Hands up TO!
The Toronto chapter of the Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity, led by Akio Maroon, held a Hands Up TO! action in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Missouri, at Yonge-Dundas Square on Saturday, August 16. About two dozen people showed up to protest the police shooting death of Mike Brown as well as racial profiling by Toronto police.
Bomb wisdom
Good sense from the city’s internal Bomb Threat And Suspicious Package Response Policy, which CUPE shared with the media last week before filing a grievance about the mayor’s “irresponsible breach.”
• “Please do not make any comments to any members of the public or media regarding any threat or evacuation at any City of Toronto facility.”
• “An explosive device can look like anything: a briefcase, a pipe, a toolbox, a soccer ball, a can of pop, even a teddy bear.”
• “If You Find a Suspicious Package …. Do NOT sniff it, or smell it, taste it, or look closely at it or at any contents which may have spilled.”
Guess which of these the Ford brothers ignored?
Mike Del Grande goes back to church
Demoralized by the Gomorrah of City Hall spendthrifts, council’s chief proponent of grim asceticism is heading back to the Church. Councillor Mike Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt) has registered to seek his old seat on the Toronto Catholic District School Board, a position he held from 1993 to 2003. His son John succeeded him on the board and, as of this writing, is still technically running to retake the same seat. The elder Del Grande wouldn’t talk to NOW but told the Globe that his son intends to drop out of the race so his old man can come back. Stern, humourless and repressed like a character in a Bresson film, MDG should feel right at home in the bunker of a publicly funded Catholic system that has strangely survived the march of history.
Tony Clement’s penny ante
The Treasury Board president was spotted in a Starbucks in the 905 before the PM’s BBQ in Vaughan last week, where he reportedly tipped his server in pennies. Yup, the same coin his government has discontinued. No red face from tightwad Tony when he was called on it, though.
$2 million-plus U.S.
Amount that a circa-1938 copy of Action Comics #1, which introduced the world to Superman, is going for on eBay as of this week.
WHAT NDP Socialist Caucus
WHERE After a sit-in at NDP MP Craig Scott’s office on Thursday, August 14.
WHY To protest the NDP’s policy on Gaza, which the group says “falls far short of a balanced or just approach” the party has been historically known for.
Compiled by NOW staff with files from Zach Ruiter and Jonathan Goldsbie.
