April 21, 2015 at 5:09 pm

Extra, Extra: The Federal Budget, How to Choose a Chief, and What Carding Means

Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not to miss.

The federal budget launched this afternoon, with the government announcing various pre-election goodies, like tax breaks for small businesses. There’s also $250 million in transit funding from 2017 to 2018, and $1 billion thereafter (although it will be contingent on municipalities getting funds from the private sector—and the Tories getting re-elected). That doesn’t buy much transit, though—the 2017 amount is the equivalent of 600 metres of a subway line for the entire country.

How do you select a police chief? If you’re the Toronto Police Services Board, you hole up in a Royal Bank Plaza office until you reach a consensus. The Toronto Star lifts the veil on the process, with Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) insisting it’s not at all like Survivor.
When Torontonians talk about carding, it’s often discussed in abstract terms. But Torontoist staff writer Desmond Cole makes the controversial practice real and personal in the latest Toronto Life cover story. Cole writes that he’s been stopped by police more than 50 times despite never having committed a crime, and shows how the police practice alters how he thinks and feels about the city he calls home.