December 19, 2007
Streetcars Not Canadian Enough, Gate House Not Nice Enough, Brazilians Not Pro-Santa Enough
Gate House goes coed. After a series of puerile, childish, vaguely misogynistic stunts, the infamous all-male U of T residence has been come down upon by that stuffy old dean. Of note is Gate House's claim to be an inspiration for the movie Animal House, just like every other "look at us we're so wild" frat house on every college campus ever, despite the fact that Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis went to McMaster.
Labour critics complain that not enough parts of Toronto's new streetcars will be made in Canada. TTC general manager Gary Webster points out that with a threshold higher than "25 percent made in Canada," only Bombardier would be able to perform the contract. Bombardier responded by issuing a press release stating, "...and your point is what, exactly?"
New Jersey bans the death penalty. However, unfortunately for criminals, this means that instead of death, they will now get life in New Jersey.
Dying resident labourer asks for relaxation of visa rules so his children can come to Canada and celebrate what is likely his final Christmas. Immigration Canada defended the decision by saying that rules are rules, even when they are stupid and pointlessly applied.
Brazilian gunmen open fire on Santa Claus. No joke here. That's just a really, really great headline! Not quite as good as "Glow in the Dark Cats Fight Disease," but still, pretty good.
Photo of Victoria University president Paul Gooch walking towards Burwash Hall by David Topping.
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A few years ago, a friend of mine who was attending U of T at the time, once ran into Donald Sutherland near Victoria College. They struck up a friendly conversation, and Donald walked over to Gate House with her and pointed out the window where he once threw a kitchen sink out of, among other things.
Requiring local content is a nice concept but out of touch with a globalized economy in a country with limited remaining heavy manufacturing. There are very few streetcar makers left in the world, and we're already fortunate that we have one of them. Leave it at that.
More than the token 25% would be a ridiculous requirement that would only drive up the price for a difficult-to-measure gain. In a nation of Canada's size, you can't expect someone to find it worthwhile to build a factory to supply a vehicle that gets ordered once every other decade by a couple dozen cities on the continent, only four of them Canadian. It's one thing if the field of competitive suppliers already exist and you want to steer business their way without undue constraint - like rail vehicles might have been in the 1960s - but don't try to Sovietize the economy by requiring an unreasonable level of Canadian content to be pulled from thin air for an industry that barely exists.
Giambrone is full of crap. Quebec has just agreed a contract with, who else, Bombardier for the supply of go-train style coaches for Montreal. The Cancon requirement was 60 percent and surprise surprise everyone else said no thanks. So this is by no means a first for Cancon, in fact weren't the new subway cars set at 50pc Cancon? (The other 50pc is foreign made and shipped to TBay for assembly).
The 204 streetcars are very much a custom job (TTC's track has tighter curves and steeper inclines than most other systems) but it's vital that the next phase, the Transit City cars attract multiple bids.
After all, wouldn't it be nice for Siemens or some other manufacturer to be assembling LRTs in the 416 or even 905 not only for Toronto and GTA municipalities but Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton - hell Montreal is bringing back streetcars - why can't we get some of their money when it's up for grabs?
@dowlingm: Giambrone said it "is the first time there has been a Canadian content provision in a competitive bid for transit vehicles."
I believe your examples--the Montreal cars and the Toronto subway cars--were both sole-sourced, meaning they weren't procured through a competitive bid. This, in turn, means that Giambrone may in fact NOT be full of crap. N'est-ce pas?
Actually, it looks like the Montreal subway cars were sole-sourced to Bombardier, but the AMT commuter cars were not. However, I just looked at the commuter car RFP, and there doesn't seem to be a Canadian content requirement.
I really want to see where else you'll be able use that "glow-in-the-dark cats" tag...