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Newsstand: February 10, 2014
At least the snow is starting to melt... kind of. In the news this Monday morning: Rob and Doug Ford's new YouTube show premieres today; the mayor may have been drinking in B.C.; an Oshawa councillor is in trouble for breastfeeding at city council meetings; and the TCHC CEO is being investigated for wrongdoing.
Following the cancellation of both his long-running radio show and his incredibly short-running television show, Mayor Rob Ford is set to launch a show on YouTube today. “Ford Nation,” the name recycled from the mayor’s one-episode run on the Sun News Network, will also feature Ford’s brother Doug—just as the TV show did—and will provide the two with a forum to discuss city politics and to defend themselves (mostly Rob) from rumours and reporting.
In other Ford news, the mayor appears to have been drinking at a Coquitlam, B.C. bar on the first weekend of February. Ford, of course, publicly swore off drinking late last year. A witness told the Toronto Star that Ford was even serving drinks at the Foggy Dew after the legally mandated 2 a.m. cutoff and was “talking gibberish” while ordering more drinks. The Star was unable to verify this story independently of the witness, and Coquitlam mayor Richard Stewart said he thought it unlikely that a bar would break the law by serving drinks after last call.
Oshawa councillor Amy England is dealing with yet another apparently gender-based attack: the Children’s Aid Society received an anonymous complaint after England brought her newborn daughter into work with her. In September, according to the Toronto Star, “an image was circulated on Facebook comparing her photo to a graphic warning on cigarette packages that shows a young woman with cataracts and rotten teeth.” She participated in a TV makeover show just before she was elected—a move that some criticized. There are no regulations regarding parental leave in the Ontario Municipal Act, and Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall said only that employers must accommodate breastfeeding “to the point of undue hardship.” England has said she tries to feed her baby before meetings and during breaks whenever possible.
A law firm has been called to investigate the actions of senior Toronto Community Housing Corporation executives, including chief executive officer Gene Jones. Lawyers were called by the chair of the TCHC’s board of directors, and allegations include attempts to keep Jones’ assistant off the “sunshine list” of public employees earning over $100,000 per year and Jones secretly firing the organization’s chief operating officer while claiming she had resigned. Jones took over the TCHC in June 2012 after a spending and procurement scandal led Mayor Ford to force the board to be dismissed and then-CEO Keiko Nakamura to be fired. Since then, Jones has been in trouble with the city ombudsman for needlessly evicting seniors with unpaid rent.