[CAT] Shakespeare, mid-yawn

[PHOTO] Bartlett above Dupont, winter

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the advanced microelectronics that might last a space probe the two decades it would take to get to Proxima Centauri.


• Dangerous Minds links to a 1980 filmed concert performance by Queen.


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on the discovery of potassium in the atmosphere of WASP-17b.


• Language Hat looks at the Carmina of Optatianus, an interesting piece of Latin literature.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the shameless anti-democratic maneuvering of the Republicans in North Carolina.


• The LRB Blog reflects on the shamelessness of the perpetrators of the Aleppo massacres.


• Marginal Revolution looks at what Charles Darwin's reading habits have to say about the man's process of research.


• North!'s Justin Petrone looks at the elves of Estonia.


• The NYRB Daily praises the new movie Manchester by the Sea.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares a recent photo of Phobos.


• Peter Rukavina argues that the Island's low PISA scores do not necessarily reflect on what Islanders have learned.


• Savage Minds shares an essay by someone who combines academic work with library work.


• Torontoist notes the city's subsidies to some major water polluters.


• Window on Eurasia notes the anniversary of some important riots in Kazakhstan.


• Arnold Zwicky reflects on the penguin-related caption of a photo on Wikipedia that has made the world laugh.

[URBAN NOTE] "Plan to revitalize Stelco supported by Ontario, opposed by Hamilton"

The Globe and Mail's Greg Keenan reports on a very controversial plan for rebuilding Hamilton's storied Stelco steel plant.

A plan to lift Stelco Inc. out of creditor protection is backed by the Ontario government and one of the steel maker’s union locals, but another union local, the city of Hamilton and a former president of the company oppose the proposal.

A restructuring agreement backed by Ontario and local 8782 of the United Steelworkers union calls for Bedrock Industries Group LLC to lease the land the steel company’s mills are located on, pay off a secured debt owed to former parent United States Steel Corp., and provide money to partially finance pension plans and health-care benefits.

The deal will enable Stelco to “emerge as a stand alone steel manufacturer with a restructured balance sheet and sufficient liquidity so that it will be able to compete in challenging steel market conditions,” Ernst & Young, the monitor appointed by the Ontario Superior Court, said in a filing before a hearing on the plan scheduled for Thursday.

[. . .]

A court filing by the city of Hamilton said the plan does not include the payment of $7.8-million in property taxes that will be owed by the steel maker as of March 31, 2017.

Part of the plan that includes hiving off 513 acres of Stelco land in Hamilton to be sold and redeveloped was done without consultation with city officials, the filing added.

[URBAN NOTE] "Montreal’s new CBC headquarters could help right an old wrong"

The Globe and Mail's Robert Everett-Green writes about exciting prospects for the new CBC headquarters in Montréal.

Incredible as it may seem, there was a time in recent memory when cutting-edge urban planning could include replacing a bustling residential neighbourhood with parking lots. If the CBC and two private developers have their way, a notorious result of that kind of raze-and-pave mentality in Montreal’s east end may be partly reversed.

The public broadcaster has accepted two purchase-and-development offers for its large and desolate Maison Radio-Canada property, which was expropriated in the 1950s from a working-class community of 5,000 people. The deals are the first step in a plan to build a new headquarters for French-language broadcasting on the site’s eastern edge, and a 280,000-square-metre mixed-use development on the rest of what used to be the old francophone neighbourhood of Faubourg à m’lasse.

“We’re definitely going to try to make up for what was done,” says Vincent Chiara, whose Groupe Mach plans to build about 20 silvery buildings of varying heights on the western portion of the site, including condos, social housing and retail and office space. Chiara also said he would restore some of the road network that criss-crossed the vanished Faubourg, and convert the 24-storey Radio-Canada tower into loft-type offices.

The new broadcast centre would be built by a consortium led by Montreal-based Broccolini, with Béïque Legault Thuot Architectes of Montreal and Quadrangle, a Toronto design firm that developed CHUM/MuchMusic’s pioneering broadcast spaces. Computer-generated illustrations and a video of the concept show a luminous, mainly glass-walled complex of buildings linked by a four-storey atrium. Elevated walkways will pass through the wooden-beamed atrium, which will be visible from offices and multiplatform studios, and will have the same versatility as the atrium at the CBC’s English-language HQ in Toronto. The aim, CBC president and chief executive officer Hubert T. Lacroix says, is to create a more compact, transparent and publicly accessible HQ than the old tower, where 80 per cent of the usable space was underground.

[URBAN NOTE] "B.C.’s free loans to homebuyers won’t buy much in Vancouver"

MacLean's' Jason Kirby describes how a BC government program involving free loans to homebuyers will not help people shopping in Vancouver, with examples.

Attention, all young residents of Vancouver feeling shut out of the local housing market in this, the lead-up to May’s provincial election: Premier Christy Clark is here to help with free money!

Well, sort of. On Thursday, the government unveiled details of its new B.C. Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership, which will see the province provide interest-free 25-year loans of up to $37,500—or five per cent of the purchase price of a home—with no requirement to start paying back the money for five years. Not everyone qualifies for this homebuyer subsidy, mind you—only people struggling to get by on household incomes of less than $150,000 a year can use it. And don’t go thinking you can buy a mansion, either: the maximum purchase price under Clark’s plan is $750,000.

Which, if you’re looking for a house and not a condo near downtown, leaves you with limited options.

How limited? Well, according to Realtor.ca, there are only four houses available for under $750,000. They don’t come with land. And you’ll have to build two of them.

[URBAN NOTE] blogTO on the booming rental prices in Toronto

blogTO shares the horrifying news.

The price of a Toronto apartment has reached a depressing new landmark for would-be renters out there. According to PadMapper's most recent rent report, the average cost of a one bedroom rental has hit the $1,500 mark.

That's up 4.9 per cent from $1,430 last month. Two bedrooms aren't any more palatable, coming in at an average of $1,900 for December. These numbers keep Toronto just behind Vancouver's rental market, which remains the most expensive in the country.

With the Toronto real estate market surpassing Vancouver's as the hottest in the country, we could, however, see rental rates in both cities get closer and closer. Month over month, Vancouver's one bedroom units only increased 1.1 per cent to $1,800.

[URBAN NOTE] On the new location of the First Nations School of Toronto

Rhiannon Russell's Torontoist post tells the story of the First Nations School of Toronto. I needed to know this, and, I think, so do you.

In his Grade 3 class in Thunder Bay, the students were a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous, but Kakegamic, who is Oji-Cree from the Keewaywin First Nation, noticed the teacher treated them all the same. It was at this point in his life that his non-Indigenous friends started telling him their parents didn’t want them playing with him anymore. “Because you’re Indian.”

But in that classroom, to that teacher, they were all equal.

“I wanted to be like her,” Kakegamic says.

Now, Kakegamic is principal of First Nations School of Toronto. He’s worked in education for 25 years, first as a teacher and principal in his home community, then as a teacher, vice-principal, and principal at Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School, a First Nations school in Thunder Bay.

“It was hard,” Kakegamic says of the racist remarks he heard growing up. “I got bitter. I got angry. Racism cuts to the core of your well-being, your soul. It does damage to you. It makes you question who you are. I’m in my 40s, and I still struggle with that sometimes.”

That’s why Kakegamic believes the First Nations School of Toronto is crucial. It gives Indigenous kids a place to learn about their culture, their history, and themselves.

In January, the school will move from its current location at 935 Dundas Street East to join the Toronto District School Board’s Aboriginal Education Centre at the former Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute site off the Danforth. It’s a larger space, with 2.4 hectares (six acres) of land in total.

The First Nations school goes from kindergarten to Grade 8, though in the fall of 2017, it will extend to Grade 12. Its students are from a variety of backgrounds: Ojibway, Mohawk, Mi’kmaq, Cree, Oji-Cree, Plains Cree. It offers the usual subjects—math, sciences, and the like—but students spend 40 minutes every day in a native language and culture class, where they learn about First Nations history, sing songs, and hear stories. Every morning, students and teachers smudge.

[URBAN NOTE] "Will Peel police chief be part of board’s vision for change?"

The Toronto Star's San Grewal notes that Peel Regional Police Chief Jennifer Evans is in big trouble.

Peel police chief Jennifer Evans has spent much of the year battling the board that oversees her on issues such as carding, which she refused to stop. Now, with her contract up for renewal next year, and a community restless for change, some close to the situation say a collision is looming over the future of policing in two of Canada’s largest cities.

The latest controversy is a $21 million lawsuit launched against Evans, alleging she “all but guaranteed” a policing career to a bystander who was shot by a Peel officer. The chief told the Star the lawsuit’s allegations, which haven’t been tested in court, are “without merit.” On Wednesday the board told the Star an emergency meeting has been called for Friday to deal with the lawsuit, which also names the board as a defendant. The board chair did not rule out an internal investigation of Evans.

“It’s like tectonic plates,” says Fred Kaustinen, executive director of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards, who is at the centre of the reform movement in policing across the province. He talks about the collision in Peel between the board, as it pushes for change, and the force, led by Evans, which is resisting. “They’re pushing together and all of a sudden it’s creating a very loud, noisy, earth-shaking change.”

That change in Peel is being led by a police board that has taken a different approach than previous boards, which were aligned with the direction of senior officers, says Kaustinen, who served as the Peel police board’s interim executive director after the previous one was fired by the new board.

[URBAN NOTE] "Council moves on new approach to funding rehabilitation of Gardiner"

The Toronto Star's Jennifer Pagliaro writes about the continued problems with funding the maintenace of the increasingly decrepit Gardiner Expressway.

City council has voted to move forward with plans for rehabilitating the Gardiner Expressway, backing a staff plan estimated to reduce the ballooning costs of the work by more than $1 billion.

The vote followed the news buried in a staff report published late last month that the cost to both rebuild the Gardiner East and repair the western section of the elevated expressway had increased in price from $2.6 billion to $3.6 billion.

Out of concern some sections of the Gardiner require urgent repair and the increased costs were unacceptable, staff recommended abandoning a public-private partnership plan to pay for the project.

The $2.3 billion that staff say is now required under a new, more conventional approach, is already accounted for in the city’s 10-year capital budget, staff said.

The earlier increase in costs had raised the possibility a group of councilors who backed tearing the eastern section down and building a boulevard for less than half the cost, would try to re-open that debate.

[URBAN NOTE] "‘Prince’ and ‘Princess of Pot’ arrested and released in Montreal dispensary raids"

The Toronto Star's Brennan Doherty describes the mass arrests in Montréal following the opening of six Cannabis Culture dispensaries within Montréal's borders. I have to admit that I'm unimpressed: Why not wait until it's actually legal to sell marijuana to, you know, sell marijuana?

Marc and Jodie Emery, the “Prince” and “Princess of Pot”, were reportedly arrested and released in Montreal on Friday — just one day after the marijuana activist couple opened six Cannabis Culture dispensaries within city limits.

“Marc Emery was arrested along wither with several employees after mass raids and arrests at the several new Cannabis Culture Dispensary locations which opened in Montreal yesterday,” reads a post by Cannabis Culture on Facebook early Saturday morning.

The post goes on to say that Jodie Emery and Jeremiah Vandermeer, listed as Cannabis Culture’s chief of operations, were arrested at their hotel “for related reasons.” As of early Saturday morning, Cannabis Culture hadn’t responded to requests for comment.

The Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) said in a release on Friday that six dispensaries were raided by their officers on Friday, netting 10 suspects, 40 pounds of marijuana, and cash. Neither Cannabis Culture, not the names of the 10 suspects, was mentioned.

All 10 face charges relating to trafficking in narcotics, and possession with intent to traffic, the SPVM release said.

[FORUM] What are you planning to do for the holidays?

I plan on having a quiet time of it, spending time with friends and doing various local activities. There won't be much excitement, more simple fun.

You?