We're here this afternoon for the session called Lean Green Past, Lean Green Future. My name is Steve Devon. I'm an Associate Professor of Economics at St. Mary's University and Director of the Civil Research Institute. I'm going to be the moderator for the panel this morning. We have with us Steve Tillison and Jeff Crane who are going to give presentations here in a little bit. I'm going to talk for a few minutes and sort of set things up. I'll turn over these fine gentlemen and then make some questions. They're going to talk about 15-20 minutes and then we'll have some questions and you can come to the mic up here and prepare all those questions if you wish. Now part of it is, as I'm sure you've seen in the program, the purpose of the session is to explore San Antonio's past and future in terms of local food, economic empowerment and a low environmental footprint. Talk is covered include infrastructure, lighter quicker, cheaper, entrepreneurship and placemaking. There are several issues here that I think have played a key role in the ability of San Antonio's economy to thrive and to continue to develop. As I mentioned, I'm an economics professor and I focus on urban economies and spent a good number of years studying those and as I've studied and read and researched and sort of watched the evolution of economic development and its practices and how urban economies develop over the past 15 or so years, there's certainly been a shift. Now it's been the case for a long, long time and I would argue 100 years at least, if not even longer than that, but at least the life of the U.S. that entrepreneurship is what drives, we can't really go behind that and see what really drives entrepreneurial activity. And in San Antonio's historically, at least as I've observed, a lot of that entrepreneurial activity, at least on the technology side to some extent, has come out of our military bases. I think I could make the case, for example, that none of us probably wanted to see any of the bases closed down, but when they closed the Kalei Air Force Base and they got converted to the port of San Antonio, we actually saw quite a few companies as folks left. I keep wanting to call the port of San Antonio. The Kalei Air Force Base started on technology companies and became very successful, so there's a lot of spin out of technology there. We see that interaction with the military bases in San Antonio being the home of military medicine and our medical center and the military complex here and the interaction there. So it's played an important role in our entrepreneurial activity. And part of that activity, part of the urban theory and my observations as well, is part of that entrepreneurial activity is driven by density. San Antonio, I think in its past, was far denser. Steve's going to talk about this and may have some hope we support it, may have some other thoughts on this as well. But I think in our past, as a city, we were a lot denser. And like a lot of cities, especially cities in Texas, as the highway infrastructure was built out, we continued to scrawl and scrawl and scrawl to where we are today. But entrepreneurial activity thrives on the mixture of people and ideas and this was serendipitous conversations that everybody has, what we would call localization and urbanization economies in the literature. And as San Antonio through its history is sort of sprawled, and again this is not something that's unique to just San Antonio, I think we probably lost a little bit of that. So this sort of movement back into the downtown core and this effort, we heard a lot of discussion at the lunch panels. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it for the morning sessions. I'm sure there were some discussions there about it. But this movement to more of a live, work, play spaces. And they talked about the pearl, the efforts of Grand Westman making downtown. Southtown is an area that I think has grown up a lot more organically, if you will, in a lot of other areas of downtown. But these types of movements are very important because they do bring the density back to the city. There's even pockets out in the suburbs. Somebody might throw something at me for this and that's fine. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you. You can disagree with me. But things like the shops at Lock and Fair and the rim even down into a city base that aren't in the inner city core, they're out of ways, but they're developing these pockets of live, work, play space. I would prefer that they be in the downtown area. I think the focus on that and the density we can build around that can only help in a lot of different ways, particularly with respect to entrepreneurial activity and health and so on and so forth. But I think that's been an important transition. Some of those speakers at lunch talked about, and I think it was Mayor Taylor talked about the fact that it used to be the case that we would spend a lot of time in economic development trying to attract companies and now it's the case we're trying to attract people. So again, coming back to this whole creating the quality of life and the whole thing that Graham was talking about with the software developer that he was trying to recruit, I've heard stories and I'm sure many of you have along those same lines. So building a community that's able to attract and maintain talent is going to be hugely important to the future of our economic development. And if we're going to continue to develop as a community, as a city, as a metropolitan area, one of the two key things that I think come back to economic learning is not the incentives that we talk about. I spent, I worked at the cities then, 20 over six and a half years in economic development as their chief economist. I spent a good amount of my time working with companies looking to come into San Antonio as well as developing the incentive programs. So I'm not against the incentive programs, I think they're necessary. But there's been a shift away from, we're always going to be trying to attract companies, but I agree 100% with the mayor that we need to have this shift towards creating more live work place-based places that are going to attract the millennials as well as others into a more dense space. So we can get this new view of ideas and interactions and to me, that's going to be vitally important to this. And what that is also going to drive, one is I think it's going to improve education not necessarily in a formal sense, but again, just those accidental conversations if you will to give one very general example, but it drives health. In my mind, if you don't have an educated labor force and that labor force is not of good health, in terms of those economies, it's going to be very difficult to develop. So you talk about incentives and all these other things that really to me in my mind comes back those sort of two key factors. So again, to me the built environment then becomes extremely important and not only its ability to attract and retain labor, but its ability as many, many studies have shown for it to maintain or to help improve and maintain the health of the workforce. We do, I was driving home yesterday and David Clear was on NPR TPR radio and David Martin Davies showed and was there talking about the conference and the livability and all that stuff. And there are actually a couple people called in from Seattle and one of them was here. They've been to San Antonio now, they're generalizing very quickly, but they've talked about the difficulties getting around San Antonio and seeing the things in Seattle. And one of them we mentioned, I'm not coming back. So that's the kind of struggle that we're going to have. I think we've made huge strides in that area. They've mentioned it once again in the Pearl area and I just bring that up because I wanted to talk a little bit about the local food and the importance of local food production and that type of thing. Not only from a health perspective, but I think in my mind not only the development of the Pearl, we're bringing the culinary institute, American Pearl in combination with the culinary schools and the other culinary schools working around the community. I put a huge role in sort of putting San Antonio on the food map, if you will. And I think that's, I moved down here in 1998 just in that time period. I've seen a huge change in the food culture in San Antonio. When I came down here from the bank fleet got out of Dallas and came down here, Dallas at the time had a massive farmers market, just huge. One of the sort of frustrations we had down here was there weren't very few of any farmers markets around here. Now there's a proliferation of them everywhere. We're starting to see some community gardens that I know just been talking about. But this all sort of feeds into that community, that sort of healthy community and sort of ability to attract and retain labor, especially millennial generation and the importance of that. I was at another conference this morning. He gave a talk there and the folks were, it was a bunch of furniture, furniture manufacturers group and some of the retailers and that. And it's been a lot of time after my conversation talking about how this changes and shifts what they're having to make to be able to attract the millennials into the store, get them to buy their products and so on and so forth. It's just different. They think differently. They look for quality of life and that type of thing. But that's the future of our economy and so we need to be able to have a community that can attract and retain them. So I think going forward, I didn't touch a lot on the transportation and the infrastructure, but a lot of this, if we're building this litwork plate community, a lot of that is around the infrastructure. Personally, I think the transportation infrastructure is huge going forward. It's going to be one of the key things that we have to continue to develop. And when I say transportation infrastructure, I mean a broad variety of transportation. I'm not necessarily, I'm not talking about just roads, I'm talking about plightings infrastructure, walking infrastructure and the whole host. And then that, to my mind, leads to more density. I think that's a key piece of San Antonio's ability to grow and develop for the reasons that hopefully I've talked about a little bit. So I'm going to shut it off there with my rambling and hopefully I've set it up a little bit for Steve and Jeff. Let me introduce them and then I'll turn it over. Steve Land Tillson, right here to my left, is an architect and partner at Munoz company. Engages in cultural phenomena with revelatory nature, a place and design of new architecture, historic preservation and site-sensitive planning. He has produced a variety of award-winning civic and institutional projects throughout Texas and is an ardent investigator in the urban process. I work with Steve on his projects and I can surely attest to that. You're going to enjoy what he has to say. He's been an advocate for sustainable and context-sensitive development and community revitalization in South Texas for over three decades. He's currently engaged in the restoration of St. Pedro Creek to reimagine the one-and-a-half mile drainage ditch as a linear urban park. And I was fortunate enough to do the economic impact study that you guys come up with and to see that new plan. It's going to be a huge boost to the downtown area. Jeff Crane, to the left of Steve here, I grew up in Washington State and earned his PhD in history at Washington State University. His scholarship is focused on river development, protest against dams, impacts on salmon and other fisheries and river restoration efforts. He's been working in farming, greening the cities, and climate change. He is the Associate Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of the U.K. and serves on the Board of Greenspaces and Lions. He's published three books, which is quite far from my opinion. One, The Environment and American History. I say it's in the history of American environmentalism, and the environmental history of the Hell War. The environment and American history nature in the formation of the United States. He's currently editing with Charmiller an edited collection titled The Politics of Hope, grassroots organizing, environmental justice, and social change to be published by the University of Colorado across 2016, early 2017. Obviously a very busy gentleman. So with that, Steve, let me turn it over to you. And then we'll go to Jeff and we'll take some questions. Thank you. Well, thank you for that introduction and it's a pleasure to be here today. I spoke at last year's conference and it was the first time that I had to begin to really think about the environment, the relationship of the environment to health. Really my view is it's a fairly focused view on some historic aspects of how we've built in the past and how the phenomenon of health is really been affected or influenced by that. And looking from that, taking some ideas and kind of patterns that existed in the past and looking at how that might apply in the future. And looking at the San Antonio way that I think some people forget to look at. So anybody find it really easy to drive around and get around San Antonio and know where you are? Is it kind of really easy or is it kind of difficult? Like the streets are crooked and you don't know where you are and everything like that. What you're looking at is really a map of San Antonio I did some years ago and it was really to identify the provenance of all the street geometries in the city. The area kind of around the river is really a curvy in downtown and you kind of twist around and there's no numbers and there's no letters, it's just all names. But once you get outside of that, there's a fairly regular grid that was established and you see that in that kind of larger colors and then when you get into the suburban parts it starts to get all wiggly again and you get lost. But the lesson from this really was my interest in understanding how the city grew because nobody built streets kind of without thinking about them. The old story about San Antonio's roads were laid out by cows and drunk herders and things like that really doesn't apply. It was actually very deliberate and very well engineered. And if we understood that then we might get around a little bit easier. It was laid out according to a plan. There's a planning document for all the towns of New Spain that really goes back to the 1500s and as planning precepts we're really to deal with regulations for water for arable land. Sevens had to have dependable food and water supplies. Building shelter and town planning and governance. There's a lot of governance but there's a considerable amount of town planning and those helped those were actually the planning guidelines for that time period. The form, the image that you see here again is San Antonio but really structured at the time of about 1800 or so, the early 19th century. And what let me see if I can move an arrow here. No. What you see in the dark green really are the cultivated fields lining either side of the San Antonio River basin from Brackenich Park all the way down to Aspira. And there were about seven to eight Asakia systems that really supported these fields, these porcelains. And the Asakia systems, the irrigation water was essential because this is a place of really marginal rainfall. So if you're going to have any kind of dependable local food supply you have to have a relatively dependable supply of water. And the Spanish engineers and the priests were very well trained in the construction of Asakias and very good inventory tools produced over about 35 miles of ditches that are precisely a 0.3% gradient. They're just remarkable. So a lot of the kind of the road system all those Asakias followed the porcelain and essentially developed a pattern of land tenure that was agriculturally based that really centers along the creek along the creeks from along the river. What you see in the light green is actually the Achilles that was the eight lead grant which was about 67 square miles. And that was essentially the public lands and those could not be developed, they were health or public development and that had to be regulated through the authority and in this case the authority was in Mexico City. So development was really constrained to some degree by a lot of bureaucracy and red tape on that so people had to be resourceful with unlimited means. Now if you focus a little bit closer this is actually the downtown area I'd like to go back to this one. You see the little brown area where it seems like there's a spider web and that's the center of that's the actual settlement town itself. And really what this is is a cultural landscape it's not just a natural brown but it's how people have amended it and changed it. And when you look at the focus area in the downtown area you'll see the San Antonio River and inside the familiar bend of the river that is downtown you'll see the Alamo is to be about the right center that really formed the nucleus Mission San Antonio at the time. The civil settlement was on the other side of the river between San Pedro Creek and San Antonio River and you'll see the main military plaza there with the Presidio was first established. And really the town essentially started as that core out to the north, east, south and west in different small initial suburbs that from about 1730 to 1800. And this really represents really the kind of the peak of the Spanish colonial era all of the green striped areas that you see to the north all around the city those were the Orsillones, those were the fields that were cultivated there were herds, there were pastures there were grow crops, there were gardens there were basically all the food stuff that could be grown to support the community and you see they kind of have an outline you'll see a little kind of a lighter blue line and that was the Ezequia system it's very skillfully engineered and very well regulated What you might understand about the Ezequia is that they were really a totally a community effort and living in that area of one square mile there was about 2,500 people about 1810 so if you look at the density you have about 2,500 people in one square mile. I'll mention the Ezequia so I just wanted to show you an image they're not brand Roman aqueducts by any means although they're worse and really nice structures of course the Aspire Aqueduct is one of those but they were not just for delivering irrigation water they were a domestic water supply they also supplied water for industrial uses and they were totally essential the word of safety comes from the Arabic word saikiaw which is waterway and water was precious in North Africa, the southern Spain and it was viewed as very precious here I want to zoom in even a little bit closer this would be about that same time and at that point San Antonio was the Vietta San Fernando it had the prosidio that you see in front of the square on the left-hand side closer to the San Pedro Creek the church and the main plaza the Plaza de las Islas for the Canary Islanders themselves and within that area there were townhouses that had gardens and support areas there were workshops there were service yards and you had people living in those houses that were for a domestic living and then they were running their businesses out of them but you also had people living there that had land on the outskirts of town so a lot of the prosidios that you see were not occupied they were simply farmed and utilized by people living in town people actually living on the outskirts of town itself so the very fine brain of people living walking to their work close by having lots of open space although it was in production and cultivation most of the time is fairly well represented in this image and when you think about kind of a model if you will this again reminds you this is a density of about 500 living in a place that is essentially in the middle of a series of gardens I would like to go back one more to this slide just to tell a story to about a generation after the founding of San Antonio 1731 they built up the Asseki assistance for about 20 years and they began to suffer from erosion and it was really a crisis for them because they could not hold water in the Asseki they could not get clean water it was contaminated from runoff storm water and they realized that all the wood the trees that they had been cutting down for the wood to fuel the fires to build the houses to build the fences to do everything they needed they had completely denuded the landscape around them the trees could not hold the soil anymore every time it rained they could not tear into the Asseki so the first piece of environmental legislation actually in San Antonio was in the 1750s and it was declared that they had to repair all the Asseki that they had to plant trees along all the creeks and rivers and stabilize the banks and you could not cut wood down for a full lean around the city that's two and a half miles so that was a huge sacrifice for that community of about a thousand people that said at that point that you had to go further, you had to spend more energy work harder and get risk getting scout just to cut wood because you had to protect the water and I think that's a really interesting indication of what a community has to do to commit themselves to maintaining their environment by the 1850s of course the entire cultural context had changed there was no longer a dominant Hispanic culture there was really a dominant Anglo culture the Hedos of the large the public lands were actually sold off and the city limits were defined as a six square mile area or six miles by six miles actually a 36 mile square area that was centered at the dome of the San Fernando Cathedral and if you look at that one square mile by 1910 the population was about a hundred thousand so the density was about 2750 square miles by 1910 there was a pipe water system there was a sanitary sewer there was a streetcar system there was electric lighting and power so it was a relatively sophisticated infrastructure it was plugged in with a national rail grid it had regional, commercial passenger rail and so it was a fairly thriving city in this 36 square miles not too much more dense than how it was almost a hundred years before by 1940 the population had more than doubled 254,000 people in the same 36 square miles density of 7,000 more than 7,000 and how that was achieved was in little big houses around the outskirts and in higher rise walk-up three, four storey apartment buildings and this is the elevation of the skyline of San Antonio from 1910 to 1940 this is where you got all of early the pre-World War II skyscrapers that you see today so density went up and it did not, the city did not grow out of it so they grew within it and so just to summarize the growth of the city really looking at from the existing density figures 2,500 square miles in the 1800 century later, 2,775 people per square mile in 1940 this pre-World War II 7,000 square miles and now our density is about 3,000 square miles so of our 1.4 million population an area of 467 miles we really have dropped back on density and for two reasons, of course the expansion of the city limits from 36 square miles to 467 that we have today but also the D densification of San Antonio's already developed urban areas and that was largely a result of model cities and renewal and things like that that was designed or implemented as some slump there is but one of the fatal flaws of the economics of our city has been rebuilding areas already settled at lower densities and when you think about what density really means as we have a population now our density is about 3,000 we compare that to Dallas and Houston they have a higher density more people same amount of infrastructure so it's more affordable to the population for public infrastructure


It's now time for Member's Statements. Member for Toronto Danforth. Thank you, Speaker. With the flooding here in Muskoka and Ottawa, across eastern Canada, and the devastating cyclones in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, it's clear that climate change is not going to let out. Our society faces grave risks, and people are already losing their property, and in many cases, losing their lives. Conservative governments attack on any substantial climate action, the wasting of $30 million to fight the federal climate plan in court. Their ill-conceived plan to force gas stickers on gas pumps shows that in the end, this government has no concern for this issue. There is climate action we can take. I'm working with my colleagues on measures to stop climate change, including bringing in a private member's bill to prevent fracking in Ontario, given the increasing natural gas leaks that are heating up our world. I was pleased to support the climate strikers when they had their demonstration here last week, as I have been since last fall.  I urge everyone, if you can do nothing else, at least come and stand with the students as they fight for our future. Thank you. Member Statements to Member for Kitchener, South Hesbler. Thank you, Speaker. Supporting veterans and members of the military has long been a passion of mine and my eldest daughter, Sarah. In grade three, she started speaking to her class about the importance of military service and eventually helped to organize her school's Remembrance Day services, including arranging fundraisers for veterans to come and speak to her peers. We are often looking for new ways to reach out and support, as Sarah calls them, our nation's heroes. A few weeks ago in my writing of Kitchener, South Hesbler, the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association, held their sixth annual conference at Conestoga College. It included a special focus on how PSWs can best support military veterans who have operational stress injuries. I had the honour of attending the keynote address by Tim Laidler and Alex Hwang from the University of British Columbia. Tim, who is a retired corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces, worked with UBC to create the national organization, the Veterans Transition Network. He came to Kitchener from B.C. to talk to the PSWs about how they are uniquely positioned to support military veterans. He explained to the PSWs the military culture our soldiers become accustomed to and just how vital it is to help them break their silence and get at their stories by breaking through their feelings of sometimes shame and isolation. Not only did his presentation bring more awareness and understanding to myself, but many of the PSWs in attendance said they are now feeling more confident in supporting veterans and they're looking forward to learning more from the team at UBC in the future. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Brampton Centre. Thank you, Speaker. Last week I had the absolute pleasure of attending the premiere screening of a film, actually a short series on the CBC Gem, entitled The 410, which actually was shot, written and directed in Brampton. It was a great delight to be able to see shots of our community, but also stories of our community being shared around trucking and trucking industry. So it was a great experience. But, Mr. Speaker, I really want to highlight how much art and culture we have in the city of Brampton and, in particular, my riding of Brampton Centre. Actually, Brampton is home to some very notable artists and sort of creators, like Ruby Kaur, who's actually a New York best-selling author. We also have Alicia Cara, who hails from Brampton, and a Grammy award-winning singer. We also have Michael Cera, you know, so many others, including director X, Alan Thicke, all hailing from Brampton, who all believe that arts and culture do contribute to our economy. Actually, Mr. Speaker, the creative economy contributes $54.6 billion to our provincial GDP. That's quite a staggering number. And so it's astonishing to me that this government would choose to cut funding to arts programs and support that is so needed to help develop those creative economies. We learned through the budget that this government is cutting actually $5 million from the base funding of the Ontario Arts Council. They're also cutting the funding to the Ontario Music Fund from $15 million to $7 million. So, Mr. Speaker, I wonder where the next generation of artists are going to get the support they need to help contribute to the economic growth that we know that the creative industries do here in our province. Thank you very much. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for Berry Innisfree. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last month, I participated in a two-hour Zumba Thon at the Innisfel YMCA in support of their fifth, their fifth annual Move to Give. Move to Give is a fundraiser run by the YMCA, Simcoma Skoka, to raise money through a wide variety of physical activities and for a wide variety of physical activities. Through these different events, the YMCA had a goal to raise $100,000 in support of the Y's efforts to build healthy communities. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to announce that not only did they hit their goal, but they doubled it through the eight-location participation in this fundraiser. The YMCA raised a grand total. Wait for it, Mr. Speaker. $201,000. I would like to congratulate all those involved with organizing and, of course, everyone who came out to Move and to Give. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for St. Catharines. Mr. Speaker, thank you. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that today, May 8th, is the 74th anniversary of the Battle of Atlantic. The Battle of Atlantic was the longest military engagement of the Second World War, lasting almost five years. The Canadian Merchant Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force played a vital role in the Allied efforts. Today we recognize the more than 4,600 courageous Canadians that lost their lives at sea during those years. On Sunday, May 5th, I had the privilege of attending a beautiful memorial ceremony held at the Naval Hall in Niagara on the lake. I was honored to recite the official naval poem, remembering Canada's fallen heroes who sacrificed themselves for our freedom, fair winds and calm seas. Lastly, I would like to wish all the mothers of the great province an early Happy Mother's Day. The work, dedication, unconditional love and sacrifices we exhibit as mothers is often gone unrecognized. Mother's Day is a time to pay respect and say thank you to the woman who do it all. So special thank you to my mother. I'd love you and I love and appreciate all that you do and have done for me and continue to do. Happy Special First Mother's Day to my daughter, Charlotte, my daughter-in-law, Sarah, a very Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in Ontario. Celebrate this weekend. You most definitely deserve it. Happy Mother's Day. Member Statements, the Member for Don Valley West. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to seek unanimous consent to make a statement in the place of my colleague from Ottawa South. Valley West is seeking the anemones consent of the House to make a statement in place of the member for Ottawa South. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Last night in my community of Don Valley West I had the privilege of acknowledging over 30 community volunteers at my annual volunteer appreciation event. These fine people give their time and their love to the organizations and the people in their neighbourhoods. Just a few examples. Talha Malik has worked with youth in Flemingdon Park coaching cricket, mentoring young leaders. Susan Lipchuk has been a master gardener at the Toronto Botanical Gardens in the area. Yukiko Ichihara, Esther Abassai and Isabel Murambua have helped hundreds of tenants to understand their rights and take action against unresponsive landlords. In every community across this province there are unsung heroes who deserve our thanks. They work quietly and steadily every single day. Some of them are spending hours every week looking after an aging or ill family member. Some of them are delivering meals and support to newcomers digging community gardens raising money to help people in need through churches, mosques, synagogues and temples. Volunteering in hospitals are helping out with the neighbour's kids after school. Thank you to each one of you. The 30 plus award recipients in Don Valley West are part of a very large army of volunteers who make our community stronger. You are the heart of our society. Thank you to all volunteers for your work and compassion. You are at the heart of our society. Thank you very much. Member Stevens, Member for Oakville North, Hurlington. Speaker, our government knows that as we open Ontario up for business, building affordable housing, growing our economy and creating jobs we must do so in a sustainable way. As a society we need to think globally while acting locally. People in my riding deserve to control how we regulate and manage our unique environmental needs. That is why last week I was pleased to join with residents in my community of Oakville North Burlington and Oakville Green to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Week. My volunteers and I started an Arbor View park in Oakville and finished in Tansley Woods Park in Burlington for a community trash pickup. Later in the week we all planted trees native to the Halton region enhancing its biodiversity while helping to improve water quality in the regional watershed. We need more grassroots events such as this which can help climate change. We need to help Ontario businesses do better for our environment. Our government is investing $400 million into an emissions reduction fund to encourage private investments in clean technologies to help our province achieve an additional 8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. What we do not need is a federally imposed carbon tax that kills jobs increases costs on goods and services and takes more money out of the hands of hard working Ontarians. Thank you. Thank you. Member statements to Member for Davenport. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Today in my riding of Davenport General Mercer Junior Public School are able to learn on a full stomach thanks to the student nutrition program. At Stella Maris Catholic School kids are protected from communicable diseases thanks to the school immunization program and over at the Davenport Perth Community Health Centre people are benefitting from diabetes prevention programs. This morning people felt confident dropping off their kids at childcare centres in my community because those centres passed the city's inspection program. Every day millions of people are kept safe and healthy thanks to public health programs and the workers, agencies and volunteers who deliver them but these programs and hundreds of others in Davenport are at risk. In the wake of this government's massive cuts to Toronto Public Health $1 billion will be cut over the next 10 years compromising everything from food inspection to newborn screening, vaccine distribution and sexual health clinics. It is said that for every dollar public health our overall healthcare system saves $16 but this is about more than dollars and cents. Lives in my community and in communities across Ontario are quite literally at risk. I'm calling on all members of this house to stand up for their constituents and join Ontario's mayors 12 boards of health nurses, pediatricians, school boards and everyday citizens who are calling on the government to reverse these cuts. Thank you. Thank you. The member for Chatham Kent Leamington. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I was honored this past Saturday to address the Blenheim Youth Centre a safe place for area students to hang out with friends and engage in many fun-filled activities. This past weekend they celebrated their 13th year and it was nice to see the group's founder Jay Denour as well as their executive director Ms. Emily Robert and volunteers. They were all gathered to accept new grants from the Ontario Trillium Foundation totaling $244,100. And these grants will do wonders in expanding the great work that the Centre does. This work includes youth in our community who face barriers to become more positively engaged in the community by getting youth more engaged by facilitating volunteering, youth-led programming and representing the youth population within the community. A key initiative of the Blenheim Youth Centre is the Youth Action Team consisting of four local high school youth and six elementary students. These youth will be the core team of leaders influencing the remaining youth who utilize the Blenheim Youth Centre's facilities and volunteering opportunities by providing programming for youth these participants gain a sense of respect and belonging. They also learn to engage in positive social behaviors, spend more time volunteering in areas of interest to them and become more aware of local resources and opportunities. Speaker, I cannot think of a more worthy recipient of these two Trillium grants and I wish the Blenheim Youth Centre continued success and on a side note I'd like to wish my wife of 42 years Diane happy anniversary. Member statements Member for Ottawa West Nippian Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker, yesterday the world lost a true champion Jean Vanier, the beloved founder of L'Arche, passed away at the age of 90. He leaves behind an enormous legacy. Vanier's story is known to many. In 1964 he invited two individuals with intellectual disabilities into his home. From there was born an idea that grew into a movement. Vanier recognized that sharing life with individuals with developmental disabilities was not a burden but instead something that could have a profoundly positive impact on anyone. You can learn much from sharing a life and a space with a person with a developmental disability. I often say that hearing my brother laugh or seeing him smile is one of the most joyful experiences that one can have because it's born of a truly pure innocence and happiness. Jean Vanier recognized this as well and he sought to spread the word. Today there are close to 150 L'Arche communities around the world in 35 countries and 5 continents. In these communities individuals with developmental disabilities and others come together for a shared experience to learn from one another. While we mourn his loss today, I remain inspired by the legacy that Mr. Vanier left behind and I encourage everyone to take the time to get to know an individual with a developmental disability. I know that they will find their lives immeasurably enriched by the experience. Thank you Mr. Speaker. That concludes our member statements for this afternoon. Reports by committees.


I don't want folks to become complacent, but I will say this I think that as it stands right now Senator Nina Turner is in a very good position to win the race that she's running in Ohio's 11th congressional district and you can really gauge how well she's doing based on the level level of desperation that we're seeing from her opponents and it's it's almost Embarrassing like you feel sad for her opponents one in particular who's practically Begging and pleading with super PACs to help fund her campaign Against Nina Turner and the types of super PACs that she's really targeting here and asking for the support of They come from the Israel lobby and it's really just this is this is craven honestly So for more on this we got a Ryan Grim of the intercept who explains Chantel Brown's campaign for Congress is blurring one of the least subtle messages sent to a super PAC Since the outside money groups were legalized by the Supreme Court in its citizens United the FEC decision Brown's campaign has listed on its website a set of negative talking points about her opponent Nina Turner All enclosed in a bright red box directly under the red box is a quote from Democratic Consultant Mark Melman the leader of a major pro-Israel super PAC that has consistently spent large sums of money Against senators Bernie Sanders and his congressional allies red box is a campaign industry term Referring to the spot on the website that candidates used to communicate with outside groups like super PACs The communication on Brown's website is a textbook case of red box signaling used to communicate with outside groups Within the letter of the law to understand how the signaling works It's useful to review the conventions of post-citizens United campaign practices per the citizens ruling Campaigns cannot coordinate with outside groups and doing so is a clear violation of one of the few bright line rules in campaign finance The challenge then for a campaign is figuring out how to guide a super PAC or outside supporters messaging Without running a fowl of the laws around coordination for that campaigns have developed what is called the red box The candidate posts opposition research or videos on their website about their opponent Which anyone in the public is then free to use for any purpose the oppo also generally includes messages about both candidates That have tested well in polls allowing the super PAC to align its communications with the campaigns What makes Brown's approach unique is both how blatant it is and how beseechingly it directs itself to a particular head of a Particular super PAC first the oppo research Brown's campaign posted is literally inside an actual red box Removing any confusion as to the purpose of the exercise if any confusion still existed the link PDF is called SB4C red box now to actually see what Ryan Grimm is talking about here in this article Let's go to shantel Brown's website now as you can see there is this giant red box and Within said red box are all of the talking points that she is giving to super PACs They're negative talking points Against Nina Turner and talking points for herself Ideally, I think she wants these talking points to be included in an ad that the super PAC runs on her behalf Now additionally if you scroll up, there's some quotes here that really stand out because these are the only quotes here Quote there's no question that Brown is going to be a strong advocate for the US-Israel relationship This is by DMFI PAC president Mark Melvin She wants to learn she is inquisitive and she has a track record of being collaborative Mike Siegel of the Jewish agency We need leaders in Congress who value the US-Israel relationship and will work to strengthen security economic scientific and cultural Relationships between our two nations and that candidate in the 11th district race is shantel Brown by Jeff Mendelsohn of pro-Israel America in other words Please please please please please please Israel lobby fund my campaign more. I really need your help. I have your back Please have mine. This is what all of the leaders in the Israeli lobbying Industry are saying about me. So please come to my rescue now if you're wondering why would a candidate in The 11th congressional district of Ohio Care so much about this one issue in particular care so much about Israel I mean, there's a bunch of industries that could Theoretically bankroll her campaign. I mean the health care industry the pharmaceutical industry But why in particular is she focusing on the Israel lobby? Well, there's a very specific reason for that Ryan Grimm continues the hybrid super PAC run by Melvin Democratic majority for Israel spent heavily against Sanders during the presidential primary dropping 1.4 million in its effort to slow him in Iowa and beyond the super PAC also spent more than 1.5 million attacking Jamal Bowman and Supporting then incumbent New York representative Elliot Engel despite their efforts Bowman won it also threw in $179,000 against Alex Morris who challenged house ways and means chair which you kneel in a Western Massachusetts primary DMFI was also bankrolled in 2020 by a super PAC that tried to unseat Representative Ilhan Omar in her Minnesota Democratic primary Americans for tomorrow's future which spent more than three million taking on Omar and also worked against Bowman sent $500,000 to DMFI there is overlap among donors as well a top donor to AFTF who contributed 300,000 in 2020 also gave 1.245 million to DMFI so in other words, she knows that these groups usually fun candidates who are running against progressives and so she's hoping that they will listen to her and Realize the situation in that Nina Turner is doing really well and help give her a little bit of a bump It's honestly embarrassing.   It's grotesque and you know, I wonder if She is going to get any questions within her district About her begging for support from the Israel lobby as Israel is trying to expel Palestinians out of their homes in the East Jerusalem City of Sheik Jarrah, I wonder if there's gonna be any questions for her It seems like she's more concerned about what's happening in Israel than what's happening in her district and I mean look This is what desperation looks like and I think that we all know what we have to do now Since she is putting out the signal to super PACs to help bankroll her campaign and smear Nina Turner We have to help Nina Turner. So go to Nina Turner calm and donate to Nina Turner. You can also buy merch I purchased the sweater. It's great all of the donations that we're giving to Nina Turner right now I consider it a sort of investment because Nina Turner She's not going to fight for any lobby. She's going to actually represent the people not just in her district but in America broadly speaking and Chantel Brown she's trying to find reasons To attack Nina Turner, but Nina Turner is running a very substantive campaign So the best you can come up with is that Nina Turner isn't adequately loyal to the Democratic Party Okay, so are we running on loyalty or are we running on actual policies? I think it's clear we're Nina Turner stand She supports policies that the people in the 11th Congressional District of Ohio need and want So we have to have Nina Turner's back because I guarantee that the super PACs Are going to see the bat signal that Chantel Brown is putting out and they're gonna listen They're going to support her as they did support other corporate Democrats against progressives So we have to make sure that whenever we see this happen We ramp up the effort not just when it comes to donations But if you can get on the ground and do some grassroots campaigning activism phone banking door Door knocking if you can for Nina Turner because that is what is needed currently To make sure that Nina Turner is electorally successful It's not a foregone conclusion that she's going to win She's doing very well But as she does better as her polling numbers increase as she gains more support That's when it's going to get more difficult for us And when we really have to show our support for Nina Turner Because that's when the attacks and the money is going to roll in to try to stop her momentum So we'll try to stop that as much as we can and support Nina Turner


Item number, SCP-2008, Object Class, Keter, Special Containment Procedures. Foundation personnel stationed or living in the state of Tennessee are prohibited from engaging in discussion regarding the wives of former U.S. presidents. CDC and state gun death data from Tennessee is to be indexed in Foundation databases. This data is to be analyzed on a weekly basis in order to detect additional SCP-2008 events. SCP-2008 is a non-caporial entity that is imperceptible to surveillance equipment. As of 2017, it has caused the death of 47 individuals in the state of Tennessee. Victims of SCP-2008 universally expire from severe ballistic trauma. Although these injuries exhibit patterns associated with gunshot wounds, no bullets have been recovered. Approximately 80% of these victims worked in or adjacent to a field dealing with U.S. history. SCP-2008 victims are often reported as suicides due to being found with a firearm either in their hands or nearby. However, in approximately 75% of these cases, the firearm has not been discharged. In cases where it was, forensic analysis has consistently failed to match the gun to the victim's wounds. While the majority of SCP-2008 victims hold positions in various academic settings, a small percentage possesses no official qualifications in that field. And it is possible that a larger number of individuals or victims of this effect than are currently documented, as various socio-economic factors likely preclude deeper investigation by law enforcement. A complete canvassing of medical and police records is currently being connected to determine more exact numbers. Addendum 2008-1 The following forum posts were made by His Lover 101 on a website focused on historical re-enactment. Foundation agents traced the post back to Morton Richards of Teleco Plains, Tennessee. Mr.  Martha Washington was never first lady of the U.S. because there was no such thing when George Washington was president. Martha Jefferson was Thomas Jefferson's daughter, not his wife. And Rachel Jackson died before Jackson ever took office. 5-16-2016 11-41 AM Right, but Rachel Jackson didn't die from a broken heart, that's just sensationalism. She was old and overweight and she died from a heart attack. Van Buren's wife died of tuberculosis and he never remarried. And I couldn't find information on what happened to Jefferson's wife, but she died well before he was in office. 5-16-2016 12-18 PM Guys, holy shit, a ghost just shot at me. 5-16-2016 12-25 PM I don't know, I shot back and I think I hit it. A casing from Mr. Richard's browning high-power pistol was found at the scene, however no bullets were recovered. 5-16-2016 12-26 PM My name is Dr. Lauren Stosser and I'm probably gonna die today. I could say almost anything here that I wanted to. Almost no one will hear it anyway.  Just be glad I didn't put my 6-8-2-1-7-3 flashback in here. I hated my mother. She spent the entirety of her life trying to run mine. I joined the foundation just to get away from her nagging. She always used to tell me that if I didn't lose weight I'd end up alone and miserable.  She died a few years ago in a quiet hospital room because she couldn't shame cancer into submission. When the doctor said I had diabetes last month I could hear her voice in my ear saying I told you so. At the time I thought it was the worst thing to happen to me. About a week ago the test results came back. Pancreatic cancer. Turns out it was more her fault than mine. I win, I guess. There's something about a life expectancy measured in weeks that really puts the whole of your life into perspective. I don't regret anything if you're wondering. This isn't some grand confession. I just want something to last after I'm gone. We've had a few suicides at the site over the years. Every site has a couple. It's part of the problem with avail of secrecy and people dealing with world ending horrors. But I had a hunch while I was in the doctor's office that maybe there was more to it than that. I suggest unless you're specifically cleared for this you stop listening now. Still here? Cool. If you know what triggers the anomaly, then chances of being subject to the effect increases by several orders of magnitude. I'm not the first person to figure this out, but I'm gonna be the first to document it before it gets here. My cause of death should be proof enough.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare for a duel.


Birds of Prey, the latest movie by DC to come out within the DC cinematic universe. I do not believe it to be the saving grace of DC. I think it's good, but not that good. It's okay. The movie's okay. I freaking love female lead action movies. If it's well written, if the script is good, I'll enjoy the shit out of any movie.   Harley is one of my favorite characters. I love her, especially when she goes anti-hero, when she goes on her own, separated from the Joker. I think those are some of her best stories, but when you don't do anything good with that, the movie touted itself as an ensemble film. But it's barely an ensemble. The entire film is basically Harley telling the audience a story. So there are multiple moments where it stops and either backs up so we can get how the hell we got to X situation, or there's straight up a moment where the entire film grinds to a halt just to tell us the backstory of Huntress. No.  Don't grind a movie to a complete stop just to give us a backstory for a character barely in the movie for more than 20 to 30 minutes. This movie isn't really an ensemble movie, despite how it's touted. So you have Harley, as the main character, who most of the time she is with Cassandra Keane. And you have the stories of, I cannot remember, police detective lady? Sorry, if I remember your name I'll throw it into the review. And Black Canary. You have these two characters who are actually going through, and they're kind of part of it. And then you just have Huntress who's there on the side. The Birds of Prey, the thing the film is named after. Don't even form up to the last like 20 to 30 minutes for a fight scene, and then that's it. Harley is no longer a part of it after that. So forgive me, I'm not 100% sure about the Birds of Prey in the comics, but I'm pretty sure Harley Quinn is a major freaking part of that. I could be very wrong. I think every actor in this movie is great.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Huntress, she was a lot of fun when she was actually on screen and led to do shit, but other than that, she's barely on screen. I can't talk about Huntress that much. She's barely there. The little girl that plays Cassandra Keane.  Eon McGregor plays the character that he is well, but I have a problem with the Black Mask in this movie. He is a raging misogynist. Now, it is not a bad thing to make the antagonist a misogynist, but when you basically ruin the rest of his character to make him this, no.   He was basically made unredeemable to me, and like I just hated his character from there.  She even starts to say that it's this guy who is really funny.  The fuck! You don't need to make him a misogynist to make us not like the character.  He is already bad enough as he is.  That's the only reason we need to not like this guy. He doesn't need to be a misogynist, and it just, it got in the way of the rest of his character, and it felt like that overshadowed it in the end. And maybe I'm weird, but I prefer well-rounded characters, even if they are the villain.  He started off as a lot of fun. He was greatly entertained to watch. He was fun, and when really good villains become stereotypes, I dislike it because I love entertaining villains. What can I say? I like good writing. Overall, I thought this movie was a lot of fun, but it would probably be more fun if you were on substances, either drunk or high. You know, maybe. I can't say that this is a bad movie, but it's not good either. The movie's just okay.  As entertaining as certain parts are, the overall movie, it didn't feel like the loving care was put into it, at least I didn't feel that. So I thought the movie was just okay.  But for me, I don't think that I would go back and watch this over other DC properties. All this leads this movie to, for me, rolling a 12. Not the best thing I've ever seen, and it's not the worst either, and overall just an okay film. But I don't know.  I'm not going to stop you or try and suede you in any way, aside the fact that I just made a review bashing multiple elements of this film over and over and over, yeah. But that's what I thought of the movie. Tell me what you guys thought in the comments down below, and if you'd like to follow me on Twitter or Instagram, links to those are going to be in the description. Subscribe if you feel so inclined to do so, and hope you have a great day, guys, and as always, peace out.