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Newsstand: December 1, 2014
It may be December, but you wouldn't know it from the weather. If the cold rain we're expecting this week starts to get you down, take a look at what our Prairie companions are dealing with, and rejoice. In the news today: John Tory is the new mayor, software problems result in benefits being overpaid (and the government knew about the problems beforehand), full-day kindergarten gets pushback from teachers, and Andy Byford is going to cut TTC delays in half...within five years.
It’s the end of an era: today, John Tory takes over from Rob Ford as mayor. He’s already announced that his deputy will be long-time councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East). Neither Ford nor former deputy mayor Norm Kelly will take up positions in Tory’s executive committee. Tory has actually asked city council to appoint four deputy mayors, one from each region of the metropolitan area: in addition to Minnan-Wong, who will be the more powerful of the four, Tory has named Vincent Crisanti (Ward 1, Etobicoke North); Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre); and Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre). The move is part of Tory’s effort to repair deep divides within both the city and city council.
Problems with the new Social Assistance Management System, software used in dispensing payments, have led to Ontario residents’ benefits being overpaid. Now, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) says the government was aware of flaws in the system for months before its rollout. While around 6,000 faulty payments have been recovered, there are still 253 payments — totalling about $300,000 — that have not been collected. OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas issued a statement on Saturday, saying, “The government has spent four years and $250 million dollars on this system.” Thomas went on to call the system “a total mess [that] could have been avoided if the government had listened to the workers instead of relying on software consultants.”
Full-day kindergarten, introduced in Ontario in 2010, has failed to live up to its potential, according to the union that represents Toronto elementary school teachers. With an average class size of 24 students last year, teachers are unable to focus on passing on the curriculum and instead have to spend their time maintaining discipline in the classroom. “Teachers are being attacked, grabbed, bitten,” said John Smith, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto. “Kids fighting with each other, kids running and leaving the classroom.” Provincial education minister Liz Sandals has rejected requests for classroom-size caps in the past, but says she will listen to the union’s concerns.
TTC CEO Andy Byford has an ambitious plan to cut transit delays in half in the next five years. Each year there are about 500 hours of delay on the subway line alone, according to TTC spokesman Brad Ross, but he said not all of that is avoidable. Byford said the solution is to “draw up budgets that tackle each and every one of those causes of delay, to assign to people to them, to assign programs to them, and resources, and to relentlessly drive those delays down.”