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Newsstand: March 26, 2010
Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.
It’ll take a while for the dust to clear after yesterday’s budget announcement from Queen’s Park, which brought a devastating setback for Toronto’s sweeping Transit City program, since it reneged on four billion dollars’ worth of commitments for the next five years. David Miller was visibly furious when he responded to the surprise move by the province, which he called “disgraceful,” “thoughtless,” and “thick”. “I’m beyond disappointed. The city deserves better,” he said. Projects that have been specifically recommended for the chopping block are the LRT lines for Eglinton, Scarborough, and Finch. It’s been just under one year since the province declared its full support of those priority projects.
Opponents of public transit expansion, or of Miller’s agenda as a whole, are likely to greet the news cheerfully, but it’s only part of an extremely grim provincial budget that tries desperately to do two things: reverse the growth of Ontario’s $134 billion debt, already expected to reach nearly $245 billion within the next eight years, and avoid as many politically painful cuts as possible until after the 2011 election. For now, the axe is also falling on Ontario’s public employees, who will see wage freezes and gradual workforce reductions soon. Public employee unions such as those serving teachers and civil servants have been told that overall compensation will freeze when their current contracts come up for renegotiation.
The sound of belts tightening, however, is music to the ears of Councillor Rob Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North). Known for his general opposition to the spending of city money, the councillor is, naturally, self-funding tonight’s fiesta, at which the newly declared mayoral candidate will be on hand to wine, dine, and satisfy the Rob Ford needs of possibly thousands of people. And speaking of tight belts, what’s with all the weight jokes? The Star’s wisecrack calling the candidate and his clones two brothers “almost nine-hundred pounds of blond Ford” wasn’t even scientifically correct: as everyone knows, Rob Ford is measured in torque foot-pounds. Those also happen to be his favourite dance move and his punishment of choice for out-of-line councillors.
Yes, we at Torontoist may have gotten mildly excited by the idea of covering a Ford for Mayor campaign. If the combative councillor knows just one thing, it’s how to make a big scene out of everything. But even he might want to pause and ponder why his rivals are so pleased he’s running against them.
The two men accused of robbing seven thousand dollars in jewellery from a woman dying at Toronto East General Hospital now face a grand total of 237 charges for a series of crimes. These mostly involve credit card theft and fraud, plus five counts of theft over $5,000 and twenty-three counts of theft below. One of the men, Isaac Lewkovics, was on probation and is also being charged with possession of heroin and pot.
A man stands charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of a Don Jail inmate. Kevon Philip died after being assaulted in a prisoner’s area on January 2, becoming Toronto’s first homicide victim of 2010. Though police have charged Said Mohammed, 22, with the killing, they have released few details that could shed light on how the attack happened and why laying charges took so long. That’s the news for this morning.