Dysfunction has a long history in Toronto hockey. A hockey impresario in the amateur ranks, Edward J. Livingstone’s graduation to the professional game quickly devolved into bickering, power struggles, and lawsuits. As owner and manager of the Toronto Shamrocks—and later, the Toronto Blueshirts—of the National Hockey Association, Livingstone clashed repeatedly with his fellow owners. The [...]

After the Second World War, there was a huge influx of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada. Faced with the problem of overpopulation and rebuilding a war-ravaged country and economy, the Netherlands was eager to encourage emigration. When Canada was grudgingly looking to reopen immigration in the late 1940s after the hiatus of the Great Depression and the war, the immigration policy remained highly selective until the late 1960s. But along with the British and Americans, Northern Europeans like the Dutch were favoured by Canada and actively courted. When economic factors slowed Dutch emigration, the Canadian federal government stepped in to assist financially to maintain the flow of immigrants.

The Toronto-hosted G20 last June was the scene of the largest mass arrest in Canadian history—more than 900 civilians in one weekend. Most of those arrested were not charged, and many of the charges that were pressed were dropped in the aftermath of the summit. To many of us, the G20 is a faded, nightmarish memory of what our city could look like. A story we tell when out-of-towners comment on Toronto’s beauty and peaceful streets. A year after world leaders packed up shop, though our streets were cleaned and our windowpanes fixed, some people are still enmeshed in lawsuits stemming from the G20. Here are the updates.

Is this the future? Photo by Josh Jensen, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. On Tuesday night we learned that, because of the extreme difficulty involved in getting access to medical marijuana in Canada, an Ontario Superior Court judge had deemed provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that outlaw the possession and cultivation of [...]

Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Portrait of John Anderson from Harper Twelvetrees, ed., The story of the life of John Anderson, the Fugitive Slave (W. Tweedie, 1863). From the Archives of Ontario. The first wave of [...]

UPDATED An apparent copy of the statement of claim filed by the attorneys of Adam Josephs (better known to the internet as “Officer Bubbles”) has surfaced online. If you read just one thirty-page legal document today, let this be it. Last week, the media found out that Josephs, a Toronto police officer, was suing YouTube [...]

Rob Ford at May’s interfaith debate. Photo by Christopher Drost/Torontost. Oliver Ogilvie (an internet pseudonym; he wouldn’t disclose his real name) owns RobFordMayor.com—a self-described “low grade satire” site that mocked the eponymous city councillor and mayoral candidate. This week, Ogilvie received a cease-and-desist order from Ford’s lawyers, which we’ve since obtained ourselves. “Mr. Ford has [...]

ArtStars* is the TMZ of the Toronto art scene, in the good way, making easily digestible videos about the not-so-easily-digestible. Torontoist brings you one new ArtStars* episode (more or less) every week—with the warning that we don’t necessarily approve of their bad behaviour. Wait, wait. We’re not done yet. We interrupt this blogcast to bring [...]

At first it wasn’t clear why a sun-shy group of protesters was scattered across the lawn at Queen’s Park on Saturday. Once the megaphones were switched on, however, the afternoon swung into action. Organizers in reflective vests handed out fliers for the “G20 Public Inquiry Rally” with the march route on one side and a [...]

Police officers face a crowd of protesters on Saturday, June 26. Photo by poyanp from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. On G20 weekend, Toronto found itself in the middle of two opposing forces. Thugs smashed windows and burned police cars, while the police response seems to have alternated, on occasion, between absent and heavy-handed. It’s relatively [...]