City Council Approves Protection for Bus Drivers

Dec 1, 2020 | 5:02 AM

City council has voted to phase in the installation of permanent barriers on Saskatoon transit, to protect drivers from assault. Currently there are only temporarily vinyl barriers due to COVID-19 but in the last 3 years city administration says there has been 28 assaults on drivers.

Darcy Peterson, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union 615 says assaults are on the rise, and in Saskatoon things like threats, intimidation and fights on buses are also increasing. Peterson says transit operators are on the frontline facing new challenges on with professionalism. He appealed to council to help with these challenges and to give them the safety equipment they need to keep safe on the front lines. Peterson says he would like to not have to worry about whether he will be able to go home safely at the end of his day.

The initial plan in the report presented to council was to create a pilot project for the barriers but a motion from Councillor Bev Dubois and seconded by Councillor Randy Donauer, will now see the barriers phased in with initial funding of $500,000. The motion passed unanimously, while a motion from Councillor Darren Hill requesting more information regarding the location of the 28 assaults also passed by a vote of 6-5.

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When you receive your carbon tax rebate by direct deposit have you ever not known where it came from, regardless of how it was identified on your statement?

The Candian government wants the country’s banks to identify, in customers’ bank statements when they receive the carbon rebate, that it is labelled as such.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the lack of a clear identifier is contributing to confusion about carbon price rebates, so he is going to change the law if he has to in order to force the big banks to identify the carbon rebate by name when doing direct deposits.

The first rebate deposits in 2022 were labelled very generically, which meant recipients had no idea why they were getting the money.

T-D and B-MO have adopted the government’s requested “CdaCarbonRebate” entry, R-B-C and Scotiabank say they couldn’t make the change in time for the rollout, and C-I-B-C is still calling it “Deposit Canada.”

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