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Weekend Newsstand: September 10, 2011
Keep on dancing to the rock and roll, Toronto, it’s your special Saturday! Today: arts cuts or no arts cuts?, City gets involved in Dufferin Grove protest, no voting at school for college students, and nasty, dirty law firm emails.
In the bait and switch move that is becoming Mayor Rob Ford’s stock in trade, he has renounced City Manager Joe Pennachetti’s plan to make significant cuts to the city’s arts grants. Pennachetti’s plan, which is to be presented to council on September 19, recommends cutting 10 per cent from all arts funding, including $6 million from big events like the film festival and the Canadian Opera Company. The arts community immediately mobilized in protest after hearing the news on Friday, and later that day, Ford hung his city manager out to dry, announcing the city never had any plans to go in Pennachetti’s direction. Instead, Ford is proposing that all city-run arts programs be cut, with the savings channelled to the arms-length Toronto Arts Council to use as grants. This isn’t the first time Ford has played himself as a saviour after public outrage and likely won’t be the last. Is it a tactic or is he just being extremely responsive? Torontoist leaves that to you.
Meanwhile, a group planning a tent-in protest against City service cuts in Dufferin Grove Park is accusing the City of trying to shut down dissent. Organizers of the rally—which is set for today and has 2,300 people planning to attend according to Facebook—are upset the City has shut down park programming for the day, something it says the City never does otherwise. The City says Stop the Cuts didn’t get a permit to use the park, something any group holding an event in the park must do. Halting the programming will not affect the rally, but will send several staff members home for the evening, a move organizers say is an attempt to try to drive a wedge between protesters and the other people who use the park. The meeting, they say, will go ahead as planned.
So much for encouraging young people to get interested in politics. Elections Ontario has cancelled its planned voting booths at Ontario Colleges due to the ongoing support staff strike. The elections overseer says the strike would compromise the “safety and integrity of the electoral process.” The director of advocacy for the College Student Alliance said he’d been hoping to make an arrangement with the striking workers to allow the students in and out without hassle during the advance polls and on election day, but Elections Ontario made their decision before he had time. Those 200,000 students will definitely go vote somewhere else, right?
One of Toronto’s biggest law firms is on the defence after a court case that’s airing its dirty email laundry in public. Former office assistant Tracy Francis is suing Rusonik, O’Connor, Ross, Gorham & Angelini—an “aggressive” firm best-known for defending people facing guns and gangs charges—for wrongful dismissal. Her employers say they fired her because of her behaviour, saying she called a firm lawyer names including “tyrant,” “idiot,” “weasel,” “snivelling b—h,” and “ass.” Francis’ defence says she was just engaging in a workplace culture where blowing off steam in emails was normal, citing instances where employees made racist, homophobic, and otherwise offensive email remarks about various lawyers and judges. While it may seem like lawyers being lawyers to some, you can bet the Crown attorney they described as looking “like a baby lizard on crack” is paying attention to this case.