The message behind this speed camera vandalism is hard to miss. And it isn’t good
When do acts of vandalism become performance art?
Like, how many times was “Kilroy was here” scrawled on walls before it became more than simple graffiti? Or how many Banksy murals appeared before he became something more than just another tagger?
It’s a question you might ask after learning that the automated speed camera on Parkside Drive has been decapitated for the third time in two months.
It was another year of living stupidly.
In Toronto and hereabouts.
A city council that went far left-away and a Queen’s Park dictatorship that willy-nilly took away traditional municipal powers. Local pols chafed; the premier paid no mind.
Carjackings became the crime of massive choice, often with juvie-proof teens at the wheel. Catch me if you can nyah-nyah-nyah. But offenders were still mostly dumb as a sack of hammers. Cops too, on occasion.
Jeff Steinman doesn’t know what else he can do to try and sell his condo after lowering the price by almost $135,000.
“Interest in the unit has been very low,” Steinman said. “I’ve had zero offers and it’s been on the market since the summer.”
In July, the Star spoke to Steinman about the difficulties he faced selling his downtown Toronto condo, highly unusual for a one-bedroom apartment on Charlotte Street, close to Spadina Avenue and Adelaide Street West, in a 13-storey boutique building close to theatres, TIFF Bell Lightbox, sports stadiums, and multiple transit lines.
Toronto has seen a stark spike in youth crime rates in 2024 — with almost every metric for serious gun violence up significantly.
From a 15-year-old who was gunned down outside a west-end plaza just shy of his first week in Grade 11, to a 14-year-old boy facing first-degree murder charges for opening fire on a community gathering at an Etobicoke school, killing two — scenes of young people being both victims and perpetrators of violent crime are playing out on city streets all too often.
In all, 13 people under 18 have been charged with homicide so far this year, up from just three in 2023, according to police. Over the same period, the number of young people charged with firearms offences has shot up more than 50 per cent.
The usual “root causes”. Not enough money, not enough jobs for yutes.
For weeks, Heather Parkes couldn’t bring herself to move the seven-foot balsam fur Christmas tree on her porch inside her home.
Usually, she says, her husband George would do it.
“He would be out there and it would have been in when we got it,” she said.
For Parkes and their six adult kids, celebrating Christmas this year has felt impossible. It’s their first year without Delroy — better known as George — Parkes after the 61-year-old was killed this summer in a mass shooting at an Etobicoke high school.
The next federal election looms large on the horizon for Mayor Olivia Chow.
She knows the man who polls predict may become the next prime minister from her own days working in Ottawa.
But whether it’s Pierre Poilievre or someone else who wins power in the nation’s capital, Chow says, it would be unwise of any prime minister to ignore the residents of Canada’s largest city.
Most of Toronto will continue to vote stupid. A city that could elect the likes of Chow deserves every bit of the hardship coming its way.
Before the Toronto police board voted to approve a $46.2-million budget increase request for next year, a police director explained that case closure rates have dropped for most crimes since 2015.
“That’s because investigations take time and effort and resources,” Toronto police director of information management, Ian Williams told the board earlier this month.
But while police say lower closure rates are one reason why they need increased funding, experts are conflicted about whether they’re an accurate measure of police achievement — and whether the figures should be used to justify more resources.
I wonder if that’s due to the “Don’t offend the (insert criminal minority group here) school of policing we see the TPS enacting with the Muslims.
In her professional capacity, Khalila Mohammed was a community harm-reduction health worker. But in her personal life, she was an agent of profound harm and an accessory to manslaughter.
One foolish decision on top of another, one not-so-impetuous act of aiding and abetting on top of another. One lie on top of another, spinning a web of deceit.
Something interesting and rather encouraging just happened at Toronto City Hall. (You can’t say that every day.) A leading official pushed back just a little against the reigning orthodoxies of our time and said: Hey, wait a minute. For that, he deserves not just our thanks but our cheers. We should be carrying him through the streets on our shoulders.
The official is Paul Johnson. He is city manager, the highest unelected official in Toronto’s government. He was reacting to a report from Ombudsman Kwame Addo, who plays a watchdog role down at City Hall. The report looked at a brief period in 2022 and 2023, when the city was turning refugee claimants away from its main system of homeless shelters.
Canada isn’t officially in a recession, but its largest city is already experiencing one. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows seasonally adjusted unemployment in Toronto CMA surged in November. Nearly 1 in 10 of the region’s workers are struggling to find work despite actively looking. The unemployment rate is now at levels not seen outside of the deepest recessions, with the jobless population hitting pandemic levels.
Toronto’s explosion of antisemitism prompted an appeal for help from the head of Toronto’s transit system.
In a letter from interim TTC CEO Greg Percy to Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw, Percy said staff are dealing with a worrying rise in hateful graffiti across the transit system targeting Jewish Torontonians.
“We have noticed an exceptionally high concentration of these incidents on our subway trains at terminal stations and along surface routes like College, University and Spadina,” Percy wrote in his letter.
There’s a rumour afoot that this may be due in large part to Trudeau’s Great Replacement immigration policy. OK, mum’s the word!
Sometimes you just have to take things with a grain of salt — with some lime or lemons too.
Especially while downing shooters.
We already knew Olivia Chow could dress up. Now we know Toronto’s mayor can drink up too.
#WATCH: Mayor Olivia Chow spotted living her best life chugging tequila shots on stage in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/h1uBw2F2Ec
— 6ixBuzzTV (@6ixbuzztv) November 27, 2024
There are children playing in Allan Gardens — a pleasant sight that had long disappeared from view.
Moms and nannies pushing prams without fear of a looming menace or having to sidestep needles underfoot. No annoying music assaults the eardrums from boomboxes. Nobody cooking meth or blatantly consuming a host of street drugs.
Dogs are being walked — and not the curs kept as pets by homeless people who may not have had a single other source of companionship in their hardscrabble lives.
The homeless are shifted elsewhere because they are a political asset to the likes of Chow.
They’ll crow about this success today and be demanding more funding a week later.
Rinse and repeat.
You’ll need much more than the minimum wage to make ends meet across the province — but it’s especially bad in the GTA, a new report has found.
Workers in Toronto need to make $26 an hour — nearly $9 more than current the minimum wage — to make a living, the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN) reported.
On most days, the slowest way to travel through downtown Toronto is by car. Cyclists whiz by and pedestrians cast spiteful glances at vehicles trapped in the city’s gridlock. For those behind the wheel, anything can trigger frustration and rage.
Last month, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario province, shocked residents of Canada’s largest city when he pledged to rip out three of the city’s bike lanes “that are just absolutely insanity right now”.
The move, seen as a dramatic moment of government overreach, has provoked a fierce backlash from cyclists and city officials, and raised broader question about the future of cars – and bicycles – in large urban centres.
In the Guardian??
