Newsstand: September 25, 2015

Today in the news: carding, affordable housing, and architecture. City hall architecture at that! It doesn't get better than this, folks.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

Former Ontario ombudsman André Marin, the outspoken official whose contract was not renewed earlier this month, has spoken out about the “wrong and illegal” practice of carding, referred to as “street checks” by police. Marin tweeted Thursday that he had prepared a 25-page report on the practice for the provincial government’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and presented it to them on Aug. 31. “I intended to make [the report] public this week,” he continued. He listed many of the criticisms activists have named against carding and police brutality, and made a number of recommendations on how the practice could be improved. Among those were banning carding for everyone under 18, strict limits on the use of the data collected, researching the effectiveness and potential human rights abuses of carding, and implementing independent oversight. Mayor John Tory initially indicated a wish to end carding earlier this year, but altered that position to support a set of reforms, which critics say doesn’t go nearly far enough for a practice that overwhelmingly targets people of colour and vulnerable people.

Mayors from across Canada, with Tory and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson taking the lead, are working to make affordable housing an election issue and to earn promises about an updated federal policy on the subject. The mayors of the country’s two most expensive cities took the lead, but there are a number of other cities across the country feeling the need for affordable housing, from Halifax and Kitchener to Edmonton and Saskatoon. “We have to see clear focus and specific commitments … if they’re going to take the Canadian economy seriously moving forward,” Robertson said. One suggestion the group floated was using “surplus” federal land for public housing.

At the Star, Christopher Hume and, from the archives, celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright look at the finalists for the 1958 competition to design a new City Hall in Toronto, assessing their respective strengths and weaknesses. It’s a fascinating look at what could have been.