Falcon Building at 522 Mt. Pleasant Rd

The Falcon Building at 522 Mt. Pleasant has been listed recently for $6,250,000. Realtor.ca notice.

Moore Ave at Mud Creek Tuesday morning/Bulldog

Work has begun to repair sinking pavement on Moore Ave opposite the south gate to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. The road at this point is a well-used crosswalk for hikers and cyclists into the Mud Creek Ravine. Many decades ago travellers on Moore Ave crossed the ravine on a bridge where the Beltline Railway passed underneath. The road remains perennially unstable and has been rebuilt many times. Workmen at the site Monday night said Moore Ave would open “sometime tomorrow” and indeed the street was open at dawn Tuesday. But a large steel plate covers an excavation and it is clear work remains. City road crew tackles growing depression on Moore Ave — 2018.

Moore Ave at the former Beltline Railway Bridge site/Bulldog

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp appear to slowly be coming back online Monday night after experiencing global outages throughout the day. Service resumed for some users at around 6 p.m. EDT. The outages left people around the world unable to communicate on the platforms for more than six hours. CTV

The busiest border crossing between Canada and the US has reopened Monday after a two-hour closure while police investigated the discovery of “explosives’ on the Canadian side. Police say the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit is now safe but it is unclear just what was found.

Facebook and Facebook-owned apps Instagram and WhatsApp have been hit by an outage on Monday affecting users around the world. Users around the world reported being unable to log into any of the services a little before noon eastern time on Monday. The website Downdetector, which collates complaints about web outages, said there were more than 30,000 Canadians complaining about an outage. Instagram logged 21,000 reports of outages, while there were at least 14,000 reports about WhatsApp in Canada alone. CBC

Facebook Whistleblower

Meanwhile, Facebook is plummeting on the stock market after allegations that the firm has “pursued power over truth”. The allegation and documentation come from Frances Haugen, a former product manager at the company. She made the revelations to CBS 60 Minutes.

A timely warning to those who walk and cycle through Mt. Pleasant Cemetery that the gates are now locked at 6 p.m. Frances Morton expresses her gratitude to a cemetery attendant who dashed around the other evening to release citizens who found themselves locked in. She adds a light note: “My kid was particularly thankful as he felt we might become fare for zombies as the sun was setting.”

Instagram has said it will delay but not cancel its plans for a so-called kids app. The mind swims.

Legislature resumes

It’s your government whether you like it or not — better pay attention/CTV

Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell has delivered the speech from the throne reopening the Legislature Monday. CTV See the speech (mask and all) as delivered Monday morning.

Somehow, dog meat hasn’t caught on in too many places

They say that the South Korean government is pondering an end to the growing of dogs for meat. But the custom is well entrenched in that part of the world. We shall see.

The Supreme Court of Canada has found that the 2018 Ontario government decision to cut Toronto City Council in half is constitutional. The court has given the people a maddening little extra, however — the decision was decided in a 5-4 split of jurists. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Wagner with Judges Brown, Moldaver, Côté and Rowe concurring. The contrary opinion came from Judge Abella with Judges Karakatsanis, Martin and Kasirer concurring. Decision

Supreme Court of Canada rules Bill 5 is constitutional

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada, in a narrow 5-4 decision, ruled that the government of Ontario’s Bill 5, the Better Local Government Act, 2018, which reduced the number of electoral wards in the City of Toronto from 47 to 25 mid-election in 2018, is constitutional, thereby dismissing the City’s appeal.

The City Solicitor and her staff are reviewing the Court’s decision, which clarified the scope of s. 2(b) of the Charter protections in the context of municipal electoral campaigns, as well as the use of unwritten constitutional principles.

May 1, 2018 was nomination day for qualified candidates seeking election to Toronto City Council and its 47-ward structure in the municipal election of October 22, 2018. On July 30, 2018, however, the government of Ontario introduced the Better Local Government Act, 2018. Bill 5 became law on August 14, which reduced the boundaries in City of Toronto electoral wards from 47 to 25, significantly disrupting the municipal election, midstream, in Canada’s largest city.

The legislation was introduced “without notice to the City, candidates or electors,” the City stated in its factum to the Court on the constitutionality of the provincial legislation. “It was directed solely at Toronto and no other municipality. The result was widespread disruption of the Election and confusion among candidates and voters alike.”

The City’s appeal raised questions “about the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of expression, the scope of unwritten constitutional principles and whether municipal electors are entitled to effective representation.” The City submitted “that a truly democratic election — at a minimum, and among other things — is free from significant mid-election interference and provides electors with the right to effective representation.”

The City also submitted “that these basic democratic norms were trampled on by the government of Ontario when, without notice, it radically changed the City’s ward structure in the middle of an election.”

The City of Toronto thanks the Court for its thoughtful consideration and deliberation of these important constitutional issues.

Ad sells dream of a tower on corner of Eglinton Ave and Mann Ave

The construction madness inspired by the Eglinton Ave LRT has produced a speculative campaign to sell property on the corner of Eglinton and Mann Ave for a 27-storey residential tower. The concept is apparently unapproved and unknown to City Hall. The presence of such a tower would represent a concern to residents of the long-time six-storey condo at 1750 Bayview Ave. on the corner of Eglinton. Also at this corner, there is already a proposal before the City for a 32-storey mixed development for 586 Eglinton Ave. E at the site of the eight-storey medical building

1750 Bayview Ave

Corner of Eglinton and Mann

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision Friday on the Ontario government’s 2018 decision to slice City Council in half. The decision will come perhaps seven or eight months before the next provincial election. High court will hear an appeal on cutting City Council in half