news
Newsstand: February 9, 2011
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
The only two famous Wednesdays are Ash and Weedless, which is pleasingly symmetrical, don’t you think? Otherwise, jolly good news for local stockbrokers, city politicos walk the restraint walk, and why you should get to the zoo more often.
Capitalists and anglophiles are excited about news of a planned merger between the London Stock Exchange and the TMX Group Inc., which owns the stock exchanges in Toronto and Montreal. The seven-billion-dollar merger will host the world’s largest number of company listings, and also be the largest market for resource stocks. Although touted as a marriage of equals, the LSE group will have majority ownership and getting Canadian regulatory approval could prove to be a roadblock. The deal is expected to jump-start sales of bowler hats on Bay Street and provide anti-capitalist demonstrators jonesing for the G20 with something new to be enraged about.
In case you missed it, city council paid their fare and jumped on the Ford cost savings bus, by voting to forgo their cost of living increase this year. The move will save the city about $110,000 and is a stop-gap measure until council can be privatized and duties contracted out to high school students and recent immigrants willing to do the job for minimum wage.
Attendance at the Toronto Zoo plummeted 12% in 2010, with 150,000 fewer visitors than the year before. Zoo management blamed the drop on the recession and less-than-expected popularity of the new “Raccoons in a Dumpster” exhibit.
With Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi set to visit Toronto this week, Marcus Gee in the Globe writes an interesting column comparing him with Mayor Ford. Gee observes that both leaders are fiscal conservatives, and that Nenshi is smart, articulate, and charismatic while Ford also has many fine qualities.
Will the next provincial election be powered by alcohol, more than usual? A day after Conservative leader Tim Hudak reminisced wistfully about the days when a man could buy a beer for a dollar and be drunk for the price of lunch at Wendy’s, Premier Dalton McGuinty stood firm on the on the “Expensive Intoxication” policy that is so central to the Liberal platform. McGuinty said that the Ontarians had more important things to worry about than “buck-a-beer,” and accused Hudak of creating a pre-election distraction.
The Sun reports that “hundreds of screaming fans” waited outside the Rogers Centre yesterday to get autographs from their favourite mixed martial artists as part of a promotion for the Ultimate Fighting Championship event to be held in Toronto in April. It’s not clear whether the fans were screaming because they had the UFC equivalent of Bieber fever or because they were killing time by practicing their guillotine chokes on each other.
Headline of the day, also from the Sun: “Prosecutors to seek sex trial for Berlusconi.” Here in Canada we only have judge or jury trials, but the Italians have always been more open-minded.