The South Bayview Bulldog

City Council has approved the name change of Markham Ave. to Stickney Way. Leaside Chit Chat 

The strange, penny ante behaviour of someone trying create mischief at City Hall has been caught on video. The capture above show the man. He has struck twice according to police. On October 25 a man tied two capped syringes to the front doors of City Hall using blue rubber ribbons. This incident was captured on security cameras and posted by police on YouTube. On November 1 someone looking like the same man did it again. The syringes are capped and thus unable to puncture anything. The suspect is described as white, with dark hair in a “puffy” ponytail. He was wearing black pants with either a red stripe or red writing down the side of each leg. Police said he was also carrying a dark backpack. It’s unlikely this guy is the sharpest knife in the drawer.

The Fight for $15 movement in the U.S. is on the streets of many major cities today (Tuesday, November 10, 2015) demanding the new minimum wage for all 12 million fast food workers in the country. At present, their median wage if 9.20 an hour. Ontario’s minimum wage (in Canadian dollars) has just risen $11.25 an hours, second highest the country. Part of the strategy of the rallies is to influence the 2016 presidential election, which is one year away.  Most minimum wage employees do not vote.

Five Grade Nine students at Northern Secondary School have won gold medals as the winning team in the midget girls category at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations Cross Country Race. The three kilometre event was run Saturday in muddy farm fields at Duntroon, a crossroads on the route to Collingwood. It was particularly perilous, the Northern runners report, on downhill portions of the course. Footing was chancy and some of the competitors were not wearing spiked shoes. They arrived at the finish line smothered in mud. It had, said Northern’s Alex Weir, a few runners ready to just go home. But the NSS team had come to run. You don’t give up when you have been practicing a sport since elementary school. Coach Michael Chapman explained that the final triumph was electronically calculated by digital chips embedded in the bibs worn by each runner. Great work ladies. Photo left to right (rear) Eve Boyer, Parker Hopkins, Alex Weir (front) Ireland Robertson, Zoe Lexovsky. The South Bayview Bulldog 

The TTC budget committee has approved the idea of starting Sunday subway service at 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. The move is expected to cost $1 million and must be approved by the whole board. The committee also approved a freeze to the cost of Metropass. It is also considering an increase to cash fares. Cash fare is now at $3 and may be set at $3.25.

The bright new San Francesco Italian Sandwich bar opens for business on Laird Drive in the Husky station near Millwood Rd tomorrow morning (Tuesday, November 10, 2015). It is both a take-out and sit down place. This incarnation of the time-honoured Toronto name has ambitions to establish a chain across the GTA, according to the owners. The brand has been around since the 1950s, it is said. The food is freshly made and includes a variety of Italian sandwiches as well as pizza and panzarotti. Those new garage doors are located just where cars used to enter the repair shop. They will still open in the warm weather where a small patio will inch onto the driveway and,  if the plan goes through, a beer may be had as well.

Benjamin Tal, the Deputy Chief Economist of the CIBC, has issued a rebuttal to a warning the Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD says markets in Toronto and Vancouver are at risk of a sharp fall in prices. It says that in Ontario, and especially Toronto, economic activity has been relatively buoyant and demand by foreigners has been boosted by the falling Canadian dollar. It adds however that newly completed but unoccupied housing units have soared in Toronto, increasing the risk of a sharp market correction, according to the report.

BENJAMIN TAL

The reaction of Mr. Tal is that the situation is not as crazy as it may seem. He says over-building is not a real issue in Canada. More than that, there are only four developers out of about 150 with unsold inventory and two of them have so much cash in the bank it hardly matters — i.e no financing. Interesting

The Education Minister, Liz Sandals, has announced new funding of $498 million for the construction of new schools in Ontario, including a replacement for Davisvile Public Schools at Yonge and Davisville. This move was telegraphed over the weekend by Josh Matlow (Ward 22) in his newsletter to constituents. Midtown neighborhoods are pushing more than a century in part of the City west of Bayview Ave. Hodgson Senior Public School, now a hundred years old, has had some repairs but it appears to be barely keeping ahead of the decay.  CBC CP24

Russia should be banned from athletics competition, a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission report has recommended. Wada’s independent commission examined allegations of doping, cover-ups, and extortion in Russian athletics, which also implicated the IAAF, the sport’s world governing body. It also wants five athletes and five coaches to get lifetime doping bans. In addition, it states the London 2012 Olympics were “sabotaged” by the “widespread inaction” against Russian athletes with suspicious doping profiles by the IAAF and the Russian athletics federation. Commission leader Dick Pound said Russia seemed to have been running a “state-supported” doping programme and also gave his backing to IAAF president Lord Coe, saying he was the right man to lead the governing body.

Reid Humphrey

Reid Humphrey has been named Leaside’s 2015 Athlete of the Year. Reid is a student at Upper Canada College and AA player with the Leaside Hockey Association (LHA) in the Greater Toronto Hockey League. He has been a leading scorer in the LHA for each of the past two seasons. Reid was named team MVP in 2014-15 and plays varsity hockey for Upper Canada College. He also plays baseball, soccer, basketball and volunteers with the LHA. The 2015 induction ceremony will be held on Friday November 20, at Leaside Memorial Gardens Arena. Tickets are available here, from any of Leaside’s sports associations or at the arena.

A team from Northern Secondary School has won the gold medal in the midget girls category at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations Cross Country races at Duntroon near Collingwood on Saturday. Northern is classified as a AAA school by the OSFAA.