Results tagged “conradblack”

Four federal byelections are being held today, including two in the Toronto ridings of Willowdale and Toronto Centre. The Liberals are considered to have the edge locally, where the Conservative "We Loathe Toronto" campaign of the last two years hasn't been as well-received as hoped. Happy St. Paddy's Day and remember to get voting before you get drinking.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has fired off a whiny letter to the PM complaining about Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's public criticism of Ontario and its tax laws. Flaherty, who apparently counts all time lost when he's not psychologically bitch-slapping his governmental inferiors, responded by calling McGuinty a "big stupid crybaby."

Toronto Zoo to go green. The Zoo will now focus on biodiversity and sustainability while presenting animals from around the world in small, depressing, joke-like habitats that offer a crude mockery of how the animals would prefer to live, focusing on the fact that while their lives in the zoo might suck, at least nobody is killing these animals for fun, as would frequently happen in the wild.

Hey, did you know it's snowing? School buses have already been cancelled for today, meaning that children will romp and play in the streets and sabotage snowplow drivers and Chevy Chase will duel with a rival meteorologist for some reason and the mayor will declare it to be the "funnest day ever."

A UN Envoy is calling Canada a climate hypocrite. Harper, in return, stomped his feet and said he was going to throw a party and only invite the people who didn't call him names. The Queen is upset with Canada because she wasn't invited to Quebec City's 400th birthday bash. The Queen then stuck her tongue out at Harper, and he told her to blame the UN. The OPP spent money meant for the...

This just in: Conrad Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his role in "misappropriating" (which is Rich People for "stealing") millions of dollars from the Hollinger newspaper empire, and for obstructing justice by allowing certain documents, which would have determined whether or not he was guilty of the nine charges he managed to evade (including racketeering), to "disappear." Now, of course the National Post is all over this...

Ever waited at an intersection with the inescapable feeling that someone is watching you? Turns out you might not be a paranoid android after all—at least not if you're at College and Beverley, where some arts-and-craftsy prankster (or precocious kindergarten student?) has added a pair of all-seeing googly eyes to the crosswalk button. Now, on the average blue Monday, we might roll our own just-opened, still bloodshot peepers at this little cutesification of function. But...

, but the writer's strike got in the way.

Things you may not know about Raine Maida: his mom was Conrad Black's long-time executive assistant. He's written and produced songs for Kelly Clarkson. He went to U of T for Criminology. He's about to help rebuild a school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is also launching his first solo album on November 13—a disc that comes wrought with anger and dejection, but also an earnest solemnity. More than a year...

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of Black Monday, the biggest one-day stock market plunge in history. On October 19, 1987, Bay Street was shocked to see all the key market indices plummet. The TSE 300 lost over 400 points as, in a frenzy of panicked selling, a record 77 million shares were desperately traded on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange. By day's end, hundreds of millions of dollars evaporated from share values, including $37 billion in Toronto alone.

Employees of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which now oversees the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, will not be permitted to buy lottery tickets in Ontario. A representative of the affected staffers complained, "why do you think we wanted to work here in the first place?" before shotgunning a 40-ouncer of Absolut and collapsing to the ground.

Ingmar Bergman dead at 89. Sources close to the masterful director sadly pointed to Bergman neglecting his chess skills as cause of death.

Some book about wizards goes on sale tonight at midnight. Sadly, the media is completely ignoring this potential phenomenon in favour of stories about Hairspray, but that is only fair because clearly Hairspray is the great cultural touchstone of our time, much more so than some piddling book about a boy wizard who sucks. In ten years time, we will all remember the day we first saw Hairspray; that's all Torontoist is saying.

Donald Trump's Toronto hotel will only be 57 storeys, rather than 70. Experts explain that this is because Donald Trump's penis is smaller than previously believed. (Extra hilarity from The Donald's spokesperson: "The more residents we had, the more the elevators were going to be used and that wasn't what we wanted in an exclusive building like the Trump." Yes. Pity the poor, poor elevators. You have to know that Donald Trump worries about the elevators greatly.)

Chicago prosecutors expected to ask that the book be thrown at Conrad Black. HA HA HA ROT IN JAIL YOU UNKIND GENTLEMAN [Needless to say, the previous two words originally read...uh...differently. They were swears!—Ed.]. Sorry, that was not very objective. Please amend the previous sentence to read "hee hee hee rot in jail you freaking aardvark." In other news, he may also go bankrupt, making this officially the best news story of the year so far.

Sentence: Up to 35 years in prison; US$1 million fine

After nine days of deliberations, the jury in the Conrad Black case has announced that they’ve been unable to reach a verdict. Judge Amy St. Eve told them to go back and deliberate again until they did. The jury said that’s what we were trying to do. The judge said well you better go try some more. We’ll keep you posted on this riveting courtroom drama.

Airy, high ceilings. Store shapes and frontages that smashed the standard box shape.

It seems only fitting that the oft-sententious Conrad Black should choose a book launch to make a surprise visit back to Toronto. Quillblog has details and photos of Black at the launch of his friend George Jonas's book Reflections on Islam last night, at Massey College at the University of Toronto.

Ontario to raise minimum wage to $10.25 by 2010 in new budget. NDP critic predictably says "no, we want it NOW," but Torontoist feels this is one instance where Dalton McGuinty's tendency to take as middling a road as possible has produced just about the best possible result. A twenty-five percent raise in the minimum wage over three years (and what will be a sixty-six percent raise since the Liberals took office in 2003) ain't nothing, not even close.

The Conservative government is expected to announce their new budget today, emphasizing both tax cuts and new additional spending. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wasn't even particularly coy about the Conservatives' budget being a major attempt to disincentivise (Torontoist thinks that's a word) an election, claiming that Canadian families will like it and "vote for it." He then double-dog-dared the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois to vote against the budget. He then triple-dog-dared them. When he got to quadruple-dog-dares, the reporters all got up and left.

Statistics Canada reports a national population increase of 5.4% since 2001, yet downtown Toronto only experienced an increase of 0.9%. The boom is being attributed to immigration, which experts predict will be our only means of population growth by 2030. It seems everyone is happy to settle in the suburbs as towns like Brampton (33.3%) and Vaughan (31.2%) are growing as fast as houses can be built. Milton has grown an astounding 71.4%. I nearly spat out my coffee when described Mississauga as "a little slice of heaven." (Read more...)

There's only so much one can write about the Robert Pickton trial, 48 Abell and the $8 minimum wage. Today, we present "News Roundup Lite"...

New allegations of insider trading involving a Toronto asset management firm leveled against Conrad Black. At this rate, in about two years it will turn out that Conrad Black's entire financial career was actually illegal.

The report on options for the Gardiner is going to be released to council and the public which means there'll be a lot of talk this election about tearing the ugly sucker down.

Toronto doctor Gino Bucchino will be representing Italian ex-pats in the Italian parliament after winning a tight election. He'll be representing all of North America.

Restaurants: Coffee Mill TIFF