How Toronto’s Papers Covered The Libyan Migrant Crisis and The Pot Dispensary Busts

By Jesse Hawken

In Front Page Challenge, Torontoist analyzes the best and worst of Toronto’s major dailies.

Photo by Christopher Hylarides from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

As the merry month of May draws to a close, two lingering issues remain top of mind on the front pages of today’s Toronto dailies: the ongoing refugee crisis, and the aftermath of last week’s police crackdown on pot dispensaries. But which of the city’s papers best captures this snapshot of How We Live Today?

The National Post doesn’t come with a trigger warning this morning, but it features a shocking and tragic photo of a dead infant removed from the Mediterranean in the wake of the sinking of several boats of migrants from Libya, with the headline “WHY Are CHILDREN Still DROWNING?” There’s also an interview with the father of Alan Kurdi, the boy who washed up on a beach in Turkey last summer and became the symbol of the migrant crisis, setting off the unravelling of Stephen Harper’s re-election plans. In another sign that the legalization of marijuana in Canada is progressing, The Sun Life insurance company is changing their policy and will classify marijuana users as “non-smokers,” reversing a long-standing policy and conceivably lowering premiums as a result. And the Post credits the modern progressive movement’s push for a guaranteed minimum income as a tool to obliterate poverty as an idea first put forward by the dreaded Richard Nixon. Shots fired?

A mixed bag of topics on page A1 of this morning’s Star. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne offers an official apology from the province for its role in the shameful abuse of First Nations children in residential schools. John Tory, known lately as Captain Bringdown for seemingly precipitating last week’s police crackdown on the city’s pot dispensaries, tries to win back his Good Guy image by personally intervening to cut the red tape arts groups have been facing to put on free festivals in the city’s parks. The Star‘s curious central image this morning shows Prince Harry photobombing a Toronto model’s Instagram shot. And in the entertainment section, Shinan Govani writes about the continuing downward slide of Mortdecai actor Johnny Depp, accused of domestic violence by his soon-to-be ex-spouse Amber Heard on the same weekend his latest box office bomb Alice Through The Looking Glass detonated.

The Sun is the only one of Toronto’s dailies to keep last week’s pot dispensaries bust on the front page days later, with this morning’s top story “Passing It To The Left.” The pressure is on Ottawa to provide guidance to Toronto governments on how to manage these months between promised legislation on marijuana legalization and the proliferation of these grey area dispensaries who are currently offering illegal services. According to the Sun, this is not in fact John Tory’s fault, but rather “Trudeau’s Liberals.” However, their lefty-bashing headline does offer a stoned-looking Justin a backhanded compliment, as “passing it to the left” is viewed as correct social protocol amongst the marijuana cognoscenti in terms of circulating a shared joint. The Sun also describes the Raptors’ re-signing of DeMar DeRozan as the team’s “No. 1 priority” in the off-season.