Hi, this is just a short video where I wanted to talk about diversification. Now, diversification is something I've mentioned in the past in that I suggest you have more than one client. For example, if you have a client, you might have a client that you think is a very good client and that Paisiewell gives you stuff that you like working on, stuff you're comfortable with, and you can earn a living from it. And that's great. The problem with having just one client is that you basically become their employee. Paisiewell, they're going to pretty much realize that they're your only client, and so they might start making demands that are more and more demanding. They want you to work later, maybe on weekends, et cetera, et cetera. But they kind of know they can get away with it a bit more since they're your only client. Also, if they go out of business, or if they don't need your language combination anymore, if they find another translator they can work with besides you or any other number of reasons, they might not use you anymore, in which case you've lost 100% of your income. So while it can be comfortable, it can also be very dangerous to have just one client. And since you're a freelancer, you have the freedom to get more than one client. So my advice has always been that you should get more than one client. If you have two clients, then that's 50% of your income coming from each client.  If you have three clients, that's an average of 33% of your income, and that already starts becoming manageable. There, even if you lose a client, you're still making 66%, and you can use that time to find another client in the meantime, so you can bring things back up. But today I wanted to take diversification a step further. I obviously think you should diversify, but you don't only have to diversify in terms of number of clients. Why not diversify in terms of the type of clients? Maybe your clients are in the financial industry, but if you can do financial translations, chances are maybe you can do general business translations, and you can translate websites for financial firms. Maybe you can do accounting translations. Maybe you can even do certain types of legal translations. It might be worth looking at different sectors. Once you're working in any industry for a while, you notice that there are ups and downs. When certain sectors have less demand for a translation because they're going down, another sector might be going up, so it can always help out to even this out. But you can take this even a step further, and you can diversify in terms of not only doing translations. Maybe you can do editing. Most translators can also do editing. Most translators, by the way, also many times want to avoid editing because it pays less, because if you're an editor, you get paid less per word than as a translator. However, this might be an opportunity for you to pick up some slack where other people don't. And since it's something extra, if you're already earning a living from translation and you want to diversify a bit, then you can afford to be a bit more picky. Maybe you can charge a bit more, or maybe you can find a special deal where you have a set minimum price or a set price for one-page certificates or diplomas or something like that. Or maybe it can be something that you do with a bit more flexibility, you know, in your spare time or on weekends, because it's something that doesn't have a very strict deadline. But as long as you can do it at some point, it can always bring you in something extra from a different source. And if this can create a steady stream of income, then it's always good to have it. You can also diversify even a step further and, say, get into something like transcription. People who translate very often are quite decent at transcription. But there again, they tend to avoid it because they think, oh, I have to listen to the audio, how many times do I have to keep listening to it because I don't type quickly enough. But once again, if this is an extra form of income, you can kind of be a bit more picky and see if there's something that suits you. I worked on a transcription job. It didn't even involve translation. It was just purely transcription. So yeah, the pay wasn't all that good, but it was something I could do in my spare time. And it was interviews with sword fishermen from Boston, Maine, from Halifax, you know, basically all along the coast. I found it fascinating. It was a world I knew nothing about. And there was all these fishermen who got to talk about their lives. I also did another job that I know I've mentioned before, where I was translating letters. These were letters from a family that immigrated from Italy into the US and the letter span from the 1890s until the 1970s. All these things that happened throughout the world, there were some letters from a prisoner of war camp during World War II, and it was extremely interesting. But once again, these were jobs that I could do in my spare time. There was no set deadline. It was for a family that had saved these letters and they just wanted them translated at some point. Obviously it didn't pay as well, but overall, I mean, there were tons of letters and it gave me something to do in my spare time and it was an extra source of income. But the fact is, you might be good at something else entirely. Many translators are good at writing and love writing, or maybe you're good at designing, maybe you're good at photography. Something along those lines, diversification can also mean just another source of income, basically another hedge, another cushion. And all of this provides more of a safety net for when you're working so you don't fall into the trap of the full-time employee. The full-time employee has one job with one company and if they get fired, if the company downsizes, if the company goes out of business, or if something happens just to their boss, they might be out of a job. When you become a freelancer, you have the option because you can find different sources of income. Once you do find a source of income, that's when you should try to start working on diversifying because that makes your future that much more secure. So I hope you found this useful. If you did, please click like. Give me a thumbs up because those always help. Let me know if you have any other advice along these lines, maybe or maybe you disagree with me completely, then feel free to let me know in the comments and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks, bye. Just a second, let's see who that was. Oh, I have a message. Hopefully it won't be too taxing.


Hey guys, it's Nate, aka the Foot Accountant. Welcome back to the channel. You know what we're gonna talk about today. That is the SBCs that EA Sports released to us today on FIFA Ultimate Team. We've been looking forward to this SBC for the past couple of days because we saw it in the code. I made a video about it last week. They put it in the code last week on Thursday night. Thursday night they put this in the code. We didn't see it on Friday. We saw the FFS pack in weekly objectives. And now this TOTS upgrade pack is out. Now, it is a GG, like EA. GG for putting this pack out. I just think the price for it might be a little bit too high. And I understand why they made this an 86 rated squad because it is a top five league guaranteed player from this TOTS player pack. I mean, you're getting guys from Ultimate TOTS. You're getting guys from the top five leagues, which is what Ultimate TOTS is. And all the other biggest teams of team of the season, the biggest leagues of team of the season, all of those players are available to get from this SBC. That's why EA has to make it 86 rated. You know, it is the end of the game. People are gonna argue, yo, EA, like make us an 84 rated. But what I'm gonna show you guys right now is regardless of what this SBC price is, and I said this earlier in the week, when this pack code was in the code, when it came out, I said people are gonna pay whatever it takes to get this SBC done. And that is exactly what people are doing. So right now this SBC is sitting about 160, 150,000 coins. It would be a lot easier to craft and to do if you would be able to, if the 81 plus and the 82 plus were still out, those upgrades were still in the game, it would be a lot easier to craft this SBC and to keep going under repeatables. Since it is a repeatable SBC, you could keep doing those upgrades, put those cards that you get into this SBC, and if you do 20 upgrade packs, if 20 of those upgrade packs costs you, I don't know how much that's gonna quite cost you, but if that costs you 170, 180K, let's say 200K for easy math, 20 upgrade packs costs you 200,000 coins and you're able to get one of these Tots player picks, you're probably gonna get somebody in those 20 packs that is worth the 40K that makes up the difference between the 200K you spent on the upgrade SBCs and the 160 that it would cost to craft this from scratch. So I think this SBC, it's all right, it is all right and I wanna show you guys something here. People are doing this SBC. I mean, I told you guys this last week when we saw this in the code, this is the type of SBC that everybody's gonna go out and do, look at these high rated gold prices right now. 84 rated golds are 8.8,000 coins, 83s for goodness sake are 5K, 86s are 18, 19, 20,000 coins, 85s are 15, 16,000 coins. If you invested in rare golds, even when they were high, like 10K for 85s, which is kinda high, you're making absolute bank on a lot of these cards because this SBC right here has increased the price of so many cards that it's ridiculous.  Twitch.tv backslash the foot account, of course. But I have a lot of 84s. I could do one of these SBCs very easily. I just don't want to right now at the moment because I want to get Pogba done first because that is a guaranteed player. And that's what I want to tell you guys too. If you are really deciding between, well, should I do this SBC or should I do Pogba? Do Pogba first, do Recharlison first because those are two Team of the Season-esque, they're basically Team of the Season players. You know what you're gonna get from those SBCs. You get some packs back in return for completing the individual SBCs and you're getting a card that you know you're gonna get. With this, if you put coins into this, you do five of these instead of doing Pogba. You do six or seven of these instead of doing Pogba. You might end up with two Doherty's, five Keepers, you know? At the end of Pogba, you know that you're getting Pogba. So that's what I'd recommend to you guys. If you can't decide between a Pogba or between doing like five of these Tots upgrades, do the Pogba first, see if you can have a little bit of extra time in there after rewards, this SBC is out for a week so it's not gonna go away until next Monday at 6 p.m. UK. Go do a Pogba or whatever and get that done. But this SBC is gonna be impacting the market a lot through the rest of this week and I do wanna get into that here a little bit. Now, looking at some team of the season prices, a lot of the team of the season started to fall out of the weekend. So like, people knew this SBC was in the code. I think people figured that it was coming and people think that these cards are gonna be released back into packs on Wednesday. I believe that as well. I think they're gonna put the main lead Tots back into packs on, excuse me, Wednesday with batch number three. Talked about that in my video yesterday. I think that's gonna happen. So I think that's why you saw some of these cards take a dip out of the weekend. One card in particular that I just mentioned that I saw right now, this Messi card, 2.1 million coins. 2.1 right now on Xbox. He was 2.4 this weekend. You can see it's been a nice decline out of, into these last couple of days, especially with the batch three hype and now this SBC as well. This, I mean, this SBC hasn't really impacted a ton of Tots player prices that I've seen. I haven't looked around the market everywhere, so forgive me if I missed one or two players that maybe have been affected by this a lot. But it is gonna continue to affect prices throughout the next week. This SBC being out for six days is basically more and more chances. Wow, look at this drop over the weekend. 1.14 mil for nine goal and down to 900K, 990, which he is, he's still there right now. So the combination of this SBC being out, the hype of batch three possibly including these players and people spending their coins on this game on Pogbub or Charleston and this Tots upgrade SBC, you're gonna keep seeing prices probably trickle down a little bit. I think you're gonna see prices trickle down a little bit. Like look at Ronaldinho right now, 5.5 not selling, this card was sold right away last week at 5.5, it is not selling right now in Xbox, 4.5.5. Some of these other cards like Tots's son was 2.1 over the weekend, he's now 1.9, he hasn't dropped a ton. But I think especially in some of the icon areas, people might go sell their icon Viera, you know, or their icon Ronaldinho to try and go pick up some of these cards and to do some of the SBCs. Like that's where some of these high rated cards will go down in price because people will say it's the end of the game, screw it. I'm gonna see if I can pack anybody sick from this, sell one or two of my cards, go do the SBC and then maybe buy a lower version back later, later this week or something like that, you know? I just searched the same Viera, I meant to search the 88, it is what it is. But yeah, so that's what I wanted to talk to you guys about with this SBC today is this SBC, it's fun, right? I'm gonna be, whoa, now that is quite the undercut on Mr. Viera, I'm gonna watch that one. This SBC is really cool, right? It's fun, thank you EA for putting this SBC out. I wish it would have been a little bit cheaper, but it is what it is. Also, this is getting very overshadowed because of this team this season SBC today. We got Flashback Ibrahimovic back in the game, cost about 100,000 coins to complete, one squad, one Swedish player, one MLS player, two team of the season is 84 rated. Now that is obviously inflated right now because of the fact that all the high rated golds are inflated because of this SBC, but if they do refresh the 81 plus or the 82 plus SBC, you'll be able to get yourself another Ibra and what you can do with that is, you might say, whoa, Nate, I still have Flashback Ibrahimovic in my club. Do this SBC, swap them around, put the fresh one in your club, submit this Flashback Ibrahimovic for Pogba or put him into an icon upgrade SBC, he's 92 rated or put him, not icon upgrade, put him into an icon up, an icon SBC, a team this season upgrade or Pogba, use that 92 rating and keep the one you had in your club with all the gold stats, you know, and everything you've been using this card for a while, put that one back into the club after you submit the new fresh one from this SBC here. So that's probably what I'm gonna be doing. If they release upgrade SBCs again, I will be crafting away at Zlatan later in the week, this week. I'm excited to see if they do re-release those upgrades, they re-release the team of the week upgrade, which is big time and this wasn't talked about a lot today as well, I've been saving my 81s. If you look at my club right now, I have a lot of 81 rated cards that I've just packed from the upgrades and I've been saving them because I knew that this SBC was gonna be re-released. I'm gonna throw my 81s in here, get some team of the week players, 81 plus. That's gonna help me out for Pogba, it's gonna help me out for finishing Maldini. I would recommend you guys doing the same as well. If you're doing upgrade packs, save your 81 pluses. When those upgrade packs do come back out. But again, that's the main talk of the town. This is just basically me sitting down and talking to you guys about the market today. It's a little market talk, bodys type video. I know a lot of you guys wanted to ask like, yo, when is the buy time for some of these touch cards? Not yet, this SBC is out, it hasn't caused a ton of panic on the market. There's bits and pieces of panic here and there. Cancelo at 587, it's down a little bit, he was 565 though. But again, these players that could come back into packs on Wednesday, that's when I feel like you'll see more hype.  I mean, just opening, doing a marquee matchups right now? Man, doing some of these packs in the store like just the pack SBCs probably is worth it right now. Let's go look at the live section. What do we have in here? How could we get some packs inside of FIFA Ultimate Team? Marquee matchups gives you a 50K pack. How much does marquee matchups cost? Marquee matchups cost you a whopping 40,000 coins on the Xbox, 34 on the PS.  Go do marquee matchups before too long. If you wanna hold these packs, you can save them for Wednesday to see what does come out. But again, if you just wanna take advantage of high rated golds being so high, it's a great time to just honestly to open packs. If EA were running, well, they're not running lightning rounds, but if there's promo packs in the store, dude, maybe even rip a promo pack with coins. 45K pack, here we go boys. We're doing a 45K pack with coins to test this method out. Impromptu 45K, it's a walkout. Oh my gosh, it's a blue boys. What are we saying? Let's go. All right boys, do this method 1000%, 87 rated cauldron. That's what we like to see boys, how much is this card going for? He's going for around 30,000 coins. I just made 30,000 coins back from that 45K pack right there. What else do we have inside of this pack? 82 rated, okay, so we made 30,000 coins right there and then that's another 2K, so we really didn't make our money back on that pack, but that's a lot more money than I thought it was gonna make. Look at this, 30K, oh yeah, 30K for this card, 27.5. I'm gonna listen for 30, boom, 30,000 coins. Raphinha, what are you selling for my man? This is the time of the game where you check all of your high rated golds for their prices, because this Raphinha card, yeah, he's selling like 2,000 coins. 2,000 coins, all right, boom. Just made some money right there, got some of these cards for SBCs as well. I'm not gonna do that again, but that was actually almost worth it. So if you wanna do that, just get some packs right now, boys. I would not recommend doing that, don't do that. Disregard everything that I just did right there. That was just for fun. But go ahead, go out, do marquee matchups and hopefully we can grind later in the week to this Tots Upgrade SBC. Hopefully they re-release the 81 plus, the 82 plus. Hopefully they re-release that SBC, give us the opportunity to grind this SBC a little bit and possibly get a Tots Upgrade player from it. I will be doing some of these for sure. I'm not sure that I'll stack them. If I do any, I'll do like three or four at a time. It'll probably be on stream. Maybe a few of them for a video and there we get our 30, we get our 2K back for Raphinha. All right, we get our 2K back for Raphinha. But the Tots Upgrade SBC is cool, right? It is a little bit expensive. Some people are gonna be mad about it, but I'm saying it's July 29th, July 30th. It's the end of FIFA. I have four million coins right now. You're gonna see if there are upgrade packs for batch number three of FIFA Ultimate Team and if the team that's using cards that could come into packs, if these cards actually do come into packs, like a Tots, if they re-release all the Tots cards back into packs, you will see my coin total get very close to zero. I will be buying the players needed for Tots upgrades. I will be doing upgrades upon upgrades, 81 pluses, Tots, everything like that. I'm just holding off right now until I make sure that those cards are actually gonna be in packs.  Just for the fun at the end of the game is what it is. So this has been all over the place, Market Talk. I got to open a pack with coins. You probably didn't see that coming. But yeah, boys, in summary, Tots upgrade, SBC. It's here. Thank you EA for putting that out. I wish it was a little cheaper, but whatever. I understand why you price it the way you did. These SBCs coming back out are very cool and it's very good for icon SBCs. When did these expire? Oh, they're out for 15 days. That's a GG EA. See, EA knew what they were doing here.  That's a GG from EA on that one. That SBC is back out. And then of course, foot swap. Don't forget, foot swap, one day 17 hours. If you haven't redeemed your foot swap cards, which I haven't, I need to get promes. Make sure you redeem those. All right, boys, it's been Nate, the foot accountant. Catch you guys later. Peace out.


Radiation therapy, RT, and hyperthermia, HT, are two important components of cancer treatment. While both modalities have been shown to be effective, the mechanisms behind their success remain unclear. However, recent studies suggest that RT plus HT may be beneficial for cancer patients due to its ability to induce apoptosis, increase oxygenation, and disrupt the cell cycle. Additionally, it appears to enhance the immune system's response, potentially making it more effective against cancer. Taken together, these findings suggest that RT plus HT could be used as a complementary treatment to conventional therapy, providing a promising alternative to current methods. This article was authored by Son Kwan, Su Min-young, and Sung Ho-bak.


It is now time for question period, the leader of the Magistrate's Royal Opposition. Speaker, my question to the acting Premier. Acting Premier, every morning when I wake up, I ask my self a question, what can we do to create more jobs? More opportunities that better take home pay for Ontarians. Those who are out of work and those who are struggling to get by on a part-time job. And on this side of the house, we believe that the first step towards providing a more prosperous province of Ontario's better jobs is to balance the books, to spend with our means, not to put more debt on the back of the next generation. We're concerned that you're going in the opposite direction, that you have a belief on that side of the house that you're going to try to spend your way out of deficit. I have documents here that my colleague Mr. Fidelli from Manipucing found called Fiscal Plan Information. It appears to be a cabinet briefing of February 13th, 2013, which indicates that the Liberal plan to balance the budget, according to finance officials, is a sham. Was the minister present on this document? Thank you. You say it, please. Thank you. Deputy Premier? Well, thank you, Speaker. And before I respond to the question, I do want to extend my condolences to the family of Herb Gray. For four decades, Herb Gray dedicated his life to public service. He served as a minister under three prime ministers, deputy prime minister himself. And on behalf of the Liberal caucus, and I think all members of this House, we extend our condolences. Speaker, to the question, I mean, this is a clear division between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The Conservative Party thinks that they can cut their way to prosperity. On this side, we believe in investing in people. We believe in investing in infrastructures. Speaker, we've seen this before. And let's just remind ourselves how many jobs were lost the last time they had the opportunity to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Supplementary? Well, thank you, Speaker. Of course, we echo condolences to the family of Herb Gray, a great Canadian, a great public official. We also extend our condolences to the family of Kim Fletcher, who sadly, the speaker, passed away. And my colleague, Mr. Chudley, my health critic, Christine Elliott, we're fighting hard for Ms. Fletcher. I'm going to pass on through one of the pages that I could, the document minister that you would have been briefed on. Again, it's confidential advice to cabinet from February 13th. I'll refer you to page nine. Page nine in this document indicates that you have no problem with the fact that you have no problem with the fact that you have no problem with the fact that you have no problem with the fact that you have no problem with move forward. Page nine in this document indicates that you have no plan to balance the budget. You know the numbers are no more than a fiction. Page nine also will tell you that the finance officials, this is not us, not Mr. Fidele. He would put the same thing to indicate it was going to take potentially another six years to balance the budget. Could the minister confirm that it's actually a plan? If the member leader of the opposition is sincere when he says he wakes up every morning wondering how he can create more jobs, he's demonstrating that in a pretty bizarre way because his promise is he wants to fire 10,000 education workers gone, fire 2,000 healthcare workers gone, he wants to cancel full day kindergarten, he wants to end the 30% tuition grant. He doesn't want to move forward with the investments we're making for children or people with developmental disabilities, he wants to cancel job creating partnerships, for example, OpenTex 1200 job speaker, the member of the leader of the opposition, his jobs plan is to kill jobs. Our jobs plan is to invest in jobs. We are on track for a balanced speaker but we will not do that at the expense of the people of Ontario. I know the page bringing over the minister, I think I've been absolutely clear each and every day. I've got a plan to create a million good jobs in the province of Ontario. The minister wants to know more about my plan, I'm glad to send a copy across the way against the speaker. I think I've been very clear. Now, the concern I have is that the minister have been briefed, the premier, the finance minister have these documents over a year ago, you've buried them, Mr. Fidelli, the member for Nipissing has done a good job at uncovering them. This is serious advice from finance officials that have said that you have no plan to balance and in fact we're risking another six years. Finance officials have briefed you, the premier, the finance minister. And I worry that when you're using these types of fiscal slights of hand, these card tricks that undermines confidence in our province, people are watching, job creators, investors, minister, if you have no plan to create jobs in the province of Ontario but put us farther in debt, isn't it time to change a team that leads this province? Thank you. Deputy Premier. Well, Speaker Rob, people won't need a great memory to remember that the last time they had the chance, Speaker, they actually hid the deficit from the people of the province. 5.6, that deficit was hidden from the people of this province. So we are going to deliver a budget on Thursday. It will be a budget that invests in people, that invests in prosperity, invests in infrastructure. Speaker, the party opposite last time filled in the hole for the Eglinton Crossdown Subway. I just hope they're not planning to halt production at the Cambridge Morrill Hospital. Thank you. One question. The Leader of the Opposition. You know, it is telling, Speaker, when the Deputy Premier won't even come close to answering a very direct question. She won't acknowledge if she was briefed on this document as the Premier and the Finance Minister. Where I suspect it were, it is a confidence in cabinet document that we've now made public. I'm going to refer the Deputy Premier to page 5 of the document that she read at least last year, if not more recently. Page 5 also from finance officials, it indicates that the economy has still not yet regained the strength of 2008. Pre, there are fewer jobs relative to population and more unemployed in our province. And per capita output of the economy remains below the pre-session level. Now when I hear the Premier, the Finance Minister, they say the opposite. Quite frankly, Speaker, based on this track record, the gas plan scandal, I believe the finance officials. I think they're on the money here. Question. Do you agree or disagree with the Ministry of Finance officials that we're still behind where we were as recently as 2008? Thank you. Thank you, Speaker. As Speaker, we are on target to balance. And what I can tell you is that we have implemented. That's enough. Minister, carry on. Speaker, we're moving forward with 80 percent of Don Drummond's recommendations. We're the first government since 1996 to actually reduce spending. We've got the leanest government in the country, Speaker, with the lowest programs. The member from Bruce Grio and Sal, come to order. As I said, there is a stark difference between their plan and our plan. For them, the whole plan is to balance the books as quickly as possible and for unipassing Pembroke to the people of this province. We are committed to investing in people. Answer. We are committed to making those investments that will create a prosperous economy for all to be able to. Thank you. Supplementary. Well, I'll point out a very stark difference. The minister uses that term. Minister, as you know, every province and the federal government will be in balance before the province of Ontario. Six of those provinces and the federal government are already there. That talk about a stark difference. We all were hit by the same international circumstance as 2008, but everybody else is back on track. Another stark difference? We will balance the budget to pave the way for job creation and put people back to work in the province of Ontario. Take this point. Again, these are finance officials that are pointing out that your job numbers are not even above where we were six years ago, six years ago going backwards. So tell me who's right and who's wrong. The finance minister and the Premier say one thing. The finance officials say the opposite. My money is on the objective advice of senior civil servants. Why aren't you putting the facts on the table? Why won't you admit they're right? You're wrong. It's time to do this. Thank you. Deputy Speaker. I think it's very important that the people in this province understand what's at stake. The Leader of the Opposition has made it very clear his only priority is to get to deficit. I can only assume that means he will halt the infrastructure projects that are moving forward, including Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Speaker, I can only assume that means he will not support increased support for families caring for people with developmental disabilities. Speaker, we are moving forward with a plan that creates a bright future for the people of this province. We are not going to accept the slash and burn, get to balance, take it right to work for less attitude of that party, Speaker. It's not the right way forward. And we will continue to do what we know needs to be done. Thank you. Colonel Sopramentry. Well, it's true. I have a plan to put a million people back to work in the fight if they want to stay on the current path or force boldly forward a more prosperous province. Let me give one last point on the document that you were briefed upon. I think what's important in the document to advise the cabinet fiscal plan information was that it ties the lack of job creation with the fact that you're increasing debt in the province of Ontario. And it's an important economic lesson that the Liberal Party seems to miss.  And make no mistake, we are bound and determined to put less debt on the back of the next generation. Thank you. Deputy Premier. Speaker, with respect, the Leader of the Opposition doesn't have a plan. But he has as a sound bite. And anyone who has looked at the plan very quickly discovers it is no plan at all, Speaker. It is a sound bite and only a sound bite. Let me repeat. The jobs that he's already committed to cutting, 10,000 education workers, 2,000 health care workers. Remember from Hamilton, Stony Creek. He's not supporting families with developmental disabilities, Speaker. And I'm just curious about whether canceling the expansion of Joe Brandt Hospital is in your plan as well. Thank you. New question. The member from Windsor to come see. Thank you, Speaker. My question this morning is to the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. Good morning, Minister. Thank you for acknowledging the birth of my granddaughter, Katana. Speaker, the minister has said that as soon as he found out that the girders on the Herb Gray Parkway were faulted, he acted immediately. Does the minister still stand by that statement? Thank you. Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. Yes, Mr. Speaker. It's interesting that the gentleman opposite put out a statement, but he left one page out of all the documents he released. He neglected to share with the media this one note. Although the note reflects that the Minister's office staff were present in meetings, it should be noted that discussions at those meetings focused on project milestones and evolving issues related to the project agreement. There was not sufficient information during the time period's reference in the note to make definitive recommendations to Mr. Orr's staff regarding the safety and durability of the girders. Further, the Minister's office staff were briefed on the safety and durability issues regarding girders of the Herb Gray Parkway on June 14, 2013, and the Minister briefed on June 19, 2013. For the first time, Mr. Speaker, that's the piece of paper you kind of forgot. The other reason is, Mr. Speaker, I actually heard about this outside of government in the month previous, and when I researched it, I addressed this with my deputy minister the first week of June, which is when she organized the review and discovered them. Thank you. Well, according to documents released through a freedom of information request, both the offices of the Premier and the Minister knew that girders were not up to code and posed a threat to safety before they were installed. The Minister's office learned about the substandard girders in December of 2012. High-level bi-weekly meetings were held afterwards to discuss them. The meetings included senior staff within the Minister's office, and as early as in April, the Executive Director of Policy in the Premier's office was sent the minutes of these meetings. Is the Minister saying that senior staff in his own office, the same people, the same senior staff the Minister Shirelli held before, did not tell him about public safety concerns on the largest infrastructure project in Ontario's history that he's responsible for? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm saying even more than that. Not only is that wrong, Mr. Speaker, it was my office that first heard of the problem from people outside of government. When I went to my Deputy Minister the first week of June, she told me she was unaware of the problem. As was the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, it never actually landed. As a result of my inquiries, Mr. Speaker, a briefing was held for my staff on the 14th. I'll even go further for the Honourable Member. If you actually go through the paperwork, you will find that the public administration was divided about whether there was a safety issue until late August when I ordered independent destructive testing and it was revealed that one of the burgers was faulty. That was the last week of August, Mr. Speaker. There's your paper trail. If you want to tell the whole paper trail, then I think just for integrity reasons, you would release all the information, Mr. Speaker. Final supplement, please. Thank you, Speaker, again to the Minister. We know that senior advisers from the Minister's Office were in meetings that discussed the problem of girders and that senior advisers in the Premier's Office were being sent minutes of the bi-weekly girder meetings as early as in April and possibly even earlier. Does the Minister expect people of this province to believe that senior advisers or the Premier's senior advisers didn't alert him to a potential scandal surrounding faulty girders being installed on this project? Thank you, Minister. So, Mr. Speaker, I have respect for the member opposite and I think the truth matters, Mr. Speaker. The note which I have here, Mr. Speaker, and I will gladly send over it to him clearly and explicitly says that any discussions prior to June 14th were not about safety issues. They were about commercial applications of the project and had nothing to do with safety issues and the member knows that. The member also knows that it wasn't until the last week of August that there was even a consensus amongst public officials that there in fact was a safety problem and it wasn't until I ordered independent testing in late July that resulted in the girders being destroyed that we actually discovered that. My question, Mr. Speaker, is where was the opposition? I was doing your job. The member from Windsor West, Mr. Speaker, raised this issue before and it sounds like the member for Tecumseh is trying to play catch up, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. New question. Thank you, Speaker. I got it. The member from Tecumseh, Windsor. Ah, thank you. Somebody's got to do the job of the government. In a July 21st, 2013, confidential memo to the Premier on the girder issue, it states and I quote, there has been some chatter about this situation in Windsor construction circles and we understand that Windsor's star may be coming out with a story in this matter this week. It may break during the Premier's visit to Windsor on July 22nd, end of quotes. Minister, why did this government fail to take action for months on public safety and allow the faulty girders to be installed and only act it when a scandal was about to break that could put five liberal seats at risk in impending by-elections? Minister? Thank you. I'm going to try this again really slowly, Mr. Speaker. It's very clear as are the discussions. There were active conversations about this project and any other. To be very clear, there was no discussion, not a word I owed a discussion of safety issues or briefings until June 19th with politicians because I was the first one. The reason those discussions happened is because I heard rumors in May that there may be a problem. I did not hear those rumors inside government. I heard it from meeting with stakeholder groups who asked me to investigate. The first week of June, I went to my deputy ministers, both of them, and asked them if they knew anything. They both said clearly that they were not aware of any particular safety concerns. Both of them undertook a review and two weeks later I'm sure that the things I had heard may have merit. Finally, Mr. Speaker, we had an independent review which tried to decide whether or not those safety issues were consequential. Thank you. And that was very public, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Supplementary? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We know from internal correspondence that this government didn't act on public safety concerns for seven months after it knew girders and the Herb Gray Park way were faulty. This government only acted after political staff found out that the Windsor Star was asking questions about girder safety, and the Premier might be confronted with a question on her scheduled visit to Windsor. Had the Windsor Star not been investigating these girders, would these unsafe girders continue to be quietly installed to this very day? Minister? Mr. Speaker, you know, there is, both of us come from a municipal background. In a municipal background you do not attribute motive. As a matter of fact, you're thrown out of a council chamber for attributing motive. So, I'll just say, I had almost no weekends away with my family through this period of time because I was working on this through the entire summer. Mr. Speaker, as late as August, senior officials were not convinced that there were safety concerns, including the engineering. It was only when we did the destructive testing. But, Mr. Speaker, the member has the note from the officials that he did not release that tells the public that what you're saying is so inaccurate it bears no resemblance to the actual events, Mr. Speaker. So, in turn, I want to read this document where the officials say, prior to June, there was no zero, not a word of discussion. Member from Mookie and Carleton will come to order, and now we'll hear a new question. Oh, sorry, final supplementary. Thank you, Speaker. The Premier, when she was the Minister of Transportation, awarded the project agreement for the Windsor Essex Parkway through alternate financing procurement, a fancy name for privatizing public projects. According to internal documents, this government prioritized the Premier's contract with the private consortium over the ability for MTO to enforce public safety rules. Why did this government set up a project agreement that threatened public safety? Minister? The reality is, first, patently inaccurate. I don't want to use unparliamentary language, but there's another word that's floating around in my head, Mr. Speaker. Don't use it, Glenn. The reality is, there were absolutely no concerns around safety through that particular period of time. The first person to raise a safety issue at the ministerial level was myself based on concerns that were given. I will not read into the record again the bureaucrat note, the officials note on this. Mr. Speaker, the member has been given a full and honest answer. I've always respected him as a person with integrity. To point out, documentation shows that the first safety discussion with me was on June 19th, and I took more than strong action and more than immediately, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. This week, the Gas Plants Committee, Injustice Committee, has the opportunity to sit on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning. We have requested that the former government house leader and the former transition chair to Premier Wynn testify. Manik Smith, however, is unwilling to do that, and we are experiencing very much difficulty trying to get into the committee. Order? Order? Let me be very clear. The former government house leader would have known about Peter Feist contract with the Liberal Caucus Bureau, and Peter Wall, as said and testified under oath that Manik Smith, as the transition team chair, would have known about the Gas Plant emails and passwords.  You've got her appointed to a government job. Thank you. Bring her back to Ontario. The member from Cambridge will come to order. Before we proceed, it's always helpful to address your questions to this speaker. Deputy Premier. Member from Prince Edward Hastings will come to order. The Honourable Member is wrong. Ms. Smith was asked to appear in front of the committee. She has agreed to appear in front of the committee. She has given several dates to the clerk, and I am advised, in fact, that she's able to attend the week of May 5th or May 12th. There have been two timelines that she has been given. I think members would appreciate that Ms. Smith is actually located in Washington, D.C., and has to make travel arrangements. And, Mr. Speaker, I would remind the Honourable Member that we asked the Leader of the Opposition to appear in front of the committee. It went on for week after week after week after week, and he's in the same building, Mr. Speaker. And when it comes to the Conservative candidates, Mr. Speaker. The Minister from Rural Affairs is not being helpful. The member from Leeds-Grenville is not helpful. The member from Kitchener-Conestoga is not helpful. And the member from Chatham-Cant Essex is not helpful. You did just it. Carry on. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the Conservative candidates, the same ones that said elect Dawson will get rid of the Gosplan, Mr. Speaker. We're still a leader on them. In fact, we've asked one of them, Mr. Speaker, over 16 times to allow. Supplementary. Well, I would like to remind the Government House Leader it is his party under an OPP investigation, not mine. It was their foreign transition team, Chair, that was responsible for dealing with the Gasplan scandal during a certain period of time, not the leader of the official opposition. And it is his party that sent my next Smith to Washington during the OPP investigation and the search and seizure warrant where she is outside the Speaker's jurisdiction for a Speaker's warrant. I ask him again, we are sitting this week. My next Smith is key and pivotal to getting the answers that the Committee needs in order to complete its work. Will you compel her on her Government job to come back to Ontario this week and appear before the Committee on Thursday morning yes or no? Thank you. Government House Leader. Again, Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member is wrong. That'll just be the end of it. You ask the question, listen to the answer. The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is not helpful. The Member from Renfrew, Nipissing, Pembroke, Second Time. Carry on. Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member is wrong. She stood up and said, Miss Smith will not appear in front of the Committee.  She is travelling related to her job, a very important job, Mr. Speaker, and she has given a series of dates over the next several weeks. In fact, when she will appear in front of the Committee, where she is also wrong, Mr. Speaker, is when she notes Peter Wallace in his testimony. In fact, what Mr. Wallace said is that he did not brief the transition team on this matter, Mr. Speaker. So two strikes, Mr. Speaker, and I think she's out. But again, Mr. Speaker, we are looking for the PC candidates to come forward, Mr. Speaker. We are looking for them to explain their policy analysis and their costing. Thank you. Any questions? The Member from London West. Thank you, Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. Despite the Minister's office knowing the safety risks, the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure allowed faulty girders to be installed and construction to proceed for months and only took action to halt construction on July 21, 2013. My question is this. What prompted the Minister to take action in July? Minister of Construction and Transportation. Mr. Speaker, what prompted me to take action was I, when I became Minister, which was only a couple of minutes before that, I invited all of the stakeholders into my office. I started meeting with all of the construction parties in Windsor and London and Ottawa, and I asked them each. And Mr. Speaker, you always hear people raising concerns. All the people who didn't get the contracts complained about the people who did. So you have to take a lot of what you hear with a grain of salt. But what I did start hearing, Mr. Speaker, was repeated concerns about the process and the installation of girders. What I validated that that was, in fact, a concern that had some legitimacy and was different than the background noise that someone hears about in the construction industry, I called in the CEOs of four different construction companies and asked them for their advice. Based on the advice of different individuals, Mr. Speaker, I went to my Deputy Minister the first week of June. Both Deputy Ministers said they had not heard of any safety concerns, nor had staff raised them with them. Based on that, I asked them to investigate, Mr. Speaker. That's what happened. Speaker, the Minister's office knew by December of 2012 that girders to be installed were not up to safety standards. During a February 14, 2013 meeting in the Minister's office, girders were on the agenda, and the Minister's office staff confirmed that they would not be intervening or speaking to the issue directly. The Minister says he didn't find out about the girders safety issue until May 2013. Is the Minister saying that senior staff in his own office who knew about girders safety concerns for months never spoke to him about it at all? Thank you, Minister. I am saying much more than that, Mr. Speaker. I'm saying they did not know about it. The Deputy Ministers in infrastructure and the Deputy Ministers in transportation both did not know about it. A matter of fact, after I raised this issue with my officials in June, I had dissenting views in the ministries where people felt still as late as August that there were no safety concerns. It was not until the destructive testing which I ordered quite frankly and quite assertively in late August that they were convinced and you've heard their testimony and if you look at all the paper, you'll know that. And Mr. Speaker, both of you and I have worked the member opposite of worked in universities. We know the importance of searching for the truth and getting accurate information and not, I hope, when we get into politics the rigor of that review and evaluation. I am quite happy to provide you with any documentation as far as I can tell you. There was not even consensus that there was a safety problem until the last week of August. Thank you. Any questions? The member from RLSR. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Minister, in the coming months from May to October communities will open doors of some of Ontario's most intriguing and charming heritage sites as part of a great program called Doors Open Ontario. This provides all Ontarians with a chance to visit many of the heritage sites and heritage homes in our province. Mr. Speaker, there are many sites in my hometown of Ottawa to visit, especially the buildings at State National Historic Site in my riding of Ottawa South. Doors Open Ontario was a great initiative of the Ontario Heritage Trust as it's important to remember our past to appreciate the present. Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister, can you please tell us more about the Doors Open Ontario? Great question. Thank you, Minister. Doors and Culture and Sport. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the member from Ottawa South for asking the question. He's a passionate protector of our heritage and I want to thank him for that. Mr. Speaker, in 2002, Ontario Heritage Trust launched the Doors Open Ontario, the first province-wide event of the sky in our country. The last 12 years, great success. Mr. Speaker, over five million visits have been made to heritage sites participating in this exciting initiative. It has grown to over 55 events in 170 communities with over 1,200 sites and 500,000 annual visits as of last year. And it will keep growing, Mr. Speaker. Residents and visitors are invited to discover firsthand our province-hidden heritage traces, some of which have never been opened to the public. And best of all, that mission is free, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Minister, for that response. The Ontario Heritage Trust efforts to organize and support such a wonderful program for all Ontarians to participate in is commendable. In fact, through Doors Open Ontario, visitors will learn that the Billings Estate in my riding of Ottawa South is Ottawa's oldest wood frame house and was built between 1827 and 1829. Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Heritage Trust most recognizable symbol is its blue and gold plaque or the blue and gold plaques that have been unveiled at over 1,200 sites in our province that tells the stories of the people, places and events that help shape Ontario. Mr. Speaker, again through you to the Minister, could you please tell us about the important work the Ontario Heritage Trust engages in? Thank you, Minister. Thank you for the question again. Mr. Speaker, since 2003, our government has invested 74 million to the Ontario Heritage Trust to support and protect heritage across the province. Some of the other programs include the Provincial Resources Programme which over 6,300 bylaws and 15,000 properties enter from heritage conservation districts. Mr. Speaker, trails open Ontario which provides province-wide profile of 48 partner organizations and opportunities for the public to explore trails during 56 events in 54 communities and to coincide with the World War 1 Centennial this year. Mr. Speaker, on February the 14th we launched Ontario Heritage Week at CNU Boulder. Mr. Speaker, last we forget. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Acting Premier, last week our party learned that Patrick Dillon of the Working Families Coalition is preparing a lawsuit against Her Majesty's Royal Opposition for alleged defamation. That letter coincides with your action against our party leader Tim Hudak and the member of MP and Carl Tim. Working Families spends millions of union dollars on personal tax and misrepresenting our party's policies. Isn't this just another example of Working Families a well-connected special interest group in hand and glove with the Liberal government to silence the opposition? I would ask the member I would like to provide the member with an opportunity to tie that into government policy or to maybe reword that so that the government can answer a question that's based on excuse me I'm I'm quite concerned with the personal conversations that are going on while I'm trying to do a ruling. I would ask and I don't need the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs injecting his own wisdom any time while it's not considered unparliamentary it sure is disrespectful. I'll give you an opportunity to fix that question please. So I'll retract with Patrick Dillon was appointed by your government to the Ontario College of Trades and Multiple Agencies. My question is about a loss and the question is about that circumstance I'd like you to see if you can do that if not you'll have to redirect. Try again. How many agencies does Patrick Dillon sit on? Good question. That's appropriate. Acting Deputy Premier Minister of Training of Colleges and Universities Minister of Training of Colleges and Universities That's an interesting question Patrick Dillon said Mr. Speaker I know he sits on the referral board for the College of Trades Mr. Speaker I think that Ontarians get tired when politicians start raising individuals and they're not in a position Mr. Speaker to be able to defend. The member from Simple North come to order please and I don't need assistance on this side. Finish please. Mr. Speaker if my memory serves me right as I recall the first people to appoint Patrick Dillon to anything around here was the PC party when people dedicate their lives to public service Mr. Speaker when people dedicate their lives to serving on boards and committees they really deserve better than that Mr. Speaker. Supplementary. Didn't answer the question. How many? I'm told sufferings and wasted billions with the member from New Market Aurora had gargantly entered troops that you want to bury. Today Orange is a subject of an OPP investigation Taxpayers might have believed the Liberals 40 million estimated cost to cancel two gas plants had the member from North Bay not demanded an accurate account billion dollars Your government's evasions have led to a second OPP investigation Our questions are serious these lawsuits are frivolous What makes you think the courts will back your schemes to silence opposition's critics and stop us from telling the truth? Good question. Given the circumstances that we were faced I think I'm going to allow that question to be asked as a question of government whether or not they believe that what they're the member from the PN Carlton is very close so I'm going to allow that to happen so the Minister of Training calls the Universities Well Mr. Speaker any question about healthcare in a supplementary to a question that involves something completely different kind of puts the Minister at a bit of a disadvantage because I'm not the Minister of Healthcare but Mr. Speaker I'll respond to this very curtly and very shortly Mr. Speaker referring to the first question it's very easy Mr. Speaker people don't have to worry about others whether anywhere being concerned about lawsuits Mr. Speaker if they simply tell the truth my question is to the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure despite the fact that bi-weekly meetings were occurring on the girder issue from December 2012 onwards within his Minister's office that included his Minister's political staff his Chief of Staff the Deputy Minister Deputy Minister's staff within minutes and with minutes forward to the Premier's office and despite the fact that the decision was made in the Minister's own office on February 14th not to take action on safety issues surrounding these girders is the Minister telling this legislature that not one single member of his political staff briefed the Minister or sought guidance from the Minister on this public safety issue the biggest infrastructure project the Minister was responsible for Thank you Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation Yes that's exactly what I'm saying and that's exactly the truth Mr. Speaker and I'm going to be very clear about this there have been discussions about every single project ongoing there was no discussions at all with me and when I asked my deputy in early June that there had been any issues with the girders requiring safety or concern there wasn't when I did become aware of it I took extremely strong action including an independent review hiring independent legal counsel much of that work going on with the review of those events still continues on looking at how to improve oversight on projects and this government will be advancing ways to do that Mr. Speaker the public safety concern is always number one that's why we paneled the leading engineers in the country that's why we did an independent review that's why there were two studies that were done and the government acted once it understood the situation supplementary is it true that the minister of transportation infrastructure tried to quietly sweep the issue under the carpet and allow substandard girders to be installed and only to stop the installation when the Windsor Star was going to expose the safety concerns minister sweet boy sweet boy it's probably more easy to report I think it would be easier if I answered in French because she didn't seem to understand in English it's been two weeks and there was no safety concern about these girders they were not about the safety of the girders there is such a public inquiry two supplementary reports there is more paper on this no prior to June there were no discussions in my office relating to safety of girders there were many discussions about girders biweekly because it's a big project it would be pretty hard to go through years not talking about the project in French I believe if I say it in French she will be great for you thank you Mr. Speaker my question is for the minister of citizenship and immigration there are more than 50,000 non-for-profit organizations that deliver vital services and help build prosperous and vibrant communities in my writing of Scarborough Aging Court Aging Court Community Service Association is a non-for-profit organization that provides quality services for children, youth, homeless and newcomer Canadians and I know our government recognized contribution of the Ontario non-for-profit sector and our government and the non-for-profit sector is one of the goals over the past few years our government has launched several initiatives to better understand the government in terms of strengthening the relationship with this sector Speaker, through you to the minister can he please share with the House the information about the volunteer strategy consultation what is the goal and who is participating thank you thank you and I'd like to thank the hardworking member from Scarborough Aging Court for that excellent question I really enjoy this aspect of the ministry because I get to see what Ontarians can do at their best the non-for-profit sector is filled with individuals who embody true active citizenship in 2011 our government released the partnership project report it included six key recommendations to create a stronger relationship between the non-for-profit sector and government and in this spirit we've launched an Ontario volunteer strategy consultations consultations have taken place in Ajax Thunder Bay, Mississauga, Ottawa Arcom, London and Toronto consultation participants were not only from the non-for-profit sector but also from the private sector and also from education we spoke to other ministries and other provinces in fact we consulted with other countries Mr. Speaker, we know that the non-for-profit sector here in this province are filled with individuals who invest their time, energy and skill and we are proud of our non-for-profit volunteers here in Ontario thank you thank you Speaker for its response and for helping to build an important social infrastructure in our province through the 2010 partnership project round table discussions almost all of the non-profit participant told us that it often has some difficulty accessing relevant government information this information is important for their operations, administration and annual charitable status reporting I also know that non-for-profit needs information that is easy available and comprehensive when it comes to government programs resources and funding opportunities Speaker, I know the minister have been working very hard and passionately over the passion on this file Speaker, through you to the minister can he please tell the House more about the initiative that our government has undertaken to support the non-for-profit sector in Ontario thank you Mr. Speaker and again I'd like to thank the member for that great question and I do have some great news along with partners in service in Ontario we're putting final touches on online channel for non-for-profit sector that provide easy access information on funding regulations and legal information and at a great time earlier this month taking part in the launch of the provinces PAN and PARA PANM volunteer legacy we've created a certificate program that recognizes skills acquired through volunteer placement as well as first stop gateway for volunteers looking for opportunities in the games additionally we're working with other ministries to find ways to reduce the administrative burden and ensure the government initiatives consider the business needs for the non-for-profit sector for example we're participating in the government's open for business strategy in the non-for-profit sector in various ministries to find ways to simplify the transfer payment process for the non-for-profit agencies Mr. Speaker, our government prioritizes what's most important to our citizens the right to the health care and education but we also know that we have to make investments in the non-for-profit sector for the sales plan and we're proud of the work we're doing on this side of the House Mr. Speaker Thank you, you have a question the member from Grantham Kent Middlesex Thank you very much Speaker my question this morning is to the Acting Premier Acting Premier over the weekend Ontario residents learned that your government gave the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario the nursing families coalition member union the Ontario Nurses Association $40 million supposedly to assist nurses your government is firing get retrained and find new employment this money was given using an extremely unorthodox trust arrangement which allows two of the nursing groups to keep any unspent money in other words you created an incentive for them to not spend this money on frontline nurses and minister they didn't in fact they only spent $236,000 on frontline nursing jobs but racked up $6 million in expenses Acting Premier what are you doing right now to get the $40 million back to the people of this province you see it please you see it please you see it please thank you thank you the member from Halton will withdraw withdraw Deputy Premier thank you speaker and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to that allegation speaker I think it's important to remember where we were back in 2005 speaker we were nurses 6000 nurses had been fired by the previous government and in fact their plan is to do the same again if they have that chance the nursing workforce was unstable and I think we would all agree that there was an instability there that was resulting in nurses leaving Ontario there were hospitals were running massive deficits they were projecting that they would need to lay off 750 nurses this fund was was created and it is a protected fund that money must be used to retrain nurses moving from one area of specialty to another that fund is protected it turns out that the need that was at that time expected to be used within a year speaker turns out that need was not there because of other changes we have made I'll speak more on the supplementary supplementary well Acting Premier the most generous possible interpretation of the nursing retention fund Boondoggle is that the RNAO and ONA are utterly incompetent project managers and cannot be trusted to serve as stewards of taxpayer money Deputy Premier according to public accounts Volume 3 from 2012 to 2013 the RNAO and RPNAO received over 18 million dollars of taxpayer money combined ostensibly to run various programs given their terrible performance with the nursing retention fund Acting Premier will your environment immediately freeze the flow of taxpayers money to the RNAO and RPNAO in order immediate value for money audience of all these programs Deputy Premier if anyone had any doubt that the attack on nurses would continue that doubt is now erased Retention fund speaker I have met with the management committee and asked them to come back I've met with them in January they have until the end of May to come back with an idea speaker on how that money can be used to support the transformation in our healthcare system that is now underway on this side of the house we value our nurses we understand we are in a time of transition that's a difficult transition we are there to support our nurses as we move from acute care hospitals into the community Thank you any questions Thank you very much Mr. Speaker my question is to the Minister of Infrastructure According to the Premier's own press release during the Liberal leadership race she bragged that as Minister of Transportation she oversaw the construction of the Windsor Essex Parkway The current Minister in July wrote the agreement negotiated and I quote you directly from your own writing we may have compromised our ability to enforce the law by negotiating our authority away end of quote why did the Minister fail to act when he knew that he was compromising public safety on the Herb Grey Parkway by negotiating away any kind of authority you had question thank you Minister of Infrastructure Transportation so Mr. Speaker I'm going to read very slowly again from the note the one piece of paper that the members opposite didn't want to have the public see Minister's office staff were first briefed on the safety and durability issues regarding girders on the Herb Grey Parkway on June 14th 2013 and the Minister was briefed on June 19th 2013 this is a piece of paper written in the file by officials independently of any apologize to the Minister to make it very clear that all the other references to the Herb Grey Parkway were not discussions about the girders now I know that fact is unpleasant and uncomfortable for the third party but it is a fact that is really pretty hard to discuss Mr. Speaker as we went through over the summer the review and we looked at who was overseeing this project a lot of decisions were made that caused me concern which led me to the independent including the negotiation of the project agreement Mr. Speaker and that is all well documented but that is all long after June thank you this Minister wrote you again we may have compromised our ability to enforce the law by negotiating our authority away you wrote that yourself documents released through the freedom of information repeatedly show the Ministry of Transportation being critical of the project agreement because it does not allow the MTO to exercise its role and responsibilities as the legislative road authority and puts the public interest at risk why did the Minister hide the fact he knew that the project agreement on the Herb Gray Parkway put the safety of people in this province at risk Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker there is a review going on right now as you probably know of the AFP process because we've discussed this before on how we can prove it and because we do an innovative project and when we do you an innovative thing Mr. Speaker there is a dispute resolution process in there it was something that I have commented on the entire time I was Minister that is a full stop it is not relating to the issues that the member is confusing it with I first raised this issue in early June with my deputy my deputy said very clear to me no specific issues have been raised around the girder's safety with her I went to the deputy of infrastructure I asked the same question he told me the same thing I asked them to review June 19th I got a briefing based on that review they looked into it and they discovered the same issues that the members are making reference to I think that is clear Mr. Speaker I hope I won't have to repeat this in French again but I hope this will be clear in French thank you my question is for the Minister of Government Services every member in this House knows how donations make a big difference Ontarians contribute generously to a variety of causes their donations can do anything from feeding an empty stomach to saving a life without the thoughtful contributions of countless Ontarians so many would do without I have seen this generosity extended in my riding of Scarborough Gildwood as a province we do our best to help those in need and to extend that help as far as our reach can go including the global community I understand that the Government of Ontario recently donated firefighting equipment to the Dominican Republic Speaker will the Minister inform this House and residents in my riding about this important initiative thank you Minister of Government Services I thank the member for the question Mr. Speaker it was through a surplus asset distribution program in Ontario Shared Services the Ontario Government was able to donate surplus firefighting equipment to the Dominican Republic Ontario Shared Services first received a request from firefighters without borders Canada in January this is a registered charity whose goal is to assist emergency services worldwide working with firefighters without borders the ministry of community safety and correctional services identified about 270 coats 282 pants 46 boots and 42 helmets that will be donated to the Dominican Republic to help fight fires these items come from the ministry of community safety and correctional services fire protection services in Thunder Bay firefighters without borders Canada is in the process of shipping them to the Dominican Republic thank you for that helpful update I commend the minister and the government for their generosity and firefighters without borders Canada for all the great work they do around the world the Ontario Government's commitment to helping its neighbours around the world is admirable as is the active role Ontario plays in the global community supporting those in need here at home we appreciate the hard work of the Toronto Firefighter Services in Scarborough Guildwood stations 231 and 234 providing comfort and security to our residents so I know that this donation of firefighting equipment will help save the lives of Dominican firefighters and the people they protect Speaker, I have heard that similar donations to countries around the world it's a wonderful way to help minister have other provinces in Canada made similar donations thank you Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to say that Ontario is not the only province to donate firefighting goods to countries in need through partnerships with firefighters without borders Canada New Brunswick has donated approximately 60 sets of firefighting gear to date British Columbia has donated 8 pallets of firefighting gear and Quebec has two departments that are also making donations we certainly recognize Mr. Speaker here in Ontario the great impact of such generosity and know that again with other provinces our impact can be even greater programs such as this exist so that surplus assets are not thrown away when others can make use of them recognizing the needs of others such as the Dominican Republic can help save lives Mr. Speaker, we are proud to help the Dominican Republic and we are grateful for our partnership with firefighters without borders Canada Thank you Mr. Speaker my question is to the minister of education the Northumberland Child Development Centre has operated in my riding for over two decades and has always had an excellent record of service and care they have built trusting relationships with the families they serve and have helped the children they work with take great strides in becoming valued members in our community these relationships are vital to the development of these individuals and jeopardizing those established relationships would be hugely detrimental to their progress Minister, would you agree with this Yes, thank you very much and one of the things that we do to help support child care and I take it that this is a related to child care question but one of the things that we do to help support special needs children in child care is to provide funding for special needs resourcing but the funding for special needs resourcing is actually managed by the local service manager because in fact money for child care flows not directly from the ministry of education to the child care operator it flows from the ministry of education to the municipal service manager and it's actually the municipal service manager that makes all decisions about which agency realize various services back to the minister this government can waste billions of dollars on gas plant scandals orange and e-health that has led to several OPP investigations but when it comes to the reallocation of funds your government has attacked our most vulnerable the NCDC's integrated funding model formally allocated $1.6 million for roughly 500 children receiving child care services in Northumberland this plan was supported by the ministry of children and youth services for years after the transfer to your ministry though the integrated model has been done away with now $1.3 million will be going to fund roughly 100 children in child care with only $167,000 left to service almost 450 remaining children since your ministry took over 90% of the funding is now servicing 20% of our most vulnerable this is liberal nomics and it's worth minister will you finally get a handle on the development services portfolio step in and reallocate the municipal education thank you very much and one of the things actually that has happened since the child care funding child care came to the ministry of education is that we actually have been working quite extensively on modernizing that file now part of that has been the transition to all of our four and five year olds being in full day kindergarten but we've also been working with our municipal service managers to modernize the whole child care sector part of that has actually been putting for the first time ever an actual funding model in place the previous to the this portfolio coming to the minister of education there actually wasn't a foreign model we now have a funding model but there has been significant transitional funding allocated to each of the service managers thank you there being no deferred votes this house stands recessed I'm in the process of dismissal I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to get a hold of it okay this afternoon thank you this house stands recessed until one p.m. this afternoon


Polarized training suggests that the optimal way to train to improve your performance on the bike and in other endurance sports is to spend the vast majority of your training time at an easy, comfortable pace. The remaining time should be extremely hard above your FTP. Or should it be? We'll get into that because if anyone might know the answer, it's probably my guest today. Yeah, we'll get into that, but first, what the f**k did you do with all my race numbers? How are the viewers going to know that on the weekends, I like to wear tights and ride my bike in circles a little bit faster than other dudes to win a 26-inch mountain bike tire and a tube of chamois cream? If you're a regular viewer of my channel, then you know how research heavy some of my videos can get. And I've talked about polarized training a lot on my channel because there's a lot of research to back it up. One of those researchers who helped conduct a lot of those studies that I talk about and has become famous for coining the term polarized training is my guest today, Dr. Steven Seiler. This video is part of a longer conversation and I plan on releasing all of it, but today we discussed polarized training and how Dr. Seiler's understanding of what polarized means has changed over time as more data has come out. We also touch on whether recovery rides are useful or whether you should just take the day completely off. Enjoy. Afternoon in Norway and early morning in Central, what is it? Mountain time in the United States? Central time here. I'm usually on East Coast time, but I'm actually in Texas right now trying to get some heat acclimation for a race. Okay, well that'll do it. I used to live in Texas, so heat acclimation in Texas go well together. So that sounds like a good strategy. I think that probably a lot of people know you because of polarized training. A lot of people say that you coin the term polarized training. I don't know if that's correct or not, but maybe you could give us a brief little history lesson of how did polarized training start? How did you discover it? How did it get discovered in general? It's not something I invented in the sense that I experimentally said this is going to work and anticipated or had a hypothesis. It's more that I observed it in athletes, that athletes discovered it through the trial and error of coaching and training over decades. And I as a sports scientist, I guess if I did something useful, it was to respect the knowledge of coaches and athletes and say, you know what, we have to move out and actually quantify what they do, what the really good endurance athletes do. How do they train? Because we think we know how to train untrained people and get them out off the sofa and improve their VO2 max after eight weeks, but that's really not that relevant to an athlete that's been training for five years and is now trying to take the next step up towards the national team. So that was really, you know, my kind of epiphany if there is such a thing here when I came to Norway, because I was I was seeing things and hearing things in the training environment that didn't match up with my, you might say, conventional interpretation of the available research literature. Then yeah, I published a couple of papers where I use the term polarized training. Yeah, I think it was me that coined it and then just been trying to figure out what it actually means and why ever since. What kind of things were you seeing elite athletes and coaches doing and perhaps that could be a segue into just for anyone who doesn't know what polarized training is, just a brief overview of what polarized training actually is. Yeah, and I think we're going to have to really say what it is and what it isn't. But what was fundamental about polarized training or what I see and 25 years later is still consistently observed is that the best endurance athletes in the world, whether they were you would, you know, four minute or way down three, three and a half, you can kind of the endurance spectrum, I would say starts around three to four minutes of competition duration and all the way out to six hour classics, you know, or Iron Man events, all of that, that entire spectrum, we saw just big universal or commonalities and the biggest commonality from a training perspective was is that they were doing large volumes of their total training at an intensity that was below what we call the first lactate turn point. Pretty comfortable intensity, but lots of hours, you know, high frequency, high volume, a lot of training. And then they were also doing, you know, significant amounts, but much smaller amounts of high intensity training and high intensity in my brain now, because of all the research we've done, we have done is basically anything above that first lactate turn point. But when we first published, we were kind of using a three intensity zone model based on the physiology where you have a first turn point and a second turn point for lactate. The first is a kind of a subtle increase that it can be compensated or can reach a new steady state. If you keep increasing the intensity, you reach a point where now lactate just continues to climb until fatigue or until you cease, you stop exercising. So that was, you know, we use this three zone model and my brain said those are going to each have different consequences. But then subsequent research on the stress aspects of it, using heart rate variability recovery and things like that suggested that actually, once you induce that big stress response, once you start really turning on the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system, the body doesn't really distinguish. And so more and more 27 for 25 years on, I would say it's almost like training comes down to two zones, a low stress zone and a high stress zone. And that's been, you know, I think it's been supported by subsequent research. And it's totally consistent with what we see athletes kind of self organizing towards, you know, because athletes were not saying, Oh, it's my autonomic nervous system. I need to balance that all out. They were just doing what was sustainable. They slowly were developing kind of an intensity distribution that allowed them to do one, a lot of training and two, some really hard training. And you need both. You need to do a lot of volume. We haven't seen much evidence of any way to circumvent that or to shortcut that, you know, good athletes train a lot. And I just, I'm sorry, but if someone wants evidence to the contrary that you can bypass the volume load, I haven't found it. You know, of course you can find, I think you can find evidence of athletes that have had a high volume that come down substantially in volume for a year or for a season and still pop some good results, you know, on the, they're on the descending curve, maybe because of an injury or because of they're about to retire or whatever. We've seen that, but they've been there. They've got a, they've got a big, you know, they've done a lot of work. And then usually when they go down in volume, they're more inconsistent in their performances. So that's what we've seen. So you can't get away from the frequency and the volume demands, but you also need the intensity occasionally. And so balancing all that out is really what good endurance training or effective endurance training comes down to, as far as I can tell after all of these years of trying to understand it. And it seems like that polarized distribution where a lot of the volume is extensive and at a more moderate intensity is more sustainable because you don't trigger that big stress response. You get a lot of cell signaling.  You know, it's, you don't have to do intervals to get a VO2 max improvement. It turns out. And so you get a lot of that at a fairly low stress cost. And so that's, that's what it comes down to, I think, for a long-term development is finding a sustainable balance. I know that people are going to be wondering, okay, how do I implement this into my own training? So I think probably the best place to start would be, how do we properly do one of these low-intensity rides? What intensity should I be riding at? How long, etc.? Yeah, that's a great question. And the most common mistake, of course, will be a kind of a half-wheeling type acceleration towards motor-auto, towards threshold level. And so you start out with good intentions, you're going to keep it low, but then somebody passes you and here we go with the testosterone reaction and says, oh, hell, I'm not letting them do that. And then you're on their wheel. And then we'll start the half-wheeling process and group rides and all this go out of control this way. It happens on Zwift, it happens in real life. But, well, the fundamental, that what I see with all the, with the best athletes, athletes that I've been fortunate enough to meet and talk to that have won multiple gold medals, they just, they put their ego aside when they're doing these workouts. They will let some 20-year-old, you know, goofball cycle past them. You know, they know what they're good for.  I'm on a four-hour easy ride today. But you can come back tomorrow because I'll be doing a hill session. Join me. Bring it on. You know, and so that's that what you see in the best is discipline, intensity discipline. So the first, the start of a low intensity session is to have the discipline to do it that way. To say today, 200 watts for four hours, you know, or whatever, whatever it is. Now, then you say, well, yeah, but there's some climbs here. You know, there's this, this is underlating terrain. And yeah, terrain can be tricky in cycling because it can tend to push workouts into that threshold zone. So you, you got to one, pick your terrain for low intensity sessions and two, pick your gear when you're climbing. Or, you know, when you do have to face the, the, these realities. So it's all about saying, what's the goal of this session today? You know, what is the, in the big picture of things where I'm doing hundreds of workouts this year? What's the, what's the goal here? And so I think that's what I see with the best athletes is that, you know, a clear understanding of what's the goal today and, and discipline and executing. I hear a common criticism of polarized training is that it works great for a pro who literally their only job is to ride their bike and they can do it for 20 to 30 hours per week. But I only have five to 10 hours per week. Doesn't seem like polarized training is going to work for me if I have to do all this low intensity. What do you say to that? Yeah, if you only are able to get out on the road three times a week and you've got four hours to train total per week or something like that, you know, you're just completely time squeezed, then yeah, I'm kind of in agreement with you. Then I'm going to just pretty much hammer those three days a week I have and hope for the best. But we have data and there is other studies that have been done that at least once you get up into that five to seven hour a week range, then already there if you're constantly training just kind of like threshold, you're kind of in that where everything squeezes into the same intensity in the middle that those athletes who are able to get a bit more disciplined have a long ride that is at the appropriate intensity a couple of those a week and then a really quality interval session and that and you know they will start seeing effects of that discipline in that in a range that a lot of us are able to be guys like me if I can train 10 hours a week yeah it definitely makes a difference for me if I get that right if I find the right balance in my intensity distribution and you know so 10 hours in that five to 10 hour range where a lot of people are it does still make a difference based on you know experimental studies so it does translate down these things we've seen from the top performers translates pretty far down into the the lives of the typical age group and and the most common training error in in the age groupers the you know the regular amateurs it will not be that they don't train hard enough it'll be that they train too hard that's just that's just what we see and and hard becomes kind of semi-hard every day one quick thing that I was going to ask uh related to taking rest days uh how do you feel about recovery rides easy one hour as easy as you can go versus a just taking the day completely off the bike I'm going to be honest with it if if you are really tired and you really say I just want to pedal as slow as I can then I would say well then why don't you just stay on the sofa and watch reruns or something and really rest rest and the other thing is a lot of times let's just be honest a rest day is not just a rest day for your body but it's also a day where you can kind of do other stuff you need to be doing you know you you get some stuff you get the bills paid maybe because now I have saved three hours today so I've got time to do some other stuff and you lower your stress load just because that day you can get some other shit done so and and let's remember that this is part of the practical realities for most people that both their body needs rest but that rest is also freeing up a bit of time for them to be a mom or a dad or or pay the bills or whatever it might be or the coach of the little league team and so the rest day ends up being a de-stressor in many ways and I do not know of any data to support that actual recovery processes measurable recovery processes are accelerated by a recovery ride versus a rest day I have tried to look into it myself and it's very limited most of the research on recovery intensity is is done on recovery intensity between hard efforts it's not done on a recovery day I don't want to keep you too much longer but one one thing that I did want to ask you is pyramidal training versus polarized training where do you fall on pyramidal versus polarized dawg and spearlich there were the two guys that introduced the term pyramidal they did a nice review and I was actually a reviewer of that paper and I can recall the first version of it and I said yeah you're on to something here and I and I think you're right I think the term polarized is is being used inappropriately because it's not always truly polarized what's being called polarized and so they they ran with it and they demonstrated and showed that yeah a lot of studies it's actually this kind of it was always consistently a lot of low intensity but then the threshold versus above threshold that distribution wasn't always polarized it was sometimes you know peer what they called pyramidal and and we've seen that with runners we've seen it with cyclists and it's true and the consistent part is about 80% of training sessions maybe 90% based on time and zone is in that low intensity zone but how the rest is distributed varies quite a bit what determines that it's event duration where they are in the season and probably also some individual issues of how they tolerate different load or intensity regimes you know if I use an example of myself an old guy doing intervals I handle short hard interval sessions pretty well but a really long threshold session will kick my butt probably because I get so glycogen depleted and I've got a lot of fast twitch fibers relatively speaking so I play in my wheelhouse with with more stochastic suit high intensity it fits my physiology better and I recover better I need the long tough threshold sessions but they're tougher for me now a super slow twitch diesel athlete may be exactly the opposite they could go all day at threshold and I and but they'll struggle in a with a 3015 workout and the other thing about this pyramidal versus polarized which I think makes the the whole discussion a bit artificial is that even if I do a nice polarized power distribution the heart rate based data can look pretty darn threshold for example if I do 30 15's you can end up if you look at it so that looks like upper threshold but I was cranking some pretty big powers here well yeah but you were cranking you know you were doing them for short periods and then you're getting recovery and so you get this dissociation between the central point of view cardiovascular response which is based on overall oxygen demand and the peripheral point of view which is the the localized recruitment of muscle with these high intensity accelerations so there can be a disconnect between those two and the one looks like threshold and the other looks like a high intensity session so that that also contributes to confusion in this pyramidal versus polarized discussion so have I have I muddied the waters enough here but the point is I really do believe that it if we understand that both a threshold intensity kind of workout that's long and tough and a interval kind of typical high intensity interval session they're both hard you're activating a big sympathetic response and they should be seen as both going in that kind of high stress bucket if you're doing your accounting of how many week workouts a week are going to be hard and how many workouts are going to be low stress and and you're trying to manage that then both threshold sessions and high intensity so called vo2 max interval sessions land in the same hard bucket do you think that it would make sense for somebody to maybe do more polarized for one part of the year and more pyramidal for another part of the year or somebody to do more pyramidal if they're training for say a longer ultra endurance event and somebody to do more polarized if they're training for a shorter distance event yeah in general the progression the periodization if we want to call it that of the interval sessions will be a bit towards more race pace particularly in running where you have a very specific race pace and so if you're a 5000 runner 1500 meter runner then that means you're progressing towards pretty darn high intensities vo2 max type sessions but if you're a marathoner then your goal is to extend threshold you're trying to stay at threshold longer because if you can hold your goal pace longer then you get a pr in your marathon so they will be doing a different load structure where they their toughest sessions may end up being really long tough threshold sessions and they so some marathoners do what we call a reverse periodization where they do vo2 max type intervals earlier in the season and then they start stretching them and and reducing intensity just a little bit extending and moving towards marathon goal pace it's all hard a 90 minute threshold session is tough more and more I've developed this kind of just dichotomous thinking of of low stress sessions that we can recover within 24 hours from versus high stress sessions that will require more than 24 hours of recovery you know and that's your could be the tough interval session the tough threshold session the race and so forth that the recovery clock is now longer it's extended and now I've got to manage that within the training microcycle to finish it up is there anything that you're currently working on that you'd like the audience to know about or are there any areas of endurance training that you feel need more research oh well the first the last I'll say first there's definitely areas that need more research because we have tended to be intensity centric as physiologists because it's just kind of sexier things happen faster when we're working at high intensity the workouts are shorter everything you know it's just our intention span like everybody else is short but we need to know more about the interaction between intensity and duration below that first LT the first leg take turn point given that so much of the training is is there and should be there I think we probably could benefit from more information more understanding of that careful interaction between you know is it 60 percent for four hours or is it the same if I do 70 percent for two hours you with me I don't have any data on that but I suspect that people have an opinion so that's one area that we need more data on another area is just this this issue of stress of training load versus stress in other words what's happening in the workouts and how in this uncoupling or decoupling between the the internal workload and the external workload and how much is enough and and all of these questions that were emerging we need more data on that and and heart rate is a good tool but it's probably not it's it's not ideal it doesn't tell us everything and so one of the other things I'm working on is is understanding the second vital sign which is breathing ventilation because now with modern technologies we're able to breathe take breathing and ventilation out into the field and and and all that and there's some really interesting research going on related to that so I'm doing a bit of work there too thanks for watching I've linked to dr. Seiler's personal youtube channel down in the description and I highly recommend checking it out if you enjoyed this video be sure to give it a like subscribe and share this video with your cycling friends I'll see you in the next one