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QUOTED: Denzil Minnan-Wong offers Rob Ford a few words of political wisdom

“If the mayor were to ask me my opinion, I’d say, ‘You’ve got to be careful about the number of things you put in front of council and you’ve got to move a little more carefully.’”

(Image: Christopher Drost)

—Rob Ford ally Denzil Minnan-Wong, reflecting on the implications of yesterday’s transit vote, yet another big defeat for Ford—and a comfortable win for his opponents. Ford supporters will no doubt continue to paint Karen Stintz as a turncoat, but the mayor is facing off against a sizable and emboldened opposition, and, as Minnan-Wong said, he’s going to have to learn to get things done with council as it is now, not like it was in the early days of his administration. [Globe and Mail]

The Informer

City Sindex

March 6, 2012 | 5:26 pm

7 Comments

QUOTED: Giorgio Mammoliti on Karen Stintz’s (politically!) salacious behaviour

“By basically stepping in with the orange side of the equation and sleeping with the left on this issue, the same people that she is sleeping with and created a coup with are going to end up chewing her and spitting her out at their will.”

(Image: Christopher Drost)

—The one and only councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, speaking after yesterday’s transit vote, about TTC chair Karen Stintz, the woman who basically pushed to have herself fired and then got her job right back in the same day. Mammoliti’s allusion to the “orange side” is a nice retreat from his usual full on red baiting, but it’s still pretty silly (almost as silly as the Sun claiming Mammoliti “had nothing negative to say about Stintz”). The newly constituted TTC board, along with the councillors who bucked Rob Ford yesterday, is hardly a left-wing splinter group. As for getting chewed up and spit out, we suspect Stintz isn’t worried. These days, she seems to be doing most of the chewing up and spitting out. [Toronto Sun]

The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

March 6, 2012 | 5:15 pm

5 Comments

Karen Stintz triumphs over Rob Ford (again)—though it may not be the coup it seems

Yesterday, council voted 29-15—a solid majority—in favour of Karen Stintz’s plan to blow up the nine-councillor transit commission and replace it with a board consisting of seven councillors and four citizens. The result is yet another rebuke of Rob Ford, who wanted a board made up entirely of citizens, and yet another victory for Stintz (one more win and we may just have to anoint her the unofficial mayor).

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The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

March 5, 2012 | 3:55 pm

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Karen Stintz moves to dissolve the TTC board, while Rob and Doug Ford back a citizens-only proposal

When making political decisions worthy of careful consideration and consultation, it’s apparently best to do so off the cuff and over the radio. Speaking on Newstalk 1010’s The City yesterday, Rob Ford and brother Doug confirmed their support for Michael Thompson’s suggestion that the TTC board be converted to a citizens-only body. Of course, we highly doubt that the Fords’ approval was impromptu, and Thompson’s proposal at council today for a transit commission comprising nine citizens comes as no surprise. In response, Karen Stintz moved to dissolve the transit board and create a new one consisting of seven councillors for now, plus four private citizens who would join the board in October. Looks like that compromise Ford and Stintz reached last week didn’t last for long (surprise, surprise). Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

(Images: Karen Stintz, Mike Beltzner; Rob Ford, Christopher Drost)

The Informer

Ford Focus

March 5, 2012 | 12:55 pm

3 Comments

Rob and Doug Ford take to the airwaves to talk about transit and say other things that aren’t really true

(Image: Christopher Drost)

Rob Ford and brother Doug made their second appearance as the hosts of Newstalk 1010’s “The City” yesterday, squashing any hope we might have had for the show becoming a little more entertaining and a little less self-serving. Over the course of the episode, Doug said St. Clair was shut down by “a couple inches” of snow (not true), claimed his Chicago buddies laugh at Toronto streetcars (irrelevant—the current debate is LRTs-versus-subways) and pointed out that government does nothing but cause trouble (will he be tendering his resignation soon?). There was also talk of public housing, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the benevolence of the private sector (shocker). Speaking of the private sector, with today’s council debate on the make-up of the TTC board looming, the brothers naturally took the opportunity to promote their own vision for the transit executive as well—which now includes no politicians whatsoever. Read the entire story [OpenFile] »

The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

February 29, 2012 | 1:45 pm

3 Comments

Will Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway fantasy die on March 15?

The long-running saga of Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway dream looks like it will finally reach a not-so-surprising conclusion. Council is now slated to meet in two weeks’ time to decide whether Sheppard will get a subway extension—like the mayor wants—or light-rail transit, which seems to be the consensus choice among pretty much everybody else, including an expert panel the Globe and Mail’s sources say is “leaning heavily toward recommending light rail.”

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The Informer

Quibbling Rivalries

February 28, 2012 | 12:09 pm

2 Comments

Margaret Atwood gets in Twitter fight with Sue-Ann Levy over the TTC, of all things

Yesterday, the city’s never-ending transit saga sparked a bit of a Twitter tiff between Margaret Atwood and Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy. It started with Atwood tweeting her dismay over last week’s sacking of TTC chief Gary Webster. Levy snarkily replied, “When was the last time you took the subway Ms. Megs? Now you’re an expert on the TTC?” Atwood, who knows her way around a verbal smackdown, responded with a terse set of instructions followed by a devastating emoticon: “Do your research, learn to read, address folks by their names, & cite sources for your insults. If you’re serious, that is. :)” It’s probably a fair bet that Atwood was about as chuffed about “Ms. Megs” as she was about “La Poodle” back in August.

The Informer

Ford Focus

February 27, 2012 | 3:45 pm

4 Comments

Rob Ford bores everybody with his campaign ad disguised as a radio show

Rob and Doug Ford’s radio program is painfully dull (Image: Christopher Drost)

At the outset of Rob Ford and brother Doug’s maiden voyage as hosts of CFRB 1010’s The City, Councillor Doug issued a warning to listeners: “Fasten your seatbelt, because we’re going for a ride.” We figured that ride would be loud, brash and, at the very least, entertaining, given we were dealing with the Brothers Ford—Rob even warned listeners that he wasn’t responsible for the crazy things Doug might do on air. Disappointingly, though, the show didn’t end up being any of those things. It felt more like a thinly veiled, two-hour-long ad campaign—and a boring one at that.

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The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

February 24, 2012 | 11:45 am

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Check out that no-longer super-secret Sheppard subway report

Remember that secret report on the feasibility of the Sheppard Subway? The one that Royson James unearthed, the Toronto Star sold as “the TTC subway report Mayor Rob Ford doesn’t want you to read?” and showed that if there was ever a business case for a subway line on Sheppard, it was long since nullified by lackluster job growth in North York and Scarborough? James kindly shared that report with transit advocate Steve Munro, who, in turn, kindly shared it with the Internet, along with an exhaustive analysis. Added bonus: the report makes a strong case for the construction of a Downtown Relief Line. As usual, some of the best stuff is in Munro’s replies to the comments. Read the entire story [Steve Munro] »

The Informer

Ford Focus

February 22, 2012 | 4:15 pm

4 Comments

With Gary Webster’s sacking, Ford’s allies somehow made a hero out of a civil servant

(Image: Cameron MacMaster from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

As expected, five transit commissioners voted yesterday to oust TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, whose penchant for “reasonable arguments” had become an unwelcome distraction from Rob Ford’s delightful transit fantasies subway expansion schemes. Every daily paper and television station in the city has covered the story from all angles, but the condensed version is as follows: Webster, a long-serving civil servant, was a known opponent of Ford’s proposed Sheppard subway extension—something that did not endear him to the mayor. After Webster spoke in favour of light rail transit at the special council meeting earlier this month—the one where Ford’s opponents won and the mayor was publicly embarrassed—Ford’s allies on the TTC board called a special meeting to fire him.

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The Informer

Self-Parody Watch

February 22, 2012 | 1:05 pm

1 Comment

Won’t the real Corey Mintz please stand up?

Corey Mintz and Andrew Byford—but which is which?

One of the more surreal moments in yesterday’s already-pretty-surreal termination proceedings of TTC chief general manager Gary Webster was the appearance of Andy Byford, Webster’s interim replacement. You see, Byford, who joined the TTC last November after running the transit in Sydney, happens to look pretty much exactly like Corey Mintz, the Toronto Star columnist and redoubtable dinner party host (Jonathan Goldsbie was the first to point this out on Twitter, calling him a “dead ringer”). Whether this means we’ll soon be seeing rillettes or musk ox cassoulet at Gateway Newsstands in the subway—well, that’s anyone’s guess.

(Images: Mintz, Paul Terefenko; Byford Twitpic, Jonathan Goldsbie)

The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

February 21, 2012 | 12:46 pm

4 Comments

TTC honcho Gary Webster will probably be fired today, in yet another special meeting

Some time after 2 p.m. today, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, who’s been in the transit business for about three decades, will probably be sacked in a special meeting of the city’s transit commissioners. The mayor’s office has been gunning for Webster since at least last summer, when news broke that the seasoned transit chief wasn’t sufficiently receptive to Rob Ford’s plans for the Sheppard subway. Now it looks like Webster’s recent defence of “numbers” and “facts” at Karen Stintz’s special council showdown meeting two weeks back was the final straw.

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The Hype

Prime Time

February 17, 2012 | 12:30 pm

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Undercover Boss Canada, episode 3: all aboard the promo train

Considering the high drama of Toronto’s current transit spat, we were pumped for this week’s episode of Undercover Boss Canada featuring TTC chair Karen Stintz. Would she have to throw riders off an overcrowded streetcar? Start laying the rails for the Eglinton LRT herself? Things start out promising, with Stintz explaining she would use her week as a working stiff to weigh the impact of potential cuts and to improve customer service (sounds logical to us). Plus, the dark wig with bangs that she dons for her transformation actually look pretty good. Transit chic! So, did Stintz ride the train all the way to everyday hero status? Find out after the jump.

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The Informer

In Transit

February 16, 2012 | 3:17 pm

6 Comments

QUOTED: David Shiner on tunnels, subways and the TTC

My personal opinion, having served on the TTC [board] for four and a half years, is they have tunnel vision. Unfortunately, it’s not tunnel vision to build a subway. It’s tunnel vision in trying to stretch dollars the farthest way that they can to provide an inferior type of transit system.

— Councillor David Shiner, explaining away that pesky previously unreleased TTC report that argues there’s no good reason to go ahead with the Sheppard subway. [Toronto Star]

The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

February 13, 2012 | 3:05 pm

2 Comments

Rob Ford’s beloved Sheppard subway wastes more of experts’ time

For all the debate around public transportation of late, the city has little more to show for it than a pile of feasibility studies and an overload of recommendations from expert panels. Case in point: University of Toronto academic Eric Miller, who sits on the panel tasked with examining Rob Ford’s failed Sheppard subway strategy, tells the Star’s Christopher Hume that Toronto transit planning is a “mess,” and he’s doubtful the city can justify earmarking funds for the Sheppard extension. The panel is supposed to deliver its report on March 21, but we’re guessing the result will produce little more than the same tired song and dance: the Sheppard subway as proposed is deemed unrealistic; Ford cries foul, stalls and asks for further examination; the proposal is examined further; further examination reveals that the Sheppard subway is—surprise, surprise—still not realistic. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; Yonge-Sheppard subway, gloom)

All stories relating to TTC

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