[PHOTO] The old Charlottetown Visitor Information Centre

I worked here for three summers, working for the provincial government as I pointed visitors to places to go, places to see, and how to get to either.

[URBAN NOTE] On Olivia Chow, John Tory and Karen Stintz as future Toronto mayoral candidates

Last night, NDP MP Olivia Chow--as notable for her own accomplishments as for her marriage to the late Jack Layton had a book launch for her biography, My Journey. There, William Wolfe-Wylie noted for Canada.com, she didn't say she was running for mayor, but she came close.

At a standing-room only event on Wednesday evening to promote her new book, My Journey, Olivia Chow defied expectations and made no announcements about her political ambitions.

Chow has long been regarded as a key challenger to Rob Ford in this fall’s municipal election. Ford has been wrapped in scandal for nearly a year after allegations of drug and alcohol abuse turned out to be true and he was stripped of many of his mayoral powers. Following a fresh round of videos this week, three Toronto-based newspapers again called for the mayor to resign.

[. . .]

But while Chow didn’t make any explicit announcements, she did allude to the challenges Toronto faces and her ideas to help solve them. She spoke about the divisive nature of politics and the need for people to unite in the face of adversity. At several points during her interview with musician, photographer and broadcaster Sook-Yin Lee, she seemed to be building toward an announcement of some kind but then distanced herself from the topic.

[. . .]

Chow also spent some of her interview talking about her previous political victories on the municipal stage in Toronto, including her push to include multilingual support services on 9-1-1 operators and her support of social programs to help recent immigrants.

Chow came off funny, candid and as a woman who had learned much from a long and complicated life. She focused on her belief in the power of grassroots movements and the importance of speaking for people with little voice of their own. At several points in the evening she reiterated the importance of helping others at any opportunity and of avoiding divisive politics that harm those goals.

John Tory, who has appeared in this blog as a public figure only since the 2009 collapse of his political career, seems on the verge of running. (The Globe and Mail's Jill Mahoney reported.)

Radio host John Tory says he still has not made up his mind about whether to run for Toronto mayor as speculation continues about whether he and NDP MP Olivia Chow will challenge scandal-plagued Rob Ford.

Mr. Tory took to the airwaves on Wednesday evening to deny a Toronto Star story suggesting that he would launch his campaign in late February.

“There has been no decision taken to run or not to run,” Mr. Tory told Newstalk 1010, where he hosts an afternoon radio show.

[. . .]

Mr. Tory, who lost the 2003 mayoral race to David Miller and served as leader of the provincial Progressive Conservatives, said he would decide whether to run in February. A group of supporters is organizing a possible campaign to “preserve an option for me to run if I choose to do so,” he told the radio station.

[. . .]

Mr. Tory’s still-unofficial campaign team includes senior organizer Bob Richardson, a connected Liberal, and John Capobianco, a Conservative former Ford supporter.

(Torontoist's John Barber wonders if Tory is still relevant, given the decline of the old Red Tory tradition and its replacement in the Canadian conservative tradition by the populism represented by Ford.)

Karen Stintz, meanwhile, is preparing for her campaign as the Toronto Star's Betsy Powell noted some days ago.

Would-be Toronto mayoralty candidate Karen Stintz is calling out her rival, Mayor Rob Ford, for his offensive “conduct towards women” and suggesting sexism on the campaign trail will be unavoidable.

[. . .]

Stintz plans to file her nomination papers at city hall after she steps down as chair of the Toronto Transit Commission next month. Her weekend speech is a preview of a candidate positioning herself as someone with the tenacity and grit to withstand the downside of public life: “rising” cynicism and declining voter participation.

“I argue that now, more than ever, we must get involved,” the speaking notes say. “If Rob Ford has demonstrated anything, it is that it does matter whether or not we vote and it does matter who we vote for.”

During his term in office, the mayor has exhibited “disturbing” and “appalling” behavior, the speaking notes say. “Both his own conduct and his conduct towards women in his public statements have been reprehensible.”

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Acts of Minor Treason's Andrew Barton features a photo of an astonishingly long lineup of buses in Ottawa. I thought Dufferin Street could be bad!


• Anthropology.net reports on a huge find of ancient hominin remains in South Africa.


• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait reports on the new supernova in M82.


• Beyond the Beyond links to an approving review of a book on Internet art.


• The Big Picture has an extended photoessay of the Circassian minority in Sochi, remnant of mid-19th century ethnic cleansing.


• Centauri Dreams examines the study of the circumstellar disk of HD 142527, a distant star that apparently has a protoplanetary belt out 160 AU, far further than the Kuiper belt or any theory of planetary formation.


• The Language Log takes a look at the use of the word "iguana" to denote a shady character, tracing it to Florida and Charlie Crist.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the migration forced by free-trade agreements.


• Marginal Revolution reports that, to stave off a financial crisis, Argentina has begun limiting online shopping.


• The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla has more on the M82 supernova.


• Supernova Condensate examines the ocean planet and the trope's use in science fiction. If anything, it may be underused!


• At Torontoist, John Barber despairs of a debate on transit in the upcoming Toronto mayoral election.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russian neo-Nazi violence is becoming focused more against Central Asians than Caucasians.