A city councillor has drawn up an amendment to Toronto’s all-out ban on street hockey that would give parents the option of applying for a permit on their street. Josh Matlow, councillor for Ward 22, says he submitted a motion on the issue for the May 17-18 council meeting after receiving numerous complaints from parents [...]

TORONTO – Mayor Rob Ford was “in a meeting”.  But several other Toronto city councillors had no problem Thursday accepting an invitation to Proud of Toronto’s International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia reception next week. While City Hall typically can be a drag on the best of days, the trio of drag queens leading the group from [...]

In this simultaneously uplifting and disheartening story from the National Post, four teenagers took a stand against a decades-old law in Toronto, Canada that bans children from playing hockey on residential streets. Andrew Polanyi, age 13, insisted, “Roads aren’t only for cars.” He said of street hockey: “It’s fun for us, and it keeps us [...]

TORONTO – Nothing like a faceoff at city council. Rookie councillors, Josh Matlow and Mary-Margaret McMahon, are taking another shot at icing Toronto’s ban on street hockey. The duo is asking their city council colleagues to accept having the ban stay in effect on most city streets while giving residents a way to waive the city’s liability [...]

Josh Matlow: Keeping an Open Mind Posted on: 09 May 2011 by Steve Paikin How's this for a rarity in politics. Toronto City Council is going to consider whether to privatize some of its garbage collection services. The mayor's side is gung-ho in favour of doing this.  Council's left-wing is opposed. And there's a small [...]

In what will likely be the only airing of Toronto’s garbage privatization plan outside City Hall, a female trash collector managed to rattle the normally unflappable councillor leading the push. Christine Monks, a permanent city employee with 11 years service, told Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong that virtually no private waste haulers hire women as collectors. “They [...]

Last night, Councillor and Public Works and Infrastructure Committee chair Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives research associate Hugh Mackenzie squared off in a debate over the proposed privatization of garbage collection from Yonge Street west to the Humber River. The winner? A tie between…moderator Steve Paikin and [...]

The union representing the city’s garbage collectors denied Tuesday it was encouraging members to attend a city councillor’s town hall meeting incognito. Members of CUPE Local 416 — the Toronto Civic Employees Union — were sent a mass e-mail Tuesday from the union begging them to attend Councillor Josh Matlow’s Tuesday night town hall over [...]

Ask the neighbours about Diane Way and they will tell you about two different women. One is intelligent, articulate and well-educated, a lawyer with four degrees who held high-level positions with the federal government. The other is belligerent, menacing and careless, allowing her home to fall into disrepair and pollute the street with the pungent [...]

Thurs, April 28, 2011 A number of centrist councillors have reservations about the current proposal to contract out trash pickup west of Yonge Street, which could complicate things for Mayor Rob Ford when he seeks approval at next month’s council meeting. As expected, the public works and infrastructure committee voted on Tuesday to press ahead [...]