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My past and present.

This is how it is. It makes me personally so very happy!

Another News Story

I just found so many interesting items on the Internet that I wanted to show them to you with my comments. I hope you enjoy what I am posting:

WHAT IS CANADA'S ECONOMIC FUTURE

That is a pretty big question isn't it! Who knows if our economy will improve dramatically with more business or fail miserably with the shutdown of businesses with the new US President!

I thought you might find this comment interesting:

"So far, the main target of Trump's tough trade talk has been Mexico. But there's concern Canada could also be threatened with tariffs or other restrictions.

"It could change things fairly drastically," auto industry expert Tony Faria says. But he believes Trump or his advisers will realize, if they haven't already, that disrupting the highly integrated auto industry supply chain would do damage on both sides of the border…

"It's nerve-racking," MacKenzie says. "Human nature has a habit, in a vacuum of not knowing, to jump to the worst-case scenarios."

In those worst-case scenarios, tariffs on the auto industry pop up and Windsor, once again, spirals downwards." (Havard Gould, CBC News, January 28, 2017) 

I certainly expect that the trip of our Prime Minister to Washington to meet the US President has to be viewed as "positive." It has to be doesn't it or else this Country could face significant damage from the new US President. Let's just wait and see what  happens…..and hope for the best!

WILL FRED FRANCIS BE THE NEW WINDSOR MAYOR

Of course he is going to run! Why else do you think that he ran for Council and was elected in the last election. It looks like he is following what his brother did. He would be our new Mayor after merely one term in office.

Gord Henderson certainly set out the wonderful position of Fred in a column he wrote in the Windsor Star on January 28, 2017 praising what he had to say recently. It was a way to protect him from the tax increase that Windsor Citizens will see this year that they will have to pay. And probably next year as well:

"Noble ideas. Truly. But who pays? Not generous Wynne and company. No. The burden falls on the local resident, all too often a pensioner already reeling from Liberal government moves that have sent electricity bills through the roof while jacking up home heating and gasoline prices in pursuit of international recognition as a haven of environmental correctness.

Coun. Fred Francis, who voted against the budget, along with Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac, because he believed the city could have come closer to zero, thinks downloading of additional expenses from the Wynne government kept Windsor from reaching that goal…

“Without those increases I’m 100 per cent certain we would have been a ninth straight year at zero,” insisted Francis."

So you may blame the Ontario Premier for the increase in taxes in this City and not Francis when he is running for a senior position on Council.

WHY DID THIS PERSON LEAVE OFFICE AT THIS TIME

Absolutely brilliant move on this person's part:

"Second Postmedia executive to depart after receiving retention bonus

The Canadian Press  01.27.2017

TORONTO - The chief financial officer for Postmedia Network Inc. will be leaving the struggling newspaper chain at the end of February, just months after he was identified as one of five senior executives eligible for retention bonuses totalling $2.275 million.

Postmedia didn't announce a reason for the departure of CFO Doug Lamb, scheduled for Feb. 28, but chief executive Paul Godfrey said he has "our tremendous thanks" for being Postmedia's CFO since the company was created in 2010.

Documents filed by the company with regulators in November said Lamb was eligible for a $450,000 retention bonus, to be paid in three equal installments on July 15 and Dec. 2, 2016 and July 14, 2017." (CanadianPress, January 27, 2017)

Guess who the first person was who did this. Give up? It was General Counsel Jeffrey Haar.

WILL THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE NOW BE BUILT

I am sure that you will remember that the Keystone Pipeline was not allowed by President Obama to go forward. He vetoed it. It was a project that the Republican politicians favoured.

However, one can make the argument that he never really decided whether this was a good project or not to move forward. His reason for the veto was limited it can be argued:

"The presidential power to veto legislation is one I take seriously," Obama said in his veto message to the Senate. "But I also take seriously my responsibility to the American people. And because this act of Congress conflicts with established executive branch procedures and cuts short thorough consideration of issues that could bear on our national interest — including our security, safety, and environment — it has earned my veto." (Gregory Korte , USATODAY February 24, 2015)

FINALLY, IT'S ALL OVER NOW

Hooray, there is my wife right at the entrance to the Tecumseh Library carrying a bag full of items that we borrowed such a long time ago that we can now return and get new ones!

Thank goodness. The monstrous labour dispute in Tecumseh and in other towns in the area involving the various Libraries is finally over after more than 200 days of the strike. 

Today at 10 am was the first day that the Library in Tecumseh which is near my house reopened.  My wife and I were one of the first people who came right there when the doors to the Library opened once again. We did so in order to say hello again to the people that were now back at work and naturally, to get some Library items to take home and use.   

I do not want to talk much about what happened during the Library strike. Obviously, all of the people involved really don't want to talk about it so I have no intention of trying to pressure them to find out what may have taken place. I know it will all come out eventually. 

More importantly, I am thrilled about how hard the Tecumseh Library people were working to make sure that the Library here was in good condition when it reopened. They succeeded magnificently!

All that I want to do today is to show you some of the photographs I took inside the Library this morning. I am so happy that I can go back now.

Interesting Windsor Newspaper Articles

I do try very hard in TecumsehCityBlog not just to write mostly stories about political matters in this area as I did before. I do enjoy writing them to be direct but, at my stage of life, what happened to me and with what I want to do now, I want to write a lot more about other topics. However, every so often I find out about something that is going on here about which I want to comment. Please be advised though that all that I want to do is to express my comments about what I see going on and let you know what my perspective is.

Take this article that I am now writing about and posting on my website. It is really about my perspective on the matter. It is about the trip that Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens, took to Chicago recently. I have to admit that I had no idea what was going on. Believe it or not, I did not really know much about the alcohol facilities on the river and how the parties involved had changed. Let me explain now what I mean. 

Here is something that I saw on Google when the stories about this matter came out. I did a search on the words "dilkens canadian club:"

Now I do not know what you think, dear reader, but these are 2 stories from major Windsor media outlets. It just seemed to me that there were 2 conflicting comments of what happened at the meeting that our Mayor attended. In one story, there was hope that whatever was done in Chicago "saved" the property in Windsor. In the other story, we were advised that nothing had changed at all.  

I had to scratch my head and wonder why there was such a difference in what the reporters were telling us. How can the stories be so different? I could not figure it out so obviously I had to read the stories.  The Windsor Star Story can be found here:

"Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, February 13, 2017"

The CBC story can be found here: "CBC News, February 13, 2017"

Before I explain to you more about the stories, I was confused as to why the Mayor went to Chicago at all. As the Windsor Star wrote, he went there to meet with executives from Beam Suntory. It is the Company  

"that owns Canadian Club, [which] announced last week that it intends to close the brand centre for tours March 31, and for booked events Dec. 31."  

Yet, I also saw this:  

"Meanwhile, Pernod Ricard — the company that owns the Hiram Walker distillery and leases the Canadian Club Brand Centre to Beam Suntory — does not yet know what it will do with the building if it closes to the public."   

It appears as if Beam Suntory is just a Tenant of the building owned by Pernod Ricard. Was the tenancy ending soon perhaps? Accordingly, I was not sure why these changes were being done at the building and who was doing it--- the Landlord or the Tenant --- and why. 

I thought that the Landlord might be the owner of all of the possessions inside the building and not the Tenant. If true, I just did not understand what was happening. Frankly, who cares what the Tenant does if that is the case. The Landlord has the ability to keep the building going even if the Tenant pulls out although it cannot have the name "Canadian Club" on it I think.   

Consider this however. Could it be that the Tenant owns the assets in the building? After all, I saw this:  

"the company [Beam Suntory] does not intend to move the brand centre’s multi-million art and artifact collection — including numerous Group of Seven paintings — out of the city. 

“Their goal is not to take that stuff out of Windsor,” he said. “They recognize there’s a strong connection to our local history.”  

Do you see how complicated it is becoming to me? I could not figure out who owned all of the interior assets. Moreover, it did not seem that Beam Suntory had any idea what to do with the assets in the building if it owned them. Perhaps they wanted the City to find new space for them. 

Now let's go back to the CBC story. I am not sure that CBC knew a lot about ownership. It did not talk about Pernard Ricard in its story and wrote: 

"Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens flew to Chicago to meet with owners of the Canadian Club Heritage Building." 

The Windsor Star story after all told us that Pernod Ricard leased that building to Beam Suntory. So did The Mayor go to see the wrong Party i.e. the Tenant not the Owner? If so, why didn't the Mayor understand what was going on?  Not only him, but Canadian Member of Parliament, Windsor West MP Brian Masse who accompanied him. I was not sure why he should be attending anyway. What role did he think he was playing especially visiting with someone who was not the Landlord? 

I have to admit that I was confused when I read this in the CBC story: 

"During his meeting, Dilkens explained the city's challenge of coming up with money to help save the building. Instead, he said council might be able to find other ways to make the centre more profitable, such as promotions and partnerships with Tourism Windsor-Essex. 

"I actually told them it would be near impossible for me to go to council and ask for a blank cheque," Dilkens said. "There's got to be other ways for us to help them." 

How could the Mayor help them, and why would they need his help, if they were not the building owner but just a mere Tenant? Had the Owner made a decision which was forcing them out at year-end? Given what was going on in Windsor financially, could the Mayor find any money to help someone out even if he wanted to? Would Council go along with him? I did not know. 

I am sure that we will be seeing a lot more stories about this matter before it is resolved one way or the other that hopefully will clear up my confusion.

Here Are Some Additional Interesting Stories

I better add a lot more of the stories that I saw in the media over the past few weeks. I want you, dear reader, to understand what my position is on some of these issues. I wanted to make sure that you had read them and had become knowledgeable about how I felt about them. Whether you may agree or disagree with me on them is fine.

WINDSOR MAYOR'S CHICAGO TRIP

What a joke! The photograph of Windsor's Mayor standing at the Canadian Club Brand Centre in Walkerville in the Windsor Star article.

How silly that he felt that it was necessary for him to have a photograph taken of him in front of the building for the Star story on February 9, 2017. I assume that he was not very busy doing anything else so that he could go from City Hall to the plant area to pose for a photograph. I wonder how many photos the Star photographer took and why this one was selected over the others.

He is off to Chicago Monday by plane to meet up with some executives of Beam Suntory to talk about this matter.  Hmmm.  I wonder why he is going off to meet this Company. There is no doubt in my mind the Mayor may well be in the position already to offer that Company some money to stay here. After all, I found this remark of his interesting:

"Dilkens said he hopes discussions with Beam Suntory CEO Matt Shattock and others will provide something for the company as well as the community.

“I want to try to understand what’s driving the decision,” Dilkens said. “And then I want to be a partner and help work this out in a way that benefits them, the brand and the City of Windsor.” (C. Pearson, Windsor Star, February 9, 2017)

However, I am not certain that they are the right firm to speak with at this time. Why would Beam Suntory's comment be made since it could be considered ridiculous:

"we are just refocusing our investments to better cultivate the brand both locally and around the world.”

I would think that the exact opposite would happen in this area. Purchases of their brands may well be cut off completely by people who live here and by others who are annoyed at what they are doing. It looks like all that they are interested in doing is spending money on publicity to sell their products. Why then would anyone in this area want to buy their stuff in the first place if they took such a disappointing action.

However, there may be a reason why they are acting this way. It seems that Beam Suntory does not own the building:

"International distiller Pernod Ricard has owned the Hiram Walker distillery in Windsor since 2005, and leases the Canadian Club Brand Centre to Beam Suntory. As well, Pernod Ricard — which owns a competing rye, J.P. Wiser’s — makes Canadian Club under contract for Beam Suntory."

It would appear that Pernod Ricard may be the one who would make whatever decision has to be made on this building. If that is the case, why isn't Windsor's Mayor speaking with them instead? Does he want Beam Suntory to continue leasing the property? Is he afraid that Windsor will have to do so and he doesn't want that to happen while he is the Mayor since he may not have the money to do so?

I just don't understand it. There is something going on that we just don't know about that may be causing this issue.

WILL THIS PROJECT HELP OUR AREA

Only a few people are being hired right now for this new operation but it is the project itself that could be beneficial for this area. Moreover, it points out the importance of the new town where I am living, Tecumseh, which ought to raise this area's economic importance:

"An international freight tracking company based in the United Kingdom has set up its North American headquarters in Tecumseh.

“Location is at the heart of everything that we do, whether it’s helping our customers keep track of their freight or enabling them to find available truck capacity with the best placed carriers,” said Lyall Cresswell, president and CEO of CX North America, CX Euro and Transport Exchange Group. “Choosing the right location for our new North American headquarters is a big part of that, so we’re absolutely delighted to be establishing ourselves here in Tecumseh.” (Windsor Star, February 9, 2017)

What is the real significance of this event:

"This location is the perfect fit for CX North America’s products and services because it’s the known as the epicentre of international logistics,” said Sharon Coburn, the company’s vice-president of business development for North America. “It’s one of the busiest commercial border crossings on the continent and we look forward to bringing our proven technology to this area and across North America.”

It is time the politicians in this area get together and start promoting the importance of this area for the North American economy!  We need more of these new projects here!

WHO NEEDS MONEY IN WINDSOR

I have to admit I can't figure out why the City of Windsor's tax rate increased. Just take a look at this story and you can scratch your head as well:

"Thanks to $1 million-plus from FedDev Ontario’s Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, the city will fix up the Dieppe River Walk, Willistead Manor, the Gino and Liz Marcus family change room, and the Windsor Loop cycling network. The projects will start this year and must be finished by March 2018.

“We’re quite thankful to receive these funds,” Dilkens said. “They’re going to go to good use.”
(Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, February 8, 2017)

So what's the big deal you might be thinking? Look at all the money that Windsor is going to be receiving. Well, you might not know about this information as well that shows how much money Windsor will be paying out:

"Windsor will chip in almost $3.4 million toward the total cost of $4.4 million.

The city also received $55,000 from the province for this year’s Open Streets block party, and $70,000 from the federal government for Windsor’s 125th birthday. The city will cover the rest of the $220,000 cost for the two events."

All these events will cost the City a whole bunch of money at a time when it also has decided to increase its taxes to citizens.

Time To Start Writing Again

Hooray!  Finally, after more than 200 days, the Library strike in Essex County is finally over.

The Library in Tecumseh was so important for me since I have moved here. I was able to visit the Library that was located not too far away from where my house is at least once a week. I was able to take out various material from there to help me with my recovery from my illness. I lost all of that ability for so long because of the strike. It was such a disappointment.

I can hardly wait to see again the wonderful people who work in the Tecumseh Library that I have met and who have helped me so much. Oh sure, I saw them picketing but I will be much happier now as they will be back at work.

I am glad that this is my first "news item" in my new article in my Website since I have not written on here for some time because of the matters that I have been dealing with over the past few weeks. I just am so happy to have some news items that I can report and comment on!

Obviously, there are lots of things that I am going to write about over the next few articles that I trust will be of interest to you as well. I kept copies of articles that I have seen in the media that I now can write about. Here are just some of them.

LOWER UNEMPLOYMENT PERCENTAGE NUMBER NOT SO GOOD AFTER ALL

What a disappointment. Here I was becoming very pleased thinking that our unemployment rate was going down meaning that many new jobs were being created in our area to reduce that number.

After all, here is a story that I saw in the Windsor Star originally. I was very enthusiastic when I saw the numbers:

"Windsor unemployment rate drops to 5.4 per cent

February 10, 2017 9:05 am

Windsor’s jobless rate fell to 5.4 per cent last month, down from 5.7 per cent in December and down 3.5 points from January 2016."  (Windsor Star, February 10, 2017)

Unfortunately, then I read the Dave Battagello article in the Star on February 10 as well. The initial few paragraphs were so saddening as they disclosed how the reduction really happened:

"Windsor’s jobless rate dropped in December, but local business and labour leaders guessed it is simply a case of an increasing number of people who have given up on looking for a job.

“My guess is some people are off (the grid),” said Brian Hogan, president of the Windsor and District Labour Council...

Hogan also guessed while many people have been able to find work in the Windsor area, it is largely an increase of lesser paying service jobs at restaurants, grocery stores or hardware stores where autoworkers and feeder plant employees are spending their paycheques."

Here is another comment in the article that is also very upsetting:

"Windsor-Essex Chamber CEO Matt Marchand also believes a greater number of unemployed have dropped out from seeking a job.

The chamber’s recent numbers show 35 per cent of adults locally, for whatever reason, are presently not seeking a job — a number that continues to steadily increase, he said.

“We are not sure why, but suspect there is a long-term employment problem.”

We can only hope that new businesses start setting up here and hiring people who are in such a negative position right now.

I AM GETTING QUITE ILL

To be honest, I have great concerns about what is being proposed for our new "hospital" plan in this area. Seriously, what is the point of just building a new hospital that looks after 500 quite ill people. 500 seems to me to be a low number for our future especially if the population in this entire region increases as I am certain that it will over the next decade or so.

I must admit that I cannot understand why one would spend so much money on a new hospital that frankly seems so small even today.  How many times have we seen a story such as this one over the past few weeks considering how many people are ill:

"After 'false lull,' demand surges again at overcapacity Windsor Regional Hospital

(Brian Cross, Windsor Star, Windsor Star, February 8, 2017)

Windsor Regional Hospital is urging people to avoid its two emergency departments except for true emergencies, as it copes with a sudden resurgence in patients after a “false lull” that lasted four days.

“A few days ago we thought we saw a light at the end of the tunnel,” CEO David Musyj said in an email to the Star on Wednesday. “We did. Unfortunately it was an oncoming train.”

The hospital announced the cancellation of at least four surgeries Wednesday, as it copes with an overcapacity of patients, caused by rising volumes admitted from its ERs. Both ERs were very busy overnight, attending to many patients with flu-like symptoms.

As a result, there were 54 more patients admitted than the hospital has beds for…

The hospital has been over-capacity for at least a month due largely to the fact this year’s predominant strain of influenza hits seniors particularly hard."

To be quite blunt about it, I expect that there are so many new diseases around that are forcing people to enter hospital to be treated for them. If I am correct, then it would be my belief that the number "500" is too small for the number of patients who may enter the new hospital in the future. What we will see then, I think, is what we are seeing now: the new hospital at overcapacity quite often. After all, this area had a number of hospitals reduced by half some time ago and we are seeing problems being created quite often because of so many people being ill at the same time.

Just expect this to happen more often at the new hospital if I am right in what I am suggesting:

"The hospital is running at 110 per cent capacity at its Ouellette campus and 119 per cent at Met. Admit No Bed patients are being accommodated in areas throughout the two hospitals, such as in patient rooms that the hospital doesn’t normally use."

Wow, only a few stories and I have said just what I considered important about them. The result was that I have filled up a lot of the space in my Website. I better stop here and start writing a few more articles quickly over some more of the stories that I found important and post them for your information.

My Website Apology

I do have to offer to you, dear reader, a huge apology. As I am sure that you have noticed, I have not written an article for my website for quite some time. This is certainly not something that I expected to do.

Oh sure, you may have thought that I and my family had gone away for vacation to a nice warm location given the time period and the poor, cold weather that we are living in. That didn't happen. Moreover, I was not ill nor did I suffer even from a cold which might have prevented me from posting something new on this website.

What happened was a number of exciting events that took up a lot of time in themselves but more importantly took up all of my time to make sure that they all worked properly. It became much more important for me to make sure that everything was okay with them rather than spending time writing something on here. All these projects were very exciting but they also kept me very busy, too busy in fact. I spent a tremendous amount of my energy making sure that they all carried out 100% successfully. Fortunately, they did!

Let me tell you briefly about what happened over the past few days that did prevent me frankly from doing any work on here. Don't forget, that my life activities have changed compared with the past and I need a lot more rest to make sure that I am in good shape than I was concerned about before. 

Firstly,  the joys of home-selling! My wife and I purchased a home for one of our children and for many reasons, it made good sense to put the house up for sale. We had an excellent real estate company (Property Moms) who did a fantastic job with getting the deal done.  Of course, after the home was sold, it was time to move everything out! 

Secondly, we needed a moving company to help move the furniture to my son's new location to live. What fun that was. We noticed an advertisement for a moving company that seemed to be a good operator and invited them to come over to give us a price. Well they did. And what a joke that was. Their first price was about 3 times more than every other quote. I spoke to the fellow who came to our house and gave us this price and told him right away that it was outrageously high and we had no interest in dealing with him. Unbelievably, he immediately dropped the price by almost $500! This made me very weary of dealing with this company, so we kept searching because so many others were booked for the end of January.

Our chosen team was from Allied Van Lines, whom I had not contacted initially because I just assumed that they would not have availability of any staff for the end of the month. However, I thought that I would take the chance since we were running out of time. I spoke to the gentleman with whom I had a relationship for many years in the past and he immediately said that he would make sure that the job was done well and at a reasonable price.  We booked them immediately.

The move was made and only one item was slightly damaged during the moving process, but not a big deal. The time that the movers took to actually do the work was even lower than was predicted so that our actual price was lower than we thought it was going to be.

Lastly, a big surprise for my daughter was arranged. Her boyfriend (now fiance), Bill, was going to make a proposal! He came to visit with my wife and I about a month ago to show us the beautiful ring he purchased and get our blessing to marry our daughter. Plus we were going to help make this a "surprise" event. Unfortunately, with life comes complications and the initial proposal night plan event didn't happen. However, Bill is always a man with a plan, so everything was rearranged that evening to give my daughter a wonderful proposal she will always remember.  It was a joyous moment for both families!

Now that things have slowed down a bit, I am reading all of my media outlets and will set aside articles that I found interesting to write about over the next while. I really am still excited to be working on my new website, TecumsehCityBlog, because it is helping me so much as I redevelop myself after the illness I suffered.