... at Queen's Park, across Ontario and elsewhere.

* Flags at Queen’s Park were lowered Monday in honour of former Speaker of the Ontario Legislature John Turner, who died Sunday at age 90. He was the Progressive Conservative MPP for Peterborough from 1971 to 1975, and again from 1977 to 1987. He was the Speaker from 1981 to 1985, and a city alderman from 1969 to 1971. Liberal MPP Jeff Leal was quoted in the Peterborough Examiner as saying Turner "was a kind and decent man with a stellar reputation."

Turner was “very concerned about the poisonous partisanship that has entered politics today," Leal added."He felt it prevented a lot of good things from being done in a community.”

A funeral service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Peterborough.

* Tory Leader Tim Hudak clarified on Tuesday his position on extracurricular activities and teachers' official job descriptions.

While he shied away from further suggestion that extracurricular activities should be made mandatory, he said teachers should be compensated to ensure the continuation of activities.

Unions should also be barred from preventing teachers from participating in work-to-rule campaigns that only hurt students, Tory education critic Lisa MacLeod said.

Hudak's clarified position doesn't dodge the fact that experts suggest paying for extracurricular activities defeats the point. It's impossible to monetize how a chess club might help one student while playing football might develop another.

* Maple syrup producers must tap lightly this year because trees were so stressed by last year's weather, the Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs warns.

“Our sugar maples are in a stressed state right now,” agroforest specialist Todd Leuty told about 60 maple syrup producers Friday in Campbellford, the Peterborough Examiner reports. He said below-average snowfall, an unusually warm March and a hot, dry summer affected trees across Canada and the United States, so maple bush owners should be cautious about tapping. Don't tap a tree at all if its diameter is less than 12 inches, he said.

* Timmins city council has agreed to sell the Shania Twain Centre property to Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines for $5 million. The deal will be completed on June 28, the Timmins Press reports.

While the buildings housing the centre and Underground Gold Mine Tour are slated to be destroyed and the land turned into a proposed open-pit mine, there's been no decision on what to do with the two collections of memorabilia the city will inherit. Mayor Tom Laughren recalled that the centre opened in in June 2001 with funding and support from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, and said the city is committed to promoting tourism.

* Put this in the category of awkward timing. Jim Murren, chairman and chief executive officer of MGM Resorts International, addressed the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto Tuesday, making the case for a Toronto casino.

He said MGM’s approach is to create an “integrated resort” that offers entertainment, food and convention space, rather than a stand-alone casino. He said Exhibition Place is his preferred site, adding that a development there could also revitalize Ontario Place.

He pointed to MGM’s CityCenter in Las Vegas as a successful example of how an integrated development can revitalize an urban area, in this case the Las Vegas strip.

But a New York Times story published Tuesday cited CityCenter as a symbol of the stalled economy in Las Vegas. It focuses on the Harmon tower, which was supposed to be a 49-floor hotel but remains vacant after the city ordered building halted at the 26^th floor in 2008 because of construction defects.

The article calls the unfinished, empty tower a “symbol of overconfidence” that has become “the most expensive billboard in the country.” That’s because the $275 million building has an enormous poster on it advertising a Cirque du Soleil production at a nearby hotel.

Coincidentally, Murren touted a potential partnership with Cirque du Soleil in his Toronto speech, with a top Cirque representative looking on from the audience. The Montreal-based entertainment company has had its own financial problems, and laid off 400 workers on Jan. 16

Quote of the Day

“I read it, thought to myself, ‘What do you do when the brains run out?’”
- Finance Minister Dwight Duncan on Tory Leader Tim Hudak’s province-wide “When the Money Runs Out” tour and multimedia presentation.

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