I’ve been  afraid to allow myself to embark on this subject – I get so hot under the collar I just might say some very inappropriate things.  However, an article in today’s “Ottawa Sun” has me at my computer, hoping to remain lady-like in my comments.

While I understand how unions came into being in the manufacturing world – how on earth did they ever get such a strangle hold in the public sector?  There has never been poor working conditions….there has never been mistreatment of staff (other than the occasional nasty superior which happens anywhere)…..there has always been (at least as long as I can remember) decent wages and more than decent benefits.  You only have to be sitting in a government department at 4:05 pm to know that, in general, nobody is asked to over-exert themselves!

I know….I know….there are always some exceptions – but I’ve been there – both as an employee and as a contractor!  I also spent 30 years in private sector (some of it as a contractor on public sector work sites).

Yet here we are, our public sector is union-driven.  Teachers are being encouraged to “work to rule” – goodness knows – if you stay after school to coach a sports team, or to help students in need of some extra time, you might make somebody else look bad.  Our municipal, provincial and federal workers – who get annual increases no matter how they do their jobs – feel over burdened.  Somebody has been telling them that working a 7.5 hour day with coffee breaks is hard labour.  A month in a private sector job would be a major eye-opener.

Sigh.  What I really want to say is that in today’s world (and especially in public sector), unions seem to be doing more harm than good.  They work for themselves, not for their members and certainly not for the greater good.  They use hard core tactics to ensure their survival (e.g. mandatory membership, mandatory picketing, etc).  They share, in large measure, with Dalton McGuinty, responsibility for the financial mess our province is in today.  They create and encourage an environment of “entitlement”.

Times have changed.  It is time for more change.

I heard “through the grapevine” that the cost of renewing our license plate stickers is going to increase – and then increase – and then increase again.

Trying to find this information on the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario’s website is like looking for a needle in a haystack – obviously they don’t want us to find it!!!

However – here’s the scoop.

As of September 1, 2012, the renewal price is going up from $74 to $82.  That’s a 10.8% increase.   Then, in  2013 (and I believe it is January), the cost will go up again, to $90 (another 9.8% increase).  In  2014, another increase to $98.00 (+8.9%).  All together, the jump from $74 to $98 represents an increase of 32.4%.  Nice work if you can get it!

As painful as this is, there will be  some of you who can delay the pain.  If your birthday is after September 1, 2012,  go and purchase your new 2-year license plate sticker at the current $74/year cost BEFORE the Sept 1st deadline.  The system apparently allows you to buy the renewal stickers up to 6 months in advance.  It may not be a huge savings – but it is one more tax grab from this Liberal government that you won’t have to deal with for a few years.

In this morning’s Sun there is an article quoting the new Union VP as saying that worker morale is now the top priority.  Sharon Bow has been a bus driver herself for 21 years so one would think she should know what she is talking about.  The drift of the article was about scheduling and the stress it puts on the drivers.  She had my sympathy right up to the place where she said “our riders are an important part of our job”.  GOOD GRIEF WOMAN!  WITHOUT RIDERS, THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY JOBS FOR BUS DRIVERS, BUS MECHANICS, MANAGEMENT – ANYONE!!

I am retired, so I don’t ride the buses anymore although I did so for many years, living in Kanata and working downtown.  If those at OC Transpo don’t feel that the riders are THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of their jobs, there isn’t much hope for the entire organization.

I agree that worker morale, scheduling, working conditions, and so on are important but riders are the bread and butter of OC Transpo.  Salaries (thanks to unions and our city council) will go up every year and so must ridership or this pony won’t trot….or whatever the expression is.  Without a consistent increase in riders, OC Transpo and the Union representing their workers, won’t have things like scheduling or salaries to worry about.

Personally, I think any increases in costs associated with running OC Transpo should be directly tied to how well they are doing as measured by ridership numbers.  Increase ridership, reward the organization and its members.  Geesh!  Does that sound too much like private sector thinking?

Surely the skies will open up soon and relieve us of this heat and humidity!  It’s too hot to put a foot outside the door!

I remember living without central air – we would all head down to the basement during those much less frequent heat waves……or, some years later, that one room with a window unit in it became the place to be!

Officially, we aren’t having a heat wave unless the temperature, in the shade and without the humidity factored in, reaches 32C three days in a row.  Isn’t that just too ridiculous.

I’m with Ron Corbett (Journalist for the Ottawa Sun) on this one.  Rideau Carleton Raceway gets my vote.  Why?

1. The site is already established with slot machines and a huge client base (1.5 million per year).
2. There is oodles of parking.
3. It is relatively easy to access for our rural neighbours.
4. Points 1 and 2 sound like reasonable choices from a cost perspective to me – I don’t want any of my tax dollars (municipal or provincial) going into a casino – ANYWHERE!
5. Any downtown location would mean public transit for those of us who live here.  If you are in the east, west or south, direct bus service only runs for worker bees (mornings and late afternoons, Monday to Friday).  I don’t care how much fun it is, I would NOT take 2 or 3 buses and 1-2 hours overall travel time each way to go there.
6. Downtown might be nice for tourists in summer, but Ottawa in winter (other than Winterlude) is NOT a tourist hotspot and my guess is it isn’t tourists who are responsible for the success of this sort of venture.
7. A casino at Scotiabank Place would also work well – but I doubt my budget could handle having a casino that close by.
8. Our mayor, Jim Watson, wants a downtown location for the new Casino.  He will likely bully Council to agree with him as he usually does.  That, for me, is just one more reason for not wanting a downtown choice.

This may all be a moot point.  If the provincial budget fails and an election is called, Dalton’s frantic need for sources of income (and thus the desire to build more casinos in the province) may go the way of the DoDo bird.

What do you think?

Sue

I saw red this morning when I read in the paper that the recent court case (Friends of Lansdowne) could very seriously impact and delay the return of football to Ottawa.  It angered me NOT because of any potential delay in the return of football (I could care less about that), but because of the excuse and finger pointing provided by our own mayor, Jim Watson.  It appears the final reports on the governance and legal agreements with the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group aren’t expected until months after they were scheduled to be tabled and that it is the legal challenge by the Lansdowne Park Conservancy that is causing the delay.

HOGWASH.

I spent many years working for a very large high tech company.  We dealt with RFPs and contract negotiation situations in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  We were given approx 6 weeks to not only respond to the RFP but to also understand and agree to the associated contract terms and conditions.  Once a bid was awarded, there were minor contract negotiations prior to final signing – all managed with a maximum of two people and sign-off on our end – and those two people dealing with a multitude of other things simultaneously.  The City of Ottawa has a huge staff and no doubt an entire legal department and contracting department at its disposal.  Work on the contract with OSE should have been ongoing by City staff regardless of any lawsuits surrounding the overall project.  To use the lawsuits as an excuse is plain NONSENSE.  I am sure they did take up the time of City legal beagles – but it isn’t normally the lawyers who work out the contract details (though they probably do the final check and approval).

Just another instance of the Mayor blaming anyone and everyone and the City plugging along in its normal fashion on my tax dollar.  I am not amused.

Speaking of our Mayor – does he not trust Councillors to do an interview?  He turns up, uninvited, in the strangest of places.

On a recent Saturday my Court (a self-contained circular street) held a garage sale.  Since our regular Friday garbage collection had been moved to Saturday due to a holiday Monday, one of my neighbours had the foresight to call the City to ask if the garbage could be picked up early to avoid what we were hoping would be traffic jams of shoppers.

Much to our surprise, the City agreed – and even called back to confirm our request.

Saturday appeared – no sign of garbage trucks at the promised 7am – and there are usually THREE of them – one to collect the green bins and yard waste, one to collect the blue or black box recycle items and a third to collect “real” garbage.  It seemed that dispatch finally reached these drivers about 10am that morning – and all of a sudden, we had 3 garbage trucks fighting to make their way around the court to pick up bins, hidden behind cars parked on both sides of the street (and in the centre of it) while people shopped for bargains.  AMAZING.  IT WAS ALMOST LAUGHABLE.

This got me thinking about an old beef of mine (and one I share with my City Councillor).  Our current system of garbage collection achieves waaaaay short of the targets for recycling (landfill avoidance).  It also involves, as I said above, 3 trucks, 3+ drivers, lumbering down the street each garbage day….not to mention the space in our garages that must be found for blue box, black box, green bin, garbage can and yard-waste bags.  A double-car garage is no longer enough!!

I wonder what would happen if we put our garbage and recycle things out in one container (or several – but still all mixed in together)……created a sorting station which would employ a number of folks currently on UI or Welfare – should result in an ability to meet nearly 100% of the landfill avoidance targets if said people are doing their job, avoid 3 separate garbage trucks and associated costs, and put the onus where it belongs for this entire process.  We do, after all, pay for this in our property taxes.

What do you think?

Why should everyone think they’ve done a good job to hold a wage increase to +2%?  I absolute HATE that our mayor, Jim Watson,  has set an expectation that anything at or under 2.5% per year is absolutly OK.  My pension certainly doesn’t go up 2% per year – in fact, my pension doesn’t go up at all…..EVER!  I lose ground each and every year that everything around me goes up, and up, and up!

With the size of municipal staff we have in our city (approx 17,000) – why is there a constant need to go “outside” to find experts?  Are we not hiring people with the right skills in the first place?

Why does our group of Councillors find it  easy to spend days discussing the small things, but doesn’t give the same attention to the major items on the table?  Could it be that the small things are much easier to deal with?

Can we really afford some of the large-ticket items currently making the news (e.g. LRT).???

Does anyone have comments on any of this?  I’d love to hear them!

So – we are now examining 4 potential routes to run trains between Bayview and Lincoln Field stations:

(1) Richmond Rd/Byron Ave via Churchill

(2) Ottawa River Parkway

(3) Richmond Rd/Byron Ave via the parkway

(4) Richmond Rd/Byron Ave via Rochester Field

I cannot, in  my wildest dreams, imagine anything that makes LESS sense than a light rail transit system that travels on a corridor where NOBODY LIVES, NOBODY SHOPS, NOBODY WORKS!!  While the Ottawa River Parkway is lovely to look at, the intent should not be a “scenic drive to work”!!

Quite frankly, I don’t think our city is large enough to warrant a light rail system at all and our greenbelt scenario – with a huge chunk of land in which there are no transit customers – also creates special challenges.  If you want to increase ridership on public transit – start with making current systems better for east, west and southern suburbians.

I cringe to think of my tax dollars being spent on a pipe-dream!

If I see our Mayor – Jim Watson – in one more photo op, I’m going to puke!  I think he would turn up for the opening of an envelope!!  (I stole that one from a friend)…..and…while I’m on the subject……is nobody else allowed to have an opinion at City Hall?  He does seem to get a “tad” upset if anyone disagrees with him.  What are those other councillors for anyway????