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Posts Tagged ‘Bob Kinnear’

While Giambrone Fiddles…

February 9th, 2010

The perfectly calculated, carefully manipulated political career of (TTC chairman) Adam Giambrone just became unzipped.

The Ward 18 councillor and declared candidate for mayor of Toronto has seen his ambition to run this city take a hard turn for the worse after he admitted he had an “inappropriate relationship with a young woman.”

Confronted by the Toronto Star after university student Kristen Lucas spilled the beans about the more than year-long affair, Giambrone apologized to everyone, including the lovely woman found at his side for his campaign launch and his “see, I’m not gay” photo opportunities, Sarah McQuarrie.

What seems most galling, beside the two-timing, of course, are the allegations Giambrone told the now 20-year-old Lucas he’s been using McQuarrie as political furniture on his arm. That it’s “important for the campaign.”

If that’s true, then maybe slimeball isn’t a strong enough term.

The TTC burns.

TTC union president Bob Kinnear lashed out at the members of the public who have been filming and snapping pictures of TTC staffers on the job and his message to them was clear: Stop it.

“Listen, folks,” Kinnear said at a packed press conference at the Sheraton Hotel. “Stop harassing people who are doing their jobs. Stop insulting them. Stop waving your phone cameras in their faces as you get on the bus or streetcar. Stop spitting on them. Stop calling them lazy or overpaid.”

For the record, I am now accepting pictures and videos of TTC employees and will post them. Meanwhile, can somebody at the TTC please tell these complete and utter morons, who obstinately refuse to get it: stop blaming the customers!

graceless politicians, Politicians acting badly , ,

Toronto the Not in a Death Spiral

January 23rd, 2010

spiral toronto

A TTC union reacted to the media firestorm over a napping collector yesterday by criticizing the rider who took the photo, even as a second photograph of another sleeping TTC collector emerged.

“It is very discouraging that the picture taker and, apparently, other customers made no attempt to determine of there was anything wrong with this TTC employee (George Robitaille)” said Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union.

ttc_man_sleepingLeaving aside that it’s possible people could see evidence of life, the chest moving the nostrils in and outing that sort of thing. Leave aside that a man that size, with his head at that angle was probably snoring like Fred Flinstone on a camping trip. Ignore the fact that people having heart attacks don’t rest their hands on their stomachs but grab their chest. The reason they know he is not “unconscious as a result of some medical problem,” is that people stroking out don’t stop and put a piece of cardboard over the money slot so that nobody will bother them while they die.

So question for Bob Kinnear, who does have a legal responsibility to give this guy full and effective representation. To paraphrase Jack Nicolson: Please tell me you have something more. Please tell me his representation hasn’t pinned their hopes on a catastrophic medical situation.

pimply minions of bureaucracy , ,