news
Newsstand: December 3, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
Friday and three weeks until Christmas Eve, so get consuming. In the news, a man is killed with a crossbow in the library, Mayor Ford wants to do a whole bunch of stuff, and sexual anarchy in Ontario has been postponed until spring.
Rob Ford plans to set an appropriately clownish tone for his mayoralty by having Don Cherry introduce him at his first city council meeting on December 7. Hopefully this portends four hilarious years of garish sports jackets, pratfalls, and other whimsy rather than the blustering irrationality we’ve come to expect.
Also on the Fordwatch, our miserly mayor is moving on his campaign promises, asking his executive committee to approve proposals that would reduce councillor office budgets by 40%, cut the mayoral office budget by 20%, and offer guidance for a 2011 operating budget no greater than this year’s $9.2 billion without major service cuts. He’ll also look to repeal the city’s $60-a-year vehicle registration fee and have the TTC declared an essential service, limiting TTC workers’ right to strike. Of course asking for stuff is the usually the easy part, while doing stuff can be tougher. Any recommendations out of the executive committee would have to be approved by city council vote.
Nope, we’re not done talking Mayor Ford—still sounds funny, right? Provincial transportation minister Kathleen Wynne is wagging her finger at Ford the Younger, saying that he’s not in a position to unilaterally kill Transit City and that any new transit plan must come from the TTC and the entire city council. It remains to be seen whether all stakeholders will buy into the mayor’s vision of a city where residents and awestruck Pan-Am Games athletes can travel from Sheppard station to Scarborough Town Centre underground, as long as they drive cars everywhere else.
A group of employees at Pearson airport have been arrested and charged with running a ring that smuggled drugs between Jamaica and Canada. At least some of the five workers arrested had access to restricted areas, and tasks included baggage handling and cabin cleaning. Meanwhile, security is x-raying your shoes at the gate.
In one of the stranger crimes this year, a 40-year-old man was shot to death with a crossbow inside a public library branch near Main and Gerrard yesterday. Another man has been arrested but not yet charged in the murder, and police aren’t saying anything about what might have sparked the shooting. [: The victim has been named as 52-year-old Si Cheng, and the suspect—Ottawa resident Zhou Fan—has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.]
Prostitution laws in Ontario have been upheld until at least April 29 of next year, following a ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal that puts a stay on an earlier judge’s decision to strike down three key laws against prostitution. When asked to comment on statements by Terri-Jean Bedford, a sex trade worker who has been central to the case, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that he had “never been called upon to respond to a dominatrix before.” Hey, nobody’s judging here.