Residents decry planned Columbus Centre redevelopment

MPP Mike Colle hosted the meeting at the Beth Torah synagogue in North York.

About 200 people gathered at a public meeting on Wednesday to voice their concerns about a planned redevelopment of the Columbus Centre, which some say is integral to the city's Italian community.

"The Columbus Centre is more than bricks and mortar," MPP Mike Colle, who hosted the meeting, told CBC Toronto.

"It's an expression of the sacrifices made by the immigrants who came from Italy."

It was announced this summer that the owner of the North York community centre, Villa Charities, is joining with the Toronto Catholic District School Board in a $70-million redevelopment. The plan is to raze the existing structure and build new facilities, which would include a Catholic high school, Dante Alighieri Academy.

Located at Dufferin Street and Lawrence Avenue West, the Columbus Centre currently houses fitness amenities, banquet rooms and restaurants, long-term care facilities, an art gallery and extensive landscaped grounds, all created decades ago by the city's Italian community.

Residents gathered at the Beth Torah synagogue in North York decried the plan and pressed the facility's importance to the community.  (more...)

Residents decry planned Columbus Centre redevelopment

Background:

Columbus Centre project seems rotten

Ironic that Catholic seniors are meeting in synagogues to resist neo-Catholic edufascists -- Didn't Pius XII hide Italian Jews from the Nazis in the Vatican?

Sex charges pile up for former Ottawa teacher

Ottawa police on Wednesday laid 11 more charges against a former teacher and coach who’s already accused of several historical sex-related offences from his days working in the public school system.

Police said Donald Greenham, 75, committed the crimes between 1972 and 1981. The new charges are gross indecency, indecent assault on a male and counselling an offence.

There are four male victims who were between 12 and 16 years old at the time of the offences, police said. The alleged crimes happened between 1972 and 1981.

Police first announced 14 charges against Greenham in August 2016 involving four alleged victims who were between 14 and 17 years old when he was a teacher and coach in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

In October 2016, police laid an additional 35 charges against Greenham related to another seven alleged victims. A month later, police filed six more charges against Greenham.

Sexual assault investigators are concerned there could be more victims.  (more...)

Sex charges pile up for former Ottawa teacher

More coverage:

Former Ottawa teacher faces 11 new sexual assault-related charges

Background:

Retired teacher, 73, faces more charges of sex assault against students

Canadians to stay in the dark about who owns country’s companies

Finance Minister Bill Morneau

The idea of a national public registry naming the real people behind Canadian companies — a vital tool in the fight against tax evasion, money laundering and corruption — appears to be stalled.

While federal and provincial finance ministers agreed on the weekend to make corporate ownership information — often referred to as “beneficial ownership” — available to law enforcement and tax authorities, there’s no plan to give the public access to the records.

“Just requiring corporations to have the information on hand is not good enough,” says James Cohen, director of policy and programs for Transparency International Canada. “We’d strongly urge the government to consider the benefits of a public registry of beneficial owners . . . because (law enforcement agencies) are already stretched thin.”

A public registry would provide “an extra set of eyes, such as civil society and investigative journalists, to review the information,” he said.

Buried in an announcement Monday, federal and provincial finance ministers acknowledged “blind spots” in Canada’s corporate registry system and said the new measures are intended to “prevent webs of Canadian or international companies from concealing ownership information in order to facilitate tax evasion, money laundering and other criminal activities.”

The announcement says federal and provincial finance ministers are committed to “further strengthening corporate transparency . . . The information revealed through the recent leaks of the Panama and Paradise Papers reinforces the need for action.”

But it makes no reference to corporate transparency being shared with the public.

In Canada, secrecy around corporate ownership makes it possible to register a corporation, open a bank account, and send and receive money overseas all without disclosing one’s name — the same kind of secrecy offered by traditional tax havens.  (more...)

Canadians to stay in the dark about who owns country’s companies

Related:

Canada Infrastructure Bank promoter involved in tax havens

Canadians want Ottawa to ban use of tax havens, poll finds

World Bank's Corrupt Companies Blacklist Dominated By Canada

Former Kingsville fire chief Bob Kissner ordered to stand trial

Kingsville’s former fire chief will stand trial in Superior Court on 17 sex-related charges involving eight alleged victims.

After a preliminary hearing in Ontario court last week, Bob Kissner was committed to stand trial on all the charges he faced. The charges include sexually assaulting eight boys.

Kissner was first charged in December 2016 with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference involving a teenage boy. After that, several more alleged victims came forward.

Kissner, who was a teacher at a Christian academy in the Ruthven area many years ago and the organist and choir director at Epworth United Church in Kingsville, was suspended as Kingsville’s fire chief when the alleged victims began coming forward.  (more...)

Former Kingsville fire chief Bob Kissner ordered to stand trial

More coverage:

Kingsville, Ont. fire chief charged with sexual assault, exploitation

Conservative party leadership advisor helped create anti-Islam organization

A senior member of Andrew Scheer’s leadership team helped create an anti-Islam organization during his campaign to lead the Conservative Party. Now, that organization is holding events to protest anti-Islamophobia Motion 103 and is bringing together Canada’s anti-Islam pundits and anti-Muslim groups.

Georganne Burke, the Scheer campaign’s Outreach Chair, was involved in the founding of Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms (C3RF). The group warns that the Liberal government is criminalizing criticism of Islam and opening the door for a Sharia (Islamic) takeover of Canadian law. C3RF plans to hold events across the country to advocate against M103 and the Trudeau government.

Georganne Burke is one of at least three senior members of Scheer’s campaign team that have now been linked to the so-called alt-right or anti-Islam groups. Scheer’s Campaign Manager, Hamish Marshall, was a director of Rebel Media, an alt-right media outlet that pushes narratives of white genocide and hosts prominent alt-right figures, and worked out of the Rebel offices during the campaign. He has been named as a campaign chair for the 2019 general election.

Marshall did not respond to interview requests sent to his email address at the Torch Agency, the public affairs and communications firm he leads.  The Conservative Party now led by Scheer did not respond to interview requests.  (more...)

Conservative party leadership advisor helped create anti-Islam organization

Related:

Andrew Scheer: The Smirking Face of Intolerance?

Class action suit launched against Ontario over alleged abuse in ‘training schools’

A proposed class action lawsuit has been launched against the Ontario government alleging horrific sexual, physical and psychological abuse perpetrated on former students of the province’s “training schools” between 1931 and 1984.

The schools were residential institutions operated by the province to house children between the ages of 8 and 16 who were deemed by the courts to be “incorrigible” or difficult to control. Children could be sent to training school without having committed any crime. Truancy, running away from home, or even begging could land a child at any one of the province’s more than a dozen institutions.

“The repercussions (of training school) were unreal in my life,” said representative plaintiff Kirk Keeping, who was sent at age 15 to a training school in Bowmanville, where he says he was forced into sexual acts with male and female staff members and suffered frequent beatings.

The two years he spent in training school had a profound effect on his life, said Keeping, 64. “I just spiralled down for many years in my life. It was a roller-coaster ride trying to hold down jobs, trying to have a family and live normal. It was a hard thing.”

The lawsuit, filed in Thunder Bay, where Keeping lives, is seeking $500 million in damages for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and vicarious liability, as well as $100 million in punitive damages. Lawyers who filed the claim believe there could be thousands of class members.  (more...)

Class action suit launched against Ontario over alleged abuse in ‘training schools’

Background:

They say they suffered ‘cruel and sadistic’ abuse as kids at Ontario training schools

Toronto library revising rental policy after controversial memorial

Bake my swastika cake

TORONTO — The Toronto Public Library board voted Monday evening in favour of changing its rental policy following a controversial memorial at a west-end branch this summer.

The memorial was held in July at Richview Library for Barbara Kulaszka, a lawyer whose clients included Marc Lemire, the leader of the now-disbanded white supremacy group Heritage Front.

An announcement for the July event also said Paul Fromm, a former teacher whose ties to racist groups cost him his licence, were among those expected to speak at the event, which cost $10 to attend.

Members of city council and such advocacy groups as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, expressed outrage that organizers were allowed to book a space “despite their long record of promoting bigotry and their disturbing ties to the Neo-Nazi movement.”

Under the changes approved by board members, library staff will be able to deny or cancel bookings “when the library reasonably believes the purpose of the booking is likely to promote, or would have the effect of promoting, discrimination, contempt or hatred of any group.”  (more...)

Toronto library revising rental policy after controversial memorial

Background:

Toronto library looks at barring hate groups from renting space