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How Toronto’s Papers Covered People Taking a Stand
Girl Guides and polar bears are fighting back.
Illustration by Brett Lamb
In Front Page Challenge, Torontoist analyzes the best and worst of Toronto’s major dailies.
This morning, Toronto’s papers feature various lines being drawn in the sand. Whether it’s the Girl Guides of Canada or the mayor of Toronto, there is a lot of tough talk on the city’s front pages today.
The Globe and Mail
The Globe features two Vlads on the front page this morning, perhaps a first in the history of the newspaper; the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, and his boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Questions are being raised these days as to the business practices of Bombardier’s rail division in Russia, and Yakunin seems to be the mystery man at the centre of it. And the Globe continues their ongoing Tuesday morning tradition of providing updates on two ongoing stories out of B.C.: the fentanyl-abuse epidemic and the fundraising tactics of the provincial Liberals.
National Post
The Post is muscling in this morning on Metro’s territory today by putting an animal on the cover; First Nations communities in Northern Ontario have noticed that polar bears have started hanging out in greater numbers lately, an indicator that runs contrary to the general Conservative editorial position that climate change isn’t real or is overstated; experts feel this migration is definitely related to the changes global warming have inflicted on the bears’ natural environment. And a story out of Ottawa lends credence to White House advisor Kellyanne Conway’s weird remarks yesterday that secret cameras are being installed in microwaves and other home appliances: a sex toy company settled a lawsuit filed by two women who alleged the company’s internet-connected vibrators were used to collect their personal information. In other romantic news, the Premier of New Brunswick found love on a blind date at a pizza parlour and is now engaged.
Toronto Star
The Star‘s ongoing Campaign For Transparency reports that Health Canada is about to make public “reams of confidential information” on the details of clinical trials of prescription drugs and medical devices. In an exclusive, the Star reports that family court judges are “100 per cent opposed” to Queen’s Park’s plans to allow unsupervised paralegals to participate in child custody cases (most litigants have thus far been self-represented in the process). And the Star reports that the Broadway debut of the new Canadian musical Come From Away has been positively received by theatre critics; could Tony Award nominations be far behind?
Metro Toronto
Metro leads with the news that the Girl Guides of Canada are cancelling all plans to travel to the United States as a response to Trump’s revised Muslim travel ban because of the uncertainty over possible issues at the border crossing: “We want to make sure that if our girls are travelling that they are not going to be in a risky or unsafe situation,” explains a Girl Guides spokesperson. Metro also reports on Bay Street’s supposed commitment to gender parity, revealing that women are still badly underrepresented in executive roles at Canada’s major banks. And in a rich tradition for Metro‘s front page, once again they put a bird on it this morning, to illustrate a feature about how the chirps and cheeps of the natural world can help relieve urban stress.
Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
Mayor John Tory, much like the similar mayonnaise substitute Miracle Whip, will not tone it down, reports the Toronto Sun. Tory is steaming mad over a lack of financial support from the Province to help fund transit and housing and is demanding that Premier Wynne “Put Up Or Shut Up” in the upcoming budget. Tory is not usually as macho in real life as he occasionally is on the front page of the Sun, so we’ll see if this tough talk pays off. And alleged Sun humorist Mike Strobel has had it up to here with these whiny little snowflakes enrolled at “Mollycoddle U” (a.k.a. the University of Western Ontario), who are protesting an upcoming speech by notorious gender-neutral-pronoun-averse U of T professor Jordan Peterson. Strobel, a free speech advocate who recently busted a head valve when Meryl Streep had the temerity to criticize Donald Trump at the Golden Globes, argues that people he already agrees with should be allowed to say whatever they want, hurt feelings be damned:
We are teaching our kids to be afraid of their own shadow.
What happened to universities as wonderful bubbling stews of ideas, viewpoints, rebellion and fearlessness? Isn’t debate the best way to learn?
Are today’s schools turning out free thinkers … or politically correct zombies?
This week’s winner: Metro wins for giving the Girl Guides of Canada a prominent spot on the front page for their principled stand (which they insist is not meant as a political statement) in light of Trump’s travel ban, a decision that is already having an unintended worldwide impact on American tourism.
Illustration by Brett Lamb
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