Shawn Micallef

5 days 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.

1 week 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 weeks 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.

1 month ago | thespec.com | Shawn Micallef

When passing by Yonge and Gerrard streets, I’ll often wander down into The Shops at Aura, the basement mini-mall deep underneath an Ikea, HomeSense and, for now, Canada’s tallest residential building. The Ikea is always busy, as is Yonge Street itself, but the shops downstairs are not. Many of the small, glassed-in units are empty, covered in paper or For Rent signs, though there are barbers, beauty, electronics and hobby shops that are going concerns.

Jan 9, 2025 | thespec.com | Shawn Micallef

The ghost of Zebulon Pike must be mumbling “here we go again” when U.S. president-elect Trump says he would use economic force to annex Canada. While this seems like ancient history, the outcome of the War of 1812 is still debated, and though the U.S. ultimately became Canada’s so-called best friend, it’s always been a tense relationship — as if we could break up or fight at any time. There’s even speculation about what would happen if the U.S. runs out of water (never mind oil).