Heroes and Villains of 2014: Hall of Villains

The people, places, things, and ideas that had a negative impact on the city in 2014.

By Torontoist

Once again, Torontoist rounds out the year that was by naming our Heroes and Villains—the places, things, and ideas that have had the most positive and negative impacts on our city. Our nominees for Supervillain of the Year (presented below in random order) proved detrimental to our city by limiting our cultural options, cheapening civil discourse, and more. Click through to read each one, and once you’ve decided how they stack up, cast your ballot for the winner. Voting will be open until 5 p.m. on December 30. At noon on December 31, we’ll reveal your choices for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

EDITORS’ NOTE: Jian Ghomeshi has not been included as a nominee for Supervillain of the Year. We felt that voting on something that involves criminal charges and has affected individual private citizens in a traumatic way would not be appropriate for the Heroes and Villains competition.

Not-So-Latent Bigotry on the Campaign Trail   Spreading hate and intolerance

Sam Sotiropoulos (@TrusteeSam)   Promoting bigotry and hate

Toronto District School Board   Scandals, controversies, and general dysfunction

Giorgio Mammoliti   Flagrantly violating the rules

CBC Brass   Prioritizing its star over the safety of its employees

Radius Clauses   Pitting festivals against one another

TTC Delays   Slowly driving commuters crazy

Akelius   Aggressively invading vulnerable neighbourhoods

Campaign-Trail Transit Planning   Simple, catchy, and inadequate

Doug Ford   Being all the things he is

Joe Warmington   Prioritizing access to the mayor over journalism in the public interest

Rob Ford   Giving us one more year of being the worst mayor we’ve ever had

Death of Toronto Bookstores   Taking away many of our favourite places

Andrea Horwath and the Provincial NDP Leadership Team   Political opportunism and forgetting what the party stands for

Stop the Chorley Park Switchback Activists   The worst kind of NIMBYism