“Toronto – Canada’s version of a Democrat run city”

Was the steam rising from the sidewalks or my brain? This I wondered as I made my way through the hot, soupy (and this past week, I understand, smoky) air of Toronto, in the summer of 2025.

The world surely does not need another piece of journalism where a reporter parachutes into a city where they do not live and makes pronouncements about the place.

That said, Toronto was my home for more than half my life before I moved to Vancouver in 2007. Growing up, we called it Toronto the Good. I propose a new moniker: Toronto the Grind.

This week an Ontario court struck down a provincial law that required three bike lanes to be removed in Toronto and which also limited the installation of new bike lanes by municipalities.

The decision handed a big win to advocacy group Cycle Toronto and two individual cyclists who challenged the law in court.

Roman Baber started by saying he came “humbly” and “respectfully.” Later, the Conservative MP let them know what he truly thought.

“Children will be picking up needles. This is on you. You have not consulted any of us,” the representative for York Centre told City Hall’s planning and housing committee.

Making things worse means they can demand more money by threatening things will get worse. That’s how ChowTown works.

A person is taken into custody under the Mental Health Act once every four times a TTC constable reports to the subway tracks, a Toronto Sun analysis shows.

The TTC has also confirmed the number of such events each year has grown from pre-pandemic figures.

A database of “unauthorized track-level” events that involved a special constable, covering the time from January 2020 to April, was provided to the Toronto Sun after a freedom-of-information request. Some incidents also involved Toronto Police.

Mayor Olivia Chow was running late.

For the journalists waiting in a conference room at Toronto Star headquarters on a recent afternoon, it was easy to see why. Many floors below, the traffic on Spadina Avenue was bumper to bumper as drivers made their way to the construction-clogged Gardiner Expressway, and even the streetcars were crawling in their dedicated lanes.

Chow and her apologetic staff arrived at her interview with the Star’s editorial board about 15 minutes behind schedule, and jokes about the city’s notorious gridlock aside — the mayor says she’s striving to fix it — her delayed arrival was fitting.