Morning Brew: Citizens like setting council term limits, councillors mull open data, TTC gets ready to test new streetcar, letters in the attic, and Canada Goose madness

Toronto residents like the idea of setting term limits for city council, according to a new poll. The figures from Forum Research estimate 61% of people support limiting how long a mayor can remain in office, fewer people - 58% - want to put an expiry date on councillors. Naturally, some local politicians don't like the idea. What do you think - should city councillors be forced from office?

Also in councillors, there will be a vote next month to decide whether our elected officials should open their private records to the public. If approved, councillors' schedules could be published online. Do you agree with coun. Paula Fletcher when she says "people should be able to know what I'm doing with my time while I'm on the city dime."?

A test model of Toronto's new streetcar will get its first road test later this month. The longer, low-floor Bombardier vehicles have a significantly higher capacity that the existing streetcars. The TTC unveiled the first of the 204 vehicles at its Hillcrest facility in November. The time, date, and route of the test haven't been confirmed.

The Toronto Star is cutting 55 jobs in a bid to shore up its business. The company says declining ad revenue is behind the decision to outsource copy editing and page design to a company jointly owned by the Star's parent company Torstar Corp. and the Globe and Mail, among others. According the Globe and Mail, the cost of outsourcing the work is just over half that of keeping it in-house.

Are one of your great-grandparents N. E. Waring or Hilda MacLeod? If so, Joel Cormier and Ashley Cameron want to hear from you. The pair found a stash of letters from the first world war in their attic and are hoping to track down the relatives of people shown in photographs and referenced in the writing. The letters discuss in detail the horror of the conflict.

Finally, do you own a Canada Goose jacket? So does everyone else, apparently. This makers of this song, which the the text says only took two hours to shoot, aren't too crazy about Toronto's sartorial uniformity. Warning: some of the lyrics are possibly not suitable for work, depending on where you work.

IN BRIEF:

• Suspects arrested after reported Tasty Pizza robbery [CBC]
• Police cite white minivan taxi in sex-assault probe [Globe and Mail]
• U of T names Meric Gertler as next president [Toronto Star]

Image: "Chinatown" by Acid_Punk/blogTO Flickr pool.