After he professed a willingness to die to see the sale of raw milk legalized, it should come as no surprise that food freedom crusader Michael Schmidt is prepared to go to prison for his cause. Schmidt was in court in Newmarket last week for sentencing on convictions related to the sale of unpasteurized milk. The judge—who seemed entirely sympathetic to the cause—handed down a relatively gentle fine, but Schmidt, ever the hard-liner, refused to accept it.
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Jesse Brown: how big wireless companies, the banks, and even the actors’ union are keeping our mobile bills the highest in the world
Getting gouged by cellphone providers is such a routine part of life in Canada that it barely seems worth complaining about. Yet we complain all the time. We trade tales of shocking bills and awful customer service at every opportunity. We complain to friends and we complain to strangers. I complain professionally. To be a technology journalist in Canada is to constantly feed the nation’s seething consumer outrage.
Yes, Canadians pay higher monthly wireless bills than citizens of any other country, according to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Yes, our data roaming fees are higher than those in any other country, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Yes, a cartel of three carriers—Bell, Rogers and Telus—still controls 95 per cent of our market, despite the emergence of budget providers Wind, Public and Mobilicity. And yes, text message fees in Canada are ridiculously marked up, by as much as 4,900 per cent, according to academic estimates. Each story solidifies our right to kvetch. We truly are the most screwed-over cellphone users in the world.
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Occupy Toronto gets crushed by the man, then fights the power and actually wins (at least, momentarily)
Protesters at St. James Park after being served with an eviction notice (Image: Kevin Hamilton)
The campout will continue. After the city served Occupy Toronto with an eviction notice yesterday morning, it looked like the party was over. Written by city manager Joe Pennachetti, the notice ordered occupiers to “remove immediately any tent, shelter, structure, equipment and debris” from the park and to stay out between 12:01 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. The protesters began hashing out a series of contingency plans, while a group of sympathetic left-leaning councillors issued a letter to Mayor Rob Ford calling for more discussion. But after a day of frantic action, a last-minute injunction spared the group from eviction—at least until Saturday.
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Ontario to (slightly) loosen liquor laws by summer: Attorney General
Ontario’s liquor laws are probably not becoming quite this liberal any time soon (Image: Mike Rychlik from the Torontolife.com flickr pool)
We’ll have that mimosa right about now, please. A couple months ago, we reported that Attorney General Chris Bentley made a point to announce that the province would consider any requests to extend bar hours for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s nuptials. Now, Bentley says that Ontario is on track to further relax its liquor laws over the next couple of months—hopefully by the time real summer weather hits. Due to overwhelming public support, his proposal to loosen Ontario’s liquor laws regarding festivals, weddings, charity events and possibly even boat cruises and patios looks like it’s going ahead.
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The war on fun takes aim at a new target: city patios
Future Bakery’s popular Annex patio (Image: Andrzej Wrotek)
City council was busy junking 2010’s harmonization of city zoning bylaws yesterday—but as the Toronto Star points out, that isn’t necessarily the best idea. Although the project was roundly criticized by the development industry and David Miller’s opponents for a multitude of technical errors—its supporters, on the other hand, greeted it as an unglamorous but important achievement—there was good reason behind it. Take, for example, the existing bylaws pertaining to the city’s outside patios and rooftop decks: basically, they’re kind of ridiculous.
The Star discovers non-motorists’ lives come cheap in Ontario
(Image: Dylan Passmore)
A lot of cyclists already knew that the price drivers pay for killing a pedestrian in Ontario is absurdly low—but we’re happy to see the Toronto Star now knows it, too. Yesterday, the city’s paper of record noted that the penalty for ending another person’s life with a car is shockingly minimal, provided, of course, the driver is sober. Really, it’s as simple as a $500 fine—no jail time, not even a suspended driver’s licence.
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Repealed laws, unreleased reports and plea bargains? Thursday is apparently G8/G20 news dump day
The infamous fence (Image: Yeshwant from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
We’re only a few months away from the one-year anniversary of the G8/G20 summits that were ever so much fun for this city. In case anyone needs a hand remembering what kind of festivities we put up with last year, the provincial government and the news media have conspired to remind us all with a trio of stories that involve that magical weekend last summer.
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Pride Festival still in Mammoliti’s crosshairs despite city staff declining to call “Israeli Apartheid” hate speech
Protesters at Pride 2009 (Image: Neal Jennings)
One of the actions the city has undertaken in relation to the annual Pride Festival is to ask its staff to determine if the use of the words “Israeli Apartheid” constitutes hate speech. The term was at the centre of controversy last year when the group Queers United Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) was banned and then un-banned from the Pride Toronto Parade. Yesterday, the city staff concluded that, under criminal law and provincial human rights rules, QuAIA is not engaging in hate speech. Case closed? Hardly. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and others on council are now threatening to pull not only Pride Toronto’s grant, but also its city-provided police and cleanup crews, if QuAIA is allowed to march. “We don’t support hate groups, that’s our view. If they want to march in the parade, then we won’t fund them,” said councillor Doug Ford, according to the Post.
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First prostitution, now pot: Ontario courts keep targeting taboos
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The Ontario Superior Court has been busy lately, striking blows against contradictory laws. First there was last fall’s ruling against the province’s weird prostitution law (which can be summed up as “prostitution is legal unless money changes hands”). Today, the court has struck down some of Canada’s laws on using marijuana for medicinal purposes (which can be summed up as “it’s legal unless doctor after doctor refuses to help”). According to the National Post, the court has nullified the parts of Canada’s drug laws that have to do with producing and possessing drugs.
Toronto cops flood “sunshine list” of public servants pulling in over $100,000 (Officer Bubbles included!)
Police at the G20 conference in Toronto, June 2010 (Image: Ronnie Yip, from the Toronto Life Flickr pool)
Ontario’s sunshine list has once again let everyone know which public servants made at least six figures in the previous year. Leading off this time around are the two CEOs of Ontario’s hydroelectric utilities, OPG and Hydro One, as well as Governor General David Johnston, who pulled in a cool million as president of the University of Waterloo before he became GG (and took a substantial pay cut). One profession in particular saw a big bump in wages, and it’s not terribly surprising: police officers. The cops who worked overtime during the G20 made a tidy sum this year, with some notable Toronto cops making it on to the sunshine list.
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Former Queen’s Park insider has a billion-dollar 407 secret that he’ll share for only millions of dollars
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Here’s a nutty story we don’t quite know what to make of: former provincial insider Jodie Parmar (mainly known as the dude responsible for the 407 during the Mike Harris years) tells the Toronto Star that he knows how Ontario could save $1 billion. For a government facing many times that in deficits for the next few years, this should be an easy sell. The problem, apparently, is Parmar’s insistence on an unorthodox payment scheme: 2.5 per cent of any money he finds through existing provincial projects. See? Nutty.
Dave Foley allegedly owes $500,000 that he just doesn’t have
Dave Foley in summer 2010 (Image: Frederick M. Brown/Stringer/Getty Images)
Comic Dave Foley is back on the stand-up circuit in the United States, but he won’t be taking the act to his native Toronto anytime soon. Allegedly, Foley owes about $500,000 in child support to his ex-wife, Globe and Mail columnist Tabatha Southey, with whom he has two teenage sons. As Foley succinctly put it via Twitter in December, “Family court in Ontario ruled I have to pay 1st wife 3X my monthly income or go to jail because I used to be rich.”
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Mint bringing lighter loonies and toonies to Canadian pockets everywhere
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Do Canadians stagger under the unbearable weight of the coins in their pockets? Do baristas and bartenders struggle to carry home their tips at the end of the night? If so, the good news is that the Royal Canadian Mint is bringing in lighter-weight loonies and toonies—a move that will save taxpayers $15 million a year by replacing the old coins with new ones that have cheaper metals at their core (steel or zinc are common).
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