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news

Newsstand: June 28, 2012

They say Thursday's the perfect day for an entire city to wear white pants, but we're not convinced. Yet. In the news: Rob Ford says no to hiking taxes for transit, Doug Ford says why to showers for cyclists, G20 ringleader sentenced to 13.5 months, a new self-defence act comes into play, and police officers mostly acquitted after 14 years.

By • Illustration by Brett Lamb

Speaking out against the proposal to raise taxes to fund transit projects, Mayor Rob Ford says pish posh. Instead of raising property taxes, how about summoning his pet unicorn, Sparky (who is also adept at Sudoku, FWIW) just asking the private sector for the money. Duh, guys. In more real world reaction to the plan, most councillors seem to think it’s a good start. And Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) says we shouldn’t stop at the Toronto borders—how about a regional tax hike to fund transit across the GTA?

As RoFo rails against the OneCity transit plan, brother DoFo questions the need for more bike parking at Nathan Phillips Square. Speaking at a meeting of the government management committee, Doug (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) questioned the need to spend $1.2 million on a bike parking station with 380 indoor parking spots (complete with showers). Others illustrated the need. And in the end, City staff was asked to draw up a report on whether the Toronto Parking Authority would be willing to waive the rental fees they’d ordinarily charge for the car parking spaces the bikes propose to take over.

G20 protest ringleader Alex Hundert has been sentenced to 13.5 months in jail. He was the last of the five so-called ringleaders to be sentenced for his role (“counselling others to commit mischief to property and obstruct police,” in law talk) with the violent splinter group of black bloc types. Possibly working under the mantra “save the best for last,” Hundert used his sentencing to make an impassioned speech about freedom and the Arab spring and revolutions and bullies and flawed systems for the annoyed judge, Hundert’s smirking lawyer, and the 100 supporters who gathered at the Finch West court house.

A new Citizen’s Arrest and Self-Defence Act is expected to receive royal assent today. The act would make it easier for people to make citizens’ arrests if they suspect some wrongdoing has been done on their property. That means people like David Chen, who was charged with assault after detaining a shoplifter at his Lucky Moose Food Mart in Chinatown, can take matters into their own hands if they suspect someone. But don’t get too carried away going all Blade on people, says Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (not exactly in those words, but still).

And after 14 years, a group of Toronto police officers has been acquitted of most of the charges stemming from a drug bust gone messy in Scarborough. The officers were found not guilty of beating up and stealing from the drug dealer they were busting, but will be sentenced for lying about the event in court.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    It’s been much noted how, in the last election, all Ford supporters were not, in fact, slow of wit and low of income. However, it’s pretty clear that the smarter folks, the ones who were focused on punishing the unions and such but have long-standing personal and financial interests in the health of the city, have long since turned on the man-child Mayor. Those who are left blathering and blustering still can’t quite seem to grasp a couple key facts:

    1) The “subways, subways, subways” plan was a joke because of where it put the subways.

    2) The “subways, subways, subways” plan was a joke because it had no funding plan for the subways.

    3) The “subways, subways, subways” plan was a joke because it delayed and replaced an actual funded plan for LRT in places where LRT made sense.

    This new plan is a bit of a fantasy map, sure, but at least it builds on, not tears down, Transit City, and it puts subways where subways should go and streetcars where streetcars should go and buses where buses should go, etc. And while it is not fully funded, it is at least partially funded based on past funding formulae.

    Now, if you want to have a reasonable debate about funding , the way to do it is probably not to label all stories regarding this expansion plan as “the TTC tax plan” or focus on “The Traitorous Back-Stabbing STINZ”. The proper discourse is to say “yeah, we want subways too, but we’re not into property taxes. How about dedicated sales taxes or payroll taxes?” That would be an interesting debate, since other municipalities use those tools to fund their transit lines. But to tilt at windmills and declare all funding to come from magic beans simply exposes the Ford fans as grade-A idiots and removes them from any discussion whatsoever. If that’s the case, ok, we’ll do just fine building and running the city without them.

    Getting the message, Toronto Sun?

    • Anonymous

      I am just sitting here, quietly amazed that I made the wrong decision in 2010, voting Smitherman to block Ford. Smitherman would never have proposed something like OneCity, complete with tax increase. On the other hand, probably neither would Pantalone, or even David Miller himself. What the hell happened? Will council’s blue-collar, Sun-reading right wing find its feet, or were they always just a Potemkin village?

      • Anonymous

        Smitherman, with his dry, camera grabbing ways, would have continued on with a modified Transit City. We probably wouldn’t be talking about sneaky, yet brilliant political career posturing. We’d be bored to death.

      • Vampchick21

        The money has to come from somewhere in order to fund transit expansion, and I think we all agree that Toronto is in desperate need of transit expansion and improvements. And we cannot wait for the magical group of private sector funders that Ford thinks are salivating in the wings just waiting for the right opportunity to build his dream one-line subway. The discussion on funding should have started 30 years ago and been serious. So the discussion starts now. So if you don’t think that increasing property tax is the way to go, then where else is a good start to fund desperately needed transit?

        • Anonymous

          Also, isn’t the formula being proposed one consisting of 1/3 city funding (through property tax), 1/3 provincial funding and 1/3 federal funding? Which makes it a bit rich for Fordites to be painting this as a tax grab when their ‘subways x 3′ mantra was backed by nothing but the hope of magical private investment.

          • Vampchick21

            They want to fight it because a) it’s not their idea, and b) it’s not funded by magic fairy developer godparents.

        • Anonymous

          Say what? For the record, I think it is a good idea. One City, especially a dedicated tax for transit, is the best thing to have happened to this city in a generation.

          • Vampchick21

            And yet, in your post that I responded to, you appeared to be against the tax increase?

            And I copy/paste/quote you:

            “amazed that I made the wrong decision in 2010, voting Smitherman to block Ford. Smitherman would never have proposed something like OneCity, complete with tax increase”

            What exactly were you trying to say?

          • Anonymous

            Here’s how it sounded in my head:

            “What was I thinking, voting for Smitherman? He never would have had the balls to propose a tax increase for transit, which I strongly support. I voted for him because I was afraid of Ford: I gave Ford way too much credit for being competent, or for being able to ask for help. He was neither and somehow managed to implode on himself without damaging anything esle, leaving the way clear for intelligent people on council to take over. And now we have something fantastic like OneCity.”

          • Vampchick21

            Ah! That makes more sense! :)

    • Anonymous

      And by the way, I should add that New York used to have a “commuter tax” to get people who worked but did not live in the city to help pay for police, transit and other city services. It was eventually ruled unconstitutional but perhaps in Canada it could be made to work.

  • Anonymous

    Someone told DoFo that the city already operates two bike storage/parking facilities that people pay to use, right?

  • observerator

    I am 100 per cent behind more bike parking a Nathan Phillips Square, but indoor public shower stations? How exactly is that going to work?

    • Anonymous

      1. You build showers and

      2. Hook them up to the water main.

  • Anonymous

    It’s pretty rich that DoFo is complaining about bike parking at Nathan Phillips Square, considering it is already one massive fucking parking garage 4 storeys deep.

    ~

    As it relates to the Drug Squad prosecution, I think you are burying the lede – which is that a jury convicted them all of obstruction of justice and perjury. Their acquittals on other charges are of little comfort to them.