ArchiveNovember 2015

Climate change rally participants march at Queen's Park Sunday in Toronto. Mayor John Tory is off to Paris this week to talk climate change with other mayors and a gaggle of very important people. It’s all part of the United Nations’ COP21 hullabaloo that’s supposed to strengthen strategies on reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. It’s good he’s going. Not just because addressing...

A Porter Airlines plane lands next to a taxiing plane at Toronto's Island Airport on Friday, November 13, 2015. After new federal transportation minister Marc Garneau announced recently that he wouldn’t reopen the tripartite agreement governing Billy Bishop Island Airport — grounding Porter Airlines’ controversial plan to fly jets — some observers seemed to take the news pretty hard. “What...

John Tory's plan for SmartTrack West could cost up to $5 billion, making it one of Toronto's most expensive transit projects. Here’s the short version of what should happen to the western part of Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan: it should be banished. All documents and maps referencing it should be set on fire and burned to ashes. Those ashes should then be collected and...

Toronto Mayor John Tory looks over the council chamber during council meeting at Toronto City Hall on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. There’s a pattern to the way things work at Toronto City Hall. It’s as reliable as falling leaves in November, or delays on the 501 Queen streetcar. It goes like this: The mayor and councillors spend much of the year tinkering with grand plans to address Toronto’s most...

By: Matt Elliott Metro Published on Mon Nov 02 2015 On a drizzly Monday morning a few weeks back, economist Chris Ragan and I got into a car and set off in search of Toronto traffic. We didn’t have to look far. Soon after we got on the Don Valley Parkway at Bloor heading north, we were quickly swallowed by congestion. But the traffic served as a good backdrop for our conversation about what Ragan...