Extra, Extra: Hunger Strikes at the Toronto South Detention Centre, Toronto Raccoons Invade the Wall Street Journal, and the TTC Serves 30 Billion

By Sarah Duong

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

The Toronto South Detention Centre. Photo by George Welcher from the Torontoist Flickr Pool

• Inmates at the Toronto South Detention Centre are threatening to stage another hunger strike in protest of what they say are increasingly routine lockdowns, according to a corrections union official. Jordan Brown, an inmate and strike organizer, said in a phone interview that there have been 111 lockdowns since his incarceration at the facility in February, though this number could not be confirmed by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Inmates at the facility staged a three-day hunger strike last week to call attention to the situation. Corrections division chair of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Monte Vieselmeyer saying of the strike, “They basically stated that if nothing was rectified (this) week, they would return to their hunger strike.” Toronto South has received 50 complaints—three times more than any other jail in the province—regarding lockdowns since opening last January.
• TTC Chair Josh Colle (Ward 15 Eglinton-Lawrence) and CEO Andy Byford awarded the TTC’s 30 billionth rider with a yearly Metropass at this morning’s milestone ceremony at Davisville Station. Landmark customer Grant Scott said of the award, “I was just going on holiday and they left a message for me… it was a surprise.” A celebration took place at the collector booth during the noon hour.
• Toronto can now (officially) add raccoons to the list of things the city is known for, besides, you know, Drake, the resurgent Blue Jays, and hip-hop sensation Norm Kelly. In a Wall Street Journal article posted yesterday entitled, “Toronto Vows to Outsmart Its Raccoons,” author Jane Gerster contrasts the highly publicized, highly lauded July memorial of Toronto citizen, Conrad the Coon, with the City’s ongoing fight against non-celebrity, opposable-thumbed, nuisance-making trash pandas. The article goes into detail about the City’s plans (and needs) for new green bins, and invokes John Tory’s famous raccoon speech, where he declared, “Defeat is not an option.” If the act of closing our green bins with cinder blocks, bungee straps, and snap locks is still unable to deter the furry critters, realistically speaking, we’re probably not as smart as we think we are.
• From today’s edition of 12:36, Toronto’s new lunchtime tabloid newsletter: Global displays for yesterday’s annual Go Topless Day included one in Toronto, although most coverage failed to mention it’s an initiative of the Raelian cult, which seems happy to have it confused for something more political. Wasaga Beach was the site of a confrontation between covered-up locals and 20 nudists who tried to make the case for a clothing-optional area. Meanwhile, the GTA’s most-quoted naked dude, Stephane Deschenes, turned up in The New York Times Magazine’s “How to be Naked in Public,” which included a plug for his new U of T course, “Public Nudity: History, Law and Science.” (Want more 12:36? Subscribe to it now.)