belle Danse Baroque Company, Les Mills International Dance Fitness, Lindsay Ritter Productions, Luminato Festival, Melbourne Dance Theatre Company, Mirvish Productions, Much Music, Lady Gaga, Ontario Ballet Theatre, Paul Ibey Dance Company, Princess Cruise Lines, REAson D’etre Productions, So You Think You Can Dance, Starting Pointe Productions*, Stiletto Girls*, Stratford Festival, The Garage, The Rockettes, Toronto Argonauts Blue Thunder Dance Team, Toronto Burlesque Festival, Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto Marlies Dance Pak, Toronto Raptors Dance Team, Toronto Rock Dance Team, Tree House Television, Valence Movement Dance Theatre*, Wonderland Dance Company

*Company founded by GBD Graduate


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Filed Under: after school, easy, energy, Family, granola, healthy, Kids, Quick, snack

No-Bake Granola Bar

Try these no-bake granola bars for a quick afternoon snack for a healthy burst of energy.

August 8th, 2014

Recipes and Food Styling by Signe Langford

Delicious just as it is, this chewy, easy-to-make bar is the perfect starting point for our five tasty variations. For intense honey flavour, look for a dark liquid honey, such as buckwheat; for a subtler sweetness go for wildflower, orange blossom, or good old clover. Very important; don’t switch out the quick cook oats for rolled, or the bars will fall apart.
12 typical-sized bars
Prep Time
15 to 20 minutes
  • 2 cups quick cooking oats, toasted
  • 1 cup crisp rice cereal, brown if possible
  • 1/4 cup raw, shelled sunflower seeds
  • 4 tbsp salted butter
  • 1/4 cup runny honey
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp real vanilla extract
  1. Lightly coat an 8” x 12” or 9” x 11” casserole dish, cake pan, food storage container with cooking spray or butter and set aside.

  2. In a large, dry, skillet over medium heat, toast the quick oats until lightly golden; stirring or tossing constantly so as not to burn. Once toasted, tip out into a large bowl.

  3. To the oats, add the crisp rice, sunflower seeds, stir to blend, and set aside.

  4. In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the butter, honey, and brown sugar, stirring often, until the butter has melted and the ingredients are well blended – about 2 minutes – continue to heat and stir until the butter mixture is bubbling slightly; about another 2 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat, add vanilla and stir to blend well.

  6. Pour the warm butter mixture into the dry oat mixture and stir until evenly mixed and coated. Press the mixture into the greased dish evenly and very firmly. Loosely packed bars tend to crumble when cooled. For a super smooth surface, press with a flat-bottomed glass or cup.

  7. Set bars aside for about 2 hours at room temperature. Once cool, run a knife around the edge of the bars, flip out onto a cutting board and slice into bars; the shape and size is up to you. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

No-Bake Granola Bar
Photography by Carlo Mendoza

4 responses to “No-Bake Granola Bar”

  1. Alexis says:

    There is a problem with the recipe. Quick oats are listed twice and the instructions mention crisp rice, but it’s not listed as an ingredient.

  2. Canadian Family says:

    Issue is fixed, please take a look now!

  3. Nancy says:

    I’m not seeing the fix for the recipe. Thanks in advance

  4. Laura says:

    Can you freeze these? What is the nutrition value?

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Climate Change Activism: From Flight-Shaming to Video-Shaming

(Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

If you think that aviation’s energy use is too high, consider that the Internet’s will soon surpass it.

Summer 2019 saw the duke of Sussex and Mayor Pete Buttigieg both apologizing for the “sin” of flying private, given the supposedly drastic effect it has on the climate. And in August, to much media hoopla, a Swedish teenage “climate warrior” sailed to New York to encourage everyday folks to stop flying so much.

What a contrast to the summer of 1939, when PanAm’s huge Dixie Clipper left New York for the first ever transatlantic passenger flight. Reporting on that momentous event, the Associated Press exulted that “aviation’s long-cherished dream of regular transatlantic passenger service by plane became a reality.” Today we have “flight-shaming.”

Flying, which no longer engenders much awe, now gobbles over two billion barrels of oil a year. Aviation saves that most precious commodity — personal time — but polls show that many people also want to do “something” about climate change, which unavoidably means tamping down energy use. Thus we see Millennials in Europe and America virtue-signal by taking days-long train rides instead of hours-long flights.

As it happens, flight-shaming is a good example of the fatuousness of environmental extremism. Aviation’s fuel use soared after the introduction of commercial aircraft, precisely because of flying’s manifold benefits. The comparable innovation of our time is ubiquitous computing. Numerous analyses show that the energy used by the global Internet already rivals that used by the commercial airline industry — and demand for data is growing far faster than demand for air miles.

Nevertheless, flight-shamers bombarded social media in an effort to target the A-listers who took private jets to Sicily to attend the “Google Camp” where climate change was the hot topic. The shamers were oblivious to their own hypocrisy: If we assume that, over that summer month, one in 10,000 people on social media viewed stories and videos about flight-shaming, it’s a safe bet that their Internet traffic used as much energy as the 114 aircraft that carried the stars to Sicily. In fact, just a couple of summer weeks of all Internet traffic uses more energy than all private-jet flights do in a year.

Perhaps a more useful way to compare obvious and “hidden” energy behaviors would be to invent an entirely new unit of measure. Let’s propose, in honor of flight-shamers, something we could call a personal jet-air-mile, or “p-JAM.” A single p-JAM is the energy used by one person flying one mile on a commercial jet. One can convert the energy used for any activity, be it driving or Web surfing, from British thermal units (BTUs) or gallons of gasoline into p-JAMs.

Using the p-JAM metric, we see that trains don’t yield much energy savings. Your personal fuel use riding a fully loaded train is about 0.7 p-JAMs each mile, or a mere 30 percent less than flying. Drive a mile alone in a typical SUV and you burn two p-JAMs per mile. Car-pooling with three passengers drops per person fuel use, on average, to 0.5 p-JAMs per mile.

Meanwhile, watch an HD movie on your mobile device and, on average, you are personally responsible for burning five p-JAMs every hour. That’s not the fault of the device in your hand; it’s your pro rata share of the energy use “hidden” in the hardware of the Internet’s infrastructure. The lion’s share of digital energy use happens in the “invisible” infrastructure, the networks and the thousands of datacenters that constitute the core of the World Wide Web. Each of those warehouse-scale computers burns through some 100,000 p-JAMs every hour. For perspective, consider that a typical Empire State Building–sized skyscraper sips just 3,000 p-JAMs an hour.

Then there’s artificial intelligence (AI), the most energy-intensive use of computing ever conceived. Studies show that the “training” phase for one AI application consumes about 200,000 to 2 million p-JAMs. Millions of p-JAMs are burned every time a single supercomputer simulates, say, a drug molecule’s interaction with biological cells in silico, rather than in humans.

There are no limits to AI applications, or to the pursuit of cures and new digital products and services. And as virtual reality becomes more practical, not just for entertainment but also for many other useful purposes, digital p-JAM consumption will grow exponentially. Of course, computing will also become more efficient, but more efficiency leads to more traffic. Aviation is today 160 percent more efficient than it was in 1975, but global air travel is up 1,000 percent since then. Computing efficiency is 1,000-fold greater than it was in 1995, but data traffic has exploded 100,000-fold.

Every technology has its energy price tag. We are as besotted with the Internet today as we once were with aviation.  But if it’s all about the p-JAMs, future climate warriors might consider using black-and-white TVs rather than sailboats to make their point. Video-shaming, anyone?

Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of Digital Cathedrals, which is forthcoming from Encounter Books.

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