[PHOTO] Bathurst and Lake Shore, looking north (2)

Lake Shore Boulevard is arguably the southernmost of Toronto's major streets, girdling the coastline of the western two-thirds of Toronto's waterfront. The intersection with Bathurst Street, meanwhile, is arguably the southernmost major intersection of that north-south street, located squarely in the middle of a rapidly growing condo district.

Douglas Coupland's Monument to the War of 1812, a controversial public sculpture I blogged about and photographed close-up, is visible to the left of the photo, past the TTC bus.

Compare this photo taken in September 2012, four months later. Construction has progressed since this photo was taken in May.

[LINK] "Trudeau knocks Mulcair for 50-plus-1 stance on separation"

This news item, reported by the CBC, is noteworthy, inasmuch as it was a Liberal government that passed the Clarity Act while the NDP's breakthrough to Official Opposition status came mostly via the Orange Wave in Québec.

Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau slammed NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair's stance on introducing a new bill that would combine the NDP's Sherbrooke Declaration on sovereignty in Quebec with the Clarity Act, keeping the NDP's resolution to recognize a 50-per-cent-plus-one vote in any future referendum.

Speaking to reporters in Calgary, Trudeau said, "You cannot be half-pregnant on the question of Canadian unity … for me, it's absolutely unacceptable."

Trudeau was referring to the fact that while the NDP says it will oppose a Bloc Québécois bill to repeal the Clarity Act, the law that mandates a clear question and clear majority in any Quebec referendum, it has tabled an act of its own that upholds the 50-per-cent-plus-one majority for a vote on secession.

The NDP's bill, a private member's bill entitled an Act Respecting Democratic Institutional Change, was tabled Monday by NDP MP Craig Scott.

The bill would retain the Clarity Act's insistence on a clear question in any referendum, and would uphold the part that says that secession must be negotiated with other parties after a referendum in which 50-per-cent-plus-one of the Quebec population voted to separate.

[. . .]

Bill C-457, an Act to Repeal the Clarity Act, was introduced in October by Bloc MP André Bellavance. In support of the bill, Bloc Leader Daniel Paillé wrote a letter to all the party leaders except the Green's Elizabeth May, arguing that since they voted to recognize the Quebec people as a nation in 2006, they must realize that a nation has the right to decide its own destiny in its own way.

[The NDP] is on the hot seat now, because in 2005 it adopted its Sherbrooke Declaration, which states the NDP would recognize a 50-per-cent-plus-one vote in a referendum on the political status of Quebec. The declaration was part of the NDP's attempt to make significant inroads into the province of Quebec, which it saw as its path to eventually forming government.

Speaking in defence of the Clarity Act, its author Liberal MP Stéphane Dion asked if 50-per-cent-plus-one is a clear majority, then what could be an unclear majority?

[. . .]

The introduction of a bill that has no chance of passing may be its first shot in flushing out the views of the NDP on whether it backs its own Sherbrooke Declaration or supports the Clarity Act.

[LINK] "Separatist Quebec premier to meet with Scottish counterpart"

This news item seems to have gotten more attention in Canada than in the United Kingdom, perhaps because of Québec's longer history of active separatism, perhaps because of Québec's long history foreign entanglements and connections. Scottish and British readers?

Pauline Marois says she looks forward to chatting about independence next week — not to helping achieve it.

She will meet with Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, during a stop in Edinburgh on Jan. 29.

Marois says she knows his pro-independence Scottish National Party has observed her Parti Québécois with interest and she's ready to answer any questions Salmond might have.

"I will obviously not interfere in their politics or decisions," Marois told a news conference Tuesday.

"But you know they have observed Quebec quite a bit, and our experiences. Mr. Salmond will surely have some questions to ask me."

So what is the meeting's objective?

"My objective is not necessarily to make a contribution, to have an influence, but it's really an exchange between political people who have similar perspectives on certain subjects, such as achieving more powers and on the means for achieving powers or becoming independent," she said.

Unlike the Scottish nationalists, the PQ has already held two referendums in failed attempts at independence over the years but currently has no timetable for a third such vote.

The SNP, on the other hand, is now planning to hold its first such referendum after being elected with a majority government for the first time since the creation of the modern Scottish parliament.

Although the PQ and the SNP have forged ties over the years, it will be the first time their respective leaders meet while in power.

Their movements do share a familiar obstacle: less-than-favourable polls.

Surveys peg support for Scottish independence at levels that suggest it might be hard to achieve when the referendum takes place in the fall of 2014.

[LINK] "First Evidence of Life in Antarctic Subglacial Lake"

At Discover Magazine's blog The Crux, journalist Douglas Fox blogged about the discovery of life in Antarctica's Lake Whillans, a subglacial lake beneath the Whillans Ice Stream in the West Antarctica Ice Sheet.

At 6:20am on January 28, four people in sterile white Tyvek suits tended to a wench winding cable onto the drill platform. One person knocked frost off the cable as it emerged from the ice borehole a few feet below. The object of their attention finally rose into sight: a gray plastic vessel, as long as a baseball bat, filled with water from Lake Whillans, half a mile below.

The bottle was hurried into a 40-foot cargo container outfitted as a laboratory on skis. Some of the lake water was squirted into bottles of media in order to grow whatever microbes might inhabit the lake. Those cultures could require weeks to produce results. But one test has already produced an interesting preliminary finding. When lake water was viewed under a microscope, cells were seen: their tiny bodies glowed green in response to DNA-sensitive dye. It was the first evidence of life in an Antarctic subglacial lake.

(A Russian team has reported that two types of bacteria were found in water from subglacial Lake Vostok, but DNA sequences matched those of bacteria that are known to live inside kerosene—causing the scientists to conclude that those bacteria came from kerosene drilling fluid used to bore the hole, and not from Lake Vostok itself.)

In order to conclusively demonstrate that Lake Whillans harbors life, the researchers will need to complete more time-consuming experiments showing that the cells actually grow—since dead cells can sometimes show up under a microscope with DNA-sensitive staining. And weeks or months will pass before it is known whether these cells represent known types of microbes, or something never seen before. But a couple of things seem likely. Most of those microbes probably subsist by chewing on rocks. And despite being sealed beneath 2,600 feet of ice, they probably have a steady supply of oxygen.

The oxygen comes from water melting off the base of the ice sheet—maybe a few penny thicknesses of ice per year. “When you melt ice, you’re liberating the air bubbles [trapped in that ice],” says Mark Skidmore, a geomicrobiologist at Montana State University who is part of the Whillans drilling, or WISSARD, project. “That’s 20 percent oxygen,” he says. “It’s being supplied to the bed of the glacier.”

In one possible scenario, lake bacteria could live on commonly occurring pyrite minerals that contain iron and sulfur. The bacteria would obtain energy by using oxygen to essentially “burn” that iron and sulfur (analogous to the way that animals use oxygen to slowly burn sugars and fats). Small amounts of sulfuric acid would seep out as a byproduct; that acid would attack other minerals in the sands and sediments of the lake—leaching out sodium, potassium, calcium, and other materials that would accumulate in the water.

[URBAN NOTE] On the unlikeliness of a park at 11 Wellesley Street West

I've blogged a couple of times about how some people living near the vacant government-owned lot at 11 Wellesley Street West want to make the lot, or part of it, a public park. A post at the Toronto Blog

A real estate transaction that was scheduled to close yesterday may dash many downtown residents’ dreams for the creation of a new public park on a vacant Wellesley Street West site surrounded by thousands of existing condo and apartment units, with thousands more on the way. But the local City Councillor has pledged to continue fighting for green space on the location.

Ward 27 Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam told Tuesday night’s annual general meeting of the Church Wellesley Neighbourhood Association (CWNA) that Wednesday January 23 was the scheduled closing date for the sale of empty provincially-owned land at 11 Wellesley Street West. Barring an unforeseen event, she said, title for the land would rest in the hands of its new owner by 4.30 p.m. Wednesday. [Editor's Note: CWNA board of directors member Paul Farrelly posted this update on the CWNA's Facebook page January 26: "Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam has been recently advised by the developer that the transaction will not close until the end of February. A visit on Thursday to Land Registry revealed a new construction lien for $650,000 was put on the property by a construction company on Jan 13,2013, but its not clear whether that has anything to do with the delayed closing."]

Many in the CWNA audience had been hoping Councillor Wong-Tam would announce significant positive developments in her work to obtain at least some of the land for City park space, but she had no such good news to report in her brief update on the subject. She could say only that the City will continue its efforts to secure part of the property from its new owner. The buyer has not yet been publicly identified.

[URBAN NOTE] "TTC by the kilometre? Distance-based fares could help pay for expanded transit"

John, who linked to Tess Malinowski's Toronto Star article on Facebook, made the very good point that charging TTC users extra based on the distance they travel would discriminate against people who need to make long-distance commutes on public transit, i.e. low-income people who live in suburban Toronto because housing costs are so much lower than in the downtown Toronto where they work. It's a terrible idea.

Metrolinx says the region needs to find at least $40 billion to save itself from economically choking on gridlock over the next 25 years, and residents should expect to pay since governments don’t have the money for those investments.

A former transportation minister, Wynne is already on the record that the region has to come up with new money to pay for transit expansion, said RCCAO spokesman Andy Manahan.

Road tolls and transit taxes, traditionally a “politically toxic” subject, could help a new premier position herself as fiscally responsible, he said.

[. . .]

Except for GO Transit, Toronto area transit companies haven’t typically set their prices by distance, say the report’s authors, economics professor Harry Kitchen of Trent University and Robin Lindsey, of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

They suggest that flat-fare transit encourages urban sprawl by allowing commuters to live farther from their jobs without paying more to commute.

“Flat fares also discourage people from using transit for short trips, and this low demand makes it difficult to justify expanding service to nearby suburbs,” says the report.

But it goes onto recommend that transit fares only be restructured in conjunction with other road pricing measures, such as tolling 400-series highways.

[URBAN NOTE] On the Silver Snail's Black Canary coffee shop

Writing in the National Post, Dave Bidini reviews the in-house coffee shop--Black Canary Espresso Bar, apparently--of the Silver Snail comic shop at its new location on 329 Yonge Street. It's a wonderful autobiographical essay on Bidini's part.

In the 80s and 90s, there were a handful of fine city comic shops, but none as fine, it seemed, as the Silver Snail. I remember the feeling of expectation waiting for the next “Dark Knight” or “Watchmen” the way I had for albums by my favourite bands, moving through the Queen Street store to the rack at the back of the room.

My girlfriend and I would share the cost; each of us buying a comic and trading them. Sleeved in plastic and parcelled into thin brown envelopes, we’d head to the Queen Mother or the Rivoli or — in the way old days, the Queen Street Diner — and take out the comics, sipping diner coffee, sharing the cheapest item on the menu and reading front to back, and front to back again. Then, a long subway ride back to the suburbs.

Until the recent opening of the Black Canary Cafe, there’s never been anything like an official Toronto comics’ cafe.

But with the Silver Snail having moved from their longstanding Queen Street shop to Yonge and Dundas — I’ll always remember my infant son begging us to take him to see if the window display had changed, and if it hadn’t, wondering who they’d put in there next — proprietors had the good sense to make room for the Black Canary, which sits at your elbow as you walk into the second-floor walk-up. Here, you can buy whatever you need, then avoid weather or distance to spend quality time reading and drinking coffee inside the store itself. Modern comic lovers never had it so good.

After a spell of seasonal shopping before Christmas, I hauled my X-Men and Spider-Man kids’ collections on the cafe’s west-facing bar over-looking Yonge Street, an experience that revealed the Canary as not only a true comics cafe, but a Yonge street portal, maybe the only place on the strip to sit and drink and watch Toronto; a new Toronto; new and fast and lively and busy.

I was reminded of the Burger King that once stood in the same block. As kids, we’d sit by the floor-level window and turn albums over in our hands drinking Cokes and root beers; reading liner notes, studying musicians’ credits. Then, a long subway ride back to the suburbs.

[URBAN NOTE] "The Rob and Doug Ford Radio Recap: “Great Day For Democracy” Edition"

Torontoist's David Hains recapped the two-hour talk show on Newstalk 1010 run every Sunday afternoon by Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Doug. Last Sunday's was the first after the court ruling overturning his

It's a minor piece of comedy.

It’s the Rob and Doug extravaganza! The mayor’s Sunday radio talk show is usually filled with blustery anger, but was yesterday’s also tinged with joyous outrage, given Friday’s verdict? Find out below, in our recap.

1:07: Rob kicks off the show by congratulating incoming Premier Kathleen Wynne. Later in the show, he says he’ll ask her for subways.

1:13: Doug Ford says Friday was a “great day for democracy,” and that the Ford family have “always been strong believers in democracy and the judicial system.”

1:15: Council speaker Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston) says she was disappointed that some members of council tried to position themselves for more power in anticipation of the vacant mayor’s seat. “Disgusting,” she says.

1:16: Doug talks about how councillors have wanted to become Budget Chair in the wake of Mike Del Grande’s resignation, and then deflates Nunziata’s point about disgusting power-hungry politicians: “You lobbied me too to be the chair.”

1:18: Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” brings the show back from commercial. The people want cowbell, folks. Cowbell, cowbell, cowbell.

1:19: Rob reads a variation on his speech from Friday, saying he wants to spend the next six years getting the job done and building consensus. Rob is much better speaking extemporaneously than from prepared notes, and so this comes across as terrible radio.