ArchiveJune 2014

By: Metro Published on Fri Jun 27 2014 Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong wants you to be really mad about some seemingly expensive umbrellas on Toronto’s waterfront. You shouldn’t be. Mostly because the umbrellas in question — installed on Toronto’s Sugar Beach at a cost of about $12,000 each — aren’t umbrellas at all. These aren’t standard patio parasols you can buy at the Canadian Tire garden centre...

At a campaign rally this past weekend, mayoral candidate Olivia Chow cast herself as something close to a “fiscal conservative” — whatever that means — asking voters this question: “Who do you trust with the public purse?” Opponent John Tory was not a fan of any of this. His campaign quickly put out a release accusing Chow of having a history of reckless spending and being...

By: Metro Published on Mon Jun 23 2014 Mayoral candidate Olivia Chow has a plan to improve Toronto’s municipal elections. She wants to make them shorter. Instead of allowing candidates to register in January for an October vote, Chow says she’d push the registration date back to July. It’s an appealing idea. After a bevy of byelections and a full provincial election, I think the Toronto...

By: Matt Elliott Metro, Metro Published on Wed Jun 18 2014 In the days following the election of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s majority government, disappointed conservatives worked themselves into a panic about Ontario’s fiscal future. Because voters rejected the kind of government cutbacks offered by Tim Hudak, they reason, the province is destined to be mired in deficits, debt and financial ruin...

By: Matt Elliott Metro, Metro Published on Fri Jun 13 2014 Kathleen Wynne was handed a giant pile of toxic baggage when she became Liberal leader. She inherited a government with only a fragile minority, she had to answer for a political party plagued by a ridiculous number of big-ticket scandals, and she faced an electorate that had consistently told pollsters that they’d really like to see...