By Lori Dance

Hey, remember when we told you about how Labour Council President John Cartwright was all, like, “You guys didn’t like my city strike? Then you can’t come to my Labour Day parade, and we’re so totally not friends anymore”? It appears as though somebody was all, like, “Yeah, well, you can’t make me not go ’cause, I’m, like, the king of Toronto, so nyah.” Okay, so that wasn’t exactly what happened, but you get the idea. Said Mayor Miller in justification of his snubbing the snub and showing up at the beginning of the route to greet marchers: “It’s hard to get into a parade these days.” (That’s okay, Davey—the Teamsters may not love you, but the Pridesters still do.) Of course, almost half a million more Canadians were less eligible to participate in this year’s festivities than they were the last, so Cartwright could probably use all the party crashers he can get.
If you’re one of the lucky few who should be on their way to school instead of reading this, perhaps you’ll be attending one of the forty-one alternative schools that are now open in Toronto, which include programs for young parents, LGBT youth, and kids who like to go on lots of field trips. TDSB Chair John Campbell, however, extols the virtues of the board’s more mainstream curriculum: “I’m very happy the degree of education that we give in schools that are not alternative.” Then again, just reading that quote might cause one to consider an education outside of Mr. Campbell’s ward.
Speaking of school days, is anyone here old enough to have sung that “Fish and Chips and Vinegar” song when they were a kid? Well, apparently Councillor Sandra Bussin’s backyard’s full. She’s suggesting a ban on using city parks and recreation areas as temporary garbage dumps should the city’s workers go on strike again, and, if they do, councillors must be asked if any planned sites (in commercial and industrial areas, mind you) are okay with them. One might say that, if everyone had just been more aware of their waste output during the strike and found storage space for their dry trash until it was over (thus not needing to take it elsewhere), the dump sites might not have gotten so out of hand. Of course, one might also live in some sort of hippie fairy-tale land in one’s own mind.
Finally, despite the fact that everyone in Toronto is sick of hearing that “the cheque is in the mail” regarding their rebate from the summer’s strike, some condo hopefuls might actually see some money back from another broken promise: Bazis International, the would-be developer of the infamous 1 Bloor East project, is in the process of refunding the deposits of those hoping to capitalize on make a home of their own in the failed complex. Great Gulf Homes, the new owner of the plot, has not made clear their plans for the land though, as we mentioned in a previous installment, a hippie fairy-tale land is the only logical option.