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

* New Democratic MPP France Gélinas is to introduce a motion in public accounts committee on Wednesday, asking the Auditor General to investigate contracts between the Ontario Power Authority and proponents of gas-fired power plants.

Gélinas introduced the motion on March 7 but it was put off to the fall by Auditor General Jim McCarter. If passed on Wednesday, McCarter told committee last week he would need only two to three weeks before his investigation could begin.

While the motion can pass without Liberal support, Gélinas told QP Briefing she would rather the motion have the support of all three parties before the Auditor General investigates.

* The union representing all unionized employees of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission is accusing Finance Minister Dwight Duncan of heckling opposition members for questioning the government’s plan to divest itself of the ONTC.

General Chairperson’s Association spokesman Brian Kelly says Duncan shouted “Nobody is on the train! Nobody is on the train!” during Question Period last Tuesday.

"We are appalled by the comments of the Finance Minister. We are well aware of the childish heckling antics of the government side but what is disconcerting is the undertones of contempt and complete lack of respect for the 40,500 Northerners who rely on the Northlander yearly,” Kelly said in a press realease.

* Early figures from Elections Ontario indicate lower advanced polling numbers for the Sept. 6 byelections in Kitchener-Waterloo and Vaughan.

As of Sept. 3, the Elections Ontario figures indicate 6,154 votes were cast in Kitchener-Waterloo and 2,575 votes in Vaughan. In the last general election in October 2011, 6,740 advanced ballots were cast in K-W and 4,570 in Vaughan.

* There are 82 confirmed cases of West Nile Virus in Ontario as of last Wednesday, Public Health Ontario reports. The weekly report also details 62 mosquito pools that tested positive for the virus, which is transmitted through the insect's blood-sucking bite.

The virus has been contained to southern parts of the province but Quebec has 11 confirmed cases, Manitoba nine, and Alberta and Saskatchewan one each.

South of the border, U.S. officials have tracked 1,590 human cases of West Nile Virus in 47 states. The Centres for Diseases Control reports a record 66 deaths related to the disease.

* The Ontario Teachers' Federation has elected Terry Hamilton as its new president.

Hamilton hails from Thunder Bay, where he served as branch president, chief negotiator and district president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.

The OTF represents all 160,000 public teachers in Ontario, each represented by an affiliate union.

Julie Pauletig was elected first vice-president during last week's annual meeting in Niagara Falls. Rian McLaughlin is the new second vice-president while Francin LeBlanc-Lebel becomes past president.

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