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Newsstand: October 21, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
Here’s Thursday’s damage, folks: daylight shooting on Bloor Street unsolved, Ford’s streetcar-free Toronto doesn’t add up, Pantalone releases donor list, gag order on G20 detainee is unnecessary, and Torontoist cops two COPAs.
Two men in their mid-20s were shot on Bloor just west of Christie early yesterday afternoon while leaving the mixed martial arts studio at the corner of Bloor and Crawford and crossing the street to their car. A black BMW with license plates from BC was marked off with police tape. Injuries on both victims were minor—one was hit in the arm and the other was grazed in the head. Police are still looking for the shooter.
Responding to Rob Ford’s transit plan—which includes ripping up Toronto’s streetcar tracks and replacing the system with buses and scrapping the Transit City light rail—the TTC has issued estimates of what such drastic measures would cost, and the discrepancy isn’t pretty. While the Ford camp pegs the cost of the plan at break-even, claiming that the expense of ripping up tracks would be made up with the savings of not buying new streetcars, the TTC’s numbers tell a different story, saying the plan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Both the city and the province have also already committed to billions in contracts for Transit City, and it’s not clear how much they would have to pony up for backing out now.
With a flourish in the name of transparency, Joe Pantalone released his donor list, despite the fact that such a reveal isn’t required until March 2011. For their parts, Rob Ford says he will release his list later today, and George Smitherman won’t part with his numbers until after the election. Notables on the list of supporters who helped Pantalone drum up $850,000 include the Layton–Chow family and Sam Sniderman (that’s Sam the record man to you). Pantalone is well under the $1.3 million spending limit.
The crown now agrees that a second set of bail conditions placed on G20 detainee Alex Hundert are too stringent. Hundert was released on bail in July and re-arrested in September when it was determined that speaking on a discussion panel at Ryerson University violated a bail condition against participating in public demonstrations. Since his re-arrest, his bail conditions have included not speaking to the media and not posting on the internet. Despite the crown’s admission, Hundert will still decline media requests, says his lawyer.
Last but not least: Torontoist snagged two Canadian Online Publishing Awards last night for our year-end Heroes and Villains article and for a plethora of news coverage. Huzzah!