By Susan Oppenheim

Rosario Marchese, right, has been a sitting MP in Trinity-Spadina since 1990. Photo credit: Perry King/Gleaner News

From his beginnings in Toronto 50 years ago as a 9-year-old Italian immigrant, to his position today as the NDP Caucus Chair at Queen’s Park, not much in Rosario Marchese’s approach to life seems to have changed. He has remained solidly grounded to family, community, and Canada. His career has centered on education and advocacy, first as a teacher of English and French, then eight years as a school board trustee, and 21 consecutive years as an MPP, the last 17 in Trinity-Spadina.

One can easily find Marchese’s accomplishments online, but I want to know how some events in his life as an immigrant, as a family member, and as a public servant have affected him. I had lunch with Marchese in the dining room of the Queen’s Park legislative building.

Susan Oppenheim: Your first memory in Canada?

Rosario Marchese: We walked immediately through the snow, immediately from Dovercourt and Dundas to get fresh bread at a big Italian bakery on Euclid Avenue.

He, his mum, and brother arrived by plane after waiting five years to join their father and siblings. The six of them stayed in a second-floor flat owned by relatives of relatives from their town in Calabria, until they were able to buy their home on Shaw south of Bloor, where his brother Graziano lives today. In 1961 under Diefenbaker, they faced a recession and immigration options shutting down, and finding work, any work, was exceptionally hard. Acculturation was also not easy.

R.M.: I was in grade 4 in Italy and they put me in grade 3 in Canada .The teacher asked me a math question and I didn’t know what she was asking—not because I didn’t know what to do, because math was easy for us—but because I couldn’t understand the question. They moved me back to grade 2—that was a very painful memory. It was a tough experience, and it was silly and stupid because kids can learn a language very quickly. I skipped grade 6 but by then the new math had come in and the teacher said, ‘Here, read the book,’ and I couldn’t do it on my own. There was no support in transition, and it affected me terribly, and a lot of other immigrants. From time to time I raise this personal experience in the legislature.

S.O.: You have described your wife Evelyne as your companera—not wife, not partner, but partner in everything. How did you meet?

R.M.: I was working at the TDSB and she was working there too. I remember seeing her at the [Cafe] Diplomatico one day coming in. We would always go to Sicilian and Bar Diplomatico on College. It was a cold day and she was wearing a poncho and she raised her arm to unfurl the poncho—that was so, so stylish—I must admit I fell in love that day. We started working together. She arrived in the late ’60s from Chile after the coup with General Pinochet killing the Socialist democratically elected President Allende. Evelyne was the most political of the family, and her mother was a humanist to the core who knew everybody.

That is where Evelyne gets a lot of her personality from. It is a frightening thing to think about. It raises the hair on your arms and your face. Chile had had a history of left elections and electing left leaning politicians, but America was instrumental in bringing Pinochet to power and bringing Allende down. When you think about the history, I don’t know how they survived it. I don’t think I could have.”

S.O.: Dooney’s, an Annex institution, owned and operated by local celebrity Graziano Marchese, and frequented by writers, intellectuals, and media types, fought off Starbucks’s attempted takeover in 1995 (“Save Dooney’s” is still scribbled in the concrete on the corner of Borden and Bloor). Tell me about this.

R.M.: It was one of the most fascinating stories because no one has ever won a fight against Starbucks that I am aware of. The owner Mr. Hix wanted to kick my brother out after 15 years and the rent was incredibly high. His sister came in, with a smile, and said “Graz, it’s only business, you’re out of here.” It was a terrible shock. The woman used to come to eat at the restaurant—it was free. It was exceptionally ugly to have her come with a smile on the day the lease came up. The point is commercial tenants have no rights—once your lease is up they can let you go without any notice. So we talked, and we talked to friends, and we started to organize to embarrass Starbucks because the owner had made a deal with Starbucks for ten years. We mounted a public relations campaign and we had a lot of good people.

We demonstrated at Hix’s book launch and then in front of every Starbucks that was in the riding—about 22 articles were written and it created such an embarrassment for Starbucks that they decided to pull out. And Hix said “If you pull out I am going to sue you.” So Starbucks and my brother united against the landlord and they won that legal battle and I am happy to report that the owner had to pay $175,000 in legal fees and it made me feel good. I thought it was wonderful retribution and my brother stayed there for another ten years and then set up Annex Live on Brunswick.

S.O.: When Steven Lewis’ son Avi was asked “Why did you become a journalist and filmmaker? Why didn’t you become a politician?” He answered, “I saw what it did to my family.” You will run again this year—this time with your recently retired wife actively at your side. Any comments?

R.M.: Avi is absolutely right. For that reason a lot of children who come from a very political family end up not running because they do not want to be part of it. They end up being progressive like their parents, but they want the freedom to do what they like. Politics engulfs you for a very long time. It isn’t just the media that could be after you depending on what you say, or who you are, it is consuming because you have to be out there very, very often.

You have to be in the community. You have to go to all sorts of meetings within the party and outside the party and once you are elected, if you want to stay elected, you really have to be out there a lot. So between obligations at Queen’s Park, being the critic for something or other, and serving your community where there are over 125,000 people, it’s not easy. It can be very, very challenging. You have to maintain the energy levels to be out there—to be visible. You have to have good staff who help you to put out the word. If you don’t have that support, you are on your own. The work we do is highly political and people get burned out, they don’t stay long, and you have to retrain over and over.

S.O.: I understand constituents can receive updates about events and issues through the website as well as by calling your offices on Dundas Street and at Queen’s Park. Many events are posted on Facebook and updated in local papers like the Gleaner and people can attend at the legislature or watch TV when the house is in session as well. So why do people still say, “Well, what is he doing?”

R.M.: Often we say people don’t know what we are doing, and we have to get out there, but we don’t have franking privileges [the ability to mail things for free]. We have to work provincially within a budget. If you hire staff, you do not have the money for a $17,000 newsletter every year. Seventy-five per cent of the 125,000 mailings can simply get thrown out. Emailing is helping, but gathering those addresses is a slow process, one email at a time. I was able to persuade the premier that MPPs need a newsletter and we all got $11,000 towards that, so we are putting one out after May 2.

S.O.: We will certainly be looking forward to this newsletter and keeping track of everything you are doing. By the way, I thought the lunch was delicious. Thank you Rosario.

Rosario Marchese is currently the NDP Critic for Education, GTA Issues and Training, Colleges and Universities. For more information, visit www.rosariomarchese.ca or find him on Facebook.

Grand Touring Automobiles, located at 740 Dupont Street, sells luxury cars from Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Land Rover. The property was bought by RioCan in October for $10.9 million. Perry King/Gleaner News

By Perry King

RioCan, Canada’s largest real estate investment trust, has purchased a 1.4 acre property in the Christie-Dupont area.

740 Dupont St., currently occupied by luxury car dealership Grand Touring Automobiles, was one of four Canadian properties purchased by RioCan in late 2010.

Acquired for $10.9 million, RioCan announced the purchase in January.

“The idea of a box store going into that plot caught my attention because, who knows? It could be a Walmart,” said local Mark Evans, who informed the Gleaner of the acquisition. “But a box store on Dupont? There’s issues of traffic and parking. There’s no doubt in my mind that Dupont needs some TLC, the question is: does it need a box store? Is that the best use of that piece of land, considering there is the Galleria Mall, which is not that far away and could probably be redeveloped?”

While officials for RioCan, including CEO Edward Sonshine, could not be reached for comment, their intentions to expand US-based retail stores in downtown Toronto are well documented.

According to a January Globe and Mail article, RioCan and Tanger Outlet Centers Inc. agreed to a $1 billion partnership that would help RioCan attract more US retailers to Canada. Tanger has a number of retail clients, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Nieman Marcus.

Centrally focused on developing big box retail stores, and with a portfolio of 296 properties across Canada, RioCan’s top retailers include Walmart, Famous Players theatres, and Canadian Tire.

“I think it’s worrisome that things like this happen and neighbourhoods don’t know about it,” said Seaton Village Residents’ Association (SVRA) chair Jennifer Hunter, who was informed of the aquistition by the Gleaner. Hunter said she will avoid being “alarmist” about what this will mean for the area.

She notes that there is already a Walmart franchise closeby, and a number of grocery stores like Sobeys (840 Dupont St.), Loblaws (630 Dupont St.), and Fiesta Farms (200 Christie St.) to serve the community.

Hunter says she hopes to better understand RioCan’s plans. “At what point does it become something that the community does get to actually comment on and have some kind of decision making ability in? It’s not to say I’m being fatalistic and thinking that they can do whatever they want because it’s their property. At the same time, I don’t want to get my knickers in a knot.”

Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) hopes the community makes sure the new development “fits the neighbourhood”.

“You want to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm the existing neighbourhood. Just north of the tracks, it’s the same deal. It’s not all big buildings around there, so you want to keep some kind of balance,” said Layton.

While space for big box retailers in downtown Toronto is scarce, RioCan has witnessed a rising demand from retailers to travel up to Canada. US retailers were telling Sonshine as early as spring 2010 that they could not find adequate space for expansion.

Last year, Layton was contacted by Riocan and asked for his opinion about a “car dealership” on Dupont. They did not allude to Grand Touring specifically, but they asked whether Layton would be open to changing a property to include a residential component.

“We don’t want to take away all the areas that provide services to our residents,” said Layton. “Could it be better used? Probably. We could probably find some kind of use that would be a little more suitable and contribute more to the neighbourhood. What that exactly is, I’m not entirely sure.”

Because Grand Touring is still operating, specific plans for development have not been tabled at this time. Layton met with officials from RioCan in March, who confirmed they have no immediate plans for the property.  “These statements [acquisitions] are not guarantees of future events or performance and, by their nature, are based on RioCan’s estimates and assumptions,” reads a RioCan news release.

The release adds that management are confident that further development is possible, and will proceed with the acquisitions under the “reasonable assumption” that the purchase would lead to some future endeavour.

Dupont-Christie residents are no strangers to big retail. In the 1990s, the Seaton Village neighbourhood and George Weston Limited had a long documented dispute about the Loblaws property at the northeast corner of Dupont and Christie. Led by the SVRA, neighbours were primarily concerned about increased traffic and density from the grocery store, and consultation between parties took many years. Many of those same issues may arise again if RioCan moves forward with a similar development.

The Gleaner reported last December on plans for a hotel and condo by the Wynn Group at Dupont and Walmer Road.

“We need more people to help create better and more dynamic businesses. Instead of it being industrial, of that nature, maybe if we had some more [small] stores, it could be a good thing,” said Hunter.

BIA advisor David Hessels says that Dupont is a city planning challenge. In Toronto’s Official Plan, it is currently zoned for employment lands on the north side and for mixed-use, mostly residential, on the south side. “It’s not your typical mean street area, where you can get a real shopping atmosphere, it doesn’t have that,” he said.

The Dupont property is set to be the third significant RioCan project in downtown Toronto. RioCan Hall—which houses the Scotiabank Theatre and Chapters bookstore in the Entertainment District—and the Loblaws store at Queen and Portland are two other RioCan-owned downtown developments.

By Lindsay Tsuji

The General Election on May 2 proved to be a historic evening. From news of a Conservative majority, the Green Party winning a seat in Parliament to the naming of the NDP as the new opposition party, it was nothing less than shocking.

Locally, Trinity-Spadina NDP incumbent Olivia Chow won with a cushy 54.1 per cent over Liberal contender Christine Innes who came in with 23 per cent. This was in contrast to the 2008 election where Chow won by a mere 3, 484 votes. Conservative candidate Gin Siow followed third with 17 per cent and Green candidate Rachel Barney came in with 5 per-cent. Voter turnout was 65,560, up from 54,179 during the 2008 election. Chow was first elected in 2006 when she beat incumbent Liberal MP Tony Ianno. Both Libertarian candidate Chester Brown and Marxist-Leninist candidate Nick Lin received less than 1 per cent of the vote.

NDP gained new ground in the Parkdale-High Park riding with a win by Peggy Nash. Nash won with 47 per cent of the vote over incumbent Liberal Gerard Kennedy coming in second with 32.5 per cent. Conservative candidate Taylor Train came in third with 15.8 per cent followed by Green candidate Sarah Newton with 3.3 per cent. Although the riding has historically been Liberal since 1988, Nash won during the 2006 election upsetting the Liberal strong hold in the area. Voter turnout was 50,902, up from 48, 384 back in 2008. The Christian Heritage Party candidate Andrew Borkowski, Marxist-Leninist candidate Lorne Gershuny and Radical Marijuana Party candidate Terry Parker all came out with less than 1 per cent of the vote.

Another Gleaner riding turned a sea of orange with the win of NDP candidate Andrew Cash in the Davenport riding, beating out Liberal incumbent Mario Silva. The riding has been consistently Liberal since 1962.

One of the few ridings to break the trend of the downtown going NDP was St.Paul’s. Incumbant Carolyn Bennett came out with 40.6 per cent of the vote. The Liberal influence has been strong since 1993 and Bennett has been a favourite since being elected first in 1997.

The Gleaner congratulates all who participated.

To further help with your decision to vote today, the Gleaner has compiled an interactive map with information about the ridings that we cover: Trinity-Spadina, Parkdale-High Park, Davenport, and St. Paul’s.

To see complete coverage of the candidates for Trinity-Spadina and Parkdale-High Park, click here and here.

For more coverage about the race in Davenport, visit this page, brought to us by our friends at the Bloordale Press.

For more coverage from St. Paul’s, visit this page from OpenFile.

View Canada Federal Election 2011 in a larger map

Compiled by Emina Gamulin, Perry King, Beth Macdonell, Rebecca Payne and Lindsay Tsuji

The Candidates

Question One: mental health
Question Two: family reunification
Question Three: the Canadian Forces
Question Four: electric trains
Question Five: prisons or poverty?

The Riding
Parkdale-High Park is one of the most diverse ridings in Canada in terms of income and ethnicity. It is slightly higher than the national average in terms of unemployment, and significantly higher in number of seniors, immigrants, and renters. The riding has been Liberal since 1988, except between 2006 and 2008, when the NDP upset the Liberal winning streak. The last time a conservative candidate won was in 1984. The Gleaner covers the Parkdale portion of the riding, which also includes Roncesvalles, Bloor West, the Junction, Swansea, High Park, and parts of Brockton.

Population: 102,150
Immigrant population: 39 %
Median age of population: 38.1 years
Median income: $49,127

Political History:
2008 Election: Liberal
2006 Election: New Democrat
2004 Election: Liberal
Source: Statistics Canada

The Candidates

Elected in 2008 as the MP for Parkdale-High Park, Liberal candidate Gerard Kennedy is the Critic for the Environment. Kennedy has regular local meetings and initiatives on mental health, the arts, Metrolinx, and seniors. As the Ontario Minister of Education, Kenendy led a province-wide turnaround in public-funded education. His public service began with the first Canadian food bank in Edmonton and then Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank. He has been a part of the riding since 1986 and lives with his wife and two children in west Toronto.

Peggy Nash

Raised in Rexdale, and an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Peggy Nash was the NDP Member of Parliament for Parkdale–High Park from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that, as a senior Canadian Auto Workers negotiator, Nash was the first woman union representative responsible for major auto negotiations in North America. Nash has received two awards from the Sierra Club of Canada for the NDP Green Car Strategy with Greenpeace and the CAW. In 2009, Nash received the 2009 YWCA Woman of Distinction Award. She currently sits on the board of directors for Invest Toronto.

Sarah Newton

Green candidate Sarah Newton has lived in the GTA for ten years. She is a research assistant, an executive assistant, a server at Annapurna (1085 Bathurst St.), and a belly dance teacher. She has an Honours BA in Humanities and Communications, and an Associate Degree of Arts and Science. Newton takes part in many organizations including debating for the model UN and Model Pugwash. She also supports the Lake Ontario Waterkeepers and is a member of the Council for Canadians.  She is an advocate of yoga and veganism.

Terry Parker

Terry Parker has run as the Parkdale-High Park representative for the Marijuana Party since 2000. Parker credits marijuana as the substance that changed his life for the better. According to an article in Cannabis Culture magazine, Parker, a patient of severe epilepsy, was on a steady diet of pills, before a fellow patient introduced him to marijuana. In 1987, an Ontario Court found him not guilty of possession, citing that the drug did in fact help Parker’s disability. In 1980, Parker was elected assistant national executive director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (N.O.R.M.L.) in Canada.

Taylor Train

Conservative Party candidate Taylor Train has lived in Parkdale-High Park for 15 years. After graduating from Queen’s University, Train served in the Canadian Armed Forces Primary Reserve. His work in the financial services sector has led him to work in communities across North America and the British Isles. Taylor has both his Elder Planning Counsellor designation and Instructing Adults Certificate. He has held a number of senior executive positions with major Canadian financial institutions, and is currently a director and lecturer of Seneca College’s Centre for Financial Services.

Also running in the riding are Andrew Borkowski of the Christian Heritage Party and Lorne Gershundy for the Marxist-Leninists. The Gleaner was unable to contact these candidates in time for the story.

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The Questions and Answers

1. Recently there were a string of attacks against people with mental illness in Parkdale, with the last attack resulting in the death of George Wass. At the same time, a small percentage of people who suffer from mental illnesses commit violent crimes due to their illness. How should the federal government deal with these complex health and crime issues? If elected, how will you advocate for mental health services and people with mental health issues in our riding?
—Beth Macdonell, Contributing editor, Gleaner Community Press

Kennedy: The last six months we’ve been trying to make Parkdale-High Park a mental health stigma-free zone. Fourteen hundred different people have made the pledge in our area, and part of the pledge is a role for the federal government to equalize funding. The problem with the Canada Health Act is that it doesn’t recognize the way we need to treat mental health now. We need people to deal with their stigma, but we also need funding in the community. The Canada Health Act only funds hospitals of a kind that we used to use as the main treatment for mental health, which have now closed down.

The federal government is really not that involved. They pay for doctors, but they don’t pay for a whole range of community care that people need to have good lives and participate more fully in society. We’ve worked a lot, most closely with a group called the Dream Team. They are people who are living with mental illness and they’ve come out to every meeting that I’ve held where we’ve signed people up. The idea is that Parkdale-High Park will become the country’s first mental health stigma-free zone. So the Federal government’s role is important, but the community’s role is just as important. My basic approach would be to continue to do that and to bring it to fruition. It’s a yearlong process. We want to sign up 10,000 people from the area. We think there is a lot of empathy there and we hope that incidents don’t create fear. The only way you deal with violence is community resolve. Right after this interview I’m talking to the police, and they’ve asked me to send out another bulletin. We’ll be doing that even though it’s the middle of an election because we need to deal with this and get to the bottom of this. The community has a constructive role to play in supporting people, we don’t want to spread the fear that is out there for folks.

You mentioned equalized funding and you said the federal government funds hospitals, but not community care. By equalizing funding do you mean giving more money to community initiatives?

Mental health funding is about 60 per cent of what it needs to be. In other words, we don’t have a lot of primary mental health available. If you break your arm or leg you’re going to get treatment in a fairly short amount of time. If you need help with a mental health problem, you often end up on a waiting list. The funding should come from the federal government by expanding the Canada Health Act. It should start to cover community mental health. Most people who used to be treated in hospitals are now treated in the community. Yet those services are not paid for by the federal government. Every time someone signs the pledge, they are also signing a petition to parliament asking them for equality of funding. All we’re asking for is the same funding for mental health as well as physical health issues. There are very good indications that the health system in terms of emergency rooms and long term stays could be avoided if we just got people mental health treatment in the first place. Then we can focus our concern on the very small number of people who could be a danger. That’s also the thing that comes through having a better, more complete system for mental health. But it doesn’t mean we treat everybody as somebody to fear or someone to victimize because of a lack of understanding. That’s the theme of our [initiative]: time to change your mind about mental health.

Nash: First, let me say that I have worked very closely with the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre and have been a big supporter of Edmond Place, which reaches out to people who are low income and suffering from mental health problems.

I think this government, both the provincial and federal governments, have done a very poor job in supporting people with mental health problems. The de-institutionalization of people with mental health [problems] was supposed to be combined with strong [levels] of support, and there are massive holes in any kind of safety net to protect people. I support Senator Michael Kirby’s recommendation for a national mental health strategy. I believe that our focus should be on outreach and prevention with strong community support for people with mental health problems. Many of the people who are living on the street or locked up in our jails have serious untreated mental health problems. I think our priority has to be on prevention, rather than dealing with the fallout from problems—whether it’s with the criminal justice system or all kinds of frictions in neighbourhoods.

It has to be multi-faceted. It has to deal with housing, counselling, and the ability for people to take control of their lives through community involvement. PARC is a great example of what can be achieved locally, but we need to expand that kind of approach nationwide, through community-based initiatives.

People are very worried in South Parkdale because of the George Wass murder. Police do have a role to play. But I believe we can do a better job with prevention, whether it’s mental health or job creation for young people—so they don’t feel isolated and alienated in society and fall into criminal activity. I think if people have a decent income, a place to live, and they can lead a normal life, most people would choose that, and that’s where we should be investing our money. Youth programs the federal government promised with these new criminal justice bills: we’re not seeing that.

Newton: First and foremost, by making government money available for programs again. I believe in the talent of people that work with people with mental health issues and I want to mobilize as many programs that are needed to make sure that people with mental health issues are treated to all of the opportunities they deserve. Having worked with people with mental health issues at Famous People Players, their plight has my heart.

Parker: Legalize marijuana, number one. If we didn’t have a prohibition we wouldn’t have problems with people with schizophrenia and ADHD and other mental illness. You could use marijuana as a resource. If you use it as a resource I have no doubt that people with mental illness will greatly benefit from marijuana consumption to control their anxiety; depression. Marijuana is wonderful.

Train: Millions of Canadians are affected by mental health and addictions issues and their families are affected by it. I know the cost both emotionally to the families and certainly to the victims themselves. These folks need our help. It’s obvious to me that any government has an accountability to lead, a responsibility to look after those that really have these challenges and to give them the type of services, help, and dignity that they are going to need to engage in society in the way that they can. My family has been touched with mental illness. I know how when you see someone you love very very much going missing in a lot of ways you feel very frustrated. I mean there are people with these issues all over Canada. I think one of the things the federal government should be doing—and I think Gerard is right on this—there is a certain stigmatization to folks with these types of challenges and we need to de-stigmatize society in that way. We have to educate that people with mental illnesses are people that need our help, not our approbation. We need to recognize what the challenges are and create an environment where people can have dignity and respect. As far as services are concerned, I know that there’s a huge amount of money that’s spent every year helping people like this and we have to make sure that those folks have access. This is where some of the problem may lie. That they are aware of the access they have and their care givers are aware of the access that they have to the existing capabilities that we have in the community and certainly to help them live well and healthy or hopefully get better or better enough that they can get back in to what’s going on.

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2. I list among those who applied to migrate to Canada after Canadian consulate representatives campaigned in American Universities, to recruit new skilled immigrants. They also sold us on the fact that in Canada we can sponsor our parents. The backlog in processing parents sponsorship applications however ranges from 3 to 15 years. Where do the candidates stand on effective family re-unification?
—Hala Chaoui, Agricultural Engineer and entrepreneur

Kennedy: The conservatives have put a quota in this country on family reunification and it is bar none the most frustrating thing that exists in terms of the immigration system. We’ve announced in our platform that we would expand the resources, if available, and we would take the quotas off. The basic thing comes to this: with family reunification—especially the immediate family of parents and so on—people have to be successful, they have to be able to sponsor, there is no reason to have them wait five and six and seven years like this government has.

Because what [the Conservative government is] basically saying is, yes, we want you to come, but we’re not giving you the respect of being able to have access to your family. The government put their attentions on temporary immigrants, and now we have up to 200,000 temporary immigrants, people who work here but have no rights in Canada. Many of them end up going underground so we are building problems with the Conservative approach. We would much rather see something constructive that allows people to come forward. So we have set some very specific policies that will allow people to repatriate their parents within a certain number of months and we would increase the resources available for that. This government has shrunk it down so significantly that every part of the process takes enormous lengths of time. That’s probably as much of a disrespect as the policies themselves. They’re kind of officially misleading people about what they can expect, and we find out daily as MP’s, so it’s important that we get a different way of showing respect.

Nash: Our immigration critic, Olivia Chow, has been front and centre in advocating greater focus on family re-unification and a reduced emphasis on the temporary foreign worker program. It started under Mr. [Paul] Martin, and has been exploding under the Conservative government. Personally, I introduced a bill—called the “Once in a Lifetime” bill—which was designed to help with family reunification, especially for family members like adult children, adult brothers and sisters, to help families reunite. I have also worked extensively with the Filipino community to assist people working in the foreign caregiver program, who come here and face special restrictions. But this is work that is essential for Canadians: caring for children, seniors, for people with disabilities. Yet, we make foreign caregivers jump through special hoops. Ultimately, they can become citizens. The working conditions that they face are extremely difficult. They live in their employer’s home and there are terrible abuses in terms of pay and hours of work. We saw with Jocelyn Dulnuan, who was murdered in her employer’s home. I was with [the Filipino community], in fact, on Saturday to try and  make the foreign caregiver program a safer program for people who work here on that.

You know, we place great emphasis on skilled immigrants. We accept people because of their qualifications, then in many cases they come here and they can’t use their qualifications. It’s complicated because there are professional associations and provincial governments that are involved—it’s not totally the federal government’s responsibility. But, we would reach out to the provinces and the professional associations to try and reduce the wait times and fast-track the recognition of foreign credentials. Also, because we appreciate that not every job here requires you to set up a small business or to have a PhD or a medical degree, that there are lots of jobs that require unskilled work. Right now, often, these are filled under the temporary workers program. We believe if we put greater emphasis on family reunification, especially through my bill—which would allow more adults to come in , not just seniors and children— they could take some of these less skilled jobs if they happen not to have higher qualifications. But, then they have the support of the family. They have a home, a community, a language, people they can rely on. We think it would make for stronger communities, and help people integrate better into Canadian society. They’re not just a disposable workforce that comes and leaves. As governments dictate, they actually have a commitment to this country and they’re going to stay here. They bring their families and their children grow up here.

Newton: Our campaign has never been about making false promises, and she seems to be the victim of false promises. That hurts me, that the Canadian reputation has been marred internationally by past candidates promises that they had no intention of following through on. There is obviously a backlog and by keeping tax dollars at home I’m confident we can reinstate social programs for our talented immigrants in the next five to ten years. Bare with us and accept our apologies.

Parker: I’m for family re-unification. My brother in law is from China and I have no objection to it. As long as they abide by our Charter rights and laws I have no objection.

Train: Well, obviously the Conservative party position and my position is that family reunification is essential. I believe the family unit is the mainstay of our society, whatever that family unit may be consisting of and I think we have to care for families no matter where they are. As far as family reunification goes, I think it makes us stronger and happier. I really think Canada is a nation of immigrants and we are building a nation that is even more deeply a mosaic. They bring wonderful cultures, experiences and they bring wonderful skills and We want those people to be secure.
We all know that immigration has to go through processes. But to reach the conclusion that we need to have and that’s the good conclusion that people get in here and live here and participate in Canada. But I also know, that as the member of parliament for Parkdale-High Park, I certainly will be spending time with the Minister of Immigration because when I am in government I will be able to wok with the Minister of Immigration. I certainly want to work with him and his department to ensure the immigration process for family reunification is efficient, effective and serves the people of our riding as much as possible.

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3. Given the role of the Canadian Forces over the past decade, do you think that the Forces are currently over funded, underfunded or funded appropriately? Please offer at least one reason for your choice.
—Gordon Oliver, Parkdale Resident

Kennedy: I guess I would say that they are funded adequately in the sense that they’ve had the highest increase in spending of any federal department. They may be over funded if we change their mission—in other words, I look forward to them coming back from Afghanistan. There should be a peace dividend from that, if you ask me about their present situation I don’t know of any excess amount of money that we are spending to support them; we can’t put people in harms way. The future is different. The future is about making sure we question military expenditures just as much as any others. The number one thing we need is not more money, but a public debate on the role of the military going forward. These stealth planes, for example, are based on a role that traditionally Canada has not had, which is attack. You only have stealth jet fighters if you are attacking someone. That debate has to take place before we make any other major investments in the armed forces. If we were to go ahead with the jets that would be a case where it was over funded, because it’s not a prudent expenditure, there was no competition bid held. When you buy large very expensive military equipment—this could be in the order of 20 to 30 billion dollars—than you make sure there are benefits to the country.

You mentioned the Afghanistan mission. Do you have a position on what should happen with that mission going forward?

I agree the mission should wind up the military component completely. The follow-up role should be time limited as well and it shouldn’t be expandable. I don’t know what Mr. Harper would do if he were to gain a majority, but it’s clear now that we don’t have a plan for Afghanistan that requires us to be there for longer than what we’ve already committed to. The fundamental issues in Afghanistan are going to be fairly difficult because of the degree that they depend on opium in that economy. The fact that we didn’t get enough development going in that country in the beginning. Not just us, but all of the NATO allies. That’s a role that I would have liked to see Canada play but I don’t think its one that we can see Canada play given where they stand.

Nash: I think that when it comes to the treatment of our people in the military, they are underfunded. We made an announcement just this week to provide better support and benefits for military personnel who are surprisingly quite shabbily treated by our federal government. If people are willing to risk their lives for their country, they should be paid decent wages and benefits while they’re actively in service. When they’re in Canada, they should be offered strong support and settlement opportunities. Military personnel who have been injured, who face physical or mental barriers because of their service, are not getting the support they need, and we would beef that up significantly. Jack Layton was just in Halifax to make that announcement.
On the other hand, we are not in favour of a massive expansion of military hardware, like the F-35s. We would rather invest our money domestically—in terms of investing in the welfare of Canadians—and internationally, in aid programs and support for peace initiatives around the world. We support the 0.7 [per cent] GDP support that many countries have committed to but almost none have lived up to, in terms of foreign aid. I just spoke at an Oxfam hunger banquet, talking about the growing global hunger crisis that has been made worse by increasing wars, the number of people who are becoming refugees, but also by the increasing cost and treatment the food as a basic commodity. There’s a lot of speculation going on with the pricing of that, making food more costly and less accessible.

I don’t think Canadians want to see us as a growing military force in the world. I think we took pride in our ability to be an advocate for peace. I’m not saying we don’t need defence. We believe in having a military defence but I don’t think we see ourselves as a major aggressor in the world. A lot of people feel very uncomfortable with our continued presence in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Liberals and Conservatives have now extended our mission in Afghanistan and we strongly oppose that.

Newton: I know that $21 billion has been allocated to the forces over the next ten years and that that money is never going to properly fund anything until we can reinstate our sense of traditional values, and recommit our forces to the act of peacekeeping.

Parker: I would imagine by reading the papers over the past few years that they are underfunded. The resolve there for the underfunding of the military is to legalize marijuana so we can use the money there to fund any necessary spending on jets or tanks or whatever it takes to protect our country. But if we were to legalize marijuana we could use the revenue from that to fund a number of different things

Train: Here we go, thanks for the gimme. I served my country in the Forces. I remember and during is during a little things called the Cold War. I remember I had went out with my first paycheque when I was 17 years old, and bought equipment because the government had not provided us with the proper web, hadn’t provided us with the proper combat gear, certainly not weapons obviously. We had to take out money out of our own pockets, because the government has not invested in the armed forces. I also remember that in 1973, I was firing 3.5 rocket launcher on a training exercise and when I fired the 3.5, the ammunition was faulty and the backblast wounded me in the face. The ammunition that we were firing that day had been built in 1951 and this was 1973, so you do the math. I believe in our armed forces. I’m very proud of our forces, that many of us would never ever consider in their lives doing. They represent Canada, they represent what we believe in, and they represent our responsibility to the international community who do a fantastic job. We have international commitments, we have a commitment to our own sovereignty, to protecting  people who cannot protect themselves and I believe we need to have the right type of equipment and the right type of training, so when we take our young men and women, I want to make sure those folks, have the best stuff, for their own safety and they can do the job to the best of their ability for Canada. It’s not a matter of throwing more money at something, it’s matter of making sure we fund something for the needs that arise, but we anticipate those needs, that we know that what will happen, next week, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, you and I can never say. We have to anticipate investment in the types of equipment that makes the job safety for them and make it affective so we can protect ourselves so that we can live in this fantastic country.

You’re not going to pick one?

You can’t. That’s too simplistic, you know to say it’s either a, b, or c. In a world like this, over funding is stupid, the right type of funding is right.

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4. Although the greatly expanded use of diesel trains is more a provincial issue, residents have looked to politicians at all levels of government for leadership in the fight for clean electric trains. Virtually all politicians say that they oppose more diesels—why should we believe that you will move beyond words and take concerted action on the issue?
—Rob Fairley, Brock Avenue resident, Clean Train Coalition supporter

Kennedy: We worked with residents in the Junction to stop the pile-driving. It was really disrupting their neighbourhood and it involved getting the Canadian transportation commission to exercise its authority. We also supported the group when Metrolinx appealed, winning that appeal, and setting precedent that communities have to be taken into account and I believe that that can also apply to health factors. In addition, I wrote to the Prime Minister and Premier McGuinty looking for cooperation in getting funding because there has to be funding to make electrification happen. I’ve been trying to engage other levels of government for the last two years on this because that was the foreseeable outcome of the review that Metrolinx was doing and I still think that was the preferred option. I know that they’ve contracted for diesel trains and I know for a million dollars each they can convert those trains. The bottom line is health. For some time electric has been a preferred way of moving people especially on short [distance] trains so in some ways this is just Metrolinx’s bad planning and in some way they should have taken this more into account from the beginning. We’re going to have to work together—three orders of government to have a transportation plan. I think Metrolinx had a different outcome it terms of electrification partially because of leadership from the Federal level about what we would like to see done. I think the point now is, is there any way to have electrification take place so that we don’t need to do this switch over from diesel trains? For me the key is funding so that’s what I’m working for. My pledge is this: I will ensure that there are no negative health impacts for our neighbourhood.

Nash: Rob’s right, that this is primarily a provincial decision. But what I have done is work very closely with the Clean Train Coalition, and I initiated a petition to the federal government, which many in the community have signed. The petition was introduced in the House of Commons, federally, and have taken it to the former transportation minister at the time. I believe we send a lot of our tax dollars to Ottawa, and we should be calling on them to help with the electrification of the lines, so we can actually get electric trains instead of diesel. I think that a lot of people are paying lip service to this. I have worked very closely with the community—literally have gone door-to-door for months getting people to sign this petition, pressuring the federal government on this. I think people do have to look at not just what people say but what they do. I have never stopped working with the community to try to get electric trains. We are not giving up, we’re in a federal election now, it is an issue. It will be an issue during the provincial election. We finally have Metrolinx to agree electrification is the better route, but they’re saying ‘we’ll do it down the road’ which no one believes. It’s a waste of money because it’s going to cost to buy diesel and then to convert them to electric. We say build it once, build it right, go electric, and the federal government should be apart of that.

As an MP, I had a bill on the national transportation policy. I’ve been given two awards from the Sierra Club on this, and Olivia Chow has now taken this [a national transportation policy] up. Toronto is an economic engine for Canada, and it shouldn’t just be the citizens of Toronto to pay for the TTC. It shouldn’t just be us to pay for inter-urban transportation. It is of national importance and I believe we need a national vision for transit in our major urban centres, and inter-urban transit. Our TTC is 30 years out of date. We should have a cutting-edge transit system, it should be one of the best in the world, with the geography as vast as Canada. Transportation used to be, and ought to be, one of our core strengths. I’m on the board of Invest Toronto, which is a Toronto agency designed to encourage business to invest in our city. I talk about our strengths, whether it is our diversity, social programs, education system. But, clearly, a major drawback in Toronto is our poor transportation system. Board of Trade is right on the money when they argue that it’s an economic drag on our city. Commute times, delivery times are among the worst on the continent. We’ve got to invest in transit both urban and inter-urban to really maximize and take advantage of Toronto as an economic hub, to make life livable for our community and improve the air we breathe.

Newton: The first reason I believe the Green Party is going to make effective change on this issue is our integrity. We will treat every offer for growth and expansion without an agenda. Elizabeth May’s program to use Canadian technology to develop a high-speed rail corridor between Montreal and Windsor is a good indication to our commitment to innovate at home, and it’s that commitment that will ensure that all these projects will come front and centre, as reflected in the hearts of Canadians, in the near future.

Parker: Why not hemp ethanol for our trains? If we legalize marijuana we could have hemp ethanol to create clean fuel.

Train: I lived in England a little over 3 years and British rail is predominantly electric. First of all, let me tell you… Most politicians tell you they are for electric. Of course they are for electric, because electric is fantastic. It’s just wonderful. You just can’t take a diesel locomotive and run her into a shop one day and suddenly convert it into electric. Just can’t be done. You can’t change a line suddenly that was designed for fossil burning fuels to electric overnight. There is a huge infrastructure issue. There is also an environmental issue and a lot of people don’t know this, in a lot of places you have to have a clearance on either side of an electric line and I quote you the exact distances, but electricity has a, can have a tendency to interfere with things when it is used, they have to be very careful, that pacemakers, electric appliances, anything electrical in the zone where the electric train is running won’t be impaired. So that’s an issue.  It’s a huge huge thing. I know the provincial government is committed to going electric, so I believe the line that runs up the east end of our riding needs to be electric, it’s just good sense that that occurs. But we have to realize at the same time, it’s a matter of what’s it going to take to get this thing done as effectively as possible, in the shortest amount of time as possible. I’ll give you an example. Roncesvalles has been under construction for 3 years. Do I need to make my case further? What the government should be doing  is ensuring  that when a project goes forward, that it is watched, that it has oversight, that it has people looking at it to ensure that what is said is going to be done, is done. So that we have the situation that we can make sure as the process of electrification moves forward, that we’re not surprised by something, that there wasn’t something untoward that wasn’t thought of needs to occur, that it won’t have a negative impact rather than a positive impact on the neighbourhood, all of those things need to have that oversight. If I see something that going south, something that isn’t going right, something that is not going according to plan, you better believe I’ll be having a chat with whoever it is, whatever level of government it is. How come? Because the people that voted me in here are the people that I have to answer to, that I have to represent so that we make sure the things are done when they said they were going to get done, by who they said it was going to be done by, for the right results. That’s what I believe.

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5. Which do you think is more important: building prisons or eliminating poverty?
—Christine de Groot

Kennedy: Eliminating poverty. We’re doing that way two ways in our platform.  One is giving low-income kids a bigger boost to go to University so every year they graduate Grade 9 they get 1,500 dollars put aside to go to school. We’re also using the money that would otherwise go to prisons to build an income geared supplement of  $1,500 for seniors because that’s a group we need to keep lifted out of poverty. There is no where else they can turn. Basic costs have gone up more than inflation, more than their pensions. The prisons thing plays to our fears, there’s no need for that policy. The California government is just about bankrupt by its fixation on three strikes and you’re out and filling the prisons with all kinds of people that don’t need to be there. They are not one iota safer. My crime policy is simple; we will prevent crime from happening in the first place. Poverty elimination is not a direct [correlation] because people who are poor are also decent, upstanding citizens, but it does help. We’ve got a national housing strategy that we’re bringing forward, and national housing platform that we are committed to. It’s one of the best ways to help people in our riding, and that is far more important than building prisons.

Nash: Eliminating poverty. Slam dunk. I think a measure of a strong society is the relative equality of its citizens—the less inequality, the healthier the society. In fact, there was a recent study in Britain that showed that more unequal societies are less healthy, even for those of higher income. The more cohesive a society, the more people feel that they’re working together. There are going to be income differences and differences in wealth, the less unequal societies are healthier. If we’re afraid to take the streetcar because we don’t like to be with poor people on the streetcar, how healthy is that?
The great social democratic initiatives in our country, whether it’s our Canada Pension Plan, our healthcare system, our transit systems, these are the things that bring people together. They get us working together as communities, that have us rely on each other. To me, that’s what strengthens society. In this election, I think people really have to ask themselves: who do they trust? Not just to say they support clean trains or making things more affordable for families or reduce poverty. Who do they actually trust to deliver for them in their everyday lives? People can say they support things, but it’s what they actually do that matters.

Jack Layton said that, the other day we were at an event, Liberals often in the election, they use an invention called a photocopier and they Xerox the NDP platform. After the election, they use another machine called the shredder and they shred the NDP platform. They go on and they become more like Conservatives. I think it really is important for people to think about their principles and who they trust to actually enact their principles. We’ve seen throughout our modern history as a country that social democratic vision has really relied on social democrats to implement it.

Newton: Eliminating poverty.

Parker: Eliminating poverty. And more advocacy for victims of crime. I would also like to say that if the Marijuana Party were to be voted in on a majority basis, I would give everybody a clean slate if you have been charged with marijuana and for those who have been wrongly convicted, they would somehow be compensated.

Train: Let me tell you about prisons. I get this a lot at the door. Have you been down to Kingston Penitentiary lately? Well when I went to Queen’s University, the women’s prison was right across from McArthur hall, the teaching college. That facility was built in the late 1800s. A large stock of prisons that we have are old, decrepit, unsafe, leaking, and it’s not right. It isn’t a matter of, ‘Oh we are building more prisons to throw more people in jail’— wrong. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about taking the existing prison stock that we have in this country, and ensuring that it’s upgraded so that they can get treatment. Where they can get safe and humane and secure. This is secure environments. I’m not talking about secure security; I’m taking about within the institution itself. So the prison talk is like anything else. The amount of money we spend on maintaining this stock can be used and applied effectively so that we have a modern, humane institution that we need within the context of our incarceration system.
Now as to poverty, I know, there is poverty in Canada. I know the problem of poverty in Canada. I know Parkdale. I know what goes on there. I know how poverty hurts people and how poverty takes people out of things. It debilitates people. I think our best weapon to fight poverty is education. I think education, as a teacher and with my business background, I know that when you take a person and invest in their education, you can give them skills. You can give them dignity, you can give them the types of things they want to have so they can engage in society, get back to society, and at the same time have pride in who they are and what they do. So I believe our investment in education at the provincial level, the money that the federal government invests in the provinces, need to be, needs to ensure we are reaching out with the proper type of program, with the proper type of access to information, that people need so that they can take themselves and bring themselves out of poverty, but we have to invest in that.

Can you say, is one more important than the other?

Both are things that confront all of Canada. It’s like saying is my left foot or my thumb more important, they both are. One is an institution and one is a social situation.

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By Beth Macdonell

“I heard someone call this the Seinfeld election. The election about nothing,” says James Norrie, a social media researcher and associate dean at Ryerson University. “It seems pretty apathetic out there.”

Still, Norrie believes in the power of social media. “If social media can provoke social unrest to the point that a government can fall,” he says, “it can mobilize voters.”

All the major candidates in Trinity-Spadina are using social media. They’re hoping to turn some of the apathy into engagement, albeit with slightly different strategies.

With the NDP’s Olivia Chow winning by only 3,484 votes over the Liberal’s Christine Innes in the 2008 Federal Election, how social media is used in the riding could impact who wins the race.

There are about 17 million Facebook and 4.5 million Twitter users in Canada. In urban Trinity-Spadina, Norrie says the impact of social media “is more potent because of density, population demographic, and availability of mobile devices.”

Trinity-Spadina’s Green Party candidate Rachel Barney is managing her own Facebook page as well as helping tweet throughout the campaign, but Jonathan Sas will be managing most of the social media communication. He’s an executive with the Trinity-Spadina Riding Association.

“A major strategy [of ours] is trying to engage a conversation with other candidates, not just tweeting our policies, but tweeting them at other candidates to differentiate and be vocal about where we are different,” says Sas. “We are battling two very popular candidates.”

Sas says the use of social media is integral to the Greens campaign in Trinity-Spadina. “We see a lot of wiggle room in the riding and we think social media is a key area we have traction in, where the Liberals and NDP might not.”

Chow and the NDP appear to be the most aggressive online. “It’s an integral part of our campaign,” said Joe Cressy, Chow’s campaign manager.

“Our campaign focuses on engaging with the residents wherever they are … Condos where people don’t answer the door, young professionals across the riding, people in apartments, homeowners in the north end of the riding. These [social media] tools are invaluable.”

In addition to Chow managing her Twitter feed and some Facebook updates, the NDP has also introduced online video streaming of their events, a new app for the iPhone and iPad, and a new text messaging service.

For Innes and the Liberals in Trinity-Spadina, the social media strategy is based on a philosophy akin to serving hot breakfast cereal.

“Our buzzword for social media is porridge,” says Tom Allison, campaign manager for Innes. “We want to make sure we are updating when it feels right,” he adds. “Not too hot, not too cold, just right.”

Allison also emphasized that messages should be interesting or else people will lose interest.

“Trinity-Spadina has more tech start-up companies than any other part of the country,” says Allison. It’s a very connected place.”

He says Innes is tweeting herself and helping update her Facebook page. So far, Allison says social media has been particularly helpful mobilizing volunteers. “On the first weekend of the campaign we were able to canvass one third of the riding because we used social media to alert everyone what our plan was.”

The Conservative party appears to lag behind the other parties when it comes to social media in the riding. Facebook pages have been created for the Trinity-Spadina Conservatives and their candidate Gin Siow, but a staff member will manage updates.

“It’s one of those things you need,” said Doug Lowry, Siow’s campaign manager. However, Lowry is quick to point out that social media is not the only place voters go for information and updates. “We know that there are a lot of people in Trinity-Spadina that use social media and that’s the way they communicate,” he said. “And there’s older people who like to read The Annex Gleaner, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and they don’t use it.”

Lowry said as of Tuesday, March 29, online messaging in the riding should reflect what the party tells them, “to a degree.”

“Ideally it takes on a life of it’s own and helps people take look at the party that wouldn’t have.”

“What’s really important if you look at Trinity-Spadina, is the candidates’ personal interactions,” says Norrie. ”It’s less important what the party is doing instead of how candidates are engaging with voters,” he adds. How many people the candidate is able to engage and have vote for them will be very interesting to see, he said.

Finding your Trinity-Spadina candidates online

GREEN – Rachel Barney
Website: www.trinityspadinagreens.ca
Twitter: TSGreens
Facebook: Trinity Spadina Greens, RachelBarney
Doing herself: Facebook updates, some Twitter

NDP – Olivia Chow (Incumbent)
Website: www.oliviachow.ca , www.trinityspadinandp.ca
Twitter: oliviachow
Facebook: oliviachow, Trinity-Spadina NDP
Flickr: oliviachow
YouTube: oliviachow
Doing herself: Twitter and some Facebook

LIBERAL – Christine Innes
Website: christineinnes.liberal.ca
Twitter: christine_innes
Facebook: LiberalChristineInnes
Flickr: christineinnes
YouTube: electchristineeinnes
Doing herself: Twitter, some Facebook

CONSERVATIVE – Gin Siow
Website: trinityspadina.com
Twitter: Expected soon
Facebook: GinSiow, Trinity Spadina Conservatives
Doing himself: None, managed by staff.

Compiled by Emina Gamulin, Perry King, and Beth Macdonell

The Riding

Trinity-Spadina neighbourhoods include Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Kensington Market, the Annex, Seaton Village, Harbord Village, University of Toronto,  Koreatown, Queen West, King West, the West Waterfront and the Toronto Islands. The riding is one of the most rapidly changing areas in the city due to the increase in condo developments. More than 41 per cent of residents listed a language other than English or French as their mother tongue.

The Candidates

Question One: A national transportation vision
Question Two: Urban and rural Canada
Question Three: G20
Question Four: Copyright law reform
Question Five: Elder in-home care
Question Six: Canada the corporatocracy?
Question Seven: Debt and deficit

The Statistics

Population: 115,361
Immigrant population: 41%
Median age of the population: 34.9
Median income: $66,296
Home owners: 46%
Political History:
2008 Election: New Democrat
2006 Election: New Democrat
2004 Election: Liberal
Source: Statistics Canada

The Candidates

Olivia Chow

NDP candidate Olivia Chow is Trinity-Spadina’s incumbent and has been a member of Parliament since 2006. She was first elected to office in 1985 as a school trustee, and was Toronto’s first Asian female councillor. Previous to political life, she studied art and supported her career as a sculptor by working for a number of social service agencies.

Olivia and her husband, NDP Leader Jack Layton, live in Trinity-Spadina’s Chinatown with Olivia’s mother Ho Sze in a house that they transformed with a “green” renovation.

Rachel Barney

Rachel Barney, the Green Party candidate, was born and raised in downtown Toronto, attending high school and university in the riding. As a student at the University of Toronto, Barney was a member of its Governing Council, and sponsored the motion which led to U of T divesting from apartheid South Africa. She received a PhD at Princeton, and has taught at Ottawa, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. Barney now lives near Christie Pits, and teaches at U of T, as Canada Research Chair in Classical Philosophy.

Christine Innes

Born near Stratford, Ontario and living in Trinity-Spadina for 25 years, Liberal Party candidate Christine Innes is the current chief of staff to Ontario’s Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Before that, Innes practised commercial litigation for ten years and ran a small business.  A member of the Annex Residents’ Association, a founding committee member of the Bloor-Borden Farmers’ Market, and an active supporter of the Alexandra Park Community Centre, Innes competed against Olivia Chow in Trinity-Spadina during the 2008 federal election, and came in second place by a margin of roughly 3,500 votes.

Gin Siow

Educated in Malaysia and Singapore, Conservative candidate Gin Siow immigrated to Canada in 1982. He is the founder of the Malaysia Association of Canada. A married father of two children and co-owner of Markham Mazda, Siow was the recipient of the Outstanding Asian Canadian Community Award by the Canadian Multicultural Council in 2009. Siow ran for Ward 4 city councillor in the city of Markham last October, placing second.

Cartoonist Chester Brown is running in Trinity-Spadina for the Libertarian Party, but declined an interview with the Gleaner. Nick Lin is running on behalf of the Marxist-Leninist Party, but the Gleaner was not able to contact him in time for this story.

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The Questions and Answers

1. Please provide a national transportation vision that works together with and provides a funding structure for provincial and municipal governments.
—Astra Burka

CHOW: It’s very timely given what’s going on. The first priority would be a national public transit strategy, which I tabled in the House of Commons about a month ago, that brings together the different levels of government and the transit authority to provide long-term, predictable, and sustainable funding for public transit. We have a plan; once you have a plan you can move ahead. Canada is the only industrialized country that does not have such a plan. In the next five years there will be an 18 billion dollar gap in transit structure needs, and an average of 53 per cent of the costs are from passenger fares which is really too high. In Toronto it’s like 75 to 80 per cent, so it’s not sustainable. The vision should also have accountability measures so they can all work together, increase access of public transit, and share best practices. What’s exciting is that the legislation I came with is applauded by the Canadian municipalities and the Canadian Urban Transit Association. They’ve been asking for one for a long time. Rather than waiting I did it with the Big City Mayors’ Report.

BARNEY: The big bullet point is the Greens are deeply committed to revitalizing our rail system … we need to seriously upgrade passenger rails. As things stand now, VIA rail piggybacks on freight lines. We don’t even have a serious passenger rail system, and it doesn’t cover nearly as much of small town and rural Canada as it should. That’s a real economic, and of course, an environmental problem: it contributes to smog and all sorts of bad things. We would reinvest in a big way in our national rail system and we would very much support an increase in the gas tax transfer to municipalities to help with municipalities and regional transportation initiatives. We are very passionate about helping transportation both within cities, and from one city to another. Obviously, all those initiatives have to be collaborative with various levels of government but that shouldn’t be a problem because municipalities want that gas tax transfer money precisely to use for public transportation projects. We just need a federal government that will get onside and give them the money to do that.

INNES: First and foremost I want to tell you how committed I am to public transit both as a user of it and someone who spent a lot of mornings on streetcar tracks and watching the very long waits. This morning I was at King and Bathurst, people were waiting up to 20 minutes or longer as full streetcars passed them by. So in terms in national transportation strategy, absolutely, there needs to be some national leadership on public transit. Micheal Ignatieff and the Liberal Party last fall, when I spoke to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, I spoke clearly about the need for a more direct partnership with the federal government and the municipalities on two key issues. Not just public transport, although that was the first priority, but also affordable housing. Details of a funding structure are something that needs to be worked out collaboratively with the all levels of government. Liberal record in terms of public transit, we are the only government that had a Minister of Cities and Infrastructures and that’s because we believe deeply in the need to better fund and better coordinate transportation. You have to work out agreements with the municipality, so in this case the City of Toronto, and there’s a provincial jurisdiction too. So, for me to say unilaterally there’s a funding structure, to me that’s not leadership. To me what leadership is, is bringing all the key players together, and work it out based on each of the key levels of government. But there has to be national leadership to direct that, and a commitment to put their money where their mouth is.

SIOW: The first thing I’d probably have to say is that transportation—basically, the provincial government looks after that, but I know that in 2009 we [the Conservative government] provided $5.5 billion dollars for infrastructure funding—four billion would the stimulus fund, one billion would be for infrastructure, the other would be for the Building Canada fund. There are many components. We’re streamlining the process of infrastructure projects and hopefully we’re getting the shovel in the ground. That’s what is going on at the federal level. Recently, I’m sure you have heard that the mayor made the announcement about the new [subway] lines. There are [infrastructure] issues, certainly, and there are improvements there that need to be done.

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2. In 2007, former mayor David Miller ran the aggressive “One Cent Now’ campaign, asking the federal government to give one cent of the GST to cities. Today, 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities. Do the feds need to rewrite how money is divided between urban and rural parts of the country?
—Beth Macdonell, contributing editor, Gleaner Community Press

BARNEY: We do believe very strongly that we’ve got to get our debt under control. For us, with politicians, the question is how are we going to do it and why should you trust us when we say that. One reason you should trust us is that we do have a big-picture view about the future of the Canadian economy, and it involves taxing the stuff that we’re doing wrong and using it for taxes on stuff that is economically and socially useful. We’re talking about a carbon tax, we’re the party that believes in that. NDP is passionately against it, Liberals don’t want to think about it. The Tories don’t even believe in climate change, as far as I can tell. That carbon tax, the point would be to make it revenue neutral, so we would be lowering taxes on everything else. In particular, lowering payroll taxes which should make it easier for small businesses to hire people. We have a vision of what a prosperous Canada would look like in 20 years. That green economy would be one that could keep its house in order and pay its debts. We would not be subsidizing polluting industries anymore. We would not be subsidizing the auto industry and other “dinosaur” industries anymore. There are a lot of things that we would not be spending money on, and we would have new revenue streams. What can I say, we do take these debt and deficit issues very seriously, because we do not want to be a country that is at the mercy of the international banking system. We’re very concerned about Canada’s ability to set policy independently, and we’ve seen recently what happens if you don’t keep your financial house in order. You end up having to be bailed out by the international banking system. We can’t have that happen here. we’ve got to run a tight ship. That’s fine, we believe in running a tight ship, anyway.

INNES: Well, that’s why the Liberals quite frankly are very serious and couldn’t support the budget that has been put forward. The funding choices being made right now, when we have the largest deficit ever, simply cannot be sustained. So whether you take the $30 billion on fighter jets, $9 billion on the mega-prisons, or the $6 billion in corporate tax cuts for the largest corporations and banks, those are the wrong decisions right now. Liberals are saying right now about our fiscal balance in terms of continuing … look, we have to pay down the debt. I ran a small business, I understand the fiscal issues. I’m a lawyer, and I’ve run my own business. You have to take care of the debt, but you can’t take care of it at the expense of the investments in people. So we are balancing, our commitment is to continue to strike the balance, to continue to pay down the investment, while at the same time making strong economic investments in health care, family care, and education; lifelong learning. Liberals have a strong record of getting the fiscal house in order and I think people need to remember, the last time the Conservative government ever ran a balanced budget was the year the Titanic sank, 1912. I think that tells a story in of itself. It is about striking a balance, we can’t pay down the deficit without at the same time risking the supports that family and individuals needs.

SIOW: I think the key here now is our government, for the last few years, has done a tremendous job. As an entrepreneur myself, I really like the Economic Action Plan. We have plans, we have systems [in place]. We don’t tell you today this, and tomorrow say another thing. We have to work to recover job losses. We are adamant that by 2015 we are going to bring the deficit back to zero. We are on target, the unfortunate part here is who can deliver? Before even the budget came out, [Jack Layton] confirmed he was going to reject it. Come on! How can you have someone represent the country and reject things he hasn’t even seen? It is just ridiculous. What we have done here is our free trade and the Economic Action Plan. We are about to start a second phase, and if we were to continue to do our job, which we have done a tremendous job in the past, we will be able to fully recover by 2015 with no more deficit. Isn’t that a good thing that we can all enjoy?

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The Maple Leaf industrial yard at Dundas and Manning has been operating in the neighbourhood since 1932. As soon as this fall, ground could be broken on a new mixed-use development, closing the lumber and supplies store. Perry King/Gleaner News

By Perry King

If approved, a condominium at Manning and Dundas will be the tallest building in the neighbourhood.

As early as this fall, owner Maria Da Conceicao Silva and developer Andrew Dales Consulting will be breaking ground on the new development.

“Everyone has their opinion on it. Some people don’t want to see any height increase at all,” said Elspeth Cassar, a resident of Euclid Avenue. Cassar said she would support the development if it were within the limits outlined by the city.

Fifty neighbourhood signatures were submitted to community council on Feb. 11 opposing the height variances the developer is seeking for the eight-storey (27 metre) project. The Harmonized Zoning bylaw restricts buildings to 16 metres on Dundas between Bathurst and Grace.

Cassar says local residents have a broad range of concerns, from lost daylight to density to parking. But, she says many residents see the change as inevitable. “Other than people who work at the site who are going to lose their jobs, [many people] welcome the development. I would love to see a mixed commercial-residential building. I think it would be an improvement for the neighbourhood.”

Others are less supportive. Lee Anderson, a Manning Avenue resident calls the size of the development “insane.”

“This is an established neighbourhood with an established amount of water usage, sewage usage, electrical usage, and cable-internet usage,” he said. “I understand the need to fill space in a reasonable way for density purposes, but that’s a lot.”

Kenny Conners, who manages the Café Brasiliano (849 Dundas St. W.) across the street, notes that the neighbourhood was previously changing at “about a snail’s pace. But I’ve seen, in the last couple years, a lot of new things going up.”

Conners thinks the changes are a good thing. “A lot of people say it’s bad because the Portuguese are getting pushed out a little … but in a way, we need that new blood,” he said. “Toronto ain’t the same city that it was back in the 1950’s or the 1970’s. We’re all about change.”

Plans for the north part of the project, encompassing the back alley and properties on Manning Avenue, would include a row house with eight four-story units. The south part of the project, encompassing the lumberyard, will be a 95-unit, mixed-use site with commercial space and underground parking.

The five properties listed in the applications are 854, 856, 858 Dundas Street West and 217 and 291 Manning Avenue. A preliminary city report submitted Jan. 19 says the project could be precedent setting.

“You can’t just put big buildings like this on small pieces of land,” said Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina). He  says that avenue studies generally recommend a 20-metre height cap to foster a “healthy density” in new developments along streets like Dundas.“[In terms of height] we still don’t know where we’re going to end up falling here, but I think any building that goes up in that neighbourhood is going to set a precedent for what’s going to happen on the street,” said Layton.

In an email to the Gleaner, area resident George Sawision said: “This is a precedent setting development that seems to be a ‘done deal’ with a re-zoning hearing scheduled regarding the ‘extra 7 metres’ that will be added to the top. It will change the area forever as other developments are waiting to see if this one is approved.”

On Feb. 16, Toronto and East York Community Council adopted the preliminary report. There have been no formal talks between the developers, locals, and the city about the property to date. Local residents have not seen the full plan from the owners, and Layton has advised residents from the Trinity Bellwoods Community Association (TCBA) to voice their opinions once they are provided with the owner’s plan.

Several other developers are eyeing the Little Portugal area for condo developments, which makes some neighbours nervous, while others embrace the change.

On Jan. 24, developers submitted applications for an eight storey, mixed-use site at 1243 Dundas St. W., west of Ossington. Near Anderson’s home on Manning between Dundas and College, 45 town homes will be built starting next year at the location of the former St. Francis of Assisi school (250 Manning Ave.) and the adjacent parking lot.

“Our street is already used as a thoroughfare for people going south in terms of car traffic. That’s going to increase tenfold. If the driveway entrance to that building is on Manning, that means people have to come all the way down from College Street to get to it. That bugs me a lot because they’re turning it into a main street, which it’s not,” said Anderson.

As for the lumberyard, a staple of the neighbourhood since it was founded in 1932, its shutdown is a major change in itself. Tony Goncalves, a manager at Maple Leaf lumber, says that the staff had met with the owner several weeks ago, who gave them “a timeline of about a couple years” for the development to take place. Employees will be relocated to other locations if they opt to remain with the company, but Goncalves is not sure when this will happen.

“We have customers who keep coming in and asking ‘Where are you going to go?’” he said. Goncalves is accepting of the prospect of change to the site, saying “the city is changing.”

TBCA chair Chris Shulgan sees the change as symbolic. “I think it’s a really interesting story because it represents the transfer of the area from an ethnic community to, for lack of a better word, a hipster community,” he said.

“It’s owned by Portuguese people, it’s the biggest and I think you can call it the mainstay of the Portuguese community along that stretch of Dundas. If it is becoming condos, it is really indicative of the direction that the community is changing.”

For information on an upcoming community council meeting, please contact councillor Layton’s office at 416-392-4009 or councillor_layton@toronto.ca.

Courtesy creative commons.

By Zacchary K

While the often inebriated and occasionally violent behavior of  Brunswick House (481 Bloor St. W.) patrons upsets nearby residents, the bar goers say they are no strangers themselves to getting the cold shoulder from “lame-ass” locals.

From police enforcement blitzes, neighbours telling them to “shut up already,” and female-residents-crossing-the-street-and-not-answering-their-questions-but-whatever,-it’s-not-like-they-were-that-hot-anyway, Brunny regulars say they feel oppressed by  increasingly hostile neighbours who don’t like their hard partying ways.

“Come ahnnn,” said Tommy ‘The Panther’ Stevens, “come ahhnnn! Yo, what’s with these folks, making all this noise and s**t about our noise and s**t. Like they don’t know … whatever, right?”

Britney “Boobs” McGee (far right) believes that the issue leaves more questions than answers. Courtesy creative commons.

Panther-Stevens isn’t alone in his sentiment.”What?” asked/rapped fellow Brunny patron Timmy 2Gats, “This is the Brunny/ and you’re telling me that I can’t sip on my Heinies/ and holler at the honeys/ without these old-ass mummies lookin’ at me all funny? Who do you think I am? Bugs Bunny? Get sunny/ or I swear to God/ imma leave the next dummy’s nose runny.”

Overall, Brunswick fans are worried that enough public backlash could in turn lead to tighter prosecution, stricter guidelines and other totally uncool things against these super chill bros. If it comes to that, attorney, or at least law student, Patrick ‘The Suit” Donalds, said he would offer his aid to keep the establishment as is.

“Frankly I’m appalled that residents would so quickly turn on a business that has brought so much revenue to the neighbourhood. Shamelessly trying to fondle some wasted chick’s veejazzled nether regions, literally fighting over prospective one-night stands, and later puking on some stranger’s lawn are just the sort of things that make this community, this city—nay, this country—a miraculous place to live. No homo.”

Albert Dweebleman, seen here “rockin’ out” to the Black Eyed Peas “Pump It,” defends Annex residents as “cool cats, and rad.” Courtesy creative commons.

Responding to the allegations, Brunswick Avenue property owner Albert Dweebleman said: “It’s not that we don’t like to party. I like to party. I party all the time. Party here, party there. I saw The Black Eyed Peas on their second tour so I am on ‘it.’ But this kind of partying has me worried. Since when are there things to do past 10:35?”

“Annex folk are very hip, we are cool cats, and rad,” he continued. “I cannot stress enough that we are not trying to be a ‘huge drag,’ we would simply like  these ‘dudes’ to recognize that they need to ‘chill out’ so they can be max-hip with our ‘dogs.’

Perhaps there could be some compromise, as Chad ‘Sex Armageddon’ D. suggests, “Like it’s cool if they don’t wanna be cool,” he explains, “Just don’t be callin’ me ‘hooligan’ that ain’t cool, don’t—” Chad stopped abruptly as the commercials ended and the UFC game came back on. “Yeah baby!” he said with a fist pump.

It’s a clash of two very different cultures, as concerned Annex citizens and crazy motherf****n’ party f****rs find themselves at hostile odds over the neighbourhood’s use. As we wait until the next weekend, questions still remain, as one Britney “Boobs” McGee wonders, “Heyyyy, what’s your naaaaaame? What issss iiiit? Huh? Oh, okay byeeeee.”

Police officials say they found 6,000 lbs of Krispy Kremes at the Harbord donut shop, with a total street value of $45,000. Courtesy Wiki creative commons.

By Zacchary K.

Harbord has become a hotbed of both local and national attention after Pizza GiGi (189 Harbord St.) was exposed for allegedly dealing millions in narcotics. But the shocks have not ended there, as patrons of Harbord businesses become surprised yet again by a restaurant’s exposed dark side.

“I can’t believe it,” said one local who wished to remain anonymous, “You walk by it every day, but you never think, ‘Y’know, this place is hiding something.’  And so soon after the last one? I’m at a loss for trust.”

The event the pedestrian refers to happened in late March, when investigators discovered the doughnut café (215 Harbord St.) was stocking thousands of Krispy Kreme donuts.

Concerned citizen group ‘Dough Not’ called the news “shameful.” Courtesy Creative Commons.

Disappearing from the GTA in 2004 after officials deemed them “dangerously yummy,” Krispy Kreme donuts have become a new criminal commodity. Toronto spends over 2 million in keeping Krispy Kremes, (also known as ‘Kreme,’ and ‘KK’ for short) off the streets, and a civilian group, ‘Dough Not,’ is outraged that the front had managed to operate for so long.

“It’s shameful,” said Dough Not leader Karen Stiller, “and across from a high school too? Really makes you think.”

But not all the feedback is in disgust, as bloggers, Tweets, and word on the street delight that something so strange has opened for conversation. “Ha ha,” chuckles one resident, “Kremes? I haven’t had one of those in years. Think Leno will talk about it?”

“LOL” writes one local Tweeter, “No wonder they always looked pissed when you ordered coffee.”

An official from Krispy Kreme, which are still legal stateside, said while holding a box of the addictive material in question that, “While we do not encourage the illicit trade of our product, it’s honestly your own loss. Oh, mmfh, boy these are good.”

Skadarlija owner Sam Sri says he feels like the fall-guy for the neighbourhood. Photo Rebecca Payne/Gleaner News

The West Parkdale Neighbours Group (WPNG) was formed exclusively to take action against three bars that members consider to be problematic: the now closed Captain Jack’s (1521 Queen St. W.), Grace Place (1656 Queen St. W.), and Skadarlija (1608 Queen St. W.). According to John Silva, founding WPNG member and owner of Poor John’s Cafe (1610 Queen St. W.), “[Scadarlija and Grace Place] continue to be a problem.”

Owners and staff at these bars deny the allegations, and feel they are being treated as scapegoats for the neighbourhood’s problems.

“I’m here about eight years, I not have any problems, now after this guy Poor John move in, he don’t like my customer. This lady next door [Feather Factory] is going with him. He talk about crack people, people peeing outside—all Queen Street people pee outside,” said Sam Sri, owner of Skadarlija.

Sri also owns a convenience store at 1521, a bar on Roncesvalles Avenue, and “a couple rooming houses.”

“Most of the people, they don’t know me … When [Silva] opened his patio I say ‘You need help, let me know.’ But all other neighbours didn’t want the patio. Somebody drink beer in the street, he call cops and say my customer. Anything happen in the street, he say my customer. There’s too many things going on in Parkdale.”

Sri also said that Silva complains when his customers smoke out front of Skadarlija. “He leave table and chair outside [on the sidewalk]. His customer smoke, it’s okay. Mine smoke, he says it’s going in his place. He against me but I say nothing. They call cops, cops keep coming, [but] they don’t do anything—nothing’s wrong inside.”

Likewise, David Zhang, an employee of Grace Place, believes that it’s not his establishment that is the problem. “I think it’s Parkdale. That’s the people. I don’t let those people come here, I don’t serve them.”

Neighbouring businesses complain that Grace Place over-serves Patrons, who then cause problems. Photo Rebecca Payne/Gleaner News

Grace Place patron David Hanuman, said that “David runs a good establishment here. He really does. He treats people well.”

But the WPNG maintain that these establishments over-serve customers, who then cause problems in the neighbourhood. Silva mentions customers urinating in doorways, vomiting on nearby properties, and starting violent fights. “For me, the ‘last straw’ occurred when two men fighting in front of Skadarlija drifted toward my property and pushed each other through my front door, resulting in $500 worth of damage,” wrote Silva in a document sent to the Gleaner.

Silva believes 11 Division is not policing the area adequately. “We feel it has to do with the police division … they don’t have a vice squad, [incidents] go to major crimes, and my sense is they really consider this a nuisance, if there’s over-serving or a fight. There are enough visits to this place, it seems to me there could have been charges laid long ago.”

Silva also mentioned last November’s throat slashing outside Grace Place. “Imagine that happening in Bloor West Village. Would that bar be open the next day? There’s something weird going on.”

Staff Sergeant Bruce Morrison, of 11 Division’s Community Response Unit, said that although 1521 has changed hands, criminal activity in the area still continues. “We’ve been dealing with [1521] for years, and as it changes hands there’s busy times and quiet times. Right now it’s in one of its quiet times, [but] people that were in the building are still in the area.”

“We still have problems with prostitution, drug use, disorderly conduct on the street, it’s still going on, it’s just not localized at 1521.”

Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) is aware of the ire some community members have for these bars. “I’ve had several meetings with the Parkdale Residents’ Association and local business owners about concerns of those bars. We’ve sat them down with city inspectors and AGCO inspectors. There has been police and AGCO presence in there. They’ve not been able to find either of those owners [of Skadarlija or Grace Place] in any violation.”

Perks said that he’s met with the owner of Skadarlija and “tried to encourage him to be a bit more proactive.”

“There are limits on how much responsibility a bar owner has for his patrons. When they’re not in his place, there’s difficulty enforcing their behaviour.”

Morrison said that police will continue to do everything they can to keep the neighbourhood safe. “We’re trying to improve the quality of life down there, one person at a time. Enforcement continues and proactive patrols continue.”

The former owners of 1521 Queen St. W., Radika “Patsy” Mahadeo and Narotam “Sharma” Misir, applied for a rooming house licence, but were denied in January. “The applicants who had applied lost possession of the property earlier this year,” said Joe Magalhaes, supervisor of investigations for Toronto and East York with Municipal Licencing and Standards (MLS). “It was the rooming house commissioner’s decision to consider the application abandoned, and that no further action was required. The current possessor has put the property up for sale.”

Magalhaes also said that the current owner of 1521 is evicting all tenants of the building, which has retail space on the first floor and residential space on the second. The relocation of the tenants is being overseen by MLS’s relocation and support worker, to make sure that “people are housed suitably, in affordable housing.” Although Magalhaes could not say how many people were being relocated, he did say that not all of the rooms were occupied.

Silva said that whatever happens next, the WPNG will be prepared to take action. “We don’t know what the future of 1521 is, but if the next owner has the same plan, for a hotel and a bar, we will be fighting that with every means that we can.”

Update: since we went to press with this story, 1521 Queen St. W. has been sold and the WPNG are currently trying to negotiate terms with the new owner.