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Newsstand: July 17, 2015
Let's just get through today and make it to the weekend, gang, what do you say. News today: the owner of Hakim Optical appears to have made a bad decision, Black Lives Matter Toronto took a stand at yesterday's police board meeting, and John Tory embarrassed all of us.
According to a recent Facebook post screenshotted and saved to imgur, the owner of local eyewear and optometry chain Hakim Optical parked his car on a raised bike lane along the waterfront. While the poster’s use of the racially coded term “thug” is less than ideal, Hakim and any other drivers tempted to park in the spaces marked specifically for cyclists might want to remember that, as cliche as it sounds, respect on the road is a two-way street. And it’s definitely not a car parked on a separated and raised bike lane.
Members of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter were at Friday’s Toronto Police Services Board meeting, the last one for outgoing chair Alok Mukherjee, to demand a response and apology for the police killing of Andrew Loku on July 5. The demonstrators, about 12 of them, read off a list of demands including an apology from Mayor John Tory and police chief Mark Saunders for Loku’s killing, and for the board to say when it would begin to implement the 84 recommendations made by Justice Frank Iacobucci for police dealing with people in states of emotional crisis or distress. Loku is believed to have been agitated and was living in an apartment complex whose units are leased by the Canadian Mental Health Association to people living with mental illness, but Loku’s neighbour and friend said his entire interaction with police lasted just seconds before he was dead.
It was bound to happen, once we elected an out-of-touch plutocrat: Mayor John Tory embarrassed himself and Toronto. First he claimed Kanye West, one of the most iconic figures in modern music (and an American), was a Canadian musician. Then, yesterday, he released a mea culpa of sorts in video form. In it, Tory rides the subway while listening to Kanye’s hit “Stronger” and then appears to ogle a photo of West’s wife Kim Kardashian (a representative denied this to the Star). Tory’s office tweeted the video just after the police services board meeting broke up, highlighting for many people a huge disconnect between a mayor who can’t seem to recognize one of the most famous black men in the world and the city’s many people of colour calling for accountability from police and an end to what they argue are racist policing practices.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that units in Andrew Loku’s apartment complex were leased by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The article has been changed to reflect that the units were leased by the Canadian Mental Health Association. We regret the error.