Drive to safeguard 8,000 pensions:The shaky financial position of General Motors of Canada Ltd. and the underfunded status of its pension plan have prompted a group of retirees to organize in an attempt to protect their retirement benefits.

Ford, the last one standing? How Ford dodged a bailout

Innovation and Invention: Electric motor polarizes opinion

The Star first profiled Heins and his controversial invention a year ago. In a nutshell, he had figured out a way to eliminate the electromagnetic friction that typically limits the performance of an electrical generator – an effect known as “Back EMF.” Not only that, but he also learned how to redirect that magnetic energy so that, instead of causing resistance, it gave an electrical motor connected to the generator a significant boost.

First off, our recycled plastics go to China because we haven’t the facilities to deal with them in Ontario. Now, we in Ontario can’t handle our own compost kitchen waste! Green bin waste trucked to New York

CNN: Hard economic times a boon to libraries:

In times of recession, people take advantage of free services, and going to the library is among the most popular.

“I think people are just realizing how much information there is and they didn’t think about going to their local libraries before,” Hodges said.

In the past year, libraries across the country have seen dramatic increases in the use of their services, which in addition to free Internet access can include resume workshops and foreclosure seminars.

“Whenever you have tough economic times, public libraries are a place people go because they have no other alternatives or because they know they are going to get the kind of powerful information that will make a difference in their lives,” said Kristin McDonough, director of the Science, Industry and Business Library in New York City.

Yellow the New Green: What does this have to do with you? Mr. Zhang and Ms. Wu’s weird toilet — known as a “urine diversion,” or NoMix (after a Swedish brand), toilet — may have things to teach us all.

In the industrialized world, most of us (except those who have septic tanks) rely on wastewater-treatment plants to remove our excrement from the drinking-water supply, in great volumes. (Toilets can use up to 30 percent of a household’s water supply.) This paradigm is rarely questioned, and I understand why: flush toilets, sewers and wastewater-treatment plants do a fine job of separating us from our potentially toxic waste, and eliminating cholera and other waterborne diseases. Without them, cities wouldn’t work.

Create a walkable, cyclable city in Mississauga. This is just notice for a future meeting of the non-profit group; Walk & Bike for Life in Port Credit. What is interesting in this item is that it is funded by the Ministry of Health Promotion (Mississauga is among 22 across the province they’re working with to develop action plans for walkable, bike friendly areas)

Is Windsor participating in this program? Anybody know? And if not, why not!

Ministry of Health Promotion: Communities In Action Fund (CIAF)

States [sic] Windsor and Ontario Wear Blinders On The True Cost of Sprawl

We knock’em down in Windsor but in New York, PS 122 becomes a home for artist and arts groups!

Those squatters have not budged. In fact, today the arts groups—which include Painting Space 122, Performance Space 122, and theater company Mabou Mines—are institutions in their own right. (The AIDS Service Center NYC also operates there.) And they have forged a comfortable working relationship with New York City government.

Now, the collaboration between the city and PS 122’s tenants is breathing new life into the building itself. Currently it is wrapped in scaffolding as part of a phase-one undertaking to secure the envelope. And beginning in fall 2010, the New York City Department of Design + Construction (DDC) is scheduled to start a $13 million renovation of the interior so it fully complies with ADA and fire codes, as well as LEED-Silver standards. The DDC has tapped New York–based firm Deborah Berke & Partners Architects to design the project as part of its Design and Construction Excellence program.

Although PS 122’s tenants have matured over the years, their facility is a kind of flashback to salad days. The building is a jerry-rigged maze, the exploration of which uncovers 18 painting studios, 70- and 130-seat theaters, and administrative offices. A daycare center was spread non-contiguously over two floors, but moved out in 2008 due to the building’s condition. Now, heads of the resident arts groups plan to annex the former daycare, as well as its courtyard playground.

While Charles Clarke Square and park sit empty and lonely, 90 % of the time, Mississauga’s Downtown park “makes Mississauga more urban”

Mississauga’s nascent downtown has embarked on the path every urban planning department must eventually pursue: creating more green space.

And so, with this in mind, Mississauga’s Community Services Department recently gave the public a first glimpse at the design of a new 3.4 acre park near Square One and city hall. 

“What’s so wonderful about this park is it’s about making Mississauga more urban,” landscape architect Janet Rosenberg.

“People can get out of their cars and at the same time there’s going to be a major density of people who are using it.”

Mississauga, which has embarked on a plan to fill out its suburban-style downtown, says construction of Community Commons Park will begin in May and take a year.

Infrastructure for the aged: But don’t doze off just yet, because this report, released by Infrastructure Canada and produced by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, contains some amazing stuff.

First, though, some good news: “As the boomers enter their senior years, evidence suggests that they will be relatively healthier, more independent, better educated, wealthier and lead more active lifestyles than any senior population to precede them. …

Now for the bad news: “Those aged 65+ are the most intensive users of health services.” Plus, the researchers may smile patronizingly at Granny posing for a picture atop Mount Everest, but once she gets back to her hometown, apparently she can’t be trusted on the street. ..

The report suggests “improvements” that “might include road systems which are more forgiving to driver error with improved road geometrics, signage, and advisory systems, with consistency across jurisdictions … There are also a number of other suggestions for improvements in the design of roadside environments which would cater to the needs of an aging population … dedicated pathways for electric wheelchairs/scooters; curb extensions to minimize exposure time in crosswalks; improved access points to public transport and commercial areas; reactive crosswalks which adjust to the users’ pace; tactile paving in sidewalk design; ramps and street furniture for lower impact mobility.”

Street furniture? Chairs and coffee tables in the middle of the road?

The Study: Population Aging and Public Infrastructure: a Literature Review of Impacts in Developed Countries

PDF format of the above study:

Farmers’ markets here to stay Those who write farmers’ markets off as little more than a fad embraced by the granite-countertop set might want to think again. Farmers’ markets have become a major economic force in Canada in recent years as their popularity has grown, according to a recent study, and there is every sign that the market movement is here to stay.

The study of 508 farmers’ markets across the country by Farmers’ Markets Canada, including several in Ottawa, found sales amount to more than $1 billion annually with a total economic impact of up to $3 billion. That’s a lot of heritage carrots!

The study, the first of its kind in Canada, should be welcome news in Ottawa where the recent birth and growing popularity of the Lansdowne Park farmers’ market has mirrored the national trend as consumers flock to places to buy fresh, locally grown food and produce.

 Website: Farmers’ Markets Canada, Les Marches agricoles Canada

Could it happen here! As our economy tanks and retirement savings disappear will the Elderly Emerge as a New Class of Workers–and the Jobless

In praise of neighbourhood at Bayview

North American cities are essentially cannibalistic beasts. They chew up large chunks of their own pasts and landscapes and regurgitate them, mostly as suburban legolands, sky-eating condo towers, vast commercial corrals and, once in a blue moon, a sports castle.

Older towns, by which I probably mean European, the ones with a legacy of fine antique civic buildings, are generally long-sighted, anxious that their former glories not be overshadowed, whereas adolescent burghs like Ottawa are almost all short-sighted, architecturally myopic, unwilling to bother to look back into their relatively shallow history for inspiration. The future is the place to be, and we want our development projects to run free of any historic fetters. Ottawa has the perennial feel of a town which knows its glory years are yet to come and will impatiently throw up anything classless and low-budget for now that means our developers, who sitteth at the right hand of the mayor, can extract a profit from the levelled ground.

Sell the product, not the technology And other tips to market your green innovationBut like most panaceas, creating a thriving, internationally competitive green industry is easier said than done. In fact, as a new report pointed out last week, creating even one successful green company is a Herculean endeavour that demands more money and management smarts than most people comprehend.

The Cleantech Growth and Go-to-Market Report, released last week by sponsors Ontario Centre for Environmental Technology Advancement (OCETA) and Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), declared that Ontario’s cleantech industry “has the potential to become a world leader, promising thousands of high-value jobs, and a healthier environment for years to come.” But it also says this bright, low-carbon future hinges on the abilities of the province’s cleantech entrepreneurs - most of them first-time CEOs with backgrounds in engineering, not business or marketing - to “turn their technologies into products and services that compete in global markets.”

The Clean Technology Report: The 2009 OCETA SDTC Cleantech Growth & Go-to-Market Report PDF

End green “dithering,” utilities told: Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman says a major cultural shift across Ontario’s power-system agencies is needed if the province is to become a North American leader in renewable-energy development.

Smitherman said his goal is to get organizations such as Hydro One to be more proactive when it comes to accommodating green-energy projects on the grid. He plans to issue a “strong directive” to such agencies in the coming weeks to drive that message home.

Focus on Pedestrians: A foot-friendly plan for the west end …in Hamilton! While Windsor is going to widen every road it’s got, without bicycle lanes!

Small street improvements for pedestrians can make the Ainslie Wood and Westdale neighbourhoods more vibrant and healthy, according to a citizens committee.

“We want to make the community as walkable as possible,” said Suzanne Brown, a public health manager for the city, Westdale resident and member of the Ainslie Wood Westdale walkability committee.

“It’s a benefit. It’s a draw for families and we think it’s a healthier community.”

The committee, which conducted a walkability assessment in these older and more established neighbourhoods, submitted a report with 60 recommendations, all with a pedestrian focus, to the city.

I doubt if our mayor has ever walked a neighbourhood in this city….Oh wait! he’s flying off to somewhere secret!

Is this recession good for our Independent Retailers!

End the Exemption … in Ottawa!

There was a time when the downtown development-charge exemption was necessary.

The bylaw was designed to encourage builders to create infill between downtown towers. In theory, it would cause the construction of residences and office towers so as to revitalize Ottawa’s sagging core. The legislation was the product of decades of urban sprawl where developers built miles of mass-constructed homes and malls, resulting in a diminution of the core.

Now the world has changed. The establishment of the urban boundary has curbed growth in the countryside. But we have also seen our first taste of a new economic reality. High-priced oil last summer showed the cost of sprawl, not to mention the environmental toll. Furthermore, demographics have changed. The members of the boomer bulge are abandoning their suburban digs for smaller dwellings in town.

The writing is on the wall. The movement in our society is increasingly to the inner city.

There’s still gold in them thar Golden Horseshoe hills

Back to Southern Ontario, the auto industry and the fate of the Golden Horseshoe: One wonders what might have happened if, instead of offering the $4-billion bailout package to the Big Three, the governments had offered those funds to whomever submitted the most innovative and cost-effective proposals for stabilizing and revitalizing the industry. Perhaps the proposal from the Big Three would have carried the day, but maybe alternative proposals from Honda and Toyota, the parts manufacturers, a new consortium or some market-oriented think tank would have offered an even bigger bang for the buck.

Creativity report (Ontario In the Creative Age) falls short on strategy: Opinion:

A really new deal would stimulate the economy of the future, not the past: Richard Florida

For a stimulus to work today it has to stimulate the emerging creative economy, the engines of regional economic growth and higher incomes across Canada and the U.S.

Companies and workers in these fields also have “spillover effects.” Computer scientists and designers - unlike, say, lawyers and doctors - foster productivity in others, beyond the services they provide themselves. Creative industries also benefit from considerable synergy as arts and design combine with technology, from iPods to video games.

But it’s not enough merely to produce more scientists, engineers and artists or even high-tech entrepreneurs and entertainment moguls. We must also build an infrastructure and an economy that can sustain a demand for their creative efforts. In his book The Venturesome Economy, Columbia University business professor Amar Bhide shows how sophisticated, risk-taking consumers who demand new things and buy new products are the key to technological innovation in places such as Austin, Tex., and Silicon Valley.

And finally for Sunday morning. Enjoying those fresh veggies and strawberries et al in the dead of winter here? Go ahead and enjoy them, they just got really expensive! Not only are you eating well but you are drinking well also! Not bottled water silly but the water in those fruits and vegetables! Didn’t know that we are importing California and Mexican water, which they ain’t got much of now!

“This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment, making today’s action absolutely necessary,” the Republican governor said in his statement.

Mandatory rationing is an option if the declaration and other measures are insufficient.

The drought has forced farmers to fallow their fields, put thousands of agricultural workers out of work and led to conservation measures in cities throughout the state, which is the nation’s top agricultural producer.

Agriculture losses could reach $2.8 billion this year and cost 95,000 jobs, said Lester Snow, the state water director.

Forget Oil! Got Water! The next world war!

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