“CBC News correctly felt it had no option to stand by the story in the absence of evidence first-hand in the form of a tape or authenticated transcript… In view of the fact the Toronto Police Service depends on budget deliberations headed by the mayor, and in view of the fact this year’s police budget [...]

George Feyer was stuffing feathers into quilts for $18 a week in 1949 when he sold his cartoon in Canada. It was, by all accounts, a rather subdued gag about a man being fitted for glasses. It was only after its publication that the editors were informed by other immigrants that Feyer’s cartoon contained a [...]

For an organization that’s supposed to be filled with experts on communication, the CBC really blew it with the This Hour Has 22 Minutes debacle. I’m not joining the line of CBC-bashers. The corporation provides a vital function to Canada, especially with its journalism. CBC-haters will never admit it, but none of the private broadcasters [...]

“The media have a responsibility to act with integrity and professionalism… They’re supposed to consider the danger of publishing false, slanderous and libellous statements, especially anonymous ones. That’s Journalism 101. A number of editors and producers appear to have skipped those classes in school… I’d say the CBC and the Toronto Star in particular have [...]

In brief: Jack was a musical extravaganza based on the four Jacks in a deck of cards, and it featured Victor Garber embodying hearts. Another Jack, Star TV critic Jack Miller, praised it as fun, melodic, and unpredictable, “a musical experience that flies in several directions without ever losing either itself or its pace.” We’d [...]

In late 1955, Arthur Hailey, an advertising executive for a tractor-trailer company, was returning home to Toronto from a business trip in Vancouver. Aboard a Canadair North Star—among the largest passenger carriers at the time—his mind began to wander. He wondered whether someone like him, who'd flown planes for the Royal Air Force but hadn't been in a pilot's seat since the end of the war, could fly and land this four-engine Trans-Canada Air Lines airliner if catastrophe hit. He began imagining those circumstances.

Twenty-nine hours. That’s how long Jeffrey Caulfield and Willy Klaudusz waited in line to be among the first people to enter the CN Tower when it opened its doors to the general public on June 26, 1976. As many as 12,000 people followed them that day, the first of the daily hordes that still flow into the landmark 35 years later.

“Hundreds of onlookers thought they were witnessing an actual bank holdup and police-desperado gun battle at Yonge and Grosvenor today as these phoney [sic] officers raced onto the scene as part of the filming of a TV drams.” Photo by Madison Sale. The Telegram, September 10, 1958. Wednesday morning, downtown Toronto. As a bank robbery [...]

Carol Off smiles on a b-boy in the CBC atrium during the Hip Hop Summit On Friday, the CBC’s week of Hip Hop Summit events culminated in a day-long celebration that included a breakdance battle, marketplace, concert screening, and art show, while pillars of the community waxed philosophical in panel discussions in the Glenn Gould [...]

Performers at the CBC’s Hip Hop Summit concert gather for a group shot after the on-stage love-in on Tuesday. Photo by Alexis Finch/CBC. One might expect a CBC-run hip-hop show at the Glenn Gould Studio to be the fun-times equivalent of a sit-down rave. The Mothership’s announcement it would host the Canadian rap concert to [...]

Photo by Bradley J. Reinhardt from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. “When I was a kid and I started doing this, I thought I invented hip hop. And then when I began to leave my little world, where it was all happening in my bedroom in Mount Uniake, and I discovered that there were some other [...]

In today's Urban Planner: make your week count by attending seminars celebrating free speech, a documentary screening, a second-hand fashion show, a concert of Haitian music, the Rhubarb Fest's second week, and a mixtape swap.