ArchiveJuly 2012

By: Metro Canada Published on Mon Jul 30 2012 For my Urban Compass column today, I wrote about the epic 22-hour meeting that took place at Toronto City Hall one year ago this week. It was a turning point for Mayor Rob Ford's administration—a single night that wiped the shine off Ford Nation. In the column, I focus primarily on a deputation given by fourteen-year-old Anika Tabovaradan. She...

By: Metro Toronto Published on Mon Jul 30 2012 A year ago, a teenage girl went to city hall in the dead of night to take on Mayor Rob Ford. Along with 168 others who came to speak to the mayor and his executive committee as part of a landmark 22-hour meeting on proposed service cuts, she permanently changed the tone of municipal politics in Toronto — and made for a really bad night for Rob Ford...

Let's make it clear right now: the Mayor of Toronto hates Nazis. That's not even up for debate. It's unequivocal. Which is why it's so unbelievable that Rob Ford's office found themselves playing defence yesterday as a photograph depicting the mayor and a uniformed neo-Nazi was passed around the internet. Ultimately, the whole thing proved rather benign. The photo was...

Having mostly given up on his bizarre idea that Toronto should simply exile all its criminals, Mayor Rob Ford changed strategies this week. In response to concerns about escalating gun violence in the city, the mayor held sit-down meetings with both Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Both meetings were successful in that they were, in fact, meetings. There were politicians...

By: Metro Canada Published on Fri Jul 20 2012 After a tragedy like the one on Danzig Street, politicians tend to measure their response by dividing themselves into two predictable camps. On one side, you've got the tough-on-crime crowd. They want more prisons and tougher laws. Opposing them are people that go to bat for more social programs. And so the debate goes. But then you have Mayor...