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Newsstand: September 8, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
So, Newsstand, right? Candidates get their Ford on, Hazel just can’t stop running, school buses are fast and furious.
Freezing property taxes? Cutting councillors’ expense budgets? Declaring that “the era of waste and abuse” is over? Heading into the key electioneering period, George Smitherman is positioning himself as the rational person’s Rob Ford. Former front-runner Smitherman gave a press conference yesterday in which he looked to ride the wave of outraged thriftiness that Ford’s been surfing for the last decade, promising to peruse the city budget line by line looking for savings. In response, Joe Pantalone called Smitherman a “mini–Rob Ford,” which is one disturbing image.
But it’s not just Smitherman who’s channeling his inner Ford. At the latest in a series of seven million mayoral debates (live-blogged with appropriate seasonal bile by Torontoist’s Christopher Bird) all the right-centrish candidates lined up to declare themselves super fiscally conservative and taxpayer-conscious. The sole exception was Joe Pantalone, who dipped back into his limited stock of metaphors to call his opponents “mini–Mike Harrises” before excusing himself to rejoin an Austin Powers marathon.
Oh yeah, and George Smitherman’s brother has declared his intention to support Rob Ford. Arthur Smitherman, who is running for city council in Ward 8 (West York) has hitched his wagon to the irascible Etobicokan, saying he just doesn’t appreciate his own brother’s “left-leaning philosophy.” Gonna be a fun Thanksgiving at the Smitherman house this year.
Finally, because Toronto’s not the only place that politics happens, you should know that eighty-nine-year-old “Hurricane Hazel” McCallion has announced that she’ll be running for mayor of Mississauga for the twelfth time. McCallion has been mayor of that city since 1888 1978, and says that if she wins it will be her last term as mayor. Statisticians agree.
The G20 summit is proving to be the gift that just keeps giving. In the latest fiasco fallout a G20 detainee has filed a one million dollar lawsuit against the Toronto Police Services Board and some individual officers, saying she was shot with rubber bullets and held for thirty hours in violation of her civil rights (charges against her were later dropped by the Crown). In addition to Gray’s potential $33,000-an-hour payout, police agencies are facing two class action suits adding up to $160 million.
Zoom zoom. Police monitoring speed traps in school zones yesterday nailed two school bus drivers travelling over the limit as they rushed to get kids back to class. The Toronto District School Board has now said they will reconsider the “they’re there in thirty minutes or their education’s free” policy.
Hazel McCallion has been mayor of Mississauga since 1978, not (as this article originally incorrectly stated) 1988.