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Newsstand: August 17, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
Today: suing for a several-million-dollar settlement, turning up the heat on bed bugs, and erecting a giant pole.
The survivor of the Christmas Eve accident where four migrant workers fell to their deaths from a construction platform is suing the related companies and the Ontario Ministry of Labour. Dilshod Marupov is asking for more than sixteen million dollars in damages from the ministry and construction companies involved, as well as the owners and managers of the apartment building. Marupov’s lawyer, who is also representing the estate of one of the workers who died, alleges the workers didn’t receive adequate training or safety gear and the platform was faulty.
Is it hot in here? If you’re a bed bug sufferer, turns out that’s a good thing. If fumigation just isn’t working, those dealing with the nasty bloodsuckers can try a new approach: heat. High temperatures will kill the pests and their eggs. A California-based company spearheaded the approach and it’s catching on in Toronto. Hot air is pumped through the infested home via a propane heater and tubing. Some worry the method could be dangerous and lead to fires, but so far incidents have been few and far between. So if you’re scratching, turn up the heat.
Speaking of heat, the Toronto Humane Society is no longer in hot water. Prosecutors in the case dropped all charges against the THS, its board, and former staff. Apparently OSPCA investigators dropped the ball and violated the constitutional process while gathering evidence during a raid of the main shelter. The OSPCA, meanwhile, argues that dropping the charges is a step in the wrong direction when it comes to animal abuse laws.
Toronto ski hills, which were in danger of closing after a bid for privatizing the slopes failed, will be at your disposal come winter after all. Mayor Miller’s executive committee decided to save Centennial Park and Earl Bales Ski and Snowboard Centres during its final meeting held Monday. The hills are getting a six-hundred-thousand-dollar boost in funding. Other outcomes of the meeting: unanimous support for an eighty-eight-million-dollar stacked, glass-walled arena in the Port Lands, and on a cheaper but not necessarily smaller note, the largest flagpole on the continent, in North York.
Now said pole will be 125 metres high and attached to it will be a Canadian flag the size of a football field. It’ll be made of steel fibres, but will it wave? Anyway, the flagstaff will stand in an empty lot near Finch Avenue West and Highway 400. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) is behind the project, which allows the immigrant community in the area to celebrate their Canadianism.