November 28, 2007
Downtown Dark, Ban Logging In Park, Leafs Suck
A large part of the downtown core from College to Queens Quay and York to Bayview, was blacked-out for about 2 ½ hours yesterday. In response, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said that Toronto has the ability to generate all the power it needs and certainly wasn't getting any more from the Province, while Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty agreed, adding that Torontonians should stop whining and being all dependent on electricity.
Web search giant Google is living up to its motto "Don't Be Evil" by pledging to spend hundreds of millions on researching clean, renewable energy. One option being considered is a plant that would generate electricity for 750,000 homes annually by burning Google's excess cash.
Environmentalists are pressuring Natural Resources Minister to reduce or prohibit logging in Algonquin Park. A ban would make Algonquin consistent with other provincial parks, but would anger some local residents who rely on the lumber trade for their income. Hmmm, a wilderness area where development and industrial activity are banned...hey, that sounds like, um, a park.
At their summit in Annapolis yesterday, Israeli P.M. Olmert and Palestinian Authority leader Abbas pledged to work towards a peace deal in 2008, meaning they would meet periodically to shake hands and ask about each other's families. The failure of the talks will be announced in early 2009.
The National Post says that the Toronto Maple Leafs, currently riding a four-game losing streak, are "fast becoming the worst team in the NHL." Not exactly untrue but still kind of depressing.
Photo by moonwire from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Erm...we're 28th in the NHL. Not quite the worst yet.
Sorry, my bad for not paying attention - I'll change. The "depressing" comment stands, though.
The Algonquin Park issue is not sufficiently explained above.
The park ONLY EXISTS because it was set aside as a LOGGING RESERVE for white pine about a hundred years ago. Gradually it was allowed to become a park, but at no time has logging ceased.
The logging practiced in Algonquin is, however, a form of selective harvesting that is enlightened and highly sustainable. I did two tree-planting contracts in the park and was proud to work with the foresters who are equally proud of the careful and conscious work they do.
It is indicative of the high quality, small quantity approach that very few of the hundreds of thousands of campers and canoeists who have used the park in the past century have any clue that the area is still logged.
This is the kind of mixed-use that should be encouraged. It puts loggers and campers on the same side and leaves the forest in good healthy shape in the long term.
The Leafs are also the most valuable franchise in the NHL, haha.
The Post is only complaining now? The Star has been apoplectic for the better part of a week and a half now. I'm wondering when Damien Cox is going to finally have that seizure.
The joke about Jim Flaherty complaining that Toronto is "whiny and dependant on electricity" is a fantastic blast from the past. I will proceed to spoil the joke for those whose political memories don't go that far back:
Back during the 1999 TTC strike, when the Common Sense Revolutionaries were still hooliganing it up at Queen's Park, a Tory MPP was quoted (no doubt as he stepped from his limo) saying that Toronto was "too dependant on transit." Not in the sense that the city was too dependant on transit for the strike to drag on, but in the sense that transit riders were a bunch of irresponsibly freeloading losers who should get a goddamn car like honest people.
Bonus points to whomever can dig up that MPP's name, but in a related co-incidence, the Minister of Transportation at the time was ... Jim Flaherty.
Calculating municipalities' chances at succeeding in their current efforts to get money from the federal government is left as an exercise to the reader.
Oops. Flaherty was Minister of Labour, which is still ironic, I suppose. Looks like Transportation was Tony Clement's portfolio at the time. I also go the quote wrong.
We now return to your regularly scheduled high-accuracy blog comments already in progress.