Even with the success of acts like Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, people still tend to view musical comedy with some suspicion, and not without reason. Those high-profile success stories aside, at the club level, musical comedy is too often the province of people who aren’t quite good enough to make it as musicians, but not quite funny enough to make it as comedians.

Two local comics, Robert Keller and Rush Zilla, are out to change that perception with their show, Off Key Comedy, which features a wide variety of acts whose only commonality is that they combine music and comedy in one form or another. The third edition of the monthly show will take place on May 23, at Comedy Bar.

Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together.

It’s entirely possible that an early work by the next Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg will screen on Wednesday night at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. With the 2013 Student Film Showcase featuring the best from post-secondary schools around the country and the Next Wave Presents: Jump Cuts Young Filmmakers Showcase kicking off the evening with Toronto-area high-school students’ films, the night will be a coming-out party for a new crop of talent. Judging by the polished creativity of some of the entries, it’s safe to say that young people are more prepared than ever to start telling stories on film from an early age.

Diane Dyson leads a Jane’s Walk in 2009. Photo by Portraits of Toronto, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Jane’s Walk 2013 is this weekend, meaning there will be plenty of opportunities—in fact, entirely too many opportunities—to take free guided tours of different parts of Toronto, led by volunteer guides in honour of Jane Jacobs.

There are so many walks that no one person could possibly join them all (especially considering the fact that a lot of them happen simultaneously), so we’ve taken the liberty of making you a kind of web-based Frankenwalk, with highlights from all the tours we think will be particularly interesting.

Read on for brief descriptions of some of the best parts of eight different Jane’s Walks, any of which you can attend on May 4 or 5.

(Note that these by and large are not the walks’ starting locations. Click a walk’s name to learn where it sets out.)

Walk Name: Jack’s Walk

When It’s Happening: May 4, 3 p.m.

What It’s About: The life of Jack Layton, from his early years as a professor and activist to his eventual rise to the top of the federal NDP.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), Jack’s son.

The Highlight: The walk will include a stop at Lake Devo, the artificial pond on the Ryerson campus. “It’s a place where Jack worked and started off his life,” says Mike Layton. “It’s a place of activist academics, as well as a place we went as kids and went skating around the rocks.” The councillor says the spot is an emblem both of his father’s fun-loving nature and of his dead-serious political ambition.

Walk Name: Murder!

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: Historic murders that happened in the Annex area.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Students in grades 7 through 12 who attend University of Toronto Schools.

The Highlight: There will be a visit to 169 Walmer Road, where Charles “Bert” Massey‘s maid, Carrie Davies, shot and killed the wealthy playboy in 1915. Clement Cheng, a grade 10 student who will lead this part of the walk, says the murder interests him because it polarized the city. “The Toronto Star, back when it wasn’t as professional as it is right now, was adamant in saying that Massey was innocent and that the maid was trying to exploit him because he was rich,” Cheng explains. Feminist groups, meanwhile, sided with Davies, who said she’d killed her employer because he’d tried to rape her.

Walk Name: Yesterday’s Papers

When It’s Happening: May 5, 2 p.m.

What It’s About: The history of Toronto’s newspaper industry.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Jamie Bradburn, local historian and Torontoist contributor.

The Highlight: Bradburn is particularly interested in corner of Bay and King streets, which, unbeknownst to many, is a significant site for newspapers in Toronto. “Back until 1963 or so, the three major dailies were all based either at that corner or within a block or two of it,” he says. First Canadian Place stands on the former site of the Toronto Star‘s office building, the Toronto Evening Telegram was located on a plot of land that later became part of Commerce Court, and the Globe and Mail‘s old offices were about a block to the west.

Walk Name: Summerhill Summerdale

When It’s Happening: May 4, 2 p.m.

What It’s About: Toronto’s historic Summerhill neighbourhood.

Who’s Leading the Walk: John van Nostrand, an architect who lives in the area, and Michael Vaughan, a lawyer who is a direct descendent of one of the neighbourhood’s original developers.

The Highlight: One of the major stops will be Woodlawn, a nineteenth-century house that van Nostrand says is the oldest continuously occupied home in all of Toronto. (It was completed in 1841.) “There’s a neighbourhood designed around it,” says van Nostrand. “It sits in a block. Nobody sees it ever.” It’s true: the house is so well hidden that the average pedestrian might not even notice it from the sidewalk. Jane’s Walk is your chance to check it out.

Walk Name: Ward Healing: How “The Ward” Transformed Modern Toronto

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: The Ward, Toronto’s “original priority neighbourhood.” It was a notorious so-called slum that, a century ago, was located in the vicinity of present-day Nathan Phillips Square.

Who’s Leading the Walk: John Lorinc, a freelance municipal-affairs and business reporter.

The Highlight: There’s not much left of The Ward, but the walk will cruise by Elizabeth Street, which is the last remnant of what used to be the neighbourhood’s main drag. “Elizabeth Street is kind of this forgotten part of the city,” says Lorinc. “It used to be the centre of this kind of immigrant, poor community.” He’s hoping to use his walk to make an argument for the importance of The Ward as the site of some of Toronto’s earliest attempts at social reform.

Walk Name: Underground Toronto

When It’s Happening: May 4, 12 p.m.

What It’s About: The PATH.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Lisa Dietrich, an intern architect at PLANT.

The Highlight: Dietrich thinks walkers will be particularly intrigued with a walkway near Roy Thomson Hall that connects Metro Hall with St. Andrew Station. It’s one of the few parts of downtown Toronto’s network of subterranean passageways that actually has windows, because it abuts a sunken courtyard. “It has blank windows on one side, so you can actually open that part of the PATH the exterior if you wanted to,” says Dietrich. “I’ve personally never seen them open, though.”

Walk Name: Not a Boring Walk

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: Development and public-transit expansion in the Mount Dennis area.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Members of the Mount Dennis Community Association, along with some representatives from Metrolinx and Toronto Public Library.

The Highlight: According to Mike Mattos, one of the walk’s organizers, people who join this tour will be able to visit the launch site for the massive boring machines that will dig the underground section of the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT, scheduled for completion in 2020.

Walk Name: Historical Walking Tour of Yorkville

When It’s Happening: May 4, 10:30 a.m.

What It’s About: This is probably evident from the name of the walk, but it’s about the history of Yorkville, and how the neighbourhood is changing as a result of development.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale). Also Ken Greenberg and Michael McClelland, both architects and urban designers.

The Highlight: The walk will begin at Toronto Public Library’s Yorkville branch, located in a building that dates to 1907. Structures with so much history are increasingly rare in the neighbourhood. “The next phase and wave of development that’s coming is going to be the one that will completely and radically change Yorkville, for better or worse,” says Wong-Tam.

CORRECTION: May 3, 2013, 1:50 PM This post originally misspelled Clement Cheng’s last name.

CORRECTION: May 3, 2013, 1:50 PM This post originally said, incorrectly, that the Globe and Mail‘s former offices were located east of King and Bay streets. In fact, they were located to the west.

Less than a month after the Take Back the Night rally and march and the Take Back the Block parties sought to re-establish a sense of community and safety to the Toronto neighbourhoods hit hardest by a recent string of sexual assaults, residents once again gathered to protest the rise in incidents of sexual violence.

Friday’s rally in Christie Pits was held in response to three more sexual assaults that were reported in the area over the Thanksgiving weekend. Two of the assaults took place near Montrose Avenue and College Street [PDF], and a third attack happened at Bloor and Grace Streets [PDF]. In all three assaults, women were approached from behind and attacked while walking down residential streets at night.

Officers have increased their patrols in the area, but residents have criticized the Toronto Police Services for a lack of transparency about the circumstances of the attacks as well as their plans for catching the culprit. It is believed that the same assailant who committed the Thanksgiving attacks may have been responsible for many more incidents that occurred in the neighbourhood throughout the summer.

In addition to stepped-up police patrols, grassroots efforts are working to ensure women feel safe and secure in their neighbourhoods. Community organizer Stephanie Guthrie is using the #TBTB hashtag to connect women with jogging and dog-walking buddies, and area councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) has been working with City staff to ensure that a postering campaign can proceed without having signs taken down.

While the response from the community has been a source of solace and reassurance to those affected by the recent sexual assaults, this rally also made it clear that the local community considers both the attacks and the fact that the perpetrator has yet to be caught completely unacceptable. Women have the right to walk down any Toronto street unaccompanied and without fear.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantd/6312368145/"}enedkl{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

BIXI Toronto, the city’s fledgling bike-lending program, is due for an upgrade. Since it came online last May, BIXI Toronto has amassed over 5,000 members; today it celebrates its one millionth ride. But even before the program launched, many residents have been calling for more bikes and more stations, covering a larger swath of Toronto.

City staff now say a report outlining the next phase of expansion won’t be ready until early 2013—councillors have been hoping to see one for at least a year—and while few details on the funding structure and scope of the next phase of expansion are available, councillors, cycling advocates, and riders agree: BIXI should grow.

In a phone interview, Toronto transportation manager Daniel Egan hailed BIXI’s initial offering of 1,000 bikes and 80 stations as “incredibly successful for a small program.” He said the challenge now is to support expansion using creative funding tools, as BIXI receives no funding from the City beyond staff support. “We’re looking actively at several options and business cases,” Egan says, including corporate sponsorships and community benefits leveraged from new property developments. The staff report will flesh out details on funding models and an expansion strategy, and include specific recommendations to city council for next steps.

Egan is also eager to take advantage of “exponential growth” as the system expands out from the downtown core, multiplying its appeal with each new station. “The system is not serving to its full potential,” he adds, “we know that the riders are out there.”

Jared Kolb of Cycle Toronto agrees. “It’s a good start, but it’s not enough,” he told us. He points out that the City’s initial plan for BIXI was to have stations as far west as Keele Street, as far north as Dupont Street, and as far east as Broadview Avenue. Due to funding constraints, that plan was scaled back to the boundaries of Bathurst, Bloor, and Jarvis streets. To make the case for geographic expansion, Kolb cites City data that shows “the highest rates of use are on the periphery. If you’re going to make a proper investment, you have to have a larger network.”

An initial proposal for BIXI stations (via City of Toronto Transportation Services).

Kolb notes with a chuckle that he’s seen BIXI bikes as far west as the Humber River. “Many riders, especially tourists, don’t realize they’re nowhere near a station out there,” he noted. Some of Cycle Toronto’s members have told him their first experience with riding in Toronto is by using BIXI. “Some people don’t need to have a bike,” he added.

Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) has been working with local developers to leverage community benefits (also known as section 37 provisions) from height and density increases to the many condos being constructed along King Street West. In one instance, a developer wanted a commercial parking lot on a property near Bathurst Street. Layton asked that the developer include a BIXI station, a move that he describes as “adding value” as well as enhancing the overall network. The result is a prospective new station that is close enough to an existing one (stations must be added within a few hundred metres of existing infrastructure) to be approved quickly.

Layton hopes this kind of development levy can be one model for successful expansion, noting that “development is what’s bringing the added pressure on the transportation system, so I think there’s a real connection there.”

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) is also optimistic about BIXI’s future, and wants to see the system grow responsibly within its means. “You want to get your finances done right,” said Minnan-Wong, who chairs the City’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. “It may be more incremental, but what we want to do is ensure BIXI’s success, and that may require smaller steps than big leaps.” He notes that Montreal, which started with three times the number of bikes as Toronto, ran into financial difficulties. “We don’t have a lot of extra money to put into any projects right now,” he added, citing a transportation department backlog “north of $300 million.”

Although the City doesn’t directly fund BIXI, it did guarantee a $4.8 million loan for BIXI’s initial investment. Layton expressed his hope that a deeper partnership, and perhaps even shared ownership, is a future possibility. Since BIXI represents a service rather than a capital investment, it could disappear as quickly as it arose if its owner and operator, the Public Bike System Company, runs into financial trouble. “We would want some assurance that the company isn’t just going to fold up and take our community benefit,” Layton said.

Photo by {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/traverseearth/6920049430/”}Johnny Peacock{/a} from the {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/”}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

Days before he married Olivia Chow on Algonquin Island, Jack Layton—the “cycling councillor,” as he was known at the time—rode directly into a newspaper box, injuring his knee. Hobbling, then walking, then dancing on a cane, they marked their wedding by planting a commemorative tree which still stands there.

As a supporter of the Toronto Island Public/Natural Science School, a fierce defender of Island residents in the face of development (especially in and around the community of Ward’s Island), and a champion of the waterfront in general, the Islands, in a way, were the heart of Layton’s Toronto. From social justice to the environment, it’s where the issues that spoke to his concerns as an activist, then a professor, then a politician, were best epitomized.

Perhaps Rob Ford had this in mind last week, when he proposed to city council that the Toronto Island Ferry Terminal be renamed in Layton’s honour. Some might argue that it was an attempt by a controversial mayor to soften his image, reaching across ideological lines to do something, well, nice. But if you listened to Ford talk about it, the gesture seems much more straightforward, and not at all calculated: the charismatic, friendly mentorship of Jack Layton, Ford’s seatmate at City Hall in those days, truly meant something to him.

Council agreed. Today, councillors voted unanimously (out of respect to council, Mike Layton [Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina] abstained) that the Toronto Island Ferry Terminal be renamed the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal. For the man celebrated by so many Island residents, for whom his early ideological campaigns did so much, and for a city profoundly shaped by the vision of a leader it shared with the nation, there could hardly be a more touching tribute.

Past the rail bridge over Dupont Street, between Edwin Avenue and Dundas, the geography of the city suddenly changes. What stretches from east to west in a steady line suddenly lurches, going from residential to industrial to residential again, following the rails that wind though the landscape. Dundas, more or less a straight north-south corridor between Boustead Avenue and Dupont, veers west again, tracking the length of the CP Rail line between Old Weston and Scarlett Road. Further east, Keele becomes Weston Road at St. Clair, running parallel with the Canadian National Railway as it heads northwest, toward the airport.

The area for which the West Toronto Diamond and the West Toronto Juntion are both named is a place shaped—and, in many ways, defined—by the trains that run through it.

It’s a place where contested commercial, residential, and industrial infrastructures meet, where GO trains thunder past cyclists and joggers on the West Toronto Railpath, and where 300,000 people make their home. Controversially, it’s also where the province plans to run the Union-Pearson Air Rail Link, a long-awaited rail line to Pearson along the Georgetown South corridor—and a route that shares its tracks with CN and VIA Rail.

That there will be more trains running through their backyards isn’t such an issue, say local residents. The issue—a view shared among those who attended last weekend’s Clean Trains Festival on the West Toronto Railpath—is what will be powering them.

In January of 2011, David McKeown, Toronto’s chief medical officer, wrote a letter to Metrolinx chair Robert Prichard [PDF], calling for the electrification of the rail corridor; current plans call for the airport line to run on diesel. The letter was a huge boost for concerned West Toronto residents who had long been fighting for electrification. Seventy-five schools sit in close proximity to the tracks, they say, and the impact of heavy, carcinogenic diesel emissions—with chemicals like acrolein, benzene, and acetaldehyde hanging in the air—would be too toxic to ignore. McKeown agreed. 


“Electrification of the Georgetown and Lakeshore rail corridors,” he wrote, “while proposed for primarily business reasons, will bring health benefits to the communities adjacent to these corridors. By undertaking this initiative, Metrolinx will also be making its own modest but real contribution to the overall collective effort to improve air quality for the broader population of Toronto.” But his cost-benefit assessment went beyond simply eliminating emissions, suggesting that a beneficial knock-on effect would result. You’d have less traffic congestion, better transit options for area residents, and healthier lifestyles, too—using the Railpath, residents would have cleaner air to breathe while using cleaner methods to get to and from the GO station.

“I encourage you to adopt this recommendation and to proceed as soon as possible with Phase One,” McKeown wrote, “and subsequent phases of the electrifiation of the Georgetown and Lakeshore rail corridors.”

Two months later, Metrolinx distributed a newsletter to area residents that sealed the deal, supposedly. “Metrolinx Board approves electrification,” it stated, saying that, “This move follows approval by the Metrolinx Board of Directors…to begin electrification of the Lakeshore and Georgetown GO Transit rail corridors, with the new Air Rail Link (ARL) as the first phase.” At the time, it was taken as a victory for the grassroots, as if the provincial government had been swayed in some last-ditch David-versus-Goliath moment.

That, it turns out, was before reading the fine print.

“First,” wrote York South-Weston MP Mike Sullivan (NDP) in a letter to the Star, “Metrolinx has already purchased diesel trains, not electric for the Air Rail Link. They are convertible in the future, at an unknown cost.” The cars, built by Japan-based manufacturer Nippon Sharyo, can indeed be converted to run on electric power—like converting a diesel car to do the same, the design characteristics of a diesel train engine allow it. But at this stage, the McGuinty government has effectively said that while there will indeed be electric trains on the Georgetown route at some point, it won’t set a timeline for it. It’s diesel for the foreseeable future. 



“It’s like saying, ‘We’re going to knowingly dump toxins in your drinking water,’” wrote Andrew Cash, another area MP (NDP, Davenport), commenting on the issue in NOW Magazine. “‘But chill, in a decade or so we’ll go green.’”

To Cash, one of the organizers of the Clean Trains Festival, this is tantamount to a provincial insult of the public’s intelligence. “You know, people in the community have been saying for years that they want this thing electrified,” Cash told Torontoist during the festival. “The province does not listen. Through two elections that’s been a big issue, and those of us that have championed electrification,” he said, gesturing to the neighbourhoods along the Railpath, “have won, almost right along this rail corridor.”

At this point, all three levels of local government are involved, with Peggy Nash bringing the issue to Parliament, supported by Sullivan and transit critic Olivia Chow. And then there’s Jonah Schein, the MPP for Davenport, who will force a debate on electrification at the Ontario legislature later today with a private members’ bill. 



There are health concerns, issues with schools, noise, pollution, and as far as developing progressive transit is concerned, there’s definitely a sense of putting the right foot forward at a critical time. But in Schein’s neighbourhood, it’s the sense that people are being duped, he suggests, that’s of particular note. Considering the mixed economics of the area, many of these residents may have made costly, irreversible decisions about home ownership with this controversy in mind. How many chose to stick around because they heard Metrolinx was going electric rather than diesel? How many will now have difficulty selling with the opposite being true, at least in the short term? “It’s not an affordable neighbourhood, ” he said, “but it’s one of the more affordable neighbourhoods, and these people have put all their money into their mortgages and now they’re going to be screwed. And they don’t know about it necessarily.”

There’s also a question of running a new rail route through a community that won’t itself benefit from the service in question. “It seems a little ridiculous that the thing’s got two stops outside of Union and the airport,” Ward 19 councillor Mike Layton argues, “and that [it] doesn’t really service the neighbourhood that it goes through.” If there’s going to be a parade of a diesel rumbling through West Toronto, he suggested, West Toronto should at least be serviced by the route. With this in mind, Layton, with the support of York South-Weston councillor Frances Nunziata—one of the least-likely political unions imaginable in modern-day Toronto—tabled a motion in early April for the Air Rail Link to include everywhere from Liberty Village to Etobicoke North and Woodbine in its route. All situated in the West Toronto area, these stations would bring the line from two stops to 10. “We were also calling for it to be electrified immediately,” Layton explains, “because we don’t like the idea of a diesel-burning train going through neighbourhoods.”

Ten stops might slow the line down a little more than intended, Layton says, but that’s also not really the point. 

”I think we’ve got to get everyone around this corridor and get other people outside of it to realize, ‘You know what? Not making this investment now is a bad move.’ It’s putting money into something that’s really going to harm this community, and it’s something you’re just going to have to upgrade in the end anyhow.” Noting how many people would be served by re-jigging the line in this way—not just the business travellers and others hell-bent on getting to the airport—Schein agreed. “There are communities that would be supported, that need access to public transit, like Davenport and York South-Weston,” he said, “and it’s just a shame that that’s not happening.”

Layton and Nunziata’s motion received near-unanimous support at council: 41 in favour, with one opposed. Still, despite its stated position that the will of council rules supreme—something we’ve heard often with respect to other transit discussions—there was little from Queen’s Park in response. For the people at the microphone and in the crowd at Saturday’s festival, knowing this raises new, frustrating questions, or simply reinforces the old ones: what exactly is the provincial government’s problem? “It’s not clear to me, exactly,” said Schein. “I don’t know if they’ve dug themselves a hole and they’d look foolish to turn around.”

The looming prospect of the 2015 Pan Am Games is likely a complicating factor, with a do-or-die target date to get the line up and running. Perhaps Dalton McGuinty’s government sees that as a reason, however debatable, to hedge its safest bets now on getting an established system on the tracks, namely diesel, and worry about making the conversion to electric later. Purely electric trains, though less expensive in the long run, are also a little costly as a start-up expense. But that ignores the long-term issue, many at the rally said.

To Olivia Chow, the federal NDP’s transit critic and MP for Trinity-Spadina, it’s all redolent of a larger, even more frustrating problem at the national level. “It’s unbelievable that Canada, in 2012, does not have electric trains,” she told us. “We have the technology; Bombardier is a Canadian firm.” Though what Metrolinx is getting from Japan is possibly cheaper, what Canadian technology offers, she suggests, is recognized as a leading product in clean transportation—and doesn’t leave government with many excuses, whether federally, provincially, or municipally. 



“Bombardier goes around the world building electric trains everywhere,” she said. “Tokyo has them; I’ve taken them many times in Copenhagen. They are precise, they’re beautiful to ride in, and they are smooth, clean, and fast.”

At the Clean Trains Festival, local discussions were coloured by these broader, more nationally focused questions: “We’re going to keep on pushing,” Schein said. “We’re not the only community or the only riding affected; I know this is an issue south of us and north of us. So we’ll keep on bringing it up, getting together, fighting on it.” 




Photos by Jessica Rose Powell.

“Instead of running diesel trains for a business class premium fare express service between Union Station and the airport, we should maximize the impact of the provincial investment in the air-rail link…. We must build the air-rail link from the start as a healthy, affordable and sustainable electric transit line that stops in our neighbourhoods so Toronto can use it.”

—Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston) and Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), co-authors of an op-ed in the Star today. The two have worked together on a motion calling on Metrolinx to revise its plan for the Union-Pearson Air Rail Link. Currently, that plan calls for two stops along the line, at Weston Road and at Bloor Street; the councillors want the regional transit authority to add eight more stops along the route, in the hopes it will provide more useful service to a greater number of passengers. City council has no power to force any change in the plans—it can only request that Metrolinx do so, and rally public support—and will be debating the motion this afternoon at its monthly meeting. The motion is also backed by the Clean Train Coalition, a community group advocating that the diesel line in the current plan be replaced with electrified rail.

UPDATE, 3:27 PM By a vote of 40–2 city council has voted in favour of this motion.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_kevino/3590752330/sizes/z/in/photostream/"}Mr Kevino{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

A collection of politicians, community activists, social housing tenants, and concerned citizens got together last Thursday at to talk in general terms about the problems facing the Toronto Community Housing Corportation, and specifically about a proposal to sell off about 600 TCHC-owned occupied single-family homes, in order to pay down the corporation’s estimated $650 million repairs backlog.

Organized by the Toronto Social Action Coalition, the evening included speeches from the likes of Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) and Michael Shapcott, the director of housing and innovation at the Wellesley Institute, a local think tank.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Councillor Ana Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport), also in attendance, told the crowd that had gathered at the Edward Day Gallery on Queen Street West. “Toronto housing, the way it is, is not working.”

Sure, fixing social housing may seem like a lofty goal, but the evening wasn’t about empty rhetoric. Bailão actually has a chance to make TCHC work a little differently. After a little negotiating, the rookie councillor managed to get the proposed sale of occupied houses postponed (pending council’s approval), and she’s been appointed by the mayor to head a special task force to find alternative ways to fund the repairs. The task force will present its findings to the executive committee in the fall. In the meantime, Bailão is looking for input from stakeholders like tenants, colleagues, and non-profits.

So far, selling some TCHC houses to fund repairs at other TCHC properties is the best idea anyone in charge has come up with. And it has already happened. Last year, the TCHC board (back when the board was composed solely of Case Ootes) and city council approved the sale of 22 houses.

That sort of thinking—the kind of “act now, think later” mentality that the City has been operating with under the Ford administration—is what the evening’s participants were rallying against. Many of those who spoke positioned their battle for maintaining and improving social housing as part of the greater ideological fight that’s dominated so many political decisions of late: Can we be a society that puts the collective good ahead of individual need?

While some concrete solutions to the TCHC crisis at hand were mentioned—like Councillor Adam Vaughan’s (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) plugs for Transit City, Tower Renewal, and neighbourhood action plans—the goal of the night seemed to more about rallying the troops for the battle than drawing up an action plan. Vaughan himself, as he took the microphone, said he could talk policy, “but those ideas aren’t needed tonight.”

One of the best speeches of the night came from artist Roy Mitchell, who is also the executive director at Trinity Square Video, a non-profit video production centre. Amid the worthy monologues from policy wonks and politicians, Mitchell injected some energy into the evening by including an audience call-and-response portion in his speech and handing out some “Our mayor embarrasses me” buttons he’d made.

Most of all, Mitchell advocated for creative solutions to the City’s housing problems from artists and other non-experts, because, as he said, “the experts got us where we are now.”

The evolution of Councillor Mike Layton's Movember 'stache, from November 1 to November 29.

“It’s straight across, and square at the sides. I call it the Classic Jack,” says Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) of his moustache.

The name is in reference to his father, late NDP leader Jack Layton, who made the style a trademark. Councillor Layton, who wore a goatee in high-school and then a soul patch, insists he had no trouble growing his bushy, brown Classic Jack. He even visited a barber to have his facial hair groomed into the right shape. The effort is for Movember, an ever-growing movement to raise funds and awareness of men’s health, particularly prostate cancer.

“My father was involved in Movember, and I’m happy to carry the torch. The event means that much more, but I’m also doing it for another reason. It’s important that people know about this. I don’t think a lot of guys realize this is preventable. If caught early, it doesn’t need to be fatal,” says Layton.

This year, for the first time, Layton registered for a Mo Bro page on the official Movember Canada website.

More than 244,000 people are on the site, which is one of the most popular fundraising tools and a branch of Movember Worldwide. On his page, Layton has posted photos of himself and has joined a team and networks to increase support.

Layton’s team is “Moliticians,” a group of 37 politically involved men and women.

Their most prominent network is “Movember for Jack,” which comprises 608 members, including public figures from across the political spectrum like Liberal MP Justin Trudeau, Conservative MP for London West Ed Holder, and NDP MP for Sudbury Glenn Thibeault, along with other men and women inspired by the late politician. The Moliticians are also listed in the “Mo Sistas Canada” network, which has 207 members and supports women in the movement.

Kyle Iannuzzi, who once worked with Jack Layton’s widow, Olivia Chow, is running the “Movember for Jack” network.

Like Layton, he has taken extra care of his moustache—but he isn’t growing a Classic Jack.

“I have an emerging handlebar but would love to be able to accomplish a moustache with a twist at the end. I just think it’s out there. I like to be out there. It has to be a conversation piece that helps raise awareness,” Iannuzzi says.

Along with the councillor’s page, Movember for Jack is spreading the word through a Twitter account, @Mo4Jack, a Facebook page, and events including concerts in Toronto. The efforts have placed the network at ninth in Canada, with over $138,000 collected, and helped the site reach a staggering total of more than $30 million in donations with a day to go.

There’s still time to donate! Head to Movember Canada and give to your team of choice or make a general donation today before all the ‘staches disappear.

[Disclosure: Andrew Louis has provided occasional website development services, as an independent contractor, to several city councillors, including Mike Layton. While he shot the images in this piece, he did not propose the story or participate in the initial concept development.]

From left to right: Ron MacLean, Brian Hurley, Olivia Chow, The Jack, Craig Lynch, Mike Tolensky, and Mark Critch. Photo courtesy of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Even before his death, Jack Layton’s moustache enjoyed a kind of iconic status. Now that he’s gone, it has become an oddly poignant symbol. Mourners scribbled images of it in chalk on the concrete pavers at Nathan Phillips Square.

It’s fitting that money raised during Movember—which uses moustaches as a fundraising tool—benefits treatment for prostate cancer, the disease that Layton suffered from at the end of his life.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the CBC’s news parody show, isn’t the first media outfit to pick up on the connection between Layton and Movember, but they’re almost definitely the only ones who have tried turning it to comedic purposes. They’ve invented an award for best Movember moustache. They call it “The Jack.”

(That 22 Minutes would be the ones to try this is also kind of fitting, because Layton made a number of more-or-less-charming appearances on the show.)

The Jack is a golden handlebar moustache, about 18 inches long and mounted on a trophy pedestal. On Sunday afternoon, Mike Tolensky, Craig Lynch, and Brian Hurley, all sporting their Movember ‘staches, gathered in a small meeting room in the Intercontinental Hotel, where Ron MacLean, the sportscaster, would decide which one of the three would win the award. The segment, hosted by comedian Mark Critch, was taped to air on November 29 at 8:30 p.m.

The three contestants had been selected as finalists through an online contest run by the producers of the show. Lynch and Hurley had both been flown in from St. John’s for the shoot. (Tolensky lives in Toronto.)

Lynch, who is 21, found out he would be appearing on 22 Minutes last Friday. “Holy crap,” he recalled thinking. “Yeah, I’m in.”

The three contestants, MacLean, and Critch all took their positions before a makeshift set—just a backdrop with the 22 Minutes logo on it—while technicians readied the camera and the boom mic. The Jack was nearby, on the floor.

It was impossible not to wonder what Olivia Chow would think of having her husband memorialized this way. Fortunately the show’s producers had also called her. She entered the room, a little late.

“Am I supposed to say anything?” she whispered to a 22 Minutes public-relations person.

MacLean chose wisely. (We’re forbidden from revealing the winner in advance of the broadcast.) Chow stepped onto the set to present the award. She wore a fake mustache. “The Jack is muscular, it is powerful, it will save lives because people are going to get their prostates checked,” she said, to the camera. “And it also raises money.”

Afterward, asked if she’d seen Councillor Mike Layton’s Movember moustache (he’s Jack’s son, and Olivia’s stepson) she said, “Mike’s looks very much like Jack’s when Jack was much younger.”

Would keeping it help Mike’s political career? “That’s completely up to Mike,” she said. “I think Jack Layton, in what he has accomplished, it’s not because of his moustache. It’s more because of his vision of equality and justice. So, the moustache, that’s just part of it.”

A part, maybe—but one that stands for the whole.

Correction: November 29, 2011 This article originally said that prostate cancer “killed” Jack Layton. In fact, his precise cause of death has not been disclosed.