What you need to know about Rob Ford’s subway plan

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford laughs during Toronto city council budget deliberations at City Hall in Toronto Tuesday, January 15, 2013. The world-famous politician is doing well in the latest polls despite his reputation. Photo: Darren Calabrese/National Post

With just under two months to election day, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has returned to a familiar refrain as he chases challenger John Tory in the polls.

It’s all about subways, subways, subways folks — pay no mind to his clumsy assertion last month that it’s about the economy, stupid.

And so Ford unveiled his transit plan Wednesday, and it includes a lot of subways.

Here’s what you need to know about Ford’s vision:

Ford says he can build all this for $9 billion.

Rob Ford’s long-term transit map as released to the media Wednesday.

All of it. That’s 32 kilometres of subways, so about $281 million a kilometre. That sounds expensive but it’s actually a steal. The TTC estimates the 7.6 kilometre Sheppard subway extension will cost $3.56 billion — or about $468 million a kilometre. So Ford thinks he can build subways for half price through subsidies like selling building rights over stations.

But there’s no timeline attached

Ford told reporters Tuesday that “subways take time” and attached no firm timeline to his plans.

The mayor also seems to think the Scarbourough subway is complete

Ford’s subway plan shows a completed Scarborough line. It won’t even start construction until 2018.

Not only is Ford promising to build numerous new lines, he’s also taking credit for a subway plan that’s not even through the Environmental Assessement phase. His transit plans shows a completed Scarborough Subway line, when the TTC doesn’t expect construction to begin until 2018 and completion until 2023.

That means Ford is offering no short-term relief for transit users

Ford’s relief would take years longer than many current transit users can wait. (Darren Calabrese/National Post)

Simplistic doesn’t even begin to describe most of Ford’s policies. And though his challengers proposals are equally pie-in-the-sky, Tory’s is an equally long-term solution, though he says he can build his SmartTrack —a “surface subway” that would achieve much of the relief line’s goals, he also promises increased bus service. Mayoral contestant Olivia Chow promises $15 million a year in immediate TTC funding to boost service on the busiest bus lines in addition to a future subway relief line.

Ford will scrap existing LRT plans

It’s no surprise that our surface-transit-hating chief magistrate would avoid future LRTs — there’s a ten-minute YouTube compilation of him repeating the word “subway” in council for a reason. But he also pledges that if re-elected he would cancel the LRTs underway for Finch West and Sheppard East. Ford also said he would bury the Eglinton Crosstown LRT that’s already under construction. Much of that line is already buried and when complete dedicated lanes will separate the line from traffic. Those facts don’t matter to Ford, however, as he continued his ardent position that subways are literally the only way to go. By contrast, Chow would reinstate the Scarborough LRT that’s shovel-ready and Tory’s transit plan is largely surface-rail based.

Billions in cash can be cobbled together from millions

Can Ford turn pennies into dollars? (Canadian Press photo)

Ford says he will work with the private sector and provincial and federal governments to help fund his plan, but he also says Toronto’s multi-billion slice can be bankrolled without raising taxes. Remember the current Toronto budget is $9.6 billion a year, so even if Ford could build all those lines for $9 billion, the city would still ahve to scrounge for the money. He says he can cobble billions from the Build Toronto — the city’s real estate development corporation which only projects $108 million a year in revenue over the next five years.

The bulk of Ford’s planned funding would come from future revenues

Toronto mayor Rob Ford laughs during an executive committee meeting. (Tyler Anderson/National Post)

Ford is following John Tory’s lead in proposing Tax Increment Financing to pay for his transit plan. That model has been employed in New York, where transit is being financed through expected revenues from development to follow. Except it hasn’t worked as well as planned in the Big Apple and likely won’t work any better in the Big Smoke.

Ford also promises to bank on “future assessment growth,” which sounds rather similar to TIF. His plan states:  “Each year Toronto’s tax base grows by millions of dollars. Instead of leaving these funds in a general pool for spending, I will allocate a portion of future assessment growth to fund my subway expansion plan.” Except every year the city budget already allocated over $1.6 billion a year to transit and this year alone gave the TTC an extra $25 million to improve service. That leaves about $8 billion in the pot for everything else the city runs. So even if revenues grew dramatically, let’s say by a $500 million a year, if Ford allotted half of that to transit, he would still fall far short of the billions required.

Only the TTC and Metrolinx offer fully costed plans

Metrolinx President and CEO Bruce McCuaig addresses the media during a press conference at the construction site of the Eglington Cross Town LRT line. (Colin O’Connor for the National Post)

Of all the candidates Chow’s vision for transit is the closest to what the TTC thinks it can employ effectively. Tory’s plan for a Regional Express Rail links well with some provincial visions for Metrolinx and GO service, while his SmartTrack plan isn’t based on any existing costed plan. But that’s still better than Ford, who wants to rip up existing, funded plans for subways in places where ridership can’t support them.

We’ve heard this all before 

In the 2010 election, Ford promised hundreds of kilometres of subways, roads and bike lanes. Essentially none of them have been built.

Sports-related concussion in youth a public health issue that demands action: paper

Young hockey players, seen in this 2012 file photo, wear 'stop' signs on the backs of jerseys as part of a campaign to keep kids from hitting from behind. Photo: Steve Bosch/Postmedia News/Files

TORONTO — Sports-related concussions in children and youth constitute a significant public health issue which requires serious reform in public policy to address the harm associated with them, a new Canadian paper argues.

The article — which appeared Wednesday in Neurosurgeon, an online publication of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons — suggests there is an ethical responsibility to take action on the issue.

“It’s not a sport issue, it’s not just a medical issue, it’s a public health issue which affects the population as a whole and it’s been identified that way — it’s research based, it’s epidemiologically backed and it has facts behind it,” said Dr. Paul Echlin, who runs a sports medicine clinic in Burlington, Ont.

Echlin, who co-authored the article with Dr. Ross Upshur, director of clinical research at Toronto’s Bridgepoint Health, said there’s a need to make an “urgent statement” on sports-related concussions in children and youth, which the World Health Organization classifies as minor traumatic brain injuries.

“We really have to move on this now,” said Echlin. “There’s no helmets or mouth guards or safety devices that can change this, it is about a shift in the way that we allow our youth to play games.”

A quarterback winces moments before being hit in a high school football championship in Tacoma, Washington in this 2013 file photo. TED S. WARREN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES

The article notes that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control labelled sports-related concussions a public health problem in 2003, but youth continue to suffer “often preventable brain injuries” while playing sports.

“If you know what’s going on and you refuse to do anything major or significant about it, then you’re ethically wrong,” said Echlin. “It shouldn’t be silent anymore, it is an epidemic in our youth culture, in sport. Sport was made to … improve the culture of fitness, and socially, but not to cause long-term impairment, not to promote violence which is the underlying factor of a lot of these head injuries.”

To deal with concussions as a public health issue, the article suggests “dramatic rule changes” be made to games children play to “eliminate all purposeful and intentional head contact” while also minimizing incidental head contact.

It also suggests increasing the size of playing surfaces to lower the chances of collisions in sports, decreasing the number of participants on a field of play and considering the elimination of the use of the head in games like soccer.

The article goes on to suggest enforcing significant suspensions to participants or supervising adults who are involved in games in which head injuries occur. Youth who do suffer concussions must also be given appropriate time to recover, Echlin added.

The paper further underlines the importance of publicly funded education on concussions for the next generation of athletes, parents and educators, highlighting an example in Ontario, where the province’s education ministry has mandated publicly funded schools to institute concussion curriculum education from all students Grade One to 12.

D1 strength and speed coach Sarah Fedusenko, from left, Angel Goolsby,14, and Matthew Gibbons, 15, watch Tyler Pelkey, 14, perform a broad jump during the annual Injury Prevention Day conference, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2014, in Savannah, Ga. The conference included discussions about injury prevention, concussions, health and wellness as well as a mini-combine. BRITTNEY LOHMILLER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES

“You’re going to educate the 10-year-old to say ‘yes there is a big problem here’ and to give them the ability to advocate for themselves and others to say ‘I got hit, I don’t feel well, I’m going to take myself off the field,”‘ said Echlin. “Handing out pamphlets and stuff, it doesn’t work. But what does work is getting the kids involved and getting them to make their own decisions, and also continuing dialogue with parents.”

Alison Macpherson, an assistant professor of kinesiology and health sciences at York University in Toronto, agreed that sports-related concussion in children and youth requires action, but urged parents not to pull their children from sports altogether.

“We need to protect kids, we also have to be very careful not to scare parents and kids away from sports,” she said. “Learning how to play sports is also part of healthy child development.”

Macpherson drew a parallel to smoking, saying it often takes a long time to alter people’s perceptions about the risk of certain activities.

“Health behaviours take a long time to change but I think we have the obligation as professionals to continue to work at this in every setting.”

Despite tough talk, Canadian Forces are badly under-funded

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, left, in St. Petersburg, Russia, prior to the G20 Summit in 2013. Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

Is Russian president Vladimir Putin a bad, bad man? We think probably he is.

Do the butchers of the Islamic State, now running amok in Iraq and Syria, pose a clear and present danger to Western civilization? It seems so.

Therefore it’s good, we can agree, that this country’s prime minister and foreign minister, Stephen Harper and John Baird, can get their Winston Churchill on now and then. Harper and Baird’s denunciations of Putin’s reckless invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign country that had not fired so much as a rubber band towards Russia, have been refreshingly blunt.

Oh – except for our military, which, according to reporting by the Canadian Press’s Murray Brewster, is about to have another $2.7-billion lopped off its annual budget. Awkward. Postmedia’s Matthew Fisher reports that Ottawa is under pressure from North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to spend more, not less, as Harper heads to Wales for a NATO summit. Might someone at this confab publicly suggest that, when it comes to smiting evil, Canada is mostly bluster?

This is in no way intended as a slight against the Canadian Forces, whose members have displayed such skill, courage and simple good humour, in so many foreign engagements. No one who travels with the CF, or watches them work, can fail to appreciate their worth. The same very high standards, I observed recently, are exemplified by the Canadian Coast Guard. Thank goodness for them.

The simple truth is that Canada’s military is badly under-resourced, given the range of emerging global threats.”

But the simple truth is that Canada’s military is badly under-resourced, given the range of emerging global threats, and the United States’ continuing withdrawal from its long-standing role as global policeman. Setting aside a sharp increase in defence spending between 2002 and 2010, the pattern has been for Ottawa to use the CF as a kind of piggy bank. When money is tight, it can safely be lopped out of the defence budget, because a) soldiers, sailors and airmen and women can’t complain too bitterly and b) the defence of North America is essentially an American responsibility. Right?

The Jean Chretien-Paul Martin Liberals famously balanced the federal budget on the backs of the CF during its so-called “decade of darkness,” in the 1990s. Those cuts were so severe that on some bases, according to soldiers I have spoken to, every second light bulb was unscrewed to save power. The Airborne Regiment was disbanded in the wake of the Somalia affair. Major procurements were cancelled, delayed or botched. In 2005, ringing in the dawn of a new era, Harper promised to undo all that. And until roughly 2010, with Canada at war in Afghanistan, his government delivered.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (left) speaks with Commander Joint Task Force North Brig.Gen. Greg Loos as they make there way to speak to troops Tuesday August 26, 2014 on Baffin Island near York Sound, Nunavut. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

But it appears the Tories are doing again what the Liberals did 20 years ago, even though the geopolitical context is demonstrably more perilous today than it was then. Canada spends roughly one per cent of GDP on its military – putting us 22nd second among 27 NATO countries, ahead of Hungary, Latvia, Spain, Lithuania and Luxembourg. The Slovak Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands all spend a greater share of GDP on their militaries than does Canada. Even though, as the prime minister is fond of reminding us, this country leads the Group of Seven industrialized nations in terms of fiscal performance. It doesn’t square.

Last week on Baffin Island, I watched Harper deliver his toughest-sounding denunciation yet of both Putin and the Islamic State. Speaking to a small audience of soldiers, sailors and airmen and women, including Inuit Rangers tasked with providing Canada’s first line of defence in the north, Harper declared that “in Europe, we see the imperial ambitions of Vladimir Putin, who seems determined that, for Russia’s neighbours, there shall be no peace.” And this: “… because Russia is also Canada’s Arctic neighbour, we must not be complacent here at home. In our time, the Royal Canadian Air Force has again been called to respond to increased Russian activity in the Arctic.”

Members of the Canadian Joint Incident Respnse Unit rappel onto the deck of the ship Strait Explorer as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper watches Tuesday August 26, 2014 in York Sound, Nunavut. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

Bracing stuff. But how to justify the gap between the talk and the walk? The 5,000 Rangers, it is now promised, will receive their long-awaited new bolt-action rifle next year. Beyond that, there is precious little good news to report. As I have written previously, new ships are half a dozen years from delivery, at best. The fighter-jet replacement program has been on ice since late 2012, when the government’s sole-source F-35 purchase went supernova. There is still no competition under way to replace the CF-18s.

This state of affairs is not, to be fair, entirely the Harper government’s fault. The Tories’ defence spending is dictated by what they perceive to be Canadians’ wishes. There is no tradition in Canada of popular support for the kind of outlay – close to $40-billion annually, compared with the current $19-billion – that would bring us into line with the NATO standard of two per cent of GDP. But at what point does the government assume its responsibility to lead and shape popular support, rather than simply put a finger to the wind and move with the current?

If the threats are as grave as Harper and Baird say, leadership is called for. They can’t have it both ways forever.

American journalist Steven Sotloff purportedly executed by ISIS

ISIS released video purportedly showing the execution of American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff. Photo: AP

By Josh Visser

The terrorist group ISIS released video that purportedly shows the execution of American journalist Steven Sotloff, according to the SITE Intel Group.

The two-and-half minute video shows what appears to be Sotloff, 31, in orange prisoner garb with a black-cloaked man next to him holding a knife in a desert landscape. Sotloff recites a statement in a strong, dispassionate voice towards U.S. President Barack Obama. Sotloff says he is personally “paying the price” for the United States’ foreign policy and intervention in Iraq.

An ISIS terrorist speaks near the end of the video, his voice apparently garbled by a voice shifter but with a slight British accent apparent.

“I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State … despite our serious warnings,” the terrorist says.

The terrorist drives his knife into the neck of the prisoner before the camera cuts to black. The video then pans to a shot of the decapitated prisoner’s head on his body.

The video ends with the terrorist holding what they claim is another hostage, Briton David Cawthorne Haines, and warned governments to “back off” against ISIS. It was not immediately clear who Haines was.

ISIS released the video, called “A Second Message to America,” on Tuesday.

In this handout image made available by the photographer American journalist Steven Sotloff (Center with black helmet) talks to Libyan rebels on the Al Dafniya front line, 25 km west of Misrata on June 2, 2011 in Misrata, Libya. (Etienne de Malglaive via Getty Images)

Through a spokesperson, the Sotloff family said they are aware of the beheading video and are grieving.

The U.S. State Department is determining if the video is authentic.

“If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act, taking the life of another innocent American citizen,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told The Associated Press. “Our hearts go out to the Sotloff family and we will provide more information as it becomes available.”

The video comes two weeks after ISIS released video of the murder of American journalist James Foley. Sotloff, who freelanced for Time magazine and was kidnapped in August 2013 in Syria, appeared at the end of that video. His death was threatened unless the U.S. ceased air strikes against ISIS.

Last week, Sotloff’s mother pleaded with ISIS to spare her son.

“I want what every mother wants, to live to see her children’s children.” Shirley Sotloff said in a video message. “I plead with you to grant me this.”

Shirley Sotloff directly aimed her message to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

“You, the caliph, can grant amnesty. I ask you to please release my child. I ask you to use your authority to spare his life,” she said in the video.

Steven Sotloff’s Twitter feed described him as a “stand-up philosopher from Miami. Currently in Libya.” His last tweet was August 3, 2013.

Sotloff attended University of Central Florida for journalism from 2002 to 2004, according to The Associated Press.

Breaking news. More details to follow.

There might be an underground ‘trading ring’ for nude celebrity photos

Photos of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, left, and supermodel Kate Upton were among dozens of sexually explicit images of public figures leaked online Aug. 31. Photo: Getty images

Hundreds of intimate photos of celebrities leaked online over the weekend may have been the result of an online community of hackers who swap such photos stolen from the personal accounts of various public figures.

The massive cache of illicit photos started appearing on 4Chan, Reddit and Imgur on Sunday and included several A-list celebrities such as actress Jennifer Lawrence and swimsuit model Kate Upton. While the source of the photos is still unknown, there are rumours of an underground “trading ring” that people can only join by contributing original photos and videos obtained by breaking into the devices and emails of celebrities.

As one message on the infamous 4Chan message boards suggested, the “n00d-trading ring” has been around for years, accessible only to a select few on what is known as the Deep Web, parts of the internet only accessible through the Tor anonymity software. Those who wanted to join the secret club apparently had to contribute their own, original stolen photos of celebrities to “buy in.”

A screencap of a 4Chan post regarding the massive leak of intimate images of various celebrities, describing an underground “trading ring” for such images.

If true, the existence of such a longstanding online cabal would mean it wasn’t a single flaw in Apple’s iCloud back-up service that led to the breach, but rather a long process of breaking into celebrities’ private accounts by a number of different people. This weekend’s leak of those images and videos likely started with a single person but soon came to include multiple leakers with access to some or all of the secret stash of stolen images, several of which have solicited Bitcoin donations for sharing the material.

Since the initial news of the leaks, some of the affected celebrities have issued warnings and expressed their anger at the invasion of privacy. A publicist for Lawrence has threatened legal action against those responsible.

“This is a flagrant violation of privacy,” a rep told US Weekly. “The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”

Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was the victim of six stolen photos she believed long deleted, denigrated the thieves on Twitter for the “creepy effort” it must have taken to obtain the images.

Many others have stayed silent or issued denials the images are of them. Singer Ariana Grande, for example, has said the images purportedly of her are “completely fake.”

The image-hosting site Imgur, where many of the stolen photos first appeared, has taken down many of the posts and is continuing to closely police new uploads, although the photos are still widely available through cloud hosting services like Dropbox and Google Drive, hosted on blogging platforms like Blogspot, and as downloads on The Pirate Bay torrent site.

The initial waves of images have stopped but the list of victims allegedly includes dozens more, according to a post on 4Chan.

Meanwhile, a new message board has appeared on Reddit specifically to track and share the sexually explicit images. Dubbed The Fappening — “fapping” is online slang for masturbation — the new subreddit boasts almost 125,000 subscribers and has been feverishly updated with each new leak. The enthusiasm for the photos and videos stolen from unsuspecting public figures is seemingly at odds with the Reddit community’s general commitment to privacy, at least in relation to spying by the NSA and other intelligence organizations. In fact, the only warning about privacy refers to the privacy of those who stole the images, not the people affected.

The top post on r/TheFappening reads: “DO NOT POST ANY INFORMATION, TRUE OR FALSE, ABOUT THE IDENTITY OF THE PERSON(S) LEAKING THESE PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEOS. IF YOU DO THAT YOU WILL BE BANNED FROM THIS SUBREDDIT.”

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