Photo: "rflect" by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

The province won't step in with back to work legislation but will step in to shut down a private garbage collection and compost pit. The Granite Club, one of the city's exclusive hangouts, had been letting members drop off trash at the club but will now need an $1,100 permit to continue the practice. Adam Vaughan says the province is overreacting by trying to shut down community garden compost collections that haven't gotten a $1,400 permit. I would think the province has bigger issues to work on, but maybe this looks like easy cash to add to the provincial coffers.

In other strike news, the city is preparing to open 200 more dump sites. Yes, 200. The mind boggles. No wonder prominent American travel writer Larry Habegger is warning potential visitors to stay away (via 680news).

Funding given for the Pride Parade may have cost Minister of State for Tourism Diane Ablonczy her role in delivering a tourism stimulus package. Conservative MP Brad Trost is suggesting the $400,000 given to the parade did Ablonczy in, although it's unclear just how many of their caucus colleagues agree with the move. Regardless, how pathetic: even if MPs don't like Toronto's Pride Parade it is undeniably a major tourism draw as one of the world's largest pride parades.

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin caught a driver shaving his head and captured the incident on his new iPhone. Shaving while driving will likely be illegal when the new restriction on using electronic devices comes into effect, but there's a special sort of irony that Marin broke the soon-to-take-effect law by using his iPhone to video the event. Marin then started discussion on Twitter, although considering the first update came via the web he likely did not use his iPhone to Tweet.

Most parents probably have a "horror" story of their child falling, but just how far can a child fall safely? Yesterday at The Bay one 3 year old fell 2 stories down an elevator shaft and was only taken to hospital as a precaution. I suspect The Bay will now be closing up whatever gap was big enough to let a child through to the elevator shaft.

The Leafs landed heavily courted Swedish goalie phenom Jonas Gustavsson for $900k yesterday. Toronto's hockey obsession apparently played a part in wooing Gustavsson our way. For the Raptor's big signing - which cost considerably more - Toronto's multicultural nature wooed Turkoglu, although that deal may not be official for a few more days. It will be months before the official impact - a playoff berth - is official.