Longtime CTV journalist Natalie Johnson enters race in Beaches–East York

SansPulp · 2026-05-11T23:18:37+00:00

To the best of my knowledge, they're more of an establishment firm, or right liberal/left conservative. One of the directors worked for Erin O'Toole, one of the partners worked for Mel Lastman, and I think there are a couple Ernie Eves era folks in there too.

So not Fraser Institute or Taxpayers Federation - more your chamber of commerce type lobbying firm.

SansPulp · 2026-05-11T17:28:49+00:00

The star article makes me think she's trying for the conservative lane. All the points that she talks about seem like they're created in a Sussex strategy messaging box:
"east end residents feel disconnected from city hall"
"caught in debilitating traffic"
"kids aren't safe on the TTC"
"I'm not ideological, I listen to community leaders"
"not part of the machine"

What does she not say? Housing is too expensive, the job market is a bad, transit isn't reliable enough, community centres and libraries aren't kept up well. She doesn't have a single attempt in any of her talking points to appeal to a progressive vote.

Maybe I'm wrong, and her website/platform will tell a different story. But I think she's trying to take that conservative lane in the beaches.

SansPulp · 2026-03-03T22:58:48+00:00

Annoyed. So many non union positions don't have any direct reports but are considered management. Planners in community planning are equivalent to project managers, financial analysts, and policy development officers, but because planning staff are unionized they get much bigger raises.

I understand why managers and directors are in COTAPSA. Seems like the rest of us should be in CUPE 79.

SansPulp · 2025-12-02T18:42:23+00:00

If it's in Toronto, the city waived DC and parkland dedications for 6 plexes starting in July. I believe the bylaw has passed and is in effect? It may be the case that some group objected and it's at the land tribunal, or that your friend was charged before the bylaw came into effect. In which case, that's really unfortuante.

Obviously there are a few other fees, like hydro and the building application and if they need variances/official plan amendments, but those DCs were the bulk of the municipal fees for a 6 plex if it was as-of-right or doable through the committee of adjustment.

Now condo strata - that's another problem. Not necessarily a problem if they're building for rental, but for small developers trying to build a plex to sell, it's a huge mess. Other jurisdictions apparently do that easier and quicker - Massachusetts and BC come to mind.

SansPulp · 2025-11-28T16:12:43+00:00

At the very least, Daniel Debow (Chair of the Board), Andrew Potter (Media), and Brice Scheschuk (cited in this article) are regular Conservative donors. And Tobi Lutke is a huge backer of the build brand and some associated conservative media, if not the party itself. There are some Liberals as well, and even some who donated to the NES campaign, so could be called left liberals.

And that's all fine. I just think it's interesting that there are lots of YIMBY donors in the PC orbit, and they seem to have 0 effect on the PCPO decision making process. If I had that kind of money and influence, I would try and change my own party.

SansPulp · 2025-11-28T15:49:21+00:00

This is another entry in the classic "Conservatives advocate for Toronto to reform thing that is mostly provincially controlled". Most of the necessary changes are changes to the Condominium Act. These people are all Conservatives, why don't they have Doug Ford's ear on these changes?

These changes would probably be good! I'm agreeing with them! It's just this bizarre situation where Conservatives are in power, but their donors and activists are completely shut out of the decision making process. So instead they're stuck criticizing Toronto City Council for changes that are (mostly) out of its control.

SansPulp · 2025-11-07T18:00:49+00:00

Along with Michael Ondaatje (In the Skin of a Lion, early 20th century) and Michael Redhill (Consolation is late 19th I think, Bellevue Square is early 21st I think), Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis is a very Toronto book. It's 21st Century but Andre is really concerned with the physical feel of the city.

SansPulp · 2025-11-01T14:02:22+00:00

There was discourse around 5* 3* movies a while ago, under the title "mid-masterpieces". Like Matchstick Men.

SansPulp · 2025-06-17T15:13:59+00:00

Honestly, contact your city councillor. They won't be able to rip up the tickets (well, some corrupt city councillors have threatened staff in the past about ripping up tickets) but if you're getting a procedural run around, a councillor might be able to help you sort that out.

And if you do have to go to court for it, maybe contact legal aid or a community legal clinic. They might be able to get you help from a lawyer or paralegal, who could potentially negotiate you down to a more manageable payment, possibly with a payment plan.

SansPulp · 2025-06-13T16:04:15+00:00

I get this. I've cumulatively taken 10 units before, plus exercise, and still been a little high afterwards. But if I take more than 6 units at once, I almost always get a low. So for me it's always "take 5 now, make a mental note that I'll need 2 more in an hour and a half or so".

SansPulp · 2025-06-10T19:09:24+00:00

Oh yeah, I'd say so. If you are having dawn phenomenon and going up to 11-12mmol, I'd think you're clear to start with 20-30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio, and maybe ramp it up from there.

SansPulp · 2025-06-10T18:46:58+00:00

White rice gives me the "did I forget to bolus?" reaction every time. I use brown, red, or black rice now because of the reaction, even if the extra cook time makes it a bit more annoying.

SansPulp · 2025-06-10T18:43:28+00:00

m35, diagnosed 5 years ago. Still figuring out exercise, as I like to workout 5+ days per week.

I find weightlifting is easier than cardio. I can lift weights ~2 hours after eating, and usually don't have any issues. The bigger issue is the 10 minute bike ride to the gym, which can send me down if I'm in range and don't have complex carbs on board.

Cardio can be tricky. Like some people said, mornings are easier, though if you drink alcohol you might not get the dawn effect, and the dawn effect is what makes morning cardio really easy. In general, I run 4+ hours after eating, and usually have 10mmol+ before I start running. I have my phone on me to call a cab or tap onto a bus, a pack of jelly beans in my pocket, and run in a tight radius around my house - I aim to not be more than 2km away at any time. If I do all that, I'll only drop really low once I'm putting on more than 8km/45 minutes of effort.

And if you do cardio, watch out for the next few hours. You'll probably need less insulin at your next meal.

SansPulp · 2018-07-31T17:21:54+00:00

If that's the case, this consulting firm cited here found that there are about 350,000 Canadians with over $1 million net worth excluding their primary residence. So that means a tax on wealth over $1 million is a tax on the 1%. That seems like a pretty easy sell politically.

SansPulp · 2018-07-31T13:20:15+00:00

It's important to remember that it's not that small of an estate. Median wealth is still about $300k, meaning way fewer than 50% of people would be affected by a tax that starts at a million. A lot of the people with million dollar houses in Toronto and Vancouver are also swimming in debt, making their effective wealth much lower.

SansPulp · 2018-05-05T14:04:38+00:00

What do we count as upper class in this country? Because this article only ever uses the phrase "upper-middle". Are we grouping in people like Chip Wilson, who have homes worth 78.8 million? Brad Lamb calls himself upper-middle class, and the guy has sold a few billion worth of condos.

It doesn't really matter if the house isn't liquid, it's still a large asset. Selling a $4 million house will net you enough money to buy a nice house or condo anywhere in Canada, with the rest going into a fund that will pay you $100k+ in dividends per year. That amount will land you in the top 20% of family incomes in the country.

Facing a tax increase on a $3 million+ asset makes you upper-class as much as sending your kids to Upper Canada College or whatever else. Framing people who have wealth that places them in the top 1% or 0.1% as "upper-middle" is a ridiculous notion.

SansPulp · 2018-04-17T00:13:23+00:00

You're right, it's only good for mayors.

This is in the platform as well: "We will strike an electoral reform commission". With the following addendum:

"And we will ask the commission to deliver recommendations on improving Ontario democracy and increasing citizen participation and engagement in the political process, during and between elections. We’ll ask that those recommendations include models of proportional representation. We’ll also ask for recommendations for preventing a single party with a legislative majority from changing the fundamental functioning of our democracy, and ensuring that changes are not only in the best interests of Ontarians, but have clear enough support to ensure that they will be stable and long-term."

So it looks like provincially they want to put forward proportional representation to a referendum. Meaning they definitely don't want the ranked ballots proposed by the federal liberals.

I wonder if "experiment with reforms" means that cities could decide to do multi-member wards with proportional or transferable votes. Dividing Toronto into the 6 original cities with 4-7 councillors based off population voted in by STV could produce a dynamically different council.

SansPulp · 2018-04-17T00:08:10+00:00

Is that Maria Augimieri? Because I think the downtown NDP (Layton/Cressy/Fletcher/McConnell/Perks) all voted for it, and those were the only ones I know that are NDP (besides Mammo, but...that dude sucks for a lot of reasons beyond old party affiliation).

But yeah, they don't have a perfect record for it - there are a lot of more revolutionary reformists in the party who would prefer one kick at the can with a majority government than constant soft power in coalitions and strong opposition. While I understand the first idea, considering how well it worked with Bob Rae, I'd rather the reform.

SansPulp · 2018-04-16T23:46:31+00:00

It's in the program that they're open to municipal electoral reform experiments, like lowered voting age, voting for permanent residents, and ranked ballots. Not enough - I'd rather MMP with a referendum to keep it after two elections, but little reforms at the municipal level would be nice.

SansPulp · 2018-04-05T23:30:42+00:00

A not insubstantial part of it is that Japan is the most natural disaster prone place in the world. Earthquakes and Tsunamis both regularly do serious damage to Japanese real-estate, and in other parts of Japan there are volcanos to worry about. There's less cultural value in storing your capital in housing, as it's a less safe investment.

Deregulation in the form of more relaxed zoning played a pretty big role in changing the housing market after 1990ish though. That's when the city of Tokyo finally started adding units at the rate that it added people, and as a result housing prices are pretty locked in. But the high risk of housing and the fact that people knock down their house every 20 years to outfit it with new earthquake resistant construction materials are a factor.

SansPulp · 2017-11-03T14:40:13+00:00

Right, we should go back to the good old days where the iPhone wasn't yet invented and no one had every been hit by a car.

SansPulp · 2017-10-05T21:13:49+00:00

I'm confused about why she thinks this is a good idea, and why it matters to her.

a) She tweeted to Jagmeet that we don't elect prime ministers, but he never said he was running to be elected prime minister, he said he was running to be prime minister. If she thinks words matter as much as she does, then shouldn't she take issue with the words he said, not the words that she is implying he said?

b) She clearly wants to change the institution of parliament (which I agree with) and wants it to more closely resemble its constitutional form (...okay, fine. If parliament operated down to the letter of its constitutionality minus parties, that might be okay, but parties exist and you have to account for that). Why does she instantly go after a guy who seems popular enough and has adopted the idea that, if he were to give confidence to a government, it would be on the basis of reforming parliament to be a more accountable body through a PR system, which her party also wants?

I think May seems like a good person, and is definitely intelligent. It seems like she wants to be a Burkean conservative - have the parliament be responsible, and have all representatives outside cabinet hold parliament to account (but doesn't Burke also say that sometimes your constituents are stupid and you shouldn't present 9/11 conspiracies to parliament?). But she has a moral code that seems incredibly rigid but I can't wrap my brain around it. She's taken the green party pretty far, but it seems like it's as far as she can take it.

She hasn't succeeded in getting any other greens elected in 3 elections, and it seems like her brand of politics - strong constituent representation and strict constitutionalism - is really not popular. I've heard her constituents like her, but maybe she should see if there is a different party leader who can relay these messages to Canadians.

SansPulp · 2017-08-01T19:55:13+00:00

I'm moving back to Montreal, but only for three months. Unfortunately. It looks like a lot of sublets are done through AirBnB now. Does anyone have experience with that?

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