The 2011 Ontario Provincial Elections takes place next Thursday October 6, 2011, below is a list of candidates for provincial riding of Dufferin-Caledon. I have included a link to each candidates official website where you can find out more information about them and what they stand for in this riding. For more info on the election including voting locations, click here for the Elections Ontario website.

There are approximately 77,000 people eligible to vote in the Dufferin-Caledon riding this year, the 2007 election turnout was 53%. The provincial riding of Dufferin-Caledon was created for the 2007 election to bring it in sync with the same Federal riding, previously it was known as Dufferin—Peel.

On Thursday October 6 be sure to get out there and vote.

2011 Candidates:

• Sylvia Jones – Progressive Conservative (Incumbent)
  Website: http://www.sylviajonesmpp.ca
• Lori Holloway – Liberal
  Website: http://www.voteholloway.ca
• Karen Gventer – New Democrat
  Website: http://ontariondp.com/en/candidates/karen-gventer
• Rob Strang – Green
  Website: http://www.robstrang.ca
• Daniel Kowalewski – Libertarian
  Website: http://www.libertarian.on.ca/profiles/daniel-kowalewski

You may or may not have noticed but franchise restaurants have been struggling greatly in Bolton, Ontario leaving a long line of failure to the already struggling retail space in the town. Joe Warmington from the Toronto Sun wrote an article about the issue exactly a year ago and not much has changed in a year, in fact its has got worse.

In the past two years many franchise restaurants have failed such as; Boston Pizza, Coras, William’s Coffee Pub, Little Caesars, KFC / Pizza Hut and there are others that continue to struggle.

In the case of Boston Pizza, they have managed to re-open under new ownership and appear to be making a better go of it the second time around. Coras hasn’t been so lucky, it has been left vacant and abandoned for over a year now, their lease was terminated with them owing $62,460.63. The owner had put his life savings into the restraunt and has lost everything, Coras failing is a bit odd and cause for concern considering how popular they are throughout the GTA, usually you will find Coras with a lineup out the door they are that popular. Startup franchises like Little Caesars came and went so fast you may not have not even noticed them. For KFC / Pizza Hut it appears they simply gave up after many years in Bolton and are just closing down.

So what is the problem? Why is Bolton, Ontario Restaurant Franchise Death?

According to the Toronto Sun article the most likely cause is that Bolton simply does not have a large enough population to support businesses in the town. With 27,000 residents Bolton has enough commercial development to service double that and with no new residental developments on the horizon things are unlikely to improve any time soon.

Mayor Marolyn Morrison seems mostly unconcerned and dismissive of the concerns of local businesses struggling and failing saying only that “There are plenty of businesses doing very well here too.” and “Businesses don’t always go under because they have a lack of clientele,” she said. “They go under for other reasons, I will leave it at that.”

According to the town’s official plan Bolton won’t get bigger until 2021 which is a long time away. For the time being franchise restaurants and other businesses will likely continue to struggle and due to the glut of retail space available right now Bolton you likely won’t see any further commercial development which means areas like that large empty field next to Walmart & LCBO will likely sit vacant for a long time.

From the Toronto Star:

In the months before she was kidnapped, Raquel Junio had devised a happy plan.

She bought and kept furniture at the Brampton thrift shop where she worked, took the bus to a nearby library after shifts to scour the Internet for apartments and searched for a second job to make extra money.

Coworkers say she was excited about the new home she planned to make for herself and her two children.

Those plans were interrupted last week when the 42-year-old disappeared into the night after witnesses told police she was dragged from her home and forced into a truck.

The people who knew and adored Junio gathered in front of Talize thrift shop on Sunday night for what was supposed to be a vigil of hope and prayer for her safe return. But with news that police found a body that may be hers in a pond 30 kilometres north of her home, the small crowd instead mourned the loss of a dear friend.

Peel Regional Police said an autopsy set for Monday morning could confirm the identity of the body pulled from the Palgrave, Ont., pond and determine the cause of death, though details may not be released immediately.

“She’s not a person you would think this would happen to,” colleague Samantha Salama said through tears.

Salama and other coworkers say Junio was always happy at work.

More than anything, Junio loved her children. As she sorted through new stock at the thrift shop, she would pick out the best toys — Dora dolls, backpacks, a mini shopping cart — to take home for her 3-year-old daughter. She beamed with pride when her son, 14, recently graduated from middle school.

The discovery of a body on Saturday night about 30 kilometres north of Brampton, near Bolton, came hours after police charged a second suspect in the abduction.

Gary Murray, 42, of Brampton, was charged Saturday with kidnapping, forcible confinement and assault. Junio’s estranged husband, Macdermid Ermacora, 43, appeared in court Friday on the same charges. Police said the two men are friends.

Junio’s friends told the Star that she and her husband had been having marital issues.

“She never said anything,” said Ernia Eduria, a cousin who would see Junio at family gatherings three or four times a year. He said his cousin and Ermacora were married four years ago after they met through friends.

Eduria’s wife, Marcy, said when she last saw her husband’s cousin two months ago, Junio asked her for help finding a part-time job.

“I didn’t know anything so I didn’t help her and now I feel so bad,” said Marcy Eduria.

The trouble began at about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, when police received complaints about a man dragging a woman out of a Deerfield Cres. home.

Police found Ermacora’s truck about 7 a.m. Thursday in a parking lot adjacent to a hotel near Queen St. E. and Rutherford Rd. in Brampton.

Ermacora was taken into police custody shortly thereafter as police searched for Junio.

As investigators combed Brampton, Caledon and Nottawa, south of Collingwood, a Crown attorney urged Ermacora to tell investigators where his wife was. The accused exercised his right not to speak, police said.

Talize manager Pete Bellis said the store will donate a portion of proceeds from a sale event on Monday to Junio’s children.

“We’re really concerned about her children right now,” he said.

Kera Freeland a 20 year old girl who moved to Toronto from Alberta to work at an escort agency (Cachet Ladies) and went missing mid-January has been identified as the woman whose remains were found in a ditch in Caledon last Thursday. Kera was last seen on Sunday, Jan. 16 in the Lake Shore Blvd. W. and Queens Ave. area. In February, Toronto police issued a missing-person alert for her.

Her remains were found on Marvh 17 around 6 p.m. in a ditch on Heart Lake Rd., between Boston Mills Rd. and Olde Base Line Rd by a man out for a walk. Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Constable Peter Leon said a cause of death has yet to be determined. So far, it’s not known whether the death is a homicide, suicide or an accident. “We’re hoping someone might be able to tell us how she got from Toronto to Caledon,” Constable Leon said Monday.

Kera Freeland’s body was found a short distance from where a murdered Orangeville nurse’s body was left last summer, but police are not drawing any links between the two. Sonia Varaschin, 42, was killed in her townhouse in the nearby town of Orangeville last August and found in a woodlout outside town. “At the time, there is no indication linking [Kera Freeland’s] case to any other current OPP investigation,” Constable Leon said.

Kera’s friends suspect she may have been a victim of a “bad date”. Tim Lambrinos, of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada says, “She called her roommate earlier that night and told her she was having a bad date… she said ‘she was going to leave the date’ and was returning home.”

That was the last time her roomie heard from Freeland until finding out of her death the next day.

Police are asking that anyone with information regarding the case, or who was in contact with Kera Freeland prior to her death, contact the OPP at 905-857-3304.

Some additional News articles about Kera Freeland:

• Globe and Mail
• The Star
• Toronto Sun

In an effort to try to solve the brutal killing of Sonia Varaschin in Orangeville, Ontario from earlier this summer a group of top criminal profilers and investigators gathered to pore over the details and create a working profile of the potential killer who murdered her, similar to the show Criminal Minds on TV. In fact it was the same unit for which the TV show is based on, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Virginia-based behavioural analysis unit which is assisting the Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP as well as other senior homicide investigators from several forces including York Region, Toronto and Ottawa.

The killer attacked Sonia Varaschin in her home in Orangeville, either late on Aug. 29 or early on Aug. 30, when her blood-smeared white Toyota Corolla was found, doors open, in an alleyway in downtown Orangeville. “Anybody who enters somebody’s house where you should be safe and kills you, in my view is cold-blooded,” Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Insp. Mark Pritchard said.

He said the killer not only entered Varaschin’s Spring Street home, he moved her body into her vehicle, despite “the close confines of the townhouse complex.” After dumping her body, he then recklessly drove back near the scene of the murder and into town with blood that would have been “clearly visible on the outside of the car.” A week later, on Sept. 5, somebody walking a dog discovered Varaschin’s remains on a rual road in Caledon near Beech Grove Sideroad and Mountainview Road about 12 kilometres from her home.

Police have released few details about how Varaschin died and even refuse to reveal the weapon used. At the news conference nearly four months after her death, very little new fresh evidence was presented. Pritchard defended the investigation, “It’s not a TV show,” he said. “These things take a long time.”

Lead investigators did release a general profile that they created of Varaschin’s killer, hoping it might help them “zero in” on the killer by sparking further tips. In the days after Varaschin’s death or the discovery of her body on Sept. 5, police say the killer may have:

• Increased alcohol or drug use.
• Seemed irritable, agitated or anxious.
• Moved from the area.
• Limited social interactions to avoid detection.
• Had unexplained absences from work, school or missed appointments.
• Displayed other unusual behavior.

The suspect  police say is likely very familiar with the Orangeville area and the gravel Beech Grove Sideroad, near Mountainview Road in Caledon, where Varaschin’s body was dumped. He may know it because of “recreation, occupation or illegal activities.”

Police and investigators have received 460 tips to date on the Varaschin case and conducted more than 500 interviews but say they are still looking for a tidbit that might lead them to the killer. “There’s no tip that isn’t worth the police looking into,” Pritchard said. “And I think the message I’m trying to get out is that no matter how insignificant a suspicion or information is, we want them to come forward and talk to us.”

If you have any information that may help solve this case please call Orangeville Police Service Tip Line at (519) 941-2522, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Maclean’s magazine has once again been ranked Caledon, Ontario as the safest city in all of Canada. Caledon has consistently been rated the safest community in which to live by the magazine for several years now. Nearby Halton, Ontario is 3rd on the list as well as Nottawasaga which covers New Tecumseth, Essa and Adjala-Tosorontio is 5th on the list and South Simcoe also ranking in at 8th on the list.

As published previously in Maclean’s:

Certainly affluence helps shape Canada’s statistically safest place, Caledon, Ont., a scenic, semi-rural suburb northwest of Toronto. It is, at least by the most recent numbers, a larger, real-life equivalent to such fictional television inventions as America’s Mayberry, or Dog River, Sask., of Corner Gas fame — an idyllic world of carefree kids and unlocked doors, or more likely, of very good security systems. Caledon’s policing district of almost 71,000 residents comes by its reputation honestly (naturally), with no murders or aggravated assaults in 2006. Caledon has the third-lowest level of robbery among the 100 areas and the lowest rates of break and enter, sexual assault and auto theft, combining for an overall crime rate of 107 per cent below the national average.

Click here to see the full list of the safest and worst cities in Canada.

Orangeville Police are looking for Sonia Varaschin, 42, whose car was found bloody and abandoned in the downtown area Monday morning. Blood was also found at the woman’s Spring Street home, confirms police chief Joseph Tomei.

“We’re hopeful the search comes to a good fruition for us, but it is suspicious,” he said, stating the incident appears random, but it’s “too early” to say with certainty.

At the moment there are no suspects and the search continues.

“There’s a lot of police officers here, both Orangeville and the OPP,” Tomei said, adding there’s no reason for the public to be concerned for their safety.

Family members reported Varaschin missing Monday; she had not been seen since Sunday evening. After canvassing the area and speaking to Varaschin’s neighbours on Tuesday morning, it was clear local residents were a little unsettled by the incident. Kim Fievet, 27, has been living beside the missing woman since April.

“I just hope she shows up and that is it,” Fievet said. “She is a very nice person. She was good to me and my son.”

Another one of Varaschin’s neighbours, Laura Barens, was in “disbelief” as the quiet little housing subdivision isn’t accustomed to incidents like this.

“This is a really quiet area, so we’re just kind of in shock,” Barens said, adding residents in the neighbourhood rarely lock their doors. However, Barens will “absolutely” be locking her doors now.

“It is a shock. It is a quiet, quiet area,” she said. “Doors are unlocked all the time, kids are outside playing.”

Her car, a white Toyota, was found in an alley behind a downtown Orangeville business Monday morning. Police taped off an area around Varashin’s car, as well as Alexandra Park. While the Toyota has been removed, access to the area remains blocked.

Anyone with information about Varaschin’s whereabouts or details of her disappearance are asked to contact Orangeville Police Service at 519-941-2522 or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-87477.

Ontario Provincial Police have announced human remains found late last month in Oro-Medonte and Lake of Bays Townships, and in Muskoka belonged to a 45-year-old Bolton/Caledon area man.

Whoever chopped up the body of a Bolton man and scattered it throughout cottage country was likely an amateur and not an underworld figure, a veteran homicide investigator says.

“People who are in stressful situations do strange things,” said Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto police homicide officer who now heads Mark Mendelson Consulting Corp., a private investigation firm.

His comments came after the OPP on Monday identified the body parts found in three regions north of Toronto as belonging to Morris Conte, 45, of Bolton, Ontario. Conte, a father of four and recreational drug user, had low-level ties to bikers and mobsters in York Region. Police have ruled his death a homicide.

OPP spokesman Const. Mark Kenney declined to comment on the cause or time of death, or what pieces of Conte’s body were recovered. He did confirm that Conte’s identity was determined through testing at the downtown Centre for Forensic Sciences.

Remains were found May 22 in Oro-Medonte Township’s Sugar Bush area, north of Barrie. Also that day, pieces of his body were discovered in Lake of Bays Township, east of Huntsville.

On May 28, a construction worker found yet another set of remains northeast of Bracebridge, on the shoulder of Stoneleigh Rd. off Muskoka Road 117. All of the body parts were left in plain view.

Mendelson said mobsters tend to be more efficient at getting rid of bodies of their victims, rather than cutting them into pieces and scattering them in places where they’re sure to be found. “Organized crime people (often) put them into barrels and pour in cement,” said Mendelson.

Mendelson also wonders if perhaps more than one person was involved in the body disposal.

A follow-up to the story, Orangeville Mazda Overprices Car $25,000 to Intellectually Disabled Woman; the dealership was quickly terminated by Mazda Canada which resulted in the Mazda logo and signs being covered up immediately (pictured above). Mazda Canada said it ended the franchise with Mazda of Orangeville because it breached the company’s business standards under a sales and service agreement in the transaction and other incidents.

However it now appears that Orangeville Mazda dealer has now re-opened under a new name Motion Mazda and under new ownership. Brampton Auto Mall Inc. which already owns nine other dealerships, confirmed earlier this month that it has bought the land and buildings of Mazda of Orangeville from previous owner Sunny Baines; reached a franchise agreement with the Mazda Canada to reopen the dealership as Motion Mazda.

Glen Alizadeh, head of the Brampton dealership group, said there is some skepticism and concern among consumers about the reopening but they are generally happy with the change. “We’re starting from scratch,” said Alizadeh, who would not disclose financial terms of the deal. “It’s an exciting challenge.” Alizadeh said he retained eight of the previous dealership’s 26 employees and hired new staff from other stores in his network.

Charges are still pending for the former owner and sales person who sold the overpriced car to Madeline Leonard. Luckily Mazda Canada gave Leonard the car without further cost or obligation.

Interesting Story being reported by The Star and City TV News, Madeline Leonard who is intellectually disabled arrived at the Orangeville Mazda dealership last December to replace her tires. She drove away the unexpected owner of a car whose price had been massively overinflated.

Leonard, 56, said she had never intended to buy a car or trade in her other Mazda, but the Mazda salesman talked fast, confusing her with numbers and she signed a deal.

A few days later, after doing some homework, she complained to the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council, which regulates new and used car dealers.

“I felt manipulated and cheated,” she said.

The regulator’s investigation revealed that Leonard actually paid a whopping $66,000 for the 2010 Mazda6 G6 sedan, including taxes and the value of a trade-in vehicle. The car should have cost $41,000 or less. Bains promises to reimburse Leonard $8,000 the dealership paid for her trade-in once Leonard returns the car.

Investigator Carrey Smith said the dealership had actually sold Leonard a “demonstrator” model, which dealers use for test driving. As well, add-on items had been sold three times what they should cost.

The dealership had also saddled her with an eight-year loan and heavy financing costs (7.8%). Leonard, who is unemployed and lives on a disability pension in a subsidized apartment, should have never qualified for the loan, Smith said.

“It’s killing me financially, it’s bi-weekly payments, $319 every two weeks,” she stresses. Leonard is on disability and says she has an income of just over $1800/month.

Last week, the regulator charged the dealership, business manager Kien Trung and sales manager Mohammed “Moe” Shaikh with “engaging in unfair practice by making an unconscionable representation” contrary to the provincial Consumer Protection Act.

In an interview on Thursday, Trung said he didn’t do anything wrong and “made a little bit of money on the deal.”

Bains said he could not discuss the reasons for the abrupt dismissals of the salesmen because the case is before the courts. The defendants are to appear in court next week.

“In my opinion, everyone thinks we did something wrong,” Bains said. “Therefore, I’m going to fix the situation. I do apologize for what she went through and suffered.’’

If found guilty, the dealership could face a maximum penalty of $250,000. The salesmen could receive fines of $100,000 each and/or two years less a day in jail. The regulator could also revoke their registrations to sell vehicles.

The Better Business Bureau of Mid-Western and Central Ontario has issued a D+ rating for the dealership, on a scale of A to F, after receiving complaints.

See the City TV news report below: