Some More Interesting Stories For You

I saw some interesting stories that I thought that I should let you know about right away. Here are some of them:

ONTARIO APARTMENT RENTAL COSTS

I did a story recently about "Windsor boasts lowest apartment rental rates in Canada" by Dave Battagello, Windsor Star, March 15, 2018.  As can be expected, the prices here are very low in comparison with other cities in this Province and frankly within the entire country. Windsor is right at the bottom of the list.

Here is some additional information which I found very interesting that shows where the Ontario cities fit in. Please note that this list deals with cities across Canada, but I am deleting the non-Ontario ones:

		1 Bedroom	2 Bedrooms
Pos.	City	Price	Price
2	Toronto	$1,970	$2,500
5	Barrie	$1,270	$1,530
8	Ottawa	$1,100	$1,360
8	St Catharines	$1,100	$1,300
10	Oshawa	$1,080	$1,240
12	Kitchener	$1,050	$1,290
13	Hamilton	$1,040	$1,290
14	Kingston	$1,020	$1,360
15	London	$920	$1,150
25	Windsor	$710	$900

You will note that you find, dear reader, the lowest rental prices in Windsor in this list. 

COMPARATIVE HEALTHCARE ANALYSIS

Although written in 2014, I just saw this very interesting report about the performance of healthcare around the world. It is "MIRROR,MIRROR ON THE WALL How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally."   It was prepared by the Commonwealth Fund in 2014.  In it, 11 countries are examined.  

The reason I am posting it is that it is well-written, even though done a few years ago. I saw the 2017 report and will deal with that shortly afterwards. However, to be direct, I am shocked about how badly Canada and the United States perform. I just could not believe that at all.

In particular, here are some interesting references to Canada that I found in the 2014 document:

-"Patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services; however, they are less likely to report rapid access to primary care than people in leading countries in the study. In other countries, like Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but experience wait times for such specialized services."

-"The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access, and efficiency…Canada and the U.S. rank tenth and eleventh, respectively."

-"Among those who had a lab test in the previous two years, sicker adults in Canada were the most likely to experience delays in being notified about abnormal results."

-" Patients in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland have rapid access to elective or nonemergency surgery compared with patients in the U.S. Canada ranks last or near-to-last on most measures of timeliness of care."

-"Among sicker respondents, those in Canada and the U.S. were most likely to visit the emergency department for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor had one been available"

I found another version of this document in 2017. Canada improved but not very much:

-"Other countries that rank near the bottom on overall performance include France (10th) and Canada (9th)"

-"Exhibit 3 illustrates the countries’ overall performance score.  This exhibit makes evident the markedly lower performance of Canada (9), France (10), and the United States (11) compared to the other countries."

-"In contrast, the United States, France, and Canada have larger disparities between lower and higher-income adults. These were especially large on measures related to financial barriers, such as skipping needed doctor visits or dental care, forgoing treatments or tests, and not filling prescriptions because of the cost."

-"U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands were nearly always ranked among the three top countries; the U.S., France and Canada were nearly always ranked among the three bottom countries."

What was written above tells us, dear reader, that Canada does not do very well and for quite some time. What can be done to improve the situation is something that must be considered.

HOUSE SALES IN OUR AREA

I thought this is very interesting:

"Housing sales have been slumping in Windsor in 2018, in part because there are fewer homes on the market.

According to the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors, residential house sales were down 26.2 per cent in February, compared to the same time one year ago.

Sales year-to-date are also down by 21.8 per cent over the first two months of 2017."

(CBC News, March 16, 2018 )

Who knows, I might be able to make a lot of money for my place if I want to sell because I live in Tecumseh:

"the lack of supply but increased demand is leading to some of the bidding wars seen in the area. He has a list of buyers, especially in areas like Tecumseh and LaSalle, but not much to show them."

From what I have been able to see so far, my house prices has gone up a nice sum.  However, I do have a problem. If I want to buy a new place, I'll probably want to get a very nice house too. My expectation is that such a house's price has also skyrocketed upwards as well. So how can I afford to buy that? I cannot to be blunt about it. That may explain why there are not a lot of houses on the market.

My VON Program Graduation

Today was the last day of my Victoria Order of Nurses program to help me out with my physical condition.

As I told you, the VON SMART Program (Seniors Maintaining Active Roles Together) is a 12 week program for people like me who have suffered physical issues that are extremely painful and caused by a variety of different physical difficulties. One of the terrific parts of this program is that there are no charges for it!

Marvin Edward, who is a Team Leader, Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy Assistant, was the person who helped me out so well with all that I suffered. Not only did he help me with the program that I was already taking through other sources but he also gave me about another dozen physical programs to learn to help me out even more.  They were not difficult to carry out once he showed me how to do it properly but the important part is that the programs are so beneficial in helping me improve.

If you are suffering a physical issue or know someone who is, my advice to you is to call VON immediately and get in on this program.

Here's my graduation photo that I will look at happily for a very long time

More Interesting Articles

There are lots of interesting stories that just seem to appear all of a sudden in my Blogsite. Not all of them are posted, but quite a few.

When one does Blogs as I do, then I assume that the Blogger has a whole bunch of articles that the person wants to make part of his/her new story. Accordingly, one tries to figure out exactly what one is going to say and then even starts doing so. Then, the "EXCITING" story appears on the scene. It changes everything. One may have to redo the started article entirely almost immediately and then post it instead of the one that was planned before. Naturally, that means that the older stories have to be reconsidered and may even be dropped because a bunch of even newer events require new stories to be set up.

I have to tell you that this happens to me on many occasions.  Every so often, I go back to my list of articles to see which ones I should post on a particular day. I am quite surprised that some of them are rather "old" and should have been posted before. Just for a few seconds, mind you, I try to figure out why I did not do so and usually I cannot remember the reason.

Oh well, here are some stories that I am posting now. Yes, they were considered some time ago too but only being posted today  <LOL>

HIGHER INTERNET COSTS

I have to admit that this is not too exciting:

"Two of Canada's biggest internet service providers are preparing to increase their monthly subscriber prices, a move they say is justified by the investments they're making in their networks.

Rogers Communications will raise prices for most of its internet plans by $8 a month, starting Monday.

For its lowest-price plan, there will be a smaller increase of $4 per month for a package that delivers speeds of less than 20 megabytes per second. 

On April 1, Bell Canada will increase its internet prices by $5 a month for Ontario customers and by $3 a month for its customers in Quebec."  (Canadian Press, March 9,  2018) 

It is getting quite expensive to use the Internet service.  I used to subscribe to the Bell service but  cancelled it. I now use MNSI to provide my high-speed service because their service is excellent and their price is lower than the big Phone Companies. Their technical service people are very helpful when I have a problem. Every so often I have something technically that seems strange to me so that my Internet service is not working properly. I immediately call their Tech Services department which knows how to fix problems, or, if it is that unusual, will stay online with me as long as it takes to repair.

I have to tell you that one of the issues that I must deal with eventually is whether I am going to go off of my DSL service and use their new, very high-speed service. There are several alternatives of those. Obviously, each of these new services will cost more money than what I am paying now. In addition, I am going to have to wait probably a long time before such new service is installed where I live.

I will have to do some really thoughtful thinking about whether I want to spend so much more money on the new service. The question I have to ask is whether I need to have such a high speed service with my use of the Internet as I do now. I have to admit that I do not know that answer today.

IS OUR UNIVERSITY THAT ATTRACTIVE 

I do not know if you read this story or not. Here is its headline in the Star article:

"U of Windsor campus ranked among the most beautiful"

That was the headline of the Windsor Star article by KellySteele on March 9, 2018. 

I thought that it must really good until I saw this line under the headline:

"The University of Windsor campus was ranked No. 22 among a list of 30 of the most beautiful campuses in Canada."

To be honest, I thought that being at almost the bottom of that list was not all that advantageous. Mind you, here are the number of universities in Canada so maybe it really is good:

"As of 2016 there are 96 universities in Canada." (Wikipedia) 

Moreover, if one goes to the Best Choice Schools website that listed the universities, one would see this remark:

"The 30 universities on this list are the most beautiful in all of Canada."

So there you are, it seems. Being so low on a list posted may not be so bad after all.

In case you want to know, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia was #1.

SUCH OLDER BRIDGES

The Ambassador Bridge was opened in 1929. I thought that was interesting because of the comment that I saw in an article that was made by a representative from the Sault Ste. Marie Bridge Authority:

"A redecking project of the Peace Bridge, budgeted at $100 million US is underway. The bridge connects Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ont.

Peace Bridge is 90 years old. It's an accomplishment to get such longevity from their bridge deck,” said SSMBA general manager Peter Petainen in an email. “It validated our planning and belief that we could achieve that as well, with good asset management of the deck.” (Brian Kelly, Sault Star, March 10, 2018) 

Therefore, it is fine for an almost 90 year-old Ambassador Bridge to be fixed up and remain available for auto and truck usage.

One has to wonder even more now if building a Government bridge in the Windsor-Detroit area really needs to be done given what is going on in Buffalo and what the Ambassador Bridge Company wants to do here.  In fact, one may even wonder why we need to see a 2nd Ambassador Bridge being built.

However, I just have to assume that merely fixing up the Ambassador Bridge, which probably could be done at a much lower cost than building a new one, would not be advantageous for this area. That has to be why the Ambassador Bridge Company wants to build a 2nd, bigger bridge here and then fix up its older one.  

It seems to me therefore that this is also why building a Government Bridge in addition to a 2nd Ambassador Bridge at a cost of about $10 billion would be absurd!

Just Some More Stories For You

I have had just about enough of it. I am sick and tired of it.  I want to see it improved already. Why is it taking so long! 

Let me be direct, dear reader.  How many times do I have to go to Devonshire Mall and continue seeing it in the horrible state of disrepair that it seems to be in now. I have to admit that I cannot remember when the work being undertaken in the Mall started. I know that it was in such bad condition before Christmas but I can't remember how long before that took place.

The other question that I have is when will this work be completed. Seriously, what has kept it in such a condition for so long? I did see something on one of the posts that I saw at the Mall the other day when I was there stating that something should happen in the "Summer." Unfortunately, it did not say in which part of summer the work would be finished. I have to admit that my guess is that nothing will be finished until just before Fall comes into play.

Really, the Mall was in such bad shape during the Christmas holiday time that I was surprised. Instead of having something really attractive that would generate a lot of business from the customers who came there during the holiday timeframe, it was so messy in appearance over so much of it.  It really started bugging me.

I hate to be rather cynical about it. However, I just don't see the Mall company doing very much to get the work done much more quickly. One of the reasons is that it is the only major shopping mall in the entire area. Oh sure, there is another mall in the district, but it is not doing all that well either with a number of closed stores and a relatively small number of stores in comparison. In other words, the Devonshire Mall really doesn't have any competition forcing it to act more quickly.  (Unless one thinks that many local people head over to the US shopping malls to do their purchasing anyway.)

Oh well, all I can do is complain. I doubt that what I have written on here will have very much impact on the Mall people. Instead, let me write a few more stories about events that have interested me

PREVENTING FLOODING

For so many years, living in the homes of my parents and then the residences belonging to my wife and me, no matter what the weather conditions were like, I do not remember ever having any flooding in any of these units for about 70 years of my life!

However, after moving to Tecumseh, I have gone through flooding issues for the last 2 years of the 3 years that I am living here. In one of those years, I had severe damage in my basement. Luckily, I had insurance that provided the thousands of dollars necessary to fix the damage and to replace the parts that were destroyed by the flooding. In the other year, I had a bit of flooding but fortunately not enough to cause any significant damage.  Who knows what this year will bring us even after some modification to my condo unit that hopefully will prevent flooding damage.

Unfortunately, who knows how bad the weather conditions will be this year or some other year that may cause more damage in this area. I am sure that you understand, dear reader, how expensive that damage may be. Some of the condos in this area had beautiful basements that their owners had fixed up many years ago, costing tens of thousands of dollars, that were utterly and completely destroyed by all of the water that flooded their basements.  I must give them credit for even considering redoing them and refurnishing them. As I am sure I have told you before, our basement was not fully updated and fortunately, the amount of damage was not outrageous and came within our insurance terms.

What is going to happen now? That does concern me because we have had flooding damage in the past and I am not sure what steps were taken to try to prevent that from happening again. Clearly, not enough to prevent the horrific damage that was caused after the storms in the past several years. One does have to understand what will definitely be done by local governments, and perhaps also the Provincial and Federal Governments, to prevent this happening again. Moreover, one has to be sure that this work will be done as soon as possible and not "postponed" to a later date.

One of the ways of putting things off is to have "studies" undertaken by various people, whether it is the staff of a City or town or some outside consultants hired by them. The easy way to have it delayed is to have the study taking a very long period of time from start to finish. Naturally, if there is no damage done while these studies are being undertaken, then the desire to have lots of money spent to fix up the problems will not be all that supportable anymore. After all, will we want to see taxes increased to pay for those costs when the recent flooding only is supposed to happen every hundred years or so!

Forget all of that nonsense. I do not want more flooding in my basement. Let us insist that action be taken immediately to minimize what might happen here until the "studies" are completed. We must take action now to minimize any more disasters happening. We can always learn what final actions must be taken once the "studies" are provided to us.

Let me tell you how this can be done right away. Remind the politicians that there is an election coming up shortly and if they want to remain in office, they better do what we are telling them to do. Now!

BOASTING

Wow, are Windsorites ever boastful! Being last is absolutely fantastic in this City:

"Windsor boasts lowest apartment rental rates in Canada, report says

For those in need of an apartment to rent in Windsor, the cost for one-bedroom or two-bedroom units remains the lowest in Canada, according to one study

The cost to rent an apartment in Windsor is the lowest in Canada — a couple hundred dollars per month cheaper than London and less than half of what similar units would cost in Toronto." (Dave Battagello, WindsorStar, March 15, 2018) 

Gee, do you think this happens because we are so economically brilliant in this area or could it be perhaps because this area is not doing well financially?  

I must admit that one would think initially that Windsor is in pretty bad shape economically. It just would seem that the last thing that we should be doing is boasting about our low rents. That suggests that this area is in a deep financial problem. Seriously, take the city that you are living in. Isn't the lowest rental rate in your hometown in one of the worst areas in your city? If that is so, then Windsor must not be doing well financially because people cannot afford to spend much money to buy a place here because we don't make much money here.

To be honest, I think it might be difficult to convince someone to come here because of the low rents. Except, this is exactly something that I saw when I first moved to Windsor so many years ago.

The price of buying a house here that was so much bigger than my place in Toronto was a shock. My new Windsor home was much bigger in square footage than my home in Toronto and the land that I had for it was about twice the size. Yet, the price here to buy my new home was substantially lower than the price to buy my house in Toronto. It was much less than half the price! Moreover, everything just seemed so wonderful in this area because, at the time, industry was doing well here and our unemployment rate was relatively low. In other words, Windsor was still low on the economic ladder, but doing quite well for people living here.

To be blunt about it, I would think that this is the true economic position which we need to tell people who probably want to move out of Toronto and other "rich" areas and find somewhere else to live. It is never going to be expensive in our area. That's what makes it such a terrific place to live!

I Want To Write About These Matters

That is my reason for writing on here, dear reader. It helps you understand why I write about a particular subject at a particular time.  It is really that simple.

I use my articles on this Website as my way of letting people know how I feel about something that I see taking place. It may be something that I support or a matter that I oppose. Moreover, I may believe as well that these are matters may be of interest you. Accordingly, I want to set out my position so that you will understand what one point of view on a particular subject can be. Hopefully, it supports what you already believe or, if I am fortunate, may change your position to what I am now arguing. No problem with me though if I cannot convince you to support what I am arguing.

I have written about so many different subjects on this Website and set out my position on these matters. I have to tell you that I really look at each one of them quite closely, do the research I need, and then base my decision on the matter on what I have found.

My purpose is to let you know what I think is important on a file and give you the reasons why I am making the decision that I do. Who knows, it may be of assistance to you, dear reader, when you have to decide what your position is.

I trust you understand better what I do. It really is that simple. Accordingly, here is what I am writing now.

I NEED A DOCTOR NOW

I really have no idea anymore what the position on medical facilities is in this area! Seriously, haven't we all seen stories in the media about how everything is so filled up with all of the sicknesses that we are experiencing now.  In fact, it is so bad that sick patients have difficulty getting into rooms at all at this time.

Then, I saw this story that just overwhelmed me completely. It just seems to me that matters are completely absurd as far as I am concerned. I cannot believe that we should be in the position we seem to be with so many people who are ill these days. That position is that our hospitals are quite overbooked with ill people so that it is difficult for someone who is now ill to have access to a hospital room right away.

Take a look at this and you may understand now why I am telling you what I am:

"Windsor has 89 health care beds going unused due to a lack of provincial funding, despite a surge in hospital admissions that has kept Windsor Regional Hospital at or above capacity throughout the winter.

Windsor West NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky raised the issue during question period at Queen’s Park on Tuesday, calling on the Liberal government to provide more funding." (Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, March 6, 2018)

I really am stunned by this. Sure, it may cost more money, but I cannot believe that it cannot be provided. Is no one concerned that a sick person could get extremely ill because it might take that person so long to be admitted and treated properly!

Just think about it. Our so-called new hospital will only have 500 beds for all of the people in this area. What happens if they don't have a lot of money, even to fill all of those beds with patients? How many people throughout the entire region will not get access to this relatively small hospital and become really ill or even die?

According to the story, here is some information about hospital beds here today: 

"89 of them at one facility in Windsor [are unused]— which suggests the problem is more acute locally." 

How can that possibly be allowed when so many people need access to the hospital because of sickness? I just do not understand this at all. I read this comment that came from the Ministry of Health:

"The ministry is in regular, ongoing communication with our hospitals and LHINs to remain attuned to their needs. We will continue to work with our hospitals and their LHIN partners to ensure Ontario patients are receiving the high-quality care they need, when and where they need it.”

Unless that happens immediately, we must demand that the Minister of Health be tossed out of office and be replaced with someone who can take action to protect the health of so many people in Ontario.

A REASON FOR FLOODING IN OUR CITIES

It would appear that the more "sophisticated" our cities have become, and even trying to do more, then the worse their position has become for homeowners and others. Here is an example of what I mean:

"Paving over porous paradise, or any absorbent ground, increases the risk of basement flooding, say researchers using City of Toronto data.

Their study could help GTA homeowners make sense of the sometimes-ridiculed notion that the amount of land people cover with buildings, parking pads, parking lots and more, is linked to the costly rising tide of urban flooding that is expected to worsen in coming years.

“From what we have seen, areas with less green space — mostly developed areas, without any consideration for pervious or green areas — are more likely to have this kind of basement flooding,” (David Rider, TorontoStar, March 5, 2018) 

I have to admit that I am rather shocked by the flooding that I have experienced over the last couple of years since my family moved to Tecumseh. For the first time ever, we have had damage in our basement for 2 years, although it was not all that bad last year. Even in Windsor itself, there has been a lot of damage recently that I had not seen before. There is no doubt that I am concerned about what may happen this summer if we have heavy rainfall.

One thing for everyone to be concerned about with all of these problems that our homes are experiencing is what are the insurance companies going to do about it? Are they merely going to increase our rates so that they are significantly higher to pay for damages? Or, are they completely going to deny any kind of coverage for this kind of damage in the future because they are getting concerned that they cannot pay for all the problems that need fixing up.

This part of the story really explains everything that we have to be concerned about, and why we need to start taking immediate action to prevent significant damage happening in the future:

"Even if we’re having just a little more rain than we used to, the water ends up in basements and flooding roadways, flooding parks. The weather is changing, we are seeing more rain events more often. That combined with increased development, infrastructure that’s aging, us paving over areas that used to be able to soak up the water — the result is more (flood) events and bigger losses, too."

NEW FEATURE AT WALK-IN CLINICS

Given how many people have to go to medical clinics for care because hospitals are so jammed up supposedly, this is something very useful for us to take a look at when deciding where to go for immediate medical assistance because one is not feeling well:

"Medimap.ca, the brainchild of founder Blake Adam, officially launched this week, allowing folks to check not only wait times at participating clinics but hours of service...

"The wait times are what you would get if you were to call the clinic and ask the staff what the wait time is" (Julie Kotsis, Windsor Star, March 6, 2018)

I believe that this is quite an exciting new development because one may go to the wrong clinic for care and have to wait for a very long period of time without knowing that going to another clinic is better because they don't have as many patients in attendance.

Unfortunately, however, there can be a problem for some because having a certain Doctor who treats you may mean that you are only allowed to go to a specific clinic for care. In such a case, one is stuck going only to a specific clinic. However, it could be also that the only people allowed to go to that clinic are patients of specific doctors. That could mean that the number of patients actually at that clinic are not all that high.

Given the difficulties in this area respecting medical care, this is certainly a big advantage that can be of assistance to us, assuming that it works properly.

Moroun Wins Lawsuit

Just released in this lawsuit, an Ambassador Bridge Company victory:

Please notice that the trial was 19 days in Court!  That means the costs to the loser could be huge!

Here is the Judge's conclusion:

It will be interesting to see when the traditional media report it!

The big issue now is how much the plaintiffs will have to pay in Court costs for their loss.  It could be huge or will the Ambassador Bridge Company not seek payment.  Also very interesting is whether the  plaintiffs had someone who was going to back them financially in this trial not just for the court costs but the law firm legal costs as well!

Repeat----Please Watch This VON Video

Please excuse me for posting this video and the background of it again.  I think it is that important for you, dear reader, either to see it for the first time or to see it again so you will understand how necessary it may be for you.

If  you, a  member of your family or a friend has the type of physical problem that I talk about in this video, then you have a way for it to be dealt with at no cost at this time.

Go through this article and then click at the bottom how you can see the video I talk about and what  you can do.

=====================================================

I hope you enjoy this particular VON video, dear reader. It was something that I got involved in because I am taking part in a program put forward by the Victoria Order of Nurses in our area. I was involved in this program because of the horrific physical injury that I suffered over 3 years ago in my illness where, literally, I had just about died when I entered hospital.

I heard that a local presentation was coming up shortly about their program. I wanted to put in my good word about my participation in the program that was of so much assistance to my physical condition. I wanted not only their staff but also people in this area who need the actual assistance to know how good their program is!

Just so you know, the program in which I am involved is a 12 week one that helps people who have physical issues similar to mine. These issues can be caused by a number of illnesses, not just mine. It is a phenomenal program at this time because there is no charge to people like me who participate in it. Now that is truly wonderful with the results achieved in it.  Take a look at this comment from their website:

"The VON SMART Program (Seniors Maintaining Active Roles Together) is a research and evidence based exercise and fall prevention program provided by the VON Erie St. Clair. SMART is designed for community members 55+ who, regardless of current levels of ability, wish to maintain or are deficit in one or more of the following areas: upper/lower body strength, balance and flexibility. The SMART program is ideal for individuals with barriers to traditional exercise groups due to health issues, mobility restrictions and/or chronic disease.  All of our programs are client-focused, and tailored to the needs of participants.  We include an educational component within our exercise classes detailing falls prevention strategies and interventions to help reduce fall risks. 

VON SMART Exercise classes and Fall Prevention workshops are FREE!"

I am not going to go into great deal of detail about the program itself in this article, dear reader. You will learn quite a bit about it and why I started up in it after you take a look at the Video that I will be presenting here.

The person who is my VON rep in the exercise program and who took the video is:

Marvin Edward

Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy Assistant

TEAM LEADER for SMART Exercise & Fall Prevention Program

(Seniors Maintaining Active Roles Together)

VON Canada

400 - 4520 Rhodes Dr.

Windsor, ON   N8W 5C2

Office: (519) 254-9301 Ext. 6240

Toll Free: 1-866-354-4866 Ext. 6240

I am setting out all of his information because if you have a problem that needs assistance, then I would suggest you contact him immediately to get the assistance that you may require. He is just an excellent person with whom to discuss your serious matter.

Now please take a look at this video. I trust that it gives you the information that you require.  Go to this website below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3SFi-onIM&feature=youtu.be