Saturday Brew: Punjabi Gender Scam, Casino Craziness, Wild West on Ossington, Beer Store Reports Recycling Increase, the Panda Plan
Photo: Interior - TD Canada Trust Tower by Jarrett E. Hather, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
An investigative report in the Toronto Star aims to shed light on the degree to which Punjabi women in the GTA are pressured to give birth to baby boys. Posing as a a pregnant mother, a staff reporter responded to an ad in Mississauga's Punjabi paper, Ajit Weekly, which promised a way to ensure having a baby boy. The ad is the work of the paper's editor, Kanwar Bains, who provided a plethora of pills for a fee of 750 dollars, claiming they'd provide an 85% chance of a male birth. Over and above the scam, the article reveals the intense cultural demand for male children in the GTA's Punjabi community and its detrimental effect on would-be mothers, who some claim are forced to resort to aborting female fetuses at alarming rates.
Staying on the topic of "scams," certain casinos outside of Toronto -- in such places as Niagara Falls, Orillia, and Windsor -- are actually providing house credit to big time gamblers. The amount of credit offered between 2000-2009 comes in at around $89 million dollars, although that number may not reflect that amount actually taken by gamblers. Even though there are a number of provisions put in place to ensure that such credit can't be used in the heat of the moment and that it only be given to those who've received a background check, I've gotta think this practice should be banned. Isn't it just common sense that gambling with credit is almost inevitably going to backfire? Well, mathetmatics would say so at least...
Is Ossington south of Dundas a sort of wild west, a modern-day Deadwood, if you will? We already know that's what deputy mayor and area councillor Joe Pantalone believes, but the opening paragraphs of this article keep the hyperbole on high in describing a lack of change in the area six months into city council's year-long ban on liquor licence applications. Thankfully, a little balance is provided later in the form of a mini-profile of Paul Böhmer, a highly regarded chef who's liquor licence was the last submitted before the moratorium. But, come on, I've never seen the article's description of "hordes of intoxicated revellers trawling the strip in search of the hottest nightspot." That quotation does, on the other hand, paint a pretty accurate picture of the club district, doesn't it?
The Beer Store is reporting a one per cent increase in the return of beer, liquor and wine bottles. Although it sounds tiny, such an improvement is actually pretty encouraging based on the fact that the return rate was already at 93 per cent. Despite the hate I have on for the the Brewer's Retail monopoly over the Ontario beer market, the return program, which saw 1.86 billion of the 1.97 billion beer containers sold in the province returned last year, remains a model recycling system that it seems is only getting better.
The Toronto Zoo is pursuing a plan to acquire two panda's from China despite discouragement from the mayor and the knowledge that a panda exhibit would almost surely lose a lot of money (estimates reach $4.2 million over ten years). The key supporter of this trip is Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who believes that the pandas would help to generate support for large-scale improvements to the zoo in the upcoming years. There remains, however, no guarantee that the Chinese will provide the desired male and female bears, particularly in the absence of support for the plan from the Canadian government.
Comments (23)
Ossington is a hipster cesspool that the Star article gets bang on. Drunk kids in stupid tight jeans weaving all over the place on their way from one crappy bar to another. And don't even get me started on Pizzeria Libretto. I'll take Pizza Nova any day...
I'm genuinely shocked by the article about gender selection in the Punjabi community. How does that sort of thing make its way into Canada? Is there really already a gender skew? It's fucking lunacy. The motivations may have been based on real concerns in India (eg the inability of a female to provide, though this doesn't justify abortion) but these don't exist in Canada. I really appreciate the people doing outreach.
The author's description of Ossington makes me believe that he's never been there on a weekend. This place has jumped the shark and is already a club district west, full of the typical d-bags.
Wait, are you saying the Lincoln Tunnel isn't in Toronto? We still have a Brooklyn Bridge don't we?
I'm amazed that the first two comments were "hipster" hate and that it took until the third to mention the incredibly shocking and upsetting story about the unacceptable sexism and female oppression in the GTA's Punjabi community.
Pretty sad.
Yes, that Punjabi babies article is excellent and very affecting. How can you possibly imagine that a canuck-born daughter won't have the opportunity and wherewithall to be anything more than a housewife (not that there's anything wrong with that blah blah) and even support you later in life, just as your sons - must be doubly disturbing for the female, south asian doctors interviewed in the piece and who have to deal with the parents. And if it's truly the mothers-in-law who are driving this, punjabi men need to grow the hell up!
Would have liked to see them follow up on the editor selling the "drugs" though - the background was very interesting but the invstigative bit seemed to fall off a bit. Hopefully he's getting his hands slapped by somebody.
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Hey thanks Meg, but I'm not sure 'bridge and tunnel' has attained the wide usage necessary to serve as a metaphor for suburbanites in cities other than New York. Instead it looks like a sad attempt to appropriate the local parlance of another city in a shitty attempt to bask in its cool.
Here in Toronto we call them 905'ers or, if we want to be offensive, 'people from Mississauga'. I'm not trying to be all Adam Vaughan here either. Mississauga is just shit. I can get down with Scarborough though.
Take home point: We're our own city, we have our own terms, stop being pathetic.
Bridge and tunnel!
That's hip I get the reference!!! I'm included in and exclusive statement because I understand what it means and you don't!!!
How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
It's a pretty obscure number you probably wouldn't know it.
mathematically hipsters belong to a Diophantine set but when the ^drunk^ operator is applied they transform to merely diaphanous.
ossington is a point attractor of degenerate elements from the 905 toroid.
A metaphor doesn't rely on wide usage, it is a comparison. B&T in this instance is adjectival and refers to a class of people entering an area, not a people. The term has grown beyond its literal meaning, despite your lack of use or understanding.
Were just outta touch and now were the ones pointing fingers at the hipsters. Its nothing new this has happened for years with the greasers, the hippies, the punks, skaters, hip hoppers, new wavers, etc. It always has to do with hair, how the jeans are worn.
As to the scary sex selection - it's huge across the subcontinent, despite being heavily illegal in India. It's also huge in the diaspora in the UK and apparently North America as well. Cultural norms can outlast their proximate cause for disturbingly long periods of time.
One of the major reasons it's not as evident in the Canadian Chinese population is the large proportions who are Christian (very seriously evangelical Christian, not UCC chistian-lite). Removes the ancestor cult need for sons and celebrates the sanctity of all children. China and the countries of the sub-continent could be the next massively Christian nations for the same reason that Rome became Christian: women want to save their children (or in this case, daughters).
Really? Refers to a "class" of people. Which class is that? The class that owns a home, or that lives with their parents, or goes to school out of downtown? What class exactly?
It's a douche comment to say in Manhattan, and it's a douche comment to say in Toronto, especially when there is a symbiotic relationship with its surrounding boroughs that is even greater than Manhattan's.
Shouldn't you be in a bar somewhere, where it's kinda messy, on purpose, and the bartenders spend most of the night talking to their friends. Playing bad music because it's "ironic"?
Spyder, what is the use of comparing a thing to another thing if the second thing is so obscure as to obscure the association? You might as well just fart out of your mouth for all the communicative work you're doing.
"This orange is as moist as a elephantelopersimmon!"
Good job, skippy.
hey david, you know what you are? a 905er. its not a douche comment to say, you didnt grow up downtown. i would be kinda bitter about it as well i suppose.
lets just imagine that every fri/sat i went up to your parents area in woodbridge and acted like a...dare i say...douche, ending my night by peeing on their lawn while yelling down the street. cause thats what people who grew up downtown feel like they have to put up with every week. people who grew up in the core dont do shit like that, we have more respect then to do that.
now im not saying all 905ers do that either.
but david if you walk into a bar and the bartender ignores you and continues talking to their friends, it is prob cause their douche radar went off the moment you stepped in the door.
what toronto did you grow up in, bittles? i grew up in the 'core' and people raised in the city aren't any more or less respectful of it than others
they might not pee on the lawns on their own street, but a few blocks away? fair game!
Okay, first, I'm not a 905er. I live in the city, no parents in Woodbridge. And I'm sure I'm the first person to comment on Toronto's service industry.
Also, it is a stupid comment to class everybody from the 905 as those people that drive slammed Hondas in the club district, the thing is that that is a small percentage of the 905, its just to most obvious and largest target. I don't get them either, my comment was more isolated to the term "bridge and tunnel" than maybe you got before.
I am sick of The Star taking any opportunity to take a weakness in any part of an exotic minority and use it as a way to paint their whole culture (to be fair, The Star also runs many features sympathizing with immigrants).
As a Punjabi, I am very proud of my daughters, as are all in my family! Please do not let these misguided articles paint the entire picture of a culture, it's simply not true.
Great, now the only way a retrograde Asian cultural aesthetic can be got rid of is with a fundamentalist Christian one. Not good.
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