news
Newsstand: March 24, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
Thursday has arrived, alive with cheer. In the news: a peek at what the heck Rob Ford does all day, social housing advocates fight to keep provincial oversight, bedbugs are ruining everything, a la Cart is ruining dreams, and Mike Layton is preserving access to Swiss chard.
For as long as we can remember, Rob Ford has been a bit slippery. During the campaign his team rarely informed the media of Ford’s whereabouts, he held media scrums side-by-side the scrums of the high school football team he coaches, and then there was that infamous As It Happens interview. One media outlet in particular has had a rough go of it trying to get the mayor’s attention. So the Star did what the Star does best; they filed some Access to Information requests and scored Ford’s daily itineraries for his first ten weeks in office. We already heard about the time set aside for family business meetings (though apparently moonlighting is a mayoral tradition, dating back to Toronto’s first—William Lyon Mackenzie). But did you know Ford also set time aside for not one but two Chinese New Year events? It’s a bit puzzling as to why the mayor and his office would be so secretive about his schedule, when it actually portrays him in a sympathetic light. He’s even booked as many arts-related things as those with industry and business. With a schedule like this, it’s no wonder he’s no time for the media.
Dwindling a la Cart vendors are starting to lose hope in the program that promised us all so much bibimbap and jerk chicken. But as the third and final season of the program sets to open, one vendor can read the condiments scrawled on the wall. The Sun tells us the heartbreaking tale of one vendor who predicts he’ll be one hundred thousand dollars in the hole thanks to the ill-conceived program. The whole program may get the chop next month, when a report on its first three years goes to the executive committee for review.
There is a layer of provincial protection against any crazy schemes Ootes and the brothers Ford cook up for selling off TCHC property. But it might get cut. Currently, any sale or transfer of public housing requires consent from the provincial housing minister. That might all change if the province’s new social housing legislation is enacted unamended. Housing advocates, like the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, have been invited to make comments on the proposed amendments [PDF]. Ah the democratic process, what a beaut.
Legendary Citytv newsman Mark Dailey is receiving a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the The Association of Electronic Journalists (a.k.a. RTNDA Canada). Dailey and his iconic voice worked with CityNews for more than thirty years, and helped shape the TV news landscape in Toronto.
In an effort to prevent bedbug infestations from affecting their bottom line, some mattress companies have called off their exchange policies. It used to be you could return a mattress months after buying it just because it wasn’t comfy enough. But the modern age of vintage shopping, pesticiding, and foreign travel has ushered in a wave of bedbugs and affiliated paranoia, ending this mattress scam for good. Welcome to sleep country: you can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Mike Layton will surely be feted at Dufferin Grove’s annual Maypole dance, for he has saved the city’s farmers’ markets. City bylaw enforcers noticed markets were only paying once a year, rather than once a day for parking permits. Layton is pushing through measures to exempt farmers’ markets from the fees. Golden beets for everyone!
Farmers aren’t the only ones getting a break on parking fees. The City has taken steps to introduce short-term street parking permits. The shortest term available now is seven days, but a proposal would introduce an overnighter and a weekend pass.
When first published, we referred to William Lyon Mackenzie King as Toronto’s first mayor. Of course, it was William Lyon Mackenzie who had that honour. We are duly ashamed.