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Newsstand: May 27, 2010
lllustration by Clayton Hanmer/Torontoist.
Mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone, currently the deputy mayor, has endorsed Mike Layton to fill his city council seat. Mike, the son of NDP leader Jack “steel-blue bolt of socialist conviction” Layton, is running for office in Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina. Not to be outdone, former Star editor Bob Hepburn responded by endorsing David Miller for mayor. Gutsy move!
Ontario Ombudsman André Marin, who seems like a great guy as long as you aren’t being employed or investigated by him, might be getting another five-year contract after all. The renewal has grown increasingly likely as the provincial government tried and failed to find a better replacement for Marin, while Premier Dalton McGuinty openly praised the man—between clenched teeth, or so says the wisdom of the crowd. The Globe goes as far as suggesting that an apparent smear campaign against Marin ended up working in his favour.
Are you a stray-garbage-spotting, dead-light-noticing, improved-signage-suggesting powerhouse of volunteerism? Well, then TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s West) has a job for you. Mihevc is co-organizing a rider audit of Toronto’s sixty-nine subway stations. Results will be sent to the TTC, which is expected to give progress updates on the suggested improvements. The audit is set for July 17, far enough ahead that the transit system should be able to get at least one of the turnstiles in High Park station’s automatic entrance working, or else staff the collector’s booth, or print out a sign for the doors.
Alright, let’s get down to brass balls tacks: after security for last year’s two G20 summits cost a combined total of $48 million, and the security tab of the 2008 G8 conference in Japan ran to $381 million (that summit costing around $600 million overall), guess how much the Conservative government is paying for Canada’s summits next month? Did your guess have nine digits in it? Nice job! Sure, the road closures are awesome, as is the frigging amazing banishment of the Jays to the unforgiving wilds of Philadelphia, but the best part is that there is absolutely nothing better we wanted to use that money for.
Anyway, we’ll totally make it all back from tourism, once everyone in the world watches the G20 coverage on TV, catches a glimpse of Toronto’s magic skyline, and hops on the next plane in. It’s a complete lock. Just look how well it worked for Pittsburgh.
While we’re comparing road apples to oranges, let’s have a look at the annual Mercer Quality of Living Survey, which ranks world cities by how much you’d want to live there. Toronto came in sixteenth, making us almost fourteen hundred percent more livable than Baghdad. But keep a few grains of salt handy because, for all the mathemagic and labcoatery behind the survey, its results don’t always make much sense. Case in point: Ottawa is number fourteen. But hey, we beat Berlin and stomped Montreal, and since this is Torontoist, we can conveniently sidestep Vancouver.
The Toronto District School Board has reversed course and decided that it will not let parents conduct job interviews for school principals. As you might imagine, that has advocates of parental involvement disappointed, and the principals’ association somewhat relieved. The change of plans comes after opposition from the Toronto School Administrators’ Association. For what it’s worth, says trustee Josh Matlow, it would not have been “fair or right” to put pressure on parents to choose a qualified candidate for their children’s school.
Finally, only twenty-eight percent of Torontonians got an H1N1 shot, according to Toronto Public Health. While that seems low, it is apparently an average result. Jeez, things like that are probably where Ottawa scored just enough bonus points to beat us.