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Newsstand: October 22, 2012
Sometimes the last thing you need is a reminder that it's Monday. Fine, we'll oblige. Today: Toronto Police to make "major" announcement in Bloor and Christie sex-assaults case; the Ontario Liberal leadership convention has been booked; the fight for the CUPE Local 416 presidency heats up; a high rate of pay for tunnelling; Blue Jays manager John Farrell bids adieu to TO; and Mayor Ford's likes and dislikes.
The Toronto police will make a “major announcement” at 10 a.m. this morning about the investigation into the string of sexual assaults that have taken place in the Bloor and Christie vicinity over the past few months. There have been more than a dozen reported sexual assaults in that area since the summer, the most recent of which took place over the Thanksgiving weekend. While police won’t confirm that an arrest was made, that’s the expected outcome of the announcement.
A leadership convention to choose the next head of Ontario’s Liberal party is set to take place January 25. While no candidates have officially thrown their hats in the ring, rumours have been rampant about possible candidates to replace Dalton McGuinty, including Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, Housing Minister Kathleen Wynne, Health Minister Deb Matthews, Energy Minister Chris Bentley, Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid, former Education Minister Gerard Kennedy, and former mayoral candidate George Smitherman. Oh, please let the Smitherman rumour be true, if only just to see how Mayor Rob Ford reacts to the news.
Although CUPE Local 416 President Mark Ferguson hasn’t made his job sound particularly appealing (“bruising talks” with the Mayor Ford administration, concession-filled contracts, a revolt by some paramedics), other people are willing to fight him for it. Through official channels, guys! Come on, obviously this isn’t coming down to fisticuffs, or worse, to borrow a phrase from Toronto police, “gun play.” What is this, Atlantic City circa 1920? No, no, we’re talking about a November 16 election in which Ron Johnson, the unions’s chief of stewards, and Richard Prestula and Jon Richard, who both work in parks, forestry, and recreation, will run against Ferguson.
The 200 workers who are constructing the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension are apparently doing quite well in the hourly-wage department. According to the Toronto Sun, these workers are earning up to $92 to $138 an hour, when overtime, shift-differential fees, and weekend work is factored in, to work on the tunnel that will link Downsview Station to York University and end at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. Sign us up for that! Oh wait, tunnelling is hard and demanding work that requires workers to take shifts around the clock to maintain the machines and keep them operating? Nah, never mind. We’ll stick to writing.
Farewell, John Farrell. The Blue Jays manager is leaving Toronto to pursue his “dream job” of managing the Red Sox. Well, nice to know we were a stop along the way to reaching that dream! Sniff, sniff.
If you missed The City yesterday, we’ll help fill you in. Things Mayor Ford likes: Subways! Subways! Subways! Things Mayor Ford doesn’t like: bottled water bans, plastic bag bans, welfare recipients with registered business licenses. As they say at Staples, that was easy!
