Toronto Today - September 2011

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oRONTO oday September 2011

THE TRAGEDY OF SUBWAY SUICIDE

TTC and health care professionals examine ways to save lives

leafs’ burke a believer in supporting local hockey keeping watch by night Popularity of conspiracy radio, Web programs indicate depth of subculture in Toronto

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Contents

Vice President of Finance

Doreen Iannuzzi

Vice President of New Media

EDITORIAL Eric McMillan EDITOR-in-chief

Dan Hoddinott MANAGING EDITOR

Brian Baker

sports editor

Shadi Raoufi

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR

Karolyn Coorsh Gordon Cameron Associate EDITORS

PRODUCTION SERVICES Tony Lomuto Supervisor

Dino DiMaria Production

Advertising & Sales Jennifer Gardiner

Director, Corporate Sales

Kathy Kerluke Business Manager

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TARGETING TIFF Local filmmakers take the stage at annual film festival

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BUSINESS: Joysticks on the move

Mobile video game trailer caters to boys

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FASHION: As the season changes

Fall style tips to max out your trendiness

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AUTOMOTIVE: A jolt of enthusiasm

Chevy Volt not straight electric, not hybrid either

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CROSSWORD: It’s that time of year

Shawn Star has some back-to-school brainbusters

Plus lots more...

On the cover: Leafs GM Brian Burke has ideas on preserving local hockey.

Photo by Francis Crescia/Toronto Today

Where were you when the sky fell down?

I

t’s been 10 years since that fateful morning when hijacked passenger planes slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and finally a Pennsylvania field; when images of ordinary office workers leaping to their deaths from the flaming upper floors of the WTC towers seared our consciousness; when inbound jets by the dozen landed at airports on the fringes of the North American continent, offloading passengers by the hundreds into foreign communities — and they knowing little that their part in history was being the last of a suddenly extinct breed of truly free world travellers; when the world as we knew it ended, never to be the same again.

We’re not the first generation to have experienced a catastrophic moment that causes the world to stand still. There is one every few generations or so. And the results are always the same: changing forever not only the way people view the world but the way in which they can experience it.

A skeptical voice parsing the official account, of course, appears fast on the heels of every such catalytic event.

Post 9-11, questioning of governments, their motives and their alliances turned into an industry.

Evidence of that can be found almost any night of the week on conspiracy-oriented talk radio shows on Toronto airwaves, or on the webcasts that also feed into a burgeoning subculture here. As Caitlin Orr discovered while conducting research for her article, which begins on page 4 of this issue, the paranormal and the Illuminati are popular conversation pieces on those shows, but talk invariably finds its way back to 9-11.

Toronto’s well-developed subculture is recognized around the world.

The U.S.-based Centre for 9/11 Studies has selected Ryerson University as the site to hold hearings on Sept.

8-11 in which “evidence” will be presented to prove that the twin towers were brought down by a controlled demolition.

Few outside the movement, however, got the memo about one-time U of T professor Marshall McLuhan being not only active in but being behind the conspiracy movement’s rise in Toronto.

I love good conspiracy theories.

I subscribe to none of them.

I pride myself instead on following a path of critical thought (versus magical thinking or, Heaven forbid, seeing a bogeyman in every shadow), but acknowledge there are things I cannot possibly know for myself.

I see the genesis of the Illuminati and Freemasons as powers to be feared, legends of supernatural powers and extraterrestrial technologies being rooted in the remnants of demolished human civilization staggering to its

Dan Hoddinott Managing Editor feet following natural or unnatural (and even cyclical) cataclysm. But I also find delight in science and religion tracing time and everything we know back to a single moment of exploding wonder and then fighting to the death with each other over naming rights: Big Bang. God spoke.

Scientists’ need for nuts and bolts is understandable, but some of us prefer the poet’s voice.

There is more to a conspiracy theory, though, than its claims and even its intellectual stimulation value. While this may, on the surface, appear unlikely to the extreme, it can be argued that the pursuit of alternate views is perhaps the last bastion of critical thought: it uproots complacency and gives one reason to pause and consider why you believe what you do about the world.

The willingness to discard conventional belief used to be the private domain of scientists, or even cardcarrying skeptics. But in the highly politicized world of today both have abdicated the throne in favour of joining the ranks of that most unflattering element of modern discussionists: ridiculers of opposing thought.

To wit: scientists coming out of their labs to shout down the findings — and too often ridicule the credentials and characters — of other scientists in the debate on human contribution to global warming. Or the official spokesmen for organized skeptics abandoning their published pledge of neutrality to engage in character assassination rather than calmly presenting evidence that makes an idea being debunked appear unreasonable.

I’m confident that Orr, in examining the conspiracy movement in Toronto, tells a good story without falling into temptation to debunk, to ridicule or, what would be worse, to enlighten the participants. TT SEPTEMBER 2011 TORONTO TODAY

News&Opinion

Keeping watch on the airwaves A look at Toronto’s lively conspiracy subculture and the ideas it fuels

By Caitlin Orr

R

ichard Syrett leans close to the microphone, a shock of brown hair sticking jaggedly out from under his headphones. His wallet and keys to his silver RAV4 sit on the table beside him.

At first appearance, he is a rather unassuming character. He casually pads about the studio in plaid shirt and shorts, sneaker laces dragging and coffee mug in hand.

Caffeine is a good idea at 11 p.m. on a Sunday, when he’s about to spend the next two hours as host of the popular radio program, The Conspiracy Show on AM 740.

“Sure, go ahead: believe everything you see on television, everything you read in the newspaper.

Get your history out of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Yeah, that’s right — Oswald killed Kennedy. Yeah, sure he did. Man, you are living in Disneyland!”

When he delivers that first line, the voice coming across the airwaves isn’t his usual soft-spoken one.

Syrett comes alive for the show. His tone is confident, smooth, assured: he’s in his element.

For Syrett, “normal” is spending the Sunday witching hour chatting it up with a variety of guests from the fringes of all walks of life. Self-described experts, explorers, authors, activists and even cryptozoologists weigh in on all things existential — discussing conspiracies, ghosts and the paranormal, what happens after we die and whether humans are alone in the universe.

And Syrett’s found a captive audience. The show is in the top five in its time slot in the central Toronto market, is streamed simultaneously on the Web and is the most downloaded podcast at AM 740.

He says that he gets email from all over North America and Europe. Listeners from across Ontario and as far away as Tennessee call in with their two

TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

caitlin orr/toronto today

IT’S A CONSPIRACY: Richard Syrett, host of AM 740’s Sunday night The Conspiracy Show, creates what he calls “a safe platform” for believers in conspiracy theories and the paranormal.

cents’ worth, too.

“I’ve always been interested in the big questions,” Syrett said in an off-air interview. “I want people to consider alternative viewpoints, to think for themselves and to question everything.”

But, Syrett said, what he’s doing is creating an audience through storytelling, not setting out to change the world.

“I’m in the manufacturing business,” he said.

“Hopefully people find it entertaining.”

On this particular night, topics explored include reasons why we should doubt that climate change is actually being caused by humans (Syrett warns his listeners that this is stuff that can get you taken off the Christmas card list) and what mysterious causes might be behind crop circles.

Despite Syrett’s caution, this could be fodder for mild-mannered dinner conversation compared to some of the more serious topics he’s covered. He held a debate about 9-11 and has brought in numerous guests to air their doubts about the official version of events.

His most controversial moment, though, led to a public protest in midtown Toronto.

When CFRB AM 1010 kicked him off the air in January 2009, upset fans protested all day in -20 degree weather outside the station’s Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue studios.

Syrett allows his dismissal may have been no more sinister than a cost-saving measure, but he also entertains the theory that he was perhaps “getting too close to the truth” or that some of his guests were irritating the powers that be.

“I think it’s maybe a combination of both,” he told Toronto Today.

Toronto is a hotspot for the conspiracy move-

ment, both on and off the airwaves.

Not only is it home to locally produced radio shows, but there is an appetite for syndicated international broadcasts as well, along with some local Internet-based shows. Over at AM 640, local conspiracy guru Gary Bell has a considerable following for his A View From Space show on Saturday nights, and the U.S.based program Coast to Coast AM with George Noory is a nightly fixture.

Associations like Toronto Truth Seekers, which aims to provide information about fighting the “globalist takeover of the world”, have formed from 9-11 truth-seeking groups. On Queen Street West, the Conspiracy Culture store attracts worldwide visitors — so-called “truthers” and skeptics alike.

The topic of 9-11 is never far from such true believers’ thoughts, especially now, at the 10th anniversary of that day’s events.

And another breed of truth seekers on the international scene will descend on Toronto this month.

Sponsored by the U.S.-based Centre for 9/11 Studies, the “Toronto Hearings”, scheduled for Sept.

8–11 at Ryerson University, will present “evidence” that the World Trade Centre buildings were brought down by controlled demolition.

Its proximity to the U.S. is one of the reasons Toronto has been selected as the location for the hearings. But 9-11 is not the only globally embraced conspiracy theory in which proponents allege the city has played a role.

‘I want people to question everything’

Syrett guest Nelson Thall, who is also behind the Internet radio show Shock Talk under the nom de plume Lenny Bloom, firmly believes that JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald did not die in 1963, but moved to Toronto and hid out here during the 1970s and ’80s.

Thall was once an archivist for the prominent U of T professor and academic Marshall McLuhan, and insists that McLuhan himself started the conspiracy movement in Toronto. He says the intellectual sprinkled references to backstage conspiracies “like salt and pepper” throughout his works.

Syrett says John Lennon met with McLuhan while in Toronto to perform with his Plastic Ono Band.

McLuhan told him, the story goes, that the Beatles had been used by the elite secret societies to distract and dumb down people with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Lennon reportedly became so upset he stormed out of the meeting. But, Syrett suggests, that might have been what impelled him to quit the Beatles and tune his music to political activism.

While such tales do place Toronto in the spotlight, the world-reaching nature of most conspiracy theories means that we hold exclusive bragging rights to few, if any.

The city makes up for that when it comes to the paranormal, however. The ghosts may be of the dead, but the stories are alive and well. For evidence, one need look no further than the walls of Casa Loma — Toronto’s illustrious castle on the hill.

Despite guests and staff having for years reported strange happenings, the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma, which managed the castle at the time, wanted to keep it quiet. But in February 2009, they had a change of heart. They invited ghost-hunting team Michelle Desrochers and Patrick Cross to investigate the stories to find out if they were real or just spectres of the imagination.

“If there’s logical reasons why this is going on, we want to know about it,” Desrochers recalls being told.

Castle management wasn’t interested in commercializing the phenomenon (although Desrochers and Cross do give tours at Halloween and March Break) but in having it objectively researched.

Enter Rick Jarden, one of Casa Loma’s three fulltime staff. A self-professed skeptic, he nevertheless is unable to conceal his pride at the castle’s haunted reputation. While he doesn’t acknowledge it’s the work of ghosts or spirits, it is uncanny, he says.

And he points out that, while individual stories might be as seemingly innocuous or insignificant as a ruffled curtain or a tapped shoulder, their consistency over the years is telling.

When he brings up the power of suggestion as a possible reason for such experiences, it’s not hard to see why.

Case in point: Desrochers’ favourite area, which is the underground tunnels between the castle, the hunting lodge where the Pellatts once lived across the street, and the stables.

Stark, minimal lighting makes the moist walls glisten in the gloom, and the air is cool even on a sweltering August day. The dark alcoves and sensation of descending into a long-abandoned tomb seem like enough to wreak havoc on even the most uncreative of imaginations.

And Desrochers acknowledges it’s the perfect setup.

“Where else are you gonna find anything like this?” she asks earnestly.

It’s here that Jarden, Cross and Desrochers all insist they were walking one night last June, with Continued Page 10

CAITLIN ORR/TORONTO TODAY

HAUNTED: Ghost hunter Michelle Desrochers in Lady Mary Pellatt’s “haunted” room at Casa Loma.

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Recycling laws City takes a long, hard look at how cyclists should be getting around town

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By TRISTAN CARTER

tristan carter/toronto today

avigating Toronto’s mix of municipal bylaws concerning cycling was once as difficult as navigating the city’s disconnected series of bike lanes and paths.

But while two-wheelers continued to spin around town this summer, a revolution of sorts was under way at city hall in regards to city cycling.

Councillors, police and cycling advocates have been discussing safety issues, bylaw changes and even plans to license bike riders. Infrastructure issues such as bike lanes and expanding the Bixi rent-a-bike program out of the downtown core have also been considered.

Eglinton-Lawrence councillor Karen Stintz got things rolling during the winter when she decided it was time for the city to put the brakes on illegal cycling.

A motion she put forward that went before the public works committee on Jan. 26 asked police to develop a new enforcement strategy to curb the number of cyclists riding on sidewalks, something she said was of particular concern in her midtown ward.

“I think it is a public safety concern and I think that we need to make sure that sidewalks are for pedestrians,” she told Toronto Today at the time.

Part of the confusion as to who can ride what, and where, can be attributed to bylaws that predate the city’s amalgamation and are therefore inconsistent across the former municipal boundaries.

Fines for biking on the sidewalk can be as high as $90 if caught downtown or as little as under $10 in Scarborough.

New legislation aims to clear up the confusion.

Chapter 950 of the municipal code, which deals with sidewalk cycling, is still in the works while chapter 886 became enforceable in May, says

Constable Hugh Smith of the Toronto police traffic services division.

Chapter 886 clarifies the rules for biking in bicycle lanes and multi-use paths and walkways.

“It’s setting a new bylaw (that is) basically getting rid of the old seven or eight bylaws in regard to where you can ride a bicycle,” Smith said in an August interview.

The new bylaw harmonizes across the city the fine for unauthorized vehicles using bike lanes and paths at $60. It states that only bicycles are permitted on these paths and defines a bicycle as a “muscular-powered vehicle”.

Despite the fact that the province considers them bicycles, electric-powered bicycles and scooters are no longer allowed on bike paths or in bike lanes, an idea that is backed by the Toronto Cyclists Union.

“We certainly support the fact that the city is moving towards banning them from bike lanes when they’re in the motorized mode,” said Andrea Garcia, director of advocacy and operations with the union.

E-bikes previously could even be ridden on sidewalks because of their typically small wheelbase.

Currently, bicycles with a wheelbase smaller than 62 centimetres are allowed to ride on sidewalks, a law Garcia considers outdated.

“The reasoning first behind the size of the wheel was to allow children to bike on the sidewalk,” she said. “Now that is becoming a bit of an issue because there are electric scooters that have small wheels and therefore they actually fall under the maximum allowable wheel size.”

Smith said that chapter 950 will likely change the rules so cyclists will be permitted to ride on the sidewalks based on their age and not the size of

their bikes’wheels.

“What we’re recommending is … we should apply an age — not the size of the vehicle but the actual age of the rider,” he said. “We’re recommending probably under the age of 14.”

Since e-bike users must be at least 16 that would mean they would not be allowed on sidewalks.

According to Garcia, part of the reason people ride bikes on the sidewalk is a lack of bike lanes, a problem she notes as being particularly prevalent in midtown Toronto.

As a whole, Toronto saw its bikeway network reduced by eight kilometres after council voted in July to remove bike lanes on Jarvis Street, Pharmacy Avenue and Birchmount Avenue, much to the dismay of Ward 19 councillor Mike Layton, who is also co-chair of the ad hoc Toronto Cycling Advisory Committee, which he started.

“Staff are saying there’s limited impact on traffic, but we’re taking them out anyhow, because of the perception,” Layton told Toronto Today. “This is the first year in many years that we’re actually going to see the bikeway network shrink rather than grow.”

In the same report, a motion brought forth by councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, proposed to construct separated bike lanes, an idea both Layton and Garcia support. The plan is to create a barrier between traffic and existing bike lanes on several downtown streets.

“One of the significant issues around cycling is safety and we need to separate cars from cyclists to avoid accidents,” Minnan-Wong said. “When you create that level of separation there’s less likelihood that someone will get hurt.” TT

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TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

Arts&Entertainment

TO exposure Toronto talent and scenery on full display at 36th annual TIFF

W

By Caitlin Orr

hen it comes to places to shoot a film, Toronto gets a lot of exposure.

While that may be great, it’s always dressed up to feel like somewhere else, complains local filmmaker Calvin Thomas.

New York, Chicago, the list goes on. Anywhere but Toronto.

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which runs Sept.

8–18 at various city theatres and restaurants, may refocus that spotlight on the local scene with several made-in-Canada films.

Canadian filmmakers Bruce McDonald, Carl Bessai, Guy Maddin and Jean-Marc Vallee will show some of their latest work at the festival.

Well-known Toronto directors Sarah Polley’s Take this Waltz and David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method will also be shown. And director Robert Lieberman will be screening Breakaway, a cross-cultural hockey film set in Toronto.

And while other Canadian filmmakers are bringing the festival to Toronto, up-and-comers Thomas and partner Yonah Lewis are bringing Toronto to TIFF. “All you have to do is find what you think makes Toronto cool and I think we’ve started to find that,” Thomas told Toronto Today in a telephone interview.

The work of Thomas and Lewis will hit the silver screen for the first time with Amy George, which explores the world of male adolescence through the geography of Riverdale and the Danforth area.

The film also marks the acting debut of several Torontonians, including star power couple Claudia Dey and Don Kerr.

Dey is a playwright and newspaper columnist, while Kerr is a musician who’s performed with Canadian pop singer Ron Sexsmith.

Thomas and Lewis started out writing Amy George with the goal of a screenplay they could feasibly produce themselves.

“We decided to shoot it in our backyard, essentially,” Thomas said.

The duo struggled with initially feeling their Riverdale surroundings were boring, and their own childhoods not incredibly exciting, before latching onto a story they could both relate to.

“It took us a little while to look around and find something in what was just outside of our front door,” Thomas said.

The result was Amy George, which tells the story of a local 13-year-old boy with artistic aspirations who feels uninspired by his drab middle class Toronto life and sets out looking for some excitement.

Telling it involved drawing on the creators’ own ideas and memories of adolescence, and weaving them into the movie.

“I think that’s what makes the film feel more personal and unique,” Thomas said. TT

PHOTO COURTESY CALVIN THOMAS AND YONAH LEWIS

HOMESPUN DRAMA: Candice Barkin, left, and Gabriel del Castillo Mullally in Amy George, a film set and shot in Toronto. It plays this month at TIFF.

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SEPTEMBER 2011 TORONTO TODAY

Business

Loaded for action High-definition gaming rolls down Main Street

By Caitlin Orr

Y

PHOTO COURTESY ELDON MASCOLL/games on wheels

GET YOUR GAME ON: Kids line up for a turn playing in the mobile video game theatre.

Ask the experts Please write to our experts: If you would like to take advantage of their years of experience, send your questions to “Ask the Experts” and they will be happy to reply to you in this space.

By E-mail: adsales@towncrieronline.ca, by Fax: 416488-3671 or write: Ask the Experts, c/o Town Crier, 101 Wingold Ave., Toronto, ON, M6B 1P8.

Kathleen Timmis, a partner in the personal injury law firm of Linett & Timmis, has been practicing accident and insurance litigation in Toronto for over 20 years. Her firm has established a solid reputation, representing thousands of injured victims and their families throughout Ontario.

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Q A

: If I fall and injure myself on someone else’s property, am I entitled to compensation?

: You may be entitled to sue for your injuries under Ontario’s Occupier’s Liability Act. If the area where you fell (such as a store, public mall, city property, private home or business) was in an unsafe condition, the owner may be responsible for the accident.

Examples of accidents where victims have sued successfully include falling on walkways that have not been cleared of snow and ice, or that are in a state of disrepair, falling on dirty or slippery floors, tripping over misplaced objects or falling on steps that are not properly lighted.

If your fall occurred on municipal property, such as a sidewalk, it is important to remember that there are very strict notice periods that apply. If you want to know whether you have a case, please call us for a free consultation.

TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

ou don’t have to answer the Call of Duty anymore.

It will come to you, thanks to a new entertainment company that’s been rolling around the GTA with trailers equipped for up to 20 people to play multiplayer video games.

Games on Wheels shows up with a complete arsenal, from the popular first-person shooter to FIFA soccer.

“Every kid loves video games, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer for parents,” says Eldon Mascoll, owner and founder of the Toronto-based company that travels to everything from wedding receptions to birthday parties.

Started at the beginning of this year, the business has two trailers with Wii, PS3 and Xbox systems.

While the company targets boys ages 7–14, Mascoll says the activity crosses boundaries of age, culture and wealth.

For two hours and $349, gamers sit in a line on leather couches inside an 8-ft.-by-30-ft. generatorpowered trailer, facing a bank of five high definition TV screens accented by colourful LED lights.

Although this business is already popular in the U.S., Mascoll’s company is building on the idea by installing the motion-sensing Xbox Kinect on one trailer, and by creating a third vehicle out of a mobile home.

The 41-year-old advertising copywriter-turnedbusinessman got the idea for his business after a friend, who was going on long trips with his kids, asked about installing a gaming system in his car.

Mascoll’s goal is a bit like Back to the Future in reverse: while he’s using cutting-edge technology, he wants to recreate the social aspect of gaming that he remembers from arcades of the past.

He says that facet of the video game industry has been overshadowed by the isolation of home entertainment systems.

In response, the main rule at Games on Wheels is that only multiplayer games be allowed. Customers can bring their own, and parents can limit the selection to non-violent ones, but everyone must be included, Mascoll says.

“So we’re bringing the social element back into gaming.”

Sheri Delagran is a mother and customer who

shares some of the concerns Mascoll mentions. “(Boys) just kind of go into this zombie state when they play video games,” she says. “I think boys don’t talk enough or communicate enough at that age.”

She recalls a Christmas party where she was dismayed to walk into a room of young boys sitting silently in the dark, playing hand-held games.

“It just seemed so wrong,” she said.

At home, Delagran’s son Coulter has only a Wii that he’s allowed to play for an hour or so on weekends.

When she booked Games on Wheels for his seventh birthday party in June, Delagran says, she was partly just looking for something new.

“We’d done the laser tag, and the bowling and all those things to try to keep them out of the house.”

But she also thinks Games on Wheels’ focus on all-inclusiveness, and the accompanying “game coach” who encouraged the kids to intermix and try new things, did prevent zombie-fication.

“I did find it a very social thing,” she said.

The kids’ excitement when the trailer pulled up made all the difference, too.

Clare Brett, an associate professor at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s department of curriculum, teaching and learning, thinks that parents worried about the effects of gaming can still afford to go Delagran’s route.

“I don’t see it as being a huge problem, because it’s a sort of one-off thing,” she says.

Brett says the potential trouble with kids using technology is not so much the activities themselves, but how much time is spent on them.

She considers it a mistake to assume that gaming is always an isolating activity.

“I think kids do a lot of this socially anyway,” she said. “That’s the whole point of it.”

And she suggests that the best policy is moderation, not prohibition.

“Forbidden fruit are always the tastiest, so I think you have to be watchful but not compulsive.”

In Delagran’s case, that attitude made the occasion even more memorable for Coulter.

“It was a very special thing for our son, to (say) ‘Here you go, go wild,’” she says. TT

Fashion

Change in style Stay trendy as you step into fall

I

By ANN RUPPENSTEIN

t’s almost time to retire your summer wardrobe and replace it with warmer, thicker pieces, as temperatures begin to fall. To look your best while you make the transition follow the advice of these professional stylists, who shared their fashion tips and trends for the coming season.

Just for women Although layering is key this fall, Tamara Glick, who runs Trademark Image Consulting near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue, says there will also be an emphasis on creative and vintage inspired accessories.

What’s great about this trend, she reveals, is that it not only creates visual interest but it also updates and modernizes clothes you already own. To achieve this look, Glick suggests adding a collar or choker style necklace, which fit like a collar of a shirt, to staple items you have from previous seasons.

“So they may be made out of leather, they may be jewelled,” she says. “They can come in all kinds of formats and they really work similarly to a necklace.

“It will give it a totally different appeal.”

Glick says 1970s inspired clothing will carry over from summer, and for fall it will come in the form of items like wide leg or flare trousers and denim, but adds that skinny pants aren’t going anywhere yet.

Calf- and maxi-length skirts and dresses will also continue to be in style. To pull off a midi-length bottom, Glick says, make sure it ends at the narrowest part of your calf.

“So that would be above the calf muscle — in between the knee and the calf — or just between the ankle and the calf muscle,” she says. “It makes the leg look slimmer on anyone.”

According to Glick, animal print — particularly leopard — will also be making a comeback, which will come in both warm and cool shades. Glick suggests picking the colour that best matches your eyes and skin tone.

“That’s going to be in anything from a full dress, which I’d recommend for someone who is in their 20s to early 30s, to accents like purses, scarves, shoes and even outerwear,” she says. “So it’s a great trend that people can wear in any age range.

“You can implement it in many ways.”

As for the season’s essential outerwear, like a classic trench coat, she says it will be offered in a wide range of bold colours and patterns, which will pull an outfit together and help make you look more stylish overall.

To find some or all of these items, Glick suggests heading to the Shops at Don Mills (1060 Don Mills Rd.) for stores like BCBG Max Azria and Mendocino.

Just for men Men’s stylist Patricia Trépanier, who divides her time between Toronto and Montreal, says that while bold colours like mustard, orange and purple are in this season, you should apply the less-is-more theory. She suggests using them as accent colours to spice up your look instead of going with a full-blown raspberry-pink dress shirt.

“I prefer when they go with just a pop of colour in the outfit,” she says, adding that little details make all the difference. “Such as with a pocket square, the tie, the bowtie or even with the cufflinks.”

Another item that will bring interest to your outfit and is both fashionable and practical for the coming cooler weather, she says, is a scarf.

“There’s something that’s really classy about wearing a scarf,” she says, though cautioning that there are right and wrong ways to wear one. “Some guys just put their scarf like they don’t really care, but you have to look like you care — but not too much.”

One of the ways she suggests is a dressy knot known as the slip-knot, which is when you pull the ends through a loop. She also says to make sure you choose a colour that complements your skin tone and adds that most guys can’t pull off green or light pink.

Continued Page 10

ALL THAT GLITTERS: Midtown Toronto fashion consultant Tamara Glick says creative accessories serve to modernize clothes you already own.

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Cont. from Page 9

For scarves, Trépanier recommends the brand Matinique (available at The Hudson Bay Company at 44 Bloor Street East) or heading online to shop the Ssense collection (www.ssense.com.)

This fall, tweed or wool sports jackets will also be trendy and they carry the added bonus of being able to transition into winter and early spring.

“A way to dress it down: Wear a shirt, a tie and a cardigan with a blazer on top and pair it with a pair of jeans,” she says. “Or if you want to dress it up you can just wear it with a pair of chinos and a dress shirt and a pair of loafers.”

For tops like cardigans or jackets, some of Trépanier’s top picks are Club Monaco (at 157 Bloor St. West. or in Yorkdale Mall) and Banana Republic (80 Bloor St. West.)

But she warns that just because something is in style, doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

“There’s all these trends and everything and it’s important to follow fashion, but I feel like it’s not because it’s trendy that you have to wear it,” she says. “You have to make sure that it suits your body type.” TT

only flashlights to light the way, when a thick mist rose up around them and the air grew very cold.

They claim their cameras shut off, their recording registered a voice hissing “Run!” and one of their researchers said he felt an invisible hand clamp down on his shoulder.

Desrochers and Cross have a vast supply of such anecdotes, and not just about the castle. They say they’ve also found paranormal activity at the Keg Mansion on Jarvis Street, Malabar costume house, the Elgin Theatre, the Royal York Hotel, Mackenzie House and the Montgomery Inn. The Spadina Museum, near Casa Loma itself, is reportedly haunted as well.

Even though there has been only one reported death in the castle — a young boy who broke into an elevator shaft in the 1970s — Desrochers says spirits tend to come back to wherever they were happiest.

But Sir Henry Pellatt, who built the castle, got to live in it for only about three years before it was seized by the city to pay back taxes.

And he never got to finish it, either. What was supposed to be a marble swimming pool in the basement is just a dank cement hole in the ground today, complete with cobwebs dangling from the ceiling.

Guests have purportedly seen his ghost standing next to his original desk on the castle’s second floor.

Desrochers attributes Pellatt’s supposed lingering presence to the fact that he never got to take pleasure in the castle that he had spent so much of his fortune, and thus himself, on.

“He lost it and he didn’t get a chance to live here and enjoy it,” Desrochers said.

While Desrochers and Cross say they are doing research of a sort, they see a divide between scientific and open-minded thinking. They don’t seem too worried about convincing anyone of the validity of their work.

caitlin orr/toronto today

GHOST HUNTERS: Patrick Cross and Michelle Desrochers prowl the dank tunnels beneath Casa Loma in search of paranormal activity.

“(Just) because we are openminded to the possibilities doesn’t mean we have all the answers,” Desrochers said. “I don’t think the answers will ever be 100 percent found, but the idea is, half the fun is trying.”

But there’s more to open-mindedness than just being willing to consider evidence that confirms what you already believe, says Justin Trottier, another Syrett guest and national executive director of the organization Centre for Inquiry Canada, which promotes critical thinking about conspiracy theories and the paranormal.

“Only if you’re open to disconfirming evidence are you truly open-minded,” he said in a telephone interview.

Trottier acknowledges that there are certainly conspiracies that are real — right down to the events of 9-11. But the conspiracy was Muslim extremist elements hijacking two planes and piloting them into the World Trade Centre, he says.

“That’s a conspiracy by definition,” he said. “It’s just not a conspiracy that’s compelling enough for these 9-11 ‘truthers’.”

The tendency to attribute such disasters to malevolent players

directing world events behind the scenes, or strange sights and sounds to spirits, has to do with humans being pattern-seeking creatures, Trottier believes.

“I think it’s comforting, at least, to think that there is more control over the world’s events than the randomness that probably does explain most of what happens,” he said.

And if it seems strange that Toronto, a city that views itself as world class, is a focal point, Trottier says it’s not really a question of intelligence or education, but of what you choose to believe.

“The more intelligent you are, the better you are at rationalizing something that you may have come up with based on (emotional) reasons,” he said.

The most vocal skeptics in the mainstream, however, do not hesitate to let it be known that they think these pursuits, whether of the conspiratorial or paranormal, are irrational and foolish.

Back at the studio, Syrett’s take is that what’s really senseless is to categorically believe or deny it all.

“To say that everything is a conspiracy is as ridiculous as to say that nothing is a conspiracy,” he said. TT

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njury at track level. That’s code for suicide at the TTC. In the first six months of 2011, seven people chose to end their life by jumping in front of a subway train in Toronto. Twenty-six people did the same in 2010 and the year before that, 18 people chose death by suicide from a TTC platform.

Passenger mental health is a complex and difficult issue that has been plaguing the city’s public transit system for years.

Suicide is an issue for humanity, but for the country’s largest public transit system it is also a matter of bad business. Aside from the sheer tragedy of having an individual end his or her life in horrific fashion, the TTC is also left to deal with the aftermath.

And the aftermath is expensive.

Staff behind the subway’s controls or workers who witness the suicide are often traumatized. Many take weeks off work to recover, and some ask for professional aid to help them deal with the shock and grief.

Jumpers also force lengthy disruptions to subway service. According to a TTC report on subway suicide prevention released last year, in 2009 there were 1,364 minutes (about 22 hours) of delay on the TTC as a result of the 18 suicides. Passengers are forced off the train and onto shuttle buses until a preliminary investigation is complete.

The TTC took some first steps this

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summer to try and deal with the problem. It plastered 200 posters on 69 platforms, with messaging that urges those contemplating suicide to call for help rather than jump to their death.

The TTC partnered up with Distress Centres of Toronto and Bell Canada to provide free calls to crisis counsellors.

Pressing the “Crisis Link� button on any of 141 platform payphones automatically connects the caller with one of 450 experienced professionals.

TTC chair Karen Stintz, who is also the Eglinton-Lawrence councillor, calls the poster program an “important step�. “I am very pleased that the TTC, Distress Centres of Toronto and Bell were able to come together on this very important program,� she said in a prepared statement at the time of the program launch. “Mental health is often a difficult subject for many to broach.�

The issue of mental health is particularly important to Stintz. Her mother is a diagnosed schizophrenic, and family members of some of her office staff have also suffered from mental health issues.

While the program has been hailed as an important first step, the city knows new signs and free calls are not enough to make a real difference.

City staff have gone on record in the past saying the subway system is in dire need of platform screen doors that keep Continued Page 17

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Dining

Brew pub has great history and future Liz Campbell

M

y guest sips his glass of Keefe’s Irish Stout and comments: “This beer only travelled about 30 feet before I drank it. Talk about low food miles!”

We’re in the Granite Brewery and Restaurant, a place that takes its beer — and its pub grub — seriously. The interior, right down to the chintz curtains and flowery banquette seats, could serve as the set for an English soap. Okay, so it’s not chic décor, but there’s a comfortable ambiance that has its attractions.

We count no fewer than three large groups who have gathered to imbibe and dine. In that order.

So, for us too, the first order of the day is to imbibe. The menu of 11 in-house brews (we can see the enormous brew tanks from where we sit) offers more detail than the food menu. The helpful waiter asks what he likes and my guest accepts suggestions, settling on the stout ($6.25 for 18 oz). Like the gold standard in bitter stouts this one is so dark and rich it’s almost meaty.

“This is a great stout,” he pronounces. “Full bodied.”

Me? I freely admit, I’m not a brew connoisseur, but how can I resist one called “Peculiar”? My dark ale is malty and almost sweet ($3.95 for 10 oz). Being a Philistine, that’s just the way I like it!

We want hearty main courses so decide to go healthy and light for the appetizer. We start with a mandarin spinach salad to share ($10.95).

Baby spinach, mandarin oranges, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and long fingers of Swiss cheese are sprinkled with lots of toasted, sliced almonds in a salad large enough to feed two comfortably. Everything is fresh and crisp, but alas, the balsamic vinaigrette is dull, probably not homemade and without much to commend it.

For our mains, we decide to choose dishes that feature the restaurant’s own brews in the recipe. The batter for my guest’s fish and chips is laced with Ringwood Ale and, says he, it’s the best fish and chips he’s had in a long time. “The batter is really crisp and tasty; not in the least oily.”

More importantly, there’s only a light covering over a generous portion of haddock. The chips are fresh cut, says the menu, and they live up to the claim of golden brown and crispy ($10.95 for one and 12 TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

$13.95 for two pieces of fish).

I opt for ribs because, says the waiter, “We’re famous for them.”

The baby back ribs have been smoked in-house, then generously brushed with a sauce laced with “our award-winning stout” ($17.95 for a half rack; $22.95 for a full rack). My first bite tells me there’s good reason for the fame. These ribs are meaty, and the sauce is rich and thick, with just a hint of zesty pepper.

I’m not usually much of a Fred Flintstone, but these could convert me to carnivore.

They come with a baked potato (I could have had mashed, fries or rice) and a generous portion of green and yellow beans tossed with bok choy in a garlicky butter. The garlic is unfortunate. For me, it detracts from the delicate flavour of these vegetables but my guest likes it.

Chacun à son gout!

After our heavy meal, we contemplate the dessert menu: apple pie, cheese cake, molten chocolate cake, etc. None, it turns out, is made on the premises.

Apparently there isn’t much demand for dessert. I’m

A good spot for casual dining

not surprised; we eschew it as well.

We do ask for coffee — decaf for me, which the waiter obligingly prepares fresh as there isn’t a pot on hand. It’s another good brew to chalk up to this spot.

Celebrating 20 years in Toronto (there’s an equally successful Granite in Halifax, now in its 25th year), Granite Brewery and Restaurant isn’t fancy; it’s a brew pub with aspirations to gastropub. And it almost makes it.

The food is well above the average pub fare and there’s even a weekly fresh menu offering. You can even buy your favourite brew to take home, but only if you’re serving a group: it comes in very large bottles.

It’s a good spot for casual dining and features two patios — a noisy one on Mount Pleasant Road and a quiet garden patio out back. Say hello to Laurel and Hardy; they’re playing chess in the recess opposite the bar.

Granite Brewery and Restaurant, 245 Eglinton Ave. East. (the entrance is on Mount Pleasant). 416-3220723, granitebrewery.ca. Free parking available. TT

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Home&Garden PLANNING AHEAD: Lorraine Flanigan says she is already poring over bulb catalogues and browsing websites for the latest and greatest bulbs and peonies to populate her garden next year.

Feels like fall, but time to think spring Lorraine Flanigan

T

he summer garden is in full bloom with phlox, black-eyed Susans and ornamental grasses commanding our attention. And as much as motivational gurus advise us to live in the moment, at this time of year I’m more ant than grasshopper.

For me, early September is no time to fiddle around.

Although there’s much to sing about in the late summer garden (and I do), I also know that if I don’t start planning now, no new tulips, crocuses or peonies will bloom in my garden next spring. So this is when I study bulb catalogues and browse websites for the latest and greatest bulbs and peonies to add to my garden.

If you’re going to have any at all, hardy flower bulbs must be planted in the fall. It’s the chill of winter that completes their growing cycle and prompts them into bloom in the spring.

The other plant I think about adding to my garden in the fall is the peony. The peony per14 TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

forms much better when planted in autumn. A growing season that spans fall into winter and into early spring gives them enough time to become established so they can expend their energy the following spring to produce those fabulous, blousy blooms.

To plan next spring’s garden, one of the first things I do about now is browse photos that I took of this year’s spring garden. What I’m looking for is not so much what’s in bloom, but what’s not there. Those bare places are where I need to add colourful tulips or daffodils, for instance.

I also look for ways to create splashes of colour at strategic locations. The end of the flagstone pathway almost cries out for something interesting. Why would you want to walk the length of the pathway if there’s nothing to beckon you further? A flashy peony with a “come hither” look would make the perfect siren.

Next, I examine the garden photos for tulips that seem to have faded in colour, dwindled in numbers or shrunk in height from previous years.

This happens to some of the best tulips, no matter how well they’re watered and fed.

One of my favourites is Perestroika — a tall, apricot-coloured late-season tulip that looks stunning towering over the drifts of sky blue forgetme-nots that blanket the garden every spring.

Each year I order a few more to replace the ones that have petered out. And I also experiment

with look-alikes, hoping they’ll be longer-lived than Perestroika. I have high hopes for two new ones I tried this year: Long Lady and Big Brother.

Only time will tell if they have staying power or not.

It’s easy to be beguiled by the blossoms of peonies, but it’s the stems that interest me more.

The earlier bloomers tend to be more compact, with shorter stems that can support the flowers without flopping. Many of these early varieties have delicate single-petalled flowers, which aren’t as heavy as the later-blooming doubles.

Catalogue descriptions can give you clues: I look for phrases like “sturdy stalks” and flip past ones that say “needs staking”.

Another reason to start planning now for next spring’s garden is that the best of the bunch sell out fast. Place your mail orders and scour the shelves of your local nurseries right now. Come spring, you’ll have something to fiddle about.

Catalogue descriptions can give you handy clues

Surrounded by bulb and peony catalogues, Lorraine Flanigan writes from her garden in the South Eglinton neighbourhood of Toronto. TT

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ummer is coming to a close and soon the TV networks will be launching the new fall season of their top shows.

If you’re planning to buy a new flatpanel TV in time for the return of your favourite series, you may want to consider the different options for displaying your TV to ensure you get the best picture quality.

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Cont. from Page 11

passengers away from the train until it has come to a complete stop.

A staff report tabled in February 2010 recommended the city put money for these barriers in the 2011–15 Capital Budget submission. The report recommended a “design which permits second chances, third party interventions and restricts access to track level.”

Various types of subway barriers are already in use in cities such as Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dubai, Paris, Rome, Singapore and Tokyo.

“Platform screen doors are considered very effective as they actually eliminate the hazard or prevent any track level intrusion situation from occurring,” the report says.

Barriers would protect not only those attempting suicide on the tracks but also people who might accidentally fall or be pushed into the path of an oncoming train. It would also help prevent other delays, such as those caused by smoke at track level — which Stintz recently told the Economic Club of Canada is “the No. 1 source of delays on the TTC.” The proliferation of free commuter newspapers is being blamed. Despite the TTC having added more recycling cans at each station, passengers are still discarding papers on the platform, ready to blow onto the tracks each time a train pulls in. When the paper comes in contact with electrical or heating devices at track level it can ignite.

“In 2009, there were 125 incidents of fire at track level for 1,271 minutes (21 hours),” the TTC report says.

But the cost of putting up these barriers is crippling for a public transit system that is consistently underfunded and plagued with capital budget shortfalls year after year. Cost of the barriers has been pegged at $10 million per station.

It might be expensive, but it’s the right thing to do, says Ashley, a 24-yearold woman who has battled depression since her early teens.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Canadians between the ages of 10 and 24. Ashley, who requested that her surname not be published, almost became part of that statistic when she attempted to take her own life three years ago.

“You never know what will work to change a suicidal person’s mind,” she told Toronto Today during a recent chat.

“Pretty much if someone wants to commit suicide they will, but sometimes, if they’re forced to pause — either because of a kink in their plans or a helping hand, or whatever — everything can change.”

Like most people who have lived to talk about their attempted suicide, Ashley says she is happy she failed to kill herself.

Her method of choice was not the TTC but a handful of pills. Her little brother found her and was able to call for help in time. Still, she says she has “stood on the edge of that (subway) platform countless times”, thinking

“what if”.

“It’s nice to know that next time — if there is a next time — there will be someone to talk to,” she said.

Then, Ashley repeated something she said earlier: “But if someone wants to do it, they will. It’s sad but it’s true.”

Case in point: the Bloor viaduct.

the path of the train, it does not mean that they are providing the suicidal individual with an effective solution to his or her predicament.

A growing number of mental health professionals are suggesting the solution starts with crisis counselling and support rather than mere preventative measures.

Bloor viaduct Spanning the Don Valley, and overarching the busy Don Valley Parkway and the Don Valley forest, the Bloor viaduct was once a choice location for people wanting to end their lives. In fact, it was once considered to be the second most popular suicide destination in North America, after the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco.

At one point, one person jumped from the viaduct every 22 days on average.

Signs advertising crisis help lines are still posted along the bridge, but the city decided posters and payphones were not enough. In 2003 a $6 million, 16-foot barrier — later dubbed the Luminous Veil — was installed.

A study that looked at the number of suicides in Toronto since the viaduct veil was erected, and published last July in the British Medical Journal, found such barriers are extremely effective at stopping suicides, albeit only at that specific location.

“No suicides occurred at Bloor Street Viaduct in the four years after the construction of a barrier; however, suicide rates by jumping in Toronto were unchanged because of a statistically significant increase in suicides by jumping from other bridges and a non-significant increase in suicides by jumping from buildings,” the study concluded. “This suggests that the availability of Bloor Street Viaduct was not an essential element for people contemplating suicide by jumping in Toronto.”

The study’s conclusion suggests the same outcome can be inferred with all barriers, including those put up at subway platforms. While subway barriers might prevent people from jumping in

An election issue In an effort to increase support for mental health patients, a group of 10 Ontario organizations are banding together to make suicide and mental illness a major election issue as Ontario voters prepare to head to the polls on Oct. 6.

According to the Mental Health and Addictions Alliance, 20 percent of Ontarians will experience a mental illness or addiction but access to support and proper care is far from adequate.

The issue is rampant among young Canadians, according to statistics compiled by the Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health. One in five youth suffer from a mental health issue, such as depression, anxiety, behavioural problems, eating disorders, ADHD and development disorders — all of which can push a person to believe that suicide is a solution to their frustration.

“That’s probably a low estimate, because mental health issues are widely under-reported because of the stigma,” says Dennis Long, the founding executive director of Breakaway Addiction Services.

Long and other alliance members, including Dr. Catherine Zahn, president and CEO of the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, spoke to Toronto Today during a recent roundtable discussion on mental health issues facing Ontario. About 20 people gathered at a conference room in a supportive housing complex on Grenville Street to take part in the discussion.

“Access to mental health care must be accessible across the province,” he told the group. “The problem is, that translates into 2.5 million people experiencing

difficulties.

“To put that into context: that’s the city of Toronto, but they’re not getting the help they need.”

According to statistics compiled by the alliance, one in three adults and one in four children have access to the proper care in Ontario.

Zahn told Toronto Today that more has to be done to combat the stigma around mental health. Once people are more open to discussing the issue with friends and family members, the more likely they are to seek help rather than find a tragic way out.

CAMH has acted on that theory by creating an advertising campaign featuring local celebrities talking about their battles with mental health.

Stigma is the one hurdle that needs to be overcome before there can be a real change to suicide statistics, said Jennifer Foulds, an alliance member representing the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario.

While the TTC’s recent moves are an important step, more has to be done beyond the borders of the TTC for there to be real suicide prevention.

“The TTC’s step to put up the Crisis Link is a great start,” Foulds said. “It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad they’ve finally done that.

“It would be great if the plan included a barrier, because it would provide an extra layer of safety and could provide a sober second thought. If they can’t (commit suicide) at that location they might reach out and call the distress centre or reach out for help in a different way.”

Just the same, she says, subway barriers are not enough to prevent suicide “because we don’t do a good enough job talking about suicide.”

In order for people to be comfortable reaching out for help, Foulds said, they need to understand that they won’t be judged by their families and peers.

Ashley says she’s well aware of the stigma surrounding suicide and depression. That’s why she has few close friends to this day.

“I don’t like talking about my issues,” she said. “The worst is that I know I’m ‘off’ and I guess I don’t want other people to look at me like I’m crazy.

“People know you’re depressed and they automatically think you’re not capable, or they treat you differently. It’s insulting. People don’t understand me or they think I’m unfriendly, but in some ways I’d rather deal with that.”

But, Ashley did find solace in reaching out to people she thought would understand. From the time she was young, she has contacted peer-to-peer support groups like Kids Help Phone every time she has felt the need to reach out.

Toronto’s distress centres field about 120,000 calls a year.

“Crisis Link will help, and (Stintz) is right,” Ashley said. “Even if it’s just one person that decides to reach for the phone rather than jump, then it’s the best step the TTC could have taken.” TT SEPTEMBER 2011 TORONTO TODAY 17

Destinations

End of the line Chatham-Kent and the Underground Railroad

I

By Liz Campbell

n 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing thousands of human beings who had been living in slavery. But during the 19th century, there was a route by which escaped slaves could get help on their way to Canada — and freedom. It became known as the Underground Railroad.

And Chatham, Ont. and its environs was a terminus.

Janie Cooper-Wilson, who administers the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society, is a mine of information. In this office are documents not available in the public records offices, and Ila Wright Brown, a descendent of a freed slave and enthusiastic volunteer, is helping to organize these files.

Many, from both sides of the border, have come here to research family histories, though this can be difficult. Many blacks hid their backgrounds to protect themselves from recapture, as well as their families from reprisals.

That’s because, even after they had left the south, slaves weren’t safe, Cooper-Wilson explains. There were, of course, the professional slave catchers. They made $5 for every slave they returned, and half that for the bodies of dead slaves, so the Canadian border wasn’t going to stop them.

“But the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in effect made every citizen in the U.S. a slave catcher,” she says. “And many blacks were only self-emancipated. For them, life was precarious, even in Canada.”

In the 19th century, notable abolitionists visited the city. John Brown held clandestine meetings at Chatham’s First Baptist Church in 1859, only 15 months before his capture at Harper’s Ferry and subsequent execution as a traitor. And in 1854, Frederick Douglas took part in Emancipation Day celebrations here and afterward commented: “I saw men, women and children, who until a short time ago were under the rod of the slave driver, administering for their own good.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe based much of her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, on the life of Josiah Henson, an escaped slave who guided 118 blacks to freedom and ultimately made his home in this area. For his work, in 1877 he was received by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle where she presented him with a signed photograph.

Now a museum, Henson’s home is just one of several museums that teach about the history of this infamous period of North American history. The Dawn Settlement, which Henson and others founded in the 1830s, opened one of the first schools for black children.

Nearby Buxton was another settlement about which Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe wrote

18 TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

in a report to Lincoln: “There are signs of industry and thrift and comfort, everywhere; signs of intemperance, of idleness, of want, nowhere. There is no tavern and no groggery; but there is a chapel and a schoolhouse. Most interesting of all are the inhabitants. Twenty years ago, most of them were slaves who owned nothing, not even their children. Now they own themselves; they own homes and farms, and they have their wives and children about them. They are enfranchised citizens of a government which protects their rights.

They have the great essentials of human happiness, ‘something to love, something to do, and something to hope for’ and if they are not happy it is their own fault.”

Every Labour Day since 1924 Buxton has celebrated Homecoming, an annual reenactment of the beginnings of this settlement built by slaves.

A visit to the Chatham Kent area provides a microcosm of a turbulent period of North American history.

The area also boasts beautiful Rondeau Provincial Park where, every September, monarch butterflies gather, waiting for a favourable wind to start their annual migration south to Mexico.

Settlement was built by slaves

If you go: Accommodation: Retro Suites is an extraordinary hotel built from several renovated buildings. Each suite is themed differently with meticulous attention to detail. Our Easy Rider Suite included, among a host of curious features, a Hudson motorcycle (circa 1900), hanging from the ceiling and a sink painted with Harley-Davidson’s logo. Prices start at $129. (retrosuites.com) History: The Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society offers walking tours and lots of information in their mini-museum. (ckblackhistoricalsociety.org) The Buxton Historic Site (buxtonmuseum.com) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin in nearby Dresden (uncletomscabin.org) offer tours and plenty to see and do. All are within a short drive of the city of Chatham.

Outdoors: Rondeau Provincial Park has an annual Butterfly Festival in September but they’re around until early October. TT

liz campbell/toronto today

A WEALTH OF INFORMATION: Janie Cooper-Wilson and Ila Wright Brown tend to displays, walking tours and documents not available in the public records offices at the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society.

Automotive

The jolt about new Chevy Volt

I

By Mathieu Yuill

t was a long time coming, but the Chevy Volt was worth the wait.

First announced at the 2007 North American International Auto Show and as a four-seater, it was a big break from GMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1990 electric car, the sporty two-seater EV-1, which was released more than a decade earlier.

The Volt isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a straight electric car but it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a hybrid either. Electric cars rely strictly on their battery to move the vehicle, meaning the range is maxed out at usually less than 200 kilometres. Hybrid vehicles have a battery but also rely on gasoline to power the car when the battery canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t provide enough power.

The Volt has a gasoline engine but gas is used only to power a generator that charges the battery, meaning less fuel is used than in a conventional petro-powered car and it has significantly longer range than its electric-only counterparts.

The fuel tank holds 35 litres of fuel, allowing the Volt to travel a further 450 kilometres after the battery depletes. The battery has a range of 40â&#x20AC;&#x201C;80 kilometres depending on road conditions and the operatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s driving habits.

OmniStats Data posted by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation says 78 percent of drivers commute 64 kilometres or less a day. In Canada itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s widely thought our average commute is actually shorter. Under this scenario, someone using the Volt for mostly work commuting would rarely have to visit a gas station for anything more than a car wash and junk food.

Batteries provide energy right from the get-go so the 273 lb-ft of torque kicks in right away, making for a fairly peppy ride. Even getting up to passing speed on the highway is just like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be used to in a gasoline-powered vehicle. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not as squishy in the handling department as hybrid vehicles tend to be, but the brakes are indeed grabby and takes some getting used to.

The Volt has an MSRP of $41,545. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only one trim level and only two options â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a premium trim (think leather) and a rear camera and parkassist. Currently the Ontario government is offering a large rebate: $8,230.

The major cost of the Volt is the battery, and while GM hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t released replacement costs of the battery pack they have affixed it with an eight-year, 160,000-kilomotre warranty.

Great for the original owner, but what about the next guy? By then, GM says, the technology will have come down in price where battery replacement wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be such a daunting expense. TT

Gas drives battery, not engine

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SEPTEMBER 2011 TORONTO TODAY 19

ThingsToDo

Mark Your Calendar Wed., Sept. 7 Your Personal Financial Health, workshop by InCharge Canada. Features topics such as warning signs of financial problems, spending plan basics, accessing credit, your credit score and more. Free.

Central Eglinton Community Centre. 160 Eglinton Ave. East. Info at (416) 392-0511 ext 0.

Sat., Sept. 10 — Wed., Oct. 5 Nouvelle New Members’ Exhibit at Heliconian Club at 35 Hazelton Avenue. Exhibit features five artists. Free. Info at (416) 922-3618.

Tues., Sept. 13 Creative Writing for Beginners course taught by novelist and freelance writer Julie M. Green. $60 fee. Central Eglinton Community Centre. 160 Eglinton Ave. East. Info at (416) 392-0511 ext 0.

Thurs., Sept. 15 — Sat., Sept. 17 Book Ends South Treasures & Good Books sale at the Beeton Auditorium at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. Free. $2 admission on Thursdays. Info at friendssouthchapter@torontopubliclibrary.ca.

Tues., Sept. 20 St. Paul’s Candidates Debate at 851 Mt. Pleasant Road at 7 p.m. Provincial Candidates’ Meeting focused on Public Education Northern Secondary School. Candidates will be invited to share their views and answer questions from students, parents and the communityn. For information, contact Trustee Shelley Laskin. Info at shelley. laskin@tdsb.on.ca.

Wed., Sept. 21 Living to 100, parts 1 and 2. Dr. Kris Dorken of Core Natural Wellness Centre discusses how to live to 100, maintain your ideal weight, continue to learn and grow and how to stay fit. Free. Central Eglinton Community Centre. 160 Eglinton Ave. East. Info at (416) 392-0511 ext 0. www. corewellnesscentre.ca.

Sat., Sept. 24 — Sat., Oct. 15 The Alexander Technique: four hands-on classes to help improve balance, coordination and ease of movement. Learn to work with your body instead of against it and use it more efficiently. $45. Central Eglinton Community Centre. 160 Eglinton Ave. East. Info at (416) 392-0511 ext 0. TT

j & r welding And

generAl home repAirs Wrought iron gates and fences Security bars • Mobile welding Stainless Steel Welding Railings Custom metal work All types of home repairs

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francis crescia/town crier

STARRY, STARRY NIGHT: Rochelle Filart narrates “Eyes on the Sky” at the Ontario Science Centre.

Reach for the stars

L

By sue wakefield

et the learning begin! The kids head back to school this month, and with any luck their brains are out of sleep mode. To support their scholarly endeavours this month here are some scientific pursuits that are sure to hook even the most skeptical kids. This month’s activities will have you looking up at the stars in a whole new light and examining the rocks on the ground closer than ever before.

At the end of your exploration grab some tools to conduct your very own science experiments at home.

Put stars in their eyes The Ontario Science Centre is filled with activities to get kids of all ages excited about science, and you can visit Toronto’s only public planetarium while there.

Guided by a live presenter, experience views of the night sky on the Planetarium dome. After a summer of squinting through the city’s night skies, your kids will be ready for a clear view of the planets and constellations.

The Cosmic Journeys demonstration will take them to distant galaxies. New for children under 5 is the “Eyes on the Sky” program that incorporates singing, connectthe-stars constellations and a journey to the moon. Both events run in the Space Hall on Level 4.

Admission included with Science Centre tickets. 770 Don Mills Rd., at Eglinton Ave. East. 416696-1000; ontariosciencecentre.ca.

Talk to real astronomers If you want to see the real thing, head to The David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill.

It is open for Observation Nights every Saturday through the end of October.

On a clear night families can get a look through Canada’s largest optical telescope and may see moon craters, the rings of Saturn, comets and nebulas.

Star Talk Nights run on select Saturdays and begin with a 30minute illustrated talk in the main lecture hall, given by an expert in the field. Material focuses on new Canadian space projects. Alternate programming is offered in case of cloud cover. If you save your tickets you can also come back when the weather is clear.

Note that children must be 7 or older to visit the observatory.

Admission to Observing Nights (no lecture): $5 adults, $2 children. Star Talk Nights: $10 adults, $5 youth (13–17), $2 children (7–12). 123 Hillsview Dr., Richmond Hill. theDDO.ca.

Discover treasures in the dirt Back on planet Earth, the ROM has two exhibits that explore the treasures lurking underground. On Level 2 of the Weston Family Wing, the Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth’s Treasures showcases some 2,300 specimens of minerals, gems, meteorites and rocks — complete

with interactive touch-screen stations and video exhibits.

The Gallery of Gems and Gold features almost 600 of the most precious gems and jewels from the ROM’s vaults. The exhibit runs through 2014. Admission is included with ROM tickets. 100 Queen’s Park, at Avenue Road and Bloor Street West. rom.on.ca Become the scientist Head over to EfstonScience, the self-proclaimed science and astronomy superstore, to find hands-on products for kids that make science fun.

Kids can learn about robotics with a build-your-own robot kit, find out about aviation with flying airplanes and rockets, get science experiment kits that will help discover the elements and how they interact or peek through all the telescopes in the largest handson display of telescopes in North America. If that’s not enough, they can learn about solar and wind energy and what products you could install at home to start creating your own power.

3350 Dufferin St. Open daily. escience.ca. TT

CoolStuff

Go ahead: geek out Find your joie de vivre in nerdy technology

By Liz Campbell

B

eing a geek has never been so much fun.

From chic or nerdy mini hard drives to a great way to wake up, technology can really make life more fun. And I’ve thrown in a fun way to get your kids learning too.

Here’s your chance to make a statement.

Whether your name is Sheldon Cooper and you’re Green Lantern obsessed or just a Hello Kitty aficionado, these cool MimoBot drives are sculpted, stylized, pop-culture action figures based on such iconic franchises such as Star Wars, Hello Kitty, DC Comics and more. And while each drive provides loads of storage, it also comes preloaded with MimoDesk character-specific content, including wallpapers, avatars, screensavers and other digital extras. Available in 2–64 GB. $22.95– 119.95 at mimoco.com.

My friend’s alarm clock crows like a rooster; frankly, I’d behead anything that woke me that way. Research shows that a person’s mindset when first waking up in the morning helps set the tone for the rest of the day (you can see how that rooster is not good!).

Starting the day with a positive outlook can feel challenging for most people these days. My Wake Up Call® is helping users

wake up positively focused with specially structured five-minute motivating messages.

No annoying buzzer or “alarming” news on the radio. Partnered with well-known wellness and motivational experts to create each month of messages, you can choose from more than a dozen message topics, from ones that help you wake up and work out, lose weight or feel well, to messages focused on prosperity, overcoming grief and more.

Each month of daily messages downloads to any iPhone/smartphone or iPod, or is available on CDs for $9.95–19.95; $59.95 if included with My Wake Up Call iPod Dock or CD Alarm Clocks. The annual subscription series is available for $99.95.

My Wake Up Call also has a free iPhone/iPad alarm app on iTunes. Sample messages can be heard at mywakeupcalls.net.

Want to improve your kids’ math skills?

IcoSoKu Junior is a math-based puzzle that will have your kids happily crunching numbers.

It starts with basic addition, but it will take focus and strategy to make the whole puzzle add up. The numbers can be re-arranged to create thousands of challenges.

Designed for ages 5–10, it can be played anywhere and can be used as a tool for keeping up with core math concepts at school. $19.99 in stores or at Amazon.com. More information available at recenttoys.com. TT

Puzzle aimed at math skills

SEPTEMBER 2011 TORONTO TODAY 21

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24 TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

Sports

Brian Baker

Important stories are told here FRANCIS CRESCIA/TORONTO TODAY

PART OF THE COMMUNITY: Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke has contributed to the Bennington Heights and Leaside neighbourhoods by donating to the Leaside Gardens Arena.

‘Our game’ needs money Hockey in trouble without infrastructure funding: Burke

T

By Brian Baker

he dim glow of magnesium adds a blue hue to an iceless hockey pad at Leaside Gardens Arena.

Fitting for a late morning visit from Leafs Nation royalty.

At work since 5:30 a.m., Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke looks out onto a surface he’s familiar with. NHL jerseys hang from the rafters honouring those who grew up in the midtown community.

It’s one that Burke has made his home since 2008. Not Leaside proper, but just a kilometre south of the hockey rink in Bennington Heights is where he and journalist wife Jennifer Mather Burke have settled.

He’s candid about moving from a more anonymous lifestyle out in Anaheim to a hockey-centric burg.

“I’ve always liked Toronto before I lived here,” he says.

“I used to love coming here with my teams. I thought it was a great hockey town: safe, clean city; nice people.”

The lack of privacy can be inconvenient at times, he acknowledges, but he understands that “it’s because people love hockey.”

“I’d much rather work in a market where people love hockey.”

The phones are silent right now as the GM notes fellow NHL managers are dealing with salary arbitration. Burke is as free as sunlight to a maple tree from restricted free agency.

His mind at the moment is focused on supporting amateur sports — in particular, aiding in the expansion of Leaside Gardens.

Daughter Marin, now 7, learned to skate on the very surface he looks over. Later, over a coffee in a large meeting area hidden away from the rink, he explains why amateur hockey needs support not just from the community but from all levels of government.

“In my opinion there’s something wrong with where

we’re spending our tax dollars if to raise money for municipal rinks individual donors have to do it,” he says. “I think we’ve got to look at how much money we spend on building arenas and refurbishing arenas ... in Canada.”

During his time in both Hartford and Anaheim, he noted the amount of government funding to private donations was 50-50. In Canada, Burke has observed, it’s 80 percent municipal/community to 20 percent private.

“I think the average person in Canada assumes that the government’s going to build arenas and that there’s no reason to write cheques for that because it’s part of their tax dollars,” he says.

Before the replacement of the old Lakeshore Lions Arena with the MasterCard Centre in 2009 — the Maple Leafs’ and Marlies’ practice facility — the last arena constructed was Scarborough’s Malvern Arena completed in 1981.

Burke takes issue with that nearly 30-year gap.

“We need to devote some money to the infrastructure of this game or it’s going to be in trouble,” he said, admitting later it is hard to justify, given the current economic climate.

But he avers if the country wants to continue its sporting tradition it needs to work hard at maintaining the sport’s legacy.

“The birthright of Canadian kids is the right to play hockey, and it’s not always attainable right now,” he says.

Burke admits he’s played only a small role in the arena.

Former Leafs Nick Kypreos and Doug Gilmour have been there since the opening faceoff.

“I think a big part of being a general manager is giving back, but my role here has been very small,” Burke says. “I don’t want to overstate it.

“You talk about guys (Kypreos and Gilmour) who are putting weeks and months and years into this. What these guys are doing is magical.” TT

T

hese days I will flip through the Toronto dailies and notice a complete absence of high school athletics being reported.

Somehow in the reconstruction of print media after a rocky recession, one that saw many lose their jobs at the whims of the economy, amateur sports became irrelevant.

Game coverage has been left to local TV, and now the personal lives of pro athletes — whether adversity or hijinks — are being focused on in ink.

Fair point: the news is in the big four — hockey, baseball, football and basketball. But where the pro athletes come from is just as important.

In the din of Toronto’s pro sports, amateur athletes are losing their spotlight. It seems that Torontonians don’t care enough about pro sports origins. Even more so, if it’s not the Maple Leafs.

As sports editor of Toronto Today and the eight sisters publications the Town Crier group of newspapers, I tell the stories of high school athletes. I appreciate sharing their experiences and listening to the support of their coaches and parents. The kids have great tales of adversity, just waiting to be told in print.

Although the students graduate after four or five years, you still get a sense of the proud traditions at schools. For example, Toronto Argonaut Mike Bradwell has left a resounding echo with his accomplishments on the students who come to Leaside long after his departure, as recent grad and gridder Morgan Moskalyk shared with me.

At the 26th annual Athlete of the Year Awards, we honoured all student athletes who gave it their all both in sport and academia in 2010-11.

Continued Page 26 SEPTEMBER JUNE 2011 TORONTO TODAY 25

Back to school ... Just sayin’

Cont. from Page 25

It never ceases to amaze me how kids balance straight-A feats, part-time jobs, volunteering and multiple sports teams. That’s what makes my job picking the best athletes for the regional and overall winners so tough.

We honoured Maddie Stephen from Lawrence Park CI as our Central Region winner.

The 6-foot-1 grad raised $11,000 for the charity Right To Play. That entire school is full of kids who do their best on and off the field.

Aside from Maddie at Lawrence Park, my props go to Ally Haggart, who worked tremendously hard this year to create a snowboarding team at her school. Teacher Peter Gilbert has also donated many hours of his time to train his skiing team for city gold.

Don’t forget Panthers alum Justin Babin and Jordan Glover, who are pursuing their dreams at post secondary institutions. Babin tries to catch his CFL pass at U of T while Glover makes the pitch to fulfill his MLB desires at Eastern Michigan University.

Lawrence Park is just one school and five stories, offering plenty to the Canadian sports community.

It’s unfortunate, though, that Canadians seem less than passionate about high school sports — unlike our American neighbours.

Is it a problem that Canadians ignore amateur athletes? I honestly never used to think so but being immersed in the midtown Toronto sports culture, I do now. The ignorance to what our kids do at the amateur level is what I interpret as negligence and borderline disrespect.

Two years ago I introduced the Coach of the Year awards to honour school volunteers who donate their time to teaching students sports.

As much as the schools like to shy away from nominating teachers for the award, it is needed because not enough is done for volunteers. Modesty is not an option; teachers who donate so much free time need to be lauded.

Regardless of the dailies pouncing on Northern SS during the whole Emil Cohen debacle, the work of Wendy Luck, Brian Gaw, John Lombardi, Daniel Gana and Bryan McAlpine should not go ignored. I see the warmth students have for their mentors in their eyes and hear it in their words.

And what would North Toronto Norsemen be without the years Lorne Smith has given? That same sports ethic in Smith is materializing at Lawrence Park with their phys ed head, Peter Bartha.

It gives me great pride to say the Town Crier and Toronto Today have honoured both student athletes and their teachers for their accomplishments and continue to do so.

Unlike other Toronto media in the past, we do not berate the volunteers or students.

We go to games and follow the stories. And in doing so, I personally have developed a great respect for high school sports.

We also give a voice to a portion of Canadian culture that so often gets ignored because of the hang-ups and pretensions of those who perhaps prefer the arts to sports. TT

26 TORONTO TODAY SEPTEMBER 2011

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ACROSS 1. Winner of this fall’s provincial election in EglintonLawrence 6. Ruling party in Czech Rep. 10. Dave Grohl band with different vocalists for each song 16. Chevrolet subcompacts 17. Indian gooseberry 18. Convince again 19. Displaying characteristics of one committing treason 21. Ensnare 22. Northern footwear?

24. Precursor to TSX Venture Exchange (Acr.) 25. Distant 29. He died while drawing?

32. Like bread or Jesus 34. Finnish general and strategic planner in the Winter War 35. Remove the end of the pencil forever?

43. Cager Kevin 44. Alleged Prius problem, abbr.

45. Misunderstanding of technology in general?

51. Popular web browser

52. Some subatomic particles 53. Place to draw in a time of sorrow?

61. Sailing boat 62. Leslieville bar, The ___ Cottage 63. Generally good measurement to go by?

71. Minor argument 72. Mimic 73. Red wine and spaghetti sauce, for example 75. Apt 78. Make more efficient 83. Polish composer Franciszek 84. Spew out 85. Cowboy flick 86. “___ as she goes” 87. Rules, abbr.

88. It’s this twice before it’s gone

DOWN 1. Common pet 2. Train tracks from Sudbury to Temiscaming 3. Natural formation 4. French 101 word 5. Suffixes used to indicate someone’s description 6. British family of architects

7. Scottish variant for salmon 8. Driving hazard 9. Japanese soup stock 10. Baby born early 11. Stimpy’s pal 12. Umpire’s call 13. Important War of 1812 figure 14. Ridge on a glacial icefall 15. Indonesian drink Es ___ 20. P-L connector 23. Bulgarian river 25. Exist 26. Evergreen 27. USA’s South Pacific claim 28. Dorms, for short 30. Limb 31. Chickens do this when they come home 33. Belonging to Flanders 36. Vie for office 37. To’s opposite 38. “Don’t ___ out, man” 39. British slang for a politician serving a single term 40. Alaskan range near Kotzebue 41. Regret 42. Pirate’s growly assent 45. ___ Boot 46. Audience reaction to

trouble 47. Marry in Vegas, say 48. Common cow call 49. Pirates’ field 50. Major off-road racing circuit 54. Scottish river 55. Unfettered 56. Dense 57. Letters often combined to form another 58. Shrill bark 59. Spanish greeting 60. Louse egg 63. Gonzalez and Castro 64. When the underdog wins 65. Rent out 66. Zap 67. Blackjack demand 68. Strip sails 69. Runs into 70. Bikini half 74. Something Toronto is known for outside of Toronto 76. Cubs comes before it, abbr.

77. Energy-saving illumination product 79. South Asian person, sometimes 80. New Zealand Maori activist Tame 81. Chinese river 82. Work unit

Check www.MyTorontoToday.ca for the answers.

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