From a senior facing financial ruin to homebuyers’ remorse, we’ve selected some of the best long reads of the week on thestar.com.
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1. In a flash, Judy Allen, 75, had $1.5M in mortgages on her bungalow, and she faces ‘financial ruin.’ We asked Tony the Contractor and Harold the Jewellery Buyer, how did this happen?
Judy Allen called Tony the Contractor in late 2020 and laid out her dream.
“I want to age in place,” Allen, a retired nurse, told Tony Sinopoli. They sat on the cramped front porch of her small bungalow at Highway 401 and Yonge Street, drinking Tim Hortons coffees that Sinopoli brought. The contractor has a salt-and-pepper beard, and wears thick glasses because of a medical condition he says has made him almost completely blind. Allen is 75, stooped, white-haired. She uses a walker to get around.
Allen told Sinopoli: “I have bad arthritis, cardiac issues, and I want to make my little bungalow a safe, happy home.” She hired him to expand her small garage, widen her porch, make the interior “open concept” and build a solarium at the back.
“We can do that,” Sinopoli told her. He later told the Star that before that job, he had mainly done small basement renovations.
To pay for the work, Sinopoli says he connected her with a “mortgage finder” for the first mortgage, then, for the next four mortgages, brought in Harold Gerstel, the man known from television commercials as “Harold the Jewellery Buyer,” promising “cash for gold” and “fast, no hassle” mortgages.
In just eight months, five mortgages totalling $1.52 million were placed on Allen’s home, four of them (the Gerstel mortgages) at 22 per cent interest with other hefty “lending fees” attached.
2. Bought a house when the market was hot and now regret it? You’re not alone
Harry Sarvaiya knows how recent homebuyers are feeling now that prices are dropping.
Tired of waiting for a break in Toronto’s hot pandemic market, the real estate broker bought a four-bedroom bungalow in March, near Martin Grove Road and Westhumber Boulevard in Rexdale for $1,285,000.
Now, the realtor of 12 years is looking enviously at the declining market as he approaches his June closing. Other bungalows in the area are now going for $1.1 million.
“I still think if I waited, I would have got (a house) a little bit cheaper and I would have more choice,” said Sarvaiya of Re/Max West Realty Inc.
He’s not alone. As Toronto’s scorching real estate market has finally hit a cool-down, buyers who bought at the peak are sharing their woes on social media, while real estate agents and mortgage brokers report a growing number of stories of remorse.
3. Ontario energy grid emissions set to skyrocket 400% as Ford government cranks up the gas
Ontario has some of the world’s cleanest electricity.
When the wind is blowing strong enough, the entire province can be powered without producing any carbon emissions — the product of an unprecedented push to end our dependence on coal.
But that’s about to change.
Over the next two decades, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Ontario’s energy grid are set to skyrocket more than 400 per cent as the province cranks up the dial on its underused fleet of natural gas plants.
That rapid rise in emissions is revealed in the official forecast put out by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), a crown corporation that manages Ontario’s energy grid.
Since all renewable energy projects were cancelled when Premier Doug Ford was elected, the province currently has no other way to compensate for the looming shutdown of a major nuclear reactor in Pickering, responsible for roughly 16 per cent of province-wide power. Only natural gas is available to meet rapidly growing demand for electricity, according to the IESO projections.
The projections show that the province’s natural gas plants — which only operate about 60 per cent of the time now — will run non-stop by 2033. The additional annual emissions this will produce over the next 20 years are equivalent to a large Alberta oilsands project.
4. Time to switch to a discount supermarket? We went shopping at No Frills, Metro and Farm Boy and found it might not be worth the bother
You’ve noticed. The cost to feed yourself and your family is going up — and not just a little.
Inflation is at its highest level since 1991, hitting 6.7 per cent in March, as the price of food and gas ballooned.
Grocery store prices rose 8.7 per cent compared to March 2021, according to Statistics Canada, with dairy and egg prices seeing the biggest increases since 1983.
Cereal costs rose by 12.3 per cent, the fastest annual pace since 1990, and pasta was up almost 18 per cent year over year.
Beef has gone up by more than 14 per cent, while ham and bacon have gone up 15 per cent. And butter? A whopping 16 per cent.
The war in Ukraine is the main driver of the price hikes, according to Statistics Canada, with gas with oil embargoes against Russia impacting transportation costs, resulting in higher food prices.
And Canadians are feeling it, perhaps nowhere more so than at the grocery checkout.
So what, beyond price-matching and coupon-cutting, can you do to save at the checkout? Do the prices of staples vary widely from store to store?
5. She was groomed by her Grade 10 music teacher and sexually assaulted at 16. She wants you to know her story
When Danielle Han was 15 years old and in Grade 10, her music teacher at St. Theresa of Lisieux Catholic High School in Richmond Hill was a man 10 years older than her.
While she was in Grade 11, that teacher, Christopher Ng contacted her outside of school hours on Facebook. The messages made her feel special, and Ng used his position of trust and authority to groom her, manipulate her and begin an illegal sexual relationship with her that would last seven years, Ontario court Judge Amit Ghosh told a Newmarket courtroom last week after Ng pleaded guilty to sexual assault.
Ng “co-opted her into his criminal conduct by persuading her to delete digital communications between them,” Ghosh said. “He normalized his criminal conduct and gaslit Ms. Han as a child victim into questioning her reality in order to supplant it with his own warped perception of reality.”
Han, now 27, took the unusual step of lifting the publication ban on her identity at Ng’s sentencing hearing so that she could offer a rare insight into how this kind of abuse happens and that it should not be romanticized or considered normal. She also hopes her speaking out will make others in similar situations feel less alone — something she struggled with as she came to terms with the understanding she had not been in a love story, she had been sexually assaulted.
“I was not taught what consent was at school,” she explained in an interview with the Star.
6. The inside story of Justin Trudeau’s secret trip to Ukraine
Air raid sirens blared in Kyiv as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a tiny Canadian delegation made a secret visit on Sunday to the capital amid very real concerns Russia would intensify its war on Ukraine.
Yet, said one of those Canadians, “we felt safe. We were kept safe.”
Plans were afoot for a few weeks in advance of what became a whirlwind 10-hour tour on the ground by Trudeau to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wanted Trudeau in his capital for May 8 when all of the symbolism of a key ally visiting on the anniversary on which Ukraine remembers victims of the Second World War and an allied victory over a Nazi aggressor would not be missed.
By then, other political leaders from Britain, Europe and the Baltics had safely made the trek after Russian forces retreated from the advance on Kyiv to focus on the eastern flank.
But security concerns for this trip grew as the date approached amid fears Russia would mark the same anniversary with a formal declaration of war on Ukraine, conscripting more Russians into the fight, annexing occupied areas, or ramping up bombardments.
“I don’t think there’s a person in Ukraine or who’s engaged in Ukraine who wasn’t worried about what might happen,” said Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine, Larisa Galadza. “A lot of thought and analysis was put into that.”
7. A baby was left motherless by a slaying at a party. Thirty years later, she asked me to help track down the killer
A year ago, the cryptic message arrived. It was Mother’s Day, writes contributing columnist Tony Wong.
“Do you remember a story you wrote in 1990 — ‘Death Dream Came Day Before Slaying’? Does that ring a bell by any chance?”
At first, I thought the sender had mistaken me for someone else. But then, another email. A clipping of a Toronto Star article, and my byline.
I didn’t remember the headline. But I couldn’t forget the sender. At the time of the article, To-Shanna Halstead was 10 months old.
More than 30 years later, it remains one of the most difficult stories I’ve had to write.
Halstead’s mom, 21-year-old Juline Halstead, died in hospital after being stabbed at a house party in Markham.
8. Toronto’s housing market has cooled. Should you celebrate, or be scared?
In 2007, Toronto renter Jeremy Martin was working in a mailroom and checking out the east end of Toronto as a place to put down roots. Back then there was a three-bedroom house for sale for about $250,000. He figures he probably could have stretched and bought the place. But he didn’t.
“Since that time, I’ve gone to law school, worked really hard, graduated, got into a great firm, made partner, all that good stuff — and I’m looking around, and you know what I can afford?
“That house.”
Recently Martin came across what he swears is that same house online. It sold for $1.43 million in February.
“I don’t really care what kind of cabinets you put in, it is still the same house in the same location,” he said. “What was the point of all that (hard work)? If that’s the payoff what have I been doing for the last 17 years of my life?”
His frustration is shared by many, as ever-soaring prices have pushed home ownership further out of reach. But this spring, there’s been a shift. For the first time in a long time, there are signs of softening in the GTA housing market. With the average price of a house or condo declining for two months in a row, realtors are reporting fewer showings, bully offers and bidding wars.
9. Enio Mora had ‘his hand into so many things.’ So what was it that got him killed?
Strangers kept looking at them but Vince Mora and his brothers didn’t care.
Their tears flowed freely at the front of the St. Clare’s Roman Catholic Church at St. Clair Ave. W. and Dufferin St., where they sat with their mother, Pina.
Just a few feet from the Mora boys was the gold and black casket holding their father, Enio Mora.
He had taken several .22 calibre bullets to the head before he was dumped in the trunk of his gold Cadillac in the Weston and Teston Roads area near Highway 400 of Vaughan on Sept. 12, 1996.
Enio Mora’s hands were bound behind his back and his artificial leg was detached and placed behind his 260-lb body.
10. Long lines at airports could get worse in coming months as staff shortage continues, strikes loom
The long wait times at major Canadian airports and on tarmacs will likely drag on for months, thanks to a shortage of workers and a training backlog.
And after weeks of passengers waiting in hours-long lines, missing flights and being stranded on planes, the blame for the ongoing delays at major Canadian airports is starting to land on the agency responsible for security screening.
Airports across Canada, especially major hubs like Toronto and Vancouver, are seeing lineups for security screening and customs as passengers flock en masse to travel after two years of subdued demand due to the pandemic.
Most of the fingers are being pointed at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, which contracts out to third-party companies such as Allied Universal and GardaWorld. The security agency appears to have been taken by surprise when demand for flights skyrocketed, but critics say it should have seen it coming. Making matters worse is a huge turnover of trained staff, who are quitting because of the stress and low wages.
11. Ford government ‘isn’t even trying’: Dream of fully accessible Ontario by 2025 out of reach, disability advocates say
David Lepofsky remembers the elation he felt back in 2005 when the bill he and other disability advocates had been fighting to pass for more than a decade finally became law in Ontario.
“It was unprecedented excitement and optimism,” he says. “There was a real sense that we worked hard and had accomplished a turning point.”
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) was a historic achievement for the province and for champions of disability rights. The new law, passed unanimously, was supposed to make Ontario fully accessible to people with disabilities by 2025.
The 20-year timeline felt distant and achievable at the time. Some activists thought it wasn’t ambitious enough. Today, even the most optimistic advocates concede it will not be reached.
“We’re at a point where it’s impossible for the government to lead Ontario into being fully accessible (by 2025) even if it was trying,” says Lepofsky, who chairs the AODA Alliance advocacy group. “And this government isn’t even trying.”
12. Aging well: Finally, boomers — and politicians — are paying attention
In the middle of the pandemic, when baby boomers hit the milestone age of 75, they awakened to the reality of growing old in Ontario — and they’re not going quietly into nursing homes.
The deaths of thousands in long-term care was more than a wake-up call. It has turned into a growing movement and — for the first time — Ontario’s election polls are highlighting a powerful demand for a new, small-home style of long-term care, better at-home community supports and more day programs to help older adults stay socially connected, especially those with cognitive decline.
“Aging well is an issue that commands the attention of politicians,” said Craig Worden, president of Pollara Strategic Insights. “These are not fine details in data — they speak loud and clear and the numbers are quite large.
“The ultimate demand we’re seeing in the data over the last couple of years demonstrates a strong desire to age at home for as long as possible and to have the support necessary to be able to do that.”
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