Rob Ferguson Queen's Park Bureau...Toronto Star

Energy Minister Chris Bentley confirmed Wednesday that Ontario is scrapping a five-year-old promise to make it "lights out" for incandescent bulbs in 2012 by banning stores from selling them.

He blamed a recent federal government decision to delay new energy efficiency standards for light bulbs until Jan. 1, 2014, when it will become illegal to import inefficient incandescent lighting across the country.

"Did it make sense for us to have a different approach from the federal government on this issue? No," Bentley said.

"Our thinking is how do we make it easiest for consumers. It would be hard and confusing to do it differently."

The Star first reported on Saturday that the Ontario promise, made by former energy minister Dwight Duncan in 2007, was in jeopardy because of the federal move.

But postponing the incandescent ban for two years will just make it harder for the province to meet its energy conservation targets already under fire by Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller, said New Democrat environment critic Peter Tabuns.

"In keeping with the season, this is a lump of coal," said the MPP for Toronto-Danforth, noting that the new compact fluorescent bulbs use less than half the electricity of incandescent bulbs.

Posted By: Katie Franzios This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it · 12/7/2011 3:25:00 PM

The province's energy minister is defending the Liberal government's strategy to reduce energy consumption despite not reaching targets.

That was revealed in the second part of the Environmental Commissioner's report on Ontario's Energy System released today.

Chris Bentley, didn't however, directly answer questions as to why there isn't a system already in place to monitor smart metre use.

NDP Energy critic MPP Peter Tabuns says he doesn't understand how the province can't tell if the smart metres are working the way they want them to. Tabuns also blasts the government for not being more ambitious in their conservation targets and says they didn't push the subject more with the public.

PC leader Tim Hudak says he's always been against smart metres, noting time-of use pricing doesn't help those who are at home during the day and small businesses.

Posted on Wed, Dec 7, 2011, 2:10 pm by Keith Leslie

The Liberal government failed to meet virtually all of its conservation targets, reported environmental commissioner Gord Miller.

"However, the targets were ambitious, and despite the shortfall there was lots of peak energy conserved," Miller told reporters.

"Demand was reduced by an amount equivalent to not having to build about three new natural gas-fired peaking plants, and we all know how popular those are."

Tailoring Schools for Students

By Jonathan Jenkins, Queen's Park Bureau

Updated: Sunday, November 27, 2011 05:22 PM EST

For all the controversy surrounding the Toronto District School Board's decision to add a high school to its existing Africentric program, it's easy to forget Toronto has a history of ethnocentric schooling dating 30 years.

The First Nations School of Toronto opened in 1977 and currently has 80 elementary students enrolled.

"It fits into the landscape so quietly that you don't think about it," said Ontario NDP education critic Peter Tabuns, whose the local MPP for the Broadview Ave.-Dundas St. area — the location of the school.

First Nations is just one of TDSB's 19 alternative elementary and 22 alternative high schools.

Provincial officials say there are dozens of similar alternative programs offered in other boards across the province — including other Aboriginal schools in the North — making the Africentric experiment even less unique.

| Nov 22, 2011 - 3:53 PM

Toronto-Danforth residents are invited to child care public forum. An emergency public forum on child care is being held Thursday, Nov. 24 for Toronto-Danforth residents. Hosted by MPP Peter Tabuns and Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher, the meeting will take place at St. Barnabas Anglican Church, 361 Danforth Ave. at Hampton Avenue, from 7 to 9 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

The forum will serve as a call to action in light of concerns about the potential closure of child care centres as well as possible fee increases for parents and caregivers. It is also a chance for people to learn more about what they can do to ensure local child care centres aren't shuttered. In Toronto, five wards could lose more than half of their current child care centres, while 13 wards could lose between 25 to 49 per cent of their local child care facilities. Ward 29 Councillor Mary Fragedakis, TDSB Trustee Cathy Dandy and representatives from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care are all expected to attend the meeting.

 For more information, call Fletcher office at 416-92-4060 or Tabuns' office at 416-461-0223. 

MIKE ADLER Oct 27, 2011 - 5:38 PM insideTORONTO.com

Rally at Queen's Park for day care centres facing closure...

Parents were told Nov. 13 could be their last day at Progress Child Care, where enrolment has dwindled even after the city decided in June to send an administrator to help keep the facility near Kennedy Road open.

"Where are these kids going to go?" Janet Sayson, one of the parents, asked during a morning Queen's Park rally organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.

East End

Emergency Meeting

To Stop the Sale of Our Homes

http://www.commemoration.gc.ca/index-eng.cfm

Layton State funeral

Canadians are invited to pay their respects to the Honourable Jack Layton, Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and Member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

The Lying-in-State for Mr. Layton will take place in the foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday, August 24 and Thursday, August 25. It will be open to the public from 12:30 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday and from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Canadians can also pay tribute to Mr. Layton as he lies in repose at Toronto City Hall on Friday, August 26 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturday, August 27 beginning at 9 a.m. until 11 a.m.

The funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 27, 2011, at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto.For more information on the State Funeral or to convey condolences to Mr. Layton's family,

Canadians can visit www.commemoration.gc.ca

Dimitri SoudasCommunications Director/Directeur des Communications

PMO-CPM (613) 992-4211

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

Robert Benzie Queen's Park Bureau Chief

Star.com

August 3, 2011

An NDP government would make retrofitting homes a priority over refurbishing nuclear reactors, says party leader Andrea Horwath.

Horwath told reporters Wednesday at Queen’s Park that if the New Democrats win the Oct. 6 election they would “hit the pause button” on the Darlington atomic project and use the savings to encourage conservation.

“It’s very clear that the government’s nuclear plan is an extremely expensive one,” she said of a nuclear rebuilding plan that could cost $26 billion.

Toronto Star

June 28, 2011

The controversy over a $20 million surplus in eco fees collected from consumers has put Ontario’s Liberal government on the defensive with just 100 days until the Oct. 6 election.

The cash was collected by retailers to fund the environmentally safe recycling of old TVs and other electronics instead of dropping them in garbage dumps, where toxic chemicals leach into the ground.

But the fact it has gone unspent is proof the eco fee program for electronics, begun in 2009, is “sneaky” and poorly run, the Progressive Conservatives said Monday after a Star report detailed the problem.

“The very fact that they have a $20 million surplus . . . shows you that it was a tax grab because clearly it was mismanaged,” Tory MPP Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North) told reporters.

Environment Minister John Wilkinson was quick to pin the problem of the surplus on the private industry body in charge of the fees — Ontario Electronic Stewardship, operating under the regulatory authority from the province.

“They’re in charge of the program, not the ministry,” said Wilkinson, whose government is in a tough battle to win a third term.

He defended the fees, which are now $26.25 on televisions and $12.25 on computer monitors, for example, as necessary to keep them out of landfill sites and noted that fees for each are being dropped $1.25 starting Aug. 1.

Consumers should be pleased by the drop because it shows authorities are “paying attention,” Wilkinson added, noting the volumes of products being recycled under the program are steadily rising, although below targets set during the recession.

New Democrat MPP and environment critic Peter Tabuns called the eco fee break “an awfully small bone” to throw at shoppers, and urged the government to make manufacturers cover all recycling costs.

We’re glad to see the feds wrapping this up. It comes after a number of years of what I would consider to be foot-dragging,” Duguid said Tuesday, as news broke of a sale to SNC-Lavalin.

“Their delays have impacted our ability to move on this purchase sooner,” he said. “And their delays have created a great deal of instability in Ontario’s nuclear sector. Our hope is that that sector will now be stabilized.”

The Dalton McGuinty government wants to support nuclear jobs in Ontario and Canada and would favour homegrown technology when adding new reactors, although the impact on local ratepayers would also factor in any decision, Duguid said.

The minister said his opponents at Queen’s Park would jeopardize the tens of thousands of jobs in Ontario, suggesting the Tories would rush ahead possibly with foreign reactors while the NDP would just bring the nuclear program to a halt.

NDP Energy Critic Peter Tabuns said the AECL sale puts the McGuinty government’s nuclear plans in jeopardy.

A cash-strapped Scarborough daycare that threw parents into a panic on Friday after announcing it would shut down will remain open — for now. Board members of the Progress Child Care Centre, a subsidized daycare serving the Kennedy Rd.-Hwy. 401 area, announced at a rally on Sunday that its main building will be open Monday for the 90 children it serves — despite being underfunded and $100,000 in debt. While the 30-year-old daycare will lose its 21-spot infant and toddler centre in the coming weeks as a result of money problems, the city will send in a supervisor to work with the centre in a bid to help it make ends meet. But the long-term survival of the daycare is contingent on city funding, insisted board treasurer Rob Fletcher. For now, he said, staff have committed to show up, despite not knowing if they’ll see another pay cheque.

Toronto Sun - Sunday, June 12, 2011

A cash-strapped Scarborough daycare that threw parents into a panic on Friday after announcing it would shut down will remain open — for now.

Board members of the Progress Child Care Centre, a subsidized daycare serving the Kennedy Rd.-Hwy. 401 area, announced at a rally on Sunday that its main building will be open Monday for the 90 children it serves — despite being underfunded and $100,000 in debt.

While the 30-year-old daycare will lose its 21-spot infant and toddler centre in the coming weeks as a result of money problems, the city will send in a supervisor to work with the centre in a bid to help it make ends meet.

But the long-term survival of the daycare is contingent on city funding, insisted board treasurer Rob Fletcher.

By SHAWN JEFFORDS,

The Observer, Sarnia May 18, 2011

Bruce Power suspended plans to ship radioactive waste through the Great Lakes to prevent it becoming an issue in this fall's provincial election, says Ontario NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns.

Siobhan Morris, 610 CKTB News

5/18/2011

The provincial NDP is asking the McGuinty government to permanently squash shipment of steam generators across the Welland Canal and Great Lakes.

Environment Critic for the New Democrats, Peter Tabuns raised the issue at Queen's Park Wednesday.

by Richard J. Brennan

Monday, May 9, 2011

Mercury News Services

The Liberals at Queen’s Park are being accused once again by opposition critics of hiding information from the public.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s office is under fire for manipulating the Freedom of Information system to delay making “contentious” documents public.

The New Democrats produced evidence showing Duncan’s then legislative secretary Andrew Chornenky in 2009 was flagging opposition requests for information and then identifying them as “contentious,” which critics contend is code for putting the brakes on.

And when bureaucrats argued in one case that it was a routine request and not contentious, he insisted “please make it one.”

“It is pretty clear that you have political staff interfering with getting information out that the public has a right to access,” NDP Finance Critic MPP Peter Tabuns said.