December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on NEWS: OCAD students design bike rings (Dec. 2019)
Traditional and contemporary pieces win competition
OCAD student Che Huang kneels next to his winning bike ring design for Bloor Annex BIA parkettes. KHYRSTEN MIERAS/GLEANER NEWS
By Khyrsten Mieras
New bike racks are being added to the Annex’s urban landscape after OCAD announced the winners of its design contest in mid-November.
As part of the Bloor Street Revitalization Project, students in two OCAD classes took part in a competition last year to design bike racks for the Bloor Annex area. The two winners, Che Huang and Hadas Green, are both third-year students in the industrial design program at the university. They worked in collaboration with the Bloor Annex BIA, the City of Toronto, and architects DTAH to make their unique designs.
Huang created a leaf design that highlights the neighbourhood’s green spaces with simple, modern, and functional elements. The majority of these racks were recently installed at several parkettes along Bloor Street West, including the Major Street parkette.
“When I set out to start the project, I was inspired by nature mostly,” said Huang. “I refined the shape of the leaf down to angles and it became a more geometric form. I really wanted to set out to make something that was mass-producible and would be cheap to make and would be using the existing infrastructure.”
OCAD student Hadas Green with her lamp post bike ring in front of Trinity-St. Paul’s Church. KHYRSTEN MIERAS/GLEANER NEWS
Green designed a more traditional bike rack that is based on a lamp post and made of corten steel. The design is reminiscent of Toronto’s historical culture and was inspired by the city’s historical lighting standards and the Annex in the 1900s. It will be installed at Trinity St. Paul’s United Church to complement the building’s historic architecture.
“With my bike ring, it was really important to me that it captures the whole character of the area,” said Green. “The fact that it’s a bike rack and it’s kind of two dimensional and rustic…captures both the modern aesthetic and then also the history.”
A small jury of stakeholders including BIA, the revitalization committee, and DTAH judged the designs on their security, installation, and aesthetic appeal.
Brian Burchell, chair of the Bloor Annex BIA (and publisher of this newspaper), has led the Bloor Street Revitalization Project and says that the bike rings will bring economic benefits to the neighbourhood by giving cyclists a place to lock their bikes so they can stop and shop.
“It was pure luck that we learned that there [was] a class of students at OCAD that wanted to participate in a competition to make bike rings that are suitable to our specific environment and our vision of the Annex,” said Burchell. “We were just so fortunate to have all those young, creative minds come up with ideas in that competition and we’re grateful for all those who made the effort to submit a design, and we’re especially grateful to the winning designers.”
The OCAD student-designed racks will be located in the new parkettes and on some side streets, while the city-standard “post and ring” designs will continue to occupy Bloor Street sidewalks.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on NEWS: New mural for Major (Dec. 2019)
Parkette location chosen to celebrate Bloor’s rich offerings
Initial concept of mural design by Daniela Rocha for the Major Street parkette (rear, east-face of Sleep Country location) pending for May of 2020. COURTESY DANIELA ROCHA
By Khyrsten Mieras
The Bloor Annex BIA is expanding its Bloor Street Revitalization Project with the addition of a new mural to showcase the neighbourhood’s rich offering of culture and diversity.
In August, the BIA sent a request looking for mural proposals from local artists to design and paint a mural on the façade at 459 Bloor St. W. in the Major Street parkette. They chose Daniela Rocha, an OCAD graduate and muralist who lives in the Annex, to undertake the project.
“The Annex is one of the most popular neighbourhoods in the city, so to me it’s a really great honour to paint it,” said Rocha. “I just feel very excited about it because it’s going to be a very cool mural and I think it’s very different from what the murals are here in the city.”
Rocha’s mural captures many of the distinct landmarks and characteristics in the Bloor Annex community. Her design includes Trinity St. Paul’s United Church, bike lanes on Bloor, a totem pole for the Native Canadian Centre, Lee’s Palace, and a camera to represent Hot Docs Cinema. It also combines images of flying books from BMV, artists’ materials from Midoco, tools from Wiener’s Home Hardware, drinks from local bars, cuisine from the area, neighbourhood animals, and plants and trees to portray the nature of the Annex.
“I was inspired by the Annex in general, mostly the stores or just the restaurants that have been there for a long time,” said Rocha. “I’m originally from Colombia and came to Toronto back in 2007 and the Annex has been the neighbourhood that I’ve always been to, so I wanted to just portray the things that I’ve seen since then.”
Artists needed their ideas to meet four criteria in order to be considered for the project: they needed to take inspiration from cultural establishments, entertainment venues, and art in Bloor Annex; they needed to incorporate the community’s future, contain colourful and positive imagery, and not be overly intricate or simplistic.
Rocha’s piece highlighted all of these aspects with an emphasis on colour.
“I wanted to have a very colourful piece because for me colour is really important. I think that, especially right now during winter, everything becomes really grey and there’s not much sun, so my work is very distinctive because of the colour.”
Twenty-one local artists submitted their designs for the competition. The jury, made up of representatives from the BIA’s board and business members as well as cultural centres in the neighbourhood, chose the winning mural by rating each submission and narrowing them down to five. The group reviewed those five together before coming to a final decision.
Ellie Hayden, the previous project administrator for the Bloor Annex Revitalization project, helped to organize the contest and submissions.
“I’ve orchestrated mural projects for other BIAs and this was by far the biggest response I’ve seen,” Hayden wrote in an email to the Gleaner. “What was even cooler was how many of the artists had connections to the Annex neighbourhood. I think it speaks to the creative nature of this community and how invested people are in making it a welcoming place.”
The mural is expected to be completed next spring with the help of funding from the City of Toronto that was extended until the end of May 2020.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on NEWS: ARA climate plan hits home (Dec. 2019)
TransformTO consultation held to discuss city’s climate plan
Teri Chu of the ARA has launched Plate Share, a free dining-ware program for local parties. KHYRSTEN MIERAS/GLEANER NEWS
By Khyrsten Mieras
The City of Toronto and the Annex Residents’ Association’s (ARA) Parks, Trees and Environment Committee held the latest TransformTO community consultation at the Bata Shoe Museum on November 4.
Along with local communities, the city is holding several public conversations this fall to discuss what actions need to be taken to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Toronto. The Annex consultation gave its residents the opportunity to share their ideas for environmental strategies and ways to make the city greener.
The event was presented by Terri Chu, the chair of the Parks Committee, and Sarah Rodrigues, a senior environmental planner from the city’s Environment and Energy division. It was followed by a conversation with community members to discuss TransformTO, what they like and dislike about it, and suggestions to improve it.
Adopted in 2017, TransformTO is the city’s climate action strategy. The plan sets out long-term, low-carbon goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 while still benefiting the quality of life for residents. Currently, the city is preparing a TransformTO implementation plan for steps it should take by 2023 to further reduce its emissions.
“The City of Toronto has already faced the impacts of climate change through extreme weather,” said Rodrigues. “So, it’s an important conversation to understand how we can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change but also realize how we can include co-benefits: how we can advance social equity, improve health, [and] support the creation of local jobs while we reduce emissions.”
The ARA’s Parks, Trees and Environment Committee, formerly the Parks, Trees Committee, was recently renamed to highlight its new focus on the environment.
The volunteer committee is involved in several environmental programs that benefit the Annex community. One of its main projects is a tree replacement effort, which will introduce a subsidized tree replacement program in 2020. It has also launched Plate Share, a free dining-ware lending program for parties that reduces single use plastics in the community.
“We try to reduce the GHG emissions on a local level and we do what we can within the community to try to tackle other challenges like flood resiliency, air pollution, and so on,” said Chu.
Community members in attendance at the Annex consultation meeting voiced their concerns about the city’s lack of environmental action and seeming lack of urgency to move forward. With the city’s declaration of a climate emergency in October 2019, members agreed that Toronto needs to do more to prevent irreparable damage in the future.
“I think the city has a long way to go. I would really like to know what’s implementable now versus what the dreams are and what people will accept,” said Chu. “It’s ambitious in some ways but not enough in others and the bottom line is we really need to get people on board and be willing to adapt their lifestyles. Pretending that we can do it with substitutions is not going to cut it.”
Community members offered many suggestions to help the city improve its environmental framework for transportation: lower or free transit costs, higher parking costs, improved sidewalks, a specific plan to reduce cars, and prioritizing pedestrians, bikers, and public transit ahead of roads.
For other areas of the environment, members called for stronger grass roots education, especially in schools and through city-wide advertisements. They also recommended carbon tax rationing at individual and community levels, mandatory environmental standards, stronger leadership from Mayor John Tory, and a war cabinet to enforce quick action. These climate conversations will continue at more community consultations taking part across the city in November to shape TransformTO with the help of local residents. The final TransformTO implementation plan for 2021 to 2023 will be presented to council early next year.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on EDITORIAL: Ford “proud” of cancelling green energy contracts (Dec. 2019)
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is cancelling 758 renewable energy contracts, including a newly constructed wind farm in Prince Edward County, a move that will cost the Ontario taxpayer at least $231 million. The PCs are not only hard pressed to justify the move from a fiscal perspective, but it also makes no sense from a political vantage point when the electorate is increasingly concerned about climate change.
The revelation of the cost of ripping up green energy contracts came as the official opposition NDP Ontario Energy Critic, Peter Tabuns, noticed a strange line item in the recently released public accounts for the Ministry of Energy – a $231 million expense for “other transactions”. The NDP got disclosure on this from the Legislative Library, not the government who was not forthcoming to his requests for information. If Ford is so “proud” of the move, it’s surprising his government sought to hide it. One explanation for this is that the expense flies in the face of the Ford government’s claim that ripping up green energy contracts wouldn’t cost Ontario families a dime.
What’s worse from a pure dollars and cents analysis is that only 215 of the 750 projects have so far applied for relief from the government for the contracts’ cancellation. This is eerily similar to how the former Liberal government estimated the cost of cancelling a gas plant contract. First they said it would cost $230 million and then the auditor found it cost more than $1 billion at the end of the day. Breaking your promises made in contracts is not cheap. It also signals it’s not safe to do business with Ontario as the province on a political whim will tear up contracts unilaterally and without due process.
Paying companies to tear down green energy infrastructure is bad policy and bad optics almost anywhere unless you like wasting tax dollars and don’t believe in climate change. To help explain their move, Ontario’s Minister of Energy Greg Rickford enters from stage right. In the legislature on November 25, Rickford, in response to questions about scrapping the projects, quotes one of his “favourite periodicals” Climate Change Dispatch to justify the government’s actions. The website says its mission is to “deconstruct” climate change theory propagated by former U.S. Vice-President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and asks for donations to help “fight garbage science”.
A day later, Rickford tried to distance himself from his comments: “I believe in climate change and I believe in literature that supports a balanced article that points out both sides of the same coin.” Rickford did not provide an answer to reporters questions when asked whether he agrees that human activity is contributing to climate change. His comments came on the same day the UN released its annual Emissions Gap Report. The 168-page document compiled by 57 leading scientists from 33 institutions across 25 countries to act immediately, within next decade, to limit global warming to 1.5 degree C or 2 degree C by 2100. “By now, we know all we need to know. The science is pretty clear, and very frightening” said one of the contributing authors. “But we also know we have the technological options that are needed.”
Clearly Premier Ford and Minister Rickford are not subscribing to the United Nations’ news feed, and are instead in a lock-step battle with a long-gone political foe. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner described Rickford’s choice of briefing material as “incredibly reckless”. Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said, “If we have a minister of energy who doesn’t believe that humans are responsible for climate change, that’s a pretty serious problem.” We can’t agree more, but it goes a long way to explain how the government finds itself ripping windmills out of the ground and spending millions of tax dollars for the political pleasure of doing so.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on FORUM: Ford plows ahead with cuts (Dec. 2019)
Back at Queen’s Park, Ford resumes his agenda
By Jessica Bell
After ordering the longest break in almost 25 years, Doug Ford finally let Queen’s Park get back to business last month. While the government signalled they would take a more tempered approach, the legislation the government has introduced shows the premier is continuing his destructive path.
Doug Ford has frozen public sector wages to below the rate of inflation for the next three years. There are many public sector workers who struggle on less than $40,000 a year, including sessionals at the University of Toronto, childcare workers at our day care centres, and personal care workers at our hospitals and long-term care homes. This move hurts them.
Ford’s cuts to classrooms continue. His government is pushing forward with its plan to eliminate 10,000 teaching positions and increase class sizes. His cuts are pushing educators and school boards to a breaking point. Last week, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) announced they are cutting the Kindergarten Intervention Program – a special program that provides additional support to young children with special needs who may have been violent or aggressive in class. These children will no longer have access to a small learning environment, and will be placed back in classrooms with up to 30 other children.
Despite his promises to build more transit, Ford has cut $18.5 billion from the Ontario Government’s five-year capital plan for transit, which will mean his transit projects will see construction delays. He has also cut the subsidy to transit agency, Metrolinx, by 36%. Over the past few months, GO bus service has been cut, and we expect to see the elimination of the $1.50 discount GO riders receive when they board the TTC.
The Conservatives’ Fall Economic Statement announced even further cuts, including $25 million from Environment, Conservation, and Parks, and $330 million from Justice – particularly Legal Aid.
The government also introduced the Plan to Build Ontario Together Act – an omnibus bill that includes amendments to the Planning Act that will make it harder for municipalities to levy community benefits charges on big developers. These charges are critical to ensuring developers pay for the services, community centres, daycares, and infrastructure to cater to the influx of people moving into our neighbourhoods.
Ford claims all these cuts are necessary in order to balance the books. Yet he has no problem throwing away Ontarians’ money when it comes to cancelling programs that his supporters don’t like. Just last week, the NDP discovered that Ford had spent at least $231 million of taxpayer money to cancel renewable energy projects – and then tried to bury the cut in public accounts. One of these projects is the White Pines Wind turbine project, which just happens to be located in Minister Todd Smith’s riding in Prince Edward County.
This feels a lot like a repeat of the last government’s gas plant scandal. It also shows just how far Ford will go to tear up plans he doesn’t like, regardless of the cost.
But what’s maybe most concerning is that Ford is refusing to play by the rules. We recently found out that he’s trying to change the standing orders – which govern procedures in the legislature, and how bills become laws – in order to push through legislation more quickly. This means scrapping consultation requirements and opportunities for community members to provide feedback on new laws. Basically, he’s trying to get away with passing legislation without any public input. For a man who claims to be “for the people”, he doesn’t want to hear anything we have to say.
Jessica Bell is the Member of Provincial Parliament for University-Rosedale.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on FORUM: Affordable housing is a growing crisis (Dec. 2019)
Inclusionary Zoning is the answer for responsible development in Toronto
By Mike Layton
Development in Toronto is continuing to boom. However, we are not building affordable housing at the same pace as we are luxury condominiums. Our waiting lists for affordable housing continue to grow and we are now above 100,000 names on the active waiting list. Last year we only managed to house people in 522 units, while 6,181 names were added to the list.
This is further evidence in a long list of income disparity measures in our city, along with the fact that our shelters remain at capacity every night. This is also a problem that can start to be fixed if the city is willing to spend proactively on deeply affordable housing in their capital budget. The city is and has been booming for over a decade, and council and the province missed an excellent opportunity to create units at very little cost, while taking advantage of the hot condominium market.
Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) is one easy way to ensure responsible development and ensure that affordable housing is built in a way that creates communities with diverse socio-economic levels so future Toronto neighbourhoods can be places that anyone can call home. It is a land-use tool that allows the city to create a requirement that a percentage of units within a new development building is affordable housing. Right now, it is incumbent on councillors and City Planning to negotiate this request with the developer, but there is no requirement that they do so. With new generations of Torontonians increasingly viewing living in Toronto as “out of reach”, this is an important issue to me, and has been throughout my years on council.
I first began advocating for IZ at City Council in May 2015. I brought forward a motion that requested a report from City Planning on a strategy for implementation; a request to the province to make reforms to the Planning Act that would include permissions for municipalities to enact Inclusionary Zoning, and for the province to include affordable housing as part of the review of the Growth Plan and Greenbelt Plan. I appeared in Queen’s Park to speak with the media and to discuss the importance of giving the city the power to implement this, and speak with my provincial counterparts as to its feasibility. It felt like we had momentum and were on the cusp of doing something great for the future of Toronto.
Since then, we had a provincial government under Doug Ford that made changes to the Planning Act through Bill 108. These changes limit where municipalities can implement IZ to only Protected Major Transit Station Areas. This is something that we need to push back on as a city. If we leave it up to the provincial government and developers, we will never build the affordable housing we need.
An update on IZ is coming to council this month. You can count on me to keep up the pressure on this. The longer we wait, the more opportunities we miss. If 10 per cent of new units were subject to IZ over the last 5 years that would have provided upwards of 23,000 affordable units. The city and province must be serious about the affordable housing and homelessness crisis, and IZ is a crucial step forward in empowering the City of Toronto to create a steady and growing supply of affordable rentals and homeownership units.
Mike Layton is city councillor for Ward 11 University-Rosedale.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on ARTS: Corridor calendar chock full (Dec. 2019)
Chrismukkah, mystery, music, and more along the Arts Corridor
By Meribeth Deen
Hop off the Bloor line anywhere between Bathurst and Bay streets to enjoy any number of the unique adventures offered in the city’s most diverse arts and culture district.
This month, the Bloor Street Arts Corridor will bring festive cheer and more to the table this December, so be sure to get out and enjoy some of it.
Here are a few artistic experiences you can enjoy in the coming weeks:
Celebrate the dark nights at the Miles Nadal JCC. On December 12, dance yourself warm at The Night Is Cold But the Music’s Hot daytime concert and dance in celebration of Chanukah with Alex Pangman and her Alleycats. On December 20, pop in for a celebration Chrismukkah, including Chinese food.
Sink into LOVE with three films screening at the Revue Cinema as part of the Japan Foundation’s Aijo Film Series: Modern Love in Japan. On December 7, The Tokyo Night Sky is Always the Densest Shade of Blue, a poetic story of romance between to psychological misfits. Also on December 7, Three Stories of Love, a story of three suffering people who begin to see the preciousness of life, and on December 8, Her Love Boils Like Bathwater, the story of a mother’s fierce and protective love in the face of bankruptcy and terminal cancer.
Get outside, way outside, through the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. Among the 100 vivid and evocative images on display, you’ll see the winning photo, by Yongqing Bao, of a remarkable encounter between a Tibetan fox and a Himalayan marmot.
Get wrapped up in the stranger-than-fiction story of Ambrose Small, with Katie Daubs, author of “The Missing Millionaire” at the Toronto Reference Library on December 10. Daubs will be discussing her own investigation into the sensational disappearance of Small, owner of Toronto’s Grand Opera House. In 1919, he deposited a one million dollar cheque into his bank account and was never seen again. The search for him lasted years, crossed the country, but ended in a cold case.
Get Christmassy with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir. Between December 4 and 8, the orchestra will be celebrating Christmas with the traditions and songs of southern Italy in mind. Bagpipes called Zampogna, typically played by shepherds, will be a special feature. Then between December 17 and 20, enjoy the annual and treasured performances of the Messiah.
Comments Off on ARTS: Corridor calendar chock full (Dec. 2019)Tags:Annex · Arts
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on GREENINGS: Moral cowardice fuels our failures (Dec. 2019)
Silence on Hong Kong and climate crisis has parallels
On November 11, Canadian leaders extolled the virtues of soldiers who lost their lives defending the ideals of democracy. On that day, we might have told the story of the nearly 2,000 Canadian soldiers who fought to defend Hong Kong against Japanese invasion in 1941. Five hundred of those soldiers did not come back, and many others returned deeply scarred after living as prisoners of war.
Hearing this story, we might wonder why our leaders seem so willing to stand by quietly as pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong are being crushed by the Chinese government. The answer, I believe, is the same reason our global future is in jeopardy.
It has been almost five months since the government of Canada issued a joint statement with the European Union condemning violence in Hong Kong. Day by day, the police, acting on behalf of the Chinese government, show their willingness to escalate that violence with the use of tear gas, pepper spray, and live bullets against pro-democracy protestors.
A Canadian caught in the mayhem in the city’s Polytechnic University, which is under siege by the police, reached out to the Canadian consulate for help. This young Canadian and others have found the consulate to be largely unresponsive.
Even for an ideal as foundational to our society as democracy, we are loathe to offend China and take a single risk to the economic growth of this nation. Perhaps instead of telling children that soldiers died for our freedom and democracy, we should tell them that they died for the economic growth of the one per cent. It seems, that’s all that matters.
If our leaders won’t risk to the economy for something as fundamental to our society as democracy, as these brave young people are doing, can we really expect them to suppress economic growth in the name of environmental sustainability?
Few economists believe that infinite growth and environmental protection is possible anymore. Stopping ourselves from running over the cliff of extinction will require a massive hit to, and the re-shaping of, our economy. There’s absolutely no sugar-coating it. Our leaders won’t do it though. We see their moral cowardice in the face of Hong Kong. They will shut up and let innocent lives be lost to protect their economic interests. The environmental movement should expect nothing but the same.
Terri Chu is an engineer committed to practical environmentalism. This column is dedicated to helping the community reduce energy use, and help distinguish environmental truths from myths. Send questions, comments, and ideas for future columns to Terri at terri.chu@whyshouldicare.ca.
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on ON THE COVER: All hands on deck! (Nov. 2019)
Crew from Sanscon Construction and North on Sixty work feverishly over frozen ground to complete the BIA parkette installations. Pictured here is the Brunswick Avenue parkette which will feature trees, a pollinator garden, wood decking, large granite boulders and a water bottle refilling station. COURTESY?MELANIE?RAMSAY/BLOOR?ANNEX?BIA
Comments Off on ON THE COVER: All hands on deck! (Nov. 2019)Tags:Annex · News
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on NEWS: Freeland re-elected (Nov. 2019)
Minister of Foreign Affairs handily wins riding
By Khyrsten Mieras
Chrystia Freeland will continue her work representing University-Rosedale as a member of parliament following the federal election on Oct. 21.
The Liberal candidate won her seat for the downtown Toronto riding with 51 per cent of the vote and 28,088 ballots, slightly more than during the previous election in 2015 (27,849 votes or 49.8 per cent). She surpassed candidate Melissa Jean-Baptiste Vajda of the New Democratic Party (NDP), who received 15,988 votes or 22 per cent. Conservative candidate Helen-Claire Tingling brought in 9,008 votes or 16.5 per cent, and Tim Grant’s Green Party won 4,585 votes at 8.4 per cent of the total vote.
The NDP and Conservative votes were down slightly from the last election, at 15,988 votes (28.6 per cent) and 9,790 votes (17.5 per cent) respectively, while the Greens rose by a margin of 1,641 votes or 2.9 per cent four years ago.
The election was competitive for all parties, both locally and nationally. In Toronto, the Liberals won all 25 seats in the city. Across Canada, votes were mixed but ultimately resulted in the Liberals winning a minority government with 157 seats in total.
Freeland carried out her campaign with the help of her volunteer team, who knocked on doors, made phone calls, and talked to constituents to gain support for her party. According to Freeland, this remarkable team effort allowed her to travel across the country and support 39 other Liberal candidates with their campaigns in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario.
Ian Sharpe, a student at George Brown College, says he had a very positive experience as a volunteer for Freeland’s campaign.
“It was a great team. Chrystia’s fantastic, she’s really nice and very intelligent so that’s a great candidate to support,” he says.
Freeland is also Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a former journalist, and an author. She attended Harvard University and later Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. She began pursuing politics in 2013 and from 2015 to 2017 she was Canada’s Minister of International Trade, overseeing the successful negotiation of NAFTA. In 2018, she was named Foreign Policy’s Diplomat of the Year for her efforts in strengthening international relations.
Freeland based her campaign platform on the Liberal party’s overarching strategy. Her main priorities, as outlined in the campaign, are ensuring equality among Canadians by investing in science and innovation, fighting climate change, and growing the economy.
As a respected and accomplished female politician, Freeland was highly favoured to win in University-Rosedale, a largely Liberal riding in the city. On a national level, however, many Canadians were divided in their political views and expressed their disappointment with the current government this election season.
“I think the election was a bit disappointing in how it was run. I think there was a lot of negativity both from the parties and from the general public and I think that a lot of people were very angry,” says Sharpe. “There was a lot of anger that was kind of misplaced and those expectations were high. They thought the government didn’t live up to those expectations, but I think in a lot of ways the government actually did a lot of what they set out to do.”
On election night, Freeland and her campaign team held a victory party at the Peacock Public House in downtown Toronto where they watched the election unfold.
“I’m very happy with the results. Obviously, as a Liberal I was nervous going into things but I’m very content with what we’ve seen, especially because Minister Freeland won her seat,” says Maddy Mackintosh, a volunteer and high school student from Moore Park. “I’ve been putting in a ton of hours since early August so to see that pay off in this sort of fashion is really, really rewarding.”
Shortly after the official results came in, Freeland gave a speech by congratulating the other candidates. She then thanked her team, family, and the re-elected prime minister Justin Trudeau for their efforts throughout the long and gruelling campaign.
“We have a terrific result, the result of our fabulous work here in University–Rosedale and we have a very strong result, a strong mandate across the country,” said Freeland. “It is truly a gift and it is truly spectacular to see Canadian democracy in action. That is a gift all of you gave me today and the people of University–Rosedale gave us a great victory.”
December 9th, 2019 · Comments Off on HISTORY: The Gleaner looks back at 25 years (Nov. 2019)
Lunch with Jane Jacobs in 1997
In May 2020, The Annex Gleaner celebrates 25 years of publishing. In celebration, we are republishing highlights of our past; this feature, Lunch with Jane Jacobs, was originally printed in August of 1997. Jacobs, the celebrated urban thinker, was a long-time Annex resident. Deanne Fisher, who interviewed Jacobs, is the founding editor of the Gleaner.
By Deanne Fisher
“Lunch is ready!” comes the call from down the hall in a warehouse on Eastern Avenue. Jane Jacobs, her friends, and I line up at the buffet table with the staff and volunteers of Field to Table, a multi-faceted non-profit organization that puts fresh produce on the tables of thousands of low-income Torontonians.
Lunch has been specially prepared for today’s honoured guest. Jane Jacobs – author, philosopher, activist – has come to test the menu for the banquet to be held later this month as part of the five-day celebration of ideas that bears her name. Each menu item has been selected by Jacobs and “has served some purpose in some period of my life,” she says. The meal was prepared by some local community kitchens – groups of people who have come together to either learn about food or start their own small businesses.
In fact, this low-key lunch with the folks at Field to Table represents one of the few ways that Jacobs is directly involved in organizing Jane Jacobs: Ideas that Matter, which takes place Oct. 15-19. The idea to celebrate her work was not her own, but came from Alan Broadbent, chair of Avana Capital Corporation.
“I regarded myself as a good excuse for a lot of people who should meet each other to get together,” says Jacobs. She agreed, she adds, on the condition that she not be expected to organize it. “I really prefer being a hermit and getting my work done.”
At the age of 81, Jacobs might be expected to retire from her long writing career. Instead, she is as busy as ever in her Albany Avenue home, emerging from time to time as issues or events like this one draw her out.
Jane Jacobs is like an urbanite’s Farley Mowat – someone who observes behaviour with incredible patience and diligence and records it in a way that makes entertaining reading. With research based on real people and communities, her ideas, however unconventional, become irrefutable to anyone willing to escape the confines of what they have been told about the way cities work.
Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, provided a foundation for a loosely connected movement of architects, planners, politicians, and others concerned with retaining and creating livable cities that has endured for the 36 years since the book was first published. To quote from Jane Jacobs in defence of your own argument is tantamount to quoting scripture.
That inevitably leads to distortions of her ideas to fit the issue of the day. Jacobs knows it happens but it isn’t a big concern. “I can’t run around correcting them or repeating myself. Anybody can read what I wrote.”
Remarkably, in the decades that have passed since Death and Life, Jacobs’s ideas about city planning have not changed in any significant way. “That’s because I was writing about principles, not about fads or styles,” she says.
It is perhaps both an asset and a liability for the city of Toronto – and for her neighbours in the Annex – that Jane Jacobs chose to settle here after leaving New York City in 1968. Within our midst is perhaps one of the most profound thinkers on issues of city planning, transportation, city economies, and the moral foundations of our society. Yet living up to the expectations of being home to Jane Jacobs is a challenge. Toronto continues to make mistakes; there are still disbelievers in our political and bureaucratic structures.
A gentle, generous, and utterly disarming individual, Jacobs has not withered into a complacent old lady. She still reserves harsh words for those who have failed to understand the basic principles of urban behaviour. Chief among her foes: civil engineers.
“At the turn of the century, one of the most exciting things a young man could do was become a civil engineer,” she says. “Then engineering went through a time when it was very dull and, to a degree, dull people chose to go into it.”
They still don’t teach Jane Jacobs 101 in engineering school and she has few converts within the profession. “They know it all already,” she says with sarcasm. “They got those great concepts in the 1938 World’s Fair and that was the last word in transportation. That’s why new ideas don’t come out of departments of transportation.”
This is the bitter side of Jane Jacobs – a cutting tone that can, if you’re on the wrong of a debate, send you squarely back to grade school.
I made the mistake of suggesting she and her family might have been pioneers when they made the decision to live in the Annex in the late 1960s, a time when the Annex was not the gentrified home of the almost-rich and quasi-famous that it is today. Jacobs objects to the question. “The last thing I would want to do is live in a place where everybody was like me,” she says, disputing the idea that it takes any degree of pioneering spirit to settle in an area largely populated by rooming house tenants and lower income residents.
This response reveals what is most overlooked about Jane Jacobs in public discourse: she is the quintessential egalitarian. She believes wholeheartedly in the ability of ordinary individuals to shape their own communities; the people who live in a place know best how to run it.
As we tour the warehouse, kitchen, and backyard growing projects at Field to Table, Jacobs approaches everything and everyone with the curiosity of a child. She learns from the people she meets – the young inventor who’s finding new ways to grow in the city’s confined spaces, the last farmer in Scarborough who’s dropped in with his latest harvest, volunteers packing boxes of fruit and vegetables specifically for Toronto’s Caribbean community.
Her profound respect for “ordinary” people is reflected in her own self-imposed exclusion from the world of formal higher education. She admires, above all, people who enjoy learning. And as she says, “Highly educated people are not always people who keep learning.”
A few hours at Field to Table have disappeared. It’s time to head back home to the Annex. Jacobs is pleased with their versions of some of her favourite dishes and even more enthralled with the whole Field to Table operation. “It gives you hope for the human race.”
Comments Off on HISTORY: The Gleaner looks back at 25 years (Nov. 2019)Tags:Annex · History
