In 1878, the federal government passed the Canada Temperance Act, drafted by Liberal Senator Richard William Scott. Sometimes known as the Scott Act, this legislation granted individual municipalities the right to put alcohol sale to a plebiscite, and to enforce a ban on its sale should the majority of voters favour one. Implementing such a ban on alcohol sale was generally known as exercising “local option,” and over the years several Ontario communities chose to take advantage of this right. One such community was Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood, which banned the sale of alcohol in 1904, while still an independent municipality.
In 1903, the Junction was the town of Toronto Junction; its reported population in October of that year was just shy of 7,000. Convenient rail access, low tax rates, and a local customs office had served to attract many factories to the area, which in turn spurred commercial growth, particularly along Dundas Street. These amenities, coupled with the Junction’s six hotels, served to make the town a popular stopping point for those going to and from the city of Toronto. The local hotels did steady business, with each maintaining a barroom where the bulk of the profits were made.
The factors which brought enforced temperance to the Junction were many and nuanced. While the temperance movement was growing across much of Canada, there was local concern over the unfortunate reputation that the Junction was earning for itself.
Both Heydon House, located at the northwest corner of (Old) Weston Road and St. Clair, and Brown’s Hotel, located further north, had a reputation for fights and general rowdiness. For several years Heydon House, the Junction’s largest hotel in 1903, was also a regular venue for cockfighting, and sometimes the subject of police raids. On February 22, 1903, Rev. T.E.E. Shore gave a sermon at the Annette Street Methodist Church on “Some Needed Reforms in Toronto Junction.” Shore outlined several problems he believed to be plaguing the town, including the existence of gambling dens, to which he accused the local police of brazenly turning a blind eye. He reserved most of his ire, however, for the local hotels, the primary (legal) purveyors of alcohol in the Junction. The Star quotes Shore as saying “Many a poor fallen girl has told me down in yonder mission how she fell into sin and degradation in Junction hotels. Men do not go to those hotels merely for refreshments or to quench their thirst. They are cesspools, I say. Cesspools of harlotry, vice, and iniquity.”
The sermon ignited a debate over local option which raged in Toronto Junction throughout 1903. The town divided into those who saw alcohol as the root of the problem, and the moderates who argued that they could make do with more vigorous enforcement of the current laws and an investigation into the liquor licensing system. The pro-local option side was led by several prominent townspeople, in particular the Protestant ministers, who increasingly called for prohibition in their sermons. The cause was also championed by some members of the town council, particularly Councillors A.H. Perfect and future MPP William A. Baird. The “Antis,” as the opposition was known in the press, were understandably led by the local hotel owners, whose livelihood depended on alcohol sales; on the town council, their political champion was councillor and former Junction mayor James Bond.
Canada's largest city isn't immune to the effects of climate change, Toronto government research has found.
In addition to sweltering hot July and August temperatures this year, there are predictions that summer temperatures in Toronto could reach 44 C by 2050, according to Toronto's climate driver study.
"It's startling," David Carlson, director of the World Climate Research Program at the UN's World Meteorological Organization, said of recent NASA data pointing to a leap in global temperatures. "It's definitely a changed planet. ... It makes us nervous about the long-term impact."
Scientists say global warming is also causing more powerful downpours, droughts and rising sea levels.
Extreme weather has also hit Toronto in the form of massive storms. In July 2013 the city saw 126 millimetres of rain dumped in a matter of hours. The storm flooded subways and saw dozens of cars partially submerged in water and abandoned on major roads like the Don Valley Parkway. It also left tens of thousands of people without power.
The storm flooded many homes, including that of Bev Silva, who didn't know her former North York home was on a flood plain when she bought it more than 30 years ago.
A new Moss Park is taking shape on paper as residents continue to worry what a growing neighbourhood means for the rare downtown green space.
A more-than-$100-million community recreation centre proposed to replace the existing John Innes Community Recreation Centre — the only recreation centre in the increasingly dense downtown ward — is being pitched as the antidote to pending gentrification.
This week, residents got the first look at what’s being proposed — a multi-storey building that stretches much of the width of the park on the western edge to include new ice pads, gyms and gathering spaces. City council has yet to see a feasibility study or make any decisions about the park.
It’s an early concept, designers stressed at a meeting in the park Wednesday night, after the city and community agency, the 519, partnered to consult some 1,800 people.
Residents heard this week the project will include completely landscaping the park with promenades, a splash pad, tennis and basketball courts.
The Presto fare card system is supposed to help modernize the TTC. But what’s being done to make sure it doesn’t leave the transit agency’s most vulnerable customers behind?
By the end of this year, the TTC plans to finish rolling out Presto readers across its entire network. Sometime in mid-2017, the agency intends to stop accepting all other fare media, including tokens and tickets.
That could mean big changes for dozens of drop-in centres, homeless shelters and other social service agencies that distribute thousands of TTC tokens to their marginalized clients each year.
According to Elis Ziegler, manager of the Toronto Drop-In Network, community agencies have been left in the dark about how they will provide transit support to clients once Presto is in place and tokens are eliminated.
“The token system as distributed by non-profits is challenging enough. The problem is that we don’t know what that replacement is going to be,” Ziegler said.
In the days since the death of former Toronto police chief Bill McCormack, there’s been much talk of his legacy; as a family man, as a homicide investigator, as the city’s first Catholic police chief.
But like all chiefs before and after him, McCormack, who was Toronto's top cop from 1991 to 1995, was a deeply controversial figure.
Some of the scrutiny he endured during his tenure was relatively silly and inconsequential. When he assumed the post, McCormack came under fire for donning war medals that he wasn’t entitled to wear, technically a criminal offence. The RCMP refused to bring charges forward and the city moved on.
Other actions, however, were deeply serious.
At the same time that the war medals controversy was ongoing, the Toronto police began conducting a covert surveillance campaign on members of the civilian oversight board charged with holding them to account.
The apocalypse is nigh. In 2019, New York City plans to shut down the portion of the L subway line that runs under the East River and across Manhattan, for a full 18 months of work to repair the damage wrought by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Make no mistake: The shutdown is going to suck. The city and its Metropolitan Transportation Authority are already scrambling to figure out how to get L train riders from Brooklyn not just into Manhattan, but across the island, running under 14th Street. No combination of ferries, buses, bike lanes, and even gondolas can fully replace the L, which moves 300,000 people on a typical weekday.
But there’s light in this tunnel, and not just at the end. If New York makes the right moves, it could turn this pile of lemons into pure Beyoncé, giving its denizens a better way to move through its canyons.
Last week, the MTA a announced it would study the lemonade recipe: a plan to expel cars from Manhattan’s 14th Street, in favor of Bus Rapid Transit, pedestrians, and cyclist infrastructure. It’s a temporary fix that, if advocates get their way, could become permanent.
“We’re looking at [the shutdown] as an opportunity to prove that modern, 21st century street design really maximizes not only throughput but livability,” says Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. The advocacy group, along with a New York City think tank, has been a major proponent of the pro-walker and -commuter 14th Street plan, which they call the “PeopleWay.”
The TTC Budget Committee will meet on September 21. At this point, we have only the most threadbare of reports that gives no indication of how transit service will survive the onslaught of Mayor Tory’s misguided and reckless attitude to funding TTC service.
The report is a mere six pages.
In order to give the impression that TTC management actually are achieving the cuts Tory wants, they have “found” some loose change to meet the 2.6% reduction in operating subsidy.
This saving is achieved by the following projected budget line reductions:
Remove land lines for TTC staff who are provided with cell phones ($0.3m)
An increase in capital projects in 2017 will cause a higher proportion of some staff costs to be charged to capital rather than operating ($0.8m)
Reduced budget for departmental overtime so that increased rates due to the collective agreement are absorbed within departmental budgets ($0.8m)
Reduced training and travel ($0.5m)
Reduced stand-by costs ($0.6m)
Materials and supplies costs reduced by: increased bus warranty recoveries, converting IT contractor positions to staff, reduced furniture and equipment budget. ($1.0m)
Deferral of the September 2015 service increase translates to a saving in full year costs to continue these improvements to 2016 ($1.5m)
Lower health care costs due to a downward trend in claims ($10.3m)
Most of the saving ($15.4m) actually occurs on the regular TTC side of the house with only $0.4m as lower Wheel-Trans costs. This is a simple case of the relative size of the two organizations and the tiny amount of infrastructure (beyond buses and a garage) that must be maintained out of the W-T budget.
For some they mean the beach. For others they mean work. They can be a draw for tourists, but are often just a backdrop for locals.
If you are an environmentalist, you might see them as a living, breathing thing in need of protection, but ask the average high school student and they’ll roll their eyes like they would for any five-point answer on a geography test.
On their own, they are Ontario, Superior, Huron, Erie and Michigan. Together they are the Great Lakes.
You can see them from space, but now a group of prominent Ontarians, helped along by the province’s lieutenant-governor, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, is looking to put them on the map — so to speak — with a campaign to brand the importance of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem onto peoples’ hearts and minds.
“Why not? The Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the planet. Why can't the Great Lakes be the heart and arteries of North America, or something like that?” said Douglas Wright, who is leading the initiative that will be unveiled next month at the Great Lakes Public Forum in Toronto.
It has been dubbed “Greatness — The Great Lakes Project” and the idea is deceptively simple: create a marketing campaign to embed the lake system deeper into the public consciousness. To get people thinking not only about the environmental threats and challenges, but also about the potential lapping at the shores of communities as diverse as Toronto, Thunder Bay, Toledo and Tobermory.
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