Lost Horizon

Anonymous wrote in part:

You are fascinated by Toronto politics. I find them boring beyond words. The latest proposal to help salvage something from the multi-billion dollar wreck that is Ontario Place is to equip it with a casino. That will certainly advance Toronto in the world, another casino.
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My children and I enjoyed Ontario Place tremendously
when it was new and they were still small enough to enjoy the amazing playground. It was all free and beautiful.

Arhur Fiedler's concert and Sing along with Mitch, stretched out on the grass on a summer evening are great memories.

Kew Beach in the summer when we first arrived in Canada. I'm sure I've written about that. We didn't live there but we certainly enjoyed the neighbourhood in the summer.

Toronto Island. wooden boardwalks, sand roads and picket fence cottages.

The ferry.

Street cars for a quarter and a dime for kids.St Laurence Market.

I have great memories of living in Toronto as new Canadians.

I am only fascinated with the Mayoralty contest of the last election.Rob Ford was an unlikely candidate. Nobody has ever had more strikes against him. Yet he didn't just scrape in. He was a decisive winner.It was the voters of Toronto who made that happen.

Last week someone referred me to a Toronto Star story about all the times he has voted in a conflict.

The Toronto Star is so leaden with hostility against Ford, the weight of it, would be enough to sink the Titanic.

Once again, everybody thinks because of Clayton Ruby, who i known to go for the jugular,he will be able to do what the Toronto Star,the entire Liberal organisation, a few hundred other associations and a host of columnists and unions failed to accomplish.

I am always fascinated by the way major media discount the role of the people who cast votes in any election of significance.

Until after the votes are counted.

Then they profess amazement.

I think mega cities like Toronto are impossible to
govern.

It was an already recognised fact in the sixties when the M.T.A.R.T.S. study was done by the Honorable John Robarts, Government of Ontario.

It was intended to prevent Toronto from becoming a mega city and ungovernable. It was welcomed and approved by everyone who was in the Queen Elizabeth building for it's presentation.

Politicians from Port Hope and Coburg in the east and Niagara in the west and rising in a horseshoe to Barrie in the north were there. A green belt was planned between the city and York Region.Transit and hard services were to be installed along the lake front to service urban development.

York Region's future role was to be breathing space, agriculture and recreation. We loved it.

Regions encircling Toronto were created in a rush and the good stuff vanished like a mirage.

I remember the days when provincial cabinet ministers came out and discussed things with their municipal partners. That's what they called us. Darcy McKeough said; "We make the decision, then we work to make sure it's the right decision"

It wasn't the right decision. It was flawed from the beginning. The players kept changing.The vision was lost. No-one is in control at the region.The provincial civil service at Queen's Park is a pale facsimile of its predeccessor.

I think a sewage treatment plant at Lake Simcoe is being planned to service urban development from one lake to another.