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Saturday October 29, 2016

October 28, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 29, 2016

‘Pretty Good Rich Kids’: Reaching the OHL takes more than talent

What does it take to make it to the Ontario Hockey League?

Skill? Certainly. Speed? Sure. Strength? No question.

November 28, 2007

But it also takes something else — something over and above raw talent and physicality. To make it to the OHL, you also need a winning ticket in the lottery of birth.

A year-long Spectator investigation finds a highly significant number of the league’s Ontario-raised players are from suburban neighbourhoods where most people are well-educated, earn high incomes and live in expensive homes.

The odds of them crossing paths with someone living in poverty are extremely low.

For anyone familiar with the extraordinary cost of playing hockey in Ontario — $15,000-or-so annually for an elite AAA player and getting higher — this won’t come as a shock. If you want to be the next Sidney Crosby, says Wilfrid Laurier University’s William McTeer, “the first question you have to ask is how much money do your parents have and are they prepared to invest in your future as an athlete.”

But cost isn’t the only thing keeping children in Hamilton and across Ontario out of the game.

Several factors, including geography, public policy and the funding mechanisms of non-profits, are making it increasingly difficult for low- and middle-income families to access the sport, particularly at competitive levels.

“I think it’s tragic,” says Philip White, a sport sociologist at McMaster University. “You live in a culture where everybody is supposed to have an opportunity to advance and kids are simply shut out.”

Our analysis is grounded in data. Stick with us while we get the heavy stuff out of the way. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday September 8, 2016

September 7, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 8, 2016

Children and Youth Services Minister Michael Coteau is urging city council to end Hamilton’s bylaw ban on road hockey.

“Road hockey bans are commonplace in municipalities across Ontario, but they don’t need to be,” the minister wrote in a Sept. 6 letter to council that notes Toronto and Kingston have already bucked the municipal trend.

“I am hoping that your council will be next. A vote to overturn the prohibition and let kids play will challenge other municipalities to abolish similar road hockey bans in their own communities.”

Coteau made headlines in July when he publicly urged Toronto’s council to end its own street hockey ban. Council did so over the objections of its own legal staff, but proposed conditions limiting game time to daylight hours and on streets with slow traffic speeds.

January 5, 2002

The move prompted Coun. Sam Merulla — who fought unsuccessfully to kill Hamilton’s bylaw as far back as 2002 — to ask city legal staff to revisit the local ban. A report is expected later this year.

Merulla said he spoke to Coteau about the value of street hockey in the summer and was “heartened” by the minister’s enthusiasm.

But he added the province could help by adding language to the Highway Traffic Act that would head off municipal concerns about liability.

“With a stroke of a pen, they could help all municipalities feel more comfortable overnight,” he said.

Municipal lawyers in several cities, including Hamilton, have in the past suggested the strict language in the Highway Traffic Act doesn’t provide the legal leeway needed for cities to allow sports in the street.

In any event, Hamilton would only enforce its street hockey ban in response to a complaint. But municipal lawyers have argued the rule helps protect the city from lawsuits in the event of an injury.

Coteau said in a brief interview he hasn’t heard from municipal leaders other than Merulla that provincial rules of the road are an impediment to changing local bylaws.

“If (the act) is a barrier … I’d love to have a conversation about it,” he said.

But the minister added, while he is keen to advocate for a “common sense approach,” he isn’t intending to enforce rule changes on any city. “Local policy-makers … have to make those decisions on behalf of the people they represent.” (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday April 24, 2014

April 23, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 24, 2014

Service sector sees spike in temporary foreign workers

The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada’s hotel and restaurant sector has exploded under the Conservative government as the latest figures show the industry is the biggest user of the controversial federal program.

Recent allegations of abuse in the program – some involving three McDonald’s franchises in Victoria and others tied to a pizza place in a Weyburn, Sask., hotel – have federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney on the defensive and vowing to crack down on offenders. The minister is also musing about new restrictions that could make it harder for fast-food restaurants in urban areas to access the program.

Mr. Kenney’s spokeswoman Alexandra Fortier told The Globe on Tuesday the minister is planning to announce further changes to the program “in due course” that will go beyond new penalties included in the government’s latest budget bill.

According to data compiled by Mr. Kenney’s department, the number of foreign workers in the “accommodation and food services” sector has grown from 4,360 in 2006 to 44,740, an increase of 926 per cent. The actual number of foreign workers in that category is likely higher because the statistic captures only people working under a federal Labour Market Opinion (LMO), a process meant to ensure that no Canadian workers were available.

There are several ways for employers to bring in foreign workers without an LMO, such as through existing trade deals.

More than 200,000 workers were brought in through LMOs in 2012, but data from Citizenship and Immigration show 491,547 temporary foreign workers either entered Canada or were still present in Canada that year.

NDP MP Jinny Sims said the rise is “outrageous” and shows the need for a major review of the program, especially given that youth – who would be obvious candidates for restaurant jobs – face a 13.6-per-cent unemployment rate. Liberal MP John McCallum wrote to the Auditor-General on Tuesday asking for an audit of the program as soon as possible. (Source: Globe & Mail)

REPUBLISHED in iPolitics, The Thunder Bay Chronicle, The Lamont Leader (Alberta), The Red Deer Advocate, The Calgary Herald, The Melville Advance (Saskatchewan), The St. John’s Telegram (Newfoundland)

Wednesday August 14, 2013

August 14, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 14, 2013

Late-night python startles Hess bar patrons

A group of bar patrons got a late-night surprise when they ran into a three-foot python on their way out of Hess Village.

Hamilton animal control was called on Aug. 7 around 3 a.m. after the patrons left the bar and found the snake slithering into some bushes in a lot near King Street West and Hess Street.

According to the Reptile Store, located a dozen or so blocks from where the serpent was discovered, these snakes are not dangerous.

The ball python is “if not the most popular species of snake, definitely the most popular python,” said Jon Kendrick, business manager of reptilestore.ca.

They get their name because, when startled, they coil up, tucking their head into the middle — like a ball.

They’re timid, Kendrick says, which makes them popular pets.

Because of its “handle-ability,” this one was likely a pet, animal control supervisor Cal Burnett said.

But animal control doesn’t know to whom the snake belongs or from where it came.
The escapee didn’t come from the Reptile Store, Kendrick ensures.

“Again, thankfully, they don’t pose a threat of any significance unless you’re a small mouse.”

Last week, a 45-kilogram African rock python killed two boys — 4-year-old Noah Barthe and his 6-year-old brother, Connor — after it strangled them in a New Brunswick apartment. (Source: CBC News)

Monday May 28, 2012

May 28, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Monday May 28, 2012

EI Reform Arrives

Proposed changes to Employment Insurance will divide claimants into three categories:

• Long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI system for the past seven of 10 years and who, over the last five years, have collected EI or fishing benefits for 35 weeks or less.

• Frequent claimants who have had three or more claims for regular or fishing benefits and collected benefits for a total of more than 60 weeks in the past five years.

• Occasional claimants would be all other claimants.

The changes will hit each group separately. Long-tenured workers will be given more time to find a job in their usual occupation and at a similar wage (starting at 90 per cent of previous hourly wage.) After 18 weeks on EI benefits, long-tenured workers would be required to expand their search to jobs similar to the one they normally perform and to accept wages starting at 80 per cent of their previous hourly wage.

Frequent claimants would be required to expand their job search to jobs similar to the one they normally perform at the onset of their EI claim (one to six weeks) and accept wages starting at 80 per cent of their previous hourly wage. After receiving benefits for seven weeks, they would be required to accept any work they are qualified to perform (with training, if required) and to accept wages starting at 70 per cent of their previous hourly wage.

Occasional claimants could limit their job search to their usual occupation and wage (at least 90 per cent of previous hourly wage) for the first six weeks of their claim. After that, they would be required to expand their search to jobs similar to the work they normally perform with wages at 80 per cent of previous earnings. (Source: Toronto Star)