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Newsstand: July 13, 2011
This Wednesday morning we’re saying goodbye to the hordes of Potter fans downtown and hello to the hordes of cyclists. In today’s news: bike lane debates continue at City Hall, RoFo shows his love for a summer festival not about gay people, and Toronto becomes the most expensive city in Canada.
To all of you who woke up this morning, rushed to the computer, and immediately logged onto Torontoist to find out the fate of the Jarvis bike lanes: we apologize. After hours of debate, multiple rounds of applause for pro-bike lane comments by bicycle activists, and some angry and insulting comments directed at the mayor from Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre), City Council reached a stalemate on whether or not to remove the lanes last night. Debate resumes today at 9:30 a.m., so whether you see it as a war on the car or a war on common sense, stay tuned.
Not having to see Rob Ford get jiggy with it was perhaps the only positive thing to come out of the mayor’s refusal to attend Pride this year. Well, Mayor No-Neck rubbed salt in the wound Tuesday by not only delivering a speech at the launch party for the newly christened Toronto Caribbean Carnival (or Caribana, as it’s bound to be called by everyone who’s not a Scotiabank or City employee), but also moving his body in a way vaguely reminiscent of dancing. CityTV has a video of it, but viewer discretion is advised. The mayor has also vowed to attend the parade, even though the August long weekend is, like, the best time to sit around at a cottage doing nothing.
Remember when the City said it would offer buyouts to almost every one of its employees to reduce the budget gap? Apparently, there’s a caveat. According to the Toronto Star, if the buyouts aren’t popular enough to save a significant amount of money, the City will lay off about 3,000 employees (cue James Bond villain laugh). Oh, and that whole thing about potentially laying off 500 police officers to meet the Toronto Police Service’s reduction goal? Turns out it’ll have to be way more than that. It might be a leap to say that a greatly reduced police force could lead to the breakdown of society as we know it. But if our city does descend into something like the film The Warriors, we call being the Baseball Furies.
Ah Toronto, land of the dubious honour. The latest one comes from a new report that names Toronto the most expensive city in Canada. According to the report, rising rental accommodations are to blame for Toronto unseating Vancouver as the priciest place to live in the country, but $100,000 parking spaces must surely have something to do with it as well. So yeah, take that, Vancouver. We guess.
