Month: December 2012

Somehow the media always finds its way back to the media. The Mayor’s levee is tomorrow at City Hall, but the burning question for reporters is that the mayor won’t take questions from them during that event. In past years, the mayor has taken questions about what he sees in the coming year for the City. This year, reporters have been asked not to interrupt the levee. It will go off in the City Hall rotunda from 2-4 p.m. An online poll in the Sun (inset) suggests this is not a big issue for the public. A majority (54% to 45%) are against questions. For Ford, the new year will see a Jan. 7 appeal of the conflict-of-interest ruling that ousted him from office. He won a stay of the ruling until his appeal is heard. After the ruling the mayor’s office announced it was cancelling the annual levee before deciding to replace it with an elaborate series of “skating parties.” Then, last week, that plan was scrapped and it was announced Ford would be participating in the traditional levee.

The Via Rail train from Montreal will be late arriving at Union Station tonight.  Sunday night the train was stopped at Kingston because the aboriginal Idle No More campaign was blocking the main line near Belleville. Train 647, which has been stopped there since shortly after 6 pm and the length of the delay seems uncertain. The blockade is part of the Idle No More movement. Similar protests and gatherings were held across Canada Sunday, in support of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who is on a hunger strike. One demonstration (inset) was at the Eaton Centre. Via Rail officials are asking passengers to check their website or call the hotline at 1-888-842-7245 before heading to the station.  Late Sunday evening it was said the train was  “moving again” although it was not clear just what that meant. 

What should Canadians feel about our American friends? Fear, disgust, disbelief? There’s probably a little of all those things in the rather bitter look we see in the eyes of Finance Minister Flaherty (left). Some people are saying that the handful of Senators who are now working furiously to find a compromise and avoid that tax-wrenching dive over the fiscal cliff are already mathematically out of time. Is there a retro fix available? We think so. But if they don’t find it, the U.S. is expected to slide into another recession by June. And you know what that means for us.

Service five minutes away

You only have to ask most car owners in and around South Bayview to learn how much they resent the lack of automobile sales and service in our area.  The collapse of 2008 caused a near blood bath among local dealers — Yonge Toyota, Brennan’s on Bayview, Roy Foss at Eglinton and Brentcliffe — all gone. The promising new auto sales centre on the site of the railway lands vanished with the bankruptcy of General Motors.  But still we have the old standby, Gyro Mazda, on Laird Drive and this company is also wisely expanding to create a Hyundai dealership at Laird and Industrial St. across the road from the Mazda outlet. This is excellent news for all South Bayview and leads the way for business, municipal and federal leaders to bring more car dealerships to the dormant industrial lands on the east side of Laird Drive. And the wisest course, in our view, would be to forget about the cash-strapped and top-heavy American-based firms like GM and Ford. Emphasis should be on manufacturers with less developed systems. Hyundai and its Korean cousin KIA come to mind. But there are car makers in China, India and Europe who should be encouraged to take a look at Laird Drive. Those who settle here will be able to tap a rich market of households whose car owners are fed up with driving to Front Street or Steeles Ave for service. It is frequently said that Hyundai is determined to break into the North American market by building better and more stylish cars. In the case of Gyro Hyundai on Laird, it will also be going where the business is located. May it prosper.     

A 21-year-old woman in Cincinnati has obtained a court order which prevents her parents from more or less trying to run her life, the wire services report. Aubrey Ireland told an Ohio court she was treated “like I was a dog with a collar on,” the Cincinnati Enquirer has written. The court ordered that David and Julie Ireland have no contact with their young  honours student daughter until at least Sept. 23, 2013. The young woman had filed a Sept. 24 stalking order against her parents as a last resort, she said. “They basically thought that they were paying for my college tuition and living expenses that they could tell me what to do who to hang out with … basically control all of my daily life,” Ireland told ABC News.