City
Morning Brew: the Tamie Dolny Column, Dragon's Realm Voyeurism, the Jim Hearst Probe, Rail Upgrades
Photo: "Go make the city beautiful!" by Maryam S., member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
16-year old Tamie Dolny's Toronto Star column (she was temporarily hired on as a columnist for the duration of the strike) is a fun read. When she writes "But nobody expected the city to be this stubborn. It's like two children fighting over one toy truck," I can't help but smile at her glowing sincerity and naivety.
It took emergency crews 3 hours to finally rescue a contractor who was nearly buried alive by sand on a job site in Scarborough. Apparently he was neck deep in the stuff, and the conditions were such that when sand was removed, more continued to spill in. Lucky stars. I'm sure he's counting them.
The owner of the Dragon's Realm comic book store in the Norwood Plaza in Maple was arrested and charged with voyeurism after the boyfriend of a woman who used the washroom found a camera on a tripod in the adjacent room. If the allegations prove to be true, this doesn't bode well for nerds who are collectively fighting the sexuality stigmas that comes with being a comic book collector.
The probe into the death of Jim Hearst and emergency medical services slow response is now shifting focus away from the city union strike and onto general policy. When paramedics have reason to be concerned for their own health and safety, it's common for EMS to lie in wait near the scene of a 911 call until police arrive (a term referred to as 'staging'). Why in the case of Hearst, they arrived within 9 minutes but needed to stage nearby for some 26 minutes while he died remains unknown.
The federal government seems to like rail that lies primarily outside of Toronto. Yesterday $300million was pledged to upgrading the passenger rail system between Windsor and Quebec City (which passes through Toronto, or course). Adding two more trips and shaving 30 minutes off of the travel time between Toronto and Montreal seems to be more important that effectively moving millions of people within the nation's largest city every day. I do like the initiative to upgrade trains to improve fuel efficiency, and it is a heavily used line... but I am admittedly still a bit bitter about the feds not pitching for our much needed streetcars.
And Mayor Miller is under a lot of pressure to hold a city council meeting before most councillors take their summer vacation. It seems totally irresponsible to not have an emergency meeting, given the circumstances. The city union strike is clearly creating all kinds of problems that need to be addressed. In a way, this situation reminds me of the country faced earlier this year - proroguing parliament during an economic nosedive.
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Given past precedents, we should only have two more announcements to go before they start the three year environmental assesment and then only five years or so of site prep and ten of construction till it's half done and the money runs out. And all that for adding a third track for passing at selected locations! That almost matches the track space available between the small hamlets in Europe (except of course they are using much faster electric trains).
Try to take a train from Kingston (or Belleville, Cobourg, etc) to Toronto. You'll find there is often two trains that stop just minutes apart. Or I should say are scheduled to stop just minutes apart. The one coming from Ottawa is at least 15 minutes late about 75% of the time.
It's a very small section of track that causes the problem too and could be completely fixed with just a small portion of that $300M. Why they're choosing not to is beyond me. Perhaps they're just targetting improvements into the Montreal area for poltical reasons
the previous manager was afraid of women, the owner didn't like us working in the shop (which is why i was laid off before the guy who'd been there three weeks when they had to let someone go) and many of the customers seemed confused, upset or just uncomfortable when they had to deal with a woman.
while not everyone who's into comics is like this, it's one of few stereotypes with an unfortunately strong basis in reality.
You've got a city that is nearly monolithic in its voting patterns for decades, that is abysmally run, and is exceptionally hostile to working productively with other governments, be they senior or at the same level. Why would any sane person want to help Toronto? The irredeemiably childish Mayor doesn't help.
I don't think that the government should be involved in rail at all, but it's far better for the feds to be working on interprovincial/international rail projects like Quebec/Windsor than on an intracity project. It at least references actual constitutional powers and responsibilities, instead of intruding on purely provincial roles.
If Toronto really wanted to get serious help from other levels of government, the city would make the TTC work (through massive cuts to staff, work rules, and salaries), would focus on the needs of the greater region (i.e. no parochial idiocy like sabotaging the use of the TTC as a commuting vehicle for people in surrounding municipalities), and would have a long term strategy of co-operating across all issues with senior governments. In other words, get a Mayor and council full of Hazel McCallions and remove ward vetoes.
As for Hazel, puh-leaze. Her job is way too easy, she gets tons of cash from the airport and offers no services for it. She has a heck of a lot less welfare and homeless as they all decide to go to Toronto instead. Does Mississauga have a wheel trans service? How do the disabled (usually on a very fixed income) get around in sauga?
Tamie Dolny's Dad is in management for the city.
Tamie Dolny's 16 years old and in the union.
Now she just got a column with the star after they just laid off many employees over the past year.
But her location in Etobicoke would explain why she's turning a blind eye to the results of the strike and it's impact on the rest of Toronto, out of sight, out of mind.
RE her last paragraph we all don't want the same thing. The people want their city back, the union just wants more for themselves. Concessions aren't the only thing on the table.
But her last words stuck me the most:
"Then I'll get my job back, *and you'll get your city back*. Deal?"
So beneath all her rosy peaceful work action nonesense, she knows that they're holding our city for just the terms of their jobs. How about you get the axe, or you stop this petty strike and grow up, and then we get our city back. Either one is a deal I'd take.
It's like fighting and striking over a Lifeguard position. You're only 16 you can survive this strike by getting some other part-time job for the summer and putting money in your pocket, ohh but the pay isn't as good. Show them you don't need them by getting another job.
That would make an interesting column if she adventured into finding another summer job the trials and tribulations. A column about sleeping in and getting up early to go to strike... yawn. I know its tuff you have to get up earlier than a life guard position.
Nice sleuthing! And I am sincerely sorry about your garbage situation..it is a crying shame! What about, during this time, trying to produce a little less garbage so the bags don't pile up as high? Think about it as your "concession" during the strike. At my home we have implemented backyard composting and are trying to buy less so as not to have so much to throw away....it's working well! No garbage pile-up yet.
Seriously though, it's interesting that Torontonians don't have half the rancour for greedy bank managers who caused a deep and destabilizing world-wide recession as they do for working-class people who just want to preserve rights that have been fought for in the past. I seriously think that this is mostly a case of looking down at people we consider "below" us and getting angry that they have something we don't. And on the one hand we call them "uneducated" "unskilled" "useless" and on the other we cry about how much we can't live without them...so which is it??
We think that with our few thousand tax dollars we're entitled to a whole heck of a lot -- perfect roads, flawless transit, unlimited curbside pick-up of whatever trash we decide to produce -- but the truth is that sometimes we have to sacrifice too...
I hope they stay out till December, as gargage will freeze then.