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Newsstand: February 11, 2015
In the news this fine Wednesday morning: Ryerson students call for more inclusive bathroom options, former Conservative MP Eve Adams gets criticized by Liberal MPPs, and John Tory met with developers to try and solve the affordable housing crisis.
Ryerson University student group Trans Collective is lobbying the school for more inclusive washroom options. The group wants to see as many all-gender bathrooms as male and female ones in each building. While the University of Toronto has at least one such bathroom in each of its buildings, Trans Collective says there are many Ryerson buildings with no all-gender bathrooms. Ryerson spokesperson Michael Forbes said the school is working to address student concerns and that there are currently 43 unisex or all-gender bathrooms on campus.
As politically inclined Canadians scratch their heads over federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s decision to welcome Conservative member of Parliament Eve Adams into the fold this week, some local Liberals are none too happy about it. Member of provincial parliament Mike Colle, who represents the Eglinton-Lawrence riding that Adams is reportedly eyeing for the next federal election, said he “just find[s] the whole thing preposterous,” and called it “a real insult to the local Liberals in this community.” Adams has been a Conservative MP for 20 years and is married to Dimitri Soudas, whom CBC describes as “one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s fiercest loyalists.” Both Adams and Soudas have reputations as staunch conservatives and hardball politicians.
In a bid to make affordable housing “attractive” to them, Mayor John Tory met privately with a group of the city’s most prominent developers this week. Affordable housing and how to build more of it in Toronto were hot-ticket items in last year’s mayoral campaign. Tory took some of the ideas brought up during the campaign, like cutting developer fees in exchange for them including less expensive housing in new developments, to some of the people behind the city’s condo boom. “I simply put the question to them: What is it going to take to get you into the business?” Tory told the Globe and Mail, later adding, “Business is business. They will do what is attractive for them.” Toronto’s housing advocate, Ana Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport), said the City needs to take a number of approaches to solve the affordable housing issue, from investing in the TCHC and shelters to providing more affordable rental properties.