Heroes and Villains 2009: Superhero & Supervillain

By Torontoist

Torontoist ended last year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2009—the very best and the very worst people, places, and things in and of Toronto over the past twelve months. Over four single-elimination rounds of voting, our readers have whittled our lists down to determine 2009’s big winners and big losers.

Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.

Your votes—more than thirty thousand through four rounds of voting—are in.

Superhero: The Toronto Public Library

With 52% of the votes in the final round, the Toronto Public Library defeats Finalists Derek Forgie and Heterosexuals for Same-Sex Equality (37% of the final vote) and Wildlife (11% of the final vote).
Semi-Finalists: Waterfront Development, The Five-Cent Plastic Bag Fee, and The CBC.
Quarter-Finalists: Scramble Intersections, David Miller, The New Billboard Bylaw and Tax, The Citizen Lab, Jian Ghomeshi, and The Polaris Music Prize.
Honourable Mentions: Mark the Litter Guy, Martin Streek, The Lee’s Palace Mural, Fucked Up, Mats Sundin, AUX TV, Brian Burke, The Power Plant Gallery, Pages Books & Magazines, Roy Halladay, Jesse Brown, and Gary Wright.

Supervillains: Bell, Rogers, and Telus

With 56% of the votes in the final round, the unholy trinity of Canadian telecoms—Bell, Rogers, and Telus—defeats Finalists The Summer City Workers’ Strike (32% of the final vote) and Bed Bugs (12% of the final vote).
Semi-Finalists: Toronto a la Cart, Gary Bettman and the National Hockey League, and Prejudging the Michael Bryant–Darcy Allan Sheppard Collision.
Quarter-Finalists: MuchMusic, Joe Pantalone’s Ossington Bylaws, Media Layoffs, Michael Ignatieff, Yonge and Bloor’s Empty Lot, and the Yellow Pages,
Dishonourable Mentions: “The War on the Car”, The Book’s Impending Death, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, H1N1, The Beer Store, Richard Wengle, Earth Hour, Yann Martel, J. P. Ricciardi, The Weather, The Big Bop’s Demise, and Outrage.
All semi-finalists, quarter-finalists, and honourable and dishonourable mentions are sorted in descending order, by number of cumulative votes cast.