Toronto Spending

Toronto defrauded of $939,000 in 2011, city’s auditor general reveals

February 21, 2012
Paul Moloney

Toronto’s Auditor General Jeff Griffiths says his office has found that the city was defrauded of at least $939,000 last year.
Out of hundreds of complaints to the office, 53 were substantiated, Griffiths said in a report to council’s audit committee.
Among the cases probed by the auditor general:
 • An employee under investigation for submitting false benefit claims retired and received full retirement payouts despite being suspended.
 • One employee was allowed to resign and another fired after working a second job outside the city during regular city work hours.
 • Two city staffers received discipline letters after a contractor was overpaid $20,000 due to staff not clearly understanding the contract requirements.
 • One staffer received a discipline letter and a second was allowed to resign for working part time for a city contractor.
 • Two employees were suspended for submitting false daily logs; creating records for work not performed; making personal use of city assets; and leaving work early.
 • An employee was fired for calling in sick while working a second, non-city job. Another was terminated for calling in sick on six occasions while working a second job on those days.
 • Three employees were suspended for conducting personal matters on city time and falsifying time sheets.
 • Two employees received “letters of direction” after starting a consulting business that offered services that overlapped with their city jobs. Another was terminated for running a personal business during work hours using city resources.
 • A staffer was fired for using their city position to obtain personal favours from a citizen.
 • An employee was terminated for misappropriating $1,500 in scrap material from a contractor’s work site on city property.
 • An employee was terminated for claiming 11 sick days to plan a personal event.
 • A staffer received a discipline letter after a city supplier performed minor work on the employee’s property.
The report is to be discussed by the audit committee next week.

star apology

Back to Star’s mistake links wrong Iranian professors to academic plagiarism

Star’s mistake links wrong Iranian professors to academic plagiarism

February 17, 2012
Kathy English

Xavier Fernando, an engineering professor at Ryerson University, was the victim of academic plagiarism.

For academics — and journalists too — plagiarism is the cardinal sin.
In universities and news organizations throughout the world, there is no greater wrong than stealing someone else’s work and presenting it as your own. Such deliberate dishonesty, in both the academy and the newsroom, is often grounds for dismissal.
Given the seriousness of this “crime” it follows that to be unjustly accused of plagiarism, or to have one’s name mistakenly linked to plagiarism, is, understandably, cause for distress.
This week, the Star reported the story of a Ryerson University professor whose work was plagiarized by two academics based in Iran. This academic plagiarism was confirmed by the editorial board of the Journal of Electronic Waves and Applications, which published the plagiarized work.
Unfortunately, an error in the Star’s reporting of the name of the Iranian university of one of the confirmed plagiarists caused considerable distress for not one — but two — other Iranian professors at the university the Star mistakenly named. These two professors have the same name as one of the Iranian academics who submitted an exact copy of a paper written by Ryerson computer engineering professor Xavier Fernando in 2004
As soon as we verified this mistake, the Star corrected its online story and published an apology to these other two Iranian professors who were inadvertently linked to this plagiarism scandal as a result of the Star’s error.
This was a mistake that could only happen in this Google era. As such, it is a cautionary lesson for journalists in making assumptions about anyone’s identity based on what comes up in a Google search.
In the universe of Google, many people have the same names. Google yourself and see the alter egos named you. You’ll likely also find uncanny coincidences — maybe even someone with your name who works in your field.
The Star’s story reported correctly that an academic named Mehdi Dehghan plagiarized Fernando’s paper. But it erred in reporting he is a professor at Amirkabir University. In fact, the academic who plagiarized is affiliated with the department of electrical engineering at another Iranian University, the Islamic Azad University, Science and Research branch, in Tehran.
As the Star’s apology made clear, there are in fact two professors named Mehdi Dehghan at Amirkabir University and neither of them had any involvement in this proven case of plagiarism.
“Mehdi Dehghan is a common name in Iran,” one of the academics named Mehdi Dehghan, an associate professor of computer engineering and information technology, told me in an email sent when he realized the Star’s mistake wrongly linked him and his same-named colleague, the head of Amirkabir University’s math and computer science department, to this plagiarism story.
Here’s how Google comes in. The Star’s reporter, Anita Li, was assigned to this story, which was first reported by the Ryerson School of Journalism’s student-run Ryersonian newspaper. (It also reported the same incorrect university of Mehdi Dehghan.)
The Ryerson prof whose work was plagiarized bears no responsibility for this error. After Li contacted him, he sent her a copy of the journal’s official confirmation naming “Dr. Mehdi Dehghan” and another Iranian academic as the plagiarists. That document did not state their university affiliation.
“To fact-check, I googled the professors’ names. When googling “Mehdi Dehghan,” the first entry was Mehdi Dehghan of the Amirkabir University of Technology,” Li said.
Li made the incorrect assumption that this Iranian academic was the same Mehdi Dehghan who had plagiarized Fernando’s article. She thus wrote that Mehdi Dehghan was based at Amirkabir University, exposing both of that institution’s same-named profs to questions from academics around the world about whether one of them had plagiarized.
While Li may have made a logical assumption based on her Google search, an assumption is never verification for a journalist. And had she more carefully checked the copy of the plagiarized paper that Fernando had also sent her, she would have seen that it clearly stated the plagiarist named Mehdi Dehghan was with the Islamic Azad University, not Amirkabir University. Li read that document but did not notice that critical fact.
Before filing, Li also sent an email to the Mehdi Dehghan at Amirkabir University, whom she had found through Google to seek comment about the plagiarism. Unfortunately, due to time differences between Canada and Iran, he did not see that until after the Star’s story had been published.
“I fully understand the seriousness of this error and vow to be more vigilant in the future” Li, one of the Star’s interns, told me.
This is a tough lesson for any reporter, let alone an intern. I don’t think Li bears sole responsibility here. She received little oversight from her editors, no questioning at all about how she knew the identities and universities of the two academics who had plagiarized.
When reporting on such a serious matter as academic plagiarism, all of the journalists involved in this story — whom I expect well understand the serious implications of plagiarism — needed to ask more questions to be totally sure of the facts.
publiced@thestar.ca

Google and STar factcheck

Ryerson professor’s work plagiarized by Iranian academics

Published On Mon Feb 13 2012

Prof. Xavier Fernando, a professor at Ryerson University's electrical and computer engineering department, is the victim of plagiarism by two professors from Iran.

ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE/TORONTO STAR

 

 

Anita Li Staff Reporter

 

A Ryerson University professor wants harsher punishment for two Iran-based academics who plagiarized his work.
Xavier Fernando said he was shocked to see a “carbon copy” of a research paper he wrote for the Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2004 republished four years later in the Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications.
“It’s a complete copy,” said the electrical and computer engineering professor. “Except for the title and the authors’ names, the paper is identical.”
Two of Fernando’s students stumbled across the article while doing research last fall. The stated authors are Mehdi Dehghan and Pouya Derakhshan-Barjoei, both with  Islamic Azad University, in Iran. Fernando said he found the article upsetting, “because you don’t expect this kind of behaviour.”
Dehghan and Derakhshan-Barjoei did not respond to requests for comment.
Fernando reported the plagiarized work to the Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications. Its editorial board told the Iranian professors they were banned from submitting work for three years, and that their paper had been “withdrawn.”
The punishment doesn’t fit the crime, said Russell Viirre, a Ryerson chemistry professor who found out about the matter from an email Fernando sent faculty. “In my field, this would be an international scandal.”
After a quick Google search, Viirre said he discovered that Dehghan and Derakhshan-Barjoei had plagiarized other articles in the past.
Unlike the professors, students would expect much more severe consequences for copying work without attribution, said Sajjadul Latif, one of Fernando’s masters students who uncovered the plagiarism. “Frankly speaking, I don’t think the punishment is enough.”
Latif, originally from Bangladesh, said guilty students in his home country would be kicked out of university and banned from enrolling in other universities across the country.
At minimum, Ryerson University students will get a mark of zero on the plagiarized assignment. Their academic records and official transcripts may also be stamped with a “disciplinary notice,” which stays until they graduate. Other penalties include failing the course and even expulsion from university
Note: This article was edited to correct a previous version that said Mehdi Dehghan is a professor at Amirkabir University of Technology in Iran.

In fact, there are two professors named Mehdi Dehgham at  Amirkabir University of Technology in Iran -- Mehdi Dehgham, an associate professor in the computer engineering and information technology department and Mehdi Dehghan, head of the mathematics and computer science department.  Neither of these Amirkabir University of Technology professors were at all involved in this plagiarism incident. The Toronto Star has apologized to the professors for this error.

Immigrants cost

Immigrants cost $23B a year: Fraser Institute report

Leah Hennel/Postmedia News files

The Fraser Institute report says newcomers pay about half as much in income taxes as other Canadians but absorb nearly the same value of government services, costing taxpayers roughly $6,051 per immigrant and amounting to a total annual cost of somewhere between $16.3-billion and $23.6-billion.

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Immigrants to Canada cost the federal government as much as $23-billion annually and “impose a huge fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers,” according to a think-tank report released Tuesday that was immediately criticized as telling only part of the story.
The Fraser Institute report (download the PDF here or see it below) says newcomers pay about half as much in income taxes as other Canadians but absorb nearly the same value of government services, costing taxpayers roughly $6,051 per immigrant and amounting to a total annual cost of somewhere between $16.3-billion and $23.6-billion.
“It’s in the interest of Canada to examine what causes this and to fix it,” said Herbert Grubel, co-author of the report Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State. “We need a better selection process … We’re not here, as a country, to do charity for the rest of the world.”

The report acknowledges there are “popular propositions” about the benefits of immigration: Young immigrants pay taxes that support social services for Canada’s aging population; immigrants fill the low-paying jobs that others do not seem to want; Canadians are ennobled by allowing people to share in the country’s economic riches; immigration enriches the cultural life of Canadians, and future generations end up repaying their parents’ debt by earning an average or above-average living in the long run.
Mr. Grubel and economic consultant Patrick Grady argue, however, that these benefits either do not hold up to close scrutiny or that they are simply not worth the economic cost.
The 62-page report used a 2006 Census database to estimate the average incomes and taxes paid by immigrants who arrived in Canada over the period from 1987 to 2004. It found that immigrants paid an average of $10,340 in income tax and other taxes, compared with the $16,501 paid by all Canadians. While newcomers each received $110 less than the rest of Canadians, the “net fiscal transfer per immigrant” still amounted to $6,051 annually. The study examined the incomes of adults exclusively, and assumed the average immigrant pays taxes and receives benefits for 45 years.
“I’m sure the data behind the numbers is sound, but I think it only tells half the story,” said Rudyard Griffiths, co-founder of the Dominion Institute and author of Who We Are: A Citizen’s Manifesto. “The fact is that we’re doing immigration on the cheap … We don’t spend enough money on language services, and we don’t do enough skills accreditation and training.”
He said he is sympathetic to the argument that family reunification is likely burdensome on the tax purse, but said it’s just a “drop in the bucket” given that those visas account for only 11,000 of the 250,000 or so newcomers expected this year.
“The trickier issue is that of the quarter of a million, only about 60,000 are skilled or professional workers,” he said. “Everyone else is dependents.”
Mr. Grubel, himself an immigrant who first migrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1956 “with nothing,” maintains that he is not anti-immigration but rather that he believes immigrants should “pay their way in the welfare state.”
He and Mr. Grady argue that the selection process should be revamped to focus on admitting skilled workers who have job offers with Canadian employers. Recent newcomers should also have to post a bond to cover payments for health-care and social services before their parents and grandparents are admitted as landed immigrants.
Douglas Cannon, a prominent B.C.-based immigration lawyer, said he understands the benefit of the cost calculation, but said it is impossible to attach a price-tag to the benefits of welcoming newcomers.
“Immigration is, in the end, about people and their futures, their dreams, their hopes — how can you put a dollar amount on that?” he said. “It’s about continuing to make Canada a place of opportunity.”
This was not Mr. Grubel’s foray into calculating the cost of Canada’s immigration policies. In 2005, the Fraser Institute released his study that pegged the 2002 cost at $18-billion, but he said this latest report is more “scientifically rigorous and less liable to attack.”
National Post
kcarlson@nationalpost.com
The new Fraser Institute report says Canada should revamp its immigration selection process. Here are some of its recommendations:
- Only those with a legitimate offer from a Canadian employer should be allowed to obtain a temporary work visa. All other grounds for granting immigrant visas should be discontinued, except those applicable to refugee claimants.
- The government should exclude all applicants likely to become a burden on the public health care system.
- The government should set up and supervise a privately run system for the collection of information about the residence and work status of those holding temporary work visas.
- Within one month of arriving in Canada, work-visa holders should be required to register with the enforcement agency and provide contact information.
- Employers of temporary workers must notify authorities when a foreign worker is laid off or has failed to show up for work.
- Work-visa holders who lose their jobs must find new employment within three months or leave Canada, unless their spouse is employed under the family-work visa provision.
- Immigrants may have their parents and grandparents join them as landed immigrants in Canada only after posting a bond to cover payments for health care and other social benefits.
Source: Immigration and the Canadian Welfare State, a Fraser Institute report by Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady

Leafs Playoffs

Back to Toronto Maple Leafs road map to 93 points — and a playoff spot

Toronto Maple Leafs road map to 93 points — and a playoff spot

January 30, 2012
Kevin McGran

Toronto Maple Leafs' Clarke MacArthur (R) celebrates with his teammates Nazem Kadri (C) and Mikhail Grabovski (L) after MacArthur's overtime goal against the New York Islanders in their NHL ice hockey game in Uniondale, New York, January 24, 2012. The Maple Leafs won the game on the goal 4-3. What the Leafs really want to do is to celebrate their first playoff spot in the post-lockout era.

MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS

Ninety-three points.
A Doug Gilmour season. That is the Holy Grail for the Maple Leafs, the magic number of points that ought to clinch them their first playoff spot of the post-lockout era.
Overall, it amounts to a record along the lines of 42-31-9 — a tad over .500 when counting overtime losses and shootout losses as losses.
Why 93 points? Well, the New York Rangers got the eighth seed in the East last year with that total. Montreal got eighth in 2009 with 93. (In ’06, Tampa got in with 92; in ’07; the Islanders made it with 92; in ’08, Boston needed 94; and in ’10, Montreal needed just 88.)
The Leafs already have 55 points. The website Sports Club Stats, which tracks teams’ chances of making the playoffs by analyzing the rest of the schedule for all teams, says the Leafs have a 72.4 per cent chance of making the playoffs.
Three other teams have 55 points in the East. Washington has an 80.5 per cent chance of making the playoffs, according to the site; Florida 74.6 per cent; and New Jersey 55.2.
While the Devils are officially placed eighth and the Leafs’ ninth because the Devils have a game in hand, the Leafs currently hold the first season-ending tie-break: The Leafs have 22 wins in regulation or overtime; the Devils 18.
So the Leafs need 38 points in their remaining 33 games — not an unreasonable expectation — to get to the magical 93. That’s a record of 17-12-4.
It won’t be easy. The Leafs have only 13 games of their remaining 33 against teams currently below them in the standings. That’s 40 per cent. To get this far, the Leafs played teams currently below them in the standings 22 out of 49 games, or 45 per cent of the time.
Here’s how they get there over the remaining 10 weeks of the season.
WEEK 1 (JAN. 29-FEB. 4) Opponents: Tuesday in Pittsburgh, Wednesday home to Penguins; Saturday in Ottawa.
Outlook: 1-1-1
Running total: 1-1-1
Skinny: The Penguins have won seven in a row so you have to favour the Penguins in the first game home after the all-star break. The Penguins mastery slips a bit in Toronto, but they prevail in extra time (they are 6-2 in extra time). The Leafs are hungry for a win in Ottawa, whose high times crashed to a halt on a recent road trip.
WEEK 2 (FEB. 5-FEB. 11) Opponents: Monday home to Oilers; Tuesday in Winnipeg; Thursday in Philadelphia; Saturday home to Canadiens.
Outlook: 2-1-1
Running total: 3-2-2
Skinny: Leafs have to take the home games against Edmonton and Montreal (two weaker opponents). They have to find a way to get a point on that time-zone travelling road trip in Winnipeg or Philadelphia. A win over Winnipeg would be huge, but a lot to ask in the back-to-back scenario.
WEEK 3 (FEB. 12-FEB. 19) Opponents: Tuesday in Calgary; Wednesday in Edmonton; Saturday in Vancouver
Outlook: 1-2-0
Running total: 4-4-2
Skinny: This will be their worst week of the second half. Calgary is the likely win here, the first of the road trip, even though the Leafs have lost their last six trips to Calgary. Playing back-to-back is not the Leafs’ strength, so the Edmonton game is iffy. Vancouver is a powerhouse at home on Hockey Night In Canada. The Leafs have lost nine in a row to the Canucks and haven’t won in Vancouver since 2003.
WEEK 4 (FEB. 20-FEB. 25) Opponents: Tuesday, home to the Devils; Thursday home to the Sharks; Saturday, home to the Capitals.
Outlook: 2-1-0
Running total: 6-5-2
Skinny: Beating New Jersey and Washington would have more meaning than beating a team from the Western Conference. Goalie Jonas Gustavsson has won his last three meetings against the Devils.
WEEK 5 (FEB. 26-MAR.3) Opponents: Tuesday home to Panthers; Wednesday in Chicago; Saturday in Montreal.
Outlook: 2-1-0:
Running total: 8-6-2
Skinny: Must beat Panthers and Habs. A loss to Chicago — a better team, a road game, and second of back-to-back — is understandable. That Florida game could have some crazy atmosphere for a Tuesday in February, if the standings remain this close.
WEEK 6 (MAR. 4-MAR. 10) Opponents: Tuesday home to Bruins; Wednesday in Pittsburgh; Saturday home to Flyers.
Outlook: 0-2-1
Running total: 8-8-3
Skinny: Three superior opponents. Three tough games. There isn’t a gimme among them. But if the Leafs manage to lose the first two that week, they’ll be up for that Saturday game against the Flyers. Even that will be tough, so an overtime loss is the safer prediction. The Leafs have just one win in their last seven games against the Flyers.
WEEK 7 (MAR. 11-MAR. 17) Opponents: Sunday at Washington, Tuesday at Florida, Thursday at Tampa, Tuesday at Ottawa.
Outlook: 2-2-0
Running total: 10-10-3
Skinny: Busy road trip. Leafs are a .500 road team. They’ll be tired for the game in Washington (5 p.m. start) after playing Philadelphia the night before. A sweep in the Sunshine State before arenas filled with Leafs fans on March break seems a must, followed likely by a lackluster game in Ottawa — their fifth in eight nights). The Senators will be coming off a game the night before against Montreal.
WEEK 8 (MAR. 18-MAR. 24) Opponents: Monday in Boston, Tuesday at home to Islanders; Friday in New Jersey; Saturday at home to Rangers.
Outlook: 2-1-1
Running total: 12-11-4
Skinny: That game in Boston is the last of the Leafs’s five-game road trip, their longest of the season. Another night of “Thank you, Kessel.” Then, the next night, the Leafs are home to the Isles and it will feel like a road game, so they might be lucky to get a point out of those two games. But they’ll have a few days off before they face New Jersey and New York Rangers back-to-back, hopefully picking up two wins. The Rangers will be tired. It will be their fifth game in eight nights.
WEEK 9 (MAR. 25-MAR. 31) Opponents: Tuesday at home to Hurricanes; Thursday at home to Flyers; Saturday at home to Sabres.
Outlook: 2-1-0
Running total: 14-12-4
Skinny: The last big home-stand and presumably the Hurricanes and Sabres have flown the white flag by trading away some veterans by the trade deadline. Anything less than four points would be a disappointment.
WEEK 10 (APR. 1-APR. 7) Opponents: Tuesday, at Buffalo; Thursday home to Lightning; Saturday at Montreal.
Outlook: 3-0-0
Running total: 17-12-4
Skinny: Finish strong. None of the three will have much to play for that last week, except draft position. That Montreal game could be a problem. If the Leafs are in a must-win situation for a playoff berth in Game 82, then all bets are off in the battle of historic rivals. Watch for a 6-5 final.