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Newsstand: February 5, 2015
With the release of Harper Lee’s sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird planned for July, how long do you think it will take for Hollywood to buy the rights and turn it into Oscar bait? In the news: A Leaside hockey league warns coaches against contact with players, the TDSB proposes selling four elementary schools, John Tory is embarrassed by homelessness, and Karen Stintz joins a talk-radio show.
The Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association is backpedalling after a board member sent out an email this week reminding coaches of a zero-tolerance policy on contact with players. Stemming from an incident where a volunteer slapped a player’s behind and squeezed her shoulder as congratulatory gestures during a game, the email states: “Under no circumstances should there be contact with the players in any way. Putting hands on shoulders, slapping butts, tapping them on the helmet, nothing. This can make some of the girls uncomfortable and you won’t know which ones. So no contact, period.” However, officials from the league later clarified that the email discussed a guideline that was not a strict policy. Currently no standard harassment rules exist across all minor hockey teams, but Hockey Canada does provide guidelines against harassment on its website.
At a Wednesday board meeting, the Toronto District School Board announced its recommendation that four closed elementary schools be sold as surplus property while it investigates operations at 31 other schools with low enrolment to determine whether or not any of them will be sold off. Community consultations will be held before the board moves forward with the sale of Bridgeport, Old Orchard, CB Parsons and Whitfield schools. TDSB Chair Shaun Chen also plans to schedule a roundtable discussion with Education Minister Liz Sandals, Mayor John Tory, and colleagues from other school boards in Toronto before committing to the sale of any additional properties. Many of the 31 schools that are potentially on the bubble for closure and sale are within close proximity, and it was revealed on Wednesday that six of them are already under review for low enrolment. Nelson Boylen Collegiate Institute, Downsview Secondary School, Weston Collegiate Institute, Sir Robert Borden Business and Technical Institute, West Hill Collegiate Institute and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute are all part of an annual review on under-utilized schools that began last May.
Mayor John Tory is embarrassed about homelessness in Toronto. “I don’t know how it can be a positive thing even for people who are going by who would like to feel a sense of pride in their own city, let alone visitors. It’s not that I’m embarrassed about it. I mean I am embarrassed about it, but it’s more that I just feel, morally, surely we can do better than this,” explained the mayor in an interview on Wednesday. To work on both immediate and long-term solutions, Tory says that he is meeting with rental housing developers to learn more about what the City can do to entice them to build affordable housing units, while also focusing on securing provincial and federal government funding to tackle the repair backlog at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.
Karen Stintz has a new gig with Newstalk 1010. The former TTC chair and city councillor will be joining the Wednesday edition of the Moore in the Morning radio show as a regular panelist. In case you were unaware, regular Torontoist contributor Desmond Cole also has a new show on Newstalk 1010, just sayin’.