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Morning Brew: Rob Ford out of hospital, an Ontario Place conspiracy theory, councillor mulls joint Olympic bid, "Her Majesty" nests in Queen's Park, and lost streets

Posted by Chris Bateman / August 10, 2012

32 Comments

toronto morning skyline crane neil taRob Ford is out of hospital and "healthy as a horse" according to his brother, councillor Doug Ford. Despite being told to take a few days rest, Mayor Ford says he's doing "everything the doctors told [him] not to do" by going to Taste of the Danforth this weekend. In an interview with AM640, Ford said he welcomed public interest in his health, describing himself as "an open book."

In other Rob Ford news, the mayor says he will forego a planned pay rise for city councillors. Ford's salary is rising to $172,803 from $167,770. Not too shabby at all.

Ontario Place may not have been the loss-making venue the provincial government made it out to be, according to an editorial in The Star. Bob Hepburn, who says he's seen secret documents relating to the park, says Ontario Place was actually about to stage a financial comeback. Was the home of the Cinesphere killed for a casino?

Councillor James Pasternak says Toronto could make a joint bid for the 2024 Olympic Games with Buffalo, NY. If successful, it would be the first games split between two countries. According to Yahoo! Sports, the Buffalo mayor is "intrigued." Sound like a good idea? Do the Olympics seem like the next logical step after the 2015 Pan Am Games?

In a cautionary tale for anyone who takes on city hall, a Toronto doctor has been slapped with a $70,537 legal bill over a failed attempt to dispute a $31 parking ticket. Yikes.

A red-tail hawk nesting near Queen's Park now has an official name. Premier Dalton McGuinty ran a poll on his blog to find a title for the majestic bird and readers opted for "Her Majesty" over "Hawkeye" and "Mama Hawk." Can you come up with something better?

According to Google Maps, there are some major gaps in downtown Toronto's street grid this morning. Spotted by Reddit user BKXBKXB, several holes have appeared in College/Carlton, Dundas, University and "Old" Yonge Street to some users. According to the discussion, Google says the problem isn't easy to remedy and could remain for some time. In 2010, the site briefly renamed Wellesley Street "Lourdes Lane."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Photo: "If this is Heaven We'll be All Right" by Neil Ta in the blogTO Flickr pool.

Discussion

32 Comments

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Mike / August 10, 2012 at 08:17 am
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Nothing says the prestige of the Olympics like an event held in North Tonawanda.
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EricM / August 10, 2012 at 08:40 am
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Ok, setting aside all debate about if the Olympics are a good or bad idea financially speaking etc. etc. Why on earth would we want to be associated with Buffalo in any freakin' way?!? The place is a rusted out and flaming hulk of what was at best a once mediocre city! I honestly feel bad for the poor folks who live there, but I don't want to be associated that that place in anyway and certainly not on a global stage! Toronto and Buffalo as twins?! Well... one of them is certainly the redheaded step kid straight out of a Dickens novel and it ain't us...
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Matt replying to a comment from EricM / August 10, 2012 at 08:50 am
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Maybe Toronto could hold the games and Buffalo itself could act as the torch...
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JackK / August 10, 2012 at 09:05 am
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Wait a minute. Wouldn't a raise be gravy train? Everything else has been cut, slashed or frozen. It would also be interesting if he continues to believe that Torontonians should be paying to fuel up that new gas guzzler. I do remember him being very vocal about how councillors should pay for their own expenses and set an example. Why arent we funding to fuel up a hybrid, small car or bike instead? What happened to the noble leading by example? He should be taking a paycut, not a raise.
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o_p / August 10, 2012 at 09:09 am
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Let Buffalo saddle the Olympics. We don't need that ish here.
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Adam / August 10, 2012 at 09:11 am
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Wait - Dalton McGuinty has a blog?!
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K-Borg / August 10, 2012 at 09:13 am
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Rob Ford an open book? No chance. Open menu on the other hand...
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Jeff replying to a comment from JackK / August 10, 2012 at 09:14 am
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JackK, think you need to read that again. Says he will "forego" the pay raise. Sound like the other councillors voted themselves a pay raise.
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Jeff / August 10, 2012 at 09:15 am
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But the post above should be corrected to say that his salary "was to rise" that "is going"
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Lomo / August 10, 2012 at 09:26 am
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Only thing Buffalo is good enough for is the Special Olympics.
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iSkyscraper / August 10, 2012 at 09:37 am
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If it was 1912, a Buffalo-Toronto bid might make sense. Buffalo had hosted the World's Fair in 1901 and was the 10th biggest city in the US back then, with twice the population it has today and 25% bigger than wee provincial Toronto (the #2 city of Canada).

In 2012, this is beyond ridiculous. I know people are really impressed with the whole East London regeneration spurred by the Olympics but that doesn't mean you go stick the thing on just any rust belt site. (Rowing in the Love Canal, anyone?) Pasternak just devalued his political currency significantly. The logistics would be impossible, the distance is too great, and no international visitor in their right mind wants to visit Atlanta-by-the-lake, I mean Toronto, never mind Buffalo. 1996 was the only time a TO bid could have worked - we have to move on.

Move on to Buffalo jokes, that is. I'll start. "... first prize, one night's stay in Buffalo!" "What's second prize?" "Two nights in Buffalo".
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YouWinAgainGravity / August 10, 2012 at 09:44 am
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I like the idea of a Buffalo / Toronto Olympics. A unique idea to a staid games. So what if Buffalo is a bit run down. So was the east end of London. Certainly no worse than Atlanta (that city is a mess) or Athens. Plus a nice way to share the costs and strengthen ties to our cousins to the south. Like it or not Toronto and Buffalo are always going to be close, and associated with each other. Nothing you can do about that.
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Mark replying to a comment from JackK / August 10, 2012 at 09:45 am
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Reading Comprehension 101 Jackk. Forgo means he is not taking the money. Leading by example and all that.
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McRib / August 10, 2012 at 09:53 am
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the difference of course is that London's east end was still in London, a few km's away from the centre of one of the worlds most prominent cultural capitals.

And on the other hand, you have Buffalo. I don't even think Toronto should be hosting the games until we grow up a bit and actually put some thought and pride into our public realm. A lot of Toronto, especially in the core, is fairly shabby in appearance. Buffalo is on a whole next level when it comes to shabby.

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Tony / August 10, 2012 at 10:12 am
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Enough with the academic. Buffalo is a pathetic shithole of a place. I will not mention our cities name with them again.
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marcus / August 10, 2012 at 10:13 am
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Toronto and buffalo? we should see if detroit wants in on this! triiiIIple threaaAat!!
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Johnny Tronno replying to a comment from JackK / August 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
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And.....he doesn't expense his gas or anything else for that matter back to the city. He pays all expenses related to city business out of his silver lined pockets.

He's been vocal about that ever since he was a lowly city Councillor.
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Jenny / August 10, 2012 at 10:21 am
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Actually, I've always kind of liked Buffalo in a Jerry Springer kind of way. We may elect a buffoon for a Mayor, our transit system is a bit of a joke and who knows what will become of the waterfront... but we have it better than those folks!
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Matt replying to a comment from Jenny / August 10, 2012 at 10:33 am
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And like Jerry Springer guests, Buffalo seems so bad and such a farce that you are pretty sure its all made up... but it isn't... Buffalo at least.
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jennifer / August 10, 2012 at 10:36 am
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Buffalo actually has some beautiful architecture, a stellar art gallery and a top notch rowing club (with a boathouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). It's not as bad there as you think.
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Jer / August 10, 2012 at 10:38 am
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I know I won't change a lot of people's minds with this, but, Buffalo is actually pretty nice. Amazing architecture, some interesting historical sites. It is a shame that it has seen the outflux of a lot of wealth, jobs, etc but I wouldn't write it off completely as a place to visit.

Re: Olympics, yeah, it would seem a bit of a logistically nightmare with a border in between/etc but maybe this is more of a political chess game to get places like Hamilton on board who ended up being very indecisive with the Pan-Am bid
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Johnny replying to a comment from jennifer / August 10, 2012 at 10:53 am
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So even Frank Lloyd Wright designed a building to help people row away from the place rather than a house so one would have to stay there? ;) All jokes aside, we aren't ready and Buffalo is a place where you can't help but feel bad for the folks there and in fact all of the rust belt.
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Christopher King / August 10, 2012 at 11:36 am
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Are people aware that up until today, Dalton only had 4 subscribers to his blog? I'm now the fifth. Poll to name the raptor wasn't really representational of all Ontarians
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Alex / August 10, 2012 at 11:43 am
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Can we please not host the Olympics? It costs a boatload of money and as we've seen in London you aren't likely to get tickets to the events anyway. I want a bunch of federal money for infrastructure too, but I don't want our transit system planned out to be most beneficial to the Olympics and designed to get people to and from venues. I'd rather not have large parts of the city taken over by Visa and Coke anyway, or bulldozed to create Athletes' Villages which are later abandoned.
Could we just have a city-wide athletics competition where recreational athletes from different neighbourhoods compete against each other? I'd enjoy that more.
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j-rock / August 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm
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Toronto's Olympic moment has passed. Or maybe it hasn't come around again yet. I would have been happy to have had them in 1996, and was pretty sure we were going to get them in 2008 since Beijing had previously been denied over their Human Rights record (which I guess had been all cleared up by 2001), but I don't really see the point anymore. While it might convince the province and the feds to actually pony up some money for infrastructure, and we might be able to get a subway or rail line out of it, as time goes on it just seems like an expensive headache.

Plus there's the inevitable inconvenience foisted upon the locals, who often have a hard time even getting into events. Despite all of the empty seats on display in London, a friend of mine has spent the better part of the last two weeks trying to get a ticket to anything, and finally succeeded in scoring a pair to a non-medal handball match.

But if Toronto does go down this road again, Buffalo is not up to being a partner city. I have nothing against the place, it's a city full of nice people with good bar food. But it's not ready to host anything on the scale of the Olympics, and isn't the kind of place Toronto should want to be too closely associated with in the eyes of the world.
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Thomas / August 10, 2012 at 01:14 pm
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If getting the Olympics means more transit infrastructure and greater pressure on council to get things done, then I support the Olympic bid fully. And I completely 100% f*%^ing hate the Olympics.
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Ratpick replying to a comment from Lomo / August 10, 2012 at 02:06 pm
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"Only thing Buffalo is good enough for is the Special Olympics."

I'm all for making fun of people who deserve it.

But let's call Special Olympics, and the people who benefit from that organization, off limits. Agree?
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easy replying to a comment from Mark / August 10, 2012 at 03:44 pm
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easy to forgo it when you were born with a silver spoon in your butt.
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Mark replying to a comment from easy / August 10, 2012 at 04:07 pm
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Yes, all those poverty stricken councillors are just going to be homeless unless they get this raise. Won't someone please think of the poor councillors! How can they live on such a pittance.
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j-rock replying to a comment from Mark / August 10, 2012 at 04:54 pm
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City councilors that already make in and around six-figures should really understand how bad the optics surrounding a pay increase are. Ford paying his office budget out of pocket was grandstanding, and easy for him because he was born into money. But he's doing the right thing turning down the raise. And I almost never accuse Rob Ford of doing the right thing.
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amen replying to a comment from j-rock / August 10, 2012 at 05:02 pm
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amen, mark needs to get his lips off of fords butt sometimes.
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Simon Tarses replying to a comment from iSkyscraper / August 13, 2012 at 12:31 am
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What is it with you and your hatred of Toronto, and why the frack are you on this blog commenting if you do hate the city? You live in New York, comment on it, and leave us alone.
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