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

* New Democratic leader Andrea Horwath said Friday it’s “quite frustrating” that no progress has been made on forming committees for the fall session of the legislature, despite another meeting Thursday between house leaders seeking to find a structure suitable to all parties.

“On the one hand in the legislature we pass bills through second reading stage and they’re supposed to be sent to committee, and yet the committees don‘t exist,” she said.

“If the government and the Conservatives are really here to get results for people, the only way we can get that done is through the committee process,” she said. “I would urge Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Hudak to work with my House Leader Gilles Bisson to get those committees struck. It’s the business of the people that needs to get done here.”

* Ontario created 31,000 net new jobs in September, bringing the total of new jobs created since the worst of the 2008 recession to 356,000, said Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid. He told reporters Friday that 60 per cent of the new jobs created in Canada were created in Ontario.

But Tory finance critic Monte McNaughton countered that this was the 69th consecutive month in which Ontario’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national average.

“The jobs market is treading water right now,” McNaughton said in a written statement. “The province only gained enough jobs last month to keep up with the growth in the labour force, which is why the unemployment rate barely budged from 8.0 per cent.”

* Marvin H. Siegel, Ontario's self-appointed "watchdog" of physicians and surgeons, has died.

* A flu outbreak in Sudbury is actually the Norovirus, the Sudbury Star reports. A long-term care facility and a day care have been drawn into the outbreak, which health officials say is being passed around schools and the community.

Norovirus causes fever, headaches vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. It's also known as the Norwolk or Norwolk-like virus and can be fatal, parrticularly for the extremely old, young or infirm.

* The Ontario Human Rights Commission is conducting a survey over the next three weeks asking job seekers and employers how their experience in the Ontario job market is hasd been impacted by Canadian work experience.

"In our conversations with newcomers, they often talk about the requirement for 'Canadian experience' as a big barrier to their entry into the workforce," said OHRC Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall in a written statement.

"We want to learn more about how this requirement plays out in real life."

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