Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government was operating within its legal powers when it cut the number of wards in Toronto in the middle of the 2018 municipal election, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.
In a 5-4 split decision, Canada’s top court said Ontario did not violate the Constitution when it cut the number of wards from a planned 47-ward system to 25 wards that would align geographically with provincial and federal ridings.
It has taken a Ford to call for the “end” of the ActiveTO program that frees up some Toronto roadways for runners and cyclists, but snarls traffic elsewhere.
It was like late mayor Rob Ford dropped in from heaven to drop a bomb on the woke Toronto political scene. Or to inject some long overdue, much-needed common sense into the debate.
To be honest I avoid going to downtown Toronto by any means unless compelled to so the traffic snarls are not a personal issue.
The people most inconvenienced likely voted for both Trudeau and Tory. Boo Hoo!
There are permanent Bike Lanes in front of my condo and I am not exaggerating when I say I have rarely seen a cyclist use them.
This sort of crap is so Toronto. “The few can feck over the many” should be the city motto.
On June 12, the city posted trespass notices at Trinity Bellwoods Park, Alexandra Park, Moss Park and Lamport Stadium Park, suggesting the campers could be evicted soon.
The Toronto District School Board has launched a $90 million lawsuit against city, its fire department and police services board, as well and the Ontario Fire Marshal after a blaze two years ago that gutted York Memorial high school, alleging the scene was not put under a proper fire watch which led to the “rekindling” of the initial smaller fire.
The lawsuit also alleges that incident reports were “modified in an effort to suppress evidence of negligence” on the part of the fire services in relation to the blaze at the school on Eglinton Avenue West and Tretheway Drive in May 2019.
The City of Toronto is named in the suit as it oversees Toronto Fire Services, and the province as it oversees the Office of the Fire Marshal.
A pity as York Memorial had a rich history but does the TDSB really need the facility restored when many schools operate well below capacity or in fact sit empty? Of course not, they remain arrogantly eager to play with tax payer money.
Jill lives within steps of Alexandra Park and says last weekend was the worst she has seen so far from the park’s ever-growing tent city.
She says she has noticed a big influx of “very violent and very loud” people to the encampment recently — and she feels some tent dwellers are “deliberately destroying property.”
Over the past two months, downtown resident Edwina Taborsky has watched a large blue tent structure take up residence in St. James Park, near King St.
She said the tent is so large, it seems the size of a “small studio” apartment, and it looks to be permanent — situated on a platform with a table pulled outside to use sometimes
You know things are upside down when one of the suspects in an incident that saw an officer stabbed in a bank robbery is out on bail before the copper is out of the hospital.
But that’s Canada in 2021.
City council has approved the lowest property tax increase of Mayor John Tory’s tenure, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of ongoing financial pressures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Council voted 20-3 in favour of an inflation-based, 0.7 per cent residential tax hike during a special meeting on Thursday.
That Tory, he’s got the city runnin like a top!
GOLDSTEIN: Toronto’s tree department should be chopped down
In the carefully-controlled language of Toronto Auditor General Beverly Romeo-Beehler, city property taxpayers are “still not receiving value for money for tree maintenance services” and “a culture shift is needed” in the department.
Another way to put it would be that the goldbrickers in this department, including workers and the managers who are supposed to be supervising them, are ripping us off for millions of dollars every year by “actually working on trees” an average of 3.5 hours out of their eight-hour day.
When bullets fly in the city — often piercing kitchen windows, shattering TVs or sailing over children’s beds — all we can do is shake our heads and be thankful innocent victims weren’t injured or killed.
Sadly, there are times when that luck runs out — like Boxing Day 2005 when a gunfight broke out on a bustling Yonge St., just north of Dundas St., killing Jane Creba and wounding six others.
Not even a pandemic and lockdowns could significantly dent gang and gun violence in Toronto this year, which has already recorded more shootings than in any year in the modern era, except for 2019.
As of Sunday, Dec. 20, there have been 455 shootings and firearms discharges.
If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who ya gonna call?
Primary Defence Corp. Security company, of course.
Visitors to the Toronto Voluntary Isolation Centre get free Wi-Fi, three catered meals daily, and a personalized welcome note from medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa — but no room key, an effort to encourage those with COVID-19 to stay inside their rooms.
The isolation hotel, the first of its kind in Canada when it opened three months ago, is by all accounts safe, quiet and comfortable. Yet only about 150 people have opted to use the facility so far, a fraction of its peak capacity.
It’s not because of a lack of need. Cramped, unsuitable housing, where self-isolation may be difficult or impossible, continues to be a major driver of new infections in the city, data suggests.
Toronto Mayor John Tory says that he wants the two people accused of operating a bar in violation of lockdown orders over the weekend to be named and shamed if at all possible.
Toronto police say that after midnight on Sunday, they went to a business in the Queen and Portland streets area.
After being held up for nearly an hour, police allegedly found 30-40 people inside and say the business was being used as a makeshift bar.
Laura Stone is absolutely fed up with being harassed, assaulted and vandalized by mostly drug-addicted tent dwellers in the Moss Park encampment.
Stone is not her real last name.
