MEDIA

Three years later: Double cohort, double stress

Being in a group that she never volunteered to join has been nothing but a series of stressful challenges for 20-year-old Lindsay Amyot, reported the Toronto Star March 14. The third-year psychology student at York University is one of the 76,000 Ontario high school students who entered the province's universities as part of the double cohort in 2003. "First I felt stress and anxiety that I wasn't going to get into any university anywhere," she says. "Then when I got here I had to take math, first-year calculus with students who had an extra year of high school math than me. I had to work a lot harder to achieve the same marks. But I did okay."

Amyot's latest stress is competing with all the other double cohort students in her program to find an adviser for her senior year thesis. "The next year, fourth year, is already starting to feel overwhelming because of the competition." She says the competition doesn't end there. She's already pondering what the job market will be like when so many double cohort students across the province graduate at the same time. "I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do but, whether you want to continue on with graduate school or go into the workforce, we still realize how much tougher it's going to be for us." But she credits York for doing everything it could to accommodate the double cohort group and maintains a positive attitude about the predicament she and her classmates are in. "I've felt a huge sense of accomplishment every step of the way – when I got into university, after my first year. I guess there's a higher standard for us if we want to get the good positions and jobs we want."

Proposal to house Ontario archives at York gets boost from Spadina subway talk
A proposal to house the province's $400-million archives collection at York University is being given a boost by planned subway development, reported the Toronto Star March 14. According to the paper, sources say one of the selling points for the York University site is that it would increase the ridership on the planned $1.5-billion extension of the Spadina subway line. Thousands of people visit the archives every year and officials hope the new building will become a destination of choice for researchers and others interested in Ontario's heritage. The 90,000-square-foot facility, expected to be completed early in 2009, will boast public reading rooms, conservation labs, archival processing areas and administrative offices. No price tag for the new building has yet been made public but government officials privately say it should be in the $25 million to $50 million range.

York is calling for proposals to develop a 1.6-acre site on the University's Keele campus, said the Star. Its call for proposals suggests the site has been shortlisted for the archives and that the site "is adjacent to the proposed subway stop for the Spadina subway extension to York region." Controversy has swirled for years around the search to find a new storage facility for the millions of historical documents, some of which date to the 17th century. Included in the collection are about 200 watercolours painted by Elizabeth Simcoe (above), wife of John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada's first lieutenant governor.

Bloggers weigh in on LOTR musical
For weeks, bloggers have been buzzing about the massive Lord of the Rings stage production, reported the Barrie Examiner March 15. Theatre critics, however, have been sitting on their hands, required by longstanding tradition to hold their opinions until opening night on March 23. The unique situation is yet another example of how the blogosphere is turning everyday folk into amateur journalists – who often beat professionals to the punch. "Lord of the Rings is obviously an extremely high-profile production," said Shawn Kerwin (right) , chair of the Department of Theatre at York. "The interest from bloggers is something that is inevitable." Since early February, the $27-million production has been in previews, a period that allows actors, costume designers and production crews to tweak the show and work out any kinks before professional critics weigh in. "Theatres don't want productions to be reviewed while they are in previews because they're saying 'We are just finding our feet in adding all the production elements and the audience and the actors together. We need some time to be able to find our feet before we officially open'," explained Kerwin.

Graduate student answers the government's call for consultation on energy
The Kingston Whig-Standard March 14 featured people who spoke out boldly on energy issues a few weeks ago at a public consultation meeting in Kingston, including Kathy Raddon, a graduate student in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. "If we go the nuclear route, conservation will never happen," Raddon said. "There is now a window of opportunity. Government should bring organizations like the Sierra Club, the Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace and others in as they formulate energy strategies."

Youth hopes 'to keep more teens alive' with help of York playwright
Lee Martin, a 15-year-old Barrie youth who tried to kill herself at age 11, has been awarded $1,000 to develop a play to combat teen suicide, reported The Barrie Examiner March 11. Organized through the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario's Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health. Martin was awarded $1,000 for the project – it goes beyond a play – and a trip to Ottawa to speak to other teens. Part of the money will help hire a playwright, a York University student, to work with Martin to develop the script.

Interested in city's public spaces? Join discussion group for a pint
A group of self-professed "public space geeks" want to have a drink with you and hear your thoughts on what Toronto should do with the places around the city we all share, reported the National Post March 10. Three urban planning students from York’s Faculty of Graduate Studies have started Planning Action, an online community of people with a shared interest in the city's public spaces. Andrea Winkler, Constance Exley and Laurel Atkinson all just met for the first time recently over drinks to talk about their school projects, and quickly came up with the idea for a pub night at the Dora Keogh pub. "The conversation was a good one because we had such different backgrounds and perspectives and had worked with different organizations on various levels around issues of space in the city," Winkler said. "We thought that if this meeting was so informative, imagine it times 30." Planning Action has decided to make the meeting a monthly event. The first was held March 14.

Canada needs to play its part in world water issues, writes Atkinson student
I agree with Gordon Young, co-ordinator of the Paris-based United Nations World Water Assessment Program, that "Canada has the capacity and expertise to play a major role" in the world water crisis, wrote Meesum Ashraf, an administrative studies student in York's Atkinson Faculty of LIberal & Professional Studeies, in a letter to the Toronto Star published March 11. We, as Canadians, need to educate ourselves and others about conserving this precious resource called water, which we in Canada take for granted, while 1.2 billion people in the rest of the world don't have access to it, he wrote. Engineers Without Borders, with co-operation from the Canadian International Development Agency and with endless support from its 12,000 university-aged volunteers across Canada, has been organizing high-school outreach workshops in various high schools in Canada. These interactive workshops educate young Canadians about water issues in Canada and abroad and allow them to brainstorm about viable water usage solutions. Ashraf was identified as co-founder of the York University chapter of Engineers Without Borders (Canada).

Canada losing out in China, says Middleton
Canada is exporting growing amounts of raw materials to China but shipments of value-added manufactured goods are actually shrinking, a new report from Statistics Canada says. The story in the Toronto Star March 15 included comments by Allan Middleton, marketing professor at the Schulich School of Business at York. Canada's inability to cash in on China's breakneck expansion is nothing short of disastrous, said Middleton. "We are losing share, even in raw materials."

"Canada's eternal problem is that we have not substantially shifted to added value in any of our export relations," Middleton said, citing Ontario's auto sector as the one exception. "We are not only missing an opportunity for revenue now, we are missing an opportunity for being in on the ground floor of an ongoing development of an economy." Middleton travelled to China five times last year in his role as head of Schulich's executive-training business there. Of all the big Canadian manufacturers, Nortel Networks Corp. is the lone standout in China, he said. As for services, insurance giant Manulife Financial Corp. is aggressive in China. "It's only just in the last two or three years that the Canadian banks have woken up to China. And they are only going in a way that is...very timid," Middleton said.

Fine Arts student learned dance despite suppression in Iran
In a story explaining how dancing by females is suppressed in Iran, the Toronto Star reported March 16 that York graduate student Ida Meftahi began dancing as a child in Iran and was a student of Iran's most famous dancer, Farzaneh Kaboli, for eight years. She and her husband came to Toronto in 2000 and she quickly took up performing, teaching and research into Persian dance towards an MA from York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. "I was a very shy girl," says Meftahi. "I'm still very shy, but not when I'm dancing." This weekend at Harbourfront Centre, dance will be among the cultural offerings at "Under The Azure Dome," a festival of Persian arts timed to coincide with Nowruz, the spring equinox celebration, the Star noted.

EMBA profs must be first-class
Every time York business Professor Theo Peridis steps in front of a class, he knows both his and his university's reputation are at stake, reported the Toronto Star March 14. Students are paying $85,000 to be in the Executive MBA Program and not only do they expect laptop computers, gourmet meals and school trips to Asia or Europe, they also demand phenomenal professors. It's the last point that causes nervousness for Peridis, a merger and acquisition professor in the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program, offered jointly by York and Northwestern University. "I can't be unprepared or not know something," he says. Peridis takes two hours to prepare for every one hour he teaches in the program, more than he spends for other courses. "I'll lose all credibility [if I'm not prepared]. The students pay lots of money and expect the best."

An executive MBA professor should build on skills students already have or are learning in the program, says York alumnus Ron Leith (right), business unit executive at IBM Canada. Those skills should make a better manager more able to run a company than before, he says. As a graduate from the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA Program in 2005, Leith found successful professors engaged students in discussion, imparted knowledge beyond that found in textbooks, and managed class dynamics.

With all of the expectations of EMBA students, why do business schools jump at the chance to cater to their demands? Cash could be a big reason. At the Kellogg-Schulich program, for example, a class of 40 generates more than $3 million in fees. Course director André deCarufel (right) said irate students are not shy about going to his office to express disappointment. He shares the feedback with professors so they can adjust their teaching. "Professors are devastated" when they get negative feedback, says deCarufel, because it's a signal they've failed in the presence of executives. The ideal EMBA professor, deCarufel says, would be a Nobel Prize winner who is a brilliant performer and can manage a classroom where students won't accept what the instructor is telling them until a credible explanation is offered. Small wonder the professors lose sleep.

The National Post published a special section on executive MBA programs March 14 with several stories that included details about the Schulich School of Business at York.

In a story about fees, the Post noted Canadian business schools are reporting that corporations are backing away from paying the freight for EMBA programs. The cost can be steep, ranging from $40,425 at Internet-based Athabasca University in St. Albert, Alta., to $95,000 next year at York University's Schulich School of Business in Toronto. At Schulich, André deCarufel, executive director of the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA Program, says 47 per cent of his students paid the full $90,000 this year, compared with 45 per cent last year and 38 per cent in 2003. "Up to five years ago, almost all our students were supported by their employers." To help shoulder the strain, Schulich, like all Canadian business schools, has struck a deal with a bank. The Royal Bank of Canada offers lines of credit to EMBA students with no interest charged until they are finished. Students also get a tax credit for tuition and can recover up to 40 per cent. One side effect deCarufel has noticed is the ages of applicants are rising. "Face it, counting both tuition and time, this is an enormous commitment, especially when you consider most of the people who apply have spouses and young families."

Faced with rising tuition costs and a steady demand for executives to enhance their credentials, the Post also noted that Canadian universities are looking for constructive alternatives to make an MBA affordable to candidates and their companies. Introductory EMBA programs have taken off at several leading business schools including York University's Schulich School of Business. The paper also reported that niche MBA programs are popping up in growing numbers and noted that Schulich offers a full- or part-time MBA aimed at developing effective leaders for non-profit or public organizations.

Schulich helped start interest in business history
Forty-five years ago, a McGill University commerce student named Seymour Schulich (left) was looking for a bird course to bolster his grades and came upon a prime candidate – business history, reported The Globe and Mail March 13. He got more than he expected. Not only did he ace the history course but, more profoundly, the experience changed his life. The course drew him into the study of the Dutch tulip bulb mania of the 1600s, and other historical spasms of speculation. It fed a burgeoning interest in investment cycles, which helped grow into a preoccupation with the gyrations of precious metals, particularly gold. "That was one of the most important courses I ever took because, all of a sudden, I got a perspective," says Schulich, 66, now a titan in the global gold industry and a leading Canadian philanthropist.

That single course contributed in no small way to a personal fortune, which Canadian Business magazine recently estimated at more than $700 million. That doesn't include the $150 million he has given away over the past decade – $100 million of which has supported university education. Now, $2 million of that money is funding a new business history chair at York University's management faculty – part of a string of donations to what is called the Schulich School of Business. Schulich is at the forefront of a new enthusiasm in the corner office for business history in Canada, said the Globe. The driving forces are not just academics but chief executive officers and entrepreneurs – people who have seen the value of studying business history in their own careers and want today's students to gain that perspective. Schulich considers business history to be among the three disciplines most crucial to his development. Finance gave him the language of business and statistics gave him a methodology for making decisions. History gave him the context for how those decision-making situations evolved.

Is the national dream over?
In a story about the impending retirement of historian Michael Bliss in The Globe and Mail March 11, columnist Michael Valpy noted that ,with a generation of other outstanding historians such as York University's Ramsay Cook (far right) and Jack Granatstein (right) already having taken up emeritus-professor status and others not far behind – the question is: Are there going to be enough people around to tell us stories about who we are?

'Vulture' label doesn't apply to all Iranian exiles, says Rahnema
In a letter to the editor published in the Toronto Star March 11, Saeed Rahnema (left) , political science professor in York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies, said he was deeply disappointed by Haroon Siddiqui's article on Iranian exiles. It is unfortunate that a journalist of Siddiqui's experience would make the unacceptable generalization that, "...Iranian exiles [are] circling Washington like vultures." As in Toronto, Washington has all sorts of Iranian exiles, from royalists to liberal and left-leaning intellectuals and even Islamists. While he is correct that some are indeed doing exactly that, the omission of the word "some" makes all the difference in such a statement. One expects much more from a journalist who regularly preaches to Canadians about the dangers of generalizations and stereotyping.

Fine Arts alumna featured in dating story
In a feature story on dating, the Toronto Star March 10 profiled York alumna Suya Lee (BFA ‘91), 42, an ESL instructor, who was born in Korea and came to Canada at 3 with her parents. An only child, she grew up in Ottawa and speaks more French than Korean. Her mother was a nurse, her father worked for the government. She planned to follow his footsteps and become an economist, "but I hated economics." She moved to Toronto in 1983 and studied fine arts at York University, majoring in painting and drawing. She also did photography. Though Suya earns her living teaching ESL, her passion is writing and filmmaking. She's written screenplays and a novel. She's shooting her first independent short film on St. Patrick's Day weekend. "Since I don't have any dates, I'm taking lots of workshops in directing."

Peterborough to screen York professor’s anti-racism film for March 21
York film Professor Mitra Sen's film The Peace Tree will be shown on March 21 as part of local activities to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racism, reported The Peterborough Examiner March 16. The Community and Race Relations Committee of Peterborough is presenting the film. The 48-minute movie portrays the wishes of three girls – two Muslim and one Christian – who wish to observe each other's celebrations, states a press release. "The girls succeed in teaching their parents the importance of sharing and celebrating diversity together and in the process they create a unique symbol - The Peace Tree, a tree that highlights the symbols from all cultures and faiths to reflect the beauty of diversity in unity," it states. Sen is a teacher and graduate of York's film production program.

Accolade Fine Arts Festival has arts media buzzing
ACCOLADES! cried the the Toronto Sun March 17. York University and the Faculty of Fine Arts are celebrating the official opening of The Accolade Project, a fab new teaching, exhibition and performance complex, with a week-long Fine Arts Festival starting Monday, the paper reported. On March 24, the Department of Film will show off its spectacular new high-tech cinema with a showcase screening of award-winning productions by York students, past and present. A Toast to York Film is co-hosted by York Film Professor Seth Feldman and alumnus Larry Weinstein of Rhombus Media. The event will feature a selection of award-winning short movies made by York students and two films from Weinstein: The short film Toothpaste and the 50-minute Burnt Toast. Admission is $10.

The new cinema in The Accolade Project is a 500-seat facility (with a 40-foot wide screen and 19-speaker Dolby Digital Surround Sound audio system) equipped for projection in formats ranging from video to cinema-quality digital, noted the Sun. It has one of only a handful of DLP Christie Digital projectors in the GTA. Yikes. The Globe and Mail’s online edition of March 17 also noted the dates and times of Accolade festival events.

Garrity believes there’s no place like Winnipeg to make movies
Growing up in Winnipeg, says director and York film & video alumnus Sean Garrity (BFA ’93) (below), you didn't see your city reflected on TV or in movies, reported The Toronto Star March 17. "You feel that the world happens somewhere else; none of it happens here. So you slap on a backpack and go out there to be part of the world." And if, like Garrity, you come back 11 years later having travelled to India, Japan and South America, and decide this is where you're going to make your career as a filmmaker, chances are you might have lost your pretensions. "I decided the best place in Canada to make films was Winnipeg, partly because it's just a great place to make films; it's got a great community. And also because, if I was going to talk about anything with any honesty or any depth it would resonate more if it was told from the place that I grew up in." That decision paid off. His feature film Inertia won the Citytv Award for Best First Feature Film at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, and Lucid, opening today, had its world premier at TIFF last September and has since entered seven more festivals.

Garrity talks fast and has an edgy look about him, the Star said. He might have worked as one of the psychologically disturbed characters in Lucid, a suspenseful tale about a psychologist suffering from a recent marital break-up and trying to deal with three patients who gradually draw him into their delusions. He knew he was making a genre film, a psychological thriller, and he was looking to entertain. "We don't take ourselves very seriously. I find that these kinds of films are always kind of heavy, self-important and very, very serious. I wanted to take a different approach, make it light and have a character who's kind of dorky and awkward. There are a couple of scenes in the film that are outright comedy."

A filmmaker who subsidizes his filmmaking playing bass in Winnipeg's active live music scene, Garrity got his training at York University and at a small film school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires that he credits with giving him the tools to make films anywhere, anyhow. There's no grand plan for his filmmaking future, Garrity says, but he's very pleased with what he believes is his best script yet, a feature based in Winnipeg and Mexico. With a little more help from his friends it could be in production in a couple of years.

• It's not exactly breaking news that Canada's English-language film industry faces a crisis over distribution and exhibition, reported The Globe and Mail March 17. But Sean Garrity has an idea he thinks might work – and cost essentially nothing. The son of "seventies idealists who were teachers," Garrity divided his youth between remote communities (Cambridge Bay, Churchill, a Métis settlement near Rivers, Man.) and Winnipeg. He spent his twenties travelling – living in India's Gujarat state for a year, in Argentina (two years), in Montreal, and in Japan (three years). He's now fluent in Japanese and Spanish. It was on the eve of his 30th birthday, on a beach in Indonesia, that he decided to return to Winnipeg and become a filmmaker.

Director Sam Dunn’s on a heavy metal mission
Heavy metal – one of the most maligned, theatrical and enduring genres of rock – means the world to Victoria native and York alumnus Sam Dunn (MA ’01), reported the Times Colonist (Victoria) March 17. He delved deep into the music when he was nine, hosted an all-metal radio show at 15 and played in a number of underground acts by the time he was of legal drinking age. But never did the towering redhead with shoulder-length hair imagine himself co-directing and starring in a heavy-metal documentary. Entitled Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Dunn, 32, eventually came around to co-director Scott McFadyen's way of thinking, and wound up being not only this very entertaining film's heart, but its conscience.

Sean Dunn, left, and Scot MacFayden

Now based in Toronto, Dunn and McFadyen met in Victoria during the 1993 Clayoquot Sound protests. McFadyen, a Toronto native, gave Dunn one of his first breaks as a musician when he put the bassist and his local funk-rock band, Fungkus, on the bill at a Clayoquot Sound benefit concert. Both moved east in 1998, McFadyen to pursue a career in the music side of the film industry and Dunn to earn his master's degree in social anthropology from York University. Their next project together is another documentary, this time on the globalization of metal, a topic close to Dunn's heart. McFadyen says it has already been sold – unfinished – to distributors in Canada and Brazil. Dunn plans to return to school either at York University or in Britain to pursue a PhD, portions of which will be included in the upcoming film. His dissertation topic? The influx and political ramifications of heavy metal in Indonesia.

Liberal party changed its mind, says Raphael
While in opposition, Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello made the rounds of anti-poverty and faith groups commiserating with them about how awful the Conservative government was treating people on social assistance, wrote Dennis Raphael, professor in York’s School of Health Policy & Management in a letter to the Toronto Star March 16. Her party promised to end the clawback of the national child benefit to families on social assistance. Once elected, it changed its mind. Enough said.

Racism complaints demand
systemic change, says York's ombudsperson
In a story about a new anti-racism officer at the University of Toronto, the Toronto Star noted March 17 that York University has full-time anti-racism offices that handle complaints as well as prevention of discrimination. "Until you have a really good education program for systemic change, you won't lessen the number of complaints about discrimination," said York ombudsperson Fiona Crean, director of the university's Centre for Human Rights. "It's a dual process."

Brooks to give lecture on taxes at UNB
An internationally recognized expert in tax law will bring his expertise to the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton for a free public lecture, reported The Daily Gleaner (Fredericton) March 17. Neil Brooks, a professor at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School, is the guest speaker at UNB's Ivan C. Rand Memorial Lecture Series on Thursday, March 23. Brooks's lecture title is "The Times - Are They A Changin'? - Do the Costs of Raising Taxes Now Exceed the Benefits of the Welfare State?"

Failure is most jarring when it comes after high achievements
'Ok, that's time. Please stop writing and hand in your papers," the professor said. I kept writing, though, frantically scribbling down some final words with hopes that my answer somewhat resembled the correct solution, wrote Richard Bloom in the latest in his series of columns on life as an MBA student at the Schulich School of Business in The Globe and Mail March 17. I went into the finance mid-term exam confident, having gotten good marks in the past and having studied the course material thoroughly and having completed practice questions on topics like the present value of an annuity, how to determine the real cost of a loan and the ins-and-outs of corporate financial planning. However, seconds after I handed in the exam, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach – one that I had never experienced during high school, my undergraduate years or out in the so-called real world.

The more I thought about it, wrote Bloom, I realized that failure is everywhere, happening not only to graduate students but also to everyone from the small-office worker to senior management at multi-billion-dollar organizations. A week after my exam, the professor walked into class carrying a large tote bag stuffed with our exams. You could see the terror on my classmates' faces as we exchanged awkward glances, nervously sat up in our chairs and prepared to see how we had fared. "All in all, the class did fine," the professor said, handing back the exams and explaining that the average was around 74 per cent. Not great, but not a fail – at least not officially. However, I did fall short of what I had wanted to achieve on the test.

All aboard for York U – Star takes readers for a subway ride
Speculation about funding for the Spadina subway line to York University in the next provincial budget continued to generate stories in the media last week, following the initial report by the Toronto Star March 7.

The Star itself ran a major feature March 11 on the impact of a possible subway. Just out front of Vari Hall, whose grand rotunda provides a geographic and symbolic hub for the campus, some 1,500 buses a day pull up to ferry students in and out of York University, the Star reported. The unbroken stream of rumbling transit vehicles – bearing passengers from across the GTA and beyond – are testament to the far-flung commuter nature of the school's growing student body, as well as its isolation from more attractive transportation options. Within the next seven years, those buses could all disappear. This miraculous calming of York's central commons area would be just one of the touted benefits of a TTC plan to extend its underused Spadina subway line 6.2 kilometres to the top of the school's Keele campus, said the Star. If a provincial promise to fund the $1.5-billion project comes through, the long-awaited extension could profoundly transform large segments of the northeastern region of the city through which it would run. It would also establish the system's largest and most important portal to the suburban areas that lay beyond Toronto's city limits.

A York University connection would radically cut down on burdensome bus and car traffic into the school, the Star said. But the line's top priority would be found at the university's northwest boundary, where Toronto meets up with Vaughan, and where the TTC is proposing a marriage of unparalleled convenience between the commission and many of its 905 transit counterparts. Steeles West. Located east of Jane Street, the proposed Steeles West station would represent the first piece of TTC subway property to reach out into another municipality. Lying beneath Steeles Avenue at a northwestern angle, the station would provide entrances on both sides of the Toronto-Vaughan border.

And, according to Vaughan Mayor Michael Di Biase, it would spark a whole slew of development and transportation options for his city, York Region, and points beyond. "We're planning for this to be a very large, regional transportation hub," Di Biase says. "And it will most definitively encourage high-density residential and office towers along Steeles Avenue." Along with enhanced development, new infrastructure around the station would include one of the GTA's largest commuter parking lots. Located on the nearby hydro corridor just north of the station, the 2,500-space lot would welcome commuters from all parts of York and Peel regions.

It would also include North America's largest transit bus terminal, the Star said. With 36 to 40 bays – some 10 to 14 more than the TTC's next largest – the terminal would funnel TTC, GO Transit, York Region, Brampton and Greyhound bus passengers onto the Spadina line. Separated into three segments, it would ease the passenger burden on the Yonge line, which now accepts the majority of 905 bus connections at Finch station. It would also divert buses almost entirely off the York campus.

Here is a sampling of other coverage:

• "Are we that stupid?" This was the question posed by former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford at a breakfast lecture organized last week by the Canadian Urban Institute, reported aToronto Star writer March 13. Bedford wasn't trying to be cute, far from it. He has just returned from a trip to Tokyo where he had a chance to see up close and personal how a big city works. Clearly, he was impressed by what he saw. Lesson No. 1, Bedford repeated over and over, transit is the backbone of the city. Lesson No. 2, Bedford insists, is that Canadians must start to think and act regionally. "Traffic's not the only thing around here stuck in gridlock," Bedford declared. "So are our minds." When Premier Dalton McGuinty does announce funding for extending the subway to York University, commentators will already have dismissed his promise as a mere 905 vote grab. "We've got to get beyond politics," Bedford pleaded. "And we need to take action now because time's running out."
  
• In a column about how Toronto’s cultural community is leading the way in thinking big with its building projects, similar to those undertaken in Bilbao, Spain, the Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume wrote March 11: It's unlikely there will be a Bilbao effect in Toronto, nothing like Gehry's Guggenheim Museum to put the city on the world map. That would require a concerted effort on the part of all levels of government to rebuild the physical infrastructure, as the Spaniards did. This city and province are far behind on this score. Consider the sorry spectacle that unfolded this week when TTC officials made it clear they don't have the money to run the proposed York University subway line even if does get built. In addition to its Guggenheim, don't forget, Bilbao also constructed a new Metro, with stations designed by acclaimed English architect Norman Foster. Almost as many people travel there to see it as the Gehry. The cultural sector can't remake Toronto all by itself, but it can turn empty boosterism into civic confidence and transform the city.
  
• Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is dampening rising expectations after recent reports that there will be new subway funding and multi-billion-dollar windfalls in his March 23 budget, reported the Toronto Sun March 11. Duncan said March 10 that government revenues were up in the fall forecast. "However, there were clouds on the horizon ... the appreciation of the Canadian dollar, the world price of oil," he said. Duncan refused to confirm published reports that his government will invest in a $1.5-billion project to extend the subway to York University.
  
• In a Toronto Sun column published March 12, Christina Blizzard asked whether York University is the right place to expand the Spadina subway. Look, the last time we expanded the subway along Sheppard Avenue, she said, it was a horrendous decision. It goes nowhere. Right now, it ends at Ikea. Who the heck takes a subway to buy furniture? Connecting it to the transportation hub at Scarborough Town Centre makes a lot more sense than the York U plan. It will take years of subsidies to keep the York U subway running before the TTC can build up ridership on that line. Better to build it where riders are ready and waiting.

Solid funding key for York subway
There is no doubt many people would welcome a new subway line extending to York University and beyond to Steeles Avenue, said the Toronto Star in an editorial March 10. The need is great. Anyone who has spent more than an hour travelling from the city's centre to the University can fully appreciate the benefit of such a subway. So, too, can the thousands of students packing buses that make a total of 1,500 trips to the York campus each day. And so can commuters from Vaughan, and farther north, who fight their way downtown almost every morning. For them, some welcome relief is on the way.

New government money to build this subway line is good, said the Star. Traffic grid-lock is a major issue throughout the 416 and 905 regions and additional rapid transit lines are desperately needed to ease the problem. Existing plans by the Toronto Transit Commission to criss-cross the city with streetcar right-of-ways and dedicated busways are a wise step. But the TTC must not stop there. Also needed is a major subway expansion into Scarborough because the aging light-rail system serving that area is not expected to last beyond a decade. A strong case can be made for pushing the Yonge subway farther to Steeles and beyond. And the province should create a long-promised regional transportation authority to plan and perhaps run all the commuter systems in the Toronto area.

Boosting subway service with a major extension to York only makes financial sense for Toronto transit if that expansion is accompanied by new funding on the operating side, the Star said. Once transit's financial house has been set on a firm foundation, then the province should launch aggressive expansion of TTC service. Pushing a subway out to York is a worthwhile initiative. But it must not be Queen's Park's last word on public transit. Instead, this subway project should mark the start of a necessary journey to fully address the transit needs of Toronto and the booming communities in the surrounding GTA.