I was strolling by the south-west corner of Nathan Phillips Square a couple of weeks ago when I noticed something was conspicuously missing:

I recalled that on this very spot used to stand a podium dedicated to free speech. But was it just some weird mixed-up memory that was bubbling up to the surface?

I searched the web and discovered that I had, in fact, been correct. The podium was called Speakers’ Corner:

Yeah, that’s the one! It was a podium guarded over by the ghost of Winston Churchill, dedicated to free speech and public expression.

Except that now, it’s gone. All that’s left is a slab of concrete where it used to stand. And to be honest, I don’t remember the last time I’d seen it there anyways.

I visited City Hall and asked the information desk about its whereabouts.

At first they had no clue what I was talking about — a podium? Speakers’ Corner? Oh, wasn’t that at the old Citytv building further west on Queen Street?

Nope, I replied. It was in front of the old statue of Churchill.

Ask security, said the woman behind the desk. Maybe it’s been temporarily moved because of the construction.

Okay, I suppose (even though it wasn’t near the fence).

The guy at the security desk also had equally little idea of what I was talking about. He called the boss and was told that the podium can be found at the south-east end of the Square.

Umm, actually, I think it had been moved from there, I replied. And besides, it’s definitely not there. Not south-west either.

The security guy shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea. But maybe I could call the City of Toronto information line?

Okay, I’ll do that.

3-1-1 … hello?

The guy on the other end responded courteously.

“Hi. Just a quick question for you…I’m looking to find out what happened to Speakers’ Corner. It was a dais at the south-west corner of Nathan Phillips Square where people could go to speak their mind.”

“Oh, well if you want information about Citytv…”

“No, no, not that Speakers’ Corner. I’m talking about the lectern that used to sit in front of the Winston Churchill statue at the south end of the square. It had a plaque on it that read that it was provided by the city for the people of Toronto. Dedicated to free speech.”

“Hmm, I’ve never heard of it. You should try to contact the City Hall staff…”

“Oh, I already did. I spoke to the receptionist as well as to security. Neither of them had even heard of it.”

*pause*

“Well, I suppose Marguerite Reid might know something about it. She’s the special events coordinator at City Hall.”

Special events? Didn’t seem like a special event. Still, I let the 311 guy connect me to her extension which landed me in her voice mail. It told me that she’ll be on vacation until the 13th of August, at which point I have no doubt that she’ll try to refer me to Citytv to discover what happened to their vaunted corner.

Essentially, the tiny section of City Hall set aside for citizens to voice their opinions and express their free speech disappeared, and no one noticed. In fact, few people even remember it.

Okay, yeah, it might not have gotten much use over the years that it had been there, but then again no one “uses” the statue of Churchill just behind where it stood either. Yet the statue remains while the podium, a symbol of citizen freedoms, was quietly removed. And yeah, it’s fair to say that it was mostly symbolic. In the same way, the Canadian flag is merely a symbol of the country, even if it doesn’t really do anything. It could just as easily be replaced with something like a twisted Swastika or a sickle and hammer. A few years down the road, would anyone even remember what Canada had been?

Remember yesterday when I was talking about the seeming unwillingness of the government to curb violence? I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice this, but the only conclusions that people are drawing are that Harper and his cadre are doing this either through sheer incompetence or some level of meat-headed obstinance that simply won’t allow them to do anything else.

Except what if there’s a third option? One in which this is a cold, calculating move designed to get us all under the yoke of a tyrannical government. I mean, you only have to look as far back as Bills C-11, C-10, or C-38 (the Omnibus Crime Bill) to see exactly where they want to take Canada, and it’s a very ugly direction indeed; Orwellian, even — and that is not an exaggeration by any means.

And if you doubt that, today’s news offers an early glimpse into the plan made incarnate at this year’s Caribana (you know everyone still calls it that!) Here’s just a sample of what they deem is “normal” for private security (these aren’t even sworn police officers, and this is in a public place):

Security guards will be searching visitors’ bags for alcohol, drugs and weapons.

[Organizer Stephen] Weir said the people who usually purchase bleacher seats are seniors, families with young children and tourists. He doesn’t expect pat-downs will be part of the screening process.

Oh, he “doesn’t expect” pat downs will be used on children? That means that, yes, most certainly the troglodyte security goons will most definitely be grabbing at your kids’ genitals, a la US TSA gropings. And since these are mostly elderly and kids and families sitting in the bleachers, off course they need to be the subjects of a security crack-down. They are, after all, typical of the most despicable criminals out there. Makes sense, right?

People are unfairly linking us with an event in another part of the city that was really tragic, but we should be doing this.

Oh, it’s unfair. We don’t have a violent event, so of course we’ll be frisking people. And only the the law-abiding citizens who paid for their tickets; everyone else just walking around on the street won’t be subject to this. Makes sense, right?

If you’ve brought in food and non-alcoholic beverages, we don’t care. But if someone tries to bring in drugs or alcohol or projectiles and the worst-case scenario, a weapon, we have police standing by.

So what exactly is the point of security then? You know, it’s one thing to watch the crowd for sketchy people, but frisking people and rifling through their bags, especially when they’re families, elderly, and kids, has only one purpose, and it’s exactly the same purpose that the police at the G20 were put out in such force and ended up breaking the law in far larger numbers than even the demonstrators (who actually had larger numbers): fear and intimidation.

If you doubt this, read the official reports on the G20 (I’m sure I link to them from this blog somewhere). Does that help to answer why the police didn’t give a fuck when the vandals were wrecking Toronto? They weren’t there to serve and protect — it’s that simple.

They are not there to help you, they’re there to teach you to kow tow to authority, to demand that you allow flabby fucks to manhandle your kids, to scare you into obeying whatever commands they issue, even if they themselves have no more authority than the average citizen on the street. It’s important to repeat this last part, because in a public place like the Caribana parade, you have as many rights as any pudgy fuck with a pseudo-badge and a hard-on for fondling your wife’s breasts. And if you don’t like it, you can be sure that there will be hundreds of security cameras recording your every move, without your knowledge or permission, exactly as described in Orwell’s 1984.

Just today I saw two police cruisers in Allan Gardens and four bicycle cops for a total of eight uniforms busting an old man. One of the officers was doing a little jig while two others were laughing up a storm; the old guy just stood there looking down at the ground. Ridiculous? Of course not, it’s fear and intimidation; they’re doing their jobs!

You know, if the evidence fits then whatever the theory it supports must necessarily be true, and frankly all the crap that the mayor and the mainstream keep throwing at us makes no sense at all (see above).

Q.E.D.

Sadly, most people will just go along with our descent, much to the resounding joy of Harper and his underlings who see their hellish visions of a “modern” society coming to life, and these people will cower in fear and bow to “the authorities” (whoever they claim to be), whenever they’re told to.

This is just the very beginning.

The birdcage liner aimed at Toronto’s avid knuckle-draggers really outdid itself today. I am now no longer able to distinguish it from other vaunted tabloids like the Weekly World News (more interesting), or the Onion (more funny).

Story goes: dude walks up, sees other dude with bag on seat, screws up face, takes a photo, hobbles off on account of a gimpy leg. Didn’t ask for the seat, didn’t motion like he wanted to sit down, just cast a glance like, “who the hell are you to be taking up my seat with a bag?” Breaking news reported to Sun News who interview gimpy leg dude in the street; now front page of Toronto Sun and most likely running on high rotation on Sun News Network alongside the hot dog rat story.

And look, as of this post, 95 people registered their rabid displeasure at the event — that’s three times as many as the story in which a three-year-old boy kills his dad with his handgun.

Sarah and I made a sort of unnofficial agreement — well, no, really I made a proposal and she agreed — that we would try to try out a new breakfast joint every Saturday morning, time and money willing. I use the word “morning” lightly because Saturday and that word are not usually best of buddies; I’m sure you know what I mean. But this being Toronto, there are plenty of places around willing to serve breakfast at all manner of un-Godly hours, so that shouldn’t cause us any problems.

Yesterday, for our inaugural journey, Sarah found a place called Bar Wellington for us to try out. It’s a red brick job sitting on the corner of Wellington and Portland Streets, a trendy area with lots of trendy people wearing trendy clothes, walking trendy dogs, riding trendy Vespas, and just generally being trendy.

Trendiness, per se, doesn’t really agree with me — I tend to gravitate more towards the unwashed vagrant look. Plus, the intersection reminds me of the varied and harried times slinging code for evil advertising agencies I’d spent within literally a stone’s throw of there, not all of them bad, but always commensurate with the amount of overall trendiness exhibited by whatever employer I was under the yoke of at the time. In other words, I tend to whinge uncontrollably whenever I’m in the presence of threadbare shirts, fashionably unshorn faces, trendily asymmetric quaffs, and thonged-feet (this ain’t the beach, buddy!)

I was, however, able to put my judgement aside long enough to dig into a plate of sunny-sided eggs, brown toast, and a delightful, albeit misnomered, rendition of hash-brown potatoes consisting of cubed potatoes and lightly herbed cherry tomatoes, and washing it all down with fresh OJ and a glass of oddly vegetable-flavoured water. Sarah couldn’t verify this last part for me because she was busy slamming down a much more vegetable-laden Caesar and ripping into a plate of “Not So Classic” eggs Benedict in which the Canadian bacon is replaced with prosciutto. An extra side of hollandaise went mostly to waste as there was enough of the home made concoction to aptly smother everything on her plate.

Aside from what I thought was somewhat bland hollandaise (I like more zing in my butter/yolk artery-hardener), the $25-ish price tag seemed quite reasonable for a tasty (even the vegetable water wasn’t off-putting), fresh meal, that was big enough to be left partially unfinished. The outdoor patio was breezy, which was just as well since we would never have been able to get Sarah’s wheelchair into the inaccessible building otherwise. It could have been quieter, but then again this is just off of King West on a Saturday; expectations must be tempered.

Overall, I’d give the place a double-thumbs up. I know Sarah thoroughly enjoyed her meal, and I was pretty satisfied too. It was certainly a step-up from the traditional greasy spoon where the hollandaise comes out of a packet and and the hash-browns are swimming in month-old grease. As I said, the hollandaise could’ve used more acid, but Sarah seemed satisfied with it so I guess that’s a matter of personal preference. Next time I might try the “Wellington Medallions”, their fru-fru, Grand-Marnier-infused take on pancakes, but the breakfast was good enough that there’s nothing to make me think twice about returning to an area immersed in nightmarish memories of insane advertising agencies sporting trendy assholes riding trendy Vespas with trendy girlfriends holding trendy dogs…

When people ask me where my parents live, my answer is almost always invariably met with a blank stare.

“Elliot Lake?”

“Yeah,” I’d reply. “You know where Sudbury is?”

“Ummm, kinda. Do people go skiing there?”

“Yeah, I suppose. More likely they go to mine minerals there. Iron, copper, that kinda thing.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, you go to Sudbury, then head an additional two hours or so north and west. That’s Elliot Lake.”

“How far is that from Toronto?”

“I guess anywhere from seven to nine hours depending on traffic and weather.”

*surprised whistle* “Is it nice?”

“Yeah. If you like bears and hiking. In the winter they do a lot of ice fishing.”

“Sounds like cottage country. Muskokas.”

“Yeah … no. It’s pretty wild up there. Civilization is mostly a strip-mall type deal named the Algo Centre. Beyond that, it’s all trees and lakes and logging roads.”

Basically, people have never heard of it let alone be able to place it on a map. That is, of course, until recently. Now most Ontarians have at least a rough idea of where the infamous mall is located.

My parents are still trying to convince me to move to their community — apparently uranium mining is about to take off again and there are going to be jobs galore!

That’s a definite maybe on that one.

Kinda reminds me of all this spam I’ve been receiving lately that starts off with, “I was awake at 4:30 again this morning as usual…”; you know, the one from Ilsa Beauregard or Brian Stainhousman or Georgina Whatsamopolous telling me what a great investment they’ve discovered or how they’ve defied ageing or how they’ve managed to extend their penis by 10.3% and erectile rigidity to superhuman levels.

Except this time it’s me that’s awake and this one particular vision of blogging at my desk keeps running through me head — I’m sitting at my dining table (which is now permanently my work table), it’s a golden late afternoon outside with gilded shafts slicing the air of my downtown apartment behind me, and I’m blogging about the day’s events on TCL. I haven’t discovered any great new investment product, am still the same age (and getting older), and am fairly satisfied with my boners. And I’m happy.

And I realized I missed this.

I mean, there’s definitely a place for hard-hitting political commentary and well-deserved Ford bashing, and I have other blogs where I can broadcast my programming prowess or disgust with modern events around the globe, but I can’t help but wonder what the hell happened to me.

For some mysterious reason the Twitter account is now at an unhealthily large number of followers, I’m blessed with a modicum of financial stability, and lord knows my life is more interesting and unpredictable now than it ever was when TCL started.

And why did I start TCL again? When I go back to post number one about New Year’s Eve at Nathan Phillips Square, there’s the prototype for what I had intended should I ever get to this day. And here I am, and it feels like I’m wasting a great opportunity. At least that’s why my brain seems to be keeping me up at 4:30 in the morning.

Yeah, it’s true that life today is in some ways more challenging than it used to be. The various projects that come my way professionally have me keeping vampiric hours which sometimes include weekends, and Sarah’s MS keeps me occupied in a bunch of ways. I’ve hardly mentioned her at all but she’s such a large part of my life (in a great way). I also now have another cat, a little black hellion named Bitty, who vies for my attention along with the ever-hungry Ollie.

And although it’s sometimes hard to get behind the keyboard, what with all the extra side projects I decided to heap onto my already overfull plate, I just can’t seem to shake that feeling that this is exactly where I should be at this time of the day. Well, hopefully I’ll be better-rested in the future when I decide to write again, but you get the idea. No gimmicks, no filler, no photos for the sake of photos, just Toronto City Life.

So welcome, once again, dear reader. It’s nice to be back.

Unfortunately, I don’t know who wrote this Pastebin entry about the Toronto and Vancouver real estate markets, but it’s a salient and seemingly well-researched piece, certainly better than the vast majority of so-called “news” sites out there anyways.

I’ve copied it here in its entirety and would love to be able to attribute it to whoever wrote it (if you know, drop me a line!).

The real estate market everywhere will be in turmoil by September. The bankers know it. The realtors smell it. The sheeple have no idea what’s coming.

Investor and consumer behaviour’s been irrational. Your friends, relatives and the people at work have been employing leverage on a scale not seen since the 1920s to speculate that assets already priced at record levels will go higher. Net worth has been consolidated in houses, as it was in stocks prior to the Great Depression and in US real estate before the GFC. The consequences will be the same. F knows this. It’s why the hammer dropped two weeks ago. Too late.

An astonishing number of people are about to be turned into crispy critters by something they see as safe and benign. A whack of them lined up outside a new Vancouver-area condo development called Cambie+7 a few days ago – the latest reminder of the lust we saw weeks ago north of Toronto when people stormed a sales centre and bought million-dollar homes in five minutes.

Here they are:

What they’re buying: Lilliputian units (less than 600 feet), in an unbuilt structure in a regional city with a declining real estate market for an average of $710 a square foot. Why? Two reasons. “Proven value appreciation,” says the developer. “Condos in the area went up 35% in the last three years.” So, of course, they’ll go up forever. Second, a 5% deposit – putting rank speculation on a $500,000 asset within the grasp of anyone with $25,000.

By the way, here’s what half a million (including closing costs) gets you:

That real estate is troubled will become apparent to everyone in a few months. For those who care to look now, the cracks are widening. Quite apart from the public delusion mentioned above, Vancouver (for example) is unraveling. In the next day or so the real estate board will try to caramelize and fluff the latest ugly set of numbers. But June was a disaster, as this pathetic blog told you would happen.

Sales of detached houses crashed 37%
Prices have declined for four consecutive months, the first such occurrence in 16 years.
The average SFH has lost almost 13% of its value, likely one-third or less of what’s coming.
Condo sales were down 20%. Prices were down 6% in a single month.
Listings of detached homes have exploded higher 27% over this time a year ago.
But this is not a Vancouver story. It will define economic lives in every significant community. Prices could actually revert to the mean, which historically places the cost of owning a house close to that of renting the same digs. By this measure houses in Toronto and Vancouver are overvalued by about half. You can just imagine the consequences.
Bankers can. That elfin deity known as F tried to calm jittery Bay Street nerves with a conference call on Friday, addressing head-on fears that slashing the amortization rate and curtailing lending will crash housing. It didn’t work. “We are prepared to take that risk, quite frankly, because of the greater risk of the development over time of a housing bubble,” he said. “I realize it may have some dampening effect on the economy and I realize it may have some dampening effect in the residential real estate market.”

For their part bankers are uncharacteristically speaking out. As RBC’s head of banking told a Globe reporter, “This is not like turning a Ferrari. This is like a big ship. And it takes a while to turn. And sometimes if you over steer, you can’t re-steer the other way.”

It’s all just beginning. The odds of us having a soft landing, as I detailed last week, are fading daily. One on hand the lenders, agents, developers, brokers and bankers understand what just happened and where it’s leading. On the other, idiot buyers, popped on leverage, are embracing deals they see as riskless.

When the facts emerge, expect chaos at the exits.

In Google’s latest transparency report there was a minor note about how Passport Canada had requested to ban a YouTube video featuring a passport being pissed on and flushed down the toilet. I’ve tried looking for the video but can’t seem to find it, suggesting that maybe the government had used other means to have the offending material removed.

I can only imagine that the government would’ve use the “passports are government property” excuse as a basis for this, yet considering the fact that a passport is required to both leave and re-enter Canada, to claim that they can control a person’s actions using a passport as a threat (if they can have a video banned, why stop there?), this would go directly against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Mobility Rights clause as well as the Fundamental Freedoms portion. And since this is the highest law in the land, this is a pretty clear-cut example of the government breaking the fundamental laws governing the country, or at least coming very very close. Will anyone be held to account for this? How about a mild reprimand? Maybe a stern nod?

Originally posted at: http://patrickbay.ca/blog/?p=4081

I know I’ve spent a lot of time pissing on the Conservatives and Harper, but it’s become exceedingly obvious that the Liberals are just more of the same, the same broken system of bipartisanship designed to keep us all arguing on the ground instead of looking at the houses of power and seeing the truth of the corruption and lies being peddled there.

I say this because of Dalton McGuinty’s latest revelation that his budget, which he wants the NDP to guarantee in writing to vote for, includes a section that would privatize ServiceOntario. In case you’re wondering what this agency does, here’s a quick rundown of everything that would fall into private hands:

• Driver’s licenses, plates, and stickers
• Birth certificates and newborn registrations
• Death certificates
• Marriage certificates
• Business licenses
• Personal property liens
• Hunting and fishing licenses
• Government address registrations

All this even as, in the same budget, McGuinty’s government boasts about how they’ve saved $1.5 billion last year. So how do they justify it? With the claim that Canada is poor because of the 2009 recession, and we need to cut cut cut! This is probably thanks to Harper (may I have a second helping, sir?), even though the Liberal’s own website strongly suggests this is not the case.

In any event, the Libs are holding up the construction and almost immediate sale of highway 407 as the type of resounding success that privatization can bring. I’m sure anyone who takes the 407 is familiar with just how amazing it is to be under the yoke of a private agency that can revoke your driving privileges. And wasn’t it the Libs who took the 407 to court to try to break that contract? And, what a wonderful example to hold up anyways…the fact that it cost over $100 billion to build, land acquisitions and all, and was sold for just over $3 billion for a quick $1.5 billion “profit” for the Conservatives that wasn’t really a profit at all.

Look, I get it, all of you who have been calling these people “Fiberals” have, I admit, been far too kind about your monickers, but just don’t delude yourselves that by being on the other side (ergo the Conservatives), is any better. The government at all levels (I’m sure I’ve mentioned my municipal government more than once), seems hell bent on robbing citizens blind for the benefit of the banks. A global deficit, after all, is impossible if the same money lent out is what’s owed — that’s just elementary logic. The only way that the whole world can owe an approximate $200 trillion is if someone either stole that amount, or loaned it out fraudulently (they never had it to begin with), and is now expecting payback. And I dunno know about you, but the government only ever takes my money, never gives me any, so I sure as hell wasn’t on the receiving end of any such “loan”.

The fact that politicians are all mentioning that the “new” deficit is going to come from Europe where it was caused by banks lending out money they didn’t have (with much help by Government laws and regulations), and then expecting payback for cash literally created out of thin air (look up “fractional reserve banking” if you need an explanation), indicates a strong collusion, probably even big kickbacks (but how would we know? The banks control the money supply!) Besides, haven’t governments been handing over taxpayer money to the banks by the billions to solve this “problem”? How’s that been working out?

So doesn’t it just make perfect sense to go in exactly this direction more and more? Then, when we can’t pay our “debts” anymore, the banks can just privatize everything and then get ready for some genuine old-school slavery (or feudalism if you like, and if we’re lucky). And the government can be expected to back them all the way.