Shawn Micallef

1 month ago | thespec.com | Shawn Micallef

Hockey fans in Toronto don’t get to be smug about much, but they can gloat about where their team plays. At the risk of jinxing things, if the Maple Leafs somehow blow this playoff series against the Florida Panthers, they’ve already won the arena battle. Toronto fans get to see games at Scotiabank Arena in the heart of a busy downtown metropolis, while the Panthers’ Amerant Bank Arena is surrounded by parking lots, a slog to get to, and across the street from a literal swamp.

1 month ago | stcatharinesstandard.ca | Shawn Micallef

The Pope may be in Rome but his influence can be seen and felt in the GTA, particularly in the schools. In some municipalities, the Pride rainbow flag will be displayed, while in other parts you won’t see one at all. A curious thing, considering there’s one God, one Church, and all that. It’s complicated, though.

2 months ago | thespec.com | Shawn Micallef

The Toronto Islands are a miracle. Disembarking from the Centre Island ferry, visitors are met with a landscape utopia: modernist gardens with fountains that work and space-age picnic shelters that seem as cool and futuristic as they did when the Apollo program was running. Further west, around Hanlan’s Point, a series of concrete pavilions appear like floating lily pads.

2 months ago | thespec.com | Shawn Micallef

At the risk of stirring up ancient tensions and insecurities, Toronto should be more like Montreal. As spring blooms and summer approaches, both cities really come alive, but Montreal goes harder. Last summer, Montreal closed 11 streets to vehicles across the city, turning them into pedestrian promenades where cafés, cultural activities and vendors appeared with an ease and duration that tends to be much more difficult to achieve in officious Toronto.

2 months ago | stcatharinesstandard.ca | Shawn Micallef

The Sunshine List may have been begun in bad faith, but calls to scrap it are misguided. It’s one of the few ways we can talk about class and it reveals which workers we value highly and which we value less. Mike Harris’s provincial government started the list of public servants who earn more than $100,000 a year to insinuate they make too much money and to gin up support for cuts. To this day, the same annual griping cycle happens when it’s released.