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Extra, Extra: A “White Students Union,” Conservative Signage, and Scarborough Councillors Debate Parking
Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not to miss.
Photo by @MarkCarcGlobal.
- Posters at York and Ryerson popped up promoting a so-called White Students Union, which is apparently a thing. The unsanctioned club’s stated goals includes fostering an environment to discuss ethnic politics from “rightist” and conservative perspectives, and celebrating Western civilization. They do not say how a union structure matches conservative principles. Their webpage does, however, attack neo-marxist ideology, because presumably the best way to sway public opinion over marxism is to descend into a debate over abstract political philosophy. Ryerson officals are asking people to report poster sightings so that security can remove them.
- In election news, Conservatives continue to turn heads with their signage in York Centre. A Conservative sign wishing “L’Shanah Tovah” to mark the Jewish New Year was placed directly in front of a Liberal sign, thus undercutting the goodwill one might associate with the holiday. Local MP Mark Adler previously made news this election with election advertising that falsely promoted him as the first child of Holocaust survivors to become an MP. (Via Reddit.)
- Scarborough councillors deferred a proposed pilot project which would have seen one street in the former municipality try out relaxed parking policies. Scarborough residents are not allowed to have on street parking, and are also restricted from parking on driveway “aprons,” the stretch of a driveway between the sidewalk and the road. While some councillors wanted to see a trial period to test whether changing the policy would accommodate the growing number of car-driving children who live with their parents, other councillors wanted no part of it. Ron Moeser (Ward 44, Scarborough East) warned of a slippery slope of re-opening parking policy, and Jim Karygiannis (Ward 39, Scarborough Agincourt) predicted people would continue to push the envelope and would want to park on grass. Other councillors reportedly warned that the proposed pilot project, which will be debated again in April, would lead to an increase in rooming houses.
- From today’s edition of 12:36, Toronto’s new lunchtime tabloid newsletter: The Globe and Mail proclaims a new low for movie-media relations at North America’s largest film festival. Film editor Barry Hertz says Hollywood publicists have now almost entirely shut out all but the top-tier U.S. press for one-on-one interviews at TIFF, leaving all other journalists with “regurgitated wire copy and ‘hot take’ write-arounds.” (Want more 12:36? Subscribe to it now.)
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