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Newsstand: October 17, 2012
Wednesday is a real cloak-and-dagger kind of day. It just sneaks up on you and steals your wallet. In the news: proroguing help for PTSD sufferers; gas-and-dash prevention campaign; clean-up in the administrative aisle; shisha regulations; and municipal golf courses land in the rough.
The fallout from Dalton McGuinty’s decision to prorogue parliament is only just starting to be felt. One case worth noting is MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale–High Park)’s bill to help bring support to front-line workers—such as firefighters, police officers, and paramedics—suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Now that the Liberals have shut down the legislature, bills like this (and the people they are supposed to help) are being set back for an indefinite amount of time. DiNovo, however, intends to keep working on the issue while MPPs wait to get back to Queen’s Park. An Ontario ombudsman report on PTSD in the province’s police forces is expected in a few weeks.
A bill aimed at stopping gas-and-dash crimes also died on Monday, but a campaign with a similar goal will continue on. Toronto Crime Stoppers and members of the fuel industry have launched a campaign to combat the crime. They hope that thieves will be deterred not only by the cameras at gas stations, but also by the gaze of the general public.
If you are looking for a job in a large grocery chain’s Toronto head office, things are about to get much more crowded in there. Loblaws has announced that it will be dumping about 700 jobs from its head office in the city. In a press release, the company was sure to mention it had actually created 2,000 jobs in the past year by opening new stores, but failed to provide a conversion rate for how many produce-department teenagers equals one middle-aged mid-level manager. The microwaveable dinners from the PC “Blue” menu are about to get a whole new meaning for 700 unlucky individuals.
Following on the coat-tails of yesterday’s proposed extension of Toronto’s smoking ban, City officials are seeking better regulations for hookah cafés. Right now, there are no regulations specific to establishments offering shisha, but a proposed set of rules would require proper air ventilation, sanitized hookahs, and an 18+ age restriction. Better go smoke dirty pipes in a sealed room with a little kid before Big Brother gets his hands on your freedom.
Normally in golf, negative numbers and being “in the hole” are good things. Unfortunately for the City, our municipal golf courses are seeing their financial handicap move closer and closer to somewhere below par (in a bad way). That is, if something isn’t done soon to get more cleats on the fairways and increase the amount of money the greens earn, Toronto could see the courses turn from revenue-generating to assistance-needing. Currently, the City doesn’t really do anything to promote the courses—probably because they have been profitable overall—so that seems to be a pretty obvious solution to the problem.
