Watching the many moves of Mayor John Tory

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His Honour was on traffic congestion duty and had Works Commissioner Jaye Robinson (Ward 25) with him when his party hit a bit of ice on Queen St. Pictures taken and tweeted by veteran Sun photographer Mike Peake show Mr. Tory (lower left) trucking along with Councillor Robinson but there’s a hint of trouble ahead as a man in the background falls flat on his bottom. Main picture, the mayor artfully stays upright as he hits the ice. Lower right, Mr. Tory misses not a topic as his conversation with Ms. Robinson continues.   

“Hockey summit” for Wynne, Harper tonight

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See later post  Prime Minister Harper will meet with Premier Wynne this evening at 6.15 p.m. in her office at Queen’s Park, the premier’s office has announced. The meeting will take place before the Canada-Russia hockey game at the ACC where Harper intends to spend the evening.  Much has been made of how long it has been since the Premier and PM have met although there seems little that is not known about just why. Mr. Harper thinks Ontario is piling up debt to a worrisome level. He also believes that Wynne wants to create a pension plan which will be a burden on the economy. Ms Wynne apparently feels the economy and the debt are quite manageable. Apart from personal peculiarities which the two adults might wish to overlook, there does not seem to be anything more to know about what is at issue.

Chopper crewman is new veteran’s minister

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Erin O’Toole 
Erin Michael O’Toole has been appointed the Minister of Veterans Affairs to replace Julian Fantino. Mr. O’Toole is the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Riding of Durham. He was elected with a whopping mandate (50.72% support) when he replaced Bev Oda as the CP candidate in Durham for the 2012 election. Mr. O’Toole’s website was updated simultaneously with his appointment and shows him in this informal shot wearing an RCAF jersey. He wears it honestly, having graduated from Royal Military College and received his wings as a helicopter navigator. He was later called to the bar. The replacement of Mr. Fantino was not very surprising. Although he may have been criticised for things that were not always his fault, Mr. Fantino seemed to find it increasingly difficult to get along with fractious members of the veterans community.  

Dental school feared students could harm selves

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Dalhousie University has suspended 13 dentistry students from clinical activities over comments that were posted on Facebook over a period of some months.  In announcing this today, the school said that it delayed a public statement because it had received “credible reports” that the students, all in fourth year, might be in jeopardy of harming themselves. It was a jolting twist in the case of the so-called DDS Gentleman’s Club. The group had posted offensive material about women, and in one case showed photographs of two women students. The dean of the dentistry school said the comments were deeply offensive, degrading to women and entirely unacceptable. “This behaviour will not be tolerated at Dalhousie University,” president Richard Florizone told a news conference. There is a disciplinary process underway which the president said would “follow a just process, a process which is consistent with the law, with university policy and which holds the rights of all of those involved in this incident.” He said the university had delayed the suspension after it heard reports that the male students allegedly involved were at risk of harming themselves. The school wanted to ensure that appropriate supports were available to them. “We had credible reports from our front line staff of potential self-harm,” he said. “We took those seriously and so that concern for student safety overrode our concern about communicating this publicly.” The case reveals the super nova impact of the Internet with sophomoric conduct. The damage to both men and women is plain when young men full of bravado about sex must face the public consequences of their immature behaviour. Canadian Press  Gentlemen’s Club 

Bankrupt builder leaves homeowner stranded

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It is a scary story for anyone who hopes to renovate a home and for small builders who expand too quickly. It’s a problem that has been seen in Leaside too but perhaps not with quite the devastating impact it is having on North York homeowner Karim Hajee. The father of four has just been told that the company he hired to rebuild his home is bankrupt and does not have his money. He is out of pocket some six figures, says Mr. Hajee. He entrusted the work to a 10-year-old company named GarCon Building Group.  The owner, Adam Gardin, declared bankruptcy after Christmas. He insists he is not a thief but had bad judgement in trying to expand. Metro 

Mayor launches traffic whack with whirlybird ride

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Day One of Toronto’s war on congestion is underway with the image seen by most residents being that of Mayor Tory taking to  the sky in the CP24 helicopter to see what there was to see. There aren’t many reports from the ground yet but the deputy mayor, Mr. Minnan-Wong, was heard asking on Twitter why delivery companies need such big trucks. We can’t tell whether towing will be any more frequent up here in South Bayview. The tow  trucks may all be south of Bloor come 4 p.m.   

Scarborough subway a billion dollar boondoggle?

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R. Michael Warren
The former high-ranking Toronto and provincial bureaucrat R. Michael Warren makes a closely-reasoned argument in the Toronto Star that the Scarborough subway is a no-value for money proposition being pushed forward by Mayor Tory and Premier Wynne for thin political expediencies. Mr Warren sees the mayor acting out of a simple need to keep an ally in the Premier as he embarks on unknown challenges in which he will no doubt need a friend. As for the Premier, Warren finds the member for Don Valley West engaged in a strategy which places the Liberal Party first and the taxpayer second (our words). Mr. Warren closes his column on a note which, given the background to this story, might surprise even him with the sense of hope he expresses. “There’s still time for Wynne and Tory to put the Scarborough transit link through the same rigorous value-for-money analysis they say is being applied to every other transit investment.” says the former TTC chief general manager. “It would go a long way toward showing they’re serious about making transit decisions based on costs and benefits rather than wasting money on parochial politics.” R. Michael Warren, Toronto Star

The beat up garbage bins of South Bayview

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There is something that has to be said about Toronto’s garbage bins. They’re junk. No secret this unhappy truth about the weird looking containers that be-dot and bedevil our main streets. The story is always the same. You could see it in their loopy design and shanty-town construction the day they were introduced to a hapless public. They come from Astral Media, which is now the so-called out of home street furniture arm of Bell Media. The main business of this division of Bell however is not the furniture, it’s the ads that run on the bus shelters. A walk up and down South Bayview revealed at least six of these over-engineered bins in falling apart condition. It is a civic joke that the foot pedals on these bins break as soon as you look at them. Talk about a solution looking for a problem. Garbage bins need foot pedals like a spaniel needs a washroom.