Village Post April 2020 by Post City Magazines

V-SPRING 2020-OFC_OFC 2020-03-18 8:54 PM Page 1

SPECIAL EDITION: RECIPES FROM T.O.’s TOP RESTAURANTS, INCREDIBLE NEIGHBOURHOOD WALKS & LOCAL CELEBS RAISE MONEY FOR COVID-19 RELIEF

PANELLISTS

SEBASTIAN CLOVIS BARRY COHEN ODEEN ECCLESTON BRIAN GLUCKSTEIN MICHAEL KALLES JENNIFER KEESMAAT BRAD LAMB MICHELE ROMANOW WILLIAM STRANGE BENJAMIN TAL

2020

REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

OUR EXPERTS DISCUSS REAL ESTATE IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES. IS IT TIME TO BUY, SELL OR HOLD?

L-R: DESIGN GURU BRIAN GLUCKSTEIN, DRAGON MICHELE ROMANOW, DEVELOPER BRAD LAMB & HGTV CANADA’S SANGITA PATEL

VOLUME 29 · ISSUE 8

V-APR 2020-IFC_IFC 2020-03-17 11:26 AM Page 1

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SPRING 2020

Built for the residents of Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most established neighbourhoods, TRNTO covers the people, arts, fashion, news, real estate and food that define our city.

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CITYSCAPE

Lemon Bucket Orkestra

The Solutions, Flexibility and Empathy You need to Navigate Trying Times Katherine MacDonald Midtown Toronto Family, Divorce and Immigration Lawyer 10 Alcorn Avenue, Suite 201

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THREE GOOD THINGS 1. Toronto musicians are amongst the hardest hit by COVID-19 as entire concert tours, the major source of revenue for many artists, disappeared overnight. There are many initiatives underway to try to help, and one of the latest and most exciting is URGNT — a live stream concert series where many of the city’s most prominent musicians perform in the city’s most iconic venues, DIY and indie spaces. The series is led by the always active Mark Marczyk of the Lemon Bucket Orkestra. Confirmed artists include Measha Brueggergosman, Quique Escamilla, Digging Roots, Moscow Apartment, Skratch Bastid, Han Han, Okan, Allison Au Quartet, Gryphon Trio and Lemon Bucket Orkestra performing in venues such as the Great Hall, Lula Lounge, The Dakota Tavern and others. The first show was scheduled for March 20 live from The Great Hall. A live stream link will be available at URGNT.ca, Maclean’s and iHeartRadio.

2. Canadian celebrities such as Bianca Andreescu and Ryan Reynolds

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are beginning to step up to do their part to flatten the curve and take care of our most vulnerable people. Tennis icon and Mississauga native Bianca Andreescu is raising money in her own way to help flatten the curve by donating a signed racket for a giveaway to raise money for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s (CDP) COVID-19 Response Fund. Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively are also doing their part. The celebrity couple recently announced they’ll be donating a million dollars to help with COVID-19 relief.

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3. Queen West’s Mother Cocktail Bar has teamed up with Ration

Food Lab in collaborating with chefs Jef Edwards and Jacob Homoki along with local farms to provide high-quality pantry boxes that can be delivered or picked up at the bar. “The reason we are doing this at this time is because we want to show support and love to our communities and offer the services needed,” read an Instagram post on the bar’s feed. “We also, honestly, need your support!”

CITYSCAPE

THE POST INTERVIEW

The ElMo will rise again

NEWS

BY THE NUMBERS

Nothing gets Toronto music fans more excited than the thought of a completely revamped El Mocambo music venue which Michael Wekerle is set to open just when we will need it the most, and that’s something we can all look forward to by Ron Johnson

60 The new grace period, in days, for property tax and other bills due to the City of Toronto.

45 © Jaden D. / 2020

The number, in thousands, of items in the ROM’s collection that can be viewed online.

24 Didn’t this entire El Mocambo project start because you wanted to buy a blinking neon palm tree sign?

Are you going to get the band back together to play your own venue?

Wekerle: It’s true. I was coming back from a trip overseas and heard on one of the radio stations that they were getting rid of it, and I went to buy the sign. I met up with Sam Rocco, and he said, “No, I won’t sell you the sign, but I’ll give it to you if you buy the club.” The purchaser was going to be a computer store. So for a few hundred thousand more, Sam gets a chance to make a little money back after losing money for the last five years there. He’s a great guy, great family guy. And we ended up doing the deal in 24 hours.

Those days are gone, but when I closed the deal, I did have my mom and family there and a few drinks, and everybody showed up. So, me and a couple of friends played the El Mocambo. I fulfilled my bucket list, let’s just say that.

Yeah, when I was younger. I grew up at Yonge and Sheppard, and the El Mo was a hard place to get into. I saw probably a dozen shows there in the ’80s. I was born in 1963, and between maybe ’79 and ’82 I saw some great ones. I didn’t see the Stones or U2, the legendary ones, but I saw Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins there a number of times. He’s one of my favourites, and we are still friends to this day. I saw April Wine, Goddo, the list goes on. It was a unique place, and it definitely had a vibe. It was the El Mocambo, and there wasn’t a day I wasn’t excited to be there. I heard you were a bit of a shredder in high school. Is that right?

Well, I was a very mediocre player at best. I mean, I really wanted to play the El Mocambo, and I didn’t get paid much money to play anywhere else, but now I can tell people I finally played there –– I just had to buy the place.

How have COVID-19 measures impacted the opening? Just delaying until safe to go ahead?

The COVID-19 virus has created a very difficult time for everyone, especially businesses. It is very important for individuals to stay home if they can and do their part to stop the spread of the virus. At the El Mocambo, we have a brand new venue/event space with a capacity of approximately 750 people. This is positive for Toronto and Canada, as it is a space that has not yet been used by the public. We are prepared to open the venue now; however, we thought it was a necessary and prudent decision to delay this for as long as it is necessary to keep the public safe and healthy. Are there any plans for live streaming events in the meantime?

We have been in contact with three major streaming providers with a history of over 20 years of experience. We believe we will start streaming in the near future and have been contacted by numerous artists and performers, and we expect to start doing this as soon as possible. We will keep the public posted on when we will begin live streaming.

1,000 The much-needed fee, in dollars, that musicians will receive for playing live streams in conjunction with the National Arts Centre and Facebook.

240 The views, in thousands and counting, for Toronto mezzo-soprano and CBC radio host Julie Nesrallah’s balcony opera in downtown Toronto.

SPRING 2020

Did you spend much time in the El Mocambo growing up in Toronto?

What bands are on your bucket list to play?

There’s a lot: of course the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam. I just want to put that out there. Of course, U2, and I am really looking forward to having George Thorogood play. He’s one of my all-time favourites and just a true rock ’n’ roller, as well as a host of other people. Andy [Curran] is going to play. He’s with Coney Hatch, one of the bands I was a roadie for back when I was 16. That’s how long we go back. He didn’t pay me much, but he paid me in beer. So I was pretty happy.

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But it turned out to be a bit more than you’d imagined, right?

I bought the building not knowing it would be a much bigger deal than I thought it would be. I thought six months to a year turnaround, and it’s now six-and-a-half years and three times my budget. But I’m here. The finished product is second to none. It’s really a building within a building, with isolated floors, so you have the true effect of soundproofing. I can have Metallica playing downstairs and Buffy Sainte-Marie on the top floor.

The number of consecutive nights we will all be able to relive the Toronto Raptors championship run, which is being replayed on TSN and Sportsnet.

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on. We need to know that we are all still connected. So in this issue, we do our best to get you the latest information that you need right now. This month, Instead of a restaurant review or a theatre review, we bring you recipes generously provided by the city’s top restaurants as well as ways to rediscover our neighbourhoods and green spaces through beautiful walks. Our cultural coverage features a profile of Laurie Brown, who crafts a podcast perfect for the times. We also chatted with some of the city’s finest musicians who told us about the songs that matter to them, to make a special playlist for you. We continue to celebrate the best of our neighbourhoods and talk about all the pressing issues that need to be talked about. We are there for you, and we aren’t going anywhere. And not just in our magazines, but also on our website TRNTO.com, our social media channels and our email newsletters, which we are gearing up for even more coverage. If you have a message to get out, we want to help. Because that’s what we do.

Well, this is tough. It’s difficult to find the words to express what we are all going through right now. We are worried about our loved ones, our jobs, our collective futures. But, where there is darkness, there is also an abundance of light. And our amazing city never fails to amaze. For every depressing statistic and scenario, there is a greater amount of caring, compassion and levity. One need not look very far to see the gin distillers converting to make hand sanitizer to meet the shortage, community organizations preparing boxed lunches for health-care workers. And, for comedy, have you seen the Twitter account dedicated to Toronto’s medical officer of health Dr. de Villa’s scarves? It almost sounds like a cliché now, but it really is what we do. We all pull together and make the best of the situation. We flatten curves. Torontonians take care of one another. In our business, you can go pretty deep down some very dark rabbit holes. There is no end to the tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes. In some ways, it was something of a relief to be forced to put this issue together for our readers from 25 different kitchen tables across the city. We aren’t going to fill our pages with dire scenarios, but we aren’t going to look away, either. We all know what is happening. What we need now is to push

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IN FREELAND WE TRUST Her father was a Liberal and her mother a New Democrat. Yes, it shows.

that has offered the appropriate balance of comfort and direct action that has given us all hope that we can steer clear of this disaster with, if not minimal, then at least some of the damage and tragedy controlled. Freeland, the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10th deputy prime minister, who represents the Toronto riding of University-Rosedale, could very well be a leader-in-waiting.

| POST |

One thing appeared perfectly clear amidst the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in Canada, and that is, if she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t up until this point, Chrystia Freeland has established herself as one of the most popular and skilled politicians in the country. Yes, Prime Minister Trudeau has also excelled, as well as the heads of the municipal and provincial governments, but it has been the federal team

SPRING 2020

A steady hand in a time of crisis

NEWS

NEIGHBOURHOOD

The Mount Pleasant store is now offering delivery and curbside pickup

Bookstore could close over Crosstown delays Local community organizing in an effort to save beloved Mabel’s Fables After more than 30 years in business, midtown children’s bookstore Mabel’s Fables may be on the verge of closure, due to a 70 per cent rent increase and the loss of customer traffic associated with the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. The store, located at 662 Mount Pleasant Rd., was opened in 1988 by Eleanor LeFave and her sister. LeFave said the property was sold late last fall, and since then they have been in negotiations with the new landlord, Maple Venture Properties. We’ve talked them down to a 70 per cent increase; that was what they say is their last offer,” said LeFave, who reasoned that there should be a cap on commercial rent increases similar to non-commercial rents. “We need to have laws, we need to have regulations.” LeFave also said that sales are down 20 per cent due to the construction of the Eglinton LRT. The store has continued to offer both delivery and curbside pickup options during the coronavirus outbreak. We’re very close to the intersection of Mount Pleasant The transportation and Eglinton, which is basically impassable,” she explained. project has ruined In February, after another delay was announced, city a lot of people’s councillors Josh Matlow and lives. Mike Colle called on the province to help businesses negatively affected by the Eglinton LRT’s construction. One of the BIAs along Eglinton wrote MPP Caroline Mulroney a letter stating that ‘You need to help our businesses now,’ ” said LeFave. “You need to send financial support as well as mental health support because the transportation project has ruined a lot of people’s lives.” Councillor Josh Matlow had organized a community meeting for March 10 to discuss ways to save the bookstore. But the meeting has been postponed to a later date following COVID-19 measures. “I think it [a community meeting] is a really good venue for all the people that are coming to air their frustration with city policy and provincial support,” said LeFave. “They [governments] all say that they love small businesses, but this [situation] is not showing any kind of indication.” Matlow has launched a petition on his website for people to show their support for Mabel’s Fables. So far, more than 2,600 people have signed. “This is much bigger than Mable’s Fables,” said LeFave. “This is about what’s going on in the city.” — David Olsen

“

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”

NEWS

Midtown businesses need more help

416-486-1136

Local shops & restaurants grappling with LRT delays and COVID-19 The provincial government has pledged $3 million to help businesses negatively impacted by the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, following news that the project’s completion date has been pushed from September 2021 until sometime in 2022. In a letter to Mayor John Tory posted on social media, the province’s Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney acknowledged the impact the delay would have on businesses. “To date, Metrolinx and CTS [Crosslinx Transit Solutions] have provided significant funding [over

Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue. They called on the province to help businesses along the line and called the move a symbolic gesture. “[Provincial assistance] goes toward marketing and it goes toward promotion, and the thing is you can’t promote an area where people cannot park or drive or walk,” said Colle. “I’m going to continue to push to make them understand that we need a sustained compensation package or deferred provincial taxes for the next two or three years. We need something that is dollars and cents, so that [businesses] can

“The thing is you can’t promote an area where people cannot park or drive or walk.” $6.6 million] to BIAs for promotional initiatives, parking discounts, window cleaning and local procurement,” said Mulroney in the letter. “We recognize, in response to the recently announced delay, additional support is needed.” The letter said that an additional $3 million will be provided to mitigate the impacts of construction beyond the September 2021 deadline and that the support will consist of marketing, promotion and cleanup assistance. After hearing about the latest delay, city councillors for the area, Mike Colle and Josh Matlow, held a press conference at the corner of

keep the doors open.“ Maureen Sirois, chair of the Eglinton Way BIA, said the funding is basically an extension of the current program. “We appreciate that you [the provincial government] recognize there is an impact. We’re not ungrateful, but it’s not the same as direct compensation to businesses.” said Sirois. Upon announcement of the delay in February, the York Eglinton BIA released a statement calling on the province and Metrolinx to provide a financial assistance program for small businesses affected by the delay, as well as ongoing mental health support for affected business

owners and their families. Following Mulroney’s announcement, the BIA doubled down on its request for direct compensation for businesses, pointing to programs in Montreal and Quebec City where businesses impacted by lengthy construction projects were eligible to claim a maximum $30,000 per year in compensation if they could prove they suffered a significant drop in sales. “We need political leadership from the government of Ontario to launch a financial compensation program to directly support our small businesses suffering from years of financial hardship,” said Nick Alampi, chair of the York-Eglinton BIA. Mulroney’s letter also noted that Metrolinx will work with the Ministry of Transportation to explore the feasibility of opening portions of the LRT before the entire line is completed, so that businesses and residents can reap the rewards sooner. It’s something Colle had called for in February, mentioning the possibility of opening the line between Cedarvale station (formerly Eglinton West) and Mount Dennis earlier than the rest of the line. “From the beginning they said they were going to open up the whole thing at once. But at the beginning they thought the whole thing would be built by 2020, then 2021, now 2022, so who knows when,” said Colle. “That’s why I think we have to look at a Plan B here.” — David Olsen

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SPRING 2020

MPP Caroline Mulroney announced $3 million in funding for local businesses

Wishing our community and the world, strength and health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEWS

NEIGHBOURHOOD

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The Transform Yonge plan might get a rethink this spring

North York’s big move could be delayed Two plans to improve the area for residents on tap, but deferrals are likely

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by Eric Stober

Yonge Street between Sheppard Avenue and Finch Avenue isn’t impressing one local business owner much. And with the City of Toronto Transform Yonge plan scheduled to make its way back to Toronto City Council sometime over the next few months and a plan to create a new business improvement area in Willowdale, there may still be time to do something about it. “The reality is: it is not such a pedestrian area,” he said of the strip in Willowdale (the business owner asked to remain anonymous for this article). “It’s ugly.” Although his observations are a matter of opinion, local politicians are hoping to change that sentiment in the coming years with two proposed plans that would spruce up the neighbourhood. One is the creation of a Willowdale Business Improvement Area (BIA), which would market local businesses, create community festivals and help beautify the area. The other is the city’s contentious Transform Yonge plan, which aims to reduce the lanes in the strip from six to four, add bike lanes and widen the sidewalk to create a safer, pedestrianoriented thoroughfare. Transform Yonge, part of the larger REimagining Yonge Street project, was originally pitched in early 2018 but deferred due to outcries that it might increase traffic congestion on Yonge. The plan was put on hold to allow time to further explore its impact on bus routes. Both a Willowdale BIA and Transform Yonge may be bold initiatives in politicians’ eyes, but their development is hanging in limbo due to the impacts of COVID-19. For the BIA, the plan was to get a formal declaration of interest from the business community in April, which is the first necessary step in its creation. COVID-19, though, has presented a “bump in the road.” “The committee has decided that they are going to ramp down for the next months and allow the situation to stabilize a little bit,” said Markus O’Brien-Fehr, Willowdale city councillor John Filion’s chief of staff. “[The BIA] isn’t necessarily going to be a priority that is front and centre as much as it would have been even just two weeks ago.” He is still hopeful for the BIA’s creation, though, due to the high business interest shown compared to two previous attempts. A steering committee has been created of up to 25 local business owners that are meeting monthly to discuss the project. As for Transform Yonge, the revised staff report was scheduled to appear before the Toronto City Council’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee on April 6, but O’Brien-Fehr said that meeting might be deferred.

NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEWS

Medical heroes Dr. Robert Kozak, Dr. Samira Mubareka, Dr. Arinjay Banerjee

Toronto team isolates COVID-19 Sunnybrook Hospital announces a major breakthrough A team of researchers from Sunnybrook, McMaster University and the University of Toronto isolated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the agent responsible for the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. According to information provided by Sunnybrook, the team was able to culture the virus from two clinical specimens in a level 3 containment facility. “We need key tools to develop solutions to this pandemic. While the immediate response is crucial, longer-term solutions come from

essential research into this novel virus,” said Dr. Samira Mubareka, microbiologist and infectious diseases physician at Sunnybrook. According to the statement, the isolated virus will help researchers in Canada and across the world develop better diagnostic testing, treatments and vaccines and gain a better understanding of SARSCoV-2 biology, evolution and clinical shedding. “Researchers from these worldclass institutions came together in a grassroots way to successfully isolate the virus in just a few short weeks,” said Dr. Rob Kozak, a

clinical microbiologist at Sunnybrook. “It demonstrates the amazing things that can happen when we collaborate.” Dr. Arinjay Banerjee, NSERC post-doctoral fellow at McMaster University, said he knows the collaboration won’t stop there. “Now that we have isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we can share this with other researchers and continue this teamwork,” he said. “The more viruses that are made available in this way, the more we can learn, collaborate and share.” — David Olsen

to be unsafe and think it’s an invitation for criminal activity.” Wong-Tam said City of Toronto Municipal Licensing & Standards (MLS) has investigated the properties following complaints. She said the owner applied for a demolition permit for the properties in 2019, but the application was deemed incomplete. The properties are classified as rental housing, so the owner must specifically apply for a rental demolition permit. Wong-Tam said the city is ready to expedite the work needed to approve the application once the proper paperwork is received. She said city staff believes there should be at least six rental units in the buildings, and they would have to be replaced. “What I think the dilemma is here is that they do not want to build the rental replacements, and it can be said that this is not the first time that we’ve seen property owners wanting to demolish rental apartments and then not replace them. This is exactly why the rental replacement program exists,” she added. “If everyone was able to tear down rental apartments simply because they wanted to, then the crisis of the lack of rental housing in the city would be far worse.” — D.O.

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A group of dilapidated properties in Forest Hill about which residents have long complained could be demolished soon, but the city’s rental replacement program could be at odds with the current owner’s plans. The properties, located at 3 to 19 Thelma Ave., are currently vacant, and according to a local resident, have fallen into various states of disrepair. “In the last year and a half, things have started to get really bad there where he has an invasion of foxes, actually, that were coming out of the ravine and going to these properties,” said a resident on the same street, who asked to remain anonymous. “Raccoons were inhabiting the property –– like, families of raccoons, stray animals, skunks. It’s been quite a mess.” The properties are located in Ward 12. However, the councillor for the ward, Josh Matlow, has recused himself from the issue, leaving the matter to councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. “The concern of the local residents is that, because the properties are vacant, perhaps they could be breached and vandalism can take place, and so they don’t want to see vacant and abandoned properties on the street,” she said. “They believe it

SPRING 2020

Forest Hill homes could be demolished

NEWS

STINTZ ON MIDTOWN

Midtown park users still at loggerheads over revitalization plan From soccer to baseball to dog walkers, it is going to be hard to find a consensus to move forward

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Eglinton Park is one of the most well-used parks in north Toronto throughout the year. In the winter, kids toboggan, people crosscountry ski and build snowmen. In the summer, kids play on the play structure, splash in the splash pad and play soccer in the fields. In the spring and fall, local schools use the fields for programming. Throughout the year, people walk their dogs. In addition to the recreational uses, people use the park to picnic, and there is a community garden as well as a path. Given that so many people use the park, there are many opinions on how the park should be maintained and improved. At a public meeting, councillor Mike Colle convened a discussion of the future of Eglinton Park. It is being hotly debated because there is a revitalization plan that includes an off-leash dog park, a new baseball diamond and a drastically reduced soccer space. The plan includes a firepit,

Eglinton Park is a rare large slice of green space in busy North Toronto

basketball nets in the parking lot of the North Toronto Arena and a wall of tree plantings along the Rosewell side of the park. At the public meeting, the only consensus was that there was no consensus on the new plan, so the councillor did the only thing he could do in that situation: he deferred the project indefinitely. The community thought the

matter was closed until the project resurfaced when Toronto City Council approved a 25-year master plan from Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation Division. Although the plan didn’t specifically approve the revitalization plan for Eglinton Park, it referenced the plan as a capital project that would begin in 2021. This caused some concern in the

community because the future of the park remains unclear. The initial tension that the park revitalization plan was trying to relieve was over how to create space for the dogs. Although that tension was addressed, the impact of solving that dilemma created a new one for the baseball club and the soccer club. The baseball club agreed to give up a diamond to become an off-leash dog park if another diamond at the south end of the park could be expanded. This in turn impacted the soccer club. Somewhere along the way, a firepit was added next to the children’s play area and a plan to install basketball nets in the arena parking lot. Currently, the baseball club and the soccer club are still at odds. Although I can’t say how the offleash dog area will be resolved, I feel there is general consensus that a firepit and basketball nets should not be part of any plan. City staff has assured the community that no work will begin

until there is another consultation, but given that there is no consensus, it is unclear that it will help. The importance of the park to the community cannot be overstated. During the crisis around the coronavirus, when people’s lives are upended, the park has remained a place where people could come and feel connected to their community. Sometimes when it becomes too difficult to reach a consensus, the best option is to do nothing. Although there will always be grumblings about this or that, the park as it is works for the community.

KAREN STINTZ

Karen Stintz is a former city councillor, elected in 2003, and was a chair of the TTC. She lives in Ward 8 with her family.

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Planning is locking citizens out Is development industry playing too large a role in the city? the four new subway lines it has planned for Toronto, subway lines the city has generally not supported. It has also proposed to deny an owner the hearing of necessity required to show that expropriation is necessary for those subway lines. One has a feeling that our booming city is being ultimately ruled by people who are incapable of grasping the importance of making intelligent and balanced decisions for a fast-growing city. The lack of an effective, positive planning and development approval system for Toronto is a serious distraction from other tasks, such as addressing the control of greenhouse gas emissions to ensure we meet targets in 10 and 20 years. It is important that we now begin to require that all new structures are built for zero emissions, but that idea can’t seem to find its way onto the agenda. Our struggle with the coronavirus seems to have thrown every other concern to the sidelines, but development in the city continues apace under a system that is badly flawed and not in the public interest.

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SPRING 2020

appointed one new member, Brian Tuckey, who was president for five years of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, the largest lobby group for developers. Toronto is in the midst of an extraordinary growth spurt, with building cranes everywhere. The city’s land use–planning department is besieged with so many development applications that it spends more time processing those applications than it does setting out strong and detailed area plans that cannot be undermined by developers. Too often city planners feel they must compromise in order to reduce the likelihood that a developer will take the matter to LPAT. The changes to LPAT are one thing. The government has also proposed a regulation to reduce the amount of money in community benefits that the city council can impose on development applications to fund community services that will be required for the new buildings and their residents. The minister of municipal affairs also refused to approve the city’s plan for the Yonge and Eglinton area, instead substantially increasing the size of the buildings city council had proposed after a four-year planning exercise. The government has introduced legislation giving it, and not city council, the power to control development within 30 metres of

JOHN SEWELL

Post City Magazines’ columnist John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto and the author of a number of urban planning books, including The Shape of the Suburbs.

571 St. Clair Ave. W. • 416 549-6999 NiceDiggzMidtown@gmail.com

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Across the city, there are dozens — probably hundreds — of people fundraising to stop development in their neighbourhood. At a community meeting I attended in midtown before the virus pandemic, the group identified five development projects that it was hoping to modify, and the only way forward was to appeal for donations to fund lawyers and planners to take their case to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, formerly known as the Ontario Municipal Board. What a weird planning system that forces its citizens to engage in such activities and to spend that energy and money to make their case. And the chance that residents will be successful at LPAT is remote. The rules that the last provincial government had established required that negotiations would generally replace hearings, and the ground rules were pretty clear: it was assumed that Toronto City Council’s decision was the correct one and that development had to be consistent with the city’s official plan and with provincial planning policy. But the government of Premier Doug Ford has changed the rules so that LPAT now has a free hand in deciding what it thinks of the development proposal, regardless of council’s decision. And the government has changed the membership on LPAT, generally not reappointing tribunal members with expertise in environmental issues. It even

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$1,795,000. 50’ x 124’ LOT, 4+1 BEDS AND 4 BATHS, APPROX. 2,165 SF + BSMT

282 BROOKE AVE.

| POST | S P R I N G 2 0 2 0

SOLD FOR 95% OF ASKING PRICE.

473 GLENCAIRN AVE.

$1,795,000. 50' x 104' LOT, 4 BEDS & 3 BATHS, APPROX. 1,986 SF + BSMT

110 McGILLIVRAY AVE.

SOLD FOR 98% OF ASKING PRICE.

276 STRATHALLAN WOOD

$4,295,000. 50’ x 134’ LOT, 4+1 BEDS AND 6 BATHS, APPROX. 4,200 SF + BSMT

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RECEIVED 12 OFFERS AND SOLD FOR 139% OF ASKING PRICE IN 5 DAYS!

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FOCUS

From Hunny Pot to Superette to a slew of little known stores, family-friendly midtown ’hoods bracing for influx by Ron Johnson Recently, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) website featured a ream of new cannabis notices, including 20 in the city of Toronto. Although the majority are in the downtown core, there are a number of businesses in new areas such as the main street strip along Eglinton Avenue near Yonge Street. The AGCO publishes notices of all new liquor and cannabis retail applications in the province. It allows residents to see if anything is coming to their neighbourhood, and allows them to comment whether or not they want such an establishment. For instance, the Hunny Pot Cannabis Co. has put in applications to open two retail outlets in north Toronto. Hunny Pot established the city’s first cannabis store at 202 Queen St. W. on April 1, 2019. One proposed outlet, at 2591 Yonge St., is a main street space formerly home to upscale women’s clothing store Carbon. The store is

four blocks from North Toronto Collegiate and John Fisher Public School. The second store would be located at 2103 Yonge St. along a strip of two- and three-storey storefronts, a few blocks south of Eglinton near Manor Road. Hunny Pot announced an expansion effort at the end of February, when the company opened its second store in Burlington, and is now set to move into midtown Toronto. “As it stands right now, there are no legal retail stores in midtown, yet the demand for a store is great,” said Cameron Brown, spokesperson for the Hunny Pot Cannabis Co. “We wanted to expand north and provide new neighbourhoods access to cannabis. By opening stores in midtown, we’re able to connect with and educate new audiences through in-store interactions. We’re looking forward to becoming a part of the midtown community and creating meaningful connections in the

neighbourhood.” There is also an application for the shop Hi Class Dispensary at 527 Eglinton Ave. W. The location will be familiar to some, as it is the former location of illegal dispensary Canna Clinic that ran for a significant period of time prior to legalization, and was raided on multiple occasions by the Toronto Police Service. Across the street, the Second Cup at the corner of Eglinton and Heddington Avenue will be converted to a cannabis retail outlet as part of the coffee company’s strategy. There has been some concern expressed by local residents via social media and to the business improvement association. In addition, Maureen Sirois, of the Eglinton Way BIA, said there was another application further west on Eglinton that was refused by the province due to its proximity to a local school. She said the BIA has been looking to local councillors and the

Here is a snapshot of a few of the new stores heading our way SUPERETTE When Superette opened in Ottawa, the owners chose a location in the trendy Westboro and Hintonburg areas of Ottawa. And the company’s Summerhill location will offer much of the same vibe. The store is set to open soon in the former home of the Roots flagship store at 1073 Yonge St., south of Macpherson Avenue. Superette is one cannabis retail store that is bucking the trend and offering a bright, fun and vibrant retail space. It was founded by Mimi Lam alongside her partner Drummond Munro, who grew up in Lawrence Park and now lives on Delisle Avenue, a couple of blocks from the location.

INSALATA This cannabis retail outlet is proposed for 1331 St. Clair Ave. W., which is a former location of Don Quixote Restaurant at the corner of St. Clair Avenue West and St. Clarens Avenue.

DOLLY’S CANNABIS This cannabis retail outlet is proposed for 1105 Bathurst St. just north of Dupont Street.

HI CLASS DISPENSARY Proposed for 527 Eglinton Ave. W., this cannabis retailer is setting up shop at the former location of Canna Clinic near Warren Road.

SPRING 2020

Cannabis retailers pushing to expand outside of the downtown core

CANNABIS RETAIL HITS MIDTOWN

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Clockwise from left: Hunny Pot is opening two stores in midtown, Superette is set to hit Summerhill and Maureen Sirois of the Eglinton Way BIA

province for guidance on the issue, and they have heard from some concerned local residents. “We don’t have a lot of say, that’s the problem,” Sirois explained. “It’s a tough situation. We are a community that has to live and work together. Brown, however, said that he has only heard positive feedback from local residents. “The announcement of our new locations has been met with nothing but enthusiasm from midtown residents. Many are excited to have a local store, and there’s a lot of anticipation around the new stores opening,” he said. “A lot of the discomfort associated with cannabis comes from misinformation and stigma. Our goal at Hunny Pot is to end both.” The company has also had to adjust its operations to reflect COVID-19 safety measures. But that has not deterred Brown and Hunny Pot from pressing forward in expansion mode. “As a result of COVID-19, we've grown increasingly proactive in how we approach our day-to-day operations. As the situation continues to evolve, we have been updating our protocols and procedures to ensure our customers and team members remain safe at all times,” he said. “Recently, we introduced a new service, Click and Collect, that allows customers to place orders for their desired products online through our website, and they will be ready for pickup. Because of this new service, we have the ability to reduce the number of people in the store at all times, while still providing our customers with convenient access to products. We have moved to Click and Collect services for the time being.” Brown said Hunny Pot will also adjust its one-on-one customer experiences to maintain social distance. Hunny Pot has eliminated guided experiences and gone cashless as well. “As the situation continues to evolve, we will be taking the necessary measures to keep our store a safe place for all. We will be doing our part to ensure we flatten the curve, while still providing for our customers,” he said. Other proposed cannabis retail outlets include Insalata at 1331 St. Clair Ave. W., and Dolly’s Cannabis at 1105 Bathurst St., just north of Dupont Street. The posted deadline for local residents to submit objections to the new locations in Toronto was between March 19 and 24 depending on the specific address.

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Running a small business in Toronto is challenging at the best of times, but the COVID-19 outbreak is making it even more difficult for independent operators to stay afloat. As you read our business news updates this month, consider that these neighbourhood spots could use our support more than ever during the ongoing public health crisis. ROLLIAN SUSHI has moved to a

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new location just south of Yonge Street and Lawrence Avenue. Fortunately for regulars of the sushi spot, Rollianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new home at 2584 Yonge St. isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t far away from its previous location in Sunnybrook Plaza, which is set for demolition. The well-loved Leaside spot is known for its selection of quality sushi and sashimi, as well as other classic Japanese dishes such as chicken karaage, takoyaki and gyoza. During the COVID-19 closures, Rollian is offering delivery through DoorDash and is also providing a 20 per cent discount on takeout orders over $100 before tax. Leasideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s YELLOW DOG MUSIC (416 Moore Ave.) is celebrating 30 years in business this year. First opened in 1990, the long-running studio provides an inventive approach to music learning. Catering to ages ranging from preschoolers to seniors, the school is geared toward students who prefer to shape their own music learning experience rather than follow traditional, conservatorystyle lessons. The studio is switching to an online lesson format during the social distancing

period but will continue to offer online lesson options after instudio classes resume. FITSQR (215 Davenport Rd.) is

now offering semi-private group fitness classes in Yorkville. With creative circuit training sessions that last just 30 minutes, the gym aims to offer a fast, effective fitness solution for busy lifestyles. Although the new location is temporarily closed in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, cofounders Jesse Dunphy and Ivana Krunic are live streaming 30minute workout sessions beginning at 10 a.m. each morning on Instagram to help members (and potential future members) stay fit. Although HANIA KUZBARI JEWELRY DESIGNS Yorkville Village pop-up has been put on hold, her handcrafted jewellery is still available online. Helmed by designer Hania Kuzbari, the collections are crafted from salvaged metals, as well as conflictfree diamonds and gemstones. In lieu of the pop-up, Kuzbari is also offering one-on-one video styling sessions. Halal pizza chain PIZZA SHAB has opened a fourth location at Yonge and Davisville. Their pizza dough is made fresh daily and in addition to standard pies, Pizza Shab also offers special â&#x20AC;&#x153;rollingâ&#x20AC;? pizzas, with toppings nestled inside, similar to a calzone. All four of the locations continue to be open for takeout and delivery during the COVID-19 restaurant shutdowns.

Crime; -

CRIME

NEWS

AREA BREAK-INS FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020 - CENTRAL TORONTO

WHERE

WHEN

TIME OF DAY

AVENUE RD. AND PEARS AVE.

FEB. 29

12 A.M.

KNOLLWOOD ST. AND FIFESHIRE RD.

MARCH 4

8 A.M.

WOBURN AVE. AND LEDBURY ST.

MARCH 4

11 A.M.

CHELMSFORD AVE. AND GREENWIN VILLAGE RD.

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11 P.M.

PRINCESS AVE. AND ESTELLE AVE.

MARCH 5

9 A.M.

HIGHGATE AVE. AND KINGSDALE AVE.

MARCH 5

3 P.M.

MONTRESSOR DR. AND MASTERS RD.

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7 P.M.

FENN AVE. AND GORDON RD.

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8 P.M.

LYTTON BLVD. AND PROUDFOOT AVE.

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4 P.M.

SENLAC RD. AND PARK HOME AVE.

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5 P.M.

OWEN BLVD. AND FENN AVE.

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4 P.M.

SANDRINGHAM DR. AND YONGE BLVD.

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3 A.M.

INVERMAY AVE. AND KING HIGH AVE.

MARCH 10

4 P.M.

BESSBOROUGH DR. AND ROLLAND RD.

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6 P.M.

BAYCREST AVE. AND RAJAH ST.

MARCH 10

10 P.M.

Yorkdale robbers arrested Four people charged including three young offenders Hold Up Squad investigators, with the assistance of the K9 Unit, were able to track the suspects to a nearby location, according to TPS. Clothing and hammers were recovered. A male accused, 35, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with robbery with offensive weapon, disguise with intent, conspiracy to commit indictable offence, obstruct peace officer, and possession of a schedule I substance. The suspect appeared in court for a bail hearing on March 7. Three 17-year-old male accused and one 14year-old male accused, who could not be identified as they are young offenders, were all also charged with a variety of similar offences. They also appeared in court for a bail hearing on March 7.

The Toronto Police Service is requesting public assistance identifying a male suspect as part of an assault causing bodily harm investigation following an incident in the area of Bloor Street West and Christie Street. On Oct. 5, 2019, at approximately 2:50 a.m., a 22-year-old male victim was assaulted. He sustained a head injury that required medical attention. A security camera image of the suspect has been released.

A 29-year-old male accused from Toronto has been arrested almost one year after a shooting in the area of Randolph Avenue and Perth Avenue. On March 19, police responded to a call of a shooting. Police and paramedics located a male victim with apparent gunshot wounds. He was transported to a hospital with lifethreatening injuries and was later pronounced deceased. Toronto Police Service Homicide Squad made an arrest on March 12. He has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

A 29-year-old male accused from Toronto has been charged with second-degree murder after a stabbing in the Dufferin Street and Eglinton Avenue West area. On March 15, police responded to a medical call after a male suspect allegedly stabbed a male victim inside an apartment. The victim, a 43-year-old form Toronto, was transported to a local trauma centre and was pronounced deceased. The male accused was arrested near the scene.

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SPRING 2020

CRIME BRIEFS

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The Toronto Police Service (TPS) Hold Up Squad announced that it made five arrests in relation to a retail robbery at Yorkdale Shopping Centre earlier this month. On March 6, at approximately 4:56 p.m., police officers responded to a call for a robbery at Yorkdale Shopping Centre. According to police reports, five suspects entered the store while concealing their identities with surgical masks, hoodies and gloves. Four of the suspects were armed with hammers, which they used to break open several glass display cases. One suspect got into a physical confrontation with the store security officer and assaulted him with a hammer. The suspects fled the scene without taking any property.

POST CITY X THE YORK SCHOOL

Trusting Student Mentors to Help Model Digital Citizenship

Play it forward.

Schools have always seen themselves as being responsible for helping to develop engaged citizens who go on to become positive and contributing members of society. Since the birth of the internet and the platforms that connect it, we have come to understand the powerful role it now plays in the maintenance of a functioning democracy. One only needs to watch the news for a moment to see evidence of this in action. Tweets, posts, hashtags and updates now take centre stage alongside what leaders say in person. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are powerful platforms that have been responsible for governments falling and injustices exposed as well the acceleration of positive change. Conversely, social media platforms have also been manipulated to spread misinformation. Our students soak all of this up on a daily basis, and as a community, we have to help teach them how to interpret the flood of information, stick to their values and apply a critical lens to facts and opinions. As the adults our students

11-12

look up to for modelling both good and bad behaviour, we have to help them to make sense of it all. It can be confusing and strange at the best of times. It is clear that schools and teachers must now include “digital citizenship” when they consider the attributes that will best prepare students for the future. The conversations around online safety, security, etiquette, privacy, copyright, permission, interpretation and trust must now start at a much earlier age and be woven into the fabric of an evolving curriculum. As the tools and platforms change, so too must the conversations. Five years ago, we were talking about Facebook and Instagram; today Snapchat and TikTok are top of mind. The York School has had a rich tradition of embracing technology across its curriculum going as far back as 1999. As one of the first schools in Canada to adopt one-toone laptop learning, we have learned much along the way. One of our most significant takeaways has been that, when it comes to teaching these skills, young people learn best from digital natives who

LEARNING BY LEADING

are fluent in the digital landscape. We recognize that students’ lived experience of the integration of digital tools into the fabric of their social lives makes them uniquely able to guide younger students. Rather than expecting young people to intuit how best to navigate this complicated digital world, we need to take time for explicit instruction and be open to the idea that our senior digital native students offer a more nuanced and authentic understanding than some of the adults in the building. At The York School, carving out time during the school day to unpack and explore online interactions through conversation has been facilitated through our comprehensive Grades 6 to 12 advisor program. We learn alongside our students and have come to see them as our greatest resource in helping understand this ever-changing and interconnected world.

Justin Medved, Director of Learning Innovation and Technology & Elissa Kline-Beber, Director of Wellness

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Images: Alex Rothe

HOGG’S HOLLOW

UNIQUE & UTILITARIAN

MODERN ELEGANCE

This one-of-a-kind structure at 75 Highland Cres. was built around the dramatic two-storey rotunda. The modern build has four bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a golf-simulation room, wine cellar and is listed for $11.8 million (Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd.).

The 10,000-square-foot home at 47 Daneswood Rd. carries a black, white and gold colour palette through the eight bedrooms and eleven bathrooms. This three-storey mansion is listed for $10.5 million (Chestnut Park Realty).

A QUARTET OF THE CITY’S FINEST PROPERTIES While open houses and appraisals have been put on hold by COVID-19, the spring real estate market is here and both inventories as well as interest rates are at all-time lows. Here are four stunning estates on offer. by Nicole Richie

HISTORIC HIDEAWAY

Built in 1888, 88 South Dr. is the epitome of modern luxury. The six-bedroom, six-bathroom manor is listed for a cool $9.995 million (Sotheby’s International Realty).

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EUROPEAN INSPIRED

The multimillion-dollar estate at 53 Thornbank Rd. backs onto the prestigious Thornbank Golf Club. With five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, this gated home is surrounded by perfectly manicured grounds and is on the market for $6.599 million (Alan Newton Real Estate Ltd.).

SPRING 2020

Images: Rob Holowka/Birdhouse

ROSEDALE

Images: Roland Kogan

THORNHILL

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13TH ANNUAL REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE SPONSORS

2020

REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

HOST: Sangita Patel MODERATORS: Nikki Gill, Ron Johnson SEBASTIAN CLOVIS

Host of Save My Reno on HGTV Canada; Principal, Clovis & Co. Contracting BARRY COHEN

T.O.’s #1 agent over all competitors for sales volume $3-20M combined since 2012 ODEEN ECCLESTON

Co-founder (Wiltshire Homes Canada) & Broker of Record (WE Realty Inc.) BRIAN GLUCKSTEIN

Principal of Gluckstein Design MICHAEL KALLES

President, Harvey Kalles JENNIFER KEESMAAT

CEO, The Keesmaat Group BRAD LAMB

Developer, Lamb Development Corp. MICHELE ROMANOW

Dragon on CBC’s Dragons’ Den; Co-founder & President, Clearbanc WILLIAM STRANGE SmartCentres Professor of Real Estate and Director - Centre for Real Estate and Urban Economics, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto BENJAMIN TAL

Deputy Chief Economist, CIBC Capital Markets

Our 13th Annual Real Estate Roundtable took place in front of a sold out live studio audience at the Rotman School of Management, when the storm clouds of COVID-19 were thought of as a distant problem predominantly impacting China, Iran and northern Italy, and still not affecting Canada the way we now know it has. We have asked our roundtable participants to revise their predictions for the real estate market in the near future, which can be found at the end of the article.

Toronto. A lot of people can’t afford it. We also know that a lot of people don’t have the basics in terms of shelter and a roof over their heads, so with that in mind, we are donating $2,000 this evening to each of our sponsors’ charities of choice. The Re/Max collection has chosen the Children’s Miracle Network, and Great Gulp has chosen Habitat for Humanity. On top of that, Post City Magazines and the Rotman School of Management will be donating a further $16,000 raised here SANGITA PATEL: I’m Sangita tonight to four local shelters: Seaton House, Patel. You may know me from Covenant House, Eva’s Phoenix, and the HGTV Canada’s Home to Win. Centre for Women and Trans People. Welcome to the Post City OK. Let’s introduce the panel. Magazines and Rotman Real Estate's roundMichael Kalles, Brian Gluckstein, Odeen table. This marks the 13th roundtable and the Eccleston, Brad Lamb, Benjamin Tal, Jennifer second time we’re in front of a live audience Keesmaat, Sebastian Clovis, Michele Rohere at Rotman. In addition to the live event, manow, Barry Cohen and William Strange. the roundtable will also be made into a podThis year's event will be moderated by Post cast, video and web series and will be the City Magazines managing editor, Nikki Gill, cover story of the April edition of Post City and editorial director, Ron Johnson. Magazines. This is unscripted, unrehearsed. They don’t For the first time this evening, we’ll be in- even know what the questions are. It could be cluding three video questions from Rotman anything about their dating lives, whatever students and that will happen at the halfway you like. But here we’re going to be talking point. We will discuss investing and buying about the hottest topic that we all want to real estate in Toronto, and I’m really excited know about: the Toronto real estate market. to be here because I’m in the midst of selling my house and hopefully building my dream NIKKI GILL: To begin our 2020 roundtable, home. we’ve asked economist Benjamin Tal to offer We know how difficult it is to buy in his current state of the market. Benjamin?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, I don’t know. No, really. I don’t know. Listen, everything was very clear until a few weeks ago, so let me start with the virus because everybody wants to know, and I spent the last few days talking to doctors to figure out what’s happening. The consensus is that you cannot stop it. You cannot stop it the way you cannot stop the wind. It will get worse before it gets better: that’s the consensus. Now, what we know about it: the mortality rate is much lower than SARS but the infection rate is much, much higher. We also know, from an economic perspective, starting with SARS in 2003, that China was much smaller and not as interconnected with the global economy. Back then, the stock market was down and looking for a reason to go up. Today the stock market was looking for a reason to go down, and they got the reason, as you know. Nobody knows, but if we assume that a year from now, maybe we will not be talking about it, we can say a few things about real estate, regardless of the virus. I think what will happen is that the next few months will be dominated by this story, and then people will see that things are stabilizing, and a year from now, we will not be talking about it.

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HOST & PANELLISTS

SPRING 2020

OUR EXPERTS DISCUSS REAL ESTATE IN THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES. IS IT TIME TO BUY, SELL OR HOLD?

COVER STORY

2020 REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

Given that real estate is a long-term investment, that’s actually a good thing –– to focus on real estate despite what’s happening. Let’s do that. Real estate has nine lives. Every time that it’s supposed to slow down, something bad happens that keeps interest rates lower and lower, and that’s exactly what happened with this virus. Interest rates are now going down, not up. A few months ago, nobody was talking about the Bank of Canada cutting interest rates. Now the Bank of Canada is talking about cutting interest rates. It’s actually very reasonable that the Bank of Canada [interest rate], because of the virus, will be cut twice in the next few months. That’s 50 basis points. The fiveyear rate is going down, the 10-year rate is going down. In the U.S. it is at a record low. So this kind of uncertainty, in a very weird way, might help real estate vis-à-vis lower interest rates. The economy as a whole was not strong to start with, and now it will get weaker, but clearly — and I said that will be something that people will be looking at as a safe haven — it will be real estate that’s linked to low-interest rates. Therefore I believe that, if this market is strong enough, it might be even stronger a year from now, enjoying the benefit of lower interest rates. NIKKI: Barry, you’ve got boots on the ground. Is that what you’re seeing with buyers heading into the spring market? And also we heard a rumour that Harry and Meghan might be shopping in The Bridle Path –– is that true? BARRY COHEN: I didn’t start that rumour. If you look back at 2018 as being the corrective year, and then 2019 had a four per cent price increase, we’re now, at this time, same time last year, closer to 14 per cent, 12 to 14 per cent price increase, so that’s a little identification of what’s to come. I believe right now there are about three and a half months of inventory in real estate reported through the Toronto Real Estate Board’s greater market. But in central Toronto, it’s more like two months. I think, as we head into the spring market, we could be close to one and a half months [of ] a seller’s market.

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WILLIAM STRANGE: Well — and this is

following up Benny’s point — if coronavirus continues to spread as it is (and I am a professor but of economics, not epidemiology; I also can’t make a radio out of a coconut like in Gilligan's Island), what we know about viruses in the past is that they [are] reason for the macroeconomy to contract. As with the stock market looking for a reason to go down, the macroeconomy is in a 10-year boom, and 10-year booms end, usually after nine years. MICHAEL KALLES: Well, I’d like to start

with a bold statement, and that is that Toronto is a world city. Not going to be, not maybe, it is today. I think we have to put 22

Q&A

ROTMAN MBA STUDENT ANDREW JI: As a new immigrant to Canada, I realized the inflow of immigrants contributed quite a bit to the real estate market, with Canada welcoming almost a quarter million new immigrants per year and a majority of them settling in our major city. I would like to ask the panellists: what are you guys’ takes on the impact of immigration to our real estate market? Is the trend going to continue or go a different direction? Anything on that? JENNIFER KEESMAAT: The challenge in our market is a supply one. We have a broad consensus in the Canadian context that immigration is good. We see the value that new immigrants bring to this country, and there’s a whole movement, actually, to significantly increase immigration in our city in order to respond to growing workforce [demand] and to grow the economy. I think there’s a broad, shared consensus that we have a very serious supply problem magnified by the fact that we’re very popular. How do we fix that one? That’s a really tricky one: it needs some innovation. The challenge is, if we don’t have the infrastructure and we don’t have supply, then there is going to be pushback around newcomers coming into our country. It leads to social division, which is why this question of unlocking supply is not a frivolous semitone.

into perspective that we have 170,000 people coming to the city of Toronto over the next three years. To put that in context, a tower went up just south of Bloor and Yonge street, 1,000 suites, and 2,000 people lived in that building. Took eight years from connection to completion, and that handled the immigration for Toronto for 10 days. Eight years for 10 days. It gives you an idea of what’s happening in the city of Toronto. RON JOHNSON: All right. The next question: the average price of any home in Toronto, from condos to detached homes, is now almost a million dollars. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment hit $2,300 in January. Has affordability become a crisis and what can be done? JENNIFER KEESMAAT: Well, sure. One of the ways that you measure whether a place is affordable or sustainable over time [is whether] there’s a connection between salaries and the cost of housing. When

those two things detach –– when the amount people earn no longer allows them to live in the city where they are earning the money –– that’s when you see a crisis emerge, because you need money from elsewhere for people to be able to live and work here. We know that’s happened. We know it’s not possible to be properly housed now or access housing. Forget home ownership if you're making between $60,000 and $100,000 a year. We have a very strong health-care sector in this city. We have hospitals with nurses and admin staff. Where will those nurses live? Where will teachers live? Where will people in middle management live? Where will people in the tech industry live in this city? Is that a crisis when the cost of housing is completely detached from the amount of money people who live and work in this city — and who we need to live and work in this city — make? Yeah, I would say that’s a crisis because we don’t want to become San

Francisco, but that’s exactly where we’re going. MICHELE ROMANOW: Just on the San Francisco point, we are actually in many ways worse off. In San Francisco, in the tech sector where I’m from, there has been very meaningful salary appreciation. I’m talking about first-year engineers getting paid $190,000 in the Valley –– that would probably be closer to $100,000 here in Canada. As property prices have risen there, so have effective salaries. That actually hasn’t happened in Toronto, exacerbating this gap you’re talking about. A lot of people call on the tech sector, saying: “You’re the leaders. You’re the ones driving up commercial real estate,” but you know, we’re actually really struggling. My employees tell me, “My minimum to live in this city is $70K now.” There are lots of people at tech companies who have to start way below that for us to build a business that’s reasonable. I do think we have a huge problem with affordability. BARRY: If there isn’t a crisis now, it’s just

around the corner. If you look back at what our government did, they messed up where they tried to suppress the demand by introducing policies for a tax and the stress test as opposed to creating more supplies. What our government has done is that they’ve frozen all the land around the GTA so there’s no room for expansion. BENJAMIN: Yeah. I think that we are in a crisis, and it’s getting worse and worse and worse. We have to wake up. We have to do something, and it’s urgent because young people simply cannot afford housing. I do believe that Toronto, like Vancouver, will never be affordable. We had a correction in 2017–18, a nice correction, a healthy correction. Is Toronto affordable now? That’s the correction we are going to get driving the cycle. But the trend is very clear. It’s up. It’s up because of demographics. It’s up because of many other reasons we can talk about. I was in Ottawa just last week talking to some very important people, and guess what solutions people are talking about? One of them was mentioning cutting immigration. I’m serious. This is not just a junior person. People are desperate. Of course, we are not going to do it because it would be madness, I think. But we have to wake up to the reality that we need to do something on the supply side. BRAD LAMB: All right. So the horse has left the barn. The door’s closed. There’s nothing we can do in a meaningful way to make the city affordable again. It’s going to be unaffordable. The question is, how unaffordable? Now when … in 2005, I conceived of a building at 9 King, and the highest I could get that building, the largest I could get that building, was 16 floors.

2020 REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

It was a massive fight with the thencouncillor and the planning department. Today [the building] is surrounded by highrise towers varying from 35 to 45 storeys. Those approvals happened within four or five years of my approval. The problem — and it's not just here, it’s in virtually any city with a [housing] crisis: you read about San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, it’s the same — the [problem is that] planning departments and the local councillors are living in the past. That building I could only get 16 floors for should have been 30 or 35. Now it’s a wasted opportunity. It’s a meaningful change, for us. It means that we can possibly bring prices down five or eight per cent. That’s how this problem is going to be solved, in small increments. We all need to lobby this city, councillors and planners, or clear-cut them because they’re living in the past.

very, very large cash down payments. It’s very difficult for someone today to buy an apartment and rent it, even with 25 per cent down, and come even close to breaking even. And so, you know, we’ve looked at doing apartment buildings across the GTA, and there are only a few areas where they work, but they absolutely will not work downtown. And you’re going to see very, very few of them built going forward. RON: Benjamin? BENJAMIN: Two things about it. First,

BRAD: That’s true. Infrastructure is the purview of the city, and it’s absurd to me that the city engineers have been aware of

the fact that on Richmond Street, as well and on King Street, we have a 140-year-old sewer system. That’s just crazy. We have generated billions of dollars in our industry for exactly that purpose. I am just curious as to why we haven’t actioned that money. But I’ll say this: I built a building right next to this Gehry thing that’s been approved. It’s the most absurd approval I’ve ever heard of in my life. I’m pro density, and this is madness. So of course, a 90-storey tower is too much. We’re not asking, as developers, to go from 45 to 90. We’re not asking for 20 floors to 40 floors. We’re asking [to go from] six to nine. It makes all the difference in the world. It's the little increases. BRIAN GLUCKSTEIN: I’ll be quicker. Two things I was thinking of when we talked about affordability. My first house, which was not that long ago, I bought it for $419,000, and that was a lot of money. That was at the high end of the first-time buyer in midtown. That house sold a year ago for $2.8 million –– that is not a first-time homebuyer anymore, so the demographic has changed so much in that neighbourhood. When I moved into that neighbourhood, it was young doctors, professional people, a lot of professors from the university. They are not buying $2.8 million houses as their first. So much of the city has changed. The other thing is that the number of our projects that we’re building is changing from condos to purpose-built rentals. To me, that is the only secure rental living. You can rent a condo, but six months from now your landlord could sell it and flip it. If we want real housing for people that can’t afford to buy, we must change some of these buildings and work with the private sector and the government to build affordable housing. But purpose-built rentals are a real change to our business.

ODEEN ECCLESTON: Yes. In talking about solutions to this crisis, to piggyback on what Brad said: I think it’s important to work with the legislators within the 905 to expand. For example, we’re building on 16 acres right now, my company. We wanted to build eight houses on 16 acres, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but because a part of it is in the Greenbelt, they only approved us to do two. Just in general, there needs to be some sort of alleviation in terms of the Greenbelt as well. I think that could be a solution, and then [also have] … legislators work with builders to encourage purpose-built rentals, because right now obviously it’s a lot more lucrative for us to build a certain type of product. RON: OK. We got some questions emailed in and I’m going to direct one of those to Brad. A few members commented, saying the rent they collect on a condo is already not covering the cost of carrying that condo. If the supply of rental housing increases, will this put downward pressure on rents, making it more affordable but also making condos a worse investment? BRAD: So there was a period around 2015,

2016 where purpose-built rentals worked in the core, even south of maybe Lawrence down to waterfront, DVP and Dufferin. You cannot make the economics work anymore. Land prices are too high. Construction prices are too high. It’s not possible to build any meaningful amount of housing in the core and rent it. So the problem is this individual is going to buy a 500-square-foot apartment for $700,000, so one bedroom. And it'll rent, you know, when it’s finished in three or four years for $2,500. Unless the person buys it with 60 per cent or 70 per cent down, they’re going to lose money every month. So the people who are buying these condominiums and floor plans and who are building the city are people who are buying in relative cash, who have

RON: Sebastian, and then we’ll go to Michael. SEBASTIAN CLOVIS: Yeah. I don’t mean to

SPRING 2020

Host Sangita Patel

those investors in the condo space, you know, they don’t see [this argument] … and we spoke to many of them. I asked them, “Are you crazy? You’re losing money? Why are you doing it?” And they said, “You don’t get it. It’s not a GIC. It’s a long-term play.” And they’re right. If we are all agreeing that Toronto will never become affordable, this means that, over time, condo prices will be even higher. So this is not speculation, this is smart investing. So if you basically lose some money, you don’t. Somebody else is paying 50 per cent of your mortgage. That’s the way they see it. Therefore, despite the fact that more than 50 per cent of investors are in negative cash flow, they’re not selling the way people expected them to sell. So this is a long-term play, and they know what they’re doing. Regarding purpose built, I totally agree, that’s the future. And 2019 is a very important year because we have seen a significant jump in purpose built from about 5,000 to about 12,000 with 57,000 in the pipelines. This is huge. This is very, very important because the new wave of rentals will be families with young kids. They don’t want to deal with a landlord who tomorrow will kick them out. They want to deal with the company. They need stability. The same goes for baby boomers who will be downsizing. They need stability. They want the company. So if the condo space was the rental space, it’s starting to change. And that’s a very good thing. Now what we need to do is to encourage them [developers] to do it. So we need HST, we need development charges. We need to do something to make sense out of this investment because, at this point, correct me if I’m wrong, if you don’t own the land, you don’t make money as a builder. We need to change it. And I think that’s the future because I do believe that the future of real estate in Toronto is not owning, it’s actually renting.

change the conversation, but I don’t know anyone who’s buying condos right now. So I have to change it to the residential conversation in terms of what people are doing with their renovations in just their [own] homes. Because I think the way people are buying their homes is changing. And the types of renovations they’re doing is changing as well. 23 | POST |

JENNIFER: I actually don’t disagree with

everything that Brad said, which is a bit refreshing. But I believe that we should be looking very carefully at how we can put as much density as possible in every part, in every corner of the city. But there’s a big, big catch. When the Mirvish+Gehry proposal came forward, I went down the hall to the head of Toronto Water: three 90-storey towers on a site that we had never conceived of having that much growth. I asked Lou Di Gironimo, the head of Toronto Water at the time, “Lou, will the toilets flush on Super Bowl Sunday?” I found out that underneath King Street is the original infrastructure from when it was first built in the late 1800s, and the water actually travels through wooden pipes along King Street. Lou looked at me, and he said, “Well, let me go do some work.” He went and did some work. He came back, and he said, “Look, the toilets will flush in the Mirvish+Gehry project, but not if you have another project like this one. They won’t.” This gets to the point of broader infrastructure. This is why planners get their backs up because planners stand in front of the room at public meetings when people say, “Hey, stop approving new projects because there’s zero capacity on transit [and] the neighbourhood park is overrun with dogs and dog urine, because it’s a tiny little park that was never designed for the amount of density that exists.” My point is we must be thinking about planning to communicate with the infrastructure that you need to ensure those communities, quite frankly, don’t become really unpleasant and undesirable places to live. If we don’t link the growth to infrastructure, then I think you get the concern that you heard in Ottawa. People start saying stop growth, and that’s desperation. I don’t think that’s a response, that we don’t want new people. It's that we don’t have the infrastructure.

COVER STORY

REAL ESTATE EXPERTS “An effective agent is efficient, keeps communication open and utilizes new technology + strategy to keep ahead.”

What makes one agent more effective than the others? An effective agent is one who is efficient, provides responses in a timely manner and keeps communication open with clients, other agents and tradespeople. They have a thorough understanding of the neighbourhoods they work in and are well informed on how different properties compare with others. They also utilize new technology and strategy to keep ahead of the curve.

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What is the first thing you do for a buyer you are representing vs. a seller you are representing? When I first speak with Buyers I qualify their “what, when, where and why”! We discuss their personal needs and wants to prepare a detailed wish list to begin the search. With Sellers I like to begin with an initial visit of their property. During this meeting we will determine their timeline to use as a guideline to set a plan in motion. I will also suggest how to enhance and present their property to its best advantage. A calendar of events follows! Do large deposits make a difference on offer presentation? A large deposit can make a difference, especially in a multiple offer situation. It shows that you are serious about the purchase and can be a great asset. Submitting a bank draft with the offer is also beneficial.

What makes one agent more effective than others? Several factors that go above and beyond just having neighbourhood knowledge. The ability to truly understand the client's needs and be their voice of reason at all times. Remaining calm when clients’ emotions get in the way and educating them about the pros and cons of their decisions to ensure they move forward with confidence. Always having a pulse on upcoming listings, off-market transactions, tailored marketing approach and a skilled negotiator. Being well connected & respected in the industry are also critical.

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What will appreciate faster right now: a condo or a house? This really depends on the neighbourhood. My general perspective is that condo prices have reached a peak and as much as condo living has become more prevalent and a preferred lifestyle choice for many Torontonians, it is creating an opportunity for certain freehold properties to have a much better "value" in comparison. I am expecting to see a huge surge of prices of houses in neighbourhoods that fall into highly rated public school catchments.

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MICHAEL: It’s interesting. I was

doing a hard hat tour in Manhattan, and they do things completely differently: a developer can’t sell units until it’s built. I’ll give an example in Toronto: 1 Yorkville came out at $750 a foot. Today it’s worth, we’ll say $1,500. It’s doubled. So that lift belongs to the investor, not the developer. A developer effectively is leaving all of the capital appreciation on the table for the investor. On a purpose built — and I think Brad brings up a great point — there’s return and then there’s capital appreciation. Even with high

WILLIAM STRANGE: Well, one thing we

need to do is we need to stop thinking about the infrastructure problem as a building stuff problem and instead think about it as a pricing problem. For instance, with roads, we can’t build enough roads: more people will just drive on them. What we need to do is charge people for them.

ROTMAN MBA STUDENT SHANNON WOODS: We have seen a housing crash in Toronto before: in 1990, for example. What do you think the biggest risk factors are that could drive another crash? BENJAMIN TAL: Well, that’s a very good question. And the ’91 crash, of course, was because of higher interest rates. Interest rates back then went up to the sky. In every economic recession, every housing market crash was caused by monetary policy in which central banks raised rates too quickly and too much. That’s exactly what happened in 2008 and clearly in 1991 in Canada. Now, the question, of course, is where interest rates are going. The risk is that interest rates will be rising. The issue is that going over a decade of this kind of activity with extremely low interest rates can generate a bit of a problem. So we have a debt problem to an extent, I think, that is exaggerated. But clearly, we are much more sensitive to the risk of higher interest rates than we were in any other time in history. Every basis point counts. This euphoric housing market over the past almost two decades was in part due to extremely low interest rates. So the effectiveness of interest rates is asymmetrical. Lower interest rates cannot lift you, but higher interest rates can kill you. .

rent in Yorkville, you’re going to lose money on a monthly basis. The hope is you’re going to get it on capital appreciation. And if a developer holds on to a purpose built, it becomes effectively an annuity, and that can be sold into the future. NIKKI: OK. We’re going to move on to the next section now. Mayor John Tory recently said, in an infomercial, that seniors have to open their minds to creating and renting out suites in their homes to make life in Toronto affordable. Brian, is this something that you’re seeing in areas like Rosedale and Lawrence Park? BRIAN: No, no. There is nothing like that.

That is a market, you know. We talk about affordability. It’s a market that is steamrolling along. I mean, that’s a part of our business, the luxury market. I'm always astonished at the prices of what’s going on in the city — not only in the city, but in the cottage country. It’s not

unusual for someone to spend more on a cottage than the most expensive house in a city. We’re not seeing that at all. It [a rental suite] is actually discouraged in those neighbourhoods, but when we come to affordability and talking about a gap, it’s unbelievable the prices. Just from an infrastructure standpoint — you know, I’ve been in this business for a long time — the city has changed so drastically in just this century that you couldn’t even build the infrastructure as fast as we would need it. The whole skyline has changed. People come to the city, friends of mine from New York or Boston, they can’t even believe it’s the same city. You look out and it’s just cranes. I was driving on the Gardiner Expressway: I couldn’t even count the cranes. You couldn’t build transit as fast as we’re building these towers. I don’t know what the solution is. You can’t say stop building them, but how do you build the infrastructure at the pace we’re building the towers?

BRIAN: We can’t even keep up. Like, we build more houses around the perimeter of the city; we can’t get them in the city. You’re standing on subway platforms when a train comes, and you can’t get on it. So how much more can you build with the few lines we currently have? I mean, my clients don’t take public transit so much. But, you know, they have drivers, but even they get stuck in traffic. I don’t know what to say. I mean, the best thing would be to build condos without parking, so we don’t have parking garages full of cars [and] people think they’re going to go from Eglinton to Wellington in their car. But they don’t want to stand on a subway platform for three trains to go by. I have a client that, literally, his chauffeur drives them to the Bloor Street subway station because the traffic is so bad. It must be quite a sight … And at the end of the day, their chauffeur is sitting there at the subway station to take them because the car can’t even go anywhere if the traffic is so bad. But they can’t take it at St. Clair or at Eglinton because you’re standing on a platform for four trains. It's not working right now. RON: Jennifer and then Brad. JENNIFER: So it’s kind of inter-

esting what’s happening in this conversation because, on the one hand, there’s been this narrative, “Build, build, build. We need more supply.” But then, on the other side, what Brian said is actually the opposite: “The whole city is changing right before our very eyes.” And it is. I’ve had the same experience with friends where they’re, like, “I’ve never been here before.” And I was, like, “We had dinner here two years ago.” And they’re looking around. They … [say], “No, I have never been here.” And it’s because the city has completely changed in a three-year period, which is a reflection of the fact that we actually are building very, very quickly. So it’s not like we have a problem in that we’re just not building enough supply given the insatiable amount of demand that exists. But I’m really glad you told the subway story and the chauffeur story, in particular, not only because it's a great one to repeat, but because it reinforces the point that we only have a little bit of the infrastructure that we need. You can’t do your whole trip on transit. You can only do part of it, which, for most of us, you kind of need to do the whole trip. I’ve lived at Yonge and Eglinton, and when I moved into my neighbourhood, we moved actually into a smaller home, closer to the subway, so that we could go down to one car [and] live the dream, walking to work, doing all these great things.

SPRING 2020

RON: OK. Michael?

Q&A

COVER STORY

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And perhaps that’s indicative of the crisis, the affordability, because, you know, the era of buying and flipping homes is long gone. Nobody’s doing that anymore, right? Everybody is buying homes now, and they are renovating their homes to stay in their homes. They’re renovating homes for themselves, and they’re renovating with their kids in mind, because there’s a lot of, you know, parents in this city and in this country, I’m sure, living with adult children in the house because … [the children] work in the city, and can’t afford their own homes or are not interested in buying out in the 905 and Pickering and Ajax, and having a two-hour commute. Everyone is trying to buy homes that only have income property potential. You know, the number of income properties we’re [doing] … we’re trying to squeeze them into every closet. Any way we can get an airbnb, if we could just rent that bedroom out for a weekend, that’s going to help with the mortgage, and that’s what people are really looking at. But as a whole, while people are still spending a lot of money on those renovations, they are custom renovations. It’s very expensive, the cost of renovations has gone up a lot. We got "terrorists" right now who are killing the renovation industry. You know, engineered quartz is so expensive, metal is so expensive, wood is so expensive. Ask any of the roofer guys, they’re having a hard time getting that metal in here to run the eavestroughs and all that stuff. So the cost of renovations is going up. And at the same time, we're running into a problem — just speaking for the builders in the room, if there are any but we’re running into a problem with skilled workers. We don’t have young guys [sic] coming into the industry who are interested and putting their heart into building in the same way that the O.G.s were doing it. But that is a problem because we don’t have the $20 an hour, $25 an hour guys anymore. We’ve got the $45 an hour guy doing all the work. We’re holding down the entire renovation, which is pushing the cost up, which is making it very expensive for anyone to renovate in this city. And so the renovations are smaller in scope, and very focused. I’m building homes right now for people that are planning to pass that along to their kids.

2020 REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

COVER STORY

2020 REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

hold on to everything, you’d never make a mistake. Nobody’s ever said, “I’ve made a mistake in buying.” They’ve always said selling was the mistake. I’ve met many people who own the first house they’ve ever had. They just refinance and refinance.

And an amazing thing happened over that first five years that we were living there. The first year, it was sort of OK to get downtown during rush hour. But by the second and third year, we would stand on the platform and the trains would go by. Which is why opening the Greenbelt isn’t really the [solution] because there are no jobs out there. And the reason why we can’t get on the platform at Yonge and Eglinton is because the train is completely full already. It’s like 87 per cent full at Finch –– Finch, the beginning. BRIAN: And I think people are somewhat deluded in thinking, “I’m going to buy at Yonge and Eglinton: I work downtown at Bay Street, and it’s fabulous. I have a great walking area at Yonge and Eglinton. Now, it’s going to happen at Yonge and St. Clair.” But that’s the situation they’re telling us, even employees of mine saying, “Brian, I walk. I just walk if the weather’s nice. I can’t get on the train.” You can’t add thousands of more units on top of that hub at that corner and expect them to get on the train. And they’re not driving and they’re not willing to wait for the fifth bus. So what is the solution? We can’t add more and more and more. BRAD: So there are 125 cranes

in Toronto right now. There are more cranes in Toronto than any other city in the free world. The top four cities in the United States don’t add up to 125 cranes, including New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago. We have a lot of cranes. JENNIFER: We’re building.

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BRAD: And that’s a good thing. So where

do we want to build? So there was an idea that we need to free up the Greenbelt. That’s a bad idea. There’s not enough infrastructure. Our problem in Canada is we’re a massive country, but we live in a very narrow belt. And that’s why infrastructure is so expensive. So we need to cluster in the cities. We need to make the cities walkable. People need to walk to work. We need to walk around, even at Yonge and St. Clair, walk to a Bloor Street job. All year long, you can walk. Ride your bike, that’s OK too. But it’s far cheaper to rebuild the infrastructure where the infrastructure is than to build new infrastructure. So we can put our hands up and say, “There’s no f**king solution. Let’s all give up and leave.” But that’s not the answer. The answer is there’s a solution. [There are] a lot of smart people in Toronto. The solution is we need to increase the density in the downtown core. We need to get people off the roads, and we need better infrastructure. Add more cars to the train. I don’t know how long subways [are] … I haven’t ridden it in 20 years, but I got to say, it’s got to be 10 or so cars. You know, add more power, add more trains, make them more frequent, and we have to create more subway lines, maybe more subway lines above the ground and below the

MICHELE: Yeah. I think I am, like, the aver-

From left: Brad Lamb, Odeen Eccleston and Brian Gluckstein

ground. But there is a solution, and the solution is we need to be in cities. We can’t live in the country in Canada. We’re too far apart. BRIAN: We see that in the area of Dufferin

and Eglinton, which was all warehouses and industrial buildings. And now, it’s become design districts, and it’s advertising agencies, design sources. You know, huge, huge buildings are converted into retail and offices and cool spaces. Now, we need to move some of the housing into those areas also, so it’s not all these low industrial buildings that you can see for days that are the showrooms from Davenport. All the design firms, they’re moving up there. Their employees are complaining. They’re now Ubering their staff up there because they can’t get up there. But maybe we should build housing in some of those areas and rethink this. We did it in the city, the city that everyone worked in and left. And now we’re creating great areas that are vital during the day but everyone leaves. Let’s build some housing in some of those areas. BRAD: Right. So by the way, I’m not saying that, for me, downtown isn’t, you know, the eight blocks. I consider up where you are talking about the city. BRIAN: But there’s no housing. BRAD: Of course there is. There’s housing

going up and down Dufferin. There’s tons of housing there. JENNIFER: OK, talk to me about it. Duf-

ferin Street is currently being completely redeveloped because we’ve put a plan in place in keeping with our avenue strategy to intensify the corridor. So you can go to Dufferin Street, and you will see there’s a fantastic new development … some of which is in the approvals process, some of which is under construction, and there’s a couple of buildings already built. We’re in the process of doing that, and to your point,

Brad, we have more construction taking place in this city than any other city in North America. So it’s not like we didn’t do something fabulous, because we did, to unlock more supply in the city. The challenge is we are choking on our own success, and attracting even more people. But if you take away one thing from this tonight, we are doing a phenomenal job at building housing in the city. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be at the top of that list. And we’re at the top: we’re knocking off Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. You’re not going to develop every single parcel at once because you need access to financing. You need access to labour, which is a really big [concern]. The Board of Trade keeps saying [that’s] what's holding back building in this city: access to labour. So it's quite a complicated ecosystem that results in a building being built. Do not be dissuaded, we are so doing so many things right in the city right now. BRIAN: Well, a very inspiring development

is at Lawrence and the Allen expressway, which was community housing, a huge, huge community housing. It wasn’t at the degree of Regent Park, but it was not much above that. And now, we’re seeing community housing, really dramatic great community housing, now condominiums going up, maybe eight or 10 storeys, stacked townhouses, freehold townhouses. You know if you work with developers in the government, you can build community housing. You can build all different price points of housing in a neighborhood that was void of that. JENNIFER: Thank your city planners. RON: All right. We're at our last question already, and it’s in two parts. First, we’d like to hear about the biggest mistake that folks on the panel have made in real estate. BARRY: I think my biggest mistake is in buying real estate and selling it. If you could

age millennial who has moved to a lot of different places. In my career, I’ve already lived in Chicago and San Francisco. And probably, it looks like a mistake to not have bought somewhere, but that afforded me the ability to build companies and move many more times than I would have been able to if I had owned a house. And so, I think we are looking at people working very, very differently. They are moving jobs very differently than before, and real estate is playing a totally different part in that. So it’s hard to know and say that was a mistake, when I think that led to a lot of what ended up building my career. RON: OK. Sebastian. SEBASTIAN: I think my biggest

renovation mistake is the current house that I’m just building. You know, we got the entire house, a single-family home. I split it into a duplex, rewired the whole house. And looking back on it, what I should have done is installed solar panels right away, I think. I should have wired that directly into the home because I’ve done a lot of research on solar in the last couple of months. I’ve installed a few systems, and I know, in the summertime, you can get your energy bills down to almost nothing. You know, we’re talking about infrastructure in the city, but that’s a personal infrastructure that you can do on your home that could really knock your costs down, and it’s a form of an income property. You know, let that sun work for you. We all know how much electricity costs these days. JENNIFER: So I think my biggest mistake … my daughter’s 19, my son’s 14, and my daughter is, as she said, she’s going to be creating her own household within the next 10 years and trying to figure out what that looks like and freaking out a little bit because she’s been following what’s happening in the housing market. And our first home, we bought a home in Roncesvalles and we rented out the basement. By the way, I think a lot of the creative things that people have done to afford a home, people have always done those creative things. I think we need to get back to doing some of them, [like] sharing homes. But we put in a basement apartment, we rented out the main floor, we lived on the top two floors. And we sold that home and bought the house that we’re in now. And now I’m looking at my kids and thinking, “Wow, we should’ve kept that as a rental property because, in a couple of years, my daughter’s going to need a house, and she could very easily move into that house, and it’s divided up already into a few different units.”

Q&A

MICHAEL: Well, you know, for the young

people in the room, there’s a great rule. It’s called the seven-year rule. If you buy and hold a home or a condominium any time in the last 45 years, you’ve made money on it, no matter when you bought it. If you held it for seven years, you’ve won in the real estate market. My father is here today, the founder of Harvey Kalles Real Estate, and he’s been in the business for close to 70 years. So most kids on the weekend would, you know, go play sports. From the age of six, my dad and I would drive around, and he’d point out every building and site that he could have bought. BENJAMIN: Well … mistakes, I didn’t

make any. REVISED PREDICTIONS Now, given what is happening with COVID-19 in Toronto and around the world, what is your advice for those considering whether to wade into the market in these unprecedented conditions?

ROTMAN MBA STUDENT RINOR SHKODRA: For the past few generations, home ownership has not only been a component of the Canadian dream, it's also been a good financial decision because of the equity that you can build up. What would you recommend for millennials in today’s market? Is home ownership still a goal or should they consider putting their capital in other investments? MICHELE ROMANOW: I think the answer to the question "is this dream dead?" is that we’re going to have to be way more creative with what the dream looks like. And we’re starting to see some of that now. We’re starting to see [people] designing houses differently, so parents are living with adult children for longer. We’re starting to see groups of friends buy a house together or siblings move back in together, or co-living situations. There is going to have to be a lot of creativity to solve this if we don’t solve some of these fundamental infrastructure and supplyside equations. I do not think that limiting demand and limiting the growth of the economy is ever going to be the answer, but if we can’t solve those things for you, as an individual, how creative can you be? I mean, can we create laneway houses? There are so many different things to think about than the conventional "can I buy, a condo or a starter home?"

MICHELE: I would definitely wait and see.

BARRY: Toronto will certainly appear even

We have no playbook for coronavirus and have never seen anything like this before. It's producing massive swings in the market, and with all the uncertainty I would wait to see what happens.

more attractive to the rest of the world. Once this passes, there will be a lot of pent up demand as we experienced three or four months of staggering growth in sales and prices before COVID-19 picked up steam. During this hopefully short period of time, there are some who are seeing this as an opportunity to buy, as rates are the lowest we have ever seen, but some buyers are understandably taking a wait and see approach. From a seller’s perspective, the market was dramatically undersupplied, and one could argue that now it’s even more so. There are some sellers who believe it could be an opportunity to sell, and buy when the market becomes better supplied. There is also a group sitting on the sidelines. It’s too early

ODEEN: Buyers are exercising increased caution due to the virus, the uncertain state of the world economy and increased desire for social distancing, but with inventory still low, we will see a continued seller's market throughout the spring.With lowered interest rates, time might be on your side. You may be able to score a great deal from a motivated seller and at an incredibly low interest rate.

WILLIAM: We will see low volumes and really constant prices. Would I recommend buying? At the right price. I bought the house I currently live in right after 9/11: I am happy I did. BRAD: The market will slow down over the

next three months. Prices will likely not move up or down. Once we are through this, prices will continue to climb upwards. Buy if you need a house. Rates are low and the prices will continue to rise in the medium- and long-term. JENNIFER: It is impossible to know what is

going to happen to the market. There are too many variables at play day to day, let alone making a prediction for more than a month or two out. The only thing we know for sure is that we are going to see bumps and changes that we cannot begin to predict, and trying to do so is futile. This is a moment of unprecedented uncertainty that has been compared to wartime. We must be optimistic about the future. What other choice do we have? But the magnitude of disruption we are facing is not yet fully understood or felt. For this reason, unless you have an enormous financial buffer and an appetite for significant risk, this is a moment for wait and see. BENJAMIN: The market will be frozen for a while — no buyers and no sellers. That will protect prices from falling. I expect a weak recovery in the third quarter and back to semi-normal in the fourth. I don't see a return to normal until there is a vaccine maybe a year from now. But when we get the all-clear, I see a significant rebound. At this point, low rates will not help as reduced confidence takes over.

OUR THANKS TO THE RE/MAX COLLECTION AND GREAT GULF HOMES, FOR SPONSORING THIS YEAR’S REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE Look for this discussion in podcast form, available for download on iTunes and TRNTO.com on Friday, March 27, 2020.

SPRING 2020

ODEEN: With respect to the mistakes in the past decade, we flipped a lot of houses. I flipped over, I think, 20 houses. And if I had kept even five of them, I would have been much better off. So that’s a testament to the importance of holding when you can.

to tell what the impact will be as we are only going on three or four days of heightened precautions, but my sense on the market as a whole during this time, is that the combination of these incredibly low rates and current demand seems to be overcoming the majority of people’s concerns. MICHAEL: I remain confident in the city of Toronto from a real estate standpoint. Even though our sales team is working from home, there continue to be multiple offers done with electronic signatures. We added nine listings yesterday, so the real estate market marches on in Toronto. So yes, I am very positive on the real estate market midto long-term. I join the rest of the Real Estate roundtable panel in wishing everyone good health.

BRAD: With respect to real estate mistakes,

I have made so many. I can’t remember them all, but they’re all based on the same thing that Barry talked about. Either when I sold something — because someone offered me a stupid amount of money and, in hindsight, it wasn’t enough — and I wish I’d bought more [or] I wish I never sold anything.

COVER STORY

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And I think we look at our house that we have now, and we’ve done exactly what you've been talking about. We walked through our house, and we’re, like, “OK, Louis could have the main floor. Alex could have the second floor. We’ll go live in a little apartment down the street.” Or we’ve talked to the kids about “Would you guys ever want to live here with us?” And, of course, they freak out a little bit. But the idea of thinking about a home and how you live in a space in a different way, I think that’s something that is about to explode, in part because of affordability concerns and because people who were so lucky, like I was, to get into the housing market 20 years ago. And other people are worried about their kids and worried about how we do ensure we’re welcoming people into this city.

2020 REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

POST CITY X MAYFAIR CLUBS

50 YEARS OF MAYFAIR CLUBS Toronto’s Home Away from Home By David Albertyn

In keeping with Mayfair’s spirit of innovation, the Mayfair Toronto Pro League (MTPL) was developed. Canada’s only professional tennis prize money league, MTPL brings together top tennis professionals from across the city, including former NCAA and CIS players and the odd ATP player to battle it out. At every level, Mayfair Clubs is providing the facilities, the communities, the coaching, and the competition to raise the bar of tennis in the Greater Toronto Area and, by extension, Canada. Whether it is in the booming participation numbers or the incredible success of professional players, tennis in Canada has exploded in recent years, and Mayfair Clubs has played a pivotal role in fostering that expansion. Of course, since its inception, Mayfair has always been a leader in the tennis community, but it is important to note that the first international glass-

Image of construction trailer at Mayfair Lakeshore in late 1980s.

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“Aside from my own home, Mayfair is probably the most important place in my daily routine,” – Mitch a longtime member of Mayfair Clubs. “Mayfair is like a second home to all of us.” – Rosie Davey, a veteran of the fitness staff. A home away from home is the sentiment that many members and staff – old and new – feel about Mayfair Clubs. Since the inception of Mayfair Clubs in 1970, 50 years ago, the organization has grown from one facility to four: it has provided opportunities for kids, juniors, and adults to learn, play, and compete in sport at every level. It has evolved with the times, first adding squash and later offering a range of fitness services and a place for wellness treatments, healthy foods, and jubilant social events. But, most importantly, Mayfair Clubs offers an environment where everyone is welcome, and people can pursue their passion for a healthy lifestyle through fitness, social activity, and sport. In 1970, private tennis clubs in the Greater Toronto Area were not accessible to everyone. It was in this environment that Mayfair Clubs’s founders opened a year-round indoor tennis facility, Mayfair North in Thornhill, that catered to all. The club offered indoor tennis at affordable prices and fostered a spirit of inclusion. The success of this forwardthinking strategy was evident in the fact that there was a waiting list on opening day. From the start, Mayfair Clubs has been a place where families and friends can enjoy exercise and a healthy lifestyle together. “I love this place. It's like my second home. I love the people and the down to Earth environment. It's just 28 an awesome place to be." – Diane, 35-year member

As Mayfair Clubs expanded to new locations, offerings grew from tennis to include squash. The clubs played a pivotal role in the growth of both racquet sports, not only in the Greater Toronto Area, but in Canada at large. Over the last 20 years, Tennis Canada has presented Mayfair Clubs and its directors with multiple awards for significant contributions to the development of tennis, in recognition of dedication to the sport. Mayfair Clubs’s tennis programming provides training and competitive opportunities, from beginner to professional, kids to adults, with a deep commitment to junior tennis, for which it has been recognized by Tennis Canada as an official Tennis Development Centre. “Mayfair Clubs has been instrumental in the development of the sport of tennis in Canada over the last five decades. They've provided top rate facilities, coaches and training programs to grow Canadian athletes.” - Michael Downey, President and CEO of Tennis Canada Legends such as Bjorn Borg, Billie Jean King, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Gabriella Sabatini, Pete Sampras, and Virginia Wade have all struck the ball on Mayfair’s courts. As longtime and current sponsor and supporter of the Rogers Cup, Mayfair is also the official indoor practice site for the ATP and WTA tours during the annual tennis tournament. Mayfair has been a training ground for the very best tennis players in the world for over 35 years and has always been active in offering some of Canada’s best players and young prospects a place to train, learn, compete, and succeed. Moving forward, who knows what heights Mayfair Clubs’s current crop of high-performance players can attain.

Mayfair Clubs has been instrumental in the development of the sport of Tennis in Canada over the last three decades. -Michael Downey, CEO, Tennis Canada

My favourite part of Mayfair for the last 30 years has been the members, the staff and the friendships that have come along with that. care for members through Kidspace. There are fullservice restaurants with diet options for healthy lifestyles and wellness services including spas, massage therapy, nutrition, naturopathy, sports medicine, physiotherapy, and chiropractic care. There are sports shops offering the latest gear; social events including poker, bridge and wine and beer tastings; not to mention pickleball, a new club favourite.

Mayfair Clubs is a full-service sports, recreation and social destination designed to connect people with the same passions. In fact, the Mayfair experience prompted one member to say, “I not only met a multitude of great people here, but I also met my wife.” As well as the great facilities and social atmosphere, another reason members often cite as an important element in their overall experience is the staff. Whether it is at the West, East, Parkway, or Lakeshore, Mayfair Clubs is proud of the fact that it has provided thousands of engaging employment opportunities. Many staff members have stayed for 20 years or more. And … the staff also speak fondly of the members: “My favourite part of Mayfair for the last 30 years has been the members, the staff, and the friendships that have come along with that. To see Mayfair grow to where it is today has been an experience that I'll never forget. From it being just a tennis club to an all-service club has been the biggest highlight of my career," – Darlene, Club Manager, Mayfair Lakeshore. As Mayfair moves beyond 50 years, it will continue to adapt to the needs of its members in an everchanging marketplace, where friends can bump into each other and where sports, health, and wellness bring us all together. – David Albertyn is a tennis coach and the author of Undercard.

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backed squash courts in Canada were constructed at Mayfair Lakeshore. Beginning in the late 1980s when the club first opened its doors, the Lakeshore location recruited top-ranked squash coaches with the aim of building a leading-edge, high-performance squash program. The quality of the training of Mayfair Clubs was matched by the quality of its competitions. With plenty of spectator seating, Mayfair Clubs was, and is, a premier hub for squash tournaments in Canada, running events from the grassroots level to the national and international levels. In recent years, the club was awarded a Corporate Special Achievement Award from Squash Ontario, and the Canadian Squash Hall of Fame resides there. Mayfair Clubs has long been a major asset in the health of squash in Canada. While hosting local, national and international tennis and squash tournaments over the years helped propel many elite athletes to great heights, meeting the needs of members has always been of the utmost importance to the Mayfair team. They continued to provide new offerings to their members in the mid-’90s. New space was created for diverse fitness facilities and they have been continuously renovated and expanded over two and a half decades. Today, state-of-the-art gyms are staffed by highly qualified fitness specialists. Features like saltwater swimming pools, cycling groups, and mind & body exercise studios offer hundreds of classes each week in over 50 different formats. Mayfair Clubs’s dedication to offering the best possible services and facilities is not restricted to just tennis, squash, and fitness. There is also child

SPRING 2020

Image of newly renovated Mayfair West Fitness Facility with viewing gallery to the Tennis Courts in 2018.

SPRING SHOPPING GUIDE

BUYERS AND SELLERS OF ESTATE JEWELLERY

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Spring is in the air!

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Currents

Image: Courtesy of CTV

SECTION

LIVE LONG & PROSPER Pill grew up in the Republic of Rathnelly which had its own queen.

character is a doctor working for the Daystrom Institute’s division of advanced synthetic research on Okinawa. The series, which has already been renewed for a second season and will premiere in 2021, had the biggest audience in the history of CTV Sci-Fi channel. Tune in for the season one finale on March 26 or stream the episodes on Crave.

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Toronto’s own Alison Pill has joined the Star Trek franchise in its new series Star Trek: Picard. The series features Sir Patrick Stewart in his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard — which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: Next Generation — in the next chapter of his life. Pill, who grew up in the Rathnelly neighbourhood just outside Summerhill, plays Dr. Agnes Jurati. Pill’s

SPRING 2020

Midtown actor stars in new Star Trek series

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Fashion; -

SPRING'S HOTTEST JACKETS & SHACKETS

FASHION

CURRENTS

Just in time for all those spring walks you’ll be taking, we asked Jeanne Beker to pick her favourite jackets in the season’s hottest trends — from puffers to leather and shackets, the perfect blend of a shirt and a jacket.

TERRIFIC TIE DYE

TNT Woman, Yorkville Village, $1,375, “Whoever would have imagined tie-dyed leather? This moto jacket is a very fine leather.”

BUTTERSCOTCH BIKER

Canopy Blue, 2582 Yonge St., $1,295, “This Smythe jacket has classic biker styling in a very sumptuous leather and fun shoulder pad detailing.”

RAIN RAIN COME TODAY

Hunter, Yorkdale mall, $225, “This is a little rain protection in this wonderful emerald green. It's cropped and has a great rubbery feel to it.”

DENIM MEETS RUFFLES

Rewind, 577 Mt. Pleasant Rd., $195, “I've rarely seen a classic denim jacket with this much style flair: the ruffles, the frayed edges, the peplum waist.”

SPORTY GLAM

Andrews, Bayview Village, $635, “A very modern take on a little puffer jacket, it's so soft: absolute luxury in a sporty piece with a bit of a gleam to it.”

FUN WITH FLORALS

Freda's, 86 Bathurst St., $1,495, “One of my favourite Canadian designers, Marie Saint Pierre. I love this scuba fabric with these floral inserts.” CHIC SHACKET

A PERFECT PUFFER

Freda's, 86 Bathurst St., $355, “We love Freda and her knack for fine tailoring: this lovely blazer in this fabulous colour, great militaristic buttons too.”

Sporting Life, 2665 Yonge St., $295, “The fabrication of this Soia & Kyo jacket is divine: very sleek and modern with nice diagonal stitching."

One of Canada’s most trusted authorities on style and fashion, Jeanne has covered the industry for more than 30 years. Now watch her in her current style editor role on TSC’s Style Matters with Jeanne Beker.

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THE BRIGHTER THE BETTER

JEANNE BEKER

SPRING 2020

Sporting Life, 2665 Yonge St., $29.94, “Corduroy has made such a comeback. This boxy jacket is almost like a little shirt.”

CURRENTS

BIG READ

Chairman’s Award Winner 2019 - Top 5 Dollar Volume Gairdner Award Winner 2004-2019

477 Mt Pleasant Road Toronto ON M4S 2L9 c: 416-566-8603 o: 416-489-2121 leeanne@leeanneweld.com

The Cherry Blossoms at High Park

10 incredible T.O. neighbourhood walks From the Beach to the Beltline, you can still get fresh air while social distancing by Marlene Mendonca A spring walk in Toronto might be one of the few ways to get outside and decompress amidst social distancing measures. As long as you keep a reasonable amount of space between you and your fellow walkers, you should still be able to enjoy the many parks, trails, boardwalks and pretty streets the city has to offer. From tree-lined trails to lakefront strolls, here are some of the best spring walks to take in Toronto.

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1. Ruins at Guild Park

This historic 88-acre space served as an artist colony in the 1930s and was revitalized just a few years ago in 2017 when the Guild Inn reopened. The public grounds feature some of Toronto’s most remarkable architectural remnants from the 20th century, including columns saved from the demolition of the Bank of Toronto that are used to create a Greekstyle stage. When you’re done exploring the ruins, you can head toward the bluffs for sweeping views of Lake Ontario. 2. Hit the Beach Boardwalk

Few walks in Toronto beat a trip to the Beach neighbourhood’s boardwalk, which extends from Ashbridge’s Bay eastward for a couple of kilometres. The boardwalk is lined with benches

and Muskoka chairs that offer ideal perches to maintain social distance and take in the gorgeous views. If you making it all the way to the eastern end of the boardwalk, keep going through the dog park and check out the grounds of the architecturally acclaimed R. C. Harris Filtration Plant. 3. A Crothers Woods retreat

This 52-hectare green space is one of the city’s best natural retreats. Located near Millwood and Laird, you can access the trailhead from the parking lot at the Redway Road Loblaws. There are trails of various difficulty here, so if you’re looking for a light walk, the best bet is to head to the Sun Valley loop, which features a wider and flatter path that heads toward Bayview Avenue before bringing you back. 4. Ontario Place Trillium park

What used to be a sprawling parking lot beside Budweiser Stage has been transformed into almost eight acres of green space with paved paths that wind around the western Toronto waterfront. Here you’ll find gardens, rock walls, a beautiful wood-framed pavilion, and some of the best skyline views Toronto has to offer. If your appetite for walking extends

BIG READ

beyond the trails on offer here, you can cut east through Coronation Park to the Lakefront Promenade and the Toronto Music Garden.

concentrated in one area. 9. Humber Arboretum gardens

The 250-acre Humber Arboretum, or Arb, consists of public gardens, a conservation area and plenty of secluded walking paths from which to choose. You’ll find ponds, bridges and an extraordinary collection of perennials, including peonies, echinacea, bulbs and magnolia trees. The Arb is a popular stopover for many types of birds, including woodpeckers, owls, waterfowl and hawks.

5. The beautiful BeltLine Trail

This nine-kilometre walking, jogging and cycling trail weaves through multiple midtown neighbourhoods, stretching from the Caledonia and Eglinton area all the way to Rosedale. Although there are many street crossings along the way, there are few walking paths that cover so many different areas. The nicest stretch of the trail is the Moore Park Ravine, which takes walkers almost all the way to the Don Valley Brick Works, where there are plenty of other routes to explore. 6. Picturesque paths at U of T

Take a stroll through the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, and you’ll be treated to gorgeous architecture, picturesque walking paths and ample green spaces. The cluster of old buildings, from Convocation Hall to University College, make it one of the most beautiful places to explore in Toronto. Be sure to head to Philosopher’s Walk, which

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10. The secluded Alexander Muir Memorial Gardens L–R: The boardwalk in the Beach neighbourhood, and Midtown’s BeltLine trail perfect for cycling or walking

straddles the ROM and Koerner Hall on the way to Trinity College. Although this walk will take you near busier streets, it should be straightforward to keep your distance from fellow explorers. 7. Don Mills Leaside Spur Trail

This short three-kilometre walking trail runs parallel and just east of Leslie Street from under the York Mills Road overpass and stops just short of Lawrence

Avenue. It makes for a great little escape from city life. Formerly a CN Rail line, it’s a flat jaunt that will get your blood flowing without being too taxing. It is located near Sunnybrook Park with even more options for hiking trails should you want to explore beyond the main route. This is one of the most secluded spots to stroll in Toronto. 8. The incomparable High Park

One of the city’s ultimate urban

oases, there’s a dazzling array of walking options in this huge green space. From secluded trails to pond-facing promenades, there are few better places in the city to watch spring unfold. Cherry Blossom season might pose challenges for social distancing, but even if there are crowds this year, you can always avoid them by heading to the park earlier in the season, or by exploring the rest of the park since the blossoms are

This mostly hidden gem in north Toronto has a beautiful ravine that breaks into secluded walking trails that lead you to Sherwood and Sunnydene Parks, but the highlight is the herb and flower gardens. These quiet areas are perfect for leisurely strolling. The park is named after Alexander Muir who composed the song “The Maple Leaf Forever,” so it’s not a surprise that the symbol of the maple leaf is a defining feature of the park.

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The Wet’suwet’en never surrendered their lands

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Actions by and in support of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders are as much about government failure to resolve issues around Indigenous rights and title as they are about pipelines and gas. Some Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and their people are defending their rights to traditional practices, clean air and water and a healthy environment. They say the Coastal GasLink pipeline threatens those rights. The $6 billion pipeline to ship fracked gas 670 kilometres from Dawson Creek to Kitimat for liquefying and export is part of a heavily subsidized, $40 billion LNG Canada project owned by Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi Corporation and state-owned Petronas (Malaysia), PetroChina and Korea Gas Corporation. The hereditary chiefs suggested an alternate route, but the pipeline company nixed it as too costly. The company and government point to support from elected chiefs and councils along the pipeline route, many of

This is about much more than a pipeline

A supporter at a Wet’suwet’en solidarity event at Queen’s Park in February

whom have signed benefitsharing agreements as a way to gain much-needed money for their communities. But, as Judith Sayers (Kekinusuqs), University of Victoria adjunct professor from the Hupačasath First Nation writes in the Tyee, “Neither the elected chief and band councils that support the pipeline, nor the

federal or provincial governments, nor Coastal GasLink ever obtained the consent of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and their supporters.” Sayers writes, “The Wet’suwet’en were never defeated in a war, never surrendered their lands and never entered into a treaty.” Hereditary chiefs have jurisdiction over traditional

territories, whereas elected chiefs and councils have authority on reserves. Elected band councils are an outcome of the 1876 Indian Act (and its precursors), enacted in part to destroy traditional governance systems and laws. Some see the hereditary systems through a colonial lens — as monarchy or divine right — but they’re much more representative and consensusbased than many realize. Now that actions have spread across the country, including blocking rail lines in the GTA, complaints about inconvenience and disruption are rife. But colonial society has been inconveniencing and disrupting Indigenous lives for hundreds of years. Now the RCMP, acting on behalf of extractive industries and government, are forcing the Wet’suwet’en off their own territory. All Canadians should learn about Indigenous history and culture. We’re in a climate crisis,

yet governments and industry are hell-bent on tearing up the landscape with fracking, oilsands mines, seismic lines, access roads and forestry to reap profits by selling it all to other countries. We need to realize that we have more to learn from Indigenous Peoples than they from us. Governments must work with Indigenous Peoples to resolve issues around rights and title where treaties haven’t been signed, and honour the treaties that have been. Until then, major resource projects that potentially infringe on these should be put on hold.

DAVID SUZUKI

David Suzuki is the host of the CBC’s The Nature of Things and author of more than 30 books on ecology (with files from Ian Hanington).

Identify the issues of contention and write down your concerns and fears

conversation difficult in the past. If he absolutely refuses to engage, I suggest you see a therapist or counsellor on your own (or together, if he’s up for it). Don’t let his refusal to seek help be an excuse for your refusal to do the same. That’s on you. You can’t control the way your partner responds, but you can control the manner in which you respond to his response. If you find yourself blaming him (exclusively), you likely need to step back and consider your role in his response. If you spoke differently, chose different words, approached in another way or waited for a more appropriate time, you might elicit a different — perhaps more favourable — response.

How three T.O. couples turned conflict into growth

Mohammed from Yorkville asks, “How can we cut back on the daily bickering that weighs down our relationship?”

Relationship rules and regulations on how to fight fairly How you engage in conflict can affect every facet of your relationship, from how you support one another during times of crisis to how you feel when you slide into bed at night. I receive questions about fighting almost daily. Here are a few from your neighbours along with my insights below. Queenie from the Beach asks, “How do we stop having the same fight over and over again?”

It happens to the best of us. Oftentimes we fight to relieve tension, jockey for power or prove a point. Rather than trying to win or be right, ask yourself these three questions: What am I hoping to get out of this argument? What am I willing to do to produce the desired outcome? What can my partner do to help? Focus on the second question before you even consider moving on to the third. If you are seeking a specific resolution, chances are you are the one who can bring it to fruition. We have a tendency to focus on what we want from others rather than ways we can change our own attitudes and behaviours. Begin the conversation by expressing your desired outcome and your commitment to change, and your partner will be more likely to listen and follow suit. Try writing down your answers in

advance, and you’ll likely see the tension dissipate and the frequency of conflict decline. Neema from Little Italy asks, “How do I deal with my boyfriend’s inclination to walk away every time I try to discuss contentious or difficult topics?”

If your partner tends to withdraw when difficult topics arise, be sensitive to his history and triggers. Conflict avoidance comes in many forms, and sometimes it is related to past experiences of trauma, abandonment, loss or anxiety. Others avoid conflict because they don’t have the tools to manage and respond to difficult emotions. Be mindful of the fact that withdrawal is not necessarily an indication of a lack of care or vested interest. Begin by clarifying why you want to have a specific discussion (e.g., to better understand him or to strengthen your relationship). Let him know you want to engage and give him the option to do so at another (specific) time and/or location. Consider what you can do to support his physical comfort knowing that his emotional comfort may be strained. Ask him why he doesn’t want to address a particular topic. Be straightforward and ask what you can do to make the conversation easier. Acknowledge missteps and apologize if you have made the

Sometimes smaller fights help stave off larger conflicts, but sometimes, we use them as a distraction to avoid having the tough conversations. Consider whether there are underlying issues you’ve been avoiding. Have you been sidestepping conversations about finances, in-laws or sex by bickering about smaller issues instead? Identify the issues of contention and write down your concerns and fears before discussing them with your partner. Alternatively, you might seek the support of a therapist — on your own or together — to help guide you through the difficult conversations. If you can’t identify any underlying issues of which bickering might be a symptom, I suggest you use the “99 Rule” to stave off daily bickering: Before you engage, ask yourself, “If I’m lucky enough to live to be 99 years old, will this still matter?” Chances are it won’t, so consider letting it go unless it represents a core value or essential issue. Got questions? Send them to editorial@postcity.com.

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Degrassi star on her new Netflix series Actor and screenwriter Sara Waisglass is excited for her role in Ginny & Georgia

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REPORT CARD STUDENT:

Sara Waisglass GRADUATED:

Earl Haig Secondary BEST SUBJECT:

Creative Writing WORST SUBJECT:

Attendance CURRENT JOB:

Actor & Screenwriter

When Sara Waisglass was in Earl Haig Secondary’s Claude Watson film program, she wasn’t just dreaming of an acting career — she already had one. Now with a handful of TV series already under her belt, she’s jumping into her next role on Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia, playing the character Maxine. “I rarely receive a script that makes me excited to audition. I get excited about the prospect of landing roles, and where those roles may take me, but I usually dread the audition room. Maxine was different,” Waisglass says. “She was so playful and so unafraid to take up the room.” Ginny & Georgia is a young adult drama about a mother, Georgia, and her daughter, Ginny, who have spent years on the run and are now looking to settle down. Waisglass says Ginny & Georgia has been a special experience because of how many

Waisglass played Frankie Hollingsworth on ‘Degrassi’ for six seasons

women are at the helm. Waisglass says it felt like a different world, one that gave her new female role models. “It’s safe, it’s creative, it’s collaborative. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more empowered on a set in my life.” But Waisglass credits her years

on the set of Degrassi for “setting the bar” for what she expected acting to be like. She played the role of Frankie Hollingsworth on the popular TV series for six seasons. “It changed the way I looked at acting and made me fall in love with it,” she says.

by Julia Mastroianni

Coming from a creative family also gave Waisglass the support she needed to pursue acting. She has a sister who sings, a father who plays the electric guitar and a mother who works with creatives in the film industry. “Arts were all around me, so when I started acting I was never met with doubt or tension — which is such a gift,” she says. Apart from her on-screen roles, Waisglass is studying screenwriting at York University, something she became interested in during her time at Earl Haig Secondary School. “High school is where I decided to professionally pursue writing, so that was the biggest takeaway for sure,” she says. Studying screenwriting has changed her approach to scripts; Waislgass says she focuses on the whole of it rather than just her character now. “It gives me a lot more to worry about but also gives me insight

into theme and what the writer is trying to say, and when I can put that into my acting. I think it gives me a leg up,” she explains. “I have an undying appreciation for crew and will never yawn in front of them again, because odds are whatever’s making me tired they’ve been doing six hours longer.” Her new role has also given her the opportunity to face her fear of improv. She recalls a moment on set for Ginny & Georgia, being asked by her director to improvise after a scene’s written end. “In that moment, the cameras legitimately disappeared and all I saw was Toni [Antonia Gentry who plays Ginny] and the two of us sat on the floor together, creating a scene out of thin air,” says Waisglass. “When he called cut I knew I had just done the thing that scared me most, and better yet, it worked.”

HOW THEY MET

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The proposal

Actor Michelle Nolden on meeting the man of her dreams and their epic proposal story Michelle Nolden, known for her roles in Republic of Doyle and Saving Hope, is gracing TV screens yet again in The Wedding Planners. The series follows three siblings who are left to take over their mother’s (Nolden) wedding planning business. With all that wedding talk in the air, we decided to find out the story behind Nolden’s nuptials to husband Chris Szarka. How they met

Michelle: We met at East Side Mario’s restaurant in Toronto where I was waitressing while studying at Ryerson University. Chris came in with a basketball teammate and ordered a lot of Italian wedding soup. I remember thinking he was very cute and funny, and I loved that he was so tall. We met again briefly in an elevator, and he asked if I still worked at East Side’s, I said yes. Shortly after, I went home to my parent’s house for the summer, and Chris left a note with a fellow waitress asking if I wanted to meet for coffee. She found the note in her purse

four months later, and when I returned in September, she gave it to me. I was pretty sure it was that cute tall guy, so I called the number on the note, and, luckily, he was still single. The first date

Michelle: We went to Jurassic Park at the cinemas at Market Square. We talked through the whole movie. He made me laugh — still does! Chris: After the film, we went to a cool little bar on Front Street called C’est What and played backgammon. The courtship

Michelle: We dated for five years before we married, and in that time I travelled the world. Six months into our courtship I got a sixmonth contract entertaining on a cruise ship. We wrote each other letters, and every Friday, when we docked in Miami, Chris would wait by the phone for the one-hour window that I had to call. No one had email then, or cellphones. We had voice recorders that we’d record messages to each other on and then send those in the mail.

The wedding

Michelle: We were married in Brantford at the Hungarian Hall because it was the only place that could hold all of our combined family. We knew we wanted good food, an open bar and lots of people, so in order to afford that, we made concessions on other parts. I wore my mother-in-law’s wedding dress. My veil was huge, but it was perfect, and if I had to do it all again at that time, I’d do it exactly the same way. We went to Barbados on our honeymoon. It was fantastic.

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The kids

Chris: Three boys who are our entire world, Alex, 13, Joseph, 10, and Michael, eight. Shared interests

Michelle: We started a film festival together called Lakeshorts International Film Festival. This year it will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. It’s a passion project for us both. And also our cottage and hobby farm, which we purchased two years ago. We’re pretty handy. The Wedding Planners airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on Citytv starting March 27.

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Chris Szarka, Michelle Nolden and their three boys

Chris: First I drove to Brantford to ask Michelle’s parents for their blessing. After bringing my parents into the loop, we invited all the Noldens and my whole family to my parents’ cottage. I planned something so big that it could only go wrong. The plan was to take Michelle on a midnight paddle boat ride and propose. After she said yes, I was going to flash the shore with a flashlight, and our family members would set off fireworks and blast “Ode to Joy” across the lake. What could go wrong? It was pitch black on the lake, and while paddling the canoe, a Jet Ski without its lights on was coming directly at us. I had to discreetly flash the Jet Ski with my flashlight and my mother yelled, “That’s the signal. Go!” Fireworks took to the sky and Michelle said, “They have fireworks, and they’re not waiting for us!” I then proposed as dozens of people ran to the floating dock to shoot off champagne and greet us, only to have the dock submerge. It was truly an epic night.

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ARTS

Art can help us think big during this great reset Laurie Brown’s Pondercast is just one of many helpful podcasts for this journey

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Laurie Brown is all about pondering, taking time to reflect and getting us inside our own heads through her podcast, aptly dubbed Pondercast. Seems fitting that hers is one of many insightful programs people will be turning to, not only to help get them through this troubling time, but also to think about what it means: the broader context of where we go from here. A Toronto native, Brown is a well-known broadcaster with roots that stretch back to the MuchMusic days when it was cool and relevant. Following a stint in journalism with Citytv and others, Brown found her music niche again, this time with CBC Radio where she developed the groundbreaking late-night show The Signal. Ten years later, Brown had done all she could to shine a light on the moody, obscure and wayoff-the-beaten-path tunes, and it was time for a change. “I really wanted some new

Toronto native Laurie Brown hosted CBC’s 'The Signal' for a decade before 'Pondercast'

challenge, something I hadn’t done before,” Brown says, over the Internet from a tiny British village in which she was holed up waiting out the COVID-19 situation. “I wanted to talk about the kind of thoughts we all have

but we usually don’t say out loud,” she says. “Our private fears and anxieties that, when we think them to ourselves, we think, ‘Oh that’s nuts.’ ” Enter Pondercast. For the show, she partnered with Toronto

by Ron Johnson

electronic musician Joshua Van Tassel who creates gorgeous sonic landscapes upon which Brown’s deep thoughts and journeys tread. Ty Johnston handles the design and look of the show. Pondercast combines deep thoughts, insight and lush soundscapes, as well as music from other artists who fit the mood. It’s insightful, uplifting and just what people need right about now, partly thanks to Brown’s innate curiosity regarding people and their inner monologues. “You know, it [my curiosity] is a well that has never run dry for me. It’s held me in such good stead in everything I’ve done,” she says. “I wish I knew where it came from, I don’t know but it leads me to all the best, fantastic things in life.” But she also likes to balance the natural world with science, and that is reflected in the show. “When I can have one foot firmly planted in the natural world and another in the science

A Simple Space

Iron Peggy Peggy

Sky Dancers: Bridges

Gravity & Other Myths / Australia

Co-produced ed by V Vancouv ancouver International Children’s Festival and Boca del Lupo in association with R Red ed D Diva Projects / British Columbia

A’nó ’nó:wara Dance Theatre / Montreal (Kahnawake)

world and be the human in between, I think that gives me a picture and a headspace that feels like sanity,” she says. “Particularly in nature, I need to have a big part of my headspace there, which is a zoom-out effect, right, from the little fixations and anxieties. It says, wait a minute, open the barn doors and let us look at the bigger picture, and your anxiety shifts when that happens.” In our current situation, there is no end to the anxiety, but there is also an opportunity, Brown says to slow down, to rethink and to renew. “I think this is an unbelievable opportunity. It’s like, do you notice, even on social media, the trivial seems to have fallen away,” she says. “It’s a giant reset moment for people to remember what really is important to them. It’s a huge opportunity. I’m kind of holding my breath. I’m really hopeful there will be major changes in the right direction because of this.”

A Story y of a House That Turned d iinto a Dot Teatret Gruppe 38 / Denmark

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MUSIC

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formed. I love that it doesn’t overexplain itself. The protagonist, ostensibly Caesar, has fallen for an exotic dancer and believes that she loves him. I mean, she doesn’t. “You make me feel so primal and, that’s what I am, I’m just a man,” he says. I remember that feeling in my 20s. Some sense that I had discovered the plain simplicity of my sexuality and, therefore, my life. I know now, of course, that nothing is that uncomplicated, and much of this song’s conceit is, at its core, rotten, but the melodies are foreboding enough that we sense Caesar knows that. The truth is hanging above it all, like a nightclub just before the fluorescent lights get flipped on. Nikki Yanofsky: “Gold In Them Hills,” by Ron Sexsmith

Fave local musicians on the music that made a difference to them Charlotte Cornfield: “Sailing Away,” by Jennifer Castle

Every time I listen to this song, it conjures up all of these emotions and memories about coming and going from Toronto — moving away, moving back, passing through. That first line, “Here I go down memory lane, I’m always sinking with the ship that way,” just kills me. It’s that thing of, “Oh, here we go with the nostalgia again, but it's still gripping me, and it's still just as potent as ever.” I grew up around Ossington and Davenport and have since moved back to that neighbourhood, and the record cover for Pink City, the album that this song is on, is a photo of Joe’s Convenience at the corner of Ossington and Dupont. There’s this geographical resonance. Jennifer is a local legend, and she’s inspired so many of us. That’s why this song matters to me.

for 15 years, orbiting and comforting each other throughout many moves, heartbreaks and coming to terms of what the new digital era has had in store for us. I remember JR playing this song at the Cameron House, in my back garden and on main stages across the country, but it's always felt relevant. I played on that record. I still live in Parkdale, and so much has changed, but it still feels like a gentle insistent anthem. Devon Richardson of Jane’s Party: “Mushaboom,” by Feist

Every song on the album seems to be an outlier, and “Anew Day” is no exception: an upbeat gospel tune with a vocal melody that constantly skirts and defies expectation. Mary’s beautiful drawl makes the exact lyrics less important than the overall impression of sadness, resilience and rebirth she conveys. While the album is a meaningful time capsule for the Toronto music community of the ’80s and ’90s, its genre-less and unfettered quality is embedded in the DNA of Toronto’s current scene. Born Ruffians: “Shine a Light,” by The Constantines

Back in the day, Tara Chase was one of my favourite Canadian MCs (no matter the gender). She’s a poet with a flow that can propel you into a nostalgic state, especially on this song. It’s the kind of hip hop you prefer to chill out to at home. The music video is dope too.

I can’t remember where I first heard the song “Mushaboom,” by Feist off her 2004 album Let it Die … definitely not in 2004, as I was still living in Europe going to high school. But I can tell you once I turned 30 and came across the song again (probably from my girlfriend playing it non-stop), I really started to notice the lyrics. Rarely has a song spoken, so specifically, to the exact situation I find myself in. She talks about how one day she hopes to be able to escape the city for a little slice of land in the woods to call her own. Maybe it’s wishful thinking … but, for now, “Mushaboom” creates a world where I can escape to the woods for at least three minutes and 44 seconds of bliss.

Miranda Mulholland: “St. Peter,” by Justin Rutledge

Luka Kuplowsky: “Anew Day,” by Mary Margaret O'Hara

Donovan Woods: “Who Hurt You?,” by Daniel Caesar

One of my favourite Toronto artist picks for now and forever is my friend Justin Rutledge. We’ve been pals and neighbours

Mary Margaret O’Hara’s 1989 cult classic Miss America is an album of spastic energy, graceful balladry and limitless groove.

A song by a born-and-raised Toronto artist that mentions Caribana. I’ve been obsessed with it since it came out. I love how it’s

Odario Williams: “The Northside,” by Tara Chase

When we moved to Toronto to try to make it as a band, we would go and see the Constantines every chance we got. They were the best live band we had ever seen, and we wanted so badly to understand and be a part of their magic, and thankfully, they were playing a lot of shows in Toronto at the time. “Shine a Light” was such a highlight at every show because the band would all raise their hands high in the air until everyone in the room was also raising theirs. It wasn’t like a “Hey put your hands up everybody!” moment at all. It was more like they were possessed, using their superpowers to get the entire room to follow them. And we did.

Spokesperson for the collective Pantayo: “Balikbayan,” by Ohbijou

Ohbijou was around when my family first moved to Canada in the mid-2000s. “Balikbayan” also came out around the time when we started learning kulintang pieces together as Pantayo. So to me, both Ohbijou and “Balikbayan” are specific markers of time and place during a transformative chapter of life. To see a Canadian band fronted by a person who looks like us was encouraging in the beginning stages of forming as a group. And to know that a song like “Balikbayan,” an ode to diasporic Filipinos, can be played on Canadian airwaves paved the way for artists like us to be able to have our identities also be part of our art making. It's very Toronto to have a complicated relationship with and connections to ideas of home. Mister Nobu, of Choir! Choir! Choir!: “I Gotta Plan (for Saturday Night),” by The Deadly Snakes

The Deadly Snakes are one of the most kick-ass bands to ever come out of deep Toronto. Rock ’n’ roll to the core, soulful as all get out, raw and immediate, the Snakes’ chaotic and stripped-down style brought a wild party that you could get lost in. All of their records are required listening, but Love Undone, their first full length, is my first love. It’s tough to choose one song, but “I Gotta Plan (for Saturday Night)” is a good start. Turn it up, dance your ass off and imagine a Toronto before the condos took over. Just imagine. To listen to all our Toronto Songs That Matter including even more we didn’t have room to include, go to our YouTube playlist here: trnto.link/TO-songs

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Our Toronto playlist of songs that matter now

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Clockwise from left: CBC radio host and musician Odario Williams, Donovan Woods and Charlotte Cornfield

I love the contrast of the super-clean production, instrumentation and melody against his amazing and unique voice. This song gives me the shivers each time I put it on. Ron has so much character and emotion when he sings. “Though our troubles seem like mountains, there’s gold in them hills”.... This song is all about the beauty in the struggle, which is something a lot of people can relate to, especially as I write this. Ron’s penned some of my favourite lyrics of all time. It was hard to choose just one song of his for this article. He is a true poet.

T.O.’S TOP PROFESSIONALS DIFFICULT TIMES AND YOUR WILL Wills made today actually speak from the date of your death. With our explosive markets, assets and debts you had yesterday may not be the same today or the next or even next year. That will apply also when you die. They may be more or less and some assets may not even exist at all. It is common for people when creating a Will to want to tailor it to assets you have now. For example, you have a house worth $1,200,000.00, $1,000,000.00 in investments which are bouncing up, down and sideways, household furnishings and a car. You provide a lawyer with instructions that you want to leave $10,000.00 to each grandchild (there are 10), $25,000.00 to 5 charities and $100,000.00 to one of your children. You then leave the remainder (or residue of your estate as it is called) to your spouse or children or both. Well that’s fine for today. Maybe you have enough money if you die tomorrow for the Estate Trustee to pay your debts, your funeral expenses, income tax, cash legacies and residue. But as life goes on and you sell your house, you spend significant money on health care costs or just on

your own personal enjoyment, your assets dwindle. Some people guided by the provisions in their Will don’t live their lives fully afraid to spend their money because of it. Others could care less and spend it all. You forget to update your Will which is now clearly outdated. You die. There may not be enough left to pay for all those cash legacies, your funeral expenses, debts and income tax and certainly nothing is left for your spouse or children. So, you should review your Will at least every 5 years. Pull out your list of assets and debts with current values. Look at the economic climate and ask yourself: Does everything that I said in my existing Will make sense now. If not, do a new one. This applies no matter how old you are.

Mary Anne Shaw, B.A., LL.B.

BIO Mary Anne Shaw is an established lawyer whose law practice focuses on Wills and Estates, Residential Real Estate and Family Law. Mary Anne Shaw is very active in the community, and has served on many boards and foundations in the not-for-profit arts and health sectors. She provides personal service and practical solutions.

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Toronto, Ontario, M4T 3A7 Tel: 416-968-0096

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WHY YOUR PARENT’S CARE SHOULD BE MANAGED BY A NURSE

Lisa Wiseman

BIO Lisa Wiseman is the President and founder of Eldercare Home Health Inc. Lisa is Gerontological Nurse Certified (Canada) GNC(C) through the Canadian Nurses Association. Eldercare Home Health has been providing PSW care that is actively case managed by Nurses, to Seniors in Toronto for over 24 years. Call for a no-charge assessment by a Registered Nurse.

Your mom is finally going back home, but the hospital’s saying she’s going to need help. Now what? How do you find the right home health care provider? If your parent is in the hospital or is being discharged from the hospital, has Parkinson’s, dementia or has had a stroke, or is taking medications, it’s important that the care they receive is supervised and case managed by a Registered Nurse, or Registered Practical Nurse. PSW (Personal Support Worker) caregivers are key team members in the provision of care, but they do not have the education or credentials to manage your parent’s more complex care needs. It’s important that an experienced, qualified Nurse be available day or night, weekends and holidays to answer any questions from, and provide direction to, the PSW caregivers who are providing the hands-on care to your parent. It’s especially important that a Nurse be available should your parent’s health status unexpectedly change. The Nurse can determine and implement the correct course of action. Nurses understand the difference from both a process point of view, and medically, between what

is happening and what should be happening. They see the big picture, including the impact of different medications, treatment options and therapies, and can help advocate for your parent on a professional level. Having Nurse case managers who are actively involved in your parent’s care means that potential medical issues can be recognized sooner and action can be taken proactively, avoiding trips to the hospital. Nurses can help dramatically and positively impact your parent’s overall health and wellbeing, and recovery from illness and surgery. Hiring a home health care company that provides PSW care that is actively case managed by Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses is probably the single most impactful decision you can make when arranging care for your elderly parent.

CONTACT 234 Eglinton Ave. East, Suite 207, Toronto Phone: 647-792-4036

www.eldercarehomehealth.com/postcity wiseman@eldercarehomehealth.com

T.O.’S TOP PROFESSIONALS YOUR JEWELLERY… HOW TO VALUE YOUR VALUABLES

Colette Avital G.G., F.G.A.

BIO Colette Avital G.G., F.G.A. is a graduate of the Gemmological Institute of America (GIA) and the Gemmological Association and Gem Testing Laboratory of Great Britain. She is the owner of Fine Jewellery by Colette, a boutique that offers fine jewellery, custom designs, repairs, appraisals and other services. With over 30 years experience her priority is providing a positive jewellery experience.

Appraisals are a wonderful way to keep your jewellery documented and organized, but how should you know what pieces are valuable enough to have appraised? And what should an appraisal include? Typically, appraisals are written for items that are valued over $1000 to $1500, depending on the amount of your insurance deductible. Ask your appraiser to advise you on which pieces of jewellery in your collection warrant fully described certificates. Appraisal certificates are legal documents, produced by a trained appraiser who either has experience in jewellery retail pricing and evaluations or has Appraiser accreditation. Appraisals are not sales receipts with brief descriptions nor are they verbal descriptions. These documents are typed on proper certificate form stating the purpose of either retail, fair market or wholesale replacement values. The function of an appraisal is usually for Insurance coverage, Estate settlements, or simply to have documentation. Appraisals should indicate precious metal market prices, provenance, circa dates or any special features. Stones and diamonds are typically graded using the internationally recognized GIA grading system. A precise description in the body of your appraisal includes who the manufacturers or

trademarks are, what metals are used, whether the item was casted, assembled or die struck. All signed certificates are sealed with the appraiser’s credentials. Be sure to read any limiting conditions noted in the disclaimer. Appraisal values fluctuate according to market prices, it is advisable to update appraisals every 3-5 years. When setting up your appraisal appointment you need time to discuss all your appraisal options, be sure to mention how many pieces you are bringing and if you have old documentation, this will help to reference any laboratory reports or designer brands. Having a positive jewellery appraisal experience means finding an appraiser that you feel comfortable with. Your jewellery collection is your private story. It carries the sentiment, the legacy and the family history that belongs to you and no value on paper can equal that. Being responsible for making sure your jewellery is in good repair and sufficiently appraised is up to you. Book your appointment and give yourself peace of mind.

CONTACT Fine Jewellery by Colette 928 Eglinton Avenue West

416-787-9302 finejewellerybycolette.com

FAMILY AND STUDENT ADVOCACY IN EDUCATION

Dr. Marinic-Jaffer holds a Master’s Degree in Special Education, Adaptive Instruction, a Doctorate in Education and is a member of the Law Society of Ontario. Her practice focuses on advocacy for student accommodation and accessibility rights. She has worked in this area for over 30 years and currently provides mobile service throughout Ontario to meet student advocacy needs.

SPRING 2020

BIO

particularly overwhelming for parents and students. The voice of independent advocacy effectively ensures parent and student voices are heard within this process What is an Individual Education Plan? Subsequent to this procedure, the formation of an Individual Education Plan sets out to determine a student’s learner profile, as well as required programs and services to delivery instruction. It presents an opportunity for parental input, and is a process that is aided by the presence of advocacy, particularly where there is divergence between parental view of required supports and programs and a diverse view held by the administration. While changes in accommodation needs, programming and service-related needs continue to transform over the course of a student’s academic life, advocacy for families and students is a consistent service that aims at accountability and meeting individual student needs on a daily basis in the educational environment.

CONTACT 300 Supertest Rd. Unit #1 Toronto, Ontario

416-700-0954 franmariniclaw.com

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Dr. Fran Marinic-Jaffer, Hons. B.A., M.A., M.Ed., Ed.D., J.D., Barrister and Solicitor

All families have the right to ensure that their children are provided with individual supports that help them to access the same curriculum as their peers. All students have the right to ensure access to programs and services that help them meet their individual disability related needs. Family and student advocacy are essential elements in assuring that students with disabilities are provided with appropriate accommodations to meet their individual needs in the context of inclusive education. Parent and student voices are often muted in the context of professional discourse to the detriment of family involvement and to the detriment of meeting student needs. What is an IPRC? The IPRC process (Identification, Placement and Review Committee) provides for the identification of disability and the subsequent placement of students into appropriate class settings, with the regular class as the preferred instructional context. This depends on parental wishes and committee agreement that such placement best meets a particular student’s needs. This often gives rise to conflict as parental choice and administrative advisement can hold opposing views as to which placement is in the best interest of the student. This process can be

T.O.’S TOP PROFESSIONALS UPCOMING CHANGES TO THE DIVORCE ACT The Divorce Act is the federal Act that governs divorce in Canada. It first came into effect on June 1, 1986. In 2020 Bill C-17, “An Act to Amend the Divorce Act and Related Legislation” will come into force, bringing significant change to the Divorce Act, and how family law is practiced in Canada.

Cheryl Goldhart – Expert Family Law Lawyer, Mediator and Arbitrator

BIO Cheryl Goldhart is a certified specialist in Family Law with over 30 years of experience practicing exclusively in the field. She specializes in complex, high conflict and high net worth cases. She is an accomplished lawyer, OAFM accredited family law mediator and a certified family law arbitrator by the ADR Institute of Ontario.

The “best interests of the child” is a foundational legal principle within family law – it tells the Court and litigants that it is the best interests of the child, and not the parents, that is of utmost importance. The new Divorce Act will specifically identify a non-exhaustive list of criteria that Courts may consider when making orders related to children. These criteria will include (i) the child’s needs, given the child’s age and stage of development, such as the child’s need for stability, (ii) the nature and strength of the child’s relationship with each spouse, each of the child’s siblings and grandparents, and any other person who plays an important role in the child’s life, (iii) each spouse’s willingness to support the development and maintenance of the child’s relationship with the other spouse, (iv) the ability and willingness of each parent to communicate and cooperate, in particular with one another, on matters affecting the child; (iv) any family violence.

The new Divorce Act will also replace terms that are now seen as outdated. “Custody” and “access” will be replaced with “decision-making responsibility” and “parenting time”, respectively. This change will focus these issues on the best interests of the child, rather than a parent’s perceived “success” or “failure” in obtaining a specific outcome. The new Act also expands the framework for consideration of a parent’s request to relocate a child, a broader consideration of the impact of family violence, and it imposes duties for parties and legal advisors to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Individuals navigating a separation and/or divorce must familiarize themselves with these changes to the Divorce Act in order to ensure they can achieve the best possible result for themselves and their families.

CONTACT Goldhart & Associates 20 Eglinton Ave. W. Suite 1305

416-967-6111 www.goldhartlaw.com

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DENTAL IMPLANTS ONE VISIT PORCELAIN CROWNS

Dr. Edwin Lewandowski & Dr. Elvira (Ella) Mostyn

BIO Dr. Lewandowski is a graduate of New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry. He has worked as an instructor at the NYU Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto Faculty of Dentistry as well as in a hospital based dental clinic. Dr. Mostyn obtained her dental degree from The Faculty of Dentistry at James Cook University, Australia.

• Do you wear dentures? Many people over the age of 65 use some form of removable denture. While the majority of dentures fit well, some always move, lift and cause discomfort. These people may choose not to wear them. This may lead to difficulty chewing and lack of confidence in social interactions. There is also a strong link between overall good health and proper oral care. • Dental implants can help. Dental implants can restore comfort and confidence and help people love their dentures again. A dental implant has two parts: a metal root that is secured to the jaw bone and an abutment. The abutment is a specifically-made part that will securely anchor your denture in place preventing movement. Implants are so versatile that they can replace a single tooth or a bridge, eliminate the need for a removable partial denture or even secure complete full-mouth dentures. Implants are safe and have a proven track record for long-term success. When using implants to replace a single tooth, neighbouring teeth do not need to be used as anchors for the replacement making it a very conservative choice in many cases. Dental implants do not require any special care other than routine dental visits. Age is not a factor in the success of dental implants. Most people in good

health are excellent candidates. • Do you have broken or missing teeth? One Visit Porcelain Crowns may be right for you. A full or partial crown is used to replace or strengthen a broken tooth. When a tooth is filled multiple times throughout a patient’s life, the critical tooth structure necessary for the tooth to be strong and function well may be lost. Many of these teeth break and require restoring. Options usually include very large fillings or crowns. Fillings fit inside the tooth and require original tooth structure to hold it all together. If part or all of the original tooth has been lost, then a full coverage crown may be a better option. There are many different materials and methods that may be used to make full coverage crowns. With digital technology, we can make a direct 3D image of the broken tooth from the patient’s mouth, design the new tooth (crown) on the computer chairside and have the new tooth made in the office. These crowns are beautiful, strong and functional and are permanently placed in the patient’s mouth in one visit. Amazing technology!

Thornhill Dental

CONTACT Dr. Edwin Lewandowski and Associates 1200 Centre St., Suite 101 Thornhill, ON

905-762-0122 www.thornhilldental.com

T.O.’S TOP PROFESSIONALS WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT

1 in 9 food poisonings lead to post-infectiouus IBS

A NEW TEST FOR IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME Why IBS isn’t in your head & the new test that can prove it! Canada has one of the highest rates of IBS in the world – 18% versus 11% globally. On average it takes four years for a patient to receive a definitive diagnosis of IBS. 45% of the direct costs of treatment are due to diagnostic tests, because there has never been a single test to diagnose IBS and it was considered a diagnosis of exclusion. That meant patients had to undergo myriad tests to ensure their gut troubles weren’t more serious conditions like Chron’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Celiac Disease or cancer. Moreover, for a long time, IBS was even thought to be a psychological

disease, often dismissed by doctors because there was no “physical evidence”, such as bleeding, growths or obstructions. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the first standardized criteria to diagnose the condition were established. And yet, even those criteria only reflected a collection of symptoms and signs. This relegated IBS to being just a “syndrome”, not an actual disease with a pathological origin. However, thanks to a leading research lab at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, it was found that 1 in 9 food poisonings lead to IBS and as many as 60%

CONTACT Independent Financial Concepts Group www.ifcg.com

of patients with diarrheal IBS symptoms (either IBS-diarrhea [IBS-D] or IBS-mixed [IBS-M]) could be suffering from post-infectious IBS (PI-IBS). PI-IBS is caused by food poisoning, or other gut infections like gastroenteritis, resulting in an autoimmune reaction. Common bacteria that cause food poisoning or gastroenteritis release a toxin called Cytolethal Distending toxin B (CdtB). In response, the immune system mounts a reaction to this toxin creating antibodies called anti-CdtB. This triggers an autoimmune reaction in which antibodies to a protein called vinculin are generated. These anti-vinculin antibodies attack a major part of the small intestine that regulates normal gut motion, called the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC). This dysregulation in gut motility results in the common signs of IBS and can also lead to Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). SIBO is a condition in which bacteria that normally live in the gastrointestinal tract have abnormally overgrown in a location not meant for so many bacteria. This happens due to the damage to the MMC thanks to these antibodies, leading to the loss of the normal sweeping action that moves these bacteria, and food, down our digestive tract. The excess bacteria interfere with our normal digestion and absorption of food, damage the lining of the small intestine and feed on our food to create excess gas. SIBO and IBS have been linked in research studies, with as many as 50-85% of IBS sufferers being diagnosed with SIBO. This connection was hypothesized to reflect the autoimmune reaction, but until now, it couldn’t be tested. Now, thanks to the understanding of this

416-484-1011 | jbongard@ifcg.com 416-849-1341 | mbongard@ifcg.com

immune reaction, a new lab test, called ibs-smart™, can measure these antibodies in the blood, finally allowing for a definitive diagnosis of IBS as an organic disease, with a true pathological origin. This test is incredibly useful to determine if the underlying cause of IBS and/or SIBO is due to PI-IBS. This not only allows for a better understanding regarding suitable treatment, but it can bring peace of mind to patients who have felt dismissed, discouraged and defeated about their IBS. Now, they know it’s not in their heads.

Dr. Quinn Hand, ND

Dr. Quinn Hand, ND is a naturopathic doctor with clinical interests in digestion, stress, hormones – and their interactions. She has been treating complex digestive issues for nearly 10 years.

Q Wellness 124 Merton St. Suite 405 416-485-9000 www.qwellness.ca Email: info@qwellness.ca

SPRING 2020

BIO Involved in the financial industry since the late 1970s, Jaymie co-founded Independent Financial Concepts Group (IFCG) in 1995 and belongs to Top of the Table, which accepts fewer than 1% of financial planning professionals worldwide. A graduate of Western University, Madison joined IFCG in 2014. Together, they support clients with tax-advantaged wealth accumulation and preservation strategies.

with a future income; • Significant downside protection in the event of death with immediate liquidity that can be used to finance estate tax liabilities, provide funds for charitable endeavours or equalize estate assets for your children and grandchildren; • The ability to create a significant capital dividend account, which would enable your heirs to access corporate capital in a tax-free manner in the future. In conclusion, the strategy of using whole life insurance as an alternative investment involves repositioning a portion of corporate dollars into a permanent life insurance contract. Structured correctly the strategy minimizes the capital gains triggered upon death and takes advantage of the Capital Dividend Account to pay a tax-free dividend to the shareholders/beneficiaries. Funds contributed to the strategy grow free from tax and are accessible during one’s lifetime.

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Madison Bongard and Jaymie Bongard

If only we had a crystal ball. We would know the best time to put money in the stock market, when interest rates will rise, when death or injury would occur; or on a lighter note, pick next week’s winning lottery numbers. Unfortunately, there isn’t such a thing as a crystal ball. However there is the ability to help people look at their finances differently and perhaps look at alternative investment options based on our current economic environment. Recently there has been an opportunity to make use of life insurance as an alternative asset class. This is an excellent strategy for business owners who accumulate retained earnings within their corporations. This type of planning is particularly attractive to individuals, who would be characterized as having a low risk tolerance and don’t want to risk their capital; who are interested in increasing the value of their estate that would pass on to their children. The meaningful benefits of whole life insurance are: • The ability to increase your rate of return significantly on cash, near cash and a portion of your fixed income portfolio over a long period of time; • The ability to access your equity in a tax effective manner if the invested capital is required for other investment opportunities to provide you

We’re W e’re back a and nd b better etter ever! tthan han e ev ve v r! Your Y o our lo local cal M McDonald’ cDonald’s® a att 710 710 St. St. Clair Clair Ave. Av A ve. W. W. h has as renovated renovated a and nd iiss no now w rre-opened. e-opened.

DANIEL PUSTIL

TOP 1% REALTOR IN TORONTO Dollar Sales

Salesperson, Vice-President, Partner

Office: 416.944.1818 | 192 Davenport Road | Direct: 416.565.4001 | dpustil@trebnet.com

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Wash. Your. Hands.

THEN USE ME.

Food SECTION

Clockwise from top left: Famiglia Baldassarre, Adamson BBQ, Favorites Thai BBQ, PG Clucks

son. Buy takeout, pick up a gift card to use later, grab merch from spots that sell it and keep an eye out for petitions and relief funds aimed at assisting local restaurants. The beauty of food is that it brings people together, so letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s allow it to bring us together now to help the restaurant industry when it needs us the most.

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The COVID-19 outbreak has forced the restaurant industry to get creative about how to reach customers. Many eateries, some of which have never offered food to go before, are switching to takeout and delivery in an effort to keep their doors open. Although almost all of us are feeling the cash crunch right now, the restaurant industry needs our support during this difficult sea-

SPRING 2020

How to support your favourite local restaurant now

COMING SOON

ON McCAUL JUST SOUTH OF COLLEGE IN THE HEART OF THE HEALTH SCIENCES DISTRICT from the low 600â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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DEVELOPED BY

EXCLUSIVE REALTOR

www.thebreadcompanytoronto.ca

TASTE TEST

FOOD

WHICH CARROT TOPS? If the Easter bunny had a favourite cake, we’d be willing to bet it’s carrot. In honour of the holiday, Mark McEwan puts everyone’s favourite vegetable-based cake to the test.

BAKERBOTS

PHIPPS DESSERTS

BOBBETTE & BELLE

THE ROLLING PIN

GRODZINSKI’S

HARBORD BAKERY

“I could eat the whole thing,” said McEwan, adding that this winning cake scored big in all categories. His firstchoice cake nailed the key elements with its excellent icing, flavourful cake base and lovely, flower-like presentation. 205 Delaware Ave., $32 for six-inch

McEwan felt that this cake was slightly overbaked and tasted a bit dry as a result. He added, however, that the icing and spices were on point for a classic carrot cake, and so he chose it as his runner-up. 1875 Leslie St., Unit 21, $30.95 for eight-inch

McEwan praised the texture, flavour and presentation of this cake. He mentioned that the icing tasted more like a buttercream than the classic cream cheese, and therefore felt that this cake missed the mark slightly as quintessential carrot cake. 3347 Yonge St., $55 for six-inch

McEwan complimented the beautiful presentation of this cake. He felt it couldn’t win the competition, however, because it didn’t taste like a traditional carrot cake. “If you were to close your eyes, you wouldn’t detect it to be carrot cake,” said McEwan. 1970 Avenue Rd., $50 for 10-inch

McEwan said that this cake’s actual flavour wasn’t nearly as pronounced as its bold, colourful frosting might suggest. Although he said the taste could use more punch, McEwan noted that its texture was pleasantly moist and tender. 1118 Centre St, Unit 3, $25 for eight-inch

McEwan said this cake had “very good icing,” as well as nice texture and flavour. The cake lost points for presentation, however, with McEwan mentioning that it looked too plain and the frosting wasn’t neatly decorated. 115 Harbord St., $22.80 for seven-inch

SPRING 2020

RUNNER-UP

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WINNER

LOCAL SHOPS & SERVICES

Owner: Alison Currie

Centre Director: Emma Bisnaire

Dr Martie Gidon MD FRCPC FAAD

THE CASHMERE SHOP

MATHNASIUM OF LEASIDE

GIDON AESTHETICS & MEDISPA

24 BELLAIR STREET • 416 925 0831 www.thecashmereshop.com

856 MILLWOOD ROAD • 647 924 MATH (6284) www.mathnasium.ca/leaside

1849 YONGE STREET, SUITE 307 • 416 483 4541 www.gidonaesthetics.com

What’s going to be hot this spring? We love Spring at The Cashmere Shop! The return of colour, stripes and florals. We’ve got some absolutely gorgeous stripes in a cashmere/silk blend, fun nautical cashmere that features anchors, tie die cashmere, abstract floral cashmere/ silk wraps and the most perfect bridesmaid gift, our 100% cashmere wraps.

Describe your team: I work with an incredible group of people! Our fantastic team of instructors is undoubtedly the driving force of the centre. Our smaller team enables the instructors to work multiple days a week, so they really get to know all the students personally, ultimately leading to a great working dynamic.

What’s going to be hot this spring? New lines/trends etc. Body contouring with focused ultrasound will be very popular this spring in preparation for summer. It is a painless, non-surgical reduction of stubborn fat deposits with no downtime. Three treatments, 2 weeks apart are recommended.

How long have you been in business? We’ve been in business for 27 years and are the original specialty shop for cashmere in Canada. Founder Alaster Currie began our company as a mail order in 1993 and we grew into a retail boutique a couple years later. In 2003 I took over and I’ve run and owned the company ever since. That same year, I introduced our custom design cashmere.

What has been your proudest moment in business? If I had to choose one, I would say I always feel a deep sense of pride when I hear students begging their parents to stay longer, even though they've just completed a whole hour of math! You really can't believe it until you've seen it.

What makes your business unique? We’re unique in that most of our cashmere is exclusively made for us. We pride ourselves on quality, style and customer service. Our cashmere is classic and timeless with a twist. In 2003, I introduced custom designed cashmere. This is one of my favourite parts of our business, where you can design your own cashmere sweater, hat, scarf -you name it!

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Describe your business in 5 words: Timeless. Contemporary. Quality. Consistent. Family.

24 Bellair Street 416.925.0831 www.THECASHMERESHOP.com

What’s your secret to success? Our customized learning plans! Mathnasium has developed very detailed and comprehensive assessments, which allow us to get a true sense of a student's retained and working knowledge. Using those results, we are able to create tailored learning plans that build on their individual strengths and develop areas of weakness. What is the greatest advice you have ever received? If you think you can’t achieve something, it just means you haven’t figured out a way that works for you yet!

Transform Your Child’s Summer!

Did you know that kids can actually lose math skills while school is out? Studies have shown that students can regress by up to two and a half months over the summer — a phenomenon known as “the summer slide.” At Mathnasium, we prevent the summer slide, give kids an edge for the next school year, and we make it fun! Keep your child from sliding backward this summer.

Changing Lives Through Math

What’s new for your business for 2020? Do you have a new feature/item/service or have you recently renovated? We are pairing radio frequency microneedling with specialized serums tailored to our clients' concerns. This combination treatment results in smooth, radiant skin with a youthful glow. What makes your business unique? As a Cosmetic Dermatologist, I have extensive experience with lasers and injectables. I understand all aspects concerning skin and can create individualized treatment programs utilizing scientifically proven effective procedures and products. I strive to give my patients the best possible results in a safe, caring environment. Why did you choose to go into your industry? Cosmetic Dermatology allows me to combine my artistic skills and in-depth knowledge of skin to enhance natural beauty, make patients happy and improve their self-confidence.

SPECIALIZES IN AGING & SUN-DAMAGE TIRED OR ANGRY EXPRESSION LOOSE & SAGGY SKIN LINES & WRINKLES BROWN SPOTS & FACIAL VEINS ACNE & ROSACEA STUBBORN FAT DEPOSITS

™

Mathnasium of Leaside

647-924-MATH (6284)

www.mathnasium.ca/leaside 856 Millwood Road Toronto, ON M4G 1W6

To book a consultation please call: 416.483.4541 www.GidonAesthetics.com 1849 Yonge St., Suite 307, Toronto

RESTORONTO

FOOD

NEW TAKEOUT AND DELIVERY 10 great restos that have started offering takeout and delivery options

ALOETTE Patrick Kriss’s restaurant offers a full menu on Ritual and Uber Eats. Image: @416foodguru

elm street deli le phenix Call in orders for French-bistro takeout and delivery.

Clockwise from left: Chicken and waffles at the Heartbreak Chef, Spaccio’s retail section, and the Tommy Gunn Sandwich at Elm Street Deli.

coppi

This is a strange and challenging month for restaurant openings. Although we don’t know when dining out will return to our lives, we’re giving love to newly opened restaurants you can still try using takeout or delivery. We’re also sharing restaurants slated to open soon, so you can build your must-try list for when we return to restaurant tables. big opens BLACK TULIP RESTAURANT

(807 St. Clair Ave. W.) is now offering family-style Hungarian cuisine in Wychwood. Expect classic dishes like schnitzel and goulash, along with a handful of crowd-pleasing eats like burgers and pasta. Black Tulip is currently offering pickup and delivery through Uber Eats. The Cherry Street Bar-B-Que team brings a throwback sandwich shop to Yonge and Dundas with ELM STREET DELI (15 Elm St.). Meats, sauces and footlong-style bread are all made inhouse at this tiny deli. A window-facing ledge is typically

the only dine-in spot at this primarily take-away joint. For now, Elm Street is sticking to exclusively grab-and-go sandwiches. Terroni has opened a massive commissary in Corktown that serves as a production facility for its mini-empire of restaurants, as well as an eatery and storefront. SPACCIO (22 Sackville St.) serves ready-made sandwiches, salads, Roman-style pizzas and rotating daily pasta dishes. A retail section sells pantry items like pasta sauce and olive oil. Although the dine-in area is temporarily closed, customers can still stop in for grocery items as well as prepared foods to take home. Parkdale’s THE HEARTBREAK CHEF (1316 Queen St. W.) has you covered for comfort food. Chef Jerome Robinson has been bringing stacked sandwiches and other indulgent eats to Toronto for years through catering and food festivals, but we can now tuck into his belly-busting cuisine full-time with the opening of his brick and mortar spot. The brief

menu features loaded sandwiches like fried chicken and mac and cheese, as well as sides like Cajun fries and crispy brussels sprouts. The Heartbreak Chef usually has a small dine-in area, but for now it’s doing delivery and takeout. coming soon Much-loved Montreal salad chain MANDY’S is coming to Yorkville. The cheery health food restaurants are known for their wide selection of creative salads, which include build-your-own options as well as soups and power bowls. Sisters and co-owners Mandy and Rebecca Wolfe announced their Toronto expansion via Instagram, with the opening date and exact location yet to be revealed. Cosy Dundas West pub the Commoner is set to open a sister spot called THE COMMONER BAR ROOM (614 College St.) in Little Italy. The new location will focus on casual sharing plates and bar snacks, along with cocktails and wine.

Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality (O&B) will soon open a new downtown restaurant in the old SpeakEasy 21 space at 21 Adelaide St. W. Slated to open this spring or summer, THE RABBIT HOLE PUB & DINING ROOM

promises to be a relaxed gastropub that pairs British cooking with Canadian hospitality. Ink Entertainment’s latest venture, AMAL (131 Bloor St. W.), will open this spring in Yorkville. The restaurant's modern Lebanese menu will pay homage to restaurateur Charles Khabouth’s heritage. Executive chef Rony Ghaleb is planning a menu of modern riffs on traditional Lebanese sharing plates. The new restaurant will take over Ink’s old La Société space, with Studio Munge tapped to redesign the interior. DZO VIET EATERY will soon open across from the AGO at 308 Dundas St. W. Menu details and an opening date for the contemporary Vietnamese restaurant have yet to be revealed.

lady marmalade The popular brunch restaurant is doing callahead take-away.

oretta Buy one, get one free promo on select items ordered through Uber Eats.

black tulip the heartbreak chef tora Sushi via Ritual and Uber Eats.

R&D Offers a 20 per cent discount on takeout orders that include Peking duck.

SPRING 2020

Plus two new sandwich shops for takeaway and delivery

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Amazing schnitzel & goulash comes to Wychwood

Taking email orders for its harvest menu.

FOOD

RESTAURANT REVIEW

A love song to T.O.’s restaurants

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Joanne Kates pens a love letter to the city's restos at this difficult time

I am in love with too many Toronto restaurants to list them. For almost 50 years (!!) I’ve been getting paid to go to restaurants and write about them, and I’ll fight anyone who says they have a better restaurant scene than we do. Have you eaten Chinese in San Francisco? Ours is more diverse and better. Tried for much other than French in Paris? Other than the fabulous falafel in Le Marais and the occasional pho, one is hardpressed to find the ethnic variety we enjoy. Even in New York, where I love to eat, it’s a little harder to find all the different ethnic eats. They’re there, but you kinda have to know.… So this is a love song to the Toronto restaurant scene, where we can visit pretty much every region in the world, gastronomically speaking. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be a Torontonian for so many reasons. High on the list is how

well we eat. I like cheap ’n’ cheerful for weekday drop-ins. My fallback lately has been pho. Top three are Pho Tien Thanh and Golden Turtle on Ossington and Pho Hung on Spadina. At the first two I eat chicken pho. Great chicken stock, fragrant, loaded with Thai basil, lime and sawtooth coriander. Pho Hung has a huge menu, and I favour the vinegary special bamboo shoot soup with vermicelli, toasted peanuts and a side of duck coleslaw to dump in the soup. On the beloved Asian soup front, I also eat ramen all over town. Both College and Bloor West are rich with ramen. I adore the luscious eggs Benny on St. Clair at Emma’s Country Kitchen. Then there is the recent explosion of taquerias. A Sunday stroll through Kensington Market offers oodles of wonderful tacos. Toronto has excellent taquerias all over town,

RESTAURANT REVIEW

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Come and see what’s happening at Central Eglinton Community Centre! SUMMER DAY CAMP For children ages 4 to 12 years

June 29 – September 4, 2020 Offering 2 destinations per week Such as Ripley’s Aquarium, Bluffer’s Beach, & Laser Quest! Offering games, sports, swimming/water play Please contact John at 416-392-0511 ext. 223

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EarlyON Centre Free Drop-In, Toy Lending Library and Information Sessions for children 0-6 years old.

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Clockwise from top: Dishes from Alo, Flock and Pho Tien Thanh

Established 1961

“We can visit pretty much every region in the world.” resto is Taste of China on that glorious foodie avenue, Spadina. I eat their addictive Hong Kong giant crab with deep-fried minced pork and scallions and garlic, salt and pepper egg tofu with oyster mushrooms, and snow pea greens with garlic. Raise a Tsingtao beer to salute TO restos. But life is not all beer food. As a certified queenly type, I confess to frequenting snazzier spots when the exchequer permits.

menu yummies. And Shoushin for their superb Japanese omakase tasting menu. In the middle ground between the two extremes of expense, I favour Zucca for their impeccable Italiana; the Scaramouche Pasta Bar is a helluva consolation prize when the main restaurant feels too costly. I like Flock for their good chicken and healthy tasty salads. I’m happy eating sushi at Sushi on Bloor and Edo-Ko in Forest

Hill village. I like FK on St. Clair, and I can’t wait till my beloved Cava reopens downtown. Speaking of the future of restaurants, there won’t be one for lots of them. A small business with low profit margins is not a good thing to own right now unless you sell hand sanitizer. So think about your favourite restaurants. Restaurants are going to need more than my love song right now. Please consider buying gift certificates from your favourite restaurants, to help them survive these hard times.

Toddlers Pre School Kindergarten Programs

JOANNE KATES

Joanne Kates trained at the Ecole Cordon Bleu de Cuisine in Paris. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Maclean’s and Chatelaine.

Call for information on all programs For more information visit www.mrs-parksschool.com

416-424-2135 • mrs-parksschool@sympatico.ca

SPRING 2020

You’d be hard pressed to find a more fabulous restaurant than Alo — anywhere. And how about Scaramouche, home of ultra-delicious food and de luxe service? And Edulis, a tiny precious jewel of the tasting

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oh great joy. Low risk there, I’ve never had a bad taco in Toronto. Or a bad salsa verde. As a lifelong Sinophile, I’ve never been less than overjoyed by Chinese food in Markham and on the Avenue. My fav Chinese

Leaside United Church 822 Millwood Rd., Toronto

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Cooking up comfort ON ALL 2020 OUTDOOR FURNITURE FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL

Chef Mary Berg talks about winning MasterChef and the return of her show Mary’s Kitchen Crush by Jessica Huras

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If there was ever a time we could all use a cheerful distraction and the chance to hone our homecooking chops, it’s now. Fortunately, Mary Berg is offering us both with her show Mary’s Kitchen Crush, which returned to CTV on March 22. The new batch of episodes promises approachable recipe inspiration plus plenty of lighthearted entertainment. We sat down with the MasterChef Canada winner, TV host, and cookbook author to chat about the return of her show and how we can all become better home cooks. Berg felt drawn to cooking at a young age after witnessing the meaningful influence food can have on people’s lives. When Berg was four years old, her father passed away in a car accident, and she says that food, in a small way, helped her family to heal. “During that incredibly sad and hard time for my family, I saw how much deliveries of homemade casseroles from friends and family meant to my mom,” says Berg. “I’ve just always loved how much compassion you can convey through food.” Berg began helping her mother cook meals for the family, and by the time she was in university, she was whipping up pies, pasta, and pastries for her roommates and,

later, her co-workers. “I have always loved creating and sharing food with those around me,” says Berg. Berg’s culinary craft remained a hobby, however, until her win on season 3 of MasterChef Canada in 2016. “It totally had a 180-degree effect on my life,” explains Berg. “I went from working in an office to getting to wake up every single day just thinking about food and what I was going to get to create that day.” Following her win, Berg began appearing as a food expert on CTV’s Your Morning and The Marilyn Denis Show. Her own TV show, Mary’s Kitchen Crush, debuted in April 2019, and her first cookbook, Kitchen Party, which was published in September 2019, became a national bestseller. Berg says the new episodes of Mary’s Kitchen Crush are more personal, introducing viewers to her friends and family. “The show is just me in the kitchen cooking simple and delicious food for the people in my life who matter most,” says Berg. “In these hard and rather isolated times, I hope that the show will continue to make viewers feel like they’ve been invited into my kitchen just to hang out and enjoy.” Berg’s goal with Mary’s Kitchen

PROFILE

FOOD Homes needed for film, tv, print/advertising:

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TORONTO CHEFS ON TV

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WALL OF CHEFS See dozens of Toronto chefs, like Victor Barry, Nick Liu and Nuit Regular, on this Food Network Canada show, which airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET.

TOP CHEF CANADA Catch Toronto-based chef Adrian Forte competing on the eighth season of Top Chef Canada, which debuts on Food Network Canada on April 13 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

JUNIOR CHEF SHOWDOWN Lynn Crawford is one of the judges on this new young chef competition show, debuting April 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network Canada

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SPRING 2020

Berg’s kitchen creations at home. She anticipates that the hearty lasagne featured in this new batch of episodes will be a hit with viewers in need of a little indulgence. “My friends are all real lasagne heads, so that’s a go-to when we’re all getting together. On an upcoming episode of Mary’s Kitchen Crush, I make a monstrous three-meat, fourcheese lasagne for my friend Rob, and if that’s not comfort food, I don’t know what is!” Berg says with a laugh. One of the most popular recipes to date from her show is a garlic and herb flatbread made with store-bought pizza dough. “It tastes like you’re making bread from scratch, but all you really have to do is heat up a pan, melt some butter and grill up some dough,” she says. The secret to home cooking, says Berg, is to go with the flow. “Cooking isn’t a rigid thing. Recipes taste different depending on your ingredients and, at least for me, how I’m feeling on a given day,” she says. “There’s pretty much always a way to make something taste better to you and it’s usually just as simple as adding some salt, lemon, butter or fresh herbs. And if that fails, I always just reach for my favourite hot sauce!”

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Crush is to help viewers feel more empowered about cooking at home. “For a lot of people, the idea of failure in the kitchen is such a hindrance to actually trying a recipe,” she says. Berg believes that a sense of play is the antidote to the anxiety some people feel when attempting a new recipe. “I think making something in the kitchen should be approached in the same way as a little kid trying to draw a cat for the first time. Grab all of your ingredients and try your best,” says Berg. “Does it look perfect? Probably not! But that’s OK! You still made something, and it is most likely still going to be edible if not delicious.” According to Berg, cooking isn’t about getting a recipe exactly right. “My main tip for people starting to learn to cook is to just roll with it,” says Berg. “Yes, follow a recipe, but if, in the end, you find it a little bland, give it a squeeze of lemon or a splash of balsamic vinegar. Does it taste dull? Toss in another pinch of kosher salt. Want the flavours to come together a little more? Add a little extra virgin olive oil or a bit of butter and let that melt in.” Following each new episode of Mary’s Kitchen Crush, full written and video recipes featured on the show are posted on ctv.ca, making it easier for viewers to replicate

Closed Saturdays • Open Sundays Delivery • Visa & MC 3541 Bathurst Street (Across from Baycrest)

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Toronto’s top chefs share their most popular recipes

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With restaurant dine-in areas closed and social distancing in full gear, many of us now find ourselves cooking at home (perhaps much more than we’re accustomed to). We all deserve to eat well, particularly during times of stress, so we asked some of T.O.’s top chefs to share recipes designed to soothe your soul. Planta’s Plant-based Mac and Cheese 4 SERVINGS "Mac and cheese is the epitome of comfort food," says Planta’s chef David Lee. "There is nothing like a plantbased spin on a beloved classic." 3 cups 1

⁄4 cup ⁄2 cup

Co N ns o F ul ee ta tio n

1 tbsp ⁄4 cup 2 cups 1

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plant-based milk of choice olive oil flour plant-based cheese nutritional yeast almond flour pasta shells salt and pepper, to taste

1. Preheat the oven at 400°. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. When water has boiled, add pasta. 2. Pour plant-based milk into a medium-sized saucepan, bring to a boil. 3. In a small bowl combine olive oil and flour, whisk together. 4. Using a spice grinder or food processor, combine almond flour and nutritional yeast to make plant-based Parmesan cheese. 5. When the plant-based milk has come to a boil, turn down the heat and add the olive oil and flour mixture. Mix together on a gentle heat, making sure the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom

of the pot. Add a couple pinches of salt to taste. 6. When the pasta has cooked, drain the water. 7. Add the pasta to the sauce and stir on medium-high heat. 8. Add the plant-based cheese to the pasta and sauce, mixing in to melt the cheese. Cook the pasta on a gentle heat for 2–3 min. 9. Transfer about two-thirds of the mac and cheese into an oven-safe casserole dish. Add a layer of plant-based cheese, plant-based Parmesan and fresh pepper. Add the remaining mac and cheese for a second layer. Add another layer of cheese, Parmesan and pepper. 10. Bake in the oven for 15–20 min., at 400°, or until golden brown. Remove the mac and cheese from the oven and let sit for a few minutes before serving.

Pizzeria Libretto's Meatballs 4-6 SERVINGS “This meatball recipe is my take on the recipe my mother used to make," says executive chef Rocco Agostino, of Pizzeria Libretto."Enjoying them on their own and using a crostino (grilled bread) to wipe up the sauce on the plate is a great way to enjoy this recipe." MEATBALLS 3 ⁄4 lbs 1

⁄4 cup 1 1 ⁄2 cup 1 ⁄4 cup 1 ⁄4 cup 1 ⁄2 cup

⁄2 cup

⁄2 tbsp ⁄2 tbsp

1 1

mix ground beef/pork/pork belly breadcrumbs egg parsley, chopped chives, chopped oregano, chopped roasted red peppers, pureed Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated salt black pepper

FOOD

MARK MCEWAN SAMPLES TORONTO’S TOP DELI SAMMIES & PITS OUR BEST AGAINST MONTREAL’S LEGENDARY SCHWARTZ’S

THE ADVOCATE

Clockwise from left: Pizzeria Libretto's Meatballs, Planta’s Mac and Cheese and Suzanne Barr's Cauliflower Soup

THE DRAGON

RESIDENTS GONE ROGUE — HOW CITY INACTION IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOODS IS TURNING LOCALS INTO LAWBREAKERS

2018

REAL ESTATE ROUNDTABLE

THE CONDO KING

THE HGTV HOST

⁄2 cup 1 ⁄2

2 cloves 1 ltr ⁄4 cup ⁄4 cup

1 1

⁄2 tbsp 6

2 tbsp 1 ⁄2 cup

olive oil large lonion, finely diced garlic, finely chopped canned San Marzano tomatoes, pureed basil, chopped bomba OR dried chili pepper to taste salt slices of crostini from a baguette, index finger thick olive oil Parmigiano cheese, coarsely grated

MEATBALLS 1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and make sure everything is mixed well. 2. Use a standard ice cream scoop to portion the meatballs. 3. Roll the meatballs in the hand to help even out the circular shape. 4. Place meatballs on a large sheet pan lined with parchment paper. 5. Bake in the oven at 375° for 15 minutes. 6. Remove from oven and set aside. TOMATO SAUCE & ASSEMBLY 1. Add 1⁄4 cup of olive oil to a large enough pot that the meatballs will fit. 2. Sauté the onions over medium heat until translucent. 3. Add chopped garlic and sauté for another minute. 4. Add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer for five minutes. 5. Add the chopped basil, bomba and salt and simmer for another five minutes. 6. Add meatballs and drippings

left in the tray and simmer for another 15 minutes. 7. While meatballs simmer, lightly brush crostini with olive oil and bake in a 375° oven until light golden. Remove from oven and set aside. 8. In a bowl, place three meatballs and pour a spoon of sauce over each meatball. 9. Sprinkle with the grated Parmigiano cheese and serve.

Suzanne Barr's Cauliflower Soup and Parmesan Wafers 6-8 SERVINGS “Cauliflower soup is one of my go-to dishes because truly it is soothing to the soul,” says chef Suzanne Barr of True True Diner. “It can be enjoyed in the midst of a cold winter night and also enjoyed on a hot summer day as a cold soup. It's so versatile and simple. It really makes you feel like a chef creating something so magical and delicious using only a few ingredients.”

CAULIFLOWER SOUP 1 2 tbsp 1 6 cups ⁄2 - 3⁄4 cup

optional

head cauliflower olive oil medium white onion, peeled and sliced vegetable or chicken stock Parmesan cheese, freshly-grated Kosher salt and freshly-cracked black pepper, to taste sesame oil and chives to garnish

PARMESAN WAFERS ⁄2 - 1 cup

Parmesan cheese, shredded

SOUP 1. Begin by preparing your cauliflower. Remove and discard the outer leaves and trim off the stem. Quarter the cauliflower by using a knife to slice it down the middle of the stem, separating it into four sections. Separate the core from the florets. Roughly chop the florets, and then thinly slice the core. Set aside. 2. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes, until soft and translucent, stirring occasionally. 3. Add in the chopped cauliflower and stock. Stir to combine. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches a boil. Then, reduce heat to medium, cover and continue simmering for about 15–20 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender. 4. Use an immersion blender or transfer the soup in batches to a traditional blender and purée the soup until smooth. 5. Stir in Parmesan, and season the soup to taste with salt and black pepper. 6. Serve immediately, topped with your desired garnishes. I used toasted sesame oil, Parmesan wafer and chives. PARMESAN WAFERS 1. Measure out 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese per wafer and place in a cold non-stick skillet. 2. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. The cheese will begin to melt and once a light golden colour is achieved, remove the pan from heat and allow to cool. 3. Once the wafers are cool, you can move them to paper towels to soak up the extra oil. 4. Place a wafer on top of hot soup.

IS THE T.O. MARKET A HOUSE OF CARDS?

EPIC COMMUTES, SKY-HIGH REAL ESTATE AND TAXES UP THE WAZOO!

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS T.O.’S TOP CHEFS PICK THE

TOMATO SAUCE

MEMBERSHIPS AT ELITE MIDTOWN GOLF CLUBS CAN GO FOR OVER $90 K — SO WHY IS THE CITY LETTING THEM PAY A PITTANCE IN PROPERTY TAX?

CITY’S...

MICHAEL BONACINI, MASSIMO CAPRA, KATE CHOMYSHYN, & MORE OUR JUDGES DANIEL BOULUD, BARR, ROGER MOOKING HUI, CORY VITIELLO, SUZANNE ZANE CAPLANSKY, MISSY

thanks

DANIELLE BRYK, TIM HUDAK, MICHELE ROMANOW, BRAD LAMB AND 8 MORE HOUSING HEAVYWEIGHTS ON WHETHER TO BUY, SELL OR HEAD FOR THE HILLS

APRIL 2018 · VOLUME 24 · ISSUE 9

PLUS

MIDTOWN’S BEST NEW CHEAP EATS: AN INCREDIBLE $10 PASTA JOINT

(above) Moroccan comfort food from No. 8 on our list, Doug Penfold’s Atlas

Meet eight families raising kids T.O. style who wouldn’t want it any other way

JANUARY 2018 · VOLUME 27 · ISSUE 5

MARCH 2018 · VOLUME 29 · ISSUE 8

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Sample Menu Salad Chickpea Quinoa Greek Salad with Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives, Cucumbers, Scallions, Peppers, Feta Cheese, Oregano Garlic Lemon Dressing Mains (includes a starch & vegetable) Piri Piri Grilled Chicken Skewer - Pomegranate Gremolata OR Chipotle Chickpea Patty - w/ a sundried tomato + black olive aioli Garlic Crisp Potatoes + Avocado Harissa Glazed Tricolour Carrots For the Children Homemade Chicken Fingers ($36 - By the Dozen) Plum Sauce + Potato Wedges Dessert Assorted Cheesecakes SPRING 2020

FEATURE

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Food Feature; -

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Do try this at home 2

Toronto’s top restaurants share their most popular recipes

⁄4 cup ⁄2 cup

1 tbsp ⁄4 cup 2 cups

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of the pot. Add a couple pinches of salt to taste. 6. When the pasta has cooked, drain the water. 7. Add the pasta to the sauce and stir on medium-high heat. 8. Add the plant-based cheese to the pasta and sauce, mixing in to melt the cheese. Cook the pasta 4 on a gentle heat for 2–3 min. 9. Transfer about two-thirds of the mac and cheese into an oven-safe casserole dish. Add a layer of plant-based cheese, plant-based Parmesan and fresh pepper. Add the remaining mac and cheese for a second layer. Add another layer of cheese, Parmesan and pepper. 10. Bake in the oven for 15–20 In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, Ontario distilleries are stepping up and min., at 400°, or until golden brown. Removetheir the mac and shifting production facilities to produce sanitizer for those in need. cheese from the oven and let sit for a few minutes before serving.

KIND SPIRITS

Pizzeria Libretto's Meatballs

4-6 SERVINGS “This meatball 2 recipe is my take on the recipe my mother used to make," says executive chef Rocco Agostino, of Pizzeria Libretto."Enjoying them on their own and usingdistillery a Beamsville Dillion’s 1. Preheat the oven at 400°. Toronto distillery Spirit of York crostino (grilled bread) to wipe hand sanitizer has been bottling Bring a large pot of salted water has shifted its focus to producing up the sauce on the plate a per cent grape made fromis95 to boil. When water sanitizer, has boiled,made in alcohol-based great way toethanol, enjoy this recipe." aloe vera juice, and peach add pasta. accordance with World Health bitters. Dillon’s is also producing MEATBALLS 2. Pour plant-based milk into a Organization (WHO) standards. 65 per cent alcohol for disinfecting medium-sized saucepan, bring to 1 The distillery is making the 3 ⁄4 lbs mix ground tablets, keyboards, and other a boil. sanitizer available for free to those beef/pork/pork belly 3. In a small bowl combine olive surfaces. Both products are who can’t afford it, as well as 3⁄4 cup breadcrumbs oil and flour, whisk together. available for free. Dillon’s has people over the age of 65. For 1 egg 4. Using a spice grinder or food reported overwhelming demand 1 those who can make a donation, ⁄2 cup parsley, chopped processor, combine almond flour for the hand 1 the Spirit of York is selling the ⁄4 cup chives, chopped sanitizer and the and nutritional yeast to make disinfectant and hopes to make 1 sanitizer for $3 a bottle and ⁄4 cup oregano, chopped plant-based Parmesan cheese. both products available to the 1 donating all proceedsmilk toward red peppers, 5. When the plant-based has food ⁄2 cup roasted public but is prioritizing making banks in the local community. The pureed come to a boil, turn down the them available for health-care 1 reportedly raised over ⁄2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano heat distillery and add the olive oil and providers and other essential $4,000 in donations on its first cheese, finely grated flour mixture. Mix together on a service workers. 1 of production. ⁄2 tbsp salt gentle heat,day making sure the dillons.ca 1 ⁄2 tbsp black pepper flour doesn’t spiritofyork.com stick to the bottom 1

plant-based milk of choice olive oil flour plant-based cheese nutritional yeast almond flour 1 pasta shells salt and pepper, to taste

SPIRIT OF YORK

DILLON’S

REID’S DISTILLERY Leslieville’s family-run Reid’s Distillery has also begun producing alcohol-based sanitizer, which Reid’s is distributing in personal-sized spray bottles. Reid’s sanitizer is made from a basic combo of 70 per cent alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerol, and water. After initially distributing the bottles for free from their distillery on a one-percustomer basis, Reid’s is now reallocating its supplies toward front line health-care workers and those who are part of immunocompromised communities. reidsdistillery.com

HIRAM WALKER & SONS DISTILLERY Walkerville Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery in Windsor has added hand sanitizer to its large-scale production line, which typically distills 180,000 litres of alcohol per day. The hand sanitizer will reportedly be distributed locally in Windsor where needed and also donated to Toronto’s TTC. The hand sanitizer is set to be used in TTC garages, as well as at collector booths, to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in hightraffic areas where soap and water are not readily available. corby.ca

Kids SECTION

SINGING SIBLINGS Annie (left) and Celia Siriopoulos are singersongwriters from Markham.

careers begin to flourish, the sisters are still tapped into their local community: Celia, 16, is a student at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill and Annie, 14, attends St. Augustine Catholic High School in Markham. They also cofounded an annual youth music festival, Youth Jam TO, and are speakers for anti-bullying organization Kill it with Kindness.

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The latest singing sensations out of the 905 are sisters Celia and Annie Siriopoulos, who make up the alt-pop duo Caardia. The pair recently released their debut EP, The Deep End, along with its title track, about the dependency people have on cellphones. Their latest single, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Walking Away,â&#x20AC;? was co-written, recorded and produced by Juno Award winner Chris Perry. As their music

SPRING 2020

T.O. sisters release incredible debut EP

KIDS

DEAR PARENTS

TikTok is a social media app that is particularly popular with kids

The lowdown on TikTok Why is your teen obsessed with this new app and is it safe to use? by Rowan J. Chetner

Apr 16 9:30-11:00am

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Celebrating 40 years

By now, you’ve definitely heard of TikTok — the app that has taken over teen lives. But what exactly is it and why are young people obsessed with it? And is it safe for teens to be using? Don’t fret parents: I’m here to tell you what you need to know. TikTok is a social media app that features a variety of videos that can be no longer than one minute. The videos (called TikToks) feature comedy sketches, people voicing their opinions or making jokes, and the famous TikTok dances. TikTokers make dances to short audio clips, share them, and people pick them up, copying their fellow TikTokers or adding their own twist. Videos from people your teen follows, videos from popular creators, and videos getting a lot of likes, comments or shares appear on the For You page of the app, which is a curation of an endless stream of TikToks. So parents, now that you know what is so mesmerizing about TikTok, let’s address some of the concerns. You may be worried about your teen being plastered all over the Internet. Ensure your teen’s account is private so they have control over who sees their videos. If an account is private, they can accept or deny the people who want to view their TikToks. Their TikToks will also never appear on the For You page, eliminating the chance of them becoming TikTok famous.

If your teens refuse to make their account private, you should have a frank talk with them about the dangers of giving strangers access to their videos. Another issue that worries many parents is the sexualization of their teenagers. Many people on TikTok dress in revealing clothes, obviously a source of concern for parents. Again, discuss this with your teen. Chat with them about what is appropriate attire, the importance of keeping their account private and the consequences of sexualizing themselves online. Another issue that can arise is time management. Of course, if your teens are scrolling the app for hours, that is a problem, and you should talk to them about limiting screen time. Worries aside, it’s important to remember that TikTok is a way for teens to express themselves. The problems the app brings are not unlike any other social media platform, and the same privacy measures should be taken. For parents who are unsure how to have these conversations, my advice is to make it personal. I would want my parents to tell me about their own experiences. Did you ever neglect to protect your privacy and suffer the consequences? Tell me about it. Explain that you don’t want this to happen to me. But in the end, empower me: Tell me I’m smart and capable of making the right decision, and that you are confident that I will.

The benefits of hands-off parenting Two weeks ago I became a grandmother. It’s as exciting and wonderful as I imagined. As they say, if I’d known how much fun being a grandparent is, I’d have done that before I had kids. Last week, on the day the baby was one week old, Eli, my six-yearold grandniece from Montreal, came to stay with us for three days. Eli was of course excited to meet the baby. You don’t know this about me, but my husband and I sort of share a house with our son and his wife. And new baby. The house is divided into two very separate units. So here’s Eli. Max, my son, brings the baby downstairs to meet her. Eli sits on the couch and holds the baby. That feels safe. Then Max says it’s time to take Alice upstairs for a feed. Eli says: “I wanna carry her. I can do it.” My first thought is no way. But I stay silent because I’ve been informed that baby Alice is not my kid. Max lets Eli carry the baby up to the third floor! Unaided! I can’t believe it. Does he know something I don’t know? Like maybe Eli is a 30-year-old in a sixyear-old body? And then I figure it out: This new generation of parents has seen the bubble wrap, and they're rejecting it. In thinking about how they want to parent, they’re looking at what we’ve modelled, and they don’t like it. At least not

the helicopter part. The part where we try to stand between them and their every booboo or disappointment, where we cushion them from … so much. I asked him where it came from. Max said: “I was thinking that, if I let Alice go through her life and I go through my life with Alice worried about any little thing happening to her, then she’s not going to have grit and resilience, and I won’t have grit and resilience when raising her. So I might as well start from the beginning building resilience and building a healthy acceptance of risk. The resilience has to be in me as well — because there obviously is risk here. If Eli had dropped the baby she would have bumped her head. She would have gotten a bruise and cried. I have to know that babies get bumps and bruises, and that’s all right. “I’m driven by seeing my peers worrying about stuff, things potentially beyond their control, or overwhelmed with worry. Some of my friends avoid doing so many things because they’re worried, and that negatively affects their quality of life. I don’t want that for me or my child.” Where did he learn this? Certainly not from his mother. So many of us became champion worrywarts when we bred. We didn’t know any better. But these young people have

JOANNE KATES

Parenting columnist Joanne Kates is an expert educator in the areas of conflict mediation, self-esteem and anti-bullying, and she is the director of Camp Arowhon in Algonquin Park.

COACHING JOBS

POWER SOCCER WILL HIRE ASSISTANT SUMMER CAMP COACHES Email logan@powersoccer.ca for coaching application form

4416 16 425 6062 606

CLINICS

• Morning Toddler Programs • Morning and Afternoon Nursery School • Now offering Full Day Care

(7:45am - 5:30pm)

The BEEZ KNEEZ 416-487-8847

1252 Avenue Road

423 Millwood Road

SPRING 2020

Why mistakes are a good thing

watched us: ‘tis human to learn from the mistakes of the previous generation. That’s part of how civilization evolves. They’ve made a conscious decision not to snowplow the path for their kids because they’ve experienced first-hand how high the cost is of putting their life on the video-cam. They’ve felt smothered, they’ve inherited our worries, and too many of them have grown up anxious. I’m not blaming my generation of parents. I promise. I don’t blame myself. We all did the absolute best we could, every step of the way. But two factors made it hard for us to take a step back from our kids when they might have done better with a little benign neglect. One, we were reacting to how so many of us were parented. So many of our parents had no idea what we were doing, when, how or with whom. We didn’t talk to them about much, and they liked it that way. I didn’t tell my parents anything important about my life and lied to them regularly with no consequences. Their hands-off parenting led to a reaction on our side. And pendulums do swing. Then there’s the Me Generation phenom. Starting with my generation, humans began to look inside. For the first time in history. Therapy, previously the exclusive province of the privileged mentally ill, became common. Our every feeling became fodder for discourse. Bye-bye stiff upper lip. That change leaked into our parenting as an obsessive need to hear our children’s feelings. As with our fears for their physical safety, we invaded their space to ensure their emotional safety. My new prescription for parenting, especially for us, is to follow our young folks’ example and go more hands-off. This requires, above all, optimism. In matters both private and communal, we are often called upon to choose between optimism and worry. I am a worrywart. It’s a challenge to choose optimism, and a crucial one. When we telegraph that we believe in them and they can do it, they mostly can.

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Don’t try to cushion your children from every disappointment

KIDS

CAMPS

PARENT TO PARENT

SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS

Our guide brings together some of the city’s finest camps and programs. It’s our hope that the guide will help your children achieve their dreams, make new friends and gain an appreciation of nature.

Bayview Glen Camp Since 1962, we have created unforgettable summer memories for thousands of children, as one of Toronto’s longest-running, most comprehensive day camps. Bayview Glen offers enriched, balanced and age-appropriate programs, activity electives for our oldest campers and a comprehensive Leader-In-Training program. The camp also offers a rewarding and integrated program for children with special needs. Centrally located on the secure, leafy and air-conditioned campus of Bayview Glen School, campers enjoy swimming for instructional and recreational swim, 4 sports fields, a theatre, climbing wall, tech labs, art studios, gymnasiums and more…perfect facilities for our specialized programs in robotics, sports, dance and more. Our all-inclusive fees make for unforgettable summer memories not only for our campers, but our parents too! Our door-to-door transportation brings fully-trained bus counsellors on every bus right to your doorstep, and nutritious lunches and snacks are prepared on-site daily.

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CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 4-13 TOTAL ENROLMENT: N/A CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 3:1 (average) SESSION LENGTH: 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks SESSION COST: Varies

CAMP DIRECTOR: Dara Kahane

CONTACT: 416-449-7746

www.bayviewglencamp.ca

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SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS WillowWood School Summer Program WillowWood School is celebrating its 40th year offering unique Summer Programming where students practice skills and learn new strategies in an energized, positive atmosphere. Our summer staff are the same experienced, specialized teachers from the academic year and know how to create a safe, student-centred environment. Our programs offer individualized student-centred teaching and mentorship, focus on building creativity and teach social, leadership and teamwork skills in a natural, respectful way. Discovery programs include swimming, rock-climbing, sports, art, music, yoga, field trips and theme weeks. Leadership programs include language, math, technology and fitness. Earn a High School credit in 20 days! Summer school courses include Math, Science, English, Social Sciences, Personal Fitness. Plus, options for ESL, OSSLT and more. Ready to learn more? Visit WillowWoodSchool.ca or call 416 444-7644 to speak with one of our Summer Program Directors: Mellissa Grant (1-8) ~ Walid Dowdie (High School).

Toronto Mandarin School Toronto Mandarin School, is the leading language school dedicated to Mandarin Chinese language education in the GTA. We offer a wide variety of Mandarin language programs for children, teens, adults & organizations. Founded in 2001 by teaching professionals from mainland China, Toronto Mandarin School is comitted to providing a practical learning experience to anyone who would like to learn Mandarin Chinese, one of the most strategic languages in the near future. Toronto Mandarin School, with multiple locations in the GTA, currently offers Mandarin/English bilingual preschool, weekend & after-school Mandarin programs, Early Years Learning in Mandarin, Parents & Tots, Mandarin for Teens and Mandarin Immersion Summer Camp. Immerse into a full Mandarin environment. Camps offered at 6 locations: North York, Scarborough, Downtown & Midtown Toronto, Richmond Hill, Mississauga.

CAMP TYPE: Specialty School AGE RANGE: 5-17 TOTAL ENROLMENT: 150 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 8:1 SESSION LENGTH: 1,2,3 or 4 weeks SESSION COST: $300-$2,850

PROGRAM DIRECTORS: Walid Dowdie & Mellissa Grant

CONTACT: 416 444-7644

WillowWoodSchool.ca

CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 3-14 TOTAL ENROLMENT: 150 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 8:1/15:1/20:1 SESSION LENGTH: July, August SESSION COST: $250-$350 per week

CAMP DIRECTOR: Jennifer Chang

CONTACT: 416-304-0260

www.torontomandarinschool.com

UNIQUE SUMMER PROGRAMS In WillowWood programs, students practice skills and learn new strategies in an energized, positive and fun atmosphere.

Grades 1-6

Grades 7-8

Grades 9-12

Discovery Program

Leadership Program

Earn High School Credits

July 6-31, 2020

June 29-July 28, 2020

Our Courses • Offer individualized, STEAM student-centred teaching and mentorship

• Teach social, leadership and teamwork skills in a natural, respectful way

• Courses include Math, Science, English, Social Sciences, Healthy Living and Personal Fitness

• Offers Canadian educational experiences and language training

• Focus on building creativity and self-confidence • Half day or full day options for 1, 2, 3, or 4 week programs

416 444-7644

WillowWoodSchool.ca

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yoga, art, swimming to field trips

SPRING 2020

• Include activities from rock-climbing, music,

SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS St. Michael’s College St. Michael's College School Summer Camps offer youth ages 8-14 exceptional academic, athletics, and arts programmes. Sessions are led by certified teachers who are experts in their field of instruction, ensuring that your child is supported and challenged based on their skill-level and experience. Whether your child wants to explore something new or is looking to improve an existing skill set, SMCS Summer Camps are the perfect opportunity for boys and girls to have fun, create memorable experiences, and receive the high quality of instruction that they deserve. All of our programmes (with the exception of Strength & Conditioning) are full-day, running from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with lunch and snacks included. Our 2020 summer camp offerings include: Volleyball, Hockey, Lacrosse, Makers Camp, Robotics, Media Arts, Theatre, Drumline, Math, Literacy, General Learning Skills, and Strength & Conditioning (two-hour commitment per day).

Brick Works Academy Do you have a child who is constantly exploring and building? Sign your child up to be part of Brick Works Academy summer day camps, where your child can explore robotics construction, Game Design, Animation, Minecraft, Fortnite, 3d Printing/Design or design Pokemon cards. New this summer your children can celebrate their love of Harry Potter in their new fan camp. Student will meet Owls and magical creatures, create their own magical props/crafts and learn some magic. Brick Works Academy serves 4,000 students per summer with 6 locations in the GTA and 14 Ontario locations in total. Visit them this summer to see why families vote them the best day camp in their community year after year.

CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 8-14+ years TOTAL ENROLMENT PER GROUP: 16 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 7:1 SESSION LENGTH: One week SESSION COST: $380+HST

SMCS CAMPS DIRECTOR:

Stephen Antolin

CONTACT: 416-653-3180 ext. 210 SMCSCAMPS.COM

CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 6-13 TOTAL ENROLMENT: 4,000 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 10:1 SESSION LENGTH: 1 week SESSION COST: $320

CONTACT: 1-888-BRICK-50

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www.brickworksacademy.com

SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS Bayview Village Junior Tennis Camp

CAMP TYPE: Specialty Camp AGE RANGE: 4-18 TOTAL ENROLMENT: 40 per week CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 6:1 SESSION LENGTH: 1 week SESSION COST: $265-$375

Centrally located at Bayview and Sheppard, the Bayview Village Junior Tennis Camp conducts 11 one-week tennis camp sessions throughout the summer at the Bayview Village Tennis Club. Beginner and intermediate students participate at a 6:1 ratio while advanced and tournament level players practice at a 4:1 ratio. Full and half-day programs are available. Extended hours are available upon request. The camp is in its 34th year of operation under the direction of Peter Nielsen, who has a strong and successful tradition in junior development. Since 1989, Bayview Village Tennis Club has won the Outstanding Achievement Award for Junior Development, presented by the Ontario Tennis Assoc., in 15 of the last 20 years. Peter and the staff approach teaching and training in a progressive, fun-filled manner. Certified professionals implement program content and teaching methods. The development of life skills, friendships, prizes, drills and competitions are all part of a memorable experience at Bayview Village Junior Tennis Camp.

CAMP DIRECTOR: Peter Nielson

CONTACT: 905-889-7293

bayviewvillagetenniscamp.ca

Blyth Academy

CAMP TYPE: Specialty School AGE RANGE: 14-18 years TOTAL ENROLMENT: 1000 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 12:1 SESSION LENGTH: 2-4 weeks SESSION COST: From $4,395

Blyth Academy is a trusted, established educational organization offering study-abroad programs for high-school students - more than 50,000 have experienced our International Summer and Community Service programs since we opened in 1977. We provide an exceptional summer study-abroad experience, delivered in small classes by skilled and personable faculty, in the most remarkable locations around the world - Europe, Central America, South America, North America, Asia, Australasia and Polynesia. We do this by offering a structured and empathetic environment where young women and men can thrive personally and academically in storied places that offer boundless opportunities for the eager and curious. And they can even earn high school credits or community service hours at the same time! We lead students out of the classroom and into the world.

FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN: Sam Blyth

CONTACT: 1-866-960-3552 www.blythacademy.ca

BAYVIEW VILLAGE TENNIS CAMP

Junior Tennis Camp June 22nd September 4th, 2020

For further information or camp registration call Peter Nielsen 905-889-7293 • pneilsen889@rogers.com www.bayviewvillagetenniscamp.ca

WAILUA BAY, KAUAI, HAWAII

THIS COULD BE YOUR

Summer School BLYTHSUMMERS.CA • 416-960-3552

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SPRING 2020

• Centrally located (Bayview & Sheppard) • O.T.A. Award Winning Jr. Program • Ages 4-18 Beginner to Advanced • 11 different one week sessions • Full and Half Day Programs

SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS Royal City Soccer Club The Royal City Soccer Club is celebrating our 28th annual summer soccer camp. Having hosted over 300,000 campers in over 100 locations, we are the #1 grassroots soccer day camps in Canada. Our program is designed to promote personal development, team building and of course, fun! The camp program is uniquely designed to offer a soccer focus in the morning and a leisure swim with other organized camp activities in the afternoons. All boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 13 are encouraged to register for full day, or morning sessions. Campers receive a personal soccer ball, t-shirt, camp medal and much more. We offer early drop off and pickup times fully supervised at no extra charge. Our camps operate during all weeks in July and August. Check out our website at www.royalsoccer.com for more information or call 1-800-427-0536.

CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 5-13, Co-ed TOTAL ENROLMENT: 25-60 per week CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 10:1 SESSION LENGTH: 1 wk (July & Aug) SESSION COST: $119-$189

CONTACT: 1-800-427-0536 royalsoccer.com

Pedalheads Bike Camps Pedalheads Bike camps have taught over 300,000 kids how to ride confidently! Our most popluar camp is Level 1 Newbees where they learn how to ride without their training wheels. We have a proven track record of getting kids off training wheels in a week. Advanced bikers can learn how to ride on the road safely by learning the rules of the road, practicing essential skills in a controlled environment, and going on fun group rides! Spaces are limited! Our camps feature: Half day camp, full day camp and before and after care options, engaging instructors and a fun group environment. Register online today at www.pedalheads.com/camp. See this step-by-step video on how to register: https://youtu.be/0uOlb05pybA.

CAMP TYPE: Specialty Camp AGE RANGE: 3-12 TOTAL ENROLMENT: Varies CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: Varies SESSION LENGTH: One week SESSION COST: $198-$518

MANAGER:

Vanessa Giacomin

CONTACT: 1-888-886-6464 www.pedalheads.com

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SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS Prestige School

CAMP TYPE: Day Camp AGE RANGE: 3-19 years TOTAL ENROLMENT: 50-70 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: Varies SESSION LENGTH: July & August SESSION COST: $350 per wk

Prestige School’s Summer Camp Program is just the fun, activity-filled, yet educational summer that your children are looking for! Our camp, that offers a wide variety of exciting activities that keep all kids engaged, educated, and entertained, starts on June 29th and ends on August 21st, 2020. Our sports program includes Outdoor Games, Basketball, Volleyball, and Soccer. We also offer educational programs such as English and French studies, English as a Second Language, and Logic Boosters. We also provide activities such as Fun Science, Computer Design, Computer Animation and 3D Modelling, Drawing, Painting, Sculpting, and Chess. Campers attend exciting weekly Field Trips throughout the summer and visits to the Swimming Pool twice a week. The camp runs from Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Breakfast and hot lunch are provided daily. Door-to-door transportation is available. Summer School Credit Courses for grades 9-12 now offered.

CAMP DIRECTOR: Olga Margold

CONTACT: 416-250-0648

prestigeprivateschool.ca

Central Montessori School

CAMP TYPE: Specialty Day Camp AGE RANGE: 3-12 years old TOTAL ENROLMENT: Varies - 100-350 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: Varies per age grouping SESSION LENGTH: 2 weeks SESSION COST: Varies per location

Central Montessori School (CMS) offers dynamic summer programs at 5 convenient locations for children 3 - 12 years of age. Children 6 years & older can choose from our exciting 2-week session SPECIALTY programs which include Art, Coding/Robotics, Drama, Dance, Chess, Taekwondo, STEM, Gymnastics + a variety of team sports (Basketball, Tennis, Badminton, etc.) to name a few. Our VARIETY program for children 3 - 6 years old offers opportunities for children to enjoy a variety of activities such as drama, dance, science, arts & crafts, cooking, yoga, chess (4+ yrs.), outdoor water play & indoor/outdoor sports. These programs are conducted in English. FRENCH VARIETY at our Maplehurst Campus offers the opportunity for children to build & develop basic French communication skills while participating in a variety of activities as offered in our English program. All of our programs offer bi-weekly field trips to exciting + child-friendly destinations. At CMS, fun and learning go hand in hand. It’s the perfect balance of physical, mental + creative challenges!

CAMP DIRECTOR: Roshi Ansari

CONTACT: 416 510 1200 or 416 222 9207 www.cmschool.net

PRESTIGE SCHOOL’S SUMMER CAMP Building Strong Foundations since 1995.

SHEPPARD CAMPUS

WILLOWDALE CAMPUS

MAPLEHURST CAMPUS

Tel: (416) 222-5940

Tel: (416) 250-1022

Tel: (416) 222-9207

Ages: 3 - 6 yrs. Summer Programs: Variety

Toronto Campus: 21 Eddfield Avenue (Sheppard & Yonge) Richmond Hill Campus: 11 Headdon Gate (Bathurst & Major Mackenzie)

416-250-0648

THORNHILL CAMPUS YORK MILLS CAMPUS (Yonge & Steeles)

(Leslie & York Mills)

Tel: (905) 889-0012

Tel: (416) 510-1200

Ages: 3 - 9 yrs. Summer Programs: Variety & Specialty

Ages: 3 - 12 yrs. Summer Programs: Variety & Specialty

(Sheppard & Yonge)

Ages: 3 - 12 yrs. Summer Programs: Variety, FRENCH VARIETY & Specialty

www.cmschool.net

SPRING 2020

2 Convenient Locations

(Sheppard & Bayview)

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(Sheppard & Yonge)

SENSATIONAL SUMMER CAMPS & PROGRAMS Camp Tanamakoon Since 1925 Tanamakoon girls have returned year after year to develop life time skills and friendships in Ontario's pristine Algonquin Park. Parents can feel secure with the knowledge that we pride ourselves in hiring compassionate, caring and highly skilled staff. Tanamakoon preserves traditional camp values while promoting self esteem in all campers. Developing character, fostering compassion, learning respect for others and the environment and instilling a sense of taking responsibility for themselves are part of everyday life at Tanamakoon. Tanamakoon will provide your daughter with an exceptional experience that will develop skills she can use throughout the rest of her life. Algonquin Park provides the perfect natural environment that gives girls permission to “unplug” and to lead a simpler more gentle life. 3 day Kindercamp, 6 day Minicamp and 2 and 4 week sessions

CAMP TYPE: Residential Camp AGE RANGE: 4-16 yrs TOTAL ENROLMENT: 200 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 3:1 SESSION LENGTH: Varies SESSION COST: Varies

CAMP DIRECTOR: Patti Thom

CONTACT: 905-338-9464 tanamakoon.com

Camp Muskoka Kindle lifelong friendships through the magic of the Camp Muskoka experience! We boost camper self confidence in a fun, safe, and supportive community. Camp Muskoka offers skilled leadership, comfortable lodging, and great food. Every day, campers can choose from a wide range of traditional programs such as arts & crafts, swimming, canoeing, archery, mountain biking, recording studio, archery, and a water trampoline. For the more adventurous we offer an aerial park with a 900’ long zip-line over water, paintball, rock climbing on a 30’ natural rock face, horseback riding and more! Camp Muskoka offers multiple 1 week sessions and a 2-week Leadership Camp. Where friendships begin and fun never ends! For more information please visit campmuskoka.com, email mail@campmuskoka.com, or call 1-888-734-2267.

CAMP TYPE: Residential Camp AGE RANGE: 6-16 TOTAL ENROLMENT: 336 CAMPER/STAFF RATIO: 4:1 SESSION LENGTH: 1 week SESSION COST: $1095-$1195

CAMP DIRECTOR: Drew Black

CONTACT: 1-888-734-2267 campmuskoka.com

Located in the Heart of Algonquin Park

Enriching Girls Lives Since 1925

“Where Growth and Fun Walk Hand in Hand"

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Girls 4-16 Years

Sessions: Kindercamp Girls 4-6 years Mini Camp 6 day sessions Two week and Four week option

www.tanamakoon.com 905-338-9464

Where friendships begin...and FUN never ends!

Homes

Image: Courtesy of HGTV Canada

SECTION

GIVING BACK They will be surprising mentors, family and friends of the celebs.

major impact in their lives by surprising them with a home renovation. Each episode will feature an inside look into a celebrity’s personal life and show the celebrities getting their hands dirty during the renovation with Jonathan and Drew Scott. Catch the premiere of Celebrity IOU on April 13 at 10 p.m. on HGTV Canada.

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The Property Brothers are at it again with a brand new home renovation show. Celebrity IOU is the latest series from the real estate and renovation duo, where they will team up with A-list celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Viola Davis and fellow Canadian Michael Bublé, and it’s said to be a bit of a tearjerker. These stars want to give something back to individuals who had a

SPRING 2020

The Scott brothers team up with big celebrities in new show

SPRING HOME DESIGN Provide your family with peace of mind and a clean home!

SAVE 20%

CALL US TODAY FOR A FREE QUOTE!

on your spring cleaning with Drape Master's full takedown and re-hang drapery and blind cleaning services.

Turning houses into homes since 1977

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www.AltaModaFurniture.com

T. 416.636.5495 680 Rivermede Road . Concord . Ontario Keele St., North of Highway #7

(416) 264-2535 â&#x20AC;¢ info@drapemaster.ca *Some conditions apply.

DECOR

HOMES

A spring refresh that won’t cost a dime Jane Lockhart’s tips to revamp your decor and work space without leaving your home

While you’re at it, get rid of the heavy throws and dark pillows. See if this minimalist approach makes you feel at ease. Maybe they don’t need replacing just yet. With spring trying to push through, this is the best time to change out accessories and inject colour into every room. Even

though shopping is not an option, you can bring out your inner stylist by going through rooms and repurposing pieces. Swap out books or vases from the bedroom and re-dress the coffee table in the living room. Take out that painting you have stashed away in the closet and walk it

possible) place to work. You need the space to separate work from home. That starts with a door that closes and ends with you being able to function, happily. It may take a while for children to understand the difference between a parent at work or just at home, but if it helps, set up a work space for the kids too. It can be in its own room or close to where you work if you want to be able to keep an eye on them. It doesn’t have to cost anything to refresh your home. All it takes is a little muscle, creativity and a few full garbage bags.

JANE LOCKHART

Jane Lockhart is an award-winning designer, TV personality and author. She is also the principal designer of the Toronto firm she founded in 1997, Jane Lockhart Interior Design.

SPRING 2020

When working from home, make sure your work space has good lighting

through the house. Where is the best place to hang it? Just moving art or accessories to different rooms can add the right touch to help you enjoy a room again. Group objects together in odd numbers:it can look very satisfying. If you usually work from home, this is the time to clean up your home office. Add better lighting, reassess the layout. Take the time to set it up so it really functions for you. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and forget we can actually enjoy our work space, even at home. If your desk has been relegated to a windowless basement, it’s time to see the light. Even if it means moving to the master bedroom, set yourself up near a good source of daylight. Eight hours is a long time to spend under artificial light in front of a computer screen. You deserve a window. If you’ve suddenly found yourself working from home, try not to set up on the dining room table. Find a quiet (if that’s

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Feeling like you’re hibernating? You’re not alone. Usually it means a long winter’s nap, but with social distancing it’s become a spring necessity. For me, being at home for extended periods of time motivates me to make changes in my surroundings. When I feel the need for a home refresh, I start by decluttering. All the drawers, shelves, cupboards, nooks and crannies must be tackled and purged. After all, we should feel happy, inspired and safe at home. If everywhere you look you see clutter, chances are you’re feeling anything but happy. Employ whatever method works to rid yourself of unnecessary stuff. Now, look around you. Find the light. Open the drapes and raise the blinds: that’s where you need to be. For a fresh approach to give your home a lift, orient your furniture to embrace daylight and make it the focal point for seating arrangements.

SPRING HOME DESIGN

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Grab those clogs and get in the garden T.O. horticulturalist Melissa Skinner’s four step guide to backyard gardening

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evergreens that are getting a little too big. Be careful with pruning. Know your shrubs: when they flower, old wood or new wood? Next up is turning those garden beds. Every garden bed needs a good tilling of the soil. Providing the soil with oxygen and nutrients is important for your plants. After your beds are turned, cultivate them nice and smooth, then add fertilizer and a layer of fresh triple mix or compost. Finish it all off by edging the beds and power washing the hard surfaces. Don’t forget your lawn: use a highquality grass seed mixture to fertilize the lawn and an organic weed treatment for a great start. Give it two weeks, some rain and sun, and your lawn will be lush.

Step 3: Sweat equity

Step 4: Finishing touches

Can’t go to the gym? No problem! Gardening is the answer to fitness withdrawal. It’s time to get pruning on all those shrubs and perennials. Prune back low-lying tree branches and

Fix up any hard surfaces, decks or fences. Think about painting and staining if needed. Get that patio furniture out. Fill your pots with soil and start assembling your new arrangements.

As the majority of us do our part staying home to help curb the tide of COVID-19, we try to find things to keep us occupied. As a residential gardener, I keep busy by planning out gardens to enjoy for the upcoming season. This is something each of us can do at home, from terrace gardens at Bay and Bloor to thoughtful backyard spaces in Hogg’s Hollow and palatial acreage estates in The Bridle Path. Step 1: Cleaning

Start by cleaning up winter debris, leaves, sticks and dead plant material. Take note of any damaged plants, lawn areas, hard surfaces, decks and fences. This is also something the kids can participate in. Step 2: Planning

Get to know your garden. Take some pictures of plants you see. Text a friend who has some gardening knowledge, email your local nursery if it’s open or get a

Finishing touches like edging garden beds make all the difference

plant ID app for your phone. Once you have all the required information, draw out a map of your garden. What plants need to be replaced? How much soil and grass seed is needed? Then plan colours and new plant choices, and include containers and annuals. Add all

While you’re at it, don’t forget to add greenery inside your home. Start with low-light, lowmaintenance options such as peace lily and snake plant. If you’ve got a space with a lot of light, go for a fiddle leaf fig or bird of paradise. Interior plants help purify the air in your home, and we could all use the extra oxygen while being cooped up inside this month. Eventually, social distancing will be over and your garden will be well on its way. Feel proud and strut outside in those gardening clogs. You got some exercise and created a beautiful serene space to enjoy, all while helping Toronto flatten the curve!

MELISSA SKINNER Melissa Skinner is the owner of The Gardener’s Daughter Horticultural residential gardening and was a cast member on Room to Grow with Carson Arthur.

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