Summer is more than half over and changes are happening at City Hall. More senior staff are moving on: I’ll miss Heather Taylor (Finance), Josie Scioli (Corporate Services) and Janie Romoff (Parks). Tory’s budget chief, Councillor Gary Crawford, has resigned which opens up the chance for a new voice. On August 10th, Mayor Chow and Council will redo committee assignments for 2023 and 2024. Committee assignments have a major impact on what any councillor is able to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new mayor has spent much of her first few weeks dealing with the heart-wrenching scenes of asylum claimants camped on the bare sidewalk in front of 121 Peter St., the city\u2019s shelter intake. While the federal government has taken responsibility for asylum claimants in Montreal, they refuse to do so in Toronto, arguing that Doug Ford\u2019s provincial government isn\u2019t paying its share. Until the federal and provincial governments fund a reception centre at Pearson Airport to and provide arriving migrants with housing, asylum claimants are continuing to flood our shelter system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n