Heritage Site Jeopardized by Big-Box Retailer

The John Street Roundhouse, a beautifully restored heritage site in Toronto's vibrant downtown core, and once home to the steam engines that helped to build our nation, is about to become the newest location of a Leon's discount furniture outlet.

The current tenant of the Roundhouse is Steam Whistle Brewing, a family-run business that thrives on cultural, social and environmental responsibility, funding literally hundreds of events and organizations each year, opening their doors to charities and functions, and keeping the historic nature of their home intact, all while brewing a quality pilsner that Canadians can be proud of (and Canadians appreciate their beer!)

Cam Heaps, co-founder and President of Steam Whistle Brewing, summed it up nicely when he said, "I think the difference is (Steam Whistle) has an art gallery, an event space that supports over 100 charities a year, a tour facility open to the public to highlight the history of the building and the history of making beer... Walking through and looking at dinettes and leather couches is a very different type of concept."

But it seems that those with concerns for Toronto's heritage and the importance of culture over big-box retail, are left without a voice. Now, anyone who has visited this site before is likely more than aware of my stance as a flaming socialist. So when it was brought to my attention that the Roundhouse is not only owned by the city, but that the city’s Cultural Division supports Leon’s, you can imagine my dismay. I’ve written at length of the tragic circumstances that place all social responsibility in the hands of the private sector, when it’s our cities, provinces, and federal government that should be protecting the things that matter – oftentimes, the less lucrative things, like a heritage site nestled between the Gardiner Expressway, Rogers Centre and C.N. Tower. As it stands now, the plans for Leon’s are going ahead, with full support from the municipal government and applicable divisions. And the argument seems to be that Leon’s wants to remake their image as socially conscious by putting money into the site itself… a means to an end? I’d support them if they simply wanted to donate the necessary funds and then use that little piece of philanthropy in their next TV commercial, but the day that one of Toronto’s foremost historic sites sports a Leon’s logo and teems over with mass produced furniture at discounted rates, is a very sad day indeed.

Leon’s website boasts entire paragraphs declaring their proud position as the “first example of big-box retailing in the country”, and speaks of the capitalist “logic” of placing locations in small towns, since their Wal-Mart-esque consolidation quickly annihilated every business in its path. They even include the sickeningly self-righteous subheading “The Answer for Small Towns”.

I’m encouraged by the fact that the phones at Steam Whistle are ringing off the hook with concerned individuals wondering what they’re going to do to stop this. And plans are in the works for a host of activist measures as the momentum builds and truly local, culturally sensitive organizations join together to take a stand against corporate greed.


For more information on how to join this fight, either return to this site, visit http://www.friendsoftheroundhouse.ca/, join our facebook group "LEON'S in the Roundhouse - Say NO to big-box retail in a heritage site!" or email savetheroundhouse@steamwhistle.ca

Updates:

7/18: BIG UPDATE! On Monday, July 16, Steam Whistle President Cam Heaps delivered the Roundhouse Rail Museum Proposal to City Council. In response to it and Councillor Vaughan's Motion M88 (found here) City Council VOTED IN FAVOUR of putting a stop to the Leon's agreement and considering Steam Whistle's proposal. Of course it wasn't long before threats of a lawsuit began to come in, resulting in a re-vote later this week. This will be preceded by an open debate at 2pm today, Wednesday, July 18! Stay tuned!!!

7/09: There's a Press Conference coming up this Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 9:30am outside the Roundhouse, where the leaders of businesses in the area will be convening to voice their concerns to the media. This conference is open to the public to attend, so if any of you are interested in joining us, I invite you to the Roundhouse at 9:30am on Wednesday!
This is a huge step in garnering support for our cause, and further proof that nothing has been carved in stone - the fight isn't over yet! Keep checking back (or visit www.friendsoftheroundhouse.ca) for updates.

7/02: http://www.friendsoftheroundhouse.ca/ is live!

6/25: Tune in to CP24 on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 @ 9pm to hear City Councillor Adam Vaughan discuss this issue!

Links:

Leon’s Corporate Site

The Star Article

Steam Whistle Brewing

Friends of the Roundhouse

Call to Arms: Identifying Class

I was travelling by train today as a Via Rail first class passenger where I found a distinct separation of class. Not actively so, where people actively disdained those of lower class, but passively making the lives of the lower class uncomfortable. For example, Union Station in Toronto has a separate lounge for 1st class passengers that has comfortable seating, free refreshments, and desks from which you can work while you wait for your train. What do Economy passengers get? A standing line where you could be waiting for several hours until your train is boarding. Quite unfair, I think. Also, free alcohol, high quality dinners, comfortable seating, and larger than average washrooms await your pleasure in first class. Now, if I can enjoy the perks of being first class, why should I be complaining, or even finding fault? Why not just enjoy my perks in silence? Because I have a roommate who does not have these accomodations, and there are many people who will only dream of being able to travel in such splendour. Why should they be subjugated to lesser travel accomodations just because they paid less?

You may say, "Because you paid more, you should get more." You may also say, "Executives deserve to be different from the rest." But both those statements, and many more similar to them, are products of the poorly designed system. Company executives are still people, no different than the high school teacher who taught you History (I was visiting my old high school, where my History teacher stopped me to talk for several painfully slow minutes, so forgive me) or the taxi driver who brings you to and from the train station, so why should they get any more special treatment because they have money? Oh right, "Because you paid more, you should get more." How about give the service, and the same price, to everybody? Exclusion is only the start of revolution, and the more you exclude, the more dangerous the revolution becomes. This brings me to the state of scoiety today: a society that has no more equality than Victorian England and no more fairness than Caesarian Rome, we've just given it a different name.

Capitalism. Free market economy. Independent wealth. These terms come up often enough when we consider society and who is running it. In order to be considered successful, you need to earn money. In order to earn money, you have to participate in the free market economy and compete. In order to compete and win in order to be considered successful, you need to be independently wealthy. Hmm...something doesn't seem right here. You need to have money to make money to be considered successful. This doesn't seem...oh, what is that term, oh, right...sane. It also means that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer just like every society of the past 2000 years. Capitalism, and a democracy run by capitalism, is only another name for an autocracy who reside at the top of the economic scale.
Doubtful is the nature of classes going to change; most likely it will be the method in which we define the class structure that changes; however, the more people who can see the class structure the more likely revolution will occur and the sooner we may be able to leave our greedy humanistic natures behind.

This is the first of several articles entitled "Call to Arms". These are published on the first Sunday (or Monday, as the case may be) and deal with the identification of the class system in today's society.

(I apologize for the late article - the server is having issues...thanks for your patience)

The Electric Car Graveyard

“In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline.” This quote from the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car” is quite a shocker when considering for decade’s cars primarily ran on gasoline. In 1996 I didn’t know this was going on, granted I was only eleven years old and had no knowledge of cars or even the potential future environmental damage cars would inevitably endorse. In the last six months the talk about the environment was the number one concern on Canadians minds due in most part to the late start of the frigid winter in 2006. It was at this point that people began to actually see the damage first hand and were starting to get scared.

In the past couple of months I have seen more commercials on TV for hybrid vehicles than I had ever seen before. It angers me to see in a CBC article entitled Hybrid cars, written on February 16th, began with, “Auto manufacturers may be touting the age of environmentally friendly alternatives of hybrid, diesel and fuel cell technologies…”. Although it is great that auto companies are finally trying to sell cars that are healthier for the environment and that will lessen the emissions of greenhouse gases, but didn’t we already have this touting age in 1996 with the electric car? The electric car seems to have been completely ignored and forgotten about for the last eleven years since its existence as if it never were, like fairies or democracy in the United States. The idea of never having to use gasoline again with the coming of the electric car seems pristine for the environment, the customers dealing with the soaring gas prices caused by the War in the East and the people dying of cancer and asthma caused by the toxins in the air. But like the documentary title suggests, someone killed that idea and has set back the public knowledge of these scientific advancements of even more and improved fuel efficient cars.

When I see an SUV, I want to take a can of spray paint and write, “I’m killing the environment”, or “I’m the reason you have asthma” across the side of it, much like the animal activists that did to people wearing fur coats. It often seems like people just don’t care, they think that one single person can’t change the environment that much, but every gas powered car that burns a gallon of gas adds 19 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere. Imagine the amount of CO2 and SUV would add.

Without a doubt the main culprits are the oil companies. It only makes sense that oil companies do not want people abandoning oil and going electric, they would lose the billions of dollars they’ve made and of course they would be out of a job, on the streets begging for food, freezing to death with a blanket made of a million dollar bills.

But are Canadians to blame as well? The director of J.D. Power and Associates in the CBC article states, “Canada is already fuel efficient and that is why hybrid technology is not growing as fast as perhaps the public might think…”. Yes Canada is fuel efficient much more than the United States but why be fuel efficient when we can be “fuel-less” and banish the idea of oil all together? It seems like a crazy proposal, but in 1996 this crazy idea was being developed by those who actually cared and people had the hope of a vehicle that would save the environment. This hope ended quickly and it was because of the all mighty dollar.

According to the documentary, “the claim that there is no demand for [an electric] car is false.” In 1996 people couldn’t buy an electric car, only lease it, which meant they had to fill out a ton or paper work and sometimes people would have to submit a resume just to lease one! And of course because all the vehicles were leased, when the auto companies were told to stop offering the cars, they could legally take the cars away from the people who leased them. Then they were all compounded; like hiding the evidence of a murder and throw in an electric car grave yard, never to be seen again. Fortunately, it seems in 2006 and 2007 a hybrid can be actually owned by a person, so it sounds like they cannot be ripped away from their proud owners are here to stay, for now.

Hopefully now that hybrid cars are being sold, eventually people will demand a gasoline and oil free car, but then again, it had been proven it would take more than consumer demand. It will take the integrity and willingness of the oil companies. Some of you probably will scoff and say, “yeah right, that will never happen.” Maybe it won’t, but if it does, it will probably come at a cost. Maybe it will be when all the ice caps melt, sinking half the world in its wake. Maybe it will be intense heat waves killing millions of people all over the world. Or maybe, just maybe it will be the realization that their children and their grandchildren won’t have the same life that they once had; or a life at all, to enjoy the billions of dollars that they’ve inherited from their relatives by knowingly destroying the world.


References:

CBC Article Hybrid Cars
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/autos/hybrid-cars.html

Who Killed the Electric Car?
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html

Capitalism to Save the Planet?

“Bashing flyers has become part of the conversation whenever the chattering classes gather, especially in London, Paris and New York. Admitting in such company that you like to fly is the new farting loudly.” When I read this quote in the article “Planes, Prizes and Perfect PR” from Economist.com, I knew I’d found my subject for this week.

The environment has been a topic of widespread public concern for six whole months now. Of course, science has pointed for decades to the problems we are currently facing, but within the last year, likely due in large part to Al Gore’s staggering documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the issue of climate change has entered the public discourse as a legitimate cause for distress. This after thirty years of attributing warnings to the rants of freedom-hating environmentalist quacks.

The consensus amongst scientists worldwide is that the lifestyles of heavily industrialized first world nations are destroying our planet. It really is as simple as that. But in a society where the supreme being we all fear and worship is the economy, a complete overhaul of the way we live our lives seems a difficult task, particularly without the assistance of lawmakers, happily sleeping with the corporations who benefit from the harmful emissions responsible for global warming.

Though hardly a flawless solution, the Kyoto Accord could have helped, but not without the cooperation of the US. Sadly, the agreement has now lost Canada’s support as well, thanks to our year-old Conservative minority government. The Opposition is attempting to legislate the promises made in regards to Kyoto, details of which can be found in the CBC article listed below.

But while the entire planet faces a crisis of such epic proportions that the sustainability of our entire race is at stake, our human will to survive seems not to be enough to stop us from driving SUV’s. Particularly as I sit at home, with my own little Toyota Echo buried in three feet of snow, I am confident that global warming will not be on the public agenda at least until spring. After an entire six months of public discourse, it became clear to one man that more incentive than continuing life on this planet needed to be offered.

Enter Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin and all of its ventures. His next undertaking, having accomplished his dream of starting the world’s first space tourism business, Virgin Galactic, is to use what he knows best (Capitalism) to entice someone else to save the world.

It’s called the “Virgin Environmental Challenge” and it goes like this: “The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.”

The contest closes in 5 years, at which time the winner receives the first $5m in prize money. Ten years following that, if their invention has succeeded in removing greenhouse gases from our atmosphere and should continue to do so, they will then receive the remaining $20m.

Someone please tell me if this is anything more than global bulimia. When the scientific evidence is overwhelming that our planet will heal if we simply cut back our emissions, we don’t seem to have even tried! Instead, a man who makes the bulk of his staggering wealth from an airline and his own personal satisfaction from a space tourism business, is offering a tiny piece of the fortune to anyone who can suck the emissions he puts in back out. Air travel is one of the biggest offenders against the makeup of the earth’s atmosphere, and yet the only viable solutions seem to be the ones that don’t require any sacrifices on our part. Well why not? I can’t believe its possible that human beings on an individual basis would not make personal lifestyle changes - should they be made available and affordable - to save the planet, if only for their children’s sake. Even CEO’s of major corporations, including the least environmentally friendly ones, are rarely evil people at a personal level. But this contest – I’m sorry, “challenge” – is the kind of solution that presents itself when it is left entirely to the private sector to make all the changes.

Call me a socialist, for I’d proudly follow in the footsteps of C.B. Macpherson and if you insist, Hugo Chavez, but I believe we elect a government for a reason. And right now, the one directly south of us offers a $100,000.00 tax write-off to SUV owners, legally qualifying as “small trucks” when it comes to emissions standards. Apparently your average North American family requires a small truck, and is rewarded for it come tax time. The system is in place to provide incentives - financially, if that’s what’s required - to entice people to do the right thing. Instead of offering $25m to develop a way of taking the greenhouse gases out so we can keep putting them back in, why don’t we just stop? I flew from Chicago to Detroit this past weekend, and though the plane holds 137 passengers, it took off with 18 seats sold. Should I feel good about my contribution to the environment because I took a plane that weighed less due to lack of passengers? Doubtful.

Now Al Gore is with Sir Richard on this one, and Bill Clinton gave him a hug. I’m somewhat of the mind that anything Al Gore thinks is a good idea, I like too. Similar to the notion that if Johnny Depp agreed to be in a movie and I didn’t like it, I must be mistaken, because Johnny couldn’t be wrong. But I can’t help but think that this won’t stop the former future president of the United States of America from continuing to demand a little more. He's a politician - he knows how to play the game. And besides, the contest doesn’t close for another five years. What do we do until then?

References

An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore. DVD. Paramount Classics, 2006.

“Kyoto Bill Sparks Constitutional Questions.” CBC. 15 Feb. 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/15/kyoto-bill.html?ref=rss.

McQuaig, Linda. It’s The Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. Anchor Canada, 2005.

“Planes, Prizes and Perfect PR.” Economist.com. 13 Feb. 2007. http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8692742&fsrc=RSS.

Virgin Earth Challenge. 2007. Virgin Group. http://www.virginearth.com/.