Supporters gathered at the Toronto Book Awards to celebrate the city

By Jacqueline Schifano

Bibliophiles united at the Toronto Reference Library for the 38th annual Toronto Book Awards.

On Oct. 11, Andrew J. Borkowski’s collection of short stories, Copernicus Avenue, took the top prize at the awards honouring literary works that are evocative of Toronto.

“We don’t celebrate the city as we should,” said the evening’s host, CBC radio’s Matt Galloway. “Tonight we celebrate the city that we’re in and the individuals who celebrate this city in print.”

A collection of short stories set within the Polish community of Copernicus Avenue, based on the Roncesvalles area, Borkowski said his book “represents a whole community.”

“It’s really filled a need in the Polish community,” he said. “It’s an area that has been overlooked in the past…and with this award, this book, it’s kind of making up for lost time.”

Borkowski said that winning this award “really put the seal” on what has been a very positive reaction to his debut book.

“Frankly, I’m surprised because I never win anything,” he said. “I guess you can say I’m a novice at it.”

These glimpses into different parts of the city are the focus of the award, and the Award’s committee chair, Kristine Thornley, said that serving as a judge had really made her read more about Toronto.

“[Being a judge] is a lot of work. It is a lot of books to read,” said Thornley, who served in her third and final year as a member of the judging panel.

Borkowski’s book was chosen by the panel of judges who narrowed down the five finalists from nearly 100 submissions.
Submissions for the awards are works of fiction or non-fiction and can be for both adults and children.

The variety of the material and wide selection of novels is one of the most important aspects of the awards, said Thornley.

“It’s a diverse selection of books for a diverse group of people,” she said.

The selection of finalists included Paramita, Little Black, a collection of poems by Suzanne Robertson, Writing Gordon Lightfoot: The Man, the Music and the World in 1972 by Dave Bidini, the novel Six Metres of Pavement by Farzana Doctor, Borkowski’s winning short stories, Copernicus Avenue, and the collection of Michele Landsberg’s columns documenting the evolution of the feminist movement, Writing the Revolution.

The awards, which are presented in partnership with the Toronto Public Library, present each finalist with a $1,000 cheque with an addition $10,000 going to the winner.

Following the success of his book, Andrew J. Borkowski is looking forward to writing both a prequel and a sequel to Copernicus Avenue.

“If anyone had told me coming out of university at 22 that it would take me 35 years to write my first book, I probably would have tried to quit right there, but I wouldn’t have been able to,” he said. “Writing has to be what you want to do, what you have to do, and somehow you’ll find a way to do it.”

Folk musicians gather to share tales of the history of Toronto

By Jacqueline Schifano

Folk music is heading back to Trinity St Paul’s Church as the Grass Roots Folk Songs of Toronto concert makes its one-night stand.

On Oct. 27, the sactuary of St Paul’s (427 Bloor Street W.) will be ringing with the sound of music about Toronto as a number of renowned singer/songwriters take to the stage to show a different side to the city.

CIUT radio’s Heather Fielding, and local historian Douglas Campbell who along with Tony Quarrington, the event’s artistic director, are the co-chairs for the concert and will host the evening.

Campbell said the church is over 125 years old and is “the perfect place for an event like this.”

“It’s a centre for faith and for justice and social justice express through art,” he said.

This year will mark the second year that St Paul’s will host this event.

“Last year the church held this as a pay-what-you-can event which got enough support that they brought us back,” said Tony Quarrington.

Quarrington himself is expected to play some of his own works that explore his own connection with the city and incidents from the War of 1812.

The line-up includes local musicians like Order of Canada winners artist Grit Laskin and soprano Mary Lou Fallis, MP Andrew Cash (NDP Davenport), Muddy York, John Brooks and Sue and Dwight Peters.

Laskin, who was awarded the Order of Canada for his role in promoting Canadian folk music said he was excited to be taking the stage with such a collection of performers in one of the best acoustic venues in the city.

“It’s a superb venue,” he said. “It may be one of the best in the city, that’s why there’s been so many live albums recorded there.”

Quarrington described the event as a roots concert.

“It’s a way to reconnect with the community,” he said.

The artists will each be performing songs that reflect the spirit, legend, and history of the city.

Tickets for the event are $15 and are available at the Church office.

Students at the Waldorf Academy put their “wishes” on display before locking them away for another generation of students to discover them. Photo by Samori Bryan

By Samori Brown

On Friday Oct. 12 faculty and students at the Waldorf Academy (250 Madison Avenue) celebrated the school’s 25th anniversary. Far from the single kindergarten class of its inception in 1987, the once small home school has since grown to include three more kindergarten classes and classes from grades one to eight – many of whom were present for the celebrations.

Events at the celebration included a barbeque as well as two very large (and delicious) chocolate and vanilla cakes. Staying in the mood of things, the academy would sing happy birthday with a Waldorf twist – along with verses unique to the school. As the celebration continued, the facilitator, Dean Husseini, had an opportunity to address the student body, after which he would introduce the highlight of the anniversary, the time capsule.

Each grade were given the opportunity to contribute, however instead of putting gifts or trinkets into the time capsule, the students of Waldorf Academy put in “wishes”. One by one, representatives from each grade would come up to leave their wishes in the safekeeping of the time capsule, many of which were unique in design and focus. Some of the wishes were for a library, an indoor swimming pool, and a larger gym.

Toronto councillor Josh Matlow was also in attendance and had his own wish for the school: “…for the Waldorf Academy to grow with the community”. Matlow would go on to commend the students and the school for achieving great success while staying true to their unique methods, principles and values.

Based on the nearly century old teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the faculty of the Waldorf Academy pride themselves in being a part of one of the largest educational movements in the world with over 900 schools in 83 countries and over 2500 Kindergartens.

All proceeds to support children’s arts programs

Left to right: Kevin Cooke, Roger Dorey and Glenn Tooth bring the house down at the A Night of Jazz at 918 event. Photo by Alex Zakrzewski

By Alex Zakrzewski

Move over Ron Burgundy, Glenn Tooth is this town’s newest jazz flute virtuoso.

Jazz flute virtuoso Glenn Tooth charmed the ears and the keys in support of a local children’s charity.

On Oct. 13, Tooth headlined A Night of Jazz at 918, an event he and his daughter Stanzie organized to raise money for the St. Alban’s Boys and Girls Club, a charity that organizes after school programs for children.

Over 80 people of all ages filled the 918 Bathurst Centre’s Great Hall where they were also treated to performances by bluesman Roger Dorey and singer and bassist Kevin Cooke.

Stanzie Tooth explained that she originally planned on organizing a concert as a Christmas present for her father.

“I presented him with the idea and then he came back to me with the suggestion that if we’re doing an event and we’re putting all this effort into it, it might as well go to a good cause,” she said.

Stanzie, who works as a curator and manager at the Lonsdale Art Gallery, said they chose to support St. Alban’s because of all the arts programming the club provides to children in the community.

“Encouraging creativity in children is part of their mandate, so if we can give some money back so some kids can be exposed to art, then all the better,” she said.

Originally from Winnipeg, Glenn Tooth lived in Toronto for many years before settling down in Kingston. He cites local jazz flute legends Moe Koffman and Bill McBirnie as his biggest musical influences and said it was important for him to support an organization that helps the community’s art scene.

Dorey, a mainstay on Toronto’s blues stages, started the event with a fiery set of hard-strummed blues covers and originals that had the audience clapping and singing along.

“My theory is never turn down a microphone,” he said. “To be able to entertain people and know that you are also contributing to a worthy cause is a thrill.”

Tooth was next on stage where he performed a few solo numbers before Cooke joined him for a series of jazz tunes that included works by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and the Beatles.

At the end of the night, all three performers came together in an improvised jazz/blues send off that had the crowd on their feet.
Cooke, who currently resides in Ottawa, said he felt particularly compelled to lend his talents to the event because he grew up on Markham Street and still feels part of the community.

“I have a lot of friends who are social workers in the city and they really look to St. Alban’s to do what they do,” he said, “In this time of austerity with our various governments, anything the individual can do to help is important.”

Thanks to the generosity of the concertgoers, who were asked to give a suggested donation of five dollars each, a total of $600 dollars was raised for the St. Alban’s Boys and Girls Club.

Natasha Eck, the club’s creative arts coordinator was in attendance to thank the Tooth’s for their efforts and the audience for their support.

“With all the cuts within the arts at the moment we rely on volunteer instructors and donations for art supplies and equipment,” she said.

“Without this sort of support, we wouldn’t be able to continue providing art programs for the community.”

Eck said the money raised will be put towards a range of programs including guitar, fashion, photography and dance classes.

Trustees uneasy as further cuts made to schools

Provincial government recently froze funding approvals for more than a dozen TDSB building projects after the board went $11 million over budget on Regent Park’s Nelson Mandela Park Public School rebuild. Photo by Samina Esha.

By Samina Esha

The Toronto District School Board has been under constant scrutiny after an additional $46.4 million was cut from their their 2012/2013.

These cuts included the closing of 32 school cafeterias and increasing fees for people that use school facilities by 41 per cent – cuts one trustee warned could have major effects.

“Any time you take money out of the system as tight as ours, there are major impacts, and they are usually negative,” said Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher, Ward 16, Beaches East York.

While TDSB chair, Chris Bolton, Ward 10, Trinity-Spadina shared similar concerns he said the impact of the cuts will depend on the size of the school and student enrolment.

“We have many small schools in the Annex and there is increasing pressure on the area and on the board to make larger schools as oppose to having smaller community schools,” said Bolton.

“With the help of the community we can try to save schools with 200 or 300 students, but for schools smaller than that it is harder.”

Earlier this spring, the TDSB approved $50.8 million in staff cuts. This included 134 school secretaries, 17 vice-principals, 200 high school teachers, 10 caretakers, and six hall safety monitors. Despite the foreboding numbers, Sharon Janes, Principal of Palmerston Avenue Junior Public School said she is optimistic.

“We are still the same status quo that we were before and so far we have not been affected…I believe the board is working very hard,” said Janes.

The cutting of 430 educational assistants was a major decision according to Trustee Jerry Chadwick, Ward 22, and Chair of TDSB’s budget committee.

“Due to province mandated full-day kindergarten, the classes are bigger and each teacher is now responsible for 25 to 30 students without an EA…while Annex [schools] had EA’s in classrooms, Scarborough never had that facility,” said Chadwick.

Chadwick said he hoped the educational board would not have to go through the same deficit situation every year.
“Any decision we make in terms of cuts are hard decisions and no one wanted to make them but based on our funding we had to,” he said.

Bolton said it will fall to the community to make sure public education maintains its standards through supportive community involvement. “If everyone joined hands and continued education we can make our basis stronger and make sure that the local schools are the heart of the community.”

With files from Richard Frankel

By Albert Koehl

I’m always happy when someone angrily yells at me when I advocate for cycling improvements in Toronto. I used to have a flag on my bike calling for ‘Bike Lanes on Bloor’ – until someone tore it off. This too made me happy. What I hate most is being ignored.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that all truth passes through three stages: “First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self evident.” When I’m yelled at, it means cycling is at stage two – and closing in on the third.

After almost a century of building, expanding, and extending our auto-based transport system, there is plenty of evidence that we need drastic change: 300 000 Canadians killed and millions more injured on our roads during that period, countless billions of dollars in damages, poor levels of fitness, lethal air pollution, and the frightening pace of climate change. It’s inevitable that the value of cycling (and walking) will soon be accepted as self-evident- stymied only by the slow pace of receiving needed funds.

When automobiles became popular in Canada and the U.S. in the 1920s it wasn’t because of their efficiency. Instead it was arguments about liberty, independence, and the illusion of speed, along with the rising power of motoring interests that forced streetcar lines out of most cities. Over the next decades governments sunk billions of dollars into road and highway infrastructure. Today, the average citizens spend almost $10,000 annually to own and operate a car so they can travel just a bit faster than a bicycle.

Cycling in Toronto has become popular despite the lack of infrastructure. There benefits are obvious – physical fitness, low cost, and the pure joy of riding a bike. Despite the increasing number of cyclists on Bloor, Toronto’s bike plan remains almost 400 km short (!) of its 2011 goal of 500 km of bike lanes.

Fortunately – as the screaming at cyclists veers towards acceptance – more and more unlikely groups are promoting cycling and cycling safety. Ontario’s Chief Coroner and Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, in separate reports, have recently called for safer cycling conditions. Merchants in the Annex increasingly accept and promote bike lanes on Bloor. (Perhaps they are motivated by the Clean Air Partnership’s finding that only 10% of patrons at local businesses arrive by car – and the majority of spending is actually done by cyclists and pedestrians.) The Annex Residents Association has unanimously adopted a cycling policy that includes recommendations for bike lanes on Bloor, and 30km/h speed limits. Such strong support proves that people are finally paying attention.

So if you are among the people who oppose bike lanes and other cycling safety improvements – please take the time to yell at me. It always makes me happy — and confident that our community is heading in the right direction.

Albert Koehl is a Board member of the ARA, a founder of Bells on Bloor, and an environmental lawyer. He was on the coroner’s expert stakeholder panel for the recent active transport death reviews.

Annex stores prepare for Toronto’s plastic bag ban

By Alexa Huffman

Council announced this month that the city’s plastic bag ban will begin in the new year, but questions are now being raised about the impact this decision will have on businesses.

Making Toronto a greener place was a major factor in council voting on the bag ban Councillor David Shiner introduced this past June. After an initial voting  to ban plastic bags outright passed, 24-20, a motion this October to reconsider and reopen the debate failed to gain enough votes to go forward.

“It’s a matter of perspective but if it encourages longer lasting bags, it’s a good thing,” said Michel Lagace, co-president of the University of Toronto Environmental Student Union.

As of  Jan. 1, 2013, retail stores will no longer be able to provide customers with single-use plastic or biodegradable shopping bags, which leaves stores in the Annex looking for other options.

The scramble for options doesn’t necessarily mean that retailers, both bigger chains and smaller shops, are against the ban. Lyla Radmanovich, the corporate spokesperson for Dollarama, explained that the store is supportive of the City of Toronto’s objective to change consumer behavior in order to improve practices that benefit the environment.

“At this time, we are following the situation closely and will find appropriate alternatives as required,” Radmanovich said. “City officials have been receptive to our concerns and we look forward to how they plan on addressing this issue.”

One of those concerns include having customers be inconvenienced if they go for an impromptu shopping trip and have not thought to bring a bag.

Lagace said solutions that could work include environmentally friendly cloth bags or reusing cardboard boxes.

Karma Co-op (739 Palmerston Avenue) is a non-profit, member-owned and operated grocery store whose members add to an overstock pile of bags for those who come without.

“We’re very eco-conscious,” Talia Mcguire, Karma Co-op’s acting general manager said. “Most members like to bring in alternatives to plastic. Even in the fruit and vegetables section, I think we will use only a big roll of plastic bags a year.”

While Karma Co-op members have used their own bags for years, for others there will have to be an adjustment period. Radmanovich said Dollarama thinks other methods, like bag specifications may be just as effective as an outright ban and a discussion about alternatives is vital.

Lagace said the adjustment may prove hard to reinforce.

“But in the end, even if it’s not perfect, it’s a move in the right direction,” Lagace said. “We could be a trendsetter for another Canadian city.”

By Hamish Wilson

There was good news for cyclists at a recent public meeting initiated by the Annex Residents Association: many of the needed pieces for re-doing Bloor Street in the Annex for bike safety are finally coming together.

The ARA’s Transportation Committee produced three major recommendations for public consideration: bike lanes on Bloor, a lowering of the speed limits on residential streets to 30km, and easing “wrong” way biking on these side streets.

A study conducted in 1992 found Bloor ideal for an east-west bike route with the subway enabling a vast amount of non-car mobility, but since then official counts of bike/car crashes have shown a steady pattern of harm including four deaths with no real reaction.

The push for more bike-lanes was killed off in the summer of 2011 by the Rob Ford’s council to save around $500,000, the approximate cost of repainting the entire Bloor/Danforth – the same amount paid to former TTC Chief Gary Webster. Though cities like London, England, have seen the merits of expanding their bike network to ease subway woes, Fordian logic, backed by a majority of suburban councillors, seems intent on removing bike lanes.

Data presented by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transport showed that the majority of commerce on Bloor comes from public transit, cyclists and pedestrians. Currently, there are approximately 90 car parking spaces between Spadina and Bathurst, half of which would be excised if bike lanes are introduced in favour of the three Green P lots nearby.

With residents embracing real change to the street, Councillor Adam Vaughan is becoming increasingly supportive, though the devil lurks in the details. For instance, while wider sidewalks arguably improve pedestrian flow, good bike lanes would take up almost all of one current lane – and Bloor is not that wide. Also, merely placing sharrows on the road doesn’t adequately counter the speed of drivers who tend to respect white lines far more.

Sadly, getting a consensus from the community will not guarantee bike lanes as the motor-happy Fordists will fight this change, despite previously saying they would allow bike lanes with community support. Unfortunately, the communities and councilmembers of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York have more votes than the old core and use them.

Next year, the city intends to redo Bloor Street from Bathurst to Lansdowne. Repairs to the Annex Bloor area’s heavily potholed and disintegrating roads could logistically be included within this makeover. Astoundingly, to merely repaint Bloor seems now to require an Environmental Assessment, whereas ripping out the hundreds of tonnes of sidewalk and road etc. has become routine destruction and waste. So what if we have issues with Mega-quarries – the three Rs don’t apply!

Civic responses, which gave equal value to lives and well-being, are in favour of attempting the repainting of Bloor between Spadina and Dundas – and to try it this fall, to see if the world ends. The simple repainting of Bloor for those 4kms would cost $100,000 – a large sum, yes, but a penny in the overall city budget. Is that too much to ask to improve the safety of cyclists while reducing carbon emissions?

HW is an Annex area cyclist advocate and consultant with many years of urging Bloor bike safety with Take the Tooker and the Bells on Bloor.

Residents try to move on

Police are investigating a total of 12 sexual assaults in the Christie Pits area. Photo by Andrew Russel.

By Andrew Russell

Residents of the Christie Pits area no longer have to look over their shoulders after police announced Monday Oct. 22 of the arrest of a 15-year-old male on 14 counts of Sexual Assault and two counts of Criminal Harassment in connection to a string of assaults that took place between August and October.

The most recent assaults took place over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Monica Gupta, chair of Friends of Christie Pits Park, said the area is shaken by the recent attacks.

“It’s very upsetting that it’s happening in our community. We shouldn’t have to afraid in our own community,” said Gupta. “It’s not reflective of this neighbourood.”

While residents are looking for answers, police are investigating the possible relationship between these and past attacks.

“Police are treating the first 10 incidents as being perpetrated by the same suspect,” said Const. Wendy Drummond. “ The potential for these recent assaults to be connected is there but more investigation is still needed.”

The attacks come just over a month after local residents held the ‘Action Against Recent Sexual Assaults’ rally to symbolically take back Christie Pits.

“Anything that’s being done to raise awareness on the street is something that’s very positive for the community and for police investigations,” said Const. Drummond. “These kinds of events can encourage people to come forward. Sexually assault is an underreported crime.”

On Saturday night Oct. 6, two separate women were assaulted in the span of a few minutes. The first woman, a 19-year-old walking from Harbord St. near College St. and Montrose Ave., was approached from behind by a man and sexually assaulted around 10:55 p.m. and fled north on Montrose.

Minutes later at around 11 p.m. he assaulted a 29-year-old woman walking south of Harbord along the same street and continued running north.

On Sunday, around 11:45 p.m., a 23-year-old woman was walking south on Grace St. from Bloor St. when a man approached her from behind and sexually assaulted her.

The suspect descriptions in all three cases vary slightly but the suspect is generally described as a black male, between 25 and 40 years old, with a stocky-to-heavy build and a height between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-10.

Monica Gupta hopes residents are not deterred by the recent attacks and continue to live their normal day-to-day lives.

“Don’t stop going out to bars, restaurants, and local businesses,” said Gupta. “It could be very detrimental to the community.”

Plan includes $3-million cut to staffing costs

By Ryan Saundercook

The Royal Ontario Museum announced in a press release this past July that it would be cutting total salary and benefits costs for its employees by 10 per cent, which amounts to roughly $3 million a year.

Janet Carding, the museum’s CEO and driving force behind the museum’s new strategic plan, said that after a decade or so of major construction projects, such as the Libeskind-designed Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the museum has worked up a significant debt, which needs to be tackled now.

“We need to manage our expenditure and reduce it right now … We’ve had a very successful philanthropic campaign, and we’ve had very successful changes in terms of visitation, but the museum nevertheless was running an overdraft and had some bills that it needed to pay, and right now we need to become smaller as an organization,” said Carding.

Carding said the changes are largely a part of keeping the museum relevant in a world where mobile internet access has left us “drowning in information.”

“We really need to think, in terms of our plans, about what kind of organization we want to be for the community,” said Carding. “What people are looking for now is not information per se, what they’re looking for is a way to journey through it and learn at their own pace, and particularly find information they can trust. We’re re-orienting ourselves around the idea that our visitors and users might visit us through the doors or might come to us online … It’s really focusing around the user and putting that at the center of the organization.”

However, such a plan won’t come without some sacrifice, and likely won’t be to everyone’s liking.

Rather than simply cutting a specific number of positions, Carding said employees have been offered a voluntary severance package, available until Aug. 31. After this date more steps may need to be taken depending on how many employees take the package.

The press release stated that “Until a final staffing plan is finalized in September 2012, no specific job reductions will be made other than the changes already announced to ROM senior management.”

OPSEU, which represents many of the ROM’s employees, will be meeting with museum representatives on Sep. 4, 2012, and is currently unable to make a comment to the media, said a representative.

Another significant change the museum has made was dropping admission prices late last year, making the ROM more accessible to patrons who may have felt that $24 was too high a price to pay for a visit to the museum.

“We removed the reason not to come by getting the price right, but we then still need to create this sense that the museum is a relevant place for the community, so that’s part of our long-term thinking,” said Carding.

Carding said the combination of a lower admission price and a more user-driven experience will help to drive numbers.

“We need to work hard to maintain and increase our visitation in order to make sure we don’t have less money coming in, and so really focusing on making the museum into what our visitors are interested in, and focusing on how we engage people and build longer term relationships, that is going to be important to our financial viability.”

The Annex, Seaton Village could be out of Trinity-Spadina riding

By Andrew Schopp

The federal electoral district of Trinity-Spadina could be cut down to size, with the Annex and Seaton Village being removed from the riding and rezoned as part of the St. Paul’s riding, if the proposed changes by Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario go through.

The current boundaries of this part of Trinity-Spadina are the CP rail line, just north of Dupont St.; Ossington Ave. to the west; and Avenue Rd. to the east. The area that would become part of St. Paul’s comprises everything north of Bloor St., with Avenue Rd. remaining the eastern boundary, and the western boundary shifting to Dovercourt Rd. The intersection of Bloor St. W. and Ossington Ave. would become the northwest boundary of Trinity-Spadina.

The boundaries of federal electoral districts are reevaluated every 10 years, after the census is conducted. Both the number of districts and their boundaries are reassessed to reflect population shifts and growth.

According to Olivia Chow, MP for Trinity-Spadina, the proposed redistribution of electoral boundaries threatens to break up tight-knit communities.

“The change of boundaries, it will rip the University of Toronto neighborhoods apart,” said Chow, in a telephone interview.

“There are a large number of University of Toronto students and professors that live in the Annex and Seaton Village. That whole area has always worked together with the Harbord Village Residents’ Association, Huron-Sussex Residents’ Association, and the Annex [Residents’ Association]. They’ve always worked together in a lot of U of T development issues, neighbourhood development issues, and Business Improvement Areas.”

The condo-boom in Trinity-Spadina has meant a massive influx in the riding’s population. According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 census information, Trinity-Spadina’s population has grown a whopping 25.5 per cent in just five years. This translates to 29,372 new constituents in the riding.

By comparison, neighbouring Toronto Centre has only grown 7.3 per cent. In fact, no riding in the city comes close to the growth seen in Trinity-Spadina; in a distant second place is Willowdale, with 8.6 per cent.

The proposed changes would see Toronto Centre absorbing the most eastern strip of Trinity-Spadina—from University Ave. to Yonge St, and from Dundas St. W. down to the lake—if the changes are made. A sliver of Trinity-Spadina, the area from College St. down to Dundas St. and from University Ave. over to Yonge St. would be rezoned as part of a newly created Mount Pleasant riding.

“Population shifts and increases, efforts to honour existing municipal boundaries whenever possible, and the establishment of 15 new electoral districts have required substantial adjustment to Ontario’s electoral map,” said the Honourable Mr. Justice George Valin, chair of the commission, in a press release.

The proposal leaves Toronto with two additional ridings, increasing the total number to 25.

“It has always been an integrated community, so to rip the Annex part out and divide it on Bloor Street, it makes no sense whatsoever,” said Chow.
Although Chow agrees that the condo boom calls for re-distribution, she said that tearing up established Toronto communities is not the answer.

“I agree a re-distribution is necessary, but the growth really is not in the Annex part, it’s the condos,” she said.

“If you look at Yonge Street, Bay Street, and the waterfront, the growth area is really down south, so why would you want to disturb an old, established
neighbourhood in order to accommodate new condos? It makes no sense.”

The boundary changes are at this stage only a proposal and are still open for input from local residents.

Chow will be bringing together the residents’ associations that have worked together in the ward for the last 30 years to discuss the proposed boundaries.
Most concerning to Chow is that the University of Toronto neighbourhood will be split in half by the boundary changes.

“It’s mostly the University of Toronto neighbourhoods that are being chopped up into pieces and there’s no sense of identity anymore … It’s up to the local residents, it’s better that they speak up, and trust me I’ve heard from a lot of them,” she said.

While Trinity-Spadina has been an NDP riding since 2006, St. Paul’s, represented by Carolyn Bennett, has been Liberal since 1993.

When asked what effect she thought the redistribution would have on her support in the area, Chow said, “That’s the least of my concerns.”

The redistribution of electoral districts is a 10-step process. Currently the Ontario Commission is on step four, which is the release of the proposed changes. Between July and November public hearings must take place. In March 2013 MPs are able to file objections to the changes, and the entire process is expected to be completed by September 2013.

The changes will take effect in a general election called at least seven months after the new boundaries are established. While the next election is planned for October 2015, the earliest that the new boundaries would take effect would be for a general election called in April 2014.

Torontonians will have their chance to comment on the proposal at two separate meetings. The first is on Wednesday, November 14 at 10 a.m at North York Civic Centre (5100 Yonge St.), and the second takes place on Thursday November 15 at 11:30 a.m. at Metro Hall (55 John St.).

UTS humanities teacher hopes to inject urban studies into Ontario curriculum

Andrew Schopp

The curriculum taught in public schools across Ontario covers everything from the Canadian Shield to the formation of cumulus clouds, but covers very little regarding the urban landscape in which 81 per cent of Canadians live.

“It seems crazy to me that the city, everybody lives there, everyone is affected by what happens in the city, but we don’t learn about how it gets built,” said Craig Cal, urban planner at urban design firm, Urban Strategies.

Maximum City, the brainchild of humanities teacher Josh Fullan, is a summer program in urban design for high school students, with the goal of injecting urban planning curriculum into the bloodstream of Toronto schools.

According to Human Resources and Skill Development Canada, as of 2011, more than 27 million Canadians live in urban areas. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, make up one-third of Canada’s population. Yet the curriculum laid out by the Ontario Ministry of Education does not educate students about the inner workings of the municipalities the vast majority of Canadians call home.

“This kind of curriculum just doesn’t exist right now,” said Fullan.

“If we want to prepare students to live, and lead, in cities sustainably and optimally, we must give them the skills and the knowledge to do that. Students are very eager to tackle this kind of curriculum. They are very engaged and it is very relevant to them.”

Rather than spend their summers wasting away in front of the PlayStation, students in the  Maximum City program tackle a variety of urban topics and issues, guided by experts in urban design, planning, and architecture.

The experts cover everything from bicycle accessibility on Bloor Street to the unique architectural design of buildings in the Annex.

“One of the most engaging and exciting days of the program last year was the transit module. Transit is an issue that students are hugely connected to because they are major stakeholders,” he said.

“They use it very heavily and they are not really involved in any of the planning conversation, so when we have experts come in and talk to them about transit it’s a very lively discussion.”

In day nine of the 10 day program, the students of Maximum City were presented with a design challenge: to redesign a block around the University of Toronto, bordered by Spadina, Bloor, Huron and Washington streets.

“We’ve created this fictional scenario for the students which basically says that the university, which owns that entire site, has issued a request for proposals. They are looking for ideas to revitalize this underperforming site. Each team has to come up with a sustainable solution for the site. That means it has to perform better environmentally, economically, and socially,” he said.

The students enrolled in Maximum City come from all parts of the GTA, from Scarborough to Mississauga. Many are students at the University of Toronto Schools (UTS, 371 Bloor St. W.).

“After these two weeks I realized how much you can actually do to make Toronto a better city,” said Alisha Atri, 14, UTS student.

“If you just bring a community together it can become safer, if you even add lamps to a street, simple things like that can make streets safer.”

The program has made great headway in reaching a wider audience for its curriculum.

“The University of Toronto Schools has [given the] green-light for a new course next year that will be taught to a cohort of 110 students at UTS throughout the school year. It’s basically an amalgam of geography, civics, and Maximum City curriculum,” said Fullan.

“That was always kind of the goal, not just to reach an audience of 20 or 30 students in the summer, but to reach a broader audience. It remains to be seen if they carry through and teach it, but there is certainly some interest, not just at our school, but at other schools, in teaching the curriculum.”