@evdelen@mstdn.ca

There's yet another angle on the #DougFord grift by privatizing recycling collection across #Ontario: get municipalities to pay the private, for-profit "Producer Responsibility Organization" to pickup recycling from "noneligible" properties under the privatization scheme.

What's an "noneligible" property you ask? All non-residential property in the province.
- All private sector businesses;
- Restaurants
- Places of worship
- Daycares
- Campgrounds
- Municipal buildings
- Non-profits (shelters, food banks)

This privatization, with the professed goal of saving municipalities the cost of running recycling programs, is going to result in municipalities paying private companies to do recycling pickup at many of the properties in their borders!

"The Niagara Region estimates that servicing the area’s ... noneligible properties would cost around $3.5 million a year ... about $2 million more than current costs..."

https://www.thestar.com/business/ford-governments-new-recycling-law-doesnt-cover-stores-and-restaurants-so-some-may-find-they/article_29056d4c-a9db-4363-a176-c1e4251455c0.html

#ONPoli #Cities #Urbanism #Corruption #Conservatives

Excerpt from the linked article reading:

The Ontario government has asked for public input on a proposal to amend the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act of 2016, which privatized residential recycling. The proposal would allow municipalities to negotiate, and potentially contract out the work, to the organizations now running the Blue Box program.

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

The current widest tunnel constructed is the 2 mile long (3.2km) State Route 99 tunnel in Seattle, WA at 17.5m wide, a double deck highway.

It took 4 years to dig (3.2km) and was estimated to cost $1bn/km to construct. It ended up costing more.

The #DougFord fever dream would be a 1.5meters WIDER, and would stretch for 50km (never mind the bunch of ravines and valleys that the 401 traverses).

For context on the costs:

- The #Ontario GDP is about $1.1tr, Ford wants to spend 5% of our annual GDP on one unneeded and unadvised project.
- The Ontario Provincial Budget is about $250bn, that means he wants to spend 1/5th of the entire budget on one unneeded and unadvised project.

Unprecedented!

Meanwhile:

- Ontario's housing starts have fallen thanks to the Ford Administrations meddling.
- Healthcare is increasingly being outsourced with worse outcomes and higher costs.
- Ford is taking over school boards so that he can steal land to hand to his developer donors.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/doug-ford-is-getting-distracted-by-just-how-humungous-his-dream-tunnel-would-be-weve/article_947e3070-0de8-438b-871c-374f0d005231.html

#ONPoli #Corruption

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

Ironic considering Galen Weston Jr. has been so critical of efforts to make #Toronto a more walkable city with more community spaces.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-08-11/trump-tariffs-and-jabs-push-canadians-to-exit-florida-enclave

#TOPoli #Toronto #WalkableCities #15MinuteCities #Urbanism

An excerpt and photograph from the linked article. The photograph is of Hilary and Galen Weston (Photographer: Nick Harvey/WireImage/Getty Images) the 2nd generation head of the Weston family, the richest family in Canada. The excerpted text reads:

"Weston and his wife, Hilary, hired the architects Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who pioneered the New Urbanism school of planning, to lay out the village in accordance with their ideas around walkable streets and community spaces. "

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

I would love to see a study on how the retail sector has been in Quebec in the last 15 months.

My guess, better overall for the economy and society in the form of:
- More face-to-face interactions
- More street retail foot traffic
- Higher average wages for store employees
- Higher overall wages as there is a higher ratio of entrepreneurship

I'm just speculating here, hence me wanting a study!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/labour-relations-board-amazon-union-delta-bc-1.7605480

#CDNPoli #Amazon #Enshitification #Quebec #BCPoli #Shopping #Retail #Monopoly #Monopolist #AntiUnion

Excerpt from the linked article reading:

While Amazon said it intends to further appeal the latest decision, the progress on unionization has led to fears the company may pull out of B.C. — as it did in Quebec, following the unionization of a warehouse in Laval, Que., in May 2024.

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

#Canada should start a "Come See What A Functioning Democracy" advertising campaign in the #USA.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cross-border-travel-plummet-fewer-americans-1.7581821

#US #USPol #USPoli #USPolitics #CanPoli #CDNPoli

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

This! 👇

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/the-worst-thing-mark-carney-could-do-is-make-a-deal-with-trump/article_31ad4ba4-c91d-4d98-9cec-cb988f6deb30.html

#CDNPoli #CanPoli #CanPolitics #Canada #BCPoli #ABPoli #SKPoli #MBPoli #ONPoli #Quebec #NBPoli #NSPoli #PEIPoli #NLPoli

Excerpt from linked opinion piece reading:

"Signing on America’s terms will mean dropping our retaliatory tariffs and plowing billions into a Trumpian slush fund. Instead, let’s use those billions to harden our defences. We can and should buy up steel and lumber to build ships and homes; compensate sectors hard-hit; build new trade infrastructure to extend our economic reach elsewhere; and help small businesses manage the regulatory complexity brought on by this trade chaos. Carney has talked a good game about all of these things, and now is the time to turn more focus towards them."

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

Let's process our resources IN CANADA rather than selling them raw!

Let's process the Tar/Oil Sands into bitumen using nuclear heat rather than burning the product to make more of it!

Let's refine that bitumen into high-value goods rather than burning them in cars!

Let's sell furniture, IKEA style, with our lumber rather than dealing with the US!

Let's make our economy as efficient as possible rather than buying to the obsessive, irrational dinosaur burning culture down south!

Let's build high-speed rail, using Canadian steel, made using Canadian electricity, to economically connect our cities, and let's leverage our knowledge workers to sell services free of US control to the world!

Let's expand out ports so we aren't reliant on excess capacity in US ports!

WE CAN DO THIS CANADA!

#ElbowsUp

#CDNPoli #CanPoli #CanPolitics #Canada #BCPoli #ABPoli #SKPoli #MBPoli #ONPoli #Quebec #NBPoli #NSPoli #PEIPoli #NLPoli

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

This! 👇

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/the-worst-thing-mark-carney-could-do-is-make-a-deal-with-trump/article_31ad4ba4-c91d-4d98-9cec-cb988f6deb30.html

#CDNPoli #CanPoli #CanPolitics #Canada #BCPoli #ABPoli #SKPoli #MBPoli #ONPoli #Quebec #NBPoli #NSPoli #PEIPoli #NLPoli

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

John Lorinc really could have gone much further in this article:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/we-should-all-be-demanding-to-find-out-whats-driving-doug-fords-tunnel-dreams/article_9bdb6511-b252-45d2-96f4-28dfd0eb4a8e.html

1. No engineer in their right mind would recommend a tunnel beneath the 401. This is obviously coming from MBA wielding C-Suite morons in "leadership" roles in the companies that, unsolicited, came up with this plan, and who are merely after gouging the taxpayer.

2. Missed opportunity to remind everyone that the 2025 Provincial election was not scheduled but a politically motivated snap-election in the interests of grabbing power while people were distracted by Trump.

3. "Peculiar psychology" assumes that this is a bug, not a feature of the plans. Projects like this are about transferring public money to private hands!

Remember, #DougFord &most #Conservatives only do things that profit them personally!

Just like how Ford indemnified private care facilities devastated by COVID because they had fmr Con Premier Mike Harris on the board, Aecon also has Con's on the Board: Rod Phillips.

#ONPoli #Corruption

$Three excerpted paragraphs from the linked to article. They read: 1. "The question is whether Ontarians were asking for an impossibly expensive solution to gridlock, or whether this a case of the engineering tail wagging the taxpaying dog." 2. "But in the run-up to the provincial general election earlier this year, Ford felt a need to brand himself as the anti-gridlock candidate, which he has tried with the Big Doug idea and his plan to tear out Toronto’s bike lanes (the subject last week of a scathing court ruling)." 3. "Flyvbjerg also point to the peculiar psychology of such politically freighted plans, which is that they tend to blind governments to cheaper and more easily executed alternatives. Such as, in the case of the 401: deploying outstanding east-west GO Bus service on dedicated lanes, which would cost a fraction of the Big Doug and provide some gridlock relief within our lifetimes."$

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

I wonder how much #Coffee and Swiss #Chocolate Americans drink and eat?

Prices for those went up by 50% last night, thanks to #TrumpTariffs, and those costs are going to trickle down to them very soon.

#USPol #USPoli #USPolitics