An Air Canada Rouge jet en route to San José, Costa Rica hit severe turbulence and had to return to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Peel Paramedics told CTV that three flight attendants suffered minor injuries in the incident and were all transported to hospital to be assessed. About an hour after the landing, Peel Paramedics said only two people had to be taken to hospital.

Chief Mark Saunders

Union ad

Mike McCormick

The Toronto Police Association (TPA) has sent a memo to all police officers asking them take part in a vote of confidence on Chief Mark Saunders. The issue for the union, and its president Mike McCormick, the son of a former chief, is just how many officers will be employed by the Toronto Police Service. The union has already paid for billboards and placed newspaper ads showing Saunders along with Mayor Tory and Police Board Chairman Pringle laughing about the issue of police staffing. The ads also showed splattered blood. The vote is scheduled to close Febrary 21. The memo, obtained by CTV News Toronto, cites Saunders’ “ineffective leadership, lack of communication skills and failure to take responsibility.” The police chief serves at the pleasure of the Police Services Board. There is a meeting this very night (Wednesday) at the Thorncliffe Neighborhood Office to discussed the transformational plan for Toronto Police, including doing the many jobs now assigned to police with fewer officers. According to the union, the TPS now has 577 fewer officers than it had in 2010.

Happy Meal

McDonald’s said Thursday that it will banish cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its published U.S. Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on the calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar. But they will still be available if you ask. Since it removed soda from the Happy Meal menu four years ago, orders for it with Happy Meals have fallen 14 per cent, the company said.

CORONA BEER LOOKS AT INFUSED MARIJUANA

Licensed marijuana producer Canopy Growth Corp. is collaborating with the maker of Corona Beer on cannabis-infused beverages even though government regulations on pot edibles won’t be clear until July 2019 at the soonest. Canopy CEO Bruce Linton is betting on the fact that sales and distribution of the drug in many provinces is being handled by liquor authorities, which he hopes will be open to adding cannabis in liquid form to retail shelves. Canopy’s deal with the maker of Corona beer is a milestone for cannabis industry

LOBLAW REIT BUYS CANADIAN REIT

Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, the real estate arm of Loblaw Cos., agreed to buy Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust for about C$3.93 billion ($3.1 billion) to add more industrial and office space to its retail portfolio. Canadian REIT holders will get C$53.61 per unit in cash and stock, a 23 percent premium to Wednesday’s closing share price, according to a statement Thursday. The cash portion of the offer will be capped at C$1.65 billion.

The Prime Minister is seeking a world where the Indigenous will be reconciled as, presumably, will everyone else. You may judge for yourself in these remarks from the House of Commons made some 410 years after Champlain landed at Quebec. To the right, the CRA was raiding businesses in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary Wednesday where they allege criminal tax evasion was at work. Below that, the Year of the Dog starts Friday and our Chinese friends, and those who know a bit of Chinese culture, will get a chuckle as Jennifer Wong makes fun of her people’s many superstitions. Finally, a lovely time with some kids who made Valentine’s cards and sold them to give the money to the Hospital for Sick Children.

Ceremony at Badminton and Racquet Club

There was a small ceremony in the secluded courtyard of the Badminton and Racquet Club Wednesday beside the ruins of the burned out social and sports facility. It sits secretly; a few paces from the roaring corner of St.Clair Ave. and Yonge St. Members were there with officials from Toronto Fire and Toronto EMS to thank them for their heroic efforts on February 14, 2017. That’s the day a suspected kitchen fire burned the permanent building to wreckage. A badminton dome stands and has been operating pretty much continuously. “There was a period where we didn’t know that everybody got out OK. And Toronto Fire Services again went into the burning building… and they made sure that everybody did get out,” COO of the Badminton and Racquet Club Paul Cadieux said at the ceremony. No one was reported seriously injured during the conflagration. Some staff members were able to save artifacts before evacuating the building, such as a sign dating back to the opening of the club in 1924, as seen in the video capture from Global News above. “Everybody sort of grabbed whatever they could on the way out the door and when we knew it was bad, we pulled out what we could,” Cadieux said. The club hopes to rebuild. Venerable “B and R” hit by fire, Yonge and St Clair closed

Nice for dogs too

Flowers at Loblaws

High 7C forecast

Everyone is out

Creeds busy

Quick fix for sweetie

A sun-kissed South Bayview Valentine’s Day Wednesday will play an even warmer encore Thursday with a forecast high of 7C. Gotta love it.

Victim, 60, taken to hospital/City News capture

The accused in an apparently berserk stabbing attack with an ice pick on the subway Monday has been identified by police as Thomas Sommerville, 27, of Toronto. It all occurred as a train was arriving at College Station about 12.40 p.m. A man produced an ice pick and attacked another person who appears to have been a total stranger. The victim, 60, was taken to hospital with face wounds as witnesses struggled with the stabber until police could subdue him.

Carol Burtin Fripp /Photo Will Fripp

Carol Burtin Fripp has been named the 2018 recipient of the Agnes Macphail Award. The annual award is given to an East York resident who exemplifies the values championed by the progressive politician who was most notably Canada’s first woman MP.  Ms Burtin Fripp is the co-president of the Leaside Property Owners Association and has been active in issues related to the integrity of Leaside. The award was approved by the North York Community Council February 5 and will be presented on March 24, 2018, which is the anniversary of Agnes Macphail’s birth. It will be the 25th occasion on which the award has been made. Here are previous winners. Asterisk indicates deceased.

Thrilling championship curling from Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris. Enjoy.

Area churches and those all across the country have marked Shrove Tuesday. Here are scenes from Leaside United Church where Councillor Burnside and Mayor Tory were present. The event raised money for LUC’s ongoing support of El Hogar, the Honduran home and educational centre for needy children. Pancake dinners were held at St.Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, Northlea United Church and many others.

The parade of car-sharing companies seeking free street parking from City Council may well include General Motors. They’re touting a new app called Maven that lets millennials (and anybody else we suppose) start a share car from a phone. What a Golden Age we live in. City Council is rightly nervous about issuing “permits” because, after all, tax-paying people who actually own cars might like to park there and the moral high-ground of car-sharing may turn out to be populated with mere money-grubbing

REMINGTON BROKE

Reuters says that Remington Arms, the foremost gunmaker in the world, has reached a deal to reduce its $950 million debt load, seeking to write off about $700 million. The company will continue to operate as usual as the case proceeds in Delaware federal court, Remington executives are quoted as saying. Here is how this happened. The firearm industry was riding high during the run-up to the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton was favored to win, and an array of gun rights advocates warned of a looming Second Amendment crackdown. One Las Vegas gun store advertised a “pre-Hillary” sale. “Don’t wait!” it cautioned. “Prices will skyrocket after Crooked Hillary gets in.” But with its great friend Donald Trump having won the election, Remington finds that people are yawning at the idea of buying a new weapon.