Smith wants Alberta to listen to the voters, when it comes to a referendum that had to be jolted to life and legitimacy and is most prominently backed by American billionaires and politicians. But when those same voters discuss, decide, and elect pro-housing councils and zoning, democracy be damned.

Courtney Theriault@ctheriault.bsky.social · 3d ago

BREAKING: Premier Danielle Smith announces province will direct Edmonton to adopt infill housing rules that were in place before 2024, and require Calgary to maintain its current pre-2024 bylaw framework.

I'm really not liking that my bike to work in Davenport featured a lot of Marco signs. A very NIMBY, car focused, seemingly compassion-less reactionary. I feel confident Chow will do well in our ward, which may be why he hasn't tied himself to Brad, but I'm not liking seeing this, & worry for Bravo

When you are one city, sprawl is subsidized by all. When you are landlocked Toronto, you can cause sprawl with NIMBYism, but the costs are borne by your neighbours. Conversely, biking, transit, density savings are spread to our NIMBY neighbourhoods (& neighbour cities). Non-ideal motivators.

Michael Janz@michaeljanz.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is an urban sprawl story. What did they think when all of those kilometers of new acres were approved was going to happen? More compact city, more efficient city. calgary.citynews.ca/2026/10/05/c...

This really is my Halloween ballot 👻

@mlongfield.bsky.social · 4d ago

So ABC Toronto not endorsing any candidates in Ward 13 Toronto Centre? Does IntegrityTO know about this?

Maybe having Toronto council platform and even make decisions in part based on this person's made-up AI resident complaints was, oh, I don't know, a bad idea? Is it the only reason, no, and also the NDP organization will really need to search deep inside if this all goes sideways given their choices

Polling Canada@canadianpolling.bsky.social · last wk.

Toronto - Toronto Centre Polling: Mosie: 29% Tate: 26% Stikuts: 13% Ali: 8% Others: 25% Forum / Sept 27, 2026

Why are housing costs key? Saving $1.66M in hospital costs is great, but at ~$2,700/month/person, that has at times been the asking Toronto rent for that area. The new build's cost, at today's mortgage rates, with taxes, utilities, etc, would run nearly $2,400pp. The savings should be much bigger.

Dylan Reid@dylanreid.bsky.social · last wk.

Good news story worth sharing. A plan that works, saves money, and helps those most in need, and is now expanding. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Too late at night to know if it's an idea: I'm truly devastated at the thought of losing my access to a city I love w Ford's plan to destroy local business & accessibility by destroying our bike network. Would it be a thing to commute to work end of Oct in ghost-bike white? Lock em on his warpath?

I was not expecting the first political speech I listened to in full (19m) this year to be from a Manitoba Conservative former footballer, and yet, it speaks to so much of what's challenging me in politics right now, what I see in so many places (including other parties). Worth a listen.

Alex Usher@alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 2w ago

It's quite something. It's long but watch the whole thing. I think it's meant to be an enormous fuck you to the die-hard hard-right rural caucus faction, but it also bascially concedes the party to them, so...

If I'm doing my math right, growing from 2.2 to 3M is 36% increase, so budget should be 12.8B. Then inflation of 40% would mean it should grow beyond that to 17.9B. And we are 7% below that at 16.6B. Would need a 1.3B or a further 8% increase to have a flat per person inflation adjusted budget, no?

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 2w ago

To do the math here you first have to fix a basic error: Bradford’s 2026 figure includes the rate budget (garbage, water, parking) but his 2011 figure does not. Real numbers: $9.4 billion in 2011; $16.6 billion in 2026. Now account for ~800K population growth and ~40% inflation.

Going to the Jays' season-ending series this weekend. The Scientist pops on. A cold play, but holds this season in ways. I will come up to meet you. We have been running in circles, coming up tails, guessing at numbers & figures. This off-season? Pulling the puzzles apart. Let's go back to the start

Reading this alongside data which has consistently shown that Doug Ford's endorsement has hurt those he has given it to, and thinking to myself.

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 4w ago

Chow has a release touting quasi-endorsement from Doug Ford, who said this morning that he and the mayor have a “phenomenal relationship.” No doubt she’s been good at extracting cash from Ford, but I’d bet a lot of Toronto voters would prefer to hear less about friendship and more about fighting.

There was the "oh, I'll be at your launch next week" while getting tickets. The "oh, I don't want to bug them for an autograph". The "is this too many? (4)". And of course, me also being me, a lot of time & too many photos with the actual press. A very good time with publishing and voracious readers

Shawn Micallef@shawnmicallef.bsky.social · last mo.

The @coachhousebooks.bsky.social Wayzgoose party has been most excellent literary Toronto / Canada as ever tonight. September is a time (summer) for burning away the accumulated cynicism of the past months.

A onetime fearful leap of mine: Ford booting the Euro train experts; might their visions of what (rightly) makes a practical & cost-effective train system terrify Doug? More folks not driving, living in non-single family homes. A loss of populist button-pushing. Cutting 80% of GO service tho...

How-Sen Chong@how-sen.com · last mo.

Yesterday Doug Ford did three things that will make congestion around Toronto much, much worse. First, Ford has made made massive cuts to GO Train service on the Lakeshore West, Lakeshore East, Barrie and Stouffville lines. In some cases, GO Train frequency will drop from 15 trains a day to 4 ->

All the fearful attention about unsafe batteries & fire risks means I've been accosted by 3 separate ppl about my bike's battery. Even pointing to the UL certification Chow, Bradford, & fire chiefs all support, folk still threaten to call cops. Safe & legal should get more note, to cool temperatures

It's just not easy to reach that point of life where those who brought you joy can do so no longer. But boy, did they ever, and if there's a reward, they deserve it.

Rocky Horror: Riff Raff Sings 'I'm Going Home'

ALT: Rocky Horror: Riff Raff Sings 'I'm Going Home'

static.klipy.com

Having run open streets events, this success doesn't surprise me. That a more traveled street, with more (theoretically) car oriented businesses (like clubs) saw pedestrian streets as a boon, it really makes me wish we'd do it in & boost many logical low-car areas, namely Kensington Market.

Mark Shaw 🇨🇦✌️🇪🇺@markshawtoronto.bsky.social · 2mo ago

😭 Gone but never forgotten! We will be back * * Subject to a new council vote, with a new council

All wanting a progressive would've (wrongly) felt Fletcher should get their vote (& $, volunteer energy, etc). But w no declaration, that got pent up. W a 2 day candidacy, she gets attention, interviews. Now there's much less time to learn who those $ & hrs should go to. If only someone'd tell us 🤨

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 2mo ago

It’s official: after an intense two-day campaign, Paula Fletcher has withdrawn from the race in Toronto-Danforth. I suspect we’ll now see some notable entries into the race before the deadline on Friday. The clock, it ticks.

This was my summer vacation, & these folks' videos helped encourage it. Sadly, in <24h, separate US-plated drivers almost maimed & killed my partner & I. Could design have helped? The less familiar tourists are w norms, laws, & safety in new places can bring big risks, while FIFA showed we can help.

Oh The Urbanity!@ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Good year: big increase in tourism to Montreal. From the US, the rest of Canada, and Europe. Paris to New York flights are down 19%, but Paris to Montreal flights are up 17%. Personally I’ve noticed a ton of US license plates in the past few weeks.

I was an overnight camp counsellor. The kids wondered why all the candles. The parents called in fear. Everyone had diabetes. I drank curdled milk under instruction from higher authority. No one had to miss a bonfire. The two weeks ended without incident. I almost fell in a fire. What an age.

I seriously can't recommend this enough. There isn't enough material, yet, to do this for a full game sans repeat, but the mood? The mood? It's built for your heart attack Jays, slow boiling never blowing up. Every pitch, every shuffling lead, is chills. Or, as warned, cardiac trouble...&27 scores 🥵

Andrew@andrewjd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Do what the bold do and listen to the Angine de Poitrine discography alongside the broadcast and give your heart the bike race workout the couch didn't offer on its own. Does the body good, or so I'm telling myself.

Kind of on the nose that today I discover an early-career colleague of mine & his partner just left Toronto for Calgary solely for cost of living reasons. The prov taxes their careers will net AB alone are greater than the value of a Torontonian's home politicians seek to preserve. What a waste.

Andrew@andrewjd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Costliest life phases = pre-/post-workforce. It shouldn't surprise, Alberta wanting extra workers to support its economy, but it shouldn't surprise that if you ask Quebec to pay to raise those workers & care for them in retirement, you'll then thank them w tax$ while you borrow their profitable yrs.

Too soon...

When a mayor wants to get rid of speed cameras, bike lanes, safe consumption sites, or shelters of official or unofficial types (the removal of any of those irrefutably making things more dangerous), Ford can't hop on a phone or hold a presser fast enough. So I'm not surprised he's absent on safety

Denise Balkissoon@balkissoon.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Three chiefs from evacuated First Nations, along w 6 others representing communities impacted by wildfires in northern Ontario, said they haven't been contacted by Premier Ford, Indigenous Services Minister Rickford or Minister of Natural Resources Harris. thenarwhal.ca/ontario-igno...

Barbaric Commuting Practices 🚲 snitch line sure does ring familiar, and lo and behold, there has been talk of Chris Alexander considering a run for the Toronto mayoralty. So very strange how often the 'personal freedoms' crowd means "If I don't do it, I don't want to understand it, only demonize it"

Jason Markusoff@markusoff.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Boy, the Alberta Transportation's new Barbaric Urban Bicycle Lanes Tip Line, and that drop-down menu sans "Other" field. www.alberta.ca/report-conce...

It's not lost on me that the smoke & fires in ON seem to draw the same line on a map as Ford's highway upgrades & new pipeline proposal. If you tell me that this train had to stop in the middle of a forest fire to make way for a train with oil or SUVs, I wouldn't bat an eye. vt.tiktok.com/ZSXkuEadE/

Trying bad ideas, poorly, for ages, before giving up after waste... I didn't realize this was truly a tradition older than the country!

Tammy Schirle 🇨🇦@tammyschirle.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I often stop at historical plaques to see how they've framed the "successful" settlers. In Turkey Point? They tried, they failed, they abandoned.

TIL: a big push for safe bike infrastructure came from the death of an OPP Sergeant. Seems notable that not the deaths of people, parents, grandparents, kids, workers, or even cops, is worth preventing, if it's while on a bike, and you're Doug Ford.

Toronto Star@thestar.com · 3mo ago

Opinion: "Twenty years ago my husband, OPP Sergeant Greg Stobbart, was killed by a careless driver," writes former MPP Eleanor McMahon. "The man who struck him, a commercial driver, had multiple convictions for driving while suspended... Two months after taking Greg’s life, he hit someone else."

At @chanface.bsky.social's Church St pedestrianization yesterday, as a former open streets director, I saw: folk leaning into patios to chat w someone familiar. With bags from local stores. Space for more art, 🎶, culture. 🐕, canes, walkers, 👩‍🦼. All unobstructed vs squished onto sidewalks for racing 🚙

Jay Pitter@jaypitter.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Pedestrianization is often framed as transforming streets. In many cases, we're actually restoring them. We're reclaiming what's been lost: social connection, local commerce, civic life, and human-scale movement. Perhaps it's time to shift from street transformation to street restoration.

This season doesn't really resemble Bieber's greatest hits, but maybe a good track's right about to start? Though even with Sears' catalogue of pitches, he's no ace this season either, but maybe they'll look like this year's must-haves by Christmas? Might be quite the punishing night for starters.

One biz thinks the Village isn't a tourist destination 😐 (...are you in the right spot for your business? I also wouldn't put a bank branch on Toronto island or at Wonderland, but that's a you thing) Another notes, w 6 lanes of corner-lot-adjacent traffic has become 2, they find cars noticeable. 😐🤦

Mark Shaw 🇨🇦✌️🇪🇺@markshawtoronto.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Reporting on Toronto Church Street pedestrianization. Mayor Chow interviewed, says support from the local BIA is always needed, and that’s why Kensington Market failed.