Toronto owes so much to Jane Jacobs. This weekend she’s celebrated with over 120 walks across the city. She is also being honoured around the world with Jane’s Walks in 68 cities worldwide (29 in Canada, 32 in the U.S, 7 internationally). That’s over 400 walking tours around the world! What a wonderful way to rediscover one’s neighbourhood (and neighbours).

Jane’s Walk Day
May 1st and 2nd
see http://janeswalk.net/cities/category/toronto/ for details on Toronto events

I hope my fellow Torontonians filed their taxes by yesterdays deadline. How else could we fund and provide for our heroic public service providers. Services that are so often taken for granted like Toronto Fire Services. As much as everyone likes to grunt and grown during tax season it is a necessary evil. One only has to look at the outstanding work of the Fire Department and how the handled a dangerous roof fire in less than one hour. Your tax dollars at work indeed!

I’ve heard first hand about some wheelers and dealers in Toronto and their love of rock star nights on the town. Not to say that all patrons of Toronto’s fine venues are thieves and crooks, but not everyone can wine and dine themselves with $10,000+ diners and afford that lifestyle through legal means.

The Toronto Star has an interesting article regarding some drama after a night at Harbour 60. This article may shed some light on the lenient sentence Rahim Jaffer after facing charges of drunk driving and cocaine possession. Although Jaffer may have boasted insider influence in the past but the Conservatives are denying any ties to him at present.

As a whole it is disturbing how tough on crime we appear to be but how soft things are for white collar criminals. Time will tell whether any justice will be served. Unfortunately crime knows not of a recession.

I caught the new Atom Egoyan film Friday night. I missed it at TIFF and I’m glad I finally got to see it. Chloe is a well acted movie set here in Toronto starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried. An interesting “bonus” for the Toronto movie watcher is to see the city as yet another character in the film.

Originally this remake of the French film Nathalie, starring Gérard Depardieu, was to be set in San Francisco. I’m glad that Ivan Reitman simply produced the film and hired Egoyan work for the project. Egoyan brought an interesting take on the material. He also threw in a slew of Toronto locations which are shamelessly featured without the usual alterations to turn them into a real or fictionalized US cityscape. From Yorkville, Allan Gardens, The Rivoli, photos by Edward Burtynsky, even the quaint College retreat Café Diplomatico form the backdrop for this erotic thriller. The chilling subject matter is handled with sophistication.

It’s a relief to see some great cinema on the big screen. So few movie releases have Canadian content let alone a Canadian city as its location. Atom Egoyan delivers both and shines again.

Wow! Some great news on a Friday. There is talk of a revival of Carlton Cinemas. Magic Lantern Theatres and Rainbow Cinemas have been committed to keeping the tradition of neighbourhood and community movie theatres alive and will be working to bring back the Carlton. I can’t think of a better entity to do that. They hope to reopen it in June 2010. It will be great to go venture east of College subway again to catch a great indie, first-run, documentary, Foreign or Canadian-made features at the Carlton once more. A small piece of this city’s cinematic history is being revived!

CityTV once a jewel on Queen Street West has been hit with yet another blow. Now a plaything for larger media corporations CityTV is now owned by Rogers Media.

“Today’s changes, although difficult, are necessary to align our operations with the economic and regulatory realities of our industry,” says Leslie Sole, CEO, Rogers Media Television. Today’s press release adds fuel to the fire that the consolidation of media outlets has not only reduced real “choice” but has resulted in fewer jobs. (Some would argue consolidation has meant less quality too!) It seems the bulk of job losses are related to markets outside of Toronto. It is likely that some CityTV Toronto on-air personalities, writers, producers, editors and camera people are affected by this announcement.

Love it or hate it CityTV’s new home is Yonge and Dundas Square. Hoping that this “rationalization” doesn’t further erode what was once one of Toronto’s best stations. My condolences to those that have lost their jobs in these uncertain times.

The Red Cross has estimated that the death toll due to the magnitude-7.0 earthquake in Haiti as high as 50,000. As a small gesture of solidarity, remembrance and aid The CN Tower will be lit with the national colours of Haiti.

Canada has said that it will match charitable donations for the relief effort up to C$50 million. The department of Foreign Affairs and International trade has listed ways citizens can help contribute to the relief effort.

It’s maddening to think that people continue to be oblivious to mobility issues. I’m sure that the latest fight won by a man in the GTA may be a good reminder that the fight is far from over.

With an aging demographic and well established rights for elderly persons and those with mobility problems it’s hard to believe such a fight was so difficult. Paul DiSalvo had to wait a year and a half to have his condo to equipped with an accessibility ramp.

Why the condo was built without some form of accessibility in the first place? An entirely valid question. Too often simple design features like a wheelchair ramp are omitted or simply excluded from the plans. This often means expensive retrofitting for relatively inexpensive enhancements that add value. Unfortunately the dwellers of the condo will get tapped for the Halton Condominium Corporation’s damages/fees. Sad since the condo corporation’s board were not doing them any favours by fighting such an easy accommodation and for so long. Wouldn’t take a genius to come up with the cost benefit of accommodation (of a legal requirement) versus a year and a half of legal fees, damages and a ramp! Whoa!!!

At the end of the day whether or not one or many residents need a wheelchair ramp everyone benefits. Who knows whether a resident will eventually need one due to health or have a relative or visitor that would require it? Such a feature only enhances the value of the property and improves the quality of life of the people who use it. The more that employers, businesses, transit authorities and the general public are mindful of these issues the more we stand to gain.

This morning’s financial district “visit” by a lost deer was shocking enough. The police were attempting to capture the doe and release it outside the hustle of the dowtown core. After consulting with experts, like veterinarian from the Toronto Zoo, police tried subduing the animal tranquilizer dart. After all, a runaway deer could cause a traffic accident, injure itself or an innocent bystander. Things took a turn for the bizarre after that.

The “take down” escalated when the dart didn’t seem to work. When the doe didn’t calm down it was then shot with a Taser stun gun. Whoa! The Police didn’t kill the deer but it is being monitored before being released back into the wild.

Despite the taser, it seems that the TSX, the doe and others financial types on Bay Street will survive.

Toronto may be the new venue for the G20. The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Feds are now realizing that Muskoka may not have the resources to house and secure guests arriving for the G20. Oops. It should have been obvious that even a modest make over would fall short of delivering the necessary requirements.

The Conservatives have been trying to frantically upgrade Muskoka’s infrastructure via a $50 million G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund founded in February, another $5 million in security upgrades for the North Bay airport and other funding initiatives under the Economic Action Plan. More fuel to critics fire on the current government’s priorities favouring Conservative jurisdictions. This of course is Tony Clement‘s home riding.

The trough of course looked deep enough for locals, close to $450 million worth of applications were chasing $50 million worth of the gravy. On the upside some short term construction jobs have been created. It is hoped that local tourism would get a boost as thousands of officials and media types migrate up to the area. It’s more likely that when the summit kicks off next summer that rich government officials will be enjoying cottage land while high paid security police block off potential protesters, terrorists and cottage goers. At least the local communities will benefit by having new facilities to host future events along with improved infrastructure.

Sad that by trying to snub Toronto and move both the G8 and G20 events to cottage country they will have to put at one here anyway. All lot of added expense for nothing. No question there will be immense pain with such a move for Torontonians. Traffic and security for these events, a nightmare! Perhaps the Government were trying to minimize the numbers of protesters close to the meetings by moving the summit away from an urban area? Well a private web-chat or conference call would have been preferred to the mountain of wasteful deficit spending for this circus ride.