THIS WEEK: Tele Town Hall and Laird Station open house

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The Crosstown’s Communications & Community Relations Team is hosting a tele town hall on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 from 7pm-8pm. Residents from Yonge to Don Mills are invited to join in a live and interactive Crosstown conversation. If you live in this area, Crosstown will be calling you, and if you’d like to participate or listen in, all you have to do is stay on the line when they call. Here’s the message area residents received earlier week:

Tele town halls are live and interactive phone meetings – very similar to a radio call-in show. The Crosstown’s tele town halls will provide residents along the Eglinton corridor an opportunity to ask our project team whatever’s on your mind. If you are interested in participating, but don’t have a landline, you can still join. You can connect to the call from your cellular phone by dialing 1-877-229-8493, ID Code: 112697 at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18. Alternatively, you can tune into The Crosstown Facebook page, where they will have a link to a web audio stream.

Thursday April 20th, 2017 at Leaside Memorial Gardens, 6:30pm-8:30pm. Learn about the future Laird Station, one of 15 underground stations on the new Eglinton line now under construction. Join Metrolinx and its constructor, Crosslinx Transit Solutions (CTS), at an open house to find out what construction is happening in your neighbourhood, why it needs to happen, how it may impact you, who to contact if you have questions/concerns, when construction is happening.

Beaver mesmerizes Saskatchewan cattle — how Canadian!

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Saskatchewan rancher Adrienne Ivey might have heard of a beaver, but until now, had never seen a beaver herd. Cattle, that is. On Friday, Ivey and her husband were surprised to see 150 of their heifers crowded together in one of their pastures. Curious about the strange behaviour, they investigated further, to find the herd of cattle following a beaver that had wandered along. “He was out and about, I think looking for a new place to build a beaver lodge, and they were following him,” Ivey said. “There was about a three-foot space around him. They didn’t want to get closer than that.” According to Ivey, heifers, young cows that haven’t had a calf before, are more inquisitive than the average bovine, which may have led to the cows following the beaver. “They’re a curious bunch,” she said. “They’re kind of like teenagers. And I think they were following this thing around because they couldn’t figure out what the heck it was.” Ivey thought the odd event was even more notable considering the beaver is Canada’s national symbol. “We just thought this was so funny and so Canadian,” she said. “A Canadian beaver leading around a bunch of Canadian cattle just makes it even more funny.” Ivey said they have a number of sloughs and wetlands on the ranch, and often see beavers walking around. The couple farms near Ituna, 135 km northeast of Regina. CBC Facebook

British PM Theresa May calls snap vote for June 8 on Brexit

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Man, 22, stopped, charged in 183 km/h early morning stunt

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A young man has been charged with stunt driving at 183 km/hr early Tuesday in a 100 km/hr zone on Highway 401.  The driver, 22, was stopped by an officer on the highway near Victoria Park at 6 a.m. The man’s licence has been suspended for seven days, and his vehicle, a Audi RS7, has been impounded for seven days.

 

Do these fellas know what to do about crazy house prices?

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See later post  — Do John Tory, Bill Morneau and Charles Sousa have any idea what to do about Toronto’s out-of-control house prices? Tuesday is the day that the mayor and the two ministers will meet to try to figure it out. They do so on a day when Royal LePage Realty has announced that the aggregate price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area rose by an “unprecedented” 20 per cent across all housing types to $759,241 in the first three months of 2017. The big realtor also suggests that the effect of the tax on foreign buyers in Vancouver is wearing off. Homes there continued to increase in value in the past month by close to 50 per cent on a month-over-month basis.

Will City find the courage to regularize holiday openings?

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It appears that City Council will again discuss the bylaws which require grocery stores and other businesses to close on a statutory holiday. The CBC says that City staff has recommended yet again that the patchwork quilt of practices be regularized by permitting all stores to open. In the past, Council has not had the courage to do this. At present, large shopping centres such at the  Eaton Centre are permitted to open under the guise that they are tourist areas. Many say this is a legal ruse and a simple sop to huge property owners like Cadillac Fairview. Nonetheless, it has been practiced for decades. At the same time, smaller businesses are left to wonder if they will be charged if they open. In the past few years, however, it has become fairly apparent that, without saying so, the City is not prepared to see businesses charged for opening on statutory holidays. Some legal opinion holds that this is because such a charge might lead to a constitutional challenge. The mishmash of bylaws might be found to be unfair — which they are — resulting in wholesale of invalidation of bylaws.

Bozak pots winner at 1.37 of OT as Leafs take 2-1 series lead

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The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Washington Capitals 4-3 in overtime of Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead. Tyler Bozak scored 1:37 into overtime for the win.

Matheroo sisters said to be posting pictures large in Toronto

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City News
City News

Avery Haines of City News is saying that the Matharoo sisters. Jyoti and Kiran, are back in Toronto and that they somehow departed Nigeria without their passports. This may be, but the last word previously heard in December on the status of the two graduates of Don Bosco High School was from Brad Hunter in the Toronto Sun. He said they had signed “criminal undertakings” confessing to blackmailing and cyberbullying more than 200 men. One of the victims was the influential billionaire Femi Otedola. Hunter said the women had agreed to leave Nigeria and never return. Their departure seems quite sensitive with some Nigerian journalists. But there’s no evidence that the men who were humiliated by dalliances, if any, with Jyoti and Kiran are demanding a public airing of the matter in court. According to Haines, the Canadian government is doing a high-minded privacy routine around just what, if anything, it did to expedite passages of the femmes Matharoo. City News shows a social media account of the Dreamy Beauty Bar, 717 Queen Street East where it says they have been visiting. Their apology

Flawed industry model bounces boy from family’s flight

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Flawed industry model
Flights must fill every seat
Cole Doyle unseated

Air Canada has apologized to a Prince Edward Island family after the airline bumped their 10-year-old son from a flight. That decision sent the family on a convoluted odyssey from Charlottetown to Moncton to Halifax to try to get seats for all of them. They finally got away the next day after a hotel stay in Halifax. It was March Break but Brett Doyle had booked the tickets in August. From his story, it seems clear Mr. Doyle and his family were given the same off-hand treatment which is common among airlines in 2017. And well before, in fact. But realists understand the airline industry’s business model is deeply flawed and there seems no easy way of fixing it. Open competition requires airlines to maximize the value of every expensive take off to the bottom line. It’s why planes are overbooked. More airlines offering deals may permit more people to fly but it also guarantees that some will be bounced. In this case, the airline has given the Doyles  an apology, a $2,500 voucher, which expires in one year, and says it may cover family expenses.

Soccer, cricket under the lights at Go Green Cricket Field

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More

US releases picture of mock bomb and yep, it’s plenty scary

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Mock IED carried by Galaska
Mock alarm clock

US authorities have now released a photo (left) of the phony bomb (also mock IED) that 58-year-old Joseph Galaska was carrying to Chicago when he ran afoul of US customs at Pearson airport and landed in jail for carrying a mock bomb. Beside it, to the right, is a photo of a mock bomb alarm clock made in the US which has gotten travellers in trouble as well. Why not. They both look scary as can be.

Whimsical Babsocks fun open daily at 553 Mt. Pleasant Rd.

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Thomas McCole and Jake Mednick
Blue
White
Stern man will smile if you stretch socks
Special benefit for CAMH
DJ Darryl Henry of CHFI
Prime Minister: Please put these on
Canadian promotion

Hockey-playing buddies Thomas McCole and Jake Mednick were like most fans when they heard that the Leafs had hired straight-shooting Mike Babcock to guide the team during its re-build. But unlike most fans, these two area men also were hit by a brilliant stroke of whimsical genius — call it Babsocks. Yes, hockey socks comically inspired by the new coach. They started to work designing the socks and sourcing a maker. They didn’t even bother to ask Babcock if they could use his likeness. (He thinks it’s hilarious.)  In a year, McCole and Mednick have gone from zero to a hundred on the novelty sock scale.  There has been the St. Patrick’s Day Babsock, the Team Canada (Molson) Babsock and the Purple Babsocks in a special benefit for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). But the main show is the Leafs sock, blue and white (home or away) sold for $20 a pair (two for $35) with ten per cent going to benefit CAMH. Now Babsocks is open at 553 Mt. Pleasant beside the Regent Theatre near Belsize Drive. Don’t get caught without yours at Game Three.