Josh Matlow

City Hall Update: May 2025

Bubble Zones Debated at Council   There was a difficult debate at Council last week regarding “bubble zones” - and the details matter. The concept is to establish safe access zones, otherwise known as bubble zones, around places of worship, schools, and daycares that have stronger limits on freedom of expression to ensure that people aren’t impeded from entering.   Unfortunately, the City Manager brought a report to Council that did not make sense. To make the infringements on rights charter compliant, Staff twisted themselves into knots with a ridiculous and bureaucratic application system that would have required proof that an incident occurred in the past 90 days within 20m of the site and Transportation Services’ officials acting as detectives just to establish a “bubble zone”.  Read more...

City Hall Update: April 2025

Important Progress on our Beautiful City Initiative

 

Last year, I brought forward a motion that asked City staff to accept that there’s so much more we can do to make Toronto a more beautiful city. I’m pleased to report that under the leadership of Jason Thorne, our new Chief Planner, there has been meaningful progress on this issue. A new report came to Council last week with a cross-divisional action plan to ensure better design of everything from libraries and parks to trash cans and sidewalks.

City Hall Update: March 2025

Taking Action to Improve Toronto’s Response to Major Snow Incidents

 
Toronto is a winter City. Over this past week, Torontonians endured extreme weather and heavy snowfalls with areas in our city receiving up to 50cm of accumulated snow. When it snows, our sidewalks need to be safe and accessible. The TTC needs to be operational, and our city needs to work.

Under the previous two mayors (Ford and Tory), I was successful in advocating for the expansion of sidewalk snow clearing for every Toronto neighborhood. However, I could not convince them to prioritize extreme weather responses. I wont stop pushing until this is done, and done properly.

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