News: July 2009 Archives

Well, not really. It will live on in political grandstanding and pre-election speeches and in all manner of rhetorical asides for months to come. But, in real, day-to-day terms, it has come to a merciful end. By two 21–17 votes, after a day-long debate, City Council has just approved contracts with CUPE locals 79 and 416.

       

With agreements with both striking unions fully agreed on and ratified, the City's service resumption plan fully in place and workers returning to work, today—barring a disaster at Toronto City Council—will be the final day of Strike Watch, which saw Torontoist's photographers checking in on garbage and recycling bins around the city throughout the strike, an attempt to follow the tangible effects of the strike and complement our other coverage.

The City has released their service resumption plan, detailing any and every service affected by the strike and when that service will resume, pending CUPE Local 416's ratification of their deal with the City (and approval of those deals at the special City Council meeting tomorrow, which we'll be keeping a close eye on). Of particular note:
• nearly all City-run offices re-open tomorrow, Friday;
• child-care facilities re-open on Tuesday;
• regular residential curb-side garbage collection, as well as collection for "Apartments/condominiums and apartments above businesses" resumes starting Tuesday, with pickup according to the regular pickup schedule;

Two years ago, we asked TTC Chair Adam Giambrone about whether increasing the amount of advertising on the TTC would be a way to make the organization a bit more money. He told us then: "I think we have an acceptable level of advertising. Could it be less? Absolutely. At this point any reduction would be a budget reduction, and I'll tell you I'm not really prepared to reduce the budget of the TTC to reduce the advertising. At the same time, I think we certainly have enough advertising. Many people would say too much, and even if we went all-out, the money is just not the solution to our city's budget woes." In November of 2007, we polled our readers on whether there was too much, just enough, or not enough advertising on the TTC, and 51% of you said that, then, there was too much.

With a tentative agreement reached and partially ratified, we'll be glad to stop accumulating photos of accumulated trash—soon. Torontoist's photographers have been checking in on garbage and recycling bins around the city throughout the strike, an attempt to follow the tangible effects of the strike and complement our other coverage.

Toronto workers expected to be back Friday (Globe and Mail): "Striking City of Toronto workers are expected to be back on the job Friday, after a chaotic day of negotiations that saw one union ratify its deal but the other call off its vote in the face of demands by the city... Local 416 members are set to vote Thursday on their tentative deal. Union president Mark Ferguson said both locals will remain on the picket line, and return to work at 12:01 a.m. Friday together, so long as his members ratify their deal."

With a tentative agreement reached and the deal waiting to be ratified, we'll be glad to stop accumulating photos of accumulated trash—soon. Torontoist's photographers have been checking in on garbage and recycling bins around the city throughout the strike, an attempt to follow the tangible effects of the strike and complement our other coverage.

Local 416 still working to complete an agreement with the city (CP24): "The union representing outside civic workers says it is still working to complete the final pieces of a settlement with the City of Toronto, meaning workers from TCEU Local 416 could have their ratification vote delayed." [More from the National Post. Previous coverage on Torontoist: Both Unions Agree On Tentative Strike Deal.]

With a tentative agreement reached and the deal waiting to be ratified, we'll be glad to stop accumulating photos of accumulated trash—soon. Torontoist's photographers have been checking in on garbage and recycling bins around the city throughout the strike, an attempt to follow the tangible effects of the strike and complement our other coverage.

It's not just you, Random Internet Guy.

In September, Toronto will get a new free daily evening newspaper called t.o.night. According to the newer of the two media kits provided to us (one, from this month, by the paper itself; the other, from June, by another source), t.o.night will be "distributed in the downtown core," and will "deliver stories the direct competition [Metro and 24 Hours] does not cover until the next morning, while helping readers plan their evenings," modelled after other evening newspapers worldwide, like the Australian mX. The paper will be filled with content "from newswires combined with unique content from the web." From who on the web? No, no, not us. BlogTO, for one; Tim Shore, BlogTO's publisher, announced the new paper on Monday afternoon, saying that "Not since the rise and fall of Dose has a publication surfaced in the city threatening to shake up the print media landscape."

36 days on strike, 48,900 tonnes of trash, and for what? (Globe and Mail): "The City of Toronto's current unionized employees will have the option to keep their controversial banked sick days, but new hires will be denied the perk under the terms of a tentative deal workers are expected to vote on tomorrow, The Globe and Mail has learned." [More coverage on CP24; previous coverage on Torontoist: CUPE Local 416 and Toronto Strike A (Tentative) Deal.]

With a tentative agreement reached and the deal waiting to be ratified, we'll be glad to stop accumulating photos of accumulated trash—soon. Torontoist's photographers have been checking in on garbage and recycling bins around the city throughout the strike, an attempt to follow the tangible effects of the strike and complement our other coverage.

       

The Rees WaveDeck—part of Waterfront Toronto's Central Waterfront transformation project and one of four WaveDecks due to be completed along the harbourfront—opened quietly last week, without the fanfare that accompanied the opening of the Simcoe WaveDeck in June. The Rees WaveDeck lacks the exciting curves of its sibling to the west east: it dips just once, sloping gracefully towards the water in the centre. Sitting next to HTO park and facing neat rows of sailing boats and canoes, the deck feels peaceful and composed.

After thirty-five full days, the city workers' strike is one big step closer to coming to an end, as the City and one of the two striking unions—CUPE Local 416—reached a "basis for a deal," according to the Star, citing CUPE Local 416 President Mark Ferguson (who 680News quotes as clarifying that "this is not a signed deal by any means"). The announcement came about fifty minutes ago, after overnight negotiations held between the City and the two striking unions at the Delta Toronto East Hotel. There's still CUPE Local 79, who placed no midnight ultimatum on a deal but who represent almost four times the number of employees as 416, and with which a deal, tentative or otherwise, has not yet been announced. And, again according to the Star, once that happens, CUPE members will still have to vote to pass the deal before going back to work.

Do or die for strike talks (Toronto Star): "Negotiators for the city and its two striking unions appear to be on the verge of a settlement. A news conference is expected within the hour." [More coverage on CP24.]

WHERE: Dovercourt Road, near Dundas Street West.

     

While running errands today, our Tony Makepeace (the man behind Panoramaist) captured two Loblaws—one at Queens Quay East and Jarvis Street and the other at Leslie Street and Eastern Avenue—particularly dramatically hit by today's rainstorms. If this was a novel about Loblaws, we'd totally call it pathetic fallacy, and point to the store's parent company's ambivalence-evoking acquisition of T&T Supermarket as the cause of the deluge. Since it's the real world, though, our biggest excuse for showing you these photos is that they're simply extraordinary and surreal to look at.

WHERE: Keele Street and Glenlake Avenue.

WHERE: Bremner Boulevard and Lower Simcoe Street, and Queen's Quay West and Rees Street.

"Nothing ever ends," the bright blue Doctor Manhattan tells Adrian Veidt towards the end of Watchmen, the seminal graphic novel about costumed heroes. Consistently emotionally unaffected, Doctor Manhattan thinks in purely logical terms, and Veidt, the world's smartest man, has (spoiler alert!) just killed millions in an elaborate plot intended to rescue a deteriorating world. For the first time, though, Veidt seems in some small way insecure about whether that end justified the means, and asks Doctor Manhattan if he "did the right thing," because "It all worked out in the end." "'In the end'?" Doctor Manhattan replies, "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."

Walking down Spadina Avenue between College and Dundas streets, you might completely miss them, so well do they blend in with the street scene. But stop by one of Chinatown's many municipal trash bins, let your eyes wander up slightly, and you might see one, attached to a utility pole, doing its best imitation of a yellow-jacket. Chinatown has some new signage, and the gist seems to be that you really must drop that bag of miscellaneous rotting crud someplace else, no matter what language you speak.

Standing on the industrial site known as East Bayfront, which extends from Jarvis to Parliament streets and south from the rail lines to Lake Ontario, Mayor David Miller addressed a crowd gathered in the rain on Thursday morning to witness the groundbreaking of Sherbourne Park.

Police fight race ruling (Toronto Star): "A human rights tribunal verdict of racial profiling against a Toronto constable sets 'an impossibly high standard' that will be challenged in court, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said yesterday."

WHERE: Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Police condemned for profiling of letter carrier (Toronto Star): "Ron Phipps admits he was criss-crossing Vernham Ave. the day he was stopped by police in the Bridle Path. He was also wearing a Canada Post coat and carrying two mailbags while filling in for the regular letter carrier."

City set to start issuing building permits again (Toronto Star): "Hundreds of building permits sitting in the pipeline will be issued as the City of Toronto seeks to restore services crippled by the four-week strike. Enough workers have returned to the job to allow building officials to resume their regular duties of issuing permits, Mayor David Miller announced yesterday."

Back when Parliament Hill was in the throes of its last electoral shake-up, Bill C-61, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, was nearly forgotten, buried beneath all the high-stakes drama of a government on the brink. When Governor General Michaëlle Jean dissolved the thirty-ninth parliament at Harper's request on September 7, 2008, the legislation died, with a promised—or threatened—resurrection should the Conservatives win re-election.

WHERE: Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue.

We won’t pronounce the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays dead…yet. But if the team’s going to accomplish anything this season—and even if they aren’t—then this is going to be a big week.

One of the less expected results of the city workers' strike, about to enter its second month, has been that its most visible effect—you know, the garbage on city streets—has not accumulated consistently across neighbourhoods, even neighbourhoods adjacent to one another. Our daily Strike Watch feature has demonstrated as much: while some stretches of the city's main streets seem to only get progressively dirtier, others seem to have their level of cleanliness ebb and flow, and others seem to have never gotten near dirty in the first place. While some credit for the cleanliness should go to the elusive but much-heralded management staff tasked with cleaning up parks and streets, some of the city's Business Improvement Areas (or BIAs)—the organizations that watch over commercial strips across the city—have been quietly stepping in and up, too.

Police likely to confirm remains are Victoria Stafford's (CBC): "Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino was expected to reveal at a news conference in Woodstock Tuesday morning whether a child's body found on the weekend is that of Victoria Stafford."

WHERE: Dundas Street West and Kensington Avenue.

Teen shot dead at party (Toronto Star): "After gunshots rang out in front of Gary Silliphant's house early yesterday, he was shocked to find a young man fighting for his life on his neighbour's driveway."

WHERE: King Street West and Bay Street and Wellington Street West between York Street and Bay Street.

WHERE: Bay Street and King Street West.

Toronto Life Square—the massively unattractive ogre on the north-east corner of Yonge and Dundas, which houses not only a Future Shop, Google's local offices, and an AMC that uncomfortably doubles as Ryerson classrooms, but also a vast and ever-growing pool of all of our tears—is "broke," according to the Globe and Mail. What's more: Toronto Life, who scooped up the naming rights in 2007, "has been locked in a months-long legal dispute to remove its name from the project." (Perhaps the magazine finally realized the irony of suggesting that the building that loomed over Dundas Square added anything to Toronto life.) The Globe notes that, under the building's original owners, a subsidiary of PenEquity, it racked up some $280 million in debt, and has now been placed in receivership, meaning that it'll soon change ownership but not, unfortunately, disappear altogether. That fate will, for now, remain confined to the dreams of those who want to believe Toronto could have done so much better.

WHERE: Keele Street and Sheppard Avenue West.

Ottawa spends $300M for rail corridor upgrades (CBC): "Canada's busiest rail corridor is set to get much quicker with the help of $300 million in federal cash."

We’ve heard a fair bit about the state of Toronto’s parks during the current municipal strike. Most tales have tended toward the negative, from fears of contamination stemming from temporary garbage depots to the unattractive aesthetic state that some green spaces have fallen into. But what if the withholding of certain services led to a positive effect on the local environment?

WHERE: Bloor Street West and Brentwood Road South.

Swine flu hits summer camps (Toronto Star): "Swine flu has hit cottage country with outbreaks of the virus and influenza-like illness in up to seven summer camps, including one that was temporarily closed." [More coverage in the Globe, and CP24.]

Well, kind of.

WHERE: Queen Street West at Markham, Bathurst, and Spadina.

Ontario looks to jolt electric car market (Globe and Mail): "The Ontario government will help take the sting out of buying pricey electric cars by offering purchasers incentives of as much as $10,000, Premier Dalton McGuinty is expected to announce today."

WHERE: Cavell Avenue, Mimico.

Canadians are an odd people when it comes to our cultural exports—we apologize to the world for Celine Dion, are ecstatic about the BlackBerry, and we're defensive about Tim Hortons. So it's with a sense of cautious pride that we watched Tim Hortons open nine of twelve new locations in New York City yesterday, including three in a co-branding test with Cold Stone Creamery, because we Canadians know our Maple Dip.

Family blames city workers' strike for death (Toronto Star): "Jim Hearst's loved ones blame the city workers' strike for his death by an apparent heart attack, saying an ambulance did not come to his aid for at least 30 minutes despite three 911 calls."

WHERE: King Street West and Bay Street.

Mark Giesbrecht—better known as Mark the Litter Guy in the areas of the city that he patrols and cleans up in exchange for donations—has been tending to Queen Street West for long enough now that, when the West Queen West, Queen West, and Parkdale Business Improvement Areas (or BIAs) went looking to hire someone to help clean the area up, he was a natural choice.

Cracks in union resolve as strike nears Week 4 (Toronto Star): "More than 520 striking city employees have decided to cross their own picket lines and go back to work, city officials say. And some pickets are refusing to enforce the union's mandatory wait times for residents lining up to drop off garbage at temporary sites, calling the delays 'stupid.'" [More from CTV.]

WHERE: Queen Street West and Triller Avenue.

WHERE: Queen Street West and Augusta Avenue.

WHERE: Dufferin Street and Alma Avenue.

During labour disputes, anger is the emotion you tend to hear about most. Amid stories of picketers delaying citizens who are dropping off their garbage and protests over dump-site locations, romance seems an unlikely sidebar for those on the frontline of the current city workers’ strike.

Out of sight, out of mind: the parking lots by Sir Casimir Gzowski Park and Sunnyside Park—the City's two temporary waste drop-off sites just off Lake Shore Boulevard West—have undergone a slight remodelling over the past few days, just in time for this weekend's nearby Honda Indy. The blue fences that enclosed the garbage being dumped at the site, hastily installed two weeks ago, are now all draped in calming translucent blue, a cheap and hasty Band-Aid that, as far as we've been able to figure out, no other dump sites in the city have gotten. Torontoist photographer Christopher Drost caught photos of the newly completed coverings on Thursday; an employee would neither confirm nor deny that the draping was put up for the car show this weekend, but, according to Drost, "said it made it look nicer for those driving along Lake Shore and the highway." Sort of?

Missing woman found dead in car trunk (Globe and Mail): "It was around 8:30 Tuesday morning when Consuelo (Connie) Valencia-Russo left her well-manicured North York semi-detached home, where she lived with her son and elderly mother." [More coverage in the Post and the Sun.]

WHERE: 100 Jameson Avenue and 29 Spencer Avenue.

City union vows to stand its ground (Toronto Star): "The union representing the city's 6,200 striking outside workers has made it clear that a proposed pay freeze this year and 1 per cent hike next year won't fly, according to an email message to city councillors obtained by the Star."

The end of an era. It's a cliché, an easy writer's trick whose use far exceeds its real application. We stand by it in this case, however. After thirty years curating the indie set's reading list and nurturing Toronto's newest and freshest literary voices, Pages Books and Magazines will be shutting its doors for good in August. As reported in this week's issue of NOW, and confirmed privately to Torontoist, in the end there simply wasn't a choice. Rent is growing faster than sales, and for all that Pages is deeply loved (the Save Pages Books! Facebook group has upwards of 2,300 members), the cash crunch got to be too much.

WHERE: Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue.

As the Star's Susan Delacourt featured this morning, Stephen Harper may have just exposed himself to a Biblical deluge of Catholic fury. Or not—it depends how serious of an issue the tasty, trans-substantiated body of your Lord and Saviour is.

Ontario pledges cash to fight Toronto gangs (Globe and Mail): "The Ontario government has pledged $10-million to extend a Toronto community policing program meant to battle gang violence in the city. The Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy, championed by Police Chief Bill Blair, keeps officers visible in at-risk communities, requiring them to patrol on foot or on a bicycle in hopes of building relationships with residents."

WHERE: Islington Station (Islington Avenue and Bloor Street West).

Toronto's most exclusive garbage bin (Globe and Mail): "Membership has its privileges at the exclusive Granite Club in Toronto—especially during a summertime garbage strike. The luxurious social and recreation club is offering its members free garbage disposal as a strike by municipal employees enters its third week, leaving the city's rich and not-so-rich scrambling to dispose of household refuse."

Legendary radio announcer Martin Streek, most famous for his work on CFNY/Edge 102 over several decades, before being unceremoniously fired from the station in May, is dead. He committed suicide on Monday.

WHERE: Bay Street and Richmond Street West.

As the city workers' strike lurches into its third week, there's been a lot of talk about who is and isn't benefiting from it. Suffering? The reputations of David Miller, the striking unions, and their members; some, but not all, residents; some, but not all, neighbourhoods; our collective fear that tourists will think us unclean; and the expanses of concrete currently doing time as temporary dumping grounds. Doing just swell? Private garbage pick-up companies; the City's wallet (well, maybe?); people who like photos of garbage; people who like over-reacting to said garbage, and, oh, rats.

Won't ask for back-to-work legislation, Miller states (Globe and Mail): "Mayor David Miller has dealt a blow to the possibility of a legislated end to Toronto's [15]-day-old municipal workers' strike, leaving only two options for a city stuck without garbage collection, pools or city-run childcare: a quick, negotiated settlement or a long, smelly summer. 'We're not going to ask for back-to-work legislation,' the mayor told reporters Friday, the most explicit he's been to date on the subject." [More coverage in the National Post.]

WHERE: Eglinton Avenue East and Kennedy Road.

When Brian Burke arrived in Toronto last November, he promised a Maple Leaf team full of "pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence.” He wasn’t kidding: barely seven months into his tenure as the Leafs’ thirteenth general manager, Burke has begun creating exactly that.

WHERE: Queen Street West and Bathurst Street.

"Shaun would like you to sign the guest book, and please don't sit in the first two rows...especially if you're family," a sweet-faced young lady told us as we filed in for the Fringe debut of Baggage - A Non-Musical Romp Through One Catholic Gay Man’s Dating History (With Breasts for the Straight Men). This being Fringe, we thought the instruction meant there were projectiles involved, necessitating that everyone (family, in particular) take two giant steps back. The real reason turned out to be much more dear.

Police seeking witness to Yonge-Dundas fight (National Post): "Dozens of people watched a Toronto father get beaten up on Yonge Street, including a woman who may have filmed the fistfight that left the victim in a coma, police said yesterday." [More coverage on CBC.]

              

For the second time in a few days, Dundas Square was again home for fans and mourners of Michael Jackson. Unlike the impromptu dance party that landed at the intersection of Dundas and Yonge on Friday, last night's event—a tribute to Jackson and his music that was also billed as a Canada Day celebration, hastily organized by The Manifesto Festival—was prepared a bit more in advance and lasted three hours, concluding just before 11 p.m. with a moment of silence for Jackson.

To celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, and Toronto’s 175th birthday, Heritage Toronto is offering ten new tours as part of its free historic walking tours program. Although the walks have been ongoing since April, there are still several new tours to look forward to during the summer schedule, including Union Station and the Railway Lands, Fringe Festival Sites, and Mackenzie’s 1834 Toronto (a tour of the city as it was 175 years ago, during William Lyon Mackenzie's term as mayor). "We’re trying to increase the number of walks we do across the city," Peggy Mooney, Heritage Toronto’s executive director, told Torontoist. "We want to make people realize—from one part of the city to the other—that there’s a lot of interesting history there. Since amalgamation, we are responsible for promoting heritage across the entire city. It isn’t just about early nineteenth century buildings…we’re trying to make people think about the city they live in, not just about Victorian Toronto, but about more modern buildings, more modern heritage."

WHERE: Dundas Street West and Rusholme Road.

There's a speed bump on Crawford Street, not long before the one-way road cuts through the northernmost edge of Trinity Bellwoods Park. After drivers lurch over the bump, explains Martin Reis, they often pick up speed fast, accelerating towards Dundas, through and past a small crossing that joins the isolated north-west tip of Trinity Bellwoods with the park as a whole, a crossing frequented by slow-moving seniors headed for nearby residences.

'I never thought I'd be here': Demand for Toronto charities spikes, while donations decline (National Post): "Minutes after the Good Shepherd Ministries on Queen Street East opens its doors to serve the afternoon meal, a lineup of people stretches out the door and almost around the building."

WHERE: Queen Street East and Greenwood.