Ontario's property assessments are utterly taxing

Plus, how a Canadian skateboard phenom plans to tackle Grade 9 — then the Paris Olympics [Get This Offer]( [The Star] First Up [By Andrew Joe Potter] By Andrew Joe Potter Good morning! Andrew here, excited to be rejoining First Up’s weekend team after a year lost in the digital wilderness. Here’s the latest news you can use. MUST READS Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star UNFAIR SHARE [How the Star discovered that many of Toronto’s homeowners were over-taxed]( It’s incredibly difficult to collect property assessment and sales data in Ontario. It took the Star nearly two years to build a data set large enough to show a troubling trend of inequity in Toronto, where the cheapest homes are more frequently over-assessed for tax purposes while luxe mansions are under-assessed at a higher clip. Here’s what else Andrew Bailey, Kenyon Wallace and Diana Zlomislic discovered in their [lengthy battle with the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation](. Handout/DVIDS/AFP via Getty Images WAR in UKRAINE [Cluster bombs threaten to unleash even more hell in the Russia-Ukraine war]( The United States is planning to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs, the Russian nesting doll of war munitions. Once fired, larger bombs break into a blanket of smaller bomblets, increasing the zone of impact. When bomblets don’t initially explode, children are particularly susceptible to picking them up due to their size, shape and colour. Canada is among the global cohort that has agreed to ban the use of cluster bombs; Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. are not. As Allan Woods writes, [the divide forces Canada to evaluate the implications of its support in the conflict](. Steve Russell/Toronto Sta PARIS 2024 [Canada’s teen skateboard phenom knows how to fall; next summer, she hopes to soar]( Fay De Fazio Ebert is Canada’s top female park skateboarder. She’s also just 13 years old and starting high school in September, a milestone that’s less daunting to her than attempting to qualify for the Paris Olympics next summer. It’s been a prodigious rise for Fay, who began skateboarding at a March break camp just five years ago — good timing, considering the sport’s addition to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, notes Kerry Gillespie. [Here’s how Fay is balancing a normal life with Olympic-sized dreams a year out from Paris 2024](. Toronto Star photo illustration housing [Could the death of the local mall provide the answer to the GTA’s housing woes?]( If approved, 14 sites in Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton — including yesteryear’s shopping meccas like Cloverdale, Fairview Mall and Malvern Town Centre — will be redeveloped into nearly 200 residential buildings. Envision the ample land that currently hosts sprawling above-ground parking lots into villages with low- to highrise residential buildings and retail spaces. Clarrie Feinstein reports on whether [reimagining the malls into mini 15-minute cities is the game-changer developers promise](. Money Business Images/Dreamstime health & wellness [The surprising reasons experts say you might be having trouble sleeping]( We’ve all been there: You hop into bed early in preparation for a big day, only to toss and turn for hours, becoming increasingly panicked over how little sleep you’ll get. The most common culprits? Stress, anxiety and depression. As our understanding of sleep has become more sophisticated, so too have the solutions. Kevin Jiang spoke with several doctors to get [some practical advice for solving our sleepless nights](. support THIS Supplied Summer camp taught Stephanie Levitz’s father how to fit in. When it came time for her to attend, the initial lesson was slightly different — namely, the feeling of not fitting in at all. Those rich, if sometimes heartbreaking experiences, handed down from generation to generation, are why Stephanie writes [there’s tremendous value in supporting The Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund](. Thanks for reading. You can reach the First Up team at [firstup@thestar.ca](mailto:firstup@thestar.ca?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=emailutm_email=6C53B63A8E3FAD70AD4EF13004527437&utm_campaign=frst_190536), and I will see you back here tomorrow to round out the weekend. TORONTO STAR SUMMER SALE Get unlimited access for: $3.33/month for 12 months [Get This Offer]( If you're not enjoying these emails, please tell us how we can make them better by emailing newsletterfeedback@thestar.ca. Or, if you'd prefer, you can unsubscribe from this newsletter by clicking the first link below. [Unsubscribe From This Newsletter]( [Sign Up for More Newsletters and Email Alerts]( [View in Browser]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. 8 Spadina Avenue, 10th Floor, Toronto, ON M5V 0S8. 416-367-2000 [PRIVACY POLICY](