The Ontario Liberals are promising big things across the education sector: namely, cutting post-secondary tuition by 30 per cent for lower and middle-class families.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's platform would apply to full-time students in undergraduate programs whose families earn less than $160,000 a year. That roughly translates into a saving of "about $1,600 per university student and more than $700 for every student enrolled in college"
If the Liberals are re-elected in the Oct. 6 vote, they also vowed to cap the annual amount of debt post-secondary students could incur at $7,300 and expand the interest-free grace period on student loans for recent grads struggling to find work.
McGuinty also said full-day kindergarten will be implemented in all schools by 2014. The Liberals also plan to invest $300 million to set up satellite campuses in Brampton, Milton and Barrie to York University, the University of Toronto, Wilfred Laurier University and Laurentian University in Sudbury.
Time will tell if "Mr. Tax" can deliver or whether these are yet more empty promises from a party with a poor track record when it comes to education funding.
While promoting her latest film, Contagion, at the Venice Film Festival, Gwyneth Paltrow ended up talking about adultery.
Though she and Coldplay singer, Chris Martin, have been married for 8 years and are touted as having one of the "strongest relationships in show business", Paltrow has a surprisingly cavalier attitude when it comes to extra-marital affairs.
"I know people that I respect and admire and look up to, who have had extra-marital affairs," claimed the 38-year-old American actress. "The more I live my life, the more I learn not to judge people for what they do. I think we're all trying our best, but life is complicated."
At the film's press conference she joked: "If death by virus was a punishment for extra-marital affairs, there would only be three dudes left in this world right now."
Of course she stressed that family is of paramount importance to her and that she and Martin are happily married as ever with their two children Apple, 7, and Moses, 5.
As long as she doesn't play his band's music at home, that is!
In spite of starring in a film about a pandemic, Paltrow sleeps easy these days.
"I don't get paranoid about it," says Paltrow. "We live in an over-populated planet and the farming practices, the way we're cutting down forests, we're going to be seeing more of this kind of thing but you can worry or just not worry."
Sherlock Holmes director, Guy Ritchie is a dad again. But this time around Madonna isn't the mommy. It's Ritchie's girlfriend (since 2010), Jacqui Ainsley.
According to the Sun newspaper, the 29-year-old model gave birth to a baby boy via emergency caesarean in London.
Apparently when 42-year-old Ritchie called his ex-wife, to share his good news, she sent a huge congratulatory bouquet of flowers. The two already have a couple of sons together, Rocco, 11, and David, 6 this month.
Nice to see that the couple are still amicable following their split.
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