Federal election races in local ridings starting to take shape
Volume 50 No. 11
BEACHMETRO.COM
August 24, 2021
CANADIANS WILL be going to the polls to cast their votes on Sept. 20. after a federal election was called last week. Beach Metro News will be covering the races in the ridings of Beaches-East York, Scarborough Southwest and TorontoDanforth. As of 4 p.m. on Aug. 20, Beach Metro News is aware of the fol-
Ready for the Tokyo Paralympic Games
lowing candidates running for office in those three ridings. In Beaches-East York, Liberal incumbent Nathaniel ErskineSmith is seeking to be elected as the riding’s representative for the third time. He was first elected in 2015 and then reelected in 2019. Erskine-Smith currently sits on the Standing Committee on
Community joins together to support Malvern C.I. teacher By Amanda Gibb
PHOTO: ALAN SHACKLETON
Members of the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball team recently visited the Beach prior to heading to the Tokyo Paralympic Games. The team went out on Lake Ontario with iPaddle’s Brian Quinn to do some bonding prior to heading to the Games which open today. A number of athletes with links to the Balmy Beach Canoe Club and Variety Village are competing in the Paralympic Games, and more information on them can be found on our website at www.beachmetro.com
Beach swimmer Penny Oleksiak becomes Canada’s most decorated Olympic athlete BEACHER PENNY Oleksiak is Canada’s most decorated Olympic athlete of all time. Oleksiak, 21, won her seventh Olympic medal on the night of July 31 at the Tokyo Olympic Games to set the record. Swimming the final leg of the women’s 4×100-metre medley race, Oleksiak helped the Canadian team win the bronze medal on the final night of swimming competition at the Tokyo Olympics. Her bronze medal in that race was Oleksiak’s third of the Tokyo Games and seventh in total. In Tokyo, Oleksiak also won a silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay and a bronze in the 200m freestyle. In the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Oleksiak won a gold medal in the 100m freestyle; a silver in the 100m butterfly; and bronze medals in the
PHOTO: CBC SPORTS
Penny Oleksiak is interviewed by CBC Sports during the Tokyo Olympic Games. 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays. The Canadian women’s 4x100m medley team in the record-setting
race of July 31 was Kylie Masse in backstroke; Sydney Pickrem in breaststroke; and Maggie Mac Neil in butterfly. They finished in a time of 3:51.60 for the bronze medal. Australia won the gold and the United States took the silver. Prior to her history making race, Oleksiak shared the honour of Canada’s most-decorated Olympian with Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen. All three women had won six Olympic medals. Sprinter Andre De Grasse joined the six-medal club after winning three of his own at the Tokyo Olympics. In an interview with CBC Sports shortly after the completion of the July 31 race, Oleksiak said she was proud of her teammates and their achievements. “I’ve accomplished this history with girls who are making history,” she said.
Industry, Science and Technology, and is a past president and current member of the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (UIPU). Running for the NDP in Beaches-East York will be Alejandra Ruiz Vargas. She was nominated as the NDP federal candidate for the Continued on Page 2
BEACH RESIDENT and beloved Malvern Collegiate Institute teacher and guidance counsellor Karyn Bugelli is now cancer-free, and her family is working on re-modelling their home to be more accessible with the help of friends and the community. Bugelli noticed nagging back pain in September 2020 that she assumed was from not moving around enough because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and tried to push through the pain with the help of chiropractors, massage, and acupuncture. The pain got worse until February 2021 and her husband Joe Dunning took her to the emergency department. “Essentially my vertebrae broke, like my back broke, and I just got up in the morning and I couldn’t get up the stairs from the basement,” said Bugelli. Doctors at Michael Garron Hospital were able to see that Bugelli had a tumour on her T-12 vertebrae, and referred her to Toronto Western where she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of cancer rarely found in adults. Following an initial surgery at Western, Bugelli went to Princess Margaret Hospital to receive chemotherapy treatments to shrink her tumour, but developed a serious infection after her third round. After this, doctors decided not to give her the last two rounds of chemo and to have surgeons go in to see the progress on her tumour. “They were hoping it would shrink it out of my spinal cord, but that didn’t happen, so the only way to get the tumour out was to cut the spinal cord. That was obviously tough news, but it was life or a limb,
basically. Life was more important, so they decided to do the surgery,” she said. The 22-hour surgery went well, but the shocks weren’t over. In the following weeks, she developed an infection that required another surgery, then contracted COVID-19, and doctors found a peculiar spot on her pelvis which they thought could be cancerous. “They said if it came back this fast it’s palliative…I told my family. Through an error, it turned out it was the bone graft they’d done through the initial surgery. So for six days I thought I was dying, but it turns out it was just the bone graft so that’s amazing news,” she said. Bugelli is now cancer-free and in rehabilitation to learn how to live using a wheelchair. In the meantime, Dunning is working on re-modelling their bungalow in the Beach to be accessible for Bugelli. “They gave us the thumbs up that they had gotten all the cancer, so now we’re on the next part where Karyn has to figure out life as a paraplegic,” said Dunning. Laura Norris, a friend and teacher at Malvern C.I., created a GoFundMe page to help raise funds for the extensive renovations needed to make Bugelli’s home comfortable and wheelchair accessible. “The GoFundMe was set up by two teachers I work with, I’m so touched by it…I couldn’t even believe they would think to do that and just the outpouring (of support) of people in the community: my neighbours, parents from Malvern…I’m seeing all these names of students…writing kind words,” said Bugelli. Bugelli said that she’s grateful Continued on Page 17