Dalton McGuinty has agreed to prevent any kind of commercial or industrial activity in 225,000 square kilometres of boreal forest in Northern Ontario. The plan mimics strategies that successive provincial governments have executed successfully in Toronto. Ontario-based Internet pornographers Slickcash have agreed to pay Facebook half a million bucks after allegedly trying to hack into the online social network's databases last year. Nice work, slick. As city council gets ready to vote on a......

Toronto police chief Bill Blair yesterday said that the police assigned to Toronto schools would be uniformed and armed, contradicting earlier comments by school board chair John Campbell. The officers will remain on campus only until Robocop testing is completed. Toronto is also getting $5 million from the province for 26 new police officers to patrol high-crime areas that are not high schools, specifically the Jane and Finch and Regent Park neighbourhoods. The city......

If you were wondering why convenience stores seemed strangely barren this weekend, wonder no more: Ontario introduced Power Walls, a province-wide ban on the display of tobacco products. Now those sweet, sweet cancer sticks live behind grey flaps, pushing cigarettes one step further into the realm of contraband. Rita Davies, Toronto's executive director of culture, announced that the Toronto Museum Project is back on the table. The museum, which will be housed in the......

Dalton McGuinty unveiled a new plane yesterday, which will be used by the OPP to deter dangerous drivers on Ontario highways. To encourage courteous motoring, the plane is armed with four Maverick air-to-ground missiles and a 30 mm cannon capable of piercing two inches of armour plate. Actually the plane just reports bad driving to ground units, but I'd bet my idea would be more effective. A proposal to scrap the Lord's Prayer in......

One year ago today, City Council's Executive Committee approved [PDF] the awarding of the street furniture contract—for the purposes of designing, building, owning, and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, ad pillars, and more for a period of twenty years in exchange for advertising rights—to Astral Media Outdoor, despite the fact that the company had absolutely no experience with "street furniture" and maintains dozens of illegal billboards in defiance of City Council.......

"Next stop, Quarter Pounder" is something you could be hearing on the subway in the future, as City Council agrees to look at selling station naming rights to corporations. However, TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc calls the study a "waste of time" and says the idea should be rejected, presumably because he's polled all 1.5 million riders and knows that they'd rather pay higher fares than suffer the indignity of a subway stop named after......

The above video—not safe for work unless you're using headphones—was shot by the late Peter Walker and is a clip from Min Sook Lee's documentary Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (winner of the best Canadian feature prize at Hot Docs 2005). Uploaded to YouTube fewer than three weeks ago, it's been passed around online over the last few days, since being linked to by Toronto Life's Philip Preville in a Friday blog post. The......

With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way. Though merely an preliminary concept rendering, Rogers and Quadrangle Architects seem to have grand designs for the space, currently dubbed Rogers Television City, as evident in this image supplementing......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse. A posthumous tribute wall dedicated to singer/songwriter Elliot Smith sat defaced by graffiti for months on end––LAist said enough, so did the fans and city council.SFist was surprised to learn that chronic presidential candidate Ralph Nader picked......

The last time we looked at accessible pedestrian signals (APS), those chirping and cuckooing crossing indicators for the visually-impaired, it was with some surprise at the city's claim that it simply couldn't afford to install APS at more than a handful of intersections each year. Instead of allocating enough money to improve availability of a fairly basic service to visually-impaired residents, the city instead looked for corporate sponsors to pick up some of the......

In this occasional feature, two Torontoist staffers face off to debate an issue that is important to our city. We invite our readers to join in the debate in the comments section after the post. For the first time since amalgamation, City Council has been presented with a budget that doesn't require a new round of hand-outs from Queen's Park in order to balance. The price of this achievement is high. Along with new land-transfer......

SEPT. 28, 2006: Torontoist publishes "Two Peas In A Pod," a poorly considered article making fun of Eye and Now for both deeming Nuit Blanche significant enough to feature on their covers the same week. JAN. 17, 2008: Eye Weekly publishes "Where does Toronto Life get all those great ideas?" a poorly considered article making fun of Toronto Life for also deeming the Zeidler family, Dave Meslin, Yonge Street, and Council's right wing significant......

On July 27 of this year, 75-year-old Antonio Batista was found guilty of making death threats against his Mississauga city councillor for writing and distributing around his neighbourhood a poem which concluded with the following passage:We are going to dig a pothole about six feet and 3 feet wide and 5 feet deep to hide her body and God will take care of Her Soul, but we cannot forgive her for doing nothing. She......

City Council considers removing the downspout removal subsidy. This news item brought to you by The Council For Reminding You That Municipal Politics Are Often Incredibly Dull Even If They're Necessary. (The group promises to come up with a better, catchier acronym as soon as possible.) RCMP to review Taser policy after the death of Robert Dziekanski. See, they're sorry, but they're not quite so sorry as to, for example, charge their officers with any......

City Council is going to be crazy today. We highly recommend you watch. (Click here for the online feed.) The chambers are going to be packed to capacity, with the overflow relegated to watching the proceedings on the screen in the rotunda. This does not happen often. It will be loud. It will be hectic. It will be exciting. Both the pro-tax and anti-tax groups are encouraging supporters to flood the meeting. This will......

There has been a lot of debate recently about how and to what extent corporations should be allowed to fund community initiatives. City Hall is currently ablaze with lobbying and ambivalence as we draw nearer to City Council's vote on land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes, a decision that could easily blow the door open to more private sponsorship of community services and public space. Meanwhile, over three hundred volunteers from twenty companies, including......

David Miller has enlisted the aid of a team of hired guns to find savings in the municipal budget. Their recommendations should arrive in time to incorporate into the 2008 budget, but too late for Tuesday's vote on controversial new taxes. City Council is optimistic that the group, whose members include Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, Templeton "Faceman" Peck, "Howling Mad" Murdock, and B.A. Baracus, will be able to solve all our problems. Karen Butler-Lynch was......

After intense public backlash over a boneheaded plan to expropriate the storied Matador Club and obliterate it into a paved slab, the Toronto Parking Authority has backed down. Thanks in large part to the Save The Matador movement, today's afternoon TPA meeting experienced some expropriation of its own when about forty supporters descended upon Meeting Room B to vociferously protest the the Council-sanctioned demolition. The matter will return to City Council to be officially......

Hundreds of taxis disrupted city streets yesterday, driving erratically through downtown Toronto, flouting traffic laws, and honking their horns randomly. Subsequently, many of the drivers also participated in a protest against bylaws which limit Pearson pickups to licensed airport limos. More toys manufactured in China have been recalled in North America because they contain dangerous levels of lead. Parents who have purchased the "Eat-Me Play Pencil" or "Old-Fashioned Paint Beverage" toys are being urged......

Squirrel held responsible for Wednesday morning's downtown power outage. Unconfirmed reports have it screaming "YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL HUBRIS CANNOT STOP THE POWER OF NATURE, HUMANS," before grabbing a loose wire and electrocuting itself. The loonie hits 99 cents. Can you believe that? Remember when American money was, like, the equivalent of solid gold here? And now we're poised to see the Canadian dollar be worth more than the greenback. Somebody put on some Ashanti so we......

Just over an hour ago, the TTC concluded its meeting to discuss and vote on measures to deal with its budget shortfall. Based in part on the results of its survey––which, in spite of widespread distribution, received only 17,000 responses––the Commission members voted unanimously in favour of raising fares over cutting service. With the exception of the new jump in Metropass prices, the cost increases per fare are relatively modest and around what most were......

Whilst performing our pre-read ritual of tearing out Toronto Life's 8,000 annoying snot-glued ad inserts and heavy stock subscription cards, we suddenly came across Torontoist's name in the mag's "Roundup" feature. The chart compares Toronto's four major city blogs: Torontoist, Spacing Wire (now Spacing Toronto), BlogTO, and the newish Torontopedia. Torontoist's raison d'être is listed as "news, arts, culture, snark"—and we won't argue with that—while BlogTO is like "your geeky friend who's always in......

Ontario Grits promise a new statutory holiday in February if they're re-elected. This is all well and good, but WHERE IS MY GODDAMNED PONY ALREADY? Come on, Dalton! How is anybody supposed to vote for you if there's no giving away of ponies? Toronto City Council to unveil a new fiscal strategy to promote the local film industry. Advance preview of tomorrow's hot news story: "Denzil Minnan-Wong's head explodes." Scientist puts his own entire genetic......

With music download trends showing that the coveted male 18–24 demographic is more interested in the music of their ancestors than anything current, music store HMV is dropping CD prices on oldies like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. HMV hopes that the move will convince young men to abandon the web and start stealing from retail stores again. Ontario Conservative Party leader John Tory says that, if elected, he would save $1.5 billion in......

All of the controversy last week over city council's non-decision regarding new taxes overshadowed another story with equal (if not more) importance. Just as a one-vote margin of defeat for a mayor is rare, so too is a unanimous vote for anything other than ceremonial or housekeeping motions. And yet, that's exactly how Toronto's climate change plan came to be adopted last Monday night, without a single dissenting voice. Given the importance of dealing......

In a bold move on Tuesday night, city council voted in favour purchasing 16 Ryerson Avenue, the historic building which currently houses Theatre Passe Muraille. As part of the deal, Passe Muraille will lease the space from the city, ensuring that it is able to remain open indefinitely. The well-respected alternative theatre (the first of its kind in the city) has been experiencing financial difficulties of late, so this new deal allows it to......

In a truly spectacular exhibit of vitriol, readers of The Globe and Mail have weighed-in on an article concerning beleaguered TTC chairperson Adam Giambrone’s recent announcement about the impending cuts to city transit. (The emergency meeting of the commission is set for Friday, and possible means of accommodating the new budget restrictions include a 25-cent fare hike, and the closing of the Sheppard subway line.) Two scant hours after the article appeared online, the comments......

It seems that many people believe that the City of Toronto doesn't need to levy taxes in order to maintain a high level of City services. If only the City had its finances in order and cut back on spending, they say, then there would be no financial crunch. In response, Mayor Miller likes to point out how many cutbacks there indeed have been and how much contracting out is already taking place and,......

Faced with a distasteful choice between imposing unpopular new taxes or recommending draconian budget cuts, City Council came up with the ingeniously gutless idea of deferring the decision until after the provincial election in October. The premise is that maybe that the province will agree to once again pony up for the social service costs that it downloaded under Mike Harris. Or maybe the City Hall lotto pool will win the 6/49, like, forty......

City Council plans to create as many as 21 new leash-free areas for dogs by the end of the year. Councillor Howard Moscoe calls for fences to separate people and canines, saying, "The problem is the dogs can't read the signs. We'd lose control completely unless they're fenced areas." Alarmed local media dub 2007 "The Summer of the Dog." 24 people, including a Toronto police officer, were arrested yesterday and charged with being part of......