Newsstand: September 21, 2015

In the news today: a Canadian movie takes a top prize at TIFF, participatory budgeting brings people into the political process, and suburban poverty is increasing.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

The thoroughly Canadian film Room took the People’s Choice prize at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, often an indicator of future Academy Award success. Filmed in Canada, the film is a Canadian-Irish co-production. It features 10-year-old Vancouver actor Jacob Tremblay, and is based on Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue’s immensely popular and respected novel of the same name. Film critic Anne Thompson said the movie’s stars, Tremblay and Brie Larson, are now “very strong actor contenders in the Oscar derby.”

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a process intended to bring residents closer to the democratic process and to give them more say on what is built in their communities. A pilot PB project launched in Ontario in May, and residents in three parts of town voted on projects in the last week. Residents of Ward 33, Don Valley East, finished voting Sunday. The vote was open to any community residents over the age of 14, whether or not they are citizens of Canada. The project may be expanded if it goes well.

Poverty in the inner suburbs of Toronto is increasing, as the rates of people accessing services like the food bank show. Just under 900,000 people visited a food bank in 2014, 1.4 per cent more than the previous year and 12 per cent more than those who did the same during the recession. The rates of people accessing food banks have shifted from downtown Toronto to places like Scarborough and Etobicoke. Nearly four in 10 Canadians report that they go hungry at least once a week.