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Newsstand: April 18, 2013
When Thursday's a rockin', don't come a knockin'. Unless you're a fan of VD. Now how about some news? Toronto doesn't see eye to eye with other GTA cities on transit taxes, Mayor Rob Ford cleans up this town (but not in a John Wayne way), Porter clarifies its position on jets, and the Raptors prepare to watch the playoffs from the sidelines.
For a long time, Torontonians have operated under the assumption that every other city in the country hates us, or is at least jealous of us. But that attitude might soon turn into to mere embarrassment (or maybe it has already) or condescension, at least within the GTA. What else can you make of Toronto being the only city at a CivicAction mayors’ event to speak out against the revenue tools everyone else seems to agree are necessary to get transit moving in the city? There is always the possibility that we’re right and everyone else is wrong, but these days, we’re giving Oakville the benefit of the doubt. They’ve earned it.
Mayor Rob Ford wasn’t at that CivicAction event, but he did find the time to make Toronto a better place by temporarily becoming the city’s most highly paid graffiti remover (although you never know with those union gigs). Ford and Councillor Gary Crawford (Ward 44, Scarborough Southwest) helped paint over some graffiti at an east end Pizza Pizza to make way for a mural. Of course, not everyone is convinced Ford’s efforts are actually curbing graffiti.
Ford also came out against the City giving any more money to the ailing Bixi bike-sharing system. This comes after news that the service is having trouble making loan payments, which prompted Cycle Toronto to call for the City to take it over. So just in case you weren’t sure, Rob Ford isn’t interested in being in the cycling business.
Porter Airlines president Robert Deluce is continuing his negotiations through the media to get jets running out of the island airport. The latest comes in the form of a Star editorial board interview in which Deluce says he’s not looking for the ban on jets at the airport to be lifted, but rather for the planes he wants to use to be exempted from that rule. Meanwhile, the airline has started calling households with a highly biased automated phone survey on the jets, so you can expect a poll showing that most Torontonians support Porter’s plans to pop up in the next few weeks.
As the Maple Leafs prepare to possibly enter a stage in the hockey season they haven’t encountered in years, Toronto’s ‘other’ winter team, the Toronto Raptors, have closed out their latest disappointing season with a pretty meaningless win over the Boston Celtics.