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Newsstand: October 5, 2011
If you ever wonder why the expression, "Thank God it's Wednesday" never caught on, the proof is right here in today's news: Giorgio Mammoliti wants to open up the "province of Toronto" debate, the TTC breaks its single-day ridership record, a civilian G20 review is oh so close to being ready, Rob Ford maybe breaks the law, and, man, Toronto's got a lot of new highrises.
Frustrated at the shortage of money coming to Toronto from the provincial and federal governments, Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) wants to resurrect the idea of Toronto becoming a province. The idea has been discussed numerous times in various forms by different people, but now that Giorgio’s at the helm, we might finally see some action. But why stop there? Why not take this train even further and become the Democratic Republic of Toronto?
If Toronto does manage to separate, maybe some of that extra cash Mammoliti thinks the city will get could go into the ass-broke TTC, which, incidentally, broke its own one-day ridership record last month. The transit system has so far broken the single-day record set in 2010 five times this year, which gives the impression that Torontonians sure love their public transit. Hopefully they love balancing on a crowded bus with their faces in some dude’s armpit as well, because there will be a lot more of that when the TTC reduces service levels next year to cut its budget.
Let the countdown begin! Only five more months until the Toronto Police Services Board’s civilian review of police behaviour during the G20 is completed. Based on countless documents, detailed interviews and input from members of the public, the review will have recommendations for the Board and police based on what happened that fateful weekend. Hopefully one of them is “Don’t let them hold another G20 meeting in downtown Toronto.”
Another woman claims to have spotted Mayor Rob Ford on his cellphone while driving, meaning the mayor hasn’t learned his lesson since last time. The woman says Ford was most likely texting or dialling because he was looking down at his phone while driving, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just using the light to help find a spilled bag of Skittles under his seat, which is totally cool.
Remember the good old days, when people in this city used to complain about how those newfangled highrise condominiums would block everybody’s view of a lakefront many of us didn’t care to see in the first place? So different from today, when the only view a new building blocks is that of all the buildings behind it. And it’s not slowing down. On the contrary, Toronto has more highrise construction projects on the go than any other city in North America. Even more than New York, although that might just be because New York has more skyscrapers and highrises than our puny little Canadian city could even dream of right now. But who knows? At the rate we’re going, we could have Spider-Man slinging webs across our town in no time.