Preville on Politics

May 2007 Archive

The Riverdale Con Caper

Posted on May 31, 2007 by

So I’m over at a friend’s Riverdale home for dinner last night, maybe 20 blocks away from my place, and I start to tell him my story about this puny little milquetoast weasel who tried to con me out of some money on my doorstep at 3:30 am—when he stops me in my tracks and tells me how, just the other night, he lived through the very same experience.

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Life without appliances

Posted on May 30, 2007 by

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As I write in the confines of my basement office, directly above my head a contractor is ripping my kitchen apart, preparing to lay down a new floor and install new plumbing, wiring, cabinets and appliances. For three days now, I have been without any sort of stove or oven and have no running water on the ground floor. I feel a little bit like the urban experimenters at spacing.ca, who do things like walk downtown from the airport: I’m doing something that runs counter to basic social convention. It has already become an apprenticeship in healthy, eco-friendly living. I wonder how long I’ll last.

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The International Brotherhood of Con Men

Posted on May 28, 2007 by

So I’m out in front of my house at 3:30 am the other night, chasing some noisy raccoons off my front porch, when I’m approached by a bandit of a different sort. Some puny little milquetoast weasel in a ball cap and wire-rims comes up to me all friendly like. Says he’s in a bit of a jam and could really use my help. I’m in a stupor induced by sleep, lack of sleep, antihistamines, and scurrying rodents. He immediately launches into his tale, which he tells in fragments, like so:

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Planning without money

Posted on May 25, 2007 by

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This Saturday, May 24, People Plan Toronto, a coalition of residents’ associations, will be hosting a Neighbourhood Planning Summit at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. (Their slogan: “Do you think city planning is a mess? Want to help clean it up?”) The agenda for the day features a number of worthy speakers, and Chief Planner Ted Tyndorf will also be there—not in any official capacity, but just to listen and discuss. One of the issues that isn’t on the summit’s agenda, but which will likely hover over every discussion like an elephant in the corner, is the planning department’s desperate need for additional staff and resources.

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Ford against fornication!

Posted on May 25, 2007 by

Yesterday at city council, when a motion was brought forward regarding the City of Toronto’s support for Pride Week, Rob Ford (Ward 2 – Etobicoke North) stood up and said, “I don’t think this council should support sexuality.” The chamber erupted in laughter. He seemed to be the only person who didn’t realize what he had just said.

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Paul Bedford’s modest proposal

Posted on May 24, 2007 by

I had a chat yesterday with Paul Bedford, former Chief Planner for the City of Toronto and all-around civic eminence grise. I quoted him in the conclusion of my column in the June issue of Toronto Life (on newsstands now!) about the development controversies in the Queen West Triangle. Bedford points out that the quote was correct but lacked context, producing the unintended effect of making him sound confused. The confusion is mine, not his, so let’s clarify.

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Writerly news

Posted on May 23, 2007 by

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Two things. First, a quick reminder about a previous post: Write Aid, the fundraiser in support of Derek Finkle’s battle to stop the police from impounding his research on the conviction of Robert Baltovich, happens tomorrow night, May 24. A worthier cause for writers will be hard to find this year. Tix and info here. Second, I must point everyone in the direction of this new book.

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Green with consumer envy

Posted on May 18, 2007 by

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Two bits of wonderful news! One: the June issue of Toronto Life—the Green Edition, featuring a catalogue of fabulous, eco-friendly consumer items—is now on newsstands everywhere! Two: visitors to this blog no longer need a torontolife.com profile to post comments! Which is all just tickety-boo, because I have a pressing question to ask and I’d like a show of hands: am I the only skeptic left on this browning planet, or does anyone else find green consumerism grating?

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Rabbit season? Duck season? Trauma season!

Posted on May 17, 2007 by

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Victoria Day is coming up, which, in the intensive care units and operating rooms of hospitals across Ontario, marks the start of the busiest time of the year. Doctors and nurses call it “trauma season.”

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Keep your children leashed

Posted on May 16, 2007 by

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As an addendum to this story about unleashed dogs in parks, allow me to direct readers to the City of Toronto’s instructions on how to train your child. I’m still looking for the City’s official web page regarding proper dog behaviour in public. If anyone can find it, let me know.

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For whom the road tolls

Posted on May 15, 2007 by

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In a worthy piece in today’s Globe, John Barber fires the latest salvo in what is fast becoming a hot-button issue: congestion charges for vehicles entering Toronto’s downtown core. Barber argues that — unlike London’s Ken Livingstone and New York’s Michael Bloomberg — Miller is afraid to adopt congestion charges, which are the right thing for the environment. Congestion charges, which are a type of road toll, are an enticing proposition. But they will not happen in Toronto any time soon, for a reason that is getting precious little ink these days.

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The Toronto Lexicon – Garbage Terminology

Posted on May 11, 2007 by

public trash bins (p’b’lik trash binnz) The hundreds upon hundreds of receptacles placed on sidewalks and in parks to accept refuse and keep the city clean, and which—owing to the cost of landfilling—ought never to be used.

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Write Aid

Posted on May 10, 2007 by

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I am not a close friend of Derek Finkle, the former editor of Toro magazine. I’d say we are to each other the very definition of “acquaintance.” He knows who I am and vice versa. We had a chat over beers about five years ago. Ever since, we say a pleasant hello whenever our paths cross, which happens maybe twice a year. I never wrote for Toro — I never pitched him a story, and he never called me with a story he wanted me to write. So I am not shilling for my buddy when I say that Derek Finkle is a lion of journalism in this country for the work he has done in the past, and for the fight he is waging now.

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Oh no, more nukes

Posted on May 8, 2007 by

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Apparently Ontario’s bright future could include up to eight new nuclear reactors. Energy Minister Dwight Duncan is downplaying the applications to build them, but Tory leader John Tory (formerly of Torys, now just a Tory) has been predicting this for a some time now.

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The bureaucratic shield

Posted on May 8, 2007 by

The city needs new sources of revenue. What do councillors do? They request a study from city staff, who oblige with a series of reports laying out the options. Then what do councillors do? They schedule four public consultations, which they do not attend —sending the bureaucrats out to face the wrath. Toronto Chief Financial Officer Joe Pennachetti had a difficult time maintaining order in the room. From my observations, this is how city hall operates: elected officials have an idea, then they get city staff to do all the heavy lifting, even with the public.

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Jane Jacobs heresies

Posted on May 4, 2007 by

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Mayor David Miller has issued a proclamation making today, May 4, 2007, Jane Jacobs Day. Jacobs, author of the seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is one of the most influential urban theorists of the last half-century. In Toronto she is considered sacred: canonized for her role in stopping the Spadina Expressway in the early 1970s, she is the patron saint of grassroots urban activism. In polite company it is far easier, and more socially acceptable, to take the Lord’s name in vain than Jane Jacobs’. So if, like me, you are the kind of person who enjoys farting in church, then today has the potential to be a very, very good day. Let’s get the fun started.

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16.67% of GST revenues for your thoughts

Posted on May 4, 2007 by

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The campaign to have the federal government cough up a share of GST revenues for cities got a shot in the arm yesterday, when the mayors of Canada’s 22 largest cities endorsed the plan that David Miller has already been pushing for months. So the proposal isn’t Miller’s baby any more; it’s quickly emerging as a broad consensus. In fact, at the press conference, many other mayors spoke more convincingly on the matter than he did.

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The Toronto Lexicon Returns!

Posted on May 3, 2007 by

expense account (x-p’nss a-kown’t) n. A petty cash allocation for office costs, in the amount of $53,000 per city councillor per annum, which must be spent under threat of criminal prosecution. Continue...

Who should head the TTC?

Posted on May 2, 2007 by

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Just over one month ago, with little fanfare, the Toronto Transit Commission announced that it was launching an international search for a new Chief General Manager. The job posting has now been taken off workopolis.com, which presumably means the applications are now in. It was a good idea to go global: large transit authorities are complex beasts, and there are precious few people around the world who are actually qualified to run the TTC. And some recent developments sure look like attempts to make the job more attractive: dedicating 51% of the capital budget for transit, for example, or removing Howard Moscoe as TTC chair (since the last two Chief GMs resigned over fights with him).

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Advertising? In the city?

Posted on May 1, 2007 by

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When it comes to the city’s new street furniture contract, you have to take my perspective with a grain of salt. You see, I’m one of those reprehensible types who didn’t object when bars and restaurants started selling advertising in their washrooms some ten years ago. Back then, culture-jammers were busy figuring out how to jimmy the frames open and remove the offending pictures, and I was, like, Whaa? I never entertained the illusion that I had any say in the state of the cinder block wall I was staring at. I never thought it was beautiful or deserved to be pristine. Sometimes, depending on how much I’d had to drink and how my life was going at the time, I was thankful for the distraction.

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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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