news
Newsstand: March 13, 2012
Ain't no Tuesday like the one we got. No one can news you better. In the news: Byford is the new permanent boss of the TTC; city councillors don't want a casino in their backyards; cleaning the dirt at the Port Lands; Dick Cheney cancels Toronto appearance; opossums: so hot right now; and Fashion Week begins.
The TTC has decided to skip the long, expensive search for a new big boss and just go with Andy Byford, who had been filling in at the top spot since Gary Webster was ousted last month. According to Marcus Gee in the Globe, Byford can conduct interviews in French and hoped to be a diplomat one day. Instead, Byford finds himself in Toronto, carrying around a pager and a plastic bag to collect litter. Adding to the “crazy subway guy” image that those last two tidbits conjure up, Byford says he hopes that “within three to five years we can completely modernize the look and feel of the TTC.” Okay.
Now that the Province has announced plans for a new GTA casino, people are wondering where to slot in the slots. Unlike Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke) and Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West), not all councillors (not to mention gambling addiction experts) are thrilled about the idea of a casino cropping up in their neighbourhood. The mayor of Oakville isn’t jumping at the chance to host the new gamble, and some downtown Toronto councillors have already approved a motion to change the zoning bylaws in their wards in order to block casino construction. So don’t bet on anything just yet.
Waterfront Toronto has picked a dirt-cleaning company to decontaminate the soil that will be excavated from the Port Lands. We’re talking about a lot of dirt here, with plans to excavate an estimated two million cubic metres of contaminated soil from the site and bring in another one million in clean dirt for filling. It’s just so much dirt.
After an unfriendly greeting from a group of protesters in Vancouver last September, former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney has cancelled a speech in Toronto. Instead, a different bald white conservative guy will appear, and organizers just hope no one will notice the difference, we guess.
As the planet warms up, more and more opossums are calling Toronto home. And although they are totally weird and freaky looking, we should all be nice to them because their scary rat-tails get frostbitten up here in the winter and they clean up roadkill—by eating it. But still.
Toronto Fashion Week kicked off yesterday. And sure, Toronto Fashion Week events are probably really fun and maybe a good way to showcase and incubate local fashion talent, but sometimes it just looks like some people are wearing rugs and kissing pigs while other people tweet about it.