VIDEO: 9/11 Truth Movement Fights for Freedom of Speech in Canada

ReThink911 Ads Controversy in Ottawa: "The 9/11 Truth Movement in Canada has been fighting for its right to run ReThink911 ads in the Ottawa public transit, OC Transpo. The ReThinks ads read: “Did you know that a third tower fell on 9/11? World Trade Centre Building 7, not hit by a plane, collapsed in free fall 7 Hours after the Twin Towers”."

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We are a Revolutionary Rural Public Transit Service in Ontario and We're Going Places!

Catch the Trout: "Rural municipalities are beginning to see that public transportation boosts local economies by connecting people to goods, services, and jobs, with a benefit-to-cost ratio of more than 3 to 1 for rural communities not uncommon.

They’re noting that public transportation is of vital importance for attracting prospective new residents – ranked second, right behind adequate healthcare."

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GTA students launch public transit survey, call for greater transit access

Mississauga.com: "Students are ready for action on improving transit in the GTA "

It is time for a war on the car

rabble.ca: "Far from being an anti-driver nightmare, (other than the congestion caused by cars themselves), Toronto exceeds even Los Angeles in its devotion to catering to the whims of the car driver. Ontario's Liberal government has greatly exacerbated this by, despite some positive moves to enact disincentives on drivers, catering to Ford's inane subway plan in Scarborough and by having facilitated the destruction of the "Transit City" plan implemented by the previous Miller administration. It caved to the pro-subway lobby that won over many Torontonians by arguing that LRTs and streetcars were bad for cars."

Ontario environment watchdog says government’s road funding ‘penalizing’ public transit

The Globe and Mail: "Ontario’s environment watchdog is calling on the government to stop “penalizing” public transit through a development fee regime that favours funding new roads."

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Poor public transit options preventing Windsorites from working

Windsor Star: "People in Windsor and Essex County are being forced to pass up job offers because there are no public transit options to get them to work, says Pathway to Potential director Adam Vasey.

Vasey said he’s heard multiple stories of people who have been matched up with jobs in the region through Employment Ontario, but can’t get there because they can’t afford a car and there are limited public transit options beyond city limits. ”We were hearing repeatedly that often, it was just the transportation barrier that was the barrier to getting that secure kind of work.”"

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Toronto: subway was always a hoax. #topoli

This was the plan all along. To kill Transit City with a big subway plan and then cancel it. The oil trolls have succeeded in achieving delay, confusion, and doubt.

Federal money for Scarborough subway may not come, Murray warns - Toronto - CBC News: "Mayor Rob Ford prefers the subway option for Scarborough but has said that without federal money, the project is dead."

Public transit: Fix it, fund it and expand it | Toronto Star

Public transit: Fix it, fund it and expand it | Toronto Star: "Labour wants a transit system that is accountable to the public and run solely in the interest of the public. We continue to oppose the model of public-private partnerships (P3s) to build and maintain the new transit lines, and the fact that large international consortiums are invited to bid on these projects. Every public dollar should go toward creating jobs within local communities, not to generate some profit line reported in another country. The province and Metrolinx should commit to ensure that engineering and design work for these projects is not off-shored, and that all such projects provide good union jobs for the next generation."

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Fund #publictransit instead of providing corporate tax breaks - #onpoli

NDP vow to block Liberal attempts to raise taxes or tolls to fund public transit | CP24.com: "Horwath agrees there's a need to fund public transit improvements, but says the Liberals should find the money by dropping plans for corporate tax breaks instead of looking to raise taxes."

TransCanada ramps up East Coast pipeline as Keystone stalls

Reuters: "(Reuters) - TransCanada Corp announced plans on Thursday for Canada's largest pipeline, a 2,700-mile, $12 billion line to ship crude from the oil sands of Western Canada to the Atlantic, as its U.S.-bound Keystone XL project stalls in Washington."

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Make politicians ride #publictransit while they decide what to do

Subways saga continues | Toronto Star: "I have a solution to this ongoing problem of hot-air. Withdraw the driver’s licenses and impound the cars of every member of the family of each councillor and force them to travel by public transit until we extend the existing TTC system.
No ifs ands or buts.

Chris Greaves, Toronto"

Time to reject Thatcherism and develop social trust

Why Canadians have no time for politics | Toronto Star: "Contrary to the Margaret Thatcher view of the world, we are or at least can be more than isolated, atomized individuals fiercely pursuing our self-interest. We live in relationships with others, we live in society, and the strength of those relationships and our fellow feeling matters profoundly. High trust societies work; they have less crime and corruption, more effective governments, and stronger economies."

Reasons to support public transit even if you never plan to ride

LTC Bus People | Transit Champions: "Whenever the subject of supporting transit arises it seems people are quick to say, “I don’t use transit so why should I have to support it?” Here are just a few reasons transit should be important to everyone:

1. Reduced Traffic – As people make the decision to take public transit, there will be less drivers clogging up the road and making you feel like you are in the opening scene to “Office Space”. A great transit system makes that decision even easier and so even if you don’t get on board, others making that choice could make your commute easier."

Keep reading

#Climatechange is disrupting the hydrologic cycle. Still want more cars?

Toronto floods leave power system 'hanging by a thread' - Toronto - CBC News: "Utility crews scrambling to restore power to tens of thousands of Toronto residents after last night's record-breaking storm were dealt a big setback on Tuesday afternoon when a supply problem led to 50,000 more customers losing their power."

The solution to traffic congestion is #publictransit, not more roads

Peter Milczyn Liberal Candidate Etobicoke-Lakeshore: "Through the Gas Tax Program, which provides municipalities with two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenues improve their public transit systems, the government will invest over $163 million to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), helping improve transit services for Etobicoke–Lakeshore residents and reduce congestion in the Greater Toronto Area."

Mohawk College joins movement ‘growing' across North America

Barry Gray,The Hamilton Spectator

Old McDonald alive and well in the city: "More than 50 locations across the city are home to some form of sustainable farming, and it's creeping into school yards, churches and neighbourhood properties. Here's the good news: you don't need to be a farmer."

Traffic congestion in Toronto

Privatization, a spectacular success at destroying #publictransit

Why it’s worth paying for public transit - The Globe and Mail

Why it’s worth paying for public transit - The Globe and Mail: "Economists generally agree that public investments in transit yield very high rates of economic return. This has been estimated to be 12.5 per cent for an optimal level of investment for all of Canada in a recent study for the Canadian Urban Transport Association by HDR Decision Economics, which has developed cost-benefit evaluations for Transport Canada."

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Why it’s worth paying for public transit - The Globe and Mail

Why it’s worth paying for public transit - The Globe and Mail: "In short, residents would be getting a lot back for those extra taxes in terms of time, money and quality of life."

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Author urges making Perth a transition town, to ready for a changing world

YourOttawaRegion:: " he urged the town to host a meeting connected with the concerns of the Transition Town movement, to get Perth and surrounding areas ready for these changes to come, and to make a more locally-based, sustainable economy."

Ottawa government talks #transit, funds roads

How different levels of government collide in Ottawa to give us our current transport mess | Metro: "“The city says it wants to encourage people to take public transit,” he said. “At the same time, we have the most expensive cash fare for public transit in the country and the most expensive university pass in the country.”

If you’re driving, it’s all you can pollute at no extra charge. Taxes pay the full shot for our ever-growing road system, and drivers pay no more to ramp up congestion and pollution. What do you suppose that encourages?"

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Hamilton, ON, how about free transit for all residents?

thespec.com/opinion/letters Eliminate the fare altogether. A reader has suggested a system of free bus passes scaled to income. A means test for affordability is probably just as discriminatory as a medical test for disabilities.

What if we spent $5.6 Billion on #publictransit instead of East pipeline?

A primer on TransCanada's West-East pipeline | rabble.ca: "We have also been hearing that this pipeline will help Canada reduce its dependence on oil imports, but transporting oil to eastern Canada is not the best strategy. Reducing dependence on all oil, in general, is! The Energy East pipeline is a massive $5.6 billion project, and the fossil fuel sector in Canada receives over a billion dollars in subsidies even though it is an industry that generates corporate revenue. These subsidies could be redistributed and put into projects that reduce emissions on oil and put less strain on the environment, communities, and the atmosphere. Investing in public mass transit, community-based renewable energy projects, and green building retrofits are some of the solutions to reducing dependence on oil imports and tar sands expansion."

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Hamilton, Ontario - More #publictransit means more walking, means better health

Health of Hamilton residents tied to transit improvements, medical experts say - Hamilton: "Improving Hamilton's transit system will be integral to improving the overall health of people in the city in the coming years, experts say.
“Strengthening our public transit system has a great city-wide benefit,” said Dr. Ninh Tran, Hamilton's associate medical officer of health. “It's an overall public health impact.”
Tran says those improvements include augmenting access to public transit and getting more people to use the system regularly, along with more incentives to walk and bike.
And a little goes a long way. Tran says that regular transit use (excluding biking) gets people walking an additional 8.3 minutes a day compared to non-transit users."'

Don't want to end up like Cyprus and Greece? Make public transit fare-free.

Cyprus, dedicated transit funding and guerrilla warfare: Salutin | Toronto Star: "What might be the next step in a guerrilla campaign to restore the public realm — as the guerrillas of yore encircled the cities? How about: not just decent public transit but free? Free is tough to argue with. Free public education and health care have been hard to dislodge. Of course everyone knows they’re not actually free; we pay but we pay as a society, it’s a shared cost because everyone benefits, even if they don’t use them. Same goes for public transit. And this generation of youth can be passionate about free, especially when it comes to content on the Internet. (A case, like free trade, where I personally have reservations.) That, too, would be a perk: increase the base of citizen engagement instead of downsizing it like everything else."

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American streetcars deliberately, illegally dismantled

Who Funds Public Transit | Catch the Trout

Who Funds Public Transit | Catch the Trout: "Beck and Mis point out that, “Since auto ownership is a surrogate of income, it means the lower income resident who cannot afford a car is paying taxes to support a higher income resident who owns a car. Yet, if there is no transit service, then the higher income resident does not support the low income resident through the taxes needed to support a good level of transit service; herein lies the unfairness.”

We, who offer public transit service to the seven municipalities that comprise the north half of Hastings County, along with the municipality of Highlands East in Haliburton County, encourage councilors with vision to continue to champion local public transit. Further, we hope councilors who have not supported public transit in the past will begin to understand the value of supporting their non-driving constituents with the fair and equitable allocation of property tax dollars toward public transit."

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Gridlock in the Hamilton-Toronto area to thicken if left unchecked: Metrolinx president | TheSpec.com

Gridlock in the Hamilton-Toronto area to thicken if left unchecked: Metrolinx president | TheSpec.com: "Getting to work takes longer in the Hamilton-Toronto area than anywhere in Canada, and the problem is going to get a lot worse warned the head of the agency trying to solve the problem."

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Pembina survey: People want #publictransit and are willing to pay for it

Dedicated to transit: Having our say and winning the medal | Pembina Institute:

• 70% of drivers surveyed were more willing to pay a user fee on a highway or road if they could see the results in the form of new rapid transit built in the GTA.

• 69% were more willing to pay a user fee on a highway or road if it the fee was dedicated to building new rapid transit that connected their community with a broader rapid transit system in the GTA.

• 69% would find a road toll more acceptable if the funds were fully dedicated to building a rapid transit line close to this same route.

Opposition to #tarsands pipeline grows and spreads

The power of the round dance | rabble.ca

Photo: David Coombs

The power of the round dance | rabble.ca: "More than 500 people arrived at Dundas Square, some with drums and shakers, some with placards and some with just their hearts connected to their feet."

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Postcarbon Institute video "There's no tomorrow" nearing 1/2 million views

Peak oil video is a must - thestar.com: "It also illustrates how this exploitation will be complete around the middle of this century when the vast majority of carbon-based resources will have been depleted. At that point, the world’s population is expected to be around 9 billion and life on Earth will be an utter nightmare."

Click here for video: "There's no tomorrow"