Heritage Toronto plaque honours poets MacEwen and Acorn

Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale), Christopher Hayes of Scotiabank, poet laureate George Elliott Clarke, and Heritage Toronto board member Kate Marshall unveil a plaque on Ward’s Island commemorating poets Gwendolyn MacEwen and Milton Acorn.
COURTESY HERITAGE TORONTO

By Annemarie Brissenden

He was large, gruff, almost a bully, and an ardent Marxist who used poetry to foment revolution. Equally passionate, she was a fey little thing who decided in her teenage years that she would live for poetry. And for a brief, explosive time, Milton Acorn and Gwendolyn MacEwen were married and living on Ward’s Island at 10 Second St. All that stands there now is a vacant lot – the house they lived in was demolished in the 1970s – but a Heritage Toronto plaque unveiled late last month will ensure that the poets and their legacy are not forgotten.

“They were an important couple for the flowering of Canadian poetry that took place in the 1960s, particularly in Toronto,” explains George Elliott Clarke, the City of Toronto’s poet laureate and the E. J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto.

Having worked previously with Heritage Toronto to install a plaque honouring poet Raymond Souster, Clarke – long captivated by the couple’s story – thought one focused on MacEwen and Acorn would be equally successful. Yet, he’d never even been to the island before the bitter cold day in November when the team came over to look for a suitable site.

“For a guy from PEI, living on the island had to have been for [Acorn] a little bit of homesickness being remedied,” reflects Clarke, who likes the spot at the intersection of Second Street and Lakeshore Avenue. He wasn’t sure that MacEwen found it quite so bucolic.

But for the residents of Ward’s Island who turned up at the plaque’s unveiling, MacEwen’s presence seems to have left a permanent stamp on the landscape.

“You move in and you hear about her right away,” says Barbara Klunder, who has lived on the island for 30 years. “It’s in the air.”

Her friend, painter Pat Jeffries, also an island resident, concurs.

“There’s a lot of poets over here; they owe her everything.”

There are so many stories of MacEwen to tell. One tale is of her regular walks with a man everyone dubbed Merlin because of his tendency to wear a turban and cape when out and about. He believed he was in contact with extraterrestrial beings, and wrapped their house in tinfoil to ward off evil rays.

MacEwen had decided early on that she would be a poet and never had any interest in doing anything else. She was a mystical poet, relates Clarke, and “one of a few Canadian poets to achieve greatness without having acquired a university education. Language systems inspired her, and her poetry tends to be as mystical and cryptic as her understanding of language systems.”

Yet her poetry still resonates with many people.

“I always think of her as a passionate woman,” says Joanna Poblocka of the League of Canadian Poets.

Henry Martinuk, also at the unveiling, remembers meeting MacEwen at the Harbourfront Reading Series.

“She was incredibly generous, kind, and patient with the hundreds of people who wanted to meet her and have her sign a book,” he recalls. It’s quite a contrast to his encounter with Milton Acorn, whom he met at the Kress Grill when he about 16.

“He called me a little shit.” It was a better response than he expected.

“Acorn was probably the most important political poet of the 1960s. He wrote in a very insistent fashion. He was a revolutionary dude,” says Clarke. He believes, though, that “the poems by [Acorn] that people are likely to remember best are the ones that deal with nature and are very romantic”.

Both poets were innovating in Canadian poetry from the island, adds Clarke, which is what the plaque celebrates. It includes a picture of MacEwen and Acorn, and quotes from poems they wrote for each other.

Heritage Toronto board member Kate Marshall said she liked the plaque because it honours not just a historic site or location but people, two “very accomplished Canadian literary figures” who “both made important contributions to Canadian literary culture”.

“We don’t often think of the island and its great heritage,” says Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale). “Babe Ruth knocked his first homer out of [Hanlan’s Point Stadium] on the island [for the Toronto Maple Leafs].”

The local councillor characterizes the island as “one of the first great artists’ colonies in the city” and highlights “the spirit of individualism and creativity embedded in the spirit of its residents”.

Effusive and almost rushing into rhyme – “sorry for speaking so fast, I come from Halifax” – Clarke admits that the couple didn’t have the happiest of marriages, “but the happiest part of it was probably their stay in this community”.

Both poets would go on to live in the Annex, where Acorn famously lived in the Waverley Hotel, and there is a park named for MacEwen at Walmer Road and Lowther Avenue. Acorn won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1976 for The Island Means Minago, while MacEwen won in 1969 for The Shadow Maker, and again in 1987 for Afterworlds. They passed away within a year of each other in 1986 and 1987 respectively.

Just as the stigma surrounding mental illness has started to dissipate, the College Street location of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is facing a crisis of its own.

Its landlord, a numbered company owned by Brookfield Asset Management, is playing hardball during a scheduled negotiation in which it is seeking to increase the rent from $1.3 to $4 million, representing a whopping 333 per cent per annum. That amount also represents approximately 34 staff positions at a time when the hospital’s revenue is frozen – like that of all hospitals across the province – as Ontario experiences a fiscal crisis of its own.

CAMH served 31,000 patients last year, 9,000 of whom visited their emergency department, the province’s only 24-hour mental health emergency station. The Toronto Police Service relies heavily upon this facility to deal with members of the public whom it apprehends under the Mental Health Act. Also subject to the rent dispute is the adjacent building at 33 Russell St., which houses state-of-the-art reasearch facilities.

Moving that facility would cost more than the rent increase, a vulnerability that the landlord seems eager to capitalize on, as it squeezes the public health provider for all it can get.

Brookfield’s reps justify the rent increase by arguing that the land value is worth more for condominiums (because apparently we don’t have enough of those). There is a lease, and it stipulates that CAMH can expect three 20-year terms, the first of which began in 1998. The rent is subject to renegotiation at each renewal, with the next renewal slated for 2018.

It’s not the only thing the lease states. It reiterates that the site – zoned for institutional use – may only be used for a hospital. Any other use, such as a mixed-use condominium development, would require approval from the City of Toronto. Neighbouring University of Toronto, the city’s own planning department, and local city councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) have all signalled that they would vigorously oppose any application to change the site use designation.

The lease itself is a bit of a muddle insofar as it does not expressly say that the rent should be determined by a valuation of the lands for the permissible use. Brookfield takes the position that the rent should follow from the best possible use. Their interpretation is at best opportunistic but is really more of a robber baron approach from another era, and only relevant if the site were a strip mall and not a hospital serving the public interest. As Cressy says, the landlord is acting in bad faith.

In 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada sought to codify what “acting in good faith” means in a commercial common law sense. The court held that the rule of honest performance must prevail and parties must not knowingly mislead each other about matters directly linked to the performance of a contract. For Brookfied to instruct an appraiser to value the lands for a use that they are not permitted to apply is dishonest and self-serving.

How is it that such an important health provider finds itself in the crosshairs of an aggressive landlord?

In 2004, the Province of Ontario sold the properties to Brookfield for a mere $16.3 million in a liquidation of assets that was the bright idea of the Mike Harris-Ernie Eves government. Given that the province is the primary funder of CAMH, they essentially took a quick buck, permanently ceded the ownership of the lands, and forced the hospital to issue rent cheques instead of services.

Brookfield, which has nearly $30 billion in Canadian assets alone, claims on their website that it “remains focused on the creation of sustainable, growing streams of cash flow”. One might hope that a landlord with such scale and dominance could see a bigger picture and be sensitized to who its tenants are and what they doing for the greater good.

RE: Bloor “foremost a public space”?(July)

Thank you for your editorial “It’s really a village not a freeway” in the July edition of The Annex Gleaner. I can’t agree more!

The case for bike lanes on Bloor is strong: the route is flat and unencumbered by streetcar tracks, and many people continue to cycle along it, despite the absence of cycling safety measures.

In a 2013-14 study by Toronto Public Health as part of its “Healthy Canada by Design” initiative, Annex residents identified bike lanes on Bloor as their top “active transportation” priority.  An earlier study by the Clean Air Partnership found that motorists bring only 10 per cent of the business to local shops, and that parking in Green P lots could make up for most of the loss of parking on Bloor Street.

The gist of these studies, reports, and observations is that our community would see countless safety, health, environmental, and economic benefits with a bike lane on Bloor.

I am pleased to be working with community members from across our northern neighbourhoods towards a pilot bike lane on Bloor Street for April 2016.

—Joe Cressy

City Councillor

Ward 20

RE: Bloor “foremost a public space” (July)

As someone who’s been pushing improvement in Bloor bike safety for at least a decade now, I’m glad that the Gleaner has kept up its coverage. And while I am in total agreement that improvements to bike safety are quite overdue in the Annex, I’m less certain that the proposed trials of bike lanes are in the right place or with the right timing.

The dire need for Bloor bike lanes is west of Ossington to Lansdowne, and far less in the Annex area where we have an upgraded Harbord Street, plus Barton and Lowther, and other side streets and alleyways. We have options here, but as one goes west, the options for east-west travel dwindle to a few main roads, including Harbord at Ossington, but then what?

If we wish to have a bikeway ease transit, we need to have the large hole in the west end filled and start with Bloor, as it has no streetcar tracks that dictate lane positions. Here in the Annex, especially the narrow Bloor Annex, having a wider curb lane with a small centre median and copious sharrows might be enough for the time being, given how much of a red flag bike lanes can be.

The major issue for bike lane installation usually tends to be on-street parking, and a wider curb lane would require removal of one side of car parking and a reduction in through-car lanes to one each way, whilst still letting a bit of flexibility occur for deliveries as some of the Bloor blocks don’t have back alleyways.

Also, the feel of Harbord Street now that it’s upgraded to the higher levels of bike lane, is far less of a place, and more of a corridor, albeit for bikes. On a bike, it’s not a big deal to drop down to Harbord, and that might mean Bloor can become even more of an urban place than it already is. Nuance is difficult with City Wall, and while I agree totally that bike safety is overdue for Bloor for finally providing a single east-west route to function as a transit relief, we need a few other segments of Bloor to be changed first ahead of the Annex, so let’s try changing the paint where it’s really needed, as difficult as that seems to be. Trials should also be done on rough pavement, not fresh asphalt, so given how rough parts of Annex Bloor are right now, this needs to be done this year.

As parts of Bloor are too nasty to be safely riding on now, a repainting to adjust travel locations for bikes might actually let the road be rough for another year, while improving bike safety and allowing for good redesign with an ability to see if bike safety changes harm businesses too much. They shouldn’t: the Annex area is quite well served with off-street parking.

—Hamish Wilson

Opining on rail safety, daycare, development, health care, and Bill C-51

When residents in The Annex Gleaner coverage area go to the polls on Oct. 19, it will have been less than 18 months since they voted in a federal by-election to replace member of Parliament Olivia Chow, who had stepped down to run for mayor. Since then, the riding of Trinity-Spadina has been largely redistributed into two new ridings: University-Rosedale and Spadina-Fort York. With most Gleaner residents voting in the former, we asked candidates running for all four major parties in the riding to answer a series of questions on policy and their neighbourhood. However, for the first time in the Gleaner’s history, one candidate, Karim Jivraj of the Conservative Party of Canada, declined – at the last minute – to participate in this popular feature.

Compiled by Annemarie Brissenden

Are you satisfied that the major rail corridors in University-Rosedale are safe, particularly for transporting hazardous materials?

Freeland: Absolutely not. As the MP for Toronto Centre and as a local resident who lives next to the train tracks, I have been energetically involved in the rail safety issue.

This is an accident waiting to happen. It is something the federal government can fix – although Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have been missing in action. There are immediate steps we can take: we need more transparency about the dangerous goods which are being shipped, safer train cars, lower speed limits, better braking systems, and better controls on the volatility of the goods that are being shipped. In the medium term, we need to work on rerouting these dangerous goods so they are not travelling through the heart of our city.

Hollett: I am not satisfied that the major rail corridors are safe. I’ve attended the last four rail safety meetings in our community, and the deregulation of our rail industry by both the Liberals and Conservatives have led us to a very dangerous situation. The experts and the NDP agree, rail needs to be safe, regulated, and transparent. Otherwise we could still face a Lac-Mégantic here in University-Rosedale.

Wright: No, dangerous and volatile substances should not be transported through the riding. They must be stabilized prior to transportation, local first responders need to be given real-time information, and we should initiate community and industry consultations on transitioning the Dupont line to passenger rail integrated with our public transit network.

What do you think of Westbank’s proposal for Mirvish Village? What can you do federally to ensure that development and increased density don’t harm the area?

Hollett: I’ve spoken with many community members and resident associations about Westbank’s proposal for Mirvish Village. There is great interest in the rental units, mixed-use space, day care, and working with the community. Many details remain to be seen, but of all the proposed developments in our community, this has the most potential.

As a federal candidate and hopefully MP, I will continue to attend these meetings, working with our city councillors to make sure both housing and infrastructure needs are met. The municipalities can’t do it alone, federal support for affordable housing and public transit is key as our city continues to grow.

Wright: Westbank’s proposal for Mirvish Village includes innovative and exciting additions to the neighbourhood and community, though some issues regarding tower height and density still need to be addressed. As MP for University-Rosedale I will work closely with other levels of government to promote responsible development that adds to our community.

Freeland: It isn’t the federal government’s job to make decisions about local developments in University-Rosedale, and as someone who believes strongly in grassroots democracy I think it is important that decision-making powers always be vested as locally as possible. Decisions need to be taken as close as possible to the people they affect.

Having said that, it is essential that the federal government increase funding to cities so that they can build the infrastructure they need to support growing populations, including more affordable housing. These needs are particularly acute in Toronto, because our city is growing so swiftly.

A Liberal government would do precisely this, with the most ambitious infrastructure plan of any Canadian political party – an additional $60 billion over 10 years, including $10 billion a year for the next two years. This would have a huge impact on jobs, economic growth, and quality of life in University-Rosedale.

Westbank’s proposal for Mirvish Village is a concern for many of the local residents I have been speaking with on my canvasses. As MP I would work with Westbank and local residents to ensure the development is responsive to community input and conscious of the responsibility of all new projects in our historic neighbourhood to enhance the existing community. Including arts spaces, room for small, locally-owned businesses, and green sustainability is essential.

Do you support Bill C-51, aimed at reforming national security through modifications to the criminal code?

Wright: Absolutely not. Bill C-51 is an affront to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and civil liberties. It is shameful that the Conservatives and Liberals supported this dangerous legislation and that the NDP was so slow to oppose it. We need to repeal the bill immediately, maintain the divide between domestic intelligence gathering and enforcement, respect the rights of citizens to express political opposition to government policies, and maintain privacy protections on personal information provided to government.

Freeland: The Liberal Party’s commitment will always be to defend the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to protect their safety. Mr. Harper doesn’t think we need to do anything more to defend our rights and freedoms, and the NDP doesn’t think we need to do anything more to protect our security. We need to do both.

There are understandable concerns with Bill C-51, and we’re committed to repealing and overhauling the parts that are problematic for many, including me. We’ll fix the bill to ensure adequate parliamentary oversight and mandatory legislative review, and to prevent misuse. Canadians should know that the NDP voted against Liberal amendments that proposed these changes.

When it comes to civil liberties and security, Canadians deserve serious and level-headed debate. Instead the NDP is joining Stephen Harper in resorting to the politics of fear.

Hollett: I do not support Bill C-51. The NDP voted against the bill, which has been criticized by the United Nations and is now in court. We don’t have to choose between security and our rights. It’s a false choice – we must protect both. We are committed to repealing Bill C-51. I’m proud to stand with Tom Mulcair and his principled approach on the issue. A lot of people in University-Rosedale tell me they are voting for the NDP for the very first time over Bill C-51.

Should the federal government fund childcare?

Freeland: The Liberal Party understands that Canadian families need support immediately, which is why our expanded child benefit plan would come into force as soon as a Liberal government takes office. It would lift 315,000 Canadian children out of poverty by supporting Canada’s poorest children with a tax-free $6,400 a year. A typical two-parent family, with two children, earning $90,000 a year would get a tax-free benefit of $5,875 a year.

As part of our broader infrastructure plan, we will boost investment in social infrastructure by nearly $6 billion over the next four years, and almost $20 billion over 10 years, including investments in early learning and child care. We will also fund the creation of thousands of new childcare spaces, enhance their quality, and ensure that affordable childcare spaces are available to more families who need them.

Hollett: The NDP is committed to affordable/accessible childcare at no more than $15/day, based on the model in Quebec where Tom is from. Parents in University-Rosedale are concerned about the high price of daycare in Toronto as well as the long waiting lists. $15/day childcare is a game changer. It’s long overdue. The NDP has also received support from chambers of commerce and boards of trade because employers realize our childcare plan is also good for the economy.

Wright: Yes. The federal government should help fund affordable childcare for those in need including working with business and industry to normalize on-site day care in the workplace.

Do you support the federal government’s new funding formula for health care? (Starting in 2016-17, the federal government will base its health care contributions to the provinces on economic growth.)

Hollett: Health care is a key issue in this campaign, and I’m proud to have so many doctors and health care workers volunteering on our campaign in University-Rosedale. Working in collaboration with the provinces and territories, the NDP will bring medicare into the 21st century. We’ll revoke the Conservatives’ unilateral decision to take $36 billion in anticipated funding out of health care, and engage with the provinces in a discussion of real needs. We support the development of new agreements that ensure improved health outcomes. We recognize the jurisdiction of all provinces over health care delivery, but want to work together to improve our public and universal health care system.

Wright: I am a strong proponent of high-quality publicly funded universal health care and oppose policies that are not based on medical need. I am deeply concerned that changes to health care contributions may lower the quality of care provided in some areas.

Freeland: Liberals believe that it is the federal government’s responsibility to work collaboratively with the provinces, territories, and indigenous communities to tackle health issues such as reducing wait times and strengthening community-based care, senior care, mental health, and prescription drug coverage.

Since coming to power, the Conservatives have made changes to how provincial health transfers are paid out that have resulted in steep cuts to important programs, including those administering drug treatment, mental health treatment, and suicide prevention. Further, the Harper government has announced unilateral reductions to health transfers after the Liberal Health Accord expires in 2017 that will completely cut funding for reducing wait times – at a time when Canada ranks last among OECD-country family doctor wait times and has shown no improvement in wait times since 2004.

Transition to green economy, stand up for civil liberties, and be fiscally responsible

By Nick Wright

I am running for the Green Party in the upcoming Oct. 19 federal election for University-Rosedale because it is the only party with a plan to solve the emerging global environmental and economic crisis and transition to a sustainable and prosperous way of life while standing up for civil liberties and fiscal responsibility.

Our current economic system was developed at a time when natural resources were thought to be unlimited. It requires continual economic growth to avoid financial and economic collapse. Because economic growth includes the exploitation of natural resources, if unchanged, it will destroy the planet that sustains us and threaten human life.

Global-scale environmental disasters have become increasingly common. The 2010 British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil spill has caused untold harm to the Gulf of Mexico. The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdowns are poisoning the Pacific Ocean. The ongoing mass slaughter of sharks for their fins has reportedly wiped out 90 per cent of some shark species, destabilizing ocean ecosystems.

At home in Canada, east coast cod populations have been decimated, Ontario is proposing the redevelopment of nuclear power reactors, and the old-line political parties are fighting over how best to exploit the Alberta tar sands.

In contrast, the Green Party is standing up for a better quality of life for all Canadians and future generations by opposing the tar sands and related pipelines, promoting renewable energy, opposing dangerous nuclear power, and transitioning to a sustainable and prosperous green economy. The Green Party has a vision for living well without mortgaging our future.

An important part of transitioning to a sustainable economy and society is defending and building upon the values that Canadians hold dear.

Troublingly, the old-line parties have been working to erode the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our civil liberties by using fear tactics to pass dangerous new laws.

Recently passed Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, creates new secret police, expands preventative arrest, criminalizes speech, and eliminates important privacy rights. Condemned by Amnesty International and many others, the new act is expected to be used as a tool to silence and intimidate political opponents of the current government, including environmental and aboriginal groups. The Green Party advocates for the immediate repeal of Bill C-51.

The Green Party also seeks to expand our freedoms. We advocate for the legalization of marijuana and decriminalization of other illegal drugs, and for treating drug abuse as a health issue, as Portugal has successfully done since 2001. We will also repeal Bill C-36 (the so-called Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act) to legalize sex-work while enhancing the fight against human trafficking.

The Green Party advocates for fiscal responsibility. This means investing in important social programs, but not spending money that we don’t have. We advocate for balanced budgets, paying down the debt, reducing bank leverage ratios, and reinstating the Bank of Canada to a prominent position in the creation of currency and the regulation of credit. These changes will protect our economy and financial institutions while reducing borrowing costs.

The Green Party is the only party with a plan to address the emerging global environmental and economic crisis. We must begin transitioning to a sustainable and prosperous future now, while defending and expanding civil liberties and prudently managing the country’s finances. By voting Green on Oct. 19, you can stand up for a more sustainable, freer, and prosperous Canada.

Nick Wright is the federal Green Party of Canada candidate for University-Rosedale.

Only the Liberals have a progressive economic agenda

By Chrystia Freeland

I have a political skeleton in my closet. I was the Liberal member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and am running as the Liberal candidate in University-Rosedale, but the first party I ever canvassed for was the New Democratic Party when my mother, Halyna Freeland, ran under that banner in Edmonton-Strathcona.

My mother was proudly and unequivocally on the left – she described herself as a Ukrainian-Canadian socialist feminist. Sadly, she died a few months short of her sixty-first birthday, but her moral example is what inspired me to run for parliament as a Liberal and guided my work as co-chair of Justin Trudeau’s economic advisory council. That’s because today the Liberals are the only party with a truly progressive economic agenda.

Over the past three decades, middle class incomes in Canada have lagged behind in the growth of the gross domestic product, and jobs for many have become more precarious. Meanwhile, the share of the national income going to the top 1 per cent has surged from 7.5 per cent in 1982 to 10 per cent in 2012. The shift is even starker at the very top, where the share of the national income going to the 0.1 per cent has doubled from 2.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

That’s why the central progressive mission today is to ensure that capitalist democracy delivers for everyone – and not just for those at the top. To do that, the Liberal party is creating a new tax bracket for Canada’s one per cent, and will use the extra $3 billion in revenue that brings in to lower taxes for the middle class – we will cut taxes by 7 per cent for people in the middle, saving families up to $1,350 per year.

We will end income splitting – another policy that disproportionately benefits those at the very top – and use the money generated by that measure to boost financial support for children, especially those in the middle and at the bottom. I am especially proud that our new, enhanced, and targeted child benefit will give the parents of Canada’s poorest children $6,400 per child tax-free – effectively a guaranteed annual income for our kids.

Direct support for the middle class and those striving to join it is the right thing to do for our society – Canada has always been a country of inclusive prosperity. And supporting the middle class will boost overall growth, as families with urgent economic needs have the money to meet them.

We also need a government that will work hard to deliver jobs and encourage economic activity. A pro-growth agenda is particularly urgent today, when the Canadian economy, alone of the G-7 countries, is in recession.

That’s why when Liberals form government, we will launch a transformative, 10-year plan for infrastructure investment that will kick-start Canada’s stagnating economy. Over the next decade, we will nearly double federal infrastructure investment to $120 billion, from $65 billion.

As the outgoing MP for Toronto Centre, I know how urgently my constituents need infrastructure investment – whether it is for better transit so we can get to work, more affordable housing for the more than 78,000 Toronto families on the waiting list, or green infrastructure to protect us from extreme weather.

As the world’s top economists have been arguing, today – a time of historically low long-term interest rates – smart infrastructure investments are the best way to create jobs now and long-term growth in the years to come. David Dodge, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and Larry Summers, the Harvard economist and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, have both welcomed our plan.

Our program takes political guts – Thomas Mulcair, of all people, has railed against our tax increases for the 1 per cent, and our infrastructure plan is in defiance of the austerity ideology of both the Conservatives and Mulcair’s NDP. But we believe in social justice and economic growth, and our plan will deliver both. Sir Wilfrid Laurier predicted the 20th century would belong to Canada. The 21st can be even better, if we have the courage to invest in our people and in our long-term economic potential.

Chrystia Freeland is the federal Liberal Party of Canada candidate for University-Rosedale.

44 Walmer Rd. faced changed to its character in 2001

In his Aug. 24, 2015 column for The Globe and Mail, “A pop art prize”, Dave Leblanc points to Alfred Holden’s May 2001 column in The Annex Gleaner about 44 Walmer Rd., a design by renowned architect Uno Prii. Leblanc reminds us that the questions raised by Mr. Holden in 2001 remain relevant today. Here is a reprint of that Gleaner column.

Although diminished by the removal of its curvaceous balcony adornments, architect Uno Prii’s 44 Walmer Rd. – as it stands today – remains an artistic statement in design. Brian Burchell, Gleaner News

By Alfred Holden,

Are buildings art?

The question is seldom posed. But it’s a legitimate one that raises some potentially important legal and ethical issues, in the light of construction work that’s going on right now at the large apartment house at 44 Walmer Rd.

In recent weeks crews have removed the building’s most artful and distinctive feature – the curvilinear, circle-patterned balcony railings that made 44 Walmer something of an icon.

Just last month, in its Icons column, Toronto Life pictured 44 Walmer on a two-page spread. The headline was “Flower tower” – a nice play on the way the sensuous design of 44, like the attitude of youth in the sixties era during which it was built, went against boxed-in ways of thinking.

“Playful whimsy” is how a new book East/West: A Guide to Where People Live in Toronto sums up this design by architect Uno Prii. With its “idiosyncratic quality and lightheartedness”, the building “brings an unexpected lightness and joie de vivre to sometimes staid Toronto”.

Prii died last November and I wrote about him in February’s Gleaner.

The current alteration was undertaken so crews could get at balcony concrete for much needed repairs. Nothing wrong with the repairs, but the building’s owner, Gaetano D’Addario, has said the old railing design is gone for good. “I did not like it,” he told me point blank over the phone. And as he put it emphatically, he owns the place.

Legally perhaps, but does he own it completely?

Some readers may remember the case of the Eaton Centre Canada geese, which may offer legal, and certainly moral, inspiration for those concerned about 44 Walmer Rd., and other buildings of merit.

In 1982, as part of a Christmas marketing campaign, it was decided to tie red ribbons around the necks of the flock of fiberglass geese that hang in the south end of the mall’s galleria. The geese are the creation of noted Canadian artist Michael Snow and he was horrified. Snow took the Eaton Centre to court.

A judge found that under Canadian copyright law artists can sell their work, but retain important residual rights: their artistry isn’t to be distorted or modified in unseemly ways by those who buy it. In December of 1982, the red ribbons flew south.

Typically, buildings are not seen as art. Yet buildings everywhere, from the Parliament buildings to the Toronto Dominion Centre to many midtown homes, clearly are art.

Uno Prii was an artist. When I visited him and his wife a couple of years ago, I found their Bloor Street condominium filled with paintings, sculpture, and pottery by the architect. Instantly, I knew where his sculptural buildings came from.

In Ontario, various rules and protocols exist for protecting historic and significant structures. But as Rosie Horn of the Toronto Preservation Board admitted when I called her about 44 Walmer Rd., the system is gutless, toothless. The free-enterprising freewheeling United States has much tougher rules, and enforceable standards set by the Secretary of the Interior. Compared to Canada, Margaret Thatcher’s Britain was, and is, draconian. In France, the prosperity of the nation is seen to depend, in part, on strategic, intelligent stewardship of the nation’s remarkable store of landmark architecture. Is 2001 the time, and 44 Walmer Rd. the place, for ordinary people to take on the issue, by playing hardball under something like the copyright law? The tenants have a law student working on their behalf, in what’s become a long-standing battle with their landlord.

With the balcony railings already off, it seems too late to do anything about the building, but I am not sure.

D’Addario, judging from his response to my phone call, is certainly feeling the pressure. “Wait until the decision is made,” he said to me, opening the door, later in the interview, at least superficially. “It’s a decision we have to make and I am going to take my time to make it.”

“He keeps the place up,” tenant David Aylward told me in the lobby on April 30, “but he’s a bit fancy in his ideas.” Other recent alterations – a marble floor in the foyer and lobby over original terrazzo, a new stucco-over-foam exterior with classical details – reflect a bid to remake modernist 44 into neo-Casa Loma. D’Addario didn’t mention another fact – that his company, Navy & Jim Investments Ltd., has applied to convert 44 Walmer Rd. into a condominium. That’s something with multiple implications for the lives of the tenants today and tomorrow. A public hearing will be held at City Hall at 10 a.m. on May 15. If I lived there, I’d be sure to go.

Whatever happens, I think the owner, by removing a key architectural feature, is taking the wrong approach to his real estate. The very people to whom the building is marketed – the tenants and ultimately the public – have long noticed 44 is a real designer building. Newspapers, magazines, and books are giving the property unsolicited praise, the kind of publicity that cannot be bought at any price. That reflects more about what people want than faux columns and marble floors.

Larry Richards, Dean of Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, in an April 12 letter to the Toronto Preservation Board chair Catherine Nasmith, wrote: “44 Walmer is a highly sculptural, landmark tower…designed by one of Toronto’s most important 20th century modernist architects.” Referring to the railings which define the building, Richards wrote, “this change will drive our city further toward architectural mediocrity”.

In recent years, not enough has been said about botched renovations and still less is done about it. Apartment buildings, so important to the city fabric, are particularly prone – they are treated by their owners, of all people, like worthless old cars, to be patched up with Bondo and souped up with stick-on accessories from Canadian Tire.

So I urge 44 Walmer tenants and their legal advisers to think art, take action, and make theirs a landmark case. These should kick some teeth into worthless laws that right now allow the willy-nilly destruction of art, architecture, and achievement that is of immense value to the future pride and reputation of the city.

A tree that keeps fighting back

This elm, located on Bathurst Street just south of Dundas Street, thrives in the urban landscape against all odds and despite the continued presence of Dutch elm disease. Brian Burchell, Gleaner News

By Alfred Holden,

Given up for lost, great elms soldier on. Extinction was predicted. I remember the news stories around 1970, so prone were the trees to deadly Dutch elm disease, which is still very much with us. But if you believe in evolution, or if you don’t, pull up a chair. Here’s a case study, survival of the fittest, of resilience in crisis, of biology pulling the rabbit out of the hat.

A collar of concrete and the assault of road salt in winter does nothing to deter this elm’s growth. Brian Burchell, Gleaner News

I have long admired this particular tree, a feral American elm that thrives in Toronto’s urban jungle on Bathurst Street, west side south of Dundas. Look around it; this tree speaks to the American elm’s tremendous powers. Neither salt, nor cement, nor hydro wires, nor a competing forest of recycling bins, nor the scourge of Dutch elm disease can keep the elm from growing tall.

On St. George Street, where I live, three or four American elms have outlived almost all the Norway maples, several of the silver maples, and the lindens. In my 33 years living there, the elms have gotten bigger, and not one mature example has died. When I was a boy in Ottawa, the elms were falling all around us (actually, elms seldom fall, their wood is very tough, they had to be cut down and since these are huge trees it was quite an affair). A future for them was hard to fathom. The fungus was accidentally imported from Asia on lumber, and the North American trees did not have the resistance of the Asian varieties. I have written, or assigned, quite a few news stories on this favourite topic for Sarah Barmak, who wrote up the Humewood elm for The Toronto Star.

One of the elm’s greatest friends is Martin Hubbes, a former U of T forestry professor who has schemed to biologically undermine the fungus that kills the trees. He has had mixed success, but all along has pointed out the elm’s persistence and discovered a multitude of ways the tree itself keeps fighting back. (“It’s maybe because they do kung fu,” my spouse pipes up, looking over my shoulder.) Hubbes does deep biology and chemistry; years ago I tried to explain it for readers in a piece in U of T’s Bulletin.­ One helpful thing the elm does is produce seeds at a young age, and while many trees die young, some don’t. What do you think is happening?

Hubbes pointed out to me that other than Dutch elm disease and very old age, not much kills an elm. They are the perfect urban tree, “elegant and adaptable”, strong as steel, big (giants) but well-behaved, writes Joseph Campanella in his book about the elm, Republic of Shade. Elms thrive to hugeness in unlikely places – not just in Toronto concrete but well north and south of their natural habitats, for instance as still-viable shade trees in deep-freezer prairie cities and in Florida.

When Ottawa’s elms were dying and being cut down, I watched the massacre walking to and from school – on elm-lined Clemow, around our house at Renfrew Avenue and Percy Street, along the parkways. I’d stop at the stumps and count rings. The stumps were four, five, eight feet across, and oozed smelly liquid. Brown streaks of the fungus that caused death could be seen. In the guts and the glory it was the turf version of coming across a dead whale on the beach.

When counting, what was impressive was not the number of rings but the width of them, one or two inches a year. Staggering production of hard matter through mere photosynthesis. As a boy I transplanted one, dug up in a back lane which eventually succumbed, but until then grew shockingly faster than I did. The National Capital Commission, against all advice, continued planting elms, and these count among Ottawa’s survivors today.

Campanella argues too many were planted in North American cities, and that this contributed to their fall, as the fungus, carried on the feet of bark beetles, zoomed from tree to tree. With fewer trees around today, he suggests, the disease hasn’t the hosts it needs to keep killing, hence the survivors. Hubbes might disagree – as I recall he did – pointing out that against all odds, and below the radar, the elm remains one of the most common trees on the landscape, found in numbers in every country hedgerow and neglected urban corner. The young trees quickly make seeds and keep the gene pool vigorous. Various cultivars, real elms that seem to resist, have been found. Hubbes has sought means to empower the trees’ existing, considerable capacity to fight back. As well the seeds of hardy survivors like the one on Bathurst Street (one of many such in Toronto) are blowing in the wind.

Some species planted to replace the elm, such as the ash, have been hit by their own pests, but have not responded with the elm’s resilience. Various scourges are creeping up on oaks, hemlocks, and other grand old types. You could make a doomsday movie. The plot: the elm would be the last one standing. Biologically, it’s got the stuff.

A review from when the Lillian H. Smith Branch was new

One of Ludzer Vandermolen’s griffins, which guard the entrance to the Lillian H. Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library. Brian Burchell, Gleaner News

In the October 1995 edition of The Annex Gleaner, Alfred Holden reviewed the then new Lillian H. Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library. On this, the branch’s twentieth anniversary, we thought we’d take a look back at what we thought then. You be the judge: how has Lillian H. Smith stacked up over time?

By Alfred Holden,

Quick. Find a creative six-year-old, paper, and a box of crayons, and have the youngster draw a library. What does it look like? A box, like a house with a steep hipped roof, maybe with a flag at one end and a chimney on the other?

Perhaps there are a couple of grimacing griffins, like the beasts in fairy tales, guarding the door. There are probably big windows because, as any kid will tell you, it’s nice to have a bright sunny place to read a book.

Dreaming on, wouldn’t it be nice if there were more books for kids; a whole building of them? Why not? Where youngsters – maybe by clicking with a mouse on a squeaky clean new computer – could find some favourites themselves.

On the shelves there would be classics like Goodnight Moon, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and Winnie the Pooh – even some historical editions of them. And plenty of fresh copies of the latest books, for everyone wants to meet the kid who lives in the house where trains stop, in Robert Munsch’s Blackberry Subway Jam.

Somewhere in this heaven for imps there would, of course, be a corner for grown-ups, sort of an inverse to the ballroom for kids at Ikea. Over here, to keep them busy, there’d be CD-ROM drives for browsing, and maybe a link-up to the Toronto Free-Net. And over there, a collection of science fiction.

This all sounds like fiction, and surely is a childish fantasy at a time when elected officials insist nothing public – and there are few things more public than a library – is worth investing in. But it’s all coming true, right down to the griffins by sculptor Ludzer Vandermolen over at 239 College St.

That’s where, at the corner of Huron Street, the new “children’s branch” of the Toronto Public Library opens this month. In fact, the new Lillian H. Smith Branch, named for the beloved librarian who organized Canada’s first library for children, is a library for everyone. Its heart will be children’s books, including the famous Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. But there will also be, among other things, a reference department, a Chinese collection, and meeting rooms for folks who’d rather chat than read.

I also believe there is, in this building, something less tangible but in the long run even more valuable than well bound volumes and high-powered computers: faith. Not the religious kind, but faith in the future of the city, its neighbourhoods, its people and their public spirit. Standing on College Street, on the opposite corner from the new building, its confidence – ultimately our confidence in ourselves, for we built and own it – positively jumps out at you.

Part of the excitement comes from the design by architect Philip H. Carter, which fittingly for a library draws much from history, lore, and tradition. The griffin, for instance, is the mythological half-eagle half-lion who guarded the gold of the Hyperboreans – in Greek mythology a northern people who were blessed with happiness.

Such creatures will, I am sure, print their images on all young minds that pass our way, irresistible invitations to come and explore the treasures within. “When I was a kid,” they will remember to their own children (and one hopes those children to theirs), going to the library was an event.

Alluring mystery and fantasy notwithstanding, attention has also been paid to giving 239 College St. qualities that are familiar and comforting. Substantialness is one; this is not a giant building by any means, but from any point of view on the sidewalk or across the street it sits like a pointed rock on its stone foundation, with walls that look three feet thick. These walls are fresh of finish (brick, fancifully laid, for example into a ribbon of black diamonds near the roof line, or the great Sullivanesque entrance arch within which the griffins perch), but the effect is classical, and its message, reinforced by pigeon droppings already accumulating on the wide stone windowsills, is performance.

All this brings back memories of the libraries many of us knew in our own youth – those huge, classically-styled Carnegie palaces that dotted cityscapes from Ottawa to San Francisco, or even Toronto’s old central library, which stands across College Street serving as the University of Toronto Bookstore.

Should the griffins let you pass, you’ll step further into the past in the foyer, with its soft light (from one of those hanging bowls of white glass), walls of polished brown marble, and bronze doors (watch your fingers everyone) that are not polished bright but burnished brown as though many a hardcover has already passed this way.

Spanking new, yet familiar too, will be the oak reading tables and the marching chairs (big enough for two to curl up in), icons whose presence ought to relieve such anxiety as might be transmitted by all high tech electronic equipment patrons young and old will be figuring out.

Inside and out, a particularly clever feature of this building is the way ventilation grates have been made into design elements, doing the building’s heating, cooling, and breathing from finely finished strips of metal in one place, great round medallions at another.

Not as satisfying is the dark slate floor in the foyer and round atrium, and wall-to-wall carpet (why not rugs?). These elements seem incongruously dull, dated, and ephemeral in a building so potentially timeless. So do the false ceilings and their fluorescent light fixtures; one expects (but probably cannot afford) a more literate execution, with smooth plaster and softly glowing milk-glass luminaries hanging from chains.

But these faults are mere compared to the larger picture, the appearance of a great urbane public building downtown when many of us were worried about the future of the city. Here is concrete evidence that Toronto lives and thrives yet, and a reason to stick around.

The Lilian H. Smith Branch demonstrates that public gestures undertaken by government agencies for citizens can be grand, beautiful, and inspiring. That’s something we need to see at a time when greed and parsimony, masquerading as business sense and thrift, dominate government policy. Pooh on you, Mike Harris.

Pick a plan, the real enemy is inaction

For me, there is very little doubt that carbon needs to be priced. The only question is what mechanism we use as a nation to price it for the most effective carbon reducing strategy. I had the fortune of hosting the “Why Should I Care?” forum on carbon pricing in August. The two guests debated the merits of the carbon tax, the cap and trade, and the fee and dividend systems.

The first time I ever recall a federal party actually proposing a carbon tax was in 2008 when then Liberal leader Stephane Dion brought forth the green shift. The idea was to put a dollar amount on carbon so that the consumer was hit where it hurt the most, in the wallet. The tax would act just like cigarette and alcohol taxes, it would discourage bad behaviour, and those who didn’t engage in it would save money by tax cuts in other areas. The disaster of that election pretty much ensures that no major party will include real climate mitigation measures into their platform for fear of voter retribution in the near future. However, I salute Dion’s courage for having had what I considered the greenest party platform in a western democracy. A carbon tax will send a price signal to producers. An adequate price signal in theory makes an otherwise more expensive, low carbon, option price competitive. The fear with this solution is that the price will be too low, not allowing biofuels and other alternative forms of energy to actually compete.

Fee and dividend is promoted federally by Green Party leader Elizabeth May. The idea here is that an incremental fee is imposed by government on companies emitting pollutants, with the fee increasing steadily each year until the point is reached where clean energy becomes cheaper to employ than fossil fuels. All the money collected through the fee system would be returned to Canadians on an equitable basis, regardless of a household’s carbon footprint, and assistance with increased costs would be passed along by the corporation paying the fees. Households with a large carbon footprint would feel the effects of the fee system, which will exceed the dividend return, thus incentivizing change. Conversely, a family reducing its carbon footprint to less than average will make money from the program, which also benefits from being predictable through employing increasingly higher carbon prices, thereby encouraging entrepreneurs and investors to focus on clean-energy options.

In a cap and trade system (as already adopted in California and Quebec), the government caps carbon emissions from large polluters by setting legal limits, which are lowered over time to reduce the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere.

If a company is able to reduce its pollution easily and cheaply, it can end up with extra allowances which it can then sell to other companies – generating revenue in the process. The benefits of implementing this type of structure allows companies to plan well in advance as the cap on emissions is gradually and predictably lowered each year.

Additionally, while companies may exchange allowances between each other, the total number of allowances remains the same, thereby achieving hard limits on pollution emitted each year.

Each strategy has its benefits, but from the discussion we hosted, Brian Foody, CEO of Iogen Corporation, said it best. Which method we choose is irrelevant so long as carbon can be priced appropriately. There are advantages to adopting systems already put in place by other jurisdictions such as Europe and California, given how small the Canadian market is.

Regardless of the system, on election day I’m looking for a leader willing to do something!

Terri Chu is an engineer committed to practical environmentalism. This column is dedicated to helping the community reduce energy use, and help distinguish environmental truths from myths.

Send questions, comments, and ideas for future columns to Terri at terri.chu@whyshouldicare.ca.

Seven notorious twentieth-century women come alive in solo show

By Annemarie Brissenden

It turned out that Zelda was most comfortable in the bathtub. For Elizabeth Smart, it was doing dishes in the kitchen. Or so Dora-award winning actress Nicky Guadagni discovered as she rattled around a big, old farmhouse, coming to grips with the seven women in Hooked, Carolyn Smart’s collection of poetry. Together with director Layne Coleman, Guadagni would adapt Smart’s seven poems into a critically-acclaimed one-woman play of the same name, which is being remounted at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace this month.

“I was visiting [Carolyn],” recalls the Annex resident, explaining their families are long-time friends, “and she showed me the galley proofs for the book. I took a cursory look and the words just kind of jumped out at me. They were all women I felt a connection to, except Jane Bowles, whom I didn’t know.”

Each of Smart’s poems is narrated in the voice of one of seven notorious women from the twentieth century: Myra Hindley, Unity Mitford, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dora Carrington, Elizabeth Smart, Carson McCullers, and Jane Bowles. The poems provide an intimate glimpse into the inner life of these women, and can be jarring, particularly when told in the voice of England’s Myra Hindley, the Karla Homolka of her time, or Unity Mitford, who idolized Hitler.

“I wanted to choose women that would hold my interest for the full period that I would research and write them,” explains Smart. Hindley – who “loomed large over my childhood” – had just died when the poet began working on the project, so there was lots of coverage in the British press at the time.

“The stories [about Hindley] were so markedly different…. I wondered, who is this woman?”

After Hindley – the most despised woman in British history – Smart moved on to the most hated woman in British history, Unity Mitford, who never smiled in pictures, except in those with Hitler.

“Unity [has] a bad effect on some people,” says Guadagni, admitting that portraying such women can provoke a strong reaction from her audience. “Some people refuse to look at me, they are so filled with hatred.”

“You call tell a lot about a person by the way they interpret history and their own times,” says director Layne Coleman, who recently appeared in the Annex as Sir John A. Macdonald in The Postman. He collaborated with Guadagni on adapting the poems, and says the biggest challenge was finding a way to connect the seven narrative vignettes into a cohesive whole.

“We added a musician, which [provided] accents that made it more of a play,” he says, adding that his primary role was really to give Guadagni the space and confidence to develop the characters as she saw fit.

“Nicky has a real gift for speaking in the tongues of others,” Coleman explains. “I tried to protect [her] instincts.”

Guadagni now recognizes that such approval was just what she needed.

“He never gave me a note, but allowed me the freedom to keep experimenting.”

Of all the women, both Guadagni and Smart feel the strongest affinity with writer Elizabeth Smart (no relation), who grew up in Ottawa, and fell in love with poet Charles Barker, a doomed romance she detailed in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.

“Perhaps because, aside from Zelda, she’s the only mother,” reflects Guadagni, who adds that she’s Canadian, and more contemporary than the others.

Smart, who lived in the same house and went to the same school as Elizabeth Smart, says “the ones that I love the most were Elizabeth and Carrington. Elizabeth because I was able to talk about the landscape that I grew up with and loved.”

For his part, Coleman says he likes Guadagni’s portrayal of writer Jane Bowles, describing how the actor transforms herself into a what he calls a “borscht belt comedian”.

“I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard,” he says of Guadagni’s first performance. “I nearly split a gut watching that one.”

After six years of performing Hooked, Guadagni says working from a script adapted from poetry has made her far more attuned to her sensitivity and connection to language.

“I have much more confidence in language and my determination not to interfere with it.”

Hooked runs from Sept. 16 to 26 at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. Tickets are available at www.artsboxoffice.ca.

For further information, please visit www.hookedtheplay.ca. Regular contributor Annemarie Brissenden is also the play’s publicist.