I have long prided myself on my conscientious recycling and composting habits. Anything that is recyclable goes into my blue boxes, and anything that is compostable goes into my green bin. Consequently, while I often put out more than one blue box on garbage day, I usually have only aRead...

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some weekly advice that is as relevant now as when it was first written.   What to do this week Our original idea for this column was to write about what I am actually doing in theRead More

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some tips about weeds which apply as much today as when they were written in April 2017.   What to do this week Let’s talk a bit about garden weeds. The particular weeds you struggle with inRead More

During the CBRM’s first virtual council meeting on Friday, March 27, council discussed some big infrastructure projects for which federal and provincial funding has been secured. The first project is a wastewater treatment infrastructure project under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) worth a strangely precise $97,895,574. The projectRead...

As of this writing, elementary and high school teachers in Ontario are embroiled in an escalating dispute with Premier Doug Ford’s government. Teachers have held a number of one-day strikes and, I understand, have many more planned. While the government has been putting forward a narrative that consists of theRead More

 “…the car, still loaded with people, made a wide U-turn and stopped; it was the end of the line.”– Paul Bowles, last words of The Sheltering Sky It was my Grandfather’s favorite story, and he swore it was true: a man horribly lost in a maze of back roads, unableRead More

Writing in the Guardian in 2015, Sean Marshall dated the rebirth of the tram (which he, being a Toronto native, calls a “streetcar”) to the 1980s, although initially this took the form of “vintage” lines “mimicking New Orleans’ famous St Charles Streetcar line.” These heritage streetcars use antique or replicaRead More

As I said last week, I began this journey because I wanted to talk about trams and a couple of thousand words later, I’ve mostly been talking about electricity. (This is what happens when you travel with me. I hope you packed a lunch.) I’m going to bring the focusRead More

I will give Pope Francis a tip of the biretta for his latest act on behalf of some of the poorest of the poor in Rome, or as he refers to them “society’s rejects, victims of today’s throwaway culture.” He has turned the Palazzo Migliori, a 19th palace named forRead More

I’ve lived in two cities (Toronto and Prague) in which trams (or streetcars, if you prefer) formed an integral part of the municipal transit system and have always had a soft spot for them. I’ve also wanted to write about the tram system that used to connect some parts ofRead More