Lorraine Johnson

Aug 21, 2024 | spacing.ca | Trent Weston |Lorraine Johnson |Ian Darragh

When Douglas Counter heads out the front door of his Etobicoke home to appreciate the day’s new blooms, he doesn’t have to go far. The flowers are waiting for him right in his yard, including the city-owned boulevard beside the road. Like many in Etobicoke, his boulevard is a drainage ditch. But in his, native wildflowers, sedges, and grasses have replaced the traditional sloped turf lawn. They’re not there by happenstance.

Aug 9, 2024 | spacing.ca | Lorraine Johnson |Peter MacCallum |John Lorinc

An Etobicoke native plant gardener is ordered to cut his “turfgrass and weeds” (he actually has neither) to 20 cm (8 inches). An Annex ecologist is ordered to cut down his oak saplings. A Scarborough native plant gardener is ordered to cut down her rain garden. A Little Italy pollinator gardener is ordered to cut down her “weeds.” A Swansea native plant gardener is ordered to cut down all of her habitat garden.

Aug 8, 2024 | spacing.ca | Lorraine Johnson |John Lorinc |Albert Koehl

We heard a lot about drones at the Paris Olympics, but what about in our own backyard? In this episode, Spacing‘s John Lorinc tells us about a piece he wrote called Eyes in the Sky, which documents the stealthy creep of the Toronto Police Service’s use of drones to keep tabs on residents.