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Newsstand: August 9, 2011
Hey Tuesday. You come here often? Oh, right, of course. Every week. Got it. In the news: slow exodus of top City staffers marches on, police crack down on streetcar drive-bys, Ontario is poised to stop handing out welfare cheques, and Hamilton is better than Toronto.
Another top City staffer is leaving City Hall, and just in time too! The chief labour negotiator, Jim Vair, is leaving his post just as major contracts with public employee unions expire. Vair only joined the City in 2009, right in time for the garbage strike. He says growing better ties with the unions since then has been one of his greatest accomplishments during his tenure. So maybe that’s why he’s leaving now, before things with the unions get extra super messy because of the mayor’s not-so-secret desire to cut down on City staff and contract out the whole shebang. But Vair says he’s not running scared or anything, he just got an offer he couldn’t refuse from Queen’s Park, where he’ll work as chief labour relations officer for the Ministry of Education. Sure.
Feel free to step off the streetcar this morning as if you are alighting from your landau in eighteenth century Versailles, for the police will be your footmen. Cops are cracking down on drivers who pass open streetcar doors while passengers are getting on and off. The safety blitz will run until Sunday, at which point you’re on your own again and must glare at any car that looks like it’s about to creep.
Ontario is going to stop handing out welfare cheques sometime this fall or winter. No, it’s not because the government has fixed all the systemic issues that lead to some citizens requiring government assistance to make ends meet, it’s just because Ontario Works is switching from cheques to debit cards. The reloadable cards can provide savings to both the government and recipients by cutting down on administrative costs and cutting out the need for pay day lenders to cash the cheques.
Hamilton is officially beating Toronto at being hip and artsy. Hamilton. Steeltown Mayor Bob Bratina wrote to Margaret Atwood asking her to tour the city’s central library makeover, and make fun of Toronto. Bratina says Hamilton was inspired to express their support for the literary icon after that whole Doug Ford incident, which Bratina said had a “regrettable backwoods feeling.” For those of you keeping score, Hamilton might have just called Toronto the backwoods, while they fund more cultural events. Hamilton.