The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

Matt Galloway: Is Rob Ford under investigation?

Bill Blair:
“Again, I’m not going to comment on this or any other investigation. We will do our work, we will present our evidence in the appropriate forum. The truth will come out.

Galloway: Yesterday you could have very easily exonerated Rob Ford—you could have explicitly said the mayor has nothing to do with the investigation we’re involved in right now. Why didn’t you do that?

Blair:
I’m unable to answer your question without violating the terms of the law and the spirit of the law. All of the information, all of the evidence we have collected…will be properly disclosed in a court of law.

—Toronto police chief Bill Blair on CBC’s Metro Morning, commenting on yesterday’s major police action in the neighbourhood where Rob Ford allegedly smoked crack cocaine. Blair emphasized that he was distinguishing between serving the public interest (trying to get guns and drugs off the streets and keep a neighbourhood safe) and the interest of the public (namely persistent questions about whether Rob Ford has a substance abuse problem or is other otherwise involved in illicit activity). As a Torontonian he is concerned about the toll the crack allegations are taking on the city and its reputation, Blair said, but as police chief he needs to follow due process and refrain from “indulging myself in hypotheticals or speculation.”

The truth behind the tales people tell about Toronto.

Photo by photocrastinating, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

More often than not, when youth are the perpetrators of crimes and misdemeanors, a hue and cry goes up demanding curfew laws. Proponents argue a citywide curfew would prevent young people from getting into mischief at all hours. Opponents claim curfews cast upstanding young citizens in the same light as ne’er-do-wells.

Although no city bylaw exists, both sides may be surprised to learn Toronto police already routinely enforce curfew laws. Yes: they’re already on the books.

Curfews have always been contentious. Toronto has been struggling with the issue for more than a century.

Local councils believed nine o’clock was an appropriate time to clear the streets of children. In 1894, city fathers in Toronto Junction passed a bylaw requiring those 12 and younger to be home no later than then. Firehouses announced the start of curfew by ringing tower bells. The bells pealed again at seven the next morning, lifting the nightly lockdown.

The practice of ringing bells to commence curfew wasn’t unique to Toronto, though. In fact, curfew bells date back to the middle ages.

Torontoist was unable to verify either the effectiveness of the Toronto Junction bylaw or how long it remained on the books.

With juvenile delinquency on the rise in the 1960s, the idea of a curfew was once again in vogue. In one instance, former mayor and city councilor Allan Lamport suggested imposing one in the Yorkville area, which at that point in time was a counterculural enclave. In a 1967 Toronto Star article Lamport described Yorkville as “A haven for criminals and undesirables.”

In Lamport’s view, an eight o’clock curfew for youth would have shielded teenagers from the influence of pot-smoking hippies. The recommendation went nowhere.

An inordinate number of gun crimes in 2005, plus last year’s brazen shooting on Danzig Street reignited the curfew issue. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) continues to be a curfew proponent.

Claire McWatt, chair of Toronto Youth Cabinet, said her organization was unaware curfew legislation was currently in place in Toronto. McWatt said the idea “seems like an archaic solution to a bigger problem,” and would do “nothing to protect youth and enrich communities.”

If there’s no curfew bylaw in Toronto, what legislation are police enforcing when officers stop and apprehend curfew violators?

Section 79(5) of Ontario’s Child and Family Services Act states that youth 16 and under are prevented from loitering in public places and places of entertainment between midnight and six in the morning, if unaccompanied by a parent or an authorized person 18 years or older.

So if you’re out after midnight and under 16 without adult supervision, and you happen to bump into Toronto’s finest, the curfew bell tolls for you.

Additional material from the Toronto Star, September 5, 1894 and August 4, 1967.

A warning sign on the gate in the driveway indicating the presence of police dogs doesn’t quite provide a complete picture of what goes on inside the squat, steel-clad Toronto Police Service building at the bottom of Beechwood Drive in the Don Valley.

Even inside, it’s easy to mistake the easygoing staff, inquisitive barking, and constant doggie praise as typical fare for any dog kennel.

Police-issued dog collars, well-used bite suits, and safes containing narcotics, explosives, and other nefarious items tell another story. There’s nothing typical about Toronto’s Police Dog Services compound—not when life-and-death loyalties are at stake.

44 Beechwood Drive serves two purposes: it is both a training facility for elite service dogs and a police station from which TPS dispatches dogs and handlers.

Police Dog Services falls under the same administrative umbrella as the mounted unit. Established in 1989, the dog squad was originally located in a residential neighbourhood overlooking Scarborough Bluffs. As the number of dogs grew, so did noise levels. To avoid finding itself in the doghouse with neighbours, the canine unit moved to its current secluded location, sandwiched between the Don Valley Parkway and the Don River.

The six-acre facility has space for twenty-one dogs and handlers. Canine quarters can get loud, especially when lead trainer Sergeant Paul Caissie, or another handler, appears. Talk about dogged determination: when the dogs realize they’re being pressed into service, a yelping frenzy ensues.

Above a cacophony of barks and yelps, Sergeant Caissie explains, “The dogs are all sociable and have a high retrieve drive. It takes very high-energy dogs to do the work they do here.”

No kidding.

Recognized as a world-class academy, the facility is the only canine law enforcement unit in the country operating around the clock, seven days a week. Not even the RCMP’s canine unit can boast this.

The relationship between handler and dog is intense. On duty as well as off, officers and their four-legged partners are inseparable. By no means considered pets, service dogs nonetheless reside in their handlers’ homes. As veteran police constable and dog handler Todd Garbutt told Torontoist: “There has to be a bond between the handler and the dog, otherwise handler protection wouldn’t work. The dog has to love the handler so much it’s willing to put down its life for that handler.”

Garbutt confesses he averages more time with his dog then he does with his children.

Poop-and-scoop duty is an obvious drawback, but Caissie and Garbutt recite several benefits that come with being paired with a dog. Among other things, they say, the dog doesn’t eat your lunch, and you don’t have to buy it coffee.

Dogs range in price from free to thousands of dollars. Pricier dogs are purchased from breeders. Gratis dogs have been donated from the community. Once in a while, a citizen will contact Dog Services offering to donate a dog they believe possesses the right stuff.

The majority of offers are declined.

“99 per cent of the time,” Garbutt says, “the dog will never pass our testing.”

The other 1 per cent? Garbutt recounts the fortuitous tale of deputy dawg Eli. One day, a dog arrived stowed in the back of a pickup truck. Friendly as heck, with energy and curiosity to match, Eli was deputized after rigorous testing, going on to become an exceptional general-purpose police dog.

Matching dog and handler is a delicate process. A turbocharged dog is best paired with an officer that has a laid-back disposition, and vise versa. Out on patrol, their opposing personality types will counterbalance one another.

Toronto Police Service’s roster of dogs shouldn’t be mistaken for attack dogs. They’re never dispatched as a crowd-control measure. Unlike police agencies in other jurisdictions, TPS usually uses a method of deployment known as bark and hold—as in, hold your ground instead of a perpetrator’s limb.

Service dogs average about ten years on the force. Training for all breeds—from general purpose dogs to detector dogs, who sniff for narcotics, explosives, missing persons, and cadavers—begins in puppyhood. Breeds range from large German Shepherds to mid-sized Springer Spaniels. One feature all share is their alpha-dog personalities.

The Beechwood Drive facility also provides classroom instruction to officers, who learn when to radio for the dog squad and what to do when backup arrives. Sergeant Caissie explains that when the canine unit is called out, the scene they encounter often resembles a dog’s breakfast. Handler and dog must respond quickly and effectively. Regardless of rank, a handler never forfeits command of their dog to a superior. Not even Chief Blair can tell a handler how to deploy their charge.

In the bad old days, an officer risked injury chasing down a suspect. With canines at the ready, a general patrol dog can be called upon to flush a suspect out of hiding. This, officers say, has diminished the number of violent encounters during apprehension.

Canine crime fighters don’t always adapt well to retirement. Ideally, as Garbutt puts it, the dog “goes back to being a dog and loving it.” But because they never really lose their unwavering work ethic, even after being decommissioned, they want to accompany their human partners to work. It’s difficult for the retired dog to accept that a pup has filled its position. This affects the handler’s psyche, too. Garbutt accepts this adjustment as part of the job. He’s grown used to telling his former, tail-wagging partner, “Sorry buddy, I have to go with my other partner now.”

Photo by {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrychoi/4726579670/”}harry choi{/a}, from the {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/pool/”}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

At a meeting on Wednesday, the Toronto Police Services Board decided to hold off on instituting a new system for giving receipts to people who have been “carded”—which is what the police call it when they stop someone on the street and collect their personal information for inclusion in an internal database. Lawyers and community groups allege that carding is rampant, particularly among officers of the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Service (TAVIS), who patrol neighbourhoods with higher crime rates.

The Toronto Police Service announced that it would start issuing carding receipts in November as a way of promoting accountability among its ranks. But outside advocates say the receipts, as currently conceived, won’t be useful.

The board voted unanimously to defer a decision on receipts until at least March so that the police service can seek legal counsel on carding and review submissions from several concerned stakeholders.

Part of the reason carding is under so much scrutiny is that it’s incredibly prevalent in Toronto. In the last three years alone, police have amassed about 1.2 million “contact cards,” which detail everything from a person’s name, age, and race, to the marital status of their parents and their country of origin.

On Wednesday, civil advocacy groups and concerned community members roundly condemned carding during deputations to the board. They repeated longstanding concerns that the practice violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and facilitates racial profiling. They also cited concerns about the capture and storage of personal information in situations where no police investigation is taking place.

An example of a police contact card.

Former mayor John Sewell, who now heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, criticized “the intrusive nature of carding” and recommended that police “cease carding activities that involve random stops where there is no evidence of illegal activity.” Visibly frustrated, he dismissed the police service’s proposed receipt design as “crazy” and a “mockery.” The proposed receipts, he told us, reflect only a small portion of the information on the cards themselves. (The receipts capture the identity of the civilian and police officers, the time and date of the interaction, and the reason police are collecting information. A sample copy of one is below.)

“He’s got a lot to learn if he thinks this is community engagement,” Sewell said of Police Chief Bill Blair. “I want a receipt that actually says why the stops are taking place so we can show that they’re not legal.”

“If somebody had done this database about people in general, as opposed to basically black and brown kids, I think people would be shocked,” Sewell added.

Board Chair Alok Mukherjee reflected upon the deputations after they were over. “From what we have heard from the deputants,” he said, “there’s some serious thinking that the board needs to engage in.” Mukherjee opposes racial profiling, but appreciates the need for police stops. “We don’t also want to tie the hands of police in doing the work they need to, in keeping the community safe,” he said. Mukherjee promised a “thoughtful approach” as the board reviews community concerns and awaits a police report on the massive data collection scheme.

Deputy Chief Mark Saunders said police are “trying to get a proper control sample” to analyze the 1.2 million contact cards they’ve collected over past three years. He also denied claims from community members and a Toronto Star series called “Known to Police” that police use contact cards to stop the same people repeatedly. “When you take a hard look at the numbers…90 per cent of people were only stopped once over a three-year period,” Saunders said. “So it’s not an issue of us continuously stopping the same person over and over and over again.” If true, Saunders’s assertion would mean that over a million unique individuals have been stopped and carded in the last three years alone—which is incredible, considering the fact that Toronto’s population as estimated in the 2011 census is just over 2.6 million people.

Roger Love, who represents the community group “Black is Not a Crime,” expressed frustration with the board. “They have not said that police officers should stop the practice of carding,” he said. “The unfair practice of racial profiling continues.”

Earlier this afternoon, the Toronto Police Service sent out one of its weirdest and most succinct press releases, at least in recent memory [PDF]. The headline is: “TPS response to SIU Director Ian Scott’s news release: ‘He is wrong.’” It’s a shot in what seems to be a bizarre turf war between TPS and one of its civilian overseers, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.

The TPS press release was in response to another press release issued this afternoon by Scott, who heads up the SIU, a civilian body that investigates incidents where police involvement may have brought about a death, serious injury, or sexual assault. In his release, Scott alleges that TPS torpedoed an investigation into a complaint of police violence against a 27-year-old man named Tyrone Phillips.

According to Scott, TPS refused to provide the SIU with a copy of Phillips’ original complaint, which made it impossible for the SIU to investigate the man’s claims. (Phillips says police beat him into unconsciousness while trying to arrest him in July.) “As a result of the TPS’s refusal to provide a copy of the complainant’s statement to the SIU, I am closing this investigation,” Scott is quoted as saying in the release. “If the TPS chooses to provide that statement to the SIU at a later date, the Unit will reopen and complete its investigation into this matter.”

In its press release, TPS denies that it has the authority to release the complaint. “The document in question belongs to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director,” the TPS release states. “We are not allowed to release a document which belongs to someone else without their express permission.”

Scott’s release, meanwhile, says the OIPRD also refused to supply a copy of the complaint to the SIU, because they only share documents “with the affected police service.” Which presumably would be TPS.

The SIU even got Phillips himself to sign a form authorizing release of the complaint, to no avail.

So TPS can’t release the document because it belongs to the OIPRD, the OIPRD can’t release the document because they only share such information with TPS, and the SIU is left with no option but to leak the whole sad, festering bureaucratic mess to the media in the hopes of disinfecting it with sunlight.

It’s worth a shot.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains: the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past 12 months. From December 10 to 19, we’ll unveil the nominees, grouped by category. Vote for your favourites from each batch, every single day! On December 19 and 20 the winners from each category go head-to-head in the final round of voting, and on December 21, we will reveal your choices for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

Every day in our city, we are made aware of potential threats to public safety. Most of the time, these threats are spelled out so we can respond accordingly: pedestrian fatalities are spiking, so walk and drive with caution; an assault has taken place, so keep your eyes out for a suspect. But every now and again, we hear about an apparent danger for which no further details are available. It is as if those warning us would rather appeal to our imaginations than to a specific, identifiable hazard. Unsubstantiated safety concerns had a big year in 2012, and they were most likely to pop up wherever a group of black Torontonians were planning to get together.

At this year’s NXNE music festival, a major hip-hop show featuring artists from home and abroad was abruptly cancelled only hours before it was set to begin. Management at the Rivoli, the proposed venue, cited ambiguous “security concerns” as the reason for dumping the show, and added that the city’s Guns and Gangs task force had paid them a visit earlier in the day. Performers and fans were shocked, especially since they heard nothing more about the potential peril that had spooked organizers.

Similar circumstances wiped away an entire weekend of events at Irie Fest, a celebration of Caribbean and African music and dance. In this case, event promoter Phil Vassell took pains to describe the event’s “incident-free record over the last nine years” even as he announced the cancellation. Vassell said “the recent increase in violence in Toronto,” the mass shootings at Danzig and the Eaton Centre, had factored into his decision. He didn’t mention the overwhelming, prejudiced media scrutiny that he and other black event organizers faced in the wake of those shootings, but the pressure was likely too much for him to bear.

Without a doubt, the strangest instance of an unsubstantiated black threat occurred during the now infamous “gravy bus” incident, in which police inexplicably called in an emergency TTC shelter bus to ferry football players from Don Bosco, the team Mayor Rob Ford coaches, from a game. The players weren’t said to have done anything violent or dangerous—in fact, a TDSB official who attended the game called their behaviour “exemplary.” And although 23 Division Superintendent Ron Taverner agreed, he repeatedly claimed that, out of an “abundance of caution,” it was necessary for police to call the shelter bus, which essentially served as a paddywagon for the mostly black students. Police did not bother to question or follow up with the only person reported to have actually acted out aggressively that afternoon, a coach of the Father Henry Carr team. We still don’t know his name.

This last example is instructive. It doesn’t seem to matter what a group of black people are doing or not doing—their mere presence seems to represent a latent safety concern in the eyes of our police and media. The most likely explanation for taking a TTC bus off the street to pick up Don Bosco’s players is that their coach, the mayor, wanted to pay them a kindness and take them out of the pouring rain after a game. Instead, again all evidence, the public was sold the familiar story that a group of black men were ready to blow, and that a police response was the only reasonable course of action. It didn’t help that Mayor Ford repeatedly congratulated himself for being on the scene to “control” his players as only he can.

If 2012 was any indication, we’ve got a long way to go before black Torontonians can assemble in their city without arousing undeserved paranoia and scrutiny.

Sue-Ann Levy Using her position to deride instead of reason.

Michael Bryant An astonishingly tone-deaf response to a tragic death.

Frances Nunziata Treating her colleagues like wayward schoolchildren.

James Pasternak and QuAIA Alarmism Undermining Pride Toronto, and Toronto’s commitment to diversity.

Yunel Escobar   Homophobic slurs and frustrating non-apologies.

Doug Holyday   Trying to turn an already divided house even more against itself.

A Toronto resident, all dressed up to share their thoughts about the 2012 budget. Photo by Laura Godfrey/Torontoist.

In cities around the world, the idea of “participatory budgeting” has taken off in recent years. Started in Porto Alegre in 1989 and implemented in various ways in New York and Chicago, the process gives a portion of the budget over to citizens to set their own priorities. Some councillors, like Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) and Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) support this idea, arguing it empowers citizens, and promotes civic participation and government transparency.

We don’t have participatory budgeting as part of our budget process right now, but that doesn’t mean residents don’t get a say. You can share your thoughts with your local representative—many are holding community meetings in the coming weeks—and speak at the special meeting city council is convening soon. (You may also, if you wish, groan despairingly.) And while that may not sound like much, as we saw during last year’s all-night budget meetings, it can put enough pressure on city council to force significant changes to the budget before it’s passed.

Here are the key dates to watch out for as Toronto debates its $9.4 billion annual operating budget, and its ten-year, $15.25 billion capital budget.

December 3–5: Budget Presentations
This is the fine-print portion of the proceedings, when City staff explain the budget department by department, and answer questions about specific pieces of the budget posed by councillors. Nuanced details—things that don’t quite make the headlines, but can have real day-to-day effects on how a program or department works—emerge during this stage.

December 10–11: Public Deputations
This is your chance to speak as a formal part of the process. Anyone can sign up to address the Budget Committee, to share thoughts or concerns about the budget. So far this year’s budget has proved to be a much less controversial document than last year, when the core service review motivated hundreds of people to speak to cuts as wide-ranging as student nutrition programs and water fluoridation. Shaping up to get attention this year: the multi-million dollar police deficit; a 104-employee cut in the fire department (including 91 front-line firefighters); spending $505 million over 20 years to repair the Gardiner; and the elimination of the $104,000 Global AIDS Initiative.

You can find out more about how to participate in the budget process on the City’s website.

December 14: The Police Debate
Currently the police service faces a $19.1 million shortfall. Police Chief Bill Blair argues that since 90 per cent of the $927 million police budget is tied up in salaries and benefits, the only way to achieve the City’s budget target would be to lay off front-line officers, which he refuses to recommend. He has gone so far as to suggest he will explore legal remedies to preserve the force’s complement (the number of officers Toronto has is outlined by the provincial government, so there is an appeal mechanism he can pursue). Budget chief and new police board member Mike Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt), on the other hand, has been particularly vocal in arguing that TPS needs to get more efficient. The police board meets on December 14, and they’ll need to settle on the final budget number they put before council.

To help deal with overflow, some residents watched the 2012 budget debate from the City Hall rotunda.

December 12 or 17: Property Assessments
The City gets the final word on how much it can expect from the property tax assessment (CVA) uplift. Staff anticipate this number will be higher than they have accounted for in the draft budget, meaning there will be some new money on the table. The City’s top civil servant, Joe Pennachetti, is strongly recommending that this money be saved for reserves, and not go to the police department to help close their shortfall. (And by “strongly” we mean: he said Toronto would be better off cutting the budget elsewhere or raising property taxes, rather than spending the property assessment money on the police.)

January 7: The Rob Ford Factor
On December 5, Mayor Ford will ask for a stay of the decision that he be removed from office. If that is denied, Ford will vacate his seat on December 10; in that case the budget advanced by his administration in his absence may have a harder time making it through council without changes. If (as most observers anticipate) the stay is granted, Ford will remain in office pending the outcome of his appeal, which will be heard as early as January 7—right in the middle of the budget process.

January 10: Executive Committee
The final draft of the budget goes to the executive committee. This is essentially the mayor’s cabinet, so even if there have been some changes from the original draft, it is likely to look more or less like what we’ve seen by now.

January 15–17: Final City Council Debate
Last year, this became a major showdown, as a centre-left coalition of councillors decided to reverse many of the mayor’s proposed budget cuts. Though the budget itself is less dramatic this year, some councillors are trying to find ways to distance themselves from Ford, which makes this budget ripe for change as well.

Finch bus photo by {a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashtonpal/4577922071/}AshtonPal{/a} from the {a href=http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/}Torontoit Flickr Pool{/a}.

The Toronto Police Service and the TTC both provided updates on the latest mayoral controversy this afternoon, in the hopes of clearing up lingering questions as to why two buses were pulled off their routes and sent to pick up the Don Bosco Eagles, the football team coached by Rob Ford.

Superintendent Ron Taverner outlined the chain of events that led up to that decision at a press conference. As he described it, there were existing tensions between Don Bosco and the opposing team from Henry Carr. Those tensions flared up in a verbal exchange at last week’s game, but “no physical confrontation took place.” (One Henry Carr player told the Star that the only person whose temper “slipped” was actually their coach, but that players were calm.)

A total of five officers were on scene at the time: two School Resource Officers (one from each school), plus two neighbourhood safety officers and their sergeant. After speaking with the administration of both schools, “out of caution for something happening and community safety” the sergeant on scene decided to call the TTC to request a shelter bus. “At no time was the mayor involved in any of the decision-making with regard to a bus being called. It was our officer, our sergeant, who made that decision,” Taverner said. As the bus pulled away with the Don Bosco players “the field was calm,” he went on, “and we feel that a situation was diffused.”

When the story first broke, one police spokesperson cited the cold, rainy weather as the explanation for why a bus was called. (The game was called early, which meant the football team would have had to wait about 45 minutes for their scheduled bus to arrive.) Today, Taverner said that wasn’t the primary consideration, however: the weather “plays a very small piece of what we’re talking about here.”

As for the mayor’s involvement in the matter, Taverner conceded that his position as a volunteer coach with Don Bosco creates interest in the situation (“I don’t think we’d all be here right now if it wasn’t the mayor’s team.”), but repeated several times that he had spoken to the officer who took the call, and that Ford played no role in getting the bus on scene.

Meanwhile, TTC CEO Andy Byford has conducted a review of the commission’s shelter bus policy, and its application to the incident last week. That policy allows police, fire, or emergency services to call the TTC and ask for a bus to be sent to particular locations in emergency situations. With regards to the Don Bosco game, Byford writes that the reason a full Finch 36 bus was told to offload its passengers and go to the football field was because it was the nearest one available. (None were in the garage or at the ends of their routes, which are the TTC’s first choices in fulfilling shelter bus requests.)

Byford then addressed the voicemail message Rob Ford left him, asking why the bus hadn’t arrived yet:

The buses, we now know, was having difficulty finding the school. At the time of the call to me from the mayor, I was unaware of the police request. Upon hearing the voicemail, I called the Transit Control Centre to inquire about whether they had received a request for a bus. Staff confirmed a shelter bus was requested and advised that it would arrive within five minutes. At no time was the mayor’s name invoked.

After reviewing the shelter bus policy, Byford has concluded that “The TTC does not have the expertise to determine what constitutes an emergency and, therefore, the need for a shelter bus. The TTC must rely on our emergency services to make these decisions on behalf of the public. To change, alter or add a layer of oversight to shelter bus requests could, unwittingly, cause harm to those most in need of a shelter bus.”

The full text of Byford’s report—

TTC Shelter Bus Policy Review

—After Mayor Rob Ford admitted to reading while driving on the Gardiner Expressway yesterday—which is not in itself an illegal act, though it can be a factor in a careless-driving charge—a Toronto Police officer whom the Globe identifies as Sgt. Tim Burrows added a message to the Toronto Police Service’s official Facebook page. It concluded with a plea, quoted above in its original form. (The second sentence was deleted at some point after the message was posted.) Despite the urging of his brother, Councillor Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North), Rob Ford has refused to hire a driver since becoming mayor.

Just over a month ago, on June 26—and one day before the two-year limitation period expired—a lawsuit was filed with the Superior Court of Justice on behalf of seven people arrested during 2010′s G20 summit. Davin Charney, the lawyer who filed the suit, held a press conference this morning announcing the action, flanked by the arrestees he represents. The suit alleges wrongful arrest and illegal detention; the plaintiffs are seeking $1.4 million in damages.

The plaintiffs contend they were arrested based on police profiling rather than any wrongdoing on their parts—picked out for things deemed suspicious on the G20 weekend, like wearing backpacks, or having lawyers’ numbers written on their arms. Once arrested, the plaintiffs claim they suffered further ill-treatment: one, said Charney, was held in cuffs for 20 hours, though they exhibited no violent or threatening behaviour; another, a woman, alleges she was groped by an officer. None were given sufficient food or water, and six of the seven were subject to “unlawful and degrading strip searches…in the context of unlawful arrest I call that sexual assault.” Charney said he would be serving the police with the suit later this morning.

The plaintiffs are from the Hamilton area, according to a press release, and were arrested on Yonge Street after coming out of a pizza shop. According to Canadian Press, the Ontario Independent Police Review Director, which investigates public complaints about the police, “conducted an investigation into the incident and found the complaint ‘substantiated,’” though nothing has yet been proven in court.