Nurse loses licence over affair with patient –Man took his own life after suing CAMH

A nurse formerly employed at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health will lose her licence after she admitted to having sex with a patient while she worked there, a disciplinary panel ruled yesterday.  The nurse admitted that “she sexually abused the patient by engaging in sexual intercourse … among other things” during the man’s in-patient and outpatient treatment, according to an agreed statement of facts presented at her disciplinary hearing. She was fired in 2007 when the affair came to light.

Here’s another case of bad police–remember, I am an ardent supporter of the police but will not ignore the bad apples who do exist within the force.  Fortunately, the woman did finally get some justice, which might help in her long road to recovery:

30 years later, $215,000 for officer’s sex assault – Court makes award for ‘despicable’ attack

The Toronto Police Services Board has been ordered to pay Marian Evans $215,000 – plus her legal costs – after she sued for an “outrageous and despicable sexual assault” committed by a former Toronto police officer nearly 30 years ago. The court also ordered John David Sproule to pay $25,000 in punitive damages. Sproule, a constable who fondled and tried to kiss Evans in 1979 after a traffic stop, refused to attend the trial.

<snip>

On Jan. 6, 1979, Evans, then 24, was driving home alone in Scarborough at 3:30 a.m. when Sproule pulled her over in a marked cruiser and found her licence had been suspended for nonpayment of a fine. He said she could go to prison for 14 years and that he would take her to 41 Division. Sproule left her waiting at the scene and returned a short time later in an unmarked car. He then parked her car in a lot, told her to get into his car and drove to a secluded area where he grabbed her breast and tried to kiss her. When Evans complained to police, Sproule was charged. At the time, he was 32 and had been on the force for five years. He pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was fined $1,000. Back in 1979, Sproule’s father headed the Toronto police morality squad. After the conviction, Sproule quit the force and moved to Northern Ontario. He defied a subpoena to attend the civil trial.

During a hearing in September, Evans, now 54, gave an emotional account of her ordeal and the years of embarrassment and shame that prevented her from confronting what had happened. “I’ve never been so scared in my life before or after,” Evans testified during the proceedings. Chapnik wrote Evans “was trapped for a time in a police cruiser in a parking lot in the middle of the night. The fact that she had committed an infraction made her particularly vulnerable to intimidation by the officer.” Before the attack, Evans was a person her sister Kathleen described as “talented, charming, witty, very beautiful and charismatic,” a person who “lit up the room.” Afterward, Evans testified that she became estranged from her otherwise tight-knit Scarborough family, and over the years has battled depression, low self-esteem, sleeplessness and nightmares about “faceless authority figures.” She continues to panic when she sees police cars, she told the court.

And here’s something from one of my favourite columnists re. the recent case in France, where a Muslim asshole (no, not all Muslims are assholes; this guy happens to be an asshole an Muslim, both of which are relevant here) broke up his wedding party to announce to everyone that he was leaving his new bride because he just found out she wasn’t a virgin (they were about to have sex while the party raged on, apparently).  He tried to annul the marriage but the French legal system said, “Screw you, neanderthal.  We are in the third millenium here…”  Now before anyone accuses me of being ___ist, or ethnocentric, or anti-religion/culture, or anti-virginity, etc., I would have no problem with the story if the virginity rules applied to men as well.  If you belong to a certain culture, religion or society that demands virginity before marriage, so be it.  But when the rules are applied to only one sex, we’ve got a problem.

France got virginity ruling right - Rosie DiManno
A cousin of mine, who married into a Sicilian family, was required to show her blood-soiled wedding night sheets to her new mother-in-law for inspection, proof positive of virginity surrendered. I remember being horrified when she told me about this, a few weeks before the event. It sounded so demeaning. And, with all the knowledge of a teenage virgin, I also warned my cousin: “Some girls don’t bleed, you know.” She just shrugged it off.

I would have opened a vein before submitting to such undignified scrutiny. Indeed, some brides do precisely that, cut themselves to draw a bead of blood, because the revolting custom endures in many societies, whether a requisite of culture or religion. So this is not, strictly speaking, about Muslims. Virginity remains mandatory in vastly different conservative societies. Chastity Promise clubs have gained growing popularity among “till-I-do” teenagers in the U.S.

<snip>

The case provoked wide outrage as an attack on male-female equality. One female government minister called the original tribunal ascent a “fatwa against the emancipation of women.” Technically, the tribunal had based its judgment on a fundamental component of France’s Civil Code: A marriage partner can demand an annulment if his or her spouse fails to fulfill an “essential” part of their agreement. That includes “lack of truthfulness.”

But few in France took much note of the legal niceties. They saw this for what it was: Denunciation of a woman for having sex outside marriage, discrimination based on anachronistic traditions, and imposition of religious values on secular law. A broader fury also coalesced around the case – the worry in France of creeping Islamic fundamentalism threatening the nation’s precious aversion to sanctified religiosity.

<snip>

On the matter of annulment for absence of chastity, the higher court got it right. “Virginity can in no case constitute an essential quality. It is not possible to obtain an annulment on such a discriminatory basis; this motive is an attack on male-female equality, the right to dispose of one’s own body, and human dignity. It would be contrary to public order to grant an annulment on the grounds of non-virginity.”

Muslim beauty queen tells of racism, survival — Former Miss Germany inspired by Anne Frank

Asli Bayram knows the urge to hide, fearful of those outside who might hurt her, and too afraid to do anything that might get her noticed. She fought back against the fear three years ago by becoming Miss Germany, the first Muslim to do so. She fights back now by reading to schoolchildren The Diary of Anne Frank, about another young woman who feared for her life “I always liked her, her diary, her personality. She was a strong girl,” the 27-year-old beauty queen and actor says in a break from her two-week series of readings around Toronto. The readings are presented by the Te-Amim Music Theatre of Toronto with funding from the Friends of the Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

Bayram says the story of Anne, a Jewish girl forced to hide from the Nazis during World War II only to be eventually discovered and die of typhus in Bergen-Belsen, resonated with her as a young Turkish girl growing up in Germany. Like Anne, she was made to feel like an outsider in her own country. And, like Anne, it was because of Nazis. Bayram takes a deep breath before retelling the story.

She was 12 years old when a knock came at the door of her family apartment in Darmstadt. Bayram answered, with her father following close behind. At the door was a neo-Nazi neighbour, a little drunk and holding a gun. The man, who had spewed racist epitaphs at the family before, pointed his gun at the young girl. At that moment, her father lunged forward, pushed her out of the way and slammed shut the door. The bullet passed through the door, hitting Bayram’s father in the stomach before striking Bayram in the arm. As she lay on the floor, barely noticing her own wound at first, Bayram watched her father die. “It is hard to talk about, but I feel I must,” Bayram tells 100 children in east-end Toronto during one of her readings. “It took more than an hour for the police or doctors to arrive, and the police station was only 15 minutes away,” Bayram says, her voice a hush in the quiet room. “My father died.”

The restless children, all about the age Bayram was when she was shot, fall still and silent as she recounts how racist violence touched her life.

The killer was given a six-year sentence, and served only 3  1/2 years in prison, the rest on day parole. Bayram was forced to testify in court with him staring at her the entire time. “It was very hard, very unfair the way the legal system treated us,” she says in an interview.

In the following years, she slept with the lights on. Her mother would obsessively check the doors of their new apartment – they moved after the shooting – making sure they were locked. “We felt like we did something wrong,” she says. The family refused to completely isolate themselves, however. Bayram’s mother pushed her children to get an education and all four girls went to law school, including Bayram. She’s the only one who did not become a lawyer, having gone into acting after the Miss Germany pageant as a way to keep telling her story.

She has been in three movies so far, on television and starred in a one-woman play based on Anne Frank that toured Europe to great acclaim, and was the basis of her readings in Toronto. Bayram jokes now that beauty contests are not normally a political statement, but for her, it was. She entered the competition because she was frustrated at seeing only blond-haired, blue-eyed girls crowned Miss Germany. “I was curious. I didn’t think I would win,” she says, adding she just wanted someone who looked like the girls she knew to be in the contest. When she won, she says, she was treated like a hero. Young Turkish girls said they felt as if they finally belonged in their own country, and white Germans held her up as an evidence their country was progressing from its racist past.

She smiles now at all the fallout from the pageant win, but the scars of racism never seem far from the surface. With little warning, she starts describing how isolated and alone she felt as one of the few Turkish girls in her school, ignored by the others at play time. “It was very hard, standing alone all the time,” she says, rubbing her arm where the bullet struck, “but it’s okay. It made me stronger.”

Laws put sex workers at risk – (Antonia Zerbisias)

If there’s one thing that divides feminists, it’s the sex business. On one side, you have those who regard the world’s oldest profession as a form of slavery, which only desperate women would get into, or get forced into. They maintain that it victimizes all women because it makes men see them as sex objects, or worse. On the other side, there are those – count me among them – who look at it as a career choice, and a necessary service. It has nothing to do with patriarchal structures because it probably predated any form of patriarchy – and may well outlive it.

It’s the woman’s body and she’s free to use it as she wants, we say. After all, nobody stops race car drivers from risking their lives for fame and fortune, thrills and chills. So why put the brakes on sex workers? Why criminalize sex – a perfectly natural act – when drinking, smoking, gambling and other vices are not a crime?

The funny thing is, prostitution is legal in Canada. It’s everything that allows a worker to safely ply her trade that will land her in jail. All of which results in exactly the kind of exploitation from which the sex police want to shield prostitutes. “People have a moral problem with us,” says Amy Lebovitch, interim executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC). “The media definitely play a part. They’ve created this view that sex for money is exploitative – but sex goes on every day.”

So why should the religious right and righteous left impose their morality on sex workers, despite how virtually all the research indicates that sex workers’ are put at risk by laws that cause more problems than they prevent? This was the battle in San Francisco during the 2008 election campaign. Proposition K, which would have corrected the criminal approach to sex workers, while redirecting police resources to traffickers and pimps, missed passing by some 60,000 votes last week.

As for Lebovitch, she is no victim. “I began in the profession because I wanted independent security,” she tells me. “There are always going to be people involved in it for all sorts of reasons – to pay off debt, or to go through school or because they enjoy it. There isn’t just one box you can put all us into it. I don’t feel exploited.” This is why, last year, SPOC mounted a legal challenge to strike down three provisions of the Criminal Code: s.210, which forbids the keeping of a bawdy house, s.212 (1) (j) which makes living off the avails a prostitution a crime and s.213 (1) (c), which bans communication for the purpose of prostitution. All week, sex workers, lawyers, academics, experts and the Crown have been duking it out in a closed boardroom at the Superior Court of Justice. The case will be heard well into next year.

SPOC says that barring bawdy houses prevents women from working in their homes, or sharing spaces with other sex workers. Not only is that a violation of their human rights, but it forces them into the streets. Living off the avails means they can’t be in normal, healthy relationships because their partners will be charged. As for communication, to make a deal, women must climb into cars with strangers before they can safely assess the situation.

None of these laws, say the experts, have ever prevented the real problem – human trafficking. In any case, there are kidnapping, abuse and rape laws on the books for the slave trade.  In fact, the Criminal Code, as it now stands, makes it easier for traffickers. “These laws create an environment where trafficked girls are prevented from going to the police because they’re told they will be deported if they do,” says Lebovitch. “If these laws are struck, sex will move from the underground into the open where people can see it as a legitimate choice.”

All sex workers want is what all the rest of us working girls do. Says Lebovitch: “We want to be able to live with partners. We want to have safe lives. We want our rights and freedoms.” Seems fair enough. Just because sex workers do what they do, doesn’t mean that they should get screwed.

Tougher rules ahead for young drivers

The Ontario government is expected to introduce tough new legislation tomorrow that will further restrict the privileges of young drivers. The move comes after a long lobbying campaign, led by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Tim Mulcahy, the father of one of the three young people killed in a drunk-driving accident in Muskoka on July 3.

New measures affecting young new drivers are expected to include:

A total ban on alcohol consumption
A ban on more than one teenage passenger
Zero tolerance for speeders – one ticket and they’re off the road.

“We’ve been advocating this for a long time,” said Carolyn Swinson, Toronto spokeswoman for MADD. “Manitoba has already brought that in – it’s already zero blood alcohol for drivers up to the age of 21 and for the first five years for new drivers.

“We’ve been asking Ontario to follow suit for a while.” In Ontario’s current graduated licensing system – introduced in 1994 – young drivers can obtain a full driver’s licence after just two years of driving experience, making it legal for them to drive after having a drink, and placing them on the standard demerit point system for speeding and other moving infractions.

Mulcahy began echoing MADD’s calls for action shortly after his son’s death when he learned that his son had a history of speeding and that alcohol had been a factor in his deadly car crash. On July 3, Tyler Mulcahy, 20, his girlfriend Nastasia Inez Elzinga, 19, and friends Kourosh Totonchian, 19, and Cory Mintz, 20, spent the afternoon drinking 31 drinks over a three-hour period at a restaurant in Port Carling.  They left that evening in Mulcahy’s Audi, but they never made it home. Tyler Mulcahy was driving when he crashed the car into the Joseph River. Only Elzinga escaped the sinking car with her life.

His son’s death launched Mulcahy on a crusade to change the laws that bind young drivers in the province, to stop other youth from following his son’s fatal journey. First he began a petition for a revamping of the laws.  Then he began taking out full-page ads in the Star and other local newspapers that urged the province to revoke the licences of those under the age of 21 should they be caught speeding or driving with any alcohol in their system.  “Dear Mr. McGuinty, my son is dead,” the ads began.  “It is not your fault, but you can make a difference and reduce future suffering.”

It was enough to earn him a private meeting with the premier and, according to a note posted to his blog last Thursday, the drive produced results. “Mr. McGuinty called me this morning and told me that both laws are being introduced into the legislature on Tuesday,” Mulcahy wrote last week. “I could not believe my ears and wept with Mr. McGuinty on the phone. If these bills are passed, Ontario will be the safest jurisdiction for young drivers in the world.”

Mulcahy wasn’t available for comment yesterday, but in August he told the Star: “I’d like Tyler’s accident to make a difference. “I really feel there needs to be zero tolerance for alcohol up to the age of 21. Once someone takes one drink, it’s easy to take two, three, four or 10 because we stop thinking,” he added. “I feel that speeding is at least as much of an issue as drinking and driving. If there was a zero tolerance for speeding and the licence was revoked for one speeding incident, then word would quickly get around that you can’t speed and (keep) your licence. “I want the law changed immediately so that I don’t have to worry as much when my daughters are out partying and driving around in vehicles.”

Afghan acid attack victim vows to continue schooling

KABUL–A victim of an acid attack on schoolgirls in Afghanistan says she is determined to stay in school even if that means risking death. The girl, who gave her name as just Shamsia, was the most seriously injured of a group of girls attacked outside their school by unidentified men in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday. “I’ll continue my schooling even if they try to kill me. I won’t stop going to school,” Shamsia said from her bed at a Kabul military hospital.

Shamsia, 17, suffered damage to one of her eyes when the men pulled off the girls’ head scarves and threw acid in their faces. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of the Taliban, who banned girls from going to school during their rule from 1996 to 2001. The insurgents have attacked and destroyed hundreds of schools across the country since they were forced from power in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

While some teachers and caretakers have been killed, most of the attacks on schools have been at night and violence against children has been rare. The attack on the schoolgirls has shocked a country long used to violence. President Hamid Karzai said the men responsible were the enemies of education.

Shamsia, much of her face covered in a yellow ointment, said she had to finish her education to help the country. “I’ll continue going to lessons. I’m studying to be able to build our country,” she said. Senior education official Najiba Nuristani, who was visiting Shamsia in hospital, was also defiant. “These incidents, these suicide attacks, cannot stop education in Afghanistan, especially for girls,” she said. Shamsia’s doctor, Mohammad Wali, said the girl had suffered damage to an eye but was in good condition.

The Star’s City Hall Bureau examines nine of the major initiatives undertaken by Mayor David Miller’s administration and measures their successes

As Toronto Mayor David Miller reaches the halfway point in his second term, the Star assesses the progress of his administration on a range of issues, from generating new revenues to delivering services. Miller has certainly enjoyed wins, like getting city council to adopt a sweeping climate change plan to reduce greenhouse gases. That means putting a priority on transit, getting people out of their cars, and adding bike lanes. But on some proposals the process of actually getting things done has become weighed down by infighting and inaction. Still, now that the mayor has been given more power and is backed by a hand-picked executive committee, it raises the question whether city hall is just spinning its wheels.

GARBAGE
THE PLAN
Divert 70 per cent of Toronto’s garbage from the dump by 2010, in part by setting up a fee-for-service system that rewards residents who throw out the least.

Advocates
Mayor David Miller and works chair Councillor Glenn De Baermaeker.

STATUS
Single-family homes are already diverting more than 60 per cent of their waste by composting, recycling or other means. The city will add new materials to the blue bin program – foam packaging and plastic grocery bags – in December. New recycling and garbage bins are being delivered to every household in the city, and since Nov. 1 residents are being billed for garbage collection, just as they are billed for water use.

BACK STORY
Big apartment and condominium complexes divert only 18 per cent. City staff have launched a push for recycling and composting systems in big buildings; it will have to succeed to reach the 70 per cent goal. The bins have been a mixed success; many households don’t have them or got the wrong size. Retooling garbage collection for 1 million households is a massive job. The magnitude of the exercise swamped information lines and frustrated householders.

WHAT’S NEXT
the next few weeks should show whether the new garbage bin system is suffering temporary teething pains or longer-term problems. Many residents wonder how they’ll fare in winter conditions.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Mixed.

FOOD
THE PLAN

To make healthy and diverse food available on Toronto streets by the summer of 2008, going beyond traditional hot dog fare.

ADVOCATE
Councillor John Filion, chair of the board of health.

STATUS
No new foods are available yet, but new plans keep coming back to city council for approval.

BACK STORY
Initially, the city considered borrowing $700,000 to buy 35 carts that it would then lease to vendors, a measure that would prevent “cart conglomerates” from moving in.

Mayor David Miller quickly put a stop to that idea after complaints arose that a cash-poor city shouldn’t be spending money on food carts.

Instead, the city embarked on a long study that included asking interested cart manufacturers to submit plans. Filion sought alternative ways to pay for the carts, such as asking a charitable organization to sign on, but found no support.

City staff came up with a five-year pilot project for 13 carts to start next summer, but it was shelved because it was too complicated and too long.

One problem is that a simple idea became entangled with other city goals, such as ensuring healthy food and creating employment for new immigrants or residents in at-risk neighbourhoods. The city dismissed the idea of simply setting parameters for the carts and having public health regulate them.

WHAT’S NEXT
Council will vote next month on the latest plan: a three-year pilot project to begin next spring with up to 15 permits, plus a one-year pilot project allowing 15 existing hot dog vendors to expand their menus for a $1,000 fee.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Failure.

HOMELESS
THE PLAN
Reduce homelessness and create 1,000 units of affordable housing each year.

ADVOCATE
Mayor David Miller.

STATUS
Since launch in February 2005, the Streets to Homes initiative, run by the city’s shelter, support and housing division, has helped almost 1,200 people go from the streets into permanent housing where nearly 90 per cent remain. About 3,800 homeless people stay in Toronto shelters on any given night, but the total number using a shelter last year was 24,868 – down 20 per cent from 2001.

In his 2010 blue book, Miller promised to create 1,000 units of affordable housing in the city each year. Last year the city approved 1,797 affordable housing units, but so far this year only 349 have been approved. Nearly 70,000 households in Toronto are on a waiting list.

THE BACK STORY
The city has moved from a model of “enabling” homeless people to remain on the street to an aggressive push to get them housed. This approach has included closing some shelter beds, much to the annoyance of some anti-poverty advocates, who feel the city has moved too quickly.

Officials say this year’s failure to reach the 1,000-unit affordable housing target is the result of receiving less housing money from Ottawa and Queen’s Park, who pay the lion’s share of the cost.

WHAT’S NEXT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised $1.9 billion to deal with homelessness and affordable housing over the next five years. The city’s affordable housing department hopes the benefits will be seen by the end of next year. This spring the city set aside $5 million a year to hire additional outreach workers to help curb panhandling and find jobs and homes for street people.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Moderate success.

ACCOUNTABILITY
THE PLAN
Ensure more accountability, with four independent officers: auditor-general, ombudsperson, integrity commissioner and lobbyist registrar.

ADVOCATES
Mayor David Miller and city council

STATUS
Only the auditor-general’s office is running well.

BACK STORY
Despite touting accountability and oversight, hiring staff for these key positions, required by Queen’s Park, has been a long, painful process.

The integrity commissioner’s job remains unfilled more than two months after David Mullan retired. The city announced it had hired lawyer Geri Sanson in June. But four months later, officials admitted they couldn’t negotiate a contract with Sanson. Under dispute: whether she’d be hired as an employee, which the city wanted, or retained for services.

Some cities, such as Hamilton and Vaughan, have given their integrity commissioner authority to issue sanctions – a clear sign of independence – but Toronto has not. Last year, when Mullan advised a councillor to apologize for irresponsible behaviour during the 2006 election, council voted to ignore his request.

Marilyn Abraham left the job of lobbyist registrar after a year. Linda Gehrke replaced her in August. Lobbyists and politicians complain the new register is complicated, cumbersome and ineffective.

Auditor-general Jeffrey Griffiths has been in the job since 2002, when his position was expanded to ensure more independence. His office is working well.

WHAT’S NEXT
Ombud Fiona Crean starts tomorrow, months behind the city’s original target timeframe of June. Her job will be to handle complaints from the public over delivery of city services.

A new search for an integrity commissioner starts soon.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Failure.

FEES
THE PLAN
“Everybody Gets to Play,” a well-intentioned scheme to give more low-income people free access to recreational programs in Toronto.

ADVOCATES
Mayor David Miller and executive committee member Councillor Joe Mihevc, chair of the community development and recreation committee.

STATUS
The plan didn’t even get to city council for approval. Miller and senior staff scrapped it as it was imploding weeks after being introduced.

BACK STORY
Unveiled to much fanfare by the parks, forestry and recreation department, the proposal called for the city to increase its “cost recovery” or “user pay” percentage for recreational programs from 30 per cent to 50 per cent by 2014. A portion of the extra money generated was to go toward the city’s Welcome Policy, a subsidy program that gives low-income residents free access to recreation. The proposal also sought to provide free skating, leadership and swimming programs in Toronto public and separate schools for Grade 4 and 5 students. But it became mired in controversy over a proposed 20 per cent increase this year for recreational program fees and permit fees for rink and field rentals. The hike was later dropped to 8 per cent.

The entire episode was a major embarrassment for the parks and recreation department, and drew charges that Mihevc and the mayor weren’t on top of the file.

WHAT’S NEXT
After admitting recently that the city tried to “bite off too much” with the proposal, Mihevc said a revised approach is expected, probably next spring.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Complete flop.

NATHAN PHILLIPS
THE PLAN
Repair and rejuvenate Nathan Phillips Square, the city’s most important public space.

ADVOCATES
Mayor David Miller, with backing from a broad community coalition. Councillor Peter Milczyn is the political point man overseeing the project.

STATUS
An international design competition attracted wide interest. The winner, Plant Architect, Inc. and Shore Tilbe Irwin, was announced in February 2007.

The designers have been working ever since, translating the sweeping design – including a permanent stage and restaurant, fountains that spring from the deck of the square, and a move for the Peace Garden – into plans that can be handed over to builders.

BACK STORY
The original plan called for a public fundraising campaign to acquire $25 million of the $42-million cost.

That idea has been shelved because city officials doubt a campaign would succeed amid fierce competition for philanthropic dollars and a sinking economy. Revenue from the Toronto Parking Authority and advertising on Toronto’s new transit shelters has now been earmarked for the project.

WHAT’S NEXT
The first contract is due to go to tender late this month. It involves turning the flat roof over the main entrance, currently closed, into a public garden. Work won’t start till the spring, since the whole roof needs repair.

Plans are to proceed in stages, so the entire square doesn’t turn into a construction zone at once, with completion in 2012. But lack of private funding might stretch the completion date beyond that.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
The design winner received broad acclaim, but the test will be awarding the initial contract for the roof garden.

BIKE LANES
THE PLAN
To build 1,000 kilometres of bikeways, including 495 km of bike lanes, by 2012, delayed from the original 2011 target.

ADVOCATES
Councillor Adrian Heaps, who heads the cycling committee, and Mayor David Miller, who promised during his 2006 re-election bid to “construct bike trails and lakefront promenades across the city from Etobicoke to Scarborough.”

STATUS

Since 2001, the city has completed 395 km of bike lanes, shared roads and off-road paths. Of those, only 91 km represent bike lanes – of which 7 km were built last year and nearly 20 km this year. That means the city has some serious catching up to do. If council approves an additional 16 km along Lawrence Ave. E. at its December meeting, the city will meet its 50-km target for the year, though they won’t all be in place.

BACK STORY
The Bike Plan, first approved in 2001, calls for creating a network of bike-friendly streets that will put all residents within a five-minute ride to the network.

In January, council tried to streamline approvals by taking the decision away from community councils, where politicians could delay and stall under pressure from a single ward councillor opposed to the upheaval caused by adding a bike lane.

But local skirmishes among drivers, cyclists and neighbourhood businesses, each with their own concerns, still slow the process. One example: a prolonged battle over 700 metres of Annette St., opposed by the local councillor. The new process resulted in a city council vote in favour of bike lanes along that stretch.

WHAT’S NEXT
The city has earmarked $8 million for more bike lanes in its 2009 capital budget, which would add 100 km, and has said it’s committed to hitting its 2012 target.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Mixed.

UNION STATION
THE PLAN
Turn the historic transportation hub into a hot destination with new stores and restaurants, and new offices in the west wing, while preserving heritage elements.

ADVOCATE
No one.

STATUS
After acquiring the building in 2000, the city sought a private-sector partner to renovate and rehabilitate it, but the initial deal with a consortium fell apart in 2006. The city then decided to go it alone. A private-sector investment of up to $150 million for a plan to dig down and create a retail hub on the lower level hasn’t turned up, so renovations will have to be funded from city resources.

BACK STORY
It’s hugely complicated to remake a building that serves as a hub for GO Transit and sees 100,000 commuters stream through daily. GO, the TTC and VIA Rail are just some of the players to be accommodated. Meanwhile, years of neglect have led to a repair backlog of $190 million.

WHAT’S NEXTStaff have recommended extending the retainer for architects NORR Limited to continue detailed design-development work. The city wants to take over management from the Toronto Terminals Railway Co. on May 1 and expects the station will operate at a break-even level in 2009.

It’s anticipated major repairs and renovations will be done from 2010 through 2012, at a cost of $365 million.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Failure.

TAXES
THE PLAN
Find new revenues to augment property taxes.

ADVOCATE
Mayor David Miller.

STATUS
After an acrimonious fight last fall, city council passed a new municipal land transfer tax on real estate transactions. On the sale of a $400,000 home, it generates $3,725.

Council also passed a $60-a-year personal vehicle registration tax that took effect on Sept. 1 and is expected to provide $20 million in 2008.

BACK STORY
City tax consultants studied implementing – as part of enhanced powers under the City of Toronto Act – new taxes including road tolls, a parking lot or billboard tax, and sales taxes on tobacco, event tickets and alcohol in bars.

But the politicians balked. They stayed with the land transfer tax, but watered it down under pressure from the real estate industry. People who had already signed purchase agreements didn’t have to pay even if their deal closed after Feb. 1, when the tax took effect. The measure had originally been touted to bring in $300 million a year but will raise only about $155 million in 2008.

To make the tax more palatable, exemptions were created for first-time buyers, and also for deals already in the pipeline. The tax is expected to eventually yield $240 million per year.

WHAT’S NEXT
Land transfer tax revenue could grow bigger as house prices and sales climb – but the resale market is slowing. Finance staff says don’t count on more than $240 million.

The city may take another look at new taxes, particularly on booze. A 10 per cent tax on LCBO and bar sales would bring in an estimated $150 million annually, but it’s complicated.

SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Mixed.

THE BOTTOM LINE — After 5 years, Miller has failed to seal the big deals (Royson James)

David Miller’s been Toronto’s mayor and chief magistrate for five years. But if he’s found his legs as civic leader, it clearly isn’t obvious to his subjects. His first term was widely condemned as a wasted three years, marked by timidity and disappointment. Now, halfway through a newly expanded four-year term, there is the sense that Mayor Miller has the city spinning its wheels.

Miller’s problem is not inactivity or laziness; rather, he has trouble closing the deal on major projects. And when that happens repeatedly – the 311-call system, food carts, renovating Union Station and Nathan Phillips Square – voters conclude the leader isn’t delivering.  In fact, since Miller was re-elected he has pursued an aggressive agenda, to the point of arrogance. He attaches his name to city projects, bypassing city council. When he wants to push an item through he claims it as part of his mandate, muting opposition. He has ruminated about bagging more power to his already inflated responsibilities, including the right to hold secret meetings with his hand-picked executive committee.

With such tight control, one would expect quick execution of policies. Miller said last month he was “pleased to report that over 97 per cent” of the items in his mandate “are now underway, and over 28 per cent have already been completed.” So, where is the evidence the city is purring along superbly? Where’s the long list of achievements? Upon reflection, the successes appear as partial and small, while citizens seek completion of long-standing, significant projects.

Miller is off hither and yon on many initiatives. But he has completed, by his own accounting, barely a quarter of them. And the ones still outstanding are the issues that matter, the true test of an efficient, effective city administration. How much longer before he fixes Union Station? In 1998, the year of amalgamation, Mayor Mel Lastman took a tour of the TTC platforms, too narrow for safety, and vowed they would be widened. They remain untouched. Still, Miller’s ambition is to fix the entire complex, using taxpayers’ money. We’ll update you in 10 years.

Remember how the private sector was to contribute more than half the Nathan Phillips Square makeover cost? No deal. Taste buds across the city tingled at the prospect of ethnically diverse food sold from street vendors – until the great ideas sank in bureaucratic silliness, such as the ill-fated plan to have the city borrow money to get into the food cart business. The idea of calling 311 to connect to any city service is a hopeful one for citizens tired of searching for basic information. Five years later, it’s still not in place.

When one of the mayor’s strongest and universally embraced promises – the establishment of four officers to ensure public accountability – still languishes, more than eyebrows are raised. Yes, we have more planners at city hall, more cops on the street, fewer potholes, more investments in the arts, a climate change plan, the start of a city-wide transit plan (that’s short of funding), and more initiatives than citizens can process. But these have such limited impact on the city’s psyche.  Since Miller has been mayor, we’ve had stunning additions to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum, plus a new opera house – all in the city, but not built by the city. It’s those types of transformative projects and bold changes Miller has failed to execute or capture.

Mayor fires back at critics (Nov 17, 2008 04:30 AM Vanessa Lu City Hall Bureau Chief)

David Miller bristled at the suggestion there may be a perception out there that he can’t get the deal done as Toronto mayor. “Nobody’s ever suggested that to me, ever,” Miller said during an interview Friday in his city hall office marking five years in the job.  He quickly rhymed off a list of actions that the city has taken under his leadership, from climate change projects like green roofs to tax incentives for businesses to set up shop in certain neighbourhoods. Construction is underway on the waterfront, including the new Corus building and George Brown College, plus parks and boardwalks, he said.

Miller pointed to the balanced operating budget – $8.2 billion, with a 3.75 per cent residential property tax hike – that was presented in January, the first in a decade in which the city managed to balance its books without waiting for help from the province.  Now at the halfway point of his second mandate, Miller projects a confident air. In a series of snapshots yesterday, the Star assessed his performance, rating it as a failure on a number of issues, from hiring accountability officers to revitalizing Union Station.

While he has taken the politically difficult step of raising revenues through a municipal land transfer tax and vehicle registration fee, the battle was messy, involving a deferral vote by rebellious councillors, followed by threats to close community centres on Mondays and shut down the Sheppard subway indefinitely. Eventually, the taxes were approved, but watered down, delivering much lower revenue than originally estimated. “I have to build a coalition on every single vote,” Miller said. “Are some of the debates tough? Do some of the proposals get changed? Yes, of course.” But Miller argued that’s part of legitimate municipal government, where councillors have to come together to forge agreement.

Even though Miller has championed a user-pay system for garbage, with new required bins, the rollout has been far from smooth. Some 75,000 bins are yet to be delivered, though charges began this month. Miller conceded residents in some areas of the city are frustrated, but he argued the program could not be delayed. “If you look at the big picture, it’s a complete transformation of how we do it. We will get through these initial hurdles,” he said. “Where it’s fully implemented, it’s working.”

Miller emphasized that when he first took office in 2003, the city was still recovering from the MFP computer leasing scandal. His first term was focused on turning the government around to ensure it would work properly, and laying the foundation for other changes. “In this term, the only criticism I would make is we’re doing so much, Torontonians often don’t realize how successful and advanced their city government is,” he said, citing new policies to help find permanent housing for the homeless and the initial work on the Transit City streetcar network.

Moderate politicians, who vote with Miller sometimes, agree the mayor has a huge agenda. But they say it’s often hard to measure success. “Overall, he’s doing well, but there have been some bumps,” said Councillor Paul Ainslie, pointing to the one-vote, 23-22, victory last month over those who had hoped to see the TTC deemed an essential service. “It was another nail-biter,” he said, similar to the deferral vote on the land transfer tax, where the deciding vote was against the mayor. A broad climate-change policy was endorsed unanimously last year, but Ainslie said it’s hard to measure what that actually means for residents. “In politics, people need tangibles,” he said.

Councillor Peter Milczyn believes there needs to be stronger political oversight of city staff on key projects. “When the mayor has an aggressive and progressive agenda, you can’t simply accept that the staff will manage it,” he said. “You can have the best idea in the world, but if there’s no sense of urgency, it won’t get done.”

Jockey gets 2 years of house arrest for drunk driving death — Condition on sentence allows David Clark to leave home for job

One of the country’s top jockeys has been sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest after pleading guilty to drunk driving in a car crash that killed a 34-year-old music teacher.  David Clark, of Vaughan, who has earned more than $1 million in prizes this year, was sentenced yesterday in Newmarket. One of the exceptions to the house arrest is he can leave his home for employment.  After serving his term of house arrest, the 55-year-old jockey will then be placed on two years probation and will have to do 240 hours of community service. He also received a three-year driving prohibition. That’s in addition to his licence being taken away at the time of the fatal crash. Clark has never spoken publicly about the series of events that led to yesterday’s sentencing. In April Clark pleaded guilty to both impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm. According to court testimony, Clark had a blood-alcohol level over the legal level of .08. York police breathalyzer technicians estimated his blood alcohol level was between .120 and .170 at the time of the crash.

Suzanne Mizuno, 34, a music teacher and educational author, died in the crash on Huntington Rd., south of Major MacKenzie Dr. on May 16, 2006. She was on her way – with her brother Jamie in a Honda Civic – to a family dinner. Clark was travelling southbound that evening behind the wheel of a Nissan Maxima. According to police, the Maxima swerved into the oncoming lane.  Jamie Mizuno, the driver, tried to avoid the car, but it slammed into the passenger side of Mizuno’s vehicle. Suzanne Mizuno was pronounced dead at the scene. Her brother and Clark were treated for minor injuries. In a victim impact statement earlier this year, Jamie Mizuno said: “To this day, I can hear her last words, as she screamed, `Look out!’ We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. She left so fast.”

Clark continued to ride as the charges against him made their way through the justice system. According to the Daily Racing Form, Clark has compiled a lifetime record of 2,758 wins from 19,140 mounts for earnings of approximately $75 million. This year he has had 53 winners from 470 mounts.  Now that the sentencing has taken place, Clark may face disciplinary action from the Ontario Racing Commission, the governing body that licenses jockeys. The ORC had been waiting until the courts ruled on the case before deciding to take any action. The ORC said it would be reviewing the status of Clark’s licence next week now that he has been sentenced.

Pills found in more Halloween Smarties boxes

More boxes of Smarties with over-the-counter drugs in them that were doled out on Halloween have turned up in the GTA - this time in Toronto and Burlington. On Friday, police went to a home in the area of Kingston Rd. and Main St. where an unknown small white tablet was found in a box of Smarties. The Smarties were received while trick-or-treating in the area of Queen St. E., Woodbine Ave., Main St. and Kingston R.d. Also, in Burlington, a mother opened a sealed box of Smarties from her daughter’s Halloween treat bag Wednesday and discovered a Tylenol DM cold tablet inside.  When the mother checked her daughters’ other sealed boxes, she noticed they were only half full, but the one with the pill inside was filled to the top. Yesterday, Durham police reported two new cases of tampered Smarties candy in Pickering, bringing the total to seven. A Grade 5 student at Valley Farm Public School found a DayQuil capsule inside a sealed box of Smarties on Nov. 5 that she got while trick-or-treating. Since then, additional reports have been streaming in, said Durham police Sgt. Paul McCurbin.

And I’ve already written about this, but here are more details concerning those “entitled” trustees.  Even the ones who are paying back the money deserve no symapthy…they’re paying back just to keep things quiet but they obviously feel no guilt or remorse.  They’re just hoping no criminal charges are laid–and they SHOULD be laid, especially Nunziata, who should get hers one day; that whole family is a collection of spoiled, scummy “kids.” And anyone who ever votes for a Nunziat or Mary Cicogna, Joseph Martino and Sal Piccininni after this are idiots.  But I know some will vote for them simply because “they’re one of us,” which is the STUPIDEST reason to elect someone–if that person has proven that they don’t deserve the job.

Trustee spending scandal widens–School board calls police as audit finds $30,000 in questionable expenses

Toronto’s Catholic trustees will pay back every penny of the almost $30,000 in questionable or ineligible expenses cited in a damning forensic audit, Ontario’s education minister said yesterday after turning the report over to Toronto police. Once police have wrapped up their investigation, “any unpaid amounts we are going to recoup through a reduction in trustee honoraria,” Wynne said. Three per cent of total spending since late 2003 was deemed questionable by auditors. While most trustees have already repaid about $10,000 of ineligible expenses, almost $20,000 in “potentially ineligible” expenses are outstanding. Such expenses did not have sufficient documentation, if any.

Although not named in the report, the Star was able to match trustees by their expenses, which are posted online. Mary Cicogna, Joseph Martino and Sal Piccininni racked up a total of $4,244 in expenses they weren’t entitled to, and another $18,857 in “potentially ineligible” expenses. Both Martino and Piccininni have repaid their ineligible expenses in full, but Piccininni’s “potentially ineligible” expenses remain the highest at $13,804 – the bulk of that for three invoices for sports equipment and clothing from a company that has the same address as his constituency assistant. Martino paid back all of $1,783 he received for ineligible expenses, including tax software, dry cleaning, shoe repair and car washes, and said he would be prepared to repay what he believes is $330 more in Highway 407 tolls and several meals outside Toronto. But he said he does not owe $2,113 in “potentially ineligible” fees and that the chart in the report might be misleading.  “If the minister feels we should pay back those questionable items, well, that’s fine,” he said in an interview last night. “Why spend more time and energy on this? She should just take it from our honorarium if that’s what she believes and we can carry on to the point where people are satisfied all trustees have paid everything back.” Piccininni did not return calls yesterday but last week told the Star he had already repaid “clerical-error kind of stuff.”

Cicogna has repaid $373 for charging taxpayers for Internet gaming, luggage and a car wash as well as duplicate claims, but refused the remaining $918 for a gold school-board ring, sun lamp and personalized licence plates because she “disagrees with our assessment of the expenses,” the report, by auditors Ernst and Young, states. However, she told the Star last night in an email that she had informed the auditor and director of education that she would return the items in question. “Unfortunately, it does not specify that in the auditor’s report,” she wrote.

Board Chair Catherine LeBlanc-Miller, who repaid $775 and apologized for the “negative impact” this has had on the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said she was pleased the report “concludes that 97 per cent of the expenses under review were eligible.” In September, stricter spending guidelines were implemented, with invoices going directly to the director of education – guidelines that will save the Catholic board several hundred thousand dollars a year.

Allegations of misspending by former trustee Christine Nunziata – she charged taxpayers for lingerie and Dairy Queen treats – set off the chain of events last January. She was later removed from the board for missing too many meetings, and could not be included in the audit. Progressive Conservative MPP Joyce Savoline (Burlington) complained the audit was “incomplete” due to the omission. “To have done the report without including Christine Nunziata is ludicrous, whether she was a trustee or not when they were doing the report,” she said. “Parents aren’t going to buy this,” added Murielle Boudreau of the Greater Toronto Catholic Parent Network. “They’re already so angered now … The only silver lining is that it’s been sent to police.”

Ernst and Young auditors spent months poring over 5,000 documents, and interviewing trustees and staff about a total of $943,784 in trustee expense claims from December 2003 to May of this year.  Wynne said individuals weren’t named because “it’s not about shaming trustees.”

[WHY THE FUCK NOT?!]

Former board chair Oliver Carroll said although he believes Wynne had little choice but to turn the report over to police “just to be sure,” he would “find it hard to believe any trustee would have set out to deliberately defraud the public.”

[WHY THE FUCK NOT?!  THEY JUST “ACCIDENTALLY” THOUGHT IT WOULD BE OKAY TO CHARGE THE PUBLIC FOR TOTALLY PERSONAL ITEMS?  YOU, SIR, ARE AN IDIOT.]

Carroll had come under fire for billing half the $14,000 tuition for a master’s degree in education administration. But yesterday’s audit did not find that this violated the board’s rules at the time, although the new policy wouldn’t allow it.

[OHHH…NOW I GET IT.  SO CARROLL THINKS THAT JUST BECAUSE HE CLAIMS THAT HE WAS TOO STUPID AND “ENTITLED” TO KNOW THAT THE PUBLIC SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR HIS EDUCATION, EVERY OTHER SCUMBAG TRUSTEE WHO STOLE FROM THE PUBLIC DID SO BECAUSE THEY TOO HAD NO IDEA THAT IT WAS WRONG TO CHARGE TAXPAYERS FOR PERSONAL THINGS.  THE SAD THING IS, THE SYSTEM IS SO INCOMPETENT AND/OR CORRUPT THAT, AS YOU CAN SEE, CARROLL’S EXPENDITURE WAS IN FACT ALLOWABLE UNTIL THESE IDIOTS FINALLY STARTED TO INVESTIGATE ALL THE WASTE AND GRAFT IN THE SYSTEM.]

Wynne called the episode “a cautionary tale” for school boards. “We’re not going to tolerate anything that undermines confidence in the public education system.”

[LET ME CORRECT HER.  YOU’RE NOT GOINT TO TOLERATE ANYTHING NOW THAT YOUR BOARD GOT BUSTED, BUT WHO KNOWS HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN LOST/WASTED/STOLEN BECAUSE THE SYSTEM SUCKS?]

Stepfather ‘didn’t want to kill the little kid’

WINNIPEG–The Manitoba man accused of killing his 5-year-old stepdaughter after months of horrific abuse told police her death will “haunt” him for the rest of his life and sobbed at the prospect of going to jail, court heard yesterday. In a videotaped interview with police played at his murder trial in Winnipeg, Karl McKay said he tried to perform CPR on Phoenix Sinclair when he found her lifeless body in the family’s basement in June 2005. “I tried to save her. I tried CPR,” he told an RCMP officer in March 2006. “We were scared. I didn’t know what the hell to do.” McKay and his common-law wife Samantha Kematch are accused of first-degree murder in Phoenix’s death. The couple is also accused of trying to pass off another child as Phoenix to convince welfare investigators and the RCMP that their daughter was still with the family.

McKay’s sons have testified both Kematch and McKay used to beat Phoenix regularly, sometimes with a metal rod or a broken fridge handle. They said McKay also shot Phoenix with a pellet gun “just for the hell of it” and used to choke her until she lost consciousness. “She was always crying and whining about something,” McKay said in the interview, denying he ever choked or shot Phoenix. The day she died, McKay told police he told Phoenix to “shut up” and threw her about “three or four feet” on the basement floor. But he said she landed on a pile of clothes and was still breathing when the couple left to visit McKay’s father nearby.

Although McKay’s son said his dad “stomped” on Phoenix and beat her before leaving her on the basement floor that day, McKay said he did not recall doing that. The day before she died, McKay said Kematch hit Phoenix over the head although he said he did not witness that. “I didn’t want to kill the little kid,” McKay said. “Once in a while, I would give her a licking. I didn’t intend to do serious harm.” After five minutes of performing CPR, McKay said the couple took Phoenix upstairs and gave her a bath to try to revive her. When it didn’t work, he said they took her back downstairs and wrapped her in plastic. They drove her out beyond the Fisher River garbage dump and buried her in a shallow grave, he said.

“I wish it had never happened,” a crying McKay said. “Maybe now she can rest in peace.” It was Kematch who used to beat up Phoenix, McKay said. She had a lot of “anger in her” which she took out on her daughter, he said. Kematch would say “I wish I could just give her back to her dad or get rid of her,” McKay said. “Samantha would just treat her like an animal,” he said, adding she used to tie Phoenix up in the bathroom. “She had no heart.” During McKay’s video testimony shown yesterday, Kematch often turned around and glared at him as he sat beside her in the prisoner box.

On the video, McKay broke down sobbing when he talked about Phoenix’s death. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail,” he said, worrying he would not be able to see his boys until they were grown. “I made a big mistake. I got to pay for it.” McKay drew a map to show where Phoenix was buried. Her body was found in a shallow grave near the Fisher River garbage dump in March 2006. Earlier in the police interview, McKay said he was on at least 10 different kinds of medication for health problems relating to diabetes, pancreatitis, depression, insomnia and fibromyalgia. The medication would sometimes cause mood swings and caused him to lose 60 pounds in one month, he said. His father had 26 kids by various women and he spent his life in foster care, McKay said, adding he used to get “lickings” as a child. At the end of the interview, he said, “I want to say sorry to Phoenix. She didn’t deserve that. This is going to haunt me for the rest of my life

Lesbians attacked outside school — Man, 43, charged with assault, but moms say it’s a hate crime

Jane Currie and her partner, Anji Dimitriou, both small, soft-spoken women, were waiting with other parents at Gordon B. Attersley public school in Oshawa, when, fists flying, a man attacked them, his blows as harmful as his words.  “Which one of you two ‘men’ spoke to my kid? F—— dyke. Lesbians,” he said, spitting in Dimitriou’s face. As she wiped her face, eyes closed, he punched her on the cheek and wound up again, slamming her backward into her truck. As Currie ran toward him, she remembers him shouting, “F—— dyke bitches,” and punched her on the cheekbone so hard the skin burst apart, blood splattering.

In seconds, it was over. Another man intervened, so did a woman, pushing the attacker aside. Police were called. The principal led him inside to her office, Currie said. A man was arrested and charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm. It wasn’t the first time the man had called them those names, Currie said. There have been several other occasions where he had verbally attacked them, usually over a parking spot in the school lot.

Insp. Brian Osborne, of Durham Regional Police, said last night that the department will investigate the possibility that the assaults could be classified as hate crimes. The decision to pursue those charges is usually made with the Crown attorney’s office, Osborne said. Charged is Pathetic Argument for Birth Control Mark Scott, 43, of Oshawa.

Maybe there’s more to this story (e.g., severe mental illness), but for now at least one of the parents is an Argument for the Death Penalty and I don’t want them extradited back here. Send them to some island with other evil monsters:

Fugitives in baby death hide under mattress — Montreal couple arrested in Florida after nine-month search

A couple who disappeared before their nine-month-old boy died alone in a Montreal hospital last winter has been arrested in Florida.  The couple was found hiding under a mattress in a small bedroom after police raided an apartment in Tampa on Friday, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Daniel Winfield. He said police had been acting on a tip from Canadian authorities. The arrest ended a nine-month search for the couple.  The baby had been brought to the Montreal Children’s Hospital on Feb. 16 in respiratory distress. An autopsy showed signs the boy had suffered abuse and died from being violently shaken.  Flotvelyne Jean-Louis, 20, and Casy Pierre Mesidor, 26, have been charged with second-degree murder. They will be extradited to Canada, Winfield said.

I’m sure it was a mistake, but this has got to be one of the ugliest mistakes one could make:

Call it a Remembrance Day story that a leading genealogy website would rather not remember. To honour the memory of the Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War, Ancestry.ca was offering, until the end of the month, a free Web search of military databases that contained the records of this country’s soldiers. A half-page ad that ran in a Toronto newspaper on Sunday, adorned with a large red poppy, was titled “My Grandfather. My Hero,” with details of how to do the search.

But the colour ad featured a photograph of a German, not an Allied soldier, a blunder that angered some veterans and historians. “If you’re going to run an ad like that you better make sure you don’t make such a gross mistake,” said David Bercuson, the director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies with the University of Calgary.

“It’s an atrocious, upsetting mistake, especially at this time of year,” said William Campbell, a 77-year-old who served as an infantryman with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment during the Korean War, and lost an uncle in the First World War. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the picture of the German soldier,” said Kevin Nikkel, a history buff who said he “teared up” recalling the memory of three uncles who fought in the Second World War.  It’s an outrage to the memory of those who died fighting for this country.”

What can I say about this one? 

Peel police officer pleads not guilty in fake cocaine case — White powder taken from RCMP sting

A veteran Peel police officer has pleaded not guilty in a bizarre case that saw 15 kilograms of fake cocaine disappear from an RCMP sting operation. Police say they found the white powder in a storage area in the Cambridge, Ont., home of Const. Sheldon Cook, along with marijuana and 21 MP3 players. He was arrested in November 2005 and accused of removing the fake cocaine from a truck being used in an RCMP sting.  The seven charges against Cook, 40, include an attempt to possess a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking; possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking; possession of stolen property from a police investigation; and breach of trust as a police officer in connection with the other offences. Cook, a 14-year veteran, remains suspended with pay by the Peel force until his case is dealt with through the courts.  As a result of the arrest, the federal justice department decided not to prosecute at least six drug cases involving Cook as the arresting officer.