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Newsstand: October 19, 2011
Today is one of those rare Wednesdays that taunts you by looking like the world is going to end, but never quite following through. Oh well, here's the news: city councillors muse on creating a bank of Toronto and removing some of the mayor's power, some drivers with disabilities take advantage of Toronto's parking system, and the feds won't lend a hand to the Toronto Zoo.
Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) has drawn the ire of at least one fellow councillor after suggesting the City start its own bank. While the idea is not entirely without precedent, that didn’t stop Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) from dismissing Wong-Tam’s musing as stupid, insane, and illegal. It’s sort of weird to hear a councillor toss around those adjectives without the word “Mammoliti” anywhere in sight. The Star‘s Joe Fiorito has a similar idea to Wong-Tam: establishing credit unions to get the perks of banks without the drag of bankers. The ING guy must be shaking in his fancy leather shoes.
Meanwhile, back in the corridors of City Hall, Councillor John Filion (Ward 23, Willowdale) wants to take away Mayor Rob Ford’s ability to lock out city workers without the approval of council during contract negotiations. Filion says the power could be dangerous in the hands of an impulsive and stubborn mayor. Ford reportedly fumed after hearing the news, claiming he’d already bought a large swivel chair and cat for just that purpose.
If you’re like us, you love a good story about people with disabilities abusing the city’s parking system. Well, lucky day. The Toronto Star has spent a couple of weeks spying on disabled folks who use their accessible parking permits to park for free for lengthy stretches in no-parking zones, which is allowed in Toronto but just about nowhere else in the province. The problem? Some of those people have well-paying jobs and could easily afford to pay for parking, and several of them can seemingly walk well enough. The conclusion? Make the freeloaders pay—crutches, canes, wheelchairs and all. And it’s at this moment that we’ll step back and move on to a different story.
Like this one, in which an elderly woman who fell and injured herself in the lobby of a Niagara hospital was told she couldn’t be helped until an ambulance was called. Kind of puts our complaining in perspective, doesn’t it?
Poor Toronto Zoo. The City doesn’t want to keep paying to run it, and apparently neither do the feds. The Zoo Board is hoping to have the zoo included as part of Rouge Park, which is set to become a national park. But Parks Canada says it doesn’t have the money to run the zoo, and wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to cleaning a hippo anyway. However, the federal government might be able to find a home for the animals in one of the many new prisons it will end up building. And as if that wasn’t enough, all the talk of selling off the zoo to a private company has donors considering withholding their money until this whole mess is resolved. Further proof that it’s hard out here for a penguin.