The Cheat Sheet: February 19 City Council

This Wednesday is the first council meeting since the annual epic budget s̶h̶i̶t̶f̶e̶s̶t̶ showdown. On the agenda: hockey beer, campaign Twitter, the taxi review, and more.

GO CANADA GO!

  • Cllr Layton wants to temporarily relax the liquor license laws so we can get our drink on first thing in the morning for the gold medal hockey games. Cllrs Augimeri and Shiner have already asked that their wards (York Centre and Willowdale, respectively) be excluded from this booze-soaked libertinism.

  • Cllr Ainslie wants the folks at Transportation Services to look into renaming a street after a certain blustering, racist dickbag politician with a substance abuse problem and an adoring fanbase.

  • The Rouge Urban National Park, the first of its kind in Canada, is becoming a reality; Council will vote on transferring City land to Parks Canada.

Election Year

Inside Baseball

Kids & Youth

  • How does subsidized childcare affect kids, parents, and the economy? OISE and the city’s Children Services division would like to find out. Further reading: the recent Globe and Mail series; @10dollardaycare.

  • Back in October, Native Child & Family Services Toronto’s executive director declared Toronto’s last native childcare centre in “extreme jeopardy” and called the model “unsustainable”. Possible solutions before Council: making it easier for indigenous families to get childcare subsidies, and working with higher levels of government to reduce NCFST’s debt.

  • The Youth Equity Strategy is being rolled out. It’s a plan for the next two years and onward that aims to “create the supportive systems that can help young people resist the frustration and disillusionment that can lead to involvement in violence and crime”. This to-do list includes a youth mental health symposium; reinstating reconciliation services for immigrant youth separated from their parents; a pilot program promoting literacy for young incarcerated parents; a new youth hostel; a restorative justice program “to create alternatives to banning, exclusion and eviction policies and practices from City facilities” and housing; and more.

Transportation

Totally Non-Binding Motions That Will Probably Go Nowhere but Thanks for the Thought

Miscellaneous

  • The Ombudsman’s annual report is a quick, stylishly designed review of the Year In Complaints. The more obsessive council-watchers won’t find anything new, but everyone else should give it a read.

  • Whoops. Turns out developers’ association BILD flouted the Lobbying By-Law by throwing a fundraiser for the Mayor in 2011. It’s not their first offence either. The penalty? They can’t lobby the Mayor for the rest of the term (edit: clarification per @Adam_CF: not banned, just advised not to), and their lobbyists have to go back to lobbyist school. “Lobby” sure looks funny when you type it over and over. Lobby.

  • No. Just no.

  • Among the routine objections to liquor licenses: one for a barbershop near Kensington. Alcohol and haircutting? What could go wrong?


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p>As usual, if I’ve missed something important or interesting, let me know. Granting a brief, bleak reprieve from my slow yet inexorable slide into near-catatonic depression, I’ll see you at City Hall this Wednesday!

2 thoughts on “The Cheat Sheet: February 19 City Council”

  1. After much fudging on what they were really doing, UT law school finally agrees to community demands. So the hold-up will soon be over for the expansion!!

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