[PHOTO] Crawling over snowbanks in the Annex

The amount of snow that has already melted thanks to yesterday's warm temperatures is noteworthy. Much of this snow is simply not here now.

[BRIEF NOTE] On how the government of Spain is pushing Catalonia towards independence

In 2009 and 2010, I mentioned the ban brought in by Catalonia on bullfighting, ostensibly purely out of a concern for the well-being of the animals killed in the ring for humans' amusement but also out of a rejection of this, a signal marker of Hispanic identity. Now, Giles Tremlett in The Guardian reports that, at a time of growing separatist sentiment in Catalonia, the Spanish government hopes to overturn this ban.

Spain's parliament is expected on to take the first steps towards declaring bullfighting a key part of the country's cultural heritage in an attempt to revitalise a dwindling, if gory, tradition.

A popular petition, signed by 590,000 people, seeks to have the bullfight formally categorised as an asset of cultural interest - a move that would give promoters tax breaks and allow them to flout a ban imposed by local authorities in the eastern region of Catalonia.

The conservative People's party of prime minister Mariano Rajoy, which holds an absolute majority in parliament, has already said it will back the petition and start the process of turning it into law.

This comes as figures released by the culture ministry show bullfighting is in the middle of an historic decline, with Spaniards gradually turning their backs on it and recession seeing public money to fund fights dry up.

Between 2007 and 2011, the number of fights dropped from 3,650 a year to just 2,290. Of the latter, top class fights involving professional bullfighters or horse-borne rejoneadores and bulls aged three or above accounted for just 1,120 fights. Only 560 fights were of top rank matadors against full-grown bulls.

Numbers are believed to have dropped further in 2012, when Spain fell back into a double-dip recession, public austerity saw even less public funding for bullfights and the Catalan ban came into effect.

(This after the bullrings have been imaginatively repurposed by designers.)

Expatica's coverage touches upon the regional and separatist dimensions of this move, noting that the explicit effort of the Spanish central government to overturn a locally popular decision in Catalonia is going to inflame things still further. (I've mentioned in the past that there's an emergent separatist majority in Catalonia, right?)

Way to go, guys, Way to go.

[URBAN NOTE] "Scarborough Residents Talk Transit"

Desmond Cole's Torontoist post last week covering a city-organized meeting on mass transit in Scarborough, the easternmost former municipality of Toronto, was interesting. Scarborough is famously distant from downtown Toronto, not only in terms of geography but of removal from the TTC.

After some introductory remarks by staff, attendees began to discuss how the City could go about improving the way it moves people and goods across the region. Norm Feder, a retired Scarborough resident who primarily uses a car, spoke up. “Improving the travel experience for commuters is my number one priority,” he said. He added that he’d like to see developments along public-transit corridors be planned in better consultation with existing residents. “The City and the province have to co-ordinate development instead of doing it unilaterally,” he said.

Others, like Guled Arale, a student and public transit advocate, argued in favour of density and an accompanying transit network as a way of addressing inequality. “People use cars not because they choose to drive,” Arale said of residents in Scarborough, “it’s because they need to drive. We need to think about building communities where people can live and work without going across or out of the city.” He favoured more walkable communities and transit connections within Scarborough.

The scale of new developments was a recurring theme throughout the evening, one that Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) addressed. “Look at how long it’s taken us to build what [former mayor] Mel [Lastman] promised us,” she said, referring to development along the Sheppard subway line. “It’s a huge challenge to develop with density because many people don’t want the buildings, but they also don’t want taxes for transportation.”

Carroll agreed with a comment from one of the City staff members at the consultation, who said that the cancellation of the vehicle registration tax has made Torontonians wary of future City levies for transportation. “The mayor doesn’t seem to accept that the streams of revenue need to match the projects we want to build,” Carroll said. She accused the mayor of “playing political football with revenue tools other municipalities are embracing.”

Rob Hatton, a corporate financing staffer with the City, noted that since Metrolinx is expected to release on a report on how to fund transit in the GTA, now would be a bad time for Toronto to begin its own conversation about taxes and fees for transportation. “We’re not going there,” Hatton said bluntly. He pointed out that one quarter of the approximately $2 billion Metrolinx plans to raise annually will come back to municipalities to fund their priorities.

John Taranu, a volunteer with Cycle Toronto told staff that “the first consideration of any transportation network should be safety.” Taranu noted that Toronto’s public transit network is generally safe, but walking and cycling is often very dangerous, especially at large intersections and near highway on- and off-ramps. “Sometimes it’s very hard for people, especially seniors, just to get across the street in one light,” Taranu said. Cycle Toronto is pushing Metrolinx and the City to include considerations for cycling in all its consultations.

[CT] "The Senate of Canada is Completely Useless"

I have a post up at Crasstalk wherein I reveal to the non-Canadian world the many, existential flaws of the Senate of Canada. (My chosen title for the post signals my personal preferences.)

[LINK] Justin Trudeau on not really reforming the Senate

In the National Post, Liberal Party leadership contender Justin Trudeau came out in favour of not doing much with the Senate by way of reform apart from more consistently appointing a better quality of senator.

[Trudeau] said recent scandals “are a reflection of an institution that we haven’t taken proper care of and that the prime minister has gone out of his way to fill with people who, perhaps, aren’t focused on serving Canadians with the best of their ability the way they should be.”

“It needs to be fixed by demanding better of the people that we choose to appoint to the Senate. That’s the answer for me,” he said after a pep talk late Monday to several hundred

Trudeau defended the Senate as a necessary “counterpoint” to the elected House of Commons and praised most senators for doing “extraordinary work.”

[. . .]

Trudeau turned thumbs down on electing senators, without first changing the gross under-representation of western provinces or establishing a deadlock breaking mechanism between two elected parliamentary chambers.

“I think an elected Senate is a terrible idea,” he said.

“If you all of sudden have a legitimate Senate that exercises the full extent of its powers — as opposed to one that understands that it’s less legitimate than the House of Commons because it’s not elected — you’re transforming our system in very, very negative ways.

“Not to mention that all of sudden Alberta with only six senators who are elected is much weaker than Quebec, that has 24 senators that would be elected. It would unbalance so many things that we just have to focus on making it a better quality Senate rather than trying to change the Senate.”