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Weekend Newsstand: June 11, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
Weekends come and weekends go, but this one just got here so let out a cheer and give it a beer. In the news: G20 cop is charged, Rob Ford is no longer planning to steal from the poor, reported bedbug cases on the rise, and road closures abound.
Rob Ford says a lot of things. Things that might not have been born in his brain but are rather just sound fragments from the air getting caught in his open mouth and forming together to create outlandish statements. If there was a TV show about it called “Rob Ford Says the Darndest Things” hosted by Bill Cosby, it would be our favourite show. So when the mayor said the revenue from the sale of TCHC properties looks like a nice budget plug for the City, it wasn’t terribly surprising. The mayor has since acknowledged those sound fragments came out wrong, and he agrees with everyone else who said the money would obviously go back into TCHC to repair substandard properties.
If you’re one of the two people out of 1,000 that has reported a bedbug infestation then you might not be surprised that reported cases of bedbug infestations were up 40 per cent in 2010. Now, that might just mean there are more cases being reported and not necessarily more bugs. Earlier this year a bedbug task force armed with $5 million set to ridding the city of the bloodsuckers and have so far helped 110 particularly vulnerable residents (like the elderly, handicapped, or drug addicted) exterminate. Either way, you probably scratched yourself while reading this. What’s that tingle just above your right ear? Are you in bed right now?
Dogs and food and Portuguese people are taking over the roads this weekend, so you may want to avoid driving.
In a slightly less threatening version of The Bone Collector, Toronto taxicab drivers are taking advantage of their “captive” audience to lobby for the end of the two-tier licensing system. Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre) says he’s okay with the cabbies’ effort to educate their patrons, but he’s not so sure the “young couple falling in love, kissing and smooching” in the back of a cab on a Friday night will be receptive. Even if De Baeremaeker doesn’t agree with the premise of the cabbies’ complaint, you have to marvel at his incredibly optimistic way to describe those couples in the backseats of cabs on Friday nights.
And yes we’ve already told you this, but it bears repeating: a Toronto police officer has been charged in the assault of Dorian Barton at the G20 last year.