SOCIAL IS The key...

As I was gently posting left wing propaganda on the page of Toronto Conservatives -an asocial network created by aspargus faced not so young conservatives believing that the election of Rob Ford meant the global advent of the Tax Martyrs redemption but failing to attract more than 150 fans, including fake profiles- one of my post attracted a violent response featuring the S word. I was peacefully explaining that Greece tragedy was not written by its Socialist government but by its banks, similarly to what happened in Ireland, Portugal, GB, France or Italy that are run by Liberal and/or Conservative governments. I was kindly reminding whoever would read that Brazil and India are run by Socialist governments and are doing fine thank you, that the business world is fond of Socialism, because Socialism is progressive and, while it is heavily taxing rich people and big corporations that enrich only their shareholders and top management, it gives tax breaks to the middle class and to businesses that create jobs and growth, that despite all the Conservatives and Liberals lies to make us believe that Socialism is bad for the economy it is actually way better than Liberalism and way, way, way better than Conservatism. A few seconds after I posted my sweet prose, an angry white female immediately and orgasmically replied: "Ahhhh, so the truth comes out. Like most socialists, you are jealous of rich people." Am I? Why would I? They are wasting their life making money that they don't even know how to spend. I am not jealous but I do think they are useless and that their money will be better used in the economy. Ulrik Westergaard, an intelligent Conservative (yes, there are some) ask me why should he hands over his money to someone who makes less than him? What's the purpose? And how does he justifies that to his kids? Easy, you justifiy it by the fact that we live in a society and that living in a society makes life easier for everyone. If everyone gets delivery and eat it all by himself, it's expensive (and sad) and it's called Conservatism. If everyone cooks its own meal, it's expensive (and complicate) and it is called Liberalism. If someone cooks for everyone, it's cheap (and convenient) but often not satisfying (and boring), and it's called Communism. Now if someone provides the ingredients and help those who can't cook, it is at the same time affordable, convenient and satisfying. This someone is Society and this system is Socialism. Of course, richer people have to contribute more to Society. Let's say the poor brings the water, the salt and the pepper, the middle class brings the pasta, the garlic and the tomatoes, and the rich brings the Parmigiano cheese and the wine. It ends up being beneficial for all, including the rich, because together we are stronger and if each was for himself, we'd still be in caves having trouble competing against tigers or wolves. So, yes, I am in favor of heavily taxing rich people and big corporations that do not create jobs, growth or progress. I am in favor of Market, Finance and Business regulation by Democracy. And that is not all. I am also in favor of a strong public sector and an increased role of the government in the regulation of the society. I am in favor of affordable healthcare, social housing, social security, affordable education, transportation, food security, minimum & honest wages, safe working conditions, leisure & free time and accessible culture. So yes, yes and yes, I am a socialist. I am proud to be a socialist. And I am confident in the future of socialism. You see, the road to socialism is similar to the human evolution, complicate but inevitable. The social evolution is leading us to socialism the same way that biological evolution made us become Homo Sapiens Sapiens. First there were Monarchists, then Republicans, then Democrats, then Socialists. Each new step of the evolution stair is better than the previous and worst than the next. And of course, like in the biological evolution, there are side branches that leads to nowhere. Like Neanderthal, like Imperialists, like Communists, like Fascists, and, more recently like Conservatives and Liberals. These two branches of the Social Evolution look strong, and since the 80s seem to be the two only remaining on the Social Tree. After WWII, socialism, taking the form of Social Democracy, was everywhere in the world, boosted by the impulsion of Franklin D Roosevelt. It gave to the world thirty of its best years, only darkened by the cloud of Communism. It was actually Communism, the Evil Twin of Socialism, that was fatal to post-war Social Democracy. Communism was an archaic ideology and, as such, could be only beaten by another archaic ideology. Actually two archaic ideologies, Liberalism and Conservatism, morphed into Neo Liberalism and Neo Conservatism. This two headed hydra indeed defeated Communism but replaced it by an ideology that was not that much better. Maybe it was not Charybdis and Scylla but almost. And it quickly became Conservybdis and Scylliberals. In Canada, these two parties are sharing the power since ages. What is the difference between them? There was at some point in History. Today, there is almost none. Both are increasing spending and cutting revenues, so much so that if they were to form a coalition, which could happen sooner than anyone expects, they should be called the Fiscally Irresponsible Coalition. The Globe & Mail -a liberal newspaper which endorsed Smitherman in the last Toronto Mayoral Election -is now endorsing Stephen Harper. It shows clearly how similar liberal and conservatives are today, and, by the way, how they are both closely connected to big business, board elites and other Bay Street parasites who are so afraid of progressives that they swing widely their media arms each time the ugly nose of socialism approaches their ancestral territory. By the way, the dippers are not socialists, they are democrats, like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama who are socialists only in the wet dreams of Tea Party & Fox Media cavemen (and women). As I mentioned before, Democrats are one step behind Socialists in the social evolution. But the NDP surge is a sign that the socialist ideology is coming back, slowly but surely. The Conservatives & Liberals are failing, everywhere in the world. The last global crisis was a first huge sign of their global failure. The slow recovery, the inflation -in particular gas price & food price-, the unemployment, the low wages, the faltering housing market, the debt crisis are confirming day after day the failure of the Fiscally Irresponsible Coalition. Meanwhile, countries who are doing rather well are led by Socialists, like India or Brazil, and these Socialist countries are successfully challenging the diktats of Neo Liberal institutions such as the IMF. Spain, in Europe, has been hurt a lot under the rule of Conservatives but seems to do better since it became Socialist, and is doing way better than Portugal, Italy, GB or France that are all led by Conservatives. Germany fondly remembers its glorious days under Social Democrats and the Northern Countries, one after the other, return to Socialism. So does Australia under Julia Gillard, the first female PM of Australia and more and more countries. The branch of Socialism never disappeared because it is the future of the social evolution tree. The Neanderthal branches known as Conservatism and Liberalism will take a long time to disappear but they will. And one day, a new Ideology will appear, one step ahead of Socialism. Maybe it does exist already. Maybe it doesn't. But it will. Because the Human Race is still young and the Future is bright.

Angry birds and the Big Social Crunch.

Unless you come from another planet or another time you know how angry birds, the No.1 best selling smartphone app, are catapulted at egg-stealing pigs cowering behind cartoon fortress walls. James Travers in the Toronto Star came up with this brilliant idea: what if the angry birds were a metaphor of the fury and frustration that are surfacing all over the globe? What are political leaders, investment bankers and other grasping elites if not egg-stealing pigs? What are parliaments, banks and multinationals corporations if not soaring stone, glass and steel strongholds protecting the privileged. Played for fools for too long, citizens, taxpayers and voters are hurling themselves at the most visible targets with a vengefulness that is often suicidal. Our old western civilization seems to be on a slippery slope. Its old craddle of the Euphrates, Tigris and Jordan rivers, far from being a safe haven, seems to be where it is rushing for its doom. New powers coming from Asia, South America and maybe Africa are awakening, full of youth, energy and creativity. Meanwhile we are getting older, fatter and stupider. Laziness, selfishness, intolerance, disconnect, boredom, depression, incommunicado and overindulgence are spreading like pandemics. On top of all that, Democracy, our flagship, that was supposed to bring to the rest of the world the treasures of our civilization, seems to be like the Titanic: the orchestra is still playing but the foremost compartments are flooded. And while the upper class can comfortably resume its boring party in luxury lifeboats, the crowds are trapped in the lower decks. No wonder that anger is rising. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1836 Democracy was an irresistible force that moved our civilization in a constant expansion of its ideals of  Liberty and Equality. In Europe, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, only a few families owned the land and governed the rest of the people. Then came the Clergy, open to everyone, rich or poor. It took its share of power, leading to a first step towards Social Equality. Then came the Jurists taking opportunity of the growing complexity of human interaction and the need for regulation. The subsequent rise of the Merchants followed the ruinous wars that the kings were waging. With the spirit of Enlightenment came the Scientists and the Artists. And finally came the time of Revolutions and Reforms which eventually gave the power to the People. Democracy was installed. And throughout the 19e and 20th Century it continued to grow with the coming of age of Liberalism, Socialism, Communism and all the other ism. Social Equality experienced amazing progress. Slavery was abolished, Women eventually obtained the right to vote, Privileges were replaced by Rights, taxation was used to reduce Heritage and Fortune discrepancies, education was granted to all,  Henry Ford made the car affordable for everyone, yadi yadi yada. It was like a Big Social Bang. Our civilization exploded from its first incarnation of a Sun King surrounded by Darkness to constellations of Solar Systems with their Planets, free and equal in rights, if not in size, ressources and atmosphere. In 1992, Francis Fukuyama announced the End of History. With the Fall of the Wall, our civilization had achieved its expansion towards Liberty and Social Equality. Democracy was at its summit. But Francis Fukuyama forgot that we can't stay at the summit.. We want to go back. And at the summit, going back means going down. Actually the journey back -and down- might have begun a little earlier than 1992.  In his July 15, 1979 speech, President Jimmy Carter wrote: "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Humanity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns".  He was right. So much so that Ronald Reagan was elected and history resumed its mad race... in the opposite direction. Liberty, so far, was relatively spared. But Social Equality went down at an amazing speed. Its foundations were sabotaged one by one: education, community, fraternity, religions, unions, independent press, culture, taxation, property redistribution, regulation. Francis Bacon wrote "above all things good policy is to be used so that treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into a few hands...Money is like muck, not good except it be spread." Well Francis, 50% of the global muck is now owned by 2%  muckers who, far from being spread, are often next pool neighbors. No wonder that the remaining birds are getting angry to be more and more to share less and less of the golden eggs. Terrorists, Pirates, Talibans, Tea Partiers, Zapatistas, Wikileakers and Don Cherry are the visible tip of the iceberg. But what is really threatening the Democratitanic are the angry submerged birds, because they are the Majority and Majority rules. Make no mistake, the angry submerged birds are no headless chicken. They will hurl themselves at what they want to hurl themselves at,  not at what they are told to hurl themselves at. The problem is that they are hurling themselves at everything but the only target that would be worth being hurled at. Take, for example, the War on Christmas. Supporters of using terms such as "Holidays" in place of "Christmas" argue that symbols and behaviors such as caroling, decorated trees, mistletoe, holly wreaths and yule logs have pre-Christian origins. Furthermore they add that public recognition of a potentially sectarian holiday such as Christmas may be seen as non-inclusive or offensive to non Christians or non celebrants in general. On the other team, people like Gerald L.K. Smith claimed that Xmas was a "blasphemous omission of the name of Christ" and that Jews introduced Santa Claus to suppress the New Testament accounts of Jesus and that the United Nations at the behest of "world Jewry" had "outlawed the name of Christ". A very old controversy. And a very stupid one. However, our angry birds recently started hurling themselves again at random non Christmas friendly targets, with amazing results. There were great victories. A bill was introduced in the California Senate to rename the State Holiday Tree the California State Christmas Tree. After threats of boycotting, Sears altered its marketing policies from using "holiday" to "Christmas." The change of policy included the distribution of "Merry Christmas" signs to stores nationwide and also included a "very Merry Christmas" greeting at their website. Kmart opened the 2006 Christmas season with their slogan "Where Christmas comes together", and several commercials acknowledging Christmas, including one with the tune to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". In response to the public outcry, Wal-Mart announced that the former "Holiday Shop" would become the "Christmas Shop", and that there would be a "countin' down the days to Christmas" feature. the CEO of Target, Bob Ulrich, stated that usage of "holiday" instead of "Christmas" was a mistake. "Frankly, we screwed up", he said. Of course there were also cruel defeats. Dawn Bryant, a Best Buy spokeswoman, stated: "We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them." A television ad campaign launched by Gap was sung as: "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go solstice... go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you Wannakuh" to which the AFA responded by condemning the ads for references to the "pagan holiday" of solstice. Overall the angry birds succeeded in their quest. Uber Christmas is back in the US with added Santa Power and double dose of Carols. In Canada, the battle is only beginning, but no doubt that with the help of Stephen Harper recent declarations and the rise of new figureheads such as Rob Ford it will be soon won. Meanwhile, Christmas, a great celebration and family moment, loved by almost everyone in the world including people for who it is not a religious holiday, has been slowly turned into a soulless consumerist frenzy for which Canadians spend 30 billions dollars each year, more than the GDP of Afghanistan, five times the GDP of Haiti. I am sure the angry birds miss the good old Christmas Spirit, when people were happier, had more hope, were more helpful and smiled and said hello to everyone they met on the streets. Maybe they could have helped revive This Time Of The Year. Too bad they were too busy hurling themselves at another target. The wrong one. Again.

Shot to death

George Robitaille, 55, suffered a stroke and died. Remember George Robitaille? No? How about "The Snoozing TTC collector". Rings a bell? Remember the image of this TTC fare collector leaning back on his chair with his eyes closed and mouth opened? Did it make you laugh as it made laugh one half of Toronto? Did it make you angry as it made angry the other half? How do you feel about it now? Maybe I should not forget to write that he was on a number of medications including heart medication that contributed to him falling asleep at work. He revealed that in the public apology that he felt he had to offer and that the Toronto Sun displayed as a trophy in his Pulitzer deserving article "Snoozing TTC collector offers apology". The same Toronto Sun that put the shot of George Robitaille on its front page and whipped the hysteria over it, in a time where newspapers were all about the catastrophe in Haiti. Are you still laughing? Are you still angry? Yes? Well maybe you also need to hear that George Robitaille had worked for the TTC for 29.5 years, and for the first 29 he had a flawless record. He was even recognized as a hero in the mid 1990s for saving the life of a disabled man. He was a dedicated, fun loving employee who prided himself on customer service. That's right! Customer service! The same guy who was picked by the great Toronto Sun to be the poster boy for lazy public service employees who are "wasting tax payers money" and do not "deliver customer service excellence" that became instrumental in George Smitherman and Rob Ford campaigns. Maybe you also need to hear what Warren Kinsella -who is not exactly Joe the Pinko- did say: "Today, we learn that the man in photo is dead. He was sick, and apparently sick at the time of the photo, too. He left the job he loved, ashamed of what had happened, ashamed that he had hurt the reputation of his colleagues. He had worked for nearly three decades with an unblemished record.Why am I drawing attention to this? Because it isn’t the exception; it’s the rule, now. Because it should make some people - a lot of people, actually - feel ashamed for how this story ended. Because, when our collective memory is determined by a Google search, and nothing is worth saying if it isn’t expressed in 140 characters, and the “news cycle” is shorter than a sound bite, and analysis is thinner than piss on a rock, this how things are going to be, from now on: someone’s life, captured in a completely unrepresentative moment, is completely destroyed. And no one gives a shit". George Robitaille leaves behind a son.

Avanti o popolo!

Stop the gravy train! Miller is wasting my tax dollars! Where did my money go! Apparently We The People Of the World finally found out who was responsible for our misery: governments, public services, social securities, health care systems, you name it. Everything that has the public label is evil, foul, corrupt. Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, the Hydro Hydra can only be defeated by the White Knights of the Wrong Bible, also known has the Market Forces Addicts, the Private Property Maniacs, the Liberalidealists, the Tea (douche) Baggers or Palin-dromes (dammit I'm mad), the Happy Bullies Drivers, the Hard Core Gun Lovers and the Planet Wasters Big Daddy Dig Baby Diggers. Councillor Kyle Rae spent $400 of taxpayers' money on a leather bound fetish party in a city-owned park! Shame, shame -yelled the hard working crowds from the burbs, coming out of their Mc Mansions without even finishing their third steak, jumping in their SUV, rushing to City Hall without even taking a minute to run over some cyclist, shooting point blank VoldeMiller and his Tax Eaters and offering the throne to Sir Robert Ford the Just- that is as soon as he will be done with his important Football Coaching duties. I am aware that this last sentence makes me in the eyes of almost everyone a damned leftist core elite diverse tree hugger spandex bummed liberal. Problem is, I am not a liberal, sorry, I am a socialist, yes, but no, it is not the same thing. I know that in this country your choice is limited between Conservarybdis and Scylliberals. But liberalism is to socialism what Mirvish Theatres or the Maple Leaf's Garden Loblaws are to a public library or a community center. Conservatives have more things in common with socialists than liberals do. Conservatives and socialists believe in moral rules. Not the same ones, of course. Socialists believe in rules that promote social equality, social security, affordability, access to health care, access to leisure, access to culture, community life. Conservatives believe in rules that promote family value, private property, security (police and army), religion, freedom (first amendment USC), the environment (yes, the environment is a conservative value, one of the good one, even though a lot of today's conservatives are convinced it is another damned leftist ideal). Liberals only believe in one rule. The rule of the market. The market is deemed always right because it is supposed to represent the ultimate form of democracy. But the market is biased. It always was. Liberalism was born in the London of the XVIIIe century which soon became one of the worst place to live on earth. Pollution, Misery, Crime! London only started to heal when the Labor Party on one side and the Conservative Party on the other became the two major forces in the country and established enough rules and regulations so that the balance of power shifted toward the Light Side of the Force- the Public Force. Canada and the States were built with a conservative framework, not a liberal one. The US constitution protects freedom of speech, private property, democracy. It doesn't leave anything to be decided by the market. But after England and most of Europe, the liberal virus spread to the new continent where it found a particularly receptive host. The first run of global liberalism, in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century lead to a major depression and to at least a war (WWI was more a consequence of european nationalisms), after that strong public institutions  (a.k.a Big Government) took over everywhere and drove the world through 30 years of peace and prosperity. Then liberalism showed again its ugly face first in the eighties through fake conservatives like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher and then through fake socialists like Bill Clinton or Tony Blair.  At first it was all fun! Money,  Party, Cocaine! A first big hungover happened in the beginning of the nineties and a smaller one at the beginning of the new century. But liberalism is so addictive that as soon as the economies recovered a little, new guys came, snorted whatever was left on the floor and the party resumed. Louder, Bigger, Higher. Until 2007 and another hungover. But the liberals are still in power everywhere in the world. Obama is not Roosevelt, Cameron is not Churchill, Harper is nothing, the power is not belonging to the states anymore, it is belonging to corporations who are now so strong that not only, by outsourcing, can they crush the unions representing the workers who gave their sweat and blood for them, not only, by offshoring, can they humiliate the nations who nurtured them, but can even indulge in racketeering by forcing governments to bail them out. Numerous studies have shown that the global happiness of a given population will always diminish when this population is exposed to the Market and his inevitable disciples Consumerism, Advertising, Upselling, Customer Service and Globalization. Consumers goods and services are like drugs. They do not give any pleasure but you cannot help desiring them. Have you seen the faces of people on a giant McCruise in the Carribean? Or people living in Monster Houses or in Exclusively Exclusive Condos. Or people driving their SUV or Ferrari? Or people eating behind the smoked windows of an fancy restaurant in Yorkville? Do they seem happy? No. Yet they are living the dream of most of the people in most of the world. The worst is that hardly anyone seems to mind. US citizens seem to be way more mad at their government for the 2007 bailout than at the corporations that sunk the economy, begged for help, took the money and wasted a big part of it in indecent salaries & bonuses for the same guys that were sleeping when the ship hit the iceberg or even steering the ship towards the iceberg, and another big part in indecent corporate spending to carry these same guys around the world, entertain them and offer them social protection, insurance and golden retirement. Here liberaelians from Canada can step in and rightfully claim that there was not bailout in Canada and therefore, at least north of Lake Ontario, liberalism do work, the market is always right and corporation should be allowed to do whatever they want with their money which is not only 100% private sector money but also generates huge tax revenues and therefore is good for Canada, right? Yes but no. Private sector money comes from the consumers, who are none other than the taxpayers who were so mad about Kyle Rae $400. Taxes are the source of income to finance services provided by the government the same way the monthly fees of your phone plan is the source of income to finance the Rogers services. Therefore corporate waste should piss people at least as much as public sector waste, way more actually given that the amount wasted are incomparably bigger. But no,will object the libereagol, we are free to choose a different phone provider or to have no phone at all but what about the Precious tax dollars that are taken away from us without our consent my Precious. Nasty little government who took our tax dollars. We'll carefully watch how they spend it and get really mad if they waste a single penny, oh, yes Precious. Yes, but again no, the City of Toronto taxes which ignited the People Anger that brought us Rob Ford are the fee that you pay to obtain services from the City of Toronto. If you think the taxes in Toronto are too important, you are free to move to Mississauga or Hamilton. Living in Toronto is like having a plan with Rogers, it is expensive, but you get a lot of service in return. Living in Mississauga is cheaper but you live in the middle of an urban desert. And as far as I know Toronto doesn't require you to wait three years before you can move elsewhere. Liberarguer (who probably actually did move to Mississauga and had to sign with Rogers for three more years to get his new iPhone 4 is shaken but not beaten and launches his proton torpedo: quote- the painful truth is most private companies are run a lot more efficiently than governments- unquote. Yes but no. Governments appear less efficient than private companies because their inefficiencies are subject to more public scrutiny. The recent crisis proved that corporations are not being even loosely watched by anyone, so much so that some even lied to their shareholders about their finances. In public institutions, every penny has to be accounted for. This is how the Creatures of the Burbs learned about Kyle Rae $400. Corporations are not transparent, not democratic and not accountable to those who are affected by them. Therefore they can -against all evidences- proclaim that they are efficient. However, everywhere in the world where private corporations took over public services like health care, transportation, security, schools, they proved way less efficient. Some shiny example like the US private health care system or the big Universities seem to speak in favor of private corporations but theses institutions eat way more money than their public counterparts and the fact that they are profit driven make them choose options that are arguably not the best for the public service they are supposed to offer. Of course, I am aware that private initiative is unbeatable for extracting energy, processing food, building houses, producing consumer goods, offering consumer services, innovating in engineering, process, management, training etc. I am a socialist, not a communist. I believe in the genius of the individual, on the benefits of trade and on the power of competition.  But first of all, production, service and innovations are way better handled by human-sized companies managed by real entrepreneurs rather than by oversized global corporations overstaffed by overpaid barons who all reached long ago their level of incompetence and are mainly preoccupied by looking important and systematically hiding the consequences of their multiple failures. Second, I think that the Public Institutions -which are the Organs of the People's Power- should be able to control, regulate and interfere if need be with the operations of private companies. Private property is important and deserves to be protected. But never at the expense of what should be the primary concern of every Democracy, the Security, the Well Being and the Happiness of Us the People.

The Liberal Stragedy

It is sadly more and more likely that Toronto next Minor will be one of the Bullies Brothers, George Smitherman or Rob Ford. If it is Ford, nothing good or bad will happen in the next 4 years. The situation will be probably like the pre-Metropolitan Toronto Act times with the Mayor in the role of the inefficient Board and the Council in the role of the annoying Municipalities. The Mayor will announce big projects that the Council will systematically reject. Ford will probably be able to cut some impopular taxes like the vehicle registration tax. He should be able to slightly diminish the number of people working for the city. Some Community and Arts & Culture projects will suffer from 4 years of Fordism, but not to the nightmarish extent that is depicted by the Smithermaniac propaganda. Overall Ford is a nice guy and he actually listens to people. That worked well for him within his ward, but a councillor has not much to decide. He listens and reports. Being His Worship is a different story. The job will be "bigger than anything he had tried before" as Big Daddy Gardiner once said. Maybe Rob Ford secretly dreams of being the new Big Daddy. But Gardiner was a hard worker, working twelve hours a day, weekends included. During his nine years as chairman, he only took two summer vacations and four mid-winter holidays. Ford doesn't have this kind of energy. And let's face it, he doesn't have Gardiner extraordinary abilities. Not even close. How about George Smitherman. He, however, openly dreams of being the new Fred Gardiner. He clearly said so at his May 28, 2010 Fundraiser Luncheon. He has the balls clearly. Looks like he has the energy. Concerning his intelligence, the truth is that his remaining opponents are so dull that it makes him look smart by comparison. It is probably a relief for him that Rossi dropped out because face to face with the guy who didn't have Bocce Balls but a Pallone Da Calcio Brain, Smitherman brightness dangerously faltered. So Big Bully has the guts, at least some of the head, but does he have the soul? Does anybody knows what George Smitherman stands for? Does he know it himself? Does he care? He began his political career as an organizer for the Ontario Liberal Party and Premier David Peterson. He was chief of staff to Hugh O'Neil and senior advisor to Herb Gray and David Collenette. He was chief of staff and campaign manager to Barbara Hall. In the 1999 provincial election he became MPP for Toronto Centre-Rosedale. Funny thing is that he won because he ran against two left-wing candidates (including John Sewell). It is probably where he learnt that the left has a majority in Toronto but is so weak, so hesitant and so easily manipulated that it is almost funny. On October 23, 2003. Smitherman was named to cabinet as Minister of Health, Deputy Premier and the Toronto Regional Minister. On June 20, 2008, Smitherman was shuffled to the new Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. He is a hard core, center right liberal, good friend with Dalton Mc Guinty or Michael Bryant who is hosting fundraisers for his Mayoral campaign. He is the epitome of the Board Member, you know these guys that run all type of institutions in Toronto, from Big Businesses to Theatres or Art Galleries and basically do nothing but parade from cocktail to opening night. Much like his mentor David Peterson on the board of YBM Magnex, a firm which was discovered to have links to the Russian mafia. Investigation found that Peterson's actions met "the legal test of due diligence", but expressed disappointment that he had not shown more leadership on the board. A story which resonate with the way Slither Man handled the eHealth controversy. George's successor David Caplan resigned as Minister in 2009 to take responsibility for mistakes that were made. Not the kind of thing Slicky Bully does. This background is far from making him the Che Guevara of Toronto's progressive majority. However, making good use of his bullying and manipulation skills, with the help of the Liberal King Maker In Chief a.k.a the Toronto Star and a bunch of young Bully-The-Kids making smart use of the Internet and social medias to launch a large scale Rob Ford Is The Devil And Will Eat Your Kids campaign he managed to tailor-design for himself the costume of the go-to candidate for a Left desperately looking for a leader and ready to clinging to anything that is apparently affloat on this ocean of disconnect that is today's Toronto. It is not the first time that Big Bully finds common ground with a certain kind of left which opinion is represented by -say- half of the articles written in the NOW magasine (that is two or three pages). This left is all about Environment, Biking, Arts & Culture (including Graffiti) and the abominable notion of Diversity. What does Diversity means? Is it related to biodiversity. In which case it would mean that different cultures represent different forms of life with their own particular DNA. Behind its progressive mask, Diversity is a revival of racism, encouraging every culture to live independently from the others. Encouraging immigrants not to learn English and not to abide by Canadian values -such as no wrapping a women in drapes or no bringing your sword to class - deprive them of finding their full place in the City. It is also a sneakier form of racism. There is no name calling, no insults, no bullying. But with people conveniently segregated in their own community, it is easier not to be around them. The result? Monochromatic schools, some purely asians, some purely 'brown' and, of course a lot purely white. Same thing with businesses. I have a friend who is an extremely competent lawyer. But he is black. He cannot find a job in Bay Street. He has offers in Brampton. Not the same kind of revenue though. How about City Workers? How many immigrants from Asia are working in Police? Firemen? Construction workers? The entourage of Diversitherman himself is dangerously WASP of the Board Member specie, think David Peterson, Dalton Mc Guinty, Michael Bryant, Christopher Peloso, Bruce Davis. Environment and the Arts are important issues for the left, but let's face it, they are secondary issues. What the left primary concern should be is that everyone live as good a life as possible, physically, materially and socially. Therefore the primary concern of the left should be giving access to health care, increasing minimum wage, promoting equal opportunity employment, promoting work security, promoting a healthy life style, planting trees, reconstructing the social fabric, promoting community initiatives and -especially in Toronto where the situation is catastrophic- reclaiming the public space, halting the construction of high-rises exclusively dedicated to luxury residences, hotels and condos that are slowly transforming Toronto into Mississauga and instead building museums, gyms, pools, hockey rinks, stadiums, community centres, library and workplaces. Obviously these concerns are not the concerns of Smith&Wesson and the Liberals who are the first to enjoy hiring slave workers for their companies, slave ushers for their theatres and slave nannies for their houses paid $10 an hour or less. George Smitherman, the Liberal Party, and the Toronto Star want to strike a deadly blow to the NDP before the Provincial Election and reclaim Toronto that has been a thorn in their side. Miller was far from being the best Mayor of Toronto and the NDP with its lack of courage, its hesitations, its dullness -well embodied by a Joe Mihevc- is far from being a source of hope. However anything will be better than the liberal taking again control of Toronto. Especially these liberals. Especially since they are also controlling the Province. Anything will be better, including, I think, having Rob Ford as a Mayor. Not only Toronto won't suffer that much, but also it will create the condition for an earthquake among the left that could lead to the rise of a new political figure in four years. Someone who will bring real hope, not a fear monger. Someone who have a vision not strategies. Someone who will be a Mayor, not a Minor. Someone who will be Toronto next Fred Gardiner. A Gardiner with his heart on the Left.

Hello happy taxpayers

Out of the 7 dwarfs who campaigned to be elected Minor of Toronto, only 4 remain. Grumpy, Doc, Bashful and Dopey. Grumpy, with the help of the creatures of the Burbs, set the tone for the campaign. He would stop the gravy train that was threatening to open a deficit hole in the magic kingdom. He would cut everything that was growing in the revenue forest. And with nobody remaining to serve the public and no money left in the treasure, he would singlehandedly -with the help of his giant flagpole carrier Mammoliti- provide an Excellent Customer Service to the good car driving, football playing and barbecue eating citizens of Toronto. This plateform was so bad that Doc and Dopey immediately copied it. Meanwhile, Bashful the Gardener clenched his tiny fists and proclaimed as loud as he could -that is whispered- to anyone who would listen to him -that is no-one- that he -unlike the others- will protect the beautiful garden built by King Miller, will jump to the throat of the Evil Step Province and make it regurgitate the stolen gold. This show could be quite enjoyable if it was not another bitter taste of our future. Once again, Toronto is at the avant garde of the world's devolution. Not because public spending is demonized while corporate mismanagement, waste and corruption is easily forgiven. This is not new and already applies in most of the so-called developed world. However, another brick in the wall that is being built in our ever tightening public space is the constant reference to customer service. As Josh Hume wrote, we're apparently a city of customers now. Not citizens, residents or even taxpayers, but customers, entitled to a dollar for dollar return on our tax investment. According to Roger Keil, the nomenclature is a symptom of a decade long shift in the contract between government and citizens. The idea of public service, public ownership and public control is being turned into its opposite which is the idea that we are all individual nomads roaming the city in our own self interest. According to Frank Cunningham, thinking of people as customers has the effect of dampening the notion of civic engagement, the idea of working together for the common good. Instead it pits citizens against one another, competing for whatever resources they think the city can provide for them individually. A city without social tissue would only be a giant complex comprising warehouses where human being are stored, hamster wheels where they are used and dairy farms where they are milked. The infrastructure is already available, residential condos providing the warehouses, Bay street suites the hamster wheels and malls the milking units. Moreover this kind of city already exist in some new suburbs where Mc Mansions are built overnight on former farmlands and actually look like units of a factory farm even though their owner are persuaded they bought the winning ticket to upper class bliss. If we don't want to import this kind of livestyle in our beloved Toronto, maybe we should try to behave a little bit more like happy taxpayers, trying to fix as much as possible the inevitable problems that such a huge, diverse and multicultural city is bound to have, but not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Brave New Brave New World.

I recently saw WALL.E and was surprised. Not only does it intelligently re-invent the forgotten art of silent movies but its plot is quite good! It reminded me of my teenage cyber-punk books filled with electronic dictators, bad robots, mad computers and other computer-age dystopias. It is funny to think that none (as far as I know) of the science fiction scenarios of the 80s predicted Google, Facebook or even eBay. Writers kept forecasting intelligent machines -Genies according to William Gibson- discrete entities which behavior is dictated by survival instinct (HAL9000), laws of robotics (Asimov robots) or even emotions (Philip K. Dick's Rachael Rosen and Blade Runner's replicants). However, Artificial Intelligence, more and more efficient and impressive especially thanks to the statistical approach (Google), doesn't seem to go anywhere as far as discrete intelligence is concerned. But the reason why a WALL.E scenario is not impossible at all, is that meanwhile, human being are getting increasingly more stupid. Humanity as a whole is probably way more intelligent than it ever used to, but as a distributed entity, not as a sum of discrete entities. In other word, following the Henry Ford path of increased productivity, we are becoming collectively smarter as we lose more and more of our individual intelligence. Isn't this new wave of humanity precisely the stuff Google is made of? According, again, to William Gibson: "We generate product for Google, our every search a minuscule contribution. Google is made of us, a sort of coral reef of human minds and their products... We are at once the surveilled and the individual retinal cells of the surveillant...We are part of a post-geographical, post-national superstate... We're citizens, but without right." What we perceive as a technological threat might be something that began way before Google, long before the Net, even before Computers. Maybe the cold-blooded machine, this all-powerful wheel that is leading Humanity to its doom is Humanity itself. There is no Frankenstein's monster, but billions of Victor Frankensteins being slowly disconnected from the real world and inserted in the ever-growing tentacular network of the World Company. Here is the machine that is driving us straight to the dystopia. Who is in charge? No one. No CEO. No board members. No share holders. Not even employees. Only cells connected with some other cells through new membranes. Facebook for the social connections. Linkedin for the professional connections. E-bay for the trade connections. Some cells are bigger: presidents, movie stars, models, scientists, entrepreneurs, clerics or generals. But they are cells like the others. I think the last stand of Humanity 1.0 was WWII. At least this war was fought for an understandable reason. Real heroes led by strong leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt) fought against absolute evil (Hitler), despite the maneuvers of true traitors (Petain, Mussolini) and with the help of a redeemed villain (Stalin). But the war within the war was lost. Hitler was defeated but the real victor was Henry Ford or more precisely the companies that used his mass production technique first to submerge Germany and Japan under a sea of steel and then to use peace as a key to consumerism (by contrast to Ford who planned to use consumerism as a key to peace). The World Company was born. Its fight against Communism was only a momentary lapse of reason. Like a cat chasing its tail. And what Communism became in China indeed proved that it was only a tail, or a shadow, of the World Company. This episode taught the World Company that having an Arch Enemy was a good tool to scare its cells that are trying to regain some independance or to reconnect to the reality. It then became good at finding new ennemies so that there is always at least one to fight against. Now, what is the soul of World Company? What makes it do what it does? Maybe nothing? A black hole in place of the heart? Maybe Laws of Economics functionning like Asimov's Laws of Robotics? Maybe, like in WALL.E, instructions given by leaders during WW2 were never retracted because no subsequent leaders had similar authority. Or maybe because the World Company, like Hal 9000, borrowed from us the instinct that carried Humanity through the millenias: survival. This very same instinct that, if we are able to free the Dave Bowman that is within each of us, will enable us to grab the wheel again, steer away from the dystopias, utopias or any kind of topias and go where we belong and where it is great to live: reality.

A trashy lefty post in the face of Craig Garret.

You probably don't know Craig Garret. At least the Craig Garret I am talking about. You might know a Craig Garret and there is nothing wrong with that. Except if he is the Craig Garret who wrote in this week's NOW a letter that I am going to quote in extenso here: 'Please do some research before suggesting such moronic ideas in the future like reducing the speed limit to 30km/h. The assumption that speed limits (sic) are the prime cause of accidents or even a cause has been shown to be incorrect many times over. You'd better watch it: keep printing drivel like this and people will start to assume you're just a trashy lefty pulp rag.'
Winston Churchill once said that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. If Craig Garret is the average voter, I for sure agree. Maybe he (Craig, not Sir Winston) is only a lost soul seeking attention in which case there is no point commenting on his nonsenses. But in case he represents even a minority of today's Torontonian trend of thinking, I feel that it would too bad not to mention it in my blog. So, yes, Craig,  research has been done, everywhere in the world. And everywhere in the world the same clear, overwhelming, obvious result was obtained: higher speed means more victims on the road. OK Craig, you didn't mention victims but accidents. And I can admit -even though I don't think so-that speed is not the prime cause of accident. Because scratching your car while turning left at an intersection and hitting a car that is going straight through counts as an accident. And obviously a 30km/h speed limit would not have avoided this particular accident. Now if the speed of both colliding car is over 30km/h, the collision takes place at over 60 km/h. And what happens Craig if you have a collision at over 60 km/h? Don't try. You might regret it. Also if you have children (is it a good idea?), maybe one day you'll thank the caring people who fought to limit the speed. Not for their benefit, not for their pleasure, not for their amusement but to save the life of your kids (I'd rather imagine you don't have kids). Is caring for the safety of your children a leftist value? Don't answer. I am not really talking to you.

Zoning diet

Zoning in Toronto gives a good idea of what the law of the jungle is like. Or chaos. I already mentionned in 'deconstruction' how you cannot see lake Ontario from anywhere in downtown Toronto, even though Toronto is more or less built on a basin which is pretty much like a theater which stage is lake Ontario, which happens to be one of the largest lake in the world. But the forest like array of buildings makes it impossible to see the stage, wherever you are seated in the theatre. Except maybe from the very first row, which is not anymore front street, nor even harbourfront, but the most recent line of high-rises that have been built on the lake in front of the others. Yes, Toronto is building on the lake, like they do in Japan or in other countries where they have no space. Except that it is taking place in Canada where space is the cheapest commodity. Even in Toronto where empty spaces are everywhere. Like in the east for exemple. Not far in the east. Just a little east of Union Station, where all of a sudden high rises cease to exist and are replaced by a desert where the highest buildings are churches, like in the good old days. And where you suddenly realize that there is a lake after all in this city. And even beaches. Sand beaches. Don't tell this to someone who is living at Bay and Front, he will not believe you. And that is only one misdeed of the mad berserk blind boar who is in charge of zoning in Toronto. Basically, any abandonned house, any parking, any garden can suddenly be transformed into a 30+ stories high-rise regardless of the consequences on the neighbouring heritage building, family houses or even other high-rise which condos were sold featuring a beautiful picture showing the proud tower alone in the sky above all the pettiness of the crawling crowds and which ends up being constricted between four higher buildings with a mirror image of itself as sole view. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Exploring the iceberg streets.

My niece Charlotte came up with a clever theory. Each word has two dimensions: its meaning and its history. The meaning is the tip of the iceberg while the history remains underwater. This structure can be applied to many things. Like a city. Each house, street, park, statue, tree, ravine, landmark has an existence in the present, the visible tip of the iceberg, and a context, an history and a life that usually remain unseen: underwater. When we walk in the city, or worst when we bike, or even worst when we drive or take the TTC, we only see the surface of the city. This heritage house is the space in which my 7-11 happened to be and I never noticed until it closed the amazing nineteen century features of the wall against which the shelf containing my smoothies used to be. This tree is where I locked my bike until I realized it was planted by a family mourning the lost of their dear son who didn't come back from World War. This acting school looked like every acting school until I realized it was an hospital before. This mall was the biggest warehouse of Canada. This store was a church. This Art Gallery was someone's house and that one was a power plant. This pub was a bank. This cafe was a distillery. This theatre was an ice storage facility. The city assumes a totally different face as you allow yourself to dive down deeper into the sea of time, far away from the surface of Appearances, closer to the Reality.

Artificial intelligence

Some high ranking executive of some think tank of some high-tech worldwide company -tired of imagining new uselessness to create more emptiness- decided to return to the nuts and bolts, litteraly, and started a motorbike repairing business, finding happiness working 6 hours on a tank, a real one this time. He then wrote a book about how we live in an increasingly artificial world where we use more and more technology that we understand less and less. Like the computer I am using right now, or the network it is connected to, or the blog software it is using. What if this post does not appear on my blog? What can I do? We are waiting for companies to provide us with new toys that we don’t know how to operate. Who is using a smartphone to the fullest of its capacity and not only to a/check their facebook wall, b/download their favourite tune, c/post on their facebook their favourite tune, d/change their facebook status to ‘Check this tune I just downloaded! It’s my favourite!’? Same goes for cars, who is able to fix a car today? Or even a bike? Or even a tire? Or a faulty air conditionner, a leaking pipe, a blaring alarm? People live in houses, ride cars, use technology that they not only didn’t build /assemble/manufacture but are also more and more incapable of maintening. In a city like Toronto, where there is almost no public space, real or virtual, private properties, private cars, private goods are the very fabric of the city. What if the owners of these private properties are unable to maintain them? More and more people are employed to maintain the private properties of other people. But this kind of services are expensive. Often more than what has to be serviced. Take a cellphone for example. It is way cheaper to buy a new one than to repair a broken one. But the same goes with much less high tech objects like a coffee machine, a lamp or a pen. How come it is so easy to build a giant high rise and so hard to make something out of the Maple Leaf Garden, the abandoned factories on the east side or the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Most of the would be mayors of Toronto seem to live in the artificial side of the city, discussing bike lanes, subway lines, police reinforcement that will exist only on drawings or in dreams. Perhaps they should also start a motorbike repairing business. They won’t have to write the book, that is already done...

Justice partout, police nulle part.

Police partout, justice nulle part -meaning police everywhere, justice nowhere- is often heard during protests in France. There are indeed a lot of police in french towns, in train stations, subways, roads, intersections. In Toronto however, police is nowhere to be seen. There are so, so, so many rules -no trespassing, no loitering, no smoking, no left turn, no crossing, no parking, no U turn, no skating, no swimming, no soliciting, no idling, no running, no insulting, no sitting, what not- some impossible to guess if you have not been born and raised in the city, like almost all rules concerning street cars. So, so, so many rules...and no police to enforce them. Take the no phoning while driving policy. Great policy! Might actually save lifes. Might. If there was anyone actually checking what people are doing in their car. Is there a single cop in Toronto whose job is to stand on the side of the road -or even sit in his car- and look for people using their phone while driving? I have never seen one. Take the no insulting TTC driver policy. What happen if you insult a TTC driver? You are filmed by a camera. And then what? The TTC guys hire a private investigator to find you? Because it they come to the police with their video tape, the response is likely to be the one my wife had when she came to report that her bike had been stolen. A huge laugh. In a city where every single building entrance is protected by a security guard, where each mall, stadium or Art gallery is patrolled by entire squadrons, who is watching the streets? Do you realize that Darcy Allan Sheppard would probably be still alive if there was a cop permanently posted at the intersection of Bay and Bloor. It has been reported that a billion dollar has been spent on the security for the G20. How many cops could patrol the street of Toronto for years with this kind of money? Isn't security a right for everyone?

Road rage

Open a newspaper these days and you'll read things like 'When the dust settles, Michael Bryant will be able to return to politics'. When the dust settles... How dare you! How can anyone write things like 'charges against him in the death of a cyclist have been withdrawn'. So Michael Bryant is Michael Bryant and not 'a yuppie in a car' while Darcy Allan Sheppard is 'a cyclist' or 'the drunk cyclist'. How about the Globe and Mail's 'Michael Bryant and Darcy Allan Sheppard:victims of circumstance'. How Bryant turned into a victim? So Darcy Allan Sheppard was drunk. And he ran after cars in the past. Now, who has never been yelled at by some drunk guy, occasionally grabing you or otherwise tried to physically impress you? Are these guys ever dangerous? No. Do you feel entitled to pull out your gun and shoot him? No. But apparently it made sense that Mr Bryant dragged this guy from Bay to University. Why? Because he was afraid. So we were told -only at the beginning of the case because after it kind of went off the radar- that Mr Bryant was a trained boxer. And he was afraid -more than afraid, apparently, in a state of panic- because he was attacked by a drunk guy. Mr Bryant was attorney general, and thus probably aware that these guys are never a danger, except for themselves and their family. And actually, at the end of the story, the cyclist dies, his family gets nothing but awful investigations about the past and the all white Mr Bryant -Brillant?- walks out free as the dove he obviously is, without a single day spent in prison, a single cent spent as retribution and is getting ready to resume a political career that was on the descending slope before the 'accident' and apparently could be reboosted because of what happened! A propos, the life of Mr Sheppard has been over-investigated, but what about the life of Mr Bryant. Who paid a detective to check if he had not an history of violent driving back in the days in BC or in Harvard. He was a boxer? That seems to be a violent sport. Was he ever involved in a fight? Why bother. Apparently, in the Ontario law system, the only past worth being investigated is the one of the victim. The real one.

Deconstruction

A common point between Toronto and Chicago, besides the facts that they have been both settled by french speakers, is that they are built on the shore of a great lake. The difference is that in Toronto you cannot see the lake, not even on Front street which was the shoreline of lake Ontario back in the days of Fort Rouillé. Actually, you can see the lake from a condo in a high-rise unit. Which is ironic given the fact that it is precisely because of the wild development of these condos that you cannot see the lake. Wild development does not mean a lot of construction. It means construction without any understandable logic. Except one. Private property. It is simple: if you own land, you apparently can do anything you want on it. Whatever the consequences on your neighbours, your city and your environment may be. Even on the few remaining parts of the city that are not private, like the street for exemple, anyone that owns anything anywhere in the city can do whatever he wants. Like hydro companies, or gaz companies or cable companies endlessly scarring the asphalt. Like restaurants, transforming the sidewalk in big smokers patios. Like cars using the few bike lanes available as parking space. And obviously, no-one is inclined to show their private parts. And this is how a lake disappears.

Recycled ideas

Recycling in Canada is widespread as compared to France, which may be surprising in the country of overheated giant malls, overpowered SUV and overlit high rise units. Is it because garbage is in your face while deforestation remains a distant concept in the country of the Boreal Shield ecozone? The same way throwing a stone at a dog is considered animal cruelty, while slaughtering cows for food, seals for fur and mice for convenience is deemed normal. Or is it because Canadians are good little soldiers, and recycle when they are told to do so? Or is it because they actually do not recycle and only pretend to so they have some kind of defense to raise when charged by the Global Green Prosecutor. Weak defense, I think, as I wonder if recycling makes any sense in such a big country. I was told about this community newspaper in butt fuck nowhere North of the country. They wanted their newspaper to be green, so they decided to use recycled paper. Which implied that:

A-Old newspapers are shipped, trucked, flown or sasquatch back carried to Toronto which is the nearest place with the proper recycling plant.

B-Recycled paper is shipped, trucked, flown, sasquatch back carried from Toronto to be printed in butt fuck nowhere which, by the way, has a big paper mill nearby from which paper could be almost delivered by a conveyor belt.

How many trees are equivalent to the carbon footprint of this transportation nightmare?

But it is true that I don't know for sure if recycling as a whole makes sense or not in Canada.

Does anybody knows?

Keep me posted.

In human big boxes.

I heard or read somewhere, perhaps on the internet, which means it is probably not true, that fear #1 in Canada is public speaking. Looks like there are a lot of insecure people out there trying to hide from the unknown in their own dudley-locked boxes: houses, cars, families, cliques, jobs, pubs, starbucks, religions, facebooks, diets, schools, books, gyms, neighborhoods, shops, opinions... And the more boxes, the better. Doesn't it feel good to be with my family, listening to my CBC in my SUV parked in my garage of my high-rise building in which no stranger can enter? What would they bring, these people that I have not accepted as my friends? Different opinions, alternative ways of life? And what if their world is better than mine? Do I have the strength to rethink my life?

Mens insana in corpore sano.

Who are these people roaming the street at 5am. Workers on an early shift? Party crowd going home? Vampires? No. Women and men of all ages going to the gym. Or running, swimming, biking, taichiing, pilating, bootcamping, stretching. A little break between 8am and 4pm to go to work, school or walk the dog, and then back to the gym. Quick dinner at 6, a movie (while doing sittups), yoga, herbal tea, facebook (upside down on an exercice ball) and in bed at 10pm. The other option is shoveling snow at 5am, loading stones in the pick-up at 6am, a little break between 8am and 4pm to trade credit default swaps with some greek or geek, depending, and then hockey practice, chopping wood, grilling hamburgers on the barbecue, playing hockey with the kids, playing hockey with the dog, playing hockey with the wife, a beer and in bed at 10pm. Run, comrade, the old world is behind you...

The Historical Development of Bernard Avenue

Bernard Avenue was laid out as Dufferin Steet in 1874, part of the village of Yorkville. Part of total of 42 building lots planned along Davenport, Avenue Road and on either side of the new street. The North side lots were 36' to 42' wide and 114' deep. The south side lots were 36' wide and 122' deep except for lot 3 (present #13 and #15) which were 50' wide. The south side corner lot was 180' deep and and extravagant 80' front on Avenue Road.

Most construction occured between 1885 and 1895 with very few twentieth century replacements. The street was paved in 1889 and widened in the 1940s.

The Piper residence at #19 Bernard is outstanding because of its size and unusually conservative architecture that recalled the Georgian Survival of mid-century farmhouses.

At #6 and #10, near Avenue Road, polychrome Second Empire cottages represent more contemporary architectural fashion. In 1892, the roof was replaced on 10 and a storey inserted, giving it the more Gothic appearance it now has.

The preferred massing solution of the 1880s is exemplified at #7 and #9 with paired centre doorways and slightly differing gabled wings advanced from a basic rectangular form. At #36-38, a slightly more sophisticated version of this plan was developed with the unifying arch of the Romanesque, and simplified under a single gable.

#11, 13 and 50 express the local response to the aesthetic of Queen Anne smoothing much of the massiveness, handling more delicate textures and larger areas of surface.

#15 and 17 display the quirky historicism of the Edwardian period with the disjuncture between a Dutch inspired gable and a solid foursquare.

Early occupants included merchants, insurance clerks and labourers. John Murray, carpenter, lived at #25 from 1888 until after 1915. Joseph Stewart also settled since 1888 at #25. He died during the war but his widow lived here until after 1925. Reverend Campbell Tibb lived at #20 from 1879 until after 1910.

Those buildings were converted to multi-family around 1920, provoking the extension to Bernard of the residential restrictions that allowed only single-family residences.

Somewhat like Tranby Avenue, the size of the existing dwellings on Bernard has discouraged replacement. The majority of the existing dwellings are close to or over the permissible density for new construction.

Three building have a present density of 0.6 or less, but this is not felt to be a significant enough number to warrant reconsideration of permissible densities on Bernard.

Bernard Avenue: The Primal Pattern

There's no place like home. So let's begin by that. I have the privilege to live in a Heritage house, built in the middle of the 19e century, when Toronto was this cluster of village it may or may not still be. I don't think my little section of Bernard Avenue, between Avenue Road and Bedford Road, didn't change that much since then. My left and right neighbors are sister Heritage houses, and the other side of the street is visible through the tree in the picture below. My house is guarded by a Maple Tree and a Honey Locust. Our right neighbor has a Honey Locust as well while our left neighbor has a Linden and an Horsechestnut, the ensemble covering the whole street with a succession of yellow, white and green veils in spring time and a golden carpet in autumn.

Toronto, the Big Pomegranate

I was once told that Toronto was New York operated by a Swiss Company. Like a New York that would be clean and boring. That is a cliché. Toronto is neither. Later, a good friend of mine, Julien Villa, observed that Toronto was no town but more like a gigantic village. That is closer from the truth. Toronto did not grew like an apple, it grew more like a pomegranate. Small villages growing in a thick skin of lake, river and escarpment, bumping into each other, embedding, fusioning, breaking, interlacing, interweaving, interacting... internationaling and ta-da, here it is, beautiful, powerful, attractive... and totally disorganized. But Toronto is not the only city build by colliding villages. And yet it is unique. Nothing compares to Toronto. It is not a lesser New York, it is not a bigger Montreal, it has absolutely nothing in common with Chicago. It is Toronto and I decided to find out more about it. Hence this Blog. Thank you for reading it.