Letters – February 2017

David Blyth Hanna, the man behind Hanna Road

How interesting to read that David Blyth Hanna came from Thornliebank, Scotland. I grew up there and lived there until I immigrated to Canada in 1967!

Thornliebank was a great and safe place for a child to grow up in during the 1940s and 1950s. We could walk or bike to swing parks, woods, playing fields, schools, churches, etc. There was a wonderful park nearby called Rouken Glen which has just been voted the best park in Scotland. There was a pond with row boats and a motor launch which we could ride on for a penny. We called Thornliebank “the village”. There was a Main Street with shops including fish & chip, ice cream (the “tallies”)in those unpolitically correct days because they were generally owned by Italian immigrants. And of course two pubs, a post office, grocery store, and a cinema! We were lucky enough to be within commuting distance of Glasgow by tram, bus or train so had access to live theatre, several large department stores, concert halls, museums and art galleries. This has taken me on a lovely journey down memory lane!

Kathleen Tonner,
a Leaside resident


Leaf pickup in Leaside

In response to the letter from Julie Munro regarding pickup of leaves raked into the road: I contacted 311 to understand the policy on this a while back, after noticing some neighbours doing it. Apparently there are some locations in the Toronto area where regular municipal pickup of roadside leaves does occur, but this tends to be in more suburban areas where street parking is not common. In our neighbourhood, the city does do a scheduled maintenance sweep just once each fall to remove leaves that have fallen into the roads. Perhaps some residents are taking advantage of that?

Regards,

J. Lincoln


Did Burnside support Tory on this toll thing?

My name is Antoinette Hughes. I am a resident of Toronto.

I recently commenced a petition to Stop Mayor John Tory’s road tolls. My petition supporters are approaching 400 in a short period of time! I am strongly against these tolls. Tory is asking us (once again), the taxpayer, to pay for government mismanagement of funds. The long-term impact of tolls on highways to the taxpayers is enormous. These tolls will punish the hardworking taxpayer, who is already paying a lot in tax i.e. property tax, sales tax, gas tax, etc. etc., and has little left in reserve. Businesses and residents will move outside the Toronto area to cheaper areas to live and conduct business, local streets will be clogged with drivers wanting to ‘escape’ these tolls and so much more. There is no ‘upside’ to tolls for the taxpayer!

There are many other ways to generate the dollars Tory says he needs for roads instead of adding another tax to the taxpayer! I am so tired of politicians asking the public to pay more! Why don’t these politicians just ‘think outside the box’ to find other means to generate revenue instead of going back – again and again – to the same ‘well’ – the taxpayer?

Antoinette Hughes