If you’re travelling around Queen’s Park today, you can expect it to be noisy as teachers protest the Liberal bill that will force a new contract and remove their right to strike, now expected to pass with the help of the PC Party. While some unions have made preemptive deals with the government, others are threatening to fight the new law all the way to the Supreme Court.
Rob Ford’s legal team will be trying three possible defences in court, according to the Toronto Star: (1) That his vote leading to a conflict of interest allegation was inadvertent, (2) that it wasn’t a “pecuniary” interest, but most notably and novel (3) that the relevant law doesn’t apply to Ford. It’s not clear what part of the legislation would exempt Ford from this, but it’s not uncommon for lawyers to mount multi-pronged defences.
Toronto’s war on graffiti has become more of a negotiated hostility, according to the CBC. While a year ago the city was cracking down on all graffiti everywhere, staff are now taking a more nuanced approach. Among the people objecting under the harsh crackdown were businessowners who saw themselves as double victims—first their property was vandalized, then the city charged them with removing it.
The Toronto Real Estate Board is launching a last-minute court challenge to a decision of the Competition Bureau forcing it to share its MLS data with independent realtors, claiming that the Competition Bureau (a federal body) can’t regulate a provincial matter (real estate). TREB has fought for years to keep its MLS data proprietary and out of the hands of independents.
And a New Zealand woman is praising Toronto Police after they took her reports of harassment over the Internet seriously while (she says) the police in Auckland, New Zealand, did not. Sumner Burstyn is in Toronto on business and had her Facebook page inundated with angry messages after she posted something about a recently killed New Zealand soldier who was serving in Afghanistan. Burstyn has apologized unreservedly for her comments.
Blog photo by by Leah Gregg via Flickr.
Article source: http://www.openfile.ca/toronto/blog/2012/morningfile-teacher-protest-queens-park-fords-legal-defence-previewed
