Eleanor McMahon thinks it’s time to change the conversation around cycling in Ontario.

McMahon is the founder of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, who will be hosting the fifth annual Ontario Bike Summit this week in Toronto. She says that we need to stop talking about things like bike lanes and other bicycle infrastructure as a zero sum game between cars and bikes.

“We do polling, and our polling tells us that 89 per cent of Ontarians are both drivers and cyclists,” she says. “The notion that it’s cars versus bikes is overblown, and it’s really not working anymore. Deciding to change the conversation means going out of our way to poke holes in that idea and say from the get go ‘We don’t buy into that philosophy, and just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.’ ”

Deputy mayor Doug Holyday speaking at council this week, with Doug Ford seated next to him.

For the second time this week someone other than the mayor held a major press conference in response to allegations that Rob Ford has been captured on video smoking crack cocaine and making racist and homophobic slurs. On Wednesday it was the mayor’s brother Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North); today it was deputy mayor Doug Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre). At times looking frustrated, Holyday spoke with reporters in an attempt to reassure the public that work continues at City Hall despite the controversy surrounding the mayor. He also confirmed that several members of council’s executive committee—a cabinet–like group that consists of the mayor’s closest allies—are drafting an open letter that will ask the mayor to address the allegations directly and clearly. That letter is expected later this afternoon.

Capturing a long week at City Hall, in which the mayor has been facing increasingly loud calls from all corners to speak publicly about substance abuse allegations, Holyday said: “Someone has to say something on behalf of the administration, and I guess that’s why I’m here.”

“We can do our business here,” Holyday emphasized. “If the mayor was hospitalized, or if the mayor went on vacation, or something else happened to take him away from the seat [of power] at City Hall here, we would still continue on with business—that’s the way this is set up. This operation doesn’t depend on any one person.”

“I don’t know if crisis is the right word,” Holyday said when asked if we were in the middle of one, “it’s certainly a situation we have to deal with.”

Members of the executive committee, which includes Rob Ford, are slated to gather later today for a briefing on the agenda for their next meeting, which is scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday. Holyday said that he expects the mayor will be in attendance this afternoon.

Reporters asked Holyday if he had any reason to believe that Ford has a substance abuse problem. His one-word answer: “No.”

According to multiple reports, Mayor Rob Ford surprise firing of chief of staff Mark Towhey came because Towhey had been advising him to go to rehab and “get help.” Things came to a head on Wednesday night, as Towhey refused the mayor’s request to organize a party for the Don Bosco football team, just after Ford was fired as that team’s coach. Urging the mayor not to involve others in this situation, Towhey allegedly told Ford “You need to go away, you need to deal with your problem.” At that point Ford reportedly became irate and told his advisor to leave, confirming his dismissal on Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Gawker posted an update last night on its Crackstarter campaign, which aims to raise $200,000 to purchase the video it says shows Mayor Ford smoking crack cocaine. The first item of note is that the campaign has now raised more than $160,000, including a single donation of $10,000. The second is that Gawker has not heard from the men offering the video for sale since Sunday, and editor John Cook is now concerned that the footage may no longer be attainable.

If that weren’t enough news on this whole matter, the Globe and Mail reports that the mayor’s executive committee is preparing to intervene and publicly call on Ford to address the allegations. Ford’s closest allies are preparing a statement that is expected to be released today—in addition to asking the mayor to speak, it will attempt to reassure Torontonians that City Hall business is proceeding despite the situation with Ford.

Now, on to different news! Yes, there are other things happening in the city right now. For example, Toronto Catholic District School Board trustees rejected a motion yesterday to ban gay-straight alliances in their schools. The motion was put forward by trustee Garry Tanuan, who argued that the constitution protects the right of Catholic schools to ban the clubs—this even though Ontario law says that the alliances must be allowed. The motion was rejected by a vote of seven to four.

Finally, news that another Toronto politician dealt with an impairment-related incident recently, though this one is likely to garner far less U.S. media attention: Councillor Paul Ainslie (Ward 43, Scarborough East) told reporters at a press conference yesterday that he was stopped by police three weeks ago at a RIDE spot check and given a warning over the level of alcohol in his blood. His license was automatically suspended for three days, but he isn’t facing any charges.

Photo by Scott Snider, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• George Stroumboulopoulos is starting a summer gig with CNN on June 9th. He’ll be doing ten weeks of a show called, simply, Stroumboulopoulos. The network says his guests will include fellow Canadian Ellen Page, as well as Robert Kirkman, who writes the Walking Dead comic books. Will Americans enjoy Strombo? Will they ever learn to pronounce and spell his name as well as we have?
• Mayor Rob Ford has now alienated the Toronto Sun‘s editorial board, leaving him without a single friend in the media other than Sue-Ann Levy. This is not good for him.
• Among the concessions the LCBO’s union won during its down-to-the-wire contract negotiations earlier this month was the right to not wear ties to work.

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Mark Towhey (left) with Rob Ford during Tuesday’s casino debate at City Hall.

For reasons that are not yet clear, Rob Ford has fired one of his closest advisors, chief of staff Mark Towhey. Reporters who were standing outside the mayor’s office at City Hall this afternoon were surprised to see Towhey departing unexpectedly, escorted by security. As he left he spoke very briefly, saying “I am no longer the chief of staff, I did not resign.” He was asked whether he gave the mayor any advice about how to handle the recent allegations he was caught on video smoking crack cocaine and making racist and homophobic slurs; Towhey said he did, but that advice would remain confidential.

Towhey was appointed chief of staff in August, 2012; before that he served as the mayor’s director of policy and strategic planning. During his time working with the mayor, Towhey was known for his strong small-government views (he advocated shutting down many TTC bus routes and auctioning off popular lines) and for his rough behind-the-scenes handling of councillors when trying to whip votes for the mayor.

A few minutes later the mayor’s office released a brief statement:

Effective immediately, Mark Towhey is no longer working in the Office of the Mayor. Mr. Towhey has been a intricate [sic] part of the Mayor’s Office and has made many valuable contributions. The Mayor thanks Mr. Towhey for his valuable service and wishes him the very best in his future endeavours. Earl Provost, Deputy Chief of Staff, will assume the role of Acting Chief of Staff until further notice.

UPDATE, FRIDAY MAY 24, 10:30 AM: According to multiple reports, sources inside the mayor’s office say that Ford fired Towhey out of frustration with the latter’s attempts to get the mayor to go into rehab.

Even with the success of acts like Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, people still tend to view musical comedy with some suspicion, and not without reason. Those high-profile success stories aside, at the club level, musical comedy is too often the province of people who aren’t quite good enough to make it as musicians, but not quite funny enough to make it as comedians.

Two local comics, Robert Keller and Rush Zilla, are out to change that perception with their show, Off Key Comedy, which features a wide variety of acts whose only commonality is that they combine music and comedy in one form or another. The third edition of the monthly show will take place on May 23, at Comedy Bar.

Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together.

Toronto’s casino debate earlier this week was kind of the municipal equivalent of a hippopotamus fighting a squirrel. With a baseball bat. In other words, there was a trouncin’ a happenin’. But no matter how you phrase it, you had to know that wasn’t the last you’d see of the OLG and its modernization plan in these here parts. Because there are a whole lot of towns and cities around here, and some of them would love to host a casino. And while the ones that seem to favour a casino most strongly are generally of the “where on the map is it again?” variety, Markham, Vaughan, and Mississauga are also looking into it. It’s not over yet.

Family and friends of Tim Bosma met yesterday to honour the Ancaster man’s life. He was found dead after taking two people out on a test drive of a truck he was selling. Meanwhile, Hamilton police have arrested a second man in connection with his death, who is being charged today with first degree murder.

Speaking of funerals, many of the city’s media types and political figures joined the hundreds of people remembering the life of Toronto Sun founding editor Peter Worthington. The funeral even attracted Mayor and full-time media ninja Rob Ford, who was apparently handing out magnets and cards while waiting for the funeral to end.

Ontario schools’ procedures for what to do in case an armed assailant enters the premises are totally wrong, according to a pair of school security experts from the U.S. And let’s face it, this is probably something the Americans know more about than us. But so far the TDSB isn’t acknowledging their concerns.

If it felt like last November’s Grey Cup festivities just went on and on, well first of all, you’re kind of a grump. And second, you need to understand that those few days were pure hustlin’. Not only did the home team win the championship, but Toronto also took football fans from around Canada for about $95 million.

Normally media outlets don’t report on suicides. It’s a general policy that’s there to discourage copycats—something that obviously isn’t as much of a concern when it comes to murder, rape, torture, robbery, assault, not taking your bag off on the TTC, war, genocide, and many other abhorrent behaviours. However, some cases warrant a lift of that policy. Like, for instance, when someone steals the purse of a woman who jumped in front of a subway train. Yep, that is a thing that happened in this city. Have a nice day.

Photo courtesy of Michael Christian.

• Remember Koilos? The scary, Lovecraftian steel sculpture that was suddenly removed from its spot in the Distillery District last week? The artist, Michael Christian, now tells us that its new home is “on a large dock off an island on Lake Muskoka,” where it can live out its retirement under the watchful eye of a new private owner. A picture of the beast in its new location is above.
• You know how some people are like, “oh man, what if this video of Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack is a fake?” Hazlitt points out that, if the video is as described, there’s basically no way it could be a fraud unless these alleged crack dealers have access to alien video-editing technology.
• And here’s a video of Rob Ford at a gas station, being accosted with questions about his alleged crack use. Ford still hasn’t definitively denied anything. It has been six days.
• Grid readers have voted, and now a new park in the West Don Lands will be called Corktown Common.

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Earlier this afternoon, the Toronto Catholic District School Board announced that Mayor Rob Ford has been fired from his other job: his gig as a part-time volunteer football coach for Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School.

The Star points out that the Catholic school board was already in the process of reviewing Ford’s involvement at Don Bosco before his recent drug scandal began making headlines. The review was a result of some disparaging things Ford said about his teenaged players during a March interview with David Menzies, of Sun News.

This is the unceremonious end of a political saga for Ford. He was frequently criticized in the press for devoting time to his football team at the expense of some of his official duties. He also took heat for using paid City staffers to help with some of his coaching duties, in apparent violation of City rules. On one occasion, he was also criticized for apparently commandeering two TTC buses to carry his players home from a game, though police and TTC officials claimed, at the time, that the mayor was not directly responsible for the incident.

Ford has been coaching for over a decade, and even heads a foundation dedicated to helping Toronto schools start their own football programs. His involvement at Don Bosco was a continual point of pride for him, even when it caused him political problems. The board hasn’t specified a reason for his dismissal, but no matter the cause, it’s undoubtedly personally painful for the mayor.

The full text of the TCDSB’s press release is below.

The Toronto Catholic District School (TCDSB) thanks Mayor Rob Ford for his contribution and many years of service to the Don Bosco Eagles Football Program. The Board has informed Mr. Ford of our decision to pursue a different direction with a new volunteer head coach for the Don Bosco Eagles senior football team.

Mr. Ford’s passion for football, his commitment to the Don Bosco players and their success speaks for itself. The Board is very grateful for the Mayor’s contribution.

“This is an exciting game that helps to develop strategic thinking, strength and agility while also fostering values such as teamwork, perseverance and good sportsmanship. Mr. Ford has helped our students rise to the challenge and realize their potential as both football players and young men,” says Bruce Rodrigues, the Director of Education. “This decision was based on what is best for our students, our school and the Don Bosco community.”

The Board’s primary responsibility is to ensure a positive learning environment for all our students and promote our school’s ongoing commitment to academic achievement, well-being and excellence. We recognize and respect that the Mayor’s first commitment is to the priorities of the taxpayers and citizens of the City of Toronto.

The football program will continue at Don Bosco and at all other TCDSB high schools that have teams. The TCDSB is appreciative for the thousands of volunteers who augment the work of our dedicated staff for various athletic and academic school programs and events throughout the school year.

On Wednesday afternoon, six days after news first broke that two separate publications had reportedly seen video of what appears to be Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking out of a crack pipe, his brother and city councillor Doug Ford held a press conference to address the allegations.

Sort of.

In a bizarre, nine-minute appearance in which he read from prepared remarks and refused to answer any questions, Doug Ford spent most of his time giving a campaign-style speech extolling the administration’s economic accomplishments. Though the mayor has only devoted about three sentences in total to the allegations Doug proclaimed: “Never has the mayor been so accessible.” As for the allegations themselves, Doug said his brother told him they were untrue, and added that they were the result of questionable journalism. He targeted the Toronto Star for persistently targeting the mayor, and told Gawker its actions in starting a crowdfunding campaign to buy the video in question “disgusting.”

The full text of his remarks:

First off, I’m here today because you’ve been asking me for my comment. I’m here to give you my comments. I’m not speaking for the mayor. The mayor is my brother, I love him, and he’ll speak for himself.

He has already addressed these allegations three times on Friday; I don’t know how much more he can say.

My brother is an honest and hardworking man with integrity, a man who has dedicated his life to serving others. He is the people’s mayor. Never has the mayor been so accessible or cared so much for the issues facing residents. His attention to the needs of his constituents is what has made Rob Ford mayor of Toronto. Now our mayor faces yet another accusation, an accusation driven by questionable reporting from a news outlet that has proven they would do anything to stop the mayor’s agenda. Rob is telling me these are untrue, that these accusations are ridiculous, and I believe him.

I will always support my brother as the mayor of this city, because I believe in his track record. Under his leadership we have reined in out of control spending and turned the fiscal ship of this city around. We have successfully eliminated the budget gap. For a decade Toronto relied on prior year surpluses and one-time found money to balance its operating budgets. In 2013, that ended. Our 2013 budget was balanced for the first time ever, without using any prior year surplus.

We are the only government, the only government in North America, to pass a budget that spends less money year than it did the previous year. Because of our fiscal discipline, international bond rating agencies like Moody’s and DBRS have kept our credit rating strong—even while they lowered the rating of the province of Ontario.

Over the next 10 years we’re reducing our debt by $804 million that we inherited, while spending $1.2 billion more on infrastructure needs. We are investing $2.3 billion over 10 years to maintain our hard infrastructure. We have privatized garbage collection east of Yonge, saving the taxpayers $88 million while improving service to our residents. This mayor negotiated historic labour deals—and I say historic, that’s never been done—that are helping us improve efficiencies and save hundreds of millions of dollars without a single day of labour disruptions. We have changed the culture of entitlement and improved efficiencies and services for our residents. We have seen record years of development. We have more cranes in the air today, more than New York, L.A., Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami combined—that is combined, 184 cranes, in our city. We’ve had three consecutive years of job growth. Folks, that’s three consecutive years of job growth. And Toronto is currently seeing the highest employment numbers since 1990. I’ll repeat that: we have seen the highest employment numbers since 1990. We’ve almost created…40,000 jobs have been created since this mayor took office.

As mayor of Toronto Rob Ford has put more funding into arts than any other mayor, Toronto is a vibrant and beautiful city were people want to live, work, and play. We are seeing tourism in Toronto with over nine million hotel rooms sold last year—again, another record broken with 9 million hotels rooms sold last year. This mayor is fighting for the little guy, to keep taxes affordable and low. 136,000 in Toronto will get rent reductions this year ’cause we reduced property taxes for their landlords last year, and we are holding the line on their taxes this year as well.

We have come a long way in the past two years, we are turning the corner, and we are now on the right path.

All of this is overshadowed, of course, by the constant stream of accusations coming forward against this mayor. This situation reminds me of a story the Toronto Star, during the election—a story written based on credible sources—that the mayor hit his football players. What could be worse than abusing an innocent child? It turned out that there credible source was disgraced as a serial plagiarizer. The young man himself came forward and said these accusations were completely fabricated and false. Never, never has a Canadian politician or his family been targeted by the media this way. They zealously, and I say zealously, stalk my mother, my children, the media hides in the bushes at my cottage as they did this weekend [so] that my kids couldn’t even enjoy the weekend cause they were in the bushes taking video of them, and harasses our family at home. They have shown that they have no regard, absolutely no regard, for what they are doing to our family, who should have no part of all of this.

I am asking all of you today: please stop. Please stop harassing my children, please stop harassing my mother. Please leave them out of this.

People ask me why did I get into politics? I got into politics to give back my time, donate my salary, and do what I thought was right for Toronto. I never, ever expected that these were the rules of engagement, that we would go through this abuse and my family would suffer.

To the folks at Gawker: what you are doing is disgusting and morally wrong. Giving away prizes to try to give away money to drug dealers and extortionists is disgraceful. When the mayor faces serious accusations, by no means will we be pressured by the Toronto Star to answer their questions on their timeframe. We spoke to our family and our lawyers before deciding how to proceed. If the mayor stopped and held a press conference every time the media made up a story about him, we would never have accomplished anything that we have. If the mayor wants to make a statement his press secretary will notify the media. There is no reason for you to be staking out his house and following him around town.

I also want to say that the story wrongfully generalizes and tarnishes the reputation of Toronto’s Somalian community, a hardworking community of good people, thousands of whom I represent in Etobicoke North.

Lastly, I want to thank the thousands of supporters out there who believe in the job Mayor Rob Ford and this administration is doing. Without your support, encouragement, and kind words, this would be even more difficult than it already is.

Folks, please remember that we will continue fighting for the taxpayers, and remember one thing: we’re down here to work for you.

American late-night hosts who first discovered Rob Ford as a result of some of his more innocent blunders are falling in love with Toronto all over again thanks to the latest allegations against our mayor. Last night, both the The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live had lengthy segments about Ford, and about the video that supposedly shows him smoking crack.

If you missed it all, the Daily Show video is embedded above. The Jimmy Kimmel clip is below.

(For what it’s worth, we liked Jon Stewart’s take on this a lot better than Kimmel’s. The latter relies on a lot of lame, Canadian Bacon–level jokes, though it does win some points back by casting Jim O’Heir, from Parks and Recreation, as ersatz Ford.)