Newsstand: April 21, 2015

A baffling explosion that wiped out a Scarborough home and left one man dead yesterday evening has police and fire services scratching their heads over what might have been its source. Read about that, plus a new proposed Mississauga-Brampton LRT line and a new Metcalf Foundation report on the city's working poor.

By Kelli Korducki • Illustration by Matthew Daley

Police have identified the man killed in a blast that flattened a Scarborough home around 4:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon. Paul Zigomanis, 57, was pulled from the debris without vital signs yesterday, leaving both police officers and community members confused over what might have caused the explosion. The surrounding area was evacuated for a gas leak, and Toronto Fire Services are currently investigating.

Downtowners waiting for a relief subway line will likely have to wait even longer: the province is ponying up for the full cost of a Mississauga-Brampton LRT line, after which there will be little remaining transit funding for Toronto-based projects. The proposed LRT line will run 23 kilometres from the Port Credit to Brampton GO stations, looping around Mississauga City Centre.

The Metcalf Foundation has released its report on Toronto’s working poor, and its findings are pretty predictable: working poverty in the city has continued to grow, despite three new income supplements and a 37.6 per cent minimum wage increase between 2006 and 2010. But there’s also reason to be optimistic: between 2006 and 2012, the population of working poor grew by less than 11 per cent, a much slower rate than measured in the previous five-year period. Still, Toronto does appear to be turning into, as the report says, “a giant modern-day Downton Abbey where a well-to-do knowledge class relies on a large cadre of working poor who pour their coffee, serve their food, clean their offices, and relay their messages from one office to another.”