(Image: screen grab from robford.ca)

When the mayor’s registration of RobFord.ca expired earlier this year, an opportunistic prankster seized the opportunity, registering the domain and redirecting traffic to the Toronto Star’s website. Since the prank made news yesterday, the page has also featured a “Robert Ford” beauty contest and directed visitors to a Wikipedia page for a certain cowardly killer. It now features the email address outlaw@robford.ca and is apparently “occupied”—but the content seems to be ever changing. Given the long-standing public feud between Ford and the Star, this might look like a dirty (read: clever) trick by the newspaper. But the Star maintains its innocence. Which, really, is too bad. This kind of playful scheming is a lot more fun than a front-page hissy fit. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The long-running spat between Mayor Rob Ford and the Toronto Star ramped up last week: first the Star filed a complaint with the city integrity commissioner, then Doug Ford responded, and then the Star ran a story on Ford’s response with the headline “Doug Ford to Star: Drop Dead.” Ryerson journalism professor John Miller says the Star is right to file a formal complaint—but that it should do so quietly. The paper’s dirty laundry isn’t front-page news. Read the entire story [J-Source] »

The Toronto Star is going to the city’s integrity commissioner to settle its long-standing grudge match with Mayor Rob Ford. Ever since the Star published a story claiming Ford roughed up one of his players while coaching at Newtonbrook Secondary School, Ford has refused to speak to the paper (except for the time a “groggy-sounding Ford” commented on his kidney stone). Apparently, Ford even took the spat a step further recently, asking the paper’s competitors not to tell the communists at One Yonge (we assume Mammoliti can smell them) about a brief on arts funding. The Star’s return message to Ford: don’t mess. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

(Image: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost)

(Image: James Byrum)

Top Chef Canada made headlines (and alienated horse lovers everywhere) earlier this year when it featured horsemeat during a classic French cuisine challenge. The scandal prompted an in-depth investigation of the industry by the ever-intrepid Toronto Star, which explained how a 2007 slaughtering ban in the United States led to a boom in Canada’s industry. Now, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, horsemeat may be making a return to the U.S. market in the coming months.

From the Tribune:

Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a five-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.

Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horsemeat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

Still, as the paper points out, that consumption of horsemeat is practically non-existent in the United States, with prior slaughterhouses shipping their meat to countries in Europe and Asia (Toronto’s La Palette pulled the dish from its menu in the wake of the Star investigation). Horsemeat consumption is often opposed due to uncertain sourcing and inhumane practices, but proponents like Montana senator Max Baucus have argued that the flip side is an increased neglect and abandonment of horses across the United States. How this will shake out for Canada’s slaughterhouses is still unknown.

• Horses could soon be slaughtered for meat in U.S. [Chicago Tribune]

Having slashed councillor expense budgets, city hall is looking for new ways to save money. One idea is to eliminate the Toronto Hardship Fund, which the city’s website describes as a way to “meet the medically based needs of residents where the cost of these items would cause undue financial hardship.” If that sounds at touch abstract, the good folk at the Toronto Star (who may or may not be headed for the chopping block themselves) did what good journalists do and followed the money—all the way to a $3,500 bed for an elderly woman, Shirley Schillinger, who suffers from chronic pain.

The city’s paper of record has the details:

Schillinger is one of about 1,300 low-income Toronto seniors and disabled people with serious medical needs who benefit from the $900,000 city fund every year. But city council voted 23-22 last month to consider axing the fund as part of its efforts to shave $360 million from next year’s budget.

More than a dozen community social service agencies are hoping city manager Joe Pennachetti spares the fund when he tables his proposed 2012 budget later this month.

“Eliminating the fund will endanger the health and wellbeing of more than a thousand Toronto residents who struggle daily with the basics,” says John Campey of Social Planning Toronto, which is leading a campaign to save the fund.

Depending on your point of view, the fund is either a good example of taxpayer dollars at work (60 cents per year for the average property taxpayer) or, you know, a big boat of gravy. Of course, since Rob Ford didn’t find the gravy at city hall that he preached about on the campaign trail, he has repeatedly redefined his favourite term to include thing like city workers and even the vehicle registration tax. In other words, he seems to be gradually defining everything that represents any sort of government intervention as a form of waste. Sure, sticking up for the Hardship Fund would be a deviation from his larger strategy, but could it really hurt Ford that much? After all, a bed for a senior citizen isn’t quite the same as a $12,000 retirement party.

• Hardship fund on the chopping block [Toronto Star]

(Images: Bed, Joelk75; gravy boat, Glory Foods)

(Image: Christopher Drost)

Because newspaper columnists love tying their columns to milestones—for instance, say, the first anniversary of Rob Ford’s 2010 election—some of the city’s finest weighed in this weekend on the mayor’s tenure so far. The columns were roundly predictable, but they do provide something in the way of worthwhile analysis, as well as a few lines we’re sure to be quoting for the coming months (the Toronto Star’s Royson James said the mayor treats Toronto “like a bastard child he’s never hugged and doesn’t know how to love”; we reluctantly concur). A roundup of who said what on Ford’s performance thus far, after the jump.

• Once he’s finished calling Rob Ford a “rotund, rich, balding guy from the suburbs whose suits don’t fit,” Royson James poses a question: are Ford’s brash personality, his unwillingness to compromise and, apparently, his appearance overshadowing the worthwhile exercise of examining government spending? James spoke to two city councillors with divergent opinions. Ana Bailão thinks Ford’s hasty retreat compromise on the waterfront suggests he might be amenable to working with his opponents (though she also says the Ford administration is “a lot more divisive than I anticipated”). Adam Vaughan, on the other hand, thinks Ford’s opponents will simply have to contain the damage done by Ford and ride out the remainder of his administration. He also doesn’t think Ford is a very reasonable guy. On this we agree.

• Sue-Ann Levy directs a fair bit of disapproval at Ford, calling his promise of no service cuts “naïve” and gently criticizing his recent concessions to police. But Levy—and Ford, of course—won’t draw any sort of link between the city’s current financial problems and the tax reductions and freezes that have characterized the mayor’s administration to date. It’s pretty easy to list cutting the vehicle registration tax as one of your major achievements, but it’s a lot tougher to wrestle with the implications. Oh, and Levy also quotes Ford as saying that he hasn’t closed a single library, a statement that can be refuted by a few quality seconds on Google.

• Following a pretty impressive shootout metaphor that involves Ford’s gun belt falling down around his ankles, Marcus Gee suggests that Ford mix his message of fiscal conservatism with one of optimism and progress. He also suggests the mayor be more transparent with his schedule. Although both may be worthwhile suggestions, they’re still contrary to Ford’s ideological conservatism—and his personality. We’re not saying Ford won’t take this advice; we’re just saying he really, really won’t like it.

• The Toronto Star’s editorial board notes one positive, and perhaps unexpected, highlight of Ford’s early months in office: a newly engaged citizenship. People are staying up for all-night executive committee meetings and mobilizing to save the waterfront. This is somewhat reassuring—but, really, it’s probably little more than a silver lining.

• An uneasy year for Rob Ford and Toronto [Toronto Star]
• Bad news for Ford: It gets harder [Toronto Star]
• Year of Ford had ups and downs [Toronto Sun]
• To rescue his mayoralty, Ford needs to be more positive [Globe and Mail]

UPDATE Oct. 20 at 10:42 p.m.: we received a press release from Pusateri’s this evening acknowledging that as of 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, the store was temporarily closed following a visit from public health. From the release:

During the investigation, a small portion of the storage area and walk-in coolers as well as “hard-to-reach and obscure locations” seem to have been infested by pests, which may have been missed as a result of human error during our on-going routine maintenance. The situation is already being dealt with including the complete removal of all goods in the effected areas to ensure no further problems arise.

None of our public areas have been affected by this incident. Our location has operated for 25 years with complete compliance Toronto Public Health regulations. We are committed to following our track record as soon as this incident passes.

The City of Toronto DineSafe page for Pusateri’s has also been updated to reflect the latest inspection. The report lists eight infractions, including “inadequate pest control” and “improper maintenance/sanitation of non-food contact surfaces/equipment.”

UPDATE Oct. 21 at 9:45 a.m.: a spokesman for Pusateri’s has let us know that the store is being scrubbed down by professional cleaners at the moment, and could reopen as soon as tomorrow. Apparently, the infestation problem seems to have been caused by a shipment of wicker baskets from abroad; they’ve since been removed from the site and destroyed. He also told us that the store’s last routine pest control check was performed just over a week ago.

• Rats, roaches shut down gourmet grocery store Pusateri’s [Toronto Star]

Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail’s “Caption Writing Person” set off an online frenzy with a series of epic one-liners mocking Hollywood excess in the age of the Occupy Everywhere movement. But it wasn’t long before people began wondering—for no good reason, really—whether the Globe had been hacked. For its part, Gawker published a post saying the caption writer had gone “rogue” (an adjective we think remains best reserved for failed vice-presidential candidates). Of course, we’re just grateful that this Can Con moment was far less embarrassing than the usual appearances. Nonetheless, some Toronto Gawker headline highlights, after the jump.

• “Canadian G-20 Flash Mobs Hate Capitalism, Love Smartphones”
The G20 weekend was one embarrassment after another, but Gawker chose to rip on the seeming contradiction between smashing the window of a Starbucks before, uh, liberating a smart phone. They also made some jokes about Quebec.

• “Canadian Newspaper Runs Full-Page Anti-Gay, Anti-Transgender Ad”
Apparently, word reach New York about the National Post’s decision to run (and subsequent weak apology for running) an illogical and transphobic advertisement late last month. Millions of people around the world now know about the Post’s bad decision and the advertiser’s belief that sex education is warping the minds of children. Just don’t tell Gawker that the Sun ran a similar ad shortly thereafter.

• “Mayor’s Office Tries to Hide All Naked Portraits of Toronto Mayor”
We’re not sure who to blame for this one: Now’s editors for choosing to run a doctored image of half-naked Rob Ford, or the mayor himself, who, as Gawker put it, “turned a mildly embarrassing local event into an international story about freedom of the press.”

• “Moron Student Who Accused Jewish Prof of Anti-Semitism: I Am The Victim Here”
Earlier this year, a student at York University accused her professor of anti-Semitism after he uttered the words “All Jews should be sterilized.” The professor was using the statement as an example of an unacceptable opinion, but the student wasn’t paying attention. It was bad enough when the initial news made it to Gawker. It was even worse when the student’s insistence that she was the victim provided material for a follow-up.

• “Canada’s Jersey Shore Copycat Will Piss Off Every Ethnic Group at Once”
Gawker called Toronto’s failed Jersey Shore rip-off “the least important sociological experiment of our time.” That’s actually a pretty generous description, considering the program’s overt racism.

• “Canada Sprayed Teens with Agent Orange Until the ’80s”
The Toronto Star’s discovery that the government had used Agent Orange to clear-brush in Northern Ontario provided some of the paper’s most shocking investigative reporting to date. Of course, we should’ve known Gawker wouldn’t turn this into a story about the strength of Toronto’s newspapers.

“The Elaborate, Lucrative Cancer Lie of Ashley Kirilow”
According to the Star, Ashley Kirilow “shaved her head and eyebrows, plucked her eyelashes and starved herself to look like a chemotherapy patient.” She netted thousands of dollars in the process. On second thought, we’re glad Gawker jumped in on this one. Bless.

“Some Idiot Actually Got a Charlie Sheen Tiger Blood Tattoo”
And that idiot was a Toronto tattoo artist. Ugh.

• Photo caption writer goes rogue [Gawker]