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Newsstand: February 13, 2015
The most relevant Toronto news is that Drake's mix tape came out last night. Put that on while you cue up this morning's news. Toronto has more than six million people, Sun News Network is no more, and John Tory has an idea for saving the city's budget.
The Toronto census metropolitan area (which includes the regions of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York) now has more than six million residents. That’s a 6.6 per cent increase from 2010, and represents rapid growth for Canada’s biggest city. The larger Toronto area now contains more people than British Columbia or all the Atlantic provinces put together, and is just shy of overtaking the prairies. With current immigration holding steady, the region is set to crack seven million by 2026 and add another million just five years after that. If it increases, though, Toronto could hit eight million people by 2024.
It’s the end of an era: as of this morning, Sun News Network, the conservative broadcaster that employed firebrands like Ezra Levant, is no more. The network launched in 2011 and brought in surprisingly few viewers given its reputation. Levant, arguably the network’s flagship personality, typically had between 2,000 and 5,000 viewers for his prime-time news and opinion show The Source. The CRTC denied SNN a mandatory carry label in 2013; that designation, which is given to channels like CBC and CTV, would have required cable providers to offer the station. There are around 200 employees of the news network.
Faced with an $86-million budget shortfall just a few months after taking office, Mayor John Tory refused the line of credit offered by the provincial government. Now, he has a better picture of what the city’s finances will look like. “We said we would take care of our own house and we’re here today to spell out how we plan to do just that,” Tory said Thursday. One small part of that plan is eliminating transit services positions that have been vacant for years. Another part is “temporarily” (scare quotes via CBC) reducing capital funding by $130 million over three years. The funding shortfall facing the city is a result of cuts in provincial funding to the city.