Toronto in 10,000 photos

Toronto sister cities

The other day I learned that São Paulo, Mexico City and Tehran are sister cities to Toronto.

Via Wikipedia

Is Rob Ford really that popular?

Amongst likely voters who have decided who they would vote for, 45.6 per cent say they would make Ford the next mayor.

Via CTV

It boggles my mind someone like Rob Ford can have so much support in the city. Why? Actually, wait, I’m not all that surprised. Granted, I’m not a huge fan of other candidates (all of them), but Ford is an illiterate clown. I am not going to dissect his platform in this post, but I do want to give you an idea of how the reported support statistics give us a skewed idea of his widespread support.

• There are 1.5 million electors in Toronto’s municipal election.
• Population of Toronto is close to 2.5 million.
• Voter turnout in the 2006 election was 39% – 585,000 in today’s population.

Assuming a similar turnout, I estimate that 46% Rob Ford votes will come from approximately 269,100 city residents (46% of 585,000). Based on that assumption, we are letting approximately 11% of Toronto residents elect Rob Ford to lead this world-class city.

Ford doesn’t seem all that popular once you break down the numbers. But obviously he struck the right chord with quite a few voters. There is no easy answer to who should lead Toronto -  selecting the right candidate isn’t easy when the choices are so limited. Unfortunately I don’t find the other candidates to be more promising so it’s a tough choice to make.

But, there is a real possibility of Rob Ford becoming a mayor. And that’s scary (to me).

Whether you support him or not, take a look at the data, do some research and take 15 minutes out of your day to make an educated vote – don’t let others do it for you. Otherwise you let the 11% minority opinion run your city for the next 4 years. I am an eligible voter and taxpayer and believe that he doesn’t represent the majority opinion in this city.

Statistics: City of Toronto, CTV
Photo: CCUE

Ontario buy-local grocers go independent

This is great news. For a list of buy-local Toronto markets, visit MyMarket.

Dale Kropf calls it Independence Day: On July 3, his five grocery stores in southwestern Ontario ceased to be Sobeys franchises.

Corporate policies prevented him from buying local products, he says, so he joined forces with four other former Sobeys franchisees and formed the independent Hometown Grocers Co-Op.

“We feel that local food, local presence is huge in our market and we wanted to take advantage of that,” Kropf says.
Canadians are increasingly subscribing to the “buy local” and “100 mile diet” philosophies due to concerns over imported food, Kropf adds. “The pressure was always mounting — the more recalls, the more bad press from China or wherever the product was coming from. I know that in our case, our private label pickles are made in Indonesia. I couldn’t believe that.”

As a franchisee for a large grocery chain, Kropf says, corporate policies stipulating that he only buy federally inspected meat prevented him from stocking local products. Most federally inspected meat in Canada comes from large corporations such as Maple Leaf, Cargill and Tyson.

Read more on CBC

We’re not as green as we think

Canadians who look in the mirror and see green may be environmentally colour blind, according to a new study.

Researchers compared how Canadians perceive their commitment to the environment and what they actually do about it in a study commissioned by marketing firm Cossette Communication and Summerhill, an environmental consultancy.

On average, people believed they were 20 per cent greener than their reported behaviour showed, the study found.

For example, close to 80 per cent of respondents said they use reusable drinking containers regularly, Cossette’s Nick Cowling said. “Yet if you are standing in the lineup at Starbucks or Tim Hortons or Second Cup and you look around, of course 80 per cent of people in the lineup are not doing that. They’re going to use the paper cup they’re given.”

Read the rest on CBC