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Newsstand: December 4, 2014
Here we are again, Thursday. Let’s do this. In the news: a Bloor West store is repeatedly targeted with homophobic graffiti, a rookie MPP gets a $58,000 severance payout, Giorgio Mammoliti won’t give up his chair at council, and Lakeridge Health admits that 14 staffers snooped into patient records.
Bloor West Village clothing store Trove has been targeted with homophobic graffiti, according to its owner, Carolyn Eby, who says she was horrified when she saw the phrase “Be happy not gay” spray-painted on the back wall of the store. Paint was also used to cover the pride flag displayed in the store window. It is not the first time that Eby’s location has been targeted―there have been at least four other instances of vandalism that she can recall.
The provincial government will look into the rules and structures of severance payments to MPPs after a New Democrat MPP Joe Cimino (Sudbury) became eligible for a $58,000 severance after just five months on the job. Cimino was elected in June and resigned in November, citing personal issues. Under the current rules, all members of provincial parliament may receive a severance package equal to six months’ pay, regardless of how long they serve. NDP leader Andrea Horwath admitted that Cimino’s eligibility for such a big payout after five months would appear questionable among taxpayers and said she welcomed possible changed to the severance package rules.
Welcome back to Toronto municipal politics, where Giorgio Mammoliti thinks that his council chair is worth $300 million. At the high school lunch table that is City Council, new mayor John Tory would like to sit next to his new BFF, Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong. Except that the chair directly beside the mayor is currently occupied by none other than Giorgio Mammoliti, who has held it for 15 years. Mammoliti says he isn’t moving, at least not without a promise from Mayor Tory that he will freeze property taxes for four years. Since it makes no sense, it is probably best to defer to Mammoliti’s own explanation of why he is essentially holding a chair hostage, “There’s probably a few hundred million dollars to save here at the city still before we raise taxes, so I can actually categorize it as perhaps the $300-million seat,” he said. The game of musical chairs has been postponed for the time being, so what happens with Mammoliti’s ransom demands remains to be seen.
According to the president and CEO of Lakeridge Health in Oshawa, 14 staff members within the mental health program inappropriately accessed the medical records of 578 patients over a period a decade. Kevin Empey admitted that the hospital’s electronic audit system was tripped in June, sounding alarm that a staffer was attempting to access the medical records of a patient that they were not entitled to look at. Further investigation revealed that the group of staff members had accessed the records of their own family members and relatives of patients in the mental health program, which contravenes the practice that only health care teams directly associated with the care of a patient can view their files. Empey said that all of the employees have been disciplined since the discovery, and there is no evidence that any patient information travelled outside of the hospital.