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Jim Basille now that you have some time forget about hockey – please buy the Blue Jays. (If you have any money left). Corporate ownership is killing sports in Toronto. Profits come first at Rogers and winning – well it’s hard to rank something that doesn’t exist.

Management are trying to convince sceptical fans that you can win, then spend in the AL East. Good luck. Now thanks to the Tigers, Rangers, and Angels, they can forget about any wild card delusions – even with an expanded play-off format.

If the Jays get off to a slow start next season – it will be pretty lonely for the fans. The only ones who will be at the Robbers Centre will be the die-hards and the only cheering will be for the stars in the other dug out.

Guy I feel sorry for is Jose Bautista. He like the fans got duped into thinking this team actually wanted to win. Well now we know why winners don’t come or stay long in Toronto.

Do some reading of your own and you will see the writing was on the wall. Winning pennants has never been mentioned in Rogers’ annual reports.

Those protesting against internet piracy and copyright laws must remember that protecting individuals who create new materials spurs innovation and creativity. The internet and countless other inventions and innovations occur most often in countries that reward and protect those who come first.

It is by no accident that countries like the U.S. who aggressively enforce their strict anti-piracy and patent laws, are world leaders in innovation. While countries like China lead the world in copy cat production because of weak patent enforcement.

Obviously the current versions of SOPA and PIPA have to be tweaked, but it is wrong to claim that they have no place in protecting creators in cyber space.

Coming up with a fair and balanced approach of how to do this on the internet may take time. But it should not include the abandoning of any piracy regulation. That would be an outdated response that pushes us back not forward.

C’mon Ford, couldn’t you spend a little more money on your F-150 commercials and make a true Canadian version. First off, we don’t use gallons and does anyone really think our pals in Ottawa care that much about fuel economy.

Seriously, they have changed nothing but a voice over from the original ad.

Ford you can do better.

NHL enforcers are suckers at the bottom of a fish tank – they’re ugly, but they keep it clean. If you want to ban fighting then do so, otherwise get rid of the instigator rule and let the big guys
police the idiots.

I know in hockey I have crossed the line , but luckily a bigger, player with hockey smarts has given me my wake up call and told me in not so many words – to clean it up or else. Unfortunately, the checks and balances are not present in the game today.

The rash of concussions I don’t believe are the direct result of the absence enforcers, but it hasn’t helped either. if the league wants to continue to follow its current path – then 4 on 4 will be the next evolution to create more space in what has become a very dangerous high speed game.

American media is sure trying to convince people that there is a GOP nomination race when there really isn’t. The eventual coronation of Mitt Romney is a foregone conclusion, but the media is hungry for any type of story that will draw this out and make the case that the race is compelling.

Don’t get sucked in – when all is said is done – the hard line tea party crowd will hold their nose and endorse Romney because their distaste for him pales in comparison to their dread of another four years of Obama. So expect Republicans to milk this for all they can and then fall behind their man Romney.

Finally Kadri is back and it couldn’t have come soon enough for the 3-4 Leafs. Funny how Kadri who Wilson has mishandled, may actually save the Leafs coach his job.

GuelphMercury – Have your guns, my fellow Americans – after you pass__

GuelphMercury – There’s an argument to be made against French__

GuelphMercury – Turn off the tap on water conservation rebates

GuelphMercury_com – News – Do Teacher Unions Really Support Public Education

GuelphMercury_com – Editorial Reply to Cawsey Column – Some teachers need a few lessons(1)

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – Don’t worry, youth will vote — but only when it starts to count

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – High school students need a 3 a_m_ wake-up call

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – I’m winning gold at being an Olympic Cynic

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – ‘Is anyone sending their kids to that nice school down the street’

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – It’s time to regain our global relevance

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – Note to council we can’t afford you

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – Strong leadership needed on property tax increases

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – ‘Tis the season to talk about the other certainty of life

Poppy will only be meaningful if we pass its stories down

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – ‘Is anyone sending their kids to that nice school down the street’

If you want your kids to go to school with all of society – public schools are slowly no longer serving that need. Publicly funded speciality schools and programs are popping up everywhere and are breaking the system into fragments.

When public money dries up for these programs, and it will. The case for public education will be lost since the benefit of gaining perspective from being educated with children of all backgrounds will be gone. Chartered schools will spring up with cash strapped governments more than happy to reduce their education funding.

The loss of a strong public education system that has been a cornerstone of a progressive Ontario would be a shame. The irony is that it is being brought about by people wanting exclusivity in their public education system, but who are unable to afford the private option. This same demographic will be hurt the most – when these public programs get cut and parents come crawling back to a universal public system that many stakeholders have since abandoned.

GuelphMercury_com – Opinions – I’m winning gold at being an Olympic cynic

With RIM’s stock continuing to tank – the blackberry maker continues to be a lightening rod for business discussion and speculation.

What has been missing from the chatter is what makes RIM different from most businesses that are takeover targets.

Governments and corporations around the world continue to use blackberry as their mobile devices. The amount of sensitive data that transmits through RIM is enormous. The high level encryption and security standards continue to be RIM’s competitive advantage in holding its enterprise customer base – recent service interruptions notwithstanding .

If another company or individual tried to acquire RIM, the government of Canada would be under immense pressure to scrutinise the deal in order to ensure international security risks were addressed.

Whether a deal could or would ever be approved is mired in the certainty of uncertainty. This may be why no takeover attempt has been made to this point – even though it seems ripe for the taking. No company is going to bother making such a move if it knows it has no hope of getting government approval.

If anyone was looking to takeover or control RIM it could be the Canadian government. Yes, I know that may sound absurd, but if a state government such as the U.S. were concerned that RIM was being managed in such a way that could potentially lead to sensitive data transfers being compromised, it could push Canadian authorities to heavily regulate or even control RIM.

This of course is predicated upon RIM
remaining the gold standard for secure mobile communication. If this is compromised or duplicated then all bets are off. The talk and rumours surrounding RIM will disappear – along likely with RIM itself.

So what does the future of RIM hold. I suspect it will remain in its current form for quite sometime as long as its leading position in data encryption remains secure. There seems to be no marketing geniuses over there so it all comes down to the product.

It is for this reason I would be reluctant to throw Co-Ceo Mike Lazzaridis aside in any management shake up. He is the man that holds all the keys in keeping RIM secure and possibly coming up with anything new.

Well that didn’t take long did it. Wilson’s Leafs are staring to fall into that familiar pattern. Starting quick – till Wilson alienates and disrupts the confidence of many a player. Now the Leafs are falling just before winter hits – again.

Whether it be his mishandling and possibly ruining the promising and talented rookie Kadri. Or his treatment of his new whipping boy Luke Schenn. This coach can’t help himself but to let his personality get in the way.

Take the mishandling of back up Jonas Gustavsson. Just as this kid gets his game going and is gaining his confidence – Wilson decides to bench him and throw in a rookie Scrivens. Rook has a good game – so instead of letting him enjoy his contribution – you throw him to the wolves (or Bruins) and let him suffer through being lit up for five goals before pulling him. Now Scrivens confidence is shot and Gustavsson is left wondering why an unproven rookie gets more love from his coach than he does.

I do think Wilson is a great short term coach. His records in short tournaments proves this ( world cup, olympics). His best before date is just shorter than most coaches and the smell of losing in Toronto is getting very stale.

I also don’t think I am the only one who is annoyed by Wilson’s penchant for saying “we” when the team wins and “they” when the team loses.

Yes, I know it is early. Leafs are only 2-1 (nhl converted to nfl season – see previous posts) so far, but we have seen this movie before. Burke will have to make a change sooner rather than later if he wants to avoid another wasted season. My choice would be the PEI mouthpiece Doug Mclean. He was always a better coach than a manager and he has the media savy to handle Toronto.

Will see what happens – but if this two- game slide (outscored 12-1) becomes a six-gamer – Burke will have to make a move for a coach that instils player confidence and says “we” when the team wins AND when it loses.

The Supreme Courts approval of safe injection sites has been cheered by supporters of victims of drug abuse. While I certainly support this decision (it saves lives) it should be remembered that this program is a band-aid solution,

The program is better than doing nothing however – and that is why I believe the Supreme Court allows it to continue. What I was hoping to hear is more from the federal government of what they would do to replace safe – injections sites. Drug prevention is fine, but what initiatives are in place to help current drug users overcome their addiction.

Reducing drug overdoses and disease
are needed, but I believe there would be less opposition to these programs popping up across the country if they promoted their success rates of eventually getting people off drugs. It is hard to embrace a program that is seen by some as allowing people to perpetually tread water rather than teaching them how to swim to shore.

Classic example of this comes from the ban Wal-Mart crowd. Many of the people who would ban Wal-mart to protect jobs, never shop there. Yet they would deprive low-income families in their community from benefiting from the low-cost products made available.

When it comes to solutions we have seen what works. Strong universal public systems (health and education) that provide an equality of opportunity have proven to be effective. Welfare programs that try and correct inequity have not.

Individuals with mental illness and substance abuse issues are a top public health concern. Economic solutions, however do not work with this group because policy success here depends on people acting in a rational manner. While those suffering need support, it needs to come from the healthcare system. Yes more resources will be needed but a compassionate society needs to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.

Understanding the plight of the sane and sober who live in poverty through no fault of their own need is a first step. Only then can we look at developing targeted public policy for poverty reduction.

But let’s not confuse the working poor with someone with a drug or mental condition. Both groups suffer, but the solutions to prevent their situation and ultimately get them to overcome are very different.

Some possible solutions to follow.

No need for a great introspection into why the Ontario Tories lost the election. You can’t expect voters to take you seriously when you tell them that you will spend as much as the Liberals, cut taxes but that you worry about rising debt levels.

It is no wonder the party was not endorsed by traditional backers like the Toronto Sun or the Globe and Mail.

A policy of lowering revenue while increasing spending is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen. Voters from both sides of the political spectrum quickly assessed that this political math won’t add up.

Big free agents will be out there this winter in baseball. Too bad Toronto is to poor to put a winner on the field. Wait a second …

Rogers Communications that owns the Jays is seen as one of the richest ownerships in baseball and M.L.S.E. is one of the richest ownership groups in the NHL and NBA. 

Salary caps preclude the MLSE from spending, but the Blue Jays have no excuse in this regard. In fact the Jays have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball at $ 61 million ranking them 22 of 30 teams.  Many people often get on the Yankees for spending so much, but their ownership worth is much less than the Blue Jays and yet they spend the money to win. Rather than getting mad at teams like the Yankees,  Blue Jay fans should start asking more of their ownership that is playing them for suckers. 

 Its’s no wonder Toronto was ranked dead last by ESPN as one of the worst sport cities. Not sure about that one, but I am staritng to think Toronto fans are the most gullible.

Column originally published in the Guelph Mercury Sept. 28, 2008.  

With the new school year underway, I want to talk about that dirty word for students — homework.

It seems it now is a dirty word for some Ontario school boards, too, as they have placed limits on the amount of homework students can be assigned. Some have even gone so far as to ban homework altogether in the early grades.

While I can see the merits of reducing the homework burden at the elementary level, I think we do our high school students a disservice if we lessen the expectation of their workload outside the classroom.

If anything, in today’s competitive global economy we need to raise the bar higher. Telling students to study more and socialize less may be easier said than done. Believe me I know, but we owe it to our young people to keep trying and not give up.

When I was in elementary school I was a pretty conscientious student who spent many a night doing at least an hour worth of homework.

In Grade 5, I can remember watching with envy from my bedroom window as my school friend Terry was playing and hanging out with other kids in the neighbourhood. I, however, stayed committed to my studies and eventually was rewarded for it.

I won the academic award for my elementary school and was accepted — along with everyone else who passed Grade 8 — to our local high school.

Like many elementary school friends who enter high school together, Terry and I started hanging out with different crowds and pursuing different interests. Mine was getting out more and having fun. I still wanted to get decent grades, but having a social life was certainly a much greater priority.

Playing sports let me hang with the jock crowd and my social calendar was kept busy enough to keep my head out of the books.

During my grad year, high school was a blast and I had the confident swagger seniors get when they think they have life by the tail. Sure enough, I was in for a wake up call.

For me, it happened around 3 a.m. at an all-night graduation event being held at Canada’s Wonderland.

There I met up with my old elementary school chum Terry and we caught up with each other while he drank his new favourite beverage, coffee. I told Terry how I was having so much fun this past year and I asked how his final year had gone.

He sighed, and seemed relieved it was over. Turns out he had been doing at least two hours of homework a night in his final year and even more prepping for his exams, hence the coffee.

He was heading off to Queen’s University to take biology and chemistry. I on the other hand was still waiting to hear back from my top school selection.

When I left him that night, I knew I had not pushed myself to anywhere close to my potential. Unlike elementary school, my high school marks mattered.

I ended up not getting into the top-tier university of my choice and there were no graduation awards or scholarships for my half- hearted effort.

Luckily, I got that wake-up call early enough to make changes and eventually was able to get on the right track.

From there, I soon realized that the years of university and post-graduation were the real party.

Nothing in high school came close to the fun times and lasting memories of those years. Independence and disposable income really are a fantastic combination!

Your greatest years of socializing and utter freedom shouldn’t be in high school — too much of your life lies ahead of you to be looking in the rear-view mirror.

It is true that not every student is bound for university or college, but all students can push themselves to reach their potential whatever that may be.

The stakes are even higher today in our competitive global economy.

Students today are not only competing with the kid sitting beside them for post-secondary spots, but also with students all around the world.

The safety net of low-skilled jobs that are held by some of the parents of today’s students are now heading elsewhere and even if a high school grad can find one, it soon won’t pay anywhere close to what their parents received.

So if you are in high school and sacrificing your social life as you study long hours or master your trade for our skills-based economy, don’t worry, your party is up around the bend.

But if you’re a student without a marketable skill, doing little work, but having an absolute blast, well enjoy, but your party may soon be over.

Apparently Cody Rasmus is a very talented player. He can feel free to demonstrate some of that talent anytime now.

Recently Jeff Blair of the Globe&Mail poured cold water on the idea that the Blue Jays will offer major long term contracts to coveted free agents this winter. Apparently A.A. is to continue making miracles happen on the cheap.

If this team ever wants to make the jump back into relevance in this city and the league for that matter, it has to spend the cash. There has been a noticeable uptick in Blue Jay enthusiasm this year, but that will fall off a cliff if big market Toronto fans sees rich Rogers ownership running the team like the poor KC Royals.

Rogers spend $120 million or say goodbye to recent followers and any goodwill. Sports Illustrated had it right when it said that the Jays are a team that CAN and should spend the money.

Hey Guelph City Hall would you mind storing my daughter’s soiled diapers for an extra week?

Apparently you believe it’s not too much of an inconvenience to parents of young children. Maybe it’s time you did your part for the environment.

Picking up smelly trash once a week use to be a basic service you could count on your local municipality to do. No longer here in Guelph.

This past month the city cut back the collection of many items including diapers and sanitary products to every other week from the regular weekly collection.

This might be understandable if the city was in a budget hole or the tax base was eroding. Not so here in Guelph. Budgets are increasing each year along with our perennial property tax hike.

The problem lies in this city not making their core services a funding priority. Environmental rebate programs and recycling centres can have a place for city that wants to label itself “Green”. But they can’t be funded at the expense of core services.

Without an understanding of what its priorities should be – I guess I should not be surprised when the city announces funding for an advanced toilet training pilot program for newborns.

Potty humour aside – getting it wrong happens. But on this issue the city is demonstrating irresponsibility and contempt for many Guelph residents.