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It’s not just the TTC. There’s a growing sense that things in Toronto are spinning out of control

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Nicola Lightstone stands with her dog, Noodle, at the site in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood where she was assaulted.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail Nicola Lightstone’s dog, Noodle, is insistent when he wants to go out, even in the middle of the night. So when he woke her up at 3 a.m. last Sunday, Ms. Lightstone … Read more

Opinion: If we really want affordable housing, we need great public spaces

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Shoshanna Saxe is an associate professor in civil and mineral engineering at the University of Toronto and the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Infrastructure. The issue of affordable housing is increasingly dominating political debate across Canada, and that is sparking dramatic changes in our governments’ policies. For better and for worse, the discourse has been … Read more

Can an elite arts event such as Vancouver’s PuSh Festival really build back more inclusively? Like many of its avant-garde shows, it’s an experiment in progress

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PuSh Festival’s collaborative leadership team, left to right, Gabrielle Martin, Keltie Forsyth, Tom Arthur Davis and Margo Kane, attend the festival’s opening-night after party in Vancouver, on Jan. 19.Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail Building back better is proving easier said than done for the many arts organizations that made that pledge at the panicked height … Read more

Toronto condo owners slapped with big special fees

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234 Albion Rd., Toronto. In Ontario, condo boards are not required to hold a referendum or even a public meeting on special assessments.Zillow Condo owners at two Toronto buildings have been hit by demands for huge sums of money above their regular fees, something industry insiders say may become a wider problem even among newer … Read more

With deadline looming, Toronto’s vacant-home tax may catch some owners by surprise

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Homes on Vaudeville Dr. in Etobicoke, on Jan 10. In December, the City of Toronto mailed out letters notifying homeowners that they are required to declare the occupancy status of their property in order to avoid being hit with the vacant home tax.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail Toronto homeowners who are lackadaisical about checking their … Read more

Opinion: It’s not Justice Rouleau’s job to say if Ottawa was right to invoke the Emergencies Act

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Justice Paul Rouleau speaks during the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on Nov. 22, 2022.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters Adam Goldenberg is a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP and co-author of Emergency Law in Canada. Did the Trudeau government act lawfully when it invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022? That question dominated the hearings before … Read more

Morning Update: Small Ottawa firm subcontracted ArriveCan app to multinationals, documents reveal

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Good morning, The two-person Ottawa-area staffing company that has received millions of dollars in federal commissions on IT projects subcontracted its work on the ArriveCan app to six other companies, including multinationals such as BDO and KPMG, new documents reveal. MPs studying the issue – including both Liberal and opposition members – told The Globe … Read more

Slow sales, hard scrabble in Toronto real estate

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The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board tallied 75,140 sales through its Multiple Listing Service for all of 2022, 38.2 per cent below the 121,639 transactions seen in 2021.Mitch Fain/Mitch Fain The real estate market in Toronto, Ottawa and many Ontario cities is off to a slow start in January with thin inventory, jittery buyers and … Read more

Morning Update: Ottawa prepared to use ‘aggressive measures’ to reduce immigration backlog, policy memo reveals

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Good morning, The federal government is considering extraordinary measures to reduce its backlog of immigration applications, including waiving eligibility requirements for nearly half a million visitor visas, according to a policy memo reviewed by The Globe and Mail. A draft document from December reveals that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is trying to significantly reduce … Read more

Opinion: Service cuts to public transit are just the first step in a death spiral

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Nate Wallace is the clean transportation program manager at Environmental Defence. Toronto isn’t alone among Canadian cities looking to increase transit fares this year.Fred Lum Public transit users in Canada’s biggest city are about to pay more money for worse service. That is a recipe for disaster. Toronto’s proposed budget sets out a 10-cent fare … Read more