Pick n Mix Canadian News

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had several articles published on Canadian news issues, covering a range of topics. They’re summarised below in small, bitesized chunks for easy digestion (with all the rich food around this time of year, not to mention the woozy post-party heads, it seemed best):

Briton Fights Canadian Government for Residency

The story’s about a legal battle being fought by a group of business owners who applied to emigrate to Canada through a scheme for people worth $1.6m, with $400,000 to invest locally.

The action was sparked by the would-be investors’ fears that their visa applications could be torn up due to immigration policy changes. This is what happened to 280,000 people who applied through the federal skilled worker scheme.

The story’s been followed up by CBC News today.

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Mark Carney Attacked Bankers’ Windfall Pay Agreements

I wrote about the new Bank of England governor Mark Carney, and the approach he’s taken to bankers’ bonuses in his role as the Bank of Canada’s governor and chairman of the G20’s Financial Stability Board.

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Critics Attack Decision to Allow Federally Funded Researchers More Time to Publish Trial Results

The body that channels most of the $1billion of public funds given to medical researchers has relaxed the rules on how quickly they need to publish their results.

The decision’s being seen by critics as another sign that Canada is less transparent than it should be regarding health research, which many argue is leading to problems such as serious adverse events in clinical trials being glossed over or excluded from published studies.

Trudo Lemmens, chair in health law and policy at the University of Toronto, argues that Canada is behind Europe and the USA regarding transparency in medical research. Interestingly, he suggests that the well publicised problems with the health system south of the border lead to a complacency in Canada about the state of its own healthcare system and the need for tougher regulations.

What’s been your experience of Canadian healthcare?

In search of wine

You can’t find a bottle of plonk for much less than $15 (£9.30) in Canada. And if you can, you probably don’t want to drink it.

It took me months to come to terms with this, and many fruitless hours of searching the shelves for a label cheap enough to sustain my midweek wine habit. There are certain rituals to which I’ve become accustomed over the years – just like the Queen, but her vices probably don’t involve £4 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.

The high prices suck. But a seasoned expat offered some sage advice when I first arrived, concerning  relocation-related annoyances: “Don’t think of it as stupid or backwards, just see it as different.” Wise words.

The history bit

I was surprised to learn that the reason for the hiked-up wine harks back to the prohibition era, when bootleggers compelled the authorities to enforce strict controls over the sale of liquor which, to this day, is regulated by provincial agencies.

In practical terms this means you can’t pile wine into your supermarket trolley or pick up a quick bottle from the all-night offie – you can only get it from official Liquor Control Board of Ontario stores, or from wineries. You can’t even import more than a case of wine from another province within Canada. This means there’s a monopoly, which means high prices.

You’re probably thinking: “That’s stupid! Backwards!” No, no, remember: Just “different”.

The LCBO also has a paternalistic mission to curb alcohol consumption and it claims the mark-ups generate revenue for health and education services.  Others argue the government would save more money by axing a $300m a year bureaucracy and privatising liquor retail sales.

But this long pre-amble, whilst fascinating I’m sure, is just background info. It helps to explain our trip to the Prince Edward County wineries last weekend – the original point of this post.

Prince Edward County

PEC’s a two-and-a-half hour drive north east of Toronto and, since the early 2000s, has attracted a growing wine industry thanks to its rich soil, cheap land and the temperature-moderating effect of Lake Ontario.

It’s also home to Sandbanks Provincial Park, which bills itself as “the world’s largest fresh water sand bar and dune system”. Also known as a bloody big beach:

December probably isn’t the prime time to visit Sandbanks

There are now over 30 wineries, most of which are pretty small – too small to get their products onto LCBO’s shelves and, since selling elsewhere isn’t an option, their customers have to go to them.

Attracting bus loads of wine fans in the winter, when the more established Niagara region’s closer to Toronto, isn’t easy, so they came up with the “weekend wassail”. This sounds like something from a Thomas Hardy novel, but there was no sign of mead, peasants  or ill-fated heroines. Instead, there was lots of free (woo!) wine, rum balls, s’mores, mini beef Wellingtons, spiced cider and carol singing.

Where to go

The fact the wineries aren’t overly commercialised made for a really personal experience – maybe slightly too personal in one case, when the two of us were forced to sing a carol of our “choice” in exchange for wine and my husband chose the famously easy-to-sing Good King Wenceslas. The owner was good enough to reward my tuneless mumbling with a fruity Chardonnay. I don’t normally enjoy Chardonnay, but the ones in PEC seemed to be less oak-ey and crisper than normal.

Naturally we treated ourselves to a few choice bottles…well we were bound to be getting some sort of discount, straight from the supplier, right?

Our stash

Lots of the wineries are clustered together in the west, and it’s possible to tour them by bike. I might save that for a weekend when it’s not minus 6.

Weasels, snakes and other political animals

Oh, what I’d have given to eavesdrop on the negotiations over this correction in today’s Toronto Star:

Correction: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly attributed the quote, “I’ll whoop both your asses,” to Mayor Rob Ford. The statement was actually made by his brother, Councillor Doug Ford.

It perfectly sums up the farce that Toronto’s city hall politics has become in recent weeks.

For anyone who hasn’t been following the events, city mayor Rob Ford was ousted from office on Monday over a conflict of interest ruling.

Rob Ford, courtesy of West Annex News

It was thought this would prevent him from running again in a by-election, but the judge today confirmed Ford would, in fact, be able to run again in that circumstance.

He was given two weeks to leave his office, but could be granted a “stay”, meaning he wouldn’t have to leave unless he loses his appeal hearing, the first available date for which is 7 January.

In the meantime, he’s fighting a $6million libel case and is facing accusations that he broke campaign spending rules.

To those well-acquainted with Ford, the past few weeks have been eyebrow-raising. As an outsider, the events have been completely extraordinary.

UK politics are hardly devoid of bluster or colourful characters, but Ford is the one-of-a-kind love child of Eric Pickles, John Prescott and Boris Johnson, with Andrew Mitchell’s respect for authority and Malcolm Tucker’s nuanced approach to communication.

A little round-up of Ford-related fun:

• February 2003: Ford accuses a councillor: “I know he’s a weasel and weasels and snakes belong in the zoo!” (video)
• April 2004: Ford allegedly complains of “plant discrimination” after his poisonetta isn’t watered by staff.
• September 2012: Rob’s councillor brother, Doug, calls the media a “bunch of pricks“.
• November 2012: Rob Ford misses two hours of a city hall meeting to coach a kids’ football team. He then orders the head of Toronto’s transit system to supply a bus to take his team back to school. It turns out that ordinary passengers were kicked off the bus in the rain. Note: Ford also missed part of a city hall meeting on Monday – the day of the legal ruling dismissing him from office…to coach his team through a playoff match.
• Yesterday: Rob Ford accuses a councillor of being an “outright liar” involved in a “shakedown” (north American slang for extortion), in a 20 minute verbal battle (skip to 532 for the really heated bit).

You couldn’t really make it up. As a political news geek it’s been utterly fascinating to observe and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

According to some reports, we could see a political lurch to the left, if New Democratic Party Olivia Chow replaces Ford at some point in the future. Although, strictly speaking, there aren’t any political parties in Toronto’s city council – it’s  ruled by non partisan factions. Supposedly.

Again, this is a fusty old tradition that the Fords apparently don’t have much time for.

Whatever pans out, you can bet that it’ll be entertaining. You can also bet that the “bunch of pricks” in the media will be there to put it all on record.

Santa and (Dog) Seances

Torontonians love their organised fun. When they’re not playing cult board games in hipster cafes, it seems they’re doing the seventh-inning stretch at a ball game, wearing fancy-dress, going to a festival (see below) or taking part in charity fundraisers.

Last week, in the name of charity, my husband was persuaded to don a fat suit for a sponsored sumo-wrestling contest in the office, before channelling Simon Cowell (with a Cumbrian twang) as a judge at his company’s karaoke talent show. And this blog’s already dealt with the extreme lengths people go to when it comes to Thanksgiving costumes and zombie get-ups.

It’s all very different from the British spirit of: “Sod the silly outfits, can’t we just get pissed and/or donate a few quid?” When the publishing company I worked for in London turned our annual Christmas party into a talent contest one year (in a nightclub, with booze), the backlash could’ve been seen from space.

Large amounts of enforced jollity can be a bore. But the upside of Toronto’s propensity for good wholesome fun is the number of huge family festivals that are bigger and just, well, more amicable than you’d expect in Blighty.

Take the annual Santa Claus Parade last Sunday. It’s a Toronto tradition that’s been going since 1905 and this year around a million people pitched up with fold-up chairs, blankets, hats and scarves, lining up along the main downtown route, which was entirely closed to traffic.

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Onlookers passed round tubs of home-made cookies and flasks of hot chocolate, kids chanted a premature “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas”, clowns handed out sweets and everyone waved, hi-fived and shook hands with the characters parading past.

This was slap bang in the middle of town. Where were the squealing brats, the pushy crowds, the scowling, shivering teens? It couldn’t have been any more heart-warmingly festive if Clarence Odbody had flown down from the sky, scattering mince pies and booming “ho ho ho.”

We were able to track Santa’s progress on a cool iphone ap created especially for the day, which contributed to a build up so immense that by the time the main man arrived, the children around us were practically levitating with excitement.

Another example

There isn’t an easy transition to be made from Santa to skipping dogs.  But I had to highlight altogether different – but equally family friendly – festival happening across town that day: Winter Woof-Stock.

It featured mutts that skip, play basketball and calculate sums. There was an event I was dismayed to miss called “running of the pugs”, a doggie fashion show and a dog clairvoyant. Yep, really.

Here are some pics.

The canine attendees seemed to love all the  attention – have you ever seen a sheepish Shih Tzu? But possibly even more entertaining than the star performers were the Dog Moms pushing their “babies” around in prams. One spent 10 minutes trying to convince us that pugs are “highly intelligent”. Er…whatever you say, crazy woman.

Braving the Eastern Front

Just days after we moved to Toronto in an excitable haze, the city saw its worst ever mass shooting, which was to leave two people dead and 23 injured.

The incident in Scarborough, an eastern suburb, sparked a frenzy of newspaper columns and TV reports about Toronto’s inequalities and spiralling crime.

In a city with a reputation as an orderly safe haven, in a country so polite and friendly that a standard email sign-off is “very truly yours”, the shooting was a warning against complacency. It reminded us that Toronto, like any major city, has an edgier side and contains pockets with deep-rooted social challenges.

It also slightly dampened our enthusiasm for exploring eastwards. Besides from crime, any local will tell you that if you travel east of Yonge Street you’ll either lose your soul in a strip mall or fall off the edge of the planet.

But I wanted to try my luck. That’s me all over; I’m a thrill-seeker, a Jane Bond, a…keen cyclist. Yeah, that’s right adventure-shunners, I was raring to strap on my windproof anorak, pack a mean cache of cereal bars and show those suburban bike paths who’s boss.

So that’s what we did on Saturday, and discovered that Scarborough (pronounced Scarbour-o, rather than the English Scarbour-er) really is a world away from downtown Toronto. In the sense that it took seven hours to get there and back, involving a dark, cold evening cycle home, and we didn’t even reach our intended destination. Oops.

Our journey took us up the Don Valley, through the secluded Taylor Creek Park, across a bleak no-man’s-land and up the Hydro corridor:

Hydro = Canadian for electrical power

From there, we tried to access Morningside Park, but came up against a slight, watery, problem:

Er, how do we get across?

Having conquered the ravine, we were cycling around looking for the trail, when I spied a small, antlered deer weaving through the trees. Ahhhh. Deer in Scarborough?! And not a gun in sight.

The plan was to carry on to the University of Scarborough campus, but it was getting dark and we couldn’t find the trail. So in a strip mall car park, we decided to head home. It was quite a picturesque ending to our trip, I’m sure you’ll agree:

At least the coffee was cheap

Despite some temporary numbness to the fingers and toes, we survived our 70km round-trip to Scarborough unscathed.

On the way back, we even saw a raccoon peering from a tree with its bank-robber eyes:

On the pitch-black Don Valley trail. Thank goodness for bike lights!

We probably had nothing to worry about in the first place. This rather neat crime map of Toronto shows there most definitely isn’t a clear east-west divide when it comes to violent assaults.

Clicking on the map shows that in eastern Scarborough there were 17.57 “crimes against the person” per 1,000 residents and workers in 2006, compared with just 3.7 in my neighbourhood. But then, Chinatown has a rate of 20.3 and that’s not going to keep me from my General Tso Pork.

The excellent Toronto Life magazine published a well-researched piece on Scarborough’s demographics, worth a read.

Although the route took longer than we’d planned for and there were gaps in the trail involving some busy roads, it was impressive to see – again – how well set up Toronto is for cyclists, and how quickly you can escape the dense inner city if you want to.

Here’s where we went:

Guilty pleasures of a closet sunset fan

This post’s dedicated to that much maligned art form – the humble sunset photo.

It’s all too easy to criticise the ubiquitous evening sky shot, but who hasn’t been tempted to take a “sun kissing the horizon” snap after a perfect day on the beach? Only the most committed wedge-haired art hipster could resist a reddy, pinky, Rothko-layered sky after a few pina coladas.

Me? I like an urban sunset, and the massive Toronto sky is the gift that never stops giving (though the gifts aren’t always welcome when in the form of a four day downpour, like last week).

My number one spot for Toronto sunsets is Ashbridges Bay Park, which I just happened to be cycling through this evening:

Not bad, eh?

I got a bit carried away; here are some more pics from my ride home:

Same sunset, (very slightly) different view

Peeping through the leaf-starved winter trees

Nice evening for a beachside bike ride

For what it’s worth, my other top Toronto sunset spots would be:

*Canoe restaurant, 66 Wellington Street West.

With its sweeping, floor to ceiling window views, it’s a sure-fire romance hotspot. It also does a nice line in surprise desserts:

We didn’t even order this! Hooray, even more pudding!

*Lake Ontario

As in, the actual water. Preferably from the safety of a canoe, or other floating vessel:

During a summer evening paddle across to the Islands

*My apartment!

Sorry to brag, but the view ain’t half bad. No, we don’t take paying guests. Yes, you can quite possibly get a very similar view from many of the high condo blocks or hotels along the harbourfront:

The CN Tower, all lit up

The harbour at night

West Jet stage and Islands

Oh, I know these aren’t going to win any photography prizes – and I totally get that taking pictures of sunsets is neither cool nor clever.

But go on, admit it, they’re pretty. It’s a harmless guilty pleasure. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t. It can be our little secret.

Let me in! My latest Telegraph story

My latest story on the big immigration shake-up underway in Canada was published last week by telegraph.co.uk. It was based on the annual immigration report to parliament, along with more detailed figures published subsequently that set out the target quotas for all residency applications in 2013.

Interested in moving here? Wondering what’s going on?

Well, the quota for accepting foreigners isn’t actually changing. As in 2012, the target is for a maximum quota of 265,000 “economic migrants” – including those applying as skilled workers under the points-based system, students and young people doing temporary jobs abroad.

But the type of people they’re letting in is being modified. There’ll be fewer spaces for skilled types applying through the federal skilled worker program – and more for those who’ve studied or worked in Canada before.

Why?

It’s a “better the devil you know” approach that assumes people who’ve already integrated over here are more likely to succeed than those who haven’t yet made the move. The kind of risk-averse strategy that really gets Lord Sugar’s fingers waggling in the Apprentice boardroom.

But then, Lord Sugar doesn’t have voters to worry about. No doubt, immigration minister Jason Kenney will have paid close attention to the latest figures showing a hardening in public attitudes towards immigration. Even the famously tolerant Canadians have their limits, it seems.

“Xenophobia”

But for every Canadian complaining about job-snatching newcomers, there are growing voices warning against xenophobia. Mr Kenney is keenly aware of this – so much so that his department reportedly spent nearly $750,000 over three years monitoring its coverage in the ethnic media.

He also felt compelled to brag last week that Canada was “the only developed democracy in the world in which there is no serious or organized anti-immigrant or xenophobic sentiment in our public discourse”. 

Is this true? The jury’s out, especially after the debacle in September, when parliament’s immigration committee invited  – then dismissed – two witnesses representing a website called Canadian Immigration Report. The site carries all manner of dodgy material, including a video from renowned Canadian white supremacist Paul Fromm.

Fromm’s chilling video (deliberately not linked) talks of the disappearance of a  “heartland” for European people and likens Canada’s traditionally welcoming attitude to  foreigners to  “ethnic cleansing and replacement”. There’s also  a distinct lack of subtlety to some of CIR’s own articles, such as one headed “White Canadians Going Extinct”.

I hope there aren’t any fascists reading my blog – aside from their unpleasant views they’re notorious trolls –  but if there are any here, I’ll just take a second to fuel their sense of impotent outrage by highlighting that Ryerson University’s Harald Bauder, an immigration policy expert, told me that all his research suggested Canadians were, in general, still incredibly welcoming towards migrants, compared with other countries.

Speaking for Toronto, you only have to walk around to see the extent to which people from different cultures and backgrounds have successfully settled here.

Toronto’s Greektown

Chinatown, Toronto

Shop front in Little India, Toronto

So troll away – you’re fighting a losing battle. Um, please don’t.

The future

Anyway…now we know the general shape of the federal skilled worker scheme and the number of people who’ll be let in. Still to come are the final details of the federal program and the fallout of other initiatives, such as the crackdown on sham marriages.

Watch this space.

A very intimate howling

Booking a yurt in Algonquin Provincial Park is a tricky business. There are only eight of them, serving a 7,653 square kilometre area crawling with lakes, streams and bear-inhabited forests.

And, unless you fancy sleeping in sub-zero temperatures in a tent or have an RV (British translation: House-sized campervan), the yurts are your only option for winter camping. So they get booked up incredibly quickly.

This meant that, even though the weekend weather forecast was dire, there was no way we were going to cancel our overnight stay in the park, at Mew Lake campground.

It’s fair to say that Algonquin yurts, with their bunk beds, plastic chairs and lino flooring, aren’t quite the luxury glamping experience you get elsewhere.

But, on arrival, there were no regrets as our nostrils filled with the nostalgic waft of smoky, burning logs mingled with musty pine.

Our yurt in Algonquin Park

Even without fur throws or a wood-burning oven, the electric heating was enough to keep us toasty, and there were hot showers nearby. Comforting to know, when you’re cooking dinner outside with snow falling around you.

You weren’t allowed to cook inside the yurt

What we hadn’t realised was, as well as enjoying the classic Canadian Shield scenery, we’d be getting the full Canadian Halloween experience. Brits don’t really “do” Halloween in a big way – it’s mainly just an excuse to drink beer while wearing a bit more make-up than normal – but our fellow campers had gone to great lengths to decorate their pitches with carved-out pumpkins, skeletons, cobwebs and in one case, a headless canoeist.

So many trick-or-treaters knocked on our yurt that we had to make a quick dash to buy some emergency extra “candy”. Annoyingly, having stocked up on treats, the only other person who called in was an adult who wanted us to touch his “moose brains” (some kind of oily spaghetti in a bucket).

Meanwhile, a masked man was lolloping through the campsite, scaring groups of small children by menacingly revving a chainsaw. Halloween is weird.

We also discovered our trip coincided with Algonquin’s first ever “Halloween Howl” – a night-time stroll aimed at hearing wolves replying to our guide’s imitation howl. This, captured below, made us giggle (requires sound):

Algonquin wolf howl

Algonquin’s 300 wolves weren’t playing ball that night, but, hey, it was worth a shot. And, as there were only around 40 of us mad enough to brave the cold, we were fortunate to experience a “very intimate howling” as our guide put it; similar sessions in the summer attract up to 2,000 people.

Crazy Halloween fever had obviously got to us by the next day, as we decided to embark on a “challenging” six hour hike with rain and wet snow forecast. Surprisingly enough, we didn’t see another human soul the entire time (though, worryingly, heard gunshots). But we did spy a cute beaver:

Beaver spotted on the Mizzy Lake trail

And, just as we were starting to despair of ever seeing a moose, we saw TWO! They were gobbling grass in the distance and seemed quite unfazed by our presence.

One of the moose we saw

That just leaves the elusive Algonquin bear to spot, although we may now have to wait until they come out of hibernation next year (we opted against the “leaving a bit of bacon outside the yurt” tactic).

Tips/Facts:

*Driving to Algonquin from downtown Toronto took 3.5 hours on the way there and 3 hours on the return journey

*You have to return the yurt keys by 12pm the next day at either the East or West Gate, which is a bit of a pain if you plan to hike that day as it involves backtracking.

*Remember to keep food in the boot/trunk of the car to avoid attracting bears!

*Our “six hour” hike was the Mizzy Lake trail. It actually took us around four hours at a brisk pace, stopping for lunch and wildlife viewing.

Salmon spotting in the Humber and other pick-me-ups

I’ve been missing home this week. But several things have put a smile on my face, including:

1. The new Topshop at The Bay (shallow, I know)

2. Listening to BBC Radio 6 Music on the new iplayer radio ap

3. Having my condo pool and jacuzzi entirely to myself for a whole, blissful, hour

4. The Songified version of the Presidential debate

5. Watching the Humber River salmon run

I’d always wanted to see salmon trying to make their way upstream. It’s hard to explain the appeal, but watching 25 pound salmon leaping out of the water in the middle of an urban park is weirdly fascinating.

A salmon jumping out of the Humber River, Toronto

The annual spectacle attracted a crowd on Sunday afternoon, with lots of “oohs” and “ahhs” as, one-by-one, the salmon made a desperate bid for safety. Kids ran about excitedly, squealing: “Holy smoke, that was a big ‘un!”

Watching the salmon run

Sadly, we didn’t see any salmon actually make it, and their plight was exploited by a few opportunistic fishermen.

Fishing for salmon in the Humber River

I got to the Humber River by bike, via a trail stretching 22km from the Harbourfront to Cruickshank Park. I think it’s my new favourite cycle route.

Here’s the route I took:

Toronto Zombie Walk

“Was that your husband, dear?” The elderly lady with a tight bubble perm pointed to a bloody brain being munched by a lone female zombie.

The zombie nodded, vacantly.

“Men, eh?” The lady offered.

“Errrrk” The zombie replied.

Just your typical zombie-human exchange, as witnessed at Toronto’s tenth annual zombie walk, which saw thousands of people moaning, groaning and lurching their way around the city centre on Saturday afternoon.

There were zombie Mario brothers, teletubbies, headless brides, Lego men, bakers and gimps. Zombie babies. And – my personal favourite – zombie dogs.

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They were a noisy but surprisingly musical rabble. A zombie Elvis strummed his guitar, a mariachi band sang a series of laconic ballads and a dead-eyed ghoul sparked a spontaneous rendition of the 1994 Cranberries hit (you guessed it) “Zombie”.

From time to time, a zombie would lunge at an unsuspecting onlooker, provoking squeals from the victims – mainly teenage girls.

It was all very entertaining, until a woman stood in front of me and spat (from her MOUTH) fake blood all over her partner – and all over my coat. Time to leave.

Anyway, we had a film to catch: To be precise, two films, both playing at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema as part of the After Dark Film Festival, with a $2 discount for zombies.

It wasn’t your standard Saturday night at the movies, as you might expect from a ticket stubb saying: “We Ate the Children Last will proceed Rec3”.

For a start, not every screening starts with a zombie contest in which Beetlejuice and a zombie James Dean compete on stage to say the word “brains” in their best Queen’s English.

Adding to the unusual ambiance, a grim cacophony of zombie cries erupted eerily around us as the lights dimmed.

And there’s nothing quite like averting your eyes from the sight of someone’s head being chain-sawed in two on screen, only to see a zombie on your right creasing his sides in laughter.

In all, a surreal afternoon/evening. My only regret was not dressing up, so I’ve been planning my outfit in advance for next year. Sarah Palin would be good, but I also like my hubbie’s suggestion of a Harry Potter & Hermione double act…Any suggestions?