Tag: oliviachow

Politics, pizza and the planetarium: my annual update from Toronto, 2026 edition

I’ve decided to do a once a year update on the city I live in. They used to be somewhat random, but once a year seems right.

First up is local politics. In a month Torontonians will go to the polls for the 2026 municipal election. The key thing I’ll be watching is whether or not Olivia Chow gets to be mayor for another term. The mayor and her challengers have already had a debate and perhaps because of that the race has tightened. Whoever wins, two things to pay attention to are, 1) whether or not we see the new mayor using strong-mayor powers 2) whether or not we see new councillors continue / ramp up opting out of initiatives.

Not on the ballot but always in the mix is premier Ford. He all but endorsed Chow in a recent press conference, which must have been unpleasant for her right wing opponents. Let’s see what if any the effect of that is.

Ford looms large in anything to do with Toronto. Some of his Toronto MPPs got into trouble for expenses this year, which led Ford to axe the rule that allowed Toronto MPPs expense hotel stays in city. Then there is the ongoing saga of Ford wanting to take over Billy Bishop airport (which has too many links to insert here). Not to mention the even longer ongoing saga of Ford and the Toronto bike lanes. The man likes to get involved with running the city. It would be interesting if the Premier was from another part of Ontario, say Kingston or London….I wonder if we would see the same involvement?

Moving on from politics to food, lots of dining news has been happening in one particular part of Toronto: Mirvish Village. One of Toronto’s best bakeries, Blackbird,  just opened its biggest location there. Next door to it is Book Bar, which Toronto Life says “is the perfect mix of books, booze and schmooze”. As well, Pizzeria Badiali’s opened a new Mirvish Village location and yes, it is busy with line ups out the door, just like it’s original location. Mirvish Village is still in the process of opening, but it already is a great destination for food.

Not far from Mirvish Village is the very difficult to get into Brasserie Cote. If you can’t get in and perhaps you just need a slice, then head over to Nice Slice Toronto with it’s New York-style za’atar and pickle pizza. Rose’s Pantry is another great spot close by to grab and go some fantastic food. Indeed Harbord Street is packed with great places to dine and sip wine (hello Canary Counter!)

Not only is Toronto a really a great city to dine in, it doesn’t have to be too expensive either. To see what I mean, check out these 10 restaurants with prix-fixe menus for $60 or less or this list of Toronto’s best 100 restaurants under $100. Or maybe you just want to grab a great doughnut? If so, Yonge and Eglinton has what you need.

If you head downtown, you can great tickets to see Toronto’s newest professional sports team: the Toronto Tempos of the WBNA. Here’s a story of their debut game in May. Were there celebs in attendance? Of course!

In other entertainment news this past year was Sneaky Dee’s. There was plenty of fear that it could be demolished for condos. In fact, there still is. But it won a reprieve and it seems it will live to rock on for another day.

Also at risk is the Hot Docs theatre on Bloor near Bathurst. Here’s a piece on “the high-stakes ‘long game’ to bring Toronto’s Hot Docs back from the brink”. Let’s hope that happens. I’d hate to see it demolished, the way Toronto’s abandoned planetarium was torn down this year.

Besides restaurants and entertainment, other things good and noteworthy about Toronto this year were:

Some noteworthy things that were less than good about Toronto:

Finally, here are some links about Toronto I feel are worth a read:

Thanks again for reading these Toronto stories. Come back next September and we will see how the new mayor and other municipal politicians are doing. Will there be stories about restaurants too? Of course there will. 🙂

Toronto: a city of surpluses and abundance (random updates from the Big Smoke, September 2024)

Toronto is a city of abundance. But don’t just take my word on it. In a recent
travel piece on this place, The New York Times described Toronto as…

…proudly multicultural with an outstanding art scene, fantastic food and a patchwork of diverse neighborhoods to explore… this sprawling city — Canada’s most populous — has more to offer than one could possibly digest in a single weekend.

So there!

On the topic of abundance, city hall also seems to have it. Indeed, it is doing much better than it was a six months ago when I last wrote about it. For one thing, local politicians have gotten its finances in order and it is now running a surplus! Much thanks to that should go to the mayor, though of course it is a team effort up to including all levels of government. Nonetheless the Mayor should feel good about that.

Toronto also has a surplus of problems. Case in point, real estate. Commercial real estate continues to suffer.  There is talk of converting or even demolishing them. Some Toronto CEOs tried to enlist Mayor Chow with regards to encouraging employees going back to downtown offices. She later said something more nuanced than what’s in here.

The residential market has also been struggling recently, with some Toronto developers saying no one is buying condos anymore. I am not sure about that. After all, housing prices are too high and some say unattainable in Toronto. So something is going to have to adjust.

The TTC has seen some highs and lows in the last while. There are still episodes of horrible incidents happening on it, such as a sword attack of all things. Then there was a major incident so bad the TTC CEO apologized and offered to have open review. Not good.

On a more positive note, it looks like the TTC will be adding service to 24 bus routes with focus on off-peak hours. So that’s good. Also good: the Ontario line is progressing. And multiple subway stations are getting colourful transformations.

Shawn Micallef recently asked if  Toronto’s streets are boring and brought in my area, Yonge and Eglinton, as an example. He’s not wrong. But a new park is coming to the area. It will likely get here before the LRT is done. A new grocery store is also coming to the area, which is good, because people here are fed up with the local supermarkets and their high prices.

As for other maligned grocers, here’s a story of the recent loblaw boycott and a statement by their CEO regarding it. The good news is inflation in Canada is really coming down. This may take the heat of them and other food companies in the future.

In other food/bev news, the strike concerning LCBO workers was recently resolved. Good thing for wine drinkers, because  the Wine Racks that had been making up for the closed LCBOs almost ran out of wine.

Like other cities, climate change is affecting Toronto. Case in point, the bad flooding we’ve been having the overwhelms place like Union Station  and even  Drake’s mansion. It didn’t help we had the wettest summer on record.

The film festival has come and gone as it does every September. One frequent visitor is Guillermo Del Toronto, who apparently loves Torontos bookstores. We do have good bookstores. Also good libraries! Not only are they great to visit, but a Toronto Public Library card will help you get access to places in the city! One more reason libraries are great.

As for other parts of Toronto, downtown the renaming of Dundas Square is not going well according to this. Meanwhile over in the Annex there is sad news regarding the hot docs cinema, with a temporary closing and a laying off staff. Here’s hoping for better things for them. Indeed, they may be reopening soon.

I hope so. I loved that theatre — once known as the Bloor — since I first moved to Toronto in the 80s. I hope it is open for business and doing well, just like I hope that for all of the city.

Thanks for reading this. I’ll have another update in another six months!

Toronto is ramping and opening up (random updates on Hogtown, March 2024)

Since I last wrote about Toronto in the fall the Mayor has been busy doing the hard stuff of getting the city’s finances in order. She worked out a deal with the province to upload the costs of the DVP and the Gardiner to the province. She managed to wrangle almost half a billion in cash for housing from the Federal government. (I say “wrangle” because some of the MPs did not seem too happy with her, according to this: How the mayor outsmarted Toronto MPs). And she just finished her 1st budget under with a record tax increase (so says Globalnews.ca). All in all, a pretty strong first year for her.

I can’t say it will be smooth sailing from this point. Before he left, Mayor Tory acquired the FIFA world cup for the city. Not surprisingly, costs are surging.  Mayor Chow acknowledges she and the rest of the city are saddled with it. No doubt it will be a great event: it will also be a drain on Toronto coffers, as this shows. Will she be able to keep voters happy with all these additional financial demands? It depends.

One group of people who might behard to win over will be residents in Etobicoke. They are mad because they now have to bag their own leaves in the fall! Imagine that. I also imagine many a perq unique to certain neighborhoods will die over time if they haven’t already done so.

One of the gems of Toronto, our libraries, were slammed with a cyberattack, and while it’s been slow to recover — it’s hard! — it finally has. Kudos to all the staff and support who managed to pull this off.

In other good news, after years of blockages, my intersection, Yonge and Eglinton, has finally  reopened! (You can see it above.) Yay!  As for other intersections, people have been trying to rename Yonge and Dundas. It has not been a good process, despite good intentions. This argues that people should just stop.

In food news, the couple who ran long time Toronto dining establishment the Rosedale Diner are putting down their pans and retiring after almost 50 years in the kitchen. Wow. I remember going there in the early days and how it was such a great spot to hang out. Especially in the teeny tiny booths in the window.


Relatedly, blogTO has a good story on how Toronto establishments are struggling to deal with diners  working in them. Also in blotTO is a fun piece on the best restaurants near each ttc subway station. For some stations, there’s a wealth of places to choose from. Others, like Castle Frank, not so much.

This might not seem to be a Toronto story, but this piece on how tough it is to get into schools like Waterloo certainly is, because it ties back into some of the high schools in the city. As this piece shows,not all 94 averages mean the same thing. Do some private schools have grade inflation? The universities in the province seem to think so.

In other city stories, the TTC is getting new 60 new streetcars. That’s good. Also Toronto Police arrest kids as young as 14 in a TTC stabbing. Not good. Terrible in fact. Also terrible: Loblaws was blamed for the botched flu rollout in the city recently. Ugh.

Speaking of the flu, if you know someone who has it or other some other ailment and needs cheering up, why not send them flowers? I highly recommend tonicblooms.com if you need someone to order from.

Thanks for reading this. See you again next season. I’ll close off with this poster from the late great Bamboo Club  (below) courtesy of Jamie Bradburn.

Toronto: city with a future (random updates on Hogtown, October 2023)

It’s been a season since I last wrote about Toronto. In that time our new mayor has been in office roughly 100 days. The Toronto Star has a rundown of what election pledges by Mayor Olivia Chow that she already has accomplished, as well as what she is working on. Not surprisingly some of them have been rather straightforward to achieve (e.g. keeping libraries open on Sunday), while some will be much harder to do (e.g., stopping the Gardner expressway rebuild). It’s a promising start, and she seems to have momentum. Of course much depends on the will of other councillors, not to mention people like Premier Ford. I’m hopeful for now.

One good thing she is working on is expanding the TTC by spending $10 million on staffing to curb transit crimes. Good. The best way to keep transit safer is having more people on it dedicated to the task. Let’s hope they do a good job. We need a safe and vibrant transit system.

In other transit news, one of the things that will be more difficult to fix is the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. I’m not hopeful for that being done any time soon. It doesn’t help that the communications of the people building it has been poor. For example, one time their website quietly disappeared. Another time Metrolinx straight up refused to say when long-delayed LRT might finally open (see here). Terrible and unacceptable.

As for the mayor’s partner, Premier Ford, he has been up to his neck in hot water, mainly due to his involvement in Ontario’s Greenbelt. After Ford apologized for his ‘wrong’ Greenbelt decision, and  vowing to reverse it, he finally cancelled the Greenbelt land swap. While that was good, he is not out of hot water yet, as there is another scandal with his plans to have Ontario Place developed, a plan blogTO says no one wants (other than Ford and the developers). I am sure there will be more news developing on that scandal before the end of 2023.

From a real-estate viewpoint, Toronto’s downtown core has major troubles as office vacancy rates soar. I know some businesses are trying to get people to go back into the office, but many workers are resistant and I don’t think that is going to be enough to reverse those troubles. In other real-estate news, experts revise Toronto housing forecast due to a tanking market. Prices are still going up, but for how long?

Other workers have been striking in Toronto since the summer. The Metro grocery strike is finally over after a month-long walkout. More on that, here. Meanwhile the TVO strike continues to drag on with no end in sight. 2023 is a year of striking workers.

In other business news, the book chain Indigo is looking to offer alcohol to its customers. I dunno how successful that will be. The company has suffered big problems, including losing $50M last year. It doesn’t help their execs are heading for the exits. Let’s hope it can get corrected: I’d hate to lose that chain of stores.

Foodwise, the folks from Michelin have come to town and passed out more awards. Last year was the first time they did that and it got a lot of attention. This year…not so much. The Star had something on it, here. BlogTO put together a list of all the restaurants here for easy reference. If that’s your jam, this links to the Michelin site with more info.

Raccoons continue to own Toronto: we humans just live here. Recently they’ve taken over the roof of Union Station. They are a weird nuisance: not as scary as rats and not as hostile as Canada Geese. Just charming enough to offset anyone taking major steps to get rid of them.

I really enjoy Jamie Bradburn’s blog and the pieces he writes on old Toronto. Here’s something on subway interlining, or why does lower Bay Station exists. If you ever get a chance to go down to lower Bay, I highly recommend you do. Other than the benches, it does not seem too out of place from the rest of the subway. It’s fascinating to see.

As I was poking around Jamie’s site I came across this post on the Book City store on Bloor in the Annex closing. That was a sad event for me when that happened. I had gone there for years, ever since I moved into the area in the 80s. I loved that store. Loved checking out all the magazines, the books on the tables on the first floor, and taking the funky stairs up to the second floor to just hang around. It was a great place. There are still Book City stores in Toronto and they are fine, but I miss that one.

I also came across the image below on his site. It’s an IBM ad from back in the day when it’s headquarters were in the Don Mills and Eglinton area. Toronto was a city with a future back then…and it still is.