toronto

Toronto is simultaneously terrific, in that it has everything imaginable in it, and terrifying, in that it is basically all the bad parts of LA plus all the bad parts of NYC. It’s been hot, humid, thunderstormy, and smoggy over the past few days—enough that yesterday they told people to stay inside who didn’t absolutely have to be outside. Also, in this part of the world, when it finally rains, the humidity doesn’t break; it just goes back to being ugly and gross.

On the other hand, there is the Hockey Hall of Fame. A pilgrimage was made. We also visited the Royal Ontario Museum, which rather disappointingly tries to be all things to all people. One whole floor is pleasingly devoted to Greece and Egypt and Cyprus and much of the rest of the ancient Mediterranean, while another is devoted to dinosaurs and yet another to Canada’s aboriginal peoples. The curating wasn’t all that good or consistent either; often we had no idea what it was we were looking at, some dates and times were missing, and (possibly worst of all) there was a teensy bit of orientalist fetishization of aboriginal cultures…but more about all that in a future post.

For now, enjoy this sampling from all the photos from Toronto:

The plan for the next few days is to drive northwest round the Great Lakes. Next stop: Sault Ste Marie, hopefully!

Four seats, all previously held by Liberals, were being contested in today’s Federal by-elections. The news media are reporting that the Liberal Party has won three out of four: two in Toronto and one in Vancouver. All three of these seats were considered fairly safe Liberal territory. The fourth riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, elected the Conservative candidate Rob Clarke. There was a significant Nader effect in the Saskatchewan and Vancouver races: exact numbers are not yet available, but the latest data from Elections Canada seems to indicate that the results could have come out differently if the NDP and Green totals could have been added to the Liberal total. (One of these days, I’ll shut up about the single transferable vote system. But not today.)

Basically, these election results allow all sides to claim (read: spin) victory. The Liberals can claim that three out of four is a good hold, they held on to traditionally Liberal territory, this election sends a clear message to Harper’s government that people are fed up with its lack of transparency and distance from the common people, and is a good recovery from the Liberals’ failure during the by-elections in Québec last year. The Conservatives can claim that the Saskatchewan pickup is a vindication of their policies and their government, the Liberals should have run the table because the candidate there was hand-picked by Stéphane Dion, and if the people were really so fed up with the Conservatives, the Liberals should have picked up the seat. The NDP and Greens can claim, especially with the very high numbers they received in Vancouver Quadra and Toronto Centre, that both major parties are flawed and incompetent. For my part, I think Stéphane Dion really needs to take a long, hard look at himself and his leadership of the party.

More on this later. Analysis and actual numbers when Elections Canada finishes counting the votes, and I (and the rest of the country) have had a chance to sleep on it all.