Without fear of flavour
Two men were engaged in a knife fight on August 2 near Weston Rd and Lawrence Ave, in what sounds like a very unusual encounter.
The police said both men had knives, but when the cops showed up, they stopped fighting and nobody was injured. One man was arrested.
Weston’s own Frontlines was in the news last week. Moira Welsh profiled the culinary program they offer:
For the last six weeks, since late April, Sherese Jesuorobo has been coming here each morning.
At 25, she was seeking a kind, welcoming community and a fresh start. As others before her have, Jesuorobo found it here. She entered the culinary training program that meets five days a week and teaches people between the ages of 18 and 29 food safety, chopping skills, menu design, organization and recipe creation on “Walk-it-out Wednesdays.”
Sitting beside the big window that overlooks Weston Rd., Jesuorobo talks about her connection to the community, the negativity she felt after her brother, Mike James, was shot and killed here nearly 10 years ago, and, now, the new purpose she has found through the Frontlines program.
Thanks to T for the link.
Lots to do in August! This weekend is UrbanArts’ CultureShock Festival in their new digs at Weston Common.
Today, and every Friday until the end of the summer, Frontlines is hosting Beats in the Streets.
The weekly Talking Circle will be Indigenous-led and resourced, but all are welcome. This will be a safe space to share, to connect and to learn.This will be the first in a series of Reconciliation events for the local community. WKNC encourages others to join in with this initiative. For more information, please contact Ken at WKNC, at [email protected] or 416 241-9898.
UrbanArts, Weston’s finest arts organization, is asking for your help sending kids to camp. They’re trying to raise $5000 to help young people from varied backgrounds “have a lifetime of memories with new experiences in the arts, visiting cultural attractions and meeting new friends.”
The campaign has raised $940 of their $5000 goal. You can donate at this link.
Mount Dennis was in the news this week, with a flattering portrait by David Nickle.
Robert Caplan is optimistic about the future of Mount Dennis — and has been for a long time now, even as he admits that right now, the sparse business district at Weston Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W. is not much to look at.
That may soon change. In 2021, the Mount Dennis station on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is slated to open and the owners of the rundown storefronts along Weston will almost certainly make some modifications.
But for now?
“The whole street is waiting for the development to happen — to see what’s going to happen,” said Caplan, who owns Caplan Appliances and is chair of the Mount Dennis Business Improvement Area (BIA).
Only a month ago, The Star published an article that said Mount Dennis is the “most affordable area of the city”.
Ah, to have an extra down-payment lying around!
The city will be looking at part of Weston to determine whether it has a unique character, and whether is should be recommended for conservation and enhancement. The WHCD will be having a meeting on August 21 to discuss the new areas and next steps.
The effort to create heritage districts in Weston has been going on for quite a long time. It started in 2004, and the first phase was completed in 2007, with the creation of a conservation district in two areas around Weston Road.
Phase Two was to include the area between Rosemount, Pine, Church, and MacDonald.
Now, however, the city has taken over planning of conservation districts, instead of leaving it in the hands of community groups. The WHCD says that the city is “ready to proceed with the study of the Weston Heritage Conservation District, Phase II, with the intention to go by the old boundary to Elm Street.“¹
Heritage conservation districts are “historically or culturally significant and require special care and attention in the planning process to ensure that they are conserved.”
A heritage designation limits what people can do with their properties. Construction and restoration must be done with neighbourhood guidelines, and demolition is not allowed under most circumstances—including by neglect.
¹ My emphasis. Also, full disclosure, I live just past Elm Street.
Today, the first of what I fear will be many fact-findings on fibs, fabrications, and falsities.
First, Ahmed Hussen. Hussen made an outrageous and false accusation on July 1 that came to light this week. He accused the Conservatives of “dancing with racists” at a speech on Canada Day, which is also Somalian Independence Day. The Post Millennial picked up the story today.
Hussen told a crowd:
in an election year, one of the main responsibilities is what? To vote. And vote for the right leaders, the real leaders that bring people together, not divide you, not dance with white supremacists, but actually bring people together and confront hatred, confront Islamophobia, and prove once again that Canada is the best country in the world by making sure that everyone is represented.
Hussen has a history of baiting conservatives. He said that Lisa MacLeod’s criticism of his department was “irresponsible, it’s divisive, it’s fear-mongering and it’s not Canadian and it is very dangerous.” He’s also said that the Conservatives want to “militarize” the border. He’s long blamed the Conservatives for the problems in his department.
But implying last month that Conservatives would “dance with white supremacists” is an ugly slander. It is, in fact, irresponsible, divisive, and fear-mongering.
Yafet Tewelde said this week:
We are in a crisis. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. We need to stop talking and act now. #YSW #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/wEzyz0OGdJ
— Yafet Tewelde (@YafetYSW) July 29, 2019
Not quite so. The lead author of this section of the IPCC report says this:
Please stop saying something globally bad is going to happen in 2030. Bad stuff is already happening and every half a degree of warming matters, but the IPCC does not draw a “planetary boundary” at 1.5°C beyond which lie climate dragons.
[If] we don’t halve emissions by 2030, will we have lost the battle and just have to hunker down and survive? Of course not.
No scientist I’ve read says that the next decades aren’t critical. None, though, says that there is a threshold in 2030. It’s more complicated than 240 characters allow.
Finally, Jasveen Rattan said that
Canadians are tired of Justin Trudeau’s never-ending tax hikes.#ysw #yorksouthweston #cpc_hq #ScheerVictory #TrudeauMustGo #iamconservative #teamrattan #onpoli #cndpoli @lraitt pic.twitter.com/FgUsEL4PtG
— Jasveen Rattan PhD (@jasveenrattan) July 17, 2019
Happily, I don’t have to wade through tax policy to figure the truth of this out. The Economist covered it last week. They said there’ve been tax cuts for the working and middle classes (and deficits for our children):
To stimulate growth [Trudeau] let a near-balanced budget move into deficit…. Most important, he has put money into the pockets of people on middle and low incomes. A means-tested child-benefit programme gives families on the lowest incomes C$5,600-6,600 a year per child.
More moolah came from cutting the tax rate on the bottom income bracket and raising it for the richest 1%. The government expanded a tax credit for workers on low incomes. Its critics claim that middle-class families are worse off because it took away some tax credits. In fact, says Mr Morneau, the finance minister, a family of four at the median-income level is C$2,000 better off
Technically, there have been small tax hikes: on the rich, and on carbon. But neither of these tax increases hurt the median Canadian. Rattan’s statement then isn’t entirely false, but it’s pretty close.
