Aurora MPP Chris Ballard will replace Glen Murray as Environment and Climate Change Minister, Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced. Murray is leaving his cabinet position to join the Pembina Institute on Sept. 5. Murray quits in Toronto Centre, Jo-Ann Davis bid for UR
Extremely excited to be joining @Pembina as the new Executive Director on Sept 5.
Pls see the full statement here: https://t.co/zgo8xAiaZm
— Glen Murray (@Glen4Climate) July 31, 2017
One person was pronounced dead early Monday at the scene of a truck accident said to involve a load of paint. The flames and burned-out wreckage were a testament to the inferno. The crash occurred on Highway 401 near Avenue Rd. and caused a large backup. Kevin Misener of 680 News said the vehicle was carrying paint. The fire was first reported about 5.15 a.m.
PEDESTRIAN DEATH AT DUNDAS/SHERBOURNE
A man is dead and second one injured in an accident which police say was a vehicle hitting a pedestrian. More.
The City has published a useful map and cautionary points about staying safe and comfortable. Toronto Release
The Toronto Star says Sunday night that Environment Minister Glen Murray will resign his portfolio Monday morning and further declare he will not run again in the riding of Toronto Centre. Beyond that, Murray’s plans are unstated but the Star says he is leaving to take a “high-profile” job. His decision comes at a time of shifting ground as redistribution reduces the size of Toronto Centre. At the same time, Catholic school trustee Jo-Ann Davis is making a run to snare the Ontario Liberal candidacy in the new riding of University Rosedale (which includes Moore Park). Davis represents the TCDSB Ward 9, a huge constituency holding the Ontario ridings of St Paul’s, Toronto-Centre and Trinity-Spadina. Murray, 59, is a former mayor of Winnipeg. He has been, says writer Robert Benzie, Wynne’s point person on climate change. More
You could not make it up. Writers are calling the grand-slam homer and other heroic play the greatest 9th inning finish in the team’s history, and so it seems. CBC re-cap above speaks of Joy in Toronto.
Toronto Police will embark on a five-day campaign against cars found on rush-hour routes during prohibited hours starting Monday morning. The much dreaded “zero-tolerance” will apply but it’s hard to imagine that somewhere, somehow there might not be an exception. You can read about it here. TPS
Captures from a security recording on June 30 of an arson at a business on Scollard St. catches one of the two firebugs with his chin growth showing. Police are hoping others can see things that help identify the two. Video.
The YTB Gallery has an exhibit called From A to B isn’t always linear at the northeast corner of the East York Town Centre parking lot from August 3 to 5. There is an opening reception on August 3 from 4 to 7 p.m. with regular hours on August 4 and 5 from 2 to 8 p.m. Facebook
Everyone will have his own opinion about the strike by baggage handlers at Toronto Airport that is mainly prompted, the union says, by disrespect towards working stiffs by a callous management. Although there are no examples offered of the emotionally hurtful things done to employees, we are told these honest souls just can’t take it any more. “Our members have been so disrespected and I am just talking about common courtesies and simply being a human,” said Harjinder Badial, vice president of Teamsters local 419. “It has gotten so bad that our members are fed up.”
Lawyer Boyd Balogh has died in Toronto at the age of 51. Mr. Balogh was a long-standing partner at the firm of Gowlings WLG. Friends are invited to call at Humphrey’s Funeral Home on Wednesday, August 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. A celebration of Mr. Balogh’s life will be held at Vaughan Estates, 2075 Bayview Ave (80 Armistice Drive), on Thursday, August 3 from 2 to 5 p.m. Obituary
The Ghazal Rug Gallery has opened at 1693B Bayview Ave in the north block opposite Hillsdale Ave. Welcome to this new business. Ghazal is a word of Middle Eastern and Indian extraction meaning a lyric poem with a fixed number of verses and a repeated rhyme, typically on the theme of love, and normally set to music. Pleasant.
Neither police nor health workers are genuinely surprised that drugs tainted with the rogue killer substance fentanyl have taken four lives in Toronto in something like two days. The peril is well-known to anyone who might be a street drug user. But the reaction to these deaths among some is that somehow the City has failed. Perhaps, but as usual the “root cause” solution is hopelessly vague. One worker said the City should have taken “more actions.” What does that mean? Seizing people off the street and jailing them to prevent their habit, or simple stupidity, from turning fatal? These heart-breaking cases are proof again that those determined to take dangerous risks will do so as long as they are free to roll the dice. We’re told that fentanyl is easy to make, quite often made in China and smuggled into Canada in personal belongings. Are the Chinese as responsible as they should be about exporting death to the streets of Canada?
