Hero and Villain of the Week: March 20

By Kelli Korducki • Illustration by Brian Boutin

Every week, Toronto is filled with Heroes and Villains. These are their stories.

Inspiration comes from the unlikeliest places—and then it goes viral.

Over the past few weeks, a Stouffville service dog named Smiley has made international headlines for being, well, a really, really good boy. Smiley was born with dwarfism and without eyes; after his owner Joanne George rescued him from a puppy mill, she realized that his true calling was to be a therapy dog. Now he spends his days visiting retirement communities, making friends at nursing homes, tagging along with special-needs children’s reading groups, and melting the hearts of every single person who hears his story.

Villain of the Week: Simcoe Hall Vandal

It’s been a tough few weeks for the University of Toronto’s members of CUPE 3902 Unit 1, who have been on strike since the beginning of the month. Late last night, under the guise of solidarity, a vandal made things even worse. Graffiting “SHAME” in giant pink letters over the front of the university’s bureaucratic nucleus was no doubt intended by its creator to demonstrate disapproval over the university’s negotiations with the union that represents its graduate student instructors and teaching assistants. Instead, this childish and destructive mark only serves to undermine the very cause it was likely meant to endorse, and forced exhausted strikers into a defensive position in the process. For that, this unknown would-be crusader gets our weekly thumbs down.