According to CBC’s Chris Boyce, the goal of this weekend’s CBCMusic.ca Festival is twofold. First and foremost, the CBC wants to celebrate Canadian music. Second, it wants to celebrate CBC Music, the broadcaster’s online music service, which launched a little over a year ago.

In 1996, Theatre Columbus premiered playwright Michael O’Brien’s “freely adapted” take on the famous Beaumarchais play The Barber of Seville, which was written in 1775. O’Brien’s version mixed in music from the 1816 opera of the same name by Gioachino Rossini, as well as original tunes by composer John Millard. The adaptation also propelled the story forward a couple centuries, with pop culture references galore. With Theatre Columbus co-founder Leah Cherniak at the helm, the musical ended the season with six Dora Award nominations (it won three) and plenty of critical acclaim.

Seventeen years later, Soulpepper Theatre is remounting this zany reimagination of The Barber of Seville, updated once again by O’Brien, Millard, and Cherniak. But, for some reason—the change in decade, or company, or sense of humour—whatever had made the original so magical, has faded, save for a few key performances.

For two weeks every December, Torontoist recaps the year that’s winding down by nominating the best Heroes and worst Villains among all people, places, things, and ideas which had an influence on the city in the preceeding 12 months. And then, it’s up to you.

Here is who you, Torontoist readers, have deemed Superhero and Supervillain of 2011…

WINNER: Jack Layton (58.85%)

RUNNERS-UP: City Hall Deputants (27.43%); CodeBlueTO (13.72%)

TOP TWO WRITE-IN CANDIDATES: Adam Vaughan, Glen Murray

VOTING: Results are shown for the last round of voting in the ranked ballot—the round where one candidate finally surpassed the 50% mark. Layton led from the very first ballot, but many other nominees did well also; it took 11 ballots in total for Layton to pass the 50% threshold.

WINNER: Rob Ford (52.72%)

RUNNERS-UP: Apathetic Voters (13.27%); Ford’s Council Friends (9.52%)

TOP TWO WRITE-IN CANDIDATES: Stephen Harper/Harper Government/Conservative Party of Canada; Giorgio Mammoliti

VOTING: Results are shown for the last round of voting in the ranked ballot—the round where one candidate finally surpassed the 50% mark. This time it was an open-and-shut case, as Ford won on the very first ballot. In other words: stacked up against 16 other villains, plus a write-in option, Ford got more than half the vote compared to all those other villains put together.

CORRECTION: December 31, 2011, 3:30 P.M. This post originally misspelled Glen Murray’s first name, using two n’s, but it has now been corrected. We regret the error.

For two weeks every December, Torontoist recaps the year that’s winding down by nominating the best and worst people, places, things, and ideas which had an influence on the city in the preceeding 12 months. And then, it’s up to you. Here is our full slate of nominees for Supervillain. Click on any one to see why we think each nominee is villainous, and click right here to vote for your favourites. Voting for Villains is open until midnight on December 30; on December 31 we’ll announce the Superhero and Supervillain of 2011, as selected by you.

Rob Ford Bellicose but not brave

Ford’s Council Friends Running interference at the expense of good policy.

Tim Hudak Creating divisions in the name of conservatism

Fat-Phobic Ford Haters Judging for all the wrong reasons

Toronto Taxpayers Coalition A coaltion of one?

Occupy Toronto Squandering a valuable opportunity

Burying the Eglinton LRT Costing more and delivering less

Astral Media Info Pillars Taking lots of space to tell us very little

Cityplace A sloppy approach to city-building

Sun Media Appealing to the worst in us

Homophobia in Hockey Poisoning one of our favourite pasttimes

Mitch Mortaza Treating players in the Lingerie Football League like sex objects, not athletes

Anti-Cycling Sentiments Perpetuating an attitude that quite literally kills

Chain Store Creep Prioritizing convenience over character

Emerald Ash Borers Nibbling their way through our tree canopy

Apathetic Voters For not caring when caring is most important

Your Candidate Someone we missed? Send us your write-in option.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months.

Today, in villains: surreptitious but persistent ways of undermining the fabric of Toronto.

Anti-Cycling Culture, for perpetuating an attitude that, quite literally, kills.

Chain Store Creep, for prioritizing convenience over character.

Apathetic Voters, for failing to care when caring matters most.

The Emerald Ash Borers, for nibbling their way through our tree canopy.

From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

By now, Torontonians should be pretty good at this whole election thing. Whether we’re voting federally, provincially, or municipally, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to hit the polls these past 12+ months. So maybe we’re burnt out. Or maybe voters just don’t care. But whatever the reason, eligible voters are exercising their right to choose to vote, and many are opting out.

While voter turnout was up for the last municipal election just over a year ago (the advanced poll turnout was especially good, up 80 per cent from 2003), it’s still the case that only about half of eligible voters actually exercised this particular democratic right.

This city practically makes a sport out of Rob Ford bashing, but the 47 per cent of eligible voters who did nothing to end his reign before it started really have no right to complain.

True, that particular election was in October 2010, but it was not an isolated event: in 2011 the trend of increasing voter apathy manifested nationally and provincially as well.

In the most recent provincial election, voter turnout in Ontario hit an all-time low, with less than half (only 49.2 per cent) of eligible voters going to the polls. Numbers are better when it comes to the national election, with voter turnouts now reaching over 60 per cent, but that still means that 4 out of 10 eligible voters just didn’t bother.

Apathetic voters. The issue here isn’t really about who is leading our city, province, or country, but about the fact that if the populace isn’t voting, the populace isn’t being represented. Important decisions are being made by the people that “we” elect to represent us. We’re seeing this in action right now. Locally, we may soon lose a number of social services, bus routes, and City jobs, among other cuts. These cuts have been proposed and voted on by city council. Who are voted in. By us. Well, half of us. And it really seems that more than half of us are complaining about these cuts.

To those who opted out, those of you who are on our 2011 Villain list, do you still think voting doesn’t matter? Perhaps you should visit your local library branch and read up on how this whole thing works. What’s that you say? The library’s hours have been cut and are they’re closed for the day? Well, there you go.

While solutions have been proposed (electronic voting, elector reform, and especially a local campaign for ranked ballots) to improve voter turnout, for now, this is the system we’ve got. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. If you think there’s a better way, join the conversation to push for change. You have the right to use your voice, and to talk about the issues and discussed solutions. We do live in a democratic society after all—even if half of us seem to have forgotten.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

If you pass an ash tree [PDF] on the way home—and there’s a good chance you will—you might want to take a picture and give it a consoling hug; it might not be there next time you come back.

It’s hard to imagine something so cute and little could be so damned evil, but sadly Toronto is facing just such a villain. The emerald ash borer is sweeping across the GTA, basically doing exactly what its name says: donning a dashing shade of green and boring holes into ash trees.

In 2003, no one had heard of these little Asian beetles (they didn’t even have an English name), but over the next few years the little buggers will kill most, if not every single ash tree in the GTA (not to mention southern Ontario, Michigan, and many other places). That’s 860,000 trees in the City of Toronto alone that will simply be gone by 2017.

As we speak, there are eggheads figuring out how to stop these small but mighty foes, but so far mitigation and counting them is about the best anyone can do: if you happen to spot an infested tree you might just be able to save it with a bit of expensive pesticide but it’s a mug’s game. What’s worse is that with every year that goes by, the ash borers are being found further and further afield. As the Borg might say, resistance is futile.

The borers were first spotted in Toronto four years ago, near Highway 404 and Sheppard Avenue, and now the whole eastern half of the city and numerous patches of trees elsewhere are infested [PDF]. If you’re reading this, you’re likely too young to remember when Dutch elm disease wiped out most of the elm trees on the continent. Well, this is will be much worse.

Toronto takes pride in its tree canopy but these little civic malcontents will wreak havoc with it. About 20 per cent of the city is now leafy—a percentage of tree cover the city would like to double over the next 30 years or so. The borers will make that difficult as they eat away at about 8 per cent of what’s there now. (Green ash is the city’s fourth most-common tree; the most popular non-maple.)

In addition to the trees in local parks and other wooded areas, ash trees are (or rather, were) commonly planted by municipalities along streets. That means some neighbourhoods are full of them and the trees will have to be taken out (at a cost) and replaced (at a cost). Toronto figured on spending more than $1 million this year [PDF], for starters. But this isn’t just a government issue: most of the affected trees are on private land, meaning there’s a big role for Joe Backyard to play in keeping the foliage flourishing.

In neighbouring York Region [PDF], where they still have bona fide forests, they expect to spend more than $10 million over the next decade. Its three southern municipalities, Markham, Vaughan, and Richmond Hill, will likely each spend about the same as they move to remove thousands of trees. In total, York Region has 2.8 million ash trees walking the proverbial Green Mile.

Go away, agrilus planipennis! We’ve got enough trouble without you!

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

On December 6, less than a week after the opening of a deluxe and much-anticipated Loblaws supermarket drew crowds of hundreds before 8 a.m., Globe and Mail columnist Adam Radwanski issued the following tweet: “Had a nearby meeting, so wandered into Maple Leaf Gardens for a look. Need to get out before my childhood memories are completely destroyed.” The impending destruction of Mr. Radwanski’s warm and fuzzies and the glitzy new grocery store were, perversely, one and the same, because Maple Leaf Gardens—the historic home of our local hockey franchise—had been abandoned, transformed anew into a vulgar den of pre-made sandwiches and photogenic produce. Men shed blood and sweat within those storied walls, but what would it matter now? President’s Choice makes excellent ice cream.

Downtowners have always had a love-hate relationship with chain stores, mitigating the impulse to call corporate bullshit when considerations of convenience come into play. And, sure, the Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws is arguably filling a geographic grocery void. The same can also be said for the Loblaws that opened on Queen West just a week prior, and the Dollarama development that ousted Sonic Boom records—of the iconic window displays—from its longtime Bloor West digs earlier this fall. Surely, everyone can agree that Queen West’s charm is incomplete without a big-box grocery shopping solution, and who needs records with the convenient option to drop a loonie for China-made trinkets right in the Annex?

Have we lost our minds?

The problem with big-box stores isn’t the businesses themselves, necessarily, but their effect. While there is a precedent-setting factor—a corporate domino effect, if you will—it isn’t the mere presence of these behemonths that is the fundamental tragedy at the core of downtown’s chain store takeover. What matters is what we, as a city, are willing to give up for it.

We are sacrificing our character for convenience.

There will be those who say the big-box lament is a petty one. Cities change, gentrification happens, and businesses crop up and drop out all the time. People will argue, and argue convincingly, in favour of neon-lit commerce over the preservation of some idealized version of a city space’s character, because it makes sense to root for the tangible. Chain stores are an easy sell. What’s worrysome is how many of us are buying it.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

About a month after Jenna Morrison’s death at Dundas and Sterling, members of the Urban Repair Squad gathered at the controversial intersection with bikes and paint. For two hours, give or take, they worked, stenciling white DIY sharrows and a strip of bright, glaring teal down the right-hand side of the road. This is an intersection known among Toronto’s cyclists as one of the most dangerous in the city, a tight merge on to Dundas that, on the morning of November 7, proved too tight, claiming a young mother’s life. Teal may not be the most attractive colour in the spectrum, but to those who see the city over a pair of handlebars, the brighter the better—particularly when blind spots are more plentiful than side guards.

Of course, the experiment in direct action didn’t last long. By 11:30 that morning police swept into the intersection themselves, scattering the guerrilla artisans. “After all but a few police cars had left,” reported the Grid, “car after car pulled up to the stop sign to make a right turn on to Dundas, and more often than not, kept safely out of the bright teal and white lane.”

“It seemed to be working.”

It was telling. For much of the past year, in ways both implicit and explicit, the highest officials at City Hall have painted cycling as an afterthought at best, or at worst, the elitist preference of downtowners, a niche interest not shared by the more practically-minded suburbanites. In a city supposedly teetering on the brink, so this story goes, cycling is one of those fringe luxuries whose infrastructure we can’t dare waste money on. That a small group of people provided that infrastructure themselves, though, relatively quickly and easily, provides evidence for different, uglier truths. Rather than budget constraints, it suggests that the real problem is a systemic rejection of cycling as a viable part of our transportation network—the reason 2011 has seen our city’s first net loss of bike lanes. And that, to put it mildly, is quite beyond unacceptable by now.

It’s also how Olivia Chow’s renewed call for truck side guards can be so thoroughly waved off. Back in 2006, the Conservative government responded to an earlier request that we consider making side guards mandatory by saying that the competitiveness of the Canadian trucking industry would be affected, an evidently worst-case scenario, even when stacked up against tragedies like Jenna Morrison’s, or what happened outside the Gladstone in 2006, and the deaths ten years prior that had Jack Layton making a cause out of bike lanes to begin with.

These are fundamental issues of public safety, to say nothing of public health. Would basic changes to our transportation systems, like adding more bike lanes and requiring side guards, be so readily rejected if the safety of drivers was somehow on the line?

And would the removal of bike lanes, which council decided to do for Jarvis and Pharmacy, be so eagerly pursued were the act anything but, in part, a backhanded slap in the face of Toronto’s cyclists? Throughout his first turbulent year as mayor, Ford has repeatedly insisted that Ford Nation, wherever it is, continues its support, constantly urging him to “stay the course.” But in its supposed hotbed out in the suburbs, constituents are also telling councillors that they want what we have downtown.

This is what action like that of the Urban Repair Squad the other week illuminates mercilessly: in laying out a bike lane in less than two hours, water-soluble paint or not, they have show that cities and federal governments too can provide basic safety with negligible impact. But ours haven’t. Cycling remains on the margins, whether those of roadways or policy papers.

Respect, perhaps, needs to come first. Politicians, like some drivers we can think of, need to realize that cycling, and cyclists, aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. And yes, their rightful place is in the lane alongside everyone else, not on the sidewalk.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months.

Today, in our last installment of heroes: displays of outstanding leadership.

Jack Layton, for giving us such great reasons to miss him.

Margaret Atwood, for standing up—to the Brothers Ford, and for our libraries.

Kristyn Wong-Tam, for speaking her mind as part of the unofficial opposition at city council.

From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

At this point, you might think eulogizing Jack Layton once more to be redundant. After all, we already did that, along with many others. So we’re not going to use this space to talk about how we loved Jack or about what he meant to us. Let us not talk about who Jack Layton was—let us talk about what he did.

Jack Layton is one of our heroes because this year he rejuvenated the Canadian left. Absolutely nobody expected the Orange Crush in this year’s federal election except Jack Layton, who spent the best part of a decade in Quebec laying the groundwork to bring the NDP to triumphant victory there (and, as a bonus, crush the Bloc Quebecois into irrelevancy). Layton worked the long game and it paid off.

But it’s about more than just Quebec. In a year when the Liberal Party fell into disarray under the disastrous leadership of Michael Ignatieff—who failed to present himself as an alternative to anything at all—Jack Layton stepped up and reminded the country that, yes, there is an alternative to the minimalist politics of conservatism. He kept doing this right up to his death and even afterwards with his now-famous farewell note. The NDP leadership race is actually getting serious media attention for the first time quite possibly ever, and it is because of Jack Layton that Niki Ashton, Nathan Cullen, Martin Singh, and Romeo Saganash have a significant public platform in a way that Bev Meslo, Lorne Nystrom, and Pierre Ducasse never got in 2003 when Layton first won the big seat.

Jack Layton isn’t one of our Heroes this year because we miss him. It’s because this year, he gave us especially good reasons to miss him.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

If Rob Ford’s declining popularity as mayor has made him the Goliath of the year, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) is 2011’s plucky David. Armed with little more than her courage and conviction, the rookie councillor—who won Kyle Rae’s former seat by fewer than 500 votes—has spent her first year slinging shots at the mayor while many others on council stayed silent.

In June, she criticized the decision to remove the Jarvis bike lanes—which run directly through her ward—that was made without consulting or notifying her. In August, she posted an open letter to Rob Ford after he shot down Toronto’s bid for the 2020 Olympic Games without consulting council. The games, however, were just the tip of the iceberg: Wong-Tam’s letter questioned the unilateral decision-making process at City Hall, as well as the “special privileges” Councillor Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) enjoys.

The mayor didn’t respond, but Wong-Tam had found a way of making her point heard amidst a council that had been tiptoeing around him for months. A little over a month later she was at it again, penning another open letter after the mayor kicked her and Councillor Janet Davis out of a Childcare Taskforce Meeting, despite the fact that both women are members of the Community Development Recreation Committee. While Ford didn’t technically break any rules, it’s a rather rich move from a mayor who campaigned on increasing government transparency. On Twitter, Wong-Tam called the decision what it was: “Unusual and rude.”

Some of Wong-Tam’s projects, including a proposal for a Bank of Toronto and a plan for the redevelopment of Yonge Street, haven’t received much support. But even Ford can’t stop her momentum on certain issues. In October, a bill Wong-Tam and fellow councillors John Parker and Glenn De Baeremaeker proposed to ban the sale of shark fins in Toronto passed with an overwhelming majority (Ford was one of the four who voted against it). She was also able to slip an amendment into Ford’s Graffiti Management Strategy that demanded strict retroactive billing for corporations that use graffiti in public spaces to market products.

While Wong-Tam works hard—and sleeps little—to represent her constituents, it’s her resolve to say what’s on her mind that sets her apart as a hero for Toronto. Since we’re stuck with a mayor who doesn’t like to listen, it’s now more important than ever to have someone speaking up often and loud enough that he has no other choice.