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Newsstand: September 1, 2011
Well look at you September, aren't you just a breath of fresh autumnal air. In the news this September Thursday: a city councillor is steaming about the mayor's private decision to forgo the Olympics (and it's not Doug Ford), no Liberal sightings at this year's TIFF, Layton's memorial being cleaned up by the City, and some college staff are officially on strike.
Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) is fightin’ mad that the city won’t get a chance to host the 2020 Olympics just because Rob Ford said so. In an open letter to the mayor, Wong-Tam slams him and his brother for running the city without democratic consultation from council and without any regard for the numerous Olympic judo fans in this city. The letter includes a request that the city manager make an inquiry into the closed-door meetings about the Olympic bid.
TIFF is coming up, and you all know what that means: a chance to rub elbows with all the hot young stars Liberal MPP candidates! What? You don’t go to film festivals to catch current and hopeful MPPs or Liberal staffers slacking off while they should be campaigning for the upcoming election? Oh, you don’t even know what the person who usually answers the phone at York South-Weston MPP Laura Albanese’s constituency office looks like? Of course you don’t. And yet the provincial Liberals are “gently reminding” MPPs, candidates, and staffers not to attend any TIFF events. The directive came from the premier’s chief of staff, who just wanted a better shot at securing rush tickets for Moneyball.
The City will start removing the tributes to Jack Layton that are covering walls and tiles at City Hall. Some staff from the office of Layton’s son, Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), have been tidying up dead flowers and the like. But now an official “gentle tidying” will have the memorial erased by Tuesday. A City spokesperson says they’re going to hold off on removing the chalk until Tuesday so that hopefully some rain will do most of the work and they don’t look like jerks. Well, he said most of that.
Earlier this month, Mayor Ford asked Dalton McGuinty for money to fund the Sheppard subway. On Wednesday he asked NDP Leader Andrea Horwath if she’d give the city money should she be elected premier. And today Ford doesn’t even need to ask PC leader Tim Hudak if he’ll plug the funding gap should the Tories find themselves in power come October. Hudak, ahead of a meeting with the mayor, said the PC platform has earmarked billions of dollars for infrastructure funding. Then Hudak took his whole families theme to confusing new heights, pledging to help families stuck waiting for traffic or subways to break the gridlock so they can spend more time together. As if time stuck in the car doesn’t count as togetherness-time because all you can do is talk. Boring! Gross! Parents!
Support staff at colleges have walked off the job after contract talks failed. The 24 affected colleges will stay open and offer regular classes and, this being the beginning of the school year, registration. But services like child care, counselling, and sports will be disrupted.