helicopter

Thursday November 15, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday November 15, 2012

Fallen acorns a threat to kids with allergies

A York Region mother is fighting to have oak trees removed near her child’s school, fearing that acorns could pose a deadly threat to students with severe allergies.

Donna Giustizia said the young trees on property owned by the City of Vaughan next to St. Stephen Catholic Elementary School are littering the area with acorns. The school, meanwhile, is nut-free to protect students with potentially life-threatening anaphylactic allergies.

“A false sense of security is putting a sign on the door that says nut-free and there’s nuts all over the place,” said Giustizia, who has two teenage children with anaphylactic food allergies, one of whom attends St. Stephen.

“I’m not a crazy mom, I’m not asking for anything that’s not already there.”

Giustizia appeared before Vaughan’s committee of the whole last week to plead for the removal of the trees.

Several councillors at the meeting questioned the precedent that removing the trees might set. Thornhill/Concord Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco wondered whether removing these trees would mean having to remove oak trees from other public properties where children with allergies might be exposed.

Councillors referred the matter to staff to prepare a report on the issue. City communications manager Ted Hallas said in an email that staff wouldn’t release details of the report before it is presented to councillors. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday November 2, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday November 2, 2012

Flying over Hamilton in a counterterrorism chopper

Downtown councillor Jason Farr says he’s been given assurances by the military that he and other councillors will be told of training exercises in advance of them happening so he can prepare his constituents for disturbances.

Farr made the comment Wednesday night after receiving dozens of complaints from residents over an exercise by a helicopter squadron buzzing the former Stelco Tower on King Street West in the downtown core Tuesday evening.

He initially called for the 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron to halt the operation “immediately” because of the complaints, but has accepted it continuing. The squadron is set to take part in the exercise Thursday night after cancelling Wednesday night due to the weather.

“I am pleased that the folks involved in this operation have assured me there will be better communication well in advance of any training exercise,” Farr said.

“That to me is key. They have reassured me that in the future there will be much better communication, much earlier when these training exercises occur.”

The training over the Stelco Tower caused all kinds of consternation, even though it had been publicized in The Hamilton Spectator. Farr said he received about 40 complaints. He said he heard from “old ladies who were scared, children trying to sleep. It was the whole bit. Some of them were very irate.”

Mayor Bob Bratina was happy with the event and noted Hamilton’s ties to the military.

“I’m proud we can host an exercise like this,” he told reporters. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Thursday November 1, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 1, 2012

Romney tones down Obama attacks

Mitt Romney campaign affected by hurricane damage

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pledged Wednesday to deliver the “real change” he says his Democratic opponent promised but has not achieved.

With President Barack Obama in New Jersey surveying storm damage, Romney softened his line of attack against the president. He did not mention Obama’s name in his first two rallies in Florida — a third was planned in the evening — but in a race that polls show to be extremely close, he found an avenue to challenge Obama nonetheless.

“I don’t just talk about change,” Romney told an estimated 2,000 supporters at an airport rally before outlining general plans to improve the nation’s economy. “I actually have a plan to execute change and make it happen.”

Romney aides concede that the political balancing act is not over as the nation continues to focus on Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath. The day before, Romney canceled some rallies and converted one into a storm relief event aimed at collecting donations for those in need.

Back on the campaign trail Wednesday, Romney encouraged Floridians to donate “a dollar or two” to storm victims across the East Coast.

“Today we wanted to make sure we kept a positive tone and talked about what the governor would hope to do on Day One of his presidency,” adviser Kevin Madden said aboard Romney’s campaign plane.

That’s exactly what Romney did in campaign speeches in Tampa and Coral Gables that were stripped of his standard anti-Obama political jabs (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday August 23, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday August 23, 2012

Prince Harry’s latest on-camera escapade

Prince Harry has been caught on camera doing something embarrassing — again.

Celebrity gossip website TMZ on Tuesday posted photos of the 27-year-old royal cavorting nude with an unidentified woman in a VIP suite in Las Vegas. It’s hardly the first time the prince — who allegedly disrobed as part of a game of strip pool — has been filmed misbehaving. The third-in-line to the throne was famously photographed wearing a Nazi uniform for a costume party, and in another photo-gaffe he was seen cupping the breast of a female TV presenter. Some would argue footage in which he was heard to utter a racial slur while teasing a fellow army cadet from Pakistan was more serious.

If the reaction of Britons to Harry’s Las Vegas adventure was anything to go by, the nude photos will do little to tarnish his generally positive, party-prince image. The Associated Press asked an assortment of royal watchers and British subjects about what they thought about the prince’s naked romp.

The blurry, low-resolution photographs appear to have been snapped from inside a hotel suite, and it isn’t clear that the prince was aware that they were being taken.

That could be a violation of the royal’s privacy. It might also explain why Britain’s scandal-hungry tabloids – normally avid consumers of titillating photos – were steering clear of the images. Shirley Ashard, a caregiver, said the only outrage she could muster was against the photographer.

“That’s out of order,” she said. “How would you like it if someone took pictures of you in your hotel room?” (Source: CTV News) 

 

Thursday March 22, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 22, 2012

Ornge mess sullies Ontario Health Minister’s standing

By the time it’s finished playing itself out, when the schemes have all been unravelled and the books fully opened up and the police investigation concluded, the sorry mess at the air-ambulance service Ornge could wind up costing Ontarians tens of millions of dollars.

The much bigger cost – the one that the province really can’t afford as it tries to wrestle down a $16-billion deficit – might be the loss of an effective health minister.

Deb Matthews will keep her job for the foreseeable future; she’s too well-regarded in government circles to be a sacrificial lamb. But as she stood there on Wednesday, trying to keep her cool during the brutal press conference that followed Auditor-General Jim McCarter’s damning Ornge report, it was hard not to see her as a diminished force.

Two years ago, shortly after being named to her post, Ms. Matthews won a very public fight with pharmacies to find big drug savings that had eluded her predecessors. The communication skills and the iron will that she displayed on that file gave some hope that she’d be able to win other, tougher battles to limit health-care costs.

But with those battles now looming large in the form of nascent contract negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association and a push to restructure the way hospitals are funded, Ms. Matthews has lost much of her political capital.

Until recently seen in the health sector as a force to be reckoned with, she’s now perceived as vulnerable. While there’s a sense that she’s a good minister dealt a bad hand, there’s also an awareness that – having failed to stop Ornge from abusing public dollars – she’s lost her ability to rally the public behind her by presenting herself as a tireless defender of the public interest. (Source: Globe & Mail)