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Weekend Newsstand: November 29, 2014
If you hate winter (as all right-thinking people do), soak up these last few hours of pre-December time. Soak them up well! In the news today: Acrimony in the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Star has a new political survey, John Tory steps down from boards and back from a debate, and the CBC investigates itself (and does so superbly).
City Council gets most of the attention in municipal politics, and for good reason: because they vote on a wide array of issues, their work is incredibly important to city residents. And in the last few years we’ve also been saddled with a number of polarizing but undeniably entertaining characters. Similarly important, though less scrutinized, is the Toronto District School Board. The Globe and Mail has published a lengthy investigation into the divisions and tensions within the TDSB, and it looks like we’ve been missing out on some first-rate municipal political intrigue. There are private investigators, early retirements, scandals, and—to top it all off—it looks like one person, Donna Quan, has installed herself as something of an autocrat.
The Toronto Star wants to know what kind of Torontonian you are, and you might be interested to find out as well. The in-depth political survey maps your values and political beliefs and then assigns you one of eight ideologies. But it goes even further: you can see how your beliefs compare to the average within your group, and even other groups. The results also show you some demographic information on the group to which you belong (according to the Star).
Mayor-elect John Tory, who takes office Monday, has already had to recuse himself from one of the hottest debates council will take up next term. Because of his son’s role as CEO of Private Air Inc., Tory will not participate in any debates on the expansion of the Billy Bishop Airport to allow jets. In what must be an even bigger blow to a wealthy, established middle-aged man, he’s going to keep his campaign promise to step down from the boards of directors for both Rogers and Metro Inc. As one Twitter user noted: “For members of rich white male culture, resigning from a board to avoid conflict of interest is [the] ultimate sacrifice.” Maybe we should try to go easy on Tory for a while; he’ll probably be pretty down.
CBC’s The Fifth Estate aired an hourlong investigation into its own company’s handling of the Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault and abuse claims last night. In it, two producers came forward to explain their part in the matter. They said Ghomeshi had told them in April that he liked “rough sex,” but finally went to higher-ups at the company when the evidence piled up and became too damning. It appears, from the show’s interview with CBC Radio executive director Chris Boyce and then fact-checking with Q employees, that the top brass did not act on the evidence they were given of Ghomeshi’s wrongdoing until long after they received it, as early as June. When asked if he would have taken the evidence of assault and violence to the police if he could go back in time, Boyce said, “Maybe.”