Premier Dalton McGuinty

Ontario’s emergency response protocols under review following Elliot Lake disaster

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Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Thursday, June 28, 2012 – Globe and Mail

ADAM RADWANSKI AND ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

With two bodies pulled from the wreckage of Elliot Lake’s Algo Mall, Dalton McGuinty’s government is set to begin a grim review of whether Ontario’s own emergency-response processes undermined the ultimately fruitless rescue mission.

A source in the Premier’s Office confirmed on Wednesday that the review will consider whether the specialized excavator used to dismantle the collapsed mall – four days after the crisis began – should have been brought in sooner.

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Premier faces questions over stop-and-start rescue at Elliot Lake

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Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Wednesday, June 27, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ADAM RADWANSKI, ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY, STEPHEN SPENCER DAVIS and JANE SWITZER

TORONTO and ELLIOT LAKE, ONT. — Ontario’s Premier acknowledges that confusion and delays in the effort to reach possible survivors of a shopping mall roof collapse have raised concerns about the province’s capacity to respond to serious emergencies.

“There will be a time for questions that need to be asked about what and when and how and why not,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday, after being asked how a race to reach potential survivors could be halted and then resumed only after his intervention.

As heavy equipment began rumbling up the highway to the Algo Mall in Elliot Lake to undertake the task of prying apart heavy concrete slabs inside an unstable structure, questions also grew as to whether clearer lines of communication and stronger leadership on the ground could have saved precious time.

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Year-end interview: Rob Ford has no intention of toning down in 2011

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Photo by Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail


Wednesday, December 22, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Coming off successive victories at his first substantive council meeting, Mayor Rob Ford has reason to be pleased with himself: He has slain a personal vehicle tax and trimmed councillors’ budgets, has declared light-rail transit dead in its tracks and lacks only the province’s approval to remove transit workers’ right to strike.

And he made it clear in an interview with The Globe and Mail Tuesday that he has no intention of toning it down as he heads into a new year. In 2011, he’ll have to conjure budget efficiencies his opponents say are impossible, construct brand-new transit plans to replace projects years in the making and confront the city’s strongest unions.

Mr. Ford said an auditor’s report due in January will vindicate what he’s been saying for years about waste at city hall – waste he still can’t specify but which he has told city staff to find, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, over the next several weeks.

“There’s something coming from the auditor’s office that’s going to be pretty earthshaking. I can’t tell you what that is right now, but there’s a lot of waste,” he said. “I’m not happy with what he found but he did his job and I’ll have to deal with it.”

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