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Newsstand: January 8, 2015
Je suis Charlie. In the news: A Toronto vigil for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, hope for interim funding to create a 24-hour drop-in for homeless women, the possible sale of the passenger terminal at Billy Bishop, and an increase in impaired driving charges during this year’s RIDE campaign.
As Canadian politicians condemned the mass shooting in Paris, France, yesterday that left 12 dead—including eight journalists from the weekly satirical publication Charlie Hebdo—as an act of terror, Toronto’s French community organized a vigil on Wednesday evening at the French Consulate at Yonge and Bloor streets. Attendees braved frigid temperatures as a show of solidarity with the French people and the newspaper, which appears to have been targeted after running a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
City Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s) plans to put forward a motion next week to request that council approve interim funding to open a 24-hour drop in facility for homeless women after a December deadline to get the project off the ground was missed because there was never any money in the City budget allocated to the initiative. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) expressed frustration that plans have stagnated since council voted last June to open one or two 24-hour drop-ins for women before the end of December 2014. Anti-poverty activists say that while the City does have approximately 600 beds for women in homeless shelters, most of these facilities have curfews as early as 9 p.m., which prevents some of the most at-risk homeless and marginally housed women from accessing shelter during the evening hours, when they are most vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. Mihevc fears that efforts to keep property tax rates below inflation may see the project shelved indefinitely, since City staff warned that the $2-million price tag for a new facility would require an above-inflation rate hike. Mayor John Tory told reporters earlier this week that he was focusing his efforts on the issue of homelessness, but made no promise of committing additional budgetary resources to new or existing services.
The parent company of Porter Airlines is close to cutting a deal to sell its passenger terminal at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport for more than $750 million. While Porter refused to comment specifically on the deal, which is reportedly lead by InstarAGF Asset Management, the company said in August of 2014 that it intended to pursue a sale-leaseback of the terminal in order to focus on expanding airline operations. News on the deal, which as of yet is not finalized, comes less than a day after Air Canada admitted it was reassessing its future operations at Billy Bishop.
Ontario Provincial Police say that 593 impaired driving charges were laid during the annual holiday RIDE campaign. While this number is slightly up from last year’s 587 charges, police say that warning suspensions were down from 504 to 485. More than 8,000 RIDE program checks were conducted across the province this season, with police reporting one motorist death from an impaired driving–related collision during that period.