Toronto 2.0 Edition 1

Meet The Future

strives to report, document and follow a rapidly changing Toronto with a strong focus on what is in store

for the future of the city. With a demographic of 18-30 year old readers, the editorial sta! envisions this magazine to become not only a reference for the current state of Toronto, but a blueprint for where the city is headed in the next, 5, 10, 50 years.

Our magazine focuses on a variety of issues including events, politics, arts & entertainment, sports, technology, health and education.

We have interviewed top experts in these !elds in order to give an accurate representation of a future Toronto.

"e future is in your hands.

toronto2point0.ca@Toronto2Point0

www.facebook.com/toronto2point0

James Wattie

Alex Kozovski

Kyle Larkin

Andre Thuairatnam

4 The Big Smoke A Software Revolution2024 OlympicsNotesolution.com: Education’s FutureSegregation for SuccessRise of the Bedroom CoderSafety at your FingertipsThe Ball Ban

Comfortable in your own skin?Class is in Session

Toronto’s Talent IncubatorThe Twitter EffectProgress: Toronto’s WaterfrontGO-ing ForwardA Hard Day’s Night

Baseball and Hockey in the GTA

Chalk is Cheap

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Table of ConTenTs

A!er a long day of work, Jay "nally arrives to his home in Toronto. Set-

tling in front of the T.V., he #ips on SportsCentre, just in time for the 6:00 update. To complete this envious state of relaxation, he pulls out the coup-de-grace: no, it’s not a beer. Nor is it a cigarette.

What used to be a cold beer, or a fresh cigarette, has been re-placed by a controversial joint. Lighting the fat end slowly, Jay inhales a sizeable amount of smoke, and holds it in his lungs, as though paralyzed.

Sure, this is nothing new. Mari-juana has been around for a while. People have been getting high for decades.

But now it has become more available than ever, more ca-sual than ever, and more popular than ever, says B.C.’s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. $is can be seen particularly in south-ern Ontario, including the great Toronto metropolis.

Marijuana use among today’s

Canadian teens is higher than it’s been in over twenty years. Recent research shows marijuana use among Canadian teens is now at the highest levels it’s been since the early 1990’s according to the University of Western Ontario. Nearly 30 per cent of Ontario high school students are identi"ed mar-ijuana users, accounting for ap-proximately 286,000 Ontario high school students, numbers discov-ered by the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, which was conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Keeping the high numbers in mind (pun intended), and the increasing demand for decrimi-nalizing or legalizing marijuana (recall April’s Ontario court ruling to review the legalization of mari-juana possession, anyone?), will we see a pot-peaceful Toronto in the future?

“I sure hope so, at least decrimi-nalization would be a start,” said Jay, a self-proclaimed marijuana activist, (choosing to keep his sur-name anonymous) who smokes as o!en as he works- full time.

Examining the Canadian, or

even North Amer-ican pop culture displays marijuana in a casual light. It’s almost as if this generation of boomer’s babies are being desensi-tized to pot propa-ganda.

“It’s all over the media. It’s mass advertised. We have mov-ies where the whole theme of it, the whole topic of the movie is c a n n a b i s , ” Jay agreed.

$ere are even places where you can smoke pot in Toronto, and not be hassled by cops or anyone. Places like the Vapor Lounge and Kens-ington Market’s Hot Box Café are being frequented more than ever. People are starting to head to these joints to light one of their own.

As marijuana has be-come more mainstream, all kinds of users are heading to these establishments.

“All types of people,” said Dan Botterill, manager of the Hot Box Café . “People think because you’re smoking weed you must be a cer-tain way, but I’ve seen people from all over the place, all walks of life- they all smoke it. It doesn’t mean they’re a certain way- maybe it makes them a little more fun.”

Blair Longley, leader of the Mar-ijuana Party of Canada, and can-nabis advocate for over 40 years, says to even look outside Canada for hints of legalization.

“If you want to know how long until cannabis becomes legal, look to the south,” said Longley lazily.

For now, it will be a wait and see approach, beginning with the fed-eral government’s re-examination of marijuana laws, as proposed in April.

And as the wait continues, our culture will become even more at ease with the usage of cannabis. But maybe desensitization isn’t the proper word.

“Desensitization? No. It’s nor-malization,” said Botterill.

4

The Big SmokeWhy is marijuana use amongst Canadian teens higher than it’s been in over twenty years?

By Alex KozovskiToronto 2.0

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Top six annual cannabis use by industrialized country (in %)

Imagine – you’re sit-ting in the front row at the 2011 Grammy

Awards - Staples Centre, Los An-geles: Jay-Z, Kanye West and all the other Roc-A-Fella artists on your right-hand side. To your le!, James Het"eld, Lars Ulrich and the rest of Metallica eagerly await their turn on stage. You’re in a room surrounded by the greatest musi-cal talent of a generation. Your nomination under the best new artist category has created a huge buzz, sending shockwaves not only in your home town, but on an in-ternational scale – you’ve made it. You’ve achieved your dream. And you barely had to leave your bed-room to do it.

#e notion may seem farfetched, but it has de"nitely happened on more than one occasion in recent years. Big name artists and produc-ers like Boi 1nda, J.Cole and Drake – a new, younger generation in hip-hop music – all got their names out there through the use viral

marketing and amateur production techniques.

In terms of music production, we’re amidst a so!ware revolution in the era of digital information. #is means that a consumer-grade personal computer is now capable of doing what only a professional recording studio was able to do as early as 10 years ago. #is jump in technology has also made profes-sional audio equipment, including microphones and synthesizers, much more a$ordable and avail-able to consumers.

Clive Daniel, a Toronto-based independent producer and art-ist, has been in the industry for 19 years and has worked with Ca-nadian hip-hop superstars Kar-dinal O%shall, Jully Black, Karl “Saukrates” Wailoo, Julien “Little X” Lutz and Jelani “J-WyZe” Nias. His time in the business has spanned the transition between a hardware-based method of music production to the so!ware-driven techniques used more and more today. He admits that he is a bit bi-ased in terms of showing creativity within a so!ware platform.

“A lot of music today is primar-

ily so!ware programming in terms of hip-hop,” Daniel said. “If you’re using so!ware, your mind can only go so far within the system. As an artist, being able to explore and expand within your brain – that creativity goes farther than any so!ware program out there.”

#ese so!ware applications, of-ten referred to as Digital Audio

Workstations (DAW), are becom-ing more and more commonplace on personal computers. #e most popular DAW for amateurs is a program called Garage Band. It gives users the option to explore basic music production inside a very easy-to-understand interface. Although applications like Garage Band have been great for getting beginners interested in music pro-duction, there is still some criticism over them creating a generation of producers who lack in fundamen-tal music production skills.

“[#ese applications] gives them an access where they’re able to use the so!ware, able to "ne-tune it a lot more at home, practise, get used to it, understand music production – it will de"nitely bene"t them. But you have people as well who think they’re producers because they just click and drag a drum track over and think that it’s production,” Daniel said.

As an independent rapper and producer from Toronto, Jordie

“Kid Cartoon” Scott has seen his fair share of both professional and independent music studios.

“Back then, people were mu-sicians. #ey’d have to work to-gether for hours using hardware and their knowledge to put songs together. Now, people sit at their computer, drag and drop a couple sound clips and have a song in ten minutes,” he said.

#is steady decline in the need for formal music training in the industry, however, is de"nitely opening doors to producers who otherwise would not have been in-volved within the industry in the "rst place.

“I don’t have formal training, but I have a good ear and a good music taste. [Not having formal music training] doesn’t prevent you from doing what you got to do,” Daniel said.

Anthony Joseph, an independent producer based out of Newmarket, Ont. has been into production for the past six years and has collabo-rated with artists both in Toronto and on an international scale. He falls into this category of producers with no formal training.

“It’s good to have some sort of formal music experience for sure, but I think a lot of it is having an ear for good sounds and creating music from the heart,” he said.

Music production, however, is only one piece to the puzzle. #e more important bit comes in how artists plan on distributing, pro-moting and branding themselves.

“Now you guys have CD’s,” Daniel said. “Back then we had to use records which [used to] cost a lot of money to produce a single to store your music itself. Now you have your CDs, Internet, iTunes – so many di$erent ways of putting your music out there which is a lot easier. It’s a great thing,” Daniel said.

Andre Thurairatnam T.O.2.0

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5

The Software Revolution

By Andre #urairatnamToronto 2.0

“Back then, people were musicians- Jordie Scott

Why the music recording studio may be a thing of the past...

Tech

Third place in 1996. Second place in 2008.

!e Summer Olympics have been rather elusive in Toronto’s case, los-ing to Atlanta, Geor-gia and Beijing, China, respectively.

A"er a city council meeting in early August, Toronto’s chances of host-ing the 32nd Olympiad in 2020 became null, a"er council voted against sub-mitting a bid.

Despite growing in-terest from civic lead-ers across the province, it wasn’t enough to convince Mayor Rob Ford that Toronto can a#ord the he"y price tag. And with-out backing from all three levels of government, re-questing a bid for an event of such stature is nigh impossible.

But for Canadian sport-

ing enthusiasts and Olympic a$-cionados, there may just be hope yet. If the planets align and the sporting gods give their bless-ing to the city, Toronto looks to be in good shape to bid for the 2024 Olympics.

And the key to winning the bid, it seems, lies in the Pan American (Pan Am) Games.

“I think what Toronto needs to do is, number one, make sure they do a great job on the 2015 Pan Am games,” says Bob Richardson, president of the Devon Group.

“Its 10 000 athletes, 41 coun-tries, and a $1.4-billion invest-ment. If that’s done well, it builds interest and enthusiasm in sum-mer sports, and an opportu-nity to potentially pursue the 2024 games.”

Richardson was the chief operat-ing o%cer for Toronto’s 2008 second place bid, which fell 31 per cent short of the 50 per cent plus-one re-quirement to win. Richardson also served as a senior advisor on the very successful 2015 Pan Am bid, which garnered 65 per cent of the votes in the $rst round.

!e jump from Pan Am to Olym-pics has been done in the past, hav-ing been achieved by Mexico City in 1955 and 1968. But perhaps more intriguing is Rio de Janeiro, who hosted the Pan Am Games in 2007, and won the 2016 Summer Olym-pic Games – the same nine year gap were Toronto to win in 2024.

“I think the coincidence plays a signi$cant role,” Richardson said.“When you can be successful at di#erent levels and show people you can put on a good Games, the combination would be very helpful for 2024.”

While success in lesser sporting events can be a convincing factor, support from the government is by far more heavily relied upon. Cur-rently in the middle of a discussion over the $774-million budget short-fall in Toronto, Ford and his council were quick to shy away from any talks of a bid.

Ford has even expressed discom-fort in the past over the costs of the Pan Am facilities being erected in Scarborough. But even Ford is beginning to see the upside of

upping the ante.“I talked to [Rob Ford] sev-

eral times down at Guadalajara on the weekend” Richardson said, where the 2011 Pan Am games recently concluded in southern Mexico.

“He seems pretty keen on the Pan Am games now, having seen it down there, which is good. I think he’s starting to get a sense on why you want to do this from an Olym-pic perspective as well.”

In the application process, though, the city plays a smaller role from a $nancial standpoint. Coop-eration from the provincial level can be the ultimate deciding factor, where the debt guarantee needs to be signed (in case all goes wrong). !e federal government then equals the provincial investment.

From there, generating revenue almost seems like the easy part. dormant.

6

HOW THE PAN AM GAMES WILL PLAY A MAJOR ROLE

2024 Olympics: Toronto’s best hope

SportS

By Kyle LarkinToronto 2.0

Kyle Larkin T.O.2.0

President of the Devon Group, Bob Richardson, was the chief operating o%cer for Toronto’s 2008 second place bid.

Kyle Larkin T.O.2.0

Excavation for the 2015 Pan Am Games has begun at the University of Toronto at Scarborough Campus on Military Trail.

For more on this story visit us at

toronto2point0.ca

DOES THE FUTURE LIVE ONLINE?

Three black lights hang in front of a nondescript, two-story o!ce building

in the west end of Toronto. "e bot-tom level is vacant and the stairs go-ing up have the nose-tingling aroma of fresh paint. "e three black lights in front of the building might as well represent the three founders of one of the companies inside. "is is the temporary home of Notesolution.com, and they are hoping to change the way students learn.

Founded by Jack Tai, Kevin Wu and Jackey Li in June of 2010, the site is looking to help students study better, more e!ciently and most im-portantly, socially.

"e site is essentially peer-to-peer sharing of university course notes. Users are encouraged to upload their own notes, so that others can view and learn from them. "e up-loader is then rewarded with credits to view other user’s notes.

“For us, when we were taking our exams, a lot of the time we found that we thought we covered every-thing,” Wu, the company’s chief op-eration o!cer, said, in an interview at the start-up’s o!ce. “But it was little bits and pieces that we missed. We felt we de#nitely would have gotten those parts if we had people that we could share notes with or studied together with.”

It is this ‘social learning’ that Wu and his team are banking their own money and the money of overseas investors on (many of whom are family and friends).

“All we were going on was our savings,” he said.

A$er originally testing at only the University of Toronto, Notesolu-tion has expanded over the past year to more than 25 post-secondary schools across Canada.

Up until recently, the site was free for all users. But like all companies, there is a need for revenue. "ose overseas investors are looking for dividends a$er all.

“Way back in the beginning, it was just a concept,” Wu said. “We had no idea if it would catch on. In terms of making money, we only started to think about that recently.”

So how does Notesolution plan to make a buck? It’s simple:

Lazy students.“One of the ways we thought

up was to get some of the students that might not have stu% to upload themselves or they’re just too lazy to upload to buy credits,” Wu said.

One would think that a service like this would be a thorn in the back of professors. But Wu claims that most of the feedback from schools is positive, from both the students and instructors.

Notesolution toured frosh week events across Canada this Septem-ber and the response was over-whelming.

“I’d say 99 per cent of students were like ‘Sign me up, I can’t wait to see this’,” Wu said.

Getting students excited is one thing, but professors are of a di%er-ent ilk. Some are worried that class attendance will drop.

“It’s kind of divided, but there’s more professors supporting us than against us,” Wu said. “Also if the professor is good, they will go re-gardless of if they can get the notes online. In a small way, it’s a means to get the professors to become better.”

Vikraman Baskaran, a professor at Ryerson University, encourages his students to use Notesolution as a way of studying better and engaging the class.

"e small start-up has a team of nine including Sean Gu (director of #nance), Rishi Sholanki (VP of

business development) and An-drew Brown (chief technical o!-cer) who is furiously inputting code on his laptop.

He is in the process of developing a referral feature for the site, letting current users gain credits if they bring in their friends. (Note: that feature was launched Oct. 7.)

Many other features are in the pipeline for this young company, with seemingly large aspirations.

"e team is hoping to launch fea-tures such as a question and answer section and peer tutoring support.

Many of the big web start-ups are created and incubated in San Francisco, but Wu says Toronto, and Canada as a whole is growing in the tech world. "e city of Toronto is home base for Notesolution, with a new (bigger and “better looking” ac-cording to Wu) o!ce in the works. It is at this small company that something bigger is brewing. 7

Notesolution.com: the future of education

By James WattieToronto 2.0

How does Notesolution plan to make a buck? It’s simple: Lazy students

Tech

James Wattie T.O.2.0

Andrew Brown (left) and Rishi Sholanki are just two of the nine Notesolution employees.

James Wattie T.O.2.0

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Kids hate school. Ask a toddler in

grade one what they dislike the most, and you could bet your lunch money school is public enemy #1 with vegetables and bath time.

School, as hated as it is, is where kids grow up, and are moulded into the people they become. Not only in terms of education and opening doors for jobs, but build-ing interests, perspectives, and social skills.

!e social aspect is under-rated. !rough interacting with friends, children learn the give and take of social behaviour in general.

And this important factor is one of a few reasons why the Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB) recent approval of an africentric high school is being highly s c r u t i n i z e d . Separating im-pressionable children at such a young age (there is al-ready an africentric elementary school) in any way, and keeping them apart until their late teens, denies them the crucible for inte-gration: school.

“I could see that being a huge problem down the road, for sure,” said Michael Lillie, a "rst year Centennial Col-lege student, who graduated through the TDSB’s education system in 2008.

“With racism and stereotyping always a problem, I don’t see this

helping.”Schools are where

young people from di#erent back-g r o u n d s

and ethnici-ties learn to live together.

If the multicultural ex-periment in Toronto (and Canada) is work-ing, schools are the reason.

Regardless of the criticisms and revolt-

ing children (black students in-cluded), the TDSB is targeting a September 2013 opening. !e proposal, which garnered a 14-6 vote in favour of the school, is seen as a solution to needs identi-"ed by the TDSB.

“Right now, it’s addressing a need identi"ed by parents for a marginalized school,” said Roula Anastasakos, superin-tendent of the Toronto District School Board.

For what little data there is from the africentric elementary school, it is positive. !e school scored above average results in standardized testing.

So is this school’s ever in-creasing popularity a sign of things to come in Toronto? Specialized schools cater-ing to di#erent communities and groups?

“We’d have to see those pro-posals. Everything would have to

be taken as an indi-vidual, unique case. We don’t have anyone banging on the doors to do that right now, though,” Anastasakos explained.

8

Africentric Schools: Segregation for Success?Debate sparks over

the accepted propsal of a

second africentric school in Toronto

If africentric schools are seen as the solution, what are they the soultion to?



toronto2.0.ca

The Math

40%: Dropout rate of black students in

Toronto

12,000: Number of black students who won’t

complete secondary school

185: Students attending the africentric

elementary school

Alex Kozovski T.O.2.0

There is a doctrine named a!er Dave "eurer, creator of

two of Atari’s early hits Missile Command and Tempest. Dubbed "eurer’s Law, it reads: Nobody gets their #rst game published. In the early 1980’s, "eurer was the only game developer to have his #rst title released and it was a hit with the growing gaming geek generation.

"irty years later, with chil-dren of that generation now adults, the landscape of video game development has changed.

Popping up in cities all over the world are little (and some-times not so little) hubs of inde-pendent game developers.

“Toronto right now is actu-ally enjoying sort of a really big growth period,” said Steve En-gels, professor of video game de-sign at the University of Toronto.

“10 years ago, the best jobs or opportunities were either in the States, in Montreal or in Vancouver, but Toronto is now

a real hot bed for inter-esting game design,” said Nick Coombe, of Toron-to- based Get Set Games.

Founded in July 2009, Get Set Games is the creator of mobile games such as Poptweets and Mega Jump. Mega Jump, available on the Apple App Store as well as the Android Market, has been downloaded 18 million times.

“Toronto has a unique-ly strong and #ercely independent game de-veloper scene, that keeps things fresh and pushes the industry and game design in new directions,” Coombe said.

Benjamin Rivers, an indie game developer in Toronto himself, says Toronto’s development beginnings were community-based, and that gives them an advantage.

“A whole bunch of game devs [developers] happened to meet in bars here in Toronto, and boom—a community was born,” he said. “I think the novelty of knowing other people in this #eld really kickstarted an appreciation for fostering that community.”

Despite a warm and welcoming community with which to feed o$ of, Toronto indie devel-opers are facing a new obstacle in the city.

“Recently, [Toronto has] got a lot of atten-tion because Ubiso! has dropped into town and this other big game company called Gamelo!,” Engels said.

Ubiso!, a premier video game developer, announced it would open up a Toronto stu-dio in 2009, and the newest installment of the massively successful Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell

series would be made here.

But these big name companies are not coming to Toronto for the pleasant weather and even more pleasant people.

“"eir arrival is just a result of the govern-ment shi!ing some of its policies and allow-ing some sort of incentives for game compa-nies to actually settle down and take up shop in Toronto,” Engels said. “So there’s still a lot of talent and a lot of indie game studios, like hundreds, but more recently, we’re getting more attention for the bigger studios.”

Coombe says having larger names like Ubi-so! in Toronto is helpful to the indie communi-ty. “We’re getting some top-tier expertise feed-ing into the city, which can only help improve the talent pool over the long run.”

Coombe also explains that even though there are big name developers in Toronto, there are a bunch of advantages to being an indie game developer.

“"e biggest advantage is that you can follow your own creative direction,” he said. “Independent game developers don’t have an obligation to a publisher, inves-tor, or any outside interest to creative certain

types of game, and so they are free to experi-ment, to be bold and to make games or in-teractive experiences that are outside of the status quo.”

Benjamin Rivers, who has created web games for the Royal Ontario Museum, as

well as his own self-published games and graphic novels, echoes Coombe’s view.

“"e biggest advantage of being a small de-velopment house or a lone developer is the abil-ity to weather risk, and try new ideas,” he said. “Larger companies are more risk-averse,but if yours is the only paycheque you need to worry about, you can be a bit braver.”

“"is is de#nitely, from my perspective, the second rise of the garage or bedroom coder,” Coombe said. “Anyone with the knowledge to be able to program applications for a mobile de-vice and has $100 to spare can put their applica-tions in front of a global audience of millions.”

Much of the credit for this “second rise” be-longs to how distribution of games has evolved.

When Apple launched the App Store in 2008, (or when Valve created Steam, a distribution platform for games on computers, in 2003), each company gambled on hoping their idea would become the future. "ey were right.

“"e iPhone app store, and new digital download service like Steam changed the land-scape completely,” Coombe said. “Digital and mobile distribution has moved game purchas-ing out of the malls and main streets and into people’s homes,.

Rivers hopes to one day see a completely dig-ital distribution method with games, but there are obstacles.

“"e odd thing about the games industry is that it, unlike music and movies, is much more hesitant to cut ties to retailers to provide cheaper, more timely distribution,” he said.

Rivers envisions a world similar to how mu-sic has evolved also thanks to Apple and the late Steve Jobs.

“I hope within #ve or 10 years, most games will be available day-and-date digitally, with deluxe versions available physically only, like buying nice vinyl.”IN

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Toronto 2.0

You can follow your own creative direction- Nick Coombe

Tech

Where does Rog-ers Smart Home

Monitoring !t in to a rapidly changing Toronto?

In Toronto and across Canada, we know that Canadians are look-ing for solutions to manage their interconnected world seamlessly, reliably and securely. Smart Home Monitoring delivers on consumer’s desire to stay connected to home seamlessly and in real-time.

Why is it so impor-tant to integrate

home security with mobile applications?

Consumers are ready for a next generation system that meets the modern family’s connected needs - it is something that they can conceive of and understand. Smart Home Monitoring is a natural evolution for our business and it represents a great example of how we’re driving connected experiences into new services.

Is Rogers Smart Home Monitoring the next

standard in home security? Why?

With Smart Home Monitoring, the “Connected Home” is !nally here. Smart Home Monitoring is di"erent from a traditional secu-rity system - it is a product that is appealing to consumers who are looking for a connected life expe-

rience. #is is a product that deliv-ers to consumers who are looking for a home monitoring and auto-mation system that is not only re-liable and secure, but also allows them to constantly be connected to their home and loved ones.

How is this idea more prone to internet hack-

ers? Would this be a legitimate concern for potential custom-ers?

Building privacy features into this system was very important for us. #e Central Monitoring Station that we have monitoring Smart Home Monitoring enabled homes does not have access to cameras,

information about doors open-ing or closing and they do not get copies of emails and text messages. Each user of the system has a four-digit code that gives certain rights to use the system, and must be en-tered in addition to a Rogers pass-word in order to control appliances or the security system. Addition-ally, sensors are encrypted and we have employed “white-hat” hack-ers to test the system’s security. We always encourage consumers to have their system password locked.

Where do you see Rog-ers Home Monitor-

ing branching out to in the next 5 years?

As of today we are focusing on customers in our cable territory to provide the best customer experi-ence. Decisions will be made in the future regarding accessibility, but for now we are focusing on our cable footprint.

What kinds of newer features do you see

being integrated into the Rog-ers Home Monitoring system in years to come?

As a company overall, we are committed to innovating and de-livering connected life experiences to Canadians. I can’t share details on speci!c initiatives, but can tell you that this is a core focus for our team as we continue to build new and exciting products and services.

10

safety at your fingertips

For more on this story, see

Toronto2Point0.ca

“The connected home is ùQDOO\�here- Ian Pattinson

Tech

HOW ROGERS SMART HOME MONITORING IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE WAY WE PROTECT OUR HOMES


Subscribers have the option to monitor their homes from any

mobile-enabled device with the Rogers Smart Home app.

Roger Smart Home Monitoring - an initiative launched by Rogers Communications this past summer - is a mobile-app based security system that gives consumers the option to monitor their homes

24 hours a day, seven days a week all from their cell phones or other mobile devices. Reporter Andre !urairatnam had the opportunity to talk with Ian Pattinson, vice-president in charge of Smart Home Monitoring about what consumers can expect from this new standard in home security.

THE BALL BAN

PLAYGROUND SAFETY AND CHILD SUPERVISION IN THE GTA

Kyle Larkin T.O.2.0

Students at Earl Beatty Public School in East York are still prohibited from using soccer balls on school grounds.

En Envision yourself !dgeting at your grade eight desk, itching

for that minute hand to strike 12 as the teacher rambles on about hypotenuses.

Relief overcomes you as the bell rings throughout the hall-ways, and you scarf your lunch down before rushing for the tarmac.

Every pent up urge to run around in class or throw something is ful-!lled during those glorious thirty minutes of recess when you kick around the soccer ball, or throw the tennis ball against the wall with your friends.

Almost everyone can recall the many hours they spent outside dur-ing elementary school, which is why the news of Earl Beatty Public School’s ban of “hard balls” spread internationally faster than anyone

had expected. "ough the ban was li#ed two

weeks later, the incident has still le# a sour taste in many people’s mouths, and has le# some won-dering if it might become a trend around North America.

“My immediate response was that it was ridiculous,” says Kelly Redpath, principal on assignment, education and community ser-vices in the York Region District School Board (YRDSB).

“When you !rst hear it, you think about the kids and what they’d be losing and how an adult or a few of them, in this litigious so-ciety, can take s omet hing too far a t

the expense of kids.” However, Redpath admits the

full story brings more to mind. "e ban, which has been a part of the school’s rules for many years, only fully came into e$ect when a parent became concussed a#er being struck in the head with a soccer ball on school grounds.

“Y o u realize that it’s not right that someone gets injured while on

duty in a school yard, and some-thing should be done about it,” Red-path said. “Banning balls may not be the answer, but something needs to mitigate against this in the future.”

But the future is unclear at this point. Redpath doesn’t see the ban-ning of balls becoming a problem around the GTA or even Ontario, but more of an issue of schoolyard safety that needs to be addressed with a balance for both students and teachers.

Ross V i r g o

was also dis-heartened to

hear of the ban. He sees recess as an oppor-

tunity for kids to engage in the daily physical activity he

believes is necessary for their de-velopment.

On the other hand, Virgo also sees the issue as one that might potentially resonate across school districts.

“Playground safety is always a concern when you put a large group of children out in a small area, and especially when they have been through a couple hours of sitting still in a class-room,” says Virgo, who is the se-nior Manager of public affairs & communications in the YRDSB.

Virgo thinks there are three keys to ensuring no more inci-dents such as Earl Beatty’s occur in the future:

safe school-

g r o u n d conditions, rel-

evant rules guard-ing against kids from

bullying, and adequate supervision.According to Virgo, most insti-

tutions are fortunate in these ar-eas and are conscientious enough to uphold them, considering the relatively small numbers of inju-ries and accidents that take place around Ontario.

While these mission statements are clear, the e$ort to maintain

them is more

di%cult than it may seem, says

Redpath. “"ere are always new

safety protocols for schools, it’s never ending. We are always get-ting directives about how to man-age schools and ensure safety,” Red-path said, who worries about the lack of increased sta%ng in order to aid in the ever-changing rules.

"e shortage of sta$ sometimes prevents schools from complying with the mandates. According to Redpath, principals and vice-prin-cipals are le# to supervise yards and classrooms during teacher prep time, which is not e$ective in the overall goal of ensuring safety around the schoolyard.

11



toronto2point0.ca

Living

Chalk is cheap.Scrawled rough-

ly on the uneven downtown sidewalk in Toronto, the eccentric man didn’t care that he stopped a crowd of people, from getting to the next art display at Toronto’s annual Nuit Blanche.

Stopping, and armed with a fat piece of white chalk clutched in his hobo gloves, a scruffy dirty blond beard, and a shaggy, long trench coat, the mystery man performed this soft-core vandalism, and then stood up. Turning, he was faced with a surprised, but intrigued, audience.

“I’ll take some,” an anony-mous girl piped up. With a toothless grin, the man reached into his giant yellow box of chalk, handed her a piece, and disappeared into the night, likely spreading his message all over downtown.

Chalk is cheap.It took a while to put it to-

gether. At first it was your classic, atypical character not

uncommon in the depths of downtown. Someone to be ig-nored, not giving the rebel an-other thought. But considering the facts, this was more than a random act of oddness.

The man was creating art, hoping people would join his

chalk cause, decorating the streets of Toronto, streets lit-tered with thousands expe-riencing Toronto’s biggest art festival.

Our chalk crusader repre-sents the Toronto art scene at the moment- and maybe where it’s going. A man considered to be doing random acts is a real-life metaphor of Toronto’s art scene and culture.

At first it’s tough to under-stand it, but then when you realize what he’s doing, and the artistic value it has, you see how different and inno-vative it is. And the fact that he is really making you think about what can be defined as art and what art can mean, is a reflec-tion of artists in Toronto look-ing towards the future: c o n s t a n t l y pushing the boundaries in

one of the richest art cultures you’ll find.

Nuit Blanche gives us a peek into the future. Many of the ex-hibits tackle art in ways com-mon people never see. So what does art and art culture look like in Toronto, now and in the future? Examining some art moguls in the community, art is an industry in Toronto that is on the up rise, if the present is any indication or foreshadower to the future.

12

Nuit Blanche 2011 and their artists!

Photos by Alex Kozovski

“I’m real-ly excited about what’s happening in Toronto’s art scene right now, and really excited to be a part of it.- Julia Abraham

CHALKISCHEAP


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lion.

Darren O’Donnell, artistic director of theatre company Mammalian Diving Reflex and 2 time contributor to Nuit Blanche in 2006 and 2007, has been deeply integrated into To-ronto art culture all his life. The 46 year old Toronto native dab-bles through various artistic art forms, from being an essayist to a performing artist. His 2006 Nuit Blanche submission, Ball-room Dancing, where kids DJ’ed in a gym filled with thousands of rubber balls, was the talk of the town.

“Absolutely the art culture is strong. There are a lot of people trying to do a lot of different things, it’s kind of all over the place,” O’Donnell said.

Painter and performer Ju-lia Abraham, who created the visual installation Do You See What I See? at this year’s Nuit Blanche, has experience in art all across the world. Studying and receiving a master’s degree from the University of Birming-ham from the UK, Abraham has looked into art in many other countries.

“Definitely the culture is strong. I was in Sydney where there is an amazing art culture, and in comparison, Toronto is incredibly strong. The program-ming right now is excellent,” the soft-spoken Abraham said, still recovering from performing at

Nuit Blanche all night.“I’m really excited about

what’s happening in Toronto’s art scene right now and really excited to be a part of it.”

Alexis Mitchell, co-creator of this year’s exhibit Border Sounds, a video, performance, and sound installation located in an underground parking garage, is in agreement with her colleagues.

“It’s an extremely rich artist community and culture, one I would hate to lose,” Mitch-ell explained, who absolutely radiates artistic energy and eccentricity.

They are all in agreement that art is here to stay as a powerful contributor to To-ronto identity. In the future, art might be more important than ever to Toronto, and for a multitude of reasons. For one, it is important to the economy.

“Up is really the only direc-tion it can go. It’s still the only industry that’s making work downtown, all other indus-tries are going to the suburbs,” O’Donnell said, noting the broad mediums art reaches, from music to visual art.

Abraham, who is current-ly getting her masters for art through the University of To-ronto, can be seen as a glimpse of tomorrow’s artist. It will be the work of her colleagues in the near future that will repre-sent Toronto’s art and the art scene of the future. And she is already witnessing fellow artists starting to break rules, and do things we’ve never seen.

“There’s a new wave of artists from centres where I’ll include Butcher Galleries, which is a space for artists that are more experimental. They don’t rely on funding or grants to operate but shows work that is pushing limits and certain concepts and

are more in the initial stages of production.”

Butcher Galleries, are lo-cated downtown Queen East, in a quirky residential lane near Dundas and Lansdowne. Butcher’s mandate is conceptu-alizing art online, on their site, in an immaterial state and then creating it into a material form, while maintaining the integrity of the project.

“That is clearly an experi-mental idea; no one is really doing it,” Abraham said enthu-siastically of the gallery’s inno-vation.

It certainly isn’t hard or expensive to become a part of this rich culture. Because don’t forget: chalk is cheap.

A&E

13

Interested in exhibiting your work at next year’s Nuit Blanche? Each exhi-bition area includes 5 proj-ects selected by curators through an open call. Emailed Applications are due by midnight, Mon-day, December 19, 2011. Hand Delivered Applica-tions are due in the Of!ce by 4 pm, Monday, December 19, 2011.

Nuit Blanche 2012

OPEN CALL

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The city of Toronto prides itself on being home to one of the

most liberal and accepting cul-tures, not only in North America, but across the globe. A good ma-jority of the time, Torontonians can feel free to walk, talk and wear whatever they please without hav-ing to feel the pressure of a judg-ing society. Free expression of one-self is something very prominent when taking a walk through the downtown core.

However, there also seems to be a very distinct line between where “self-expression” is per-missible and where a level of professionalism begins.

Where tattoos, piercings and other forms of body modi!cation are within societal norms outside of the workplace, the conservatism within a professional environment is something that hasn’t changed very much in the past 20 to 30 years. Many professional o"ces and other service environments frown upon seeing visible tattoos

– whether it be stated explicitly in a company dress code or an unspo-ken rule in the o"ce.

According to a study done by the PEW Research Centre for the People and the Press, there is a de!nite distinction in how the public perceives tattoos. #e study states that, “#e public is divided about the impact of more people getting tattoos; 45 per cent say it has not made much di$erence, 40 per cent think it has been a change for the worse and only seven per cent say this has been a change for the better.”

Even with the statistics showing a strong disapproval rate from the general public, there is still a steady increase in popularity among them. #e same study states that 36 per cent of 18-25 year olds sport at least one tattoo. #at’s more than one-third of the population who are, arguably, entering the work force and actively searching for long-term employment.

What does this all mean for the next generation of white-collar em-ployees? Was getting a tattoo last spring break during freshman year a mistake?

“Like any form of style, it’s a matter of current cultural mean-ing -- women in pants, long hair or an earring on men, and other styles that may be perfectly ac-ceptable today were scandalous just a couple of generations ago,” explains Jennifer Berdahl, profes-sor of organizational behaviour and expert in workplace mistreat-ment at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “I expect tattoos will eventu-ally follow suit, if they haven’t al-ready, given how common tattoos now are.”

John Smith, a senior-level man-ager with Rogers Communica-tions in Toronto explains that there is de!nitely a stigma associ-ated with tattoos, but it varies de-pending on department and posi-tion. He requested his real name not be published.

“It all depends on the environ-ment,” he said. “I work in a corpo-rate telecommunications environ-ment and as long as the tattoos can be covered up, you’re !ne. In the corporate environment, be-low the manager level, I feel tat-toos are becoming more accept-able, but at the manager level and above, I haven’t seen anyone with visible tattoos.”

With senior-level managers in big corporations actively hiding and covering up tattoos at work, it leaves us wondering exactly how much of a role body art plays when applying for jobs, promotions, or other career enhancement opportunities.

“Tattoos don’t a$ect one’s ability to perform a job, so they should not matter to an employer, and instead should fall under an individual’s right to free expression,” she said. “#e one exception is how some customers may react to an em-ployee’s tattoo in some service pro-fessions, a reaction that is changing with the times, and an employer would need to decide if those re-

actions are hurting the business enough to be worth losing an other-wise excellent employee, or infring-ing on that employee’s individual freedom. .”

Times are de!nitely changing. As far back as 14 years ago, the US News and World Report found that tattooing was the sixth largest retail industry in the states, behind grow-ing !elds like cell phones and com-puters, and since then hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. We are becoming more lenient as a society and more accepting of what was considered taboo in past years.

“#e workplace has changed signi!cantly,” says Barbara Moses, international speaker, work/life ex-pert and best-selling author of Dish: Midlife Women Tell the Truth about Work, Relationships, and the Rest of Life.

“Employers recognize that many 20 and 30 something year-olds to-day have tattoos, and they are not signi!ers of being a bad or good girl or boy,” she said. “#at said, many people have a visceral nega-tive reaction to tattoos which can’t be covered with clothes. But the chances are you would not want to work somewhere which was popu-lated by people who had this kind of reaction. Bottom line for job seek-ers with tattoos: !nd a workplace culture which meets your needs and style.”

14

Comfortable in your own skin?


“17 per cent of those with a tattoo have considered getting it removedSource: American Academy of Dermatology

Do tattoos have a place in Toronto’s professional workplaces?

Living


Tattoos, although steadily increasing in popularity, do seem to play a major role in how one is perceived in the workplace.

Ahem...excuse me! Can I have the attention of the class for one sec-

ond? The opening request in Emi-

nem’s first hit single, My Name Is, was the rapper’s way of saying “time to listen to me, I got some-thing to say.” Controversial lyrics and subjects will always be asso-ciated with Slim Shady’s music, but his success is synonymous with his slurs.

Yet for up-and-coming Toron-to rap artist Victor Bryan Byen-kya, aka 3-Card, it was Eminem’s work in a different medium that inspired him to become a rapper.

“The first time I saw 8 Mile, I was like... ‘ahh shit, I’ve never seen anything like that,’” said By-enkya, not as intimidating as his 6’4”, stocky frame first portrays.

“It made me really see how tal-ented these guys are. I saw 8 Mile and my life changed.”

And that change for the Ugan-dan native was a shift in musi-cal style. The 23-year-old, who has lived in Toronto for 6 years

now, used to be in a rock band. Listening to bands like Papa Roach and The Offspring, Byke-nya’s preferred creative outlet was the guitar.

“When I first started listening to it, rap was too intimidating for me,” Byenkya said, 2 years removed from the University of Toronto. “It’s fast and making the right rhymes with the right melo-dies and the right beats, there’s a lot going on there.”

Rap and hip hop has become Byenkya’s main interest now. And it’s his fascination with rap mu-sic that has him preparing the launch of his first EP, Economy Class, in Toronto. “Some of my favourite songs were from Cana-dian rappers. I didn’t even realize they were Canadian. I was intro-duced to guys like Classified, and the Rascalz.”

With best friend and now producer Aseye Ohene moving to Toronto from their school in Cambodia, the choice for Byen-kya was that much easier. “To-

ronto seemed like an interesting place. I wanted a place where I could focus and build a rep,” he explained.

And the beginning of that rep begins with his upcoming 12-track EP, Economy Class. Tak-ing 1 year to conceptualize, Byen-kya has been recording for almost 2 months. The only real obstacle in the production process was the absence of long time engineer Osama Verse-atile Hussain, who has been doing a lot of work in the Czech Republic.

Despite Eminem really chang-ing Byenkya’s perception and direction of music, he stays re-moved from Eminem’s style and writing approach.

“Eminem is an easy contender for greatest [rapper] of all time, don’t get me wrong. But I could only relate to [Eminem’s] stuff so much. He writes a lot of personal stuff and that’s the thing.”

“He’s got some great rhymes, and some of the beats are really interesting,” said Philip Skocz-

kowski, a local Toronto DJ who operates under DP Music. “It’s rap, but it’s got that classic Jay-Z hip-hop feel, really catchy stuff. ‘Silly Little Thing’ is infectious.”

“I really dig it,” said Dan Wilikinson, another DJ, who is the ‘D’ in DP Music. “This one song I heard, F.R.E.E., is one of the better tracks I’ve heard in a while. Though hip-hop is sprinkled throughout the album, there’s some nice, raw straightfor-ward rap where all that matters is the lyrics. F.R.E.E. is one of those songs.”

Byenkya continues to pro-duce his best work, as he wants his first release to be a memo-rable one. Without many real, material accomplishments in his young career, he wants to start off with a bang, much like Jay-Z or Eminem.

Perhaps Economy Class should open 3-Card’s career like The Slim Shady EP did for Emi-nem’s career, only slightly modi-fied: Ahem...excuse me! Can the class have your attention for one second?

A&E

Class is in session3 CARD’S DEBUT ALBUM ‘ECONOMY CLASS’ HITS TORONTO

Alex Kozovski T.O.2.0

Victor Bryan Byenkya, aka 3-Card, debuts his long awaited EP �>\hghfr�<eZll��bg�Mhkhgmh�_hk�lmZkobg`�abi&ahi�eblm^g^kl'�

15


“It made me see how talent-ed these guys are.I watched 8 Mile and my life changed. - Victor Bryan Byenkya

16

BASEBALLHOMEGROWN TALENT AND AND THEIR MLB CHANCES

1.Joey Votto2.Jason Bay3.Justin Morneau4.Matt Stairs5.Russell Martin6.Mark Teahen7.Ryan Dempster8.Brett Lawrie9.Erik Bedard10.Scott Richmond

Canadian MLB players

The conditions of Wish-ing Well Park in Scar-borough aren’t optimal

in October, but it’s not enough to stop Travis Logan and his peers from practising as much as pos-sible. Sure the season ended over a month ago, but there’s plenty of time in the winter for the young teenagers to hone their skills on their way to being a professional.

The road to professional base-ball is a road seldom travelled by Torontonians, which is exactly

why Colin Cummins created Red Eye Pro Baseball. The new train-ing facility, which opened in Scar-borough last year, was built for kids like Travis Logan.

“These kids have a passion. I want to take their skills and help develop them to the next level,” Cummins said with a smile. “They deserve every op-portunity they can get to fulfill their dreams.”

Cummins played profession-ally in the independent leagues after being one of the final cuts by the Los Angeles Angels in the early 1990’s. Since then, Cummins has contributed more than 12 years of baseball camp experience.

“Toronto has been struggling the last decade or so. My focus is to increase the quality of athletes and provide a better future for baseball,” Cummins said.

After the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series back-to-back in ’92 and ‘93, local inter-est in baseball skyrocketed. Since then, however, turnout and par-ticipation has steadily declined, clouding the future of baseball with questions of commitment from kids.

John Jepson, the general man-ager of the Toronto Mets Baseball Club, has noticed an increase in registration across the TBA, and a dramatic upheaval in the amount of Torontonians moving on to American colleges and universi-ties, where they will have a better chance to play professionally.

“Pro scouts are at many PBLO

games in the GTA, and there’s no reason to believe this won’t con-tinue,” Jepson said.

Even the interest from fans in the GTA has increased substan-tially in the last year. The average attendance at the Rogers Centre this season was 22,440 – a 12 per cent increase from the 2010 sea-son. More importantly, there are currently more Canadians active on Major League Baseball rosters, such as Joey Votto, Justin Mor-neau and Jason Bay, than in any previous season.

“There’s no question that base-ball is enjoying a renaissance in Toronto now,” Said Greg Den-nis, president of the Scarborough Stingers association and manager of the Scarborough Stingers AAA Bantam team.

“Certainly, it helps that Cana-dian players like Justin Morneau and Joey Votto are among the elite in major league ball,” he adds.

Dennis speaks highly of base-ball in Toronto, and is optimis-tic about the future of Canadian talent.

“There is definitely a desire out there, and not just to play the game. The kids want to learn more skills, improve themselves and compete at higher levels,” Dennis said.

Kyle Larkin T.O.2.0

MkZobl�Eh`Zg%�*,%�mkZbgl�bg�K^]�>r^�Ikh�;Zl^[Zee�l�Ûklm�<hfie^m^�IeZr^k�Ikh`kZf�Zm�Pblabg`�P^ee�IZkd'

“These kids have a passion- Colin Cummins

The roof is open for aspiring Torontonians


toronto2point0.ca


w

17

HOCKEYTORONTO MINORITY ICE DREAMS


Muslim ball hockey bridges gap for youth

1.Nazem Kadri2.Wayne Simmonds3.Chris Stewart4.Anthony Stewart5.P.K. Subban6.Manny Malholtra7.Joel Ward8.Devante Smith-Pelly

8 GTHL Players in NHL


toronto2point0.ca

SportS

Patel makes a steal at the hashmarks, spins around and slaps the ball o! the

boards through the neutral zone. Sheikh accepts the pass, sees a clear path and makes a dash. "e defend-ers are closing in, and the goalie cuts o! the angle, but Sheikh crosses over to the short side and buries it underneath Qureishi’s blocker. "e bench goes wild, kids hold-ing sticks twice their height cheer, and the scoreboard’s buzzer echoes throughout the arena.

An otherwise ordinary day at the arena made unordinary by the fact that none of the people in this picture are white. "e Madina

Hockey League, a Muslim ball hockey league, is a testament to the growing movement of minorities toward hockey.

But while the league gives the Muslim community an opportu-nity to play the game they love, it also symbolizes the barrier that many other minorities and immi-grants face when it comes to playing hockey on ice.

“"e ice hockey level is a lev-el that’s almost unattainable for the Muslim community,” said Sa# Habib, co-commissioner of the MHL.

“When families #rst come here, they’re not $ex-ible with their funds and with their time.”

Saleh Hafejee plays in the MHL, but also runs his own ball hockey league on the East end of Scarbor-ough. Growing up as a second gen-eration Canadian, Hafejee was re-

duced to pickup games of shinny or street hockey.

Having been more established in the country as an adult, Hafejee is able to register his 17-year old son, who has now been playing for more than 12 years. For Hafe-jee, the major problem for immi-grants still lies in cost, but also runs much deeper.

“Parents aren’t really involved. "ey drop their kids o! and leave. With hockey, those parents really need to be there and willing to travel,” Hafejee said.

“Because I grew up here, I learned to love the game and was able to support my son. I think with the later generations, we’re start-ing to see a lot more support from parents. "ey’re willing to spend the money.”

12 years ago his son was the only minority on the team. Now, teams for #ve and six year-olds seem to be a little more balanced according to Hafejee.

Habib believes most immigrants are going to revert to where they’re most comfortable.

“Unless ice hockey does something dramatic in terms of attracting minori-ties, they won’t continue to grow,” Habib said.

GTHL Executive Di-rector, Scott Oakman, be-lieves the league strongly represents the vast cultural backgrounds of Toronto, but that the challenge lies in increasing registra-tion based on the growing population.

According to www.to-ronto.ca, Toronto inherits about a quarter of all im-migrants in Canada, which equates to more than 50, 000 a year. Almost half of all Toronto citizens consider themselves visible minori-ties.

So wherein lies the key to attracting immigrants and later generations of visible minorities?

2011 Winter champions, Palace, poses with the Madina Cup at

Stephen Leacock on June 6.

Courtesy madinahockey.com T.O

.2.0

Kyle Larkin T.O.2.0

Saleh Hafejee, player in the MHL, stands upstairs in the

Stepehen Leacock Arena after winning his game 5 - 2.

UNDER SERVED COMMUNITIES FIND SUCCESS ON OWN TERMS

There were about 20 shoot-ings in a two-week span in the summer of 2005.

!e “summer of the gun” gave To-ronto a wake-up call to the problems youth in the city face.

One program launched to help youth in Toronto was !e Re-mix Project. Toronto 2.0 discussed the program as well as their fu-ture plans with cofounder Derek “Drex” Jancar.

JW: What is !e Remix Project?

DJ: !e Remix Project is an arts and culture incubator, a training cen-tre and a family.

JW: How did it begin?DJ: It was originally founded as

IC Visions in 2000 and it was North America’s "rst hip-hop recreation centre. !e program evolved organi-cally until 2005, the “summer of the gun”, when cofounders Kehinde Bah, Gavin Sheppard, and myself, came together and starting working on what would become !e Remix

Project, with the blessing of

the mayor’s safety panel. Other part-ners and funders gradually came on board to support their e#orts. We of-"cially launched in September 2006. From then until September 2009, we were located at 110 Sudbury St. (King and Du#erin area). !e program’s new space is at 2 Pardee Ave. and we are currently in our 8th semester of programming.

JW: What is !e Remix Projects goal?

DJ: !e Remix Project was cre-ated in order to help level the play-ing "eld for young people from disadvantaged, marginalized and

under served communities. Our programs and services serve youth who are trying to enter into the creative industries or further their formal education. We provide top-notch alternative, creative educa-tional programs as well as facilita-tors and facilities. Our mission is to help re"ne the raw talents of young people from across the GTA in order to help them "nd success as par-ticipants de"ne it and on their own terms.

JW: What does !e Remix Proj-ect hope to achieve in the next "ve, 10, 20 years?

DJ: In "ve years, we hope to have three locations; Toronto, New

York and Chicago.In 10, we would like to have a recognized alter-

native school in those three locations. In 20, an internation-ally recognized boarding school.

JW: How have you had to tailor

your program to meet the new chal

lenges for youth in a changing Toronto?

DJ: !e program is youth driven. !e participants learn what they want to know. !ey set the goals and milestones; the sta# and volunteers help them to get there.

Entertainment and media is al-ways changing and we have man-aged to stay relevant and current due to our branding and attention to identity.

JW: What (or who) are some of the programs success stories?

DJ: !ere are so many stories, but a couple that stick out to me are ones like Future !e Prince. He is now Drake’s DJ. He came into the busi-ness program focusing on building his brand and identity as a DJ. He has accomplished that to say the least.

Houman “Ricki” Bekzadeh was in out "rst semester of programming for recording arts. He graduated, went to George Brown College for Child and Youth Work and earned his diploma.

Now he is our program manager at !e Remix Project and overseeing the entire day-to-day activities of the program.

18

The Remix Project: Toronto’s Talent Incubator


For more, see toronto2point0.ca

LivingCourtesy/The Rem

ix Project

ImIt’s happened to all of us at least one: you’re riding the streetcar !rst

thing in the morning – the !rst leg on your hour and a half commute. Still feeling a bit groggy from your lack of sleep, you gather any re-maining energy to reach into your bag to get a head start on some clerical work, maybe send out a few emails. It’s at this moment it hits you. Your heart sinks. In the hustle of trying to get to work on time, you’ve accidentally le" your handy smart phone on top of your dresser. #e ride suddenly becomes the longest of any other morning: No correspondence with co-work-ers. No updates to the latest news headlines. No access to your social networks. On a packed streetcar in Toronto, with dozens of other com-muting Torontonians, you’ve never felt more disconnected, alone and out of the loop.

It’s hard to imagine as early as 10 years ago cell phones were still an emerging market. From the days of block text on a cramped, grey

screen has come a mobile revolu-tion of sorts – and it expands fur-ther beyond cell phones. Devices like tablets and iPods, in combina-tion with the surge in popularity of social networking, has created a phenomenon where news no lon-ger has a schedule.

Microso" Tag released a study that tracked how users have chosen to use their smart phones in 2011. #e study predicted that by 2014, mobile internet usage will have taken over desktop usage. With the average smart phone user spending about 2.7 hours per day socializing on their mobile device, this isn’t too surprising.

Marsha Lederman, Western Arts Correspondent with the Globe and Mail, is positive about how big mobile applications are becoming.

“[Mobile-based news applica-tions] is where the world is head-ing, period,” she stated. “Instantly, on mobile with more and more reliance on self-curation. And the move toward a global news vil-lage will continue, as we rely not necessarily on local papers for coverage but are as free to read

#e Guardian or the New York Times as we are the Toronto Star or Vancouver Sun.”

Major news apps, however, are not the only way people are getting their news. #e same study from Microso" Tag reported that 49 per cent of smart phone users engage in some sort of social networking on their devices. Applications like Facebook and Twitter are becom-ing a great tool for journalists in breaking news stories.

Since its launch in 2006, the online micro blogging social net-work has skyrocketed in popular-ity — now with an estimated 200 million registered users across the globe according to the website’s statistics pro!le.

Why is Twitter so valuable in terms of breaking news? #e ser-vice is giving users the opportunity to follow veri!ed media outlets, which are updated as soon as any news breaks. 680News may see an accident on the 401 from their heli-copter, and ‘tweet’ the information in a matter of seconds. No waiting for the tra$c report.

“I know where there have been some cases where planes are go-ing down, and people are tweet-ing as it is happening,” said Law-rence Morton, a story editor at the CBC. “It can be a really good source to contact people in break-ing news situations where the only way to get to them is through their Twitter account.”

Matthew Chin, an avid user of the service, uses Twitter to catch up on current events on a daily basis.

“It is good place to get news, because you usually get !rst-hand news right away,” Chin explained. “For example the San Francisco riots [when the World Series was won] - there were people tweeting with pictures who were right in the middle of it at 3 a.m. You would have to wait until the next morn-ing to watch this on the news. You get breaking news right away; it is a never ending news roll.”

What does this digital revo-lution mean for our daily print publications? Will newspa-pers eventually become an obsolete medium?

“My prediction is that eventu-ally, publications will move to a weekend-only model for print,” Lederman suggests. “On Saturdays or Sundays, when you have time to read the paper, you will receive a physical copy, as much magazine as newspaper, with longer-form articles and columns. But the key thing here is that newspapers - even if they’re not printing on paper - are still the organizations along with broadcasters that em-ploy journalists, put resources into !nding and covering stories, and break almost all of that news that you read on Twitter and blogs all over the internet.”

In the next !ve years, Toronto-nians can expect a big shi" in re-liance on mobile devices in their daily routine. While print publica-tions will never completely go ob-solete. #e future of breaking news is upon us, and it’s digital.


Mobile apps like Twitter provide consumers with real-time [k^Zdbg`�g^pl�Zm�ma^bk�Ûg`^kmbil'

19

The effect


For more on this story, visit us at

toronto2point0.ca

“Publications will move to a weekend- only model for print-Marsha Lederman

Are newspapers going the way of the dinosaurs?

Tech

The Toronto Waterfront and Port Lands area have always been a

hot topic with politicians, urban planners and Torontonians alike. With Rob Ford’s elaborate vision for urban development being shut down by city councillors, it doesn’t look like Torontonians will be see-ing a megamall, monorail or Ferris wheel like Ford may have hoped in the centre anytime soon.

His intricate blueprint for a developed Waterfront was under harsh criticism from experts in var-ious areas of urban planning, archi-tecture, economics and design. In a letter addressed to city councillors prior to the vote, top experts Rich-ard Florida, Paul Bedford, Richard Sommer and Eric Miller deeply ex-pressed their concern for the future of the city. Here is an excerpt from the letter.

“!e proposed plans do not represent a ‘bold new vision’ for our Waterfront. Rather, they are a tired recycling of 1960’s think-ing. !e Lower Don Lands are not Disney World. !e current plan is an award-winning design that will create a whole new community on the waterfront that will be a model for sustainable urban develop-ment. !e new proposals repre-sent yet another attempt to bring failed suburban urban design con-cepts into a downtown setting.,’” they wrote.

One of the biggest criticisms of the plan that is currently in ef-fect is the fact that it will take too long before citizens see any signi"cant change.

Richard Nichols, a native of the downtown area, frequents the Wa-terfront area on a weekly basis. He claims that the area has not seen any signi"cant change in the past

30 years and is sceptical of any im-mediate change occurring in the near future.

“I’d really like them to get it done within the next 10 years so I can enjoy that land when I retire,” Nichols urged.“!ere’s de"nitely a shortage of land and property in the downtown area – people want to live there – so let’s used the land for what it’s supposed to be used for. It’s the downtown part of the city, a#er all. !ere doesn’t look like there’s much going on [in the Waterfront area], and the land is not being used for very much right now, so let’s get it done.”

Ken Greenberg, former Director of Architecture and Design for the city of Toronto has been involved in some of the most signi"cant ar-chitectural developments in North America including the Fan Pier in Boston, Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto and the Southeast and Southwest Waterfronts in Wash-ington D.C. Contrary to Nichols’ beliefs, Greenberg claims that To-ronto is already developing at an astounding rate – much beyond any other major city in the conti-nent. He argues that this criticism is simply empty logic.

“A couple of the things that were said that just didn’t make any sense include the insertions that [de-velopment] is ‘going too slowly’,”

Greenberg stated. “To date, Wa-terfront Toronto has attracted something like 2.6 billion dollars in investments – a lot of it is under-way now: things like the athlete’s village, development in the East Bay front. At a time where there is not a crane in the sky in any North American city, Toronto is develop-ing faster than any other city on the continent. It could hardly be faster.”

Code Blue TO, a lobby group organized against Rob Ford’s vi-sion for the Toronto Waterfront, was a driving force in the back-lash of support from Torontonians against the plan. !ey argue that the current plans will o$er citizens countless employment and other opportunities in addition to these residential areas - all in a stable, de-veloping community setting.

“!e existing plan for the Lower Don Lands calls for housing for 19,000 residents, employment for 14,000 workers, along with sig-ni"cant shopping, cultural, recre-ational, and entertainment uses,” a spokesperson for the organization said. “It combines urban transit-oriented neighbourhoods with nat-ural settings in a dynamic, exciting community that welcomes visitors.

!e plan is %exible enough to wel-come virtually any compatible new use that may emerge.”

Greenberg explained that when executing a plan of this calibre to an area that is almost the size of the rest of the downtown core, the priority is not to plan for the ex-pected, but to implement a strat-egy to accommodate a constantly changing city.

“!e area is as big as most of Downtown Toronto,” he explained. “Look at all the things that have oc-curred in Downtown Toronto that no one could have predicted in the last 10 or 15 years. When you create a plan like this, the idea is to create a plan that’s capable to absorb these new ideas as they come along.”

!e current plan also takes into consideration a rich retail envi-ronment for the centre. “!e re-tail already planned for the Lower Don Lands will be substantial and varied – but the di$erence is that it will occur on lively urban streets on the "rst %oors of residential and commercial buildings, emulating the best of the city’s other vibrant neighbourhoods,” a Code Blue TO spokesperson explained.

20

Where do we go from here?

By Andre !urairatnamToronto 2.0

“Toronto is developing faster than any other city on the continent. -Ken Greenberg

The future of Toronto’s waterfront.

Living


The Toronto Waterfront and Port Lands areas have been under the magnifying glass by Torontonians for decades.

Ridership has exploded in the past 10 years in Toronto, leaving the two major carriers, GO and TTC of people to rethink and redesign transit needs. For in the next 20 years, the

outlook will be something we have yet to imagine.“Right now, I think that the city is at the crossroad of our future,” said

Kristyn Wong-Tam, city councillor for Toronto Centre-Rosedale. Wong-Tam continues to be a supporter of Transit City, an initiative started by then-mayor David Miller that would have seen several new light rail lines added, amongst other expansions, to the transit map of Toronto.

Current mayor Rob Ford nixed the initiative days a!er taking o"ce in October 2011, to much con-troversy. TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says there are plenty of ways they are planning on meeting the demands of the future growth in riders, without Transit City.

“#e new subway trains, the Toronto Rockets, carry 10 per cent more people than the existing $eet,” he said. “As well, a new signal system is being installed on the Yonge-University-Spadina line that will allow us to run trains closer together.”

Wong-Tam acknowledges the new trains and says they are where we need to be heading. “We also need

to think about ridership experience,” she said. “When I travel around the world, one thing that strikes me is that the subway system in Toronto is aging. If we start planning and start build-

ing today and we don’t stop and we’re not sidetracked by political trickery, I think we could have a world-class transit system once again. I think Toronto can once again be a leader.”

Although Transit City was squashed, but it is not the only transportation initiative that is looking to propel Toronto towards being a leader in intra-city travel.

#e Big Move is Metrolinx’s (operators of GO Transit, as well as multiple municipal transit systems in the GTA) plan for the next 25 years.

“#e plan outlays 52 di%erent rapid transit projects for the region including, the back-bone of the system, the GO transit network,” explained David Pritchard, a senior planning advisor at Metrolinx. “With this plan, we will be able to reduce driving and bring rapid transit within reach of about 80 per cent of the GTA.”

“In the next 20 years, the transformation is in the nature of the service,” said Daniel Haufschild, director of policy and planning for Metrolinx. “We’re moving

from a commuter service to a transportation service, which is really about serving more than the commuter market. Its about serving school trips, doctor visits, education and so on.”

Currently, only the Lakeshore lines run trains all day, both ways. GO plans to have all seven lines at “Two Way All Day” service, as it has been dubbed.

Union Station is the primary transit hub in Toronto, as it combines GO Transit, Via Rail, and the TTC. Hauf-schild calls the renovation currently under way “substantial”. Metrolinx recently introduced the Presto card. Customers load it with money like a gi! card. It is available to use for all GO trains and buses, as well as plenty of municipal transit systems. #e TTC has yet to fully implement the Presto card at its stations, but they are in early discussions.

Metrolinx also hopes to have an air rail line, running from Union Station to Pearson International Airport, in time for Toronto to host the Pan Am Games in 2015.

With that goal (among others) only a few years away, it is clear that both the hypothetical and physical wheels must start to get in motion.

“If we don’t have a plan on transit, we are a city with no direction,” Wong-Tam said. “A city with no direction will not be able to compete globally. We will not be able to retain or attract top talent and top residents. Without that, we will see that Toronto will lose its competitive economic edge.”

THE TTC AND GO TRANSFORM TRANSIT

21


The city is at the crossroads of our future.- Kristyn Wong-Tam

Livinging Forward in Toronto

Photos by James Wattie

At downtown Toronto’s Silver Dollar room, the band prepares for

their hour long set. !e guitar-ist crouches over his minimal-ist pedalboard, three e"ects wired into his honey blonde Fender Telecaster.

Suddenly, purple and green lights illuminate the quartet. !en the vocalist, in a richly toned Jamaican-accent, pro-claims: “Hello everyone; we are !e Livin’ Art.”

“It’s not one of the hippest or biggest venues, but they have a cool 180 degree stage and really look a#er their bands,” said Guil-laume Lauzon, the Livin’ Art’s drummer, having $nished an explosive show to the crowd of 50 or 60.

Lauzon is a student and mu-sician from Montreal, trying to reach rock stardom with his band mates in Toronto. !e experienced 21-year-old loves playing in Toronto,

especially venues like the Silver Dollar room.

But that doesn’t come with-out di%culties, as he feels there is room for growth in Toronto’s music scene. Coincidentally, there are signs of problems in To-ronto’s music culture.

!e aggravation arises from the perfect storm of a chang-ing music industry, happening worldwide, the cost of rehearsal spaces downtown, and the need for artists to live near the down-town core. Musicians need to live downtown to practice in rehears-al spaces. !e problem with that is the rehearsal spaces are too ex-pensive downtown.

!e change of the musical business model in recording and production has led to the sub-sequent e"ect of an emphasis towards live performance mak-ing the need for rehearsal spaces greater than ever.

So what can be done to prevent losing Toronto’s mu-sic culture, which is where it’s headed?

With live performances being

the avenue of revenue for musi-cians, they need to be able to generate more from the shows they put on. Lots of venues ei-ther have the musicians walk-ing away for nothing, or even paying to play.

Solving the sonic sound re-quirement, so bands have more places to practice. Dr. Kevin Sto-larick, research director for the Martin Prosperity Institute who is “the world’s leading think-tank on the role of sub-national fac-tors in global economic prosper-ity” according to their website, has been examining alternatives to ensuring Toronto clutches

onto its musical talent. One is to use space that is available, as it’s serving little purpose to Toronto at the moment.

“!e city actually does have a lot of interesting spaces,” Sto-larick said. “Not only places like parks, but there’s a lot of other stu" going on where the city could actually provide these spaces to groups at either no or minimal costs because it’s not re-ally costing the city anything.”

22

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WHY TORONTO IS TOUGH TO THRIVE IN AS A MUSICIANBy Alex Kozovski

Toronto 2.0

Walk toward the future...

Toronto 2.0 Edition 1

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