Senator Don Meredith’s lawyer no longer fighting “lynch mob mentality.” After tying a series of rhetorical knots in an attempt to defend his client, Selwyn Pieters has moved on from the job. But it’s not clear whether he was fired or quit. (Meredith has promised a media conference in days ahead.) Pieters tweeted this soon after his exit was reported:

Stats Canada guy wants to apologize more. Ren Bostelaar is now under criminal investigation for posting women's photos and contact information to 4chan. His lawyer, Sam Goldstein, maintains that Bostelaar was only recycling images from elsewhere on the web—something he likens to “disturbing an oyster bed.” But some of the affected women are claiming more serious privacy violations.

“They have to stay on the bus.” David Miller seized the Metro Morning microphone to disseminate his skepticism about John Tory’s support for the one-stop Scarborough subway extension. The appearance amplified what the former mayor said during a Q&A at The Ethnic Aisle, in which he blamed former premier Dalton McGuinty for asphyxiating the city's earlier transit plans.

Paper prime ministers posed no problem for the last Liberal government. Diplomats were told to stop using life-sized Justin Trudeau standees for selfie opportunities after Conservatives complained that they were getting in the way of the Canadian brand. (No such complications occurred when Paul Martin escorted a paper doll around Ottawa, to the point of pretending that "Flat Mark" was in charge of the entire Parliament for a day.)

Ye Olde PharmaPlus store turned a keg barrel bar into a checkout counter. Retail Insider, which broke the news of the Hard Rock Café becoming a Shoppers Drug Mart, tours the new Rexall at Bloor and Brunswick. The transformation apparently came about as a result of a real estate agent who stopped for a chat with the Brunswick House's landlord in 2013, only to learn that the bar's lease was approaching its end. Now, crystal chandeliers and antique tin ceilings hover above the same aisles you see in every other Rexall.

Pitbull will happily provide the soundtrack to the Toronto real estate crash. With housing prices expected to rise 20 to 25 per cent this year, the estimated 15,000 attendees of last weekend's Real Estate Wealth Expo were pumped up with illusion. Party rapper Pitbull—who’s returning for a concert this summer—could say no wrong to this crowd, recalling how his mother forced him to listen to motivational tapes by Tony Robbins, the event's more hyperactive headliner.

It is with a heavy heart that Bonhomme must announce that Maclean’s is at it again. Having once labelled Quebec “The Most Corrupt Province in Canada,” Andrew Potter now reflects on how the snowstorm that stranded 300 cars in the middle of a Montreal highway is symbolic of social malaise. (Martin Patriquin, the recently laid-off Maclean's Quebec bureau chief, is amused by all the backlash.)