Deleting Lots Of Material

 

I have been downloading lots of material on my computer for a very long period of time so that I can use it later on. When I downloaded a specific news story, I expected to be able to use it fairly soon thereafter as the basis of an article that I was going to write on a certain subject for my website.  

That plan failed miserably. Unfortunately, there was so much material that I downloaded and did not use because other more important events or items arose which I had to write about first. Accordingly, I started plugging up storage capacity on my hard disk drive with all this old material. However, in doing so, I found some interesting articles that I thought that you, dear reader, might be interested in taking a look at. Here are some of those articles that interested me so much that you might want to consider.

WHAT IS OUR NEXT BORDER CROSSING 

I wish I knew what the answer to that was. How will our new border crossing between Canada and United States finally be set out? 

You know from what I have written previously what I think will happen. My belief is that it is not going to be a new bridge a couple of miles away from where the Ambassador Bridge is located now. Rather, it will be a 2nd bridge right beside the existing one for a whole bunch of practical reasons. 

I'm sure that many people believe that senior politicians can tell us exactly what is going to happen although it is being kept secret publicly as it has for years and years and years. However, I am not one of them. I always believed that many senior politicians may not be giving us that information. Heck, they may not know what is really going to happen either! 

Here is just one example. This Story in the fall is what Dwight Duncan said in a Windsor Star story by Dave Battagello on October 20, 2015 http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/gordie-howe-bridge-project-should-remain-on-track : 

"Construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor and Detroit will remain a Canadian government priority under Justin Trudeau and the newly elected Liberals, says a longtime party insider. 

“The bridge project is significant enough in national scale it shouldn’t be affected,” said Dwight Duncan, Ontario’s former finance minister, who represented Windsor provincially from 1995 until 2013. 

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper never shied away from declaring the new border crossing over the Detroit River a top infrastructure priority for his Conservative government. 

It’s too important to the nation’s economy for that to change under the new Liberal leadership in Ottawa, Duncan said." 

Then, what Dwight said a few days ago is remarkably different to me based on the new story that I saw published which might really be what the new Liberal Government wants to do. Naturally, he does not accept what is being proposed but he also has not rejected it completely right away: 

"Former Windsor MPP and Liberal government insider Dwight Duncan was recently named WDBA’s interim chairman. 

He said Saturday he has not seen the email or spoken with the Morouns, but called it a “significant development.” 

“It is the decision of government how to respond to this and determine if it is real — or whether to even respond at all,” Duncan said. “It certainly is a change in tone, but my advice is to be cautious about this.”  http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/ambassador-bridges-moroun-wants-to-talk-toronto-star-reports

 

Who knows now what is going to happen. Frankly, whatever the final decision is needs to be made already. We cannot afford in this region to continue being one of the worst ones in the country as we have been for so many years. We need a project started right away to help build up our region's economy so that we are no longer the worst one in Canada!

 

ANNE AND THE MAYOR'S RELATIONSHIP STARTS TO END 

It appears that the end of the relationship between the Star's Anne Jarvis and Windsor's Mayor may have started publicly in November, 2015. Here's what she wrote in her column that suggests this: 

"Two months ago, I praised Mayor Drew Dilkens for listening to councillors. Then came a string of controversial issues and heated, marathon meetings. And behaviour at the top deteriorated. 

Dilkens needs a handler. He needs a manual: How to be a successful politician. Frankly, he needs sensitivity training. 

But we can’t afford a handler because council has to freeze taxes for the eighth straight year and pay for a new sports tourism office, new city hall, aquatic centre that’s always over budget, etc." (Anne Jarvis Windsor Star November 22, 2015 http://windsorstar.com/opinion/columnists/jarvis-sunny-ways-mr-mayor).   

It may well be that Drew Dilkens' career could be hurt because of the comments of Ms. Jarvis in her columns after that date.  

The other interesting part of what is going on between Ms. Jarvis and the Mayor is that the other major Star columnist can write a good story about the Mayor as this recent one shows:  "Dilkens' excellent Indian adventure." http://windsorstar.com/opinion/columnists/vander-doelen-dilkens-excellent-indian-adventure It was by Chris Vander Doelen on February 12, 2016  . 

WINDSOR MAYOR TRAVEL EXPENSES 

Wow, fascinating stories about Windsor Mayor's travel expenses. I saw this one which was written in the Windsor Star much earlier in 2015. It is much more different now when the entire 2015 expenses were disclosed. Here's the earlier story that did not seem to get much of a reaction compared with today's story. 

"$11,648 tab: Dilkens posts second-quarter travel expenses online

 Craig Pearson Windsor  Star Jul 29, 2015 

Mayor Drew Dilkens wants the public to know exactly what he spends on travel, so he’s posting the information online every three months... 

“I wanted to be as transparent as possible,” Dilkens said Wednesday after his expenses appeared on the City of Windsor website. “So I voluntarily decided to post all my travel expenses every quarter online so the public can see where I’ve gone and what I’m doing on their behalf...” 

“I go where I have to go to do the job,” Dilkens said. “And that’s what I said in my inaugural speech as mayor, that there’s nowhere I wouldn’t go to bring jobs to Windsor.”  (http://windsorstar.com/news/11648-tab-dilkens-posts-second-quarter-travel-expenses-online) 

As I am sure that you are aware, the whole situation involving travel expenses changed very rapidly considering Dilkens' costs recently disclosed. Those costs were over $41,000 for 2015 as set out in this article "Windsor mayor's travel bill among the highest in the province" by the Star's Carolyn Thompson published on February 19, 2016: 

"Windsor taxpayers spent $41,230 last year on travel for Mayor Drew Dilkens — including a trip to South Korea that cost $7,358 — making him one of the most-travelled mayors in the province. 

He was out of the city for a total of 65 days, flying to Germany, Russia, China, South Korea, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Ottawa and seven other Canadian cities. 

Dilkens spent twice as much on travel in 2015 as the mayors of Toronto, London and Ottawa combined." (http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsor-mayors-travel-bill-among-the-highest-in-the-province)

Interestingly, the Star article disclosed the expenses of the previous Mayor, Edgar Francis, while Francis was Mayor. In fact, some of those expenses in one year were higher than what Dilkens spent and in another was close to it. However, his name was not mentioned in the recent Star article because perhaps someone might want to know how he spent that money: over $52,000 in 2011 and almost $40,000 in 2012. 

How successful are these trips taken by Mayors around the country? As reported in the Star article: 

"In a 2010 report, University of British Columbia business professors John Ries and Keith Head studied trade missions, primarily at the federal level. They found no increase in trade despite governments touting the benefits of their costly trips abroad. 

“There is no evidence that they actually pay off,” Ries said in a telephone interview. Participants might hold back deals to sign during the trip and some agreements never come to fruition, he added." 

OUR EMPLOYMENT STORY 

This story was done quite some time ago in the Windsor Star. I'm sure that you expect, as I do, that its subject-matter will become a major issue for Windsor as time goes on especially as the lead-up to the next City election: 

"Windsor has been Canada’s most unemployed city for more than five years

Carolyn Thompson Jul 10, 2015  

Windsor has had the highest unemployment rate in the country on and off for more than five and a half years since 2006 — longer than any other city in the country. 

Since 2001, Windsor’s jobless rate has been the highest in the country for 69 months. We came in second 18 times. 

That a total of almost eight years with the highest or second highest unemployment rate in the country. 

It’s unusual for a city to stagnate economically for a decade, said Mike Moffatt, assistant professor of business, economics and public policy with the Richard Ivey School of Business in London. 

“You have seen historically some cities just not get out of this,” he said. “Like a Buffalo, New York, which shrunk economically for decades. That is a concern that we’ve seen in the rust belt.” 

Windsor is still the city with the highest jobless rate in the country, according to the Statistics Canada labour force survey, released Friday morning." (http://windsorstar.com/business/windsor-unemployment-rate-falls-to-8-9-per-cent?__lsa=bb83-3f90)

Now that should be a challenge for a whole bunch of people on Council and also outside of it, especially if they were elected representatives previously.