Morning Brew: Woodbine ducks are YouTube stars, Ford stops the food and beverage train, Blair won't resign, Toronto's the new London, and Crosby dispatches Leafs
Warning: No ducks were harmed in the making of this video. A video of a mother duck and her ducklings braving a brutal crosswind as they waddle across Woodbine's Racetrack's grounds has received over three million hits in just four days. Matthew Stevens, the Woodbine Entertainment cameraman who captured the moment maintains they made sure the ducklings wouldn't fall into the storm drain and "were fine." "It's crazy," said Stevens of the explosion of views. "I guess this is my 15 minutes, so I'd better enjoy it." The ducks meanwhile are taking their act to Hollywood.
Pink must be Mayor Rob Ford's new lucky colour as he boasted, "We got everything we wanted," at the end of his first full day presiding over Toronto City Council. Ford and his cronies managed to win unanimous support for their choice of council Speaker, narrowly defeat a drawn-out challenge to the 2011 budget process and shut their downtown foes out of key committees. Oh, and no more gravy--literally. Council voted to stop providing beverages and refreshments during council and committee meetings, a crusade Mayor Rob Ford has been on much of his elected life. "Ten years of fighting the free food, we finally got rid of it." said a jubilant Mayor Ford after the vote. It's hard to believe Ford's been fighting food for ten years, but whatever floats your gravy boat.
At a news conference Wednesday in Victoria, Police Chief Bill Blair says the police have identified five of the officers who are persons of interest in an alleged assault of a G20 protester and who will be disciplined. He also said he's "doing [his] job" and is not resigning. He said his organization is "co-operating fully" with a number of independent investigations. But he disputed Ontario Ombudsman AndrĂŠ Marin's conclusion that keeping the public in the dark about the law constituted a "massive compromise of civil liberties." But Blair also said he hasn't yet read the report.
Forget New York. Eye Weekly's urbanist, Shawn Micallef, explains what modern London, England can tell us about Toronto's past and its future, arguing that London and Toronto are on very similar paths--only a hundred years apart.
In Brief:
Photo by SebastianCorrea in the blogTO Flickr pool.
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