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Newsstand: June 4, 2010
Illustration by Clayton Hanmer/Torontoist.
The G20 Integrated Security Unit (ISU) held a special press event yesterday to show off their toys and tactics for the media. Officials showcased the myriad types of police who are involved—cops with dogs, horses, bikes, motorcycles, sniper rifles, sound cannons, etc.—as well as the tactics being practised to handle various potential security “situations.” The best part was when the rocket launchers drove past the review stand and all the Politburo members saluted.
In other G20 news, Queen’s Park will be shut down for the period immediately preceding and during the summit. Spokesapparatchiks said that the move is merely a precaution but will also serve to enhance the general sense of panic that’s being instilled in the public prior to the big weekend.
Hockey Night in Canada announcer Ron MacLean has gone from Canadian sports icon to genuine hero. MacLean was having lunch with broadcast partner Don Cherry at a Philadelphia restaurant when a woman came shouting that a man was in the Delaware River. MacLean grabbed a velvet rope, rushed down to the water and assisted two others in rescuing a man who had attempted to drown himself. In best Canadian fashion, the sportscaster later told interviewers “I’m not the hero; I helped the guy who was.” MacLean was referring to the rescue, not his and Cherry’s efforts in the last Stanley Cup game.
More teapot tempests over behaviour in a Mississauga City office with Mayor Hazel McCallion now putting in an angry two cents. The episode, in which employees were “duct taped and spanked,” was investigated after being captured on cell phone video last November. No employees were fired, with the behaviour being characterized as harmless “horseplay” although surprisingly without the adjectives “creepy” or “weird.” McCallion has expressed her displeasure with the outcome of the investigation and put the matter on the council agenda for June 9. No actual horses are thought to have been spanked in the incident.
From the get-go, one of mayoral candidate Rob Ford’s major platform planks has been to get rid of half of city council, and now we know what he plans to do with the extra cash—hire more cops. Ford is quoted as saying that with the fifteen million dollars he figures the city would save, we could hire one hundred more police officers, including thirty School Resource Officers to work the high-school beat. Ford estimates that dumping the councillors would save nine millon dollars in direct salary and office expenses, implying that the average councillor is pulling down around $409,000 annually.
More controversy over 204 Beech Avenue, the century-old home in the Beach which the owner wants to tear down and which various other folks want to have designated as a heritage property. Councillor Sandra Bussin held a community meeting in the area on Wednesday at which a number of questions were apparently asked, although “No one in attendance spoke against the demolition of the property or for its preservation.”