Preville on Politics

April 2007 Archive

Speeding through the Green Lane

Posted on April 26, 2007 by

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An excellent story in this morning’s Globe and Mail warns that Toronto’s purchase of the Green Lane landfill near St. Thomas, Ontario might not work out quite the way the city had hoped. The reason: the Americans are still making noises about closing the border to our trash.

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Airport cabbies redux

Posted on April 25, 2007 by

To update you on yesterday afternoon's post, council passed Howard Moscoe's Tit-for-Tat taxi bylaw forbidding Mississauga taxis from picking up fares in Toronto, with one hiccup: the city won't enforce it for 30 days. That means everyone—Toronto, Mississauga, their respective taxi industries, and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority—has 30 days to negotiate a settlement.

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Cabbies, cops converge in council chamber

Posted on April 24, 2007 by

Just a quick tip for regular readers: watch the local six o’clock news tonight, because what happened today at city council—hundreds of cab drivers in the public gallery making such a commotion that council recessed and the cops were called in—was pretty chaotic and is better viewed than read about. For those who care for the reasons behind the fracas, here’s your two-paragraph briefing note.

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Commuters inconvenienced by grisly, tragic death

Posted on April 24, 2007 by

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Does my headline seem callous to you? I'm only mirroring the sensitivities of the Star in its front page headline. The inside headline on page A16 is even worse: “’Not a good day’ for TTC commuters.” Antonio Almeida’s widow apologizes for the inconvenience.

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Rob Ford's campaign of parsimony goes for naught

Posted on April 23, 2007 by

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This just in: City council approved its $7.8 billion budget intact at noon Monday. In so doing, they have pretty much drained the city's reserve funds, which they have relied upon heavily for the past four years. They also voted down more than 40 proposed amendments put forth by Councillor Rob Ford (Ward 2 - Etobicoke North), most of which were aimed at city councillors' job perks, such as free parking and free entry to the Toronto Zoo. Ford regularly refuses such perks, and he claimed a total of $0.00 in office expenses in 2006 while other councillors claimed in excess of $50,000. (Every councillor has an annual expense budget of $53,000.)

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Gag me with the Globe

Posted on April 23, 2007 by

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This morning, like most Globe and Mail subscribers, I woke up in a parallel universe. The proof was at my doorstep: my morning Globe looked just like USA Today, and read like it too. The edition’s most ballyhooed story, in the new Life section, was about how kids of divorce act out on their cell phones, with prominent reference to Alec Baldwin’s tirade on his daughter’s voicemail—a belaboured attempt to extract a universal truth from a celebrity blooper. After I’d recovered from the shock and wiped up the spilled coffee, my first lucid thought was, “this redesign is a disaster.”

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Let’s all hate Christopher Hume

Posted on April 20, 2007 by

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I had the privilege of seeing Albert Nerenberg’s Let’s All Hate Toronto in advance of its premiere screening tonight at Hot Docs. Turns out that my earlier, entirely speculative post on the subject of the film was totally on the money, like with exact change.

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The city must get its own clichés in order

Posted on April 18, 2007 by

“The city must get its own house in order.” This is the phrase that gets bandied about every year at budget time, and it makes Mayor David Miller bristle. At Monday’s executive committee meeting, he let everyone know how much he despises it. He wishes the media would stop using it. I despise the phrase as much as he does. It has, due to overuse, become a meaningless cliché. So let’s make a deal: the press gallery will stop using the cliché if council will have an open debate about the budget.

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Mayor for all New Democrats

Posted on April 18, 2007 by

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It’s front page news in today’s Star that Mayor David Miller is no longer a member of the New Democratic Party. He says that, since he must work closely with federal Tories and provincial Liberals to achieve things for the city, he thought it best to avoid accusations of partisanship. Good idea, but actions speak louder than membership cards. Let’s recap recent events.

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Commuter brain food

Posted on April 16, 2007 by

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Attention all car commuters: have you ever wondered, as you sit idling on a stalled 401 and your two-hour commute turns into a four-hour one, why the hell you choose to endure what is essentially a recurring nightmare? Two magazines have your answer: the most recent issues of The New Yorker and Toronto Life.

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Hate Toronto? Why stop there?

Posted on April 16, 2007 by

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The publicity machine for Albert Nerenberg’s new film Let’s All Hate Toronto is firing on all cylinders right now, in advance of its world premiere at Hot Docs this Friday. Not that Nerenberg needs my help generating hype, but let me point everybody in the direction of a must-see YouTube video on the subject anyway. I haven’t seen Nerenberg’s film, but this ought to be part of its soundtrack.

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I still have a crush on Kate Fenner

Posted on April 13, 2007 by

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A tip of the hat to fellow bloggers torontoist.com for dredging up a favourite memory of my early twenties with a look back at the seminal 1992 Bourbon Tabernacle Choir album Superior Cackling Hen. I actually won the CD in a draw at one of their live shows in Montreal before I even owned a CD player.

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Oops!

Posted on April 13, 2007 by

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The biggest news in Toronto this morning was this story in the Star, which claimed that the McGuinty Liberals were wooing former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray to be a candidate in a Toronto riding. Turns out they may have spoiled the delicate negotiations.

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NHL politics pool!

Posted on April 12, 2007 by

Just a thought: given that the federal Tories are so eager to identify with Middle Canada, I've got ten bucks that says Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appear at both a Senators and a Flames game before the playoffs are over.

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Trash talk

Posted on April 11, 2007 by

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City Hall’s attention has been taken hostage for the last 48 hours by an audit of the trash in park bins which shows that dog poop makes up 25% of all waste, while disposable coffee cups are nearly as ubiquitous. Proposed solutions include having dog owners cart their pet’s poo back home and cracking down on waste from fast-food chains. Which begs the question: How, exactly, are trash bins full of coffee cups and dog poo problems per se? What did they expect to find in the trash?

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The Toronto Green Wall Challenge!

Posted on April 3, 2007 by

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Yesterday I blogged whimsically about growing plants up the walls of city buildings. Today I finally get around to reading yesterday’s Globe, which features this story by Wendy Stueck about “green wall” entrepreneurs. From this coincidence I draw two conclusions: one, my inner news cycle is still experiencing a vacation delay; and two, the time has come for a Green Walls movement in Toronto.

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Me and my canopy

Posted on April 2, 2007 by

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¡Ola! Glad to be home. I notice that City Hall was busy with announcements while I was away. Among them: David Miller wants to nearly double the city’s tree canopy in 13 years. The city’s chief forester says it’ll probably take more like 100 years. Here’s an out-of-the-blue suggestion that could help bridge the gap.

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Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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