Morning Brew: September 30th, 2008

Photo: "still summer" by swampr0se, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Tuesday September 30th, 2008:

Fly in, check out the CN Tower, catch a Jay's game, chow in Chinatown, and get a liver transplant. A couple of Markham doctors are apparently planning to launch a medical tourism company that caters to foreign patients looking for affordable, quality healthcare. It's still unclear where procedures will be performed, but if a back door express line for ailing Americans appears at your local hospital, I'm sure it'll cause an uproar.

All your investments are belong to us. Bay Street, and markets the world over, are scrambling to tame the biggest nosedives in nearly a decade. The last time we saw this big a drop at the TSX was during the tech bubble burst of 2001, when somebody set up us the bomb. Yesterday, the only safe investments were gold, and soup.

Mayor Miller wants to create two new city corporations aimed at bringing in revenue while stimulating growth. The idea hinges on selling off portions of Toronto's unused and valuable real estate portfolio, and attracting foreign investors. Can you guess who Miller thinks should be the Chair of both "Build Toronto" and "Invest Toronto"? Himself, but of course.

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Waiting in your car (for longer than three minutes, with the engine running) to pick up a friend outside of Union Station could cost you $125 this week. Every year we hear about this clean air enforcement initiative, during the highly publicized week-long blitz, but do you actually know anyone that has been nabbed for it? Not likely, because in all of 2007 only 40 people were given tickets and thousands let off with a warning.

After one year in effect, the much debated provincial street racing law is / isn't working!

Results from yesterday's Morning Brew poll are somewhat surprising. 75% of respondents report that they get calls from telemarketers at least once per week, while only 7% claim that they don't get any calls. Seeing these numbers makes me feel really lucky to be in the relatively unpestered minority.