[PHOTO] Looking east down the track, Keele station

[URBAN NOTE] "Mayor-elect John Tory wants opponents Olivia Chow, David Soknacki on his team"

Hope for the future, or empty high-sounding rhetoric? From the Toronto Star's Jennifer Pagliaro:

John Tory wants Olivia Chow and David Soknacki to be part of his administration at city hall when he transitions into the mayor’s chair in December.

“Olivia I had a brief conversation with last night, obviously on the phone. And I’ve obviously said some things publicly, which I meant — which is that I would like to find a way for both of them to participate in some way,” Tory said of Chow and Soknacki in a phone interview Tuesday morning. “In Olivia’s case, you know I don’t want to violate a private conversation, but she said she’s going to take a bit of a rest as any sane person would.”

[. . .]

“I honestly believe people who have enough gumption and passion to run for public office are people that obviously care a lot about the city,” he said. “We need them all to be given whatever chance they like to do something.”

Soknacki has returned to his business in spice extracts, but Tory said they have been in touch by phone since he dropped out of the race in September.

Tory said the offer still stands for mayoral candidate Karen Stintz, who also dropped out before the election.

[LINK] "Cpl. Nathan Cirillo mourned at funeral in Hamilton"

CBC reports on the Hamilton funeral of corporal Nathan Cirillo, the young man murdered at the war memorial in Ottawa last week.

Tears flowed freely in downtown Hamilton on Tuesday as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who was gunned down while standing guard at the National War Monument in Ottawa, was honoured with a regimental funeral in his hometown.

Cirillo's funeral procession arrived at Christ's Church Cathedral in just before noon as thousands of onlookers stood silently in the streets to pay their respects to the young soldier. Cirillo's mother Kathy sobbed as she was helped to her seat by members of her son's regiment, overcome with grief as his flag-draped casket was carried inside.

Cirillo's young son, Marcus, followed behind his father's casket, wearing the regiment's cap.

[. . .]

The church was full of politicians, members of the military and friends and family of the 24-year-old. Outside, thousands of Hamiltonians stood almost motionless and quiet in the streets, watching the procession of an estimated 4,500 military members as well as police and emergency service members as it moved through downtown Hamilton.

'He understood. He knew what he was protecting and what he was preserving.'—Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Not far away at FirstOntario Centre, several hundred attendees filled three sections of the arena as overflow seating to watch the service on large screens. Inside the arena, people sat, stood, recited prayers and followed the service in the same was as if they were inside the cathedral.

[URBAN NOTE] "What went wrong for Olivia Chow?"

Yahoo News Canada's Andy Radia has a nice roundup of reasons why mayoral candidate Olivia Chow finished so badly.

It wasn’t suppose to happen this way for Olivia Chow.

On Monday, Chow placed third in Toronto’s mayoral election finishing with just 23 per cent support.

That’s certainly not what Chow expected when she resigned as an NDP Member of Parliament back in March, and instantly became the front-runner in this race.

For much of the early spring, she was ahead in the opinion polls as the anti-Rob Ford candidate and the one who was supposed to appeal to the average, blue-collar worker.

There doesn’t seem to be a single reason – a consensus, if you will – on why Torontonians soured on Chow. There are, however, several theories.

Chow's conversation skills, the left/right ideological split in Toronto, racism and sexism, and tactical errors in the campaign all are raised.

[URBAN NOTE] "Lake Ontario is a Sea"

Daniel Rotsztain has a nice photo essay wondering why we call Lake Ontario--and the other Great Lakes--"lakes" instead of as "seas". The commenter who suggests "sea" is reserved for salt-water bodies might well have a point, but in other respects "sea" is more evocative of the true nature of these bodies of water.

A few weeks ago I biked over to The Guild park. Known for its collection of modern Toronto “ruins”, a bonus to visiting the park is its unobstructed view of Lake Ontario. Gazing from cliffs high above the water, far from the distractions of the Bluffs or the skyline, and without the Island and Leslie Spit interrupting the horizon, all that can be seen from the Guild’s vantage is sparkling and limitless blue.

[. . .]

When I was showing a friend from Sweden around Toronto last Winter, she looked over Lake Ontario and kept casually calling it “the sea”. In Swedish, sjö refers to both lakes and seas, so she wasn’t technically wrong. The roots of most Germanic languages make no distinction between lakes and seas, and it turns out, among today’s oceanographers, there is no accepted definition of sea.

The same goes for lakes. Though definitions vary, lake often refers to a small, inland body of water. And the way we use it, a lake suggests waters that are knowable, safe and domesticated — calm waters that you can dip your feet in at the cottage.

I know it’s just a matter of language, and may seem trivial. But the language we use says a lot about our relationship with the world, and Toronto could use some help reinvigorating its relationship with the vast body of water along its southern edge. Calling it a lake has made us forget about the water in our ideas of Toronto’s identity and geography. If we started calling it the Sea of Ontario, however, we would be acknowledging the water’s power and mystery, launching it into prominence in our civic mythology.