Source: the Toronto Star, December 2, 1969. Once upon a time, if you needed money, you couldn’t just go to a machine, slip in a card, and, health of bank account permitting, take out as much cash as required. If you weren’t able to visit your friendly neighbourhood bank branch during operating hours, c’est la [...]

Scotiabank’s Caribana account is the liveliest of the Canadian financial institutions’ dive into Twitter. We are all geeks now. It’s seen in the massive popularity of the Star Trek reboot, in the adoption of instant messaging and Twitter (descended from the chat rooms and IRC channels we forever associate with old-school modem sounds), and in [...]

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Canadian Bank of Commerce Building. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 409 Now dwarfed by everything around it, the Canadian (Imperial) Bank of Commerce Building (25 King Street West) [...]

Just in case this is something you like to be reminded of, you’re going to die someday. The good news is that day is likely to be further off than ever, because average life expectancy in Canada has risen, with a baby born in 2005 likely to live to 80.4 years of age. On the [...]

The Falconer report on violence in Toronto schools talks of a “culture of fear,” saying that many students bring weapons to school, and many crimes go unreported. Some of the basic recommendations to fix things include more social workers and after-school basketball, fewer suspensions, more diverse teaching staff, and gun-sniffing springer spaniels to roam the [...]