Posts with the Integrity Commissioner tag

Barris Beat

Much sole-sourcing. No soul-searching.

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ServiceOntario outlet. CityNews.

The last time I went there, I learned something. Remember those Ontario Health cards with the red and white stripes and no head shot? Several years ago, I received notice that I needed to have mine updated with new coding and a photograph. I honestly had visions of lineups, questionnaires, and a long wait to have a new photo taken and an even longer wait for the new card to arrive.

“Nope,” the ServiceOntario representative said. “I already have your photo from your driver’s licence in the file. We can use that for your new health card.”

I was in and out of the service outlet in minutes. My updated card arrived just days later. And I’d discovered that the digital system storing my photo ID actually does work. (more…)

Barris Beat

Where the Ford government allegiances lie

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Oath-taking – a practice for those wishing to tell the truth.

When I cross the border into the United States, it happens. When we go through security checks at international airports, it happens. When I was approached by the Ontario Court for jury duty, it happened. At those moments and others, we are asked:

“Do you swear that this is the truth?”

It’s called an oath. And when we cross an international border, Customs and Immigration officers need to know we’re being honest. Going through Pearson Airport security and onto public commercial airlines, security needs to know we’re abiding by the law. And if we’re meeting our civic duty in the Ontario court system, the judge needs to hear us say, “Yes, that’s the truth.”

So why don’t any of those protocols of oath-taking, of abiding by the rules, apply to Ford government officials around Conservative policies regarding protection of Greenbelt lands? (more…)

Barris Beat

Another Ford Greenbelt review?

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Richard Nixon, found out, covering up the truth, nearly impeached, claiming, “I am not a crook!” Poliitico.

I dodged most of the last few months of my university classes to see it. I sensed – as a journalist-in-training in the early 1970s – that reality was more important than theory. So, we all crowded into a student lounge at Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson) to watch the daily TV Senate Committee hearings into connections between the Watergate break-in and then president Richard Nixon.

I specifically remember Committee Chair Sen. Sam Ervin sparring with Nixon’s then White House adviser John Ehrlichman.

“The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere,” Ervin said later. “What he says is executive privilege, is nothing but executive poppycock.” (more…)

Barris Beat

When a ship of state is sinking…

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Not living up to responsibility costs lives. HistoryExtra.

In 1979, I met and interviewed a seaman named Steve Prentice; he was in his 80s then. Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the ship on which he served, RMS Titanic, struck an iceberg 600 kilometres off Newfoundland. As a junior purser, his job was to serve the needs of passengers and crew.

That night, he happened to be close to the bridge of the Titanic, just as the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews told Bruce Ismay, the chairman of White Star, and Titanic’s senior officer Edward Smith what he’d seen below decks.

“What’s her position?” Ismay asked Andrews.

“The position, sir, is that she’s going to sink,” Andrews said. “The water’s coming straight up. The bulkheads won’t help her in any way at all.”

Young Steve Prentice then spent the next 90 minutes convincing as many passengers as possible to get to the lifeboats. It was his job. (more…)