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Weekend Newsstand: November 19, 2011
It's the moment you've been waiting for all week, and now you get to sleep right through it. That's the beauty of the weekend. Here's some news for whenever you feel like it: Occupy Toronto has its day in court, the Toronto District School Board will hold by-elections for new trustees, and the Toronto Zoo could be in deep trouble if its elephants go to California.
Occupy Toronto was put through the wringer yesterday as Judge David Brown grilled the lawyer representing the movement on her argument that the occupation is actually protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, Brown stressed the poignancy of his questions shouldn’t lead people to think he’s necessarily going to reject the protesters’ argument in his decision on Monday as to whether or not the City is allowed to evict them. It could just be tough love from an otherwise caring father figure. Who knows, Occupy Toronto might have found its Bill Cosby. Brown kind of looks like a guy who would wear sweaters.
Although he is popularly known as a nincompoop, Sun News Network personality Ezra Levant might just have crossed over into creepy weirdo territory as he and Toronto Sun staffers went into Occupy Toronto’s camp yesterday at 3 a.m. to essentially film people sleeping in their tents, to find out how many actually were. The late-night raiders used a thermal camera, the kind that may or may not actually work, to look into the tents, and found very few people sleeping in them. So what does it all mean for those people actually spending the night in St. James Park? Get a lock for your tent flap, at the very least.
You might recall a Toronto District School Board trustee suggesting not too long ago that the board get Queen Elizabeth II to appoint two new trustees to fill positions left vacant after current trustees were elected to the provincial legislature. Well, hopefully old Lizzie hasn’t packed her royal bags just yet, because the board has instead decided the new trustees should be democratically elected in by-elections, which will take place in Ward 17 (Don Valley East) and Ward 20 (Scarborough-Agincourt) on February 27. In other words, no reason for the Queen to come. Which is too bad, because nothing screams “democracy works better” quite like a school board trustee by-election.
If you thought zoos were happy places where animals could eat, frolic, and live content, Disney-like lives, well, you probably never actually visited a zoo. The animals mostly just sleep, and occasionally snarl at little kids. But even people a bit more grounded in reality might be surprised to learn how harsh the world of zoos can get. Case in point: the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Accreditation Commission might pull the Toronto Zoo’s accreditation if city council goes ahead with its decision to ship the zoo’s three elephants to a sanctuary in California rather than an AZA-approved facility. The commission also warned of a potential “accident” involving the Toronto Zoo’s flamingos, tigers, and a whole lot of barbecue sauce if council doesn’t change its mind.