Mother and daughter wait it out under the Chai on Bayview awning during today’s torrential rain. Then, trusting to fate and fast feet, they make a run for it.

The foremost elder statesman of municipal politics in Toronto declares  Mayor Rob Ford is doing all right and so is city council.  Former Mayor David Crombie is quoted in the Toronto Sun as saying Mr. Ford”s contribution to the democratic process has been impressive.. Crombie was optimistic about Ford’s first 18 months in office. Despite several fights between Ford and council over transit, the budget and the Port Lands, Crombie thinks an agenda is slowly emerging.  Toronto Sun.

It’s a little different to see a made-to-measure wooden fence around a demolition site but that’s what we have here as wreckers get ready to take down 7 Southlea Ave. It’s a good looking stone house but will no doubt pop back up with a lot more floor space. And thanks to the reader who mentioned this pending demoltion to The South Bayview Bulldog.  

Although he has been gone these many years, some people think that Pierre Trudeau has one last spectacular political act left to perform. Sure, that sounds dramatic but if his son, 42-year-old Justin Pierre James Trudeau, runs and is elected Liberal leader, it will be almost entirely because of the PET legend. Until recently, a Trudeau candidacy was not taken seriously. Most people put their money on Toronto Rosedale MP Bob Rae, not withstanding the left over liability of the ill-fated Ontario NDP government. But that was before the dynamic Thomas Mulcair became leader of the national NDP and raised the spectre of an NDP federal government That would leave the Liberals in a lengthening dark night as Canada’s irrelevant party. In her column in the Toronto Star, the astute and well-followed pundit Chantel Hebert calls Trudeau the younger the rock star of this Parliament.. Never mind  that some snidely say Justin has his father’s name and someone else’s brain. In a leadership vote where anyone who signs up as a Liberal supporter will have a say, he would be a formidable contender. Hebert goes on to say that a Trudeau-Rae tilt  “could pit the hearts of many Liberal loyalists against their reason.”  She says that more than a few Liberals would feel that losing on a Trudeau ticket would at least offer the party the grace of dying with dignity.

There are so many things to see on South Bayview on a sunny Sunday morning like today’s. We noted the temporary closure of Wild Wing for renovations, They opened the first time in January 2011 and say they will re-open May 21. Lovely flowers at Passion Fruit and crowds of gentry in the patios. Toshi (inset) likes it too and in the process becomes a sight himself. He is an eight-month old French bulldog. Toshi attracted a lot of admirers at Starbucks. We noticed however that he doesn’t always answer to his name.