Greetings from shutdown (whatever that means)
Let’s get this cruelest month done
Remote learning is on in Peel and Guelph, while the rest of Ontario is left confused about the definition of its “shutdown” as the number COVID-19 cases in Toronto are twice what they were a month ago. Easter weekend brought shots of busy shopping action and more stunt driving incidents, while the NHL faced a variant in Vancouver.
An escape from the brake
While concert tours schedule border crossings for the fall, Ontario rules have dealt a blow for the current simulation: live streaming productions are forbidden, even as movie and television production can continue. Toronto venues hope to bring them back when the “emergency brake” lets up in May, along with concerts at the drive-in.
Mark Carney is getting on the line with the Liberals. The former Bank of Canada governor will be a keynote speaker at the virtual policy convention for the party that has tried to recruit him as a future leader. “Am I Dwight Eisenhower or am I Michael Ignatieff?” is what John Ibbitson says Carney should ask himself, in hoping for the latter.
This is nobody’s Oldsmobile
Magna International’s auto parts magnate is ready to roll out three-wheeled electric vehicles if he can get Ontario to approve a new factory for them on Aurora Road in Whitchurch-Stouffville. Frank Stronach, at age 88, views the SARIT (Safe Affordable Reliable Innovative Transport) as the culmination of his career in car production:
Tom Gibney dead at 84. The main anchor of World Beat News at CTV’s affiliate station in Toronto from 1974 to 2001 spent six additional years as an occasional fill-in before he retired altogether. Gibney’s presence at CFTO-TV also led to playing the announcer on The Howard Beale Show when Network was shot at 9 Channel Nine Court.
Finally, like latter-day Osmonds
The Parker Andersons is a blended family sitcom that was filmed in Toronto last fall, with the twist of being accompanied by a spin-off show focused on the tween daughter. More interesting is that it found an American broadcaster in the station owned by Brigham Young University, in its effort to put a different face on Mormon media: