“I don’t think anybody at Queen’s Park would pick up the phone when we called for the next four years.” Brampton mayor Linda Jeffrey shares her view on Patrick Brown’s mayoral candidacy in a Globe and Mail story about his third campaign of the year. At least Brown got the wedding taken care of:

The mayoral debate starts digging into the Gardiner. Jennifer Keesmaat unveiled her plan to turn the east expressway into a “grand boulevard.” John Tory retaliated with a tweet showing the former chief planner cheering the approval of a “hybrid” option for the Gardiner in 2016. But there’s also 2013 tape of Tory saying he’d tear the Gardiner down.

Ben Johnson’s 9.79-second drama gets an anniversary twist. Thirty years after the sprinter’s Olympic gold medal was rescinded after a drug test, the Toronto Star got a copy of the lab report, which shows altered lab codes and hand-drawn revisions. Johnson’s 100-metre performance in 1988 has nonetheless remained part of his personal brand:

“The Purity Spiral of Canada’s Music Industry.” The Polaris Prize, won this year by Jeremy Dutcher, provides a stage for contemplation of how dependent Canadian musicians are on government funding. Neil Gray examines how “crowdsourced enforcement mechanisms” lead to exasperation for some who end up entangled in this culture war:

David Cronenberg was indifferent to Star Wars. An associate of George Lucas called Toronto to request a meeting with Cronenberg about what became Return of the Jedi. The director responded by saying he wasn’t used to doing other people’s material. And the reaction was “stunned silence.”