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Weekend Newsstand: December 18, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
It’s one week till Christmas and all through the city: left-wing nut jobs not so nutty after all, TTC union proposes a compromise on essential services plan, hockey coach suspended for taking a stand against racism, and the mob’s role in garbage can ads.
The left is planning a revolt! Maybe. At some point. After Rob Ford managed to pass three key election promises—repeal the vehicle registration tax, reduce councillors’ office budgets, and move toward make the TTC an essential service—some City Hall watchers wondered how all the left-wing nut jobs out there could let this happen. Apparently, they’re calmly considering their options and “picking their battles.” Top among those battles: Transit City and service cuts. Though there is reportedly some division among more left-leaning councillors about how and what to oppose, some say they’re toeing the line the voters chose, not wanting to alienate any potential support. And if the left lays low, some hope, Ford might just gaffe his way out of the city’s hearts.
Not surprisingly, the transit workers’ union is none too pleased with council’s vote to make the TTC an essential service and thus eliminating their right to strike. Local 113 president Bob Kinnear says the move gives the impression the TTC is striking left, right, and centre, when in reality they’ve only gone on strike nine times since 1952. Plus, says Kinnear, if the TTC is deemed an essential service—like the police or firefighters, the workers should be paid as such.
Speaking of making lots of money, a man was arrested for selling crack from his hospital bed. Police found enough crack cocaine in the man’s private room at the William Osler Health Centre to charge him with possession with the purpose of trafficking.
In other addiction news, Kensington’s serial shoplifter told a judge he wants to leave Toronto and start fresh somewhere else. Anthony Bennett gained notoriety for being chased down by Lucky Moose grocer David Chen. But instead of skipping town to move in with his son in an unnamed city, the judge gave Bennett a month to arrange further drug rehabilitation. Not such a lucky moose after all.
A hockey coach who walked his team off the ice after an opposing player directed a racial epithet at a black team member has now been suspended for the rest of the season until April, 2011. The Ontario Minor Hockey Association suspended the coach under the “refusing to start play” rule. The OMHA says the coach should have handled the incident differently, and, to be fair, they could have suspended him for a whole year.
Peter Kuitenbrouwer at the Post has done some creative editing of his own, and depicted the new council opening credits intro video as an homage to the rolling Fordlandian hills of Suburbia. Among the images that replaced the old video’s streetcars and cops on bicycles—used in both the Miller and Lastman eras—are stunning vistas of the Scarborough Bluffs, the Don Valley, and the draw-joppingly gorgeous Woodbine Centre in Ford’s old Etobicoke riding. Oh, and Yonge-Dundas Square and the Humber Pedestrian Bridge.
Seven Ontario men have been named by Italian prosecutors as alleged members of a powerful organized crime syndicate. One of the accused is the former head of a marketing company that held contracts with major Canadian cities, including Toronto, to handle advertising on outdoor trash cans. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.