Results tagged “parliamenthill”

Upwards of 1,500 protesters from Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City, and Hamilton marched on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday to protest the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush. Bush will meet today with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Montebello, Quebec on the two-year-old Security and Prosperity Partnership. The agenda is to include emergency planning for an avian-flu pandemic, the recall of Chinese-made toys, and border security. Demonstrators denounced the summit as anti-democratic and warned the public that Canada's sovereignty is at stake, and anti-war activists chanted "George Bush shame on you/Daddy was a killer too." The otherwise peaceful protest ended with one arrest related to a spray painting incident.

Torontonian Vanessa Delsooz (not pictured) has organized an impromptu protest of proposed TTC cuts next Saturday July 28th at Nathan Phillips Square at 1 p.m. The rally will reportedly be outside the law, since it takes longer than a week to secure a permit for such things. Also, the office that issues protest permits just got eliminated due to budget cuts. (Just kidding. We think.)

When Canadians want satire we turn TV figures like Rick Mercer, but satire, that most difficult of comedic genres, is virtually dead in CanLit. Or is it? Randy Boyagoda's debut novel The Governor of the Northern Province is a satire so dark that you can almost hear all of the squirming amongst those expecting the typical Canadian novel. Boyagoda tells the story of Bokarie, an African war criminal who somehow escapes to Canada and finds his way into the circle of a small-town woman eager to make it to Parliament Hill and power. The novel skewers the peculiarities of small-town Canada, and some of the more ridiculous aspects of multiculturalism and immigration. In Boyagoda's hands literary satire isn't dead, it just might have a fighting chance.

TTC Chair Howard Moscoe and injured TTC driver Bobby Lowe had a nice chat yesterday and cleared up a few things. Lowe actually said that his beef wasn't with the TTC but with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. They held up his cheque for five months and Lowe lost his apartment and had to break up his family because of that. Howard Moscoe also apologized for calling Lowe a liar on a radio show earlier in the week.

Equal Voice honored Flora MacDonald yesterday at The Royal York Hotel and we were there, applauding wildly between forkfuls of white chocolate-cranberry cake. Equal Voice, a multi-partisan group working to get more women involved in government, awarded the first Canadian female Secretary of State for External Affairs (and one of the first female foreign ministers anywhere in the world!) an EVE award to recognize her pioneering efforts to further women in politics. Hearing stories about frequently being mistaken for a secretary on Parliament Hill or being asked by world officials if she could "wait in the room with the other women"(!), we tip our hats to this tough grand dame for always sticking to her guns and helping to pave the way.

Next time you see us, we'll have our own sign on Parliament Hill - we're off to Ottawa. Goodbye fellow Torontoists!

We’ve discussed our concerns about the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Committee in earlier posts: the project’s liability to be stalemated by the presence of foot-dragging bureaucrats including the King of the Hall himself, Mayor Miller, whether the establishment of a ‘design steering committee’ is an unnecessary additional formality, etc.