TVO.org daily: Friday, December 20

Good morning, Ontario.

Here's what we're following

Queen’s Park and Ottawa commit $1.4 billion to make housing more affordable 

The provincial and federal governments will be giving $1.4 billion directly to low-income families to ease their housing costs, the Toronto Star reports. According to a press release, priority will be given to households “on, or eligible to be on, a social housing waiting list and households in financial need living in community housing.” Ontario Housing Minister Steve Clark told the Star the province wants to assist 5,200 families in the program’s first year, and more in the following years.  

Reports of murder and arson prompt call for stricter tow-trucking rules  

Ontario’s tow-truck association is asking the province to implement a licensing and standards system to deal with “bad apples” causing trouble in the industry, the CBC reports. “We’ve had murders, vehicles burned,” says Mark Graves, president of the Provincial Towing Association of Ontario. “It hasn’t escalated outside the industry. But we really want to try to get a handle on this before it does.” Graves attributes the violence to tow-truck operators waging turf wars in an oversaturated market.

New scam call rules come into effect

As of yesterday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requires telephone carriers to block certain kinds of unwanted calls, CTV News reports. Calls from numbers with more than 15 digits or numbers that can’t be dialled (such as 000-000-0000) will no longer make your phone ring. As the CBC notes, such calls can be more than just annoying: the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre estimates Canadians were bilked out of $24 million by scam callers in the first 10 months of this year alone. However, experts say the new measures will not stop all telephone fraudsters.

The Agenda: The artist known as Prince 

When musician Prince died in 2016, he left his fans in mourning. But he also left behind pages of an unfinished memoir that tried to answer some questions about his life and career. Editor Dan Piepenbring worked with Prince on those pages before the star died—and has since turned those pages into The Beautiful Ones, a book detailing their working relationship and The Purple One’s early life.

Arctic Secrets: Delta discoveries

The Mackenzie Delta is an Arctic network of channels and islands at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, Canada’s longest river system. As a transition zone between ecosystems, from the boreal forest to the tundra, it’s a biological hotspot, and home to the ancestral lands of the Inuit. This documentary shows how the area is adapting to climate change.

Should the Ontario Liberals have waited to choose a new leader? 

In January 2018, Doug Ford thought he’d be the next mayor of Toronto. Three months later, he was the leader of the Ontario PC Party — and three months after that, the premier of Ontario. With the Ontario Liberals set to choose a new leader years before the next election, Steve Paikin wonders: what if they had waited? The result, he argues, would have been a bigger — and better — crop of candidates. “Too many Liberals have told me the current field leaves them with a bit of ‘lunch bag letdown,’” he writes. “It didn’t have to be this way.” 

This illegal Napanee trailer park is being shut down. What comes next for its tenants? 

Scott Drader has run a trailer park in his backyard for two years, offering low-income residents of Napanee an affordable place to stay. Now, he’s been told they have to go. Eastern Ontario Hub reporter David Rockne Corrigan went to Napanee to find out what happens next. “As far as renting a place, they’ve all burned their bridges and they won’t be able to get housing in Napanee,” Drader says of his tenants. “So they will be on the street no matter what.” 

8 p.m — The Agenda: Artisanal distilling

Andrea Fujarczuk is the only full-time instructor at Canada’s first artisanal distilling program, located at Niagara College. She visits The Agenda to delve into the state of the distilling industry in Ontario, and what it’s like being at the forefront of this field. 

9 p.m — The Cook Who Changed Our Lives  

Celebrity cook Nigella Lawson leads a tribute to Anna Del Conte, a food writer who transformed Britain’s relationship with Italian cooking. Born in Milan in 1925, Del Conte moved to England in 1949, a time when foreign cuisine was still something of a mystery to many Brits. Her books introduced home cooks and food lovers alike to the subtlety and sophistication of Italian cooking, paving the way for today’s foodie culture.