Results tagged “stephanedion”

                     

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2008--the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months, with one hero and one villain selected by each participating staff member. On Christmas Day: the heroes. On Boxing Day: the villains. And next week, cast your vote to determine the Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

Photo of Stephen Harper voting today from the AP.

Ever since Prime Minister Harper called the October 14 election, the typically more-reserved Canadian party leaders have dug their trenches and attacked. If you didn’t know better, you might think the U.S. presidential election has crept north of the border.

The McGuinty government is preparing legislation to combat "driver distraction," which will likely mean no more hand-held cell phones, Blackberries, Gameboys, iPods, or other "electronic distractions" while you're at the wheel. So much for the Torontoist mobile Wii tennis tournament.

18 of 23 trucks checked at random on Toronto streets this week by police and the Ministry of Transportation proved to have some kind of safety issue. The police inspections found numerous problems, including things like insufficient brakes, improperly secured load, cargo on fire, steering wheel fell off, truck being driven by dog, etc., etc.

At an event yesterday to show off Toronto's new street furniture, David Miller praised the exclusive deal with Astral Media. The contract includes a measly 1,000 new bicycle posts, because God knows we don't want to encourage cycling in downtown Toronto. The contract also includes new public toilet installations which are billed as being "self-cleaning," to which Torontoist can only issue a collective "shyeeeeah, right."

Stéphane Dion says that Canadians are smart enough to accept a carbon tax, and he seems willing to bet the next election on it. It's awesome that we have an opposition leader too naïve to recognize that however revenue-neutral and environmentally beneficial his plan is, this may not be the most politically savvy time to hike gas prices.

It snowed again last night, so if you're going anywhere, it'll probably take you a long time. However, we're getting another storm on the weekend so you might as well wait before you start shovelling. Actually, it'll be spring in a couple of weeks anyway so if you have enough cans of SpaghettiO's, it's probably best to just stay home til then.

Microsoft has agreed to buy 1.6% of Facebook for $240,000,000, giving the social networking site a valuation of around $15 billion. The deal is good for both parties, with Bill Gates finally hanging out with the cool kids, and 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg getting to throw an awesome kegger.

Toronto had a violent weekend with nine people shot and four of them killed, including an 11-year-old boy at a birthday party. Two more people were stabbed. Cue relatives wailing, Police Chief Bill Blair saying "this is unacceptable," and headlines like "Saturday Night Bloodbath." We’ve seen all this before. Solutions, anyone?

Have you checked out the officially unveiled ROM Crystal yet? Some cool dudes like David Foster, Deborah Cox, Jann Arden, K'naan, Natalie McMaster, David Suzuki and Governor General Michaëlle Jean [AND CLAY AIKEN!!!—Ed.] were on scene for the dedication.

There was an unexpected windfall for Green P as a major dump of snow, along with high winds and freezing rain, turned much of the GTA into a parking lot during the evening commute yesterday. Apart from the traffic mayhem, fallen trees and power outages have also been a problem throughout the city. It sure looks pretty, though.

CTV will be airing an in-depth report on each story on their 11 PM national news, starting December 23. There's bound to be some debate among people who care about this sort of thing as to the order of the stories, as well as about some glaring omissions. But should Stephen Harper lose a federal election in 2007, he can take solace in the fact that in at least one poll, he totally kicked Stephane Dion's ass!

But all agreed one thing: "Liberals, we need to get back to power as soon as possible."

A couple interesting flip-flops in the new government today - namely a crossing of the floor and an unelected senator and Minister of Public Works and Government Service.

Stephane Dion, the man responsible for the Clarity Bill and a shoo-in for Most Nebbishy Federal Cabinet Minister, set tongues a-wagging when he was shuffled from intergovermental affairs to the environment ministry. But few could have predicted this ambitious plan to plant pansies on the roof of your local passport office. Here at Torontoist, we're on side! Let a thousand tree-top flowers bloom! The Gazette has the full story.