Doug Ford announced his intention to cut Toronto City Council from 47 to 25 members last month. Coming when the municipal election had already begun, without notice or consultation, this move is a threat to our right to be represented equitably and effectively. While this bombshell seems to have taken everyone by surprise, it’s certainly nothing new. We thought it fitting to reprint a May 1997 forum piece by Evelyn Rupert in lieu of an editorial. It has been edited for length.  Read more

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In “The Pothole”, the award-winning 150th episode Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer adopts a one mile stretch of the Arthur Burghardt Expressway after running over an abandoned sewing machine. Kramer decides to make his newly adopted section of a highway a more luxurious experience for drivers by reducing four lanes to two extra-wide ones. What results — to great comedic effect — is mass confusion and chaos and, a lesson in how not to manage a highway.  Read more

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“Folks are working their backs off for minimum wage,” said Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC) leader Doug Ford recently, after announcing he would block a promised minimum wage hike in favour of a tax break. According to Ford, this would give a full-time worker earning $14 per hour about $800 more in net income every year.  Read more

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Sometimes a mea culpa comes in the form of a memoir. Such is the case with Alok Mukherjee, who was the chair of the Toronto Services Board from 2005 to 2015, a period that included the G20 economic summit in June 2010 in Toronto.  Read more

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In South Africa, Cape Town is about to run out of fresh water. Authorities predict that Day Zero — the last time water will flow from a domestic tap — will hit on July 9, 2018. Three years of drought resulting from climate change has brought a city of 4 million to the brink of crisis.  Read more

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At 150, Canada has much to celebrate. We are, relatively speaking, an open, democratic, tolerant, and welcoming nation set amongst a vast, beautiful landscape that has few peers. Indeed, called upon to describe Canada, many among us may point to our pristine lakes and rivers. But such an image may yet prove to be a mirage, for a recent nationwide assessment of Canada’s watersheds found significant disturbances to their quality and sustainability.  Read more

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The University of Toronto is seeking broader powers to do as it pleases with respect to developing new buildings in certain designated large swaths of its campus. In effect, it wants to be an off-leash development dog, a request that has the community wary. The City of Toronto should be too.  Read more

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Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is contributing little of use to the debate over how best to deal with the hundreds of refugees walking across the Canada-US border through fields and forests. Thanks to Donald Trump’s barrage of rashly conceived executive orders, immigrants to the United States seeking to stay there have become increasingly nervous that they will be deported without due process and are understandably seeking sanctuary in Canada. In Quebec alone, there was a 250 per cent increase in illegal crossings in January.  Read more

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Getting the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) ratified is a big win for Canada, and an equally big win for Chrystia Freeland, not just our Member of Parliament but also our nation’s Minister of International Trade.  Read more

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The August 21 twin train derailment on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line at Dupont Street is a reminder of just how much of a potential disaster is ticking away on our doorstep. It adds urgency to what is no longer a theoretical conversation.  Read more

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Six years in a federal penitentiary.

Given the judicial constraints in this case, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Then has delivered a fair sentence to Constable James Forcillo of the Toronto Police Service for the attempted murder of Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar three years ago. A jury had previously found Forcillo not guilty of second degree murder, or manslaughter, but guilty of the lesser charge of attempted murder.  Read more

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Past chair responds to February editorial

Re “Ship to wreck” (Editorial, February 2016): you claim that former opponents of the dome at Central Technical School continued to work actively against the construction of the dome even after they had signed on to the Minutes of Settlement. That settlement was the result of successful mediation at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) between Razor Management Inc., the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), and five other parties. You name the former opponents as the City of Toronto and the Harbord Village Residents’ Association (HVRA). It would appear that the trigger for the editorial was the news that Razor Management had ceased work because it was being assessed $600,000 in tax arrears on a similar dome at Monarch Park Collegiate Institute.  Read more

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