Courtesy of tiff.net

The Toronto International Film Festival is one of most prestigious film festivals in the world. From September 10 – 19 an incredible list of luminaries from the film world – film makers, actors and actresses, and industry professionals – will all be in Toronto to celebrate the art of film making. Stake out a spot on your favourite patio because this is a just partial list of just some of the celebrities that have confirmed to date.

1. Ally Sheedy
2. Amanda Seyfried
3. Atom Egoyan
4. Chris Rock
5. Cillian Murphy
6. Clive Owen
7. Colin Farrell
8. Colin Firth
9. Colm Feore
10. Danny DeVito
11. Danny Glover
12. David Duchovny
13. Demi Moore
14. Drew Barrymore
15. Edward Norton
16. Ellen Page
17. Emily Blunt
18. Ethan Coen
19. Eva Green
20. Ewan McGregor
21. George Clooney
22. Georgina Reilly
23. Gordon Pinsent
24. Guy Maddin
25. Hugh Hefner
26. Ian Fitzgibbon
27. Isabella Rossellini
28. Jack White
29. Jacob Tierney
30. James Purefoy
31. Jane Campion
32. Jason Reitman
33. Jeff Bridges
34. Jennifer Connelly
35. Jennifer Garner
36. Jimmy Smits
37. Joel Coen
38. Johnny Hallyday
39. Jon Amiel
40. Jonathan King
41. Julianne Moore
42. Juliette Lewis
43. Keanu Reeves
44. Keir Gilchrist
45. Keisha Castle-Hughes
46. Kevin McDonald
47. Kevin Spacey
48. Kerry Washington
49. Kristin Scott Thomas
50. Kyle MacLachlan
51. Liam Neeson
52. Lisa Kudrow
53. Marica Gay Harden
54. Mariah Carey
55. Matt Damon
56. Megan Fox
57. Sir Michael Caine
58. Michael Douglas
59. Michael Moore
60. Michael Sheen
61. Miranda Richardson
62. Naomi Watts
63. Natalie Portman
64. Neil Diamond
65. Neil Jordan
66. Nicolas Cage
67. Oliver Parker
68. Oprah Winfrey
69. Patricia Clarkson
70. Paul Bettany
71. Paul Schneider
72. Paula Patton
73. Penélope Cruz
74. Peter Berg
75. Peter Sarsgaard
76. Philip Hoffman
77. Rachel Ward
78. Ricky Gervais
79. Sir Ridley Scott
80. Rob Lowe
81. Robert Duvall
82. Robin Wright Penn
83. Rossif Sutherland
84. S. Epatha Merkerson
85. Samantha Morton
86. Sarah Ferguson
87. Sarah Polley
88. Sheila McCarthy
89. Sissy Spacek
90. Snoop Dogg
91. Steven Soderbergh
92. Tatiana von Furstenberg
93. Ted Kotcheff
94. Terry Gilliam
95. Tilda Swinton
96. Tom Ford
97. Tyler Perry
98. Viggo Mortensen
99. Willem Dafoe
100. Woody Harrelson

The films this year promise to be outstanding and tickets can be purchased online.

Courtesy of airport.ca

It seems that anything to do with the Toronto Island Airport is contentious, and the proposed pedestrian tunnel is sadly no different. Like it or not the wheels have been set in motion and it looks as though this is one battle that Mayor Miller will lose. Last week the CEO of the port authority requested $19 million from the federal government’s stimulus fund to finance the project. The total amount to build the tunnel is $38 million. The feds have been asked for half. The other half will come from the provincial government - $12 million, and the port authority - $7 million.

The pedestrian tunnel could encourage more traffic, resulting in more daily flights and increased revenues. It would be eight metres wide, four metres high, and have moving sidewalks for passengers. Engineers have estimated that the tunnel would take one year to build. An environmental assessment will probably take about 4 months and it should prove that a tunnel would reduce carbon emissions. Potential contractors will be submitted bids within 3 weeks.

Of course Mayor opposes the tunnel. He opposes anything that makes sense. The good news is that the port authority would not need signoff from the city to build the tunnel because it’s permitted under the existing three-government agreement that governs the airport. In July Pollara Strategic Insights conducted a poll for the port authority. It showed that 62% of respondents supported the construction of an airport island tunnel which I’m sure is much higher than the Mayor’s approval rating – particularly after his bungling of the city workers’ strike.

The outrage about the settling of the recent city workers’ strike will not be moving off the front pages any time soon and the fall out is just beginning. Torontonians were very passionate about the issue and many are now feeling an enormous sense of betrayal and are furious that after a strike that lasted over a month, the union got everything they asked for and in the end Mayor Miller supported the strikers instead of the people that he is sworn to serve. In record numbers the residents of Toronto reached out to their city councillors and expressed their opinions prior to the vote. Did your city councilor support the wishes of your riding? Here is the list of how they voted.

YES to the contract for CUPE Local 416
Mayor David Miller
Maria Augimeri (York Centre)
Sandra Bussin (Beaches East York)
Shelley Carroll (Don Valley East)
Raymond Cho (Scarborough Rouge River)
Janet Davis (Beaches East York)
Glenn De Baeremaeker (Scarborough Centre)
Frank Di Giorgio (York South Weston)
Paula Fletcher (Toronto Danforth)
Adam Giambrone (Davenport)
Mark Grimes (Etobicoke Lakeshore)
Suzan Hall (Etobicoke North)
Adrian Heaps (Scarborough Southwest)
Doug Holyday (Etobicoke Centre)
Pam McConnell (Toronto Centre Rosedale)
Joe Mihevc (St. Paul’s )
Joe Pantalone (Trinity Spadina)
Gord Perks (Parkdale High Park)
Anthony Perruzza (York West)
Bill Saundercook (Parkdale High Park)
Adam Vaughan (Trinity Spadina)

NO to the contract for CUPE Local 416
Paul Ainslie (Scarborough East)
Brian Ashton (Scarborough Southwest)
Mike Del Grande (Scarborough Agincourt)
Mike Feldman (York Centre)
Rob Ford (Etobicoke North)
Cliff Jenkins (Don Valley West)
Norm Kelly (Scarborough Agincourt)
Chin Lee (Scarborough Rouge River)
Peter Milczyn (Etobicoke Lakeshore)
Denzil Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East)
Ron Moeser (Scarborough East)
Frances Nunziata (York South Weston)
Case Ootes (Toronto Danforth)
John Parker (Don Valley West)
Karen Stintz (Eglinton Lawrence)
Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre)
Michael Walker (St. Paul’s)

Abstentions for conflict of interest:
Howard Moscoe (Eglinton Lawrence)
David Shiner (Willowdale)

Did not vote:
John Filion (Willowdale)
Gloria Lindsay Luby (Etobicoke Centre)
Giorgio Mammoliti (York West)
Cesar Palacio (Davenport)
Kyle Rae (Toronto Centre Rosedale)

Will you be voting for your city councillor or for Mayor Miller again?

courtesy of network.nationalpost.com

Why is the deal shrouded in secrecy? The union says the city dropped all 118 pages of concessions. If that’s true then why did we have a strike to begin with and why was what went on called a negotiation? Mayor Miller says that the deals worked out meets the goals he and the city laid out at the start of talks. Why don’t the city councilors know anything about it? Aren’t they “the city”? Did the city and the union agree to the same terms? Both sides can’t be telling the truth, so what was actually agreed to? Why won’t the pickets come down until after the agreement is ratified?

At this point there are only questions and no answers. The deals struck with CUPE Local 79 and Local 416 are still tentative and need to be ratified. What we do know is that after the deals are ratified, if they are, there will be no instant back to business as usual. It will take several days before services and programs are restored – garbage needs to be moved, parks will need a lot of cleaning and maintenance, swimming pools need to be cleaned and refilled, and the Toronto Island ferries need to be serviced. In 2002 it took about 3 days to clean up after the strike, but this strike went on for more than twice as long.

There are a lot of things that Toronto needs at the moment, but most of all it needs strong leadership, which is exactly what we are lacking.

image from torontorealestatedirect.com

Maclean’s recently had a survey conducted of the best run cities in Canada and Toronto managed to come in 10^th. Here are the top 10 cities on the list.

1. Burnaby
2. Saskatoon
3. Surrey
4. Vancouver
5. Longueuil
6. Sherbrooke
7. London
8. Saint John
9. Quebec City
10. Toronto

It was the Halifax-based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies that conducted the survey. What made this survey different from most others like it was that it didn’t attempt to measure the quality of life, or by a series of preset criteria determine which city is the best place to live. Instead it focused on how local governments contributed to making their cities great by using a set of indicators in 7 categories.

• Governance and Finance
• Taxation
• Safety and Protection
• Transportation
• Environmental Health
• Economic Development
• Recreation and Culture

Based on the fact that the cities were rated based on their individual governments I cannot believe that Toronto ranked 10^th as a best run city. Personally I can’t believe that Toronto ranked at all. Do the folks who conducted the survey have any idea what goes on here? At the moment we are in the midst of a garbage strike that has turned Toronto into a giant dumpster. Our mayor, leader of the city’s government, has single handedly killed Toronto tourism. At the best of times we are mired in scandals of government corruption. If Toronto was being rated in any other way but its city government’s contribution I would put Toronto in first place, but according to the existing criteria for the study, Toronto should be in last place or off the scale entirely.

Maclean’s Magazine recently ran this cover and it pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? I wish that Toronto would get the amount of international press for being a world class city as it’s getting for the garbage strike. As the CNN commercial says, it is “the most trusted name in news”. When Mayor Miller went on CNN recently and created a public relations disaster, it set off a tempest in a teapot. The reality is the Americans had no idea that we were in the midst of a garbage strike, until Mayor Miller went on CNN and told the world. It was accompanied by photos showing overflowing trash bins and fenced-off temporary dump sites populated by thousands of garbage bags. If that didn’t give tourists a reason to stay away… Thank you Mayor Miller. In the World Travel Watch section of the San Francisco Chronicle, Canada heads the watch list that includes other world powers like Honduras, Mexico, North Africa and Thailand. Many travel agents across the U.S. have issued travel advisories, warning tourists about travel to Toronto.

Couldn’t we have left well enough alone? No, we decided to really see if we could kill tourism entirely when the federal government went ahead and imposed a visa requirement on Czech and Mexican visitors to Canada. What are our politicians thinking? In 2008 Canada welcomed 266,000 Mexican visitors. One of the reasons that so many Mexicans visited Canada is that the Americans imposed a visa requirement on them. So what do we do? Instead of enjoying the increase in tourism, which at the moment we badly need, we go ahead and discourage the Mexicans from coming to Canada. Why did we do this? Apparently there has been an increase in unfounded applications for refugee status. Maybe we should impose an intelligence requirement for all government officials.