Saturday August 24, 2013

August 24, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 24, 2013

Lightfoot added to Greenbelt lineup

Neil Young’s out, but Gordon Lightfoot’s in.

Lightfoot, a Canadian folk-music legend, has been added to the Greenbelt Harvest Picnic lineup, organizers announced late Thursday.

The Orillia, Ont. native rose to fame with such hits as Sundown, If you Could Read My Mind, Early Morning Rain and Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

“We are very excited by the addition of Mr. Lightfoot and will be making more announcements in the coming days,” Jean-Paul Gauthier, producer of the Greenbelt Harvest Picnic, said in a press release.

The daylong festival at Christie Lake Conservation Area on Aug. 31 was to be Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s first stop on a four-city North American tour.

But Young pulled out of the third annual show because of an injury to guitarist Frank Sampedro’s hand.

This week, organizers offered a partial refund of $40 to concert goers, reducing ticket prices to $99.50.

Buyers of tickets from consignment locations can pick up their refund beginning Saturday, Aug. 24 at 10 a.m. They must produce photo ID and their tickets to do so.

The concert also features Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Pegi Young and the Survivors, Trixie Whitley, Rocco DeLuca, the Arkells, Harlan Pepper, Basia Bulat, Whitehorse and Harrison Kennedy. (Source: The Hamilton Spectator)

NEIL YOUNG CARTOON from wes tyrell on Vimeo.

Thursday August 22, 2013

August 22, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Information watchdog blasts bureaucrats who ‘misled’ her

Information commissioner Ann Cavoukian has tabled a scorching addendum to her headline-making report on Liberal staffers illegally deleting gas plant emails.

Cavoukian on Tuesday released a 30-page supplement to her earlier 35-page report castigating Grits for apparently destroying emails related to the $585-million cancellation of controversial power plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the last provincial election.

In June, the legislative watchdog blasted Craig MacLennan, a former chief of staff to past energy ministers Brad Duguid and Chris Bentley, and David Livingston, former premier Dalton McGuinty’s last chief of staff, for failing to preserve records.

“In light of the information I now have, I would have arrived at a different conclusion regarding the ability of MGS (Ministry of Government Services) staff to retrieve the relevant emails from Mr. MacLennan’s email account,” she wrote Tuesday.

“However, the other findings in my report were not affected and remain accurate.”

In her appendix, Cavoukian maintains that bureaucrats “misled” her when they claimed MacLennan’s email account could not be retrieved then later found 39,000 emails either sent or received by him on a backup computer drive. (Source: The Toronto Star)

KATHLEEN WYNNE CARTOON from wes tyrell on Vimeo.