Shoes over socks in a building-back budget
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The tradition of Canadian finance ministers buying new shoes on budget day pre-dates social media by decades, but Chrystia Freeland seized the moment with size 37 pumps that cost $138: a personal purchase rather than a business expense. This time around, plenty of details of the federal budget were leaked.
The latest job of his life
Adam Vaughan was announced as a new principal at Navigator a few days after the former Liberal MP was on Twitter claiming that photos of a Pierre Poilievre rally were manipulated. The firm is best known for doing crisis management—something that Kevin Vuong, who replaced Vaughan in Ottawa, appears in particular need of these days.
Steven Del Duca is now calling for masks to come back. The leader of the Ontario Liberals believes schools, pharmacies and grocery stores should have a mask mandate reinstated amidst wastewater signals of a rampant sixth wave of COVID-19. Del Duca and his party were criticized for their recent maskless rally.
Two free sheets to the wind
The 30th anniversary issue of Exclaim! contains minimal content that’s related to its smudgier Toronto indie origins, but there’s a full-page comic by Fiona Smyth that relates to where it began. Also, returning from a break during which its publisher filed for bankruptcy, the newest monthly iteration of Now Magazine has apparently been printed and distributed:
Wendy Mesley is coming back with a podcast. Women of Ill Repute is the show name mentioned by its co-host, Maureen Holloway, who appeared on another radio veteran podcast via Montreal. Holloway’s contract with Rogers station CHFI expired last fall; Mesley retired from CBC a few months earlier following a racial slur controversy.
Finally, a snack bar magistrate
@MovieMayor is a Twitter account initiated in 2009 by Gerry Flahive, a longtime NFB producer whose Toronto cinematic employment history dated back to being an usher at the Imperial Six. If you can imagine a “Mayor Bert Xanadu” running both the theatre and the rest of the city at once in 1973, then has he got an upcoming book just for you:
