2 - Orono Weekly Times Subscriptions $38.09 + $1.91 GST = $40.00 per year. No Refunds. Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Aid to Publishers - Canada Periodical Fund toward our mailing costs." Wednesday, October 27, 2010 ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON L0B 1M0 E-mail: oronotimes@rogers.com or Phone/Fax: 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Production and Display Advertising - Roxanne Johnston Classified/Sports - Sue Weigand The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. Sweet victory for Foster af ter late night election results Election night 2010 in Clarington will be remembered for the slow reporting of the results as much as for the outcome. With the way the poll results crept in, you could say it was the creepiest election ever. In a progressive step, poll results were streamed live on the municipality's web site, so one did not have to go to Town Hall to watch the results on a central computer, once the local television stations turned from election coverage to resume their regularly scheduled programming. By that time there were not yet enough polls reporting in Clarington to determine any winners. By 11 p.m. when the Toronto Star went to press, with only 88 of the 222 polls reporting, Dean Perrin was ahead in Ward 4, so they have listed him as the new Ward 4 Councillor. By 8:30 p.m., the people in Toronto knew they had a new mayor, by around 9 o'clock Oshawa knew they had a new mayor, and at 9:30 Ajax, Pickering and Whitby had all declared their incumbent Mayors had been re-elected. In Clarington, at 9:37 with only 9 of the 222 polls reporting, Adrian Foster pulled ahead of Jim Abernethy, who had been in the lead when the first polls were reported. At 11:30 Wendy Partner pulled past Dean Perrin in the Ward 4 councillor race, and that is where she stayed. Willie Woo was miles ahead of Gord Robinson from the very first poll results, and he never lost ground. The past three elections in Clarington were conducted through a mail-in ballot, and votes were counted using electronic ballot counting equipment. In determining how this election was to be conducted, councillors voted to return to the traditional style of voting -- by placing paper ballots in a ballot box at polling stations. They also decided to count the ballots manually, against the Clerk's strong recommendation to use ballot counting equipment again. There was a strong suggestion from a number of the elected councillors late Monday night that this decision will be revisited for the 2014 election. Jim Abernethy jumped into municipal politics in the spring of 2007. A candidate who was unknown to the Clarington public, he had not served on local volunteer boards or committees prior to declaring himself a candidate and he had no prior political experience. The community rallied around him because he presented the best chance to defeat incumbent Mayor John Mutton. And he did just that, with 49.7 percent of the vote. Abernethy will always be the mayor who defeated Mutton. If Abernethy had prior political experience, he might have been more than a one-time mayor. He grossly misjudged the public's resentment of his leadership, or lack of it, surrounding the incinerator issue, which he claimed was a non-issue. Paul Adams, with no clearly stated reason why he was seeking Clarington's top political job, had a similar background to Abernethy -- no previous political experience and no history of volunteerism on municipal boards or committees. He was not much different than Abernethy four years ago. Adams was a better judge of public sentiment surrounding the incinerator, as he took a stand against it; however he had not been involved in the anti-incinerator campaign. Adrian Foster had been opposed to the incinerator, to be sited in his ward, since day one. He has also been public about his support for former Mayor John Mutton in his bid for the Regional Chair seat. In a conversation I had with Foster last month, he explained that he was supporting Mutton because he felt Mutton would be best positioned to look after Clarington's needs. Mutton in any leadership role is a scary thought, and let's hope Foster's vote notwithstanding, a third candidate jumps into the race for the Regional Chair seat, defeating both current Chair Roger Anderson, and want-to-be Chair John Mutton. Elections are about new beginnings, and Clarington is embarking on a new course. With some new candidates, and some experienced returning candidates, the new council will chart its own course, for better or worse, and in four years they will be judged for their decisions. Times columnist denied the vote To The Editor: How could I not be on the voters' list? After all the problems that I have had over the past two elections. And after receiving two different voting notifications with my name spelled wrong (see "Places I've Done Time" Orono Times , Oct. 13th edition). Monday I went to vote and left there being bitter and bewildered. Seven new cadidates vying to be elected and not one even checked the list, maybe next time. Clifford Francis Orono their chief executive officers will have to post their expenses online, under the proposed legislation introduced on Wednesday, October 20. The risk here is that hospitals will now have a new full-time staff person as a consultant/lobbyist. So, the problem is not solved. Frankly, Ontarians have every right to be skeptical. It was about a year ago that Premier McGuinty promised to shine a light on provincial expenses by introducing new accountability legislation. Yet almost one year later, 19 out of 22 agencies that were supposed to post their senior management's expenses online "no later than April 1, 2010" have failed to do so. Incredibly, no expenses have been posted for O'TOOLE see page 10 Staying in Touch MPP John O'Toole Auditor's Report Reveals eHealth Sequel A report from Ontario's Auditor General shows the same waste and scandal that plagued eHealth also plagues the Ministry of Health, Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and Ontario hospitals. In the last three years, the Ministry of Health and LongTerm Care spent $223.7 million on consultants. Among the expenses claimed by a hospital consultant was $7,800 billed for air fare for a personal vacation to Japan. Another consultant charged $400 a night for a hotel room and $500 in longdistance phone charges. The report from Auditor General Jim McCarter revealed that 8 of the 16 hospitals reviewed by the Auditor General had hired lobbyists at a cost of $1.6 million. The McGuinty government responded with new legislation that will ban hospitals from using taxpayers' money to lobby government. In addition,