| What you loved and loathed last month

Eat Me!

Readers gobbled up our guide to the city’s best street food (please forgive the pun). Torontonians and visitors alike treated it as one big summer bucket list:

“Already bookmarked places! Thanks!” —@yyz_bliss, Twitter

“Game on!” —lorna_robin, Instagram

“Oh hell yes.” —jojos__78, Instagram

“Toronto has so many wonderful places to eat!” —thetruthbeautycompany, Instagram

“Chicken in a cone!” —dion.gilbert, Instagram

“Damn I’m drooling right now.” —alejandro101fernandez, Instagram

Our elastic definition of street food, however, generated some grumbling:

“There’s no street food in Toronto. There are hot dogs and random hipster food trucks. Don’t know if you realize that one of the prerequisites of being called street food is that you’re actually on the street serving food? Haha, Toronto people are funny.”

—xin_yang__, Instagram

Dr. Evil

Michael Lista’s exposé of the disgraced obgyn Paul Shuen, who induced women to give birth without their consent, provoked a strong reaction. Readers were furious at Shuen as well as the system that allowed him to practise despite his transgressions.

“I stumbled upon Michael Lista’s article and immediately felt faint: I had my baby delivered by Dr. Shuen on a Sunday in 2016, in a surprise Csection that I’ve always felt in my heart wasn’t warranted. Reading your article confirmed my suspicions.

“The recovery was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to go through. There hasn’t been a week since my son’s birth when I haven’t replayed the events of that morning over and over again in my mind. A woman’s intuition is strong, and I always felt that my right to deliver naturally was taken away from me. Turns out, I was right.

“I’ve seen the comments on Twitter asking if the hospital ever reached out to patients to follow up, and I can tell you that I’ve received no call, email or letter, which is likely the case for all of us who were handled by Dr. Shuen.

“I feel disgusted, gutted and just plain sick to my stomach that many of us are likely victims of this man’s misconduct. I hope that all the women have recovered, and I hope they find peace and justice.

“Thank you for bringing this to light: I feel validated for an unfortunate situation that has left a deep emotional scar.”

—Cindy Arlette Orellana, Toronto

“This story about medical malpractice is as harrowing as that Dr. Death podcast.” —@samarth, Twitter

“I don’t know what’s more enraging and dangerous for women’s health: his actions or the policies that kept them covered up for years.”

—@NatalieRaeOz, Twitter

“A stunning story of alleged failures by an obgyn to get women’s consent during deliveries.”

—@alisonannyoung, Twitter

“This is so wrong and extremely sad for the other staff who work at North York General. I delivered both my kids there, and the nurses

were beyond amazing. My OB was so awesome. He was very by-thebook and never once made me feel uncomfortable. I am heartbroken for these woman and what they had to endure.”

—Kelly Hollidge, Facebook

“Oh my! Now that’s why we need real journalists writing real articles like this. This is why you should pay for news. Amazing article, really hard to stomach, but so worth the read. I wonder how hard it must have been to write, how enraging. And still, after all the gambling with people’s lives and all the mutilated women, the College of Physicians and Surgeons was complacent, for years. This is criminal. The system really is broken, this can’t be ignored. How many more like him are still out there?”

—Paula de Paiva, Facebook

The nurses who discovered Shuen’s misconduct and reported him received much praise:

“Those nurses who detected the misoprostol given to the patients deserve a medal.”

—survivalsnake, Reddit

“It takes a strong individual to come forward based on their intuition. I wonder how many other health care professionals felt something was off with Shuen’s patients but never said anything. This guy is a monster. He should be in jail—this is just as bad as date-raping someone.”

—RealCanadianSW, Reddit

“It took three instances of finding substances inside pregnant women before anyone did anything significant, and it was the nurses, not the head of obstetrics, who acted.

“I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: there’s no argument any longer for industries to be selfregulating. It doesn’t work. The regulatory bodies for the police, doctors and engineers are more about self-preservation than guarding the safety of the public. We need to modernize the system with more outside oversight.

—Wedontswiminsoda, Reddit

“Michael Lista’s article about obstetrician Paul Shuen lit up midwifery discussion groups with outrage. Central to the Canadian model of midwifery is the practice of ‘informed choice,’ a concept that recognizes the importance of bodily autonomy and the right of every childbearing person to make informed decisions about their care. Shuen’s flagrant disregard for consent from his patients is a shocking and extreme example of obstetrical violence.

“The medicalization of birth over the past century has led to unnecessarily high rates of routine intervention and skyrocketing rates of C-section, even though the majority of pregnancies are considered safe and healthy. Midwives provide comprehensive primary care for those with healthy pregnancies and births, and provide postpartum and newborn care for six weeks.

“Thanks to the brave whistleblowing nurses at NYGH, and perhaps also due to more mainstream conversations about consent in the #MeToo era, Shuen could no longer get away with perpetrating obstetrical violence on his patients. Increasing access to midwifery care can shift our cultural norms to seeing pregnancy and birth as healthy life events, with the child-bearing person—and their informed, autonomous choices— clearly at the centre.” —Elizabeth Brandeis RM, president,

Association of Ontario Midwives

We received some criticism from health care professionals who appreciated the article but objected to the way it characterized misoprostol, the drug used by Shuen to induce labour.

“Thank you for Michael Lista’s article. It was a horrifying look at what can happen when doctors abuse the trust of their patients. I can’t even imagine the pain someone would feel knowing their doctor assaulted them in this way.

“One part of the story I would like to tweak, though, is the statement that misoprostol isn’t safe for induction of labour. We don’t use it vaginally, and definitely not without consent, and definitely not in situations where we are attempting vaginal birth after C-section, but oral misoprostol in low doses is a safe and effective means of cervical ripening and induction, used all over the world. I wouldn’t want someone who read the story to think their OB was harming them by recommending it for an induction.” —Benjamin Langer, family doctor,

OB provider, Sioux Lookout

“Michael Lista’s article was wellwritten and publicized an important problem. However, I am concerned that it causes unnecessary alarm about the use of misoprostol to induce labour. Misoprostol is approved for the induction of labour in Nordic countries. I took it myself with no ill effects. It resulted in a 17-hour labour, a vaginal delivery, and a beautiful baby boy. While Shuen’s use of it was horrifying, by following proper guidelines, misoprostol can be a safe and useful tool for the induction of labour.” —Sandra Chen

And at least one person noted that the Shuen story had been covered in the press before it appeared in Toronto Life.

“I wanted to write to you about your story regarding the disgraced Paul Shuen. It was an incredibly powerful piece and absolutely horrifying to read as a new mother— or as a human being, really. That said, I think it was worth mentioning somewhere in the article that this news had previously come to light in a Toronto Star article from 2018, written by veteran reporter Michelle McQuigge. Your magazine’s in-depth look is certainly worthwhile, but there are already plenty of men taking credit for work done by women without adding to it.” —Meaghan Northey

Get Out!

It would be an understatement to say that “Evicted,” a collection of horror stories from recently ousted renters, struck a chord in Toronto. The majority of commenters—many of whom shared their own eviction stories— were highly sympathetic.

“My landlord leaned on me to move out because he said he was getting a divorce and needed the place for him and his son. I told him I’d need an N12, but I started looking for a place anyway. He offered me two months’ rent but failed to produce the N12. When we met to finalize everything, he said I could take the money or take an N12, so I just took the money and moved on. Less than two weeks later, he relisted the place for $450 a month more than I was paying. I have no recourse other than hoping karma bites him and his next tenant is a huge pain in the ass (honestly, I was a great tenant, handled repairs myself and never missed rent). Learn from my fuck-up. Insist on an N12.” —smackbauer, Reddit

“The mistake a lot of people made in the stories is they moved out. We didn’t, fought the eviction (landlord used an N12 and an N13) and won the right to stay indefinitely. We ended up buying a house and moving out after making the landlord buy us out. But, like in the stories, it was a huge amount of stress (I had one child and was pregnant at the time).”

—Stephanie Melamed, Facebook

“I’ve lived in Toronto since I was nine years old. It’s the only home I’ve ever known. It sucks when you’re barely managing to survive and people tell you, ‘Just move out of the city,’ as if moving across the province is free and easy to do. You need cash just to make it happen.”

—zaphod_beeble_bro, Reddit

“This story makes me really sad. I’ve been renting in Toronto since 2011, and if I get kicked out of my apartment tomorrow, I’ll probably leave the city because it would be almost impossible to find something comparable to my current studio apartment without a huge price hike. I like Toronto and will stick it out in this building for as long as I can, but my next move will probably be out of the city.” —bottleglitch, Reddit

“Is anyone else terrified by stories like this, how the housing crisis just gets worse and worse? It affects so many people, including those who did all the right things that were supposed to provide them with some security. Then conditions changed drastically and their security went out the window. What can one do now to prepare for the housing market of 2025, 2030 and so on? Any strategy you can think of also has the potential to ruin your life, depending on conditions. I know people who are raising families in one-bedroom apartments, hoping for the housing market to correct enough for them to afford bigger places. What if it doesn’t?

“What if you’re five years out from retirement and you think you’ve saved enough to cover your expenses, but your expenses turn out to be far higher than you anticipated?”

—candleflame3, Reddit

There were a few landlord sympathizers in the mix.

“If they don’t renovate, they’re slumlords. If they do, they’re greedy. The sad thing is it’s so expensive to maintain a property in Toronto nowadays. It sucks from a tenant’s perspective, but it’s not easy for the landlord either. I got evicted as well, but I saw how it was necessary to spend money to better the apartment, and it was understandable the landlord needed to make the money back.”

—never_nothing7, Instagram

“Guess what, when someone pays big $$$ for a property, they have to charge big rent to keep up with the mortgage principal, the property taxes, etc. It’s a business, damn it. Let’s hear ‘Tenants From Hell’ stories from landlords. Equal time, Toronto Life.”

—Bob Sobie, Facebook

“How about some horror stories where tenants have misused laws against the owners? Damaged properties with the owner having to spend thousands in legal fees to get the tenant evicted, then spend thousands more in repairing the property?”

—@NitinPrasad275, Twitter

MAID in Toronto

Readers were deeply affected by Susie Adelson’s memoir about her grandmother’s medically assisted death.

“I happened upon the article written by Susie Adelson and wanted to express how moving it was to read. I recently lost my mom to pancreatic cancer, after three years of good days and very bad days. However, having had the privilege of placing her in a hospice for the last six weeks of her life, I related to the quiet beauty Adelson described in the death of her grandmother. September 12 was my parents’ 60th anniversary, and the day my mom died. There is no doubt in my mind it was her very strong will that kept her alive—she wanted to celebrate those 60

years with my dad, somehow. At 9:30 on a gloriously sunny morning, with the windows wide open, and cradled lovingly in my dad’s arms, she quietly left us. It was beautiful and peaceful. Sometimes when I describe the beauty of her death to others, I am met with blank stares. When I read Adelson’s article, it reinforced my perspective that death, in certain circumstances, can be very gentle.” —Jeannette Williams

“A beautiful eulogy and insightful piece on medically assisted death.”

—@MOngMD, Twitter

“This piece was so poignant. I think it’s wonderful she left on her own terms, and it speaks of the brave woman she was. I hope her memory is a blessing to her family. To those that disagree with assisted dying, don’t do it if that’s not your thing. Let others make the choice to leave with dignity.” —Jo Lo, Facebook

“On her terms with the love of her family—I applaud her last hurrah.”

—Beck Thompson, Facebook

“I was teary after the second paragraph, but I still don’t know how I feel about assisted suicide. RIP.” —Diane Bagnarol, Facebook

“I can’t ever remember hearing or reading the paradoxical expression ‘a good death.’ Susie Adelson has done a remarkable job of bringing out the first authentic use of the expression. Assisted suicide now has a whole new meaning to me. I have photocopied the article and am passing it around.” —Sridatt Lakhan “This piece is so beautifully written and articulates what happens when we treat death with dignity (and a dash of humour). I promise you’ll love it.”

—@heatherbarnabe, Twitter

Some readers objected to the use of the term “assisted suicide” in the headline.

“As much as I appreciate the sentiment of the article, I was highly disappointed by the use of the phrase ‘assisted suicide.’ Without getting into the terminology and the history of suicide and the legal system, if we want to change the social constructs that prevent people from embracing death, let’s call it by the right term: assisted dying. There is already so much taboo surrounding death, and using the wrong term is misleading and detrimental to those who are contemplating assisted dying.”

—Sandra Bylsma