news
Newsstand: February 6, 2012
It should be another "absolutely fantastic day" in Toronto, because it's Monday and we've got the news! Specifically: Things may get a little less than fantastic for Ford today as the transit feud heats up; a by-election has been called for the Toronto-Danforth riding; how the Toronto Police might be "whitewashing criminal justice" (spoiler alert: it involves stats!); there's a new (angry!) detective in town; and a quick commuter alert for eastbound Gardiner Expressway users.
Mayor Rob Ford, who was feeling very, very happy yesterday is about to be knocked off his high horse (or possibly from his low transit-system plan, as it were). A majority of Toronto city councillors will challenge Mayor Rob Ford on the future of transit today in a showdown that will be all about subways for some, and all about light rail for others. TTC Chair Karen Stintz (Ward 16, Eglinton-Lawrence) will present a petition signed by 24 councillors to the city clerk this morning; the document requests a special council meeting be called this week to ask that council renew its support for Transit City, the province-funded 2009 plan to build light rail lines on Eglinton, Sheppard Avenue East, and Finch Avenue West, and to replace the existing Scarborough Rapid Transit line. If this group does manage to move forward with this plan, it would be a major dent in the mayor’s armour, as he’s long insisted not only that Torontonians want subways and nothing less, but also that Transit City is dead. Looks like 2012 might just be the year of resurrection after all.
Big shoes, get ready to be filled, because as of March 12, 2012, the Toronto-Danforth riding will have a new MP. Following the death of Jack Layton last August, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called a by-election to fill the late NDP leader’s seat. This election falls during a busy time for the NDP, who will hold its leadership race just two weeks later, on March 24. The NDP will put forward candidate Craig Scott, a law professor, in the by-election, while the Conservative’s candidate will be communications consultant Andrew Keyes, and the Green’s will be Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu. The Liberals have not yet confirmed a candidate.
Two Ontario-based criminologists have launched a report that shows that nearly 60 per cent of police forces suppress data about the race of people they come into contact with, doing nothing to fight the stigma that they may indeed employ racial profiling. Interesting news, considering that the Toronto Police have, since 2010, collected data that may show whether or not there is a racial bias in policing. So, is there? A great question, but not one we can answer—even though the Toronto Police’s policy is to make the data public when deemed “necessary,” and even though there have been requests for the statistics, the findings have never been released. Why haven’t they? Because the statistics might get “twisted and read in any which way.” A shocking revelation in the wacky world of stats, and a policy that crime experts say is “whitewashing criminal justice.”
Harriet the spy, it looks like you have some company. In a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses’-drinking-type moment an “angry single mom living in a trailer park” put on her detective cap and helped bust an alleged six-year, multi-million dollar fraud at the LCBO. The amateur sleuth, known only as Joyce from York Region, was getting fed up with watching her part-time-waitress neighbour live a “caviar” lifestyle, so blew the whistle, alerting the LCBO that her neighbour, Andrea Smallwood, had been selling alcohol at cheap prices from her trailer—alcohol that had been supplied by “Francois” at the LCBO’s head office. As it turns out, Smallwood was posing as a Ukrainian diplomat to get booze at a reduced price. In addition, an investigation following the complaint also suggests that Francois Agostini, the LCBO’s former diplomatic order clerk (he was let go following the investigation), may have pocketed millions of dollars from cases of liquor ordered on behalf of consulates and embassies. The green-eyed monster once again saves the day.
The eastbound Gardiner Expressway is closed this morning at Jamieson Avenue and may stay that way through the Monday morning rush hour, as an investigation is underway following a collision that took place early this morning. A 19-year-old woman, who was a passenger in a vehicle and then seemingly got out into the road, was struck on the expressway. Both cars (the car she’d been a passenger in and the one that struck her) remain on the scene, and she has been taken to a nearby trauma centre.
The woman struck on the Gardiner Expressway has died, and eastbound lanes have been reopened to traffic.