Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is being sued for his alleged role in the jailhouse assault of his sister`s former partner.
Ford’s lawyer Dennis Morris confirmed to Global News Wednesday that a statement of claim had been filed against the mayor, alleging that he was behind the alleged jailhouse assault of Scott MacIntyre, the former partner of Ford’s sister.
The Ministry of Correctional Services, former Don Bosco football player Aedan Petros and former assistant coach of the Don Bosco football team Payman Aboodowleh have also been named in the statement.
[. . .]
MacIntyre was attacked in March 2012 by some inmates while he was being held at the Metro West Detention Centre after uttering threats against the mayor.
MacIntyre’s statement of claim says he told the mayor to “be careful” how he treated him while leaving his home in January 2012 because he knew “things about Ford and his family which had not been made public.”
[. . .]
“Ford and Aboodowleh conspired to have the plaintiff threatened, and subsequently brutally beaten, while he was incarcerated in [Metro West Detention Centre],” according to the statement of claim.
[. . . A] video showing the mayor in a violent, drunken rage was purchased and published by the Toronto Star in November.
In the video, the mayor is in a fit, slapping his legs and shouting about an unidentified person.
“When he’s dead, I’ll make sure that motherf—er… I need f—ing 10 minutes to make sure he’s dead,” Ford can be heard saying in the video.
Toronto city council has passed its 2014 budget, ending an often fractious, day-long debate that saw officials trading barbs over libraries, fire trucks, security guards and — once again — subways.
The budget passed by a vote of 35-9 shortly after 9 p.m. ET Thursday, after some 11 hours of debate by the 45-member council.
Mayor Rob Ford, his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, and budget chief Frank Di Giorgio were among those who voted against it. The mayor had earlier submitted a handful of cost-cutting motions, some of which set the stage for tense, even angry exchanges throughout the day.
[. . .]
The budget debate is expected to continue into Thursday night, and possibly until Monday. Council will not sit on Friday because of the Lunar New Year.
Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals are holding on to a steady lead in popular support, a new poll suggests, but remain in minority government territory ahead of an election that could come as early as this spring.
The Progressive Conservatives, meanwhile, are duking it out with the New Democrats for second place as the Ontario Premier bests both the PCs’ Tim Hudak and the NDP’s Andrea Horwath in public perceptions of her leadership.
Out of 500 Ontarians surveyed by Nanos Research, 36 per cent are prepared to vote Liberal, compared to 28 per cent support for the Tories and 27 for the NDP. These numbers represent a change of less than a percentage point for the Liberals since September, while Mr. Hudak’s party is down by three points in the same period and Ms. Horwath’s is up by one.
“The longer Wynne is the Premier, the more she looks like a Premier – and we haven’t seen any major gaffes out of her adminstration,” Nanos Research chairman Nik Nanos said in an interview. “The Liberals have been relatively united behind her.”
Mr. Hudak, meanwhile, has spent a lot of time fighting divisions in his party, including a spat over controversial right-to-work policies that led to the firing of a candidate last week. And now, he must battle Ms. Horwath to hold on to his place as principal opposition leader.
“For the Conservatives, it’s very important for them to be positioned as the main challengers to the Liberals – to have numbers in the same range as the NDP is not ideal,” Mr. Nanos said. “It’s harder for a movement to unseat a government, to have momentum, when it’s not clear which opposition party is the main challenger.”
Such numbers may explain why the Tories have stepped up their attacks on the NDP in recent days, Mr. Nanos said. A PC radio ad released earlier this week in Niagara Falls, where a by-election campaign is underway, attacks the NDP while making scant mention of the Grits.
Justin Trudeau has expelled from his caucus every single Liberal member of the upper house and has declared there is no longer any such thing as a Liberal Senator.
The Liberal leader said the former members of the Liberal Senate caucus will sit as Independents, and they will have no formal ties to the Liberal parliamentary machinery apart from through their friendships.
Trudeau's decision will see some lifelong Liberals and key party operators and fundraisers removed from the party's caucus and forced outside its inner circles – a foundation-shaking decision in a business where power is derived from membership in a political club and the ability to access its best back rooms.
"The only way to be a part of the Liberal caucus is to be put there by the people of Canada," Trudeau said.
[. . .]
"The Senate was once referred to as a place of sober, second thought. A place that allows for reflective deliberation on legislation, in-depth studies into issues of import to the country, and, to a certain extent, provide a check and balance on the politically driven House of Commons.
"It has become obvious that the party structure within the Senate interferes with these responsibilities."
Trudeau proposed the Senate should be made non-partisan, to better serve Canadians. He suggested an "open, transparent, non-partisan process" that would see all senators named to the Red Chamber sit as Independents.
Far from being a house of independent experts, the best way to get appointed to the Senate is to run for office—even if unsuccessfully. 46.7% of appointees are former candidates for provincial, territorial or federal office.
Every Prime Minister (with the notable and singular exception of Paul Martin) has worked aggressively to appoint only loyal members of their own parties. (And even Paul Martin could only bring himself to appoint Progressive Conservatives, a party which thereafter existed only in the Senate.) If you aren’t prepared to swear loyalty to the government of the day, you will not even be considered for appointment.
On a personal note, this makes me deeply, deeply suspicious of claims to the effect that the Liberal senators have been “freed” by being booted out of the Conservative caucus. Of these 32 newly-minted “Liberpendants”, 43% have previously run for the party at the provincial or federal levels, and a further 25% have been on the Liberal payroll in unelected positions. But this aside, every single one of them was appointed by a Liberal PM, and the vast majority were appointed by Jean Chretien—who, as my research emphasizes, did not manage to appoint a single non-Liberal.
Not only did these appointments come disproportionately from a very small group of people who are unrepresentative of the whole of Canada (Liberal candidates and Liberal staffers), but even those who were chosen from outside this group were evidently chosen in large part because of their loyalty to the party. (After all, if you chose 75 people at random and made them into Senators—as Chretien did—what are the odds that 72 of them would be card-carrying Liberals, with a further 3 Independents?)
And how does someone in that position suddenly go “Independent”?
What do you do in your research?
A lot of observation—watching groups of cats to see how they interact with one another and deducing their social structure. [I watch] cats in colonies that are free-ranging, and in animal shelters where quite a number will be housed together—you get interesting dynamics [when new cats are introduced].
I've also done slightly more manipulative things, such as studying the way cats play with toys, or testing cat [behaviors] at different times of the day. [I also observe] relationships with owners, interviewing them and giving them questionnaires to find out how they perceive their cats.
Why did you conclude that cats don't "get us" the way dogs do?
There's been a lot of research with dogs and how dogs interact with people. [It's] become very clear that dogs perceive us as being different than themselves: As soon as they see a human, they change their behavior. The way a dog plays with a human is completely different from [the way it plays] with a dog.
We've yet to discover anything about cat behavior that suggests they have a separate box they put us in when they're socializing with us. They obviously know we're bigger than them, but they don't seem to have adapted their social behavior much. Putting their tails up in the air, rubbing around our legs, and sitting beside us and grooming us are exactly what cats do to each other. (Also see "How Cats and People Grew to Love Each Other.")
I've read articles where you've said cats think of us as big, stupid cats. Is that accurate?
No. In the book [I say] that cats behave toward us in a way that's indistinguishable from [how] they would act toward other cats. They do think we're clumsy: Not many cats trip over people, but we trip over cats.
But I don't think they think of us as being dumb and stupid, since cats don't rub on another cat that's inferior to them.
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