City
Morning Brew: Phone and Web Fraudsters, EMS Essential Service Plea, Texting and Driving
Photo: "The rabbit hole" by Maryam S., member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
A Toronto man was sentenced to just a two-year prison term for his involvement in a 10-year long telemarketing scam that brought in an estimated $158-million. At that level of punishment, it almost seems worth the risk, doesn't it? His sentencing comes after that of an accomplice, who was already given a conditional 2-year sentence; and four others are also still seeing their charges through in the courts.
In somewhat related news, fraudsters are also taking advantage of the internet, and police are warning would-be renters and iPhone buyers about fake listings on Toronto Craigslist and Toronto Kijiji that result in lost deposit cheques and face-to-face muggings.
Following the 36 day municipal workers' strike in Toronto, and a very controversial death, the Ontario Paramedics Association is appealing to the province to declare emergency medical services an essential service, meaning that during labour disputes all EMS staff still work. Cutting staffing down to 75% during a strike doesn't seem safe, and if they claim that services aren't negatively impacted when 25% of their staff are picketing, then it almost makes that 25% of the team seem redundant, doesn't it?
Toronto Life, not unlike many print media outlets, is facing fiscal challenges. With ad sales down significantly in the last two quarters, the monthly Toronto magazine has decided to temporarily cut intern pay for the fall. Seeing stipends disappear hurts, but cuts have to be made somewhere.
Do you text on your mobile phone while you drive? A lot of people do it, and there's been a study released that reveals just how dangerous this behaviour is. Apparently we're 23 times more likely to crash when our attention is focused on sending text messages (most of which can probably wait!) while driving.
And a Chinatown grocer, who is tied up in a messy legal situation that resulted after he allegedly tied up and held an alleged thief in a deliver van until police arrived, is saying that he wouldn't respond in the same way again. The video footage of the theft (an interesting watch) is more than suggestive, but another person's guilt doesn't give a victim special rights.
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TO should follow suit and contract out garbage collection. I hope Miller didn't wimp out and give them what they wanted.
TO should follow suit and contract out garbage collection. I hope Miller didn't wimp out and give them what they wanted.
BINGO! Yes, 25% of the team is redundant. That's a low estimate of what percentage of Toronto's unionized staff is nothing but fat, eating up dollars that could be better spent. I'm willing to bet you could run Toronto on half the staff if it was run with any degree of efficiency.
If they're already resenting you because you're chasing them, just imagine how they feel about you after you've tried to hold them down. If you let them go because you no longer have the strength to overpower their attempts to get away and/or attempts to injure you (you can't hit them back of course) then they have a tendency to lash out at anyone around them during their escape.
A few years later after getting a retail job in Toronto I realized how different things were here. It is pointless to try and restrain someone. The police simply don't respond quickly enough. 10 minutes would be the minimum if there happened to be an officer in the immediate vicinity.
We would have the same shoplifters time after time come into the store and there was absolutely nothing we could do. The police simply don't treat it with any sort of seriousness. They even tell you to call the station instead of 911. They basically admit that they will make no effort to try to stop the crime in progress and will show up on their own time after the fact to do the paperwork. They tell store owners that the only thing they can do is to call the station if the person returns to steal again when they enter the store. If you're (really) lucky, someone on duty in the area will make it there before the crook leaves.
Theives know this. That's why you get guys like this with bicycles who know that as long as they're quick at grabbing something and getting out then can keep coming back time after time and getting away.
We had one guy on a bicycle try to steal things at least a dozen times (that we knew of), amounting to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. He'd get stopped every once in a while, but because of how long it would take the police to arrive it was pointless to try and hold him. We'd just take the items back and let him go. What he said to us once just about sums about the problem with shoplifting in Toronto. After being caught in the act he just smiled and said "I'll see ya tomorrow"
Luciano Galasso
It seems terrible that the law is basically a mystery to citizens of this country until you find yourself of the wrong side of it.
But it justifies the morality of it.
Plus, a little beating never hurt anyone. ;)
Not helpful i know, but i loved that play.
I find it difficult to believe that Toronto Life is in such dire straits that the remedy is to take away pay from the people making the absolute least, who are working their asses off just to get in the door.
The amount of money saved would probably equal that of a few higher-ups taking a pay cut that wouldn't affect their quality of life, meanwhile the poor kids who rely on the pay are now up shit's creek. This creates the feeling amongst publishers that editors will work for free.
As I understand it, regular contributors to BlogTO are paid. With that said, an online magazine is probably the easiest media form to find people who would be willing to write for free just to get their work seen. While Toronto Life pays their writers, I'm comparing the people at the very bottom of these two differently structured outfits.
So attention Toronto Life interns - write for BlogTO, be paid for it, get more exposure, and throw down the humility of fetching your boss coffee while his growing smirk indicates you're just happy to be there. Are you?