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Newsstand: November 22, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
On this Monday: development plans for Downsview Park soldier on, electricity costs for some people will go down a little bit in a long while, and count your Ikea blessings.
A “hail of weekend bullets” rained down on Toronto, with at least four incidents around town on Friday and Saturday night. One man was killed in an apparent bar fight, a bystander was shot in the chest, another man shot in the thigh, and a seventeen-year-old boy faces attempted murder charges for allegedly pulling a gun on a police officer. The incidents don’t appear to be connected at this point. But the bullet storm will surely prompt frenzied discussion about the increase in gun violence, and, more importantly, how to stop it. Like, say, hiring a hundred new cops.
Time-of-use electricity customers who thought it sucked that the lowest rate didn’t kick in until nine o’clock at night—long after you cooked dinner and ran the dishwasher and did laundry and are now just watching last night’s Modern Family on your laptop—can keep on thinking that, until next May. The McGuinty government is expected to announce a schedule adjustment for smart meter customers—who pay three different rates depending on what time of day they use electricity—in an ongoing effort to look like they’re doing something good about growing electricity costs.
Downsview Park planners are bypassing the North York Community Council in an effort to begin development on 650 housing units on the site. This development would be just the first phase in a plan to sell or lease 223 acres of land to developers in order to pay for 349 acres of park. But the North York Community Council, chaired by Maria Augimeri (Ward 9, York Centre), whose ward includes the park site, has deferred dealing with the file because existing residents complained the area can’t handle all that development.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission will receive final submissions from groups opposed to Bruce Power’s potentially precedent-setting proposal to ship radioactive waste through the Great Lakes to Sweden for recycling. Public hearings were held to assuage those who worry the plan set forth by—the fittingly acronymed—BP could go wrong and contaminate the drinking water of more than forty-million people. But, have no fear, BP’s CEO says there’s more radiological impact from “someone with a pacemaker falling over the side of a boat and drowning.” Yes, let’s all take comfort in that cheery image.
In addition to recycling our nuclear waste, Sweden is also pretty great at mass producing hip furniture. Yep, the Ikea living is pretty sweet in the GTA: we’ve got four of the country’s eleven stores within an hour’s drive, and the North York store even has a free shuttle bus [PDF]! So maybe that’s why a Milton native initially thought the billion dollar shipping fee to Iqaluit quoted on a Klippan loveseat was just “Swedish humour that maybe I didn’t get,” instead of a glitch on Ikea’s website. Which it was.