Two councillors are squaring off for Ford Nation. Premier Doug is excited for WWE SummerSlam, but first comes a match in his own backyard. Michael Ford is set to run against Vincent Crisanti—the councillor once stripped of his deputy mayor title for supporting DoFo. Success might depend on which of them can be the most hostile towards the media:

“If the bylaw I brought in 20 years ago still exists, it would prohibit this.” Councillor John Filion is upset that Yonge and Sheppard is getting a sex-doll brothel. He’s looking into whether old North York zoning still applies. Nonetheless, the staff of Aura Dolls promise three-step cleaning after a session.

Cranes in the sky lead to anxieties on the ground. The latest quarterly crane index from consultants Rider Levett Bucknall showed Toronto towering above all North American cities. But now an Angus Reid survey shows Toronto gaining on Vancouver in terms of the sheer number of people looking to escape the region if housing prices don’t fall:

New twists to the new-media venture capitalism game. BuzzFeed News is quietly testing a paid membership program, seemingly inspired by a pitch under every article from the Guardian—although that’s a British nonprofit, whereas BuzzFeed is valued at $1.7 billion. Vice is baking a different strategy: attaching its Munchies brand to a shopping mall food court opening next year in New Jersey.

Shaun Majumder wanted This Hour Has 22 Minutes to be funnier. You can believe what happened next. After 15 years with the CBC comedy show, Majumder revealed that he won't be back, which he claims is the result of offering producers DHX Media constructive advice on how to improve 22 Minutes’ politician-friendly milquetoast approach. “I just felt like we were leaving a lot of funny on the table,” Majumder said, after explaining that “the decision for the departure was not mine.”

Murray Westgate dead at 100. “Happy Motoring” was the tagline on his live Esso commercials, which debuted with Hockey Night in Canada in 1952. Westgate played the gas jockey through 1968, then returned for a nostalgic spot in 1991. He reached a century in April, at which point he was still pragmatic about the steady work that initially paid $75 a week.