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Newsstand: January 6, 2012
So if tomorrow is Orthodox Christmas, does that make today Orthodox Festivus? Where's a priest when you need one? Oh well, here's the news: City staff recommend against cutting school nutrition programs, no $5 increase on Toronto hydro bills, striking York Region Transit workers to vote on their newest contract offer, and the feds freeze Saadi Gaddafi's Toronto penthouse (not literally).
Attention, taxpayers: Your externalized collective internal voice has spoken. City staff are recommending council not cut school nutrition programs and community centre recreation programs in the 2012 budget, which Mayor Rob Ford has proclaimed will be a benefit for you, the dollar-weary common folk, who surreptitiously guide all of his political actions, whether you’re aware of it or not. Normally an adversary of spending, Ford has been looking to prevent the programs from being cut ever since he realized that, man, he’d look like a total ass if he supported those cuts.
If you’re one of those people who thinks we should all be paying more for hydro, we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news. The Ontario Energy Board has denied Toronto Hydro’s proposal to increase hydro rates by $5 per household per month. To clarify, there will be no $5-per-month increase for Torontonians. So basically, we’re all getting a free $5 every month.
It’s been a long and arduous 11-week York Region Transit strike, but there’s a chance it might be starting to come to an end. Workers with two of the three companies involved in the strike will vote on their latest contract offer today and next week. We’re not sure how the workers will be voting, but considering the unions apparently called the offer “a piece of garbage,” we’re not whipping out the party hats and spiked punch just yet.
In other transit news, beware all ye who loog. A man has been sentenced to 21 days in jail for spitting at a TTC supervisor while drunk on a streetcar last month. Now, if only something could be done about the jackasses who spit on the vehicles’ floors every day.
Bad news for all you fugitive sons of deposed and deceased dictators out there who bought penthouse condos in Toronto on visits to Canada in 2008 only to have all of your assets frozen after Interpol issued a warrant for your arrest following your dad’s removal from office: All it will take is one newspaper revealing your ownership of said condo, and the Canadian government will freeze it as well. Good news for all you squatters out there: a nice place just opened up right by the lake.