Under the proposed federal riding redistribution, the Annex and Seaton Village will move from the riding of Trinity-Spadina to St. Paul’s. | Image credit: 2012 Redistribution Federal Electoral Districts
Provincially, Trinity-Spadina is represented by NDP Rosario Marchese, St. Paul’s by Liberal Eric Hoskins.
Municipally, the Annex and Seaton Village will move from Trinity-Spadina’s Ward 20 which is represented at Toronto City Council by Adam Vaughan. St. Paul’s is divided into two wards. The western part of the riding (Ward 21) is represented by Joe Mihevc and the east by Josh Matlow .
A map showing all current and proposed riding boundaries can be found here.
Rob Ford in a rare press scrum, at David Pecaut Square | Image: West Annex News
By The Maven| As we head into 2012 and are well into the second year of Fordism, we should pause and take note of what has occurred so far.
Thugs like Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti run wild.
Idiots like Josh Matlow feel self-important.
And Ford claims success so far for his mandate. He feels that whatever he wishes to do is ordained directly from ‘the people’. Having been elected, he has stated (following in the footsteps of that other democrat and man of the people, Steven Harper) that election victory means no more consultation for four years. Being Mayor means to Ford that whatever he wants to do is has already been sanctioned and he needs no further approval.
Interestingly, in spite of current and looming layoffs (he promised none would occur during his administration), service cutbacks (he guaranteed they were not going to happen during his mandate) and tax increases (hidden as ‘user fees’, which he insisted would never happen while he was mayor), Rob Ford says he has had a successful year.
As well, although he has found virtually NO gravy at City Hall to cut, he did manage to piss an awful lot of gravy away on his own team of consultants who confirmed that the only gravy around was the stuff Rob was feeding them.
Thank god for Adam Vaughan and Shelly Carroll. I know Gord Perks is a nice guy as well, but if the City is to be saved, it will be Vaughan and Carroll at the head of the battle.
But keep looking for the conservative and butt licking Toronto press to quiet down much of the righteous rage against Ford. They prefer access to the corridors of power (as the Fords only grant press access to those who toady up to them) to exposing the truth about this gang of mental giants.
We’ll survive but it won’t be a pretty sight along the way. But, at least the laughs are great. I mean we couldn’t dream up a better target for derision than the Brothers Ford.
By order of speaker Case Ootes, Toronto Police drag the public from Toronto City Council Chambers, October 11, 2000 during the Adams Mine debate | Screen shot from Brenda Bozlo YouTube video of CityPulse broadcast.
By West Annex News | Last month in one of the nicest tributes I saw to Jack Layton, Dave Meslin posted a link to a YouTube video of one of Jack’s most passionate moments at Toronto City Hall. The video shows then-CityTV reporter Adam Vaughan covering the Adams Mine dump debate at Council on October 11, 2000. There’s a terrific shot of an outraged Jack pounding on a pile of documents on his desk, yelling “Mr. Chairman, you are a bloody sham!” at Case Ootes.
That’s followed by several shots of citizens in the council chambers who are, astoundingly, standing, stamping their feet, chanting, jeering, demanding that council listen to them. When they refuse to shut up and Ootes orders them out of the chambers, they refuse to go. Next, we see the Toronto Police hauling people out one by one, still shouting, still protesting.
Wow. The passion, the theatre!
Cut to today’s City Council meetings. It seems that in every meeting something at least as heartbreaking or ill-conceived as the Adams Mine dump is foisted on us by our city-hating millionaire mayor. Transit City is cancelled, free nurses from the province are refused, $200,000 is squandered to remove bike lanes installed for only a year earlier, the mayor’s thugly brother tries to derail the award-winning Portlands development, and democracy is trampled.
Yep, nothing says "outraged citizen" like jazz hands | Image by Toasterb via Wikipedia
If we’re really mad, we shake our hands really, really hard. Because if we don’t stay utterly silent, speaker Frances Nunziata threatens to throw us out. And heavens knows we can’t have that.
What happened to the time Torontonians were willing to put their bodies on the line for the values we cared about? In a city full of creative, funny, fun people, can’t we come up with anything better to express ourselves–non-violently–in Council Chambers?
Council will be sitting in a special session on Monday, September 26th starting at 9:30AM, to look at core services cuts. While Ford’s recent swoon in popularity seems to have saved subsidized daycare spaces from cuts and library branches from closing, reduced library hours are still on the mayor’s hit list. He wants to close four of Toronto’s ten museums, and sell the Toronto Zoo and three performing arts facilities, and more.
When Councillor Mammoliti sticks out his thumb, how about making a sign right back to him? | Image credit David G Brault/Wikimedia Commons
And while I’m not saying we have to disrupt the council chambers just like the protesters did during the Adams mine debate, surely we can express our passion for the values we hold dear in a better way than jazz hands.
Non-violent doesn’t have to mean meek and deferential to the threats of a tyrannical speaker.
When the Sycophant-in-chief Georgio Mammoliti sticks out his thumb to tell the lemmings of council how to vote, how about making a hand signal right back to him? A simple search on Google or Youtube yields many interesting signs derived from American sign language that could fit the bill.
Or how about if we brandish (but do not throw) a shoe, in tribute to reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi’s greeting to George Bush on the occasion of his visit to Iraq in 2008. Perhaps that shoe could be a flip-flop, to symbolize Ford’s broken campaign promise of “no service cuts, guaranteed.”
Might Speaker Frances Nunziata object to these innocuous forms of protest? Might she go all Case Ootes on us and threaten to clear us out? Yes, and yes. But like the Adams mine protesters, we shouldn’t go voluntarily. We should call Nunziata’s bluff. Nothing good can come to Ford from video of the police dragging Toronto citizens out of their own council chambers.
And if you are physically hauled out of chambers by the police, at least you have a great story to tell your grandchildren–better than the story of how you sat in council chambers and made jazz hands while Rob Ford dismantled the city around you.
How about brandishing (but never throwing) a flip-flop, to symbolize Ford's broken campaign promise about of "no service cuts guaranteed."
RT @FlyingTrilobite: Proud of all that a Canadian has accomplished for science in the most anti-science political climate ever here at home. 1 week ago
