The South Bayview Bulldog

The Ontario PC party says it will have an online, two-stage verification process for what it says will be an “open, transparent” voting process. The party says that members will be mailed a verification number and will be asked to verify the membership information on file. Members will also be asked to send in a photographed or signed copy of identification documents to be able to vote once membership information is verified. CBC 

• TDSB revises U.S. travel ban to allow certain trips
• TVO host Steve Paikin among few accused to fight harassment allegations

One in regulation, one in the shootout

James van Riemsdyk sealed a 3-2 win for the #MapleLeafs over the #Preds. https://t.co/jXdw69Xabi

— 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 Canada 🇨🇦 (@sportingnewsca) February 8, 2018

The man known as JVR scored two Wednesday night at ACC, including a solid shootout goal, to lift the Leafs to a 3-2 win over a plucky Predators team that had battled back from a 2-0 deficit. Game highlights on YouTube

Sandra and Bob Donaldson/Lotto 649 release

A retired couple from Smithville east of Hamilton has been revealed as the winners of a $23.3-million Lotto 649 jackpot. Bob and Sandra Donaldson were overjoyed and overwhelmed (as shown above) when they picked up their cheque at Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation headquarters in Toronto Wednesday. They have been married for 36 years and plan only modest goals with their winnings.They will share with family and buy a new car. Oh yeah, they need a walk-in closet. Mr. Donaldson is a manager at Dofasco (the Dominion Foundry and Steel Co) and was in China on the job when Sandra found out about the lottery win. She didn’t tell him until nearly a week later when he came home. The CBC took this to conclude that Donaldson had 23 million reasons to forgive Sandra for forgetting to clean up after their dog, as he had asked. The precise sum of the win is $23,324,912.20.

Temporary move in Fall

Tanya Wiles-Bell

Resolutions

Dufflebag Theatre

Nebuchadnezzar sized bottle

Upper left, Kindergarten parents (present and future) at Davisville Public School were briefed Tuesday night about the coming temporary move to Vaughan Road Academy while a new DPS is constructed on Millwood Rd. As the graphic shows, it will be two years before children from Davisville Village will be able move into their new three-story school just east of Yonge St. Right, Tanya Wiles-Bell is the team leader of LUCY, the Leaside United Church stalwarts who will participate in the nationwide walk-a-thon and fundraiser called the Coldest Night of the Year on Feb. 24. Its goal is to educate the public about poverty and homelessness across Canada and there is a nice story in the Toronto Observer. Centre left, Alok Tomar of Leaside Insurance has tweeted some useful resolutions for 2018. Below that, a peek in at the kids of the Duffelbag Theatre at Davisville Public. Click the photo and see how engrossed they are. Finally at the right, the folks at Avenue Bistro are tweeting how much they would love to have that giant-sized bottle of wine known as a Nebuchadnezzar. Be careful, God struck down this prideful fellow (according to Daniel) but perhaps not for drinking wine.

Car crossed centre line colliding with truck/@OPP_NER

OPP Northeast detachment say several people are dead following a collision between a transport and car north of Nobel on Tuesday afternoon about 4 p.m..The crash happened on Highway 69 in Shawanaga Township, about 20 kilometres north of the community, said Sgt. Carlo Berardi of Ontario Provincial Police. A northbound car crossed the centre line and collided with the southbound transport. The car caught fire. All the deceased were in the car. The scene is on a remote stretch of the Trans Canada Highway heading to Sudbury.

Snow fun in the Rolph Road playground (Twitter / @RolphRoadSchool)

Twitter / @CBCToronto

? Randy Risling / @randyrizz

The special snow notice from Environment Canada predicts a range of 5 to 10 cm by the time the snow tapers off this afternoon. Snow amounts are expected to be below the snowfall warning criteria of 15 cm or more within 12 hours,

Rachel Notley and John Horgan

No BC wine

Keep your hydro

Alberta Premier Rachel Notely has told her BC counterpart John Horgan to take his wine and stick it. She’s banned it from Alberta liquor stores and encouraged consumers to treat it like poison. Same thing goes for BC electricity. Not welcome in Edmonton or anywhere else in Alberta. It’s the war that kicks NDP fretting about the environment to the sidelines as Notely fights for petroleum jobs and an economy that stands on two legs — oil and oil. Horgan’s government depends on its continued existence from the Green Party. He is saying that his resistance to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline should not be the cause of a trade war. Kinder Morgan has been approved by the federal government. Their interest in moving Canadian crude to the sea grows daily as the new world of hardball trade with the US is all too real. Canada hopes to find markets to sustain the country’s nearly 80 years of unparalleled prosperity in a world where it may no longer be the biggest trade partner to the Americans. Now add the growing worry over Canada’s merchandise trade deficit. It was a ballooning $3.2 billion in December as rising imports outpaced export growth.

Expensive Tesla ad?

We’re not judging understand. But we can’t quite grasp the meaning of the “special payload” in today’s Elon Musk spectacular. You decide. Then harrowing motor news as cars and trucks slam into each other in the fog on the highway from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. Frightening. Below that, the Berlin Wall has now been down for longer than it stood. Cold War hero Willy Brandt called it the Wall of Shame and so it was. Finally, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has had a bulldozer roll over some smuggled luxury cars in a lesson to the perpetrators.

The warm glow of a weekend of ice action fills the homes of the Leaside Novice Red squad. The lads finished up unbeaten in their five games of play Saturday and Sunday. Well done guys.

Canadian Press reports that the number of Toronto area home sales have dropped year to year. Prices were down on average some 4.1 per cent to $736,783 from $768,351. “It is not surprising that home prices in some market segments were flat to down in January compared to last year. At this time last year, we were in the midst of a housing price spike driven by exceptionally low inventory in the marketplace,” said Jason Mercer, of  the Toronto Real Estate Board.

LULULEMON

And shareholders are calling on Athletica for more disclosure surrounding the abrupt departure of its chief executive who it says “fell short” of the Canadian “athleisure” company’s conduct standards. The Lululemon company is staying quiet after saying CEO Laurent Potdevin has left the firm and is no longer on its board of directors. In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Lululemon said it will pay Potdevin $5-million over a year and a half in exchange for, among other stipulations, agreeing not to sue.

John Burnside speaking at meeting

Town Hall in Lea Room

The Town Hall meeting Monday night in the Lea Room of Leaside arena saw a wide range of topics discussed. A summary of Councillor’s Burnside’s agenda is here.

• The replacement of the playground at Trace Manes Park. Jillian Walsh has raised $800,000 to pay for this project in memory of her daughter Georgia. The City has contributed an additional $200,000 and developer Shane Baghai $250,000. Thus some $1,250,000 is on hand. There was no start-date mentioned but it would seem that it cannot be long delayed.
• The reconstruction of the corner of Millwood Rd and Laird Drive in the summer and fall of 2017. Burnside explained that unseen delays created a confluence of bottlenecks and obstructions that snarled this part of Leaside through the fall. He noted that a re-make of the wide corner at Millwood Rd. and Southvale will occur in the summer of 2019, the City having taken pity on residents for the summer of 2018.
• The pilot plan proposed by the North Leaside Traffic Committee to permanently close access to Bayview Ave at Glenvale Blvd., Broadway Ave. and Craig Crescent. It would not happen quickly and there are many requirements. But an informal survey of some 750 people in the area found 69 percent supported the idea. This would lead to a formal poll of perhaps 3,000 residents in which at least half will be required to participate in the vote for it to be valid. Of these, 60 percent would have to agree to the closures. Further hurdles await at Community Council and with caveats about traffic obstruction which such closures might cause elsewhere. The pilot, if approved, would last nine to 12 months, Mr. Burnside said. The concept is seen by many non-Leaside residents to the west as quite radical.
• The recently completed redistribution of municipal constituencies from 44 to 47 approved at the OMB still faces a court challenge from Ward 5 Etobicoke Councillor Justin Di Ciano for reasons not stated at the meeting. The new wards, if confirmed, will keep Leaside intact within a ward similar to Ward 26 but with a different number. It will be made slightly smaller by dropping off the Wynford Heights neighbourhood.

In discussion flowing from questions, Burnside said the issue of homelessness requires federal funding to accommodate the growing number of refugees who are now living in spaces for the homeless. Spaces were increased from 4200 in 2016 to 5700 in 2017 but the number of refugees housed by Toronto went from ten percent of the spaces to 25 percent.

ANGER

There was also anger, as there typically is among homeowners in Midtown, at the  weakness of municipal bylaws. One man called them “meaningless.” Others wondered resentfully why the Planning Department is required to consider the same type of variances rejected in the past. In response, City Planner John Andreeysk said proposals had to be considered on their merits, an explanation which some at least found difficult to accept  In a discussion of traffic and the need for new routes out of Leaside to the east, Mr. Burnside mentioned that a hoped for ramp off lower Don Mills to the Don Valley Parkway northbound had to be abandoned because there is not enough space in the valley.

Yes it’s unsettling but many investors think that the February stock plunge is a classic exampe of a market that can’t stand good news. One thing is certain. We will know in the days to come. Then to the right, you’ve heard of the Bayview Pixies. Now meet the Army Ice Maidens. They’re a squad of British woman who trekked 1,000 miles across Antactica in just 61 days with temperatures as low as minus 40C. Below that, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office is talking tough but what will it do about its suspicions in the case of Natalie Wood? Finally, rejuvenating kidneys to make them suitable for transplant. Toronto General Hospital in this Goldern Age of Medicine.